I left the girl with the police. It took ten minutes for someone to show up after I called 9-1-1. I told the officers that I had heard her screaming and found her tied up on the gurney in the restaurant. I had destroyed the knife that killed the warlock and my fingerprints with it. The body was left where he had fallen.

The cops were a little freaked out, the girl was too for that matter, but no one had seen anything really weird so it would get brushed under the rug as a weird full-moon Saturday night.

The next day was Sunday. Part of me hates Sunday lately. I spend most of the day thinking about how little I don’t want to go back to my classroom on Monday. I’m a substitute teacher in my spare time. It helps pay the bills and I get time off whenever I need it. It also lets me check on young mages and keep an eye on the community.

For the last three months, I had been filling in for a biology teacher on maternity leave. I had been a doctor for a while in another life and another country so the material was well within my area of expertise. Being a necromancer also meant that I had a ‘unique’ understanding of anatomy. Grading homework was one of the most torturous drudgeries that I had ever endured, however.

My one bright spot, though, was that I had signed up to be a kangaroo at our local NICU. Some infants are born with enough issues that they need to stay in the hospital even after their mother is discharged. As terrible as it is, their mothers and fathers cannot always put the rest of their lives on hold to be with their child. There are never enough nurses to give those children the attention and human contact they need so volunteers like me make up the lack.

It also gives me an excuse to be at the hospital for an hour or two every week.

As I was sitting in the hospital rocking chair, cuddling a little girl with an oxygen tube and heart monitor, my mind wandered down one floor to the adult ICU.

Lots of sick people. Lots of pain. Lots of ghosts.

Charge Nurse Nesbitt is still wandering the halls here. She was a nurse in this ward for a decade when she had a stroke on her shift. That had been three years ago.

“Good morning Mattie,” I say as we stroll down the hallway. I had been alive for a long time, but I had never encountered a spirit as coherent and focused as Mattie Nesbitt that wasn’t also attached to a heartbeat.

“Hello Asa,” she replied. We weren’t really speaking, but the analog is about as close as I can describe. “Jack is slipping again. He hasn’t woken up all week and his liver function is going straight over the cliff.”

“Oh. I’m fine Mattie. Work has been good. I saved a girl from a demon last night. Thank you for asking.” My mocking tone let the ghost know exactly what I thought about jumping straight into business.

“Eat shit, Asa!” She snapped back. “He’s scared and his kids haven’t been here in two weeks. If he could survive it they would move him to hospice, but that would kill him for sure.” Spirits sometimes start glowing when they get worked up, and Mattie looked like she was back-lit by a spotlight.

“Okay! Okay!” I said, “We’ll talk to him.” We moved down the hallway, avoiding the living nurses on the floor. Jack’s room was halfway down the hall, reflecting the reality that nurses were in and out a lot, but his condition was not acute. Jack was dying of a lifetime of benzene exposure without proper protection. He had days left and the only person who didn’t know it was his youngest daughter.

We stepped into the room to find Jack standing over himself. Honestly, that’s the situation that I meet most spirits in. Spirit Jack was the same age as his body, but about six inches taller because he could stand straight up. His body’s joints, guts, lungs, and continence had all departed years ago; but Jack’s spirit was too stubborn to die until he was ready.

“Morning Jack, how’s tricks?” Everyone in the room knew the situation sucked, but I couldn’t help but try to lighten the mood.

“Terrible,” he smirked back. “Nurses in this dump are ugly as a cat’s asshole.” We shared a conspiratorial glance as Mattie sputtered in indignation.

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“So are we hangin’ on a little longer?” I asked, getting to business. “We’ve talked it out. You can go any time.” We both glanced involuntarily at the Gate in the middle distance. Mattie, stubborn as she was, could not see it yet.

“Sarah’s thesis defense is next Wednesday,” he said. “We’ll wait till then.” We all three nodded at his decision.

“I’m sure you’ll last till then,” I said. Subtly I strengthened the tether between Jack and his body.

All three of us looked up as alarms went off in the next room.

“Time to get back to work,” I muttered. I stepped out into the hallway and took a few steps to the next door.

Chaos reigned inside. Nurses were frantically administering CPR and various syringes to the body on the bed. Everyone was moving with speed and purpose except for the child at the body’s feet. I almost thought she was corporeal but then a nurse stepped through her and neither of them noticed.

I moved my spirit up next to hers and we watched the nurses work.

“My name is Asa.” I was carefully not looking in her direction in case she was freaking out.

“I know,” she said. “Nurse Nesbitt told me about you.” At least that would speed this along.

“So how do you want to do this?” I asked gently. It is always hard to predict how young people will take their death. This one was taking it quite well so far.

“I’m tired,” she whispered. It was the saddest and most commonplace thing that the dead ever said to me. “But I don’t want to die. My mom will be sad.”

“Everyone dies little one. And every time it happens someone is sad. Waiting here, tied to a breathing corpse won’t ease that sadness for your mother. And it will just mean you sit here suffering in the meantime.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m scared.” The words barely brushed the ether around us.

“I know.” I took her hand in mine. “That’s part of my job, to make the fear less.”

“Okay,” she said, still whispering.

We stayed a moment like that, looking at her corpse being attended by nurses who had no way of knowing she was dead. They had finally gotten the paddles into the room, but I flicked a finger and the electricity bled into the Dark in a flash no one but us could see. Someone would get yelled at, but it was for the best.

I felt her turn and followed her as she walked further into the Dark. The beacon of the Gate grew brighter and bigger as we walked.

The girl was focused on her destination, but I knew some of the dangers in this part of the Dark. A few shifting shadows drew my glare and I let a little of my power out into our immediate area.

The shadows did not move again.

I walked with the little girl right up to the edge of the Gate and we both stopped.

“What’s on the other side?” she asked. She didn’t sound as scared now.

“I don’t know.” I squeezed her hand. “We don’t go through. Necromancers stand in the Dark to protect the dead, and the living most times.” We stood looking at the edifice of light together, me with appreciation and her with curiosity and longing.

“Does it hurt?”

“Did dying?” She shook her head. “It doesn’t seem to, from trips I’ve made before. No one cries out or screams. Some seem surprised at the last moment.” I squeezed her hand again. “It will be okay.”

“I know.” She let go of my hand and strode into the light as proudly as a general on parade.

I lingered for a moment, as I always have, to make sure nothing out of place would happen. Nothing did, as it never had, and I started the walk back to my body. I had been gone maybe twenty minutes and my kangaroo time was almost up.

As I walked I felt a presence moving toward me from the deeper Dark. It would have been a very stupid or powerful entity to challenge me here and I began to gather power around me. I stopped just as quickly when I saw the spirit coming toward me.

Hello Grandfather. Even the semblance of speech fell away between two practitioners of the Dark.

Hello Grandson. You have grown since we last spoke. Images of our last meeting at his home in Spain were flavored by cooking smells and my Grandmother’s perfume. How have you been?

I gathered my thoughts and offered them to him. I kept part of my attention on the Darkness around us, as I knew he was doing. Two necromancers in the same place would be a tempting opportunity or a deadly gamble. Vigilance deterred unnecessary violence.

I felt Grandfather’s thoughts stumble as he came to the end of my memories. “What is this knife?” He returned to the semblance of speech.

“A young warlock had it,” I explained. “I broke the magic with the Dark and crumbled the physical work. It was as evil as anything I’ve ever touched.” I shuddered a little at the memory.

“I have seen these abominations before, Asa. If you find another, you must contact the Elders.” He glared at me fiercely. “Do not disobey me in this boy.”

I felt the seriousness even if I did not understand it. The dagger was worrying, but not excessively so. “I hear you, Grandfather.”

He embraced me and sent me on my way. Go with the gods.

And you. I sent as I willed myself back toward my body. I was striding toward myself from a direction that is hard to describe if one is not a mage, but I noticed something odd as I came back into the room.

The little girl was staring at me.

Not at my body’s face, at my spirit form.

“Well, shit.”