by E. A. Copen
“No lights,” the ghoul on the right hissed and tapped his sunglasses. “We see good now.”
“Well,” Beth corrected. “You see well.”
“Lost cause,” I muttered and stepped forward. “Go and get Serkan before I get angry, Sméagol. If I have to go in there after him, I might just have to blast some holes in the floor to find my way around.”
Both ghouls hissed in complaint, but the one on the right finally hopped down from where he’d perched on one of the columns and plodded into the mausoleum.
“We might have time,” Beth said once the ghoul was gone. “The virus seems to progress quickly. It wouldn’t take days to measure it. Maybe just a few hours. Of course, that would depend on you knowing someone who could take blood samples and not ask questions.”
I nodded. “I know a guy, and we can stop by to talk to him after this but…well, he sort of works in the morgue. I don’t trust myself around any open bodies.”
Beth wrinkled her nose. “You don’t have any weird cravings, are you?”
“Not yet, but I don’t seem to get much warning before something blindsides me, as the thing with your lip proved.”
“It wasn’t a thing, Laz. It was a kiss.”
I turned away from her, pretending to be examining one of the broken columns nearby. “Yeah, about that…”
“Don’t,” she said with a sigh. “Don’t do that thing you do when you know you need to tell me something, but you don’t want to say it because you’re afraid I’ll get upset.”
“What thing?” My voice went an octave higher as I turned around.
Beth shot me a glare with one eyebrow raised. “That thing, Laz. Besides, I know what you’re going to say.” She laced her hands together and studied them. “There’s someone else.”
I opened my mouth to tell her there wasn’t, but the words wouldn’t come out. I hadn’t told her about Khaleda. While me and Khaleda weren’t exactly an item—hell, we weren’t even on speaking terms after what she’d done—it had happened. It didn’t mean anything, but it had been too easy, and not just because Khaleda was a succubus.
I’d already gotten over Beth years ago after she abandoned me to my prison term. It had been like severing a limb, and limbs didn’t grow back. Even if we tried to get back what we’d had, there would always be that stinging reminder that she’d left me when I needed her most. It would all be built on the wrong things, and that would be unfair to both of us.
“Someone else?” I repeated and shook my head. “Beth, with my life, there can’t be anyone. Everyone who gets close to me gets hurt. I can’t let that happen to you. To anyone.”
Beth rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Laz. You’re so full of it!”
I blinked. “Huh?”
“Did you ever consider it’s not up to you? I mean, you can’t live completely cut off from everyone. It’s fine if you want to break things off with me. If we’re being honest, that ship has sailed. I screwed up. I’ll live with that for the rest of my life. But you’ve got to let someone in. Anyone. You can’t just push everyone away on the off-chance that they get hurt.”
“It’s not an off-chance,” I growled. “It’s happened. It’s happening. Why do you think the fae took you? I don’t know what Titania’s end game is, but she did it for a reason. It was you for a reason. The Archon broke Emma’s arm. Hell, I still don’t know if Lydia was my fault or not.” I was gripping the staff so tight that my fingers started to hurt. With a sigh, I relaxed my grip. “It’s safer for everyone if I just go it on my own. I’m sorry, but that’s how it’s got to be.”
“Anyone who tells you how things must be is clearly omitting something important.” Serkan’s ice blue eyes blinked out at us from inside the entrance to the mausoleum. I could just barely make out the shape of a chin and cheekbones if I strained my eyes, but other than that I couldn’t see his face. His eyes hovered near the top of the doorway, and I got the distinct impression that he was squatting. Serkan was a big guy.
I turned to face him and rolled my shoulders. “Speaking of omitting important information, you left some things out the last time we spoke.”
White teeth appeared in the blue glow of his eyes. It wasn’t a grin. “I told you enough. More than you had a right to know, considering the company you were in. I see you wasted my warning. You stink of one about to turn.”
I rolled up my sleeve. “Bastard bit me. I’ve been in Faerie slowing down the progression, but I need more than that. I need a cure. If anyone knows of a cure, it’d be you.”
“Cure?” Serkan snorted. “There is no cure. You change. You become what you are meant to be.”
“I’m not meant to be a ghoul.”
Serkan narrowed his eyes. “Then you die.”
I gulped. That was a possibility I hadn’t considered. Not everyone survived infection. Only something like one in ten lived long enough to complete the transformation. I’d figured with the Pale Horseman mantle in effect, I’d have a better chance than most, but maybe not. Underneath all that power, I was still very human. A virus could kill me just as well as a knife.
Beth took a step forward. “He’s not dying. We’re fixing this, whatever it takes. Surely you know of someone who’s tried. Even if they failed. You have to know something.”
The ghoul king’s eyes slid to her. My spine stiffened. Something about the way he considered her made it blatantly obvious he imagined the taste of her. It made me simultaneously nauseous and hungry.
“There was one who attempted it and succeeded,” Serkan said, “but what he did is not within your power.”
“Tell us anyway,” I insisted. “And this time don’t leave anything out.”
A huge hand coated in ice blue skin gripped the doorway and tapped giant fingers against stone. “I suppose I do owe you thanks for the sight you granted my children. Very well, Horseman. I will sing for you once more, but this will be the last time the song is free.
“Once, there was a man of great wealth and power who lived Arabia. He had a taste for the perverse and the taboo until the perverse developed a taste for him. The wealthy man spent his fortune in two mere days in pursuit of a cure. On the third day, he learned of a spirit in the desert with the power to heal him, but he had no money for a guide. Nevertheless, he set out into the desert with nothing but the clothes he wore. Either he would die of thirst alone, or he would find a way to cure himself.
“The next day, under the new moon, the wealthy man collapsed in pain as his body betrayed him and the fever gave him visions. He knew not what was real and what was false. It was while he was in the throes of the fever that the jinni appeared.”
“Jinni?” I repeated, crossing my arms.
“They’re sort of like demons,” Beth explained. “But not really. Like humans, they have free will to do evil or good, but only a limited corporeal body.”
“This was the spirit in the desert he sought,” Serkan said, raising his voice. “Contrary to what your cartoons say, the jinn do not grant wishes, and this one was a Si’lat, a beautiful shapeshifting temptress. She offered to draw the sickness from him through intercourse. The seed would produce a child which she would then slay, and he would be free of the sickness. Feverish, but eager, the foolish wealthy man agreed, and so it was done.
“But he was deceived. The Si’lat who he lay with did not destroy the fruit of their joining as she promised. The offspring grew into a twisted, angry creature doomed to live in the flesh by eating the flesh of the dead.”
“Sounds to me like the rich guy got what he wanted,” I pointed out. “He got cured.”
“Of the sickness, yes,” Serkan said, his glowing eyes, bobbing. “But he lived his life a broken man, for after he lay with the Si’lat, he craved her like the abomination craved flesh. An addiction that could not be broken, and so his spirit broke instead. He remained alive, but he also stopped living. You see, Horseman, the sickness is death, and only life can pay for death. If you wish to cure yourself of death, you will pay with your lif
e. It is folly.”
“Not to mention there aren’t any Si’lat around here,” Beth said, looking at me. “And you wouldn’t want to get involved with them, Lazarus. They feed on raw emotional power. You’d be a buffet.”
I scowled at her. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Means you don’t mask your emotions well.” Beth turned back to Serkan. “There aren’t any Si’lat in New Orleans, are there?”
“Currently?” Serkan’s gaze bored into me. “There is one.”
I muttered a string of curses under my breath. Beautiful temptress. Feeds off raw emotion. Traitorous, lying bitch. There was only one person I knew that ticked all those boxes: Khaleda Morningstar.
Chapter Fourteen
I didn’t know where to find Khaleda, and I didn’t want to. It didn’t matter to me that she might be my only ticket out of becoming a ghoul. There was no way I was going to let her touch me ever again. Just thinking about it made me feel sick to my stomach. If I’d known the last time that she planned to sell me out for a fat stack of cash, I’d never have been able to go through with it the first time. She had her reasons, none of which I cared to hear. No, I was going to have to find another way.
Beth’s stare weighed down my shoulders, but I chose not to acknowledge it. She wanted to talk about Serkan’s information. I didn’t. Talking seemed beyond me. Any words I might’ve formed would come out as an angry growl. It was best if we just went to Odette’s and looked for Athdar’s acorns. Maybe by the time we found them, I’d be calm enough to think.
Odette had lived in an upscale apartment on the second floor of her complex. A white painted balcony stretched around the upper floor of the gallery-style building. During the day, there was a doorman and everything. True Southern charm. In the dark, the building sat in a pool of hungry shadows. Wind whispered in the nearby trees and blew a paper bag across the causeway.
I leaned out the window of the stolen truck, casing the place. The building had security. While I had a key, if that security was a living, breathing person who didn’t recognize me, it was likely they’d stop us since we weren’t residents. I didn’t want to have to answer questions.
Luckily, it looked like the building had gone high tech. The red light of a security camera blinked in one corner, and I spotted a magnetic lock on the main complex door with a numerical keypad. If I’d had my powers, I’d have hexed the keypad easily enough and walked right through. Without that power, I had to think of something else. I could climb the tree and drop onto the balcony above, but I wasn’t sure the branches would hold my weight.
What am I doing? I’m thinking like Laz, the necromancer. I’m not anymore. I’m Laz the Summer Knight. That means I’ve got a whole arsenal of tools I could use. I just wish I knew how to use them. Once again, I found myself occupying an office that ought to come with an instruction manual.
“Well?” Beth said, crossing her arms. “What’s the plan?”
I grabbed the staff from behind my seat and opened my door. The air outside smelled sulfuric and smoky from the earlier fireworks.
“Working on it.”
No one stopped us on our approach to the building. That was a plus. A car came down the road, flashing headlights on us, but it didn’t turn down the causeway or slow down. I acted like I was supposed to be there, and they ignored me. At the door, I studied the lock mechanism. My gut instinct that it was magnetic was right. Magnetic locks were the cheapest, most efficient option for a place like that to install. It’s why most hotels had them. Cheap and efficient didn’t necessarily mean best though.
I can’t hex it, but maybe I can do something to break it.
The Summer Court was all about two things: life and growth. That seemed to give them a special connection to the forces of nature. Magnetism was just another force of nature, so maybe…
I extended my hand toward the lock, closed my eyes and focused on drawing in my will. Of course, I didn’t have any magic, so I came up empty at first. The staff, however, responded, lighting up with a faint green glow. When I shifted my focus to pulling the magic through the staff before funneling it through my body, the staff lent me all the power I asked for. The air between my outstretched fingers crackled with power that I directed at the lock. Numbers flashed in a rapid march across the tiny screen as the technology interacted with the magic. A second later, the lock clicked, and the door popped open.
Beth stepped up and pulled it open the rest of the way, pausing to examine the locking mechanism. “Did you just reverse the polarity of a magnetic lock?”
“Maybe. I think so?” I lifted my hand and stared at it. “Cool.”
“Mrs. Wilcox would be proud.”
Mrs. Wilcox was our ninth-grade science teacher. Conjuring up her image in my head made me cringe. It was hard to imagine anything making that septuagenarian proud. She’d hated me. She’d loved Beth though. Everyone loved Beth.
She jerked her head, indicating I should lead the way. I carefully stepped into the building, wary of any wards that might be up. It was unlikely I’d run into them on just any city building since your average Joe didn’t believe in the supernatural, but one could never be too careful.
Up the stairs and to the right, we found apartment number fourteen. Odette’s place. I stood in front of the door, suddenly worried that the super might have rented the place out again. We might be about to break in on some innocent person. I hoped not, but there was only one way to know for sure. I could always play the drunk card again and pretend like I’d just opened the wrong apartment. Hopefully, any residents would buy it.
I slid the key into the lock and opened the door without resistance. At least the super hadn’t changed the locks. The door creaked as I pushed it open wide enough to stick my head in for a look.
Everything was exactly where I remembered it. A minimalist living room with a suede loveseat and a flat-screen TV. The plant she kept in the corner had died for lack of water. Brown leaves sagged over the pot. If I’d touched them, I expected them to crumble to dust. Odette’s curtains hung in the window, her towels with the little Italian chef on them sat, folded, on the end of the counter. The place looked like she might walk in behind me after a long day at work.
“Looks clear,” I said and pushed the door open the rest of the way.
I went straight for the junk drawer Odette kept batteries and pens in, jerking it open. It was as disorganized as always, but no sign of any acorns.
“Why is all her stuff still here?” Beth asked. “It’s been like three months.”
“Could be lots of reasons.” I closed the drawer and moved on to search the cabinets. “The place was classified as a crime scene, and there’s a long tail on some homicide paperwork, especially when the guy you pinned the murders on is in a coma. Could be the superintendent can’t clean the place out without clearance from the city. Or maybe the landlord is fae and keeping the place open for her. Even if he’s not fae, Summer has a lot of influence here. They might want a safe house in the city.”
The cabinets were a bust. I even checked the canned goods, which were still stocked. The fridge was empty, which was a good thing considering no one had been there in three months. Beth busied herself searching the living room and claimed the bathroom. That left the bedroom for me.
I stopped short of going into the room. The last time I’d been in there, it was to raise the shade of a child who had been crushed to death in Odette’s bed. Just the memory of it made my chest clench with rage. The goddess, Vesta, had lost her shit and started crushing her followers to death when they didn’t follow her insane version of chastity. All the kid had been guilty of was holding hands with a boy, and Vesta had killed her for it. I’d ripped out Vesta’s soul, but it hadn’t brought Grace back to life. Nothing I could do would ever fix Grace or Brandi, or any of the other victims who had died on my watch, but I’d made sure the people who hurt them could never kill again.
If I hadn’t had my magic or the mantle of the Pale Horseman, I wouldn�
�t have been able to do that, I thought, staring at the imaginary blood on my hands. They would have just kept on killing. How many more monsters would keep on killing in my city if I just gave up my magic and walked away?
I curled my hands into fists as I remembered Grace’s terrified face when she looked down at her body, and her mother’s tears when I helped her, too. Too many. Too many had died already, maybe more than I’d ever know. But if I could prevent even one death, all the suffering was worth it. I didn’t ask to be born with my powers, but I wasn’t going to throw them away. Not when I could use them to help.
The bed had been removed from the bedroom, but death still hung in the air. I could feel it, the wrongness. If you’ve ever walked into a room and suddenly felt uncomfortable and sort of nauseated, you’ve felt it too. Violent deaths stain a place, and Grace had not died well. I’d done what I could to help her ghost move on. Though I no longer had the power to see or interact with her ghost unless another blood moon came by, I hoped Grace wasn’t there. The stain was from the act of murder itself.
I walked to the place where the bed used to be and extended my hands just as I had when calling up Grace’s ghost. “Sorry I couldn’t save you,” I whispered. “Thought you’d like to know your mom is safe, and Vesta is dead. I don’t know if vengeance matters. I don’t know if anything matters. I just thought you should know.”
Something thumped in the closet. My head jerked toward the sound, and I dropped my hands, going on high alert. The hair on my neck and arms stood on end. Careful steps took me to the closet door. I gripped the doorknob and readied my staff to strike whoever was in there and counted to three. On three, I jerked the closet door open and raised my staff only to find the closet was empty. Odette’s clothes and all her boxes of things had been cleared out, leaving the floor exposed. There, lying right in front of the door as if they’d rolled off the shelf, were two acorns, each one as big as a jumbo egg.
Ghostly laughter trailed through the room behind me as I bent to pick up the acorns. The disembodied laughter of a little girl. Grace, letting me know it was her the only way she could.