Necromancer Inc.

“I have a legitimate, highly profitable business plan, and all I need to get started is to clear out some debt,” Timothay explained to the Necromancer.

“I see,” replied the Necromancer. He cracked his fingers, rhythmically, one after the other, quite loud.

“See, no one’s ever managed to use alchemy to transmute a common metal into a rare one. People have tried for centuries, of course. Some managed to transmute rare, rich metals into cheap base elements, but that’s worthless. I’ve figured out a way to transmute iron up to copper, but I have, um, some debt from previous ventures, and to be able to take out a loan for the new company I need to -”

The Necromancer interrupted with a particularly loud crack and sighed. “I did not ask why you require my service, merely which one.”

Timothay nodded. “Right, of course. So I -” He paused, frowned, looked around the room. From the outside, the place appeared to be a dingy, ruined castle overgrown with moss and smelling of death, yet this room was actually quite nice. Bright cream walls with wood panelling, tasteful area rugs shaped like adorable skulls, lit by vanilla-sandalwood candles. “Um, what services do you provide, exactly? A friend referred me to you, but…”

The Necromancer forced a smile beneath his skull mask. “Welcome to Necromancer Incorporated, where your legal problems die with you,” he said, sounding exasperatedly rehearsed. “Unlike the New Life program, which sells true resurrection at exorbitant prices for the rich, Necromancer Inc. offers affordable service for everyone. For no money up front and only a small monthly payment, Necromancer Inc. will free you from all your legal obligations.”

“That’s perfect, exactly what I need,” said Timothay. He looked around the pleasant office, squinted at tastefully framed photographs of the Necromancer shaking hands or giving thumbs up with various skeletons, zombies, ghouls, and ghosts.

“All legal agreements, contracts, and sentences end upon your death.”

Timothay nodded. “Right.”

The Necromancer sat there, cracking his fingers. Waiting.

“Oh!” Timothay understood. “So you kill me and bring me back to life.”

The Necromancer leaned on the desk and cleared his throat. “Not back to life, no. You will be raised as your choice of undead.” He handed Timothay a brochure. “You have several options available. I recommend ghoul, as skeletons and zombies tend to retain less intellect.”

Timothay scanned the brochure. The Necromancer could use a better graphic designer – perhaps Timothay would make an offer, later. The font choice wasn’t great, and changed between entries. Anyway, skeleton and zombie options were quite a bit cheaper, but money wouldn’t be a problem once Timothay got his new business off the ground. Ghost sounded fun, but Timothay needed to be able to physically interact with his ingredients – for some reason it didn’t work when anyone else did it.

“What, no vampires?” Timothay chuckled.

The Necromancer did not smile. “No. Not cost effective.”

Timothay waited for the Necromancer to elaborate, but he did not. “Okay then, I’ll be a ghoul.”

“Please be sure to read the conditions,” the Necromancer prompted. He pulled open a heavy drawer and slid a contract and a strange pen across the desk.

Timothay scanned the contract quickly. He saw nothing unexpected. Payment and obligations, guaranteed minimum retention of intelligence but waiver for risks, side effects include inescapable hunger for raw flesh and aversion to sunlight, yadda yadda yadda. No weird fine print or clauses. Straightforward.

He picked up the pen and scribbled his signature, but no ink came out. He looked up at the Necromancer, who mimed pricking his finger. Timothay nodded, poked at the tip of his finger until a drop of blood formed, and he used it to sign the contract.

“Wonderful,” said the Necromancer, who licked his lips as he drew a wavy, gem-encrusted, skull-carved ritual dagger from his black robes.

The warehouse used to be quiet after dark, but tonight, through the office window, Timothay could faintly hear the beeps and rumbles of forklifts, the shouts of operators and loaders, the deep thunking of metal on pavement. He loosened the tie he wore under his lab coat and smiled, seeing the points of his teeth reflected in the glass. Business was good.

“Business is not good,” said the accountant.

Timothay grimaced and put his teeth away. “Hi, Dayle. Thanks for coming in so late.” He pulled out a chair by his desk.

“That’s alright, I know you have issues with the day shift, and besides, it’s your company.” Dayle sat down and adjusted his vest.

“Coffee? Tea? Something stronger?”

“No caffeine after midday, but I’ll take whatever else you have.”

Timothay poured the accountant a glass of black rum. Dayle stared at it, then opened his folder without touching the glass. “Output is well below demand. We can’t raise our prices or we lose our market. The only way is to either increase output -” he said that part with a tone – “or to accept fewer contracts and pay the penalties to get out of what we can’t handle.”

Timothay thought for a moment, then laughed, still without showing his teeth. “So what you’re really telling me is that business is so good we can’t keep up.”

“No. Accepting orders before verifying they can be filled, and then failing to fill the orders, is not good business and not good for the company’s reputation. “

He sighed and dropped into his desk chair, which spun too hard. He raised an eyebrow at Dayle’s glass. The accountant shook his head, so Timothay took it and sipped at the rum. It had no effect on him these days, of course. He drank it for the flavour strong enough to punch through his altered taste buds. And the high proof kept his mouth clean.

“I’m working on a method to scale up the output. So far the process only works when I do it. The interns do it perfectly but for some reason the transmutation just doesn’t happen. I haven’t quite figured out why yet, and for some reason just scaling up the recipe for more iron doesn’t work either, but I’ve almost cracked the formula “ He pulled three alchemically-stained notebooks full of scribbled formulae from his desk drawer. “Here, take a look -”

“I don’t have a lot of time.” Dayle checked his watch.

Of course. The accountant would want to get home to his family – it was vegetarian barbeque night. “Okay. The point is, I should have a solution soon. Any day now. In the meantime, cash flow is positive, yeah?”

“Oh, yes, very much so,” Dayle clarified. He slid the folder across the desk, helpfully highlighted in the colours Timothay liked. Before Timothay could whistle at the big numbers, Dayle tapped two spots at the bottom. “But only for now. We are taking quite a hit in penalties for those unfilled contracts and overtime costs on the night shifts. At this rate we won’t be able to make the loan payments and we’ll be in the red in two weeks, bankrupt in ten.”

“I’ll work it out. Any day now,” Timothay repeated, his voice a little shrill. He pointed at a little pink flag sticking out from the stack of pages. “What’s that?”

Dayle flipped the pages over to reveal a neatly bundled stack of butcher shop receipts. “Yes, that was the other thing. Tim, we’ve talked about this. You can’t claim whole butchered cows as business expenses as an industrial copper wholesaler.”

Timothay frowned. “I still don’t understand why I can claim the payments to the Necromancer but not business lunches.”

“Because they aren’t business lunches if it’s just your personal food. Business lunches are for meeting clients,” Dayle explained, “And your own grocery shopping is not for the business. That’s tax fraud.”

“Then how does the Necromancer count if it’s for me?”

“Startup expenses and maintenance.”

“Fine, but my hus – Mikal doesn’t like me eating meat at home, I have to eat at work.”

“Not a business issue.”

Timothay nodded slowly. “And what if we host client barbeques?”

Dayle suppressed a sigh. “Yes, Tim, if you legitimately hosted client barbeques you could claim raw beef as a business expense.”

He appreciated that Dayle left unspoken the part about how that probably wouldn’t happen because Timothay hated to let anyone see him eat. As a ghoul, his feeding habits were… well, ghoulish.

He finished the rum. “Well, Dayle, what I’m hearing is that if I can increase my volume of transmutation from iron to copper, we can be even more successful than we already are. Is there anything else?”

Dayle made a face. Timothay wasn’t sure what kind of face, mostly because he was getting hungry again and all he saw was the muscle moving under the accountant’s skin. “And you can’t claim your butcher bills as business expenses,” Dayle added.

“Yes, yes. Right.” Timothay stood and walked to the door to show Dayle out. Too much thinking about food – he was getting hungry.

“And Tim, one more thing…” Dayle looked down, around, every way except at Timothay. “I’m sorry, this is awkward, but… your husband asked me to remind you of… Well, you know I’m not your receptionist or answering service,” he said with an attempt at a grin.

Yes, he did know. “Thank you, Dayle. You’re right. Talk to you soon. Go home and eat,” Timothay said, pushing Dayle out by the shoulders before he got too famished.

In the harsh artificial lighting of his basement, the liquid Timothay dropped into the flask glinted deep, clear blue. He swirled the flask until the colour changed from clear to –

“Shit,” Timothay said to the thickening, now-brown liquid. He tossed the flask onto the lab bench. The glass tipped and some of the brown oozed out onto the stainless steel surface, only smoking a small amount.

The process complete, Timothay put his hands on his hips and paced around the home laboratory. Glass and steel glittered in the direct lighting, casting coloured beams through translucent liquid and reflected through coincidental prisms and facets.

He picked at his teeth again. There was still some sinew stuck in the back. He cut his finger on the serrations – could only tell from the taste of sticky, thick blood that tasted of rot.

“Hey babe, you finished?” called Mikal from upstairs. “Can I come down?”

Timothay hissed, fiddled with his teeth some more – wouldn’t do to have Mikal kiss him with raw beef still stuck in his mouth. He heard the door open and the sinew popped free. He licked his teeth and swallowed, suddenly hungry again. He suppressed it as best he could and put his teeth away.

“Yeah, done for now,” Timothay called back up. He dropped onto his stool and sighed.

Mikal stepped gingerly down the stairs, holding his nose and, at arm’s length, a steaming hot mug of blood. A nice surprise – they’d both been vegetarian before the ghoul thing, and while Timothay had no choice now, Mikal hated it, most days doing his best to pretend not to know about the change in diet. Timothay’s stomach flipped in spiking hunger, though he did his best to wait and appreciate the gesture.

“I’m going to the temple in a few minutes,” Mikal said. “You want to come?”

“You know I can’t -”

“I didn’t ask if you would, I asked if you want to.”

He did miss it – the sense of community and purpose and being part of something bigger. Of course, as an undead ghoul, Timothay couldn’t set foot on hallowed ground unless he wanted to burn to ashes in holy fire.

Mikal nudged Timothay’s shoulder. “Here you go,” he said, handing over the mug.

Timothay gulped the hot blood down in two huge gulps. Mikal grimaced and shivered worse than the time he’d had to reset both of his dislocated shoulders. No kisses now, he supposed. “Thanks babe. Today’s test didn’t work out, but I’m close, I know it.”

He felt cool hands on his shoulders. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Timothay squeezed his eyes shut. “Babe, you know Dayle isn’t my answering service, you shouldn’t -”

“It’s the only way you’ll hear me on this,” Mikal said with a hitch in his throat.

Timothay turned around on the stool and took Mikal’s hands. His husband – well, ex-husband, that was the problem – didn’t quite meet his eyes. “You know I want to get remarried properly, but we did agree on this beforehand -”

“We agreed that the Necromancer was necessary to get your new business going, and I knew it would legally void our marriage, but I thought we -”

“As soon as I crack this formula,” Timothay said, again. “I’ve been having to reinvest in the company, but when the cash flow really opens up -”

“We don’t need something extravagant,” Mikal said, “We already did that, everyone was already there. I know you think if this as just a legal technicality but it’s important to me.”

Timothay twitched. He felt a sudden urge to get up and go outside, but he fought it back. “It’s important to me too, but the timing -”

“Ow,” said Mikal. He withdrew his hands; points of blood oozed from small holes in his skin.

Timothay looked at his own hands. His claws were out. “Babe, I’m sorry, I don’t know what -” He doubled over, groaning with pain he hadn’t felt since before he changed. “Babe. You have to go. Something’s wrong.”

Mikal grunted, hesitated. Timothay knew he was wondering if this was some kind of excuse to postpone the conversation again.

“Please,” Timothay whispered. His eyes couldn’t make tears anymore. His teeth unfurled unbidden, his lips peeled back.

He’d curled up as much as possible, fell to the floor, but Mikal must have seen enough to understand. He ran upstairs, and Timothay heard deadbolts sliding on the door. He’d insisted, back when this began. Mikal of course trusted him completely, but Timothay hadn’t yet known whether he could trust himself.

Today, he was glad he hadn’t.

He felt his slippers and gloves shred as his claws extended. A will that was not his own rumbled thunderous baritone commands into his head. GO TO THE CAPITAL. KILL EVERYONE. TAKE THE CITY FOR ME.

The voice of the Necromancer.

“Timothay?” Mikal called down, voice wavering. “What’s going on?”

He could barely force himself to speak with his locked-open jaws and vicious ghoul teeth. It took all of his will not to dash up the stairs and try to rip the door off its hinges.

One second later, he fought the compulsion again. And the second after that. All the while knowing the pain would stop when he – if he gave in.

He did not know how long he lay on the floor, fighting not to crawl toward the stairs, yet seeing the stairs approach nonetheless as his claws punched holes in the concrete, dragging him forward, bumping into lab benches and shelving units full of alchemicals and glassware. He knew the pain of resisting was nothing compared to what he would face if he allowed himself to reach Mikal.

“Holy shit!” came Mikal’s voice from upstairs, cutting through the pain. “The news says there’s some kind of undead apocalypse going – it’s the Necromancer, he’s trying to take over the country!”

Timothay could not spare the energy to tell Mikal he knew. All he could do was groan and fight against the force making him slowly climb the stairs as his claws punched into splintering wood. The shelving on the stairway walls shook. Failed experiments rattled and shifted. As he reached the reinforced door, with the last shreds of control over his body, he turned the locks, hoping that as the Necromancer took his body it wouldn’t be smart enough to unlock again.

“Mikal,” Timothay growled, his voice altered, scaring himself with its aggression, “You have to go.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Mikal said, from right on the other side of the door. He must have been pressed right up against it.

The steel door screeched as Timothay’s claws and teeth ground against it. “Please.”

“This isn’t the first scheme you’ve made a mistake on. I stayed with you then, and I’m staying with you now.”

“I wasn’t trying to eat you then,” Timothay begged, struggling to form words. His hunger drew a delicious, tempting image of what would happen when his claws and teeth reached Mikal. There was nothing Timothay could do to banish the thoughts.

Mikal shouted “I’m not going anywhere.” He pounded on the door for emphasis.

Either Mikal was stronger than he looked or Timothay had already weakened the supports – a shelf of failed alchemical solutions detached from the wall and collapsed onto Timothay’s head. Flasks smashed and Timothay felt glass shredding his skin, painless as his undead nature prevented –

Timothay screamed. “Ahh! Oh, ow, aahh!” Pain erupted across his scalp, a burning, sizzling sensation like cooking flesh almost to the bone.

“Timothay? Timothay! Unlock the door!”

A different kind of pain ripped through Timothay’s body. The old kind, injury, as he hadn’t been able to feel since before. The pain blanked his mind, drowning out the Necromancer’s commands so that all he could hear was Mikal. Open the door. He reached up, arm trembling through the pain, did not even notice his claws had retracted to fingernails. He fumbled for

Timothay woke in Mikal’s arms. He recoiled, weakly, his muscles convulsing weakly. “No,” he gasped, “Get back.”

Mikal held his face, crying. “Babe. It’s okay. Babe, you’re okay, you’re okay.”

Timothay had the worst headache of his life. His gums and fingertips burned. “Ow,” he moaned, then paused and winced. “Ow?”

“You’re human again,” Mikal whispered, and planted the gentlest kiss on Timothay’s shredded forehead, now covered with some kind of cloth.

“Mikal,” Timothay groaned.

“What?”

“Let’s go get married.”

Mikal half-laughed, half-choked. A tear dripped from his deep brown eyes to Timothay’s face. “What, right now?”

“Yes. When we got married originally, I vowed I was never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down.”

Mikal blinked rapidly, as though he couldn’t see properly. More tears landed on Timothay; he didn’t mind. “I know you mean it,” Mikal said, “But first… which flask was that?”

Timothay reflexively looked down to the broken glass for the label, then back up to Mikal. “Why? I thought you wanted…”

“No, of course I do,” Mikal grinned. “I know I’ve always bugged you for your get-rich-quick schemes, but you could make a lot of money stopping the Necromancer apocalypse.”