by G A Chase
Gingerly, he pulled the back of the dumbwaiter out through the gap. “It’s all wallpaper inside the house. They won’t get around to demoing the downstairs rooms for at least another week. If the journal Charlie found is what we’re looking for, I have no intention of showing up for another shift.”
Kendell suspected whatever creepy stuff Myles had found in the walls wasn’t a story she wanted to hear. In spite of her dedication to female equality, she was happy to leave some jobs to guys who didn’t care how they looked or smelled at the end of the day. “Let’s just get this stuff and get out of here.”
“Is that a lack of confidence in my stealth abilities or Charlie’s stamina?”
She suppressed a giggle. “Well, his advances on the security guard didn’t look like they’d result in a long-term relationship. I doubt he’s even planning on a one-night stand. Is there a term for a liaison that lasts less than an hour?”
“It takes me that long just to get a woman’s number, but he is more the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am type of lover.” Myles pulled out a small tin box. “Civil War glass negatives—don’t drop it. Most of what Charlie stashed away related to the war. I suspect someone wanted to hide their past but not destroy it.”
Kendell carefully set the box in the bottom of her bag. “Must have been Anthony Laurette. I wonder if these pictures would show his transformation from Antoine Malveaux into the alias he clung to for the rest of his life.”
“Speculate later. Grab this sword. It weighs a ton.” He looked like some magician pulling the long scabbard from the small box.
“Leave it to Charlie to grab the longest cavalry saber he could find. He couldn’t be satisfied with a nice little bowie knife? How much shit does he expect you to steal?”
“I’m impressed you know the difference, but I don’t think his desire was for length so much as value.” Myles finally handed her the wax-paper-wrapped book. “Once we got the bottom of the walls open, it was a cornucopia of historical garbage. That sword was the only big item. I’ll have the rest out before you know it.”
* * *
To Kendell, hanging out in Myles’s apartment was a bit like sneaking away for an illicit rendezvous. Even if they weren’t meeting for romantic purposes, the dark brick man cave felt like an exotic escape from her daily life. The bags of booty had been left on his sagging couch, but she’d retrieved the wax-paper-covered diary.
“We have to open it,” she said. “Even if we do give it to Delphine to figure out, I still need to make sure this is the journal we’re looking for.”
“No argument here. I only had a moment to peek at it in the attic. If it’s not the right book, I can still show up to work on the construction crew tomorrow.”
Kendell rubbed her fingers together before carefully peeling open their prize. Fine cotton, like an old-fashioned undergarment, was layered below the yellowed wax paper. A final sheet of thin, soft suede protected the fine-grained leather cover. “Someone went to a lot of work to protect it. Funny that they’d leave it in the walls with the bugs and mice, but it doesn’t look damaged.”
“I’ll bet you were the kind of kid who tried saving Christmas wrapping paper. What does the damn book say?” He’d had the same impatience regarding her clothing on their first night together.
She handled the book the way she would a historic relic from the New Orleans Historical Collection. “It hasn’t been used much. The binding is still stiff. Whoever wrote in it didn’t leave it lying around for anyone to read even before they secured it in the wall. Oh dear.” She continued reading.
Soon, Myles lost his patience. “What. Does. It. Say?”
“The first page is not even encoded. Marie addressed it to ‘the guardian of the Malveaux Curse’—that has to be Sanguine—and ‘the inheritor.’ Who do you suppose that is?”
Myles came around behind her to look over her shoulder at the book. “I can make a wild guess: you. As both the descendent of the baron Malveaux and Louis Broussard, you’d make the most sense as inheritor.”
She knew that was going to be his answer though not being at the center of the problem would’ve been nice, for once. “It says the two of us have to work together under the instruction of a voodoo queen to go any further. The rest of the pages feel like they’re glued together.”
“So we can’t even be certain this is the right book, but even if it is, we somehow need to get the cane, book, Baron Samedi, Sanguine, Madam de Galpion, and you all together at the same time and place.”
Kendell put the book down and wrapped Myles in her arms. “It’s a step forward. You did good. Sanguine has the cane, and I have the book. We just have to figure out how to get her here and make sure Delphine doesn’t do something foolish like last time. I know you’re not happy about it, but I’m going to have to trust her with the diary. She needs to get started figuring out how to open it. And finally, with you at my side, Baron Samedi won’t be hard to call forth.”
“Yeah, but Colin Malveaux is after Sanguine, we’ve got at least one paramilitary team following your band, the dark web is full of discussions about finding Baron Samedi’s cane, and what worries me most are the unknown dangers.”
“Well, I wouldn’t object if you called forth a host of the recently dead as a spirit army, but I’m not going to count on their support.”
54
Colin was up before the morning light. Shadows cast by the predawn turned the cypress grove into an ominous region of ghosts and gators—exactly the type of place a swamp witch would go for safety. Invading another person’s domain carried both the threat of being at a strategic disadvantage and the thrill of letting an adversary know no place was safe from him.
He packed up his overnight bag. The dead witch’s lair had provided nothing useful, but as a base camp, it was one of the few places he would be at ease. From there on, he’d have to be on guard at all times. Looking at the bare, moth-eaten mattress, he regretted not having gotten a better night’s sleep. Those were likely to be the last uninterrupted six hours he would experience for some time.
Descending the tree proved more hazardous than the climb. Each weathered board of the ladder snapped under his weight as if the dead witch was taking her last shot at killing him before he pursued her granddaughter. I haven’t forgotten your threat, old hag. She must have known simply holding the leash wouldn’t be enough for him. He was still baffled about why she’d tempted him with control of the curse if she could see the future, though.
He jumped the final six feet to the ground rather than suffering more splinters from the decaying wood. The noises from the swamp made him feel as though he was being watched as he worked his way along the shoreline back to the airboat. Cigarette smoke rose into the motionless air, letting Colin know he wasn’t the only early riser.
“I hope you got a better sleep in that cabin than I did in the boat,” the pilot said. “This bayou gives me the creeps. Something kept slamming into the hull, but every time I turned on the flashlight, it slunk away back into the marsh.”
Small talk had never interested Colin, not as Lincoln Laroque and particularly not as Archibald Malveaux. “I’m headed into the cypress grove. My understanding is that your airboat can’t go in there without damaging the hull, plus the noise would only alert the person I’m pursuing of my presence.”
The pilot flicked the cigarette butt into the swamp. “I agreed to get you out here in my boat. There wasn’t anything said about me traipsing through the swamp on foot. Me and my boat come as a set.”
“I’m going alone. I could be a day, or I could be a week. Don’t feel obligated to hang around. I’ll call you when I’m ready to be picked up.”
The man leaned against the bow of his boat and pointed at the grove of trees. “There’s no cell signal past this island. And that swamp can drain a battery as fast and unnoticed as a mosquito drinking blood.”
“Fine. I’ll expect you to fly your little boat out here each day at dusk. You know who I am, so you know the danger in cros
sing me. Continue making the trip until I turn up, even if it takes a year. Understood?”
“Yeah, I get it. So long as I get paid, you’ll get no complaints from me. Any message you want me to deliver to your people back home?”
Colin couldn’t imagine anyone he cared enough about to calm their fears, and no one could offer any useful help except Delphine. “Tell that voodoo priestess if I die out here, she’s the first one I’m coming back to haunt.”
Though he hadn’t meant it as a joke, the pilot snickered before starting to unload the boat. “I wish I had some advice for you about surviving that swamp. You sure you don’t want a gun? I’ve got both a rifle and a handgun. The gators out there can get pretty aggressive.”
Even with that pack of provisions, Colin knew he’d have to live off the land at some point. “Leave me the rifle and ammunition. If I’m not here tomorrow when you come back, drop off another backpack of supplies. Hopefully, I can use this island as a base of operations.”
“Will do, but I wouldn’t count on returning here like you were commuting from home. That’s a big swamp, and even those of us who live out here get lost sometimes. Take as much as you can with you. Mind telling me how you intend on getting around?”
The conversation was getting on Colin’s nerves. “There’s an old rowboat at the base of the treehouse. I left a GPS transmitter in the cabin. My phone can pick up the signal even without cellular coverage. Wait a couple of hours before you head out. I don’t want the noise waking up the whole bayou.”
* * *
Colin loaded the small boat with as many packs as he dared. Pushing off from the shore, he realized it wasn’t as seaworthy as he’d hoped, but the leaks weren’t gushing water. He sat on the center thwart and gave the oars a good hard pull against the water. Fortunately, they felt much more substantial than the hull.
He had only a rough idea of which direction light was coming from. As he watched the island recede behind the thick tree trunks, self-doubt crept in like the swamp water he continually had to bail out of the boat. As with his small plastic bucket, though, he had his need for the walking stick to keep him afloat and determined.
For the first few hours, his personal safety prevented him from wandering farther than eyeshot of the cabin high in the trees. Stupid. Of course she’s not this close to the island.
As the sun rose over the tops of the trees, he threw away his foolish doubts and fears. He turned the boat away from the island and pulled at the oars with all his strength. If he was going to find the new swamp witch, he wouldn’t do it by playing it safe.
By late afternoon, his arms were as useless as limp noodles. Between the physical exertion, heat, humidity, and bugs, he longed for a long soak in his spa, but thoughts of such luxuries only distracted him from his purpose. Ignoring the blisters on his hands. he grasped the oar handles and put his back into the effort.
The boat came to an abrupt stop, causing him to fall over backward into the water that had again seeped into the hull. Tired, blistered, bruised, and soaked, he climbed out of the boat to survey his latest discovery. He knew most men of lesser character would find his condition untenable, but the physical discomfort made him feel alive. The part of him that had spent so long in Guinee relished the pain like a prize fighter who’d just gotten serious about the contest. With a good hard pull from his legs, he beached the boat enough that it wouldn’t float away.
He left the bags but grabbed a long-sleeve shirt. He threw it on and pulled it to his wrists. Without it, the chiggers living in the Spanish moss hanging from the tree limbs would see his bare arms as a buffet of human flesh, and he’d already suffered enough bug bites for one day. He pulled out the rifle and made sure it was loaded. The vegetation wasn’t much different from that on the island he’d left that morning. He assumed snakes and alligators lurked in the tall grass at the water’s edge. No time like the present to utilize my survival training.
Traversing the small landmass, which barely rose above the waterline, didn’t take long. He’d nearly given up on looking for signs that any human had been there when he spotted a muddy rut in the reeds. From the sharp groove in the silt and the water lapping up the miniature canal, he guessed a small boat, though bigger than what he was using, had been beached there. The grass was still green, so the boat hadn’t spent much time covering it. The mud held the crisp lines carved into it, so whoever had been there left not long before. With no other signs of human activity, he doubted a gator hunter had left the signs. Those guys weren’t discrete about letting others know who’d claimed the spot.
He bent down to use the groove as a line of sight. Though he couldn’t see the cabin in the trees he’d left that morning, from the position of the sun, he knew the boat’s position hadn’t lined up with where he’d started. As he stared through the trees, he held his breath. Off in the distance, he thought he saw a puff of smoke. Though it might have only been a trick of the late-afternoon light, he took on the steely-eyed determination he always felt when he sensed weakness in an adversary. He had a destination for the next day.
* * *
Kendell spread out the map of southeast Louisiana on her kitchen table and put on the green-tinted glasses. With the advent of GPS, she seldom studied such archaic forms of navigation, and even when she did, she used a computer so she could zoom in for a better look.
The letter opener she’d retrieved from Miss Fleur’s trunk—secured in Minerva’s garage—made her want to stab the location of Colin Malveaux on the map as though piercing his nonexistent heart.
“He’s right here,” she said. “Any idea of where that is, relative to the highway?”
Myles kept back from the table. “Maybe you should set that knife down first. Not that I don’t trust you, but we’ve seen that curse in action enough times for me to be a little wary.”
“Sorry. You’re right. Even I have trouble not falling under the influence.” Of course, my being the primary aggressor of the curse might have something to do with my reaction. She’d done her best to stay clear of the baron’s remaining possessions, but to read Colin’s whereabouts, she needed the damn monogrammed opener.
Myles set the ruler on the map then compared the distance to the key at the bottom. “He’s ten-point-seven miles from the freeway. I think we can figure out his exact coordinates on the computer.”
“It can’t hurt. You figure out where he is, and I’ll contact Sanguine. The sun must just be setting. I don’t have much time.”
He nodded toward the bathroom. “Go do your magic. I’ll yell out the numbers once I have them.”
Kendell hadn’t adjusted to using the small private room for meetings, but she hadn’t had time to come up with an alternative. “Are you out there? I have his location.”
The glasses glowed eerily, indicating Sanguine was there. The face that came into view, however, made Kendell catch her breath. The woman hadn’t been the height of fashion the last time they’d spoke, but the wild-eyed, dirt-stained face that greeted Kendell looked like something out of a horror movie. Her hair stuck to her face, tracing the rivulets of sweat that still flowed from her sunburned forehead. “Make it quick. If I need to double back tonight, I’ll have to sleep in the boat. There aren’t a lot of islands on this first leg of the chase.”
Myles called out the numbers from outside the closed door.
“Did you get that?”
In spite of Sanguine’s haggard appearance, she still managed a look of superior exasperation. “What good are numbers going to do me? Honestly. It’s like you’ve got no idea how to use magic at all. Go get the map and put your finger on where he’s camped out.”
Kendell mumbled her irritation.
“And I know what you’re saying, by the way. It’s not like we’re talking with our mouths and hearing with our ears. You’re not wearing magical earplugs. Ever hear of telepathy?”
Despite the fact that Kendell was safe in her apartment while Sanguine was suffering out in the swamp, she couldn’t ignore
some irritations. “You could give me a break. I’m just trying to help.”
“And I’m the one who’s risking her neck. Trust me, you don’t want to go down the road of who’s responsible and who’s shouldering the risk.”
Even though Kendell knew Sanguine would hear her mentally, what she wanted to say was best done with words. “I’m sorry. You’re right.” She didn’t try to hide her growing feelings of sisterly devotion. Some emotions didn’t translate well into words.
“Don’t worry about me. Colin still thinks he’s the one doing the pursuing. So long as I don’t get too far in front of him and I keep making stupid moves like lighting a campfire, he should stay on my tail.”
Kendell knew she had a long way to go with understanding the new form of communication, but the dominant impression she got from Sanguine was how easy it would be for a woman born to the swamp to lose the city slicker among the gators. In the realm of thought, Kendell had to admit the idea wasn’t the worst to cross her mind, but giving in to the temptation of allowing a murder would remove the last barrier to becoming what she’d feared with Robert Johnson. I am not a devil.
“Then come up with a fucking better solution, sister.”
“I’m working on it. But just so you know, if something unfortunate happens to Colin before we return the cane to Baron Samedi, we’ll just be sending our adversary to a higher plane of existence.”
“Fucking voodoo bullshit.” Sanguine disappeared from the glasses before Kendell could respond to the telepathic insult.
55
With Colin searching the swamp, Kendell thought the team should meet to discuss strategy. The girls were looking tired from the exercise in deception.
“How are things on the streets?” she asked.
Joe was sitting unusually close to Scraper. “My guys had to swoop in and break up a fight after Scraper coldcocked a dude who’d been following her from store to store.”