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“We don’t know what that means.”

“He told you the typical lore around necromancers?”

“Yeah, but that’s not him.”

“No.” Noah shook his head, his gaze going off into the distance. “Look, I don’t know a ton myself. Before I died, I knew there was something different with Lee. He… He got weird when we’d go by the morgue, or the cemetery, or if a funeral was happening near us. It was so odd, but now looking back—” He stopped, his mouth twisting up. “I guess I can only tell you what I know since I died. I know that Lee could take an entire country if he wanted. He could raise the dead. He could control an entire army. I don’t know other necromancers so I can’t tell you how powerful he is, but other ghosts come here knowing he’s here. They already know the deal. That he doesn’t do much. He doesn’t really want his power but also don’t fuck with him. He has sent ghosts to the other side just for harassing him. He almost couldn’t handle his powers when I came back.” He abruptly stopped, his eyes closing so tight and his head bending low. “God. I never— I was so mad at him for bringing me back that I never really thought about it. When I showed up, he wasn’t controlling himself. He couldn’t. Looking back now, it was because of me. Because of his grief. It was too much for him. I know he could control it when I was alive. There were no issues. He just got weird at times, quiet. Withdrawn. If we went to a horror movie, he wouldn’t step foot in the theater. Same thing with any Halloween stuff like going through a haunted maze or house or even just, you know, going through the local asylum and looking for real ghosts. It was make believe to us.” He glanced at the ceiling. “Not to him. I know there’s other beings he deals with.”

“Demons?”

He glanced my way.

I told him about the biker gang with literal skulls and what Lee did to them.

Cassian swore under his breath.

“Yeah. Those weren’t demons. Those just weren’t quite ghosts either. There’s a lot of stuff on the other side. Religions make it sound like it’s just their beings on the other side, but that’s not true. It’s everything. There’s a hierarchy, yeah. I don’t know the ladder for the malevolent entities. I know for the good side, but not the bad. I came back and I was this, whatever I am.”

“You’re a ghost.”

“That can light fires.”

“You died in a fire. A necromancer brought you back. Maybe it’s because he brought you back that the fire came with you?”

Noah shrugged. “I don’t know, but like I said. It was bad for Lee. There was a particular incident that his parents witnessed. It’s what scared them off.”

“What happened?” Cass asked after I’d repeated for Noah.

Noah didn’t answer right away. He took a minute. When he did speak, he was somber. “His parents meant well, I think. I hope. I can’t imagine they would’ve done what they had done if they’d known, but he wasn’t accepting my death. As you can see. I was already back and I was pissed. I was really pissed. Wherever I went, I’d been happy. And my life until then hadn’t been the greatest. I didn’t mean to start the fire, contrary to what Lee thinks. I didn’t. It was an accident, but I might’ve not cared as much as I should’ve considering I really liked to start fires. Maybe a part of me wanted to be gone. I don’t know, but I was back and I was being an asshole to him.”

“Were? As in past tense?”

Noah leveled me with a hard look. “You go from being somewhere you’re only feeling love and kindness, then being yanked back to this life. I don’t think you’d adjust perfectly either.”

“I wouldn’t continue to torment him,” I shot back at him.

A haunted look flashed over his face. He looked down. “I know. I know. I am trying to work on it because I do love the guy. But back to his asshole parents. They weren’t religious, but his mom grew up Catholic. And she grew up in New Orleans.”

My gut dropped. “No.”

Cassion frowned in my direction.

“They told him they were taking him on vacation. Said it was deserved considering everything he’d gone through. They didn’t tell him they were going back to where his mom grew up, to visit her old priest at the cemetery where her grandparents were buried and that it was in the middle of⁠—”

“Cities of the Dead.”

“Yeah.” His tone turned hollow. “He was already having a hard time controlling his emotions, much less his abilities. When the plane touched down, he started losing it. Ghosts and everything were everywhere. They came at him and he could barely keep it together. They went from the airport to the cemetery and that’s when he lost it.”

There was a pit inside of me, being filled up with only bad feelings. It was overflowing. “What did they see?”

“Literal skeletons walking out of their multigenerational vaults. That cemetery had thousands of people buried there.” He paused. “He raised them all.”

Shock pulsed through me, freezing me.

“He was just scared and sad and way too fucking powerful.”

I choked out, “What happened?”

Noah cracked a grin. “Another necromancer came running through the front door. Can you imagine that? Guess it kinda makes sense now that I know a bit more about everything. The necromancer was local, and when another necro arrives, word travels fast. The guy ran in and helped control everything, but Lee’s parents already saw.”