To Touch a Soul

Life had finally begun again within the keep's old walls. Where there once was debris and dust littering the staircases and halls, the areas were now surprisingly clean. Each window had been scrubbed free of grime and cobwebs, along with the carpets, floors and any other possible surfaces.

While traces of the zombified rats could still be glimpsed in the castle's dark dungeon, they no longer roamed the halls freely and kept mostly away from the building. Without their main food source overrunning the area, a majority of the large spiders also vanished from the keep's grounds. A few might be spotted here and there high upon the looming towers of the building, but one would just think that the shadows played with their vision, since arachnids surely couldn't reach such a size.

"My lord, how have you been feeling?" One of Fin's many new human servants asked as he offered him a small tray of tea and cookies, setting them on the little table beside the large winged chair he currently sat in within his study.

The room had been decorated in deep reds and golds, with a black rug in the middle of the floor that matched the chairs scattered about the area.

"Better by the day." Fin replied, honestly shocked that his body hadn't begun to revert back to being a corpse.

His skin remained soft and warm to the touch. Where his eyes had once been faded and dark from death, they now showed the color of the sky on a bright sunny day.

"That is very good. You have made a miraculous recovery, my lord." The man said as he tidied up the area, then excused himself.

Fin watched him leave before picking up the warm tea cup and lifted it to his lips. It actually tasted as it should. The cookies, too, tasted of sugar and cinnamon when he took a bite from one a moment later, then slowly chewed.

Having been undead for so long, he'd had to make up a rather intricate story about how he had just been severely sick for so long and was suddenly getting better and in need of real sustenance and more help around the giant keep. He had also had to make up a story about the humans he'd murdered, and found that blaming a crazed zombie, which he had easily been able to provide as proof, was easy enough to convince the townsfolk.

Pressing another cookie to his tongue, he savored the taste. Flavor was something he'd been denied the moment he'd been resurrected. When one is no longer truly alive, things like taste buds do not exist. Everything tasted of nothing. He ate because it had sustained him, and for no other reason. There had been no pleasure in it... or anything else.

That thought brought his attention down to his crotch, a twisted smile appearing on his lips. He'd yet to have the chance to enjoy himself in such a way, but he fully intended to do so in the coming days. He had missed out on so many things...

Leaning his head back, Fin allowed his eyes to close as he took in a slow, deep breath.

Let him go free. You have his life. Do not make his soul remain trapped in that room.

Cracking his eyes open, Fin narrowed them on the small tabby cat sitting atop one of the wing chairs across the room from him.

"Be gone, bitch. You had your chance to take him and you failed. He belongs to me now." He said lazily, making a shoo gesture with his right hand before bringing another cookie to his mouth.

The cat's fur ruffled and it hissed quietly, only drawing Fin's smirk wider on his lips. He was about to close his eyes again and ignore the almighty annoyance, when he noticed something flit across the edge of his vision. His attention immediately drew to his left, where the door was still firmly shut and not a shadow was moving about.

When he returned his gaze to the cat, it was staring toward the door as well. After a few moments of silence, her eyes found their way back to his, though the uncertainty in them drew Fin's hand to an abrupt halt, leaving the cookie he'd been about to sample inches from his lips.

They had both seen something, but neither of them had clearly gotten a good enough look to determine what it was.

Setting the cookie back down, Fin stood from his chair and walked to the door, glancing over his shoulder as he pushed it open.

"You will not have him. Be gone or starve in this room." He said before stepping through and closing the door behind him.

He was just turning around to head up the newly reconstructed main spiral staircase when something blurry moved quickly down the railing.

It was clear, that time at least, that it was some sort of poltergeist. After having spent years murdering people in the dungeons below his feet, ghosts weren't an uncommon sight. Humans weren't as attuned to them, so most of his new staff just considered the apparitions wandering beams of sunlight coming through the high windows playing tricks on their eyes.

But he could tell that it had been a young child judging by its size and movement. It was an odd thing, but the ghosts of older humans tended to move slower and slower. Only children really appeared to run about so quickly.

He had killed children, when sick ones were sent to him, but it had been at least a year since a human younger than twenty had been murdered by his hands for food.

Licking his lips, Fin calmly begin heading up the stairs, nodding to several servants as they milled about from upstairs to the main floor, or vise versa.

At first, he didn't notice anything else amiss as he made his way toward his bedroom. Everything was quiet, but when he set his hand upon the handle to the door, the ghost flitted along the hall to his left, disappearing after just a brief pause by one of the narrow dressers placed along the hallway for random storage needs.

"Be on your way, little one. Nothing good will come of you remaining here." He said to the spirit.

When it didn't appear again, Fin turned his attention back to his room and entered. Daiya's corpse lay still upon his bed, not a particle of dust settled upon his skin.

Leaving the door open, he calmly walked over to the bed and tilted his head one way, then the other. He had left Daiya alone for several weeks, but perhaps it was time...

Reaching forward with his right hand, Fin let his fingers hover just above Daiya's pale face. He hesitated for several minutes before allowing the tips of them to quickly brush against Daiya's frigid forehead before he yanked them away.

He wasn't sure what he had expected, but he had been wary. If touching Daiya's body had again somehow took away the life he had stolen, Fin would have been killed, again. He remembered very well what had happened so many years ago. How he had been beaten to within an inch of his life, then thrown into a river to drown below the surface. He had struggled for air even when there was no hope and felt his body grow colder and colder beneath the chilled water.

Shaking the memories away, he took a deep breath, then released it threw his nose as he returned his hand to Daiya's face, pressing his fingers into his pale skin as his claws slowly extended to points.

"Rise, Daiya. You have slept long enough." He commanded, lifting his hand slowly as his fingers curled.

When, after several seconds, nothing happened, Fin straightened back up, a look of confusion on his face. He had never failed to raise a soul.

"Wait a moment..." He whispered as he turned his attention back to the open doorway, only to see the blur of the child spirit from before dart away.

Retracting his claws, Fin followed the little ghost into the hall and down the path leading to another renovated staircase that lead high into the west tower. He was just about to begin climbing the stairs when a light blurred down the thin decorative railing to his left.

He was too slow to react as he finally saw the child partially materialize and stumble hard onto the floor with a mute yelp.

It was gone the next moment, but Fin didn't need to have seen the result of its unwise play sliding down the railing.

"You broke your wrist that day." He said to the particles of dust that danced along the faded candle light that lit the area.

The memory brought an ache to his heart, and his back. Daiya had wanted to try what the older boys had been doing and had gotten hurt while Fin had been fetching him a snack from the kitchen. He'd gotten whipped fifty times and left locked in the icy dungeon all night without numbing medication because he hadn't stopped him from getting injured. The next morning he'd been held down to receive enough stitches to make him pass out from the pain.

The morning after that? He'd had to put on a fake smile and wrap Daiya in tight hugs as he cried on and on about his injured wrist.

He waited for the little boy to appear again, and was surprised when it stumbled from the railing a second time, repeating what it had just done, before vanishing again with a silent wail.

"Return to your body, boy." He ordered the little ghost.

When it simply repeated the same actions a third time, then disappeared again, Fin felt his frustration growing. He had never been ignored by any form of undead. Even after he'd regained his human life, his necromancy skills had not waned in the least.

"Daiya." He said sternly, narrowing his eyes on the spot where the boy had disappeared.

There was no movement for several minutes, and he was about to accept that he had wandered away for the time being, but then the little spirit stumbled from the railing again abruptly, crashing into the floor as if it actually could hurt it.

"Enough of this, Daiya. It is time for you to go back to your body." He told the crying ghost.

To his surprise, the apparition finally drew its faded eyes up to meet his.

"Be on your way back. You will find nothing good wandering about out here." He told it.

When the boy just looked down, then vanished again, Fin growled, scratching at his messy mane of dark blond hair as he turned his narrowed eyes toward the railing.

He'd met ghosts that were confused before and repeated memories from their pasts over and over, but they had never ignored him so easily. They most certainly had never been able to go against his commands.

Like clockwork, Daiya's little ghost reappeared a little ways up the railing and began sliding downward, a nervous smile on his pale face. When he came close to the end, where he was destined to replay his fall again, Fin lunged forward. He knew that it was useless. You couldn't just catch a random ghost. There had to be a want for help and a very high level of trust. The ghost had to feel safe in order to be able to physically make contact with another person. He wasn't sure why he had even bothered... but somehow, as the boy slipped from the railing, giving a silent scream, his small body fell like a faint cloud into Fin's waiting arms. He weighed nothing, yet did not fall through Fin's arms.

At some point Fin dropped to his knees, his eyes as wide as saucers as he stared down at the little ghost in his arms. He could barely feel his translucent body, but as he stood back up, Daiya came with him.

He'd never thought that a ghost would allow him to touch it, but he didn't hesitate to hurry back to his room and set it by its body... except it refused to release its new hold around his neck. When he lifted his arms to detach the boy's, his fingers slipped right through his form.

Not finding the humor in the child hanging onto him, Fin glared down at the tear-stained face shyly looking up at him and pointed to Daiya's corpse still resting on his bed.

"You need to return to your body or I will not be able to bring you back." He stated.

The boy looked over his shoulder at his deceased older self and quickly turned away, shaking his head against Fin's shirt. Sighing, Fin felt that for once, he was at a loss as to what he could do in a situation.

"Why do you refuse to return to your body? Do you not want to return to the world of the living, even as an undead?" He asked the child, only earning another shake of its head before it vanished again.

How interesting. The great necromancer Finnegan cannot control a ghost? God teased as she sat down in the doorway to his bedroom and began lazily cleaning a paw.

Fin lifted his upper lip, baring a fang at her before walking over and promptly kicking the cat several feet down the hall.

"Be gone you disgusting demon." He hissed, earning one back from the cat before he felt something faint around his waist draw his attention downward.

Daiya's ghost had reappeared, its arms wrapped gently around Fin's middle in a hug.

He contemplated trying to get it to return to its body again, but it seemed fruitless. Ghosts didn't just refuse to do something because they could. There was always a reason.

"Very well. You do not have to return at this moment, but you must stay with me." Fin stated, meeting the ghost's eyes as it lifted its head. He would not allow god to claim Daiya's soul.

"Do you understand? Stay with me." He said.

It took the child a few moments of consideration, but it slowly nodded before disappearing again. Fin turned his attention to the cat once more, only to see it slowly pacing away, its tail flicking in frustration.

He could feel the boy's soul against his back, as if it was using his body to hide from the cat.

"You are no fool. Be wary of that feline. She is not as she seems." He warned the boy before locking the door to his room and heading back down the stairs to continue his daily tasks. A faint sensation that felt like little fingers touching his left hand every few moments let him know that Daiya, was indeed, remaining right with him.