Finn Fancy Necromancy Read Free

plotting revenge schemes either. And even if I had been, she was supposed to be hidden away somewhere in the ARC equivalent of witness protection. At most, I’d hoped she would confess the truth someday, and clear my name.
    Instead, someone had now killed her, in “my” home, with dark necromancy. Most likely the same someone who attacked my transfer. Had he brought her here by force, or drawn her here with some promise of revenge or reconciliation with me? Either way, she was the perfect choice for a frame job given our history. But why? Why try to kill me and frame me? It made no sense.
    The bloody rune cloth meant her spirit was warded, so a Talker like me couldn’t get Felicity to speak again. And real enforcers might arrive at any minute, tipped off by my attacker or the release of magic. I didn’t have time to hang around playing Inspector Gadget.
    I considered hiding the body, but there was nothing I could think to do that would keep the enforcers from finding Felicity with magic. And with my luck I’d be caught carrying her into the woods.
    I looked from Felicity to the stove. Just one option I could think of; but first things first.
    I riffled through the place and found “my” wallet and keys. Nothing in the trailer was really my stuff, not the stuff I left at my family home when I went into exile, and I didn’t find anything that seemed like a Scooby clue to explain who was really behind Felicity’s death. I went outside and made sure the car started, and was an automatic. I’d never learned stick.
    Then I returned inside and grabbed a frying pan, lighter, paper towels, and cooking oil, and moved back to Felicity’s body.
    Don’t worry. Despite what you may have heard, real necromancers don’t consume the flesh of the dead. In fact, most of us are vegetarians. That just sort of happens when you can sense life energy lingering in the flesh of anything that once had an active nervous system.
    I hesitated, looking down at Felicity. I’d helped to destroy bodies before, but always with respect, following the proper rituals.
    â€œSorry, Felicity,” I whispered. “May your spirit find peace, may your energy bring light to the darkness.” The words were rote, but I felt a flurry of emotions as I said them: regret, sadness, and yeah, maybe a bit of satisfaction that this feyblood witch had paid in the end for what she did to me. That last bit made me uncomfortable, kind of like bad gas. But the self-examination could come later. Now was time for the running.
    I dropped the frying pan on the floor, dumped cooking oil over Felicity and the paper towels, and lit the roll on fire after several fumbling attempts. Then I turned on the gas stove without igniting it, and ran outside.
    A sorry excuse for a cremation, and cooking oil wouldn’t burn up a body, but when the propane blew it would be good-bye crime scene, hello unfortunate cooking accident. With luck, the body would take time to put back together and identify, and with the mundy fire department and police involved it would complicate the enforcers’ own investigation.
    I dropped myself into the car, a Miata so the label read, and sped off along the gravel road.
    Time to get someplace safe, and figure out who the hell still had it in for me. And that meant my family—possibly in both cases.

2
    Our House
    I have to say, I was a bit disappointed the car didn’t fly like in Back to the Future . It didn’t even run on fusion or anything cool as far as I could tell. After twenty-five years, you’d think there’d be more changes than making the cars really small.
    At least I found driving easy. My body still felt a bit awkward to control and balance, but for some reason controlling the car, something external to me, came more naturally.
    I was three minutes down the winding wooded road when a flash and boom caused me to look in the rearview. An orange glow lined the treetops.