by E. A. Copen
Moses lit a cigarette, leaned against the wall and smoked it lazily, tipping his hat back and peering out over the canal the Chimera had crawled out of. “So, you’re working for Loki now?”
I sighed. I was getting really tired of explaining the situation to people, and it’d only been a day. “Not really. We just happen to both want to stop the same monster for different reasons. He wants to keep his apocalypse on schedule, and I don’t like the idea of a giant monster wiping New Orleans off the map.”
He nodded as if he understood, but I was pretty sure he still had his doubts. With what I needed to ask him, those doubts were about to multiply.
I shifted my staff in my hands, rubbing a thumb over one of the silver bands containing a soul. Several more bands were still unused. “Moses, I need to ask you for something. A favor, and it’s a big one. Biggest.”
He blew out a mouthful of smoke and gave me a casual glance. “I already told you that I can’t interfere too much in mortal business.”
“I hear that. But this is bigger. Big enough that if you don’t help me, I can’t stop Typhon, and I don’t know if I can stop Loki either.”
“Life or death, is it?” He shrugged. “I’m game to hear the proposal at least. What is it you need?”
I closed my eyes and gripped the staff tighter. Here goes nothing. “I need the soul of an angel.”
When I opened my eyes, Moses was giving me a wild stare that didn’t belong on his usually mellow face. “Come again?”
I sighed and planted the end of my staff in the grass. “There’s no way to kill Typhon that anyone seems to know of, but there is a spell that can send him back to Tartarus. Maybe for good this time. Problem is, I need souls to get it done. Specific souls, freely given from a human, a fae, and an angel.”
“You’re talking about sacrifices.” He shook his head. “That’s forbidden. Dark magic, Lazarus. What’re you doing playing with magic like that?”
“Uh, hello? Necromancer? Dark magic is pretty much all I do.”
He pursed his lips. “This is different. You’re asking someone to give up not just their life, but their entire existence. Do you know what happens to souls that get used in sacrifices? They’re consumed. Used up. They don’t get to pass on to the After. They end. Forever.”
I winced. Fenrir had neglected to show me that part. It was one thing to complete this task assuming the souls I used would be freed at the end to complete their natural process, but if they were consumed? That meant Hades could never be back with Persephone, which was the whole reason he’d agreed to help me. I wasn’t okay with using up souls, destroying both their life and their afterlife. But what choice did I have?
“I don’t know what else to do,” I said, my shoulders slumping. “No one else has any other answers. Your side hasn’t been interested in helping me at all lately. I burned all my bridges trying to get Remy back, and now I don’t even have friends left to turn to, you aside. I’m alone in this with no good options. Tell me what else to do and I’ll do it.”
Moses considered me a moment, his face grave. Then he dropped his cigarette, stomped on it and scratched his chin. “No angel is going to willingly give you their soul, Lazarus. For us, it’d be akin to Falling.”
“You’d rather let Typhon make landfall?” I stepped away from the wall and swept around to face Moses. “You know he’s not going to stop with New Orleans. He’s the father of all monsters. That thing that attacked the city? There are going to be dozens more like it. Hundreds maybe. They’ll cover every corner of the country, killing people. You won’t be able to contain it. Or stop it.” I’d been using my arm to gesture but lowered it. “But what do you care? Your boss wants the apocalypse as much as Loki does, maybe more. And you’re willing to hide behind him and pretend that it’s just following orders. That this Michael guy knows what he’s doing and what’s best for everyone. You’ll have the blood of millions on your hands to save one of your own.”
“It ain’t that simple,” Moses insisted. “What you’re asking is heresy. It’s unnatural.”
“It’s to save lives, Moses. Surely someone in your ranks still believes in that. One of you has got to disagree with Michael enough to stand up to him.”
He shook his head. “This isn’t the best way to do it.”
“You’re just saying that because it’s the easy way out.”
“Laz?” Emma poked her head out the side door. She spotted Moses and a big smile sprouted. “Hey, stranger. How’s the knee?”
Moses returned the smile, although his was more strained. “Oh, you know. Got just a couple weeks left before retirement now so I’m trying to stay off it. Not doing a very good job though, as you can tell.”
Emma’s eyes slid to me and her expression softened from joy to sympathy. She wanted to bring up Pony, but didn’t, instead clearing her throat. “I’m all done. Gave my statement to one of the suits. Are you going to be okay?”
I sucked in a deep breath through my nose and managed not to cough. “Yeah, I think so.”
Moses gripped my shoulder. “I know it’s difficult, but do you have any idea of where we should send your friend?”
If anyone from the city got a look at him, they’d want to perform an autopsy just to look at what happened to Pony’s arm. I didn’t want anyone cutting into him. He’d had enough of that in life. That meant keeping him out of the city’s hands. He had to go straight to a funeral parlor rather than to the morgue, but I only knew one by name. At least the proprietor owed me one there.
“Smith and Jenson,” I answered. “And make sure Silas Jenson knows it was me that sent him there. I’ll be by ASAP to work out details with him. He should expect me.”
Moses nodded and moved as if to go inside, but hesitated to smile at Emma and take her hands in his. “It’s good to see you again, Emma. Truly, it is.”
“We should catch up,” Emma offered.
Moses nodded, patted her hands and went back inside.
“He’s not going to help us,” I said to Emma once Moses was gone. “None of the angels are.”
“You know there was no stipulation that the souls be willing. That’s something you’ve added.”
“Because I’m not going to just start killing people and taking their souls, Emma. I’m not a murderer. At least I’m trying not to be one.”
She raised her hands in a surrender gesture. “I’m just saying. Sometimes when the fate of the world is at stake, you have to make difficult decisions.”
“I am not ripping the soul out of an angel and that’s final.” I tapped my staff firmly against the ground to punctuate the sentence. “I’ll talk to Moses again, see if I can go over his head and maybe make a deal with one of his superiors. There’s got to be a way and we’re not out of time to explore other options.”
“Yet.”
I cast a glance back at the restaurant and all the bodies moving around inside, most of them angels. I could go in there, argue with them, try to make them see reason, but they might be more likely to listen if I gave them a little space. Besides, I had to hold court. It didn’t matter how rotten I felt, or how much I just wanted to go home and grieve after watching Pony die. I had a responsibility to the people of my court, and that meant if I announced I was holding court, I had to be there. Being King of the Court of Miracles had its perks. That wasn’t one of them.
With a sigh, I turned my back on the remains of Bubba’s Shrimp Shack and wandered slowly toward the parking lot.
The Chimera had been so focused on us and wrecking the building that most of the cars had escaped the encounter unscathed. Mine included, luckily.
I had Emma drive. My mind was too crowded with everything that’d just happened to focus on traffic. I had thought I was ready to lose Pony. We’d parted ways before, and I didn’t know then if I’d ever see him again. Somehow, that had seemed easier. Knowing he was gone, and that I’d have to destroy what little was left of him, hurt worse. An old wound in my chest had opened up, turned into a black h
ole and started sucking in every emotion I had. I knew I should feel sad, but I just felt numb.
Emma’s hand suddenly closed over mine, her palm warm and soft. She gave me a tight, sympathetic smile, the kind that made me want to believe everything would be okay again. Except the future was even more uncertain now than it’d ever been. Pony was gone. Nate wasn’t talking to me. Remy had grown up too fast and taken on problems of her own and Emma… She was there, but she wasn’t in ways I still didn’t understand.
The smile faded and she pulled off the road into the empty parking lot of a discount drugstore. She parked across three spaces and turned to me, taking her hands off the steering wheel and letting them rest in her lap.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “We’re going to be late.”
“Screw being on time,” she said. “You’ve got a right to grieve and anyone who tells you different can kiss my ass.”
I turned away, watching the traffic pass us by on the road.
“He was your teacher. A friend. The closest thing you ever had to a decent father.”
“He killed my sister and lied to me. He let me go to prison and didn’t once come to my defense, not even to testify. He didn’t visit me. Didn’t try to help me when I got out. Pony D wasn’t a good man.”
“No,” Emma said softly, “he was a complicated man. We’re all complicated people. Every one of us has done something awful. I killed a teenage boy and left his body to rot in a swamp. You did time for assault and murdered a god.”
I looked at her, trying to gauge whether her words held an accusation or not, but her tone was gentle, sympathetic. She wasn’t accusing me or trying to dredge up old arguments.
“Good people can make bad decisions,” Emma continued. “And bad people can make good ones. That’s something I had to learn the hard way as a cop. I remember this one time, arresting a man who’d murdered his wife. Beat her to death with a hammer in front of their young children. Human trash, I called him, and the news dragged his name through the mud for weeks. But he wasn’t a monster. Turns out she was abusing the whole family. Physically, emotionally. Eventually, he just snapped. Now he’s going to spend the rest of his life in prison and those little children will need years of counseling. Does it make him a bad person? How many bad things do you have to do before there’s no going back? Where’s that line at and who gets to decide?”
I was silent. It was an argument I’d heard before. Hell, I’d made that argument before. I couldn’t disagree with it either. Sorting humans into easy categories, while tempting, didn’t work in practice.
Her hand fell on my shoulder, a gentle, reassuring pressure. “It doesn’t matter what he did or didn’t do. You’re allowed to miss him either way.”
She reached across the tiny space between us and pulled me into a hug. I didn’t know what to say or do other than hug her back.
There’s magic in small gestures like that. Not the kind of magic that could cast fireballs and tear down buildings, but the kind that was difficult to categorize. Something came alive inside me, waking at her touch, something that had been withered and dead for too long. The deep, sucking void in my chest didn’t close, but it felt like it let up just a little bit by the time we parted.
Maybe she was more herself than I’d initially believed.
She gave me a tired smile. “Now, be honest with me. Are you okay to do this?”
I took a deep breath and faced forward, my energy refocused on what came next. The pain of loss was still there, but I’d buried it under a thin layer of gauze. I was going to make it through, and I would do it with Emma at my side. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Finally,” Paula called as I came through the front door. “The natives were getting restless.”
Then she saw who was behind me. The muscles in her face tensed and her shoulders drew up slightly. The reaction lasted a split second before she reminded herself to relax and turn back to serving her customers.
Foxglove shifted at the bar and raised a fancy flute of pink bubbly in salute. Faerie wine. Paula had started keeping it in stock since Foxglove decided to stick around. Apparently, he preferred it over beer. Over the last few months, he’d also grown out his bangs and wore them in a swept-aside style that covered most of the big scar on his face. Most, but not all. I thought the scar added something to his otherwise angular and pretty face. It made him look fierce, which he absolutely was. Of all the knights in all the courts, mine was the best at killing things with a sword. At least as far as I knew.
He would’ve brought Paula up to speed on as much as he could, which explained why she only cast a few wary looks in Emma’s direction. Others in the bar stopped chatting when we entered, the fae and faekin mostly. There were more of them present than usual. They’d probably come to see for themselves if the rumors they’d heard were true.
Paula’s was stifling. With all those extra bodies crammed in, it was an oven that stank of body odor and beer. Not a pleasant combination.
I stopped a few paces in, cleared my throat and glanced around. Normally, by the time I showed up they had the tables cleared to the side of the room and the court all set up. Guess they were too busy gossiping to get that done.
“Well?” snapped Foxglove from his seat at the bar. “What are you waiting for? Clear the hall and get the king a proper chair.”
Wooden chair legs scraped against the floor, a dozen at once as people rose to get to work. I stopped looking around and went to take the empty stool next to Foxglove for the moment.
Foxglove spun around to pick up his drink. “You’re late.”
I carefully leaned my staff against the bar beside me. “There was an attack. The Chimera. We managed to kill it, but…”
Emma put a hand on my shoulder, prompting Foxglove to narrow his eyes. “Pony D passed away this afternoon. We just came from the scene. It’s been a hard day.”
Foxglove frowned. “You should’ve called me. We can postpone this.”
I shook my head. “We’ve got less than a week. I need to know where we stand with everything. How was your trip to Faerie?”
He nodded, then sighed. “Short. I would’ve liked to extend my visit. It’s been some time since I’ve been back to Faerie. It seems the Summer Queen has many suitors, and I don’t approve of all of them. Had I more time, I would’ve arranged having a few of them tossed off the roof.” He picked up his drink and downed the whole thing in two gulps. “But that’s not what you’re asking. You want to know what Queen Remy had to say.”
I hoped he had better luck than me. If Remy had someone in her dungeons willing to come forward, then that would make things easy. Of course, since when had things ever been easy for me?
“A…situation has arisen in Faerie. Queen Remy wanted you to come and see it for yourself.”
“I’d love to,” I said, “once this is all taken care of. I can’t afford to go to Faerie right now and lose time.”
“I told her as much, to which she responded that she would be happy to give you your pick of the dungeons if only you’d come in person.” Foxglove gave me a sideways glance, one eyebrow raised. He was waiting to see how I’d respond to Remy’s attempt at manipulating the situation.
She was my kid, which left me with a soft spot for her. I’d do a handstand in a hurricane for her. She should’ve known she didn’t need to scheme and bargain to get what she wanted from me. Except she’d been raised in Faerie by one of the most conniving bitches I’d ever met. Titania had instilled in my little girl the courtly arts of coercion, backstabbing, and veiled threats. Remy also didn’t know me very well. Three months of Fridays hadn’t been enough to fix that yet.
I frowned. “She doesn’t think I’d come.”
Foxglove shrugged. “She’s dealing with you as she would any noble of an allied court. Our alliance is young and hasn’t been tested. In Faerie, kinship bonds aren’t as treasured as they are here. Longevity ensures that parent-child bonds are brief in the grand scheme
of things, marriages mere contracts of decades. But alliances can be for centuries and must be fostered. Try not to take offense.”
I let out a frustrated growl and propped my elbows on the bar, rubbing my temples. Just once, couldn’t something be easy and simple? “Okay, I can make a short trip, but it has to be short. No fanfare. No banquets or bowing.”
“Excellent. I’ll send word that we’ll travel just after dusk tomorrow. That should ensure that we return before dawn so long as we’re not delayed by unexpected circumstances.”
“There are always unexpected circumstances,” I grumbled.
Paula popped the top on a brown bottle and placed it in front of me.
I took it, thankful for the opportunity to hold anything cold, and turned to Emma. “You want something?”
Emma opened her mouth.
“I don’t serve Valkyries here,” Paula cut in.
I turned around and glared at Paula. “She’s on our side.”
Paula stood up and crossed her arms. “For now, but you and I both know she’s going to stab you in the back eventually. It’s what Loki’s people do. She’s one of ’em now. Just because I have to put up with having her in my bar doesn’t mean I have to encourage it.” She pointed to a sign hanging behind the bar that read, MANAGEMENT RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE.
“Overruled.” I held the beer out to Emma. “At least while I’m here.”
Emma looked at the beer, at Paula, frowned, and then took it.
The people behind us finished arranging the room the way it normally was when I arrived. All the tables had been pushed to one side and stacked one atop the other. As for the chairs, those sat in neat lines eight across with an aisle in the center if I had to call someone up to speak.
My throne was a rolling office chair I’d gotten second-hand at a garage sale. The red upholstery had seen better days, and the wheels squeaked a lot when I rolled it around, but it was good enough for me.