Necromancy Read online

  After a brief overview of the initial work the “vacationing” record keeper had done, Harrington said, “It shouldn’t be possible. The book alone can’t be bringing these creatures back to life. No matter how small they are, it takes an enormous amount of magic to reanimate the dead. Sparking life, even life as limited as, say, a zombie bug, is a herculean effort.”

  “Okay.” She mentally reviewed the staff she knew, and no one stood out as suspicious. “You’ve had Ewan double- or triple-check staff backgrounds? No evil geniuses lurking? No one with a psychotic grudge against insects? Actually, I guess that would be a peculiar fondness for them, since they’re being reanimated.”

  Harrington’s lips twitched—whether in amusement or annoyance, she couldn’t tell—and he replied, “That would fall under the chief of security’s job description.”

  When he failed to elaborate, she asked, “How about a list of people who’ve had access to the book?” Even as she asked, she knew the list would be prohibitively short: Harrington, herself, Pilar, the missing record keeper, and perhaps Ewan. “Or even anyone who’s been in the vicinity since the zombie bugs appeared. That would include access to the main library, since they share a wall.”

  “All above reproach, since IPPC library employees are screened even more closely than other IPPC branches.” He quirked an eyebrow. “Perhaps you or Pilar have taken a sudden interest in reanimation? But the list is short: you, Pilar, myself, Ewan, two of his security team, a trusted spell caster—”

  “Who’s currently on vacation.”

  He nodded. “Elin, our intern. Our librarian, Emme, who would normally have access, happens to be away at the moment. Everyone on the list has been quite thoroughly vetted, but I encourage you to discuss any concerns with Ewan.”

  “Where’s Emme?”

  Harrington frowned.

  “It’s just that Elin is her niece, so I’d have thought she would want to keep an eye on her, keep her out of trouble, that sort of thing, while the girl is interning. You have to admit that IPPC isn’t the safest of places to work.”

  She didn’t mention bugpocalypse, because that was just the latest in a series of dangerous events happening in and around IPPC.

  “Emme is taking a vacation. She’s been working overtime for weeks now, developing a system equipped to handle our books.”

  Lizzie still thought it was weird, but she let it go for now. She’d ask Elin about her aunt later.

  Besides, Ewan was damn good at his job and would have checked out anything unusual. Job competency was just one perk when you lived longer than the rest of the inhabitants of the planet.

  Lizzie hadn’t a clue what the average life span of a dragon was, but she knew Ewan had been around a long time. Additionally, she knew most of the people on the list, all but the vacationing spell caster.

  She huffed out a frustrated breath. “Someone is powering the book. Can’t you just—”

  A knock on the door was quickly followed by the arrival of her coffee. What turned out to be her perfectly prepared coffee. She needed to eat some real food, but this would do for now. She didn’t exactly love the stuff, but desperate times and all that. Tea just wasn’t going to cut it for her current level of exhaustion.

  “Elizabeth.” Harrington’s dry tone cut into the brief moment of pleasure. “You were saying?”

  She hated when people used her full name as if she were a misbehaving child.

  What had she been saying? Lots of magic required to spark life in dead critters…reviewing staff access to the necromancy book and the library in general… “Oh, right. So, with all of the sophisticated spell casters you have running around, don’t you have someone who can cast a sensing ward and then trace the magic that’s feeding into the book back to the source? Culprit found, disaster averted, and I can get back to helping Kenna rescue her mom.”

  So simple. Beautifully simple.

  Harrington leaned forward and rested his arms on his desk. “Reason has not completely deserted me. Not only has Pilar attempted a sensing ward, but I’ve even done so myself. None of our efforts have been rewarded. To be clear: we found nothing.”

  Of course he’d tried to locate the source with a sensing ward. He’d have been an idiot not to. But they found nothing? And Harrington was good. Wicked good. “I don’t understand how that’s possible. Nothing, as in no magic trail?”

  “Nothing, as in no magic. Well, nothing beyond the very small amount to be found in any magical book.”

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t understand. You just told me that reanimation requires massive amounts of magic. You just said to reanimate one of those creepy little zombie bug dudes would require a lot of magic, and we’ve got bugpocalypse rolling under our feet. There must be a hundred or more bugs that have been reanimated, and you can’t find any magic?”

  “That is indeed what I am attempting to convey.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “No, it is not. Or, rather, it’s not within our understanding of the possible.”

  She slurped the last of the coffee in her cup, then started pacing. “What does my aunt Matylda think?”

  Matylda wasn’t actually her aunt, more like her great-great- (she forgot how many greats) aunt, but that had quickly become too complicated.

  Harrington pushed his chair away from his desk and crossed his arms. “I was hoping you would tell me.”

  She halted mid-stride and did an about-face. “You haven’t heard from her?” When he just stared, she said, “I haven’t heard from her either.”

  Her toe started to tap, a good sign the coffee was doing its job. She looked down at her foot, then the floor, and then tried to calculate exactly what was below her feet. For example, was the super-secret chamber that had housed Matylda’s spirit for centuries down there? Where was it? How close was her former resting place to—

  “Oh, hell. Tell me Matylda’s room is nowhere near the room of dead bugs and the big, bad book. Please.”

  She’d never had good spatial awareness, but right now she was doing her damnedest to recall what she knew of the chamber’s location. Months ago, she’d discovered several taboo books inside it, along with Matylda’s remains.

  Small problem: she’d faded to the location. Fade, teleport, or translocate. Pick one, but they all meant the same thing. Lizzie hadn’t a clue where the chamber was located, because she’d magically zapped her way inside it with a great deal of guidance from Matylda. She only knew it was somewhere underground and completely inaccessible without the ability to fade inside its walls.

  Matylda had been buried alive in that room. She’d died in that room. And her corpse had lain, untouched, in that same room until Lizzie had found her.

  Given the state of the bug corpses sharing a room with the necromancy book, Lizzie hoped Matylda’s secret chamber was far, far away from that cursed book.

  “Please tell me this crazy reanimation plague could not be affecting Matylda in some way.” Lizzie firmly tamped down the anxiety burbling in her chest.

  Matylda was a hundreds-year-old ghost. What harm could come to her? And her resting place might be nowhere near the necromancy book and the spreading bugpocalypse.

  But Lizzie’s anxiety refused to be squashed like the pest it was. Oh, God. Terrible analogy. Terrible.

  “We haven’t heard boo from her since the first reanimation sighting.”

  Was that Harrington trying to be funny? If it was, she might have to consider slowly suffocating him. She had a handy ward that would do exactly that. She eyed him critically, trying to decide if he was feeling punny or if it had been a slip of the tongue. “Ohmigod, I’m channeling Kenna.”

  Harrington scowled. “Don’t start throwing things at me.”

  It was a little terrifying that he got that reference so quickly. Lizzie exhaled, trying in vain to release some tension. A missing ghost aunt was a bad, bad thing in the midst of bugpocalypse. She rubbed her engagement ring, a ring that had once belonged to Matylda.
>
  She twisted it around finger a few times and concentrated on Matylda, but nothing happened. She liked to think the pretty sapphire ring had forged a connection of sorts between the two of them. That it helped her to reach out to Matylda, or vice versa.

  Fat lot of good it was doing her now.

  Her pacing feet brought her back to the chair she’d previously occupied, and she collapsed into it. “I haven’t heard from her, you haven’t heard from her, and we have dead stuff crawling around all over the place. We’re not exactly sure where that super-secret room is, are we, Harrington?”

  He didn’t argue.

  She’d hoped IPPC had a general idea. The only way into or out of the doorless room was to fade, and it wasn’t like they had architectural plans for the super-secret room where the illegal books were stashed. That was the whole point: no one was supposed to know the place existed.

  “This is not good, Harrington. Matylda is special. She’s family.” Lizzie gave him the stink eye. “She better not be hurt, or—” She couldn’t help but think of the maimed bugs crawling and the one-winged fly still flitting around. “She better not be…different. You know, less ghostly.”

  That was as close to articulating what she was thinking as she could manage. The words zombie aunt and walking corpse were not passing her lips.

  She huffed out an agitated breath.

  Dangit. Kenna really was rubbing off on Lizzie. She was all sorts of pissed, and perfectly content to direct all of her angst at Harrington.

  The guy in charge of the library.

  The guy who okayed the questionable probe of the necromancy book.

  He deserved some blame, and he’d be getting more than that if anything happened to Matylda.

  Harrington returned her heated look with calm detachment. “She’s a ghost, Lizzie. It would be difficult to harm her.”

  “Says you.”

  “You’ve seen the markings on the floor. Each mark records the furthest point of reanimation after a six-hour period. The effects of the magic are spreading, but in a slow and relatively predictable manner. Unless the chamber of your aunt’s death is located very near to the room we constructed to study the book, then she won’t even be exposed.”

  Serious stink eye, that was what Lizzie was sending Harrington’s way.

  “And that’s assuming there’s even enough of her to be reanimated.” He rose to refill her cup.

  She eyed it. Even though her heart was already racing, she took a sip. She had research to do, some serious research that might involve, for all she knew, sparks and stuff exploding. It would definitely involve more creepy-crawly dead things. Caffeine seemed like a good idea.

  Whiskey might be better.

  She chugged the cooling coffee. “I’m gonna have a closer look at that damn book.”

  And she was casting her own sensing ward, because even Harrington made mistakes.

  Right?

  3

  How is there no magic?” Lizzie had cast three sensing wards in quick succession, not one of which showed any more than the hint of magic to be expected in a magically recorded book.

  Nothing at all around, near, or, most especially, trailing away from the necromancy book.

  Either her magic was on the fritz or something strange—aliens-invading strange—was going on here.

  She eyed the creepy little black book, barely visible in the emergency lighting.

  Superficially, it looked innocuous. Except it should be exhibiting signs of magic flowing to, from, or around it. The absence of any significant levels of magic made the thing beyond creepy.

  Three times she’d tried, and three times she’d gotten nothing but the mellow glow of a spelled book. A really mellow glow. Even the Texas Pack’s book, the one she had stashed safely at home, had more magic juice than this thing, and it was pretty normal as far as magic books went.

  To spell a book, a spell caster, a very special kind of spell caster—a record keeper—had to use their magic to tie words to the book. Technically, a record keeper could attach those words to any object, but it required less magic when a book was used to anchor the words. Something to do with the purpose of the spelled object matching up with the purpose of the magic.

  Long story short: even if that slim black volume hadn’t started bugpocalypse, it was still an old spelled book with some vile tricks up its, uh, spine. Encoding whatever nastiness it held should have required more magic than Lizzie was seeing.

  “There should be more. Maybe if I touch it?” Or not. Handling the book wouldn’t be smart.

  Pilar placed her hands on her hips. She was wearing a shift dress and a delicate fitted cardigan, of all things. Without a care for wrinkles or zombie bug guts. “No. No touching.”

  Lizzie flicked her flashlight up and down Pilar’s dress. She and her dress were immaculate.

  Lizzie shrugged. She glanced down at her own long-sleeved tee and then quickly looked away. No need to examine the dark splotches too closely, because ewww.

  She snorted. She was in the midst of bugpocalypse, and she was cringing over some insect innards on her clothes.

  Hands still on her hips, Pilar said, “I’m turning the regular lights on. I really don’t see how they could impact the book, and the flickering emergency lights add in the worst possible way to the ambience.”

  Lizzie didn’t argue, because she’d about had enough of feeling like she’d stepped into a horror flick. A few seconds later, Pilar had the lights on.

  Lizzie flicked off her flashlight and tucked it in her rear pocket. “I’m going to try another sensing ward. Just to make sure the lights don’t make a difference.”

  Which just seemed weird. Why would electricity running into the room have any effect? But someone had thought so, because emergency protocols required the use of special lighting that wasn’t tied into the house’s electrical system.

  She centered herself, found her magic, and cast another ward. Was that a flash? She blinked, and it was gone. “Did you see that?”

  A frown flitted across Pilar’s face. “The lights shimmered…perhaps?”

  “So you saw it too?” Lizzie examined the overhead lighting. Since they’d turned on the regular lights, there hadn’t been any flickering or buzzing, apart from the undead flying insects that still occupied the room.

  “Yes. But whether it was the lights, or…” Pilar looked at the black book on the pedestal.

  Before either of them could come up with a reasonable explanation or dismiss it as unimportant, Lizzie’s phone rang. A glance at the caller ID revealed it was Harrington.

  Lizzie contemplated ignoring the call for a split second, but common sense prevailed. “What’s going on, bossman?”

  A woman replied, “You have to stop. Whatever you’re doing, stop now.”

  Clearly not Harrington. But also not anyone Lizzie knew. “Who—”

  “My office. Now,” Harrington snapped, and hung up.

  Pilar looked around the room. “Perhaps we should turn off the lights on the way out?”

  “Sure, but you and I both know that’s not the problem.” Lizzie bit her lip. “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone so crazy with the sensing wards.”

  She hadn’t physically touched the book, but she had cast four wards in total. That was a decent bit of magic.

  In a room with a dangerous book.

  “Four sensing wards.” She winced. “Crap.”

  Pilar patted her arm. “Hey. We don’t know what’s happened yet. And besides, I was standing right here. Did you hear me saying it was a bad idea?”

  Good point, and Pilar was the queen of common sense.

  Lizzie tiptoed away, trying to avoid as many of the crawling nasties on the floor as possible.

  Only when she approached the exit did she realize there were no bug corpses. The door was a good seven feet from the last circle marking the effects of the book’s necromantic magic, and yet there were no insect corpses littering the floor.

  All the bugs in the room were acti
ve.

  She and Pilar shared a look before hurrying up the last few steps and shoving the door shut behind them.

  As they leaned against the door, they looked at one another.

  “You saw that,” Pilar said.

  “Oh, yeah.” Hard to miss all the undead things. So many undead things. So many… A shiver traveled up Lizzie’s spine. “We have to get to Harrington’s office ASAP.”

  4

  Lizzie and Pilar made it to Harrington’s office in record time. Pilar made pretty good time for a woman wearing heels. Kitten heels, but even so.

  Dread settled in Lizzie’s stomach as she stood in front of his door, but there was also a hint of excitement intermingled.

  She reviewed the brief phone conversation that had precipitated their mad dash—most especially the strange woman’s clear and coherent speech—and allowed herself to feel a tiny bit of hope.

  She twisted the ring on her finger. Her engagement ring. Matylda’s ring.

  Panting just a little, Pilar said, “Maybe you should open the door? Since we did bother to rush.”

  Right. Good plan. Lizzie flung the door open.

  Harrington sat behind his desk. A woman sat across from him. Not young, but her exact age was hard to pinpoint. Her clothing dated from some earlier century and was in good condition…all things considered.

  A poke in Lizzie’s back pushed her into the room, where she was followed by Pilar.

  If Lizzie wasn’t mistaken, those clothes were exactly as old as they appeared to be, and the woman in the chair calmly studying her was the corporeal form of Matylda Kovar, her many-times-over great-aunt. The same woman who had died in that tiny, sealed chamber where the forbidden books had been stored.