Finn Fancy Necromancy (7 page)

Legion of Doom. Yeah, that worked.

So, I needed to figure out who the Legion were and stop them from ruining my life. But what could I do that the enforcers and the Arcana Ruling Council, with all their power and ability, could not?

Well, I could launch my own investigation into what really happened twenty-five years ago. The ARC might consider that a closed case, but I knew better, and the enforcers didn't know about Felicity's death, at least not yet. Surely the two attacks were related.

But where to start?

Mort. I could dig a little deeper into what my brother was up to. He was my only potential lead at this point. Well, other than the Króls, but I wasn't eager to chase after a clan of vengeful witches if I had another option.

Three days.

The room felt suddenly too small, the walls pressing in. I opened the window, took a deep breath of the cool night air, and finally turned to look at the floor. A throw rug covered the spot where Felicity had laid, no bloodstains to be seen. But I could still see her unconscious body, my memory filling in a ghostly image of it.

“Who attacked you?” I whispered. “And why frame me for it?”

She wouldn't answer. I could try Talking to her until I felt as if my head would explode like in
Scanners
. But I knew from experience there was no Talking to a warded spirit.

Tears burned at the back of my eyes. I paced the small space of my room for a minute, trying to shake the growing fury, and finally plopped down at my desk. Maybe a quick game of Wizball would make me feel better, help me feel a little of the joy of homecoming. But I found myself rearranging my books and notebooks in order of size, as my mind fixed on Mattie's tiny little phone computer. A computer that fit in her hand. Amazing. And for some reason, it was the straw that humped the camel's dam.

“WHY?” I shouted. I leaped back up and paced rapidly, my thoughts scratching at me like an angry cat demanding attention.

Twenty-five years, gone. My father, my family, my life, so many changes. Raw emotion boiled up inside me. All of the anger I'd pushed down, told myself wouldn't help anything, it all erupted back up into my chest now. Twenty-five years. I'd convinced myself it was a good thing, dreaming of a life with Heather, a life free from the magic that had become a curse, and of the ARC who'd thrown me into exile to be fed on by the Fey. Free, and in control of my own life.

Except now I was back, and I realized how much I'd lost. I realized how much my Other Realm dreams were lies I told to keep myself sane. My obligations and choices were the same as they ever were, but I would have to struggle even harder to make my place anywhere, to find happiness anywhere. Assuming I wasn't mind-humped and sent back into exile in three days, of course.

If my room weren't so small, I might have danced the
Footloose
anger dance, punching at the air, literally flipping out. I settled for beating the crap out of my pillow until the muscles in my arms burned.

A knock on my door.

I stood panting for a second, feeling hot, and sweaty, and a tiny bit better. Another knock.

“Yes?” I called, my voice thick. I rubbed my face and eyes dry.

“It's me, Pete.”

I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before saying, “Come in.”

Pete entered the room, making it feel considerably smaller.

“Hey,” he said. “I was thinking, maybe you could sleep in my room tonight? Then we could talk and stuff.”

I glanced back down at the floor where Felicity had lain, then at the bed I hadn't slept in for twenty-five years.

“That might be nice, actually.” In fact, if someone wanted to try to attack me again, or place Felicity's body on my floor again tonight, it might not hurt to be someplace they wouldn't expect. If I were careful about it, not even Mort would know I'd changed rooms.

Petey's round face broke into a grin. I grabbed the blue blanket, and a pair of my old pajamas out of the dresser. There, waiting in the drawer where I'd left it, sat my persona ring. A simple-looking silver ring with a small black stone, it might have been mistaken for a mood ring. But every arcana over twelve had one. They were the official ID of the arcana world, containing information about my identity, my arcana gifts, my ranking in the arcana hierarchy. And the color marked me as a necromancer, my dominant gift, though my family had at least a touch of the wizardry, sorcery, and thaumaturgy gifts as well. The only one of the five branches of human magic our family hadn't manifested at some point was alchemy.

I closed the drawer without taking the ring, and followed Pete outside.

I dashed through the cool night air between the main house and the mother-in-law cottage, searching the dark for any signs of danger. The dark was signless.

Looking up in case of falling death meteors or swooping terrors, I did see that a cable still ran from outside my bedroom window and disappeared over the hedge bordering this side of our yard. Many video games, cassettes, notes, candies and other oddities had been sent back and forth along that cable between my window and the window of Next Door Dawn's room. Or at least, her room when we were teenagers.

Dawn was a mundy, and Grandfather didn't allow mundies in our house except on business. The rope system was just one of the many small ways I got around that. By the time of my exile, I probably spent more time with Dawn each day than anyone except Heather and my siblings. She was like my second sister. I wondered where she lived now, what her life was like. It didn't feel quite like a homecoming without seeing her.

I began to ask Pete about her, but stopped. It felt like even a whisper would carry loudly in the night air. And if the news of Dawn was bad, I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it, not tonight.

Pete bounced with excitement as we entered his tiny home.

The cottage used to be Mother's escape from us children. She didn't call it that, of course. She called it her office, and it used to be mostly filled with gardening supplies. But she'd also had a chair and reading lamp, a futon, and a small still in the bathroom for making her home brew. Now it looked like a proper apartment with all the standard furnishings, and a simple kitchenette. What really marked the space as Pete's were the Rubik's cubes and similar puzzle games piled on his dresser and shelves. That, and the walls were covered nearly floor to ceiling in paint by number paintings, most featuring wolves. He'd always had a gift for space and numbers that itself bordered on magical.

Pete hung his head and shuffled from foot to foot in that golly-gawrsh way he had, and said, “Do you like it?”

“I think it's awesome, dude. You've gotten really good at the paintings.”

Pete beamed at me and said, “I'll make us some hot cider.”

I changed in the tiny bathroom—the Speed Racer pajama bottoms had that softness that comes only from long wear, but they were a bit snug and short now that I'd fully grown. I considered just sleeping in my boxers, but I wanted to be a bit more clothed if someone attacked during the night, and I'd never been able to sleep well wearing jeans.

As I changed, I also noticed that I'd become extremely hairy. Before exile, I wished for enough facial hair to grow even a Prince mustache. Now I had enough hair on my back alone for a small beard. Not cool.

Once changed, I set myself up on the sofa. Pete served up the hot cider and crawled into his bed.

“Finn?” Pete said. “What was it like? In the Other Realm?”

“Lonely,” I said, hoping he'd let it lie at that.

“But what were the Fey like?”

“I didn't exactly hang out and play games with them, Petey,” I said, irritation creeping into my tone. “I was just food to them. They came, they got what they wanted, and they left.”

Pete's face fell, and I felt like a jerk. Of course he still thought of the Fey as some wondrous fairy beings. And why shouldn't he? They had, after all, begun as just that, manifested from the dreams and fears and imaginings of all those ancient shamans, oracles, and wise women whose vision quests and spirit journeys took their minds into the Other Realm. And many people still idealized the Fey, spoke of them like they hadn't changed or committed terrible acts.

But in fact they had long since become sentient individuals with their own petty drives and needs, dividing up by their nature into Demesnes and warring against humans when not fighting among themselves. I had wished a thousand times in the Other Realm that I could go back in time and prevent the bastards from ever being created. And I understood Grandfather's dislike of the Fey and feybloods now, though before my exile I had just chalked it up to him being prejudiced from the last Fey-Arcana war.

I certainly didn't feel like maintaining the lie of Fey wonder and shininess. But I felt even less like letting my own anger hurt Pete.

“Well, actually, there was this one Fey, Blobby McPheron, or at least that's what I called him 'cause he kept telling me to not worry, that happiness was a state of mind and my mind was everything I had. He was cool for a Fey, would thank me, and tell me jokes or stories in return for the memories he viewed.” Blobby had helped me stay sane those first few years. But he'd been an exception, not the rule. “I really missed you though, dude. I'm glad to be home.”

“Me too. So, did you see the Silver Halls? Or the Forest of Shadows?”

“No,” I sighed. “I was in the wilds with the shapeless Fey, in neutral territory, not one of the Shaped Demesnes.”

“Oh. So, what did you do?”

I shifted on the couch, pulled the blanket up around myself. “I relived memories.”

“Good memories?”

“All of my memories. The good ones, the bad ones, the stupid boring ones. The Fey would come to experience and feed off of the energy and emotion manifested through the memories.”

Petey frowned. “Did it hurt?”

“No. I didn't feel a thing, except what I remembered, or dreamed.”

“That doesn't sound so bad. I like remembering. Sometimes I like to just lie on the grass and remember stuff. Especially about you, and Mother, and Grandma Ramirez, and Grandfather Gramaraye, and all the people I can't see anymore.”

“Well, I certainly remembered you, dude.” And Grandfather, since I would often feel his presence in the Other Realm. Perhaps it was just my imagination since I never felt the presence of my other family members, alive or deceased, but I preferred to think it was real, that his spirit had been able to breach the wall between Realms thanks to some spiritual aftereffect of all my Talker training with him and the resonance that had built between us.

Pete sipped loudly at his cider. “Did you remember the time we climbed up on that billboard with Dawn and ate a whole box of Ding Dongs?”

I smiled. “Yeah, I remembered that.”

“And the time I dumped Walter Ryan in the trash bin because he called Dawn the N word?”

“Yes, Petey. I—”

“And the time Grandfather told Mort to do your chores all summer, and Mort made me do them instead, and Grandfather gave him a pimple potion the first day of school as punishment?”

“Pete, I remembered everything.”

“And the time I got stuck crawling through the attic and we found Mother's journal hidden up there?”

I sat up, cider sloshing hot onto my hand. “The time we did what?”

“We found Mother's journal in the attic and you had to pull me out, and I got splinters on my belly?”

I cleaned my hand, and frowned. “No. I don't remember that. Are you sure I was there?”

“Yeah. Remember, Mother had drawn Kimba? Do you remember Dawn's dog? Mother was all worried because Kimba was a Doberman pinscher, and they were supposed to be mean, but Kimba was really nice.”

“Yes, I remember Kimba.” But not the journal, or Pete getting stuck in the attic. “Where's the journal now?”

“I think Grandfather burned it after Mother died, 'cause it was private.”

I thought the Fey had summoned every last memory of mine, repeatedly, but I didn't remember anything about Mother's journal.

Had something gone wrong during the transfer, even more wrong than just not getting the changeling's memories? Had I lost some of my own memories somehow? Memory was a very tricky thing, especially when you had two beings using the same brain.

But wouldn't I remember remembering it in the Other Realm, even if I didn't remember it actually happening, or … something? So did that mean the memory was somehow blocked or destroyed before my exile?

The only memories that should have been officially blocked were related to my necromancy training and use—the ARC didn't want the Fey to learn any more about our magic than could be helped. But those blocks had all dissolved naturally once my spirit reentered my body. I knew, because I could remember every boring necromancy lecture from Grandfather.

“I'm sorry,” Petey said. “Maybe I shouldn't talk about Mother, or Grandfather. I know you were their favorite, you all being Talkers and everything.”

“Favorite?” I heard Mort's influence there. “Petey, Mother loved us all the same. And Grandfather—I'm not sure he even liked me some days.” Grandfather gave me more attention and focus than Mort, Pete, or Sammy, it was true, and I loved him. But Grandfather's brand of favoritism had been less a prize and more like catching the Eye of Sauron at times. I'd tried everything to earn his respect, and still wasn't sure I ever did. “Enough about me, it's your turn. How have you been? What have you been up to while I was away?”

Petey shrugged. “Nothing special or anything. Well, I did go to Waerfolk Anonymous for a while.”

“Really?” It made me uneasy thinking of Pete being around so many feybloods. It would be just like them to infect him with their waer curse for real, and claim it was an accident.

“Yeah, but the leader, he said I graduated and shouldn't come to their meetings anymore, because it made the others feel bad, not being as good at controlling their animal spirit as me.”