Chapter 36

Ifoundthenecromancer in my kitchen eating all my food. He finished a bowl of cereal and started in on a slice of toast from the pile by his elbow. His tall form hunched protectively over his hoard, one long arm coming out to wrap around the fruit bowl and pull it closer when I entered the room.

The others had apparently decided that he was harmless enough—at the moment—because Zhong was the only one in here with the tainted witch. Either that, or everyone else was off somewhere planning how to get rid of the necromancer. Hasumi trailed a hand lightly over my back as they passed, heading out toward the garden area with the big fountain that the water elemental loved so much. I thought maybe they needed some peace and quiet with the water to recharge after the emotional war zone they had just endured.

Zhong gave our uninvited guest one last long look before the big gargoyle came over to kiss the top of my head. "You okay for a bit, master? I"m going to go check things out."

I didn"t waste the energy telling him to stop calling me that. Zhong would do what he wanted. I knew the urge to climb the walls and check the grounds from the rooftops was killing the gargoyle at the moment, so I waved him away. "I"m fine. Pretty sure if he wanted us dead, we would be by now."

Zhong gave me a look that said he wasn"t amused, but he slipped past me out the door, off to check the grounds for intruders or stray magic like a faithful gargoyle guardian—even though we had wards. Well, what was left of the wards after my tinkering…. Maybe it was a good thing he was going to check them out after all. I knew we all felt a bit…raw…after the last two encounters with assholes we freed from the bestiary. I thought of Hasumi cowering on the ground in emotional anguish and I wanted to punch the jackass black witch who was eating my toast.

But my irritation with the necromancer warred with the sliver of sympathy that wanted to wedge its way in when I really looked at him. The man ate like he hadn"t seen food in years. Which, given how skinny and unwell he looked, and given the fact that he had belonged to my family…was probably true. He flicked his hair back out of his face and sat up long enough to look me in the eye.

"You can stare all you want," he said in that cold, even voice. "But you won"t learn all my dark magical secrets and unlock my power by gaping at me like a spectator at a carnival freakshow, Lovell."

He snagged an apple from the fruit bowl and bit into it with teeth that I just now noticed were a dark, blue-black color. How had I missed that before? Because, yeah, that wasn"t creepy at all….

"I don"t care about your power or whatever idiotic, super-secret unholy deal you made to turn yourself into a necromancer," I bit out, crossing the room to get myself some orange juice and a sandwich.

Sure, my stomach was still a bit unsettled by the recent memory of walking relatives, but it was past lunch time, my blood sugar was still a little low from the magical cost of breaking all those bindings on the other witch, and I was hungry, damn it. I got out a plate and the sandwich stuff, turning my back on the necromancer.

"So, what now?" I asked, dreading the answer, but wanting to know where we stood. "You"re just going to hang out here and eat all our food? That whole bargain thing was just an excuse to get a free meal, wasn"t it?"

He crunched through his apple for a while before answering. "Do you always blather on constantly, witch?"

I put the sandwich stuff away and picked up my plate, going to join the necromancer at my kitchen table. "Do you always refuse to actually answer questions? Is that part of the dark and mysterious thing you"re going for?"

I nudged one of the sandwiches off my plate and onto a paper towel, then slid it his way. "Peace offering. I"m too damned tired to beat around the bush here. You look like shit. But then again, maybe you always look that way. What do I know?" I shrugged. "Eat it or don"t. It"s not poisoned."

He narrowed his violet eyes at me, but finally picked up the sandwich. "Poison wouldn"t bother me. And looking like shit is an occupational hazard when you play host to the forces of death and darkness."

I rolled my eyes. So emo.

"I was serious about the bargain," he said around a bite of food. "I cast it and sealed it with magic to make the deal more appealing to the previous Lovell bitch. It was ready to spring into action the moment she decided to take me up on the offer. But instead of that dried up old prune, it was you. I felt it snap into place when I was freed. Apparently, the oath spell didn"t doesn"t care about the details. You are a Lovell. Your actions triggered it when you fulfilled the Lovell end of the deal." He chewed for a second while I dug into my own food. Then he prompted, "Didn"t you feel it?"

I sighed and set my sandwich down in favor of my juice. Sure, I felt a little hint of a magical itch. Now. "Dude. I was a little busy. I had just spent all my magic reserves breaking your binding to the bestiary and fighting off my loving grandmother"s death traps. Then someone sent a bunch of corpses after me. Didn"t really have any attention to spare for stray background magic."

He scoffed, but his voice was as emotionless as ever. "Being so unobservant can get you in trouble, Lovell. Someone might sneak up on you and stun you, then bind you into the pages of a fucking grimoire, just as an example."

I covered a yawn, then shook my head. "Is that what happened? I"m sorry. My entire family was nothing but a bunch of evil assholes."

He shrugged one skinny shoulder and turned his focus back to his food. "Did you forget what you"re talking to? Even the Lovells weren"t known as necromancers. Last I checked, even the worst of them were still just run-of-the-mill black witches with no morals. Small fries."

I frowned. So, at least he was aware that he was an abomination of staggering proportions. The kind of things that a witch had to get up to, the taint they had to carry on their magic and their souls…I had no idea what the fuck would tempt someone to go down that road just for a little more power. Creepy power at that. And…it looked like the necromancer suffered physically for his poor decisions as well, the taint of the blackness inside him not limited to his aura and his magic.

His fingernails were the same blue-black color as his teeth. I couldn"t shake the unsettling feeling I got just being in the same room as the guy. Was he just a walking corpse himself?

"Boo."

I didn"t jump, but it was a close thing. I forced myself to bring my gaze up to meet his slowly, as if he hadn"t just about made me piss my pants. "Excuse me?"

He stood and went to rummage around in the cupboards, taking out cans and boxes and examining them as if he hadn"t seen food packages for a few decades. Again, probably accurate. "I will fulfill my end of the bargain," he said as he frowned at a can of ravioli from the human realm. "I"ll keep my creepy germs to myself while I help you with whatever oh-so-important Lovell scheme you"re currently up to. Then, once the magic is satisfied, you"ll be rid of me." He held the can out to me. "Is this actually edible?"

I shrugged. "It won"t kill you. Probably. Just a little bit of manmade chemicals. Humans and regular witches have been known to survive it. And I would really rather you stopped calling me a damned Lovell. I changed my name years ago." I got up and found a can opener, took his raviolis, opened them, and plopped the fake sauce and noodles into a bowl in the microwave. "All I want to do right now is be done with this bestiary bullshit," I informed him as I rinsed out the can at the sink. "You were the last one I needed to free."

Zhong entered the room and I nodded to him as he came to lean his butt against the counter near me, looming. The necromancer ignored the towering block of granite and muscle. Most people would be at least a little intimidated by Zhong"s sheer size, not to mention the horns, and the fangs, the wings and claws…. But the necromancer didn"t even so much as glance at him. "I will help you destroy the grimoire and be on my way, then," he said evenly. "We"ll call that even."

"There"s a little more to it than that," I protested, taking the bowl of processed nonsense out of the microwave and setting it and a spoon on the table for him.

Zhong spoke up, surprising me. "She"s right. You"re a witch, aren"t you?"

The necromancer finally looked up at the gargoyle, raising his dark red eyebrows. His deep, blood red hair color looked jarring against his pale skin with its bluish undertones. "I"m a necromancer, not a witch. Are you defective? I thought all gargoyles read magic."

There he went again. Taunting, but without any inflection, no heat behind his words. He was as much of an asshole as Aahil, but there was never feeling to his words. No passion. Just flat cold.

Zhong ran a hand through his tight gray curls, then caught himself and stopped his fidgeting. Yep. The necromancer creeped out the big, strong gargoyle too. At least it wasn"t just me. "I can read magic," the gargoyle shot back. "And I think under all that taint, you were once an earth witch like Andy. Am I right?"

I arched my brows at the gargoyle. I had a really bad feeling about what he was implying.

The necromancer shrugged and went to sit at the table and poke at his ravioli with a spoon. "Perhaps. Once. Long ago."

Zhong nodded. "Then you can teach Andy how to fully use her magic. She freed you from a lifetime of slavery inside that book. We all know how horrible it was being used like that. If you want to repay her, just breaking the book isn"t good enough."

I gaped at the audacity of the big, gray idiot. First off, that was an embarrassing thing to ask. And secondly, why would I want to learn magic from the blackest of practitioners you could find?

"What?" The necromancer said, visibly recoiling, clearly as repulsed by the idea as I was. "Do I look like some sweet little schoolteacher?" His violet eyes swept over me from head to toe. "You"re an adult. He can"t possibly be implying you never had any formal training. And I"m not teaching you necromancy, no matter how much you beg, Lovell." He spat the last bit like a mouthful of poison.

I rolled my eyes. "As if I"d want to learn magic from you. I"ll take my chances with the tutor who offered me lessons in exchange for one of my kidneys first, thanks."

He took a bite of his food and paused, tilting his head. "That"s interesting." But then he continued eating. I wasn"t sure if he meant my refusal or being propositioned for my kidney. And I didn"t want to know.

I shook my head at the absurdity of it all. "Zhong"s right about one thing," I told the necromancer who was currently slurping ravioli in my kitchen. I was having a dawning epiphany. "Freeing you was a big deal. And you do probably know a lot more about death, and ghosts, and stuff than I do. I need you to help me save Elijah."

He licked sauce from his pale bluish lips with a slightly blue tongue. "Who is Elijah?" I tried not to stare or shudder.

"He"s a ghost, and an angel," I answered. "He"s bound to the bestiary. And we"re not destroying that book until I know it won"t destroy him in the process. So, if you want to remain free and not have to worry about some new witch coming along and snatching the bestiary so they can re-imprison all of you, they you"ll help me save him."

The necromancer looked up from his food, his entire posture and body language changing in a way that was subtle, but freaky. The eyes that met mine were no longer violet, but completely black. And the voice that spoke was his, but not his. Like two people speaking at once. "Are you threatening us, witch?" the necromancer said softly, raising all the hairs on my arms.

I swallowed hard. "Who is "us?""

He stood, and I swear he seemed taller than he had a few minutes ago, even though he was the exact same size. "Dyre," he said, those black eyes boring into my soul. "And me."

Um. Okay. I cleared my throat. "I didn"t mean it as a threat, uh…guys…but the potential for the bestiary to be used against you somehow is there as long as the book exists. And I refuse to kill someone I…someone I care for, in the process of destroying the book. He"s the one who brought the book to me in the first place. Elijah"s the reason you"re free right now. All of you." I glanced at Zhong. "We can"t just let him fade away, not when he wants to live."

The thing that was wearing the body of a red-headed witch spoke again, making me shiver, those black eyes studying me with cool appraisal. Like a cat sizing up a mouse. "This Elijah is a ghost?"

I nodded. "He is. But that doesn"t make him any less alive, any less of a person."

That voice should never laugh. But it did, echoing weirdly in my bones, demanding that we run away now. "If he is a ghost, little witch, that is exactly what it makes him. Dead. Not a person."

The necromancer looked down and away for a heartbeat, and some of the creepy intensity left the room with that other presence. When he looked at me again, his eyes were back to having irises—nice, steady violet ones. And he spoke with only one voice. "I"ll do what I can to prevent your ghost"s destruction when we destroy the book. But I make no guarantees. That book can"t be allowed to exist, and we both know it."

I took in a slow breath, then I nodded. It was the best I could ask for. And I wasn"t about to argue with the man after all that. Besides, logically, I knew he was right. Even if another practitioner couldn"t find a way to re-use the bestiary, there was always the chance it could inspire them to figure out how to create another one. And Elijah would insist his one un-life was not worth the suffering of untold numbers living, breathing people.

"Enjoy your almost-food," I said with a wave at the necromancer"s bowl. "When you"re done eating you can find a room and claim it, as long as no one else already has. Goddess knows there"s enough room in this place to house an entire circus."

I cringed inwardly as I realized I was echoing his earlier sideshow remark. Fuck, he"d be one hell of a sideshow. Just not the kind that made people want to come back for a second viewing.

"I"ll show him around," Zhong said, squeezing my shoulder. "You need to rest after all that spellwork. And…." He gave me an apologetic look. "We"ll have to figure out how to clean up the mess."

I let out a tired sigh. "Shit. I almost forgot about that." I just couldn"t catch a break. Taking Zhong"s advice, I left the creep show in the kitchen and made my way upstairs for a bath and a nap.