by G A Chase
“I’m open to any ideas.”
Sanguine nodded as if accepting the position. “I can do it. They don’t know me in there. Joe Cazenave has seen me with you, so it’s not like we won’t recognize each other, but the rest of the force would just discount me as some girl from the bayou lost in the big city.”
Kendell would have played an entire gig for free for a better idea. “Be careful. Don’t say anything incriminating inside that building. You have to assume you’re being listened to at all times. I just need Joe to come out, so I can explain the situation.”
Sanguine quickly reverted from helper to snarky critic. “I am familiar with eavesdropping. I am a witch, you know.”
Kendell headed to the coffee shop across from the police station while Sanguine walked through the wrought-iron gate and past the line of parked police scooters. Kendell didn’t need the caffeine, but after years of being a barista, she’d been conditioned to find comfort in the hot beverage. She sat at a table close to the window and tried not to stare at the station’s front door. Her leg twitched uncontrollably. Putting her free hand on her knee only moved the nervous movement to her fingers, which were wrapped around the coffee cup on the table. This is insane. How the hell did Myles stand at that gate, waiting for me, without losing his mind?
The thought of him at home with the two dogs calmed her down. In spite of what she’d told Sanguine, she did want Myles with her. He had a way of seeing things with a clarity that often defied emotion. He was bound to be furious at finding out she’d acted without consulting him. For a moment, she considered running the couple of blocks to their apartment while Sanguine made her case to whatever cop she’d run into. Really, it all came down to the dogs. If Kendell did end up behind bars, Cheesecake and Doughnut Hole deserved to have Myles looking out for them.
She had downed half her cup of coffee when she caught sight of Sanguine’s long hair in her peripheral vision. Joe was beside her at the counter, ordering drinks. You fucking could have let me know you were safe. Her emotional response was quickly quashed by the understanding of the need to remain inconspicuous.
They came to her table as if Joe was just on a coffee break. He set his cup down. “I won’t ask if you’ve lost your mind. Clearly, you’re suffering from some form of amnesia if you think you can just break into Luther’s offices.”
Kendell glared at Sanguine. “I only wanted you to get him. I told you not to say anything that would give us away in that building.”
Sanguine shrugged off the attack. “He assured me his office was safe. My feminine charms only go so far.”
“Maybe if you had just said it was for me and not tried to flirt with him, you wouldn’t have had to explain our need for him.”
Joe put his hand on the table as if setting up a barrier between contestants. “Stop bickering if you want to remain undetected. In case you hadn’t noticed, cops and coffee have a way of going together. This establishment’s location isn’t by chance.”
Kendell closed her eyes at her stupidity. “Where can we talk in private?”
He picked up his cup. “It’s a nice day. Let’s head out to the river.”
The casual nature of the encounter contrasted drastically with Kendell’s desire to bust down the doors of the World Trade Center, but she kept her cool, knowing that acting like Sanguine wasn’t going to help their situation. Joe’s meandering path through the Quarter to the river wasn’t helping with her anxiety one bit, but she assumed he was making sure they weren’t being followed. By the time they’d found a metal bench where they could conduct their conversation, she felt like she was about to leave her body and fly at the building the way Sanguine had done as the avenging angel.
“Okay, we’re here,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
Joe had a look of deliberate calm in the face of danger that spoke volumes about his military training. “What has you so worked up, other than Colin figuring out how to convert energy? No matter what time zone he’s in, there wouldn’t be enough wind force to generate the power needed. If you can convince me of the danger, I promise you, I can make Luther listen. His allegiance is to protect the living from the beyond.”
Kendell hadn’t bothered analyzing the underlying problem, but Joe’s calm helped her focus. “I don’t believe Luther’s in control any longer. From the moment Colin used the power of that building to infect our creation of the seven gates, I assumed he’d usurped Luther as the one in charge. Honestly, I doubt Luther could even open the doors at this point.”
Joe listened intently. “And if he has taken control?”
“Item one was gaining command of Luther’s isolation chambers for those paranormal artifacts. From the way Luther described the building, it harnesses the wind to run the chambers like cooling ponds keeping plutonium rods from overheating in a nuclear reactor. But Colin flipped the switch. Instead of keeping all the magical objects in stasis, he’s used them to power up that building. He no longer needs the wind. He’s got all the energy he’ll ever need. That’s what he was unintentionally showing me. In his arrogance, he had the whole city running like a child’s toy train set with lit-up buildings and everything. I should have seen what he was up to.”
Sanguine put her hand over Kendell’s. “You couldn’t have known what he really had going on. He’s an expert at manipulation.”
The comfort from the young witch who was always busting Kendell’s ovaries didn’t help at all. “When you start offering me sympathy, I know I’ve really fucked up.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. So what do we do?”
Kendell turned back to Joe. “The basement is full of turbines and other machinery that must be used to keep the magical objects in check. From what I saw in Colin’s hell, he’s got all of the controls upstairs in the old circular restaurant. Since he’s not in this dimension, we can’t use his controls.”
Joe stared at the top of the building. “That’s why you think Luther can’t even open a door, isn’t it? If he could, he would have taken back control. He’s not the type to accept incarceration without a fight.”
Even with his air of military reserve, Kendell could tell Joe was concerned for Luther’s safety, and with good reason. “Colin wouldn’t destroy an asset. My guess is Luther is locked in his office. The man still has more knowledge of that building than anyone alive. Colin is more interested in containing an adversary than destroying him.”
Joe looked down and nodded. “Luther can take care of himself, but losing control isn’t an insult he’ll take lightly. As for the basement equipment, it maintains a dimensional shift around the objects—basically the cooling water in your nuclear analogy. On their own, the objects wouldn’t pose a threat even if they were left out in the open, but if that soothing dimension were turned into an irritating hell, they would all get spun up.”
“So he hasn’t just turned off the equipment?” Sanguine asked.
Joe shook his head. “If that had been the case, the objects would show up in our reality.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Kendell had played right into Colin’s hands. “He needed to combat the cooling effects from our turbines while not losing the objects to our dimension. In cases of city power outages, electricity provided by the wind from the storm is gathered by the building. Marie Laveau’s totems also use naturally occurring energy to contain her prisoners in their spirit jars. All Colin had to do was direct that hell-dimension wind energy through the totems to irritate the paranormal objects into providing enough power to run his little make-believe version of New Orleans. He’s smart enough to notice that his creation would only be running at partial power. The turbines would be trying to calm the objects while his voodoo dolls would be working as irritants. The real trick was routing the energy from the basement turbines through the voodoo totems and then back down into the paranormal-object vaults. By modifying Marie’s totems into accepting all available power—not just that which was naturally occurring—I inadvertently gave him the answer.”
&n
bsp; Sanguine got up and started pacing the way Myles did when he was working out a solution. “Now can I kill him?”
“I was only trying to lay out the blueprint of the problem. Shutting off the turbines won’t help at this point. Now that he’s revved up the objects beyond critical mass, cooling them down again won’t be so simple. His paranormal-energy generation is self-sustaining.”
Joe pointed toward the river beyond the building. “There is a failsafe. Just like nuclear reactors, the World Trade Center was built next to the water for a reason. The vaults can be jettisoned into the river.”
Kendell couldn’t even imagine the effect of so many magical objects released back into the public’s hands. “That sounds a mite extreme.”
“Last resorts tend to be that way,” Joe said. “And the only way is to access the vaults remotely. The thinking was that if the objects became unstable, the World Trade Center itself would be unsafe. So they kept the controls for the ejections separate from the building.”
Kendell hoped for a better answer but accepted that she had to be prepared for the worst. “Where?”
“Saint Louis Cathedral. Luther wanted the controls in a building that wasn’t likely to be demolished. The Catholic Church is pretty good at keeping up its sanctuaries. The bishop is the only one who knows how to access the controls. I’m not recommending the failsafe, mind you. I just thought you should know it exists.”
Kendell looked past Jackson Square at the cathedral that dominated the skyline. Sending someone there as backup made sense, but she needed both Joe and Sanguine if they were to enter the World Trade Center. “There’s simply too much to do for just the three of us. I’m sorry, Sanguine, you were right. The only way I know how to change a dimension is with music, and for a building that big, I’m going to need the band. We’ll also need Myles and his cane so we can move between dimensions.”
Joe got up and turned away from the World Trade Center. “I’ll get Professor Yates. He’s pretty smart when it comes to paranormal machinery.”
Sanguine looked from the French Quarter to the Marigny. “Do you want me to fetch Myles?”
“Round up the band,” Kendell said. “While you’re at it, you might think about thanking them for the energy they pumped into you—or apologize for sucking them dry like a vampire. I’ll get Myles.”
“What about Delphine?” Joe asked. “Those totems did come from her shop.”
Kendell had to admit that she had changed her views about Delphine. As always, she was slow to convince, especially when Myles was doing the arguing, but once on board, she was fully committed. “Myles was right. I no longer trust her—not that she made any secret of her allegiances. Those are her ancestor’s totems up there, and when this is over, I suspect Luther is going to demand they be turned over to him and his vaults. We can’t risk her hidden agenda.”
26
Myles was beginning to feel a little like a glorified dog sitter and interdimensional doorman. Not that he had any specific skills when it came to keeping Colin in his hell, but being relegated to holding the door open hurt his pride. He did have to admit, though, that minding the Scratchy Dog and tending bar with Charlie weren’t bad ways of spending his nights. And Doughnut Hole loved having his human companion available at any time of the day. As for Cheesecake, she accepted Myles as a poor substitute for her mistress, but he didn’t take it personally.
The light of late afternoon streamed in from the French doors and illuminated Kendell as she stood panting in the doorway of their apartment. Her look of panic had become all too familiar. “I need your help.”
“Don’t tell me—Colin did something dangerous, and it’s up to you to save the world. Do I get to do more than just hold the door for you this time?”
“I don’t have time to explain. When this is over, I promise I’ll make it up to you, but right now, I really need you to just come with me.”
Kendell really wasn’t good at apologies.
“I just want to make one thing clear first—I’m not sitting on the sidelines again while you rush headfirst into danger. We’re supposed to be partners.”
She lowered her arms and sighed. “We are partners. I know lately I’ve sucked at being a girlfriend. I promise I’m not taking you for granted. And you’re right. Colin has done something stupid, and I do have to save humanity again. But this time it’s my fault. Now, will you please get off your ass, so you can save mine?”
He couldn’t hold his anger for long. “It is an awfully cute ass.”
“Bring your cane. We have some interdimensional issues.”
He snagged the walking stick from behind the door. “We are going to talk later. This discussion isn’t over.”
She batted her eyes at him. “Yes, sir.”
He knew he was being played, but he also knew she’d never act the submissive girl with anyone but him. He patted her playfully on the butt as she led the way out of the apartment. “I love you, but I’m serious.”
“I know.”
He gave the dogs one last look before locking the door. “So what’s the mythical adventure this time?”
“I fucked up.”
She wasn’t usually one for self-condemnation. Her guilty plea drove aside his irritation at being taken for granted. “What’s going on? The more I know about what we’re walking into, the better prepared I’ll be to help you.”
“In getting back to you at the gate to Guinee—which I never thanked you for or acknowledged how dangerous that must have been for you—I think I showed Colin how to use the energy from the World Trade Center to punch a hole from hell to life.”
He gripped his cane, ready for action. “Okay, that’s bad. I assume the others are meeting up with us?”
“Sanguine’s getting the band, and Joe is on the hunt for Professor Yates.”
He couldn’t help noticing the obvious omission. “Should I even ask?”
She took his hand and held it close to her side as they hurried out of their apartment building and into the busy streets of the French Quarter. “You were right about Delphine too. I don’t trust her. I can’t promise to listen every time you give me advice, but I will try to do better in the future.”
He lifted her hand and kissed it. “I love that you’re headstrong and able to save the world all by yourself. Just know that you don’t have to. Now, what’s your plan for Colin?”
“First we have to shut down his ability to leave hell. Everything depends on Delphine’s old voodoo totems.”
He scratched his head with the silver skull handle of the cane. “I still don’t get how he could handle her voodoo dolls when the one he’d been trapped in wasn’t in his dimension.”
“I wondered about that. The best answer I could come up with was that Delphine’s shop is one of those embassies Baron Samedi talked about. Because she housed all Marie’s voodoo collection, the shop acted as the same interdimensional bridge as the World Trade Center. You know how objects under Luther’s care can exist independent of dimension? These places are like neutral zones. The totem Colin was locked in was in his office when he was cast into hell, so it wasn’t protected, interdimensionally speaking. When Agnes Delarosa powered up her realm, the totem—being voodoo in origin—didn’t make the transition.”
He wondered if he’d ever be able to keep all the puzzle pieces straight. “So we need to bring those totems he stole from Delphine’s shop in his hell dimension back from his realm into ours—preferably without involving Delphine.”
She stopped walking so abruptly he had to look back to find her. “This is why not including you from the beginning was such a phenomenal mistake on my part. I was trying to figure out how to power down the totems, but stealing them back cuts off his ability to direct the energy he’s building up. He can have all the bullets he wants, but it won’t do him any good if he doesn’t have a gun to fire them.”
Though her praise warmed his heart, he wasn’t about to discount Colin’s ability to wriggle out of a noose. “I’m positive he
’ll look for another way to use that power, but at least it’ll stop him for the moment.”
“And if he sees that we can take his toys from him, he might even think twice about trying to abduct one of us again.”
Myles had never been comfortable with the interest Colin had shown in Kendell, no matter what persona he chose. “I know it’s a little early to be demanding concessions from you, but if it’s all the same, I’d rather you didn’t try to face him alone again.”
“I didn’t intend to make it a personal conversation last time. I was with Sanguine. Colin abducted me with his lightning-bolt time-bending machine.”
“I wasn’t just talking about this latest tête-a-tête. He seems to find ways of getting you alone. I trust you, but I think we can both agree his intentions are never honorable. I’m worried for your safety.”
“This isn’t the time. I can take care of myself, but I’ll take your request under advisement.”
He figured he’d pushed as hard as he dared. He looked up at the empty building at the foot of Canal Street. “You know, I really wish someone would redevelop that thing.”
Her snicker told him he’d been forgiven for being the overly protective, jealous boyfriend. “Sure would make our lives easier. Maybe Luther could move his operation into a mountain cave in Tibet. Anywhere but New Orleans.”
“I hear Atlantis in nice.”
Joe jogged up to them carrying his customary paramilitary gear in a backpack covered with touristy French Quarter stickers. Even in his city camouflage, Joe’s muscular physique and determined movements made it hard to see him as anything other than a commando looking for action.
Kendell looked around. “Where’s the professor?”
“I dropped him off at the cathedral. As he’s the most technologically savvy, I thought he’d be best at helping with the failsafe if we run into trouble.”