by Melissa Marr
“He fell?” Eli prompted. “So, he’s truly dead?”
“No.” I’d felt him, seen venom under his skin. “He was injected when he was alive. Multiple times, right?”
Alice sobbed, but she nodded. “Little bits. I just kept jabbing at him when he wasn’t looking. I was afraid of him dying and leaving me alone. So I just . . . put the venom in him in little itty bitty pokes.”
Alice’s confession made me realized that Tres’ odd regard for me was because of the venom he’d received in micro-doses before we met at the morgue. It wasn’t grief that made him act so odd, and the dead that I sensed when I was at the morgue wasn’t just because of Odem. It was Tres, too. The venom in him made me feel a pull to him.
I glanced at Alice. “So Tres had the venom in him, and then he fell.”
“Mmm-hmm. His head made a thunk sound. He wasn’t moving. So, I injected him again and called you. Then I injected him a few more times. I used all of it I had left. You can fix him. He wasn’t dead at first, but he wasn’t moving. I didn’t think you could fix brain damage, but if he was dead . . .”
I reached around her and shoved the door open.
“And then I shot Lydia,” Alice whispered. “A lot.”
The woman who’d been with Alice, the one who’d injected me the first time, was more or less in the tub. A pile of clothing was in there, too.
“I didn’t want to call the housekeeper, so I figured I should just get rid of my bloody clothes,” Alice explained in a tone that was more pride than sorrow. “I cleaned the floor. Bleach. Like the internet says. I washed all the blood off Tres, too. His hair. Gave him a clean shirt. And I tucked him in. It’s what Alvin would’ve wanted if he knew Tres could survive.”
I thought about the fact that the senior Mr. Chaddock belonged to SAFARI, a hate group, and I had more than a few doubts about Alice’s theory.
“I was wrong about draugr,” Alice said calmly. “I mean, my Alvin wouldn’t want to be dead and biting, but after Tres said what you did for Jimmy Odem—I mean, mostly Tres yelled that if I had waited, you could have healed his dad. I still don’t think he would want to be a . . . walker.”
“You can’t heal death.”
Alice waved her hand in the air. “I should’ve just trapped her, so Tres had something to eat when he woke. I’ve been worrying you wouldn’t come because of that misunderstand—”
“My attempted murder?” I turned to walk away.
“I never wanted you dead. I cried.” Alice grabbed my arm, and I lost my temper. I jerked free and shoved her. She stumbled against the wall.
My voice was anything but calm. “You killed a woman, poisoned your stepson, stored the woman you shot in your bathroom, and—"
“It’s a guest bathroom.”
I shoved into Alice’s mind.
“Do you want to go to jail, Allie?” The woman, Lydia, sat at a table. Low lights. Tasteful music. Privacy. Cocktails sat in front of them on a white linen tablecloth.
“N-no.”
“Do you want me to kill Tres? Let him come back and kill you?” Lydia withdrew a syringe from a box inside her undoubtedly expensive designer handbag. She put it out beside the drinks. “I answered an ad for a research project.”
“What is that?”
Lydia leaned back in her chair and smiled. “That is what killed your husband, Jimmy, and my Edward. Among others. They wanted a few influential men, SAFARI members, injected. It’s a clinical trial.”
“It’s murder.”
“It’s a way to get around the prenups, so I picked people I liked. I freed you. You should all be grateful.” Lydia wasn’t even pretending to whisper.
“Patty Odem wasn’t a second wife. They were together for longer than we were alive.” Alice sobbed. “And I loved Alvin. I wanted to be together forever.”
“If only Edward died, it would look suspicious.” Lydia sounded as irritated as I often felt as she stared at Alice. After a moment, she downed her martini. “I need four more. Your little draugr-killer is one or Tres. Your choice. Or I call the police and tell them all about your murder spree.”
With more force than I meant, I jerked myself out of Alice’s memories. I hated her a little extra for being honest. She really wasn’t lying. Lydia had blackmailed and threatened her.
Eli stepped between us. “Geneviève.”
I closed my eyes, counted to ten, and resisted the urge to point out that she was a grown-ass woman. Her failure to adult was remarkable. She was roughly my age. The same age as Tres. How was she like this?
I let my magic flow toward Lydia.
Wake and speak to me, Lydia Alberti.
She was so newly dead that it took but a moment to open her eyes. The animated corpse of Lydia Alberti sat up, the bullets in her body pushed out as her wounds sealed. They fell with a series of plinks onto the tile floor and tub. When she resumed death, the wounds would reappear, but the bullets were no longer in her body.
“Bitch.” Lydia looked past me to the shrieking widow Chaddock.
Answer me, Lydia Alberti. Who hired you? Where did you see the ad? What do you know about the source of the venom?
The corpse looked at me and said, “Fuck you.”
It took a lot of emotion to resist my questions. A side effect of necromancy--one that I sometimes felt guilty about—was that it compelled most corpses to tell me the truth. It wasn’t a guarantee, but necromancy created a compulsion in most corpses. Lydia was a bucket of rage in a blood-stained, ripped dress, but I had a lot less guilt since she was the one who was actually trying to kill me for unknown reasons.
Answer me.
“You matter to Beatrice,” she said, words blurted as if she was trying to stop them from escaping. “And you need to die. Abomination.”
Then she ran.
As she did, I looked into her memories. A corpse’s mind wasn’t as clear as the living.
I saw an email to Lydia. The sender’s name was a series of letters and digits in seemingly random order. The message simply said, I can help you find freedom. Call me if interested.
She called.
A second email arrived. It listed an address to a post-office box on Magazine Street with the instructions: you will find a key under your doormat tomorrow. Eight. Your choice.
In the post office box were ten syringes, my name, a stack of bills, and nothing else.
There were no other memories. It was not enough. Lydia was murdering SAFARI members because she wanted out of her marriage—without breaking the prenup. Whoever gave her the means knew it, and knew how to get venom, and had a grudge against Beatrice, me, or both of us. I hadn’t stopped the possibility of murder-by-venom, but Alice had stopped this murderer.
I withdrew my magic, and the corpse of Lydia Alberti crumpled. I wasn’t an investigator, but I had an answer for both Tres and Beatrice.
Tres.
Who was an innocent bystander, like most of the victims. The only intended victim was Lydia Alberti’s husband. And me.
I had no idea what the right next step was, but I felt Tres growing closer and closer to waking. Sentencing him to a T-Cell wasn’t any fairer than beheading him. I was here as he was about to wake. I could spare him years of being a danger, of muttering incoherence, of trying to bite people.
“Keep her here,” I said.
And then, without another word, I turned and walked upstairs. I left the slumped corpse and the sobbing widow and my accidental fiancé behind. I could help Tres. That much was in my reach.
I paused and put a few tranquilizer rounds in my gun just in case Tres wasn’t like Odem. I’d rather have Eli there to shoot Tres with tranqs, but I couldn’t trust Alice to stay out of the room—and as obnoxious as she was, I couldn’t let her near Tres in case he woke up like every draugr other than Odem.
Inside the room, I let tears fall. There was no right answer. If I’d been in his place, I’d hope to be beheaded. Hell, I’d asked for it.
But if I could be awakened and still be
me?
No, I’d still opt for death. Biting people was horrible. How could I exist knowing that I needed to cause pain every meal? I couldn’t even eat a hamburger or a fish.
I wasn’t Tres, though. I knew enough to know he’d rather exist even in a T-Cell than be permanently dead. So, I locked my disgust away, and I let my magic flow through him as I had with Jimmy Odem. I saw the venom sliding under the skin, but it wasn’t the injections that killed him. Alice was not his murderer. The head injury from Lydia would have killed him without medical intervention. Alice sped up the process by injecting Tres with venom.
Wake up, Tres, I urged, hoping that the Odem situation hadn’t been a fluke.
And hoping it had.
I stood beside the bed and pushed grave magic into him, filling him from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. I drew him from wherever he was waiting. Mind. Heart. Clarity. It took very little effort, and that terrified me. No one, not even me, should have the power to raise draugr to life.
Tres opened his eyes. “Geneviève?”
He smiled, and his first instinct was, apparently, either to bite or to kiss me. He sat up and reached for me, and I didn’t wait to see which it was. I jerked away, letting myself flow faster than I realized I could.
But Tres was draugr. He was out of the bed, fortunately still dressed under the bedcovers, and beside me a fraction of a moment after I reached the door. This time he reached out with both arms as if to embrace me.
I was faster. My gun was against his forehead at almost the same moment. “Speak to me, Tres Chaddock.”
“I’m missing a few hours,” he said, stepping back. “You called. I argued with Allie and Lydia Alberti. Then . . . why are you in my bedroom?” He frowned. “And why are you . . .”
He reached up to his throat, seeking a pulse he wouldn’t find.
“Geneviève . . .?”
“You’re dead.” I felt tears start to fall. “I can either behead you or call Beatrice.”
“Like Jimmy Odem,” Tres murmured. “You saved me.”
I shook my head, swallowed hard, but my voice was still shaky. “You’re dead.”
“I feel fine. Fabulous actually.” Tres grinned. “You are a goddess, Geneviève. My goddess. Anything you need. Anything I can do to make you happy. Any . . .”
His expression shifted, and in the next instant, he was kneeling at my feet. He looked up at me, and the sheer raw lust in his gaze was a frightening thing.
“Let me please you, mistress,” he whispered. “I am yours to command.”
“Whoa.” I stumbled backwards and jerked the door open and ran.
It might not have been the bravest moment of my life, but I was at my wit’s end. I went directly to the kitchen, grabbed Eli’s hand, and continued right out the front door.
“Beatrice!” I yelled as loud as I could.
Beatrice! I repeated in whatever internal thought-speak I had.
“Beatrice, please,” I said again. “I need you.”
And then I let myself be drawn into Eli’s embrace again. He murmured words I didn’t understand in a language I didn’t know, and I rested my head against him. That’s how we were still standing a few moments later when Beatrice arrived.
“Geneviève.”
I stayed in Eli’s embrace, but turned so I was facing Beatrice. Instead of something Victorian, this time she was wearing a burgundy medieval-looking gown and fur capelet. Instead of seeming regal, she appeared more like a warrior.
“You are still alive,” she said in greeting.
“And you’re still dead.” I smiled, though, despite my innate animosity toward her. She’d helped me twice now, once with Odem and once with the venom Alice had injected into me. Softer, I added, “Thank you.”
She nodded.
“I have information and a problem,” I said levelly. Then I looked at her and offered, “You can have the memories of the injections.”
Beatrice smoothed down the sleeves of her medieval-looking gown.
“Are you testing to see if your skill is of your mother or father’s line?” she asked in that almost-laughing voice of hers.
I borrowed Eli’s half-shrug in lieu of an answer.
Beatrice leaned close enough that I felt Eli tense behind me. She whispered, “But if I am of both lines, the question is unanswered.”
Before I could reply or puzzle out what that meant, she was in my mind. I felt her there, an already familiar presence, as she sought the information on the source of the draugr venom, the injections, and my reason for calling her again.
A scant few moments later, she touched my face with icy hands. “You have done well. I will send your payment.” She kissed my forehead. “Shall I kill the widow? Or do you want the honor?”
I blinked at her. “I don’t know who hired Lydia. She’d dead. Alice is . . . not culpable.”
Beatrice laughed. “You are tender-hearted.”
“I am not.” I scowled. After a brief pause, I asked, “Could you take Tres, like with Odem?”
“No.”
I looked over to where Tres and Alice both stood.
“He’s your responsibility,” Beatrice said with a shooing gesture. “He was bound to you before he died.”
“But—"
“Take your subjects for now and leave. I will remove the corpse. By morning, you may return.”
“My what? They are not—”
“The boy is bonded to you. You wouldn’t let me kill the murderess.” Beatrice ticked them off on her fingers. “And you already made yourself clear about the faery. They are yours.”
I followed her as she flowed to the front porch. “At least keep Tres—”
“You do realize I can hear you?” Tres said.
Beatrice walked deeper into the shadows of the house and said, “I’m not ready to answer anything else tonight. I have companies to oversee. Inquiries. Go home, daughter.”
“Not your daughter.”
Beatrice’s laughter echoed around the room. It wasn’t a complex bit of magic, but it was one that left me shivering.
Be careful, her voice slid into my mind. There are those in this world and in Elphame not kind to abominations like us. Go, now. I will handle the corpse and evidence. If you want any of their lives ended, leave them here. Odem is fine. Your new draugr is as safe as any in your command. More so than a human or fae.
I looked up and met her gaze.
“Will you take your subjects and leave?” Beatrice asked. I heard the alternative echoing in my head, her offer to rid me of any of them.
“Come,” I said, looking at Tres, Alice, and Eli in turn. This was my life now; I had the responsibility of three lives. The alternative was their deaths, and I wasn’t that much of an abomination.
I hadn’t answered all of my questions, but I was alive.
We stepped outside, and I texted Jesse, Sera, and Christy, “Meet at bar? Alive. Could use a drink. Tres, Eli, and Alice C with me. Will explain there.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure how to explain, but my friends still loved me despite my ancestry, Eli was at my side more-or-less contently, and I was about to have a drink with a draugr and my almost-murderess. It wasn’t the worst plan I’d had that month.
Hopefully.
“I loved The Wicked and The Dead! A sassy, ass-kicking heroine, a deliciously mysterious fae hero, and a wonderful mix of action and romance. Add that to Melissa's usual great world-building, and I'm already looking forward to book 2!"
Jeaniene Frost, NYT Bestselling Author
“A characteristic of the draugr…or rather animated corpses…is that they frequently come out of their barrows, and walk, or even ride abroad, which is thought by the living to be an undesirable habit. This occurs most frequently in the evening; but it sometimes happens that a mist or temporary darkness heralds their approach even by day. “
N. K. Chadwick
“Norse Ghosts (A Study in the Draugr and the Haugbúi)”
FOLKLORE MAGAZINE June 1
946
Excerpt of Blood Martinis and Mistletoe
Blood Martinis and Mistletoe:
A Wicked & Dead Novella
AVAILABLE:
Under a Winter Sky (November 2020)
and
ebook stand-alone (June 2021)
Chapter 1
Giant aluminum balls hung around me even though I was standing in the cemetery not long before dawn. I didn’t know who hung the balls, but I wasn’t too bothered. Winter in New Orleans. We might have draugr and a higher than reasonable crime rate, but damn it, we had festivities for every possible occasion. Gold, silver, red, blue, purple, and green balls hung from the tree. Samhain had passed, and it was time to ramp up for the winter holidays.
November--the period after Samhain--was uncommonly active for necromancy calls. Unfortunately, a certain sort of person thought it was festive to summon the body and spirit of Dear Uncle Phil or Aunt Marie. Sometimes the relatives were maudlin, and sometimes they were thinking about the afterlife.
Now, the dead don’t tell tale tales about the things after death. They can’t. I warn folks, but they don’t believe me. They pay me a fair amount to summon their dead, so I always stress that the “what happens after we die” questions are forbidden. Few people believe me.
Tonight, I had summoned Alphard Cormier to speak to his widow and assorted relatives or friends who accompanied her. I didn’t ask who they were. One proven relation was all I needed. Family wasn’t always just the folks who shared your blood.
Case in point, the faery beside me. Eli of Stonecroft was one of the people I trusted most in this world—or in any other. I closed my eyes for a moment, which I could do because he was at my side. I was tired constantly, so much so that only willpower kept me upright.
“Bonbon,” Eli whispered. His worried tone made clear that a question or three hid in that absurd pet name. Was I going to be able to control my magic? Did he need to brace for draugr inbound? Were we good on time?