by E. A. Copen
A bright light exploded out of the box as the lid snapped open. Osric fell back with a loud cry. I shut my eyes against the blinding light and turned my head away. Even through closed eyelids, I could see it. I jammed my hand into my pocket, grabbed the tea bag and held it over the open box. Flames licked my hand, burning and clawing as if I were reaching into a fiery furnace.
I dropped the ironwort in and tried to force the lid closed, but whatever pressure was coming out of the box was too much, and I wasn’t strong enough. A terrible scream of anguish tore through the open desert, but I didn’t dare open my eyes. If I did, I’d be blinded.
Odette’s hands suddenly slid over mine. Her warm body pressed against my back and she whispered in my ear, “Together.”
“On three!” I shouted. “One, two…”
On three, we pushed on the lid of the box with our combined strength. The lid closed, and I slid the latch back into place, keeping it that way.
Nyx’s panicked screams continued to fill the air. When I opened my eyes, I saw her flame-engulfed form screaming as it ran down the stairs, arms outstretched. Smoke billowed from her open mouth as she tried to form Osric’s name. Her fingers reached for him, pleading, but he stepped away and let her fall into the sand. Guess that’s what you get when you enslave a guy using his soul as leverage. Servitude and manipulation don’t exactly engender loyalty.
Not one of the many shadows in attendance sprang to her aid. Every one of them stood back in silence and watched their queen burn until eventually she stopped flailing and lay still. Then, the box in my hand caught fire. I dropped it and stepped away, holding Odette against me. Dark shadows spread out from the box in a circle until the shadow encompassed both Nyx and her box. Both sank into the shadow as if the shadows were a sea. Once they were gone, the shadows retreated, leaving everyone standing in silence.
Osric made a small gasping sound and raised his hands in front of his face. The miasma of shadow that had followed him around suddenly lifted, dissipating into nothingness.
“What’s happening?” I asked him.
But it was Odette who answered. “He’s being released from his debt.”
“His debt?” I frowned at her.
She nodded. “The knights aren’t free. Each sells his service to a queen for the rest of their mortal life in exchange for something else.”
“Or someone else,” Osric said, watching the miasma lift with tears sparkling in his eyes, but he was also smiling. “And now that I’m no longer bound, I can finally go home.”
“Home?” I asked. “But if you’re bound for life…”
The last of the miasma left him, but whatever force had been released didn’t stop pulling on him. Osric started to unravel, bit by bit, his extremities pulled into the invisible wind of power created by his promise. He didn’t seem at all upset about disappearing. In fact, he started laughing, his smile as wide as his face. He closed his eyes and raised his hands. “I’m finally free! Thank you, Lazarus.”
Those were his last words before the binding spell unraveled the rest of him.
I shivered. Just how long had Osric been the Shadow Queen’s unwilling guardian that he went to death with a smile on his face, calling it home?
A murmur went up from the shadowy forms gathered around the drums, and it didn’t sound happy.
I collected my staff from the sand and returned to squeeze Odette’s hand. “You wouldn’t happen to know how to get us out of here before they decide to avenge their queen and knight, would you?”
“This way.” She pulled me out further into the desert and stopped some distance away to draw in the sand. After she’d finished a few symbols, a mirage appeared in the sand of fresh, cool water. She stood. “We have to jump in. This portal will take us to the edge of Summer, where the realm touches your home. I can take you back from there.”
I nodded, but still didn’t feel sure. Jumping into strange mirages of water in the middle of the desert in Faerie didn’t sound like a good idea to me.
“Together then?” she urged and held out her hand.
I nodded and took it. “Together.”
The shadows took up their war drums just as we jumped into the puddle.
Chapter Thirty
We emerged in a blue pool of salt water that stung my open eyes. The momentary shock made me expel all the air from my lungs and nearly choke in water. Odette pulled me up toward the surface, kicking her feet as if she were more comfortable swimming than walking. I broke through the surface just a second after her and choked air into my burning lungs.
“Breathe,” she urged, still holding onto me. “You’re safe here.”
I drew in another shaky breath and looked around. Silver moonlight glinted over a calm sea. We weren’t too far offshore from a small island with lush plant life and some palm trees. When Odette swam for the island, I went with her. It wasn’t until we’d dragged ourselves onto the sandy beach that either of us spoke again.
“Next time fae royalty shows up at my shop,” I managed between panting, “I’m closed.”
Odette pulled some seaweed out of the folds of her dress and shifted, putting a hand on her stomach. Now that we were soaking wet, the fabric clung tight to her body, making the pregnancy all the more obvious.
I finally caught my breath and pulled my legs up to rest my elbows on them. “Everything you said back there, was it true?”
She nodded. “Every word.”
“How? It’s only been a few weeks since the last time I saw you.”
Odette shrugged. “Maybe it was only a few weeks on Earth, but it’s been almost six months here.”
“Did you know the last time you saw me? The night you made me cancel our reservations at Shel?”
Odette refused to look at me. That was all the answer I needed. She’d found out and run away rather than tell me. This whole being recalled to Faerie nonsense was just a convenient excuse.
“I left Faerie when the Summer Queen promised my hand to someone at court,” she said, pushing wet hair out of her face. “I decided to hide on Earth, but I didn’t know anyone there. And when I met you, and you didn’t know anyone either, it just seemed too perfect. You had magic, but you lived too far below the radar for anyone to notice you. No one would ever come looking for me if I kept my head down. But it all went wrong.”
I pushed myself to my feet. “You lied to me. You used your fae magic to make me care about you, and you lied to me.”
“I didn’t have a choice!” She balled her hands into fists. “I couldn’t trust anyone, and I didn’t have time to earn your trust. I needed to ensure your absolute loyalty as soon as I could. I needed a protector, Lazarus. In case she came for me.”
I turned away. It hurt to hear it from her, but I’d already known. At least she was being honest now, even if it was too little, too late.
The sand shifted as she found her feet and walked over to place a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. It was wrong. I was wrong. I never meant for you to get hurt.”
“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, Odette.” I bent over and picked up a rock, skipping out over the water a few jumps before it sank. “I can’t forgive you.”
She closed her eyes and lowered her head. “I understand.”
I put my hands on my hips and watched the waves crash against the sand. There was so much I wanted to say, but with the wound fresh again, I couldn’t formulate it into a coherent thought. We needed to talk more about what was going to happen. Like it or not, Odette was having a baby. My baby. God, I’d never get used to that. But it meant we had to work out our differences eventually in some way if I wanted to have any say in how the child was raised. And I’d be damned if I was going to let any family of mine grow up in Faerie.
“Nyx called the child an abomination, the seed of death itself.”
“The doom of all of us,” Odette repeated, coming to stand by me at the water’s edge. “She’s not the only one to think that. It’s why my mother recalled me. For m
y safety and the baby’s.”
“She doesn’t believe that?”
Odette shook her head and stroked her stomach. “I don’t know what she wants with our child, but it can’t be good. The Faerie Queens only care about power and scheme constantly to increase it. Now that Nyx is gone, my mother will order her armies to the Shadow Kingdom. She will seize control of New Orleans and all the fae in it. There will be war, and when the fires of that war are snuffed out, there will be a new Shadow Queen, one chosen by Summer.”
A puppet queen. Great, and it was all my fault. But what else could I have done? I couldn’t let Nyx win, not after everything. I went over every choice I made all over again, every decision that led to me standing in Faerie with that box in my hands. The only thing I would’ve changed would be going to bed earlier the night Lexi died.
A large wave rolled in, splashing water over my feet. When the waves rolled back, they left my staff in the sand. I bent to pick it up. “And when that happens, I’ll be there to even things out. That is my job now, after all.”
“We’re going to need to even a few things out between us, Lazarus. I don’t want our child to suffer because of what I did.”
I nodded and extended a hand. “Agreed.”
Odette gave a weak smile and ignored my offered hand to plant a kiss on my cheek. “Thank you. For coming for me.”
I gritted my teeth, fighting against the pit in my stomach trying to consume me. “I can’t save you all the time, Odette. Promise me you’ll stay safe. At least until the baby’s born, huh? I’d like to meet him.”
“Him?” She raised an eyebrow.
I shrugged. “I got a sixth sense about this sort of thing.”
She gave my shoulder a playful shove. “Come on. We’d better get you back. No telling how much time has passed on your side.”
We walked along the beach for a little while in silence under the moon. It seemed a lifetime ago that I’d have found the walk with Odette romantic, but that was all gone. Now, the best I could hope for was companionable silence as I tried to work out exactly what I wanted to say. The words didn’t come, not as we walked, and not as she stooped in the sand on the beach to draw more symbols.
This time, the portal opened between two palm trees, the room on the other side obscured by the swirling light. I watched the magic spin and dance, still searching for the words I didn’t have.
“Odette, I—”
She stopped me, throwing her arms around me and squeezing tight. My shoulder was suddenly wet with her tears. Not angry tears because it was clear she understood why things couldn’t go back to the way they were, and not tears of joy or loss because those weren’t the right words either. This was a bittersweet parting. The one we should’ve had months ago. It was goodbye. Acceptance.
The empty pit I’d been carrying around in my stomach lightened. I put my arms around her and squeezed her back. When Odette and I parted on that beach in Faerie, it was as friends, and I think both of us were just fine with that.
***
After spending so much time in darkness, stumbling through the portal into daylight was a bit of a shock. I tripped on the way out and landed flat on my face, earning myself a mouthful of grass and dirt.
I raised my head and spat both out to find myself staring down two kids with a football. The kid closest to me let the football slip out of his hands.
I stood and dusted myself off. I guess I must’ve looked the sight with my ripped and bloody suit, no shoes and sopping wet from my swim in the ocean.
“Are you okay, mister?”
I looked up and shook some water from my suit. “What day is it, kid?”
The two of them exchanged glances before the first one said, “It’s April Fool’s Day.”
April first. Damn, I’d lost two weeks. I staggered forward and grabbed the kid by the shoulders. “Do you know of the Egyptian exhibit is still at the museum?”
“The museum’s closed,” he said, pulling away. “Are you homeless?”
“I hope not,” I said and ambled toward the street.
The museum was only a few blocks away, and I drew all kinds of strange looks on my way there, but I couldn’t stop. I had to see Beth if she was still in town, and I had to find out what had happened to the mummies I’d reanimated. If they’d gone berserk and killed anyone, I’d never forgive myself. There was no guarantee she’d be at the museum, if she was even still in town at all, but I didn’t know where else to try. My phone had been destroyed by the dip in the ocean.
After an exhausting walk that left my legs feeling like jelly, I staggered to a stop across the street from the museum. The whole front had been covered by a thick plastic tarp, and signs all around announced that the building was closed for renovations. Several box trucks were pulled up out front. As I stood there, Beth came around the back of one of the trucks, a clipboard in hand, chatting animatedly with Dr. Seb Feneque.
I stepped into the street and almost into the path of an oncoming car. It swerved and its horn blared. The driver shouted something obscene and flashed me the finger, so I responded in kind.
Something loud clattered to the pavement, and I looked up to see Beth had dropped her clipboard. “Lazarus? Oh my god!” She took off running, despite Seb’s protests and met me in the middle of the street holding her hands out and stuttering, gesturing to different parts of me. “How? Why? When?”
I grabbed her and pulled her tight against me. “Promise I’ll tell you everything if you promise never to mention God or gods again.”
She wriggled free, hands reaching up to grab my face. “I thought you were dead. When you went through that portal, the mummies just fell over. And you didn’t come back. I was sure… Why are you wet?”
“Not dead yet,” I said with a smile and leaned down to kiss her.
Over the next few hours, and after a steaming hot cup of coffee, I told Beth most of what happened, leaving out most of my time with Odette. I wasn’t ready to admit out loud that I was about to be a father. Until Odette and I figured out exactly how that was going to work, I didn’t want to pull Beth into things. The last thing I wanted to do was scare away the one good thing that had come out of all this.
For her part, Beth told me Emma had only been able to keep the local cops out a few minutes, but that was long enough for the mummies to fall over, so they hadn’t had to explain that. A few panicked patrons who had seen the fight tried to tell people, but mostly the city had chalked it up to the fumes from a gas leak that caused an explosion. New Orleans forgot about the incident virtually overnight, and life went on as normal.
“What about you?” I lowered my cup to the table. “You were loading up those trucks. You leaving town?”
She nodded slowly. “What’s left of the exhibit will need to be put back together, and we’ll be able to do that better in a drier climate. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to keep seeing you.” She smiled and put her hand over mine. “Once I get everything moved and settled, I’d like to fly back a few weekends a month. See if we can’t make up for lost time.”
Eventually, I’d have to explain everything to Beth, even the uncomfortable parts, but that’d be easier once I knew how to deal with it myself. So, I nodded and smiled. “I’d like that.”
The bell above the door rang, and I looked over to see Darius and two of his thugs come through it. Beth stiffened when they stopped by our table. I’d told Beth I was calling a few people and borrowed her cell, but I guess I neglected to mention who they were.
Darius’ face was all business as he nodded to me and said, “Lazarus.”
No more Magic Man. Guess we weren’t on the best of terms since I’d skipped out on getting him his money for two weeks.
“Darius, about the money—”
“Save it, Lazarus. You missed your deadline. That’s got consequences.”
One of his thugs reached into his jacket. I flinched when he pulled his hand back out, but realized then all he had was a pack of gum.
My
eyes slid from the thug with the gum back to Darius. “What kind of consequences?”
“For you?” Darius shrugged. “Let’s just say you’re lucky I’m trying to go legit. No need to look over your shoulder. But next time you want information, might be you find my door’s closed.”
“Darius, I have your money.”
“Don’t need no money. Not no more.” He sniffled and drew a finger under his nose. “See, when you didn’t come through for me, I had to find another investor, one whose terms I liked a little less. But I promised my baby sister I’d go legit, so bad terms or no, I signed his contract.”
In other words, Darius had gotten himself into more debt, this time with a questionable character, and it was all my fault.
“How about if I pay off your loan? Buy out the other investor?” I offered. “How much do you need?”
Darius shook his head. “Ain’t money I owe, Lazarus.”
I broke into a cold sweat remembering how I’d traded three days of my life to Mr. Morningstar. What were the odds Darius had run into someone like him? Unlikely, I thought, unless he’s been talking to more people in the magical community than just me. The only way to know for sure would be to ask him.
“This other investor of yours,” I said, my mouth suddenly dry, “wouldn’t happen to be a Mr. Morningstar, would it?”
Darius blinked and wrinkled his nose. “How do you know Mr. Morningstar?”
Crap.
“Darius, you’ve got to get out of that deal. Whatever you owe him, find a way to get out of it.”
He shook his head again. “Sorry, man. It’s a done deal. Consequences, like I said. You’re going to miss out on your cut of the business. So you can keep your money. And next time you need help? Do me a favor and don’t call me.”
I tried to stop him, to tell him he was in over his head, but he just whistled over me, gestured with a finger to round up his guys, and headed for the door. I guess some people just didn’t listen. Darius and me were in the same boat now. The real question was: what did Morningstar want from the both of us?
Emma came in almost as soon as Darius left. She scanned the tables before her eyes landed on me. I’d called her just a short while ago to let her know I was back and invite her to coffee with us. I expected her to be surprised, maybe relieved. Of course, I should’ve known better when it came to Emma Knight.
