by G A Chase
Sanguine wondered what the nun thought she was going to do. “I only want to talk. But to be clear, outside this embassy’s walls is the realm my grandmother created. She wouldn’t take kindly to seeing me burned at the stake.”
The old woman’s facial tick could have been interpreted as either a sneer or a smile. “We’re at a standoff. I’ll be back to bring Miss Fleur to her room in an hour.”
“Thank you, Sister.”
Sanguine waited until the old bat was out of the room and the heavy rough-hewn doors had closed before turning to the frail old woman in the handmade dress. “Thank you for meeting with me. I can’t imagine that talking about your ex-husband—or what he’s become—can be easy for you.”
Though Miss Fleur’s body appeared about to crumble to dust, her eyes were a bright sky blue that reminded Sanguine of summer. “The Archibald I knew wasn’t a bad man, just an ambitious one. If you can remind him of who he used to be before that evil voodoo queen got her talons into him, I’ll be happy to help.”
The woman had an inner strength and grace that Sanguine found hard to ignore. “I don’t want to lie to you. I slept with him last night.” In her mind, she could use the justification of using another body, but such equivocations didn’t work with someone so apparently pure of spirit.
Miss Fleur sat on the uncomfortable-looking wooden bench. “Sit next to me. I let go of my claim on him a century before you were born. Did your liaison have any positive effects?”
Light filtered through the clearstory windows and gave Sanguine a feeling of quiet contemplation. “I think that may be why I’m here. I’ve considered him to be the personification of evil for so long that I can’t tell the man from the devil. What do you remember about the man you married?”
The woman’s soft voice matched the feeling of the room. “I was only fifteen when I married Archibald. He was twenty-five. I thought he was so dashing, a real man of the world. My daddy grew cotton like most of the farmers in the South before the War Between the States. I grew up out in the fields, working alongside our slaves. History makes that time sound so different than it actually was, at least from my perspective. I couldn’t wait to be rid of the dirt that had caked into my feet and knees.”
Having grown up in the swamp, Sanguine knew the feeling. “I’ll bet Archibald never spent a day of his life sweating, hunched over in a field.”
Miss Fleur smiled demurely. “He was a city boy when we first met. A couple of times each year, my parents would take us kids into New Orleans for new clothes and such. As we were walking down Royal Street, I was so fascinated with the buildings all crammed against each other that I wasn’t watching where I was going. I plowed right into Archibald as he was leaving the bank. You can’t imagine how mortified I was—a dumb country girl messing up the suit of a fine young businessman. I could have just sunk right into the storm gutter. But that was the very last time I ever felt unworthy of anything. He took me by the hand as if I were some elegant lady playing the role of a pauper. I remember that meeting like it happened this morning. From that moment on, my life became a whirlwind of dresses, dances, and desires. He loved showing me off, and I hate to admit it now, but I did crave the attention.”
Sanguine had never been impressed with any man who thought he could win a woman by sweeping her off her feet. “Sounds like he took advantage of an innocent young girl.”
Miss Fleur’s eyes grew wide, giving Sanguine some inkling of what she must have looked like so long ago. “It wasn’t like that. At least, that’s not the way it felt at the time. To me, he was everything I longed for. Marrying him was my way out of the fields. Though a ten-year age difference might sound like a lot now, he was still only in his early twenties. He worked hard at the bank but never felt he got the recognition he was due. When his parents died of yellow fever, we took over his family’s mansion on Saint Charles. That money changed him.” She looked to have drifted off into the memory.
“I’ve found that money just amplifies a person’s repressed characteristics. No one really changes.” Sanguine needed to know if there was anything about Colin worth saving, but she wasn’t above manipulating the data against him.
“It wasn’t the money that turned him evil. You’d think with so much, he’d have been happy to take life easy. When I gave birth to Antoine, I hoped Archibald would take the time to be a proper father, but then he met the voodoo queen.”
The story of how Archibald became Baron Malveaux had been pieced together to Sanguine’s satisfaction, but as most of the facts came from Delphine de Galpion, descendant of Marie Laveau, the swamp witch had a healthy skepticism about who was ultimately responsible.
“Did he approach her, or did she seek him out?”
“Does it matter? Madam Laveau was a well-established figure in New Orleans. At some point, everyone had dealings with her or fell under one of her curses. In Archibald’s case, it was both. After giving birth, I couldn’t wear the sheer, titillating dresses. Showing off his young wife in risqué clothing had guaranteed Archibald entrance into high society, and with me staying at home to raise our son, my husband found he was no longer invited to the fancy parties. He didn’t take his frustration out on me, but he did become more distant. Without me on his arm, he needed another means of accessing the city’s rich and powerful. He and Marie were made for each other when it came to milking the rich.”
Sanguine could just see Colin tossing aside a woman who was no longer of any use to him. “Is that when he started opening his brothels?”
“That was much later. He still wanted recognition within the bank and to be seen as a member of the elite. Inheriting his family’s fortunes wasn’t enough. He needed to make it on his own, even if that required a little voodoo magic.”
“I’m aware of how he stole Baron Samedi’s walking cane, but I got the impression there was a history with Marie Laveau that predated that first Mardi Gras parade.”
Miss Fleur spread her milky-white fingers on the wood-plank table. “He never would have gotten on that float if he hadn’t first become head of the bank. As he was rising through the ranks, death spread through that building like the devil himself was walking the corridors. With each opening on the ladder, Archibald moved one step closer to the president’s office.”
Sanguine bristled at the thought of magic being used to kill people for such blatant advancement. A Wiccan witch would have known better. “You believe he commissioned Marie Laveau to kill those who stood in his way?”
The sorrowful look in the woman’s eyes could have been real or just a trick of the light. “I didn’t know what to think. Out in the fields, I’d worked closely with my daddy’s slaves. I considered them friends. They talked about dealing with voodoo practitioners like you would talk about seeing a water moccasin in your path. I suppose that’s why I steered clear of my husband’s business accomplishments. But even then, he’d maintained his humanity—at least as far as I could tell. I suppose that by the time he became bank president, he was already collecting women as payments for his loans.”
“Then he helped fund the Krewe of Comus as the first Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans.”
Miss Fleur grimaced. “Complete with a decadent high-society ball afterward. That was when Archibald cemented himself as the most influential man in New Orleans. He started to insist people call him Baron that night. What none of them knew was the title was as much about him stealing the loa of the dead’s cane as his economic power over people.”
“Did you attend the parade and ball?”
Miss Fleur looked around at the plaster walls that had become her home. “I took Antoine to see the parade, but Archibald preferred to go to the balls alone. I’m sure he had mistresses by that point.”
“Sounds like you had a lonely life once he got what he wanted.”
She rubbed her arms as if a chill had descended on the room. “He still had his moments. Serephine was only two years old at the time of that Mardi Gras. He doted on that child. I honestly thought s
he would be his salvation. But once he got hold of the cane, he became obsessed with the lust for power. Honestly, I’m not even sure he cared all that much about having sex with those women he enslaved. He just wanted to feel his power over others.”
Sanguine struggled to compare the different sides of Archibald to the man she’d slept with the night before. “Last night, I didn’t feel like he was trying to dominate me—at least not any more so than any other man I’ve known.”
“My understanding is Colin isn’t completely Archibald. There’s another side to his personality.”
As if men aren’t confusing enough. “Lincoln Laroque was bred to be the son Baron Malveaux dreamed of. Though he wasn’t as cruel in his manipulations of people, that might have more to do with the times we’re living in than any higher morality.”
“And yet you slept with the devil they both became,” Miss Fleur said. “I can’t imagine why.”
Sanguine stood from the bench and stretched out her wings to their full ten-foot expanse. “I suppose I like the challenge.”
38
Colin hunched lower in the gardener’s shed as the gate to the convent opened. He felt like a stupid teenager spying on a high school crush. But no angelic girl on two feet compared to an honest-to-god winged human taking flight. Sanguine took his breath away as she flapped off over the shed. He’d seen her with wings before, but that had been while they were in hell, and she’d been only a spirit without a physical body. He couldn’t allow himself to jump to conclusions, but her presence as an angel in his world added another piece to the puzzle. The mosquitos had already confirmed with her blood that she was more than just a spirit. We’ll meet again, but at the moment, I’ve got too much to do to spend my time fantasizing about a human-sized fairy.
He let out a high-pitched whistle to rally his mosquitos and aimed the squadron at the retreating flying goddess. With his spies keeping track of her location, he summoned the courage to exit the small, smelly shed. The odor of compost stuck to his clothes like the mud that caked the soles of his shoes.
Colin looked across the street with trepidation. In the hundred years Baron Malveaux had spent in Guinee, he’d never been able to dominate the spirit of his dead wife as he had with his indentured concubines. Thanks to Kendell and her boyfriend, those captured souls had all passed on to the deep waters. Colin’s loneliness hollowed him like maggots eating a carcass. He could trace that feeling to the loss of those women.
Memories of Fleurentine as a young, innocent waif hadn’t faded with time, death, or his imprisonment in hell. As she’d matured, he’d grown tired of her. With each woman the baron raped, he’d hoped to recapture that first night with his virginal bride.
The baron side of him didn’t want to approach the gates to the convent. Had he not known better, he’d have thought Sanguine was using his body against his will, but from his experience controlling Myles, he knew what was involved in a full-body possession.
Instead of knocking, he placed his palm against the rough wooden door. Hopefully, the nuns would deny his entrance, but he had to at least try to see his long-dead wife. This is what I get for having sex with that witch angel. I let it mean something.
The hinges of the massive door creaked like a woman screaming as the gate opened. “You’ve been expected.” The old hag in black robes stepped aside so he could enter.
“It’s not my idea to be here.”
She didn’t seem to care. “I understand, my son. Miss Fleur is in the common room. I’ll take you to her.”
As he followed the old woman, he wondered if her greeting had been purely ecumenical or if she was really his mother, who’d been dead for more than a century. Either way, the woman gave him the creeps.
“Why do you keep this place so cold? I swear it’s ten degrees warmer outside your gates. I know this is your interdimensional embassy, but damn. You could make a visitor a little more comfortable.”
“Talking is forbidden outside of the common rooms.”
If you’re not my mother, you sure do a fine imitation of her.
She led him into the long light-filled room. A woman sat halfway down the row of benches.
“Is that her?” He didn’t really need the confirmation, but even talking to the old nun was better than facing what he’d done.
“I’ll be back in an hour.” The old bat closed the door after her, sealing him in with the woman who personified his history of mistakes.
Fleurentine stood from the bench and moved into the sunlight so he could get a good look at her. The long blue-and-white dress matched her eyes and hair. As a spirit in Guinee, she’d appeared as the young woman he remembered as his wife, but in the convent, she looked older than the nuns.
“You’ve changed,” he said.
She spread her arms and turned slowly to give him a complete view. “From what the nuns tell me, I’m approaching the end of my life. Though I guess that’s pretty obvious.”
Walking into an interdimensional embassy could land him in any time period the guardians picked. Why did you choose a point so near her death? Was it to increase my guilt? “How much have they told you about what happens after you die?”
She waved him to the bench opposite her. “I know Baron Malveaux will keep me in Guinee to play mother to the sex slaves he kept prisoner. I also know I’ll be freed to move on to the deep waters when the time is right.”
Of course they told you. “You were all freed eventually.”
“Not by you.”
She had a way of getting under his skin. Whatever his excuses, her counterpoints of truth always struck deep into his soul like a knife plunged into his heart. “True, but I haven’t come to discuss what’s about to happen to you. I was only trying to find out if you knew.”
“My time in Guinee hasn’t happened for me yet. Long ago, I learned to live in the present and not focus too much on the future. Living with you taught me that.”
Talking with her was like carrying on a conversation with a hornet’s nest—each sentence carried stinging venom. “I suspect it would be pointless to apologize for everything I’ve done to you. You probably wouldn’t believe me even if I tried. I didn’t come here looking for absolution.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I suppose I’m trying to learn something about myself by examining my past.” He refrained from calling her his failure.
“Does this need for self-reevaluation have anything to do with that flying angel who was just here?”
Sanguine didn’t seem the type to kiss and tell, even if it was to dump him in hot water. “Perhaps not for the reasons you think. My perceptions of good and evil have become so jumbled that I find it hard to choose a path. I suspect Sanguine stands at the crossroads, but I’m having trouble reading her sign.”
“Ever thought of consulting those closest to you?”
He tried to imagine who would be close enough to help him. Everyone he knew fit into the categories of adversary, employee, or vanquished. None seemed like worthy advisors. “People tell me what they think I want to hear or what’s in their best interest.” Besides, there aren’t many choices in this hell of mine.
“If you’ve come to me, that’s a pretty sad last choice. I don’t have a clue about your current situation.”
He stared into her eyes, detecting a deception. She’d never been much good at lying. He couldn’t figure out why she’d bother hiding what she knew. “What did you and Sanguine talk about?”
She relaxed her rigid stance and smiled. “So this is about that sexy angel.”
“She’s one of the few who challenges me, but I can’t tell if her intentions are for my benefit or destruction.”
“You never could read people. The more success you achieved, the more your power and money separated you from others. Without that connection, you were flying blind, emotionally speaking. No wonder you wound up in hell.”
He wondered if she’d unintentionally let her knowledge of his predicament slip, or if it had been
a calculated ploy to get him to reveal what he suspected. “I’m discovering a reawakening of those connections. As you might guess, I’m finding the experience a little disorienting.”
“The man who offered his hand to a young girl who’d knocked him into the gutter is still inside you. There were moments in our marriage when the real you emerged—mostly, they involved our children. I recognize him in you now. I can’t tell you which path to take, but I won’t hold you to the past.”
He’d never noticed how closely Fleurentine’s eyes matched their daughter’s. “You used to do drawings of Serephine and Antoine. I know it’s a lot to ask, but would you happen to have one I could take with me?” He wasn’t even sure why he wanted the picture.
Her smile was the same one she’d had when he lifted her from the street. “I knew one day you’d come back. I’ll send one out with the Reverend Mother.” She got up as if to leave and put her hand on his shoulder. “I would tell you to follow your heart, but you’d discount me as being emotionally foolish. Stop following the animalist path of clawing your way to the top of the food chain, and do what builds you and others. And if you can, find someone who will help you along your way.”
* * *
Colin conducted his usual tests of the strangers on the street to determine if Sanguine was keeping an eye on him. Like most of the women he’d slept with, she was noticeably absent after the event, but she’d start spying on him soon enough. He didn’t have much time.
He carefully held the rolled-up pastel drawing of his children, hoping not to smudge the hundred-year-old chalk. As always, Fleurentine’s advice about Sanguine had sounded overly emotional, but that didn’t make her wrong—just naïve. He hadn’t reached the pinnacle of success in two lifetimes and bested the loas of the dead by being predictable. Falling in love with the angel swamp witch would play right into the hands of those who kept him captive.
After entering his building, he passed up the elevator in favor of the stairs. The jog up to his condo helped channel his adrenaline. He opened the door, feeling a renewed sense of hope. Things were going his way, even if he couldn’t identify the source of his newfound luck. He set the drawing on his coffee table. The thick paper uncurled next to the guitar pick.