The Wicked & The Dead (Faery Bargains Book 1)

by Melissa Marr

  He refilled our glasses. “Should I ask what that was?”

  “No.”

  He nodded. This was one of the many reasons I liked having Eli around—despite his need to repeatedly call me by some sort of dessert. In fact, I enjoyed his company enough that I pointedly hadn’t asked why he did so. I was happier not knowing. Realizing how much meaning he layered into the mundane, sometimes I simply chose to wear my ignorance like a well-loved dressing-coat.

  “So, Geneviève, what would you ask of me?”

  “The job seems like a simple enter, behead, and exit.” I leaned back and watched him.

  “Stealth?”

  “Lafayette Number One,” I said.

  Eli grinned. Sometimes, I thought he took too much glee in helping me, and it made me wonder about his past. But I wasn’t asking too many questions these days. Every job left me a little closer to exhausted, more than it should.

  But as quickly as his amusement had arrived, it was gone. “You know I’ll do my best. You have my word.”

  “I trust you,” I reminded him. “You’re a good fighter, too.”

  Despite the tension that had grown between us, Eli had never let me down. Honestly, that was part of the problem. He was everything I could want—if I wanted someone to keep.

  “I am honored,” he said with a dip of his head. His voice was rough, and that spoke volumes, too. Eli said no more; he simply finished his drink and stared at me.

  I wondered again if there were nuances in our conversation that I’d missed. It wasn’t like I could find a how-to book on navigating a complicated, sexually-charged friendship with a faery. And while Eli didn’t broadcast his heritage, his fae nature was obvious.

  When asked, Eli admitted to having “some fae.” Calling him half-fae was like calling me “a little bit witch.” Whatever his heritage, he managed to look like he ought to be in every glossy magazine, selling anything, promising everything. Instead, he was making promises to come out into the dark and protect me as we broke into a cemetery and beheaded drooling face-gnawers.

  After a few more quiet moments, I refilled our glasses again. “Why do I always feel like I’m saying more than I realize?”

  “Because, my lovely peach pie, you are a clever creature,” he said mildly.

  I shook my head. “That’s not comforting, you know?”

  Eli laughed and stood. “You will tell me when you need me?”

  I wasn’t dense enough to answer that remark, so I said, “I’ll tell you when we’re doing the job.” I paused. “There was a weird thing earlier.”

  “In New Orleans? How would you notice?”

  “Fair.” I smiled. His love of our shared city was what we’d first bonded over. “Masked person. Possibly female. Attempted to inject venom into a kid.”

  “Unsuccessfully?”

  “Yeah.” I thought about the kids. When I was their age, I had the sense not to go looking for again-walkers and the skill to do it anyhow. “They were lucky tonight. . . but if you hear anything . . .?”

  “Of course. I’ll call you immediately.” He took my hand and pulled me to my feet. “Shall I drive you home? Or are you going hunting?”

  “As tempting as both ideas are, I’m going to call a car.” I gave him a wry smile. “I think I need a minute alone to clear my head.”

  “If you must.”

  “I must,” I stressed.

  “Until we next meet, Geneviève.” He nodded once, made a gesture to one of his omnipresent staff members, and then told me, “The driver will be out front momentarily.”

  “I can call a car,” I objected.

  He scowled. “And I can have you driven home.”

  It was going to be a thing if I continued to object, so I said, “I appreciate it.”

  “Of course.”

  For a moment, we stood there, not retreating, not advancing. Maybe it was relief that he’d acquiesced to my request for help or happiness that he’d be back at my side. Maybe it was simply joy that he was in my life when I was feeling so out of sorts. Regardless of the reason, I leaned closer and gave a light kiss in the air over either cheek.

  “I’m joyous that we are back to this point,” Eli said in a voice that seemed more appropriate for bedroom promises. “When you are ready to proceed further, I’m here.”

  No amount of logic could negate the images stirred by his words in that tone. I swallowed and attempted to appear unaffected, but I didn’t speak. I couldn’t trust myself to say anything remotely blasé at that moment. The darkness in his gaze made it quite clear that I was fooling no one.

  Sometimes, I hated the way he could make me tumble toward lust. Other times, I wanted to kiss him into submission.

  Chapter Four

  “This is a terrible plan, Geneviève,” Eli stressed as we stood outside the locked cemetery a week later. “Even you must realize that.”

  I stared at the fence in front of us, sparing a glance for the ever-darkening sky. The moon wasn’t winking at me yet, but sunlight was fast escaping. I’d met the widow. I’d made arrangements. It really ought to be simple.

  “You always think my plans are terrible,” I muttered.

  “Would you like to see my scar from the debacle at St. Anne’s, bonbon?” Eli reached down as if to unfasten his trousers.

  “Only if you want to add a new scar, cupcake.” I’d seen the wound when it was fresh. A draugr had tried to go for Eli’s femoral artery. I lopped its head off while it was mid-bite, and the weight of the head tore a bigger hole. I still felt vaguely guilty about it. “Maybe you should head back. Being around me will lead to more scars sooner or later.”

  Eli laughed in a way that seemed at odds with where we were. “I am here with you, Geneviève, instead of safely ensconced in my tavern or home. Does that not imply a willingness to bleed for you? I would accept many scars to be near to you if that is the cost I must pay.”

  “That’s sounding close to a vow, Eli,” I warned as I walked along the fence, hoping I’d somehow missed the groundskeeper completing his rounds. “I don’t want a vow.”

  “No vow, frosting,” Eli said lightly. “Just raw truth. I have faith in your skill.”

  “Same,” I admitted.

  He gave me a smile. “But?”

  “I’m exhausted, and we’re behind schedule. And Marie Chevalier, the one that ate the security guard’s face, vanished. I’m honestly not sure what to expect.”

  “And so, I am here to assist you,” he said. “And, Geneviève, I have dressed for this outing. I even shopped for new trousers.” He gestured to his black trousers, coat, and boots. He’d skipped a scarf. No elegant jewelry adorned his hands or wrists. “What do you think?”

  I rolled my eyes as if looking at him was a chore. “You clean up well enough.”

  He flashed me a smile that meant he heard the things I refused to admit. “Only for you.”

  Tonight, he was wearing a black knit cap to hide the glimmers that were visible in his hair when my magic was in play. A part of me wanted to ask why my magic disrupted his glamour, but the rest of me remembered that asking about his secrets would mean sharing my own.

  We stopped in front of the still-locked gate.

  “Do you want a boost, gingerbread? Or shall we pick the lock?”

  I shot him a surly look. “I paid for the gate to be unlocked.”

  “I see.” Eli pointedly glanced at the very obviously locked gate. “Money well spent.”

  “At least it was a write-off as a business expense. Good for taxes.”

  “When did you start paying taxes?”

  I shrugged and scanned the area. The sun was dropping, vanishing seemingly faster and faster by the heartbeat, as we stood in front of a wrought iron, silver-tipped fence. The groundskeeper was either late or gone. Give a man enough money to let you inside to kill a few dead people, and he had enough money to get out of town instead. I couldn’t say I truly blamed him. New Orleans was a difficult place to live, and the life expectancy at graveya
rds was lower than in most jobs.

  Still. . . the soft tinkle of a grave bell from the middle of the shadowed graveyard was proof that the family was probably right. I was there to check if my client’s late husband, Alvin Chaddock, was awake.

  If it wasn’t him, someone else was awake.

  Either way I needed to get in, do my job, and get out without detection. It was that or deal with the consequences of Chaddock’s return. The dead man getting away meant no check, a potentially messy hunt, and awkward police station visits. No one wanted that.

  The grave bell was jangling faster.

  “Over?” Eli asked.

  I studied the actual problem at hand: minor B&E. There weren’t any better options. “Over.”

  I could hear my quarry inside the fence, and unfortunately, the delay in entry meant that I would have to deal with the security cameras, too. Lafayette Cemetery had invested in cameras that recorded everything after dark, as if nothing bad could happen during the daylight. The video was likely already recording the sounds of the corpse that verified that he’d made plans for an unhealthy afterlife.

  “Ready when you are, butterdrop.” Eli pulled on a pair of thick lined gloves. Iron burned his kind—and touching me had other complications.

  “Always ready,” I said, because the reality was that ready or not, the dead would come, and what I was made me uniquely able to stand against the dead, whether I wanted to or not.

  Destiny—even one created by your parents—was an inflexible jackass.

  Chapter Five

  The soft tinkle of the grave bell was quickly becoming obnoxious as the deceased cracked the lock on their vault.

  I circled the fence, looking for the best entry point. I wanted to avoid spending too much time walking through the graves, since the last thing I needed was an army of dead bodies animated to do my bidding.

  “Here,” I told Eli as I admitted to myself that the only way in was over.

  After a quick boost from Eli, I hoisted myself up by grabbing the wrought iron just under the sharp points on top of the fence.

  Eli, despite the metal being poisonous to him, practically vaulted over the fence. I had a leg over, and he was on the ground grinning. He reached up and grabbed my legs, so I slid into his arms.

  Without so much as a smoldering glance, Eli lowered me to the ground and stepped away. “I hear it.”

  My sword was in hand before I could think, and Eli had moved away from the toxic metal as I raised it.

  He gave me a strange look when I didn’t send a pulse of magic to find the again-walker I sought, but my magic had been like a malformed pipe these days. Sometimes, I tried for a trickle and ended up with a flood. Sometimes, I tried for a stream and received a few droplets. Better to use my regular sight.

  I could hear the bells that were tied to the draugr, but I wasn’t keen on standing still and waiting. I motioned to Eli, who followed with the sort of stealth that made me think of tigers or panthers.

  We rounded a corner, and there, between a grave topped with a lamb and one with a weeping angel of death, was a draugr. The late Mr. Chaddock looked like his photograph, seventies and well-dressed, but he was still coated in soil and concrete dust from the vault he had shattered to escape. Logic wasn’t present yet, and the newly perverted were hungry for any life they could drink. In time, he’d be genuinely sentient. Right now, he was a newborn who knew only hunger.

  He lunged, moving with the serpentine flow that typically only came with age and experience. He was one place and then the next, faster than a newly arisen draugr had ever been. Something was wrong here. He was too fast for the newly risen.

  I tugged on the magic inside my bones, as if it was a tangible thing that nestled in my marrow when unused.

  To bind.

  To hold.

  Barely visible tendrils twisted around Chaddock’s feet, holding him to the soil even as he tugged to tear free.

  I whispered a prayer as I lifted my sword, and then added, “I am sorry for your loss.”

  Perhaps my prayers and words eased no one’s pain but my own, but I still needed to offer them.

  My first swing missed because somehow Chaddock was able to break free and flow. He should not be able to do that. He ought to be lumbering.

  I heard Eli’s muttered curse, as he shoved me out of Chaddock’s suddenly-too-close reach.

  Fear for Eli and for myself made me foolish. I flowed, too, and my magic flared into tendrils that would make Jack’s fabled beanstalk look puny.

  Then, I swung my sword again. My blade glanced off Chaddock’s upper arm. I let more magic fill me, calm me, strengthen me. I hadn’t ever needed it for the recently dead before now. I should not have needed it with Alvin Chaddock, but I did.

  Inhale. Anticipate. Swing.

  Finally, my blade slid through flesh.

  “Dust to dust,” I whispered in relief as I severed the head of the late businessman from his torso.

  The head landed with a meaty sound, and the late Alvin Chaddock stared at my boot through once-more lifeless eyes.

  Chaddock was mushier than most first-waking draugr, but he didn’t drift into nothings like the older ones did. Eli and I now had a rapidly decomposing corpse, and we needed to redeposit him in his grave before it got too much messier.

  Eli took a quick photograph for the client, and then he scooped the majority of the corpse into his arms, leaving the head for me.

  “Should be about six rows back. Grave already disturbed. They said the stone was an angel,” I said as I lifted the head by the short grey hair and followed. I was grateful not to need to take pictures. I understood the request for proof, but it seemed ghoulish to me.

  Once we found the grave, I handed Eli the head. Then I unzipped a pocket and pulled out a few handfuls of salt. The salt could keep the dead out . . . or in. Here, I was hoping it would help tether Chaddock to the earth. At home, I lined every wall, window, and ledge with industrial quantities of salt.

  “Hurry,” I urged and ran toward the office.

  This was always the hardest part of jobs like this: the newly dead were dispatched easily enough if you had the strength to avoid their ravenous bites. Most people didn’t. For me, it was easier than falling into a refreshing lake. The danger for me was getting out before I woke the properly dead. They always felt my presence if I stood on grave dirt.

  Tonight, that danger was worse. I’d actually used my magic in a field of dead. I could feel eyes opened in the soil. Ears listening for my call. They were aware of me. They were waking.

  “Rest,” I whispered to them.

  Eli would be digging enough of a hole to put the corpse in the ground by now.

  I broke the doorknob and let myself into the office where the security cameras were. This cemetery’s security was handled by Abraxxas Monitoring. I exhaled in relief. They stored footage on site, not at a main hub, so I could access and delete the footage here.

  I grabbed the talisman that hung around my neck and hoped I wasn’t going to fuck this up. More magic near graves. It wasn’t ideal when the dead were already waking. And for reasons I couldn’t understand, my magic had been increasingly off the past few weeks. Simple spells resulted in extreme energy bursts. A minor summoning last month had woken an entire potter’s field. As soon as I was able, I was going to have to see if my mother had any insights.

  But it was either magic to erase the footage or stab the machine. One of those would result in fines for destruction of property if I got caught—and since I was hired to be here, someone knew I was on site.

  Magic it was. I sent an electrical pulse into the machines and overloaded the circuits. I knew from experience that the most recent footage would be recorded over. I needed there to be no video of Mr. Chaddock’s decapitation. Simple. Easy. Magic I could do before I was old enough to get a period.

  Tonight, however, my magic was not listening to my will. Again. The simple electrical surge flashed into a purple flare that radiated outward. I felt
the knot holding my hair in place vanish. Tendrils lifted, as if the magic made the air around me lighter. I knew without a mirror that my eyes had changed, too. They were my father’s reptilian eyes. The only thing he’d ever done for me was accidentally augment the magic I inherited from my witchy mother. My vision shifted as I saw trails of energy, the whispers of deaths, and—if I looked—I’d see the auras of anything living.

  I felt bodies in the soil stirring, shifting, rising.

  I’d used far, far more magic than I’d intended to summon.

  “Shit. Double shit. Shit balls!” I was out the door and running as the shifting forms under the soil grew increasingly restless.

  “Eli!” I called, despite the need for stealth. If anyone else heard me, there were plenty of excuses I could give if we were all still intact. And I couldn’t guarantee we would be if this energy kept growing.

  I could feel hundreds of corpses listening for me and reaching out their hands.

  Sleep! I urged them.

  Their voices slipped through soil and stone, rising up on wind that should not be.

  “Madre.”

  “Mere.”

  “Mathair.”

  “Mother.”

  Rest! I ordered.

  “We come.” Their voices tangled together into a symphony of affectionate whispers. “We come to you, mother.”

  “Eli!” I called again. I could see him patting down the dirt over Mr. Chaddock’s grave. He glanced up.

  “Now. Go now,” I managed to say. “Dead. Waking.”

  His expression was one I rarely saw: shock. He was strong, but the dead were resistant to everything but time and magic. He could sever their limbs, and the arms would roll toward me and feet would hop.

  “Go!” I repeated.

  The dead heard my order, too. I felt them growing increasingly together. Flesh and muscles knitted together atop bones as my extra surge of magic gave them temporary life.