After going home, Norman cleaned up and put on his best set of clothing. Not the ridiculous outfit Charise liked him in but what he would normally wear to job interviews to look less like a bum. He hoped it was enough as he headed out for what he preyed was an eventful evening.

Norman arrived at the building and quickly found his way to the alley. It wasn’t as well-lit as the street but there were still lights back here and he didn’t see anyone hanging about. Not that he expected to but with the number of people crammed downtown, you never knew. Norman checked his phone, he was a bit early but that was good. He wouldn’t want to keep such a lovely woman waiting.

He paced around the back alley of the restaurant, his nerves getting the best of him as he waited. Norman wasn’t what you would call handsome but he did well enough with the ladies. The trick was to project confidence, it was also probably why his relationships never really lasted. Once women realized he wasn’t the charismatic and confident man he pretended to be, they usually lost interest.

Charise had been his longest relationship and Norman chalked that up to them breaking up and getting back together every few months. It was easy to forget someone’s bad side when they ghost you for a month. Or in more romantic terms, absence makes the heart grow fonder and such. At least that was probably why Charise kept taking him back. For Norman, it was the sex, plus while Charise was crazy, she was crazy hot and fun to be around.

After what felt like forever, Norman checked his phone and frowned. It was already ten-thirty and no sign of Mabel. The café was closed but Norman could still hear noises from inside so he just figured they were still cleaning up, or maybe he misread the context of the note. Norman was about to bail when the back door finally opened.

When Norman looked toward the door, he didn’t see Mabel, instead, he saw two men. One he recognized as Mabel’s teenage son, the other was probably an acquaintance of his. Both were dressed in dirty aprons from their work in the kitchen.

Norman cursed quietly under his breath and turned to leave.

“I fucking told you he would fall for it,” Mabel’s son said, slapping his friend on the chest as the two stepped into the alley.

“Huh, guess you were right,” the second grunted in reply.

It didn’t take a genius to realize this had been set up. Norman only made it a few steps before a group of three men blocked off the alley entrance from the way he had come in, trapping him between them and the men from the café.

“I thought I made it clear the last time you tried perving on my mom that you weren’t welcome around here anymore.” The teenager was angry, and rightfully so.

What the teenager said was true, but Norman hadn’t seen the boy in the restaurant so thought he would be fine. Norman’s perception was shit, or he had just been distracted by Mabel’s lusciously swaying hips. Obviously, the kid had seen him when he came in earlier and planted the note under his bill.

“Look, man, I’m gonna just go and you won’t see me again.” Norman tried to placate the angry youth while he tried to figure out a way out of this situation. Perhaps he could sprint past the two men. He was taller and had longer legs but Norman wasn’t much of a runner.

“No, I already warned you once, that lesson didn’t seem to take. I even warned my mother about you, but she's too damn nice for her own good. Since you seem to forget far too easily, I’m going to have to make sure this memory sticks for next time.” Mabel’s son punched his fist into his other hand as he and his buddy stalked forward.

Not waiting any longer, Norman sprinted for the opening on the side of the alley opposite the café’s back entrance, surprising the two younger boys. The two raced to cut him off but Norman barely managed to avoid their reaching hands. Still, it had been too close, he felt them pull at his clothing but he managed to jerk it out of their tentative grips.

Norman smiled in relief as his legs pumped faster and faster allowing him to pull away from the two shorter boys. Norman wasn’t an athlete but his long stride was allowing him to quickly pull away from his pursuers and toward the open end of the alley. He was near the main street and freedom when a dark shadow fell over him and something latched onto his arm and nearly jerked it out of its socket, forcefully spinning him around.

Norman got a brief glance at a blonde-haired man with a patchy stubble of a beard. The man looked to be slightly older than the teens and maybe even older than Norman. That was all Norman noticed before the man socked him hard in the stomach. The blow lifted Norman off the ground and blasted the air from his lungs.

Norman coughed wetly as the man released his arm causing Norman to fall painfully to the cold wet concrete of the alley as he tried to suck in air.

“Thanks for the help, Brighton,” Mabel’s son said as he ran up to where Norman groaned painfully on the ground.

“You got my money?” the gruff man replied.

“Well worth every cent.” Norman looked up as the boy slapped a wad of cash into the man’s hand before the teen turned toward him with a satisfied smile.

***

Norman lay on his broken couch in the living room, too sore and bruised to make it to his bedroom. Everything hurt, even breathing, and when he did breathe it came out all raspy from his mouth or as a painful whistle through his nose when he managed to force it past the tissue paper he had stuck up there to stop the bleeding.

The man that Mabel’s son had paid to catch Norman hadn’t done anything other than punch him once, thankfully. If he had, Norman would be in much worse condition. From the strength of the blow, Norman could guess the boy was physically enhanced.

Getting beat up sucked, but it wasn’t his first time and Norman could deal with some bruises. While the teen boy had been upset, he hadn’t done anything that would get him into too much trouble. It was something Norman had to grudgingly be thankful for.

The cool ice pack over his eyes helped the swelling on his face but not much. He still looked like a raccoon from when the kid punched him in both eyes.

With a painful groan, Norman twisted sideways and spit out a bit of blood into a cup he had handy. The shitty thing about this whole situation was Norman could alleviate most of the damage with a simple drink, he just couldn’t bring himself to drink one of his own potions.

As that was off the table, he just tried to stay as still as possible to lessen the suffering he felt. Had the teenager gone any further, he might have been forced to imbibe one of the potions anyway.

Norman thought the reaction the boy had was a bit much considering he hadn’t even done anything. Was he so reprehensible that even the thought of him having relations with that boy's mother triggered this sort of response?

He didn’t think so but it wouldn’t have been the first time he was treated like shit because people learned about what he was trying to do. People didn’t understand his motives, and most assumed he was up to no good. He wasn’t though.

Norman didn’t want to be some evil overlord, even the thought of that much responsibility made him cringe. And he certainly didn’t hate anyone enough to sick a horde of undead on them. Well, maybe flexing his power by scaring some of the physical classers wouldn’t be so bad.

He just wanted to live an easy-going life with a horde of servants at his beck and call. And he figured using undead was the best way to do that. No risk of a slave revolt, no weird mind magic like that Jedi kid, just unwanted corpses reanimated to do his bidding, was that so bad?

How was that any different than these physical classers taking over the city because they had the strength to do it?

Norman decided he was sick of playing by everyone else's rulebook. Those rules hadn’t gotten him anywhere in life.

He was going to seek whatever power he could, then he would return and exact his revenge… yeah, no. Norman didn’t care about revenge either, he just wanted to get to the level of power where people wouldn’t mess with him anymore. He realized this was a far-off goal, one that required he solve the elf blood issue first and foremost.

The first thought Norman had was to post a job at the Guild and have one of those meatheads acquire it for him. But he quickly dismissed that idea. It was too public and while dumb, they weren’t dumb enough to not realize something was up.

If Norman had the spells to protect himself he would have considered it. Without the ability to protect himself, he couldn’t risk people finding out he had started making progress. At best someone would steal his method, at worst he would wind up a corpse himself.

Perhaps he would wait until Toby returned and bring it up with him. He wouldn’t tell Toby that he needed elf blood but perhaps Toby could get him in contact with someone who could supply him with an unusual substance like that without asking too many questions.

***

The next few days went by slowly as Norman recovered from his injuries. Anna had tried to come by a few times but Norman remained silent as she banged into the locked front door. Eventually, she went away, allowing Norman to relax.

He couldn’t be bothered to put up with her clinginess in his current condition, and she would certainly want to know how he ended up like this. That was not a conversation he wanted to have with the overly attached girl.

After a day or so he was able to hobble around without too much effort but he was forced to eat soft foods because chewing was too painful with his swollen face. He lucked out and found some slightly expired muscle relaxers after digging through the medicine cabinet in the upstairs bathroom for anything to help with the pain.

Two of the pills turned him into a drooling mess but it was still better than the constant ache of his abused body.

He fumbled through some video games in this state, his coordination and reaction times way off but he didn’t care, it was a way to pass the time until he healed fully.

Eating, playing video games, and passing out on the couch became the norm for him as he slowly healed.

***

Norman was awoken by the squeal of tires outside his house. He had taken to sleeping on the couch as climbing into his bed upstairs was too much effort for his abused body. Norman tried to blink away the lethargy and fumbled for his phone, checking the time. Squinting at the bright light, he noticed it was only a few hours past midnight.

He had no clue who was making so much racket at this time at night and it was too dark outside to see clearly. The only thing Norman could see was a pair of headlights as they shined through the thick curtains on his front windows.

Norman heard car doors open and close, followed quickly by the sounds of heavy footsteps pounding up his stairs. Norman did what any sane person would do and started to panic.

His attempt to get off the couch was stymied as his sore body protested. His first thought of who could be at his door at two in the morning was either the cops, here to arrest him or the people that beat him up had somehow found out where he lived and had come back to finish what they started.

Norman made it halfway to the kitchen before the entire house shook and his front door was kicked in, shattering against the wall.

A large man with a beer belly, more tattoos than Norman could count, a thick black beard, and shaved head strolled in.

Norman froze like a deer in headlights, not knowing who this person was but understanding there would be no getting away from him or the two even larger men that stepped in behind him. They had the telltale signs of physical classers, rippling muscles, bulging veins, and a self-assured attitude. All three also had guns.

“You Norman?” the bald, tattooed man asked.

Norman nodded reluctantly seeing no way lying would work for him here.

The man snapped his fingers and the two hulking men stopped sweeping the downstairs for other people and rushed back outside.

When they returned it was with a body, one that was leaving a trail of blood across the carpet.

The tattooed man walked past Norman and into the kitchen. There he grabbed the kitchen table and upended it, spilling all the dirty dishes and random items pilled atop it onto the floor. Then he set it back down and the two larger men plopped the dead man onto the table causing it to groan under the weight.

The tattooed man turned towards Norman. “I heard you can read the minds of dead things.”

It wasn’t a question but a statement.

Fuck! “Uh…”

The man stared at Norman.

“It- It's not mind reading. I, uh- I can see the last minute of their life.”

“I don’t care about semantics kid. That’ll work, get to it,” he gestured to the corpse that was leaking blood across the table.

Norman stared dumbfounded.

“Is there a problem?” The man’s hand rested on his holstered gun.

“N- No… I- I mean, er yes. I’m missing a component for the spell.”

“…”

Norman gulped as the man silently stared at him. “I- I need elf blood. Jorik blood,” Norman corrected, not sure if the man knew of the derogatory name for the blue-skinned aliens.

“I know what an elf is.” The man gestured for one of the hulking men to come over and whispered into his ear.

Norman couldn’t hear what had been said but the man nodded and stepped outside where Norman heard him talking to someone on the phone.

The entire time the bald tattooed man just stared silently at Norman while the last man finished checking the house before heading back outside. The silence was oppressive, making Norman supremely uncomfortable until it was broken by a dripping sound. Norman turned toward the noise and saw blood dripping off the edge of the table and onto the dirty kitchen floor.

It brought up flashbacks of working at the morgue and Norman winced.

Eventually, the man that left to make the phone call returned. “He wants to know how much.”

“Tell him to bring it all and get rid of the rest.”

The tall man relayed this into the phone. “He said he can be here in twenty minutes.”

The bald man nodded. “Go outside and keep an eye out.”

Norman thought the last few minutes of silence were bad…this was worse. It was the most uncomfortable twenty minutes of Norman’s life, and he had been to a Jehovah's witness party one time. Like everything strange that happened to Norman, he had ended up there while trying to score.

The noise of footsteps on the front porch clued Norman into the arrival of someone new. The new man stepped through the broken doorway. He had greasy hair that may have been brown or black but Norman couldn’t tell. It was slicked back in a way that accentuated the man’s widow's peak. It might have made him look intimidating if it wasn’t for the coke bottle glasses, sickly pale complexion, and slender frame bordering on anorexia. It made Norman’s thin frame look downright bulky in comparison.

What really drew Norman’s eyes though were the two litter jugs of blue fluid he was carrying.

The man nodded quickly at the tattooed man and shoved the bottles into Norman’s arms before turning around and walking back out without so much as a word.

“Get to it.” The man’s voice was hard.

“I- yes…I gotta prepare the blood first, it um… might take a bit.” Seeing the man’s frown Norman turned and quickly headed into the kitchen.

He didn’t know if the blood could be used in its liquid state and he didn’t want to risk it not working seeing as this man didn’t seem like the type of person you pissed off. Norman already knew the spell would only work once on a dead body so there was no wiggle room for failure here.

Norman took a spoonful of the strange-smelling blood and drizzled it onto a baking sheet. The fastest way Norman knew to dry it was to stick it in the oven. He spread it thin and cranked the oven to the hottest setting it had and waited.