Lucas startles awake in his bed. He stumbles toward the window and rips the curtains aside. "Fuck!" he whispers screams to himself, "I forgot tonight was a full moon." He fumbles along the desk that doubles as a nightstand for his phone and checks the time. 23:39. Twenty minutes to midnight.

He stumbles through the room putting on whatever clothes he finds. The first pair of pants he encounters on the floor is his roommate's. They are already on before he realizes and he trips trying to kick them off. This isn't the first time he has done this, and despite all his fumbling and noise, his roommate's snores don't even stutter.

He is still pulling on his shirt when he closes the door behind him and locks it. Taking the notebook out of his mouth, he hugs it securely to his chest and then runs across campus.

Halfway across campus, he checks the time again, 23:57. A little late, but there should still be enough time to ask the questions in his notebook.

It isn't long before chanting fills the air. He stops and listens. Usually, they use the marching band practice field, but it seems they have moved in an effort to avoid him. Lucas turns and runs toward the football field instead. He knows he is going the right way when the chanting gets louder.

Lucas makes it over the fence just as the chanting stops. Right in the middle of the football field, under the light of the full moon, stands a cluster of students in long black robes sitting in a circle. In the middle of the circle, the human remains Lucas was working on for his dissertation started to twitch. Slowly, he makes his way over to the ritual circle. If he startles them or they hear him coming, they will grab the remains and run.

When he is just behind the circle, Lucas calmly states "Braylon, how many times has the provost forbidden the necromancy club from stealing from the archeology department?"

"God damn it, Cody!" Braylon sighs, "You were supposed to drug him so he missed it."

"I did! I put sleeping pills in his food and his drink." Cody wines. "It's not my fault!"

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"How kind of you," Lucas says, kneeling next to Braylon, just outside the circle. "That explains why my roommate has been sleeping all day. Good thing I haven't had a chance to eat today." He flashes a shit-eating grin at the group. They know he is lying and has taken steps to avoid being poisoned.

The body in the circle glows for a moment before sitting up and asking where she is in Latin. Lucas immediately responds and starts asking questions in Latin and recording the answers both in the voice recording app on his phone and in his notebook.

After the fifth question, Braylon starts talking over Lucas and the girl's conversation. "You always do this. Stop so we have time to bind the soul to us, then ask your questions."

As the girl answers his most recent question, Lucas whispers back, "The fuck I will. The moment you bind the soul, she loses her memories and free will."

"If we don't bind her soul, then our power doesn't increase and we will never be strong enough to resurrect and control the T-Rex the paleontology department just dug up."

"Not my problem. You can't just steal from the gravesite I'm working on and expect me not to take advantage. If you want bodies, take cadavers from the med school. They at least donated their bodies to science."

The two whisper the things to each other almost on autopilot, they have this argument almost daily, and Lucas knows Braylon is only doing this now so he doesn't have the time to get through all of his questions before time runs out and the soul leaves again. So Lucas delivers his counterarguments on rote, while still focusing almost entirely on the remains of the, apparently 16-year-old girl in the center of the circle.

He makes it through every question but one when the time finally runs out and she slumps back down in the middle of a sentence. He finishes his writing, then stands and stretches. "Thanks, that made my dissertation much easier. Love primary sources." He claps Braylon on the shoulder and says, "Make sure you put her back exactly how you found her in my lab." Then he turns and starts walking away while still reading his notes.

"The heck we will! Come help us!" Cody replies while Braylon facepalms.

"You stole it, you return it," Lucas says distractedly. "Don't like it, stop stealing from my lab, assholes."

None of the boys hear the provost snicker in the stands. Starting a magic college in the university was the best idea he ever had. They are the foremost publisher of papers in archeology because of these monthly scuffles. He will watch to make sure the necromancy club doesn't leave anything behind, but they won't see him. If they knew, they might stop stealing bones and remains to reanimate. In the morning, he will drop by the archeology department and see what new data they acquired.

Soon, both departments will be ready to tackle the problem he brought them together to solve. It is only a matter of time.