A Rule of Raising the Dead

Here's a lie: raising the dead is hard. It's not hard at all. All you really need is a passable knowledge of necromancy, a few common ingredients, and the body. Preferably recently deceased, because reversing corpse decay is a whole other spell that requires its own set of ingredients, but it's really only a side concern. I mean, there's an up-charge, but it's not a big deal. It's all simple enough, nothing that can't be handled or that hasn't been done before. The real problem is the Supernatural Law Code.

They come out with a new edition each year, edited and published by the Council of Magi. It's all very official and entirely inflexible. If you want to have a magical practice then it's to not only legally required to have an up-to-date edition, but also to have the entire thing memorized.

I can tell you right now that the most useless thing in my head is the Supernatural Law Code.

But there's one section of the Law Code that even the biggest stick-in-the-mud light mages skip over. Once you memorize it once you're good, because it hasn't been changed in over a thousand years, except to update the language.

Of course it's necromancy. The general rule of thumb? Don't do it. Ever, under any circumstances. So raising the dead? It's pretty solidly illegal.

Fairly easy, but illegal.

The thing about something illegal is that it only makes people willing to pay more to get it done.

I'm not saying that I take advantage of anyone – I provide a perfectly legitimate service for a reasonable price, considering how explicitly illegal it is. Jennifer always hated my job, but not because it's illegal. She'd always say that it was like I was selling snake oil.
"You can't bring back the dead," She used to tell me, and I would scoff at her.

"She says to the necromancer,"
Then she'd frown at me, a look in her eyes so sad that it sometimes made me lose my breath.

"Mike, you know it's true."

So when the time came, when she was gone and buried and I was sitting around with all of the ingredients to bring her back, I didn't. And I'm not about to, because I'm not stupid and I can take a hint. Digging her out of her own grave...

She wouldn't want that.

Let the dead stay dead, as far as I'm concerned.

Personally, I mean. Otherwise I'd be out of a job.

Necromancers such as myself have a very specific market when looking for a job which is all very complicated and I'm no career advisor. The long and short of it is that people want to raise their dead and any magical firm would be inept not to capitalize on it. They make it all seem very legitimate: an office, a name-plaque with the words restorative magic consultant in small-print under my name. The contracts signed by clients state explicitly that they are hiring the mage for restorative purposes to whatever extent the client needs. The Council of Magi can't stop magical firms from employing restorative mages, and they also can't prove said mages' after-hours activities. It's basically a labyrinth of legal loopholes.

And necromancers work a standard nine-to-five, five days a week. Also three-to-four on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which is the witching hour and therefore the prime time for raising the dead. I don't do overtime and I don't take business-related calls to my personal cell. I don't sleep with skeletons or drink virgin's blood, or whatever people think that necromancers do on their off-time.
It's very important to me that I have my off-time, and that I'm not contacted about work when I'm not actually at work. If I'm at home, then it's not happening.

My apartment is a haven. Jennifer decorated it when I first moved in, making me buy entirely new furniture and arranging it in the most meticulous, anal way possible. She bought white curtains that I hated and made me invest in kitchenware. She added a plotted plant that I told her would die within the week because I don't water plants. Basically, she turned my apartment into an actual home.