Christopher Buehlman - The Necromancer's House

And maybe me next.

Haint’s eyes squint, fill with fresh water.

He retches awfully.

Pants like a dog.

Oh Christ I can see his breath it’s cold in there.

He claws at his throat, retches up another snake.

Colorful, like a small king snake.

Not a coral snake, that would be lethal.

He’s supposed to suffer.

Haint stamps on the snake.

Kicks it to the corner.

Andrew has just decided to use the hand to stop Haint’s heart when Haint spits on the camera.

A flash of pixilated nonsense as Haint throws the phone against his bricks.

Smashes it.

Call ended.

She’s getting to all of them.

She’s killing them like mice.

Anneke.

Should have told Michael to keep her there; she’s probably on her way home.

No sooner has Andrew thought this than his phone rings.

His heart goes chill, afraid it’s Haint again, never mind that Haint smashed his phone, just primally afraid of what he might see if it were Haint. Afraid Haint might decide to take Andrew with him.

God, I’m selfish.

It’s Anneke.

Drunk as hell.

“I did something.”

He’s still gathering himself from Haint.

She speaks again.

“Something bad.”

“What did you do, Anneke?”

Silence.

The unmistakable sound of swigging.

“Where are you?” he says.

“Home.”

Silence.

“I thought it would be like a leaf. The leaf, I mean. The tree-leaf. I told myself I would just turn it into wood, like a cool plant, and then back to stone later. But that’s not what I was thinking. Doing, I mean. Not what I was doing. I was remembering.”

“I don’t understand. Tell me what happened.”

Swig.

Cough.

A lighter lights, wet puffs.

“Don’t. Don’t tell Michael, right?”

“Just tell me. I can help.”

“Maybe only Michael can help but he won’t help, he’ll kill me and I don’t blame him.”

Andrew’s heart is beating fast.

“Anneke,” he says.

“Andrew.”

He hears a new sound.

Anneke crying.

She hangs up.

“Salvador! Lock the house down!”

Andrew fires up the Mustang.

Anneke goes outside, just wants fresh air on her face.

The thing is on her bed, waiting for her.

She told it to wait and it did.

It’s quite obedient.

She closes the door behind her, stumbles, only just keeps from falling.

Outside, the night is brilliant with moonlight.

She looks up, sees the moon blurry through her tears, wipes her eyes with her sleeves.

The hairs on the backs of her arms stand up just a little.

Am I cold?

No.

That’s magic.

She looks down the path leading away from her cottage, sees a figure. Because of the magic feeling, she expects it to be Michael Rudnick, but that’s wrong. She just left him in Vermont.

It’s a woman in a black silk robe. A mourning veil of sorts covers her face, but she looks to be quite beautiful.

She seems far away, but before Anneke knows it, she’s standing near her, like someone sped up the film, but that could just be the whiskey.

The veil comes up.

This is a beautiful woman, all cheekbones and tilted eyes, quite blue. The cutest mole ever near the corner of her mouth.

She’s charming me.

Okay.

I don’t care.

The woman’s gaze is as pure as the blue heart of a glacier.

She remembers Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen.

She wants to kiss me!

A lip brushes hers.

Warm, not cold.

She has breath like tea and mint and a hint of garlic.

Not unpleasant.

Far from it.

Anneke leans forward to kiss her again, but the woman pulls back.

Smiles.

“I want to give you something,” the woman says.

Russian accent.

“What?”

“A… what’s the word in English?… A torque.”

She produces

From where?

an iron circlet depicting a snake eating its tail. Like something from an archaeological dig. Something from a glass case in a museum.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It’s old. Would you like to wear it?”

This is wrong.

She hears herself say, “Yes.”

This is Baba Yaga’s daughter.

Andrew told me about the mole.

But she helped him!

Helped him escape!

“Bow your head.”

Anneke fights out of the charm just enough to say, “I don’t do that.”

The woman tilts her head, still smiling.

“A pity. Now I think it will hurt.”

The woman steps back, tosses the circlet at Anneke.

It whips around her neck.

Now it begins dragging her backward down the path away from her house; she digs her fingers under it to keep it from crushing her windpipe.

As the torque drags her, she sees the woman walking after her, casually, unconcerned.

Anneke sees a loose stone, a stone the size of a small egg, but something. She uses magic, flings it at the woman. It flies with great force, but inaccurately. She hears it crashing in the woods.

The woman purses her lips and raises an eyebrow, gently claps.

“You should teach me to do that,” she says. “Don’t you Americans do that? Promise to teach students? You should be my professor.”

Keeps walking.

Slippers on her feet, embroidered.

This is the most beautiful and dangerous person I’ll ever see.

They pass a house, her second-nearest neighbor.

An old woman she never properly met.

The woman is taking the trash to the curb wearing a flannel gown bowed neatly at the waist.

Looks right at them, nods, says, “Good evening.”

“Good evening,” the witch says back.

“That’s a pretty dog,” the neighbor says, indicating Anneke. “What kind is it?”

“A borzoi.”

“Do you live around here?”

The witch says, “Staying with neighbors,” in English, then says, “You bore me,” in Russian.

The woman falls asleep next to her trash can, standing up.

The torque keeps dragging Anneke.

The woman keeps walking.

A pocket has ripped off Anneke’s jeans.

Now the circlet yanks her to her feet.

In the moon-shadow of something quite large.

Not fucking possible.

A cabin.

A summer cabin.

On very large chicken’s feet.

It turns its windows down to look at her.

Two rectangular eyes.

Inside, the gentle glow of coal fire, as if from an open stove.

“Izba, Izba, eat this woman.”

The chicken’s foot picks Anneke up around the waist, its force irresistible, tucks her into its open door.

The door shuts hard.

Anneke is not alone.

The Mustang eats the road.

The night air hums and breathes with the current not of magic but like the tickle magic makes—this is the hum of big things on the move, audible as if in the inner ear, spurring Andrew’s foot to grow heavier on the pedal, goosing his turquoise, or biryuzoviy (the Russian occurs to him for no obvious reason), Mustang up to eighty on the straightaways, back down to forty or fifty on the turns, depending on the angle.

Anneke’s in trouble.

Andrew has never been in the military, but he imagines that one of the comforts the lifestyle affords, for some at least, is the certainty of following orders. When the command comes, you obey, end of story. Love speaks in imperatives, too.

The phone was still warm from his hand when he got into his big steel beast, and now he roars west, knowing he’ll find his apprentice drunk, hoping that’s all.