by C. L. Coffey
“You wanna go get some lunch?” Joshua asked. “Shrimp po’boy?”
My stomach answered before I could – a shrimp po’boy was easily my favorite food. “Let me shower first.”
* * *
“What’s the matter?” Joshua asked.
I blinked, and looked over at him. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit,” he declared. At my startled expression, he pointed to my plate. “Untouched.” That was a little unfair. I had picked a few shrimp out. “You don’t leave food, and you certainly don’t leave a shrimp po’boy uneaten. Which means there’s something on your mind.”
I glanced around. It was lunchtime and the restaurant in Mid-City was packed, but the surrounding tables all seemed focused on their own meals. “I just don’t understand why they won’t help themselves,” I blurted out. “They tell me that they’re sick of being treated the way they are, and they get given an opportunity to do something else, and they don’t.”
“They actually said that?” Joshua asked. “That they don’t like the way they’re being treated?”
“Well, not in so many words,” I scowled. “But they did acknowledge that they’re only seen as mindless and shallow.”
“That doesn’t exactly sound like they want to change things,” Joshua said, slowly. “I think you know that too.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Have you ever considered a different career path?”
“Why would I do that when I’m annoyingly good at this one?” he smirked.
“This whole ‘rules’ thing is still bugging me,” I admitted with a sigh. “I don’t mind following rules, whatever they are, but they seem to change with everyone I speak to. And then I spend so much time thinking about this when really I should be thinking about Asmodeus and Beelzebub and how I need to get them out of this city,” I frowned. “Okay, that’s not going to help: they need permanently removing from this planet. Let’s not forget that Lucifer is running around somewhere in the world.” I slumped back into my seat and watched a mother scold her child for throwing food a couple of tables over. “I just keep having the same things running through my head on repeat and it’s not doing anyone any good. I made a list yesterday, you know, and I’ve crossed nothing off it other than a change in clothing,” I said, pointing to my jeans. I looked up and found Joshua smiling at me. “I’m glad my shortcomings are amusing someone.”
“I’m not amused at your shortcomings, darlin’,” he responded. “I’ve just gained a very valuable insight into your mind and I like it.”
My eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
“Who do we need to speak to, to get your answers?” Joshua asked, instead of answering my question.
“I wish I knew,” I shrugged. “Darell didn’t help. Cupid is turning into Michael 2.0. Hell, I’d go talk to Beelzebub if I thought that he wouldn’t lie.” I sighed. “Angels hide the truth, the Fallen twist it, and humans don’t have a clue.” I reached for the coke and took a long sip, my attention back on the mother and child in the corner. He was busy making a mess while eating, stuffing bread into his mouth. Slowly, he started glowing white.
I sat, momentarily mesmerized, as I usually was, whenever I could see auras. They were so pretty: the room was a rainbow of softly glowing light. I turned back to Joshua to be greeted by his silver aura, lines of hot pink shooting through it. The sight of it had butterflies swarming in my stomach. The longer I stared at it, the more I realized that the pink was turning to into red the closer it was to Joshua.
“I don’t know what’s going through your mind right now, but I think I’d like it,” Joshua muttered, his dark blue eyes fixed on me.
Given that my mind was about to turn into something R-rated, I wasn’t surprised. I ignored my blushing cheeks and brought my attention back to the aura. Hot pink was apparently a sign he liked me. I was hoping that red meant something more.
I sat up sharply, blinking the auras away as I stared at Joshua. “Hot pink,” I blurted out.
Joshua tilted his head. “Next hair color?”
“No, the auras,” I said, excitedly. “Mama Laveau- oh what was her name…? Mrs. Johnston. We saw her about her son, Preston, who had been murdered by Lilah.”
“I remember,” Joshua nodded. “You think she would have answers? She seemed like she was missing a few key pieces upstairs.”
“She seemed to know what I was,” I shrugged.
“Then let’s go,” Joshua said, throwing some bills on the table as he got to his feet.
I frowned. “Don’t you have to be in work?”
“I have a couple of hours,” he replied. “If we go now, you won’t have to wait until tomorrow.”
We both knew I was capable of going by myself, but I appreciated the company. Abandoning my sandwich, I followed Joshua out to his car.
* * *
The trailer was a lot more battered looking since we had last been there. I tilted my head and stared at it. “I don’t think anyone is in there,” I said.
“I don’t think anyone has been in there for a while,” Joshua agreed. “Mrs. Johnston’s records still have her listed as living here,” he added, though doubt lined his tone.
I wasn’t feeling hopeful as we walked up the overgrown drive. The need to speak to Mama Laveau and see if she could shed any light on angels was so great; I could already feel the disappointment weighing me down. If she wasn’t here, and it was growing even more likely that was the case with every step we took, then I was never going to get the answers I needed and the afterlife was going to be a constant uphill battle of trying to work out what was truth and what wasn’t.
Joshua climbed the few steps to the trailer and rapped on the door – the screen long since gone. My fears were confirmed when the door swung open. Even in the dim light within, I could see that the place had been emptied. “Damnit,” I cursed, kicking a stone hard against the broken wooden trellis at the bottom of the trailer.
Joshua took the steps back to me in one leap, reaching out for me. “I’m sorry, darlin’,” he sighed, wrapping his arms around me.
I allowed him to do so, relaxing into his embrace. “I thought she would still be here,” I grumbled.
“She was old,” Joshua muttered, rubbing at my back.
“If the legends are true, she was a couple of centuries old. I was hoping she could have been around a little longer,” I said. The words came out as unsympathetic, but I wasn’t – I was just so disappointed she wasn’t there.
“Centuries?” Joshua repeated, slowly. “Mrs. Johnston?” He stepped back and peered down at me. “Are you sure?”
“Mama Laveau – Marie Laveau?” I prompted.
“That’s not possible,” Joshua disagreed.
“You’re beginning to sound like me,” I muttered. “But apparently it was possible. Michael was aware of her.”
Joshua didn’t say anything. He just frowned, and then pulled me back to him. I glared down the short drive to the road, wondering what we were going to do now. It took a few minutes of allowing Joshua’s hands rubbing my back to distract me, when I realized we weren’t alone. “We’re being watched,” I said.
Joshua’s hand went for his gun, but I stopped him, stepping back so he could see what I could.
A child.
She was probably about eight, black, pudgy, sat on a bike, and glaring at us. “Hi?” I called.
“She don’t live there no more,” she responded.
“Mrs. Johnson?” Joshua asked.
“The witch lady,” the girl said, shaking her head. “You gonnuh follow, or whut?”
I blinked several times and looked at Joshua. Before either of us could respond, the girl was turning her bike around and riding off. “I guess we are,” Joshua muttered, heading back to the car. I hurried after him and we got in, following the girl.
It was a slow drive, and I caught Joshua muttering about how he felt like a curb-crawler as we followed the girl. Eventually, we turned down a dead-end street and she came to stop outside a
pale yellow house, pointing.
Joshua pulled the car into the drive and we got out. The girl was already heading into a neighboring house, the bike abandoned on the front lawn. We made our way to the porch, ready to climb up and knock on the door, but a voice called out. “I’m out back!”
Joshua and I shared another look, and then made our way into the back garden. Despite the ongoing heatwave the city was suffering from, this garden was luscious and green, with all kinds of colored flowers blooming.
It was a long garden with a backdrop of tall trees covered in Spanish moss and tall leafy bushes. Right in the back corner was a small pergola barely noticeable under the multicolored trumpet shaped flowers. Other than roses and irises, I didn’t really know many flowers, but there were dozens of different ones in this garden, all in full bloom. Even the lawn, freshly cut to create stripes, was a rich green.
“You gonna be standin’ there all day?” the voice called again.
It took a moment to find the source of the voice, and when I did, I couldn’t stop my mouth from falling open. The last time I had seen Mama Laveau was only a few months ago. She had changed a lot since then, but in the opposite way to what I had expected. Then, she had been a small, frail looking woman, lost in her blankets. Now, it was like we had gone back in time: she still had the same dark skin, though there seemed to be half as many creases in it. Her eyes were completely different. They had been a pale blue – the woman I assumed had been her granddaughter, had said she had been blind for thirty years – yet now they were brown and staring steadily at me. Mama Laveau no longer looked old and frail… or at least as old and frail. Right now, she was just behind a bush, a fork or spade in the ground, under her boot, and a big wheelbarrow full of weeds behind her, while pulling off her gardening gloves.
She’d said her name was Marie Laveau, and there was already one Marie Laveau in New Orleans – buried in one of the most famous tombs in America, in the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. I don’t think there’s a single person in New Orleans who wouldn’t recognize her name – she’s supposed to be the Voodoo Queen – even Michael alluded to that. Only she wasn’t dead, she was standing in front of us.
I hadn’t believed in magic any more than I believed in angels, not so long ago. Now, I was slowly starting to come to the conclusion that unless someone could definitively prove that something didn’t exist, I was going to believe there was a possibility that it did.
“I don’t know if you remember us?” I started, taking care to stick to the gravel path.
“Of course I be rememberin’ you, Child,” she said, giving me a warm smile. “I be remembering dat aura, even if it be changed.”
“It has?”
She nodded, and led us over to the pergola and the wrought iron table and chairs that were under it. “White been replaced by gold. Pink replaced with red too,” she added winking at me. I glanced back at Joshua who seemed a little puzzled but in no hurry to question what she was saying. “Now, whatchoo be wantin’ to know?” she asked, taking a seat in the shade.
I sat down opposite, Joshua taking one of the other seats. “You know what I am, right?”
“Of course. I always be knowin’ my own.”
I sighed and relaxed back into the chair. “Good, because I…” I quickly replayed her words as she sat smiling at me. “You what?”
“I know whatchoo be when I be one too,” she said, calmly.
“You’re an angel?” I asked, my eyes wide.
Mama Laveau nodded again. “I be a virtue,” she clarified. “Heaven’s provider of miracles.”
“But you look nothing like all of the other angels,” I blurted out. “You look so old.”
“You might want to respect your elders there, darlin’,” Joshua muttered at me. He was eyeing Mama Laveau with suspicion, but it was subtle: I don’t think the old voodoo queen had noticed.
Mama Laveau, on the other hand, chuckled. “I be old.”
“I’m sorry,” I quickly apologized, realizing how rude I sounded. “I just… Every angel I’ve met so far has been so…”
“Youthful? Handsome?” Mama Laveau supplied. “I know.”
“And Michael never mentioned you were an angel,” I added with a frown, wondering why he hadn’t.
Mama Laveau answered my unasked question for me. “He not be knowing.”
“Oh hell,” I muttered, realizing why. I reached for my dagger.
Before I could pull it out, she shook her head. “I not be Fallen.”
I got to my feet, my sword now drawn. “Joshua, please get behind me,” I calmly requested, while keeping my attention on Mama Laveau.
“I not be Fallen,” Mama Laveau repeated, remaining seated as Joshua did as I asked.
“Forgive me, but I have no way of proving that considering you’re probably not in your original vessel and the Fallen take on the aura of the human they’re possessing,” I pointed out.
“True, dat,” Mama Laveau agreed. “But there is a way to see if I be evil or not. You be knowin’ ‘bout platinum?”
“Which would be useful if I had any platinum, and I’m not about to let you hand over something silver looking and trust that it is platinum,” I shrugged.
“Your necklace,” Joshua said from behind me. My free hand reached up to the fleur de lis around my neck and the silver chain it sat on. I’d never considered that it was made from platinum. “Here.” I could feel Joshua’s warm hands on my neck as he undid the necklace. Holding it by the charm, I held it out to Mama Laveau.
She took it and held her arm out, allowing the chain and charm to rest on her forearm. I waited a full minute before accepting that she wasn’t one of the Fallen. I sheathed my sword as Joshua cleared his throat. “I’m not apologizing for protecting you,” I told him.
“Nor should she,” Mama Laveau agreed, offering my necklace back to me.
I quickly put it back on and sat. “So, you’re a virtue?” I asked. “If you’ve not fallen, I assume you left your House?”
“Heaven,” she corrected me. “I be leavin’ Heaven, not a House.”
“Then why are you in a different vessel?” I asked her.
Mama Laveau gave me a knowing smile, and then rose to her feet. Beside me, Joshua did the same, but I remained seated. “This be a long story, an’ long stories be needin’ tea.”
I couldn’t help but pull a face. I was probably the only Brit that didn’t like tea, or at least, it felt like it sometimes. Either Mama Laveau didn’t see my expression, or ignored it, but she left Joshua and me to disappear into her home. I puffed out a breath, only looking up when Joshua reached over and grabbed my hand. “I know you want answers, but you’ll get further with honey than with vinegar,” he told me. “Especially if she is as doolally as she seems.”
Knowing he was right, I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths. I didn’t open them again until I could hear the glassware chinking together as Mama Laveau returned carrying a tray of drinks. Joshua got up and took the tray off her – a jug of sweet tea, two empty glasses, and another glass with what looked like lemonade. Joshua set the tray on the table, handed the lemonade over to me and poured Mama Laveau and himself a glass of sweet tea.
“Now den, you be havin’ questions?” Mama Laveau asked, after taking a sip of tea.
I nodded, wondering where to start. Yes, she looked younger now, but the last time I had seen her, she had fallen asleep mid-way through the conversation. I didn’t want to risk leaving her without the answers I needed. “What are the rules?” I asked, finally.
“Sometimes de right ting int always de right ting,” Mama Laveau answered vaguely.
I shook my head. “Look, if you’re going to talk in riddles, that’s fine, but I’m not going to waste your time or my time.”
“Angel,” Joshua muttered in a low, warning tone.
I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, but Michael said one thing, Cupid does another, and then the Fallen say other things altogether. Joshua is my charge and I need to know what
I have to do to keep him safe.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Truth Hurts
Mama Laveau nodded, staring at a bright green hummingbird which was feeding on one of the plants beside her. “You be askin’, what be makin’ you fall?” I nodded. “There only be one ting that be doin’ dat: you be tinkin’ you be more important den God.”
“That’s it?” I asked, doubtfully. “That’s the only rule?”
“Dat be makin’ you fall,” Mama Laveau agreed. “But don’t be forgettin’ dat God said nothin’ be more important den man.”
I’d heard this before from Father Roberts in the St. Louis Cathedral – how Lucifer had committed the ultimate sin and for that had been cast out of Heaven. I didn’t doubt that, but I did take issue with the fact that Michael had been so adamant that there were other things that were going to make me fall.
“God be havin’ de rules, an’ Michael be havin’ de covenant,” Mama Laveau elaborated. “An’ Michael be havin’ dat covenant so long he be forgettin’ what be his rule, an’ what be His rule,” she finished.
“So not telling people who and what we are?” I asked, doubtfully.
“Michael’s rule,” she responded.
“And not drinking?”
“Michael’s rule.”
I caught the side of my lip with my teeth and then released it. “Not having a relationship with a human?”
“Dat be Michael’s rule too,” she said, firmly. “You and Joshua being together int gonna make you fall”
“I… But… That’s not why I’m asking,” I spluttered. There was no point telling her I didn’t see Joshua like that when it was apparently clear as day in my aura.
Mama Laveau gave me another knowing smile. “But dat be somethin’ you be wantin’ to be knowin’,” she said.
“Well if there’s only one rule, why the hell is Michael telling me these will make me fall? He said he wouldn’t lie to me!” I cried in frustration. The frustration wasn’t even focused on me and Joshua: I was annoyed that Michael had been so adamant that Lilah had fallen and we had spent so long arguing about it that Lucifer was now free in the world, and yes, that was still my fault, but we could have caught him by now.