by E. A. Copen
Her eyebrows drew together, forming wrinkles in the center of her forehead. “It’s seventy-four degrees!”
I didn’t answer. The doctors had been equally perplexed by the low body temperature, but once I refused treatment, and my insurance was denied, they didn’t fight too hard to keep me in a bed. Wasn’t much they could do for me. I needed to reconnect with the living, eat living food, touch living things, replenish the life I’d given up by sleeping a week and change. Ideally, curled up with Odette and a bunch of takeout.
Odette. Shit, her note. I hadn’t even called. I was going to have some serious kissing up to do if I expected her to forgive me this time.
Knight finally gave up waiting for my reply, her frustrated sigh heaving her shoulders forward. She reached to switch the air over to heat. A blanket of warmth caressed my exposed skin, and I leaned into it, a contented groan escaping as I closed my fingers over the vents.
We drove in silence. I would’ve called it companionable silence if Knight hadn’t been thinking so hard I could practically hear the gears moving in her head. Part of me wanted to ask her about whatever had her pre-occupied, but I didn’t know her that well and didn’t want to pry.
At a red light, she turned to me, her hands still on the wheel. “Be straight with me. Are you for real with this magic business?”
I pulled my hands back and rubbed them together, breathing into them. “If I was going to lie, I like to think I could come up with something more convincing than magic. Besides, CPR would be a better cover story. It’s what I would’ve gone with if Detective Moses wouldn’t have interrupted.”
Her lips quirked up in a small smile. “He’d have kicked your ass.”
“For saving yours?”
The light changed, and she eased us forward to tailgate the beat up white sedan ahead of us. “For lying. You’re lucky he saw whatever it is you did. He swears up and down you’re the real deal, an honest-to-God wizard. Then again, Moses has always believed in that sort of thing.”
“Is Moses a first name or last name?”
“Both.”
“Moses Moses?” It had a nice ring to it at least. Easy to remember, but not great conversation. Now that we’d started talking to each other, it felt awkward to let the silence hang. “So you don’t believe me?”
Knight shrugged. “I don’t know what I believe. I suppose anything’s possible. You wouldn’t be the first person to claim to speak to the dead. Wouldn’t even be the first to be right half the time. This is New Orleans. Strange shit happens here all the time.”
“Bet you’ve seen your fair share.”
Her face hardened as if focusing on a specific memory and her fingers went to a silver chain that hung around her neck, twirling the charm that hung there. I focused on it, sending out a small pulse of magic toward the charm. Though I couldn’t see the shape of it, I could feel the very faint signature of energy thrumming inside the metal. Not enough to judge its specific purpose, though I didn’t need to know that to guess what it was for.
I smiled to myself. “What’s a skeptic doing wearing a protection charm?”
She dropped the chain and put her other hand back on the wheel. “Memento from my grandfather. A gift. He gave it to me when I got out of the academy. I’d hardly call it a protection charm. Grandpa didn’t believe in that nonsense.”
I didn’t disagree. After all, I didn’t know her grandfather. Maybe he didn’t know about the charm. It wasn’t doing any harm, so I figured I’d leave it be.
Knight changed the subject. “Why is your body temperature low? That because of this spell of yours?”
I nodded. “Happens anytime I reach for that power. The longer or more intense the spell a necromancer works, the worse and more long-lived the effects will be. I just need a heated blanket, some soup, and some sleep and I’ll be good.”
“You ought to wear a coat then. Or at least proper clothing.”
Guess I could’ve pointed out that she’d dragged me from my apartment and arrested me without giving me the chance to dress, but I figured antagonizing my ride wouldn’t get me anywhere. Instead, I busied myself scratching at the gauze wrapping over my hand.
I’d gotten lucky. Detective Moses’ bullet had somehow passed between my thumb and pointer fingers, ripping a hole through skin and muscle but only barely nicking the bone. It’d be a while healing, but I’d rather have a bullet go through there than my chest.
“I take it by your rumpled clothes, you sat in that chair beside my bed most of the day?” I said.
Knight’s shoulders rose and dropped. “Wasn’t going to leave a person of interest in a murder investigation unguarded.”
“No new developments in the case?’
She rolled her head to the side to glare at me.
I flashed her a wide grin. “Come on, detective. You know I can’t let it go. Someone dropped that body on my doorstep. It involves me as much as it does you. Maybe more so. Since Brandi warned me about the fire, I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t connected too.”
“How’d you know that?” The words escaped her mouth before she had a chance to run them through her police filter. Once she realized she’d just confirmed a suspicion, she scowled, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel until the knuckles turned white. “That house was Brandi Lavelle’s last known address.”
My stomach suddenly felt like I’d swallowed half a dozen knots of gauze. No wonder she warned me. There was probably evidence in there, evidence the fire had destroyed. I hate it when I’m right.
At least I knew I was on the right track. The next step would be questioning the witnesses, which Knight undoubtedly wouldn’t allow me to do. She couldn’t stop me from it if she didn’t see me doing it though.
“This street.” I pointed right at the next intersection, and she took it.
I finished giving Knight directions, and she pulled into the parking lot of Paula’s with a deep frown. “This place is a dump.”
“Wouldn’t say that too loud if I were you. Paula’s pretty proud of this dive. And I happen to like living in the apartment above the bar.”
I gripped the door handle. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve offered to buy the detective a drink. After all, she’d died yesterday. She could probably use one as much as me. But the cold had seeped into my muscles, making them stiff. With the injury in my hand, I couldn’t even grip the door handle now that the pain meds were wearing off. My fingers fumbled with the latch a few times before I finally managed it.
“Mr. Kerrigan,” she called as I hopped out. Her lips turned up, the smile somehow emphasizing tired eyes. “I didn’t get to thank you. For what you did earlier. I’d have died if you hadn’t come after me.”
“Technically speaking, you did die. Don’t go doing that again. Spell only works once unless you happen to know another necromancer.” I started to close the door and then remembered something else. “And call me Laz.”
She nodded slowly. “Then I guess I’m Emma. At least when I’m not clocked in. Hope we never meet this way again, Laz.”
“Me too.”
The door swung closed, and the Escalade pulled away. I waited until the taillights disappeared into the night before turning to go into the bar.
Inside, the place was unusually empty for a weekend night. There were only a couple of guys at the bar, and two more had picked up a table and moved it to block the stairway entry to my upstairs apartment. I was about to drag myself over and lecture them about how blocking an exit was against the fire code when I realized the guys in the bar all had one thing in common. They all wore the same red tank tops.
Darius’ guys. Shit, I’d missed my deadline.
Darius himself kicked off the wall nearby and stormed over. “You got my refund, Magic Man?”
I lifted my hands. “Look, man, I’ve been in the hospital all day—”
He drew the .45 in his waistband and pointed it at my face. “You think I give a shit where you’ve been? I want my money.”
<
br /> The telltale click of a twelve gauge chambering shells cut through the hanging silence. My eyes slid past Darius to the middle-aged bleach blonde behind the bar. With a scowl meaner than any bulldog’s, she ground out, “No cussin’ in my bar!”
Darius smirked and turned, lowering the gun as he did. “Or what? Huh? You gonna shoot me with that from all the way over here? Please, bitch.”
Paula lowered the twin barrels and pulled the trigger.
In close quarters, the gunshot sounded more like an explosion. Whatever she’d filled her shells with blew the top of an empty bar stool off, sending white cotton and green leather flying. Wood chips rained like confetti, tossed into the air when the shot went through the stool and barreled into the floorboards. And that was just the beginning.
The second blast might’ve looked like it came from the gun to an untrained eye, but it was little more than magic pushed through the metal barrel. A flash of light and heat exploded from the barrels in a plume of blue fire, the gun acting as a makeshift blowtorch.
Darius’ guys at the bar leaped up, yelping and scrambling over each other to get to the door. Two of them shoved me aside in their hurry to get out while the third tripped on his sagging pants and landed hard on his chin. By the time Paula checked the blast of magic and cocked the gun a second time, he’d rushed out the door as well, tugging his pants all the way up.
That left the two guys by the table and Darius.
Darius eyed his backup and spat before tucking his gun back into the waistband of his pants. He turned back to me and drove a hard finger into my chest. “That ugly b—” He broke off, thinking better of his choice of words. Guess he’d learned his lesson. “She won’t be around to save you every time, Magic Man. I’ll be waiting. When I see you next, you better have my money.”
He pushed past me, making sure to drive his shoulder into mine on the way, his goons following close behind.
“Just make sure you wait ten feet from the property line,” Paula shouted after him.
I closed the door behind him and fumbled left handed with the lock. “Nice pyrotechnics.”
Paula’s response was a grunt. “You keep bringing trash like that to my doorstep, and the Mormaers will start asking questions.” She waved a hand through the air over the damage, a faint golden glow emanating from her palm. The broken pieces wove themselves back together before my eyes.
Paula was faekin—the descendant of some full-blooded fae whose name I couldn’t pronounce. There weren’t many fae in New Orleans, at least not that I knew of, and those that had chosen to remain weren’t full fae. The way I understood it, full fae were few and far between, most having chosen to go to Underhill long ago. But their bloodlines were still there, and occasionally someone would be born with just enough fae blood to be able to work glamour. She wasn’t really putting the bar back together, but rather covering up the damage. Her glamours were as real to my senses as reality unless I was looking for them. To an average Joe, that bar stool would look and feel just like it had before her gunshot. Just as the fire coming out of the gun wasn’t real though, neither was the repair job. She’d have to have that bar stool replaced and patch up the floor.
I wanted to offer to pay for the damage, or at least apologize, but I knew better than to do that. Too easy for those words to be misconstrued as my accepting a debt to the fae. The damages to the bar are the least of my worries if the ruling council of the fae notices me.
She hopped over the counter and busied herself working over the small cooktop. “That a cop car dropping you off?”
I nodded. “Body got dropped off at the shop. Led to a bit of a misunderstanding. I was cleared.”
“Uh-huh.” Her voice was rough, but I figured she wasn’t too upset when she dropped a plate with a grilled cheese sandwich on the bar and a bowl of tomato soup.
No way had she gotten all that ready in the short time I’d been watching her work, and if she’d made it before I arrived, it shouldn’t have been steaming. I’d long ago learned not to question Paula, especially if she was offering me something warm.
I slid onto the barstool beside the one she’d blown away as she slid me a steaming mug of tea and dug in without a word while she started cleaning glasses and pans. Once, I would’ve been concerned about accepting gifts—especially food—from fae too, but Paula made sure I worked off whatever I ate, and we called it even.
The food might’ve been simple, but it might as well have been caviar and champagne. I already felt warmer by the time I was done. After bringing the dishes to her to wash, I grabbed the trash and hauled it out to the dumpster, then returned to put the chairs up on the table and help her finish closing early.
By the time I made it upstairs, it was after ten. I gave Odette a call but just got voicemail. She might’ve called it an early night, or maybe she was mad at me. I frowned at the note still sitting on the table. “We need to talk” definitely made it sound like she was upset, though I couldn’t figure out what I’d done to piss her off. She’d seemed fine the night before. Women.
With nothing left to do, I turned the heater on full blast and fell face first into bed where I wrapped myself like a burrito. Tomorrow, I’d track down the survivors of the fire and see what they had to say. Knight may have been a competent cop, and one hell of a detective, but she’d be no match for whatever had crushed Brandi Lavelle to death outside my shop. I had to find whoever—or whatever—was responsible before she did or all this suffering after the Kiss of Life would be for nothing.
“No good deed goes unrewarded,” I grumbled and switched off the light.
Chapter Nine
My dreams weren’t my own. Visions of unfamiliar faces and strange places filled my night. Gunfights with my heart pounding in my ears. Holding my fingers over someone’s chest while blood oozed out, a sinking feeling in my gut as I lied and told the dying they were going to be okay. Rage building inside a bubble in my chest as I saw the bruises on a child and knew what they were from, but couldn’t act because the law kept my hands firmly tied behind my back. Red tape. Paperwork. Stale black coffee. A daily grind that wasn’t mine.
When I woke in the morning, I was twisted in sheets and covered in sweat. In my fitful sleep, I’d clawed the bandage from my hand. It hung loose, flapping in the warm breeze coming from the space heater pointed at my bed. The big red scab between my finger and pointer reminded me I’d been shot the day before. Well, grazed was probably the more appropriate term. I’d been lucky the bullet didn’t land a few inches over or it would’ve required major surgery to fix.
I sat up with a sigh and tried to force the bandage down, but the adhesive had worn off. Time for a new one.
After replacing the bandage and a shower hot enough to leave my skin beet red, I tried Odette again. She hadn’t called or texted me overnight, which seemed odd. Usually, we spent a good part of the evening and afternoon exchanging texts if we hadn’t seen each other. At the very least, she should’ve been active online, but her social media hadn’t been updated in days. Maybe she was just busy.
I ditched the phone in favor of my laptop and did a quick search of the morning news, looking for headlines about the fire. A few articles mentioned someone barging in to save victims, but no one got a good picture of me. Thank goodness for small miracles. Last thing I wanted was to be swarmed by a bunch of reporters, though maybe that would’ve drummed up some business.
As for the victims themselves, the last article I read said they were treated and released with minor injuries. But released to where? The building had been a halfway house for women and girls, which meant they had nowhere left to go. They were in the wind, but the property owner wasn’t. Her name was right there in the article: Vesta Hogarth. She might know where to find the girls.
Once I had her name, her address wasn’t hard to find. I stood from my computer and grabbed my keys, pausing with my hand on the doorknob as my eyes brushed over the coat rack. The food, shower, and warm bed had done a lot to warm me, but my body
temp still wasn’t back to normal. Once I stepped out of my heated apartment, I’d be freezing again, something I wasn’t looking forward to.
The only warm coat I owned was an ugly, fur-lined leather trench coat that wasn’t new when I bought it. The leather had some nicks and tears, but it was warm enough, so I grabbed it from the coat rack and shrugged it on.
An hour after I saw her name in the article, I pulled my car up outside Vesta Hogarth’s house in on Saint Charles. Well, house wasn’t the right word. It was a huge brick mansion with white columns. Situated back from the street and boasting immaculate landscaping complete with bushes shaped like animals, the place had a second-story balcony.
I parked on the street and got out with a low whistle. Not bad. If only my work took me to mansions more often.
A wrought iron fence ran around the property. I stopped at the gate and tested the iron with a finger, making sure it was genuine. Some fae metals could mimic iron in appearance, but they were softer to the touch. The fence there was genuine, ruling out any chance that Vesta was fae. No fae would’ve dared live inside a circle of iron.
The hinges gave a slight protest as I pushed open the gate and started up the walk. The door opened before I ever made it to the marble stairs and a thug in a black suit stepped out onto the porch, crossing his arms over a broad chest. My image reflected in the sunglasses he wore.
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “My name’s Lazarus Kerrigan. I’m looking for a Vesta Hogarth?”
The thug didn’t answer.
“Not the talkative sort, huh?”
No answer.
“Look, if she’s not here—”
“What’s going on out here, Gaston?” A gorgeous blonde in a red sundress stepped out onto the porch, a watering can in hand.
“Vesta Hogarth?”
She flashed a brilliant smile, the kind of smile only money can buy. “Indeed. What can I do for you, Mister…”
“Just Laz if you don’t mind.” I scratched at the beard on my chin I’d forgotten to shave. I’d also forgotten she had no idea who I was, and I had no reason to be talking to her. “I, uh, saw the fire yesterday. I was kind of there, actually and I was wondering…”
