Chapter Two: Here's My House, It's Lovely

A portal opened before me, and I drove through, coming up to a house surrounded by a forest, on the edge of a beach. And it's not an actual beach house. I live on the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio, in the Maumee Bay State Park. Nice place, lot's of wildlife and clean lake breeze. There's a large campground and lodge near me, so if I ever need something, I just hop over there. The campers are kinda used to seeing people who are slightly strange, so it's no big deal when I walk around with a sword. The rednecks love it, especially when I let them hack at their firewood.   

    Anyways, my house is magically hidden, so campers don't come walking in and start taking my stuff. The park has agreed to try and keep those people away from that area, so it doesn't happen often that they wander over here.

    I parked my bike, and observed my two story home. It wasn't much, brown paint job, looking like a hunting lodge of some sort. One lone telephone pole with wires connecting. I sighed. Can't have all the good things, but what's yours can be the only thing you need.

Walking in the front, I went down the hallway into the main room. This consisted of my study, experiments, and library. Upon entering, the library portion is on the right, with shelves of books, a lounge leather couch, and a nice brown coffee table. Built into the right wall around the shelves is my long desk, where I have pages of notes, plans, magical artifacts, and blueprints laying about and all along the tack boards imbedded in the walls.

On the left side was my large experimenting table, with more shelves, all filled with various jars and tools. A dead body sat there on the table, with pieces missing, scattered along the other workshop tables I have. As a necromancer, constantly experimenting is my job. Not the best work, but I make do.

And finally, on the far end of the room, was where I kept my larger magical artifacts and weapons. There are boxes and chests filled with stuff, items I've collected over the years or found on expedition trips. Things that make me actually look like I know what I'm doing.

I went and threw my stuff on the coffee table. Oh yeah, I guess I should talk about these items. The sword is an important one. It's name is Ever Heart, and how it was made I have no clue. The sword itself is a single edge blade, that curves out slightly at the end, with purple runes etched on it, and the edge being purple too. The handle is wrapped in leather, capped in silver, with a silver hilt that comes out about three inches. It is my most important possession, which if you know me, is pretty easy to say. I don't know how it was made, as I said, and I'm still looking for that answer. But it once belonged to a powerful necromancer of ages past, lost until I found it. Ever Heart is a blade that can not only kill normal living things, but ghosts as well. It's useful to have a weapon which can threaten not just mortals, but a creature who believes it can't be touched.

Though there is more to the legendary weapon. Ever Heart has another name if you know enough about the sword: The Immortal Slayer. The blade can pierce the skin of who claim itself invincible, immortal. Ever Heart can kill anything, and it makes me a rather dangerous man.

Then there's my satchel and what's in it. The bag is nothing special, just really good at holding my stuff. The real important items are my journals. The books with hard covers and a dark jewel centered in each held all the information I've ever learned. I've got four in total, but I always keep my first one and the current one with me at all times. The first because it holds the basic information and rules of necromancy and magic itself. The current because I might need to write something down quickly.

Now, I think that's some of the basic knowledge about me. There's more, but we'll get there one day.

Sitting on the couch, I pulled my shoes off, and put my feet up. Man, I'm getting rather tired nowadays. I wonder why that is. Fighting off the urge to sleep, I got my second journal and pen, adding to the intense equation I've been working on for years. This is normal down time, working on things I keep expanding on, until an answer is found. Dull is this life, but they can't all be winners.

My cat Spot walked into the room, meowing at me. "Hi kitty, what do you want?"

Spot came over and hopped in my lap. Aw, you're a good cat aren't you?

During the intense focus, I got spooked by my phone calling. 

Spot ran off. 

Sighing, I answered my cell, hoping it was another job. I could use more money, since I'm normally poor as fuck.

"Hello?" I answered. There was a slight delay before a response.

"Hey Ditto, this is Hector."

"Ah, Hector. What's up man?" Hector is a warlock at Lake City, and is a big contact source for me. "I hope some good news."

"Yeah bro, I got some good news. There's a report of a woman who's possessed going on a rampage in a small town over in Pennsylvania. I think this is a good opportunity for you."

"They paying?"

"No."

Damnit. Can't win them all. "Okay, I'll head over in ten minutes. Text me the address."

"Great. This is good for you Ditto. I promise." Hector hung up, and a moment later I got the text. Looks like some town I'd never heard of before. Perfect, I get to go to a place I've never been to, only to fix a problem I'm not getting paid for. What a deal.

My phone rang again. "Geez Hector what do you want?"

"Hey I forgot to mention, but I heard rumors of a Magi exorcist hero being sent there to. So you might want to hurry."

Shit. "Thanks, I'm leaving now." Grabbing my crap, I went and grabbed some food from the kitchen real quick, a muffin and a water bottle. Eating the muffin and chugging the water, I typed the location on my phone's gps, got on my bike, and went into the Spirit Layer. Life hack kids, a gps can track your location even in the ghost zone, which comes in handy for doing jobs.

Since this is going to be a while, I might as well talk about some of the basics of necromancy.

Necromancy is the practice of raising the dead. I can manipulate the forces of life and death itself, resulting in this horrific power that lets me summon things like zombies. Really fun power most of the time.

Naturally, however, there are rules to necromancy. Rules that must be followed, or at least kept in mind, if you don't want to die while doing death like actions. I might be paraphrasing with some of these.

Rule number one: Life and Death are powerful forces. Don't go and try to conquer either. Don't try and mess with the natural laws of Death. Just leave those laws alone.

Rule number two: Death is a dangerous thing to mess with. When summoning the powers of death, remember that it can backfire on you very quickly, so keep your wits about. Don't do anything stupid.

Rule number three: To perform the simple acts of necromancy, there must be a double circle with the triangle within involved. This helps bind you to the dead thing you are summoning.

Rule number four: Don't give ghosts what they want. Never, ever, ever give a ghost the thing it wants. This will result in your death probably immediately.

Rule number five: Don't bring something back to life you can't handle. If it's too powerful, just leave it in the ground.

Those are some of the basics, and as time goes on, I'll explain more rules. There's a bunch, because necromancers have figured out if you mess up the basics, towns are killed off. Lot's of Hidden and humans die. And that causes the attention of the Magi. Don't want that no sir. Those bitches can't be coming up here to the Earth Layer. That's bad, bad bad, and I don't have time to deal with them.

Ghosts flew by, reminding me I'm not alone, that this realm is very empty in terms of mass. Chilling, but you get used to it. Lonely is the life of a necromancer, and lonely is the life of a man who just wants money to feed himself.

These trips at least give me moments to think. I like thinking, which ends up getting me in more trouble than it should. I can't help myself though. Sometimes I think of a new zombie I can create, I go and make it, then it tries to kill me. Since I'm good however, I put it back in it's place. Other times I think of what ways I can summon ghosts and use them to spy on others. It's deadly stuff, what goes on in my brain.

Anyways, I sorta zone out on these longish drives, listening to my phone, telling me where to go. And during these drives I remember how boring the ghost zone is, and how I wish the swarming ghosts were a little more friendly. I could use some nice company. Alas, they always stay away from me.

After an hour, I arrived at my destination. Opening a portal, I drove through, to see a complete and total mess.

The road was covered in debris and broken glass. Telephone poles were down, wires sparking everywhere. The brick buildings had scratches along the sides, and signs for businesses were ripped off their hinges. Cars were totaled, beeping nonsensically.

"Damn. This might be more than possessed."

I slowly drove through the wreckage, and saw someone walking by. "Hey sir, could you point me to the person responsible for this mess?"

The man flinched, and stared at me. "Uh, yeah. Last I heard it was going down towards Wal-Mart."

"And where's that?" Humans. Dumb, but I gotta live with that.

"See this street? Keeping going until you hit Maple, then turn right. It's down that road about a mile."

"Thanks. I wouldn't stay out here though. Might get dangerous soon."

I drove on, going until I reached Maple. Then I saw even more debris, like a tornado just ripped this street apart. Whatever this thing was, it was powerful.

I drove faster now, and in no time spotted the Wal-Mart. And right in front of it was an actual tornado, with cars and shopping carts being whipped up and thrown all over the place. I sniffed real hard, and could smell the human at the center. The other thing with it was hard to guess. Demon, most likely, from the power level. But maybe a pack of ghosts. The wind was messing up my nose.

I parked and stretched, doing the normal routine. I can't have my body give out on me, not when I might be thrown into combat. That's the worse thing to happen. I'd probably die if that happened.

I was bending my toes when a voice spoke up. "And who are you?"

Damn, I bet that's the hero. Standing, I turned, and eye the man before me. He was tall, blonde, white skin, but not as pale as mine (must get out more I guess), long trench coat on with a suit and tie underneath. He looked familiar.....

"Hey I know you. You're the Magi Winston, who pretends to be an exorcist but in reality is just a little bitch."

He features wrinkled, and he sneered. "Answer me fool. Who are you?"

"Damn son, calm down. I'm Ditto Night, and am offended you don't know me." Punk bastard. I'd kill him if I could. "I'm a necromancer."

His eyes widened. "A necromancer? That's--wait, I remember now. I heard rumors of the necromancer living in this area. How disgusting you'd come here knowing I'd be present."

"Sorry for not giving a shit about your opinions."

"Just leave, and let me do my job. I'm rather popular, and you'd only get in my way." Winston shoved past me, and I gritted my teeth in anger. This is what I was talking about.

Oh, maybe I should explain something. See, while the Hidden are rarely thought about by humans, it's our society, culture, and layers that are forgotten. Every now and then, some incident will be shown on the national news, but that's about the extent of it.

No, what people actually remember are the heros. And hero is just a broad term for the hero's, cowboys, vigilantes, desperados, and nomads that help people. When there's a problem plaguing the humans, whether Hidden caused or human caused, a hero will most likely be called to help. Like for instance, a werewolf pack terrorizes a small town. A Shifter hero or whoever is nearby will be summoned, and they'll arrive to assist. It's like the comic books, except way cooler because I'm here. To recap, the humans know about the Hidden heros, but forget that Hidden cities and societies exist. Our deeds are remembered, our culture is swept under the rug.

So the humans and Hidden have heros to rely upon, some are celebrities, some are popular, some are less known, and if you're me, you aren't known at all. And I bet you're wondering what my deal is. Am I a hero? Honestly, no, I'm not. I help people mostly for money. But that's not just my deal. I also help people because a) it's better than being evil and getting killed. And b) I enjoy using my powers to better the world. It's an alright living, not the best, but like I said, better than being dead.

I do have other reasons, but I'll talk about those later.

"Woah there buddy," I said, running next to Winston, coughing as I could smell his nasty magic.  He was a light mage, mixed with fire, and I knew this was going to be hell. "This job is mine. So beat it. Ghosts are my department."

Now a crowd of people had formed on the other side of the street, watching, wondering if the hero would pull off the job. Winston laughed. "You, tell me what to do? Crawl back to your hole filth. I'll handle this."

Okay, so, like, I'm pretty patient, but I might kill this man. I might, just might, turn him into my personal slave. Would anyone notice, or care?

"That's a brilliant idea. What am I doing," I said, smacking my head. "Please, go on ahead. I can't stop the mighty Winston."

The magi smirked, and went towards the tornado. Then he went towards the ground as I pushed him, and ran past the idiot. What a bitch. Ya'know, I think I might have a cursing problem.

Anyways, I muttered some words, and four zombies rose out of the concrete - which is the dumbest human invention ever - and positioned them around me. "Let's fuck shit up."

When we were a few feet from the tornado, I pulled my sword out, the etches turning bright purple. We moved forward, slowly, into the storm.

My right zombie was taken out first, a rock crushing it's skull into nothing, bone and blood getting swept away. A few more feet and the front one was crushed by a car. "Move guys. I can smell this asshole. Just a little farther."

The back one was strangled by a shopping cart.

My left zombie and I made it into the clear, the heart of the storm, alive and untouched. Floating there was a woman, head back, arms out, and I knew exactly what this was.

An elemental spirit. Older than a ghost, more powerful than an average spirit, weaker than a demon. They only take people if you disturb them from their resting place. This lady must have been snooping where she shouldn't have been.

Her head snapped up, and looked at me. Then at my exploding zombie. I turned and saw Winston walk up, looking rather angry. "You bastard. You pushed me."

"Yeah, or did gravity pull you fat head down?"

"Just get out of my way, I was called here to stop this thing," Winston said, taking hands out of pockets, and they went ablaze. "You are nothing."

"Do you even know what that is?" I pointed, then screamed and jumped as a car was thrown at me. "It's an elemental spirit! You're little fire magic isn't going to scare it."

"I said butt out." Winston threw a fireball, and the woman swiped it away with a gust of wind. Sighing, I reached into my bag and pulled out chain. Whispering more words, an intricate double circle with more circles attached formed, and I stabbed Ever Heart right in it's center. Winston was shooting bolts of white light while I wrapped the chain around the handle and hilt.

An endless supply of carts and food flew at the magi, but he destroyed or dodged it all. I just hoped he'd miss my while I did something stupid. I got up, cracked my neck, and ran. Going past Winston, I quickly dodged all the debris and jumped, latching onto the woman's leg. The thing screeched, and tried to shake me off. 

"Not today," my lips whispered.

I said another spell, and this time two triangles formed on her legs, and the woman yelled, the magic glyphs burning the spirit. Taking my chance, I wrapped the chain around her legs and torso, then used all my weight to pull her down. We fell, landing hard, the woman moaning but getting up slowly.

"Now!" I yelled, and activated the circle. An electric stream of death magic travelled into the chain, and entered the woman. She hissed and cried, until lying unconscious when the magic ripped the spirit out and pulled it back down the chain and into the circle. The storm stopped, and all the junk that was in the air fell with a crash.

I heard people cheering. That didn't matter right now, as I had to deal with the spirit. Going to the circle, I freed my sword and put the chain back in my bag. I got on my knees. "Hey, you there?"

The spirit's face formed in the triangle, and beat a fist on it. "Let me out of here necromancer. I refuse to be your prisoner."

"Cool idea. I'll let you out if you go back to where ever it was you were chilling at."

"And if I don't?"

"Then I'll kill you," I said, with a clear voice, one that meant business. "Or send you to the Pool in the Pit. Whichever one you feeling."

It reeled in horror. "I'll go back to my cave. Sorry to disturb you, necromancer. Just please let me go."

"If you lie to me, I won't be merciful. Remember that." I snapped my fingers, and the spirit left, the circle disappearing moments later. Damn, that one was intense. I'm alive though, which is all that counts.

"Magi! Winston!" What the hell? Looking up, the crowd was cheering as Winston carried the woman up and healed her before everyone. They cheered again. "Magi! Winston!"

"Son of a bitch." Can't I get a damn break around here. Running over, I yelled, "Wait a minute."

The mass looked at me, still congratulating the Magi. "I'm the one who saved the woman. Not Winston. He did nothing."

"As if," someone yelled back. "Who is that guy anyway?"

"He's a nobody," Winston said, and came up to me. Whispering low, he looked me in the eye. I stared back, straight into his kaleidoscope iris's that the Magi were known for. "This is my victory. Nobody cares who you are, or what you did. Now get lost."

He glared before leaving, and the crowd already forgot who I was.

And this is why I'm not a hero.

Scowling and cursing, I went back to my bike. I was so angry I barely noticed the woman who was coming near me. I looked up when she coughed.

"Hi there, can I help you?"

The woman was black, very dark but perfect skin, rather tall, near shaved hair - like very short - and loose fitting clothing. She smiled. "Hi. I'm Halina Deya, and I was hoping I could talk with you for a sec."

"Sorry, but the hero is over there," I said, putting my bag into the small side compartment. She didn't leave.

"I was actually hoping to talk to you, uh, what was your name again?"

"Ditto. Ditto Night. The Man Who Dies for Fun." I faced her, and gave her the once over. "Well, if you want to talk I'm listening."

"Great. You see Ditto, I am a writer, and am doing research for a book about the Hidden. I've been searching all over to try and find someone who is willing to teach me, a consultant of sorts, about your ways of life and culture." She handed me a piece of paper. "This is a short list of information that I am trying to find out."

"Um, okay, but doesn't writing a book, involve, I don't know," I paused, tapping my chin, "time! I can't spend every moment calling or emailing you information about things that take time to talk about."

"Well, actually," she said, hands behind her back. "I was hoping that maybe I could live with you. To better understand Hidden lifestyle and so that it's easier to communicate with each other."

"What! Move in with me?"

She raised her hands in a panicked gesture. "Don't worry, I can find a job, if that's an issue. But, if you're curious, I also run a blog. I can write about you if you like. Try and get your name out there. In exchange for the housing."

I went silent. Write about me? Try and get me famous? I do like the sound of that. Maybe it'll make me more money too. "Wait a minute. I can smell a liar a mile away. What's the real reason you want to move in? You ain't trying to steal my things are you?"

Halina frowned, then looked at the ground. "I, uh, actually got kicked out of my apartment. I'm honest about the book and the blog. I can show you my degree from Penn State. But I'm sorta down on my luck."

Down on luck. I sure know what that's like. I rubbed my face, feeling my own breath. "Fine. You got yourself a deal. Write about me, and I'll tell you everything you want to know about the Hidden. You got things? A car?"

"Yep. I got a grey Honda Accord, parked a few blocks down. All my stuff packed and ready to go."

I sighed, and wondered if this was a good idea. "I'll bring my bike over. You're about to get your first lesson."

She cheered, and gave me a hug. "Thank you! Thank you! You won't regret this."

"I better not." I began wheeling my bike along side her. "Tell me, why not ask Winston for this favor? And how'd you know the blog thing would work?"

I noticed she bite her lip while thinking. "It's kinda complicated, but I follow a bunch of forums about the hero's. And I've seen multiple times that Winston is very popular, and a little egotistical. He'd never let me stay with him."

"And me?"

"I've never seen you before. I took a guess." She patted my arms and back, and I saw how even and rather pretty her face was. "What are you anyway? A Shifter? A Warlock? Fae?"

"None of the above. I'm a necromancer darling. I raise the dead."

She eyed me, as if she couldn't find the right words. I'd be be scared too, if I was this close to a guy who could kill you and turn you into a butler in less than a blink. Hell, I'd run as fast as I could away from me. I don't look dangerous, but my abilities are far, far more brutal than anything else out in the world.

"Never heard of necromancers before," she said, almost in awe. "This is fantastic. Everyone will get a kick out of this."

We got to her car, and it was packed with boxes. I wonder how long she'd been in these conditions. "So where do you live?" she asked, opening the door and starting the car.

"In Ohio, on the lake."

"Great. Ohio is not that far away. How long it take you to get here?"

I laughed, very very hard. "Oh my lord. Alright Halina. Lesson one is this: don't talk to anything but me, and don't lose sight of me. Stay near me for the next hour at all times."

The look of confusion on her face was priceless, and it got better when I opened the portal. "Stay close. But don't get too attached," I chuckled.

"That won't be a problem. Since I like women."

Woah. "Fair enough. Now, let's get going. I'm rather pissed and am still hungry."