by E. A. Copen
I hooked my legs on the outside of the ladder and slid back down to the floor to race toward the sound. Detective Drake was lying on the floor in a heap near tank number three, unmoving. Emma hopped down from the tank’s ladder and knelt beside him to take a pulse.
“What happened?” I stopped in front of them and bent over to catch my breath.
Emma shook her head. “I don’t know. I was checking tank three while he was at the bottom of the ladder. I heard him shout, looked down and he was like this.”
Movement off to my right caught my eye, and I turned my head just in time to see a shadow slink back underneath one of the tanks. I narrowed my eyes and stood, every cell in my body suddenly on alert. “We’re not alone in here.”
The mechanical whirring at the other end of the tanks suddenly stopped as tanks twelve and thirteen shut down, releasing a constant spray of steam from one of the valves. Then ten and eleven shut down, followed by eight and nine. I inched back toward Emma and Drake.
“Laz?” Emma’s voice wavered. “What’s happening?”
Something slithered against the left wall. I spun to watch it only to find it gone already. A bang sounded on the right and I turned again. He’s toying with us.
I felt around behind me until my hand landed on Emma’s shoulder. “Get him up. We need to move. Now.”
Before Emma could move, the light at the far end of the room flickered and went out. One by one, the lights went down the line and shut themselves off until only the one above us remained. I squinted up at it, watching it flicker. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck. If that light went out, we’d be easy prey for a creature who was strongest in absolute darkness.
I looked back to Emma, whose hand rested on the butt of her gun. It wouldn’t do her any good here. The only weapon I knew worked against creatures from the Nightlands was angel fire, and I didn’t have any of that.
But Emma does have a flashlight. I turned to Emma. “Flashlight, Emma. Turn it on! Quick!”
She fumbled to move her hand from her gun to her flashlight.
The light above went out with a loud click. Something big and wet slapped against the pavement nearby while a sound I could only describe as a thousand insect bodies scraping against each other filled the room.
Emma’s flashlight beam shot through the darkness, landing on a mass of black sludge just in front of us. It roared and recoiled from the light, but Emma moved the flashlight back onto it. Steam rose from its flesh wherever the light touched, and the gooey skin began to boil like tar. A thick tendril of sticky slime lashed out and clamped onto Emma’s arm. I swung my staff at it, but the weapon passed through it as if it weren’t even there.
Emma gritted her teeth and tried to pull her arm away enough to pass the flashlight to her other hand, but another tendril slashed at her fingers. The flashlight fell to the floor and the sludge monster batted it against the wall with a resounding crack, shattering the bulb. More tendrils whipped forward, each one passing me by as if I weren’t even there. The monster was focused entirely on Emma, and nothing I did seemed to matter. Every punch, every sweep of my iron staff, passed right through the tendrils as if they were nothing more than wisps of smoke.
Then, suddenly, another beam of light pierced the darkness, sweeping over the black tentacles. The monster let out a chorus of ear-splitting screams and finally let go of Emma.
I turned back around to see Drake staring, wide-eyed, into the darkness, his flashlight in his hands. He looked at me, mouth agape.
“Let’s move!” I shouted and yanked him to his feet. I pulled Emma close and started for the door. “Keep that light on, Brad. It’s the only hope we’ve got of getting out of here alive.”
Black lumps and tendrils shifted in the darkness, disappearing to nothing when Drake’s flashlight struck them. He swept the light back and forth in front of us while the three of us hurried toward the exit.
Come on! Almost there!
With the door just a few feet ahead, I broke away and rushed to pull it open.
A wall of black shadow slammed it shut again. Guess that thing didn’t want us leaving just yet. Too bad for him.
I slammed my staff against the floor with a burst of willpower and sent a ripple of magic through the floor. The concrete cracked and rolled as if hit by an earthquake. Fine dust fell from the ceiling, and a thick crack worked its way up the wall ahead. A second later, the roof came tumbling down on top of the creature. Whatever parts of the sludge monster the debris didn’t crush, the streetlights flooding in burned to a crisp. It squealed and screamed, writhing in agony until it was nothing more than a pool of bubbling shadow on the floor. I kicked some dust into the shadow. It steamed like a candle that’d just gone out, completely inert.
Drake’s flashlight darted over the shadow erratically. His hands trembled. “What the shit was that?”
I squatted in front of the fading shadow, resting my arm on my knee. “That’s the contamination we were looking for.”
Chapter Eight
Drake pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and lifted the paper coffee cup with shaky hands. “You do this all the time?”
“Yep.” I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair. After our encounter with the sludge monster, we’d gone back to my office. It was still a wreck from Finn and Remy’s fight with Foxglove earlier, but that was where I kept all the literature on the supernatural. I’d had to explain things to people for the first time enough over the years, I figured it’d be easier for me to write a pamphlet on it. The one I’d given to Detective Drake sat next to him, unopened. He’d been too dazed by his brush with the monster to read.
Drake looked at Emma. “You too?”
She nodded. “For the last year and a half or so.”
“Jesus, this explains so much.” He put the cup back down without having taken a sip. “So when you were arrested for kidnapping…”
“My fetch had done the kidnapping,” I explained. “They’re sort of like fae doppelgangers. Mine just happened to be evil and want to take over my life.”
“And when you disappeared from the force?” He nodded to Emma.
She sighed and sat down on my desk. “I was under a mind control spell, forced to serve the god Loki as a Valkyrie.”
He rubbed his head.
I leaned forward, picked up the coffee cup, and handed it to him. “I know it’s a lot to process, and you just got thrown off the deep end, but I’m going to need you to put on your big boy pants, Brad. The people of New Orleans are in danger.”
“Right.” He took the coffee, ripped off the lid, and chugged the whole thing, then drew the back of his hand over his mouth. “Normally, after seeing a sentient, unidentified sludge take over the brand new water treatment plant, I’d be calling to pass this up the chain. This seems like the sort of thing that the FBI or Homeland or the CDC should be taking care of, not a homicide cop, a low-rent wizard, and a cold case detective. No offense.”
Emma stood up. “You can’t call anyone else in on this, Drake. You’ll just get more people hurt.”
“Why not?” He pitched the cup to the trash can next to the desk. “They have more resources than our department, especially with us spread as thin as we are. The outbreak is hitting cops too. The ones who aren’t sick are taking care of their families. We’re already working at half capacity as it is.”
“We can fix this without getting more people involved,” I said. “But if you start making those calls, we might not be able to fix anything at all because of all the red tape. Knowing about the supernatural means learning to color outside the lines sometimes.”
He fixed me with a hard stare. “And if I’m not willing to do that?”
I exchanged a look with Emma. “Then, for the good of the city, I remove you from the equation.”
“You’ll kill me?”
“No, Drake. As much as I don’t like you, I won’t kill you for being an idiot. I will, however, hit you with a knockout spell and lock you somewhere u
nder guard. I don’t want to do that, though. I’d much rather have your help. I’m sure the city would too.”
He looked from me to Emma. “If I help you, the department won’t know.”
“That’s right,” said Emma. “No commendations. No pats on the back. No one will ever know what you did.”
“It’s thankless work,” I added. “Without a paycheck. But worth it. I won’t force your hand, Drake. Only you can decide if you want to help.”
He sighed and placed his hands on his knees, staring at the floor between his feet. “Do you know what I did before homicide? I worked with special populations, assisting social workers on community calls. It sounds nice, doesn’t it? Easy. But what most people don’t know is that special populations usually means kids. Day in and day out, my job was to go into homes and separate kids from their abusers. I’d sit with them in the station while they stared numbly at the floor, wondering what they did wrong. Kids who were barely old enough to walk asking me if it was their fault their daddy was getting arrested. That was if they talked to me at all. Nine times out of ten, you know where those kids went after I was done talking to them? They went into the foster system where they were beaten and abused all over again.” He met my eyes. “All those years, all those kids, and I never once made a difference. Even taking killers off the street, it doesn’t matter because there’s always one more bad guy.”
“I know how you feel,” I said, nodding. “You don’t even want to know how many times I’ve just barely stopped the end of the world. But if I stand by and do nothing when I could’ve done something, that makes me just as bad as the monsters I take out. Maybe there is no end to fighting evil, but it’s not pointless. If you made a difference for even one kid, Drake, you changed the world for the better.”
Drake stood, letting the blanket slide off his shoulders. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know I can’t just do nothing and live with myself.” He extended a hand to me. “I may not have any magic or know my way around the supernatural, but if you need my help, you’ve got it going forward.”
I gripped his hand and squeezed. “Thanks, Drake.”
“Tell me what you need from me.”
Emma stepped forward. “We need to shut down city water, halt the spread of this. We can set up water distribution centers around town to ensure people get plenty of non-contaminated water to drink and cook with.”
“To do that, I’ll need to reveal we found contaminants at the site,” Drake said.
“But you don’t have to reveal it was intentionally sabotaged,” I pointed out. “We kinda destroyed part of it, which means you can get by telling people it was damaged during a roof collapse.”
“That might work, but…” He rubbed his forehead between his eyes. “It won’t hold forever. The city’s funds won’t hold. They’ll need to declare a state of emergency to get the funds for a big water operation like that, which means federal paperwork. FEMA. I might be able to hold them off for twenty-four hours, but no longer. And there’s nothing I can do to stop the CDC from getting involved. Emergency rooms all over the city have already reported the outbreak.”
The CDC showing up would complicate things, but it was something we could work around. Once federal agencies like Homeland Security got involved, however, our mobility would be limited. They’d set up checkpoints around the city, curfews. It’d be like living in an occupied city.
“When will they be here?” I asked.
Drake shrugged. “Late morning? Mid-afternoon? I don’t know for sure. Not my department. I was tasked with assessing the situation and heading up the NOPD and anti-terrorism joint task force, should the need arise.” He gripped his hair with both hands. “Shit, getting that appointment and handling it well could’ve really propelled my career.”
Emma put her hand on Drake’s shoulder. “Welcome to my world. I was on the fast track to being the top detective in the department until I met this guy. Still wouldn’t change it for the world. Maybe I got my desk moved to cold cases, but I do more good now than I ever did before.”
He nodded slowly, shoulders slumped. “It’s just hard to swallow, you know?”
“Believe me, Drake. I know.”
I cleared my throat. “Okay, so you buy us twenty-four hours and keep us updated on the situation. We’ll keep you posted as much as we can, but…”
“No buts.” He shook a finger at me. “I can’t do my job if I don’t know what you’re doing.”
I cringed. “Problem is, the outbreak isn’t just here. It’s in Faerie too. I might have to go there to help shut it down. No cell service in Faerie and time can be…unpredictable.”
“Of course it is. Fine, but you make sure you let me know before you go anywhere or do anything. That way, I can make sure no one is in your way. The fewer people around when you do your thing, the less likely anyone is to get hurt.”
Finally, we’re on the same page. I breathed a sigh of relief and checked my watch. It was just before midnight, which meant less than twelve hours before the first CDC trucks rolled into town, and twenty-four until we were out of time. I still had a lot to do. Exorcising Mask from Foxglove would have to wait until Josiah showed up, but I could still gather some much-needed information. The only things I knew about the sickness spreading through the city were what I’d heard on the news. I needed some first-hand knowledge, but that meant getting access to a hospital emergency room and they’d be on high alert. I’d need help.
While Drake made the necessary calls to the station, I pulled Emma aside. “I’m going to go see if I can find out more on this sickness.”
“Great, I’ll come with you.” She started to walk away.
I held onto her arm. “No, Em.”
She frowned at my hand until I let her go. “Laz, you know I can handle myself.”
“I know you can kick my ass ten ways to Sunday, but when it comes to supernatural viruses, you’re as vulnerable as anybody. Besides, you need to go home to Grammy, make sure she’s okay. She’s been home alone all day.”
“Drake gets to help, but I have to go home and check on grandma? That’s sexist bullshit if I’ve ever heard it. I can check on her with a phone call, Laz, and I spoke to her earlier this evening. She was fine.”
“Drake’s not coming with me either.” I sighed and took Emma’s hands in mine. “I’m going into the heart of this, and we don’t know if this thing can infect people who aren’t drinking the water yet. We don’t know much of anything, and I don’t want to risk losing you over a little recon work. I promise, if there’s ass-kicking to be had, I’ll bring you in. But I don’t want to put your life on the line unnecessarily.”
“Still feels a little sexist,” she grumbled.
I kissed her forehead. “I don’t care if it keeps you alive to be mad at me tomorrow.”
Emma took a step back. “Fine. I’ll go home and check on her, but I’m also going home to watch the news and make a few calls. Maybe I can find something out from the department they’re not sharing with the public.”
“Good idea.” I let her hands fall, and my heart dropped into my stomach at the same time. There it was again, that coiled, sick feeling telling me something about this was wrong. Then again, everything about this situation was wrong. I was used to having a singular monster or bad guy to take out, but that wasn’t how Mask operated. He was hitting on multiple fronts, trying to overwhelm the few of us willing to face him. I wouldn’t have stood a chance, taking him on by myself. Good thing I still had a few friends willing to help. I just hoped their help wouldn’t cost them everything.
Chapter Nine
Nate dropped the spleen into a scale. “That’s not how this works, Laz. I can’t just walk into the hospital morgue and pick up any body I want at any time. They call me. I show up and sign the transfer paperwork. Technically, the hospitals can perform their own independent autopsies if they have a licensed medical examiner on staff, so I might not get that call at all. Seven and a half ounces. Slightly enlarged.”
I typed the number into the appropriate box on his computer. “How do you do this by yourself?”
He lifted the spleen and placed it in a small baggie. “Normally, I record my examinations and input the biographical data later. Trust me, this job would be much easier if I had an assistant.”
“Anyway, about the hospital…” I spun around in the swivel chair and instantly regretted it since I got a firsthand look at him yanking another meaty organ out of the body he was working on. The coffee I’d downed on my way back to the morgue threatened to come back up until I spun back around. “You’re telling me you don’t have any favors to call in? No one at any of the hospitals around town owes you? I find that hard to believe.”
“Believe it or not, Laz, not everyone leverages favors at the rate you do. Liver. Three pounds two ounces. No visible deformities.”
I typed the number in and wrote his note in the box beside it.
Nate sighed. “But there is someone at the University Medical Center who might be willing to help.”
“Great, let’s go see him. Who is he?”
He turned around after having bagged the liver and peeled off his gloves before tugging down the paper mask over his mouth. “Doctor Benjamin Frieder.”
“Um…His last name sounds kinda like yours.”
“It should. He’s my father.”
I blinked. How was it I didn’t know Nate’s dad was a doctor? Of course, he’d mentioned before he wasn’t super close to his family. They had a falling out when he chose his profession. Apparently, they didn’t approve. I had a feeling the divide went a little deeper. After all, you don’t stop talking to your kid because they become a medical examiner instead of a trauma doc. But it never felt like my place to pry. I did my best to stay out of his personal life as much as possible except if he brought it up.