The Necromancer's Gambit: The Necromancer
Nicolas Wilson
The Necromancer
We’re silent a long time, just staring at the body, hoping that if maybe we concentrate hard enough we’ll notice something that’s off, the tell-tale haze of a masking spell, the odor of a sculpting potion. Because Castle can’t be dead. He can’t be.
Bishop breaks the impasse. She walks to one of her cabinets, and grabs a fresh pack of cigarettes. She pulls away the plastic wrap, then tears a hole in the top. She takes one out of the pack, sets it between her lips, then she turns on a Bunsen burner, lights it with a click lighter, and uses the flame to torch the end of her cigarette.
She takes one long drag and nearly kill it. She lights another off the end, and hands it to me. I take in a deep breath through it, staring at Castle. My mind plays tricks on me, and tells me there are little details of the charred carcass that should have tipped me off.
Bishop lights another, and offers it to Rook, who mimes a “no thank you.” Pawn is already taking a cigar out of a little metal cylinder. Bishop shrugs, and keeps it.
I dial my cell without thinking. Each ring I tense up more and more. Wondering if something has happened to the royals. Someone picks up, but they don’t say anything. “King?” I ask.
“What?” his voice is sand on glass.
“You and the Queen at the Centre?” I ask.
“Uh-huh.”
“Good.” I look at Pawn, who tips a nonexistent hat at me as he chews the end off his cigar. “Pawn’s on his way. We have to move you.”
“So I’m being castled.” He isn’t happy about the idea.
“Sort of. Something’s happened. He’ll fill you in when he gets there, but we can’t use our normal protocols; Castle’s compound is compromised.”
That wakes him up. “I see. If we’re eschewing the standard procedure, why not stay at the Centre? It’s as armored as an armadillo anus.”
Bishop holds out a petri dish and I stub out my cigarette into it. “But it also might be where you’re expected to be. So Pawn’s going to come up with something less predictable. And I’ll be trying to put things back on their axis.”
“What about Bishop?”
“That depends entirely on my rhetorical skills.”
“Then I presume we’ll see her later rather than sooner.” There’s a pause, and the humor goes out of his voice. “Tell her to be careful.”
“Of course.” I hang up. “B? You should go with Pawn.”
“My work is too precious to leave behind.”
“Your files are all backed up. And they’re meaningless without you to make sense of them.”
“My files only disturb the surface; I barely understand a fraction of the crap we keep in the archives. I’m not even sure which cultures half of it came from, let alone speak to provenance. This is my life’s work. I’d rather die here than live without it.”
“And you’d take more than a couple bastards with you, I’m sure.” Pawn smiles, then leans into the Bunsen’s flame until the end of his cigar turns red; I’m more than a little surprised he doesn’t singe his eyebrows. He waves and turns towards the door; acknowledging that I’ve already lost this fight.
Rook finishes off her second cigarette and grinds it out in the petri dish, and has get through a fit of coughing before she can speak. “Hate these damned things. Just figure out who did this and put them in the ground. That’s the best way to keep all of us safe.”
“Want me to leave Rook for back up?”
“Depends.” She pauses just long enough to give me hope, then adds, “Can she tell me what a Mariri is?” We both know she can’t- it’s why she turned down the smokes.
Rook can’t believe it. “You’re quizzing me? I have no idea.”
Bishop waves her away. “Then you’re more use to him.”
I don’t know how she figures, but arguing the point is only going to make Rook feel more useless than she already does. “Better put in a call to Hammy’s,” I tell Bishop. “He’ll want the usual.”
“Yeah.”
Rook’s still pissed about the pop quiz, and it shows in the way she walks toward the care. “You didn’t put up much of a fight with Bishop.”
I open her door and she yanks it shut as she slides in. I take my time walking around the front of the car, and don’t respond until the car’s moving. “Bishop’s a prodigy; between the archives, her supplies, and what she knows, she could topple a third world dictator- during that thing with Gaddafi, she seriously talked about going to Libya.”
“Somebody hitting Castle, he’s our muscle, and it makes us look weak. But attacking Bishop? She doesn’t wield any real political power- she’s basically just a lab geek. Cost-benefit wise, you’d have to be insane to try and take her out. The King and Queen, yeah, politically speaking, they’d be worth blowing up the Centre, maybe even a few city blocks, to get to. They’re the head, neck and shoulders of the Gambit- and Castle, the torso, is already gone.”
Rook crosses her arms. She wants to pout, but her curiosity already has the better of her. “So what’s a Mariri?”
“What the hell happened to the Circle? I’ve broken up frat house covens with more practical knowledge.” I realize a moment too late I’m being harsh; it isn’t her fault her coven has regressed to ritualistic witchcraft. “It’s a protection spell, one of the easiest to keep up. It’s renewed through tobacco smoke. It’ll trap most orally ingested or inhaled poisons in the phlegm, so they can be safely spit back up.”
“Except cancer. But us Salem witches- we’re normal people. Not a lot of folks try to poison us.”
“Leading a Gambit will change that. It’s only a matter of time before somebody takes a pot-shot.”
“And Rook seemed to think you were going to put them in the ground.”
“She’s a scientist. She can’t help but look at the numbers. I try to use nonlethal apprehension methods, but it can be… tricky taking in a mage alive. Pretty much always comes to a point where they have to give up, or you have to kill them.”
She doesn’t like that answer, but I think she understands it. “Okay. You told the King we aren’t using the usual protocols. So what are we doing?”
“Castle’s dead, but we don’t know how or where. He’s been living in a cabin out past Clackamas, which is where the King and Queen are supposed to go if there’s a threat to either of them. But since it’s also the most likely site of his murder, we can’t send them there.”
“And if someone had even a passing knowledge of your contingencies, they might have set a trap there. You’re taking to me into that trap, aren’t you?”
“Yep. But first I need to get someone to help Rook.”
“I thought she didn’t need help.”
“Not martially. But when we’re looking at dead bodies, we have a specialist we like to consult.”
“A necro.”
“Yep. Though he doesn’t like the word. Conflates necromancy with necrophilia. Even if there’s connection between the two.”
“I thought that study out of the Cleveland Coven had been debunked.”
“It has; the research was tainted. But I’ve known about a dozen necros in my time, and two-thirds of them have admitted dalliances with a corpse- and that’s over drinks, not over interrogating.”
“I assume having a drink with you is like being interrogated.”
“I’m told I can be quite pleasant. And yes, maybe it’s anecdotal, but Harry knows it’s true.” She looks at me like I’ve just run over a black cat then sped up. “Harold’s not shy about his name. Oh, and I should warn you, he’s homeless- though it might be more accurate to say he’s a modern nomad- or maybe just an old school mage.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Mages don’t trust authority; we make too convenient a scapegoat for other people’s problems. Just look at the popular history of witchcraft. And in a tangible way, living inside normal society is submitting to an authority. So he lives an ascetic life- though he’s no monk; he prefers to be unencumbered by things or places. I call him Dirty Harry. Not because he’s homeless- to tease him about necromancers screwing corpses.”
“So it’s a veiled accusation, then?”
“I take him at his word. But shame has a good history of keeping people on the straight and narrow- it’s the basis of most religions. Harry doesn’t want to have sex with corpses- but it’s a hazard of his profession.”
“So you’re like his sponsor, then? In corpse-shaggers anonymous.”
“No. Just a friend. But I’ll kill you if you tell him that.” I stop the car. “We’re here.”
Harry’s skinny, like the rail he’s leaning on; he stares at the city lights reflected on the Columbia River. “Took you fucking long enough.”
Rook’s surprised. “You were expecting us?”
“Lloyd told me you were on your way. But if I’d known you’d be taking your sweet ass time I’d have had a nap. Some of us are actually diurnal.” He looks back at Rook. “New girl, right? Do me a favor. Turn around.” She hesitates, then does. “Eh.” He shrugs.
“What?”
“Oh, Lloyd said you were a major piece- which I hope wasn’t a chess joke. No offense, or anything- nothing wrong with you, just not my teacup.”
“Not decayed enough for you?” I ask.
“Not every necromancer screws corpses,” he says.
“Just most,” I say.
“I’m going to do vile things to your corpse one day.” Beat. “Not sexual things, though- just terrible ones. Necromancer’s aren’t perverts.”
“Harry, Rook, Rook, Harry,” I say.
Rook isn’t sure how to greet him, but puts out her hand. “Harry? I thought we don’t use names.” He shakes it.
“He doesn’t, because he’s delusionally paranoid. But I’m a necromancer and a vagrant- potent combination. Are you familiar with the golden dart frog? Highly poisonous, so much so that unlike most frogs, it’s active during the day. Predators know that whatever meal they might get isn’t worth the price they’d pay for it.”
“I’ve never met, one of you. Our coven doesn’t do necromancy.”
“Most don’t. Probably the stigma; witches have trouble not getting burned even when they’re not talking to corpses. The lore says women are… uniquely connected to life, because they give birth, and that makes necromancy harder on them; I don’t know if I believe that. Maybe they’re just more chastened by the… downsides, than their male counterparts. Women tend to stay away from Knight, too; it could just be women have better innate survival instincts.”
He turned back towards the water, and looked at the moon’s reflection through the parting clouds. “Though, technically speaking, necromancy’s just a school of divination, from the Greek word manteia- means prophecy. But its modern connotation usually includes all death magics. People fear death, because it’s unknown, and to most people, unknowable. But I’ll let you in on a little secret: dead things are just different. Not better, not worse, simply different. And necromancy is a conversation: the things of that world talk as much as I do. That conversation makes us develop an… affinity for things that normal people would turn their noses up at.”
“Like hanging out with horny old ghosts.”
“Most dead people want the same thing the living want: somebody to listen- well, that and to look at the occasional ass. And when they’re calm, and reasonable about it, I don’t mind. After the 6th Sense, every pushy specter thinks I’m his mailman, but they’re the exception. And Lloyd’s… a special circumstance. He used to sleep over there, under that moldering cardboard. He died of cancer, a melanoma. Did you know the rate of homeless cancer deaths is nearly double the average? Sorry. I’m not preaching. Just, the statistic surprised me- stuck with me. So did Lloyd. He doesn’t want to let go.”
“Unfinished business?” Rook asks.
“Nothing like that. No wife. No children. No wrongs to right. He’s just, not ready for whatever comes next.”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“Nobody comes back. How could I?” he says.
“But why live out here? You could actually do what John Edward claims to- couldn’t you make a shitload of money as a necro, uh, mancer?” Rook asks.
“I do the odd job, but only enough to get by, and only on jobs I want to take. But part of the reason I stay here is nobody’s closer to death than the homeless. It’s something they have to live with, every day. And we understand each other better for it.”
I’m getting impatient, so I open up the back seat, and he climbs right in. A white cat with a cricked tail jumps up into his lap. “What the hell? You’re taking in strays, now?” I ask him.
“I don’t have a home to take her into, but I feed her.”
“Does she have a name?” Rook asks.
“Bindle.” He says. “I found her this winter; I didn’t know if she was going to survive. But she sticks pretty close to me, now.”
“Can I pet her?”
I glance back, about to ask if she sheds when I notice his peppery coat salted with fur, like the first half hour of fresh Portland snowfall on asphalt. She’s got eyes the color of a piss test, full of fight and flight. Rook doesn’t pause for an answer, and reaches out her hand. The cat waits until it’s hand is an inch away and bites down on her pointer finger.
“Ow,” Rook says, pulling back her hand.
My phone beeps. Bishop’s texted me about her errand. “Got the last pizza out of Hammy’s, King Earl’s Deliverance.”
Harry leans his head into the front seat. “I could tongue kiss you right now.”
“Please don’t. Though you might have to fight Bishop for the chicken wings.”
Harry smiles. “Either way, I end up with breast in my hand.” Beat. “Nothing? Come on, that was funny.”
“It might have been, if the order was for breasts instead of wings,” Rook says.
“So you’re getting the food,” I start to count on one hand, “your normal fee, plus I’ll get you a dropping everything and helping us now bonus.”
“Fuck the fee, I could use some on reagents.”
“That’s between you and Bishop. You can convince her to open her stores, that’s fine by me. Trade’s always easier to come by than cash. ”
“But a good word from you would grease those wheels.”
I pull to the curb outside the lab. “Fine, I’m texting. You can get out now. And don’t touch the door. She’ll open it when she’s ready.”
“Or else my eyeballs freeze solid and then explode in horrific, brain-stabby shrapnel, I know.”
“Actually she’s improved on it since then; now there’s molten pus.”
“Cool.” He gets out and Bindle drops onto the curb, and follows him. I wait until Bishop opens the front door, and waves me on. With the two of them, in her lab, it’s probably the safest place in the city, or at least the deadliest. But before last night, I thought Castle was untouchable.