Chapter 5 #2
The other thing to remember is that there’s more than dead people, Archie continued. ’Specially if you’re looking just for bodies.
What do you mean? I asked, frowning.
If all you’re tryin’ to raise is a corpse, Archie replied. You can get corpses from all kinds of critters.
You’re saying a necromancer can raise animals? I asked.
The ghost nodded. Yup. Dogs, cats, spiders, mice, you name it.
Well, that was disconcerting.
In fact, Archie continued. That’s usually where we start. You raise a shambling human corpse, it’s gonna upset people. You raise a spider or a fly, nobody much cares or even notices.
I thought about this. It wasn’t unlike what I’d done on my own at Tranquil Brook—trying to control my death magic to see if I could focus it, both in terms of avoiding particular targets and in terms of reducing its strength. A lot of spiders and flies had died in the process.
I suppose if there was anything left of them, I could now raise their tiny bodies.
This led to another question. What happens if a body is totally decomposed?
All the way to goop or dust, you mean?
I hadn’t been thinking “goop,” specifically, but the idea was close enough. I nodded.
Archie shrugged. You might get a few bits, but it’s not gonna be worth the energy, he replied. Which is why you gotta seek out the dead and find out what you’re working with before you raise anything. He grinned at me. And that’s where we actually start.
I gave him a questioning look.
Count the dead spiders in the room, sport. With your eyes shut.
I stared at him. How?
The grin got wider, revealing a gap behind one of his eye teeth. That’s the tricky part.
I was wrapping up some paperwork—Beck’s, specifically—before heading into the back to do a full inventory. It was late September, and Beyond the Veil was already starting to book out parties and events for the Halloween season.
According to Sylvia, Halloween had always been a time for parties and celebrations of life by emphasizing the difference between the living and the dead—and, according to Mason, cultures all over the world took the opportunity of lengthening nights and chilling days to reflect on mortality and consider those they loved who had moved on to the afterlife.
But since the arrival of Arcanavirus, Sylvia said, people had taken the sudden public visibility of magic as license to go all out, finding what she called their ‘fictional inner witches and wizards without having a bloody clue what any of that actually means.’
I didn’t have any particular personal feelings about Halloween, but I knew that it was a major source of income for Beyond the Veil—what Ward said was our equivalent of the retail holiday shopping season.
It also meant that most of us worked nearly every day in the month of October, one way or another.
Ward and Beck, in particular, had nearly constant gigs, which meant that Mason and I were generally scrambling to help them load in, load out, stay stocked, and otherwise provide support and food.
And October was coming up fast. I knew what the schedule looked like—meetings and séances throughout the day about wills and other regular daily business, with the séance bookings for parties and family gatherings rapidly accumulating on most evenings in the second half of the month.
I’d already had to turn away several parties because they conflicted with bookings we’d already confirmed or with Ward’s annual tradition of working with the Latinos in Virginia Development Center for día de muertos.
He said that it was important to give back to the community, even if all you had to give was time.
Especially if what you had to give was time.
I couldn’t do what he did. Not the way he did and certainly not as much as he did. But I could bring food, pack crates, and place orders. So that’s what I did.
I wondered if any of that would be different this year.
I wondered if I wanted it to be.
Frowning, I picked up a tablet and carried it back to the stock room, pulling up the inventory spreadsheet.
“Rayn, come here a minute?” Ward’s voice called as I passed his office.
I stopped, backtracked the few steps I’d gone past the door, and stepped into the doorway. “Yes?” I asked.
He glanced at the tablet in my hand. “Doing inventory?”
I nodded. “It’s time to stock up for Halloween,” I replied.
He frowned.
“Should I not?” I asked, confused.
“What?” he glanced up at me again. “Oh, no, sorry. I mean… yes. Yes, you should do inventory for Halloween. I just—” He broke off, then sighed, running a hand through his curls. “Have you been watching the news at all?” he asked.
I blinked, not following the thread of this conversation at all. “No?”
“Well, let’s just say that the hit-and-runs aren’t the only recent incidents involving Nids and Arcs in the city,” he said, his tone grim.
I waited for him to say more.
“Come in and sit, Rayn,” he said.
I walked in and sat across from him at his desk, then waited, my tablet dark in my lap.
“Do you remember about a year-and-a-half ago, maybe a little more, when those riots happened downtown?”
“The ones at the Magic-Free Movement protests?” I asked.
“Yeah. When Hart damn near got himself both stabbed and trampled to death,” Ward muttered.
“Hart almost got stabbed to death in the riots?” I asked, surprised. I didn’t remember that.
Ward nodded. “It was ugly. Taavi was staying with us because Hart got called out, and he was a mess when he came over to pick him up.” He sighed.
“But that wasn’t what I wanted to say.” He shifted a little.
“There are protests planned for two weekends from now,” he said.
“Starting the second Saturday in October.”
“More than one protest?” I asked. He’d made the word plural.
“At least three,” he clarified. “At several places throughout the city—downtown, by VCU, at one of the malls in Short Pump, a few other places, too, I think.”
“Why?” I asked. I knew why people from the Magic-Free Movement protested in general—although I really didn’t agree with their perspectives—but I didn’t know why, specifically, they were protesting now, especially in so many places.
Ward sighed again, his brow furrowing deeper. “Because they’d rather we didn’t exist,” he said, his voice flat and angry.
I’d known that part. I’d been asking why they were protesting now. “But why now?” I asked, since he hadn’t understood the last time.
“Probably because Senator Adams is trying to push through Arcanid rights legislation, plus the fact that stores are putting out all their Halloween shit.”
“They’ve been doing that since August,” I pointed out.
Ward shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s officially ‘spooky season’ now, which always gets the MFM assholes up in arms because witches are eeevil.” He exaggerated the last word, wiggling his fingers for emphasis.
“Are we?” came Mason’s amused rumble from outside the door.
Ward rolled his eyes, but I knew he wasn’t really mad. “According to the MFM assholes,” he replied darkly, “yes.”
“Ah,” Mason said, and now he sounded much less amused. He leaned in the doorway, crossing both muscular arms over his chest, his sleeves rolled up because it was still warm, exposing green forearms. “I take it we’re discussing the protests?”
I nodded.
“The real issue,” Mason informed me, “is that we’ve already got gigs both this weekend and next, and the ones next weekend include one in Short Pump and one at a nightclub downtown, which puts us in close proximity to two of them.”
I nodded again, understanding the implications—that if there were séances being held somewhere that the MFM protestors heard about, there was likely to be trouble. Protests against the séances, possibly. Or worse. “What should we do?” I asked, looking back and forth between both Mason and Ward.
“We’ll have to make sure neither Ward nor Beck goes alone to a séance,” Mason said firmly, and I wondered if Ward had argued with him about this. “If I can’t go with Ward, you will—and Violette will go with Beck.”
I thought about this. I couldn’t very well argue that he shouldn’t go with his own husband, but—
“What are you thinking, Rayn?” Ward was the one who asked the question.
I glanced over at him. “Just that… You’re a stronger practitioner and better able to defend yourself than Beck is, comparatively,” I said, since Beck was quite capable of taking care of herself in most circumstances.
“Vi and I can look out for you, but Mason will have the ability to protect Beck, where Vi and I might not.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Rayn,” Mason told me. “You’re as powerful as I am.”
I frowned, since that seemed wrong to me. “Even if I am,” I said, very much doubting it, “I’m a lot less practiced.” I grimaced. “Everyone is safer with either Ward or you than with me.”
Mason seemed to consider this.
But it was Ward who spoke. “You know he’s right, Mace.”
Mason frowned. “I don’t like it,” he rumbled.
“None of us like it,” Ward retorted, but his voice was soft rather than judgmental. “And, yes, Mace, I’d always rather have you with me, but Rayn’s right. Not—” He glanced at me. “Not that he isn’t capable, but that you and I have a lot more experience with defensive magic.”
Mason sighed. “I suppose so,” he replied. His eyes focused on Ward’s face, and I could see a muscle ticking in his jaw.
Whether Ward also noticed or saw something else I didn’t, I wasn’t sure, but he offered Mason a small smile. “We’ll be okay,” he said, his voice gentle.
Mason let out a long breath. “I know,” he replied.
I felt like I didn’t belong in the room anymore. Like there was a second conversation going on underneath the one I could hear.
I stood, and they both looked at me as though they’d forgotten I was there. “I’ll make sure we have what we need and will call Vi,” I said, then left Ward’s office.
Nobody stopped me.