"What do you need me for?" I asked Jack, in the hallway. He wrapped his hand around my wrist and began tugging me towards the Great Hall.

"Proof."

"And we're supposed to take his word on it?" someone was shouting. "A second rate valet?"

"First rate," Jack called out, indignantly. "And I found her through the King's own records."

"And we should believe you why?" A woman said, flicking her sleek crimson hair over a creamy shoulder. I suddenly felt woefully underdressed in my faded skinny jeans, hoody and retro blouse I'd gotten from an op shop two years ago.

"Because he's telling the truth," I said. My voice was pitched low, but I felt it resonate into the corners of the room. The irate chatter halted at my words. "And," I added, sliding my jacket off my shoulders, "because I am willing to provide proof." I handed my jacket to Jack. He folded the jacket in a perfect half and draped it over his forearm like a waiter with a serviette. "But I'm going to need a place where everyone can actually see me," I said, sarcasm lacing my words, "and I'd prefer not to stand on another table. I'll also need some salt, a glass of water," I paused, "and a dead body." I stood expectantly waiting for the people around me to organize everything.

"I get why you need the corpse," the red-head said, "but the other things...?"

"I need the salt because I have to cast a protective circle before I begin," I explained.

"I don't think any of us intend to interfere with whatever ritual you have for conjuring your zombies," she rolled her eyes.

"You misunderstand," I said, stepping closer to her. The woman was at least half a foot taller than me but I wasn't letting her height intimidate me. "The circle isn't necessary to protect my 'ritual' from the outside world." My voice fell to a husky whisper, "It's there to protect everything else," I felt the people around me leaning closer to listen, "from me."

"And the water?" she whispered.

I gave her my darkest smile. "I'm thirsty."

She giggled nervously. I stared at her. She turned to the buffet table which ran the length of the room and picked up a pitcher of water. Condensation beaded on the outside of the glass and the clink of ice moving in the jug as she poured the water into a glass was audible from across the room.

"Thank you," I said, when she pressed the glass into my hand. I took a sip, grateful to feel the cold liquid slide down my throat. I turned back to the room at large. "Now." I smiled widely. "Where's that body?"

They led me into the biggest cemetery I'd ever seen. Hugely ornate tombstones stretched out into the distance. I paused near a stone carving of an angel. The statue was easily six feet tall, towering over me on its pedestal. I bent to peer at the inscription. All it said was Angelina le Fae. Jack paused next to me to look at the statue.

"They say that she was the first one," he whispered, reverently.

"The first what?" I asked. He looked at me like I was crazy.

"Angel," he said, like it was obvious. I looked up at the statue.

"That's actually her, isn't it?"

"Yes," Jack said. "Who else would it be?"

I decided not to try explaining the human tradition of angel statues in cemeteries. In light of where the tradition apparently originated, I wasn't sure it would make a lot of sense.

The majority of the Fae had moved into the centre of the graveyard. The crowd seemed to be regrouping around a relatively small grave, on the top of a grassy knoll. Traditional, I supposed, from all of the stories I've heard of Faerie Land.

I felt a giggle floating up my throat. It bubbled into my mouth and spilled out into the still night air.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked, bending down to peer into my face.

"I feel great," I grinned up at him. A cool breeze floated across the graveyard, raising the few curls which had sprung out of my bun. I took my hair out of its elastic, and shook it out over my shoulders. Normally, I hated the way the mass of dark curls bounced around me. I wore it long so that the weight of my hair dragged the top of it straight and struggled with a flat iron about once a week, trying to calm the unruly mess. The wind felt so good though that I had to take my hair out. The wind ran its cold fingers through my loose hair, lifting it gently away from my face.

"It's a beautiful night," I said.

"Maybe you drank too much," Jack frowned.

I smiled at his concern. "Don't be silly. I only had a tiny," I held my finger and thumb a whisper apart to show him how small an amount I'd drunk, "bit."

"Even a little can seem like a lot," Jack said, obviously unconvinced, "when you're not used to it. Remember the first time you got drunk?"

"Nope," I skipped between the tombstones, "I'm barely old enough to drink."

"What?" Jack stopped suddenly. I turned back to look at him.

"What what?" I sang.

"You're not old enough to drink?"

"Yes. Now. But barely," I nodded.

"What's the drinking age in your realm?" he frowned harder.

"Well, usually about thirteen," I laughed, "but legally it's eighteen."

"Eighteen," Jack stared at me, his eyes going wide.

"That's what I said," I held my arms out from my sides and spun around in a lazy circle. "This air is incredible." I felt like I was floating. Jack grabbed me by the wrist and started dragging me back towards the entrance to the cemetery.

"We have to go."

"What's wrong?" Kieran asked, suddenly appearing beside us.

"Nothing," I said, using my brightest, sparkling voice. I pulled out of Jack's grip, amazed at how easily it was to slip away from him. He was so big, and tall, and he had huge bulging muscles and hands so big they wrapped around my whole forearm. I looked more like a faerie next to him, than he did. I giggled as I ran the rest of the way to the middle of the cemetery.

"She's eighteen," I heard Jack hiss. "A child, still."

"Where's my salt?" I called, standing at the top of the hill. I saw the jar spinning through the air and wondered who in their right mind throws a glass jar up a hill, without knowing if the person on the other side is even remotely coordinated. Luckily, I was functioning with incredible clarity. I watched the jar spin towards me in a graceful arc. I felt like I had all the time in the world to stretch my arm out. I caught the jar smoothly in one hand and popped the lid, letting it fall to the ground. I poured a mound of salt into the palm of my hand.

I held the open jar tilted sideways in my right hand and the mound of salt in my left. I stretched my arms out, like a child getting ready to play airplane. I could see Jack and Kieran pushing their way through the crowd at the bottom of the hill. It didn't matter, they'd never make it in time.

I spun around in a circle, letting the salt spill out in a fluid stream. I had a moment to think that I must have looked like a water sprinkler, before I had to focus on visualizing my circle. I felt the smoky amber energy of my soul coat the atmosphere around me. The wind stilled and I felt like I was standing in the eye of the storm. There was nothing but me and that stillness inside the circle.

I looked down at the name stone.

"Eolande," I said, marveling at the weight behind my voice as it rolled across the graveyard. "Eolande, come." I felt the dark, silent place, which I spent most of my days pushing down to the depths of my being, rise to the surface. It spilled into the circle, it crawled down into the grave, slithered its ethereal limb into the rotted coffin, and held out a cold, gentle hand.

"Come," I repeated, inviting her out. I felt a twang resonate back towards my centre. I was the spider's web and she was climbing up the strands, clawing her way to the surface.

A thin, skeletal hand pushed up through the grass. It was the classic horror movie moment but I wasn't afraid. I heard someone gasp, outside the circle. I could feel her coming. It was like she was a part of me as she pulled herself through the earth and climbed up onto the hill. I reached out to her and helped her stand steadily. I felt her body thicken beneath my hand. Flesh filled in around her bones, her skin began to glow a healthy bronze, personality flooded in behind her eyes.

"Hello, Eolande," I said, smiling in welcome. She was one of the most amazingly beautiful women I had ever seen. Her hair was an inky black that shone in the moonlight.

"Good evening," she said, quietly. "It's a lovely night."

"Isn't it?" I breathed deeply. She strolled casually around the edge of the circle. I watched her raise a hand to the skin of my protective bubble. She stopped short of touching it.

"This is yours?" she asked, glancing back at me.

"Yes," I said.

"It smells odd," she said. "Empty?"

"So I've been told," I looked outside the circle to see Jack dragging the Professor to its edge. Both men were panting and Jack was whispering frantically into the Professor's ear.

"You're a necromancer?" Eolande asked, carefully enunciating the syllables.

"I am."

"So," she sat on the edge of her tombstone, "I'm dead?" I nodded. "How interesting..."

"Have you met many necromancers before?" I asked. I figured that there had to be an explanation as to how she'd recognized the characteristics of my aura.

"Just one," she sighed, "I miss him."

The Professor was pacing around the edge of my circle, lining the outside of the knoll with his crystals. Jack paced a step behind him. Zephan stood to the side of the crowd. I followed the line of his gaze to Kieran. I wondered why he was staring at his cousin with such intensity. Kieran was solely focused on what was happening inside the circle.

"What happened?" I asked, keeping the conversation going until someone told me that they were convinced. I didn't see much point in making her go back, when I'd only just woken her up. Besides, I was genuinely interested to hear what she had to say.

She looked at me closely. She was the most mentally present person I'd ever recalled. Sometimes, the dead were confused and bleary. Like someone who's half asleep. Not her though. She seemed more aware and focused than some people who are still alive.

"Do you really not know about me?" she asked.

"I'm sorry," I said, politely. "I was hired to come here." I glanced back at Jack. "I didn't get a very good briefing." She followed my eyes out of the circle.

"Is that Joqchlann?" she called. Jack froze. "Joqchlann," she called to him again. He turned as though in slow motion.

"My Lady," he said, bowing.

"Is my son here?" she asked, looking out into the crowd. I saw Kieran sink into himself. Her gaze drifted over him without pausing. "Where is he?" she asked, pacing to the edge of the circle.

"He's not here," Jack said.

"Of course he's here," she muttered. "If the king has hired someone to call me up, he must have brought my son." Something in the bitter way that she said the word 'king' made a chill run down my spine. Maybe my courage was wearing thin. "Kieran?" she called out. There was a thin note of desperation in her voice. I felt sorry for her then. I looked at Kieran, huddled into himself, ignoring his mother. He looked so miserable and alone.

I wondered what Eolande had done to make him look like that. I knew, all too well, how it felt to be utterly rejected by your own family. To be persecuted simply for being different. To be ignored. When you go unnoticed for long enough, you start to think that that's the way it should be.

"He's here, Aunt Eloie," Zephan said, suddenly standing beside Kieran.

"Zephan?" Eolande asked. "You've gotten so tall." I was amazed at how easily her attention had been diverted from Kieran. He was standing right there in front of her. She'd just been asking for him, and yet, now that he was in her sights she didn't seem to care.

"It's been a long time," Zephan smiled. His teeth were so white. He had one of those typical Hollywood grins that were usually only achieved through cosmetic surgery and porcelain plating.

"I can see that," Eolande said. "How long has it been, exactly?"

"Almost twenty years," Kieran whispered.

"Oh," she said, her voice only mildly discolored by surprise. She started searching the crowd again, looking for someone. "Where is my father?" she asked, of no one in particular.

"Don't tell her," the Professor called out.

"He's dead," Zephan said.

"And the new king?" she asked, her eyes narrowing.

"That," Zephan exchanged a glare with Kieran, "has not been decided."

"Interesting," Eolande said, pacing away from the edge of the circle. She came to stand beside me. "My dear Lady of Death," she said, reaching her hand out to stroke my cheek. "I wonder how much experience you've had..." She ran her hand down the side of my face then wrapped it around my throat.

She squeezed, digging her fingers into the sides of my throat, pressing her palm tight against the front of my neck. I couldn't breathe. She was choking me. Strangling the life out of me. I clutched at her wrist, trying to push her away from me.

I tried to tell her to stop, but she choked the word off beneath her iron grip. If I could just say it, if I could only force the words out, she'd have to listen to me. I'd called her from the grave. It was my magic which had brought this semi-life back to her, so she had to do what I said. The problem was, I actually had to say it first.

She smiled down at me. I knew that she could see the raw panic in my eyes. The struggle to survive. I tried to kick her.

I lost my balance, falling to the ground. She tumbled on top of me, without losing her grip. Moisture from the dew soaked grass penetrated the back of my shirt, surprising me with its damp chill. I struggled to hold on to the sensation. A hazy darkness was stealing in on the edges of my vision. I had to think. I couldn't think.

My hands spasmed across the ground, clutching hopelessly at handfuls of grass. I didn't know what to do. Eolande laughed, breathing the sickly sweet smell of the grave across my face. She was dead. How could she be murdering me?

I didn't understand it. She existed because of me. Surely her attempt at murder would mean her own death as well. Wouldn't it?

My vision went black. I could feel my head spinning. It was like a terrible thunderstorm, a hurricane, was tearing through my mind, destroying everything in its wake. I was dying.

"Lady Death," I heard someone shout. Lady Death, Jack had called me. I think I liked that name. I was filled with death, undeniably, constantly. Eolande's hands around my throat hadn't changed that in any way. But just because I was filled with death, didn't mean I was ready to die.

I pushed out with my magic, feeling the piece of me which was inside Eolande. I groped along the ethereal web which bound her to me. Then I yanked on it, dragging my magic out of her. She collapsed on top of me like a puppet with its strings cut. I raised my hands to push her off me.

Something twanged across my protective circle. It reverberated through me, feeling like an electric shock. There was a barely audible pop and I felt the world explode around me. Something, or someone, had not only broken through my circle, they'd shattered it.

I screamed in agony, my voice tearing through my body in a guttural cry that forced me into a pained awareness of my throat. When I put a circle in place, I pushed my internal shields a step out from my body. I let my guard down inside the circle because I was guarded by the circle.

Now, something had broken me. I managed to roll away from the decayed corpse of Eolande. I pulled my knees up to my chest, folding into the fetal position. I could feel myself rushing in all directions at once, no longer contained by any barriers. I clutched my knees to my chest in a vain attempt to hold myself together.

"Laurel," someone was saying, pushing my hair out of my face. I couldn't see who spoke, could barely feel their warm hand against my forehead. Without my shields, the presence of the dead was overwhelming. I could feel the entire cemetery, acres upon acres of graves, stirring. I had eyes only for the dead, in my current state, and I could see them coming for me.

With the last ounce of control I had left in me, I made a barrier over Eolande. I had made the mistake of bringing her into the realm of the living once that night. I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. A thin, dark bubble took place around her and the smoky amber of my energies flowed over and around the bubble, like a river contorting itself around a stone.

I was safe from Eolande's attentions but, as someone shook me by the shoulders, calling to me over and over again, I knew that there were other dangers waiting for me. I closed my eyes against the painful awareness of newly formed flesh clutching its way through the earth. I was a part of the dead, that night. I was closer to them than I had ever been before. Maybe because my shields were down entirely, maybe because there were so many of them, maybe because I had been so near to death myself, only moments before. I don't know.

All I knew was that it hurt and I couldn't handle it any longer... I felt the world fade away from me. If I'm honest, I have to say that I fled from it. I ran away from the horror and the pain. I scurried down into the depths of my being, and I hid. Frankly, I didn't care if I never woke up, so long as I could stay hunkered down in the darkness of my soul, alone, where it was safe and silent.

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*rubs palms together* things are starting to get intense. How are you liking this so far? I'd love to hear your thoughts and any other feedback. Remember to vote if you like it as well :).

x zuz