Hold Me Closer, Necromancer - Lish McBride [11]
Douglas was no longer weak.
Well, Douglas thought, he’d clean this mess up, too. After all, he was number one. He was Council, and Sam had no right to be here. Douglas had to teach the boy how to get his gift under control. The last thing he needed was to give the Council an excuse to remove him as leader, and a rogue necromancer was a very good excuse. If training didn’t work, he could just kill him. Both plans had their merits. If it all worked out, Douglas would have another servant at his beck and call. And if not, well, he still had Auntie Lynn’s knife. He’d also had decades to perfect the ritual. With all the prep work and fumbling, it had taken him almost an hour to steal his aunt’s powers. Repetition and practice had honed that time down to twenty minutes, and that’s if the victim fought. Sam’s power was almost too insignificant to even bother with. It would be far easier to kill him quickly and leave him in the woods somewhere. But, as they say, every little bit helps. Waste not, want not. Douglas grinned.
First, he had to show the boy he meant business. Well, he’d already done that, hadn’t he? Michael may have gotten ahead of the plan, but the message he sent was clear. Still, Douglas didn’t want to overestimate Sam’s comprehension. The public schools these days weren’t known for fostering independent thought. He’d have to send him something more personal.
Douglas got out of his car where he had been sitting—brooding, really, if he could admit it to himself—and shut his door quietly. He crept up the last bit of drive toward the blue Volkswagen Beetle he’d seen earlier at Plumpy’s. He peeked into the carport, looking for anyone else who might have pulled up earlier, but the Volkswagen sat alone in the driveway. He smiled, singing snatches of a Julie Andrews song under his breath. The soundtrack was one of his favorites, and he often played it at home. Happily humming, he changed a few key words. “People in terror groveling before me, these are a few of my favorite things…”
Douglas slid past the Beetle and went in to collect his package.
4
Brown Paper Packages Tied Up with String
I lived in a small one-bedroom apartment that I couldn’t really afford. When I rented the place, I justified it because I could easily ride a bike to UW’s campus from there and still be nowhere near Frat Row, which was the one place in Seattle I hoped never to live. The neighborhood was nice, with a lot of trees and a small park. And despite the faded gray exterior of my building, the inside of the apartment wasn’t bad.
Once I became a dropout, my flimsy justification vanished along with my student loans. I was forced to rock the Top Ramen lifestyle that is envied by so many. Now, as I stood in my hallway, I took comfort in the quiet of the building and the fact that I had always helped Mrs. Winalski with her groceries, so that when she spotted me coming out of the elevator scratched, greasy, dirty, and already bruising, she didn’t immediately call the police. Sometimes, you had to take the few small comforts life offered you.
“Sam, honey, you look filthier than a hot tub in a brothel.”
“That’s kind of gross, Mrs. W,” I said.
She eyed Ramon and Frank behind me, her finger wagging between them. “Your little boyfriends didn’t beat you up, did they?” she said. “Sam’s a nice boy, and if he won’t call the cops on you two, I will.”
“I’m grateful,” I said. “I really am, but I’m neither gay nor a victim of domestic violence.”
Mrs. Winalski dug around in her purse for her keys and made a harrumphing noise. “You worry me, Sam. I’m seventy, and I get a hell of a lot more action than you, boy. You’re young—take advantage.” She clasped her keys in one hand and patted her short, steely hair with the other. “How do I look?”
“Great. Knock ’em dead, Mrs. W.” Mrs. Winalski had been widowed fairly young. She’d told me she’d spent a lot of time caring for her sick husband before that. I think she’d been making up for lost time since his death. On