“Told you,” Billy said as I frowned at it.
I drew it back in, but when I tried to move the leg again, the same thing happened. I moved mine, instead. Or, you know, what would have been mine, if I’d still had one, and damn it!
Okay. Okay. This wasn’t my first time at the possession rodeo. I should be able to figure this out.
Technically, my father had been the necromancer in the family, although he hadn’t made zombies. He’d made something like this. Not golems; he wasn’t a warlock. He couldn’t summon a demon if his life had depended on it, which was just as well because it would have kicked his ass. So he certainly couldn’t trap one.
But then, he didn’t have to. Because he already had plenty of spirits around. Dad, it turned out, had been a ghost magnet.
It was something he’d passed on to me, along with his blond hair and blue eyes and tendency to fall over his own two feet. I’d grown up with the ability to see and talk to ghosts, which I’d assumed was just a clairvoyant thing. But apparently not.
Because ghosts didn’t just like to talk to me, they hung around. And I guessed they liked to hang around Dad, too, because he’d amassed his own little group. Which he’d eventually realized would be more useful if they had bodies like the golems some of his warlock buddies made.
Crazy, right?
But then, so was Dad, or he gave a good impression of it sometimes. Like in this case, because nobody dealt with ghosts. Necromancers made zombies because they did as they were told. Ghosts would give you the finger before mugging you for energy and going off to the strip club. At least, they would if they were Billy Joe. Ghosts did what they damned well pleased.
But Dad had preferred them anyway, and so he’d decided to make prosthetic bodies for his ghosts. And yes, he was a weirdo, but that didn’t mean he was wrong, because it had worked. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the spell he’d used.
&
nbsp; He’d told me that he’d managed to infuse the spell for making golems with his own necromancy, but he hadn’t mentioned how. At the time, it hadn’t seemed important. It was kind of feeling important now.
“Cass—”
“In a minute.”
The whole point of it had been to mesh a spirit with a body. That was what necromancy did—use a little of the necromancer’s soul to animate a body that wasn’t his. It was why they could only make a handful of zombies at a time; there was only so much soul energy one person could spare.
So Dad had taken some of his soul, merged it with a ghost’s, and then just . . . stuffed the resulting combo into a premade body. And Dad’s bit o’ soul had acted like glue to keep it there.
But if that was the case, then why did I need a spell?
I didn’t need to bind another soul. I was the soul. And, according to Dad anyway, I was also the necromancer.
So why wasn’t this thing working?
“Cass—”
“I said give me a minute.”
“I don’t think we have a minute,” Billy said, rolling my eyes toward the door, where a couple more mages had just come in.
Damn.
I started thrashing around, trying to force the issue, and managed only to flip myself over. And apparently this thing was heavier on the front or something, because I couldn’t seem to get upright. Which left me crabbing about on the floor, half crushing my own prone body and vulnerable as hell.
“Cass—”
“I’m trying!”
“Cass!”
“Damn it, Billy!”
And then something abruptly snapped.
Namely, my left leg into the same leg of the golem. And then my right arm into its arm. And then the rest of my body, which a minute ago had been trying its best to float up out of this thing, was now comfy cozy. And what the hell?