Shallow Grave (The Lazarus Codex Book 3)

by E. A. Copen

  “Okay!” I shouted, and the noise immediately died down. My ears were still ringing, but I lowered my hands. “Pretty potent little powerpuff, aren’t you?”

  “Ow,” Spencer whined, sticking a finger in his ear.

  “Now it’s your turn, Laz.” Violet bounced up to sit on her knees, folding her hands in front of her. “You said you were a necromancer. Can you bring people back from the dead?”

  I got up from the floor and walked back to where I’d been working. “Not anymore. I gave up my magic so the guys who took you couldn’t make me use it to hurt you. Do any of you know anything about this?” I raised the sheut box.

  Spencer shook his head.

  Violet shrugged.

  Brooke made no indication one way or the other.

  I sighed and lowered the box. So much for an easy explanation.

  I checked the digital clock display on the wall. We still had plenty of time left before the Archon came back, enough time to maybe come up with a plan. No matter how good a plan it was, I didn’t think I could beat the Archon, not on my own, and I didn’t want to put the kids in harm’s way. There was still something I could try, an option that hadn’t been on the table a few minutes ago.

  With the help of the knife, I finished carving my circle into the floor and called the kids over. They sat down cross-legged around my circle and stared at me. All three put on a brave face, but they seemed to know we were in trouble and were trusting me to get them out of it. The weight of that responsibility pressed down on me under their gaze, threatening to choke me. I swallowed it. Like it or not, I was responsible for them, at least in the short term.

  “I won’t lie to you kids,” I said. “We’re in a lot of trouble. Those guys up there want to kill us to fuel their magic. Just before sunset, they’re going to come down here and try to. I have some things I think we can use to defend ourselves, but these aren’t normal bad guys. They’ve got guns, magic, and two hundred years or more of combined knowledge. They probably know we’re down here planning something right now. They don’t give a damn because they know they’re going to win.”

  “You said a bad word,” Violet whispered.

  I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. They’re kids, Laz. Keep it clean. “They don’t give a darn because they think they’re going to win.”

  “We’re just kids.” Spencer edged closer to the circle. “What’s a bunch of kids and one old guy gonna do against guns?”

  “I’m not old,” I snapped back.

  “Older than me.” Spencer stuck out his tongue.

  I returned the gesture. He rolled his eyes, and I resisted the urge to do the same. I was a full-grown man, dammit. I was not going to stoop to his level.

  “We aren’t going to fight their guns,” I said, choosing instead to focus on Violet and Brooke. “We don’t need to. Not with Spencer’s shield.”

  “I don’t think it can stop bullets,” said the boy, his voice cracking.

  “It can stop a whole lot more than bullets. I’ll teach you how. As for the two of you, you’re going to learn a few things about this.” I tapped the circle I’d drawn. “We’re going to call someone.”

  “Who?” Violet looked around. “I don’t see a phone anywhere.”

  I picked up the knife and tested it on the inside of my thumb. It was plenty sharp enough to draw blood. “This isn’t the type of call you make with a phone.”

  ***

  The hours ticked by, some slower than others. Giving three kids a crash course in the principles of magic should’ve taken weeks, maybe even months. I missed telling them a lot, condensing the course to a hands-on version six hours long. Without access to my own powers, I wound up leaving out even more.

  Part of me wished I could stick around after this was all over to give the kids some pointers. Violet had real promise if she could learn to control her temper, and Spencer just needed to learn some discipline. I didn’t have as much time with Brooke as I would’ve liked, partly due to the communication barrier, and partly due to not wanting to become deaf myself, but she had better control than the other two put together. But it wasn’t to be. I had a date with destiny. Though I’d managed to delay it, death was coming for me.

  Over the course of the day, I felt the fever start to take hold. I was thirsty every minute. Sweat rolled off me, soaking my clothes. The gentle thumping in my ears became a pounding behind my eyes, and my joints ached like I had the flu. I don’t know if it was the incessant, gentle rocking of the boat that got me or the fever, but I started vomiting around four in the afternoon, just hours before dusk. Luckily, there was a bathroom below deck. Unluckily, it wasn’t soundproof. The kids caught wind that something was up.

  When I staggered out of the bathroom the third time in an hour, I found Brooke waiting for me, holding up a paper towel that read: “Seasick?”

  “Yeah. Guess so.” My voice was scratchy and weak. But I could keep it together. As long as I could think clearly, our plan would work. Just had to hold out a little longer.

  I swayed drunkenly all the way across the cabin to the sink where I gulped down a few desperate handfuls of water. It didn’t matter how much I drank. I was still thirsty.

  “Are you sick?” Violet asked. She was balancing a glowing sphere of orange fire between two outstretched palms. She’d held it for almost five minutes now without dropping it. Good girl. “You look like you’re sick. Whenever I’m sick, my grandma makes me chicken soup.”

  “My dad says that’s an old wives’ tale,” Spencer offered, flashing his shield in the defensive stance I’d shown him. “He says soup companies made that up to make money.”

  Violet rolled her eyes. “Which is it, Spencer? It can’t be both.”

  “Yeah-huh.”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  I rubbed my pounding temples in a circle. Why didn’t kids argue about important stuff? “Spencer, keep your arm up. Lower your center of gravity a little but don’t stick your ass out.”

  “Bad word,” Violet reminded me.

  I was too tired to correct myself. Instead, I walked over and adjusted the kid’s stance, then stepped aside and pushed hard on his shield. He slid back a few inches but held. Barely. A barrage of bullets would hit a lot harder than I was able to push.

  “Violet, get that pillow we were using earlier. Let’s practice your aim.”

  “I don’t want to use the pillow.” The orange ball between her hands flickered and went out. “It’s not the same. Why can’t I throw a fireball?”

  “Because I don’t want to die in a fire. Now get the pillow.”

  Rolling her eyes again, Violet retrieved the pillow from the sofa and gave it a hard overhand toss at Spencer. It flew over his shield, which he’d dropped like I told him not to, and smacked him square in the nose. The force of the hit, combined with him crouching down and sticking his ass out again—like I told him not to—made him fall to the floor.

  Spencer rubbed his nose and blinked away tears. “You did that on purpose!”

  “Did not!”

  “Did so!”

  The next thing I knew, the two of them were chasing each other in circles around the cabin. It was all I could do to grab them and pull them apart when the punches started flying. “Save it for the bad guys, kids!” I caught Spencer in a headlock before he could headbutt Violet.

  A slow clap began behind me. I whirled around to see the Archon standing behind me, flanked on either side by his starving men, each one armed with a sword. What the hell was he doing there so early? We still had time. I glanced at the clock, stunned to find I’d lost an hour somewhere.

  “Ah, fatherhood.” The Archon stroked his thin mustache. “Some say there’s nothing as rewarding as training a child up the way he should go. As for myself, I never put much value in it. I find children to be…noisy.”

  “I know what you’re doing,” I ground out, pushing Spencer behind me. “The box, the dead kids, the blood moon. It all makes sense when you think about it.”

&nb
sp; I was talking out my ass. I had no idea what he was up to, but I figured if he thought I did, he’d let something slip and maybe I’d find a way out I hadn’t seen before.

  He grinned ear to ear. “Is that the fever talking? One often believes they’ve had a flash of insight in a fever dream.”

  My throat suddenly felt extra dry. Like sandpaper in the Sahara. “No. I know.”

  His grin faded to a sneer. “If you know, then you know there’s no way out of this. The ritual has begun. It must be completed. Someone must ascend.”

  Bingo. Time to go out on a limb. “What is it about Faerie that makes all kinds of sickos want to go there? You’re Undying. Why bother trying to take over a place where there’s no death?”

  “Undying?” He raised an eyebrow. Slowly, his hands went to the heavy coat he wore buttoned to the neck. “Yes, I suppose I am.” The top button came undone.”

  “Whoa, buddy. I’m usually up for anything, but there’s kids here.”

  He didn’t stop. The next button came undone followed by the next until he gripped either side of the coat, ready to tear it open. “Undying, but not undecaying.”

  The Archon ripped open the long coat that hid most of his body to reveal the shriveled body of a corpse. The skin had turned black where it wasn’t a putrid shade of green. There were plenty of places where there was no flesh left at all, just holes where bits and pieces poked through. Maggots gathered around one such hole near his chest. He brushed them off with a hand.

  I turned my head and heaved up the water I’d drank just moments ago.

  Brooke made a choking sound while Violet started crying.

  The Archon buttoned his coat back up. “Living isn’t enough. Having all the power in the universe isn’t enough. I can consume souls, yes, but it doesn’t stop the rot. It keeps me alive, and that’s it. I’m forced to jump from host to host every so often when the rot gets too bad. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of the filthy stinking streets in this filthy stinking city. I’m tired of being filthy and stinking myself. So I thought to myself, why not go where there’s no more rot? No more death? All I needed was a way to open the door and a brand new handsome body to walk through it in.” He grinned a shark’s grin.

  The goons next to him started chuckling as if he’d told a joke, one I’d missed the punchline to.

  The Archon cocked his head to the side. “Take them. Maim any who resist, take arms and legs if you want.”

  His goons stepped forward, laughing and swinging their swords, pushing us back.

  “But leave the necromancer whole,” the Archon shouted. “I want to look good for my coronation.”

  Coronation? And then it hit me. I knew exactly what he wanted, and the body he’d chosen to jump into.

  Mine.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The goons swung their curved swords, forcing us back step by step and enjoying every moment of it. My feet scraped against the torn floor marking the outer barrier of the circle. Just another inch. The cabin narrowed right where I’d placed the circle, and one pushed his way in front of the other. I stopped backing up and let him close the distance.

  The minute he was firmly inside the circle, I dropped and shouted, “Now!”

  Lots of things happened at once.

  Spencer’s blue shield sprang up over us in a conical dome like an oversized umbrella covering the top portions of the kids’ bodies and most of me. Brooke unleashed the full fury of her power and every electrical device in the cabin went haywire. The microwave screamed. Oven burners clicked on, setting fire to the little cardboard covering that normally sat over the burners when not in use. An alarm somewhere went off, the alarm increasing in pitch with every passing second. Something somewhere further in inside the yacht made a painful grinding sound and then died with a cough. The sound drove the Archon and his two goons to their knees with hands over their ears. Spencer’s shield protected us from most of the damaging sound waves. I still felt my teeth vibrate.

  Violet squatted next to me and slammed both palms down on the edge of the circle. Flame raced along the carvings I’d made, trapping one of the henchmen inside a ring of fire. Once the outer edge of the circle was burning, fire shot through the star pattern in the center. With nowhere to go, the goon was quickly engulfed in flame, his panicked cries joining all the electrical noise. He threw himself at the edge of the circle and fell into the thicker band of fire, burning arm reaching for the Archon as if he’d help him.

  The other goon jumped back with a yelp.

  “What are you doing?” the Archon snarled and pushed him forward. “Shoot their feet, put out the fire, and drag them up!”

  The goon swung an automatic rifle up to his shoulder and aimed it at us.

  I grabbed the small bit of pipe I’d prepared and tossed it to the other side of the burning circle, directly in front of the Archon, before grabbing the kids an pulling them behind the counter with me as I fell. There was a plastic thunk followed by a moment of silence, then a curse and the pounding of feet as the two tried to make their escape.

  The thing about pipe bombs is, they’re easy to make, easy to detonate, but hard to predict. Explosions rely on pressure building inside an airtight space, usually caused by a chemical reaction. The result is an explosion, usually proportional to the space and substances used. I’d filled my pipe with staples and nails, each one of which would be a deadly projectile that’d rip through most surfaces. Unfortunately, that also meant they might rip through the countertop we were hiding behind. I’d done my best over the last hour to re-enforce the countertop by ripping apart the sofa and piling as many layers as possible between one side and the other. With Spencer’s shield, I was confident we could escape the blast mostly unharmed. That was if Spencer had kept his shield up.

  His shield failed as soon as we hit the ground.

  A violent explosion rocked the cabin, sending out a hail of twisted metal. It punched holes in the walls, the floor and a few spots in the ceiling. The counter was ripped to shreds. Stuffing from the sofa blossomed, sending bits of foam filling everywhere. Two icy pinpricks hit my back with enough force to make me flinch. Pain followed, the pain of being stabbed by tiny shards burying themselves deep in my body. More shrapnel ripped my shoulders and the backs of my legs apart. I jerked, but held onto the three kids, keeping my body between them and the explosion as best I could.

  A minute passed, maybe an hour. I don’t know. It seemed like forever that I lay there in pain until I remembered there was also a fire burning in the cabin and it was filling with smoke. I tried to get up, but the pain in my back wouldn’t let me. Brooke wriggled free of my arms. Her hair was a mess, and her dress ripped, but she wasn’t bleeding anywhere.

  Violet scampered away from me and pushed on my shoulder. She had a small cut across her forehead at the hairline, but she seemed okay. “Are you dead?”

  Spencer dragged himself away. Tears streamed down his face, and his arm was twisted wrong. Probably broken. But he was alive. “He can’t be dead.”

  “Not dead yet.” I winced when I tried to move again. “Boat’s on fire. Probably blew some good holes. You guys can swim?”

  They nodded.

  “There’ll be a lifeboat and some life preservers somewhere on the deck. Help me up. Let’s go find them.”

  My back erupted in an angry fire as the kids jostled me. Blood ran down my spine and pooled in my pants. A lot of blood. Oddly, the foremost thing on my mind at the time was how gross that felt. It took all three kids to help me up.

  The cabin floor was still on fire, but the flames had been blown away from half the circle and now climbed up the wall and sofa. It was all coated in something flame retardant, so the fire was having a little trouble expanding, but it managed, despite the water pouring in from several small holes in the sides of the cabin. The largest of them was no bigger than the end of a spoon, but there were several, enough that there’d be no way to plug them. That yacht was going down. I had to get the kids somewhere else be
fore that happened.

  There was no sign of the Archon or his pet anywhere, meaning they’d at least made it above deck before the explosion. I didn’t have high hopes of finding any bodies once we got up there. They were probably waiting for us.

  As the kids helped me toward the ramp, I stopped and let go of Spencer long enough to bend over and pick up the sword the first goon had dropped. I tried not to notice his scorched body lying in a burning puddle of blood. While I didn’t know the first thing about sword fighting, I figured having one was better than having nothing at all.

  By the time we made it to the ramp that led up and out of the belly of the yacht, there was enough water on the floor that my feet splashed with every step. I gripped the handholds of the ramp and peered up. The door at the top was cracked open. Dim gray light shone through. Sunset. Based on what I’d read online earlier, the blood moon—which was little more than a fancy term for a total lunar eclipse—would be visible beginning at eight, which meant the Archon didn’t have much time to make his move.

  “Wait here until I tell you otherwise,” I told the kids and pulled myself up the ramp with a grunt.

  If I were a bad guy, I’d clobber me as soon as I poked my head above deck, so I stuck my hand up first. A gentle rain fell. Beyond that, nothing happened, so I pulled myself up the rest of the way and surveyed the area. From there, it didn’t seem like much had happened. The fire had yet to make it to the upper deck, and most of the holes were so small I couldn’t see them unless I looked really hard. I didn’t see the Archon or his flunky, so I climbed out.

  Something tackled me from behind. I hit the deck face first, arms outstretched. A flash of white-hot pain in my back overshadowed the pain in my chest as my ribs hit. I held onto the sword. Whatever had tackled me jumped off of my back as quickly as it had landed and scampered forward, cackling. Dammit, the Archon’s goon had gotten the drop on me. Literally. He’d hopped down from the secondary deck above.