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  DARK

  HORSE

  Book 9 of The Lazarus Codex

  By

  E.A. Copen

  This is a work of fiction. Names, persons, places, and incidents are all used fictitiously and are the imagination of the author. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, events or locales, is coincidental and non-intentional, unless otherwise specifically noted.

  No portion of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  E.A. Copen

  DARK HORSE

  Book 9 of The Lazarus Codex

  © E.A. Copen 2019

  All rights reserved.

  Please contact the author with typos, questions, or unicorns. I like unicorns especially. [email protected]

  ***

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  A Word from E.A. Copen

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  Chapter One

  It was the hottest day on record in New Orleans, the power was out, and some asshole was knocking on my door.

  The first three things I realized as I woke up from my alcohol-induced nap didn’t seem to have anything in common until I sat up and peeled yesterday’s paper off my face. The headline urged folks to turn their air conditioners down just a few degrees to ease the pull on the city’s power stations and prevent the brownouts rolling through the city all week. Guess nobody listened, because the brownout had become a blackout. Not even the ceiling fan was still running. What that had to do with the impatient pounding on the front door was anybody’s guess.

  Maybe it’s the power company. I yawned, stretched and pulled myself up from the sofa to shuffle over the carpet to the front door, scratching an itch on my chest as I walked. “Hold your horses. I’m coming.”

  The knocking stopped.

  I opened the door only to find two sharp spears pointed at my neck. The women behind the spears glared at me, eyes full of warning.

  “Move and you’re dead,” snarled the thin, brown-haired woman on the right.

  “Nice to see you too, Beth.” I nodded to the short, muscular black woman at her side, careful not to make any threatening moves. “Emma.” The sight of her nearly made my throat close.

  She was dressed in a form-fitting leather top, black skirt with high slits, and boots uniquely suited for ass-kicking, identical to Beth. She’d let her hair grow out, thick and coiled like a nest of snakes, waiting to strike.

  Underneath all that, though, she was still Emma. My Emma. The warm and caring no-nonsense cop who made my heart beat faster and my brain turn to mush. Nothing, not even the threatening scowl on her face, would change that. Deep down, she was still who she’d always been.

  At least, that’s what I’d wanted to believe ever since she started working for Loki three months ago. He had to have worked some spell over her or brainwashed her. The Emma I knew would never knowingly work for someone who wanted to bring about the end of the world.

  I shifted my grip on the door to lean on it. “You can put down the spears. I’m not going to hurt you unless you give me a reason.”

  Beth’s weight shifted, unsure. “Why not? We’re sworn enemies.”

  I sighed. “We’re technically co-workers since you’re a Horseman, and we both know I’d never raise a hand to hurt Emma, under Loki’s mind control or not. Plus, it’s just too damn hot. What do you ladies want?”

  Beth lowered her spear and Emma followed suit. I tried not to look at Emma. Every time I did, a rush of memories hit me and it hurt too bad.

  “Before we continue, I’d like to remind you that you still owe Loki two names,” Beth said.

  Two lives, more like. A few months ago, I found myself in a bind and facing death. Permanently. I broke down and did something I hadn’t done in years. I prayed. But the universe isn’t without a sense of irony because it wasn’t some benevolent god who answered my call. No, they were all either busy fighting among each other or afraid of me. Loki answered, and he demanded I kill three gods for him in exchange for restoring my life. I’d delivered on one and sort of hoped he’d forget about the other two after I stormed his headquarters and tried to kill him.

  I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if not for those meddling Valkyries, but Emma especially. She showed up under his control and I lost all the will to fight him since it meant going through her.

  I cringed. “Today? Now?”

  Emma raised a hand. “It’s not what you think.”

  It was the first time I’d heard her speak since she changed sides. I had expected her voice to change for some reason, to become harsher, maybe have a slightly evil cackle added to it. That it hadn’t made everything harder for some reason.

  “Loki wants to meet with you, Lazarus,” Emma continued, “and once you hear what he’s got to say, you’ll be glad you did.”

  I let go of the door to cross my arms. “Now where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah. When Beth gave me her ‘come over to the dark side’ speech.” I glared at Beth. “It didn’t work then, and it’s not going to work now. Under no circumstances will I ever work with Loki again. I already killed a friend for him. I nearly lost my daughter because of him. I lost...” I trailed off, unwilling to vocalize it, and cleared my throat. “I lost everything because of him. If he’s got two names, he can deliver them to me himself instead of hiding behind the reminder of people I used to care about.”

  I grabbed the door and prepared to slam it in their faces.

  Emma reached out and caught the door, her hand just inches from mine. “You didn’t lose Remy, Laz. Or me. Not yet.”

  My chest hurt, not because my heart was beating so fast, but because there was a big, ugly scar over my heart and she’d just ripped it open again. I let myself meet her eyes. They were big, brown, and full of fire and life, just like always. She looked like Emma, sounded like her even, but this wasn’t my Emma. This was Loki’s twisted version of her. Knowing that made me heart sick all over again.

  I shook my head. “I don’t even know who I’m talking to right now. Emma Knight? Or is it Loki? Or someone else?”

  Beth stepped forward. “If you shut that door, you’ll be throwing away your only chance at putting things right. The way they’re supposed to be. You wanted Loki to tell you himself? That’s what he wants, too. He wants to meet with you, Lazarus. No guards. No gimmicks. No tricks. But it has to be tonight. Right now. So, make your choice.”

  I looked from Emma to Beth and back again. If they’d wanted to
kill me, they could’ve done it. They didn’t even have to knock on my door. They could’ve just lit the house on fire while I was asleep and walked away. Loki needed no excuse to kill me, especially since I owed him two souls.

  That still didn’t mean I wasn’t walking into a trap. Loki only did what was good for Loki. Still, if he was willing to extend an olive branch, who was I to turn my nose up at it? Maybe he’d come to his senses about this whole end of the world business.

  And maybe I’d sprout wings and become the tooth fairy.

  I sighed. “Let me get my pants on.”

  Five minutes later, I met them outside, metal staff in hand, dressed in a pair of shorts and an old white t-shirt I found with a pair of gingerbread men on it that read THE WALKING BREAD. The two of them were standing next to an ordinary-looking white sedan. Beth pulled open the driver’s side door and held it, indicating that I’d be driving, probably so they could make sure I wouldn’t bail.

  Emma took the front seat while Beth slid into the back.

  I sighed, got into the car and shut the door. “Where to?”

  Beth pointed out toward the road. And they say men suck at communicating.

  Beth directed me across the river toward the business district. That late, it was a ghost town. Fog clung to the upper stories of black and copper high-rises. Tinted windows reflected passing headlights below in blurry yellow blobs.

  I glanced over at Emma, whose attention was fixed forward, her stare hard and distant. What must this be like for her? Did she remember anything about me? About us? She said I hadn’t lost her, but everything else said otherwise. I hadn’t seen or heard from her in three months. Usually when a woman ghosts a guy like that, it means things are over.

  Maybe it was all part of the act to get me to go with them. I wanted so badly to see her in there, yet I saw no spark of recognition when I looked into her eyes. Only anger and violence, as if there was a war going on in her head. Maybe Loki had totally erased her memory. If so, what did that feel like, to have no past to remember, no future to live for... There would only be the present, Loki’s orders to obey.

  Or maybe she remembered everything. She’d given me the cold shoulder after she found out what I had to do to Hades. Emma didn’t tolerate criminals, murderers least of all. I knew we’d be over after that, but for her to cross over to the other side and join Loki? That was a stretch.

  No, the only explanation that made sense was that she didn’t know me, and that might be something I could fix.

  I cleared my throat. “How about some music? Everybody likes music.” I leaned forward and switched on the radio. The latest from Imagine Dragons was on. Go figure. It was summer in America, which meant you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing them on the radio. Not that I was complaining. Could’ve had worse on the radio in the middle of the night.

  Emma had never been a fan of them, so I switched the station and landed on Journey singing the chorus of “Separate Ways”.

  “Stop that,” Beth said. “Turn it off.”

  I sighed and shut off the radio. “Now I know for sure, at least. I don’t know who you are, but we can’t be friends if you can’t jam out to Journey, Beth.”

  “We’re not friends,” Beth said. “Turn here.”

  “We were once.” I turned where she indicated, taking us onto Lasalle Street. We were down by the old, abandoned Charity Hospital. Maybe that’s where she was taking me. Interesting place for Loki to be holed up. I glanced over at Emma. “What did you mean earlier? That I hadn’t lost you yet?”

  Her lips parted as if she were about to answer me, but Beth cut in. “There. Park.”

  All business. Guess I wouldn’t make any headway trying to talk to her after all. Still, something about that stare made me want to believe she was trying to remember. Maybe there was still a spark of something there. If only I could figure out how to fan the flame, she’d break through and see Loki for who he really was. It didn’t even matter to me if Emma took me back, so long as she was free from whatever control Loki had over her. She needed to be free to make her own decisions, not forced into servitude. The very idea made me wrap my fingers tight around the steering wheel until it groaned under the pressure.

  The parking spot she directed me to was right on the street, next to a huge cement building with thirteen floors whose windows had long ago been busted out. Now, graffiti-covered chipboard and rebar blocked most of the windows. In the darkness, the main wing towered high, blocking out the moon. With all the lights coming from the surrounding city blocks, the darkness of this one stood out.

  Once, the Charity Hospital had been a busy hospital, treating thousands of patients each day. Founded in the 1700s with money from a dead sailor’s will, it must’ve been one of the oldest operating hospitals in the country when Katrina hit. But when the levees broke and the flood waters rose, the Mississippi and the Gulf gobbled it up just the same as all the other historical landmarks.

  There’d been a number of assessments done on the place, determining if it’d be cost-effective to renovate it in the wake of all that damage or just tear it down. Renovation won out, but unfortunately the city just didn’t have the funds, so the hospital remained gutted and empty, a ghost of its former self.

  I parked and got out to stare up at the dead, water-stained concrete. “Funny place to meet a god.”

  “You were expecting a palace?” Emma grabbed her spear and shut the door.

  “I don’t know what I was expecting exactly, but definitely not a waterlogged ruin.”

  Emma said nothing, choosing instead to hop over the barrier.

  I climbed over the barrier with a grunt, landing on the other side loudly. “Where are the rest of the Valkyries?”

  “Watching,” Beth said simply as she joined me. She tugged on the heavy iron chains that held the door shut and they came loose in her hands. They must’ve been for show.

  The door creaked as Emma opened it, revealing unyielding darkness. “After you, Lazarus.”

  I gripped the door, holding it just above her hand. “You wouldn’t lead me into an ambush, now would you, Emma?”

  For the first time, something similar to the shadow of a smile touched her lips. “Maybe. The only way you’ll ever know is to go inside.”

  “And if I change my mind? You going to stop me?”

  Her smile sprouted, as genuine as ever. “Why? You want to see if I can take you with my new and improved powers?”

  I shrugged. “The Emma I knew was into guns, not spears.”

  Emma gestured back the way we’d come. “You’re free to go at any time. But if you do, you’ll be turning your back on people who need your help. Tell me you’re not too far gone that you’d do that.”

  Too far gone? So, she did remember what I’d done to Hades. How much had Loki used that to his advantage, though? He could’ve told her any story he liked. While it was true I had killed Hades, my back was to the wall. I’d only done it to get to Remy when she was in danger. I felt awful about it, but I made a decision. I had to protect my kid. Besides, death was relative when dealing with gods, Horsemen, and necromancers.

  Emma ushered me into the hospital. The air smelled musty and old, and it only got worse the further in we went. Old papers littered the floor. Graffiti covered everything from floor to ceiling. The old security station at the entrance had been smashed, the pieces carried away for who knew what. Remnants of old rat-eaten sleeping bags packed one corner of the lobby area, but no one had slept in them in a long time. We passed two boarded-up elevator shafts that looked like someone had tried to force their way through without any luck.

  As for us, we took the stairs. The old corridor was dark and hot as an oven. If it was ninety outside, it was easily a hundred and twenty in that corridor. I tugged at my collar and wished I’d had the chance to bring a water bottle with me. Climbing those stairs in the heat was going to be murder.

  Beth clicked on a flashlight, the beam dancing through the dusty darkness to settle on the landing
above. “Third floor,” she advised. “We should get moving.”

  I gripped the banister, half-expecting it to crumble in my hands. It didn’t, but it did give a little more than I expected. A good squeeze and pieces of it might break off in my hand. Hopefully the stairs were in better shape. They groaned and complained under my weight, but the first one didn’t give, so I climbed on up. Carefully.

  “About what happened with Hades,” I said, slowing my pace. “You know I didn’t have a choice, right, Emma?”

  Beth pushed me forward. “Get moving.”

  “I know,” Emma said. “I understand.”

  “You do?” I slowed my pace even more.

  “The past doesn’t matter,” she recited as if from memory. “The only thing that matters is the future.”

  “And what about the future of the entire human race?” I turned my head to eye her behind me. “If Loki has his war, won’t we all be toast? He wants Ragnarök. To end the world. How can there be any kind of future after that?”

  Beth halted on the step behind me and tilted her head to the side, Emma just one step behind.

  Emma grabbed Beth’s flashlight and pointed it at the wall, highlighting black decay on the stairway beside us. “Look at this place. It’s rotten, broken. Falling down. And the city just left it to decay like a body lying in the street. Do you know why? Because there’s no point in fixing it, or anything really. Fix it up and there’ll just be another hurricane. Another disaster. More destruction, pain, and death. It’s an endless cycle, one I witnessed again and again. For every bad guy we took off the street, four more would walk away. It was like trying to plug a leak in the Titanic as it went down.”

  I stared at the blackened, graffiti-covered wall. “There are still good people that want to turn things around.”

  “I’m not saying there aren’t.” Emma passed Beth and placed a hand on my shoulder. “But aren’t you tired of fighting? Don’t you just want it all to be over? Wipe the slate clean?”

  “The only possible ending is an extinction, Lazarus,” Beth said. “And wouldn’t a controlled extinction, one in which a small percentage of people survive to build a new world—a better world—be preferable to total annihilation?”