She was just in time, too, because the double doors opened again, and Marcel Trent and the other Council members swept impressively into the room, flanked by Annie and more of the large, muscular men. Marcel took in the damage with a well-trained eye, surveying the damage done to the room and the people in it. His gaze rested on Finn, whose arms were crossed over his chest, and he nodded once.
“Finnley, what happened here?”
“Eight masked men attacked through the door you just came from. They began attacking several of the people in the cafeteria, and they tried to drag her away,” he said, looking at me.
Marcel turned and stared at me. His eyes found the thin line of blood on my neck, and I quickly wiped it away. The pain flared up for a second, before dying away. It wasn’t bad and wouldn’t leave a scar; it was more scary than it was painful.
“Did they say anything to you?”
“When he grabbed me, he shouted, ‘I’ve got her’. He pressed the knife against my throat and then he said, ‘Don’t move bitch, or I’ll bleed you dry’. He cut me when I struggled, and then he tried to drag me out the door. Finn stopped him from taking me though,” I said, looking at him. “Thank you.”
He grunted once and looked away from me.
“Well, it seems like you were the one they wanted, Miss Parker. Our information tells us that someone is trying to raise an army of the undead. We’ve even found some of the reanimated corpses that, when prove to be useless to their cause, were left to wander aimlessly for eternity. This person must not be powerful enough to raise the number of zombies they require, and are planning to use you to accomplish this.”
“What makes them think I can do it when they can’t? I’ve only been practicing with my powers for like two days, and I’m terrible at it.” I looked at Marcel and frowned. “I’m not that powerful. If I was, I’d be able to control what happens, but I can’t. If this person thinks they need me to accomplish their plans, they’re in for disappointment.”
“Maybe they plan to coach you through what needs to be done,” Annie said, stepping forward. “Ronnie, a teacher can be an invaluable resource. I can teach you to control your powers; you just have to learn to trust me. I’m not going to hurt you, or use your power for my own needs. I just want you to be safe enough to leave this place and live your own life.”
“But I can’t do it! I can’t control myself.”
“With my help, you can,” she promised. “Let me help you, Ronnie.”
I nodded. “Alright. If you think you can help me, I’ll try to trust you.”
“Good. Now, let’s go back to the freezer room, and we’ll try your lessons again. This time, I want you to listen to me, and trust me. If anyone here can help you, it’s me.”
Tanya gave me a thumbs up as I walked by, silently wishing me good luck, and I followed Annie back to the dreaded morgue.
Chapter Fourteen
The morgue was as cold as it was during my two pervious visits, and was just as silent, and just as creepy. I tried not to glance at the cubbies filled with recently deceased animals, but my gaze slipped to them from time to time, and Annie pretended not to notice my obvious discomfort at being back in this room.
She sat down at the only table in the room and I took a seat on the stool across from her. “We’re going to try something a little simpler this time. I’m not asking you to raise anything. Instead, I want you to search inside of yourself, find your power, and use it to locate the dead animals. I have a few scattered in the storage cupboards, and I want you to tell me which ones are occupied.”
I took a deep breath before closing my eyes and searching inside myself for the power that was resting at the moment. It grew when I called to it, pulsing brightly, awaiting my orders. As my breathing slowed, I focused my attention on my surroundings.
“Good,” Annie said softly. “Now, to normal people, death is just death. But to us, every dead person or creature gives off a specific aura that is left behind. Cast your power out like a net and search those auras. Just find them and tell me which cupboards are occupied and which aren’t.”
I did as Annie told me. Sending my power outward, I force it to expand until the entire room is in my sight. I see it all in my mind, and I knew where each cupboard is positioned in the room and, even though I can’t see them with my eyes closed, a few of them stand out in my mind’s eye. They glow with a strange black aura, and I pick out four of them.
“The one farthest from the door, on the bottom row, has something dead inside of it. Then there’s one four cupboards to the left. The third one is two rows down, and the final one is seven cupboards down from that one.” I opened my eyes and looked at Annie. “Did I get them all?”
She nodded. “Yes, you did. You’re actually very good at this.” She chewed her lip for a second. “If you can do this so easily like you just did, you should be able to raise just one specific target. I’m worried that what your mother chose to do may have affected the balance of your power.”
“What do you mean?” I asked worriedly. Thinking about my mother was something I’d tried not to do since finding out from the Council that she’d used perverse magic to bring me back to life.
“Your power is greater than most necromancers ever accomplish. I realized that when you accidentally raised all the animals in here. That is not normal for people like us. Someone your age should have to be patiently taught for a very long time before raising their first animal, and you raised thirty of them all at once, without trying.”
“So you think I’m what, more powerful than normal or something?”
Annie nodded. “I know you are. I don’t know for sure, because I haven’t tested you as much as I would have liked, but I think what your mother did has given you a closer relationship with death than most necromancers. I’ve never heard of another necromancer being brought back to life and continuing to grow and live. I think you might have a more powerful affinity for death because of it.”
“That’s not a good thing,” I said. Just by hearing the tone of her voice I knew that was what she was getting at. I was powerful. I was untrained. I was dangerous, and I’d probably be stuck here at this compound for a very long time.
“No, it’s not. Ronnie, you’ll have to be careful your entire life. If you relax your hold on your power for just one second, you could raise an entire cemetery, even without trying. You’ll have to keep training. Unlike most of us, you don’t have the luxury of pretending to be normal. You’ll have to remember constantly that you’re not.”
I nodded. “I figured that last part. I’ve always known I wasn’t normal. I mean, I can see dead people. It was kind of obvious something was different about me. But, do you really think I have a more powerful affinity for death, just because of what my mom did? Can that really affect someone’s power?”
Annie nodded her head solemnly. “Yes, it can. Ronnie, our power is based off of death. Who better to control and understand it than someone that has actually experienced death, and lived to tell about it?”
“But I don’t remember being…” I couldn’t finish that horrible thought.
Her face softened. “I know you don’t, but your power probably does.”
That thought frightened me into silence, and I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. With my head down, I thought about everything that Annie was saying to me right now. She was right, of course. There wasn’t anyone that understood death better than someone that had died, and now I had to pay the price for my mother and her mistakes.
Annie clapped her hands together. “I think that with some more work, you could probably get the hang of your powers. Then you’ll be able to go out and live the life you always wanted. You can go to school, or get married, or whatever it is you want out of life.”
“I’m not so sure,” I said, unconvinced. “My old plans for my life included a loving husband and a couple of children. Now, I’m not so sure. I don’t think I could ever condemn my children to be like me. It would be too horri
ble to see them struggle with power like this.”
“Well, you know if you married a supernatural like most of us do, your children might end up with his powers, instead of yours. If you married a sorcerer, they might just be powerful spell casters. You won’t know until you try, Ronnie. You can still be happy with life; it’ll just take a little extra work than it does for most people.”
“Sure.” I didn’t believe her, but arguing wasn’t going to help matters any.
“Well, we can get some more practice in right now if you’d like to. It couldn’t hurt.”
“But will it help?”
“Only time will tell.”
*****
Over the next couple of days, I developed a daily routine. I spent the mornings with Annie in the morgue, developing my dangerous gifts, and then I spent the rest of the day with Tanya, under the watchful eyes of an angry, sulky Finn. Since the break-in, he’d been forced to step up his vigilance of me, and he couldn’t be less enthusiastic about it. He wasn’t as hostile toward me since the break-in, but he was still far from friendly.
The rest of the compound thought I was a freak that needed to leave. Most of the others wouldn’t even make eye contact with me since word of my setbacks in the morgue had gotten out. Plus, it didn’t help that they knew I was the reason behind the attack on their home. They wanted me gone, and I didn’t blame them one bit.
Tanya went out of her way to make me feel happy and less lonely, and it started to work. The only thing I missed about my old life was Two Socks, but he hadn’t shown up yet. The only other downside to my life at the compound was the nightmares.
They haunted me every single night, and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t seem to fight them off. They weren’t ever as bad as the first one, but they were gruesome, dark, and evil. They always left me breathless, sweaty, and unable to get back to sleep afterwards. The lack of sleep began to show in my lessons.
Drifting off in a morgue full of dead animals did not end well, especially for a necromancer. I’d done it twice so far, and both times I’d accidentally raised half the morgue in the process. Annie worried about me, but after my first week at the compound ended, she stopped asking me what was wrong, and just tried to help me as best as she possibly could.
“What’s the plan for this morning?” I asked, taking a seat on the stool across from the table from her. “More practice on raising a single animal? Or are we just gonna work on finding my power faster?”
“We’re not staying here,” Annie said, grabbing a bag from the table. She strapped it over her shoulder and looked at me. “The three of us are going out to a nearby pet cemetery to practice your exclusion skills. The more animals around you the harder this test will be.”
“Whoa, I’m not ready for that,” I said, surprised that she could possibly think I was. “I still can’t manage to just raise one animal, and that’s when there are only a few dozen in the room with me. How the hell am I supposed to control myself around a few hundred animals?”
She sighed. “This isn’t my call. The Council wants to see some progress from you, and they think the best way to do it is to throw you overboard and hope you don’t drown.”
“This is ridiculous!” I snapped.
The two of us walked together down the halls, and I noticed that people tended to look at Annie almost the same way they looked at me. “I’m sorry, Ronnie, but I’m under orders the same as you are. If it makes you feel any better though, Finn is as unhappy about this as you are.”
“Finn’s going with us? Oh, I’m sure he’ll just love that.”
Annie shrugged, and she pushed open a set of doors that led to the outside world. This was the first time I’d left the compound since arriving, and it was amazing how bright and happy everything looked out here. Everything except for Finn seemed to be enjoying himself, and he scowled at me as we approached.
He slid into the driver’s seat of an old beat-up blue car, and I hopped into the backseat. The drive to the cemetery took only a few minutes, and then Finn parked and Annie and I made our way to the center of the graveyard. I could see Finn leaning up against the car, and he made it a point to not look at the two of us.
“Ok, focus. I want you to find the most recent grave, and call the inhabitants spirit back to its body. Ignore the calls of the others around you. Just focus on this one spirit. If you need to stop, tell me, and we’ll take a break and try again later.”
I closed my eyes and searched inside myself for the power I knew was there. It grew and pulsed when I called to it, and it took less and less time to find it every time I searched for it. When I opened my eyes, I focused them on the nearest grave. It was the freshest one and I tried not to think about the poor animal that was lying in that ground, or the family that had loved it.
I tuned into the spirits around me. There were dozens of them hovering around the cemetery, waiting for something to do, and they eagerly answered my call. As I slipped farther into the grasp of my power, I felt myself fading away, losing focus on my surroundings. I was dimly aware of Annie screaming at me, but I ignored her and pushed harder, trying to raise the animal so I could return to the compound.
A sharp pain in my arm snapped me out of it and when I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw were Annie’s worried eyes staring into mine, and her fingers resting against my arm, which she just pinched. “Ronnie…” she said softly.
Looking around, I saw several freshly disturbed graves, at least twenty of them, and each had an animal of some kind digging its way from their graves. Finn watched a dog that was little more than bones and scraps of fur climb its way to the surface, and he turned to me. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
The look of disgust on his face made me take a quick step back and look away in shame. “I–”
“Ronnie, go wait by the car,” Annie said gently. “Finn and I will take care of this. Just…go.” She waved her hand dismissively, and I could feel the disappointment emanating from her as she turned away from me. She ran her hand through her hair, and I took a deep breath, fighting the urge to cry as I walked back to the car to wait.
Chapter Fifteen
The hood of the car was still warm, and I rested against it. The heat from the engine began to calm my nerves, and I closed my eyes and waited for them to finish taking care of the animals I’d just raised. Dogs and cats and other miscellaneous animals that were resting until just a few minutes ago.
Until I disturbed their peace.
My pendant began to hum from between my breasts, and I looked down.
“Lovely day for a trip to the cemetery, isn’t it?”
My eyes snapped open in an instant, and I backed away from the hood of the car. Standing by the driver’s side door was a tall, ordinary looking man wearing a long, black trench coat, black boots, jeans, and a sweater, even though it was nearly seventy degrees out. His hair was short and brown, as were his eyes.
He stared at me with a smile on his face that sent shivers down my spine, and I fought the urge to cross my arms over my chest.
“Who are you and what do you want from me?” My voice trembled, and that only seemed to make his smile go wider. Something about this man scared me, and I glanced quickly at the cemetery, where my official bodyguard was busy helping Annie and not me. He was far enough away that he couldn’t see me, but close enough that he could probably reach me before something bad happened.
Could he reach me fast enough though? I silently asked myself.
The man slowly extended his hand to me, never dropping the smile from his face. “My name is Andrew.” When I didn’t take his offered hand, he frowned and pulled away. “What’s a young necromancer like you doing out here in the daylight? Shouldn’t you be more careful? You know the rest of the world can’t know about us, right? You’re inexperienced, but surely not that inexperienced?”
The use of the word necromancer comforted me a little. If he knew what I was, he was probably the same thing. Most necromancers were female, or
so Nancy and Annie had both told me, but there were a few male ones that weren’t to be forgotten.
He noticed my tense body. “You don’t trust me, but I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t trust a complete stranger either.” His eyes found mine. “I hope to change your mind though.”
“You’re a necromancer.”
He nodded. “Yes, one of the very few males of our kind. I was simply passing through when I felt the presence of two like me, and I thought I would check it out. When two or more of us get together, it usually means one of two things. Either, a newbie is starting their training, or they’re plotting to take the world by force.”
I was reminded of my recurrent nightmares. “I don’t want the world. I just wanna fit in someplace.”
“Well, I know that there have been several attempted risings lately, and I just wondered if it might have been you behind them. I could sense your power from down the road, almost a mile away, which is very strange. Someone could use your power to their advantage, if they wanted to.”
Warning bells went off in the back of my mind, telling me that I shouldn’t trust this man, even for a second. “Get away from me,” I said unconvincingly.
Andrew smiled. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Veronica. You’re a very special girl, and I have very special plans that involve you. I was planning to take my time, but I felt your power, and I decided to act now. So, come with me quietly, and I’ll make this easier on you.”
I pretended to consider his offer, and started to pace. He watched me cautiously, with a happy smile that I was actually considering his offer. When I got near him again, I brought my foot up, slamming it into his grown, before backing away and screaming Finn’s name.
Andrew got to his feet and ran for the trees just as Finn arrived. He looked at me with pale blue eyes that looked almost worried. Right now, he was showing more emotion than I’d ever seen him show before. “What happened?”
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