Necromantic (12 page)

I went back to the emails. Now that I knew where he was getting his tail from, I could start to work to shape it a bit. I began with the easy stuff...deleting the paid whores and anyone else who was close by. At some point, I was going to need access to a car, so it made sense to bring in girls who were likely to drive over.

* * *

Once finished, I resumed my searches from the prior week...curious to see if there was anything else about my disappearance. I found a smattering of interesting tidbits. People on the internet weren’t shy about posting the news, or their opinions for that matter. There had been a few candlelight vigils...that was nice to know. There was mention of a tearful plea to come back home by my bitch cousin Minnie. I’d never known her to care about anyone other than herself. I had little doubt that she had seen a chance to get her jowly face into the papers and jumped on it.

Something potentially useful finally caught my eye. There had been a brief police investigation regarding Harold, but it had been called off. What was interesting, though, was the abruptness of it all. In the beginning, there had been a lot of statements regarding my husband being a person of interest. Just like that, though, it seemed they just dried up. Even a few editorial pieces stated confusion around the quick turnaround. The police, it seemed, had suddenly given up any interest in Harold. One day they just announced that he was no longer considered a suspect and that was it. They were mum on the fact afterwards.

That was odd. Wouldn’t there have been some mention of how or why? Usually in a case like this, someone would have an informant on the inside and get the dirt. In this case, though, there didn’t seem to be. One minute the police were talking about possible charges. The next, they had all but assumed I had either run off or been killed by a nameless psycho.

They just stopped caring about Harold, almost like...
magic
.

I could have banged my head against the desk. How could I be so dense? There was his erection elixir. Hell, he had brought me back from the dead. Why wouldn’t magic explain everything else? I mean, if you’re going to flip the finger at the forces of nature, you might as well go all the way. I didn’t even need to be convinced it was real. I was living, or unliving, proof of that.

I thought back to Harold’s little hobby. He had been into it for as long as I could remember. In the early days, this had amounted to little more than collecting ghost pictures and hosting the occasional séance around Halloween. As time went on, though, I noticed his collection getting a bit weirder. Still, it was his thing, so I never paid it any mind nor really cared all that much. Everyone was allowed a weird hobby. Heck, was it any stranger than my aunt’s collection of creepy child-sized dolls?

The question was: when had it become more than just a hobby for him? I had no answer to that. He had always played it close to the vest in that regard. For all I knew, he could have started taking it seriously right after he killed me or he could have been working on these things for years. Thinking back to the tomes down in the basement and their odd collection of languages, I thought that latter scenario more likely. Even with help, I doubted he could have translated anything useful in such a short amount of time.

Wait just a minute...the translations...Harold’s notes! Weren’t there stacks upon stacks of them downstairs?

I smiled as a plan began to form. Two could play at this game.

First things first, though. I glanced at the watch; my time for this week was almost up. I shut down the laptop and walked upstairs, contemplating with which orifice to wake Harold up. I decided that since he was such an asshole, it would be fitting for him to lick mine.

For the first time since deducing my cause of death, I felt good. I was going to enjoy this.

Chapter 18

Even with Harold’s CliffsNotes, studying the finer points of the arcane arts was a slow and tedious thing. Weeks stretched into months, the pattern repeating itself over and over again. I’d return to this plane of existence, let Harold fuck me in whatever hole he pleased - always making sure I never let my soured feelings for him ruin my enjoyment - then head downstairs to continue with my studies.

At first, it was a nightmare. I didn’t know where to start and his rambling notes often left me lost. I came close to quitting several times, once raking Harold’s back bloody in frustration with the three-inch nails that the body de jour happened to sport.

The only things that made sense were what a quick search on the name Osiris had turned up. He was an Egyptian deity, the god of the underworld, to be precise. No real surprise there, I guess. I had already figured out the Egypt part on my own. Osiris’s story was kind of interesting, though. He was the son of Ra, king of the gods. He was married to the goddess Isis and had a brother named Set. Set had apparently been jealous of Osiris and eventually murdered him for it, not too dissimilar to the story of Cain and Abel. I was a little surprised to learn that gods could be killed, but I guess that made the story all the more interesting.

Anyway, Isis had learned a powerful spell from her father and used it to bring her husband back. He had returned and together they had fathered Horus, another god. Getting knocked up by your dead hubby...kinky. Eventually, though, for some reason, Osiris decided to return to the land of the dead, taking up residence there and becoming lord of the underworld and judge of the fallen. Thereafter, the Egyptians worshipped him for all things spirit related. So I guess that made sense. Harold was calling upon Osiris as essentially the guy with the keys to the jail cell. Regardless of whether he existed or not, it somehow appeared to work.

Sadly, that was the end of the easy classes. The rest of Harold’s findings were far more oblique to figure out.

Things weren’t made any easier by the fact that most of my studies were done while sitting less than ten feet away from my own corpse. Talk about freaky. At first I kept glancing over, sure it was going to sit up. Guess I might have watched one too many horror movies while I was alive. Fortunately, though, that didn’t happen. I can’t imagine what my reaction would have been if it had, especially since dying of shock was probably not one of my options anymore.

Eventually, things started to get a little better. For starters, I finally got used to being in close proximity with...well,
me
. Heck, once or twice I even purposely stepped into the pentagram to get that little jolt to my loins I had experienced the first time. Odd as it was, it definitely added a little extra oomph for when it came time to leave. They say to always end on a high note, and I can think of few notes as high as a body-quaking orgasm.

Even more wonderful, I began to see patterns and hints of insight. Little by little, Harold’s notes began to sink in. I was beginning to see the
magic
.

I saved the necromancy (as I learned it was called) stuff for later, concentrating first on small things: terminology, the various schools of thought, herbs and their various usages...that sort of thing. Fortunately, Harold’s notes were quite thorough. Had he published them, he could have set up a sort of twisted Hogwarts correspondence school...although I doubted many of the students in those books spent their time studying, like me, more often than not in the complete buff.

As my confidence grew, I began to understand the nuances of some of the spells Harold had used. Though he hadn’t pinpointed them exactly, I was able to read between the lines and make some deductions. There was a mind-clouding spell from Central America, dating back to Aztec times. It was meant to cause confusion in one’s enemies, make them see what you wanted them to see, believe what you wanted them to believe. I had little doubt that the local police had gotten a good dose of that one.

Harold’s magical Viagra appeared to be based on fertility alchemy from China. That made sense. From what I had seen on TV, it seemed a disproportional amount of Chinese herbal remedies revolved around making their dicks hard. It served to make sense that they had eventually come up with something that actually worked. It wasn’t just for males either. The concoction served as a sort of mega-aphrodisiac. According to his notes, it had been used in Asian brothels, as recently as the fourteenth century, to make sure everyone was in the right state of mind.

As I learned, I began to experiment. Small stuff at first...a little bit of scrying, this silly spell from medieval Europe to make dust disappear (Harold was never much into housekeeping), and a few others. It was good practice, but it also meant I had to tap into Harold’s existing supply of herbs and components.

That was potentially problematic, especially if I wound up using too much of anything that was needed to bring me back. Fortunately, I had that covered.

* * *

My not-so-loving husband apparently did everything by computer these days, and, fortunately for me, he was a bit of a digital packrat. Stupid, Harold. That will teach you to use technology as a crutch.

I was eventually able to figure out how to view the web browser history that had confounded me at first. Doing so, I was easily able to trace Harold’s suppliers. Color me amazed. You really
could
get just about everything online these days. Various shops sold rare and imported herbs. Between a few curio websites and eBay, Harold was able to find the equipment he needed to stock his altar with (six hundred dollars for a resin statue of Osiris, Harold? Another eighteen hundred for a silver-plated ankh? That’s just sad. A bargain hunter, he was not).

I was amazed at how much he had spent over the years, for indeed some of his receipts went back quite far. Of all of them, though, the most outrageous had been for nearly ten thousand dollars. Guess that explained why I never got to see Hawaii when I was alive. The receipt wasn’t particularly in depth. It just mentioned the price and listed
blessed Aztec hoe - twelfth century, quantity: three
. I had no idea whether that meant Harold had purchased ancient gardening equipment or rented a couple of high-priced Mexican prostitutes.

Regardless, I now knew where he was obtaining his supplies. It would allow me to replenish what I had used, as well as potentially pick up a few new items - should the need arise.

That just left one little difficulty, delivery.

Fortunately, by subtly shaping Harold’s dating prospects, I was able to influence that. The women Harold screwed were now coming from slightly farther away, thus increasing their chances of using a car. Sure enough, quick peeks out the window began to confirm this. More often than not, I would see a car parked in the driveway or out on the street.

A little online research provided the rest. Once I had what I needed, it was time to get a little bolder with my nighttime jaunts.

* * *

My first foray out was a bit scary. I was inhabiting the body of a slender blonde with shoulder length hair. She was about my age (or the age I would have been), and in good shape. Wearing her body felt quite natural. I was tempted to see if I could arrange her to come back again, but decided against pushing my luck.

After an intense fuck session with Harold - I had ridden him mercilessly in reverse cowgirl position - he had fallen asleep fairly quickly. This body was able to cum quite nicely. I enjoyed the way she orgasmed, thus I was determined to be selfish. I had continued to grind against him, refusing to stop even as he came, so intent was I on another climax. That had done him in. He was out within minutes.

Sadly, the asshole had pulled out before I was finished, thus I went into the bathroom to take care of myself...watching my body in the mirror as I touched and explored. Doing so, it didn’t take long at all. Soon a minor explosion of pleasure was racing out from my midsection, taking me entirely. The color drained from the world around me for a moment and I had to grab the vanity top to keep from falling to my knees. I liked this body, quite a bit.

Having done that, I quickly washed up and went to look for her clothes. I have to say, after so long, it was odd wearing panties again. It almost felt unnatural to cover myself up. Still, I couldn’t exactly get what I needed to get done in the nude. Well, okay, maybe I could. Depending on who was working at my destination, I might have even gotten a nice little discount in the process. Still, I didn’t know who this woman was. It wasn’t right to play exhibitionist with her body, knowing that any consequences would be hers to deal with.

Whoever she was, she was a smart dresser. The blouse and skirt combo, though a bit wrinkled now, were attractive and high quality. Sensible pumps rounded out her wardrobe choice for the evening. Had I not been in a rush, I might have been tempted to take her out for a night of dancing. From the look of her, I doubted she’d have a lack of dance partners of any age. I giggled at that thought. There was an idea. I could have easily acted like a cougar in this body and gone home with a nice hard-bodied twenty-something year old. Oh well, maybe next time.

I found her purse and though it didn’t feel right going through her things (I had no such qualms with regard to Harold’s possessions), I wanted to make sure I was set. All was good. I found her car keys, wallet, driver’s license (hmm, Francine Alanno, a pretty name), a small make-up kit, and a stun gun. Fashionable
and
smart, I might add. I held the weapon aloft and briefly glanced back in the direction of the bedroom. Tempting, Harold, so tempting.

* * *

I made a quick stop at Harold’s office before leaving. He kept his wallet in one of the drawers. Being that this predicament was entirely of his making, I found it only fair that he should pay for things. I grabbed a couple of twenties from the stack of bills I found. I had little doubt he kept it handy for those times he had to pay for his companionship. Either way, I didn’t particularly care if he missed them or not.

I made one more detour, in the living room, grabbed what I was looking for, and then let myself out.

I stopped for a moment on our front porch. It was crisp, cool, and clear. I realized that I hadn’t been outside since returning, either. I had forgotten how fresh air smelled. It was a bit of a shock. I had gotten used to the odors of the house as well as the scent of Harold’s body commingled with whoever I was possessing that week. I’d need to do this more often, which, come to think of it, was exactly the plan.