The Dragon Lantern

by Alan Gratz

  Hachi took his arm and pulled him away. “Later,” she told him.

  “You always say that,” Fergus said with a pout, “but we never come back.”

  Their trip down the Mississippi River had been uneventful and slow. Fergus had spent almost the entire trip in the engine room, talking boilers and draws and horsepower with the engineers, or tucked away in his room tinkering on something secret. Hachi had spent the whole time thinking about what she was going to do to this Madame Blavatsky person when she found her, and now that they were in New Orleans, Hachi was eager to get on with it.

  “I sent Mrs. Moffett a pneumatigram asking her to let the local Septemberists know we were coming,” Hachi said. She scanned the crowd. “I thought somebody might be here to quietly meet us.”

  “Miss Hachi!” a man cried, waving to them from the crowd. “Miss Hachi! Over here!”

  “Or not so quietly,” Fergus said.

  The man was big—not so much tall as wide—with a round body and a friendly round face. He was dark-skinned and bald, and wore a black three-piece suit over a white shirt and black tie. It must have been stifling in the thick, wet heat of the city, Hachi thought. The man waved a white handkerchief like he was surrendering to them, and Hachi and Fergus worked their way through the crowd to hear his terms.

  “Miss Hachi,” the man said, shaking her hand. His voice was Creole Acadian, both lazy and hard at the same time. “You look just like your description, right down to de scar on your neck.”

  Hachi put a hand to her neck. She usually wore a scarf to hide the nasty scar she’d gotten as a child the night her father was killed, but she had skipped it this time in deference to the humid Louisiana weather. Maybe she would wear one anyway.

  “And you must be Miss Hachi’s assistant, Fenrick,” the man said.

  “Assistant?” Fergus said. “I’m not her assistant!”

  “Erasmus Trudeau, at your service,” the man said. He bowed slightly and mopped his head with his handkerchief.

  “Thirty days hath September,” Hachi said, giving him the first half of the Septemberist pass phrase.

  Erasmus looked perplexed. “I’m sorry?”

  Hachi and Fergus glanced at each other.

  “Thirty days hath September,” Hachi said again.

  “April, June, and November,” Erasmus said, still confused. “All de rest, dey have thirty-one. Except February, of course.” He smiled awkwardly, not sure why he was repeating a children’s rhyme.

  Hachi reached for where her knife was hidden, but Fergus put a hand on her arm.

  “Who sent you to meet us, Mr. Trudeau?” Fergus asked.

  “De agency, of course,” Erasmus said. “De Pinkerton Detective Agency? You hire us to find Helena Blavatsky for you, and we do. Well, I do. I’m de Pinkertons’ man in New Orleans. Not too hard to find her, her being de queen’s bokor and all.”

  Hachi relaxed. “Right. Of course. Thank you, Mr. Trudeau.” Fergus looked at her with wide eyes, as if to say, “Don’t be so touchy.”

  “Call me Erasmus,” he said. “I book you in de Blennerhasset Hotel on Jackson Square. You follow me, and I see you get settled in.”

  “So, no Septemberist welcome, I guess,” Hachi whispered to Fergus as they fell in behind the Pinkerton.

  New Orleans beyond the docks was just as bustling as its waterfront. Broad green avenues clogged with steam carriages and clanging streetcars divided row after row of three- and four-story brick buildings whose gaslit sidewalks overflowed with men and women in fine, fancy clothes. Like the docks, the thick, humid air here was a soup of different languages, and the people a stew of different shades of brown.

  “I didn’t know so many Afrikans lived here,” Hachi said to Erasmus.

  “Not Afrikans,” Erasmus told them. “Haitians. From de Carib Islands. Many came after de revolution there, like my parents. New Orleans, it a place many people come to. The Chitimacha people, dey come first. Den de Francia of the Old World, it come and push out de Chitimacha. Den de Spain of the Old World, it push Francia out, and den Francia, it push Spain out again.” Erasmus laughed. “Den de Darkness come, and King Aaron, he come and conquer dem all.”

  Hachi knew the story: A man named Aaron Burr had raised an army near Cahokia and marched south and taken New Orleans nearly a hundred years ago. It was right after the Darkness fell, which made the seas choppy and unpassable, cutting the colonists off from their Old World nations. Without that support, there had been no one to stop him. Burr was dead now, and his daughter, Theodosia, ruled Louisiana as its queen.

  “But New Orleans, she survive like always,” Erasmus said. “Just like when de hurricanes come. Dey knock all de buildings down, but New Orleans, she get right back up again.”

  They crossed a canal lined with giant, drooping willow trees, and Hachi had to come back and pull Fergus away from watching the boats. At the base of the bridge she saw a woman in the bright blue-and-yellow uniform of the Louisiana militia with an oscillating rifle on her shoulder. Hachi was about to nod at her, but something about her face gave Hachi goose bumps. The woman was deathly gray and thin, with big dark rings around her eyes. And her mouth—her mouth looked like it was sewn shut with thick black string.

  “Did you see that woman back there?” Hachi asked Fergus. “The soldier?”

  “Ah, yes,” Erasmus said uncomfortably. “Yes, de Grande Zombi Armee. A gift to Queen Theodosia from our new bokor, de Madame Blavatsky.”

  “She looked like she was dead,” Hachi said.

  “She is. Dey all are. De greatest army in de world, she say. After all, how you kill somebody who already dead?”

  They passed another zombi soldier, and Fergus moved a little closer to Hachi.

  “Crivens. That is blinking creepy,” he said.

  Hachi noticed that none of the living residents of New Orleans made eye contact with the soldiers, and they all gave them a wide berth—some of them even crossing the street to stay away from them.

  “Looks like most people tend to agree with you,” she said.

  Erasmus nodded. “Dark things are afoot ever since dat bokor come,” he said. “Some people, dey think dere even worse monsters than zombi in New Orleans, and dat dey be rising.”

  “Oh, that’s just brass,” Fergus said, and he and Hachi shared a knowing look. If there were Manglespawn here—or worse, a waking Mangleborn—then Blavatsky was the least of their problems. And they were without Archie, the one of them who could actually go toe-to-toe with a Mangleborn and survive.

  Archie. Hachi felt a twinge of guilt for letting him go after the lantern alone. She hated to do it. He was right—they did make a good team. And she did want to help him find out where he’d come from. But she knew where she had come from, and Blavatsky was a part of it she couldn’t let get away. And whoever this Blavatsky was, she was even more powerful than Hachi had thought. And more dangerous too.

  “Erasmus, we need to get in to see Queen Theodosia,” Hachi said. Wherever Queen Theodosia was, Blavatsky was sure to be close by. “Can you arrange that for us?”

  “Oh, no, Miss Hachi,” Erasmus said. “Sorry. Erasmus Trudeau a big man in New Orleans, but not dat big.”

  Fergus grabbed her arm suddenly and Hachi flinched, instinctively moving to strike him but holding back at the last second.

  “Hachi, look,” Fergus whispered, completely oblivious to the fact that she had almost broken his nose. She followed his pointing finger to a painted wooden sign that hung outside an elegant-looking three-story building with white-painted wooden balconies. The sign said M. LAVEAU, READINGS, but the words were surrounded by a number of arcane signs and symbols, including a pyramid eye inside a seven-pointed star—the symbol of the Septemberist Society.

  “Erasmus,” Hachi said. “Before we check in at our hotel, Fergus and I would like to visit that shop.”

  Erasmus frowned. “Miss Hachi, whatever you looking for, you find it elsewhere. Dat shop belong to de Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau. Her magic so powe
rful, she able to be young or old, depending on how she feel. You don’t need nothing from her.”

  “Well,” Hachi said. “If I can’t see the proper queen, I’ll see the Voodoo Queen. We’ll meet you at the hotel, Erasmus.”

  A bell over the door tinkled as Hachi and Fergus went inside. The shop was dark and cluttered. Behind a long counter with a cash register was a wall full of bottles, each occupying its own little cabinet, and each marked with a faded yellow label. On the other side of the room, beneath shelves of books stuffed in wherever they would fit, a wall full of wooden Afrikan tribal masks looked down on them with empty eyes. A small altar lit with dozens of half-melted candles glowed in the corner, and skulls—both human and animal—sat on tables and shelves throughout the room. From the ceiling, just beyond their reach, hung thousands of little dolls, tiny human effigies made of sticks and straw and corn husks.

  An old woman came out from behind a colorful piece of cloth hung in a doorway at the back and welcomed them in Acadian.

  “Bonjour,” Hachi said. “Parlez-vous anglais?”

  “We speak many languages here, chère,” the old woman said. “Some even that were never spoken by any human tongue.”

  “Sounds like our kind of place,” Fergus muttered.

  The old woman glided toward them. Her skin was a brown closer in color to Hachi’s, but her face wasn’t First Nations. The daughter of a Haitian and a Yankee, Hachi guessed. She was full-figured and wore a long, simple black dress with a gold-and-red shawl. Her wrinkled face was still beautiful, with high, thin eyebrows, and dark, mysterious eyes. On her ears she wore big, golden hoop earrings, and just a bit of black hair peeked out from under a complicated white wrap she wore on her head, making her look like she was drying her hair after a shower.

  “What may I do for you, mes enfants?” she asked.

  “Thirty days hath September,” Hachi said.

  “Ah,” the old woman said. “Seven heroes we remember, yes?” She raised her left hand, and there, on the back of it, in faded black ink, was a tattoo of the Septemberists’ symbol.

  “Yes,” Hachi said. She was surprised to discover how relieved it made her feel to find another Septemberist in the city. She had come to trust the society very quickly. She frowned inwardly—Archie and Fergus had made her too trusting of other people in general.

  The old woman moved to the front door, where she turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED, locked the deadbolt, and lowered the shade. “So we are not disturbed,” she told them.

  Hachi scanned the room for other exits out of habit.

  “Sit, please,” the woman said. She gestured to a table with a thick red velvet tablecloth and three chairs. A deck of cards sat at her left-hand side. “I am Marie Laveau.”

  Fergus introduced himself and Hachi. “We’ve come from New Rome,” he told her. “By way of all over.”

  “It has been a long time since we heard from the Society,” Laveau said.

  Hachi shared another look with Fergus. Had Mrs. Moffett not gotten her pneumatigram, or had something happened that kept her from writing to Laveau?

  “For a while, the whole Society was being controlled by these bug things on the back of their necks.” Fergus slid sideways to try to get a look at the back of her neck. “You didn’t, uh, you didn’t have one of them visit you down here, did you?”

  “Oui. I did, as a matter of fact,” Laveau said. She pointed to a jar on a shelf, where one of the dead bugs floated in a jar of formaldehyde. Hachi liked this woman better already.

  The old woman clapped, making Fergus jump. From behind the curtain at the back stepped two figures, one tall, the other short. Both wore long, colorful wraps that disguised their figures, and wooden masks painted white with big black eyes and black lines for mouths with short vertical lines that gave them skeleton teeth.

  “Crivens!” Fergus said. He shot up from his chair and stumbled on his bad leg.

  “My assistants,” Laveau said.

  “They’re not … they’re not zombies, are they?” Fergus asked.

  Hachi could see that they weren’t, even with the masks. They moved like living people. And breathed. With a start, she realized that was what had disturbed her the most about the zombi soldiers. They didn’t breathe.

  “They are not zombi,” Laveau said. “Just as you are not Septemberists.”

  Fergus began to protest, but Laveau cut him off.

  “You are Leaguers,” she said. Laveau turned over the top seven cards from the deck, laying each out in a row on the table with a crisp snap.

  The Chief, traipsing along happily with a dog at his heels.

  The Judge, wearing a blindfold and holding the scales of justice.

  The Warrior, wielding a raygun and sword.

  The Scholar, holding an open book and a glass beaker.

  The Trickster, wearing a mask and dancing.

  The Maker, surrounded by gears and tools.

  And the Strongman, a giant wrestling with his own shadow.

  Fergus picked up the card with the gears and tools on it. “Hey, I like this one,” he said.

  Marie Laveau looked up at him and smiled.

  “Oh,” Fergus said. He looked awkwardly at Hachi, mirroring the way she felt. Neither of them was entirely comfortable with the idea that they were some kind of prophesied superheroes.

  “The first seven cards of the Tarot,” Laveau told them. “Figures as old as time immemorial.”

  “But there aren’t seven of us,” Hachi said. “We only know one more person who fits this.”

  Fergus picked up the Strongman card. “Archie.”

  “Where is this Archie?” Laveau asked.

  “We had to leave him in Cahokia,” Hachi said.

  “Pff. You should have remained together,” Laveau said. “You are stronger together.”

  Hachi felt terrible, like she was being scolded by her grandmother. Fergus didn’t look much happier.

  “But what is done is done,” Laveau said. “You are Leaguers, and your coming has been foretold.”

  Hachi stared at the row of cards, wondering if there really were four more people out there like them—people with extraordinary abilities, destined to fill the same old roles in an ancient and never-ending battle against the Mangleborn. If they did exist, where were they? Who were they? And how would they ever find them?

  Hachi shook away the thoughts. This wasn’t what she was here for. “We’ve come for Madame Blavatsky,” she said.

  Laveau knitted her fingers together on the table and nodded. “Theodosia’s new bokor.”

  “Erasmus called her that,” Fergus said. “What’s a bokor?”

  “A sorcerer,” Laveau said. “One who serves the loa with both hands.”

  “What does that mean?” Hachi asked.

  “It means she uses both white magic and black magic.”

  The masked assistants looked on silently behind Laveau.

  “And the black magic I’m guessing is the bad magic,” Fergus said. “Like those zombi soldiers we saw.”

  Laveau nodded. “Blavatsky has become very powerful since she came to New Orleans, but she does not understand the truth behind her power.”

  “Which is what?” Hachi asked.

  “The Mangleborn that sleeps in Lake Pontchartrain.”

  “There it is,” Fergus said. He leaned back in his chair and groaned.

  “The Mangleborn’s energy can be used to make powerful magic, powerful magic Blavatsky has tapped into,” Laveau said. “But Blavatsky is a child playing with matches. She knows just enough to make the bright flame that amuses her, but not enough to keep from being burned by it—and burning down all of New Orleans with her.”

  Hachi leaned across the table. “We’re here to stop her. But we have to get close to her. I need to get in to see the queen.”

  Laveau sighed. “Theodosia has been inviting me to call on her for as long as she has been on the throne, but I have always declined. Tonight I will agree, and you may join me at court.
Oui?”

  “Good,” Hachi said. “We’ll see you tonight.”

  “Wait,” Laveau said, catching Hachi by the arm. Hachi had to fight down the urge to strike back again. She did not like people grabbing her.

  “Let me do a reading for you,” Laveau said. “Your fortune.”

  Hachi pulled her arm away. “That’s really not necessary,” she said. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe. Just the opposite. Her grandmother had read the signs for her when she was a child, sometimes with startling accuracy. Hachi was more afraid she would learn something she didn’t want to know.

  “Whether you hear it now, or live it later, it will happen,” Laveau told her. “And I believe the Warrior is a person who likes to be prepared.”

  Hachi glanced at Fergus. “She’s got you there,” he said.

  Marie Laveau moved the Warrior card from the row of Leaguers into the center of the table and put the rest back into the deck. She had Hachi shuffle the cards and then dealt out seven cards in a circle around the Warrior card. Like the Leaguer cards, these were illustrated with colorful pictures, and each had a name and a Roman numeral on it.

  Laveau’s eyes searched the cards for meaning. “You are not so concerned about money, I think,” she said.

  “How did you know?” Hachi asked.

  The old woman smiled. “Because your last name is Emartha. But I do see other things you are worried about. So many swords…,” she said. She put a hand to a blue-and-white card that showed a woman in white sitting in a chair with a sword in her hand. From where Hachi sat, it was upside-down.

  “We shall begin here, I think, with you,” Laveau said. “The Queen of Swords. You are a strong and powerful young woman, Hachi. But you have come to be that way through great personal loss. The death of a loved one, oui? More than one. Your parents?”

  Hachi found it hard to breathe, and took Fergus’s hand under the table. “My father was murdered, and my mother died of a broken heart.”

  “You mourn for them,” Laveau said. “But too much. You let your sadness own you. Rule you. Everything you are, everything you do, is guided by your grief. You are moving forward, but not toward your future. You are moving forward only because you are running from your past.”