Arcanine

The sign stuck to the cash register said:

ALL SALES FINAL

NO REFUNDS

NO RETURNS

“Do you have trouble reading?” the guy behind the register said, and pointed at the sign.

“But I’m not asking for a refund,” I said. “Nor am I asking for a return.”

“Semantics,” was his curt response. “You came in this morning and bought that book. Now you’re back, asking to exchange it for this book.”

“Right! The sign doesn’t say anything about exchanges,” I pointed out.

“It doesn’t need to. An exchange implicitly assumes a return. And therefore, my friend, you are shit outta luck. This book is two hundred and thirty dollars. If you don’t have that much money, you can’t have the book. It’s pretty straightforward.”

He moved the book further away from me on the counter, as though he suspected I might be about to snatch it up and make a run for it. To be fair, I hadn’t not been considering it.

I needed that book. It had a spell that I needed for a job. The book I’d bought this morning had a similar spell, but it was not quite right. If the jerk running the store had just let me actually look through the book properly before buying it I could have saved myself the trouble of wasting a hundred and fifty bucks on the useless book in the first place. But of course, he’d said that his shop ‘isn’t a library’ and he couldn’t allow me to ‘grubby up the pages’ by leafing through it and insisted that I buy the book or get out of the store.

“Ok, what about this,” I started. He crossed his arms and looked at me dubiously. “What if I give you-” I slapped two fifties down on the counter “one hundred and…” I dug through my pockets for every last scrap of change I could find “...twelve dollars and thirty seven cents as a deposit…” I held up a finger to show hadn’t finished yet. I placed the book I’d bought this morning on the counter as well. “As well as leave this here with you as collateral. I’ll take that book with me now, and tomorrow I’ll come back and pay the difference.”

He pushed this morning’s book and the money back across the counter towards me.

“Sorry, lady,” he said. “Points for trying, but I have a business to run and I can’t be making shady deals with every necromancer that walks through my door.”

“Necro-whaaaat?” I said in semi mock shock. While necromancy is technically illegal, there are aspects of it that are incredibly useful and worth the risks. Like being able to make a quick buck by offering certain spells to certain people in certain times of need.

“Look, it’s none of my business what you do with the book once you’re out the door. But I know the contents of the books I sell, and based on your purchases, level of desperation and general air of broke-assed-ness, I can make a pretty good guess.”

I took my book and money and left the store. I stepped into the next coffee shop that I passed and spent more than I could reasonably justify on a coffee that tasted much worse than it should have.

What pissed me off most was that the jerk in the shop had been right. I was broke and I’d taken the first opportunity at a quick cash that had come my way, despite it being incredibly dodgy as well as not having the requisite tools.

This morning I’d bumped into my neighbour from across the hall. Usually she’s on her way downstairs to take her ugly little Chihuahua out for its morning ablutions.

“Good morning, Mrs P. Where’s Ernie? He doesn’t need to go out?” I’d asked. At this she’d burst into tears. “Uh…” I stammered. “Sorry Mrs P, I didn’t mean to upset you.” She let out a wail but didn’t still didn’t say anything. I’d figured this was the social cue for me to ask what’s wrong.

“Um, what’s the matter, Mrs P?” She continued to sob, opened her apartment door and motioned me to follow her inside.

I’d never been in her apartment before, but if you’d asked me what I thought the interior of her apartment was going to look like, it would have been exactly this. Minus the dead dog in the middle of the kitchen floor, legs straight up in the air, tongue lolling out of his mouth as if he was out of a cartoon.

“Should we... I don’t know… call a vet, or something?” I’d suggested.

Mrs P shook her head, sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “It’s too late for that, I’m afraid,” she’d said. She’d gripped my arm then with a strength only possessed by the insane elderly. She’d pulled me in so close I could smell that she hadn’t brushed her teeth yet today. I guess dead dogs take precedence over oral hygiene.

She’d looked me in the eyes from two inches away and whispered. “Bring him back to me. I know you can. I know about your type, always dabbling with things you shouldn’t. I won’t tell anyone, I promise. He’s the only thing I have left in this world, I can’t live without him.” I was leaning back to avoid the blast zone of her breath. “I”ll pay you,” she hissed. Ahh, those are the true magic words.

I’d wrenched my arm free and put some space between us. “Mrs P, necromancy is illegal…” I’d let my voice trail off hoping that my tone made clear the unspoken rest of the sentence “however, for the right price…”

“Can you do it?” she hissed. “Bring him back and you can name your price.”

A smarter person would have explained the risks involved, given an inventory of the required spell books and reagents, negotiated a fair fee with an up front deposit to cover costs and the remainder to be paid upon delivery.

But not me.

“I’ll do it!” I shouted, grabbed the dog’s cold stiff body and dashed back across the hall into my own apartment.

Well, it’s not exactly my apartment. It’s Sue’s apartment and she is going to be home in a few hours and will have many questions about why precious little Ernie is dead in her apartment.

I had the beginnings of a plan. The book I was in possession of had a spell for temporary reanimation. It was intended for such things as allowing a corpse to speak for long enough to say who it was that murdered them, that kind of thing. With a little tinkering, I was pretty sure I could make the reanimation last about a day. I could use this on Ernie and collect my bounty. Then go back to the shop and buy the book that had the permanent spell. Then I just had to stop by Mrs P’s to check up on how Ernie was doing and cast the correct spell.

Easy, right? With luck I’ll never have to bump into Mrs P in the hallway again. After all, I don’t think zombie dogs need to shit.