[i][center]Valorie[@Atrophy] and Sander[@RedDusk][/center][/i]

“...in a hot minute!”

She threw her phone onto the couch and finished pulling her jacket on. The confusion of waking up in a strange room was becoming an unfortunately usual feeling, although she could say that this was the first time she had awoken in her underwear while pinned by a mannequin wearing her own clothing. Perhaps it was for the best that she had, somehow, completely struck the previous day off of her calendar. She had the lingering memories of running away from Rich swirl with some flashes of her, desperately, trying to get an asexual, ambivalent, and inanimate object to return her sweet, caring affections. God, she probably tried to convince the thing that they were all infinite beams of bending light and that the very chance that their two particles happened to cross each others path during their individual life journeys was clearly a miraculous intervention from a higher, wiser, and impossible divine being of pure energy. The thought that potentially the deepest, most romantic and caring emotions she had in her short young life was with an nonspeaking, nonthinking chunk of plastic and fiberglass was, well, crushing.

[i]And rad! I gotta tell Quinn to get me more of that shit.[/i]

The thought of her friend prompted her to check her phone. A few missed calls and angry texts from Rich. Ignore. A number she didn’t know. A sales call. A text from somebody that she had, apparently, named “dont-reply-when-sober” during one of her tears; Drunk Val knew best. A handful from Quinn: “yo, got work”, “where are you?”, “going out tonight”, and one picture message of her friend drinking alone in a nightclub while flipping off the camera. Valorie knew her friend well enough to know that while standing her up was a mistake, waking her up after a night out could be potentially fatal for her health. She’d text later. Getting into a screaming match so early in the...morning? Afternoon? Afternoon. It was afternoon. Getting into a screaming match so early in the afternoon led to guaranteed bad vibes for the rest of the day, and she needed to all the good mojo she could muster if she was going to experiment at Sander’s. 

But first, she needed to make sure she didn’t look like a woman who had just spent ages tripping her figurative balls off. She exited the safe room into the dive bar known, unfortunately, as the Dirty Bath. Setting the key down on the counter, she tried to will the tingling sensation out of her feet while stumbling towards the restroom. The bar was excruciatingly large for how empty it always was, which made it an excellent safe house for the Rats (aka a Rat Hole. Valorie remembered being significantly disappointed when her fellow Rats did not react the way she had anticipated towards the name). She stepped around chairs, stools, and tables, walked across a giant dance floor that nobody had ever used (and a stage where nobody ever performed), and struggled pushing the heavy bathroom door before realizing that the word "Pull" was, in fact, not an option that was up for debate.

For the months that she had occasionally stumbled into the bar after a night of partying or on the rare nights where she wanted a place to drink without flooding her system with other toxins, the Dirty Bath had been a sort of go to haunt. The early, Pre-Depression era art, attire, and atmosphere, as well as the bar’s famous moonshine that they only served to the most respectable of customers (read: assholes they never wanted to come back, due to it tasting like pure ogre piss mixed with gasoline) had given Valorie the impression that it was named after the lost art of making your own hooch during the Prohibition years. Walking into the woman’s restroom more sober than usual, however, caused the light bulb in her head to click on. It wasn’t a clever or cute name, but a literal, apt description of the state of the bathrooms. To describe it in words would not do it justice, but let it be known that the [s]morning[/s] afternoon Valorie gave herself a quick bath using the sink in the basement bathroom of a dive bar was, hands down, the most shameful moment of her life, excluding her first and final homecoming dance. [i]Okay, most shameful moment this year. Month. Definitely breaks the top five in the past week.[/i]

All right, so it was just sort of gross.

At first glance in the mirror she actually thought she was, impossibly, still tripping. The idea that a drug trip lasted nearly twenty-four hours was insane and extremely exciting. She tried to even convince herself that, perhaps, she was tripping so hard that she actually had imagined time as a concept in all of itself before she realized that such thoughts were stupid, pointless, and dumb--confirming that she was, in fact, sober for the moment. What she had thought to be her face melting was actually just her makeup running together in a way that sort of bred a Salvador Dali masterpiece with the finger painting of a toddler. She scrubbed at her face heavily with soap, hot water, and paper towels. When she examined herself she didn’t see the bad ass, super cool and confident future lich queen of Santa Somabra. She didn’t even see an intimidating Rat. She saw a meek, ugly child with bloodshot eyes, greasy hair, and blemished skin wasting away in a world of metaphorical and literal shit. She saw that fucking idiot who had killed the only friend she ever had, and now took advantage of the fact that she had gotten lucky. A goddamn waste. She fled the bathroom, bitterness and anger churning in her throat. 

[i]I am trying,[/i] she thought, trying to convince herself as she walked out of the bar and up the street. [i]That’s why I’m going to Sander’s. I’m trying.[/i]

How they met was a little hazy. Everything she did with the Rats was always a little hazy. But there had been an incident during one of the drug deals she had tagged along with a bunch of Rats she barely knew. They had tried to get cute and fancy with the wrong people during the deal and ended up sticking three people full of bullet holes instead of needle holes. Valorie had been, well, she didn’t know. She had wanted to freak out, but she forced herself not to, not when she was that close to death. So much to observe, so much to learn. Luckily for the Rats, one of them knew a guy who knew a girl who knew a guy, and they had called upon Sander to help clean up the mess. The guy dealt with corpses each day; to say she was jealous would have been an understatement. A little bit of innocent stalking, a quick fast talk to avoid getting beaned by that big sweetie of an Orc, and an ungodly amount of pestering with her sweetest, most innocent puppy dog eyes later and they had struck up an accord: Sander gives her practice, Valorie gives him information. 

Her feet hurt by the time she made it to Sander’s. She tried the door. Locked, of course, why wouldn’t it be? She knocked, an impatient rat-tat-tat followed by two hard pounds before she shifted into a steady, arrhythmic pound that could only be her sad attempt at producing the beat to a familiar song. “San-deeeeeeeer,” she bellowed. “You’re really going to let a young, innocent, naive girl wait outside your doorstep in a spooky, scary alley?” Her hands thudded against the door. “Sander!”

---

Sander glanced at the phone in his hand, pondering whether or not Valorie would be able to make it to his place before nightfall. She sounded even worse than usual, and that was saying something. While he didn’t actually know the exact details, the girl’s harmful habits were rather disconcerting, to say the least. Most of the Rats he knew were like that, all riding the high of their chosen substances toward self-destruction. He wondered how long Valorie got left. The thought of her expiring was not one he would like to entertain, not when their little deal was going so well. 

Seeing as it was a fairly quiet day, Sander decided to close the office early and retreated to his desk where a couple of documents still awaited his attention. He was going through his mail when someone finally knocked on the back door. It was, of course, Valorie the necromancer. He’d recognized that overly dramatic speech anywhere. A few seconds later, he was already at the door, holding it open for her.

“It’s still bright out.”-He stated, taking in her current appearance with quick glances. But like usual, he made no comment, instead just waved her in and closed the door. –“Come on in. It’s already in the basement.”

Without further ado, he turned to walk toward his destination, trusting her to follow.
 
“Nice to see you too, Sandy,” she said, snubbing out her cigarette before stepping in after him. He was never the kind for talking, but that didn’t dissuade her one bit from playing around with him. “No handshake, no hug where our asses are both stuck way out, no weird peck on the cheek. Truly, this place reminds me of home.”

“It is good to know that my guest is comfortable.”-Despite the flat tone, the twitching corner of his lips betrayed his amusement. He wasn’t immune to her brand of humor, after all.

They made their way toward a white, rusty metal door that looked strangely out of place in the prim and proper hall of Abbey funeral home. With a rustle of keys, he unlocked the door, ignoring the screeching protest of metal as he pushed it open and made his way down the stairs. The lights were already on when they arrived. The basement looked exactly like your average parking lot, albeit much smaller and instead of cars, it was populated with several metal operating tables, all of which were empty save for the one in the middle of the room. There were a row of cabinets and rusty barrels lining up on the nearby wall, where Sander headed over and took his place on top of a black barrel.

She shivered as she followed Sander down into the basement; the sickening smell of formaldehyde hit her hard. Her heart rate quickened, a wolfish smile appeared on her face, and her stained teeth escaping through her chapped lips as she saw it. Walking up to the fellow dressed like a last minute Halloween costume, Valorie unceremoniously pulled the white blanket off of his body. A noise escaped her throat as her brown eyes wavered over his filleted face and chest. To anyone unfamiliar with Valorie it would sound like she was aghast with horror; for people who had dealt with necromancer’s before they would suddenly feel much less sympathetic towards the girl. It was a sound of glee, of pleasant surprise, as if instead of pulling back a sheet and discovering a corpse she had found a pile of presents. 

Valorie forced a neutral expression onto her face--she had read plenty about the conduct of necromancers in the field: [i]The reason our kind are so reviled is not necessarily for our deeds, but the way we conduct ourselves. Only in the last several centuries have the gentiles grown weary of our kind; before the advent of many modern religions we were important spiritual leaders in the community.[/i] She shuddered at the thought of that tome. It was thick, a dull, and in a different language that had required a nightmarish amount of translation tools, coffee, and some cocaine to keep her alert through the night. To summarize the point it was trying to make, necromancers are only viewed poorly because they get a hard-on for the dead and then, like an abusive father, pay the undead little mind and walk out of their lives. Valorie prided herself on being one of the allegedly few necromancers who gave two fucks about the living dead, now if only she could stop cooing at the sight of a fresh hot corpse.

[i]But it’s just too goddamn cool[/i], she thought, grabbing a pair of small gloves from her purse. She wasn’t concerned about getting any diseases from the dead; the fevers brought upon by an infliction of the nonliving were supposed to open new avenues in young necromancers minds, according to a shaman she had read, although some of the comments suggested that it was bullshit. Still, she donned the gloves to avoid getting any weird stares or comments from Sander. Her latex fingers traced over the wounds, dipped into the cuts. Liberally, she coated her hand with the mire and muck from his body that had yet to be cleaned off. As she worked, she talked:

“It’s easiest on both bodies if the medium uses sources from both beings,” said Valorie, chuckling a little. [i]Mediums[/i]. It was just what necromancers called themselves when they didn’t want to be burned at the stake. Stupid inside joke. “Not as powerful as using just the energy from the summoner solely, and not as pure as using the energy from the entity solely, but in theory it should provide a simple binding. Not a complete puppet, not a complete individual. I’m going to have to borrow your floor again,” she said, sitting on her haunches as smeared the filth in a small circle, perhaps a foot wide. “Smaller circles are actually more preferred to larger ones, but larger ones are easier to draw.” She didn’t mention how crossing two runes together could potentially open a portal to hell or create a powerful, violent spell where their insides became their outsides and their outsides became their insides. 

“The upside-down pentagram; don’t let those choir boys tell you it's anything satanic, the five points symbolize blah blah blah, good witch bullshit. It just helps people focus energy. For what it’s worth, I could also draw a dick and use it to focus energy. In middle school a certain necromancer turned her entire math class into a monster mash after a sharpie spree,” she turned and gave Sander a smile. “Jokes. That...that wouldn’t work.” She pulled off her gloves, tossed them in a bin, and grabbed a marker out of her purse. She began writing symbols around the points. “This one here means life. Reverse it and it means death. Invert it and it means something completely different and irrelevant.” Add an extra line and it meant the bloom of life, and would allegedly cause the caster to explode. Again, she saved that information for herself. “This one’s piece or peace,” she said. “The stuff I read differs. This one’s cattle. Or slave. Runes are a little archaic.”  She capped the pen. “And now, to mutter the magic words…”

The magic words weren't your typical nonsense utterances of hocus pocus or sim-sala-bim. She moved her mouth and began speaking in the foreign, ancient tongue: Akkadian, the language of Babylonian necromancers. Her words came out slowly as she tried to pronounce them with perfect precision. One incorrect utterance and the man could come back violent, infantile, or not at all. As she spoke she felt a second chill run through her spine, a sense of numbness, and then she disconnected from her body with a gush of euphoria as if she had just put a spike into her veins. 

Sander had seen her in action before. He had seen the whole process; this was just the first time she took the time to explain details to him. But yet, this was the first time he saw it. One minute he was sitting on a barrel behind Valorie, contented to just watch, then the next he was on his feet, neck craned to a side as he chased down smoky tendrils with his gaze. It was here again. The black smoke coiled and whirled as it wrapped itself around his right arm, and suddenly, he turned back to Valorie. No, he did not turn; his neck did that all on its all. Then his feet moved. It took him a full second to realize what was happening.

Valorie was glowing a bright purple, and like a moth to the flame, he moved. He wanted that light. He needed it. Except, it wasn't him. He knew that much.

He reached out, his right hand moved on its own, the shadow twirled violently as it neared Valorie’s bright aura. But he wouldn’t let it. He wrestled for control, first forcing his traitorous limb to stop. To his surprise, it relented easily, almost playful, as if they were children playing tug-of-war. The shadow released its grip on him, the smoky tendrils dispersed easily. His body was his own again.
  
Looking down from above, Valorie only saw her meat continue speaking quietly and frantically, a second, guttural voice joining her squeaks in harmony. Her body was rocking back and forth, almost fetal like, as if she was having a bad drug experience. This was the moment; the most dangerous part in any necromancer’s work. She forced her husk to push up her sleeve, showing her scarred, bony arm. Then, with one swift motion of no hesitation, it grabbed the knife from her purse and sliced a shallow cut across her forearm. Valorie felt an inexplicable pain for such a small wound as she rushed back into her body. She was sweating, burning alive, breathing heavy. Holding the knife over the summoning circle, she let the drops of her blood fall upon it. The circle hummed to life, a deep purple glow highlighting its edge. 

She barked a command in a shaky voice. The dead body stirred. She repeated the command two more times. It began to try and sit up. Satisfied,  she applied pressure to her wound with her leg while digging around in her bag for some first aid and turned towards Sander. She jolted. Like a horror movie that relied on cheap scares, the man had seemingly just materialized right behind her. The contents from her purse scattered loosely to her side. Sidling on her hands and knees like a crab, Valorie quickly shoved her personal goods back into her bag: the gum, the phone,the cigarettes, the "jazz" cigarette, the bottle of ether she was saving for tonight's sweet dreams, the gun. Fuck, had he seen the goddamn gun? 

"Jesus, Sander, I wasn't going to hurt myself. Or was all of this just some weird plan to get me on my knees?" she said, zipping her purse shut and giving him a friendly, yet forced, smile. "But really, I know what I'm doing. I don't need another goddamn babysitter," she added, softly, as if she was trying more to convince herself than her cohort.  “Listen, You only got a few--oh FUCK MY GAH--minutes,” she said, pouring disinfectant on the cut and wrapping it in gauze. "Please don't waste them." [i]And please don’t scar[/i], she thought, elevating her arm. She gave a satisfied look at her creation as it finally finished pulling itself up and turned to sit on the side of the operating table.

“It’s okay, sweetheart, I know he looks unfriendly, but Sander’s here to help you,” said Valorie to John Doe, in a soft voice that was uncommon for the woman and strangely similar to the way a mother would talk to a shy child latched to her leg. “Tell him whatever you can about, uh..." She gestured wildly with her hands at his gouged body. "Quickly, please.”