Organ Grind (The Lazarus Codex Book 2)

by E. A. Copen

  Chapter Three

  I stayed where I was, frozen. How long had it been? Just a little over seven years. I could still remember the last time I saw her. She’d come to my arraignment. Sat in the front row wearing a lavender blouse and black skirt. As soon as I entered my guilty plea, she got up and stormed out of the courtroom.

  When she didn’t answer my letters, I told myself it was over. She was dead to me. I hadn’t even looked for her when I got out.

  And now here she was.

  What do you say to an ex you haven’t seen in seven years? Normal people probably didn’t have that problem, because normal people got on with their lives and quit bumping into ghosts from the past. I supposed I should ask how she was, but something else was already in the process of falling out of my mouth.

  “What are you doing here?” Smooth, that’s me.

  She shook coffee from her fingers, her mouth still hanging open. “Well, I was on my way to pick up Pipi, but it looks like I’ll be late.” She didn’t sound irritated, more stunned.

  I picked up the book, but quickly realized the futility of handing it back to Beth with coffee all over her chest and arms and grabbed a handful of napkins. “Here.”

  “Thanks.” She took the napkins and began mopping up the mess.

  The smart thing for me to do would be to set the book aside and excuse myself without making any further conversation. I wasn’t in any condition to do any chatting with the ex who’d abandoned me when I needed her most. Already, an old bitter taste had crept into my mouth as I recalled how we parted. If I stayed, I’d demand an explanation, and that would lead to a shouting match. Knowing Beth, a shouting match where she used lots of big words in other languages to insult me.

  Then again, I’d never been particularly smart.

  “Pipi?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Who’s Pipi?”

  She stopped trying to dry herself off and gave me a familiar skeptical look, the kind she used to give me when I tried to get her to do my homework for me. “He’s a three-thousand-year-old mummy, Lazarus. Pretty sure you don’t have to worry about him.”

  “I wasn’t...”

  Beth cracked a smile, and I realized for the first time she’d been joking. Damn her. How was I supposed to not smile back?

  She held out her hand. “My book?”

  “Right.” As I handed it over, I read the title aloud. “The Oxford Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. A little light reading?”

  “A little.” Beth tucked the cover of the book against the coffee stain on her shirt.

  We stood in awkward silence for a long moment, trying to decide if we should acknowledge the elephant in the room. I rocked back on my heels, jammed my hands into my pockets. “So, mummies, huh? You working with the museum?”

  “Sort of,” she said without meeting my eyes. “More like Doctor Feneque is. I’m just his assistant. Pipi is my responsibility though. He’s one of the oldest mummies in the world, the oldest one on tour in the United States. It’s really a privilege to get to travel with him, even it does mean I don’t get to put my roots down. You know, I’m surprised to see you here. I’d heard…I thought…”

  “I got out,” I answered quickly.

  “Oh.” She glanced around, looking to make an exit probably. The conversation had gotten awkward, though ending it on that note would be even more awkward for the both of us. I thought she’d end things with a quick goodbye and be on her way, but she turned back to me. “So, are you still doing the necromancer thing?”

  “Yeah, sort of. Can’t really talk about it, but I’ve got a legit business.”

  Beth’s eyes sparkled. “Really? That’s interesting. Say, are you busy later? I’d like to catch up, and I might have something interesting for you. Paying work.”

  Say no. Every part of my rational brain screamed for me to turn the other way and keep from getting involved with her. Just because she was back didn’t mean I should see her. She didn’t owe me answers, and I didn’t owe her my time, especially after she just left me to rot in prison. But I was curious to know where she’d been and what she’d been up to. Maybe she had a good reason for leaving me high and dry.

  Besides, how cool would it be if her paying work was raising the shade of a three-thousand-year-old mummy? She hadn’t indicated her paying work had anything to do with the mummy she’d apparently come to pick up, but the possibility was there. That ritual would undoubtedly be one of the coolest of my career. That was if I could even pull it off.

  “Yeah, definitely. I’ve got an office on Magazine Street. I’m supposed to meet another client at three, so how about four?”

  “Perfect.” Beth shuffled the book to her other hand and reached into the purse she had on her arm to fetch a small card that she held out to me. “My number. In case something changes.” After I took the business card, she smiled again. “It’s good to see you, Lazarus. Really.”

  “Likewise.”

  She glanced left and right, the smile fading. “Well, um, guess I should go get my mummy.” Beth stepped around me, turned and started backing away. “Four o’clock?”

  I nodded. “Four.”

  She beamed, but the smile was cut short when she backed into a chair and nearly tripped. I darted forward to catch her, but she kept herself upright. “I’m okay. Really.” She smoothed her hands over herself, blew out a breath and turned to hurry away.

  I watched her walk down the hall. Typical Beth. She was the smartest person I’d ever known, but also the clumsiest. In those heels, I wasn’t surprised to see her tripping, but they did do nice things for her legs.

  “Creep,” said the barista.

  I stuck out my tongue at her because that was the mature thing to do.

  It was just before two when I left the morgue, meaning I had roughly an hour and a half of time to do any digging before I had to drive over to the shop to meet my next client. That time would be best spent in the Quarter asking the usual suspects if they knew anything about missing organs. While I wanted to pursue the organ auction side of things, it was only a hunch, and I wasn’t going to risk my life on a hunch. Better to gather more information first. That meant talking to Sybille, probably the only gray witch left in the city who might not shoot me on sight.

  Sybille’s shop, Spellbound, was tucked into a lesser-traveled section of St. Ann Street, partially because of its unique nature. While most voodoo shops in The Quarter are geared toward tourists, Spellbound was more oriented toward the serious practitioners in town. She kept a small stock of herbs, candles, and stones in the front of the tiny shop, but anyone who was anyone knew Spellbound had a secret entrance in the back. That’s where you went if you wanted the real thing.

  I parked in the rear lot and walked toward the unassuming metal door. A sign on the door announced that deliveries would be taken at the front door and that trespassers would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I ignored the sign and pressed my hand to the space beside the metal door handle. A little jolt of magical energy made the lock click open. Easy enough for anyone with a modicum of talent; impossible for a norm.

  The door opened on an unimpressive room lined with shelves. Each shelf was jam-packed with glass jars with handwritten labels. Spellbound had everything from powdered cat bone to alligator entrails. Scanning the shelves, I didn’t see any human remains, which wasn’t surprising. I hadn’t expected to find what I was looking for that easily.

  The door at the back of the room opened, and Sybille stepped through. She was an older, grandmotherly type with her long, silver hair pulled into a bun that was almost bigger than her head. A three-legged cane kept her upright as she shuffled from the main shop into the back to greet me.

  “Lazarus Kerrigan. I thought you’d know better than to walk into my shop.” She lifted the cane and pointed emphatically back the way I’d come. “Out.”

  “I’m not here to cause trouble.” I raised my hands in front of my body so she could see I meant no harm. It didn’t work.

  Sybill
e’s expression hardened and her icy blue eyes narrowed. “I said out, young man. Don’t make me tell you a third time.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll go. Just one quick thing. If I wanted to buy and sell human remains, who would I talk to?”

  Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say. Sybille’s jaw shook, and I swear her right eye grew larger than her left. When her normally pale face turned bright red, I figured I’d cut in with an explanation before she blasted me with something. Sybille might’ve been old, but people in the community feared and respected her for a reason.

  “I’m consulting for the police on a case,” I offered, hoping a legitimate job would make her think twice about kicking me out. “Five bodies have shown up at the morgue over the last five days, each one missing their lungs, liver, stomach, and intestines.”

  The redness in her face faded. She studied me with a keen eye a long moment, a moment longer than felt comfortable, and then lifted her chin. “What makes you think someone is selling them?”

  I finally lowered my hands because I didn’t think she was going to blast me with a spell, at least not without another warning. “It’s more of a hunch really. The way the organs were removed doesn’t suggest an attack by something wild. Whatever it is was selective and consistent in what it took from the bodies, and took them only after the people were already dead. There were no pieces left behind, so I figure the body parts are whole, wherever they are.”

  Sybille grunted and waddled over to a padded rocking chair in the corner next to a cash register. She gestured to the stool in front of her, so I sat. Her displeased glare made me feel like I was five and had just stolen a cookie from grandma’s special cookie jar.

  “Ghouls?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “Haven’t talked to them yet. Between you and me, I’d rather not. Besides, ghouls usually eat the whole corpse. They don’t fillet it for choice cuts.”

  She rubbed her chin. “Human organs have a number of uses in black magic. The specific organs you mention though don’t seem to have much in common. The intestines and stomach could be dried and used in a powder for nausea. The lungs make a paste sometimes used for smoker’s cough, and the liver is for anemia. You say they left the hearts, though?”

  I nodded.

  “That makes no sense.” She tapped her fingers on her cane. “The heart is the most powerful organ. If there were a place to buy and sell these things, and I’m not saying there is, then the heart would be worth the most money. Why leave the most profitable organ behind?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Of course, I didn’t have the years of experience that Sybille had. Without her telling me, I’d never have guessed that dried and powdered stomach might be used to ease a stomach ache. It almost seemed counterintuitive, but that was the way most traditional magic worked. Destroy the thing that’s causing you trouble, ingest it, and the problem goes away. I couldn’t imagine there being much of a market for it, not with modern medicine, but then this was America, and there were millions of people unable to pull together the cash to see a doctor. Maybe there was more of a need than I thought.

  Of course, if the organs had been ground up and used in medicine, my tracking spell wouldn’t work either. With that possibility now on the table, I’d have to move my timeline up and try the tracking spell sooner rather than later. Maybe I could get it in before I met with Paula’s friend.

  “Who else would know how to make these powders?” I asked.

  “A few of us,” Sybille said, nodding slowly. “Though not many would be willing to do it. The Baron is supposed to be in town. Or his representative.” Her chair creaked as she leaned forward, eyes fixed on mine. “Some people are saying you killed a very important person a few weeks ago, Lazarus. Someone whose absence has created a vacuum of power. There will be those who seek to fill it. If that’s true, that is.”

  I swallowed. I’d been afraid of something like that happening if I killed Vesta, though I didn’t think I had a choice. While I didn’t know how many gods there were in New Orleans, I figured she wasn’t the only one. If there were more, they might make a move soon to try and widen their power base. But I didn’t see what that had to do with the missing organs unless…

  “Sybille, are there any gods who might do this?”

  She chuckled and leaned back in her chair. “Most would grind someone to a pulp for fun if they thought they could get away with it. Fortunately for us humans, the old gods aren’t as powerful as they once were. My witchy friends tell me the gods can only hold sway if they’re remembered. New Orleans remembers the Loa, and so The Baron and his people appear. We honor the saints, and so they are real. But goddesses like Vesta?” She shook her head. “The gods that live among us have had to find their own way to survive. It’s not unthinkable that they’d resort to devouring parts of us. It could be anyone. Or it could be fae. It could even be a mad surgeon for all I know. Have you tried a tracking spell?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet, and I’m not confident it will work.”

  “Well, then you’d better get on that. Which reminds me…” Sybille hopped out of her chair and went to rifle through some shelves, pushing glass jars aside. “I have something that may be of use to you.”

  Sybille finally found the jar she wanted and hopped down from her step stool to limp back over to where I still sat on the ottoman. In her hands, she held a small box. When she flipped open the lid, I frowned at the tea bags inside.

  “I’m not really a tea drinker,” I said.

  “This is a special tea. They call it ironwort in the old country. Use it when you go to the place with no death.”

  I wanted to refuse her, but she plucked out one of the bags and forced it into my palm, closing my fingers around it. After a firm pat on my closed fist, she ushered me to the back door. “If you see Pony, tell him I said hello,” she said and practically shoved me out the door to slam it closed behind me.

  I waited to hear the magical lock click back into place before turning around and staring down at the thing in my hand. A tea bag. I wasn’t sure how it was supposed to be useful, or where this magical place of no death was, but I shoved it into my coat pocket anyway. Sybille had always been odd, but at least she’d given me something, even if it was utterly useless.

  With a sigh, I checked my watch. I still had another hour. So far, The Quarter had been a bust. Time to try a different approach.

  I pulled out my cell and scrolled through my missed calls. Aside from all the calls from Emma, someone else had left me an excited message over the last week, someone I hadn’t expected to hear from. Maybe he knew something useful though. Who better to ask about criminal activities than another criminal?

  Darius picked up on the second ring. Or rather, one of his goons did. After a little back and forth, I convinced the goon to let me talk to Darius directly. He turned away from the phone and shouted, “Yo, Darius,” so loud it left my ears ringing until Darius came to the phone.

  “Hey, Magic Man! How’s it goin’?”

  “Hey, Darius. I’ve got another case, one that I could use your help on. Mind if I swing by the bar?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation before Darius said, “Nah, man. I ain’t at the bar. Come by my crib. I’ll give you the address.”

  I jotted his address down on the back of Beth’s business card and hung up. The house number seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it. At least Darius had agreed to meet with me.

  I was just about to head to my car with a cacophony of pipes broke the silence. The noise was coming from around the corner, but steadily coming closer. After a few moments, a cart rolled into view on the sidewalk. But it wasn’t just any cart. This was one of those carts where a guy turns the wheel and runs a paper through the machine to create a song. A barrel organ. I’d seen them around, performing on street corners for change, especially in the Quarter while the tourists were out heavy. It was odd to see one out this far, but I guess even they had to move around.

  Instead of strolling by, the ma
n paused directly in the exit, set down his cart and sped up how fast he turned the music through the organ. Dammit, I’d have to wait for him to move to pull out, which he didn’t seem to have any intention of doing. Maybe if I asked nicely.

  I crossed the parking lot. “Hey, pal, you’re blocking the exit. Mind moving?”

  He didn’t answer me. He just stood there, turning the music through. But something was odd about how he moved. His limbs were stiff and jerky, almost robotic. When he raised his eyes to meet mine, they looked oddly panicked, as if he were pleading for help. It triggered something deep inside me, the instinct to intervene. But I couldn’t see what might be wrong.

  “Hey, man, you okay?” I took a step forward.

  A big white monkey came screeching out of the organ. He was dressed in a red and gold vest and wore a little fez hat just like the organ-grinder capuchins of old, but this guy looked anything but friendly with his fangs flashing. I jerked back when the monkey tried to clamp its fangs down on my arm. It danced with its arms up high, making the creepiest monkey sounds I’d ever heard.

  All the while, the organ grinder played his tune, sweat racing down the sides of his face.

  “What the hell?” I took another step back. “What’s with the baboon?”

  The song stopped suddenly, and the organ grinder lifted his hat, holding it out to me with shaky hands. “Please.”

  I stared at the extended hat, the freaked-out organ grinder, the screaming baboon… The whole thing was more than a little unsettling, but if putting money in the hat made it go away, I was more than willing.

  “What a scam,” I grumbled fishing out my wallet.

  As soon as I had a few ones and fives out, deciding how much I was willing to part with, the baboon screamed and lunged forward. It grabbed the whole handful of bills, jerking them out of my hand.

  “Hey!”

  When I took a step forward, it roared at me and snapped again with its giant freaking fangs.

  I lifted my hands in surrender. “Whatever. Just get out of my way, will you? Go scam someone else.”