by G A Chase
Unlike Polly, Myles hadn’t worried too much about how the baron’s children would judge their father, but he had other concerns. “That still leaves us without a gate.”
Baron Samedi looked wan behind the desk. “This office was even more a part of the baron’s life than the mansion. His children, be they bodies or spirits, are welcome in this place. With the connection they have with the pictures in their rooms, they can manifest in this office to do their work. And as this is also the seventh gate of Guinee, I can provide them cover. Should Colin make it to the fourth gate of hell, I’ll be here to guide his children.”
Myles suspected overlapping different belief systems might have some negative side effects. “Doesn’t that create a conflict of interest?”
“To create the seven gates, you’re going to need a little Guinee magic. Establishing where they are and who is guarding them is just the beginning. The ceremony to unite the gates only works if I give them my blessing. And I can only do that if I can access my powers. By having the seventh gate of Guinee line up with your fourth gate to hell, I can bridge the two realities.”
From the way the loa looked, Myles wasn’t sure he could bridge a storm gutter, let alone two realms. “You have your cane, but Marie Laveau still has her hand wrapped around it.”
Baron Samedi turned the staff as if checking to see that the bones were still attached. “She isn’t blameless when it comes to Baron Malveaux and the theft of my cane. She’ll go along if she knows what’s good for her.”
Myles was pretty sure he didn’t want to know what the threat would entail when it was directed toward someone who’d already passed to the deep waters. “So how will this work?”
“When every gate and guardian is in place, I’ll shoot a beam of green light toward the heavens. The guardians will see it.” He pointed the staff at Kendell. “That will be your sign to begin singing. The connection will allow you to see everyone in all seven gates. When they acknowledge your song, you’ll know they are a part of the whole.”
Kendell paced the way Myles often did when he was thinking. “I’m still uncomfortable with the connection between Guinee and our gate to hell. It sounds like a railway station servicing unmarked trains traveling in differing directions.”
“It’s not ideal, but so long as Wicca and voodoo don’t conflict with each other, the intersection won’t be an issue. Someone progressing through the previous six gates of Guinee won’t be traveling the same direction as someone who’s passed the three gates of hell.”
Kendell crossed her arms. “And if they do end up in conflict?”
“Then it will take a voodoo priestess and a Wiccan witch to mediate a compromise.”
Sanguine had a worried look on her face. “I suppose it’s the best we can do at the moment.”
As Kendell drew her veve on the underside of a desk drawer, Baron Samedi passed the pastel drawing to the children. “This is your validation. Should the time come when you do believe what your father tells you, giving him this will be your way of formalizing your acceptance.”
Serephine looked at her mother’s drawing. “What if he just steals it?”
The question was so simple Myles wondered why no one else had thought of it. Baron Samedi let out a heartfelt laugh that belied his deteriorating condition. “It wouldn’t matter. The symbol is only valid if you’ve first given your consent. If he took it, he wouldn’t be able to get through the remaining gates.”
14
Myles wasn’t crazy about the fourth gate matching up to Baron Samedi’s seventh gate to Guinee, but establishing the portal put the gang one step closer to getting out of hell. “Where to next?”
Baron Samedi leaned on the cane as he stood from the chair. He looked to have lost half of his weight. “If I could offer a suggestion? Behind the Scratchy Dog is an outdoor bar. During Prohibition, it was used as a speakeasy. People like confiding in their bartenders.”
Everyone turned to Myles. “Me? I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. I’ve already crossed paths with Malveaux in the spirit world.”
“That’s what makes you the perfect gate guardian,” Baron Samedi said. “For Colin to prove to you that he’s rehabilitated would be no simple matter.”
The voodoo loa had a point. Myles couldn’t envision ever giving his permission for Colin to leave hell. “What about the rest of the process?”
Baron Samedi switched from leaning on his cane to leaning against the desk. “Doughnut Hole has a connection to the club. He’ll know when something’s not right. As for your token, I’d suggest a shot of something. For my sake, just don’t make it rum.”
Even though the pup had been instrumental in saving the band, Myles wasn’t sure that was the connection Baron Samedi was referencing. “If Colin gets past me, I’ll make him a Sazerac. Okay, I’ll do it. I suppose we’re kind of running out of gates and guardians. But before we go racing back to the club, I want to find the dogs. If Doughnut Hole is going to be a part of this process, he’s got a right to be present. Any guesses on where they might be?”
Baron Samedi handed his cane to Kendell. “As Cheesecake’s owner, you’re the closest human to the puppies. Take this around the room. The reliefs carved into the walls will indicate their location. With all of us here, I have to believe the dogs are keeping an eye on Colin.”
Kendell took the cane and slowly pointed the silver skull at every engraved, three-dimensional mural. The Garden District, Algiers, and the French Quarter all displayed only the wooden carvings with no indication of activity.
“Where could they be?” She looked to Myles. The action caused her to swing the cane toward a far corner of the room.
“Look there, past the Bywater. He’s leading the dogs across the Industrial Canal.”
Kendell hurried to that side of the room and put the cane against the relief of the bridge. “Why would he be headed for the Lower Ninth? I can’t imagine he ever had any dealings over there.”
Myles watched the hologram that projected from the end of the cane. Colin was struggling across the open grating of the drawbridge section while the dogs worked the sides and middle of the approach. “That neighborhood wasn’t to be entered casually even in life. In hell, it might make for an impressive trap.”
Polly got so close to the projection that a wall of the shipping lock displayed across her face. “He keeps looking back to make sure the puppies are following. We have to go save them.” Though Myles knew the hellhounds’ origin, having Polly remind everyone that they were actually cute little balls of fur only created more panic.
Sanguine took the end of the cane and moved it farther into the area that had been decimated too many times by hurricanes. “I don’t see a lot of dry land. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the houses had been dropped in one of the area’s swamps.”
“And where there are swamps,” Lynn said, “there are alligators.”
Sanguine said, “Normally, my biggest concern would be the human population, but without people—and Colin having some knowledge of working in this realm—trained gators are a possibility. I’d be more concerned with snakes, nutrias, and packs of wild dogs.” As both a resident of the bayou and the expert on her grandmother’s creation, she had more knowledge of this than anyone.
Myles didn’t see any overt threat, but any good trap would be well camouflaged. “He wouldn’t be leading them over there just to get even with his attackers. He’s too clever to let his desire for revenge distract him. We’re closing the noose around him, and he knows it.”
Kendell set the cane down. “You think he wants us to follow him?”
“I think he wants us to stop building the gates. We’ve already seen what he’s capable of accomplishing. Once again, he’s showing us he can hold our dearest friends ransom.”
Polly kept fidgeting. “What does it matter? I’m not going to sit around and let him hurt the puppies. Who’s with me?”
Lynn immediately jumped to Polly’s side. Myles knew Minerva and Scraper would
follow their bandleader if he didn’t do something fast. “The Scratchy Dog is on the way. We’ll stop off so Kendell can make her mark, and then we’ll head across the canal. I don’t want our group splitting up this time. We’re stronger together. Colin isn’t going to harm the dogs so long as he can use them as bargaining chips.”
Baron Samedi took back his cane. “I and the Malveaux children can keep tabs on you from here, but I fear there isn’t much we can do should you get into trouble.”
“As always,” Myles mumbled.
* * *
Despite all of the traveling, getting into and out of the old VW bus never got any easier for Myles. Even though he wasn’t part of the band, the Scratchy Dog was beginning to feel like a second home to him.
Scraper led the way past the bathroom to the courtyard behind the club. “When we first started playing gigs here, I’d sneak out back for a smoke. The alleyway’s been cleaned up for customers, but this back hideaway is still used for storing junk.”
As was her nature, Polly took charge. “Everyone spread out and start digging through this crap toward the walls. I doubt the speakeasy would be hidden inside a brick wall, so concentrate on the areas that look like they might be hiding boarded-up doors.”
Myles took the section piled high with pallets. “Might have been nice if the swamp witch had made this place empty like the rest of the city.”
Sanguine gave him a hand, tossing the rotted wooden structures into the middle of the open space. For a skinny girl, she had considerable strength. “Any place that we’re connected to is kept as precise as possible. That’s how she establishes the embassies, as Baron Samedi called them.”
“So this place connects to our reality?” he asked.
“More or less. I mean, just because we’re tossing these pallets here in hell, that doesn’t mean they’re magically flying through the air in life. But don’t be surprised if you get home and find the manager had an unexplained hankering to clear out this back space.”
He looked at the locked-down storm shutters that had been hidden under the pallets. “Dead end.”
Kendell was busy measuring the space by walking heel to toe across the courtyard. “I’m not so sure. If you compare where the back door is relative to this wall, the men’s room inside the club would have to be about five feet deep.”
“Have you seen the urinal?” Myles asked. “There’s not a lot of room to do one’s business.”
“Humor me and open the shutters,” Kendell said.
With no one in the neighboring building, he wasn’t concerned about peeking into someone else’s establishment. It took a good couple of hits from a rock to break the old rusty locks. He lifted the brown shutters, expecting to see painted-shut windows. Instead, sandwiched between the opening and the wall was a narrow serving counter with barely enough space for a person behind it. He shimmied over the counter. A little searching revealed a couple of well-hidden bottles of alcohol behind the built-in metal trashcan. For a gate between hell and life, he could have done far worse.
“This must be the place,” he said. “There’s not much room, but you could make your veve under the counter.”
Polly was already leading the way back to the bus. “Now can we save the puppies?”
* * *
Though she prided herself on knowing every aspect of New Orleans, the Lower Ninth Ward was an area of the city Kendell usually avoided like any normal middle-class white girl. Her bohemian-goth bravado ended at the drawbridge.
Once they’d crossed into the desolation of the Lower Ninth, Myles put his hand on Minerva’s shoulder. “Let us out here. Kendell, Sanguine, Cheesecake, and I will sneak down toward the river. You drive the rest of the band up along the levee and start your grid search, working your way toward us. If you see the pups in trouble, lay into your horn.”
“And if you guys end up snared in his trap?”
Myles shook his head with more confidence than Kendell felt. “We won’t. I’ve been here before, which gives me an advantage over Colin. If he is using the swamp animals as his attack force, he’ll be in for a surprise. As both a swamp witch and the granddaughter of this hell’s designer, I’m betting Sanguine can charm these animals without trying. Plus, Cheesecake knows her pups. I’m hoping he’ll pursue you, giving us time to find the dogs.”
Once out of the bus, Myles motioned them toward a vacant lot lined with a vine-covered fence and trees draped with Spanish moss. “When I came over here searching for Professor Yates, I made the mistake of starting near the river. With the docks and the nicer homes, that area felt more inviting. As someone who has lived his life in the city, Colin would also gravitate toward these buildings instead of wandering out toward the less habitable areas.”
Even with all the flooding, the warehouses along the river were high and dry. “Why was that a mistake?” Kendell asked.
“I wasn’t looking at it from the perspective of a kidnapper.” He pointed along the Mississippi River then perpendicular to that, along the Industrial Canal. “To start with, escape from those buildings is limited unless he has a boat, which seem awfully scarce in this hell. Even without anyone around, the cleared lots make for less secluded hiding. Finally, if the pups are being held on one of the docks, their barks will carry from the elevated, cavernous warehouse.”
Kendell still didn’t like having to trudge through the marshy empty lots. “Have you considered that the puppies might have cornered Colin? They are pretty clever.”
“If that’s the case, this will be an easy rescue. Colin’s not the type to be tricked twice by the same adversary, though. Doughnut Hole and his sisters have gotten the drop on Colin a couple of times now. Even if Colin is not out for retaliation, he’d be focusing all of his cunning on showing them who’s in charge in hell. Plus, we know he’s fond of setting traps.”
Though Kendell didn’t enjoy having her hypotheses so easily disproved, she liked having a boyfriend who, when the need arose, could be an intellectual equal. “Do you really think he’ll head out after the van?”
“The first thing we need to know is if the pups are in one of the warehouses.” He turned to Cheesecake. “That’s where you come in, girl. I don’t pretend to understand how you and your brood are figuring things out, but you all seem to know exactly where to be and when. Stick with us, but if you sense your puppies are nearby, let us know.”
Kendell appreciated that Myles acknowledged Cheesecake’s important roles in their adventures.
He turned to Sanguine. “He’ll have some kind of protection, and that means either animals or snares. You’re our expert on both.”
The young swamp witch nodded. She stood a little straighter now that she was back in her element among the wild plants and hidden animals. “He’s no expert on living off the land. I’ll spot any of his crude attempts at building a trap.”
“Good. If all goes well, he’ll find himself trapped between four angry dogs, six pissed-off women, and me.”
Kendell knew that Myles was at least as pissed off as the rest of them. The baron’s possession of Myles’s body was a debt that still called out for reckoning. “And if you’re wrong?”
“You mean if he’s smarter than I was and isn’t down by the docks where we can easily find him? Then hopefully Minerva and that noisy bus will either flush him out or cause the puppies to start barking so we can sneak up on him from behind.”
Having Cheesecake lead the way helped ease Kendell’s fears of running into a creature from hell. Even with both Myles and Sanguine’s explanation that the young swamp witch would be able to command any animal that they ran across, Kendell couldn’t stop imagining hell beasts with the old swamp witch’s dead eyes, attacking anything they ran across. With Sanguine following Cheesecake, at least she’d be in a position to combat anything they ran across.
The she-wolf kept to the shadows as they left the tangled jungle of a neighborhood for the equally terrifying warehouse of horrors. Kendell tried to keep her thoughts in line, but hell
had a way of coloring her thinking with shades of fright.
Sanguine put out her hand in warning. Everyone, including Cheesecake, hugged the side of the warehouse as the swamp witch peeked around the corner. She turned back and whispered, “Gators. Big ones.”
Kendell wasn’t sure if she should feel terror at the prospect of facing hell gators or relief that they may have found the puppies and Myles had been right. Her heart decided to triple its rhythm just to cover all bases.
“Stay here,” Sanguine whispered. “Time I found out what I can do with my grandmother’s pets.”
Kendell held tight to Cheesecake’s mane to keep the wolf from doing something foolish. Myles knelt to the dog-wolf’s head. “Any indication of your pups?”
Cheesecake gave him a kiss, then two kisses, and finally three.
He looked at Kendell. “I’m going to interpret that as a yes.”
She nodded. “That still doesn’t tell us where Colin is, though.”
“One threat at a time.” He joined her at the corner of the warehouse to spy on Sanguine and the two ten-foot alligators that were lounging on the wooden pier.
The swamp witch moved in slowly. The animals got off their bellies. Their beady red glowing eyes swiveled to her like laser beams. For a moment Kendell was certain they were going to lunge at her, but as she moved in closer, they turned toward the water.
“Stop.” Sanguine’s command was quiet enough not to be heard within the warehouse but strict enough to halt the gators where they stood. “You obey me now. I will call you Right, and you Left. Take your positions.”
To Kendell’s amazement, the two monsters lumbered next to Sanguine. The success seemed to have gone to the swamp witch’s head. She yelled, “Let’s go get those puppies.”
