Dearest winged one, You may be weary, but this is important.
As Metamorfosi Day nears and you begin your final preparations, don’t lose sight of the scope of the challenges that lie ahead. You may be more interested than ever in repaying Lucian for his favor of last night, which is admirable. But he has warned you that success in this mission will be difficult. As you strategize, look at that night from every angle. Leave no question unasked. Remember that with victory of any kind comes sacrifice.
You will be fighting for your survival and his, too. Don’t lose sight of your own progress. Keep close watch over your soul’s health or you will be no good to anyone. So much is at stake, but it’s within your power to rise above all that threatens you.
My eyes set on a few curious bits: asking the right questions, making sacrifices. I turned that over in my mind. Sacrifice. I didn’t like that word. Its weight settled firmly onto my shoulders, pushing down on me, the way my heavy backpack, filled with so many textbooks, used to. I wished to go back to a time when all that— finals and papers and college applications—represented the most harrowing of obstacles. But it didn’t matter really, did it? Even if I had never been forced down the path to angelhood, I still wouldn’t have ever felt content or in full control of my life. I still would have worked myself to the bone to reach my goal, whether that goal was earning a good grade, a college acceptance, or the chance to live another day with my soul preserved. That was just how I operated.
After pulling myself together, I finally punched in the number Connor had given me. It rang and rang until a man’s voice answered. It had to be her father.
“Hi, is Sabine there, please?”
“I’m afraid she isn’t. Can I take a message?”
“Oh, hi sir, this is her friend Haven. Could you ask her to call me?”
“Haven, New Orleans Haven?” His gruff voice suddenly took on a friendly, familiar twang.
I was touched at the recognition. “Um, yes, that’s right.”
“I thought you were the roommate, but I must be thinking of someone else,” he said, almost to himself, then continued before I could correct him. “Go ahead and give her a ring there. She got back to New Orleans a couple days ago. She couldn’t wait to get down there again.”
My gut received this news with a certain grade of panic I worked to control. We said goodbye and I let the phone drop as I rummaged through my night table in search of those photos. I gathered the few shots I had of Sabine. Whatever minor improvement they may have shown after her levitation had been undone. Her photos had grown grotesque all over again. Her skin dripped from her hollowed face as though it were melting. Sores festered over every inch, bleeding and peeling. Her eyes were jaundiced and misshapen. Her picture somehow now looked even worse than Jimmy’s, much worse than any of the ones that had morphed into horrific alter egos. I flew down the ladder, ran down the hall, and pounded on Lance’s door. He opened up looking like he’d just gotten out of bed, cleaning the lenses of his glasses on the bottom of his Cubs T-shirt.
“Her dad thinks she’s here.”
By the time we walked the hall to Connor’s room, we knew the truth. But we let him say it out loud.
“She’s got to be one of them,” he said.
“But we did the extraction,” I argued. “And Dante performed a spell too. I don’t understand.”
“This hits everyone differently.” Connor shook his head. “There’s Brody, who got hit and never returned at all, just got sucked into their sick world—as we know now.” His voice dropped in defeat before recovering. “And then look at Lance and you and the others who have made it through. But Sabine must have turned even before we knew she’d been targeted.”
“But it shouldn’t matter when you go to the lengths we did to protect her, should it?” Lance asked. “Didn’t we do everything we could?”
Something occurred to me. “She was totally fine right after the extraction,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I was wiped-out for a while after mine. And you”—I gestured at Connor, who folded his arms, listening closely—“you said that it was supposed to be real work on the part of the person who’s undergoing the soul division.”
“That’s right,” he confirmed.
“So it’s possible that she really wasn’t trying,” Lance proposed.
Connor paused a long moment, hanging his head, and with a new tenderness said, “It sure is.”
On our way to the Warehouse District, we passed by Kip’s shop, and I felt a pang. Not in the emotional sense but a sharp physical jolt in my chest that stopped me for a moment.
“You okay?” Lance asked.
“Yeah, I just—” But I had lost my train of thought. I peeked in the window and saw a woman walking to a backroom, the soft waves of her long mane bouncing. Lance followed my line of vision.
“Hey, did you see that?” he asked. “Isn’t she the one who’s always with Wylie?”
I nodded. I thought of Sabine and how she hung out at the tattoo shop the day the body was found there. A horrible thought occurred to me, but I pushed it aside and walked on.
We reached the warehouse and found the usual flutter of activity, hammering and sawing and idle chatter filling the air. We wound our way back toward the area where our tiny group of Royal Street angels worked on constructing foliage for the cemetery float. Along the way I couldn’t help observing our peers from the rest of the program. They seemed so at ease, talking and laughing as they worked. A few had even begun playfully flinging paint at one another, the kind of thing that always happens in movies but had never happened to me despite all the painting I’d done at my various jobs the past year. As I watched, I felt a longing for the normalcy of their lives. And then it intensified, transforming into that sharp, stabbing pain I’d just fought off at Kip’s shop.
I thought at first it might be a run-of-the-mill panic attack, which would certainly be warranted the way everything felt like it was closing in on me, but this was something more. It started in the scar on my chest but it seeped from there and infected my entire body, lodging itself in my heart and slowing its beats; wedging into my lungs to constrict my breathing; impaling itself in my brain until my head felt like it had been severed into two throbbing hemispheres. My pace slowed and I fell a few steps behind Lance until finally I had to stop. I rooted myself beside a boy cutting planks of wood with a circular saw. Its hungry buzz echoed in my ears as it chewed through, each piece spitting a spray of dust that settled on my sweaty skin. I closed my eyes and held my head in my hands. Then I forced my eyes open to find the boy looking at me, puzzled, from behind his plastic goggles.
“You okay?” he asked over the roar of construction equipment.
I just nodded, wiping the sweat from my brow. Still struggling, I took a few tentative steps away as he returned to his work. What was wrong with me? Now was not the time for me to be feeling weak.
The same stinging feeling overtook me again just a few yards away. I came up to the costume department, a section cordoned off with a few clothing racks and a table with a pair of sewing machines humming. A trio of girls flipped through Polaroid pictures. “I think we need more color. Everywhere,” one of them told the others, rolling her eyes. “Seriously, they just want red and black on that last float? The cemetery one? It’s gonna be such a snooze.” I had to stop in my tracks once more and focus on breathing. They halted their conversation to stare at me. As I looked at each of them, a shooting pain flared in my chest for an instant. But, with a heavy gait, I forced myself to continue on, finally catching up with Lance.
“Where’d you disappear to?” he asked as he pounded a board into place, almost finished with his replica of that enormous circular crypt where we had decided to take a “pause” a while back. I hated that thing. Before I could answer, he studied me and said, “Hey, no offense, but you don’t look so good.”
I leaned against the structure and it slid away from my weight. I stumbled but recovered.
“This isn�
�t made out of marble and cement like the real one. What’s up?”
I took a few deep breaths and tried to stand up straight. “You’re probably still a little drained, that’s all,” he said, concern lacing his words.
“I hope you’re right.”
A voice interrupted us. “I’m taking a poll: How do we feel about sequins on the costumes?” It was Emma. “For them or against them?” We just stared at her blankly.
“Are you serious?” Lance asked.
“Emphatically against,” I answered.
“But you don’t even know how they would be used.”
“Emphatically against,” I repeated.
“We’ll see.” She marked something on her clipboard and continued on to her next victims.
I had one other near-fainting episode before our time at the warehouse was through. Lance ordered me to rest when we got back to the house. “It’s been a wild few days, and we can’t have you pulling this swooning act at Mardi Gras,” he said, true worry behind the joking. So I tucked myself into bed early and decided to calm myself to sleep by practicing my levitation skills. I focused my gaze on one of my sneakers on the floor below, watching, watching. In seconds it flew at me. I reached one hand out from under the covers and grabbed it. Not bad. I was getting faster. My eyelids closed and I began to drift off, but just as fast, that pinging sounded. I thought of letting it continue, but it seemed to get louder the longer I waited. I reached over and found a new message on the screen. Girding myself, I started to read, but the very first line filled me with relief instead of fear.
You will be pleased to know what you felt earlier today wasn’t any kind of illness: it was a warning. You’re accustomed to feeling the presence of danger through your scars. Now you are beginning to develop an even greater ability to forecast trouble. Pay attention to this feeling. Today, without the need for photographs, you succeeded in locating souls that are flirting with the dark side. Consider this a new radar for you: From this point forward, when you come in contact with anyone whose soul is at risk or in the process of being stolen, you will know. You will feel it. And while it may have overwhelmed your entire being today, in time your body will learn not to be overloaded by this kind of pull.
I replayed those episodes. Where, exactly, had I been when I’d felt those sharp jabs? Who had I been near? Who did I need to look out for? How could I protect these people I didn’t even know? But I read on:
You’re becoming more powerful, Haven. Today should give you confidence.
I tried, for a moment, to stop and savor that.
But despite this, your path is growing thornier. Now your sense of responsibility will only grow heavier. You’ll want to save these people and others. You’ll feel their fate is in your hands, but you won’t always win. Still, this knowledge will afford you the opportunity to possibly change their course. These are the Krewe’s next targets. A rampage is afoot with bloodshed the goal. The scale will be greater than even what you witnessed during your tagging. But now you will have the power to intervene.
My frustration bubbled up. I read faster, more urgently.
More than ever, you, the illuminator, will need the architect and the alchemist. Though you hold the greatest power, without their aid you are virtually powerless. The three of you are a unit; you function best together. Let nothing stand in the way of your bond. Your survival depends upon it. The day of reckoning is fast approaching, winged one.
Let nothing stand in the way of your bond. That line resonated. It was the only time a message had told me something I was positive I had already discovered on my own. I needed to be sure that one of them knew, without a doubt, what he meant to me.
32. What Happened with Us?
When we returned home from tutoring the next day, there was no denying it: Mardi Gras had nearly arrived. Sequined and feathered masks bearing those signature shades— green, purple, and yellow—had been left outside each of our rooms with flyers reading:
You’re cordially invited
to the NOLA Student Volunteer Network
Mardi Gras Masquerade Party!
Celebrate in style
with a classic New Orleans fête and feast!
The LaLaurie Mansion
I was reading it when Dante burst in my room, no greeting, just talking. “I’m having a voodoo emergency!” He had that crazed skittishness of someone who’s been cramming for finals in classes he’d zoned out in all semester.
“So this party is mandatory, I guess, right? Even if you’re supposed to be saving lives that day?” I dropped the invitation on my desk. He ignored me.
“I need some last-minute ingredients. I just got these ideas.” He was pacing, not looking at me. “Things I want to add. Even though they’re not usually in voodoo spells. But these are my spells. And Mariette says I need to follow my heart and my impulses and experiment. And I need more than sage and jalap root and dragon’s blood resin already, you know? I need to branch out. I need something more exotic to complement the herbs from the underworld.”
I shrugged. “Well, that certainly makes sense.”
“Can you get them for me?” Now he stopped moving and looked at me with his wild eyes.
“What?”
“Max is busy tearing up all my stuff at the community garden,” he said, fluttering his hands. “And I don’t know who else to trust. I just need this as strong as can be, with flowers potent enough to go with the underworld blooms.”
“Don’t send me back down there!” I blurted out. I couldn’t go back to that crypt right now. I couldn’t risk it so close to Metamorfosi Day.
“No, aren’t you listening? I’ve got those covered; the flowers are here.” He rifled through the books on my desk, tearing a sheet of paper from my notebook and scribbling a list.
“Oh, okay. I’ll go to the florist over by the French Market.”
“No. I need you to go to the botanical garden. Like, tonight. And take some clippings.”
“Isn’t that kind of, I don’t know, theft?”
“All’s fair in love and war—this is war.”
I couldn’t disagree with that.
“You’re better at breaking and entering than I am, Haven. This’ll be a snap for you. And with all I’ve got going on at Mariette’s, I need every minute I can get. You’ll see. Take Lance. And this.” He held the list out to me with nearly a dozen flower names and descriptions.
By twilight, Lance and I were standing outside the gates of the botanical garden, the leafy expanse stretching out endlessly inside and just a ten-foot wall of metal bars keeping us out. No problem. With minimal rattling, we were up and over it, not even breaking a sweat.
“Not to celebrate too soon, but we’re getting really good at that,” I joked.
“I was thinking the same thing.” Lance smiled. He pulled the map Dante had given us from his back pocket and studied it as we wandered back along the paved path, past proud towering oaks, blossoming rosebushes, an array of palm trees whose thick, broad leaves whispered as they brushed against one another in the cool evening breeze. In the distance, the glass dome of the conservatory sparkled, reflecting the lights from the security lamps. Even in the dim glow, the sprawling grounds, with their leafy wonders and bursting blooms, made such a peaceful oasis I almost forgot there was business to tend to. I dug Dante’s notes out of my bag. He had ordered his shopping list from most vital ingredients to least.
“I vote we hit the tropical section first.” I leaned over Lance’s map. He had flipped on a tiny flashlight and shone it on our target.
I read the list out loud to myself as Lance navigated, our footsteps and the chirping cicadas providing the only soundtrack. We spoke in hushed voices, as though in a church. “There’s this starred one, ‘Voodoo Lily, smells like rotting corpse.’ That’ll be a fun one. We’ve got a couple orchids. Yarrow, it says here, for healing—”
“So Dante thinks this stuff is somehow gonna be even more potent than what we used on the Krewe the other night?”
he interrupted. He adjusted his glasses in that nervous way of his, then pointed at the path around a reflecting pool.
“Here’s hoping, right?” I continued reading: “Hyssop to ward off evil spirits. Thorns from a few unusual hybrid roses. Love-lies-bleeding—” I stopped. “Whoa, that sounds ominous.”
“Wonder what that would look like.”
“It says here, ‘small red blooms, weeping, looks like a broken heart.’” My mind wandered, the name of the flower sticking in my thoughts, held there by the thorns of the past couple months. I realized neither of us had spoken for a while. Lance watched his feet as he walked. I felt the weight of silence, nerves setting in as the minutes stretched. I wondered if he was thinking what I was. I stared off into the distance, tropical plants fanning and waving several yards away.
Somehow we both decided to speak at precisely the same time.
Lance started, “So, I—” just as I began, “What do you—”
We laughed in a painful, nervous way. I nodded for him to go ahead. “I was going to say, with these battles ahead and all, that we’re sort of a team, so we’ve got to start acting like it . . . again. Or else we’ll never get through this stuff.”
I smiled softly, appreciatively. It occurred to me, I might as well go for it. “I’m going to ask a question I never thought I would have the guts to ask,” I said. “But, you know, we always get bold when our lives are on the line, don’t we?”
“I suppose we do,” he answered.
“What happened . . . with . . . us?” All the blood rushed to my head as soon as I said it, but, still, I was proud of myself for trying.
Infatuate Page 31
