Necromance in the Air - Chapter II - (Fiction)
The Good Fight
In our previous chapter we met Felix, and learned a little about his humdrum job monitoring undead heads in a call centre. Today, we meet Lucy Dartford…
She crawled beneath the window of the security desk and paused with her back against the concrete wall. Entering the facility had been easy. The few wards and protection spells had been cursory at best. Most of them were out of date. People just didn’t take arcane security as seriously as they should.
As a dedicated white hat, she had spent her life building security where it needed to exist. It had left her with a unique skill set, one she had put to good use for challenging the forces of darkness. Like the loyalty card scammers at the local supermarket, they hadn’t seen her coming.
Her vanishing supermarket loyalty points, which she’d been saving up for new hair straighteners, had been the start of an unexpected journey. Six months later, she was uncovering the worst of it: dark warlocks profiting from the dead.
“Lucy? Are you there? Dartford, hello?”
Her radio crackled into life and she slapped her hand against her ear a little harder than she’d meant to. Great work, Lucy, deafen yourself, that’ll help. “Shh, they’ll hear you.”
“They won’t hear me, Lucy. I’m in an ear-piece designed for clandestine operations across enemy lines in war zones—” he let out a snort “—I hardly imagine Daniel Turbitt, who works nights as security while he studies for his football coaching badges, is operating high-end surveillance equipment.”
She rolled her eyes. Not that anyone would see her doing it. Dressed in a black roll neck jumper and a pair of matching black cargo pants, she knew she looked like a knockoff cat burglar, but she remaining discreet was important. The black face paint might have been unnecessary…and, she now realised, potentially offensive. “Tony, is the shoe polish a bit…”
“What?”
“Am I wearing blackface?”
“What? No. It’s camouflage.”
“I know, but if someone catches me—”
“They’ll think you’ve broken in, and for no conceivable reason, decided to be racist while you were at it?”
“No, it’s just—”
“It’s obviously so you can hide in the shadows. Unless…Lucy, why did you put the boot polish on your face?”
“To hide in the shadows,” she said, feeling her hands ball into fists.
“Maybe try a ski mask next time?”
“Yeah. Helpful, Tony. I’m gonna try to wipe it off... oh.”
“You’ve got it all over your hands now, haven’t you?”
“I’m leaving bloody great handprints everywhere. This was a terrible idea. I’m a witch, not a bloody cat burglar.”
“Who steals from cats?”
“Oh, shut up Tony.”
She reached into the bumbag around her waist. Part of her wanted to call it a fanny pack. All of her wondered what marketing genius gave something, not one, but two shit names. From within it, she withdrew a pencil, into the pencil’s surface, where she might once have carved Lucy 4 Paul (he turned out to be a twat. We don’t talk about him) were runes. Casting a look over her shoulder to make sure she was unobserved, she jammed the pencil tip into the lock on the double glass doors that led into the building.
The pencil let out a red glow, and she felt it warm beneath her fingers. The door lock clicked open, and she slipped through into the building proper. When she turned to make sure the security guard hadn’t spotted her, she noticed the smeared shoe polish handprints all over the door.
“Oh, shit.”
“What’s wrong? Didn’t the pencil work? I told them it was a bad idea to use a 2B, but they said it’s better than not 2B. Got to use the puns on a mission, Lucy. You better—”
“The pencil worked fine. I’ve left bloody great big handprints all over the glass door.”
“On the outside?”
“Yes, on the bloody outside.”
“Well, that’s alright then. It just looks like someone pressed up against the glass. They don’t know you’re inside. The pencil should wear off—”
‘Click’ the door locked shut behind her.
“Seconds.”
“It has done. Um, Tony, you only gave me one pencil.”
“Yeah, they’re really hard to make.”
“But they only work once.”
“Right. You’ll have to find another point of egress.”
“Point of egress? Tony, you stupid bastard. I’m supposed to leave through that door.”
“Yeah, but that was when I thought we’d have another pencil.”
“You didn’t think telling me was a good idea?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Lucy. I had a lot on my mind. Like planning this entire mission while you were being racist.”
“Oh fuck off, Tony.” She pulled the earpiece out and dropped it into the bumbag at her waist.
The corridor she was in darkness, but the light from outside the glass doors offered enough illumination to make her way beyond the reception desk.
She ducked behind a filing cabinet and risked looking at her phone screen to check the map of the interior layout. The mission: investigate the building, find the office of the managing director and copy the files from his laptop. Gathering evidence about some kind of dark magic cult, or at least, that’s what she’d been told.
As a low level operative, her information came on a ‘need to know’ basis. There seemed to be a fine line between what she didn’t need to know, and what people couldn’t be arsed to tell her. To her right, a door led to some kind of open plan office. Opposite were several doors to smaller offices. Further down the corridor, a flight of stairs led to further meeting rooms and two large offices which screamed, ‘we have status’.
“Must need all that space to swing their cocks around when they’re being the ‘big man’,” she said to herself as she slid the phone into a pocket. She wiped her hands down her trouser legs smearing shoe polish, then took a breath as she ran, in a crouch, across the corridor. Taking a breath, she put her hand on the door to the open plan office space.
Just a reminder I have books and stuff… You know…
Malarkey’s ImaginOmnibus
Gloomwood
Oh, I like her!!! She’s spunky!
Brilliant! 🤣🤣🤣 “Two shit names” LOLLLLL I have always thought this. 🤣 EXQUISITE MIND MEAT!!!!! 👏👏👏