by E. A. Copen
The door creaked open behind me. “You keep that up, someone’s going to call the cops on you, you know.”
Emma Knight, the woman at the door and owner of the house, kicked the door closed and carried a fresh bowl of candy to the rocking chair on her porch. At five-five, most people wouldn’t have considered her much of a threat. I knew better. Emma could kick my ass with her eyes closed and still have plenty of energy to take on the next guy who decided to pick on a single black lady all on her own. She normally dressed in pantsuits and business casual outfits that made her soft curves seem sharper, but today was trick-or-treat. On trick-or-treat night in New Orleans, everybody dressed up, pint-sized kickass lady homicide cops included. On that particular October night, Emma had put on a tight-fitting black top with gold trim, black pants, a black and gold cape, and a white wig. Just for the occasion, I’d let her borrow my limited-edition silver-plated X-Men belt buckle to complete the look.
“Good thing the local cops like me. I’ll get off easy.” I grabbed my nearly empty candy bowl and crossed the porch in search of a refill.
She crossed her arms. “Who says the cops like you? Word around the precinct is you’re trouble. They ought to lock you up and throw away the key.”
“Yeah, but if you did that, who’d save people the next time a god got a hard-on for destroying the city?” I grabbed a handful of suckers, chocolates, and hard candies from the big bucket in the corner and dropped them into the skull-shaped bowl in my hand.
Emma moved aside to adjust the red filter she’d put over the porch light. Light fell through it and landed on the lawn shaped like witches on broomsticks and scared cats. “Did you ever think maybe the city wouldn’t need so much saving if you didn’t go picking so many fights?”
I froze with a hand in the candy bowl and looked back at her. She meant it in jest. We were always bantering back and forth like that, dodging any serious conversations. Emma didn’t think I had a serious bone in my body, and I thought she was way too serious. But the thought had crossed my mind more than once of late, especially since becoming a father.
New Orleans had been quiet for three months. No gods, demigods, or ghouls had tried to kill me, no fae had hunted me down seeking revenge. My ex-landlady had even offered to refund my deposit when I told her I’d moved in with my old mentor, Pony Dee. Remy, my daughter, was healthy and growing faster than crabgrass on a bluegrass lawn. Business through the occult shop had even spiked. All in all, things were quiet. Too quiet.
Still, I’d debated sending Remy to live with some out-of-state relatives of Pony’s more times than I could count. As the Pale Horseman, I was a target, and that made her a target too. The best thing for my little girl was to be as far away from me as possible. Yet every time I thought about it, I’d look down at her and get too choked up to go through with it. Who was I kidding? I could barely stand to be away from Remy for an afternoon. Sending her away for a lifetime would destroy me.
“What?” Emma’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. She wrinkled her forehead. “Something wrong?”
“Nothing.” I shoved more candy into the bowl. “I was just wondering why they don’t do trick or treat night on Halloween anymore. They do it like two days before when it’s barely even dark outside.”
“Because it’s safer for the kids. Crime usually spikes Halloween night. Lazarus, I swear to God, if you just zoned out on me worrying about Remy…”
“She’s my daughter. It’s literally my job to worry about her.”
“And you literally promised me you weren’t going to spend your entire night worried about her, or on your phone checking that baby monitor app.” Her hand came down on my shoulder. “She’s in good hands with Nate and Leah, Laz. Relax.”
I swallowed the growing tightness in my throat. “I know. It’s just…well, this is the longest I’ve ever been away from her. She’s still a baby. I can’t help but think about her waking up in a strange place, crying, and me not being there for her.”
“I know.” She rubbed my upper back in small circles. “But it’s good for you. And her. You still need to have your own life.”
I sighed, nodded and went back to my place on the porch stoop.
An intervention, they’d called it. I’d come home from work at the shop, Remy in tow, to find everyone waiting for me. Nate, Emma, Moses…even Pony had been in on it. They said they were worried because they hadn’t seen me in weeks. Pony complained I never left the house long enough for him to bring any of his lady friends over, and Nate quoted something his grandma had told him. It basically equated to what Emma had just said. I had to take care of me and get away for a bit before I went crazy.
They were all right. I loved my daughter; she was the best thing that’d ever happened to me. But I’d lost so much sleep being up with her in the night that I’d developed a serious coffee addiction. And the diapers…no one ever tells you about the diapers. In my tired haze a few days ago, I’d gotten diapers and coffee mixed up. I microwaved a diaper instead of throwing it away. Ruined the microwave. I guess that was when they hatched their evil plan to make me enjoy my favorite holiday of the year. Nate and his wife—who’d just had a baby girl named Jessica—took Remy for the weekend for a sleepover. I had forty-eight hours to decompress before they’d let me pick her up. Eight down, forty to go.
Thunder rumbled in the sky as I settled onto the porch. A trick-or-treater—this one a zombie prince with a cape and crown—ran by screaming his candy would get wet.
Emma sighed. “Looks like we’re not getting any more trick-or-treaters tonight. I’ll pack all this in.”
I stood and cracked my lower back. “What’s with all the zombie royalty anyway? It’s downright weird.”
“Some kid’s show that got popular a couple months ago,” Emma muttered. “I keep seeing ads for it on TV.” She pulled the door open and held it. “Why do I know that and you don’t? I don’t even have a kid.”
I shrugged and followed Emma inside. “Probably because I never watch TV anymore. Don’t have time.”
“You’re going to make time tonight.” She placed the candy on the counter.
Emma’s place was always spotless, clean enough I usually didn’t want to touch anything because I was afraid I’d ruin things. Clean and shiny countertops, perfect white stovetop with the cute little burner covers, and a floor you could eat off of. I’d wondered how she kept it all clean until I found out she was almost never home. Emma was a workaholic.
Then her arm got broken because of something stupid I’d done and she hadn’t been back to work since. The kitchen was clean, but not spotless. Gone were the burner covers. Dirty dishes sat neatly in a sink full of soapy water.
I noted a pile of unopened mail shoved into a wicker basket and frowned. “Is everything okay, Emma?”
She went to the fridge and opened it. It was bare bones in there, some milk and a bunch of takeout boxes. “Of course it is. Why?” She grabbed a bottle of rosè from the fridge and snagged two wine glasses on her way back.
“You get cleared to go back to work yet?”
Emma shrugged and poured the wine. “I will be soon.”
“Emma, if you don’t want to go back, just say so.”
She gave me a sharp look and pushed one of the glasses toward me. I put a hand out to keep it from falling off the counter.
“I’m going back,” she insisted, “when I’m ready. Although I suppose if I don’t go back eventually the bank will come knocking on my door when I miss my mortgage payment.”
“Are you in trouble?” I lifted the glass and tasted it. Not bad, but too sweet. Still prefer a good beer over wine any day.
She leaned on the counter with the glass between her hands. “I’m okay for now.”
I put the drink on the counter and reached over to put my hand on top of hers. “You know you can tell me if you need help. Whatever you need, no matter how crazy, I’m your guy.”
Emma tapped her fingernails against the glass, staring down into the pink
drink she still hadn’t touched. Three months ago, she’d made some kind of deal with the literal Devil to save me from turning into a ghoul. She’d denied it, but the more time went on, the more I was sure she was in trouble and just didn’t know how to tell me.
Since then, she’d practically become a different person. The old Emma was moody, short-tempered, stressed out of her mind. Now she was all smiles and laughter. She called me just to talk about once a week, which had seemed weird at first. I mean, who calls anybody just to talk anymore? The weirdest thing of all was showing up to help her pass out candy only to find her dressed in costume. Not just any costume, either. The semi-revealing Storm costume was a far cry from her normal getup, different enough that even I noticed. Something was up. You don’t spend every day living it like it’s your last and avoiding going back to your dream job for no reason.
“There is something,” she said.
“Okay. I’m all ears.”
She blew out a breath and rubbed her face. “God, how do I even say this without sounding like an idiot?”
I shrugged. “Just say it and stop caring if you sound like an idiot. That’s pretty much what I do.”
She raised an eyebrow.
I cleared my throat and pulled my hand away. “Yeah, good point. Hasn’t really worked out for me, has it? Anyway, you were saying?”
A beat of silence passed punctuated by thunder. Lightning flashed, and the power flickered twice before going out. In the same breath, Emma’s cell phone rang. It was a muffled sound from the next room, but unmistakable.
“Shit.” Emma stepped around the counter. “There’s candles in the drawer. I’ll be right back.”
I frowned until she walked by and I couldn’t help but notice how nice that costume looked from behind. If she knew I thought that, she’d kick my ass. Somehow, that made the thought even more appealing.
The kitchen was pitch black without the lights on so I found the drawer with help from my cell phone and still managed to guess wrong twice. Well, at least I knew where the towels were now. What the… I picked up a small folded bit of white lace shaped like a snowflake. A doily. Between the greenhouse out back and the doily in the drawer, I was starting to believe Emma was a little old lady in disguise. It was kind of adorable, really.
She came back into the kitchen and stopped to stare while I fumbled at getting the doily folded and back into the drawer.
“Sorry, still looking for the candles.”
“Don’t bother,” she said, lifting her cell phone. “Nate called. Said he got a weird body. Wants us to come take a look.”
Nate was the assistant coroner. He’d assisted me on a few cases and saved my ass more times than I could count. Since the brass at the precinct tended to have an aneurysm whenever they couldn’t explain away dead bodies, we had an understanding. Whenever something odd crossed his desk, he called me, and the NOPD signed me on as a consultant. At least that’s how it went when Emma was working. Now that she was on leave, there was no guarantee I was going to get paid, or that the weird bodies didn’t show up on tomorrow’s front page.
I closed the drawer. “Weird? Weird how?”
She pulled off the black cape and lifted the white wig to run her hands through her black hair before shrugging on a leather jacket. “Don’t know, but he mentioned smallpox and sounded unusually excited.”
Smallpox? Wasn’t that extinct? And why the hell would he be excited about it?
I sighed and followed her through the front door. “I knew it was getting too quiet around here.”
Chapter Two
The power was out throughout the city. Stoplights turned into four-way stops, which confused half the drivers in town and led to several accidents and traffic jams. I hoped the morgue still had power or at least some kind of backup generators. The place was almost always full of bodies, and it’d start to smell in short order. At least the power hadn’t been out long.
We pulled into the morgue parking lot about forty minutes later with the thunderstorm in full swing. Nate ran out in the rain to meet us, holding a broken black umbrella over his head. He’d have been better off without the umbrella since the way it was broken made half the rain fall right on his frizzy red hair.
“Thank goodness,” he said and pushed his foggy glasses up his nose. “I was starting to worry. This is quite the nasty storm. I didn’t think it was even supposed to storm tonight.”
I jammed a thumb in Emma’s direction. “I blame her.”
Emma climbed out of her Escalade wearing a scowl. “Careful or I’ll direct the lightning your way.”
Nate hurried us back toward the entrance and held the door for us. “Before you ask, Laz, I already spoke to Leah. Remy’s out like a light. She doesn’t think a hurricane would wake her.”
I turned around in the lobby and used the black mask I’d been wearing earlier to mop up some of the rainwater cascading down my head. “Did she burp after she ate? Because sometimes she won’t. You’ve really got to work on it. Otherwise, she wakes up with a tummy ache after a few hours.”
“I didn’t ask.” Nate stepped in and closed the door. “And no, I’m not calling her back. She’s exhausted, Laz. They’re all asleep by now. Trust me, Leah and her sister know what they’re doing.”
I frowned. “Leah has a sister? You didn’t tell me she had a sister.”
He discarded his umbrella and pulled off his glasses to clean them, squinting at Emma. “Has he been like this all night?”
Emma shrugged. “More or less. Scared away half the trick-or-treaters under five cooing over them.”
“I did not!”
Nate gave me a look caught somewhere between pity and disgust. He had no right. Of all people, he should’ve understood. He’d just had his first child too.
“How are you staying so chill about everything?” I gestured to him.
Nate fumbled to click on his flashlight and accidentally shined it right in his face. “I had eight younger brothers and sisters and fourteen younger cousins. I was changing diapers as soon as I could reach the changing table. Guess I’m just used to it all. Plus, I have Leah to help.”
Remy’s mom had been a real fae princess, the heir to Summer, but she was gone now. The reminder stung. Odette and I had been over long before she passed, but I dreaded the day I had to explain all of that to Remy. As a kid who was half-fae, her life was already turning out rough. She got a rash every time she was exposed to pure iron for more than a few seconds. As she got bigger, and became mobile in a few months, that was going to be a nightmare.
I cleared the tightness in my throat and followed Nate to the stairs. “I’ve got Pony. He helps.”
“No offense, but I’ve met the man and he’s about as far from nurturing as you can get,” Emma said.
Nate stole a glance at her and huffed his way to the next step. “What you need is a little female intuition maybe.”
Emma narrowed her eyes at him. It felt like there was a secondary conversation going on that I was missing out on.
“Um…Well, about that…” I scratched the back of my neck where the water droplets were still coming down. “It’s been hard enough for me to adjust to being a dad. Juggling that and the business has been kinda stressful. I don’t have time to date.”
Emma pushed ahead of us. “Let’s just try to focus on why we’re here. Tell me about the body. Who’s the lead detective?”
“Drake and Codey pulled the case,” Nate answered.
Emma cursed.
“We don’t like Drake and Codey, then?” I asked.
“Lily white, old-money assholes who bought their way into their position with fancy degrees and not a single day of hard work.” Emma ground her teeth. “But be careful of them. They’re climbers. They have no problems stepping on people to get to that next rung on their career ladders.”
I was pretty sure I could handle a couple of uppity detectives, but I’d be careful just the same. I’d gotten spoiled working with Emma and Moses. Emma had tried to arr
est me more than once, and she liked me. With my record, Detectives Drake and Codey would book me and forget about me.
We reached the second floor which had a keypad lock in the stairway. With the power out, the lock was disengaged and Nate just pulled it open on a long, dark hallway. Doors appeared at seemingly random intervals as we walked. About halfway down, Nate turned his flashlight on a set of double doors. A sign announced we’d reached the exam and viewing room. He stepped toward it.
“Shouldn’t we put on some HAZMAT gear or something?” I asked.
He turned around and looked at me like I was crazy.
“Emma said you said something about smallpox?”
His face lit up. “Oh yes! That! Smallpox is spread through prolonged contact with infected persons, usually face-to-face. It’s not airborne. You’ll be fine as long as you don’t touch anything. Anyway, the virus isn’t active. It’s dormant. Come in.” Nate pushed through the double doors.
Beside the door, he stopped to grab a box of sterile exam gloves and held them out for us to put on just in case.
A metal gurney sat in the center of the room. I recognized the shape of a body resting under the teal sheet. The pale, watery moonlight came through the rain-streaked window, casting eerie shadows around the room. Nate grabbed a chair, pulled it over, and stood on it to tie the flashlight to a dangling string like he’d probably done a hundred times before. The flashlight wouldn’t be enough to see details, for which I was thankful.
Despite what Emma said, I wasn’t afraid of dead bodies. I just didn’t like to be confronted with my own mortality, especially since I had a little girl to take care of. The thought of dying and leaving her all on her own scared the hell out of me.
Plus, bodies are weird without people inside them. Since becoming the Pale Horseman, I’d come to consider personhood to be equal to possessing a soul. A soul made you alive. A few people could live without them, but they were broken, unsatisfied shells of their former selves. Ghosts were people. Shades weren’t, because they were only the tiny sliver of soul that was left behind during its transition into the After. Bodies weren’t either. Looking at a body without a soul was akin to looking at a steak and calling it the cow. It wasn’t wrong, not in the strictest sense, but it was uncomfortable.
