At the Behest of the Dead (15 page)

We passed students in the hallways as we descended the few stairs to the executive quarters. They occupied a quarter of the thirteenth floor. Had, I should say, assuming what the kid told me
was true and the old man was really dead. I still had a mind that this was some kind of cruel joke. It wasn’t April but I was hoping I would walk into the room and Salazar would yell “Gotcha!” If that happened, I was going to turn the kid into a newt and leave him that way for a week.

Balkir
stood outside the door studying a tiny scroll as he walked back and forth. His pate was bald and covered in an intricate tattoo of swirls and thorns that I swear grew larger and more complex with every year that passed. His face was wrinkled, but he still wore a long white beard that he kept trimmed to a point. His moustache rose into waxed curls. Balkir always looked like an evil magician about to take the stage and thrill an audience by sawing a scantily clad woman in two.

His lips moved,
but he hadn’t acknowledged us yet. His red robe was pulled taut over his massive chest. He might have been old as dirt but he was a fitness nut. He claimed that if the arts ever failed him he would be able to fight his way out of any situation. I’d like to see him fight the demon that tried to kick my ass a few nights ago.

Another man stood a few feet away. He was tall, nearly as tall as me
, and he glared as I approached. Lukan was one of Balkir’s understudies. He and the old man were thick as thieves. Lukan and I had never gotten along. Our arts were in opposition, but that wasn’t it. I always imagined him as the kid that pulled wings off flies and watched them try to fly.

Lukan
was a good looking man. Something that had also always bugged me. Why was he here studying when he should be at home, stepping out of a GQ magazine. When he had first arrived at the school he immediately took to chasing after Glenda, who tolerated his advances. She stopped in from time to time to assist with experiments and also to see me. Of course I was never allowed near her coven.

But
Lukan had never given up his pursuit, and one day it nearly brought us to blows. Luckily, Salazar had stepped in and sorted us out with strong words. I felt foolish, especially later when Glenda said she wasn’t interested in Lukan. I asked her why and she said he was too pretty. I asked her what she thought of my looks and she just smiled. I never pursued that line of questioning again.

Two guards stood outside Salazar’s old oaken door. They were both dressed in classic white, and both had pentagrams burned into their foreheads. These guys were powerful. What was
Balkir so scared of?

“What’s
shakin’, Balk?”

“Use my name, cretin,” h
e shot back.

Lukan
shook his head. I wanted to scratch out a ward of blasting and wipe the look off his face with a fireball. He always had his eyebrows pinched together. I supposed to show his superiority. All it did was make him look like a smug dick.

“Sure
, Balkir, sure. You want a title to go with it?”

“Watch your tongue,”
Lukan said, and then dismissed me to study whatever book he was reading. Probably something on how to make and keep enemies.

“So I’ll just go now,”
Lorette squeaked.

“Thank you, son.
” Balkir gave the kid a grin that was just creepy. Like a half rotted Halloween pumpkin.

Lorette
walked away, already jamming headphones deep into his ears.

“I didn’t want you here but the council pressured me. Things have changed, Phineas. You’d do well to remember who runs the league now.”

“Yeah,” Lukan added. Probably because he felt left out of the conversation.

“A league, by definition, is a governing body. So
who do you govern with?” I asked.

“Whomever I see fit to cho
ose,” he replied.

“Lucky me.
” I smiled, but it was one of those smiles you grant someone that is mentally challenged.

He didn’t get the joke.

Same old Balkir. Back when I heard my calling for the dead, he had scoffed. Balkir consorted with demons. That’s how Salazar had spun it the first time I had a run-in with the bald old man. I was no older than Lorette and had just dabbed my fingers in the blood of a dead man and tasted it. Balkir had slapped my hand and called me unclean. But I had seen him work magic, with ash, bone, and sigils, summoning demons late at night, so who was he to call me unclean?

“I have the authority of the league to back me up,” he
said.

“Great. I’ll just call it a night and go home. You can go on with your authority and send someone else to find out what happened to Salazar. I’ll pay my respects later.”

Lukan looked up and his brow furrowed even farther. Something I didn’t think possible. There should be an Olympic event for what his eyebrows were capable of.

“I have no time for your games, Phineas.”

“Have you considered adding a rasp to your voice, maybe wringing your hands, when you say stuff like “I have no time for your games.” I said in my best Darth Vader.

Balkir’s
face flushed, but he reined it in and took on a smile. It was one of the scariest sights I had ever seen.

“Mind your tongue, charlatan!”
Lukan said in a shushing tone, like I was a child.

“
Lukan, shut up. The adults are talking.” Points for condescension. Not so much for my lame line.

“You two.”

“It’s my fault.” I said magnanimously.

“It is?”
Lukan asked.

“Yep. I have a smart mouth and sometimes it gets the better of me.”

“That is true.” Balkir stroked his white goatee, as if appraising me.

“Assholes bring out the worst in me,” I grinned from ear to ear.

“You absolute charlatan.” Lukan pulled his eyebrows even farther together. So much so that he looked like someone had put them in a vice and tightened them until his bones popped.

“Look who’s
talking. The last summoning you pulled off involved a horny imp named Fester, and Fester was more interested in getting in your pants than doing your bidding.”

Balkir
suppressed a laugh with a well-placed cough.

That had been a fun night. We had washed
Lukan’s underwear in a strong mixture of saltpeter and ginseng. The imp had been drawn to it like a mouse sensing Gouda. The fun part had come when the little guy turned out to have a pact with an ice elemental and froze Lukan in place while it went at his pants with sharp little teeth. If we hadn’t intervened, Glenda and I, I’m sure Lukan would have had a very unexpected oral experience.

“I’ll be seeing you, Phineas,”
Lukan said, spun on his heels, and departed. I’d like to say he limped away under my spoken barbs, but he somehow managed to maintain that air of superiority as he strode down the hallway with his head still held high.

“You are right, of course. You have been gone for a long time. You have been out of touch with
us and the changes. But we do need you.”

“Fine.” I said, trying to feel somewhat vindicated while simultaneously watching my back for a swift dagger. “Just tell me why the hell you guys rousted me in the middle of the night. What, no one capable of doing a simple reading?”

“Nothing is simple about this. Just go in.” He motioned toward the door.

I gulped when I was reminded of why I was here. My mentor, my best friend, a man that had been a father to me, lay dead in the other room.

“I’ll do what I can.”

“We went back a long way. He deserved better.
” Balkir looked down, but I got the distinct feeling he didn’t feel all that much loss.

Salazar and
Balkir? They went back a long way all right, but there had never been any love between the two. Not exactly enemies, but if Salazar brought an issue before the league it was a certainty that Balkir would be there to take the complete opposite stance.

The question bugged me still, why me? It wasn’t like I had any special abilities. Half the necromancers in this building probably possessed superior skills.

The two security guards moved to either side of the door.

Old and hand carved, the oak door had been cut from a tree over a century ago. Salazar had once told me that it was over two hundred years old
, but back then I didn’t really care. Now I looked at it in awe. The hand carvings were gorgeous, terrifying in their manner and somewhat grotesque, but gorgeous just the same.

The room was just like I remembered, like a cross between a medieval lab and a modern day science station. For every empty vial there was a glass jar fil
led with murky fluid or body parts from humans, animals, and more than one tiny demon. There were a pair of fairy wings in one and part of a unicorn horn in another, although it looked more like a curved tusk to me. People scoffed when you mention unicorns, but they weren’t so rare once upon a time.

I was surprised to see a pair of computers on a desk. The next shock was a set of large monitors on the walls. I wondered what in the world possessed the old man to become so technologically inclined. I moved closer to get a look at an image on one of them. A page from an old book was displayed
, but I didn’t recognize the writing. The image was yellowed and some of the edges were burned away. It was hard to make out but it looked like tiny figures had been hand drawn in the margin.

Balkir
had followed me in. He stood in the corner of the room and stared at a figure on the floor. I hadn’t gone right to him because I wanted a moment to walk around the study area, get a feel for what my old friend had been doing when he was killed, but that wasn’t the only reason. I was also fearful to see the body of my mentor. He had been so strong in life. I simply didn’t want to face his corpse.

The room had a
chill to it, like the air conditioning had just kicked into high gear.

Blinds now covered the windows. I missed the dark drapes that had hung here. Rarely opened, they were apt to see use late at night when the moon’s glo
w was desired or needed. A backdoor led to his sleeping quarters. Salazar had been vested in the league and rarely left it. Like the other parts of the building, the flooring had been replaced by carpet, although a sectioned off summoning area was covered in marble chunks and a raised runnel of ivory that was used to hold fluids or powders. Glyphs were worked into ebony shards that lined the corner of the room. This was a complex location that fell on an old ley line. Power radiated from it, almost calling to me.

I fought
down a wave of dizziness and shook my head. That wasn’t right. I had spent many nights in this location, performing a rite or trying to bring an imp over to our side for work, but I’d never had a sinking spell near the pedestal.

I
rubbed at my temples and looked around the room. Balkir studied me intently but didn’t say a word.

Finally I went to
Salazar’s body and knelt.

He was shrouded in an old black robe that covered his face and body but left his ankles and feet exposed. I reached out and touched the skin of his calf and felt nothing but cold. I nearly broke into tears when I made contact.

I slid the robe aside, leaving his head covered for now. I wasn’t ready to see his face.

His chest was opened as if punctured by a large object. Ribs and sinew lay exposed like he lay upon a coroner’s table. Only there was nothing surgical to the wound. This was something done in haste, something done in – fury. I could feel the hate radiating from the wound. I wanted to step back, leave the room, go back to Seattle and ignore all this bullshit.

Instead I shifted aside the dread that gnawed at my own chest and drew a glyph in the air. Then I pull out a vial of a glowing purple fluid and popped the cap. Balkir didn’t move or say a word. He just watched as I prepared my rite.

I poured a drop on the floor and drew a tiny shape with it. I felt like I had just taken a lighter and held my fingertip in the flame. I drew a line, and then I put anothe
r drop on his other side and drew another form. Shadows seemed to tug at the room, lights shifted, and I thought I could hear chains rattling in the distance.

Finally it was time. I tugged the robe to the side and exposed his face. I thought I had prepared myself for the image
, but I was wrong. A cry of rage escaped my mouth.

His death had been horrible. I was sure someone had tried to close his eyelids but something hot had melted the flesh of his brow, practically gluing them open. His eye sockets w
ere empty and stared at what might have been the most horrific sight. The last thing he had ever seen had also made his mouth open in a scream that I swear still assaulted the air. I tried to concentrate on the rite, but all I wanted to do was find the person responsible for this and use my fork to impale them on the tines and watch them howl in pain as life left their body.

“I’m sorry
, Salazar,” I said under my breath. I had to clench my fist and bring it down on my leg in anger. The pain helped bring me back, helped me center and continue the rite.