The King of Bones and Ashes

by J. D. Horn

  “About me?”

  “Yes. Although I guess it’s less of a theory, and more of an observation.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Your magic hasn’t faded.” He shook his head when she opened her mouth to refute it, her reaction automatic. “No, don’t bother to deny it. I can see it on you. Your aura, it’s matured. The colors bleed more easily into each other now than they used to. You used to be much more careful, even punctilious . . .”

  “I had to survive . . .”

  “Oh, please, no. Don’t think I’m judging you. I liked you then. I like you now.” He gave a slight shrug and a chipper smile. “Like you said. People change, and that’s okay.” She hated having her own cheerful words turned back on her. “But”—he held up his hand and wiggled his fingers at her—“the sparks emanating from you are still the same colors: ice blue,”—he moved his hand to the left—“aqua, and I’m going to call those fuchsia, no cerise.” He shook his head. “Anyway, they’re the same colors, and they burn just as brightly as they did, back . . . well, way back when. You haven’t lost any of your magic.”

  His eyes scanned her again, and she knew that he was still studying her aura. She felt a subtle tickle, a bit like walking through a spiderweb. Her hand rose, an involuntary motion, to brush the sensation away, but it lingered. “Graying, graying . . . ,” he said. “Ah, you want to keep this fact a secret.” His eyes widened just a bit as his head tilted. “You have kept it a secret. Even from Nicholas.” The bright smile returned to his face. “Not to worry. Your secret is safe with me. I’m sure you have your reasons.

  “So here I am,” he said, “and there you are. And neither of us should be . . . at least not as we are.”

  Evangeline suddenly regretted the loss of her vodka.

  “I’ve come,” he said, “to think of magic like an animal’s circulatory system. If a vein is blocked, old ones can be forced to carry more blood, and sometimes new veins are formed. I’m not sure magic is failing so much as the system that carries it.” He pushed up from his stool. “May I show you something?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said and hurried from the room. He mustn’t have gone far, for he slipped back through the door within seconds. In his hand he held a thin, red, leather-bound book. He lay a towel down on the counter before her and sat the book on it, then offered her a pair of purple rubber gloves. She looked at him for a moment, uncertain. The book must be from Nicholas’s private collection. At least, expensive; at most, priceless. And Nicholas was always so careful . . .

  “Not allergic to latex, are you?”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t,” she said. “This looks really old, and I don’t want to risk harming it.”

  “Oh, no,” Daniel said, shaking the gloves at her. “These aren’t to protect the book. They’re to protect you.”

  She looked up at him, pointing down at the thin volume. “What is this?”

  “This,” he said, tugging one of the gloves onto her hand, “is The Lesser Key of Darkness, and my intuition tells me it has something to do with me.” His eyes widened, taking her in as if a light bulb had just flickered on in his head. “Something to do with the both of us, really. It’s just hit me your visit today may be more than just a pleasant surprise.”

  THIRTEEN

  At first Alice noticed nothing but rundown buildings and fast-food restaurants, but soon the completely unromantic stretch began to give way. The steeple of a quaint white church rose up above the neighboring dry cleaner like a flower breaking through concrete. She remembered being driven along this road in the back of her grandfather’s limo—how he would point at each of the street names and teach her about the Greek Muses from whom those names had been borrowed. He’d once made the driver take a detour to show her the stump of Urania Street, cut short by Felicity so that it didn’t intersect with St. Charles like the streets named after Urania’s sisters. “Méfie-toi,” he’d said, shaking his finger playfully in her face, “de ceux qui sont trop heureux.”

  “Beware those who are too happy,” Vincent said as they crossed Felicity, speaking in English, but mimicking her grandfather’s tone to perfection.

  “How did you know . . . ,” Alice began.

  “Oh, please,” Vincent said, “the old man said it damned near every time we drove through here. Good thing, too. Turns out the ladies,” he cast her a sideways glance, “love a man who can tell his Clio from his Terpsichore.”

  Alice could practically hear her cousin’s eyes roll.

  “So you remember him?” Lucy said.

  “Yes, bits and pieces. I used to spend every Sunday afternoon with him,” Alice said, her mind drifting back to the clearest of her memories of the man. His soft, cold hand running over a skinned knee, healing it in an instant. “He was good to me.”

  Beautiful, older homes repurposed as storefronts began popping up between the newer construction. An odd building reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower loomed on the left-hand side of the street. A streetcar, painted a deep olive green and trimmed in a rusty red, rumbled up alongside them. She had ridden the St. Charles line with her grandfather a handful of times, more as a source of entertainment than for transportation. Most times they took the line down to Canal Street, then caught the same car back.

  As the named streets gave way to the numbered, Vincent pointed back over his shoulder with a raised thumb. “Remember? Celestin’s house is back that way, a couple of blocks riverside.”

  “Why can’t you people just say north or south like everyone else in the normal world?” Lucy complained.

  Alice smiled. She remembered. “It’s because of the river,” she said. “Lakeside” and “riverside” replaced the regular cardinal directions in those parts of the city where the bends of the Mississippi River rendered compass bearings useless. “Yes,” Alice said, nodding to her uncle, “I remember. The house, at least. The general direction.” She scanned the road for familiar landmarks. A thought surfaced. “I loved that house. It seemed so mysterious to me as a child.” She shifted her gaze back to Vincent. “There’s even a secret passage between Grandfather’s bureau and the card room.”

  “Yeah, not so secret. The gap between the panels is like a mile wide,” Lucy said, unimpressed.

  Alice shrugged. “Whenever we played hide-and-seek, I hid there. And he always pretended to forget the passage was there.”

  “Lucy’s right,” Vincent said. “You can spot the panel that leads to that passage from across the room. Your dad’s house, on the other hand, has a priest hole that got added when the city fell under American control. There was worry we’d face persecution from the Protestants. That priest hole is a work of art . . . and that’s coming from a builder. If I wanted to hide something I didn’t want anyone stumbling over, that’s the first place I’d go.” He shook his head and laughed. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you played games . . . honest-to-God games . . . with Celestin.” He seemed pleased by the thought.

  “My only memory of him is being bounced on his knee,” Lucy said, her tone bitter. “Happy, happy, sunshine. Right?” Alice and Vincent’s eyes met in the rearview mirror as they looked back at Lucy, who stared at Alice through narrowed eyes. “Listen, I hate to disabuse you of any golden memories, but while Grandfather may have enjoyed playing bon-papa, he treated my mom like he owned her.” Lucy sat slumped in her seat, glowering. “Don’t pretend he treated you or Nicholas any better,” she said accusingly, eyes now fixed on Vincent.

  “No,” Vincent said. “It isn’t that. It’s just for a second there you almost sounded like you care about Fleur.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s keep that our little secret, okay?” She leaned forward and caught Alice’s upper arm. “My parents’ marriage was arranged, you know? Mom wasn’t given a lot of choice in the matter, ’cause good old Granddad had ambitions of turning her into the next Jackie Kennedy. Minus the grassy knoll experience, of course. Fleur Marin Endicott. First Lad
y. Most men dream of their sons becoming president, but considering what Celestin had to work with . . .” She released her grip and slid back. “No offense, Uncle Vincent.”

  “None taken, Bad Seed.”

  “Yeah, cute,” Lucy said. She grabbed the seat and pulled herself forward again, poking her head between them. “Are my parents getting divorced?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Well for starters, the senator,” Lucy turned to Alice. “My mother always calls my dad ‘the senator.’ Sometimes even when she’s talking to me. So weird, I know.” Her gaze shifted to the side of Vincent’s head. “‘The senator’ has remained in D.C. He isn’t coming. Said Mother told him it wasn’t necessary. Make of that what you will, but now with Celestin gone . . . well, let’s just say when Fleur Marin promised ‘till death do us part,’ I don’t think she was talking about her own or Dad’s.”

  Alice wondered at the nonchalant way Lucy spoke of the dissolution of her parents’ marriage.

  “Come on.” Lucy reached forward and slapped Vincent’s shoulder. “If I’m right, I’m sure you know something.”

  “I know that Fleur has asked me to bring her a list of the city’s best interior decorators.” He offered the information in a cautious tone. “Seems that your mother’s decided the family manse needs a little freshening up. Damn.” Vincent said and swung right without signaling. “Sorry. That’s where gossiping will get you. Almost missed the turn.”

  Alice didn’t catch the street name, but they slowed as the car approached an impressive white Victorian with a single turret that rose above the gray mansard roof. The structure struck Alice as being everything a mortuary should be—the house’s corners were edged with quoins, but its façade was otherwise void of any gingerbread or Eastlake ornamentation. The house was Second Empire, she guessed.

  She realized just how many hours she’d spent in the library.

  “Here we are,” Vincent said, parking on the street rather than in the circular drive before the house.

  Alice climbed out of the car and approached the building, wandering a bit to the side, where she caught sight of a double porch, supported by what appeared to be simplified Egyptian-style papyrus columns. Considering ancient Egypt’s obsession with the funerary arts, the columns seemed a bit too on the nose for a mortuary, but this could be considered the architect’s sole misstep. She looked back over her shoulder to find Vincent and Lucy staring at her in bafflement.

  “Are you coming?” Vincent said, gesturing to the house next door—a simple, two-story, redbrick Colonial.

  “Uh, yeah,” she said, casting one more confused glance at the Victorian before rushing to catch up with her uncle at the Colonial’s door.

  Vincent pressed the doorbell, but Alice heard no sound in response. Lucy reached out to press it again, but he caught her hand. “It’s silent. A little light flashes to tell ’em someone’s at the door.” Alice raised an eyebrow in question. “So the bell won’t disturb the mourners.”

  A sense of surrealism fell on Alice as it struck her that the word “mourner” now applied to her.

  The door eased open, and a slim, delicate man, shorter than Alice, greeted them. His porcelain skin was in stark contrast to his lusterless jet-black hair and his English-cut suit of the same severe color. An incongruous horseshoe mustache dominated his face. “Yes, Mr. Marin, welcome.” The man’s eyes fell on Alice, and he gave her a curt bow. “The Misses Marin and Endicott, I presume.” He stepped back to allow their entrance.

  “Yeah, Frank, this is my niece, Alice,” Vincent said, placing his hand on her shoulder. “Nicholas’s daughter.” He paused. “The other one is Fleur’s fault.” Lucy pulled a face, but held her tongue. Alice could sense her cousin was uneasy in this place of death.

  The mortician acknowledged Vincent’s joke with a slight, noncommittal nod before shifting his focus to the girls. “So sorry to make your acquaintance under these sad circumstances,” he said.

  “Like he’d make my acquaintance under any other circumstance,” Lucy muttered under her breath. Her harshness no doubt stemmed from her discomfort, but still Alice blanched with embarrassment.

  If Frank heard Lucy, he chose to ignore her snide remark. He closed the door behind them, then turned. “Please follow me,” he said, beckoning them with a cool smile and an outstretched hand, the fingers closing one by one onto the palm. As he led them down the hall, Vincent turned to wink at Alice and mimicked Frank’s hand gesture.

  “You’re terrible,” she mouthed, and he rewarded her with a smirk.

  “Ladies’ room?” Lucy called out, causing Frank to turn.

  “Of course,” he said, motioning to a door that had been left ajar at the end of the hall. A dim light shone from within.

  “Sorry,” Lucy said, addressing Alice. “I need a moment before diving into the shark tank. Want to come with? Do each other’s hair? Talk about boys?”

  “No,” Alice said. Her refusal was too quick, too firm.

  A knowing look rose in Lucy’s eyes. Her expression was sympathetic, comforting. A silent promise to keep any secret. “Fine,” Lucy said, with what Alice intuited was an affected harshness. “Have it your way,” she said, pushing away from them and stomping down the hall. Lucy, Alice realized, was a consummate liar, and that simple fact made her trust her cousin with every fiber of her being.

  Frank let Lucy pass, then motioned for Vincent and Alice to follow him. The ground floor appeared to consist of this foyer and four larger rooms set two by two along a wide hallway, though the stairs that ran up the right side of the hall concealed the entrance to one of them. Alice glanced over as they passed the front room, a parlor cum showroom, filled with a selection of coffins for purchase. The door opposite was closed, but a small brass plaque designated it as the “Office.” Alice would hazard a guess that it had served the home’s first owner as a formal dining room. The odor of cheap coffee, heated for too long, wafted down the hall, pointing the way to the kitchen. That left only the room with the occulted doorway, hidden behind the rise of the stairs. Frank led them to this very door. “The Viewing Room,” he said in a manner that caused Alice to hear the capitals. He eased open the door and then stood back, waving for Alice to precede him. “A quick word, Mr. Marin?” he said, insinuating himself between her and Vincent. Her uncle nodded her forward.

  Alice stepped over the threshold, then froze in her tracks. She’d expected to have a private moment to view her grandfather, speak with her father, and find her footing in this funerary mess, but although there was no sign of her father, the room was occupied by various members of the coven. She hesitated, feeling like an interloper.

  The room was enormous, designed to hold a small army of mourners, larger than she would have guessed the house’s footprint would allow. Still, her grandfather’s matte silver casket sat not at the head of the room by the dais, but on the side. From her viewpoint, all Alice could see of him was the highly polished tips of black dress shoes. Alice forced away the image of the dreadful Brodeur woman and her mimed scissoring.

  Two rows of formal Federal-style seating—a collection of vacant Hepplewhite shield-back chairs, and three occupied upholstered lolling chairs—were arranged in casual semicircles before the casket. Two settees with carved dolphin arms and paw feet stood between her and the chairs, creating a separate sitting area between the entrance and the visitation area. Both occupied, they had been positioned to face each other, and a low mahogany coffee table with the same animal motif sat between them. This little slip, a nod to contemporary convenience, was enough to tell Alice that although the furnishings were all very good, none of them were real. Low coffee tables like this had not existed before the early twentieth century. Just like pale Frank’s sympathy, she surmised—genuine enough in appearance, yet only a reproduction of the real thing.

  But even beyond revival furniture, the arrangement seemed odd. It struck Alice that rather than trying to provide any added comfort for the gathered mourners, the
mortuary had come up with the layout to make the room seem less empty. She knew her grandfather had once been an important man, both in and beyond the circles of magic. It made her sad to think so few had come to pay their respects. Then again, perhaps her father had chosen to keep the entire affair small to keep vultures from the remains.

  Alice was surprised to realize she knew everyone present. Though wizened, their features were familiar.

  “Teleportation,” said a sack of bones with stooped shoulders and frizzy red hair gone gray at the roots. Without context, the word rang out like an accusation. Alice recognized the speaker as Rose Gramont. Rose fell silent when she noticed Alice in the doorway. The witch grasped the head of her cane with both veiny hands and forced herself to a standing position. Her once, Alice knew from old photos, peaches and cream complexion, now saggy and mottled, flushed with excitement. Rose started advancing in a waltz of step-step-cane toward Alice.

  “Of a kind, perhaps, but not in the true classical sense,” a polished male baritone caviled. The witch must have spent years cultivating that patrician tone. Alice had only known him as Monsieur Jacques, though she’d never been sure if Jacques was his given or family name. When they were children, Hugo used to refer to him as “Monsieur Perruque,” an allusion to the thick mat of steel-gray hair that sometimes failed to remain centered on his head. Monsieur Jacques took belated notice of Rose’s excitement and turned to face the doorway.

  “Astrid,” Rose said, catching Alice by the arm and willing her forward, tugging on her, yet relying on her for support at the same time. Alice glanced back over her shoulder, surprised to find Vincent wasn’t following. He had disappeared with pale Frank deeper into the shadows of the establishment.

  “We were just discussing,” Rose said, “which of Celestin’s abilities we most admired.” A devilish smile came to her lips. “Or should I say ‘envied’?” The smile slipped from her lips, replaced by a furrowed brow and a distant gaze. “Though of course it wasn’t Celestin who was capable of teleportation, was it? It was your mother-in-law, Laure.” Her eyes glistened. “Now there was a witch to envy.” She paused and sharpened her gaze. “You’ve changed . . .”