read the prologue to VC #1

Necromancy is a rare talent.

Before The Rising, only a few Necromancers were born each generation and most never realized their powers. With violence on the rise, that was bound to change though. When the third world war sprung into being, the Earth was quickly colored by death. Blood soaked into the ground like crimson tendrils, reaching down to the core of the world and igniting. Unseen fireworks heralded the coming of a new era.

Every casualty of war equaled power, a type of power that called to a singular type of person.

A person like me.

So much death magic going unused… it caused an awakening. The deeply buried genetic coding for the necromancer sprung to reality in person after person. And the new necromancers didn’t understand their power. They didn’t have control. Blood and death magic called to bone and rotting flesh.

The dead began to rise. Hundreds at first. Then thousands.

Thousands of reanimated corpses without true masters to keep them from turning into the nightmare monsters that crave flesh.

It didn’t take long for the world to realize what was happening.

For them to discover a solution to the problem.

The war ended. Countries united under the banner of a singular, focused purpose. Kill the necromancers. End the plague of undead.

My kind was hunted, slaughtered.

Slaughtered.

The humans now impose a test at birth to determine if a child carries the gene. And if they do, God help them. My parents were careful. I was born in a clinic beneath Columbia, in the seedy underbelly of the city where ‘doctors’ were less than reputable and you can get legal papers for the right price. I’ve never been tested. Never ended up in the hospital where my blood might be scrutinized. I’ve been lucky.

I know that we caused The Rising, that the people the zombies killed… those deaths lie upon our shoulders, but to kill children, children who have merely the potential to become what I am… it is wrong. That is the great abomination. Not me. Not us.

Necromancy is a rare talent.

Because those who carry the gift are always killed.

Except for me. I’ll survive, by hiding the truth of what I am from the world. Necromancer. Psychic. Medium. Whatever the hell you want to label me as.

Running a funeral parlor in a small southern town might seem like an awful way to stay hidden, but it’s worked so far. And I pray every damn day that my luck holds.

Bonneau, South Carolina in Berkley County was just a small town—farmland and houses with folks going about their daily, rural lives—before the third war and The Rising. Now, it’s much the same, but… also changed. It’s different in a way that’s not easily explained. If you look closely though, you can see the small alterations, like one of those puzzles where you’re challenged to ‘spot the differences’ between two seemingly identical pictures.

Like the graveyard.

It looks the same until you lean in close and see that there is no grass growing above the graves now. Some opt for artificial turf, but most let the gray hard surface beyond the tombstone be exposed. It gives them peace, to know that their loved ones will never rise through the chains and poured concrete.

And prejudice and fear still exist, which amazes me. How can a world go through such a damning War and not be changed for the better? But that’s the cloth of it. Prejudice and fear will always live on, like a cockroach at the end of the world. The focus of it will only change.

Blacks versus whites.

Heterosexual versus homosexual.

Human versus necromancer.

The weather is always shitty in Bonneau now. The clouds came one day and they stayed. It’s like The Rising left a permanent haze over the world. And it’s worse here, in my little town. There’s more spiritual activity than most places. Too many shadowed secrets. Too many bodies. Sometimes it feels like the very epicenter of gloom looms over my head.

People here are still unkind and kind, whichever strikes their fancies. The population of Bonneau is a bit larger than before the last war, thanks to the bomb that was dropped on Charleston necessitating relocations during the rebuild. Many returned to their original homes once things were back in order, but some stayed.

There are new businesses and old businesses. Family names that have been here since before the first war and others that are still considered outsiders. The Cages settled here not long after the second war ended. We are neither original to the land nor so new that people do not accept us.

I say us. But I am the last, as far as I know. The final person of my name to carry on this legacy of death and decay.

Death will always embrace me like a lover. That is a truth that will also never change.

My name is Victoria Cage. Mortician. Funeral Director. Lonely, overweight girl. Necromancer. Whatever the hell you want to label me as.

Isn’t life grand?