by E. A. Copen
“Put this on.” She tossed a black hood through the bars.
I caught it and turned it over in my hands. “Why?”
She pointed to the red light of the camera in the corner. “We have a friend helping edit the video footage, but he can’t clear you out completely without raising some questions. If you want to have any chance of getting your life back after this is all over and not just going back to prison for escaping, you’ll need to look like an unwilling participant.”
In other words, we had to make it look like Khaleda was kidnapping me so the cops didn’t come after me.
I slid the hood over my head but didn’t pull it over my eyes. “What about those bars? Once you melt through them, these guys’ll all get out.”
Khaleda leaned to the side, studying my sleeping cellmates. “Any of them rapists or killers?”
“Drunks and druggies mostly. I think one of them is in for assault.”
“Then it’s not my problem.” She snapped her fingers. “Now get that hood on, Horseman. Josiah can’t hold the sleeping spell forever.”
I pulled the hood down. A minute later, Khaleda’s hand squeezed my arm and jerked me forward. My head hit one of the metal bars but I shook it off and ducked through the hole. With Khaleda leading me, we walked through the precinct and down a ramp.
“About bloody time,” Josiah growled once we reached the bottom of the ramp. Something small tapped against cement and rolled. One of his cigarettes maybe. Josiah was bad about chain smoking. Hopefully he’d leave a window down in whatever rescue car they’d secured. “Get him in the van. I’m losing it.”
A metal door rolled aside and Khaleda gave me a hard shove forward. I tumbled onto cheap carpet, the back of a van with the seats removed. Someone closed the door and the engine started.
Another door closed and I jerked the hood off just in time to see Josiah light a cigarette in the front seat. He was a lanky guy, just a hair shorter than Khaleda, with dark hair and just enough facial hair to make it looked like he didn’t care without having an overgrown beard.
Just as his lighter snapped closed, gunfire erupted outside. Bullets peppered the side of the van and I threw myself flat against the floor.
Khaleda stomped on the gas. The back end of the van slid to the side before the whole thing jerked forward with more bullets piercing the rear doors. Khaleda cursed and jerked the wheel to the side as a window shattered.
I rolled and hit the wall of the van. “Easy, you crazy woman driver! I don’t have a seat belt back here!”
I’d just started to sit up when I paused at the sight of a huge, hairy spider clinging to the ceiling above me. Shit, I’d forgotten all about his familiar, Milly. Josiah never went anywhere without that creepy thing. It just hung there, staring at me, my reflection shining in its multiple eyes.
“Yo, Josiah. You mind calling your furry friend?”
“She’s no threat to you, mate,” he said, but extended his hand to collect the tarantula anyway. The giant spider crawled right into his hand and, I swear, he cuddled it against his cheek like a damn cat.
Khaleda leaned over to look behind her. “We need to get off the main roads with this van.”
“We need to get off the roads in general.” I pulled myself up between the seats. “There are two detectives who have it in for me. The cops will be out in full force looking for a shot-up delivery van. You guys need to ditch this ride and soon.”
“On it.” Josiah lifted a phone and tapped out a quick message. “What evidence do they have on you anyway, mate? Must be serious.”
I shook my head. “No idea. They don’t have a...” I stopped, unwilling to refer to my daughter as just a body. Just saying that felt like admitting that she might be dead or worse. “She’s alive. I know she is.”
“Course she is, mate.” Josiah lowered the phone and tapped some cigarette ash into the cup holder. “Any idea who took her or why?”
“Could be any number of people,” Khaleda said, taking another turn. “Lazarus has a habit of pissing people off. Loki, Titans, basically every underworld god in existence, couple of fae...”
“It wasn’t any of them.” I wadded the black hood in my hands and stared at it. “At least not directly.”
While Khaleda drove us through the back streets trying to get out of downtown, I told them everything that had happened, describing the zombies, Leah, the car explosion... All of it.
Josiah listened and smoked without saying anything. When I was finished, he crushed his cigarette on the dash and asked, “Did you try a tracking spell yet?”
“Haven’t had time. I spent the night in a jail cell, remember? And it might not work. Whoever this is, they’re smart and at least as strong as me. That’s why I called you. If I needed taking out, I know you two could do it.”
Josiah and Khaleda exchanged a glance.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t act like you haven’t considered it. Khaleda, you’ve already tried to kill me once. And I’m pretty sure you’ve come close, Josiah.”
He shrugged. “You can be an annoying twat, Lazarus.”
Khaleda frowned. “You said you think he took both babies because he couldn’t tell them apart. Any other reason you can think of for someone taking both kids?”
I hadn’t considered other reasons. There were plenty of monsters out there that ate babies. The thing could’ve been beefing up its food supply, but that didn’t feel right. If he just wanted them for food, he’d have taken any baby. This wasn’t a crime of opportunity. Remy had specifically been targeted.
“That’s it.” Josiah snapped his fingers. “He might’ve taken precautions against a tracking spell that could lead you to Remy, but it’s less likely with the other baby, especially if he stopped to figure out which one was her later on. He likely dropped the other one somewhere.”
“Dropped?” I swallowed and stole a glance outside. It didn’t get dangerously cold in Southern Louisiana during the winter, but it was still cold enough out there I wouldn’t have wanted Jessica to spend the night outside unprotected. And that was the best-case scenario. He might’ve just killed her.
“Tracking the other child might be easier,” Josiah continued. “Just need to get some DNA from one of the parents.”
“Fat chance of that.” I shook my head. “Leah, her mom, is in the hospital. Whoever took the kids stabbed her. She lost a lot of blood.”
“There might be some blood at the scene,” Khaleda suggested.
“No.” Josiah shook his head. “Coppers’ll be watching it. Can’t go there, or to the hospital. What about the dad?”
Nate was probably with Leah or talking to the police. That’s where I’d be in his shoes. Likely beside himself with worry, too. Getting him alone would be difficult, but not impossible. The police would be hacked into his cell phone soon now that I was out. They’d be watching everyone associated with me. But there were other ways to get in contact with my best friend. Even if I did contact him, he might not show. He’d have to leave Leah’s side, and Nate was totally devoted to his wife. Now that she was hurt, maybe fatally...
Stop thinking about the problems and focus on a solution. “Okay,” I said after a minute, “Take me to the hospital.”
Chapter Six
The hospital was crawling with cops. They stood outside the emergency room doors, chatting and complaining about the cold. Another sat at every entrance, eying everyone who came in and checking visitor’s passes. There were probably more right outside Leah’s room too. No way I was getting close to her.
I’d have asked if Josiah could just do the sleeping spell thing again, but there was a huge difference between putting a bunch of cops to sleep and having a brain surgeon fall asleep on the job. Lives would be lost.
I couldn’t break into the hospital with all the cops crawling around, and getting to the roof was out of the question. Too many cameras. Instead, I had to go the one place in the hospital nobody would be looking for a live felon from justice: the morgue.
&nbs
p; It was perfect. Hospital morgues had their own private entrances and exits so patients didn’t have to see bodies coming and going. Patrols avoided the area because it gave them the creeps, and so did most other hospital staff. The only person who should’ve been in the morgue at that hour would be the night technician. They didn’t do autopsies overnight; any bodies that needed to be processed would’ve been sent over to the coroner’s office. He’d just be a guard, usually a med student needing to get one more rotation in before graduation. No one who wanted to be a hero.
The biggest problem would be the cameras. Once the van pulled onto the property anywhere, the cameras would pick them up, so I had Khaleda drop me off on the street. I borrowed Josiah’s trench coat, which was a few sizes too small. If I bent my arms the wrong way, the thing would rip open at the seams. It had a nice collar though, so I flipped that up and had Khaleda use her magic to change the hood into a ball cap I pulled down low. Then I walked to the back of the hospital lot, hoping the BOLO the police put out on me wasn’t that accurate.
The morgue entrance was a ramp next to the dumpsters that led to a set of double doors, locked from the inside. Like most locks in modern hospitals, this one was magnetic. A quick blast of magic and I shut it down. The doors popped open. I grabbed the handle and slowly pulled it open the rest of the way.
Just inside the door was a hallway with a low ceiling and bright fluorescent lighting. A door on the right side of the hall was marked as some kind of filing office. I peeked inside and found it empty, which meant the technician was probably making rounds. Great. I had no idea where he’d be on the floor or when he’d be back, but the clock was ticking for me and Remy. I couldn’t afford to wait, so I passed the office and made for the big room at the end of the hall.
Through a set of swinging doors was the cold room. Metal storage drawers lined walls on either side with paper labels on each. There were almost thirty bodies in storage. Each one called to my power when I entered the room, begging me to interact with them. I stopped just inside the door to adjust my mental shields and make sure they were air tight before continuing.
“Hey,” called a feminine voice from off to my right, “you can’t be in here.”
My eyes snapped open.
She was about the right age for a college kid and looked as worn out as a med student. She was also armed with pepper spray, which she held out in front of her as she approached. “You need to leave right now.”
I raised my hands in front of me. “I don’t want any trouble. I just got turned around. Damn hospitals. Like a maze in here. Am I right?”
“Nice try, bud. You came from the exit, which means you broke in. I don’t know how you did that, but you’d best turn around and get the hell out of my morgue before I call security, sicko!”
Great. Just my luck that I’d run into a med student too smart for her own good. No choice but to resort to the backup plan.
I darted forward, narrowly avoiding the spray of painful pepper to my face and tackling her to the ground. She hit the floor with a shriek that I abruptly cut off by putting a hand over her mouth.
“Now listen here—” I stole a glance at her name tag. “—Amy. Look at me. In the eyes, Amy.”
Her whole body shook under my hands. Big, brown eyes snapped to mine and I felt like an absolute jerk. She looked terrified.
“I’m not going to hurt you, but you’re going to have a headache when you wake up. Sorry about that.”
Amy gave me a quizzical look. I sent a jolt of magic into her head. Her eyes widened for just a minute before they closed. See, Josiah? I can put people to sleep too. I couldn’t put an entire precinct full of cops to bed though. My spell required eye contact and physical touch to work, which meant it wasn’t useful most of the time. How the hell had he made every cop in the station fall asleep? I’d have to get pointers from him later.
With Amy out, I carried her back to the office and did my best to deposit her in the comfortable-looking office chair. I arranged her so her head was on the desk, leaning on her arms. Before I left, I unplugged the phone and computer so that if she woke up, it’d take her a few extra minutes to call for help.
Once I was sure she was safe, I returned to the cold room and picked up the phone on the wall. When the caller ID flashed across Nate’s phone, it wouldn’t say the call was coming from the morgue, just the hospital. With his wife in a bed upstairs, he’d definitely answer. I felt a little guilty exploiting Leah’s situation so I could talk to Nate, but I didn’t have a choice. This was my best chance for finding Jessica, which would hopefully also help me find Remy.
“Hello?” Nate sounded desperate but worn, a little more eager than normal. Must’ve been a while since the doctors updated him.
“Come downstairs to the morgue,” I told him. “If you want to find Jessica, you need to come alone. No cops.” I hung up without waiting for a response. If I’d stayed on the line too long, the cops watching him might’ve gotten curious and asked who he was talking to. I just hoped Nate recognized my voice.
Nothing to do now but wait, I suppose. I slid into the shadows, hands in my pockets. Just in case someone besides Nate came into the room, I needed to stay out of sight.
I didn’t have to wait long. Not five minutes passed before the doors on the opposite wall opened and a bony guy with big, curly hair stepped cautiously into the morgue. He held something awkwardly in his hand, though I couldn’t make out exactly what it was. Nate’s footsteps echoed through the room as he slowly made his way to the middle, scanning the darkness.
I waited until he passed me to step out of the shadows. “Sorry to pull you away, Nate.”
He spun around on me before I even finished speaking and raised whatever was in his hands. Light flashed and thunder boomed. No, not thunder, I realized as something whizzed by my ear and slammed into one of the metal drawers behind me. Nate had a gun and he’d shot at me!
He shifted the gun, adjusting his aim.
No time to figure out why, not if I didn’t want to get shot in the face. I rushed forward and grabbed the gun, pushing it aside. “Just what the hell was that for? I thought we were pals.”
He bared his teeth at me. “I know what you did. Now where’s my daughter, Lazarus? Where is she?”
I looked down at the gun. He tried to bring it around one more time, but I pulled it away.
Rather than try to grab it back, Nate collapsed, falling to the floor, breathing hard. “Please. Even if she’s dead, just tell me. I can’t not know. I need to know.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I looked down at the gun and turned to place it on a shelf behind me. “Nate, I didn’t hurt Jessica or Remy. Come on, man. You know me better than that.”
At least I hoped he did. I considered Nate to be my best friend. Sometimes, my only friend.
Nate clenched his fists and turned his face up so he could glare at me. His eyes watered, threatening to overflow. “Leah came around just before they took her in. She said it was you, Laz. You’re the one who stabbed her.”
Chapter Seven
I staggered back a step at Nate’s accusation. Leah and I didn’t get along. We’d had our fair share of verbal sparring matches, but I’d never have hurt her. Not even if she attacked me. Leah was a vanilla mortal, totally human and not privy to the supernatural at all. I’d have handled her just like I did the morgue technician, with care and respect.
Except I never would’ve done that, not to Leah. To be honest, I was a little scared of the woman.
I squatted and put a hand on Nate’s shoulder, meeting his eyes. “I give you my word, Nate. I never hurt Leah. It wasn’t me.”
“Then why’d she say it was you? Leah wouldn’t lie.” He pawed at his eyes, pushing away tears.
Good point. I was the only one who could walk through my wards, and I could’ve raised seventeen zombies if I’d wanted, no sweat. But I hadn’t done it, and I couldn’t have taken the kids. I was with Emma.
“I don’t know. That’s
what I’m trying to figure out.” I pulled my hand away. “Nate, aside from the fact that I was with Emma, you know me. You know how I operate. Even when Emma was in Hell, on my worst day, have I ever raised a hand to someone who didn’t deserve it?”
His jaw clenched. Nate lowered his gaze to the floor and shook his head.
“Think whatever you want about me, but finding Remy and Jessica before whoever is behind this hurts them is more important to me than anything right now, and I need your help for that.”
Nate closed his eyes and blew out a breath. “Okay. How can I help?”
“I’m going to try a locator spell,” I said. “Whoever took the girls, I think their main objective was Remy. They just grabbed Jess by accident, or because they couldn’t figure out which one they wanted. I’m betting they’ve taken measures to stop me from finding Remy, but maybe not Jessica.”
“You think if you find Jessica, you’ll find Remy?”
I nodded.
Nate grabbed one of the nearby mobile tables and pulled himself to his feet. “It’s better than any plan the police have come to me with. They think...” He turned away. “They haven’t started looking for a body yet, but with the way they’re talking, they think you...”
“I didn’t.” I pushed myself up. “Whoever’s behind this, they’re smart. They lured me and Emma out to that theme park just to get us away. They struck when they knew you’d be at work and Leah would be on her own. And they’ve probably used magic to impersonate me so Leah would think I was the one that stabbed her.”
“Can they do that?” Nate eyed me with a frown. “Look like someone else?”
I shrugged. “There’s all kinds of things that can. Gods can for certain. There are stories about it all through mythology. Shapeshifters. The list is almost endless.”
Nate studied the wall of corpse drawers, trying to process everything. I didn’t blame him for being suspicious, but I was pissed and more than a little hurt. Something out there was wearing my face and hurting my friends and family. When I found whoever it was, I was going to peel that face right off.
