Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

by Lish McBride

  She leaned her head onto my hospital bed and started to cry even harder. I rested my arm on her back and let her get it all out. After this past week I really understood how good that felt.

  Once she was done, she scooted me over and joined me on the hospital bed, hugging me roughly to her. We sat like that and listened to the quiet sounds of the hospital.

  “When you’re better, we’ll go find your uncle. Get that last binding removed,” she said.

  “No rush,” I said. “I should probably get used to what I have first.”

  She smoothed my hair back with her hand. “Deal,” she said. She looked like she wanted to cry some more, but she didn’t. My mom always tried to be strong for us, whether we needed it or not. I guess it runs in the family, because now I was trying to do the exact same thing for her.

  They made me sleep after that. When I woke up, the sun had gone down and the room was dark. The darkness felt comfortable, like a warm bed on a rainy night. I could hear the quiet beep of a monitor down the hall. Curled up next to me, and no longer wearing my clothes, was Brid. She slept, her eyes dancing under the lids, her hand cradled to her chest.

  My heart did a small painful skip. She looked exhausted. I brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Brid’s eyes popped open. Then she kissed me firmly on the lips, a kiss I returned with little hesitation.

  “It’s good to see you too,” I said.

  “I wanted to check on you sooner, but Daddy ordered me to rest.”

  “Sounds like a good order.”

  “Yeah.” She leaned on my chest, staring into my eyes. It was unsettling, like she was examining me for something.

  “You’re kind of creeping me out,” I said.

  She poked my rib cage. “You feel like taking a little walk?” The clinic differed from regular hospitals in several ways. One, I didn’t have to wear paper peek-a-boo pajamas. Someone with a sense of humor had stocked the place with flannel wolfman pajamas, the images resembling the monster movies from the ’40s. Very flattering. No slippers, though. Brid told me that most of the pack avoided shoes when they could, so they didn’t bother. So I got to walk around the hospital in nothing but some socks they’d dug up for me.

  Another difference was that the building itself resembled a big house more than anything institutional, at least in layout. The medicinal smell remained, and most of the surfaces were easy to wash. There were a lot of fresh flowers about, and plenty of skylights. I didn’t see much staff either. And if the waffles were anything to go by, the food tasted about eight thousand times better.

  The other differences ran toward the odd side of things. Some of the rooms were glorified cages. The outer rooms, like the hallways and lounge areas, had no windows. When I pointed that out, Brid said it was in case someone escaped before their release time. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what that meant.

  A few of the beds had metal restraints, which Brid told me were made out of silver.

  “I thought silver was bad,” I said, looking into one of the rooms.

  “They’re padded so the silver doesn’t scar the wrist.”

  “Why use it at all, then?”

  “Weres can’t break silver.” Brid shrugged, slipping an arm around me. “When werewolves grow up in this city, they have their pack to guide them through the change. It’s natural, a part of life. But not everyone has the benefits of a pack,” she said, “and some are outsiders. Everything about the process is new to them. Adult shape-shifters are strong.” She frowned, and I could tell she didn’t like what she had to say.

  “Occasionally, we have to restrain them for their own safety, until they learn.”

  Brid tightened her arm around me as we came to a door. I could feel the worry pouring off her. Now that I’d noticed it, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t felt it earlier. A thought seeped into my brain. It had been a tumultuous day, and I had believed that if anything was seriously wrong, someone would have told me.

  “What’s wrong with Ramon?” I asked. Fear clenched my gut.

  In answer, Brid opened the door.

  I had to force my feet to take me into the room. Brid wouldn’t be this anxious if Ramon were okay. She also would’ve answered me. The flip side was that someone would have told me immediately if he’d died. I pushed myself past the doorway. Whatever had happened, Ramon had survived. We could get past anything else.

  Ramon lay on the bed, arms and legs chained, an IV tube jutting out of his forearm. His skin looked red, flushed. Sweat drenched his sheets. He wore no shirt, so I could see the flesh roiling beneath his skin. Bran stood at his side, watching him, concern clear on his face.

  “What happened?” I said. “Did he get—” I cleared my throat. “The only thing I saw was him hitting the floor.”

  “He landed square on a broken glass vial,” Brid whispered. Her voice sounded hoarse and sad. “No one knew Douglas had been collecting blood samples. Or what he had planned for them.” She hugged herself. “Rare ones, too. We don’t know where he found it.”

  I rubbed my sweaty palms on my pants. “What did he get exposed to?”

  “Bear,” Bran said. He stood back, giving the bed a wide berth.

  Brid stood back, too. They were treating him as if he were dangerous. Ramon would have gotten a kick out of that.

  I pointed to one of the chains. “Are these really necessary?” Bran’s look was sympathetic. “We don’t ever chain unless it’s necessary. Bear is a volatile strain, and Ramon’s body is fighting it.” A thread of respect entered his voice. “He’s holding his own, though.”

  I stood over him, wishing I could do something. I’d been so happy to be free that I hadn’t even begun to tally up my debts. I owed Ramon a lot.

  They let me hang around for a bit, giving me time to talk to my friend, even though I wasn’t sure if he could hear me. When they decided that I needed more rest, they steered me back to my room.

  “We’ll take good care of him, Sam,” Brid said.

  “Like he was family?” I choked over the question, my throat constricting as I tried to hold everything in.

  Bran helped me into my bed.

  “He is family now,” he said softly.

  31

  Live and Let Die

  I got released from the clinic before Ramon. They gave me a pill bottle full of sedatives so I could sleep and sent me on my way.

  Brid assured me that Ramon had made some improvement, but I couldn’t see it. He’d have to stay at the clinic for a few more weeks at least. Brannoc promised me he’d watch over him as if he were his own. He seemed like the kind of guy who took his word very seriously. When I expressed my fears to Ashley, she told me that she’d heard that fey couldn’t lie. I hoped she was right.

  Until then, I had to play the waiting game. Not my favorite pastime, especially with this sick, unsure feeling in my stomach.

  Sean offered me a ride, but I needed a touch of the familiar to settle myself. I’d handled a lot of upheaval in the last week.

  I called Plumpy’s. Frank got really excited when he heard my voice, but the boss wouldn’t let him come get me. As stoked as Frank was to see me, he had bills to pay. Bills, however, were no longer a problem.

  “You pick me up, Frank, and I’ll hire you as an assistant.”

  He sounded intrigued but wary. We had trained him well. “Honest, Frank. I’ve got more money than I know what to do with.” Something good should come out of Douglas’s filthy blood money. And I counted freedom from fast food as something good.

  “Yeah—wait. How much you paying?”

  I felt a flutter of pride. Our little Frank was growing up. Ramon would be proud. The flutter died, and I was back with that sick feeling. “Salary, man. Full benefits. Three weeks’ paid vacation. Health insurance. Whatever you want.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  I made Frank take me back to my apartment, stopping only to grab Brooke from my mom’s house. He babbled at me the whole time. I only half listened, letting his voic
e roll over me, happy to see him again. Happy that at least Frank had made it through this whole mess unscathed.

  As good as it was to see him, his puppy-dog enthusiasm was exhausting me. I sent him to the store when we got back. I hadn’t had much food in my apartment to begin with, and now I had even less.

  “He’s just excited to see you,” Brooke said. Before he left, Frank had positioned her bag on the table so she could see me. I’d embedded myself in the couch and refused to move.

  “I know,” I said, rubbing my temples. A headache was brewing. Maybe I needed to bust into those sedatives now.

  “You ready to talk,” she said, “or would you rather continue your pity party?”

  “That’s not fair,” I said.

  “News flash, Sam.” She eyed me steadily until I realized how ridiculous my last statement had been. I was telling a girl who’d recently lost damned near everything that things weren’t fair. If they ever gave rank for stating the obvious, I would have made captain just now. Brooke was right. Of course things weren’t fair. And yes, my life wasn’t what I wanted it to be, but sitting here and wallowing wasn’t going to change anything.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “I know,” she said, her cheeks becoming flushed, “but you don’t have anything to be sorry about. Yeah, I’m sort of dead, Ramon is sick, and you got the shit beat out of you. You also met a girl, got strange mutant powers, and kicked some ass.”

  “You’re oversimplifying,” I said.

  “And you’re overcomplicating,” she said, her tone firm. “Let it go.”

  “I killed a man.”

  “A bad man, Sam. A very bad man.” A strand of hair fell in front of her eyes, and she blew at it, but it kept coming back down. I slowly pulled myself off the couch and tucked it behind her ear.

  “I still didn’t want to kill him,” I said, looking at the floor. I waited for some feeling to emerge. Remorse, maybe. But nothing came. I felt hollow as I stared at my dirty carpet.

  “I know,” Brooke said, her voice soft.

  Another chunk of hair worked its way free from her ponytail holder and drifted in front of her face. She let out a frustrated grunt and blew it out of her way. When it drifted in front of her eyes again, I tucked it back with the other one.

  “I can’t live like this,” she said.

  I gave her chin a tweak. “You won’t have to.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “For everything.”

  My chest ached, but not from an injury. I took one of my sedatives, anyway. I turned the TV on for Brooke and crashed out in my room. It felt like heaven.

  When I got up, I couldn’t get settled. Even with Frank and Brooke there, the apartment felt empty. I missed Ramon.

  The sudden inactivity after weeks of tension and adrenaline was driving me crazy. I needed to find something to do. Luckily, after checking my messages, I realized I had plenty. The first thing I did was get hold of my lawyer. Detective Dunaway had called several times; while I couldn’t put off the interview forever, I needed to buy myself some time. I asked Mankin to take care of it. It was nice to hand a problem off to someone else. I should have gotten a lawyer years ago.

  “Are you ready?” I asked. We were losing light, and I didn’t want to trip over any gravestones. The wind blew cool against my cheek as I waited for Frank. I could smell freshly cut grass and a mixture of flowers.

  He nodded, his brown eyes open too wide, like he was trying not to cry. He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Do we really have to do this? I mean, she’s not dead, just sort of in limbo, right?”

  I could understand his resistance. Who wouldn’t want his loved ones back, even if it was just a piece of them? And the part of me that hurt, the part that was still raw over Brooke, started to bargain with the rest of me. Why not keep her around? I had the ability, so why not use it? But looking down at Brooke, at the state she was stuck in, I understood how selfish that feeling was. So I told the raw part of me to shut up and deal with it. “She’s a head, Frank. That’s pretty close to dead, or at least pretty far from life. She deserves more than some crappy half life.”

  “But—”

  “It’s okay,” Brooke said. “It’s time. Being a head blows.” She flashed him a smile. “Besides, I’ll always be with you in your heart.”

  Despite the situation, we all started to snigger. “Thanks,” I said. “I needed that.” My heart felt lighter than it had in weeks. We stood in silence, staring out at the cemetery. Even before I knew about the whole necromancer thing, I’d always liked cemeteries. They were peaceful, like libraries and churches. The trees around the perimeter blocked out any ambient noise, so all I heard were birds. All I smelled was grass and flowers. It was a good place to be.

  “C’mon,” Brooke said. “Let’s blow this crap-shack.”

  Frank carried Brooke’s bag to her grave site. I grabbed one of the green plastic vases the cemetery staff had left by the trash cans and stuck it into the ground. I put the bouquet of gladiolas that I’d brought with me into it. Brooke had been fascinated by the fact that she could pick out her own flowers. There were several other bouquets already surrounding the temporary marker. They hadn’t had time to put up a permanent tombstone yet.

  Frank opened up Brooke’s bag. “Nice,” she said with a sniff as she looked around. “I’d like to know who brought those carnations, though. Yuck. I hate carnations.”

  Frank patted her hair awkwardly. Brooke smiled at him, taking the gesture as the act of comfort it was meant to be.

  I heard a car door slam. Dunaway walked across the grassy slope toward us, his long stride purposeful.

  Frank frowned. “I thought your lawyer took care of him?”

  “So did I.”

  Dunaway didn’t want to wait, apparently. From our brief meeting, I wasn’t too surprised by that. Had he been following me or just scoping out the cemetery? In a classic Frank move, I watched as he tried to hide Brooke behind his back. Yeah, because that didn’t look suspicious.

  “You okay, Sam?” Dunaway’s concern sounded genuine. “You look terrible.”

  “I feel terrible, Detective.” I looked up at him, trying to keep my face open and honest looking. It’s harder than it sounds. “I thought we were meeting tomorrow?”

  “We are.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Public place,” he said. “Why are you here?”

  I nodded toward the flowers. “Paying my respects.”

  He scratched his chin, examining Frank, then me, then Frank. “Every time I think I get a handle on this case, it changes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Dunaway leaned down and wiped some dirt off of Brooke’s temporary marker. “And the things I’ve seen. The security tapes. The car. The fight.” He straightened her marker, even though it didn’t look crooked. “Her death.” He stood back up. “Anyone feel like telling me what is going on around here?”

  I looked at Dunaway, really looked. And I felt bad for him. He was a good, solid man stuck in a crap situation. And he wasn’t going to give up anytime soon.

  “Frank,” I said, “would you show the nice detective the bag, please?”

  “You sure?”

  I nodded, never taking my eyes off Dunaway. I could tell the precise moment when he saw Brooke. All the blood left his face and his hands twitched down by his sides. The silence dragged on, and then the blood rushed back into his face.

  “What kind of shit—”

  “I can explain everything,” Brooke said.

  He stepped back. The violent eruption of red in his face went back to white. I think if he weren’t so well trained, he would have done more. Instead he just stood there. Finally, he whispered, “Did she…?”

  “I sure did,” Brooke said, “and I wish, just once, someone would have a better reaction to me. A ‘good to see you, Brooke’ would do nicely.”

  “Good to see you, Brooke,” Frank replied immediately. I guess Ramon and I weren’t the only ones who’d been training
Frank.

  I pushed up the sleeves of my jacket. I’d had Ashley talk me through the ceremony earlier. I just hoped I got it right. At least I didn’t have to worry about running out of power now.

  “This wasn’t the way I planned it, but I can tell you’re not going to give up. And frankly, we could use some help, ah, smoothing some of this over.”

  Dunaway looked sharply at me. “I’m not letting anyone get away with murder.”

  “I don’t expect you to. But,” I said, waving at Brooke, “this is an odd situation. I’m not asking you to go against your morals, just listen to her. After that, we’ll see.” I pulled out a container of salt and started to draw a big circle around the grave. The groundskeeper was going to be pissed. “I’d like to take care of this soon, so you better get crackin’.”

  I ignored Dunaway and set up the spell. I waited in the grass while he questioned Brooke. It felt good to sit here. I felt welcome, like all the dead around me recognized me as an old friend. It should have felt creepy, but it didn’t. I didn’t want to analyze it. There had been so much bad lately, it was nice to take some good at face value.

  Once Brooke had answered everything to the best of her ability, I invoked the circle. I didn’t even have to try. The circle bloomed to life, solid electric blue. Dunaway and Frank stood back from the grave, watching me as I worked. I had Brooke’s head inside the circle. I’d set up the barrier to keep everything contained. I wasn’t afraid of Brooke.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  “I really am, Sam.” Her answer was gentle. “Are you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do your best, I guess. That’s all anyone can ask.” Her eyes welled up around the corners. “Now get off your candy ass, LaCroix, and do your job.”

  Ashley had told me that every necromancer does things a little differently. It has something to do with the way we think, how we envision things in our mind. I didn’t want to just throw Brooke’s head into her coffin like it was no big deal. She wasn’t a misplaced Lego to be tossed back into the box. She was a person.