Necromancer's Dating Service (Magis Luminare Book 1) Read online

  Necromancer’s Dating Service

  Magis Luminare Book 1

  J. M. THOMAS

  NECROMANCER’S DATING SERVICE

  COPYRIGHT © 2021 J. M. THOMAS

  FIRST EDITION MAY 2021

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN 9798747361010

  COVER DESIGN BY MAY DAWNEY DESIGN

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED BY ANY MECHANICAL, PHOTOGRAPHIC, OR ELECTRONIC PROCESS OTHER THAN FOR “FAIR USE” AS DEFINED BY LAW, WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR. THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAMES, CHARACTERS, BUSINESSES, PLACES, EVENTS, LOCALES, AND INCIDENTS ARE EITHER THE PRODUCTS OF THE AUTHOR’S IMAGINATION OR USED IN A FICTITIOUS MANNER. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, OR ACTUAL EVENTS, IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

  Acknowledgements

  Cover by May Dawney at May Dawney Designs.

  Thank you to everyone who contributed to getting this book out there, listened to me rant, or sent me necromancy memes. You guys are the best!

  Special thanks to Dee Rice, who helps me connect the ideas to the reader, David Hambling for cultural and accent notes, and Jessica Robin for Enneagram help. You have all been utterly invaluable in this process.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 – Does the Bluebird

  Chapter 2 – Sing a Love Song

  Chapter 3 – Perched On

  Chapter 4 – Razor Wire Coils

  Chapter 5 – A True Blind She

  Chapter 6 – Who Cannot See

  Chapter 7 – That Puddled Blood

  Chapter 8 – Around her Boils

  Chapter 9 – The Watchers’ Sons

  Chapter 10 – They Look

  Chapter 11 – And Lurk

  Chapter 12 – The Dark Awaits

  Chapter 13 – The Lion

  Chapter 14 – Where Friend and Foe

  Chapter 15 – Converge

  Chapter 16 – All Masked

  Chapter 17 – A Thousand Souls

  Chapter 18 – Scream

  Chapter 19 – Dying

  Chapter 20 – Monsters Rise

  Chapter 21 – To Feast

  Chapter 22 – On Men

  Chapter 23 – Whose Powers

  Chapter 24 – Can’t Contain Them

  Chapter 25 – Betrayal Traps

  Chapter 26 – And Lovers Snap

  Chapter 27 – The Night’s Depths

  Chapter 28 – Dark and Grim

  Chapter 29 – When Worlds Collide

  Chapter 30 – In Deadly Clash

  Chapter 31 – None Can Bear

  Chapter 32 – To See It

  Chapter 33 – In Defiance

  Chapter 34 – One Small Song

  Chapter 35 – One Fate

  Chapter 36 – If Bird

  Chapter 37 – Can Seal It

  Prologue

  My name is Celeste Grantham. This is the story of my second-worst first date involving a necromancer.

  My evening started off well enough. I’d been hoping to get some personal experience dating in a big city, since I was interning at HarmonE, a web-based dating service design company, and it was my first time living somewhere besides the family farm. If I was lucky, going on a few outings would help me augment any lack of knowledge I might have in the workplace.

  Dating… well, I didn’t have a lot of recent experience to draw from on that one. I had almost no experience with Wachenta city proper.

  Using our services for research felt a bit like using myself as bait to catch the knowledge I needed. But in downtown, opportunities didn’t present themselves. I had to create them. Besides, I made peanuts from my internship, and dinner out for free was a luxury.

  So, I typed the words, “Interested in exploring the city with nice, smart, funny guys,” though “interested” might be putting too fine a point on it.

  I figured that was all anyone really needed to know about me, and it was all I was willing to let the whole internet know, anyway. There were creepers out there, and they didn’t need a front row seat to my personal business.

  Within a week, I had five dates lined up with five different guys. The third was where it all went wrong.

  The guy across from me was cuter than last week’s Friday night highlight. He had thick blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a smooth baritone voice. His shy smile put me at ease immediately, and he was as jumpy as I was, bless his heart. He had a habit of letting out a nervous huff of laughter while stalling to come up with something to say.

  We had a good time, too, before things went sour. The two of us chatted about our favorite shows a little bit over sushi burritos and boba teas. His was a melon, and mine a goji berry, the way it should be. Then, he offered to show me a curiosity shop within walking distance of the cafe.

  This caught me off guard in the best of ways, my grin slipping out before I could hide behind my boba tea. Antique things and hole-in-the-wall shops are stuffed to the brim with character and atmosphere. I’d sometimes go into a mom-and-pop store, not to browse, but to be inspired by the ambience and quirky juxtapositions. Milk and eggs in the fridge next to the bait and tackle? That’d be my new favorite haunt.

  “Betwixt.” I grinned to myself. That was the best name for a curiosity shop. It certainly was a curious little spot, with a string of tiny bells which chimed when my date held the wooden door open for me. I knew this date was supposed to be about him, and I’d be stealthily grilling him with my internship in mind, but I couldn’t help myself.

  My gaze danced over the walls of this shop, drinking in the rugs, the tapestries, the fringe chandeliers. The life-beat of this space oozed from the colors and woven textures.

  My date had to duck to avoid some lamps and trays hanging from the low ceiling, his muttered exclamation bringing me back to the present. For all the minor irritations I suffered from being a tiny shrimp of a person, it was nice getting to walk upright with no trouble in places like this.

  I drank in the shop’s quirky beauty. A hand-carved, almost Bohemian rawness set this place apart. I glanced through the wares on a stand for beaded jewelry, hoping I could find some feather earrings the same shade of cobalt blue I’d dyed the ends of my long, brown hair. I tried not to be too disappointed when I didn’t see any. It wasn’t like I could afford them, anyway.

  As we strolled through the store, I slowly forgot about engaging my date and allowed myself to get lost in a pile of thick, tribal print blankets. After a few minutes, my good manners kicked in, and I remembered to be polite and attempt to involve him. A marbled sea lion carving with sapphires for eyes seemed to jump at me from its glass shelf full of other carved animals.

  “Hey, look at this one!” I called, drawn to it immediately. Whoever had carved this little fellow had incorporated a natural flaw in the reddish-brown stone to create a mottling over his back. I loved exposed flaws in carvings. It made the finished product so much more unique, nothing like the perfectly mass-produced junk at big-box retailers.

  I gently ran my finger down the sea lion’s smooth, cool lines before turning to a bucket of whittled walking sticks. Again, I tried to engage with my date. “This one was a sapling with a vine growing up it. This is where it cut in and the tree had to grow around it. Remove the vine, and you get this really pretty curl…” I glanced up to realize he couldn’t hear me because he’d wandered off on his own path through the shelves. It seemed this place had caught us both.

  “Ah, you like the carvings,” came an excited voice from beside me. A slender, tanned man in what almost looked like a
tailored choir robe glided up. He had sales persona written all over him, with excitement and warmth wrinkling the corners of his eyes. He commanded the attention in the room with an ease I could scarcely believe was genuine.

  The romance of the moment broken, I drifted back down to reality. “They’re beautiful,” I said with a smile. “You can tell someone really cared about their craft.”

  “Oh, most are mass-produced. But you’re correct that these were designed by a true artist with a rich passion!” He gestured to the seal I’d picked up earlier. “Why this one?” Deeper interest laced his tone now. He seemed to hover over his own breath as he waited for my answer.

  I shrugged as I looked back over the little carving, a finger grazing its back. “I just really liked how the natural flaws in the stone created something even more complex. I’m a big fan of textures like this, of working with natural things instead of against them.”

  The man broke into a wide smile. “Splendid! Ooh, there’s something I want to show you. I think you’ll like it! Follow me!” With a wave of his hand, he wove through the narrow, cluttered shop. I had to turn my shoulders to keep from bumping into a display of fluffy keychains, then I stood in the dead center of a woven geometric rug.

  The little string of bells on the front door chimed. I glanced behind me in time to see my date, phone to his ear, dodging outside to take a call. I got the feeling I was being ghosted, but I decided to wait it out and see if he returned. If not, fine by me. I’d rather be stood up at a place like this than waiting at a modern coffee shop surrounded by polished chrome.

  “Here it is!” The tradesman turned to give me a slender knife the length of my hand, with a beaded sheath and a jade handle. “Go ahead, pull it out! Truly the best example I’ve ever seen of passion turning a flaw into a thing of beauty.”

  As I slid the blade from its sheath, its owner bumped into it, slicing my index finger. I hissed.

  “Oh dear, I’m so sorry. It’s frightfully sharp!” He ran his own finger along the knife’s edge. “That is sharper than I’d anticipated. Here, take my handkerchief! Do you need a bandage? I have superhero ones in the back!”

  I shook my head as I accepted the silky fabric with swirling woodblock-print mandalas adorning it. I dabbed my cut, then returned it to him.

  The sudden thump of a person hitting the hood of a car sounded from outside the shop. I pivoted to go see what was happening out there, but my feet wouldn’t follow me when I tried to turn. It was like my ankle boots had been glued to the floor.

  “What the?” Outside the shop, barked commands echoed off the horseshoe of storefronts. I tried to turn again. Nothing. It was like wading out of sludge. Picking up my feet one at a time yielded nothing, even when I gave a firm yank to rip them loose. The rug stayed firmly in place, as did my shoes.

  I considered slipping out of my boots, bending to untie the laces and leave them behind. Nothing budged. What? This doesn’t make any sense!

  “Your friend there was so desperate to obtain a potion that would kill, he agreed to exchange a young woman’s blood to do it.” The shop owner tsked his tongue as he gestured at me, continuing in complete indifference to my distress and confusion. “Like we’re some kind of mystical assassins. Utter rubbish! I don’t even make potions!” He seemed more hurt by the incorrect job title than by being mistaken for an assassin. “I’m an enchanting artificer, not a potioner!”

  “What?” I glanced sharply up from the rug. Did he just say my date set me up? No way. Not on his life.

  The owner’s smile sliding across his face sent a weird shiver up my spine. His black hair shone as he lit the candles around the rug with a grill lighter. “Of course, I turned him into the authorities the second he came here with you for our pre-arranged meeting. So, what you heard a moment ago was your date leaving for his appointment with the police department. The constabulary, if you’re trying to be fancy.” He turned a hopeful smile and ceremoniously-open arms toward me. “And why not be fancy, if we have the opportunity?”

  “What are you talking about?” Eyes wide and feet paralyzed, I tried to make sense of his words. Wait, why can’t I move my feet? My gaze darted all over the place as my lips struggled to form syllables. “Why can’t I move my feet?” I managed to ask aloud. Don’t panic. Keep it cool, Celeste. What could he use to hurt me? What could I grab hold of to drag myself to the door?

  “You’ve heard of soul traps, no doubt? That rug is a sole trap.” He let out a hearty laugh at his little joke before turning serious again. “Little one, you have no idea what a rare, flawed beauty you are, do you? No one with any semblance of filament can touch the sea lion! He’s a powerful ward hidden amongst the pointless trinkets. A barking seal that’s a warding seal!” He laughed again. “But this test will tell for sure.”

  “Let me go! Please!” I fell to my knees as I frantically tried to escape. No one would hear me if I tried to scream. The shop was as good as soundproof with all the rugs and tapestries lining the walls. I had no idea what was happening outside anymore, now that the odd noises had gone quiet against the traffic’s constant roar.

  The shop owner seemed to be collecting a handful of oddities from around his little store. “Not to worry, dear, the trap only holds for five minutes. Do excuse my rudeness, but it’s just… only once in a dozen lifetimes does one get even the chance…”

  “You let me go this instant, you creep!” My shoelaces didn’t budge no matter how my trembling fingers fumbled at them. With no choice but to try to secure my freedom some other way, I gave up on my shoes and dove for the outside of the circle. My feet still firmly stuck, I stretched out and grabbed one of the candles. I launched it at its owner.

  The flickering flame went out before reaching him, the candle bouncing uselessly off his robe before rolling to the floor. He didn’t even seem phased.

  “This will only take a moment; do be still.” He chanted something in a language I didn’t understand, then used the lighter to set the kerchief on fire. The owner gently set the burning object on a gold tray hung from the drop ceiling. As I watched helplessly, he added a nugget of incense, then stepped back.

  The smoke poured down to obscure the mandalas on the rug. His low, mumbled chant ended in a hummed “om” that seemed to burst from behind his vocal cords rather than vibrate from them. As he did, the owner slowly strode around me in a circle until he disappeared behind me, his steady hum throbbing in my ears in surround sound.

  I rose to standing, entranced by the eerie geometric pattern on the rug, growing acutely aware of the scent of pine and something else. It could’ve been hours or merely seconds, but he returned, the “om” still resounding like a cymbal that’d been struck and sustained its vibration indefinitely. He held the seal with a pair of rubber-tipped salad tongs, then set it where the candle I’d thrown at him had stood before I’d knocked it over.

  Suddenly, his humming ceased as if it was also a candle that’d been snuffed. The city’s roar and bustle returned to my ears. My feet were free, and I backed out of the ring, careful to not step on any of the tiny flames. They flickered away as if they’d been set around a bathtub for a night of bubbles and books, not whatever this was.

  “One drop did all that…” The shop owner gasped, wide-eyed. “If you ever need money, I will pay you handsomely for a single vial of your blood!” He called out to me in a rush, his face blanching as he tried to follow my stumbling mad dash for the exit. “Miss? I didn’t get your name! Please! Take my card; have the seal! Anything! Please! It’s truly an honor!”

  But I was running, crashing through displays in wooden-legged desperation to escape into the night. My muscles weakened with terror as I pulled open the door, but I squeezed through, tripping off the sidewalk. The street was eerily quiet. I braced myself against what happened, and half ran, half wobbled as fast as I could down the alleyways toward my car.

  Yeah, that was the second-worst first date I ever had involving necromancers.

  What’s the worst one
, then? Well, I’m glad you asked.

  Chapter 1 – Does the Bluebird

  I’d always been pretty good at reading people, even as a kid. No matter how much a person tried to hide who they really were, in time, their mannerisms and ways of phrasing things always led me right back to the soul behind the smile. In the workplace, it was a little harder to tell what a person was like from shallow first impressions.

  This guy, for example, seemed to think he was beyond the mundane rabble who went through his door every day. Mr. Ortiz sat heavily across the desk from me with his nice-looking, inexpensive watch ticking on his wrist, plying me with question after question from a list.

  His cheap, ostentatious cologne filled the room so thick I thought I might choke. His head tipped back just enough that he was always looking down at me. That meant I had to stare past his somewhat pretentious goatee to catch his expressions as they darted across his face. He was downright inscrutable in the interview room, not because he kept his expression blank. More like a marquee board scrolling too fast to read.

  “And what makes you the ideal candidate for this role, Miss Grantham?” His pen paused over a notepad tucked into his surprisingly-impressive leather binder. It probably cost more than his desk.

  I perched on the edge of my chair before delivering my best-rehearsed line. “Because, besides my training and experience, I’m relentlessly passionate about helping people find companionship. As a creative developer, you’ll find me uniquely fitted to the position.”

  “Splendid!” Mr. Ortiz didn’t quite manage to convey “splendid” from his expression, which barely cracked a smile. “Expect an email with your placement this afternoon. HarmonE will have the perfect spot for you on one of our design teams.” He held out a hand to shake mine, then returned to his notepad. “Your internship ends this week, correct?”

  “Yes, Friday.” I nodded, wondering if he realized how close we were to that date. “That’s… tomorrow, isn’t it?”