Finn Fancy Necromancy (32 page)

“Okay.” I grabbed my persona ring and a pair of jeans out of the dresser. I climbed out to sit on the windowsill, and flung one leg of the jeans over the cables, catching it in my free hand. I wrapped the pant legs around my hands a couple of times, getting a solid grip, and looked down.

“Uh, maybe if you pushed m—”

Zeke shoved my back. I managed not to shout as my butt slid free of the windowsill. Maybe I squeaked a bit. A manly squeak. My arms jerked painfully as they suddenly took on my full weight, and I swung to the side and began sliding along the cable, bouncing lightly and swinging side to side as I went.

I quickly realized the first problem with my plan. The hedge that separated our properties had grown in the years since the cable was installed, as had I. While I'd easily cleared the top of the hedge in my youth, I headed now for a groin full of poky branches.

The second problem was that the hedge stood right in the middle between our two houses, where the dip in the cable would reach its lowest point.

I did my best to lift my legs as I neared the hedge. Let's just say I'm very grateful for the sturdiness of denim, as will be any future generations I'm still able to father. Branches slapped and poked me, and I came to a rapid stop in my slide. I started inching backward. Closing my eyes, I let go just on Dawn's side of the leafy barrier. The hedge didn't so much break my fall as break my skin in several places, scraping me as I fell along its edge. But I hit the ground in one piece.

I picked myself up, stumbled away from the hedge, and looked up. Mort sat in my windowsill, gripping another pair of jeans over the ropes as Zeke helped him prepare.

A throat cleared behind me. I spun around, fearing the worst. Dawn stood by the back corner of her house, dressed now in brown pants and a black hoodie, her arms crossed.

“That was impressive,” she said.

I raised my hands. “We come in peace,” I whispered, and motioned for quiet. And then Mort crashed to the ground behind me. He managed to miss most of the hedge but landed hard and flopped onto his back, breath exploding from his mouth.

I grabbed him as he moaned and helped him move clear of the drop zone.

Dawn arched a single eyebrow, and walked over to join us. “And here I thought maybe you were making some kind of crazy romantic gesture, trying to swing in through my window and all. Obviously, though, this has nothing to do with me. So unless you're prepared to tell me what the hell's going on, you can turn right around and march back home.”

“Uh, well, we're sort of in trouble with some people who think we did something bad, and we need to get Everett to prove our innocence.”

“Congratulations. You win the vaguest bullshit award. Care to elaborate?”

“I'm … not sure I can.”

“Uh-huh. Please tell me you're not running from your meth boss or something?”

“My what?”

Zeke hit the ground, the word “Hide!” bursting out with his breath, and he rolled into a crouched position. I grabbed Mort and moved him closer to the hedge, out of view of the upstairs windows. Dawn strolled at a much more casual pace to join us in the shadow of the hedge. Zeke stood up next to me, shuddered, and shook his arms as if to flick water from his hands. “Never again,” he muttered, then whispered, “We've gotta move, now. Grayson was coming upstairs to search when I jumped. Do you have a plan for transportation?”

“Uh.”

I hadn't really thought out my plan beyond “escape house in super spy style.” We couldn't take our own cars unless we were willing to hang around and hope the enforcers left before sniffing us out.

“You can take my car, if you want,” Dawn said.

“Really?” I took a step toward her. “That would help so much, I can't even tell you.”

“Sure,” Dawn replied. “I'll drive, and you can explain everything on the way.”

“Not happening,” Zeke said.

Dawn just continued to stare at me, expectantly. And I couldn't look her in the eyes and lie one more time.

“Screw it,” I said. “Dawn, if you really want the truth, I'll give it to you. But I'm telling you right now, it's not going to be easy for you to hear.”

“Sure it will. We'll keep the radio low,” Dawn said. “Meet me around front.”

21

A Kind of Magic

Dawn disappeared around the back of her house. We made a dash to the far side of her front porch, using an apple tree for cover. I leaned back against the weathered gray house and dabbed at a couple of scrapes from the hedge.

“Finn, Dawn's a mundy,” Mort said.

“Dawn's as good as family,” I replied. “And she could've been hurt today if the Króls had used fire or something worse. She deserves the truth.”

Zeke grunted. “It's against the laws—”

“Then go back there and rat me out to Grayson,” I snapped. “It's the least of the things the ARC will charge me with.”

“But this charge would be true, yeah?” Zeke pressed. “The others may not be.”

“As if that matters,” I said. “You heard the stuff the ARC believes about us.”

Zeke looked away, his jaw jumping as he clenched his teeth. Dawn drove up in a wood-paneled green station wagon, and waved us over.

Mort moved close to me and said in a low voice, “You know the ARC will just go in and mess with her memories if you tell her, right?”

“Only if they find out she knows, and they think she's a threat.” We hurried to the station wagon and piled in. I took shotgun, next to Dawn.

“So we're headed for Everett?” she asked.

“Yeah.” I glanced at my watch. Just after 11
A.M.
The ride to Everett would suck up a good portion of the remaining day, but I had little choice.

“Allrighty. Please keep your head and arms inside the vehicle at all times. Asses, feel free to hang out the window.”

I kept glancing in the side-view mirror until we reached the edge of town, but nobody appeared to be following us.

“So,” Dawn said. “You were going to tell me the secret to life, the universe, and everything?”

“Actually, something like that,” I said. I could feel Zeke's disapproving glare on the back of my neck. I cleared my throat. “The big secret is, magic is real. And I don't just mean in the sense of your tarot readings, or Wiccan spells. There's a whole world out there hidden from you and the rest of the mundanes.”

“I see. So I'm a muggle, and you're a wizard, Harry? Is that it?”

I frowned. “No, I said mundane, not … muggle? And I'm not a wizard. I'm a necromancer. My whole family is, though we do have some wizardry in our bloodline. Well, except Father. He's a thaumaturge. And he's shown touches of sorcery, seeing hints of the future from time to time.”

Dawn gave me a worried look. “Necromancers? Please tell me you don't dress up in robes and do sick things with dead bodies, or drug people all
Serpent and the Rainbow
style?”

“No. We mostly do the same thing as regular morticians, except we can actually manipulate life energy and the body somewhat, we can bind, dissipate, or destroy spirits, and we can extract latent magic from a body. And … I can talk to the dead.”

“You see dead people. Got it. And this explains your running away all these years, and all the weird shit that happened today, how?”

“Uh, right. Okay, let me back up a bit.” I composed my thoughts. “Basically, there are two realities, at least, that we know of. There's our reality, and there's the Other Realm, which you can think of sort of like fairyland, and it's where most raw magical energy comes from. A long time ago, shamans learned to access the Other Realm, to travel there on dream quests and such. And their dreams and memories took shape in the Other Realm, became living spirits, and these spirits began to travel back into our world, hitching rides with the shamans. Some of these early spirits became gods or other beings we call the Elder Spirits. The others joined with people, with creatures, even with plants in our world. They created the magical races such as the waerfolk, unicorns, kelpie, dryads, and all the rest, which we call feybloods.”

“Holy shit,” Dawn said. “That's amazing.”

“I know it's a lot—”

“No, really. I was just telling Tinkerbell this same story the other day while we were flying back from Never Never Land, and she was all, ‘Bitch, please stop smoking the crack,' and I was all, ‘Yeah, you're right, who'd believe such a load of crap? I mean, fairies can't be real, right?'”

“Dawn—”

“Wait, I'm not done. And then Tink dropped dead right there because I didn't believe in her, and I felt really bad, so I ate an entire carton of chocolate ice cream and had sex with the Old Spice guy
at the same time,
and then I realized, shit, I must be dreaming and fairies
aren't
real, and I woke up hungry, horny, and really pissed off. Okay, all done now. You were saying?”

Mort chuckled in the backseat.

I looked over my shoulder. “Shut up, Mort. It's not like I've ever had to do this before.”

Zeke looked out the window. “You shouldn't be telling her at all,” he muttered.

“This is awesome,” I said, looking back at Dawn. “I'm telling you the truth, and I'm getting crap for it from every side.”

“Yeah, well, you seriously can't expect me to believe what you're saying? I'm back to thinking you're a meth cooker at this point. You know that shit rots your brain, right?”

“Tell you what. When we get where we're going, you'll have all the proof you need. But for now, just humor me, okay?”

“Oh, you're plenty amusing without adding my humor,” Dawn said. “But go ahead. Talk away.”

“Fine. Where was I?” I glanced back at Mort.

“The Fey created the feybloods.”

“Right. Well, long story short—”

“Too late,” Zeke muttered.

“—the Fey themselves evolved into true, thinking beings, and eventually tried to negotiate as equals with the arcana, to protect the feybloods and set up rules of trade for the magic from their realm, but the arcana dismissed that as negotiating with a dream, or a pet. Even today, there are sects who don't believe the Fey are any more than very lifelike dreams, without real feelings or desires of their own. These conflicts have led to several Fey-Arcana wars.”

Zeke exhaled sharply. “You make it sound like we caused the wars. But the Fey and feybloods need to be controlled. They're too dangerous to just let them do whatever they want, especially when some of them would love nothing more than to see every arcana dead.”

Part of me agreed with Zeke, the part that had been fed on by the Fey for most of my life. But the part that had been raised by my empathetic mother and generous father, the best version of me whom I realized I wanted to be around Dawn, won out.

“Maybe they wouldn't want to see us dead if we didn't treat them all like animals?”

“They are animals!” Zeke responded.

“Including your sister?” The words slipped out before running through my “stupid things not to say” filter.

Zeke's hands were suddenly around my throat, solid as an iron clamp and squeezing hard. The car rocked back and forth as Dawn swerved and shouted, “What the fuck?”

“Let go!” I gasped. “I'm sorry, okay?”

Zeke released me with a push that gave me minor whiplash. I rubbed my neck. Anger borrowed my mouth to speak, “
I
didn't call Vee an animal, Zeke, you did! And if you put your hands around my neck again, you'll get to feel your spirit being ripped from your body.”

“You'd have a hard time doing that if you're already dead, fool.”

“Jesus, you two,” Dawn said. “I don't know what's going on, but you guys are taking this fantasy shit way too seriously.”

“We're fine,” I said, looking at Zeke, and took several deep breaths. This wasn't helping my case with Dawn. And Zeke's reaction aside, it had been a jerk move to antagonize him like that. I willed my anger to dissipate. “I'm sorry I said anything about Vee.” Zeke shrugged and looked out the window. I glanced at Mort. “And thanks for the backup by the way, bro.”

Mort raised his hands. “Don't drag me into your drama.”

I turned back around and settled into my seat.

Dawn adjusted her rearview mirror and said, “So far, you still haven't told me anything that explains what's up with you and your family.”

“Well, I was trying. You need to understand my world in order to understand what's wrong with it,” I said.

“You'd be amazed at what I can understand,” Dawn said. “So maybe skip the history lesson and get to the point? And then if I have any questions, like what a feyblood is, or which mushrooms you've been licking, I can just ask you.”

“Fine. Remember Felicity? She was a witch. She didn't attempt suicide or get shipped off to some hospital; she was attacked with dark magic, or at least pretended to be. Either way, I was framed for it and exiled to the Other Realm for twenty-five years. I just got back a couple days ago, and someone tried to frame me again by really killing Felicity. Plus, I have a clan of witches seeking revenge for Felicity, and because sasquatches killed one of them and they blame me.”

“Sasquatches?”

“Yes, sasquatches.”

“I see. And Pete?”

“He was hit by a hex from that clan of witches.”

“Right. So don't you have a ministry of magic or something you can go to for protection?”

I sighed. “We have governing bodies called Arcana Ruling Councils who are the nice folks that exiled me and now want to question us as suspects. So I need to figure out who's really behind all these attacks, assuming it's not the clan of witches, and to do that I need to talk to Katherine Verona's spirit. And to figure out how I can get to Magus Verona, I need to talk to a dead security guard who's in a protected crypt in Everett. And now you know everything.”