Fresh herbs, candles that I’d hidden in the back of the cupboard, everything went on the table. The half-drunk bottle of wine came out too. I had a feeling that I was going to need it.
Suki purred in my lap, her claws digging into my thighs. The light from the candles played over the water in the scrying bowl and I placed my hands on the edge of the cold black marble.
“Let’s see what you were playing with, Maia,” I muttered. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, allowing my magic to flow forward through my palms and into the stone underneath my hands.
I opened my eyes half-way, focusing on the candle flame closest to me. Suki’s purr rumbled through my legs and the sound filled my ears. The water shimmered and rippled gently and I looked down as the image began to take shape. With the help of my magic, the image blurred and then sharpened, everything appearing in shades of purple. I saw a woman with long hair moving behind a counter, a large bird watching her. The image shifted, showing a laughing carnival mask, and then faded again to show me the side of a greyhound bus. Maia stepped jumped out of the door, landing on the sidewalk firmly while Lacey scrambled out behind her. The Spanish witch’s book of names was tucked under Maia’s arm, and I felt something twist in my stomach.
The images blurred again as Lacey stared at her phone and pointed at something. The direction of their hotel? Something else? The image of the woman in the shop returned. She was lighting candles, her back turned to me. Next to her, on a large perch was an owl. Its eyes were open and unblinking, holding me tightly in its baleful stare.
“I’ve had enough of this,” I muttered, and as though she had heard me, the woman in the water spun around, her hair flying behind her. The woman raised her hand, and I ducked out of the way as the water in the scrying bowl exploded upwards, sending a column of water and green fire towards the ceiling.
My chair tipped, sending me sprawling to the floor as Suki leapt lightly away. I scrambled to my feet and held my hands out in front of me. I was soaked, and so was everything else. Smoke, tinged faintly green, rose from the marble bowl and I forced myself to relax just a little.
Suki shook the water from her fur and started washing herself. If she wasn’t worried, I shouldn’t be either.
“New Orleans it is,” I said bitterly. I didn’t have any other choice. I had to collect my wayward acolyte and a misguided vampire before either of them got into more trouble than they could handle.
Whatever Lacey was tied up in was bad enough, but from the look of Vivienne Surette, Maia had messed with the wrong witch.
10
Lacey
The room wasn’t quite dark when I woke up, but it was still hot. Maia was curled up on the single bed across from me, her hair was in her face, and she was still wearing her boots.
I wasn’t quite sure what I was feeling, but the moment I stepped off the bus and onto the sidewalk, I knew that I loved this city. It smelled exciting, and unlike anything I’d ever experienced before… which is saying a lot.
I couldn’t wait to see what it looked like at night.
I poked Maia with my toe.
“Maia.” I paused, waiting for her to move, but she didn’t. I poked her again, harder this time. “Maia.” Still nothing.
Another shove, this time with the ball of my bare foot. “Miiiiii-yaaaaa.”
The witch groaned and smashed her face into the bright pillowcase. “Whaaaat,” she replied with a muffled moan. “You don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to sleep in a real bed.”
I prodded her with my foot again, laughing as she slapped ineffectually at my toes. “Come on. I’m starving and the city smells amazing right now.”
“It’s really creepy how well your nose works, you know that, right?” Maia grumped, flopping onto her side.
“I know,” I said mournfully. “You don’t even want to know what New York smells like most of the time. The worst part? Everything you smell, you kind of have to taste too, right?” Maia opened her eyes slowly and made a disgusted face. “Yeah, I’ve tasted a lot of stuff I never want to think about ever again.”
“You’re gross,” she said, pushing herself up to a sitting position. “I feel like a bag of shit that has only slept for three hours in the last two days.”
I bounced out of my bed and flipped the coverlet up over the pillow. “Drama Llama, get up! I’m hungry, you’re probably hungry…”
“We don’t eat the same things, remember?” Maia snapped.
“I know! You can have a burger and I’ll see if I can find something tall, dark and lonely. Easy pie.” I was already breaking Bishop’s rules by leaving New York, I may as well get used to flying by the seat of my pants. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to go back at all. Maybe I’d just stay here and turn into one of those perfumed vampires living in an old manor house covered in wisteria. I could pull that off.
“Do you know where you want to start looking?” Maia asked as she stretched. She looked like she had something on her mind, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
“No,” I answered carefully. “But the Quarter seems like as good a place as any to start.” A thought streaked through my mind, and I scolded myself for not thinking of it sooner. “Maybe we’ll find a club like Spiral! Wouldn’t that be the greatest?”
“Greatest? Yeah, sure,” Maia replied. Not looking as though she agreed with me at all.
“Well, Miss Grumpy Guts, where would you suggest we start looking?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips.
Maia brightened slightly and flipped her red hair over her shoulder. “I know just the place.”
Ow! Maia, what is this place? This doesn’t look anything like a club,” I complained loudly as Maia’s shoulder crashed into me, sending me into the rough brick wall of the alleyway.
“Shut. Up,” Maia hissed. “This isn’t a club.”
“Well, I can see that,” I replied snarkily.
Maia checked over my shoulder, making sure that no one had followed us down the dark alleyway. The street was brightly lit, and full of people, but somehow this alley was dark and felt a little colder than the rest of the Quarter. Even the wall behind me was cold, as though the sunshine that had burned into it all day just hadn’t penetrated into the bricks.
I didn’t like it. Not one glittery bit. Speaking of glitter. I put my hands on the window and leaned towards the glass to peer inside. “Maia,” I breathed, “did you see all of this stuff in here? It’s amazing, all of the most perfect little pewter dragons… ooooh oh my godddd did you see that little athame?”
“Atha-what?” Maia grumbled. I turned my head to explain that she should know exactly what an athame was and that she was a horrible excuse for a witch when I saw her place her hands on the painted wooden door of the shop. I held my breath as she cupped her palm over the brass lock. Her hand was enveloped in cold blue fire.
“Are you… are you breaking into this shop?” I squeaked, covering my mouth as Maia glared at me.
“Shut. Up.”
The lock opened with an audible chunk, and Maia jumped back in surprise. She looked at me quickly, a huge grin on her face. “I didn’t think it would work,” she said breathlessly.
“Yeah, well great,” I said sarcastically. “Do you want some balloons? What do we do now, smartwitch?”
Maia looked into the dark shop and then back at me. She shrugged. “We go in, obviously.”
“Go in?”
I didn’t want to go in there.
“Yeah, we go in. This is Vivienne Surette’s shop. I have to talk to her, or leave her a note, or something. I need to talk to her, and this is the only way I can think of to get her attention. She knows we’re here. She saw me in the scrying bowl, I’m sure of it.”
“We? What’s this we business?” I had my own problems to deal with. Whatever Maia was trying to do didn’t involve me… at least, it shouldn’t have.
“Come on, it can’t hurt. Plus, you can look at all the little trinkets she’s got. This shop is stuffed with
everything you love,” Maia said, putting on her best convincing smile. “Pleeeease. Come with me.” She held out her hand towards me but I hesitated. The shop smelled familiar… like herbs and magic, and that something different I could only smell on Maia and Fee. Something all the Daughters carried with them. I wondered what it was.
I looked at Maia’s hand again and slapped it away lightly. “I don’t need you to hold my hand, I’ve been into more of these shops than you have,” I pouted. Maia smiled and took a deep breath before stepping over the threshold and into the darkened shop. I took a quick look over my shoulder at the brightness of the street behind us. Couples and laughing groups of people passed by the alley, but no one looked our way. I straightened my shoulders and followed Maia.
“Close the door,” she whispered harshly. I hurried to do as she asked, wincing as the hinges squealed and a bell-chain tinkled musically against the wood. “Shhh!”
“Sorry,” I whispered. I pushed the door almost closed, leaving it open just a little bit. I’d seen too many movies where the heroine got locked in the place she was exploring because the door wasn’t left ajar. The last thing I needed was door regret.
Maia moved through the shop ahead of me, swearing as she knocked against something in the dark. I could see just fine, and it was so hard to keep quiet as my eyes raked hungrily over everything in the shop.
Every inch of the shelves and counter space was covered in objects that old Lacey would have shoved her bestest friends in the whole world into a puddle to acquire. Crystals and semi-precious stones, pendulums; candles in every color for every kind of spell working, painted stones and creations of twisted wire. And so many shawls and draperies spangled with stars, zodiac signs, crescent moons and medieval suns. A squeal of epic proportions threatened to sneak out of my mouth, but I bit down hard to keep it hidden.
“Ow,” I muttered, resisting the urge to reach out and touch every beautiful thing that I saw. I lingered in front of a display of silver athame, my hand hovering above one that was studded with moonstones that had been intricately carved into the shape of roses. I picked it up and examined closely, it was beautifully made. Nothing like the imported junk that usually stocked oddity store shelves. This wasn’t lead covered in silvertone... I turned it in my hands, admiring the way it glowed in the darkness.
There was another muffled crash as Maia knocked against something else deeper in the shop. “Ow, fuck. Lacey?” I heard another sound, as though a pile of papers had slid to the floor. “What are you doing?”
“What are you doing,” I whispered. I slipped the knife into my jacket pocket. I’d put it back before we left, obviously.
“Come here... you have to see this,” Maia said, her voice barely a whisper.
“See what?” I asked, walking towards the sound of her voice. “Maia, what did you fin— Oh, shit.“
Maia was frozen, standing in front of a huge stuffed bird.
“Ew. Taxidermy makes me so uncomfortable,” I said quietly. “How old do you think it is?”
“I don’t care how old it is,” Maia whispered. “It’s fucking creepy and I don’t want to look at it anymore.”
I nodded emphatically. There was nothing I wanted more at that point in time than to get the hell away from that shop. Cute things be damned, I wanted us to be as far away as possible as fast as possible. Why couldn’t we just come back later… How hard could it be to make an appointment to see her after dark?
“This way.”
Maia’s head snapped around at the sound of the unfamiliar voice. “Did you close the door?” she asked, panic glistening in her eyes.
“What?”
“The door!”
“Oh, no… I left it open just a little so we wouldn’t get locked in,” I replied calmly. It seemed perfectly logical to me. Maia’s eyes widened.
“You left the fucking door open?” she shouted at me, her hands reaching for the lapels of my jacket. But I wasn’t looking at her, I was looking at the dusty bird behind her. At the sound of her raised voice, the thing I’d thought was just some tasteless taxidermy began to move, shifting slightly on its perch before opening lamplike yellow eyes and snapping open its massive wings.
The owl’s beak opened wide and a rasping hiss pierced our ears. It flapped its wings sharply, causing us both to shriek and jump away.
“Get the fuck out! Run!” Maia cried, pushing me back the way we had come.
We rushed through the shop, crashing into displays and knocking over things that should not have been meddled with. A stack of hand-tied brooms fell over as we passed, but I was sure that we hadn’t touched them. The owl stopped shrieking as the brooms clattered to the floor, and I paused.
“Company’s coming,” I murmured.
“What?” Maia pulled on my sleeve.
“Nothing.”
“Come on!” Maia tugged harder, pulling me away from the fallen brooms. She really was the worst witch. It was more than a little unfair, and the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me that someone like Maia had ended up with all of these powers she didn’t want and didn’t know how to use… it was just… just…
Maia pushed me out of the shop and slammed the painted wooden door shut. We leaned against it gasping for breath.
“Let’s never do that again ever,” Maia said.
“Oh, now you think magical breaking and entering is a bad idea?” I whispered harshly.
“What’s so unfair, little one?” A voice asked from the shadows. I turned to see a young man melt out of the darkness.
Laudan. He had to be.
I could smell it on him as sure as I could smell Maia’s magic prickling to life. I knew what he was. Him and all his friends. I reached out and gripped Maia’s wrist, hoping that she understood what I couldn’t say. They couldn’t know what we were. I hadn’t told her that I was supposed to be on house arrest… maybe I should have done that.
They came out of the dark one by one. Young kids, our age. The oldest couldn’t have been more than 21. Old enough to buy booze for the rest, or lure prey out of the clubs that the others couldn’t get into.
“I asked you a question,” the tall Laudan said again. “What’s so unfair?” His face was handsome in a strange way. Pale and gaunt; as though he’d seen a darker side of New Orleans without meaning to.
“What the fuck are you talking about,” Maia said boldly, but the Laudan wasn’t looking at her. He looked at me. I ducked my head; my moonshined eyes would give me away as one of them in an instant, and I didn’t want that to happen. Did Bishop know there were Laudan this young in New Orleans?
“I wasn’t talking to you,” he said, ignoring Maia to come closer to me.
“She doesn’t know what the fuck you’re talking about either,” Maia said through gritted teeth. My hand tightened around her wrist, I could feel her skin growing hotter through her jacket.
The last thing we needed was a blue bonfire in the alley.
Another Laudan sidled up to us, she was thin and haunted looking, they all were. Something wasn’t right. She reached out and hooked her finger around a lock of Maia’s red hair.
“Pretty color,” she said in a dreamy tone. Maia slapped the girl’s fingers away, and the Laudan hissed quietly before backing away.
“Where are you headed,” the leader asked me.
“Nowhere special,” I muttered. “Just looking for some friends.”
“That sounds pretty special to me,” he said. “Can we come with you? Maybe we can help you find them…” his voice was smooth and cold, and there was a lilt to it that might have been enticing if I wasn’t terrified of giving myself away. If I was human, would it have had a different effect on me?
“I like your perfume,” another Laudan said, stepping closer to Maia.
“I’m not wearing perfume you skid, get the fuck away from me,” she snapped, lifting her elbow to stop him from coming any closer. His moonshined eyes glittered and I saw Maia bite her lip. She was finally catching on.
> “We’re hungry, time to go,” I said quickly, pulling Maia behind me and making a beeline for the brightly lit street. Only a few steps away. We just had to get into the light. The alley was too dark; too crowded… no one would help us if we screamed.
I pushed past the skinny Laudan blocking our path, almost there. They moved aside easily, letting us pass. This was too easy, and it was making me nervous.
“We’re hungry too,” the tall one said as we rushed towards the street. His voice was faint, and I barely heard him, but it was enough to make me feel cold all over.
The brightly lit street was bustling with people and Maia and I ran through the middle of the crowd, desperate to get as far away from the alley as possible.
I looked over my shoulder, catching sight of the girl who had tugged at Maia’s hair. Then the leader, all cheekbones and dark hair.
“Where are we going?” Maia asked breathlessly.
I wasn’t sure, but I knew that we needed to disappear. And fast.
“There.” I pointed at a brightly lit building and dragged Maia towards it.
“Seriously?” Maia said, putting on some speed and running ahead of me. The movie theatre was small, but it looked like the perfect place to hide.
We rushed past the ticket window, ignoring the outraged cry of the clerk who sat in the glass booth. There were two screens in the theatre, the first film had just finished, and a steady stream of people flowed out into the lobby. We ducked through them, quickly, not stopping to look behind to see if we’d been followed. I knew we had been. I could smell them nearby.
Maia yanked open the second door and disappeared inside with me following close on her heels. She pulled me into one of the rows and we huddled there, waiting breathlessly for… something to happen.
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