Death Rites

by E. A. Copen

  “Stop, Emma! Hold up!”

  But she didn’t listen.

  The car screeched to a halt just before Emma got the gate undone. The back doors opened, and the two suits from before stepped out accompanied by Julia, Vesta’s maid. Julia’s eyes swept over the pavement and settled on the gate before her eyes narrowed and she started twitching her fingers to make odd patterns.

  There was no time. I grabbed Emma around the waist and pulled her away from the gate kicking and screaming. Turning my back, I bent myself over her, covering as much of her body as I could with my own.

  Heat crashed into me first, followed by something hard and metallic that knocked the wind out of me and sent us sprawling forward. Emma landed on her face, and I landed on Emma. Whatever had smashed into us landed on my back and felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. I struggled against the weight and finally managed to slide it off me in time to turn around and see the pair of suits shove Moses and Naomi into the car, both limp. Julia stood in the street, watching. I thought for sure she’d storm the cemetery and come after us, but she must’ve decided it wasn’t wise to follow a necromancer into a cemetery. She smirked, then turned and got into the car. It sped off, leaving the scent of burnt rubber behind.

  Emma finally found her feet and struggled to keep her balance. She was bleeding from a gash in her forehead but otherwise looked unhurt. Scratch that, she looked pissed, so pissed I was surprised not to see steam rising from her hair where the rain hit. “They took my partner.”

  “Told you they weren’t Feds. Now, do you believe me?”

  Her scowl would’ve made a tiger shrink back. “We’re getting him back.”

  “Hard to do with this on.” I raised my handcuffed arm, expecting her to free me.

  She didn’t, instead swinging and landing a mean right hook. I’d have fallen flat on my ass if the handcuffs hadn’t kept me upright. “That’s for screwing up my case, Lazarus. Now you tell me everything you know right now, or I swear to God I will do more than bloody your lip!”

  I touched my lip with my free hand, and it came away bloody.

  Emma gave me a shove. “Tell me who has Moses and where they’re taking him!”

  “It’s Vesta,” I said, lowering my hand. “And she’s not just some rich debutante with a vengeful streak. She’s a goddess. Those girls were her cultists. She’s punishing them for being unfaithful.” I gestured behind me. “I came here to accept a position working for Baron Samedi who promised to give me the power to kill gods.”

  Her face muscles slackened. Her lips parted, and she stood there, staring at me in the rain. I watched her process what I’d said. “You’re telling me the truth. You can’t lie to me, can you?”

  “I wish. Also, apparently the two suits posing as Feds are fae, so now I know Vesta, her sorceress pal Julia, and at least one faction of fae are working together to try and stop this investigation so you can quit trying to pin it all on me.”

  Her cheeks flushed, and she turned away, fuming. It was a long moment before she said, “What do you need me to do?”

  “That’s it? You’re just going to believe me?” I gave her a sideways glance. “That’s a lot to take in all at once, especially for a skeptic like yourself.”

  She shrugged. “I figure you’re either crazy or you’re Superman and for real. Either way, you know more than me, and I need your help to get Moses back. So tell me what you need, and I’ll do what I can to make it happen.”

  It was tough to stay mad at her after that. I raised my cuffed wrist. “Let’s start with taking off the cuffs, huh?”

  Emma went through her pockets and came up with the handcuff key that she slid into my side of the cuffs to unlock first. The manacles fell away. I rubbed my wrist and tried to decide what to do with her next. I didn’t know a lot about The Baron, but I did know I didn’t want to introduce him to Emma Knight. The less she knew about him, the safer she’d be. Yet if I asked her to stay there and wait for me, she wouldn’t. It was more likely she’d go after Vesta herself, and wind up getting killed. I had to find a way to incapacitate her.

  I slid one arm behind her and met resistance as she pushed back.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Trust me, Emma. Please.”

  She frowned but relaxed against my arm. I used my other hand to brush some hair away from where it stuck against her temple. The rain had made her hair go all wilty. It looked cute, or at least it matched the cute little nose in the middle of her face and the dimpled chin. Normally, I wouldn’t have thought the words Emma Knight and cute would go together in the same sentence, but there was no other way to describe it. She had a sort of girl next door charm beneath that tough girl exterior.

  She swallowed hard enough I could see the muscles in her throat work. “Lazarus?”

  I ran a thumb over her cheek. “Don’t hate me when you wake up, okay?”

  “Wake up? What—”

  Before she could finish what she was saying, I sent a small pulse of magic through my fingers into her temple. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she crumpled. I caught her just in time to keep her from hitting the ground and breathed a sigh of relief when I checked her pulse.

  Sleep spells were useful, but never my forte. Delicate magic was too difficult to control most of the time, but I’d tapped into the psychic bond I shared with her, creating a sort of magical back door. It didn’t take as much effort or accuracy that way because all the hard work had already been done. The spell just had to travel up the existing pathways. It wouldn’t last too super long, just long enough for me to do what I needed to do, but I still felt bad.

  I hauled her down the line of tombs, looking for one with a large enough overhang that I could keep her out of the rain. I found one with an angel peering down over the tiny stone roof. It’d do. With care, I propped her up against the mausoleum wall where her exposure to the rain would be minimal, then stepped back. She shivered, so I stripped off my coat. It was old, ratty, and smelled like shoe polish, but it’d keep her warm. Last thing I wanted was for her to wake up with pneumonia or something. I tucked the coat over and around her shoulders, draping the sleeves over her ears to keep them warm. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best I could do on short notice.

  “Never figured you’d have a soft spot for a cop,” said Pony’s voice behind me.

  I stepped back. “Emma’s not like most cops.”

  “Emma.” He snorted. “You sleeping with her?”

  I spun around and gave Pony’s shoulder a shove. “It’s not like that. Besides, there’s Odette.”

  He looked like he wanted to say something, but my love life was the last thing I wanted to talk to Pony Dee about, so I decided to steer the conversation back toward the case. “Those fae who were chasing me got into a car with Vesta’s pet sorceress. They took the girl and Moses, Emma’s partner. You know any reason the fae would be working with an Ancient Roman goddess?”

  Pony shrugged. “Some fae used to be gods in their own right. Could be she’s got allies. She is a really old goddess. Doesn’t matter right now, does it? You still want to take on Vesta?”

  I looked down at Emma sleeping against a stranger’s tomb. She and Moses had come out here when I asked. I owed them one, even if I didn’t already owe Vesta a beatdown. “Hell yeah. Lead the way.”

  Pony nodded and led me further down the row. He paused at the crossroads and took a left, going down several more rows. I followed him closely, eying the sky. Since the rain had moved in, it was tough to tell where the sun was in relation to the horizon, but it would be setting soon. I didn’t want to get caught in a graveyard after sundown. Dusk and dawn are liminal times, transitional. During those times of day and on other special celestial events, spirits could pass from cemeteries into the world if an opening were created. I was an opening. I didn’t need to add ghost possession to the list of my problems, so I preferred to get out of there before dusk.

  Never mind my hurry to get to Vesta before she killed Naomi
and Moses. By now, she knew I was coming. The only advantage I had left was the ace up my sleeve named Darius. Well, that and the ace I was about to accept from The Baron.

  Pony stopped in front of a white crypt. The letter X had been carved into the stone over a hundred times. Beads hung from a small hook, and someone had left offerings of Red Bull, craft beer, and some unidentifiable alcohol in a plastic cup. Other offerings in front of the tomb included candles, dolls, flowers and candies.

  I glanced at the brown plaque on the grave and frowned. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The Baron is hanging out at Marie Laveau’s tomb? The voodoo queen? Come on, isn’t that just a little…obvious?”

  “Not at the tomb, boy.” Pony lifted one of the bricks in front of the tomb. It’d been secured by what looked like a bungee cord that pulled tight. There was an audible click, and the tomb door slid down with a rumble.

  Pony grinned. “In it.”

  I wrinkled my nose at the sickly sweet smell of rotting human remains coming from inside. “Yeah, I don’t do grave desecration, especially of a powerful voodoo practitioner, so I’m just going to wait here, okay?”

  He flipped open an expensive looking lighter and thrust it into the tomb, braving his way inside. “Don’t be stupid. If you want to see The Baron, this is how you see him. Come on now. Watch your step.”

  I cringed. People said Marie Laveau’s tomb was cursed, that anyone who defaced it would have bad luck. I already had my share of bad luck, and I didn’t need a voodoo curse to go along with that. Plus, I wasn’t keen on standing so close to human remains if I could avoid it, necromancer or not.

  But the alternative was standing in the rain and letting Vesta win.

  I blew out a deep breath and stepped into the tomb of the voodoo queen.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  New Orleans cemeteries are unique. While most places buried their dead below ground, that wasn’t an option in a city that’s mostly below sea level. Digging down, the only thing you get is water. They’d tried it in a few of the higher elevated areas, but the city frequently floods. Floods, plus low elevation, plus bodies equals body parts floating in city streets. Hence, the tomb-like structures that littered New Orleans’ many graveyards.

  Marie Laveau’s tomb was no different than any of the others. Inside, shelves lined the walls on either side, shelves that would’ve been the final resting place for the voodoo queen and her family. Dark smears of decay colored the otherwise pale slabs. The floor was littered with debris. A tiny hole somewhere must’ve let the rats in because there were wads of cotton and feathers where they might’ve made a nest. Little fragments of bone and woodchips created a carpet that shifted like sand under my shoes.

  I cringed as something snapped under my weight and shivered at the thought of stepping on rotten bone.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” Pony chided. “What kind of necromancer is afraid of the dead?”

  “A smart one?” Something dropped onto my shoulder. On instinct, my hand swept up to brush it away, and I felt tiny, hairy legs bump against my fingers. With a manly screech, I pushed the biggest spider I’d ever seen off my shoulder.

  “Get ahold of yourself.”

  “I’m trying! Can we just get this part over with?”

  Pony sighed and turned to the back wall of the mausoleum. It wasn’t a particularly big place, no larger than my cell had been in prison, so I couldn’t see where we might meet The Baron. Pony ran his hands over the back wall until there was another click. I expected a secret door to open somewhere, but instead, the shelves on the right slid away, revealing a hidden staircase. Ah, so that’s where the rats were getting in.

  “Well?” Pony said, going to the stairs. “Coming?”

  I frowned. “Kinda stupid to build your secret lair underground in New Orleans, isn’t it?”

  “The Baron’s domain is death, Laz, not New Orleans. As living creatures, you and I can’t very well meet with him in his domain.” He pulled his keychain out and pressed a button to activate a flashlight. “This place we’re going to is somewhere between life and death, but it’s as close to death as I dare. I’m not quite ready to meet my reaper yet, boy.”

  I peered down the staircase. Inky darkness stared back, alive, swirling with different shades of black. More than that, I could feel death below, the essence of souls reaching out to communicate with me. Thousands of them. In a cemetery, that wasn’t unexpected, but the strength of the pull was. Normally, like the body, the residual power of the soul deteriorates over time. It’s why calling up ghosts is most effective within a week of death. Beyond that, I relied mostly on shades, which had their own limitations. This cemetery was old, too old to house the recently deceased. It should’ve been full of shades. Below Marie Laveau’s tomb, however, I felt ghosts, and not happy ones.

  Pony went to the stairs and stepped down the first two before he paused to look back at me expectantly.

  I’ve come this far. Might as well walk into the creepy ghost portal inside a grave. Why not? I steeled myself, building up a weak barrier in my mind, this one of unpleasant things like rats, spiders, and roaches. The image of thousands of them crawling all over my person almost made me gag, but there wasn’t anything else that might live in a graveyard, and I had to draw on the living to keep out the dead. It would have to do.

  I followed Pony down the stairs. The stairway curved slightly, but not enough to call it a true spiral. After a few steps, I expected to feel resistance. I’d seen the portal down there, waiting for us to pass through and it looked semi-solid, like water. Instead, it felt more like passing through smoke. The air grew heavy, stale, and thick, caked in dry heat. Nothing in New Orleans was dry. At best, you could expect a moderate damp most days, especially underground, but not dry.

  We went down maybe two stories before stepping onto a floor of dirt. The pressure was enough it left my ears popping. I tried to look around, but with just Pony’s underpowered flashlight and the light of my crappy cell phone, there wasn’t much to see but darkness.

  “So, uh, exactly how do we get him to appear?” I asked.

  Before Pony could answer, a voice boomed through the air. “I was wondering when you’d show up.” The disembodied voice seemed nowhere and everywhere all at once.

  I turned a full circle, searching for him in the dark. “Sorry, got caught up dealing with a few friends of yours. About yea high, full of magic and malice, and like to kidnap people?”

  “The fae are no friends of mine.”

  I spun around to find The Baron directly behind me, leaning on his cane. He hadn’t been there a minute ago. “Really? I figured all you supernatural types were tight.”

  He stared at me. At least, I think he did. It was hard to tell in the dim light. “The fae dislike death and decay by nature, save for those few aligned with the Shadow Court, but death will find few allies even there should you become the Pale Horseman.”

  The Pale Horseman. Death. So far, Pony and The Baron had implied that the job of the Horsemen was to keep the balance between gods and mortals. I supposed it only made sense that such a person would have the power to kill gods. No one had really talked about all the drawbacks yet, but I could imagine a few.

  For starters, gods probably weren’t a big fan of someone who had the power to kill them. As Pony had pointed out earlier, accepting this position would paint a giant target on my back. Those who didn’t want to kill me would try to manipulate me into killing their enemies. Seemed like a tough job, but someone had to do it.

  “So, about this Horseman gig,” I said, my eyes trailing The Baron as he paced a circle around us. “What exactly will I be doing? I assume, since there are only four of us in the world, there’s some travel involved. Do you cover that, or do I? Oh, does it come with a frequent flyer program? How about hotel rewards?”

  The Baron pointed his cane at Pony. “Has he always been like this?”

  Pony shrugged. “I tried to beat it out of him for years, but that only seems to have made him
worse.”

  “Hey, you came to me with the offer.” I pointed to my chest. “Don’t complain about the packaging if you need the product. Now, about those rewards programs…”

  The Baron disappeared in a wisp of smoke and reappeared directly in front of me, his face dangerously close to mine. “There are no rewards! Not unless you count the redemption of your sister’s soul.” He unfurled a fist, revealing a glowing bulb inside it. The outer edges pulsed a brilliant white, but inside, fire coiled around the blackened form of a little girl. A little girl reaching for me.

  That was it. Normally, I’m a pretty calm guy, but The Baron had overstepped. I balled up a fist and struck him square in the jaw. He staggered back a step, rubbing the sore spot a moment before sprouting a sly smile. “Good to know you’re motivated to perform.”

  “Asshole,” I spat. “How do I know that’s really her soul?” But even ask I asked, I knew. I could feel Lydia’s familiar presence in the room with us, felt her reaching, falling further away behind a mask of pain and torture.

  The Baron pinched his fingers together, and the globe disappeared. “You know.”

  “Okay, enough posturing.” I stepped forward, sweeping a hand through the air. “You’ve sold the job. You want me to be Death? Fine. I accept. Let’s just get this show on the road.”

  The Baron’s eyes narrowed but he sprouted a grin. The white paint on his face glowed as if he’d stepped under a black light. “Come on, then Mr. Lazarus. Let’s shake on it.”

  I frowned at his hand. I’d already agreed, but something ate at me. Every sense I had screamed it was a bad idea to put my palm in his, that doing so would somehow result in my death. Would that really be so bad? I’d already felt death when I stepped into the cemetery. What could The Baron do to me that would be any worse?

  After rolling my sleeve, I grabbed his hand and squeezed.

  The Baron’s grin widened and he squeezed back, sending a surge of power crawling up my arm. It felt like the same power that engulfed me every time I stepped into a graveyard and let my shields down, only darker. Thicker. Heavier. And it burned.