Death And Darkness

by E. A. Copen

  I imagined him stomping into the nursery where Jessica and Remy were laying side by side and stopping over the crib. A moment of confusion. Which kid was he supposed to take? If he took the wrong one, there’d be trouble. Better take both. That was exactly what I would do.

  Okay, so he took both Jessica and Remy alive. Presumably, they’re both still alive wherever they are. Maybe I can locate them with a basic tracking spell. It was a long shot, but it was all I had. There was still a good chance that whoever had kidnapped them would’ve also taken precautions against that sort of magic. Anyone powerful enough to raise seventeen zombies and walk through my wards had to be able to disrupt a tracking spell. I needed a backup plan.

  What I needed was help from someone else with a vested interest in locating Remy. Someone like Titania. I rubbed my face. I must’ve been going crazy if I was considering talking to the Summer Queen for help. She was Remy’s grandmother, though, and the Summer Queen. Titania wouldn’t want her hurt. Then again, she’d want something insane in exchange for her help. Faeries were like that. Though Remy was her flesh and blood, Titania was a total self-absorbed bitch who wouldn’t give me the time of day for free.

  Talking to Titania meant getting to Faerie, something I couldn’t do. There were back doors into the fae all around New Orleans, but I didn’t know where any of them were or how they worked. Josiah might, though. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was something.

  The one thing I knew I couldn’t do was go to Emma for help. Not only would it hurt her career beyond repair, but Drake and Codey probably had people watching her house. Once I got out of jail, I’d have to keep my head low. Whatever Josiah had planned, it wasn’t going to involve doing things the way the American legal system preferred.

  Chapter Five

  I must’ve dozed off. When I woke up, I knew something was wrong. Everyone else in the cell was asleep. There were five of us crammed into the cell, one of which had been coming down from meth. He’d been pacing and talking at a million miles an hour. Now he was snoring, leaning on the big guy who’d been staring at me.

  More than that, the buzz of magic was in the air. I breathed it in and felt my lungs tingle. Near unbearable tiredness settled in my limbs, but I fought it off to stand and peer out at the guard station. He was asleep too.

  Must be whatever spell I’m feeling, I thought, gripping the bars. The station was silent. No ringing phones or the click-clack of keys on the keyboard. No printers whirring, and no doors slamming. Maybe everyone in the station was asleep.

  That was more than a little unsettling. Anyone who could cast a sleeping spell on that many people at once wasn’t someone I wanted to tangle with. I hoped it was my rescue and not whoever had taken Remy.

  Footsteps echoed down the hallway, moving toward my cell—the click of feminine heels. I pressed myself against the bars to see whoever it was. Good or bad, they were coming for me since I was the only one awake.

  She was tall with dark hair and curves to die for. A black leather briefcase bounced against a dangerously short pencil skirt. Thin fingers with blood-red fingernails gripped a pair of black-rimmed glasses hanging from her partially unbuttoned white blouse. She lifted them and slipped one of the earpieces between white teeth before flashing me a sultry smile.

  Khaleda Morningstar, one of the most dangerous women alive. I’d killed her dad not so long ago. Not that she cared. He was the Devil after all, and he’d sentenced her to be tortured in the fires of Hell. Josiah had helped me free her and they’d left New Orleans together, but I hadn’t expected her to hang out with him. The two of them were independent. They must’ve hit it off. At least, I hoped that’s why she was walking my way.

  Khaleda stopped in front of the cell and pulled the plastic from her mouth. “Lazarus Kerrigan. You’ve looked better.”

  I gave her a once-over and stepped back from the bars. Sure, I was with Emma now, but a guy could look, right? Besides, Khaleda was a succubus giving off major magic vibes. I couldn’t not look. “I wish I could say the same about you. Honestly, you look good. Way better than when you got on the plane.”

  “It’s my new diet.” She turned her back to me, hauling the briefcase onto the officer’s desk. Khaleda swept his feet aside and flipped the case open.

  “I don’t want to know who you’ve been eating lately. Tell me you’re here to spring me?”

  Khaleda lifted a tiny vial of sparkling blue liquid. “You know, I didn’t want to come. We were dealing with a werewolf in Bali, you know. Bali, Lazarus. Beaches, sun, and sand. Meanwhile, no matter what time of year it is here, the sun never shines for more than a few hours, and the humidity sticks to you like spider webs.” She spun around with a smile. “But you did help save me from Hell. I owe you. After this, we’re square.”

  “Don’t act like you don’t like coming to the rescue, Khaleda. Deep down, I know you’re a good person.” I took another step away from the bars after checking to make sure I wouldn’t trip over one of my cellmates.

  Khaleda stepped up to the cell. “That’s where you’re wrong about me. I’m a bad girl, Lazarus. As bad as they come. I just happen to use my evil for good.”

  She popped the cork on the tiny bottle and emptied the contents on one of the metal bars. It looked like thick blue glitter glue, oozing down from the bar. Except it was steaming and melting through the iron like a hot knife through cheese. Once it melted all the way through, there’d be a hole just wide enough for me to step out sideways.

  “Put this on.” She tossed a black hood through the bars.

  I caught it and turned it over in my hands. “Why?”

  She pointed to the red light of the camera in the corner. “We have a friend helping edit the video footage, but he can’t clear you out completely without raising some questions. If you want to have any chance of getting your life back after this is all over and not just going back to prison for escaping, you’ll need to look like an unwilling participant.”

  In other words, we had to make it look like Khaleda was kidnapping me, so the cops didn’t come after me.

  I slid the hood over my head but didn’t pull it over my eyes. “What about those bars? Once you melt through them, these guys’ll all get out.”

  Khaleda leaned to the side, studying my sleeping cellmates. “Any of them rapists or killers?”

  “Drunks and druggies mostly. I think one of them is in for assault.”

  “Then it’s not my problem.” She snapped her fingers. “Now get that hood on, Horseman. Josiah can’t hold the sleeping spell forever.”

  I pulled the hood down. A minute later, Khaleda’s hand squeezed my arm and jerked me forward. My head hit one of the metal bars, but I shook it off and ducked through the hole. With Khaleda leading me, we walked through the precinct and down a ramp.

  “About bloody time,” Josiah growled once we reached the bottom of the ramp. Something small tapped against cement and rolled. One of his cigarettes maybe. Josiah was bad about chain-smoking. Hopefully, he’d leave a window down in whatever rescue car they’d secured. “Get him in the van. I’m losing it.”

  A metal door rolled aside, and Khaleda gave me a hard shove forward. I tumbled onto cheap carpet, the back of a van with the seats removed. Someone closed the door, and the engine started.

  Another door closed, and I jerked the hood off just in time to see Josiah light a cigarette in the front seat. He was a lanky guy, just a hair shorter than Khaleda, with dark hair and just enough facial hair to make it looked like he didn’t care without having an overgrown beard.

  Just as his lighter snapped closed, gunfire erupted outside. Bullets peppered the side of the van, and I threw myself flat against the floor.

  Khaleda stomped on the gas. The back end of the van slid to the side before the whole thing jerked forward with more bullets piercing the rear doors. Khaleda cursed and jerked the wheel to the side as a window shattered.

  I rolled and hit the wall of the van. “Easy, you crazy woman driver! I don’t have a seat b
elt back here!”

  I’d just started to sit up when I paused at the sight of a huge, hairy spider clinging to the ceiling above me. Shit, I’d forgotten all about his familiar, Milly. Josiah never went anywhere without that creepy thing. It just hung there, staring at me, my reflection shining in its multiple eyes.

  “Yo, Josiah. You mind calling your furry friend?”

  “She’s no threat to you, mate,” he said but extended his hand to collect the tarantula anyway. The giant spider crawled right into his hand and, I swear, he cuddled it against his cheek like a damn cat.

  Khaleda leaned over to look behind her. “We need to get off the main roads with this van.”

  “We need to get off the roads in general.” I pulled myself up between the seats. “There are two detectives who have it in for me. The cops will be out in full force, looking for a shot-up delivery van. You guys need to ditch this ride and soon.”

  “On it.” Josiah lifted a phone and tapped out a quick message. “What evidence do they have on you anyway, mate? Must be serious.”

  I shook my head. “No idea. They don’t have a…” I stopped, unwilling to refer to my daughter as just a body. Just saying that felt like admitting that she might be dead or worse. “She’s alive. I know she is.”

  “Course she is, mate.” Josiah lowered the phone and tapped some cigarette ash into the cup holder. “Any idea who took her or why?”

  “Could be any number of people,” Khaleda said, taking another turn. “Lazarus has a habit of pissing people off. Loki, Titans, basically every underworld god in existence, couple of fae…”

  “It wasn’t any of them.” I wadded the black hood in my hands and stared at it. “At least not directly.”

  While Khaleda drove us through the back streets trying to get out of downtown, I told them everything that had happened, describing the zombies, Leah, the car explosion… All of it.

  Josiah listened and smoked without saying anything. When I was finished, he crushed his cigarette on the dash and asked, “Did you try a tracking spell yet?”

  “Haven’t had time. I spent the night in a jail cell, remember? And it might not work. Whoever this is, they’re smart and at least as strong as me. That’s why I called you. If I needed taking out, I know you two could do it.”

  Josiah and Khaleda exchanged a glance.

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t act like you haven’t considered it. Khaleda, you’ve already tried to kill me once. And I’m pretty sure you’ve come close, Josiah.”

  He shrugged. “You can be an annoying twat, Lazarus.”

  Khaleda frowned. “You said you think he took both babies because he couldn’t tell them apart. Any other reason you can think of for someone taking both kids?”

  I hadn’t considered other reasons. There were plenty of monsters out there that ate babies. The thing could’ve been beefing up its food supply, but that didn’t feel right. If he just wanted them for food, he’d have taken any baby. This wasn’t a crime of opportunity. Remy had specifically been targeted.

  “That’s it.” Josiah snapped his fingers. “He might’ve taken precautions against a tracking spell that could lead you to Remy, but it’s less likely with the other baby, especially if he stopped to figure out which one was her later on. He likely dropped the other one somewhere.”

  “Dropped?” I swallowed and stole a glance outside. It didn’t get dangerously cold in Southern Louisiana during the winter, but it was still cold enough out there I wouldn’t have wanted Jessica to spend the night outside unprotected. And that was the best-case scenario. He might’ve just killed her.

  “Tracking the other child might be easier,” Josiah continued. “Just need to get some DNA from one of the parents.”

  “Fat chance of that.” I shook my head. “Leah, her mom, is in the hospital. Whoever took the kids stabbed her. She lost a lot of blood.”

  “There might be some blood at the scene,” Khaleda suggested.

  “No.” Josiah shook his head. “Coppers’ll be watching it. Can’t go there, or to the hospital. What about the dad?”

  Nate was probably with Leah or talking to the police. That’s where I’d be in his shoes. Likely beside himself with worry, too. Getting him alone would be difficult, but not impossible. The police would be hacked into his cell phone soon now that I was out. They’d be watching everyone associated with me. But there were other ways to get in contact with my best friend. Even if I did contact him, he might not show. He’d have to leave Leah’s side, and Nate was totally devoted to his wife. Now that she was hurt, maybe fatally…

  Stop thinking about the problems and focus on a solution. “Okay,” I said after a minute, “Take me to the hospital.”

  Chapter Six

  The hospital was crawling with cops. They stood outside the emergency room doors, chatting and complaining about the cold. Another sat at every entrance, eying everyone who came in and checking visitor’s passes. There were probably more right outside Leah’s room too. No way I was getting close to her.

  I’d have asked if Josiah could just do the sleeping spell thing again, but there was a huge difference between putting a bunch of cops to sleep and having a brain surgeon fall asleep on the job. Lives would be lost.

  I couldn’t break into the hospital with all the cops crawling around, and getting to the roof was out of the question. Too many cameras. Instead, I had to go the one place in the hospital nobody would be looking for a live felon from justice: the morgue.

  It was perfect. Hospital morgues had their own private entrances and exits so patients didn’t have to see bodies coming and going. Patrols avoided the area because it gave them the creeps, and so did most other hospital staff. The only person who should’ve been in the morgue at that hour would be the night technician. They didn’t do autopsies overnight; any bodies that needed to be processed would’ve been sent over to the coroner’s office. He’d just be a guard, usually a med student needing to get one more rotation in before graduation. No one who wanted to be a hero.

  The biggest problem would be the cameras. Once the van pulled onto the property anywhere, the cameras would pick them up, so I had Khaleda drop me off on the street. I borrowed Josiah’s trench coat, which was a few sizes too small. If I bent my arms the wrong way, the thing would rip open at the seams. It had a nice collar, though, so I flipped that up and had Khaleda use her magic to change the hood into a ball cap I pulled down low. Then I walked to the back of the hospital lot, hoping the BOLO the police put out on me wasn’t that accurate.

  The morgue entrance was a ramp next to the dumpsters that led to a set of double doors, locked from the inside. Like most locks in modern hospitals, this one was magnetic. A quick blast of magic and I shut it down. The doors popped open. I grabbed the handle and slowly pulled it open the rest of the way.

  Just inside the door was a hallway with a low ceiling and bright fluorescent lighting. A door on the right side of the hall was marked as some kind of filing office. I peeked inside and found it empty, which meant the technician was probably making rounds. Great. I had no idea where he’d be on the floor or when he’d be back, but the clock was ticking for Remy and me. I couldn’t afford to wait, so I passed the office and made for the big room at the end of the hall.

  Through a set of swinging doors was the cold room. Metal storage drawers lined walls on either side with paper labels on each. There were almost thirty bodies in storage. Each one called to my power when I entered the room, begging me to interact with them. I stopped just inside the door to adjust my mental shields and make sure they were airtight before continuing.

  “Hey,” called a feminine voice from off to my right, “you can’t be in here.”

  My eyes snapped open.

  She was about the right age for a college kid and looked as worn out as a med student. She was also armed with pepper spray, which she held out in front of her as she approached. “You need to leave right now.”

  I raised my hands in front of me. “I don’t want any trouble
. I just got turned around. Damn hospitals. Like a maze in here. Am I right?”

  “Nice try, bud. You came from the exit, which means you broke in. I don’t know how you did that, but you’d best turn around and get the hell out of my morgue before I call security, sicko!”

  Great. Just my luck that I’d run into a med student too smart for her own good. No choice but to resort to the backup plan.

  I darted forward, narrowly avoiding the spray of painful pepper to my face and tackling her to the ground. She hit the floor with a shriek that I abruptly cut off by putting a hand over her mouth.

  “Now listen here—” I stole a glance at her name tag. “—Amy. Look at me. In the eyes, Amy.”

  Her whole body shook under my hands. Big, brown eyes snapped to mine, and I felt like an absolute jerk. She looked terrified.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, but you’re going to have a headache when you wake up. Sorry about that.”

  Amy gave me a quizzical look. I sent a jolt of magic into her head. Her eyes widened for just a minute before they closed. See, Josiah? I can put people to sleep too. I couldn’t put an entire precinct full of cops to bed, though. My spell required eye contact and physical touch to work, which meant it wasn’t useful most of the time. How the hell had he made every cop in the station fall asleep? I’d have to get pointers from him later.

  With Amy out, I carried her back to the office and did my best to deposit her in the comfortable-looking office chair. I arranged her so her head was on the desk, leaning on her arms. Before I left, I unplugged the phone and computer so that if she woke up, it’d take her a few extra minutes to call for help.

  Once I was sure she was safe, I returned to the cold room and picked up the phone on the wall. When the caller ID flashed across Nate’s phone, it wouldn’t say the call was coming from the morgue, just the hospital. With his wife in a bed upstairs, he’d definitely answer. I felt a little guilty exploiting Leah’s situation so I could talk to Nate, but I didn’t have a choice. This was my best chance for finding Jessica, which would hopefully also help me find Remy.