by E. A. Copen
“D.J. has a weird fetish,” Nate answered. “Emma threatened to out him.”
“What?” Guess I didn’t know the guy that well, but he’d never struck me as the type. “Like balloons or something? ’Cause I watched this episode of ‘My Strange Addiction’ one time about this guy, and that was pretty weird.”
Emma sighed and uncrossed her arms to rub her face. She looked exhausted. “He has this Great Dane costume with blue fur...”
Oh hell. D.J. was a furry. Not that I cared, but if something like that got to be public knowledge, D.J.’s career would be over. Parish coroner was an elected position. “Emma, that’s a low blow. Even for you.”
She shrugged. “You were dying.”
“Wait, you didn’t...with him?”
Nate cleared his throat. “Anyway, he assisted in the surgery and we were able to keep you alive with the limited diagnostic imaging we had. After that, we moved you back to Darius’ place. Didn’t know of anywhere else that was safe.” His mouth twitched. “Okay, last bit. Ready?”
“Yeah,” I said. I wasn’t. Not at all.
Nate gave it a good yank and the thread popped through a tiny hole that had scabbed over. Hurt like hell, but at least it was out. He grabbed a couple of cleaning wipes from somewhere I couldn’t see and mopped up the fresh blood to bandage me.
“Josiah and Khaleda?” I asked through clenched teeth. I didn’t expect them to hang around. Josiah always seemed like he had something better to do and Khaleda and I weren’t exactly friends.
“They’re out,” was all Emma said.
A knock at the door distracted her. Nate looked up from his work.
I seized the opportunity to get away from him and all his pinching. Yeah, I was bleeding, but a couple of bandages and I’d be just fine. I sat up, fighting the dizziness in my head, and swung my legs over the side of a very uncomfortable cot.
One of Darius’ guys, Marcelle, I think his name was, was at the door with a brown box in his hand. A blue label stretched around the box advertising free two-day shipping. Marcelle looked at me curiously. “Oh, he’s up. Darius’ll be happy to hear that. This came for him just now.” He held the box out.
Nate stepped toward it, but Emma got there first. She carefully lifted the box out of Marcelle’s hand. “No one knows he’s here, do they?”
Marcelle shrugged.
“I don’t know how to make mail bombs,” I told Emma. At least, I didn’t think so. I hoped evil me hadn’t learned. But then again, he had blown up a car.
Emma lifted the package to her ear. “I don’t hear anything suspicious, but that doesn’t mean anything. Not all bombs tick.”
I hopped off the cot and walked over to place a hand on the box lightly. Didn’t want to jolt it and trigger a detonator, did I? Of course, sending a shock of magic down into the package might not have been smart either, but I had to do something. The magic passed through. No iron on the inside. No magical resistance. The box was inert and so was whatever was inside.
Emma met my eyes. I shrugged and took the box. All three of them crowded around me while I tore it open and sifted through all the packaging. There, at the bottom of the box, was a slab of clay that looked like it’d come from an ancient piece of pottery. Etched in black was the image of a muscular man with dark hair and a dark beard. He held a plate in his hand while reclining across from a beautiful young woman.
I was no ancient art scholar, but I knew exactly who was on that broken bit of pottery. I’d met him. One of the foremost gods who’d voted to execute Loki’s childhood friends, and one of the few gods who liked me.
Hades.
My first victim.
Chapter Eleven
Emma leaned in closer. “What does it mean?”
Of all the times to be forced to tell the truth. I wanted to lie to her, tell her I didn’t know what it meant or who had sent it, but the spell wouldn’t let me. I wasn’t sure I could skirt the truth either, so I stayed silent.
“A better question,” said Nate as I lowered the clay relief back into the box, “is who sent it. Whoever sent this box knows you’re here, Laz. Do you think your other self could’ve?”
“It’s possible.” That wasn’t a lie. It was possible I’d sent it to myself, even though it wasn’t true. Or, I guess, that evil me had sent it to good me. Better me? I really needed a better name for this evil twin of mine.
“If he knows where we are, then we need to move.” Emma pulled out her gun and checked the ammo before dropping it back into the holster. “Where else can we go?”
“The minute we hit the road, we’re at risk for being discovered by the police. They’re still actively looking for someone who matches Lazarus’ description.” Nate nodded to me. “We can’t leave the city. My place is being watched.”
“So is mine,” Emma confirmed.
“No one was watching when Bizarro Me broke into your house and hit you in the face.” I eyed the fading bruise on her cheek. “How’d he manage that anyway? Didn’t you know I was still in jail?”
Emma’s face flushed and she touched the dark patch on her temple. “He was convincing. Said you’d gotten out.”
“So you took off your clothes for him?”
“He was really convincing, okay? At least until I realized you never dressed that nice.”
Well, score one for the necromancer with the outdated wardrobe. Who said flannel never saved a life?
Emma dropped her hand. “Codey did try to send someone to watch the place, but I got them to buzz off for a while that day. That was before I went missing, of course.”
“Missing?” I put my hands on Emma’s shoulders. “You’re letting the precinct think I took you? Shit, no wonder they’re looking for me!”
Emma squirmed and studied the floor between us. Something wasn’t right. Had I said something to upset her? “Lazarus...there’s something I need to tell you.”
Nate cleared his throat. “Well, I’ll take that as my cue to clear out. There are bandages on the table over there. Make sure he gets them on so he doesn’t bleed all over the place. Darius won’t be happy if he has to get rid of the carpet.” He patted Marcelle on the shoulder. “Why don’t you take me to Darius? I can update him personally on Laz’s condition. I’m sure he’ll want to hear it straight from me.”
Marcelle shrugged. “Yeah, okay. He’s on set, but they should be breaking for lunch any minute.”
Nate and Marcelle left, closing the door behind them.
The air in the room instantly felt heavier with their leaving. Last time Emma said she wanted to talk, everything had turned out okay, but she hadn’t had that look on her face. Like she was expecting me to get angry at her over something. The only time I’d seen her like that was when she had to admit she sold her soul to Morningstar to save me.
I leaned back on the cot. “So, Nate seems to have stepped up in my absence. Never seen him order someone around like that before. Good for him.”
Emma crossed her arms and turned away.
“What’s wrong, Em?” I reached for her, but she dodged away in favor of grabbing the bandages.
She ripped one of the paper packages open. “Take off your shirt. You’ve already bled all over it.”
I looked down at the bloodstains on the shirt. Definitely had worse. If I didn’t do as Emma said, I’d probably get worse. I pulled the shirt off and leaned back against the cot so she could fix me up. “You know, I can do that myself.”
“But you weren’t. You were just standing there bleeding like an idiot.” She pressed the bandage to a hole over my ribs.
I winced at how rough she was about it. Emma wasn’t what you’d call a gentle soul. Around the precinct, they called her the Queen of Thorns for her prickly personality. She might’ve been rough around the edges, but no one worth knowing wasn’t.
Emma pressed another bandage over my stomach. “I quit the force.”
“You quit?” I pushed her back gently by the shoulders. “Emma, I know how much the job meant to you. Why quit? Not
over what happened with me.”
She refused to meet my eyes, staring instead at the multiple oozing wounds on my body. “It was only a matter of time before Drake and Codey got me fired anyway. All the fudged reports, the open cases... It hasn’t been the same since I came back. Since I...” Emma closed her eyes.
Since she shot that boy and left his body to rot in the swamp. She wouldn’t say it, but I knew that’s what she meant. The kid had been a loup-garou, a werewolf, and needed to be put down before he hurt someone else. She’d saved a group of kids by killing one. Emma didn’t see it that way. All she saw was the damage she’d done. Guilt weighed her down and she nearly drowned in it. She must’ve been walking on eggshells with Drake and Codey sniffing around. What if they uncovered what she’d done? Emma would be facing something far worse than getting fired. She’d do time. Cops didn’t last long on the inside. For her, a conviction was a death sentence.
She ripped open another bandage. “Anyway, when they arrested you, I asked to go on record and sign a sworn statement as your alibi. The chief wouldn’t let me. Tried to put me on leave. Said I was a person of interest on the case. They asked me to help them get you.”
“The bastards.” My fingers tightened around Emma’s shoulders. I’d told her before that Drake and Codey would get theirs, but maybe they wouldn’t. Good doesn’t always triumph over bad in the real world. “Em, your family. If they think you’re missing...”
“I can’t afford to be found. Not until Remy is safe.” She finished affixing another bandage and opened another before continuing. “Besides, I needed to disappear and get away from it all for a while. I couldn’t handle their questions. I need answers, not more questions.” She hugged herself.
Emma was right. All this was distracting me from what was really important. Finding Remy, bringing her home, and stopping my evil self. First, I had to know exactly what Bizarro Laz was, and we needed a way into Faerie.
I leaned in to give Emma a quick kiss. “I’m sorry about your job. Are you going to be okay?”
She shrugged. “I’m not worried about money. It’s the one thing you don’t really need when you go missing. The rest will sort itself out. I’m not the first woman in history to lose her career after a decade.”
I nodded. “I need you to fill me in on what Bizarro Laz has been up to this past week. You said more people went missing? Who and where? Maybe we can establish some sort of pattern.”
For the next hour, Emma and I sat in front of a borrowed laptop and mapped out where the missing people had been taken from. It wasn’t that helpful to know, but she needed to stay busy. I could tell it hurt her, losing her job. Emma needed to feel like she was doing something, or she’d crumble.
As for me, I needed to think about what I was going to do with Hades. The pottery hadn’t come with a note or anything, but I assumed I had to do Loki’s job before he’d give me more information. There was probably some kind of time limit, too. If I didn’t do what he asked, he could renege on the agreement and I’d probably just fall over dead.
Killing Hades would be easy once I got him to show. He wouldn’t suspect a thing. I’d help him rescue his wife, Persephone, who’d also been my reaper for a time. We were on good terms, Hades and me. If I called, he’d come. All I had to do was reach in, grab his soul, yank it out and his body would turn to dust.
The problem was, I didn’t want to kill the guy. Not only did I count both he and his wife among my friends but killing him would get Loki closer to his goal. Since Loki wanted to kick off Ragnarök and the end of the world, I wasn’t keen on helping him.
I wouldn’t be getting any help from Heaven. That much was clear. Eventually, I’d have to have words with this Michael guy and tell him where he could shove his apocalypse too, but that’d be for another time. Kill one god at a time, Lazarus, and Hades has to be first.
While we went over the map again and again, putting digital pins on street corners and over sleepy lakefront houses, I racked my brain. There had to be a way out, some way to do this so it could be undone. I just wasn’t seeing it.
About the time we got the last pin in the map, the door opened, and an exhausted version of Josiah stumbled in. Without a word, he found the closest beanbag chair and collapsed face first into it.
I looked up from the computer screen. “Rough day?”
He lifted his face from the chair and stared at me. “Oh, you’re up. Aces. We need to have a chat.” He glanced at Emma before adding, “Alone.”
“Emma, would you mind?”
She set the computer aside and stood. “I need a break anyway. I’m starving.”
I was too, but didn’t mention it. I felt like I’d already been enough of a burden on everyone’s life of late. Instead, I just nodded and gave her a quick peck on the cheek before watching her go.
Josiah got up and shut the door. “I see why you went to Hell for her. She’s a good woman.”
“A good woman who’s had a bad couple of months thanks to me. Sometimes I wonder why she sticks around...” I tipped my head to the side. “Speaking of sticking around, you and Khaleda?”
He lit a cigarette and put his hand in his pocket, still leaning against the door. “Don’t put too much thought into it, mate. It’s a working relationship. I do all the work, and she sorts out the relationships.”
I didn’t buy it. When working closely with a succubus like Khaleda Morningstar, there was no such thing as a working relationship. She had a way of getting under your skin so you couldn’t think about anything but being with her. And once she had you, you could kiss your free will goodbye. I’d survived our encounter only by sheer willpower, and lots and lots of luck.
I cleared my throat. “So, what’d you want to talk about?”
He pulled the smoking cigarette from between his lips and gestured to me. “You know an angel. Could’ve mentioned that before I started poking around for information.”
“I was a little dead if you hadn’t noticed, Josiah. Or close to it. Last time you were in town, I didn’t know Moses was anything other than an old cop and a crack shot.” I shrugged. “Why does it matter?”
“Because the bastards have me by the balls and they’re squeezing hard.” He pressed his back to the door and slid down so he was sitting, lanky legs bent. “As soon as they found out I was in town, they gave me trouble. You need to be careful to stay off their radar, Lazarus.”
I cringed. “Yeah, too late.”
“Bugger.” He studied his cigarette, shrugged and put it back in his mouth. “Suppose it couldn’t be helped. You’re a trouble magnet.”
I considered what I’d learned from Moses. He hadn’t given me a lot to go on because his hands were tied, but Josiah’s weren’t. Maybe he could help. “Did you know God was missing?”
Josiah nearly swallowed his cigarette before pulling it away and coughing. “You don’t say? Well, that certainly explains a lot. Don’t see how it changes things though. Michael’s still a fuckwit hellbent on his epic battle with the Adversary.”
“Yeah, and I guess he doesn’t care if that Adversary is Loki or the new Devil. Apparently, Heaven has no plans to step in and stop Loki from getting his revenge.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t surprise me. Tunnel vision’s what he’s got. Likes staring into his own arse, expectin’ to shit glory.”
Funny way of putting it, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. I got up and went to the box Loki had sent earlier, lifting the clay image for him to see.
He frowned. “What’s that?”
“It’s how I got back. I made a deal that kind of sucks with a less than savory divine being. Promise me you won’t tell anyone and I’ll give you the details. I... I could really use your help on this one.”
He studied the image, smoking in silence. “My help’s expensive. You can’t afford the help I’ve already given you.”
I lowered the clay image of Hades and Persephone. “Help me with this, and I’ll help you with your angel problem.”
; “And just how do you propose to do that?” Josiah narrowed his eyes. “How could you possibly help me against the Hosts of Heaven?”
“You met Moses Moses?”
Josiah affirmed he had, with a grunt.
“He’s a personal friend, someone I’ve got dirt on. I’ll use it to help you get whatever you need whenever you need it for as long as I can. How’s that sound?” I didn’t like making that offer, but I hadn’t been left with much else to offer him. Tit for tat was all I had at the moment.
He nodded and pushed himself to his feet. “Sounds like you’ve got my attention. Now, what exactly are we talking about here?”
I shook my head and dropped the clay picture back into the box. “First, I need a blood oath that you won’t ever tell anyone about the deal I made, or about our deal. This has to be between you and me, Josiah. Not even Emma can know.”
Josiah nodded and drew a knife from his belt. “I swear not to speak of the deal that saved your life, or the deal we’re about to make, to anyone.”
A wizard’s oath was one thing. Some of the oldest magic available, it was mortally binding. Break it, and he’d die. A blood oath took things a step further by putting magic on the line. If Josiah broke his word he’d lose something he valued even more than his own life: his magic.
The air snapped and sizzled around us, loud as a gunshot. Josiah tossed me the knife and I made a small cut on the pad of my thumb. “And I swear that I’ll keep my end of the bargain by helping you against the angels, just as I said.”
Magic bubbled heavy in the air again, strong enough it made me wince. The air burned with it for a long moment before the power stretched thin and disappeared. Our oath was done, sealed in blood.
I told Josiah everything, and he smoked two cigarettes without saying a word. At first, I was worried he’d be judgmental, though I should’ve known better. The guy worked with blood magic and performed animal sacrifices regularly to fuel his spells. He understood the cost of doing business in the magical world, maybe better than most.
When I’d finished explaining things, he nodded and tapped his fingers on his leg. “I’m not sure what I can do to help with that. Killing gods is your department.”