by Les Goodrich
“Let’s look in this room first,” Jordan said and Rick just raised his eyebrows in a why the hell not expression and Jordan opened the door with Rick’s wand over her shoulder.
The room was humming from electronics and two desks faced each other. It was much larger than they had expected and it must have been cantilevered out over the back of the house and in it was the voodoo wall and the many screens and computers and Figment’s chair and the windows that looked over the city on that side. But no one was in the room and there were no doors nor halls and Rick pulled Jordan around by the shoulder to head to the next room.
“Wait!” she said.
“We’ll deal with this later!” Rick insisted but Jordan pulled away from him and jumped to look closely at one of the screens. On it she saw Fallon’s rooftop and her Victorian chair and her silver tea set on a low table. She recognized the fisheye curve of a laptop camera and she knew Fallon had taken her computer to the roof and when she saw Fallon’s limp stance in the background and her lethargic step on the monitor edge, she knew that Figment had hexed her. She stomped to the door.
“Where the hell are you going?” Rick burst.
“You’re on your own rockstar. You can handle this jerk. He better hope I don’t see him on my way out,” she said with a deliberate volume. “Remember, Reflect-Fire. And don’t whisper it.”
“Jordan!” Rick called and she was pounding down the stairs.
“I’ll send Tanner,” she yelled and she kicked through the front door and ran to her Jeep on the next corner.
“Fucking women,” Rick snarled and he steeled his will and stepped to the doorway.
Jordan’s Jeep tires squealed to a stop at the end of the Music Street alley between the two graveyard walls. In the canyon they formed Tanner and Team Lemort fought amid a pile of zombies and ghosts, dead and worse.
“Tanner!” Jordan yelled.
“What?” Tanner instinctively answered and he kicked a zombie in the leg and punched at it’s horrid face while lunging his body to pin the one on his back against the wall behind him. The sound of breaking rotten bones echoed and he looked over the mess and his fighting friends to see Jordan in her Jeep.
“Rick needs your help,” she yelled. “The house at the end of the row. You’ll know it. He’s fighting Figment.”
“I’m a little busy at the moment!” Tanner yelled.
“Just hurry,” she shouted and she pulled away and she was calling the Lemort house even as Josephine and her brothers and Tanner began to finally work there way into a manageable number of foes and all around them the bodies and body parts of zombies moldered with ghost slime and dread and the scene was dismal in a thousand ways.
Jordan’s heart pounded so hard that it caused her voice to shake in pulses and that voice shattered the evening calm with which Barton answered the phone.
“Lemort Residence, Barton speaking.”
“Barton this is Jordan. You must make agrimony tea right now. Do you know where Josephine keeps it?”
“Agrimony? Yes. But where are you? What’s the meaning of this?”
Jordan sped through the streets and ran stop signs and rounded corners and gravel flew. “Just do it and fast. Please. I’ll explain later.”
“As you wish,” Barton said and he shuffled off to make the tea and he shook his head.
Jordan parked at the first spot she saw and ran down Orleans Street to Pirate Alley. She was calling Carol as she went.
“Jordan, what’s wrong?” Carol answered.
“The agrimony counter-stun spell. The one you did for Casey. Can you text it to me?”
“Well, didn’t you hear me do it?”
“I didn’t memorize it Carol! Could you just text it to me.”
“As best I can I will, but I made that up on the fly.”
“You did?”
“Yeah.”
“Well it damn sure worked and I need it now so could you just text it to me?”
“I’m sending it now. Are you guys doing okay out there?”
“Same as always.” Jordan said and hung up.
“Oh dear,” Carol said and hit send on her text and the spell flew to Jordan.
Jordan burst through the front door of the Lemort home.
“What’s going on?” Barton asked.
“The tea, is it ready?”
“Yes it’s here,” Barton said and Jordan took the teapot and one cup and ran up the stairs. She hoped desperately to see Fallon on the roof and she ran faster and faster until she had to slow herself at the carved door. With the cup handle around her thumb and the pot in the same hand she tried the handle. It was open and she ran to the spiral stairs. Green haze flooded the room and she held her breath through it. She twirled up the staircase and burst from the door onto the cold rooftop. Fallon was one step from the roof edge on the far side and Jordan saw her outstretched leg.
She ran to the table, put the teapot and cup on the concrete deck, and closed the laptop. “Fallon!” she yelled and Fallon heard her and she was crying at the edge of the roof and she had long ago closed her eyes. She could not turn her head. Emptiness and an indifferent ground lay a dizzying distance below her and her foot waited only for Figment to shift her weight to her death.
Fallon felt Jordan’s arms warp around her from behind and she was spun and moved and she stood facing her savior and she wept and Jordan said, “I’ve got you.”
She guided Fallon by her shoulders toward the table. Figment was distracted, fighting off the IWM agent, and they traded curses and hexes from door and hall but Figment needed only reach his lab and this agent would join the girl in her hex on the roof and he could then finish his business and all of his pests would be gone.
A spell from Rick hit the door frame where Figment hunched just inside.
“Too slow old man,” Figment taunted and he swung a whip of green light from his wand and it reached out like a snake of lightening and cracked at the hallway alcove and nearly took out Rick’s eye.
“Goddamn you little bastard! Reflect-Fire!” he yelled and again he just missed Figment who dashed into the next room. He was working his way around to the lab.
In the graveyard canyon Tanner elbowed one last undead ghoul and Grayson reached a hand to help him climb out of the horrible pit and the four stood exhausted but alive and they stumbled together to the end of the row.
“That was fun,” Charles said breathing deep.
“I think Fallon needs your help,” Tanner said.
“Fallon?” Josephine asked.
“It’s the only thing that would have caused Jordan to leave. Go now. I’ll help Agent Rick.”
Tanner put his hands on his knees and tried to recover some oxygen. He heaved for breath.
“He’s in the dark house with black windows at the end of the lane,” the old woman spectator on the porch said to Tanner and she pointed from her rocking chair.
“This way,” Tanner indicated and he stood.
“Yessir,” the old woman said and Tanner said, “Thank you,” and was off.
He saw lights flashing from upstairs and he entered the darkened front room and found himself in the empty house. He ascended the stairs.
“I must be crazy,” he said to himself.
On the Lemort roof Jordan recited the spell from her phone with her wand over the poured cup of tea and she saw it glow green and from it a green steam curled. She helped Fallon drink it and then coaxed her to recline on the concrete floor of the roof.
Tanner emerged on the upstairs landing. A door swung open and he leveled his wand but it was Rick and he made the shhh sign with his finger over his lips then pointed to the door between them. Tanner backed into the darkness of the hallway behind him, trusting Rick. Rick edged to the darkness of the hallway to his left. From those positions they had Figment in a crossfire and they waited for the door to open.
On the rooftop Fallon lurched and tightened and her body convulsed and a green light erupted from her chest.
The
door that slung open was not the one Rick and Tanner were watching. It was the door to Figment’s lab between them. A green light flooded from it and the door where Rick knew Figment to be did swing open and Figment stood there then fell to the floor where his body writhed and all he could say through the pain with cringed effort was, “Damn witches.”
Figment’s wand fell from his hand. “Jordan did it,” Rick said and he moved confidently along the landing and Tanner eased from the shadow of the corner hall.
“Reflect-Fire!” Rick shouted and he flourished his wand and a yellow arc stuck Figment in the chest. “That’s for good measure,” Rick said to him and the young man’s face was still hooded but within the dark folds his teeth shone horrid and his eyes were creased with hate but he could move neither muscle nor voice. “And you ain’t seen nothing yet amigo,” Rick taunted and he pulled the spellcuffs from his bag. He handed the cuffs to Tanner. “You do the honors.”
“Why me?” Tanner asked.
“Unless you’d rather hold his arms,” Rick said.
“Oh no,” Tanner smiled and he took the cuffs.
Rick held Figment’s hands up by both arms and Tanner clamped the cuffs around each wrist. A bright white light flashed from the cuffs and emanated out across the country and the nearest IWM office received Agent Rick’s spellcuff report and it gave them all the information they needed to respond. As the light faded all other spells left Figment and a stream of curses flooded from his mouth.
“Tongue-Tied!” Rick said and he swung his wand up and Figment was instantly silenced. “Walk down the stairs and stop by your front door,” Rick said and Figment stood and walked on. “That’s better,” Rick said. Tanner and Rick followed him to the front door. “Hit your head on the wall,” Rick said and Figment bashed his own head into the plaster where it crunched. Tanner shook his head. “Now go outside and sit on the walkway to your street.” Rick said and Tanner watched as Figment did so.
Figment’s hood had fallen back and his face was young, square jawed, and sculpted. His hair was shoulder-length, black, and lank, and his expression beyond angry. His eyes burned and his teeth gnashed and yet he was immobile. Two white SUVs pulled up at the street just as Rick escorted Figment to the sidewalk. The doors opened and from each vehicle stepped three men in black suits, hats, and sunglasses.
“We’ll take it from here,” one said and the other five men flanked Figment and ushered him into the back of the second SUV and he was never seen by any free person again. The man in black who had given the order stepped to Rick Warren just as Tanner came up. “Excellent job as always Agent Warren,” the man said and he shook Rick’s hand.
“Thank you sir,” Rick said. “And this is Ashenguild inventor Tanner F. Hampton. Tanner, this is Director Glenn.”
“A pleasure to meet you sir.”
The other five agents hustled up the sidewalk into Figment’s home and lab.
“Director, you will recognize his application, if he decides someday to apply, because my letter of recommendation will be stapled to it.”
“Outstanding work young man. But don’t learn too many bad habits from this scoundrel,” Director Glenn said with a wink.
“Yes sir,” Tanner said.
“There will be a good deal of zombie body parts on the Music Street alley between Derbigny Street and Roman I’d imagine,” Rick told his superior.
“And some ectoplasm reside glued to some pretty pissed off ghosts,” Tanner added.
“Already cleaned up,” Director Glenn said. “Thank you both. Need I remind you Tanner, that the IWM does not exist?”
“Not in the least,” Tanner said and the man smiled. He walked to his SUV, opened the driver’s door, stood on the running board and spoke once more over the vehicle roof. “And this little fiasco, it never happened.” He saluted Rick Warren who saluted him back. The other agents returned from the house with cases of gear and bags of who new what. They loaded the gear and the two white SUVs pulled away into the night.
“I guess we walk,” Agent Rick said and the two set off down the dark street. “I do better walking.”
“Like a golf match,” Tanner said. “Gives you time to think.”
“That’s right,” Rick said and he ruffled Tanner’s shoulder and the two walked on.
***
Everyone was in the living room and Jordan ran to hug Tanner and Rick when the two walked in. Josephine remained composed but she was no less happy and everyone sat and Barton served them a fine champagne.
“We knew you were okay,” Jordan said. “Director Glenn stopped by and told us.”
“How do you know it was really him?” Rick asked her.
“I’m not at liberty to say,” Jordan said.
“That was him,” Rick said.
“So Figment is gone?” Fallon asked.
“Oh he’s gone all right,” Rick said. “And your charm saved me more than once. It’s going to be permanent part of my uniform from now on.”
Fallon blushed and looked away.
“And Jordan, you were amazing,” Rick admitted. “You saved us all in the end.”
“That’s my job,” Jordan said.
“Just one thing?” Rick asked her. “Who the hell is Giorgio Jones?”
“You actually called him that?” Tanner asked her.
“It was a heated moment.”
“Well who is it?” Rick demanded and Tanner and Jordan laughed.
“It’s no one,” Jordan said. “Don’t be offended. It’s actually a compliment. When we first saw you, you reminded us of a combination of Giorgio Tsoukalos and Indiana Jones.”
“Offended? No way,” Rick said with a bright grin. “I love those guys.” He lifted his hands and said, “Aliens!”
“Well I’ve just realized none of us have eaten since this morning,” Josephine said. “You know, in New Orleans, that just won’t do. Now I know a perfect place that’s open late and the food is divine. This will be my treat.”
Some grumblings of being tired and that she didn’t have to were swiftly shut down by the assertive Josephine Lemort.
“I insist. All of you clean up and wear something nice. This isn’t some dive. Barton, you too.”
“Yes Mam,” Barton said and went off to wherever it was where he went to clean up and find a good tie.
Jordan and Tanner washed zombie blood and hex dust away taking showers in turn and dressing in the best clothes they had happened to bring and everyone convened upstairs again.
“The very air of the city feels better already,” Fallon said and she reached for Jordan’s hand and the troupe walked into the New Orleans night. A slightly inebriated pirate ghost stopped and tipped his hat to the passing Josephine Lemort at the head of the crew.
“A blessed evening to you mam.”
“And to you sir,” she said.
They walked through the comfortably cool night and Josephine led them. At one corner she crossed the street and held open the door to an old inn and inside was warm and a fire in the stone hearth swung at the door opening then righted itself. A crowd conversed and ate at various tables and the most beautiful women and men drifted among them and served and chatted and delivered drinks with elegance and style.
Jordan looked to the road signs and recalled the corner and she stopped Tanner at the door where Josephine held it for these last two.
“Isn’t this the place you said was owned by vampires?” Jordan asked.
“Shhhh,” Josephine said leaning close. “The voodoo priestesses have a truce with the vampires and have had for two centuries. The food is exquisite. The service is impeccable. And besides, they make the most intoxicating sangria.”
“Are you up for this?” Jordan asked Tanner. Her skin stood in bumps of excitement.
“After today, I’m up for anything,” Tanner said and he followed Jordan in.
“Just don’t go home with a server from here,” Josephine said. “At least not before I teach you a thing or two.”
The door closed
and the night air grew cooler and all around the corner inn New Orleans hummed and sang and swung to late night jazz well into the night.
Chapter 21
Yule
After warm goodbyes with Team Lemort, Tanner and Jordan set out on the morning road. “The Sun has just started to climb,” Jordan said. “So for the next hour or so it will kill us to drive east right into it. We have an hour.”
“And hour for what?” Tanner asked.
“We aren’t leaving New Orleans without going to the oldest coffee house in the country.”
“I didn’t think we were.”
Jordan parked on the street beyond Jackson Square and they walked a short distance to Cafe Du Monde.
“Just two?” the hostess asked.
“Yes,” Jordan said and they were off following the girl and in seconds found themselves seated at a round marble cafe table in two simple black chairs under a covered patio with high fans and a bustling crowd. They looked at the brief menu.
“Cafe au lait with the chicory coffee and beignets,” Jordan said to Tanner. That’s what we want.”
“You’re the expert,” Tanner said.
“Ready?” a swift server asked and Jordan ordered the same thing for both of them and in less than three minutes the steaming coffees and powdered sugar coated beignets were delivered.
“What are these things?” Tanner asked.
“Beignets. They’re like French Donuts. And the coffee has chicory in it, which is a roasted root, to mellow out the strong French roast. Cafe au lait is half coffee and half hot milk.”
Those were the last words spoken for the next ten minutes except for, “Mmmmm,” “Oh my God,” and “Delicious.”
“I have to hand it to you,” Tanner said. “I was thinking this would just be coffee on the way out of town. I didn’t expect it to be one of the most delicious experiences of my life.”
“Told ya,” Jordan said and she finished her coffee.
They each ordered another cafe au lait to have with the last of the cooled beignets.