Christopher Buehlman - The Necromancer's House

“Continuous spells? Like what?”

“Health. Youth. Luck. One well-cast luck spell in Vegas and a user can clean up. Only not in the MGM Mirage casinos—Mandalay Bay, Bellaggio, I forget the rest but I have a list—they have users working for them, kicking others out. Or worse.”

“Youth, huh? You running one of those right now, Mr. Looks Thirty-Five?”

“You should know. Try to detect it.”

She closes her eyes.

“Open them and think about what you want to know.”

Now she looks at him, really looks at him. Then she feels it, subtle as cat’s breath. The hairs on her forearms stand up just a little.

“You vain motherfucker. So you can’t flick the lighter or you’ll get liver spots?”

“I’m a bit stronger than that,” he says, and the lighter sparks, lights up, Andrew smiling with his hands behind his head. “It’s just that I have to focus more. It’s easier just to light it by hand. It’s like Skype.”

“Excuse me?”

“Skype. It’s…”

“I know what it is, what’s the relevance?”

“I used to have a crystal ball.”

“Sounds like a song title.”

He sings.

He pauses.

“Can’t think of a rhyme?”

“No.”

“Just say it.”

“It was a bit of a pain in the ass. The other person had to have a glass something-or-other with exactly the same spell cast into it, and you both had to concentrate; if you got distracted, the image faded or distorted or went away. You’re about to ask if my fishbowl rang, and it did. Really, it quivered when the other person wanted to talk, but I taped a little bell to it.”

“I was going to ask if there was a fish in it.”

“There used to be, before I enchanted it. I’m not good with fish.”

“No, you’re good with cars and dead people. And you’re intuitive, like me. Who’s a plodder?”

“I know one.”

“Powerful?”

“Scary powerful. Young, too. Lives in Lincoln Park. Chicago. And she’s working on a project for me right now.”

Chicagohoney85:The Mikhail Dragomirov you’re looking for is Mikhail “Misha” Yevgenievich Dragomirov. Born December 1943. He was one of the few non-Jewish members of a crime organization that came over during the détente of the early eighties. He lived in Brighton Beach, which some called Little Odessa, but he wasn’t from Odessa. He knew these guys from the army. His family has long ties to the Russian military, most notably with the great-uncle Mikhail Dragomirov he was probably named for, a Sean Connery–looking geezer who wrote extensively on 19th-century tactics. Died of heartbreak in 1905 when the Japanese kicked Russia’s ass with 20th-century tactics. The dad, Yevgeny, was no slouch, either. Fuckton of medals in WW2. Tank commander, T-34. Only an efreitor, like a corporal, but survived three bullet wounds, crawled out of two burning tanks and killed more Germans than bad Bratwurst. Serious badass.

Ranulf:Where was he from?

—The great-uncle, the badass dad, or your guy?

—All three.

—Big bear, the Ukraine. Daddy bear, a village near the Volga. Baby bear, Gorky, now called Nizhny Novgorod.

A chill runs down Andrew’s spine and he actually leans away from his computer, as if away from the memories the word Volga stirs in him.

Fu fu fu, I smell Russian bones.

He feels sweat moisten his palms. He rubs these on his pants.

—Where is little Dragomirov now?

—I should be asking you that. He disappeared from his summer cabin in Sterling. New York State. Like a few miles from you, right?

—Does it look mobbish? Old business coming back for him?

—Not likely. Everybody liked him. He was so good with numbers that three separate bosses used him to help cover their gasoline schemes, and so charming and funny the Luccheses didn’t whack him when they got Resnikoff. But he hung on until the early nineties when they opened that big, flashy nightclub, Rasputin’s . Meanwhile, new Russian mob was coming over in droves, lots of it with ex-Spetsnaz muscle. FBI got interested because these guys were as big as the Italians now, at least locally. Mikhail Dragomirov felt it getting hot, took off to St. Petersburg (Florida, not Russia), married a stewardess who also modeled at boat shows and bought a couple of condos. She died, he sold the condos, and now he just tools around with his dog gambling and frequenting on-line escorts. He looooves the shit out of Vegas. And Cirque du Soleil. I think he saw Ka seven times. And Avenue Q. If someone was going to make him sleep with the fishes, they would have done it back in the day.

Andrew blinks at the screen, rubs his chin. “Sleep with the fishes”? Was that intentional? Does she know about Nadia?

—Jesus, old man, you hang out with a rusalka? I didn’t know there were any of those in the west. WTF, he comes all the way to America to get drowned by a Russian mermaid?

—Are you actually reading my thoughts over the Internet? And is this conversation veiled?

—Facebook knows more about you than I do. And computers are my specialty. You’d be amazed ;)

So saying, Radha appears in a box on the screen (half Iranian on her father’s side but she says Persian—pale skin, dark hair, she is a honey), showing her hands. Text nonetheless continues to scroll.

—And I don’t have unveiled conversations, except on BS social media as a front. If I weren’t veiling this, I’d Skype you, because you type like a trained seal using his nose. I’m the go-to girl for like 40 of our sort… you think I’m going to let homeland security read this stuff? Try to print this conversation, I dare you.

Andrew likes dares. He prints. The printer slowly whines out not text, but a photograph. Him on the toilet, pants around ankles, long hair down, reading a copy of Timber Home Living , his favorite magazine. The picture is from this morning, from the angle of the polished brass mirror over the sink. A corner of his cell phone winks on the toilet’s tank, just behind him, indicating the electronic fingerhold she used to get in. Normally brass mirrors are safe, can’t be used as gates like glass ones, but Radha is so good with electricity and currents that she was able to press the conductive metal into her service.

—You scare me.

—Thanks. So, look, you should know I picked up some magic around him. Strong. Not coming from him, but someone near him, maybe family. Maybe the niece. Some Internet chatter about a niece coming over to help look for him, but nothing specific. I think someone’s veiling on that end.

—Someone stronger than you?

Radha crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow.

—I didn’t say that.

When she uncrosses her arms, she has six arms, Shiva-style, the hands of which she stacks on her hips defiantly, her six elbows fanned behind her, making a sort of Persian seraph of her.

—I dare you to get me info on the niece.

—Not fair.

—I double dog dare you.

—What do I get?

—What do you want?

—Madeline Kahn.

—Ok. I’ll open a trapdoor for five minutes. You know how it works, right?

—Yeah, you send me a DVD of a movie she’s in, and I get five minutes to get her to talk to me. Only she doesn’t have to. She could tell me to go fuck myself and leave her alone.

—Or she could freak out. No telling with the dead. Most likely she’ll use your time asking you about friends and family. You should probably Google the shit out of everybody she knew. And it’s going to be VHS. I haven’t figured out how to do it on DVD yet.