Finn Fancy Necromancy Read online

  “Maybe. But you’re still the only Talker left in the family, and that trumps kids according to Grandfather’s whacked-out logic.”

  “Yeah, well, I loved Grandfather but I never asked to be a Talker, or to run things.” I flinched a bit as I said so, half expecting Grandfather’s spirit to appear, slap his thigh, and give me an angry lecture about duty and responsibility. I loved Grandfather and owed him a lot, not just because the knowledge he’d given me saved my sanity in the Other Realm and my life during the attack, but also because I’d felt his spirit watching over me during my exile. I hated the thought of disappointing him. But I also hoped he would understand why.

  “Besides,” I added, “most of the biz is just spirit dissipation and collecting the magic anyway. Mort and Pete can do that just fine, especially with Father’s help. And Mort’s the oldest. That’s good enough as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Maybe,” Sammy said. “But Mort treats—gods, this is why I avoid these gatherings. I’ve been here ten minutes and I’m already talking shit behind Mort’s back.”

  “Look, Sammy, I know you’re just trying to help. But to be honest, I have zero desire to pay the price of Talking, or to spend my life around the dead. I’m taking this chance to officially leave the family biz, make a fresh start.” Hopefully with Heather.

  “Seriously? Doing what? Your necromancy gifts’ll give you about as many career options as a degree in women’s history. Believe me, I know.”

  “I was thinking maybe I’d make video games, like the Commodore ones we used to play together. I wouldn’t be around grief and death all the time, or people bickering over magic. Nobody would have reason to try to kill or exile me. And best of all, making games won’t suck the life out of me. I could kick even your butt at writing BASIC before I left, and I had some cool ideas—”

  “BASIC?” Sammy shook her head. “Oh, man. You— Wow. You’ve got a lot to catch up on. Just, please, be careful while you do. Mort’ll be looking for any excuse to stay in control, and you shouldn’t decide to let him until you get to know him again is all.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Shall we go see him, then?”

  We walked down the hall, and through the kitchen. The lingering smells of garlic, vinegar, and baked cheesy goodness made my mouth water, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten in, oh, about twenty-five years. An arched doorway led to the dining room. A table long enough for eight seats to a side filled the center of the room, covered in a red cloth and a row of mismatched dishes containing veggies, breads and cheeses, and various bumpy brown entrées, all lit by two electric chandeliers.

  I noted with some disappointment a complete lack of pizza.

  Two men stood beside the table, talking with their backs to us. I easily recognized my younger brother Peter even from behind. Petey had always been a big guy—not fat, or all muscles, just big, like Bigfoot is big, and when he turned in profile I saw that he still had a round baby face. That face fit him more than the size did, since he’d always had a kind of childlike simplicity to him.

  I didn’t recognize the second dude until he turned to the side. Mort had grown to look a lot like Father, who looked a lot like Leonard Nimoy. And he appeared to have changed in more ways than just growing older. When I left, he’d been into Michael Jackson and breakdancing, calling himself Turbo Morto. Now, he dressed like Dracula’s attorney in a black suit with red shirt. And the Vandyke beard made him look like evil Spock, but with a receding hairline and a diamond in his left (non-pointy) ear.

  Mort took a big bite of a brownie, then offered it to Petey. “Man, that’s damn good. Sure you don’t want some?”

  “I can’t eat chocolate,” Pete said, and pushed it away with a leather-gloved hand. “You know that. I put the list of stuff I can’t eat on the fridge. Again.”

  “Ooooh, right. Sorry.” Mort grinned, and took another bite, then spotted Sammy and me. “Hey! If it ain’t Finn Fancy Necromancy Pants, in the flesh.”

  “Finn?” Pete said, and turned. “Finn!” He rushed at me and grabbed me in a bear hug.

  “Hey, brother!” I gasped. He released me. Everyone adjusted to form a small circle, and I struggled not to sneeze from Mort’s cloud of musky aftershave.

  “Wait,” Pete said, a very earnest expression settling across his face. “I have to say something quick. I took your Pac-Man watch.”

  “What?”

  “I took your Pac-Man watch. I wanted to tell you before, and then you got sent away, and I felt real bad, and I told myself I would tell you as soon as I saw you so that I wouldn’t not tell you before you go away again.”

  I laughed, and slapped him on the shoulder. “I sure missed you, dude. It’s totally okay.”

  If any other family member had said “before you go away again” after the evening I’d had, my spidey senses might have tingled. But Pete wasn’t the type to be plotting against me. That would require him to say one thing and mean another, and Pete could barely manage a single train of thought chugging along in his one-track mind. Add another train to that track, and it would be a disaster.

  “Wait right here, I’ll get it so I don’t forget,” Pete said.

  “No, wait, that’s—”

  Pete rushed off without hearing my words. I sighed, and looked at Mort as he stuffed the last of the brownie in his mouth.

  “No chocolate, the gloves—” I frowned. “Petey doesn’t still think he’s a waerwolf, does he?”

  Mort gave the “whatcha gonna do” shrug, and grinned.

  Pete got bit by a dog shortly after Mother’s death, and insisted it was a waerwolf. He took Mother’s death pretty hard, and seemed excited at the thought of being a waerwolf. We just didn’t have the heart to tell him he wasn’t, not right away. On the next full moon, he went out to our tree fort and tied his ankle to the trunk with rope so he wouldn’t hurt anybody. Mort used a garden claw to scrape fake claw marks in the trunk as Pete slept, and cut up Petey’s pajamas. Pete woke convinced he’d transformed during the night.

  Soon though, he began threatening to bite or scratch us at every turn. I tried at that point to tell him he wasn’t a waerwolf. He told me not to be jealous. I told him not to be an idiot. He waited until I left, then peed on my new KangaROOS gym shoes.

  That’s when Mort told me his idea of offering Pete a potion to stop the transformation—not a cure, of course, but something that must be drunk every full moon. I admit, I joined in on the prank. It took quite a bit of experimentation to come up with the perfect mixture. I won’t reveal the full contents, but will say that the tangy creaminess of the mayonnaise and sharp bite of the orange juice was nicely contrasted by the pyrotechnic sweetness of the coke and pop rocks.

  “Nobody’s told him the truth, still?” I asked.

  Sammy shrugged. “I tried to tell him once, but he kind of freaked out on me.” She glared at Mort. “I think Mort still gets some thrill out of toying with him. But Pete seems happy, living here close to Mother and Father, so I just let it be.”

  “Still,” I said.

  I could believe that Pete wouldn’t want to leave home, but there was no reason for Mort to still be tricking him. It was just cruel at this point.

  That, and Sammy’s warnings, only made it easier for me to believe what I’d struggled to accept: Mort was surely the one who’d helped frame me twenty-five years ago. Who else could it have been? Mother and Grandfather were dead, Sammy wanted nothing to do with magic or the family business, Petey was incapable of such plotting, and Father, well, he had nothing to gain from it. That left Mort.

  Yet I didn’t want to believe it still. Mort and I were brothers, we’d had some good times together growing up. He’d pulled quite a few pranks on me out of jealousy or sheer mischief, and the joke on Pete was beyond excessive at this point, but attacking Felicity and framing me for dark necromancy was a whole other level. It wasn’t like I’d ever caught him torturing the neighbor’s dog. Spray painting, yes. Torturing, no.

  Maybe some feyblood had mind-
tricked him into it, or some trickster god or other Fey Elder Spirit. Maybe even Felicity?

  But even if that were true, why then had he not told the ARC and gotten me released from exile?

  “Earth to Finn,” Mort said. “You look like your brain’s still in the Other Realm.”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. Still adjusting.”

  Pete arrived, breathing heavy, and held out my old Pac-Man watch. I laughed, and strapped it on. “Thanks, bro.”

  “I’m really glad you’re home, Finn,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Mort said. “Welcome back to the world. If there’s anything you need, you just let me know. I imagine you’ll probably want to live at your place, but anytime you want to crash here you’re welcome. We kept your old room just like you left it.”

  “Because Father threw a fit when you tried to pack it up,” Sammy muttered.

  “Point is, mi casa es su casa, brother,” Mort continued.

  Sammy arched one eyebrow. “Don’t you mean su casa es mi casa, now that he’s back?”

  Mort shot Sammy an annoyed look. “I’m just trying to make my brother feel welcome.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Sammy said. “You’re drowning him in unconditional love right here. I’m surprised he can even breathe.”

  Petey looked between Sammy and Mort, shrinking in on himself a bit.

  “It’s okay, guys,” I said. “Really, I’m just glad to be back.”

  “That’s all I’m trying to say,” Mort said. “It’s nice to have the whole family back together.”

  “Yeah,” I said. Nice, in much the same way the first American Thanksgiving was nice. “Hey, speaking of family, congrats on being a father. That totally surprised me. I mean, no offense, but, dude, who would marry you? And when do I meet her?”

  Mort crossed his arms. “I didn’t marry Mattie’s mother. And she left shortly after Mattie was born. I’d rather not discuss it.”

  “Left? Her own child? Why?”

  “Reasons. Good ones. And I said I’d rather not discuss it.”

  “Oh. I, uh, sorry.” Something told me Mort didn’t want to discuss it further. “So … where is Father?” It wasn’t an easy question for me to ask. The last time I’d asked it was the day of my trial by the local Arcana Ruling Council, and Mort told me that Father was so heartbroken at the thought of losing me that he couldn’t be there.

  “Father?” Pete asked. Mort and Sammy exchanged quick glances, but Petey just grinned. “Father’s downstairs,” he said.

  Sammy sneezed an explosive sneeze.

  And then a real explosion shook the house.

  3

  Mad World

  The explosion rattled the dishes and caused a bit of plaster dust to fall from the ceiling. Another attack? I grabbed Sammy and shoved her under the nearby arched doorway for protection, then pressed my back against the door frame.

  Mort brushed a bit of plaster dust off of his suit jacket and scowled as he replaced the covers on some of the dishes on the table. Petey stared up at the ceiling and grinned with his tongue stuck out as though the falling plaster were snow.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Father,” Sammy replied, and wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “Come on,” Mort said, and waved for me to follow him. “Let’s go see how bad it is this time.”

  I followed Mort back down the hallway and through the basement door. The stairs creaked, and a cloud of dust swirled beneath the yellow bulb at the bottom of the stairwell. I heard coughing as we descended.

  “Father? Mattie? You all right?” Mort called out.

  “Okeemonkey,” Father’s deep voice came from below, more tremulous than I remembered.

  “We’re fine,” Mattie added. “The doves exploded is all.”

  I glanced at Mort, but he didn’t appear to find the statement at all odd. I took a deep breath and continued to follow him down into the basement.

  Thick wooden beams were spaced out to support the ceiling, and a wall with frosted glass windows separated the basement into two halves. Through the frosted windows, light shimmered off the stainless-steel tables used for preparing bodies, and the equipment used to drain and pump fluids, the same as might be found in any mortuary. But the area we now entered held our necrotorium: ritual tables surrounded by protective circles embedded in the floor, the collection altars to gather and store magic from the dead, and cabinets and shelves lining the walls. Beneath the concrete floor, warded and insulated, sat hidden our personal cache of mana—magic in its captured and preserved form.

  Under the fading smoke, the basement smelled of earth mixed with bleach.

  Everything stood much as I remembered it, though I noticed that many of the older and more valuable family artifacts were missing, including several of the protection amulets from the open cabinet to my left. I snagged the family’s hex protection amulet as we passed and slipped it on. If the Króls managed to throw a curse at me outside the house’s wards, I’d have some protection at least.

  Mort led me to the right, to the recessed space where Father practiced his thaumaturgy—creating objects that used or worked by magic. Except it no longer held the ordered workshop I remembered. It held Frankenstein’s lab.

  Gizmos flickered with lightning; gadgets buzzed with plasma; doohickeys covered with dials and levers and meters hummed and pinged. There was no bolt-necked monster, thankfully, but a table held several probes pointing down at two scorch marks that I assumed were all that remained of the exploded doves.

  On the far side of the table stood Mattie and my father, both wearing wide grins beneath goggles and hair that danced in static haloes.

  I felt a sharp pang in my chest at the sight of my father. Every one of the past twenty-five years showed in his wrinkled face, his shrunken and slimmed frame. But his smile and twinkling eyes still looked young.

  “Ah Finn, good, there you are. I have something for you. It’s just over there in the platypus.”

  I looked to where he pointed. An Easy-Bake oven covered in painted runes emitted a blacklight glow. “Platypus?” I asked, feeling a growing chill, like a winter shadow made of dread.

  “What?” Father said, and jumped as though he’d forgotten I was there.

  “You said platypus. I don’t see a platypus.”

  “Of course not. The platypuses were all made into pudding years ago. Who let you into my lab?” He turned to Mattie. “Who let the monkey into my lab?”

  The dread exploded into full realization: My father was mad.

  “He’s not a monkey,” Mort said in an impatient tone. “He’s your son Finn. What’s going on here? Mattie, I told you no more explosions.”

  Mattie lifted the goggles to the top of her head. “Papa G made Finn a welcome home gift. He said it’s really important.”

  Mort rolled his eyes. “You should know better. He always says it’s important.”

  “Important,” Father agreed, nodding sagely. “From the Latin importantus, to import ants.” He looked down at Mattie. “Why do you suppose the Romans imported ants? I’m sure your grandmother would know. Where is she?”

  “Enough,” Mort said. “Father, clean this mess up before morning. We don’t want to scare off any customers.”

  “Our customers are dead,” Father said. “They’re past being scared.”

  “I meant the— Oh, never mind. Mattie, make sure he cleans this up.” Mort turned to me. “Do you see what I’ve had to deal with since you left?”

  “I didn’t leave, damn it, I was exiled.”

  But I did see. And I felt the bottom drop out of the cereal box of my heart. Despite all my worries that he’d abandoned me, I realized how much I’d counted on my father being there now to help me figure out what was going on, to help me stop it. To help me make sense of everything, including my exile, and my feelings about it. Instead, I found myself wishing I could help him.

  I moved closer to Mort and whispered, “How long has he been like this?”

  “Crazy?” He d
idn’t bother to whisper. “Since you left. Sorry, since you were exiled. Actually, it started a little before, when you were arrested. That’s really why he didn’t come to your trial.”

  The accusation wasn’t even subtle. It was my fault Father was crazy. Except, if Mort was the one who got me sent into exile, then this, too, was really Mort’s fault. And convenient, too, if all of this was about Mort running the family business.

  “Where’s my tree?” Father said, and his voice sounded close to tears.

  “In your room, Papa G,” Mattie said. “We’ll go there soon.”

  “Tree?” I asked her.

  “A bonsai. He’s been trying to find the right shape for years.”

  “The right shape for what?”

  Mattie shrugged. “He won’t say. I think he just enjoys working on it.”

  “You still need to clean up this mess,” Mort said.

  “We will,” Mattie replied without any of the sullenness or rebellion I would have expected in her voice. “Uncle Finn, don’t forget your gift.” She nodded to the Easy-Bake oven.

  I opened the plastic oven, and on a mini–cake pan inside I found a silver ring. The ring was too small to fit over my fingers and didn’t appear to have any gaps to resize it.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Not for the blood, but for the heart,” Father said.

  “What?”

  “Scribble scroble, nib to noble.”

  “Ignore him,” Mort said. “He rambles like this all the time, and it never makes any sense far as I can tell. Come on. Let’s get some food before it goes bad.”

  I grabbed Mort’s arm. “Hey. Have you taken him to a mind healer? Have you tried to find out what’s wrong with him?”

  Mort shook me off. “I know what’s wrong with him. You know the signs as well as I do. Something bad got into his head.”

  Mort was right, that would explain Father’s behavior. Being possessed against your will could scramble the brains a bit, especially if the spirit was of something that had never been human. But I shook my head. “Father’s not a necromancer. He wouldn’t have been summoning anything. And we have all kinds of protections against possession or attack from the outside.”