Death Dealers

by M. G. Gallows

  “Goddamn you, Fossor!” Jesse snarled.

  “My zombies don’t need their brains, or a pulse!” I taunted. My vision blurred a bit, then doubled. I gave my head a shake. A pressure headache was forming in the back of my head.

  “Go!” I said. “Now!”

  Jocelyn pushed to her feet. She didn’t run for the exit, though. She went for Jesse. He tried to draw his gun on her, but the bullet-riddled chef-corpse tore it from his grasp. Jocelyn grabbed for Jesse’s arm and tried to get the bracelet around his wrist.

  “Joce, don’t!” I shouted.

  The kitchen door flew open, and Jesse’s horde of zombies crowded into the room. The shriveled old woman from the Arlington entered behind them.

  “Get him!” Jesse ordered.

  The hag glared at me and snarled in Haitian. Pain lanced into my arm, like my nerve endings were being spooled with a fork. I let out a scream and yanked the limb back.

  The animated corpses went slack. Jesse slapped Jocelyn’s outstretched hand aside and slammed his fist into her face. She went limp and flopped to the floor.

  “Joce!” I shouted. The hag’s magic slashed at my leg, and I thrashed on the ground in agony.

  “I’d kill you myself, Alex,” Jesse said. “But I’ve got a date with godhood. Kill him!”

  I saw him drag Jocelyn out the exit, followed by the hag. The zombies lurched towards me as a mob. They crowded in, grabbed hold of my limbs, ready to tear me apart with their bare hands. I screamed-

  -and the zombies vanished.

  It took me a moment to realize I was no longer being attacked. Men rushed into the kitchen a second later. Keepers, armed and ready for battle. Agni was with them. His eyes met mine, steady and determined.

  Before he could set my body on fire or teleport me to the moon, I shouted, “That way! They took her!”

  Agni led me into the parking lot. There were Keepers everywhere, and I got to see the Society’s approach to forensic analysis. Some men cast auguries, creating floating images of people replaying the moment of their death. Others cast lines of light that hung in the air, signifying bullet trajectories.

  A handful of Keepers moved from body to body, inspecting them. I saw Rebecca, wide-eyed and lifeless, being zipped into a body bag marked with shivering blue glyphs.

  Another Keeper arrived, out of breath. “Sorry, sir. No sign.”

  “And Mrs. Breckenridge?” Agni asked.

  The Keeper shook his head. “If she was here, she’s gone. We don’t know where, or who took her.”

  I cursed. “What good are you then?”

  Agni put a hand on my shoulder. “Steady, Alex. Don’t make this worse.”

  I slapped his hand away. “If you had been two seconds faster! It was-”

  The world winked out of existence, and I found myself in empty blackness.

  “-Jesse!”

  The surrounding space was almost lightless, but when my eyes adjusted, I could make out a cube-shaped room with no windows or doors. It could have been floating in deep space, or locked in some fold of the Layered.

  “Goddamnit, Agni!”

  He didn’t respond, so I paced the room. A few minutes later, Agni materialized.

  “Tell me everything, Alex.”

  “Every minute we waste, her life is in danger!”

  “All the more reason to be thorough.” He spread his arms and waited.

  I growled and told him what had happened.

  “An interesting story,” Agni said. “But here’s what the evidence tells me, Alex. You came to Aubergine’s with Jocelyn, unknown parties attacked the restaurant, and you are the only survivor.”

  My blood chilled. “What?”

  “We found you alone with a pack of zombies.” He shook his head. “The staff and other patrons are dead. Fifteen in total.”

  “They weren’t my zombies, and they aren’t undead! They’re drugged! Cleanse their systems, get them off the Stig, and they’ll tell you!”

  Agni sighed. “They’re gone as well, Alex. I couldn’t take the risk on a group that had already massacred so many Versed.”

  The chill turned to nausea. “Those people were alive! The Edicts-”

  “The Edict of Defense allows lethal use of magic in matters of safeguarding lives,” he interrupted. “They were a threat, whether or not they wanted to be. And now I’m left with you as the sole survivor, a suspect who has endangered Jocelyn Breckenridge before. Someone who could stand to profit off of murdering members of the Council, prospective or otherwise.”

  “Then burn me!” I said. “Do you hear the whistling holes in your own theory?”

  “Easy, Alex,” Agni said, his voice both calm, but full of threat.

  “Or what? You’ll kill me? It won’t save her or stop him!”

  The Sheriff sighed and clasped his hands behind his back. “You say this was Jesse’s doing-”

  “Yes!”

  “Why? If he’s avoided our detection so far, why risk himself now?”

  “I don’t know. He wanted zombies. An army. He wants a war!”

  “Gunning down a restaurant will not get him anywhere near that goal. Think harder, Alex. Calm your thoughts.”

  I spat out a curse, but tried to do what he said. Images raced through my mind, punctuated by anger and fear. Jocelyn, Jesse, blood and screams and gunshots...

  “They risked everything because he wanted Jocelyn. I don’t know why. Because…”

  They’re close to whatever it is they want to accomplish, I thought.

  Jesse wanted Jocelyn to bear witness. I remembered the naked hatred in his voice. He wanted her to suffer.

  ‘I’ve got a date with godhood,’ he’d said.

  I rubbed my jaw, trying to make sense of it. Godhood. Cults. Loa. Stig. I could see a pattern. “Agni, Ascension is for very old, powerful mages, right?”

  “I don’t see what-”

  “Can you speed up the process?” I asked.

  It took him a moment, but I saw the realization dawn on him. “Under certain circumstances, spiritual energies can bolster magic. But the Edict of Sanctity-”

  “Enough to Ascend?” I asked.

  “From the Untold? He would need the spiritual essence, the raw magic, of hundreds of people.”

  “Or zombie astrals,” I said. “Bottled souls. Bottled faith? Is there a difference?”

  “The process would kill them,” Agni admitted. “This kind of magic has been taboo longer than the Society has existed.”

  “It fits.” I said. “And if he’s acting so brazenly, he’s getting ready to try.”

  “It would never work,” he insisted.

  “You think that will stop him?”

  He stared at me for a long minute, then shook his head. “Alex, if I believed this outlandish scenario, which I have only your word to go on-”

  “Oh, come on, Agni! You can see the patterns! He’s been selling these drugs for months! He already has what he needs!”

  “Even then,” he continued. “If I knew where they were, I would be there. There are limits to my power.”

  “What?” I said. “You can’t hunt someone without proof? You find me easily enough!”

  “Because you are a suspect,” he warned. “I could follow you anywhere you wished to go, because your hex is a beacon for me. The moment you, Alex Fossor, commit an act that breaks the Edicts, I will know. I will be there faster than you can blink. And you will burn substantially less quickly.”

  The darkness faded around us, and we materialized outside my house. Rain pelted us as I took a second to orient myself.

  “Remember what I told you before, Alex,” Agni said. “You are the accused. It is on you to prove your innocence, just as it is my duty to prove your guilt.”

  Then he vanished.

  “Flesh and blood, bone and breath,” I snarled at the empty air. “What’s the point of having laws you won’t enforce, of power if it only benefits you? What was the point of magic if it makes you goddamn cowards so fuc
king useless?”

  The words boomed over the rain, but no answer came. I wanted to punch Agni’s face in. I wanted to find Jesse and break him so hard he’d have to eat with a straw through his nose. I wanted to squeeze my fist and watch the whole stinking lot of them rot to death before my eyes, squealing and pissing themselves like-

  Fog curled around my body, and my breath came in cold puffs. I closed my eyes and let myself calm down. Satisfying as it would be to show those scheming pricks what pain was, it wouldn’t fix my problem.

  Jesse had Jocelyn. The Brothers wanted godhood. Maybe they’d leave enough twisted cultists behind to start a proper religion. One based on drugs and pain that fed on the weakest and lowest in society. It was a horrific thought.

  But how could I stop them before they succeeded?

  I headed for the house, hoping that Madelyn had some answers for me. If not, then I was gonna put that bullhorn to Samedi’s ear and scream at him until he answered.

  The front door was bent inward, and dangled from a single hinge.

  Fresh fear joined a crowded party in my guts. The interior was dark. It could have been an ambush, or a trap. I wondered if my gun was still sitting on top of the fridge, and if I could reach it before someone got the drop on me. I shouldered my way into the room, took three giant steps to the fridge, and grabbed the revolver’s box.

  No one attacked.

  I peeked into my room, knowing the layout by memory. The computer was in sleep mode. There was no sign of Madelyn. I pulled the magic wristwatch off and tossed it on the ruins of my bed. My clothes turned back into my jeans and denim jacket.

  Aside from the busted front door, the house looked untouched. The terracotta pot with Madelyn’s soil sat where she’d left it, by the front door.

  “Madelyn?”

  Nothing. Every survival instinct I had was flashing klaxons. I dug my revolver out of the box and stuffed it in my pocket. A wild scenario of Madelyn hiding in my basement spurred me towards my trap door. I flung it open and peeked into the darkness.

  “Madelyn?”

  Silence answered. I descended the ladder, dread knotting my guts. There was a familiar smell in the air, thick and cloying. Breathing hard, I flicked the light switch at the bottom of the ladder.

  A body lay on my stolen mortuary slab, covered in a white sheet, surrounded by my Loa summoning implements. Cigars, matches, apples, and Papa Williams’ flask of goat pepper rum. Among them were syrettes of Stig and chicken feathers.

  TWENTY-THREE

  For a terrible moment I thought the body was Madelyn, and my heart froze. I yanked the sheet aside, and dread turned into confusion.

  Josh Wilkes was stripped to his waist, and painted with what I hoped was the chicken blood from the fridge. The symbols looked like a Loa’s veve, but twisted somehow. More anarchic and snake-like.

  His eyes were closed. I put two fingers to his forehead and felt the whirlwind of Stig and necromancy in his brain. Not dead, then. But still a zombie.

  Jostling him caused his lips to part. I something tucked under his tongue and pulled it free. I was the veve of Baron Samedi I had printed out. Someone had written ‘Run!’ on it with a pen.

  I frowned. No way Jesse had time to hit my place before attacking the restaurant. But I didn’t remember seeing Kincaid during the attack. If Jocelyn hadn’t taken me to dinner, he could have kicked in my door while I was napping on the couch.

  So where was Madelyn? Had she run? I feared what would happen if Jesse got his hands on her, too. But why leave Josh?

  The pieces clicked together. Panic rose in my gut as I grabbed the flask, cigars and matches, anything that had my fingerprints on them, and stuffed them in my pockets. I climbed the basement ladder and hit the back exit before I stopped myself.

  No. They’d be looking for the van. I ran out the front door and saw a convoy of police cars heading my way. I bolted across the street and dove into the bushes behind a house.

  The patrol cars surrounded my place. The plucky rookie Runner and his valkyrie partner Loresndottr led the charge through the broken front door. A moment later, she emerged.

  “We need EMT’s!” I heard her shout.

  Police tape and tarps cordoned off my house. An ambulance arrived, and they hauled out Josh’s body. A small army of forensics analysts moved into my house. They snapped pictures, dusted surfaces, bagged evidence and gathered everything into a truck.

  A flurry of emotions stormed through me. Anger, betrayal, frustration, despair, fear, and a sense of defeat that made me want to lie in the frigid mud and scream. I was no longer Alex Fossor, person of interest, I was Alex Fossor, murder suspect.

  I leaned against the fence, soaked to the bone. My life—structured to balance the legal, illegal, and unreal—was over. Even if I could evade the drag net, I’d be ash the second I set foot outside the city, or the Society caught wind of it.

  The more I thought about it, the angrier it made me. I wasn’t a good person. I did things that people would hate, or fear. If that got me killed one day, then so be it. But I wouldn’t be the patsy for some asshole cult who wanted to spread poison and murder.

  I emptied my pockets to see what I had to work with. The cigars and matches, my burner phone, Jimmy Runner’s card, Papa Williams’ flask of spicy rum, and my revolver with six rounds.

  I watched the cops for a while, and a desperate plan took form. Risky, stupid, but no one was around to stop me, and the clock was ticking.

  Lorensdottr barked orders and went over everything with a pair of gloves. She carried herself like a warrior-queen after a conquest, which would have been hot as hell if it weren’t me she was stepping on. Still, I could respect that sense of victorious sadism. I was almost flattered.

  Runner stood off to the side, the collar of his duster pulled up against the rain. He chatted with the forensic team, but otherwise kept out of their way with his hands in his pockets.

  Keeping low, I darted across the street to Runner’s blue compact. Perhaps it was the weather, darkness, or blind luck, but I reached the vehicle without being spotted. The rear passenger door was unlocked, and I slipped in.

  I pulled out my burner phone and saw a message from my landline.

  Madelyn.

  My finger hovered over the button, but I stopped myself from listening. I hoped she’d made it to safety and called to let me know she was okay. But I couldn’t spare the time. Instead, I dialed the number on Jimmy’s card.

  Runner pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped Lorensdottr’s shoulder. She waved him off, content to tear my place apart.

  “Detective Runner.” He said through my receiver.

  “Guess you decided quid pro quo wasn’t good enough,” I said.

  Runner’s eyes scanned the street, but there was nothing to see in that rain. He reached for his partner again.

  “Don’t do it, Jimmy,” I warned. “Start making noise, and I’m a ghost.”

  He frowned, but took a step away from the other cops. “We found your little chop shop. You’re a sick man, Fossor. And there ain’t no one to help you now.”

  “You want me? Or you want the people giving us both problems?”

  He frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Time’s wastin', Jimmy,” I said. “The body you pulled out of my house? He’s the first of hundreds. Every junkie whose ever taken Stig is at risk, and not from an overdose.”

  “How?”

  “I want to meet. Alone. I don’t have many people left to trust, and I can’t afford to go to prison. Not until I stop the bastards responsible.”

  He exhaled, looking angry. “How am I supposed to trust you?”

  “What does your gut tell you?”

  “That you need to be behind bars.”

  “Goodbye, Jimmy.”

  “No!” He sighed. “Where?”

  I considered it. “West-Side Noodles. Where I was first arrested. You know the spot?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be there.”

 
; “Ten minutes,” I warned. “Or I’m gone.”

  I hung up. Runner looked at Lorensdottr, then shoved the phone into his coat and headed for his car. I kept low as he got into the driver’s seat, and when he dug into his pocket for his keys, I pressed the barrel of my revolver against his neck.

  “Hey Jimmy.”

  He froze. It wasn’t the panicked, goose-honk reaction I was hoping for, to satiate my mean side. He took a long breath.

  “You got balls, Alex. I’ll give you that much.”

  “Yeah. Big swingin’ brass ones. Start the car.”

  “You’re kidding, right? I so much as honk my horn and you’ll have two dozen cops ready to take you out.”

  “I’m sorry it had to be like this Jimmy, but the bad guys made my job a lot harder by pushing you in my way. Shut up and listen for a few minutes, because this is going to take a long time to explain, and I need you to keep an open mind.”

  “Yeah? About what?”

  “Magic,” I said. “The real thing. And the worst kind.”

  “Magic.” His hands tapped the driver’s wheel. “What? You magicked that kid into your house?”

  “No,” I said. “The Brothers did. They already tried to take me out tonight, and if they’re making a double-play like this, they know I’m close to finding them. They need me out of the way.”

  “For what? Pulling rabbits out of hats is a felony in Magicland?”

  The conversation was already circling the toilet. Jimmy was still young, but he was a cop. That training can make people callous to ideas that don’t fit the norm. Then again, he’d reached across the table first. Maybe he still had a place in his heart for fairies and warlocks.

  So I gave him a push. I put a bit of my power into my hands and poked Jimmy’s head. He jumped so hard he hit his head.

  “Wh-what?” He gasped.

  “That’s the first spell I ever learned,” I said. “How to ramp up someone’s fear. I’m a necromancer, Jimmy. And I need your help to stop the others of my kind before they kill a lot of people.”

  And I get the blame for it.