How to Grow Your Grimoire of Girlfriend Necromancy
Fiction: Mort the Necromancer is back, and he's stretched his Necromantic techniques to new heights, guaranteeing that he, and his newly raised dates, will be the life of this year's Halloween party!
This flash fiction piece was written for the Soaring Twenties Social Club (STSC) Symposium with the theme of “How to grow your _____” (If you are a writer interested in the STSC, more details at the end of the post)
This piece is a continuation of last year’s Halloween flash fiction - Mort’s invitation to the neighbor’s Halloween party.
Mortimer the Necromancer had outdone himself for this year’s Halloween costume. Having accepted the neighbors’ invitation to attend their annual Halloween party, he had raised three Budweiser Booth Babes as his dates — the kind of babes from back when beautiful Booth Babes were still allowed, when the world still had a sense of humor and fun wasn’t against the approved conventions of society. All he had to do was wear a football jersey and carry a Budweiser in his hand to complete the outfit. He would be the envy of every man at the party!
His three dates had perished back in the 90s due to a tragic freak accident: A huge Budweiser pavilion at Lollapalooza had collapsed upon the poor girls while Alanis Morissette played for the crowd. The inspector had missed the structural defects in the pavilion’s construction in a strange twist of fate: The inspector, having himself imbibed too many Budweisers, had signed off on the pavilion's final inspection while drunk and distracted by the very booth babes upon whom the pavilion would later collapse. A little too ironic? Don’t you think?
A sad story, to be sure, but sad stories tended to be good for Mort's business. In any case, he had raised the three unfortunate booth babes and, for this particular bit of dark magic, he had gone all out. He had utilized both the latest in cloning technology and the most advanced spells in his Grimoire of Girlfriend Necromancy.
It had taken three days of ritualistic chanting with only a few breaks (those being to catch his favorite TV show, The Walking Dead, as well as a Chicago Bulls game upon which he had a rather large sum of money riding, so he had to take a break for those, but other than that Mort had chanted for three days).
The result of his superb sorcery was far beyond a normal raising. He had restored the booth babes’ minds and bodies to the same state as the moment just prior to their death. (Sadly though, Mort had no ability to recall a person’s soul).
So, even though the three knockouts had no souls, they seemed, to most people, to be fully alive, young and beautiful. Most people in modernity lived in their minds anyway and suppressed the urging of their souls, and, since most of society lived in such a state of non-awareness, his booth babes would pass muster with nearly everyone. More importantly however, for the party, was the state of their bodies. Looking fully youthful and alive was a must for Mort’s dates. He certainly couldn’t walk into a party with a date whose eye was falling out, or had an arm rotting off, now could he?
Mort had a sense of propriety and appropriateness after all!
Even so, he was particularly proud of their intellect. These three, Candy, Mandy and Sandy, could carry on an in-depth conversation with anyone. Mort's father, in addition to the art of necromancy, had taught him the importance of the art of conversation.
Oh! How he remembered being stuck in the drafty castle, studying dark magick rituals and enduring long necromantic lessons required by his father while his friends galloped across the countryside, on horseback, learning swordplay and saving the proverbial damsels in distress! Still, he couldn’t deny, that even though his father had been a distant, harsh man, he had learned many useful lessons from dear ol’ dad – lessons that had served him well for centuries. Most of all, his father had taught him the importance of continually learning and growing his grimoires.
“Never think you’ve learned it all, Mortimer,” his father had admonished him more than once, “there is always more and better magick to be learned.”
Mortimer chuckled. His father had been more right than he would ever know. How primitive their necromancy had been back in the Middle Ages!
The best magic they could muster in those days could do little more than raise undead armies of skeletons with rotting flesh and glowing eyes that marched and fought woodenly. His father had relied on sheer numbers of undead in his failed conquests for world domination. The living men that those undead armies had fought had simply cut the heads off his father’s primitive creations or, when fire was available, burned has father’s armies to ash. That was his father’s mistake - he only thought in the simple and brutal terms of raw power.
Mortimer, though, had learned subtlety and nuance. It was easier to rule the world, so to speak, from the shadows. Heavy is the head of the puppet who wears the crown had become Mort’s motto. So Mortimer had continually sought knowledge and his necromancy had grown increasingly sophisticated and nuanced.
He had transformed necromancy into a true art. When Mort’s plans came to fruition, necromancy, and he, would be respected. It would no longer be considered a “dark art.” He had, over the centuries, refined his Grimoire of Necromantic Spells and combined them with advances in technology. His laboratories boasted the latest cloning and genetic modification techniques.
“Candy,” “Mandy,” and “Sandy” might be playthings for a fun Halloween party, but they represented the most refined necromantic techniques and the accumulation of the knowledge of over twenty-five thousand years of necromancers. He would one day truly bring the necromantic arts into the light and solve the age old quest of mankind: to defeat death.
He smiled to himself at that idea. Mort was excited about his latest partnership in his quest to defeat death: He was working with a tech billionaire by the name of Ryan Jansen who had made billions when he sold his first company, Rainbee (a payments provider). Ryan and Mort were attempting to drastically extend Ryan’s lifespan with their “Prohibit Perishing” project (Mort had been alive for centuries, of course, but this project would productize his sorcerous techniques and bring them to the masses). Among other things, they had been experimenting with father and son blood magic.
Mort’s necromantic methods (he and Ryan didn’t call what they did ‘necromancy’ in public of course) would not only eventually raise the dead back to life, but would extend human life into immortality! God worked in mysterious ways indeed – through the humble hands of Mortimer.
He nodded, pleased with the direction of his work, closed his Grimoire, and looked at his watch. Time to go.
“Candy, Sandy, Mandy let’s go! We’re already late for the party,” he called out.
“Coming Mort,” they giggled simultaneously.
“You’re wearing your Budweiser swimsuits, right?”
“Of course, Mort!”
“Oh!” Mort replied, “And don’t forget Spuds MacKenzie! He’s in the backyard! I raised him earlier today thinking how well he completes our costumes!”
This piece was written for the Soaring Twenties Social Club (STSC) Symposium. The STSC is a small, exclusive online speakeasy where a dauntless band of raconteurs, writers, artists, philosophers, flaneurs, musicians, idlers, and bohemians share ideas and companionship. Occasionally, STSC members create something around a set theme. This time the theme was “How to grow your _____.” If you are a writer, I encourage you to consider joining us, I’ve included details at the bottom of this post. Lastly, you can find all my past symposium pieces by clicking here.
If you’d like to support independent writing online, you can subscribe to the STSC publication here. If you are a writer yourself, I encourage you to join us. You’d be joining a group of like minded compatriots. We have nearly 300 incredible writers & artists in our private Discord group (which will be capped at 300). As an author member, you’d have the opportunity to have your own writing appear on the STSC publication. To become a writing member, simply sign up as a premium subscriber on our founder’s, Thomas J. Bevan, personal Substack by clicking here. Once you do, Tom will send you an invite for our Discord group. Tell him “Clintavo” sent you!
I glanced at this and initially saw “How to Grow Your Gilmore Girls Fantasy”