Night Terror (The Lazarus Codex Book 7)
Page 27
We piled into Emma’s Escalade shortly after, with Moses in the driver’s seat and Grammy up front next to him. Emma and I stretched out in the back seat. I yawned and put my arm behind her. Smooth. For once, she didn’t comment or push it away, but leaned against me and closed her eyes. We were asleep before the Escalade ever made it off prison grounds.
***
I woke up when the Escalade screeched to a stop in front of a Starbucks. The sun was up, and it was mid-morning, meaning I’d slept all the way back to New Orleans. I glanced through the tinted window to see a middle-aged guy in a heavy coat standing next to a shopping cart full of junk. He was sipping from a coffee cup, glancing around nervously.
Baron Samedi leaned against the wall next to the guy, his hands folded over the end of his skull cane. The Baron had put on a purple velvet coat with some black fur trim. He looked more like a pimp standing there than the Loa of death.
Emma sat up and yawned. “Are we there yet?”
I nodded. “Time for me to become the Pale Horseman again.”
She followed my gaze through the window and frowned. “You don’t want to do this, do you?”
I didn’t. I wanted to go back to Emma’s collect my daughter, and sleep for a week. Then for the next month, I wanted to spend every waking moment with the both of them, just enjoying ourselves. I wanted my life to be mine again.
Don’t get me wrong. Being the Pale Horseman, helping people and saving the world, it was an awesome gig. But after seven months of non-stop action, it was wearing me down. I needed a break. That wouldn’t happen anytime soon, not with Loki prowling around. Sooner or later, he’d get his war and I’d have to be there to stop him.
“I have to do it,” I said eventually. “For now.” I slid up through the seats and open the side door, nodding to Moses. “Keep the engine running.”
He nodded back.
“About time you got here.” Samedi snapped closed a pocket watch he must’ve pulled out when he saw it was me. “We’ve been here for hours.”
“You should try three corners down. This neighborhood’s too nice.” I gestured down the street with my thumb.
“What?”
“Never mind.” Better not poke the bear. Samedi didn’t seem like he was in the mood for jokes.
The man in the heavy coat, who I took to be Eugene, walked to the end of the sidewalk. His smell didn’t precede him, so I guessed the Baron had successfully gotten him through a shower. “So, how’d it go?”
“Titan’s dead as far as I can tell. If not dead, definitely stripped of its power. You won’t have any trouble from him anytime soon.”
“How?” The Baron demanded, his voice growing deep.
I shrugged. “Once I knew it fed on magic, it wasn’t that hard to deduce that cutting it off from magic would weaken it. Traveling to the heart of the Titan’s power might’ve been suicide, however, if I hadn’t had the Sandman’s mantle. It gave me god-like powers in the dream realm. Here’s your bag of sand, by the way. Neat stuff, sand. Still nasty to get in your eyes.” I held the plastic baggie out to him. It’d refilled on its own shortly after we left the prison compound.
Eugene grunted and took the bag. “How’d you keep it from feeding on your body while you were out? The mantle might’ve given you what you needed once you got into the dream, but on the outside, you were still vulnerable.”
“My friends.” I waved back at the Escalade.
Grammy waved back, and Moses dipped his head.
“And just in case it somehow got past them, I made this.” I turned back to the pair and pulled the dream catcher out of my coat.
Eugene squinted at it. “That is the ugliest dream catcher I’ve ever seen. You better stick to crystals and tarot.”
“Any trouble while I was gone?” I asked.
Eugene and Samedi exchanged a glance before the Baron answered, “A bit of a disturbance over at the nunnery. Somehow Abbess Francesca Delane sat up during her own funeral service. The nuns were quite distressed.”
I winced. So that’s where all that necromantic power had gone earlier when Eugene gave me the Sandman mantle.
“Nothing we couldn’t handle.” Eugene beamed and held his hands out. “But I’m ready to go back to being the Sandman now. Being you is kinda exhausting.”
I clasped Eugene’s hands so we could trade back. “On that, we agree.”
***
A massive ice storm rolled through the middle of the country, causing delays and cancellations in airports all over. Emma’s parents’ flights were canceled, and Curtis got leave from work thanks to his injury. Grammy had nowhere better to be, so the family stayed in town an extra week to drive Emma crazy.
She coped by sneaking out of the house and crashing at my place as much as possible, which I couldn’t complain about, even if it did mean I had to clean up. She gave me an earful about the mess. It was just a sink full of dishes and a lot of laundry that needed doing, but that happens when you’re busy saving the world.
My father was laid to rest on a chilly Tuesday morning in Saint Patrick’s Cemetery. We didn’t have a family plot, but I purchased space enough for two with the increased stipend Baron Samedi gave me. The stone wasn’t finished yet, but when it was, it would have both my mother and father’s names on it.
Like most plots for people of moderate income, he didn’t get a mausoleum, just a patch of dirt set above the ground with stone stairs leading to it. The funeral home covered it with a plastic tent because it was misting that day.
I sat through the service with Emma at my side and Remy in my arms, a numb and distant feeling taking over. The realization that one day Remy would have to bury me had sunk in and scared the hell out of me. I didn’t want her to feel about me the way I felt about my old man.
I hadn’t known my father. All I ever saw was one side of a complicated man. He was a frightening figure. In a way, my worst nightmare. A terrifying, mysterious force whose motivations I might never know. I couldn’t do that. No matter what, I had to be there for her, something I might not be able to do if I stayed the Pale Horseman. Eventually, I’d have to give up that role for her sake.
I stayed in the cemetery long after they’d lowered the coffin and tossed the loose dirt over the top, hiding it from view. Mist turned into rain. It drummed out an unpredictable rhythm on the tarp above my head, and the wind carried some of it in to splash on the back of my neck. Memories paraded through my mind, good and bad. They were all that was left of a life almost no one would miss.
Emma touched my shoulder gently, telling me it was time to without ever uttering a word.
With a sigh, I lowered my head. “Bye, Dad. See you later.”
I walked out of the cemetery with Emma and Remy after rebuilding my mental defenses and stopped on the sidewalk. Grammy stood on the other side of the street, grinning at Moses, who was visibly uncomfortable with all the attention she was giving him. Joyce laughed, and Perry smiled. They were getting along finally. That was good to see. Curtis shifted his arm, which was still in a sling, and gave me a nod.
They weren’t the perfect family, but it was close enough for me. Nobody’s perfect.
THE END
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Books by E.A. Copen
The Judah Black Novels
Fortunate Son
Guilty by Association
Perfect Storm
Blood Debt
Chasing Ghosts
Playing with Fire
Other stories in the Judah Black Universe:
Kiss of Vengeance
Cold Spell
Broken Empire:
Aftermath
The Lazarus Codex:
Death Wish
>
Death Rites
Organ Grind
Shallow Grave
Knight Shift
Death Match
Death’s Door
Night Terror
Other Works:
Beasts of Babylon