by E. A. Copen
Morningstar chuckled. It made my skin prickle. “A serial killer? Oh, you poor idiot. How many bodies have you found? How many dead?”
I’d only seen two skulls, and Emma hadn’t given me an exact figure, but I’d sensed remains from at least six on the table. With the one that had been dumped there a month earlier, that made seven. “Six confirmed,” I said, “But I think seven.”
“Then you’ve missed several. By now, he’s killed at least nine of his intended victims, probably more.” He removed his hands from Khaleda’s shoulders, but she didn’t stop swaying. “There will be twelve before the blood moon. You’ll need to find the missing ones and stop him before he reaches that number. Khaleda’s nature will be of assistance.” He sidestepped her and moved toward the door.
“Hold on,” I said, turning so he was never out of my sight. “Her nature? What nature?”
He opened the door but paused short of going through it. “So many questions. Honestly, it’s like dealing with a toddler.”
“But you know something about what it is I’m looking for. If you want me to stop it so bad, why not just help me yourself? Or give me something to work with. Something other than…” I gestured to Khaleda.
Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful for the help, whatever that help was worth. She wouldn’t not be useful. But there had to be more to this. Someone like Morningstar didn’t do anything, even return a favor, without an ulterior motive. He was expecting something, or wanted something, I could feel it. I just couldn’t guess what it was.
Morningstar’s eyes went to Khaleda, and something touched the corners of them, something like concern or regret. It was there one moment and gone the next, Morningstar returning to his normal detached and uncaring self in the blink of an eye. “I’ve given you more than enough. Perhaps more than I should have. Do take care of her, Horseman. While Horsemen come and go, she is not so easily replaced.” He walked out the door and closed it behind him.
I rushed to chase after him, but when I put my hand on the doorknob, it was hot enough that it left my skin sizzling. My nervous system kicked in and forced me to let go before it burned the flesh clean off. I was left staring down at a blistering palm.
“Is he gone?” said Jean from behind me.
“Seems so.” I turned to eye the ghost as Khaleda collapsed, her expression dazed. I went to her side to give her a quick check over. Her eyes were closed, and her body limp, leaning against the wall, but she wasn’t unconscious. I pushed some hair away from her neck and tried to count out a pulse. Hers was racing, her cheeks flushed, though she didn’t seem to be in distress.
“Good,” Jean continued. “He was rather unnerving.”
Khaleda’s eyes fluttered open, her pupils dilated. She rolled her head to look at me, taking a second to process my face before she went for a large, serrated knife.
I caught her hand and pinned it to the wall behind her head. “Dammit, Khaleda, we’ve been through this. I didn’t kill your brother!”
Her left hand went for one of the vials at her belt, so I repeated the action, pinning both arms above her head. A spiteful smirk touched her lips, and I realized a fraction of a second too late that she still had her legs free. She swung one up and caught me right in the family jewels with a shin. Of course, I let her go to cradle my injured parts, letting out a string of curses. Khaleda kneed me one more time, catching mostly my unprotected hands that time, and brought an elbow down between my shoulder blades before trying to crawl away.
I should’ve probably just let her go. Waking up dazed after a monster assaults your psyche was bound to leave anyone on the defensive. But I was worried Khaleda would kill me and ask questions later if she got free. I had to subdue her before she did something we’d both regret. I grabbed her foot and got another boot to the face for my trouble.
“Atta boy!” Jean encouraged, making a punching motion. “Get her legs!”
“Listen here, lady…” I grabbed her legs and jerked her back toward me just enough that I could get on top of her and pin her to the floor with a knee in her lower back. She struggled as I grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her. “Just chill out, would you? God, do you always do this?”
“Let me go.” She tried to rear back to headbutt me, but I’d finally gotten a decent hold on her arms. “You’re hurting me!”
I had to fight against every natural instinct not to let her go. There’s a part of every male’s brain that hates hearing a woman utter those words. We’re supposed to be protectors, providers. Call it chivalry or sexism or whatever you want, but the very idea of hurting a woman was usually appalling to me. Unless, of course, she aimed to hurt me, which Khaleda probably did. Still, she was very good at working the edge of a helpless plea into her voice, one that made me want to let her go and apologize for being an ass. If I didn’t know any better, I’d suspect she was trying to appeal to just that part of my male brain to get free so she could kill me. Smart, but I wasn’t going to fall for it.
“And just what were you planning on doing with that knife you tried to draw on me, huh?” I tightened my grip on her wrist, pinning it against her lower back. “You can drop the damsel in distress act. That ship has sailed. Morningstar said you’d help me.”
She turned her head sideways and jerked her neck to try and move her hair out of her face. “Maybe. He didn’t say I couldn’t have a little fun with you little first.”
“Fun?” I grunted with the effort of keeping her still. “Lady, where I come from, knives aren’t usually used for fun.”
“You must have a very boring sex life.”
“I don’t need to incorporate any more sharp things into it, that’s for sure. Now, are you going to try to stab or spell me again or do I have to hog tie you?”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Sister, in a heartbeat.”
She considered it for a moment. I wondered if I could actually succeed. I’d never tied anyone up before, and roping up an unwilling girl with access to a bunch of potions, knives, and guns wouldn’t be my choice for a first try.
Her whole body deflated with a sigh. “Fine. But when this is done, whatever it is I’m supposed to be helping you with, you’re still on my shit list.”
I released her, one limb at a time, and then hurried out of range. “Believe me when I say I’m as confused about all this as you are. No offense, but I don’t know you from any broad on the street. I’m not sure how you’re supposed to help me catch a killer when he’s evaded me, the cops, and everyone else.”
She stood and dusted herself off. “You’re not hunting a serial killer. There’s a lot more riding on this than you realize.”
I held up three fingers. “He’s killed more than three victims.” I pulled down one finger. “There’s an established pattern denoting a victim type of choice.” I lowered another. “And the murders have taken place over an extended period of time. That’s the dictionary definition of a serial killer. Though I’m pretty sure we’re also looking for a rogue ghoul. I don’t know of many things that eat the dead down to the bones and then crack those open to get the marrow.”
Khaleda shrugged off her coat and tossed it over the back of a chair, revealing curves twice as nice as what I’d expected. She put her hands on her hips where the belt full of potions hung. “If you’ve got a lead then why haven’t you followed up? Don’t you know where the ghouls in this city are holed up?”
“I know, but it’s the middle of the fucking night, and I’ve had you shooting at me. I’m tired. I’m not wandering into a ghoul stronghold half-asleep. That’s a fast way to get killed.” I eyed the coffee I’d made, getting cold in the pot. Even that probably wouldn’t be enough to keep me awake now. After the scuffle with Khaleda, every muscle was screaming at me. I needed sleep, but I wasn’t going to be able to get any with her wandering around my apartment, waiting to kill me.
I walked past her, through the doorway where Morningstar had been lurking, into my bedroom. “We’ll go first thing in the morning.�
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“We?” She’d followed me into the bedroom, close at my heels.
Jean had floated in too, eyes glued to her backside. Creep.
I put my back to her and pulled open the drawer next to my bed. “Yeah. Morningstar said you’d be useful, but neglected to mention how.”
“Oh, I can think of a few ways.”
I turned around to find her a lot closer than I’d initially thought, practically on top of me. The corner of her lips quirked up as she put her hands on my chest and gave me a push. I fell on the bed, landing on my hands. “You know, you’re giving me some awful confusing signals here. Weren’t you trying to kill me five minutes ago?”
She crawled on top of me. “Who says I’m not now? Maybe my intention is to distract you with my body, wear you out to the point of exhaustion and then kill you when you can’t defend yourself.”
My forebrain lit up with a bunch of warning signals that the rest of me didn’t want to pay attention to. Her hands slid under the hem of my shirt, and her fingernails clawed gently over my stomach.
“There’s just one problem with that plan,” I said.
Her sultry smirk became a full-on smile. “Oh? And what’s that?” She pulled her hands from under my shirt to explore lower. “You seem more than willing.”
“Except your plan relies on you having free hands.”
I shifted, revealing the pair of cuffs I’d pulled out from the bedside drawer. Before she could squirm away, I slapped one side on her wrist and tightened it several clicks. She growled and tried to dig her fingernails into me, but I slid out from under her, avoiding the worst of it. Khaleda tried to jerk the other end of the cuffs from my hands, but I snapped them around the metal headboard, effectively trapping her. She let out another animalistic growl and pulled on the cuffs.
I dropped to the floor, pressing my palm to the circle there. I hadn’t drawn it for such an occasion—it was part of what I’d been working on to dampen the psychic connection I shared with Emma—but it’d work. A little of my willpower and the circle activated, effectively trapping her inside.
“Once I get out of these, your stupid circle isn’t going to stop me,” she snarled.
“No, but the electric jolt the secondary circle will give you might.” I smirked and backed away. “Unless you can withstand over a thousand volts, which the average person can’t.”
Khaleda’s nose twitched. “You turned a circle around your bed into a magical taser?”
“Yeah, I’ve got some crazy exes you should probably know about.”
She glanced at the handcuffs, and the sneer turned back into a smirk. “Got any whips or chains in there?”
“Funny girl. Sorry to disappoint you, but I got the handcuffs on a ten-finger discount from a cop friend of mine. I’m not nearly as creative as you think I am.”
She drew a tongue over her full lips, and I second-guessed that statement. When pushed, I could come up with quite a few fun ideas. “Maybe you just need a few lessons.”
“Sorry, Khaleda,” I said turning my back. “It’s just you and your hand tonight. I need to sleep.”
“Hey,” she shouted as I walked away. “What if I need to go to the bathroom?”
“Hold it. You mess up my bed, you owe me a new one.”
She let out a string of curses that’d make a sailor blush. I slammed the door closed behind me.
Jean floated through the door after I’d closed it, shaking his head. “Dumped, assaulted, and haunted all in one night. It almost leads me to feel sorry for you. Have you considered you may be cursed?”
I collapsed against the door and blew out a sigh. “Tell me about it.”
Chapter Eight
I took a cold shower and, thankfully, the ghost left me alone. It was the most alone I’d been all day, even though I could hear Khaleda shouting obscenities at me through the wall. That was going to make it awfully hard to sleep. Maybe she’d wear herself out.
If she’d been pissed when I handcuffed her to the bed, she was even angrier when I took away her toys. The belt full of potions was just the beginning of her stockpile. By the time I was done, I had a pile of no less than three guns, eight knives, and a machete. Don’t ask me how she’d managed to walk around with all that strapped to her without clinking with every step. The woman had some skill, there was no denying that. Deadly didn’t begin to describe her.
After the shower, I came out to find she’d calmed down, the only words coming from the bedroom a spattering of mumbled insults. “I’ll never figure women out,” I said, shaking my head. I expected Jean to answer me, but he was nowhere to be found. Maybe he’d gone off to haunt someone else for a bit.
I sank onto the sofa and drew a hand over my aching face. Even as exhausted as I was, sleep was going to elude me after everything that’d happened, so I got to work, putting pieces of the puzzle together.
For the police, solving a case meant chasing down leads, interrogating witnesses, and following the evidence. In this case, there wasn’t much physical evidence, and the dead weren’t talking to me, so I had to start my research in the same place every American student did. I hit up the internet on my phone, doing a search of Jean Lafitte’s history.
Like lots of people that lived back in the day, his life wasn’t that well documented. Historians disagreed on lots of things like where he was born, when he died, and whether he was a hero or a villain. None of the online sources mentioned his monster hunting career or his encounter on the ship he’d called the Fortuna. Most sources claimed he’d died in February of 1823, not the summer like Jean had claimed. They also didn’t recognize the third half-brother he mentioned. Apparently, the only source that did was a diary most believed to be fraudulent. And people wonder why I hate history.
I lowered the phone and rubbed my burning eyes. Looking up facts wasn’t helping. I needed to find a way to track a body that didn’t rely on a tracking spell. I opened my eyes, and an article caught my eye. It wasn’t about Jean, but his supposed half-brother, Dominique You. Dominique had outlived Jean by about seven years and even had a short stint as a local politician, which didn’t match up with Jean’s story. He said he and Dominique had both been attacked, their souls pushed out of their bodies in 1823. But Dominique had returned to New Orleans and had a fairly well documented life for a low-key guy at the time.
More importantly, he was buried there in town in Saint Louis number two. I might be able to raise his shade to verify Jean’s story. Of course, if Jean was telling the truth, whoever was in Dominique You’s grave wasn’t actually Dominique You and I’d be back at square one with no way to track him down.
A dim blue glow caught my eye, and I lowered the phone to glance at Khaleda’s belt of potions lying on the counter. Maybe she had something to help. I’d intended to look through her potions anyway and dump out anything that could cause trouble for me.
I got off the sofa and walked over to the counter, sitting on one of the stools there and arranging the belt in a straight line in front of me. There were eight loops with six of them occupied by a small glass vial full of a colorful liquid or powder. The empty seventh and eighth ones must’ve been what she used earlier. I pulled the empty vial free and flipped open the lid for a sniff. It smelled like a gentle perfume, slightly flowery with a hint of something mildly acidic. Nothing too unusual. The tiniest bit of violet liquid remained in the bottom. The one I’d seen her drink to shut down the effects earlier had been clear, and there were several more vials of clear liquid in the belt, which meant this was the come-hither formula that’d made me helplessly obedient.
Knowing that didn’t help me figure out how the potion worked or where she’d gotten it from so I set the vial aside, moving on to the next one. This one was an electric blue viscous liquid, too thick to be water based. I put my thumb under the lid to flip it open.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
I looked up and met Khaleda’s eyes. She stood in the doorway to my bedroom, arms crossed, the cuffs dangl
ing from one outstretched finger. Not surprising. I figured she’d get out of them eventually.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because that formula reacts violently to the sudden exposure to oxygen.”
I put the vial down. Gently.
She walked down to lean on the counter, placing the cuffs between us. “Sorry about earlier. Sometimes my nature gets the best of me.” She reached for the belt.
I pulled it away. “You know, that’s the second time someone’s brought up your nature. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you weren’t being honest when you said you were human.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line. “Define human. Are you human? You’re a necromancer, which means you have access to magic which most humans don’t have. You’re also the Pale Horseman, which means you have the power to see and steal souls.”
“I don’t steal souls.”
“Nevertheless, you can.” She took the vial containing the tiny amount of purple liquid and held it to the light. “Yet you define yourself as human. Whether you want to admit it or not, you have a baser nature that you struggle against. Everyone does. Sometimes, the beast side wins. Sometimes, you kill the beast. That has its downside too. Me, I just happen to have a little more beast than most.”
I looked down at the vials in front of me, unwilling to meet her eyes. Maybe a little afraid to. “I saw your soul. It’s not normal. It looks human underneath but has streaks of red and black. Osric’s soul was brilliant green with the same streaks of shadow.”
“Osric sold his soul to the Queen of Shadow. He was as fae as she was once they merged their souls.”
“Merged souls?”
She lowered the vial and lifted an eyebrow.
I felt my face flush. Clearly, I’d missed the obvious meaning of the phrase. “Oh. I guess I just never got the feeling his service was truly consensual.”
