Of course I don’t think war is the answer. I’ll have to try to convince Ali that it will serve us much better to figure out who killed Balthazar. I guess I’ll have to look Ali in the eye and tell him that I believe we will need to take a more targeted approach.
As soon as I return to the table, Dr. Stone stands. “Here’s my card,” she says. “Call me if you have any questions. You can count on an accurate and truthful report from me.”
I shake her hand and thank her for her candidness. After she walks out of coffee shop. I follow her, but instead of going back inside of the hospital like she does, I enter the parking garage to head back to my jeep.
Thankfully, Femi was around at the precinct. She used some of her fairy magic to unhex my car.
Once I’m in the car, I check my cell phone. Wolfie was the person who had called me while I was in the coffee shop. Something told me it was him.
As soon as Wolfie picks up the phone I start talking. “Wolfie, did you find my father?”
“Yes,” Wolfie says. “I have a phone number for him and an address. You’d be surprised surprised where he is.”
“Where is he?”
“Right here in L.A.”
I swallow. I didn’t expect that. I can’t believe my father is here in town. “Give me the address. I’ll head there right now.”
“No way,” Wolfie says. “You’ve done enough rounds without me today. Besides, I know about your brother.”
“I need to be alone right, now,” I protest.
“That’s the last thing you need,” Wolfie says. “Believe me. I’ll meet you at your place. I won’t take no for an answer.”
“Fine,” I say. I don’t have the time or the will to argue.
Chapter Twelve
Traffic sucks. I pound on my steering wheel. I flick on my favorite radio station. The word Booty too many times in one song gets under my skin. I don’t know why, so I change the station.
My mind races. I keep thinking that I need to go to the other side of the glass, but I think that it might be a much better idea to talk with my father first. He may have some advice on how to deal with Ali and his war plans.
I pull up in front of my apartment building. Immediately I notice a familiar car parked along the street. It’s North’s G-Wagon. I dread getting out of the car because I’m looped.
North meets me. “I tried to call you but I couldn’t get through. Call went straight to voicemail.”
“Listen, this is a really bad time,” I say as I make my way towards the gate.
“I’m so sorry about your brother,” North says from behind me.
I step backward and whirl around. “How’d you know about that?” I ask.
“My father told me. Chief Goldman called him and informed him that your brother died. Then he called me.”
“I bet she did call your father. I bet she believes the case is closed no. She got her killer, he can’t speak for himself anymore, case closed, over and done. But I know otherwise. Something fishy is going on.”
North follows me to my door. “Oh,” I say. “I’m about to leave. I really can’t entertain company right now.”
A loud engine roars. Wolfie’s waiting along the curb.
“Oh, well, okay. Can I go along?” North asks.
I stare at North. “Why?”
“I want to be with you now.”
I laugh. “You hardly know me. If I were you I’d stay away. Far far away. Shit’s about to get real.”
“Realer than my sister dying?”
I don’t have the heart to say that on a scale of one life versus millions, yes, realer. “I’m going to see my dad, actually. He’s overprotective. Believe me you don’t want to meet him.”
“Can I wait here for you until you come back. I want to help.”
“Tomorrow night we’ll have dinner. To talk about your sister’s case, okay?”
Silence hangs in the air. “Okay,” North says after while. “See you tomorrow,” he murmurs. He walks off and hops into his car.
I run to Wolfie’s car and hop in.
“Is he some kind of sick puppy or what?”
I shrug. “Not my problem,” I say.
As we speed off, Wolfie says, “I’m sorry about your brother. I didn’t know him. Well, I did get a brief taste of him. And the last thing I said about him was that he was a jerk.”
“Nevermind that now. It’s okay, Wolfie.” I laugh a crazy sad laugh. “Bal could be a real fucking asshole when he wanted to be you know that?”
“So can you,” Wolfie says. “Like the way you left that guy back there, holding his heart in his hands.”
I give Wolfie my side eye. “I wasn’t trying to mean to him Wolfie.”
“I know,” Wolfie says.
I’m not sure if we’re talking about North or him.”
Wolfie’s car slows down after about a five minute drive.
“Here we are.”
“Wait, my dad’s staying here?” I’m looking at a tiny house, the yard full of brambles, an old Camaro is parked in the driveway. I know the car. It’s my dad’s. He loves that old car. He claims it has a soul.
“Want me to wait in the car?” Wolfie asks.
I smack my lips. “Oh, no, you’re coming with me.”
“Why? I don’t like meeting fathers. If I was a father, I’d hate any guy I see with my daughter. Plus your dad already hates me. He resents me for tracking him down. He said he didn’t want to be found.”
“It’s fine. We work together. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”
Wolfie gives me a look.
I get out of the car, without Wolfie in tow, and push the gate open. If I know my father he’s got a protection spell over the house. Lucky for him, I’m not dangerous, at least not to him anyway.
I climb the steps. A black cat runs past me. I shiver. The cat nearly scares the shit out of me. I can hear Wolfie’s engine running. I want to tell him to turn the car off, pollution is bad enough. Something has him shook. Maybe he read up on my father online and that made him afraid.
I knock on the metal screen covering the door. I hear a dog bark. That’s funny. I never pegged my dad as a dog guy.
“Shhh,” I hear a woman’s voice say.
The door creaks open. It’s dark on the porch. An orange light shines behind the woman’s head after she opens the door wide.
I lean forward, trying to get a good look at the woman. “Hello, is my dad here?”
“Who you?” The woman asks. She flicks on the porch light.
“Who is it?” I hear a man’s voice call out.
“Luis, your daughter’s here.”
“Chére?”
“Hi, dad,” I yell.
The door swings open. “Come on in, child.”
I give the woman the once over. She’s bone thin. Her face wrinkles into a smile. She wipes her hands off on the front of her house dress. She steps back, allowing me to pass her.
The house is dark. “Dad?”
My father strolls up to me and wraps his arms around me. He smells the same as I always remembered, like Old Spice. He’s wearing a guayaberas and black pants, which is standard Luis Dubois attire. “Hello, Chére. It’s so good to see you.”
“Dad, why are you here? I don’t believe you. You’re staying five minutes from me and you don’t so much as say hello.”
My father laughs. His laugh is hearty. It fills rooms and hearts. “No, I don’t say a thing because you were mad at me. I didn’t want to spook you.”
“Spook me? What are you doing here anyway? You’re the King of New Orleans. Don’t you have work to do there?”
“I know what I be, but I be needing to be here for you now. I knew you come. Mother Delaney told me.” My father tips his head to the woman rocking in a rocking chair over in the corner of the living room.
“How did she know?”
“She got the sight.”
Mother Delaney smiles at me. I don’t much like it. The thought that someone can see anyt
hing about me without me knowing makes me thoroughly uncomfortable. And then I think about my mother and how she gets busy on that oracle shell of hers.
“I’m glad you’re here, dad,” I say. I want him know that I don’t have time to focus on any old bad blood between us. There are more pressing matters at hand.
“Your mama told you come see me didn’t she? About your brother. I’m sorry ‘bout him.”
“Mother Delaney tell you about that too.”
Mother snickers. “Course I did.”
My father reaches out and runs his hand against my cheek.
“Time for a swim?”
“I guess so, yeah,” I say. I touch my own face. My skin is hot to the touch.
“How about I come along?”
“Where?”
“To the beach.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I have to go see my mother and Ali.”
“I come wit you. Mama, thanks for all of your hospitality. Please tell everybody I say I miss them already.”
“All right now, Luis. Remember what we talked about.” Mother Delaney smiles. She has no teeth. “It’s okay. I eats,” she says to me with a grin.
I guess Mother Delaney reads minds too. I nearly trip over myself trying to get out of her house.
“Slow down child, else you loose you head,” my father says. “Tis okay, she don’t tell nobody what you thinkin’.”
Wolfie scrambles out of his car. “Willow?”
“My dad is coming to the beach with us,” I say. “Dad you sit in the front.”
“No, I mean, yeah,” Wolfie says. “Sorry, sir.”
It’s funny to me to see someone ass bad ass Wolfie, scrambling around like a chicken with his head cut off. I should video it and save it for a rainy day to tease him. Once we’re all safe and in the car, Wolfie mad dogs me through the rear view mirror. “Venice, please,” I say.
“Wolfman,” my father says. “I know your people.”
“My people?”
“Yes, we talk about it sometime. You don’t seem proud to be what you are. You ought to embrace it. It’s special.”
Wolfie coughs. No actually he’s hacking as if he’s just swallowed something terrible.
“You all right?” I ask.
Wolfie shoots me the dirtiest look ever through his rearview, but still, I lay my head back against the seat. I close my eyes. Things feel a little better when my father is around.
I wake up in the dark. My father and Wolfie unbuckle their seat belts. I do the same and get out of the car. My legs feel like lead.
The air’s still warm. My father and Wolfie head towards the beach. I follow, but I walk behind them a little bit. I need time to get my head together.
Ali is going to want answers. I have none, at least not yet. And when we get to the beach, I take my time getting out of my clothes. I’d like nothing more than go home and take a shower, wash my hair, cuddle up in bed and cry, but none of that is a possibility right now.
Instead I have to face my distraught mother and her war hungry husband King. I think of Balthazar and what sort of king he might have been if he had lived.
It’s not long after I get ready for my dip, that I run into the water. I stop when I hear my father calling after me.
“Chére, tell your mother I want to see her.”
I yell back, “I will,” and make my way to the deeper part of the ocean before I submerge myself far down in the below.
This is the place where Balthazar loved most, the place between the behind the glass and the human world, at least that’s what my mother told me once when I was younger. He loved the first ring of the underlands, but the House was on the other side of the glass and he had duties to fulfill, so that’s where he spent most of his time.
Why I remember that I don’t know. I guess I’m clinging to anything I know about my brother, since he seemed to hate me so much, and since we hardly spent much time together.
I’d like to think that Balthazar didn’t hate me at all, he just misunderstood me. But I guess it’s easier to remember a person the way you wished they were than to remember them as they were. In doing so, there’s always the hope that things could might have changed for the better if the deceased had lived just little while longer.
I pass all the excitement of the first ring, not stopping to do anything. As soon as get to the portal, I place my hands on the mirror when I get to it, and as soon as I get to the other side, my mother grabs me. It’s strange to see her by the glass, out of the palace. She’s typically a recluse. The one nice thing I can say about Ali is that he stood by my mother when she was most unpopular. Some people like to say it was because he was power hungry and wanted to be king, but if that was the case, he could have ridded himself of my mother a long time ago.
My mother wraps her arms around me and pulls me towards her. Her hair envelopes both of us. I cry. It feels good to cry, and it feels even better to cry in her arms.
When my mother releases me, I immediately look to see if Ali’s around. I don’t see him.
“Where’s Ali?”
“He’s down,” my Mother says. “He’s down, down.
My mother sobs.
“What does that mean? He’s down.”
Her eyes move around frantically. She grabs my hand and swims with me to the palace. Once we’re inside, she dismisses her guard.
“Ali’s sick,” my mother says. Her eyes are redder than I’ve ever seen them.
“What do you mean he’s sick. How? Why?”
“He went to a sea witch and asked her to give him legs. After she performed the spell, he fell ill.”
“He’ll recover though?”
My mother swims over to a pillar. On the pillar there’s a box. She opens it. “This represents Ali’s life force right now. The doctor gave it to me. He says Ali’s dying.”
There’s a knock at the door. My mother rushes to answer it. A small merman with a white beard swims into the room. He places his hand on my mother’s shoulder. He says nothing.
“He’s gone?”
“He’s gone,” the doctor says.
My mother goes limp and sinks to the floor. I swim over to her and join her down on ground. Her hair is still. She looks up at me. Her eyes are as black as her hair. Her face turns to stone.
My mother says, “I need you to find out who killed your brother. I’ve seen sick mermaids not turned right. That was not it with your brother. Something else did this. Something I could not see.”
I nod. It’s time to stop playing around.
Chapter Thirteen
After I make my way back to the surface, I find my father and Wolfie.
“Is your mother coming?” My father asks as soon as he sees me.
“No. She’s too upset,” I say.
I grab my pants and trudge up the beach past my father and Wolfie, in the direction towards Wolfie’s car.
“I understand,” my father says, catching up to me. “If I lost you, I’d be too distraught to see anyone myself. I wish I could go to Saffronia, but I’d need a spell to survive the travel to the other side of the glass. And then there’s Ali.”
“The spell is the only thing you’d need to worry about now,” I say. “Ali is dead.”
“What!” My father grabs me by the arm. “What do you mean he’s dead?”
“I guess your seer, Mother Delaney, she didn’t see that.”
“No, no she didn’t. She saw death though, that’s why I came. To help keep death away from you. She saw your brother because he’s so close to you and you’re so close to me.”
“How do you know I’m not next?”
My father rubs the back of his neck “Why would you be next?”
I don’t have the answer to that question. I guess there’s no reason for me to believe that someone would be specifically after me.
Besides getting my ass beat by Chief Goldman, and being attacked by Valerie in Tanaka’s t-shirt shop, I’m still alive. I have a sneaking suspicion though, th
at my luck could run out at any moment, especially since I’m going to need to find out who killed my brother. I have to give my mother closure. Then there’s still the unsolved case of who killed April Villa.
Once we’re at the car, Wolfie opens my door for me. “Thanks,” I say. I climb in still pantless. Bikini bottoms should be what I wear everyday. Pants can go to hell.
I begged my mother to allow me stay with her a while behind the glass, but she told me to go. She told me to go home and keep myself safe, which means that she doesn’t want me looking for my brother’s killer. I understand.
I’m all she has left. But I won’t let whoever is responsible for all this, get away with these crimes.
I’m worried for my mother. She’s alone, swimming with the sharks in her House.
She’s queen, the only ruler of the House of Mermaids in her region. There are always vultures jockeying for power. My mother won’t be immune. But I’ll have to come back to that later.
I didn’t want to cause my mother anymore anxiety right now by sticking around. My mother meant it when she told me to go. I could see it in her eyes. I wasn’t about to upset her anymore by arguing with her.
She seems to think that my father will be able to keep me safe on dry land, but I’m a big girl. I’ll be taking care of myself.
Wolfie drops me and father off at my house. I excuse myself and go upstairs to shower and change. The shower pours over my body. I’m trying not to think about anything. I need one moment of not thinking before I have to think a whole hell of a lot.
I find my father downstairs in the kitchen. What is it with people and my kitchen? My father’s scrambling eggs. “How’s it going, Chére?”
“Terrible,” I say. I remember when I was kid my dad used to cook for me when he had me. He didn’t have custody of me. He was too busy with the business of being the voodoo king of New Orleans, so he didn’t raise me, but when he was in town, in L.A., he always made it a point to cook a nice homemade breakfast for me.
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