Until Death

by E. A. Copen

  I slowly tore open one of the wipes Nate had handed me. “Look, I don’t know what you think you know, but I’m just about done with all this crazy stuff. I’m about to hand over my mantle as the Pale Horseman. A week from today, I’m going to be in Hawaii, basking in the sun next to the hot babe I’m marrying. After that, I’m going to go back to reading tarot and telling fortunes for a living. I’m not a threat to this city. Those days are long gone.”

  “You’re wrong. Mask is still out there.”

  Nate and I froze, the air suddenly heavy with the electric promise of magic. No one had uttered his name since I’d come back except to occasionally bring up that we might need to do something about him. Yet that seemed like a faraway possibility. We’d beaten Mask in Faerie and on Earth. Maybe he’d try again, but all of us had universally agreed that would be sometime in the far future. It’d be someone else’s problem. Though I wanted to go to the Nightlands and kick his ass, I wanted to stay alive and with Emma even more. I’d done my time. I deserved to retire without having to save the world one more time.

  Nate cleared his throat. “Mask has retreated to the Nightlands.” He crunched his chips loudly.

  “Yeah, Earth and Faerie are safe now and for the foreseeable future,” I added.

  “He is not in the Nightlands,” Guy said. “I’ve already checked.”

  Nate inhaled a whole nacho cheese-covered chip and choked on it until he pounded his chest to get it to break up.

  I spat out my drink, drenching the rest of Nate’s plate. “What did you just say?”

  Guy folded his hands on top of the table. “I said I have been to the Nightlands, and he ain’t there.”

  I exchanged a glance with Nate and placed my cup on the table. “What makes you think I know where he is? I wasn’t even the last person to see Mask. Finn did his thing, and I got zapped back to Earth. I don’t even know what Summer did with the body if there was one.”

  Guy shook his head slowly. “I didn’t say you knew where he was. Just that I was here looking for him. I already checked Faerie, and there’s no trace of him there. I’m only picking up faint readings here, and all of them seem to be around you.” He narrowed his eyes. “So why is that?”

  “Have you been following me?”

  He straightened his posture. “Answer the question, bub.”

  I pushed my plate away, crossed my arms, and leaned forward. “I don’t have to answer shit. This isn’t an interrogation. I don’t even know you, pal, and this isn’t why I told you to meet me here.”

  “Then why did you ask me here? Not for the food.”

  Nate pushed his plate of soggy nachos away. “We called you here to tell you we think it would be best if you moved on. We don’t want any trouble.”

  “From the sounds of it, you two are walking bags of trouble.” He picked up one of the wing bones that I’d discarded, broke it in half, and popped it in his mouth. Guy chewed it up like it was hard candy and swallowed. “All I want is to find whatever’s left of Mask and drag him back to where he belongs before he causes any more trouble.”

  I swallowed the desert in my mouth. “You’re one of them.”

  “One of who?” He picked up the last wipe and tore it open with his teeth. Rather than cleaning his face, he drank down the liquid inside the pouch.

  I almost gagged. “Them. From the Nightlands.”

  “I am what I am. You say you don’t want trouble? That you want Mask dealt with? Fine. I’m your huckleberry.”

  “My what?”

  “It means I’m your man.” He turned to Nate and gestured to the nachos. “You gonna finish those?”

  Nate shook his head, looking a little green.

  Guy picked up the whole plate of Coke-soaked nachos and upended it into his mouth, eating them plate and all. It was probably the most disturbing thing I’d ever seen, and I’d walked through Hell.

  He licked his fingers and smacked his lips before opening his coat and taking out a business card. “I’m going to continue my investigation, but in the meantime, if you decide you want to come clean, you can reach me here.” He slid the card across the table to me.

  I picked up the card and frowned at what was written on it.

  Guy Smith

  Eldritch Investigator

  House of the Rising Sun, Storyville

  “Storyville, huh,” I said, tucking the card away. “The old red-light district? Are you for real?”

  “You know the song?”

  I nodded.

  “Ain’t nothing like it.” He stood and grabbed his hat from the table, sliding it on and tilting it slightly to one side. “The dames in that house’ll chew you up and spit you out without thinking twice. You come by, you watch your back and ask for me directly, you hear?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Guy nodded, turned, and left.

  “Excuse my French, but what the fuck?” I muttered to Nate once Guy was gone.

  “I don’t think that’s French.” He took out his wallet and carefully placed a few bills on the table. “Why would he think you have anything to do with Mask? You don’t think that maybe a piece of him is still hanging around?”

  I stood. “I don’t know, but I think it’s best if I find out before he does. He seems like the sort of guy who might find it easier to shoot me on suspicion than to try and fix things.”

  “How do you plan on figuring something like that out, Laz? You haven’t been acting strange, and I don’t sense anything. Maybe that guy’s just full of crap.”

  I slid my jacket on before starting toward the door. “Better be on the safe side and call Finn.”

  “He should be in town anyway. Your bachelor party is supposed to be tomorrow night.”

  I groaned at the ceiling. I’d been trying for a month to convince my friends I didn’t need a bachelor party, nor did I want one. All I wanted after weeks of wedding planning was to sit at home alone and sleep, not to go get drunk and watch strippers. Growing up with Pony, I’d seen enough of them to last me a lifetime. Besides, why would I want to look at strippers when I had Emma? But they were convinced I had to have one, that it’d be bad luck or something if I didn’t. With Hades in charge, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He was a happily married man, and I just didn’t see Persephone condoning a night of drunken debauchery for her husband.

  I pushed open the door and held it for Nate. “Could you at least tell me what you guys are planning so I can dress appropriately?”

  Nate beamed and turned around to walk backward toward the parking lot. “Nope. I gave Hades my word. The secret’s safe with me. Just trust me when I say it’ll be worth your while.”

  “That’s reassuring,” I said dryly. “Your idea of fun is cosmic bowling.”

  “Hey, bowling is fun even if you’re bad at it.”

  “Please tell me we’re not going bowling, Nate.”

  “Not telling!” he said in a sing-song voice and turned around. “Come on. We still have plenty of time to get across town to the Quarter to pick something out before the traffic gets really bad.”

  I paused in the parking lot, looking back toward the mall entrance. Police cars had blocked it off and rounded up all the witnesses to question. Guy had said there would be more of those things. Why? And how were they related to whatever he thought was going on with me?

  I supposed the better question was if Mask really did leave a piece of himself behind, and I was carrying it around. How was I going to get rid of it before my wedding day?

  Chapter Three

  I didn’t want to deal with the crowds in the Quarter, so I drove home. In an hour, I had an appointment with another realtor to see if I could get Pony’s old house on the market. It would be the third one I’d talked to. The first two had taken one look at the place and advised I make some serious renovations if I wanted to sell it for a decent price. Apparently, the market was down all over.

  After Nate dropped me off, I went about cleaning up the place, polishing the wood cabinets, mopping the floor,
and tossing a few rugs down to make the place look homier. Maybe that’d help.

  My phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket to see it was Emma. “Hey, good looking.”

  “I can’t do this.”

  My heart stopped. “Can’t do what, Em?”

  “The seating chart! There’s no way to fix it so everyone is happy. If I put the Colesons next to the Dixons, we’ll have a fistfight, but if I move either of them to one of the other tables, someone’s going to feel snubbed. And never mind the menu. Darlene is gluten-free, Robert is vegan, and there are at least two others who are allergic to shellfish.”

  I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose. “There’s no shellfish on the menu, Emma...is there?”

  “No!”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Shellfish isn’t the problem!” Emma shouted. A long silence followed, punctuated by a sigh. When she spoke again, her voice cracked. “What happened to just putting on a white dress and trading vows? When did this get so complicated?”

  I plopped into the worn armchair. Emma had already made it clear I wasn’t keeping it because it smelled. What she didn’t get was that it smelled like Pony’s cigars. Yeah, the thing was ugly, but we could throw a blanket over it, and no one would even notice. “We could still run away, you know.”

  “Have you met my family? Daddy would hunt me down and drag me back by the ear to get married in a church like a proper Knight girl.” She cleared her throat. “The big wedding is about as close to a compromise as they’ll allow. They were already upset about the venue.”

  “What’s wrong with Two Sisters?” We’d picked the place for several reasons, the most important of which was Remy’s and Finn’s attendance, as well as everyone in the Court of Miracles. Apparently, it was important that I marry Emma on neutral ground, or it could be seen as a power grab. I hadn’t even factored in my role as the King of the Court of Miracles when I proposed.

  Of course, I’d be giving that up too. I intended to step away from as much of the supernatural world as I could all at once, for Emma’s sake. All I wanted was my boring necromancer life back.

  “Nothing,” Emma said, “and I’ve explained the reasoning to them a hundred times, but I just can’t make them happy.”

  I shrugged. “So stop trying. This isn’t their day, Emma. Not really mine either. I told you to pick whatever you wanted to do, and I’d support it. This whole wedding is supposed to be what you wanted.”

  “It’s…more complicated than that. I just want everything to go right for a change. I had this picture in my head of how it would be. The music, the smiling faces, the dress… Not playing referee between my extended relatives who want to argue about whether someone’s shellfish allergy is real or imagined.”

  “Well,” I said, pulling my laptop onto my lap, “do you think it’s too late to hire a wedding planner to do all this instead?”

  Emma made a gagging sound. “That would only stress me out more. I’d have to trust someone else to make the seating chart. Someone who doesn’t know Darlene and Robert.”

  “Maybe this is why they invented the honeymoon. After all this wedding crap, all anyone wants to do is get away from their beloved families before they kill them all.”

  Emma laughed. It was good to hear, especially in the wake of how upset she’d been just moments ago. She sniffled. “I’m sorry. I know I must sound like a mess.”

  “A hot mess,” I agreed. “But you know me. I’m a sucker for a woman in distress.”

  “Pig.”

  “Oink, baby.” The laptop finally booted, and I put in the address for the local news station to see if anything about the mall attack would come up. “Hey, you got any tips on how to convince a realtor to sell this rickety old shack I’m living in? There’s this hot girl I want to move in with.”

  “No luck with the last one, huh?”

  “Neighborhood isn’t desirable, and Pony owed more on this junk heap than I can realistically ask for it. Means we’re going to start our new life together as Mr. and Mrs. Deep in Debt. You know, I could always rent the place out.”

  “Do you really want to get into the landlord business? In this city?”

  “New Orleans needs decent landlords too. And someone needs affordable housing.”

  Emma made a gagging sound. “The absolute last call I want in the middle of the night concerns backed up toilets.”

  I sighed. “You’re right. I’ll see what the realtor has to say, if she shows up.”

  Emma said something I didn’t quite catch. Instead, I was busy scanning the article, which painted the event under the light of mass hysteria due to a gas leak and chemical spill. There was no mention of the claw or Guy at all.

  “Say, Emma. What do you know about a Krampus?”

  There was a slight pause. I’d probably interrupted her.

  “Not much,” she said. “Isn’t he like evil Santa?”

  “Not quite.” I typed in a search and went to a page dedicated to the Krampus. “Looks like he’s some sort of pre-Christian figure that got associated with the holiday. Some myths say he carried off bad children, but it seems like the story might be even older than that.”

  “Why are you asking me? Christmas is over.”

  “Not technically. You know traditionally there are twelve days of Christmas, right? The season ends on January 6th.”

  I might not have been able to see Emma, but I could feel her eye roll through the phone.

  “You know what I meant, Laz. Why do you care about Krampus? It’s just something to scare kids.”

  I thought about telling her, but Emma already had enough on her plate, worrying about menus, seating charts, dresses, and flowers. She was handling all of that on her own. The least I could do was deal with this weird supernatural thing by myself. If I did it right, she wouldn’t even have to know.

  “Laz,” she started, her voice accusatory, “did something happen?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.” I shifted the phone between my chin and ear to type the words “Krampus” and “Mask.” It was a long shot, so of course, nothing came up other than images of Krampus masks.

  “Tell me,” Emma said.

  I cringed. “I don’t want you to worry. I’ve got it all under control, Emma. It’s just one little thing I need to take care of, okay? After that, I’m out. Promise.”

  Silence for a beat. “Okay. I trust you. Just don’t mess up all this planning I’m doing. Please. And throw out that chair, Laz. Trust me.”

  “There’s an idea. Throw out the seating chart and the menu. Let’s do a potluck and picnic tables. Just let people sit where they want.”

  She made that cute little snorting sound she did when she was amused but also irritated. “Bye, Laz. See you for dinner.”

  A knock came at the door just as I was hanging up. I put the laptop away and went to open the door to another smiling, middle-aged woman with a brand-name knock-off purse.

  She smiled a fake smile and offered me her hand. “Hi, Mr. Kerrigan. I’m Nancy Teller with Teller Realty. We spoke on the phone?”

  “Hi, yeah. Come on in.”

  Her smile fell when she stepped inside, and things only got worse as I showed her around. When I told her the house had survived Katrina, she looked doubtful, but made a note and asked me if the place had any special charm she should know about.

  I put my hands in my pockets and shrugged. “Well, I am a necromancer, so there might be a few ghosts hanging around. Should tell the next occupants not to mind the knocking or the bleeding walls.”

  Nancy looked at me, horrified.

  “I’m kidding, Nancy.”

  “Oh,” she said, exhaling and forcing a smile. “That’s good.” She pulled aside the fresh curtain I’d put up on the back door. “Is that your cat?”

  “Cat? What cat?” I frowned and crowded in to peer out the same window.

  Sure enough, there was a huge black cat prowling around the tiny yard, bigger than any housecat had any right to be. It
flicked its tail, looked at us, and puffed itself up. Rather than run off, the damn cat hissed and threw itself at the back door.

  Nancy screamed and backed away as claws shredded through the wooden door, slicing through as if they were made of saw blades. I grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her back into the living room, placing myself between the crazy cat and my realtor. Another few scratches and it tore a hole in the door large enough to pull itself through.

  I looked around for something to defend myself with and spotted Nancy scrambling out the front door. So much for selling the house now. My eyes stopped on the sink. That’s it! I ran for it and twisted the knob for cold water just as the cat ripped its way through the back door. When it came through, I was ready, armed with the sprayer on full blast.

  “Bad kitty!” I directed the stream at the giant cat’s face.

  It made a gargling sound and jumped up to hang from the ceiling, which it clawed its way along, even as I tried to spray it down.

  I dropped the sprayer and picked up the fire extinguisher. “Holy shit! What kind of cat are you?”

  He dropped from the ceiling and swatted the extinguisher from my hands, raking a claw along my arm at the same time. I grabbed the injury to stop the bleeding and backed away. The giant cat lowered itself, big tail sweeping hauntingly back and forth as it wiggled its oversized butt.

  I squeezed my eyes closed. This is how I die, as necromancer-flavored Meow Mix. I knew it.

  Something crashed into my kitchen wall, flinging pots, pans, and glass jars everywhere.

  I opened my eyes to see the giant cat frantically trying to get away from Guy, who was holding up some kind of plant. Was that…mistletoe? Whatever it was, the giant man-eating cat was terrified of it. It was too busy trying to back its way up the wall to even take a swipe at Guy.

  Guy turned his head to eye me. “Don’t just stand there, ya numbskull. Do somethin’ while I’ve got it distracted!”

  I blinked and called up my Sight, looking for a soul. The big ass cat had a spinning red soul in its chest, which meant I could kill it. Easy enough once I got past the claws. I turned to Guy to tell him I wasn’t going near a scared cat with saw blades for claws.