Christopher Buehlman - The Necromancer's House

Andrew says nothing.

“Would you like to hear this sound? The sound of America?”

Andrew shakes his head weakly, causing his head and neck to hurt.

“At last! The baby has an opinion! Well, here is the devil, baby, you will hear anyway.”

The head growls then, showing the crooked teeth below that thick mustache. The growl grows into the sound of an engine starting up. A helicopter engine. It opens its mouth as the rotors of the unseen helicopter spin more rapidly, then, as the rotors chop and roar at flight velocity, it opens its mouth impossibly wide and blows a jet of wind, hot and stinking of gasoline, blowing the straw in the stables about furiously, frightening the sheep away and scattering a trio of hens. The idiot brother shields his cigarette with his cupped hands, but it blows away anyway, and he cries.

The head shuts its mouth now, cutting off the roaring wind.

“It’s all right, Ivan. America is gone now, and it is time for hot towels.”

“Hot towels? I like hot towels.”

“I know. Hot towels feel nice.”

Now the boy comes from behind Andrew

Neck hurts too much to turn and see where he came from

somehow carrying a bucket, towels, a lit oil lamp, and a shaving box. The boy has his leg back on

?

but limps slightly as he sloshes the steaming bucket along.

His big brother fetches himself a stool and sits, chin poked forward, loosening his collar. The boy packs a steaming towel around the simple man’s neck and he coos.

The headless body now comes, washes the horse sweat from its hands in the soapy water, unwraps the towel, and then soaps and shaves Ivan’s face, gently slapping a cheek when it wants him to pucker and tighten.

It wields the straight razor expertly.

Andrew shudders.

If they were going to hurt me, they would have done it already

Says who?

“Hurt you?” the head says from its tines, squinting with concentration at the remote-control shaving job its body undertakes. “More light!” it barks, and the boy winds the tiny knob that adjusts the length of the wick, leaning the lamp closer.

“Now you’re in my way.”

The boy steps to one side.

“Good. Stay there.”

It hawks and spits a black clot and then addresses Andrew again.

“Hurt you? Why would we hurt you when you do such a good job hurting yourself? You should see the goose egg on your head. No, we want you well. We have many accidents here. Farmwork is perilous—but what would you know about it with your supermarkets and whores and ghettos? We want you safe and sound so you can heal us, little Jesus. See how you helped Lyosha?”

I want to wake up

“Wake up, then!”

I want to go home

“Who is stopping you? Go!” the head says, looking at Andrew now. The body has turned his way as well, and gestures with the razor as if to indicate the road Andrew is welcome to walk.

With some effort, Andrew swivels his hips over the lip of the manger, but something is wrong, something more than his throbbing head and ground-glass-packed neck.

He tries to stand but collapses to the ground, knocking his chin and biting his tongue. A startled rooster flaps its wings halfheartedly and continues to strut.

Of course he has fallen.

He has only one leg.

Andrew wakes up.

Adjusts the sweat-dampened pillow beneath him.

In the distance, a train.

“Ichabod.”

Nothing.

“Ichabod, I command you to appear to me.”

Nothing.

If it isn’t listening, it isn’t disobeying.

He’ll have to formally invoke it or go see it.

The idea of going to see it in its cave makes him shudder.

Its cave by the train tracks.

And formal invocation is a pain in the ass.

He looks at the antique clock on his nightstand.

One ten A.M.

Just after midnight in New Orleans.

He has a debt to pay.

He appears in the restroom of a fine-dining restaurant off Chartres, one he knows keeps late weekend hours. Knows also that it won’t be so busy he’s likely to have company in a private stall. He gets lucky, appears in front of the sinks, sees himself in the mirror.

Looking older.

Looking fortyish, not thirty-five.

Hair still black, skin tight, but there’s something.

Still beats looking fifty-three… what would that look like?

Before his eyes, his hair goes mostly white, loses its luster; deep lines bracket his mouth, his eyes get crow’s feet.

Not ready for that. Not yet. Go back.

He concentrates, believes himself younger.

Gets younger, thirty-five again.

Pops a blood vessel in his eye.

“Ow, FUCK!”

His left eye goes red; he bends over.

A waiter peeks in the bathroom door.

“You all right, sir?”

“I’m perfect, thanks.”

He’s far from perfect, but people don’t press things in this city, and the waiter disappears.

His sclera will clear up; he’ll still be younger when it does.

It gets harder every year, though; they all lose this battle.

He feels the bulge in his coat pocket, wonders if the waiter thought he had a gun.

It’s worse than a gun!

He goes by the zinc bar where a bartender with retro-lacquered hair cracks an egg, looks at Andrew, looks back at his work, finishes making the pre-Prohibition fizz for the rich young lady in the antique silk stockings. It could be a scene from 1935 until her cell phone buzzes and she looks down at it, smiles privately.

Now his phone is out, dialing Haint.

It rings five times, and then he hears the message.

“You know who this is if you got this number. Don’t fuck around.”

Now the sound of something small and squeaky getting killed by something hard and heavy, underscored by Haint’s gravelly laughter.

Beeep

“Andrew. Call me back. I’ll be at Lafitte’s. For a while.”

He’s there for longer than a while.

A bearded boy in a bowler hat tears up Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” in the back, fenced behind listeners perched directly at the piano, wobbly on their stools. The pianist’s buddy leans against the wall near him, accompanying him on harmonica. Everything is dim. Everyone is drunk. The steamy little building reeks of whiskey and sways with inebriation.

If Dionysus came back, this would be his temple.

No sooner has Andrew thought this than Dionysus walks in.

WTF?

Did I just think WTF instead of what the fuck?

Is that fucking Dionysus?

Andrew relaxes a bit when he realizes the grape-leaf-crowned figure moving through the crowd is wearing a papier-mâché mask. He tenses again when he notices that nobody else looks at it. It’s looking at him. No, correct that; it points its eyeholes at him, but those holes are black and eyeless. Sleeves hang past where the hands would be, but he is nauseatingly sure it has no hands. It floats rather than walks.

Andrew white-knuckles the table.

Now the piano man aborts the Doobie Brothers song he had just started, bangs his hands discordantly on the keys, looks at Andrew, and says, “May I sit?”

Nobody else notices.

They sway and drink and talk as if they’re still hearing the song.

The harmonica man plays on.

“Sure,” Andrew says.

The chair opposite him pulls out on its own and the empty Dionysus collapses into it, the grape leaf garland and mask landing on top, the eyeholes fixed on the ceiling.

The waitress, a depressive woman with a lazy eye and a Who Dat? T-shirt, plucks the crown of grape leaves from the chair and walks it over to the piano player, fitting it down over his hat.