Nothing But Necromancy (Macrow Necromancers Book 1) Read online

  “They all hopped away. They’re headed for cover—and probably the pond for water. We saw them.”

  Mrs. Atwood looked like she’d swallowed something bitter. “Harmony, the frogs were preserved.”

  Harmony’s head shook involuntarily. A massive engine ramping up outside made her look through the window toward the ambulance. It drove away, moving at regular speed, with the sirens off. A breath whooshed from her lungs. Johnny was probably at the nurse’s office or heading back to class. She didn’t want to go to the dance with anyone, but she’d find him and explain tomorrow.

  “Do you want to change your story?” Dr. Johnson asked.

  “No, Ma’am.” Harmony looked into the principal’s eyes. “I will be glad to find the frogs at the pond or take the money out of my allowance for replacements.”

  “You will do that,” Mrs. Atwood said. “But, Harmony, the frogs were preserved in formaldehyde. Some parents objected to us using live specimens so we changed the assignment at the last minute in light of those objections.”

  Harmony swallowed. “Ma’am, they jumped away. The class even said so when you called on them. You heard them all ratting me out. There won’t be any frogs under the bushes. They’ll go to water.”

  Mrs. Atwood stared hard at her. “I don’t know how you convinced the class to play this prank, but gaslighting a person is not funny.”

  “You think they’d help me with anything?” The words came out like blood gushing from a wound. “You heard them laugh and clap when we walked out the door. They were all anxious to tell you that I set the frogs free—the frogs were croaking and they jumped away.”

  Mrs. Atwood swallowed hard. Twice. Her head shook and she reached for the principal’s desk drawer and the bottle of painkillers, shook out a handful and swallowed them dry, her throat working like one of those frogs.

  “Gloria, she’s right. Every student I asked said more or less the same thing.”

  “We do not need this today.” Dr. Johnson rose from her chair and gestured for the two of them to follow. They walked out the administrative offices past the queue of students waiting and out the building itself. Dr. Johnson led them to the windows corresponding to the Biology class, which were still open with students hanging partially out them despite the fact it was already ninety degrees and only first hour.

  The three of them looked at the ground outside the windows. There wasn’t a dead frog to be seen in the summer-dry grass.

  “They all hopped away,” one of her fellow students called helpfully. “We could go looking for them at the pond.” Several others agreed.

  “Just get back to your seats.” Both Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Atwood said in unison.

  “Read Chapter Five,” Mrs. Atwood said. “There will be a quiz tomorrow.”

  Harmony considered just how much more her fellow students were going to hate her now and wondered if her mom might opt for homeschooling.

  Mrs. Atwood shook her head again. “Gloria, I am not losing my mind. I have the invoices.”

  The two shared a glance.

  Harmony heard rumors that one of the English teachers had already taken up residence in a mental health facility because of a nervous breakdown. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could teach—let alone be a principal.

  “I swear,” she finally said as they were approaching the main entrance to the school, out of earshot of her classmates. “They were alive.”

  Press trucks from the local news station had replaced the emergency service vehicles. Reporters, followed by camera-persons, were setting up at the front of the school.

  “Dr. Johnson, would you care to make a statement about the student who died today?”

  Died? Harmony looked at Mrs. Atwood, who nodded in response to her unspoken question.

  Her mind flashed to her last memory of Johnny Carver’s face, framed in the glass of her classroom door. His voice abruptly silenced, startled, eyes bulging like a frog’s.

  How could the frogs be alive and Johnny be dead?

  September, Arlington, VA

  Elise Winters’ hand shook and hot tea splashed her. Hastily she averted her eyes from the shifting miasma in the corner of the student lounge.

  “Are you listening to me?”

  Elise jerked her attention away from the strangely moving shadows near where a couple of classmates enjoyed their afternoon tea. “Um, yeah, dresses. You don’t like mine.” Elise sipped her tea and tried to ignore the shadows instead focusing on her classmates as they chatted happily about the latest gossip, or the upcoming formal. Her best friend, Tracy, sat across from her also sipping Earl Grey.

  “I’m not sure how I feel about the fashion this year,” Tracy said after she replaced her tea cup in its saucer. “I mean that dress you’re wearing is cute and all, and it looks great on you, with your long legs and black hair. The sea green accents the green in your eyes, and it hugs your frame, but I can’t see that look working on someone shorter, like me.” She shrugged. “I much prefer this other style.” She pointed at a picture in a magazine on the table. “But they’re pushing the style you’re wearing as the....”

  Elise tuned out her friend as something caught her attention. The teacup rattled on the saucer as she hastily put it down to avoid dropping it.

  Elise clenched her elegant hands into fists and buried her knuckles in her eyes as pressure built behind them.

  “Elise, are you okay?”

  She heard Tracy’s chair scrape on the wood floor and she lightly touched Elise’s shoulder.

  “Yes, sorry.”

  “Headache again?”

  Elise nodded, then regretted it as the pressure seemed to slide behind her eyes and made her stomach lurch.

  “Have you gone to a doctor?”

  “Yeah, Mom took me. They even did a bunch of scans. No tumors, anyway.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.” Tracy’s hand left her shoulder. “Maybe we should get you to the nurse. You could lie down in the dark for a while.”

  “Maybe a good idea.” Elise removed her knuckles from her eyes, hoping she hadn’t smeared her makeup. She opened her eyes cautiously and surveyed the cafeteria. The writhing shadows had vanished and the weight let up behind her eyes. “I think I’m okay though. Let’s finish tea before we go to gym. Maybe some exercise will help.”

  “Okay. If you’re sure.” Tracy sat back down.

  “Thanks.” Elise focused on her tea, holding her cup firmly to keep her hands from shaking. She would have almost been grateful for something like a tumor (operable, of course) to explain the things she saw and the pressure she felt. It was a force that demanded release, but she didn’t know how, or what it was. The things she sometimes saw were the stuff of nightmares. Ghastly figures, ghostly skeletons. Angry specters, all mad at her. Usually she could push them away. She was afraid to know what would happen if she couldn’t. Exercise helped. Focusing on the burn of muscles distracted her from the phantasms that tried to invade her life.

  Gulping the last of her tea, despite Tracy’s disapproving look, she shoved back her chair. “Let’s go.”

  “How was school, honey?”

  Elise put her backpack on the floor next to the stairs so she could take it upstairs and went through the large living room and into the kitchen to give her mom a hug and have a snack. “It was good. Tracy and I kicked butt at racquetball, and everything else was fine.”

  “Excellent. No more headaches?”

  Hesitating, Elise wondered what to say. Technically she hadn’t had a headache, just a brief aura or whatever the doctor called it. They’d decided that maybe she suffered from migraines.

  “No. I was fine.” She gave her mom a quick hug.

  “Glad to hear it.” Her mom relaxed and hugged her back. “Let me make you a snack. Do you have much homework?”

  “Not tonight.” Elise took a bite of the cookie her mom placed in front of her. “I may spend some time in the backyard before I do homework. It’s so nice out.”

  “Excellent ide
a, honey. I’ve got a few things to do before your father returns home from work. Dinner at the normal time.”

  Elise smiled, hugged her mom again, and then she went into the backyard. Beautiful weather, not too humid, especially for late summer in Virginia, with cotton puff clouds, pulled her out of the air conditioned house. The hammock by the pond called her name. Ditching her socks and shoes by the patio, she enjoyed the feel of the soft grass tickling her feet as she headed out into the perfectly manicured lawn. They lived in a series of estates on the border between the countryside and the city and their large backyard backed up to a pond instead of other houses. Trees towered around her and she winced as she stepped on an acorn.

  Bending over, she picked the acorn up and carried it to the back of the half acre yard and tossed it into the lake. It splashed with a satisfying plunk and once the ripples had faded, Elise carefully sank into her hammock. She looked forward to school the next day. Dance committee members got half a day out of classes so they could decorate the gym and the hall, and Elise was on the committee. Her friend, Abby, was also on the committee and she had suffered from migraines for years. Abby had told her once that sometimes she had a migraine so bad she saw colors and splotches and could barely see anything else.

  Elise wanted to ask her how she coped and if she’d ever seen anything but the colors and splotches. Like, shapes, or ghosts, or skeletons. Somehow, she doubted it.

  Just thinking about it made the heaviness build behind her eyes. She leaned forward, tumbling out of the hammock and onto the ground as smoke rose around her.

  “No!” Elise punched the ground, hoping the pain would help clear her mind. It didn’t.

  They wavered closer; specters, skeletons, gaping maws with empty eye sockets.

  Stifling a scream behind her hands, she scooted back and tangled herself in the hammock. Not noticing in her terror, she tried to stand, stumbled, and ended up sprawled on the ground, skirt twisted around her, one foot caught in the hammock.

  A dog barked a warning from off to her side and the advancing terrors hesitated.

  Elise struggled to free herself as the specters retreated under the onslaught of vicious barking. If she didn’t know Callie had been dead for years and buried nearby, she would have sworn it was her old border collie’s alarm bark.

  Managing to get to her knees, she gasped as something ice cold seemed to pass through her, taking the pressure and the visions of the angry ghosts away. She gasped a few breaths and the air returned to its normal humid warmth. Scrubbing tears from her eyes, Elise stood and looked at her dress. Grass stains streaked the skirt.

  Blinking back fresh tears, Elise ran to the house and hoped her mom wouldn’t see her. She didn’t want to explain this to anyone.

  “So, Abby,” Elise said as she folded crepe flowers with the older girl. Abby was beautiful, with a mixed heritage that had given her almond eyes and dark, straight hair, combined with a tall, athletic build and creamy, perfect skin. Elise hoped to have skin as flawless as hers one day.

  “Yeah?” She picked up the purple crepe paper and started another flower. Other girls occasionally came by to collect the pile and hang them around the rapidly transforming gym.

  “The doctor thinks I’m getting migraines. Do you mind...?”

  “Ask away. That sucks. They’re no fun.” Her sympathetic smile warmed Elise.

  “I seem to recall that you mentioned that you saw things sometimes when you had them.”

  “Yeah, colors, or blotches, or sometimes it just gets so bad that I see flashes of light, as if I’m looking into the sun.”

  “How long does it last?”

  Abby shook her head and smiled ruefully. “Too long. Sometimes all day. If I’m lucky and take my meds soon enough, only an afternoon.”

  “Oh. Mine have gone away fairly quickly and, well, I see other things.”

  Abby arched an eyebrow. “Like what?”

  “Erm, like, shadows and fog and...” she didn’t want to say it. “And, like, ghosts or something.”

  Abby arched her other eyebrow and stared at Elise for a moment. “Are you being serious?”

  She nodded, trying to look earnest and sincere. She didn’t want Abby to think she was making fun of her or something.

  “That doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever experienced.” She finished her crepe flower rapidly.

  “Um, yeah, well, it’s been weird, and no, I’m not taking drugs. I think one of the blood tests they did was a screening, though they didn’t tell me that.”

  Frowning, Abby shrugged. “Maybe it’s not migraines at all. Maybe you’re psychic or something. Does your family have a history of migraines or, you know, the other stuff?”

  “Uh....” She hadn’t even considered that. It sounded so strange. “That’d be really weird. And I have no idea. I’m adopted, remember?”

  “Oh, right. Sorry. Well, hopefully your ghosts stay away.”

  “Yeah, hopefully.” Elise folded a flower and concentrated on what she was doing instead of the mounting pressure behind her eyes

  Wincing, she tied another, and another, as fast as she could, praying the pressure would go away. Being adopted never bothered her. She’d always known, but right now she wished she knew her family history and the answers it might have provided.

  “Hey, Elise, your flowers look great!”

  She looked up and saw someone who truly distracted her from the pain. Seriously hot, and, according to the rumor mill, currently available, senior Derek Phillips knelt to pick up her pile.

  Her heart skipped a beat or two as she tried to meet his smile with one of her own.

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure, so, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go to the dance with me? I mean I know it’s last minute and stuff, but Tracy said you didn’t have a date. Though, I mean, I can’t imagine why, you’re...” he trailed off as he studied her slack-jawed expression. “You don’t have to.”

  “No, that’d be great. I was just surprised. Yes, thanks! I was going to go alone. This is so much better.” The pressure behind her eyes built, but she managed to focus on Derek instead of the pain.

  His smile turned his tanned, handsome face into something that should have been on the cover of a fashion magazine.

  “Great. I’ll, um, pick you up for dinner tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, that’s wonderful.” The force built to an almost painful peak and she winced.

  Derek grinned again, and her heart fluttered. The heaviness seemed to pop and flow out of her. Relieved, Elise’s smile broadened and Derek picked up a pile of the flowers. With a quick wave he made off with them. Elise watched while he handed them off to part of the decorating crew before going back to hanging banners with some of the other guys.

  “Wow, Elise, that’s great. Derek is super-hot.”

  Abby’s voice jerked her back to her task.

  “Um, yeah, I’m excited.” She couldn’t help the grin that split her face, and, even better, the weight had fled from behind her temples. She almost felt normal, until the screaming started.

  “Ohmygod!” someone shouted!

  Another voice shrieked in terror and one of the boys bellowed to get a teacher.

  Elise looked up and her jaw dropped as ghostly shapes melted out of the walls and flowed toward her. This wasn’t exactly new, but this time other people saw them, too.

  Someone pointed and fell off the ladder they’d been standing on. Derek rushed to the boy’s side and cried for someone to call 911.

  Abby screamed, eyes wide with terror and threw a crepe flower as one of the ghosts swooped toward her.

  “No,” Elise gasped. Now everyone saw her nightmares. She surged to her feet and screamed. “Go away!”

  For a moment, the gym fell silent and the ghosts hesitated.

  “Leave them alone!” she shouted with as much passion as she could throw into her words.

  That seemed to work, as the ghosts backed away from the other students, but then they all turned, and wit
h a howl, flew straight at her.

  Screaming, Elise fled the gym with the ghosts right behind her.

  Blind with terror, she raced through the hallways, trying to get outside. Maybe once she was outside, she would be safe. She heard other shrieks as she ran for the doors, but knew she couldn’t do anything and ignored them. Running on instinct, she bounced off of a wall as she sped around a corner. It helped change her momentum, and she didn’t even feel the sharp pain of concrete or hear the telltale rip as her dress tore.

  “Elise!”

  She thought she heard someone yell her name, and she glanced over her shoulder. Howling in glee, the closest specter reached for her, skeleton jaws working.

  Elise screamed again and turned, just in time to run face-first into a bank of lockers. Pain, real, normal, splitting pain, shattered across her face before darkness claimed her.

  Funerals were supposed to be for senior citizens, not sixteen-year-old high school juniors who hadn’t really lived yet. Harmony needed more than the usual amount of makeup on her pale skin and her odd lavender eyes had raccoon-like dark circles around them. Normally, she’d wear dark eyeliner. Now she had to put on makeup to conceal the shadows.

  Harmony hadn’t planned on attending the services. Johnny Carver wasn’t actually a friend. Really, she didn’t even know him, but he’d gone to a good bit of trouble to ask her out and she didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

  Harmony needed out of the house. Dr. Johnson declared Monday a school holiday so everyone could attend Johnny’s funeral. It seemed wrong somehow to have the time off and not spend it on the service even though it wasn’t compulsory. Certainly nobody was going to take roll—or give them an exam.

  The weekend had been long. Her mom worked organizing a benefit concert for musicians without health insurance. She’d disappeared and left Harmony and the cats to their own devices rattling around on the third story of the big Victoria house, which was mostly her domain.

  Ivin, her mom’s part-time boyfriend, thankfully was nowhere to be found. Harmony hoped that meant he had another girlfriend somewhere and would be moving out. None of the other guys who’d come through the revolving door of her mom’s affections creeped her out as badly as Ivin did. She kept her bedroom door locked and a kitchen knife under her pillow since he’d come in her room one night and made suggestions.