Forty-two seconds later.

Kristy was gripping my shoulders in her hands from behind and was guiding me forward. I had one arm wrapped across my tightly shut eyes, the other hand was reaching out in front of me.

I could hear police whispering nearby.

“Um, what the hell are they doing?”

“I don’t know, it’s too embarrassing to watch.”

Thanks a lot you *ssholes! If you don’t like how I do things, than you can do this yourselves!

The gross sounds were getting louder as we neared the mouth of the alley again.

Oh my gods, I think I stepped in something! From the way my foot slipped a little, I definitely stepped in something!

Ew! Ew! Ew!

“Okay Kari, we’re in range. Do your thing!”

Kristy sounded way to excited about this.

I reached out my hand that wasn’t covering my eyes and released my magic.

Kristy’s excited giggle chirped in my ear.

Seriously, I’m not a freak show, Kristy.

Once, while I was still doing my basic training, I had been shown a video of what I looked like when I used my power. Honestly, it was freaky seeing the way I changed. My eyes glowed white so brightly that my irises disappeared. Though most necromancers magic looked like black smoke that flowed in lines like it was crawling along spiderwebs, mine was bright white and flowed out in rippling waves of glowing smoke. Crest after crest, my magic echoed out of my hands until it found it’s target.

Then the real light show starts.

Unlike in that old video, where I went full blast, this time I was a bit more careful. First I slowly reached out my magic and gently brushed away some of the spell that had been cast on the zombie. It felt like brushing away old cobwebs, the other’s magic gave almost no resistance to me.

It was a mess for sure. Who ever had originally raised this zombie, had done one hell of a sh*tty job at it. The smoky black web of the spell was barely holding together. In my mind I could see the crap spell as if I still had my eyes open. Half of it looked like it was broken under it’s own weight. And what the hell was this knotted up sh*t? No wonder Kristy couldn’t do anything with this spell, it was a frick’n heap of flaming garbage!

Uhg! This is why I hated police work, all I ever did was clean up other people’s messes.

I sent more waves of magic out to poke around and make sure I had cleared away all the parts of the spell I didn’t need right now.

The wet, sloppy sounds had stopped, so I probably got all of it.

If the other’s spell was this easy to wipe away, yeah, they were totally a bottom tier necromancer.

Ya see, there were three levels of necromancers. 80% of necromancers are bottom tier. They’re just a bunch of sloppy hacks that animate rotting corpses. These dead bodies, called monocogi, have no will or thoughts of their own, they’re nothing more then meat puppets for the loser “bottom tier” necromancers. The mid tier necromancers are a little better. These guys make up about 19.99% of the necromancers and they can create zombies that are semi-autonomous. These zombies can move and complete simple tasks on their own, but they always follow whatever was the last order of the necromancer that is maintaining them. And they have to be given orders, they won’t make decisions on their own. The last group, the highest tier, makes up the top most 0.01% of all the necromancers in the world.

That’s where I am.

This zombie seemed to be a weird combo of both monocogi and semi-autonomous. So the necromancer had be. . . What, a low powered, mid tier? A mid powered, bottom tier? It was kind of strange that the spell was so flimsy, when obviously the zombie had been left with a last order. Monocogi were definitely meat puppets, the necromancer had to be right there to control them. Semi-autos were more like highly trained pets, but this guy had just been abandoned.

If the necromancer wanted an expendable meat puppet, why would they put in the magic needed make him do a task on his own? But if the necromancer wanted a useful tool, why was the spell so sh*tty? It didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

The only part of the spell that I had wiped away was the last order, the rest, as sh*tty as the spell may be, I still kind of needed for a moment.

“Okay Kristy, back me up!”

I sent an order through my rippling magic that was now connected to the other necromancer’s spell web.

Follow!

I could hear slow and very soggy footsteps follow us as we backed out of the alley and towards the street.

“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing? No one said you could move him.”

I ignored the protesting police and kept guiding the zombie well away from the crime scene. Once I could feel the warmth of daylight hitting the back of my neck, I took a chance and peeked at the zombie. Looking around my still raised arm,

Yup, he was still covered in blood and bits. But at least he wasn’t surrounded by a slasher movie scene.

Yeah, I think I can handle this.

Looking him up and down, he looked pretty bleak.

Poor kid, he didn’t look any older than a high schooler, maybe fourteen or fifteen? He hadn’t even lived long enough to hit his mid teens growth spurt. His hair was filthy, white, and tangled. Even with the sagging and puffiness of rot, his pale face looked weirdly delicate. His eyes were a milky red.

Yeah, zombies didn’t usually look like that. They usually just looked like, well, dead people.

Seriously, what the hell happened to this poor kid?

“Uh, are you going to wake him up? We have some questions for him.”

The officer standing near me was making a winding motion with one finger, as if I needed to speed this show up.

I looked over the zombie again.

“Do you have some baby wipes, a bottle of water, or something?”

“What?”

The police officer was looking at me as if I had gone insane.

“You want me to wake him up, but look at him. Do you really think he’s going to be okay when he wakes up covered in blood and gore? He wasn’t born a monster, he’s just a regular person that some *sshole necromancer used his dead body for some dirty work.”

The police officer gave me a blank stare.

Fine, it looks like I’ll have to do everything myself.

Looking around, I spotted a Bucket ‘O Chicken pail dumped on top of an over flowing trashcan. I snagged it, tossed the greasy chicken bones that were still in there, and hustled to a water spigot poking out of the back wall of one of the nearby buildings. Filling the cardboard pail, I ran back to the patiently waiting zombie and doused him. The water wasn’t exactly clean, but at least it would rinse off some of the gore covering him. Yeah, I had to make a lot of trips back and forth to finally get the kid washed off.

Granted, even after all that running and splashing, he was still covered in mystery stains and looked like hell, but at least he didn’t look like hell enough to permanently traumatize him.

“Okay, I think we’re ready!”

I was huffing and puffing from all my running and water schlepping around.

The police officers watching looked less than impressed.

You know, you could have offered to help, you jerks!

Pulling up my sleeves, I raised both hands and released the grip I kept on my magic. I wasn’t holding back this time.

“Woah!”

Some of the police behind me gasped, others in the crowd shifted nervously.

Yeah, I was used to this reaction too.

For people not used to my magic, they usually found it unnerving.

Pouring more of my magic into my spell, wave after glowing wave of white light reached out and filled the cramped side street where we stood.

I could feel some of the cops stepping back, others reached for their weapons.

For the 70% of humans that aren’t magic users, they usually can’t see magic of any kind.

My kind of magic has so much juice, everyone could see.

Now for the real flash and awe.

A pillar of light blasted down from the heavens, encircling the zombie in front of me in a blinding white beam about as wide as my out stretched arms. It totally looked like some kind of death ray or something. A single, high, ringing note of voices chanting, filled the air. The narrow space was buffeted with a hot wind, scattering litter and bits away from the scene.

I reached out my magic, searching for his spirit. I knew the original necromancer had to have attached the spirit to the body in some loose manner, but I was looking for the whole spirit, not just some spiritual energy to convert magic into motion.

Come!

I pushed the call through my waves of magic.

Come!

At last I found him. His spirit was glowing with a soft golden light. There was confusion, and a little bit of sadness surrounding his spirit. Then a name drifted into my mind.

“Noah!”

It’s alright Noah.

Take my hand.

Everything’s going to be alright.

I pushed the words and as many friendly feelings as I could through my magic to him.

The light of Noah’s spirit slowly began to take shape. Blinking bright eyes, a gentle smile, he turned towards me.

I could feel a hand grab mine. Not a spiritual hand, but a real life, physical one. The light slowly faded and what was left behind was Noah, not Noah the walking corpse, or a meat puppet with the body that had once been Noah. But Noah, the person he always was.

Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, we were called gods and worshiped by many, as time churned on we were revered as saints, and then high priests, and more recently still as miracle workers. Now, we’re just called top tier necromancers. But we don’t animate dead bodies. We don’t give autonomous corpses our orders. We captor spirits and bind them to the flesh that once housed them, and we breath life back into the bodies. They are as they always had been in life. They eat, they sleep, they breath and have a heartbeat. Of course, they can’t age anymore, these people are still dead after all. It’s just the necromancer’s spell and continual magic to maintain that spell that keeps them going. Most medical professionals that don’t spend too long checking them, would be fooled into thinking that these people were still alive.

That’s the power of the top 0.01%.

Noah (No-ah) Martin

Eternal Age: 22

Height 5.2 but lies and says he’s 5.3

Build: Slim

Hair: fluffy, short, white

Eyes: ruby red

Skin: very pale

Nationality: Icelandic/Filipino

Looks: rumply but kinda hot

Job: ??