Ghost Train to New Orleans

by Mur Lafferty

  Zoë weighed the pull of his sexual magnetism versus her need to delve into further questions. She sighed and decided on just one more. “Coterie capital, that’s good. And where do most zoëtists go for their magic?”

  “Most work within the swamps. No one destination, just… the swamps. They know where to go.” He looked at her curiously, and she realized she had made a misstep. A zoëtist would have known that.

  I’ll be investigating the swamps anyway, she thought. “OK, thank you, Christian. You’ve been most helpful.”

  He smiled again and stuck out his hand to shake hers.

  Zoë looked at his hand, which was distressingly large and strong, with fingertips that looked as if they were ready to slide along the palm of her hand, and then looked at him. “Did you know that humans have a finite amount of willpower? Yeah, so I’m going to respectfully decline your handshake for reasons I hope are incredibly obvious, and that will be the end of my willpower for the day, so I’m going to Café du Monde to eat all the beignets I can. If you have any more information for me, and you’ve had a large meal beforehand, feel free to call me. I’m staying at Freddie’s Ready B and B.”

  Christian removed his hand and smiled at her, and she stifled a groan and turned and left the office/bedroom, steadfastly not looking at the bed. She waved a weak good-bye to the receptionist, who was cooing sweet nothings to a particular purple orchid that seemed to reach for her with its flower, and left the office.

  By the time Zoë got back to Decatur Street, the crowd at Café du Monde had gotten thick, and she had to wait for a table. She spent the time looking across the street at the living statue, whom she had decided to call Sammy Statue. He continued to pose as passersby, attempting to mirror their lives. Some poses were obvious—frowning at an empty bottle when a drunk staggered by, still ripe from last night’s drinking—but some were not so obvious, like hiding his face when a woman in a long black dress walked by.

  Zoë blinked. That wasn’t any woman, it was Gwen. Her black dress was made of a lighter fabric than she usually wore, and she looked more African than completely ink-black, which made her fit in a little more. She was still barefoot, and her eyes were still like looking into space. No one looked into the eyes of a death goddess, however. She walked unerringly toward Zoë, stepping into traffic without checking right or left. The cars stopped for her without honking.

  “Morning,” Zoë said, as Gwen joined her in line.

  “You look well,” the death goddess said.

  “I’m doing much better. Had a walk, talked to the city, met a mysterious dude,” Zoë said. “Dropped by Public Works. And we need to schedule a trip to the swamps.”

  “Swamps,” Gwen said, frowning. This death goddess fed off dying humans: urban areas and wars were her buffets. Swamps not so much.

  “Yeah. Let’s sit down, and I’ll fill you in,” Zoë said.

  “Kevin was not happy that you left,” Gwen said.

  Zoë made an exasperated noise. “What now? I’m not even there to pee in his morning cereal-and-blood breakfast!”

  Gwen paused and took a deep breath as an old man wandered by. He was hunched over, but immaculately dressed in a gray suit and bowler hat. His skin was a deep tan and his hair, peeking out from under his hat, was white. Zoë couldn’t see his eyes, squinted against the morning light. Gwen focused on him, and Zoë realized she was feeding off him, off the desperation of a dying body. She shuddered. She still had a little trouble with the death goddess’s way of eating, even though Gwen assured her that she wasn’t actually feeding on the life force, and didn’t hurt the person.

  When the old man shambled by Sammy Statue, he closed his eyes and solemnly crossed his arms over his chest. Zoë frowned and turned back to Gwen.

  “Kevin?” she prompted.

  “Ah yes,” Gwen said, nodding to the short young white hostess who motioned for them to follow her. “He thinks you’re secretly a zoëtist. He’s also unhappy about you leaving, mainly because he couldn’t follow you and interrogate you further. He thinks you’re here for Life Day.”

  Zoë laughed out loud. “Life Day? Seriously? Is that the zoëtist festival the kid on the train was going to?”

  Gwen blinked at her, confused at her mirth. “Yes, it’s a zoëtist festival where they celebrate life. Life Day.”

  Zoë snickered again. “Life Day is the Christmas of the Wookiees in The Star Wars Holiday Special, a piece of Star Wars history so bad that George Lucas himself has stopped its distribution. I’ve seen it once, that was enough. Just, well, Life Day. It’s funny.”

  Gwen didn’t smile. “You do realize that zoëtists have been celebrating Life Day since the Dark Ages.”

  “Oh. Well, no. I didn’t realize that. I guess there was a zoëtist on Lucas’s writing team. Or it’s a coincidence. Anyway, I didn’t even know the festival existed,” Zoë said.

  The hostess had stopped at a dirty table, and stacked the dishes and wiped the powdered sugar away with an efficient swipe. Her hair was coming out of her ponytail and she barely met their eyes. “Pedro will be by to get your order. We have café au lait and beignets. You can also have juice.”

  “People really like places that give them nearly no choice,” Zoë remarked, looking at the menu, which allowed for water, café au lait, and two or four beignets.

  Pedro, a thin, angular man, came by and raised an eyebrow.

  “Café au lait and beignets, two please,” Zoë said.

  Pedro nodded and walked away.

  “Oops. I think I just ordered for both of us, sorry,” she said, glancing at Gwen.

  “People seem to like rude servants, these days,” Gwen said. “I don’t understand the appeal.”

  “Adds to the ambience,” Zoë offered, looking around at the green awning that covered them, and into the sunny New Orleans day beyond. They had a clear view of Sammy Statue.

  “Why does Kevin have such an issue with me?” Zoë asked.

  “You’re his boss, but lower on the food chain. You offend him, but Phil respects you and he idolizes Phil. This does not work within his world. In his opinion, why would you respect food?”

  Zoë grimaced. “Thanks.”

  Pedro came by and shoved two plates of powdery squares at them, and two cups of light-brown coffee. He walked away.

  “Would you respect that item you’re about to eat?” Gwen said, pointing at the hot beignet Zoë was gingerly handling.

  “Well, no, but it doesn’t really have sentience, does it?” Zoë said, looking at the pastry. “I can at least talk to Kevin and argue with him, telling him he’s a dumbass. This little guy isn’t going to call me anything.” To prove her point, she took a bite, and smiled as the deep-fried glory spread in her mouth, crispy and powdery and light.

  Gwen frowned. “You have detritus all over your face now.”

  “Hush,” Zoë mumbled. “I’m having a moment.” She chewed slowly and swallowed. “So, the swamps. Arthur is here because if you remember he got bit by a zombie some time ago, and he’s lost the herbs Ben gave him.” Zoë took another bite while Gwen took in the information.

  “That seems more irresponsible than he has appeared,” she said.

  Zoë shook her head. “Wasn’t his fault. His sister tossed them, thinking they were drugs. And Ben is on vacation. We can’t reach him. Ben trained here; his mentor was local, so Arthur is going to search for her. Or, since there’s a good chance she’s dead, we’re going to try to find another one of her students.”

  “This could distract from the book,” Gwen said, frowning.

  Zoë stared at her for a moment. “This may be hard to understand, but I’ll choose Arthur’s life over the book. He’s important to me. And heck, I’d choose any human’s life over my job. It’s just a job.”

  Gwen inclined her head, allowing Zoë her human idiosyncrasies. As Zoë polished off the second beignet, Gwen pushed her untouched breakfast over the table, and Zoë’s eyes lit up in appreciation.

  “I had a brush w
ith an incubus this morning. I need something to indulge in.” She took a bite of the third pastry and felt the powdery snow drift down her chin and onto her jacket.

  “An incubus?” Gwen sat up straighter. “Did he attack you?”

  “Not as such,” Zoë said, taking several napkins from the dispenser on the table and attempting to wipe her face. “Not any more than incubi usually do. Well, that’s not true. He wasn’t as forward as John was. He just stood there, being offensively gorgeous at me. He didn’t try anything.”

  Gwen relaxed. “Good. I don’t like you being around them. You’re weak.”

  The warm feeling Zoë had just barely begun to associate with Gwen—the one where her haughty goddess friend might actually care about her—fled with the end of her statement.

  “Gee. Thanks a lot. I am stronger than I was, you know.” She hated how petulant she sounded, and stuffed another bite into her mouth, showering herself with powdered sugar again.

  “I do not assuage egos, Zoë,” Gwen said slowly, as if Zoë were very young. “I speak the truth. You are stronger than you were. But you are still weak in some areas. It is not a bad thing. You have nothing to prove; if you are aware of your weaknesses, you will focus on them and improve on them. If you deny them, then your enemies will use them against you.”

  Zoë wished Gwen weren’t making so much sense. She wanted to feel hurt and wounded, but instead she just felt annoyed. She didn’t want to admit that Gwen was right, but it was true that the incubus had affected her more than she had anticipated.

  “I didn’t expect to find an incubus.” She paused, remembering she had promised not to divulge the Public Works secret. “I didn’t expect to find an incubus this morning. That’s all. If I had, I’d have been prepared.”

  “Always be prepared,” the goddess said, picking up the café au lait and sniffing it.

  “Were you a Boy Scout?” Zoë asked.

  Gwen put the coffee down and gave her a blank stare.

  “Never mind. Let’s just enjoy breakfast and not talk about how incompetent I am for once.”

  “Agreed,” Gwen said.

  “I’ll want you to do write-ups about the graveyards. I can’t think of many other places in the US that are as welcoming to undead as the New Orleans graveyards,” Zoë said as they left Café du Monde. She felt a bit slow and thick due to her belly being full of four beignets, but knew that she had to get started on work soon.

  “Are you trying to put me on a diet?” Gwen asked.

  “What?” Zoë asked.

  Gwen frowned. “Because I feed off dying people, not dead people. It’s a sort of joke.”

  “A joke.”

  “I tried a job change after several thousand years, proving I could grow. So I thought I might try to see if I could gather a sense of humor, like you and Morgen have. I can see it went about as well as I expected it to.”

  “Oh, no,” Zoë said, backpedaling. “It was funny, don’t get me wrong. I just completely didn’t expect it coming from you. You kind of blindsided me.”

  Gwen thought for a moment, looking down at her feet as they walked. “I thought part of humor was the unexpectedness of it.”

  “Well, yes,” Zoë said helplessly.

  “I have much more to learn,” Gwen said.

  Zoë didn’t want to discourage Gwen from growing, but she would have liked a warning about her new experiment with humor.

  “So… the cemeteries. Can you do that?”

  “Of course,” Gwen said. Her voice never changed timbre, but she exuded a definite sense of defeat.

  “I’m going to set Kevin and Opal on the restaurants tonight, but I’ll be checking out Café Soulé on my own. Would you like to come with me? Apparently coterie hang out there on Wednesdays.”

  “That sounds good. Along with humor, I’m trying to understand why humans consider eating such a social experience,” Gwen said. “Speaking with your mouth full is a repulsive habit, and I don’t understand how copulation could happen after seeing half-digested food being masticated.”

  Zoë held her breath for a moment. “Was that… another joke?”

  “… Yes. In the way that I do in fact understand that humans find food before copulation a desired thing. But it is not what I myself prefer.”

  Zoë laughed, mostly in relief. “You’re very subtle.” She realized she had no idea if the goddess fell in love, or dated, or had sex. It was not really something she wanted to think about. “But yes, we consider eating as a passionate thing, and most of us like to share our passions with people we like. Also we don’t like experiencing passion alone.”

  Gwen inhaled and opened her mouth, as if to speak, but Zoë cut her off. “Please, no attempts at passion-alone/masturbation jokes yet. Start with poop jokes and work your way up.”

  Gwen closed her mouth. Then she said, “Should I start with how gods excrete?”

  Zoë stopped walking. They were back in Jackson Square in front of St. Louis Cathedral, near the now-bustling business at the tables of tarot readers and caricature creators. “God excretion. God shit. You’re going to tell me a joke about god shit.”

  “I was not thinking of a joke. I didn’t know if you knew how our physiology works.”

  Zoë squinted at the morning sun instead of looking at Gwen. “Do I want to know?”

  Gwen waved her hand flippantly. “Oh, no, I was just kidding.” She walked on, and Zoë sputtered in exasperation and ran to catch up.

  “Your attempts at humor are kind of misplaced,” she said. But Gwen didn’t pay attention to her. She had caught sight of the old tarot reader, who was doing an animated reading for the old tourist couple Zoë had seen earlier. The old woman giggled, her gray New Orleans sweat shirt shaking with her laughter. Gwen stood stock-still about twenty feet away from the reader, waiting patiently.

  Death goddesses can wait forever, Zoë thought, as she stood beside her friend. Finally the old man looked up, and his stars-filled black eyes met Gwen’s, and he froze. He nodded his head once. She nodded hers. She moved on past him and toward a brass band.

  Before Zoë followed her, the old man caught her eyes in his, and she felt lost as if she were falling. She wrenched her eyes away, swallowed the vertigo, and ran to catch up.

  “What was that all about? And don’t say anything about god shit,” she said to Gwen, who was stopping to smell a flower in a storefront box.

  “An old friend,” she said. “I didn’t know he had ended up here. It was good to catch up.”

  “Catch up? You nodded to him. Was it good to remember how he held his head?”

  “Zoë, gods communicate in ways that you can’t comprehend. He thinks very highly of you, by the way.”

  “Who? Who was that guy? He wouldn’t tell me.”

  “A god, a very old god. That’s all you need to know,” Gwen said.

  “I don’t know a lot of African gods,” Zoë complained. “Most of my knowledge is of Greek and Norse and Egyptian mythology.”

  “Egypt is not in Africa?” Gwen asked.

  “Well, yes, but…” Zoë felt heat rising to her face. “Oh, never mind. No, I don’t know the world’s pantheon. Also I’m a stupid white American douchebag. How’s that?”

  “Acknowledging one’s own limitations is admirable,” Gwen said. “However, I do wonder what he’s doing in the city. He’s a long way from home.”

  “He said something about losing something. I have no idea what. He wants me to ask the city, but it’s not like New Orleans is very chatty. It’s said one clear thing to me so far. And what’s so secret about this god anyway?”

  Gwen finally turned to face her, and Zoë felt a rare feeling that her friend was entirely alien, a different species altogether. Her eyes were black and starry, glowing like the old god’s had, and held the power to grab her and not let her go. “He is a god of both life and death. His name can conjure either. It’s safest not to say it at all.”

  They were interrupted by a shout from an alley. “And there is n
o God but the one God!”

  “That’s oddly on topic,” Zoë said. “What’s going on?”

  They looked down the alley, shady in the morning sunlight, and saw a tall white man, a street preacher, a man in a three-piece white suit and a wild white beard who shook the Bible over his head. He looked to be about sixty-five or seventy, with white hair and bright blue eyes. Crazy eyes, Zoë thought.

  Noticing that he had an audience, he increased his volume. “JESUS is the real cure!” he said. “New Orleans is rife with sin and evil and the worship of false prophets, give your life to the LORD and he will give you his only begotten son!”

  “Didn’t he already give his son, like two thousand years ago?” Zoë asked Gwen, whispering. “That kind of gift doesn’t get returned.”

  Gwen sniffed. “That boy was doomed anyway. The crucifixion was a convenience at best. He was determined to be martyred, he wanted to go back to Heaven. He was pretty resentful at being an earthly being.” She glanced at Zoë sidelong in a very human way. “More so than most of you.”

  “Really?” Zoë blinked in surprise. “He wanted to die?”

  Gwen nodded, ignoring the man, who began waving his arms as he shouted, trying to get their attention back. “Of course. Dying in defense of what you believe in is the same as dying to save another—you die so something or someone can live on. Those are the noble reasons to die. If he hadn’t been martyred, Christianity might not have formed. Judas would have only been the first to lose faith in him.”

  “This is fascinating. So Christ had a death wish.”

  The man overheard her and his eyes nearly bugged from his head. “Christ was the one and only messiah!” he screamed. “Christ will come again and lift up the belieeeeevers into the sky and leave the infidels behind! It will come any day now, repent now!”

  “Come on,” Gwen said. “No one needs to write about this fool. We are wasting our time. The god he’s praying to went into retirement years ago.”