Necromancing the Stone (4 page)

I closed my eyes with a wince, my skin turning a charming crimson, I’m sure.

“You earned a lot of glares at the dinner table, Sam. Generally from unattached males like Eric, all of them making the connection between your colored tongue and the ink smears on their
tánaiste
. Their
future leader
—and all of them strapping young bucks who probably don’t appreciate you poaching on their turf.” He stared at me to see if I understood, and I silently made a note to not walk down any dead-end corridors or dark alleys by myself.

“I groaned. Did Brannoc see?” The pack leader is not stupid; he knew I was dating Brid and most likely assumed we didn’t spend our time holding hands and drinking milkshakes (which we should totally do sometime), but that didn’t mean he wanted the realities of our relationship shoved in his face. Sure, he was the pack leader, but first and foremost, he was still a dad, and Brid was his baby girl. His
only
baby girl. If I pissed him off, he wouldn’t even need a shotgun and a shovel like most fathers. He could tear me to pieces bare-handed and then choose from miles of forest where to hide the body.

“Who do you think sent me out to have a little chat with you?”

“Thanks for not talking with your fists,” I said. I have a little sister, and I’m not sure I’d be as understanding with any of her boyfriends.

“I’ve seen you fight,” he said, turning. “It would’ve been a terribly short conversation.”

Brid and I were in my car before I realized that Bran had actually made a joke. I’d only heard the threat at first.

*   *   *

Brid and I caught a movie after dinner, so it was late when I pulled up to the house. I was still trying to get comfortable calling it my house. I could say it in my head all I wanted, but in my heart, it still felt like Douglas’s house. I hadn’t lived there very long, so perhaps I would settle in with a little time? I wondered if repainting it would help. Either that or I could start peeing on all the outside corners. That seemed to work well for dogs.

I got out of my car, making sure to avoid the hedges. They tended to take the occasional swipe. And I don’t mean that I accidentally caught my pants leg on them once in a while—they would actually reach out and grab me. I took a minute to survey the grounds; my car settling was the only sound I could hear at first. I patted the hood of my Subaru. Douglas had unintentionally left me a much fancier car—cars, really—when he died, but I didn’t want to drive them. I didn’t even want to go into the garage and look at his other cars. James liked to go in there and wax them, though. He enjoyed shiny things. To me it was just more stuff that didn’t feel like mine. Of course, I let Frank drive them, which seemed to irritate James, for some reason. I’d been working with Frank at Plumpy’s when all the madness happened, and I’d grown to like the little guy, so I’d hired him on to help me settle in and to save him from a fate worse than death—the dreaded fast food career. So now he ran errands, and I’d made him sell his death trap of a car and drive Douglas’s. Frank looked nervous behind the wheel, probably out of fear of wrapping a classic car around a pole somewhere.

Or perhaps the fear was based on the way James glared every time anyone went near the garage. And speaking of the devil, I heard the soft paws as my four-footed associate approached. Small, liquid silver eyes stared up at me, reflecting the stars above my head. I could sense his tail switching back and forth more than I could see it, his black patches blending in while the white bits reflected the moonlight.

I leaned against my car and sighed, rubbing a hand over my eyes. “It’s been a long day, James. A long, somewhat odd day. Let’s not cap it off with me sitting in the yard talking to a cat, okay?”

James gave a derisive snort—strangely suiting his feline persona—and shifted into his dragon form, which is about the size of a schnauzer. He flapped his wings once and settled in, puffing a ring of smoke at me while he did.

I tried not to sigh in exasperation. “Yes, that’s much better. Talking to a cat was weird, but speaking to a miniature dragon completely fulfills my desire for normalcy.” He blew a thin jet of fire at my shoes. I jumped up with a yelp, and he snickered.

“Cute,” I said. “You’re like a reptilian version of Muttley. Can you do what I asked now, please?”

A swirling mass spiraled upward, like smoke reaching for the heavens, and then he stood before me. Not for the first time, I wondered where his clothes came from and how he managed to wear them without looking ridiculous. James wore an old duster jacket, the kind you might see on a gunslinger or in PI movies. It was something I was used to seeing on John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart, and a look I knew I couldn’t pull off, but it fit James somehow.

He was never naked when he shifted to human in front of me. I preferred it that way, but it still made me wonder.

Through a fluke of circumstance, I’d inherited James. And by that I mean that after I killed Douglas, his former owner, I got everything in the Montgomery estate, including James. My silver-eyed friend was a
pukis
, or a house spirit. That didn’t necessarily mean that he literally went with a certain home—more like a lineage of people. Douglas had no relatives when he died, and so I got James, my manservant for life. I tried to free him, I really did, but he found the very thought to be insulting. He was what he was, and I had to get used to it.

Like it or not, because of Douglas’s death, I got a lot of things I could’ve done without: more creepy powers, a house I was afraid of and all of his weirdo stuff, along with his
pukis
. I hadn’t wanted any of it, but the supernatural community wouldn’t let me sell it. Something about Douglas’s evil knickknacks killing unsuspecting humans. So I had to move in, because nothing is worse than death by tchotchke.

James had three forms: cat, small schnauzer-sized dragon, and human. The third had been a surprise until I moved in and asked him how he’d managed to do all of Douglas’s errands with no opposable thumbs. He’d morphed, poked me on the head with one of said opposable thumbs, and finished by stealing my yogurt. I still hadn’t quite figured James out.

He was taller than I was, and thin. Though I’d never seen him swim, he had the body of a swimmer. When he was a cat, he was white with black spots, and as a dragon, he was a blur of black scales with the occasional shine of silver underbelly. When he was human, he was that same ghostly shade, and his hair was the same inky black, but a bit curly. I didn’t ask him what happened to the other spots. Knowing James, he’d strip down and show me. No matter what form he was in, his eyes stayed the same.

And his attitude. Mustn’t forget that.

“You’re still mad about the collar thing, aren’t you?”

James crossed his arms and sniffed, looking out onto the lawn.

“It was just a suggestion. We didn’t mean to offend you.” Frank, worried that someone might mistake James for a stray and pick him up, had brought up getting James a collar. Well, more than brought it up. He’d bought one. Black suede, with little silver studs. He thought James would like it. It had been a massive miscalculation. James threw an amazing screaming fit, which ended with him giving Frank the cold shoulder for days. He wouldn’t say a word to Frank during that time—just threatening glares. More than once I’d walked into the kitchen to catch James menacing Frank, and managing to do so while quietly stirring a cup of tea.

It made a rough situation worse. James had been Douglas’s assistant. Not knowing this, I had hired Frank as mine. Before I even set foot on the grounds as the official owner, I’d managed to offend the one person who could have helped me easily transition into the house.

After the collar incident, a cold war had developed between James and me; he was less subtle about his issues with Frank. I had to watch James carefully because, let’s face it, Frank was pretty easy to pick on. Watching James harass Frank was like watching a python take on a sick, three-legged mole.

And I’d quickly learned that James was the key to managing my new homestead. He knew every corner, every secret, every creepy or crawly that called it home. The creepy crawlies were definitely becoming a problem. The attack hedge was the least of it. The garden gnomes were stealing my clothes, toilet papering me in my sleep, and hiding booby traps wherever they could. They were like tiny little Wile E. Coyotes. On top of that, the Minotaur kept popping my tires, and I’m pretty sure the gladiators etched into the pediment were rifling through my things while I was out. Sneaky little Roman bastards. Or were they Greek? It hadn’t come up in conversation.

The whole thing was driving me buggy, but I was trying to ignore it, assume it was hazing. Eventually they’d stop and we’d all be friends, right? Right. And then we’d all hold hands and skip around the yard singing “Kumbaya.”

James continued to pout.

“Seriously, he was acting out of kindness. He really was.”

“Uh-huh, sure.” He turned and waved me in. “Let’s get you out of the night air at least.”

Once inside, I went straight to the kitchen and grabbed a soda. James refused to buy me any beer. For a master thief and shady character, he certainly seemed to stick to the letter of the law if it inconvenienced me. I had no idea how old James was, but I was sure his license put him safely over the drinking age.

I set a soda in front of Frank, who had taken over the kitchen table with books. He appeared to be jumping between several large and dusty tomes. I didn’t think he’d noticed the soda or me. I snapped fingers in front of his face and whistled.

“Earth to Frank.”

He jumped visibly and reddened. “Sorry.” I shook my head and pushed the soda into his line of sight. He accepted it gratefully. Frank had graduated from high school this year. I’d gone to his graduation. With Ramon safely in the were-hospital, trying to get used to his sudden were-bear status, and Brooke in her new ghostly form, I had to represent the team. Brooke had gone, of course, but no one could see her. Someone had to scream for Frank when he walked across the stage. His parents weren’t really the screaming type.

Despite his recent freedom, Frank had been hitting the books pretty hard. Like me, he was trying to catch up on understanding our new world. In fact, Frank seemed to take it even more seriously than I did, since he was my helper monkey. Sometimes when I got up in the morning, I found typed notes waiting for me on the fridge. And sometimes, out of pure know-it-all-ism, James corrected those notes, covering them with red ink. When James wasn’t being aggressive-aggressive, he was being passive-aggressive.

“Learn anything cool?”

Frank shrugged. He looked tired. And older. The last six weeks had put a few years on him.

“Who knows?” He took a sip of his soda. “It’s hard to tell what’s truth and what’s recorded rumor.”

“If we’re talking about me,” Brooke said, materializing next to me, “then I can honestly say it’s all rumor. Unless you were discussing how awesome I am. Then it’s all true.” She leaned in and gave me a kiss on the cheek before doing the same to Frank, who blushed, and James, which I think she did out of stubbornness more than actual affection. She very much wanted everybody to just get along. Brooke had been the only girl in a house full of brothers, so she was used to bullying guys around.

Even though Brooke had been killed as a warning to me, which sucked, there were at least some perks to being the mayor of Zombieville. She was one of my guides now, sort of a ghostly girl Friday. The trade-off was, since I was a necromancer, being around me made her visible. We still had to hide her when she was somewhere she might get recognized, though, like Frank’s graduation.

I pulled up a chair and sat down. James gave our sodas a dark look before handing us coasters, managing to rap Frank on the knuckles as he reached for his, and getting a glass of water for himself. He didn’t like soda. Something about rotting teeth and blah blah blah. We slipped coasters under our sodas in a synchronized motion, Frank surreptitiously sticking his bruised knuckles in his mouth as he did so. James had been training us like seals.

Frank slouched back in his chair and closed his eyes. I don’t think any of us had been sleeping well since Brooke’s death. I know I wasn’t. I kept dreaming of Ling Tsu, the zombie panda I’d put back to rest after the Douglas debacle. The image of him sitting there, avoided by his fellow pandas, holding a sheaf of bamboo that he didn’t really need to eat anymore, confused, sad, and alone … it had kind of stuck with me. If Brooke was the upside of my gift, then Ling Tsu definitely represented the dark side of it. I never wanted to use my powers to inflict misery on anything or anyone, even if the job paid well. Knowing that didn’t stop the nightmares, though.

“Ramon coming home tomorrow?” Frank asked.

“Yeah. He’s been cleared for a trial run.” I hadn’t seen Ramon in weeks. While he acclimated to his new therianthropic lifestyle, which Frank informs me is a generic term for someone who changes shape, the pack had kept him under wraps. Something about staving off accidents. I hated to admit it, but a part of me was relieved. Guilt does funny things to a person. I’d never imagined I’d be happy to avoid my best friend.

Brooke clapped her hands in glee, obviously not harboring any sort of guilt or fear like the rest of us.

James made a face. “Yes, well, as per your orders, his room is now ready, and that abomination outside the house should be finished.”

The “abomination” being the half-pipe I’d asked for. James seemed to have a thing against skateboards and had referred to my project as an “eyesore of gargantuan proportions.” Like the statues dotting the lawn weren’t already eyesores? His response had been that “at least the statues serve a purpose.” I couldn’t argue that point—the statues were a defense system. When someone attacked, they came to life and ripped the intruder into confetti. Not nice, but certainly useful.

I’d given up arguing and ignored him after that, and just to further wreck his Martha Stewart fantasies, I’d insisted that it needed to be out front.

“It wasn’t an order, James, I asked you to do it. Nicely. With a
please
.”