by E. A. Copen
The ghoul half fell, half crawled out of the suitcase onto the table, dragging its bloody, charred stumps along. Emma let out a curse as it hissed at her and drew her weapon, leveling it at the ghoul’s head.
I stepped between Emma and the ghoul. “Emma, I asked you to bring your gun, but not for him. Not yet.”
Her hands shook, wide eyes fixed on the monster making wet, throaty sounds behind me. The gun trembled with them. She didn’t resist as I placed my hands on the gun and gently lowered it to the floor.
“Moses,” I said without looking at him, “gonna need you to put your gun down, too.”
“What is that thing?” Moses said, his voice strained.
Khaleda’s heels clicked as she walked around the table. “Once he was like you. A man. Now, he’s a ghoul.”
Moses took a step forward, his gun still raised and pointed at the ghoul. “And what made him into a ghoul?”
“Not sure,” I said, looking at him. “Probably the same way all ghouls are made. They’re bitten by another ghoul. Infected.” I cast a glance over my shoulder at the ghoul. A growl rumbled in its throat. “This is Dominique You, the half-brother of Jean Lafitte and the Black Horseman. Famine.”
“Is he going to attack anyone?” Moses asked.
I shook my head. “Not as long as Khaleda holds him in her magic, but I wouldn’t come close if I were you. Not unless you want to become like him.”
Both detectives took a step back, but neither of them put away their guns.
Emma cleared her throat. “So the plan is what here? Call up his soul and just shove it into his body?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that. This is going to be three spells, all of them huge. First, I’ll need to call Dominique’s soul here and trap it in a circle.”
“Thought you couldn’t call ghosts, spirits, and souls out after seven days?” Emma said.
I nodded. “I can’t, not without a bigger ritual that normally takes three days to prepare. Seeing as how the blood moon is tonight, I didn’t have three days. There are other, less pleasant ways of getting extra power faster.”
Khaleda huffed. “You didn’t seem to think so last night.”
At my death glare, she smirked. I chose to ignore her comment rather than acknowledge it. “Anyway, I got the power I needed to circumvent that part. Once I have his soul here, I need to put it into Dominique. But I don’t think I can just shove a soul into him while he’s still alive. The body has to be in a state where it will be receptive. Otherwise, it’ll react violently.”
Which is what had happened with Gaston, a bodyguard whose soul I’d brushed against. He was stuck in a sort of waking death. I didn’t know it at the time, but human souls and their connection to the body were extremely delicate. I hoped if the heart were stopped I could gently push the soul back in without doing any damage. There was no telling what that would do to a ghoul, though. Ghouls didn’t have souls.
“We’ll have to temporarily stop his heart,” I said.
Jean charged in front of me, shaking his head. “No, you can’t. I won’t let you. Dominique may be a twisted, monstrous version of his former self, but it’s still him. I can’t let you kill him!”
“Temporarily,” I repeated. “The next step will be reviving him.”
“The Kiss of Life.” Emma hugged herself.
I’d given her the Kiss before which resulted in the two of us becoming psychically linked. So far, that’d meant we shared nightmares, but it could have other, lasting consequences that I wasn’t aware of. Consequences that I didn’t want should I become linked to a ghoul and another Horseman.
I shook my head. “No. I’m going to try something else. Something less permanent but much more dangerous. That’s why I asked you to bring your gun.”
I walked to the other side of the room where I kept a locked and warded cabinet. Inside were ingredients I didn’t want to fall into the wrong hands, not all of them legal. Psychoactive substances and magic have a long history, and though I didn’t use them often having them on hand was part of doing my job. Of course, I had to keep them under a glamor too, just in case the police showed up to poke around, and only a very small amount. Possession of a controlled substance is a felony, necromancer or not. But most of the ingredients inside the cabinet weren’t illegal, just dangerous as hell.
Carefully, I removed four small bottles and placed them on the counter in front of me next to a mortar and pestle. “I’m going to make a zombie.”
Emma eyed the ghoul who was now lying on his back, staring blankly at Khaleda as she patted his bald head. “I still don’t see what you want the gun for.”
“As part of the process, I have to give him a powerful psychoactive substance and then zap him with a powerful spell,” I said, pulling a few more ingredients down from the cabinet next to me. “It can cause violent hallucinations. He may try to attack me. Or you. Or her.” I nodded to Khaleda. “Or he may do nothing, if it works right, and be under my complete control. Hard to say which, but I wanted someone with a gun here just in case. Someone I trust to know when to pull the trigger and when to hold back. Can you do that?”
She frowned at me and then looked at Khaleda, her frown deepening. “Yeah, I guess. I’m still unclear about how this gets us any closer to stopping the bad guys though.”
“That’s the advantage of turning him into a zombie.” I pulled out some tiny measuring spoons and started adding ingredients into the mortar, grinding them each to a fine powder. “He’ll be like a shade, except with a body. Alive. He’ll be bound to my will and have to obey.”
“Sick,” Jean spat. “Had I known you’d use black magic on my half-brother—”
I stopped grinding long enough to lean on the counter in front of me and address him. “I’m a necromancer, Jean. What did you expect? You want to save your half-brother, then this is how we do it. Once the blood moon passes, I’ll release him. If it works, you’ll both get your bodies back and be able to live out your days as free men. If not, then the worst that happens is I kill a monster that ate a bunch of kids. That’s a win either way in my book.”
The pirate snapped his mouth closed and sulked. He didn’t look happy about it, but I couldn’t afford to make everyone involved happy. Someone was going to get disappointed. Might as well be the pirate.
After mixing the ingredients into a fine, gray powder, I gathered it into a small, clear baggie and carefully sealed it before walking back over to the center of the room. The ghoul flinched as I drew the dagger from my hip but Khaleda’s power washed over him, and he relaxed. The blade gave off an audible, hungry hum as I drew it over my thumb.
“Whatever happens,” I said, squatting at the edge of the circle, “don’t interrupt me once I get started. Don’t break the circle, and don’t distract me. And if the ghoul looks like it’s going to lunge at anyone outside the circle, you put a bullet square between his eyes.”
Emma checked her gun and nodded.
“Everybody ready?” When there were no objections, I nodded to Khaleda. She stepped back, and I activated the circle with a drop of blood, sealing myself inside with Famine.
Chapter Nineteen
As soon as the circle sprang up, the ghoul—Dominique—was cut off from Khaleda’s power. He went from being a mostly passive creature to a monster on high alert, ready to rip me apart with his teeth. He moved to propel himself from the table but forgot he didn’t have hands and wound up falling forward. His chin hit the table with a loud crack. I knelt in front of him, a pinch of the powder I’d mixed resting in my fist. He opened his eyes as I flatted my palm and blew the powder into his face.
Magic is great, useful for lots of things. But magic relies on power and I had to reserve mine for what was coming. Anytime a wizard could perform his work without having to draw on his reserves of power, he did. My work with the powder was no different. It contained trace amounts of tetrodotoxin (which, contrary to popular belief, can be found in way more marine life than the pufferfish). Whi
le it would dull the pain, it didn’t do much for it. Most voodoo practitioners actually preferred for there to be some pain, as pain was an ideal source of energy for black magic to draw on. Me, I’d tossed a couple of aspirin in there and ground them up. I’m no monster. Along with the psychoactive substance I’d used, the toxin would act as a paralyzing agent, keeping him still but aware.
At least, that’s how it was supposed to work.
Instead, the ghoul shrieked when the powder blew into his eyes, nose, and mouth, invading the mucous membranes of his face. He flailed wildly, falling onto his back and kicking. One foot collided with my chest with all the strength of an angry mule and sent me tumbling backward. It was luck alone that kept me from breaking the circle by falling through it.
I waved my arms and found my balance again.
Dominique was still squirming on the table, making a choking, hissing sound. I’d dosed him with enough powder to drop a two-hundred-pound man. Just my luck it’d be less effective on a ghoul.
I grabbed the baggie of remaining powder from my pocket and shook more of it into my palm, holding my breath to keep from accidentally breathing some of it in myself. Hopefully, triple the normal dose would work.
His whole face was swollen and red. Tears streamed from eyes as he rolled back and forth, crying like an infant. With his eyes shut, there was only one good method of delivery left. I winced and shoved my hand toward his mouth, dumping the powder in and quickly grabbing his jaw to hold it shut. He struggled, kicking, pawing at me with his arm stubs. Part of the burned flesh fell away, and he started bleeding again, smearing blood all over me. I counted backward from two hundred to keep from vomiting, telling myself that doing so would mess up my circle.
When I reached ninety-seven, Dominique suddenly stopped struggling. His eyes flew open wide, and the pupils dilated. His muscles went rigid, and his breathing became shallow. Cautiously, I released my hold on his jaw. He didn’t move. I blew out a breath. So far, so good.
Now for the hard part, I thought, stepping back. I was already covered in sweat and blood, but none of it had fallen on the circle when I checked, so I determined I was good to go. The obsidian dagger lay near the table. I retrieved it only to nearly drop it at the heat it was giving off. Something in the dagger called to me, a raw, angry hunger. The tiny drop I’d fed it to close the circle wasn’t enough. It had tasted my blood, and now it hungered for more. Like a song on repeat, the voice played in the back of my head as my fingers grasped the handle, calling to me, begging me to bury the dagger deep. To feed it.
I stood on shaky legs. Dominique lay stretched out before me, an easy sacrifice. In my Soul Vision, I saw him as nothing but a mass of darkness. His heart sang out a staccato beat. Fear sweat formed on his forehead, the smell permeating the air. I licked my lips and tasted blood that was not my own. Dominique’s blood.
I placed my left hand on his chest and counted the ribs. His chest rose and fell only slightly, the wet sound of his phlegmatic breathing grating on my nerves. I counted to the fifth rib, measured the space between the fourth and fifth ribs on the left side, my finger sliding easily between them. On the other side, his heart knocked back.
“May your god have mercy on you, Dominique You,” I whispered and brought the blade to rest where I’d just measured his heart to be.
He made no sound as I plunged the charged obsidian dagger into his heart, nor as I sent a pulse of power from my hand down into him. The power flowing out of the dagger into Dominique’s body pulsated in time with what should have been his heartbeat, though the heart grew still. Blood welled up around the dagger. His breathing stopped. My timer started.
With power still pounding in my ears, I let go of the knife and stepped back fingers spread wide over Dominique’s still body. The last of my shields slipped away, leaving my mind naked against the raw power of death in the circle with me. The room around me decayed, slipping behind a patina of gray rot. Holes appeared in the carpet. Windows clouded and coated with dirt. Anything metallic rusted, crumbling at the edges. My clothes thinned to rags that hung to my frame by mere threads. Everything but the ghoul in front of me and the obsidian dagger sticking out of his chest slipped away as I plunged my psyche into the After.
The chill of death settled in my bones. Every inch of skin felt frozen except for my bicep all around the ghoul bite. It still felt blazing hot, almost feverish. I did my best to ignore the blistering pain. “Dominique You,” I murmured raising both hands, “I summon forth your soul. You who were cast from your body, I bid you return. Commune here with me in the After.”
The reason pulling out fresh shades was easier was because I could skip this step. I didn’t have to go where the dead were and physically guide them across planes to my side. They were still there. I didn’t know for sure that Dominique’s soul would answer me in the After. Ghosts and spirits didn’t always hang out there, as Jean had proven. Yet even if he wasn’t there or close by, the mention of his name three times along with the command to appear should have been enough to draw his attention. The problem was, since he was a disembodied soul, he didn’t have to obey. If he didn’t want to come to me, I’d have to force the issue.
When Dominique’s disembodied soul didn’t make an appearance after my third call, I extended my senses into the After, searching for any wandering souls nearby. I found three and pulled them to me. The first soul was an old man leaning on a cane. I recognized him from the picture Mrs. Lawrence had shown me. It was none other than Daniel Lawrence, the man whose urn I had returned to his widow on my last job. He nodded to me.
The next ghost I didn’t recognize. She came to me a younger woman, very tired-looking. The ghost of a little girl with ringlet curls floated next to her, the two similar looking enough that they had to be related. I didn’t like the idea of enslaving a child ghost to my will, so I turned to her and told her she could go.
The little girl shook her head. “I want to help.”
An offer of help was different from me forcing it upon her, so I let her stay. “Dominique You,” I said. “Find him. Bring him to me.”
The ghosts rushed away in flashes of dim light. Though they were out of sight, I could feel them moving around in the distance as if they were attached to strings on my fingers. A moment later, Daniel Lawrence’s ghost reappeared, tugging the ghost of a portly man in a long-sleeved shirt with ruffles behind him. Dominique.
Dominique didn’t look anything like his ghoulish self. For one thing, he was fat while the ghoul looked like he was starving. He had lively eyes while the ghoul’s eyes had just seemed empty. Dominique slinked along, his head tucked, looking ashamed, as if I’d just caught him with his hand in the cookie jar.
“Dominique, why didn’t you come?” I asked.
The disembodied soul blinked. “Me? Are you talking to me?”
“You are Dominique You, aren’t you?”
He put a finger to his chin. “That name does seem familiar. It’s just been so long.”
I extended my hand to him. “Take my hand.”
“And why should I? What will you do to me?” He floated back from me. “You look very unusual. Not at all like a ghost. Not at all like whatever I am.”
“Do you remember what happened to you?” I asked. “How you were forced from your body?”
Dominique’s mouth opened and closed. His form became more solid before he nodded once. “I remember.”
“How’d you like to get your body back?”
“You can do that?” He squinted. “How?”
“My name is Lazarus Kerrigan. I’m a necromancer. Your half-brother Jean asked me to help you get your body back.” It was a stretch of the truth. Jean had asked me to help him get his body back. He’d never specified not to help Dominique though, and since restoring Dominique to his body would help me fix Jean, it didn’t seem like an all-out lie.
Dominique considered my outstretched hand a moment longer before reaching for it. When his spectral form touched mine, the air around us e
xploded with color. The gray decay of the After didn’t fade away, instead mixing with the color of the living plane. For a flash of time, both planes were visible, one atop the other. Then the color paled, fading quickly away. Panic rose in my stomach, and I reached for the realm of the living again, clawing with my entire psyche and all my will. Magic leaked out of my every pore in visible tendrils of color, drifting into the air like smoke to vanish. Wood cracked beneath my feet. Someone gave a surprised shout that sounded distant to my ears.
“Stay back,” I snarled to the people in my office.
I couldn’t see them where I was, but whatever had just happened might’ve prompted Emma to take a step toward the circle. She’d ignored my warnings before to come to my rescue. This time, crossing the circle would do more than give her an uncomfortable chill. I’d pull her into the After with me, and there’d be no coming back for her.
With a low growl, I gripped Dominique’s spirit by the shoulder and tugged him upward with all my will. The sandy, slate-colored earth beneath us quaked. Above, the gray sky split open, and the storm clouds wept blood. Wind raked against my clothes, tearing them away, and peeled the flesh from my bones. I fought the scream building in my throat, but it was wasted effort. The scream bubbled out of me raw and burning, turning my skeleton to ash.
A moment later, I was back inside my circle in the back room of my office. Sweat poured down my neck. My throat felt raw and scratchy, and my skin burned, but it was more like a sunburn than the horrible, flesh ripping sensation I’d known a moment ago. I lifted my head and peered at the ghost gripping my hands. One more push of power through that connection brought him fully into the plane of the living from the After and drew gasps of surprise from everyone else in the room.
Dominique pulled his hands from mine and raised them in front of his face, eyes sparkling. “My God. You did it. I’m here.”
“Dominique?”
“Jean?” The ghost turned in the circle, searching for his half-brother.
