Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
W hen the dark sorcerer opened the lid, waking me up from confused dreams, I felt more settled in my skin, capable of dealing with my new fate without dissolving into tears. I’d never cried in front of another person for as long as I could remember, but it had been a close one when he first found me. Then again, I was a newborn undead. They use the term ‘cry like a baby,’ for a reason.
I stared up at the dark sorcerer, seeing him much better in the clear light and without my uncontrollable panic. He wasn’t a breathtakingly beautiful man, like my fiancé had been, but he was much more masculine and powerful with a wide, devouring mouth and glossy hair that fell over his forehead and collar. He was more attractive than Vilus, although not as handsome. How did that make sense? ‘Nonsense,’ my mother would say as she turned off the television and handed me my weekly schedule.
Who was going to hand me my schedule and keep my life organized? His eyes turned questioning as he slowly took my hand and started unwrapping the bandages, so slow and careful, like he didn’t want to startle me.
I tried not to look at the skin under the bandages. I didn’t want him to look at it either. “Who are you?” I asked. At least the words came out clearly, even if it wasn’t a pretty voice, not anymore. I’d used to have a wonderful voice, almost as compelling as my mother’s.
He gazed into my eyes, his own dark ones warm, kind, gentle. “I am called Oswald Mercury. It is a pleasure to meet you, my lady.” He didn’t ask for my name. Did the undead not have names?
Panic stirred, but I pushed it firmly down. So I wasn’t Cassandra Clarence anymore. I was still a person, and people had names. In this new birth, I would choose my own name. The family business, the image, all of it had seemed like a great burden that I’d secretly wished to get rid of so many times. Now I had that wish, even if it had gone in an unexpected direction. A horrible, awful, unbearable direction. No. I could bear it, and I would make the most out of this life. This was an opportunity to start fresh, to make my own name for myself. Quite literally.
“I’m Nova Nativitae,” I said, raising my chin and staring him down. The panic grew while his dark eyes studied me, head tilting as he considered. Would he tell me that I wasn’t allowed to have a name, like I wasn’t allowed to have the Christmas treats that were only for decoration before we donated everything to the poor unfortunates? Now I was a poor unfortunate, so I got to eat all the treats, skip all the meetings, and live life to the fullest. Well, not that I was living.
He smiled slowly, a diabolical smile that made me want to touch his fascinating mouth. “Your Latin is very good. New Birth? It suits you. How do you feel? Is there any pain?”
I shook my head, then paused as a rush of agony went down my spine, arm, and hand, the one that was missing fingers. “A little.”
He laughed and continued unwrapping the hand, the arm that had hurt so much. “You are strong in will and mind. You will transition well.”
His words, and the velvety low voice he said them with, filled me with warmth and comfort. He gave me approval, even though I was a revolting corpse.
“Thank you. I intend to do as well as I can. Do you have an assistant?”
He cocked his head as he finished unwrapping the bandages carefully, then pulled a silk cream robe over my shoulders and around me quickly before I could really think about the fact that I was naked in front of an incredibly attractive man who wasn’t a doctor. I was undead, oozing, bald, so there was no chance that he’d find me attractive. That cut deep. Deeper than the scalpel the first time I’d gone in for surgery.
I’d been twelve when I went in to help my nose take on the perfect dimensions of my grandmother while my own mother got injections for her cheekbones in the room next door. I’d spent the next thirteen years trying to achieve the perfect ideal: implants, injections, surgeries, all so that I could be the face for the next generation of Clarence corp. Now, every beauty was a wound, every perfection a horror. That’s what I was now, one of those hideous faces carved on the door, one of the monsters chasing people through the streets. Maybe I’d start eating brains. Hm. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as it could get.
“I don’t have an assistant at the moment,” he said, cupping my chin and holding up a swab.
I opened my mouth automatically, letting him sweep my mouth with the cotton wand. I’d been the perfect patient for so long that it translated to my undeath. How useful. I stared at his face, the shape and size of his skull while he took tissue samples from my tongue and cheek. What would he do with those? And how would I crack through his skull to get to his brain? I had absolutely no idea.
Once he’d finished with my mouth, I asked in my ugly yet intelligible voice, “Oswald Mercury, why do you need tissue samples?”
He smiled slightly. “Nova Nativitae, so that I can see what kind of creature infected you, so that we will know whether or not I should be on guard against your hunger.” His eyes sparkled, and I knew he was joking, like he had back in the sewer about rats knowing morse code.
He’d definitely noticed me scoping out his skull, but didn’t consider me a serious threat.
I stared down at my hands, even more swollen and discolored than before, and with every single finger chopped to varying lengths. What beautiful mottled coloring. My face must be particularly delightful, but he didn’t look horrified, instead he was making jokes. “Seriously, if I am dangerous, you should end me. I assume you know how to kill the undead.” My voice sounded so dead, without any life or color to it, but at least it could speak clearly. My Pollyanna training was coming in handy today. Let’s look on the bright side of everything. There’s always a silver lining. How many times had I said that? How often had my mother said it to me?
He covered my hand with his strong, capable fingers, the feel of his warmth and strength spreading through me. “Nova, I know very well how to kill the undead, but what I know that’s even more useful is how to help the undead manage their instincts. With your mind, your reflexes, your self-awareness and your transference of moral codes you held with you in life, you will only be as dangerous as you wish to be.”
I studied his hand for a long moment before I slowly raised my eyes to his. His eyes were alight with intelligence and energy. He wasn’t going to flinch away from my ugliness. He wasn’t going to flinch away from anything. He was more attractive all the time. At this rate, I’d be hopelessly in love with him by dinner. “How thick is your skull?” I asked, studying him.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, this time genuinely curious, but not threatened.
“I’ve heard that dark sorcerers have very thick bones, like iron. I would feel better if I knew that you had some safeguard, in case your confidence in my self-control was unfounded.”
His eyes flickered with amusement. “You would feel better once my safety was assured?” He straightened and then gave me a very formal bow before he stood tall, straight, very broad-shouldered and powerful. “I have an extremely thick skull, my lady, as my butler tells me often. I have survived countless attacks without any lasting harm. I am safe with you.” His lips twitched with that flash of humor. He probably brought fresh undead to his drafty mansion all the time. He had all the equipment for hosing off and wrapping up corpses in his death spa. I was taking my own undeath too seriously. After all, people die every day.
Like Callie and Bree? Were they okay?
I froze and glanced to the side instead of up at him. My two friends. What could I possibly do for them when I was like this? I tried to speak extra clearly. “That’s good. I wouldn’t want to kill you before you gave me a job.”
“A job? You recently died, but you’re already considering employment? Have you considered that you might be a workaholic?”
I sighed as much as I could without operable lungs and looked up at him. “I hope so. Otherwise, it’ll take me decades to afford a decent place with good security. I don’t suppose undead have the luxury of living in good neighborhoods. Are there undead neighborhoods? I have no idea.”
“What is a decade or two when you’re immortal? Peculiar. You don’t seem to wonder if you’re safe with me. You should consider that before you offer yourself as my employee.”
I shook my head carefully so it didn’t fall off or something that would have been unlikely twenty-four hours ago. Or longer. Hard to tell time when you’re dead. “You wouldn’t ever hurt me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Ah. You must not have heard more about dark sorcerers than the thickness of their bones. I’m afraid that safety in the hands of a dark sorcerer is far from guaranteed.”
I shrugged. “I’m already undead. What’s worse than that? Also, your hands are so strong and capable, I probably wouldn’t mind you harvesting my organs or turning me into a lovely settee. How do dark sorcerers get their furniture?” I eyed the tanning bed. “Can I order one of those once I’m gainfully employed?”
“What sort of work are you looking for? There are certain limitations on the undead.”
I nodded, trying to look confident and failing because I was a decomposing puddle of death. “I know that it won’t be easy, but there must be something to do, and if there isn’t, I’ll create a need and fill it. I could…” My mind spun, but all the things I could do were based on who I had been. “What do you need?” I sounded desperate, and I was never desperate.
He placed a large, heavy hand on my bald head while his eyes softened with compassion I’d only seen a few times in my life. “It’s all right. You will settle into your mind, your memories, soon enough. You’re doing incredibly well, Nova. Don’t rush the cadence of your recovery. Regeneration is difficult, particularly the first time. You can’t work while you’re recovering. As I am a dark sorcerer of iron will and fierce reputation, consider yourself my prisoner. The only work you’ll be doing is recovering until you have the physical strength to match your indomitable will.”
I stared into those compassionate eyes and my heart lurched in my chest, like it was trying to beat for him. He was a million times more attractive than Vilus, and he was looking at me like I was a precious soul that had unlimited worth, no matter what condition my shell was in.
“You remind me of a doctor I saw once in Romania, working with the poor,” I said before I’d thought the words through.
He raised a dark, heavy brow. “You didn’t happen to get bitten while you were in Romania, did you?”
I smiled slightly and shook my head. “No, that was years ago. I wish I could remember what happened, how I died, and…” if my friends were okay.
His hand slid over my skull to rest lightly on my shoulder, his warmth matching the concern in his eyes. “You remember going to Romania?” He placed his other large palm on my forehead as if checking for a fever. Did the undead get fevers?
“Is it bad to remember?” I asked, careful to keep my fear from showing. Then again, he’d already seen me worse than I’d ever imagined it was possible for me to be, so what was I trying to hide for? I didn’t have a name to protect, or a cause to defend. I was just myself. Whoever that was.
His answer was low. “Not bad, just unusual that one with memories would be so calm and reasonable. The worst pain is remembering what you were when faced with what you have come to be.”
Wasn’t that the truth? I met his eyes, chin up. “I’m pretty sure I was crying when you found me.”
His eyes were so terribly compassionate. “Without tears. Yes, but the dead don’t process emotions well. They are stuck in them, if they have them at all.”
I spoke as blandly as I could with this unresponsive voice. “I’ve never processed emotions when I was alive, just repressed them. You see a lot of hysterical undead? Why? Why do you care? Why do you fish monsters out of sewers and bring them home to patch up?”
He smiled and then turned to pick up a sewing needle. “I am much more comfortable around the dead than the living, although I am technically counted as the latter. The dead don’t lie.”
“Except in coffins.”
He flashed a full smile that made my heart wrench. It couldn’t beat, but it was still there, occupying space in my chest, and whatever metaphysical emotions were still inside of it was reacting to the dark sorcerer. “Bones, my butler, lies on the couch. He finds it much preferable to his coffin.”
“You have an undead butler?”
“And cook, driver, gardener, as well as several bodyguards.”
I smiled and felt my lips rip from the movement. Apparently, the dead didn’t smile, either. Still, I’d smile. “So, you do let the undead work for you. What are your rates? Do you have insurance? What positions are available?”
He studied me, eyes gleaming peculiarly. “I’ve mentioned that you are my prisoner. Until you are recovered, you aren’t going anywhere.”
I shook my head as I studied him. “That’s not enough. Once I’m recovered, will you try to find something I could do?”
He frowned slightly. “You are very determined to work for someone who is a truly fearful and terrifying necromantic sorcerer. My favorite servants are rats. I have countless dead and animated rats that roam Apple City and Singsong, collecting information for me.”
“Like on the tv show? Except Vilus doesn’t ask his rats to provide intel on where the fresh undead is so that he can collect them and give them the spa treatment. I don’t think you understand what terrifying really is. It’s approaching retirement without a 401k. It’s having no job security and ending up without money, clothing, or anything else in a sewer. You’re terrifying? Maybe you try, but you don’t even flinch when you look at me. I don’t have a nose, do I? And yet your eyes are only concerned, without one iota of disgust or coldness when you examine me. If I’m in danger from you, if anyone is in danger from you who isn’t threatening what you have decided to protect, I would be very surprised.” I shouldn’t have said all that, and honestly, the intensity I’d used was making me want to lean my head on his shoulder and take a nap.
He studied me, his eyes focusing on the center of my face where I’d used to have the most perfect nose that money could buy. “You know?”
“That I was mutilated when I was murdered? Yes. Most people who drop dead aren’t missing fingers and other multiple chunks of their bodies. I don’t remember that. I don’t remember anything after the train ride towards Singsong City. How long was I dead? What date is it? Do you think I could find my murderer?”
His eyes narrowed. “Absolutely not.”
“Why? Because everyone is a killer in Singsong, so it would be impossible to narrow it down?”
“No, Nova, who has been dead for no more than two days. You are not going to try to find someone who relishes the pain of others. Some true monsters would love the fact that you couldn’t die to escape the pain.” He shook his head and his eyes were fierce and hard for the first time. “No one deserves a death like yours. I will find whatever vile creature did this to you.”
I studied him doubtfully. “And then when you find him, I can eat his brains.”
We were joking. He wasn’t going to take my death personally, probably just turn the case over to the local police.
His eyes burned into me as he nodded soberly and said in a voice that gave me shivers, “And I will eat his heart.”