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as they had strong enough mojo, any that didn't already belong to the Houses were recruited into the fold whenever possible.  
    Except for necros. They didn't recruit necros. They had no use for the dying, or the dead, and there was a standing agreement between them not to promote death magic, because they feared it as much as I did. That was why it was better to keep it a secret. Better to stay anonymous, to let Danelle be the contact, and just do the jobs.  
    Which is why I was standing in a cold, musty basement, surrounded by corpses.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Looks easy enough.

    Taking in magical energy was two parts genetics, one part skill. The genetics part had to do with being able to absorb the energy and store it, like metaphysical fat cells. If you couldn't store the energy, you couldn't use it, because you had to build up enough to make it do something. That was sensitives in a nutshell. Once you stored the energy, you needed to know how to release it. That was the skill part. I didn't know what controlled the frequencies different wizards were able to access. I only knew it was related to DNA, and that it theoretically could be bred into or out of people. That was Danelle's story at its root.  
    She was a failed experiment.
    I was a pharmaceutical anomaly.  
    Life was spectacularly unfair that way.
    I pulled the energy in and held it, like taking a deep breath and never letting go. Then I walked over to one of the corpses leaning against the wall. His name was Rayon, and he was a hulk of a man that put Rodge and his bro to shame. During his life, he'd been a body builder, with a strong addiction to both human growth hormone and cocaine. It had been the cocaine that killed him. Not from an overdose, but from an angry dealer who wanted to get paid. He had a bullet hole in his forehead, and a deep cut along his neck. He also walked with a horrible limp, since they'd played with him a bit first and cut his achilles. He was too big to be stealthy, so I used him more for mundane lifting than anything else.  
    I put my hand to the dead forehead, releasing the held breath of energy with my voice. "Come on, Rayon. Time to wake up." Except for the name, I didn't think the words were that important. The vocalization was.  
    My hand warmed from the energy flowing through it. A few seconds later, Rayon blinked.
    "Awww, why me?"
    The animation left a connection, a gossamer thread of energy that reached from his soul to me. It was the tether I used to control them, to make them do what I wanted, and to hold them in this world. The further they got from me, the more free will they had, their nascent personality taking over and sending them wherever. Until they got too far. Then the connection was lost altogether, they got dropped from their bodies, and any passer-by could just come across a wayward corpse. It had almost happened once in the beginning, before I had known better. I was more careful now.
    "I need you to help me get some of the others out of here. We're ditching this place."
    He stretched out his limbs and groaned. The dead didn't need to stretch, but their souls still thought they did. "You look like shit, man. How long's it been?"
    "Since I woke you last? I don't know, a month?"
    "Feels like forever." He stood up, towering over me. His decaying flesh probably stunk, but I had developed an ambivalence to it. "How many are you taking?"
    I hadn't thought about that. I turned in a circle, looking around the room. I had about a dozen bodies out of the freezers, and three more in them. I also had a small collection of cats, dogs, birds, and mice. You'd be surprised how useful birds and mice could be.  
    The idea of leaving any of them bothered me. As sad as it was, they were like family. Still, I only had so much room in the van.
    "Take Evan and Kerry from the freezer and put them in the coolers. I have to think about the rest."
    "Okay." He lumbered off to one of the Frigidaires, his awkward steps shaking the floor.