50+ Ways to Annoy the Death Witch
Chapter 1: Call her a Necromancer
Ch. 2 >>
I was on the porch sketching when Callahan showed up.
Callahan works for the Council and investigates witchy doings. Mostly in the vein of ‘please lets keep the normies from trying to murder us all’, though that concern has gone down a TON in the internet era.
You’d think it would be the opposite, right? Everybody has a camera, all the time. Surely they’d catch actual magic!
Yeah. They do, all the fuckin time, and they call it something else. Or they do call it magic, and they’re called crazy. You've seen 'em. The internet is full of people who think giants or aliens built the pyramids, people who claim they see shadow people, or think their neighbor controls the cows, they just don't stand out.
Anyway, work has dried up for Callahan and people like him, is my point. It's a much slower gig than it was back in the day.
Is he a witch cop? Ehhhh... he’s the closest we come. Mostly he’s just trying to keep us out of the news, like I said. If one of us was really out of line he’d take it to the council and let them handle it (usually by binding the witch’s magic), but that hasn’t happened in a couple of decades.
He still comes and crawls up my ass every time some teenager finds an old grimoire and brings back the family pet, or whatever.
I stood up as his truck came down the drive. That was my last big project, taking the gravel out and putting pavers in for the driveway. It was expensive as hell, but it means that I can just swap a paver out if one cracks, rather than having to have to deal with gravel all the time.
I do kind of miss the noise of the gravel, though.
That payday was from his last visit, come to think- usually he comes out because he's stumped, and after he's done accusing me of atrocities and grave robbing, he hires me to help him figure out who actually did it.
Pretty often it's some kid with too much magic and not enough sense trying to bring back someone they love. It's always sad, but that's easy to handle. By the time we get involved, they're usually pretty anxious for a solution, because it has gotten out of control.
He parked next to my pickup and got out, strolling over like he had all god damned day. He’s probably in his late 30s, dark hair and eyes. He lives up in the city, these days, but his grandparents went to high school with mine, in a town that gets smaller every year, and are buried in the same damned graveyard.
I first met him in that very graveyard.
“Hey there, Miss Tabitha,” he said. “How’s my favorite necromancer?”
I sighed. He annoys me so much.
“I know, I know, you don’t like being called that.”
“I’m not a necromancer,” I said, for probably the thousandth time.
“Sure, you’re a different kind of death magic witch. Whatever.”
“A necromancer is someone who uses magic to control corpses, and can be any type of witch. I’m a death witch, my power source is the death of any and all organic matter. Some witches get their power from the earth or the stars or weather, mine happens to come from a different natural force.” I don’t know where he gets his from. For a while I suspected it was hair gel, but he switched to wearing ballcaps.
I think he’s balding.
“And you use it to keep your neighbor’s chickens from getting sick and that’s it, huh?”
“I buy eggs off her,” I said. “Do you want something, or do you just get itchy if you haven’t accused me of something unholy?”
He clicked his tongue. “Well, now, there’s a cemetery out in Macomb that’s had some bodies dug up.”
“Macomb,” I said. I knew vaguely where it was- south of highway nine, east of where I lived, but pretty easy driving distance. I’d have to look at a map to be sure, but definitely a place I could drive out and back from in a day and still have plenty of time to get up to trouble. “You actually found a local crime to accuse me of, you’re getting a bit better at your job.” He rolled his eyes.
“What’s going on in Macomb?”
“Well, like I said, some bodies went missing. The cops say it’s funny, it’s almost like they dug themselves out."
"Well, they shouldn't be doin that," I said.
"Right? Coffins are there, just the bodies are gone. I know you’re gonna say it wasn’t you, but it wasn’t you, was it? That’s close enough that you probably draw power from that cemetery. Even if it was an accident?”
“There’s closer cemeteries. Norman has at least two that I know of.”
“Well, that’s fair,” he said. “I gotta ask. Necromancy shit in our neck of the woods? I gotta ask, Tabby.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said.
“Was it you?” he insisted.
“No, it wasn’t me,” I said.
“Alright, that’s all I needed to ask.” Once he'd asked and I'd answered, that was it, he didn't pester me about it again.
“Are you trying to get my help, or do you want to wander around with your thumb up your butt for a few days first?”
“Come on, Tabitha. We’ll pay you the usual rates,” he said.
I sighed at him, just so he knew I was annoyed. “Let me put some pants on and run a brush through my hair, and then I need to see the graves.”
“We’re taking my pickup,” he said. “So, if you’ve got a step stool-”
“Ha ha,” I said. “Wait here.” I took my sketchbook inside, and dropped it on the table by the door, went to find a brush and change into jeans. Grabbed my kit- it’s just got standard odds and ends that one might need when casting on the go, some prepared spells, all stuffed in an ancient maroon Jansport.
I’m probably going to have to get a new bag soon, I’ve had this one since 8th grade, and it’s really starting to wear out.
We head out.
He’s got a 70s Ford pickup he’s been restoring, to sell. Well, he’s been ‘restoring’ it about as long as I’ve been cleaning the house out so I can sell it, maybe longer, and I've been living in the house near a decade, so. Take that as you will.
It’s in decent shape on the inside, and the a/c works, and it’s matte primer gray on the outside, has been for years now.
The road out where I live is dirt, and then it goes to gravel, before you get on something paved.
He looked up in the rearview mirror. “You know, I just figured it was someone else who lived out this way when I came out, but I do believe I’m being followed.”
I looked in the sideview mirror. There was someone behind us, but it was hard to see them through all the dust the truck was kicking up.
Magic came rushing at the mirror, and snapped it off.
“Rude,” I said.
“Did they just snap off my mirror?”
I started cranking the window down. “Turn left if you have to turn, warn me if there’s a right curve,” I said, unbuckling my belt, and wrapping it around my leg. “But try to go straight as you can, that’ll help me aim.”
“It’ll help them aim, too.”
“Don’t worry about them.” Magic whined as it pinged off the vehicle. “You really should shield the pickup.”
“I’m just gonna sell it.”
I pulled myself out of the seat to sit on the window, one hand gripping the ‘oh shit’ handle, my legs clenching the door.
Late model SUV, something dark. I could see why he recognized it right away- it was a sort of dark red and had an engine snorkel. Also some extra lights on front- someone goes out in this truck. Mudding, looks like.
They had someone standing up through the sun/moon roof firing spells at us. He was using something that looks like a gun. That’s pretty common, these days, wands resembling guns.
Wands are a type of prepared spell, they hold charges and you fire off the charges until you’re out. Most people mostly use prepared spells.
Most people just can’t hold that much magic inside their bodies- there’s an upper limit- and so the best way to store the magic they gather from the wind or the stars or the grass or whatever their thing is to make spells and put the magic there. Even the more powerful witches, witches like me with a larger capacity for magic, they tend to store a lot in prepared spells.
Most sources trickle it in. So if you blow your magical load, as it were, you have to wait for it to come back. Recharge under a starlit sky where the light pollution is low. Or lay in the tickling grass.
There’s some exceptions. Sun witches- rare- basically can refuel constantly. Oh, it’s night? Oh, it’s cloudy? The heat in the ground beneath your feet comes from the sun. The sun is a constant, even when it’s not out. Sea witches, too- they have to be in range of the coast, but within that range, powerful. There’s also rumor of one lady up in the midwest who gathers her power specifically from the Great Lakes, and she’s supposed to be one of the most powerful witches in the world.
You know what's also around all the time? Dead shit.
If it is now dead and was ever alive, even briefly, it belongs to me.
Like his wand, a bit of dead wood. I sucked the power out of his wand, and whipped it out of his hand. “Knock it the fuck off!” I shout. I could barely see him, but he looked young.
He swore, shaking his hand. “Ram them!”
The driver I could see even less of, but I could see him shaking his head.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I said.
It takes a deep spike of power- the older and longer dead something is, the more briefly it was alive, the harder it is to fuck with.
Gasoline, for example, is derived from something that died at least 66 million years ago, so it’s kind of a big one.
The driver managed not to roll the car off the road as the car engine suddenly stopped working, and Callahan came to a stop.
I figured they'd be alright, they go out mudding, they're used to shit going wrong.
“The hell did you do? It took a ton of power. My nose hairs are burning.”
“Turned their gas into mesozoic algae for long enough to shut their car off,” I said.
"What?"
"Gas is made from crude oil. Crude oil is dead shit. Specifically, algae and plankton from the mesozoic."
"Huh. Your nose is bleeding," he said.
I wiped at my nose, untangled myself from the seatbelt, and managed to dismount from the window and land on both feet, which is about as much as I could ask for.
My right eye was throbbing- I’d drained myself to the last drop for that.
Still, there was a dead skunk on the road, and dead tree limbs, and I breathed magic in. The ache receded, but probably wouldn’t go away until I'd slept.
I walked up to their SUV, the driver keeping both hands on the wheel, like I was a cop. “Hey,” I said. “What the fuck?” I put my hand on the car, and converted all the ancient ocean sludge back into gas. That was easier, but it still made my eye throb.
The wand wielder jumped out of the SUV and got up in my face, tried to shove me against the car, but Callahan grabbed him and pulled him back.
“My grandparents crawled out of their grave, and everybody knows they got a pet necromancer around here. I want them back.”
Now, I’m not actually that easy to intimidate, and he was just a snot-nosed kid who’s barely old enough to drink, if that. But he was also angry to cover up being scared.
“Well, we’re on our way to find out what’s happened. Having to stop for your bullshit isn’t helpful," Callahan said.
“Everybody knows it was you.”
“Sweetheart, if I was raising the dead, why would I start with your kin? I don’t know you, I don't know your grandparents."
He looked at the driver. He had bleached his hair and it was a sort of peachy pink that could have been intentional or it could have been to light a pink over too orange a bleach. The driver had blue-black hair that was definitely box dye. They both looked indecisive.
"It’s probably someone who know your grandparents. It’s like a murder- it’s almost always someone who knows the victim,” I said. He's just a grieving kid, they both are.
“But you’re the only necromancer in the state, maybe the country,” he said. His heart wasn't really in it, though. He was just upset.
“I’m not a necromancer,” I said. “I am a death witch. It’s not the same thing. They died recently?”
He nodded. “We spent a lot of time living with em, Mom was in and out of rehab, and Dad… I don’t know. He wasn’t around until we were older.”
“You get your magic from this side, or your Daddy’s side?”
“They had magic, but they say I got mine from Dad, and he gets his from Mom.” He jerked his head at his brother in the driver's seat.
“Okay. Why don’t you get out in front, we’ll head on out to the gas station, because I need a fuckin energy drink, and then we can go take a look. Sometimes I can see stuff nobody else can, and I have a good nose for corpses.”
“You really think you can find them?”
"I don't know for sure about finding their bodies, but I'm positive we'll get to the bottom of this," I said.
He nodded and, almost sheepish, headed back to the SUV.
“Just try and start her again,” I told the driver. “I’ll top you off at the Valero station, that trick probably pulled some out of your tank.”
The car started, and they pulled around us and sped off.
“You think they’ll be at the gas station?” Callahan asked.
“Mmm. Fifty fifty, but they’ll be at the cemetery, which is what I really care about. C’mon, I want a Monster.”
“You keep drinking that crap, your heart’ll stop.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, climbing into the truck. “Let’s go.”\
Ch. 2 >>
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