Flash Fiction No. 56

#flashfiction

Death Wish
A continuation of Drink to Death

She smoothed her hand through her wet hair, dried blood clinging to her fingers. Death had healed her wound, but not her heart.

The track clattered overhead. The thing about being a necromancer was that you belonged to death. And nobody killed death’s pets, but death.

She rolled her neck, clicking out the aches. Time had barely passed in the mortal realm, yet she’d felt as if she’d spent years in the afterlife. Her fear was gone. The vial splintered beneath her shoe, squeezing drips of potion into the puddles beneath. It wasn’t needed any more. Death had shown her that there was nothing to be afraid of, that the souls she could see and the bodies she could resurrect wouldn’t hurt her.

Because nobody crossed death.

The shaman had disappeared into the slanted shimmer, utterly vanquished by the cold rain. She had no idea how to track, but now she didn’t need to. Her eyes opened on the water wide without seeing.

She stepped into the shower. Rain slaked her clothing, saturating her already too soaked hair, as she moved with a steady purpose. Death curled around her. It brought its ghosts, toying with her wet locks and letting its children whisper in her ear.

They had seen the shaman. They had followed him.

Now they were leading her there.

The army of grey spectres fluttered beneath the shimmering spatter, keeping close by her side. Death danced and swirled between her and them, an eager child holding the family outing joyfully together. It loved its necromancers, its walkers of the living and the dead. Their souls were so eager to pass on though their bodies were not. And she was no different.

But it had changed its mind.

As much as it loved her and wanted her where she belonged, it would not allow this murder. It would not allow this mortal to toy with its darlings.

Her fingertips grazed the rusted door. The shaman was hunkered down inside, smoothing his fingers along the bone that she had acquired him. From her place at the door she could still hear the dead necromancer’s screams coming from the soul still trapped inside his mortal shell.

She set her teeth and pushed the door.

The shaman’s gaze flicked angrily up. He absorbed her single figure in the empty doorframe, the silver torrent backlighting her darkness. To him she was nothing, a mere necromancer with no powers but to wake the dead. Dead was something she should be.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he railed from the shabby altar. Candlelight scraped his hollowed out face, blackening the bags below each socket.

Her gaze ran over the ritual table. He’d had everything he needed to raise and trap a dead necromancer. Everything except the bones that were tied to the last dregs of the murder victim’s soul.

And she’d given him that.

Her hands clenched, rain trickling across her heated skin. Ghosts seethed in the air around her. They whispered their pain and hatred of the shaman as death glowed in the girl’s insides.

“I’m putting an end to this,” she murmured and stepped forward, the door clanging shut behind her…

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5 thoughts on “Flash Fiction No. 56”

  1. Usually when it comes to other writer's necromancers, I expect a pale skinned slap fight with an occasional spell thrown out to distract. I sense your necro's are going to rend the Earth with this battle.

    Great work with this piece, the ghosts in the shower (far better than ghosts in the machine, stuck up bastards) scene is my favorite in this work. You did another marvelous job! Thanks for sharing!

  2. Sorry I haven't been over in a while–really exciting to see a follow up to Drink to Death! I like your phrasing that the necromancers are death's "pets". Typically necromancers are presented as in control of death, so I really like how clearly you keep the power with Death here.

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