The Necromancer's Seduction (4 page)

Cora had beat me over the head with warnings against raising a revenant, knowing the
dangers in reanimating a corpse equally intelligent in death as in life. Unlike zombies,
revenants awaken with their souls restored. They appear normal—no slouching gait or
single-minded purpose. On the other hand, a zombie’s intelligence and physical condition
varied, depending on the necromancer’s strength.

Revenants are usually pissed at the necro who wrestles them from the grave and jump
at the chance to kill him or her. The idea of creating a supernatural revenant was
one that resided in some dark chamber of a Lovecraft nightmare.

“You have to consult with the coven,” Kara said, recovered from her previous lapse
and back into command mode.

“I’m aware of the codes, and I spoke to Matilda. She agreed,” Malthus said.

I’m sure not without a fair amount of protest. I looked from Kara’s tight lips to
Malthus’s unaffected posture. Matilda was the coven Wiseacre, or leader, elected by
the witches to serve a five-year term. She was no pushover, but Malthus served his
authority like the whiskey he drank—smooth with a spicy aftertaste. He didn’t obtain
his position among the demons without knowing how to manipulate others.

“The vampires aren’t going to be happy we left them out of our little party,” Julian
said, fingering his manicured nails.

“I’ll deal with Dominic,” Malthus said. He didn’t sound worried about offending the
vampires’ sensibilities. Getting the supes together was worse than throwing a bunch
of beta fish in a bowl. I’m surprised the truce between them has lasted this long,
needing but a tap to knock the frothing kettle over. But the supes don’t want to rile
the masses, causing them to break out the pitchforks . . . except now they’d come
at us with incendiary blogs, Tweets, and Facebook posts by self-proclaimed supernatural
experts who earned their credentials watching
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
and reading comics. I preferred the pitchforks.

“Why not just raise him, ask him some questions, and then send him back to the endless
sleep?” My voice rose a few notches.

Necros can wake a corpse without turning it into a zombie or revenant. It’s a basic,
low-level necro skill. The corpse stays reanimated for a few moments, enough time
to extract the information you need. Simple. Clean. No decomposing bodies running
amuck in the city.

“We’re talking about a supernatural revenant,” I continued. “We’d be playing by an
entirely different set of rules.” Acid scalded my tongue at the thought of mastering
a bond with a supe revenant. “I don’t understand why we can’t just wake him.”

“Trust us, we’ve already considered that option.”

I looked up at the sound of Ewan’s voice. Trust and demon in the same sentence? He
shifted to face me. I managed to avoid staring at his body, but failed at shutting
out his husky voice that slipped under my skin and warmed the space between my thighs.

“We don’t want a supe revenant running around any more than you want to make one.
We’re aware of the danger, but we need Adam alive, able to think and reason until
we figure out the identity of the killer,” he said.

“What if he doesn’t know?” I asked.

“We can tap other memories to help our investigation.” His eyes never left my face,
the flashes of gold hypnotizing me.

I rested my forehead on my fingers. “Okay, say we absolutely need Adam the revenant.”
I shook my head. “What makes you think I’m capable of creating him? Only the more
powerful necromancers can create human revenants, much less a supernatural one. I’ve
never heard of a necro that’s done it.”

“Your mother raised a supernatural revenant,” Malthus said. “—a werewolf.” The room
grew still. I regarded him, my eyes wide.

“No one but the Seattle wolf pack has known until now,” he added, his voice perfectly
mild, as if he hadn’t just revealed a long-kept secret.

I plopped my glass on the side table hard enough to slosh some of the whiskey onto
the stained wood. “Can you lay out all your cards? Any other secrets about my life
you need to tell me?”

He blinked a few times, then gazed past me at the fireplace. “No.”

I felt like Malthus had squeezed my head between two small presses, and each word
from him twisted the cranks a notch. I reached for my glass and gulped down some whiskey.
I was not a fan of whiskey, dammit. My non-inner demons were driving me to drink.

“How do you know my mom raised a supernatural revenant?” I finally asked.

Malthus walked over to me, a small book in his hand. “Your grandmother’s journal.
She recorded her actions as a necromancer, her knowledge, her ideas. I think she ultimately
wanted you to have it, but was conflicted about giving you all this knowledge. A disservice
to you, in my opinion.”

My hand shook as I grasped the worn edge of the small book.

“I believe you’ll find an account of when your mother raised the revenant. Your grandmother
helped her.” Malthus paused. “I’m sorry, Ruby. I know this is a lot of information
to absorb at once.”

“Ya think?” I rubbed my forehead, trying to ease the pressure. “How do you have this?”

He stared at the journal in my hand, his eyelids stiff. “She wanted me to safeguard
it. I wouldn’t ask you to perform this task if I didn’t think raising Adam was important
or if you weren’t capable.”

I hated the wariness in his eyes, as if he were coaxing a skittish rabbit. But even
more I hated that he was right to employ caution, to understand my own lack of faith
in my supernatural ability.

My head seemed to drift around me in a haze. I glanced at the whiskey in my hand.
That wasn’t helping. “A supe’s body and residual soul are stronger than a normal person’s,
more difficult to control. It takes a powerful, knowledgeable necromancer to raise
and contain such a revenant without dying. They literally feed off the necro’s power,
and if the necro doesn’t have enough to sustain it . . .” I broke off, not wanting
to explore that thought further.

“I understand the risk involved. This is not a frivolous request. If your grandmother
were alive . . .”

“Yes, I know.” I sighed. “Granny to the rescue.” I stared at the journal. “It’s not
only about the risk. I have moral issues about raising zombies and revenants.”

Malthus regarded me, his disinterest in my moral quandaries evident with each careful
blink of his eyes. I wished Cora was alive so I could watch the sparks bounce between
her and Malthus. They’re so different. She was warm and spunky. He’s overbearing.

I finished off my drink. Most likely I wouldn’t be able to make a revenant, and none
of this would matter.

“I need a day or two to think it over,” I said.

He swirled the whiskey in his glass. “Fair enough, but bear in mind, we risk more
supernatural deaths if we wait too long.”

He raised his hand in front of him, his brow furrowed. He turned to Ewan. “The portal.”

Ewan met his gaze, and the two demons communicated without words. Ewan moved off the
stool and strode towards the door, his shoulders stiff.

Malthus controls the portal linking the human and demon realms. I never quite understood
how it worked, only that demons could access it from different parts of our world.
Cora had explained the portal to me when I was a kid, describing it like a gateway
to fairyland. I spent my entire childhood begging her to take me through the fairy
door, except it didn’t lead to a shiny fairyland. I’m sure she regretted ever opening
her mouth about it.

“Can you get me some coffee while you’re at it?” Julian asked Ewan as he passed, his
mouth twisted in a smirk.

Ewan halted and flexed his hand closest to Julian’s head, letting his finger joints
crack. Malthus observed the exchange. After a few more tense moments, Ewan left the
room. Malthus turned his back to us and made a call on his cell, speaking in the demon
tongue. I haven’t heard the entrancing demon language spoken in years, musical but
offset by sharp accents like percussion over a smooth bossa nova.

Jax leaned close to Julian. “Becoming a council member has given you courage. Right
now, I’d be hoping Ewan forgets your little jab so when he finally—” He paused, darting
his eyes to me then back to Julian, then smiled—a smile far removed from any happy
thought. “Of course, we all know he won’t—forget.”

Ewan returned, without coffee, expression grave. “An unauthorized denizen of the demon
realm has breached the portal.”

* * * *

I wrinkled my nose at the scent of wet, dirty city streets that hung in the air after
the rainfall. Kara’s boots splashed the puddles behind me as I marched to the bus
stop. She caught up to me, and we walked a couple of blocks in silence.

She finally spoke. “Sorry I didn’t tell you about the other death. I had no idea Adam
was next on the kill list. I honestly thought we’d retrieve the spell book and leave.”

“I don’t blame you.” I placed my hands on top of my head, twining my fingers. “I feel
like I just found out I was adopted. Who knows, maybe that’s next.” I dropped my hands
to my sides. “So my grandmother was murdered.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know about that or about your mom raising a revenant.”

I smiled a thin smile that bore only a touch of humor. “Neither did I.”

Cora had immersed herself in supe affairs while I hid out at the university, ignoring
her middle of the night phone conversations and meetings behind closed doors. My lungs
tightened. I emitted a low curse for my self-righteous seclusion. Grandmothers aren’t
supposed to get killed. They were supposed to ease into death, occupied with knitting
sweaters dotted with flowers and hearts and telling bedtime stories. Except Cora never
knitted, and her bedtime stories often gave me nightmares.

“Don’t blame yourself.”

I fixed my gaze on the little rainbows formed by the oil and water splattered on the
sidewalk. “Malthus knows a lot more than he’s letting on.”

She snorted. “What’s new?”

I ignored her, too preoccupied to respond. If I made Adam a revenant, I’d be thrust
back into the supe world, like it or not. My fingers twitched. And thrust into Ewan’s
company, more like it than not. Despite sporadic encounters with him going back a
few years, the only thing I knew about him was his effect on me.

“Have you ever noticed Ewan’s skin glowing or shining?” I asked.

She barked her laughter. “Wow, you have it bad for all dark and gorgeous.”

“Kara, please, have you?”

She continued to snigger. “No, but then I’m not smitten with him.”

“I’m not smitten. What kind of demon is Ewan . . . and Malthus for that matter?”

“Ewan and Malthus don’t share that kind of information with us mere mortal supernaturals.
Their power is intense, though. It literally seeps out of their pores.” Her eyes shone.
“You’d like to feel Ewan’s power.”

“Can you be serious?” I snapped at her in my uppity professor tone, as she liked to
call it.

She tightened her jaw, freezing her instinct to snap back.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not able to handle the teasing banter right now.”

She gave me a small nod of understanding.

“What about Jax?” I asked in a more calm, controlled voice.

“Jax is a Yasha demon or flesh eater.”

“Flesh eater? He seems so . . . unbloody.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Jax’s great. He doesn’t have human four-course meals or
anything. He’s more like a vampire, drinks blood.” She paused. “What did you think
about him?” She fingered her necklace, acting absorbed in watching the cars pass,
as if my response didn’t matter. She must really like him.

“Hot bod —” I threw my hands up. “I don’t know. I haven’t spent quality time with
Jax. He seemed easygoing.”

Her gaze dropped to the sidewalk. “Too easygoing. You know, during the meeting, Ewan
definitely had his eye on you.”

My face flushed. “I have a lot to think about. This meeting was crazy. Sex with a
demon is
not
my priority.”

“Sucks for you.”

“You think the portal breach is related to the deaths?”

“I don’t know, but Malthus better get a handle on it before the other supes challenge
the demons’ authority over the portal.” Kara grabbed my arm, stopping me, and I angled
my body to face her.

“I’m the first to cheer at the idea of you joining our ranks and helping us find out
who’s killing supes, but don’t let Malthus bully you like he evidently bullied Matilda,”
she said.

“Thanks. I don’t feel bullied, so don’t worry. If I do anything, I’ll do it for my
grandmother. You didn’t know they were going to ask me to raise Adam?”

“No, but as much as I hate to admit it, Malthus may be right.”

“So what’s Adam’s story?”

“Not a good one.” She gave me a side-glance as we resumed our walk. “He had a flair
for magic, performing spells others envied, like mind reading and mind control. His
talents didn’t earn him points from the coven, but he scorned their grumblings—as
the rest of us do.”