by E. A. Copen
Thanatos ground his teeth and pointed his scythe at me. “This isn’t over. We’ll meet again. Enjoy your freedom while it lasts, Necromancer.”
He struck the handle of his scythe against the ground, summoning a green-black flame to surround him. When the fire died down, Thanatos was gone.
“That was a bit dramatic,” I noted.
Odin turned around to face me, observing me with his one good eye. The guy had a way of looking at me that made my spine tingle and my gut squirm. Even as a spirit, I was uneasy under his gaze. “Thanatos is not to be trifled with.”
“So everyone tells me. I found a fish for your birds.” I pointed.
Huginn and Muninn were already busy tearing it in half to be devoured.
“I was going to bring you some Twinkies, but I have a little trouble picking things up in my current body.”
“You should have thought of that before you pulled your soul out.” He sighed and reached to his shoulders to adjust how his cape hung. “But then I suppose it was inevitable, considering it’s you I’m talking to. You could’ve used anyone’s soul, yet you chose your own. A little planning and you could’ve avoided all this.”
“Hey, man. I never claimed to be smart or good at what I do. Samedi picked me, not the other way around. I’m ready to give up being anybody important and get back to my life, but first I’ve got to put myself back together.”
Odin lifted his hands and shrugged. “Of course. How can I assist?”
“First, you could give me back my shadow. It’s part of what I need.” I pointed to the hand he’d been holding the shadow in earlier.
The god frowned. “I would if I could. Unfortunately, as a spirit—and a weak one at that—you can’t cast a shadow. If I were to give it to you now, it would simply cease to exist. You’ll have to find all the other lost pieces first.”
I let out a frustrated growl and turned my face toward the sky. “That’s what I’m trying to do. Let me guess. For whatever reason, you can’t tell me where the pieces are, or how to retrieve them?”
“I never said that.” He sat down on nothing and pulled one knee toward his chest as if he were stretching a sore muscle. “The problem is I don’t know where they are. You’ll need help from someone more suited for tracking souls.”
“Can’t you even give me a hint? You’re a god. You’re telling me you can’t just look out over the city and spot a couple of glowing bits of Lazarus tartar?”
He rubbed his forehead as if he were the one nursing a headache. It just wasn’t fair that even as a ghost, I could get a throbbing in my forehead whenever life got frustrating. Unlife. Whatever. “I cannot guarantee my limited knowledge will be helpful, but I may know something.”
“Something’s better than nothing.”
His Ravens finished with their snack and hopped up on either shoulder, blinking and tilting their heads at me as if to ask for more. Odin patted one of them on the head and stroked his long beard. “Well, there are natural places—metaphysically speaking, of course—where a soul might break. Pre-determined lines, you might say. It’s one of the prevailing theories used in the underworld to break them down for processing. They say if you know how to hit them and where, it all happens much more smoothly. I don’t know the specifics, however, as the underworld isn’t my domain. But if you could find someone who was familiar with torture in the underworld somehow and the processing of souls, you’ll have someone who knows how to help you.”
“So, I should go to the After?”
“Goodness, no.” He sat forward, suddenly alarmed. “If you go there, you’ll be stuck. That’s exactly where the Reapers want to take you. No, you’ll have to look around the city. I’m sure there’s someone here with a connection. A demon, perhaps?”
Josiah might know someone, I thought. It hadn’t been that long since I became mostly dead. He couldn’t have left town already, not unless he went by non-traditional means, which was entirely possible. Magic travel was one of the perks of being an asshole like Josiah. But if he was still around, all I had to do was find some way to communicate with the living. That was still my biggest barrier to enlisting help.
“What about other necromancers?” I asked. “Are there any more in the city?”
“The city’s been mostly evacuated,” Odin pointed out. “And even when everyone was here, I think you were the only one who was open about it. It’s not like I’ve got some sort of GPS for necromancers, Lazarus.”
I flopped onto the ground, my feet extended in front of me toward the river. “So what you’re telling me is that I’m basically screwed once the sun comes up.”
“It does seem that way, yes.”
Maybe I should just let Thanatos drag me off then. Not like I didn’t expect to die. I knew nothing good would happen to me if I pulled out my own soul. At least I’d managed to save the city, though that was temporary too. I looked up at the stars shining in the darkened sky. If I’m going to die, I might as well use what little time I’ve got left to make sure everyone is set to go to Faerie.
“You said time was my enemy,” I told Odin without looking at him. “How do you fight something like time?”
He hopped down from his invisible chair and came to stand beside me. “You don’t fight time, just like you can’t truly fight death. Both eventually win, no matter how much we all wish it weren’t true. Humans waste so much time and resources trying to fend off the inevitable. I’ve often wondered if their lives wouldn’t be happier if they just accepted what was to come and made the most of the time they had left.” He cleared his throat. “But you’re asking in relation to Mask. What I meant when I said that was exactly what happened. He manipulated you into running off without a solid plan in place. Once again, Lazarus, your hurry to save those you care about only served to complicate your life.”
I twisted to give him a stern look. “What was I supposed to do? He had my kid.”
“I never said you shouldn’t save her. Just that saving her had consequences. This is the consequence.” He gestured around him. “Now he’s been kicked out of Earth, but not stopped. He’s regrouping, gathering his forces for an even bigger assault. And Earth has lost perhaps the only person who could give him a challenge. You need to get yourself back together, Lazarus, and fast. If you fail, I fear it will be the end for more than just those delectable snack cakes I like. What happened in New Orleans was only a test, a probe. When he launches his full-scale attack, there won’t be anything any of us can do to stop it. Your people need to strike now, while he’s weakened.”
“I need to make sure they know that.” I stood and went to dust mud and sand from my clothes only to remember I was a disembodied spirit now. I didn’t collect mud and dust. When I turned around, Odin was gone. I sighed. Typical Odin.
I had a lot to do. Finding the shattered pieces of my soul was a priority, but I couldn’t do that unless I just happened to run into another Horseman, a necromancer, or someone who understood how the underworld worked and was inclined to help me. I didn’t even know where to start looking for that.
More importantly, I had to check on everyone and make sure they weren’t just sitting on their hands. They had to go after Mask in Faerie now, before he got his forces back together and launched his next attack.
I scanned the riverfront, trying to think of where to start. If I were my friends, where would I be? Probably hovering over my body, waiting for me to make a miraculous recovery. I closed my eyes and cringed. Somehow, I was going to have to get them to leave my side and go make battle plans. Wouldn’t be easy since no one could see or hear me. If I’d been alive, I would’ve pumped him full of magic for a few hours so everyone could see him, but I could barely feel my power there anymore. Instead of the normal roaring fire of power, I had maybe a small spark, and I was saving that for an emergency.
I floated back toward the city. Well, I’d better go check on my body.
Chapter Four
Because the hospitals weren’t safe during the outbreak,
no one had taken me to one. They’d set me up in the basement of the police precinct where Emma worked.
Returning to the precinct brought back a lot of memories. How many times had I run in to wait for Emma to get off work, just hanging by the front desk to annoy the duty officer? I’d treated those days like they’d never end, practically taken for granted every moment up until the last. If only I’d had more time… You’d think a necromancer like me would know better.
The station was buzzing with activity. Cars and Humvees came and went every few seconds, stopping in front of the entrance to unload officers and troops. Must’ve been a shift change.
Because of how busy the front was, I went around to a side entrance. There, nurses in multi-colored scrubs wheeled a gurney out the side door toward a waiting ambulance. Grammy, I realized, floating closer. She’d been in the basement with me under the care of Nate’s father. I’d done everything I could to make sure Emma’s grandma had the best care team possible, considering the situation.
“Now, you make sure you get them straps good and tight,” Grammy said to the nurse who’d stopped to adjust her straps. “I don’t want to be falling out. Boy, you must work out. Look at them arms!”
“Please lie back, miss.”
“She’ll be all right.” Nate’s father, Ben, backed out the door with a clipboard in his hand. He was speaking to someone inside. “Just a few more tests I want to run, and then I’m happy to release her, provided you’ve cleared your home. She will need someone to stay with her for a few days.”
“Of course,” came Emma’s answer.
I didn’t have a heart, but something still ached in my chest at the sight of her. She had deep, dark bags under her red-streaked eyes. While she’d pulled off her bulletproof vest, she hadn’t bothered to change her clothes since the last time I’d seen her. Probably hadn’t slept or eaten anything, either.
Ben put a hand on her shoulder. “What about you? I’m not sure you’re in any shape to take care of anyone if you don’t get some food, water, and rest.”
She closed her eyes. “I want to. It’s just…”
He sighed and clutched the clipboard to his chest while crossing his arms. “I know you’re holding out hope that he’s going to wake up anytime, Emma. Maybe that’s so. I hope it is. But the preliminary evaluation I did wasn’t promising. That’s why we had to move him.”
“I know he’ll get better care at the hospital, it’s just…the ventilator and all those tubes. Is all that really necessary? He could wake up tomorrow.”
Ben pressed his lips together and nodded. “Emma, we discussed this. There’s no electrical activity at all in his brain. In a strictly legal sense, he’s gone.”
Whoa, when had that happened? Maybe I’d been like that from the start. All I’d seen before was that I had a heartbeat and some faint vital signs. If the only thing keeping me breathing was a machine, though, I guess my body was shutting down without me.
Emma stiffened and sucked in a shaky breath. A rogue tear slipped down the side of her face. She quickly wiped it away.
The doctor went on, his tone gentle. “We can remove the ventilator at any time. Whenever you’re ready. But if you take more than six or seven days to decide… The body’s just not equipped to function for that long without signals from the brain. We’ll have to disconnect him before then if he doesn’t recover. Only a handful of people have ever come back from this, Emma, and all the cases I know of are related to hypothermia. You know where I stand on the issue.”
“Lazarus is special,” she said, wiping away another tear. “He could still come back from it.”
Ben nodded, squeezed her shoulder, and turned away without saying another word.
Emma folded her arms and stood on the little back stoop, watching as they loaded Grammy in. Only once they shut the back doors to the ambulance did she turn and go back inside.
I followed, phasing through the door once she closed it and keeping my distance as she made her way down the hallway. They’d moved my body, but with a handful of hospitals all over New Orleans, it was impossible to know where they’d taken it. My best bet would be to stick with Emma until she went to see me. If she went to see me. Maybe it was too much for her to deal with.
An awful feeling churned in my chest, and I wished I’d never pulled my own soul out. I’d told Emma we deserved to be happy, and then I went and did this to her? I robbed her of her happiness. Even if it was for a good reason, it wasn’t fair. I had to do something to make it up to her if that was even possible. Once I got back into my body, I was going to tell Samedi to shove the Pale Horseman mantle up his ass, replacement or no replacement. I was done.
Emma went into a break room where Nate sat at a table in front of a cold coffee, his head in his arms. He was snoring. Guess he was too tired to find his way to the bunks. She shook him awake gently.
Nate blinked twice, sat up, and fixed his glasses. “What time is it?”
“Time for one of us to go home and get some sleep,” Emma answered.
He lifted his glasses to rub his eyes. “Is someone with Lazarus? He could wake up at any second.”
“Josiah is with him, but someone needs to relieve him. He said he’d gotten a call from someone and needed to go.”
Nate stretched and yawned. “I’ll go to the hospital then and relieve him.”
“You should go home to your wife,” Emma said, going to a locker on the far side of the room.
He dropped his hands into his lap. “Leah went to stay with her parents in Chicago during the evacuation. I don’t want to go home to an empty house, and there’s nothing for me to do around here. Besides, I caught a nap just now. You haven’t slept in days, and you’ve got to go get the place ready for Grammy. I heard Dad say they’d be releasing her in the next day or two.”
Emma pulled her jacket from the locker and shrugged it on with a yawn. “You’re probably right. I just…I don’t want to miss it.”
Nate stood and pulled Emma into a hug. “He’s going to be okay, Emma. I won’t let anyone pull the plug on him. Not even my dad. And I promise I’ll call you if anything changes.”
Emma hugged him back. “He has to come back, Nate. He has to. There’s so much I didn’t get to say.”
“I know.” He patted her back.
She took a step away, sniffling and wiping away more tears. “Look at me. I’m a mess.”
“Get some sleep, Emma. I’ll go straight to the hospital.” He nodded and pushed in his chair before going to the door.
Nobody should be wasting time going to the hospital. Mask is still out there. They’ve got to prepare. But how the hell am I going to tell them when all I can do is make the lights flicker? I looked up at the lights in the break room. The glowing tubes sat behind a clear plastic tile. I reached up to run both hands through the bulb. With every pass of my hands, it flickered.
Emma and Nate looked up at the light.
Yes! I got their attention. Now all I had to do was figure out how to get a message across. Let’s see. One of them’s got to know Morse Code, right? I passed my hand through light again and again, trying to spell out the age-old S.O.S.
Suddenly, the lightbulb exploded in my hand. A shower of sparks and tiny flame fell on Emma and Nate, who shrieked and darted for the other side of the room.
So much for that.
“I’ll tell maintenance about the light on my way out,” Emma said. “You go on.”
Nate let out a sigh of relief, pushed himself off the wall. “I’ll see you later?”
Emma nodded. “I’ll drop by the hospital first thing in the morning to check on Laz and Grammy. I’ll see you then.”
Nate tugged on his hoodie and went out the door.
I hovered in the air for a moment between Nate and Emma, deciding what to do. I needed to get through to one of them, but which one would be most likely to pay attention? Emma had always questioned the supernatural, but recently she’d come around. Still, I’d never known her to pay attention to thing
s like blinking lights as signs of anything supernatural. It took something significant to convince her that anything paranormal was going on.
Nate, on the other hand, took everything in stride. The supernatural never fazed him, and he was about to go stand over my dying body. It might be easier to reach him with all the delicate electrical equipment around.
Emma sat down at the table and put her head in her hands, then stared straight ahead. She didn’t say anything, but I knew what she was thinking by the look on her face.
I floated closer and sank through the table on the other side of her as if I were sitting down. “I know it’s not fair. You deserve better. If I’d known this is how is going to play out, I swear I would’ve told you. But I didn’t. I never do. I never see these things coming, even though everyone else seems to. I’m an idiot, Emma. I’m sorry you got hurt.”
She couldn’t see or hear me, so it didn’t make much difference that I’d apologized, but I didn’t know what else to do. She did deserve better, and I had been an idiot. I just hoped that once I finally found a way back into my body, she would forgive me.
There was nothing left for me to do at the station, so I floated through the door after Nate. He’d made out to the parking lot, ambling slowly towards his Kia. Jean had said to be careful of cars, but that most new ones might be okay. Nate’s car looked kinda new to me, but I couldn’t be sure. How new was new? I was probably safer sneaking in once he opened the door. Of course, I didn’t really need to go in the car at all. I could just fly along and follow him to his destination. It’s not like I was getting tired. One of the few benefits of being a disembodied spirit, I guess. Nearly limitless stamina.
But I wanted—no, needed—to remember what it was like to be human. If I forgot, I might not make it. So, when he opened his door, I darted in past him and settled into the tiny backseat.
Nate settled into the driver’s seat and buckled in. He sat there for a minute, fiddling with the radio before he remembered all the stations were covering the so-called crisis in New Orleans, which he was witnessing firsthand. He shut it off with a sigh and then reached to adjust his rearview mirror.
