Athena Force 7-12

by Carla Cassidy, Evelyn Vaughn, Harper Allen, Ruth Wind, Cindy Dees

  Celeste was talking to a pair of street cops.

  Oh, great! Faith quickly faded back onto the street, but not before she saw the officers exchange significant glances. Luckily, with her hearing, she was able to wander to a stand selling T-shirts and pretend to examine those while still listening. Allons Danse, read the first one she picked up, a zydeco shirt. Let’s go dance.

  “Cassandra, huh?” asked one of the patrolmen, just as Faith could have predicted he would. “Would you mind describing her?”

  Celeste said, “I would rather describe the killer, if you don’t mind.” And she said it with the kind of attitude that spoke at growing frustration.

  “Like we explained to you,” said the other officer, “we’ll file your statement, but it’s not going to carry a lot of weight. You didn’t see this man commit any crime. He didn’t confess to anything.”

  “He didn’t have to. His victims were right there with him!”

  Still listening, Faith exchanged the first shirt for one with a cartoon crawfish on it. It read, Suck WHAT?

  “Uh…yeah.” Now the first cop was clearly humoring her. “We’ll make sure to mention that in our report. You have yourself a nice day, Ms. Deveaux.”

  He barely waited until the door closed behind the pair of them to burst out laughing. Putting down the shirt, Faith got the feeling there’d be another funny, ha-ha story to tell over free weights in the gym. Once the patrolmen rounded the corner, she went into Celeste’s shop.

  “Oh, my!” Celeste flew to her feet as if levitated. “Are you all right? Did you catch the bastard? New Orleans’ finest is about as useful as a screen-bottomed bucket.”

  “You told them Cassandra was with you?”

  Celeste blinked, surprised by Faith’s vehemence. “I don’t know about you, but there’s plenty of folks around here who wouldn’t want their real names given to the police. If you heard, you could have come in and corrected me—”

  “No!” Faith took a deep breath to calm herself down. The footrace through the heat and the crowd had tired her, and now this. “No, then I’d have to explain why you called me Cassandra, and then they’d know…It’s a secret. But I can’t let them connect Cassandra to me, not if I can avoid it.”

  She paced across the room, turned around and paced back. The part of her that had always been drawn to the law hated this, hated not giving the police every bit of information she could, including the fact that she’d chased someone they wouldn’t believe was the killer in the first place. But to the part of her that had grown up with her mom, moving every few years and keeping a low profile, this came too easily. “Whatever you do, don’t describe me.”

  “So what does Cassandra look like?”

  “I’m not asking you to lie.”

  “And I’m not saying I will. So what’s she look like?”

  Faith considered it. “Black hair,” she admitted—that was a given, considering the wig she sometimes wore as a failsafe during her anonymous calls. “I like to pretend she’s a little shorter than me. She dresses like…like a gypsy, I guess.”

  “You do have her down, don’t you?”

  Faith considered her alternatives, then sank into one of Celeste’s chairs and leaned closer. “Do you remember last year, when the city manager’s assistant went missing?”

  “That little redhead.” Celeste nodded.

  “Krystal told me that she’d done a reading for her, not a week before she vanished, and warned her that her boss was dangerous. I said for her to go to the police, but she said a beat cop had been hassling her, acting like he’d take her in on vice charges. She didn’t trust any of them. So I asked around, checked out the different detectives, and called Butch Jefferson. I told him I had a psychic tip—which I did, it just wasn’t mine. And when he asked for my name, I said—”

  “Madame Cassandra,” guessed Celeste, sitting back. Now she understood. “But they never convicted the city manager.”

  Faith hadn’t realized how freeing it would feel, to have someone know all this. “Yeah, but he’s not the city manager anymore, either. There may be an old boy’s network around here, but it doesn’t mean a free ride. Once the detectives got close, he was finished. And Krystal and I were the ones who put them close.”

  “So you’ve been a police contact for a year? Even before you started working in evidence?”

  “Cassandra can point them in the right direction, but nothing she says is admissible in court. They can’t even get a search warrant based on it. I started wanting to do something legitimate, something as Faith. Now that I work so closely with the police, Detective Jefferson knows Faith, too. And I’d rather he not know we’re the same person.”

  “And why is that? Would he be the ‘some people’ who wants to disbelieve in psychic abilities?”

  “No, that’s his partner. But if anyone connects me to Cassandra, my credibility is shot. So’s hers. Especially since they think Cassandra’s getting this psychic information herself. I’ve kind of…well…”

  “Oh, sweetie. Don’t stop now.”

  “I might have told the partner that Cassandra was one of the most powerful readers in the city.”

  Celeste’s smile widened. “And you thought you were lying?”

  But Faith didn’t want to go there again. “So you’ll keep my secret?”

  “I told ’em Cassandra was with me. As far as I’m concerned, that’s who it was. It’s not like they believe I saw the killer anyway. Or that I could know it was him.”

  “How did you know? What did you see?”

  “I didn’t see anybody—except him, I mean. That’s not how it works. I heard them. The loudest voice was Krystal’s.”

  Faith hadn’t expected her breath to catch in her throat like that, her heart to squeeze quite that tightly. Krystal dead was bad enough. Krystal haunting her murderer…

  Then something else distracted her. “But not just Krystal? Oh, my God. Who else?”

  Celeste hesitated, studying her rings, then looked up with a new determination in her dark gaze. “Madame Cassandra, how about you and me go ask Krystal ourselves?”

  Butch picked up on the second ring. “Jefferson here.”

  “Hello there, Detective Sergeant,” drawled Faith.

  Celeste widened her eyes, surprised by the fake Virginian accent. Standing across the counter from her, using her shop’s phone, Faith shrugged. She had to disguise her voice somehow, didn’t she?

  “Well if it isn’t Miss Cassie!” greeted Butch, sounding as delighted as ever. “How’re you doing? I hear you had some excitement this evening.”

  So Faith hadn’t imagined the patrolmen’s reaction to her fake name. “Not enough excitement for you and that partner of yours to bother with now, was it? Don’t you think my friend Celeste is important enough to rate detectives?”

  Roy was saying something at the same time—something about “again?” and “feeding you now?”

  After an echoing rustle—covering the phone—Butch whispered, “I’ll tell you if you give her a chance.” Then his voice got clearer. He was addressing her again. “We meant no disrespect to your medium friend, Miss Cassie.”

  In the background she heard, “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

  “It’s just that sometimes we have to, you know, delegate.”

  “The problem with delegating is, sometimes you don’t get the whole message passed on,” Faith warned. “Did those nice officers tell you what a close look Celeste got at the killer?”

  “The alleged killer,” Butch corrected her.

  “They didn’t offer to have her see a composite sketch artist or anything.”

  “The sketch artists cost money, Miss Cassie.”

  Faith ignored the bark of laughter—not Butch’s—that followed his statement. Had she really considered dating that jerk?

  “Here’s what she’s going to do, being such a good citizen and all,” she drawled, glancing back at Celeste. “She’s going to get one of the street artists to draw the man
she saw, off her description. Then she’ll get that picture to you, just in case. Then when you catch the man, you can owe her a big apology. How’s that?”

  “We appreciate any help,” Butch assured her. “If we catch the fellow, and it’s the man in her picture, then we’ll be happy to apologize.”

  In the background: “Or arrest her as an accomplice.”

  “Since you’re so appreciative, I’ve got more information,” Faith said. “You’re dealing with a serial killer.”

  There was a long pause while Butch mumbled that announcement. Then he said, “I reckon you’ve heard tell of that note from the Biltmore, Miss Cassie, but that’s not enough—”

  “He’s killed three people,” she insisted. “Krystal Tanner, and two others before her. The first one doesn’t seem to have been premeditated, but he liked the taste. That’s when he went after the second one. All three were women, Detective Sergeant. And all three may have been psychics.”

  “It would surely help if you could provide their names.”

  This was where psychic information so often fell short. Krystal hadn’t been sure. The first girl had died ten, even fifteen years before, and had been reduced to a bare wisp of lingering anguish. But the second…“The second woman’s name started with a P. Pamela, or maybe Patricia.”

  Again, Butch passed on the information. Roy tried to whisper, but Faith didn’t need her keen hearing to hear him say, “Or Prudence or Peppermint Patty. Does she expect—”

  “Tell your partner,” she drawled, finding a certain amount of freedom in her Cassandra persona, “that he’s a horse’s ass.”

  Celeste covered her mouth with a ringed hand to stifle a laugh, and Faith pressed her lips together. This anonymity thing was more fun than she’d expected.

  “Well tell your psychic friend,” called Roy at the phone, after Butch passed on the message, “that she’s a fake and a coward. If she really had information, she’d bring it to us in person so we could see if she’s legitimate. Instead, she’s just wasting our time.”

  Faith gritted her teeth. “Two other women, Detective Sergeant. Both psychics. Both strangled. That shouldn’t be so hard to find. You take care now, all right?”

  “You, too, Miss Cassie. And thank you kindly.”

  She hung up. She didn’t think they’d been trying to track her this time—the noise in the background had been the bustle of the police station, not the drone of a car. Still, she meant to go out the back way, just in case.

  “You’ve got a ride home, right?” she asked Celeste, glad to return to her usual voice. “He knows where you work, now.”

  “I don’t think he’ll be coming back any time soon. He knows I can tell him what he doesn’t want to hear,” Celeste said. “What he killed some girls to keep quiet. But yes, I’ll have Ben pick me up. How ’bout you?”

  “Supposedly I’m in greater danger from a gang from Storyville than I am from him,” said Faith. “But the sun isn’t down yet. I’ll hurry.”

  “I’ll go by Evan’s stall and look at the picture you describe to him,” Celeste promised. “Then I’ll take it to the precinct.”

  “Thanks.” Faith knew she should leave—she was fighting daylight and, just as important, the possibility that even now Butch and Roy were heading for Celeste’s shop. But a one-word thank-you seemed so…insignificant.

  Maybe Celeste hadn’t been able to connect with Faith’s father. But she’d done something almost as magical. She’d connected with Faith.

  “Get on with it,” insisted her new friend, seeming to understand.

  So Faith slipped out the back, glad to hear the lock turn behind her.

  Damn it. Damn it. DAMN IT!

  He hadn’t enjoyed His run-in with the medium, even before that troublesome blonde had come after Him. Like those other psychics whose power He’d taken could be any threat to Him. Crying for vengeance? They should be crying for mercy!

  And what was that about the powerful Madame Cassandra? If there was someone that powerful in the city, He meant to have her.

  The Master had mentioned Cassandra, too. He said that she was the one He had to go after. But neither of them knew how to find her. And He needed more power first. He needed to drink more pain….

  After a day of planning, calming down from the disturbing encounter, He went about doing just that.

  The victim He chose had returned to the Moonwalk. That popular spot that had nothing to do with the moon, despite the fine view when it was full, and everything to do with former mayor Moon Landrieu. Some people thought that was power, having landmarks named after you. He and the Master both knew better. Power came down to making people do what you wanted them to do.

  And right now, He wanted someone to die.

  No matter who else this one was, she was a psychic. Hadn’t He seen her at the psychic fair? The fact that she’d been drawn to the river, where He felt the safest, just made His success all the more fated. At several places along the levee, wooden stairways angled right down into the water. That’s where she went, like a deer drawn to a salt lick. She wandered to the edge of the mighty Mississippi, sat on the wooden steps and stared out at the seemingly tiny buildings far across the river, the maritime traffic in between, the lit expanse of the Huey P. Long Bridge.

  She didn’t seem to notice that He’d already broken the bulb of the street lamp nearest the head of the stairs. Maybe she thought it being Sunday night would protect her. Saxophone music from the Moonwalk and jazz from Jackson Square beyond filtered through the sultry, humid August night.

  He crept down the stairs behind her.

  If she heard Him, she didn’t react. Perhaps her thoughts were that heavy, this night. More likely, it was His magical protection, being in this safe place. He was barely a foot behind her when her head came up—

  Which was all He needed.

  He looped the red silk cord around the blonde’s throat and yanked, hard, upward, backward. She cried out, but not loudly enough to be heard over the saxophone and the jazz. People didn’t ever die as easily as He would like. Her feet kicked, one of them splashing into the lapping edge of the Mississippi. Her ringed hands clawed back, not at her throat—not like that fool the previous week—but toward His hands. It wouldn’t do her any good. He wore leather gloves with high cuffs. Her fingernails scrabbled uselessly, increasingly frantic.

  He pulled harder, tighter, His forearms trembling. In the tension of the cord, He could feel the inexorable damage to her throat. And then—

  Oh, God, yes! Amplification.

  As she died, all her powers, all her abilities rushed into Him. It felt the way sex was supposed to feel. It felt like strength. It felt like control.

  Yes! Yes, yes, yes…

  Yes.

  He sprawled backward onto the step, panting, physically and literally drained. If she could see Him now, she would probably say He was glowing, pulsing with energy, with dominance. That’s what she’d been good at, according to the program at the psychic fair. She read auras.

  But that’s why He couldn’t stay, now—someone else might see the light He gave off! There were, after all, too many witches around here.

  He quickly threw a handful of protective salt down, and sliced off a long hank of her hair, to add to His collection. He pocketed both the hair and the cord, in which He had captured her excess energy.

  He considered rolling her body into the river…it would be so easy, and the Mississippi rarely gave up her dead. But no. If He left her, then the other psychics would know about it. They’d fear Him even more. And that’s what He wanted.

  He was perfectly safe. There was a huge expanse of running water right beside her, to contain her, to protect Him.

  Sated, satisfied, He climbed the steps back to the Moonwalk, made sure nobody was watching, then headed toward the riverboat landing. He could choose His own prey, now. That’s how strong He’d become.

  Even the Master couldn’t control Him, now.

  Nobody could. He could do anythin
g He wanted.

  And that’s how He liked it.

  Chapter 9

  The phone in the den screamed through the dark apartment.

  Faith switched on her bedside lamp. She never fumbled for it; she could feel where it was, which Moonsong used to say was odd.

  Light blossomed in her room as the phone rang a second time. Even as Faith padded into the hallway, then the den, she saw lights come on in Evan’s room and saw light spilling out of Absinthe and Krystal’s—rather, Moonsong’s—open door. They had only the one phone, which Absinthe was reaching for as it rang a third time.

  At least Absinthe had pulled on a shorty robe; she tended to sleep nude. Faith wore boxers and a tank top. Moonsong, in a filmy white nightgown that contrasted mistily against her dark skin, hugged herself. Her eyes were as big as a heroine’s in an anime cartoon.

  “Something awful has happened,” she whispered.

  Absinthe looked strange, even vulnerable, without her heavy makeup. She broke that impression when she picked up the phone with the words, “It’s three in the fucking morning. What the hell do you want?”

  “’Sup?” murmured Evan, arriving last in a pair of pj bottoms. He usually woke up faster than that. Then again, Faith had kept him up late the past two nights sketching a passing likeness of the killer, based on her keen observations.

  Absinthe thrust the phone, stiff-armed, in their direction. “It’s for Faith.”

  Faith’s first step was hesitant, then she hurried. You didn’t have to be psychic to fear phone calls this late at night. “Is it my mom?”

  “No, it’s that anthropoid detective.” Absinthe passed over the phone and shuffled back toward her room, black-dyed hair spiking in strange directions. “Teach him how to tell time, will you? I’ve heard some simians are clever that way.”

  Faith pressed the receiver to her ear. “Roy?”

  It seemed too dark, too soon since she’d been dreaming, to call him Detective Chopin.

  “You’ve got some sweet friends there,” he said. But surely he hadn’t called to gripe about Absinthe.