Necromancer.
The word arrived in Ambrose's awareness with the specific, cold quality of a classification that carries more weight than its four syllables suggest — not a neutral descriptor but a loaded one, the kind that comes pre-attached to a history of institutional response and a documented set of consequences for both the identified and the identifier.
He is actually a necromancer.
The rage that had been present in her expression underwent a rapid, involuntary reorganization — the hot, personal quality of whatever had activated in her when she first saw the undead energy reconfiguring itself into the specific, alert tension of someone who has identified something that requires a different kind of response than the one they were in the process of preparing.
