Royal Street

by Suzanne Johnson

  She knelt, created her own circle within mine, and began chanting in a rhythmic lilt: “Madame Brigitte, behold the lash which this wizard has cut to strike you with. I bring it to you that you may teach her the lesson she deserves.” She took two small sticks from a pocket hidden in the folds of her skirt and placed them in an X on the side closest to me.

  It was damned creepy, whether you believed in it or not. “Here is the woman I pray you to torment,” she chanted, and I felt my magical containment falter. It needed more blood to keep her from tearing it down and coming after me. It wasn’t like she was telling me anything useful. She was just giving me plenty of material for future nightmares.

  I grabbed my silver knife, sliced across my thumb, and dropped blood on the circle again. “Marie Laveau, I release you back into the Beyond.” I hoped my pronouncement didn’t sound as rushed and freaked-out as it felt from my end. She smirked at me as her image faded.

  Once I was sure nothing was left in the circle, I broke the binding and collapsed in an armchair. My head pounded and I felt like I’d been hit by the two Jeeps down in the street. I’d sliced my thumb too deeply, and blood coated my left hand.

  I picked up the elven staff, which had moved itself into the library sometime during the day, and it seemed to make the headache better. Even the soft steady light of the fluorescent lantern hurt my eyes, so I turned it off, letting the darkness wrap around me like a blanket. I held on to the staff and curled up on the love seat to think, trying not to bleed on the upholstery.

  I knew it was a dream as soon as it began. One of those weird, lucid dreams, where you don’t really get scared because you’re aware on some level the monster in the closet is only a dream monster, only in this case it was a dream Gerry.

  I walked through a long, downward-sloping corridor. The floor was dark cobblestone, worn smooth as if by centuries of footsteps. Flickering gas lanterns cast geometric shadows on the slate-gray masonry walls. I could touch the sides of the narrow passageway on either side of me as I walked. Above, I saw the night sky peppered with bright stars, yet the thick, musty air didn’t feel like it was outside.

  In the dream I wore a red tank top and jeans, the same thing I’d worn all day. My skin pimpled with cold, and I wished I could dream up a sweater.

  At the end of the corridor, I reached a heavy door of gleaming dark wood with an ornate brass knob and key plate.

  A circular stone room lit by two gas lanterns lay on the other side of the door, its only furnishings two facing chairs like ancient thrones, with tall backs and silk-covered seats. One chair was empty. Gerry sat in the other, waiting for me.

  I wanted to run to him, throw my arms around him like I did when I was little, but he looked somber. The last time I’d seen that look, he’d just caught me doing hydromancy. He’d lectured me with passion about the laws of magic and why they were important.

  He looked distinguished, aristocratic, his silver hair pulled back in a short ponytail, his green silk shirt—a gift from me—rustling as he shifted in his chair.

  “Sit down, Drusilla. We have to talk.” He rarely called me Drusilla, always said it was an old-fashioned, sentimental name that didn’t fit me. If he called me Drusilla, I was usually in trouble.

  “You should not have summoned Marie Laveau,” he said. “I can’t protect you if you prove yourself too strong. You mustn’t call attention to yourself.”

  My fingers dug into the arms of my chair. “Gerry, where are you? I’ve been looking for you. The Elders are looking for you.”

  A hint of his old smile. “Yes, I imagine they are. I don’t have much time, so listen to me. Drop the search for me. If you act as if you believe I’m dead, the Elders will too. They’re taking their cues from you.”

  “But I don’t think you’re dead. I’d feel it if you were gone. I’m working to find you—just tell me what happened. Tell me how to help.”

  He smiled at me, finally. “Trust me enough to do what I say, and let me go.”

  I didn’t know how to answer.

  He looked behind him as if someone outside my field of vision had spoken. “Have you been to my house?” he said, turning back to me. “You need to find the journal and the staff. You—”

  “DJ!’

  A pounding noise brought me to my feet, and I was back in my library, my breath coming in gasps. A dream. It had been a dream.

  “Are you in there? Open up!” Alex pounded again.

  I stumbled to the door, groggy, and turned the dead bolt latch, stepping aside to let him in. He smelled of rain and sandalwood.

  “DJ?” He sounded uncertain, and flipped the light switch out of habit. It surprised both of us when the overheads came on.

  “I’m okay. Just a bad dream.”

  “Why were you here in the dark with the door locked?” He saw the throw rug tossed in the corner and walked to the circle. “What have you done?”

  “You aren’t going to like it.”

  “Obviously.”

  I looked at my watch—nine fifteen. “Have you eaten dinner? I haven’t. Come downstairs and I’ll tell you.” I wanted to process what I’d seen and heard before I talked about it. Part of me still felt caught in the dream.

  He caught my arm as we left the library. “Are you hurt?” He turned my hand over, inspecting it. The blood had dried, the cut closed up.

  “No, let me wash it off. I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  We heated MREs out of habit and sat at the table, eating in silence. He watched me take every bite, waiting to pounce.

  “How are things in Houma?” I asked, pushing my plate aside.

  “Fine. No more stalling. Who did you summon?”

  I filled him in on seeing Baron Samedi in the rain, then the frustrating interview with Marie Laveau.

  When I finished, he propped his elbows on the table, fingers steepled in front of him. I waited for him to start the barrage of name-calling, but he was buried in thought.

  “You realize the implications of this?” He slumped back in his seat.

  I nodded. “It sounds like someone, maybe the Baron, is trying to build up power, maybe even working with other pretes like the vampires. Is that feasible?”

  “It’s not only feasible, it’s happened before,” Alex said. “The war in seventy-six saw several prete groups band together, but in that one, the fae sided with the wizards and the vampires stayed neutral. They’re the most powerful groups in the Beyond except for the elves, who never get involved, so the wizards ended up winning. She didn’t mention the fae, did she?”

  “No. But why Samedi? Why would he be the ringleader—even among the old gods, he wouldn’t be the strongest. If there was some organized prete uprising, wouldn’t the fae queens or the vampire regents be pulling the strings?”

  “Unless Samedi has a powerful ally on this side. Marie didn’t answer the question about Gerry. Even if it backfired on him, he could have helped set it in motion—whatever it is.”

  I started to tell Alex about the dream, then decided against it. It was just a dream, nothing more. In fact, it was surprising I hadn’t dreamed of Gerry before now.

  Alex dug his cell phone out of his pocket and placed a call. We really did need that Elder hotline.

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2005 “Thin line separates hope from hell: Jeff getting back on its feet, but Orleans flat on its back.”

  —THE TIMES–PICAYUNE

  CHAPTER 23

  I sat in the Pathfinder on Magazine Street after a junk-food run, drumming my fingers impatiently while stewing over my new position in the Elders’ doghouse. After his phone call, Alex had told me Willem Zrakovi was furious at me for summoning Marie Laveau on my own. Then Elder Zrakovi called and told me himself. He was deeply disappointed in my insistence on taking things into my own hands. That stung.

  You’d think the Elders would appreciate knowing a bigger conspiracy might be afoot, one that went beyond a missing sentinel, some voodoo symbols, and an angry pirate. But no. I had disappointed the
m. Deeply.

  After my Elder wrist-slapping (Alex assured me that Zrakovi would have chewed me a new one in person if he’d truly been that upset), I’d spent most of the day turning my house into a virtual Bastille against the French pirate. Charms, hexes, potions. Anything I could make up ahead of time and have at the ready. I wasn’t going to be caught unarmed again. I went through my grounding ritual twice and made up a second mojo bag. Couldn’t hurt to have a spare.

  I was so jumpy Alex got nervous and insisted we go ahead with plans to get the tree off my roof. Since I thought the tilting cedar might make an easy ladder for Jean Lafitte to climb in my bedroom window, I agreed. For the past week, I’d haggled with different tree services, trying to negotiate a reasonable price. Once Alex heard my lowest estimate had been from a Bobcat driver who wanted $4,000 to take it down, the Warin clan decided to do it themselves.

  I’d heard the Winn-Dixie on Tchoupitoulas had reopened a couple of hours a day, and I was out of Cheetos. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have left the house. For a largely unpopulated city, this little unflooded stretch of New Orleans was beginning to feel crowded, and I wasn’t sure where Jean Lafitte might show up. Of course, it was also possible Lafitte wouldn’t come back for revenge at all and I was wasting my paranoia.

  Jake’s old Dodge pickup was already parked beside the house when I got back, and I snickered when I saw he’d added a hood ornament from a Jaguar—no doubt to irritate Alex, whose freshly washed Mercedes had been moved out of the driveway and parked across the street. I parked behind Jake. I’d hate to waft any road dust Alex’s way.

  An extension ladder rested against the back of the house, and Alex and Jake stood at the foot of it, looking up while a tall, rangy guy poked around at the eave line. When I joined them, the man descended the ladder and introduced himself. Don Warin was one of Alex’s three older brothers—as tall and dark as Alex but with shorter hair and minus the enforcer physique. He looked at me with naked curiosity.

  “Oh, Mama insisted I come and help,” he said when I thanked him for driving all the way from Picayune. He grinned and stuck his hands in his pockets to give me the once-over, and his Mississippi accent was thick as cane syrup. “We didn’t think we’d ever see a gal get her hooks in my little brother. I have to report back.”

  He looked at Alex. “Mama wants to know when you’re bringin’ her home for dinner?”

  Uh, that would be never. I gave Alex a glare I hoped he interpreted correctly as Not happening. Ever.

  His mouth curved in a smug smile.

  Alex and Jake kept their one-upmanship to a minimum in front of Don, and I left them to their business. If they wanted to insist tree removal was man’s work, who was I to argue?

  I pulled out another box of Gerry’s stuff. Saturday’s dream hadn’t been anything dramatic like an omen or a telepathic message, but he had told me to find the staff and a journal, so I might as well make sure I’d found all the journals.

  A loud bump from the roof jarred the house.

  “Watch where you’re putting your big feet!”

  “Then get the hell out of my way!”

  “Would you two shut up for once?”

  I wasn’t sure how much the sawing, banging, and cursing on my roof had to do with my cedar tree.

  I opened the box and decided the first thing I should do is sort the notebooks from the correspondence, invoices, receipts, and bank statements, then see if any of the notebooks looked like a journal. If I dreamed of him again, I’d have to teach him a few things about organizing documents.

  I sorted awhile, then noticed the elven staff propped against the door that led into the office. Last night, it had been in the library. I went in the kitchen and stuck my head out the back door to make sure the Warin boys, or at least the non-shapeshifting ones, were keeping themselves busy. Coast clear. I returned to the living room and picked up the staff.

  As always, it grew warm under my touch and a few sparks burst from the end. On a whim, I pointed it at the ceiling fan turning lazily overhead and shot a tiny bit of magical will into it, just to see if I could speed the fan up. If I could figure out how to use and control this thing, it might help me increase my physical magic.

  “Ack!” The fan sped up all right—after a few seconds, it spun so fast it wobbled on its stem, and black smoke poured out of the motor. The smoke detector began an ear-splitting screech before I could race to the wall switch and turn the fan off.

  By the time Jake and Alex hurried in the back door with Don close behind, I had stashed the staff under a sofa cushion and stood underneath the fan wearing what I hoped was a perplexed expression. My hand still tingled from the transfer of energy, but I didn’t feel drained at all. I was beginning to like this staff. I just needed to figure out how to harness it without burning my house down.

  “Must be a short in the wiring,” I announced somberly as they came to a halt beneath the fan, which was still puffing rings of noxious black smoke. The air smelled of scorched electrical wiring.

  “I’ve installed a million of those things we’ve sold at the store and I ain’t ever seen one do that.” Don took off his Picayune Maroon Tide baseball cap and scratched his head.

  “We’ll pick another one up for you at the store and put it in,” Jake offered, while Alex frowned and looked at me skeptically.

  “Thanks, Jake. I’ll pay you for it, of course.”

  His dimples were deep enough to dive into. “I’ll come up with a special price for you, sweet pea.” I didn’t think his price involved money.

  Don stared at Jake, eyebrows raised, then looked at Alex. Clearly, if I was supposed to be Alex’s woman, hell-bent on a course to meet his mama over family dinner, Jake had stepped over the line of common decency. Let them figure it out; I wanted no part of it.

  Don and Alex headed out to finish the work, but Jake stayed behind. He closed the door behind them and turned to look at me, hanging an arm of his sunglasses in the front of his T-shirt.

  “Darlin’, I’m getting mixed signals about you and Big Al.” His eyes looked like honey, and I wondered if our dinner date was still going to happen. I sure hoped so.

  “Big Al and I are, uh …” I paused. What were we? I couldn’t say we were working together or I’d have to lie and tell Jake I was involved in law enforcement. I winged it. “We are friends, like I said. Nothing exclusive. He really has been helping get my uncle’s place cleaned out.”

  His expression softened. “I’m sorry about Gerry. They never found him, did they?”

  “Not a sign.” I paused. “It’s been hard. He raised me. He’s more like a father, really.”

  He nodded. “I’ve lost people that way, when it’s sudden and you don’t have a chance to say good-bye. The questions eat at you. Even if you know what happened, you still ask why.”

  We sat at the kitchen table. “You talking about Afghanistan? Alex told me you’d had a rough time of it.”

  Jake stared out the window. “Yeah, half my unit got killed. You start questioning why some people die and others live. You feel guilty because you’re one of the so-called lucky ones. You ask what it is you’re supposed to do with your life to pay for having survived it. Sometimes you wish you hadn’t survived it. If you think about it too much, it can eat you alive.” He looked back at me, and I could see traces of the ghosts that haunted him.

  “Don’t suck down all the hurt, DJ. It’ll catch up with you in a bad way.”

  I blinked back tears and stared at the table. I wasn’t going to let myself start crying because once that dam was opened I might never get it closed. “I don’t know how to let it out and still keep going,” I said. “How did you do it?”

  He laughed—a sharp, bitter sound. “You don’t want to do it my way, sweetie. I drank too much and shut out everybody that cared about me. Talk to a friend, a relative. Somebody.”

  I looked out the window too. There was nobody.

  Alex saved me from having to answer by stomping back inside, so full of anger and
jealousy he wasn’t even trying to shield it from me. I wiped away a stray tear before he saw it.

  Or maybe not.

  “What’s going on?” Alex looked at me, ignoring Jake.

  I cleared my throat and avoided Alex’s eyes. “I was just asking Jake how Jackie Williams was doing at the club.”

  “Packing them in.” Jake leaned his chair back. “It’s crazy how that guy looks like Louis Armstrong, sounds like Louis Armstrong, knows all the Armstrong songs. I don’t know where he came from—he doesn’t talk much. But I’m not complaining. If we try to cram any more people in we’re gonna get called for a fire-code violation.”

  Don joined us for a few minutes but had to leave for Picayune. The Twin Spans were still down so he’d have to drive the Causeway, twenty-six miles straight across the middle of Lake Pontchartrain. I thought any bridge so long you lost sight of land had to be dangerous.

  “Yeah, Alex, guess it’s time for us to take off, too.” Jake didn’t want to leave me with his cousin. A serious Warin competition was heating up and I was the bone of contention.

  “I’m already home. Moved in with DJ just before Rita hit.” Alex gave his cousin a big, doggy grin.

  I gave Alex a look that would send lesser men to their knees, begging forgiveness. He ignored it.

  “Is that so?” Jake contemplated this new bit of information and cocked his head at me. I couldn’t read his expression and had sworn off taking cheat-peeks at his emotions. A little wave of anger hit me anyway. “Well, then. I guess I’ll see you lovebirds later.”

  He grabbed his keys and walked out, letting the door close a little too hard behind him.

  I thought about trying the elven staff on Alex. “I liked you better when you were a dog.”

  “Don’t get involved with Jake, DJ. Right now he needs to think we’re a couple, unless you’re ready to introduce him to the historical undead.”

  I needed to just swear off men. I’d done without one this long anyway, and they were way too complicated.