Page 18 of The Accidental Necromancer

The graveyard thing bothered him, a tiny pebble in Brandon’s mental shoe. He’d studied the blue book until nearly dawn, and while he’d come up with a couple of incantations to try, none of them seemed like a sure thing.

Only Stef, with his dark good looks and his goofy sense of humor, seemed at all sure. Or at least, Brandon was sure he wanted Stef around, although that assumed they were going to survive until tomorrow.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Brandon muttered. He’d heard Stef use that phrase more than once, and it seemed appropriate. The gods of the underworld had ignored him last night; maybe the Christian god would help.

Though he doubted it.

“Yo, Brandon, are you up?” Stef called to him from down the hall. The house they were in was a split level, with two bedrooms up and three down. He and Stef had taken an upstairs room, at the end of the hall, so no one would hear them if they got up to anything fun.

At least that was Brandon’s logic behind the choice.

“Sort of,” Brandon called back. He had to have slept for at least three hours, maybe four.

“It’s almost noon, and April wants to Zoom with us at twelve fifteen.”

Even with four hours of sleep, Brandon wasn’t sure he had the spoons for a Zoom chat with SPAM’s organizer, but he climbed out of bed anyway. If nothing else, he needed a Tums, or maybe a handful of Tums. “I’ll be right there.”

And he was, after a shower, some clean clothes, and a floss-and-brush extravaganza. He walked into the kitchen to be greeted by a mug of coffee, a purring cat, and Stef’s smile. Not a bad way to start.

The four of them — Brandon, Stef, Layla, and Greg — took seats around the kitchen table, with Stef’s laptop in the center. He opened the Zoom app, and soon they were treated to the silent vision of a middle-aged woman in an enormous courtyard.

Her hair was straight and parted down the middle and her glasses were square, giving her whole face a mechanical aspect. She started to say something that no one could hear, and Layla leaned forward.

“You’re on mute.”

Looking flustered, the woman — presumably April — fussed with her mouse. After a moment, she started talking and they could actually hear her.

“I understand the experiment last night could have gone better.”

Brandon blanched. “I mean, I spent the rest of the night studying incantations.”

“Where did you get those?” She didn’t sound particularly interested, but there was something in her gaze that hinted the fires were banked, not burned out. Nothing around her looked familiar. Grass. Vaguely modern lawn furniture. Diffuse light, neither bright sun nor overcast. She could have been anywhere, at any time of the day.

“I’ve been studying the blue book that was in Clancy’s things.”

“You found the book?”

The question felt loaded, though Brandon couldn’t tell why. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Keep studying it.”

He nodded, and she paused to make a note of some kind. “And the rest of you? You’ll be ready tonight?”

Stef spoke up. “I understand I’m to be the bait.”

She peered at him over her glasses. “Yes.”

There’s no way she could have missed his gulp.

“Fujita?”

“Yeah, April. Me and my team will be ready.”

She tapped her teeth with her pen, somewhere between pensive and bored. “Layla?”

“I’ll cast a shield to keep Brandon’s location a secret.”

“Good. Well, if you’re all set, I’ll let you get to it. Be in position by eight thirty at the latest. And good luck.”

She nodded as if dismissing them, but Brandon wasn’t done yet. “Excuse me, ma’am, but we can’t do this.” He blurted the words, his mouth taking charge of his brain. “I can’t do this.”

He sounded weak and he knew it. And he didn’t care.

April looked up, and for a moment, they could have been in the same room. “You don’t have a choice.” She spoke carefully, dropping each word in place as if to emphasize their importance.

“People keep saying that, but I don’t think y’all are hearing me. I cannot control the dead. You’re sending a good man to certain death, and I refuse to be part of it.” Brandon stood up, looking desperately for an escape.

She tilted her head, her expression as surprised as if a talking dog had stood up to argue with her. “Listen to me carefully. You. Are. A. Necromancer. We’ve lost Clancy, and I have reports of at least three other deaths attributable to the wraith. There is no one else. You have the gift, and I’m sorry for coercing you, but I simply have no choice. Read the book, do whatever else you need to do to make yourself ready, and be in position at eight thirty tonight, ready to take control of the wraith so one of our teams can destroy it.”

She sounded so reasonable. Rational. Humane.

Wrong.

Brandon weighed his options. He could either play along and watch Stef die or—

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I won’t be party to this. You’re the one with the network of superheroes and spies and whatnot. Come up with another plan.”

With that, Brandon walked out. Out of the kitchen. Out of the house.

And out of the SPAM world.

He’d made it almost a block when Stef caught up to him. “I’m not going to try to talk you into coming back, but you can’t just wander around alone. It’s suicide, Brandonakis. You might not choose to participate, but you’re still a necromancer, and there are those who will want you neutralized.”

Neutralized. Such an ambiguous word. “What am I supposed to do, Stef? I can’t. Not what they want me to do.” He tipped his head back, blinking fast. “Last year, my aunt convinced me that she was a necromancer and that she wanted to create a… a coven, like witches, but death. I should have said no. I should have told her she was full of shit, but… I didn’t. I fell for her line of bullshit and I talked my three closest friends into joining us.

“They all… they all died, Stef. MJ, AJ, and Tom. AJ and I had been buds since high school, for chrissake. I… I loved him. He was the first guy I kissed.” Brandon paused, pressing a palm to his chest, where it had started to burn. “I’m not sure Aunt Vivi even had any power, or if it all came from me and she just channeled it. Either way, they’re still dead. They were good guys, and I buried all of them.”

He grasped Stef’s hand, holding tight. “I won’t do that to you. I won’t watch you die, and I won’t bury you. I can’t.”

They stood hand in hand, gazes locked in wordless conversation. “Okay,” Stef said finally. “I understand.”

Brandon didn’t smile, but something loosened under his sternum, and for the first time in a while, he could take a deep breath.

“But,” Stef began, and Brandon’s chest tightened right back down, “there is no one else, Brandonakis.” Stef’s large eyes grew damp, and emotion choked Brandon’s throat.

“Don’t be afraid of who you are, sweetheart. You’re not being manipulated by someone’s selfish goals, and you’re not going to naively watch your friends die a second time. Reframe your thinking and do what you were born to do.”

There was so much hope in Stef’s gaze. So much affection. Pride. Brandon had to look away. “I think you just called me out for being a coward.”

“I’d never.” Stef grinned. “Well, maybe a little.”

Brandon covered his face with his hands. “If I screw this up, you will die.”

“Then don’t screw up.”

Then don’t screw up. Brandon would have laughed if they weren’t talking about something so critical. He’d constructed a reality where his most crucial decision was where he ate lunch and when he had to put gas in his tank. Now he was being asked to take another man’s life in his hands. “If I do this, promise me you won’t die.”

“It’s about the intent, babe.” Stef put a hand on Brandon’s cheek and kissed him, a kiss full of promise.

Babe. Brandon liked that. He’d never been anyone’s babe. Part of him wondered what the hell he was doing. He couldn’t afford to lose anyone else. But. But.

Stef had faith in him, and truly, there was no one else. Brandon Charles had never been in that position before. He’d never been The Guy, the one others turned to, to get them out of a jam.

It wasn’t a comfortable feeling, more like the cramping stretch he got after sitting at his desk, locked onto his computer screen for too many hours. He needed to find a way to do what needed to be done, and honestly, the thought turned his heartburn up to one thousand degrees.

“Okay,” he said, mainly to have something to say. “Lemme go look at the blue book again.”

“You got this.” Stef’s smile melted the last of Brandon’s resistance.

Still, he had one final twinge of doubt. “You don’t think I, uh, I killed my friends?”

Stef grasped both his hands. “You did not kill your friends. A wraith did. A wraith conjured by your aunt, who took horrible liberties with your faith in her.”

Brandon nodded, afraid he’d start to cry if he spoke. “Thank you.” His voice was broken rubble.

Stef rewarded him with another kiss. “Let’s go back to the house.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Stef murmured the words, more of a prayer than the protest he usually used it for. Brandon’s aunt. What an evil, evil thing she’d done. She’d used Brandon, that much was plain, and she’d created a situation that resulted in the death of his first love. She deserved some kind of punishment, something worse than the hell she’d put Brandon through.

They returned to the house to find Layla and Greg locked in some kind of wordless debate.

“You’re back,” Layla said with more than a little disbelief in her voice.

Stef gave her a deliberately patronizing smile. “Brandon’s going to study for a while, then we can huddle up and make sure we’re all on the same page.”

“Seems simple enough.” Greg spoke to the fingernail he was trimming. “The only question mark is, uh, our necromancer.”

Brandon gave him a narrow look but didn’t otherwise respond. He headed down the hall to their room in the corner. Stef left him to his work. Instead, he took a seat at the kitchen table, a faux-colonial piece that matched the rest of the shabby chic decor. “So,” he said to Greg, “do you have any techniques for protecting yourself against wraiths?”

The resulting discussion gave Stef both practical information and enough hope that he could continue to pretend everything was going to be all right. He almost convinced himself. More importantly, Brandon believed him. That was the important piece. Brandon needed to believe that he could control the wraith, so Stef could destroy it.

“By the way,” Greg said. “Once you get close to the thing, what’s your plan?”

“They’re flammable,” Stef said, willing his smile into place. “Brandon says that’s how they destroyed the one in Virginia. They set it on fire.”

“So, what? You’re going to use a Bic lighter?”

“Maybe you could help me with this piece. I think I need something bigger than a Bic, but it can’t go out, or if it does, I need to be able to relight it on the fly.”

Greg sucked on his lower lip. “Sure. I can come up with something.”

Stef smiled. “Thanks, man.”

Greg made some calls, Layla stalked around swearing at Sparky, and Stef practiced his intentional breathing. Toward sunset, Stef checked on Brandon.

He found his lover in bed, sound asleep. He lay on his back, his forearm covering his eyes.

“Hey,” Stef said softly.

Brandon snorted, lurched, and sat up. “Fuck. I was reading.”

“I know, babe. I just came down to see how it was going.”

Scrambling out of bed, Brandon picked up the book carefully, like it was priceless. “You’re going to laugh, but I read It’s your intention, stupid, about six different ways.”

“It’s your intention, stupid.” Stef closed in for another kiss. He’d never get tired of kissing Brandon Charles. Never. “So, after we vanquish the wraith, what do you want to do with all our free time?”

Brandon ran a finger down Stef’s cheek, scratching gently when he reached stubble. “I’d like to take you out, maybe have dinner downtown, or… I don’t know. Go to Hawaii or something. Drink mai tais on the beach.”

“We just gotta get through tonight.”

Brandon sighed, his smile fading. “Just gotta get through tonight.”

“We’ll be okay, Brandonakis.”

“I hope so.”

It’s all about the intent.