Finn Fancy Necromancy (29 page)

19

Talk Talk

Zeke and I rode in silence most of the way home, each lost in our own thoughts.

Finally, I said, “Well, that didn't go well.”

“Coulda gone worse,” Zeke muttered.

More silence. I glanced at my watch. Nearly 10
A.M.
My three-day window would be half over soon, and all I had to show for it were more questions and enemies than when I started.

“Did you learn anything more about the security around Verona?” I asked.

“No,” Zeke replied. “But I did learn a way to learn it. One of the ARC's wardens from the EMP Sanctum recently died.”

“So … you're going to get a job there as a warden, get inside?”

“No.”

“Then—oh.” Damn it. “If I can Talk to him, he can tell us all about the security.”

“Exactly. And then we'll know how truly screwed we are.”

“You know, if my sister dated men, and I didn't like her, I might just try to set you two up. You share such a positive outlook on life.”

Zeke snorted. “And maybe if you'd seen half the sick, evil, stupid crap I have, you'd be a little less of an annoying Pollyanna, fool.”

I didn't respond. He might be right. Instead, I considered the challenge of Talking to a dead ARC warden.

Wardens were little more than glorified security guards, so there was a good chance he wouldn't be personally warded against Talking, or in a Sanctum like Verona. But his remains would be housed in an official ARC crypt. As licensed necromancers, our family had access rights to the ARC crypts, so that was good. But my name had likely been removed from the access rights during my exile, and I doubted they would be restored without following some complicated official process first.

That left me with one unpleasant option.

Good thing I'd grabbed the television.

*   *   *

I set the television down by my bedroom door, and went into the upstairs bathroom.

I won't describe the contortionist act that followed, but I confirmed a disturbing fact—I had a tattoo on the inside of my butt cheeks. This was disturbing not only for realizing the uncomfortable way (in every sense) that the tattoo got there, but also for the fact that it could only have been done by the changeling. Which was not only forbidden, but the tattoo had not worked like wizard tattoos, at least none that I knew of.

I spritzed my burned hand with spray from the medicine cabinet that was magical only in the relief it brought, then hauled the television down the hall. I tapped on Mort's door with my foot, and leaned the television against the wall to relieve the weight of it.

“Who is it?” Mort said.

“I have something for you,” I replied. “A peace offering.”

A pause, then, “Come in.”

I awkwardly managed to turn the doorknob and pushed the door open, then carried the television into the room as Mort finished tying a robe around himself.

“One replacement television.” I set it on the entertainment center, and stretched my aching back. Did I mention that getting older sucked?

“Holy— Is that from your trailer?” Mort asked.

“No, but it's bigger and thinner than your last one, right? So, no hard feelings?”

“Not about the television,” Mort said. “Does it have a built-in HD tuner?”

“Uh, I don't know.”

“Well, how about—”

“Look,” I said. “All I know is it's a huge television, and it's yours. And I'm sorry your last one got broken.”

“Wow, that's your way of apologizing?”

I sighed. “Mort, why does this have to be so hard? Look, I get that Grandfather was snobby about the whole Talker thing, and I got a lot of attention because of it. But I swear, I don't want to take over the family business. I'll admit, I'm not exactly thrilled you've been selling off our family heirlooms—”

“Oh, well, sorry for not asking your permission, but you were a little hard to get hold of.”

“That's not—”

“If I hadn't sold that stuff there wouldn't be a family business left! Between our uncles, and the necrofams that've started franchising out, taking over the smaller families, and—”

“Okay!” I said. “I just—there's enough crap going on, we don't need to be fighting on top of it, you know? We should be working together, as brothers. Like I said, I really don't want to run the family business, but if you need my help, I'll give it. And, well, it would be nice if I could count on your help to figure out who really attacked Felicity, and who keeps attacking us.”

“Ah. So you need my help.”

“That's not the only reason I'm talking to you, Mort. I meant what I said about us acting like brothers again. But yeah, I need your help.”

Mort smiled. Oh, gods. I knew he'd enjoy this, but I still struggled to hide my annoyance.

“I don't know, Finn,” he said and rubbed his stupid little evil Spock beard. “You say you want to help the business, but I'm the public face of our family business now. So if you're in trouble with the ARC again, the less I get involved the better, you know?”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “The thing is, Mort, someone's trying to kill me, or at least frame me again, and that means our whole family's in danger. So if you don't help me, there might not be much family left in our family business.”

“Oh, okay, so you've endangered us all and now you need me to fix it.” He shook his head and sighed, as though at a child who'd spilled Kool-Aid on the carpet. “I'm not going to put our family and the business at risk to fix your problems. Do you know how hard it was to rebuild our reputation after what you—after what happened before?”

I smiled through gritted teeth. “I don't need you to fix it, I just need you to help out.”

“Right. But help with what, exactly?” Mort asked.

“I need to get to a body in one of the ARC crypts. I need your necromancer rights of access.”

“Meaning they'd have my name on record. What do you plan to do?”

“Just Talk to someone.”

“About what?”

“Well, that's the part you don't want to know if an enforcer ever questions you.”

“That's what I thought. So you want to perform an unauthorized Talk and gods only know what else with an ARC-protected body, and you want me to put my name all over it. Are you determined to destroy this family? If I got sent into exile, we'd lose the house, the business, everything. Father and Mattie, they'd end up…” He shook his head. “The safest thing is to let the ARC sort it all out.”

“Are you kidding?” I said. “We reported Felicity's attack to the ARC and I got exiled for twenty-five years! And even with that, the business still suffered, right? And the problem obviously didn't go away. We need to handle this ourselves, and I have less than two days left to do so. So can you help me? Can we do this together as brothers? Please?”

Mort looked at his reflection in the mirror over his dresser for a second, then sighed. “Fine. Okay. I'll help.”

I waited for the “but.”

“But,” Mort said, “you have to use your Talker gift when I ask. And sign papers giving me full control of the family business.”

“Fine,” I said. “I mean, thank you, Mort. Really.”

I left him hooking up his new television, and closed the door behind me. If Mort really was part of the Legion, he played dumb really well. He hadn't asked which ARC crypt, hadn't pressed me on my reasons.

One brother down, one to go. I stopped in front of Vee's door.

Pete's anger at me was understandable. But I'd realized that part of it might actually be fear. Fear of losing Vee when she found out he'd lied to her about being a waerwolf. So to truly make things right with Petey, and hopefully speed up his forgiveness, I needed to be the one who told the truth to Vee and explain how it was all my fault. Hopefully her anger would be aimed at me then. And hopefully Zeke wouldn't punch my face through the back of my head when I upset Vee. That would make eating really difficult. Still, I'd rather go back into exile with Pete happy than not, even if it meant a few broken teeth.

I just wished there was something I could say, some way to handle this, that wouldn't lead to more hurt and anger.

Mother's ghost floated up the hall. “Hello, kiddo,” she said in her distant voice. “You look sad. Everything okay?”

“Yes,” I said, ready to send her on her way. But then I reconsidered. A talk with Mother, even just an echo of Mother, sounded really good right then. “No. Pete's mad at me. And I have to tell a girl that I lied to her.”

“
Mira,
interesting fact,” Mother said. “Did you know that in real life, Gipetto was a lonely old thaumaturge?”

“Yes, Mother. You told me. What has that got to do—”

“Gipetto decided he wanted the company of a young mundy maiden in his village. But he'd been lying to her about many things to hide the fact that he was an arcana, and she'd begun to distrust him. So he made her a simple puppet out of wood that could talk, and if made to tell a lie, it's bulbous nose would grow long. He took the puppet to her, demonstrated its use, and had her ask the puppet if Gipetto loved her and if he would care for her always. These were not lies, not that a wooden puppet could tell, and Gipetto was wealthy from selling his inventions, so they were married with her family's eager encouragement. But on those nights when Gipetto was away traveling and selling his wares, the neighbors swear they would hear the young woman telling the puppet to lie, and then tell the truth, over and over and over again. Because, you see, sometimes a girl wants the truth, and sometimes she doesn't, as long as it makes her feel good.” Mother laughed and patted my head, or at least she made the motions. “Someday, you'll understand, Finn.”

Wow. I'd pretty well forgotten about that story. And now I could see why.

“Uh, thanks, Mother. But how do you tell that girl the truth when it will make her unhappy, but you have no choice?”

Mother shook her head. “Oh,
mi hijo,
look at you. You know better than to play in the snow so long,” she said. “You go get out of those wet clothes and I'll make you some cocoa.”

She floated off down the hall. I watched after her for a second, my chest aching. She wasn't my mother. She was just an echo of my mother, and this had just reminded me what that difference really meant.

“Finn?” Vee popped her head out of her room, looking up and down the hall. “Oh, I thought maybe you were talking to—Never mind.”

“Looking for Pete?”

She blushed. “I haven't seen him all day and, uh, Sarah is really worried.”

“Yeah, about that … Can we talk in your room for a minute?”

Vee glanced up the hall again. I shook my head. “Zeke's chasing down some info, said he won't be back for a while.”

She bit her lower lip, then nodded. We went into her room, and Vee plopped down cross-legged on a bean bag, her knees sticking far out to the sides, her body hunched over hands clasped in her lap.

I stood for a second, my hands in my pockets, composing my thoughts and dreading how Vee would react.

“Well, here's the thing. Pete's a really good guy. He's the most honest, caring person I know. And trusting, and loyal, and—”

Vee crossed her arms. “And you want me to stay away from him, because I'm crazy, or dangerous, right? Because I was in the Hole, I'm not good enough for your brother?”

“No!”

“Because Sarah says that's what you really think.”

“No, just the opposite, I swear.” At least now. “I think you guys are perfect for each other. It's just—” I looked down at my hands. “So, the thing is, when Pete was young, Mort played a prank on him. We both did, actually. You see, Pete was having a really hard time dealing with Mother's death. I think he felt, you know, vulnerable, scared. And then this dog bit him, and—”

“He isn't really a waerwolf,” Vee said. It wasn't a question. And she didn't sound surprised or upset. If anything, she sounded resigned.

“Uh, yeah, that's kind of where I was going. You knew?”

She nodded.

“Oh. Wait, of course you knew. You were inside my head.”

“Actually, no, I didn't get it from you. Sarah told me. He didn't act or smell like a waer, didn't … feel like a waer.”

“So, you're not mad? Because, well, he really likes you.”

“I know.” Vee slumped in on herself again, looked down at her hands. “That's why I didn't say anything to him about it. I really enjoyed talking with him, I didn't want to ruin it.”

“But that's awesome! I'm sure Pete's worried you wouldn't want to talk to him anymore if you knew.”

Vee looked up, and tears marked her cheeks. “I want to, but I don't think I should.”

“What? Why not?”

“It's just too dangerous for him. I shouldn't have talked to him at all once I realized the truth. I didn't want to encourage him. Still … I didn't want to be alone, either. I was selfish. But we need to stop before he gets real feelings for me.”

“Uh, I think it's too late for that.”

“Really?” Vee sat up, a look of hope on her face. Then she glanced to her side, listening. “No. You're right,” she whispered sullenly, then looked back at me. “It's just not safe. I don't want to hurt him.”

“I hope you, and Sarah, will think about it before you say anything to him,” I said. “Waerwolf or not, I think maybe Pete and you could be happy together.”

Vee frowned at me. “Don't you care that I'm a waer?”

“Not really,” I said. Which wasn't exactly true, but this wasn't about me. “I love Pete. I've missed so much of his life. I just want to see him happy, and if I can help make that happen it would make me happy too.”