Page 59 of Necromancers Don't Raise

“Mine is the color of your eyes. I couldn’t resist those eyes when your mother turned them on me.”

I froze for a second before the ludicrousness hit me, then I snorted. “Oh yes, my mother is a renowned seductress. Howcould you help your interest in me based on her? That is what you are inferring, isn’t it?”

He studied me intently. “Do you really want to know? You’re here, so you must, but you aren’t going to find any satisfaction in the truth. It will cut you so deeply, you may never recover. Tell me, will you have the truth from me?”

I stared at him, trying to read him, but I couldn’t see anything other than sincerity and amusement. “If you’re capable of the truth, I would be delighted to have it. Don’t worry about my delicate human feelings.”

He laughed and shook his head. “It isn’t the human that makes you delicate. No, it’s goodness. Do you know why I’m called Mr. Good?”

“For irony?”

“For my mother. She was a nun that lived her life to save the downtrodden and unfortunate. She gave her life for others and was rewarded severely for her efforts. Goodness is weakness, and weakness breeds corruption. Your mother has none of that.”

I scowled at him. “First she’s a seductress, and now she’s corrupt? I’m patiently waiting for you to tell me some truth.”

“No, you’re hearing it, but can you see it when it’s against everything you know or understand? Do you honestly think that a woman who sells her body to a man for power and connections isn’t already corrupt? She wanted to think that I was corrupting her. It gave the entire sordid affair a sense of drama and romance, but she never had any real goodness that wasn’t motivated by her own self-interest. That’s why I liked her so much.”

I stared at him, looking for truth and seeing it, but at the same time, was he seriously trying to convince me that he’d had an affair with my mother? “You liked my mother because she was purely motivated by self-interest?”

“Mm. I almost loved her.”

“Almost? How unromantic.” I frowned at him. He was getting less terrifying with every word. He just didn’t sound incredibly evil. I shivered. Ah. That’s what made him so scary, the way he could normalize evil until it changed meanings entirely.

He continued, musingly, “I would have loved her if I’d spent more time with her. She’s like that. So incredibly persuasive, and her will is as delicious as that streak of ambition and cunning. She could have ruled the world if she’d wished to. Pity her drive isn’t in that direction. Most people aren’t entirely corrupt.”

“You are.”

His smile gleamed like an oil slick. “I try, but even I have a twinge of conscience now and then. For instance, you, poor child without a penny to your name, at the mercy of a dark sorcerer, how could I leave you in such terrible straits, your own dear father?”

I froze and stared at him while my heart pounded in my chest. So that’s what my mother seducing him had been leading to. “You think you’re my father? You’re delusional.”

His smile turned shark-like. “Am I? I see things as clearly as you. Except when personal feelings get in the way. That’s why I’ve worked so hard to have no personal feelings. They always get in the way. Your mother slipped under my guard, though. I don’t feel too bad about it. Who could resist her, even after she defaced herself so that she could steal a respectable identity? Not me.”

“You’re Mr. Good. You never feel bad about anything you do.” What was he talking about? Stealing a respectable identity? Defacing herself? He was mad.

His smile was gentle. “And you’re my daughter. I should feel bad for being with a married woman when your existence stole the immortality I sold my soul to get. Still, you’ve been very amusing, particularly recently. You are so much like my own mother, and yet, you can see like my own father could see, andwith your mother’s cut-throat nature and business acumen, you are certainly amusing.”

I clenched my jaw. “I’m not here to talk about my mother. I don’t care whether or not you seduced her, or why you’d do such a revolting thing. I need to know who murdered me, killed all those people, and chopped off my fingers!”

He smiled. “I haven’t got the slightest idea who murdered you. You left the safety parameters your mother set up, and I reinforced, putting yourself at the mercy of the cold, cruel world. And then you moved in with a necromancer once you came back from the dead. Your murder is very mysterious. Be sure to let me know once you discover the truth. I’m sure you’ll manage.”

He leaned back, with all the signs of being finished with the conversation.

I stared at him. “That’s it? You really didn’t kill me?”

“Kill you? My dear, I’m going to give you everything I own. That’s why Apricot is here. You smelled him, didn’t you? He’s as sweet as he smells. You’ll have to bite him now and again to keep him in line, but I have no doubt you’ll manage. You’ll do beautifully with all of them.”

I stared at him for a long time, but there was only one conclusion. “You’re mad.”

His laugh was low and horrifying. “It comes and goes. Currently, I am in a state of deepest, darkest earnestness. I’ve made you my heir. No, I’ve passed on all my worldly goods as well as the businesses that I’ve run so meticulously over the years without your having to wait for me to die to inherit. Anyone else in the world would be mad with delight.”

“You’re a gangster. What kind of business does a gangster have?”

He made a jerk of his wrists, like he was going to wave a hand, but the chains wouldn’t give him that much mobility. “This and that. Apricot will tell you all about it.”

“I’m not talking to Apricot, or whatever his name is.”

“You can call him whatever you like. You’re the boss now.”

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