The Necromancer's House by Christopher Buehlman Read Free Book Online Page A

beginning to lap at the ankles of upstate New York, so bearish, tattooed Chancho doesn’t want his brown face to be the first one they see at North Star.
    He doesn’t need their love.
    Just their business.
    When it comes to love, he gets all he needs from his wife and Jésus Christ. Consuela got fat, but Jésus stayed skinny; he would have preferred the reverse, since he only has to
chingar
Consuela, but her face is still pretty and he remembers how her body was in Mexico and Texas. Maybe she does the same for him—he’s got a bigger belly now, too, and fair is fair.
    â€œNo, seriously,
brujo
, get this
cabrón
away from me. He gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
    Salvador stands with two bottles of mineral water balanced on a tray, his hips barely moving in the echo of a wagging tail. Salvador remembers the big man with his smell of motor oil and cumin from his four-legged days. Chancho used to throw the Frisbee for him, and praise him for how high he jumped, and scratch his ears. His master explained to him that Chancho is afraid of him now, but that he shouldn’t take that personally.
    Salvador really wants Chancho to like him again.
    He moves a little closer with the tray.
    Chancho squints, takes his mineral water, crosses himself.

16
    Minutes later.
    Chancho holds the striking pads for Andrew and begins to call off punches.
    â€œJab. Jab. Right cross. Jab. Jab. Double jab. Left hook.”
    Chancho calls these words at the outer limit of audibility, as gently as if he were inventorying flowers at a funeral parlor.
    â€œNow move forward with me,” he says, lets Andrew push him across the yard. He no longer calls punches, just holds the pads up and lets his friend improvise.
    â€œNow punch while backing up. This is very important. You can knock a guy out who thinks he has you.”
    Chancho moves forward slowly but insistently, alternating pads, nodding when Andrew lands an especially crisp one.
    The taped-up gloves tattoo the taped-up pads in the backyard, the staccato mixing pleasantly with birdsong and a tractor straddling asphalt and dirt on the road out front.
    â€œDon’t puss out on me,” Chancho says, now gently boxing out at Andrew’s ears with the mitts to show him he’s letting his guard droop.
    â€œSwitch,” he says, and Andrew takes the mitts, preparing himself for the barely padded brickstorm he will now be fielding. He’s glad for the rest all the same; his drills have left him wheezing.
    The staccato comes faster and harder now, the bigger man pushing the lanky one back, bobbing his head and shoulders like something between an angry chimp and a piston. Chancho had been a formidable boxer fifteen years ago, and might have gone professional had he not been so fond of beer—he had never etched a boxer’s six-pack into his belly. The obvious way to beat Chancho was to wear him out, and enough of them did to keep him from quitting his day job.
    But many did not; to wear Chancho out, you had to be able to duck his bear-swat punches, which was hard, or absorb them, which was damn near impossible.
    And you had to not smoke a pack a day.
    â€œOkay, enough punching.”
    â€œThank the gods.”
    â€œNow elbows,” Chancho all but whispers, smiling his big smile under the uneven, dated mustache, just going gray. Only the soul patch under his chin keeps him from looking like he stepped out of a
Starsky and Hutch
episode.
    Chancho throws elbows first, so the magus can rest his lungs a bit more. The tattooed arms lash out and bite the pads deep, the left elbow flashing the star tattoo of Texas, where the burly man lived until he found Jésus and got out of moving drugs. Or, rather, protecting people who moved drugs.
    Chancho would always be the first guy you’d want to meet in the ring and the last guy you’d want to meet in the parking lot. Or see coming up to your sliding glass door with a
lucha libre
mask on.
    Andrew is