Monsters are people too

Maybe the world would be a different place.

I’m at a house party; it a semi detached house, usual kind of affair 3 guys hitting on one woman, the girl is looking for her friend who it will transpire has vomited on the coats.
There is a guy in the kitchen next to a case of Carlsberg; he’s levitating an ash tray, while he smokes a joint cut with rosemary. He’s pretending not to concentrating intensely on the ash tray, but if he loses focus for a second that suckers gunna smash. He’s impressing the shit out a cute girl in a blue dress, petite and red hair, I would say it’s a waste of his gifts but as long as he isn’t manipupating her subconscious to sleep with him it’s the mystical eqiivalent of showing of abs. I watch and light a cigarette as he makes the ash tray slowly rotate in the air and gestures for the girl to wave her hands above and below it, she makes sounds of awe. I watch then walk over and cough, I point towards my cigarette and that I need to tap the ash out. The girl doesn’t even stop looking at him but he lowers the ash tray onto the counter, I nod and say “cheers” in a eastern European accent he says, “I know, my grandfather taught me” His name, his name is Kris something, He looks me over as I look him over, he sees a chucky guy of just less than average height and mid length brown hair poorly waxed up in a quiff I have to redo every 30 minutes or so, in him a see a guy just above average height, slightly lean with blond dreadlocks and a full beard darker then his hair, he gestures to the girl and says “I’m Kriss and this is Jenny”, she gives me a cursory look as she sees me as an interloper, she’s polite and waves high, “John, pleasure”
“Cool cool, well ill just grab a beer and get out of your way”
“One moment, please, your aura it’s very odd, do you practise”
We look at each other for a while, I contemplate telling a lie, like oh no one of my great great grandfathers were fey or sumin, but I don’t have any fey metabolism and whatever this guys grandfather taught him, he clearly must have some sight.
I take a long drag of my smoke as he does the same, he taps out some of his tobacco, rosemary and weed smoke in the ash tray, and I nod.
“Yeah kinda have to, it’s no big deal”
“Ahh another dynasty, good to see, over here it’s all college credit and street stuff, what’s your family teach you”.
I know this might not go well, no one ever likes it
“Necromancy, and before you ask, no I didn’t get a say in it, its recessive in my family I had to learn so spirits wouldn’t ride me like a avatar in World of Warcraft”
This is when Jenny the ginger girl chimes in, “dead bodies and zombies, ewww, that’s just wrong isn’t it illegal?”
“most of it is, yeah” I admit “but to be honest I don’t do any of that, Jenny being a necromancer is allot like having a radio in your Head, and the first thing you learn is how to shut it off before you go utterly insane”.
Kriss nods at this “it’s true Jenny, I knew Necromancer once, not a bad man, mostly gave messages from the dead, or too them”
Jenny happy that her wizard was including her then asks “but can you raise the dead”
“Do you want to know the truth, Jenny” I look at Kris “it’s a little grim”
They look at me like in being dull and I should just spit it out, and I guess I should just spill.
“Ok the truth is, yes I can contact the dead and with enough Mojo I could probably return them to their dead bodies, and scarily it’s not that hard, but if you were returned to your dead, rotting cold body, you know what your first action would probably be”
“You’d go eat human brains?” said Jenny
“No that only happens in films” said Kriss
“Points for Jenny I’m afraid Kriss, pulling a soul out of there after life and pushing them into their cold vessel, has 9 out of 10 times led to a stupid necromancer being torn into pieces by the resurrected and maybe even eaten, just so they can go back to being dead”
“Can’t you control them” I smile
“Kriss you know as well as I do, that mind control is not only illegal but really tricky to pull off, try controlling a piece of rotting sponge as arms come at you to rip you limb from limb, the only real way necromancy has been used like that is depressingly in war fair on unsuspecting ground troops, who are dispatched before they can turn on the necromancer.”
I realise I was lecturing them and stop to drink my beer and shrug. Kriss nods at me thoughtfully, he says “it’s same with Alchemy; people think I’m all BOOM BOOM BURN THE VILLAGE, but to be honest you have just as much chance blowing yourself up”
“Huh I thought it was sorcery although that explains the rosemary”
“You noticed, its kinda both you’re first man who sees that trick”
“Me, no, my grandfather”
“oh” he looks around” where is he”
“Above jenny trying to look down her top”
She lets out a little shriek and Kriss bursts out laughing, she covers her cleavage with one hand and waves around the air with her over.
“Douche” she says and walks of,
“He he, I have to go after her, but we should talk again sometime, come to the club”
“Club?”
“Yes we meet once a week In Jacks, Wednesdays at 8, you’ll love it”

Jacks
I’m nervous and I arrived 15 minutes early, checking my watch every few minutes I don’t see any who is overtly magical. Jacks is kinda a shit whole, it smells sweaty and worn down, the tables are watermarked and the walls have seen better days but its quiet, bored I tune into the voices my Grandfather isn’t about tonight. Being a necromancer is kind of like being an undead radio, the local stations are easiest, I can see the dead if there near me or in the same room, but with a little concentration I can tune into certain afterlife frequencies, there is a lot of the usual undead backwards spoken Latin which sounds creepier then it is, I dictated it once into my computer, reversed it and translated it, and it’s just Hells traffic reports for the most part with some local news updates. I can also tune into the music of the spheres as some call it, Beethoven and Jimmie Hendrix have realised a new album to mixed reviews and a lot of it is adverts for new products like diet ecto plasm and mortgages, oh and the Elvis brothers have split up... again. I think people don’t like necromancers not only because quite frankly we’re a creepy bunch, but because we don’t enforce how great the afterlife should be, if anything it’s just as dull as living but it lasts longer. I’m listening to the Elvis Brothers last single when I’m tapped on the shoulder by Kriss, who has Jenny next to him, he smiles broadly and says something I miss as I’m tunning back into the world,
“Sorry I had music on”
Jenny snorts, quite impressively and loudly “there is no music in here and you’re not wearing headphones dumbass”
I look at Jenny who obviously still hadn’t forgotten about my grandfather Lich-orous ways and I say “yeah sorry, world of my own I guess”
Kriss winks and nods, Christ does he know about Dead FM.
“follow some of us are already here” and with that he leads me to a table at the back with a few normal looking guys, but that’s the point we all look normal most of the time it’s the only way society would put up with us.
“Hello every one, this is John, John everybody”
I don’t like being looked at and inspected by this many people at once, Kriss just casually sits down and Jenny is next to him, I pull up a chair and tentatively say “Hi”
“John is a Necromancer and if I might do introductions” without waiting for consent
“This is Terry, a wood sprite” he’s gesturing towards a man in his 30s business suit and blue tooth head set, five a clock shadow and the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen
“Next we have Mary, a Banshee”
Mary is a pleasant looking plump girl a little shorter than me, with a nose piercing and a leather jacket zipped all the way up, she smiles and I notice she has more teeth then should normally be in a human mouth,
“Philip, who is undecided but says he might be king of the vampires or a Ghoul lord”
Phillip is a gaunt young teen, with shredded jeans and the look of someone who needs to get out in the sun more often, I can smell death on him and he looks me dead in the eyes and says
“Don’t you even think about it freak”
“Trust me buddy, anytime my kind tries something like that it never ends well, and I like sleeping at night, truce” I hold up a hand and he nods at me.
Kris looks at us and raises an eyebrow, and then nods as he get why a member of the Undead and someone who might be able to control the undead wouldn’t get along.
“Moving on” says Kriss glazing over that little episode, “we have Jenny our were wolf pup”
“I’m not a pup I’m just new at this” she punches Kriss lightly on the shoulder
He laughs in that rich way of his, and points to himself “and lastly I’m Kriss, wizard, alchemist and general hodgepodge of conjuring”
“Sorry” chimed in Mary “but isn’t a necromancer just a kind of wizard”
I figure that’s a fair question “Mary, what I do is caused by a link to the afterlife, what Kriss does is mostly internally driven... right Kriss”
He nods and his dreads bounce slightly around his face, “pretty much, and Necromancers aren’t good at elemental magic, Correct John?”
I nod, and Mary nods with me, “oh ok, I was just you know curious”
“No stress, it’s kinda like diesel and unleaded, different things power us”
We sit there for an awkward minute and Kriss says, “Ok we’re all here, anything new with anyone”
Terry knocks on the table and speaks “yeah my parents want to meet my wife and she kind of wants to meet them”
“What’s so bad about that” asks jenny
“Well my mother is currently a babbling brook and my father is a telegraph pole”
“What” I say I loud, “a telegraph pole, how’s that even possible”
“simple he’s old and stubborn, he could move into a new tree but he doesn’t like moving, says he likes being part of the new millennium, the old guy even figured out how to get dial up, he face book friended me, I couldn’t say no, but my co-workers ask why a telephone pole keeps commenting on my wall and I tell them it’s an old uni mate.”
“Don’t your co-workers know what you are?”
“no they don’t if they knew why Terrey in accounting was so pro a paperless office and why even in a cubicles all the plant life around him seems to flourish, I would never hear the end of it, when people think you’re going to put green tights and dance around a fucking petunia, you tend not to do so well in the cut throat business world of management consulting”
He looks tense and angry, and when he gets riled up I swear the skin around his eyes get a little green, Mary next to him spotted this as well and gave him a quick nudge, he put his hand to his face and the greenness just retracted back into his eyes leaving normal fleshy tones.
He continues, “Hell it took me years of dating my then girlfriend, now wife to tell her what I am”
“Howd that go” I asked genuinely curious
He looked at me, and a little smirk crawled across his face “it went well actually, really well, she must have laughed for 3 minutes straight when I told her, she loved me and what I was, I proposed the following week”
Mary let out a little awww and Kriss chuckled into his pint, I smile in what I hopped was a, oh cute story, but I know looked like a grimace I never get smiling right.
Jenny who had been quiet spoke “just let them meet her, if she knows you’re a sprite, she must have figured out your parents could be weird”
Terry rubbed his eyes tiredly, “yeah I guess, well I gotta take a leek” he downed the rest of his pint “any one else want anything” Jenny asked for a gin and tonic and I could have used another pint but I barely knew the guy so I just shook my head.
“He can be such a downer sometimes, oooh boo hoo poor me I have a great wife and am one with the world, if anyone has an excuse to bitch it’s me” chimed Jenny
“He he nice I get it” I said
“Get what?” she replied
“Err oh never mind”
Phillip who had been looking at the bars late night menu in a bored manner said “you made a pun Jenny, don’t worry it could happen to any of us, it’s called humour and it’s not a terrible affliction”
“What do you know about humour corpse boy?”
“Err he’s not a corpse, vampires and Ghouls are undead not just dead”
He looked at me and pulled a pair of glasses from a chain he had underneath his t-shirt and looked me straight in the eyes “actually I'm not even undead, I was born this way”
“Huh that can happen”
“it's rare but yeah, my mother was a ghoul and my father was a vampire, they thought they were being rebellious when the eloped, but when I came along the whole Romeo and Juliet forbidden love thing apparently petered out in the face of dirty diapers, I was told that my diet would decide if I became a Vampire or Ghoul”
Kriss nodded and said “me I would go with Vampire, you would get all the ladies with that whole creature of night mojo, very sexy”
Terry at that point came back with the drinks and I excused myself to grab another pint, Terry gave me a look and I just nodded nervously “just finished but no worries” Walking to the bar I wondered how long I should stay around to be polite, I could hear Phillip say “but I like sun tanning” Ghouls although traditionally not as powerful as Vamps can walk around in Daylight, and in this Job market I could understand the point of not wanting to limit yourself to the night, besides dieterilly they have an easier time of it, you can walk into anywhere and get vast quantities of raw steak, but you need kosher butchers for blood. At the bar I tune into the spheres and try to get the Barman’s eye, but he’s busy talking to a drunken girl who apparently isn’t actually drunk, she tells him this over and over again. Bored I tune into the spheres and then my Grandfather comes into the bar, the dead don’t look like the living, oh they look substantial enough, but when you’re dead you look like you think you looked in life, a better chin, you drop a few extra pounds and you have no pupils. My grandfather looks a lot like me, he died in his 70’s but he looks like he’s in his twenties he wears brown trousers and a white shirt with a jumper tied around his neck, like he’s just a young professional. They also have a tendency to float when not concentrating, he walk/floats (like walking but the length of step doesn’t exactly match up with the distance, think walking on an airport converbelt walkway)
“Hi grandson, finally getting out and about, you know you parents worry about you”
“Yeah they worry that if they don’t remind me not to; I’m going to raise the dead”
“Oh that’s unfair... ok maybe not entirely unfair but you have done it”
“I was 5, who take a kid to a funeral”
“Most people, you’re just lucky I’m a good sport”
Didn’t I mention this, well its true as previously stated that when a Necromancer raises the dead you raise the angry dead, when I was five and taken to my grandfathers funeral, I had no idea what was happening, since he hadn’t been Dead long my grandfathers spirit was just hanging around watching who brought flowers and how his ex-wife was doing, according to my mother (sue me I was young I don’t remember this) I went to the casket and shouted “WAKE UP GRANDAD”. My necromancer powers kicked in and his soul was shoved back into his body and also according to my mother said “OH BUGGER”. The old guy was good natured about it, since the only way for him to get back out into the afterlife was to murder me or by having his body completely destroyed he kept quiet and had himself cremated. After that, I wasn’t allowed Pets (watch pet cemetery you’ll get why), to go to another funeral and I inherited the old guys books and memorabilia from being the last necromancer in the family. He checks up on me from time to time, and he gave me lessons when my parents weren’t around to ensure they weren’t scared shitless and nothing like his zombie moment happened again.
“Yeah I know if it was any one else I would have been torn to shreds, child or not”
He looked at me for a while and said “have you tuned into the spheres recently”
“Only the music stations, gotta say, you’d think the collective dead musicians from throughout history would do better”
“It’s all marketing and factory produced pop just like down here, but that’s not what I’m getting at, people are disappearing John, from up high and down low, I was wondering if you knew anything about that”
I cock an eye brow “come on Granddad, you know I don’t practise that shit”
“Language don’t think you’re too old not to get a smack”
“No but you are incorporeal”
“Anyway oh sorry mortal coming over”
I turn to see Kriss and he clicks his figures the barman who had just put a glass of water in frount of the drunken girl with a slice of lemon, immediately came over and we ordered drinks. Kriss had whisky neat and I had another pint
“Cool trick” I say
“No trick just confidence” he retorts
“God he talks like vampire is he a vampire” chimes in my granddad
“He’s a sorcerer” I reply
“ahhh your granddad” getting the gist quickly,” I thought I sensed presence” I nod to him a confirmation.
“one sec Kriss, this is going to feel weird” I put my hand on his shoulder and tune in his hearing to my granddads spirit, he could hear the old guy but not see him, it’s an old trick but it’s useful for convincing people you’re the real deal and not another John Edward knock off.

“Testing, one, two, three can you hear me young man”
Kriss jumped a little “Wow (insert something incomprehensible here in his native tongue that I’m not going to even try to transcribe) didn’t know you could do that”
“its a talent, If I couldn’t I would have been locked up in the loony bin for hearing voices ages ago, any way my granddad was just passing through”
“No I wasn’t John, this is important; if you’re dragging souls out of places there meant to be, then there will be serious repercussions”
“Are you” says Kriss looking at me
“No I’m bloody not, Granddad tell anyone up there who cares that I don’t practise that much, just enough to turn the radio on and convince people I’m not insane”
“Ok then, but be warned people are going to start scrutinizing anyone like you, I would lay low and be as un-necromancer as you can”
“YOURE MAKING ME TALK TO THE DEAD RIGHT NOW, HOW DO YOU NOT SEE THE INHERENT FLAW IN YOUR ARGUMENT” I raised my voice a little too much and people is looking at me, fuck.
Kriss says “I’ll keep an eye in him John’s grandpa, do not worry”
Walking back to the table my grandfather disappears and I break the link with Kriss, getting back to the table Jenny looks at me like I just let of a really bad fart, and says
“You know we’re meant to be laying low corpse fiddler” I smile to my self
“Sorry Jenny, the dead they call to me” I say in my best cliché gypsy medium voice
“If the dead are calling you anything, there calling you an idiot” says Phillip
Mary giggles and the tension is broken somehow. After what my Grandfather told me I was feeling conspicusios and decided to leave I give Kriss my number before I leave as a gesture that I’m not a complete invalid. I had to think about some stuff, One it’s not rare for a stupid necromancer to try and control the dead, but that usually only lasts for a few minutes till there torn apart (which is also why we’re an endangered breed). Two I read in one of my old books that people used to pay necromancers to raise them after death if they believed they were going to the bad place, but my granddad said people were disappearing from above and below, three why would I even be on any list of suspects, I was a necromancer but I hadn’t done anything note worthy in that department since I was five, so the dead must have a pretty shitty list of suspects.
Walking home I walk by a dock which has more to do with weekend yachtsman then actual sailing I not really paying attention to much but the lights in the black of flats on the other side of the docks, just lights and silhouettes in the windows, Just kind of mope walking, tiredly knowing I need to be at home but not wanting to face another lonely night, imagining little stories about the happy lives on the other side of the water. I didn’t even hear my attacker. I was picked up by a large man in full biker leathers with a red face and I swear to whoever you feel like praising on your day off, horns actual horns. He threw me whole bodily into the water, with ease. Now I would like say now even if I had been paying attention I am not a fighter, If need be I tell people what I am and they leave me alone, but this, oh fuck I’m going to say it aren’t I, Leather, red face, horns this was an actual Hells Angel, a demon, had he been wearing bells around his neck, they still would have been fuck all I could have done about it. In the distance I can hear a screech, tires maybe are there more of them. In the water paddling I look up at him and he just stands there staring at me, he says nothing his eyes are just red embers and he just looks at me. Walking to the barrier he just threw me over he easily hops over and lands in the water next to me, easily floating his belt only half submerged, he continues to look at me, I try to swim but he just grabs my head in his large left hand and he pushes my head under the water. I kick I flail but nothing changes his implacable grip on my head, I black out briefly. Nothingness is around me but I can hear the screech again, it feels like floating, I am floating. Then clarity, the world around me is so clear, even for night, I’m above my body which is now alone face down in the water. Oh crap.
The screech is closer now, but what do I care. Caring about ominous voices is something for the living, but running down the road by the docks is Mary and Jenny, Mary points to the body I once called Home and Jenny jumps in the water. As she leaps her form changes, her shoulders become broader and her arms elongate slightly, I think oh that’s nice at least I’m not going to be a bloater, but Jenny gets to my body at an exceptional speed and turns it over, Mary helps my corpse and then Jenny on to the side of the docks. They look down at me, Mary checks for a pulse and shacks her head. They seem to be talking but I can barely hear it, I’m not sure if cause I’m new at this or if I just don’t care. I’m dead, I died, Id been murdered and wait, I’d been murdered, who the fuck has the right to murder me and now I was dead and would go somewhere and they’d have done their job and you know what fuck that for a game of soldiers. I was, correction AM a necromancer. My now dead body will not give up without a fight. I concentrate on the core of my power, the part of me which is as much spirit as power and focus on my lunges and I punch hard. Now ghosts are incorporeal but I wasn’t trying to move objects I was trying to move a dead body and the fact it was a dead me, should help in what I’m about to attempt. I punch my lungs and my heart and I vaguely see Jenny and Mary jump as my body seems to be convulsing by its own, pushing the water out of my lunges and starting my heart seemed to be working “he has a pulse, kinda” I hear jenny say but I’m too busy, Mary kneels by me and puts her lips to my mouth, She closes my nose and breathes into my lunges and its weak but I can see a door way back into my body and before I think about how much this next bit is going to really REALLY SUCK I take it. The floating and the clarity leaves me as I’m back into my body, but with pain comes a sense of terror in reverse, I had to fight to get my blood pumping, my heart was going erratic and my lunges felt like I’d been sucking on exhaust fumes, but I was back alive, not undead or a corpse with a soul moving it through dark power but actually alive. Mary moves away quickly and I splutter up the last of the water, feebly I say “Lazarus can suck it” and back into the dark I go.

Why do places owned by girls either smell really nice or really bad?

I wake up feeling like id been punched in the brain, and as I tried to remember what I’d been drinking the night before images come to me, the red faced man, drowning, seeing my own body and Mary and Jenny but I wasn’t going the extra mile of putting it all together yet. Judging by the ridge of two cushions in the middle of my back and the crick in my neck I’d been sleeping on a sofa, I decided to bite the bullet and open my eyes. Adults pink was every wear, lilac and light purples for young woman who think pink is to girls but still have a teddy bear somewhere in there room. I feel like a human bruise but reason that I wasn’t dead because this wasn’t my idea of heaven and wasn’t bad enough to be hell, I swing my legs of the sofa and almost fall over as I get up, I move my fingers to my neck and poke around till I find a pulse, nice I have one, If I’d gone through all that just to become a zombie I’d either hop into a furnace or a wood chipper and be done with it. I seemed to be only wearing pants but I grabbed the blanket which was now on the floor (I guess someone put it on me while I slept and it fell off) Looking around the room I see a book shelf lined with DVD’s, Bridget Jones, Notting Hill and a box set of supernatural season 4. I must have been making some noise because I heard footsteps and next thing I knew Mary rushed through the door way and gave me a hug.
“Are you ok”
“erm yes fine, but also trouser less” she looked me in the eyes, she was a few inches shorter than me so I had a really good view when her face turned bright red and she smacked me on the shoulder, she took a few steps back and I pulled the blanket id been holding around me and sat down.
“Can I get you anything” she asked
“no no I’m good, but er not to sound ungrateful but can you explain what happened last night”
“Actually I was going to ask you that, we were still in the bar when I knew you were going to die, and I thought I should tell you”
“you thought you should tell me I was going to die” I let the words just hang in the air and she opened her mouth wide showing all her teeth, I think a few of them actually got pointier
“I’m a banshee remember, I thought it was only courtesy, and I was a little drunk, Jenny came with me because she wanted a little walk, I don’t think she likes you much”
Crap I forgot that was something banshees could do, It would also explain the screeching, when someone is about to die, a banshee lets out a terrible scream, Usually you’re meant to hear it the night before and I question her on this.
“It varies to be honest, sometimes we can use it as morbid radar, I had to scream a few times before I found you, think echo location but instead of whales or submarines we find dead things”.
“Groovy sounds almost as morbid as my deal”
“Fuck you” she smiles “your human I’m a feared creature of the night”
“Touché, ok you win on points but I died last night and I have no idea why”
“YOU DIED, I THOUGHT YOU WERE JUST UNCONCIOUS”
I tell her on how I was able to jump start my body from the beyond and she just gawks at me.
“To be honest it was quite clear when I was dead, but I couldn’t have done it without the kiss of life, so er thanks I guess”
We awkwardly look at each other and I hear a kettle go click in the back ground, “coffee” she asks and I nod. I adjust the Blanket and take a good breath, the place smelled like flowers and candles it was kinda refreshing considering how much my place smells like moss and the dwelling of someone who doesn’t have visitors (think old pants and fart musk). I adjust my blanket slightly and rub one of my shoulders, I was still sore but I had to leave soon. I had to get some distance between myself and whatever the red skinned man was. I know he looked like a demon but, he couldn’t have been. I’ve never seen one but my grandfather once told me that demons and angels exist purely as powerful spiritual beings caretakers to the worlds beyond that need them. Although if souls were missing and the only order they were going on was FIND NECROMANCER, KILL NECROMANCER, HAVE A BIG OLD GANGBANG then I was fucked, would angels be coming after me. I couldn’t draw any one else into this. Mary came back and handed me a cup of instant coffee, I’m a monumental coffee snob but you don’t critique the woman who’s saved your life.
“er Mary I was wondering can I have my clothes back”
“Sorry John there still in the wash but you can borrow some of my exes if you need to go”
“Er yeah cools”
“But I should possible warn you he was kinda a nerd”
“Anything would be fine”
I leave her flat 20 minutes later in a pair of black cargo pants a red t-shirt with a star trek pointed insignia and the text “Lazar Fodder” beneath it, I also borrowed the tattiest black leather duster I had ever come across and Mary assured me I could set burn it once I got home, obviously there was some history from the previous owner that I was not going to ask about. It’s not surprising really, sometimes people like the idea of shacking up with monsters but have a tendency to freak out when they get all human on them, hay some people aren’t scared of waking up with missing vital organs but mention commitment and then watch the holy water fly.