Death Rites

by E. A. Copen

  Death Rites

  Book 1 of The Lazarus Codex

  A Supernatural Thriller Series

  By E.A. Copen

  This is a work of fiction. Names, persons, places, and incidents are all used fictitiously and are the imagination of the author. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, events or locales, is coincidental and non-intentional, unless otherwise specifically noted.

  No portion of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  E.A. Copen

  Death Rites

  Book 1 of The Lazarus Codex

  © E.A. Copen 2018

  All rights reserved.

  No one is above the law. At least, that’s what federal agent Judah Black believes. Her job is to police supernaturals who have come out of hiding to live alongside humans. Read her story from the beginning. To find out how to get Fortunate Son, and another novella, for FREE, check out the link at the end of this book.

  Chapter One

  I locked the door to the shop and turned around to meet trouble. I jumped at the sight of her. A minute ago, the porch outside had been empty. She was blonde with a slight build, a little on the short side. I pegged her age between twenty-two and twenty-five, old enough to know better than to sneak up behind a guy like that.

  “Mister Kerrigan,” she said, big doe eyes pleading, “I need your help.”

  I leaned forward, peering out into the gray evening, looking up and down Magazine Street in case someone else was waiting for me. No one was there, so I pocketed the keys and stepped aside, jabbing a thumb toward the sign on the glass. “Come back tomorrow morning, miss. I’m done for the day.”

  I sidestepped her and made for the sidewalk. If it’d been any other day, I might’ve opened the door and invited her in to unload her troubles. Being a medium and occult shop owner isn’t exactly a lucrative profession, and it’d been a slow day. Whatever help she needed, it’d probably lead to a sale, which meant money in my pocket. Unfortunately for her, I was already running late for a very important date.

  “Please, Mister Kerrigan. I need protection.”

  Her words brought me to a halt on the bottom stair. With a sigh, I turned my face skyward and counted to three. It took her that long to come to my side, wringing her hands and looking up at me. When I lowered my gaze, her eyes were big and wet. More importantly, her hand held a wad of cash.

  She thrust the cash at me. “I can pay.”

  “Talismans take twenty-four to forty-eight hours to charge,” I said. “Come back in the morning, and you can pick one out of the shop. Write down a detailed description of what sort of passive effect—”

  “I’m not talking about talismans.” Her outstretched hand trembled until her fingers tightened around the wad of bills. “Someone’s trying to kill me, Mister Kerrigan.”

  “First of all, my name is Lazarus. Laz if that’s easier. Mister Kerrigan is my grandfather.” I stepped past her without taking the money. She fell into step behind me on my walk down the block to my car. “Second, it sounds like what you need is the police, miss, not a medium-slash-occultist. The nearest police station is about two blocks that way.” I pointed in the direction I was walking.

  My car waited just a few spaces ahead, yet so far out of reach. I didn’t want to climb into it and just leave her stranded on the sidewalk, especially if what she said was true and someone was after her. It wasn’t that much of a reach, considering the state of things in New Orleans these days. Crime was up, incomes were down, and she was a pretty girl with a wad of cash. Everything about that screamed she was in danger, but I wasn’t the one to help her.

  “I’m no bodyguard,” I continued, stopping and facing her. “What made you come to me for this anyway?”

  Her shoulders slumped. “I’ve been to see every other medium, palm reader, or witch in the city, Mister…I mean Laz. They’ve all turned me down. I can’t go to the police. They’ll think I’m crazy!”

  I looked up and down the street again, jamming my hands into the pockets of my jacket. The streets were empty, not unusual for five-thirty in the evening in a commercial district. The area was all little boutique shops and mom-and-pop joints, little guys like me trying to eke out a living in an era of big box stores. They all closed shop around five and headed home. Unless a phone call from a disgruntled client kept me on the phone after hours, I normally joined them in the mass exodus from the neighborhood on my way home. On a normal Friday afternoon, I’d be halfway back to my shitty apartment by now.

  Whatever this woman thought was after her, I wouldn’t be any match. My day job was selling scented candles and doing tarot readings in the back room. Occasionally, I put together a séance for some grieving widow, but even those were mostly a sham. I could call up the spirits of the dead, I just preferred not to. Even that was a whole different game than protecting some woman I didn’t even know from a nameless, faceless supernatural threat.

  “Look,” I said with a sigh, “I’m not the guy you want helping you. I don’t do that kind of magic. I’m no good for it. Best I can offer you is a ride to the station.” I walked up to my car and opened the passenger door for her.

  Her eyes widened and glistened. For a second, I thought she’d try to use her tears as a negotiation tool. Instead, her fist closed around the cash, crumpling the bills. She jammed them into her pocket with a shaky breath and said, “I’m very sorry to have wasted your time.” With that, she spun on her heels and marched back down the block and around the corner.

  I watched her go, wondering if I should go after her. Maybe what she needed was a listening ear more than anything, someone to take her seriously. While the world was a crazy place, and I knew all too well that supernatural threats were a real concern, the likelihood that your average gal on the street would have their life threatened by the supernatural were slim to none. Sure, things could go bump in the night. They might spoil your coffee or eat your cat, but most supernatural entities were more afraid of humans than anything. I spent enough of my waking hours trying to coax them to tell me their names to know. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this girl, whoever she was, had felt like there was a legitimate threat.

  But I had a hot date, and the girl was gone, beyond my help.

  I closed the door and sighed, looking over my car. She wasn’t what you’d call a stylish model, even when it was new in the early 1990’s. My little Accord might not have been stylish, but it hasn’t been the bestselling car every year for over two decades for nothing. It’s cheap to repair, cheap to drive, and even cheaper to gas up, all positives for a broke guy like me. The little Accord was mismatched, with a red hood, yellow body, and green doors. Silver duct tape kept the mirrors attached.

  The other cars on the block were much nicer, middle-class cars with anti-theft devices. Every once in a while, I’d hear a car alarm go off as if to remind everyone of that fact. Me, I relied on duct tape. The going theory was that any would-be car thieves would see my hunk of junk and move on to jack the two-year-old sedan in the next spot. So far, it seemed to be working.

  I got into my car and coaxed her to life. Just to be sure the woman didn’t meet a grisly end around the corner, I did a U-turn in the street and pulled around the block, noting there was no sign of her, before cruising down the street.

  My office was on the southeastern edge of Touro, so it was a five-minute drive to Paula’s on Pleasant Street, Paula’s being the name of the bar I lived above. Paula’s was a bit of a dive, a hole-in-the-wall place frequented by locals. My apartment had a private entrance in the back, but that meant running up a flight of narrow, metal stairs and fighting with the deadbolt. I preferred to go in through the f
ront and check in with Paula.

  The place was mostly empty. A few cars belonging to the regulars sat parked out front in the tiny lot, taking up most of it. I slid my car into the narrow space between a beat-up GMC truck and the front walk and headed inside.

  The two guys propping up the bar sat up and glanced my way along with the bartender, Paula. She was a jaded old soul, whose cocktails were almost as mean as she was. She gave me the side eye as I came in late and paused wiping down the bar to grab a handful of envelopes from behind it.

  “Any letters from my fan club?” I asked, walking over to collect my mail.

  Paula made a noise halfway between a grunt and a chuckle. “Not likely. Visitor came by lookin’ for you. I sent ’em upstairs.”

  I looked at my watch and cursed. My date was early.

  “No cussin’ in the bar,” Paula shouted after me as I sprinted for the stairs.

  I took the steps two at a time on my way up, a stupid grin plastered on my face. Even if I was late, Odette would forgive me, especially since I’d scored reservations at Shel, some swanky restaurant in the French Quarter she’d been dying to go to for the last few months.

  When I made it to the top of the stairs, however, it wasn’t Odette waiting outside my apartment. Two guys in red tank tops prowled around the narrow, undecorated space, their footfalls softened by thin carpet. One sported a series of tattoos on his biceps and a scar on his left cheek. He was packing a .45 tucked into the waistband of his jeans, which hung loosely over some brand name sneakers.

  I recognized the man pacing with him. He was smaller, more jumpy-looking, springing into each step on the balls of his feet, letting his dreadlocked hair flow behind him like a mass of black tentacles from under the ball cap.

  “Darius,” I exclaimed before they saw me, fixing a smile on my face. I figured I’d be better off opening negotiations. The last time I’d seen Darius, it’d been as a client. In fact, that’d been the only time I’d seen him, which meant he wasn’t here for a social call.

  Darius stopped pacing and turned, a sneer on his face. “Well if it isn’t the magic man himself. You’re late, Magic Man.”

  I raised my hands. “Got held up. What can I do for you fellas?”

  “Last time I saw you, you told me my mamma’s spirit told you she left her cash under the loose floorboard in the kitchen.” Darius pointed angrily at me.

  I tilted my head to the side, trying to recall exactly what he was talking about. He’d come to me after the death of his mother, looking to recover something important of hers that was hidden. Kid had been broken up, a mess really. Just the kind of person most mediums in town might have taken advantage of to squeeze away his life savings. But he didn’t want to talk to his dead mother to make amends for some past argument, or to say his last goodbyes. Darius came to me with a sob story about how his mother had hidden away her most valuable possessions, and he needed to find them. To remember her by, he’d said.

  Apparently, he thought her most valuable possessions equated to money.

  I took a step toward Darius. “I’m just the messenger, Darius. I just tell you what they tell me. If there was nothing there—”

  “Oh, there was something there, alright.”

  I grimaced and braced for the worst when Darius reached into his pocket, but instead of bringing out a gun, his hand came out gripping a folded stack of lined paper. He unfolded the paper and held it up, revealing a hand-drawn picture of some superhero in a cape, all colored in crayon.

  Suddenly, I understood exactly what had happened. Darius asked for the location of his mother’s most treasured possession, which he believed would be money. Instead, she led him to a stack of his childhood artwork, exactly the kind of thing an aging mother of a gang-banging youth might hold onto to remember his more innocent days. It was heartwarming…and hilarious. I couldn’t help but snicker when Darius showed me the next picture in the stack, a homemade Mother’s Day card with half the letters written backward. When he showed me the next page, a badly drawn comic strip, I lost it and doubled over, laughing.

  “Is that supposed to be a dog or a T-rex?” I asked, wiping away a tear.

  Darius apparently didn’t think it was so funny. He motioned to his buddy who stepped forward. The fist came out of nowhere and plowed into my gut. If I hadn’t already been doubled over, it might have broken me in half. I collapsed against the goon’s arm, gasping to try and take in a breath. My legs suddenly didn’t work. Maybe mouthing off to the tattooed goon twice my size wasn’t the best idea. The goon let me crumple to the ground, making sounds that should be reserved for drowning fish.

  “I want a refund, asshole,” Darius said, hovering over me.

  “No…refunds,” I gasped out.

  He drew a foot back and kicked me hard in the ribs. Stars flooded my vision as every major organ lit on fire.

  “Tell you what.” Darius sighed and sank to one knee next to me. “’Cause I’m such a nice guy, I’ll give you twenty-four hours to think it over. Then, I’m coming back for a refund and an apology. If you don’t have what I’m looking for when I come back tomorrow night, I might not be so nice. You know the customer is always right, Laz. You should remember that.” He patted my side twice before standing, collecting his goon, and heading for the stairs.

  I rolled over onto my back as soon as I could breathe and lay there for a while. Nothing was broken as far as I could tell, which was a plus, but I was going to have a nasty bruise that was going to put a serious damper on my night. With a groan and a hiss of pain, I pulled myself up using the wall as leverage and let myself in through the beat-up wooden door into my apartment.

  Every wizard needs a sanctuary, and my apartment was mine. I’d lived there for just over eight months, and in that time, I’d made the place my own. Sigils carved into the door frame acted as wards. They wouldn’t kill anyone trying to break in, but the loud noise and rush of painful heat would be enough to deter them from entering.

  I deactivated the wards and stepped into a simple room. A more generous person might’ve called the second-hand sofa, old horror movie posters, and TV trays a bachelor pad with eclectic decor. To me, it was just home.

  I dropped my keys on the little cart in the kitchen next to the hot plate and dragged myself into the bathroom where I stared at my haggard face in the mirror. I’ve never been what most women would consider sexy. My facial scruff doesn’t grow in even, and my schedule is too hectic to get to the gym every day, a requirement for washboard abs. Don’t get me wrong; I’m by no means fat. If anything, I lean the other way, skinny as a rail and pale as death. I looked especially pale since Darius had his thug beat the snot out of me. The scuffle had somehow left me with a black eye, probably from when I fell to the floor and curled into a ball. I touched it and winced. That’d need some ice.

  A firm knock at the front door made me lean away from the sink. Worried it might be Darius, back for another round, I went to the bedroom to grab my baseball bat before going to the door and peering through the peephole. The distorted face of a brunette in a low-cut dress shirt peered back. With a sigh, I put the bat over my shoulder and turned the knob. “Whatever you’re selling, I’ll take two.”

  She eyed my face, then the bat and placed a hand on her hip. “Looks like you could use an upgrade to your home security system.”

  “I don’t know.” I wiggled the bat resting against my shoulder. “Old slugger here was good enough for grandpa. Ought to be good enough for me.”

  She put a hand on my chest and shoved me into the apartment. “Doesn’t look like it’s working too well for you now. Here I am, intruding on your space uninvited and that old bat of yours hasn’t done a thing.”

  “Oh, well, you know I am a wizard after all. Magic powers and everything.”

  “I heard you’re a necromancer, not a wizard.” Her hands trailed down my chest, and she gave me a sultry look with one raised eyebrow.

  “I take offense to that, Odette,” I said in mock defense before l
owering the bat and leaning it against the wall, eyeing the clock. If we were going to make it to Shel on time to keep our reservation, I’d have to get in the shower soon.

  “What’s a necromancer but a specialized wizard?” she said, leaning against the back of my sofa.

  “And what’s a werewolf but an oversized schnauzer?” I scoffed.

  Odette sighed through her nose and stayed where she was as I went to the freezer in search of ice. The ice cube trays were empty, but I had some death by chocolate ice cream. Close enough.

  “So who did you piss off this time, Laz?”

  “Couple of gangbangers looking for their dead mom’s stash.” I grabbed the container of ice cream and held it against my eye, wincing. “But, hey, I got us reservations at Shel.”

  “Maybe you should cancel that.”

  “Why? Because I got beat up?” I lifted the ice from my eye and rubbed my injured ribs. “You should see the other guy. I thought you wanted to eat at that swanky place? Or are you just embarrassed to be seen with a necromancer?” Before she could answer, I turned away and closed the fridge. When I turned back, Odette stood there with her shoes dangling from two fingers, a sly smile on those full lips of hers.

  “Actually, I was thinking we’d stay in tonight.” She dropped the shoes and walked over, sweeping the makeshift ice pack from my hands to plant a kiss there instead. “Maybe I can rub out some of those bumps and bruises, huh?”

  “But it took me weeks to get these reservations and—”

  She silenced me with another more urgent kiss. By the time she broke it off, I’d forgotten what I was going to say. “Forget Shel.” She gave my backside a pat and a gentle push toward the bedroom.

  Normally, I didn’t much care for being told what to do and would’ve made a point to argue with her, if only over the principle of the thing. In this case, however, and after the day I’d had…who was I to argue?

  I woke to the sound of my phone buzzing on the nightstand. Groggily, I pawed at it, my eyes little more than slits that flinched away from the light filtering through the blinds. Odette’s arm tightened around my ribs, and I winced. Yep, definitely bruised. My fingers closed around my phone just in time for it to stop buzzing. For a minute, I debated just letting go of the phone and going back to sleep. What good was owning my own business if I didn’t get to open late?