Organ Grind (The Lazarus Codex Book 2)

by E. A. Copen

  Organ Grind

  Book 2 of The Lazarus Codex

  By E.A. Copen

  This is a work of fiction. Names, persons, places, and incidents are all used fictitiously and are the imagination of the author. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, events or locales, is coincidental and non-intentional, unless otherwise specifically noted.

  No portion of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  E.A. Copen

  Organ Grind

  Book 2 of The Lazarus Codex

  © E.A. Copen 2018

  All rights reserved.

  No one is above the law. At least, that’s what federal agent Judah Black believes. Her job is to police supernaturals who have come out of hiding to live alongside humans. Read her story from the beginning. To find out how to get Fortunate Son, and another novella, for FREE, check out the link at the end of this book.

  Chapter One

  A loud bang echoed through the apartment.

  I flinched away from the light stinging my eyes and a jackhammer went to work at my temples. From where I lay, stewing in my own juices under the itchy wool blanket, I could hear someone in the kitchen opening cupboards, pulling out drawers, and undoubtedly making a wreck of the place. I didn’t know what they were looking for, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to stand for some asshole breaking into my place to root through my things. Hung over or not, I was a necromancer, dammit, and no self-respecting member of New Orleans’ magical community would dare let someone breach their private domain. Besides, my bladder was screaming at me.

  With a groan, I rolled out of bed. My hand caught the half-empty bottle of beer on the way out. I downed a swig before staggering toward the door. It’d been days since I’d been out of my bedroom to do anything other than visit the bathroom, which meant my staff was close at hand. I grabbed it from the corner and jerked the door open.

  The smell of bacon and eggs wafted from the kitchen along with the heavenly deep aromatics of coffee. My stomach growled to remind me I’d drunk my dinner the last few nights.

  As if in response, my landlady popped her head around the corner, her short blonde hair pulled back with two butterfly clips, an odd look for the meanest woman I knew. Even odder was that she’d be here making breakfast. Her upper lip curled. “You look like shit, Lazarus.” There was the Paula I knew. “When was the last time you had a shower? Smells like someone spilled a brewery in here.”

  I scowled in response and shuffled toward the bathroom. When I came back out, she’d dropped a plate loaded with thick cut pepper bacon, over easy eggs, and hash browns onto the table. Next to it sat the biggest, blackest cup of coffee I’d ever seen. I eyed the plate with a frown. It looked and smelled amazing, but Paula was fae, and I knew better than to accept any gifts from fae, especially when I was already indebted to her being behind on the rent.

  “Paula…”

  She waved a piece of bacon at me, the other hand on her hip. “This isn’t a favor, Laz. I’ve got something that needs doing, but you’re in no shape to do it until you’ve had solid food. And a shower.” Her nose wrinkled. “Maybe two showers.”

  “Good.” It came out more like a grunt than a word as I plopped into one of two kitchen chairs. I went for the coffee first, pulling a nearly empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s across the table to sweeten it.

  Paula watched me take the long pull, her arms crossed.

  “What?” I put the cup down. I’d inhaled half of it without realizing. “Hair of the dog. You’re a bartender. Don’t act like you’ve never been where I’m at.” When she didn’t move or respond, I added, “If this is about the back rent I owe you, I told you, I’m just waiting for Baron Samedi to pay me for the last job.”

  “It’s not even the rent, Laz.” She uncrossed her arms and sank into the chair across from me. “It’s everything else. It’s The Baron. You shouldn’t even be involved with him. It’s the thugs you’re calling friends now, the constant covering I’ve been doing whenever those damn messengers from Faerie show up.”

  I cringed and turned away. Two weeks ago, I’d found out my girlfriend was not only fae like Paula, but the princess of the Summer Court. Odette had lied to me, and what was worse, she’d used magic to make me fall in love with her in the first place. She’d been sending messengers with all kinds of apologies ever since, ranging from letters to sculptures. I’d dodged all of them thanks to Paula. Only reason I didn’t owe her for all of that was that she got a kick out of seeing their faces when she told the emissaries of Summer to go screw themselves.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled to my feet. I had one sock on, and my other foot was bare. What’d happened to my other sock?

  “Jesus, you must really be fucked up to apologize to a fae. You’re lucky I like you.”

  Answering her would’ve just made things worse, so I scooped up some hash browns and shoved them in my mouth before asking, “So, what is it that needs doing?”

  “Friend of mine wants to hire you for a job. I tried to tell her you were on hiatus, but she said it was urgent.”

  Hiatus. Fancy word for spending two weeks wallowing in my own self-pity if there ever was one. I hadn’t been to the shop since the police found a body on my doorstep. Not that the body itself bothered me. They’d long ago cleaned all that up, and I’d helped nab the killers. I had to be in the right frame of mind to do any readings or seances, and I was about as far from that as a whale from the desert. Maybe a little work would do me good.

  “Don’t suppose your friend mentioned what kind of job?” I took another sip of coffee, this time pausing to savor it. “Because if it’s another friend who wants to talk to their dead cat, I swear—”

  She shook her head. “It’s nothing like that.”

  “Good, because I’m not ever doing that again.” I shivered, and it had nothing to do with the temperature. If you think cats are dicks in life, wait until you meet a reanimated one.

  “She didn’t give me specifics, but I got the feeling it was one of those life-or-death situations. Since you specialize in the latter of the two, I went ahead and made you an appointment later this afternoon. You should have plenty of time to get out to the morgue and check on that body your detective friend keeps leaving messages about.”

  Shit, that’s what I got for telling Paula to filter all my calls. She took it literally. I hadn’t meant to dodge Detective Emma Knight’s calls, especially if she needed my help on a case. I also knew I wasn’t in any shape to do any decent police consulting. Physically, I was fine. The stitches from my surgeries had dissolved, and I’d gotten all the staples removed, which was just the excuse I’d needed one day to go grab more booze. Even the worst of the bruising from my fight with the goddess Vesta had faded to a light yellow. But I didn’t want to face Emma again, not after accidentally avoiding her for two weeks.

  I shoved a whole strip of bacon into my mouth. It was nice, crispy like proper bacon, but the very act of chewing felt exhausting.

  Paula’s frown deepened. “Please tell me you’re not like this because of some woman?”

  My back stiffened. Some woman? Odette wasn’t just some woman. She was… I let the thought trail off, unsure how to finish. How much of that was me and how much was the spell?

  Odette’s leaving had broken something inside me, something I hadn’t quite figured out how to put back together. But I told myself I hadn’t holed myself up in the apartment and drank myself silly for two weeks because of Odette. I was recovering.

  I stabbed my eggs and watched them bleed yellow yolk everywhere. “I’ll have you know
a drunken stupor is a perfectly normal reaction to finding out gods are real and that you’re one of four people in the world who can kill them. It has nothing to do with her.”

  “Really?” Paula crossed her arms. “Then why didn’t you say her name just now?”

  “Because pronouns are a thing.” I pushed my plate away, unfinished, and stood on wobbly legs. “Tell your friend I’ll take her case and let Detective Knight know I’ll be down to the station before noon.”

  “You’d better hurry, then,” Paula called after me as I shuffled toward the shower. “It’s already eleven.”

  After a quick icy shower to try and shock the hangover out of my system, I grabbed a mostly clean t-shirt from the laundry hamper and tugged on a ripped-up old pair of jeans hanging from a hook on the wall. Paula was gone when I came back out, which was a relief. Her voice had been grating on my nerves since I got up. Normally, the throaty tone didn’t bother me, so I chalked it up to the headache I hadn’t been able to shake just yet.

  I went to the window in the kitchen and peered through the blinds. The sunlight filtering through the window still stung too, but at least it wasn’t raining. Heat danced on the pavement below, meaning it was already well on its way to being an oven outside. I popped a couple of painkillers, donned a pair of oversized sunglasses, and shrugged on my coat just the same. It might’ve been hot and sticky out there, but my body temp had been hovering around ninety-five degrees; I was always cold anymore. Fun side effect of becoming the Pale Horseman, I supposed.

  My psyche now hovered closer to death than any other human’s on Earth. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what that meant yet, aside from my newfound ability to see and remove souls from living people. Baron Samedi, who’d talked me into taking the job, had been suspiciously absent whenever I went looking for answers.

  My junker car was the only vehicle in the parking lot of Paula’s bar when I came down the stairs. She sat as rusty and dented as I remembered her, except there were some brand new scratches on the bumper from where the cops had tried to tow it over some unpaid parking tickets. I gave the hood a loving tap on my way to the driver’s side and climbed on in.

  Only once I was safely in the car did I pull out the cell phone and stare at the screen, trying to work up the courage to talk to Emma. One deep breath. Two. On the third, I dialed the number.

  She picked up on the second ring. “You’d better have a damn good reason for dodging my calls, Lazarus.”

  Ouch. Not even a hello before she ripped into me. But that wasn’t unexpected, at least not from Emma Knight. “Good morning to you, too,” I grumbled.

  “It’s almost one,” she snapped back. A sigh followed, and I imagined her rubbing her forehead. “Well, I suppose I should be glad you’re not dead. Did you get my messages?”

  “All thirty of them. Guess you don’t have any other leads?”

  “None,” she replied. “And more bodies are stacking up. Weird bodies. Are you free? I’m headed to the coroner’s office right now to review the latest.”

  “Sure. I can be there in fifteen.” I hesitated, knowing I should apologize. “And Emma?”

  “Detective Knight today,” she corrected.

  I winced. I must’ve really pissed her off if she was taking away first-name privileges. “Yeah, sorry about not calling back.”

  She hung up on me without answering.

  I stared at the blinking call timer on the phone screen. Emma was normally short-tempered, but there had been more than just anger at me in her voice. She sounded…tired. This case must’ve really been a doozy if they were counting on me to provide a lead.

  My car groaned to life, and I drove the three miles across town to the coroner’s office.

  The Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office was an imposing, sandy, brick building of three stories over on Earhart Boulevard. With squat windows in two narrow rows, it looked more like an industrial building than a medical office. Like a lot of important offices, this one had relocated after Katrina barreled into the city. I hadn’t seen the original offices, but it was hard to imagine them being any cheerier. I recognized Knight’s Escalade in the parking lot and pulled in next to it.

  She was waiting in the lobby when I came through the glass doors. She stood with her back to me, arms crossed. Her dark, wiry hair hung in tightly curled and layered ringlets around her head, reminding me more of a lion’s mane than hair. When the little bell over the door chimed, she turned but didn’t uncross her arms. I felt her eyes travel over me, assessing, calculating. Her gaze stopped on the sunglasses, and she frowned.

  “Hey, Detective Knight.” I gave her a messy, half-hearted salute.

  Her nose twitched. “Are you drunk?”

  “Not for about six hours now.”

  Emma marched across the lobby, hooked a finger over the nosepiece of my sunglasses, and jerked them off my face. “Jesus. Seriously? I can’t believe you. You disappear for two weeks, duck my calls, and then show up hung over? What’s wrong with you?”

  I fumbled to snatch the glasses back, a difficult feat even with the extra foot of height I had on her. I wasn’t willing to risk getting too close to those pointy knees and elbows, especially with as pissed as she sounded.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” I finally managed, giving up. “I didn’t even know you were calling. My landlady is screening my calls because of—” My lips started to make her name, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “…harassment. I wasn’t planning on being here when I sat down to drink last night.”

  Her shoulders relaxed. She tilted her head and offered the sunglasses back to me. “Nobody ever expects to hit rock bottom. Just promise me you’re done dodging me, okay? I really need your help with this one.”

  I studied her posture carefully. Everything I knew about Emma said it might be a trick. She didn’t cool off that fast, not without kicking some ass first, though her body language and expression said she was sincere. Still, I was careful plucking the sunglasses from her hands. Instead of putting them back on, however, I hung them from my collar. The light still hurt, but I’d look conspicuous with them on.

  “Hey,” I said, my tone gentle, “what’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” She turned her head. “Let’s just get this over with. Moses is already upstairs, waiting on us.”

  I nodded and followed her to an elevator. Emma didn’t seem to be in the mood for small talk, so I didn’t attempt any, instead letting the elevator music fill the space between us. The air felt stale as we rose to the next floor. When the doors opened, the astringent scent of bleach and other chemicals burned my nose.

  Detective Moses Moses lounged near a door about halfway down the hall. He stepped away from the wall and came to meet us. He looked no worse for wear, considering he’d been the hostage of a goddess for an afternoon, but my eyes didn’t miss the slightly more pronounced hitch in his step. He extended a hand to me. “Good to see you, Lazarus. Surprised we haven’t seen you before this. You been on vacation?”

  “On a bender,” Knight muttered under her breath.

  I ignored her like the professional I was and answered, “Something like that. Your leg all healed up?”

  “Oh, about as good as you can expect at my age.” He patted his knee for emphasis. “Ever find your girlfriend?”

  My throat felt tight. “Ex-girlfriend now, but yeah. She’s fine, as far as I know.”

  His eyes widened like someone had stepped on his toes at the news.

  Emma interrupted by clearing her throat. “Shall we? Dr. James is waiting.”

  Moses swaggered over and pulled open a wood-paneled door that was lined with stainless steel on the other side and held it. Emma shivered as she stepped into the room, so it must’ve been cold. Places where they keep dead bodies normally are.

  As soon as I entered the room, I felt the dead pulling at me, ghosts and shades both clawing at my mental shields, each one looking for either a vessel to ride out or a mouthpiece for their personal sob story. I paused long enoug
h to envision building up some thin cement walls in my mind’s eye to secure my mind. By the time I’d finished that, Emma and Moses were already shaking hands with a tall, good-looking man with dark hair and a dimple in his chin. The guy’s smile wouldn’t have been out of place in a toothpaste ad. Here, it just felt creepy. And weird. I instantly disliked him.

  “…and this is Lazarus Kerrigan,” Emma said, gesturing to me. “He’s here as a consultant.”

  The guy stepped toward me and offered a hand. “Lazarus Kerrigan, eh? Any relation to the Lazarus Kerrigan that runs the occult shop over on Magazine street?”

  “That’s me, Doctor—” I squinted at the gleaming metal nametag pinned to his white coat. “—James.”

  He squeezed my hand until it hurt, all the while staring at me with that creepy grin on his face. I briefly thought about returning the favor, but I didn’t want to seem juvenile, so I just reached around with my other hand and gave his back three nice, hard smacks. His eyes widened as the gesture sent him tumbling forward slightly, but he still recovered with an annoying amount of grace and adjusted his white coat.

  When Dr. James spoke again, it was business as usual, as if I hadn’t just made him trip. “Well, it’s a good thing the detectives have brought you in, Mr. Kerrigan. The more help we can get, the better.”

  “You think they’re ritual murders?” I asked, rocking back on my heels.

  His perfect eyebrows shot up. “Murders? Oh no, I’m sorry. You must’ve been misinformed. On that front, the office has been unusually quiet.”

  I studied his face, trying to determine if he was pulling my leg and then looked at Emma. “If you didn’t call me here to consult on a murder case, why am I here?”

  As if in answer, the doctor walked through a set of swinging double doors, returning a moment later pushing a stainless-steel table. A body lay on top of it—I could tell by the way the sheet sat. Moses and Emma took up positions on either side of the body, so I followed their lead, choosing to stand by Emma.