by E. A. Copen
Unlike most voodoo and magic shops in the Quarter, Sybille’s was the real deal. She sold ingredients to hedge witches, wizards, and others all on the down-low. Half the ingredients she kept on hand in storage would get her arrested if mundane law enforcement saw them, which is why she kept it all in the back. The front of her store was all overpriced sage bundles, votive candles, and yoga mats.
With a jolt of magic applied to the backdoor lock, the door clicked open on a room lined with shelves, each one overfull. Glass jars with handwritten labels took up most of the space but littered among those were human and animal bones, each with a little white tag. It was all dust-free, exactly the way I always found Sybille’s shop to be.
The woman herself sat at a folding table with a little scale in front of her, dumping spoonfuls of white powder into tiny plastic bags. She had her back to me so that all I could see was the mass of silver hair piled on top of her head and the liver spots on her neck.
The soul of Jean Lafitte peered over her shoulder.
“You’re late,” Sybille said.
I glanced at the clock on the wall. It read twelve-thirty and probably hadn’t worked in a long time. Sybille never seemed to need a clock to tell time. “I didn’t realize I’d made an appointment for a specific time.”
“Back off, pirate,” Sybille snapped at Jean.
Jean backed away, his face twisted in mock offense. “Beg your pardon, madam. Can’t a spirit be curious?”
“Technically, you’re not even a spirit,” I pointed out. “You’re a soul.”
“Spirit or not, I’m trapped here by the warding. If she wanted me gone, all she had to do was take it down.” He crossed his arms.
“How’d you get here anyway?”
Jean shrugged. “One minute, I’m staring down the muzzle of a giant, mangy wolf, and the next, there’s a bright light and I find myself here. I don’t know why things happen to me. I must just have terrible luck.”
I nodded toward the powder she was working with. “You in the coke business now, Sybille?”
She twisted to glare at me over her shoulder. A white mask covered her mouth and nose. “I’m in the magic business. You want to do a line, be my guest. You’ll find it on the top shelf five jars back.”
“Really?”
“No, you idiot.” She turned back to measuring out the powder. “I don’t keep that stuff out where anyone can find it. It’s locked in the cabinet with the rest of the things the norms would break in and steal if they knew it was here. No, this is something you don’t want to snort, even by accident. Tetrodotoxin.”
More commonly known as pufferfish poison. Technically, it occurred naturally in more than just pufferfish. Ocean sunfish, blue-ringed octopi, different snails, and newts…It was more toxic than cyanide and an essential ingredient in the process of making zombies, which was the only purpose I’d have for it.
“You going to make some zombies, Sybille? Or just try to sell me all that? Because as far as I know, I’m the only necromancer in the city.”
“Thank Heaven for that,” Jean muttered and floated over to examine the contents on a shelf.
She chuckled and placed a lid over the Tupperware container she’d been pulling the powdered tetrodotoxin from. “Talking to you is always so refreshing, Lazarus. I sometimes forget just how stupid and self-absorbed people can be. There is more than one use for it, you know, and it’s not always about you. Although in this case, it is.”
Sybille gripped the three-legged cane she used to get around and pulled herself to her feet with a grunt. Slowly, she shuffled across the room, pulled out a stool, climbed up on it, and stretched to slide the container back among all the other odds and ends on the shelf. I’d have offered to help her put away the container, but she’d just get mad and accuse me of treating her like an invalid.
“So,” she said, climbing down from the stool, “you need to go to Hell.”
“I need to do it in Our Lady of Guadalupe church, probably after dusk.” No one had said that, but Hel had inferred that I had to get things done before dawn, which meant I should start as soon as the moon was superior in the sky and the sun was down. Dusk and dawn were magical times, so it was easy to put two and two together and come up with that answer.
She shook her head. “Public place. Tourist destination. Don’t know if I can keep people out. If any tourists see your body just lying there…”
I shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. That’s what I’m paying you for, right?”
Sybille planted her cane and squinted at me. “You’re an arrogant ass.”
“Thanks. You say the nicest things, Sybille.”
“Fine,” she growled and hobbled back toward the table where she’d left the white powder. “I can whip up a quick spell or two that’ll strongly suggest any norms stay away, but it’ll only hold until dawn.”
“That’s all I need.”
“Get me the jimson weed down, would you?”
I went to the shelves and started turning jars so I could read the labels. “Jimson weed and tetrodotoxin. Sounds like I’m in for a fun trip.”
“I’m making two tinctures: one that’ll knock you flat for eight hours and another to ground you, so you don’t get lost on your journey. Doesn’t do you much good to go wandering around seven Hells if you can’t find your way back. I imagine your first trip back was rough.”
“You can say that again,” Jean said. “He nearly got us both killed. Or something. Whatever happens to things in the underworld that aren’t supposed to be there.”
I found the jar marked jimson weed and pulled it out. It was full of dry, brown leaves. “I killed half of Leah’s herb garden and a cactus before I was really back,” I said, walking over to hand it to her.
Sybille took the jar with a grunt and placed it on the table. “Valerian root next.”
“Didn’t realize I was your errand boy,” I muttered and went back to the shelves to find the next ingredient.
Her chair scooted across the wooden floor. “The second paste I’m making should help with that. You’ll be tied to your body, which should prevent some of those ill effects. While you’re gone, I’ll put some ivy around you. Better to draw on it slowly over time. Plus, the ivy will discourage possession.”
“Is that a danger?” I bumped a jar aside. It crashed to the floor and shattered, spilling an orange powder everywhere. I cringed.
Jean backed away, despite being immune to dying. He didn’t have a body. “Tell me that wasn’t an airborne toxin, Lazarus!”
Sybille twisted around for a look. “Powdered starfish. You were lucky. Knock over the blue one next time. Banishes noisy pirate ghosts.”
“I was a privateer, I’ll have you know!” Jean puffed out his chest.
I breathed a sigh of relief and grabbed the valerian root before climbing off the stool.
Sybille took the jar from me with gloved hands and started measuring out some of the greenish-brown powder. “Possession is always a danger when you leave your body. Any number of nasty things could climb inside you while you’re not in it. Ghosts, another Archon, demons.”
I grabbed the broom and dustpan from the corner. “You’re the second person today to bring up demons. Should I be expecting to encounter them?”
“Pray you don’t.” Jean’s voice was grave. “They aren’t the little red monsters with pitchforks you see in cartoons, boy. They’re not common, not true demons anyway, but they’re out there. You see one, you run the other way, you hear me?”
“Uh-huh.” I concentrated on sweeping up the mess. If I ran into a demon, I doubted I’d get the chance to run—or that I’d take it if the opportunity presented itself. As the Pale Horseman, I could kill gods. Anything that had a soul was fair game if I could get close enough. I wasn’t going to run from a little demon. They should be running from me.
Sybille finished mixing up her two tinctures with more help from me before ushering me to her truck. It was a big, souped-up Ram that sat high en
ough it could pass as a monster truck if she’d just paint some teeth on it. How the little old lady could see over the steering wheel at all was beyond me, but the ride over to the chapel was smoother than I expected.
Our Lady of Guadalupe was the oldest church still standing in New Orleans. Some people thought the old Saint Louis Cathedral was older but they forgot that it had to be rebuilt in 1850 and then again in the early 1900s, due to a bombing.
Guadalupe was first built to be a mortuary chapel for the victims of a yellow fever epidemic that swept through town in the 1830s. At the time, medical science believed yellow fever could be spread by exposure to the dead and banned other local churches from holding funerary services. When Our Lady of Guadalupe was constructed, it was the only place the dead could go to have a proper burial. Because of that, the place was one of the most haunted buildings in town.
Most of the ghosts in the old mortuary chapel weren’t malicious, though, just sad. They were stuck on replay, watching their relatives mourn their untimely deaths, and unable to move on because they still couldn’t accept that they’d died. With enough time and effort, I could work through the ghosts and send them on their way but I’d never bothered. It would be time-consuming and use up a lot of supplies. Unless someone was willing to pay for all the expenses I’d incur, I didn’t want to risk performing the spells I’d need in an occupied church.
Of course, I’d totally forgotten that the church might be occupied on All Saints’ Day until Sybille couldn’t find any parking. The lot was full to bursting. Some more adventurous drivers making their own spaces when the lot ran out. A sign out front advertised that there would be a dusk service that went until ten. Afterward, the clergy would check to make sure the building was empty before they left. Chances that Sybille and I would be discovered and disturbed shot from probably to absolutely.
“What do you want to do?” I asked her, eying the church from where she’d pulled over in a patch of grass. “The place is probably packed.”
Sybille jerked the gear shift from drive to park. “The sanctuary, sure, but probably not the mortuary chapel.”
I winced. The mortuary chapel would be even more full of ghosts than the main church. It was a little building off to the side and the oldest section of the structure. I didn’t know for sure if it was still in use. If it’d been sealed up all this time, there were likely to be a few ghosts in there that could be problematic. Not that I was worried. I was the Pale Horseman, and I had New Orleans’ premier witch in tow. We could take all comers, provided they came slow, and while I was conscious. It was the only option, though, so I’d take it.
We unloaded from the truck, me carrying a plastic water bottle full of some foul, brown liquid, and an old makeup jar she’d filled with green sludge. Apparently, those were her tinctures. There were a few people outside, but none of them gave us more than a cursory glance. I was just another guy, helping his grandma into the church, rushing because they were late. Since they couldn’t see Jean, no one even gave the soul floating next to us a second thought.
Instead of going through the front door, we slid around the side and walked through some freshly mowed grass. Chanting drifted through the cracked windows of the church and filled the air with a quiet, nostalgic, calm. It was a spell, even if the people inside refused to acknowledge it. Pony made sure I knew that early on. The Catholics were experts at inundating their worship with everyday magic. The whole call and answer performance in every service had been designed to bat energy back and forth. By the time the guys in the fancy robes got on stage, there was enough magic in the air to convince the staunchest atheist that he was missing out on something and he’d better listen.
It wasn’t mind control. No, the church was careful never to veer into those spells. They were all about free will. Just suggestion spells to calm and quiet the mind, and things to encourage a sense of belonging.
Pony had taught me how to shut all that down but then dragged me to church every Sunday anyway. I’d always wondered why. A couple of hundred years ago, the same church would’ve hunted us down and burned us at the stake just for existing. Half of the churchgoers probably still would, given the chance.
Now that I was standing outside, listening to the singing, feeling the gentle spells weave through the air, I understood. This magic was pure and powerful in the same way a hot shower after a long day would be, or warm soup when you’re sick. It was quick and easy relief from the pressures of everyday life. The people inside didn’t have to worry about anything but their God for a few minutes, which must’ve been a freeing feeling.
Too bad most gods were dicks.
The mortuary chapel was a small building the rest of the place had been tacked onto. Built of old, stalwart brick laid both in the walls and the floor, stepping inside felt like moving back in time. The main room was a near replica of the place where I’d met Baron LaCroix the night before, except this chapel wasn’t falling apart. Thankfully, it was also empty.
Sybille went to the front, squatting on the other side of the altar under a statue of the Virgin Mary to lay out her tools. I watched her work and wondered about the irony of a witch doing her magic in the shadow of the Virgin Mother’s likeness. Wasn’t that magic too? If the Immaculate Conception really did happen, how could anyone think it was anything other than the result of a spell? Hell, holding my own kid still felt like magic. Maybe magic and religion were two sides of the same coin, different ways of explaining the same phenomena. I didn’t consider them to be opposing forces, but complementary, despite not being a religious guy myself. I knew there were plenty of practitioners out there who found power in their faith, and why not? Belief was a powerful thing.
“Hey, Jean,” I asked, walking down the lines of pews, “how do you suppose they decide which Hell a soul is supposed to go to?”
The ghostly pirate shrugged. “I don’t know. Do I look like an expert in the afterlife to you?”
I stopped and turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised. “You did spend several months there.”
“Good point,” he admitted. “But I don’t know. I don’t recall ever being consulted about being tossed into Helheim. It just happened. One minute, the beautiful creature was dragging me along, and the next, I was standing in this awful line that stretched on forever, white space all around. I decided I didn’t want to see whatever was at the end of that line and got out of there. Went through a barrier of some sort and wound up stuck there. I was resigned to live out my days hunted by Hel and forgotten by the living until you showed up.”
So, he’d wound up in Helheim at random. I was still convinced that there was some way of sorting souls among the different realms of the After. Maybe it was just one of death’s mysteries I wouldn’t get to figure out.
“Ready,” Sybille announced from the front. “Bring the liquid one. Drink it all down and then lie here.”
I popped the top, pinched my nose, and gulped it down. “Christ on Christmas. Tastes like raw sewage.”
“It’ll have a hell of a kick too. In about two minutes, you’ll be higher than a cloud.” She patted the stage in front of her.
Why was it magic potions always seemed to involve disgusting-tasting liquids and mind-altering substances? Just once, I wanted magic wands and wizard schools in rural Scotland to be a thing.
I went to the stage after coughing and hacking. She could’ve at least offered me a mint. My stomach rebelled at the idea of keeping the magic concoction down but I refused to throw up. The little stage wasn’t meant for lying down. My back and hips protested at lying on the hard surface. At least it was warmer than the morgue table.
Once I was on my back, staring up at the Virgin Mary with her arms outstretched, Sybille waved her hands over me and began to chant. The magic she was working made the liquid I’d just swallowed bubble like a tar pit. I was sure I’d vomit for about thirty seconds until whatever fun hallucinogens she’d put in there finally kicked in.
The statue leaning over me came to life, cle
nching her outstretched hands into fists. Cement cracked and fell from her skin, revealing a pretty teenaged Arabic girl with dark hair. She shook the last of the cement from her face and shoulders before smoothing the dust out of her hair and smiling at me.
I tried to blink but couldn’t move. For whatever reason, I was totally fine with that. In fact, I was fine with not breathing too. Everything was awesome. Whatever Sybille had put in that cocktail was a doozy.
Mary bent over and offered me a hand. I took it, but not with my physical shape. My soul climbed out of my body as if I were leaving a bathtub and slid my palm into hers. Mary pulled me to my feet and walked toward the cross hanging on the wall. Except it wasn’t a cross anymore. It transformed into a door, with the cross-section serving as door handles.
She opened the door, letting a brilliant white light shine through.
“What’s on the other side?” I asked her.
“Atonement,” she answered and gave my shoulders a push.
I stumbled through the door made of light and bumped into someone on the other side. “Sorry, pal.”
He was a heavyset, balding guy in a blue suit. Sweat dampened his face and his white silk shirt. The guy stared at me a minute with dead eyes before turning back around. Ahead of him were more people dressed in everything from bathrobes to burkas and everything in between. The line stretched on down a pure white hallway with flickering fluorescent lights. Some upbeat jazzy number played on stereos nestled into the corners of the hall. Dead ahead, a LED sign announced: NOW SERVING NO. 1,002,738,401. The light changed to the next number, and the line shuffled forward.
Dear God, this Hell was just like the DMV.
Someone bumped into me, sending me tumbling into the guy in the suit again. I turned around to find Jean screeching. “No! Not the line! Anything but this blasted line!”
Chapter Ten
“Calm down.” I grabbed Jean by the collar before he could run and held him in line behind me. The number changed again, and we moved forward. “See? The line is moving.”
