by E. A. Copen
But unless I wanted to meet Anubis again and take a trip across his bridge, I was going to have to get patched up in short order.
Beth’s eyes trailed to my leg, considering. Before I could stop her, she grabbed my leg, jerked up the fabric and placed her hands over the burning wound.
If I thought it hurt before, I was wrong. The magic that poured out of her and over the wound felt like a thousand angry hornets stinging me all at once while someone peeled the skin off. I yelped and tried to move away, but I’d lost coordination and Beth had a good grip. The more healing magic she pumped into me, the worse it hurt, the pain traveling further from the injury through the rest of me in nauseating waves. Eventually, I had enough breath to gasp out a single word. “Stop!”
She lifted her hands, and suddenly I could breathe again. My leg still pulsed with the burning pain, but I’d take that any day over having angry hornets swimming in my bloodstream.
“It’s not working,” she said, in a panic and reached to place her hands on me again.
“No!” I jerked my leg out of reach.
She froze, and I let out a relieved sigh, my head dropping to the grass. It was cool against my head, never a good sign. I was normally a lot cooler than my environment. Something was definitely off, and not just with my body temp.
Beth had healed me in the past, and it had never felt like that. Usually, healing magic felt pretty pleasant, like a kiss on a warm breeze. Relaxing even. That had been anything but. Maybe it was because she was so out of practice, but I doubted it. I could feel the magic that she was using, and it had the familiar gentle hum of healing magic. No, something in me was causing that reaction. Healing magic didn’t work on me anymore.
Which meant I needed to think of an alternative. Quick. Though I didn’t know how I would with the pounding in my temples.
Just as I was about to give up, a familiar voice nearby asked, “How bad is he?”
Beth’s head jerked to the side, sending dark curls flying. “Dr. Feneque?”
Shit. If he was here, we were royally screwed. He was dangerous, especially in light of how his brothers had just treated us. We had to get away. I tried to tell her, but my voice didn’t cooperate. I’d used the last of my energy to get away from Beth’s terrible, stinging healing.
Seb Feneque hovered at the edge of my vision with the encroaching shadows, the golden glow of his soul plainly visible. I hadn’t activated my Soul Vision willingly, but as bad off as I was, maybe it had just come on automatically. Overlaying his soul, his very human-looking skin mask frowned at me. He unbuttoned the suit jacket he wore and squatted right next to my head.
“I can help you, but only this once.” He extended a hand. “And you must take my hand.”
I didn’t know if I had the energy to put my palm in his. All I wanted to do was close my eyes. Maybe I would after a little nap.
No. I willed my eyes back open. Sleep meant death, and I wasn’t ready to go. Not yet. I still didn’t have the answers Emma needed, and Beth was in danger. I had to survive. Using willpower I didn’t know I had, I shifted my shoulder and flung my hand at Seb. He caught it and crushed it in his iron grip.
The golden glow of his soul intensified, light flowing from his center and into the normally darker tendrils that moved through the rest of his body, making them glow. Like a sun going supernova, his soul swelled, going from gold to red, all the while pumping the same color through the rest of his body…and into mine. I watched without understanding as his light flowed into my hand and shot through my arm, and felt more than saw the power fly into my chest. It hit me left of center and knocked all the breath out of me.
I expected it to be chilly, but the magic—whatever it was—was warm and welcoming, the sensation more emotional than physical. It felt like someone had found a way to bottle a barbeque on a sunny summer day, the joy of sharing something with family and friends.
As the sensation flowed through me, strength came with it. The slight euphoria turned into a swell of other emotions. Confidence. Assurance. Power. The familiar surge of magic I felt every time I stepped into a cemetery and lowered my shields. It was as if the air were made of raw energy, free for the taking. All I had to do was harness it.
And then something in me snapped. My magic rose unbidden, the same magic that I used to call on shades and ghosts, except this time it had attached itself to Seb’s soul. Normally, when I summoned shades, I had to pump my own magic into them to make them stay on this plane. How much magic I put in determined how long they would stay, and how strong they’d be. But whatever power I’d called up seemed to work in reverse, pulling energy from Seb’s soul instead of pumping it in. As soon as I realized what was happening, I tried to shut it down, but the power was new, unfamiliar. It was like building a wall of sticks in front of the flood when I needed the Hoover Dam.
I slammed my shields into place as quick as I could, all of them. The effort of doing it left me dizzy, and it trapped the energy I’d gleaned from Seb in my body, but at least I didn’t suck down any more.
When my shields snapped into place, Seb let out a small cry of surprise and fell backward opposite me. The two of us lay gasping in the grass without words, staring up at the clouds in a pink sunset sky.
“What the hell, guys?” Beth said from somewhere beyond my vision.
Guess it must’ve looked really weird. To someone who couldn’t see souls, Seb and I had just held hands and suddenly fell over. The burning pain in my leg was gone at least, along with the fire in my back where Imseti had slashed me. In fact, everything that had been hurting the last few days was better. Much better. I suddenly felt like I could run a marathon.
I lifted my hands into my vision and stared at them. What had I done?
Seb coughed and sat up, so I did the same. While I was fine, he looked terrible. His skin was a pale dusty color, and sweat coated his forehead. He’d already been thin before, but it looked like he’d lost another twenty pounds since I saw him.
“What was that?” I asked.
Seb blinked bloodshot eyes at me. “You absorbed a part of my soul. It healed you.”
Absorbed? I winced. Since when had I been able to do that? I hadn’t even been able to see souls before The Baron made me a Horseman. Guess the ability to cannibalize souls and heal myself was part of the package. Freaky, but useful. Still not something I wanted to repeat.
Beth crawled over the grass and jerked up my pant leg to verify it. True to Seb’s words, the holes in my leg were gone. All that remained to suggest I’d ever been injured at all were the bloodstains.
“You don’t look so hot,” I said to Seb. “You’re not about to turn to ash and fly away are you?”
“Fortunately, no.” Seb stood with a grunt and offered me his hand. I stared at it for a minute before taking it. This time, all he did was help pull me to my feet.
Beth stood, looking from me to her boss, a deep frown on her face. “Would somebody please tell me what’s going on here?”
“Let’s get out of here first,” Seb said, glancing nervously back toward the monument. “My car is parked on the street. I’ll explain everything on the way.”
Seb Feneque’s car was a four-door Lexus hybrid in black. I hesitated at the sight of it, realizing that one of us was going to have to slide into the back. Part of me wanted to sit in front with Seb, but if I did, Beth might get upset. I was still unclear on their relationship, as it seemed to me they were more than just co-workers, though Beth said they weren’t sleeping together. The last thing I wanted to come off as was the over-protective crazy ex-boyfriend, but hell, maybe I was, because the very idea of him putting his hands on her made my skin crawl.
I opened the rear passenger door and slid into the center of the bench seat. A second later, Beth dropped into the back seat with me, and I scooted over. Maybe I’d misjudged things between them after all since Seb didn’t seem bothered.
I waited until he was in the car and had pulled into the moderately heavy evening traffic
headed out of the Quarter to start explaining things to Beth. “So, remember when you said something was different about me in the coffee shop and I said it was complicated?”
Beth crossed her arms. “Does it have something to do with this new title you seemed to have gained? The Pale Horseman?”
I nodded. “It’s sort of a long story how that happened, but ever since then, I’ve been able to see people’s souls if I try hard enough. I can look at a crowd of people and pick out the humans from the fae to the gods. And now, apparently, I can tap into someone else’s soul and regenerate injuries.”
“You know, before today, I’d have asked if you were feeling feverish if you said something like that.” She glanced at Seb in the front seat. “But I just watched you reach inside someone calling himself one of the sons of Horus and pull something invisible out before he turned to dust. So you’re what? Some kind of supernatural assassin?”
“I wish. Think my accountant will let me put that on my tax forms? It sounds way cooler than self-employed.”
Seb snorted in the front seat. “The title of the Pale Horseman is a mantle of power, passed from person to person throughout the ages. One of four such titles in the world.”
Beth leaned forward, sticking her head between the two front seats. “Whoa, like the four horsemen of the apocalypse?”
I frowned. “I don’t think I’m a herald of the end of the world.” I looked at Seb. He seemed to know a lot about it. “Am I?”
His shoulders rose and fell. “It’s difficult to say. That story is only told in one mythology, but if there were to be an apocalypse, I’m almost certain the current Horsemen would have a role to play. You are physical manifestations of things many mythologies consider signs of the end. The Pale Horseman title pre-dates Judeo-Christian mythology, however. And I have to say, I much prefer you as the Pale Horseman than the one that visited death upon the firstborn in my time.”
“So you can see gods,” Beth said turning back to me. “Why? Do you always…eat their souls?”
I held up a hand. “Back up there, Beth. You of all people should know that, unless it’s ice cream, I don’t eat anything that isn’t battered, deep fried, or smothered in some kind of sauce, souls least of all. Second, I’m sorta new to this myself. The Baron said some bullshit about maintaining balance and keeping the gods in check, but honestly? I took this gig because The Baron promised to help me find Lydia’s killer. I swear I don’t make a habit of hunting down gods in New Orleans. It just kind of…happens.”
She frowned at my answer and turned to Seb. “And you’re a god? Which one?”
Seb’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as if he were bracing for impact. “My name is Qebehsenuef.”
Beth blinked and relaxed in her seat, eyes staring forward but focused on nothing. From the blank look on her face, I couldn’t tell if she were angry, hurt, disappointed, or any of the above. I’d be pissed if I suddenly found out my boss was a god posing as a mortal, especially if said god’s brothers had just tried to kill me.
But not Beth. She kept a cool head, touching a finger to her chin after a while and nodding. “You know, that actually explains a lot.”
“On the plus side, you don’t seem like an evil god,” I said. “But you do know something about what your brothers are up to, and that’s the only reason we’re still talking.”
Seb’s eyes widened, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I’m cooperating now. I’ll tell you everything I know about my brothers and what they’ve been doing, but I swear, I don’t know everything. I haven’t spoken to my brothers in over a thousand years before this trip. We aren’t the most functional family.”
“Yeah, I kinda guessed that when Imseti had me kill Duamutef.” I watched the darkened landscape passing by outside my window. We’d left the magic of the Quarter and found the highway, headed south toward Paula’s, which I’d given directions to. Headlights flashed by at seventy miles an hour. I saw Duamutef’s soul in every one of them and wondered if I’d done the right thing. If I hadn’t, Imseti would’ve killed me and then made short work of Beth, and I was probably going to have to kill the three of them at some point anyway. Morningstar had been right about that. Still, it was never easy to take a life, even if the asshat deserved to die. I’d have nightmares about it for a long time.
“Duamutef is dead?” Seb’s voice was strained.
I’d forgotten he didn’t know. “Yeah, sorry. It was really the only way out.”
He nodded slowly. “I suppose you’ll do the same with the other two given the chance?”
I couldn’t lie to him. He deserved to know. “I don’t really see any way around it unless they leave me and everyone I care about alone.”
Seb frowned. “Which they will not do so long as you possess the sheut box.”
“Well then, that’s a good thing because Beth tossed them the box on the way out in exchange for my freedom, right, Beth?” I glanced over at her.
She sat next to me chewing on her bottom lip, her head ducked between her shoulders. Beth looked like a five-year-old who’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
“Right?” I repeated with more emphasis.
“Well, you see, the thing is…” She twisted in her seat and reached into the tiny purse clipped to the gold chain belt she wore. When her hand came out, it held a small wooden box no bigger than her palm. “Apparently, sheut boxes were kept inside another, larger box. I gave them the outer box.”
“You crafty woman you!” I grinned. That was the Beth I remembered.
“They will not stop until they get the box,” Seb said, taking the exit. “And they’ve already proven they’ll kill each other to get it. You’re not safe, Lazarus, not until that box is taken back where it belongs.”
“It belongs in a museum.” Beth cradled the small box against her chest.
Seb sighed. “The box belongs in Faerie, and whoever takes the box there and presents it to the Shadow Queen will become the queen’s consort.”
I almost choked on the next breath I drew. Queen’s consort? Nyx hadn’t said anything about that. No wonder Osric had looked at me the way he had. The bastard knew. But that left me with even more questions than answers.
“So that’s what they’re after? They want a title in Faerie, and they need the box to get it. But they had the box. Why put it up for auction then? Why didn’t Fade… Duamutef just take it back to Faerie if he had the damn thing sitting in his auction the whole time? And why are they taking faekin organs?”
“Rules and strength, respectively.” He sighed, his shoulders slumping. “And our curse. Since belief has waned and we have become forgotten, the only way we can survive is to devour the dead, each relying on a particular organ for sustenance. Hapi takes the lungs, Imseti the lungs, and Duamutef the stomach.”
I put a hand over my mouth and tried to keep myself from imagining how that worked out. He neglected to say it, but that meant Seb had to live on dead human intestines. Gross.
“I take only what I need to survive,” Seb continued. “But my brothers are not like me. The more we devour, the more powerful we become. I have aged, nearly becoming mortal, while they have flourished. But they’re fading too, even feeding as frequently as they do. Fae organs sustain us for longer and imbibe us with additional powers. My brothers consume more in the hopes of overcoming each other, and the challenge set forth by the Shadow Queen.”
“And the winner of this challenge becomes the queen’s consort,” I added, and Seb nodded. “Let me guess. You guys don’t age in Faerie, do you?”
“I have not been to Faerie, but Imseti claims it is so.”
“You mentioned rules,” Beth said. “What are the rules for this challenge?”
“Each of the five contenders must offer the other four a fair chance to prevail.” His eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror. “That is why the auction was held. My brothers had united against common foes with a temporary truce. The auction was a setup. A trap.”
I counted on
my fingers. If Seb wasn’t a contender, and only three of the brothers were competing, that left two more contestants.
I figured I was one, even if unwilling. Nyx had come to me under false pretenses to get me to go looking for her stupid box, which I guess had never been stolen in the first place. Not in the way she’d implied at least. She probably meant to spring it on me when I showed up with the damn box. Sneaky bitch. Couldn’t blame her though. Most guys would spring for the chance at a single night with someone like Nyx, let alone the title that came with it. But being Nyx’s consort would mean she’d have me on a leash, and I had no intention of being anyone’s dog.
That still left one unaccounted for. “Hey Seb, you’re not competing, are you?”
He shook his head and turned into Paula’s parking lot.
“Then who’s lucky guy number five?”
He parked the car in an empty space before answering, “The Knight of Shadow.”
I swallowed. The trap must’ve been for him and not me since the three brothers had no way of knowing Nyx had hired me to find her box. Now that I was on their radar though, I was competition. And Osric knew I had the box. He hadn’t even bid on it during the auction, which meant he hadn’t yet made a move. He still had an ace up his sleeve.
Beth touched my arm lightly, drawing my attention back to her. “It won’t be long before Imseti realizes what I’ve done. He’ll come looking for the box, Lazarus. He’ll find me. And when he does, he won’t be happy.”
My eyes fell on the box she had clutched against her chest with her other hand. Our options were limited. I could take try to get in contact with Nyx, except she hadn’t left any way to do that without first contacting Osric. The minute I called him, he’d want to take the box himself, and I wasn’t up for another fight. Not yet, anyway. Besides, I had no guarantees he’d show up until after dawn if I called him.
I could also surrender the box to Imseti. Now that I knew what was really going on, I didn’t want any part of it. I could let the last three of them duke it out and get on with my life. Except while they did, more people would die with each passing day. Imseti and Hapi were causing the accidents to the faekin in the city so they could take advantage, of that I was sure. But it wasn’t something I could call Emma about. I had no evidence, and she didn’t have a case. The worst these guys would get would be a few years in jail. That was nothing for a god. And when they got out, they’d come straight for the guy that helped put them there.