by E. A. Copen
“Remy in makeup?” He laughed and lifted his drink. “She’d be angry at the suggestion. In Faerie, the suggestion that one should change their natural appearance is considered an insult.”
“Well, I suppose it is here too, but it’s just something girls do.” I shrugged. “What about magic?”
Foxglove’s face sobered. He shook his head. “The queen alone tutored her. Titania has limited what she’s allowed Remy to learn.”
“Could she have taught herself?”
“Perhaps,” said Foxglove with a nod. “If she has learned anything beyond the basics, she’s kept it well hidden.”
I shrugged. “If she’s anything like me, she can’t help herself. Magic is part of who she is.”
“Indeed, it is.” He raised his cup and touched it to mine before tipping it back and emptying the contents into his mouth. “She reminds me of her mother in many regards. Or what Odette might have been if Titania hadn’t gotten her claws in her. Remy is very powerful, however. There are many who fear what she could do if she were ever made aware of her full power.”
“Death in Faerie. I know. I saw, remember?”
“Not just that.” He put the glass down on the bar but left his fingers wrapped around it. “Her abilities are unique. Death follows her, yes, but she brings life to everything she touches. I have seen her drain the life from a bird with one hand only to restore it with the other. Titania was terrified.”
I didn’t blame her. That was a lot of power to bestow on a little girl. Even I couldn’t kill with a touch, not if I was in control. I’d never heard of someone resurrecting the dead with simple touch either. It took me a ritual and lots of powders and potions to do the job. If that was Remy on a good day, I didn’t want to see her pissed off.
“Titania wants to marry her to Roshan.” Foxglove made a sour face and reached to refill his glass. “As if that coward were good enough for her. Not that the Prince of Light is any better. Oh, he’s pretty, and he can fight—unlike Roshan—but his skills are limited to the tourney field. The lad has never fought in a real battle.”
I stared at Foxglove, feeling a little sick. “Holy shit. You love her.”
He spat his drink all over the bar.
“Hey!” Paula called. “You’re cleaning that!”
I ignored her. “But you’re like twice her age! And she’s my kid!”
“You’re misinterpreting this,” he grumbled and started peeling napkins out of the metal container on the bar. “I’m merely a trusted confidant. A friend.”
“Good,” I said, though I didn’t buy it. I knew that lovestruck look. God, I wasn’t ready to deal with that. “Because Remy’s not marrying anybody. Not if I have anything to say about it, dammit. She’s not even allowed to date until I’m dead. My heart can’t take that kind of stress.”
Foxglove snorted and mopped up his mess.
“So,” said Paula tossing a towel over her shoulder and slipping behind the bar, “you got a plan?”
I nodded and pushed away the glass. “Titania is going to present Remy at the revel. We need to get in, find her, and get out.”
“You make it sound simple.” Foxglove wadded the napkins he’d been using and tossed them into the trash can. “There will be more guards at the revel than in Faerie probably. Especially near the princess. Not to mention your fetch, and Titania herself. You’ll never get close.”
“I have to try. Noelle said she’d be drinking Faerie wine at the ball and if she does, she’ll be stuck in the Fae forever.”
“Yes and no.” Paula bobbed her head back and forth. “Those who drink the wine can leave Faerie, but usually have to go back during dawn, dusk, and other celestial events like an eclipse. There are exceptions to that rule like me. But I’m only half-fae.”
“And me.” Foxglove slid back onto his stool. “But that’s because I’m high fae.”
“Thought you were Summer?”
“I am.”
I gestured for him to elaborate.
He sighed and reached for the bottle, but Paula quickly pulled it away. He glared at her. “The high court isn’t really a court. Not in the same way as Light, Shadow, Summer, and Winter. We’re...different. But those of us in the lower echelons often find a place in one of the other four courts more agreeable. The high court members can be a little...”
“Conceited?” Paula said and chugged directly from the bottle.
Foxglove’s smile was bitter. “Competitive. Let’s just say the high court lords tend to lose a lot of limbs. Almost half a dozen have been seriously maimed in the last hundred years by various means. Fae are painfully clever and sadistic. At any rate, I had no desire to play power games so I pledged myself to Summer to train Titania’s knights. Now, I’m pledged to you.”
Now it was my turn to choke on my drink. “To me?”
He nodded. “What did you think the lightshow was? You claimed the place and the people. That includes me.”
“Me too,” Paula confirmed with a nod. “Though I have to say, my court won’t care about losing me as much as Titania will about losing you, Foxglove. You were her best sword.”
“It’s temporary. No offense, Lazarus, but my loyalty is to Remy. Once Titania is gone, you and I will part ways and I will offer her my sword.”
I frowned. “So long as we’re just talking about the weapon at your side there and that’s not a clever metaphor.”
He roared with laughter and patted my back hard enough to knock the air out.
Paula rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Okay, so how do we get into the revel? I don’t rank high enough of the food chain to get an invite.”
“Don’t look at me,” Foxglove said. “I could get one of you in, but not the other, and if I take Lazarus as my plus one, I’m going to set the place on fire with rumors I’d rather not get going.”
I coughed into my hand. “Well, I was going to go with the Winter Knight.”
Paula made a gagging sound. “I don’t have enough time to explain to you why doing anything with the Winter Knight is a bad idea.”
“She saved me.” And Emma, but I didn’t want to say her name out loud. If I did, the room would feel even more empty than it already did. “And we kind of have a deal.”
Paula set the bottle in her hands down with a loud thump. “Dammit, Lazarus! Fae deals are bad news, or hadn’t you heard?”
I blinked. “Paula...Whatever happened to no cussing in the bar?”
“You’re the kind of person who could make a saint cuss and a sinner go straight, Laz. You’re an idiot! What kind of deal did you make?”
Oh, you know. Just a run of the mill regicide. Nothing big. I cleared my throat. “Can’t really talk about it, but if Noelle is alive, I think I’m supposed to go with her. Except I don’t know how to find her since she fell into the river with William.”
Foxglove sighed loudly. “I can get a message to the Winter Knight. I won’t enjoy it, and it will take some time, but I’ll do it.” He stood. “In the meantime, I suggest you two get some formal attire.”
“Me?” Paula cringed. “And how am I supposed to get in?”
“You’ll go with me, of course,” Foxglove said. “Are we all on the same page? Is there anything else I should know about before I make final arrangements?”
I tried to think about what I might’ve left out. Foxglove knew all the important stuff, didn’t he? The information about the two names I still owed Loki, and the fae queen Noelle was supposed to kill didn’t affect our mission to rescue Remy from Summer. “No, everything should be good to go.”
“If there’s nothing else then, I’ll rejoin you mid-afternoon. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He nodded to Paula and left.
I glanced at the clock ticking away behind the bar, eyelids heavy. It was closing in on four in the morning. I was beat. My body ached in places I didn’t know I had, and my brain was mush, but I hated to ask Paula for anything else. I’d claimed her bar as my sanctuary, made her aid and abet a criminal on the run, a
nd magically indebted all her patrons to me.
But Paula saw right through me just like she always did. She lifted a set of brass keys from a hook on the way, sliding them across the bar to me.
I stared at them. “You didn’t rent it out for Mardi Gras? I figured every place in the city would be booked for the week.”
Paula shrugged. “Took it off the market a while ago. Just wasn’t worth all the hassle, renting it to strangers. But you or any of your people need a place to crash, you’re welcome to it.”
“Thanks, Paula.”
Her eyes widened. “You know better than to thank me, Lazarus.”
“I do. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.” I reached over the bar and put my hand over hers. “I’m in your debt. If there’s ever anything I can do to repay you, all you have to do is ask.”
She pressed her lips together, rolled her eyes, and shook her head. “Just go get some rest, you idiot. And if you get a free minute, practice your waltz. Fae really like the waltz for some reason. I’ll never figure it out.”
I bid Paula goodnight and climbed the stairs to the familiar studio apartment above the bar. Back when I first got out of prison, the apartment was home. Yeah, I could hear the music and the pool through the floor, but anything was better than the echo of distant footsteps and slamming doors I’d gotten to know in prison.
The apartment itself wasn’t much, and that hadn’t changed since I’d moved out. A tired old recliner sat on a shaggy rug in the middle of the living room. Instead of a kitchen table, it had a bar with two stools. A cooktop hidden in one of the drawers would serve as a stove, and the fridge light only worked when it felt like it.
I trudged through the living room, kicking off my shoes and stumbled, exhausted into the bedroom. It was pitch black in there with the curtains drawn. I flipped on the light and froze when I saw who was sitting on the bed waiting for me.
Bizarro Laz smirked and tapped his fingers on his knee. “Hello, Lazarus. I think it’s time we talked.”
Chapter Twenty-One
I thought about getting out of there. If I could just get to the door and out, I might get away to fight another day.
Instead, I stepped in and shut the bedroom door, sealing myself in the room with me. “I’d rather stab you in the heart, but since I don’t have any sharp objects handy, I guess I’ll settle for talk.”
My fetch pushed himself up off the bed to stand. Emma was right. He did dress better than me. I’d never have been able to pull off that black jacket over a black button-up shirt. Definitely not with the collar flipped up like that.
I gestured to him. “Come on, man. Don’t you think the goatee is a bit on the mark?”
“You think?” He drew a hand over his face. “I’ve always wanted one.”
“I know, but it makes me look like a supervillain reject.”
He chuckled and put his hands in his pockets. “There it is. That self-depreciating humor. Do you know why you put yourself down? It’s not because you believe all that. It’s because you don’t want to seem like a conceited asshole. That’s the difference between me and you. I don’t care what other people think of me.”
He paced around in a circle, sharp eyes pricking at my skin. When he got behind me, I resisted the urge to turn and follow him. He was a predator, a shark, and I wasn’t going to let him know I was scared to death of him.
“Is that why you’re doing this?” I asked. “To prove a point?”
“I’m doing this because there’s no point in being second best. I want something, so I take it. And why not? No one’s ever going to give either of us a damn thing. Look at all the women who’ve taken advantage of you. Beth used you, threw you away the minute you became inconvenient. Odette ran away as soon as things started getting serious, and then went and died rather than try to patch things up.”
I couldn’t take it anymore and spun around, planting the staff hard on the wood floor. “That’s not how it was. She didn’t choose what happened to her.”
“No?” Bizarro Laz quirked a perfect eyebrow. “What about Emma? You died for her. Went to hell for her, probably kicked off the apocalypse for her, and how does she repay you?” He finally stopped moving and gestured to me. “She runs when she finds out who you really are. A murderer.”
I shook my head. “That’s not me. I’m not a killer by choice. Not like you.”
“But I am you.” He shrugged. “I’m made from your DNA. My memories are yours. The only difference is I’m not a whiny little bitch like you. There’s a reason women run away from you, Lazarus. Girls don’t like a nice guy. They want an asshole.”
“Explains why you’re still single,” I grumbled. “What is it you want from me?”
He stepped forward and picked some lint off my shirt, rolling it between his fingers. “What I want is power, and you’re in the way of that. You see, if there are two of us, you’re going to keep trying to kill me and undo all my hard work. I thought about killing you. Tried to a few times. Problem is, I’m not sure what will happen to the Horseman mantle when you die. Right now, you and I are evenly matched. We both have the same powers, including the Horseman gig. Kill you?” He shrugged again.
How was that possible? There was only one Pale Horseman mantle. We couldn’t both have the title. Then again, there shouldn’t have been two of me either. The whole world had gone screwy. I no longer knew the rules, which put me at a definite disadvantage.
Bizarro Laz paced away and picked up a small, decorative box sitting on the dresser. “Can’t kill you, but I can’t let you screw things up for me either. So here’s my offer. I’ll give you until midnight to leave town. I don’t care where you go or what you do, so long as you leave Louisiana. Forever. And don’t try to contact anyone from your former life. Not your daughter, not Emma, Moses, Josiah... None of them. You contact them, they die.”
I crossed my arms. “You know I’m not going to take that deal.”
“True.” He nodded. “Just like I know you’re thinking you can confront me at the revel and free your daughter, maybe even kill Titania. Who’d you get to help you? The Winter Knight? What kind of deal did you cut with that bitch, huh? Too bad she’s going to betray you.”
“She’s fae. Of course she’s going to betray me. But not until after she gets what she wants, which isn’t going to happen until after I get what I want. That’s how deals work, asshole.”
He placed the box back on the dresser and turned around. “Well, just in case, you might want to consider a counter-offer. While you’ve been so focused on saving your daughter, you’ve left someone else unprotected. Someone dear to you. Someone my zombies had almost no trouble apprehending and delivering to Loki.”
My blood ran ice-cold. “Emma. What does Loki want with Emma?”
My fetch smirked. “I suppose you won’t know if you don’t break into his masquerade ball and rescue her, since that’ll be the only time you’ll be able to get to her. It just so happens Loki is holding his ball at the exact same time as Titania on the opposite side of town. Pity you won’t be able to save them both. At the stroke of midnight, Emma will be beyond saving.”
“You son of a bitch!” I surged toward him, swinging the metal pipe at his head.
Bizarro Laz caught it with ease and held it, smirking at me while his hands steamed.
I tried to push harder, but it was no use. He might’ve shared DNA with me, but he was stronger than me. “What’s he going to do to her?”
“I told you. If I can’t have her, no one can. No mortal man anyway. At midnight, she’ll belong to Loki and there will be nothing you can do to undo that spell.” He pushed the pipe away and tried to hide his palms, but he wasn’t fast enough. They were bright red and blistered. The iron of the pipe had burned the hell out of him.
Not so unbeatable now, are you, asshole?
He put his burned hand on the doorknob and pulled the door open. “I’m taking over your life, Lazarus. Everything you’ve got belongs to me now. And if I can’t ha
ve it, no one will. Think carefully about your next moves. And good luck.”
I waited until I heard the outside door to the apartment shut before letting the tension out of my shoulders. Then I went to lock the door behind him. It wouldn’t keep him out if he wanted to come back in and finish me, but it made me feel a little better.
Loki had Emma. Why? What did he want with her? Me, probably. He knew she was the one person I would come for. I’d gone to Hell for her. I’d almost certainly go across town to save her. Except if I had to choose between saving Emma and saving Remy. But how could I make that choice?
He could be lying. I affixed the chain lock too, just in case. I had no proof that Loki had Emma, and that kind of lie might be enough to make me reconsider my plan of action. But why would he lie? What reason did he have for not just handing Emma over to Loki? My fetch was a cold-hearted asshole who had no qualms about sacrificing the lives of others to get what he wanted. The only way I would know for certain would be to go to Loki’s masquerade instead of Titania’s. There was no way I could get to both, but maybe I didn’t have to.
I walked over to where a cordless phone hung on the wall and punched in a number.
He picked up on the second ring. “Thought I told you not to call me on this line, mate.”
“How’d you know it was me?”
“You know anyone else who’d stay in that shithole above Paula’s?”
Point for Josiah. It wasn’t exactly a popular destination. “I’ve got a problem. I think Loki has Emma.”
“Then go get her back,” he growled. “That’s not my problem. I’m a little busy.”
“Wait, don’t hang up!”
He sighed into the receiver but didn’t hang up.
“I can’t go get her. If she’s there, she’s likely being held under guard and Loki’s Valkyries are no pushovers. I also don’t know where he’s hiding out. I know he’s having a masquerade tomorrow night, and if I don’t get to her by midnight, there’s some sort of spell that... Well, my fetch said she’d belong to Loki.”