Death And Darkness

by E. A. Copen

  I woke up in my own bed and snapped up into a sitting position, a scream caught in my throat. Sweat raced down my back as I fought to get my breathing back under control. Just a dream. I shifted my hand and bumped it against something solid. Whatever it was, I grasped it and brought it into my lap. The horn. At least, a version of it. This one was smaller, more manageable than the one in the dream, but no less powerful. I could feel the magic vibrating inside it.

  My phone buzzed, reminding me it was low on battery. I picked it up to glance at the clock. Only an hour had passed.

  I needed air. Setting the horn aside, I stood on the bed and tried to switch on the fan in the window, but the power must’ve still been out. Aside from the occasional stray raindrop, it pulled little of anything in. With a sigh, I sat down on the damp bed and brought the horn into my lap.

  Odin had confirmed the ritual Fenrir had shown me would work and given me all the details to finish it. Might as well do it while I had a few free minutes. I sure as hell wasn’t getting any more sleep after a dream like that, and it wasn’t time to go see Moses.

  I turned the horn over, examining it more closely. Magic aside, it looked just like any other Viking war horn, I supposed, though I hadn’t seen any of those outside of textbooks. Beth had done a unit in college on Norse myth and history, and I recalled seeing them in her books. I ran my fingers over the polished surface and thought it matched the texture of a horn knife Pony had given me once. What the hell had happened to that thing? I still had it around here somewhere.

  I glanced around the room once before setting the horn aside to go dig in a pile of things I hadn’t had time to get up on the wall yet. He’d gotten it for me at one of those pow-wow things he took me to occasionally. I guess he thought it was important for me to have a multicultural education, being a teenage boy in southern Louisiana. Anyway, the knife was one of those overpriced tourist things with a dull blade but a nice antler handle. He took it home, pried the crappy steel out of it, and paid someone to forge a good knife in its place.

  “Every man should have a knife,” he’d said, and that was the end of it.

  Like a lot of gifts, it got tossed into a box somewhere to collect dust. Now I wished I’d kept it. Maybe I could’ve used it a few times. I’d certainly been stabbed enough myself to warrant carrying one.

  I opened a shoebox full of other knickknacks from when I was sixteen and stupid: An old, scratched up Green Day CD, a rolled-up Underworld poster, an old controller for the Wii I’d long ago thrown away… Wow, talk about a trip down memory lane. That was more of my teenage years than I wanted to remember.

  There it is. I lifted the knife and held it in the small ray of bluish light coming in through the window. The blade wasn’t the sharpest, and the bone handle wasn’t as polished as it used to be, but it’d do.

  I retrieved my staff from the corner and slowly, carefully used the knife to pry the silver rings holding the souls loose. They were open on one end, the tension of the metal band holding them closed around the steel rod. It wasn’t easy to pop them free, but the knife helped.

  While I worked, I hummed some nonsense that eventually morphed into one of Pony’s favorite tunes, House of the Rising Sun. I’d always joked that’d be one I’d play at his funeral since he was such an old womanizing son of a bitch, but now that the time was upon me, it didn’t fit. Once this was all over, someone would have to go collect his body and arrange a fitting burial. He’d have to go somewhere in the city he helped save. Nothing else would do.

  I wondered if he’d made final arrangements. He’d had time to do so if he wanted, but I didn’t know where I’d find all of that information. We hadn’t had the time to talk it over. Time, it seemed, was the one thing I never had enough of. I wouldn’t have time to bury him either. If this all went according to plan, I’d be dead alongside him.

  Once I had the four rings free, I added them to the grooves on the horn. They didn’t look like they’d fit; my iron staff was much narrower than the bone horn. Yet when I snapped them in place, the silver rings seemed to expand to fill the grooves as if by magic. It might’ve been magic for all I knew, but it wasn’t something I’d done.

  I placed Pony’s ring at the top, followed by the one I’d pressed the fae soul into. The blank ring meant to hold the angel soul I had yet to acquire went next, leaving only the ring where Hades was.

  Rather than pressing it into the horn, I lifted it into the moonlight with a frown. Hades had agreed to let his soul be used for the spell only when we thought it would be a permanent death for him. Now that I knew better, I wanted to make sure he was still on board. It wasn’t fair to continue this if he wanted out, especially since he had a wife back in the underworld waiting for him to come home.

  With a little spark of my will, a cloud formed around the ring and shot out to hover over the carpet. After a moment of shifting and changing, it took on the familiar form of the muscular god, though iridescent. He stretched and yawned. “Is it time for the final showdown already? I was having such a nice dream.”

  “Almost.” I rubbed my palms on my knees. How to break this to him gently?

  “Something’s wrong.” He frowned. “What is it? How can I help?”

  I sighed. Here goes. “It turns out the spell will consume the souls.”

  He stared at me, face unchanged. “So…I wouldn’t be reborn.”

  “Right.”

  His eyes widened. “I’d never see Persephone again?”

  “You can back out if you want. I still have a day to find another god.” I didn’t think I’d find one in time, especially since I still had to secure an angel soul.

  “No, you can’t.” Hades shook his head. “I can see it in your face.”

  I shrugged. “It could happen. Anything could happen. Life is full of surprises.”

  Hades turned away, eyebrows drawn together in thought. When I had first removed his soul from his body, I didn’t know what I was going to do. At the time, I hadn’t seen a way around handing it over to Loki, which would’ve given him even more power. Josiah suggested we keep the soul away from Loki. He gave me the silver bands, showed me how to use them. The plan was to eventually find Hades a new body. He wouldn’t be the first being whose soul I’d put back into a corpse. I’d saved Emma in the same way, though I wasn’t exactly looking forward to having to give Hades the Kiss of Life. Still, it let me skirt the line, narrowly avoiding murder while still getting what I needed from Loki, and Loki was none the wiser. I had tricked him, and he didn’t even know it. He’d know it if Beth or Emma discovered I had Hades’ soul, though, which was why I’d worked so hard to keep that information under wraps.

  “I’m still in.” He turned back to face me, expression resolute.

  “Hades, you don’t have to.”

  “Yes, I do. If I don’t, more than this fair city is at stake. The world could well be next, and I am more responsible than most for the situation. Tartarus was under my care. I should have secured it better, made it impossible for Loki to breach the walls, even in the event I was incapacitated. I made a mistake, for which there are consequences. I’m ready to pay for them.” He dropped to one knee in front of me. “All I ask is that I be given time, a few hours to go to my wife and console her. I give you my word that I will return and assist you in your quest.”

  I cringed. I didn’t want to accept Hades’ offer, but he was right. With the time crunch and so much left to do still, the chances that I could find another god to give up their soul in time were slim to none. It wasn’t fair, I didn’t like it, but I didn’t think I had a choice. The least I could do was let him say goodbye to the woman he loved.

  “Absolutely. I hate to put a time limit on things, but could you be back by midday?” I was hoping that was all it would take to deal with the angels.

  Hades nodded and rose, making a fist. “You have my word. I’ll return at noon, and we’ll go end this.” In a flash of light, his spectral form turned back into a cloud and flew through the open w
indow, leaving the fan blades spinning in its wake.

  I pressed his ring into the horn and used the leather string to drape the horn over my shoulder. Then I rose, staff in hand, and went to the door.

  Emma was sleeping on the sofa while Beth dozed in the chair. I woke them up, tapping my staff loudly against the wall. Beth jumped up, holding her black staff in a defensive pose while Emma groggily reached for the spear lying on the floor next to her.

  “I’m going to go see Moses Moses,” I announced, “And I want you two where I can see you, so you’re coming along.”

  Beth relaxed. “Good. With Typhon so close, it’s time we all stuck together. As soon as we have that last soul, we need to return to Loki and secure a ship.”

  “First, we have to convince Moses to let us talk to his boss.” I swept by them and went to the front door, holding it open for both of them.

  Beth grabbed the discarded umbrella from the corner and stepped outside to open it.

  Emma paused next to me and tilted her head. “Where’d you get that?” she asked, gesturing to the horn.

  I could feel Beth’s eyes burning into me. It probably wasn’t the greatest idea to mention I’d gotten it from Loki’s most hated rival, but she was still Emma, which meant I couldn’t lie either. “Woke up from the craziest dream and it was there. I think this is the horn we need. It’s ready all except for the angel soul we need and a few final touches.” I gestured through the door and she stepped through it, seemingly satisfied with my answer.

  I stepped into the rain and turned to pull the door closed behind me, looking over the house one more time. So many memories were in those walls, good and bad. I’d lived an entire life there. Once I closed that door, I’d never see that run-down little house in Algiers again. It was like closing a chapter in my life. One of the final chapters.

  I took a deep breath and nodded. You’ve got this, Laz, I thought, and shut the door behind me.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Moses lived in a little blue bungalow in the Upper Ninth Ward. It wasn’t a long drive from the house in Algiers, but it was long enough to notice how empty the roads were. The rain came down in heavy sheets, pounding against the windshield like tiny fists. I noted the river was up as we drove over it, but not dangerously so. Not yet.

  Portable flashing signs sat at intersections that were usually busy, each displaying information about the closest evacuation point. People without the means to get out on their own would have to rely on the busses the city brought in. We passed one of the stations on the way. Tired-eyed people shuffled in small groups near a waiting bus, mostly elderly people with walkers, oxygen tanks and other medical equipment. Some brought suitcases and bags, but the volunteers working at the station would be telling them to leave most of it. Fleeing the path of a hurricane meant taking only what you could fit on your lap and leaving everything else behind. The people stared at my little car as it fought against the rising wind to get down the road.

  The weather report played on the radio station. It didn’t look good, but I didn’t need the weatherman to tell me that. I’d weathered a few hurricanes before, even if I had missed Katrina, and I could feel it in my bones. This one was going to be bad. My gut said I should be leaving town with the rest of them, but I couldn’t.

  It was a strange feeling, knowing that from a certain perspective, the storm would claim my life. I wasn’t afraid, although I thought I should be. Hell, I’d barely had time to think about it over the last couple days. The one thing I felt bad about was that I would have to break my promise to Remy. I’d promised to return to help her with the strange infection in Summer, a task I couldn’t complete if I was already dead. I hadn’t wanted to think about it at the time. Part of me still wanted to believe I could come back from this, but I was trying not to focus on that. There’s nothing worse than false hope.

  “What’s your backup plan?” Beth asked from the back seat.

  I glanced at her in the mirror. “If Moses won’t help us, we find another way.”

  “What other way?” she insisted.

  I clenched my jaw and focused on the road. The only other person who might know how to set up a meeting with Michael or one of the higher-up angels would be Josiah, and it was probably too late in the game to get a message to him. Convincing Moses was my one and only option.

  I pulled up to Moses’ house and slid into the narrow driveway behind his old Buick, which was already loaded down with luggage. He’d be getting out of town once he finished his shift probably. I put the car in park and got out, not bothering with the umbrella. After so much time in the rain, everything was already wet, and there was too much wind for it to do any good. I did take my staff, but only because Beth took hers. I didn’t trust her to behave.

  I was halfway up the walk when the storm door opened and Moses leaned out, a hand over his eyes, shielding them from the sideways rain. “Hurry on up and get in here, you three, before you catch your death out there.”

  We shuffled by and stepped into a small living room. Rainwater dripped onto a thick, brown carpet. He’d already tossed tarps over his furniture and re-enforced the windows with boards. A black plastic-top folding table sat in the front room next to the one remaining window, a propane camping stove on it warming a kettle.

  Moses went to the table with the makeshift stove and pulled a few foam cups from a plastic sleeve. I spied his gun tucked neatly into its holster as he bent over. “Good to see you’re all in one piece, Laz. Emma, good to see you.” He flashed me a questioning look.

  I shook my head. She still wasn’t back to normal.

  The news seemed to deflate Moses a little. “You havin’ any luck on your quest to stop all this?”

  Beth broke away from where we were standing to pace behind the sofa. I watched her move with a frown but said nothing. As long as she didn’t cause trouble, wasn’t much I could do.

  I stepped forward to be closer to him, just in case. “I have everything I need except for one thing. Still need an angel, Moses.”

  The kettle whistled, blowing steam into the humid air. Moses switched off the tiny flame and dropped a tea bag into each of the foam cups before filling them. “I passed your message on, Laz, despite my objections. Michael’s reaction wasn’t exactly encouraging.” He offered me a cup of steaming tea and held another out to Emma.

  I took the cup and blew on it. “Well, is there someone else we can talk to? This is sort of important. You’d think you guys would be all about saving humanity and all that.”

  Moses sighed and offered the last cup of tea to Beth, who shook her head. He shrugged and kept it for himself. “I told you Michael wanted war. After God disappeared and the Devil mantle went up for grabs, he figured it was a sign he was supposed to act. He thinks this is the apocalypse he’s been waiting for. Once Typhon makes landfall, he’s convinced there will be an epic battle. If not with Typhon, with Loki, and if not there, with whoever wins this civil war in Hell over being the next Lucifer. There are so many apocalypses in the works, he can take his pick of who to smite.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Everyone seemed to believe angels were the good guys, but my experience was proving otherwise. They were selfish assholes more interested in reliving their glory days fighting demons than actually helping anyone. But this couldn’t be a dead end. There had to be some way forward. I refused to accept otherwise.

  I placed the tea on the lid of a plastic tote. “Then let me talk to someone else.”

  “There is no one else,” Moses insisted. “Anyone with any power defers it to Michael. They’re either too weak or too afraid to do anything. No one would dare defy him, Laz. The consequences…” He shook his head.

  “Becoming one of the Fallen.” I’d seen a few during my trip to Hell. Twisted, deformed versions of angels, they were scary looking bastards. I hadn’t had to fight one directly, but Josiah had killed one or two. He had magic I didn’t, however, being half-angel. “Do you think they’d count?”

  Moses shook
his head. “Their souls are corrupted. I don’t know if they’d work for your spell, but they wouldn’t be the same. And besides, do you even know how you’d get one to show up? Even if you did, you’d be dead. You’re not equipped to fight one of them. None of you are.”

  “Maybe with some help,” I said.

  Moses gave me a doubtful look. “I’m a watcher, not a fighter. I might be a crack shot with a gun, but that’d just piss it off. Maybe you can find another way to stop this Titan, Laz. You did it before.”

  My hands closed around my staff, and I shook my head. “There is no other way. People have already given up their lives to make this happen, Moses. I don’t want their sacrifices to be in vain. Even if I found another way, there wouldn’t be enough time now. Typhon is a day and a half, maybe less, away from making landfall.”

  “Then I don’t know what to tell you.” He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Maybe it’s just New Orleans’ time. Get out of the city, Laz. Regroup. In time, you’ll think of something else.”

  And during that time, Typhon would wreck my city. More than that, he’d move inland and kill people there too. This was bigger than New Orleans.

  Moses took his hand away and stepped back to his makeshift table to add a little sugar to his tea.

  “Let me talk to Michael directly then,” I said. “Maybe I can convince him.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you? He ain’t gonna come, Laz. Not even if I call him here. Michael can’t be reasoned with. I’m sorry, but this is a dead end.”

  “Just give me a chance to try, Moses.”

  He turned toward me and opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Moses’ eyes widened. His teacup tilted forward, steaming tea draining out to the floor like a waterfall. Moses stumbled forward. I barely caught him. He looked into my eyes, trying to mouth something, but he never managed words before the light went out behind his eyes.

  Still shocked, I looked up to see Beth standing right behind where Moses had been, holding a glowing gold streaked soul in her hand.