Free The Necromancer by Kevin Page A

scream...then fell silent forever.
    “NO!” Fergus cried.
    More people rushed toward him. Fergus wasn’t
    prepared for the anger that came over him upon witnessing Odara’s execution. His blood fi lled with rage and mourning. A man ran up and grabbed for him. Fergus responded by booting the man hard in the face, bloodying his nose and driving its bone into his brain, killing him instantly.
    “DAMN YOU!” Fergus growled. “DAMN YOU
    ALL!” he yelled, then reluctantly turned about and fl ed.

    *****
Fergus left the country, bitter and brokenhearted. He had nothing now, nothing but hatred.
    Odara was dead, and with her death a part of him died too. In a very real sense, this was true. Odara and Fergus 74
    Odara
    had been more than friends, lovers, siblings. They were twins, and being such, were so much a part of each other that they experienced an intimacy beyond expression: Love beyond love.
    Pleasure beyond pleasure. Pain beyond pain.
    Yes. Fergus lost a very real, very substantial part of himself when Odara’s fl aming body was hurled back into that pyre and her life extinguished. Now he was only half the man he once was, but that half was alive and strong and angry.
    They had to be punished for what they did to Odara.
    They had to suffer. Retribution was in order, and Fergus was damned capable of administering that retribution.

    *****
“Mark well among you,” a worked-up Reverend
    Marshall said in the middle of delivering a sermon to his congregation. “...you who are of wavering faith in the Lord.
    Mark well, for the Devil is among us, lying in wait for those souls whose belief in the power and purpose of the Almighty is shaken by these trying times. Let not Satan or his damned legions gain sway in your hearts lest you become his!”
    He wiped the beads of sweat from his brow with the cuff of his frock.
    “For behold!” he exclaimed, pointing at the young maiden sitting in the fi rst pew. “Behold...a-hem!” He coughed.
    “If there be any amongst you who...a-hem...still does not believe that the Devil has come and...a-hem...and set forth his servants upon us to work his mischief, all you need do is look to this poor...a-hem...beset child before me.”
    Reverend Marshall coughed again. He began to
    feel strange. Everything seemed to take on a peculiar gloom although it was a sunny day and the shafts of light pouring in through the stained glass windows bathed the church in bright colors.
    75
    The Necromancer
    “Not more than one month ago, Annabel Lawson
    was...was...” Marshall coughed, then gagged.
    He couldn’t speak. His throat felt as if it were clogged with dung. It was diffi cult to breathe. He felt his belly undulate beneath his frock. His skin was hot. He clutched his throat with both hands.
    His face changed color quickly from sallow to red to purple, then he belched forth a host of black leeches, each at least half a foot in length. In their mouths they carried morsels of Marshall’s innards. The parasites gushed out his mouth and nostrils in a manic procession and fl opped and shivered across the fl oor beneath the altar.
    A woman screamed.
    Blood came up with them now, and they drew his
    intestines out through his mouth and dragged them across the fl oor.
    Marshall’s eyes infl ated like over-ripe plumbs then burst open, spraying gouts of blood into the air.
    People screamed and fl ed, climbing over the pews and each other to escape.
    Marshall staggered back and forth as he felt his body get hotter. Blood seeped from his pores and oozed down his face and body. His skin exploded in fl ames. He ran around like a savage, a fl aming savage with his guts dangling heavily out of his mouth.
    He turned around to the altar and the crucifi x
    mounted on the wall behind it. He lowered his hands from his throat and folded them together as they brushed against his soft, hanging innards. He fell to his knees to pray, but the fl ames overtook him. His body pitched forward and struck the fl oor with a