All Of The Dead (a necromancer story)

Lucan It had been six months since Esmeralda had been ripped away from us and been pulled down into purgatory. I’d felt it happen, but she was gone before I had time to even blink. A knock on my door had me groaning and burying my face deeper into the pillow. “Go away!” I yelled. “No. Open this door, d.ick. You can’t just sleep all day when you’ve got bills to pay. Up!” Dana called through the door. “f***k you!” I called back. “You know I’ll find a way to smash this door down.” I got up at that, I quickly pulled on my jogging bottoms, didn’t bother with finding a shirt to put on and stormed over yanking the door open. Dana looked me up and down. “Damn, even when you’re looking rough, you’re still hot.” I rolled my eyes at her and stepped aside so she could come in. “What do you want?” I sighed, collapsing onto the sofa. “Well, one, we need to keep working, so we can have money. And two, you need to stop sulking, get off your a.ss, and keep searching for a way to bring our girl back.” “I haven’t stopped searching, there just f.ucking isn’t anything to be found. I’ve searched every spellbook, necromancy spell, gone to every witch in the damn country, but no one knows how.” Dana flopped herself down next to me and linked her arm through mine, resting her head on my shoulder. “Well, if you’re still alive, then surely those necromancers that were just like you are too. Someone’s got to know something about them. Even just one of them could help.” She nudged me. “I’ll keep looking too. But In the meantime…” she stood and pointed towards my bedroom. “Go get ready and let’s go to work.” She got up, took my hand yanking me up too and shoved me towards my bedroom. When I turned to glare at her, she only grinned and s.lapped my a.ss to get me moving. Work was mostly a blur, I tried to be sympathetic where it was needed, but I wasn’t feeling it like I normally did. I thanked my lucky stars that no one wanted a zombie raised because I wasn’t even sure I’d have the energy required to summon one. All I could think about was Esmeralda, where she was, how scared she must be feeling. It was hell on earth up here trying to find a way to bring her back. I could only imagine how much worse it was for here down there. The spirit world wouldn’t talk to me about it either, they refused to help me break any rules surrounding death. When closing time came, I couldn’t leave fast enough. Dana joined me, and together we headed to the hall to train. These days I enjoy fighting and hunting vampires a little too much. The hall smelt of sweat, old leather and worn mats. The evening air drifting in through the c.racked windows did little to cool the heat trapped inside. I lay punch after punch into the punching bag while Dana did some solo moves. The chain rattled violently with every hit. I punched the bag until my knuckles bled, but I didn’t use my full strength because the last two times I’d done that I’d broken the bags and had to replace them. Dana came over to me and gently pulled me into the middle of the room. “Come on, let’s spar,” she said. I knew what she was doing, trying to distract me from my thoughts. I didn’t say anything and just went with it. We took turns throwing jabs, kicks, and punches before switching into blocks and counters. Our fighting style was a mix of martial arts and boxing. I’d learnt both during the years and Dana had done a little boxing, I’d taught her everything I knew when we met, and it had done us well during hunts. She swept my legs out from under me and I crashed to the floor hard. She jumped on top of me, straddling me and pinning my arms above my head. “Cheer the f***k up,” she said, looking down at me. Strands of hair had come loose from her ponytail and stuck to her sweaty face. I glared up at her. “Maybe I’ll cheer up when you stop dripping sweat into my f.ucking face.” She s.lapped me round the face hard and I tried to ignore the feelings it stirred up. I knew what she was doing. “Get off me.” I tried to break free, but I’d taught her a little too well over the years, so I couldn’t do much of anything. “Esmeralda would completely understand if you needed a distraction Lucan.” Her voice softened slightly. “And last I checked, you two were only dating at the time, nothing serious.” I stared at her. “If you need to use me to think clearly, then do it.” I shook my head no. She leaned down and kissed me anyway. I turned my face away. “Dana, stop it.” She pulled my face back toward hers and kissed me again. I kissed her back for a few seconds before reality crashed over me and I pushed her off, getting quickly to my feet. “Just stop it and leave me alone,” I snapped. She came over to me and pushed me hard enough to make me stumble. “f***k you!” She shouted. Her eyes were shining now, angry and hurt all at once. “I lost her too, and it kills me every damn day, but I know you and I know you get moody and don’t think straight when you don’t have s**x for a long time. It’s been eight months now, so f.ucking use me if it means you can think clearly and get out of this foul mood. Her voice c.racked slightly. “I’d rather Es be alive hating me than dead to me.” She did know me well. s**x did help my mood lift when I was frustrated, and I did think more clearly. I’d tried jerking off but it didn’t do much to help. For months my mind had felt like a room full of noise that I couldn’t shut off. Grief. Guilt. Anger. Fear. It all sat inside of me constantly. I pushed Dana against the wall and kissed her hard, more out of desperation than anything. We fell into old habits too easily. Familiarity. Comfort. Two broken people trying to stop hurting for five minutes. “I’m not f.ucking you, just foreplay,” I mumbled against her lips. She nodded and kissed me back, her hand sliding down my trousers and grabbing my thick hard e.rection. I moaned against her lips and with my hand down her trousers too I fingered her fast and hard. She came before I did and then got onto her knees and put me in her mouth and started to suck. I wrapped her hair in my hand, knowing she liked rough play and roughly pushed her head back and forth on my d.ick until I was coming in her mouth. I felt sick afterwards and moved away from her. “What’s wrong?” She asked quietly. I turned back to look at her. “What’s wrong?” I asked bitterly. “I just cheated on my girlfriend. We shouldn’t have f.ucking done that.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Don’t ever touch me again, Dana. I mean it.” She stared at me for a moment before crossing her arms. “You’re thinking more clearly now, right? I bet if you were to think of something new for Es now, you’d get something.” I almost told her to shut up. Then I thought about it. AnnoyinglyI… and weirdly, I did get something, maybe nothing, but maybe not. “Your friend Diamond knew one of those necromancers. A friend of mine. If you were to get her to meet me again, I wonder if she knew any others or if she has any contact with any others?” She narrowed her eyes at me. “One, she is not my friend. Two, why would you think she’d be close to any of them?” I shrugged. “I don’t know, but she sounded like she was close to my old friend William. Maybe she had a thing for necromancers, at this point I don’t care. I’m willing to try anything.” “See, told you,” she grinned. I flipped her the finger and walked out the building, leaving her to run and catch up with me. “Look, I’m sorry,” she said behind me. “I know Es will probably be mad as hell when she finds out, but at least she’ll be alive to s.lap me for it.” I stopped walking, making her bump into me and turned around. “Not everything requires s**x, you know. I would have come up with something eventually.” She folded her arms. “Yeah, but it’s been over a month since you thought of anything new, and suddenly a little frustration out of the way and bam an idea pops into your head.” “Whatever.” I climbed into the car slamming the door shut and waited for her to get into the passenger seat. Dana could drive, but most of the time I ended up taking her home after work anyway. It was on my way, and she was only a ten-minute walk from her home to work. The drive was quiet. Streetlights blurred past the windows in streaks of orange and gold while rain from earlier still glistened on the roads. As I pulled up outside her house, she turned towards me. “I’ll make sure the meeting is set up for tomorrow, in the meantime try and get some rest.” She hesitated. “Goodnight.” She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek and jumped out of the car before I could say anything. I watched until she got safely inside before I driving home. Tom, my ginger cat, greeted me the second I walked through the door. Like always, he looked behind me expectantly like he did every time I walked through the door. Waiting. Looking for her. My chest tightened. “Sorry, buddy, she’s not back yet.” He would always look for Esmeralda, she’d been his favourite person. I bent down to stroke him and ignored the hurt I felt and chose to feel anger instead. This Diamond vamp better have some answers for her sake. I knew she didn’t kill the people she fed from, which was the only reason she was still breathing, ha! But if she didn’t have any good news for me, I wasn’t sure how I’d react, a p.issed off me near vampires wasn’t a good idea. I tried to sleep, but as usual, I tossed and turned all night. I worried about Esmeralda being trapped in purgatory. She was too sweet, too gentle, too innocent, she didn’t belong in a place like that. I knew I should have done the right thing and made her cross over into the light, but my selfishness had kept her here. And now she was trapped in that godforsaken place while I desperately tried to find some impossible way to bring her back. It had been eight months now, eight f.ucking months. Which left me only four months to find a way to bring her back before her mother would come and cross her over into the light. Dana thought I was miserable because I missed Esmeralda and was frustrated about how long it was taking to bring Esmeralda back. But the last two months I’d finally started coming to terms with something I didn’t want to admit. We were never getting her back, we would never see her again. Even as powerful as I was, I knew there was no bringing someone back from the dead. Dana coming onto me today wasn’t what really angered me so much. It was being intimate with her, or any female, making Esmeralda’s death feel final. I thought if I kept true to her then there was somehow still hope, it was a fools hope but still, I clung to it. When morning came I got up for work. I had a quick shower, steam filling the bathroom, fogging my mirror until my reflection disappeared. Good. I didn’t really want to look at myself anyway. Afterwards, I pulled on some jeans, my black combat boots and a muscle fit pale blue t-shirt. It would pass the time until I could meet Diamond. She was a vampire, which meant it wouldn’t be until night fall until that I could talk to her. They could spend a few hours out in daylight, but no more than four before it started taking a toll on them, so most usually slept during the day and became active at night. Esmeralda had been different because she didn’t drink blood, she had fed on the emotions of people, but without blood to sustain her it had weakened her over time. Slowly she was dying so that not even sunlight affected her much. Since drinking my blood, I’d become some sort of a sire to her or something. I’d created a bond between us, my blood had changed her into something that wasn’t quite vampire, but not quite human either. We still didn’t know what she was, but it meant she could walk in the daylight completely fine. She needed to eat and drink real foods and liquids again, and the strangest part was her heart was beating again, not properly, it was slow and irregular, but beating nonetheless. During our fight with Aramaya—The Mother of the Night—Esmeralda had done something to her, somehow she’d used my necromancy through her own body to kill Aramaya. I’d felt my power awaken inside of me, felt it as Esmeralda had siphoned some of it from me, I didn’t think she’d known what she was doing, but it was something I knew a hundred percent that no other supernatural— let alone a vampire— had ever done before. I hadn’t felt weaker or affected in any way by it, so I knew she hadn’t stolen my necromancy. It was strange, it was like we now shared it or something…or did until she died.