Page 6 of Necromancers Don't Raise

“Do you want to tell me where it is? I’m not familiar with all your beds yet.”

“Yet?” He raised a brow and looked slightly scandalized.

“Ah…” I would have blushed if I had blood. As it was, I shrugged and tugged on my hand again. “You know, I have this thing about falling over. Beds are the best things to fall on. That’s practically what they were made for.”

“Practically? I see. You must be extremely practical.”

“Absolutely. I mean, I’m joking with you so I don’t burst into waterless tears, but underneath all of that is a cold and heartless workaholic that you can rely on.”

“To fall on all the beds.” He shook his head slightly then picked me up with his careful hands, holding his breath while he carried me across the room, around a star burned into the black wooden floor, to a narrow hospital bed that was swallowed by a cloud of dust when he pulled back the sheet. Clearly, no one had used this bed for a long time. Of course not. Why would he even have a hospital bed for the living when he was set up to care for the dead? He clearly needed to hire someone to dust. The trouble with nominating myself for the task is that I’d always been busy with things other than housekeeping and not even allowed to make up my own bed. The few times I’d tried, the maid had scowled at me for a week. She’d also had to fix the horrible job I’d done and muttered the entire time not-very under her breath.

The dark sorcerer carefully lowered me onto the bed between the sheets and then pulled the top one up, tucking it under my arm so my inner elbow was turned up. He looked at me, the familiar compassion tinged with uncertainty. He didn’t know what I was, needed to do some more tests, and I might be something so unbelievably vile and dangerous that I couldn’t be allowed to live.

I grabbed his wrist as he started to turn away. “If I’m a danger to you and the world, it’s okay to end me, to protect yourself first. I absolve you of any and all guilt.” He was the type of dark sorcerer who would feel guilty.

His concern faded into a slight smile as he brushed my cheek with his fingers. “You are not and will never be a physical danger to me, Miss Nova. My safety is the last thing you need to worry about.” After that, he slipped a thin needle into my elbow, glancing at me, checking to see if he’d hurt me. I’dhad more than my share of needles, thanks to all the surgeries and injections, and he had the gentlest, most knowledgeable needlework I’d ever experienced.

“I didn’t feel a thing,” I reassured him, offering a smile that he wouldn’t find slightly horrifying. It was hard to remember how hideous I was, when he never acted like it, but he didn’t act like I was the most beautiful woman in the world, either. He acted like… How did he act? Like a vet who had found a run-over puppy, probably. He would take me in, patch me up, and then try to rehome me. I would be the comic relief in this dramedy.

He spoke with an edge to his low voice. “I’m afraid that your regeneration may get more painful before you are fully healed, but I will do my best to assist you. For now, rest, and I will return soon.”

I nodded. “I understand pain before healing. Do the dead heal? I suppose they must regenerate to one degree or another. How long will it take? I feel so much better, but I suppose it takes time to thoroughly transition. I’m sorry for the questions. Go ahead and visit your associate.” I was rambling, when I had always been so careful what came out of my mouth. But as long as he didn’t know who I’d been, I was just another dead girl, and he was safe. I knew with every fiber of my unbeating heart that he wouldn’t hurt me.

He hesitated, then nodded and turned, striding out of the room with conviction. Why did the bad guys always look so much better than the good ones? My former fiancé hadn’t had conviction. Grace, yes, confidence, absolutely, but not conviction. Did Philip have anything to do with my murder? Of course not. He wouldn’t get his hands dirty, and whoever had killed me had very, very dirty hands.

I lay on the hospital bed, staring up at my clear plastic IV bag on its metal rod, the room dimly lit by the large lamp with a green shade sitting on his desk. The desk was hidden beneathpapers and diagrams, a mess, but a comfortable disorder, like he really lived here and wasn’t trying to impress anyone. It wasn’t like any other doctor’s office I’d ever been in, and I’d been to hundreds. There were so many interesting things lining the shelves, bottles of strange body parts, bones, skulls, boxes and jars, with books, so many old leather books with infernal writing and Latin etched into the spines. I should have been horrified, but I wasn’t. It felt like my dad’s study where he kept all his gardening books and seed starting supplies. It was a place where you didn’t have to be perfect, where things were expected to topple and it didn’t matter at all.

My chest ached, panging for my dad, for his dogs, for the breakfasts we had on the weekends now that I’d moved out of the townhouse and lived in my own apartment. It used to be every morning, him and the mutts, while my mother organized his kingdom, but now… Not now. Now I was an undead who might become like the vile and vicious monster that had murdered me. There was a sobering thought.

I shook my head and focused on the room. I didn’t have time to panic today.

The three human-sized boxes along the walls were familiar, at least two were, the terrarium and the tanning bed. The third looked like a solid lead box. Maybe there was something truly terrifying inside. Vilus had a demon rat-man kept in a box who would do his evil bidding. The makeup wasn’t any better than the special effects, but the rat-man was a pretty convincing actor.

There were two doors in the Necromancer’s laboratory, one that we’d come in and he’d gone out of, and another with a frame made out of some kind of unearthly black metal surrounded by another layer of stone. The door itself looked like black ink, its shiny surface rippling every now and then. It no doubt led tosomewhere truly deadly dangerous, but I wouldn’t ever have to worry about it, because I had no intention of opening that door.

I was very comfortable, safe, and with the bubbling of one of his vials over an open flame among the many twisting tangled tubes creating ambient sound, I drifted off, sleeping like the dead.

I woke up to pain. My lungs burned like I’d run a thousand miles, my stomach cramped and twisted, and my chest throbbed with every agonizing slow beat of my heart. My heart was beating? Why? And my breath. I was breathing. Breathing hurt so much. My mouth was dry. My head pounded. All of me hurt, but different from before. This was the pain of all the times I’d woken up from surgery, compounded by a million, without the residue of drugs to dull the ache.

I whimpered and tried not to breathe, but then my lungs hurt and black spots swam across my vision from not getting enough oxygen.

“Doctor Mercury?” I whispered, pressing my hand to my chest, trying to displace some of the pain. Tears welled up in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks, hot and heavy. Why was I crying liquid? Did the dead do that? It must have been something he put in the IV. He’d warned me that it would hurt before it got better, but I hadn’t thought it would hurt like this.

The door creaked open, and I breathed shallowly, hoping that the dark sorcerer’s gentle hands would inject something to deaden the pain. A gaunt face peered in, black eyes dull like coal, and then in shuffled a man dressed in a dusty pink tuxedo, with red splatters along his cuffs and hem. Was the suit velvet? The sight of his outfit almost distracted me from the pain, but then I accidentally breathed and wanted to die. Except that I was already dead. Regeneration shouldn’t hurt so much.

“Miss Nova,” he said ponderously, carrying a tray towards me, walking carefully around the star burned into the floor. “I brought you a glass of water and an aspirin for your headache.”

“My headache?” I wheezed. Yes, I had a throbbing headache, but it was nothing compared to my various organs screaming at me like I was responsible for any of this.

He nodded and then leaned over me, holding the tray. I eyed that tiny white pill. Was that really an aspirin? Would something so small help with anything? I grabbed the glass of water and then froze when I saw my hand, specifically the fingers that had been chopped off and were now knuckle-length. My fingers were regrowing.

A wave of pain went through me that had me tossing back the pill. I drank the water, spilling because my hands were shaking so much. I gulped and swallowed water that shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. So much. Everything hurt, breathing, not breathing, swallowing, not swallowing, just everything. But once the glass was empty, the walking corpse beamed at me, showing his narrow, chipped teeth.

“Very good. Is there anything else I can get for you?”

I panted, trying to hold back tears. “When will Mr. Mercury come home?”

He frowned, every expression exaggerated on his lean, gaunt face. “Master comes soon. Shall I put you to sleep?”

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