Norman woke up with the world’s worst hangover. His mouth felt like someone had shoved cotton filled with razor blades into it and his vision was swimming like he was still on an all-night bender. The spinning would have made him throw up but it seemed that had already happened a few times while he was unconscious, going by the pool of vomit in front of his mouth.

It took a mighty effort to peel himself off the cold concrete floor of the garage, his skin not wanting to come free due to the dried drool and vomit. Norman tried not to think about that. Eventually, he got himself upright and laid his back against the table leg.

“What the fuck,” he groaned. The sound made his head pound.

Norman sat there for another hour to recover and work up the courage to get to his feet. Even that was a struggle as his legs felt like he had run a marathon and didn’t want to hold him up when he did manage to stand.

Deciding that crawling on all fours was a better idea than falling over and cracking his head open, Norman shamefully made his way back to the house. The gravel dug into his palms and knees, which hurt, but it was still less painful than the experience he had just gone through. He was surprised he hadn’t hit his head in the garage when he passed out. There was no bump on his head or signs of blood when he checked after waking up though.

He had left the back door of his house wide open in his earlier haste to test out his drug-fueled hypothesis. Which was good. The door being open part, not the drug-fueled experimenting. Norman didn’t think he would have been able to stand up to reach the door handle even if he wanted to. The crawl across the yard had left him aching and sore.

After he crawled into the kitchen, Norman cracked the refrigerator open, using it to prop himself up. He was forced to blink away as the intense light assaulted his bloodshot eyes before blindly reaching inside and pulling out a beer. Then he slowly shuffled over to the table and threw himself into one of the kitchen chairs. He twisted off the cap on his beer, downing the ice-cold beverage without stopping. After the bottle was empty he used the remaining cold from the bottle to cool his pounding head.

Sure water would have been better in this situation but his house no longer got clean water from the city. He could shower and use the bathroom just fine but drinking it was out of the question unless he boiled it first. And he wasn’t in any condition to be operating a stove.

His experiment had been a bit of a failure but it did produce a result. It wasn’t the one he was looking for, but it was just as important. There was something special about jorik blood. Was it what gave them their magical aptitude? He wasn’t sure, but it certainly did something.

How that might help him, he wasn’t quite sure yet. Right now he was just focused on recovering from the side effects of accidentally ingesting just a tiny bit of the substance. It was like being on acid turned up to eleven, only without the fun side. Norman supposed you could dilute it and maybe turn it into a drug but he wasn’t willing to test that theory out, nor did he want to subject anyone else to this experience. It would also be a complete and utter waste. Norman had drugs, he didn’t need more of those, he needed magic. Or whatever would allow him to create magic. He wasn’t going to be picky.

It was a good thing he had stopped Anna from touching the powder. The younger girl was a bit annoying with her overbearing crush on him but he didn’t want her to suffer through something like he just did. Besides, if Norman had let this happen to Anna, he was pretty sure Toby would have killed him. And he would have deserved it.

Norman wasn’t inexperienced with drugs going bad on him, not exactly something he was proud of.

Ever since his parents had run off and abandoned him at sixteen, he had been forced to survive on his own. There were a lot of questionable choices in those following years, but he had done what he needed to survive. It also allowed him to meet Toby. The man wasn’t a saint, but he helped Norman through some very tough times.

Besides, those choices made him self-sufficient enough to ride out the bad times after the apocalypse, so it wasn’t all bad. Not everyone had been as lucky as Norman to survive the last few years. Although, Norman didn’t think the end of the world was nearly as bad as most made it out to be. It was just that most people weren’t equipped to handle a change of that magnitude.

The remaining pain from Norman’s mistake slowly receded. Once he felt up to it, he headed upstairs and took a cold shower to wash away the filth from laying on the floor of his garage and crawling across the yard. After cleaning up and putting on some cleanish clothes, he headed back to the garage with a mop and bucket.

From his experience, there wasn’t much that was worse than the smell of old stale vomit and he needed to be able to work out here without smelling it constantly. Norman had a very low tolerance for objectionable smells. Which was highly annoying given that he worked with corpses.

After cleaning up the mess on the floor, Norman tossed the rat corpse into the overgrown backyard while holding his breath. The sigils he had carved into the poor animal had burst apart during his nap time, ruining the attempt and releasing the built-up gasses inside the corpse. Despite his best efforts, Norman gagged the entire time as he carried the body outside to dispose of it.

After he finished cleaning up, Norman wasted an entire bottle of air deodorizer in the garage to remove the lingering smell. He would have opened the garage door all the way to let it air out but the thing had long ago fallen off its track and jammed itself stuck. At least it was partially open, allowing the air to at least circulate a bit.

As for the powder, he transferred it from the cheap baggie to a small glass vial. He made sure to clean out any old residue in the vial first though. Norman didn’t need to be mixing unknown drugs with magical powers, that sounded like a recipe for disaster. When that was done, he went back into the house and pried open the wall molding where he kept his stash. He tossed the vial into the pocket in the wall along with his wad of cash from Toby and the two bags of weed he had taken from Charise that he had originally shoved into the couch.

Then he went to bed.

All the lingering symptoms from the incident were gone after a good night's sleep but now he had a choice to make. Would he continue experimenting with the dangerous substance or give it up?

When he thought about it that way, it was hardly a choice at all. Giving it up meant giving up his future and any chance of furthering his magic in any reasonable timeframe. Plus he was curious as to what this magical blood was capable of doing.

His thoughts were interrupted by Toby walking in.

“Geez, man, you look like you had a rough night. Need a pick me up?” Toby shook a tiny glass bottle that was an exact match for what Norman had stored the blue powder in. Only this one held a white powder.

“Nah, I'll be good. Thanks though.”

“Suit yourself,” Toby stuck the vial back into his pocket.

“Hey since, you’re here, maybe you can do something for me though?”

“Depends,” Toby replied noncommittally.

Norman wasn’t surprised by this response. While Toby and he had been friends for about four years, that didn’t mean the man would help him out of kindness, at least not most of the time. The man was skeptical of doing anything that didn’t benefit him in some way.

As someone who had been forced to do shit they didn’t like to survive, Norman could understand Toby’s position. It was one of the reasons they got along so well.

“How about if I offer you a bag of that stuff we smoked last night? I only need some corpses to practice on. Small animal corpses would be fine,” Norman added, seeing Toby begin to balk at the request. The bag was worth way more than a few corpses but Norman needed Toby on board with this.

“Yeah, I suppose I could do that. How many do you need?”

Norman shrugged, “a large cooler full should suffice. The fresher the better though.”

“Yeah, alright…I’ll see what I can do.” The man didn’t hesitate at the request. Only two things usually interested Toby, money, and information. Although the man cared deeply about his sister so he wasn’t completely heartless.

“Why do you need these now anyway, did you figure out a spell or something?”

Norman shook his head. “No. But now that I got fired, I can’t exactly practice on human corpses.”

“Fair enough,” Toby replied, seeming fine with that explanation.

After their conversation, Toby left.

With the house to himself, Norman lay back on the broken couch to think. He needed to find a way to make more money quickly. The money he earned from selling the potions wouldn’t be enough to pay his bills and eat.

Well, ultimately raising the dead and having a huge army at his command was his goal. But that was a long way off. Not that he wanted to be evil or anything, he just wanted a life of luxury and leisure. One with people that would never abandon him. Although, Norman would never admit that part to anyone. What better way to accomplish that than with an army of faithful, mindless minions?

But that was a goal far off in the distance. He hadn’t even figured out how to interact with the dead, let alone raise them.

That was part of what he was doing last night. The spell he had chosen was designed to view the memories of the dead, or so the anime had shown. Honestly, he had no clue if he was on the right track with any of this stuff but he had to start somewhere. It also happened to be the simplest spell in his notebook.

No, he needed an immediate way to make some cash. Due to some of Norman’s extracurricular activities over the years he had lived in Redstone Springs, he had been shunned by most businesses.

It was an open secret that he broke into places and stole from people to survive, but he had never gotten caught. Since there was no direct proof of his actions, the cops couldn’t arrest him but most of the businesses around town had banned him from entering their premises. It had also cost him more than one job over the years when his boss inevitably found out. Thankfully, Norman had found other ways to make ends meet after Toby essentially mentored him.

The coroner was one of the last places in town Norman could rely on for a decent job. Of course, Norman only had himself to blame for that mess. The Coroner had hired him even though he likely knew about Norman’s background. And Norman couldn’t keep his sticky fingers to himself, which ended up with his boss putting in hidden cameras. It was a stupid rookie mistake that would have landed him in prison if there was a justice system left to prosecute him.

With a criminal record and no viable job prospects, Norman was left with few options to make money. Norman refused to work for the criminal elements within the city, that was a good way to get on the bad side of their competition or end up dead, and Norman wasn’t a fighter.

That left the businesses that operated in the grey area. The only entrepreneur he knew was Charise though. Being lovers with her was one thing, but working for her was another. He couldn’t think of any other choice though. Faced with the prospect of homelessness or crawling to her for a job, Norman would crawl. He had no shame if it meant he wouldn’t go hungry or be out on the street freezing his ass off.

Working with Toby was not an option. Toby had stopped dealing drugs after the apocalypse. And he wouldn’t cut Norman in with what he was doing now. It probably had something to do with how Toby seemed to know everything going on around town. Norman doubted it was because Toby was a courier but he didn’t want to dig into what his friend was up to. Norman suspected Toby had a class skill that allowed him to do this but if he did he was good at hiding it. That was fine, Norman didn’t need to know all of his friend’s secrets.

Norman got up from the couch and went to get ready, if he wanted to convince Charise to hire him, and maybe even take him back, he needed to show up at his best. Hopefully, she hadn’t noticed he had taken more than one bag of her product. If she did, well, he did bring her a human brain. And if it really came to it, he’d apologize.

After a shower and a change of clothes, Norman now sported a black t-shirt with a band logo on the front and a list of tour dates on the back. He had even ditched his favorite shorts for some slim jeans and tall black leather boots in place of his flip-flops. Gone was his chipped black nail polish, replaced with a fresh coat. Charise always said she loved this outfit but Norman hadn’t much liked the skinny look. It felt like being stuffed in a sausage casing. This is why he always wore baggy shorts and loose t-shirts when he could get away with it. As for the boots, he hated how they made his feet sweat.

By the time Norman made it to Charise’s apartment, it was early evening. He knocked on the door and waited.

It took longer than expected for Charise to open the door, almost like she was hesitant to do so.

“What do you want, Norm?” That was not a good sign. Gone was the sultry voice that she had used to lure him into taking the brain for her. In its place was her no-nonsense business tone. The one she liked to pull out when she was mad at him.

Before he could speak, he heard another voice.

“Come back to bed, babe.”

Hot anger rushed through Norman when he heard that. Not because he expected her to be his alone, but because he felt betrayed. Could this be why she didn’t want him around that night?

“Who the hell is that?” he asked coldly, not able to help himself.

Charise made a disgusted tsking sound. “It’s none of your business, Norm.”

Norman gritted his teeth, she knew he hated having his name shortened, she was doing it on purpose. He was about to argue when a meaty hand pulled the door all the way open, snapping the chain that held it shut. Norman gulped. The large, topless man standing behind Charise was familiar to Norman. He was one of the physical classers that worked at the guild.

“Dammit, Chad!” Charise huffed, slapping the bulging man.

“Shit, babe, I’m sorry, you know it's hard for me to control my strength sometimes.” After taking the verbal lashing from Charise, the man turned to Norman and he smiled. “Oh, dude, I know you.” The mountain of muscle snapped his fingers and it sounded like a gun had gone off.

“You make those healing potions, don’tcha. I can’t tell ya how many scrapes those have gotten me out of. Thanks for those, by the way, shit works good,” he flexed, his bicep – larger around than Norman’s head – and pointed to a long jagged scar. “Your stuff fixed it right up. But man it tastes like salty ass, ya gotta do something about the flavor.”

“Uh… yeah. I’ll uh, I’ll work on that,” Norman replied dumbly, he had expected the man to be angry, or irate. What he didn’t expect was for the man to thank him.

“I hate to be a dick, dude, but we were kind of in the middle of something if you know what I mean,” the man squeezed Charise’s ass and made her jump and squeal. She slapped him again which only made the man grin and wink at Norman.

Each word and action stabbed a cold dagger into Norman’s heart.

“He’s just here to pay me back. Go wait in the bedroom, hun, I’ll be there in a bit.”

“Oh, this is your business stuff, boring. Hurry up and finish, babe, I gotta get back to the Guild tonight.”

“This won’t take long, Chad.”

The muscle-bound man rolled his shoulders and walked back toward the bedroom.

Norman prickled as he watched Charise eye the man’s physique the entire time he sauntered off before she finally turned toward him with a scowl.

“You best be here to pay me back for what you stole.”

Her accusation shook him from his stupor and the growing pit of anxiety that was building. “Stole! You owed me. That stupid brain cost me my damn job.”

“Pff, that was hardly my fault. I didn’t force you to take it and I certainly didn’t tell you to get caught like some idiot. Now, are you gonna pay up?”

“Fuck that, I don’t owe you shit!”

“Keep your voice down! Unless you want Chad to come back out here and deal with you personally.”

Norman threw his arms up in exasperation. “I can’t believe you left me for a muscle-brained halfwit.”

The man actually seemed perfectly reasonable and nice, but Norman wasn’t exactly emotionally stable at the moment.

“Oh don’t get all high and mighty on me, Norm. We split up months ago. And at least Chad knows what the fuck he wants, unlike you.” Charise stepped out into the hall and poked him in the chest. “I gave you over two years of my life, and for what, hmm? Zilch. You have zero ambition other than hanging around with that reprobate Toby and getting high all day.”

“That’s not true, I came up with that healing potion.”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “That was almost two years ago and you got fucking lucky and we both know it.”

“What have you done since? Nothing. Then I find out you had been lying to me about what you were trying to accomplish. You told me you gave up on that silly nonsense about becoming a necromancer to be a mage and I supported you. Instead, I hear from a client that works at the coroner's office, that you are still playing with corpses. It’s embarrassing and disgusting! Do you know what that did to my reputation? No of course you don’t because you don’t think of anyone besides yourself. Face it, Norman, you’re never going to become anything other than what you are and I had to move on. I suggest you do the same.”

Norman had had enough, he flipped Charise the double birds and stormed off.

“Real fucking mature, Asshole!” she yelled after him before slamming the door shut.

Norman would show her, he would show everyone. He wasn’t useless, he couldn’t just be discarded like a piece of trash.

MJMarkgraf

I have recently edited the first 4 chapters and changed quite a few things. I plan on editing the rest of book one to align everything again, but you may see some inconsistencies going forward until I get those edits finished.