by E. A. Copen
Yes, my body screamed. For God’s sake, tell her yes. But my brain remembered we’d been here before, rushing into things with Odette, and that soon I’d have to explain to Beth why I was engaged to someone else. It wasn’t fair—to either of us—but I couldn’t put her through that only to walk away. Not when I knew what that was like.
“Beth, as much fun as that sounds…”
She pulled her hands away and shrank toward the door, the smile falling. “Oh. I guess maybe I misread how this was going.”
“No, it’s not like that. You’re not. It’s just…” What was I going to say to fix things? If I said it’s not you, it’s me, she was going to slap me, and I’d deserve it, even if it was true. “I don’t want to rush into anything. It’s been ten years. We’re different people, and maybe the last few days haven’t been the most representative of how my life really is. I want to do this right. Get to know you, the real you. Not who you were ten years ago.”
“That’s fair.” She nodded. “Probably a good idea.”
“Why don’t you just get your stuff? I’ll wait for you down in the lobby.” It wasn’t my intention to leave her alone, but I was worried that if I stayed, I’d go against my own advice. Beth was a hard woman to say no to.
She agreed, and I stalked down the hall to the elevator, leaning my head against the cool metal of the doors while I waited for them to open. “Oh, Lazarus,” I groaned, “How do you get yourself into these messes?”
“A good question.”
I lifted my head in time to see the elevator doors open and Baron Samedi stroll by. He stopped in the back of the car, lifted his skull-topped cane and tapped a button. “Well? Are you coming, Horseman? Or are you going to stand there gaping like an idiot?”
I didn’t stop gaping, but I did get into the elevator car. “Where the hell have you been?”
A big, white grin answered. “Vacation.”
“Vacation?” I sputtered, as if the word were foreign. Here I’d been fighting gods and searching my couch for change to buy booze while he was on vacation? Had he forgotten he owed me?
“Yes, people do that. Even me, I’m afraid. You look terrible, by the way. A wonder that poor girl could stand to kiss you. But then, she probably doesn’t know about Odette and Nyx, does she?”
I crossed my arms, letting my staff lean against the corner of the elevator. “A better question is how you know about it, but I know better than to ask it. You haven’t exactly been much help lately.”
He tucked his cane under one arm, so the skull was sticking out of his armpit and turned, his top hat tilted slightly. “I presumed my employee could perform the basic functions of his office for two weeks while I took a much-needed break. Did I make an incorrect assumption?”
“Hard to do my job when I’m so broke I can’t afford cab fare. My car is totaled thanks to some flying alligators, and three ancient Egyptian gods who can travel through shadows want to kill me. Oh yeah, and then there’s this mess with the Shadow Queen who’s somehow got it in her head that I’m husband material.” I threw my arms up. “Look, I’m not asking for much, but can you at least pay me? I need to get a suit, and my friends are getting irritated with me asking for loans. Understandably so.”
The Baron raised an eyebrow but said nothing. When the elevator stopped on the lobby floor, he stepped out, so I followed. He wasn’t getting away from me that easily. “Last time we talked, you said something about a stipend.”
“Did I now?”
I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. “You also promised me information that would lead me to Lydia’s killer and have yet to make good on that. If I didn’t know any better, I’d be tempted to think Baron Samedi was lying to me.”
A fire lit in his eyes, and I don’t mean that figuratively. A little orange flame sprang to life in the middle of his irises. “No one accuses The Baron of lying and gets away with it.”
“Then work with me! I need cash to live, and you owe me some information.”
He blinked, and the flames disappeared. “You want money. You want a suit, and you want your information. Fine. Let me introduce you to my personal tailor. He’ll make you the last suit you’ll ever wear.”
I looked The Baron up and down. His words sounded suspiciously like a threat, but I wasn’t going to turn down the chance to meet the guy’s tailor. Say what you want about Baron Samedi, but no one can deny the guy’s got some fashion sense.
I nodded. “Now that’s an offer I can live with.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
I’d never worn a tailored suit before. Hell, the only time I’d ever worn a suit was when I appeared for sentencing at court, and even then, I’d had to borrow one. So when The Baron brought Beth and me down an alley off Bourbon Street and opened a wooden door, I didn’t know what to expect.
On the other side was a small shop with warm lighting. Wood floors and mahogany dressers lining the walls intensified the effect. Some tables sat around, loaded with books full of fabric samples and some photos of other options.
A small section of the opposite wall opened like a door, and a man waddled through. He was maybe four feet tall with a long nose and gray hair that hung in a thin strip from about halfway down his head. Thin, wire-rimmed glasses sat low on his nose. He sneered at us, despite The Baron’s smile. “Not ready yet, not ready,” he said in a high-pitched, crotchety voice. He approached, waving his arms as if to shoo us off.
Beth leaned into me. “Is that a leprechaun?”
“I wouldn’t say that too loud,” I whispered back. “He seems the grumpy sort.”
The Baron didn’t move, so I stayed rooted to the spot beside him. “Mr. Kerrigan needs a suit for a formal function this evening.”
The little tailor stopped in front of The Baron and squinted at me, eyeing me up and down. “Impossible. No, it can’t be done.”
“Come now, Adelard. You who slew two giants, led away a unicorn, and captured a wild boar with nothing but your wit would say a simple sewing project is impossible?” The Baron planted his cane and leaned forward on it. “Where is your bravery, friend?”
“No man gets a suit in a day! No man!” Adelard pointed at The Baron. “Weeks to weave, it takes. Weeks!” He went on for a while, pacing and throwing his hands up while he complained about how impossible it was.
I lost interest and turned aside to study some of the samples. The way I saw it, a suit was a suit, and I didn’t care one way or another whether what I wore to this gala was a thousand-dollar tailored piece or something I rented from the prom shop uptown. It was putting on a monkey suit either way; an uncomfortable, scratchy, tight suit. Not something I was looking forward to at all, so the sooner Adelard turned The Baron down, the sooner he could pay me, and I could go get something else.
The sound of Adelard’s grumbling got closer, and I turned around just in time to see him put a three-legged stool on the floor. He pulled himself up onto it, still only managing to come up to my shoulders. “Hold still, then. No moving or I shall get it wrong. That won’t do.”
Adelard jerked my arm up, adjusted his glasses and slid a measuring tape out of his palm, stretching it this way and that, around my arm, pulling it down to give space. When he was done, he moved to the other side and repeated the process, complaining the entire time. When he’d finished measuring my arms, and across my back and chest, he dropped down to take some measurements of my legs.
Beth and The Baron settled into a pair of chairs, Beth covering her amusement at my confusion with the back of her hand.
“What kind of suit?” he grumbled, wrapping the tape around my calf.
I started to answer, but The Baron cut me off. “Three-piece. Formal, but functional. He’ll need movement, Adelard, and not just for dancing. Three buttons.”
“Colors?”
“I’ve always been partial to red,” I said, drawing a squinty glare from Adelard.
He looked to The Baron for clarification, and The Baron gestured with an open palm. �
��Mr. Kerrigan likes red.”
“Expecting blood, are we?” Adelard hopped back onto the stool to take another measurement. “No slouching!”
I straightened my shoulders. “I’d prefer not to go that route. I’m not big on blood, you know. But the other guys, not so much.”
The Baron leaned against his cane. “Tell me how you fell into this mess, Lazarus. What are you doing playing games with the Shadow Queen?”
I glanced over at Beth. There were parts of the story she didn’t know. Things I still wasn’t ready to tell her. Like my impending engagement to the Shadow Queen.
The Baron rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. Beth’s form froze, unblinking but staring forward. At my side, Adelard grumbled about the use of magic in his shop.
“There. Now you may speak freely,” The Baron said. “I’ll wake her when you are done.”
While Adelard finished up his measurements, I gave The Baron my story, making sure to leave no details out. I told him how Emma had hired me to find the organ thieves, how I’d checked out the Black Bazaar, and how the auction went. He wasn’t happy to hear I’d bid three days of soul time and won, but he was even less pleased to hear I’d run into Morningstar.
Baron Samedi, whose face was normally pitch black, turned ashen and his eyes widened. “Couillion! Have you no sense?” He stood and smacked me in the head with his cane.
I staggered from the strength of the strike until Adelard shouted for me to be still.
“Do you know what you’ve done? Who you’ve struck a bargain with?”
“How else was I supposed to get out of there with the box?” I said, holding as still as I could. “I didn’t have a lot of options and the guy practically handed it to me. In fact, he threw it at me and implied rejecting his offer would get me and everyone else with me killed. My back was to the wall, Baron, and you can’t complain because if you’d been there to help me—”
“It’s a good thing I wasn’t.” He sank back into the chair he’d commandeered and rubbed his temples. “What’s done is done. The deal has been struck, and there will be no avoiding killing Imseti and Hapi. You’re in quite the pickle, boy.”
I sighed. Don’t I know it. “Anyway, we’re putting the box on display at the gala tonight as bait. Hapi, Imseti, and Osric should show. I’ve struck another deal with Osric to get his help, so as long as we can get the civilians out of the way once the fighting starts, everything should go our way.”
“Our?” Baron Samedi raised an eyebrow. “There is no our way. This is not a partnership, and this is not my mess to clean up.”
“But—”
He cut me off, slamming his cane into the floor. “No buts. So what if you become the Shadow Queen’s consort? So long as you fulfill your duties, I don’t care who warms your bed.”
I shuddered. Couldn’t help it. There was no way I’d willingly sleep with Nyx. Not that she wasn’t easy to look at; I just had a thing against manipulative bitches. She wasn’t after me for that anyway. All she wanted was access to the power of the Horseman mantle. To what end wasn’t exactly clear, but she probably meant to use me to gain a foothold against Summer. I was a pawn, one she’d throw away as soon as I wasn’t useful anymore.
Adelard hopped off his stool and scurried over to a book of samples, flipping through it.
I finally lowered my arms. They ached from spending so much time stretched out to my sides. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to get out of this, is there?”
“Short of killing the Shadow Queen? No.” He rolled his shoulders back and stood. “And you will be hard pressed to kill her with her knight as an ally. Removing her from power would destabilize things that have been in place for thousands of years, boy, so I hope you’re not considering it. Your job is to maintain a balance between the gods, the other monsters, and humanity.”
“What happens if I fail?”
He shrugged. “You die, and I appoint another Horseman.”
Great. That would’ve been nice to know when I first took on the Horseman mantle. Too late now. I was going to have to find a way to stall the wedding at least. Fae were long-lived, so maybe if I stalled long enough I’d die of old age, and she’d barely notice. Unlikely, but maybe I’d think of something else.
The Baron snapped his fingers, waking Beth. She blinked back to life and shook her head, seemingly unaware that any time had passed.
“How long?” The Baron asked of Adelard.
“Weeks!” Adelard exclaimed, shaking his head. “Never made such a lanky suit. Demanding, demanding. Never get it done before tonight. Come back in six hours. But it won’t be done. Come back though. Six hours. No promises. Now, off with you both. Busy, busy. Too busy to talk.” Despite his claim, he mumbled to himself as he rushed around the room, gathering sample books.
“Come,” said The Baron, gesturing to the exit. “Let the man work.”
“But he said…”
“Never mind what the man says. Mind what he does.”
The Baron and I walked back to the hearse he rode around in, and we got in. On the way across town, he busied himself messing around on a smartphone. I thought it was funny, watching a thousands-year-old Loa fight with his phone to get signal inside the hearse, but I kept that to myself as he didn’t seem to be in the best of moods. But I did press about the money.
“What do you think I’m doing, boy?” he snapped. “Money was simpler when it was all paper and coin. Now, it’s digital, and I can make no sense of it. But I believe it’s taken care of.” He tucked his phone away. “Now, don’t go wasting it on alcohol, Lazarus. You can’t drink your troubles away, and you’re no good to me a drunkard.”
“About my sister.” I was pushing it, considering his mood, but he did owe me.
The Baron narrowed his eyes and frowned. “Lydia Kerrigan. Tell me how she died again?”
I clenched my fists against my knees. He knew very well how she’d died. I’d seen him standing over her body right before it happened. I had walked away to get some coffee, and when I came back, he was standing over her. At my shout, he lifted his hat and walked away. I was about to chase him, but then Lydia’s monitors went crazy. The nurses rushed in to attempt to revive her, but Lydia didn’t come back.
The Baron claimed he hadn’t killed her, but whatever disease had made her waste away had to be connected to his appearance. I didn’t believe in coincidence, not when it came to the supernatural.
“Medical mystery,” I said. “She passed out one day, and I brought her into the emergency room. The next thing I know, I’ve got doctors telling me how all of her organs are failing, and they don’t know why.”
“As if someone were sucking the life right out of her?”
I nodded. “Except there were no wounds, no infections, and no defects. Her body just gave up.”
“Lazarus, have you ever touched a human soul?”
I had, and it wasn’t pleasant for the guy on the other side. Before I knew the full extent of my powers, I’d accidentally brushed my hand against the soul of a bodyguard named Gaston. The move sent him into a coma that he was still in as far as I knew. Waking death and all I’d done was touch his soul. “I don’t see what that has to do with Lydia.”
The Baron folded his fingers overtop the skull head of his cane. “There are those who consume souls, not for power, and not once they’ve been removed from the body. These are like parasites. They attach themselves to the living and slowly leech away life over a period of weeks or days. Some particularly enjoy the souls of the innocent.”
“Supernatural soul parasites? Like chi vampires or something?” Beth asked.
“Chi vampires.” The Baron rolled his eyes. “A fancy word. If only such things existed. The only vampires with which I am familiar are the blood-sucking type. Steer clear of those, boy. No, what you seek, Lazarus, is an Archon.”
Archon. I’d never heard of that, though the word itself was familiar. An archon was a sort of leader, the title being similar to that of lord or ruler.
Usually, small societies used it because they thought it was a cool way of saying president or chief magistrate. But as a class of nasties that went bump in the night? Archon was a new one to me.
But I had a name, something that would let me do further research. That was more than I’d had in ten years.
The Baron relaxed in his seat. “But don’t be a fool. An Archon is not one you should engage, Lazarus. They are beyond you, even with your newfound powers. And I have no proof that this is what took your sister from you, only a suspicion. It would be a fool’s errand to pursue such a being on so little information.”
He was right, but I’d always been something of an idiot. I’d spent most of the last decade looking for Lydia’s killer, and if it was, in fact, an Archon that had murdered her, I’d find a way to kill it back. Not even death would stop me.
The hearse rolled to a stop, and The Baron nodded through the tinted window. “Ah, here we are. Your humble abode. Will you need transportation to your gala tonight as well?”
“I kinda totaled my car fighting a flying alligator,” I said.
The Baron nodded. “I’ll send a car.” He opened the door for Beth and ushered her through it, but stuck his cane out to stop me before I got out. “Do not go looking for this Archon, boy. That’s an order. It will kill you.”
I pushed his cane out of my way. “Thanks for the tip,” I said and got out of the car.
Chapter Twenty-Five
We still had five-and-a-half hours to kill before I could pick up my suit, and Beth intended to spend all of it sleeping. I got her tucked into bed and set myself to cleaning up the apartment with some trash bags I borrowed from the bar.
Once I had all the trash picked up and dishes done, I sat down with my laptop to verify The Baron’s claims that he’d transferred money into my account. I blinked at the number and rubbed my eyes. That was what he called a small stipend? Guess he did owe me several weeks’ worth of pay. Maybe that many zeroes might’ve been small to a guy who had private drivers and wore tailored suits. I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
