by E. A. Copen
“Belong to Loki? What does that mean?”
“No clue,” I said putting my back to the wall. “The problem is, Loki and Titania are having their masquerades at the exact same time on opposite ends of the city. Even if I left one to get to the other, it’s Mardi Gras. Traffic’s going to be a bitch. Half the roads are closed.”
Josiah was silent for a long moment. “I know of a way you can get from one to the other, but it’s tricky. That type of magic can backfire, Lazarus. Easily.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of enlisting help. Splitting up. I can get to Remy. I’d just need you to go to Loki’s and get Emma.”
“No,” he said firmly. “I can’t go anywhere near there. That place will be crawling with angels, every one of which wants to kill me. Unlike the fae, they won’t care about any neutral ground pact. Fuck me, Loki will likely just turn away and let them do as they please with me. I’m not going there.”
“I thought you were working for the angels?” He’d said he was working for some organization known as Manus Dei—God’s Hand—anyway, and that angels were in charge of it. That made them allies, right? Uneasy allies maybe, but they wouldn’t kill an ally.
“Some angels,” Josiah clarified. “And if they even suspect I’m there to cause trouble, that deal will be off. I like you, Laz, and I feel for ya, but I can’t do this. It’d be suicide and if I die...”
If he died, we’d be royally screwed. The only way to make this work would be to do whatever spell Josiah had mentioned earlier. It was a long shot, and dangerous, but it was all I had. “Whatever it is you need me to do, I’ll do it. I can’t choose between Remy and Emma, Josiah. I have to save them both.”
He sighed. “You’re an idiot and you’re probably going to fail. You know this?”
“I have to try. It’s not in me not to.” I waited for Josiah to say something. I already knew what he thought of my decision to try and save everyone. He’d told me as much before. This was the price I paid for keeping people close, apparently a decision he disagreed with. For good reason, probably. But it was too late to do anything about it now.
Even when people tried to walk out of my life, they got pulled back in. Beth had almost gotten out before I screwed up. Now she was barely a shadow of her former self. I couldn’t let that happen to Emma, not anymore than I could let Titania keep my little girl.
“Fine,” Josiah said at length. “I’ll teach you the spell. But you’ve got to swear this is a one-time thing. You can’t be calling me every time you need to get somewhere fast. Understand?”
“Got it.”
“Aces. I’ll be there first thing in the morning. Get some sleep before then. You’ll need to be at your best if this is going to work.” He hung up without saying goodbye.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sleep was impossible. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Loki might be doing to Emma, or what Titania might be doing to Remy. Maybe neither of them wanted me to come to their rescue. Emma had been disgusted with my choice to kill Hades, and Remy didn’t know me.
No. Even if she were pissed at me, Emma would never voluntarily go work for Loki. She knew what he was up to, what he was capable of. No matter how pissed off she got, she always did what was right. Working for Loki would never be the right thing to do. That’s why she was angry at me to begin with.
The bed squeaked as I rolled over to stare at the clock. It was just before five. If I fell asleep now, I might get an hour and half of rest. I’d survived on less.
Who am I kidding? I’m not getting any sleep tonight. I rolled onto my back and stared at the blackness of the ceiling. There was nothing to do but go over the plan in my head.
Foxglove was supposed to be getting a message to the Winter Knight. She’d get me into Titania’s ball where I’d hopefully spot Remy and get her out without causing too much commotion. If Remy didn’t want to go with me, I could always use a knockout spell. Then all I’d have to do was keep her out until the ball was over. Once the threat had passed, we could all talk like rational people and Remy could make an informed decision. I had to be sure she wasn’t making any decisions while under Titania’s thumb.
Once I grabbed Remy and got clear of the ball, I’d use whatever spell Josiah was about to teach me to get across town and save Emma.
Titania and Loki’s masquerades both started at eight—I’d looked it up on the internet. If I got to Titania’s right when it began and found Remy before ten, I’d still have two hours to get to Emma. That should’ve been more than enough time to find her and free her.
The plan had a lot of moving parts, but it wasn’t impossible. I was confident I could win.
Then there was my fetch to deal with. He’d given me until midnight to get out of town too, something I had no intention of doing. He’d be waiting for me once I saved Emma. I had a weapon now, though. One I knew could hurt him.
I glanced over at the pipe propped in the corner of the bedroom. Of course he would react to anything with a high iron content. He’d been constructed by a fae queen and belonged to the Summer Court. He was a creature of Faerie, which meant iron could harm him. I should’ve seen that before.
Now that I knew how to hurt him, it was just a matter of getting close enough to do it. The iron would burn him, but I didn’t think it would kill him. For that, I’d need my good old-fashioned Horseman powers to rip out his soul. That or a really sharp knife. It would be weird, killing my own fetch, but I didn’t see any way around that either. He’d just keep coming at me until one of us was dead. Killing him was the only way to be sure.
Again, though, I’d have to get close enough to do that. Considering my arsenal of spells, and that he’d likely have an army of zombies guarding him, that wouldn’t be easy. I’d faced worse odds though.
Maybe I should practice a little, I thought and sat up. Might as well since I’m not getting any sleep.
I got out of bed and walked barefoot out to the living room where I pushed the sofa and recliner against the wall to make room. Practice would be better if I had a sparring partner, but I wasn’t going to call anyone at that hour to come help. Josiah was the only one I knew who might take me up on the offer anyway, and he’d probably kick my ass. So, instead of forming a circle and practicing my useful combat magic, I figured I’d just go over the basics.
Like any other skill, magic wasn’t something anyone could master overnight. I had trained with Pony for years to learn the few spells I knew, and I still didn’t consider myself a master of any of them. Before I was cracking open the ground or putting people to sleep, however, I had to master basic control of my own power. I had learned that with a simple sphere of light.
At first, Pony constructed the glowing white ball of static energy. He’d hold it out to me and tell me to keep it steady. If the ball of energy dropped below a certain point, I’d get an electrical shock that stung like a bee sting. As I progressed over the years, the margin of error I was allowed shrank until I had to hold the ball steady or else get shot with a magical taser. Sometimes, he made me hold that ball in place for hours. He’d sit in his armchair and flip through channels, acting like he was ignoring me. But if I let that ball slip, he’d prove he wasn’t by telling me exactly what I did wrong. “Pay attention. Don’t slouch. Quit watching the TV.”
I wove my hands in a circle, constructing the ball of energy for myself and wondered where he was. Was he still alive? The doctors had only given him four months to live when they found the cancer was back, and that had been almost five months ago. I hadn’t heard from him since I sent him to Oklahoma. There was a cancer treatment center there, best in the country. Even with the best treatment, though, luck wasn’t on his side. Not unless he cut another magical deal to keep himself alive.
I extended the ball out in front of me, holding it at arm’s length and then pulled my hand out from under it, sliding it to the side. With my other hand out, placed on the opposite side, I tried to focus on keeping the ball from moving one way or the othe
r. It pulled down and I countered by adjusting the energy to keep it up. The ball pulled to the left, I pushed it right. It was delicate training. If I pushed too hard, the ball would exceed the parameters woven into the spell and I’d get a fun shock of electricity. If I didn’t push enough, it’d go the other way and—you guessed it—I’d get shocked.
It was supposed to teach patience, precision, and attention, all of which I would need if I was going to trade spells with my fetch. The one advantage I’d have over him was that I already knew how he’d fight me. He’d fight me just like I’d fight me, by trying to goad me into doing something stupid. I had to stay calm, keep alert, and not let my emotions get in the way of kicking his ass.
The ball suddenly barreled hard to the right. I tried to correct it with equal force, pushing it to the left, but overcompensated. It slammed into my hand and sent a jolt of electricity coursing through my body that knocked me on my ass before winking out.
Dammit, I thought, sitting there and trying to brush off the buzzing numbness of the aftershock, I’m going to need an edge.
My mind went back to the soul I’d collected from Hades. In the past, I had eaten souls to up my magic game for a short time. God souls were like taking magical speed. That would definitely give me enough juice to take out Bizarro Laz.
But it would also mean consuming the last remnants of a murdered friend. Doing so would make me truly despicable. Not only would I have killed Hades, but I’d have cannibalized his soul for my own purposes. No matter how noble that purpose was, that was inexcusable.
Alternatively, I could get other souls. Graveyards were full of trapped souls, none particularly friendly. I might also be able to step into the After and convince a few to help me willingly, though that was a stretch. My problem was too personal for most of them to care.
I sighed and rubbed my face. My fetch wouldn’t be against eating a bunch of souls to power up. He’d probably gobble down plenty of them before our fight. I figured that’s part of how he was making his zombies. He’d kidnap people, pull out their souls, and then zombify them. If I were evil, that was exactly what I would do. Waste not, want not.
I shuddered at the thought.
But if he was already powered up, how was I supposed to beat him? At best, I could only hope to match his power by consuming souls of my own, unless I devoured more of them than he had, and I had no idea how many he’d eaten. I could eat every lost soul in New Orleans and it still might not be enough.
There had to be another way. Some way he wasn’t expecting. The only way to beat myself would be to do something so off the wall, I’d never think of it. But what?
I tried to think of something. There were plenty of movies where people fought evil versions of themselves. How did they win? Usually a friend stepped in. There was always that moment where the fake hero tried to convince the sidekick he was the real one, and the sidekick had to pick the right one to shoot. Well, I wasn’t facing something like that. My situation was more like...Ash in Army of Darkness. Yeah, he’d fought himself and won by shooting his evil self in the face when the opportunity presented itself.
I didn’t have a gun. Hell, I’d be lucky if I had my pipe when he came after me. He knew I had it now, and knew it would hurt him. He’d be counting on me to use it.
But what if I don’t? I grunted and pushed off the ground to go collect the pipe from the bedroom. My one weapon against the evil fae version of me. How could I not take it with me? It was a crazy idea, totally counterintuitive. I smiled as the details of the plan formed in my head. And exactly the kind of thing my fetch would never expect me to do.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Josiah knocked on the door to the apartment twenty minutes after seven. I knew it was him before I opened the door because he pounded three times and shouted, “Oi, fuckwit. It’s me.”
I opened the door and he charged in, canvas bag in hand, cigarette leaving a trail of smoke behind him as if he were a train.
He marched to the center of the living room, set down his bag and pinched his cigarette between two fingers, drawing it out of his mouth. “Here’s the thing. I’m not supposed to know this magic.”
I shut the door. “Morning to you too. I’d offer you coffee, but at the speed you’re talking, I think you’ve already had one cup too many.”
He lifted his bag onto the sofa and undid the clasps. “Yeah, nah. Haven’t had enough, mate. Spent most of the night trying to console Persephone, who’s bloody beside herself, you know?”
I cringed. That was my fault too. I’d taken her husband away from her, something I had no right to do. “Is she on board with the plan at least?”
“She is,” he said, digging through the bag, “but she’s not happy about it.”
That was good. At least one thing had gone right. The plan Josiah and I had come up with to take on Loki was shaky at best, and we’d need all the cooperation and help we could get. It required Persephone especially to put a lot of faith in me, a difficult thing after I’d betrayed her. I didn’t know how Josiah convinced her to go along with it, but I was glad he did.
Eventually, Josiah drew a silver knife out of the bag, a plastic container with holes in the lid, a mason jar with a small winged imp inside, and several smaller plastic containers with dried plants inside them. Once he had all his ingredients, he went about constructing a circle on the living room floor with a permanent marker.
I stood aside, watching him work in silence. “So, if you’re not supposed to know it, how’d you learn it? And what exactly is it?”
“It is a transportation spell.” He turned away from me to finish the circle. “It will dematerialize your physical body, breaking it into molecular-sized chunks, then transport you across the astral plane before rematerializing you on the other side.”
“So sorta like the transporters in Star Trek,” I said.
Josiah looked up from drawing the circle and wrinkled his nose at me. “Is that the one with the whales?”
“There was a movie that had to do with whales, yeah, but it’s way more than that. There are like half a dozen different television series now. Books. Movies. Games. Fandom conventions where you can go speak Klingon for a weekend.” I shook my head. “How do you not know this stuff?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Didn’t grow up with a TV in the house.”
I blinked. “Dude...”
“No running water either in the Outback. Not that we could’ve afforded it.” He smiled slightly and stared at nothing in the distance. “Yeah, we were so poor the only entertainment some days was riding my kangaroo out to poke dead wombats with a stick. Course, all my mates upgraded to emus eventually. Saved all summer for one of them but when I finally got me one, bloody bunyip ate her whole. Just came out of nowhere and gobbled her straight up.”
I squinted at him. “You’re pulling my leg.”
He stood and patted my shoulder on his way back to where he’d laid out all his ingredients. “Wish I was, mate. Wish I was.”
I was pretty sure he was having a laugh at my expense. Lead on the dumb American by simultaneously embracing and mocking Australian stereotypes perpetuated by the media. Australians were a confusing bunch.
Josiah had me bring him a mixing bowl, into which he dumped all the dried plants he’d brought and mixed them with a few drops of blood. “It’s not a pleasant thing, this spell. And not easy. More than one person has tried it and come out wrong on the other side. And by wrong, I mean arse-over-tits in a literal sense. Upside down and backward. Sometimes inside out, though that’s preferable to some of the other ways I’ve seen it go wrong.”
I imagined what an inside out human would look like and almost lost my nerve. “What’s worse than being turned inside out by a spell?”
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “When you get turned inside out like that, you only live a few minutes before you suffocate.”
I swallowed. “This doesn’t seem very safe.”
“Why’d you think I charge so much
to come over here quickly?” He turned back to his mixing bowl.
“This is how you do that?”
He nodded.
“And you’ve never had it go wrong on you?”
“I’m more suited to it than most. Spell’s not meant for humans.” He quit mixing the ingredients and held the bowl out to me. “You need to eat this.”
“You’re shitting me.” I looked down into the bowl. It contained a mashed brownish-green paste that smelled like someone had thrown up in their pot stash.
“And keep it down,” he advised, picking up the container with holes in the lid. “You throw it up, I promise the spell won’t work.”
I slid my finger through the goo and gagged.
“Not now, fuckwit,” Josiah said. “You eat that now, you’ll shit it out before you can do the spell. There’s only enough there for one go. You’d better make sure it’s in your body, undigested, before you attempt this, so don’t eat it until right before. It’ll dry out between now and then. You might be able to bake it into something. I recommend brownies. That ought to hide the flavor.”
“Thanks, I guess.” I placed the bowl on the counter while he sat on the sofa and let his tarantula climb onto his shoulder. “I just eat this and then what?”
“Then you do the magic I’m about to show you. But before I do, I want to make sure you understand something. This magic is forbidden to humans. If anyone finds out you know how to do this—angels or demons, either side—then they won’t hesitate to eradicate your entire bloodline. You understand what I’m saying, mate?”
I nodded.
“And if I hear you’ve been telling anyone, I’ll be the one hunting you down. Are we clear on that?”
“What the hell kind of magic is that secretive, Josiah?” I huffed.
Josiah stood and walked to the center of the circle with his spider perched on his shoulder like a parrot. “You know your Bible, yeah? Remember Sodom and Gomorrah?”
