by Jen Kirchner
Then I choose nothing!
Ryan stopped struggling and looked at the knife. “What’s wrong with me?”
Each sacrifice should be more powerful than the last. With you, she’ll be going backward!
Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “My finger is amazing,” he said indignantly. “Grade A prime rib!”
I have higher standards, Chin Strap.
Ryan’s nostrils flared and his face turned crimson. That’s when I realized this had been a bad idea.
“That’s enough, Mouth,” I said.
Ryan snorted. “Your name is Mouth? Bet I can guess how you got that.”
That’s Fearsome Killer Mouth to you!
I let go of Ryan’s hand, breaking our connection and releasing him from Mouth’s taunting. I walked back to the counter and opened the drawer to the left of the bandage drawer. A mess of lace and silk in a variety of eye-searing colors erupted from the confines of the drawer. The discount lingerie drawer was the worst punishment I could give. No aspiring weapon of mass destruction wanted to lie amidst a bundle of underwear and sachets of lavender potpourri.
No! Anything but that! I promise to be good!
It was too late for that. I dropped Mouth into the fluffy pile, where it bounced once and slipped out of sight beneath an extra-extra-large thong with a hot pink dahlia on the rump.
This sucks.
“You can come out when your attitude improves,” I said, and shut the drawer.
I turned around and caught Brad’s smirk peeking out from behind his phone. “No cool stuff, then?”
My gusto for the challenge instantly renewed. “Everyone out!”
I doubted a change of knives was going to help the situation, so I was just going to have to set this new power off raw, without their help. No fancy spell building, no setting parameters to direct where and when and how long—I would display the fullness of an unbridled magic power and everything else be damned.
As the guys retreated to the hall, Brad asked me if this was safe.
“Sure,” I lied.
I had no idea what this power would do, but the four black posts in my lab were ironclad sentinels, keeping all magic from getting out or coming in. They had been made by a necromancer far more accomplished than I would ever be and I had absolute faith in their power. It might melt the room, but as long as we stood outside of their barrier, we’d be fine.
Before joining the guys outside, I reached for my watch on the counter, but decided against it. My survival guide didn’t dictate me wearing it in the house, just when I went out. I left the watch on the counter and went out of the room.
As I stepped through the door, beyond the protection of the black posts, my necromancer senses came alive. My ears popped and the energy from the spells around my property prickled my skin and wafted against me in small, gentle waves.
I faced the open door and raised my hands. I felt the pent-up energy of the spell slipping between my fingers and pulling on my palms. I flickered my wrist while twisting my fingers, releasing the power.
A thunderclap ripped through the air. Ryan slapped his hands over his ears. Brad yelped. A violent gust of air rushed around us, sucking me forward. Just before I fell into the room, Brad hooked one arm around my waist and jerked me back. I gasped for breath, partly from the motion and partly because of Brad's iron grip. I looked back into the room and nearly vomited. The walls were contorting inward as the magic struggled to push past the protective posts. A pillar of searing, white light shot out of the sphere and sucked the surrounding light into it. The walls turned black.
Just as I was bringing up my hands to shield my eyes, the pillar of light winked out. A high-pitched, mechanical screech filled the air for a few seconds, then shut off with a snap. Brad released me and staggered back. I felt dizzy and grabbed the side of the door before my knees gave way.
My ears started to ring. So did my phone, and Brad ran down the hall to answer it. I looked over at the guys. Ryan was crouched on the floor with his head between his knees. Nicolas had his face pressed against the wall, squashing his nose.
“Are you okay?” I gasped.
“I think I’m going to throw up,” Ryan moaned.
He wasn’t the only one.
I stumbled into my laboratory to assess any damage done.
“Mouth? Are you okay?”
No answer.
“Mouth?”
I staggered to the counter and opened the drawer. I dug through the underwear to the bottom. A startled sound caught in my throat.
The knife had been reverted back to its original sphere, but warped and twisted like pulled taffy. There was no light in the center. Mouth was gone.
I realized Nicolas was standing beside me. He picked up Mouth’s remains and turned them over, eyes wide.
“I’ve never heard of anything that could kill a necromancer knife,” he said somberly. “That power is a magic killer. The ultimate magic killer.”
My eyes drifted to the wristwatch that was sitting on top of the counter. The tiny blue spell that had hovered around the charm was gone.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I’m thinking my chances of survival just got worse.”
THREE
I picked up the watch and gave it a little shake, as if that act of desperation was going to make the string of blue runes reappear.
It didn’t.
I took the watch out to the hall, beyond the perimeter of the protective black posts. I slipped my hand through the cool, metal watchband and concentrated, pressing my thoughts toward a telepathic conduit that had been imprinted on the charm. I had worn the charm since I was a baby, so connecting to the other side of the telepathic link didn’t normally require much effort.
Right now it took zero effort, because nothing was happening. The magic killer had stripped the spell from my charm.
Never before in my life had I been without the telepathic link—or the individual on the other end of it. I couldn’t tell anyone about this. Not tonight.
I took a few slow, deep breaths and tried to collect myself. I had to figure out a way to make this work. The limo was arriving in thirty minutes and I was supposed to be in it when it pulled out of my driveway. Tonight was do or die.
Preferably without the dying.
I wondered how far I could get from my house before someone noticed the charm wasn’t working. Probably to the end of the block. As I stood there contemplating my odds, Brad shouted at me.
“Phone!”
“Just a second,” I called back.
“Right now, Eliana.”
Depending on whom you asked, Eliana was either my first name or my middle name. Since Brad was using it as my first, I knew exactly who was calling.
I scurried down the hall to the last door on the right. The door was cracked open and I could hear Brad on the other side. All he said was, “uh huh” and “right” and “yeah, I know.” I couldn’t tell how the conversation was going based on that.
I slipped inside the room and followed Brad’s voice through a maze of boxes, an old couch, and a disassembled bed and its mattress, and found him with a black cordless phone in his hand, pacing in a rectangle around the mess. He held up the phone, allowing me to hear a faint yet familiar male voice coming through the speaker. I couldn’t tell whether the voice was scared or angry or somewhere in between. I only could discern that an Iberian accent had kicked into overdrive, which could mean only one thing:
Two-thousand-year-old necromancer Diaco Rendon was stressed.
Brad handed me the phone and headed for the door. I plopped down on a stack of boxes and prepared myself for the conversation. Diaco Rendon was the most powerful individual on the planet. No other necromancer in history had reached the limits of our bloody craft. There were no more human sacrifices for him to make and no more powers for him to embody. He had them all. It made him the perfect secret guardian. He and a small group of immortals had arranged the telepathic link that I wore, and they worked ha
rd to ensure I was able to lead a peaceful life. I wouldn’t say the arrangement was breaking Immortal State law, but it wasn’t entirely legal, either.
“Hi, Dad.”
His rich baritone boomed into my ear. “Eliana, I have been calling for an hour!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought something terrible had happened!”
“Everyone’s fine. You knew where I was.”
No response. I heard nervous finger-tapping on the other end of the line.
“Dad?” I repeated. “What’s going on? If this is about Ryan—”
“No,” he said, interrupting me. His voice dropped to a low, breathless whisper. “Is your telepath working?”
I felt my eyes widen. I couldn’t have been more surprised if he had reached through the phone and poked me in the eye.
“How did you know?” I asked. “It just happened!”
Another nerve-wracking pause.
“Your mother foretold it. That is why I have been calling.”
My adoptive mother was the most powerful seer on the planet. Knowing the past, present, future, and all available outcomes in their varying percentages of probability could be handy. Unfortunately, reality didn’t like being messed with and fought back. Seers who tried to verbalize or alter an outcome received a sensory overload: all realities came crashing in on them, all seemingly real, in order to incapacitate them and prevent any further alterations. Over the centuries, Mom had learned to circumvent this curse by leaving clues for others to follow, but in two thousand years she had only done it a handful of times, all of them surrounding major events. Whatever this meant, it wasn’t good.
“Did she hint at it or just come right out and say it?”
“The latter.”
I sucked in a deep breath. “And then?”
“She fainted.”
The Seer’s Curse. Clearly, Mom had tampered with future events too much and, as a result, had been temporarily immobilized until some of these questionable events pass.
“I can come out there, Dad. I’ll cancel my events and catch the next flight to Stockholm.”
“No. If anyone discovers our connection, questions will be asked. We cannot afford for you to be known.”
I didn’t care. I was adopted, but they were the only parents I had ever known. I wanted to be there. “At least call Grandpa. He can perform a mind scan and find out what she’s trying to change.”
“I called him, though I do not think it will help. Your mother’s mind currently believes all possible realities and outcomes to be true, so we will have difficulty discerning what is happening. Eliana, I think it would be best if you stayed home tonight.”
My heart stopped. I wasn’t sure which I feared more: being discovered by the crazy voodoo masses or my plummeting career.
“I don’t know if I can do that, Dad. Tonight is important.”
“But we do not know what is happening.”
“I doubt anything bad will happen in the next few hours—no one knows I’m fourth channel.” I crossed my fingers and went for it. “I have to go, Dad. I have to get paid.”
I was speaking to his sensibilities now. Humans budget for retirement, but immortals budget for eternity. Items are bought for practicality and longevity, not style. Dad understood the importance of an income. If I didn’t show up tonight, I’d no longer have one.
“Well,” Dad said, “how would you feel about Marcus attending with you?”
I grimaced. The last thing I needed was to be chaperoned by my lawyer. “Everyone knows he doesn’t eat there, Dad. He’ll stick out like a sore thumb. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine tonight. Brad’s going to be with me the whole time and there’s security on site.”
“Human security is hardly sufficient if Ruairí O’Bryne discovers you…”
We both fell silent under the weight of that name. At an early age, I had learned to live in fear of the notorious voodoo master. He had captured every necromancer born in the last five centuries. In all that time, only one had escaped alive.
“Nothing’s going to happen, Dad. I’m good at keeping a low profile.”
“And I am the Pope.”
“You’re overreacting, Dad. The event won’t even last two hours, and then Brad and I are going to Uncle Rick’s for my birthday dinner. I can’t cancel on Brad’s dad without a valid excuse, unless we’re ready to tell him I’m a necromancer.”
“Absolutely not. I—” His words cut off abruptly and he paused. “One moment, sweetheart.”
I heard a door open on Dad’s side of the phone. I'm sure a knock preceded it but my ears were too human to pick up the soft sound. Dad’s voice dropped low, with the reverence used only to address the progenitors of the immortal race.
“Good evening, Sir.”
I hoped the visitor was Grandpa, but as soon as I heard the response, I knew it wasn’t. He was loud and boisterous, with a thick accent from a nation and language long extinct.
“Thank you, but stop calling me Sir!”
I smiled. It wasn’t Grandpa, but it was just as good: my godfather had arrived.
“Hi, Moons,” I said.
His heightened senses picked up my voice clearly and I heard him laugh.
“Happy Birthday, Eliana,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, “and thanks for the card. Where’s Grandpa?”
His voice became clearer, as if the phone had changed hands. “I do not know. He phoned and asked me to come right away. Has something happened?”
Dad explained the situation. As they talked, I could hear them moving. I heard a door open and their discussion fell silent.
“Isadora?” Dad called softly. “Darling?”
Dad’s voice became more distant, murmuring softly at Mom, trying to get her to respond.
Moons’s voice was quiet in my ear, but clear. “How has your birthday been thus far?”
“Oh, fantastic. Tonight’s event is the band’s attempt to come back, Mom’s in a coma, presumably from tampering with future events, and to top it all off, I broke the telepath spell.”
“How did you manage that?”
“Long story. I’ll tell you about it later.” That was code for not wanting to explain it within earshot of my dad. Moons knew the code well. While I checked in regularly with Grandpa and Moons about my magical research, I wasn’t comfortable talking to Dad about it. “Dad wants me to stay home tonight.”
“That is because you are the first necromancer in a century. If Ruairí O’Bryne knew about you, he would resurface. I have no doubt.”
I threw up a hand in frustration. “So what do I do? I have to go tonight, Moons. This is important.”
He chuckled. “There are three necromancers in the world. Diaco is not the only one who can provide protection.”
Dad was clearly the top dog among the necromancers. I was a very distant number three. Between us, there was someone else...
I dropped my voice low in case Brad was outside listening. “He doesn’t eat down there, and he’s probably busy.”
“We have seen the way he looks at you. If you needed assistance, he would drop everything to provide some.”
I felt my cheeks redden. “You’re not funny, and Brad’s going to hear us. You know, one of these days someone’s going to have to tell him there’s another necromancer. It isn’t going to be me.”
“On the contrary, I am hilarious! And I enjoy the shakiness in your voice when I mention him.”
I whispered indignantly, “He comes through my access spell uninvited, waltzes through the front door, and digs around my lab without permission! So if anyone asks, I’m totally unimpressed.”
I’m also a total liar.
Moons replied, “He is checking on your safety. Also, you are beautiful and available.”
“I’m going to get you back for this.”
Moons laughed. “See? You did it again!”
“Just tell me what’s going on with my mom. Has she done this before?”
The
humor in his voice subsided. “Never so severely. She left clues before the Plague struck and before both World Wars so we could mobilize everyone to safety. She also left clues when you were born so we could find you. I confess, this is the worst I have seen. She is absolutely unresponsive.”
“So what does it mean?”
“It means she has been manipulating an event for a very long time, and the warning about your telepath was finally severe enough to warrant her complete incapacitation. Clearly, this has something to do with you. Try calling for her.”
It was worth a shot. I cleared my throat and called, “Mom?” I said it a little too loudly. Moons made a startled noise, as if I had hurt his sensitive ears. “Sorry—Mom, can you hear me?”
“Oh!” Moons said. “Her eyes opened, but she appears entranced.”
“Isadora?” Dad said.
“Mom?” I repeated.
Sheets rustled softly. A familiar feminine voice mumbled, almost incoherently, “Eliana, help Bradley clean up his Legos. Tonight is a school night and I want you in bed on time.”
“What?”
“Legos,” she repeated. “Bedtime.”
At that moment, I could have been knocked over with a feather. My mother thought I was ten years old!
“Mom, I turned thirty today. I don’t have school tomorrow; my band is performing on television.”
“Oh.” Her confusion sounded sincere. “Is your president George Clinton?”
“The singer?”
“No. Thomas Jefferson’s Vice President.”
I rubbed my forehead. “You’re about two hundred years off and in an alternate universe. Why don’t you go back to sleep and let your head sort itself out?”
“I have work to do and things to change. I have been waiting for this day for a very long time.”
Her words filled me with cold dread.
“Isadora,” Dad said, “this is too dangerous. We will protect Eliana.”
“Not without the telepath,” she said flatly. “Eliana, you are out of Tilene. Tonight you will buy some. Bradley will drive you to the store.”
That topic seemed way out in left field. Tilene was the preferred brand of toothpaste for immortals. The bitter concoction was very gentle and catered to a mouth whose only function was speaking. Eating was done another way.