The Quick and the Dead

by D. B. Sieders

  Olive appeared to consider. “Be that as it may, she’s corrupted my nephew and she’s using his mother to undo God’s order in this life and the next. I can’t abide that.”

  Against her better judgment, Vivian spoke up. “Know what I can’t abide? The guardian spirit who used me to disrupt what you call God’s order so he could settle a personal grudge, and he did it with the blessing of the Archangels. They aren’t who or what you think they are.”

  Olive’s gaze went wide. “You know them? Are you sure, dear? The serpent is subtle, you know. He tells pretty lies to lure lost souls like you. You fell in with this evil creature,” she said, gesturing to Darkmore, who didn’t seem particularly offended. “And you fell in with my wayward nephew.”

  “He’s not wayward. He’s trying to make things better, fairer. I’ve met souls the so-called angels left behind, souls that became prey for those who were supposed to help them find peace. If you knew their suffering, you would want to wreck the whole corrupt system, too.”

  Olive smiled, a pitying smile disguised as benevolence. “This reaper of souls has his purpose, and so do the angels, all except those who turned the living into their instruments of chaos. You and my nephew and the others like you are abominations. Not your fault, of course, but you’ll find justice in the next life. You’ll help the angels track down the traitors who made you what you are.”

  Vivian stood, rage threatening to spill over as uncontrolled jolts of spirit light.

  “I am not an abomination. I have purpose, just like your nephew, and we’re going to bring this whole corrupt system down.”

  A familiar voice almost knocked her on her ass. “Not without energy you ain’t, little gal.”

  Her head whipped around. Standing in the doorway to Olive Briggs kitchen was Ezra, her former mentor, the guardian spirit who’d made her what she was to settle a grudge, or for the greater good, possibly both. And behind him, the diminutive form of the Archangel Uriel stood and smiled.

  They’d been found. Worse, they’d fallen into a trap that would doom the rebellion.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Ezra bound her in a cage of spirit light and led her to Bijoux Briggs’ garden in the back yard, cast in the menacing shadows of night and a chill that neither guardian spirit nor angel bothered to chase away. The reaper followed. No cage for him. Perhaps Ezra and Uriel underestimated him in his current mortal state. Or maybe, as Olive said, he was accepted as a part of the establishment, not an abomination.

  Not like her.

  As usual, Darkmore kept his cool. The bastard was unflappable, and even seemed to find something funny if the slight curl to his lips was any indication. She hoped he had a plan.

  She certainly didn’t.

  Briggs sat crouched at the feet of his grandmother, bound by ropes of energy that cut into his wrists and ankles. The stench of burning flesh assaulted her senses. God, they’d burned him. Not only that, they’d tortured him. The light of his bonds revealed angry, blackened streaks on his face, disappearing beneath his shirt. They’d tortured him.

  But why? They had him, and now they had her and the reaper. Presumably they could find the rest of the rebels and the remaining lost souls who’d escaped the true enemy. They had the mambo and her energy.

  Or did they?

  Bijoux Briggs’ elegant face appeared twisted and malevolent in the half-light of her grandson’s bonds. One of the loa had taken control of her body, mind, and soul, and it was angry. It turned the mambo’s gaze on Vivian, the reaper, and their captors, splitting Mrs. Briggs’ face into a wicked grin.

  “You brought me a sacrifice? How thoughtful.”

  Uriel bowed. The Archangel wore a tailored suit in charcoal grey. It added a touch of class to his mortal form, but the lack of height muted the effect. He was a less hairy Hobbit in the garb of a mobster. It was fitting.

  “You weren’t inclined to bargain for your descendant’s soul. Will this creature sweeten the deal?”

  The loa met Vivian’s gaze. “You’re late.”

  She stood straight, ignoring the smoke and flash of pain as parts of her body made contact with her cage. “I got a little dinged up on a rescue mission. Am I too late?”

  It was a gamble. Having no idea if the loa had a plan to salvage the situation or if it would honor their agreement if and when it did, the question had more than a few layers. The loa wanted a minion on this plane of existence, a powerful essence trapped in a corporeal form it could control and use to exert its power in the world of the living.

  It could serve as another vessel for the loa to inhabit. That was it. Bijoux Briggs wasn’t long for this world, and when she passed, the loa would have a tough time finding another vessel. Waylon Briggs didn’t have the gift, and as far as she knew, he was the last of the mambo’s direct line.

  Was that it? Did the loa think she could pull off encasing a guardian or an angel in a mortal form?

  The loa’s gaze sparkled. “Oh, no, child. You’re just in time.”

  Crap. She couldn’t pull it off. What she’d done to Darkmore had been an accident. It was an act of desperation meant to save the reaper. She had no desire to save Ezra or Uriel, and in spite of all they’d done to wrong her, she wasn’t inclined to turn such powerful beings into playthings for the loa, an entity that might be more wicked and dangerous than the guardian or angel.

  The loa’s smile widened. “Life’s full of tough choices, isn’t it?”

  Ezra looked between Vivian and the loa, his gaze full of speculation. Damn it, beneath the overalls, beard, and country bumpkin persona lurked a fiendish and calculating mind. Not good. Of course, he might be planning to double cross the Archangel. Ezra played both sides and switched allegiances like most folks switched clothing. Perhaps he planned to save Vivian and Briggs. He owed Vivian, since he’d gotten her tangled up in afterlife management in the first place.

  Then again, she’d double-crossed him by forming an alliance with the reaper. But considering that he’d cheated the system and left her in limbo before claiming her as one of his soul brokers, she preferred to think of it as self-preservation. At any rate, it made Ezra a wildcard in this scenario, much as she was from the others’ point of view.

  Wonderful.

  Reaching through the bars of the cage, Darkmore’s hand landed on hers, cooling the heat from her burning wounds and soothing her soul. Nice, but unless he had any bright ideas, she was going to have to make some tough choices or face a more horrifying fate than she’d ever experienced or imagined.

  And she’d experienced and imagined plenty.

  When the reaper pulled away, she turned her attention to Briggs. “You okay?”

  He was glowing and not just from his bonds. They’d captured him before he had a chance to make an energy deposit into Gran. That might help. She needed all the help she could get.

  “I’ve had better days, Red. You get to those souls you told me about?”

  She smiled, vision blurring from unshed tears. “Sure did. You did a good thing. Better than you know. No matter what else happens, remember that.”

  He chuckled, grimacing when the movement stretched and twisted his burned flesh. He made it worse by arching a brow and cocking his head to one side. It was such a brave, defiant gesture in the face of death and eternal torment. She had to laugh through the tears. She reached through the bars of her cage, burning clothing into flesh, and took his hand, taking in his pain, suffering, and burdens as an act of camaraderie and good will.

  “Thanks,” he said, voice raspy and wry, “but I’m dead anyway. So are you.”

  She leaned in and whispered, “I brought someone back once before. I think I’m supposed to do it again tonight. Twice. Be ready.”

  “For what?” His grip on her hand tightened and his gaze met hers, wary.

  “I don’t know. Not yet. But I’ll think of something.”

  The cage tightened around her, forcing her to let go of Briggs’ hand. Uriel forced her to kneel before the mambo
inhabited by the loa. She took perverse satisfaction that she was still almost eye level with the little shit of an Archangel. Ezra looked away, the coward. Maybe she could get in a good blast to that no-good, double-crossing, traitorous good old boy spirit who’d convinced her not once, but twice, that he was on her side.

  “Shall I dispatch these two for you?” Uriel asked. “In what manner will their shed blood and deaths best serve you?”

  The loa grinned through the mambo’s face, showing small, white teeth. “Your kind hasn’t gotten your hands dirty for centuries, not like you used to. Blood magic and sacrifice haven’t been a part of your rituals since the slaughter of your one true lamb. Think you’re up for this?”

  Uriel looked down his nose, comical for such a short corporeal form. “You’ve been out of the loop, to borrow a phrase from this era. The holy wars of this age are just as bloody as those of the past, and death is more efficient.”

  “More energy for your little pyramid scheme and more souls to conscript into guardian service. Real efficient.” Briggs earned another lash for his words, proving they were accurate. It was sick, insidious.

  “Greed is good, huh? I get it. Never our style. We were too busy helping our descendants navigate life in chains. Your kind didn’t help with your bad PR and forced conversions.”

  For an instant, Uriel’s confidence faltered. The Archangel had apparently made some powerful enemies during the millennia of his reign. Christianity didn’t like competition, and Voudon had been a favorite target, as had its practitioners. How many pagan gods, loa, and ancient spirits like Maeve had the Archangels pissed off by stealing or killing their followers? Robber barons and the sharks on Wall Street had nothing on cutthroat angels.

  Recovering, Uriel spread his arms wide. “That was rather short sighted of us. Perhaps tonight can be the beginning of a new era of cooperation between us, established spiritual intercessors? These,” he spat, looking at her and Briggs huddled on the ground, “are the true enemy, our mutual enemies. They serve no one but themselves, hoarding energy and wasting it by fighting us.”

  “We’re all fading,” the loa said, waving the mambo’s thin wrist in dismissal. “Some of us are just moving along a little faster.”

  “But it doesn’t have to be that way. With just a tenth of the energy these foolish mortals have harvested and stored in your vessel, we could crush the rebellion and get back to the business of mediating the crossing of righteous souls. Naturally, we will offer your side a percentage of the souls for harvest.”

  “How generous. What percentage?”

  Uriel considered for a moment. “I was prepared to offer ten percent, but as a gesture of good will, I will agree to twenty-five percent. Think about it. Twenty five percent of our followers would double your get.”

  “All of that for the energy these rebels have collected? That’s no way to run a business, and you are the ultimate businessman. What’s so special about these mortals? Why do you need their energy in particular?”

  If she hadn’t been so tightly caged, Vivian might have pumped her fists in the air. This loa was good. Bet the ugly Archangel hadn’t counted on working with such a shrewd negotiator. Hope bloomed inside her soul, intoxicating and dangerous. She couldn’t count on the loa to do the hard work for her. And even if it spared her and Briggs, she’d still have to bring someone back from the dead or trap a soul in a corporeal form in order to restore Darkmore and get another chance to commune with Mae.

  Mae.

  If anyone could get them out of this, her sister could. The power she’d first experienced from her sister’s soul hadn’t faded, not even after a trip to Darkmore’s realm and the liberation of countless souls. That was it. She just had to get the loa to release Mae.

  Uriel’s words brought her back to the present and sent ice through her veins. “These two have been a thorn in my side and I want them gone, painfully, with the promise of eternal torment.”

  “It’s personal, then. No wonder you’re making such shitty deals.”

  “The reasons don’t concern you,” Uriel snipped. “All you have to decide is if you want these two tasty souls and the promise of legions more in exchange for the energy they collected.”

  “You could give them to the reaper…if he were still here.”

  Vivian craned her neck along with the other entities in the yard. Darkmore was gone. Briggs swore under his breath. Vivian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. While she fervently hoped the reaper had gone to warn the others and/or fetch help, part of her could see how he might cut and run in his current state. If Ezra wanted another shot at revenge, now would be the time, with Darkmore at his most vulnerable.

  Yeah, maybe it was better that Darkmore had quietly vacated the area. Then again, she needed him here in order to restore him to his former state. Was that why he’d left? He’d asked her to come away with him into hiding. It would give him the chance, for the first time, to experience a true mortal life. And it would give her what? A friend, a lover, a loyal companion, and love?

  He hadn’t said he loved her, but he’d shown her in a thousand different ways that she mattered to him. Wasn’t that enough? Zeke had professed his love, and he’d seen her through some tough times, saved her life and her soul, but would he stick around? As a former playboy and self-centered narcissist of a mortal man, he might well fall back into his old habits. After all, eternity was a mighty long time, and there were plenty of guardians, reapers, demons, and angels who’d love to spend time with the handsome and charismatic guardian spirit.

  Would she be enough for him, or Darkmore for that matter?

  “Bedford! Get your head back in the game.” Briggs growled through the pain, nudging her cage of spirit light so it burned her back to reality.

  Right. No time to wallow about her love life. Love afterlife? What had she missed?

  “Forget the reaper,” Ezra said. “He’s no threat to us now that this little gal turned him human. I’ll catch up with him later, I expect. As far as what to do with these two so-called rebels, I don’t recommend killin’ ’em. They’ll become martyrs and we’ll be chasing their followers for hundreds of years.”

  “You son of a bitch, Ezra,” she whispered.

  “I ain’t gonna miss your sass, Miss Vivian, and I surely ain’t gonna miss your foul mouth.”

  Uriel quirked a brow. “If not their destruction or eternal damnation, what did you have in mind?”

  Ezra grinned, his damned beard twitching. “You got yourself a powerful mambo with an even more powerful loa in the driver’s seat, so to speak.” Turning to the loa, Ezra said, “How about you wrangle some of your kin and see if they’d like to take possession of these two fine, hale human beings. We can send ’em back to their rebellion and wreck it from the inside.”

  Briggs struggled to stand and lunged at Ezra, tripping over his bound feet and cursing. Vivian glared at him, anger rising like the tide at the moon’s call. She wanted to blast him into kingdom come, strangle him, rail and rage at him. Ezra of all people knew the horror of being trapped in a body that no longer obeys the mind, and possession on the level he was talking about would leave her essence, and Briggs’, buried far into the subconscious, nothing more than a powerless observer, or completely unaware.

  It would be akin to eternal damnation.

  Uriel’s triumphant smile sent chills down her spine.

  The loa said, “I can do that, but not with any old spirit. The loa prefer to ride those of their own line, and it requires an invitation from the ridden. A forced riding, or possession in your parlance, requires the blackest of magic made by a bokor. You ain’t got one of those.”

  “Well, then,” Ezra said. “Guess we’re going to have to convince our two ornery little soul brokers here to issue an invitation.”

  He walked over to Briggs and kicked him in the kidney. Vivian screamed, “Ezra, no!”

  Turning to face her, he yanked Briggs by the collar and held him up so Vivian could get a good look at his grima
ce of pain, the burn scars over his face, and his defiant gaze.

  Ezra kicked him again. Hard. “I say ladies first. Miss Vivian doesn’t like to see anything suffer, as I recall, but she might have a stronger constitution after whoring around with the reaper. Should we test that?”

  Slamming Briggs into the ground, he turned to the loa. “She can heal him when the new occupant takes ownership of her.” Then he turned back to her and said, “But it’ll be harder if he’s dead. What’ll it be, little gal?”

  She turned to face the loa wearing the face of the mambo. Then it dawned on her. The key was in the words of the loa, in permission to be ridden by someone of her line. With a leap of faith and a silent prayer to whatever goddess or god might be listening, she nodded at the mambo. Opening her senses, her heart, and her soul, she summoned her spirit light and let it course through her veins.

  After one last look at Briggs, the mambo, the Archangel, and Ezra, Vivian closed her eyes and said, “Come on in.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  She came to herself disoriented, confused, and panicked. Cold on her skin, pain throbbing through parts of her body like…like nothing she’d ever felt before. Not…bruises. That was the right word. Bruises. She’d had bruises, most of them from flailing limbs that seemed to have a mind of their own, rarely going where she asked them. This was like pain from fever, only stronger, and only concentrated in some parts of her body.

  Was she back in her body? She hoped not. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for the joy, peace, and freedom when she left her body in a rush of power and…light.

  Terrified, she told her fingers to move, and they did! Arms, legs, and body did what she asked…sort of. Her only other experience with a body was the body of Sister. It was strange and wonderful, being with Sister, in Sister, finally able to speak to her. Sister had red hair and a crooked smile. Her laughter was like ice cream. She’d loved ice cream when Mother and Sister fed it to her. Sister touched her skin and brushed her hair and cried for her. Why did she cry?