by G A Chase
She slipped off the limb and spread her wings for the short flight to the edge of the Quarter. Every flap was filled with dread. She dragged her feathers into Delphine’s shop and sat in front of the voodoo totem like a little girl called to the principal’s office.
Kendell looked far too happy as she materialized on the other side. “It’s so good to see you, but you look like hell.”
Sanguine pulled her wing around and saw the dirt caked into the feathers. “I suppose I do. Too much time sitting in the trees. I guess I’ll have to check in with the birds to figure out how they stay so clean.”
“Just don’t go swimming naked in some angel-sized birdbath.”
She laughed in spite herself. “I’ve got news, but I can’t figure out if it’s good or bad. Colin has made it through the third gate.”
Kendell’s look of merriment switched to concern. “Are you sure?”
“I saw the drawing from Miss Fleur. Has anyone on your side thought to check in with her?”
Kendell closed her eyes tight. “That would have made sense, wouldn’t it? No. I haven’t checked in on her. I guess that will be my next stop, followed by checking on Baron Malveaux’s children at the fourth gate.”
“Go easy approaching the nuns. They might be getting a little testy about us using their convent as a meeting hall. Honestly, I’m still not sure Colin knows he’s in hell. The convent is an embassy in both of our dimensions, so he could have checked in on her from either side. He didn’t try to hide the drawing from me, and he didn’t gloat about having it. After that first gate, he seems to be just stumbling through them as if they’re opening all by themselves.”
“The band didn’t just let him pass,” Kendell said. “But I know what you mean. We didn’t exactly question him. Do you think he achieved some power over the gates when he broke into our ceremony?”
Sanguine wasn’t the best at understanding men, but even Colin didn’t seem that devious. “It’s a possibility, but we won’t know until you talk to Miss Fleur. I can’t see how he would have gotten hold of the drawing if she hadn’t given it to him, but if you were right about him seeing me leave the convent, we might finally find out if he knows he’s in hell. If he followed me in after I left, he would have asked her about seeing an angel.”
“And if he is developing a connection to humanity?”
A part of Sanguine hoped that was true even though it went against her original plan to destroy him. “Then we’re all to blame—or take credit. Myles gave him the ability to feel empathy when he entered the baron’s old totem. You gave him hope by telling him redemption was possible. And apparently, I’m showing him the way.”
“You’re causing him to feel the beginnings of love.” Kendell had a way of giving guys too much emotional credit.
“I wouldn’t go that far. I’m more of a challenge than the bimbos he takes out back of the club to satisfy his frustration while you play onstage. I think he likes the distraction of having to participate in a conversation before getting his rocks off.”
Kendell gave Sanguine the snarky half-smile that said, You’re intentionally being stupid. “No guy, not even a rich one, takes a woman out to a fancy restaurant after they’ve had sex. He’s falling for you.”
Are you jealous? Sanguine resisted the urge to say it out loud. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to know, but asking the question might make Kendell fixate on the idea. Having her go down that rabbit hole wouldn’t help anyone. “Love is a pretty advanced experience for someone who’s spent two lifetimes cutting himself off from all of humanity.”
“He only started the process of isolation. We finished it by casting him into hell.”
“You mean, I finished it.”
“We share the blame,” Kendell said. “I know I’ve been overly hard on you for being the executioner, but I can’t say I would have done anything differently. I just want you to be careful with your heart, Sanguine. Love involves mutual trust. He wouldn’t be developing feelings beyond attraction if he didn’t think they were being reciprocated.”
Is that how you rationalized his desire for you? Do you see his feelings for you as invalid because they were unrequited? “Are you asking if my intentions toward the devil are honorable? Because I’ll confess that I don’t know. He’s interesting, and not just in the repulsive way I expected. I don’t know where this takes us, but I’ve still got months to figure that out.”
* * *
Kendell didn’t see a reason to bother Myles with another trip to the convent. The nuns would never let him enter. If she went there on her own, maybe the Reverend Mother would be a little less defensive.
By the time she got to the doors of the convent, she was convinced that letting her in would be only a formality. She knocked on the door so hard her knuckles hurt.
When the door opened farther than the sliver she was accustomed to, Kendell tried to push her way in. “I need to see Miss Fleur.”
The Reverend Mother stood in the opening. Her stern countenance was more of a blockade than the solid wood doors. “This is not a social hall. We don’t just let people onto our grounds whenever they like.”
Kendell realized she’d taken the guardians for granted. “I didn’t mean to be so forward, but this is important. I think Colin may be trying to work his way out of hell, and Miss Fleur might have accidentally helped him. I only need to talk to her for a minute to find out.”
“Miss Fleur has fulfilled her commitment to you. She’s part of the deep waters now.”
Kendell didn’t have time to rehash her knowledge of how time could be manipulated in the convent. “I understand that, but you have let me talk to her before. This is important.”
“Isn’t it always? I’m sorry, but if you haven’t gotten what you want from that poor soul already, I’m afraid you’ll have to find another patsy. This convent is now closed to the voodoo realm, and that goes for the hell dimension Agnes Delarosa created as well.”
She’d never heard of an interdimensional embassy closing its gates. “You can’t do that. We need you.”
“Unless you intend on becoming a novice and taking your vows, there’s nothing left to discuss. Miss Fleur’s life is over, as is her afterlife. Traveling into a person’s past messes with their minds. That poor woman died in a state of dementia. I won’t bring her forward in time again only to add to her past suffering.”
Kendell left the convent feeling dejected. The nun was right. Miss Fleur had suffered enough in life—and later in Guinee—without Kendell making things worse. If the woman had given Colin the pastel drawing, Kendell was in no position to judge her. Maybe I should have taken Myles after all. He always knows how to relieve my self-condemnation.
Instead of heading toward the bank, she walked down to the club, where Myles would be preparing the bar for the night’s activities. With any luck, he could contact Baron Samedi without them having to gain access to the old bank office. Kendell had snuck into the bank before, but that had been with Delphine’s help. Turning the night watchman into a zombie didn’t seem like the kind of approach that would work twice.
Myles was busy organizing the mixes behind the bar. “What happened? You look like someone failed to acknowledge how cute Cheesecake was looking today. Please don’t tell me Sanguine went into details about her night of passion with Colin.”
“I wish it were only that creepy. Our devil is playing his games again. Apparently we were supposed to be in charge of warning the remaining gates. He’s made it past Miss Fleur. The nuns took that as their excuse to close their doors to me. They say they’re finished helping—as if they did anything more than letting us meet with Miss Fleur.”
He left a gallon jug of sweet-and-sour mix on the bar. “Since I’m in charge of the fifth gate, Sanguine the sixth, and you the seventh, that leaves Antoine and Serephine in Baron Malveaux’s bank office as the only gate we haven’t checked.”
“I’d like to avoid breaking into the bank. Is there any way you could raise Baron Samedi? Si
nce he’s watching over the Malveaux children, maybe he can get a message to them.”
Myles avoided making eye contact, which was never a good sign. “The loas have been keeping their distance since our break-ins of Guinee.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Papa Ghede and Baron Samedi both warned us what would happen if we got caught in their realm. Hopefully, they’re just lying low to let the rumors of living people walking among the recently dead fade away. But that leaves us having to sneak into the bank.”
“Maybe not.” He motioned toward the office beside the bar. “You and I are business owners. Going to the bank with the excuse of looking for a loan should at least get us past the front tellers. From what I remember, no one’s using that old office. It is the seventh gate to Guinee, so Baron Samedi would have to respond if one of us were to enter. I’ll bring the cane just as an added incentive.”
* * *
Though it had been his idea, Myles felt like a fraud sitting in the bank’s reception room, waiting for a representative to lead them to the loan offices. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.” He nodded toward the domed cameras. “Even if we were to escape our escort, security is going to have eyes on us every second. I’ll bet they’re already running our pictures through their identification database as we speak.”
“Don’t be so paranoid. They already know who we are. We’ve both got our personal accounts here as well as the business’s. We’re just two entrepreneurs looking for a little help to remodel the old club. Nothing in New Orleans could be more mundane.”
Good point. They’re probably listening in as well.
A young female executive in a suit that likely cost more than Myles’s entire wardrobe came in and smiled. “Please come with me.”
As they walked into the bank’s inner sanctum, Myles wondered what new hell they were about to encounter. Hopefully, Baron Samedi had detected them entering the building and would somehow smooth the way to their meeting, but with the bank in the hands of Colin’s family, they were in enemy territory.
She led them past numerous small offices where bankers were meeting with clients. The farther they went, the more upscale the look of both lender and customer. From within each office they passed, a bank executive would eye Myles with curiosity and suspicion.
Finally, the woman ushered them into a corner office with windows that looked out on the French Quarter.
“There must be a mistake,” Kendell said. “We were just here about a loan.”
The elderly woman behind the massive oak desk had penetrating eyes. Myles recognized them immediately as being exactly like her son’s. He’d seen her before, but he had only hazy memories of her because he hadn’t been in control of his body at the time.
“You’re the bank president. Something tells me you’re not interested in our business proposal.”
She motioned them to the chairs facing her desk. “I’m Margery Laroque, mother of Lincoln Laroque. But then, you already know that. What have you done with my son?”
Myles hadn’t felt so out of touch with his body since Baron Malveaux had taken possession. He struggled to walk to the chair and sit without crumpling to the ground. For once, he used the old cane as originally intended. “We’re not responsible for what happened to your son. That was all his doing.”
“Let’s cut the bullshit. You know where he is. As president of the bank and silent partner in Laroque Industries, you can see why my interest is more than personal. You can either answer my questions here, or we can go down the street to my brother’s offices.”
Myles had already spent enough time in the police station to know that Chief of Police Laroque had conflicting interests when it came to his nephew. Publicly, at least, he’d be forced to back his sister, and that would mean Myles and Kendell would be spending time in jail until the bank president was content with their answers.
“Where do you want us to start?” he asked.
“How about with why you’re here. I’ve looked over your little club’s finances. Though they suck, you wouldn’t be coming to me hat in hand after the history Kendell’s family has had borrowing money from this establishment.”
Kendell was shivering in the chair next to him. “Then you know we share a common ancestor in Baron Malveaux.”
“Illegitimate on your end,” the woman sneered.
Kendell sat a little straighter at the insult. “I’m not sure even the courts at the time would have considered the offspring of rape the victim’s fault.”
Margery Laroque reminded Myles of a rattlesnake that had just drawn blood. She didn’t so much regain her composure as reset for a second strike. “That was a long time ago, but my question remains: what do you want?”
Myles would have been happy to let the women duke it out, but again, he hoped to avoid drawing in the police. “I’ll assume that you know as much as we do regarding the fate of your son, even if you don’t know his location. If that’s the case, then you’ll also be familiar with this building’s history. There’s an office we’d like to see. It holds some answers to our current dilemma.”
She stared at him as if trying to decide how much to admit. “Baron Malveaux’s office is kept just as it was when he died.”
“Now who’s slinging bullshit?” Myles stood the cane in front of him. “I may have been relegated to the outskirts of my awareness, but I remember Baron Malveaux confronting you and reclaiming his office while he was in control of my body. He bested you, and that understanding of how to make you grovel remains within me.” The fact that she didn’t immediately strike at him the way she had Kendell gave Myles a feeling he didn’t fully understand. I gave Colin empathy by entering his totem. Perhaps the baron did something similar by giving me aggression when he was in my body.
“Fine. When my ancestor, the baron, returned to the living, he did run his affairs from that office, but we’re talking semantics. It is still the baron’s office.”
You can’t even acknowledge that he was using my body. “Are you going to let us enter the office or not? Because if the answer is no, you can sit here until the end of your days, wondering what happened to your son.”
“Colin is not my son. I simply wanted to know if it was time to declare him dead so the bank can be free to liquidate his belongings.”
Motherly compassion at its Malveaux finest.
Kendell leaned forward in her chair. “Oddly, we’re looking for the same answer. If we could have just five minutes in that office alone, I’m sure we could give you the assurance you need.”
The woman’s laugh sounded like a hyena fighting for a piece of meat. “I’m not letting you in there alone. And your assurances won’t mean much in a court of law. So far, I don’t see anything that you have to offer as being useful to me. If you know where Colin is, tell me. For that information, I’ll let you into the office but not alone. I want to be there in case you do discover some hidden treasure.”
Myles wasn’t any fonder of Margery than he was of her son. “Colin is in hell. There are two ways that he might be freed—escape or pardon. We’re here to find out how far he’s progressed along one of those paths. That’s as much as we can tell you.”
“If I was a betting woman,” the bank president said, “I’d put my money on escape.” She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out an old-fashioned skeleton key. The old lock probably wasn’t much for protection, and Myles knew the key was mostly a formality. The true security would be the camera, guards, and paranormal spells—of both Colin and Baron Samedi’s conjuring. “I’m only doing this out of curiosity. The next time you want a loan, make an appointment.”
Myles walked beside Kendell and behind Margery Laroque, like a man being marched to the gallows. The woman had called Kendell’s bluff about their having some proof that Colin would remain among the dead if they entered the old office. Alone, they might have been able to summon Baron Samedi. They needed to talk to him if they had any hope of reaching the baron’s children. With Margery present, h
owever, the voodoo loa wasn’t likely to show himself. That didn’t leave any options as far as Myles could see. They might as well be walking straight into the police station.
He leaned in to whisper to Kendell, “I’ve got nothing.”
“Samedi won’t let us down.”
Myles gripped the silver skull headpiece of the cane as they entered the office, but as he feared, there was no grand voodoo gesture from the loa of the dead. After seeing the office in its full seventh-gate-to-Guinee glory, he found the dark wood-paneled walls disappointingly stagnant. Kendell ran her hand over the large desk, but even that didn’t call forth Baron Samedi.
The bank president stood at the door with her arms crossed. She reminded Myles of a schoolteacher waiting at the chalkboard for a student to finish so she could tell them they’d failed. “I could have told you that your plan required a miracle. This old office is nothing more than a museum exhibit. It was almost worth the diversion just to see the despondent looks on your faces, but now I do have to get back to work.”
41
Having Annie stay at his condo for a second night was a major success. After seeing Sanguine in flight, Colin was convinced his sexual partner was really the angel in disguise. Though he wanted to get past the initial hide-and-seek courtship, her use of the fake name and body helped him maintain an emotional distance from the swamp-witch-turned-angel. The superficial aspects of their conversations had been less enlightening than he’d wished. She stuck to her carefully prepared script regarding any details of her life. The role of a college student didn’t fit her, though. Her insights into human nature and relationships were far too mature for a girl still going home from parties with the first dude who paid her a sincere compliment. He’d made himself an expert at identifying the type of woman who didn’t take much work to seduce. Annie was too much of a contradiction not to be Sanguine.
The baron side of Colin wanted to viciously ravage the college student as payback for Sanguine playing her game of deception. But he held back. Colin knew he was being conned, but having her think she held the upper hand had its benefits. The giddy excitement of having made a strong move had tripped up more than one opponent.