Authors: Jonah Hewitt
Amanda let Lucy grieve in peace for several more minutes. When Lucy had finally stopped sobbing she spoke.
“Fetch him.”
Lucy heard Graber lumber off to the other room. In a few minutes he returned dragging someone. From the sound of it, he was treating him rather roughly. Lucy didn’t look up; she didn’t have to look to know it was Moríro. He instantly began swearing in Spanish from the moment he entered the room. A large thud meant that Graber had dropped the ancient Necromancer unceremoniously on the floor.
“The stone,” Amanda said simply.
It sounded like Graber practically ripped the coat off of him to get to it. Lucy looked back to see it. Graber held forth his fist and dropped the stone into Amanda’s hand. It glowed fervently, like green fire, and was unlike any stone she had ever seen. Amanda’s face lit up in maniacal glee when she looked at it, but Lucy could tell it burned far dimmer for her than it did for either Nephys or Moríro.
“It’s true,” Amanda whispered in mixed emotions of wonder and delight.
Lucy turned back to her mother’s face. Her tears had fallen on her like drops of dew. She carefully wiped them away and then leaned over and kissed her on her forehead. She was cold.
Lucy stared at her mother’s face and desperately wished for the eyes to open.
“Time is pressing, Mistress,” the cold accountant-like voice was Hokharty. He had meant to whisper it to Amanda, but in the stillness of the room it carried all the same.
“Be quiet,” came Amanda’s hushed but stern reply, but Hokharty would not be deterred.
“The preservation spell will only last so long. If she is to be returned…”
“Heartless monster!” Amanda spat back at him, “Let her have a moment, for pity’s sake.”
“Mistress, if she is not revived by morning, all of this will have been for nothing.”
There was a loud smack. Amanda must have struck Hokharty, hard, and with the back of her hand from the sound of it.
“We’re not like you, Hokharty!” Amanda said sternly, “We can’t just shove our loved ones down into the grave like cattle to the slaughter. We can’t shut off our emotions like bureaucrats and machines!” Then her voice became soft, “We need time to grieve. Give her time. In time she will do the right thing. I
know
it.”
Hokharty said nothing, but then another voice joined the conversation.
“
Todos ustedes están locos,” Moríro muttered.
“Have a seat, Lazlo,” Amanda said coldly. From the sound of it, Moríro was forced into a chair by Graber. “I don’t believe anyone asked your opinion on the matter.”
“You are all insane! MAD! What you are doing is against God and Nature!”
Amanda snorted, “So now you presume to speak for God
and
Nature as well as Death?” Amanda laughed a dry little laugh. “Trust me, godson. I’ve been to the other side. Had God cared at all, even if he
did
exist, he would have sent you there long ago.”
“THIS SHALL NOT STAND, AMARANTHA! If I have to drag myself back from the shores of Dis and the pits of punishment itself, I WILL NOT ALLOW IT.”
Lucy had to give Moríro credit. Whatever he was, he was not a coward.
“AND WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT PUNISHMENT?!” Amanda screamed back at him.
“I know it awaits you when all this is done.”
“INSOLENT GODCHILD!! I curse the day I spared your life.”
They descended into even worse threats and jeers from there, dredging up their entire history together, from Lazlo’s birth to Amarantha’s death. Then Hokharty got into the mess.
“Mistress, is this really the time open old wounds? Time is pressing.”
That just got Amanda riled up for another several rounds.
“Shut your vile mouth, bloodsucker!”
From there the fight went on, with Moríro uttering out curses in every language imaginable, while Hokharty kept insisting on the urgency of the matter. All the while Amanda was lost in a holy rage, but she always defended Lucy against the two of them. Lucy closed her eyes and wished she could make it all go away. As she did so, she realized her eyes were dry and sore. She felt her face. Other than the salty tearstains, there was nothing. She blinked several times, and tried to will herself to tear up, but no more tears would come. She had cried so much in the last 24 hours it appeared she had nothing left. She was done crying, and she was done with all of them too. It was time to do something for herself now. She took her mother’s cold hand and held it one last time. Then she folded it gently with the other hand on her mother’s lap and took a long breath.
“I’ll do it,” she said quietly.
“Don’t you
DARE
talk back to me you…” Amanda stopped mid-sentence when she realized what Lucy had said. The argument stopped. The room went silent.
Lucy stood up slowly and turned to face all of them.
“I’ll do it,” she said again, “Only…I don’t know how.”
Amanda closed her hand slowly over the stone and then smiled faintly. She walked over to Lucy and put one hand on her shoulder while she gently raised Lucy’s chin with the other so she could look in her eye.
“Are you certain, Lucy?” she asked.
“Yes,” Lucy nodded, “I’m certain.”
“Then I will help you,” Amanda said, smiling faintly.
There was a short moment of reflection before the angry voice of Moríro broke in.
“Have you all lost your minds?! I AM THE NECROMANCER!
THE
Necromancer. I am Death’s chosen champion in this world. Only
I
have been entrusted with the power of the stone and only I am entitled to use it. It doesn’t matter how you manipulated this
simple
girl to do your whims – it is
my
choice!” Moríro was so angry he had to take a few panting breaths to speak. “And as long as I am living, I will
never
help you.”
Amanda let go of Lucy and walked over to the small desk where she had left her elegant, black alligator clutch. As she walked she spoke absentmindedly to herself, “Oh, Lazlo,” she said in an exasperated voice, “You always were the most tedious and unimaginative student.” She reached in and pulled out the gun she’d had at the farm, pointed it at Moríro’s chest and fired.
Lucy heard the gunshot and then a scream, but it wasn’t her. Her hands were over her own mouth in shock. It was Yo-yo. He had run to the far side of the hall and was cowering in a corner. It all happened so fast she nearly missed it. Even Hokharty looked stunned and shaken from his usual apathetic demeanor. Graber had a hand on the vampire master’s shoulder, restraining him. Whatever Hokharty’s plans were, he clearly had not wanted this.
Moríro’s chair had been knocked over and he was lying on his back, staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling, but he was not yet dead. His voice was gurgling through the blood in this throat, but Lucy couldn’t make out any words. Amanda strode over to Moríro’s dying body and placed her hand over his mouth and nose.
“No last words, Godson. You wouldn’t listen to mine under that tamarind tree in Mexico and no one is going to hear yours now.”
The muffled sound of Moríro’s last words disappeared into Amanda’s remorseless gloved hand. And then he was gone. The Necromancer who had held the job longer than anyone else in the history of the world was gone.
Amanda stood up and held the stone flat in her gloved palm. Lucy noticed that the stone glowed significantly less bright now that Moríro was dead.
Hokharty composed himself and approached Amanda cautiously. Even then he had to shrug off Graber’s massive hand.
“I did not believe that the Necromancer could be killed against the Great Master’s wishes,” he said in a tentative voice.
Amanda chuckled a cold little laugh. “Death doesn’t care as long as there is a suitable replacement. When it’s their time, The Great Master will toss them aside for another like an old shoe. I learned that lesson a long time ago under a tamarind tree in Mexico,” she remarked spitefully. “Moríro’s clock ran out long ago, the second Margarita was born in fact, and he knew it. He’s just been bluffing all these years.”
Amanda walked slowly towards Lucy, but kept her gaze on the stone. It was fluttering and going dark, like a bright coal of fire going out only it was bright green instead of red. She didn’t know exactly why, but it made Lucy anxious that it might go out entirely. It was slowly losing its color, going from green to clear grey.
“Now if I’m not mistaken,” Amanda said thoughtfully looking at the faltering stone, “There are only two suitable candidates of any merit left in the whole world. Myself, I mean…Amanda Tipping, but she, I mean
I’m
, less than one-sixteenth blood. Not to mention the fact that the Great Master and I, that is
Amarantha
, have a
history
.” She screwed up her face a little, but then wiped the sour expression away with a melancholy smile. “That leaves you, Lucy.”
She looked up from the faltering stone and held it out to Lucy. Lucy’s eyes flitted to Moríro’s body, but Amanda grabbed Lucy firmly by the chin and pulled her face back to hers.
“Don’t weep for him, Lucy. Don’t waste
one
tear on that man. He wouldn’t have shed a single tear for you or anyone else. Instead, think of your mother and your future.” Amanda extended the hand with the stone a little further until it was nearly under Lucy’s nose.
Lucy stared at it for a moment and then reached out and slowly picked up the stone from Amanda’s outstretched hand. Even before she touched it, the little, round, glassy pebble started to regain its color and gave off bright green sparks. When she first touched it, it felt warm and alive, vibrating, humming like the stone lantern, only a thousand times more so. By the time she lifted it out of Amanda’s hand and held it up before her own eyes, it was blazing like a lighthouse, flooding the room with green light. Lucy was lost in wonder, the pulsating power in her hand and before her eyes. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. It was like all the glorious feelings of life, picnics in the sunshine and fond, warm embraces after long absences, all in one tiny little stone.
A small hand snaked itself into her dangling free one and the sensation pulled her back for a moment from her reverie. It was Yo-yo. The beauty of the stone was such that it had conquered his fear and drawn him across the room like a moth to the flame. He was clinging to her arm and looking up at it with wet-eyed wonder.
“You are now
the
Necromancer, Lucy,” Amanda said simply, “The immortal, the deathless, the agent and arbiter of Death on earth.”
Then she bowed and slowly lowered herself to one knee in front of Lucy. Lucy was stunned by this, but then Hokharty and even
Graber
followed suit and knelt before her as well. Lucy was just trying to process what was going on when Amanda spoke again.
“The Great Master has chosen his champion.”
“Sit down Miles, you’re making me nervous.”
Sky threw himself down on a French settee, threw a leg over the armrest and assumed a languid pose not unlike Wallach in the days he was still alive. He shrugged off the cavalry jacket and tossed it onto a decaying ottoman. The kittens were gone, so Miles figured he didn’t need the prop just now. Miles just kept pacing the room. He hadn’t quite followed what had gone on in the ballroom just now, but everything felt wrong.
“Just relax, this will all be over by morning,” Sky said casually, but Miles couldn’t help but think, “What? What will be over by mornin’?”
Sky put his hands behind his head and lay back like someone trying to get a tan. “You think this was Wallach’s room?” Sky said in bored voice, “Seems a bit small for him.” Miles just groaned and went to pace on the other side of the room.
They were in a large, upstairs bedroom at the manor with its elaborate plaster moldings. There was a single set of double doors and no windows. They had been bricked up ages ago and the room had an overall shabby appearance. It had the same odd, eclectic furniture of the past three centuries that the rest of the house had. While the bed, dresser and settee were all from more than a century ago, Tim was sitting on the edge of a large, console Curtis Mathes TV from the seventies. He kept saying, “Man, oh man, oh man, oh man,” over and over again. He couldn’t keep his lower legs from shaking.
“Was that a gunshot I heard a while back?” Tim said at last.
“You’re dreaming,” Sky said, bored, “What would vampires need with guns?”
Nephys was sitting on the four-poster bed clinging to one of bedposts like it was a life preserver. Before they had left the ballroom, Hokharty had insisted that Miles and Schuyler keep Nephys and Tim safe and ordered them to take them to the upper rooms and wait there until called for. Miles didn’t like being here one bit, and his stomach kept getting more sour by the minute. He bit his thumb and looked back and forth at Schuyler who was examining the décor casually and Nephys and Tim who looked like the last mates on the Titanic. Miles had had enough of this. He went directly up to Nephys.