by G A Chase
“So far, this is telling me exactly nothing. I already knew Colin was sent back in time a few hours to suffer the hurricane again.”
Doughnut Hole gave him a firm bark.
Myles suspected the dog was right. He was missing something. Looking up into the swirling rain, he spotted debris that had been caught up in the maelstrom. “That’s not right. Hurricanes pick up all kinds of stuff. Everything up there looks far too uniform in size.”
A change in the winds brought the cloud of refuse down toward the courtyard. Instead of thousands of red plastic cups pummeling him, however, bats filled the space above his makeshift bar.
The winged rodents landed and hung upside down from the lifted shutters that acted as a roof over the speakeasy. Their eyes turned from beady black to glowing red.
Myles flicked the Sazerac against the brick wall, breaking the glass and the spell. “Come on, boy. We have to stop the band from staring too long into their gate.”
The pup was already barking at his sisters before Myles could get over the bar counter.
“Cut the connection!” Myles yelled from the courtyard. “Colin is using his bats to keep an eye on the gates.” He rushed into the club and saw the four women sitting around the veve, stunned. “Is everyone okay?”
Polly took a couple of deep breaths. “Yeah, but I never knew I had such a fear of bats. They were outside the club, beating on the window. Another couple of minutes, and they’d have broken the glass.”
He sat on the edge of the stage and lifted Doughnut Hole to join his sisters, who were cuddled next to the band members. “The information that Colin has gained even more control of hell’s creatures wasn’t what I’d hoped to learn. Did any of you notice anything useful?”
“It’s raining again,” Minerva said.
Lynn snuggled Cupcake tightly to her side. “So he hasn’t learned anything meaningful. Sanguine said her grandmother would only move time forward if he learned what she was trying to teach.”
Myles didn’t see how that obvious conclusion was much help. “Any insight into Sanguine?”
The four women sat silently around their veve.
“Me neither,” Myles said.
Polly set Muffin Top aside. “I respect Kendell’s fear of us getting sucked back into hell, but this weakness is like having voodoo mono. No matter how much sleep I get, I’m always ready for a nap.”
Scraper leaned back against the wall. “When Polly complains about not having any energy, we’d all better worry.”
“What are you suggesting?” Myles asked.
“You need to connect to us the way you did in hell. Even if you can’t talk to Sanguine, maybe you can figure out a way to turn off the psychic spigot.”
He hated acting without consulting Kendell, but he also didn’t want to fight with her over something he knew he had to do. “We all need to lie on the stage with our heads pressed against each other. Don’t fall asleep. I can bind us together again, but if things get dangerous, I’m relying on the puppies to distract us. If you hear them barking, work your attention back to this stage. I just want to get a look at what’s going on.”
Polly was the first to lie down on the gray-painted plywood stage. “Just get this thing out of me. If what Kendell felt while connected to the curse is anything like being hooked up to Sanguine, I’ll never again give her shit about that golden guitar pick. I can’t imagine how she stayed sane.”
Myles didn’t have the heart to tell Polly that Sanguine was practically a saint compared to Baron Malveaux. The women’s hair flowed around his head. Normally, so many women making themselves open to him would have been unbearably nerve-racking, but Lynn was right—they were closer to sisters to him than anyone he had known.
He opened his soul to them. Next, he focused on Sanguine, feeling a bit like a member of a bomb-disposal unit heading into a minefield. The women weren’t the issue. Taking a second journey to the outskirts of hell, however, seemed a little too much like literally tempting the devil.
Protecting the women’s spirits felt a lot like holding Doughnut Hole. The little dude had unequivocal trust in Myles’s strength. That level of responsibility for another’s love wasn’t something he’d ever experienced from another living being, not even Kendell. She was a strong spirit who would accept his help but never let herself become dependent. The band, however, was so sapped of strength that they nestled into his spirit like little girls falling asleep against their father’s chest. The impression was one he knew he’d need to keep to himself.
Hell’s doors were closed. The alternate reality that resembled life was no more than a dream—a dream in which Sanguine ruled. Her spirit was out there somewhere in the bayous she called home. He saw his connection to her as a belaying rope that kept her from slipping off the cliff of life. The band’s exhaustion was caused by each woman holding onto the end of Myles’s spiritual rope to ensure he didn’t slip out of their grasp and go over the edge into hell. They were doing the work. He was merely the conduit. As was frequently the case when Myles was involved in some dangerous physical endeavor, he didn’t realize the risks until someone else also had their life on the line.
Doughnut Hole nudged Myles’s hand with his wet nose, breaking the connection Myles had to the women.
20
Sanguine sat on a limb of a live oak that overlooked Bayou Saint John. Wind teased the tips of her five-foot-long wings. She wasn’t impressed with the well-manicured waterway, but being within the city limits, it at least gave her a taste of home. Her two alligators—Left and Right—lounged on the freshly cut grass below the tree. They were profoundly lazy creatures without a worry in hell. She envied them.
She wasn’t ready to face Colin. He’d had months to learn how to control his surroundings. The time with Kendell and her gang of idiots had only served to show Sanguine how far their adversary had progressed.
She swung her feet like a little girl who didn’t want to come in for dinner. The action brushed her feather tips against her reptilian companions, who looked up at her in displeasure. Even though they were physical and she merely spirit, she’d managed to teach them to respond to every one of her directions, even unintentional ones. “Sorry. You know, you two could try to do some work.”
They both returned to their contemplation of the water.
Sitting around in the trees like some overly emotional woodland fairy wasn’t getting her any closer to killing Colin. She pulled out the sword she kept sheathed at her side. The blue metal shone in the early morning light. To prove its uselessness, she swung it through the tree as if chopping it down with one blow. Not a single leaf rustled. She aimed the blade at the water. Her two companions promptly got up from their grassy bed and tromped to the edge of the bayou. At least the animals obeyed. Like a sword of justice, whatever she pointed at, her animal companions would attack.
She returned the blade to its sheath. I might not be able to interact with Colin physically yet, but I can direct the animals to do my bidding. So I’ve got that going for me.
Time was the real problem. Her grandmother might conjure up a dimensional hurricane as easily as she would mix up a batch of pralines, but the old swamp witch had neglected to give Sanguine the recipe. It was a power Sanguine understood, yet turning the swirling winds backward—and thus turning back time—still had the young swamp witch stumped.
She spread her wings and hopped off the limb. Her feet settled to the ground with all the gentleness of a leaf drifting on a windless fall day. A mosquito buzzed her face. By the time she thought about swatting it away, it had zigzagged off to her left. She stared at the retreating insect until it was out of sight. “You knew exactly which hand I was going to raise and which direction it would swish through the air.”
She summoned the bug back to her. No matter which way she looked, the insect parried her move like a fencing opponent. “You can’t be that good. That brain of yours is too small for such advanced calculations.”
As a test, she stood perfec
tly still, as only a spirit not burdened with a body could do. By letting her attention wander, she was able to see life from the perspective of the mosquito. The myriad of lenses the insect used didn’t display a 180-degree view as she’d been taught in school. The bug could see the future and the past. Like a puppeteer, Sanguine directed her body to move a finger. Before she made the movement, the lens directly ahead of the mosquito displayed the action. As the thought of moving her finger became a reality, the bug switched its focus from the future to the present. Even when the finger had resumed its natural position, she could still see it extended in the final insect view screen. Every movement she made was displayed across time as if it were a film of events in which the projector wasn’t simply focusing through a small lens but showing multiple frames at the same time.
“So you can see the future and the past even though time is standing still here in hell.” She tried to work out what that meant to her current situation. “To see the future, you’d have to live in the past. In your case, it must be only a fraction of a second, but the concept would hold true no matter the length of time.”
Before she mentally released the bug, the little insect had laid out its escape vector.
Sanguine hunched her wings higher up her shoulders so she could sit by the water’s edge. Though her two gator companions couldn’t have cared less about what she had to say, at least they didn’t offer unwanted advice like Kendell’s meddlesome friends.
“Colin is stuck in time, but I’m not. I chose to stay in this moment because it’s closer to when he is. Every second I don’t have to turn back makes it easier to reach him. But what will I see if I do go back in time?”
Left didn’t bother looking up, and Right snapped at a bug that had landed on his snout.
“Like that mosquito, I should be able to see Colin’s future, even if he doesn’t have one based on time moving. I’ve always assumed he would die in that moment he’s stuck in. He will if I have anything to say about it. But our little friend was able to see my movements independent of time’s passage.”
Right grew tired of the conversation and crawled into the water without fully standing on his stubby legs.
“You’re just not interested in science at all, are you?”
Left turned his big green eye to her and blinked with his multiple eyelids.
“Good point, Lefty. I wouldn’t know the future—I’d only see what’s about to happen in the direction I’m looking. After all, mosquitos can be killed if they’re not looking at what’s coming at them. You can be quite wise for a gator.”
She could see the trap. Thinking she knew more than she actually did would make her vulnerable. No matter how fast she turned her head or how far ahead she could see in time, there would always be the danger of the hand coming around behind her and squishing her.
“I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? Seeing into the future requires multiple-lens eyes and a trip back in time. Of course, being spirit and not animal, I can at least accomplish one of those tasks. Don’t freak out on me.”
She closed her eyes and imagined seeing different perspectives on time like her mosquito mentor. Having eyes that took up half her face didn’t seem like a means of passing inconspicuously, but turning her light-blue irises into multiple lenses might make them look like cut-glass jewels.
When she opened her eyes and looked at Left, she could see he was about to fall asleep.
* * *
Colin Malveaux stormed around the French Quarter like the hurricane that had just passed. The source of his ire wasn’t losing, once again, to the sexy little witchy guitarist. As a businessman, he’d suffered his fair share of setbacks. The one thing he was certain of was that she would be back for another of their life-or-death chess matches.
The rain, however, which he had been so relieved to be rid of, once again soaked everything it touched. “You are not playing fair, old witch! Once something is learned, it can’t be unlearned. Just because I reject what you taught me, that doesn’t make it right for you to turn back time.”
Arguing with a hurricane only made his throat hurt. Agnes Delarosa was dead. The part of her that made up Colin’s hell couldn’t be reasoned with, no matter how hard he tried. “Try this, witch.”
He waved his hand toward the storm. A cloud of bats circled overhead, blackening the sky and creating a living umbrella. With the flapping of their wings, they managed to divert the rain for a hundred-foot radius around him.
But even the rain and having the old witch turn the hands of time back a few hours wasn’t what made every animal other than the bats steer clear of Colin. Hell was no longer his alone. He had felt the change even before being confronted with the voodoo totem that had imprisoned the side of him known as Baron Malveaux. With the hated African sculpture taking up residence in Delphine de Galpion’s Scratch and Sniff perfumery, her back room full of Marie Laveau’s voodoo journals was inaccessible. He hadn’t just lost a battle—the deck had been reshuffled, and he was no longer assured of being dealt a winning hand.
Then there were the animals. Before Kendell and her band of miscreants invaded his hell, every living creature responded to him as the god that he was. Battling Sanguine for control of his pets had been a worthy contest. But now that the meddlesome kids had left, hell’s animals seemed to think they’d been set free. The bats, of course, still obeyed Colin without reserve, as did the rats and most varieties of scurrying insect, but any creature heavier than a pound treated him like an equal.
His conclusion was inescapable. “I’m not alone. Somehow, that young swamp witch has retained power in my hell.”
He sat at the doors of Saint Louis Cathedral to consider his resources. Scratch and Sniff was out, not that there was much left in the establishment. The fire wraiths he’d saved from Delphine’s curio cabinets had been returned to their totems, which he kept in his penthouse office. Other than his fiery pets, he’d found little of interest in the shop.
According to his bat spies, his old office at New Orleans Bank and Trust was more than one of the seven gates of hell. Kendell and her gang had turned it into a gate between his hell and her reality. At one time, as Baron Malveaux, it had been Colin’s seat of power, but without Baron Samedi’s cane, the office was just another artfully decorated room when it came to its usefulness.
A line of bats stretched over the horizon. The old swamp witch’s lair hadn’t been of much use even when the old woman had been alive. Now that her granddaughter—the source of his disquiet—had inherited the realm, he considered making the long journey, though he doubted she would be holed up, waiting for him. Any worthy adversary would take the initiative and not wait for their opponent to catch up.
As for the remaining gates between life and hell, he had his bats to inform him if anything changed. So far, with the momentary exception, each location was as dank and empty as it had been when he first found himself in hell. Having been a loa of the dead, he knew what was expected. He was to be a good little boy, do his lessons, and present himself to the gate guardians like some stupid altar boy looking for absolution.
“Did they really think I was that foolish?”
He longed to return to his penthouse office. Memories of taking on fellow businessmen and crushing their achievements to dust gave him a feeling of satisfaction, but even with time standing still, he couldn’t face living in the past.
What he needed was power, and lacking control over humans, he’d turned to animals. Now that they too were rebelling, he would distill his desire to the most basic elements.
He stood, brushed the dust from the church off his pants, and turned to the abandoned World Trade Center. His voodoo totems, absconded from Delphine’s shop, still stood guard at the four wings of the building like gargoyles. The old swamp witch had made a tactical error in sending him back into the hurricane. Power from the storm would be building up in the strangely shaped structure exactly as intended by the designers, but instead of using the electricity to keep the vaults t
hat housed Luther Noire’s collected paranormal items from gaining strength, he’d use the totems to redirect the power and release his fury—just as he had when he’d busted in on the little game Kendell and her friends had been playing to create their gates.
“Power is power, no matter the form. Once I have control of it, I can set my trap.”
With every step toward the building on the river, he felt his confidence returning. He’d been a fool for letting self-doubt infect his thoughts.
He looked up beyond the bats overhead. “Thank you for the lesson, old witch, though I doubt it’s the one you meant to teach me.”
The lobby of the World Trade Center lit up as he walked through the doors. In some parallel dimension, Luther Noire would be keeping an eye on his repository. It grated on Colin’s nerves that he had to ask permission to enter the building beyond the lobby. He smiled at his irritation. “Item number one: disable Luther’s hold on my building.”
He lifted the phone from the guard desk and punched in 6-6-6. “Let me up.”
The man’s irascibility came through loud and clear. “Why?”
Colin did his best not to release his anger. There will be time for that later. Right now, I need determination. “I thought I’d collect my possessions.”
There was silence from the other end. Colin knew Luther would be considering how to lay claim to Marie Laveau’s voodoo totems, but as the wooden sculptures weren’t in Luther’s dimension, and Colin was the only person in hell, Luther didn’t have many choices.
“Make it quick,” Luther said.
A light came on over the middle elevator. I’ll take as much devil-damned time as I want, you fat fuck. Colin closed his eyes in self-loathing at the unintended mental release of anger. Power was power, and he didn’t want to release even a sentence’s worth of it until he had it focused like a laser beam against his true enemies.
