Necromancing the Stone (25 page)

“He is not like me. He is like you.
Hashmuk
.”

I nodded in understanding. “Sure, I mean, we’re already going that way.” I took a sip from my water bottle. “Murray, you could have come in to the Council to tell us all this. Why didn’t you?”

He managed to look a bit sheepish. “I figured it would make a better argument if you saw what you were investing in.” One big arm swept out to take in the whole forest.

And it was beautiful, but he was missing the point. I shook my head at him. “No, man. I mean, yeah, the forest is great, but we wouldn’t really be investing in that,” I said. “We’d be investing in you and your people, and I think you guys would have been enough. This,” I said, doing a smaller imitation of his arm wave, “is just a wonderful by-product.” I patted his shoulder. “That being said, I won’t mind hauling my cookies out here for future discussions. It’s loads better than sitting in a chair in the back room of a pub, even if it is a nice pub.”

A few minutes later, we broke back onto the trail. Waiting for us was an older guy, probably about my mom’s age, with summer-tanned skin and darker hair. He hopped up when he saw us and dusted himself off.

“They will take you,” Murray said.

The guy grinned, still dusting off his shirt. “Thanks. You don’t have to take me all the way to the park. There’s someone in the city I’d like to visit first.…” He’d been shaking hands with the others, but trailed off when he got to me. Despite his somewhat awkward staring, I grabbed his hand to shake it and … suddenly understood why he’d stopped.

Even though he’d been out in the summer sun, his hand felt cold to me. Ice cold. Necromancer cold. And when he finally spoke again, a few things fell into place.

“Samhain,” he whispered. He was bigger than me, and the hair was darker, but the resemblance was undeniable, though it still took me a minute to place him. Not that surprising, since I hadn’t seen him since I was a baby.

“Uncle Nick,” I replied. We stood there, locked in an incredibly awkward moment. The silence dragged on and on and on. “I’m not sure how to react right now.”

Ramon snorted. “Good thing you have me, then.” And he punched my uncle straight in the eye. He was a trifle enthusiastic about it. Nick crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

“You might have hit him a little hard, Ramon.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, picking up Nick and chucking him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “Still getting used to my new strength. Only meant to tap him one, you know?”

I patted his arm reassuringly. “I’m going to buy you the biggest milkshake we can find, oh, buddy of mine.” Nick’s head wobbled in agreement as Ramon adjusted his inert form on his shoulder. Maybe not the homecoming my uncle was imagining, but he’d kind of earned it.

Murray looked confused, and Pello looked worried.

Ramon gave a one-shouldered shrug in response. “He hasn’t been the best uncle to my boy here.”

“But we’re still taking him with us?” Pello asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Ramon said. “We just had to get that out of the way first.”

I grinned.

Murray looked first at Ramon and then at my stupidly grinning face. “You seem like such nice boys, but I think that, in the future, I will try not to cross you.”

“I can honestly say that’s probably very wise of you,” Ramon said, returning to his march as he began whistling a merry tune, Nick’s head bobbing in counterpoint the whole way.

21

I GOT CAT CLASS, AND I GOT CAT STYLE

Douglas was drifting. He didn’t dare keep the Stygian coin on all the time. It was unlikely that anyone would think to search for him—that was one of the positives of being dead—but if they did, the coin would make their job easier.

The problem was, when he didn’t wear it, he had a hard time staying anchored in the here and now. It was so easy to drift into the past and away from what mattered. Douglas had spent most of his life as a focused kind of individual, so he found this development disturbing, to say the least. He didn’t particularly enjoy remembering the past.…

*   *   *

The driver had been chattering incessantly since he’d picked Douglas up from the train station.

“So after I got back, I spent all my clams on this beauty. Hits on all sixes, she does. How ’bout you, young man, you in the war?”

“I was … at school.” Nicely vague. You couldn’t really tell people you weren’t out performing your civic duties because you were too busy raising the dead. Something about his tone put the driver off, and the rest of the trip, while not entirely silent, was at least free from questions.

Douglas was surprised when the taxi took him to a middle-class neighborhood. The merchandise he’d come for was top end, which meant wealth. Sure, unexplainable wealth sometimes led to questions or made one stick out, but conversely he knew that this was the kind of neighborhood that asked questions. The houses, lined up in neat little brick rows, were close enough for gossip to slither easily amongst them.

None of his business, he supposed. He asked the taxi driver to wait, slipping him the fare he owed already to keep the car idling. Then he stepped into the cold spring rain, buttoning up his overcoat as he did so.

He used the brass knocker, noticing that the paint on the door was chipped and worn. Negligence, or more camouflage? He’d have to inspect carefully in case the former was a habit. Purchasing something that would get sick and die ran counter to the purpose of buying a live assistant in the first place. Not that Douglas had ever had an assistant. Since Auntie Lynn had died—and didn’t that thought bring a smile to his lips?—he’d been content to be on his own. But a few years had gone by now, and while he didn’t feel lonely per se, he figured that an extra set of hands would be useful.

A beleaguered old woman opened the door and ushered him in. She shambled into the back, beckoning him to follow. Taking in her tattered skirts and head covering, Douglas decided she originated from somewhere in Eastern Europe. Without a word, she deposited him into a room where a man sat drinking brandy by the fire. The man was much younger than the woman, but there was some resemblance, enough to make Douglas guess that this was her son.

“Mr. Smith, I presume?” He smiled at the obviously fake name. This man was no more a Smith than he was a kangaroo.

“Ah, Mr. Montgomery!” The man stressed the
Mr.,
a small jibe at Douglas’s obvious youth, and grabbed him roughly and joyously by the arms, kissing his cheeks briskly. “It is fine to see you! As they say, at last we meet!” He let go and waved him to a moth-eaten chair. “Come, come! Enjoy the fire! May I offer you a refreshment?” Smith’s eyes narrowed as he said this.

This is where things got thorny. To refuse would be rude. To accept could prove folly. What if the man poisoned his drink? That way he could pocket the money Douglas had on him for the sale, dump the body, and then keep using the merchandise as a lure. Not a wise business practice in the long run, but Douglas had no evidence to suggest that the man in front of him had any more wisdom than a wooden post.

Then again, if he didn’t accept, he was showing weakness. He took a small brandy, watching as the man poured himself some from the same bottle. Douglas’s shoulder relaxed a fraction, and the man smiled. They drank to health and wealth before the man sat and got down to business.

“You wish to see him now, yes? Why waste time with words when you could judge with eyes.” The man shouted something in another language, and not one of the ones Douglas was familiar with. Eastern European, he was sure now, but beyond that, he couldn’t guess. A few seconds passed and then the old lady returned, followed by a young boy.

“He’s still learning English, but he speaks it well enough,” Smith said.

Douglas ignored him and focused on the child. He looked no more than ten, possibly a little younger, though it was hard for Douglas to judge such things, as he hadn’t spent much time around other children while he was growing up. Tall and thin, either due to a growth spurt or being underfed. Considering the boy’s worth, he’d be surprised if it was out of neglect, but then again people abused things of worth all the time. Carriage drivers beat their horses, lords beat their servants, and husbands beat their wives. It was a very human thing to do.

The child waited calmly, and if being scrutinized bothered him, he didn’t show it. Douglas looked him over slowly, even going so far as to examine the boy’s teeth. And still he stood there, hands behind his back, silver eyes watching Douglas calmly.

“They say you speak English?”

“Yes,” he said, with a similar accent to Smith’s.

Douglas nodded. “What is your name?” From his research he knew that if the boy answered, it would tell him that he’d been owned before. The man could have taught him not to answer, of course, but Douglas felt he should try anyway. He could most likely tell if the youth was lying.

The boy regarded him with amusement, like he’d performed a funny trick. “I do not have a name yet. We are named by our first masters, and I have not had one.”

“What do they call you, then?”

This amused the boy even more. “Boy. You. It does not matter.”

“Have you mastered both forms?”

The amusement was transformed into a look of approval, making Douglas feel like he’d finally asked a proper question.

The boy reached up and took the small hat off his head, with a smile. Then, without a word or movement, he shifted like smoke. A dragon the size of a puppy fluttered in his place. He zipped around the room with a tiny roar, stretching his wings out, barrel-rolling with obvious joy. This went on for a minute or two, then the dragon hovered closer to the ground and shifted again. It was like watching the sands of an hourglass pour out from the shape of a dragon to a white-and-black kitten.

The kitten mewed at him, the quicksilver eyes large in the minute face. Though the sound was the scratch-crackle of a kitten, the message was unmistakable. A sort of “See? Now ask for something difficult.” The kitten began cleaning its paw and ignoring him completely.

Douglas fished a quarter out of his pocket surreptitiously before tossing it quickly into the air. The silver flashed as it flipped; the picture of Lady Liberty on the newly minted coin flopping to the flying eagle so quickly that they were a blur. It never hit the floor—it didn’t even make it to the top of its arc. The kitten so focused on cleaning between its toes became the dragon in a blink, caught the coin, and turned into the boy before landing. The quarter, Lady Liberty side up, sat in his pink palm, which he held out to Douglas.

He leaned in and curled the boy’s fingers around the coin. Before he could say “keep it,” the coin was gone, secreted away in some pocket or hidey-hole.

Smith grunted. “So? You made a decision, or are we going to do the parlor tricks all day?”

Douglas put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and pulled a stack of bills out of his inner suit pocket. He tossed them at Smith. “The price that we discussed.”

The man grabbed the money greedily, and Douglas could see the urge to count it out making the man’s fingers twitch. Only the fear that Douglas would take it as an insult kept him from doing so. Though still young, his reputation was already spreading.

Smith pocketed the cash and, without looking at the boy, said, “Go get your things.” The boy didn’t move. The man scowled. “I said go get your things.”

“You are not my master,” the boy said, matter-of-factly. “You are not even my caretaker. Money has changed hands, and so have I.”

The glower deepened on Smith’s face, and his skin took on a reddish hue. The tart behavior might have angered Smith, but it pleased Douglas to no end. After all, a good companion should have a bit of spine to him.

Before Smith could start yelling, Douglas gave the boy a small push and told him to get his things. Without a second look at the angry man, he did just that.

*   *   *

“Don’t you want to know where we are going?” Douglas asked. They were in the car and well away from Smith’s house. The boy hadn’t said a word.

Without taking his silver eyes off the scenery flashing by the window, he said, “Would you like me to ask?”

“Boy—” Douglas said and then stopped. “I can’t keep calling you that.”

“Then give me a name.” They might have been discussing the weather for as much interest as the child showed.

He put his hands in his lap and watched Douglas. He showed no interest, no sign that he was invested in the conversation at all, but Douglas felt this might be a ruse. Perhaps a test to see what kind of master he would be, that this naming would set up the paradigm that they would follow from now on.

Having come to this conclusion, Douglas had an idea how to handle the situation. “What would you like to be called?”

When the boy looked at him, he had the same expression that he’d had earlier when Douglas asked whether he could change forms, the one that said he’d done something properly.

He thought for a moment, hands folded calmly in his lap, his eyes looking to the heavens. “James,” he said. “I’ve always been partial to ‘James.’ When we were staying in London, there was a man who sold sweets in the shop on the corner. That was his name. He always gave me an extra bit of licorice. I had to smile for it, though.” He mused on that for a moment. “Do they have licorice in this country?”

“They do.”

The boy digested this. “May I have some?”

Douglas nodded in agreement. “I won’t even make you smile for it.” He held out his hand. “Welcome to the family, James.”

James shook it solemnly before letting it go and returning to his vigil. “So, Master, where are we going?”

“We’re going home, James. We’re going home.”

22

GET OUTTA MY DREAMS, GET INTO MY CAR

Uncle Nick came to sometime on the hike down. He didn’t look super happy, but then again, he didn’t complain either. He kept an eye on Ramon for the rest of the trip, even though my friend was just smiling and whistling. I scratched Taco’s head and tried to hide my own smile.