My book series is based around a necromancer.

They do some things that are similar to healing.

But in terms of psychological necromancy, the best he can do is let you pet his flesh golem dog. Which, in fairness, is a damn good depression counter.

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Nothing wrong with that, imo

“Dammit, Eternus, I hate when you do this mysterious shit, just fucking tell us.”

“It doesn’t work.”

“Telling us doesn’t work?”

“It never does, Streak. It never has and never will. I keep telling you this, and you keep pretending like we’ve never had this discussion.”

We’ve had it more than he knows, because for every one he remembers, I’ve had to deal with him doing it a dozen times. Asshole.

“Well, what do you expect, Eternus? All we get is you interrupting and slamming into us and being dickish in general. You say you’re reliving the mistakes, but all we know is the present, the now. But you expect us to just suck it up and do what you say. It gets old, fast.”

"No shit, Streak, you wanna guess how fast dying because your surly ass wants to play pissing contest instead of listening to the guy that’s saved every life on the planet a dozen times, and your life so many hundreds of times I can’t even keep track. Why do people do this? The psychics, the time travelers, it doesn’t matter how many times we’re right, it’s this same, shitty argument.

Yes, I expect you to fucking listen to me because this is the fifth time we’ve had this argument for me, and that means I’ve died five times today. Which isn’t even a record, for fucks sake. And, it’s you whining that’s the worst part of it. I almost wish I could just die and not come back, if it meant not dealing with you again."

The General did his usual, “Gentleman, can it. Eternus, just brief us; Streak, go take a walk and cool off.”

Fifth time. Fifth fucking time. "The Ragnarok are going to hit London. We get there, and they’re tearing the city apart. This will be my fifth run, and we’ve only made it maybe two minutes in the fight before Nuke unleashes and we’re all ashes. Streak, every single time, tries to play stupid and just hits him at speed. It keeps not working. It just gives Nuke more kinetic energy to redirect into his blast.

If we’re going to even get close, we gotta either hit him hard enough to put him down permanently, or try something new. Streak isn’t following the plan. We need to leave him behind this time, try to at least gather more details before I get taken down. I said this last time, and you said… "

“I said he’s fast enough to cross the ocean and get there before we do.”

“Finally! Something different. That’s the first time you’ve interrupted me with that! The last two times you waited until I was done and said that of course you said it, it was true.”

“Believe it or not, Eternus, I do pay attention. I started thinking it and realized I must have thought it before.”

“So, what’s the new play, general?”

“I talk to him anyway. If we haven’t tried before?” I shook my head, almost giddy at a new twist. “Good, then you four get ready, I’ll pin down Streak and get him to hang back.”

So, we did. Me, Hellion, Damage, and Lightstorm got geared up and moved to the transport room, where Switch was ready to port the team once the General showed. And, we got there before the alert too. Two new occurrences. Maybe this would be the right one.

The alarm blared, and the General ran in, pulling on his helmet, “Alright team, let’s handle business.” There was a tugging at my stomach as Switch switched us, and the fight was on.

I’m thinking on this one, I have an idea but it hasn’t wormed its way out yet. But, I have a tangentially related one I did on reddit back a few years while I’m percolating.

There he stood in all his scarlet glory. The lack of horns and tail was disappointing, but those had always been symbolic. I glanced at his feet, but they were shod in shiny red leather, so if there were hooves, I never saw them.

What stood out the most was his visage. Not because of any facial features; other than being incredibly handsome, nothing stood out in that regard. Even the perfectly groomed mustache and goatee weren’t anything that stood out.

The glare in his eyes, glowing faintly red, and the curl of his lips into a sneer as he began to speak are what seared into my memory.

Standing at a crossroads in the middle of rural Tennessee, having just summoned the devil himself would be something to remember by itself, but his words crushed my dreams.

“Let me guess. Another human trying to sell their soul?”

The raw contempt and disgust in his voice made me shiver in fear. I opened my mouth to respond, but he raised a well manicured hand before I could start.

"I have no use for the damned things. I know you humans love to pretend they have value, but they’re useless to me. If I did want them, millions of souls are consigned to me every year by their own actions and no cost to me. I do not, nor have I ever, given anything in exchange for a human soul. That isn’t to say I’m not in the business of trade, but souls? Even Jesus himself has no use for them.

No, if you have something useful, we can make a deal. It won’t even guarantee you a spot in my soul sauna since the father gave you screeching monkeys the escape clause of repentance. All souls are hers no matter where they reside."

Stunned, I tried to process his words. My brain scrabbled at Satan calling god both father and her for a moment before it slipped back into gear and recalled my purpose. I didn’t sacrifice that goat for nothing!

“Oh hail and praise thee Lord of Darkness, I have come to make a deal.”

His eyes rolled as he muttered something about Ozzy and Anton needing an ass kicking, but I continued.

“I would offer my soul in trade for power over my fellow man, and great wealth.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Are you dense, or just fucking with me?”

“Um. Sorry. I had this whole ritual planned and, well, I thought it was the thing to do.”

He ran his hands across his face, then through ebon hair. “Humans.” He then sighed and went on “Look, Charles, I know who you are, I know what you want. And I know what you have to offer. My staff are excellent at gathering that kind of thing before I ever show up. So let’s cut the bullshit, shall we?”

“Yes, um, my Lord?”

“If it makes you feel special, Lord is fine. You tell me what you want, in reasonable detail. I tell you what I want in return. Then maybe we don’t both go home with a million mosquito bites at dawn and get home quickly instead.”

With that, he slapped one of the offending insects, a slight puff of sulfurous smoke rising from the spot on his neck.

“Yes my Lord!”

And I told him. I wanted the ability to charm the masses, to sway minds with my words. For that power, the influence and wealth it would bring, I would swear anything.

He listened, watching my hands as they fluttered until I reined in their nervous flight. As I uttered the last word, anything, a devilish grin spread.

“I can do that Charles, oh I can give you that indeed. The price isn’t even onerous. For that power, all I will require is that once you have risen to wealth and influence you form a small company dedicated to the sales of cheaply made electronics.”

“Cheap electronics my Lord? That’s all you want?”

“Well, that and I’ll need about tree fitty.”

“Tree fitty? Is that a South Park reference?” Did old scratch just make a South Park reference?

He sighed again. "Yes. They got what they asked for. I should know better than to trade a bag of “the dankest weed ever” for a subversive cartoon that features me. They smoked it all, and that’s the best joke they came up with.

But yes, I need you to make cheap electronics."

“Yes my Lord. Um. Why?”

“You dare ask me why? My reasons are not for the likes of you to know, and you could not comprehend the skein of plans woven within plans that your tiny efforts will assist.”

“Yes Lord. Cheap electronics it is. So, do I sign in blood, orrrr?”

“Pff, if you wish. You humans do enjoy ceremony. But there’s no need. It’s not like I need paper and a signature to collect what I’m owed.”

With that, he snapped and a fussy looking little imp appeared with parchment, a quill and a syringe. The imp looked eager, his tail twitching in anticipation.

“No need my Lord! Your word is good enough for me!”

“Yes, it would be.”

With that, he stepped forward. Fire and smoke began streaming from his hands. He touched my brow, then my lips and throat. The vermilion depths of his pupils boring into my own as heat washed from each point his hands touched.

I couldn’t move. The fire from those touches spread across my skin, sinking down into my body. As they reached some immaterial but perceptible part deep inside me, my vision flared white hot and consciousness fled.

But as I fell the the ground, I heard him say, “Come Grossclout, we have an appointment with the postmaster that needs keeping.”

When I woke, it was still dark. The crickets sang as I walked back to my car, filled with confidence and a plan.

Dammit, another transfer. I still can’t believe I got suckered into this.

“Oh, Terry”, they said, “you’ll get to live forever, all you have to do is keep things running. The nanobots will do most of the work, so you get to kick back and enjoy the best of everything!”

Yeah. Right. Sure, the bots can grow anything for me, any food I want, any clothes from all of history, it’s great. And since I can plug into the system, I can talk with anyone and everyone that converted. Great!

And it was great for the first thousand years. One body gets old, you have the bots clone you one, plug into the transfer matrix and hotswap. You get another hundred or so years in a healthy body.

Problem is that all those people in the machine are the same assholes I’ve been talking to for centuries. At this point, I’d have to look up how many millennia it’s been, and the last time I did that, the nanobots had to rebuild my entire body and reboot me from back-up after I blew my damn head off. Can’t even die, not allowed.

Don’t get me wrong, when I’m plugged in, I can get all the sex I want, all the praise and adulation, but I’ve fucked every single person in there a dozen times, and it isn’t like I can stay plugged in all the time. There’s work. Maintaining nanobot code, scanning and repairing the crystalline matrices that allow a full person to be copied in, the turnover for all the storage units, it’s a solid ten hours every day, though not always the same jobs every day.

And we’re it. I’ve run sub-servers to try and figure out a way to create new people, to have children, but it won’t work. The serious brains inside can’t figure it out, so I don’t know why I keep trying, but I keep failing. The religious and philosophical geeks inside say there’s no way to make a soul “stick” inside, if it wasn’t there already, that souls need meat to grow with, so there’s no way to make it work at all.

I’m half tempted to stick my junk in a port and see if that works.

Eternal life! Bull. There’s no life at all. It’s static, it’s eternal, but it ain’t life.

I keep waiting and hoping that maybe the planetary defense network will fail, and I can just not fix it, and some kind of planetoid sized mass will slam into us, and that would maybe break up the nanobot network enough that it would all be over. But I suspect I’ll be right here until the sun wipes us out.

At least, it’ll wipe us out here. The other me, the one frozen and waiting with the back-up network cruising to space outside the galaxy, he’ll wake up and get to start the same mind numbing wait for oblivion out there.

Yeah, great idea this was, Terry.

Okay Hannah, as soon as the new body decants, begin the transfer and scrub this mangy old shell.