Mr. munch on's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Ragna Core's deadline sat on Mr. munch on like a stone. One soul owed. His own. He knew only one way to pay a debt with the dead: raise a servant strong enough to trade or protect him. But his last true binding had taken hours in the spiked cage. He did not have hours. He had days, and a hound still howling below his floor. So he decided to work fast. He would rush the next raising and hope the will held. He carried a fresh find to the carved stone basin in his workroom. The find was a severed head, part fairy, part demon, the skin cracked with faint light. Delicate horns curled from the brow. He set it in the basin's hollow. He read the binding words twice as fast as his log allowed. He skipped the slow pauses. He skipped the cage. The head's eyes opened, and he knew at once he had made a mistake. The eyes did not track his voice. They wandered, then fixed on him with hunger, not obedience. Its lips moved. It laughed. He said the command word. Nothing. He said it again, louder. The head only smiled wider, and something in the room began to pull at him, a cold ache in his chest, like loneliness poured into his ribs. A voice cut through it. "Wrong bait." Mr. munch on turned. A witch stood in his doorway. Her left hand was wrong, grown back crooked and gray, the fingers too long. Rot climbed her arm under a purple sleeve. She was small, horned, ancient. He had never seen her, but she moved like she owned his floor. "Morgatha Nightshade," she said. "I follow succubi. That one leaks their trick." She pointed her rotted hand at the basin. "Two hundred ninety-nine. I catch the last soon. Not tonight." "It won't obey me," Mr. munch on said. "It never will. You rushed it." She stepped closer. "Rushed. That's your problem, necromancer. Always." She looked at the head with plain contempt. "Loneliness is the hook. It just hooked you." The cold pull sharpened. Mr. munch on's knees bent toward the basin. He gripped the stone edge. His breath fogged. The head's laugh climbed. He understood then that this servant would not guard him. It would eat him hollow, the same failure as every rushed raising, only faster and meaner. He did the only thing left. He seized the head by its horns and slammed it face-down into the dry basin. He pressed until the light in its skin dimmed and the pull snapped off. Silence. His hands shook. Morgatha watched without moving. "Good. Dead again. Stay slow next time." She turned to leave. "Slow. Or you're food." Mr. munch on knelt by the ruined head. His fast raising was ash. The deadline still burned. And now he knew the truth in his gut: he could not beat Ragna Core's clock with speed. He would have to buy time another way, and the only witch who might sell it had just walked out his door.