Ghost Train to New Orleans

by Mur Lafferty

  “Thanks. I’m Zoë Norris, I’m writing a book about New Orleans. Can I ask what you’re doing out here?”

  She saw a flash of white teeth as he grinned. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m making coffee.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, smiling back. “I like mine Empress-flavored.”

  He drew the top card from the tarot deck and slapped it down. An African queen stared up at Zoë, and at the bottom the words THE EMPRESS stared up at her.

  “OK, that’s impressive,” she admitted.

  “Wasn’t me,” the man said. “Was the cards. Looks like I gotta do a reading for you.”

  “I’m game,” she said. “What did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t,” he said, and made a show of carefully sitting down in his chair, favoring his left foot. He reminded Zoë of a spider carefully settling itself in the corner of a web to wait patiently. A shiver ran through her.

  He looked down, staring at the Empress card long enough to make Zoë fidget. He looked up at her, tilting his head back far enough for her to see his eyes. She wasn’t surprised to see they were glowing golden under his hat. “I don’t need to read for you,” he said. “She already waiting to tell you all you need to know. Ain’t she?”

  Why did everyone seem to know about Zoë and her secret? Her stomach tightened. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  He smiled at her, a touch of sympathy in his eyes. “Careful with our little girl. She been hurt bad with the storm, ain’t been the same since. But you not the one I sent for, is you?”

  Zoë frowned. “Sent for? OK, I was evasive before, but now I really don’t know what you mean.”

  “Never you mind. Although there are some interesting things going on now that you’re here. Interesting as all get-out. I’m keeping an eye on you, Zoë Norris.”

  “OK,” she said, completely lost. “Thanks, I guess.”

  He turned over another card. “The World,” he said. “You got a real sense of journey and place. Here’s a bit of free advice, Zoë Norris. When your power is tied to a place, you stay in that place to be safe. Don’t leave your power behind, then you have nothing.”

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “You don’t want to know my name, child. I’m just a man who lost something, just like everyone else. We all lost something, ain’t we?” He gestured down the row of tables, then at two men, one carrying a trumpet and the other a tuba, and finally to a street statue, clad in black paint and gold glitter, who stood perfectly still, a silver trumpet held close to his lips and his eyes closed.

  “Thanks for the reading,” Zoë said. “What do I owe you?” She reached into her pocket and pulled some hell notes out.

  “Not a thing, true readings is free. Otherwise they tainted. If you want to do me a favor, then ask her where I can find what I’m looking for.”

  “Her?”

  “You know who I mean.”

  “Right.” Zoë stood awkwardly for a moment, then nodded. “OK then, thanks again. If I find out anything about what you’re looking for, I will tell you. I guess I’ll find you here?”

  “I’ll see you again, Zoë Norris,” he said, not really answering her question.

  “Maybe then you’ll tell me your name,” she said, turning to walk away.

  Great. Another coterie with a secret, that’s what she needed. She’d figure it out later. She would look him up, or ask Gwen.

  Zoë walked around the garden, noticing the gate was open. She made a mental note to check it out later, but she wanted to see the human street statue. An older white couple walked by wearing thick, garish New Orleans sweat shirts, fanny packs, and white sneakers. Tourists, clearly, marked even more by the travel guide the woman frequently checked before squinting at street signs. The statue changed, dropping the trumpet and picking up a shopping bag with one hand and a handful of plastic beads in the other, a look of determined stress on his face. The couple walked by without noticing him, staring into their guidebook and arguing about whether to breakfast at Café Du Monde or McDonald’s.

  A pair of women walked by, also clearly tourists but enjoying themselves much more. One stopped to photograph the statue, and he moved lightning-fast again, picking up an old plastic camera and aiming it back at her. She laughed and took a couple of pictures. He moved again, gesturing to her. She frowned momentarily, but then grinned and they exchanged cameras, her real for his fake, and they began to strike photographer poses for the friend, who took pictures with her phone. The women tipped him and walked on toward a large green awning covering many small tables.

  The street statue was so covered in paint and glitter Zoë could barely tell that he was African American, and she couldn’t identify if he was human or not.

  How important was identifying as one of the supernatural beings? Could you just deny it? Zoë chewed on these questions as she walked to the green awning of Café Du Monde. The statue blurred, changing again as she neared. She stopped to look at him. He’d put plastic fangs in his mouth and his face was twisted into a mask of hatred, fangs bared, eyes blazing. He had his hands up in exaggerated threatening manner, and loomed over her.

  She sighed. “You’re too intuitive,” she said, and walked on past. She was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing an “A vampire hates me” sweat shirt. But he seemed pretty aware of how Kevin felt about her.

  Zoë stopped before crossing the cobblestone street. The smell of Café Du Monde’s only menu items, café au lait and beignets, drifted into her nose, and her stomach complained loudly. But she hadn’t done any work yet, and had some questions to ask about the city before she got complacent.

  She had meant to call Public Works that afternoon, but dropping in was better. It couldn’t prepare for her that way.

  She made a silent promise to her stomach that she would give it what it needed soon, and pulled out her human smartphone to look up the location of Public Works and double-check the hours of its main office.

  Zoë turned to walk toward Canal Street to catch a taxi. As she passed him, the statue changed again. He wore glasses now, and posed writing furiously in a notebook. His lower lip was trapped in his teeth exactly the way Zoë’s was when she thought.

  She laughed and dropped a five-dollar bill into his tip hat. She thought for a moment and then dropped in a hell note as well.

  CHAPTER 3

  City Infrastructure

  Public Works

  Public Works is uptown, south of Tulane University. You needn’t check in with it as in some cities, but New Orleans is unique in that it has a coterie ambassador to Public Works. If you can’t get in touch with any of the leading coterie in the city and you need help, you can call Public Works and ask to speak to the coterie ambassador. At the time of this writing, that person is Trey Frumbleton, a vampire made in 1931. He is under a geas to keep your secrets, and unless you are breaking the law, you can get help from the city without having the whole of Public Works involved in your business.

  But abide by the rules. After Katrina, the head of Public Works was fired and a new crew took over management, and they are no-nonsense. They are dedicated to keeping the city safe from coterie, and take their job seriously.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Public Works didn’t screw around.

  Its home office was a mansion south of Tulane University in the Garden District, painted a criminal gray so it didn’t stand out like the gleaming white Wedding Cake House or the deep-red Hotel St. Helene. It still had pillars holding a balcony over the front door, sharp spires lining the roof, and beautiful stone workmanship. Unlike the rest of the mansions Zoë had seen, it was flanked by small, neat, nonflowering bushes, and no tourists even glanced its way as they walked by.

  Zoë walked through the rusted iron gate and saw the front door held a modestly small sign with the New Orleans city seal on it. The building stank of fresh paint despite the run-down look of it.

  She opened the door and saw a woman sitting behind a desk, a veritable jungle of houseplants covering
nearly every inch of her desk. Philodendrons draped the front of the desk, while a crown of thorns flowered on the bookshelf behind her. Orchids, begonias, and other flowers Zoë couldn’t identify nearly obscured the woman, who looked pleasantly out from behind her wall of green. Lamps with bright bulbs shone down from several places on the walls. Behind her, ivy wound its way up a curving staircase with red carpeting. The floors were a brilliant white marble. Antique chairs lined the walls, and a cherrywood end table held an issue of Newsweek bearing the image of George W. Bush.

  The windows that flanked the front door were covered by heavy black curtains; those were also thick with climbing flowers, morning glories, Zoë guessed.

  Her skin broke out in a sweat, and she realized that the humidity was not what one usually associated with January. New Orleans in summer, sure, she knew it was worse than in North Carolina or New York, and it was pretty bad in both of those places. But January wasn’t usually the muggy part of the year.

  A honeyed voice drifted down the staircase. “Penny, can you check on the paving efforts of Willow Street? We need to make sure they follow code so that the lair of—” The man stopped talking when he saw Zoë, and smiled widely. He descended the stairs as if he were the king of a manor, and she swallowed nervously.

  He was over a foot taller than Zoë, with extremely broad shoulders. His hair was white-blond and his eyes a glacial blue. When he smiled at her, Zoë felt her stomach lurch.

  “Well, shit,” she said without thinking. “An incubus runs Public Works?”

  Christian the incubus led Zoë to his office, up the glorious staircase and down the hall past countless antiques to what clearly was a master bedroom turned office. While she was grateful to leave the greenhouse that was reception, she had a clear feeling of being led into a lair by a predator.

  The incubus’s office held an antique desk on which sat a slim black laptop. Pictures of politicians lined the wall next to the desk, and it was flanked by a small American flag and a small Louisiana flag. The window behind the desk was covered in more heavy drapery. This was all in the sitting room area of the bedroom; the other side of the room still held a king-size bed with four posts and bed-curtains, and the smell of lavender on the sheets made its way over to Zoë’s nose. She took the offered high-backed antique chair as Christian sat behind his desk.

  “What can Public Works do for you?” he asked, smiling.

  “Well, for starters you could go off and have your lunch and I could come back in the afternoon,” she said, looking at his chiseled chin instead of in his eyes. “You’re a little distracting.”

  “If I had known a zoëtist was coming to visit, I would have eaten last night,” he said. “Most people make appointments.”

  Zoë took a deep breath and, with one last look at his blue eyes and his full lips, she looked at his desk, fixing on the closed laptop. She was dying of curiosity: two cities, two divisions of Public Works with coterie at the head. That made no sense, but she didn’t want to show her hand and threaten the incubus. “You’re right, that was my fault. I came to visit on a whim. You have to admit that finding coterie running Public Works is a surprise, though.”

  “In New York, humans police coterie. Doesn’t that seem counterintuitive?” He shifted in his chair and she refused to look at his broad chest in his powder-blue shirt. He must have had to get his shirts tailored specially; he was simply too big to shop at a normal store.

  She remembered when the incubus John had nearly succeeded at seducing her, and snapped out of her distraction.

  “Well, in one way, it seems odd to have humans handle people who are much stronger than them in several ways. In another way, how can we be sure you’ll look after the humans’ best interest? Do you hunt the stray vampire or zombie that goes rogue? Do you hunt your own kind?”

  The paneling on the wall looked very interesting, and Zoë stared at it as Christian answered her. “We have humans on staff, but because Penny, Trey, and myself are uniquely equipped to understand coterie, misunderstandings like that rarely happen.”

  “Trey would be the vampire?” Zoë asked, thinking of the heavily curtained windows.

  Christian raised his eyebrow. “Yes, he is. So misunderstandings do unfortunately happen, and when they do, we do what needs to be done. This city has suffered too much in the past decade to have our balance disrupted.” Only then did she realize his voice was strong and velvety, and she imagined him reading erotica to her.

  She took a deep breath. Never. Again.

  “Why have your human employees not noticed the coterie that are running Public Works?” she asked. “You’re not very subtle, to be honest.”

  The beautiful face of the incubus creased for a moment. “I’ve been here for nearly a decade now. Nearly.”

  Zoë nodded, understanding. “So, Katrina.”

  “Yes. The city was in chaos, and the humans were in a panic. They—they think Public Works turned off the water because of a desire to push the poor—those who stayed—out of town. But it was something more sinister. With the storm came the water sprites, and they dominated the city.”

  Zoë snorted. “Water sprites aren’t malevolent!”

  He cocked a silky eyebrow. “How many have you met?”

  She thought of the perky, pink-haired Morgen, and dropped her eyes. “One.”

  He nodded. “Right. Some of the more wild ones like to travel with storms. When they make landfall, they like to raise hell. Most need freshwater though, so when it stops raining, if they’re raising hell, the last resort to deal with them is to stop the water supply. The city was under brackish water. Sprites hate that. So Public Works cut off the water.”

  “But the people still here…” Zoë said, her voice trailing off.

  “It did more harm than good,” Christian said, nodding. “Police with agendas, poor humans with nowhere to go, rampaging coterie taking advantage. The Superdome was a perfect place for coterie who hate the sun. Vampires had a field day there.

  “So, once things settled down at last, the establishment fired the humans in charge of Public Works. A bit of politicking happened, and I got put in as the new head. I kept on a lot of the humans still employed, but brought in a few coterie that I trust.”

  “The establishment,” Zoë said. “Who would that be?”

  “Ain’t you a sweet thing,” Christian said. “I don’t know who taught you your coterie facts, but your education is really lacking, and it’s not my job to fill in the holes. Well,” he paused, looking her up and down, “not those holes, anyway.”

  Zoë glared at him. “Back off, man. I’ve got more sense than you think I do.”

  He spread his hands and looked down, taking his defeat gracefully. “I’m only saying if you have any needs you need attending to, please call me.”

  “I need nothing so bad that I’m willing to get an incubus hangover from it, thanks,” she said.

  “The offer remains,” he said.

  She cleared her throat. “Anyway, I came here to let you know that I am here with a group of five others to research the city. We’re going to be writing a travel book about the city, similar to this.” She reached down and got The Shambling Guide to New York City out of her satchel and slid it across the desk. That she removed her hand from the book before he could touch her felt ridiculously like a triumph.

  The room was silent as Christian flipped through the book. “This is a brilliant idea. Who created it? Underground Publishing… haven’t heard of them.”

  “We’re new,” Zoë said. “That’s our first book. We want The Shambling Guide to New Orleans to be the second.”

  “I’m honored,” Christian said. “Of course, I can’t allow you to print that coterie run Public Works.”

  “What? Why? It’s really important for visiting coterie to know!” Zoë was so startled she looked him in the eye and immediately regretted it. “And besides, if they see you, they’ll know immediately. You don’t hide that this is a good place for coterie to work.”<
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  “You make it sound like coterie make visiting Public Works part of their vacation plans in a city. I can assure you, the majority of resident coterie don’t know.”

  “But why?”

  “If coterie knew that we controlled Public Works, they would use it to their advantage. At least, some of them would. It’s safer for us to remain as hidden as possible. Just like normal coterie.”

  So not every coterie knew that Public Works had a coterie boss, she thought. Interesting. “If your secret is important, you can trust me with it,” Zoë said. “I wouldn’t want to undermine the structure of the coterie police force.”

  The incubus smiled, and Zoë got the feeling that honey was smeared on his lips, and all she had to do was taste it. “I’m so glad you see it that way. Thank you for letting me know about our visitors. I hope you enjoy your time in the city.”

  She dropped her eyes and took a deep breath. Damn incubi. She couldn’t trust them as far as she could spit a dead cat. “Thanks. Is there anything I should know, or anything you can suggest for us to see, or avoid, for visiting coterie in the city?”

  Christian tapped the dimple on his chin in thought. “It’s Carnival season. Obviously it’s not as crazy as Mardi Gras, but there are balls and parades from now until Lent. You should of course start there. But all of the masquerades are invite-only, so it would be a trick to see them from the inside. However.” He winked at her. “The average tourist is unlikely to get an invitation, so I suppose you don’t need to cover that for your book. Be sure to catch the parades, at least half of them are put on by coterie. Carnival is the best time of the year for coterie to visit, half of us can walk out in the open without fear.”

  “Would you say New Orleans is the best place for coterie to visit in terms of being out in the open?”

  He laughed, and Zoë nearly swooned. She had to get out of there. “I’m obviously quite biased, but yes, I’d say this is the best city to visit if you like walking out in the open. It’s also the best to work magic, so we’re a major destination for zoëtists. I’ve been calling this the unofficial coterie capital of the US. Possibly the world.”