“So what?” I said dully.
“Selene…”
I threw up my hands. “I was just doing my job—helping ghosts! Is it my fault I get stuck with clients who want to commit crimes, jump out of planes, and get laid?”
“You know as well as anyone else that there’s a solution for ghosts whose issues can’t be resolved.”
“But they could be resolved!” I said. “And I resolved them. They all faded!”
“And you only broke the law, spent an exorbitant amount of the company’s money, and caused teenagers trauma to do it?”
I opened my mouth, closed it, then slumped back against the chair. “Well excuse me if I thought my methods were less extreme than the alternative. I thought we tried to avoid doing a necromancer circle at all costs.”
“When the choices are things like necrophilia versus doing a circle, doing the circle wins,” Andrew said. “And you know that.”
I dropped my head back and made a sound of exasperation. Andrew was right, and damn it, I hated when anyone except me was right.
It was normal to expect that, sometimes, a ghost’s unresolved business was too bizarre or illegal for us to help them with, so in those cases, a necromancer circle was performed to force the ghost into the afterlife. The thing about a circle though, was that it needed at least half a dozen necromancers to perform and required us to use our own energy, not rune stones.
Because we used our own energy, and we needed to use a lot since we were forcing a ghost to cross over, it was dangerous to everyone involved. Many necromancers died as a result of a circle. And there was also the chance that the ghost could be strong enough to resist being forced into the afterlife, turn into a beastie, escape our hold, and unleash a massacre.
So were the things I did to help my clients costly, wrong, and/or illegal? Yes, but I still said my methods were better than having to endure a necromancer circle.
“I just can’t agree that a circle would have been the better choice,” I said. “Nowadays, no one even volunteers to be part of a circle, so for all those ghosts, you’d have had to force me and a half dozen other necromancers to endure the thing and hope we came out of it alive.”
“Between you and me, I’m likely to agree with you, but the government has their hawk eye on businesses like ours, and the last thing we want them to get wind of is activities like yours. Here, we may be able to get away with gray areas, but the government is black and white only. So in those terms, sex with ghosts is a no, and a life-threatening circle that could result in a ghost monster or half a dozen dead necromancers is a yes.”
“Democracy is a wonderful thing,” I muttered.
“Your reckless behavior is the reason I had you followed,” he said. “That way, I could see what you were doing and compare it to what you were putting in your reports. You have quite the knack for lying.” Again, there was an amused smile on his face.
I bowed my head. “Thank you, I work hard at that talent.”
Andrew sighed and shook his head. “I don’t like playing the bad guy, Selene, especially with you, but you’re giving me no choice here. I can’t let your actions go unchecked.”
“I wasn’t going out of my way to misbehave,” I said. “It’s not like I was trying to stick my middle finger up at you and whatever hawk eyes are watching.”
“I know,” he said. “You were just getting the job done, and trust me, I applaud your avant-garde methods even though they were costly, but I can’t let you continue to do whatever you want. I’m not the only one who’s noticed, and you don't want everyone thinking you’re getting special treatment, am I right?”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine, I’ve been bad, but track and retrieval? Seriously? Can’t you just suspend me or something?”
“Protocol means I have to try methods of discipline before suspending you,” Andrew said.
I wanted to mutter and growl but settled for giving Andrew the evil eye instead, even though the logical part of me knew it had only been a matter of time until this day came. I had been playing with fire far longer than someone else would have gotten away with. I detested my punishment though. Track and retrieval meant I’d be hunting down ghosts who were hiding out.
While the majority of ghosts willingly answered the call of rune-covered buildings like ours, some were able to resist and go into hiding. Needless to say, we couldn’t ignore those ghosts, because the end result was a rampaging monster. If the ghosts chose to hide at fancy hotels instead of rat-infested basements or dark alleys in bad neighborhoods, then track and retrieval would be a much more savory task. But alas, rat-filled basements and dark alleys it was.
I wanted to bang my head on Andrew’s desk and spite him by splattering it with my blood. Then I’d be able to take sick leave and avoid having to be reassigned for a while.
“Since tracking is mainly done at night, during the day, you’ll be assigned various other tasks. Starting today.” He picked up yet another file and slid it over to me. I stared at it without touching it. “That file covers the conditions of your reassignment as well as a schedule of assignments for the week. You have to abide, or things will become a lot more difficult for you. I understand this isn’t ideal, but you brought it upon yourself so you only have yourself to blame. I suggest you get started on your day’s work, because come sundown, you’ll be on track duty.”
I became progressively angrier as he spoke, and by the time he was done, my head felt ready to explode. However, instead of sticking around to mouth off some more, I snatched up the file and stalked out of his office.
“Go see one of the dead witches before you do anything else,” he called after me. “After last night, you’ll definitely be needing some dead witch attention.”
I slammed the door without replying and marched back to my desk, tossing the file aside and sitting there with my arms crossed, looking very much like a petulant child.
“So how’s your day going?” Micah’s voice made my head snap to the side to glare at him. He had a smile on his face as he leaned against my cubicle wall with his hands in his pockets. His demeanor clued me in as to who Andrew had set on my trail.
“You were the one doing recon for Andrew,” I said, standing up and giving him an unfriendly look.
Micah shrugged. “It’s your own fault that you can’t do your job by following the rules. You deserve your downgrade, though I would have just suspended you with no pay.”
“Do you really get personal joy from seeing someone else fall?” I said, taking a step toward him. “Or is it just me?” His smile wavered a little. “I get that if Andrew asked you to follow me, you had to do it because it’s your job, but to come here and gloat because my off-color methods of helping ghosts doesn’t sit well with the boss? You’re a special breed of jerk, aren’t you Micah?”
I spoke loudly enough that people nearby could hear me, but now I stepped closer and dropped my voice so only he could hear.
“You and I were friends, then one drunken fuck makes me your worst enemy? Was it because you were that bad and I didn’t give you another chance, or because I was that good and I never let you get another taste?” With that, I stalked past him and the dozen pairs of eyes that tried to look away as though they hadn’t been paying attention to us.
I hoped my parting words had stung. I headed out of the suite to the elevators, but I wasn’t storming off. I was just doing what Andrew said and heading down to the eighth floor to see a dead witch. Doing so would not only get me away from Micah, it would accomplish what I knew I needed to do even without Andrew saying it.
The eighth floor was a lot quieter than the tenth, and I was thankful for that since I was fuming over Micah’s mockery and my own downfall. I signed in at the receptionist’s desk, then walked away without waiting to be told which dead witch was available for me to see. There was only one I ever saw.
I knocked on Ilyse’s door, and moments later she invited me in. When I slipped in and sank into the chair in front of her desk, she gave me a knowing smile.
“You forgot your rune stones and overworked yourself,” she said, clasping her hands in front of her much like Andrew did. Man did I feel like a kid in the principal’s office today.
I nodded, suddenly feeling a lot more tired than a moment ago, probably because I was actually acknowledging that I had overdone it. Or maybe it was just the ambiance of Ilyse’s office, which I found soothing. My anger at Andrew and Micah had almost immediately dissipated once I’d sat down.
The lighting was softer than the bright lights on tenth, and she had sweet, vanilla-scented oil burning on a corner of her desk. Her office decorations were nature-oriented. There were stones, flowers, leaves, and wood everywhere, and everything culminated to make her sleek, flat-screen computer seem very out of place.
Ilyse clucked her tongue and rummaged around in a drawer for a moment before producing a box of tea bags. She then walked over to the corner of the room where she had a table set up with a few kitchen essentials, including an electronic kettle, and made me a cup of tea. I sipped it, knowing it was a specially infused tea, and the ache in my body started to ease.
Ilyse watched me with her sharp green eyes, which stood out against her dark skin. She was in her late fifties, a little on the plump side due to her love of baked goods, of which I was admittedly a constant supplier, and was also the best dead witch we had, in my opinion. After I finished my tea, she took the cup and sat next to me, turning so we faced each other. She also had several rune stones with her.
“Let me see how much damage you’ve done this time,” she said, taking one of my hands in hers. “You were due to come here three days ago, you know.”
She rolled her eyes at the winning smile I gave her, and focused on what she was doing. She picked up a white rune stone and closed her eyes, holding it over my hand and slowly moving it up my arm while muttering something inaudible. My body temperature plummeted, but that was to be expected. Ilyse was surveying the damage done to my body on account of working with ghosts.
Being a necromancer gave me the power to see and interact with ghosts, but constantly working with foreign energy like a dead spirit’s meant no necromancer came away without some damage. Dead witches mainly worked in Leech Houses, gathering energy and infusing it into rune stones for us, but they also worked with necromancers to draw out the dead energy that clung to us, which could literally break us down from the inside out. That was what we called the Rot, and if we didn’t see a dead witch on a regular basis, our work with ghosts would decay our metaphysical bodies where our necromancer power was stored, and without that, our physical bodies would also decay. Basically, we’d be good and dead.
Death from a necromancer circle, death from a ghost monster, death from the Rot. I was in a wonderful line of work, wasn’t I?
Ilyse moved the rune stone all over my body before she finally pulled back and opened her eyes. The look she gave me was reproachful.
“I know, I know,” I said. “Spare me the speech this one time, please Ilyse. I’m having a bad enough day as it is.”
“And why is that?” she asked, setting down the white stone and picking up a dark purple one. She opened a vial of finely ground blue powder and sprinkled some on the stone, then picked up another purple stone and sprinkled powder on that one as well. All the while, I huddled in on myself, still cold, but also feeling the bite of Ilyse’s magic.
It was a weird dynamic when necromancers and dead witches worked together, because my power lay in giving energy and Ilyse’s lay in taking it, so there was always a magnetic feeling whenever I was in close proximity to a dead witch. I was never sure whose pull was more dominant.
“My trifling ways were finally discovered,” I told Ilyse. “Andrew built a case against the way I handled some of my clients, and I’ve been reassigned to track and retrieve.”
Ilyse gave me a look of sympathy. “It was only a matter of time, right? You couldn’t expect his soft spot for you to let him turn a blind eye forever.”
“It was his hard spot I was counting on,” I muttered, dropping my head back.
My body was starting to ache from the coldness Ilyse had brought to the surface, and I was anxious for her to get to work so I could feel normal again. I didn’t goad her to hurry though, seeing as I had put myself in this position by being forgetful and impatient.
Finally, Ilyse stopped fussing with her runes and powders and turned to me. I held my hands out, palms up, and she placed the purple stones on my palms. She then cupped her hands underneath mine and started her whispered chanting again. I braced myself, but there really wasn’t anything I could do to stop the sharp pain that exploded in my body as Ilyse drew the dead energy from me, channeling it into the stones on my palms instead. It literally felt like needles parading through my body.
I used to endure this with a lot of wriggling and cursing, but I must have matured at some point because I was able to take it with minimal squirming and only cursed in my head.
After what felt like an eternity, the cold pain finally subsided. By now, the stones in my hands glowed. They were also frigid with the ghost energy that had been drawn from my body.
Ilyse opened her eyes and took the stones, whispering over them for a moment before putting them into a box. Dead witches were able to use the energy they drew off necromancers to strengthen their own magic, so we had a nice little cycle of recycled energy going. Working with ghost energy didn’t have the same effect on dead witches as it had on necromancers since the witches were made to handle it.
“You’re all done,” Ilyse said. “You’ve been reckless, but I don’t sense the Rot within you.”
I whooped and fist-pumped the air. “That’s the best diagnosis I could leave here with,” I said, standing up.
“Just be careful,” Ilyse said. “You’re lucky this time, but don’t encourage the Rot to take hold.”
“Yes, Mother,” I said, which made her chuckle. I gave her a quick hug. “Thanks, Ilyse. I’d love to hang around, but I’m just bursting at the seams to get to work.”
She smiled at my sarcasm and bid me good-bye as I left her office and went back to the tenth floor and the folder of tasks I had to get cracking on.