Work Text:
You don't have to die to practice necromancy but it helps
It's a pretty weird experience, looking at the spot where you died. The memories cut their way to the forefront of your consciousness. Pain, fear, that sort of shocked "is this really it?" and finally, the sensation of letting go and fading away into unconsciousness. I scuffed a single boot in the dirt square with a sad tree growing in it, surrounded by concrete. Right on the spot where it happened.
It wasn't a suicide attempt. Not that I hadn't toyed with the notion during bad days. What trans woman hadn't? No, it was a complete bullshit accident that introduced me to what's outside the mortal coil. Some drunk kid in a '98 Miata. It was silver, except for the rust. It's amazing what you remember. The car jumped the curb and put me down in the dirt.
In the literal sense. I was thrown into this very spot. Not buried, after all I didn't stay dead. My heart stopped, my brain was deprived of oxygen for three minutes and the EMTs were pretty sure I was a goner. But sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes if you have the right talent, even if you don't know what you have, it will swoop in and save you. Or alternately a talented lady in a trenchcoat who "vigilante heals" will spot your latent magic aura and do you a solid favor. Nelle was my first real exposure to magic and that slightly more than near experience with death gave me some important insight into my own art. Probably helped me decide what route I was going to take, in the end.
I scuffed the dirt one more time and was startled out of my reverie by the bus pulling up to the road next to me. I got my breathing under control as the doors popped open. Route eighteen. That's the one I needed. I jumped on board, fed the machine some money and found a seat. The bus took me a few blocks down, much faster than I could walk and I yanked the cord for the next stop. A lot closer to where I needed to be than I anticipated. The doors popped open and I jumped out, skidding a little on the sidewalk. I knew the area well enough to find my way, so it was a short walk around a corner and the building Chord mentioned in her terse call loomed into view. My pace quickened. Not running so much but I was worried enough to keep my walk fast. Her voice on the phone had dropped into the deep monotone rumble she gets when she's really stressed, another experience I know all too well myself, but she only told me to get there “when I could”. Chord was a little notorious for downplaying things so I took that last part with a grain of salt or two.
The building was one of the older ones in the city. Historical. City council code for a run-down death trap. Shattered windows and stained brick set the stage. I picked my way with care over potholes and the minefield of sharp glass debris to get a closer look. A broken set of wooden boards blocked off the entrance. They looked recent. Both the repair job and the damage. Was Chord breaking into buildings? Why? There couldn't possibly be reagents in here for witchcraft, the place was abandoned. Probably long cleaned out. Even a city witch, who depended more on pigeon feathers, discarded bus tickets and smears of spilled motor oil mixed in rain water than herbs and tongue of newt, wasn't getting much out of this place. I put my hands on the boards and began to step through.
"Charlie, what the fuck are you doing," a familiar whisper hissed from behind me.
Not a question at all, definitely more a statement. I froze and then slowly pulled myself back out of the hole in the boards. Chord was staring at me, her dark brown eyes wide, the irises almost blending in with her pupils in the shadow of the building. She was wearing a black frilly skirt, artfully cut up purple t-shirt and a black shawl with silver snakes on it. A few slivers of wood were stuck in her thick tight curls, newly dyed a neon green since the last time I saw her, and she had scratches on her arms but she didn't seem worse for wear. Just freaked out.
"Rescuing you?" I said as I walked to her.
"I don't know who's going to rescue you from yourself," she said, "if you really think I'm going to stick around in a dangerously haunted building."
"Are you ok?" I asked, putting my hand on her shoulder. Wow, she was shaking. Must have been one hell of a haunting. I motioned around my head. She reached up to her own hair and frowned when she found the first shard of wood.
"Little freaked is all. It uh, shook off a hexing bolt so I pretty much pissed myself and ran," Chord said as she pulled the remaining splinters out of her hair, "I'm cool now though. Uh, I was keeping watch till you came to clear the place out."
Shit. A ghost that can eat a hexing bolt from a witch as powerful as Chord isn't a lightweight.
"It can wait a little bit," I said, "I just wanna take a look at your aura real quick."
Chord scoffed again and rolled her eyes. I wasn't fooled by the tough girl act. She was still shaking, a subtle tremor under the skin. Her fingers were pulling at the dangly parts of her black skirt and the scent of tobacco was in the air. She'd quit a few times already this year, but this was early for a return to the nervous habit for her. Chord had been through a lot (what trans woman hadn't) and she'd seen some of the worst of the magic world on top of it. Something that got to her like this could be more than just a fright, it could be trauma from a direct psychic attack.
"Yes or no?"
"Yes, you big baby, fuck," she said throwing her head back and looking at the sky with an annoyed expression. Her hair bounced from the motion and she let out a dramatic sigh. I hid a smile.
I let my Other Senses wash over me slowly. Some magic slingers call them The Sight or Fuckovision or Astral Sense. That perception that allows us to get a closer look at magical energy beyond just hackles up and shivers on the spine. While most people can tell that magic is near, if they knew it existed, that extra perception is a huge boon for actually dealing with magic on a more direct level. Chord's tall wide figure, her dark skin, her punky witch outfit (she actually had those wild pointy boots! Where did she even buy stuff like that?) faded into the background as a silhouette and a riot of colors you couldn't find in any rainbow bloomed out of her form. Aura reading isn't an exact science, it uses the parts of your brain that handle other senses to handle one we were never really built to deal with. So it's a mess. She had music, she had color, there were different temperatures and textures wafting off her. Not just hot and cold either, it can be hard to describe the sheer confusing range of sensation auras give. But you get the swing of it eventually and any good necromancer reads auras like a champ. Because the dead generally don't have bodies. And when they do? You're running away, not checking out their energies.
I could sense her magic interspersed among her emotions and beliefs. Witchcrafters were so often like that. It wasn't a very mathematical magic, more art than science. Her emotions were a mess. The hues and notes that denoted intense fear, slowly reducing but still tangible were playing havoc in her aura. I skimmed through most of the emotional stuff as it always made me feel uncomfortable. As though I was prying too hard into someone's privacy. There wasn't any visible signs of a direct attack on her spirit but it was pretty clear that what she saw was going to be following her for a while, nightmare style.
"Am I good," she asked, the tiniest hint of doubt in her voice.
"Nothing a cup of cocoa and a bunch of kitten pictures won't fix," I said with a smile as I let my normal senses take over for the Fuckovision, “I also suggest lots of hugging.”
"Good, now go fuck up that ghost demon thing," she said, relief showing on her face as she ran her fingers through her hair, letting the pile of dark curls bounce back into position, "I'll be out here watching your back."
Haha fuck me, I thought as I turned around and my smile evaporated, I still have to deal with a Grade FML Ghostie.
I crawled through the broken wooden barricade again, all the way into the building. A chill washed over me, glass crunched under my feet and wind whistled through broken windows. It was that subtle ambient sort of scary and I hate that. Here's the funny thing, I'm a giant coward about frightening atmosphere. I can't watch horror movies, even the most inaccurate silly ghost movie makes me cover my eyes when the music gets all creepshow foreshadowing. I played one of those survival horror video games once and had nightmares for a week. I jump and shriek when my friends leap out of places and say boo. It's a little embarrassing being a timid necromancer. At least the building itself was wide open and spacious. Maybe it was a factory or a store at some point? There were separated offices near the back and a stairwell in between them but much of the front of the building was empty space. Papers littered everywhere and some machinery I couldn't identify lay in a corner, covered in cobwebs. As I got closer I could see that the stairwell was actually two stairs, one going up and one going down. Probably to some hellish basement filled with spiders.
I let my astral senses mingle with my other senses. It made a faded overlay of flowing colors, chiming sounds, sensations, everything The Sense did normally just not quite so overwhelming that you couldn't get much from the mundane five. This didn't mean it couldn't still blitz your brain. The astral input was less but it was being added to mundane stuff too. It was real easy to get sensory overload from that particular combination, an issue astral alone could also cause as well if you used it long enough. I wouldn't be able to keep this going for very long or I'd dissociate and lose my edge. Not a good survival technique. I don't have it that bad though. A friend of mine in Chicago can't turn on Fuckovision (she came up with the name) for longer than maybe half a minute or she goes into a full tilt meltdown. Some autistic and epileptic magickers have it rough.
I caught the thread of a different sort of energy from the building proper and the background magic about halfway through the open space. It went down the stairwell.
“Fucking,” I whispered, “why is it always basements?”
I ran the spark into my fingers, drawing on the energies around me. Magic is, well it's interesting. It's different for different people. For some you do rituals and the song and dance and you measure things with precision and then magic happens exactly the way it happened in the past for that spell. They can still see the bright colors and feel the tingle but they have their method and that's what works for them. For others magic doesn't have numbers, precision is out the door and symbols are a psychological aid at best. The energy burns into your hands and you breathe it out of your lungs and sweat it from your skin and it infuses your hairs and raises them, sparking off you like you're some kind of human tesla coil. Sometimes it's a mixture and for others it's a whole different range of sensations. One person I know feels more like she's underwater, feeling currents of liquid over her skin. And then there's the people who get religious. I'm closer to the tesla coil type. I breathe magic, in and out, and I let it run through my body like shivers in the spine. But symbols are important to me and it's not all pure power. I have my rituals too. Every method has its weak points, usually pretty directly related to the difficulties of your personality that made your way of magic appeal to you in the first place. I can't do a lot of long term “focus yourself” rituals, short and sweet is my thing. Likewise my magic tends to be quick, sloppy and occasionally way more power filled then what I actually need. Everyone has their own way, even among the trends.
I weaved subtle energies into a crackling ward. Greens and oranges and purples twisted through the magic. I took a tiny bit of the gross energy, the weird shit going to the basement, and twisted it into the center of the rings I built. Spikes grew from the inside of the rings, pointed at the glowing veiny freaky shit in the center with clear menace. I then flipped it inside out and wrapped it around me, releasing the chunk of spirit residue. A rough but effective ward settled over my skin, built not just to repel spiritual things but hurt them. I wasn't fucking around here. On the other hand I looked like an astral hedgehog. God, Chord would be laughing at me. Her spells were elegant flowing things. I was more like a finger painter.
Stop stalling, you coward, I thought to myself.
I pulled a battered combination lock attached to a medium length chain out of my pocket. It was smeared with old blood and there was a few finger bones pushed through the chain near the bottom (glued there actually). Not grave robbed or anything like that. Donated to the cause. A ghost lady who was very grateful to me for helping her son and the young man in question both gave the ok. It's not like she still needed them, being dead and all. The back of the lock had a crude skull etched on it. Like I said, I'm sloppy. Etching is also hard. I wrapped the chain around my hand and let the lock dangle with the bones and I walked down the stairs with extra care taken where they looked more damaged. The thread of energy got wider and stronger as I got further down into the basement. The thing must have retreated the moment Chord fled, which could mean it was stuck in this building. Or it could mean it lost interest. Really it could mean a thousand things, ghosts are ridiculous sometimes.
The stairwell opened into a basement, a wide one, it was a safe bet it had been used for storage based on all the regularly spaced scuffs on the floor. The energy trail meandered away from me and the stairwell and seeing it this fresh made it super clear that this was a dead thing's trail. A big scary grade-A piss your pants dead thing. The energy gave some clues as to its aura too. This was not a nice ghost. The aura was filled with fury and hatred, and it had streamers of pain attached to it. Not the ghost's pain, this was remnants of people it had taken a bite out of. See the thing about ghosts is, when you stick around in the world of the living after you've died and you don't go on to do whatever it is that catches your afterlife fancy, whether reincarnation, cuddling with stuffed animals in plushie heaven or whatever, things can get a little messed up. Lots of ghosts just get confused. Miserable, not able to remember much, they might stalk their loved ones and cry a lot and be sad and creepy. Or they might run around trying to get people to avenge them or something and failing to communicate. It's hard to hold yourself together as a post death human spirit, you're really not supposed to be here after you croak and unless you have a vessel to go to or you're (un)lucky and you're bathing in a ley line (pray it isn't bad energy), you'll deteriorate bit by bit. So ghosts try to find ways to keep themselves together until they can get out.
Necromancers so often act as a psychopomp. Guiding the confused, upset, freaked out spirits to finishing their unfinished business, letting go of their life or just like, stop fucking around and move on already (I wish I was joking, fucking poltergeists). It's not as glamorous as one would think. Not a lot of blood circles and summoning ghouls out of the ground. Most of the time you're acting like a therapist helping a ghost along and it can be difficult, lots of negotiation and explaining things, especially if they've been around for a long time. Worst case scenario for the confused, you have to go solve a murder case and expose the information you found without pissing off cops to get the ghost to head out (good luck when the cops are the murderers). But then you have the assholes. The ghosts of really really bad people. Or ghosts that try to avoid the fading and latch onto some seriously fucking awful magical energies and gorge on them. Or even worse, the ghosts that decide they really like possessing living people and... um... eating their spiritual energy. Gross. You stop being human or even humanesque pretty quickly. The shitty part is that it combats deterioration really well. You don't fade, your memories remain, in vivid technicolor even! You just become a horrifying monster and lose every trace of morality and decency you once had. A pretty terrible cost. You can see it in their astral energies. Corruption writhes in them like rivers of pollution. People inexperienced with that sort of thing typically get some really unpleasant sensations from it. Astrally sensitive people feel disgusted and horrified and panicked just from proximity to the things. If they get strong enough, even the most mundane person is going to want to curl up fetal from the feeling.
The trail went right to what must have been a closet. Small, near the back of the room. Door partially closed. I was shivering pretty hard at that point. I felt like I was walking into some kind of horror movie jump scare setup and all I had to say was, no thanks. No thank you very much. I held the lock amulet at ready and pulled in the magic again, channeling it to my free hand. It didn't come as readily, I was maintaining a ward on my own without a physical focus after all, but it still came. I filled my hand with it, a shimmering little lake of energy on my palm and concentrated hard. The weaving built upwards out of the pool, congealing into a hook shape. I willed the hook to stab into the ghost's energy, catching a tiny bit of it on the end and then settling onto my palm. A long glowing rope trailed off from it and wrapped itself around my wrist, arm and hand. The spell resolved and then I trapped it, closing my fingers around it, condensing it together. Ready.
“Hey, basement goth,” I shouted, “do I get a trick or do I get a treat?”
Nothing. The energy didn't even shimmer. Ok, I guess my winning charm isn't always enough to draw out a big bad ghost. But I know what did. I released the hook right at the trail of energy. A screaming sound filled the air as the spell tore after the trail, winding the line behind it. It flashed into the closet and seemed to move for a lot longer than a tiny closet's space alone could provide. The ghost wasn't in the closet but deeper, elsewhere. Elsewhere with a capital E probably. Dimensions got funny with magic and spirits. I felt the sudden tug as the summoning spell burrowed deep into its target. The rope of energy in my hand yanked with violent force, nearly pulled me a step or two but I held on. Time to reel it in.
“Into the light I compel you!” I said.
The line began to whip in my hand, the violence of the ghost's resistence leaving burn marks on my skin, even as the magical rope shortened and pulled. I winced and continued to exert willpower into the spell. The summoning spell pulled, slow but steady, winding back around my hand. I could feel the pressure. Most spiritual beings resisted a summoning but this one was putting up a big fight.
“Come on you hexed son of a shit,” I said through gritted teeth. I began to swing the lock and chain focus in my other hand in a slow loop, letting magic fill it. An afterimage or two of the chain and lock lagged behind it in my astral sight. That's when the roaring started. I stumbled backwards with a start and realized with horror that the summoning rope had gone slack. You know, with my frail androgynous body in the middle of an enclosed industrial basement with sharp machine parts laying around. Just waiting to get a little extra velocity. I released the spell, the hooked rope disintegrating behind me and ran up the stairs two at a time as I heard the door to the janitor's closet explode. No need for that summoning shit, this Casper was chasing me.
I made it to the top just as the stairwell collapsed and stumbled onto the ground. I didn't drop my focus, thank the gods. I scrambled forward on my legs and one arm. Another roar sounded off behind me and I felt myself get picked up by something. That same something howled in pain as my ward reacted, turning me into a magical pincushion. So, um, it threw me. Straight at the other side of the building.
Good fucking strategy, Charlie, I thought to myself as I flew through the air, a red smear on a wall was totally how I wanted to go.
I didn't hit the wall though. I heard humming, felt a tingle on my skin and then I slowed down and floated in the air a mere half a foot from the wall. A precise and pretty weaving made of flowing energy, shaped like a large ring of feathers, surrounded me.
“Who's rescuing who now,” Chord said from the doorway, a triumphant grin on her face.
A roar came from behind me as I twisted around in the slowing spell to get myself to the ground on my feet. Chord hummed seven notes, pulled energy around her and an elegant liquid ward formed on her like a flowing outline. I finally got my feet on the ground and spun around, even as her spell wore off me, no longer sustained by its caster. Chord began whistling a sharp discordant tune and I already knew what was coming. The advantages to a long partnership.
I pulled myself into a crouching stance even as the intense flash and nails on chalkboard screech of a hexing bolt tore across the building from Chord's hand and splashed its way into the “ghost”, wrapping squirming tendrils of the hex around it. Yeah I couldn't even call it a ghost anymore. This thing had gone all kinds of wrong. It was a squirming mass of shifting images, eyes and clawed limbs. Not happy bunny images either, no. Gory stabbings, people crying, in pain, things even worse that I'd rather not talk about. You get the idea. This Casper had hit the worst path. It had to have been feeding off the psychic energies of trauma itself and that made for a ghost that liked to kill you slowly. So the plan was bind and burn at this point.
The demon ghost shook off the sizzling violet energies of the bolt and the hex didn't grip, the painful astral colors and sharp edged notes of some pretty rough magic evaporating into the air. That was alright though. A distraction was all I needed. The lock and chain spinning faster now, I poured the spark into it, pushing my limits. Its whistle became a screech and I held the spinning chain at arm's length in between me and my target, as the Hell Casper turned its bulk to me. Waves of energy rippled off it. They carried the flavor of hurt and violation, pain and horror. I felt more than saw Chord jump backwards out of the doorway, her ward absorbing the attack, even as I backed away. My own protective spell held, barely and even so I felt a few of my own bad history's flashbacks trying to assert themselves over reality. But I also had what I needed. The monster's energy touched the chain and the binding was ready, at a nice safe, well, safer distance than normal.
I reached out with my other hand and stopped the spinning chain. The smack of the lock into my hand hurt, like always, but the pain was part of the spell. The physical chain stopped but the glowing afterimage of it continued to spin, replicating into a thousand rotating astral chains and they went flying forward, elongating outward. The lock on the end had changed to a brutal looking barb with the same skull symbol showing in the magical energy as was carved into the lock. Those sharp long projectiles stabbed right through the monstrosity before me. I kept the conduit between hands and the focus going and my magic poured into the spell. Binding after binding stabbed the screaming monster, probably a lot more painful than the summoner's hook, and they began to wrap around it, writhing and twisting like snakes. They stayed loose at first, stabbing into new locations but it was only a matter of time before the binding spell clamped down. The ghost monster struggled hard and that just tightened my chain coils around its body. Even so my breath was coming out in gasps. This thing was pulling a lot and it was so strong.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. Chord's frightened but determined face came into view, her mouth singing a deep vibrant tone and I felt healing energies pour into me. Not just for the body but for the mind too. Calm wrapped around me, my shaking stopped and the hurt I was putting on myself with so much magic use washed away. I knew it was temporary but wow was that a useful spell. Witchcraft is nothing to scoff at. The monster was pretty tangled up when I let my astral senses fill over my main ones. It was even more horrifying seen in full, the echoes of the torture it had caused to people and other ghosts swirling in a twisted husk of dried blood and spiky bone. Discordant notes and the feeling of sewer water on my skin and ice in my veins fleshed out its presence and let me tell you, just perceiving this thing was like my PTSD taking a dump on my day. I almost threw up. The chains were working though. The serpentine entrapment was tightening up and this thing wasn't going anywhere. It was time to tie it off before I pissed myself and died from fear or just plain keeled over from magical burnout.
I spun the combination on the lock with one hand, already in muscle memory from both practice and frightened use in the field, and popped it open. All of the barbed ends of chains shot out in random directions from where they protruded from the Hell Casper's manifested form and jabbed themselves into the air, disappearing into shimmering points in space. I took the unlocked focus and gave the chain a light spin this time so that it wrapped around my hand, the bones digging in a little painfully. The glowing chains did the same, rotating and tightening further, deforming the corrupted ghost's physical structure into a jelly like mass. A forced reversal of manifestation. It screamed at me and struggled some more but this fight was done.
“Bad Casper, you've been very naughty,” I said, “but you didn't stand a ghost of a chance.”
Chord groaned next to me as I used my free hand to close the lock and spin the combo dial. The ripples in space where the chains were inserted all glowed brightly and formed circles with the skull in them. Anchors for the binding. The entire structure of chains pulled and pulled, tighter and tighter, crushing the ghost into a lump no bigger than a basketball. It pulled a little bit still but each anchored binding was hard and fast, immovable. They showed up as a subtle glow around a watery looking sphere in mundane senses, most of the detail purely in the astral. The ghost's howls, all mundane sound, echoed off the walls and I hoped no curious bystanders were nearby to hear it, because we did not need random cops coming around. I squeezed Chord's hand on my shoulder and she moved to the side, magic flickering around her hands. Just in case. The hard part was over but we weren't finished yet.
“In the eyes of the ephemeral,” I said in the halting tones of someone who sucks at memorization, “you have acted with depravity and abandon, violated the sanctity of life and death, violated the sanctity of the spirit and lost your self to corruption.”
I hated wordy ritualistic shit but this (or similar) was one of those prerequisites to being a necromancer at all. Or at least, a responsible one. Who didn't get a really brutal wake up call for toying with the dead and being a dick. A “wake up dead” call.
“No one is beyond redemption,” I continued, “you may choose to release the energy you have stolen and fade in the hopes that you will be able to move on after you have resolved what anchors you here. If you choose yes I will release you. If you choose no, I will not banish you. I will obliterate you.”
It wasn't the sort of threat you make lightly. Destroying a ghost completely was frowned upon. Violent sort of frowning. But so was eating the minds of hundreds of people and becoming a demonic monstrosity. Typically the former was the only option to prevent the latter from doing more horrible shit down the line. I knew it couldn't lie to me either. A promise made while under a binding spell like this one was as good as a geas. Usually with just as devastating and lethal consequences for breaking it.
“I WILL TEAR YOUR SOUL OUT AND FEAST ON THE PAIN YOU FELT WHEN THEY-,” it was cut off as I twisted the chains hard. I didn't need further elaboration. It's not fun hearing about your bad history from a soul sucking psychic leech, let me tell you.
“Guess that answers that question,” Chord said and spat on the ground.
“Guess so,” I replied and lowered the binding focus, dangling lock first, to the ground.
Energy poured into it and out of my free hand. A flowing trail of magic went through the chain and lock and into the ground it touched, creating arrows for direction. The flow was replicated from the bound monster sphere. Its twisted spark began to leak out of it through the chains that were anchored to the floor of the building. Like lightning into dirt. It wasn't just symbolic. The Earth was a big magical heatsink. You could dump a lot of power into it and it would just be absorbed and change to something new.
“Looks like you're grounded, fucker,” Chord said with a laugh, giving me the opportunity to groan at puns.
“DO NOT DO THIS TINY EFFEMINATE DEADSPEAKER,” the shrinking Hell Casper said, “I COULD OFFER YOU GREAT POWER AND STRENGTH. I COULD TEACH YOU OLD ARTS, KILL YOUR ENEMIES FOR YOU, EVEN HELP YOU BECOME A GOD.”
“Did that piece of shit just misgender me?” I said.
“Wow, rude,” Chord said, “probably was a dick in life too.”
“I APOLOGIZE, YOU ARE AN ENCHANTING WOMAN, DEADSPEAKER,” it rasped, more faint now, “I COULD TRANSFORM YOUR BODY IF YOU WISH, GRANT YOU THE PHYSICAL TRAITS YOU CRAVE.”
“What, like dragon wings,” I grinned, “could you give me a tail?”
“It really did misgender you,” Chord said shaking her head, “I can't believe it, we even have to deal with this shit from fucking ectoplasm.”
“YOU, THE HUGE WARLOCK WITH THE BIG HAIR, I WILL GRANT YOU POWER BEYOND YOUR DREAMS IF YOU KILL THE DEADSPEAKER,” it said, barely audible now, its glow beginning to fade.
Chord crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. This ghost was batting zero for two. She turned her head to me.
“Make sure it hurts when you send it to hell,” she said, “I'm going to go back outside for a cig.”
“You sure do need to learn to negotiate better with trans women,” I said to the ghost, my smile fierce, “it's hard to tempt a girl when you can't even tell she is one.”
The abomination was pretty small and weak at this point. If I released the bindings now it wouldn't be able to hurt anyone with magical ability and would have a hard time hurting even a mundane human. But it would. Eventually. That was the problem. Mercy was all well and good when a ghost was interested in redemption. That's why I said my spiel. Always give them a chance. This one had been around too long and had fed too well on horrifying sources to even be able to reliably fake intentions to be better. And it wasn't caving even now, with the end coming. I didn't like giving The True Death, as they call it, the permanent dispersal and destruction of a spirit. I've only done it once in my entire life. Some have done it by accident, grounding a spirit too long and that's horrible. But to do it intentionally, to stand and watch while a sentient being ceases to exist before you, slowly and painfully? It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I won't deal with necromancers who use it as anything but a last resort with the worst of the worst.
“You will regret this,” the ghost said in the barest of whispers, “you do not know what's coming...”
With that last terrifying sentence, the ghost disintegrated into nothing, the last of its energy running into the earth as my binding spell unraveled. I flopped to my knees in exhaustion, dropping my focus on the ground.
Goddamn dramatic ghosts, I thought as I fell onto my side and blacked out.
I woke up on Chord's couch underneath way too many blankets. Chord was sitting on the other chair in the room drinking hot cocoa. She had switched out her outfit and was wearing what could only be described as Goth Witch Chic. Black lacy dress with a plaited skirt. Lacy choker. Thigh high skull socks. Yes, there was a pointy hat involved. She balanced her laptop on her lap with one hand and I was happy to see her laughing quietly as she watched something. Chord's cat, aptly named Familiar, was snoozing with contentment on top of my feet on the sofa.
“Little warm in here for hot cocoa isn't it?” I said as I folded the blankets down off my upper body.
She smiled and turned around the laptop to reveal a kitten video.
“Doctor's orders,” she said. I couldn't help but grin. Smartass.
I laughed and began to lift myself off the couch. It was a slow process sliding out of the blankets. I had to be careful not to upend the cat. Familiar opened one eye, stared at me and then rolled over with a chirp, his old cat chub and fur rippling with the motion. Typical behavior for him. Vague memories of Chord helping me get away from the building and into a cab came back bit by bit. I must've been wrecked from all my spellwork. Probably looked drunk. That's when I realized I wasn't wearing pants.
“Chord, um.”
“Don't look at me,” she said covering her grin, “you mumbled something and pulled your pants off before you fell asleep on the couch.”
“Sounds like something I would do,” I decided that pants were a foolish luxury and stumbled towards the kitchen.
“Don't break my shit!”
“I am a graceful swan and you know it!” I yelled back.
“Ok, don't break my shit, swan queen,” she laughed from the other room.
I took care getting a mug out of the cupboard in the cramped kitchen. The truth was, even if I had been a perfect ballerina my body and mind were fried right now. My hands were shaking and my legs felt like rubber. I had overdone it. I would probably be like this for a few days. I counted myself lucky that ghosts like that were rare. I placed the mug on the counter, pulled the milk out of the fridge and leaned against it to collect my thoughts. Chord's apartment was nice, if small, she made a good amount of money from doing spellwork in the city and odd jobs, enough to pay the bills. It beat being misgendered working in some retail shithole, she always said. As someone who got misgendered working in some cafe shithole, I agreed. Unfortunately, necromancy did not pay well at all. Fake necromancy did but scamming grieving people out of their money was something I just wasn't willing to do.
I placed the mug on the table and filled it up. My mind wandered a bit as I capped the milk and popped it back in the fridge and I found myself looking out the window. Wiping out a ghost or a spirit was not a fun thing. Neither was getting bombarded by psychic assaults, warded or not, and I felt burned out emotionally just as much as I did magically. The thing that worried me the most, besides how such a strong twisted ghostie got into the city without anyone finding it till now, was the last line it said. Bluffing? Or something worse? I reached for my mug and stopped as my spine tingled. I'm glad I didn't pick it up right away because my very next action was to scream and jump a foot in the air. Chord came running into the room with the look of concentration on her face when she's readying magic.
“What? What happened-,” she said and froze, her eyes wide.
I was already wearing a matching expression. Standing right by me was a silver girl. Gangly proportions, neck length hair, wearing a t-shirt and jeans. She was also transparent and glimmering, her cheeks covered in bright tears, her hand reached out to me and her face terrified. I felt embarrassed.
“Sorry Chord, friendly ghost in your kitchen, I wasn't paying attention,” I said, “she startled me.”
“Fucking Jesus, Charlie you almost turned me into a ghost with that scream,” she said, one hand held over her heart, “don't let her take up residence, I don't need a roommate.”
I nodded, walked over and gave Chord a quick hug. Tension drained out of her and she smiled at me and left the kitchen. I returned to the table and sat down in front of the transparent little girl. I let my astral sense give me a closer look and then shut it off again after a moment. Fuckovision being on right now was almost painful. Her reaction to frightening me told me most of what I needed to know but the extra info from a quick glance at her aura confirmed it. She was still fundamentally a human ghost, so probably not another Hell Casper. I couldn't tell more than that without a longer look.
“Hi honey,” I said in a soft voice, “do you know how you got here?”
She nodded and pushed her fist against her eyes. The tears didn't disappear. Ugh. Ghosts often didn't realize that physical things didn't help anything for them anymore.
“Did you follow me here?” I said.
She nodded again and tried to open her mouth. Panic crossed her features and she grabbed hold of her neck. It looked like she was trying to. Oh. Right.
“Hey, hey calm down, you're ok. I know you're not feeling any air in your lungs but you'll be fine,” I hesitated, “this is like a dream ok? You've had dreams where things have been weird right?”
The girl nodded and seemed to calm down a bit. She sat down on the floor by me, in the same pose. Even crossed her arms the same way. My throat felt closed off. Some internal mother bear instinct made me want to find whomever hurt her and mess them up and then hug her. But there wasn't much to be done now. She was already dead. No hug would actually contact her. Hurting other people wouldn't make her alive again. My job now was helping this-- Christ she couldn't be more than thirteen-- this kid get to the afterlife.
“It's going to be hard for me to help you if you can't speak to me,” I said, “try to imagine yourself speaking with your voice.”
The little girl opened her mouth and croaked. Manifestation wasn't easy but she had gained enough of a form to touch me with her “hand” and become visible without astral sight running. The rest should fall into place after. Theoretically. There was things I could do to help too.
“I could cast a spell that could help you speak,” I said.
Her face contorted in fear and she jumped up and floated away from me. I put my hands up. Open with palms out.
“I won't do anything you're not ready for,” I said, “I promise.”
“Are you going to make me bleed into the ground?” she said, her voice echoing around the room.
My mouth dropped open. Was she in the abandoned building when I bound the Hell Casper? Where though? I didn't catch a trace of her.
“I don't want to disappear forever,” her voice warbled with fear, “I'm sorry, please don't kill me.”
“I'm not going to kill you,” I said, “I have no reason to hurt you. I just want to help.”
I realized at that moment that Chord was standing in the doorway again, looking concerned. She didn't interrupt, just hovered.
“I was hiding on the thing you killed,” she said, “I fed off its glow. Please don't kill me? I didn't have a choice.”
My mouth was too busy collecting flies for me to respond to that. Chord's mouth had dropped open too. I went to get up and stumbled back against the table and slid to a sitting position on the floor.
“It was bad,” she said trying to rub the tears away again, “the big one hurt people and ate other ones like me. So I hid and took in some of the light it was letting out. It couldn't see me.”
“Holy shit,” was all I could say.
“I'm sorry,” she said peering at me through her hands, “I didn't want to. I just didn't want to be eaten. Do you have to kill me because I hid in it?”
“No, absolutely not,” I said with vehemence, “I only grounded the big one's essence out because it wouldn't stop killing and torturing people. You made mistakes yes, but you're a victim here too.”
“She can help you move on,” Chord said from the doorway, “Charlie can help you get to someplace better.”
I was so glad she was nearby. The reminder of what I do helped me get past my shock at the girl's revelation.
“I could go somewhere better?” the girl said still hiding her face, “No more people hurting, no more scary things?”
“I don't know what's in the next place but I can help you let go of here,” I said, “what's your name?”
“I don't remember,” she said as she brought her hands into her lap.
“Okay,” I said, “I'm going to view your aura. It might feel a little weird. It'll give me an idea of what your unfinished business is and then we can help you finish it.”
It wasn't the only reason. I don't know how long she had fed off the psychic energy of people who were suffering. It was possible that grounding the other ghost out had removed much of the corruption that affected her too. But I had to be sure. She nodded and I opened my senses. Fuck, it hurt. My head swam. I was way too exhausted to be doing this so soon. Tears ran down my cheeks and I struggled to keep focused. Her aura expanded into view. There were scars there, like a rot made of sickening colors, discordant painful tones and gross sensations but it was minimal. Low risk. Now the next task.
I ran magic into my finger tips and pressed them onto my temples. The weaving was practically second nature to me, I had done it so many times. Energy poured into my head and made me dizzy. Bright strands of light touched parts of the ghost's aura and then widened and changed around her, turning into windows. The spell was a seeker's spell. When a ghost was too faded or too disorientated to help you help them, you could find the anchor within their aura but aura reading was intensive and auras could be very detailed. It was the needle in a haystack problem. When the haystack was made of glitter, the needle was slightly different glitter and you were on a lot of acid. A big problem. The spell was searching for the parts of the aura that were directly linked to the energy that kept her here. It wasn't exact. Often it received a couple of false positives but it narrowed it down enough that you weren't aura searching for hours. Or days. Everything you found could be brought to the ghost's attention and trigger a few memories to the surface. It helped, most of the time.
I viewed the magnified aura in each miniature window. Sweat poured down my forehead. A headache began to send dull aches throughout my neck and temples. A little voice in my head kept telling me I needed sleep but the rest of me wasn't going to let this girl sit in this world for any longer. Not after what she'd been through. It wasn't just an emotional response, I was being practical too. Ghosts didn't deal well with emotions like guilt. There was no dissociation for them, no drugs, no sleep, none of the escapes the living had. You faced your memories, thoughts and feelings in vivid 3D and surround sound always, unless you faded. And from what I've been told fading feels worse. Like having the core of your mind ripped out of you slowly, a gnawing deep empty hole in your thoughts. So keeping her around could go very bad very fast. She'd had a taste of bad magic before, it was easy to go back to it. I checked each window, looked a little closer and with a sigh of relief let go of my astral sense. The silvery transparent girl came back into the foreground.
“I think I've got it,” I said, “let me know if any of this sounds familiar.”
Several hours of talking, three cups of coffee and one pair of pants later, Chord and I got out of the back of Nelle's beat up sedan, the ghost girl in between us. Nelle occupied the driver's seat, one arm resting easily on the steering wheel. Somehow, even in this weather, she was wearing her huge trench, combat boots and cargo pants. I mean she did have very short hair, light brown and neck length at longest, but I would've been dying in that outfit. The only concession she had made to the temperature, besides the hair, was her tank top. She was quite a bit older than either of us and had a lot more scars from the magical world too. A lot more scars, period. Being trans and a magicker street medic for protestors in the 70s was not an easy life. Nelle was currently rubbing at the huge long healed gash on her face, an angry white line past her eye down to her mouth in high contrast to darker skin, as she looked at us through the driver's side window.
“You kids play safe,” she said with a grimace, “I don't want to have to bail either of you out of jail tonight. Or worse.”
We waved to her and walked up to the house. It wasn't super hard to find. The little girl had died within the last ten years and once we got her to remember her name and some key info, it only took a little bit of net surfing to find the location and person we needed. Thank librarians for database building initiatives.
“This is all you,” Chord said motioning to the door.
I sighed and hit the buzzer. This was often the difficult part. Ghosts may get confused from fading but you could at least convince them with work that they were dead and that mundane explanations were not going to cut it. The living were tougher, well the mundane living anyways. Magic users and people with paranormal bloodlines were somewhat less tough to deal with when it came to the ghost talk. Sometimes. I'll never forget the time that fey dude with the horns unironically told me, "ghosts don't exist, don't be ridiculous!" The door opened up revealing an older woman. Her hair was frizzy and straw blond and her skin looked like boiled chicken. She had the sort of facial expression that said, “if you're selling me something I'll pay you with a boot to the ass.” Great.
“Mrs. Kells?” I said.
She looked past me at the very obviously alt clothed form of Chord, blinked and frowned and then looked back to me. Chord just rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. I continued to wear my “customer service smile”. Fake but not too fake. Neither of us were strangers to getting odd looks.
“Well you're not Mormons, that's for sure,” the sour lady said, “what do you want?”
“Could we talk to your daughter?”
“Are you some of those creepy friends of hers,” she put her hands on her hips, “I don't want any drugs in my house. I don't care that she's twenty three either. No drugs.”
Chord stared the old jerk down, practically daring her to try and shoot a meaningful glance in her direction. But the old woman seemed to be eyeing me more. I guess the stained hoodie and bleary eyes marked me as a better source of the weeds today. Oh well, at least we had an in. It could've been a lot harder.
“Yes, ma'am and no ma'am neither of us do drugs,” I said in a cheery voice, “we are straight edge, we don't even drink, swear or eat meat. We like to help keep Sydney responsible, especially after that incident at Jackie's house.”
I could almost feel Chord fighting the urge to laugh next to me. The name and event drop from our ghost friend's memories combined with the fact that both Chord and I looked pretty young for our ages (thank you, estradiol!) floated the lie. And I managed to sound serious despite the very strong urge towards sarcasm I am always cursed with. Mrs. Kells, oblivious suburban asshole, grunted and opened the door and motioned upstairs for us. We both trudged up the steps and I thanked my luck that the terrible lady retired to the kitchen to drink wine and watch loud TV. This could go bad fast depending on Sydney's reaction so any little bit of leeway helped.
I knocked on the door upstairs. It was adorned with a Keep Out Radioactive sign. Was I this silly at twenty three? Probably. I was still pretty silly at twenty nine. The door opened and a sullen face of a young woman with very dark under eye circles peered out, blinked at us and pulled off her headphones. She wore a Slayer t-shirt and torn up jeans.
“Who the fuck are you,” she said. It was not phrased as a question. Uh oh.
“Hi, Sydney, so I know this is going to sound crazy but I really need to talk to you about something,” I said, “it's about your sister, Tanya.”
“My sister's dead,” she said her eyes narrowing. This was the critical part. I had to be fast.
“I'm aware,” I said, “and the crazy part well, I've been at this for a while so I'm just going to rattle off some things I couldn't possibly know so that we can skip all the angry disbelief if you don't mind.”
“What are you talking about?” Sydney said, looking from me to Chord and back.
I took a deep breath. Time to barrage.
“In the fifth grade you were the one who put the super glue on Mr. Gail's pen and got it stuck to his fingers. When you kissed Tabitha Cleary on a dare you didn't tell anyone but your sister that you actually liked it. Or how sad you were when she moved away,” I sucked in air again, “Tanya used to have nightmares that she hid from everyone else, you made it easier for her to sleep by putting drawings of dinosaurs under her bed to protect her. She used to climb up buildings for amusement and you would spot for her. You're the only one who knows she didn't commit suicide on Barter Towers.”
Sydney's eyes were wide now and the last sentence brought heavy tears from them. She choked back a sob and backed up into the room, letting the door swing open. This was not the most nice way of dealing with the relatives of the deceased but you often couldn't afford gentle. I walked into the room and stood to the side of the door, keeping enough distance not to be intimidating. I sat on the ground and put my hands up in a nonthreatening gesture.
“What the fuck are you,” she said in a whisper, “are you some kind of psychic?”
Good, she wasn't the skeptical sort. This helped.
“Ever see that show with the girl who could see ghosts,” I said, “she found their loved ones and helped them move on?”
She nodded, tears running down her face.
“Well I was approached by someone who would really really really like it if you didn't blame yourself for her death,” I said in a quiet voice, “there was nothing you could've done to prevent the fall while she was exploring.”
“I could've stopped her from climbing that building!” she spat the words at me, tears running down into her mouth, “I could've- I should've stopped her.”
I shook my head. I could still sense Tanya nearby. Her manifesting could help or hinder, at this stage everything was in the air. Being a necromancer really is eight parts therapist and two parts actual magic.
“She disagrees with that,” I said, “you both know she would've continued climbing and urban exploring even without you. The fact is, you were there for her when she died. You held her and she didn't die alone. That's more than most people get.”
Sydney put her face in her hands and sobbed. Chord turned away from the door, wiping her eyes.
“Tanya loves you, Sydney,” my eyes were getting pretty moist too, “she stayed here because she could see the guilt you felt. She didn't go on to what's next because she needed you to see that it wasn't your fault. She just got sidetracked along the way.”
“I can't just,” she stared at me helplessly, “I can't just stop feeling like this. God this is crazy, ghosts aren't even real. You've got to be some kind of fucking scam artist.”
I could recognize pain fueled rationalization and denial when I saw it. Time for the ghost show. It would be enough to end any more avoidance of the truth.
“I don't want any money or anything like that,” I said, “I don't even need your thanks. I'm doing this for her. Tanya, can you show your sister?”
In normal circumstances I was completely dependent on my charm and borrowed knowledge to convince people that their loved one is speaking to me. It's not often you can get a ghost who can manifest a visual form for mundane eyes. In a way the horrible experience being a remora for the ghost shark I destroyed actually helped keep Tanya intact enough and gave her enough experience to do this sort of thing. Silver linings to one hell of a storm cloud. The dead girl concentrated and her silvery form grew more opaque. I could tell the exact moment that she became visible enough for Fuckovision deprived people like Sydney, because the young woman gasped and began to reach out to her.
“She's not good enough at manifesting to speak to you,” I said, “and I'm sorry that we have to have this painful conversation at all. But she loves you and she needs you to know. Really, you need this too, I figure.”
Sydney looked at me and looked back at the ghost of her sister. She mouthed I'm sorry to her and Tanya shook her head and blew a kiss back. For the first time today, I saw a smile touch her face. The living sister smiled back. Sad smiles, tear covered but love all the same. Tanya started laughing and crying at the same time and then she looked up, surprise on her face.
“Hey,” I said, “you're seeing the light, right?”
She turned to me and nodded. Sydney looked between us rapidly, fear covering her features.
“No! She can't go now- I haven't-,” she stammered, “please, I miss her so much, please don't go!”
The ghost smiled at her sibling and floated forward, bringing one hand up to her tear stained cheek. Sydney brought her own hand to the translucent one.
“I'm sorry,” I said, “she needs to go. It's better for her than sticking around, trust me.”
“Is there,” Sydney hesitated, “is there a heaven?”
“I don't know. But I have a hunch you'll see her again in the end. She stuck around to speak to you after all.”
She nodded, tears dripping down her cheeks again and gave a sad smile to Tanya, who was already fading from sight. Warmth filled the room. A ghost partially manifested moving on tended to dump a lot of energy. Sydney hugged her arms around herself and Chord and I both wiped tears out of our eyes. Well, Chord hid near the door but I knew she was choked up too. We stayed there for a short bit, pushing our luck and probably making Nelle worry out in the car. Sydney eventually shook herself out of her reverie and wiped her face.
“How did you guys get past my mom?”
“She thinks we're your drug dealer friends,” Chord said with a snort.
“She knows I smoke pot?” Sydney hissed air into her mouth. Then her face froze and she brought her hands up to her mouth.
“Please don't tell my mom about Tabitha,” she said in a whisper.
I raised an eyebrow. Chord giggled.
“We're both gayer than a plaid asteroid hitting a rainbow,” I said, “so you have nothing to worry about.”
The walk back outside was silent. The mother didn't even look up at us as we left. Sydney Kells, new believer, walked us all the way to the car down the street. Nelle eyed us with visible relief. Talking to people about their dead relatives had ended with the cops being called on me more than once for fraud and needless to say, it was never a good experience. Sydney opened her mouth a few times and closed it, even as Chord climbed into the seat. I waited. Long experience told me that everyone needed a last few questions.
“I don't know what happened here today,” she said, “I don't think I'll ever get this.”
“But,” I gave voice to what she left unsaid.
“But thank you,” she said with a nod, “I feel like a weight has lifted off my shoulders. God, I can't tell anyone about this they'll think I'm crazy.”
“Ha, sorry, its a sucky side effect of being clued in to the paranormal,” I laughed, “she held on through a lot of really weird and scary shit for you. So um, I really wasn't kidding when I think you'll see her again.”
Sydney nodded, wiping away more tears.
“What if I have more questions,” she asked.
I pulled out a scrap of paper from my bag and a pen. I wrote down my number and the number of a few in the know people, mundane and supernatural. And another number I thought would be useful.
“If you're ever wondering about this stuff, give these numbers a call,” I pointed to mine, “here's me. I'm not always available but I've helped some people before after an experience like this.”
“And this last number,” I pointed at the bottom, “is the city's youth LGBT center. You're under twenty five and I'm guessing you haven't looked into your feelings yet?”
She blinked at me, looking like her current feeling was the urge to bolt.
“Hey, there's no hurry. You have all the time in the world to figure yourself out,” I said, “it just might be nice to have some people your age around to talk to about those Tabitha feelings.”
Sydney gave a hesitant smile, nodded and thanked me. The piece of paper went into her pocket and she walked back into her house. I climbed into the car and leaned against Chord. She leaned back against me and laid her head on my shoulder. Her pointy witch hat sat in her lap.
“Remind me never to go on those things with you,” she said, “that was scarier than the building demon, I thought for sure that girl was going to call the cops on us before you got her sister to go visible.”
“I would've taken the fall for you,” I said as my eyes drooped. Sleep was calling me.
“That's my girl,” Chord said, “too brave to escape with me, going to stick around and let the cops taze her instead. A true comrade.”
I fell asleep to the comforting sound of Chord and Nelle's laughter.