Kelly Gay: The Darkest Edge of Dawn

“No,” Liz said. “We need to raise her away from the others. That empty storage room I passed up front should work.” Her voice dropped to a low mutter as she bent to grab Daya’s shoulders. “Wouldn’t want any residual power to raise a body part … or a dead cockroach. Trust me, that’s no fun.”

Hank and I exchanged incredulous looks over the sunken, dead body we were about to raise, not sure if she was serious or joking.

Liz tossed us two extra pairs of gloves. “Charlie, get her ankles.”

I cleared my throat, pulled on the gloves, and then grabbed both ankles. They felt wooden; no shift or give. The only thing that moved was the tangled mass of dark hair that dropped away from the shoulders as we lifted Daya onto the gurney.

Hank took over Liz’s spot, threading his fingers through the canvas handles as Liz picked up her large duffel—the bag, I knew, held all of the ritual equipment needed to raise the dead—and began leading the way to the front of the warehouse and into the empty storage room.

Once inside, she bolted the door and then set to work, using a canister of salt to make a large circle on the dusty floor. Then she used what looked to be a very old compass to draw a salt pentagram inside the circle, three of the points touching the circle at what I guessed to be the north, east, and west compass points. At each point of the pentagram, she placed five black candles.

“Now,” she said, straightening to survey her work and shove her eyeglasses back up the bridge of her nose, “we need to lay her on top of the pentagram, head on the east point there.”

I’d seen enough dead bodies in my line of work, ones in worse shape than this, but knowing what we were about to do … Hank let out a heavy sigh, his expression resolute. It didn’t take a genius to see he was about as thrilled as I was with the prospect of disturbing the dead.

As Liz removed her ritual bowl from the bag and set several additional items on the floor, we stepped over the salt circle, careful not to touch the lines, and placed the nymph in the center of the pentagram as Liz had instructed. As I straightened, the sight made me shudder—the way the body remained mannequin-stiff, not melding against the floor like a living body would.

“Out of the circle. Here.” Liz held out a lighter. “Charlie, light all the candles.”

I removed the gloves, swiped the lighter, and tried to shake off the willies. Necromancy had the uncanny ability to spook the hell out of the most seasoned officers. And I was no exception.

When I finished lighting the candles, Liz took back the lighter, tucked her black bob behind one ear, and proceeded to light a bundle of belladonna. Once the dried leaves caught, she blew the flame out, letting the ends smoke and propping it in the ritual bowl.

“If something goes wrong, break the circle immediately.”

Hank and I nodded.

“There’s a video recorder in my bag. Hank, please set it up and turn it on. I’ll ask her questions. Sometimes I’ll get a vision in my head, too, so don’t get discouraged if what she says doesn’t make sense. Once we’re done, we can piece together her death, and hopefully get a lead on her killer.”

Hank stepped to an empty, built-in shelving unit and, after rolling the recorder around in his big hands and doing a fair bit of frowning, he found the on button and made sure everything was functioning properly. He set the camera on one of the shelves at the correct angle before returning to stand at my side.

Liz took the bowl, the smoking belladonna, and a sheet of papyrus paper into the circle, sitting just inside the north point. A curtain of confidence and serenity fell over her as she centered herself. A low hum began in her throat, which slowly turned into a deep, resonant chant.

The room grew cold. So cold that my breath floated into my line of sight.

Liz selected a stem of the smoking belladonna, and used the charcoal end to scratch out symbols on the paper, all the while chanting her dark, necromantic song. When done, she leaned forward, pried the corpse’s mouth open, and matter-of-factly shoved the paper inside. Very much like a medical examiner who’d seen it all.

The mouth stayed open.

I was really starting to regret ditching the ITF Necromancy Seminar last spring. Maybe if I hadn’t, my heart wouldn’t be pounding like a Charbydon drum and my skin wouldn’t be crawling like a nest of scattering spiders.

Liz took the belladonna bundle and blew the smoke all over the body. As it drifted up, it stayed within the invisible dome of the circle, which was a very good thing. Too much in the air would cause me and Hank to drop unconscious onto the hard cement floor. Liz, however, was immune thanks to her unique physiology—a few gifts passed down from an off-worlder somewhere deep in her family tree. It had made her future as a necromancer a no-brainer.

I chewed softly on the inside of my cheek as she grabbed a small dagger from its sheath and then sliced her palm without hesitation. Blood flowed bright and red into the bowl. After enough collected, she leaned forward and poured the blood into the corpse’s mouth.

The paper inside crackled as though on fire.

Carefully Liz made an unbroken blood line from the corpse’s mouth, down the neck, along the shoulder and arm to the palm. Then she sat back down and placed her own wounded palm into the corpse’s, making an unbroken blood link—her living blood flowing into the body of the dead nymph.

The blood line began to glow. Very subtle, but there. The connection was made. Liz was feeding her life force through her unique blood, reanimating the dead.

Slowly, very slowly, the body softened against the floor, no longer stiff but still gray and sunken and … dead.

The nymph’s jaw popped suddenly, and she gasped, drawing in a long, wheezing breath as air filled her collapsed lungs. Liz continued chanting, her eyes closed, and her posture confident.

Like a puppet on a string, Daya Machanna sat up straight. Several vertebrae cracked, each sickening pop echoing off the walls and making me wince.

Hank’s arm rubbed against my shoulder. My fists closed at my sides as I resisted the urge to grab his hand out of pure horror. The corpse’s eyes snapped open, unfocused and grayed over. A ring of blood painted her lips, a trickle forming at one corner.

“Tell us what is left,” Liz said calmly, opening her eyes. “Tell us your last moments.”

Daya’s jaw worked, opening and closing with a horrible breaking sound. Her blood-wet lips smacked together like a fish. Sounds tried to come out, humming deeply through her throat, but not reaching fruition. After several disgusting seconds of smacking and moaning, she had voice. Scratchy, wheezing, but audible.

“Darknessssss … hurtssssss …”

“Your life was taken from you, Daya,” Liz told her. “You must remember what happened. What do you see?”

After a false start and blood spurting out of her mouth like spittle, she murmured, “Terrace. Touching the sky. The darkness. Red like fire … like fire.” Daya coughed up blood. Her hand moved slowly to push some of it back into her mouth, her expression appearing more sentient, more aware that she needed to keep this blood, that she liked this blood.

“Then what happened? What came next?”

“Light.” Gasp. “The ring and … the light … mine … it’s mine … into the hand that …” She froze. “DAMN YOU!” Hank and I jumped. Red spittle flew across the circle. “I DON’T WANT TO DIE!”

The blood line glowed brighter.

“EVEN FOR A CAUSE! FUCK YOUR STUPID CAUSE! I WANT MY LIFE BACK! ” The nymph’s body doubled over. Liz’s face became strained. I stepped forward, but she put out a hand, signaling me: not yet.