“Who was that?” I asked, staring at the elevator doors.
“That was Mrs. McGillicutty. She lives on the twenty-seventh floor, all expenses comped. Some sort of service she did to the city back in the day. She’s a regular spitfire, that one.”
“I reckon she is,” I murmured. I’d never met a Hunter that old. Hell, she was the first one I’d ever heard of living old enough to think about retirement, much less really do it. I reckon Grandpappy was almost seventy when he died, but this old bird had at least a decade and a half on that. She must have been hell on wheels fifty years ago.
“Which room is yours?” the guard asked, snapping me back to reality.
“Head for 1430. It’s my friend’s room.”
“I can’t open—” He started to say something stupid about rules, but a good look at my face put a quick end to that. We walked single-file down the hall, me in front with Bertha drawn, the guard, whose nametag labelled him as “Pete,” pulling up the rear with his master key card and a Mag-Lite. Skeeter’s room was about four doors down from Amy’s and mine, and across the hall. I saw from ten feet away that the door to his room was open and recognized the brown smear on the jamb instantly.
“He’s gone,” I said to Pete, holstering Bertha.
“How can you tell?”
“That blood is on the outside of the frame and high enough that it’s right in my line of sight. Skeeter did that on purpose as he was being dragged or carried out of the room. Let’s go see what other clues he left us.” I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The room looked pretty much together until you got to the sitting area, where the coffee table was covered in blood. A small computer chip lay in a pool of drying crimson, with a note in the center of the table. I picked it up. “Going Home” was scrawled on a sheet of hotel notepaper in a shaky hand. I picked up the chip, wiped it on the note, and slid it into my pocket.
“Shouldn’t you leave that for the police?” Pete asked.
“Won’t be any police, Pete. Won’t be any mention of this anywhere. Sorry for the mess, but you should probably sacrifice a few towels to the blood on this table before the maids see it and flip out. Just put the linens on Mr. Jones’ tab.” All our rooms were on Skeeter’s credit card, which was paid for out of some mysterious slush fund from the Vatican, so I knew there was plenty of cash to cover the bill.
“Where are you going? And do I have to go with you?” Pete asked as I headed for the door.
“No, you don’t have to go with me. This is way better if I handle it alone. You stay here, clean up the mess, get the door fixed, and pretend nothing ever happened. I’m going to clean up and change so I can walk through the lobby without causing a general panic, then I’m going on a hunt to get my best friend back. He’s being held by some bad people who want to use him as bait to lure me out, so I’m going to screw with their plans and give them exactly what they think they want.”
Pete nodded and started for the bathroom for towels. Then he stopped and turned toward me. “Good luck. I don’t know what you’re messed up in, but if you’re wearing that much blood and none of it’s yours, I gotta assume you can handle yourself. But still…good luck.”
“Thanks, Pete. Now remember, this never happened.” I turned and went out the door, heading toward my room and pulling my key out with one hand and my phone with the other. My door was still locked, and the tape I’d put over the hinges was intact, so I felt pretty good about the place’s integrity. I opened the door and scanned the room, but everything appeared untouched. Satisfied, I dialed Amy.
“Is he there?” she asked.
“No, are you close to Evangeline?”
“Yeah, she’s right here. We’re in the back of the ER. She’s pretty looped, though.”
“Get me Catherine’s home address, for her main residence, and text it to me. I’m gonna get a little clean and go after Skeeter.”
“You sure he’s got him?”
“He cut the tracker out of Skeeter’s arm, then left us a clue. He wants me to find him, he just doesn’t want us to catch him before he gets where he’s going. The destination is important to him. There’s some kind of ceremonial significance to it.”
“Now who’s been watching too much Criminal Minds?” Amy teased.
“You detective types are rubbing off on me. How’s your head?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s fine. My vision is almost back to normal already, but Joe is making me go to the hospital.”
“Good. It’s not the worst thing in the world to get checked out, and it’ll be good to have somebody there to keep an eye on Evie.”
“You think she’s hurt worse than she’s letting on?” Amy asked.
“Nah, but if word gets out that the local hunter is laid up in the hospital, who knows what kind of critters might decide to pay her a visit. It’d be better if those critters were met by a heavily armed government agent than just a couple of nuns with rosaries.”
“Fair enough. I’ll text you the address.”
“I’ll call you when I’ve got our boy back.”
Chapter 15
Ten minutes later, I was roaring north on I-10 on my borrowed motorcycle, my hair streaming out behind me like a flag. I was clean, in fresh jeans, a Locke & Key t-shirt with a black overshirt hiding Bertha from the rest of the world, wishing I hadn’t left Great-Grandpappy’s sword at home when we left for this “vacation.” Amy had made a couple of calls and gotten me a police escort almost all the way to Catherine’s place, a sprawling old plantation hidden away in the Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge. I left the blue lights behind me when I moved onto federal land and meandered my way down the narrow roads and almost deer trails until I pulled up to Catherine’s house.
There was a Hummer parked out front, along with a Mercedes convertible and a Jag sedan. I assumed the Chevy with blackwall tires belonged to Ponté, so I was pretty sure I was in the right place. The four zombies blocking the door were also a dead giveaway, pun intended.
I pulled the Harley up beside the Hummer and put the kickstand down. I stepped over the bike and started toward the house, drawing Bertha as I walked.
“If those wandering corpses on the porch are important to you, they’d better be making a Bubba-sized path to the door right about now,” I called as my foot hit the first of three steps up onto the wraparound porch. The house had seen better days, or better centuries, but it was still standing after a couple centuries worth of swamp rot and hurricanes, which was more than I could say for anybody else I knew. The glory of the four-columned porch had faded long ago, replaced by a patina of moss and funk covering just about everything. Kudzu and other vines twined along the floor, making footing treacherous. I just stomped my way up to the door anyway.
The zombies parted, revealing an open maw where the front door once stood. I stepped through the entrance into a grand foyer, complete with double spiral staircase leading up to the second floor. Candlelight flickered from my right, so I turned in that direction and stepped into the parlor.
If Skeeter weren’t wearing his favorite Big Bang Theory hoodie, I might have thought I’d traveled back in time. The parlor was a study in antebellum elegance, with hurricane lamps glowing from side tables, antique sofas holding a host of living and undead guests, and Ponté standing at a roaring fireplace, holding court like a Mississippi plantation owner in 1850 or so.
“Welcome, Bubba! I am so glad you could attend the finale of our little performance,” Ponté said, stepping forward as if to shake my hand.
I raised Bertha and leveled her at his nose. “I’m leaving. With Skeeter. Your problems with Catherine are your problems, but you come near one of my people again, there won’t be enough left of you for the gators to care about.”
“I don’t think you’re going anywhere until I decide you’re leaving,” Ponté replied, gesturing at the zombies behind me.
I turned, and there were four zombies blocking the doorway. I squeezed Bertha’s trigger four times in
the span of a single heartbeat, and there were four zombies decomposing on the floor.
“You want to tell me again why I’m not leaving?” I asked.
“Because by now there are a hundred more undead between you and your motorcycle, and you didn’t bring that much ammunition.” I looked through the open door and saw that he was right. The yard, empty when I pulled up to the house, was teeming with zombies now.
“Fine, Detective, why don’t you tell me what you want, then we can all go home.” I holstered Bertha but kept my arms loose, ready to draw at a moment’s notice.
“I just want what’s mine, the respect of this heartless bitch, and my brother back!” He gestured to Catherine, sitting stock-still in an armchair beside him. She was bound to the chair with what I assumed were silver chains, both because she wasn’t moving at all and from the burns I could see on her wrists.
“I don’t know about respect, but she’s not the one that killed your brother—that was me. Just a couple hours ago, as a matter of fact. I put my pistol up against the back of his neck and performed the messiest damn decapitation I’ve ever seen.” Skeeter wasn’t talking, apparently bespelled into silence and paralysis by Ponté, but he could move his hands and was waving them frantically trying to get for me to shut my cakehole and stop poking the bear. I knew what he was trying to say, but I also knew my only hope of getting out of that room was to escalate things way beyond what Ponté could control.
I watched his face get red and saw the fight for control he was waging within himself. “She did that!” He pointed at Catherine again. “If she hadn’t turned him, he never would have gone mad. My family served her for decades; three generations of Pontés have bent a knee to this bitch, and she repays us by turning my brother in a fit of hunger! What kind of master does that?”
“You know what you sound like, Detective?” I asked, trying to keep him grounded in reality as much as possible. If he went full-on voodoo priest on me, there was no way we were both leaving that room alive. “You sound like a whipped little dog that suddenly figured out it had teeth. Is that what you are, Ponté? You nothing but a whiny little dachshund that finally got tired of taking punishment and decided to nip at your master’s heel?”
“You know nothing, you redneck trash!” The more agitated he got, the more the zombies scattered around the room moaned and rocked back and forth. Ponté took a deep breath, brought himself back under control, and said, “I just brought you here to be a witness to my ascension. You get to watch me destroy this bloodsucking bitch and release the city from her dominance once and for all.”
“Then what?” I asked.
Ponté started, like I’d short-circuited something in his head. “What do you mean?”
“I mean what happens then? Do you quit being a cop to take over all her operations, because from what I’ve seen, being a criminal mastermind is a full-time job. And how are you gonna bring every other voodoo priest, witch, vampire, lycanthrope and whatever the hell else lives in New Orleans under your control? Do you have that kind of power, son? ‘Cause there will be a Master, whether it’s Catherine or somebody else. And right now, I’m leaning a lot towards the ‘devil I know’ camp than the ‘devil I don’t’.”
“You mean to help her?”
“I mean to keep you from hurting my best friend. Then I mean to make sure this city is some kind of stable while your Hunter recovers from the injuries your brother inflicted on her. Then I mean to finish my vacation by getting drunk as a goddamn frat boy at a bachelor party and throwing beads off my hotel balcony at women of loose moral standing and spectacular breasts. And I plan on shooting the ever-loving shit out of anyone or anything that gets in my way. Are we completely clear on that?”
“Kill him!” Ponté barked and pointed in my direction. I sighed. I’d really hoped that just laying out the plan for the boy would have incentivized him to give up on his plan of mayhem and destruction, but in my experience, that never works. There were six zombies in the room, scattered around various couches and chairs, and one standing by a swinging door that led further back into the house. All of them started in my direction at the same time, so I sighed again and commenced to doing what I do.
All too often what I do is create maximum chaos in limited space, and this was no different. I drew Bertha and turned the nearest zombie, the one that had already been standing, into a headless corpse with one shot. The body kept walking for a couple feet, but when I reached out and pushed it over, it fell motionless to the buckled hardwood floor. I dropped three more with head shots before they really managed to get off the sofas, spraying brains all over the walls and furniture. I figured it would probably blend in after a few days of tremendous humidity and swamp moss.
That left two zombies, one of which was right on me before I could get Bertha around for a shot, so I put my gun arm across the thing’s throat to keep it from chewing off anything I might want later. I reached around with my left hand, pulled my Buck 110 folder from my pocket, flicked the blade open, and buried it to the hilt in the monster’s skull. The last zombie was either the longest dead or was just real stupid in life, because he was walking into a wall again and again. I left him alone.
I ejected the mostly-spent magazine and reloaded Bertha, then drew my new KABAR kukri in my left hand. I rolled my head, cracking my neck in a couple of places, and looked at Ponté. “I’m done with the appetizers. What’s the main course?”
He pulled out a tiny doll dressed in jeans and a black shirt, with tattoos drawn all over its arms, and long hair and a beard. He then drew a pin out of a cushion on the mantle behind him and jabbed it into the doll’s knee. I dropped to the floor, holding my knee and screaming in pain.
“This is the main course, you redneck trash.” He jabbed the pin into the doll’s left arm, and my kukri clattered to the floor. “I am the most powerful houngan in the bayou, you fool. My loa are more powerful than any! I will not be vanquished by some toothless hillbilly like a simple monster.”
“First, asshole, I’ve got all my teeth, except for the one that got knocked out in a fight when I was in college. And two, you think your loa got power, jackass? I work for the Holy Roman Catholic Church, we invented resurrection.” I picked up my kukri and stood. “And the loa? They serve Bondye, the Supreme Creator. A distant God, who leaves most of the world alone unless things get real jacked up. Sound familiar? Your loa, they’re working for the same dude I’m working for, and they’re all real pissed at you. That’s why you can jab that doll all you want, I won’t feel a thing. Because yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. For God is with me. And I am the baddest son of a bitch in the valley.”
I’d been slowly walking toward Ponté since I got up off the floor, and now I was right in front of him. I sheathed my kukri and took his doll, not a terrible likeness really, and threw it into the fire. Then I holstered Bertha and backhanded the trim detective right across the mouth. He spun almost all the way around and went down to one knee.
I saw his hand move toward his right ankle and said, “If you touch that backup piece on your ankle, I’m gonna have no choice but to kill you before you clear leather. And if you doubt I can do it, just look around. I’m big, and sometimes silly, and I ain’t never been known as the smartest man in any room, but I draw clean and I shoot straight and I don’t have to hit you in the kill zone with Bertha, she just blows off any part of you she hits. So why don’t you stand up and press your back up against that mantelpiece while I take these chains off your boss?”
Ponté did as he was told, and I took the chains off Catherine. “Ma’am, your boy there has been a little unruly, playing with things above his pay grade. I’m gonna take my friend here, and we’re gonna drive back to the city in that big old Hummer. You deal with the good Detective however you see fit, but I would appreciate it if somebody would deliver the motorcycle to my hotel tomorrow. I borrowed it.”
Catherine stood with that unnatural grace that vampires hav
e, no wasted motion in anything. “You don’t want vengeance on Louis for the pain he has caused you and your friend?”
“He ain’t really done much to me but make my vacation a little more exciting. And as for hurting Skeeter…” I looked over at my little buddy. He had a busted lip and a good-sized bandage on his arm, but it was the hurt in his eyes that made me see red. He’d liked Ponté, and the good-looking asshole had used his vulnerability against him. One of the things I loved most about Skeeter was how trusting he was, how ready he always was to see the best in people. Ponté had hurt that part of him, and that was unforgivable.
“As for hurting Skeeter, he kinda deserved to have that tracker carved out of his arm for putting one in me without telling me,” I said.
“It was for your own good!” Skeeter said, whatever spell that had held him silent and motionless obviously broken.
“Yeah, and this is for yours,” I said, then reared back and flattened Ponté’s perfect nose with a big right hand. His head bounced off the wall behind him and he fell to his hands and knees, blood pouring from his shattered sniffer. I leaned down next to him and whispered in his ear. “You hurt my friend, you son of a bitch, and I don’t mean with a knife. If I ever hear of you stepping out of line or you ever leave New Orleans for the rest of your miserable life, I will cut you into little pieces and bury you in a dozen holes all over my backwoods mountain property where won’t nobody ever look for your miserable, worthless ass. Are we clear?” He nodded, flinging drops of bloody snot across the floor.
I stood up. “He’s all yours, but he stays in New Orleans until he dies. I ever hear of him outside the Crescent City, and his ass belongs to me. We clear?”
Catherine smiled a brittle smile. She was obviously not a woman accustomed to taking orders, and she didn’t like it, but she also didn’t want to take me on in her current condition. “Crystal clear, Mr. Brabham. Thank you for your assistance in this matter. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some discipline to mete out.”
Moon over Bourbon Street - a Bubba the Monster Hunter Novella Page 9
