by E. A. Copen
“Fine. Make your offer. But if you don’t keep your end of the deal…” I didn’t finish because there technically wasn’t anything I could do to him, but it felt good to leave the threat hanging.
It wasn’t The Baron who spoke first.
Pony stepped forward, his hand gripping the staff. “You’re chasing a god, son. These murders, they’re just the tip of the iceberg of what the gods have been up to. They’ve been getting away with too much. Gods, reapers, fae, The Baron even has trouble with keeping some of the Loa in line.”
The Baron crossed his arms. “’Tis but a small faction, but it cannot be denied.”
I stared at them, slack-jawed. Gods? Guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. I mean, if the Loa were real, and fae too, why not gods? There were all kinds of things that went bump in the night, but I had next to nothing to do with most of them. I’d always figured if I kept my head down and didn’t piss off too many people, I’d never have to deal with them.
“Which gods? Are we talking like Zeus and company or…?”
Pony grunted and scratched at the white whiskers on his chin. “Zeus is a prick, but he knows how to throw a mixer. If you ask me though, I’d much rather drink with Odin though. His parties have better music.”
I looked from Pony to The Baron, searching for any sign that they were lying to me, but their faces remained serious. “Gods, huh?”
The Baron tapped his cane on my floor, sending waves of power out. One smacked into me, and the lights almost went out for a second. “That’s not even the important part. You’ve missed the point. The gods cannot be left unchecked. There must always be a force in power to punish them should they make a fatal mistake. Gods are not permitted to interact with humans directly, and when they do, they must pay the price.”
Pony cut in. “Four people in the entire world have this responsibility, each one with a specific role to play. Whether that’s to tend to the balance of sickness and health, conflict and peace, hunger and plenty—”
“Wait a second.” I shook my head and immediately regretted it as the purple tentacle of magic through my chest wriggled. “I don’t get it,” I said. “How’s this affect me?”
“Because you will become death.” The Baron extended a hand. “I shall bestow upon you the power to kill gods, Lazarus.”
My eyes traveled from his outstretched hand to Pony’s sobered expression, and I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I exploded with laughter, twitching and straining against the magic that held me to bend in half. Even through the uncomfortable pressure building in my chest, I couldn’t stop laughing, not until tears streamed down my face.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” I shouted. “Can you guys see yourselves? You look like characters in a bad straight-to-DVD fantasy flick. A Loa who hates me almost as much as I hate him and some has-been medium who disowned me for doing what he was too chickenshit to do! You guys hate me! And suddenly now you want to give me a mantle with special powers? Where’s the catch? How about the part where accepting probably makes me a target for every god, monster, and supernatural baddie in New Orleans?”
“Perhaps, but—”
I cut off The Baron. “You guys must think I’m really dumb. You don’t want to help me. You want to use me. What for? Some goddess turn you down, and you want me to give her a comeuppance? And you, Pony, you can’t honestly expect me to accept anything from you after how you’ve treated me.”
Pony lowered his head. “I did you wrong, Laz. I ain’t gonna deny it, but try to see it from my side of the fence, son.”
“From your side of the fence, Brandi Lavelle’s and Grace’s killer never gets found,” I ground out. “Their spirits never get called, the police never get help. You keep your head down and don’t get involved. That’s what you taught me, Pony, and now you’ve got the audacity to show up in my house and try to force me to dance to your tune?” I clenched both fists and lifted both middle fingers. “There’s your answer. Take your offer somewhere else.”
Pony raised his eyes and met mine, pleading. “Do you know how many necromancers there are in the world, boy? How many good ones there are? Ones who wouldn’t abuse this power The Baron is offering?”
I was about to tell him where he could shove his speeches when The Baron placed a hand on Pony’s shoulder. “All’s well. Let’s not push him. After all, if he doesn’t wish to know where his lover has gone—”
My head snapped up, and my struggle against the magic renewed. “Odette? You know where she is? I swear, if you’ve hurt her, I’ll tear this city to the ground to get to you.”
A sly smile crossed The Baron’s face. “I know many things, Lazarus, the least of which is the exact time and place you and all your loved ones are scheduled to meet their reaper. But, like you, I only share this privileged information with my friends and confidants.”
Damn him. He had all the cards, and I had my back against the wall. I could still turn him down, but then he’d never tell me about Odette. He’d still owe me the information about my sister, but he hadn’t exactly promised it’d be useful or new information either. He could give me absolute crap and still not have broken his word.
The longer I waited to answer, the more the chances increased that something would happen to Odette, or someone else would die.
The tendrils of magic holding me in place suddenly vanished when The Baron snapped his fingers. I tumbled to the floor, landing on my knees hard enough that it sent a shockwave of pain up through my spine.
“As a show of good faith,” The Baron said, “I shall give you something that will help you with your current problems. Look to the threshold and violate not the sacred oaths you’ve given, or it is by rite of death shall you seek penance.”
He lifted his hat, tipped his head, and was gone. No fanfare, glowing lights, or flashes of power. The Baron was simply there one minute and missing the next.
“Son of a bitch! Get back here!” I turned to glare at Pony. “He promised me information about Lydia if I heard his offer. That was the deal. I heard the offer. I want that information!”
“Sorry, son,” Pony said, shaking his head. “Shoulda paid more attention. He might have offered you that information, but he didn’t say when he’d give it to you. Could be now. Could be twenty years from now. That’s how it is.”
Behind me, Emma jerked open the front door. “What the…” She trailed off on seeing Pony Dee standing in front of where I knelt. “What’s going on here?” She stepped forward, her hand straying toward the gun strapped to her hip.
I stopped her by raising my hand.
Pony sighed, squatted and dropped the staff in front of me. “Consider it, Laz. Might be the only way you walk away from this one. Remember what I told you in Karma.”
How could I forget? Pony Dee had predicted my death, and I’d already come dangerously close on this case several times. Maybe the power they were offering me was worth it, but dammit, that didn’t mean I had to just take it without doing a little research first.
I lowered my head, unwilling to look Pony in the eye. “Get the hell out of my apartment.”
Pony sighed, stood, and walked toward the door. A minute later, I heard it close behind him. He’d left his staff, but I wasn’t going to go chasing after him with it.
Emma locked the door behind Pony. “You want to tell me what all of that was about? The door just slammed shut on me, and some guy magically appears only to leave?”
I shook my head and found my feet. Explaining what had just happened would be too much for her to take in, and besides, I wasn’t quite sure I knew what’d just happened. “Let’s just get this ritual over with. Come on. I’ve still got her lipstick tucked away.”
She eyed me askance but said nothing.
It took about ten minutes to reconstruct the circle. Most of it was still on the floor and just needed the gaps filled in from where the cops had trampled all over it. After going over with Emma again that she had to stay outside of the circle, I placed the tube of lipstick i
n the center and lit the candle.
From there, I moved to the center and focused my energy before calling out to Brandi’s spirit. Magic swirled up and around me inside the circle, activated by my call. The ambient temperature cooled, but I kept a good handle on it, keeping it from going too low this time.
I called out Brandi’s name a third time, pouring in the needed power, and waited.
And waited.
“Nothing’s happening,” Knight said from behind me.
I frowned and tried again, but got the same results. The magic was there, and I could feel other spirits reaching for me, but none of them were Brandi’s. Her ghost was gone.
Chapter Sixteen
“What do you mean gone?” Emma pressed, repeating the question for the third time. “How can a ghost just be gone?”
I leaned back against the worn sofa cushions, trying hard not to fall asleep. It’d been a while since I’d gotten decent rest, and with all the magic I’d had to throw around, man, could I use some.
“Best way to get rid of a ghost is to destroy all the biological material. In most cases, a ghost needs three things to exist.” I held up a finger for each number and folded them down as I explained. “First, they need unfinished business. Second, they need something attaching them to this plane. Usually, that’s a body, but if enough cells are on something else, we could use that.”
“And third?”
“A crap ton of willpower.” I gestured to the circle on the floor. “Brandi had all three yesterday. Willpower doesn’t fade like that, and we haven’t resolved her murder, which means she should have plenty of unfinished business to tie her here.”
“That leaves her body.” Knight drew a hand over her face. She looked as tired as I felt. “But hold on, you’re a necromancer, right? I thought you called up spirits for a living.”
I shook my head. “Not always. I could try to call a shade. They don’t need those things, but they’re not interactive. They’re sort of stuck in replay mode. We couldn’t ask her questions, and she wouldn’t be able to communicate. Shades have accepted their deaths, which means they’ve got no connection to the living.”
Emma plopped down on the sofa next to me with the realization that we’d hit a wall. She had no physical evidence, no eye-witness testimony, nothing. Whoever was responsible for the murders would walk if we didn’t find something, and that was a best-case scenario. Killers didn’t stop killing because they got bored of it. Whoever it was, they’d keep going, taking more lives until they either messed up, or they moved on to another city.
“Maybe she was cremated,” I suggested, though I knew that didn’t bring us any closer to an answer.
Emma shook her head. “Someone would have to claim the body, and as far as we could tell, Brandi didn’t have any family in the area. Without instructions, the corner just keeps the bodies in cold storage. He needs the family to make arrangements before he can release remains. It’s standard procedure.” She dug her phone out of her pocket and hit a button.
“Who’re you calling?”
“Shh.” As if it would keep me from asking further questions, she got up and started to pace, one hand on her hip. “Yes, this is Detective Emma Knight. Can you verify for me if anyone signed for Brandi Lavelle’s remains?” A short pause. Her eyes flicked to me. “I see. No, not yet. Can you give me anything?” Another pause, this one longer. She chewed on her bottom lip. “Great. Yeah. No, thanks for trying. I won’t. Thanks again, D.J.”
“No luck?” I was half hoping she’d have to run down to the station and cut through some red tape. Not that I wanted more people to die, but I was beat. A half-hour nap was as close as I could get to heaven.
“State inspector is in the morgue today going through all the paperwork. Apparently, the office is a mess.” Her fingers absently ran through her curls. “It’d be a legal mess for him to give me specifics without a mountain of paperwork, and even then it’d be late before he’d have time to look. Fortunately for us, he happened to remember the company that collected her remains.”
I groaned as Knight picked my jacket up from where I’d hung it on the back of a chair and tossed it to me. “Come on. It’ll be faster if we stop by the funeral home and get some information.”
My stomach did a flip-flop and I let the jacket fall limp against me. “Funeral home? No thanks.”
I wasn’t weirded out by all the bodies and pieces of bodies lying around funeral homes. Bodies by themselves were no big deal. It was the embalming that made my guts churn. It was just unnatural, and I knew I wasn’t the only one that felt that way. I’d talked to enough ghosts to know most of them didn’t care for the process either. Besides, just because I was a necromancer didn’t mean I liked being confronted with the inevitability of my own death. Not reflecting on my own mortality would be impossible with all the pamphlets and brochures about living wills, advance directives, and so on lying around.
That was to say nothing of the fact that most funeral homes were scamming their customers hardcore. No business was dirtier than the funeral business.
But Emma wouldn’t have it. She grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me to my feet. “You’re not going to chicken out on me now, are you?”
“I don’t have a lot of good memories associated with funeral homes, you know.”
She helped me into my coat. “Nobody does. What kind of necromancer are you that you’re turning green at the idea of a funeral home? Should be like a second home to you.”
Emma’s dark eyes sparkled as if she were holding in laughter, laughter that would be at my expense. She gave me a firm pat on the shoulder and headed for the door.
There was nothing to do but scowl and follow.
***
The Smith and Jenson Funeral Parlor looked like the architect had started building a mansion and changed his mind halfway through to build a church. Red brick stairs led up to a front porch, complete with wicker rocking chairs and tables. Gabled rooftops eventually rose into a steeple. Fat chimneys on either side of the roof made the steeple look like a nose.
The inside wasn’t much better. Narrow hallways, padded carpet, and old Victorian-style chairs, all of it either red or white, reminded me that I couldn’t be anywhere but a funeral parlor. When we spoke to the employee at the little podium on entry, he ushered us into a showroom and left us there while he went to get his boss.
A dozen empty caskets yawned from their display stands, their gaping mouths full of bright and cheery colors and overstuffed pillows. On the right side of the room, expensive models advertised features like improved leak-proof hinges and stainless-steel finishes. One white casket boasted that it was made of 20-gauge steel with real silver trim and optional satin and lace interior. A big sign on the wall advertised package deals that included music boxes, photo frames, a slideshow from provided photos, multiple ministers, flowers, and more.
“It’s like a mall for death,” I whispered to Detective Knight who stood beside me. “Only creepier.”
She gave me a funny look, one eyebrow raised. “You raise the dead for a living, and empty caskets creep you out?”
I jammed a thumb toward the sign on the wall. “It’s the prices that scare me. You think living’s expensive, try dying. Who the hell needs a steel coffin with titanium plating and a silver keepsake box with optional custom music? It’s a scam, and we’re all dying to be part of it.”
“Puns, Lazarus? Really?”
I was about to tell her I had to do something to lighten the mood when a short, round, and balding man stepped into the showroom, his cheeks red from the stuffy heat. “So sorry to keep you waiting. Silas Jensen,” he said and extended a hand to Emma. She took it, but instead of a handshake, he gripped her fingers with both hands and held it. “My condolences on your recent loss. I know what a difficult time this can be. Please, if there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask for me personally.”
Emma offered him a smile that was practically venomous when he held her hand an extra beat. W
ith her other hand, she shifted her blazer back to reveal the detective badge snapped to her belt. The gun and handcuffs were probably overkill, but she made sure he saw them too. His face blanched two shades lighter, and he let her hand go.
“Actually,” Emma said, without losing the smile, “I was hoping you could give me some information that would help in my homicide investigation.”
Silas tugged at his collar. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name, Officer.”
“Detective, actually. And it’s Knight with a K.”
He looked at me, clearly expecting an introduction, but Emma must not have thought it wise to give him my name because she didn’t so much as acknowledge me.
Silas huffed and turned his attention back to her. “As I’m sure you’re aware, I can’t divulge specifics regarding any clients or any of the decadents to you without a proper warrant.”
Emma took a step forward, closing the distance between her and Silas. “I can get a warrant, maybe look at your books and make sure everything matches up and all the proper regulations are up to snuff here.”
Silas straightened, but I didn’t miss the bead of sweat racing down the side of his face. “I assure you, we’re in total compliance with local, federal, and state laws. The funeral industry is very tightly legislated these days, so I make sure I keep all my information up to date.”
She continued as if she hadn’t even heard him, taking another step forward that forced him to take one back. “Or you could just answer my one simple question and save us both several days of combing through every line of your ledger to look for discrepancies.”
“The deceased have rights,” said Silas, lifting his nose into the air, “and so do I. I don’t have to answer your questions.”
Emma gave me a pointed look, and then raised her eyebrows as if to say, “Well?”
