Bound by Memories Read online

  Bound by Memories

  (Necromancer Book 3)

  Kaje Harper

  Copyright © 2020 Kaje Harper

  Cover Art © 2020 Kaje Harper

  Proofreading by Ashley VanBuren

  Formatting by Beaten Track Publishing – beatentrackpublishing.com

  License Notes

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission of the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted is a model.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Content warning: For adult readers over the age of 18 only. This book contains explicit sexual situations between two men.

  Christmastime brings out memories, and ghosts.

  Silas tracks down a poltergeist haunting a local tree farm. Darien hopes to convince Silas that despite experiences with demons and hells, Christmas can still be fun. Pip tries to catch his first rat. And Grim watches from a high vantage point and a position of moral superiority— he has holiday memories of his own, but cats know how to keep a secret.

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8 – Grim

  Excerpt from Don’t Plan to Stay

  About the Author

  Other Books by Kaje Harper

  Acknowledgements

  This holiday story for Darien, Silas, Grim, and Pip was a last-minute decision. Without the invaluable help of Kathy, Kris, and Jonathan, these words would never have reached the published page. You folks are the best— thank you enormously for the help and encouragement, the ideas and the commas, and all your hard work that made this story possible.

  To everyone reading this series, thank you for your interest in my sto-ries; may whichever holidays you celebrate be peaceful, safe, and warm.

  Chapter 1

  Silas Thornwood paused in the doorway of his kitchen. His apprentice, partner— the young man who, in a ridiculously short time, had worked his way into Silas’s heart— stood by the sink, staring somberly out the window. Sharp winter light etched deeper lines at the corners of Darien’s eyes and lit the silver strands at his temple. Silas’s breath caught on a moment of loss. That’s what he’ll look like as an old man.

  Loud thumps behind him yanked his attention around. He saw a small gray shape flash past, then a larger white one crashed into his shins. He grabbed for the door frame as Pip’s resilient little rat terrier body rebounded off his leg. The dog leaped across the kitchen.

  “Got him!” Pip yelped breathlessly, then, “Aw, no,” as the rat ahead of him flattened to an impossible degree and slipped under the door to the pantry. Pip put on the brakes just in time to avoid slamming into the door and barked sharply. Then the pup shook himself hard and whirled around, a panting smile on his furry face. “Did you see that, Darien? I almost got him.”

  “And almost took Silas out in the process.” Grimalkin, Silas’s big tomcat familiar, strolled past him, eyes on the pup. “You have to pay attention to more than one thing at a time, young Pip.”

  “Oops.” Pip shifted his gaze to Silas’s face, his wagging tail drooping. “Did I hurt you? That rat ran fast!”

  “No.” Silas couldn’t hold back a smile. “I can handle a bump on the shins.”

  “Still, that was inexcusably clumsy.” Grim bopped the dog on the rump with one big paw, then jumped to the windowsill. “We have a lot of work to do.”

  Darien turned away from the light, looking ten years younger with a smile brightening his face. “We don’t need Pip to hunt rats, Grim. You’re more than enough for the job.”

  Grim bumped Darien’s hand with his cheek. “Of course. But rodent hunting’s good practice for the pup: body coordination and situational awareness. Which—” He bestowed a dark look on the small dog. “—are still deeply in need of work.”

  “I almost got that one.” Pip bounced up and down. “I think it cheated. I think it was a magic rat.” He sniffed down along the pantry door. “That’s a tiny space. How did anything that size get through there? We have magic rats.”

  Silas said, “Rats and mice have the ability to compress their bodies and even skulls, through narrow spaces. Grim will take care of that non-magical rat shortly, right?” He gave Grim a frown, because a rat in his kitchen became less amusing, once you took Pip out of the equation.

  “In good time.” Grim stretched and sat neatly, staring out the window and ignoring him.

  Pip snuffed once more, then tipped his face up at Darien. “What are we doing today? Can we go out? The snow has stopped. Almost.”

  “Sure,” Darien said. “Give me a minute to finish my coffee, and I’ll go with you.”

  “Yes! I want to see the snow.” Pip bounced out of the room and they heard his nails click down the hallway.

  Grimalkin jumped down and strolled over to his dish. “I, on the other hand, have seen enough snow to last me a lifetime. I think a little snack is in order.” He fixed his eyes on Silas over his shoulder.

  Obediently— damn it, who’s in charge here?— Silas opened the refrigerator, took out a few slivers of cooked chicken, and dropped them into Grim’s bowl.

  As the cat bent over his treats, Darien drained his coffee, set the mug in the sink, and came toward Silas. “Are you going to walk with us, Si?”

  “Maybe.” He wasn’t sure he liked the new nickname Darien had awarded him, and he definitely didn’t look forward to trudging through the snowfall they’d received overnight, but he’d brave more than a bit of snow to watch Darien, healthier than he’d been a couple of weeks ago, playing with his familiar. He followed Darien into the hall. “What were you thinking about, staring out the window?” You looked sad.

  “Christmas is almost here.”

  “I guess so. Yes.” The holiday hadn’t made much of an impression on him since he’d moved in with his own mentor at eighteen. Dealing with demons and the multitude of their hells leached away his faith in Christian theology. His mentor, Harrowsmith, had been an atheist, and old Vickery, who’d bequeathed him the house, had been a pagan. Years of listening to those two old men had given him a cynical view of any organized religion.

  “I used to love the holiday when I was a kid.” Darien shrugged, downplaying the thought as unimportant, but wistfulness threaded his voice.

  “All kids do, I guess.” His own words woke a memory of trying to rouse his father early on Christmas morning. Subtlety had not been his forte back then. Dad pretended to sleep, until my small-child excitement became frustration. Then he laughed and swooped me down the stairs in my pajamas. “I recall a pleasant moment or two.”

  “The holidays have been pretty crappy since then. The first year I was in college…” Darien’s voice trailed off unhappily.

  “What happened?”

  “I went home, after four months gone.” Darien grimaced. “Dad was… not doing well. When Mom passed, he managed the bare minimum, working and being the single parent, and though he never seemed happy, we got along okay. He kept going through my high school years, I guess because he had to. A
pparently, when I left for college, he kind of collapsed. I found out he’d quit his job. He just sat around the house, staring at the family pictures, so far away he’d jump when I spoke to him.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He acted like he didn’t even notice me. At one point I even tried to tell him I was a homosexual, just to… I don’t know. To shake him up? Make him see me? He said, ‘Don’t be silly. You’ve always been normal. Nothing like that.’ He’d leave the room if I mentioned anything he didn’t want to hear. I’d come back home, it was Christmas, and he didn’t seem to care. When I headed back to campus, I told him he should sell the house and move. Start somewhere new that would be better for him.”

  “Sounds like good advice.”

  “Yeah. Except I found out a few months later he got rid of the house, furniture, everything that wouldn’t fit in a suitcase. Jumped on a plane and went to Paris. I got a long-distance phone call at the dorm, from France. Two minutes, to save money. ‘Sorry, son, hope you didn’t need anything from the house.’ His new address and keep in touch. Then he was gone. He sent a card now and then.”

  Silas knew Darien’s father now lived overseas, but he hadn’t heard this history. “Did you call him when things went bad?” When I let the ghosts have you? “You can call him now. Long distance isn’t prohibitively expensive.”

  Darien shook his head.

  “Or you might write to him?”

  “Maybe.” Darien straightened his shoulders and glanced sideways at Silas. “I spent the holidays at a friend’s pad last year, but he’d gone all fake Indian, incense and curried rice. This year, maybe we can do Christmas right?”

  “Um.” Silas didn’t want to dim the light in Darien’s eyes. “You’ll have to help me figure out what ‘right’ involves.”

  “Like when we were kids.” Darien’s smile warmed Silas’s heart. “Lights and a tree and tinsel and cookies.”

  “You want all that?”

  “We don’t have to…” Darien slumped.

  “No, sure, a few traditions will be fun.” He would do more than string some colored lights to keep Darien smiling.

  Pip came bounding back to them. “Did you say cookies, Darien? Can they be chocolate? Grim says chocolate cookies are the best.”

  “Grim’s pulling your leg,” Silas said.

  Pip tilted his head, ears waving like semaphore flags. “No, he’s not. He’s not even here.”

  “I meant he’s teasing you. Chocolate’s not good for dogs.”

  “What about familiars though? Maybe familiar dogs can eat chocolate.”

  “Gingerbread men,” Darien said. “You’ll love them.”

  “Sounds great.” Pip bounced a few times. “Can we see the snow now?”

  “Yeah.” Darien’s smile widened. “You know we got enough to bury you, right?”

  “It’ll be exciting.” Pip led the way to the front door, where he stood shifting from foot to foot in impatience, as Silas and Darien put on coats and gloves and boots.

  The arched roof over the front door hadn’t kept the snow off the front step and a clump fell inside as Silas pulled the door wide. Pip jumped back, pawed at the chilly blob, and eyed the foot-high drift across the doorway. “I’m taller than that!” With a leap, he cleared the doorsill and landed in the snow. “Yipe! Cold! Fun!”

  Silas and Darien laughed together as Pip made his way down the steps in a series of bounds, spraying snow and landing with just his head and fast-moving tail-tip above the level of the pristine landscape. Silas grabbed a shovel out of the front closet. “Here, make a path for that idiot before he wears himself out.”

  “I don’t need paths,” Pip exclaimed from the buried front walk. “I’m an explorer. Eep!” He slipped and disappeared for a moment but bounced back up before Silas could charge down to rescue him. “Watch out, Darien. There’s some slippery bits under there.”

  “I’ll get the bag of sand,” Silas said, turning back toward the utility closet off the kitchen. “You keep an eye on our explorer.”

  When he got back outside, Darien’s energetic shoveling made a cheerful sight. He’d already cleared the steps and started on the front path, tossing big shovelfuls aside. Pip snorted off under the bushes, plowing his way along the tracks left by a rabbit. Or maybe a squirrel— Silas was no naturalist. He began sprinkling sand on the ice Darien had exposed.

  Suddenly Pip raised his head. “Someone’s coming.”

  They all turned at the sound of a car approaching, crunching slowly along the imperfectly plowed street. Silas recognized Ferngold’s Coupe de Ville before he came to a stop at the bottom of the walkway. Ferngold got out, muffled in a greatcoat and scarf, and came around to where the plow had left a ridge of ice. Stopping there, he glared down at the obstacle between him and the path.

  “Here,” Darien said. “Let me get that.”

  Ferngold stood back as Darien cut a path through the ridge, tossing aside frozen blocks. Ferngold stepped onto the sidewalk and paused there until Darien got the hint and shoveled a narrow path up the walk to where he’d left off. Ferngold’s steps were no doubt mincing due to the ice underfoot, but his royal progression behind the shovel-slave left a bad taste in Silas’s mouth.

  “Hey, Darien,” he said, letting his irritation override his good sense. “You think your spark spell could melt some of the snow?”

  Darien turned, grinning, and stuck the shovel in a drift. “Can I?” After a quick glance around, he gestured, sketching a fire rune, and pulled in a breath. A loud sizzle and spark scuttled up the walkway from where he stood almost to Silas’s feet. In the magic’s wake, the snow sublimated, rising as vapor in the cold air, and settling to glaze the snowbanks on either side.

  As well as the path. Oops. Silas quickly moved forward with his grit, fixing the footing. Passing Darien with an exchange of nods, Silas brushed off his sandy glove on his coat and reached his hand out to Ferngold, ignoring the sorcerer’s dark frown. “Good to see you, sir. Snowy weather we’re having.”

  “Hmmph.” Whatever Ferngold had been about to say got sidetracked as he hesitated before shaking hands, safely gloved. Eventually he took Silas’s fingers in a light grip. “Yes. This mess is most annoying. The drive here stretched to almost an hour.”

  “Goodness. You’d better come inside and warm up.”

  “Luckily my car is quite comfortable.” He gestured at the DeVille, no doubt to remind the peons of the luxuries he commanded. “But I wouldn’t turn down a cup of coffee.”

  “We can do that.”

  Ferngold’s frown returned. “And we’ll talk about that profligate use of power you just encouraged. Melting snow? Really?”

  “He has plenty to spare,” Silas said mildly, not minding one bit the gleam of jealousy in Ferngold’s eyes.

  Pip took that minute to come bounding out of the snow and shake hard, landing a few flakes on Ferngold’s polished leather boots. “That was fun!” He rose on his hind legs to peer up at Ferngold, his nose working. “You’re a sorcerer. You have a lizard! Hello, my name is Pip. I’m with Darien.”

  Ferngold stared down at him. “I thought the reports had to be in error.” He glared at Silas. “Why on earth did you have your brand-new apprentice seek out a familiar? That’s totally unacceptable!”

  Silas would have protested, but he noticed Pip was shivering, despite his enthusiasm. “We should all go inside and get warm. I’ll explain what’s going on.”

  “You’ll do more than explain.” Ferngold strode up the walk toward the steps.

  Darien murmured, “Damn,” under his breath.

  Silas tried to convey reassurance with a soft tone. “Pick up your chilly pup. We’ll be fine.”

  Pip dashed ahead. “I’m not letting him get to our house first.” He dodged past Ferngold without quite tripping him, and sat on the doorstep up against the door, panting.

  Silas climbed the steps and reached past Ferngold to touch off the wards and open the door. “Go on in, sir.”

  Pip
leaped in first, then paused uncertainly in the hall. Ferngold stamped the snow off his boot-soles on the mat and headed for the study, shoulders stiff, leaving damp traces on the floor.

  Silas sighed as he kicked off his own boots. “Darien, make us some coffee, would you? And bring the cinnamon rolls Clarice sent us yesterday.” Anything to sweeten Ferngold’s temper.

  “I don’t want to be sent off while the ‘adults’ talk,” Darien said.

  “You are one of the adults.” Silas tugged his sleeve lightly. “I promise, I won’t say anything important until you return. But we’ll need every advantage we have, including food, to get him down off his outraged high horse.”

  “We’ll just tell him we didn’t mean to…” Darien’s voice trailed off at Silas’s raised eyebrow. “Yeah, right. Sweet rolls coming up. You want brandy in that coffee?”

  The idea had some merit, but Ferngold in a sanctimonious mood was more likely to find fault with morning drinking than enjoy the liquor. “No. He takes double cream, though.”

  “Got it.” Darien hung away his coat and headed for the kitchen in sock feet, Pip at his heels, as Silas stepped into his slippers.

  Silas eyed Darien’s unworn slippers, next to the boot tray. Some things never change. He took surprising comfort from that thought.

  Grim came down the hallway, head cranked over his shoulder to stare at the study. “What does Ferngold want?”

  “To evict Pip? Complain about me? Not sure yet.”

  “Ah.” Grim narrowed his eyes up at him and licked his lips, slowly. “I’ll enjoy spending time with Clicks, the small gecko.”

  Silas tried to admonish him with a head-shake, unsuccessfully, judging by Grim’s slowly lashing tail. “Come along, let’s see what brought Ferngold to our doorstep.”

  Chapter 2

  Darien frowned at the coffee maker, trying to hurry the brew along. Maybe if I put a tiny fire rune under the carafe… Or maybe not, since explosions and housefires would not improve Ferngold’s mood.