32 Dáinn #2
And I see the way the romance is blooming between Birdie and Jasper, though they are both eager to deny it.
There’s potential here for all three of us.
The seeds have been planted. I for one intend to do all in my power to nurture them so they sprout.
That must begin with me getting closer to Birdie.
“Don’t think I don’t know why you’ve come back so soon,” says the mage, always too clever by half. “My answer is no, Dáinn. I gave you a trinket and a death certificate. That is the end of my involvement in your revenge plans.”
Undeterred, I sit forward. “I need a body.”
He glances around, feigning holding a hand to his ear. “Did anyone hear that? No? Thought not.”
“Baz, please, I need a body.”
“Shut up and drink your tea.”
Reaching out, I grab his wrist. “Do this for me—”
He snarls, his lilac irises shifting to electric purple. “Do you remember what happened the last time I gave you a body to go haunt someone? Because I sure as hell do. It was a horror show, Dáinn. I was never invited to Windsor Castle again!” He twists free of my grip, rattling the tea things.
“This will be different,” I urge. “I am different. My forced bonding has changed me, Baz. I’m more focused now, more discerning. And her magic changes everything—”
“She has no magic! She’s a human, Dáinn. Humans don’t have magic.”
I shake my cowled head. “You don’t believe that. Humans are special. They’re capable of so much. Adaptable too. And she does have magic. Nothing else explains what is happening between us—”
“Nothing yet,” Baz corrects with a raised finger. “But I haven’t finished my quest for information. There are plenty of stones yet unturned. Whatever quirk of the natural order led her to stopping you once, I doubt she can even do it again.”
I sit back, my frustration simmering. My shadows creep up the walls, darkening the room.
“You play on my fears with the expertise of a violin virtuoso.” Jasper will hate my next words, but they must be said.
“I need to test her again. I need to be sure of her limits. Until I can be sure, she and Jasper are both at risk.”
Baz hides an eager smile behind his teacup. “Can I watch?”
I bristle, rasping low in my throat.
“For science, Dáinn, of course.”
We come to it. Basil Barnes never does anything for free. “Give me a body,” I say again. “A good one. One I can use to get closer to both my mortals. One I can use to help Jasper take on my mistress.”
“I’m hearing a lot of demands—”
“And in return,” I say over him, “you may watch us. One time only, you may watch my human stop me.”
He arches a dark brow. “You’ll all be naked when this happens, yes?”
I can’t deny the thrill I feel at the prospect, but I remain composed. “It will be for my human to dictate the parameters. One time,” I say again, raising a bony finger. “Do you agree to the terms?”
After a moment, he chuckles, rattling his cup and saucer down to the table. “Oh, Dáinn, you know I could never deny you anything. I agree, of course.” He rises to his feet. “And you’re in luck. I think I have the perfect specimen.”
Leaving our little tea service, I follow him through the autopsy room into the mortuary storage room. The bodies are stacked three-high in a set of refrigerated chambers along the back wall. There’s a preparation table too, bolted to the middle of the gently sloping floor.
Baz goes to one of the middle coolers, cranking open the door.
“This one just came in last night. He’s from the West Coast, so no one should recognize him wandering around the island.
I can tweak a few features, just to make sure.
Tall, handsome, with just enough of a dangerous edge to lure in the ladies . . . and the men.”
“Sounds perfect.”
Baz swings the door wide with a flourish, pulling out the metal tray. “Tada!”
I gaze down at the naked man. There’s horrible damage up the left side of his body.
The skin of his hip, shoulder, and arm look like they were shredded with a cheese grater.
There’s bruising too. A mortal head wound.
His last moments alive must have been exceptionally painful. “What happened to him?”
“Road rash,” Baz mutters. “Motorcycle crash. Nasty stuff. I’ll be able to clean that up in the rendering too. He’s handsome though, no?”
Sweeping lower, I take a closer look. He’s well sculpted for a human, about the size of my witch, possibly thirty years old.
His curly blonde hair rests about shoulder length.
It’s been washed clean post-autopsy and tucked behind his ears.
He has a short blonde beard and proud lips.
I dislike beards. That will have to go. “Eye color?”
Baz flicks open one of the corpse’s eyes. The pupil is fixed, the globe of the eye already cloudy. “Hmm . . . let’s call it whiskey brown.”
I nod once. “Yes, I think they’ll like this one.”
The mage grabs my wrist before I can drift too far back. “He’s handsome, Dáinn. But he’s just a shell. A magical mirage—”
“I know that.”
He lets me twist free of his grip. “Yes, but your problem is that you always let them fall for the lie. They need to fall for you.”
“Mortals are afraid of death. It makes them afraid of me. Renders are the only way I can get close, the only way they learn to accept me.”
“The right mortals for you will accept you for all that you are—the render and the wraith. I’ll make you this body because I know you’ll use it to help yourself get free of Ludmilla.
But I’m begging you, my dear friend, if you really care about these mortals .
. . if you think this could be different? Let them know the wraith.”
After a moment, I nod. “I will try.”
Sighing, he waves his hand at the desk in the corner. “Go pick a ring then. I’ll prepare the body.”
Excitement flutters in my chest like a swarm of bats as I float over to the desk. It’s been centuries since I’ve taken proper corporeal form. My sweet, silly witch thinks of a second skin as a literal peeling of a corpse’s flesh. It’s time to introduce him to an elevated range of necromancy.
Baz’s renders are top of the line. I’ve never found a necromancer who can equal him.
He doesn’t animate the dead bodies or strip their skin.
And I don’t inhabit them. He uses a corpse like a physical scaffold, creating a magical echo, a perfect shell.
It looks and feels like a human body, but it requires neither food nor water nor air.
The render is then linked to an enchanted object, making it easy to slip it on and off at will.
“Hurry up,” he calls.
On the corner of the desk, a small fishbowl is labeled “Lost & Found.” Inside is a collection of discarded jewelry from the unclaimed dead.
I stick my bony hand inside the bowl, fishing around with my fingers until I sense the ring that feels right.
Pulling it out, I pinch it between my thumb and forefinger.
It’s a chunky gold signet ring with a smooth, lapis lazuli stone.
Perfect.
I turn to see Baz already has the corpse laid out naked on the preparation table.
He whispers incantations to the body until it slowly starts to glow a soft purple-white.
With each touch of his hand to the corpse, the color of his own skin changes, the magic melting up his arms from fingertips to elbows.
They quickly take on the look of a sea of swirling galaxies.
The mage’s touch is pure magic, capturing all of space and time.
Chanting once more, he calls on the render to rise.
A glowing purple-white scaffold lifts from the body, mirroring the shape of the pale corpse below.
“I forgot about this,” Baz says in a voice no longer his own. It is all voices and none. Deep, musical, far away. Extending out the corpse’s mangled left arm, he traces a finger down the tattooed skin of the forearm. In gothic black letters are the words “memento mori.”
Remember you will die.
“Do you want to keep this? I can render it away—”
“No.” I drift closer, holding out the ring in the palm of my hand. “Keep it.”
Nodding, Baz takes the ring from my hand and slips it on the first finger of the dead man’s left hand. “Right then. Let’s give this body a second chance at life.”