A Different Kind of Deadly (7 page)

Leo, Diana and I exchanged surprised
looks.

It explained why that long drop existed in
Nethermount. I could see disgruntled necromancers throwing
disappointing results down here. In a way, the Moor of Souls was a
retirement facility for undead, a place for them to rot into the
poisoned earth.

I squinted at Diana. "I still have more
questions for you."

"They can wait." She held me closer to her
chest. "Rest, Marvin. We need to get supplies from Krisenburg if
you want to find the Eyes of the Leviathan."

"See, that's one of my questions: what are the
Eyes of the Leviathan?"

"
Gems
," said Uhh.
"
Stttones of grreat power. A unniverrsal
sssoul.
"

"A universal soul?" Leo asked, and
I was glad that someone was finally as lost as I was in all of
this.

"Hush," Diana urged, and I wondered whether
that word had some kind of magical compulsion, because exhaustion
caught me by surprise. "You haven't slept in almost two days,
Marvin."

I never caught the second part of that
sentence, because my energy had finally run out.

11: Awesome
Dumbass

I felt a weight
on my chest, and a number of sharp, prickly
objects digging into me.

"-ly!"

The space between my eyebrows twitched. I was
sore, and cold; not a good combination.

"-f there."

I groaned.

"Tully, I said get off of there!"

My eyes snapped open, only to zero in on a
bony beak hovering over the top of my nose.

Tully seemed to think that the crook of my
neck seemed to be an excellent place to build a nest, as I felt a
number of layers bunched up against my skin. I heard Leo's
frustrated sigh from somewhere in the room. He walked over and
pinned the bird between his hands. This was the equivalent of
watching an animated skeleton get compacted into a pile of bones
between his meaty palms.

"Sorry about that, Marv," Leo apologized. "I
told Tully a number of times to leave you alone, but he was just
too worried."

I sat up, groggy and in shock, unable to
process a word he'd just said.

We were in a room, a drab and sparsely
decorated room.

I overlooked a number of things that would
have set me off in Nethermount, so I was able to forgive the
cobwebs in the rafters, the pervasive dust, and even the shrunken
head in the corner. All that mattered was that there were four
blessed walls separating me from the rest of the Moor of Souls, and
there were no Uglies, no powdered marrow floors, and no rancid gunk
as far as the eye could see.

I reached to pull up the collar of my shirt,
but discovered that bits and pieces of it were missing. I stared at
the fabric for a long time, analyzing the gaping holes that
appeared overnight.

"Leo... what happened?"

"Uhh thought you were a bit uncomfortable, so
he tried to get you out of your shirt." He sat at a desk across the
room, talking while he put Tully back together. "He stopped when he
realized he was burning through the fabric."

I snorted.

"Where is he now?"

"Diana took him on a shopping
trip."

"With what money?"

"How am I supposed to know? She's
your Doll."

My Doll, huh? Funny. She might be my Doll, but
I'm her plaything. I peeled the tattered shirt off my skin, rubbing
the burnt edges between my fingers.

The room held, besides a bed and writing desk,
a broken mirror.

I caught sight of myself in its cracked
surface, but it took me a moment to come to terms with the haggard
man staring back at me.

Like most necromancers, I had a fair
complexion, but it had become grimy somehow, as though I was caked
in a permanent film of dust. My gray hair fanned across my
shoulders, thin and waxy, and emphasized the harsh shadows of my
natural bone structure.

I gripped the sides of the mirror and sank
down to my knees, laughter bubbling out of my throat like a
madman.

It wasn't that long ago that I'd looked at the
portraits of my deceased family members, cringing at how they
seemed to be like living corpses.

In less than a week, I'd become one of
them.

"Marvin?"

I stopped and hung my head back, staring at
Leo upside down. His look of trepidation prompted me to get a grip
on my nerves, but just barely.

"What is it?"

"Are you alright?"

Alright?

The question threatened to break my tenuous
grasp on reality. I snickered for a moment, climbing back into bed.
Leo had swiveled his chair from the desk and now gave me his full
attention.

"I must look pathetic right now." I fought a
wave of depraved giggles. "But I guess this is a fitting end for
the biggest failure in Nethermount."

It was quiet for a full minute.

Finally, Leo asked, "What are you talking
about?"

I balked on the inside. Surely, Leo couldn't
have been that oblivious.

"I'm a failure, Leo." It felt ridiculous,
having to spell it out for him. "Right before dinner, my mother
told me to become a necromancer, or else she'd turn me into an
undead servant for House Thanos."

Leo gaped at me as though I turned into a Sand
Whale.

"Become a necromancer?" He wasn't playing with
me; Leo was genuinely confused. "Marvin... you're already a
necromancer. You're the pride of the Six Houses."

He and I stared at one another.

For all intents and purposes, we may as well
have been speaking completely different languages.

"Pride?" I wondered, against my reasoning, if
Leo was playing some kind of cruel joke. "Leo, in what way,
exactly, am I someone to be proud of?"

He raked his hands through his head,
frustrated.

"Marvin, you became a necromancer when you
were twelve. Twelve! Do you have any idea how amazing that
is?"

To become a necromancer... this phrase was
also used as a euphemism for the first time someone raises an
undead creature. It was a rite of passage in our society, and last
I checked, it was reserved for persons at least sixteen years of
age.

"But Leo," I said, "The first time I raised
anything was Uhh."

Leo marched up to me, clamped his hands on my
shoulders, and looked me in the eyes.

"Marvin... you don't remember?"

"Remember what?"

"Will."

The name didn't ring any bells. Leo looked as
though I'd gone and shattered his favorite beaker collection. He
sat beside me on the bed.

"It makes more sense like this."

"What does?" I was starting to feel sick.
"Leo, tell me, please."

"Marvin, we used to take communal lessons with
the other children of the Six Houses," he began. "We went to the
Morgue for our first practical lesson. Everyone got a body to
dissect. Yours was Will."

I didn't remember ever having communal classes
with anyone. If what Leo was saying was true, then I was missing
nearly a decade's worth of memories.

"You were the star pupil, but even
we were surprised when you brought Will back to life." Leo's
expression filled with a measure of wonder and admiration;
admiration that I'd never been able to comprehend until now. "He
was our age, Marvin. You treated him like a younger
brother."

I struggled to remember what Leo was telling
me, but instead I felt queasy. It was the same feeling I had
whenever I looked at the dismal trappings of death.

"But the inevitable happened, and Will began
to rot." Leo twiddled his thumbs together, an odd gesture for a man
as solidly built as he was. "I was going to pay you a visit, to ask
if I could borrow your herbology notes, when I saw you trying to
piece Will back together in your room. He had already decomposed
too much, though."

I pulled the blanket around my shoulders. I
couldn't see what Leo was talking about, but I heard runes running
through my mind; the sound of static, spell rejection, and distant
screams.

"He kept dying, no matter how many times you
tried to bring him back, Marvin. By the time you stopped all that
was left of Will was a pile of... well," Leo hesitated. "Organic
matter."

This was a pretty way of saying that I'd
completely torn someone apart.

"When I tried talking to you back then, you
took one look at Will and started screaming your head off. Lady
Formosa kicked me out, and the next day she announced that you'd
learn through self study since you'd already proven yourself a
necromancer. You were the pride of House Thanos... it seemed
appropriate." Leo waited a minute before finally turning to me. "So
do you mean that in all the years since then... you haven't raised
anyone else?"

"Raised anyone?" My voice cracked from
dryness. "Leo, I... I couldn't look at a body. I kept fainting
during dinner when I looked at the test subjects. I felt like a
complete, worthless, failure."

We were quiet after that.

I didn't know how many minutes
passed.

I didn't care. I fought to recall more of what
Leo was telling me, and kicked myself for never questioning my
past. Such a powerful phobia wouldn't be there without a reason. I
felt like I was taking a spade to the surface of my mind, and hid a
rock beneath the dirt.

I couldn't see it, but I knew it was
there.

Will?

I fought a wave of nausea.

Leo slung an arm across my back, giving it a
firm pat.

"You're not a failure, Marvin."

"How do you know that?"

"Because you're my friend," he announced
proudly. "And any friend of Lenold of House Soma, by default, is
awesome, and incapable of being a failure!"

I snorted, "You're a dumbass, Leo."

"Can I be an awesome dumbass?"

"Sure, Leo." I wanted to punch him for making
me smile, but I had a feeling that he'd return the favor and
inadvertently smack me straight through the wall. "You can be an
awesome dumbass."

12: Duck

My fingers ran
across the warped walls, catching a splinter on
one of them. I was more surprised that there as a section dry
enough to stab me than the actual pain of the prick. I fished it
out with the tip of my nails and watched the inevitable drop of
blood bead on my skin.

It was so red... or I was so pale. One way or
another, the contrast was beautifully morbid. Here I was, deathly
by all appearances, and yet that little drop was the undeniable
proof that I was alive.