The Romeo Catchers

by Arden, Alys

“Adele cannot see ghosts.”

  “You have no idea about that girl.”

  “We’re witches!” I yelled. “Not Animarum Praedators, or Spirit Predators, or whatever the hell. You know that!”

  Ren’s lips were pursed, and his brow crinkled. His face was so red it looked purple. He roared, “THE ANIMARUM PRAEDATORS ARE WITCHES!”

  Ritha’s eyes lit up.

  I looked to Désirée, wondering if she was thinking the same thing I was—about the new witch who had arrived to town Halloween night, which was also about the same time I had started hanging around Dee.

  The white-haired woman in the chair looked at me—her irises were as pale as her hair, like the color had been drained out of them. “I tried to warn you,” she cried out, “but you didn’t help me!”

  Everyone’s gaze hardened on me.

  “What are you talking about?”

  A draft blew through the curtain, gently rocking the mirror shards. The dangling glass chimed above us, and I saw her reflection in them as they swayed. My heart nearly stopped as I realized what all the mirrors were for. The pieces of glass didn’t reflect the old woman, but the entity inside her: the blonde I’d found floating in the pool.

  What the . . . ?

  “I shouted to you, Isaac,” she said, weeping, “but you couldn’t hear me, so I left you a message in the dust! You read it, but you still didn’t help me!”

  “I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  The mirror. The message in the mirror.

  A N I M A R U M

  P R A E D A T O R

  Her corpse didn’t need protecting; her ghost did.

  Ritha shot the Borges death glare at me. “If you have caused any harm to the spirits of this coven, you will be cast so far out of the witching world—”

  “Don’t talk to him like that!” Désirée yelled, and her arm shot to the window behind me, flinging it open. The girl was born to tell people what to do with her eyes, and I didn’t need to be told twice.

  In a poof I was gone, through the window, flying over the rooftops, adrenaline shooting through my veins.

  I wondered if I should go to Adele’s first, but the drowned girl’s reflection pounded in my head. The Animarum Praedator are witches.

  I turned on Royal Street, ready to rip Callis out of his bed. The house with the drowned blonde had been on his first day on the job.

  Had she needed me to protect her from Callis?

  Instead of helping her, I’d practically delivered her to him, hooking him up with the job and even leading him to her body.

  Fuck.

  But why would a witch be attacking ghosts?

  CHAPTER 42

  The Carter Brothers

  As I pushed aside the pile of blankets on the attic floor, the little fireballs whizzed around my head. You need to calm down.

  I slid down to the floor against the sealed door.

  This is never going to work if you don’t relax.

  My eyes slipped shut.

  I want to see it, Nicco. No childhood memories. No dark, twisted fantasies about killing me. I want to see that night. I want to see the night you tortured Callis.

  And with that, the little balls of fire hovering around me fizzled out, and everything went dark through my eyelids.

  The dream started in the same way all of the others did, with the beating of a heart—of his heart. The thump-thumping.

  Come on, Nicco. You trusted me enough to ban yourself to an attic for eternity.

  Thump-thump.

  Thump-thump.

  You have to trust me with this.

  But all I saw was darkness. Nothing.

  I imagined Callis bursting past me through the door and killing my mother. I could see the vehemence in his eyes as he plunged a stake straight through Nicco’s heart.

  I’m coming in, Nicco.

  It’s for your own good. You have to trust me.

  I’m coming in.

  I heard the crashing waves in the background. The front door was locked, but this time I flung my hand, and it swung open.

  The thumping grew louder and louder, and suddenly I wasn’t in the attic or the house on the cliff. I was in the doorway of an elegant room with a long dining room table full of people. Windows with plush green drapery lined the right wall. A china cabinet stood tall on the left, next to a buffet table with a silver coffee set and a stack of newspapers. A man was standing at the head of the table, bent over, fingers resting on the table. He looked up, and I gasped.

  Emilio. I hardly recognized him, so dashing in the suit.

  Thump-thump.

  Thump-thump.

  My gaze followed the thumping. Nicco was standing at the window, equally dapper, looking out, lost in thought.

  Nicco? I held up my hands—they were my own, not Nicco’s. I turned to my left, to a mirror over the buffet. The reflection was me. “Of course you’re not him, Adele, he’s standing over there,” I mumbled.

  He turned and looked straight at me.

  “Nicco!” I fought the urge not to run over and throw my arms around him.

  Dazed, he turned back to the window.

  “Nicco!”

  This time he didn’t react. Nor did anyone else.

  They can’t hear you, Adele. Or see you. It’s Nicco’s dream. You’re inside the dream.

  I walked closer to the table, wondering what occasion called for everyone to dress so handsomely. All the ladies wore beaded dresses, finger curls or flapper bobs, and fur stoles around their shoulders. Some of the men’s bowler hats looked pristinely vintage. Maybe it was one of those themed parties where everyone dressed from a different decade? This one would definitely be the Roaring ’20s. Maybe ’30s . . .

  I moved closer to a man whose mustache could have really used a trim, which seemed strange compared to his formal attire. His skin was so pale. Are they all vampires? That would explain the lack of food on the table.

  I waved my hand in front of his face just to be sure. Nothing.

  His head fell forward, chin to chest.

  “Sir?” I asked, momentarily forgetting they couldn’t hear me. I leaned closer, and that’s when I saw that his wrists were not only bound together but also bound to the table underneath.

  I straightened up quickly and stared at the others. They were all prisoners.

  “Nicco?” I quickly stepped around the table. “Nicco, what are you doing? What are you doing to these people?”

  He turned and looked straight at me, as if he heard me but couldn’t find me, and then he slowly turned back to the window.

  “Why are you doing this?” I shouted.

  Callis’s words rang in my head: Don’t seek logic or reasoning in monsters, Adele.

  “Help me,” a tiny voice called, the first words spoken since I’d been in the room, and they weren’t much more than a wisp.

  I know that voice. I moved down the table, past men and women, some older, some not—just like one huge family at Thanksgiving.

  “Help,” she cried again, small and helpless sounding—a little girl down by Emilio.

  She was wearing a pale-blue dress with a big navy bow at her chest. Her long black hair was braided into two pigtails, curled on the ends. She was so gaunt and pale she better resembled a corpse than a vampire.

  “Celestina!” I yelled, realizing I was exactly where I wanted to be. I rushed over and grabbed for her arm, but my hand went right through, as if she were made of air.

  Her lips were cracked and bleeding, and she continuously licked them as she murmured, “Help.” She looked up, I swear, directly at me. “Help.” Her head bobbed to the side. “Help me, please.”

  She wasn’t pleading to me; she was just delirious with . . . starvation? Dehydration? Blood loss?

  I wanted to lift her up and run her out of there. “Nicco! Do something! This isn’t you!”

  But he didn’t even look my way.

  “It’s going to be okay, Stina,” said a voice across the table—ano
ther voice I knew, and another face I hardly recognized. Callis struggled to hold up his head. His skin was an ashy gray, and his dark curls fell over his glossy blue eyes.

  “Callis!” I hurried around the table to him. “Callis, I’m going to help you.” I fumbled for the rope around his wrist, but again my hand went straight through like I was made of vapors. “How can I help you?” I screamed.

  This is a memory, Adele. They don’t need your help. You know they survive. But how?

  Callis’s head fell back to the side. The shoulder of his jacket and the collar of his shirt were soaked with ten shades of dried blood, and there were two giant holes in his neck. Not dainty fang marks like I’d seen on Maddalena or Theis, but enormous bloody gashes, as if from multiple feedings.

  No. The realization crashed around me. This is Callis’s coven.

  I dashed to the next closest person and the next, peering at their clothing just below their ascots and fur stoles and suit jackets. Though none of their wounds appeared as bad as Callis’s, they all had fang marks and stains of crimson—all of them except Celestina.

  “Oh, what, you’re too humane to feed off a nine-year-old?” I screamed at Nicco before turning to Emilio. “I didn’t think you were above anything, Emilio. Maybe there is hope for you yet?”

  “Don’t worry, Stina,” Callis said weakly. “I’m going to get us out of here. And I’m going to get you something to eat.”

  In a quick whip, Nicco crossed the room. “No, you’re not!” He slammed his fist on the table in front of Callis. “The only way you’ll be leaving this room is as a pile of ash and bone hidden in my pockets, so I can dispose of you in the river.”

  “No, Nicco.” My head shook vigorously. “No. This isn’t you. I know this isn’t you.”

  Emilio laughed in the background. “Did you really think you’d be able to spill Medici blood, Callisto? Aren’t you supposed to be the leader of your coven? Have you really not learned anything in your years?”

  He looked up to Emilio with a smile. “I’ve learned that people will always underestimate a little girl.”

  “Cosa?” Nicco asked as our heads all turned.

  Celestina was gone.

  “What did you do?” Nicco yelled at Callis. “Where is she?”

  Callis laughed with what little energy he had left. I think if he’d been physically able to, he’d have spat in Nicco’s face.

  Emilio tore through the room, searching for her.

  I dropped to the floor, looking under the table, scared for her life, despite knowing she lived to see New Orleans. But she wasn’t there. Just the ropes that her bony little wrists must have slipped out of, and a pair of doll-like patent-leather booties. Glancing at all of the other shoes under the table, I suddenly felt like I was at a Roaring Twenties museum rather than at a costume party. The thick nude stockings, the beaded fringe hanging down from the ladies’ dresses—exquisite detail, far too authentic for just costumes.

  I quickly emerged.

  Emilio whipped out the door, still searching, while Nicco whispered threatening things into Callis’s ear, every word of which was about killing Celestina—a child. But rather than his words, my attention was drawn to his suit, which looked like it came straight from Jay Gatsby’s closet.

  I stumbled back a few steps, into the buffet. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the top newspaper in the stack. It was crisply folded, like it hadn’t been read yet.

  Emilio came back into the room, exchanging loud words with Nicco in Italian, but I didn’t turn around. My eyes were glued to the headline on the front page:

  PROHIBITION ENDS AT LAST!

  But Did It Ever Really Begin in New Orleans?

  “What the hell?” I ran to the window, the curtain rippling as I rushed past. With my nose near the glass, I got the confirmation I needed. We were on Royal Street, on the corner of St. Ann. This is the house of the Carter brothers. These people weren’t just victims of Nicco and Emilio; they were the Carter brothers’ victims from Ren’s story.

  “Adele?”

  When I turned around, Nicco was calling my name.

  “Adele?”

  Thump-thump.

  Thump-thump.

  “Adele, you have to trust me.”

  My eyes fluttered awake, my heart pounding. Thump-thumping. I held on to the scene in my head. Every detail. The rope shackles. The bite wounds. The threats. Everything was exactly how Callis had described it.

  Callis and Celestina and the rest of his coven were the victims of the Carter brothers, but he’d left out one key detail.

  The fact that it happened nearly a hundred years ago.

  “What. The. Hell? Who are they? What are they?” How could witches stay alive for a century and still appear to be nine and twenty-five?

  It didn’t change the fact that they’d been tortured by the Medici, but it certainly gave me pause. Callis’s half-truth was enough for my suspicion to run deeper. And, as always, one answer led to a thousand more questions.

  I blasted out a message to Isaac, Dee, and Annabelle:

  Adele 10:51 p.m. Sorry I’m late. On my way back to HQ, now! Need to talk STAT. Callis is up to something.

  CHAPTER 43

  La sauvez

  I circled the building twice. No signs of life. No lights. No noises. I wasn’t even sure if the Daures lived in the Quarter. Maybe it was just Callis and Celestina who lived upstairs?

  Without skipping a beat, I landed in an alley across the street so I could change form without causing alarm, and ran back to the shop. I pressed my face to the smoky bay window, trying to see if there was any activity deeper in the house. Maybe another chimney entrance would let me catch him off guard.

  I pulled out my phone to call Callis. And say what? Attacked any ghosts today?

  Then, as if in response, the front door slowly opened, bell jingling overhead as if to invite me in.

  I dropped my phone back into my pocket and glanced over my shoulder, hoping to find Adele rushing down the street, having opened the door. But there was no one.

  I peered into the dark shop and stepped across the threshold. Cold air moved around me like silky pythons, slithering around my neck.

  Behind me, the door creaked closed.

  “Sauvez la,” Julie whispered, her voice no longer strong and defiant but distant and ethereal.

  “Julie?”

  “Sauvez la,” she whispered again, and I saw her near the window, just for a blink before she faded away along with her words. “Sauvez la . . .”

  “Julie!”

  Something about the tone of her voice was off.

  She was hurt. I knew it.

  The last time I was here, she’d been so strong, so opaque, I’d thought she was human. She’d even knocked me back. Now she could barely speak.

  A dim light in the hallway flickered on, drawing my gaze.

  “Callis?”

  The squeaks of twisting metal responded, then the rush of running water.

  “Hello?”

  “He’ll never get me,” Julie said again, slowly brushing my ear, and this time I heard the real message.

  He already had.

  “Julie, are you okay?” A chill whipped around me, and I followed it, lifting the partition in the counter to pass through, glass crunching underneath my feet. “Are you hurt?”

  She blinked in and out down the hallway, her long white dress fluttering, and disappeared into the lit room.

  I followed her into the corridor, definitely with the feeling that I was trespassing. Definitely not caring.

  I pushed a door open into rolling clouds of steam.

  “Julie?”

  Waving my hand through the wet air, I turned off the bathroom faucet. “Julie, did Callis touch you? Where is he? I’m going to help you!”

  I moved slowly, not wanting to scare her; then I froze when I caught a glimpse of the mirror.

  Julie, still blinking in and out, was leaning over the sink, smearing letters on the mirro
r:

  M É F I E Z -

  My pulse accelerated, hammering in my ears. Was this her last-ditch effort to communicate?

  V O U S

  The French words compounded my anxiety, now thinking about Adele.

  D E

  English, Julie. English. But as more letters came into view a translation was no longer necessary.

  C E L E L S

  “Celestina!” I yelled. “Celestina did this to you?”

  M É F I E Z – VO U S D E C E L E S T I N A

  “Oui,” she whispered against my ear, shivers jutting down my spine.

  What had Callis said before Chatham had walked in? “I’ll have Celestina work on her . . . who can resist a nine-year-old, right?”

  My fist balled.

  How many ghosts has this guy hurt because of me?

  “Isaac, sauvez la.”

  I whipped around as the cold brushed my neck. “Julie, what does that mean?”

  The door opened, and she floated into the hallway, blinking in and out, repeating the words.

  “Julie?” I yelled, hurrying after her into the shop. “Julie?”

  She wasn’t there.

  What’s happening to her?

  I flashed my phone on the ground. There was broken glass everywhere. Not just moon mugs—all of the jars of tea were shattered into a smattering of glass and dried herbs and flowers, crystal balls, and Tarot cards. Signs of struggle.

  “Sauvez la.”

  When I looked up, she was standing in the middle of the room, her entire being fluttering just like her dress. “Julie!”

  And then she blinked out completely.

  “What does it mean, sauvez la?”

  But when I said the words out loud, I got it, because the French word sounded just like the English: save.

  She was no longer saying “Protect her.” She was saying “Save her.”

  I thought about the girl’s reflection in the broken mirror, and I kicked the leg of a wooden chair.

  I’d failed to protect someone else—and now they needed saving.

  I pulled out my phone. A message was flashing on the screen:

  Adele 22:51 Sorry I’m late. On my way back to HQ, now! Need to talk STAT. Callis is up to something.

  Thank God, she’s at the brothel, but then I read the time stamp, and my pulse raced. Thirty minutes ago. If she’d arrived at the brothel and we hadn’t been there, wouldn’t she have sent more messages trying to find us?