by E. A. Copen
“Probably both,” Remy said. “If anyone else is still alive at all. We have to assume anyone and everyone could be under Mask’s control until proven otherwise. That means Emma too.” She put her hand on my arm. “We’ll find her, Laz.”
I started walking down the street. “Damn right, we will.”
Since the city was shut down, that meant no taxis, no streetcars, and no ride-share cars. We were still about eight blocks from Paula’s where I’d left my car, but that was closer than Emma’s or the hospital.
“Wait up,” Remy called from behind me. Helping Finn was slowing her down. He pushed away from her to limp forward on his own.
I tried to slow my pace. Three days…That’s all it’d taken for the city to go from the one I’d left to a ghost town straight out of a zombie flick. And not even the good kind of zombies. When I got my hands on Mask, I was going to rip out his guts and jump rope with his severed tentacle head.
Finn finally caught up to me. “So what did you see?”
“See where?”
“In the rite.” He waved his hand. “It’s supposed to let you experience your deepest desires, give you the thing you want most.”
I frowned and put my hands in my pockets as we walked. “Peace. Happiness. A normal life. But it wasn’t real.”
“Doesn’t matter. For most people, even the illusion is real enough that they never leave. Or by the time they do, so much time has passed that they don’t survive. As soon as you step out of the water, time plays catch up. You age to match the missing time. Ever hear the story of Oisín and Niamh? Oisín was like you, human. He traveled to Faerie to undergo the rite to prove his love and loyalty to Princess Niamh of the High Court. But it was too much for him. He couldn’t separate the illusion from reality and lost three hundred years. The minute he stepped out of the pool, he aged to dust.”
I shivered. That could’ve easily been me.
A siren blared. I looked up to see a Humvee rolling down the road toward me, an armed man in military getup held a megaphone to his mouth. “Stop where you are! This city is under martial law, and curfew is being enforced. Stop, or we are authorized to use force!”
I halted and raised my hands.
The Humvee rolled to a stop next to me and the guy on the megaphone shouted down, “State your name and destination clearly and slowly.”
“Lazarus Kerrigan. I’m just walking back to my car. I left it parked a few blocks from here.”
“Curfew is in effect. No private citizens allowed on the road or in public places until curfew has been lifted. Please return to your home immediately.”
“Great, you guys can give us a ride.” I took a step toward the Humvee.
Megaphone guy’s partner had a rifle up and pointed at me before my foot hit the ground. “Sir, do not approach the vehicle! Keep your hands raised!”
“Easy, easy!” I did as I was ordered.
“Lazarus?” The passenger door of the Humvee opened and Detective Drake stepped out. He was wearing a bulletproof vest over his wrinkled suit and sporting a little too much beard to call it a five o’clock shadow, but it was him all right. He waved to the gung-ho gunner. “He’s okay. I know him.”
The gunner didn’t so much as flinch. “Even if you know him, sir, we can’t allow him to approach the vehicle until we’re sure he’s not contagious.”
“I’m not sick, but my arms are starting to hurt keeping them up like this. Can I lower them?”
“Why do you have that big stick?”
“This?” I wiggled my staff. “It’s my walking stick. I just like the aesthetic.”
“Look, Williams, he’s fine. Shine the spotlight on him and you’ll see. He’s not infected.”
Williams, which I took to be the guy with the megaphone, looked at the gunner, then turned to pull a knob, which freed a light the size of a dinner plate. He shined it directly at my face.
I flinched and squinted, but held my ground.
“What the hell?” Williams shifted the spotlight left and right. “He doesn’t even have a shadow!”
I lowered my arms. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. This sickness that’s going around, I can’t get it. I’m immune. Now, I don’t want to explain how or why that is, and if you boys hold me up doing that, more people are going to be in danger. Me and my friends are the only ones who can stop this. I suggest you help us or get out of our way.”
Drake stepped between the Humvee and me. “He’s legit. I’ll vouch for him personally.”
That was unexpected. Drake was the last person I expected to write me a blank check like that. I must’ve made quite the impression on him when I buried that slime monster at the water treatment plant. “Thanks.”
“Don’t make me regret it,” he mumbled and went to open the back door of the Humvee. “Get in. I’ll take you to the station. It’s command central.”
I climbed into the Humvee. There were enough seats for six, plus the two above. Drake and a guy in fatigues and a beret took the front, while me, Remy, and Finn slid into the back. It was a little cramped, but I wasn’t going to complain. It was still roomier than trying to fit the three of us into my two-seater.
I buckled in. “Anybody know today’s date?”
The driver gave me a strange look. “It’s the seventeenth of October.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. At least I hadn’t lost a lot of time.
Remy handed her sword to one of the officers when he insisted. She didn’t need it to do any harm, but he didn’t have to know that. “What’s the situation? How many casualties?”
“We don’t have an exact figure,” said Drake, buckling in himself. “But hundreds. Most aren’t dying of the illness itself. Not directly. It’s kind of complicated.”
“Last I heard people were just going comatose,” I said. “I saw someone’s shadow attack a nurse.”
The driver shook his head. “It’s like living in a zombie movie. People get sick. They go comatose. Then twenty-four to forty-eight hours later, they wake up and get violent. By the time we realized what was going on, it was too late to help a lot of them. Hospitals started restraining patients as soon as they came in, but it wasn’t enough. Some of them are strong enough to break the restraints. Others never make it into the hospital. They wind up in these roving packs of violent bastards.”
I glanced toward the roof. The guys up there were armed and threatened to use force to stop us. They must’ve thought we were one of those roving packs. “And what are you doing when you encounter these violent groups?”
Drake leaned around the seat to make eye contact with me. “Rubber bullets, tasers, and tear gas so far. But if it keeps up much longer, things could escalate. We control most of the city. The infected seem drawn toward the Quarter for some reason. Every day the National Guard and police teams push farther into the Quarter to clear it building by building, but it’s slow going. It’s like a war zone, Laz. A lot’s changed since the last time we spoke.”
The Humvee hit a bump that rattled everyone inside. I bounced against Remy, who fell over. Finn helped her back up and she smiled at him.
“Emma?” I asked.
“She’s fine as of three hours ago,” Drake answered.
I instantly relaxed at the news.
“The chief has made her the liaison between the department and Omega team.” He gestured around the Humvee. “These guys plus eight more make up Beta team. We’re about to go off shift. She should be on shift for another nine. She’ll be at the station if she’s not out on a round.”
I leaned forward to catch Finn’s attention. “What do we do now? We have the stones. How do we fix this?”
He shrugged and shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine. In Shadow and in the High Court, there was someone in charge, a single person to target. Once we cleared the spell from them, everything seemed to go back to normal. We don’t know who Mask’s avatar is here or where to find him. But once we figure that out, it should work the same. Get him to come
out into the open, and I can use the Speaking Stones to disintegrate him.”
“But first we have to find him.” I leaned back against the seat and rubbed my face. “Dammit, I was really hoping he’d be at the water treatment plant. It looked like ground zero.”
“It might very well have been,” said Drake. “You did the right thing, telling people to stop drinking the water. The number of new infections reported dropped dramatically following that. Too bad it was too little too late. This spread fast.”
“The good news is, we can stop it just as fast once we find Mask.” I raised my voice so that everyone could hear. “Anybody have any ideas on how to do that?”
Silence followed, and I collapsed back against the seat again. Maybe I could call him out, antagonize him publicly and convince him to meet me. No, even Mask wouldn’t be stupid enough to willingly make an appearance after what just happened in the High Court. He knew we were a force to be reckoned with. He’d avoid confrontation at all costs, especially now that it seemed like he was winning on this front. I had to give him a reason to show his face.
We pulled onto the road that led to the station but ran into a blockade of sandbags and plastic cones manned by armed soldiers. They had to manually remove some sawhorses from the road to make enough room for the Humvee to get through. It was surreal, watching armed guards move around the city.
All this destruction Mask was causing must’ve related back to those three seals Foxglove brought up. He said all three had been opened or destroyed…something…for Mask to get this far. We’d need the Speaking Stones to restore them in order to kick him out permanently. Just using the stones in New Orleans like we had in the High Court wouldn’t be enough. We couldn’t just burn him out or he’d be back. We had to find the seal and restore it.
Drake got on the radio as soon as we were through the blockade and announced he was coming in with three civilians of interest. The radio chatter was a lot of code I didn’t understand, but he seemed to react positively to it, so maybe it was good news.
As soon as the Humvee rolled to a stop in front of the station, the front doors opened, and Emma ran out. I half tripped out of the back of the vehicle to meet her on the walk for a hug.
“I was worried something had happened to you,” she said, squeezing me so hard I could barely breathe.
“It kind of did, but I’m fine. The overall mission was a success. As a bonus, we even freed the High Court from Mask’s control. At least temporarily.”
“Temporarily?” She leaned back to examine me with a frown.
I cringed. “Yeah, it’s sort of a good news, bad news situation. Something I’d like to share with everyone you trust to be in on this. Are Josiah, Stefan, and Foxglove still around?”
She nodded but didn’t seem as pleased as I had hoped. “Josiah’s cooling behind bars at the moment. He decided to get belligerent with some of the officers when they demanded he comply with their orders. He’s lucky they didn’t just shoot him with the way things are.”
“Let me guess. He wanted to go out for a drink.” I put my arm around her and we started back for the station.
She chuckled. “Close. Cigarettes. The whole city’s shut down, and he wanted to go out after curfew to feed his nicotine addiction.”
“Could be worse. Considering Josiah, it’s a wonder you’ve been able to keep him in a cell.”
“We made a deal. If he stayed where I could keep an eye on him, I’d send someone to get him a pack to smoke a day.” She opened the door. “I’m sure he’ll tell you I’m a monster for limiting his intake. You heard about the people waking up?”
I nodded and stepped into a station that was as empty as the streets outside. “Josiah can handle himself, though. The creatures from the Nightlands don’t like angel fire. I imagine the infected don’t much care for it either.”
“The problem is, Josiah’s solution to dealing with anything he doesn’t like is to hit it with fire or punch it in the face. They might be infected and violent, but they’re still people, Laz. Burning them alive would be murder.”
“He wouldn’t kill people over a couple packs of cigarettes…would he?”
Emma shrugged.
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Either way, we’re going to need to bring him in on this. He knows more about the supernatural and magic than the rest of us combined. We need his help.”
“You get me a list of who you need to talk to, and I’ll get them all in a room together.”
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned Emma toward me, leaning in to kiss her.
“Whoa, what’s gotten into you?” she asked when our lips parted.
“Nothing. Just got a little perspective. I meant what I said about quitting, Emma. We deserve to be happy.” I squeezed her hands. “I know it’s not the best time with everything going on, but after this meeting, and when you’re off shift, I’d like to steal a few minutes with you. Just to talk. Enjoy each other’s company. Can we do that?”
She sighed and looked around. “I don’t know. I haven’t been going home, and there aren’t many private spaces in the station.”
“Five minutes, Emma. That’s all I need. Please? It’s important to me.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “Okay. I’ll make it happen. In the meantime, you could use a shower and some shut-eye. Down the stairs, second door on the right. It’s not the Hilton, but there’s soap in the showers and cots with blankets and pillows. It’ll take me an hour or two to get everyone together.”
I groaned and almost fell over. “Sleep sounds amazing.”
Finn cleared his throat behind me.
I stepped back from Emma. “Finn has the stones we need. They should go somewhere under lock and key for now, in a very brightly lit, shadow-free room.”
“Got it. Come with me, Finn.” Emma gestured down the hall with her head.
I dragged myself down the stairs toward the bunk room. An hour of sleep wasn’t much, but it’d keep me on my feet until this was over, which would hopefully be soon. I didn’t know how much more I could take.
Chapter Eighteen
The shower was icy cold and uncomfortable, but I was so tired it barely made a difference. I hadn’t realized how tired I was until I spied the empty cots in the bunkhouse. There were only a few unoccupied cots; most were already taken by snoring cops still in their uniforms. I wondered how many of them had been home since all this started. How many of them had families who’d gotten sick? Too many.
There wasn’t much that fit me as far as spare changes of clothes went, but I did find a pair of bright orange scrub pants and a stained t-shirt with the Saints’ logo on it. It wasn’t a pretty combination, but I’d scare more people if I went walking around naked. I was just thankful to have something dry to put on. My old clothes smelled like sewage and sweat.
Dressed and showered, I shambled back toward the bunks only to find a familiar face blocking my way. Baron Samedi was tall, lean, and built. Usually, he appeared in a colorful suit and a matching top hat, sometimes wearing white paint designed to make him look like a skeleton. Today, he’d put on the full get-up, black suit, a wilted rose tucked into the lapel. A big turkey feather jutted from the bill of his top hat. The white face paint was thick and detailed.
He pushed away from the doorway with his hip and leaned on his skull-topped cane. “What’s this I hear about you quitting?”
I slung the bag of dirty clothes over my shoulder. “News travels fast around here, doesn’t it?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been spending a lot of time in the area recently. You’ve been falling down on the job, Horseman. And now you want me to release you from your duties?”
“Falling down on the job? I’ve been in Faerie trying to win a Speaking Stone which is supposed to help. I’ve been working my ass off ever since I took this gig. If anything, I’ve over-performed. How many times have I saved the world? How many times have I saved New Orleans or done your dirty work for you, Samedi?”
He nodded and rubbed his chin. “Several.”
“Yeah, no thanks to you.” I cleared my throat and wished I’d thought to bring something to drink. My mouth was too dry. “I want out.”
“Out?” He arched an eyebrow.
“To pass this Pale Horseman gig to someone else. I’ve got a life to get back to, Samedi, and being Death is getting in the way of taking care of the people I care about.”
He pursed his lips and stared down his nose at me, squinting. “The mantle of the Death is not so easily cast aside. It is not a coat that you can put on and take off at a whim, Lazarus.”
“I’ve done everything asked of me and more. I’ve saved the world more than once, Samedi. I’ve fought gods, Titans, Faerie queens… Everything that’s been thrown at me, I’ve dealt with and barely asked you for anything except a little information. You find me another Horseman in history who’s prevented the deaths of millions as many times as I have and I’ll shut up, but I don’t think you can. I’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty, and now I’m ready to retire.”
“Retire?” He rested his cane in the crook of his arm and removed his hat. “I have never known a Horseman to retire. The world needs all Four Horsemen. As it is, things have been difficult with Famine and Pestilence gone and War’s temper tantrum.”
“Temper tantrum?” Last I’d heard anything about Haru, he’d washed ashore in Alabama and told the Tengu he was taking some time off. Didn’t sound like a tantrum to me. The guy had worked his ass off almost as much as I had.
Samedi waved a hand. “Refusing to come back into the fold as if he could renegotiate the terms of his contract. It seems he’s not the only one with a desire to renege on his agreement.”
I swallowed. “I’m not asking for an immediate changeover, Samedi. I’ll be happy to train my replacement once you’ve found one.”
“Once I’ve found one? Ha! You are a funny man!” He jabbed a finger into my chest. “You want a replacement, you find one! And your successor will have to meet my qualifications, not yours.”