by E. A. Copen
Detective Drake, who’d been coordinating some of the relief efforts nearby, lowered his radio and went to put a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to go in there, miss. You should let someone go in to clean up the scene first. It’s not easy to look at.”
Remy’s chin quivered. “He was my friend, Detective. My oldest and dearest friend.”
Drake nodded and stepped back.
I followed Remy inside and quickly wished I hadn’t. Whatever Foxglove had done, he’d died fighting. That much was evident. The broken pieces of the man that had been my Knight, Remy’s protector, and a friend to us both when we needed it most, told the story of a fighter too stubborn to die easy. Judging by the stains on the wall, Mask thought he’d won several times and walked away only to have Foxglove get back up, spit blood and say, “Is that the best you’ve got?” That’d be just like him.
Finn stopped in the doorway, waiting.
Remy knelt next to his head and moved bloody strands of hair away from his face. “We should bury him in Faerie. He was a Knight, after all, a true Knight, Finn. Like in the stories.”
“He was,” Finn agreed.
She turned to look at him. A tear fell when she blinked. “What is it?”
Finn sighed. “I just overheard something on the radio. Remy, there’s no easy way to put this. It was your dad. They said… They said he did it to himself. That it was the price of finishing the seal.”
She turned away again. “I see.”
Finn came and put a hand on her shoulder. “New Orleans is safe because of them. Because of them, we have the stones back and stand a chance of liberating all of Faerie.”
Remy pushed her tears away. “Where is he?”
Drake put them all in a Humvee. At the last second, Nate rushed over and talked with Drake before getting in too. The Humvee took them to the station where they’d taken my body and laid it out on one of those uncomfortable cots. The weird thing was, someone had jabbed an IV in my arm and was working on getting a bunch of other equipment set up. Why bother with all that for a dead man?
Nate pushed everyone out of the way and ran to my side, peeling my eyelids up and shining a flashlight into my eyes.
“I already examined him,” said the doctor that had been working on me. “No pupil response. No pain response. He’s in a vegetative state. This man is barely breathing.”
I blinked. Breathing? Hold the phone. I thought Louisa the pencil pusher said I was dead?
“You are, in a manner of speaking.”
I spun around.
Baron Samedi pulled a cigar from between his lips, puffed a perfect O into the air and leaned on his cane…which was now a shovel. He grinned at me with his perfect white teeth. “Just imagine my surprise when I got the call from human resources telling me about an escapee, and that escapee is you.” He gestured to me with the cigar.
I waved the smoke away, even though I couldn’t smell it. “Cut the crap, Samedi. I’m obviously not dead. Look, I’ve got a heartbeat, blood pressure…”
“Sure, if you want to call that alive.” He shrugged.
I turned back around and studied my prone body with a sigh. “What’s happening to me? How am I even alive if I removed my soul? Wasn’t it consumed in the spell?”
“The first law of magic is the same as the first law of thermodynamics, my friend. In a closed system such as the transfer of power from one object to another, nothing is ever truly destroyed. Just...changed. But without a soul, this is all the life you can hope for. It’s a shame too. I was actually starting to like you.”
“I was quitting.” I gave Samedi a skeptical look. “So you’re telling me my soul is still out there. What if I get it and put it back in my body? Can I come back from this?”
Samedi put the head of his shovel against his shoulder. “If you do it in time. I don’t have to dig your grave for another six days, and as long as I don’t dig, you live. Between you and me, Lazarus, I would prefer not to dig. My life will be easier if you come back and name your own replacement.”
The situation wasn’t ideal, but it was far from hopeless. All I had to do was find my soul, give it a little spit-shine, and somehow get it back in my body before the seventh day. It wouldn’t be easy, especially since I couldn’t interact with the physical world, but it was more than I’d had a minute ago.
Samedi tipped his hat, turned his back, and started to walk away.
“Hey,” I called after him, “where should I start looking?”
He removed his hat and waved it at me, singing “Somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight.”
That bastard was going to be about as helpful as usual, which meant not at all. I was completely on my own. Not even Emma could help me with this one.
I sighed and floated up a floor to stare at the map of New Orleans we’d left on the projector. “Well, I’d better get started.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
Lazarus shattered his soul during a spell and he has six days to fix his mistake. It’s not going to be an easy task. Everyone in the underworld is gunning to claim his soul. Will he be able to find what he needs in time to save himself? Find out in Lost Soul, the amazing 11th installment of the Lazarus Codex!
The Story Continues with Lost Soul
Available now from Amazon and Kindle Unlimited
Dying is easy. Coming back is the hard part.
The 11th installment of the bestselling Lazarus Codex from preternatural storyteller E.A. Copen!
After shattering his soul during a spell, Lazarus has just six days to fix his mistake.
Not an easy task when every reaper in the underworld is gunning to claim his soul, including the reaper king,
Will Lazarus be able to find everything he needs in time?
Even if he does, will he be able to fix himself before those who want him dead accomplish their goals?
Grab your copy now from Amazon or Kindle Unlimited
Author Notes
November 19, 2019
Death and Darkness contains some of my favorite books in the series, even if some of the books got a rocky reception at first. I asked a lot from the fans and threw a lot at them. This collection of books is all about me challenging readers’ perception of Lazarus, and his perception of himself. By challenging who he thinks he is, I forced him to grow in ways not even I could’ve predicted.
Death’s Door was a departure from how I’d normally tell an urban fantasy story because there was no mystery to solve. Lazarus had a singular goal; find Emma’s soul and free her. I had big plans for this book, originally outlining nine different underworlds to send him through. After the first two, however, I realized how long that would make it and cut the plan back to seven. It still wound up being the longest book in the series, but it’s also one of my favorites.
Lazarus’ descent into Irkalla is still one of my favorite moments from the series. The concept that a spirit must give up different aspects of the self is something I lifted directly from Babylonian myth. I wanted this part to be both beautiful and terrifying, familiar and strange. It still sticks with me as something I would like to revisit in the future, perhaps writing an entire book about it. If you get the chance to read the original Babylonian myth about Ereshkigal, I highly recommend it.
Originally, I had planned to end the series with the sixth book. I almost did. However, introducing Loki and the Titans didn’t feel like something that should’ve happened at the end. When I took Lazarus to the Nightlands and introduced Mask, I also thought I’d like to do a short story arc about that. Loki and Mask would eventually go on to become series level antagonists.
In a way, this sixth book blew the universe wide open. It’s thanks to Death’s Door that Hellbent Halo came about, as well as the rest of the series, and another spin-off I’d like to do in the future that explores some of the more Lovecraftian elements introduced in later books like Lost Soul and Master of Shadows.
The seventh book, Night Terror, was originally named Dream Weaver and the
antagonist was much more spider-like in the first draft. Funny enough, this changed because I was doing research on spiders so I could write Fractured Souls. I’ve never been a fan of spiders, but even they grew on me a bit after introducing Milly to the world.
I know Night Terror and Dark Revel have some heavy subject matter. Suicide and the loss of a child are hard subjects to deal with, but I’ve never been one to shy away from tackling those as well as I can. These two books are the darkest ones in the series. There are a lot of reasons for that, partly because I needed to strip Lazarus of nearly everything to really find out who he was. I was also going through some dark personal times while writing these, and I think that got reflected in the writing.
There have been times where Lazarus’ wise cracking were all that brightened my day. I hope that, even though this particular set of books has some dark moments, that’s also true for you. I often find myself saying hope shines brightest in the darkness, and that’s really what I hoped to illustrate in some of these books.
Yes, Lazarus takes a lot of beatings. The important thing is that he always gets back up.
He lost a lot in this part of the story, but he also gained something he might not have otherwise: an understanding of himself, an inner strength that helps him get through. I wouldn’t be who I am today if not for all the challenges I’ve faced, and so I think it’s fair to assume some characters must face similar challenges. That’s why I throw so much at poor Lazarus. That and torturing my characters makes for a much more interesting story than being nice to them!
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As always, thank you so much for reading! See you next time!
E.A. Copen
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Other Series by E.A. Copen
The Lazarus Codex
Hellbent Halo
Beasts of Babylon
Master of Shadows
Kiss of Vengeance
Cold Spell
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