Chapter 2 #3
That I could believe, but her purpose had become dark, resulting in the deaths of many. Unfortunately, her story gave the ghost a disturbing amount of credibility. “I’m going to guess she was attempting to make use of necromancy to bring her family back to life.”
“That motivation fits with all the pieces we have so far. And someone willing to practice this form of necromancy isn’t going to have a problem with hiding bodies under the floor of a house.
And since the place had never been finished, the original owner likely had no idea it was being used for alternative purposes.
” Erik moved the flashlight to take in the entire pile of bones.
“The room must have been absolutely packed with bodies before they’d rotted away, and magic must have assisted with their decay. ”
Considering the lack of other material accompanying the bones, I agreed with him. “Scavengers would have left some evidence for us, but there’s none.” I took a closer look at the large bones near me. “There aren’t any chew marks, either.”
“It’s quite possible she managed to learn enough necromancy to accelerate the decay of the bodies once they failed to be of use to her for her main project.”
“When I look at these bones, I understand why there’s so much hatred for necromancy in Miami,” I confessed. “Even having learned there are better sides to necromancy, this is teaching me a lot. I thought I understood why people hate necromancy so much. But now? Now I get it.”
And yet, I couldn’t help but think about Monster, the little kitten given a second lease on life because a kind man had provided him with a conjured body.
Then I wondered how he had succeeded with Monster where Madam Merorie had failed with her family.
Determined to no longer remain a coward, I asked, “Why did Monster live and her son die if she dabbled in necromancy?”
“You just gave the answer. She dabbled. Monster wasn’t dead when his soul was helped to a new body. She tried to bring back the dead. Monster never died. Someone who dabbles wouldn’t understand the importance of that difference.”
“Yet you know,” I muttered.
“Once I heard about your misgivings about Monster, I did some research and asked around. Honestly, I hid that from you because I’m possibly scarred for life about those talks and wanted to spare you.
But believe me when I say it is all about how they went about it.
Monster was saved out of love and compassion.
Madam Merorie wished to violate the natural order of things because of greed.
She wasn’t trying to save her child for his sake but rather for hers. ”
“Can a necromancer bring someone back to life?”
Erik muttered curses, and he swept his flashlight across the entirety of the basement and its many bones and skulls.
“For a time, they can turn a corpse into a puppet, a puppet that might draw back the soul if it lingers and wishes to return, but the soul won’t stay.
The corpse is no longer compatible with life.
From my understanding, the ‘returned,’ if you can even call them that, only remains for as long as the necromancer is working the magic, and that magic takes a heavy toll.
Most who dabble in that dark art can only sustain a puppet for a few hours, and the puppet is fully reliant on the necromancer controlling their body. ”
“Let me see if I understand this correctly. For Monster to have been given a new lease on life, the necromancer had to work with him before his death, with a conjured body available for his use?”
“There is another component. When the necromancer gave Monster a longer life, he cut his short. He aged himself significantly providing the magic and the spark of life to enable Monster’s soul to bond with his new body.
From my understanding of it, he sacrificed at least twenty years of his life making certain Monster could live his. ”
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” I murmured. “A life for a life, and cats can live to be twenty, can’t they?”
“They can. I’ve been told that Monster will live for as long as the necromancer had sacrificed for.
When that energy runs out, he will pass.
His conjured body ages, but not the same way a regular cat does.
He just doesn’t get sick like regular cats, either.
But Monster is, in all ways, a cat living a cat’s life.
It just happens he was given a perfect body, one that doesn’t sicken and only ages as the magic that made him drains away. ”
“Madam Merorie would have never sacrificed her life for her son’s, would she?
” The greedy rarely considered any form of true sacrifice.
They wanted it all, and they were unwilling to pay any price to secure their goal, even if that goal was their child’s life.
“It would have been her life for his? Or for her husband’s? Or her parents’?”
“That seems to be the case. There isn’t another case like Monster, though.
The kind of person who would sacrifice twenty years of their life for a cat isn’t typically the type of person who decides to become a necromancer.
And honestly, I doubt we’ll ever understand why he would sacrifice so much for a kitten. ”
“Do you know his name?”
“I do, but he had a final wish, and that was to be forgotten and allowed to rest in peace. You can learn his name and history if you really want, but I’m going to make you investigate it yourself.
If you do decide to go learn more about him, well, you’ll learn a lot on the way.
I did. There is a lot more to necromancy than I believed possible, and the practice is far worse than I ever imagined.
And if my suspicions prove to be correct, this is only the beginning. ”