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life.
    Like all necromancers, Ayres feared nothing more than death itself. He’d called on the lord of the underworld for help countless times, and owed the old dark god many favors, which would surely be called in during the afterlife. And now it was time to beg a boon of that god again. “Stand aside,” Ayres told the lackey, and bent to chalk the final lines and diagrams on the floor. The design was his own—every necromancer had personalized rituals—but it incorporated vèvès from Vodoun, Gnostic imagery, and so-called Angelic symbols (though the beings men called angels were usually far more bizarre things). The markings were mere lines on a floor now, but when activated, they would become both a gate and a cage for a denizen of the underworld—or, at least,
an
underworld; some necromancers claimed there were many such places, catering to different types of the dead. Ayres could compel such creatures to do his bidding, and animating the corpse of a mummy was the least of their abilities. Being a necromancer was not really about being the master of the dead, it was about being the master of
entities
who were masters of the dead.
    Once upon a time, a couple of dogs’ worth of blood would have been enough to spark this ritual to life, even for a corpse this old, but Ayres had gone over fifteen years without casting a spell, and he wanted to buy his way back into the good graces of the underworld, which meant offering a
larger
gift.
    Ayres rose, puffing, and leaned on his walking stick. He wobbled a little, cursed, and started to fall. The lackey rushed over and caught Ayres, stepping into the chalk design on the floor as he did so. “Thank you,” Ayres murmured, and shoved a knife deep into the lackey’s belly. The man’s eyes went wide and he stumbled back, reaching down to stanch the wound with his hands. “You…I…Viscarro…”
    “Viscarro sent you here for this very purpose. You must not be valuable otherwise. But don’t worry. You’re serving your master.”
    The bleeding lackey started to move out of the chalk design, which was no good, so Ayres cracked him across the face with his stick, breaking the man’s nose. The lackey dropped to the ground, stretched out prone and unmoving, and the chalk on the floor began to glow. Ayres wiped his brow with a handkerchief—murder was exhausting—and listened to the distant howl that heralded the opening of a passageway. He’d always wondered if the howl was the sound of three-headed dogs bellowing, or souls in torment, or long black trains hurtling through tunnels beneath the universe. None of the denizens of that realm had ever cared to tell him. Ayres stared down, watching the floor turn to the blackness of deep space, bound by glowing chalk lines.
    “Another dead man. Just what we need.”
    Ayres lifted his head. A young man, clean-shaven and lanky, sat on a crate next to the mummy that may or may not have been John Wilkes Booth. “Get out!” Ayres said. “This is delicate work, and you’ll spoil it!” He assumed the stranger was one of Viscarro’s men—he was pale enough—though upon closer examination he was dressed in an expensive-looking tailored suit, and was handsome enough to belong on a billboard somewhere, selling underwear or cologne. He wore eight rings, each glittering with a different gemstone, and when he stood and took a step closer to the glowing design on the floor he suddenly seemed wreathed in a dark aura of clotted shadows surrounding him, like the afterimage that hangs in your vision after looking too long at a bright light.
    Ayres whimpered. He’d seen such auras before. This was a being from the underworld, but any summoned denizen should have appeared
inside
the chalk design, bound there, unable to escape. Had he drawn it incorrectly, or was there a break in the chalk, or—
    “Nice work.” The man nodded at the design. “I was passing by, and saw you trying to snatch one of my servants. I thought I’d come see you