What’s dead should stay dead… unless their family can pay. That always seemed like a better motto in my opinion. Why shouldn’t the departed be given one last chance to say goodbye or finish any unfinished business in the land of the living? It would afterall be much easier to complete in a corporeal state. Plus, there would be far fewer creepy crawlies lurking unseen while the actual living go about their daily lives. So, when you sum it all up I’m actually doing the world a favor.
“You actually believe all of that, don’t you?” my mind-creeping assistant asked as she walked into the Sanctum Oriri.
“I’ve told you countless times to stay out of my mind, Rainey.”
“And plenty more times unsaid,” she said while falling into my most comfortable seance chair, “but you’re such an open book. I swear that I don’t even have to try most of the time. It all just spills out of you.”
“Well… stop it.” It was really pointless to argue with a telepath, especially one as powerful as Rainey. They already know what you’re going to say five thoughts before you figure it out. She explained it to me once. The thoughts flow, fade, and loop, and most people are so used to the little voice in their head that they don’t even acknowledge what they are thinking until their subconscious basically screams it at them. Well-trained psychics can absorb this feed of information so fast, you’ll think they came up with the brilliant or devastating idea you had all along.
When you’re a necromancer, it can be beneficial to keep a telepath around because they will often “hear” the first signs of reanimation before a pulse is detected. Sometimes they can also feel out what’s needed to fully tether the spirit back to the living.
Of course, I’m not a novice either. When a friend, family member, or business partner comes to me for help, my first line of questioning always pertains to the deceased’s will to live. What gave them that spark for life? What would they have thrown everything else away to keep? Having that bit of information makes the spell stronger.
There’s really no way to determine how long a returned will keep ticking, but when that part of the magic is on point, they have the best chance of seeing through whatever needs to be done. The longest recorded for me was two months, one week, and twenty-three hours. I thought we were never going to be able to put that guy back in the ground. Besides Rainey, that returned was definitely the most annoying houseguest I’ve ever had.
“So what’s on the slab today?” she asked without a note of sensitivity.
“Brother. Supposedly, he was in the process of leaving his gold-digging wife and had made a new Will a few months back, but he never got around to telling his sister where he put it. Conveniently, the wife is getting everything, but his sister swears up and down that he hated the bitch, and she was probably the cause of his death.”