Hold Me Closer, Necromancer - Lish McBride [65]
“What do you know about Douglas?” I asked.
“I assume you mean Douglas Montgomery.” She paused. “I know enough to have moved away from my sister and my only niece. That me leaving them on their own was better than me being up there.”
I mulled this over for a second. I didn’t know this woman, and I didn’t know her sister much, either, but Maya LaRouche had been the only person so far who’d really helped me. I needed someone in my corner.
“Are you…” I pulled at a loose thread on my blanket. “I mean, do you know anything about necromancy?”
June laughed. Not really the reaction I’d been expecting. She had a nice laugh, big and full, like she wasn’t afraid of anything.
“Honey, down here they’d call me a voodoo queen. I can raise the dead so fast, your head might spin clean off.”
I relaxed. She hadn’t called me crazy and hung up, and for some reason I believed her when she said she was like me.
“You better start at the beginning,” she said, “because if I have to keep asking questions and dragging answers out of you, we’ll be here all night.”
I held the phone in one hand, lying flat on my stomach to take some of the pressure off my injured back. Then I told her everything. It came in a torrent, leaving me empty and shaken at the end. June had to ask me to slow down a couple of times, and she asked me a few questions along the way, but mostly she listened and let me get it all out.
The line went quiet when I was done. I heard a click and an intake of breath, the sound of a cigarette catching flame. “Sounds like you have a bit of a knack for trouble, Sam.”
“Not usually,” I said.
No booming laugh this time, just a dry chuckle. “I believe in this, like in many things, you’re just a late bloomer.”
“So, can you help me?”
“I think you know that’s not an easy answer,” she said. I heard resignation in her voice. She’d given up fighting when she’d moved, and she knew it. That didn’t mean she liked her choice.
“I’m hobbled here,” I said. “Basically, I am the proverbial lamb to the slaughter. What I need is a little help.”
“What you need is a teacher, and I can’t see a way to do that. I can’t come up there. You can’t come down here.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” she said, “you’re in another territory. I’d have to petition your Council if I was doing anything besides passing through. Which would alert Douglas and get us both in trouble. Same thing for down here. Besides, this area isn’t good for new necromancers right now.” She paused.
“Too much new death. Katrina caused a lot of anguish, you know? You come down here right now, you don’t know how to shield?” She snorted. “I’d have to carry you around on a stretcher, probably. Too much for you. Shut you down.” June sighed. “And no one there will risk helping you.”
“That keeps coming up,” I said.
“And a necromancer without guidance is dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“Depending on the level of power, yes.”
“Please,” I begged, “I just need a little help. Anything.”
The line was silent for a long time.
“I’ll see what I can do, Sam. In the meantime, I’ll send what I can your way.”
She hung up without a good-bye. I placed the phone on my nightstand then let my body go limp, enjoying the comfort of my bed. What did she mean, she’d send what she could my way? A week ago, I’d have assumed she meant good wishes, but now I wasn’t so sure.
Ramon and Brooke were watching the news when I came out. Frank sat at my kitchen table hunched over his laptop. I peeked over his shoulder. He was Googling “necromancy.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks, Frank.”
He flushed. “I’m not really doing anything,” he said.
“You’re trying.” I grabbed my hoodie and slipped into it, zipping it up and stuffing my black knit watch cap in my back pocket. Best to be prepared for any weather.
“Where you going?” Ramon asked.
“I need to get out for a bit,” I said. “Clear my head.”
Frank looked up nervously from his laptop. “Are you sure you should go out by yourself?”
Ramon nodded. “Want company?”
“No,” I said. “You guys