by E. A. Copen
May the best Horseman win.
Turn the page to read the first chapter in the action-packed follow-up to Knight Shift.
Or CLICK HERE to get it on Amazon!
Chapter One
Another fairy princess came to the door covered in blood. Grotesque bits of synthetic skin hung from her face. She thrust a bulging pillow case at me with, grinned to show her two missing front teeth, and demanded, “Trick or treat!”
I bent down to her level. “How about a trick?”
The little girl hesitated and glanced back at her mom who was waiting at the end of the walk, arms crossed, tapping her foot. When she turned back to me, I dangled a full-sized candy bar in front of her and watched her eyes sparkle with the promise of a sugar high.
“Nothing up my sleeve.” I tugged the ruffled sleeves of my black tunic shirt up to reveal my wrists. While she was looking at that, I slipped the candy bar into her bag unseen and waved my hands. A little spark of fire popped and died into a wisp of smoke. For a second, she looked like she was going to cry until I winked and said, “Why don’t you check in the bag?”
The zombie fairy princess peeked into her bag and gave me an excited grin. “How’d you do that?”
“A magician never reveals his secrets.”
“You don’t look like a magician. You look like a pirate.”
I took a bow. “The Dread Pirate Roberts at your service.”
“Sidney!” The mom at the end of the sidewalk was getting antsy. Her painted on eyebrows scrunched as she stomped up the walk and grabbed her daughter’s arm. “What did I tell you about talking to strangers?”
Helicopter mom dragged her daughter back down the walk, but the zombie princess turned back at the sidewalk and waved to me. I waved back.
The door creaked open behind me. “You keep that up, someone’s going to call the cops on you, you know.”
Emma Knight, the woman at the door, was the owner of the house. At five-five, most people wouldn’t have considered her much of a threat. I knew better. Emma could kick my ass with her eyes closed and still have plenty of energy to take on the next guy who decided to pick on a single black lady all on her own. She normally dressed in pants suits and business casual outfits that made her soft curves seem sharper, but today was trick-or-treat. On trick-or-treat night in New Orleans, everybody dresses up, pint-sized kickass lady cops included. On that particular October night, Emma had put on a tight-fitting black top with gold trim, black pants, a black and gold cape, and a white wig. Just for the occasion, I’d let her borrow my limited edition silver-plated X-Men belt buckle to complete the look.
“Good thing the local cops like me. I’ll get off easy.” I grabbed the mostly empty candy bowl and crossed the porch in search of a refill.
She crossed her arms. “Who says the cops like you? Word around the precinct is you’re trouble. They ought to lock you up and throw away the key.”
“Yeah, but if you did that, who’d save people the next time a god got a hard-on for destroying the city?” I grabbed a handful of suckers, chocolates, and hard candies from the big bucket in the corner and dropped them into the skull shaped bowl in my hand.
Emma stepped onto the porch to adjust the red filter she’d put over the porch light. Light fell through it and landed on the law shaped like witches on broomsticks and scared cats. “Did you ever think maybe the city wouldn’t need so much saving if you didn’t go picking so many fights?”
I froze with hand in the candy bowl and looked back at her. She meant it in jest. We were always bantering back and forth like that, dodging any serious conversations. Emma didn’t think I had a serious bone in my body, and I thought she was way too serious. But the thought had crossed my mind more than once of late, especially since becoming a father.
New Orleans had been quiet for three months. No gods, demi-gods, or ghouls had tried to kill me, no fae had hunted me down seeking revenge. My ex-landlady had even offered to refund my deposit when I told her I’d moved in with my old mentor, Pony Dee. Remy, my daughter, was healthy and growing faster than crabgrass on a bluegrass lawn. Business through the occult shop had even spiked. All in all, things were quiet. Too quiet.
Still, I’d debated sending Remy to live with some out of state relatives of Pony’s more times than I could count. As the Pale Horseman, I was a target and that made her a target too. The best thing for my little girl was to be as far away from me as possible. Yet every time I thought about it, I’d look down at her and convince myself I was overreacting.
“What?” Emma’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. She wrinkled her forehead. “Something wrong?”
“Nothing.” I puled more candy into the bowl.
“Lazarus, I swear to God, if you just zoned out on me worrying about Remy…”
“She’s my daughter. It’s literally my job to worry about her.”
“And you literally promised me you weren’t going to spend your entire night worried about her, or on your phone checking that baby monitor app.” Her hand came down on my shoulder. “She’s in good hands with Nate and Leigh, Laz. Relax.”
I swallowed the growing tightness in my throat. “I know. It’s just…Well, this is the longest I’ve ever been away from her. She’s still a baby. I can’t help but think about her waking up in a strange place, crying, and me not being there for her.”
“I know.” She rubbed my back reassuringly. “But it’s good for you. And her. You still need to have your own life.”
I sighed, nodded and went back to my place on the porch stoop.
An intervention, they’d called it. I’d come home from work at the shop, Remy in tow, to find everyone waiting for me. Nate, Emma, Moses…Even Pony had been in on it. They said they were worried because they hadn’t seen me in weeks. Pony complained I never left the house long enough for him to bring any of his lady friends over, and Nate quoted something his grandma had told him. It basically equated to what Emma had just said. I had to take care of me and get away for a bit before I went crazy.
They were all right. I loved my daughter; she was the best thing that’d ever happened to me. But I’d lost so much sleep being up with her in the night that I’d developed a serious coffee addiction. And the diapers…no one ever tells you about the diapers. In my tired haze a few days ago, I’d gotten diapers and coffee mixed up. I microwaved a diaper instead of throwing it away. Ruined the microwave. I guess that was when they hatched their evil plan to make me enjoy my favorite holiday of the year. Nate and his wife—who’d just had a baby girl named Jessica—took Remy for the weekend for a sleepover. I had forty-eight hours to decompress before they’d let me pick her up. Eight down, forty to go.
Thunder rumbled in the sky as I settled onto the porch. A trick-or-treater—this one a zombie prince with a cape and crown—ran by screaming his candy would get wet.
Emma sighed. “Looks like we’re not getting any more trick-or-treaters tonight. I’ll pack all this in.”
I stood and cracked my lower back. “What’s with all the zombie royalty anyway? It’s downright weird.”
“Some kid’s show that got popular a couple months ago,” Emma muttered. “I keep seeing ads for it on TV.” She pulled the door open and held it. “Why do I know that and you don’t? I don’t even have a kid.”
I shrugged and followed Emma inside. “Probably because I never watch TV anymore. Don’t have time.”
“You’re going to make time tonight.” She placed the candy on the counter.
Emma’s place was always spotless, clean enough I usually didn’t want to touch anything because I was afraid I’d ruin things. Clean and shiny countertops, perfect white stovetop with the cute little burner covers, and a floor you could eat off of. I’d wondered how she kept it all clean until I found out she was almost never home. Emma was a workaholic.
Then her arm got broken because of something stupid I’d done and she hadn’t been back to work since. The kitchen was clean, but not spotless. Gone were the burner covers. Dirty dish
es sat neatly in a sink full of soapy water. I noted a pile of unopened mail shoved into a wicker basket and frowned. “Is everything okay, Emma?”
She went to the fridge and opened it. It was bare bones in there, some milk and a bunch of takeout boxes. “Of course it is. Why?” She grabbed a bottle of rosè from the fridge and snagged two wine glasses on her way back.
“You get cleared to go back to work yet?”
Emma shrugged and poured the wine. “I will be soon.”
“Emma, if you don’t want to go back, just say so.”
She gave me a sharp look and pushed one of the glasses toward me. I put a hand out to keep it from falling off the counter.
“I’m going back,” she insisted, “when I’m ready. Although I suppose if I don’t go back eventually the bank will come knocking on my door when I miss my mortgage payment.”
“Are you in trouble?” I lifted the glass and tasted it. Not bad, but too sweet. Still preferred a good beer over wine any day.
She leaned on the counter with the glass between her hands. “I’m okay for now.”
I put the drink on the counter and reached over to put my hand on top of hers. “You know you can tell me if you need help. Whatever you need, no matter how crazy, I’m your guy.”
Emma tapped her fingernails against the glass, staring down into the pink drink she still hadn’t touched. Three months ago, she’d made some kind of deal with the literal devil to save me from turning into a ghoul. She’d denied it, but the more time went on, the more I was sure she was in trouble and just didn’t know how to tell me.
Since then, she’d practically become a different person. The old Emma was moody, short-tempered, stressed out of her mind. Now she was all smiles and laughter. She called me just to talk about once a week, which had seemed weird at first. I mean, who calls anybody just to talk anymore? The weirdest thing of all was showing up to help her pass out candy only to find her dressed in costume. Not just any costume, either. The semi-revealing Storm costume was a far cry from her normal get-up, different enough that even I noticed. Something was up. You don’t spend every day living it like it’s your last and avoiding going back to your dream job for no reason.
“There is something,” she said.
“Okay. I’m all ears.”
She blew out a breath and rubbed her face. “God, how do I even say this without sounding like an idiot?”
I shrugged. “Just say it and stop caring if you sound like an idiot. That’s pretty much what I do.”
She raised an eyebrow.
I cleared my throat and pulled my hand away. “Yeah, good point. Hasn’t really worked out for me, has it? Anyway, you were saying?”
A beat of silence passed punctuated by thunder. Lightning flashed, and the power flickered twice before going out. In the same breath, Emma’s cell phone rang. It was a muffled sound from the next room, but unmistakable.
“Shit.” Emma stepped around the counter. “There’s candles in the drawer. I’ll be right back.”
I frowned until she walked by and I couldn’t help but notice how nice that costume looked from behind. If she knew I was thinking that, she’d kick my ass. Somehow, that made the thought even more appealing.
The kitchen was pitch black without the lights on so I found the drawer with help from my cell phone and still managed to guess wrong twice. Well, at least I know where the towels are. What the… I picked up a small folded bit of white lace shaped like a snowflake. A doily. Between the greenhouse out back and the doily in the drawer, I was starting to believe Emma was a little old lady in disguise. It was kind of adorable, really.
She came back into the kitchen and stopped to stare while I fumbled at getting the doily folded and back into the drawer.
“Sorry, still looking for the candles.”
“Don’t bother,” she said, lifting her cell phone. “Nate called. Said he got a weird body. Wants us to come take a look.”
Nate was the assistant coroner. He’d assisted me on a few cases and saved my ass more times than I could count. Since the brass at the precinct tended to have an aneurism whenever they couldn’t explain away dead bodies, we had an understanding. Whenever something odd crossed his desk, he called me and the NOPD signed me on as a consultant. At least that’s how it went when Emma was working. Now that she was on leave, there was no guarantee I was going to get paid, or that the weird bodies didn’t show up on tomorrow’s front page.
I closed the drawer. “Weird? Weird how?”
She pulled off the black cape and lifted the white wig to run her hands through her black hair before shrugging on a leather jacket. “Don’t know, but he mentioned smallpox and sounded unusually excited.”
Smallpox? Wasn’t that extinct? And why the hell would he be excited about it? I sighed and followed her through the front door. “I knew it was getting too quiet around here.”
Don’t let it end here! Read the rest of Death Match. Get it on Amazon.
Books by E.A. Copen
The Judah Black Novels
Fortunate Son
Guilty by Association
Perfect Storm
Blood Debt
Chasing Ghosts
Playing with Fire
Other stories in the Judah Black Universe:
Kiss of Vengeance
Cold Spell
Broken Empire:
Aftermath
Renegades (Coming fall 2018)
The Lazarus Codex:
Death Rites
Organ Grind
Shallow Grave
Knight Shift
Death Match (Coming October 2018)
Other Works:
Beasts of Babylon
If you liked Knight Shift, check out this exciting title!
Who says you can only die once?
Thirteen...
As far as numbers go, it isn't a great one. Hell, it's not even a good one and Vincent Graves is going to find out just how unlucky of a number it can be.
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Vincent's investigation also seems to have drawn the attention of a relentless FBI agent and then there's the little bit where he has only thirteen hours to solve the case, or he dies.
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