by J. R. Rain
The scent of magnolia blossoms drifted over the stench of drains as we clop-clopped toward the main entrance. So many carriages filled the street, we had to double-park to get out and go inside. Lalie carried a big bridal bouquet of white roses, while I was stuck with a flat ‘porte bouquet’ with lace paper frills. It had a holder made of a filigree silver dagger like a short hatpin that stuck clear through to secure the bouquet with a chain and ring attached to it so it could be hung from a finger. Luckily, I wore white lace gloves; otherwise, the silver would have made me sick.
This only reminded me of the threat of Dominique and his Têtes de Mort still hanging over my head. That war hadn’t ended yet—I’d escaped from them once, but I knew it would be only a matter of time before they attacked me again.
But what the hey. Clocks always seemed to run on their own time down here in New Orleans, so with any luck, midnight would never roll around. Only le bon temps, as Colonel Barth said in his welcome toast.
Chapter Twenty-seven
I’d been to the St. Charles a few times, but only to its theater, which had a separate entrance.
The first time I’d seen the hotel, the colonel called it the ‘wonder of the New World,’ the biggest and fanciest in the United States; it was the size of two city blocks and looked like a cathedral. In spite of always crying poor to me, Colonel Macarty could afford to rent the Grand Ballroom for the occasion, along with a small orchestra and several buffet tables covered with a banquet. He’d arranged the orchestra for the cotillion dancing, which I gotta say was a sight worth seeing, like something on Turner Classic Movies.
“Just standing there? You aren’t dancing, Sam?” the colonel asked, taking a break from his hosting duties. Sitting down was out of the question in my hooped skirts—I’d look like a drunk circus clown in drag.
“Nope,” I said. “My sixth-grade dancing class didn’t cover massed ballroom waltzes and quadrilles. I might manage a slow foxtrot.”
“A what?”
“Never mind.”
“I’m sure there will be a polka or reel you can manage, my dear. If I drink any more of this splendid champagne, I shall insist on making a buffoon of myself with you.”
I smiled and took his arm. We watched the dancers weave and whirl for a while, the men looking like brightly vested roosters, the women like big bell-shaped pale flowers, many with their porte bouquets dangling from their left hands. I still carried mine. Lalie had danced with most of her former beaus, I’d noticed, and her face looked glowing and alive.
“My very last fling as a free maiden,” she’d laughingly said earlier. I’d also noticed Dr. James held his own on the ballroom floor, a good sign for the future of the marriage. Back then, married people went dancing a lot; perhaps their version of swinging.
“He’ll do, don’t you think?” said Colonel Bart, patting my hand. “But I fear I shall someday lose my daughter and grandchildren to the cold mists and fogs of Scotland. Please say you won’t abandon me, too, Sam. I can no longer think what I would do without you.”
“I can’t stay here forever, Colonel,” I said as gently as I could. “You know I have two children waiting for me back in Orange County.”
He sighed heavily, then brightened. “Perhaps I’ll resign my post here and join you for the journey, with your permission, of course. I saw some of your country during the Mexican War. There are worse places to die, I imagine, than surrounded by orange groves—”
I had the totally weird vibe he might be working himself up to propose or something, but luckily someone interrupted him before he could go there.
“I heard you were downstairs seeing your delightful daughter off on her honeymoon in fine style, Barthy,” said a booming voice with a thick southern accent. “I hope you won’t mind my trespassing in order to raise a nuptial toast.” The voice belonged to a tall, gaunt, middle-aged man with a stiff paintbrush beard under his chin, who looked a little like Abe Lincoln’s more handsome cousin.
“Senator!” said the colonel, sounding surprised. “To what do we owe the honor…?” He waved at a waiter holding a tray of fluted champagne glasses.
The senator lowered his voice and said, “I’ve been holed upstairs in Parlor P. with Ches and Howell Cobb and your two Louisiana senators—we were meeting with Breckinridge. It will be secession soon.”
“Senator, may I present Mrs. Samantha Moon of California, a visitor to our fair city. Sam, I have the very great pleasure to introduce to you Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi.”
“Honored to make your acquaintance, ma’am,” Davis said, bowing over my white-gloved hand.
“Maybe I shouldn’t stick my two cents’ worth in here,” I said. “But… this secession thing? You’re making a big mistake. You definitely won’t win the war, and you need to free the slaves.”
Davis didn’t change expression. He looked like one of those men who didn’t smile much, probably because he had bad teeth.
Still, he sounded pleasant, even a little flirty when he said, “Ah, I see I have met another outspoken suffragist… a bit like my own lady wife.”
“You’ll find that California ladies are very direct in their opinions, Senator,” said the colonel with a laugh. “You get to like it. Besides, on this issue, I’m afraid she isn’t far wrong.”
This time Davis did laugh and clapped him on the shoulder. “Ah, I always knew you for an old Whig, Barthy.”
Well, I’d given it my best shot. I’d tried to stop the Civil War. Short of murdering the man on the spot, I didn’t see what else I could do. Granted, I suppose I could’ve implanted a psychic command, but as horrible as the Civil War was, I hesitated, fearing drastic changes to the world I knew. I couldn’t take the chance that I’d set something in motion that might cause me never to exist, or never to meet Danny and have my kids.
The music stopped, and a ripple of excitement ran through the guests standing around us. They all spoke in excited tones; I guess Jefferson Davis was a kind of celebrity to them from seeing his face on campaign posters and in newspapers, and a number of women clustered around him, asking questions about the political situation in Washington.
When it came time for the senator to toast the bride, no one could find her. Lalie had disappeared.
I had a sudden sickening feeling I knew where she was. Excusing myself, I pushed rudely through to where Dr. James stood out in the Palm Court looking ashen.
“Her friends have looked everywhere for her, including the ladies’ lounge,” he said when he saw me. He sounded frantic; any lingering anger or doubt he might have had about the marriage seemed to have disappeared along with his bride. “I was hoping she might be with you, Samantha, or that you know where she is.”
“How well do you know the city?” I asked. He looked surprised by my question. “I need to know where Jules d’Avezac lives—is he a patient of yours?”
He nodded, confused. “Yes, yes—but what—?” He followed after me as I made for the hotel’s main entrance and grasped my arm. People stopped and stared. “Is this… does this have to do with the murders committed by your kind?”
“I don’t know for sure, but my gut feeling is yes.” I shook him off and elbowed my way out the wide front doors and onto the sidewalk. I spotted the colonel’s empty carriage on the other side of St. Charles Street, the horses placidly chewing from their feedbags under a gas lamppost. The driver, Petit-Albert, had wandered off with a group of other black servants and slaves to stand gossiping and smoking and passing a bottle around in the alley.
Dr. James rejoined me, and I said, “If I’m wrong, the worst that will happen is that we’ll be embarrassed when we get back and find Lalie just wandered off into an upstairs room with a couple of her girlfriends.”
“You would not be wrong, Sam, and that is by no means the worst that can happen!” said the colonel’s voice behind us. His face looked as grim as death, and he clutched Lalie’s bouquet and a strand of her pearls. “We found these on the loggia. She’s been abducted. If y
ou have any idea where she might have been taken…”
“Come on, then, hurry!” I said, seizing a break in the wheeled traffic to cross the street. They followed.
“Jules d’Avezac lives in the Pontalba Apartments,” said Dr. James.
“D’Avezac? He’s the man you suspect?”
The doctor shrugged. “Sam knows these people.”
By his use of the term ‘these people,’ and the colonel’s acceptance of it without question, I realized that the two men had probably discussed the draining of blood from the victims’ corpses frankly from the start. So the colonel likely knew my secret now, too…
It didn’t seem to matter to him, though. Colonel Bart waved off Petit-Albert, who must have stood six-foot-four, and leaped up into the driver’s box himself. He picked the whip out of its holder.
“Are you armed, sir?” he asked the doctor.
“No, of course not,” said Dr. James. “At my own wedding party?”
“There’s a Colt 1855 revolver under my seat,” the colonel said. “Make sure it’s loaded, if you please.”
“What about your medical bag?” I asked the doctor as we clambered up the step and into the cab of the carriage.
“That I keep with me always in case of emergency. It’s in the trunk.” The doctor didn’t even have time to close the door behind us before the colonel cracked the whip, and the two horses, whinnying in outrage, broke first into a trot, and then into a full gallop, the alarm bell the colonel carried as chief of police clanged loudly.
The Pontalba Apartments stood on Jackson Square, the former Place d’Armes, catty-corner to the Cabildo and the cathedral. They were the brainstorm of the city’s richest woman, the Baroness Michaela Pontalba, who should have been at the wedding reception, but I hadn’t met her. She’d come back from Paris ten years ago, Lalie had told me, and built what she called an ‘apartment house,’ which she owned but rented out to wealthy locals, as well as artists and writers from out of town.
A row of exclusive shops occupied the ground floor, all closed at this time of night. Little gated, covered passageways with curved staircases at the ends allowed access to the balconied duplex apartments above them. D’Avezac lived in Number 2. No lights glowed in his windows. The doctor swore under his breath.
“Are you sure of this, Samantha?” he asked.
“Of course I’m not sure!” I snapped. “Not a hundred percent, anyway. Something tells me this is the trail we have to follow—we don’t have much time to find her.”
In fact, I feared we had already run out of time. I didn’t want to say it aloud, but I knew we all thought the same thing.
Chapter Twenty-eight
There are plenty of times when being a soulless, bloodsucking, undead demon of the night can come in handy, and I found myself in one of them.
Having night-vision came in handy for leading the two men up the darkened spiral staircase up to Jules d’Avezac’s front door. My superhuman strength helped me open said door with a single splintering shove when we found it locked. The colonel’s eyes bugged out a little at this show of strength from a pretty little gal in crinolines; I had the feeling it wouldn’t be his last surprise of the evening.
At first glance, the apartment appeared empty and plunged in gloom. Then, I caught a faint glow escaping from beneath a closed door at the end of a corridor leading from the front parlor. The doctor rummaged through his medical bag as Colonel Barthelemy drew his five-shot Colt 1855 Root Revolver from his coat pocket and held it steady in front of him. They both followed me soundlessly down the hall.
My only weapon was my bouquet.
I threw the door open and hurried inside to a study, nearly overturning a small serving table with my big skirts. A single oil lamp burned very low on d’Avezac’s massive desk. Except for shelves stuffed with hundreds of leather-bound books, the room appeared to be empty.
“I’ve had just about enough of these damned skirts,” I grunted to myself, and wrestled my crinoline off. When I stepped out of it, my skirt collapsed to the floor like a tent made out of hula-hoops, and suddenly I understood where the term ‘jumping through hoops’ probably came from. I kicked off my petticoats, leaving only my frilly white pantaloons on. I felt like one of the bimbos in my ex Danny’s precious not-so-mysteriously burned down strip club—long story—but what the hell; I needed my freedom of motion.
Naturally, the doctor chose that moment to turn up the wick in the lamp, so all at once both men watched my little strip tease, and both looked away quickly.
“Come on, dudes,” I said. “Knock it off. I’ve still got more clothes on than a dancer at the—uh oh.” I spotted something on the far side of the desk, in the deepest gloom. A long human-sized heap of ashes.
“What is it, Sam?”
“Bring the lamp closer.” Dropping to my haunches, I dug what looked like a jawbone out of the grey ashes, then a bony eye-socket.
The doctor gasped behind me. “Is it…?” Neither man could bring himself to utter Lalie’s name.
“No, it’s not her,” I said, finding a lock of long white hair attached to a shard of skull. “It’s Jules d’Avezac. I was wrong about him.”
It hadn’t been the gentle academic who’d betrayed us and abducted and raped all those young women. That left only one candidate…
I don’t know what alerted me: a remaining vestige of my old psychic powers, maybe, or the creak of a floorboard. Or maybe it had been just the faintest whisper of a cool draft from the ceiling. At that instant, I knew exactly where Lalie was. I just prayed it wasn’t too late.
“Follow me.” I sprang to my feet and raced in the direction of the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Each of the Pontalba apartments stood two stories tall, three if you counted the servants’ quarters under the eaves. There, I found the killer.
…and my traitor.
“De Boré,” I said in a breathy growl.
And no, not really a traitor. I was sure somehow that he’d joined the rebel vampires as Dominique de Pérignon’s spy right from the get-go. Which meant that now Dominique knew all about me…
Even as I hissed the de Boré’s name, Dr. James came up behind me carrying the lamp, so the scene lit up like a flickering puppet-theater silhouetted on a curtain. The lamplight captured the massive, toad-like Victor de Boré in the act of tying Lalie Macarty naked to the posts of a maidservant’s steel-barred bed; earlier he had slit her wrists and drained some of her blood into a pitcher on the floor. But she still squirmed and kicked in his grasp, and he rather evidently had rape on his mind, since his trousers were half off.
A shot rang out; then a second. The colonel had fired at de Boré from only ten feet away, but neither bullet had the slightest effect; the man just looked up and laughed at us. The distraction gave me the chance I needed. I pounced on him in a flash, grabbing his shirt, and hurling him against the wall. I knew it wouldn’t hurt him; I just wanted to get him away from Lalie long enough for the two men to get her out of here. Meanwhile, I figured I’d have my hands full with the mad vampire.
I was right.
He looked surprised at first. Then he shook his head and leered. “Not one but two. Maybe I’ll turn the young one and make her my own. But you, Samantha de Lune, you and your two useless mortal friends will die now.”
He attacked in a ferocious blur, spinning me out the door of the cramped little servant’s garret into the narrow hall. He had more speed than any other vampire I’d ever met, except for his master Dominique, and an instant of panic took me as my head and upper body slammed against the wall. I came out of it in a roll, and landed a hard blow with the palm of my left hand to his jutting warthog chin. I extended my nails out into claws, gouging at his eyes. He fell on top of me, but since his pants remained around his ankles, I decided to ram my knee into his balls. Several times. Hard.
Which was enough to send him into transformation.
I had no desire to let the son of a bitch rip me to shreds—or get away—so
I transformed, too, bursting out of my underclothes and corset. The space had little room, cramped, the hall narrow with a low ceiling, so the two of us fighting in our gigantic half-dragon forms, felt a little like a pair of model ships dueling inside a bottle. We slashed, bit, and buried our fangs and talons in each other, scrabbling and raking with our feet. Every time one of us ducked, we tore large chunks of wood out.
I had a strength advantage, but he outweighed me. I also had a handicap he didn’t. He had surrendered to his inner demon. I, on the other hand, had to fight mine at the same time I fought him…
Somewhere deep down, that made me doubt I could win. I focused on not losing, specifically losing too much blood, which had begun to stream out of the long, deeply scored wounds down my flanks and thighs. I would have to let go. If I did, he would escape and no doubt continue killing and raping innocent young women. No, I had to end him here and now.
De Boré hurled me into the wall hard enough to knock timbers from the ceiling. Doubt swirled in my head. I started to get the feeling like I might be the one who ceased to be. I didn’t understand how de Boré had killed d’Avezac or reduced him to a pile of ashes; I only feared it would be my turn next unless I found a way to stop him.
“You are dying, Samantha. We are dying,” came Elizabeth’s treacherous whisper in my thoughts. It rose to a strident screech. “Let me out! Let me destroy him!”
Fatigue took me. I knew I would lose the battle, and I’d already lost so much blood. Was that the Têtes de Morts’ secret? Would draining all my blood, every drop of it, cause me first to die, then my corpse to wither away and turn to ash? I caught a glimpse of the doctor’s pale face, contorted in horror and anguish, watching our battle from the doorway. My discarded silver porte bouquet with its dagger-like point lay at his feet. With the last of my strength, I wrapped my wings around de Boré’s lower torso, pinioning him to me like a lover.
Even as he plunged his needle-like teeth into my throat, seeking out my jugular vein as I thrashed from side to side, I screamed at Dr. James, “Pick up my bouquet! Stab him in the heart from behind, now!”
