“What if he’s really hurt, though? Like for real. That bother you?”
“He could have hurt me for real. You think I should feel guilty?”
“Oh, fuck no.”
“And this,” she said, “is why we’re friends.”
They clinked glasses.
And that’s when the vampire arrived.
No missing the man. He stood nearly seven feet tall in his leather platform boots and top hat. He wore gobs of black eyeliner, and when he grinned hungrily at her, she saw he’d filed his canine teeth into points. Leather jacket, of course. Long black hair, of course. Black fingernails filed into points as sharp as he teeth, of course. He was about as scary as a vampire in a kids’ cartoon.
Nora liked him immediately.
Cyrus took a long deep drink of his beer, put the bottle down on the counter, and said, “Be right back.”
The vampire tour guide stood near the doorway of the darkened bar with his arms crossed over his chest.
Cyrus turned and pointed to Nora. The vampire grinned. Then he lightly slapped Cyrus on the shoulder and walked over to her.
“Hello, little girl,” the vampire said. He had mischief in his eyes and gravel in his voice. “Pleased to eat you.”
“Hey, big man,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Lord Chaz. To whom do I have the pleasure of eating? Meeting…I mean, of course.”
“Nora,” she said. “Mistress Nora.”
Lord Chaz raised one dark eyebrow.
“The Mistress Nora?” he asked.
“Have you heard of me?”
“I have now.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” Cyrus said. Nora made herself settle down.
“Can you help me find someone I’m looking for?” she asked.
“Depends,” he said. “Who are you and what are you gonna do to them when you find them?”
“Kill them and eat their hearts,” Nora said.
That got a laugh from the goth giant.
“Are you sure you weren’t my ex-wife in a past life?” he asked her.
“No, but I could be your ex-wife in this one.”
“Excuse me,” Cyrus said. “Dracula. Elvira. Can we focus?”
“Sorry.” She put her drink down. They were working. Sort of.
“I’ll help if you tell me what this is about,” the vampire said.
Cyrus gave him the quick rundown, mostly lies but believable ones. Cyrus was a private detective. A college girl had run off, and Nora’s business card had been found in her dorm room. Nora had only given her card to one person in New Orleans.
“A witch,” Nora said.
“Which witch?” the vampire asked.
“I don’t remember her name,” Nora said. “Except that she dressed like Marie Laveau and worked at a witch shop somewhere around here. Closed down now, I think. None of the ones I saw on Google maps rang a bell. I know the shop was in the Quarter, but it wasn’t on Bourbon Street. They did psychic readings there. The door was purple. That’s it.”
“Charm City,” the vampire said.
“Charm City.” Nora exhaled in relief. “That was the name of the place.”
“Little place on Iberville. Owner was a witch from Baltimore,” the vampire continued. “Older lady. Shut the shop last year and moved home to help with her grandkids.”
“This witch wasn’t very old,” Nora said. “Thirty to thirty-five. Really pretty.”
“Was your reading good? Or a bunch of bullshit?”
“How do you tell the difference?” Nora asked.
He smiled like Satan’s cat. “Did she tell you only what you wanted to hear?”
Nora shook her head.
“Mercedes,” the vampire said. “That’s her name, not her ride.”
Cyrus pulled out his notebook. “Mercedes. Spelled the same as the car, though?”
The vampire nodded. “The name comes from an old Creole family in town. One of her ancestors was a rich Irish banker who bankrolled half the city. Married a Creole lady and had thirteen children.”
Nora’s eyes went wide. “Thirteen?”
“Mercedes is in the bloodline of the thirteenth. That’s the story she tells, and I believe her. She has a new shop now, all hers. The Good Witch on Tchoupitoulas and Alphonsus.”
“Irish Channel,” Cyrus said.
Nora glanced at him. They had just been over there yesterday with Father Ike’s abandoned car.
“Mercedes at The Good Witch,” Nora said. She slipped the man a fifty, to Cyrus’s obvious chagrin. “Thank you so much.”
The vampire held the bill between two needle-sharp fingernails. “She’s the real thing,” he said. “I hope you didn’t lie to me.”
“Are you scared of her?” Nora asked.
“No, but you should be, little girl.”
“Bite me,” Nora said.
“Nora,” Cyrus said.
“I was being literal.” She tilted her head to the side to bare her jugular vein. The vampire leaned in, teeth bared, as if to actually bite her. Cyrus threw up an arm between her and the man.
“Let’s not do that,” Cyrus said. The vampire only chuckled fiendishly, pocketed his fifty, and walked away to gather his next tour group.
“If that was my only chance to become a vampire, and you blew it for me, I’ll never forgive you, Cyrus Tremont.”
Cyrus was clearly not in the mood for it. He had his phone out again. “Closed right now,” he said.
“The Good Witch?”
“Yeah. Opens at eleven tomorrow. Meet you there?”
“Meet you there,” she said. “What do we do until then?”
“Go see my fiancée.”
“Great. Can’t wait to finally meet her.” Nora slapped money down on the bar.
Cyrus stared at her.
“Oh, you mean alone.”
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you and me both home.”
They returned to Cyrus’s car without incident. Although on their way to his Honda, she had to ask, “How the hell do you know a vampire?”
He laughed. “Uh…wish I had a good story. Cousin of mine visits from Atlanta every now and then. He loves vamps and ghosts and all that voodoo shit. We took Lord Chaz’s tour last time. I remember him saying he’d been doing it for twenty years or more. And everybody in the Quarter seemed to know who he was. He’s a nice guy.” Cyrus paused. “You didn’t have to tip him to answer one question, though. Remember, this is a pro bono case.”
“I told him my real name. And you better believe he’s going to talk about me to someone. When he speaks of me, he will now speak very fondly.”
“I think he would’ve anyway. You two were kind of simpatico.”
“I get along well with weirdos.”
“I noticed that. After Doc and the Dark Lord of Bourbon Street, I’m done for the day. For the week.”
“Oh, come on.” She playfully shoved his shoulder. “We had a good day. So many clues. I feel like Scooby-Doo. Never solved a mystery before. Give me a Scooby Snack.”
“We haven’t solved it yet.”
“The witch gave Father Ike my card. She’ll tell us why tomorrow. Then we’ll know what he wanted with me and that’ll solve the case.”
“Hope so,” Cyrus said. He didn’t sound certain of that and talked little on the way to her house. He pulled in front. Nora saw Father Ike’s car had been towed while she was out.
“Anyway, thanks for the lift,” she said.
“You really live here by yourself,” Cyrus said. “Kind of big for one person. Or does it just look big?”
“Three bedrooms, two bath,” she said. “Sounds like a lot for one but one room’s my bedroom, one’s my dungeon, and one’s my guest room.”
“Wait. You’ve got two dungeons?”
“One’s business. One’s personal.”
Nora reached for the door handle.
“You’ll be okay?” he asked.
“Yeah?” The question had caught her off-guard. �
�Oh, you mean because of the guy? I’m okay. Little shaky but I’ve survived worse, I promise. Comes with the territory.”
“Bourbon can be pretty wild.”
“No, I mean ‘comes with the territory’ of being a woman.”
Cyrus pursed his lips, slowly nodded. “Yeah, I see that.”
“But you know how it is. You got your own problems in your own territory.”
“That is also very true.”
“I really appreciate your help tonight. I think I could have gotten away from him on my own, but maybe not. It’s that ‘maybe not’ that I’ll be thinking about when I wake up at three a.m. Glad you were there. Søren is, too.”
“Glad I’m in his good graces. Hope I stay there.”
“You’re fine. He’s cool.”
“Is he?” Cyrus asked. “We been spending a lot of time together. And he’s already got to share you.”
Nora almost said that she had to share Søren with someone, too, but she bit her tongue. What happened between Kingsley and Søren was nobody else’s business.
“He’s not jealous of you, I promise,” she said.
“I guess if he doesn’t trust you by now, he never will.”
“Søren? Trust me?” She blurted out a single, sarcastic “Ha!”
“What? He doesn’t trust you?”
“If by ‘trust’ you mean Søren has full faith in me and can sleep at night knowing that I will not do anything stupid or dangerous, then no, he doesn’t trust me. He’d be insane to trust me.”
“And that’s okay with you?”
“He doesn’t trust me, but he accepts me. And I’ll take that over misplaced trust anyway.”
“Paulina trusts me,” Cyrus said. He said it simply but deliberately, and those three words said what a thousand words didn’t have to say.
“I’m not going try to seduce you,” she said. “Even if you are cute.”
“Fuck, I am not cute.”
“I’m keeping that tuxedo pic in my spank bank.”
“Go away, Queenie.”
“Night, Cy.”
Nora appreciated that Cyrus didn’t drive away until she was safely inside her house.
Paulina was a lucky lady.
Nora changed out of her insane tit-boosting bustier and into a comfortable black bra and tank. The skinny jeans she tossed aside for red lounge pants. She went out back in her slippers, through the off-street alley to collect Gmork from Kingsley’s backyard. He followed her back home, wagging his bushy black tail behind him. She fed him, gave him fresh water, and found her dog brush to tackle his coat. She had him lie on a large towel in front of her on the living room floor.
“Good boy,” she said as he lay still and let her run the brush through his wiry coat. “I wish all boys were as well-behaved as you are. Then again, we did cut your balls off. Maybe that’s the secret to making men behave. You think?”
Gmork batted his tail against the floor, and she laughed.
He held still while she brushed him—it was his favorite thing. Just as she started in on his right side, however, Gmork tensed up. He leapt to his feet so fast that Nora had to scramble backward to get out of his way.
He didn’t growl.
What he did do was trot over to the front door, sit down, and wag his tail. He only ever did that when Juliette stopped by with Céleste.
What would they be doing here at eleven on a Monday night? Nora jumped to her feet just as the bell rang. She hurried to the door and opened it.
A woman was standing on her front step, in the little sliver of streetlight that broke through Nora’s oak tree.
Her hair was tied back up a red scarf, her lips full and lush, and her eyes…her eyes were dark. Nora shook a little when she saw them. Earthquake eyes.
The woman spoke in a warm and steady voice. “I heard you were looking for me.”
Chapter Twenty
Cyrus found Paulina at her kitchen table, textbook open in front of her and a cappuccino in hand. She still had work clothes on—gray skirt, white blouse. And there it was, after eleven already.
“Oh, that’s not good,” he said from the kitchen doorway.
“You’re telling me.” She looked up from her book and grinned tiredly at him. He walked over to her, and she laid her head against his stomach, arms around his waist. Cyrus squinted at the small print in her book.
“‘A theory of social cognitive development of the adolescent brain under stress…’ Baby, you don’t need coffee. You need cocaine to get through this.”
Paulina swatted him on the ass, which Cyrus didn’t mind one bit. She pushed a chair out for him with her foot for him to sit down on next to her.
“It’s interesting,” she said. “Sort of.”
“You got a test?” he asked.
“Paper, due Friday. It’s almost finished. And then only five more modules until master’s degree numero dos.” She raised her hands and waved them in praise-the-Lord fashion.
“Two master’s degrees,” Cyrus said. “I’m marrying a genius.”
“You know it, Daddy.” She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m thinking of getting my hair done like Einstein. Get it dyed all white and gray, stick it up like I stuck my finger in a light socket. What do you think?”
“It’s almost October,” he said. “You could be Bride of Frankenstein with hair like that.”
“And you’ll be my Frankenstein?”
“I ain’t going anywhere in public with you looking like that.”
She swatted him again—his arm this time—then sat back in her chair, laughing. When she reached for her coffee on the table, Cyrus picked it up and held it out of her arm’s reach. She reached for it anyway.
“Uh-uh. No more. It’s past your bedtime.”
“Give it…please…me…” she pleaded, begged, whimpered. Pitiful.
“No, ma’am.” He sat the coffee cup behind him on the table where she couldn’t get to it.
“Ah, so mean.” She slumped in her chair like a grumpy ten-year-old who was about to get sent to bed without supper.
“You said you’re almost done. Bedtime for beautiful girls.”
“Fine, fine. But tell me about your night first. You kinda smell like you had a time of it.” She sat up again, prim and proper, took his hand, met his eyes.
“I was on Bourbon Street. Remind me not to do that again.”
“Don’t do that again.” She poked his nose.
“Thank you.”
“What’s going down on Bourbon Street tonight?”
“Trouble,” he said. “Not my fault. Didn’t start it. Might have finished it, though.”
Her eyes widened. She blinked.
“Now I’m awake. Tell me.”
He told her, starting with Doc who couldn’t keep his lips off Nora’s hands. Then Mister Pasadena who was, probably, right that minute, in the ER getting his foot put in a cast. And finally, the vampire and the witch.
“So,” Paulina said, nodding, “typical night in Nola?”
“I wish you could have been there, baby. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. That tiny little white girl broke the hell out of that boy’s foot. Just STOMP and boom, kid’s limping for life.”
“I can’t say I feel too sorry for him.”
“Nah. If that’s how he acts with a woman in public? Don’t even want to think what he’d do in private.”
That was one thing Cyrus never did and never had to do. He had never forced a woman in his life. Even at his worst, he had lines he didn’t cross.
“You make sure your new friend got home okay?” Paulina asked.
“Nora? Yeah, she’s home safe now. She keeps asking if she can come to our wedding.” He snorted. “No way.”
Paulina pretended to pout.
“You want a crazy white lady at our wedding?” he said.
“Your cousin Martin’s wife is going to be there, remember.”
“You want two crazy white ladies at our wedding?”
Paulina
laughed so hard, she had to put her head on the table for a minute to recover.
“You’re ornery,” she said.
“I got nothing on Nora. That woman…my Lord.”
Paulina looked up. “You like her.”
“She’s entertaining. Then again, so is playing Mortal Kombat.”
She pushed his shoulder. “You like her.”
“She’s fun to get in trouble with, that’s for sure. I’d let her throw my bachelor party, but we’d all be dead or in jail by morning.”
“That’s how you know it’s a good party,” Paulina said. “Maybe I’ll let her throw my bachelorette party.”
“No. No. No.” Cyrus put his foot down with each and every “no.”
“It’s cute when you get all protective of me.”
“Glad you think it’s cute, because it’s not going to stop anytime soon. Except when you get us rich with that big brain of yours and we can hire bodyguards. Then I’m off duty.”
“I don’t think I’m going to get us rich as a middle school principal.”
“That’s just the beginning,” Cyrus said. “I got plans for you. You’re gonna be in the governor’s mansion in fifteen years.”
“As what? A maid?”
Cyrus made a disgusted sound to go along with his disgusted expression. “Governor. Smart as you are, two master’s degrees, working as a guidance counselor and then a principal. If anything can prepare someone for politics, it’s working with middle school kids.”
“That’s probably true.”
“I will make one fine first husband.”
“That I can believe,” she said, following it with a loud yawn.
“That’s it,” he said. “You have got to go to bed.”
“I’m going. I’m going.” She slapped her hands on the table dramatically and pushed herself up. Cyrus didn’t mind a bit when she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed the top of his head.
“You did that just to get to your coffee again, didn’t you?” he asked. He could hear her drinking it.
“It’s cappuccino,” she said. “Technically.”
Cyrus reached up and extracted the cup from her hand again. Without warning her, he picked her up off her feet and carried her to her bedroom.
“Oh, very nice,” she said, settling into his arms. “This is almost better than coffee.”
“Are we married yet?”
The Priest: An Original Sinners Novel Page 16