Chapter 32
thirty-two
Gentry
For once, Gentry wasn’t sure whether she was glad that she had internet because there wasn’t a single useful thing she could think to look up.
All she had was her father’s notes, which weren’t terribly helpful.
They had names and events that she couldn’t verify online no matter how hard she tried.
On the backs of her family’s pictures, he told fantastical, halfway-there stories about a witch named Lydia, who he claimed was from the extinct coven the Cobalts.
She was the soul seamstress, the one who murdered all the girls they’d tried to pair to Drayer Netherton.
It was interesting information, but not useful.
A search through the apartment yielded no other written documents, no further clues, but every little bit of her father she saw in his sparse belongings made her heart twinge with grief.
His coffee mugs, shirts, and ways of organizing his many identities remained unchanged.
It was almost as if he’d just been waiting for her to show back up in his life.
A lifetime of regret hung around her as Gentry debated what to do next.
Her dad’s notes weren’t terribly reliable; at one point, he referred to Drayer as a ‘good boy’. Perhaps his mind had been more fried from the memory manipulation spells than she thought.
Regardless, if Clea’s necromancer didn’t work out, Gentry would need the necromancer bones Lydia had used to sew her to the politician, but she had no clue where to find her.
What was the point of someone having a name if it wasn’t plastered online for Gentry to study?
That was the question she wrestled with as she wasted twelve straight hours on trying to glean something useful from her father’s notes. Her laptop fans whirled in protest from the number of tabs she had open.
Her head hurt, whether that was from the fever or overwork, she wasn't sure. Kit had yet to come back from his mysterious errand, and she wasn’t altogether certain when Clea would send the necromancer to her. Sleep beckoned, but she was a little scared that she’d miss the necromancer’s visit.
I’ll send her to you once I have everything set up. Although she’s a bit of a nutcase, so I’m not sure whether she’ll be able to save your hide or kill Drayer, the mad woman had said with a wave of her hand.
Gentry had been too thankful to be alive to question the Weaver about the specifics. Clea didn’t really seem to be the merciful type, particularly since she’d killed Visha.
After she’d read through her father’s nonsensical notes for what felt to be the millionth time, Gentry caved.
The time on her laptop read three in the morning, and her body felt like hell.
Slowly, she powered down for the night, her laptop far hotter than she would’ve liked.
Then, for the first time since she had escaped Mage Headquarters, she went through the routine of brushing her teeth and showering.
It felt divine, and she would’ve taken her time if she wasn’t perilously close to drifting off as the piping-hot water poured over her body.
Turned out the Underground apartment didn’t have bad water pressure.
She fell into bed, her sadness coming back in full force when she recognized her father’s blanket. The feeling worsened when she realized it smelled like him, but she snuggled up nonetheless. Not even grief could stop Gentry from falling asleep within seconds.
A knock on the door woke her. It was a hard rap, not at all like the playful jaunt Kit had said would be his signal.
Gentry fought herself awake as that knock repeated, and her brain kicked on.
As silently as possible, she opened the drawer of the nightstand and retrieved her father’s gun.
It was a cool, steady weight in her shaking hands as she stood up from the bed.
A long time ago, her dad taught her how to shoot, but she really didn’t want to find out if she remembered her lessons.
She peeped through the door viewer, her heart racing when she saw it wasn’t the tall, handsome witch who’d gone AWOL. Rather, it was two women. One short, one tall. She recognized neither of them.
The taller one seemed to sense her presence, her emerald eyes immediately going to the peephole. “Let us in,” she grumbled, “we don’t have time for this shit.”
“We can feel you in there,” the smaller one piped up cheerfully with a lilting accent, “we’re here to help you. Clea sent us.”
Flicking on the safety of the gun and shoving it into her waistband, Gentry was already unlocking the door, ignoring the hiss of the wards as they disengaged. She opened it up and the tall woman and short, tiny blonde both rushed past her as if she didn’t exist.
The taller one was dressed in all black and had a decisively gothic feel.
She looked dangerous in a gaunt kind of way, her skinniness not hinting at any sort of combat ability the way Clea or Kit did.
But then again, Gentry knew witches didn’t actually need muscles to be dangerous.
The smaller woman looked like she knitted oversized sweaters for charity, although there seemed something blissfully off about her happy smile as she placed a ludicrously large bag on the table by Gentry’s laptop.
“Let’s get this over with,” the taller one grumbled, “the lab’s going to blow up the city if I’m gone too long.”
“You’re the one who said I couldn’t go alone,” the smaller one complained, although she didn’t sound like she minded in the slightest, “and I’m the one doing your friend a favor.”
“Is Clea really anyone’s friend? I’d describe her more as a pet. Like a vicious gerbil that eats all the other gerbils.”
“A really dumb gerbil.”
“Uh, excuse me,” Gentry said, “are either of you the necromancer that Clea said she’d send?
” She looked at the smaller one, who’d implied as much.
She didn’t look particularly… deathly. But then again she’d never met a necromancer before, and to make things stranger, this woman spoke with an accent Gentry only heard parodied on television.
What were the odds that a person could be both a necromancer and from the Wilds?
“Oh yes.” As Gentry expected, the small blonde stepped forward. “I’m Wren and I’m a necromancer. This is my girlfriend, Adrienne.” For the first time since she’d entered the apartment, Wren frowned. “Clea told us that I’m the last resort before she kills you?”
“Yeah, that’s my understanding.” Gentry confirmed, unsure how to not make that not awkward. “But no pressure I guess.”
“You should be a little quieter when saying you’re a necromancer, Wren,” Adrienne hissed, “who knows how thick the walls are in this shithole. No offense.” The last part didn’t sound sincere in the least.
Aw, so that’s why she’s Clea’s friend. Adrienne seemed like the type who wouldn’t mind having a savage for a friend.
“That’s rude,” Wren scolded, “and stop telling me what to do. If someone heard us, you’d just poison them anyway.
Now, shoo. I have work to do so that Clea doesn’t do something mean like she always does”—the necromancer looked at Gentry—“don’t mind, Adrienne.
She’s just worried that someone will hear I’m a necromancer and try to kill us.
My bones are pretty valuable. Also, sorry about Clea.
She kills a lot of people, including my friend this one time. I don’t like her very much.”
Adrienne sat down at the table and pulled out a book from the bag Wren brought.
“Stop talking her head off, Wren, and get to work. I have a shift to go back to. So if you two could go ahead and do the thing I’d appreciate it.
” She then opened her book and proceeded to ignore them, her long, bloodred nails a pop of color against the black tome.
The little necromancer rolled her eyes, but then she proceeded to dig through the same bag. She drew out a large knife. Gentry, still standing at the door, recoiled.
“I won’t harm you or cut you, not without your permission. Come on, sit down.”
Gentry pulled a chair away from a still-reading Adrienne and then sat down, suddenly aware that her hair must’ve looked like a mess.
Her long T-shirt hardly excused itself as proper clothing, either.
But Wren didn’t seem to care about that as she snatched Gentry’s hand with the one that wasn’t holding the knife.
Her smaller hand was so cold that Gentry yelped a little bit in shock.
Her father and Kit's skin was always blazingly hot, and that little detail distracted her mind as Wren ran her fingers up and down Gentry's palm. It tickled.
"Are necromancers always cold?" she asked, trying to ignore the strange sensation.
Wren shrugged. “I've never met another necromancer. They tend to die pretty quick, but yes, my body temp tends to be in the 70s, so I imagine the surface is even colder than that.”
“It makes sex kind of weird," Adrianne chimed in without looking up from her book.
Wren giggled at that, and Gentry found herself looking at the other girl's throat, and sure enough, it rose and fell, so she knew that the woman was breathing.
A few minutes passed before the necromancer spoke again, “Your soul is all tangled up. That’s for sure.” She worried a plump bottom lip between her teeth. “It’s really hard to make too much sense of it.” She released her hand and brandished the knife. “It’ll help if you bleed a little.”
Gentry swallowed her nerves. “My blood doesn’t clot well, so can it be a small cut?”
“Sure, here. You do it.” Wren slid the knife in her direction.
Cognizant that her body was still slightly ill from Clea healing her, Gentry picked it up. It was an absurdly big, heavy knife, like the kind one would use to cleave meat in half. Experimentally, she tapped her thumb against the sharp edge. It did the job. Blood soon dripped.