Page 7 of The Witch & the Wolf

“I do not know,” the corpse repeated. “I was so scared.”

“Where were you when you died?” He barely squeezed out this question before the light went out, and the corpse slowly reclined back to its resting position. Arlo hunched over, limbs trembling from the exertion of magic. “God, that was so draining…”

“It’s not easy work,” Marisha confirmed. “It takes time and practice to strengthen the magic and to know what questions to ask since you have such a limited time with them.”

Arlo sighed inwardly. Yes… he should’ve prepared questions. Maybe asked to look at a file or something so he might know which ones would work best, though he’d anticipated he’d have far more time than the measly seconds he got with his magic. It shamed him.

“You’ve not had much chance to practice, have you?” Marisha asked, somewhat sympathetically. Now, for the first time, she brought some attention to his surname. “I suspect your mother has been less than supportive toward your endeavors.”

He froze, not wanting to show anything of this in front of Holly, who snapped out of her focus and was listening. Eventually, he cleared his throat. “I’d prefer not to talk about such things here.”

“Of course,” Marisha said. “Anyway, since you’ve exhausted your magic for now, let’s focus on Holly’s assessment.”

Arlo nodded stiffly, irritated by the older necromancer’s slip. True as it was, it was dropped too casually. Still simmering with irritation, he settled back to watch Holly’s performance.

Chapter Three – Holly

With Arlo’s magic failing, it put extra pressure on Holly to deliver. The werewolf watched through hooded eyes, along with the older necromancer, as Holly struggled to concentrate. She rubbed the watch in her hands, trying to pinpoint a psychic echo. This was one major way that mediums differed from necromancers. Mediums could pick up clues from items around them.

Echoes began to impress themselves upon her psychic senses. First, a faint hissing, breathing noise spread out, reminding her of heavy breathing. An emotion bubbled to the surface – fear – the desperate desire to run, to get away from something unseen but felt.

“He was running from something,” she murmured, eyes squeezed shut. “It terrified him.” Not any kind of terror, either, but a supernatural one. An image swam into her mind’s eye. Stark, milky-gray eyes. A cruel, cold, single-minded determination to catch that which evaded it. The cold fury slammed into Holly, making her gasp. The thing was furious – outraged – the kind of fury that stirred up when something sacrilegious or blasphemous was done. Scents now entered her mind. Human sweat – dirt – the stale air of something undisturbed for decades.

She began to cough as the air invaded her lungs, wheezing and hunching over until someone’s hand tapped her back. Her eyes snapped open, and Arlo was there, patting her back, brow furrowed. She took a few gulping breaths.

“This man was digging up something. Broke into something. He disturbed a spirit, a ghost. He couldn’t see it himself, but he knew it was there, and he ran. But it got him.”

Arlo’s hand quietly moved from her back, and now he looked incredulous. “You got all that from a watch?”

“Good,” Marisha said, nodding in approval. “Excellent, in fact. You have some serious psychic chops there.”

Holly blushed at the compliment – it wasn’t quite a big deal in her family since all of them came with lofty expectations of their psychic abilities. If Holly had done this in front of her mother, the woman would simply dismiss it as child’s play, like anyone could do it.

Now, the certified necromancer nodded, smiling, and it boosted Holly’s confidence just a little. “Now, I did actually lie to you both about something. I’ve already interrogated the body, and I have a report of the scene the sheriffs were able to see. The lie was simply to see what you both might glean from the situation yourselves.” To Arlo, she added with an apologetic air, “It was also why you struggled more with contacting the spirit. You did very well considering your limitations.”

“I didn’t get shit,” Arlo muttered, and Marisha’s smile widened.

“On the contrary, you got more than what I’ve seen some other necromancers do. It is just that your questions might have been better planned. Now you know this for next time.” Marisha beckoned for them both to come over. “You, as well as any other students who have the abilities, will be asked to test their powers like this every time there is a death. All the locals around know that we need to train you, and we pay them handsomely for it, so for the most part, they don’t mind. Sometimes, morgues donate Jane or John Does to the academy and hand us cold cases where all leads have dried up. Sometimes, we don’t work with bodies, but with bones or just objects of interest.”

Holly nodded thoughtfully. “I guess that makes sense. I suppose I hadn’t thought about how you might train us. I imagined just… writing essays or something.”

Marisha shook her head. “No essay can prepare you for this. For your information, the victim here was killed by a crypt ghost. The victim broke into a wealthy family’s crypt in the hope of finding something valuable to sell. Indeed, there were some valuable objects in the crypt. But he did not account for the crypt’s guardian to be there as well. He could not see it, but its presence drove him into insensate terror, and he ran with one of the items he’d pilfered. A necklace that has since been returned to the crypt.”

Once more, Marisha congratulated Holly on her psychic prowess, and then both Arlo and Holly needed to return to Dreadmor. Since Marisha still had some things to sort out with the local sheriff’s office, she couldn’t join them, so they went into the car that awaited them after buying donuts from a small bakery, courtesy of Z’Hana’s wallet. They munched on their donuts in relative silence, though Holly sensed a rather foul mood emanating from Arlo. Z’Hana spoke to the driver, not paying much attention to her students in the back.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Holly finally asked Arlo, “Is everything okay with you?”

Arlo acted like he didn’t hear her at first. Then, clearing his mouth of crumbs, he faced her. “I’m still not happy with you.”

What? She began to speak, but he drove on with: “You said that my life was easy. You have no idea of the kind of expectations I have placed upon me. No idea what it means for me to be here.” Then his tone softened. “I don’t expect you to know. You’re not a werewolf, so why should you? But I would appreciate it if you thought a bit more before you spoke.”

She puffed up then, indignant, ready to retort with something snappy, but she hesitated.

Do I actually want to fight with him? Is it worth it?

She noted Z’Hana turning in mild interest, one eyebrow raised, ready to break up a potential argument.

With some effort, Holly backed down. “Okay. Fine. I’m sorry for what I said earlier. Perhaps I should get to know you more before I start calling you a rich boy.”

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