by E. A. Copen
Khaleda walked to the desk and ran a finger over it, frowning. “An office? Really? So cliché. You’d think after all this time, men would’ve come up with a more interesting premise for power play than the boss and secretary routine.” She hopped up on the desk and sat, crossing one leg over the other.
Josiah put his bag on the desk next to her and dug through it. “I don’t have a map of New Orleans.”
“I can get you one,” Martin offered. He didn’t rush off to grab it, though. Instead, he fixated on Khaleda’s legs.
Josiah turned and scowled at him. “Well then, go get one.” When Martin was gone, he turned to Khaleda. “You mind?”
She smiled. “I like this place. I can’t help it. You can’t take a wolf out under the full moon and not expect it to howl. People act according to their natures, Josiah, and my nature makes me a succubus.”
Josiah held a knife out to me.
I took it. “Which begs the question. Whatever’s going around with my face, what’s its game? Why impersonate me and take my daughter?”
Josiah crossed his arms and leaned against the desk next to Khaleda. “I think the better question is, what are we looking for?”
“Well, whoever it is, they can walk past my wards. They can raise zombies…”
Nate snapped his fingers. “Sort of like an evil version of you.”
I shivered. I wasn’t exactly a nice guy. My past was about as checkered as they came. Ex-con, foster kid, more run-ins with the police than I ever cared to admit aloud. I walked a thin line some days between doing the right thing and screwing the entire world. I’d let the Titans out of their prison. Even if it was to save Emma, that wasn’t something a good and heroic person would do.
Someone like Nate. He was a good guy, always working to help and save people. Me, I had trouble putting any value on people I didn’t know. Not at all like him. Maybe he did cut open corpses for a living, but he treated the dead with dignity and respect. Me, I desecrated burial sites and insulted gods and Loa just because I could. I’d broken into churches to steal holy water. I didn’t feel like a good person, even if I had good reasons for doing all of that.
If I was that bad, what would an evil version of me be like?
But Nate wasn’t wrong. There weren’t many things in the universe that could raise the dead. Making full-on zombies was something only a necromancer could do. This necromancer could also apparently make himself look like me somehow.
I gestured to Josiah with the knife. “Could someone use a spell to make themselves look like me?”
He shrugged. “Easy enough, but doubt it’d be enough to convince your wards. They’d have to mimic your magical essence, something that’s damn near impossible.”
I didn’t miss that he said near impossible and not just impossible. That meant it was possible. Otherwise, there’d be no explanation for what was happening.
Martin returned with a computer printout from an online map program. He thrust it at me and stepped back to watch.
I held the knife out, handle first, to Nate. “I need you to bleed on it.”
Nate’s hand shook as he wrapped his fingers around the wooden handle. “How much blood?”
“Not a lot. Tablespoon, maybe?”
He nodded and pressed the knife to the inside of his palm, squeezing his eyes shut. No one moved. After a minute, he cracked one eye back open. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Nate. Come on, man. It’s only a little cut.”
He nodded but tensed up even more. Dammit, if he didn’t follow through, we’d be all out of ideas.
“For Christ’s sake.” Josiah pushed himself off the desk, walked over, gripped the knife, and quickly drew it over Nate’s palm.
Nate yelped as Josiah jerked his hand out and forced it into a fist, holding it over the map. One good squeeze and three heavy drops fell onto the page. Nate pulled his hand away and gave Josiah a dirty look.
“Be happy he’s doing the ritual and not me,” Josiah snapped and walked back to the desk.
Nate swallowed audibly.
I did my best to ignore the petty argument going on between them and Josiah’s impatience. My attention needed to be on the spell. Come on, Jess. Where are you? I closed my eyes and focused my will on the three drops of blood, instructing them to search for their match over the streets of New Orleans.
Thaumaturgic magic wasn’t one of my strongest forms. It involved creating a link between an inanimate object and something else, basically using magic on an avatar instead of the real thing. Nate’s blood was the stand-in for Jessica’s, whose blood would’ve been more ideal. In theory, once infused with magic, his blood would realize it was missing from the whole—that’d be Jessica—and seek to reconnect. I’d provided the means to do so by giving the blood a map to search on. In theory, that meant the blood should find Jessica’s current location on the street map of New Orleans.
But that spell would only work if Jessica were still alive. Finding a body would require more direct samples like hair or skin. Once blood was shed, using it to find her would become unreliable.
The three big droplets of Nate’s blood slid across the paper as I shifted it from side to side, but they didn’t move on their own, no matter how much magic I pushed into them. The spell wasn’t working.
Nate licked his lips. “What’s wrong? What’s happening?”
“Either she’s been sealed from detection or…” I shook my head, unwilling to finish that sentence.
Nate’s chin quivered. “No. Try again. Try harder.”
I looked to Josiah for back up. Nate had to understand there were limits, even to what magic could do.
Josiah folded his arms. “There is another possibility. Something you hadn’t considered, Lazarus.”
He was right. There was a reason using the mother to find a missing child was a more reliable method. But the chances of that in this case…
“Mate, how sure are you that Jessica is your daughter?”
Nate gritted his teeth and balled his fists. He stomped toward Josiah. “How dare you!”
I put the map down and walked over to pull them apart. “It’s much more likely that she’s just behind some kind of iron. Occam’s razor, Josiah.”
Josiah’s answer was a grunt.
I pulled Nate away. “We’ll find her, man. Don’t lose it now.”
“How?” He hung his head. “The police said kidnappers usually call with demands. No one’s called. And the magic isn’t working. I don’t know what else we can do.”
I looked back down at the map with three bloodstains on it. Nate was right. We had no other leads. This spell had to work. If it didn’t, I’d just have to try something else. Something crazy, maybe.
“If the magic isn’t working…” I stepped away from Nate to retrieve the knife from Josiah. Knife in hand, I used a sleeve to wipe away Nate’s blood and positioned my hand over the map. With a quick slice over my finger, I opened a wound and squeezed a few drops of my own onto the page. “Then we just have to try something else.” I closed my eyes and focused on the map, pushing all my will at it for the spell. Please work.
The floor creaked as Josiah stepped closer. “I thought you said he’d have Remy behind wards?”
“Nothing’s certain. Have to try.” After a final push of my will, I opened my eyes and picked up the page, now buzzing with magic. The blood had pooled in two places and was now racing along the street lines, turning onto highways, moving around the city in search of anyone who closely matched my DNA. With my mother behind bars and all my other relatives dead, the only person the blood would have left to find would be Remy.
Both searching streams of blood converged on a little street up in Lakeview, racing toward the end of the street. I knew where it was going even before it got there but held my breath until it stopped.
“Where is that?” Josiah asked, leaning over my shoulder.
Nate sucked in a breath. “It’s Emma’s house. Laz, why would Remy be there?”
&nbs
p; I crumpled the map and tossed it aside. “I don’t know, but I’m sure as hell about to find out.”
Chapter Eight
There were no police cars outside Emma’s house. That was surprising. I expected the precinct to be keeping an eye on her. Maybe they were using unmarked cars, or maybe they figured I wouldn’t be dumb enough to show up there. Either way, I had Nate drive me down the street a few times to scan all the parked cars.
We’d taken one of Darius’ cars. As payment, I gave him the one Josiah and Khaleda stole to break down. So much for being legit, since he took it without even one complaint or question. I knew Darius wasn’t completely on the straight and narrow.
Josiah and Khaleda had stayed behind. Apparently, they were worn out from the trip. I didn’t buy Khaleda’s story about being in Bali. It was almost a two-day flight from New Orleans to there if you counted layovers. No way they’d have made it by dawn, not unless they knew about some magical travel system that I didn’t. I supposed that was possible. Anything was possible when a half-angel and a half-demon got together.
None of the cars parked on the street were occupied. On the off chance that they’d put in cameras, I tossed out a low-level hex spell, just in case, and climbed out with an umbrella. It wasn’t raining, but the umbrella would help hide my face from any cameras I might’ve missed.
Emma’s Escalade was in the driveway, which meant she hadn’t gone to work that morning. I cringed when I realized I was probably right about the suspension. They’d have laid her off until this was all done with. I just hoped that by clearing my name, I saved her career, too, or she’d never forgive me.
As I walked up the driveway toward the door, I went over the possibilities in my head. If Emma had Remy, she would’ve contacted me. She would’ve found a way. It just didn’t make sense that the spell would lead me here. Unless she didn’t know Remy was there, which also didn’t make sense. Remy was still a baby. She cried and pooped and stunk up the whole place. No way she was in that house and Emma didn’t know about it. Something fishy was going on. Still, I had to follow the thread to its end.
I pressed the doorbell and waited.
Nate glanced around. “Everything looks fine.”
“Stay sharp. Something’s up, and I don’t like it.”
Nate cleared his throat and looked down at his hands. “Lazarus, it’s been fourteen hours. If someone took them, they might not even be in New Orleans anymore.”
I’d considered that fact, too. “If they’d been taken out of the city, the spell would’ve led us to an airport, or the bus station, or on a highway headed out of town. Not here.”
Nate nodded but didn’t seem reassured. I didn’t blame him. Nothing about this seemed right. And Emma should’ve come to the door already.
I bent down and searched the ground for the fake rock where she kept the spare key. It was still in there, so no one had found it and broken in. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. Just for the hell of it, I also checked the wards on the front door. They were still there. No one but me should’ve been able to walk through them unless Emma wanted them to. Then again, I’d used the same wards at Nate’s house, and someone had walked right in.
I slid the key into the lock and turned it.
No one shot at me when I opened the door, so I supposed that was good. At least there wasn’t an intruder with a gun inside.
The floor creaked under my weight as I stepped inside. “Emma?” Maybe this is a bad idea. I should’ve stayed away. Drake and Codey might be here, just waiting for me to show up so they can arrest me again. If anyone saw me… Dammit, what about the neighbors? They would’ve seen us at the door if they were home.
But what choice did I have? The map said Remy was here. I couldn’t not come and check.
The living room was exactly the way Emma kept it. Cute, matched furniture with knitted afghans on the back, pictures of her family in frames on the wall. The light was off, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t home.
A muffled sound from the kitchen drew my attention. I changed direction from heading for the bedrooms and went toward the kitchen. At the doorway, I stopped, dumbfounded by the scene.
Emma sat in a chair facing the door, her hands and ankles bound. She had a deep red spot near her eye that was working on becoming a bruise. The only things she had on were a mismatched bra and panty set. Someone had shoved a dishrag in her mouth.
“Holy shit.” I rushed to her side. “Emma, who did this to you?”
She was trying to say something, but I couldn’t tell what with the gag in her mouth. I pulled it out while Nate went around behind her to grab a kitchen knife and cut apart the plastic zip ties.
Emma jerked away as soon as I had the rag out, eyes wide. “You did.”
“Or more specifically,” said a familiar voice from the kitchen doorway, “I did.”
I whipped around, placing myself between Emma and whoever else was in the house only to freeze halfway through the motion.
He was five feet, ten inches of ruggedly handsome with dark eyes and short, brown hair. A shave would’ve done him good, and maybe a little sleep. He wore a black leather jacket, black gloves, nice blue jeans, black boots, and a plain white t-shirt.
He also looked exactly like me. Not a likeness or similarity, but down to the tiny scar above my right eye. It was like looking into a mirror except seeing a better dressed, more pissed-off version of myself staring back.
“Nice,” I said, inching to the left to make sure he couldn’t get to Emma. He had a knife in his belt, but I was more worried about the gun in his hand. “So, what are you? Shapeshifter? Wizard with a really good arsenal of lookalike spells?”
“I’m you.” He stepped toward me, smirking. “Well, a better version of you. The you that you wish you could be.”
I shook my head. “Pal, I think you’re confused. There’s only one of me, and no sane person would want to be me. My life sucks.”
“Only because you’re too much of a pussy to make living it worthwhile.” He shrugged and gestured past me to Emma. “Take her, for example. Miss Emma Knight. The quintessential good cop. How much time have you spent, how much effort, trying to convince her you’re a good person? If she wanted a good man, Laz, she had her pick. You really think she’s with you because you’re a good person?”
“I think you’re about to get schooled on how much of an asshole I can be.” I balled my fists. “Where’s my daughter?”
“Your daughter? Oh! You mean my daughter. You see, I didn’t really approve of the way you were bringing her up. Always leaving her with strangers to run off and fight monsters.” He paced back and forth in front of the doorway.
Watching him move was surreal. Did I really walk like that? No way. This guy had to be a bad imitation. He was using magic to look like me, but he wasn’t me. Maybe he was close enough to convince the finding spell, though. Impossible. That spell was clued into my DNA. Unless he’d replicated that… But then, he wouldn’t just be imitating me, would he? He really would be me, or at least some Bizarro version of me. I knew I’d never hurt Leah or Emma, and I sure as hell wouldn’t kidnap my best friend’s kid.
“In fact,” Bizarro Me continued, “you do a lot I don’t agree with, like hanging out with that loser behind you.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Nate, who’d turned white. “Leave him out of this.”
Bizarro Laz stopped pacing and lifted the gun. “Why? He’s as much a part of this now as you are. The only people who even know I’m not already you are right here in this room. I could kill all of you and just walk away.”
I raised my hands in surrender. “You think you can kill a cop and a medical examiner and ride off into the sunset, you’re out of your mind, man. All I did was punch one, and it screwed up my life for years. You hurt them, there’ll be a nationwide manhunt. You’ll never get away.”
He shrugged. “Maybe, but then I don’t have to hide here, do I? Unlike you, I’ve got a standing invitation to the Summer Court. I am the
father of the Summer Princess, after all.”
“Bullshit,” I ground out. “Remy is mine.”
He offered a dark grin. “How sure are you?”
“Don’t listen to him,” Emma shouted.
“Maybe you’re right.” Bizarro Laz lowered the gun. “I don’t want to shoot her. You know, I was this close to getting in her pants before she figured me out. Too bad you’re such a shabby dresser, or I’d have gotten away with it too.”
That was it. I couldn’t stand there and listen to him anymore, and waiting for an opening was a waste of time. He thought he had all the power since he had the gun. Well, he could wear my face, and he might act like me, but he couldn’t sling spells like me. I was one of a kind.
I flung a cutting blast of air at him with a growl, just raw magic power. I’d seen the same spell leave a hole in the wall two inches wide, more than enough to do some serious damage to a body.
Bizarro Laz swept a hand through the air and batted the spell back at me.
Shit, maybe he could.
I didn’t have time to get up anything defensive. The best I could do was make sure the spell hit me and not the two innocent Normals behind me. Magic tore into me, ripping my chest to shreds and digging deep. I doubled over, holding my stomach. Blood oozed between my fingers, hot and dark.
A chair flew over my head. It slammed into Bizarro Me and splintered into a dozen pieces. The gun fell from his hands and hit the floor, discharging in a flash toward the ceiling. The bullet hit the chain holding the lamp up and it fell, slamming into my head. I must’ve been out for a second, because the next thing I knew, I was lying on my back, blinking away a fuzzy feeling in my head while Emma tried to pull up my shirt. For a minute, I was confused until I remembered the Bizarro version of me had ripped open my gut with a spell.
I turned my head toward the kitchen doorway only to find him gone. He must’ve fled when he dropped the gun.
Nate lowered into my vision. “How bad is it? Wow, okay. This is more than I can handle. He needs a hospital.”
Emma shook her head. “They’ll arrest him again.”