Death Dealers

by M. G. Gallows

  “Wow.”

  I smirked. “The chicken blood is because chickens are important to the Guede, the Baron’s extended family of Loa who represent fertility and death.”

  “A family of Loa?”

  I nodded. “There are many types. Some are Primals, purely spiritual entities like angels, demons, or the Fae. They represent basic aspects like fire and water, life, death, dreams and such. The Guede—as far as I can tell—are all mages who Ascended. Baron Samedi is the head of the family. He has brothers, like Nibo and Kriminel, and a wife named Brigitte. The Guede don’t fear death, and so live pretty audacious, hedonistic lives. That’s what these are for.”

  I set items on the slab, one by one. “Spicy rum, cigars, apples. When Samedi arrives he’s gonna want a drink and a smoke, to savor the taste of these things, and he won’t answer my questions until he’s appeased.”

  “Okay,” Madelyn said. “So what do I do?”

  “That’s the tricky part,” I said. “The Ascended are spirits. They don’t show up in a body of their own. He’ll need a mount.”

  Madelyn’s eyes widened, but I held up a hand.

  “Not you,” I said. “Samedi doesn’t like possessing women, or so I read. It’ll be me.”

  “You? This doesn’t sound-”

  “Safe? No. But it’s my best chance for answers. Anyway, I’m going to be unconscious. Or distracted. He’s gonna jump in my body, ride it around a bit, smoke cigars, drink rum, and eat the apples. Samedi is a wild sort, but he’s not a bad guy. He’s not gonna run off and kill people or attack you… even if you are undead, and he hates that.”

  Madelyn grimaced. “You’re not selling me on this, Alex.”

  “I know. Keep your distance, let him do his thing, and then he’ll address you, ask for more rum or cigars. Tell him I can get them for him, so long as he answers me a simple question. Just one.”

  “Which is?”

  “Where can I find Samuel Kincaid?”

  “Where can Alex find Samuel Kincaid,” Madelyn repeated. “What if he asks ‘why’?”

  “He’ll know why,” I said. “Tell him Alex will pay his price once he has the answer.”

  Madelyn nodded. “Okay. I think I’m ready.”

  “Good, because I need a minute,” I said.

  I didn’t fancy the idea of a spirit using my body like a puppet. My research said Baron Samedi was friendly, a guide and protector of souls. But necromancers denied the dead their rest. Everything I’d learned about him suggested he’d find me despicable.

  But Kincaid, Jesse and the Brothers were doing worse, they were making zombies, enslaving souls, which was something Samedi hated more than graverobbers like me. I had to hope Kincaid was higher on his shit list.

  I put my fears from my mind, made room on my slab and opened the tub of chicken blood. It smelled thick and coppery in my nostrils, but not as strong as human blood. I breathed deep, let it fill my mind. It was thick and slippery on my finger. Using the printed image as a guide, I drew Samedi’s veve on the slab in blood.

  The music upstairs thrummed in my ears. I opened the spicy rum and swirled some in my mouth, letting the heat sear my tongue. It wasn’t as strong as Papa Williams’ brew, but it made me wince. I lit a cigar, puffed it into my lungs and blew a thick plume into the air. I set the lit cigar aside and bit into an apple. It was sour and crunchy, but left a dry feeling in my throat.

  I gathered each of these sensations into my mind, then cast my magic in no particular direction, with no particular spell in mind. Magic is attuned to the Layered. Or it’s a part of the Layered. Every time I cast a spell, I sent a little ripple of it echoing through the expanse, and somewhere in that tangled mess of sub-realities were beings that felt those ripples like a breeze. That rarely warranted notice, but I had laced my magic with the symbols I had gathered. The idea was to catch Samedi’s attention the way the smell of fresh bread or coffee draws the hungry or tired. A very human reaction, even for Immortals.

  It was an invitation, with everything Samedi coveted on the menu. I hoped he’d be polite to Madelyn. She didn’t sign on for any more trouble than-

  The pressure in the air changed. One minute I was alone in a makeshift butcher shop with a newborn wight. The next, I felt watched. It was more intense than at the Library. I took a breath to relax myself.

  You’re opening your body up to an outside force, I reminded myself. Being paranoid is warranted.

  I didn’t know what was in the Layered, what entities might have been waiting for someone like me to open a doorway into my world. I fought my fear down and tried to concentrate on the music, the smoke, the taste of spiced rum.

  Something I couldn’t even perceive brushed by my consciousness, like a whale shark swimming past a minnow. It made me dizzy just to feel it, but then it turned its head and noticed me back-

  I yanked myself away from the table and fell on my ass.

  “A-Alex?” Madelyn asked nearby.

  I answered with a string of pained profanities through clenched teeth.

  “Samedi?” Her voice was timid.

  I sighed, breathing in and out until the pain subsided. “Damnit. Sorry, kid. It’s me. What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Madelyn said. She didn’t approach. “You were standing over the table, and then you fell over.”

  I got to my feet and looked at my shrine. It hadn’t changed. The cigar was still smoldering. I couldn’t have waited more than a minute. Did Samedi make me blink first? Or had I attracted something else’s attention? Maybe I just freaked out over nothing.

  “It didn’t work?” Madelyn asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Maybe I did something wrong. Samedi isn’t answering.”

  “Are you going to try again?”

  I frowned. “No. Not tonight.”

  I gathered the ritual materials, fast-decayed the bloody veve mark, and followed Madelyn upstairs. She jumped back on my computer, but with nothing better to do, I laid down on the couch to brood.

  Someone knocked on my door a few minutes later. I answered it, and found Jocelyn in the doorway, dressed in black pants and a padded jacket, with an umbrella to protect her thick brunette curls.

  “Come to walk amongst the common folk?” I asked.

  She accepted the barb with a nod. “Sorry I didn’t call but, um, can we talk? I brought these.” She offered me the clothes she’d borrowed.

  I tossed them onto the couch. “Sure. What about?”

  Madelyn poked her head out of my room. “Who’s here?”

  “Who’s that?” They asked at the same time.

  “That is Madelyn,” I said. “She’s a friend.”

  Jocelyn looked her over. “Really? What kind of ‘friend’?”

  “Gross.” Madelyn wrinkled her nose and retreated out of sight.

  “She’s helping me do some research,” I told Jocelyn.

  “Ah-huh,” Jocelyn said. “Could we talk somewhere more private? Over dinner?”

  I wanted to laugh. Everything was turning to shit around me, and Jocelyn wanted to go have dinner.

  She tilted her head. “Alex?”

  I folded my arms. “I don’t know. Last time we went out, it ended with your goon showing me the door.”

  “That’s part of what I wanted to talk about. Put on a nice shirt, and we’ll talk.”

  I didn’t want to. I wanted to close the door on her and get back to that important work of saving my ass from the fire. But Jocelyn reached out and put her hand on my chest, then traced it down my arm to curl our fingers together. After a week of cold, pain, and feeling lost, it was like a little shiver of electricity. Warm, tingling.

  “Please?” She asked.

  “Okay. One sec.” I went into my bedroom.

  “Hey,” Madelyn said. “Where are you going?”

  “Out. Keep at it. If something comes up, call me.” I pocketed the burner phone and scribbled the number on a notepad. “Otherwise stay put, eh?”

  “But-”r />
  “Coming, Alex?” Jocelyn asked.

  I put on my denim jacket. “Later, kid.”

  “Hey wait-”

  I joined Jocelyn, and we walked to her car. Madelyn watched us go, then shook her head and shut the door.

  “She’s a little clingy,” Jocelyn said as we climbed into her car.

  “She’ll be fine. Where are we going?”

  “Someplace fancy. My treat.”

  I endured another white-knuckle ride in Jocelyn’s car, made worse by the sheer amount of rain that hit the windshield. But we arrived in Uptown none the worse for wear. I thought her goal was one of the fancy nightclubs, but she pulled into the parking lot of a quiet, featureless brown rectangle of a building. The place almost dared me to find something noteworthy about it.

  And yet, a valet waited for us outside. The falling slush hit an invisible barrier over his head and flowed away from his body.

  I chuckled. “A Society club?”

  “Aubergine’s.” Her eyes fluttered in a smile. “My favorite place on the continent. I thought you’d like a taste of the high life. Just to try it.”

  The valet took her hand and guided her to the awning above the entrance. “Welcome back, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Patrick.” She dropped her keys in his hand. “Is Yolinda here?”

  “Not tonight, ma’am.”

  “Good.”

  Patrick didn’t look like he wanted to hold my hand, so I got myself out of the car. He sank into the driver’s seat and showed far more consideration for the speed limit than Jocelyn as he drove away.

  I gave Aubergine’s a closer look. My eyes passed over beige spackle siding and tinted windows, but there was more. My mind tried to dismiss what I saw, and every time I made out a detail, it seemed to melt out of my awareness.

  “A ward,” I said.

  “A deterrent field for the Untold,” Jocelyn said. “Think about eggplants while you look at it.”

  I gave her a funny look, but did as she said, imagining a fat purple vegetable, and all at once the details blossomed into crystal clarity.

  Aubergine’s was beautiful. The walls looked to be polished glass that shimmered like moving water. Bioluminescent plants in hues of blue and violet hung from floating pots. It was like a garden made of starlight. Ordinary humans would walk by the building every day and not realize—or care—what it was.

  I whistled. “This place is above my pay grade.”

  “Yes, and no. But there is a dress code.”

  Jocelyn handed me her umbrella and jacket. I caught her honey heather perfume again, and felt her warmth like a sunny breeze.

  She produced a slender gold bracelet from her purse. When it locked around her wrist, her clothing blurred and stretched into a form-fitting, forest green dress. Hundreds of tiny emeralds sparkled in the fabric. Larger gems woven into gold earrings sprang from her lobes, and her lips bloomed scarlet. Even her hair took on a more lustrous sheen, the kind women paid hundreds of dollars to imitate.

  Aubergine’s was a distant afterthought, compared to Jocelyn.

  “What do you think?” She asked.

  My jaw worked, but my brain needed a moment. “I, um… sorry, what?”

  Her cheeks tinted as she smiled. “That’s the reaction I was hoping for.”

  She took my hand, and I let her strap a polished silver watch to my wrist. My clothes turned to clouds around me, then wove themselves anew. Cotton denim became a soft wool Italian suit, midnight blue in color. It fit so well that I could have break-danced in it. The smell of my life—soil and sweat, with vague hints of blood—became a mild, musky cologne.

  “Huh,” I said. “Didn’t think you had my size. Joce?”

  Her eyes drifted down my body and lingered in places. “You clean up nice. But the cologne isn’t you.”

  She twisted the watch’s crown, and my clothes gave off an assortment of different smells all at once before it settled onto an earthy aftershave.

  “Better,” she said. Her fingers brushed over mine. “Don’t you think?”

  “I, ah, I didn’t get you anything.”

  “It’s a rental. Borrowed, actually. I’ll need it back when we’re done.”

  I paused. “Whenever you want me out of these clothes, just say the word.”

  The ruby smile took in her ears, and she curled her arm around mine. “Behave yourself. This place is a bit posh.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  We strode through the entrance, and I felt like the most important person in the world. The interior of Aubergine’s was spacious, like a hybrid greenhouse and nightclub. A gentle humidity hung in the air that smelled like a fresh jungle grotto, or an island lagoon. The crystal clear water at my feet lapped against the edges of my transmogrified black oxfords.

  Walking on water. That’s not arrogant at all.

  The atmosphere was comfortable, yet I couldn’t shake the elitist vibe. Everyone was a mage, even the wait staff. I assumed they were the Society’s ‘minimum-wage’ earners, young men and women barely out of their teens who worked the super-rich equivalent of a summer fry cook job.

  The diners took notice of our entrance. Some of them smiled at Jocelyn, others regarded me with curiosity or mild discomfort. The maitre d’, a tall woman in a black pantsuit, approached us with a smile.

  “Madam, so good to see you again,” she said to Jocelyn. Her accent was a smooth, lyrical French. “Your table is waiting for you upstairs.”

  “Thank you, Rebecca.”

  She turned to regard me. “And someone new this evening?”

  “My plus one,” Jocelyn said. “Alex Fossor.”

  Rebecca’s smile took on a plastic quality. She knew the name. “Of course. Your signature.” She held out a notepad, but not a pen or stylus.

  I remembered my embarrassment at the Gallery and put some extra effort into my magemark. The anchor glimmered for a few moments.

  “Very good,” Rebecca said. “This way.”

  Rebecca led us up stairs made of a gentle, gravity-defying waterfall. The VIP lounge had a more intimate atmosphere, with fewer tables and plenty of room for each. A bar stood to one side, with rows of unmarked bottles. The other three walls muted the garish lights of the city beyond.

  Rebecca led us to a table near the window overlooking the parking lot. I remembered enough of my chivalry to set the chair for Jocelyn, and she sank into it with a smile.

  “Tonight we have a few overseas favorites,” Rebecca said, and read off the wine selection in French.

  Jocelyn gave me an expectant look.

  “This is all a new experience for me,” I said.

  “I think Mr. Fossor would appreciate something simple,” Jocelyn said. “The acerglyn. And could you open that bottle of Barossa Valley Shiraz?”

  The two exchanged a few more lines in French, then Rebecca placed our order at the bar and returned downstairs. The bartender, a tall, slender man with a neatly cut mustache, delivered a thin-stemmed wine glass for Jocelyn and a thicker, almost goblet-like cup for me. He returned to the bar in the blink of an eye. It wasn’t teleportation, but he moved faster than any human I’d ever seen, and in perfect silence.

  “Relax, Alex,” Jocelyn said. “You look cornered.”

  I exhaled and tried the mead. Maple and orange lingered on my tongue. “I’m not used to glitz. Or open displays of magic. The hedge witches I rolled with were discreet about it, even away from the Untold.”

  “Sounds like they were afraid of being noticed,” Jocelyn suggested. “But I suppose the hedge clans are fugitives, aren’t they?”

  “They believed that just because you can use magic, doesn’t mean you should. But this place? You’re walking on water, eating by the light of glowing flowers. It feels boastful.”

  Jocelyn smiled. “I wasn’t used to it either, once upon a time. Sometimes I miss an old-fashioned English pub. I just haven’t found one in the States that doesn’t have a ball pit or something.”

  I chuckled. “I can’t imag
ine you tossing back a pint or two.”

  “You talk like I haven’t,” Jocelyn said. She breathed her wine’s aroma the way gourmets and supervillains do. “I grew up in pubs.”

  “Where the legal drinking age is twenty-one?”

  “Eighteen in England, love.” She emptied her glass with unladylike ease, then stretched her limbs within the confines of her dress. “You’d think raising a kid can’t be as bad as people say. Especially if you’re Versed. But now I don’t hear him making noise, or getting into the cupboards? Feels I can fall asleep here and now.”

  I took a sip of mead. “So how’d you grow up in pubs before you were eighteen?”

  Her silver eyes turned distant. “Jesse and I had foster parents, but it wasn’t a home. Most days we had to be out of the house so Mary could watch telly in peace, and God help you if you disturbed Rueben’s nap. But the Hearth and Doe? Mr. McAllister always had a door open for us. We sat at a back table, did our homework...”

  “Sounds like a Victorian musical.”

  “Oh, shut it.” She smiled. “What about you?”

  “Very much the same,” I admitted. “It was just my mom and me. She worked in this railcar diner, fourteen, sixteen hours a day. I’d come from school and wait in a booth. Sometimes it felt like we had no one else. At least until I turned fifteen. Then she found a new family.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She got married,” I said. “I never considered her husband to be part of my life, even if he arrested me a few times.” I chuckled. “I left home after high school. She was expecting her third kid by then. Had the family she always wanted…” I lifted my glass. “To somber childhoods.”

  “Somber memories.” Jocelyn’s silver eyes softened, but she clinked glasses with me.

  A server arrived with two plates of fat-marbled wagyu beef, with a pinch of unfamiliar steamed greens and griddled root vegetables. The portions were smaller than the palm of my hand, but I was sure the meal had a hefty price tag.