The Necromancer’s Great Adventure
By
Mortimer Jackson
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Copyright 2011 The Morning Dread
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The Necromancer’s Great Adventure
Chapter 1
The Necromancer’s Sympathy
All of us carries in our person a talent. A trait that separates us from everyone else, making us apt in fields that would otherwise overwhelm others, and thus gifted in certain areas of expertise.
26 year old Sebastian Grimm, much like everyone else in the world, possessed a unique, individual talent of his own. However, unlike everyone else in the world, his gift was one of an extraordinary nature. That is to say in short, that he could speak to the dead.
“What do you mean I’m dead?”asked the dead woman. Her skin was cold and blue. Her lips dark yet pale.
Sebastian stuttered and hesitated and locked his hands inside his pockets.
Yes, Sebastian Grimm had in him the capacity to speak to the unliving kind. But just as every individual carries a unique weakness for every strength, Sebastian Grimm too had an area for which he had little expertise. And an ironic one it was indeed. For despite his grand ability to summon and commune with those of the long and/or recently deceased, he struggled direly when it came down to carrying a simple conversation.
Of course, it could be argued that conversations with the dead were anything but simple.
“I mean,” Sebastian said, rubbing his cleft chin as though from somewhere within held the precise words he was looking for. Failing to conjure such a thing, he added simply, “You’re dead.”
“And why can’t I get off this slab? Why are all the lights out? Why are there candles everywhere? Why is there a drawing on the ceiling?”
Less than ten seconds alive, and already the girl would not let up. Of all the procedures that followed this sort of thing, Sebastian had found that what had easily been the most challenging aspect of bringing people back, was actually having to speak with them once they were alive. Buying new candles for the ceremony, finding a full pint of cow’s blood to hide underneath the subject’s bed, and taking the dedicated effort to chalk in a series of flawless, even shapes over the ceiling. No dear reader. For Sebastian Grimm, the painstaking task of preparation was nothing quite like the nerve racking trial of communication that stood before him at this very instant.
Sebastian slowly drew in a lung full of breath, held it, and then let it all out under one quick but poorly punctuated exposition.
“That’s not a drawing it’s a Mark of Moor. It allows me to summon consciences to life. The candles and the lighting are all part of a ritual for bringing people back and the reason you can’t get off the slab because your conscience is what’s alive and not your body your body is still technically dead on account of your recent suicide.”
“Wait,” said Samantha. “Suicide?”
“You killed yourself,” said Sebastian, feeling somewhat surprised that he had to explain this as well. “You threw a television over a bath tub.”
“A bath tub? Whose bath tub?”
“Yours. When you were in it.”
“What? I don’t remember any of that.”
“Electric shock doesn’t tend to leave much room for recollection. What with all the volts going through your brain, I’m actually surprised that you can still talk.”
“But I’m not even dead.”
Sebastian Grimm hated to say it, but “Technically, you are. I brought you back for a few minutes so you could part with any final wishes that you may have before you go. Or in your case, clear up any false assumptions about your death.”
“I would never kill myself.”
“Not suicide then. So, accident, then? Possibly?”
“It was no accident,” she said, and was certain of it. Details began to grow in her mind until her eyes jutted out. “There was someone there.”
“You mean murder?”
Sebastian remained doubtful of it even as he asked. But the woman latched on to the word. Murder.
“Do you know of anyone who might have wanted you dead?”followed the necromancer. Or, as the policeman would never ask, “Did you see who killed you?”
Samantha shifted her head, scowling ponderously as she did. Then, a pair of widened eyes followed her sudden realization.
“I was taking a bath, watching The Sins of Us. I remember hearing someone step inside my apartment. From the shower curtains it didn’t look so much like a person. More like a shape. Yes. That’s what it was. A long, black shape wearing a hoodie. I was just barely able to look at his face when he tipped over the TV.”
Samantha drifted into a trance. She continued to ponder silently, searching her memories for the truth. Then, without so much as a signal of warning, it all came back.
“It was Jacob!” she shot, her expression a blend of equal parts surprise and anger. “I know I saw his face! That sorry sod broke into my house and had me killed!”
“Jacob?” Sebastian asked.
“A man that works at my bank,” she replied. And before Sebastian could even muster a question over motive, “He wanted that associate manager promotion, so he had me killed.”
“You were killed over a promotion?” asked Sebastian, his mind struggling to comprehend what to him sounded like as a ludicrous idea. “Why would someone want to end your life over a thing like that?”
“Jacob was always a jealous man,” she said. “And arrogant. Ever since Carla quit her job, he fancied himself a shoe-in for the position. Fact is that everyone else in the office knew who was going to get the job. Jacob was bright, but the boss man never did think too highly of him. Me on the other hand.” Samantha drew in a breath of air, not knowing that her being dead rescinded the need for such a motion. Sebastian spoke nothing of it. For the dead, breathing had always been something of a subconscious habit. And at any rate there was no sense reminding her any more than was necessary of her unfortunate condition. “Anyhow, he killed me because I was his competition.”
Sebastian hovered about over the dead woman on his slab, arms crossed, gazing down in sympathy.
“If it’s any consolation, I promise that I will bring your co-worker to justice.”
“Seeing as,” she began, and her cheeks began to twinge. Sebastian knew full well what she was about to say before the words had even fully taken shape in her mind. He had seen it before in all the others that he had temporarily brought back to life. And his anticipation of the impending request made his inevitable refusal even that much more difficult to bear.
“Seeing as how you were able to bring me back half to life, I was wondering if maybe you could, you know, make it so I wasn’t dead anymore.”
It was a pity that out of all the possible ways to meet the end of her life, Samantha’s had to be an inconclusive and unsatisfying one at that. To have been abruptly murdered over a promotion as opposed to say, dying of old age. Fulfilling her lifelong ambitions. Finding true love. Beginning a family of her own.
Samantha would never find that now.
“I’m sorry,” came Sebastian as he knelt directly beside her. “That isn’t the kind of power I have.”
Samantha melted at the sincerity in his eyes.
“That’s okay. I know you mean well.”
Somewhere in the distant corner of her sense of sound, Samantha heard a series of mechanical ticks. Like that of an old clock.
“What is that noise?”
Sebastian redirected his gaze to the egg timer at the far end of the room.
“It’s a timer,” he said. “For the spell. It’s set to last exactly five minutes.”
“Really? What
spell?”
The egg timer rang. And Samantha was no more.
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