by Dana Fredsti
“Some places are closer to hell than others and this evil city is one of them.” I could hear the woman’s Texas twang loud and clear as her words echoed through my head.
Someone brushed by me, heading down Royal the way I’d just come, and I realized I’d been standing in the middle of the street and was about to miss the light and possibly get hit by oncoming traffic. I hurried across the rest of the way, pausing in front of the mansion to stare up at it yet again.
Why was it so damn familiar?
“Interested in the gruesome tale of Horror House, young lady?” I jumped at the voice right at my shoulder. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”
I stared at the man in front of me, my heartbeat racing double time. Cute, mid-twenties, dressed like an extra in Interview with the Vampire, all waistcoat and breeches and frockcoat. Younger than me, making his “young lady” greeting seem like pandering. He really did look apologetic, though, so I made a valiant effort to stifle the impulse to punch him. I hate being taken unawares.
“Can I help you?” My tone was a little frostier than normal to hide the fact my heart was still doing a quickstep.
“You seemed interested in the LaLaurie mansion—”
I started at the name.
“—so I thought I’d give you one of our coupons. Best ghost tour in New Orleans at a discount!” He grinned apologetically even as he held out a brochure, adding, “We’re doing one of our tours right now, matter of fact. That’s us over there.” He nodded across the street. A group of about fifteen people leaned against an iron fence outside a townhouse, listening to the female counterpart to my Brad Pitt wannabe while they took photos of the mansion.
I took the brochure. “Ghastly Ghost Tours of NOLA” at the top, a lurid drawing of a man being strangled by a pissed-off-looking ghost below, and a coupon for ten bucks off at the very bottom.
“We also do vampire tours, if that’s more your thing,” he said.
“You’re dressed more for vampires than ghosts, if you don’t mind my saying so,” I commented.
He grinned. “Vampires, ghosts, zombies. It’s all pretty much the same to our boss’s wardrobe budget.”
“How long is the coupon good for?” I asked, more out of idle curiosity than any real desire to go on one of their tours. I mean, it could be fun, although I didn’t want to take the tour on my own. Like bad movies, I suspect it was an experience more enjoyable when shared.
“No expiration for you.” He gave a gallant little bow to punctuate his words. Very nice touch, even though I suspected he’d say much the same to anyone. “Just ask for Christian.”
“Thanks.” I tucked the brochure in my bag. With one last glance at the building looming above me, I continued down Royal Street. I wanted to do some research before dinner.
* * *
Once back in my room, I checked to see how far of a walk Onc Cochon was from the hotel. It was outside the French Quarter, in the Faubourg Marigny. Basically, back the way I’d just come, on the other side of Esplanade. I could walk it, but I’d have to do it at a brisker pace than I cared to, and I’d be all sticky and sweaty when I got there. I decided to Lyft it instead, which gave me some time to do a little research.
A quick glance verified that the Ghastly Tours brochure gave the name of the so-called “Horror House” as the LaLaurie mansion. Yup, same name that Cayden and Devon used in Voodoo Wars. I quickly pulled out my laptop and googled LaLaurie and immediately got hits with sensationalized titles like “Horror House in New Orleans,” and “Madame LaLaurie, Sadistic Slave Owner of the French Quarter.” Delphine LaLaurie was a French Creole woman who, along with her surgeon husband, Louis, was infamous for allegedly torturing and disfiguring her slaves. There were pictures of the mansion on the corner of Royal and Governor Nicholls Street, and a lot of photos of Kathy Bates as Madame LaLaurie and Angela Bassett as Marie Laveau in American Horror Story. The actual LaLaurie mansion, however, wasn’t used in the series—the current owners weren’t interested in cashing in on their residence’s infamous history. I remembered the flock of tourists across the street, phones and cameras out as they took pictures of the house. That had to get old fast.
I took the script out and flipped through it again, looking for the scene introducing the LaLauries—a French Creole woman and her surgeon husband. Ah ha. In the script, they’re torturing slaves in order to summon demons, which incurs the wrath of Marie Laveau and Papa John—not to be confused with the pizza chain by the same name—but it was obvious Cayden and his co-writer Devon had based parts of their story heavily on the history of the LaLauries and the horrors that supposedly happened within the walls of the mansion on Royal Street.
Putting the script down, I carried on surfing the net. There were several accounts of the supposed history of Delphine LaLaurie. At worst, she was one of history’s greatest monsters—there were stories about the dreadful condition of the LaLaurie slaves found locked in the attic, victims of Delphine’s sadistic whims and her husband’s experiments.
One internet historian speculated that she was a typical example of the white Creole women of the time—they lacked control in other areas of their lives, and took it out on their slaves. Other accounts were relatively moderate, saying the stories were greatly exaggerated because people love a good horror story.
None of which explained why I’d gotten an honest case of the heebie-jeebies when I’d seen the LaLaurie mansion.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Onc Cochon was on a quiet street, nestled between a used record store and a boutique wine shop. The restaurant front was painted a subtle beige-pink, with a small sign in the shape of a winking pig in one window. My stomach growled. Beignets, however tasty, are not a substitute for lunch.
Inside, I looked around the restaurant in surprise. Everything I’d expected from a four-star establishment was missing. No snooty maître d’s, for a start. Instead of white tablecloths and tasteful candles, there were cramped tables and booths with plastic red-and-white checked covers, and autographed photos of musicians and actors on the walls. The low-watt bulbs flickered and buzzed like anemic bug zappers. Hmmm, maybe they were bug zappers. The place was crowded, stuffed to capacity with all sorts—families with kids, couples holding hands across the tables—and the sound of animated conversation competed with zydeco music piped through cheap speakers.
In other words, so not what I expected when Cayden invited me to join him for dinner. My shoulders relaxed, tension draining from my body without even the benefit of a beer.
A twenty-something hostess in jeans and a violet T-shirt greeted me with a warm smile, sparkling white teeth set against rich brown skin. Her irises matched the violet of her shirt, a slightly lighter shade than my own eyes. She wore her hair, black and curly, in a French braid, tendrils escaping to soften the strong lines of her face. A cheap plastic nametag read “Angelique.”
“What can I do ya for, cher?”
Cher. I silently and happily checked that off my bucket list. I wondered if she was Cajun.
“Um, I’m meeting someone here,” I said. “A Mr. Doran?”
She nodded, her smile growing wider. “Oooh, yeah, he’s a tasty one!” She looked me up and down. “Not sure which of you is getting the better deal here.”
My face burned, no doubt bright red. Hopefully the dim lighting hid it.
“Right this way,” she added, oblivious to my embarrassment. Take the compliment, I told myself, and followed her through the crowded room, admiring the skillful way she evaded the bustling waitstaff who passed us bearing heavy trays of food and drink. She moved with almost animalistic grace, which made me think she might be either a shifter or a dancer, maybe both.
She led me into a narrow hallway, past the kitchen, where the enticing smells became almost overwhelming, and out onto a patio surrounded by a wooden trellised wall on three sides, flowering bougainvillea growing thickly on the trellis and trailing the wall. Other flowering plants and prehistoric-looking ferns vied for space, pe
rmeating the air with a heady perfume that somehow complimented the rich aromas of food.
The patio held about a dozen tables of various sizes, most of them for two to four people except for one long plank of a table that could fit at least a half dozen people. Cayden sat at the far end of this one, a bottle of beer in front of him. He got to his feet when we approached, giving Angelique a small yet intimate smile.
Hmmm.
Deciding I didn’t care whether the two already knew each other in the biblical sense or otherwise, I accepted Cayden’s very Hollywood greeting—hands on my shoulders as he kissed my cheek a scant inch away from my lips.
“Enjoy, cher,” Angelique said with a bright smile as she set a menu down in front of me. Whether she was talking to me or Cayden was a toss-up, but I got the feeling that she meant it both ways.
“Now, Angelique,” Cayden said with a shake of his head, “how come you’re working tonight? You’re going to be busy enough on the film in a few days.”
Really? I looked at her with renewed interest.
Angelique rolled her eyes. “I told you they couldn’t get anyone for tonight. I wouldn’t be a very good person if I turned my back on the people who gave me a good job.” She gave me a wink. “Don’t let this man talk you into anything you don’t wanna be talked into, cher.” With that, she vanished back inside the restaurant.
“Not a succubus,” I said, more to myself than my dinner companion.
“No, she’s not,” Cayden agreed. “Shifter clan. She’s playing Perrine,” he continued before I could ask the question. “She’s going to be doing her own stunts and you’ll be the one training her.”
“I can do that.”
He gave me a bland smile at odds with those eyes. “You planning on sitting down any time soon?”
“Isn’t this table a little big for two people?” I said as I sat down across from him.
“Thought I’d introduce you to some of the team.”
“Do they work here too?”
He laughed. “No.”
I looked down at my skirt and camisole with a frown. “I would have dressed up if you’d given me fair warning.”
“Trust me when I say you’ll fit in just fine.”
All hail Cayden, the king of ambiguity.
“We have about a half-hour before they get here,” he continued. “How about we order some beer and appetizers and talk about our close encounter with the carnivorous seaweed?” It wasn’t a question so much as a decision. I had no quarrel with a plan that involved food and beer sooner rather than later, even if I did have some hefty reservations about the subject matter.
Reasons for not telling him about my unusual legacy? I’d been warned by Randy, Sean, and Seth not to trust the man. Eden had bailed on me and hidden in the restroom when he’d showed up at Ocean’s End, and her interest in visiting New Orleans had noticeably cooled when she’d found out Cayden was part of the deal. My own early reactions to him had been negative—he’d been an ass both times—but then he’d favorably surprised me more than once and… well, my instincts were now telling me to trust him. Besides, I’d made a promise and I planned on keeping it. After I had something to drink.
“So, what’s good as far as the beers go?” I asked.
“What are you in the mood for?” Cayden leaned back in his chair, fingers curled around his beer bottle, hand nearly engulfing it. “Their beer selection is extensive.”
“Let’s start with that,” I said, nodding to it. “What are you drinking?”
“A rye pale ale aged in bourbon barrels.” He uncurled his fingers so I could see the label. Abita, Louisiana’s best-known craft brewery. “It’s a limited release. Go ahead and try a sip. See if you like it.”
Okay, I could either take his gesture as a little too intimate, or I could try a sip, one craft beer aficionado to another. I opted for the second choice, figuring it would be less weird in the long run. Besides, it was a beer I hadn’t tried before. Priorities, right?
I took the bottle, trying not to go out of my way to not to touch his fingers because I wanted to prove this was casual.
Try not to sleep with Doran, my cousin’s voice intoned in my head.
Oh, fuck you, Seth, I silently retorted.
I took a quick sip of the Abita, enjoying the smooth sweetness of malts and the yeasty taste of bread integrated with all the oaky, bourbon goodness of bourbon barrels. I then took another, larger swallow, totally guilt free considering how much of my Triple Threat he’d downed at Ocean’s End. “That’s tasty,” I concluded, handing it back to him. “I can totally drink that.”
“Looks like you already did,” he said wryly. I smiled sweetly and said nothing.
A waitress, attractive and comfortable with her forties, appeared as if telepathically summoned. “What can I do for you?” Her accent wrapped the words in honey.
Cayden gave her a slow grin. “Bring us two more of these and a large order of crawdads.” Glancing over at me, he added, “You okay with that?”
I gave him a thumbs-up and smiled at the waitress.
A beer and a hefty share of fried crawdads later, my appetite had gone down to a low roar and I’d relaxed. “I like this place,” I said, downing the dregs of my Abita.
“Figured you would.”
“Did you?” I stared at him over my glass.
“Yeah. I also figure you were expecting something different.”
I raised an eyebrow, stonewalling him. “I didn’t have any expectations one way or the other, but I admit this place pleasantly surprised me.”
Cayden didn’t ask why. Instead he glanced at his watch. “We have about twenty minutes for you to explain why the sea dragon was gunning for you.”
Fortified by beer and crawdads, I told him. When I was finished, he raised a hand and, as if by magic, the obviously smitten waitress who had brought our crawdads reappeared with another round of beers and a pitcher of ice water. After she’d left, Cayden said, “So, this thing, this sea dragon, was related to you.”
“If Sean is to be believed—and I can’t imagine him lying about something like that—then, yes.”
“So if this asshole god really did turn most of Lilith’s kids into demons and they all had little demonic rugrats… wouldn’t all supernaturals be related to you on some level or another?”
I nodded glumly. “The thought has occurred to me more than once.”
“Then why did the sea dragon attack you whereas Angelique brought you back here instead of trying to rip your throat out? She’s got shifter blood in her, a lot of it.”
I shrugged. “I guess the older the monster, the more likely it has a reason to try and eat me. Maybe they know Lilith’s human descendants are gunning for them.”
“You have no plans for slaughtering our cast and crew, right?”
“Not unless they try to kill me first. Then all bets are off.”
Picking up his beer, he rolled the bottle between his palms. “Then there shouldn’t be any problem.”
My laugh held no amusement. “What if another one of Lilith’s unhappy offspring shows up while we’re filming? You saw what happened at Trancas. If it was after me, a lot of innocent people died just because it was hungry and they happened to be in the way.”
“Do you expect one to show up on set?”
I shrugged again, angry in a directionless way. The whole situation pissed me off all over again. “Sean doesn’t think so. I mean, he said they’ll always be drawn to me, that there’s a risk if they’re close enough to sense me. I don’t know if they have some sort of familial GPS or if it’s just luck of the draw, but I don’t want people to die because of me.”
He leaned back in his chair and regarded me. “How many people have you told about this?”
I shook my head. “So far, you’re it.” Although I was pretty sure Faustina knew. She was a goddess, after all.
“Not your friends? Your boyfriend?”
“No one,” I reiterated, choking back an almost kneejerk ur
ge to deny having a boyfriend. Sorry, Randy. “It was easy to pretend the Janus demon was a one-off. That maybe Sean was wrong. The whole family curse thing didn’t seem real until the other day, and I guess I hoped it wasn’t. But it was and it is. I’m telling you because you were there when that thing attacked, and because you deserve to know the risks of hiring me.”
He nodded, still looking at me with those disturbing—and compelling—eyes.
I played with my glass, cradling it between my palms as it sweated cold moisture on my warm skin. “So that’s it. Are you sure you want me on this film?”
“Oh yes,” Cayden said with another of those near-manic grins. “After all, it won’t be boring.”
“You’re joking, right?”
He leaned in across the table, expression suddenly deadly serious. “I never joke.”
The sudden electricity between us was not a joke. I wasn’t ready for it, so I used words as a shield. “That’s kind of like saying ‘everything I say is a lie’ and watching some poor android’s head explode.”
He laughed and relaxed back into his chair as if nothing had happened. Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe I needed to get over myself.
“What’s call time tomorrow?” I asked, figuring I’d better budget my alcohol intake. I’m lucky in that I generally wake up headache-free regardless of how much I whooped it up the night before. If I’m not exactly sparkly and ready to sing, “Oh, what a beautiful morning,” I’m at least reasonably alert. Coffee helps. But I still didn’t want to overdo things the night before my first day on a job, especially not when Cayden was signing my paycheck. I might not dislike him the way I did during our first two encounters, but that didn’t mean I felt comfortable getting drunk around him.
Cayden didn’t appear to have any such inhibitions. When the waitress appeared yet again—she was one of the most attentive waitstaff I’d ever encountered, though I doubted I had anything to do with that—I shook my head. Cayden, on the other hand, drained his bottle and nodded. He was a big man, and a stuntman. That earned him two hollow legs.
“You’re not having any more?” He raised an eyebrow. “You were tossing back some pretty high-octane bourbon barrel stout at Ocean’s End.”