A Necromancer's Guide to Clearing a Game Like Tower

For a few seconds, James did not move.

The flat was wreckage around him. Nyra was still in the air behind him, crying, her wings trembling, the small horn still showing on her forehead. The men who had come for his mother were scattered across the room, some groaning, some barely moving at all.

He could feel the shape of all the things he was supposed to do. Call Marcus. Call Finn. Call TRB and let the people whose job it was handle the men on his floor.

He was not going to do any of them.

They had come into his home while he was gone. The only thing James needed from any of them now was the next name in the chain.

He went to his mother first.

He knelt beside her and put two fingers to her throat. The pulse was there, steady enough. Her breathing was slow but even. The blood at her hairline had dried dark, and there was bruising rising along her arm, but nothing was pumping and nothing was open that needed pressure.

She was alive.

Something in him went very quiet when he confirmed it. Not calm. Quiet. The kind of quiet that came before he did something that needed his hands to be steady.

"Daddy—" Nyra’s voice broke behind him. "Daddy, I didn’t— I didn’t mean—"

"Nyra." He did not turn around. His voice was firm and it was not cruel. "Stop crying for now. Stay where you are. Don’t come closer yet."

She went quiet in small hitching pulls.

James looked back at the men.

Now that his mother was breathing, they had stopped being a horror in his home and become a problem to solve. He stood, and the shift in him was cold enough that the nearest conscious man saw it and tried to crawl backward through the broken glass.

James walked to the man lying closest and crouched over him.

He grabbed a fistful of the man’s shirt and slapped him hard across the face.

CRACK.

The man came awake with a shout, arms flailing, eyes wild. Then he saw James above him and the fight went straight out of his body.

"Who sent you," James said.

"I don’t— I don’t know, I swear—"

"Who sent you."

It was quieter the second time, which was worse, and the man heard that it was worse.

"I don’t know, I just came with the crew, I do the lifting, that’s all I do—" His eyes darted sideways toward the splintered doorframe. "He had the call. The boss. He took the job and he gave us the address, that’s all I know, I swear on—"

James let go of his shirt and let his head drop back.

He was already walking toward the leader before the man finished begging.

The leader was against the broken doorframe where Nyra’s scream had thrown him. James crouched and slapped him awake the same way.

CRACK.

The leader woke angry. His hand came up and his mouth opened to threaten, and then his eyes moved across the room — the wreckage, his own men down, the small winged thing crying in the air, the young man crouched over him with no expression at all — and the anger drained out of his face. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"Who sent you," James said.

"I don’t know." The leader’s voice was tight but he held it. "That’s the truth, kid. I don’t know who’s buying. I never do."

James broke the smallest finger on the man’s right hand.

He did it without heat, one quick controlled motion, and the snap was a small sound under the leader’s scream.

Behind James, Nyra flinched and pressed her hands over her ears.

"Who sent you," James said again, the same flat way, like nothing had happened in between.

"A broker—" The leader was breathing through his teeth now. "A broker, alright? That’s all I get. Somebody pays him, he pays us, we never see the top. He gave me the woman. Said you wouldn’t be home. Said clean grab, no noise, no body, hold her till you came looking." He squeezed his eyes shut. "Nobody said anything about— about that. The kid. Nobody said there was a kid."

James studied him for a moment.

"Call him," James said.

The leader hesitated, and James watched him do the math — what happened if the call sounded wrong, and what happened if he refused.

"I won’t ask twice," James said.

The leader pulled the phone from his coat with his good hand. He put it on speaker because James gestured for it, and James crouched close enough to hear every word.

It rang twice.

"You’re late." The voice that answered was smooth and bored and rich, a voice that spent its time in rooms with good chairs. "I expected the call ten minutes ago."

"Sorry." The leader kept his voice level. James was close enough that one bad breath would have been heard. "Woman’s secured."

"Clean?"

The leader looked at James.

"Clean," he said.

"Anyone see you?"

"No."

"Good." A pause, the sound of a lighter, an inhale. "Ashford Grand Hotel. Underground parking, level B2, the service lift side. Twenty minutes. You do not come through the main entrance, you do not stop in the lobby, you do not let her be seen. You bring her down and you hand her over and you are finished." Another inhale. "Don’t be late again."

The line went dead.

James took the phone out of the leader’s hand.

He did not need him as a source anymore. He had the place, the level, the time, and the kind of man who would be standing there waiting.

His mother coughed.

The sound went through James harder than any of the screaming had. He was off the leader and at her side before the cough finished, one knee in the broken glass, his hand under her shoulder.

She came halfway awake, eyes unfocused, face creasing at the pain in her head and her arm. Her lips moved before they made sound.

"Nyra," she said. "Is she— is she safe—"