It was hard to say without knowing much about necromancy. Part of her hoped that he would go and review his plan with Des, or read a tome that Eva could understand that detailed everything he was intending to do.
Eva doubted that it would be that easy.
Though Des had a head start on the corpse she had been working on, Sawyer finished well in advance.
Mostly.
He finished scalping the skull. From looking at the skeletal remains, Eva had assumed he was finished. That was until he had grabbed hold of the saw.
Sawyer took the tool to the base of the skull and started removing the back of the skull, right near where the spinal cord connected to the brain. When he finally got it open, he looked inside.
There wasn’t much of a brain left. A lot of black goop that Eva wouldn’t have wanted to touch. Not much else.
Sawyer stuck his bare hand inside without a care and proceeded to scrape out the insides into one of the bucket skeletons’ buckets. Once the inside was mostly clear, he carried it over towards the tool rack.
Just to the side of the tools was a large brick structure that came up to Sawyer’s waist. Eva could feel the heat coming off it through her link to Sawyer.
He put on a heavy glove, gripped a rod that was sticking out the top, and pulled it back.
The head of the rod was an intricate design of weaved iron. And it was glowing red hot. A branding iron.
What’s more, Eva recognized the design. As Sawyer shoved the hot end of the iron into the hole in the skull, Eva realized just what he was doing.
It was one of the things that she had come across while skimming through the necromancy tomes that she had stolen.
Sawyer was making skeletons. The animated kind of skeletons. Ones that would wander around, doing his bidding and being nuisances to everyone else.
More skeletons. Between the field, the graveyard, and his warehouse, he already had so many skeletons.
Then, Eva remembered the crypt. The one that she, Arachne, Devon, and Juliana had all entered. The one that had been packed full of the monsters. There had been so many in the cave that, weak though skeletons were, Eva’s group had nearly been overwhelmed anyway. And then there was that giant mass of skeletons that Arachne had fought.
Eva considered the idea that Sawyer had some sort of compulsion to make skeletons. Although, the skeletons at the crypt probably hadn’t required so much effort to make. He would have just had to run around branding skulls. They would have been far less fleshy than most of the corpses he had dug up for this batch.
As Sawyer withdrew the branding iron from the skull and replaced it into the kiln, Eva could feel magic being channeled. The still hot sigil glowed slightly before fading.
The bones in the jaw creaked. A faint glow in the back of the skull’s eyes lit up.
Sawyer turned the skull over, inspecting it. Looking towards the casket, he watched as the rest of the skeleton tried to sit up.
After a satisfied nod, Sawyer reached over to the tool rack and pulled a scouring pad from a small bag. He shoved it between the teeth of the skull and chucked the skull back to the casket.
The skeleton’s body managed to catch it, but fell back down at the force.
“Clean yourself off,” Sawyer shouted at it. “Then fall in line with the others.”
It wasted no time in following his directions. Using the pad, it started scrubbing off bits of flesh that had been left behind by Sawyer.
Walking back to the casket himself, Sawyer picked up his discarded tools and moved on to another body.
Sawyer paused before opening the lid. He glanced towards Des, shaking his head sadly.
“Carry on without me for a time, honey. I’ll be back shortly.”
The girl looked up at him with wide, questioning eyes. With her lips sealed, she couldn’t speak.
Sawyer apparently got the message anyway.
“Don’t worry,” he said as he walked towards the door leading back into the livable section of the warehouse. “Just something that I forgot to take care of. It won’t take long.”
Her stitched lips turned downwards in a frown, but she nodded anyway.
As soon as Sawyer left the room, he pulled out a small cellphone from his pocket. Not a smart phone, but an older-style flip phone. One covered in grime and dirt. With all the brain goop on his fingers, it wasn’t getting any cleaner.
The contacts list held only two numbers in it and no names. He scrolled through to the second before Eva could even try to memorize either.
Eva tensed. A moment later, she felt a vibration. One that was on her side of their link, right at her hip.
Remaining unmoving, Eva waited.
The vibration continued for far too long. Sawyer leaned against the wall and started tapping a finger against it. The taps grew more and more impatient with every unanswered ring.
Finally, the rings ceased. On Sawyer’s side of things, she heard the phone connect to a voice mail system. As soon as it finished, Sawyer began to speak.
