Christopher Buehlman - The Necromancer's House

Ichthus70:Protocol, sir.

Ranulf:I, Andrew Ranulf Blankenship, command you by the conditions of your entry into this sphere, and by the power of

Ichthus70:My HUGE penis

Ranulf:such bonds as I have lain upon you to immediately

Ichthus70:display my WHALE of a DONG

Ranulf:sign off this forum and make no further use of the Internet

Ichthus70:(Careful!)

Ranulf:for a period of 40 days and 40 nights.

Ichthus70: As you wish

BRUTUS:F*** BALTIMORE! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Anneke leans on the car next to Andrew, their hips almost touching.

“So if I get good at this stuff…”

“Yes.”

“Become luminous , as you put it…”

“You are luminous.”

“But develop it.”

“Yes.”

Their faces are close enough to kiss and they probably would, such is the warmth between them, had they not already explored that dead end. The stars sing on, quietly, breaking hearts.

The 302 engine cools and ticks under the Mustang’s hood.

“Will I attract weird shit, too?”

A cool breeze makes the trees say hush .

Andrew turns his almond eyes up to look at the firmament. As in see where Christ’s blood streams in . As in The Tragedy of Dr. Faustus , by one Christopher Marlowe.

Who also played with.

Fire.

Attracted weird shit.

A murderer’s knife in his irreplaceable brain.

A satellite hurtles, a bright grain of fairy dust, a second hand overtaking the flashing minute hand of an airplane far and farther below it. The wonders one sees for the price of a head tilt, a second of humility and presence.

“The entity came because I called it, using a very dangerous spell book I was warned not to use at all.”

Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.

“But you attract other things. Salvador, for example.”

“I made Salvador.”

“I know. But there’s that lady. From the lake. The dead mermaid.”

“She’s not precisely a mermaid.”

“You said she has a tail.”

“In the water.”

“Not a mermaid.”

“Not like the kind you’re thinking of.”

“But she is dead.”

“She died.”

“But not really.”

“She came back with a tail.”

“I’ve seen her here, you know.”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I sure? She smells like fish cunt.”

“One gets used to it.”

Anneke gives him a raised eyebrow that says, Oh really? So you’re actually fucking that? to which he flattens his mouth and blinks his eyes twice, thus responding, What if I am, my Sapphic nonpareil?

“I’ve told her not to bother you.”

“Well, tell her again. I saw her shiny raccoon eyes in the trees more than once, and she leaves that god-awful smell. She creeps me the fuck out. What’s the word again? For what she is.”

“Rusalka.”

“She better not be fishtailing around here stalking me in some jealous fit or something. Because (a) there’s nothing to be jealous about…”

“Well, not precisely nothing.”

“ Nothing to be jealous about, and (2)—”

“(b).”

“Right, (b), I’m not to be fucked with.”

“What does that mean?”

“Let’s hope roosalsa doesn’t find out.”

“Rusalka. As in ‘a rusalka.’ Plural rusalki . And her name is Nadia.”

“Cute. I used to name my fish, too.”

“Do me a favor and don’t ever confront her. Or threaten her.”

“What am I supposed to do if she’s creeping around on my land?”

“Just. I’ll…”

“Talk to her, I know.”

“Just don’t go near the water if she’s around. Don’t let her talk you into going near the water. If you’re scared, turn on your oven. She hates dry heat.”

He’s looking at her with serious-Andrew face on.

“Is she dangerous?”

Andrew doesn’t say anything.

“It’s just that I was swimming and I heard Russian. I could not resist. I love to speak Russian,” Nadia says.

The next day.

Andrew’s house.

“What did you do with him?”

“I took him to the ship, of course, with the others.”

The man rolls his long, dark hair into a bun and fixes it in place with a two-pronged little cherrywood fork, samurai-style.

“I thought you agreed only to do that farther away.”

She nods gravely, playing with the three-tiered necklace of shells, to which she has added the dog’s tag.

Help me get home!

“It is June, you know,” she says. Andrew knows she’s referring to the festival of Rusal’naya, when her sisters dance in the fields and on the roads from Poland to the Urals, luring young men to watery deaths. “I cannot assist myself.”

“ Help myself , you mean. And the Russian thing is no excuse. I speak Russian. You should speak it with me.”

“No,” she corrects, holding up a pale finger, “you read Russian. When you force it out from your mouth, it goes unwillingly. Stinking of Ohio.”

He smiles at her Slavic palatalization of the h .

“What do you know about Ohio?”

“I know Geneva on the Lake. I know Erie.”

“That’s Pennsylvania.”

“Is the same.”

He gets up from his couch and goes to the window that gives on the lake, turning his back to her, his shoulders hard and angular as though the antique Japanese robe he wears were hung on a block of tilted wood. She can’t see his face but knows he is smiling at the darkness on the horizon. A storm is coming, and he likes storms, especially these nasty little June squalls that form so quickly they shame the weathermen. It will come ashore within the hour, bringing Canadian air with it, and he will put on his leather coat and go out to the balcony.

The coat with the cigarettes in the pocket.

“Is not the same,” he says, mocking her accent.

“Give me a cigarette,” she says.

“You know where they are.”

“I know. I just wanted to see if you had become a gentleman yet. But you are still from Ohio.”

She gets up and feels around in the pocket of the leather bomber jacket hanging near the door, pulling his yellow packet of American Spirits out and tamping it against her hand to pack the tobacco. Never mind that he has already done this. She redoes everything he does to show that it might be done better. She pulls one out and lights it, frowning at it as though even she cannot believe that something living (or existing, if you prefer) at the bottom of a lake might need tobacco.

“I feel your… disapproval,” she says. “You have something else to say?”

“You know what I would say.”

“That you hate it when I drown them.”

“To which you will reply that nothing makes you come as hard as drowning someone, and that you’ll come like that for a month afterward. Besides, it’s in your nature.”

“And you will say go to Oswego to do that. Or Rochester. Or Canada.”

“But Canada is so faaaar to svim, and I vill miss you,” he says, imitating her again. He takes the cigarette from her mouth and puffs it, ignoring the fishy, dead taste, as he has learned so well to do in other situations. She takes the cigarette back and reaches for the spray bottle full of lake water, misting her dreadlocked auburn mane until it drips.

“Then you will ask,” she continues, spearing each of the next words with the end of her cigarette as she enunciates them, “What. Did. You. Do. With. The. Dog?”