VoodooMoon (3 page)

“Wrong?” My curiosity was piqued. “And why call us instead of the City Guard? They would have been the one to take the body in. And why would he need a necromancer? He is one.”

“He just said it was something he’d never seen before and he needed the most powerful necromancer available.”

I groaned.

“The most powerful?”

“Yes, and Sonny knows Barroes works exclusively with the Blades.”

“Why me?” I asked the question though I was afraid I knew the answer.

“Because Barroes asked for you.”

I groaned again.

“Shit.”

There were three types of people I didn’t like: the elite rich, academics, and Necromancers. Ian Barroes was all three. To make matters worse, he is the only man I had ever met that could make me feel like my blood would overheat and melt me into a quivering mass just by being in the same room with him. Mother Earth I hated him!

Maybe hate was too strong. I didn’t know him well enough to hate him, but I had a strong dislike. Ian Barroes was the founder and head of the Necromancy Guild as well as a professor at the Academy of Magic and Science. Every Necromancer in Nash was required to register with the guild. I had to admit that the guild brought a modicum of accountability to a profession that was riddled with liars and thieves, but I still thought it was too little and way too late for those who’d been swindled by so-called Necromancers.

Despite my opinion of Necromancer’s in general and Barroes specifically, Necromancers were often employed by the City Guard and Blades to assist with magical investigations. Part of the guild’s function was to work as a sort of employment agency for members. An individual or organization could contract with the guild for a job and the guild would then assign a Necromancer to the position. The Blades had a standing account with a number of necromancers on call at all times. As the head of the Guild, Barroes generally didn’t contract out his skills and when he did it was exclusively for the Blades. He spent most of his time teaching the History of Necromancy to students at the Academy of Science and Magic.

He was arrogant beyond measure and every time we worked together we denigrated into arguments and petty squabbles. I couldn’t understand why in Hades he insisted on working with me whenever a case that needed his expertise came up. Luckily that wasn’t very often.

I stopped on the second floor of the headquarters’ building to make a quick visit to the baths. I didn’t have time to go home and change out of my muddy clothes, so the best I could do is wipe some of the grime off my face.

The entire floor was enveloped in soap scented steam. The morning rush on the baths was over and the washroom was empty save an attendant trying to clean up and a couple of cadets who were rushing to get dressed and to classes they were clearly already late for. I smiled to myself as the two girls ran past me, sliding on the damp floor on their way out. I’d been in their shoes a time or two when I had been a cadet.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the steamed up mirror as I made my way over to a wash basin. My foul mood came crashing back and ratcheted up a few knots. I looked like an unwashed mountain rat! Mud was caked on my clothes and smeared on my arms, neck and face. And were those sticks in my hair? I reached up and picked one out. Yep, mud and sticks.

“I have a tub available in the stall at the end of the row. Would you like oil or soap bubbles in the water?”

I turned to see a small woman in a light gray bath attendant uniform looking at me expectantly. “Actually, I don’t have time to bathe and I don’t have any clothes, I just need to get some of this muck off of me.”

A dismayed look crossed the woman’s face and she turned and walked away. I nearly laughed out loud. Obviously the woman thought I was a lost cause and wanted no part of it.

I turned my attention back to the mirror and resumed picking sticks out of my mess of hair. The band I’d had it pulled back in had obviously came untied during my fight with the gang and now the raven black locks were in a massive tangle around my shoulders.

“Here you go dear.” The woman’s voice startled me. I looked down and found that the attendant had brought a huge stack of cloth rags and soap. “You start on your hair,” the woman said, handing me a comb.

“Thank you.” I said and did as I was told. As I picked out the knots, wincing, the attendant pumped water into the wash basin. She deftly dipped a rag in and lathered it up with soap. She held it out to me and pointed to a small chair she’d brought over.

“Sit,” she said, taking the comb.

I sat and began wiping the muck from my face and arms as the woman finished smoothing out my hair and pulled it back with a length of ribbon she’d pulled out of the pocket of her white apron. When she was through she took another rag and scraped as much mud off of my clothes as she could.

Within five minutes I was as presentable as possible. I thanked the woman and left her two bucks. The woman smiled and blushed. Two bucks was a pretty large tip, especially since the Blades paid attendants well and one usually did not tip them as you did in a public bathhouse, but the woman had been kind and helpful and probably deserved more because I doubt I could have cleaned myself up as quickly or as well alone.

I was hoping to be able to go straight home after my visit to the morgue, so I didn’t bother to get Mal. I didn’t have anywhere to stable him at home so he lived at the Blade stables. That had never been much of a problem because I lived barely a block away from the Blade Headquarters.

The sun was starting to brighten and burn off the morning sun and the streets were crowded with people on bicycles or riding in hired rickshaws. Horses, mules and oxen were too expensive to use for pleasure transportation and were mostly used for hauling wagons full of goods.

While convenient and faster than walking long distances in the city, the small two or four-seater carriages pulled by a bicycle rider did not go very fast. Magic powered rickshaws and buggies were faster, but there were a few magic powered rickshaws for hire. Most rickshaw drivers owned their rickshaws and lived off the earnings; few could afford the expensive mechanism that used water and charged crystals to power the rickshaw.

If they could save up enough to buy the water engine, the weekly cost of recharging the crystals would make it too expensive to operate. The small magic powered buggies on the roads were owned by those rich enough to afford the upkeep. Larger magic powered surreys and carriages were much more rare, as the water engines in them were powered by several large crystals, thus making them much more expensive. The few large carriages on the road were owned by the elite class who could both afford the vehicles and employ a driver.

The morgue was only four blocks away. In the morning crush I could walk it faster than a rickshaw would be able to navigate the traffic, but first I had to get across the street. Though there were stop signs at a few of the major intersections, the closest one was three blocks away in the wrong direction. So, I waited for the right moment and dashed into the street. I reached the other side just in time to avoid getting plowed down by a team of oxen pulling a cart full of crates.

I reached the morgue a few minutes later and rushed in hoping I’d beat Ian. As I expected, my luck for the day hadn’t gotten any better, and he was standing in the waiting area, looking coolly impatient.

“Good morning, Miss Moon. It’s so good of you to finally join us.” His tone was cool and formal and his lips formed a smirk as he looked me up and down, taking in my disheveled appearance.

Of course he was perfectly groomed. His chestnut hair just touched his ears and the collar of the light tan shirt that peaked out from under his dark brown leather vest. Even the leather boots his perfectly creased khaki pants were tucked into were spotlessly free of dirt and grime, despite the fact that the streets were still muddy from the night’s rain.

Damn the man. He had his perfectly shaped nose so high in the air I wondered how he didn’t drown when it rained. He was probably afraid I’d get dirt on his spotless and perfectly creased person.

“For shits sake, Barroes, do we have to go through this every single time we work together? Call me Fiona. Don’t wrinkle you’re damned nose up at me. Some of us actually have to work for a living. Sometimes that means getting a little dirty. Can we just go in and see what the hell is going on so I can go home and change?”

The smirk widened into a full on grin and he gave me a mocking, sweeping bow.

“After you milady.” He said, gesturing towards the door to the back room.

I huffed and barely resisted the urge to punch him in the jaw as I swept by him.

The morgue attendant, Sonny, was sitting at a desk in the far corner of the room when they came in. He immediately got up and rushed over to them.

“Agent Moon, Master Barroes, thank you for coming.”

I smiled at him. I liked Sonny. He was sweet and kind and chose to use his power in a job that served others. He was a Necromancer, all of the Morgue attendants were. It made their jobs easier and made it easier for Guards. Under normal circumstances an outside Necromancer wasn’t called in when a City Guard or Blade needed to question a spirit attached to a recently deceased body at the morgue. Though every working Necromancer in the city was required to be registered with the guild, the morgue attendants worked directly for the City. Necromancers from the guild were only called in for investigations where there wasn’t a body at the morgue or there might be spirit “witnesses” to a crime.

This didn’t seem to be either situation, so I couldn’t understand why Sonny, normally very competent, felt like he needed outside help. Not only that, but I felt the distinct energy of nervousness.

“Hi, Sonny,” I said as calmly and soothingly as I could manage. “What is the problem?”

“Last night a young woman was attacked in an alley. She was able to get away from her attacker by kicking him in the chest. He was dead when the Guard brought him in. But there is a problem with the body.”

“What is the problem?” asked Ian.

“Well, sir,” Sonny fumbled, I think you should examine it yourself and see.”

Ian raised an eyebrow, but said, “Ok. Let’s see the body.”

Sonny led us to a long table at the back of the room.

It could be successfully argued that no one in the city-state of Nash, and perhaps the entirety of Appalachia, knew more about Necromancy than Professor Ian Barroes, or Master Barroes, as was his title as the head of the Nash City Necromancer’s Guild. He came from a long family line of necromancers who believed strongly in recording and passing down their history and knowledge.

He had been actively practicing necromancy since he was three years old. His mother had seen the rare strength of his power, even at a young age and had told his father. From that moment on Ian had been put through rigorous tests to confirm his power, and had been thrown into the family business by his sixth birthday.

Having a rich family opened many doors to him, including the closed doors of the City-State Private Archives and Library. As a boy he spent many hours there and in his family’s extensive private library, hiding from his father and learning and reading everything related to Necromancy and other forms of magic he could get his hands on. When he was old enough, the family money enabled him to enter the Academy of Magic and Science. He was among the first civilians to be accepted into the college. Up until then only City Guard and Black Blade Cadets had been formally educated in history, science, and magic. Still today, only Cadets and students that entered into a service contract with one of the local guilds received free education, and few families could afford the tuition.

The mages who had measured his power upon entry to the college had been amazed. Even today, anyone who knew anything about Necromancy would argue that Ian was the most powerful necromancer they had ever encountered. And even they had no idea of the true scope of his powers.

Which is why he was confused. Confusion was not something he had ever dealt with before, and he didn’t like it.

Ian was a man of practicality. He didn’t consider it conceited to know one’s own power and abilities. It was how one knew their limits. In the past, he had never reached a limit in regards to Necromancy that he couldn’t push past. His experiences had been vast, and he’d learned from each one. Yet, never, in his life had he ever seen anything such as this. He wracked his brain but nothing he had ever read or seen came even close. He could find no practical explanation. But he knew that was wrong. There was a practical explanation for everything.

Facts. He had to start with the known facts. He stared at the body, trying to piece together what he knew.

The Blade had said the body was less than twenty-four hours old. But that couldn’t be. The body was dry and shriveled, as if it had been dead for months, or even years. Yet there was no decomposition, no rotting flesh to support that theory. But the most intriguing and perplexing complication was the lack of energy around the body.

Every living thing was made of energy. Even objects most would say are not living, like rocks, vibrated with energy. That energy didn’t die or cease to exist. In living beings, specifically humans, the energy that made up their essence stayed strong even after the body died. The energy could stay connected to the body for up to a year. After that began to lesson and float free as what most people called ghosts. Eventually that energy would be absorbed back into the energy of other living beings, but it took centuries for that to happen.

Necromancers have the ability to see and communicate with that energy. The longer the body had been dead the more powerful a necromancer had to be to communicate with the energy. Any untrained mage with level one necromantic powers would be able to communicate with a twenty four hour dead spirit.

Ian’s power level was the highest ever recorded for a necromancer. He could communicate with spirits whose bodies had died several centuries before. He opened his senses and let his power flow full force. About a dozen translucent images of varying strengths appeared around him. Spirits that were strong enough, and wished to, usually took the form of the body they had inhabited. Newly dead spirits still clung to their physical form always appeared as a ghostly form of their living body. The morgue was filled with the energy of spirits still attached to bodies and a few unattached, weaker spirits. But none of them belonged to this body. Not even any of the older spirits here had once belonged to this body. The problem was, there was no energy surrounding this body, no spirit to be called.

Ian pulled in his power and closed his senses until every spirit had vanished from his sight. This was useless and getting him nowhere.

“Miss…”

“Agent. You may call me Agent Moon or Fiona, no Miss,” she answered curtly.

“Yes, yes.” Ian said absently. He knew she hated being called “Miss” and he loved irritating her. The barb had been automatic, but while he loved the way her eyes flashed when she was annoyed and usually enjoyed making them do so, he had no time to deal with Miss Cranky Pants right now. “Fiona. You are certain this is the body involved in the attack?”

She bristled. “As certain as I can be. I wasn’t at the scene and I got here at the same time as you.”

“You there, Sonny,” he called his attention to the morgue attendant who was standing on the other side of the room pretending not to be paying attention to them. When the young man walked over to them, Ian asked, “You are certain this is the body that was brought in last night? The one that attacked a young girl?”

The Morgue Necromancer stammered, “Yes, sir. I’m sure. It is the only body that has been brought in this week.”

Before Ian could ask him another question the Blade, Fiona, broke in.

“This is the damned, body. What is this? Just call the spirit or whatever it is you do ask him why he attacked the girl and then tell me so I can go. I’ve got things to do.”

“Miss…” he stopped himself at her sharp look. He’d purposefully intended to bait her, but thought better of it. She looked as if she would throw him through the nearest window if he finished that phrase.

“Fiona,” he corrected. He carefully measured his tone as he explained, “As you can see this body does not look as if it was alive merely an hour ago. Furthermore, I cannot speak to the spirit attached to this body because there is not one.”

“Maybe you just aren’t strong enough.”

He forced himself to stay calm. “I can assure you I am. If the spirit associated with this body were within a hundred miles of here and less than a thousand years old, I could call it here.”

The look on her face told him the seriousness of the situation was starting to dawn on her.

“You are telling me there is no way this body attacked a girl last night?”

“No. I am telling you I cannot contact energy connected with this body. Without further evidence, I can’t make any conclusions. I need to speak with the girl.”

She turned to Sonny.

“What did you find when you examined the body.”

Sonny looked nervously from Ian to Fiona and back to Ian. She had put the man in a difficult position. Technically he didn’t work for Ian, and as an official City employee did not rely on getting work from the Guild. However, most necromancers would not like to be asked to contradict the head of the Guild. He was the founder and leader for a reason, after all. However, as a Blade Fiona would be considered as the ranking official in this circumstance and refusing to answer would make her cranky. Waiting until her head was turned away from him, Ian gave a slight, nearly imperceptible nod for the man to answer.

Sonny took a deep breath.

“It is exactly as Master Barroes said.”

The man didn’t seem to notice Fiona’s eye roll when he’d used the formal title, but Ian did. Though the “Master” moniker could be used for any mage with Master level powers, within the Guild it was reserved for Ian. He had never insisted on its use, didn’t really like it for that matter, but to point that out would be to hurt the feelings of those who used it not as a sign of supremacy, but as a sign of respect.

Sonny made his way over to stand next to the body.

“This body was brought in late last night. I knew something was wrong the moment I looked at it. It certainly does not look like a fresh, hours-dead body. It doesn’t have any decomposition either. Except for being dry and brittle it is completely intact. So, I began trying to contact the spirit of the man the body belonged to. But, like Master Barroes said, there is no spirit.”

Fiona’s frown deepened.

“No spirit at all? Is that even possible?”

The morgue attendant looked Fiona straight in the eye.

“Miss Fiona, a few hours ago I would have told you it is not possible. That is why I called Agent Sam and asked for Master Barroes. I have been training as Necromancer since I was sixteen years old, my powers are moderate but I have a good understanding of Necromancy. I’ve been working at this job for ten years and I have never seen a body completely void of energy and didn’t think it was possible. I hoped maybe it was just a very weak spirit that only a Master could contact.

“Unfortunately, Sonny, I haven’t seen anything quite like this either. I would like to talk to the girl about what she saw, maybe that can help us get to the bottom of this.” Ian glared pointedly at Fiona.

Wordlessly Fiona turned away, pulling out a porta-scry as she walked into the next room. He could hear muffled voices as she spoke to someone, then silence. She stepped back to the doorway.

“Let’s go,” she snapped. She turned and began to walk briskly through the building, “I have the address to where the girl works.”

Ian watched the swing of Fiona’s hips as she walked with a purposeful stride out the door and to the edge of the street to flag down a rickshaw.

“Fiona,” he called to her as he started down the street in the opposite direction. “Would you like a ride?” She stalked towards him wordlessly, eyeing the white stretch surrey with undisguised disdain. She brushed his hand aside when offered his hand to help her up into the carriage.

The leather pants tightened across the lovely curve of her ass quite nicely as she grasped the sides and hefted herself up onto the back seat. Ian couldn’t help but smile as he vaulted up alongside her.

She called the address out to the driver with a curl of her lip.

“I take it you dislike my surrey?” Ian asked.

“I think it is not an appropriate vehicle to be driving around on Blade business. I never took you for such a show off, Barroes.”

“Tut, tut. If I must call you Fiona you are going to have to learn my first name too.” Ian chuckled.

Fiona huffed and crossed her arms across her chest. Ian laughed again. He saw no need to tell her he’d brought the surrey in to work today because he was lending it and the driver to a colleague who was attending a ball with his lady this evening and intended to propose afterward.

She probably wouldn’t believe him anyway. Fiona Moon had taken an immediate and complete dislike of him the moment they had met. It didn’t seem there was anything he could do to disabuse her of the poor view she had of him. It was too bad, because he was determined to have her, willing and wanting, in his bed.

The thought of Fiona, her dark hair spread across his pillow, her pale skin flushed with need, sent heat shooting through him and pooling in the vicinity of his button-fly.

“We’re here.” Fiona’s voice broke him out of his erotic fantasy.