Necromancers Don’t Raise (Singsong City #5)

1. Necromancers Don’t Raise

Chapter 1

Necromancers Don’t Raise

A rat bit me.

It had to be a rat in the dark with me, because there was the familiar squeaking, and then the snuffling, and then the bite on my arm that hurt less than I remembered it hurting.

My roommate at the boarding school had rats, so I knew the feeling intimately. Fin had liked to let them out in the middle of the dark night, so they could be free. Free to snack on my fingers.

My mind was fuzzy. My body was heavy, distant, and so were my thoughts.

Was I back at school? I’d been put in with her because I was able to keep the peace with anyone, even the anti-social girl who desperately wanted to be misunderstood. My problem was that I always understood. We still kept in touch, even if she’d left respectable society behind long ago. No. I wasn’t still at school.

My mind spun and drifted before I was brought back by the smell. It was so incredibly bad, like sewage and rotten produce, with an undercurrent of swamp. I blinked in the darkness and made out the glowing eyes of a rat. We stared at each other for a long time while I struggled to compute. It finally clicked. Rats’ eyes didn’t glow unless the creature was possessed.

After another moment of shock, I gurgled a scream and flailed around in panic when my body didn’t stand up and sprint away who knew where. My limbs were disconnected, sloppy, lacking all grace and precision I expected. My convulsing sent me sliding off the slimy rocks and into ice-cold water. The cold was a shock. I gasped and inhaled filthy water until I came up, coughing, gagging, and struggling to stay afloat when none of my limbs worked right. I’d always been an extremely competent swimmer, and no clothes dragged me down, but I barely made it back to the slick rocks and trash that I’d been laying on.

I pulled myself up onto the sharp rocks and rotting things with hands that couldn’t grasp any better than they could swim. They could hurt, though. The rats were still watching with their glowing eyes that spoke of infernal magic, but I just curled up in a ball, coughing and gasping, trying to get the water out of me. Evil rats were better than freezing, disgusting water.

Where was I? Why wasn’t my body working right? I’d always been able to trust myself to have quick reflexes, whether it was tennis, swimming, or shooting, especially shooting, but now I couldn’t even cling to a rock right.

I was Cassandra Clarence, heir to Clarence Corp, nominated the most beautiful human woman in the world four years in a row. Or was it five? The details were fuzzy. I had to get to a meeting with…I couldn’t remember, but I always had meetings. My life was a beautifully choreographed dance of business and charity, with some time for mixed martial and Pilates to keep my body as perfectly functional as my mind.

I blinked water out of my eyes and stared at the rat’s glowing eyes. Was it going to bite my face or just stay there staring at me? Was I actually in a sewer? I pulled up and away from the rock at the thought, but my legs were shaky, and I couldn’t stand all the way, so I just crouched in the smelly refuse with icy water dripping off my hair and running down my spine. My naked spine. Was Cassandra Clarence naked in a sewer? My mother would have a heart attack at the thought.

I laughed at the look that would be on my mother’s face. At least it would have been a laugh if my lungs and throat were working any better than the rest of me. What came out was this gurgling rasp that burned my throat like daggers ripping the delicate tissue. Something terrible had happened to me.

“No kidding, Sherlock,” I mouthed, but no sound came out. It hurt too much to be a dream, although I’d had horribly vivid nightmares when I was young, before my mother sourced the only magical artifact she allowed in our lives. I’d given it away in a moment of thoughtless generosity that had driven a wedge between my mother and I that we’d never quite overcome.

She wanted me to stop travelling for the charitable arm of Clarence Corp to such dangerous places, and I’d refused. I didn’t usually stand up to my mother, not when she was always on the side of logic, reason, and the greater good, but knowing that I was making an immediate difference to individuals, seeing the impact first-hand was the only thing that made the rest of my life bearable. Employing millions was important, but it was too far away for me to really feel.

Speaking of feeling, a rush of pain went through me that left me blinking until I could refocus on those creepy, glowing eyes. I’d seen those eyes in one of The Detective Warlock episodes. The warlock’s nemesis was a dark sorcerer who used his rats to infiltrate the enemy and, of course, do battle, a horde of rats rolling over the show’s extras, stripping their flesh from their bones.

The show didn’t have the greatest special effects, but I watched it for the eye candy. I secretly had a crush on the actor who played Vilus the Dark Sorcerer, while my good friends never missed an episode to ogle Winston the Warlock, who was a male witch in real life.

A rush of memories had me shuddering. The rocking of a train, blonde Callie’s bright blue eyes and nervous bounce, Bree’s whispered comment with mischievous dark eyes that sent us all into gales of laughter. The train was taking us to Singsong City, where the entire cast of The Detective Warlock would do interviews, autographs and fan photos.

That’s where I must be, in Singsong city, where the infernal mingled with the angelic, a place that everyone had been talking about ever since the jubilee that angels and ogres had sponsored.

A flash of pain went through my head and body, sending me arching back, my spine curling in the wrong direction while this sound came out of my throat, the horrible out-of-tune croaking of a hurt animal that had been hit by a car and would have to be put down. It hurt so much more than liposuction.

After that, I must have lost consciousness for a long time, because there was no pain. When I woke up, my thoughts were slightly more focused, the pain less intense.

I couldn’t stay in a sewer passing in and out of consciousness, or I’d die. I needed to get help. Fueled with determination, I surged to my feet. After a moment of triumph, the world spun around me dizzyingly and I fell back over in a flop that ended with my head thudding against a rock. Yes, this plan was going brilliantly. I’d just thump my head against rocks in SOS morse code. No way I could possibly fail.

I frowned because that wasn’t an entirely bad idea. I grabbed a rock that fit in my hand and started rapping it on another rock. Three short, three long, three short. Or was that backwards? Did it matter?

Maybe Philip would be looking for me. He was in Singsong City for a few weeks to take care of a merger. That’s how I talked myself into coming to Singsong, because it would be good to surprise my fiancé with a visit while he was only a few hours southwest of Apple City, after I indulged in my secret obsession with Vilus, the Dark Sorcerer. Philip usually stayed on the west coast where he ran his father’s company very well. We’d been engaged for years, but I only saw him on holidays when our families got together. I didn’t want our relationship to be a merger between two corporations, but sometimes I felt like I didn’t know him at all. After we went to the Warlock Detective Con, I could get time alone with him, at least if he didn’t have too many business meetings to go to.

Before I ended up in a sewer, had I made it to see Philip? I couldn’t remember. I didn’t really have a solid grasp on anything past the train ride with my two friends. Where were they?

What happened to Breanne and Calista? I wasn’t close to very many people because I always had to maintain the proper boundaries, but we’d shared an obsession with Warlock Detective that trumped everything else. Were they okay?

I reached out and batted the squishy lump to my right. It oozed and something rotting slithered out when I poked at it. No, that wasn’t one of my friends. Maybe a rotten orange. I’d pretend it was a rotten orange instead of something that used to be alive and kicking. I gagged at the thought and tried to wipe my hand on the rock. My hands felt so weird, so wrong, like they were the wrong shape and size.

The sound of rippling water caught my attention, and I looked away from the direction of the rats and towards the water. It was dark, I couldn’t see anything, but it seemed like the darkness got darker in the water, spreading towards me until it flickered with pale blue lightning, like veins across the surface, and then a head emerged, the silhouette outlined with that same pale blue electric pulse that spread down until the figure was entirely out, towering over me.

“Pity I couldn’t see that entrance better,” I whispered, and some sound came out that must have been slightly understandable, because a faint light ball formed in the silhouette’s hand, revealing Vilus’s dangerous older brother. I mean, in the show Vilus had no family, but if he did, it would be this person, tall, imposingly broad-shouldered, and here to take my soul or my body. Whichever. His eyes were dark with those flickers of lightning, glowing like the rats’ eyes had glowed. His face was strong more than handsome, so strong, with a jaw and cheekbones that looked like they could cut silk, or iron. Whichever.

I stared up at that terrifyingly dangerous creature who was probably a legitimate dark sorcerer and considered my options. I could try to scream and run away, ending in humiliation when my body didn’t work, or I could hope that he needed a secretary to run his evil lair, and try to get a job.

I held out my arms towards him, and after a moment’s pause, he shrugged out of his jacket and then draped it over me. It smelled like cedar and mulled cider and felt like silk velvet and cobwebs. I clutched at the edges of the collar, my malfunctioning fingers gripping the fine fabric with all my strength. They hurt. My whole body hurt, but I clung to the warm wool, the silky lining against my skin sending comfort and strength through me. He’d given me his jacket. Now what?

We stared at each other while water dripped from the ceiling and the rats scratched and squeaked.

“Who were you?” he finally asked in a voice so deep and rich, I would have gotten goosebumps if I didn’t already have them. It took me a second to process the words past the voice. Who were you? Not who are you. Because I’m not who I was. Like I’m…

I choked on nothing while I tried to think, to be reasonable and rational, but now that I thought about it, I wasn’t really breathing. And while my heart should be beating like mad in my throat, there was nothing, just perfect stillness, like I was…

I convulsed, gasping, but not gasping, because no breath, but there was still panic, all these feelings and pains and…

He took my face in his hands, refocusing me on the present and keeping me from spiraling. I wasn’t the kind of person to panic, but being dead? How could I even begin to deal with something of that magnitude? And not only dead, still moving. Was I possessed? Was I infected with zombiism? He offered me a slight smile, but it was pure sadness. Smiles shouldn’t look like that. It made me want to cry, and I never cried in front of anyone.

His low voice was barely a murmur. “You’re in pain. Being freshly undead can drive you mad from the pain, but you still had the presence of mind to call for help. You’re lucky that my rats know morse code.” His smile changed slightly, like he’d told a joke no one else in the world could appreciate.

I wheezed a laugh, then shuddered at the sound and the effort. “Lucky me,” I whisper-croaked in the least attractive voice in the entire world. This wasn’t how it would go down on the show. The woman, Felicity Raven, who was pursued by the warlock and the dark sorcerer, never looked or sounded bad, even when she was weeping and wounded.

Was I really dead? Was any of this real? The pain was real, but maybe I was on incredibly strong pain meds that created this entire scene with the sewer setting. Maybe there had been a train wreck.

His eyes narrowed, and he brushed his fingers over my cheekbones. Ow. Also, pretty sure they were oozing from my implants breaking down. If I was dead, how long had I been dead and decomposing? I blinked and forced myself to focus on the face in front of me instead of the gulf of panic that threatened to consume me.

He said, “You are in a very difficult place to access. I don’t believe that anyone else would be able to reach you. Will you come with me?”

I stared into those dark eyes, dangerous, filled with flickers of electricity that could roast me alive. Except if I wasn’t alive…

His forearm was bare under the loosely rolled sleeve of his white shirt, showing the dark tattoos with ink that had bled into the pale skin. They must be the magic runes of a dark sorcerer. He really was a dark sorcerer who could come through the water and still keep his glossy black hair dry? Impressive. He was clearly competent and powerful enough to get me out of here. And he had a sense of humor.

I shook my head, and his eyes narrowed.

“You won’t come willingly?” There was a hint of threat in his voice, like he might take me by force to his evil lair if I resisted.

“I already held out my arms so you’d take me,” I whispered and shook my head again. “Please take me out of the sewer with the rats. Please save me.” Felicity had said ‘please save me’ to Vilus once, and they’d had a side fling for a few episodes before she realized that she couldn’t bear the evil he did and ran back to Winston, breaking Vilus’s evil heart.

I cautiously held out one hand and then saw the stubs that had been my fingers. I’d thought they’d been working weirdly, but not to that extent.

I gurgled, but before I could completely lose it and fall back into the icy water, he swung me up effortlessly in his strong arms, wrapped the jacket firmly around me, then sank into the darkness that had brought him. The smell of cloves and ginger reminded me of the kitchen at Christmastime. I used to sneak into the kitchen and watch the servants prepare all the things I wouldn’t be allowed to eat.

I pressed my face to the bare skin of his neck, vaguely aware that there was something terribly wrong with my nose, like it had been slashed off along with my fingers. What kind of psychopath chops off the nose and fingers of their victim? I was really dead then. No, not dead, undead, which was so much worse. All the negatives without any end to the pain.

“Easy, my lady,” he rumbled, more in my head than in my ears. “I will have you safe and comfortable soon enough.” He started humming an off-tune song that was probably a spell that dulled the pain and slowed my racing thoughts.

If I was dead, there wasn’t anything to worry about. Except if I was undead, one of those revolting infernal creatures that fed on flesh and blood…I should kill myself. How did you kill yourself when you were already dead? The dark sorcerer would know.

But I didn’t want to be laid to rest, no matter how revolting the undead were to my parents. And to my fiancé Philip Harrison, the fourth. And to everyone else I knew. Either way, I was dead to them, to my life as a business associate of one of the largest corporations in the world. I really would need to find a new job. I’d never had to write a resume before, but they probably had a book on it in the library. Did they have a library in Singsong City? Maybe the dark sorcerer could help me with job placement for the fresh undead.

I looked up at him, all etched cheekbones and ominous everything, and somehow doubted it. Maybe he was taking me to harvest my organs. What would a sorcerer want with an unbeating heart? He was dangerously handsome enough that he could probably steal my heart with very little effort. Was it too late to fall in love after you were dead?

I passed in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of flickers of dark tunnels, then narrow alleys with a stretch of sky above, until we reached a large door with monstrous faces carved in the dark wood, nightmare faces with fangs. He started up a staircase that seemed to go on forever, black and cream flocked wallpaper punctuated by fantastically colored bird paintings behind his shoulder on the curved wall. I had officially entered a magical world.

I came fully awake in the shower, where he sprayed me down with warm water, his hands gentle as he worked through my hair, loosening strands that came out and trailed down my body. More than strands. All of my hair was falling out.

All my hair was falling out. My fingers were chopped off. And my nose was missing. Also, all my implants were oozing out of me and smelled worse than sewage. I was a work of art, exactly like a Picasso, only with a rich stench that no one could possibly resist. And a real life incredibly attractive dark sorcerer was washing me down so gently and carefully, like my dad’s dog groomer did to our four large mutts, treating them like they were rare purebreds. Now I was so rare, so incredibly pure. Purely revolting.

I’d never been naked with any men who weren’t doctors before. I suppose it was best to get all the awkwardness over at the beginning. Now that the dark sorcerer had seen me at my worst, there was nowhere to go but up, right? It had to get better, both the pain and general humiliation, or I really would go insane and have to be ended, chopped up and burned like they did to the virulent undead in the show.

I’d hidden behind plastic my whole life, but now, I was just me, without the name, the family, the wealth, the beauty, the reputation. Who was I? I knew who I had been, but did any of that matter now?

I stared at my bare arms, with my pale blonde hair sliding over the cut and battered skin, open wounds aching from the water. At least I’d be a clean undead monster. A bald, clean, oozing undead monster. And this was magic? The hurt, the humiliation…

I sobbed once before I got my feelings under control. His strong hands became even more gentle as he finished washing out my wounds and wrapped me in bandages, his voice humming that melody that helped me control the emotions. Once I was wrapped up from my toes to my crown, he carried me to a fancy tanning bed, only it was held together with dark metal hinges with more demonic faces etched into the design.

He closed the lid on me, and I lay on the warm pad, heat slowly sinking into me. It was the most marvelous contrast to the icy sewer. It was nice to know that even the undead could go to a spa. It would have to be run by a dark sorcerer, but apparently they had the gentlest hands.