Christopher Buehlman - The Necromancer's House

He drives Eric’s car a few blocks from the cemetery, parks it on Indian Drive just off the roundabout that encloses the mound. The mound is Adena Indian, not Shawnee; the Adena were all done here by the time Jesus popped his first pimple.

He hops the little fence around the base of it, remembering how irreverent he and the other kids were to it, how he dubbed it the “earth boob,” smoked his first joint on it on a moonless night in November 1975, its three trees holding on to the year’s last leaves. That wasn’t so bad, but then he took a good long piss against one of those trees to make his friends laugh.

They did, but they didn’t mean it.

He made himself laugh, too.

He remembers the dream he had that night. He was tied to the tree he had pissed on and a man with actual strawberries for eyes danced around him, periodically jabbing at his face with a dead porcupine on the end of a spear. The porcupine smelled rank. He was sure he would be blinded by a final, decisive thrust, and then, suddenly, painfully, he was. Apparently he had not fully voided his bladder earlier, because he woke up in cold, pissy sheets.

He never urinated on the Adena burial mound again.

He just sits there for ten minutes.

The sun warm on his face.

Warmer here than in New York.

And then he goes.

Haint’s picture comes up on Andrew’s phone.

He’s smiling, leering toothily at the camera on his computer.

Standing far enough away so Andrew can see around him, behind him—he gets his best view to date of Haint’s portable apartment.

The dreddy violin player lounges behind the hoodoo man, smoking an immense, poorly rolled joint that looks like it wants to fall apart. An iguana watches from the arm of the sofa, serenity made flesh. Bricks behind the couch, a shelf with an altar of sorts, big leather Bible, a jar of dice. Candles. Four Thieves vinegar. Junk-sculpture art on the walls. The most clearly visible piece looks like an iron sun—chains of different gauges and states of oxidization arranged in rows forming a ferrous circle, at the center of which hangs a malign, rusted bear trap, cocked and ready.

Isn’t hard to guess what that thing does if the wrong person comes in.

Neither Haint nor Andrew speaks for a moment.

“I like it that you don’t say hello. You’re waitin’ for news and that’s all you want to hear, and anything else is bullshit.”

Andrew blinks his icon eyes, feels the stirrings of elation; Haint seems pleased with himself. He has good news.

Could it be?

Haint holds up a lambskin covered in dried blood, a smile-shaped gash letting a flap of it hang. Haint begins to dance, showing off the skin, then begins to sing.

“Ding-dong, your bitch is dead, she’s really dead, I killed her dead, ding-dong, your Russian bitch is deeeeeeaaad.”

The man on the couch blinks through the cannabis smoke wreathing his head, as if it has only just occurred to him that his eccentric host might really kill people. He seems to reject the idea, takes another puff, leans close to exhale his smoke in the iguana’s face. As if doing it a favor. Only makes it blink.

Andrew’s heart is racing; his breath comes in little hitches. He remembers the hut, the last time he thought she was dead. The ancient, ghoulish thing. You don’t get ancient being killed easily, but this is a new age. Technology just might have made her vulnerable. Haint’s cursed Ephesian knife married to satellite photography, swooping down like some drone’s missile to kill the witch in her own garden.

Help me, bomber!

He pushes his old fear down, clings to the hope Haint offers him. The evidence on the skin.

So much of it.

“You’re sure?”

Haint doesn’t speak.

Then he does.

“That little smudge there, that’s my blood, to prime the knife. The rest of this, all of this, come outta her. I seen it in my mind. She was hunchin’ in her garden, digging up a turnip or something, and she didn’t even see the shine on the knife blade. Not that there was much shine, man, that’s some hunka deep dark woods. But I went zip and she went gaa! And it wasn’t no harder than this—”

So saying, he lunges fluidly backward, plucks up the iguana by the tail and whips it hard against the floor, holding it up so Andrew can see its last spasms. He forces himself not to show disgust in his eyes, his calm eyes. The dreddy man is not so poised. Haint’s speed and brutality have startled him, made him drop the spliff all over himself, burn himself, say “FUCK, man!”

“FUCK, man!” Haint mocks him, throwing the limp reptile on him now, causing the musician to leap to his feet, still swatting at the ember on his pants.

Drops of blood from the lizard’s head have spotted his T-shirt.

“Not COOL!” he says, looking less frightened than he should be.

This is so much worse than not cool!

Get out of there!

Haint looks at Andrew, eyebrows comically raised as if to say, Can you believe this guy?

“Verify, then bring the hand,” he tells Andrew.

Sounding happy with himself.

Andrew nods.

Should turn off his phone but can’t.

This is a user’s biggest weakness: the need to know what happens, how things work, to see what others don’t get to, no matter how cruel and ugly it is. Especially if it’s cruel and ugly.

The dreddy man gathers up his canvas bag, stomps off behind Haint, then stomps back in the other direction.

“Where’s the fucking door?” he says.

Haint raises his eyebrows again.

Rubs his hand front-to-back along the neatly scarred ridges of his scalp.

Turns off the camera.

Leaves the sound on.

Knows Andrew will listen.

Is doing this for Andrew because he likes him and wants him awed and uncomfortable and repulsed.

Haint only respects other users.

“Are you really telling me what’s cool and what’s not cool in MY house?”

“Just where’s the door, I’m outta here.”

“You THINK you’re outta here, but you ain’t gone yet.”

“Look, we’re good, man, I just want the door.”

“We ain’t good, man . It’s my door, man , and you only gonna use it when I say so.”

“Put that down.”

Andrew’s finger hovers over the end call button, but of course he can’t press it.

“There you go, tellin’ me what to do in my house…”

They speak over each other.

“Please, just…”

“In MY fuckin’ HOUSE!”

“I want to go…”

“A man’s home is my castle, and you are in my CASTLE…”

“Okay, okay, calm down… I mean let’s…”

“And in my CASTLE, you do not refuse my HOSPITALITY.”

“Okay, please don’t…”

“Eat it.”

Silence.

“I like your cookin’ and I like your playin’ so Imma give you this chance. Imma make the door come back and let you outta here if you eat this motherfucker. All of it.”

“Please.”

“PLEASE NOTHIN’ I AIN’T IN THE PLEASE BUSINESS YOU EAT THAT FUCKIN’ THING.”

Silence.

“Here’s some hot sauce.”

Call ended.

Michael Rudnick drives his old pickup truck to Anneke’s house, following a small, golden finch. It perches in trees near the turns he’s supposed to take, flutters around and flies on to the next turn. The birds he charms to guide him fall behind him on the interstates, but he doesn’t need them on the interstates. Maps work just fine there. He only calls a guide bird on the sort of rural roads so many American users choose to live near. Users are a solitary breed, after all, more big cat than wolf.