Death Rites

by E. A. Copen

  She wore her dark hair short, in a bob straight out of the roaring twenties. Ruby lips gleamed, always perfect and wet. Black satin gloves covered her hands and went all the way to her upper arms. Guess that was to make up for the lack of sleeves since the corset came without them. A blood-red ruby sparkled in the center of her throat against a black satin choker. Smoke drifted lazily from the cigarette she held in a long cigarette holder.

  I shrugged and relaxed in the chair. “Eight years, I think. Give or take.”

  A perfectly plucked eyebrow shot up. “I thought the judge gave you ten.”

  “Got out on good behavior, and managed not to do anything stupid enough to get me killed for two whole years afterward.”

  Persephone chuckled. “You? Good behavior? Oh, Lazarus, those two things together like cats and dogs, oil and water, night and—”

  “Life and death?” I opened one eye to find her amused expression had changed at the minor jab.

  She uncrossed her legs—long, beautiful legs—and stood. Placing one hand on either arm of the chair, she leaned in, giving me one hell of a view. But I’m a professional, and Persephone is a reaper, which technically makes her a co-worker, so I kept my gaze fixed on her face. Or tried to.

  “Who was it this time?” The corners of her mouth tightened as if she were resisting a smile.

  “Police detective who wants to take me in for homicide.” I shrugged. “They’re grasping at straws, and hoping leaning on me gets them a lead. I’m not an actual suspect.” At least, I hoped I wasn’t.

  She made a purring sound and crawled into my lap, gripping my chin with her gloved hand. “The mundane police should be the least of your worries. The Baron is awake. You’ll draw his attention.”

  The Baron? Crap.

  There was only one baron Persephone and I would talk about. Most knew him as Baron Samedi. While not a full god in his own right, he was a sort of intermediary between the mortal world and the world of gods, not totally unlike Persephone. Except Persephone was mostly harmless aside from reaping a few souls now and again. The Baron was well-known for being swift to judge mortals he deemed were misusing their gods-given talents. It also just so happened that his particular role placed him in charge of Persephone, and by extension, me. Guess that’s kind of a given when you’re the baron of death.

  The last thing I needed was him poking around in my life. The Baron and I already had history, and it wasn’t the good kind. If he was awake, then he was going to pay me a visit. It wasn’t a question of if he would, but when. And when he did, I wanted to have this whole murder thing wrapped up. Maybe that’d get me on his good side. He was known for punishing murderers.

  “Any chance he or any of the other Loa are involved in the murder of an exotic dancer named Brandi Lavelle?” I asked.

  Persephone threw her head back and laughed. My eyes went to the fine muscles of her throat as they flexed. God, I had to get out of there before I got myself into even deeper trouble.

  “Dear boy,” Persephone said, tracing a finger over the sharp curve of my jaw and down over my chest, “if The Baron were involved, you’d have no reason to ask that question. And you know death is his domain. No other would dare tread there without his blessing.” She hooked a finger in the waistline of my jeans.

  I jammed a thumb toward the back of the chair. “Okay then, you wouldn’t mind sending me back so I can find the murderer? The killer kinda dropped something on my doorstep that I’ve got to deal with.”

  She pressed her lips together, pouting. “Lazarus, you know that’s not how it works, sweetie. You used the Kiss of Life. You have to pay the price.”

  I cringed, remembering the last time I’d paid her price. I’d been stupid then, casting the spell without really knowing what it’d cost me. Maybe using that magic knowing the consequences was even dumber.

  Her fingernails dug into my hips.

  “Fine. Let’s just get this over with.”

  “Always in a hurry,” she mused and leaned forward to kiss me.

  Kissing a reaper isn’t good. Oh, on the surface I suppose it’s nice to have a body like that pressed against you. Gives a fella all kinds of stupid ideas. Right up until the pain kicks in. And not the fun kind.

  Lightning shot through my entire being as Persephone intensified the kiss, drinking in my life essence. I felt the tug at my heart, like someone had tried to shock me back to life using a defibrillator while I was still breathing. I gripped the arms of the chair until the fabric tore under my fingernails, and still, she drank away my life.

  Just when I thought she might drink me to death, her lips pulled away, and she let out a satisfied little sigh before wiping her mouth with two fingers. I collapsed against the chair, breathing heavy, still gritting my teeth as the last aftershocks of pain worked their way out of my system.

  “Keep that up and there won’t be much left for me to take,” she teased and stood. “Your soul’s tasting awful watered down these days.”

  “Add a little flour,” I quipped, my vision spinning.

  Persephone smiled and waved. “Give Odette my love.”

  The room around me darkened in degrees, dimming until I couldn’t even see her smirking at me with a look that said she was looking forward to our next meeting. I wasn’t. If this one had been anything to judge by, the next one might very well be the last.

  Chapter Seven

  I woke up cuffed to a bed, which would’ve been kinky if it hadn’t been a hospital bed, my head wasn’t pounding, and my hand wasn’t on fire. I winced before even opening my eyes and gave my good arm another firm tug. Metal bit into the sensitive meat of the inside of my wrist. Yep. Definitely cuffed.

  Cracking open an eye, I took in the room and wondered how long I’d been out this time. I wasn’t as cold as I’d been when I blacked out, but it was still pretty chilly in the hospital room. Someone had pulled off my jeans and fitted me with one of those hospital gowns that was open in the back. My right hand sat, bandaged, in my lap. Moving it even a tiny bit hurt, so I let it lay where it was.

  It was a standard inpatient room with a dry erase board on the far wall and a tiny TV screen above that. A curtain had been drawn on the other side of the bed, preventing me from getting a look at the hallway. The other bed in the room sat empty. Great. At least maybe they wouldn’t charge me for a private room. Since I had no insurance and was dead broke, this trip was going to put me in the hole for a while.

  Someone cleared their throat next to me. I twisted my neck and flashed a roguish grin at Detective Knight who sat in an uncomfortable-looking folding chair, arms crossed. She still held her normal irritated glare, but her features seemed to have softened a bit. The power suit she wore bore the distinct wrinkles of someone who’d slept sitting up somewhere unfamiliar, and her dark curls sagged around her face.

  “Why, detective! I didn’t know you cared enough to keep a bedside vigil for me!”

  “Those are my cuffs around your wrist,” she said, nodding.

  I wiggled my cuffed hand. “Figured as much. Still like me for the murder, huh?”

  She glared at me a moment, her head tilted slightly sideways. “Resisting arrest. Obstruction of justice. Evidence tampering. I’ve got more than enough to run you in and keep you behind bars for a long time.”

  “I saved your life.”

  “About that…” Knight turned her head to the side, focusing on the empty whiteboard. “I’m not sure what happened back there. Moses said he saw…something. He was pretty spooked. Like he saw a ghost. And since yesterday—” She clamped her jaw shut, cutting off whatever it was she was about to say.

  She didn’t have to finish. I already knew what she was going to say. That psychic connection had probably been real confusing to her as a mundane cop. Knight was the kind of no-nonsense skeptic who believed in hard science and probably even scrutinized that. Of course, I didn’t truly know the extent of that connection, as I’d never successfully cast the spell, only read about it. Pony Dee would know m
ore, but I couldn’t ask him.

  Knight deserved an explanation though, even if it was a poor one.

  “The spell I used to revive you is called the Kiss of Life,” I said, closing my eyes. “It’s sort of a life transfer from the person casting it to the other. Has some lasting effects, but shouldn’t be anything serious.”

  Knight’s head whipped around, sending her curls flying. Her eyes dissected my expression, searching for a lie. Even with my eyes closed, I could feel her gaze pricking at my skin. “For real?”

  I let the hint of a smile show at her relaxed response. “For real.”

  “If you’re telling the truth, and I’m not saying you are, that means…” She did the math. “You gave up years off your life to save me? Why?”

  I tried to shrug, but moving my shoulders sent a shockwave of pain into my right hand, and my left hand was at an awkward angle, cuffed to the bed and all. “Didn’t see as I had much choice. Not just anyone would’ve charged into a burning building to save people. You did. In my book, that makes you a good person. Good people shouldn’t die, not if I can help it.”

  Knight was silent for a long time. I cracked open an eye to look at her as she struggled with the mental weight of something. Most mundanes—some folks called them normies or nulls, but those terms had always felt wrong to me—freaked when they encountered magic. The brain, as powerful an organ as it is, doesn’t like to incorporate information that contradicts its existing reality. I’d seen some folks have a full-on mental breakdown after witnessing a spell. It’s why I normally masked any magic I did under an act, and why I didn’t call up spirits during a séance for clients. By the time my clients arrived, I’d normally already spoken to the spirit and just had to put on an act for them in person. There was no law against performing magic in front of mundanes, at least not as far as I knew, but it didn’t tend to do good things for their health. I’d done it with Knight only because…well, because she didn’t deserve to die. Not like that.

  Knight ran her fingers through her hair absently, but still refused to meet my eyes. “I read your file. You did six years for assault, breaking and entering, and resisting arrest. The police arrested you for breaking into the county morgue, didn’t they? But the body at the morgue they found you with, it belonged to a Lydia Kerrigan. Your sister.”

  I turned away from her. Lydia was the last person I wanted to discuss with Detective Knight, but she kept pressing.

  “Witness accounts say they found you straddling her body, holding her in your arms. There was a big stink in the news about getting abuse of a corpse laws on the books in this state finally, but no one did anything. You got off lucky.”

  “I pled guilty to all charges,” I said, my throat tight. “But I didn’t hurt her, and I didn’t abuse her body.”

  “You did the same thing to her you did to me, didn’t you? Gave her this Kiss of Life?”

  I shook my head. “Didn’t work. She was gone too long for it to be useful. I didn’t know that back then. Didn’t know anything but that one day my sister and best friend was there, and the next someone had taken her from me. When I couldn’t find her killer, I…” My throat tightened. I swallowed it. I wasn’t going to tear up, not in front of her. “I just wanted my sister back.”

  Her chair creaked as she leaned forward. “You didn’t even testify in your defense. Why not?”

  “And tell a jury I tried to use black magic to revive my sister’s cold, dead corpse?” I shook my head. “They’d have locked me up even longer than they did. Besides, the one tip I had about Lydia’s murderer was he’d done time. I thought I could get more information inside.”

  “You let yourself do six years on the off chance that you’d find a lead in your sister’s murder?” Surprise colored her voice.

  I didn’t answer. No point. She already thought I was crazy.

  Her clothing rustled, and the chair screeched as she pushed it back, rising. The key clicked into the cuffs, and they popped open, releasing my hand. I rubbed my sore wrist and stared at Knight, noticing the heavy bags under her eyes.

  “I have a big brother,” she said. “Pretty sure he’d never do time for me, even if I was killed by some psycho.”

  “Does this mean you’re not going to haul me in?”

  She showed me her teeth. It took me a minute to realize the uncomfortable twist of her lips was a smile. “Not this time anyway. Besides, I don’t know how to fill out the paperwork for revived by magic. They’d pull me from the case if I started talking nonsense like that.”

  I sat up. “Great. Think you can spring me from this joint so we can get back to working the case.”

  Her eyebrow shot up. “We?”

  Ah, crap. I should’ve known better than to push my luck.

  Detective Knight shook her head, her lips dropping back into their permanent, more familiar frown. “I appreciate what you did for me, and the help at the fire. I’m almost even willing to acknowledge you’re halfway decent for a scam artist with a crystal ball. But meddle in my case again, Mr. Kerrigan, and I won’t have a choice but to follow through next time.”

  A reedy, ragged-looking nurse came in with a clipboard full of papers, interrupting our conversation. She flashed a thin smile and held the clipboard full of papers out to me. “Sorry, Mister Kerrigan, but the insurance is denying your claim.”

  I sighed. They must’ve found the old insurance card I kept in my wallet, just in case. I hadn’t figured it’d work, but it was worth a shot. “Is there a bill you can send me?”

  Knight grabbed the clipboard from the nurse. “The department will be taking care of this,” she said and scrawled her signature over a few pages before handing it back.

  The nurse’s smile widened. “Thank you. I’ll make sure the precinct gets copies.” She shuffled out of the room.

  Now, it was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “The department’s taking care of my hospital bill?”

  “Detective Moses discharged his firearm during an arrest that never happened. There’ll be hell to pay, and paperwork to do, but the gunshot wound to your hand is the department’s fault.”

  “In other words, you’re covering your ass in hopes that I don’t sue the pants off the department.”

  She let out a breath. “Yeah, pretty much.”

  I slid sideways and put shaky legs to the floor. My jeans had been folded and placed in another chair beside the bed. It was the only article of clothing waiting for me aside from some crappy slip on socks in a plastic package. I reached for them, and Knight cleared her throat again. When I turned back around, her cheeks had colored.

  Ah, right. I’d neglected to throw on a pair of boxers, and the stupid hospital gown was open in the back. Bending over had given the detective a prime view of my ass.

  I rolled my eyes and got out of bed. “Don’t like what you see? Turn your head. It’s going to be hard enough to get dressed one-handed.”

  Turns out, it was all but impossible to pull on jeans without also sending a lightning bolt of pain through my wounded hand. Knight watched me fight with the jeans until they almost won before giving a heavy sigh and walking over to help. Help from her meant she gripped belt loops on either side from behind and jerked them up over my ass without ceremony or care where other bits might get tangled. I let out a little yelp and fumbled with the button and zipper by myself. Didn’t want her getting anything else caught, squeezed, or otherwise injured.

  When I finally got everything situated, I turned around and found Knight waiting for me, arms crossed once again. “You need a ride home?”

  “You offering?”

  “Shut up and accept my offer already before I change my mind.” She turned and swaggered out of the room, practical heels clicking against the linoleum with every step. If Odette wouldn’t have kicked my ass, I would’ve noticed the way that little hip swagger emphasized the curves her power suit worked so hard to hide.

  I blew out a deep breath and shook my head. I knew better than to play with fire like that. A
t least the day hadn’t ended with me back in jail.

  Chapter Eight

  It was dark outside. I frowned up at the full moon sliding behind a patch of clouds and shivered. It was well over seventy degrees outside, and humid as hell, so I knew I shouldn’t be cold. The residual effects of the magic I’d worked were still active. It’d be a few days before my body temp stayed steady.

  Knight walked me to a black Escalade that chirped on our approach. Not as flashy as I would’ve guessed, but I had to second guess my assessment when I pulled open the passenger door and got a look inside. The center console had more screens than a security monitoring station and a state-of-the-art police scanner and radio. She could drive that thing to the moon and not miss a beat.

  I whistled. “Nice car.”

  “Thanks.”

  We got in, and she started up the air conditioner. My teeth chattered before she ever took her fingers away from the dial.

  Knight cast me a suspicious glance. “You going to make it?”

  “Uh-huh.” I crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for her to put the car in reverse and pull out of the parking lot. She didn’t, so I turned my head to study her. My next breath came out of my nose in a little white cloud.

  She reached over and placed a hand on my forehead. “You’re as cold as death.”

  “Comes with the territory,” I said through clenched teeth. “Turn on the heat. I’ll be fine.”

  Her eyebrows drew together, forming wrinkles in the center of her forehead. “It’s seventy-four degrees!”