New Orleans, Louisiana, present day
It is said that in gruesome death the soul escapes to wander, to haunt, to seek out what holds them earthbound, be it vengeance, love, or some unfulfilled purpose. It didn’t matter to Nix Raveneaux the reason. It was his job as one of the Four Horsemen to make sure that did not happen. But when it did happen, it really put him in a nasty mood.
A murky breeze laden with the sour stench of decay unique to New Orleans’ back alleys, mixed with a hint of the river, buffeted at his back. Nix measured his steps along the street, empty in the darkest of the small hours. He listened for moans and whispers from breathing shadows. Somewhere near this part of the French Quarter was a soul to collect, an Unredeemed revenant that must be severed from this world. The damned soul would likely be a pitiful sight, confused, hollowed, often without a trace of the dignity left over from the living. Wandering in no direction of purpose or weeping like a pathetic weakling. That turned Nix’s stomach. He hated the inane weeping.
Once in a while, the Unredeemed’s energy was strong enough to attach to the determination of what kept it from crossing over. It was a peculiar thing, that determination, but not enough for Nix to care. The only intriguing thing about the Unredeemed was how they died. What manner did they meet with death? Even then it was often a letdown. Sadly, all too often it was by some boring means—gunshot, stabbing, drug overdose. Disappointing deaths. He had better things to do than corral careless or unfortunate victims who met with mundane ends. He’d rather work on his bike, hit the gym, or groom his white mare, Ethereal.
Centuries of tracking and eliminating wayward shades had made him bitter. He longed for the days when he was the conveyor of death. Not the bastard cleaning up the mess. Fucking humanity, doing a fine job of killing themselves off without the Horsemen’s involvement.
Maybe this revenant will have been mauled by a pack of wild dogs or crushed by a runaway street cleaner. He sighed. At least there was a wet fog rolling in off the river. Though, he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t responsible for the haze because of his mood. He listened to the fog, listened to sounds that carry amplified through the brume. Only his boots quietly tapped against the cracked, uneven sidewalk.
Rounding a corner of a dilapidated building toward the river, he heard it. A scuffle, a grunt. He tilted his head to better catch the near imperceptible noise. Behind him, in the other direction. Deeper into the Quarter. His steps quickened toward the source.
Nix slunk into the shadows of a service drive flanked by large potted oleanders. No light reached the stoop he slipped into, the dirty bulb over the door long since burned out. From his vantage, his target was easy to spot. A dull shimmer surrounded the Unredeemed. The aura did not quite detach. It scintillated as it stretched to peel off the dead man. This was the way it was with all wayward revenants.
The poor bastard looked to be in his mid-twenties. Not tall, not short. Stocky build with powerful arms. Spiky blond hair. Dried blood, open gashes, and ghoulish bruises covered his swollen face. The front of his blue t-shirt was soaked in blood, encircling the tear of the fabric. More reddish-black stains had spread down his jeans. Whatever wound he received in his gut, it was what killed him. Too much blood loss for a knife laceration. Had he been gutted? Interesting.
But not as much as the fact that this guy was still physically anchored to his body. The Unredeemed was not a ghost nor was he alive. And this surprised Nix. Why hadn’t his informant told him?
He watched the Unredeemed, how he moved nimbly without any signs of rigor mortis. The Unredeemed hadn’t been dead long. His wounds were fresh enough they still seeped and he lacked that faint scent of soul decay—the electrical odor, much like ozone before a storm—left behind after the soul fissured from the body.
The Unredeemed removed his shirt, balling it up and tossing it to the grimy ground. Nix could see it now. The angry hole in his stomach mirrored the one in his back. Holy hell, he’d been impaled! Nix couldn’t stop the twitch of his lips as he suppressed a smile. Might not be a boring collection after all. What the devil had he been skewered with? He’d have to ask before sending the man on his way.
Too bad this fellow was not alone. There was another and they were engaged in hand-to-hand combat. The other man was not dead, however. Not yet. But by the way his fugitive fought him, it wouldn’t be long.
Despite the foe was at least a foot taller, with a wide build, he hadn’t managed a well-placed strike. The Unredeemed slipped left and right, hardly moving his torso at all, and followed through with cross strike after cross strike.
Nix should step in and snatch away the Unredeemed. Send him to the realm he was destined—heaven or hell, though he would probably be correct in assuming this dude was headed to the bowels of purgatory. But the man’s moves were mesmerizing, quick, sinuous, and damn near poetic. He’d stepped back from his opponent and, in an instant, kicked him in the face, dropping him where he stood.
It occurred to Nix he had seen the guy before. Wes Crawford was fast becoming a local celebrity as a mixed martial arts sensation. Or he had been. Well, this complicated things. How the hell had he gotten himself impaled and who was this man he fought? More importantly, Nix needed to know how Crawford managed to be still attached to his body.
Crawford landed on top of the beefy rival and dropped an elbow to his head once, twice…
Nix couldn’t let this revenant kill the mortal. Well, he could, but that might alter any destiny associated with the man, unsettling the carefully orchestrated balance between life and death. But he hesitated. He wanted to see more of Crawford’s actions. It was as if the Unredeemed was not dead at all. He was not merely a ghost of himself. He was absolute and strong in his body. Nix had only seen the walking dead a handful of times in his centuries of life. Those souls, even while in their own skin, had clumsy, mindless control over themselves—true zombies, by today’s standards. Often some type of witchcraft was involved in the making of those wraiths. Nothing of the sort had happened since the cleansing witch hunts of the seventeenth century.
Crawford was different. He fought, he breathed, he bled, and he was in control of his every precise movement. Why hadn’t he crossed over? What force kept him rooted to his body? What would he do next?
Curiosity won out. He watched as Crawford wrapped his arm around the larger man’s throat and squeezed. By the time Nix decided enough was enough, it was too late. The revenant choked his foe to death. Nix saw the moment when the man’s soul blinked out. Ah well. So much for avoiding a butterfly effect. Nix could only hope that the dead man’s future did not include a child that would change the world for better or worse. A wry chuckle stuck in his throat. Guess they would never know.
A shimmer in the humid night prickled along Nix’s neck. Another presence was somewhere close, in the shadows, too. Another observer. What the fuck? How had he missed that? The cloak of obscurity had shifted. If on purpose or by accident, he couldn’t be sure. Nix scanned the empty alley and adjacent street but saw nothing. So be it. They were about to witness him, a ruthless, immortal gatekeeper of death, pluck away a soul.
He stepped from the darkened recess. Crawford, with his back to Nix and on his knees, stared down at the corpse. Though Nix made no sound as he approached, Crawford’s head snapped up, his posture stiff and unmoving, even the breath he’d been heaving only a moment ago stilled.
In a flash, the Unredeemed spun around to his feet, putting distance between him and Nix. His muscles coiled and his fingers splayed, ready to fight once again. Laughable, really, all things considered. There was fear in his sharp hazel eyes, but not fear of Nix. Fear of something else entirely.
“I know who you are,” Crawford said, his voice gravelly and low.
Nix slowly blinked. “That so.”
“My grandmother told me. Told me of the men who steal away the souls of those who have sinned. Drag them to hell behind steeds of fire to suffer for all eternity.”
Steeds of fire. Nice. Brought back memories of the pomp and flash of the old glory days. “And?”
“You’re one of them. A Horseman.”
Nix suppressed a grin. They still told tales, did they? Nix shouldn’t be surprised. The older generation of New Orleans thrived on superstitions and ghost stories, many of which were true.
“I thought the stories were just to keep me in line,” Crawford said.
“How did that work out for you?” He rarely toyed with the revenants. Instead, he did his job without a second thought and went on with his business. But that this guy knew what he was sparked his curiosity further.
“I won’t go with you.” Crawford assessed his surroundings, looking for an exit route. Idiot.
“There is no escape when the Horsemen come for you.” Nix took a step forward. The air rippled again. The observer was near, but he couldn’t pinpoint where or just how close. Best be on his guard. The rogue demons had been restless as of late. While he relished defeating a rogue—kept him in practice—Nix wasn’t in the mood to be interrupted now.
Crawford circled around the dead man, out of Nix’s reach. “I won’t go.”
“You will.”
“I can’t.” Fear spread like a disease across his expression, in his posture.
“Did your grandmother tell you what happens to the souls who refuse the Horseman?” Nix circled the body, too, letting Crawford think he might have a chance to slip away. “There is no torture worse than what the Horsemen can invoke. Burning flesh dripping from your body. Scavengers eating you from the inside out. Your limbs slowly ripping away. Whatever whim we conjure up, it will sure to be an excruciating death repeated over and over again.”
“It would be better than the torture I suffer now.” The agony in the grooves of his face said he spoke truth.
Against his better judgment—to not care at all what the Unredeemed could consider worse than the deliverance an immortal beast such as himself could administer—he probed. “What has bound you to this world, son?”
“I have to save Tara. They have her. He will hurt her, maybe kill her. I can’t let that happen.”
“Noble. But you don’t belong here any longer.” Love trumped death again. Rare as that was, it both fascinated Nix and disgusted him. Love, such a combustible emotion—easily consumed and often wasted. The jackass was delusional to think a dead man could make a difference now. “Her fate is not yours to alter. It is time to cross.”
Crawford put more distance between them, disturbing the growing mists rolling into the alley. “No. I won’t go. I won’t let you touch me.”
Nix tired of the game. Being a Horseman, he was created, in part, from the elements, namely water. As long as there was water present, he could manipulate it at will. And as long as there was water present, could conjure up his weapon of birthright, a spear. This was never a problem in a city like New Orleans. The very air was woven thick with humidity from the surrounding river, lakes, bayous, swamps, and Gulf.
With little more than his inclination, the halberd, his weapon which combined a spear with a battle axe, materialized in his palm. It was solid as the strongest steel. The spike at the tip of the staff was needle-sharp, the blade able to slice a human into two with hardly any effort, and the beak…he pitied any bastard hooked by the curved sickle.
“You are the Conqueror.” Crawford eyes widened. His voice finally trembled, as if now realizing the stories his grandmother regaled him were verily true in correctly identifying Nix.
“You know your folklore.” Nix didn’t bother with disguising his self-indulgent smile.
Crawford’s nostrils flared, knowing it was useless, Nix had him. But the panic in his eyes, that strange and annoying fear of something other than Nix, grew wild as he searched Nix’s face, stance, and weapon.
“You also know, son, I don’t have to touch you to send you over to the other side. That you could not outrun my weapon.” Nix tapped the tip of his weapon to a dandelion weed growing in the cracks of the concrete. The weed blackened, the leaves curling as the plant shriveled from disease.
“Please,” he choked out, his gaze shooting up from the dead plant. “I have to save her. What he’ll do to her…” Crawford fell to his knees, broken, weeping. Cripes, the weeping. “I knew you’d come for me. Knew it as soon as I realized I wasn’t dead, really dead. Fuck… I…I just had to try to get to her before you came. Allow me more time, Conqueror. Just until I save her.”
Nix was taken aback. It had been long times past since people believed so strongly in the Horsemen. It had been an ego boost, for sure, to be the nightmares of fools. But as society evolved, Nix had become quite comfortable with fading away into forgotten mythology. It was an odd twist that this guy not only knew him, but knew he’d be coming. He’d thought it through. Thought to ask for more time. As if Nix was merciful.
“Death waits for no one. Including this woman of yours, if that is her fate.”
“It isn’t her fate,” he spat. “It’s mine! She wouldn’t have been there if she would’ve just listened to me and stayed home. Now he has her, has what he wanted all along.” He threw his head back and rammed his hands through his hair, growling and cursing up into the darkness.
Ah, what the hell. “Who, Wes?”
Crawford dropped his arms to his side, his mouth hung open in question.
“Yes, I know who you are, as well. Wes Crawford, Crescent City MMA fighter, local celebrity.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “It’s my fault. I should have never brought her around him.”
“Who?”
“Belial.” He ground out the name in a snarl. “I don’t know his real name. I think his last name is Macon.”
The name was familiar. An alias chosen after a demon known for fornication, wealth, and pollution. “Belial.” Nix let the name roll off his tongue. “Leader of one of the crime syndicates running here in the city. Drugs, gambling, trafficking.”
Crawford hung his head, nodding. “He owned me. I was his prized boxer in the underground circuit, paying my debt to him, ya know.”
Nix had heard it before. Junkies and low-grade dealers rolling the dice in a game they wouldn’t win, blowing product or spending the cash faster than they could make up for, always burning the wick at both ends until they were snuffed out…literally. This character wasn’t all that interesting anymore. What a letdown.
The Unredeemed blew out a bitter chuckle. “We were gonna break free,” he said. “Tara and me. Been tryin’ to clean up ever since that scout from the North American MMA Federation offered me a deal. The money, the promotions, the getting the fuck out of here. Dude, it was so hard to stay away from the drugs, ya know.” He looked up at Nix, eyes filled with remorse. “The pain…from fightin’, it was too much sometimes. The drugs took away the pain.”
He didn’t give a shit about Crawford’s vices. They all had burdens to carry. Every damn one of them.
“Did you feel that?” Crawford froze. His gaze darted to the shadows beyond. “Someone’s here.”
Nix did feel it. The air pulsed when he called forth his spear and the presence had ebbed away. But it had been steadily inching closer. He no longer believed whoever was there to be a threat. Rogues didn’t shy away just because a weapon was present. They were programmed to fight, not fear the battle or their eventual demise, even when they should. No, whoever was watching was not a threat. But how was it that Crawford felt the presence, too?
“Never mind that. It’s harmless.” Sure, Nix was mildly interested in Crawford. But he had to do a job. Send Crawford over. The sooner he did that, the sooner he could get back home and finish cleaning out his fish tank. And yet, he needed to know more about how the boxer’s soul remained connected to his physical being. Now he had a pesky voyeur to contend with.
He nodded to the gaping hole in Crawford’s stomach. “Tell me about that.”
Crawford spared a glance down. Angry jagged flesh had begun healing regardless of the blood trickling from the wound. Confusion set in. “How…”
“Yes, how?” Nix already knew the answer. The Unredeemed was drawing energy from his surroundings and his body was knitting itself together. But it took a conscience effort to draw the energy in. And Crawford was doing it without knowing how. Another perplexing question. “What happened to you?”
Crawford sat back on his heels, defeat pulled upon his shoulders. “I was driven to a warehouse not far from here. Belial was there, waiting. He hadn’t been receptive when I refused his offer of managing my new career. Thought to persuade me. Strung me up to the rafters and let his assholes use me as a punching bag.” His fixated upon the damp concrete ground. “Almost broke me.” His voice was but a rasping whisper. “Until they brought Tara into the room and she freaked out. Took two of ’em to hold her back.” He paused, as if stifling his emotions. “I wish she hadn’t seen me that way—hangin’ there like a side of beef, useless, unable to keep her safe. She was the one thing Belial wasn’t able to own. She hated him, was immune to his charm and money. Tara is mine. Or was…” His troubled, pleading gaze found Nix’s. “If he couldn’t have me, he’d take her. At that moment, I knew I was dead. He was going to kill me, make it look like an accident. Just like the others.”
Riveting. Nix bit back the sarcastic remark, but his patience was waning. Sad stories weren’t his thing. That came from centuries of overseeing death. Horsemen were numb to the suffering of mortals.
“Offered her immortality,” Crawford continued. He shook his head at the apparent absurdity of it. “Make her a part of some tertian world, or something.”
“Tertian world?” The tertiary realm, the fabled parallel to heaven on earth. Where godlike beings fed on ambrosia, drank sparkling nectar, and danced naked. It was a lie, of course. To gain tertian paradise and immortality and gluttonously indulge without sin, something was traded. Either the soul, which irreversibly rots, or, in exceedingly rare cases, something more detrimental than the soul—someone else’s. More often, however, the fool mortal who crossed to the tertian realm entered into the service of a demon as an Infernal. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Promised her a life fit for a princess—jewels, clothes, cars, European vacations.”
A princess kept as an eternally fettered consort.
Crawford’s lips curled as he rolled his head in a maelstrom of frustration, disgust, and anger, struggling to keep his emotions in check. “He’s gonna make her his fuckin’ pet. Drug her up. Keep feedin’ her veins. Fuck. I watched him stick the syringe in her arm before...” He choked on a sob. “I’ve got to get to her, get her away from him.” Crawford’s gaze shifted from Nix to the street and back again.
“Did Belial say anything more about the tertian world?”
“What? No.”
“Did he promise you immortality?”
He shook his head, confused by the question.
Nix had to be sure. He had to know the details of his death. The man’s physical being should not be here, mending. And yet here he was, the flickering aura around him growing brighter. “How did you,” he waved to Crawford’s gut, “die?”
Crawford’s gaze slipped past him again, his fingers flexing.
“Answer me, son. You won’t get past me. You won’t escape.”
The frown set on his brow deepened and his nostrils flared. Good. Let the bastard get angry. Nix didn’t care as long as he got answers.
“Yeah. Like I said, the assholes were getting their licks in real good while I was hangin’ from an industrial hook. Guess I got a rush of adrenaline when they started hurting Tara. One of ’em got too close to me, and I caught him around the chest with my legs. Used him for leverage to lift myself up enough to slip the rope off the hook. Got him by the neck with it, strangling him. Rolled him to the ground. I was able to get to my buck knife in my pocket and cut through the rope before one of the other guys got to me.” He shook his head, evidently surprised by the feat. “But my arms, they were weak. I couldn’t last fighting them off. Somehow, we stumbled into the courtyard. Fuck, I couldn’t breathe, my body hurt, and I couldn’t will my arms to end the fight. There were too many—Cochise, Meaux, Junior, Nicky,” he glanced to the dead body, “Charlie. All it took was one goddamned crushing blow and I was flung back into a twisted, metal gate.” He splayed his palms out over his gut. “It went right through.” Crawford winced, his hazel eyes dimmed. “I heard her screams. They were brutal. Worse than having an iron spoke sticking out of me.”
“But you didn’t die.”
“I…I don’t know.” Confusion muddied his expression. “I must have. I couldn’t see; it was all black. And I heard…singing.”
Singing? What the…? Hearing the heralded angels sing was a fucking myth. Hell’s bells, he’d once heard Oz sing and he sounded like a dying cat. “Then what happened? How is it you are here?”
Crawford slowly shook his head, trying to recall. “I don’t know how long I was…dead. I just remember waking up and vomiting. I had to help Tara, but they were long gone. The place was clean.”
“And this guy?” Nix tilted his head to the corpse.
“Charlie. Found him at the gym around the corner a few blocks down. Led him here to find out where they took her. He had other ideas.”
“I’m sure this wasn’t it.”
Energy pulsed through the alley. The observer was closer than before. Crawford noticed, too. His fingers twitched, his eyes darting around for the origin.
“I have to go.”
“No. I can’t let that happen.”
“Please, I’ll cross as soon as she is safe.” He snapped up his torn shirt. “You can have my soul. I just, I have to save her.”
If Nix had a heart, he might feel compassion for the revenant. He couldn’t deny Crawford would do anything for his woman. Hell, it’d been an eternity since he’d seen a chump bleed his love for someone enough to trade his soul. And that had ended badly for all involved. No, it was best to stay the course. And that was to eradicate the Unredeemed and end his physical presence. “Not your concern. You cross now.”
A strong scent wafted in on a breeze, fruity and warm. Blueberries? Blueberry soap? Nix spun around. There, near the corner of the alley and street, he saw her—a child.
She stood barefoot, her frilly white nightgown reaching her ankles. Long, tangled dark hair hung to her waist, dark eyes devoid of emotion. Wrapped in her arm was a doll dressed much like her, except its face had been removed and replaced with burlap cloth, the eyes and mouth stitched closed. Nix shuddered. She was one freakin’ creepy little girl.
Crawford bolted. By the time Nix turned, the bastard was gone. He glanced back over his shoulder. So was the girl.
Damn.
