by E. A. Copen
She wrinkled her nose. “Please don’t call them that. It makes it weird.”
I grunted and tucked the acorns into the pocket in my tunic for safekeeping. “Have you met me? Weird is my middle name.”
Beth ignored me. “So, we have the acorns. We need to start working on this cure. I take it from the pissed off way you stormed out of Odd Fellows’ Rest that you’re not going to go looking for the Si’lat?”
“The Si’lat is more of a succubus,” I explained heading for the door. “Lucifer Morningstar’s daughter.”
Beth’s shoes clicked across the tile as she sped up to keep pace with me. “Wait, the same Morningstar that gave you the sheut?”
I nodded and turned around to lock up the apartment. “The one and only. She’s bad news. Helped me when it was convenient for her, but turned on me the moment it wasn’t. I think she’s trying to undermine daddy dearest, but that’s not a feud I want to get involved in. We’ve got to find another way.”
“What about the medical angle? You said you know someone who works in the morgue.”
I nodded. Nate, the night shift medical examiner, was a good friend of mine, one of the few people I trusted implicitly. He was good at his job, too. I’d been sort of helping him get his footing in the field of studying the weird and the dead before I got whisked away to Faerie.
“We’ll have to meet him somewhere besides the morgue though, which means I either need to call him or you’ll have to go get him and bring him to a safe place. I don’t exactly know where I’d call safe right now, since I haven’t been in town for six weeks.”
“Think you’ll be fine in the parking lot?”
I shrugged. “As long as they don’t wheel any bodies by, I don’t see why not.”
“How are you feeling? Still all juiced up from all those ghosts you ate?”
I frowned as we descended the stairs. That wasn’t exactly my proudest moment. I hadn’t expected it to be so easy to fall down the slippery slope and go from healing a mortal wound with the soul of a dead god to chowing down on ghosts for a rush. It scared the shit out of me. When I became the Pale Horseman, I’d done it to help people, and I still considered ghosts to be people. The ones in the cemetery had been hostile and would’ve torn me apart if I’d let them, but I still felt guilty about consuming them for my own gain. There had to be a better way.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “I’d really like to run into The Baron though. Only way I know to get a message to him and set up a meeting is to talk to Pony Dee. He’d be asleep at this hour.”
The passenger door creaked as Beth pulled it open. “Let’s go wake him up.”
Chapter Fifteen
The number burned into my arm changed twice on the drive over to Pony’s house in the Algiers. Also known as the fifteenth of New Orleans’ seventeen wards, Algiers was practically wiped off the map during Katrina. Flooding and high winds destroyed house after house, most of which were never rebuilt. The area was one of the most impoverished in the city, thanks to the Jim Crow laws of the South and a fire back in the 1800s that destroyed the neighborhood. It never really recovered for long before another disaster hit.
But Algiers was also the birthplace of jazz, a place steeped in rich history and its own distinct culture even within New Orleans. Growing up in Algiers as the only white kid on my block hadn’t been an easy upbringing. It never is when you start out as an outsider, but I had more opportunities than most. Pony was good to me, kept me off the streets or from falling in with the gangs that ran the area now. I owed him more than to go and get my ass thrown into prison, but that didn’t mean he had to turn his back on me while I was on the inside.
I understood why he’d chosen to distance himself. The magical community in New Orleans was secretive, tight-knit, and had a long memory. You didn’t survive in New Orleans if you had magic without friends. Pony had to make a choice between being emotional support in my time of need and his own survival. He chose to survive. For that, I couldn’t fault him. Didn’t mean I had to forgive him.
While every other house on the block got wrecked during Katrina, Pony’d put up enough wards and spells to keep his four walls and a roof standing. The roof tiles got ripped off, and the patio had to be repaired, but he’d kept the old abode together. It was a small place, little more than two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom, but whenever I thought of home, Pony’s place was where my memory took me.
I pulled the stolen truck up the driveway littered with cracks. He must’ve had the outside light hooked to a motion sensor because it kicked on as soon as I put the truck in park. To my surprise, the front screen door popped open, and the stout old man stepped out, wearing a stained white t-shirt with red suspenders to hold his jeans up. His fading white hair had gotten long enough to wave in the wind.
Watching him on the stoop, arms crossed, an impatient glare staring down the truck brought me back to my high school days. How many times had I stayed out past curfew in the hopes of getting into Beth’s pants? I’d come home, expecting to catch hell from Pony for breaking the rules, but he never did yell. He’d work me hard the next few days, but not much else. We didn’t even talk about it unless I brought it up. The one thing I’d always appreciated about Pony was he’d make me live with my mistakes if I screwed up. Action, consequence. I found consequence to be a much harder teacher to learn from than punishment, but those were the lessons I remembered best.
“Surprised to find you awake, old man,” I said as I got out of the truck.
Pony grunted. “Ain’t by choice. Heartburn.”
Heartburn was code for visions. I’d never told him I figured that out, but I picked it up when he never bothered taking the heartburn pills I bought for him.
Pony’s eyes slid to Beth and his face tensed. He liked her, but he’d always told me I’d get myself in trouble chasing girls above my station. Best look on this side of the tracks. I always figured that stemmed from his own experiences of being constantly turned down by women, but he had a point. Beth’s life was too different from my own.
“Miss Beth.” He nodded and adjusted his suspenders. “Had I known you’d be coming, I’d have put on a better shirt.”
Beth smiled and walked up the stoop to take Pony’s outstretched hand. “It’s good to see you, Pony. How have you been?”
“Not bad, child. Go on in. Kettle’s hot. You know where the tea is.”
Beth glanced at me. I nodded, and she went in behind Pony.
Pony came down the short walk and spoke in a quiet voice so Beth wouldn’t hear. “So, you’re back with her now, are you? What happened to the other one?”
I frowned. “I’ve been missing for six weeks, and the first thing you want to do is criticize my choice in women?”
“Didn’t know you were missing,” he lied. Pony always scratched his stomach and glanced to the left when he lied.
“Come on, man.” I tilted my head to the side. “Don’t lie to me. How’d you know? Vision?”
“Visit from your detective friend, actually.” He turned to a lawn chair with a tackle box sitting on it. With a shrug, he went to clear it off and sank down into it. “She came ’round here, flashing her badge with her pants suit and her swagger looking for you. Know what I told her?”
“What’d you tell her?”
“I asked her what a homicide detective is doing looking into a missing person’s case that ain’t nobody filed a complaint about.”
That twisted the knife in my gut, sending regret coursing through me. Emma hadn’t accepted the official explanation that I’d drowned in the lake along with the yacht. More than that, she’d looked for me when no one else did. Like the jerk that I was, I’d told her in no uncertain terms to stay away from me. After all her hard work, I’d shut the metaphorical door in her face. I felt like shit.
Pony rocked back on the rear legs of the chair. “Of course, she eventually admitted she wasn’t there in an official capacity. Said she was your friend. Practically begged me to call her if I seen y
ou. First woman to give me her number in two months and she wasn’t even there for me.” He eyed me, studying my reaction for any cracks. I showed him none.
“Emma’s a good person. She’s…she was my friend.”
“And now?”
I shook my head and stared at my feet.
“Yep,” Pony said with a sigh. “The Horseman gig is a rough and lonely one. Like painting a target on your back.”
“Odette’s pregnant.” I had no idea why I decided to blurt that when I did. I hadn’t even been thinking about it, at least not consciously. Subconsciously, I hadn’t stopped thinking about it since I found out.
Once the dam cracked, the rest just came flooding out. I told Pony everything that had happened to me over the last few months. Some of it, he knew because he was there. I got the distinct feeling there were parts he’d heard rumors of, but he didn’t verify it one way or the other. The old man just sat and listened as I unloaded, just like he always did.
Halfway through my recounting, Beth came out carrying two mugs of tea with the tea bags still inside. She handed one off to Pony and settled onto the end of the stoop to listen. When I got to the part about sleeping with Khaleda, she winced, but otherwise, she didn’t react either.
It took the better part of a half-hour to tell them all of it. At the end, I sank to the driveway, exhausted but somehow feeling better. “I need to talk to Baron Samedi, Pony. I need help. I need answers. I need my life back.”
Pony’s answer was a grunt. He bent over to place his empty teacup on the pavement. “Boy, I can’t tell which you’re more afraid of: livin’ or dyin’.”
I wanted to argue, but I knew he was right. Pony was always right. All I could do was hang my head. “What I want is to go back and not make so many damn mistakes.”
Pony put his hand on my shoulder, his tone gentle. “It’s what we all want, boy, until you get old and you’re staring Death in the face. You can’t let your regrets consume you, son.”
I lifted my chin from my chest to meet his eyes. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”
His bottom lip stuck out. “You make the best decisions you can given the information you’ve got, and you don’t live in the past if you screw up. Now, you can’t live worryin’ about the future either. You live for now, and right now you need a cure to have any chance of figuring all the other stuff out.” He stood and placed his hands on his lower back, popping it in two places. “As for your love life, I don’t think I’m qualified to comment on that. I will say you ought to apologize to your detective friend. A man’s got to keep his friends close.”
My eyes slid to Beth a moment before they snapped back to Pony’s face. “What if she gets hurt again because of me?”
Pony knitted his brows and swung his leg out to kick my arm.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“You damn fool. Listen to yourself, sittin’ on the ground, whining like some grade school cheerleader.”
Beth stifled laughter, and I shot her a warning glare.
Pony stepped between us, blocking my view. “You know how much sleep I’ve lost because of you? Stayin’ up late, waiting for you to come in. And how much food you ate! Damn, you cost me a fortune to bring up. You remember that time you gave me that black eye?”
I couldn’t help but smile to myself. It had been a spell misfire, one that wouldn’t have happened if I’d listened to him better. Things like that were bound to happen when a fifteen-year-old kid is learning the limits of his power.
Pony’s calloused palm appeared in front of my face. I took it and let him pull me to my feet. “I thought you’d kill me. Damn near did a few times. I still wouldn’t trade our time for the world.”
“Black eye and all?”
He smiled, showing white teeth. “Black eye and all.” Pony patted my arm where he’d kicked me. “Now, let’s go inside, and I’ll call The Baron and that friend of yours at the coroner’s office. We’ll see if we can’t put this whole ghoul business to bed.”
I put an arm around Pony, and we helped each other up the walk toward the house.
Chapter Sixteen
Pony let me have the use of my old bedroom while he made all his calls. The room still contained a twin-sized bed, but that was where the similarities ended. He’d stripped all my posters off the wall, hauled out the old desk and even replaced the ceiling fan I’d broken. New paper decorated the walls, though it looked faded enough to have been fresh when I went to prison.
I didn’t care. I collapsed on the bed asleep before my head even hit the paper-thin pillow.
When I woke, it was to pain in the bend of my arm. I yelped and tried to jerk my arm away but stopped when I realized what was happening.
Nate had a needle in my arm, pulling blood into a tube. “Sorry. I’m not used to getting samples from living people.”
“Hi, Nate.” My voice came out a croak. “Nice to see you’re still kicking.”
“Same to you. We all thought you were dead.” He yanked the needle out and slapped a cotton ball onto the wound. I was suddenly very glad he’d become the assistant coroner and not a phlebotomist. Nate deposited the blood sample in a small cooler and stood. “Should I ask where you’ve been, or are you going to blow me off?”
I winced. “You talked to Emma?”
“She’s in the living room. Came over with me.”
“What?” I shot up.
Nate flailed to keep me from surging to my feet. “Careful. Don’t get up too fast. That wasn’t the first vial of blood I took!”
Too late. Wooziness overtook me, and I crashed back to the bed with a groan. “What the hell is Emma doing here?”
“She was at the office with me. Showed up maybe five minutes before your friend called and asked us to come over. Very upset.”
I lifted my arm off my head. “Yeah, I kind of told her I’d turned into one of the bad guys.”
Nate blinked and repeated my line. “What?”
“I didn’t want her involved. I didn’t want to see her hurt.”
He huffed out a breath through his nose. “Well, she didn’t buy it. Apparently, you’re not a very good liar. She’s worried about you. We all are.”
Talk about a kick to the feels. This wasn’t something I’d be able to run away from or fight with my magic. I couldn’t even punch it in the face. I needed help. I needed friends. No matter how much I pushed them away, they just kept coming back. Nazareth was right. Love hurts. Good thing I knew how to take a beating.
I focused on the ceiling. “I’ve been an ass.”
“Pretty much.”
“And yet you’re here, on the other side of the city, in the middle of the night, taking blood samples to help me.”
Nate grinned and offered me his hand. “That’s what friends are for, Laz.”
Walking into the living room felt like walking onto the set of Intervention. Pony sat in his ancient rocking chair. Next to him, on the sofa, Emma leaned over to put down a steaming cup of coffee. Beth sat on the opposite end of the sofa, her hands resting stiffly on her knees. The collective attitude in the room seemed to be tense, as if they were all expecting me to hunch over and start muttering about My Precious any minute.
Nate slid by me, cooler full of blood in hand. “I’m going to run these up to the lab and see what I can see.”
“How long will it take?” I asked.
“Should know something by tomorrow afternoon. There’s an epidemiologist at Stanford who owes me a favor. If you don’t hear from me though make sure you check in. The OBGYN says Leah could go any day now.”
I frowned. “Go?”
“The baby?” He stuck his chest out as if he were proud of himself.
Right. I wasn’t the only one with a kid on the way. Nate and Leah were about to welcome a baby girl, their first too. The two of them had their lives so much more together than I did. I was happy for them, but also a little jealous.
He smiled and waved. “Take care, everyone.”
As he made f
or the door, I called after him. “Say, you did get your ukulele and golf clubs back, right?”
“Grandma Frieder ring, too.” He shouldered open the door and gave me a thumbs-up.
“Thank the gods,” Pony grunted as soon as Nate closed the door behind him. “I thought he’d never leave.”
I tucked my hands into my pockets and looked around, even though there wasn’t anything else to see. “So, uh, where’s Baron Samedi?”
“Right, I’ll go summon him.” Pony stood, sliding his thumbs under his suspenders. “It’ll just be a bit. Why don’t you join me, Beth? This old man needs some help getting candles down from the top shelf.” He flashed me a knowing grin that told me he was really hoping to catch a glimpse up Beth’s skirt. Asshole.
He and Beth scuttled out of the room toward the rear of the house, leaving me and Emma alone.
“So,” I said, rocking back on my heels. “Bet you ran the plates on the white truck parked outside?”
Emma crossed her arms. It took some doing with one of those arms in a sling, but she was determined. “I’m not a cop right now.”
“I kind of don’t know how to react to you when you’re not being a cop. It’s weird.”
“You can start with an apology,” she suggested.
I deflated with a breath. “Sorry.”
“I accept your apology.” She uncrossed her arms and reached for the coffee.
“That’s it?” I frowned. That couldn’t be it. That was never it when it came to apologizing to a woman for being a jerk.
“That’s it.” She sipped her coffee and cringed. Pony never could make decent coffee. “That and you’re taking me to dinner when we get you all fixed up.”
My head shot up. “Why, Emma. Are you asking me out? Whatever happened to the notion that you don’t date?”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, Casanova, but not every girl in New Orleans wants to date you.”
I placed a hand against my chest dramatically, pretending to be offended. “Ouch. My pride. It hurts.”
The tension in the next silence was less than before. I glanced down the hall to the small office where Pony did his less delicate magic. The door was cracked open. He was probably spying on us. Jerk. I’d apologized. What else was there to say?