by Jan Eldredge
Laurent stared at Gran’s drooping head. When she didn’t speak, he sighed. “If you can’t run with the big dogs, old woman, you should stay under the porch.”
Gran remained limp and motionless on the step below him, hanging between the two familiars like a broken marionette.
“Show me her face,” Laurent commanded.
One of the familiars lifted Gran’s chin.
Leaning forward, Laurent peered at her, then quickly drew back. The corners of his mouth turned down, and he narrowed his eyes. “Oh, old swamp witch, I do recognize you.”
Fader raised his own heavy head and uttered a threatening growl.
“And your four-eared familiar.” He pointed to the faded scar running down the side of Gran’s face. “This is my father’s mark.”
The breath rushed from Evangeline’s lungs, his words ricocheting inside her head. Laurent’s father was the alpha who had attacked Gran. The one who had killed her mama and her sister.
Her thoughts tangled into a gray knot, leaving one fact hanging as loose and visible as a bright-red thread: Gran had killed that alpha. Gran had killed Laurent’s father. And now she stood before Laurent, defenseless and vulnerable.
“Gran,” she whispered, her eyes never leaving sight of the two of them.
When Gran still had not spoken, Laurent scowled. “Surely you haven’t come to New Orleans to destroy my new family. What more do you want? I left your swamp.”
“You ran away with your tail between your legs.” Gran’s voice sounded as clear and strong as ever.
Evangeline didn’t know whether to feel proud or terrified. Laurent wouldn’t take kindly to such sass.
He frowned down at Gran. “We had no quarrel with your council.”
Gran spoke again, this time her tone as cold and deadly as a sharp silver blade. “Your alpha murdered my daughter.”
Laurent took a tiny step back on the balcony, the faintest flicker of fear in his eyes. “Because you and your council planned to destroy our family! You left us no choice. We had to send a message, a warning.” His brow furrowed, and he stabbed his finger at her. “But you didn’t listen. You took your revenge against my father.”
From his position snug in Gran’s arms, Fader snapped his tail and hissed at Laurent.
Revulsion rumbled inside Evangeline. If she’d had a tail, she would have been snapping it too.
Laurent stared at Gran for a moment, clenching and unclenching his hands, attempting to regain his composure. When his breathing slowed, he spoke again. “No longer possessing our abilities, our family broke apart and scattered. I resettled in France, where it took me years to find an alpha werewolf who’d welcome me into his pack. And more years of loyal servitude before I received his blessing to set off and form my own family.”
He gestured down toward the men on the lawn, as still and poised as a pack of guard dogs awaiting the command to attack. “Now you come here to once again destroy my family?” His voice dropped and grew icy. “I won’t let you do it, not this time. We’re too numerous and too strong for you and your coven of backwoods witches. We will stay here in New Orleans and hunt as we please.”
“You know I can’t let you do that,” Gran said.
Laurent shrugged. “As you wish.” He half turned, as though to step away, then spun and smashed his heavy scepter against Gran’s head, producing a loud cracking sound.
“No!” Evangeline lunged toward the staircase, but her captors pulled her back.
Fader sprang away, and the familiars restraining Gran released their hold, letting her collapse to the step as they moved aside.
“Gran!” Evangeline cried.
At the base of the other staircase, Julian’s head drooped, and his body went limp, leaving him hanging within the grips of his two guards.
Fader had already wobbled down the stairs. He made his way across the roadway and toward the line of parked floats.
Using the tip of his boot, Laurent nudged Gran’s facedown body on the step beneath them. “Look, my dear.” He looped his arm through Mrs. Midsomer’s. “This is the wicked woman who tormented you with her country concoctions and threatened to bind you to your bed. You see what I’ve done for you?” He raised Mrs. Midsomer’s hand and kissed it.
The corner of Mrs. Midsomer’s lip pulled back in a silent snarl at his gesture.
The world wobbled and hummed around Evangeline, Papa Urbain’s ominous words replaying inside her head: Two people will die tonight.
Laurent leaned down and grabbed a handful of Gran’s gray hair. He lifted her head, watching as a trickle of red ran from her scalp. Four drops fell to the step below. “There was no way to reason with you, old woman. You would never have stopped hunting us.” He almost looked regretful. Then he let Gran’s head drop, and he stood. But when he looked upon his pack members across the way, his eyes widened with alarm. “No! It’s not time!”
Evangeline followed his gaze, feeling the blood drain from her face. Most of the men stood wearing stony expressions, their hands clasped before them, but others gazed hungrily at the red drops on the white staircase, their faces pinched and strained, their foreheads shiny with sweat. Two had dropped to their hands and knees, panting, their backs arching like cats coughing up hairballs. Mr. Woolsey lifted his arm and wiped his drool-covered chin on the sleeve of his suit jacket.
One of the two familiars holding Evangeline bolted away, casting bulging-eyed glances at the premorphing men on the lawn as he raced off in the opposite direction.
Evangeline yanked her mama’s talisman from beneath her shirt and thrust it toward the men. The peculiar feeling came rushing back, bringing a keen calmness and clarity. Her mind and body refocused, sharply aware of everyone and everything around her. The sensation didn’t startle her. It felt right somehow, like finding your way back to the place you belonged.
At the sight of the silver, Laurent gasped and cried out, “Take that thing from her!”
Camille was suddenly before Evangeline. The phony housekeeper slapped her hard across the face, sending Evangeline reeling. Camille ripped the necklace away, and with an angry huff, she stomped back to her place beneath the oak trees and flung the talisman into the darkness.
Wincing, Evangeline pressed her hand to the stinging line against her neck where the talisman’s chain used to lie. She pulled her fingers away, and red dots stained their tips. It wasn’t long before another man in gray hurried over and snatched her arm, securing it within his tight grip.
Laurent signaled toward the two familiars standing alongside Gran, then waved down at her motionless body. “Remove her from our sight.” He cast a nervous glance at the premorphing men. “Quickly.”
“Should I find the cat and kill it, sir?” one of them asked.
He shook his head. “No need. It’ll be dead soon enough. All haunt huntress familiars die within a few minutes of their mistresses. The two are inseparable in life, and so too in death.”
The two men took Gran by her floppy arms, and while they hauled her down the staircase, another familiar rushed up and wiped the red drops from the steps.
Evangeline watched them drag Gran into the shadowy depths of the warehouse, anger rearing inside her and devouring her grief. They would pay for what they’d done, and if her actions were motivated by revenge, then so be it. It wasn’t the haunt huntress way, but she wasn’t a haunt huntress. She ground her teeth, her nostrils flaring. She would destroy Laurent’s family. Maybe not tonight, maybe not next week, but she would do it, if it was the last thing she ever did.
With the sight and scent of blood no longer visible, the men regained the control they’d lost. They smoothed back their hair, straightened their jackets and ties, and wiped the perspiration from their brows.
“Now, without further ado or disturbance,” Laurent announced, “it’s time my queen and I were joined in matrimony.” He took one of Mrs. Midsomer’s hands in his. She stood stone still, staring blankly into the distance.
“Mom!” Julian yell
ed from the base of the stairs, his voice ragged, his face pale and sweaty. The two familiars holding him tightened their grips on his arms.
With a tattered antique book clasped in his hands, one of the men from the lawn mounted the steps. Slowly, formally, he made his way up to the balcony. He opened the cover, turned a few pages, and began reciting words before Laurent and Mrs. Midsomer.
“I object!” Julian shouted at them. He turned his desperate eyes toward his mother. “Mom! Mom, wake up! Snap out of this trance that villainous, swaggering fraud has hypnotized you into! You have to run away! Go get help, call the police, the army, the marines, the—” One of his captors clamped a hand over his mouth to silence him, but Julian’s muffled protests still spilled through the man’s fingers.
Up on the balcony, the ceremony continued, the officiating man droning on and on as he read from the old book. Evangeline blocked out his words as well as Julian’s. She swept her eyes around her surroundings, taking in everything she could see, hear, feel, and smell. In the far reaches of her mind, a scattering of blurry ideas floated toward one another, blending and piecing themselves together. An unfamiliar patience filled her, and she knew a fully formed plan would reveal itself when the time was right. So she waited.
Nearly thirty minutes later, the officiating man slowly and formally descended the steps with the antique book tucked beneath his arm and a smile of a job well done settled across his face. The patter of polite applause drifted over from the pack members stationed on the lawn and from Camille and the other familiars standing beneath the oaks.
Julian’s captor removed his hand from his mouth, and Julian wasted no time shouting up to Laurent, “That ceremony is nonlegal and nonbinding!”
But Laurent paid him no attention. Linking his arm with that of the vacant-eyed Mrs. Midsomer, he waved his black scepter in a kingly manner and addressed his pack below. “In celebration of this happy occasion, tonight we will hunt freely through the streets of New Orleans!”
The men on the lawn applauded louder, some of them whistling and calling out, the most animated they’d appeared all evening.
“Hunt for what?” Julian’s face paled again as he tried to back away.
Panic clawed at Evangeline’s heart, shredding her previous calm and confidence. The tourists, artists, and musicians in Jackson Square, all of them lambs in a meadow, oblivious to the monsters about to descend upon them.
What could one middling possibly do to stop them? Killing Laurent would certainly solve the problem. But to get anywhere near him, she’d have to fight her way through fourteen rougarous furiously defending their alpha. She’d be lucky to take down just one of them before the others ripped her limb from limb. Not even a true haunt huntress could evade such an attack.
“It’s nearly the hour of the wolf!” Laurent announced. He spread his arms wide, his eyes gleaming. “Time for our queen to make her first kill.”
“Are you crazy?” Julian gaped up at him. “My mother would never kill anyone! And she’s not your queen.”
Laurent motioned to Evangeline’s guards. “Bring up the offering for our queen.”
Evangeline dug in her heels, but her socks wouldn’t gain purchase against the pavement. The men hauled her up the stairs as effortlessly as towing a pirogue across the surface of the bayou. They brought her to a stop on the balcony before Laurent and Mrs. Midsomer.
Laurent frowned at the hole in the toe of Evangeline’s sock. Then he gave a sigh of disappointment. “A haunt huntress is still a worthy sacrifice, no matter her appearance.”
“I’m not a haunt huntress. I’m just a middling.” Evangeline never imagined those words would bring her such satisfaction. “My sister was the true haunt huntress.” She glared into his eyes, her pulse erupting with anger and sorrow. “But your father killed her before she could live.”
He shrugged. “Nonetheless, you’re still descended from a haunt huntress, are you not? You underestimate your worth.”
Mrs. Midsomer gasped, squeezing her eyes shut as the final stages of transformation began to take hold. Laurent patted the top of her hand reassuringly.
“Mom!” Julian shouted up at her, his voice filled with anguish.
“Fight it, Mrs. Midsomer!” Evangeline pleaded, though she knew it would do no good.
Laurent furrowed his brow and gave a small shake of his head. “Why do your kind persist in trying to stop such remarkable alterations?”
Curling her lip, Evangeline answered, “To keep filthy rougarous from killing innocent people.”
“But innocent people die all the time.” Laurent raised his palms. “More than 725,000 people a year are killed by the mosquito alone. What difference do our few hunts make in the grand scheme of things?”
How could he be so lacking in basic human compassion? “You don’t need the flesh or blood of your victims in order to survive. You just maul them and kill them, and then leave them. Why do you do it?”
“For the same reason the housecat hunts the songbird. For the thrill of the hunt.” His eyes grew shiny as he leaned closer. “Try to imagine the liberating power of the transformation, our bodies growing strong and immense, our senses keenly enhanced—results we could never hope to achieve in our mere human forms. No roller coaster, no game, no physical activity on earth can compare to the experience.”
“You’re insane!” Julian yelled. “Let us go!”
“Patience,” Laurent called to him. “I’ll release you in a moment.”
Hope filled Julian’s voice. “You will?”
“Of course. And I’ll even make sure you’re given a generous head start before my family obeys the command of the moon.” He fixed his gaze down at Julian. “And then the hunt will be on. Beginning with you.”
A shrill chirping pierced the air as Julian’s watch beeped the midnight hour, the indication that the time had come for lights-out.
The rose bouquet dropped from Mrs. Midsomer’s arm, and Laurent kicked it out of the way. She cried out, grasping her middle.
Evangeline’s wide-eyed captors stepped to the side, pulling her along the balcony with them. She glanced down toward the men on the lawn, still in their human forms, but they would not remain that way for long. Even with the window blinds holding back any sight or sensation of the moon, the transformation would eventually overtake them now that the midnight hour had arrived.
Mrs. Midsomer fell to her hands and knees, her back arching beneath her sparkling white gown, her eyes squeezed shut, her face perspiring.
“There, there, my dear.” Laurent knelt beside her and set his scepter down. He removed Mrs. Midsomer’s gloves, train, and tiara and tossed them aside. He rested his fingers on her shoulder, repeating, “There, there.”
The half woman, half rougarou whipped her head around and bit his hand.
He stumbled away with a gasp and a swear, the backs of his boots bumping into the scepter and sending it clattering down the staircase, where it rolled to a stop at the base of Circe’s statue.
Mrs. Midsomer rounded on him, gnashing her teeth.
“Mom!” Julian yelled. He struggled against his captors.
Mrs. Midsomer’s hands stiffened and fanned against the balcony floor, and black claws shot out from her fingertips.
Julian shook his head, his wide eyes fixed upward on the transforming woman. “No, no, no, no, no,” he murmured. “How can I not have known about any of this?”
“I tried to tell you!” Evangeline yelled down at him, feeling vindicated despite the severe mauling about to befall her.
Mrs. Midsomer jerked her head toward Evangeline, her pupils constricting, her blue eyes fading to pale green. She peeled her lips back and snarled a throaty growl.
Evangeline struggled to free her arms from the familiars’ grips. “Let go of me!” she shouted, surprised when they actually did. She stared openmouthed as they fled down the stairs.
Evangeline tried to rush down after her fleeing captors, but her sock-covered feet slipped out from under her,
and she fell, sprawling onto her hands and stomach.
Behind her, claws clicked against the ground as Mrs. Midsomer crawled closer, a growl rumbling deep in her chest.
Evangeline flipped around and scooted back on her elbows, her heart thundering.
Mrs. Midsomer’s nostrils quivered. She lifted her head, breathing in the scent of the tiny blood beads dotting Evangeline’s neck where her talisman’s chain had been torn away.
“Mom, don’t hurt her!” Julian yelled. “Evangeline’s my friend!”
“Now, Mrs. Midsomer,” Evangeline cooed. “You don’t want to do this.”
“But she’s not Mrs. Midsomer at the moment,” Laurent explained from a safe distance away. “She has no human consciousness. No sense of right or wrong to restrain her. In our rougarou forms we’re simply not responsible for what we do, no more than any wild beast can be held accountable for its behavior.”
Beneath her queenly gown, Mrs. Midsomer’s spine arched again; the seams of the fabric strained against her growth of muscle and bone. Her mouth dropped and stretched, her jaw popping and cracking, fangs lengthening. With a snarl, the wolfish woman lowered her snouted face toward Evangeline, exposing her mouthful of stalactite-like teeth.
Evangeline squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the storm of sharp-toothed fury, when a half-barking, half-crying howl erupted somewhere in the warehouse below.
She snapped her eyes open as it sounded again, the distinct baying of a hunting dog alerting its master it was in pursuit of their prey.
Mrs. Midsomer’s lips slowly slid down over her teeth. She tilted her head, listening.
Out on the warehouse floor, beside a float fronted with a mammoth figure of Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of Hades, the grim padded out. Its yellow eyes glowing like candles in the darkness, it stopped and fixed its somber stare on Evangeline.
The breath caught in Evangeline’s throat. And in that moment, everything came together, revealing what she hadn’t been able to see before.
She was the one death had been coming for all along, the one who would need guiding into the afterlife. Not Gran and Fader, but her. She was the one who’d been there every time the grim or some other portent of death had appeared over the last two days.