Chapter 3
The Necromancer’s Loneliness
Not all lives are the same. But many hold common traits. Some are adventurous and rife with excitement. And some, not so much. Some people spend their days exploring the world, traversing the great unknown and discovering unmarked boundaries, while some marvel at such tales from the safety of their television sets, dreaming only of what their life could one day be.
Believe it or not dear reader, but in this Sebastian Grimm was among the latter category. For despite his gifts in the art of necromancy, A) it was not a talent that he could very well reveal to the general public, and B) it was not a talent that he could allow himself to use more than he deemed appropriate. The dead were beings to be respected after all. Not to be experimented on for reasons of personal amusement.
But the other reason why Sebastian Grimm did not explore the outside world nearly as often as he could, and indeed the most influential, was because he was, by nature, a private man. When he wasn’t busy at work (a concept at times difficult to discern given that he lived and worked in a funeral home), he often kept to himself, settling in his living room either to read a book, or watch television.
Today he watched television. And on channel 45, he witnessed a story. One that began almost instantly the moment he flipped the channel, and introduced itself with the words, “Previously, on The Sins of Us.”
Thus began the tale of Pricilla Jenkins. A twenty four year old woman who had everything in the world, but longed for more.
Pricilla lived in the distant town of Bodinia, a neighborhood of immense wealth and materialistic ambitions. Her parents were rich aristocrats. And as such, she too was rich as well. She had all the things that any in less financially enviable positions could ever want. A mansion, four expensive cars, a yacht, a cabin in the Himalayas, and a maid for every maid. But there was one thing she did not have that she yearned for more than anything else.
Love.
Priscilla had met many men in her past, but none who had been able to spark the flames of her aching heart. She’d searched and wished in vain for her knight in shining armor. Her hero, her champion, to whisk her off her feet and free her from the dread of loneliness.
One night (that is to say, the night of the following episode), Priscilla received a knock on her door. It was two o’clock in the morning. She wondered who it could possibly be at this ungodly hour. Not knowing who it was or what to expect, she slowly approached the door with caution.
Her first thoughts were of her evil twin brother Byron, who had always resented her for as long as she could remember. He had done a great many nasty things to her before. And Priscilla did not put it above him to attempt yet another horrid scheme of cruelty. But in the off-chance that it wasn’t Byron, her suspicions quickly fell to Carla DuMay, her close friend and town skank. A woman as loose as a pair of unlaced shoes, who spent as much time in the company of men as she did judging them behind their backs. Priscilla believed that if it was not her brother Byron, then it was most certainly Carla DuMay standing either drunk outside the doorway, or giddy with tales of her latest male endeavor.
Priscilla gandered from the eyehole, surprised to find that the subject was neither among the two, but rather a complete and utter stranger. A young man, tanned, standing tall with a powerful chin and dark green eyes. Or at least she believed they were green. It was hard to say for certain on account of the darkness, even though the front lights were on, and the subject was almost leaning on the door.
Priscilla unfurled the lock, pulled the knob, and like a gust of wind blowing before her, a surge of emotions and heavy sensations pervaded her senses at the wondrous view standing before her eyes. A tall, burly man of Eastern European descent with a long sharp nose and hands the size of oven mitts posed and greeted her with a smile. His teeth were even and shimmering white. He wore a collar shirt, unbuttoned, hanging out to reveal a chest as thick and as rock solid as stacks of bricks.
“Hello,” he said with a distinct, Spaniard accent. “My car seems to have broken down, and I was wondering if I could use your telephone.”
Priscilla melted at the sight of him. Taking in every detail from his long, wavy black hair, to the pointy tips of his cowboy boots. The man, the stranger, whoever he was, he was perfect.
“I apologize for my indecency,” he said, though he made no effort to hide his bare, muscle-bound chest. “There was an injured raccoon on my way over here. A foolish driver ran over his limbs the poor animal. He was barely alive when I found him, so I used my shirt to give him warmth. He is in my car right now, recovering until I can call the paramedics.”
The man stared off into the distance, holding his right hand over his forehead.
“If only I had gotten to him sooner.”
And at the drop of a hat, Priscilla fell in love.
The necromancer watched as the events unfolded, dreaming to himself deep inside how often this sort of thing happened in real life. Did it take a written script to manufacture such a romantic event, or could things of a similar nature ever occur in the lives of real people?
“It’s all just fantasy,” he said, not realizing until a moment after he said it that he had just been thinking out loud.
Of course, in the realm that is real life, love at first sight is not something that tends to find its way into the doorsteps of the lonely. It was simply a fantasy. A wish. Nothing more.
And then Sebastian’s doorbell rang.
The necromancer leapt to his feet. The hair of his skin came alive, shot with sudden flickers of nervousness.
“Who is it?” he asked.
The doorbell rang once again.
He turned from his television down to the hallway. And then again to the television.
Something was not right.
It was eleven o’clock and nearing midnight. Well past business hours. Whoever it was hadn’t come to schedule a funeral. Or at least, he didn’t think so.
He slowly approached the door, reminded in the corner of his mind what he had just seen happen inside his television, and what he had just been thinking to himself only seconds earlier.
As he made his way towards the front door, Sebastian Grimm could not help but at least entertain the idea.
What if? asked his mind in jest. What if it really is the woman of my dreams?
Sebastian unfurled the lock, and opened the door. The playful smirk on his face evaporated into thin air, and in its stead rose a vapid expression of disbelief.
In an ideal world, things would be different for Sebastian Grimm. Not only would he live in and operate a thriving funeral home, but like everybody else, he would also maintain a healthy circle of friends, and just as Priscilla found love at the cusp of her doorstep, so too would he find his.
As things were however, where he hoped to find a soul mate and love, he found instead a rotting dead man covered in dirt. And standing over it was one private investigator John Eleanor King.
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