“You're not a quitter, Mark.” I said.

“Don't get all sanctimonious on me, David. Since we've been pooling our money for the good of the company, these bastards have lost sight of how much work we do.” Mark almost spat at Hank. “All they see is the shared profits and not how we get them.”

“I didn't think that things were this bad down here.” I admitted. I hadn't really been paying attention to the way things had been changing, since Hank was the one that usually took care of everything that had to do with the company finances. I just did my work and that was that.

“Since you left, it's been nothing but bad. We lost a few regular clients because you didn't work here anymore, and we've lost a lot of new business for the same reason. When they found out you left, they weren't that interested anymore.” Mark let out a short laugh. “If they had known these geniuses had kicked you out instead...” He shook his head. “I think they realize now that if they had you on staff, even as a ‘liaison', they would have all those clients back in a jiffy.”

“I figured as much.” I said. “That's what pissed me off about it.”

_______________

You have another choice to make. This could be good or bad, depending on what you decide.

A) Leave and give up on them. B) Stay and try to work something out. C) Strike out on your own.

I don't want to give up on... My thought cut off as a ten second timer appeared. Dammit. I want to do B, but... I sighed. It has to be C. I choose C.

_______________

I stared around the group of people, and a thought that had milled around in my head a few times over the years, came back to me in that moment. I said out loud my bright idea and it surprised everyone, myself included.

“Mark, how would you like to be partners?” I asked him.

“Partners? How?” Mark asked. “It's not like these guys are gonna let you back on the team, not after insulting you... and me... with all this crap.”

I chuckled at his indignation on my behalf. “I'm not sure why I didn't think of this until now. I guess I didn't think I had the talent for it.” I shrugged. “Now that I'm a free agent, I think it's time that I started my own zombie raising business.”

The looks I got from the group were a mixture of horror and shock. Mark was startled into silence for the first time since I'd known him and Edith glanced furtively at everyone around me.

“It's probably going to take a couple of months to get things started, but the money I got from a client last night should cover the first year of operating costs, easily.” I said and everyone stared openly at me. “I'll need a business manager, though.”

Everyone cast their eyes to Hank automatically. He was looking more and more like a drowned frog every passing second.

I let him stew for a minute before I spoke. “Edith, how would you like to work for me?”

Edith was flabbergasted, as was everyone else. I don't think Edith had seen that one coming, because she didn't speak.

“Now, I know it's short notice, and you'll have to take a month off while I get the business registered.” I said. “Then I'll need your help with all the paperwork to get everything going properly.” I smiled at her. “I hope you'll consider my offer and let me know as soon as you can.” I said. “As an incentive, how does a signing bonus of ten thousand sound? Oh, and an annual salary of fifty thousand of course.”

A collective gasp flooded the room. If Mark hadn't been quick on his feet and caught her when she fainted, Edith would have been sprawled on the floor. After Mark pampered her for a bit, she came around and asked me if I was serious. I told her that she deserved even more than that; but, I wouldn't be able to afford more until her next pay raise.

Edith swooned a little at that, then she stated firmly that she didn't have all the necessary skills she needed to have. I responded that she pretty much ran this company by herself anyways and if she wanted to take a couple classes to learn what she wanted, that I would pay for them. She graciously accepted my offer while she simultaneously turned in her resignation to Hank. Her current annual salary was just over thirty thousand and as far as I knew, for all the years she had worked for the company, she never had a pay raise.

Mark didn't even wait for me to make him an offer and he resigned as well. I had said that it would take a month or two to get the business started, because I wanted Edith to have that deserved time off and to give Mark some more time with his family. The looks that the rest of the people at the company gave me as I rolled by them towards the door, were reminiscent of hostages that were about to be shot in the head.

Well, it wasn't my fault that they didn't want me around anymore. I thought, then I turned slightly when Mark touched my shoulder. “Mark, you get your ass back to your wife and her family right now.” I said to him, then I laughed as he tried to kneel, hug me, and shake my hand at the same time. “Stop! Stop! You're horrible at thanking people properly!” I said and we both laughed.

“Thank you so much, David.” Edith said while tears flowed down her cheeks, then she hugged me tightly.

“Easy now. If I wasn't already crippled, you would have just broken my back.” I joked and she laughed and cried in equal measure. I pat her back. “I'll have your bonus deposited into your account later today, so make sure you take the time off and relax.” I gave her a stern look. “I mean it!”

“Yes, David.” Edith said and wiped at her face. “I'll do what I need to over the next month.”

“Good.” I said and waved at them as they went back inside the offices to gather their things. I rolled out of the building and over to the taxi. I climbed back into the taxi and sat there in silence as the driver loaded the wheelchair into the trunk. I had no clue how to run a business and I kicked myself mentally for doing what I had just done on the spur of the moment.

Both Edith and Mark looked really happy, though. I thought and smiled. I had bet on Edith being around the old office so much that she would be able to run the new place. All I really knew how to do was raise the dead. Doing that is a piece of cake. I chuckled at the thought. At least I'll be able do it whenever I wanted. Legally, anyways. Someone is always looking to have something raised from the grave.

“Where to, mister?” The driver asked.

_______________

You have a minor plot point to decide. Where will you go now?

A) Home. B) The bank. C) Jeanette's. D) Mikki's work. E) Mikki's Parents. F) Somewhere else.

Well, A,D, and E are out. I thought, because I didn't want to deal with that right now. I can't do C until tonight and there's no real rush for B. I ignored the timer when it appeared this time, since I already made my choice. I want to go somewhere else, so F.

_______________

I had spouted a crazy plan about starting a business and I had no clue how to go about it. I did know the first step, however. “You wouldn't happen to know where I can get a business registered?” I asked with a self-depreciating smile. I was a grown man and I had no idea where to do it.

“I'd say city hall should be able to handle what you want.” The driver said.

“Then let's head there.” I said and we drove towards the middle of the city. We were pretty close to it, so it didn't take long for him to park and I was back in my wheelchair. “I'm going to owe you a lot of money after all of this.” I said with a chuckle. “What's the meter up to now?”

The taxi driver gave me a grin. “What meter?”

I opened my mouth to respond, then understood what he was doing. “Hey, thanks.”

The man waved my thanks away. “I'll be here when you come out.” He said and I went into the building. One of the clerks asked me right away what I wanted and I tried my best to explain.

“Oh! You're going to want to incorporate, probably into a limited corporation, especially if you've only got a small business and only a single partner.”

“But... we haven't even started work or found a place to do that from.”

She laughed. “You would have been in trouble if you had.” She said and gave me a stern look for a second, then she beamed a smile at me. “I'll take you into one of the spare offices and we can figure out what we can do for you.”

“All right, just... could you try to take it slow? It's my first time.” I said and gave her an innocent face.

She had a startled look for a moment, then she burst out laughing. “I'll be gentle as a lamb.” She said and led me over to a nice office and we got to work. I was actually surprised that it didn't take very long, once we decided on the name and registered it.

“Resurrection Inc. LLC.” I said and looked at the official paper with the business license.

“With this registered and your business taxes and fees set up, you can go right to the bank and start the paperwork for everything else.” The clerk said.

“Thank you.” I said.

“Don't thank me yet.” The clerk said with a wicked grin and waved at the paper covered desk. “Now you have to pay for all of this.”

I laughed for a moment, then took a breath. “I'll try to not to hold it against you personally.”

She chuckled. “As far as you're concerned, I'm the face of this coming pain.” She gathered everything up and we left the office and went back to the main desk. After a bit more paperwork, she hit me with the bill.

I managed, barely, to not yell in surprise.

“I warned you.” She said. “So, are you transferring the hate to me yet?”

I wanted to say no and I honestly couldn't, despite her being so nice. “I just thought that I wanted to say no.” I said and smiled at her.

“Damn, the honeymoon is over.” She said with a laugh and I paid the fees for setting everything up. She gave me a copy of everything for my own records and our business was done.

“Thank you for all your help, expensive as it was.” I said and tucked the folder beside my leg.

She grinned at me. “If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, even if we were dating, I couldn't give you a break on the fees.”

I barked a laugh. “That's good to know, especially since I'm in this state.” I waved at my legs. “I wouldn't be earning too much of a discount even if it did apply.”

She looked down at me and then looked at my face. “I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to being with you than that.”

“Yeah, I can be a real ass at unexpected moments.” I said and she laughed.

“We all can be.” She said. “I hope you have a great evening.”

“I have to have a serious talk with a vampire, so... maybe?” I said and rolled over to the door. “Thanks again.”

She gave me a wave with a worried face and I left the building. The taxi really had stayed there and I climbed in. We went to the bank next and I was served immediately. I took out the paperwork the clerk at city hall had given me and the teller called over one of their representatives. It didn't take long for him to get everything set up, including a joint business account and linked individual accounts for us if we needed them.

I transferred sixty thousand dollars from my personal account into the business account, then transferred the ten thousand dollar bonus from the business into Edith's personal account. The representative didn't even question me about it. I marked on the deposit slip what it was for and he immediately understood. I needed to establish a paper trail for the business as soon as possible and this was the very first step.

I thanked him for his help and he said he was happy to do it. I took that paperwork and added it to the pile I already had, then left the bank. I looked at my watch and saw that it was getting late. I went to the still waiting taxi and told him the address for Jeanette's mansion. She called it a 'modest dwelling' and it always struck me as both pretentious and funny that she thought a twenty thousand square foot mansion was 'modest'. We drove there and the taxi asked me if I was sure that I wanted to get dropped off.

“I do.” I said and he helped me get out. I pulled out a handful of bills for him and he shook his head.

“That's okay.”

“But... nearly all day...” I muttered.

“I saw the video of what you did.”

“Wh-what?” I looked at him in shock.

“You didn't know?” He asked and took out his cell phone. “This was the biggest thing to happen to the city in... well, I can't really compare it to anything, can I?” He chuckled. “Who in their right mind would ever expect to see a zombie apocalypse?”

I stared at his cell phone as he showed me the video. A mass of zombies marched down the street and were perfectly timed. Each arm, each leg, all moved at the exact same rate. It almost looked fake. I was about to say that when I saw my own head bobbing in the middle of them.

“I recognized you immediately.” The taxi driver said. “I called in and took the day off when I picked you up.”

“But...”

“I told my boss who you were.” The taxi driver said. “He made it a paid vacation day instead.”

I opened my mouth to respond, then realized there wasn't really anything I could say except thank you. “Tell your boss I appreciate it.” I said and held a hand out to him. “Thank you.”

The taxi driver shook my hand. “Just call whenever you need a ride.”

I nodded and he walked around the car, climbed in, and drove away. I turned the wheelchair around and rolled up to the gate and the guard opened it without a word. As soon as I was through, a butler and a maid were there. The butler took the handles of the chair and the maid fussed over me to make me presentable.

I had been through the process so many times that I didn't bother protesting. When the maid was done, they took me over to the mansion and rolled me right up to the door over a makeshift ramp. We went inside and they took me over to the room called a parlour. It was just a fancy word for meeting room. I sat there and wait, as did they, for the mistress of the house.

I wasn't surprised when the sun finally set and I felt a jolt of power go through me. In the next moment, the side door of the parlour opened and Jeanette swept into the room wearing a long white nightgown that looked more like something you would wear to a ball and not to bed.

“My darling.” Jeanette said and came over to me, bent down and gave me a quick kiss. “I'll be right back after I've changed.” She said and just as quickly as she had appeared, she was out the other side door and was gone.

“She was just here, wasn't she?” I asked, jokingly.

The maid chuckled and quickly followed her to help her get dressed. Ten minutes later, Jeanette came back through the side door and was dressed in all of her finery. A dress that looked so expensive that even a high fashion model would balk at wearing it. Glittering diamonds adorned her ears, wrists, and neck and made those features stand out, rather than covered them. She also had her hair done up in a complicated style that suited her features perfectly.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Jeanette asked.

“Like you don't know.” I said and laid into her with all of the questions I could think of about her people, why she hadn't done anything about it, and why she didn't protect her workers better. She didn't have answers for most of them, including the important one.

“Where's Natalie?” I spat at her.

“My darling, I do not know.” Jeanette said.

“Don't give me that crap.” I said. “You run your business with an iron hand and you know exactly where all the skeletons are buried.”

“I believe you are confusing my talents with yours.”

“No, you are the...” I stopped when what she said registered. “What did you say?”

“You are the one who can detect skeletons, my darling. Not I.”

“Don't... confuse me.” I said. “I. Want. Answers!” I said with such passion, that my power and anger popped up and showed itself. I immediately saw Jeanette as a nice tasty morsel to feast upon. I couldn't tell if it was my necromancy or something else, however.

Jeanette must have felt the attention because she immediately went very still. If I hadn't been looking directly at her, I wasn't sure I would have seen her in the room at all, even wearing what she was. I closed my eyes for a moment and took several breaths to calm down. My power eased down almost immediately and I came back to my senses.

“My darling, if you do not keep calm, you will not get any closer to finding Natalie.”

“What do you mean?” I asked and tried my best to keep calm.

“I have the security video for the back entrance.”

Such relief flooded into my body that if I hadn't already been sitting down, I might have fallen to the floor. I asked to see the video as nicely as possible. I kept a stranglehold on my anger, just so I wouldn't try to rip Jeanette apart so she would hurry up and show it to me. She waved at her maid, who walked over to the television at the side of the room and played the video. It was a fairly good quality, too.

It showed a clear picture of the back door of the bar, where the workers used it as an employee entrance, and it showed the connected alleyway. The door was pushed open when two people emerged and they carried someone between them. A car pulled up in the alley and the two people tossed the unconscious Natalie into the trunk. When they turned around, I recognized the man as the vampire from my vision; but, I didn't know his name. The other person was Mina, which confirmed what I had 'seen'.

With a glow of righteous fury in my eyes, I turned to Jeanette and pointed a finger at her. I was about to chastise her for letting Natalie get taken from her bar, when I noticed her pretending to cry. My anger receded slightly at the sight of her sobs and she dabbed at her dry eyes with a handkerchief.

“Another of my family has betrayed my trust.” Jeanette said. “Once again, my power base appears weak to my family and those around me.”

_______________

You have a decision to make. Will you accept and understand Jeanette's pain or will you forgo all reason and act however you like?

A) Comfort Jeanette in her time of need. B) Shout indignantly at the unfairness. C) Show her who's boss.

Mother fu... I stopped my curse before the thought fully formed. Comfort Jeanette in her time of need? HERS? What about NATALIE? I yelled in my head. I really want to shout indignantly; but, I think I'd rather show Jeanette who's boss. I thought with satisfaction and completely forgot that I didn't want to curse. I pick fucking C!

_______________

“Your... power... base?” I said through gritted teeth. The anger that had been fading away, crashed down like a tidal wave and I rode it to its fullest. At the very core of my being was my power. Pure, undiluted necromancy power. Whatever had happened to me, and I kind of knew what it was and wouldn't admit it, really likes it. I mean, it really likes it when I'm angry. A lot. There was just one problem. I've been trying to justify whatever it was as a 'new thing' inside of me, when I knew for a fact that it was just me. There was no 'new' me. With my power going completely active like it was, I could feel the difference in my body. How it had started to change and adapt to reality. My reality.

I was becoming a were-cat.

Natalie had infected me during all of her attempts to get a rise out of me. I hadn't realized it at the time; but, now I knew that there had been a lot more exchanged between us. That was why Jeanette had been so worried about what Natalie had been eating and sharing energy with me. She had inadvertently formed a bond between us and made me one of the pack. My anger rose even higher, even though I didn't think that was possible, and my blood boiled. Jeanette had known I was changing and she hadn't said anything. She didn't even imply what I was becoming, and that pissed me off.

I let out a loud growl and Jeanette, the maid, and the butler froze still. I have to accept this is who I am. I thought. It's just... me. It's all me.

That's when it clicked. That one small mental blocker, the one that had been inadvertently holding me in check since the accident, disappeared. It had made me scared of all the new, exciting, and scary things that I could do with my abilities. That was why I could only regain feeling in my lower half when I did something new, because I was stopping myself from admitting the truth.

I was the very first necromancer were-cat.

There wasn't any sound that I couldn't hear as my brain unlocked everything I was able to do. I felt strength surge through my muscles and fill me up as my power rose with my anger. I now understood why my anger did that. My beast heart accelerated and the power grew, the anger making things easier and my mind clearer. I now knew what to do. I reached out with my power.

It went through the air and through the ground and as it touched everyone and everything that I knew, both the living and the dead, they all heard my call. The power flowed out and added each person and thing into the circuit, just like I had done with the army of the dead and with the were-cats that were in the city.

Jeanette was right there and she tried to take a step back. I moved my hand instantly and grabbed her wrist. The power flowed over her and into her, then through her into her family. It flowed down the blood bonds she had made as well and I felt every vampire that she had bound to herself. I now felt all of Jeanette's vampires, which included Nina. I also felt the blood bond I had to all of the were-cats, even though I hadn't fully changed yet and joined them officially.

My power reached out and out, and because I was on the outskirts of town at Jeanette's mansion, several graveyards were nearby. The zombies I had laid to rest the night before were easily accessible and the power expanded as each necromancer 'battery' was added to my expanding net of power. I called it a net, because as it cast out farther and farther, it caught more things in it. I covered the whole city and every corpse that my power had ever touched was clear in my mind.

It was all there at my fingertips and I could feel it all. With this much power at my beck and call, I felt like I could do anything I wanted. I could even take over the city... but... that wasn't my thought. I never wanted to do anything like that. You couldn't rule anything if they all hated you. No, taking over was not the right thing to do. I turned my attention away from the physical world and looked deep into my own head.

All that power was mine to control and I used it. I had made the mistake after my accident of trying to have just the were-cats heal me and then tried to have Jeanette and her vampires heal me. I knew that was wrong now. I needed to combine them, because I had both things inside of me... so, that's what I did. I pulled in as much living energy and as much undead energy as I could stand and concentrated on my spine.

I wasn't any kind of medical professional and I had no training in casting healing spells; but, I knew there were lots of that knowledge in the collective energy I had brought to myself, so I let it do all of the work. It felt like bolts of lightning shooting down my spine as things inside of me snapped back together in the right order. Loud cracking sounds emitted from my lower spine and it felt like my back broke again.

Then I felt the most wonderful sensation as the nerves and things reformed and healed. It tingled like crazy as the feeling in my lower body came rushing back. I looked down at myself and saw the muscles in my legs that had started to reduce in size from not being used, expand back out to their normal size... then they went out a bit more.

I widened my eyes at that, then looked at my arms. They expanded out slightly as new muscles seemed to form under the skin and added to my strength. It was amazing and scary, because even though I admitted what I was, seeing it was still a shock. I sat there and let the feeling and the power fill me, then the most miraculous thing happened that really surprised me after all of that.

I wiggled my toes!