Chapter One #2
Bristling, Bilsby reached into his vest pocket. With a trembling hand, he set the leather satchel of coins atop the table. “You keep an awful lot of paperwork for someone who does this outside the law.”
“The paperwork isn’t for the courts. It’s so when you inevitably return later to complain about my services, I can shove proof of your blatant disregard for my cautions in your face.”
“Any cautions you’d utter are irrelevant,” Bilsby huffed. “I just want my wife back.”
“Of course you do. And while I can bring her back, the divine thread that weaves her memories, her personality, her mannerisms to her body, will only last for as long as—”
“Just return her to me!” The force of his tone failed to match the stout, quivering patron who had cowered on the doorstep moments prior.
“I wouldn’t have hauled her all the way here against the laws of Nyllmas, dodging the Red Sentinel, marinating in her blood, if I wasn’t damn well sure I wanted her back.
I paid your price, I signed your paper, now do whatever it is you people do. ”
“My people? Necromancers are hardly a—you know what? Never mind.” Stifling all outward signs of emotion, Sikras pocketed the money and blew on the ink to dry it before handing it to Ben. “File these with the others for me, would you?”
Benjamin’s eyeless sockets gawked at the papers for only a moment before he tossed them on the floor with the other disorganized contracts that Sikras had collected over the years. “All filed.”
“Perfect, thank you. All right, then.” Sikras cracked his knuckles and rotated his shoulders. “Stand back. Time for the fun part.”
Arthritis, or carpal tunnel, or some other irritating affliction unbefitting a man in his midthirties made perfecting the necessary hand gestures required for the spell the most annoying part of a resurrection.
Nevertheless, Sikras powered through, twisting wrists and fingers in a flurry of memorized movements.
The atmosphere shifted, suffused with otherworldly energy that pulsed with forbidden power. Rising tendrils of smoke curled in the room as Sikras initiated the spell’s verbal component: “An’stisei tus necrouz.”
It appeared. Like a streamer tethered to the woman’s gutted chest was her life thread, her essence, the raw energy that animated a body. A bead of sweat tickled the side of Sikras’s forehead as it snaked its way to his jaw.
Good, got the essence. Halfway there. All that remained was the soul.
Sikras mentally reached out, and while his physical body remained in his dining room, his mind snapped into Enos.
A soundless wonderland of various flora sprawled before his vision.
Trillions of soft, glowing plants stretched into an impossibly far horizon.
He recognized the plants for what they were—the afterlife’s representation of human essence, each plant somehow tangible and intangible, the Grim Reaper’s veritable garden of human life.
Little balls of light floated above the various flowers and vines, like luminous particles of dust caught in a stream of sunlight.
Souls. Souls that lingered in Enos, waiting for their chosen deity to collect them and bring them to that deity’s individual plane to live out eternity in whatever afterlife their god or goddess fashioned.
Sikras reached out, feeling, searching, until he sensed the missing half belonging to the woman sprawled on his dining table. Her soul parted from the others, drawn to him like a magnet, and though he had no olfactory senses in Enos, the sensation of rosewater and cotton struck him.
Soul in hand, he blinked out of Enos and into his body, his dining room.
The rhythmic beat of his heart quickened, his breath growing shallow, as black mist erupted from his palms and enveloped the corpse in an undulating shroud of darkness.
The light of the woman’s soul competed against it, glowing bright enough to cast shadows on the walls.
A sudden chill siphoned all heat from the room, which was a very handy side effect of resurrections during the summer months.
Sikras had often raised the dead in the insufferable seasonal heatwaves for no other reason than to cool the living quarters.
Today, however, with winter on the horizon, it sent an unpleasant shiver through his arms. Fortunately, the ritual was near completion.
The fabric of the planes between living and dead quivered as the two broken pieces—the thread of essence attached to the corpse and the soul plucked from Enos—wove together.
The body on the table convulsed, a spasm of life jolting through her limbs.
Sikras matched her tremor when the snap of magical backlash crackled through his body.
The price of spellcasting. Blood and bone, it burned like a thousand little needles sinking into his skin.
Winded, he wiped the sweat from his brow and leaned forward to inspect the movements within the once lifeless vessel.
A flicker of light, dim and fragile, lit the woman’s eyes when they shot open.
The room fell into an unsettling hush, save for the labored breathing coming from both Sikras and the resurrected woman.
She sat upright, slow and deliberate, intestines still exposed, skin still pale from blood loss.
She looked every bit the same as she had when Bilsby had dragged her to Sikras’s doorstep, albeit more animated.
“Bilsby?” The woman’s shaking hands patted her body, her face, as if touching herself would assuage her confusion. “Wh—where am I? What happened?”
“She’s ... She’s ...” Bilsby stumbled backward, a look of horror twisting his expression. “She’s not right. Put her guts back in, sew her up, something! Gods, man, she still looks like she’s dead!”
“Come now, that’s no way to speak to your wife.” Sikras swatted Bilsby with the back of his wrist and found the woman’s gaze. “Does he always talk to you like this?”
“You said you’d bring her back!” Bilsby stuttered, spittle flying from his lips.
“And I did. I’m a necromancer, sir, not a tailor. If you want her sewn up, I recommend Carpin Capers Clothing. Granted, it has been four years since I stepped foot in the city, but last I heard, Jiselle was a master of her craft.”
“I—I can’t do this. What good is she in this state? I can’t be married to a, a monster. That’s not my wife; that’s an abomination!” An accusatory, quaking finger trembled in Sikras’s face. “Fuck you, you soulless demon!”
The picture of calm, Sikras wiped away a fragment of spittle that had flown from Bilsby’s lips and onto Sikras’s face. “Benjamin, please show Mr. Bilsby the door. He’s dropping some very subtle hints that he’d like to leave.”
“To your right, sir.” An unflappable aura of professionalism emanated from the skeleton as he pointed toward the exit. “We thank you for your business and hope you’ll come again.”
Wounded deer scuttled toward safety with more grace than poor Mr. Bilsby. His boots slipped on strewn papers, nearly toppling him, as he dashed for the door. Soon, the only thing left of him was the haggard voice that echoed in the mist outside, “Death to all of you, you rotten bastards!”
“Don’t forget to recommend us to friends and family,” Sikras called out, then faced the slack-jawed woman before him. “He seems nice.”
“He’s an arse!” she spat out, chest heaving with each unnatural breath. “Why did he—how am I—?”
“You must have questions. I used to have a pamphlet somewhere, but I’m afraid it’s lost to the chaos.
Here, let’s have a seat where there’s less cutlery.
” Sikras slid his hand into hers and eased her off the table, frowning when one of her organs fell from the hole in her stomach.
“Oh, dear. You don’t need that, do you? Benjamin can dust it off if you’d like. ”
“No trouble at all, milady.” Without delay, Benjamin scooped up the organ and picked off pieces of debris.
Puffy-eyed and on the brink of tears, she shook her head. “Something tells me that’s the least of my problems.”
“Come, now. Just because you’re sort of dead, and in a complete stranger’s home, and your husband ran away screaming after calling you a monster?
Trust me, sweetheart, I’ve seen worse.” Supporting her fragile frame, Sikras guided her to a dusty, padded seat.
“Bilsby’s reaction isn’t terribly uncommon.
The fantasy of having a loved one resurrected is often kinder than the reality. ”
“Loved one? Ha. More like his financial security.” Her bottom lip trembled as tears welled. “I just ... I can’t believe it. I remember the fear, the pain, the gremlins. And Bilsby, he just ran. Left me to die.”
“Yes, he seems to be quite good at running.”
She regarded Sikras with wide, glistening eyes. Confusion—and probably early signs of decomposition—choked her words. “I saw Death. I crossed the threshold into Enos. I was at peace, waiting for Goddess Adalin to take me to her paradise. And then, I heard your voice.”
“Death was there, was she?” Sikras cringed as he eased into a nearby chair. “I’ll be hearing from her soon, I’m sure. She hates it when I mess with her garden.”
“I like Death,” Benjamin said, shrugging. “I think she’s nice. And that body. Yes, sir.”
Sikras arched a brow. “How would you know? You can’t even see her. Or hear her.”
“Well, no, but she’s always asking about me. I think the Grim Reaper has a little crush on ole Benjamin Reese.”
“And why wouldn’t she?” Regarding the woman, Sikras smirked. “Just look at Benjamin’s face. Flawless, isn’t it?”
Oblivious to their banter, it seemed the only motion she could manage was to shake her head. “So, that’s it? Married to that miserable, wretched man for twenty years, barely enjoying a day of life, and now I don’t even get to enjoy death?”
Sikras recognized the devastation in every tortured decibel of her breaking voice; he had heard it countless times. Placing his hand atop hers, he offered what he hoped was a gentle smile. “What’s your name?”
She sniffled. “Canida, sir.”