Dead Lucky (6 page)

"I spoke too soon."

"What else is new? Take a peek, Conor. This is why I needed you."
 

I looked into the room and had to cover my mouth so I could half-cough, half-laugh in relative silence.

The room contained an art collection of sorts. It was climate and humidity controlled, keeping everything nice and fresh. Paintings rested on the floor and the walls, some of which I recognized as somewhat famous. Swords and other assorted ancient weapons were mounted on racks on the wall. There was a case filled with antique computers, and another with all kinds of small figurines.
 

In the back of the room was an altar. A mural of a white snake was painted behind it, and it was surrounded by candles and incense, though all of it was unlit. In front of the altar were dolls. Voodoo dolls, I guess. The largest was a black man with a skeletal face in a black top hat, and a woman in white.
 

The dice were sitting on top of the altar in a rough wooden bowl. There had to be a hundred of them.

"I like this guy," I said.
 

I walked up to the altar and looked down into the bowl. Unlike at the casino, I wasn't feeling anything.
 

"Are you sure they're in here?"

"Not completely. They all look the same to me. All I know is that he didn't have them in his coat when he left this room."

Maybe I needed to touch them? I started reaching into the bowl, and then paused.

"Dannie?"

"What?"

I turned around.
 

"How does he know which ones are the real thing, if only a necromancer can sense them?"

She looked stunned. "You're saying Despre..."

A figure appeared in the doorway.
 

Not Despre. A woman. I knew right away she wasn't alive. He had to be strong, to store enough magic to re-animate at this height.

Dannie saw her, too, just in time to dance aside as the zombie reached for her.
 

"Thief," she said.

If she was tethered, that meant Despre was awake. Another necromancer... Had Marie lied to me, or had she not known?

The corpse went for Dannie again, reaching out. Whoever she was, she would have the strength of the undead, enough to break every bone in Danelle's body. It didn't look like she knew how to fight though, which meant she'd have to catch her first.

Dannie kept moving back until she reached the wall. She turned and found a sword there, and lifted it from the mount. "I gave him enough sedative to drop an ogre. How the fuck is he awake right now?"

"I'm going to find him," I said. "I need to talk to him."

Dannie stepped aside of another lunge and removed one of the zombie's hands. "Talk? He's trying to kill me."

I snuck past them to the door. "He might not know its you."

She rolled away from the corpse, closer to the altar. "What if he does?"

"Well... you
are
a thief."

I waved and backed out of the room. I didn't have to go far to find Despre. He was standing in the living room in a red silk robe, listening for his corpse to finish off the intruder.

"Olivier, wait. Call off your zombie. We need to talk."

He stared at me. Not confused.
 

Curious.

"She said there was another," he said.
 

I heard footsteps behind me. The corpse girl was walking towards us, both her hands missing now. Danelle was trailing behind her.

"Ahh, Christine. I should have guessed there was more to you than that body of yours."

"Olivier. I'm sorry to lie to you. We never intended to hurt you, or steal anything."

"No? Then I suppose I don't need Elizabeth any more." The body thumped to the floor. "My mistake was that I was waiting for a necromancer, not a seduction. I suppose now I have both."

"Waiting for? You heard the voice."

He nodded. "I did. I knew it had to be Marie. Her error was using voodoo to place the hex. If you had a gris-gris of your own, you would have been as immune and invisible as I was. Then again, she has no idea that I'm dying."

 
"You seem healthy enough to me," Dannie said. I didn't want to know exactly what that meant.

"It isn't a physical disease. It's in here." He tapped his head. "Inoperable brain tumor. No symptoms at all, but it is there all the same. The pills I'm taking... they increase my endorphin levels. It's the reason whatever you slipped me didn't last as long as you were expecting. In any case, one of these days I'm just going to... stop." He looked at me. "You haven't been so lucky."

"No. How long have you heard it?"

"Almost a year now. Oh, but I've always been a user, since the first days of the reversal. A minor enchanter. At least it explained my affinity for voodoo, even as a boy. The experience made it easier to learn to return the dead, though I haven't had much of a need. Using it speeds the process."

"I know."

"Of course. How long?"

"Almost three-"

"Three months," Dannie said, interrupting. She didn't want me to tell him how long I'd survived. Maybe she didn't want him to know about the treatments.
 

"Can you raise them?"

"Yes."

"It is a hard skill to learn."

"Not really." In truth, it had taken over a year to get comfortable returning souls to their shells.

He laughed. "Maybe not for you. Please, have a seat. You look like you could use one." He waved towards a leather couch.

I went to it and sat. Dannie joined me, keeping her body forward, ready to move at any sign of trouble.

"Considering everything that has happened tonight, I'm going to guess that Marie sent you here to retrieve the dice. As you've seen, I've taken great precaution to keep them."

"Bringing them out in public doesn't seem like great precaution to me," I said.

"Believe me, it is." He paused, pursing his lips. "You see, I knew you were coming, even before I heard Marie call for you. I knew you would find me, find them. The retina scanner, the hidden room, that was to protect them from Marie. The casino... that was supposed to draw you in, so I could get a look at you."

"How could you know I was coming?"

"Marie thinks she brought you here. She didn't.

"The dice did."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Not quite human resources.

"What do you mean, the dice did? They may be an artifact, but they're inanimate. They can't compel people to do things."

"You haven't touched them. You have no idea what they are. What they can do."

"Do you?"

"I know what they are."

"Which is?"

"Mine."

I stared at him. He stared at me. A tense minute passed, and then he smiled.

"The dice are dangerous. I intend to keep them, to safeguard them for as long as I am living, and to pass that job on when I am not. You may be the first necromancer to come to take them, but you won't be the last."

I took a deep breath, holding back a cough. "I hate to be an asshole, but your ex put a hex on me. I don't need to be dying and crazy."

"I can make you a gris-gris that will counter the effects of the hex. You can go home, no harm done, no hard feelings. As I said, I put the dice in public so I could control where and how I was confronted for them. To be honest, I wasn't expecting anyone as..." He glanced past me to Dannie. "Resourceful, as you two have been."

"She also offered us money. Two hundred."

"Thousand? I should have guessed. I'll give you double."

I felt Danelle take my hand and squeeze it. Double would make this whole thing so worth it. Still...
 

"I want to touch them. I've never felt an artifact before."

Despre's expression darkened.
 

"C... Let's just take the money and whatever a gris-gris is, and go home," Dannie said.

I turned my head to look her in the eye. "Yeah. I know you're right, it's just..."

Despre started laughing, loud and deep. Danelle and I both stared at him while he chuckled. What the fuck was so funny?

"I could offer you two hundred million, and you wouldn't take it. You would still want to touch them. You would still want to claim them." Despre started moving towards his office. "I expected this would happen. It's the same thing that happened to me. You aren't the only ones who are resourceful."

The door to the atrium swung open. The security guard from the lobby appeared behind it, a massive shape behind him.
 

"You again," the ogre said. "Where's your little puppet? I was hoping for a chance to rip his skull off."

We both jumped to our feet, even as the aquamancer spit a mouthful of water into the air. It separated into a dozen smaller pellets, which launched towards us at his command.
 

"Down," I shouted, pushing against Dannie. We both hit the floor, leaving the water to tear through the couch. We'd only have a few seconds before he would bring it back around.
 

The tackle had put me on top of Dannelle, my face only inches from hers. "Would you mind? Left holster." I lifted myself enough that she could reach under my coat and find the gun there. The ogre was headed our way, the aquamancer to his right, his focus on controlling the water. Despre was making a run for the dice.

There was no time to draw the gun. She shifted it under my coat and fired, burning my side and ruining the jacket.
 

At least she hit the user. He fell backward from the force, the bullet taking him right in the forehead.

"Lucky shot," the ogre said.
 

He took three big steps and was on top of us. Dannie had the gun free by that time, and she emptied the clip into him, the bullets causing him to cover his face with his hand, and digging deep enough to slow him down for the few seconds I needed to get to my feet and pull her up. We both ran for the office. The door would be too small for him to reach us once we made it inside.

He ran after, his giant strides giving him a huge advantage. Despre was at the door, and he started pushing it closed.

"Conor, go!" Dannie shoved me from behind, giving me just a little bit of extra speed, throwing me off my feet and leaving me to slide along the floor. I hit the door hard, getting my body wedged between it and the wall before Despre could finish closing it. The move had caused Danelle to fall too, and she rolled onto her back as the ogre approached.

Every muscle hurt, and I felt like I could barely breathe. I was caught between an ogre and an asshole, and Dannie was about to be flattened.
 

As much as I hated it, there was nothing I could do about the ogre. I went for the asshole.

He had kept moving when I reached the door, no doubt heading for the dice. I planted my hands and pulled myself the rest of the way into the room, getting to my feet and taking only a second to glance back. Dannie had managed to roll away from the ogre and get up. They were squaring off against one another, in a potential fight that would have looked comical if it had been anyone else.

I stumbled towards the hidden room, spitting out some blood that had pooled in my mouth. I used the wall to stay upright as I entered.

Despre was at the altar, facing the other way. I could hear the dice skidding around in the bowl.
 

I found a nasty looking knife on the wall and grabbed it, ready to run him through. I'd only made it one step when he spun around and threw the dice at me. They clattered on the floor, coming to rest at my feet.

Despre's eyes were wide with anticipation, a sinister smile on his face. Seconds passed, the two of us standing across from one another.
 

"What? No."
 

His look of excitement turned to one of fear. He was right to be afraid.

I had been a pitcher in college, with a high eighties fastball.
 

Dannie had taught me how to judge the balance of knives, and how to throw them properly.
 

Those two experiences worked well together.

The knife hit him square in the chest, planting itself deep and reaching in to his heart. He had just enough time to exhale before he dropped.

I looked down at the dice. I could feel them again. Calling me, beckoning me to take them. I heard a crash from the living room. I bent over and picked them up. They were smooth and perfectly weighted, warm to the touch. Too warm to be natural. I turned and headed back out of the office.
 

I didn't have a weapon.

For some reason, I had a feeling I didn't need one.

All I saw when I came out was the ogre's back. He was standing in front of a fireplace, leaning over and trying to reach in.
 

"Hey, ugly."
 

He straightened up and turned.
 

"Your boss is dead. You can either beat it, or die with him."

He stared at me. "You and what army?"

I opened my hand, showing him the dice. Did he know how they worked?

He put his hands up. "Wait. I'm going. I was just doing my job." He backed away from the fireplace, keeping his eyes on my open palm. As soon as he was close to the exit he turned and ran.
 

Dannie slid out of the fireplace, covered in soot and ash, her dress nearly torn off.
 

"Conor?"

I smiled and shoved the dice in my pocket. "I'm okay," I said.

Then I collapsed.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I hope we have enough bullets.

I was in and out of consciousness for the next few hours. I woke up once to the feel of warm water on my skin, a soft hand cleaning my wounds. It wasn't the first time Dannie and I had been naked together, but it was way more intimate than the last.

I woke up again as she carried me from the shower to the bedroom, and lowered me gently onto Despre's bed. It would normally have been embarrassing being carried by a woman. I was too exhausted to care.

When I woke up the third time, Danelle was cradling me against her, and running her hand along my bald scalp. We were still naked, and the warmth of her body was comforting.