Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

by Lish McBride

  Michael came down into the basement, his hands full of something covered in a sheet. He handed the thing off to Douglas and then went quickly back upstairs. I guess he’d seen the show before.

  Douglas pulled back the sheet, revealing a gray dove in a cage. There were a lot of scenarios of what could happen to that dove, and none of them were pleasant. As far as I could tell, Douglas only took things out of cages for a reason.

  He closed the circle after telling me, “I don’t trust yours yet.” He handed me the bird.

  “What do you want me to do with this?”

  “I want you to hold it so I can slit its throat,” he said. “I can do it myself, but it’s easier if someone else holds it.”

  I hesitated. I don’t like to kill things, one of the many reasons I’m not a carnivore, but as much as I didn’t want to be instrumental in the bird’s death, I didn’t think Douglas would give me another option.

  Grabbing a fistful of hair, he yanked my head back. “Problem?”

  I tried for honesty. “I don’t want to sit here and watch you kill a dove. I don’t like killing things.”

  He gritted his teeth. “You kill every time you eat.”

  “Yeah, plants. Not animals.”

  “You’re vegetarian?”

  “Yeah.”

  He laughed.

  “I fail to see why that’s so funny.”

  He backhanded me then, which made me release the bird. I might have let it go on purpose. Douglas retaliated by hitting me in the face so hard that I fell to my knees. Usually, when someone goes to hit you, you can catch some indication of their intent in their eyes. Not Douglas. His eyes stayed the same flat brown the whole time.

  Michael trooped back into the basement and caught the bird with a net. It took him all of two minutes. I stayed on my knees. It seemed like the best place to be.

  Douglas once again shoved the dove into my hands. He placed the tip of his dagger under my chin, raising my head up to look in his eyes.

  “Listen carefully. When we summon, when we raise, we are trespassing in death’s domain. For that passage, we must pay.” He enunciated each word, speaking slowly and clearly, like I was a child. “When we pay, we must use death’s coin. Flesh, blood, sacrifice, these are tender that death understands.” He pressed the knife into my flesh, enough so that I felt it, but not enough to cut. “I can take that payment from either the bird or you. Choose.”

  The bird struggled in my hands. I tightened my grip around it.

  “Just be quick,” I said. I held out the bird.

  A silver slash, and the dove was dead. Blood spilled directly onto the ground. With each drop, I could feel Douglas’s power rise. I really didn’t want to see what he needed that build up of power for.

  In the movies, zombies just seem to appear. They shamble in from off screen and try to eat your brains. Or they are the newly dead that sit up and try to eat your brains. They never seem to show what happens if a zombie is buried safe and snug in the ground.

  Since we were on solid concrete, it took a minute. The floor made a cracking noise as it split open, revealing a few inches of dark topsoil beneath. Bones inched up out of the dirt, each sliding right back into place as if they’d never left. The small bones of the hand came together, joining with wrist, arm, elbow. Muscles and tendons attached, twisted and inched their way back onto the bones. Flesh reassembled, shaping the body into something recognizable. Hair sprouted and grew. The eyes went from dried-out husks to liquid-filled orbs. A rumpled suit came last, sliding onto the flesh of the man. I wondered if the clothing was Douglas’s choice or the zombie’s. It was like watching time-lapse photography of a body decomposing, but backward. I couldn’t take my eyes off the spectacle.

  The finished body was a man, maybe midforties, with a receding hairline. His suit looked a little dirt-stained, but all in all he looked like your average American businessman. Except he was dead. And not just soul-dead like most cubicle workers, but actually dead.

  “Go ahead,” Douglas said. “Ask him a question.”

  “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” The zombie stared back at me blankly.

  Douglas glared at me. I heard Brid stifle a giggle from inside the cage. Good to know I wasn’t the only one who’d read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. How come I couldn’t meet a nice, naked, well-read girl until I was kidnapped and thrown into a cage?

  “Sorry, it was all I could think of,” I said. I tried to sound apologetic.

  “You have to ask it something that it knew when it was alive. People don’t become omniscient just because they have keeled over.”

  “Um, sir?” The man stared at his hands, confused. I snapped my fingers and he looked up. “Yeah, hey, how’s it going?” The zombie blinked. “Hey, can you tell me your name?”

  “David Andrew Davidson.”

  The name rang a bell. They’d had a small blip on the news about his disappearance when we were watching for information on Brooke. He’d vanished a month ago. I swallowed. Looked like he hadn’t skipped town, after all. “How old are you, David?”

  “I am forty-three years, eight months, and sixteen days.”

  “Are they always this literal?” I asked Douglas.

  “Not usually. They can’t lie, of course, but some force of personality remains. I’d wager that Mr. Davidson here was fairly literal and exacting before he met his unfortunate end.”

  David stood roughly at attention. Whenever he wasn’t talking to me, his focus seemed to slip back to Douglas. “What’s the last thing you remember, David?”

  The man fiddled with his tie, straightening it. “I got off the bus at the Park and Ride. I was walking to my car and then…” His hand moved slowly from the tie to the back of his head. “Pain,” he said.

  “Is that it?” I asked softly.

  David frowned. “Yes.” His eyes swiveled toward the large wooden restraint table that was set off to the side. “No.”

  He was becoming agitated, and I didn’t want to put him through any memories of torture or his own death. I guess when Douglas had listed sacrifice as one of death’s coins he hadn’t meant emotional and personal sacrifice, but the pagan god ritualistic kind. I couldn’t imagine wanting anything so bad I’d kill someone for it. I wondered what Douglas had needed all of David’s blood for. “It’s okay, David. You don’t have to remember.” He eased and his attention went back to Douglas.

  “Is there something specific I need to ask him, or can we put him back to sleep now?”

  Of course, Douglas wasn’t content sending David the Zombie back. First, he had to order him around. Douglas made him scrub the floor of the basement while he watched over his shoulder the whole time, pointing out each missed spot or blemish. David was forced to strip down and do calisthenics, far more than I think he had done in real life. While the zombie was thin, his body had little in the way of muscle definition. Then Douglas made him reenact his own death. I heard every scream, every plea, every pain David Andrew Davidson had been put through. And all because I’d shied away from asking about it. I couldn’t be certain that was why, but from the look in Douglas’s eyes while we watched, I felt pretty confident that was the reasoning. I watched until David eased and grew silent again. I was afraid of what would happen if I looked away.

  Poor Mr. Davidson got put through the wringer just so I could learn a few things about zombies, like how strong they were, how easily controlled, and that they looked just as silly as live people when they did jumping jacks. Maybe I needed the lesson, but I think it could have been carried out in a more dignified way. David used to be a living being, after all. Again I felt like Douglas was giving me a dual lesson. Sure, he was showing me how to raise a zombie, but he was also showing me exactly what he was capable of. I could just as easily become the one doing the jumping jacks.

  Finally satisfied, Douglas put David Andrew Davidson to rest. He ordered him back into the ground by his full name and waited until the floor completely resealed itself before he b
roke the circle.

  “How come you needed his name to put him down, but not to raise him?” I asked.

  “I used his name to call him; I simply didn’t shout it the first time. The name is unnecessary, though it makes things infinitely easier.” Douglas opened the cage and gestured me back in. I went quietly. “If you know the name, it’s easier to locate the soul. Without the soul,” he said, “we are nothing.” He locked the cage, acknowledging Brid with a nod, and then left without another word.

  Brid lay on the floor, stomach down, slowly kicking her heels and looking the picture of the 1950s teenage girl. Except Brid was in a cage instead of sprawled on a fluffy, heart-shaped rug and talking into a princess phone. And, hopefully, she wasn’t adolescent either.

  “How old are you?”

  “How old do you want me to be?” she asked, batting her eyelashes.

  “Stop that.”

  “Fine. I just turned nineteen.” She took her chin out of her hands, using her arms to brace herself up instead. “And what have we learned today?”

  “Zombies are strong, they don’t feel pain.” I paused. “Physical pain anyway.” David had certainly been able to feel remembered pain. You don’t scream like that unless you feel something. “They also don’t tire, and Douglas is an asshole.”

  “We already knew the last one,” she said.

  “Yeah, but I felt like we needed to go over it again.” I sprawled on the floor next to her. “Oh, and if I control the zombie completely, I can order it around.”

  “And?”

  I scratched my head. Man, I could have really used a shower. “And what?”

  Brid nodded down at the floor. “Where’s the blood?”

  The floor, though still stained, appeared to be empty of even the slightest drop of blood. Interesting.

  “Either it came off when David the Zombie scrubbed or it drained when the floor cracked, right?”

  “No,” she said. “I watched. The blood sort of…oozed into the floor before that. Kind of creepy, really.” She ran her fingers through her bangs, hand-combing them. “What was it like?”

  “Awesome,” I said. “Terrifying. Nauseating.”

  She eyed me from beneath her hair. “So you aren’t going to go out and start your own undead slave business?”

  “No.” The answer came without hesitation.

  “Not even tempted a little? Raise a math whiz and get him to do your homework for you? Have a zombie architect design your house?”

  “No way,” I said. I thought of Brooke, sitting at home in a bowling bag. “No one deserves to be treated that way.”

  “I knew you were a nice boy,” she said, leaning over and nudging me with her shoulder.

  “Hm, yes. All us nice boys hang out in cages learning how to raise the dead. Torturing little birds…” I looked at my hands. I couldn’t see any blood on them, but I wiped them on my jeans anyway.

  Brid kissed me softly on the cheek. I forgot about my hands.

  “You’re still nice,” she said softly.

  I nodded, clenching my jaw to keep my eyes from tearing up. Brid’s faith was reassuring, but I was wondering how nice I’d be after a few more days of Douglas’s training.

  Dinner was a repetition of the last meal, except they added an orange. Either Douglas had forgotten I don’t eat ham, or he left it in an attempt to teach me yet another lesson. Of course, Michael could have prepared the meal and done it trying to piss me off. I had a lot of time on my hands to think about these things.

  I gave the ham to Brid and went about peeling my orange.

  “At least now I won’t get scurvy,” I said.

  Brid finished the ham, licking the juice off her fingers. “I’m glad you’re looking on the bright side of things.”

  “Of course, with no sun, I’ll eventually get rickets.”

  “No, you won’t,” Brid said.

  “But I’m not getting enough vitamin D.”

  “I know, but in adults they don’t call it rickets. It’s called osteomalacia.” Brid swallowed another mouthful of her stew, smiling at my surprise. “I take a lot of biology classes and study under the pack doctor.” She took another bite. “We do have some medical personnel scattered about the pack, but I want to be able to do basic stuff.”

  “Surely you don’t have to worry about osteo-whatever,” I said, popping a piece of orange into my mouth.

  “You never know when knowledge might come in handy, so I try not to limit myself. Besides, I liked the word. Rickets,” she spoke it clearly and slowly, biting off each syllable.

  I pushed my legs out, stretching them. “Do you guys heal fast? Or is that just a movie thing?”

  “We do, but it still does take some time. If you bleed out too fast, all the healing in the world won’t do you any good. And if you’re choking, you still need the Heimlich. We need air just like anything else.”

  I folded my cheese into my bread. “Don’t need a silver bullet to do you in, huh?”

  “No, but it certainly helps.”

  I choked a little on my makeshift sandwich.

  Brid gave me a wicked grin as she licked her spoon.

  I drank some water to stop my coughing fit. I didn’t want an overenthusiastic Heimlich from Brid. I didn’t know what was fact or fiction yet about werewolves, but I didn’t want to find out about superstrength the hard way.

  After a final bathroom trip, we were escorted back to the cage for the night. Michael flipped the switch, and we were thrown into darkness. Brid, used to far more physical exertion than me, began to pace back and forth. There wasn’t enough space to do sprints. Even walking, she pinged back and forth like an angry bee.

  “You okay?”

  “This cage is driving me crazy,” she said, continuing to pace.

  “You claustrophobic?”

  “No, but I can’t change and I can’t run.”

  I listened to her feet as they padded back and forth. They reminded me of the tiger at the zoo pacing his cage.

  “We need to change frequently, Sam. I can put it off by burning excess energy, but if I wait too long, I’ll start to go a little wiggy.”

  “Wiggy is bad.”

  “And I don’t know if they did this on purpose, but I can’t change in here!” She shouted the last part, and I heard her fists bang into the bars. Brid continued to scream, loud and angry, beating her fists in counterpoint.

  I scrambled to my feet and went to her. I didn’t want to get between her fists and the cage, but I didn’t want her to hurt herself either. I made soothing sounds and touched her shoulders, giving her a second to acknowledge my presence. You never want to spook an already freaked-out animal. The same goes for people. I slid my hands down Brid’s arms until I got her wrists. Taking hold of them, I pulled her arms in toward her chest, hugging her. I let her scream until she got it all out, keeping the comforting sounds going until she finished. Her body quaked and shook.

  “We’ll think of something,” I whispered into her ear. “Don’t worry. I’ll help. I promise.”

  “Something,” Brid mumbled. “Thanks.” Her voice sounded slightly hoarse.

  I placed my chin on the top of her head. I rocked her slightly, trying to think of something, anything, more useful.

  “Something,” she repeated. Her shaking slowed. “Thought of something.”

  I didn’t even get out a full what before Brid spun around and grabbed my chin, pulling my head down and gluing my lips to hers. Despite the force, her lips were somehow gentle, and she tasted a little of beef stew, something I hadn’t found to be particularly erotic until just now. One of her hands slid back into my hair while the other sneaked around my waist, pulling me closer to her. Her hands were soft and hot. I grabbed her waist, the tips of my fingers sliding under the T-shirt, finding the smooth skin at the small of her back.

  “Wait.” I pushed back, reaching for air.

  “What?” I could hear the tinge of exasperation in her voice.

  “Are you—” I stopped
. “Is this—” Taking a deep breath and mentally kicking myself, I continued. “I don’t want this to be something you feel pressured into, something you’ll regret later.”

  “You said you’d help me. You promised.”

  “I know.”

  What felt like my T-shirt hit me in the face.

  “Good,” she said. “Now take off your pants and shut up.”

  I only have so much restraint. I didn’t get undressed as fast as Brid, but I was close.

  Brid lay on top of me, naked and sweaty, her head tucked under my chin.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I feel much better.”

  “Any time. When you feel restless, hungry, bored, a little sleepy. Literally, any time.”

  She laughed softly. “I take it you enjoyed yourself, then?”

  “Hell yeah. In fact, I plan on recommending werewolf sex to all my friends.”

  “So that’s it, huh? You’re going to pawn me off on your pals?”

  “No, they’ll have to find their own.” I gave her a squeeze.

  “Except for the girls. My mom always told me to share and play nice with girls.”

  “Ew,” she said, sliding off me but cuddling up to my side. “I can’t believe you just mentioned your mom.”

  “You started it.”

  I heard a thumping noise, like somebody had just run into something, and then a mumbled curse came from somewhere outside the cage. I froze, and Brid went rigid beside me.

  A young girl’s voice piped out of the darkness. “Son of a bitch! Honestly, who the hell puts furniture in the middle of a room?” Her voice crackled with indignation. “And in a room with no windows. This is turning out to be such a huge pain in my ass—”

  She stopped midtirade, and I heard a small clicking noise. A bright ball of light suddenly burst into existence above the head of a young girl. She blinked at the light, apparently satisfied, and then turned her eyes on us. Tiny ebony eyebrows shot up, and her mouth quirked into a wicked little smirk. Gray eyes flicked to the cage and back to us.

  “You guys have quite an interesting alternative lifestyle here.” The girl’s manner of speech and facial expressions made her seem older, but she looked ten and innocent, with two soot-black pigtails, freckles, and a black-and-red Catholic schoolgirl uniform. She even wore kneesocks and saddle shoes.