The Witch's Thirst

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The Witch's Thirst Page 24

by Deborah LeBlanc


  Lucien started heading for the Louis I Cemetery and said in a stage whisper, “Far from it, Ms. François. Far, far from it.”

  By the time they reached Gilly and Gavril, the Chenilles were all gathered tightly together, piled up next to their mistress, who stood by the electric canopy at the front gate of the cemetery. The Chenilles wanted out, and now.

  Judging from the frenzy on the Chenilles’ faces, Lucien worried that once the cemetery gates opened, Gilly might be faced with a stampede. He hoped Gilly knew the same calming spells that Evee used on her Nosferatu.

  No sooner had Lucien completed that thought than he saw Gilly hold out her hands, palm up, and begin to chant.

  “Quiet thee, oh creatures mine.

  Let these words soothe thy rage to wine.

  Angst and boredom, fear and pain.

  Lead thy mind to see now that ’tis all in vain.

  So it is said.

  So shall it be.”

  Lucien watched in amazement as the Chenilles that had been twitching, nipping, whining, shoving only seconds earlier now stood in an orderly line, knowing they were going to be fed.

  Of all the Originals, the Chenilles could easily have passed for human, even in their natural state. Male and female alike stood between six feet five inches and seven feet tall. They all appeared to be around the same age, somewhere in their midtwenties. Some had beautiful long blond hair, some short and black—handsome men, exotic women. He supposed they used their beauty as bait to lure in a victim. If victims paid close attention, however, they’d be able to see the most telling sign on a Chenille. Its skin. It was more yellow than white, like each carried a different stage of liver failure. What the victims didn’t know until it was too late was that a Chenille’s incisors were long and threaded, like a screw, yet hollow in the center.

  Once a Chenille latched on to bone, it drilled small holes through it to reach the marrow, and then used the same incisors to suck the marrow from the bone. Like sucking through a thick milk shake with a straw. Although they preferred the blood and meat to be neatly discarded, as they were used to in the North Compound, an overly hungry Chenille could certainly forgo that formality. It would use its incisors to rip through skin and flesh until it reached its prize. Bone. Lots of bone.

  Just before Gilly opened the cemetery gates, she motioned to Gavril that it was time for him, Evee and Lucien to move out of sight.

  Peering around the corner of the cathedral, Lucien was relieved to see the Chenilles following Gilly’s orders to the letter. Gavril chose to follow behind the Chenille parade by at least two hundred feet. Lucien and Evee thought it best to watch over Gilly and Gavril, but do so by way of alleyways and around dark corners of buildings. The last thing Lucien wanted was to draw attention to himself. What if one of the witnesses who’d seen him and Ronan fighting the Nosferatu showed up and fingered him? It’d wind up being a circus show.

  So, sticking to that plan, Lucien and Evee ducked and swerved through alleyways as they watched Gilly and Gavril make their way to the docks. With every step they took toward the docks, Lucien felt like it was one too many. He kept one eye on Gavril and kept watch over the sky.

  It was eerily quiet when they arrived. Which made Lucien’s and Evee’s sneakers sound like hammers on concrete.

  Gavril swiveled about on his heels. “Damn, cuz, give a guy a heads-up, will ya? Why are the two of you here, anyway?”

  “Since the Nosferatu are put away,” Lucien said, “and you and Gilly have the farthest to walk without protection over to the docks, we thought it might be a good idea to follow the two of you in case you needed backup.”

  Gavril pulled his long gingerbread-colored hair behind his head, reached into the front pocket of his jeans with his free hand and pulled out a rubber band, which he quickly wrapped around his hair. With that done, he moved his head from shoulder to shoulder, and Lucien heard vertebrae misalignments pop back into place.

  “I appreciate your having our backs,” Gavril said. He aimed his chin down Rampart toward a section of run-down shops. “Let’s wait out there until Gilly has them off-loaded onto the ferry. Don’t want them picking up our scents.”

  Now that they were at the docks, Lucien took Evee’s hand and motioned for Gavril to follow them. He planned on positioning everyone along the side of the cathedral, just as he’d done earlier with Evee and the Nosferatu.

  They watched as Gilly led the Chenilles onto the ferry, stepped in behind them, then closed the ferry’s back gate. The look Gilly gave Gavril as she untied the ferry made Lucien wonder if there was more to their relationship than either was letting on.

  Before the ferry took off, two men suddenly appeared out of the shadows and walked toward the ferry.

  “What the hell?” Lucien said.

  “Son of a bitch,” Evee said. “That’s Trey Cottle and Shandor Black, two of the sorcerers I told you about.”

  Now that the back gate of the ferry had been secured and the electric dome activated, Lucien all but jogged over to the men to see what they wanted. Evee was right at his heels and Gavril only two steps behind Evee.

  As they drew even closer, Evee suddenly skidded to a stop. She signaled for Gilly to get the ferry moving as she confronted their unwanted company.

  “What are you doing here?” Lucien asked.

  “No,” Evee said. “What the fuck are you two bastards doing here?” she demanded.

  Lucien raised an eyebrow, quite impressed with Evee’s extensive, spur-of-the-moment vocabulary. “I’m assuming I’m having the pleasure of meeting Shandor Black and Trey Cottle?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Evee said. “I don’t know about pleasure, but the short, fat, sweaty one is Cottle, and the one with the hooked nose and two-foot jowls is Black.”

  “Miss François,” Trey Cottle said, “there is no reason for you to be so condescending, so harsh with your friends.”

  “You’re no friends of mine,” she retorted.

  Almost as if she hadn’t spoken, Cottle said, “Concerning us being here, our purpose is only to help.”

  “Yeah, I know how you’re here to help. Shandor has already confronted me about it. What did he do? Go whining to you that I wouldn’t let him anywhere near us?”

  Trey harrumphed. “I knew before he did. I’m the one who sent him to you.”

  “So just tell me what the fuck it is you want with me,” Evee said. Lucien placed a hand on the small of her back, which oddly enough calmed her considerably.

  “We want to help,” Trey said. “I think you’re missing a very important element where the Originals are concerned. Why some of them have gone missing and those missing have already started to kill humans. Now you’re having to take extra measures just to get your Originals from their holding areas to the ferry. I’m sure all of that is quite inconvenient.”

  Evee swiped a hand over her mouth. “Just what the hell do you think you can do that we haven’t done? Are you standing here telling me that you have some special spell or potion that can make everything right again? That you can bring back every missing Original and return things to normal?”

  Trey shrugged. “I don’t know about back to normal. You do have some Nosferatu who’ve died. That I can’t undo.” He turned slightly to face Lucien. “Death can have an odd effect on people. Some can move on as if nothing’s changed in their lives. Others exist knowing their lives will never be the same.”

  Lucien felt fury raging in his head, thundering in his temples. He didn’t know Trey Cottle from any other stranger who walked the street. But instinct told him that Cottle was a greasy weasel that they weren’t to trust.

  “We don’t need you here,” Lucien said. “We don’t want you here. I don’t know how word is getting about. I don’t know who your sources are or who’s been feeding you this ridiculous information. And even if you did have
an info source, I’m certain you’re not going to spill the beans on his or her identity.”

  “Au contraire,” Cottle said. “I’d be happy to give you that information.”

  Evee’s and Gavril’s heads jerked back in surprise.

  “Then who’s contacted you and given you all this information about the Triad, about the Originals?” Lucien asked.

  A long moment of silence passed between them.

  “Just as I suspected,” Evee said with a smirk. “You’re not going to tell us shit. You’re nothing but a lump of fat, sweaty clay that needs to be removed from here pronto.”

  Trey tapped a finger against his chin. “Now, owing to your inhospitableness, and your determination to go through this fiasco alone, I won’t give you the whole picture. Just another piece of the puzzle. Let you figure it out for yourself. The source you are so anxious to know about is someone you know. Someone close to you.” Cottle let out a nasally snort, his eyes darkening. “Chew on that for a while and see where it gets you.”

  Lucien fought hard to keep his hands balled into fists at his side. What he wanted to do was pummel Sweat Head and give Hook Nose a nose job.

  With an odd bow, Cottle signaled for Black to follow him, and they quickly disappeared into the shadows from which they had come.

  “What was that all about?” Gilly asked. “How did they know to come here? How do they know we’re in trouble?”

  “I’m not sure,” Evee said. “Shandor met up with me earlier, here near the docks, whining about the same thing. Wanting to help, wanting to help. Same song and dance Cottle just gave us. Shandor wouldn’t tell me shit about who’d told him.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” Lucien said, his mind already whirring with ideas. He turned to Gavril. “Once Gilly has her Chenilles back in the cemetery, meet us at Evee’s café. We’ve got a lot to talk about. We’ve got to figure out who the snitch is. Chances are they snitched because they had something to do with the chaos we’re experiencing.”

  “And the missing Originals?” Evee asked. “They have to be our priority.”

  “Oh, they are,” Lucien assured her. “And we will find a way to get the missing Originals back here as quickly as possible. Come hell or high water, we’ll make it happen.”

  Chapter 24

  Somehow Gilly had managed to take the Chenilles to be fed and returned to the cemetery without any Cartesian incidents, which made Lucien and Gavril a bit nervous.

  “We can always be grateful for small things,” Evee said.

  “Yes,” Lucien said. “But things have been ramping up too quickly for the Cartesians to let that opportunity slide by.”

  They had all gathered at Evee’s café—Evee, Lucien, Gavril, Gilly, Nikoli and Viv. As they relaxed in chairs, Evee had told everyone to make themselves at home with food and drink.

  Nikoli and Gavril slammed down two ham sandwiches each, along with a Coke, while Viv and Gilly ate from a fresh fruit bowl they’d found in Evee’s industrial-size fridge.

  When everyone sat in the dining area again, Lucien said, “I have an idea. I don’t know if it’s going to work, but it might be worth a try.”

  “What is it?” Evee asked, edging her chair closer to his so as not to miss a word.

  Lucien frowned as if considering his words carefully before he allowed them out of his mouth. “Instead of us running all over the city, we’ve got to remember that some of the Originals have moved outside the city proper to places like Chalmette. The last thing we want is for them to head off to other states.”

  “We already know that,” Gilly said. “So what’s your idea?”

  “Are we okay, being here in your café?” Lucien asked Evee. “Are you expecting anyone to come in early to open and get things ready for your morning business?”

  “Not for a few hours,” she said. “I called Margaret, my manager, and told her I’d be running late today. She normally doesn’t get here until six a.m.”

  Lucien checked his watch. “That gives us three hours. We’ll keep the lights off in here just in case someone walks by and assumes you’ve opened early.”

  “And we’re doing this why?” Evee asked.

  “Here is safe from the Cartesians and the Originals. Here is where we might have a chance for you to channel Chank, the Nosferatu you lost when Pierre had to take him out.”

  “I see where you’re going with this,” Evee said. “Since I knew Chank well, and we know for sure he’s dead, I can get a clearer picture of him in my mind’s eye, address him directly and hopefully get some answers about the missing Originals. Maybe he can see something from the other side that we can’t here.”

  “Exactly,” Lucien said.

  “Many of my Nosferatu are missing, but I might have a better chance of reaching Chank because I know he’s dead and I knew him like a mother knows a child. I just might be able to connect.”

  “Great,” Gilly said. “What do we have to do?”

  Evee started pulling chairs and tables to the corners of the room. When the others caught on to what she was doing, they quickly lent a hand.

  When the center of the dining area was vacant, Evee said, “Everybody sit on the floor, please, in a circle.”

  Lucien, Nikoli, Gilly, Gavril, and Viv complied without hesitation. Everyone sat cross-legged.

  With everyone seated, Evee said, “Now put your hand on the knee of the person sitting beside you. For example, since Lucien is sitting to my right, I’ll put my right hand on his left knee. Gilly’s sitting on my left, so I’ll put my left hand on her right knee. Like this...” Evee demonstrated what she’d tried to explain.

  Everybody did as they were told. Not one funny quirk from anyone about how weird this seemed, which was usually a relief valve for someone feeling awkward in the moment. Instead, everyone kept their eyes on Evee, their expression absolutely serious.

  Evee should have been the one cracking jokes because she felt nervous as hell. The last time she’d tried to channel hadn’t worked out so well. But now she hoped Chank, whom she knew from cauliflower ear to cauliflower ear, might just be able to come through.

  “Everyone please close your eyes and concentrate,” Evee instructed.

  They all closed their eyes tightly.

  Evee began to rock her body slightly from side to side. “Chank, oh Nosferatu of mine, I call upon you to come to me. Without harm or foul, use my body so that we might learn from you. So that we might see through your eyes, hear with your ears, and find the Originals who’ve left this place. Be our guide, not our distraction, and keep all who’d mean us harm to remain beyond the veil. It is only you I invite to use my body. Heed my words.”

  She continued to call for him, focusing on his face, his body in her mind’s eye. She felt the grip on both of her knees tighten.

  “Tell me, Chank, what you see, what you know from the other side. Certainly you see more than we see here.”

  “...big head.”

  Evee heard the voice, but as always it seemed to be coming from some distance away and belonging to someone else. In this case that someone else sounded no older than seven or eight years old.

  Evee felt herself falling deeper into a trance.

  “Big head...big house,” the childlike voice said. “Not house, but like house. High, almost to the sky.”

  “Are the missing Originals there?” Evee heard Gilly ask.

  “Yeah, but they can’t leave. If they leave, they get dead.”

  Gavril asked, “Where is this big building? Is it close or is it far?”

  “Far away. Yep, far away.”

  “Do you know the name of the building?” Lucien asked.

  “Big building. Big head. Big body. They try to leave. But if they leave they get dead.”

  “We’ve heard that some Originals have left t
he city,” Gavril said. “Are there more who’ve left here?”

  “Yep, left city. Call back. All back or they dead. They don’t stay still in big house, in big building. They fight the big man but him is stronger. Him is their boss. Him won’t let them go. Him wants them to die.”

  Evee felt a cold sensation run down her throat, like cold milk sliding down her gullet. She opened her eyes, knowing the connection was gone.

  “Well?” Evee asked.

  “He showed up through you all right, but I couldn’t understand a goddamn thing he said,” Gavril said.

  “He didn’t give us direct answers. Not like we would have liked them to be. But maybe he’s given us enough to give us clues.”

  “What did he say?” Evee asked.

  “Something about a big head and a big house,” Nikoli said. “From what he said, it sounded like they were trapped in this house because he said a big man was their leader, and he didn’t want them to leave. He wanted them to die.”

  “It was like trying to communicate with a child,” Viv said. “It was hard to understand him. To make sense out of anything he said.” She repeated nearly verbatim all that had come through Evee from Chank.

  Evee dropped her head in her hands. “What the hell? I can’t make any more sense out of that than any of you. A big house and big head... I have no damn clue as to what that means.” She grew so frustrated she pounded a fist on the floor. “Damn it. Even when our spells work, they don’t. Chank didn’t give us any information that we can work with here.”

  “Wait a sec,” Lucien said. “He did give us one clue. He said there was one big man, and that man was their leader and refused to let them go.”

  “So there is one person responsible for all this...” Evee said thoughtfully. “I wonder if he’s human, a sorcerer or netherworld.”

  “I should have asked,” Gilly said. “My bad.”

  “We can always try channeling him again later,” Evee said.

  “Why not now?” Lucien asked.

  “Because it takes a lot of energy for them to come through that veil and speak through me. We have to give them time to build up energy so we can call them back.”

 

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