Gather the Fortunes

by Bryan Camp

  She thought about this as she walked in and out of the dappled shadows cast on the sidewalk by the oaks overhead, past the manicured lawns of modest homes that could have belonged in any suburb in America and the more opulent foliage of the gardens and hedges that preceded the larger sprawling buildings twice the size of their neighbors. She didn’t know if it was the peculiarity of Ramses’ collection, or if it had to do with the fact that she hadn’t consumed any Voice in days, or if it was the way Cordelia seemed to be pushing her when Sal had always tended to shelter her, but she was examining herself in ways that she hadn’t in years.

  When Renai had been alive, she’d had a friend who had moved to the Northshore for college, and sometimes when driving across Lake Pontchartrain, Renai had just gone on autopilot—the long, long stretch of the Causeway across the featureless mirror of the lake requiring only a fraction of her attention—until a car changed lanes unexpectedly or she saw a speeder pulled over into one of the crossovers, and she’d fall back into full awareness like she’d been startled out of a daydream. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that the years since her resurrection had passed in a blur, like mile after mile of driving in a straight line with still water below and cloudless sky above and her mind wandering in aimless digressions, quickly and easily forgotten.

  And just like that, she came to the end of the sidewalk. A thin iron fence ran alongside her, half-hidden by overgrown grass and palm fronds and the roots of a giant oak stretching up from the ground and sprouting their own branches like saplings. Across a short stretch of asphalt, the sidewalk resumed, curving back around the way she’d come amid flowerpots and ferns and a two-car driveway littered with fallen leaves. The air across the road glistened, transparent and iridescent at the same time, like a soap bubble had been hung between the lamppost and the DEAD END sign in front of her. This strangely empty place didn’t repulse her like the quivering quality of the wound left behind by Ramses’ escape; instead, it felt slick to both her mind and her vision, her attention sliding away from it whenever she tried to focus on it. So she closed her eyes and walked forward blindly.

  When she crossed the boundary, it stretched across her face and clung—unpleasantly reminiscent of a spider’s web—before it tore and let her through. She opened her eyes to the house she’d been unable to see from the road: an open gate and a long gravel driveway through high, thick hedges leading to a thick tower of a structure, twice as tall as it was wide and painted a deep, rich green. Come out, come out, wherever you are, she thought. A spiraling staircase rose to the first floor, which was raised up an entire story—the space beneath just an empty concrete driveway with a shining, antique convertible parked in it. Cordelia perched on one of the iron gate spikes and raised her tail in greeting when she saw Renai.

  “Is this all some kind of test?” Renai asked.

  “Why, whatever do you mean?” Cordelia said, in a mocking tone that said she knew exactly what Renai meant.

  “You could have warned me about what I was walking into back there, just like you could have told me about the magic hiding this place. Once is an accident. Twice is some bullshit. I’m not really sure who you think you’re playing, but I am not the one. I—”

  “Yes,” the little bird said, cutting Renai off. Cordelia tilted her head all the way to the side. Renai realized her mouth was hanging open and closed it with as much dignity as she could muster. “I’m sorry,” Cordelia continued, “did you expect me to lie about it? Would you rather I kept you in a gilded cage like that pathetic excuse of a psychopomp you’ve been following around? The answer is yes, on top of what the Thrones sent me for, I am testing you.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Because wolves howl in the darkness, Renaissance. Because the ground shifts underfoot. Because the sun grows dark at midday. You can feel it as well as I can. You know that this boy’s disappearance is ill-omened, and that the Gates being abandoned is worse. Simply put, I am testing you because I need your help, and, based on your loss of a freshly deceased soul, I’m not certain that you will measure up to the task. If that’s the case, I’d prefer to find out now, instead of when the Hallows begin.” Before Renai could ask any of the questions that fought for prominence on her tongue, the little bird hopped off the spike and, with a snap of her wings, glided to Renai’s shoulder. Then, whispering in her ear—in that voice that sounded like she was hiding a smile—Cordelia said, “Since we’re being honest, I have to admit that I didn’t expect you to make it this far.”

  Neither did I, Renai thought.

  As she made her way up the spiraling stairs, her footsteps clanging on the metal despite her attempts to move quietly, the wind picked up, driving away some of the day’s warmth. The temperature would drop pretty sharply once the sun went down, enough that she’d stop sweating in her jacket, at least.

  When she reached the small balcony at the top, even though she was only a single story off the ground, in a place as flat as New Orleans, the change in elevation meant a change in perspective. She could see down a stretch of Bayou St. John, able to make out two of the many bridges that crossed its brief span, the cars flashing by. It wasn’t much compared to the lake that it fed into, or the Mississippi that held the whole city in its crescent, but the bayou had been wider once, had stretched many fingers throughout the city instead of the one channel it was allowed now. But it still ran deep enough to kill. Just a few years back, a schoolteacher’s car had been pulled from its quiet waters, her body inside. Renai had known before the news reported it, naturally. She’d heard the woman’s name and the cause of death on the Deadline. Sal, of course, hadn’t let her do the collection.

  She was starting to wonder what else he’d denied her over the years.

  Renai turned her attention to the door she’d climbed to, weathered and paint-stripped with age. A bronze door knocker in the shape of a fist hung in its center, and based on the patina rippling across the metal, it was just as old. The black globe of a security camera tucked away beneath an eave looked impressively modern in contrast to the rest of the place. Renai reached for the door knocker, only to pull back, startled by Cordelia’s clicked tongue.

  “All that prattle about not having the knowledge you require, and here you are, a bull with horns lowered.” Cordelia flapped up off of her shoulder and onto the rain gutter overhead. “Have you no questions about who awaits you inside?”

  Guess that means I’ll be going in alone here, too, Renai thought. She couldn’t help but notice that Cordelia’s new position also took her out of sight of the camera. “How about a name?”

  Cordelia did that giggling-and-chirping thing again. “He calls himself Jack Elderflower, but I’m sure I needn’t tell you that this is not the name he came into this world with. I’m afraid his true name is his own secret, however, not mine.”

  “And he’s another rule-breaker? Like those souls back on Canal Street who refused to cross over?”

  “Ah, no. His continued existence flies in the face of the natural order, this is true, but Jack is no wandering shade. Death holds no sway over him.”

  For a psychopomp, Renai thought, Cordelia sure does have a hard-on for people who defy the Thrones. She managed, somehow, to keep the smirk that threatened to spill across her face from making itself known. A little of her irritation slipped free instead. “So making sense of all these vague hints is my next test? Do I need to figure out who this Jack fool really is to get his help?”

  “I am no sphinx,” Cordelia said, “and Jack is no riddle. He will aid us because his skills are for hire. The challenge you face is whether you will be capable of paying his price. Not everyone deals in favors, after all.”

  Renai’s skin prickled with gooseflesh, thanks to both the ominous tone Cordelia used when she said “price” and her implication that she knew about Renai’s conversation with Seth and his offer of a “favor.” The only person she’d told about her “deal” with the dirty-handed god—wh
ether she’d fulfilled her side of that bargain was a worry for another day—was Sal. Had he, in turn, told Cordelia? Or did she have some other source of information she hadn’t shared? Just what kind of ’pomp was Cordelia? Cop? Spy? Rebel? Whatever her story, Renai knew one thing for sure: the little bird hadn’t given her the whole truth.

  Renai hoped her doubts didn’t show on her face. Like it or not, Cordelia was the only help she had right now. So she pushed her growing suspicions to the side—promising herself that she’d circle back around to them as soon as she could spend the time to really think things through—and smiled up at the little bird like her subtle innuendo had been too subtle. “I hear you,” she said. “Not even talk is cheap.” She squinted up at Cordelia. “What kind of skills are we talking about?”

  “Jack is quite adept at finding things that would prefer to stay hidden.”

  All of a sudden, a different kind of shiver swept through Renai, as a bunch of pieces fell into place in her mind: a man who defied death, who had talents for sale, and who hid his home in a cloak of anonymity. She’d known someone who fit that description once, and though her time with him had gotten all jumbled together in her mind, her few clear memories of Jude Dubuisson were damn good ones. He was a mess of trouble with the devil’s smile and a bag of tricks that never turned up empty. He’d played a part in her resurrection; a demigod back then and—if she remembered right—a full-on god now.

  And like this “Jack Elderflower,” Jude had always had an affinity for lost things.

  A confident smile spread across her face. For the first time in days, she felt the clouds part and let a little sunshine through. She reached up for the door knocker, but the click and harsh buzzing sound of an electric lock disengaging told her that “Jack” already knew they were here. She wondered, as she pushed the door open and slipped inside, whether Jude would recognize her. She’d seen some shit since the last time they’d met. Done some shit, too; the kind that left a mark. Maybe that was the real reason people didn’t notice her anymore.

  The room she entered was as dark and as hot as an attic in the depth of summer, the air so thick it took an effort to breathe. Blinded by the sudden gloom, she could only rely on her ears, which were full of whirring and ticking and a vibration underneath it all so potent she thought for a second that the ghost word had taken hold. As her vision adjusted, she could make out the uniform shelves of server racks, stacked high and tight throughout the room, cables snaking and twisting their way across the floor. Her stomach sank. The Jude she remembered had barely known how to operate a cell phone, much less a setup like this.

  She let out a huff and wiped away the sweat tickling her brow. Whether Cordelia had brought her to Jude or to Jack, it didn’t change anything. The only thing that truly mattered was finding Ramses.

  A line of small lights came to life on the floor, not powerful enough to illuminate anything on their own, but as a collective marking a direction, a path, and then a series of stairs and landings along the outer wall that curved around out of sight. “Sure,” she said, muttering under her breath, “just go alone up the dark stairs with the creepy lights. Like this ain’t the beginning of a damn horror movie.” Despite her desire to get out of the heat, she crossed her arms and cocked her hip. Raising her voice, she said, “You can quit with all this ‘come into my parlor’ spider-and-fly business right now. I know you got better lights than this, and I know you can hear me, too.”

  Lights snapped on, some dying with a flash and a pop, but enough flickered to life that she could make out the room clearly, the servers and the stairs curving around to another door two floors up and the thick braid of cable that fed into the ceiling.

  “That’s more like it,” she said. Allowing herself a hint of a smirk, she made her way up to the door, which unlocked with a buzz as she approached.

  Inside, a blast of much cooler air, and a single-room apartment, sumptuous, decadent, and brimming with technology. Flat-screens hung on each of the four walls, each playing a documentary that depicted a different ecosystem: the dark blues and sweeping glides of an ocean, the rich greens of a swamp’s duckweed and hanging moss, the more muted tones of a forest viewed from high above, the brownish reds of the wind blowing across a dune in the desert.

  The furniture—a single wide bookshelf crammed tight with books, a massive desk crowded with computer monitors, a high-backed chair, a four-poster bed tucked into its own niche and half-hidden by a curtain, an empty leather armchair—was too uniform to not be of a set, and too well-made to have been mass-produced: the wood an elegant eggshell white, deliberately distressed like a pair of designer jeans, the leather brown and thick and luxurious. The carpet was lush and pristine, with one of those vacuuming robots in each corner. The monitors, crowded together in a jigsaw’s jumble, showed a map of New Orleans stretched across all of them as if they were one giant screen.

  From the chair, its back to her and hiding the speaker, a soft, aristocratic voice recited, “‘Will you walk into my parlour?’ said the Spider to the Fly. ‘’Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy; / The way into my parlour is up a winding stair, / And I’ve a many curious things to show when you are there.’”

  Renai kissed her teeth. “I’m supposed to believe you just know that off the top of your head, I guess?”

  A chuckle, warmer and more genuine than she’d expected. “Not at all. I googled it after you mentioned it.” And then the chair swung around and revealed the man who called himself Jack Elderflower.

  And he was definitely not Jude Dubuisson.

  He was a thin, broad-shouldered white man with wispy light brown hair that might have been receding, or he might have just been cursed with that large forehead his whole life. Shadow ran along his square jaw and cleft chin, the kind of stubble that was meant to look carefree and ended up appearing manicured. He wore a T-shirt with a comic book character’s symbol on the chest and faded jeans that—judging by the rest of the room—probably cost as much as Renai’s whole wardrobe. Elderflower smiled when he saw her, a wide stretch of bright teeth that was either so practiced it seemed almost honest or so genuine it felt like he was mugging for a camera. Jack was so normal—so disarmingly, unthreateningly normal—that the last thing Renai noticed about him was the colorless irises of his eyes.

  Since becoming a psychopomp, one of the senses Renai had gained that she’d never been able to fully understand was that when she met the gaze of anyone—whether they were god, spirit, or mortal—she had felt a connection, had sensed some aspect of their existence that she’d never been able to name or even describe, in the same way that the sensation of being watched or the awareness of time passing was more ephemeral than something as concrete as sound or smell.

  Until she looked into Jack’s unusual eyes, she’d had no idea what it was that she’d sensed as a constant in the world around her. It was only in its absence that she was able to put a name to it: whoever or whatever else he claimed to be, the man who called himself Jack Elderflower completely and utterly lacked a soul.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Would you like to have a seat?” Jack asked, his voice turning serious even though he spoke through that hundred-watt smile. He gestured over to the leather armchair. “I’d offer you a drink, but I’m afraid all I have is suited only to my unique palate.”

  The hell is that supposed to mean, she thought, unable to tell by his tone whether he meant it as an insult or was merely referring to his supernatural nature. Still, she raised an eyebrow and tucked her hands into her jacket’s pockets. “I’ll stand, thanks,” she said, “and it’s a little early for me to start drinking. You do you, though.”

  Jack’s face fell, his chagrin as borderline insincere as his mirth. “My apologies for the theatrics,” he said. He had a buttery purr of a voice with hints of old money New Orleans, genteel and confident as an NPR podcast. “I don’t get many visitors these days.”

  Renai didn’t know whether it was his lack of a soul or his “th
eatrics,” as he called them, or just the fact that he wasn’t Jude, but everything Jack said grated on her nerves. She made her disdain known with a sharp grunt of a laugh. “I feel you. Gotta put out the good plates when company comes, right?”

  Jack’s brow crinkled, and then he chuckled. “No, nothing like that,” he said. “I’ve just found that unless I force them to focus, most people look right through me.”

  An unpleasant frisson raced across Renai’s scalp and down her spine. Jack had just described her aura of disinterest pretty much perfectly. She looked at herself in the mirror every morning when she brushed her teeth and did up her face—grumbling the whole time that she’d been so conditioned by patriarchal bullshit that she still wore makeup even though most people didn’t notice her—so she knew that her eyes were the same light brown they’d always been, save for those ill-advised six months as a sixteen-year-old when she’d worn green contacts. If she could see herself with the same clarity that she saw Jack, though, would her irises be as bleached as his? Was she as soulless as he was?

  She took a deep breath and filed that away with all the other shit she’d decided to worry about later.

  “Little hint?” Renai said. “If you want people to see you, it helps to turn on the lights.”

  Jack’s answering chuckle was a little more hearty than her joke deserved. “I’ll remember that. What can I do for you, Miss . . .” He trailed off, giving her an opportunity to fill in her name.

  “Rain,” she said, deciding in the last second that she didn’t want this weird-eyed grinning creep with a national space program’s worth of processing power downstairs to know her real name, even if it would only lead him to a dead girl. “You can leave out that Miss/Missus mess, too. It’s just Rain. Only man in my life you need to concern yourself with is the one I want you to find.”

  To his credit, Jack didn’t even blink, just gave a brief nod and waved for her to come closer, swinging his chair back to face his monitors. “So you’re looking for a person,” he said. “You have a name?”