Curse of the Necromancer: Jigsaw of Souls Series Book 1

Chapter 8

Vincent sat on the uncomfortable stool in the corner of the room, staring at the man’s back. He’d been waiting here for close to half an hour now. The man was not prepared to handle a meeting like this. But he seemed sincere. And oddly competent, despite his lack of social skills. People in this line of work never had social skills.

The lab was remarkably clean. He kept things organized. Vincent appreciated that. Messiness and chaos were not the same things, and far too often, people conflated the two. Chaos was exceptional. Messiness was lazy.

The room smelled of body odor masked by cheap cologne. The man was trying to be impressive and achieving the opposite. His desperation was palpable. His desire was rank. Some men were simple things, even if they were geniuses in other ways. Marcus Graham was such a man.

Dr. Marcus Graham had degrees in physics, astrophysics, chemistry, molecular biology, and probably a few things Vincent hadn’t bothered to look into. Once a man had four PhDs, you can just take it for granted he has some idea what he’s talking about. Dr. Graham had some idea.

In the popular science world, the one governed by boards of administrators and status quo types, Dr. Graham was not considered a loose cannon. He was not a cannon at all. He was a fool and a danger to others. They had cut off his funding. They wouldn’t even review his work any longer. He was persona non grata. An embarrassment to his former alma mater.

Graham had presented a research paper on transdimensional life. It was his position that antimatter could be used to open rifts in space and time to dimensions of chaos, in which beings that existed in defiance of all known physics could be found. Beings made of primordial powers, for which human science had no names. In this place, consciousness, matter, and energy were all entwined. The scientific community, as a whole, thought he was a complete and utter fool.

Vincent had tracked Graham down about a year after the university had ended his tenure and asked him to leave. The man had no more equipment of his own and was somewhat broken by the way he had been treated. Building himself up again, and finding him the tools he needed to continue his research, was not an easy job. One didn’t buy antimatter at the Piggly Wiggly.

Vincent was not aware of how to create antimatter on his own. Even Razul was useless in figuring that out. If Razul wanted antimatter, it just came into existence. If Vincent wanted antimatter, he had to Google it and then stare at the screen for several minutes.

The end result of much research was something of a plan. All they needed was the Antiproton Decelerator that they used at CERN. The whole facility cost around five billion dollars to build. It was a speed bump in the road to success, to be sure.

“Okay, Mr. Donnelly,” Dr. Graham said suddenly from across the room. He turned around with a small cart on wheels. On top of the cart was what looked like a glass case growing out of a computer. Inside was nothing.

“This is it?” Vincent asked. He got off the stool and walked toward the man. The computer had numerous displays and readouts. The box looked like one of those things people used to store autographed footballs.

“It is. Contained, secure, and stable,” Graham said proudly.

“And it’s not empty?” Vincent said, raising an eyebrow.

“Kill him now and be done with it. This is stupid,” Razul said. Graham looked indignant.

“Empty? Of course not. This is the largest sample of antihelium in the world, Mr. Donnelly. The largest sample ever created on this planet.”

Vincent grunted.

“It’s being held securely by an electromagnetic field. Do you know how long the idiots at CERN kept this for when they made some? By accident? Minutes. I can contain it indefinitely. I have already produced several atoms of antilithium. Antilithium! Solid antimatter! They’re not even dreaming of that yet, Mr. Donnelly. Our experiment will work. It will change physics forever,” Graham said. He was working himself into quite a lather over this.

“Very exciting,” Vincent agreed. It was not exciting to him at all. But it was necessary. He needed to open the Dimensional Rift and doing that required power beyond the scope of the assembled mass of humans he had found already. Necromancy, blood magic, primal magic, chaos manipulation. It was all well and good. But you needed to get to the Rift first. And no earthborn magic could do that. Even Razul couldn’t open a doorway to the Rift. But apparently, Dr. Graham could.

Every element needed to be in place for Vincent’s plan to work. If one was missing, all were missing. So Graham’s work was vital. Integral. Of deadly importance.

Razul’s only concern, and by extension Vincent’s, was the nature of how Dr. Graham had stumbled upon his discovery in the first place. Understanding the way to build a bridge to the Rift was one thing. Knowing what was on the other side was quite another. Dr. Graham’s work, the work that they laughed him out of his profession for, discussed the beings who lived beyond the Rift. Lived was not the best word, but Vincent still had issues holding that thought in his head. They weren't living things. They were unliving, maybe. Life adjacent. Razul was not alive any more than the Earth itself was alive. But he was conscious. And very smart.