Death Rites

by E. A. Copen

  “I told you. They’re fae,” I said popping open one eye. “That’s probably all fake.”

  She shook her head, sending dark ringlet curls bouncing. “I don’t know. If it’s fake, it’s a damn good forgery. And there was no evidence of them at the mansion.”

  “It’s like I said, they just shoved me in the car. We drove to a warehouse in the middle of nowhere, and they got out. Never saw ’em again.” Moses seemed strangely relaxed about the whole thing, but that was in keeping with his character. Wasn’t much that could upset that man, except me not getting my hands up fast enough apparently.

  “But the warehouse was empty. No sign anyone had ever been there.” Knight eyed me.

  I threw my hands up. “What are you looking at me for? I don’t know who they were, and I sure as hell don’t know anything about any warehouse. This is all news to me, too.”

  She heaved another sigh and threw her head forward, letting her hair hide her face. “I shouldn’t be discussing open cases with a civilian anyway. If you think of anything though…”

  I grabbed the remote back from her. “I’ll push the call button on my little remote and have the nurses let you know.”

  I asked about Darius’ guys, and the detectives informed me that they weren’t aware of anyone else at the mansion. Shots were fired, but their official report said Vesta’s security was responsible for that. In other words, they’d been erased from any official police reports, just as I’d promised.

  Pony wasn’t at the scene when the cavalry pulled in, and a search for the hearse I described came up empty. It was as if Pony and his ride disappeared, though I knew where to find him if I looked hard enough. Follow the sounds of smooth jazz and the promise of bare skin, and there he’d be, just like always.

  After they made their brief report, we chatted about the weather and sports but avoided any truly heavy topics. We sat around like old friends, two cops and an ex-con necromancer, trading tales until visiting hours ended.

  Then, Emma stood and went to the door with Moses. She paused there and opened her mouth as if she had something more to say, then shook her head and left.

  After some minor surgery and a bunch of stitches, the hospital released me to my own care and promised to send me the bill. All in all, I spent a week in the hospital, enough to bankrupt me probably. Too bad the Horseman gig didn’t come with a salary.

  Returning to my crappy apartment above Paula’s bar early the next morning felt anti-climactic. Despite having spent a week in the hospital, I was ready to pass out in bed and sleep away another week.

  That was, until I switched on the light and saw Odette sitting at my kitchen table, flanked on either side by one of the suits that had grabbed Moses and Naomi of the street.

  I paused with my hand on the light switch, the door still propped open, my bag of stuff from the hospital balanced on the two fingers that’d flipped on the light. She looked just as she had the last time I’d seen her, except maybe a little paler. I was more worried about what the suits would do to her.

  “I’m going to give you fellas to the count of three to step away from the lady,” I said, hardening my expression.

  There were still stitches in my side, and I was dead on my feet tired, but I was still pretty sure I could take them. “One.”

  Their hands strayed for a weapon at their sides. A gun? No, it was too big to be a handgun, and it swung back and forth like… A sword?

  The fingers on my right hand turned into claws, and I started gathering magic into my palm. “Two.”

  “Stop it, you three,” Odette shouted suddenly. She turned her head, eying the suit on her right. “Stand down. He’s not going to hurt me.”

  The two suits exchanged looks and fell back into a posture of wary attention.

  I held the spell but didn’t build it. “Odette, what’s going on? Are you okay? Not hurt?”

  “I’m fine, Laz, but we need to talk.”

  My eyes shifted between the two suits. I let the spell go. “That’s the understatement of the century.”

  The bag fell from my fingers. I was across the apartment with her in my arms before it ever hit the floor, ignoring the way the suits’ hands flinched toward their weapons again. Her lips burned hot enough to blister as I kissed her, but I didn’t care. She was alive. She was here, and she was mine again.

  But the excitement was short-lived. Odette grasped my forearms and pushed me back a step. “Lazarus, I can’t.”

  My heart sank. “I don’t understand. What did I do? Was it the reservations? I can make new ones. Anywhere you want. I’ll take you anywhere.”

  “It’s not the reservations,” she said, shaking her head. Her voice was strained and when she blinked, tears marred her makeup.

  I leaned in to kiss away her tears, just like I’d always done, but she shook her head.

  Anger flared in my gut. How could she come back to me and then just shove me away like that? “What the hell, Odette? I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Even got the cops to open a missing persons case. Where’ve you been?”

  She didn’t answer, but instead folded her arms over her chest, hugging herself tight, and turning her back to me.

  I turned my attention to the suits that seemed to have become statues. “Who the hell are you guys, huh? Answer me!”

  “I was recalled.”

  I blinked and repeated the word Odette had used. “Recalled?”

  “To Faerie.” She turned around. Deep blue eyes searched me, waiting for a reaction.

  I was too busy processing to respond. To Faerie, she’d said. That meant she’d been there before. You couldn’t get recalled to somewhere you’d never been. But why would she have ever gone to Faerie? Humans didn’t go there except in stories. Did that mean…

  She answered my unasked question. “I’m fae, Laz. I was called back by my mother, the Summer Queen.”

  The suits. The sudden disappearance without a trace. It suddenly all made sense. They weren’t holding her hostage. They were guarding their princess.

  My body sank to the floor without any commands from me. I heard her words, even understood them on some level, but they still didn’t make sense. If Odette was fae, she would’ve told me. We shared everything. We had for months. I loved her. How could I not know her?

  But not only was she fae, she was the daughter of a queen. That made her a princess. Royalty. I’d been sleeping with fae royalty for eight months.

  More words spilled out of her, faster than I could process. “I was going to tell you. I wanted to tell you at the beginning, but I was afraid if you knew, you’d never see me for who I was. There would always be an imbalance between us. I didn’t want that.”

  “But I saw these guys…” I trailed off when I caught one of the fae guardians sneering at me.

  “Vesta and my mother struck a deal,” Odette said in a soothing tone. “I didn’t want to go at first but…” She shot a long look at her guardians.

  So, Vesta had been working with the fae. What kind of exchange? They nabbed Vesta’s hostages, and she traded them Odette? I supposed it didn’t matter now. The deal was done, and everyone important had survived it.

  When Odette spoke again, her tone had changed, becoming something colder. “It is what’s best. Believe me, if there were any other way…”

  So she said, but she was fae. While fae couldn’t lie, they could bespell. What if everything I’d ever felt for Odette was the result of some spell she’d worked over me? What if none of it was real?

  I raised my eyes from the floor to meet hers, offering a cold, hard stare. “Did you ever bespell me?”

  Her mouth opened. She tripped over beginning a few phrases, cringed, and closed her mouth. But she didn’t have to say anything for me to have my answer. Her silence said enough. After all, just because she couldn’t speak lies didn’t mean she couldn’t live one.

  I lowered my head. Everything felt numb.

  Lies.

  Everything I’d felt for her was built on
lies.

  “Get out.”

  Odette dropped to her knees, placing her hands on mine. “Lazarus, please try to understand. It wasn’t like you’re thinking.”

  I jerked my hand away from her searing heat. “I said get out! Take your goons and go back to Faerie!”

  Odette was still a moment, her body growing stiff. “I understand,” she said after a long pause, her voice taking on that unfamiliar tone she used with the pizza delivery guy, and not me. Never me.

  She stood, collected her purse and coat from the chair and stepped over me. Her guards followed her to the door without a word. At the door, she paused and turned around. “I do love you, Lazarus.”

  But she never said what I felt for her was real.

  The door closed quietly behind her. Because I thought it was too quiet, I stood, picked up a glass from the counter and hurled it at the closed door. It shattered into a hundred pieces, the sound far more satisfying than slamming a door would ever be.

  “Now that’s just uncalled for,” said a classy baritone voice behind me.

  I spun on The Baron and grabbed him by his fancy suit coat. “Did you know?”

  He chuckled, but I hadn’t missed how his eyes flared wide when I grabbed him. Flared wide with fear. The Baron feared me. “Did I know your girlfriend was the Summer Princess? Of course I did, boy. I’d have told you too if you’d thought to ask. But even this old sinner can’t answer questions that remain unspoken.”

  I sank into a chair, suddenly even more exhausted, and cradled my head in my hands. It’d do no good to argue with The Baron. He was right. I hadn’t asked. At least, I hadn’t asked the right questions. I’d been too focused on getting Vesta.

  The other chair squeaked. “You look like you could use a drink.”

  “I could use about twelve hours of sleep, a cold shower, and a puppy.”

  “A puppy?” I could hear the surprise in The Baron’s voice.

  “Dogs are loyal.” I lowered my hands from my face. “And they bark when people come into my place unannounced. Anything else about this Horseman gig you want to tell me?”

  A big grin spread across his face, and I had the distinct feeling I wasn’t going to like what I heard. “Actually, I wanted to congratulate you on a job well done. Killed your first god and lived to tell the tale. That’s far better than your three predecessors.”

  Three? Just how many Horsemen had he tried before me anyway?

  I shrugged and crossed my arms. “Barely. Could’ve warned me about the whole Soul Vision thing. I feel like I should be enrolling in a school for gifted youngsters and find myself a bald teacher in a wheelchair. Or at least a visor.”

  The Baron sat across from me still as stone. Clearly, he wasn’t up to date on his pop culture references. I’d have to do my best to fix that over the next few months if we were going to be conversing regularly. “There are many gifts that come with your current position. I can find you a teacher of sorts if you desire, though anyone I know will be unpleasant to work with. And have been dead for over a hundred years.”

  “Yeah, I’ve had about enough of dead things for a while.” I waved a hand. “Anyway, does this job come with insurance? That hospital stay is going to be expensive.”

  The Baron grinned ear to ear. “I suppose a retainer is due, though I wouldn’t quit your day job. That little shop of yours on Magazine Street could be useful. You should consider expanding your services. Think of all the good you could do.”

  Because so many people will want to hire one of the Horsemen to find out where their dead grandpa hid his cash, I thought, but didn’t say it aloud.

  All in all, things hadn’t turned out too bad. I’d lost Odette, true, but maybe I’d never really had her to begin with. Not to mention I’d come down on Darius’ good side somehow and now had two homicide detectives as friends. I’d helped stop a crazed goddess from murdering innocent women and children. Not too shabby.

  The Baron waved his hands, and two tumblers appeared on the table with deep amber liquid already inside. He lifted his. “A toast, to a good deed done.”

  I frowned at the drink before lifting it and swallowing it in a single gulp.

  Then I ate ice cream for breakfast because if I’d learned anything over the last few weeks, it was that life was short. I was going to enjoy it while I still could.

  Help me out

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  A special preview of Organ Grind, book 2 of The Lazarus Codex

  No guts, no glory.

  Being one of the Four Horsemen sucks. The hours are long, the pay is crap, and every god or monster you meet wants to kill you.

  For Lazarus Kerrigan, professional necromancer, even helping the police find some missing internal organs is a welcome relief. That is, until his ex-girlfriend shows up in the employ of an ancient Egyptian deity, and a faerie queen makes him an offer he can’t refuse.

  Things go from bad to worse when Laz finds himself pulled into a criminal underworld where human souls are traded like currency, and where his just might be worth its weight in gold.

  Turn the page for a special preview or click HERE to buy it directly from Amazon.

  Chapter One

  A loud bang echoed through the apartment.

  I flinched away from the light stinging my eyes and a jackhammer went to work at my temples. From where I lay, stewing in my own juices under the itchy wool blanket, I could hear someone in the kitchen opening cupboards, pulling out drawers, and undoubtedly making a wreck of the place. I didn’t know what they were looking for, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to stand for some asshole breaking into my place to root through my things. Hung over or not, I was a necromancer, dammit, and no self-respecting member of New Orleans’ magical community would dare let someone breach their private domain. Besides, my bladder was screaming at me.

  With a groan, I rolled out of bed. My hand caught the half-empty bottle of beer on the way out. I downed a swig before staggering toward the door. It’d been days since I’d been out of my bedroom to do anything other than visit the bathroom, which meant my staff was close at hand. I grabbed it from the corner and jerked the door open.

  The smell of bacon and eggs wafted from the kitchen along with the heavenly deep aromatics of coffee. My stomach growled to remind me I’d drunk my dinner the last few nights.

  As if in response, my landlady popped her head around the corner, her short blonde hair pulled back with two butterfly clips, an odd look for the meanest woman I knew. Even odder was that she’d be here making breakfast. Her upper lip curled. “You look like shit, Lazarus.” There was the Paula I knew. “When was the last time you had a shower? Smells like someone spilled a brewery in here.”

  I scowled in response and shuffled toward the bathroom. When I came back out, she’d dropped a plate loaded with thick cut pepper bacon, over easy eggs, and hash browns onto the table. Next to it sat the biggest, blackest cup of coffee I’d ever seen. I eyed the plate with a frown. It looked and smelled amazing, but Paula was fae, and I knew better than to accept any gifts from fae, especially when I was already indebted to her being behind on the rent.

  “Paula…”

  She waved a piece of bacon at me, the other hand on her hip. “This isn’t a favor, Laz. I’ve got something that needs doing, but you’re in no shape to do it until you’ve had solid food. And a shower.” Her nose wrinkled. “Maybe two showers.”

  “Good.” It came out more like a grunt than a word as I plopped into one of two kitchen chairs. I went for the coffee first, pulling a nearly empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s across the table to sweeten it.

  Paula watched me take the long pull, her arms crossed.


  “What?” I put the cup down. I’d inhaled half of it without realizing. “Hair of the dog. You’re a bartender. Don’t act like you’ve never been where I’m at.” When she didn’t move or respond, I added, “If this is about the back rent I owe you, I told you, I’m just waiting for Baron Samedi to pay me for the last job.”

  “It’s not even the rent, Laz.” She uncrossed her arms and sank into the chair across from me. “It’s everything else. It’s The Baron. You shouldn’t even be involved with him. It’s the thugs you’re calling friends now, the constant covering I’ve been doing whenever those damn messengers from Faerie show up.”

  I cringed and turned away. Two weeks ago, I’d found out my girlfriend was not only fae like Paula, but the princess of the Summer Court. Odette had lied to me, and what was worse, she’d used magic to make me fall in love with her in the first place. She’d been sending messengers with all kinds of apologies ever since, ranging from letters to sculptures. I’d dodged all of them thanks to Paula. Only reason I didn’t owe her for all of that was that she got a kick out of seeing their faces when she told the emissaries of Summer to go screw themselves.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled to my feet. I had one sock on, and my other foot was bare. What’d happened to my other sock?

  “Jesus, you must really be fucked up to apologize to a fae. You’re lucky I like you.”

  Answering her would’ve just made things worse, so I scooped up some hash browns and shoved them in my mouth before asking, “So, what is it that needs doing?”

  “Friend of mine wants to hire you for a job. I tried to tell her you were on hiatus, but she said it was urgent.”

  Hiatus. Fancy word for spending two weeks wallowing in my own self-pity if there ever was one. I hadn’t been to the shop since the police found a body on my doorstep. Not that the body itself bothered me. They’d long ago cleaned all that up, and I’d helped nab the killers. I had to be in the right frame of mind to do any readings or seances, and I was about as far from that as a whale from the desert. Maybe a little work would do me good.