The Necromancer's House by Christopher Buehlman Page B

what to say to the big ex-sailor.
    â€œYeah, great,” Karl says. “Thanks again for changing her oil.”
    â€œMy pleasure.”
    Two heartbeats go by.
    â€œMustang running all right?” Karl says, nodding at Andrew’s car.
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œSure is a nice one.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œTurquoise was an interesting choice.”
    â€œThat’s how she came.”
    â€œPaint jobs are pricey.”
    â€œThey can be.”
    Two more heartbeats.
    â€œYou need any juice or maybe a glass of water? Must be thirsty. Hot as heck out here.”
    It really isn’t all that hot.
    â€œWater would be great.”
    Both men start to get up, but Anneke gently puts her hand on her dad’s shoulder so he keeps his seat.
    She goes to get the water.
    â€œSo,” Karl says, looking back at the door to make sure Anneke isn’t coming yet. He’s winding up to ask something awkward, and Andrew’s skin crawls.
    How does he make me feel twelve and tongue-tied?
    â€œYes, sir?”
    Again with the
sir
.
    This kid doesn’t
sir
anybody else, I’d bet on it.
    Knows I served and wants me to like him.
    Kid hell, he’s like forty, just wears his hair long so he looks like Pocahontas. Probably puts shoe polish in it.
    Probably uses moisturizer and plucks his eyebrows, too.
    Goes down to the day spa in Syracuse.
    I can see this guy getting a pedicure.
    I want to like him, I do.
    Anneke sure spends enough time with him.
    Guy and a girl don’t spend that kind a time together without.
    Is he?
    I kinda hope he is.
    â€œAre you and Anneke . . . ?”
    â€œSir?”
    There’s no way in hell.
    A guy like this.
    Unless she likes him ’cause he looks a little like a girl.
    I don’t even know if it works that way.
    Shit, here she comes.
    â€œAre you staying for dinner?”
    Anneke hands Andrew a water glass with faded sunflowers painted on it, the last one of the eight-piece set from her childhood.
    â€œYou know we are, Dad.”
    But only Anneke spends the night.

20
    Night.
    Andrew opens his eyes in the near-darkness of his own house, two wicks of his three-wick bedside pillar candle still alight, nearly but not quite drowned in red wax.
    His paperback copy of
The Baron in the Trees
lies open facedown on the pillow.
    Something is watching him.
    He knows what.
    He also knows it’s three in the morning.
    That’s when it most often comes.
    â€œIchabod.”
    The entity doesn’t respond.
    â€œIchabod, say something.”
    â€œSomething.”
    It has chosen a little girl’s voice.
    â€œManifest in a form I won’t find disagreeable.”
    â€œ
Ja, mein
Captain,” it says.
    A gently glowing Katzenjammer Kid, the blond one, appears, sitting on Andrew’s leather chair, its legs primly crossed at the knee. While Andrew appreciates the novelty of seeing the little German cartoon boy in 3-D, it
is
mildly disturbing. Perhaps a cat’s whisker shy of being
disagreeable
.
    Ichabod has a sniper’s precision when it comes to causing unease.
    Ichabod
isn’t its name, of course, but then neither was the long Sumerian name whose first three syllables sounded vaguely like
Ichabod
.
    â€œDid you touch my foot?”
    â€œJust playing little piggies.”
    â€œI don’t like that.”
    â€œIt seemed the gentlest way to wake you.”
    â€œDon’t do it again.”
    â€œIs that a command?”
    â€œYes. Are you going to insist on protocol?”
    â€œNot this time. It seems a modest enough request. Note to myself: no touching Master Andrew’s sleeping piggies. Check. Anything else?”
    Andrew sits up, gathering the sheet around him.
    â€œTell me why you’re here.”
    â€œWhat, here?” it says, and now the Katzenjammer Kid is sitting in bed next to Andrew, hands on lap, looking like a child who wants to be read a story. It gives off cold like a ham just out of