by J. D. Horn
Besides, Rose took great pleasure in her new part-time employment, dancing in the witch’s strip joint. It was a source of amusement, really, to witness Rose reveling in the attention given to her by the strapping young men who stumbled into the bar. Poor dear had been denied a man’s touch for decades. Now Rose was making up for lost time, selecting a different escort, sometimes two, to see her home. She acted almost like the teenager she appeared to be. Astrid would have to keep a close rein on her. At least for as long as she needed Rose. After that, it wouldn’t matter what the old, new girl got up to.
Astrid looked away from the whirling Rose, glancing out the window at Celestin’s former house. She had taken the house across the street for no other reason than it pleased her to. It amused her to see Fleur and her daughter passing by, unaware of her presence across the way and one floor up. Astrid could see Fleur’s light dimming as her magic waned, and the girl was as good as a walking corpse. The second Fleur’s magic failed, so would the girl’s heart. Imagine. Fleur, of all people, performing one of the great forbidden spells—and getting away with it. But not for much longer. Her crime would be evident to all as soon as the girl fell.
The doorbell rang, and Astrid delighted at the mundane sound.
“I’ll get it,” Rose said, as if it weren’t understood that she would—that this was her role. For now, perhaps it was best to let the fool consider herself above her station.
Astrid held up her hand. “Wait.”
Rose paused, her cautious expression betraying her uncertainty. The truth was, Astrid simply wanted to hear the electronic bell chime once more. The common world teemed with simple pleasures she hadn’t realized she’d missed—even something as banal as the chime of a lowly doorbell. There was a delay of ten to fifteen seconds before it sounded again. “Now.”
Rose gave her a good hard look, as if Astrid was playing a trick on her.
The bell chimed again, though this time the chime struck her as impatient, demanding. The sound, once pleasant, now grated on her. She’d rip the bell out with Babau Jean’s bare hands later. Rose seemed to pick up on the change in her mood and scurried downstairs to answer the door before she could grow any more agitated.
Astrid’s human ears could never have picked up the words whispered on the threshold by the trio of conspirators, Rose and the two hapless men.
“The mistress isn’t happy.”
“You promised you’d let me tell her about the Book.”
“Do you really think she’ll go easier on you if she hears it from your own lips?”
“More likely she’ll rip those lips off your face. Tant pis. They are such pretty lips.”
Nor could her human ears have picked up on the trio’s varied footfalls as they passed over parquet to rug and back to parquet. Rose’s nimble steps leading the way, the younger man’s confident—overconfident—stride. The older man’s halting shuffle, the hesitant tread of a man being led to the gallows. Astrid smiled. He believed he’d failed her. He couldn’t be more wrong.
The creak of the stairs announced their progress, though the feverish buzzing of their brains served as a far better sentry. They were suspicious of each other, each vying to be her favorite. Such fools. Their eagerness to turn on one another was her greatest tool to control them. She need never worry one of them would betray her, as they were all too busy policing one another, hoping to trip the others up.
Astrid turned her gaze back to the window, taking in the khaki-colored double gallery of the rose Italianate mansion that had once been Celestin’s. A bit to the right of the gallery, hidden by the foliage of a tree, was a room she could still envision in minute detail even though she hadn’t been there since she’d last lain with Celestin. The pale green walls, the chandelier that had never been wired for electricity, from which two dozen candles would spill their dancing light, the ridiculous four-poster bed where Celestin had liked to be restrained. Degraded. Strange that the most powerful in this world often crave private humiliation, even though they would spill blood to prevent a public shaming. Celestin had spilled oceans of blood, and still he lay powerless, a prisoner in his own corpse, as his inferiors delighted in choosing his fate. Perhaps she should feel a twinge of sympathy for him, but it was all too delicious. So rare that one got to witness justice in its most poetic form. To the others, she’d attributed his punishment to his failure to provide her with a human form, but in truth his pride had been his undoing. A shred of humility would have saved him this end. The fool should have known a soft, spoiled man such as himself could never rise to become the King of Bones and Ashes, any more than Astrid could become the Queen of Heaven. Vain, pampered Celestin could never have understood a mother’s willingness to perpetrate crimes for her child that she’d never commit in her own self-interest.
She would have relished watching his dismemberment firsthand, but passing by Précieux Sang would have been too much of a risk. Magic was failing the witches gathered in the cemetery, but there was no doubt they’d sense the power she’d carried back to the common world. With so many of them gathered in one place, it was quite possible she’d be discovered. Still, she might manage to watch the proceedings through her little birdie’s eyes, if Evangeline didn’t flit away. Astrid suspected the swamp witch lacked the stomach to watch the butchering for her own edification.
Astrid’s three servants entered the room, one on the heels of the other. She was cognizant of the trio’s nervous, perspiring presence, but they could wait. Now that she stood at the threshold of reaching a life goal, she wanted to savor this moment. The Book of the Unwinding was finally here, and it was hers, despite Celestin’s bumbling and Laure and Soulange’s cruel interference.
After some minutes had passed, Rose dared to break into her reverie. “Mistress,” Rose spoke in a soft voice. “Eli and Michael are here to see you.”
“As you commanded.” Eli rushed to speak over Rose’s words.
Astrid turned to face the three. Rose held back, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire. The witch was much wiser than her newfound giddiness let on. Perhaps the old girl couldn’t be faulted. She’d suffered the decrepitude of the flesh, only to find herself returned to her prime. An octogenarian’s wisdom and a youth’s lust for life poured together into a teenager’s body.
Michael stood in the front, his stance wide and comfortable, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. This one believed himself to be irreplaceable. Perhaps, for the moment, he was.
“I . . . ,” Eli began, but Astrid held up her hand to silence him.
She turned her focus to Michael. “The Perrault woman?” He wasn’t a strong witch, not even by today’s degraded standard. But he did have one essential gift. He could get almost anyone, even someone as astute as Fleur, to perceive him as harmless. Fleur could sit across the table from him and see him as an ordinary man. And Lisette, overprotective mother that she seemed to be, had, much to Michael’s chagrin and Astrid’s amusement, perceived him as a safe and sanitized gay man. Certainly no one who’d have designs on her daughter.
“Her left arm is paralyzed. She’s having difficulty forming words. The doctors say she’ll recover”—he grinned and rubbed his chin—“though we know better.”
We. Was it possible that this foolish child thought he might replace Celestin? Or worse? Did he, like Celestin, fancy himself worthy of becoming the King of Bones and Ashes? Fine. Let him believe either or both. Michael was a useful fool. Lisette Perrault might be the only person left capable of preventing her from prying open the seven gates. “You did well. Your attack was precise, damaging her without killing her.” She lifted Babau Jean’s long arm and pointed at Michael with the razor-sharp claw of Jean’s finger. “Keep her debilitated, but alive. We don’t want her power to be passed on to Manon. It would be dreadful if that happened, and then Manon learned the truth about who’d harmed the mother, wouldn’t it?”
“I deceived Lisette with ease. How could Manon see what her mother missed?”
Astrid fo
lded her pale hands, the nails of the fingers clicking against each other. She let the tiniest of smiles creep to her lips, exposing the sawtooth edges of her teeth. Michael blanched. There, message received. “For now, you are the devoted soon-to-be husband and son-in-law.” She grated her teeth, enjoying the chilling whisking sound they made. “And father, too, I understand. Congratulations.
“Congratulations to you, too, Rose,” she said, adding as much warmth as possible to the rasp her voice made as it passed through the otherwise mute Jean’s lips. Rose took a tentative step forward, craving the praise, fearing the cut that might follow. “You’ve become part of the swamp witch’s world. You are in the catbird seat to keep an eye on her and those Boudreau miscreants.” The arrival of the Boudreau brothers in New Orleans had been an unexpected kink. Astrid had no doubt they’d been sent to kill Evangeline if she exhibited any signs of her mother’s ambitious nature. Of course, she wouldn’t—and that, it turned out, wasn’t a problem. Evangeline’s unshakable sense of decency had been nothing but a liability for so long, Astrid wondered at how, in the end, it had proved such an asset. Even more ironic, and convenient, that it had led the region’s head assassin not only to spare the girl but to become enamored of her. Farcical, really, but then again, greater men than that Boudreau trash had fallen for the Cajun bar wench.
“Yes, mistress,” Rose said. “It’s lucrative, too.”
“Never too late to lay away a nest egg, dear.” She turned her gaze to Eli, his light blue button-down sticking to him, deep circles of sweat under his armpits. “Now, Eli. You were saying?”
“I, I,” he stammered. “The Book.” He rushed forward and fell on his knees before her. He raised his head, looking up at her through tearing eyes. He was a beautiful man, really. His terror made him all the more attractive.
Astrid reached out with the utmost gentleness, bringing Babau Jean’s claws up to his chin, resting them with care beneath it. “Yes,” she prompted him. “The Book?”
“I don’t have it. I’ve failed you. The thirteen hearts you left for Fleur to find. They were there. I’m certain. I carried them to Grunch Road myself.”
She reached up with her other hand and caressed his hair. “Oh, my dear boy. I believe you. I do.”
A glimmer of hope reached his eyes. “The Book never materialized. I looked everywhere while the others were caught up with your . . . the girl.” He bit his lower lip, waiting to see, no doubt, if he’d offended her. Astrid knew it bordered on classless, toying with these people who understood so little, but it had been so long since she’d had any fun. She gazed at him through Jean’s bottomless black eyes, not responding in any way. “I went back last night, and again this morning. I’ve turned over every stone.”
“Every stone?” she said. Her question was posed in jest, but still it flummoxed him.
“I’ll go back. Right now. See if I could’ve missed anything.”
“Not to worry. You missed nothing.”
“But there was no book . . .”
Astrid raised a hand to quiet him. She could understand Eli’s consternation. He’d been expecting a physical book, a volume of enormous girth and boasting an impressive width of leaf, bound in leather of uncertain, though undoubtedly sinister, origin. Something along the lines of the tome carried to New Orleans centuries ago by the sister witches and their indentured servant Delphine Brodeur. A decoy grimoire of no value that still sat moldering in the attic of the old convent, hidden behind shutters held closed by nails blessed by Pope Benedict himself. Utterly ludicrous, really, but a convincing enough ruse to fool generations of would-be dark messiahs. Oh, the sisters did convey The Book of the Unwinding to this eternally decadent city, but only one of them ever came to understand how.
It was Astrid’s own fault that she’d allowed herself to trust Laure Marin with her discovery about the Book. But Astrid had been weak and in need of a mother figure’s approbation. Foolish girl that she’d been. Astrid should have learned from her own upbringing that some mothers eat their young. Laure’s betrayal shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
“Tell me, Rose,” she said. Rose startled, shocked and worried to have attention fall on her when she was savoring the downfall of another. “When is a book not a book?”
“I’m not sure I—”
“It’s just a riddle, Rose. A simple riddle.”
“I’m sorry, mistress,” she said, shaking her head and clasping her hands together. “I was never clever when it came to the riddles.”
She reached out and gave the top of Eli’s head a slight tap. “How about you? Would you like to hazard a guess?” Eli stared up at her, his mouth working silently.
“A book,” Astrid said, “isn’t a book until it’s freed from the mind that carries it. The Book of the Unwinding is here. Right here with us. We need only free it. Shall we do that, Eli?”
He nodded awkwardly beneath the weight of her claw.
“Good.” She caused his limbs to stiffen, fixing him in place, then drove her nail into his scalp, making a quick, thin, spiral slice.
He screamed as blood poured from the gash. The blood rose up into the air, forming lines, then symbols, then spelling out words that none had read since they’d been scratched into the eternal ether by Theodosius’s stylus.
“Rose, grab a blade and take over, won’t you?” she said, never taking her eyes off the already dissipating warning—the Book could only be read once.
Rose scrambled to the altar and grasped a wicked athame.
“Oh, Eli. Dear, faithful Eli,” Astrid called to him over his agonized cries. “You are so honored, so honored. Imagine if Fleur hadn’t favored status over your devotion? Your life would have been of no importance. Now you’re the bridge that will carry us through the final days of magic.”
Rose approached them, but Astrid couldn’t bear to look away from the splendor before her eyes. “I have the knife.”
“Take your time, dear, and proceed in a spiral to his groin. The thinnest strip of skin you can carve, my dear. Then do the same with his arms and legs. Take each of the strips in a single strand. Don’t let them break.” She leaned in and placed a kiss on Eli’s bloodied forehead, delighting at his salty taste. “He must be unwound.” She waved a hand at Michael. “Go on, don’t just stand there. Undress the man.”
TWENTY-SIX
Lisette had always hated the smell of pumpkin pie, but that was before her stroke. Sitting here at her kitchen table, watching Michael and Manon pull together the makings of their Thanksgiving dinner, it smelled like a bit of heaven. Hell. Maybe she was just glad to be alive to smell it.
Glad to have a pleasant smell to mask the stench of charring flesh her memory had carried back from the dark place. Lisette worried she might not live long enough to forget it.
Manon put the mirlitons on to boil, then gave Michael a quick peck as he prepared to chop up the ham and shrimp that would serve as the squash’s stuffing. Her girl looked over at her. “You doing okay there, Mama?” Manon was getting big. Fast. But still no wedding. They were holding off, Manon had told her and Isadore when they’d pressed, holding off until Lisette was better. Until things got back to normal.
Better. Normal.
Lisette seemed to take one step ahead then fall two steps back. She’d only made it home yesterday, after weeks in the nursing facility over in Algiers. Even with the expert care, she hadn’t made much progress toward the recovery everyone—except maybe her doctors—kept assuring her she’d make. Now might be as normal as normal would ever get again.
“Ffff . . . Ffff . . .” Lisette tried to answer that she was fine, but this was as far as her mouth could make it. Sometimes she could form the words, sometimes she couldn’t. She raised her right hand and waved the two off. She tapped her nose and nodded in approval.
“Smells good, Mrs. Perrault?” Michael asked, beaming at her.
Lisette nodded again, hoping her lips formed the smile she was trying to make.
Michael checked his wrist
watch. Not a real wristwatch like folk used to wear, but one of those fancy combination watch, exercise tracker, heart monitor, telephone, and, for all Lisette knew, maybe it even had a built-in microwave oven, too. “Wasn’t your dad supposed to be back with your grandfather by now?” His tone contained a measure of concern with a soupçon of contempt. “Don’t suppose your granddad . . .”
“No,” Lisette surprised even herself with a vehement objection. No. Her father hadn’t started drinking again. Her attack had scared him back into sobriety. It was damned near worth it to have him back to the man she’d always known and respected. Wasn’t anyone going to tear him down again. Certainly not in her house.
Manon shot Michael a warning glance. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to imply . . .” He flushed red. “It’s only that . . . Well, Mr. Simeon was hitting it pretty hard there for a while.”
“He isn’t anymore,” Manon said. Her tone announced that any such talk was done, but then she looked over at Lisette. “He isn’t, Mama. You can believe that.”
I do, Lisette wanted to say, but had to settle for nodding.
Her father had been managing Vèvè for the last few weeks, doing his damnedest to keep the shop’s doors open. Remy was taking shifts, too, when he wasn’t in class. Manon would have, but she spent most of her time here, helping around the house, and now, it seemed, keeping an eye on Lisette.
Lisette was grateful for her daughter’s assistance. Still, she couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty. She’d never wanted to be a burden to her children, but hell, here she was. Michael had ended up passing on the Portland job. “We aren’t going anywhere till you’re back on your feet,” he’d told Lisette with a plastic smile. “Not to worry. Another job—a better job—will come along. Maybe closer to home.” He acted as if he weren’t disappointed, at least when Manon was around, but Lisette could still sense a cloud of resentment emanating from him, like he suspected she might have brought on the stroke herself to keep them in New Orleans.