by G A Chase
Myles wasn’t convinced the mayhem that covered every metal desk left over from the shipping company was anyone’s fault but the professor’s. “They just dumped this stuff here?”
“Oh, hell no. You think I’d let those thugs in my lab? I knew I should have hung onto that van until I had my stuff. Never should have let Joe talk me into trusting Luther to do the right thing.”
After the hurricane, Myles had returned with Kendell and the band in Minerva’s VW, which left Charlie, Joe, Delphine, and the professor to make their way back to New Orleans in the van stolen from Luther’s operation.
“He was just trying to get the police off our backs,” Myles said. “Had they decided we’d taken the van as a result of the post-hurricane confusion, we’d still be sitting in jail—all of us.”
“Yeah, yeah. You don’t have to remind me about the past. What really bugs me is Luther keeps hounding me to come to work for him. He got one look at my equipment, didn’t have the foggiest idea of how it works, and convinced himself I would make the perfect addition to his operation. Like I’d ever be able to work in an office building.”
“The abandoned World Trade Center is hardly an office building, but I get what you’re saying. That’s not why I’m here.”
Professor Yates nodded like an academician considering a new theorem. “Where do I fit in?”
“Can you detect an object in another dimension? Specifically, we’re still searching for Baron Samedi’s cane, but if possible, it’d also be good to know that someone in this reality was keeping an eye on us. If Kendell carries the golden pick Papa Ghede gave her, could you track it?”
The professor turned to his gauges, paraphernalia, and metal boxes scattered around the room. Instead of offering the obvious excuse, he sighed. “Have her bring it by. I’ll scan it. With any luck, I’ll be able to build something from this ramshackle mess. At the very least, I should be able to tell if you’re coming or going between dimensions.”
Myles hated what he had to say next. “I’m going to leave you in charge. You’ll be our main hope should things go wrong on the other side. Charlie’s a good man—he’s gotten me out of some tough scrapes—but he’s not familiar with the dangers of our paranormal activities. Delphine is knowledgeable but useless in a fight. Plus, I still don’t trust her. Joe Cazenave would have been my first choice, but I dare not approach him. Even if he weren’t secretly trying to fix things from outside the department, he’d still need to maintain his cover. That, my friend, leaves you to watch our backs and rally the troops should things get hairy.”
4
Colin sat on the wooden stairs of Scratch and Sniff, studying the rain. His observation started off with the drops not so much falling as looking as if they’d been fired out of a shotgun. Each drop exploded on impact with the ground. There wasn’t a lot of water, but it fell with ferocity.
Three minutes and twenty seconds in—even though the minute and hour hands remained firmly at 6:52, he could still count how many times the second hand spun around the dial—a light breeze moved the walls of rain like air blowing a sheet dry on a clothesline. The wind blew some of the anger out of the storm. Colin beat the iron bar he’d used to break into the perfumery on the concrete curb to mark the change. The casual observer might hope the storm was finally moving off.
Of course, such a person, were there one, would be completely mistaken. After eleven minutes and forty-two seconds, the drops transformed from small vicious stinging pellets to large bomb-like balls that soaked everything they touched, like water balloons tossed from a window ten stories up.
He’d have happily spent the entire day in his study, but at twenty-seven minutes and fifty-four seconds, the cycle repeated. Even the storm was monotonous.
Staring at his watch wasn’t his only means of telling how much time had passed. He rubbed his hand over his three-week-old beard. His cuts had healed, but his broken bones still ached. He found the physical improvement depressing. If he could heal, he could be hurt. And that meant he was probably not immortal. It was the one godlike power he had clung to.
He took a last look at his pocket watch before stashing it in his shirt. It was still 6:52 p.m. on Friday, July 18. He felt like a member of a theater audience when the movie reel was stuck on one frame. He’d stopped hoping someone would kick the projector. The witch’s reality wasn’t perfect, and that gave him an advantage, even if his body’s functions deprived him of his divinity.
His analysis of time had revealed him to be in a dreamlike state. He couldn’t sleep and never grew hungrier, but his wounds had healed, his broken bones were slowly mending, and of course, there was his beard. As for his environment, though the sky never changed from a constant dark gray and the rain only went through its twenty-eight-minute cycle, the vines that grew up the side of Delphine’s shack showed progress in their attempts at covering the weathered wood. The elements might be stuck in a loop, but plants and animals lived by their own rules.
“What other truths do I know?”
Breaking into Delphine’s shop confirmed that places he was connected to were more than just movie-set facades, but the bank office was still closed off to him. “What other buildings would be open to me?”
The Laurette mansion was a decent walk, especially in the frustratingly redundant storm, but he had little else to do. The walk from the swamp where the hurricane had left him had been much longer. As for being soaked and not having a functioning shower to help him clean up, it was only slightly more miserable than being dry.
He got up and turned toward the shop, searching for some shred of hope that he might have missed. Every one of her books might as well have been written in a foreign language—and many were. The curio cabinets and wall displays filled with voodoo relics weren’t of much more use. In a fit of frustration, he’d considered smashing one or two, but releasing demons in hell seemed like a risky proposition.
“Okay, voodoo bitch, I’ll be back when I know more.”
As he stood, a rat scampered along the side of the porch. “Run on home, and tell your mistress where I am.”
He stared after the retreating tail long after it had disappeared under the raised building. If people had occupied his hell, his first instinct would be to bend them to his desires. For the first time since entering this dimension, he kept his thoughts to himself. Animals can be trained even easier than humans.
At least without any people to bug him, he could hobble along under the balconies of the Quarter unimpeded and relatively dry. Once he passed the freeway overpass that divided the Warehouse District from the Lower Garden District, however, he was left at the mercy of the unrelenting rain. With every step, he wished the old swamp witch would change the weather channel. Even sweltering humidity would make a welcome change. Anything but the drudgery of dragging his body through the water that covered the streets and hid the unsuspecting potholes.
His expensive custom-made suit hung off his body like soaked dishrags that were beyond the rescue of a washing machine. He considered abandoning the societal demand for modesty. Who was there to care? But lurking somewhere in the shadows was Baron Samedi. Colin wouldn’t give the voodoo loa the satisfaction of seeing him reduced to being hell’s wild man. Even if the long coat were nothing more than shreds of silk lining, he’d meet his adversary as an equal.
The whereabouts of the witch was still a mystery. “With any luck, you’re as bored as I am. You probably put this reality on repeat and walked away. Dumbest thing ever. You’re like an old movie villain who doesn’t stick around to see the hero’s demise. That’s your mistake, you know, because I’m going to figure a way out of here. If you never change anything about this reality, I will discover the weakness. If there isn’t one, I’ll find a spot and work on it until it comes free, just like this iron bar.”
* * *
Colin stood on the sidewalk and tried blinking the rain out of his eyes. Clearly, they weren’t working properly. “It’s too soon for me to have lost my mind.” Makin
g the statement didn’t have any effect on the lights that shone from every window of the magnificent mansion.
“I’m going to have to give that construction foreman a raise. Not only did he get this job done in record time, but he must have also had the foresight to include a whole-house generator. You’re losing, swamp witch. Do you hear me?”
In spite of the pain in his leg and side, he bounded up the varnished wood stairs to the covered porch that wrapped around the front of the building. The house he remembered from when he was a little boy had never looked this good. He doubted it had been this magnificent even when Baron Malveaux’s son had completed it more than a hundred years earlier.
“I told you I’d possess your crowning achievement. Little punk, thinking you can deny me my family.”
Continuing the condemnation, however, would only distract him from the lavish home he owned, even if it was in hell. He turned the gold-plated knob and shoved on the perfectly restored door with its cut-glass window.
The door remained shut.
“What the hell. This is my house.”
The beveled glass distorted his view of the lavish interior, but someone was moving inside.
“Hey, you in there. Open the door.” He pounded on the solid mahogany frame.
The door opened to reveal a beautiful woman in her thirties. Her look of welcome quickly turned to the hard-eyed squint of someone greeting a door-to-door salesman. “I’ve been expecting you. We can talk in the foyer.”
He wanted to push her aside and take possession of his mansion. However, she was the first person he’d seen in weeks, and his need for companionship outweighed his irritation at finding a squatter, no matter how upscale, in one of his buildings. “This is my house. Who are you?”
She motioned him toward an antique settee with a needlepoint cushion. As an accent, it wasn’t bad. As a chair, it was barely functional. She stared at his eyes. “Who do you think I am?”
The azure blue of her eyes reminded him of the waters off the Virgin Islands.
“I’d have to guess you’re some version of the old swamp witch. I see you’ve given yourself sight in this hell of mine.”
“You’re partially right. I’m acting as the interface between you and what the witch has created, but look again.”
A stirring in his chest accompanied the softer lines around her eyes. He’d seen the unique color of azure before, and not as Lincoln Laroque. “That’s not possible.”
“I’m pleased you remember. With that jigsaw-puzzle soul of yours, I wasn’t sure what you might retain.”
Without meaning to, he was shaking his head. “No. That can’t be. It’s not possible.” Her thin porcelain fingers reminded him of a doll he’d once purchased for her. “You’re dead.” The words came out as barely a whisper. “I spent a hundred and fifty years in Guinee searching for you.”
“And what would you have done had you found me? Kept me prisoner like those poor women you raped and forced to bear your children?”
He’d never felt judged before. Others had tried, but for him to accept their assessment, he would have had to care. “They were my companions.”
“They were slaves, and you know it.”
He reached over to touch her hand, but she snatched it away.
“I never meant to hurt you. I would have done anything to protect you.”
“And yet you didn’t. You’d been warned, but you didn’t care.”
“Serephine…” He hadn’t used the name of his daughter since her death from the cursed pipe tool.
“You think I didn’t know what you were up to? I wasn’t even ten years old, but I knew. I loved you with all my heart before I found out. Once I did learn of how you’d treated those women in life, I wondered how it was even possible for you to love me.”
“You and your brother—”
“Don’t you even mention Antoine,” she exclaimed with a ferocity that made him sit up straight. “He was the only one who cared about me. He built this mansion in my honor. Why else do you think I’m here?”
The stirring in his chest ignited a bonfire in his heart. His hope—which was not an emotion he accepted—was that she would keep him company in this hell. Even having her hate him was better than isolation. “You’re here so I can apologize.”
Her laugh still held vestiges of the child whose joy could brighten even his worst day. But from the grown woman, the sarcastic tone cut him like a knife smoothly slicing into his heart. “I don’t care about your guilt. You really have no clue, do you? I died as a child and made my way to the deep waters that are the home of humanity’s shared soul.”
The combatant who never left a boardroom in defeat began making his argument. “Reincarnation is not possible. I know. I’ve studied the subject. Once a person moves on to the deep waters, their soul is poured into the ocean to join everyone else’s. You can’t dip the same cup of water out of the ocean twice.”
“You’ve studied your voodoo very well. But this realm isn’t built on voodoo.”
He shook his head. “Voodoo or Wicca, what’s the difference? What a person believes doesn’t matter. Reality is reality, no matter what we think.”
“What we believe is all that matters. We make our own reality. You of all people should know that. You were the one who taught me that lesson. Or have you forgotten?”
Forcing him to relive the times he sat on the tapestry rug with his young daughter only increased his pain. “I was trying to give you my wisdom when I should have been learning yours.”
“You still don’t get it. Even after a century of watching the dead pass through your gate. Amazing.”
He’d found the whining of the recently dead boring. They all complained about the same asinine thing: If I only had more time. “A person either uses the time they’re given, or they don’t. We’re not immortal.”
“And your answer was to ignore the only thing in life that matters. Love. You didn’t need to listen to me as a child—you needed to play with me. You needed to let me see who you were, not the hateful being you hid behind.” She sighed in a way that let him know their time was nearly over. “But I guess that hidden person doesn’t exist any longer. You became the mask you wore for the world.”
He still had so many questions. “Why are you here?”
She looked around the elegantly appointed entry. “My life and this house are in another dimension—one not of your hell or the life you remember. In my world, my father loved me and did good things for the city of New Orleans. I grew up confident in myself and my sexuality, married a man who respects women, and had children. That’s my reality. This hell is a space between dimensions. It’s like a school hallway with doors that lead into classrooms.” She pointed at the twelve-foot-high, intricately carved pocket doors to the living room. “When I return to my family, all this will go back to being the hallway. Do you understand now?”
He didn’t want her to go. The idea that the beautiful mansion, and the woman who inhabited it, could vanish like turning off a light sent a panic into his heart. “You’re the doorway. You guard the gate to the living the way I used to guard the seventh gate of Guinee.”
She stood and offered him her hand. “You should go now. I have dinner to prepare and a family that needs me.”
He longed to hug her, but he didn’t know how. Instead he lifted her delicate hand to his lips and kissed it softly as a tear fell onto her perfect skin. “Will I see you again?”
“Only when you learn something meaningful.”
He couldn’t face seeing her leave. Better to be the one walking out. As he left the mansion, he noticed the rain had stopped. The clouds still covered the sky, but the blackness of night had replaced the gray late afternoon. The moon provided light and a sense of hope. He checked his pocket watch. It read 8:37. He stared at it for three cycles of the second hand, hoping the minute hand would continue to move. It didn’t.
5
Myles did his best to understand what Professor Yates was doing to t
he old engine in the VW. Nothing made sense. The motor wasn’t even where it should be in a normal car. Plus, it looked much too small to move the bus. With all the paraphernalia the quack inventor had jerry-rigged around the engine bay, the compartment looked uncomfortably like the old man’s lab. “And this is going to make the bus go faster?”
“You don’t need to understand it. I just want you to remember where everything goes in case one of the connections falls off in the transfer from this reality to the next.”
Myles feared there wouldn’t be a demonic mechanic on the other side, though he wasn’t really sure a living grease monkey would have much more luck with the air-cooled engine. He looked up at Kendell, hoping she was having better luck with Delphine. The way his girlfriend kept tapping her notebook with her pen, between writing things down, left him to believe they might be looking at a one-way trip to hell.
She returned his worried look. “I guess we’d better find that cane.”
“You know your way around a spell, and I’ve got at least one loa friend where we’re headed. We’ll get by.”
Minerva had her head poking up out of the sunroof of the bus as the other band members handed up their instruments. “Don’t worry about my old girl. She’s yet to strand me anywhere. There have been some roadside repairs, but we have an understanding. Of course, if anyone had an HAA card, that’d be cool.”
“What?” Kendell had her waiting-for-the-punch-line look.
“Hell Automobile Association.”
Lynn struggled to get her keyboard up the side of the van. “Yeah, or the number of Demonic Towing Company.”
“We’ll drive you from hell,” Scraper added.
Myles wasn’t sure the occasion called for levity, but it beat focusing on the task at hand. As everyone else found their seats, he waited, hoping it was just his imagination that the narrow tires looked to be bulging. He handed Cheesecake to Kendell in the back seat before squeezing through the sliding door to join them.