Mr. munch on had studied necromancy for three years, and he had never raised a single dead thing. The problem was simple. He lived at the bottom of the Seventh Pit of Hades, where the ground glowed with cracked fire and nothing died, because nothing living came this deep. He needed a corpse. Without one, his spellbook was just a heavy stack of paper. He could not prove he was a necromancer at all. He paced the ledge outside his home. The infernal seams in the stone pulsed under his boots. He had memorized every raising spell. He knew the words, the gestures, the chalk marks. But a spell to wake the dead needs the dead. All he had down here was rock, heat, and one crystal flower he kept for luck. Then he heard the chains. Far below, something huge moved in the dark. Mr. munch on crept to the edge and looked. A seven-headed hound lay sprawled on the pit floor. Six heads snarled. One head hung limp and still. The beast had lost a fight. That dead head was flesh. That dead head was a corpse. His heart pounded. He could raise it. But the living heads would tear him apart the moment he came close. He needed the beast contained. He found the answer near his door. A tall iron cabinet stood there, its front lined with spikes, its panels riveted shut. He had never known its use. Now he did. He dragged it to the pit's slope and shoved. The heavy thing crashed down the rocks and slammed over the hound's front, pinning six snapping heads inside its spiked jaws. The beast howled and thrashed but could not rise. Mr. munch on scrambled down. He knelt by the dead head. His hands shook as he drew the chalk marks in the hot dust. He spoke the words he had practiced a thousand times against nothing. The dead head twitched. The eye rolled open and burned orange. It lifted on its neck, torn from the beast's shoulder by the fall, and turned to face him. It waited for his command. He had done it. He had raised the dead. He laughed, loud and wild. Then the iron cabinet groaned. The trapped heads had chewed through the spikes. The whole beast heaved. The cabinet split and clattered away, and six free heads swung toward him at once. His dead head snapped at them, loyal now, but one against six. Mr. munch on ran. He climbed the slope with his new servant scrabbling behind him. Behind them both, the wounded hound rose to its feet, furious, hunting the necromancer who had stolen a piece of it. He had proven his skill at last. Now the thing he had wounded wanted him dead, and it knew exactly where he lived.

Mr. munch on barred his door and leaned against it. The wounded hound howled somewhere below, still hunting. But a nearer problem sat on his floor. His raised head-servant slumped against the wall, its orange eye rolling. He pointed left. It lurched right. He said stay. It dragged itself in a slow circle. The raising had worked, but the control had not. If it disobeyed at the wrong moment, it would leave his throat bare when the hound came. He opened his log and read his own notes by firelight. Every past raising had failed the same way: he had rushed the binding. A body woke, but its will stayed loose. He needed to force the servant's obedience before the hound broke through his wall. He decided to try a harder method. He would bind the head inside a cage and teach it that his voice meant walls closing in. He dragged the spiked iron cabinet to the center of the room. He shoved the dead head inside and swung the door until the spikes hovered near its neck. Then he spoke his commands. Sit. The head obeyed, and he eased the door open a finger's width. Rise. It rose, and he opened it more. Each time it disobeyed, he pressed the spiked door closer. The eye tracked him now. The neck coiled toward his voice, not away. A slow clap filled the room. Mr. munch on spun. A giant sat folded in his doorway, too big for it, red-skinned, five horns curling from a white painted face. A clown's grin was carved into that face for good. Big shoes crossed at the ankles. Mr. munch on had never seen him, but he knew a debt-collector when one walked through a barred door. "Nice trick," the giant said. "You know how it goes. Most necromancers can't hold a thing that long." He tapped a crystal flower on the shelf, the shimmering hibiscus Mr. munch on kept for luck. "Cute. Won't help you." "Who are you?" "Ragna core. I collect. Three souls in this town still owe me." The grin did not move. "Not you. Yet." He nodded at the caged head. "Finish. I like watching good work." Mr. munch on turned back and shut the door slow, then open, then shut. He said his name for the servant, a single word. The head snapped to face him and held, eye steady, neck taut, waiting. He opened the cage. The servant stepped out and stopped at his heel. It did not drift. It did not circle. It obeyed. He had done it. His first true binding held. Ragna core stood, ducking the ceiling, still grinning. "Good," he said, flat now. "You'll want that servant sharp. That third soul I need?" He pointed one thick finger at Mr. munch on's chest. "It's yours. I'll be back to collect." He stepped out and was gone.

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.

Morgatha Nightshade was gone, and Mr. munch on had no idea where she lived. His deadline shrank by the hour. He knew only one fact about her: she hunted succubi, and she was one soul from her last catch. So he would follow the trail she followed. He set out to find where the town's last succubus hid. He searched the old streets until he found the building. It rose black and cracked, red light bleeding from its narrow windows, chains slung across its stone face. A church twisted into something that mourned. If a devil hid anywhere, she hid here. He pushed the front door and stepped inside. A small figure sat on an iron cabinet near the wall. Red skin, curled horns, wings folded tight. She looked like a doll built for hell. But her eyes were rimmed and heavy, and she rubbed them like she was fighting to stay awake. Mr. munch on had never met her, yet he knew her at once. This was the last soul the witch wanted. "You're not the witch," the devil said. Her voice was flat. "You're the necromancer. The rushed one." "You know me," he said. "Word travels." She yawned and hated herself for it. "Mia Yum Yum. Locked out of hell. Someone bolted the door." She looked at him without pity. "You want the ugly witch. She wants me. Bad plan." "I need her address," Mr. munch on said. "I owe a soul. My own. I need her to buy me time." Mia laughed once, short. "You'd trade me to her for a favor. I'm not stupid." "I didn't say that." "You didn't have to." She slid off the iron cabinet and stood. "But I want out of this town. She's coming for me either way. So here." She named a place, plain and quick, a house at the edge of the marsh where the rot smell pooled. "That's where she sleeps." Mr. munch on stared. "Why tell me?" "Because you'll walk in there loud and clumsy. You'll draw her out." Mia's tired eyes sharpened. "While she deals with you, I run. You're my distraction. That's the trade." He understood, and it stung. But he had what he came for. He turned to leave. "Necromancer." Her voice went final. "She reads people fast. She already knows your weakness. You won't out-talk her." She sat back down and closed her eyes. "Go be my noise." Mr. munch on left the black church with the marsh house fixed in his mind. He finally knew where Morgatha dwelled. But he walked toward her as bait, not as a buyer. The witch would see him coming, and she would already know exactly how to break him.