by E. A. Copen
“Do you need anything else?” he asked me.
Yes, I need to hold her again. I need Emma back. A good, stiff drink, two cigarettes, and about twenty-five aspirin. “No, man. I’m golden.”
He nodded and went to the door, letting his hand rest on the doorknob. “If she gets hungry, there’s a jug of water on the changing table there, clean bottles in the diaper bag, and I think there’s still some formula in the tin you left. I’ll see if Leah can grab another when she goes to the store later.”
My answer was a grunt. I was already half-asleep.
The door clicked closed. Remy stirred in her crib, making happy baby sounds, and I drifted off to sleep, hoping not to dream of Hell.
Chapter Seven
Fire scorched the sky and heated the air to a temperature that made it impossible to breathe except in desperate gasps. Mountains of obsidian scraped against the pale red light in the sky, their peaks hidden behind yellow, sulfuric smoke. Soot clung to my skin as I stood naked, overlooking a pit of green flame. Dark figures danced in the flame, twisting and reaching for me. The air smelled like blood, shit, and pus, like an infected wound.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said a voice behind me.
I turned. A stone column stood behind me wrapped in heavy metal chains. The chains held someone, beaten and bloody, in place while a curvy young black woman in red heels paced beyond, clutching a whip. The figure chained to the post shifted, a blood-encrusted head rising, weary and broken. I recognized those unfocused brown eyes.
Emma.
At the sight of her, I nearly lost it. Anger flooded my veins, hotter than any fires in any Hell, coalescing into an unshakable rage. Red clouded my vision. I ground my teeth and clenched my fists, ready to fight anyone and anything to get her free.
Except there was no one to fight. I wasn’t there, not in person anyway. This was a dream, and I was asleep in Nate’s daybed next to my cooing daughter while Emma suffered. Whether it was a true dream or some trick of the magic that left Emma and I bound thanks to the Kiss of Life, I had no idea. The only thing I knew was that the scene before me was more real than any dream that had ever come before.
The woman in red—Nikki, Morningstar’s newest host—cracked her whip and smirked when Emma jumped. “You’re thinking I won’t break you. You think you’ll keep your mouth shut and you won’t give me the satisfaction of a scream. After all, you survived all the things my underlings have done to you so far. What could I possibly do that’s worse?”
“Fuck you,” Emma rasped.
“Oh, sweetie, you don’t want to do that. We’ll save all the fun punishment for after we’ve broken your soul into pieces.”
“You think you’re the first asshole to hurt me?”
Morningstar swaggered up to Emma, grabbed the ripped remains of the thin, gauzy tunic someone had put her in, and ripped it open, exposing her back. He leaned in, running his hands over her back.
I tried to move, but I was rooted to the spot.
“I think I’m going to be the first asshole to whip you,” he whispered into her ear and then stepped back. “You know, of all the punishments visited on you humans, a whipping is probably the worst. It’s not just the pain. It’s the psychological aspect of inflicting injury where the injured person can’t see it. You see, your mind is far more creative than your body. It will always think an injury is worse than it actually is.”
Emma tossed her head back and laughed.
Morningstar sneered and gripped her by the hair. “What’s so funny?”
“Just you, thinking you’re the first motherfucker to whip a black woman for kicks,” Emma spat back. “My ancestors came over on slave ships and survived it. My grandparents survived the Jim Crow South during its heyday, my daddy lived through Vietnam, and I survived Katrina. Up top, I was beaten, shot, stabbed, and hit by a car. I was spat on before I even knew why.” She bared her teeth. “I was born with pain etched into my DNA in ways not even your hellspawn can understand. So, go ahead. Hit me with your whip. See if you can make me scream.”
Morningstar snarled and slammed her face into the post, breaking her nose and leaving her dazed. He stomped back six or seven paces and unfurled the whip.
Emma clenched her eyes shut and braced.
I fought whatever magic was holding me in place, gritting my teeth and straining every muscle to move toward her. If I could just get to her, let her know I was there… It wouldn’t make any difference. She’d still feel every vicious strike as the whip bit into her skin and sliced her open.
My right foot inched forward.
The whip cracked like thunder against Emma’s upper back. Her body jerked, her face tensed. A small, muffled sound began and died in her throat.
“Scream,” Morningstar spat and cracked the whip again.
The next strike made her gasp. She bit into her lip so hard blood welled to the surface.
I finally slid my left foot forward an inch.
“Scream!” Another crack of the whip and another in short succession.
The sound that came out of Emma wasn’t a scream. It was an agonized wail of defeat.
“Very good.” Morningstar cracked the whip again. That son of a bitch. Even after getting what he wanted, he wouldn’t stop.
Emma jerked and let out a desperate cry.
“There’s one to grow on,” said the Devil as he retracted the bloody whip.
When I got my hands on him, I’d hold his slimy ass down and let Emma tear him apart.
She wept against the bloodstained post. “What do you want from me? Isn’t it enough that you won?”
He walked up and struck the chains that held her with a fist. They released and dumped her to the ground. Morningstar squatted in front of her, the curled whip dangling from his fingers. “I want you to accept that no one is coming for you. No one ever was. No one cares that you’re gone. They’re relieved. You were always such a burden.”
“That’s not true,” Emma sobbed.
Morningstar grabbed her hair and lifted her head so he could look into her eyes. “Yes, it is. It’s always been true. You’re no one. Nothing. A fraud. All those commendations from the police force, do you really think you earned them? If you were such a great detective, then why didn’t you go back? Somewhere deep down, you knew it was all a lie. The only thing you earned was the dirt nap you got, and you were overdue for that, weren’t you?”
Emma’s jaw shook. The hatred in her eyes could’ve melted the skin off a living person. She said nothing.
Morningstar tightened his grip. “I was there the day you put the gun in your mouth, hiding in the shadows, behind those roses you love so much. You were ready to go, Emma. What stopped you?”
Her nostrils flared. Tears trailed down her cheeks and pooled in her ears from the way he was holding her head. What the Devil didn’t see was that those weren’t tears of loss or weakness. They were angry tears and, once she found her strength again, she’d drown him in them. “Someone needed me.”
Morningstar laughed. “Someone needed you!” He pushed her away, letting her collapse. “Who? Lazarus? He’s the fucking Pale Horseman. He is Death!” He spread his arms wide against the crack of thunder above. “What use does he have for some dumb bitch who can’t even kill herself right?”
The Devil walked away, leaving her where she landed to go pace near the edge of another pit. Firelight illuminated the silhouette of his new body, caressing the perfect curves of an innocent girl who was still in there somewhere. As much as I wanted to murder Morningstar, I still wasn’t willing to kill Darius’ sister to do it. That meant I had to get the Archon that was Lucifer Morningstar out of her body. Maybe there was an exorcism, a strong one, that I could perform. It wasn’t my area of expertise, though. I’d have to call in an expert.
Suddenly, the invisible barrier that held me in place vanished. I stumbled forward, unprepared for the resistance to disappear. Once I got my feet back under me, I rushed to the concrete post where Emma had fallen
and knelt next to her. I wanted to put my arms around her, to grab her and carry her out, or to somehow take away the pain she was in. Aside from the cuts from the whip that had left her back looking like raw meat, she had a deep gash over her eye at the hairline, and several smaller nicks in her skin on her shoulders, neck, and arms. There were so many injuries, I couldn’t tell where the blood ended and the bruises began.
But I was dreaming, and there was nothing I could do for her. Maybe if I used my power and reached across the chasm, she would at least feel something.
“Hey,” I whispered and reached out. “I’m here.”
Emma, who had been sobbing and curled up, stopped, choking on the sound. She pushed her tears away with a bloody fist and stared at me, eyes still unfocused. Could she see me? Even if she’d only heard me, that might be enough. Morningstar was trying to do more than just break her soul. He wanted to rob her of the one human thing she still had: hope. If by any means I could give her just a shred of hope, it would all be worth it.
My palm touched her cheek. Her skin was rough and cool under my hand.
Emma blinked, forcing out more tears, closed her eyes, and leaned into my hand.
Then, someone suddenly jerked my legs from under me.
I crashed to the nursery floor, half-tangled in the playpen and a pile of diapers. It took a minute for me to realize where I was and what was going on against the desperate cries of a three-month-old baby. Remy’s crying must’ve woken me.
A headache jackhammered my skull, reminding me of the bruise. I wiped a hand over my face, pushing away the twilight sleep, and got up to change and feed my daughter, a zombie on automatic the entire time.
Remy didn’t seem to care that her old man was dead on his feet and couldn’t even escape Hell in a dream. She just kept right on crying.
By the time I’d wrestled the diaper off her and gotten her through another feeding (and another diaper change), I decided the best thing for both of us would be a bath. I’d been in Nate’s house enough times to know where the bathroom was, so I tucked her under my arm and dragged myself down the hall.
Instead of putting her in the big, cast iron tub, which would’ve been bad for a kid who was half-fae, I filled the basin sink and scrubbed the little turd bird with a bar of Dial soap, which she thought was hilarious. She kept kicking and spitting the whole time.
“Laugh it up, princess,” I told her with a tired smile. “One day, I’m going to remind you of this just to embarrass you in front of your boyfriend. Which you won’t be allowed to have until you’re thirty. Boys are bad. Trust me. I used to be one.”
The sink was all I got, too. Just imagining submerging my burned feet in water stung them, so I settled for washing my face after laying Remy on a towel I spread over the floor. She lay there, making high-pitched cooing sounds while I tried to wash several days of bad supernatural life away in Nate’s porcelain sink.
My bruised face stared back at me, reminding me that it was a bad idea to get into fistfights with dead Vikings. Whatever happened to me while I was in the underworld seemed to follow me back to my body, which meant I’d have to be more careful in the future. If I got stabbed there, I’d probably start bleeding here.
I couldn’t rely on the morgue either. Nate had stuck his neck out for me the first night, but he acted like he’d be in trouble if he got caught. I couldn’t ask him to do it a second time. No, I needed somewhere safe to stash my body and someone I trusted to keep an eye on it. With Emma gone and Nate off the list, the number of people I trusted for the job was down to two.
I could call Moses. As Emma’s partner, he deserved to know what’d happened to her. The two of them had been close. Then again, Detective Moses had a heart condition and a trick knee. He might’ve been a crack shot, but if a supernatural heavyweight came tearing into the place while I was out, he’d get torn in half like wet toilet paper. No, I needed someone with magic.
I needed Pony Dee.
My old mentor and I had been getting along of late, but mostly because we avoided each other. I’d moved back in with him after Remy was born because I needed the help, but I’d been spending so much time either at work or at Emma’s that we barely saw each other except in passing. He lived out his days drinking away his retirement at a strip joint called Karma, not exactly a place I wanted to take my infant daughter.
Just because I knew where to find him didn’t mean I was going to go running over there. Pony was cued to the supernatural and knew a few spells, but mostly he was gifted with the Sight. He had visions that told him the future. While he had a little magic at his disposal, he was rusty with it. He might get off one good spell before he was tapped. He could do the job, but he wasn’t ideal. Besides, I’d promised Leah I wouldn’t leave Remy with her again. The only other person I trusted with Remy was Pony, and if he was watching my daughter, he couldn’t be watching me.
There was one other person I could call, but I hadn’t talked to her in almost six months, and she hated my guts. She was the best witch in the city, though, and if I paid her enough, she’d make sure nothing unsavory happened to my body while I was off trying to get the next key.
Guess I’m asking Sybille. I rifled through Nate’s cabinet in search of shaving cream and a razor. But if I’m going to pay her, that means I’ll need some cash.
Not that I couldn’t afford Sybille. Before I went to the arena, business had been booming. October was usually one of my best months. People came in hoping to prank their friends around Halloween and paid for a séance. Other folks ramped up their insight into tarot card readings just before the winter holidays too. Most were worried about what Great Aunt Barb thought of some decision they’d made or wanted to get advice from a dead relative on how to handle the awkward Thanksgiving dinners ahead. Those clients, I didn’t mind. The ones who came in, dropped fifty bucks to talk to their dead grandma about where she hid some valuable heirloom, they bothered me. Nine times out of ten, they were looking to sell said heirloom to make some quick cash for Christmas presents. I hated the holidays.
Even with all that business, I wasn’t flush. With the price of diapers and formula, I was barely scraping by. I hadn’t even gotten together enough spare cash for a deposit on another apartment yet. If I cleaned out all my accounts, I’d have enough to pay Sybille, but I was worried about the other guy I knew I’d have to call.
My dream had made me realize there was another way to come at Morningstar, a method I hadn’t tried yet. Traditional exorcisms probably wouldn’t work to pull the Archon from his body, which was why I’d need a specialist.
Pony had used a guy when I was a kid, some young Aussie hard case with lots of equipment. A friend of Pony’s had suddenly come down with what the doctors were calling schizophrenia, even though it didn’t fit the symptoms. At the time, that was code for ‘we don’t know what’s wrong with them so they must be crazy’ in psychiatrist speak. His old pal—who went by the name Buck—was near catatonic most of the time. When he wasn’t, he spent his time screaming and trying to peel off his own skin to get the monster out.
The Aussie came with his leather bag of toys and spread them out over the foot of the bed while Pony and I tied Buck down. I was eight or nine and expecting a scene out of The Exorcist. Instead, the Aussie cussed a lot, smoked even more, and generally scared the shit out of all of us. After two days, Pony asked him to stop, but the Aussie wanted one more crack at it. He buried Buck alive, doused the ground around him in some kind of oil, and lit it on fire.
I don’t believe in angels, but I believe in demons because of the thing I saw crawl out of the dirt that day. It was like a leech with spider legs and shark teeth. The most terrifying thing I’d ever seen. The Aussie walked through the fire and punted it into a tree that promptly caught fire and burned to ash.
Buck had to go to the hospital to be treated for asphyxiation, second-degree burns, and a dislocated jaw—but he was never possessed again.
Calling this guy in wasn’t something I’d normall
y consider but if anyone knew how to kick an Archon out of a girl’s body, it’d be him. He was also insanely expensive.
I lowered the razor and looked down at Remy. She’d spit up baby formula all over herself again. With a sigh, I bent over and cleaned her off. “You’ve got to quit pooping and puking so much. Daddy’s going broke.”
After we were both cleaned up and respectable again, Remy and I went downstairs. The savory smell of chicken and garlic drew me to the kitchen, where I found Leah and Sarah at the table enjoying a cup of tea.
“Well, look who’s awake,” Sarah mused over her teacup. “Feeling better, Sleeping Beauty?”
“Like a million bucks,” I lied. “Where’s Nate?”
“He ran to the store for me,” Leah said, standing and wiping her hands on the pink apron she wore. “You planning to stay for dinner?”
By her tone, it wasn’t an invitation. “Nah, I’ve got to go meet someone. Say, could I borrow a bowl and maybe use your cell phone? I need to make an international call.”
“International?” Sarah’s eyebrows went up. “Planning on another trip, are we?”
Leah pulled a phone out of her pocket and held it out to me.
“No,” I said, taking it and shifting Remy in my arms. “Hopefully, he comes here. I’m just going to go into the other room.”
“Be my guest,” Leah said, though her hawk eyes watched me all the way to the living room.
I sat on the floor, adjusted Remy on my lap, and placed the phone on the coffee table. While I didn’t have the Aussie’s number memorized, I did know how to get in contact. “Wanna see Daddy do a magic trick, kiddo?”
Remy kicked excitedly and then stared cross-eyed at her fingers.
I grabbed one of the magazines from the table and ripped out a page as quietly as I could. There was no hiding the sound of ripping paper as I tore the ad up into tiny pieces and dropped them into the bowl. I added a little water from a glass, spread my fingers over it, closed my eyes, and concentrated. Operator, operator, I’d like to place a call. With a little zap of necromantic magic, I sent the message into the bowl. A green fire suddenly sprang to life and devoured both paper and water as if they were nothing.
