The words I’d used last time were floating in my head, but something about them seemed off, and I spent a few moments rearranging and adding words, though it was a language I had no understanding of beyond the feelings it gave me.
Once I was satisfied, I started chanting them aloud, each repeat growing louder and more powerful. Mid-sentence, something ran into the clearing, but I was caught in the magic, wind swirling around me, and couldn’t look away from the mouse until my words trailed off and it hopped up, back to life, scurrying off into the grass before I could see if it would die again like the bird.
The wind receded like it never was, and I turned to see a pack of wolves coming at me.
No. Not wolves.
Lycans.
Fumbling up, I didn’t bother gathering my supplies as I grabbed my coffin bag, and I backed away until something on the ground tripped me, sending me flying across the ground. I could never get away now, and I turned to see the wolves descending on me like I was a juicy steak. Before they reached me, the biggest wolf of the pack rounded in front of them and stood in front of me, growling as a threat for them to back off.
The eff?
The wolf was enormous, he could’ve easily doubled as a horse if I jumped on his back. I carefully got up, just in case he would turn on me too. His rump was as tall as my shoulders, and his silvery fur flowed with the movement of his muscles, looking so soft I wanted to run my hands through it, you know, if he wouldn’t bite my head off for it.
“Jaz, run!” Gilbert was beside me, and I took the chance that the silvery giant would let me leave, running back to the castle as fast as I could without looking back. I didn’t stop until I was inside the barrier, Gilbert floating just outside it with a worried look on his disembodied face as I tried to catch my breath. “Are you okay?”
My spine jumped when a wolf howled, and I watched the silver Lycan pace the outskirts of the forest, staring at me with his glowing blue eyes, growling if any of the other wolves got too close to him. I didn’t waste time wondering what the hell had just happened, I tucked tail and ran back to school, all the way to the entry hall where I literally smacked into Wisniewski and Halace who were putting out all the candles.
“Jasmine, what happened?” Wisniewski asked me, holding my elbow as I tried to slow my wheezing breath.
“L-lycans,” I got out between gasps. “In the forest.”
“Oh my god,” Wisniewski swore, popping her hand to her mouth.
Halace was up on her heels and swishing her long dress towards the staircase. “Isabelle, get Jasmine to her dorm. I’ll inform Headmaster Cauldron that Lycans have breeched the perimeter. I keep telling that man we should curtain off the forest with a barrier, maybe now he’ll listen to me, for spark’s sake.”
Wisniewski led me behind Halace, climbing the stairs together. “I hardly think now is the proper time to be complaining about the Headmaster, Selene. If Lycans are this close to the school, what other magical beasts are lurking nearby? The centaurs made camp ten miles east of here, and we all know how fast they can run. The shield around the school is strong, but not infallible.”
“God,” I grumped, stopping at a landing to rub my aching calves. “Would you two shut up and make out already?”
Halace whirled on me, her perfect face pink at the cheeks. “That’s enough from you, Jasmine. Off to your dorm.”
I left the two biddies to biddy about, clomping up the stairs until I reached the Advanced Studies dorm and stepped inside, eager to sleep away the events from my horrible day.
Alec sat on one of the common room couches, looking up when I walked past, and I didn’t even bother shooting him the bird, I just ignored him and went straight to my room.
The next day was Saturday, meaning all the cool kids went to Highborn village, and I went to the library where all the nerds had gathered to study instead of having an actual social life. Not that I had one either, mind you, but I liked to think I did.
Walking down the aisles of shelves and tables where several groups of teens were typing away on their laptops, I went straight to the Advanced Studies section that normal students weren’t allowed in. There was another section at the back of the library that only the teachers had access to, but Headmaster Cauldron had said I could go anywhere in the library, so I headed there first.
As I reached the locked door of the teacher section and raised my hand to cast an unlocking spell, I heard a gasp to my left where a sunny corner of the room was occupied by a couple making out against a desk. I don’t even have to say who it was because Alec seemed to be following me everywhere even though I definitely hadn’t sent him an invitation to do so.
The girl he had wrapped around his suit was blonde, skinny, and had definitely used a breast enlargement spell because hello. Said engorged breasts were under Alec’s hands that he smoothly dropped to his sides, giving the girl one last kiss before turning and addressing me like the girl wasn’t even there.
“Morning, Jaz,” he schmoozed with a grin, stuffing one hand into his slacks pocket and eyeing me up and down like I was a buffet spread. The girl tried to grab him back to her lips but he gently lifted her off the desk and down to the floor. “Always a pleasure, love,” he told her without breaking his contact with my eyes. She apparently knew the routine because she bounced off, literally, until she was out of sight behind some of the shelves.
“You’re up early,” I noted dryly, looking down at his zipper to emphasize my joke.
He laughed and clicked his fingers, producing his vape pen that he stuck between his teeth. “And you’re here in the library, where the only people who come here on the weekend are couples trying to get some.” He sucked in from the pen and let the smoke creep out from his nostrils. “I’d be happy to oblige if that’s the case.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and turned back to the metal gate door, unlocking it with a wave of my hand. “It may come as a shock, but I don’t like you, Alec. So if you would be a dear and go bother someone else, that’d be smashing.” Just as I started into the teacher section, he was right behind me, standing in the doorway as I found a spot to put my bag down on one of the desks.
“I’m sorry, Jaz.” The sudden shift in tone had me turning back to him, and he had that serious look again, the one that made me feel hot all over. “I’m sorry about yesterday, I was being an ass.”
Thrumming my fingers on my bag, I tried to calm my racing pulse. Damn it, pulse! Stop reacting to him! “Glad you can admit it.”
“I, uhh,” he started, coming towards me with his polished loafers, making me take a step back until my ass bumped into the desk edge. “I’m not used to actually conversing with the people I’m interested in. They usually only need a quick chat before they’re plastered all over me.” He took another step and I squished against the desk, my cheeks betraying me with a fresh flush of pink.
“And you think I’m a conquest? The first person to not immediately want you, so you’re determined to make me yours, is that it?”
He sighed, studying me, and put his vape pen into his back pocket. “No. Impossibly, no. I should be driven mad being unable to touch you, and I won’t lie and say that I’m not, but I’m just… disappointed. I had a chance to get to know an amazing girl, and I blew it.” Was this a ploy? Lure me in with honesty and then switch right back around to trying to get my pants off? “Tell me what I can do to prove I’m not a flake.”
I sat on the desk, crossing my arms over my chest and one booted leg over the other. “I’m not sure why you even care what I think, because it doesn’t matter what you do, I’m not going out with you.”
His eyes flicked around the room with a sigh before coming back to stare intently at my face. “Just tell me.”
“Fine. You have to stop kissing every person in the school. That includes everything after kissing too.” His jaw worked and he inhaled slowly, but his eyes didn’t waver from me. “And you have to stop with the vaping, even if it’s just an illusion.”
Hands
in his pockets, he rocked on the heels of his shoes, mouth curling up in acceptance. “Done.”
There’s no way it’s that easy.
“I really got under your skin, didn’t I, calling you a flake like that,” I taunted, tilting my head up at him.
A chunk of his brown hair fell into his grey eyes and he grinned at me. “See, you say you don’t like me, and then you flirt shamelessly. What’s a guy to think with mixed signals like that?”
Smile falling into a glare, I got up and turned to the shelves behind me. “If I like you, I’ll tell you. Simple as that.”
“Fair enough,” he conceded, walking across to me, and I ignored the shiver going up my spine in response. “If you’re looking for books on necromancy, there aren’t any.”
I looked him over in confusion. “Don’t tell me you actually come here to read?”
He sniggered and half sat on the desk next to me. “No, don’t be ridiculous. I pay attention to what people say around here. Necromancers are fascinating to the more scholarly students, and I’ve heard them grumping about it enough when I was trying to shamelessly make out in here. Not that I’ll be doing that anymore, unless you’re interested.”
Ignoring that, I picked my bag up and put the straps on my shoulders, watching him stare off at the shelf in front of him. “You don’t have to do what I say, you know. You can screw, kiss, smoke. Whatever you want.”
Alec stood up, towering in front of me like a warlock skyscraper, and I found it difficult to look up at him without feeling out of breath. “Exactly. I can do whatever I want. Except the one thing I really want to do.”
I rolled my eyes and swept past him on my way out of the teacher section. “I liked you better as an asshole.”
As my first week began, my classes were remedial at best. I wanted to learn how to raise a corpse, not how to enchant shoes to help you dance better. Because of the lack of Necromancy classes, I was stuck in general magic, and I was about ready to claw my hair out by the end of my second day.
Though I wasn’t in trouble for anything, despite earning demerits during every single period, I went in search of Headmaster Cauldron and found him with Halace in the Advanced Studies potions room where they were in front of a large cauldron, stirring a green mess that smelled like ladybugs.
“Miss Neck, lovely to see you,” Cauldron said with a welcoming smile. He stepped down from his little step stool and walked to where I stood. “What can I help you with?” Halace’s lips pursed at me but she continued stirring her concoction.
“I’m about to die here, Headmaster. I can’t take anymore remedial magic. I’m a necromancer. I should be resurrecting, and you know…” I waved a hand around in frustration. “Death stuff.”
Cauldron had a sympathetic smile, like he was used to dealing with students that complained about everything. “Every witch learns the basics, no matter their specialty. Even rejuvenation specialty knows how to make plants grow, how to summon fire, how to read tarot. But, I do understand your need to learn more about your own magic. I can offer private tutoring if you’d like, we can try to refine your natural skills along the way.”
“Alec says there aren’t any books on necromancy in the library.”
Halace made a noise without looking up. “I doubt that boy has cracked a book in his life.”
Cauldron ignored her, walking to one of the shelves on the walls and picking up one of the books there. “Alec is correct, we don’t have any specific necromancy tomes here, or anywhere for that matter. Whoever the last necromancer was didn’t share their secrets, apparently. However,” he continued, bringing the book over to the table beside Halace’s cauldron. “We do have some life spells and potions we can try. It’s more advanced rejuvenation curriculum, but there are a few even the most skilled rejuvenists couldn’t complete, leading me to believe they were put in the wrong book and are necromancer based. I’ve been doing some research since I learned of your placement, and here are all the spells and potions that I’ve found.”
I joined him at the table and opened the book he’d brought, finding about five pages of content with his scribbles, notes, and some drawings amongst the instructions. “There’s only five pages.”
Cauldron clicked his tongue at me and reached to flip one of the pages over. “It’s ten, they’re double sided. You’re lucky I found this much.”
Leaning in close to his tiny writing, I read the title of one of the potions. “This one brings back children that were lost.”
“You don’t just help the dead, you can also bring life. Your dominion is over both.”
The second page had a potion that was supposed to save someone from the brink of death. It looked advanced enough that even the potion master would struggle with it, so many ingredients it would take me an hour to gather them all, much less make the damn thing. My wide eyes brought Cauldron’s hands to the book and he took it from me.
“Perhaps something a little less difficult,” he said. “Halace, we’ll need the divination hall, if you would accompany us.” He led us out of the potions room and through the school until we reached the right place, the divination classroom where Halace taught the high schoolers how to interpret omens, and other superstitious shit like that.
“Am I looking into the future or something?” I asked, watching Cauldron walk up to one of the desks and pick up a crystal ball someone left behind.
Halace rubbed at her nose, trying to hide her eye roll in my direction. “Very few witches can do that, and you know you’d have to be divination for it.”
Cauldron brought the ball to Halace’s desk and it stayed still when he put it on the wooden surface. “Jaz, come sit.” I did so, plunking down into the chair that Halace usually sat in, enjoying the sour look on her face. “You’re going to speak to the dead with this. Eventually you’ll be able to do this without the ball, but it will help focus you until then. Hands on.” He motioned and I put my hands on the ball, the smoke tendrils swirling around inside it like ghostly fingers. “Now, picture someone you know who has died.”
There was only one person, and as his face came to me, I shot up from the chair and tried to hold back my tears. “No, I’m not doing this. I’m leaving.” I turned to go and a voice came from the ball, stopping me cold.
“Jasmine? Jaz, is that you?”
The tears bubbled over as I turned back to the sphere. “Dad?” I sat back down so hard I almost knocked the chair over, putting my hands back on the ball. “Dad, I’m here.” I strained to see him through the smoke, but the only thing that came from the crystal was his voice.
“Baby girl, I’ve missed you so much. How are you talking to me? Have you… Oh, Jaz, have you died too?”
“No, I’m not dead.”
“How is your mother? Aldrich and Bosley treating her right?”
I smiled, sniffing and wiping my cheeks. “Yeah, they’re all fine. We all miss you.”
“That’s great, baby. Jaz, I have to ask again. How are you talking to me?”
I looked up from the ball briefly, and Cauldron nodded to me. “I specialized, dad. I know you died before I was old enough, but it took me a few years to find my magic. I’m… I’m a necromancer.” The ball went deadly silent for several minutes. “Dad? Are you still there?”
He finally spoke, with a voice that sent chills all over me. “You can’t be a necromancer, Jaz. That’s impossible. There hasn’t been a necromancer for 400 years.” I started to respond but he cut me off, warbling at top pitch. “YOU CAN’T BE A NECROMANCER. NO ONE SHOULD HAVE THE POWER OVER LIFE AND DEATH. NECROMANCERS SHOULD NEVER EXIST. YOUR VERY PRESENCE IS A SCURGE UPON THE EARTH.” He broke off into unearthly howls before laughing evilly in a way I’d never heard my father behave. “Jasmine Neck. You should know better than to play with the dead.”
Something about the way he was speaking made me want to throw up. “You’re not my dad.”
The spirit scoffed, his voice no longer anything like my father’s. “Of course I’m not, you twit. Your
father was cremated, it’s impossible to bring his spirit back now. Had you going for a minute there, though, am I right?” He mimicked my dad’s voice again in a taunt. “How are Aldrich and Bosley.” His mocking laugh filled me with rage.
“Listen here, you little demented piece of shit!”
“That’s enough!” Cauldron declared, grabbing the ball away and the smoke stilled inside it, cutting off my connection to the spirit.
“That went well,” Halace commented dryly, inspecting her nails.
Cauldron gave her the stink eye, setting the crystal ball down on a lamp table. “Clearly I underestimated the amount of skill required for that.”
“Of which she has none,” Halace added with a hand to her hip.
I whirled on her and the power inside me rose in fury. “How about you keep the comments to yourself for once?” The apathy on her face only made me more enraged, so much so that the room started spinning in time with my ragged breath, papers picking up with an invisible wind, and objects around the room began to float, crystal balls falling to the ground with a crash.
Halace swore under her breath, drowned out by the wind building around me. “Cauldron, do something! She’s going to destroy my classroom!”
I couldn’t think, I could only feel.
Frustration, anger, rage, pain.
Cauldron was there, putting a hand to my leg. “Jaz, calm down. Breath in and out, that’s it.” I followed his instructions, and with every exhale the wind died down until everything was back on the ground again amongst the shattered glass.
I felt just as shattered.
“Clearly she’s a telekinetic. Might be useful to start learning to control it. One meltdown, and she could destroy the school with power levels like that.”
I looked down at my hands in wonderment. I’d almost destroyed the middle school potions classroom before, but I thought it was just a random magic burst. I could move stuff with my mind? Lifting one hand up, I focused on a pile of papers nearby and twirled my fingers, the papers responding to my magic, swirling around like a mini-tornado.
Neck-Romancer: A Neck-Romancer Novel Page 6