Death Rites

by E. A. Copen

  I forced a small smile and took the card. “Thanks, man.”

  He patted my shoulder. “Good luck out there.”

  “Same to you.”

  I sank into the driver’s seat and sat there, waiting for Emma’s Escalade and Moses’ old beater to drive by before doing a U-turn and heading the other way. I didn’t even think about where I was going. As much as I knew I should go home, get some food and rest, that was the last place I wanted to be. Home was where I’d feel the most alone, and that wasn’t what I wanted. With Odette missing and Pony turned traitor, I had no one to call on for help. The few bills I had in my wallet wouldn’t be enough to buy me more than a fast food burger, which my stomach rebelled at the thought of. I’d lost my appetite.

  So, I let the road take me wherever it wanted. Turned out, that was the Quarter.

  It was mid-afternoon in early spring. In New Orleans, that meant the air still held a pleasant but bearable chill, and the humidity was still tolerable enough the outside booths were filled with patrons. The sidewalks weren’t stuffed to overflowing with tourists since Mardi Gras was already a distant memory, and it wasn’t warm enough to attract people to town on vacation.

  I watched nameless faces mill across a crosswalk while I sat at a red light. A couple walked by hand in hand, laughing and smiling. The countdown light switched from white to red, and they stopped mid-road, to exchange a quick kiss, oblivious to the traffic about to demand they move along.

  Had Odette and I ever been as happy as those two? Maybe, though mostly we didn’t go out and stop traffic. She was busy, I was busy, and life sort of demanded that we always spend more time apart than together. Our relationship was one of stolen moments, quick meetings in coffee shops, canceled appointments, and take out dinners. It wasn’t perfect, but it was still the best thing I’d ever had.

  And now she was missing.

  The only clue I had to her whereabouts was that The Baron seemed to know something. Then again, he could’ve just been lying to get me to agree to whatever he wanted.

  The power to kill gods. It sounded enticing, but it wasn’t going to come without a heavy cost. When he’d made his argument in my living room, I was sure he’d only laid out the positive details, saving all the really bad parts for after I’d accepted. Working with the Loa of the dead wasn’t exactly what I’d call a positive prospect. Most if not everyone who associated with him met a nasty end, my sister included. I didn’t aim to become one of the empty husks he left behind.

  A car horn blared behind me, pulling me from my daydreaming. The crowd in the crosswalk had already made it to the other side, and the light was green. I eased onto the gas. I’m too tired to be out driving around, I thought and directed my car home.

  Paula’s parking lot wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t full either. It was too early in the day for anyone but the regulars to be in. Still, I stayed in the car after parking, eying all the vehicles, watching for any sign that Darius and his crew might be waiting for me. I still hadn’t had time to deal with that problem. As far as problems went, it was pretty low on the priority list. Even so, Darius could show up at any moment and put a bullet in me. He and his gang were dangerous people. It was too easy to forget how dangerous regular old people were when I was dealing with monsters.

  Once I determined Darius and his guys probably weren’t driving rusty old pick-up trucks, I dragged myself out of my car and up the stairs outside to the private entrance of my apartment. I didn’t feel like dealing with Paula today. She’d take one look at me and tell me to sit down for a drink and a bite. As much as I appreciated her effort, I’d already had enough of people for one day. Sitting alone in my apartment almost sounded good, if it hadn’t reminded me so much of everyone else who’d been through those doors in the last forty-eight hours.

  My fridge was mostly empty, but I still had some leftover takeout from the Thai place Odette and I had ordered from last, so I popped that in the microwave. The dim light the appliance made as it ran only made the place seem emptier.

  I finished my reheated noodles while sitting on the sofa and placed the container on the floor before stretching out and kicking off my shoes. I was so tired, I should’ve been asleep as soon as I was horizontal, but you know how it goes. As soon as I closed my eyes, my brain decided it was time to remind me I’d been standing in a room full of winged phallic objects not so very long ago.

  Those things had to be significant in some way, and I wasn’t going to get any sleep with that image dancing in my head, so I got up and pulled out my laptop to do a quick search.

  As it turned out, the little, winged dicks were called fascinum, and they were apparently important objects in Ancient Rome that warded off the evil eye, which was thought to cause disease. People wore them like charms to keep from getting sick. Aside from that, I couldn’t find anything magical about them. Vesta didn’t seem like a germophobe, so that didn’t fit. Maybe the object had a more obscure use or association.

  A deeper search told me the fascinum were also associated with a god named Priapus, which the Romans imported from the Greeks. Interesting stuff. I found a bunch of dick jokes and came up with a few of my own, but none of that got me closer to figuring out what Vesta had to do with anything, at least not until I got desperate.

  One last search, I told myself and typed Vesta into the search bar alongside the god’s name and clicked on the first result. The website was scholarly in nature, which meant it was full of theory and analysis, but a headline near the top caught my interest, and I clicked on it.

  The next page was a translation of something by the ancient poet Ovid. I’d never gotten into poetry, so I didn’t understand all the crap about meter and scansion that introduced the work, but the poem itself seemed to be about an incident at a party. Apparently, the goddess Cybele threw a big bash, and some guy named Silenus showed up unannounced with another goddess napping in his cart. A goddess named Vesta.

  I smacked my forehead with the palm of my head. Of course, I’d heard of Vesta, though not by name. I wasn’t a Latin scholar, nor was I a history buff, but Odette was. Her day job was cataloging and preserving old manuscripts at the college library. I distinctly remembered her plopping down on the sofa next to me one day and asking me if I’d ever heard of Vestal Virgins.

  The scene replayed in my head, Odette as real and vivid as if she were sitting right next to me.

  “Women had shit for rights back in the day,” she said, waving a hand over the pizza on her plate. “Except for these ladies. For the mere price of thirty years of service and a vow of chastity, they were the only women in Rome who had any real power. They could free a slave just by touching them, and their words were considered beyond reproach. If they gave testimony, it couldn’t be questioned.”

  She snuggled against my shoulder, considering the food while I shoved my face. “I wonder if it’s worth it.”

  “What?” I’d asked my mouth full of too-hot pizza. I swallowed and felt the pizza burning all the way down. “Thirty years without sex in exchange for unquestionable power? Doesn’t seem worth it to me.”

  “No, silly.” She sat up and gave my shoulder a shove. Her face sobered. “Thirty years of service for a lifetime of freedom.”

  The memory faded, though I could swear I still felt her warmth beside me. Focus. I closed my eyes. So Vesta Hogarth might be Vesta, the Ancient Roman goddess. Or, at least she believed she was. A few days ago, that would’ve been my theory, but then The Baron and Pony showed up to tell me the gods and goddesses were real and tried to make them my problem. Had I known one was already a pain in my ass, I might’ve asked them more questions. For now, I’d have to settle for what the internet could give me.

  I finished reading the translated poem on the webpage. Vesta, sleeping in the cart, was apparently quite the sight. The god Priapus—renowned for, you guessed it, the size of his junk—decided it’d be a good idea to try and assault the sleeping goddess. Lucky for her, a donkey made a ruckus and alerted everyone else whi
le Priapus barely escaped with his life. Since then, somehow Vesta became associated with fertility and the divine phallic symbol.

  “Explains all the weird winged dicks,” I muttered, though it almost seemed at odds with Vesta’s reputation for chastity and purity. Romans were weird.

  Another quick internet search also told me Vesta was associated with the threshold of homes. I’d had to destroy Odette’s threshold to free myself from the psychic assault. Coincidence? Didn’t seem like it.

  Last, but certainly not least, Vesta’s final symbol was the flame. Both as a symbol of purity and protection, her Vestal Virgins had to keep her sacred flame going at all times, or they’d be subject to beatings. If the fire stood for purity, then maybe the fire set to the halfway house was her twisted way of trying to purify what she perceived to be corrupt Vestal Virgins. The girls staying there had, after all, been asked to take up vows of chastity. Maybe that was also why Brandi had been killed; because she hadn’t stopped dancing at Karma.

  But that doesn’t make sense. If she’s punishing the virgins for violating their vows, why crush them? And why go after Grace? Grace was a kid. No way she was dancing in some club or randomly hooking up on the street. I supposed it was possible, but I didn’t want to think about that. I refused to think of a little girl in those terms. No, something else had to be going on. Besides, neither Brandi nor Grace had actually burned to death, despite Vesta’s best efforts. They’d been crushed by an invisible force. I had to be missing something.

  My cell rang, and I answered it without thinking. I was still focused on my research. “Lazarus Kerrigan, medium and occultist. How can I help?”

  “Hey, Laz,” Detective Moses’ casual tone answered.

  I shifted the phone against my ear. “Detective Moses. Didn’t expect a call from you.”

  “It’s an off-the-record call. I just wanted to give you a quick update. It’s about your girlfriend.”

  My back straightened. “Did you find her?”

  “No.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. They hadn’t found a body. She might still be alive out there somewhere.

  “But I thought you should know she cleaned out all her accounts and that the BOLO turned up her car in one of the long-term parking lots at the airport.”

  My throat tightened. I almost dropped the phone. Moses was too nice to say it, but I knew what those two bits of information meant when put together. Odette hadn’t just disappeared. She’d left me.

  We need to talk, the note had said. I should’ve known that meant we were over.

  I collapsed against the back of the sofa, my hand over my face. My eyes burned. A weight settled on my chest and made my breath shaky.

  “You still there, Laz?”

  I sucked in a deep breath and cleared my throat, but my voice still sounded strained and small. “Yeah. I’m here.”

  “There’s one more thing.” Moses’ voice was hushed as if he were whispering. “I checked on the girls who’d been staying at Vesta’s halfway house using the address she gave us. Of the seven survivors, six are accounted for. One’s still missing, Laz. Lady named Naomi. She’s Grace’s mother.”

  Her mother? Something clicked in my brain. The woman I’d escorted from the burning house.

  I shot forward, nearly knocking my laptop off the coffee table. “Any idea where she is?”

  “Not yet, but if there are any further updates, I won’t get them. Some suits came into the office just now. Yanked the case from our desk, Laz. They seem awfully interested in you.”

  Well, shit. As if my day couldn’t get any worse. Now some Feds had the case file and probably thought I was involved in the murders. As Knight had pointed out, it sure was an easy conclusion to draw.

  “What?” His voice was louder. “Why yes, Agent Smith, I do have his address. Let me get it for you just as soon as I get off the line with my aunt.”

  I stood and collected my laptop, tossing it and the charger into a carrying case. “Thanks for the tip, Moses. You keep your head down. Stay out of this if you can.”

  I hung up and slung my laptop bag over my shoulder, stopping to eye the apartment. If the Feds were after me, there was no telling when or if I’d be able to come back. So many memories in that old place. My gaze fell on the staff Pony had left the last time he was there. It hadn’t seemed important at the time, but he must’ve left it for a reason. I walked over and grabbed it from where it leaned against the wall, testing its weight with a swing. It was no baseball bat, but it’d do in a pinch.

  After another look around, I sighed, turned, and pushed my way out the door.

  Chapter Nineteen

  They say a man with nothing to lose is dangerous. I had no idea how right that was until I got that call from Detective Moses. I’d always assumed that meant a guy became a loose cannon, ready to tear the city apart in search of whoever it was that’d wronged him. Turns out, that phrase really means a guy with nothing to hold him back is a danger more to himself than others.

  On the run from a bunch of Feds, with no backup, and no idea how I was supposed to get to Vesta through her goons, the first place I went was the liquor store down the road to get a fifth of cheap whiskey. I barely had enough cash to cover it, and that was only because I raided the seats in the car to get the change.

  The clerk took my pile of wadded bills and pennies with a sour look. Since I hadn’t showered in a few days and I was still wearing that God-awful coat, I probably came across as an alcoholic stopping for his fix. Whatever. What I was really after was a stomach full of liquid courage. But even I’m not stupid enough to drive through town piss drunk, even if I did have a death wish.

  So, instead, I drove over to the mid-town projects and pulled up next to a bar. The place was dirty and run-down, hardly frequented by locals, let alone tourists. Bars covered the windows, letting neon lights filter through but not much else. A sign above the door advertised the name of the place: Crescent City Kings, Darius’ hideout.

  I sat outside the bar for a good twenty minutes before I gave up trying to work out a plan in my head. Desperate men didn’t need plans. Darius wasn’t a friend, and I owed him money, making it even less likely he’d go for what I had in mind, but I needed backup, and there was no one else left to ask.

  If I’m going to die today, it might as well be fast and easy, I thought. That’s more than Vesta and Gaston will do for me.

  I twisted off the top of the bottle and chugged until I ran out of air, then lowered the bottle, cringing at the taste. Let’s be honest, nobody sane drinks the cheap stuff for any other reason than to get fucked up quick when they’re broke.

  After a couple of deep breaths and slapping the side of my face to make sure I could still feel it, I threw open the car door and did the single dumbest thing I could’ve done. I marched into Darius’ bar to look for trouble, staff in hand.

  A bell dinged as I pushed open the door on a dark room. I let the door swing closed behind me while I waited for my eyes to adjust. Once they did, I took in the scene. A bar lined the opposite wall with plastic stools in front of it. The bar itself was minimally stocked, though a burly guy who might’ve been a bear in another life stopped stocking the shelves as soon as I started looking around. The only other people in the bar looked barely old enough to shave. A pair of them pushed away from the bar, sliding their plastic stools back, their hands grabbing for handguns tucked into the waistbands of their jeans.

  I planted the staff beside me. “Hiya, boys. Boss in?”

  The one on the right drew first. I swung the staff. The move was clumsy—the whiskey was already affecting my balance—but the kid didn’t have enough experience shooting at anything that fought back. The staff cracked into his outstretched hand at the wrist with a resounding snap. His arm went limp and to the left while the gun skittered right.

  His partner on the left didn’t even get the gun clear of his jeans before the follow through smacked him in the shoulder. It wasn’t a hard enough strike to do any damage,
but it did distract him from drawing the gun so he could grab at his injured shoulder. While he was busy doing that, I gave him a good crack in the side of the kneecap, forcing him to one knee. With another swing of the staff, I dislodged the gun from his waistband and tossed it to the floor. It slid under a nearby stool where it stayed.

  Kid on the right tried to throw a right hook and got my boot to his gut. He went to the floor grabbing his stomach and retching.

  I pointed my staff at Left Kid, but kept my eyes on Right Boy. “Now, let’s try this one more time. Where’s Darius?”

  Another gun leveled next to my head. Shit, I’d forgotten about the bartender.

  “I said no roughhousing in the bar!” A beaded curtain behind the bar split, and Darius stepped through, pausing mid-swagger, to take in the scene. He eyed his boys on the ground and then the gun at my head. “Ho-lee-shit. Lazarus? You got a death wish, man? Whatchu doing here?”

  I swallowed and tried to stay vertical. Maybe I’d made a mistake, downing that much liquor on an empty stomach. “I got an offer you don’t want to refuse.”

  He smirked and ducked his head for a better look at me. “You drunk, Magic Man?”

  A cold sweat broke out on my forehead. Keep it together. Keep control of the situation, Laz. You can do it. But even as I gave myself a pep talk, my stomach rebelled. The familiar burn of whiskey surged up my throat and I doubled over, vomiting cheap booze everywhere. Darius’ injured boys stumbled out of the way, obtaining minimal damage. Not that I noticed or cared. I was too busy spitting and wiping tears away.

  “Shit,” Darius said, only he drew out the vowel. “You must’ve really hit rock bottom to come staggering in here to pick a fight with my nephews.”

  “Want me to get Willy and Tims to come in here and fuck him up?” asked the bartender.

  “Nah, I think he’s fucked up enough, right Laz?” His hands came down on my shoulders, jerking me up.

  My stomach churned as he spun me around. I’d have fallen over if he didn’t hold me up. I stared down at him, my vision crossing. “Well? You gonna hit me or what?”