Three Parts Fey (5 page)

“Gentlemen, we
have a student necromancer attempting to raise her twin. The twin
died in a drinking incident at the school, and it has taken Miaka
this long to gain the necessary spells in order to raise him.”

Argyle grunted.
“I have to hang back.”

“Of course.
That is the one kind of magic you are sensitive to.”

“I will be
there if the ghoul rises. Even if she manages to put in both soul
and consciousness, the degradation will have caused some rather
nasty changes.” He was grim. “If he rises, I will come in fast and
question him later.”

Smith nodded.
“We are going in to...”

“We need to
hold down the necromancer. Stop the power and keep her engaged
until the mages can come to collect her. Just restraint. No blood.
The blood of a new necromancer is one of the easier methods of
controlling the undead.” Benny grimaced. “But only after her first
rising and before her locking in her power. If any of the dark
mages know what is going on, they are going to be out for her
blood.”

Tremble sighed.
“Why couldn’t this just be simple?”

Benny grinned
and put the computer away after sending the confirmation of arrival
signal.

She flexed her
fingers. “This is where I earn my keep.”

Argyle handed
her a set of cuffs. “You forgot to take yours off your last
collar.”

Benny sighed.
“Sorry. There is so much I need to get used to.”

The last flecks
of sunset disappeared. Benny adjusted her eyesight and nodded to
Smith and Tremble.

She left the
vehicle and felt for the magic. It flared and popped all over the
cemetery. A very bad sign.

Tremble asked,
“What am I sensing?”

“Unfocused
magic. She is all over the place. We need to call in more undead.
She is going to raise the entire block if they aren’t
anchored.”

“Right. So find
her, find her fast, and you stop her before she tangles the living
and the dead.”

Benny nodded.
“Right. Smith, can you shift and sniff her out? She will smell like
girl and blood.”

He nodded and
his features shifted into feline, his hair wild and shaggy. His
head lifted, and he led them into the darkness.

Argyle kept
well back, but Benny could feel him in the shadows.

Candles
flickered up ahead, and Benny eased up next to Smith. She touched
his shoulder, and he waited in the darkness.

Tremble came in
closer, but he left her to take point.

Dealing with
unstable college girls wasn’t really her forte, but she focused on
the young woman who was frantically consulting a notebook as she
chanted and sprinkled herbs around.

“Miaka.” Benny
whispered it, coming closer.

The girl nearly
jolted out of her protective circle. “Who are you? I can’t see
you.”

Benny moved
into the circle of light, just on the edge of the chalk outline.
“Hello, Miaka.”

The girl peered
at her through lank hair and blinked furiously. “I have to finish
this. We will talk when Mike is with us. He always enjoyed talking
to women.”

“You can’t
raise him, Miaka. He won’t come back whole.”

Miaka scowled.
“How do you know about it? He will be fine. I love him and he is my
twin and he will be fine.”

Benny hunkered
down next to the headstone, reading the name and wincing at the
youth of the deceased, with the barrier in front of her toes. “He
will not be fine. Why didn’t you apply for resurrection when he
died?”

Miaka stuck her
lower lip out. “I did. I wanted him back again, even if I would
live on, but the resurrection guild wouldn’t do it. My grandmother
is a zombie, and she wouldn’t die to let Mike have his turn.”

Benny closed
her eyes. Only one undead was allowed per family. It kept things
from getting messy when it came to inheritance.

“So, how long
has he been buried?”

“A year and
ninety days. Today is our birthday. I brought him a cupcake with a
candle. He can blow it out when he comes back.”

Benny asked,
“Have you given any thought to just bringing back his ghost? If he
wants to communicate, it is very easy. If you bring him back in his
body, he won’t be the same.”

“He said...he
said Mike would be fine.”

“Who said?”

“The demon. A
demon gave me this spell, and he said Mike would come back
fine.”

Benny fought
her instinctive hiss. “The demon lied. Demons make puppets out of
the dead; they don’t give them their lives back. He wouldn’t belong
to you; he would be the demon’s creature.”

“You are lying!
He said you would lie!” Miaka hissed at her with madness in her
eyes.

“Did he? What
if I came through your wards and took your books?”

She cackled
wildly, her stained sweatshirt and jeans exposed as she leaned
back. “No human mage can get through those wards. He promised me.
No mage could stop me.”

Benny sighed
and stepped across the demon-cast ward. “He lied.”

Benny wrapped
the book in a spell of confusion and the woman in a sleep spell.
There was a bit of power stirring in the area, so she focused it
upward and turned it into fire.

The form that
solidified in the fire was a young man with a mop of dark hair and
kind eyes. “Is she all right?”

“Hello,
Michael. She is asleep. I can wake her if you like.”

He smiled and
shook his head. “No. If she needs me back, I will come as a ghost.
Do you think that will help?”

Benny nodded.
“I think she feels incomplete without you.”

“And me without
her, but I did something stupid and here I am. I never meant to
split us apart, but sometimes these things just happen.”

“What artifact
would you like to be anchored to?”

He smiled. “My
mom gave me a fountain pen when I entered college. I just wanted a
business degree.”

Benny looked at
the objects on the ground. “Is this it?”

“That is the
one. She can keep me with her always.”

Benny picked it
up and used the summoning magic to bind his soul to the object.

“I thought it
was more complicated than that.” He smiled.

“It is for most
mages. I am not most mages.”

She reinforced
his connection and kept an anchoring and protective spell on it. No
one would dislodge him from the pen until Miaka wanted him to
go.

“She might
cling to you for the rest of her life, Michael.”

He leaned down
and brushed a phantom hand over his sister’s brow. “I know. I am
still willing to do it. I never could be the family zombie. I had a
heart transplant when I was nine. My organs were shot from the
anti-rejection drugs.”

Benny sighed
and looked at Miaka. She glanced back, and Tremble was pounding his
fists against the barrier.

Michael cocked
his head. “How did you get through?”

“Oh, family
secret.”

She took her
knife and sliced through the barrier. Tremble stumbled forward.

“The Mage Guild
operatives have arrived.”

She sat with
Miaka as the operatives came to her and stumbled to a halt.

“This is Miaka
Horrocks. She tried to raise her brother Michael. I managed to stop
her, but his soul was already loosened and with us. I have anchored
it to this pen. Please, please, keep the pen within twenty feet of
her at all times. She is in an extremely vulnerable mental
state.”

The male mage
looking at her nodded with a kind expression. “We will take care of
her.”

“Good, because
I am going to check in on her. She has suffered a loss that was
unexpected. She has wounds that will never heal.” As an aside,
Benny added, “She has also been influenced by a demon, so keep an
eye out for that.”

The mage
carried her off with his partner. Benny waited for the next team to
come in. She explained all the components and left them to take the
bits apart.

Argyle was
working with the team putting down the ghouls that had risen
without souls.

Smith stayed
near her, and he asked slowly, “Is she out of danger?”

Benny nodded.
“I used her own magic to anchor her brother’s ghost, so it should
be fine. There was also the touch of a demon in the area, and my
magic pushed his out of the way. He won’t come sniffing around her
again. The Mage Guild will be watching her constantly.”

Smith nodded.
“So, after this...dinner?”

She laughed.
“Excellent idea, love.”

Tremble came up
on them, and he cupped her elbow. “You did very well.”

“I am glad you
think so. I want to check on Miaka at the Guild holding facility
before we go home.”

“Of course,
darling.”

She grinned at
him. “That is Agent Darling to you.”

The undead XIA
officers had finished with the ghouls, and there was a Mage Guild
necromancer standing by to anchor those who had been disturbed.

It was
definitely time for dinner.

It wasn’t a night for
tacos. They pulled into a small diner parking lot and filed in to
scrub their hands before settling into a booth and thumbing through
the menu.

Benny was in
the mood for soup and a BLT. The coffee she ordered with it was
habit more than anything.

The guys
ordered a wide variety of foods, and they even had a crimson
smoothie for Argyle.

Tremble had to
ask, “How do you know to do all that?”

Benny grinned.
“You have met my parents. Do you think I didn’t want to learn all
they had to offer me? I had tutors from every species, was enrolled
in every basic instruction that they could manage, taught by the
best in their fields. I am not a true necromancer, but I am better
than many trained necromancers. There are so many butterflies
around our property in winter it isn’t even funny.”

Smith
snorted.

The food was
hot and filled the hole that hanging around the cemetery had
generated.

The bacon on
her sandwich was pleasantly crispy, and it definitely hit the
spot.

“So, what do we
talk about now that all the sly flirting has been put aside?” She
winked.

Tremble
grinned. “I suppose that we will have to engage in innuendo and
seduction from now on.”

“Ohh, seduce
me. That would be different. Usually, I am in the mood and I just
find a target.” She waggled her eyebrows.

Smith put his
hand on her thigh under the table and slowly moved it to her groin.
He held her for a moment before his fingers began flicking
randomly. That had an effect.

She focused on
her sandwich, and when it was gone, she said, “I hope that the rest
of the night doesn’t involve mages. It feels so weird.”

Tremble nodded.
“You’re telling me. I couldn’t get through that ward and that is
unusual.”

“It was
demon-based. We have different rules, and since you haven’t had
time to study yet, you won’t know them. Scholar.”

Argyle had
healed from his scuffle with the undead. “What was I again?”

She leaned over
and stroked his cheek. “You were all warrior.”

Smith looked at
her with a slow smile. “Me?”

“Hello,
lover.”

He looked
extremely pleased with that.

They paid their
bill and got to their feet. They only had enough time for a dinner
break. Benny got the feeling that there was more to come.

Back in the
car, she found their next destination. “Back to the docks. Someone
has caught a mermaid in a net, and folks are drunk and abusive. We
have to rescue the damsel and get her back in the water.”

Smith hit the
gas, and she answered the notice with an affirmative that they were
on their way.

On hour later,
Benny was covered in mer-slime and wishing that she had let Smith
grapple with the flailing mermaid. Benny sighed and flicked the
coating off her arms.

Argyle grinned.
“This is why we bring a change of clothing.”

She glared at
him and looked at Smith. “Can you go to that convenience store and
get me a canister of bleach wipes?”

He nodded.
“Back in a minute.”

Smith trotted
across the street, and she heard him chuckling the moment he
thought he was out of earshot.

She sighed and
checked to make sure her butt hadn’t gotten any of the slime.

Argyle leaned
next to her. “So, how are you enjoying being an active agent?”

She ran her
hands up and over her breasts then flicked the mermaid slime a few
feet away. Tremble was still speaking with those who had captured
the bitchy mermaid because she had wrecked a local bar.

The slime
creature in question was being hauled toward XIA holding as they
spoke.

“It has its
moments. This is one of them.”

He chuckled.
“You are handling it well. The first time I grappled with a
mermaid, she got away.”

“The lake maids
have always been cranky. It must come with being unable to have
sex.”

Smith came back
brandishing the wipes. Benny took them gratefully and started to
get the worst of the coating off herself.

When she had
amassed a large collection of spent wipes, she was down to being
damp all over. “Pretend you didn’t see this.”

She summoned a
ring of cleansing fire that started at her boots and flared upward
with a smooth spread. Her hair fluffed out again, and she felt
clean.

Smith sighed.
“Why didn’t you just do that? I didn’t have to get the wipes.”

Tremble filled
him in. “Mermaid slime can short out magic. We are also being
watched by a few locals. Watching her flare into flame might have
caused more problems than it solved.”

Smith nodded.
“Oh. I have never had to deal with one before.”

Argyle
chuckled. “Thanks to Benny, you didn’t have to deal with one today.
It would have locked you in human form for two or three days.”