Out of Body

by Stella Cameron

  Almost afraid to do so, Marley looked at Belle. She was slim, quite tall, and shapely in a gray leotard, tights to her calves, and a glossy skirt the same color that reached her knees. Brushed straight from her face, Belle’s black hair, knotted at the nape of her neck, glistened, just as her dark eyes glistened. An exotic creature captured in a place where she didn’t belong.

  “You’re a dancer,” Marley said.

  “Oh, yes. Thank you for noticing.” She pointed the toes on one of her bare feet and traced on the floor. Lines formed in the dust there, shapes. “The house will be your way, but you will need courage. You have courage. Use it.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Go there.”

  “Where?”

  “You’ll find it if you follow,” Belle said. “I know there is a force for evil that needs the little house to complete his plans. We won’t allow it, you and I.”

  Marley leaned the house against her. “Why me?” she said.

  “Because you’re like me.” The woman smiled and appeared younger and even more beautiful. “You’re a traveler, too.”

  “Can you tell me more about—”

  “The beast has come home. You must stop the killing.”

  Marley woke up. Twisted in her sheets, she flung out her arms and tried to breathe slowly. Parts of the dream replayed, vivid, full color and too real.

  That woman’s last words echoed: “The beast has come home. You must stop the killing.”

  It was a dream, not reality. Once she calmed down it would all fade.

  A rough, wet tongue, Winnie’s, made rapid swipes over Marley’s face. A solid dog on your chest, even a not very large dog, could make it even harder to breath—and it hurt.

  “Off,” Marley panted, rolling to her side and grabbing anxious Winnie against her at the same time. “I’m all right, Win. Relax.”

  It wasn’t all a dream—or nightmare, but an echo of something Marley had already experienced. It brought back the day when that woman she’d never seen before really had given her the red house. What had been different was what she had heard said this time.

  And the house was on her workbench to prove everything.

  Marley kicked her feet and legs free of the sheets and scooted to sit on the edge of the bed. A cotton nightie stuck to her clammy skin.

  She had been on Dumain Street, walking back from delivering a package for Uncle Pascal and wishing her two sisters would call from London. Dawdling along, she heard someone call her name.

  A shop bell had jangled and she’d noticed the tall woman beckoning her toward an alley. Unafraid, Marley had allowed herself to be led.

  Since that puzzling day, Marley had returned to Dumain Street several times to search for the shop. There was no alley, archway or toy shop to be found. And there was certainly no elegant, barefoot woman dressed for ballet practice and calling herself Belle.

  Marley gritted her teeth and got up to open her goody cupboard. Like traveling, intense dreams and nightmares made her hungry.

  In Marley’s sleep just a little earlier, that woman had told her to stop the killing.

  Did it mean she should go back through the tunnel now, and quickly?

  At least she had to get to the workroom and find out if the portal was open.

  Snacking would have to wait. Marley fished out a manageably sized chew for Winnie before slamming the cupboard door. Winnie’s favorite big plastic bone would be a liability when Marley was trying to move quietly. She pushed her feet into flip-flops, grabbed up her robe and pulled it on while she hurried from the flat, scooping up her keys as she went. Winnie gamboled along behind, her snorting made louder by the rawhide between her teeth.

  Marley wasn’t sure of the time, but the sky had lightened past early dawn and she could see minuscule droplets of moisture whirling in the beam from an outside wall lamp. This would be another hot and humid day. The beat of music from a radio, or a band in a loft somewhere, pulsed under her skin.

  Sykes would dance down the steps, but he was more sure-footed than Marley. More than once she had slipped on the painted metal treads when they were damp. She was satisfied with letting the music take an edge off the fear that propelled her.

  When she reached the courtyard, she raised her chin to see what lights showed in the upper-floor flats. Nothing above the shop, where Uncle Pascal lived, and nothing in Willow’s place, or in Sykes’s, to the right of her own. Not that Sykes was known for using lights much.

  None of the lights in Sykes’s most often empty flat had been visible after Gray left and Marley ran to get home. For all she knew, Sykes had gone elsewhere after he had made himself completely invisible to her.

  She hurried on, acknowledging the silent angels as she went. They held a mystery she still hoped would become clear to her. Since she’d been a small child, this courtyard had been her favorite place.

  Inside the shop, Marley quickly turned off the alarm system.

  All of the Millets’ senses were highly developed, but even in the world of paranormal powers, conventional science had its uses.

  Utilizing the ambient glow from highly polished surfaces, she dodged quickly between stock displays on the floor and, clinging to the banister, dashed up the flights of stairs to her workshop.

  She unlocked the door, let herself and Winnie inside, and bolted them in.

  Stacked high all around, her projects obscured any immediate view of the workbench, but looking in that direction, she could see flickering, like green flame, reflected on the ceiling in that direction.

  As always, what she did next was her choice. But she wouldn’t discount Belle’s plea yet, just in case.

  Winnie cried behind her.

  “Quiet,” Marley hissed. “Not another sound or Uncle Pascal could wake up.” Wake up, come to find her and make it very difficult to continue what she’d started.

  She went to stand in front of the bench and stared at the chinoiserie house. Whatever happened, she would not disclose that it had sinister connections.

  No wavering tunnel extended from the roof or one of its walls. No urgent whispers begged her to enter. But the leaping glow, a fiery dance of green tongues, turned the ceiling above into a wild reflection. The lightest touch of her left hand on the peeling roof caught at her skin like warm gum.

  With each step backward, a funnel, blue, turquoise, whirled to life, pulled bigger and bigger as if it were moldable liquid spun from the very tips of Marley’s fingers.

  A bump against her legs caused Marley to glance down. Winnie looked back, her chew still gripped in her teeth. Marley scooped the dog up with her free arm and sat in the old leather chair with her.

  Finally the Ushers came, but not to whisper. They babbled, squabbled, their sounds rising and falling, angry and frightened by turns.

  They were arguing.

  Marley closed her eyes to concentrate and her limbs became heavy. She couldn’t raise her eyelids again.

  “We know we should help her to go, but we don’t want to this time. It’s too dangerous.”

  She understood what the Ushers were talking about. For the first time they were worried about urging her to travel.

  Growing warmer, and even more relaxed, Marley sank back against her chair.

  “She mustn’t go. Stop her,” an Usher said.

  A collective, indrawn gasp shocked Marley. She sat very still and listened. The sibilant sounds were there, but in a muttering, fearful chorus. She heard, “He’s here,” and looked around, expecting to see someone looming over her.

  “It’s dangerous,” one voice, timid but determined said.

  Marley closed her eyes and swallowed hard—and she saw a face, a man of indeterminate years, striking to look at with dark blue eyes and dark hair streaked with gray to his collar.

  “Who are you?” she asked aloud.

  He appeared to study her closely and then he said, in a clear, deep voice, “Yes. Belle chose well. I argued it should be a man, but she laughed at me.” His smile
transformed him and his eyes shone. “Trust your companions to guide and guard you. You do this for the family. There is a lot to do, so be strong.”

  Marley tried to respond, but he had gone again.

  She had felt good in that man’s company. He was familiar, but she wasn’t completely sure why, except that he reminded her of Sykes, at least a little.

  “I’m ready,” she said aloud and firmly.

  This time separation happened so quickly she felt herself tear from her body, and once free, she floated at the entrance to the funnel.

  The irritated mutters softened to encouragement and she felt herself loosen. Into the opening she swam, and every thought faded, but for what she must do. “Stop the killing.” And whatever she did was for the family. She had believed her strange visitor.

  Once more, like the aperture of a camera lens, a space opened into another spectrum.

  Disorienting sound met her, hammered at her ears, her temples, her whole face. She felt the thump of noises colliding with her body and breaking apart into screams.

  Someone cried. A man. The screams were a man’s, too.

  What was this place?

  Rather than the dirty room she had seen before, a sleeping woman lay, naked and facedown, atop a heap of vivid silk pillows. The pillows cast their own startling light against absolute darkness.

  Marley looked around in search of any clue to where she was. There was nothing.

  The male cry of anguish sounded again and Marley threw up her hands as if they could shut out the howl. Instead her wrists scraped a cold, spined thing. Red eyes, the black pupils like those of a giant feline, blinked once, then disappeared. All sound retreated and cold calm descended.

  Terrified, feverish in her haste to get away, Marley reached to wake up the woman. She would take her away from this place, back to safety.

  An abrupt current buoyed Marley and she floated. She couldn’t go without the woman.

  This time the heartbeat she heard was her own, the pounding of blood, her own. She wanted to shout that she couldn’t leave yet, not without the other one.

  “Come! Please wake up and come!”

  Marley’s throat closed with the last word she uttered. Panic forced her to fight against the tide that took her farther away.

  Her thrashing arms and legs met sluggish resistance. When she struggled against the tide, it only grew stronger, carried her away—back through whirling blue-green matter to the waiting portal.

  11

  “This had better be good,” Gray said. He slid to face Nat in a booth at Ambrose’s, a bar and diner across from Café du Monde on Decatur Street.

  “I got you coffee,” Nat said.

  “And I got three hours of sleep last night. Maybe less.”

  Nat had called before six and the summons to Ambrose’s didn’t fall into the friendly invitation category. Nat sounded pissed.

  “Drink,” Nat said. “You aren’t the only one around here who’s sleep deprived.”

  The coffee tasted burned, or old and reheated, but it was strong and that mattered to Gray. The tone of Nat’s voice on the phone had been irritating enough—and interesting enough to get Gray from his home in Faubourg Marigny to the appointed place in half an hour. The city wasn’t awake yet. Pigeons still snoozed on statues in Jackson Square. The pickings from sidewalk diners weren’t worth pooping for yet.

  “Tell me what you’ve got and let me get back to bed,” Gray said. He hung over the table, hands clasped between his knees, head bowed.

  Nat tapped the rim of Gray’s mug with a fork. “Shut up and drink some more coffee.”

  The detective’s plate overflowed with a muffuletta big enough to roof a round shack. Olive salad and cheese spilled from inside and Nat carefully stuffed every scrap back into the sandwich. He picked it up in both hands and took a big bite.

  With a mouthful of bitter coffee not wanting to go down his throat, Gray watched his buddy chew slowly and swallow.

  “Hey, Ambrose,” Gray called to the establishment’s owner, who sat on a stool beside a pocked, wooden bar and took all food orders. “I’ll have what he’s got.” He pointed at Nat’s plate.

  That got him a grunt, but the food would arrive quickly and be good.

  “Bucky Fist’s on his way,” Nat said. “He had a short night, too.”

  Gray took a swallow from Nat’s water glass. “Damn,” he said. “It’s warm.”

  “You hear what I said about Bucky coming?”

  “Yeah. So I’ll bite. Do you and your partner hang out in here every morning, or does Bucky have news?”

  Nat paused with what was left of the muffuletta halfway to his mouth. “Maybe he’s got something interesting to tell us.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Where were you late last night?” Nat asked. He’d laced his own coffee with cream and tipped down half the mug. “Don’t tell me you were interviewing another singer.”

  Evidently the Bucky Fist tack was a diversion. Gray left it alone. “I wasn’t interviewing anyone,” he said. He took Nat’s lead and dumped cream in his coffee. “How come this place makes the best food and the worst coffee?” he said, not expecting a sensible answer.

  He got one. “Ambrose makes money on booze, not coffee. Order a Bloody Mary and you’ll go to heaven.”

  “Why am I here?” Gray said, hoping the screwing around with “niceties” was over.

  “I already said. Where were you late last night?”

  “When did that get to be your business?”

  Nat rescued several fallen olives and put them in his mouth. “When you came into my office with some bullshit story about looking for a woman we already knew was missing. That and other things.”

  He could shut up and wait, let Nat get at this when he was ready or try to hurry things. Hurrying wouldn’t work. Gray got down more coffee.

  “You were at Scully’s,” Nat said. “Down at the Hotel Camille.”

  “If you know, why ask me?”

  “Why do you think? To see if you’d own up to it on your own.”

  Gray hated cat-and-mouse conversations. And he wasn’t thrilled with Nat’s manner. “How do you know where I was last night? I wasn’t followed.”

  Nat’s eyebrows arched and he set down his fork. “You don’t know that.”

  “I sure as hell do,” Gray told him. “I was at Scully’s, but I wasn’t followed there.”

  “Maybe you were followed when you left.”

  “Not then, either,” Gray said. “The streets were empty. You could have heard a gnat swallow. You know I’d know.”

  Begrudgingly, Nat nodded. Gray had been a good cop, a good detective—and more than one said, a loss to NOPD. They used to say he had a sixth sense….

  Screwing up his eyes, Gray swung from the booth and bought thinking time by wandering to the bar to check on his food.

  Ambrose could be sixty or ninety. His white hair curled in a tight skull cap and his face shone dark and deeply lined. Gray had come here for years and Ambrose, sitting on the same stool every time, didn’t seem to change.

  “You kin carry your own plate, then,” Ambrose said, flashing a gold front tooth. “You in such a a’mighty hurry t’eat.”

  The food arrived from the kitchen as Gray got to the bar. “I’ll do that,” he told Ambrose. “Thanks.”

  “Good to see you back on the beat,” Ambrose said. “Don’t be a stranger no more.”

  Gray didn’t set him straight. “Thanks, Ambrose.” Loaded plate in hand, he made his way back to the booth, passing a few early customers and a few really late all-nighters on the way. The late ones had the fixed stares and disconnected hand-eye coordination of the past-drunk, legally comatose brigade.

  He wondered how long Nat would take to get to the point and whether his ex-colleague was waiting for his partner before dropping some bombshell. If he had to guess, Fist either wouldn’t show, or didn’t have much to drop.

  Nat waited until Gray’s mouth was full to say, “That n
utty little redhead was with you at Scully’s, right?”

  Two could play games. Gray kept his face in neutral and chewed. He pointed at his mouth to indicate he couldn’t talk yet and considered his response.

  After a swig from his mug, he said, “I don’t know any nutty redheads.”

  That brought Nat’s battered notebook from the pocket of his shirt. He slid a stubby pencil from the wire spiral and flipped a page over. “Marley Millet,” he said, looking down as if Gray would believe his ex-colleague would forget a name that fast. The kind of name that belonged to the kind of owner it had.

  “Nice woman,” Gray commented.

  “You were at Scully’s with her last night. The two of you talked to Danny Summit, the bartender.”

  The picture got clearer for Gray. “How is Danny doing this morning?” Somehow he hadn’t expected Danny to follow through with his threat to call the cops.

  Nat straightened against the back of the banquette. He indicated to a waitress that he wanted more coffee and Gray sat silent until the woman had come and gone.

  This wasn’t going to work the way Nat wanted, which was for Gray to start saying things Nat might not already know.

  The sound of cutlery on thick china didn’t bother Gray. Nor did Nat’s steady stare.

  “You were there with her and Danny,” Nat said. “Now I want to know what you talked about.”

  Gray smiled. “How do I know you know I was there? With Marley?”

  “You already said you were there. And she’s Marley now, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shit.” Nat threw the notebook on the table. “You could make this easy.”

  “For whom?”

  “Okay.” In a forceful move, Nat leaned hard across the table. “One way or the other you’ll tell me what you’ve found out.”

  “Because you don’t know anything?” Gray said. “If that’s right, you’re off your game. I don’t know exactly how you found out where I was last night—although I can guess—but you’re on a fishing trip. Tell me what you’re trying to find out and I’ll see if I can help.”