The shop I had rented was an old, run-down butcher's shop. Kind of ironic, really. Where corpses once were disassembled and sold, they now were reanimated. Temporarily, of course. Magic is nowhere near as strong as it was a few thousand years ago - necromancers used to reanimate corpses with ease, able to maintain whole armies of the dead without breaking a sweat. Nowadays, it takes more effort than I can afford to raise more than two people at once.

As I began to clean up after my last client of the day - an old woman wishing for one last conversation with her daughter - I heard the bell of the front door ring. I stepped through to the 'shop', and inspected the two men standing there. One was fairly unremarkable, the kind of face that you forgot rather quickly. The other was huge, towering over his companion and myself.

"Good afternoon, gentleman," I began, "I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I'm just about to close up, so if you could-"

"No need for the pleasantries," the shorter man interrupted. "We are short on time, and need use of your services."

"Well, if you would like to book an appointment, I have several-"

"We would like this done now." Said the shorter man.

"Now?"

"Yes." He motioned to his companion, who produced a metal briefcase. "We are willing to pay extra."

I am not a greedy man. But when somebody tries to give you a briefcase full of money, it's hard to refuse.

"How... How long do you need the reanimation to be? I charge by the hour, usually. Special offers can be arranged for longer sessions, but-"

"We need him up permanently."

"Permanently? Impossible."

"How come?"

I sighed. Of course he wouldn't know.

"It's hard to explain, but let me put it this way. I assume you want this person to be reanimated with some semblance of their living persona?"

"Naturally." He had stopped interrupting me. This must be important, then, not just some desperate rich person throwing their money around...

"Then here's the issue. I can bring them back, but they're still dead. They are still decaying. Not just the body, but the brain also. In theory I can keep them animated indefinitely, but at some point, they'll be just a mindless skeleton, useless for anything other than the most menial of tasks.

Both men glanced at each other. Then the shorter one looked back at me.

"How long can they keep their intelligence?" He asked.

"Well, let's see." I mused. "The first symptom of decay is memory loss, which starts on week-"

"Short answer." Ah. Back to interrupting.

"Umm... Approximately 1 month of full function, with another six of limited functions."

"Fine. We'll pay you this million for the first month. Each consecutive month, we'll come back with another million. If we don't show, cut it off. Do we have a deal?"

I was torn. The longest I'd maintained a corpse until now was three weeks. It was taxing to say the least. I'd have to limit my regular customers, which could damage my reputation... But a million dollars? That amount was unheard of for a single job!

"Fine. On the condition I withhold the right to refuse an extension after the first month should I see fit."

"We accept." The shorter man closed the case, slid it over to me, and turned to the bigger one. "Bring him in."

It was going to be a long month.