After another long and uncomfortable silence that had Norman checking the oven every couple of minutes, he declared the substance dry enough.

Norman scrapped the dried blood off the baking tray and into a small bag, all the while keeping an eye on the bald man to determine his current mood. Norman quickly realized he had no idea of the man’s mood based on his stony expression. He didn’t know who this guy was but he could guess based on the armed thugs that accompanied him. You also didn’t casually toss around a corpse that had been cut up and shot without being the type of person capable of doing the same thing. That meant the man was dangerous.

Whoever the unfortunate dead man had been, he had died very violently. Half a dozen stab wounds were clearly visible but the two bullet holes in the forehead were most likely the cause of death. Norman really hoped that brain damage wouldn’t stop his spell from activating.

Norman stepped back from the table as his sock started getting wet. He grimaced and tossed a dirty towel on the growing pool of blood on the floor to keep it from spreading any further. The man quirked an eyebrow at Norman’s actions but otherwise remained silent.

Norman cleared his throat and made his way toward the man’s head.

“Um… this part is a bit um… unsettling.”

“Just get on with it, I don’t have all night.”

“Ok, but just so you are aware, I, um, I’ve never tried this on a human before. I’m not sure it’ll work.”

“Uh, huh, whatever, quit stalling.”

Norman sighed and looked at the corpse. Then he was forced to choke back a gag as the smell of the body wafted toward him.

Norman had been prepared for the smell of rot but instead, he got a whiff of the man’s body odor. It smelled like old sweat covered by baby powder. The two mixed into an unholy union to produce something far worse.

“Here goes nothing,” Norman grimaced as he dabbed his fingernails in the powder and shoved them deep into the man’s eyes.

***

Norman was facing a wall safe. He began spinning the lock on the safe. It ended at three numbers and Norman made a mental note of the combination. He jerked the safe open and it was filled with cash, drugs, and a pistol.

Norman reached his meaty hand inside and grabbed the pistol. In the distance, he could hear gunfire but it was muted by the closed door. But he could tell the sounds were getting closer. Norman closed the safe and replaced the painting in front of it. The painting was a tacky thing with dogs sitting in lounging chairs smoking cigars.

He checked the weapon and made sure it was loaded and the safety was off. Then with one hand, he heaved the thick wooden desk onto its side like it weighed nothing. During that time the sounds of fighting had gotten much closer and Norman could hear shouting from just beyond the door to the room. There was another bust of gunfire, followed by silence. Norman crouched behind the desk and aimed at the door.

Only a moment later, it exploded inward and he unloaded the weapon at the opening. He heard grunts of pain from within the smokey hallway. There was the sound of a body hitting the ground. It wasn’t enough though as three large men rushed in and wrestled him to his knees before he could reload. He didn’t make it easy on them though as he snapped one of his attackers' arms.

After Norman was secured, a lithe woman made her way in. The woman couldn’t be considered beautiful or even pretty. Her face bore a scowl that could curdle milk and her skin was textured like lumpy oatmeal. Norman had seen similar skin conditions in people with bad acne but never to this extent. The woman’s greying hair was held in a tight bun behind her head, making her face seem stretched, which didn’t add to her appearance.

“Where is it, John?” the woman said in a cold tone as she ran a fingernail down the length of Norman’s face, leaving a line of blood. It was one of the cuts Norman had mistaken for a knife wound. It was terrifying that the woman’s nails were sharp enough that Norman had mistaken the wounds for being caused by a knife.

This woman obviously wasn’t a physical classer going by her frail appearance. That meant she had some form of magic. She must have been strong enough that the physical classers with her were willing to work for her.

Norman tried to spit on the woman’s face but he was socked in the side of the head by one of the men holding him, making the spit land on the floor instead.

“The hard way it is then,” the woman said with no emotion as she started carving into him.

***

Norman came to and found himself standing at the head of the table with his fingers still stuck inside the dead man’s eyes.

“Whoa… that- That wasn’t nearly as bad as I-,” projectile vomit interrupted Norman’s words as he covered his hands and the face of the dead man in his last meal.

That made him gag and almost vomit again. This repeated itself a few more times as Norman ran toward the sink and get control of his stomach.

The bald man mumbled something about amateurs before he walked out of the room. The man returned shortly with a towel and a bottle of water.

“Clean yourself up, and wash your mouth out with this,” Norman tried to catch the bottle of water but it slipped through his bile-covered hands and hit the floor. It landed upright but sent a spray of blood and vomit showering Norman’s legs. This caused another round of gagging and Norman ran back over to the sink.

The man pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fucking hell, kid.”

He spent a good three minutes washing the vomit off of himself and catching his breath. He even managed to recover the bottle of water and rinse his mouth out. The man waited quietly while Norman got himself presentable.

“Are you done?” the man finally asked.

Norman gagged again but managed not to throw up again as the hot smell of stomach acid mixed with the smell of the dead man hit his nose. Norman nodded quickly but pointed to the living room.

The bald man stepped aside as Norman hurried past him towards the decidedly fresher air of the other room.

“Sit down and tell me what you saw.”

Norman did as instructed, taking a seat on his broken couch and relaying what he had seen in his vision.

The man listened quietly, only stopping him a few times to ask for details.

Norman thought about keeping the wall safe a secret for only a moment before he thought better of it.

“A wall safe, eh? Did you see if the attackers found it?”

“No, the um, man,” Norman jerked his thumb over his shoulder and toward the kitchen, “died during questioning. The lady in the vision seemed to think the man had something though.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if that cagey bastard did, that all you saw?”

Norman nodded, “who was the woman?”

“You don’t need to worry about that. I think we’re done here.” The man reached into his pocket and Norman stiffened.

When the man pulled his hand out, he had a bag that he tossed to Norman. “For your trouble.”

The man turned to leave but stopped as he spotted a crate of unsold potions.

He pointed to them, “you make these?”

Norman nodded, then cursed internally. “You wouldn’t want them though, they don’t heal much.” Norman didn’t care if criminals bought his potions from the guild. But them getting it directly from him was a problem, especially if they learned what ingredient went into them.

The Guild would be angry at him if they found out but they were less likely to kill him over something like that.

“Whatever, every bit helps. I want a case a week.”

The man grabbed the case and walked out while Norman screamed internally and followed the man outside to try and change his mind.

“I don’t know if I can do that along with my other sales.”

The bald man stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned towards Norman.

“I think you have a bit of a misunderstanding, Norman. I will be your only customer. You work for me now. None of this goes to anyone but me. Also, you don’t do what you did tonight for anyone else. I’ll be in touch.” With that, the man turned and handed the crate to one of the brutes before he stepped into the SUV.

“Wha, I don’t even know who you are?”

“Ask your friend over there.”

Norman looked to where the man gestured and saw Toby zip-tied and laying face down at the corner of his porch.

Fucking hell. “What about the body!”

“That’s your problem, but then again, maybe it's more a bonus for a necromancer, eh?  Have a nice night,” the man replied as the SUV backed out into the street and drove off.

“What the fuck just happened?”

Norman took a moment to process the last few minutes. He was still recovering from the spell and now he had two new issues dumped into his lap. Or one, assuming Norman could use the body.

As for the spell, it certainly replayed more than a minute of the dead man’s life. If Norman had to guess, it was more like five minutes. He would need to figure out why it was different this time around but that would need to wait.

Norman looked back at the unconscious Toby and decided to leave him like that for a bit. He had no doubt it was Toby that had told these men about his new spell. It wasn’t until Norman saw Toby tied up that he recalled the conversation he had with Toby when he dropped off the cooler.

“Fucking short-term memory,” Norman sighed and opened the bag that the bald man had thrown to him before leaving.

Norman quickly cinched the bag closed again and looked around to ensure nobody had seen it. The bag was full of a random assortment of small gems. Norman had heard gems were becoming more popular as the value of paper currency fluctuated too much without the National Reserve to back it up.

Without the Reserve, the city used gems and gold to keep some value in paper currency to help appease the masses and keep the economy going. Of course, if you were rich enough, or powerful enough, you could do away with the middle man and just deal in gold and gems.

This was Norman’s first time seeing gems outside of jewelry. He rarely made purchases of more than a hundred dollars and even the more common gems were valued at a hundred dollars or more. The bag contained at least a dozen red and blue stones easily worth a few grand.

But gems weren’t just valuable for currency. Some spells used gems as a catalyst and he had seen the elves use powdered gems and even whole gems as focusing agents in their magic.

Norman wasn’t sure if this information would be useful to his magic yet. Even if it was, it would mean burning money to cast spells, so he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

Tucking the bag safely into his shorts, Norman finally moved to free his friend. He didn’t have a knife though, so he dug around in Toby’s pockets until he came away with the man’s keys.

Toby was a bit worse for wear but he was in better condition than he deserved considering his betrayal of Norman’s secret. Norman was tempted to add a few more bruises to the man but he was too tired for that.

The keys weren’t ideal for sawing through the thick plastic restraints but Toby was still unconscious and couldn’t complain.

Norman heard the banging of a screen door and looked across the street to see a worried-looking Anna running over.

“Shit,” he muttered, finally breaking through the plastic.

He slapped Toby across the face hard, finally waking the man. That action gave Norman more joy than it should of. “Get up, your sister’s coming.”

Toby accepted Norman’s hand without a word as he was dragged to his feet.

“What’s going on? Who were those men?”

“Go home, Anna,” Toby scolded the younger girl as he wiped a bit of dried blood from under his nose before turning and heading into Norman’s house without an invitation. Anna stalked in after him, screaming.

Norman just threw up his hands and followed the pair inside.

“No, tell me what’s going on!”

“Go home.”

Anna stopped short as she reached the kitchen. “Holy shit! Is that a dead body?”

“No, it’s a fucking paperweight. Now go home.”

Norman could already see Anna wasn’t going to comply, she crossed her arms and glared at Toby’s back as he walked into the kitchen. He finally looked up at Anna and saw her sour mood. “Fine, you wanna help,” he tossed his keys toward the startled girl and she barely managed to catch them. “Go bring my van around to the side of Norm’s.”

“What for?” she asked.

Toby pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, “just do it…please.”

“Fine, but you’re going to explain what's going on.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, just go.”

Seeing as she got her way, she smiled and turned. “Hi, Norman,” the girl said with an energetic wave as she rushed back out the broken front door.

Norman could only half wave in reply.

“You got a tarp?”

“A tarp? What for?”

“So we can wrap the body. Unless you want to leave it here to stink up your kitchen?”

Norman looked at the body, then back at Toby.

“You’re not keeping the body Norm. This is for your own good. Look what your experiments have gotten you into already.”

“My experiments! I didn’t tell anyone but you. So if you wouldn’t have blabbed to some criminal thug, I wouldn’t be in this mess. And who is that guy anyway?”

“Thomas Sin.”

“Sin, really?”

“Look, you don’t like his name, take that up with him. He runs the local bike club and they control about a third of the city's illicit activity.”

“Bike club, you mean a biker gang? What the fuck were you thinking, telling a biker gang about me?”

The man didn’t answer but Norman caught him glancing toward where Anna had gone.

“Seriously? This is about Anna?”

“I warned you to stay away from my sister, dude. Now she won’t stop talking about the date you took her on or this fucking necklace you bought her. I told you she isn’t right in the head, what the fuck were you thinking?”

“That wasn’t a date, that was her going all fucking psycho on me and me trying to keep her calm and get her back home before she hurt herself.”

“You’re just proving my point for me. Whatever, what’s done is done. You got a tarp or what?”

“Yeah, I got a fucking tarp, asshole.” Norman stomped past Toby and out the back door to the garage.