by Rob Cornell
Jessie realized the whispers belonged to all the memories trapped in the artifact. Thousands. Millions. Voices from years ago, centuries ago, ages ago. They wanted out.
They wanted Jessie.
The blood on her arm burst into flame.
Jessie screamed. Tried to toss away the cube. But her fingers stuck to the surface like wet flesh to ice.
As the blood on her arm burned away, a single voice emerged from the chaotic chorus. I am immortal.
Tears streamed down her face. She recognized the voice. Craig’s voice. Only she knew it wasn’t Craig.
Gabriel.
As if thinking his name worked like a trigger, the engravings in the cube glowed a bright orange. The blood on her arm evaporated and the flames went out. The cuts closed and disappeared, not even leaving scars.
The cube’s light grew brighter.
Jessie squinted. She tried once more to throw the cube away, but it clung to her fingers.
The light and the humming filled the whole world until there was nothing else.
Jessie felt her throat rattle as she screamed, the sound blocked by the humming. Then something touched her mind, penetrated it, curled up inside. Pain as sharp and rough as a serrated blade cut through her head.
Silence and darkness replaced the humming and light.
Chapter Eighteen
Lockman drove non-stop and made the trip to New Orleans in eleven hours. His back and joints ached from sitting so long. It didn’t help his bruises from the tangle with the big vamps either. His heel felt surprisingly well. Just a little sore. Kate had done a clean job. If he kept up on the care with fresh gauze and Neosporin, he should heal up fine.
He’d never been to New Orleans, even while with the Agency. All the fiction written about the hauntings and vampires in and around the Quarter turned out as just that—fiction. What Teresa had told him made sense, though. After Katrina, among the destruction and dislocated citizens, the area would appeal to the scavenger instincts of vampires. He could see how a single natural disaster might turn this city into a hotbed of the unnatural.
Lockman spotted a gas station and nearly turned in so he could get a map when he remembered the Marty Mobile’s built-in GPS. He entered the address Marty had given him and a female voice with an electronic tenor guided him through the city to the apartment building.
He parked the car and patted the dash. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” the female voice responded.
Lockman started. “Really?”
“Really,” the voice responded. “I am the vehicle’s Voice Enhanced Ready Assistant. You can call me VERA. And next time you need to enter an address into the GPS, just ask. I can do it for you.”
Lockman smirked and shook his head. Where did Marty get this stuff? “Nice to meet you.”
“The pleasure is mine.”
Did she sound a little flirty? For crying out loud, she was a computer. He let it go and got out of the car. When he closed the door, the locks automatically engaged. Damn, but he was going to have a hard time giving this thing back to Marty.
He jogged to the apartment building’s front door, expecting the line of buzzers with names written next to them. He knew her apartment number from the info Marty had given him, but when he checked the corresponding button he found the name “Steve” printed next to it. Steve came from Stevenson. She used to use that moniker to obscure her ID all the time. Not a convincing alias of any kind. Just a way to signal to those who knew her they had the right person, and keep her real name from view of those who didn’t.
Her button didn’t matter, though. She wasn’t there to let him in. He pulled on the door. Sometimes these didn’t close all the way when tenants rushed in and out. This door was latched and locked. Time for the old standard.
He raked his hand across all the buttons.
A few voices answered through the intercom. He ignored them, staying silent. Someone buzzed the door open without question. He yanked it open and stepped inside. Rows of mailboxes filled one wall of the foyer. A wooden staircase lead up to the next floor, the wood nicked and scarred with age. Lockman scanned the mailboxes until he found the one with “Steve” printed on it above the apartment number. He drew his pocket knife and easily jimmied the box open.
Only a film of dust on the bottom of the box. Didn’t look like she’d received any mail in some time. Not surprising since she hadn’t lived here long and only intended to use it as a base of operations in her search for her sister. Had to check everything, though. She had put her codename on the box which meant she may have intended to use it at some point.
He took the stairs to the third floor, catching a glimpse of a man on the second peering out his doorway expectantly. “Did you ring my bell?” he shouted after Lockman.
“Not me,” Lockman said and kept going without pause.
Picking the lock to Teresa’s apartment took a little more work than popping open her mailbox, but not much.
The apartment didn’t add up to more than a square space with barely enough room for the bed and the L-Shaped desk cluttered with computer equipment. The door to the bathroom provided the only break in the close walls. The studio apartment made for a perfect temporary command center, but Lockman couldn’t imagine living there for any length of time. He’d seen similar closets passed off as apartments in Los Angeles. Apparently, plenty of people had no issue giving up space to live in their dream city. For Lockman, the tight quarters made the muscles in his back tense and his abs squeeze.
He felt like a memory was trying to push through the back of his mind.
He shook off the feeling and got to work searching the apartment, starting with the computer. Of course, the machine was password protected. He tried a few guesses, including “Steve,” but after the third failed try the computer locked him out completely.
From the desk chair he looked around him. A bulletin board with news clippings tacked to it hung on the wall above the desk. A leather-bound book lay on the desk beside the computer. The rest of the space held little of interest. The bed. An open suitcase on the floor filled with clothes. A hotplate plugged into a wall socket situated above the scuffed molding that lined the floor.
The articles on the corkboard all centered around disappearances and murders in and around the Quarter. Murders of a specific type. Large wounds. Excessive blood loss. Bodies left in obscure locations like trash bins, alleyways, and even rooftops.
An obvious and extreme amount of vampire activity. Lockman wondered what the cops made of it all. He had never seen nor heard of such a concentrated vamp hot zone. They kept this shit up, a whole lot of mortals would get wise. Supernaturals typically didn’t advertise their existence on the mortal plane. Despite whatever powers they might have, they were still a minority on mortal turf. They wouldn’t last long once mass hysteria set in.
Lockman stood and brushed his fingers over the surface of the leather bound journal. What the hell was going on down here? He picked up the journal and flipped through the pages. Only about an eighth of the pages had any writing on them. Disjointed notes and observations, mostly based on the articles on the board. He turned to the last page of notes, intending to work his way backward, figuring her most recent activity might have more relevance. He didn’t have to read any further than that last page, where he found a short note above a scrawled address. “Possible mojo abuser named Jean LeRue in quarter. Rumors has ties to vamps.”
He scanned through the rest of the journal, but didn’t find anything beyond brainstorming and commentary on the articles. However, one word did feature prominently in many of the passages—organized. She kept coming back to the hypothesis that the vamps in the area were somehow organized beyond the usual hunting packs. Nothing more than desperate explanations to give meaning to her sister’s abduction as far as Lockman was concerned. It simply did not jive with known vampire behavior.
He flipped back to the note about Jean LeRue. The obvious place to start. He tore the page from
the book and left the apartment.
Back in the Marty Mobile, Lockman reached over to type the address from the notebook into the GPS, caught himself. “Vera?”
“Would you like me to enter the address on the paper into the GPS?”
He glanced at the sheet in his hand, then looked around the vehicle. “You can see this?”
“I have full monitoring capabilities both inside and out of the vehicle.”
Lockman narrowed his eyes. “You’re not all technology, are you?”
“I don’t not understand your inquiry.”
“Bullshit you don’t. You aren’t a computer.”
She didn’t respond for a moment. When she did finally speak, the robotic tone of her voice disappeared. “Marty insisted you wouldn’t approve if you knew the truth.”
Lockman rubbed his temples. “Mojo, right?”
“I am magical in nature. Yes.”
He threw open the door and jumped out. “Jesus Christ, Marty.” He wanted to kick the side panel, but he had a feeling that would hurt his foot more than the car. He walked a circle around the vehicle, hands in his hair.
Call Marty. Tell him to come pick up his magical mystery car himself. Walk away. Then what? Rent a car and leave an unnecessary paper trail? He wasn’t ready to burn his new ID, mostly because he didn’t have another one set up to take over. The less he spread around his latest false name the better.
He growled and got back in the car.
“I assure you, I’m quite stable,” Vera said.
Yeah, right. “What are you?”
“Difficult to explain in mortal terms. The closest analogy to mortal mythology would be an angel, I suppose.”
Lockman scrunched up his face. “Like a guardian angel?”
“Something along those lines. Though I admit it’s an imprecise comparison.”
He threw his head back and laughed. Unbelievable. He had a guardian angel named Vera who was a car. “That acronym for your name?”
“Marty came up with that. If you ask me, he pushed credibility with the name.”
“Now here’s a good question. When did Marty arrange this story, because I didn’t see him talk to you after he offered to loan me the car.”
“He explained about three days ago that you would need me for travel and that I should mask my true nature under the guise of an electronic system in the vehicle.”
“He didn’t know I was coming to him three days ago.”
“Apparently, he did. Perhaps he foresaw your arrival with his shamanistic sight.”
Lockman sighed and leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. He felt a hand rub the back of his neck. When he jerked up and looked behind him, no one was there.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Vera said. “I was trying to comfort you.”
“You just keep your invisible hands off me.” He shivered. “Where does the car end and you start?”
“The car is a physical body to hold me to the mortal plane. For all intents and purposes, we are one.”
“So you’re like fucking Herbie the Love Bug.”
“I apologize. I do not understand the analogy. Who is Herbie?”
“Forget it.” He rubbed his face, then dropped his hands in his lap. “Okay, it looks like I’m stuck with you for now, so let’s lay some ground rules. No more touching me. As little conversation as possible. No magical perks. I want you to act like a normal car.”
“That seems like a waste of my skills.”
“Reminds me of another rule. I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it. In other words, I don’t want your opinion.”
“Understood.”
“Good. Now power up the GPS and get me to this address.”
The GPS screen remained static, still showing that he had arrive at his last entered destination.
Lockman tapped the screen. “Come on. What’s the deal?”
“You asked that I function like a normal car” Vera said. “That would require you to enter the address into the GPS yourself.”
“Is that a joke?”
“A normal car would never joke.”
Lockman tapped the address into the GPS, started the engine, and peeled rubber away from the curb. Marty was going to catch hell for this.
Chapter Nineteen
The GPS directions took Lockman out of the city to an old plantation that looked like a miniature version of Scarlett’s Tara. An iron gate blocked the driveway, a call box mounted to a post to the left. A surveillance camera sat atop the call box like a one-eyed crow. Lockman lowered his window.
A voice crackled from the call box before Lockman could reach out and press the buzzer. “What do you desire?” The touch of a French accent.
“I’m here to see Mr. LaRue.”
“Are you certain?”
What kind of question was that? “I don’t have an appointment, if that’s what you mean.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
It was going to be one of those days. “Yes, I’m certain. Jean LaRue.”
“Pity. You’re handsome. The girls would have enjoyed tasting you.” A sigh. “I’m afraid Monsieur LaRue is quite busy.”
“Tell him this concerns his friends with the pointy teeth.”
A moment of silence.
“Very well.”
A short pause, then the gate clicked and slowly swung open.
Lockman pulled forward, wondering what the man on the call box had meant about girls tasting him. Vamps? His neck muscles tensed.
“I know you’d rather have me quiet,” Vera said, “but I’m sensing a great deal of magical energy at the house. You should be careful.”
“No shit.”
He pulled into a circular drive and parked next to a BMW and a hearse. Up close, the mansion showed its age. Peeling paint. Half-dead kudzu crawling over the façade. Through the open window Lockman could smell rotten vegetation. Yet somehow the old house clung to its former dignity with help of details like the ornate railing lining the wrap-around porch and the arched stain glass window above the front door.
“Can you tell what’s inside?” Lockman asked.
“I would have to leave the car to look inside.”
“You can do that?”
“I’d prefer not to. My connection to this plane is tenuous without a physical anchor.”
“You mean you can get sent back to wherever you came from.”
“Yes.”
Lockman touched a panel in the driver’s side door. The panel flipped open to reveal one of the many compartments Marty had shown him. He withdrew a .45 from the compartment and tucked the weapon in his waistband at the small of his back. “If I don’t come out of there alive, can you drive yourself back to Marty?”
“I cannot return without you. My instructions are to guard you at all cost. If you find yourself in danger, I will intervene. If you die, I die with you.”
“Just like a real guardian angel.”
“Perhaps the analogy is more apt than I first thought.”
“Don’t worry. If anybody dies today, it’s not going to be me.”
He climbed out of the car. He had to remind himself, no matter what she said, that he couldn’t trust Vera. Mojo was for the bad guys. Always had been. Always would be.
When Lockman rang the doorbell, an off-key version of “Taps” chimed on the other side of the door. Grim stuff. LeRue was pushing New Orleans cliché and about to slip into Adams Family territory.
A man with skin as white and thin as paper answered the door. His thick black eyebrows stood out in such contrast to his pallor they looked pasted on. He raised those eyebrows and bowed. “Monsieur LaRue will be but a moment. Won’t you relax in the parlor while you wait?”
This place had to be a joke. The butler might as well have answered the door with a guttural, “You rang?” Lockman peered past the butler into the house. Shadows hung in the foyer like drapes, and quivered as if made by candlelight.
“Is this a theme park or something?”
“I’m having a hard time taking you seriously with all the pomp and spookinstance.”
The butler’s pale face split with a grin. He covered his lips with a hand and chortled. “That’s very clever, sir.” He waved the hand that had covered his mouth in a stately manner. “Most of our clientele expect a certain sort of atmosphere.”
“What kind of clientele is that?”
“I’ll leave specifics to Monsieur LaRue. Please, come in.”
Lockman followed the butler through the foyer, lit by votives mounted to the wall. The smell of hot wax crowded the entrance. The parlor, as the butler called it, had more traditional lighting from floor and table lamps with red shades that dampened the light. The furniture looked old Victorian. The carpet as red as blood. But all of these details registered at the periphery. The women commanded the bulk of Lockman’s attention.
Six women of varying age, all dressed like burlesque dancers, lounged in the parlor. Two of them reclined on a red leather chase, their stocking-clad legs twined together. Neither of them looked much older than eighteen, and could have been younger.
A third woman in her late thirties leaned against the wall to Lockman’s right and studied him as he entered. Her tongue poked between her glossy lips. She drew a hand down her neck and over a breast that bulged from her bustier.
The remaining women—the eldest looked close to fifty, yet had skin as smooth as a teen—gave him similar hungry looks.
“Please, have a seat,” the butler said, then left Lockman to fend for himself.
His seating options were limited, as the women occupied most of the furniture. A girl in her early twenties wearing sheer silk that did nothing to cover the flesh beneath patted the empty spot next to her on a loveseat. “I don’t bite.”
No. These girls didn’t bite. They sucked. Nymphs. They could lure a man—or a woman, for that matter—with their sexual energy, then drain the very life-force from your body. Almost worse than vamps. But definitely easier on the eyes.
“I’ll stand, thanks.”
The girl pouted. “Suit yourself.”