Wake Not the Dead

CHAPTER 15: ME, NECROMANCER

CHAPTER 15 ME, NECROMANCER

    Its eyeless sockets seemed to search the room. Its dry, leathery skin cracked as it lurched forward. I stumbled back fumbling the bells out of the bandolier as Bixby’s remains shuffled closer.

    “M-m-roow,” it coughed.

    I glanced down at the bandolier and my mind went blank. The sleeper, the Sleeper, which one was the Sleeper?

    The skin had peeled back from his grimy claws leaving them unnaturally exposed. They clicked on the hard wood floor, each click setting my teeth on edge. The hairs on my neck felt as if a river of glacier water had been dumped on it.

    A rattling whisper escaped his emaciated throat. Mine felt dry and empty except for the rolling scream clawing to get out.

    Gasping for air, my eyes widened.

    Bixby’s shambling gait continued towards me.

    My hip hit the corner of the table gouging into my side but I barely noticed it.

    “G-g-go away,” I rasped.

    The corpse kept coming.

    My breath scraped the sides of my throat. My body went numb. Panic was taking over.

    Suddenly a scrap from the Book of the Dead came back again just as if I were reading it: Somna, the smallest, severs the connection of the soul and body and allows the Dead to rest once again.

    Something tugged at my pant leg. Looking down, Bixby had reached my feet. A skeletal leg was raised and pawing at my jeans.

    “Back off, dead k-kitty,” I said, trying to sound confident.

    Feeling surged back into my body. Instinctively I reached at my shoulder for the smallest bell trying to avoid looking at Bixby. Scrabbling to loosen the straps, I unsheathed the tiny bell and rang. It chimed, surprisingly soft and sweet. I hummed a slow, soft melody. It had a rocking cadence, like the song I’d started at Dirk’s.

    I felt pressure on my socks. Bixby on my feet.

    I continued to ring the bell, looking straight at the cat.

    Depth and harmony filled the room and my bones, lulling and lapping quietly.

    Somna’s resonant song cut Bixby’s ties to life and he crumpled, a useless marionette, lifeless again.

    I stopped humming and gently placed my hand on the bell. The sound faded instantly. I looked into the poor creature’s face and saw small tufts of hair clinging to the dried skin.

    “S-sorry,” I whispered.

    The weight of the bells began cut into my shoulder.

    I don’t know how long I stared at Bixby’s body. I only had room for one thought in my head. “That’s my dead cat” and “Eww” floated to the top of my hazy mind, competing for my attention. At some point, I realized that I was still staring at the floor, or rather the unoccupied floor next to Bixby. I ran my fingers through my hair.

    The light from my window, once garishly bright from the afternoon sun, had since calmed to an evening haze.

    What time was it?

    Finally something clicked. First, I had to move Bixby. Second, I was a weak sauce Necromancer. And third, Dirk would be here any minute. I wasn’t sure which reason propelled forward.