In the rearview, I could see the confusion, fear, and a million questions flickering in his eyes. “I- what-” He swallowed and wiped cold sweat from his brow. “What is going on?”
“Like I said. Long story. I’ll explain everything I can on the way.”
He started the engine but didn’t put it in gear. “Is this real? How do I know you didn’t drug me?”
“You’re gonna see more than that tonight,” I said. “Get moving.”
He didn’t take his eyes off me through the rearview mirror, but he turned the car west.
“The body at the Arlington, where’d you take him?” I asked.
“What? Uh, yeah. Jefferson- how did you-” He sighed and shook his head. “You were there, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. I saw the people behind all this. To find them, I need the corpse.”
Jimmy frowned. “There ain’t much left of him, man.”
“It will be enough,” I said. “I hope.”
“The origins of magic aren’t mystery,” I explained. “Magic is everywhere, in everything. The weather, the rocks, the plants, barbeques, fountain soda, and rock n’ roll. But humans have a certain something. Maybe God made us in His image, so we have a bit of that potency in us. There are a thousand and one theories and each one could be right, or each could be wrong. Whatever it is, wherever it comes from, it’s tied into the soul. You’ve known about magic all your life. When you read about Hercules, Merlin, jackalopes or vampires. All of them were mages, or the byproducts of magic. Creating things, changing things. Living like gods when they thought they could get away with it. Hiding the evidence when they realized they couldn’t.”
“So where are they now?” Runner asked. “If they were so godlike?”
I smirked. “Most died. A mage can live centuries, but they’re not immortal. Not on this plane of existence. Some really powerful mages ascend to their own planes, where they have almost complete power. A real taste of godhood. And I think the Brothers want to- watch the road!”
He swerved away from an oncoming car. The driver leaned on the horn as it roared past.
“Shit! You better keep this shit to Basics One-Oh-One until I can get my head around it. Let’s talk about these guys you’re after. The Brothers?”
“One is Samuel Kincaid,” I explained. “A Haitian. Excommunicated Vodou priest. Another is a white guy, brown hair, named Jesse Kendall. He’s a necromancer like me, and he’s here selling Stig. It makes people into zombies, the mind-controlled kind, not the brains-eating kind. It lets him tap into their souls for power. With it, and a little extra juice from a cult he’s formed, he’s going to do something bad.”
“Make himself a god?”
“Or the closest thing to it,” I said.
“So how’d you get involved in this?”
“The mages in charge of this city want the case solved.”
“In charge? How many- Can’t they help?”
“They don’t see what’s going on,” I said. “Or they don’t care what happens, as long as it doesn’t disrupt their laws.”
“Isn’t enslaving people with magic drugs kind of that?” Runner asked.
“Yeah, but they don’t see enough ‘evidence’ to do anything about it. They think I’ve been killing people with intent to raise them as zombies. The modern kind.”
“You can do that? Like flesh-eating zombies?”
“If I wanted to.”
He gave me a long stare. “So your ‘superiors’ won’t help because they think you’re responsible.”
“Until recently I was the only necromancer in the city,” I said.
“I gotta say, this isn’t painting you in the most innocent of lights,” Runner said.
“You’re not the first one to think so,” I said. “And I don’t care what any of you think. I’ve got to stop them. The moment the Society thinks they have enough evidence on me, they’ll flip my kill switch and I’ll be dead before I finish this sentence.” I waited, then exhaled with relief.
Runner shifted away from me. “So, you need to prove you’re innocent? Expose the real culprit before you’re executed?”
“And then there’s no one to stop them. Not before they succeed at what they’re doing.”
“So what’s this dead body going to tell you?”
“I need it to talk to the Loa, entities tied to the Vodou faith. It didn’t work for me the first time, I think that’s because I’m not a priest. But the dead guy used to be. I can use him to help boost the signal. Make them hear me.”
Runner frowned. “This is all too crazy for me. You better not expect me to dress up and do a tribal dance or something. My family has been Christian since before the Emancipation Proclamation.”
“Your family were slaves?” I asked, then flinched. “Sorry, stupid question.”
He glanced at me. “No shit. But we didn’t stay that way. Hiked from Louisiana to Ontario. My great grandma said the Underground Railroad gave us the surname ‘Runner.’ Badge of honor, I guess.”
“Like your coat.”
He smirked. “Yeah, like my coat.”
“If it helps, I’m Canadian.”
Runner rolled his eyes. “Right. Are you here legally?”
“C’mon man, gimme a break.”
He snorted a laugh. “Between keeping a body in your basement torture dungeon and holding a cop hostage, you’re building one hell of a rap sheet, Fossor.”
“Not torture,” I said, and paused. “It was a shrine. I wanted to talk to the Loa, but my first attempt didn’t work.”
Runner snorted. “I’ve lost it. Twenty-eight and I’ve already lost my damn mind.”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
He pulled into the 8th Precinct garage. “Listen, you’ve still got half the city’s cops looking for you, so if you are legit, I’m gonna put my neck on the line. But if I think you’re joshing me, even for a minute? I’ll arrest you and put a bullet in your head if you try to stop me.”
“You drive a hard bargain.”
The garage was mostly empty, dotted here and there with marked and unmarked cars. He parked near a set of doors marked ‘Restricted’, and cut the engine.
“Let me go in first. I’ll make sure the coast is clear.”
“How do I know you won’t decide I’m crazy and call for backup?”
Runner turned around to look at me. “I’d be lying if that thought hadn’t crossed my mind. But I’ve been willing to hear you out so far, Alex. I’m showing you trust. Time to show me some.”
He was right. Not that I liked it, but Runner—despite his dedication to sticky notions like the law—had been honest with me since I met him. I nodded.
He slipped out of the car, straightened his big detective’s duster, and pushed through the Restricted door. I waited, nervous and exposed, unsure whether Jimmy would come back alone, or with enough backup to cook my goose.
The door opened. Runner poked his head out, looked around, then waved me over.
“So what now?” He asked.
I got out of the car. “We talk to some gods about a thing.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Runner led me to the morgue, but we took an erratic route through a supply room to avoid getting caught in the main corridor.
“The EMT’s took the body from your place to Grace Hospital,” Runner explained. “So our pathologist is there for the time being. No telling when he’ll be back. Make this quick.”
“I hope he doesn’t cut into him,” I said. “Josh isn’t dead.”
Runner frowned. “I’ll call ‘em. Ask them to hold off on an autopsy.”
While he got on the phone, I surveyed the morgue. It was small for such a large precinct, with six cadaver lockers and an examination table with lots of space. Like any good doctor, the pathologist kept the place immaculate. It felt as clean as the funeral home I worked at.
Or used to work at, I thought.
Runner ended his call, then gripped the handle of the top-middle locker and pulled it open. The
body lay on the slab, zipped up in a black cadaver bag. “You may want to prepare yourself.”
I looked at him. “Think about who you’re talking to.”
He shrugged and unzipped the bag. The smell hit me first, the unmistakable stink of burned flesh. I was ghoulish enough to think about food when it hit me. Maybe cooking the wights’ meals wasn’t a terrible idea.
The body of the Haitian was a mess. Fire had scoured his left side, the muscle scorched to the bone in places. The rest of his flesh was seared.
“I feel like I’m gonna throw up,” Runner said.
“Smile. It suppresses the gag reflex. Help me get him onto the autopsy table.”
Runner’s forced his million-dollar grin onto his face, but it stretched into an almost comical grimace. “Uh, can’t you like, magic it over?”
“What happened to your guts?”
“My gut thinks it’s a bad idea to go playing with dead people.”
“So hard to get professional help these days,” I said. I hefted the body myself. The legs and left arm hung at an unnatural angle. He must have fallen through the floor during the Arlington fire. “You’re keeping him at a negative temp?”
“No ID on him,” Runner said. “No idea what cause of death is yet. He’s gotta stay cold until we find out.”
“He’s Haitian. Smuggled into the country with the rest of the Brothers. You should check him for tetrodotoxin.”
“What?”
“Pufferfish toxin. One of the key ingredients in Stig.”
“Fish? The aquariums.” Runner nodded. “So now what? Sacrifice a goat? Wear one of those weird masks? You need to charge your mana or- shit!”
The corpse sat up and waved at him.
“Hi Jimmy, welcome to the world of magic!” I said in a mock circus announcer’s voice.
The look on Runner’s face was worth it. I ended the spell, and the body went limp. Runner heaved, but kept in whatever he had in his stomach.
“Please don’t do that again.”
“Sorry,” I said, but my grin suggested otherwise. “We take our stress relief where we can find it.”
“So what now?” He asked, after he’d steeled himself.
“Now is the easy-ish part,” I said. I took out the cigars, matches, and Papa Williams’ flask of goat-pepper rum. I opened the pack of cigars and took one out. “I’ll need you to look some stuff up for me on your phone. I need the Veve for Baron Samedi. Vee-Ee-Vee-Ee.”
Runner took out his phone. “They keep magic stuff on the internet?”
“Vodou isn’t ‘magic stuff’,” I said. “Lots of people still practice it. That’s why I had chicken blood in my fridge.”
“Chicken? It was chicken blood?”
“Yeah. Got it from the butcher at Kent’s. Did you think it was human?”
“It is suspicious finding a bucket of blood in a suspect’s fridge, yeah,” Runner said.
I snorted. “Found the Veve?”
He showed it to me. “Like this?”
“It’ll do. Hold that steady.” I traced the pattern into the air above the body with my magic, as if I were drawing a magemark. Blue-green light shimmered over the body.
Runner looked the design over, his revulsion replaced with curiosity. “You know if you wanted to prove magic was real? You could have done this.”
I smiled. “I’m a bit of an asshole.”
“A bit.”
“Okay,” I said. “Samedi won’t appear on his own. He needs to possess, or ‘mount,’ a body, and I don’t think he wants to ride me, so our Haitian friend will be his horse. Since he’s bokor, he’s got a link to the Loa, so that should cover a lot of the steps I’m missing or skipping.”
“Cheating at magic?” Runner said. “Oh yeah, this’ll be great.”
“Point is, he’s gonna be angry, but I’ll try to bribe him with rum and cigars. Then he’ll answer my questions and leave. I hope.”
“And if not?”
I shrugged. “Least case scenario, he won’t come at all. Worst case, he kicks my ass six ways ‘til Sunday.”
Runner smirked. “That would make this all worth it. Just the same, I’ll be over here.” He moved to stand near the door.
“While you’re there, find me some Vodou banda music,” I said. “Drums and chanting.”
Runner did his internet search and played a sample of rhythmic music.
“That’s the stuff,” I said. “Crank it.”
The music echoed off the hard concrete walls. I opened the rum, breathing its scent in deep, and sipped it, then set the flask beside the corpse’s head. The rum was sweet and cloying on my tongue, which turned to spicy heat that made my eyes water and throat burn. I lit a cigar and puffed smoke into the air to hover around the Veve symbol. With the offerings prepared, I sent my magical pulse into the Layered.
C’mon, you bastard, I thought. Do something! Fix this mess you helped make! Tell me what I need to know!
After a few minutes of concentration, I still sensed nothing. No uncomfortable sense of being watched. The body before me didn’t so much as shiver.
I grabbed the sides of the table and got in the corpse’s face. “Goddamnit, answer me!”
Nothing. The music clip ended on Runner’s phone, and my mark fizzled out.
“Is that it?” He asked. “You better not tell me to dance.”
“How about ‘freeze’?”
Detective Lorensdottr entered the morgue, sidearm first. She regarded us both with cold fury. “Hands over your heads,” she growled. “Do it!”
Runner took a step forward, hands beside his chest. “Loren, easy now, partner. This ain’t what it looks like. It’s, well, shit, it’s as crazy as it looks. But not the bad crazy. Sort of.”
“Shut it, Runner,” she said. “Save the bending-over-backwards for a judge. Right now I see a murder suspect and an accomplice tampering with evidence. So hands up!”
“She’s charming,” I said, raising my hands.
“Shut up, Fossor. Loren, you gotta roll with me here. This shit is bigger than cops and bad guys.”
“I said shut it!” She dug into her coat for her phone. In a second she would have every cop in the building on us.
But then she gagged. The phone tumbled from her hand. She blinked, shivered, and locked eyes with me.
“You wanted… what?” There was panic in her voice. She took a shaky step forward, hissed, and then flopped onto the floor. Her gun slid out of reach.
“Loren!” Runner cried, but he hesitated to approach.
Lorensdottr’s body shook, as if locked in a seizure. Then she spidered forward on her hands and feet and slammed into the autopsy table. She gasped, back arched, and grabbed hold of the table to haul herself up. Her blond bun untangled into a mane of scarlet curls, and her sapphire blue eyes shifted into emerald green.
Her lip curled into an angry snarl. “Ye stupid, rat-fuck, piss-sucking, cockwagging, self-righteous fuckwad of a mage! Y’fuckin’ gobshite! Y’absolute shitheel!”
Runner blinked. “Loren?”
“No,” she snapped, then grabbed my jacket collar and yanked me off my feet. “Y’thrice-damned self-entitled white prat! Y’really made bags o’this!”
The Loa dropped me on my already bruised tailbone and I let out a shout. She flexed her shoulders and paced the room, firing off a rant of insults and foul language that would make a smack-talking videogamer break down in tears.
Runner circled around her to help me to my feet. “Is she okay?”
“It’s the Loa,” I said. “Samedi’s family, the Guede, enjoy colorful language.”
“Oh toss it you fucking thick pisser,” the Loa spat. “Like you know a fucking thing!”
Her eyes fell on the rum and she brought it to her lips.
“Woah easy,” I said. “That stuff is-”
She held up a finger, as if to say ‘hold that thought’. “Okay. Okay, I think I’m okay,” she said, after three or four big gulps.
“Baron?” I aske
d.
The Loa looked at me in disgust. “Fuck off, boyo. You think he’d wanna ride a girl?” She paused, then snorted. “Poor choice of words, isn’t it?”
“She uh, doesn’t sound Haitain,” Runner said. “She sounds Irish.”
I blinked, going over what I could recall of the different Loa. “Maman Brigitte?”
She gave me a smirk. “Was I that obvious? Oh, you’re deadly. Sharp as a round brick!”
“Who’s Maman Brigitte?” Runner asked.
“Samedi’s wife. One of the few Loa who doesn’t trace back to Africa, but Ireland.”
Brigitte smiled. “Haven’t been to the Island in donkey’s years.” She took another swig of rum. Then two more. “Alright you fuckin’ chancer, what am I doin’ in this kip and why am I mountin’ this fine thing?”
“I was trying to talk to the Baron.”
“Well, he ain’t here,” Brigitte said. “He sent me ‘cause he’s too angry, wantin’ to smack the shite out o’ you. Fucking necromancers acting the maggot. Look at this disgrace! You buy these cigars at the corner shop? You think he’s gonna pop by for a visit ‘cause you can toss shapes with magic? If any o’ us appeared every time a couple college floozies painted their faces and cracked a bottle o’ pink wine, not one of us would get a fucking thing done!” She jabbed a finger into my chest. “You ain’t one o’ the faithful, you ain’t houngan, you’re some entitled white boy who thinks havin’ magic makes it okay for him to stick his fingers in shite he doesn’t understand! Am I wrong?”
I swallowed. “No.”
“So why am I here?”
“Why are you? Why answer at all?”
“Fucking hell, dumb as two flat rocks.” She hopped onto the slab next to the body, and her eyes softened. “Oh Wesley, y’poor bastard. You won’t have to wait long. My fella is diggin’ your bed right this moment. Don’t you worry about Jesula. Won’t be one of us who isn’t watching over her, ‘til she can be with you. Someday.”
I recognized a wake for what it was. “Respect for the dead? Even for bokor?”
“Everyone makes mistakes. You saw him at the end, gravedigger. Did he look like a man proud o’ himself?” She kicked off the table. “Know this, Alex Fossor. It ain’t this pissy excuse for a shrine, it ain’t your shite magic that convinced me to come. It was him. Wesley put in a kind word. Says you brought him out o’ the zombie. For that, you get two more minutes of my time. Ask those questions you think are so important.”
Death Dealers Page 20