by J. D. Horn
Alice took a quick step back, and her gaze fell to the floor as, in unison, Art and Polly began to titter, and Hugo let loose with a full snort. The three carried on, falling about laughing, for a solid minute. To Alice, caught on the butt end of the joke, that minute seemed to stretch out into a dozen of them.
“I do apologize,” Art said, regaining composure, though nothing in her tone or her mirthful expression provided any evidence she felt regret. “It’s only I found your precious gullibility too tempting.” She removed the spoon from the glass and laid it on a coaster positioned between the bottle and a small silver bowl that from Alice’s vantage point appeared to bear a different pattern than the spoon. Hugo walked over and reached for the glass, but Art snatched it back. “You, you reprobate, can wait. This is for the delightful Alice.”
Alice felt anything but delightful. She hesitated.
“Oh, chérie, don’t pout. Think of our innocuous jest as your initiation ritual.” She crossed to Alice. “Felicitations, you passed. Now”—she proffered the glass—“drink up. You barely made it in under the wire.”
“Under the wire?” Alice said, lifting the glass to consider the now cloudy spirit.
“Before the end of the world. My sister is certain the world, or at least our world, is spinning down like a top,” Polly said and saluted her with his own glass. “That is why tonight, the last night before the final day, we drink absinthe.” He cocked his head. “Chin chin.”
Polly lifted the absinthe to his lips.
Alice followed suit, taking a cautious sip. The spirit was at first spicy and dry, with the flavor of anise growing in prominence as the absinthe crossed her palate. The dissolved sugar battled with, but couldn’t overcome, a salty, vegetal bitterness.
“Wormwood,” Art said, answering a question Alice hadn’t yet formed. She’d returned to the table to mix Hugo’s drink. When he took it from her, Art turned back and fixed Alice with a mischievous look. “‘And the third angel sounded . . .’”
Hugo lifted his hand to his mouth, miming holding a horn. “Dootdootelydooo.”
Art smirked without taking her gaze off Alice. She continued, “‘and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters.’” She paused for dramatic effect. “‘And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.’”
“Absinthe,” Hugo said, stepping forward and assuming the deep, assertive voice of a commercial announcer, “the official drink of the Apocalypse.”
Alice regarded Art and Hugo, calculating how the pair might be planning to turn these remarks into yet another practical joke on her. She studied the liquid in her glass. “But,” Alice began, then paused to take another sip before finishing. “That isn’t really our apocalypse, is it?”
“No?” Art said, finishing her drink, returning to the stealthy table positioned near the wall. She swirled a bit of water in the glass, preparing it, Alice surmised, for another round, then emptied the water from her glass into the silver bowl. “It feels rather personal to me.” She smiled, though this time her smile didn’t reach her black eyes.
“I don’t understand.”
“Wormwood,” Hugo said, holding up his drink to the light. “It’s also known as artemisia. Although artemisia took its name from Artemis the goddess, not our lovely”—he lingered on the word—“hostess.” Hugo grinned. “Our Artemis isn’t quite that old.”
“Touché,” Art responded with a throaty laugh. She appeared genuinely amused rather than resentful of Hugo’s quip. She sighed, then reached up to tug off her wig, revealing a nylon cap. “Pardon, frérot,” she addressed her brother. She dropped the wig on the table. He shrugged and removed his as well, then disappeared into another room for a minute and returned without the wig. Alice sensed she had indeed passed some kind of rite of initiation with the Twins for them to reveal themselves in any state short of perfection.
Or maybe they really did believe the world was ending, and no longer cared.
“Alors, mes enfants,” Polly called out with an operatic trill, “you’ve come to choose a mask that will disguise your true identity, or perhaps”—he paused and leered at them—“one to reveal it.”
“Well,” Hugo said with an exaggerated sigh, “I was thinking either Bart Simpson or Vladimir Putin, but it looks like those options are out of stock.”
“Perhaps a Zanni, then?” Polly suggested. “He’s alternately a clever trickster or a fool.”
Hugo crossed to the wall, posing with his fist under his chin as he considered his options. He reached out and touched one of the masks, a golden monstrosity with an impossibly elongated nose. “This one. I’ll take the gold plague-doctor mask.”
“Oh, but that isn’t a Medico della Peste,” Polly corrected him. “That is the Zanni. Traditionally, the longer the nose, the greater the fool. As you can see, this particular example has been blessed with a prodigious rhinal endowment.”
“Don’t you remember?” Art said, clasping her left hand over her right upper arm. The stance made her look like she was appraising a work of art. Polly responded with a slight rise of his eyebrows. On anyone else’s face, Alice would have assumed the look a simple signal of bemusement, but given the connection between brother and sister, they could be carrying on a full conversation. Perhaps Polly didn’t remember, or maybe he did, and he was warning his sister off. “Nicholas,” Art continued, “wore the Zanni mask to the last Defilé des Maléfiques.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, addressing Hugo. “Please don’t let that influence your choice. I shouldn’t have said anything, only I’m always surprised to find bits of my own mother still lurking in myself.” She paused as if to weigh her words. “We work so hard to exorcise our parents, to imagine ourselves as above both nature and nurture, self-generated,” she said, her gaze turning tender, as if she felt sympathy for Hugo, “but still in the little things, in the areas where we’re unguarded, blood will tell.”
A chill ran down Alice’s spine at the thought.
SIXTEEN
A look of caution passed between the Twins. “We were aware Nicholas had returned,” Art said. “He paid us a visit earlier today.”
“Yes,” Polly said. “Far too early, in fact. But he always did keep such beastly hours.” He spoke as if returning to an oft-discussed subject, but Alice had no knowledge of how Nicholas spent his days.
Art nodded. “True. It was from Nicholas I first learned there was a seven in the a.m. as well as the civilized hour.”
“He was on fire,” Polly began, then rushed to add, “figuratively, not literally. Out to proselytize his last-minute plan to resurrect the Longest Night.” Polly reached up and ran a finger beneath his beige wig cap, scratching absentmindedly. “Of course, we all know Nicholas never leaves anything till last minute.”
“Unless,” Hugo said, “he doesn’t want you to have long enough to think about what he’s setting you up for.”
“For what it’s worth, he professes to be racked with regret over the ways he’s failed you. He wants to make amends to you,” she said, her gaze broadening to include Alice, “to you both.”
“An ambitious undertaking,” Alice said, a self-conscious smile twitching on her lips. “He could begin by letting us set him on fire—literally.”
“Indeed,” Art replied, her eyes opening a bit wider, her lips pursing into an amused pucker. She looked upon Alice with what appeared to be a new appreciation, as if she’d only just begun seeing her as anything other than a piece of Hugo’s luggage. “I’d wondered what you’d done with her, Hugo. With that marvelous creature who peeled back the gates of Précieux Sang. I’d begun to think this one was a changeling. Welcome to the party, ma chère. This time I mean it.”
Polly batted his eyelashes. “Still, Nicholas’s soliloquy pulled on the heartstrings. Really, it was wonderful theater. Shame he on
ly offered a matinee performance.”
“I’m sure.” Hugo’s head tilted a little forward and to the side, one brow rising higher. “It fits Father’s scheme . . . whatever he’s up to now . . . for you to believe him.”
“Here’s something you can believe,” Art addressed Hugo. “Every king needs an heir. You do matter to him, if only as an extension of himself.”
“That much I can give you.” Hugo took a drink and grimaced. “But he’s not much of a king. At least not anymore.”
“Ah, but that brings us back to the Longest Night,” Art said. “Your father has an agenda for wanting to revive it. One that goes beyond nostalgia or healing rifts.”
“Nicholas has a motive for everything he does,” Alice replied, “and it’s never altruism. Nor is it regret.”
“But what’s he looking to get out of resurrecting this moldy bit of nostalgia?” Hugo mused.
“No need to speculate, mes chers,” Polly said. “He elaborated on his grand plan this morning.” Another quick glance passed between the Twins. “He’s found a solution, he believes, for our current troubles, one that’s more sustainable than black-market body parts.”
“In all fairness,” Art said, the words spoken in a mock-conciliatory tone, “he was far humbler than that. He spoke of it as ‘stopgap.’” She paused, her focus drifting back to the Zanni mask. “To give the devil his due”—this time she sounded sincere—“his plan seems feasible. In fact, I’d say it stands a very good chance of working, provided one doesn’t concern oneself too much with the ethics of the thing.”
“What brand of snake oil is the petit papa Nicholas selling?” Hugo asked.
“When it comes to magic,” Art said, “the power grid is failing. He’s proposing to move the witches of New Orleans—those of us left—off the grid and onto an alternative source.”
“It’s a plan,” Polly added, “he purports to have stumbled upon after his disappearance, but if the scheme is as far along as it seems to be, it has taken some time to put in place.”
“Do tell,” Hugo pressed. “How does Father plan on leading us into the promised land?”
Art turned and crossed to the drinks table. “Much,” she said, spilling another round of absinthe into her glass, “as the good Doctor Dupas learned to draw power from his drugged clients, Nicholas intends to feed on the energy of those who come together to adore him.”
“Adore him?” Hugo said with a snort.
Art looked to her brother to provide the explanation, then busied herself with dissolving sugar into her drink.
“In short,” Polly said, “Nicholas is becoming a cult leader. It’s easier than you might think. The hard part is channeling the power. Not many witches are capable of acting as a transformer. That’s why Dr. Dupas created our old friend Babau Jean . . . and lost control of him within months. A servitor spirit with that much power flowing through it will not remain a servitor for long.”
“Nicholas is eschewing any intermediary. He, himself, will be the focus.” Art took a sip of her drink, closing her eyes and smiling. “All power will flow through him.” She opened her eyes but kept her focus on the glass in her hand. “As your grandfather sought to drain us, your father has plans to recharge us. Tomorrow . . . although at this hour, it’s really tonight . . . he plans to use la Defilé to give us a taste of what he, if we accept him as our king, can offer.”
“Maybe we should skip this roving costume party,” Hugo said, holding his empty glass up to Art.
“Darling boy,” she said, “one per customer. You want another, make it yourself.”
“Miss la Defilé? Not on your life,” Polly said, pulling several sheets of off-white packing paper from a box, then slipping the Zanni mask off the hooks that held it. “Truth is I’ve missed the Longest Night. Despite Nicholas’s machinations and our own Cassandra’s”—he cast an evil, narrowed-eye look at his sister—“predictions of certain and inescapable doom, I’m actually looking forward to it. Even if the world doesn’t stop spinning, this could very well be the last Longest Night celebration.” He wrapped up the mask, then tucked it into a shopping bag that featured the image of a grinning bodybuilder hiding his privates behind a Santa cap.
Hugo lumbered to the side table, his hand hesitating over the bottle of absinthe for a moment before dropping back to his side. He seemed, at last, to have begun feeling the effects of the alcohol he’d been putting away since before Daniel’s wake. His eyes met Alice’s, and he gave a slight shrug. “I had no idea, Polly, you were so sentimental.”
“I feel,” Polly said, pausing as his face began to crumple, “everything . . . deeply.” He looked up with vulnerable, mournful eyes. “So very deeply.” His tremolo turned to a growl, and his face to cool stone. “Though never quite as deeply as I’d like.” He made a wide gesture toward the array of remaining masks. “And you?” he said, addressing Alice.
She scanned the wall, then chose, almost as a joke, the most ridiculous of them all, a cat’s face with a feathered headdress. “The cat, please.”
Apollo froze and shared what seemed to be a meaningful glance with his sister.
Alice had believed there were no limitations, but the duo seemed to fall into a silent debate. “It’s okay,” she said, thinking she must have by accident chosen one they were unhappy to lend, whether its value was of a sentimental or monetary nature. “I can wear another,” she said, then added quickly to circumvent making another mistake, “Perhaps you could choose for me?”
“No, no, petite Alice,” Polly said. “This is the mask you chose, and it is the one you must wear.” He removed it from the wall slowly and regarded it with what looked to Alice like reverence.
“It’s only . . . ,” Art said, drawing closer. “It’s only The Gospel of the Witches tells us the goddess Artemis once disguised herself as a cat to seduce her brother, the shining one.”
Alice found herself uncertain how to respond to this unexpected bit of salaciousness.
“Not to worry,” Polly said, wrapping the mask with more care than he had the Zanni. “My virtue has always remained safe with my own Artemis.” He placed the mask in the bag.
His sister dismissed his interjection about their given names with an impatient wave of her hand. “Your own family’s lore posits you are descendants of the result of this coupling.”
“Aradia,” Hugo said, nodding. His face wore an expression that somehow managed to be at once smug and disdainful.
“Of course, it’s only a myth, but the stories those who came before us told do attempt to describe forces that defy a more direct explanation.” Art held out her hand. “The fallen god”—starting with her thumb, she began to tick off each of her points with one of her digits—“the Queen of Heaven, your choice of disguise, your fa—brother Nicholas’s attempt to resurrect the Longest Night, burning a wicker man at the bend in the river we affectionately refer to as ‘the End of the World.’ Mock me as Cassandra if you must—after all, no one listened to her either—but I’m more convinced than ever we’re headed toward our personal Armageddon.”
“Okay,” Alice said, “but I think you’re making connections where they really don’t exist. Besides, I don’t remember any myth involving Apollo’s demise, so I don’t think you can consider him a fallen god.”
“Oh, ma chère.” Her lips pulled into an embarrassed smile. “Perhaps not in the guise of Apollo, but certainly you’ve heard of Lucifer.” She lifted her drink to her lips and made a study of Alice’s features. Alice fought to maintain a passive expression.
“Perhaps,” Art continued, “it is more than a myth. Perhaps blood is telling.” She crossed the room and sat in one of the fuchsia chairs like she had ascended to a throne. “I always felt your familial strife had an air of history”—she lingered on the word—“repeating itself, as if the seed of rebellion was planted in your DNA.”
Polly rested his arm on the back of his sister’s chair, then produced, seemingly from nowhere, a vaporizer. He gave a slight cough, to gai
n Hugo’s attention, and when Hugo looked his way, he put the inhaler to his lips and wiggled his fastidiously shaped eyebrows.
“Thanks, man,” Hugo said. “I’m good.”
“Suit yourself.” Polly slipped out of the room, headed, Alice suspected, to one of the small hidden courtyards not uncommon in the Quarter.
Art gestured to the sofa, the invitation a sure sign Alice’s night was far from over. “Nicholas and Celestin.” She adjusted her robe so it better covered her thigh. “Luc and Nicholas, the upstart son challenging the harsh, distant father. Who knows how many generations back this particular drama has played itself out?”
Hugo dropped to the sofa, seeming pleased to dig into what Alice considered an old and best-forgotten wound. But then again, he hadn’t been there to witness Luc’s murder. Alice considered joining Apollo and his vaporizer.
“So, our great-great-grandpappy,” Hugo said, glancing up at Alice with shining, gleeful eyes, “was literally the Devil himself.” He patted the seat beside him. “That would explain a lot.” Alice would have preferred to excuse herself and head home, but she found herself a victim of her own curiosity. She sat beside her brother.
“I will do you the favor of assuming you’re being deliberately obtuse.” Art looked from Hugo to Alice. “Do feel free to kick off your shoes and pull your feet up, chérie. Make yourself at home.” Then back to Hugo. “I’m not talking about the Devil. I’m talking about Lucifer—the bringer of light, the initiator to hidden wisdom.”
“Three blocks from here . . .” Alice let her words trail off, not having intended to speak aloud. The absinthe must have lowered her inhibitions. Realizing all eyes were fixed on her, she committed to her statement. “Three blocks from here is a building full of clerics who will be happy to remind you this ‘initiation’ caused the fall of man.”