by Bryan Camp
He thought about the place, and the life, and the myth called New Orleans.
A pelican kept pace with the Caddy, its long pinion feathers twitching in the wind as it angled up and out of sight. Jude wondered if the fish saw the bird’s shadow just as it was too late to do anything about it. He pictured the moment, the realization that the sudden gloom was something more than a cloud passing in front of the sun, the frantic struggle to change direction, and then the snatch into a hungry gullet and into darkness.
He knew the feeling.
Jude guided the Caddy into the parking lot at St. Joseph’s Abbey, where it pulled in right next to the Lexus he’d animated to send Renai and Sal across the lake. Brother Gus is gonna have a hell of a time explaining this, he thought. As if summoned, the monk walked out of the church on the other side of the gravel parking lot, heading Jude’s way. Remembering just in time, Jude yanked off the burlap mask, not sure what it would show Gus—not sure the monk could handle seeing actual magic performed right in front of him. He slipped it back into the satchel as he got out of the car. After tonight, he’d never have to hide from Hē again.
Brother Augustus started speaking before Jude had a chance to. “Good to see you, my boy. Your mother’s guests arrived last night. We put them each up in a spare room in the retreat center.” He frowned, seemed to gather his words. “Will they be leaving with you this evening?” He tried to hide the hope in his voice, but it came through.
We’re all leaving one way or another, Jude thought. To Augustus, he said, “Why, have they been a hassle?”
Augustus held his hand out, indicating they could talk and walk at the same time. “Not at all; Ms. Raines is a delightful young woman.” He opened his mouth to speak, then—Jude guessed by the expression on the monk’s face—actually bit his tongue.
Jude sighed. “What did Sal do?”
“I’m not sure Mr. Vittori is all there. I saw him— I believe I saw, at any rate— I believe I saw him . . .” He lowered his voice to a near whisper, even though they were the only two people in sight, much less earshot, “defecating outside.”
Jude choked back a laugh when he realized that to the monk’s eyes, Sal probably looked like a man. “He’s kind of a free spirit, I’m afraid. Real big on the natural order, you know? Probably thought he was saving water or helping your garden or something. Don’t worry, we’ll head out soon.”
Augustus nodded, probably a little more enthusiastically than he intended. “I believe they’re having dinner with the other brothers; would you like me to have them meet you in your mother’s room?”
“I’d appreciate that, yes.”
The privacy would give them a chance to talk, for Jude to say something that he should have said a long time ago.
His mother’s room, still reeking of turpentine and oil paints, had undergone a transformation since he was there last. The frightening, vampiric cityscape was gone, as were many of the paintings that had previously crowded the space. Now a single canvas sat on an easel in the center of the room: a self-portrait of his mother painting another, smaller image that he needed her to paint, a request he hadn’t made yet. Her bathroom door was the Red Door to the card room again—though now, Jude noticed, it was facing inward. Jude felt a little stab of filial guilt, knowing that she had to have added the scene of his murder to her mural, that she’d had to witness that.
Her strong arms wrapped around him before he knew she was there. “My baby came to see me before his big night,” she said. “You make your poor mother so happy.” She slipped something small and flat into the watch pocket of his vest. “Before I forget, here’s what you asked for.” She put his hand over the pocket and patted it, keeping Jude from checking to see if it was what he needed. Besides, she’d be offended if he didn’t trust her.
“I didn’t ask for this, Ma. How did you know I needed it?”
She waved a hand at him, like the question was irrelevant. “You were going to ask. Same difference.” She scooped a brush out of a cup, swiped some gold paint off a nearby palette, and dropped to the floor with her legs folded, stretching in an awkward yoga pose so she could use the brush to paint her toenails.
Jude squatted in front of her, so he could look into her face. “But, Ma, it’s not the same. Not at all. How do you know these things?”
She peered up at him, blew a few strands of hair out of her eyes with a puff of breath. “Well, because of you, silly. You think I could carry around a tiny little Trickster in my belly for nine months and not end up a mad old fortuneteller?” She made a scoffing noise in the back of her throat.
It took a couple of deep breaths before Jude could trust himself to use his voice, to ask the question he’d never permitted himself to speak. “Mom, are you telling me that you know who my father is?”
She crinkled her brow. “Didn’t I just say? Trickster.”
“No, I meant— I thought you knew which one.” Jude sighed. “Never mind.”
“Oh, the names don’t matter. They’re all Trickster deep down.” She smirked at him. “Just big ol’ sacks of righteous indignation, sneaky smiles, and bellies that are always growling. And, you know, lust.” She nudged him with her shoulder, playful. “Barely took any seduction at all for me to turn your daddy’s head.” She whistled between her teeth. “And he was a looker, you bet. Just like my—honey, what’s wrong?”
Jude realized then that his eyes were brimming with tears, that he was trying to speak but couldn’t get past the lump in his throat. “Seduced?” he managed at last. “Not—” He gestured inarticulately with his hands, unable to even say the word.
“What, rape? I’m a woman, Jude. I know the word.” She dropped her paintbrush to the floor and wrapped him in an embrace. “No, sweetpea, no. It wasn’t love between us, not exactly, but nothing like that. It was . . . nice. And when it was over, I got what I wanted in the first place. I got my sweet boy. Stole him right away from the gods and brought him home with me.”
Something broke in Jude, and he started sobbing in his mother’s arms—great, painful heaves of breath bursting out of him, as the topography of his existence shifted in his mind, in his heart. A guilt that he’d always borne sloughed away from him, leaving an ache behind, like the muscles bearing a heavy load cramping when the weight was finally set down. He wept, while his mother made soothing noises in his ear, until he was done.
And then, wiping his face on the handkerchief that his mother had taught him a gentleman always carried, Jude stood, feeling like he rose to his full height for the first time in his life.
From the doorway, Sal cleared his throat. “Hope we’re not interrupting nothin’,” he said.
“Puppy!” Jude’s mother shouted, bouncing to her feet. “Here, puppy, puppy! C’mere, boy!” She slapped her paint-stained hands against her thighs. Renai pressed the back of her fist against her mouth and giggled. Sal glanced up at Jude, sighed, and moved obediently forward, letting Lydia scratch him between the ears, seemingly unaware or uncaring that the dog she was petting was capable of speech.
“Hate to be the buzzkill here,” Sal said, “but we really oughta be getting you two back downstairs, don’tcha think? We only got till midnight.” He licked Lydia’s fingertips and made a noise of disgust. “Does this chick know she’s covered in paint?”
“About that . . .” Jude said. “What would you say if I asked you both for a favor?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
He wears a jester’s cap and many colored clothes, talks in riddles and in rhyme. Or she speaks the truths no one else dares speak; she is the child who cries out that the Emperor is wearing no clothes. Or he is Falstaff, a font of drunken wisdom. They are Loki or they are Raven; Coyote or Prometheus or Quetzalcoatl. He is the bringer of fire and she is the bringer of pain, the gambler who dances with chaos, with madness, with change. The ghost in the machine is his. The uncertainty principle. The exception that proves the rule. Hers are the unintended consequences, the lucky breaks, the reversals of fortune. They
are man and woman, both and neither. They bring wisdom through mockery, truth through lies, life through death. Liar. Thief. Trickster. Fool.
It took surprisingly little effort to convince Sal and Renai to help him. Renai seemed to be up for anything, had only needed to be reassured that, yes, the satchel really did work the way he promised it would—even though Jude himself hadn’t known for sure that it would work until it did. Though, to be fair, nothing was too hard a sell when your other option was death.
With Sal, Jude had to remind him that one of the many benefits of his trick working was that Jude would be around to search for that piece of a lost life that he’d promised the psychopomp he’d find. And that if it didn’t work, he needed Sal there as an insurance policy, to drag him out of the card room and down to face the Thrones’ judgment as he’d sworn—which Jude couldn’t do if the other players devoured him. He failed to mention the part where he was far too much of a Trickster now to take any comfort in the promise of Death’s embrace.
And so, with only an hour left to live, death trotting on four paws at his side, dressed to the nines and brimming with the luck he’d skimmed off the overly fortunate, Jude kissed his mom goodbye, shouldered the satchel full of lost things—his bag of tricks—slipped the pearl into his mouth, felt his lips stretch into his best fuck-you grin, and reached for the twisted, ornate knob that would open the Red Door.
A provocative, swaggering confidence whirled within him, filling him, leaving no room for fear or doubt. For the first time in a long time, maybe ever, he felt the hand of destiny, knew that he stood exactly where he was supposed to be.
The knob turned; the door opened on a haze of smoke, the tinkle of ice against glass, the faint hint of cinnamon, the hungry grins and appraising stares of the assembled fortune gods and the empty seat, waiting, once again, for Jude.
As he stepped inside with Sal right behind him, Jude was unable to stop himself from meeting, and matching, the gods’ smiles. If he went by their expressions, every single god at the table believed they had a winning hand. Scarpelli had a distracted air about him, staring into space, his too-long fingers splayed across his cheek, his victory a foregone conclusion. Though Hē appeared focused on balancing a feather on a fingertip, Jude saw that those stark white, pupil-less eyes were constantly moving, evaluating. Legba smiled around the pipe stem clenched between his teeth, but there was a tension in him—the shadow in his eyes named Cross. Hermes wore a smirk, his feet propped up on the card table, busily typing away on a cell phone, Thoth’s spectacles pushed back into his hair, the glass replaced with red and green lenses.
Aside from the gash across his neck, Dodge remained just as he had been that first night, fat and bald and ever smiling, his fluorescent grin cranked up as bright as it would go. “Shut the door, little one,” Dodge said. “You’re letting out all the luck.”
Hē spoke as Jude took his seat, in that haunting voice that was an echo of his own, though the angel’s words were directed at Dodge. “You’re going to let this walking blasphemy bring his beast in here?”
Sal started to say something, but Jude cut him off. “He’s my seeing-eye dog,” Jude said.
Hē’s head whipped around, those impossible eyes boring into him. “You are not blind,” the messenger said.
“Sure I am,” Jude said. “How the hell else would I have ended up here?” His skin felt swollen with stolen luck as he eased into the chair. The heat of his magic surged through his veins. He gathered his cards into a tidy stack, covered them with his hands.
Legba chuckled and nodded. “I do believe the boy is starting to get it,” he said.
Hē’s face puckered with distaste, but Dodge laughed that booming, joyous laugh. “Let the dog stay,” he said. The angel looked ready to argue, but Dodge kept talking. “This is still my game. I might be dead—my word might mean dick out among the living—but until the last card is turned, this is still my game. My rules.”
“Speaking of things being over,” Scarpelli said, staring with his corpse eyes at Jude. “Why don’t you go ahead and flip those cards, sweetmeats? You are merely an appetizer, and I’d just as soon be about my meal.”
“Yes,” Hē said in Jude’s own voice. “I should like to end this game as well.” Hermes and Legba murmured their agreement. Jude was supposed to be afraid, he realized. And because he wasn’t, he was making them nervous. His smile stretched wider. Jude gathered his cards, flicking and twisting his wrist just so. He arranged the speech, the narrative, he had crafted during a long phone call with Opal Brennan, his tarot-reading friend from the Quarter. Made his move.
Jude turned over the first card, THE MAGICIAN, and tucked the pearl under his tongue so that its magic would influence his words. “This is for who I once was,” he said. “A man caught between two worlds, between power and vulnerability, between divinity and mortality.”
He turned over the second card: THE HERMIT, reversed. “Who I have been. A self-centered and lost soul who turns away from enlightenment.”
The third card: THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE. “This stands for those assembled here, the fortune gods, the Tricksters, the obstacles in the path. The challenge I must overcome if I am to succeed.”
The vampire tittered, the noise setting Jude’s teeth on edge. He swallowed and took a deep breath. He had to stay calm despite the throb of his pulse staggering through his veins, despite the fortune god magic whirling like a compass needle in his mind, searching for the one moment he needed to find.
The fourth card: THE TRAITOR. “This is my moment of enlightenment and triumph. This is when I learn who I am, what I’m capable of. Everything hangs in the balance.”
Something about the card or Jude’s explanation agitated Hē, sent a flutter across those spice-scented wings.
Scarpelli giggled again. “We’ll see about triumph when you turn that last card,” he said. The gods—the ever-hungry Trickster gods—leaned in, their attention focused on Jude’s hands, waiting for the image to be revealed. Only Dodge watched Jude, those money-colored eyes staring coolly into Jude’s own.
Jude’s magic found the moment at last—this moment—the instant his fate hinged upon. He seized it and, with every ounce of luck he possessed, twisted.
With a touch, he changed the card on the table, exchanging it for the one in his vest pocket.
Jude flipped over the final card, THE FOOL. Moans and curses rang out around the table. It depicted Jude in patchwork clothes—a staff over his shoulder, magician’s bag slung on his back, Sal leaping at his heels—smiling as he stepped over the edge of a cliff. “This is my future,” Jude said. “This is my fate. This is who I am: the Luck of New Orleans.”
As one, the gods turned to Dodge. Jude could see it in their faces, could feel the disbelief radiating from each of them. Jude looked from vampire to fallen angel to loa to thief and knew that if his gamble failed, his only hope was a swift death, and swifter oblivion. His gaze caught Dodge’s, and Jude saw that the murdered god knew what Jude had done—that he might have known what would happen all along. Jude’s heart seized, fear piercing him at last. He had thrown the dice, he had played his hand, and he had lost both times. He pulled in a breath to speak the word for burn, his signal to Sal that the whole thing had turned to shit.
But then Dodge began to laugh.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” he shouted. He thrust his hand in Jude’s direction. “Let me be the first to congratulate you.”
Numb, waiting for Dodge’s trick to become clear, Jude reached across the table and touched hands—flesh to spirit flesh—with the dead fortune god. His gift surged within him, identifying all that Dodge had lost. Jude saw a childhood that lasted for hundreds of years. Dodge running with the others of his kind—the fae—through virgin forests of endless summer in a world before, or beyond, the world of man. He saw a time in France, where Dodge Renaud was Reynard the Fox, the Trickster of fable. He saw when Dodge came to a newly born New Orleans, his father’s stolen pouch in hand and head full of plans, s
o many plans. They stretched out into the next century, rebuilding the city, revitalizing it, healing her wounds, ensuring that she would survive storms and turmoil and a growing darkness on the horizon. He saw the night when those plans came to an end, when the card game meant to draw out the lost voice of the city went so very wrong.
The night Dodge was murdered by a fallen angel named Hē.
Dodge’s grip tightened on Jude’s hand and yanked him to the floor. Jude felt the wind of passage on the back of his neck, heard the whistle of something sharp slicing the air as he fell, as one of Hē’s blades went whispering past his head. His vision narrowed to a fine point, adrenaline and magic flowing in a torrent through his veins. Knocking over his chair as he tumbled to the ground, Jude’s satchel fell with him, flopping open. Jude lunged for it and dug inside, his fingers tingling as they led him to the lost thing he sought, as he reached down deep, past the elbow, up to the shoulder, brushing past a young woman’s dreads and clasping her wrist and pulling her out in one convulsive heave, dragging Renai into the card room.
“The angel,” he shouted, “shoot the angel!”
Hē leaped onto the table, scattering drinks and playing cards, wings spread wide, the smell of cinnamon overpowering, lips overflowing with incoherent babble. Jude pushed himself to his feet as Renai aimed the revolver he’d taken from Regal and squeezed the trigger. The hammer dropped onto an empty cylinder with a pitiful click. She tried again, and again—click, click. Jude let out a long, slow breath that burned like fire and readied himself to speak his flames at Hē. But then the gun bucked in Renai’s hands and a roar ripped through the room. Hē swiped a hand through the air, knocking the bullet away with the same motion, the same nonchalance, of someone shooing away a fly. Renai fired twice more with the same result, as the fallen angel stalked closer, ignoring the young woman with the pistol. Hē snatched Jude into the air by the front of his shirt, like a puppy held by the scruff of its neck.