“Well, obviously.” says the devil. “You’re deep in the Louisiana Territory.”
Something about the way he uses his words tells me that the phrase Louisiana Territory is significant enough to be capitalized.
“What’s Louisiana have to do with anything?”
The devil starts walking in the direction of the parked car. He pulls a ring of keys from his pocket and starts to spin it on a single, bloody finger.
That’s … odd. Devils, like me, are able to drop and don’t have to deal with my added worries of being snagged by a monster while transiting downstairs. Why in the Hell would a devil need a car? I’ll be honest. I didn’t even know that any of them could drive.
“The Louisiana Territory is owned by a student of Ole Beeze. No one drops in or out of this state without her permission.” he replies. “No one. Not even devils like me.”
The devil’s gained enough distance away from me that his voice starts to fade, so I throw a lost look at the broken van and follow after him.
“How come I’ve never heard of her?” I ask.
“Because her curse kills pretty much anything that drops in these parts.” says the devil, laughing. “It’s probably why Ole Beeze left you here in the first place. If you’re serious about trying to kill him, I suspect he may be trying, however obliquely, to do the same.”
That slimy bastard, I think. When I’d made my last deal with Ole Beeze, just before I tried to rescue Mary, I’d made sure to have him agree to leave me somewhere I’d be safe. A devil can’t lie when establishing a deal. Like uncoerced bargains, it’s a rule that’s been woven into the fabric of creation.
Ole Beeze had apparently tried to skirt that deal. I don’t know what would have happened to Ole Beeze if this student’s curse had actually been able to kill me. I also don’t care, since I wouldn’t have been around to see it.
None of that explains why this other devil, the one wearing Tom, is helping me though. Earlier, he’d claimed to be an admirer of mine. Devils, Ole Beeze included, only helped those who had a habit of leaving chaos in their wake. Given the bloodshed of tonight, and last but not least, the dozens of men that I’d already dragged to Hell, it makes a sick kind of sense that he’d hitch his proverbial trailer to me.
He could turn on me later, just like Ole Beeze had done three years ago. But with my drops gone, I’m short on options for getting to safety.
As I walk behind the devil, another thought comes to mind. The fact that a woman out there can prevent not just one devil, but all of them, from using one of their most valued powers throughout a space as wide as Louisiana. I don’t know how much power it takes to do something like that. Probably a whole damn lot, and maybe even enough to take care of something like Ole Beeze.
I could leave this state. Jump in the car with the devil, or even steal the foul smelling van that the mercenaries had used. Either one of those could get me far enough out of Louisiana to make a drop somewhere else. Somewhere I could begin my search for how to kill Beeze in earnest, without another devil trailing me.
Getting out of Louisiana, however, won’t work for me. There’s no telling how long it would take me to find another option for taking on Ole Beeze. I’d never heard of this student or her curse before, and the devil wearing Tom knew more about her than me. If there was a chance he could bring me to her, then I had to take it now.
“Think you could give me a ride to this former student of Ole Beeze?”
“Hard as this may be to believe, the lifestyle downstairs gets boring pretty fast.” says the devil. “You’re about the same age as this student was just before she got interesting.”
The devil shrugs, then crosses the last few feet from the car. He climbs in, leans over, then pops open the passenger side door.
“Get in.” he says. “I think it’s well past time you meet Graham, The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.”
END
DEVIL DOG’S WAR
CHAPTER ONE
The devil behind the wheel flicks the turn signal and pulls our car over to the side of the road. Gravel pops under the wheels of his tires, while the turn signal tick, tick, ticks with a flashing red light.
I yawn, pulling myself from the half sleep that I’d been in for much of the last hour.
“What’s the deal?” I ask the devil before wincing. Those are dangerous words to say to his kind. Words that he could use, if I stayed careless, as the start of a bargain I most certainly would not enjoy. I gather my wits to myself as best as I’m able, and prepare myself to avoid some perilous word play. Fortunately, he doesn’t call me out on my slip. Instead, he just curls a lip and nods towards the wide green sign on the road, just ahead of the car.
“This is as far as I go.” Says the devil. “Anything past this is Graham’s territory.”
I frown as well, looking at the sign marking the start of a new city’s limits. “Welcome to New Orleans.” it says. “Population 448,496.”
“I thought all of Louisiana was her territory.” I say.
The devil sighs and taps one lone finger on the steering wheel.
“The state’s not quite the same. More of a sphere of influence, than a territory. The power she wields here tends to bleed out into the nearby countryside. There’s also a power to borders, though. Not much, but enough to keep her influence inside.”
The devil taps his finger on the steering wheel once more, the impact loud enough for me to hear, this time. While my one time mentor, another devil by the name of Ole Beeze, felt little need in keeping his nervous energy inside, the devil beside me has been far more reserved. I’m good with body language. You have to be when you deal with things that switch between faces the same way that most humans switch through clothes. If this devil -- wearing the body of a man that I’d once known as Tom -- is fidgeting, even slightly, then he may as well be screaming.
None of that knowledge solves the problem at hand. I came to New Orleans to track down it’s voodoo queen, this Graham in question. I hadn’t even known she’d existed until the previous night, and I don’t know how to find her once I’m inside of the city, even if I could find a ride.
Annoyed, I turn back to the devil wearing Tom.
“I don’t know if you’ve been here that long, but cities are kind of big these days. Not the kind of thing you can walk edge to edge in an afternoon anymore.”
The devil smirks at my words, maybe amused by what he calls “my fire” and what I call righteous indignation and anger. The expression doesn’t last long on his face. Within moments, it’s replaced with a frown, and something worse. A grimace of fear.
That’s something I can relate to, at least. My last few days, the few that I can remember at least, have been less than calm in the grand scheme of things. When I try to look back, it seems like I haven’t slept in days, spending the first of them sprinting across the world in a search for my sister, the next being chased and assaulted by a trio of too good mercenaries, and the last, today, sharing an unairconditioned car with a devil soaked in blood.
That wasn’t normal in my book, which is saying something, because my days can get pretty weird.
My name’s Robin, and I’m a devil-dog. While that label means Marine to some people, devil-dogs are something completely different to those with a little magic in their bones. To them, it means that I’m scum who’s made deal with a devil. The trades, two of them, had been simple for me. The first time I’d done it, I’d given the devil I call Beeze control of my body for a year in exchange for power. My second trade with him cost me three more, all so I could find and save my sister, Mary. That devil turned out to have been the one behind her disappearance in the first place. She died because of his actions, and I was going to make him pay.
None of it fails to distract me from the fact that the devil still hasn’t answered my question, so I stare at the side of his burn and claw scarred face until he sighs, an
d pulls out the keys from the car’s ignition.
“This is as far as any of my kind go.” he says. “Graham doesn’t much like my brothers or me. She makes her displeasure known by making drops fatal for those like me, and inconvenient, at the least, for those who have taken our gifts. Apparently she didn’t like how her own deal shook out. It always pays to read the fine print.”
That’s another thing I can understand. The devil beside me, while polite, has also ripped people to shreds in front of me and enjoyed it the whole time. Treats like that make it hard to grow partial to devils. But even with that marker against him, the devil has still been among the least horrible of his kind that I’ve known.
If this had been earlier in my life, before I’d made my own deals with his kind, I’d have been more off put by that. I’ve seen a few things since those days, though. Done them too, to my nagging shame.
“Sounds like she’s had a few too many run-ins with your kind.” I say, twisting my head this way and that to crack out the knot that’s settled into it.
“Just one that I know of,” says the devil. “but you know Ole Beeze. Once is usually enough.”
The mere mention of that name makes my whole body clench for a heartbeat. While the devil wearing Tom isn’t half bad so far as scum like him goes, Ole Beeze ranks among the worst of the worst. The everyday devil will strip skin from your flesh or burn you alive, which is something that the devil beside me can attest to.
Ole Beeze is worse than that though. Old Beeze will make you trust him, made even me trust him, before stealing everything.
Thinking of him this much makes me want to stomp out of the car, track down a summoning spell or some noise, and choke out whatever life is driving Ole Beeze. I can’t do that though, a little because spells don’t exist, so far as I can tell, and more because Ole Beeze, a fallen angel, can’t be killed. Not by someone like me at least.
This Graham, on the other hand, can block drops from occurring all across Louisiana and makes even a devil like the one beside me grimace in fear. How she does that, if nothing else, is worth learning. Especially if it’ll let me give Ole Beeze the death he deserves.
“Yeah.” I say, as I reach for the door handle so I can get on with finding Graham. “One meet with Beeze is definitely enough.”
The devil wearing Tom reaches out to stop me when I move to step out of the car. He gives me a cheap smartphone and some cash.
“Give me a call if you make it back out of the city alive.” He says.
Standing by the road, I point my thumb towards the city.
“A little more information could help with that.” I say.
The devil wearing Tom smiles at that.
“A little is all I have.” He says. “Haven’t set foot in this city since that Woodrow fellow was in office. Enjoy the frontier, little imp.”
I’m still standing there, thinking over the devil’s words when he rolls up the window and pulls back onto the road. Dust rises up in a cloud not unlike smoke, and I wave it away on instinct before it can sting my throat.
A twinge of unease runs through me as reality sets in. I’ve been left alone in a city owned by someone devils fear. There’s only so many ways that this can shake out, and a whisper in the back of my head tells me that none will be good.
That whisper can go to hell, though. I’ve got someone to meet, secrets to learn, and a devil to kill.
I start walking into the outer edges of New Orleans. The phone rings before I’ve taken three steps into city limits.
CHAPTER TWO
I look down at my new phone, lighting up with an unlisted number.
“Hello?” I ask, continuing to walk down the road toward… somewhere.
A woman’s voice responds without introduction.
“Leave.” A woman says. Her voice is rich, but her tone is bored. “Turn around and leave.”
My steps along the roadside slow. With shoulders tight and my back going rigid, I force myself to scan my surroundings as paranoia grows in me. I squint through the windows of cars traveling by on the road into New Orleans, and even make eye contact with a driver or two. None of them are women, and no one’s face lights up in recognition after seeing me. Wherever she is, this Graham person on the other side of the phone isn’t here.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that she can’t see me, of course. I’ve heard of stranger powers than the ability to see all in a given space or time. I also know next to nothing about this Graham lady, so there’s literally no telling what she can or can’t do. Any one of those things could spell trouble for me.
Despite my relative comfort in road-tripping with devils and my own abilities, I don’t like this weird shit. I like predictability, which even in the arms smuggling business is something that can be obtained. A small part of me wants to take this phone call as a sign, and just hitchhike out of the state.
It wouldn’t be hard. I’m a little tall, more than a little curvy, and very, very blonde. Put them together, and I could probably get picked up by a trucker or road trip aficionado in less than a few minutes.
Getting out of here, though, wouldn’t get me any closer to what I need. What I’ve come to New Orleans to find.
I take a breath and speak into the phone.
“I can’t do that, Ms. Graham. Sorry.” I try to make the last part sound genuine.
“One truth, then a lie.” replies Graham with the confidence of a polygraph operator. “Interesting.”
Oh joy. There’s a good number of people who can read others. Some come by the ability honestly, but the tone of Graham’s reply makes me think this isn’t one of those cases. She’s a devil-dog, after all. I’ve heard of stranger things than the ability to see into the truth of things.
That thought makes me shiver a bit, which doesn’t mesh well with the tension still twisting my back and shoulders. My muscles ache, both from the last few days that I’d had and from the conflicting reactions of my body.
“OK, then.” continues Graham. “You’ve interested me. Just why is it that you can’t leave my city? Answer quickly, now, because I assure you that your time left here is shorter than you think.”
I roll my shoulders to shed some of the tension in my back. Cars continue to drive past me in the twilight, and the smell of upcoming rain, humid, heavy and rich with the musk of the nearby bayou starts to roll over me.
“Every time I try to make a drop near this place, I wind up somewhere other than where I aim.”
“Yes, well, that tends to happen in these parts.”
“So I’ve heard.” I say. “I need that to stop, and I heard that you were the one to talk to about that.”
“Oh, don’t try to flatter me, especially with a half truth. If that. I’m not the only one who can help you drop again. In fact you can do that yourself. All you need to do is find a car and get far away from my city. Texas is nice, though Mississippi should do in a pinch.”
I close my eyes and take in another breath.
“There’s another reason for me being here.” I say. “You’re strong. Strong enough to make devils afraid of you. That’s something, because from what I’ve seen, they’re not afraid of anything.”
“Being without fear isn’t anything special. Neither is fearing me, for those who have met me.”
“The devil I’m looking for isn’t dumb.” I say. “But he’s scared enough of you to never mention you to me. That’s important to me, because I need to know whatever it is that scares him. I’m going to kill him, Ms. Graham. I’m going to kill him, and I want him to fear me before it happens.”
“That’s truth, at least.” says the voice on the phone. “Devils do fear me, and if I guess right, so do you, even though you may not yet know the reasons why. If you’ve come here to kill someone, I have to know. Whose death is worth defying someone like me?”
“You know him.” I say, and I’m
surprised to find my words coming out as a snarl through suddenly gritted teeth. The anger that I’d felt earlier when the devil who drove me here mentioned my old mentor and current enemy is spilling through me now, giving my words fire.
“Beeze.” responds the voice on the other side of the phone. A cold voice, now, no less filled with loathing than my own.
“Beeze.” I say.
“I can meet you in an hour.” Says the voice on the phone. I can hear noises in the background, the sounds of a person rustling through belongings on their way out the door.
“800 Decatur St.” continues the voice. “Grab a coffee, and be sure to save a beignet for me.”
CHAPTER THREE
Cafe du Monde, the place occupying 800 Decatur St, is an open air coffee shop at the corner of Anne St and Decatur. I recognize the place because my sister and I had watched a few movies that featured the shop, and had decided to visit it first thing if we’d ever visited New Orleans.
Navigating the menu of my new smartphone takes up more time than I’d like. I’ve been out of the loop, and both Uber and Lyft had changed their app logos in the three years I’ve been gone.
I figure it out, though, and arrive on site via overpriced ride-share a full half hour before I’m supposed to meet Graham. I’d have been there sooner, but the phone that I’d borrowed from the devil wearing Tom had an internet connection so slow that I’d almost thrown it into a bayou of sheer frustration while waiting.
I tip my driver with a few of the dollars that the devil had given me and step out onto the wide T-shaped street facing the cafe. For the first time since entering the city, I smell bread instead of mold and hints of swamp air. It’s well into nighttime, and it’s full on raining, but that doesn’t keep a few dozen cars and a few hundred pedestrians from clogging the streets. Every fourth or fifth person has one of the plump, puffed, and powdered sugar covered pastries that have made this place famous cradled in their hands, and the smell of the place, growing stronger by the step, makes my stomach growl with the need for comfort and calories.
The Brimstone Series Page 14
