by Sharon Joss
“Ain’t that sweet.” Abe grinned. “Yup, they’re yours alright. Now that they’ve been returned to their rightful owner, they’ll come to your hand whenever you need them, just like the tarot cards.”
I flexed my left hand and the shears appeared, just as real and solid as they’d been a moment ago. When I let go, they disappeared again. So cool.
Not that I planned to use them--lifelines were fragile things. I’d killed a man by snapping one between my fingers. “Um, what tarot cards?”
“She has a deck,” Abe said. “Very old, made from hippo ivory. If you press them to your hands, they’ll speak to you, just like they spoke to her.”
I remembered the tarot deck of bone tiles he spoke of, currently wrapped in an old orange scarf and stored in a cardboard box at the back of my closet. “Good to know.”
I flexed my hand again, and the runes flared. The ancient snips appeared in my hand again, as solid and real as anything. They were well-balanced and just the right heft. They felt good in my hand. I felt stronger, just holding them; as if I were suddenly more powerful. Maybe that’s not the word—more confident. And the satisfaction I felt seemed to echo with Morta’s approval as well. Something taken had been returned to its rightful owner and all was good again.
I had a hunch they’d put an end to my nightmare visits from Luçien in no time.
CHAPTER 13
The house was eerily silent when I got home that night. I went up to bed and was out almost before my head hit the pillow.
Naked, he rubbed himself against me and again I couldn’t stop him. The most I could do was roll from side to side, but somehow, he managed to tighten whatever invisible bonds held me and I was at his mercy. I tried to flex my hand, willing my scissors to appear, but I couldn’t even manage that.
My eyes were sealed shut, as was my mouth. He teased at my nipples with his tongue and teeth, sucking and biting until I could feel that this was no dream –he was right there in the bed with me.
His mouth moved lower, and when I tried to clench my thighs together, he adjusted the bindings so that I was more fully open to him.
He pressed his mouth against me, and my body again betrayed me. Tears trickled down my cheek. This was wrong. I hated this feeling of helplessness, but I could not ignore his relentless licking and teasing and probing. The irresistible tension began to build.
Stop it, please stop! I tried to scream, but only sounds I could make were moans. My mouth felt as if it had been sewn shut. How could this be happening?
‘Yes, yes, that’s it,’ he thrust his fingers inside me. I tried to think of something else; anything to distract me from what he was doing. When I tried to concentrate on my breathing, like Master Foo taught me, he put his mouth on me again and—oh.
‘Nooo!’ I sobbed mutely as the climax shuddered through me.
He stopped, finally, and wiped his wet fingers across my face. Suddenly I could see again, although I was still tightly bound to the bed. ‘I don’t understand why you all fight me. You know you want it.’
‘Touch me again, fucker and I’ll kill you. I swear it.’
He merely looked amused. ‘Next time, you’ll be begging me for it. In the end, none of you ever resist for long. By the full moon, you’ll be pregnant, and my sons will carry on as I have.’ And then he was gone.
When I woke up, the bed and my skin was covered with torn spider webs.
I screamed for a very long time.
CHAPTER 14
It was still dark when the FBI’s paranormal agent Ted Roper showed up. But by that time, most of the spider webs had dissolved. I hadn’t wanted to call Roper, and it didn’t help that he’d been the one who initially tagged me for Wiley Willy’s murder--there was no one else. He had a lot of experience with the paranormal.
To his credit, he went right to work and was able to gather up a few samples of the remaining threads for analysis, all the while looking as if he’d just eaten something that didn’t agree with him.
“You say the front door was unlocked, but you’re certain he didn’t come in that way because the stairs creak so loudly.” He nodded to the open bedroom window. “What about the window? Open or closed when you went to bed?” he asked.
I stood in the bedroom doorway, hanging onto Henri’s arm like a life preserver, watching as Roper combed through my bedding with forceps, searching for strands of silk. I was still too freaked out to go inside. “Open, but he couldn’t have gotten in that way. The sash is warped. It won’t open more than a couple of inches.”
Roper directed the bright beam of a flashlight onto the window sill for a better look. With the click of a button, it changed colors and he leaned in for a closer look. Then he asked Henri to come hold the light while he took photos.
From the relative safety of the doorway, I asked, “What do you see?”
He snapped a few pictures before answering. “You’re not much of a housekeeper, that’s for sure. This sill hasn’t been dusted in a while.”
“Hey, it was freshly painted two weeks ago,” Henri protested. “I’ve been so busy painting, I haven’t had a chance to do much housework.”
“Interesting.” Roper took the flashlight from Henri and switched the beam again, then handed it back to Henri to hold. He took a few more pictures. “Come over here, Mattie,” he said.
I steeled myself and crossed to the window to take a look, certain he’d found something.
Roper pulled a pen out of his pocket and pointed to a few scratches in the dusty sill. “What do you see?”
My hopes fell. “There’s no fingerprints. You don’t believe me.”
He gave me a hard look and held out the flashlight to me. “Oh I believe you. I believe you so much, I want you to march right into the bathroom and look for any signs of a bite mark. Chances are it will be someplace he touched you. Someplace intimate, I think. Look carefully.”
I stifled a scream. Lou had told me the coroner had found a bite mark on the inside of Wiley Willy’s thigh, but I wasn’t supposed to know about that. A feeling of utter revulsion surged through me.
I snatched the flashlight and ran to the bathroom to look. Sobbing hysterically, I flashed the black light across every square inch of my skin, obsessively looking for the slightest blemish.
A soft knock finally brought me out of it. “Come on out, Mattie.” It was Roper. The hard edge in his voice had softened a bit. “If you haven’t found it, it’s not there.”
I slipped my robe back on, belted it tightly, and blew my nose. I got a look at myself in the mirror, and nearly lost it again. My eyes were so puffy, I could hardly see; my face, a blotched and puffy mess. I looked like a victim.
That was something I never wanted to be again.
I took a couple of deep, cleansing breaths like Master Foo had taught me, inviting peace and serenity into my lungs as I exhaled all the fear and shame.
Nope, still felt terrible.
I opened the door and handed Roper back his flashlight. “You know what it is.”
He shook his head. “That’s the thing. We don’t know, exactly.” I followed him back to the bedroom, where he began packing up his equipment.
“You know something, though. You asked about a bite mark.” I wanted to shake him.
He closed up his toolkit and gave Henri and me a speculative look. “Tell you what. You tell me what I want to know and I’ll tell you what I can about the Wiley Willy case.”
I gave him a wary look. “What do you think I can tell you?”
“Before he left, Agent Porter showed me your test results. You’re a null. No paranormal capabilities whatsoever, yet ever since I took this assignment, every time something hinky happens in this town, you’re right in the middle of it. So I want to know about this Hand of Fate business and why a Picston meter maid is the guest of honor at the biggest paranormal gathering in the northeast.”
I shrugged, glad I didn’t need to lie to him. “It’s no secret. Madame Coumlie was my great-grandmother. When she d
ied, I inherited the title. Tell me why you asked about a bite mark.”
“A venomous bite was found on William Parry’s corpse. The coroner determined that the venom had been delivered before death, and that it contained a previously unknown neurotoxin—so powerful that it liquefied all the internal organs.”
He raised his eyes to mine. “Those tracks on your window sill look similar to those we found on the floor of the room where we found William Parry’s corpse. The crypto vet over at the zoo was of the opinion that they could have been made by a large spider; perhaps a member of the tarantula species. I’ll have to compare the photos to be sure. The webbing here in your room leads me to suspect that if we’d gotten there earlier, we might have seen something ah, rather unusual.”
“You’re saying a spider did this?” I shuddered at the thought. “Look, I know the guy. His name is Luçien Bold. His aunt runs the dress shop.”
He acted like he hadn’t heard a word I said. “You haven’t answered my question. What does the Hand of Fate have to do with the Spirit Festival?”
I sighed. He wasn’t going to listen to me about Luçien until I told him. “You ever heard of the Moirai? The original three Fates?”
He rolled his eyes. “Well, yeah. The three Oracles. One could predict a birth, one could say how long a man would live, and one determined when you would die.”
“Their names were Clothos, Lachesis, and Atropos, or Morta, if you prefer. Legends say Morta commanded the realm of the dead. If you believe the myth, I’m a direct descendent of Morta. So, Morta, the dead, spirits, Spirit Festival—get it? It sounds to me like you have a theory about what killed Wiley Willey. What is it?”
He snorted. “That’s it? You’re the long lost kin of some Roman deity and they’ve got you named as the queen of some new age spirit pride parade?”
I was trying very hard to be polite, but his attitude sucked. “You are waay out of line here, Roper, and pitifully ill-informed. Whether you believe the newspapers of the time or not, my great-grandmother saved the town of Shore Haven. Twice. Once from a serial predator, who some believed was a demon. No one knows for sure, but the fact is that the Hand of Fate stopped him. And once she stopped him, she sealed up that portal beneath Sentinel Hill that no one is supposed to know about but the FBI, and banished all the loose djemons who were plaguing the town. And that is when people in this town started celebrating her as the hero she was. I didn’t know I was related to Celeste Coumlie until recently, and I didn’t ask for the title when she died. Some people in this town cannot understand who or what she was, but for others, the Hand of Fate is someone who will protect and serve those who are afraid to approach traditional law enforcement. So yes, sometimes they’ll talk to me where they might not talk to a hard-ass paranormal investigator from the FBI.”
That little speech had given me back my confidence, and reminded me of who I was. Not Miss Fate or some homecoming princess, but Morta’s Hand. It felt good to remember that. “Now tell me what you think happened here.”
“We had a lot of weres and shifters in New Orleans. Wolves, coyotes, dogs, cats—even bears, if you can believe it. I think this thing can change shape. If I were you, I’d start keeping your doors and windows locked at night.”
“A were-spider?” The idea didn’t feel right to me. “Luçien Bold came to me in my dreams as a human, not some disgusting spider. Anyway, it’s not even a full moon.”
“I didn’t say it was a were, but I do think it is some sort of shifter. I’ll send these samples to the lab and then we’ll both know I was right. Meanwhile, I’ll have a chat with your friend Mr. Bold, if that’s his real name and ask him about his alibi tonight and when William Parry was killed. I’ll let you know if anything pans out.”
“Aren’t you going to arrest him?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “There could be other victims. The woman who runs the dress shop--.” I glared at him. “You don’t believe me.”
Roper made an exasperated sound. “What do you expect? You call me in the middle of the night to report a man you met once came here and molested you and threatened to rape you. I come all the way out here from Rochester, only to find that the front door wasn’t locked and nothing was taken. And only then you tell me that it was a dream. You’ve got no marks or anything to indicate that you were bitten, and I can’t find a shred of evidence that indicates anyone was here. I’ve got nothing to go on except scratches on a dusty window sill and a few strands of possibly ectoplasmic material dissolving in the blankets. That’s not enough to make an arrest.”
I choked down the lump in my throat. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t just--.” He was right, I was on the verge of hysteria. “I’ve got to sleep sometime.”
He smirked at Henri. “If you’re that scared, don’t sleep alone.”
Furious, I forced myself to keep my voice calm. “All right. At least take me with you when you go to speak to him.”
“Absolutely not.” He shouldered his kit and headed for the door.
“Wait. I, I could talk to Felicity for you. If he’s molesting her, she might feel uncomfortable talking to a man.“
“No civilians. Besides, don’t you have a job or something to get to? He tapped his watch. It’s nearly 7am.”
He was right, but not for the reason he thought. “No, Mr. Smartypants. I’ve got the day off.”
“Calling in sick after a bad dream? Tsk-tsk.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Then what? Is today free parking day or something? Why aren’t you going into work? Something better to do?”
“For your information, I’ll be riding in the back of a shiny new Cadillac Convertible, waving to thousands of cheering fans at the Spirit Parade. Too bad you’re going to miss it.”
“Yeah, I’ll be thinking of you when I execute the search warrant on your dream guy,” he smirked, and was gone before I could think of a retort. If I hadn’t been so scared of Luçien, I would never have called him. It wasn’t worth the aggravation.
Guys like that just…doh!
CHAPTER 15
The parade line-up spot was at the parking lot behind the Skate-Mor, at the corner of Third and St. Joseph, normally a five-minute walk, but not today. Both sides of Third Street were already lined with people who had arrived early to get a good seat. I’d guess nearly half the people I saw were dressed in costumes—everything from archangels to druids, pagan priestesses to witches, yodas to yogis. A little girl dressed as a rainbow unicorn caught my eye—so cute. More than a few had no lifelines at all. Everybody looked like they were having fun.
It was like Halloween in the daytime.
Sometime during the previous night, more rainbow banners, decorated with silver glitter, had been strung between the lampposts. Several of the restaurants on Third Street had set up takeaway food carts along the sidewalk. The smell of gyros and deep-friend onion blossoms had my stomach growling.
I didn’t realize that so many of the businesses would be closed for the parade. Even Dave’s Killer Burgers was closed, and I couldn’t remember the last time Mel closed for anything other than an ice storm. Good for him.
I rounded the corner of the Skate-Mor and yelped at the sight of the dozen or so immaculately restored classic cars lined up for the parade. Oh man, this was great! Even better than I’d imagined. I caught sight of Mayor Brunson climbing into the back of a classic maroon and black 1938 Ford Cabriolet and made a beeline for him, at the same time wondering what model I’d been assigned to. Growing up with a brother who had a passion for maintaining and restoring cars and motorcycles gave me a real appreciation for them as well, but I needed to give Brunson Enrique and Neldene’s warning as soon as possible. If someone was hunting Dhampir’s he could be next. I’d tried calling him earlier on his private line, but he hadn’t returned my call and this wasn’t the sort of information to leave in a voicemail message.
Before I could reach him, I felt a tap on my arm and a familiar voice. “There you are! Come on, Mattie. He
re’s your sash. I’ll take you to your ride.”
Lacey Lippman stood before me holding a clipboard, a heavy-looking plastic garbage bag, and an armful of rainbow-colored sashes. With her bleached-blonde hair, false eyelashes, and spray-on tan, she looked more like a television gameshow hostess than Picston’s Public Information Officer. Until last year, she was a parking control officer, just like me. She’s one of those super-ambitious types who pretends to be your friend until you’re no longer of any use to her. Then after she’s promoted out of the department and stolen your then-boyfriend, she acts like she’s the queen of look-at-me and goes out of her way to be nice as pie when you both know she’s faking it.
I can’t stand her. And it wasn’t because she stole my now ex-boyfriend, at least not anymore. No, what added insult to injury was the fact that while I was again dressed in my city uniform and sensible shoes, she was wearing a hot-pink miniskirt and four-inch heels that made her legs look ridiculously long—and every guy that walked by gave her an appreciative look. I felt like a toad standing next to her.
“What are you doing here?”
She cocked her head and gave me a phony smile. “I’m on the float committee, silly. I’m here to make sure you get where you’re supposed to go.” She handed me another of the dreaded ‘Miss Fate’ rainbow sashes. “This way,” she said, and strutted toward the lineup of antique cars.
I draped the sash over my shoulder and hurried to catch up. At least I’d be sitting down. No one would see it—they’d be too busy ogling the car. I had my eye on the green Jag at the end of the line.
But when she reached the Jag, she kept walking. “Wait, isn’t this one mine?”
She shook her head. “No, you’re here, on the lead float.” She pointed to the massive, gaudy platform looming behind a pair of girls in band uniforms, complete with silver pom-poms on their white boots, carrying a white banner stretched between them. In big, bold letters, the sign on the front of the float said:
