Four on the Floor, Part One - Steemit Exclusive Urban Fantasy

Posting on here has gotten the creative juices flowing again, so I'm going to share the novel I was working on before my publisher shuttered. It's never been published, and I'll endeavor to finish it here for the Steemit community.
It's urban fantasy (think Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or the Dresden Files, please god don't think Bright), beginning with a starting necromancer working under the radar.

Part 1

The dead hate dubstep.
I’m not being pithy, like I’m saying, “Ugh, even the dead hate dubstep. Check the trends and move the fuck on,” to some shit-hot DJ humblebragging about getting a slot at the Palace. First off, you’ve got your order wrong there, plebe, you’re hot, yeah, I’ll give you that, and you’ve got a beat-to-Hell MacBook with whatever you pulled off Googling “DJ program free download”, but you’re shit, okay? You are a shitty DJ and take your non-existent hand off my ass, DJ Point Illustration, and listen to the cold, hard truth.
The dead hate dubstep.
The easy explanation is that the dead have better taste, or fall back on “It’s magic, so I ain’t gotta explain shit,” but when I’m dealing with magic, I want to have some of it make some measure of sense, even if I have to resort to Hollywood logic to make it stick. So, I rely on the concept that it’s all about rhythm, particularly the backbeat, the bass that builds the foundation, and that it has to be firm and steady to work for dead people. Dubstep “drops the bass” going freestyle and dirty for… It’s just different, that’s the thing, but it wrecks the structure for the sake of wrecking it.
As a matter of choice (and taste), I gravitate toward standard electronica, house, trance, ambient and the like, which thrives on a steady beat, four hits on the bass drum, or floor drum, per measure, giving the name “four on the floor”, which you have to explain otherwise guys will think you’re into cars and then they’ll never shut up. Usually I go with some BT or Tiesto, but there’s always someone new putting out streams to check out. I plug my earbuds into my phone, load my playlist, and not deal with people for however long the set is.
It also helps keep my mind focused and off squicky details, like the scent of dried blood in abundance, the sight of entrails, the air having a sickly sweet taste, the autumn cold still permeating the room and raising bumps on my skin. Dead quiet though, and thank God for that. Hearing’s on my terms, at least.
My shoulder’s tapped, but I was expecting it. I lower the volume to catch a voice saying, “Anything yet, A.J.?”
“I just got here, Les. Give me a second.” I glance to the side, roll my eyes. “Les?”
“Yeah?”
“Your finger’s still on my shoulder, would you mind getting it, please? Thank you.”
Les is a zombie. I’m what you would call a necromancer. I have magical talent that allows me to speak to and work with the dead, like Les here. No, I don’t control him. Yes, occasionally bits of him drop off. And no. No, I do not fuck him.
And yeah, I kind of wish there was a Hogwarts even though they would’ve dropped my ass in Slytherin.
“Shit, sorry A.J.” He picks up the digit, carefully as he can, and reattaches it. Must be nice. “But this is the place I told you about.”
“I figured as much, Les, otherwise I don’t know why you would bring me here. Anyone you know, or knew?” I move forward, the body’s still on the floor, no one’s called the police because she was likely homeless. No one to report her missing, so…
“No, I just…” He stands still for a while, no breath. You’d think that’s obvious because he’s dead, but the dead, the newly dead at least, tend to keep breathing out of lifelong habit. Helps with denying the obvious, I suppose. After a non-specific while, they just stop. “I heard screaming and I wanted to help, I… I don’t like screaming. It’s so loud, like when…”
I turn around, Les is eight inches taller than me at six foot flat, dressed in clothes from the last decade that are worn to rags, hair only there in patches and clumps, skull exposed in spots. His skin has long since gone gray, spots of open rot, but he doesn’t seem to mind. I pack Febreze in my bag anyway along with menthol gel, so I don’t mind either. What’s important is he’s clutching his head, thinking hard and getting visibly frustrated.
“Les? We’re going to find out one day. Don’t worry. It’s coming back a little at a time, don’t get discouraged. A month ago you didn’t even know your name, and now we know that, right?”
He nods, slowly, calming down. “Sorry, A.J., I just know there was screaming when I…”
Best cut off this loop before it starts. “Like the woman was screaming, right. This happened last night then, Les?”
“Hm? Yeah, yeah. Last night… Maybe two nights ago? What day is it?”
Always good to give days, not dates. Zombies don’t handle the knowledge of what year it actually is all that well. “It’s Friday night, Les.”
He appears lost in thought a moment, then volunteers sheepishly, “I guess it’s been over a week.”
Fuck.
“Okay, I need some time, Les. Would you kindly wait outside, and keep a lookout, please? Thank you.”
He nods, and exits into the hallway. We’re in a condemned building in St. Benedict, which used to be nice according to my grandparents, and now it’s all empty factories, rusted out waterfront, slum housing, and shitbox businesses that prey on the poor. Also, a lot of zombies.
The thing is that even though there’re enough zombies in the City to fill a convention hall, no one sees them, because zombies aren’t supposed to exist. Mostly, they’re ignored or written off as homeless people which earns them even less attention as they tend to dwell in alleys and vacant areas, like this rundown condemned slum. No one’s probably going to sneak up on us, but still, I don’t like working magic in front of people. Never underestimate the power of human denial.
I’m not exactly flying blind. Grow up in a Goth household and you learn a lot about Victorian spiritualism, the Golden Dawn, and the dozens of methods of raising the dead utilized in horror novels, comics, and movies from Japan, Italy, Germany, and the good ol’ U.S.A. Movies mostly taught me what not to do, and everything else had the same general lesson: When dealing with the dead and spirits, there is no such thing as being too polite.
Luckily, manners and etiquette were also part of my childhood, at least projecting good etiquette outwardly.
I reach into my backpack and start with a piece of chalk, drawing a circle around the body as perfect as I can make it, then lining the circle with salt just to be safe. The next step is removing a plastic goat skull, painted with stage blood and possessing red LED lights in the ocular cavities, and setting it to the side. I give it a few taps, “It’s nine o’clock, your lordship, time to wake up.”
The eyes light up with an ice blue, and not from the LEDs, an otherworldly, yet masculine voice emanating from it. “And who is it that disturbs me from my slum- Oh. I see we’re already in a slum. You take me to the finest venues, Lady Absinthe.”
I grit my teeth, and seethe out the word, “Pumpkin…”
While striking one of the rooms for a haunt my parents were working at, we were allowed to take a prop as a souvenir. The goat skull was in a demonic sacrifice room, emerging from a rather mangled jack o’lantern during the first nights, then moved to an altar to be scarier. Still, the name “Pumpkin” stuck. He didn’t start talking to me until after I started seeing zombies and ghosts. Interesting birthday, to say the least.
“Yes, yes, of course. Abby. What do you request of me tonight, hm?”
“I’ve drawn the circle, laid the salt, just need help with the… what’s it called again?”
“Sigil, Abby, it’s called Sigil currently,” he said with a sigh, “Truly, it is a travesty that the language is only properly used by humans who can barely speak it.”
“Pumpkin?”
“Yes, Lady Absin- Abby?”
“You were human, so can we get to the explanation of what runes I write? This woman was murdered and I’ll bet she’s got quite the story to tell.”
“A human woman, Abby. I doubt that no matter how prettily you scribe the runes, it will not mean much to her and…”
Pumpkin, once he gets going, loves to get his faux-British accent on and carry on a torrid affair with the sound of his own voice. When he trails off, it’s a good indicator that my night is about to become more interesting in the Chinese curse sort of way.
“Pumpkin? Would you kindly share with the rest of the class, please? Thank you.”
“Don’t do it,” he says, voice hushing, sounding more like the college freshman from Destry Bay he was eighteen years ago. “Don’t wake her up, Abby.”
“I’m not just going to leave her here. Her chest is cut open, her heart is missing,” I say, while thankful Dad showed me a lot of giallo movies. “She died terrified and in pain and no one even knows she’s gone. I might not get her justice but if I can give a name for her tombstone then at least she’ll move on with a memoriam.”
“That’s just it, Abby.”
“What?” I turn away from her and toward the skull.
“She didn’t move on. She’s still in there.”

Read Part Two