Nothing But Necromancy (Macrow Necromancers Book 1)

by J A Campbell

  Harmony smiled and hugged the bunny to her. Granddaddy turned off the lights, told them to “sleep tight,” and left.

  She lay, clutching the bunny and staring at the bunk above her. Would she be able to reconnect with her mom, or was she totally alone in the world now? Her eyelids drooped. Despite the caffeine and the fear, the comfortable bed together with an unaccustomed sense of safety lulled Harmony to sleep.

  The aroma of cinnamon rolls and bacon frying brought her out of restless dreams to early morning and an unfamiliar room. She stifled a startled gasp, and then reminded herself where she was. Maddie was still snoozing in the upper bunk, curled around a teddy bear and a real-life calico cat with imperious green eyes.

  Harmony tiptoed out of the room and joined the grandfather in the farmhouse kitchen. He stood at the stove frying up bacon. A chipped ceramic bowl waited at his left elbow. It was full of unbroken eggs in a deep amber brown. The oven light was on and she could see an iron skillet full of cinnamon rolls inside. Outside the window, a rooster cheerfully crowed, sounding more like the theme from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly than the cereal commercial sound she’d always associated with the creature.

  “Glenda got called into the hospital late last night,” he said. “They needed extra staff because of the storms. How do you like your eggs?”

  “Scrambled,” Harmony answered. She wasn’t a breakfast eater, but she wasn’t going to turn down anything that smelled so good. Most of the eggs she’d had were for dinner at Kerbey Lane.

  “You cooked all of this?” She looked from the bacon to the rolls in the oven and back at the eggs in the bowl, ready for frying.

  He laughed. “Glenda had the rolls rising, but I could’ve…. I was raised on a farm. We didn’t have instant everything like you do nowadays. Knowing how to cook was part of the basic survival skills. Which is why I’m alive and in decent shape at seventy-two.”

  Harmony took a better look at the man. Yeah, she wouldn’t have made him for that old at all. While his hair was silver, he still had all of it. His posture was excellent, the mark of military service. While he was tanned from working outside, his skin didn’t look thin and papery. His eyes were bright and inquisitive—and without glasses, even. The only serious lines on the man’s face were from an infectious grin.

  “I’d make you for twenty years younger,” Harmony said.

  He laughed. “Now you’re just flattering me.”

  “You want me to wake Maddie?” she asked softly.

  He shook his head. “Let her sleep. Her mom said she was up most of the night crying. The food will bring her around soon enough…she’s got no place she needs to be today.”

  Harmony nodded. She spotted the coffee pot and poured herself half a cup, finishing it off with milk and a bit of sugar.

  He set a plate full of eggs and bacon down on a fifties style chrome dining set with red vinyl chairs, and then dished up his own.

  “Eat.” His eyes crinkled with amusement when she dug in before he could finish the sentence. “Usually around here we say grace, but I figure 'Thank you for getting us through the storm last night and help those who didn’t' is sufficient.”

  Harmony swallowed, nodding.

  “Want to tell me why you’re really out on the road?”

  That question came when she’d polished off the eggs and bacon and was lapping the icing off her fingers from having eaten the best cinnamon roll she could ever have imagined. She’d never look at those things in the mall again.

  Harmony choked, the old man’s form blurring from tears.

  “I’m here to help,” he said, quietly, his hands held in an open gesture of acceptance. “You’re safe here. I’m not doing anything until you tell me what’s happened.”

  “It started with the choir,” Harmony said, describing the song and her wish that Johnny Carver just shut up. “And he did.”

  “Then, I went into class and saw the frogs for dissection. I just couldn’t…. So I set them free. They hopped out the open window and headed for the pond.”

  He just nodded, his face set in quiet compassionate lines, waiting for the rest.

  “Then, my teacher came in and took me to the principal’s office,” she continued. “She told me the frogs were dead—but they weren’t. The whole class saw them—and they weren’t dead when they landed beneath the window. They hopped off toward the pond. Everyone said so and trust me, the last thing any of them would want to do would be to help me.”

  A silvery brow rose, but he nodded.

  “Then, I found out Johnny Carver just stopped breathing and died. The girls from the choir told me the song was so he could invite me to the dance. They said I broke his heart.”

  “Speaking as a former boy, I can tell you that it generally takes more than one rejection to break a man’s heart,” he said. “If your Johnny was brave enough to write a song and convince the whole choir to sing it with him, he sounds like a pretty good kid.”

  Harmony nodded, feeling hot tears streaming down her face. Then she told him about the funeral and the birds.

  He set his coffee cup down with a thud, expelling a long sigh of breath. “Well, if that don’t beat all….”

  Harmony rested her forehead in her hands.

  “What about your mother?”

  She looked into his calm eyes.

  “Yeah, I ran your tags with a friend last night while we were at the station,” he said. “Got the scoop on your Mom from the Austin Police Department.”

  Harmony stared down at the linoleum, trying to think of something to say. She knew her mom had a record early on for possession, which she’d somehow managed to lawyer up and escape serving any time for. She wasn’t going to kid herself and think that her mom didn’t do drugs—she’d seen the bags of weed and paraphernalia around the house and scrupulously stayed away from them. Just the smoke made her have really strange dreams. Some of her mom’s occasional boyfriends probably did worse.

  Her mom always had money, too. The big house, buying a new Beetle with all the bells and whistles she’d wanted for her sixteenth birthday, all paid for. Harmony never had to worry about limits on the credit card her mom gave her, or anything. It was odd, but like most things about her mom, she just gave up asking questions and went with the flow.

  “You don’t think she would help?”

  “She’s never around,” Harmony said. “When I left, I hadn't seen her for four days.”

  He frowned and nodded. “Any more family who might be willing to help out? Or friends, a teacher?”

  She told him the rest as best she could, including the information about her grandparents.

  “You want me to try and call them and see if they’d help?”

  Harmony shook her head. “I don’t know what happened, but I don’t think they ever want to hear anything about my Mom again.”

  She paused, realizing he hadn’t freaked out in the least bit about what she’d just told him. Hadn’t asked if she was crazy, on medications or drugs, anything. She took a scalding gulp of coffee for courage and asked.

  “You don’t think I’m nuts or lying or….” Her mind ran out of possibilities. She rubbed her aching temple and let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  “Every police department has what they’d term the Odd Squad—or something similar,” he said, quietly, looking at her with an honest level gaze. “I ran into some strange stuff in Korea, and came back to more on the force.”

  “Strange stuff?” Harmony decided to ask.

  “Things happening with no logical explanation,” he said. “Stuff they write horror stories about.”

  Harmony’s mind chewed on that. She’d read Lovecraft and Rice and many others, and didn’t want to invoke anything.

  “What do I do?”

  “Want to test out your superpowers? I’ve got a couple of hens I need to butcher for the table.” He smiled, making it seem like he joked.

  “Oh heck no!” she replied hastily. “I don’t want
to see them die and know I caused it. I don’t even want to wish for a green light! I just want….”

  She ran out of words, not sure precisely what to say.

  He rubbed his forehead and sighed. “I can’t convince you to stay, can I?”

  Harmony shook her head. “Not when I’m scared I’m not safe for regular folks—think of Maddie.”

  His forehead wrinkled. He obviously had.

  “Where are you going?”

  “California,” she answered. “Okay, that was because of a song on the radio.”

  “Okay,” he let out a long breath. “You may be onto something and not know it. Of course, the Left Coast is probably the world capitol for strange. My former lieutenant on the Odd Squad retired to Seal Beach. Let me call him and see what he can do.”

  She waited while he made the call and got the go-ahead for Harmony to go there. The lieutenant had met some practitioners in California who were good at shielding, maybe they could teach her to use her powers for good instead of….

  She couldn’t even think about it.

  “Let me drive you.” He reached for his jeans pocket for keys.

  Harmony shook her head and pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll call you every twelve hours and let you know where I am. I’ll stay at decent motels along the way.”

  He started to argue, until she told him how much she’d been doing for herself her whole life. He shook his head, his expression saddened.

  “You’re a good kid.”

  High praise. She swallowed.

  “If anyone tries to hurt you,” he said in parting. “Don’t hesitate to wish them ill.”

  The next week was a fog to Elise. She took her meds, smiled at her friends and family, and went through the motions of school. By the time the weekend rolled around, she wanted to relax. Though she felt like she hadn’t done anything all week except show up in class, exhaustion tugged at her limbs and she had a stack of homework to do.

  Elise took her books out into the backyard so she could sit under the tree and do her work. The weather was superb, not too hot, not terribly humid, and she wanted to take advantage of it before winter came and snowed them in.

  Looking forward to some quiet time to do her homework, Elise set her books around her on the grass and picked up her first assignment. English. Usually pretty easy. She read the first question, picked up one of her books and frowned. What was the question again?

  She referenced her homework, then the book and again, couldn’t remember what she was looking for. For that matter, she really couldn’t remember the last week of English class. Shrugging, she put it down and tried math.

  The numbers jumped and twisted on the page. A problem that she knew should be simple was, instead, incomprehensible.

  Frustrated, Elise rubbed her eyes, squinted, and tried again. Was it just her imagination, or was the weight back? It couldn’t be. The medication was supposed to keep it away.

  Elise tossed her notebook down and leaned back against the tree. An interesting shape caught her attention and she stared until a cool breeze fluttered across her arms. That brought her attention back to her homework, but the sun was much lower in the sky and it had grown cold. Frowning, Elise gathered her papers and books, wondering where the time had gone.

  In a daze, she walked to the house and let herself into the kitchen where her mother made dinner.

  “How’d the homework go?”

  “Homework?” Elise had forgotten about the books in her arms. She set them on the table. “Oh, I, fine, I guess. I couldn’t concentrate.”

  “Did you get any of it done?” Her mom came over and looked at the stack of papers.

  “No. I don’t think so.” Elise wandered into the living room and flipped on the TV.

  “Honey, are you okay?” Her mom followed her into the living room.

  “I’m… Yes. I’m fine. Thanks.” Elise leaned back and stared at the show.

  “Honey, have you been able to concentrate at all this week?”

  “No. I don’t think so.” Elise couldn’t remember.

  “I’ll call the doctor and ask her about the dosage on your medication. You still need to be able to focus at school.”

  “Sure, thanks, Mom.” It didn’t really matter to Elise as long as the pressure stayed away. Though she thought she’d felt it earlier when she’d tried to focus, there was nothing now.

  She floated through the rest of the evening. Dinner barely made an impression and then she was back in front of the TV. Normally she would have watched TV with her dad, but he was on a business trip.

  “Elise?” Her mother interrupted a few hours later.

  “Yes, Mom?”

  “I got a hold of the doctor. She recommended that we decrease your dose over a few days, just until you can concentrate again.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, I’ll remind you every day to let me know when you can, and I’ll get a note for your teachers so they don’t expect your homework for a bit.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “You’re welcome, honey. Now get some sleep.”

  Distantly, Elise noticed that the lines around her mother’s eyes seemed deeper. Was that a silver streak in her raven hair? She climbed to her feet and gave her mom a quick hug before plodding over to the staircase and using the banister to haul herself up to the next floor.

  “I’ll bring your medication up in a moment,” her mother called.

  Elise went into the bathroom and flipped on the faucet to brush her teeth. Her sleep had been deep and dreamless since she’d started taking the medication, and that, along with the absence of the ghosts and the pressure made her feel like things could be normal.

  The first couple of days flowed the same as the previous week. She felt like she floated on a pressure-free cloud, but by Wednesday the levels of medication had dropped enough that she could focus on something besides the happy nothing that she’d existed in for over a week.

  “Hi, Elise,” Abby said as they passed in the hallway. She had her dark hair pulled back into an intricate braid and she wore a light green sundress that really flattered her complexion.

  “Hi. Your hair looks really nice today and I love your dress.” Elise, suddenly self-conscious about her own lack of care in her appearance, ran a hand through her hair. She should have put it up. She wore jeans and a t-shirt, and while hardly inappropriate for school, she normally wore pretty dresses or a skirt and blouse to school and reserved jeans or slacks for more casual occasions—like her mom.

  Abby stopped and turned to Elise. “Are you feeling better? You’ve been in a daze all week. I know they had you on some meds.”

  “Yeah, but they lowered my dose a little. Apparently I can’t go through life in a cloud.”

  Abby laughed. “No more headaches?”

  Grinning, Elise shook her head. “Not yet, anyway. It’s been a nice change.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. If you’re feeling up for it, we can hang out a little after school.”

  “I’ll have to ask Mom, but you might be able to come over.” Elise hoped her mom would allow it.

  “Great. Let me know. Gotta get to class.” Abby hurried away.

  Elise stared after her, wondering if she’d even spoken to anyone in the last week and a half.

  She noticed a few students she thought she knew from the dance committee staring at her while she stood in the rapidly emptying hallway. They glanced away as soon as she looked at them. Shrugging, Elise hurried to class.

  By Friday, Elise felt like she wasn’t completely disconnected from the world and told her mom. That seemed to make her mother happy; she had a genuine smile on her face when she dropped Elise off for classes.

  Elise was able to focus for the first time all week and she threw herself into the in class assignment. Halfway through, she found herself rubbing at her eyes as the weight built. She almost swore out loud when she pulled her hand away from her eyes. The pressure faded a little when she stopped working on her task and searched f
or that happy glow that had encompassed her over the last couple of weeks.

  Desperately she clawed through her purse, hoping her mom had put some of her medication in it just in case she needed it, but all she found was a handful of panty liners and her wallet.

  Of course, the school didn’t allow prescription medication or, really, anything, but she’d still hoped. Maybe her mom had given the school nurse some. Shoving her hand into the air, Elise called out to the teacher. “Mr. Stevens!”

  He looked up from his desk. “Yes?”

  “I think I’m getting a headache.”

  Chairs screeched across the floor as the students nearest her scooted away.

  “Do you want to go to the nurse?” He swallowed and glanced around as if nervous.

  “Yes please.” Elise grabbed her bags and stood, trying to ignore the frightened glances students gave her.

  “Go ahead. I’ll let her know you’re coming.” He picked up the inter-school phone.

  Elise hurried from the room, and she hoped she only imagined the sigh of relief from the classroom. Her fellow students couldn’t be afraid of her, could they? She paid attention as she hurried through the almost empty hallways, but the other students and one teacher she did encounter gave her wide-eyed looks when they saw how she hurried.

  Had they been afraid of her since the incident with the ghosts? She wouldn’t have noticed because of the medication. Or maybe they were nervous because she was more alert, more herself, less medicated. Maybe the medicated cloud had made them feel safe, too. The more she thought, the more the force built behind her eyes. She tried to turn her mind off, but now that it had some momentum, the thoughts tumbled around in her brain, almost like they bounced off the inside of her skull. Tears leaked from her eyes by the time she reached the nurse’s station.

  “Elise!”

  She could barely see through the black splotches that clouded her vision.

  “Your mother is on her way. Why don’t you lie down?”