Still Not Dead Enough , Book 2 of The Dead Among Us (3 page)

He’d drop the body off near her home. There’d be less suspicion that way.

Chapter 1: No Safe Harbor

Katherine McGowan met her father in the reception room outside her office. “Hi, father,” she said, and gave him a big hug. He just grinned, followed her back into her office, sat down on the couch against one wall.

She asked, “So what’s so urgent it can’t wait until we have dinner this weekend?”

Walter McGowan took a deep breath and she knew she wouldn’t like what he had to say. “I need your help with Paul. I need you to take a more active role in his training. And next week Salisteen wants me to bring him down to Dallas. She suspects some sort of netherlife crossed over some time ago and is feeding in the Dallas area, and she’d like to see if Paul’s special abilities might prove advantageous.”

The old man had omitted something. “Paul’s not ready for a hunt. It was pure luck that the fiasco with the Secundus didn’t end in a terrible tragedy.”

Her father was a horrible liar, and at that moment he looked exceedingly uncomfortable. “I don’t think it was luck,” he said. “I’ve read up on necromancers—had to brush up on my Latin. I’ve got a grimoire written by a ninth century Saxon monk. I trust his written word more than most because his spells and incantations actually work. And he believed chance conforms subtly to the needs of a necromancer, and the people he needs to help him do whatever he’s supposed to do, are drawn to him.”

He shut up and let her chew on that for a moment. She didn’t like the idea she might be drawn into some arcane, mysterious sequence of events, regardless of her own desires. But if practitioners were drawn to Paul, that meant . . . “Wait! You mean you and Colleen and me?”

McGowan nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “Colleen and I have discussed this, and yes, that’s probably what’s happened. And, oddly enough, that probably means he needs those asshole Russians in some way.”

She couldn’t hold back her anger, stood and leaned forward on her desk. “No! Absolutely not! Before he came along I was just a simple, little witch. I’d never met a demon, never been to the Netherworld, never met leprechauns and Sidhe, never been kidnapped to Faerie—never even been to Faerie for that matter, never had a bunch of crazy Russians shooting at me . . .” She ran out of steam, sat down in her chair and closed her eyes.

“You know how strong he is?” the old man asked calmly. “When I was trying to locate him he repeatedly snapped my locator spell with nothing more than a shrug.”

Now that was intriguing. There weren’t more than a couple practitioners in the world who could snap one of Walter McGowan’s spells, let alone do so with so little effort.

The old man continued. “I thought you liked him.”

She opened her eyes. “I do. I did. But . . . there’s something wrong about him. It just doesn’t feel right. You know, he told me himself he thought he was nuts, and he’s probably right.”

“I thought shrinks didn’t use words like nuts.”

“Ok,” she hissed. “Then let’s use the proper technical terms. He’s probably all fucked up. You know, bongo, wacko. I don’t need to be around someone like that.”

“But he’s not. He’s quite sane. He thought he was bug-fuck nuts—those are his words, by the way. I would never use such derogatory terms—”

She groaned, “Ah jeese! Get to the point. Please.”

The old man hesitated, and for the first time in her life he seemed uncertain. She suddenly felt a chill, and fear gripped her. “My dear,” he said calmly, carefully, pointedly, “the point is, he is sane. And the point is . . . I don’t understand much of the magic he’s using.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered, and dropped back into her chair.

~~~

Anogh had been summoned, and when he entered Ag’s private audience chamber he was surprised to find the unpleasant Russians there as well. Ag and Karpov were seated in large, comfortable chairs near the back of the room, speaking in hushed tones, while Karpov’s two thugs gawked about like bumpkins, and Simuth looked upon them with obvious distaste.

Anogh approached Ag but stopped at a polite distance and waited. Ag and Karpov conversed for several more minutes; then Ag looked up and took notice of the Summer Knight. Ag stood and Karpov stood with him. As they walked toward the center of the room, Anogh, Simuth and the two thugs joined them there.

“Sir Knights,” Karpov said, acknowledging Anogh and Simuth. “It appears we have a common cause.”

“Yes,” Ag said, looking pointedly at Anogh. “This necromancer is a problem for us all. And I find it disquieting he’s bound himself to the Old Wizard. It would be better if he were bound to the Winter Court, or, to our good friend Vasily here. And you’ll help him, won’t you, my Summer Knight?”

Anogh bowed slightly. “If that is Your Majesty’s desire, then, of course.”

Karpov looked at his two thugs and said, “And His Majesty tells me he believes a necromancer must have some demon blood in his veins.”

The big bearish fellow grumbled, “I knew he was a fucking demon.”

Karpov’s hand lashed out and struck the fellow across the cheek, a slap that resounded loudly in the small room. The strike had been fast, inhumanly so, like that of a pit viper. “You will not use such crude language in the presence of His Majesty. Apologize.”

“I am sorry, Your Majesty,” the big bear grumbled in his thick accent, lowering his eyes. “Please forgive me.”

Ag waved a hand impatiently and spoke to Karpov. “These young fools all have so much to learn.” He looked Anogh’s way. “But I think you’ll find Sir Anogh to be quite resourceful on the Mortal Plane.”

~~~

Leftover pizza, the breakfast of champions. Paul finished the last cold, congealed slice, gulped down the last of a cup of coffee, stuffed both Sigs and his holsters into a cloth shopping bag, pulled on his coat and shot out the door.

He couldn’t find it in his heart to return to his old place. He and Suzanna had lived there since before they were married, and Cloe had spent her entire life there. And after the “home invasion” by the Russians, it had been easy to break the lease. Paul had found a new apartment, a nice apartment as apartments went, just a little lonely. He missed Suzanna and Cloe, but he’d sworn a silent oath he wouldn’t fall into that trap again. They were gone, and he’d accepted that, whether he liked it or not.

The new place was South of Market, an area of San Francisco devoid of the quaint charm of nineteenth-century, wood-frame houses with three or four stories of bay windows. A few years ago Paul read an article predicting South of Market was destined to become a new, upscale, yuppie enclave. Paul hoped no one took stock market tips from the guy who wrote the article. Some people wanted to call South of Market
SoMa
, hoping to give it a fashionable flair like SoHo in New York. But tall, modern office buildings dominated the north side of the district, while the south was filled with cheap hotels, a few rundown buildings, and some apartment buildings four or five stories high, boxy structures with little charm. In any case, Paul had signed a lease on a three-and-a-half room bachelor flat: living room, bedroom, small bathroom, half a kitchen.

When he arrived at McGowan’s the old man met him at the door and hustled him into a car with the cryptic explanation of, “We’re going to see Clark, introduce you properly.”

As McGowan pulled out onto Van Ness, he shifted into his lecture voice and said, “On the way let’s talk about the Three Realms: the Mortal Plane, the Netherworld, and Faerie. They’re also sometimes referred to as the three lives. First—”

“Wait,” Paul said. “First let’s talk about why you’re doing this for me.”

McGowan frowned as Paul continued. “I’m nothing to you. Nobody. But it must be costing you a great deal of money to take care of me, and certainly a great deal of effort. And most importantly, I am, apparently, a dangerous unknown. And now you’re willing to put that aside. Why?”

McGowan considered his words carefully. “A lot of reasons, kid. First, if you had continued the way you were going, someone, probably me, would have had to kill you to prevent you from harming others. Think about Cassius. Two, three, four hundred years ago some sorcerer let that Secundus loose on the Mortal Plane. And a demon like that needs to consume two or three lives a month. Do the math. It doesn’t matter if that ancient sorcerer let him loose through evil intent, or merely sloppiness or inexperience. If there was the possibility you might do the same, we’d stop you, even if that meant killing you. But while I will admit I can be ruthless, I’d rather not commit murder until I know I can’t fix you properly.”

“So if I don’t cooperate, you, or someone else, will kill me?”

McGowan shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. You’re not what we thought—a simple rogue—so I’d probably hold off. But I can’t vouch for those Russians.

“Another reason I’m working with you is that you’re an unknown, to us all. There hasn’t been a necromancer around for twelve hundred years, not that we know of. So I need to understand why you’re here, now, at this time and place.”

“There has to be a reason?”

“Ya, I think so.” McGowan looked away from the road, looked at Paul carefully for a moment, studying him, evaluating him. His eyes returned to the road and he said, “Our history books are written by historians who don’t believe in magic or sorcery, so they make events fit into their mundane framework. But I’ve spent years translating and studying ancient grimoires—basically cookbooks for magic and sorcery with little bits of history thrown in—written by men and women hundreds of years ago with a vastly different perspective. And believe me it’s a bitch trying to understand them. They’re vague, and superstitious, so a lot of interpretation is needed. But an alternate interpretation that emerges is that a couple thousand years ago a Primus caste demon, one of the nine princes of hell, crossed over to the Mortal Plane. That led to the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the dark ages. And it wasn’t until about eight or nine hundred years later that a necromancer came along to banish the Primus back to the Netherworld.”

“Jesus!” Paul said, his thoughts racing. Maybe he could just run away and hide. Play along with McGowan for a day or two, yank all his savings out of the bank, take only cash, move to some south Pacific island, grow a beard, become a beach-bum and just hide.

“Paul!” McGowan shouted. “Calm down. It’s just all speculation, and conjecture. I told you it’s all subject to wide ranging interpretation. And you should see some of the crap those superstitious idiots wrote ten, twelve hundred years ago. Remember, these are the same morons who came up with the test for a witch: drown her, and if she lives she’s a witch so kill her, but if she dies she’s innocent, so pray for her when you bury her.”

Paul forced himself into an artificial calm. “Well, at least now that everyone knows I’m a necromancer they’re not out to kill me anymore.”

McGowan sucked air through his teeth. “About that . . .”

“Ah shit! Please tell me I’m not a target again.”

“Wellllll!” McGowan grimaced unhappily. “It’s not that simple. You see, the Sidhe don’t have souls, so they’re kind of . . . not really considered among the living, so . . . you may have some extra special powers over them, and they don’t like that.”

Paul turned on him and demanded, “What kind of powers?”

McGowan’s grimace remained. “We don’t know. Maybe none. But the Sidhe Courts, as a rule, don’t take any chances in such matters, so don’t assume anything.”

“Well, at least the fucking Russians aren’t trying to kill me anymore.”

McGowan added a frown to his grimace. “About that too. It’s really hard to bring a Primus caste over, even for me, but maybe not for a necromancer. So your very existence might make it possible.”

Paul managed to get his voice down to a growl. “So everyone thinks I’m going to cause the destruction of civilization?”

McGowan glanced at him apologetically. “I just wouldn’t assume there is anyone who isn’t out to kill you. Well . . . you can count on me and Colleen and Katherine and Clark. We’re on your side. That’s why we’re going to see Clark.”

“Clark?”

“Ya. Clark Devoe.”

“Who?”

“Gun shop owner. You met him when you came to his store. And then again the night you took out that Secundus. That was a nice piece of work, I might add. Earned you a few brownie points among my colleagues. That’s why some of them won’t . . . well . . .
might
not try to kill you.”

McGowan pulled the car into a parking spot in front of
South-Bay Guns and Ammo
. Paul remembered the place from his one and only visit. It was still rather seedy, a simple, unassuming storefront with a neon sign. And it needed a coat of paint.

McGowan pulled a briefcase out of the back seat, nodded toward Paul’s shopping bag containing his Sigs and said, “Grab your stuff, kid.”

Paul followed him into the shop. It had only been a few months since he’d first wandered into the place and it hadn’t changed, a long row of glass display cases running down the right side with handguns displayed under glass, racks of rifles on the wall behind the cases. Along the left wall were racks of ammunition, clothing, holsters, cleaning kits, all sorts of paraphernalia.

The plump female with frizzy, unkempt hair sat behind the counter toward the back. She wore another moo-moo, or maybe the same one, and was eating something out of a plastic refrigerator tub. “How ya doin’, Mr. McGowan,” she said around a mouth full of food. “Clark’s expecting you. Go on back.”

Clark Devoe was waiting for them in the back room. He looked to be in his mid-sixties with shoulder length gray-blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, and three or four days of stubbly beard growth. Paul thought he might be wearing the same old army fatigue jacket and NRA cap he’d had on the first time Paul met him.

“Mr. McGowan,” Devoe said, shaking McGowan’s hand.

He turned to Paul, shook Paul’s hand in a hard grip and said, “Nice job you did on the vamp.” He looked down at Paul’s shopping bag. “Let’s see what you bought.”

Paul upended the bag on a nearby workbench. Both Sigs were in their hinged, blue, plastic, factory cases. Devoe opened one, lifted the weapon, ratcheted the slide back, then quickly field stripped it, removing the slide and the barrel. He sighted carefully down the barrel. “This is good hardware, little expensive, but a good choice. And it looks like you’re cleaning it and oiling it properly.”