The man's eyes flashed open and shifted, and he stared right at Max, studying, trying to decipher whatever it was he saw, or thought he saw.
“Yes! I'm right here!” Max cried, frantic now. “Right in front of you! Get away from her!”
The man shook his head, as though working off a chill, and then turned away, signaling for the others to continue.
“No!” Max shouted.
The one with the squirming burlap sack stepped toward the girl. Max felt as though his mind would simply fall apart. To be unable to do anything but stand and bear witness was more than he could tolerate. He reminded himself what the map had said of the Fourth Moment: the Tordu were here to help. This day, evil banished the yellow fever. Thousands of lives might be saved, and without this Moment, the entire population of New Orleans might have died that year.
But this?
Was anything worth this?
The blood of the Tordu had burned holes in the girl's belly, chest, and cheek. The man upended the sack and dumped a squirming gray mass of rats onto her.
The doctors and nurses in the grange hall screamed.
Max screamed with them. He rushed at the nearest Tordu, the one he thought had been able to hear him, and tried to grab him. His hands passed through.
Two doctors, crying out in rage, ran to help the girl. One of the Tordu women threw a handful of powder into their eyes, and they fell, crying out in pain.
And all the while the rats tore at the little girl. She still twitched, still breathed, still lived. But she never opened her eyes. Consciousness never returned.
Max screamed epithets at God, full of venom and hysteria and helplessness. Then, quietly, turning his back, he prayed first for the girl, and then for himself. And as he prayed, the rats began to move away from the girl, who surely must be dead by now. Squeaking, sneaking, leaving tiny paw prints marked with the ink of her blood, they began to race through the hall toward the other patients.
“No!” Max pleaded, turning his gaze heavenward, wishing that God or even crazy Ray would hear him, that the magic of the Map of Moments would be taken from him. “I don't want to see any more. Please.”
But the Moment had not ended yet.
The plague-stricken who were conscious screamed as the rats darted about. Some tried to stand and stagger from the place. The vermin seemed to target only the sickest amongst them, though, and those people were in no condition to move. They hardly seemed to notice as the rats began biting their fingers, toes, and faces. They had eaten of the girl and their snouts were daubed with her blood, but now they were not attempting to eat flesh, only to nip.
And then, as quickly as they had swarmed through the grange hall, they darted into corners, through doors, and beneath cots, vanishing in moments.
Instantly, the boils on the faces of the stricken began to shrink. Purple lesions faded, and if they did not vanish entirely, they might as well have. Those who'd seemed closest to death opened their eyes as fevers broke.
Whispered prayers came from the corners of the room where the remaining doctors and nurses had retreated. Now they rushed to their patients. Someone laughed, and then others took up the sound. The weeping that began was the sound of joy instead of anguish.
Max looked around, eyes wide. The Tordu had already left, but now those who had not yet been on their deathbeds were beginning to sit up, their symptoms departing, and the rats had not been anywhere near them. Those the rats had bitten were healed first, but their wellness was contagious.
The fever had been broken.
He heard, amongst the whispers and shouts, the word “miracle” in several languages. But how could anything that required the mutilation and death of a little girl be a miracle?
His mind could not contain any more. He ran for the door where he'd come in, through the kitchen, and down that corridor with the peeling wallpaper, to the front entrance. When he staggered into the street he fell to his knees and threw up, eyes watering.
A car horn blared.
He blinked and looked up at the oncoming car, forced himself to stand and move aside to let the rusted Chevy go by, then turned and stared at the vacant lot on the corner of Perdido and Bertrand.
The stink of disease and rot was still in his nose, and he didn't think he would ever be rid of it.
chapter
11
Back in the RAV4, driving through the streets of New Orleans, the stink of corruption from over a century before still on his clothes, Max felt in more danger than ever. He was the focus of this city's attention, as if every home he passed had someone standing behind its front window watching him. And yet he knew that whatever had set its awareness upon him was beneath and behind the city. Something deeper, and deadlier. The Tordu.
He had stood and watched them slaughtering that girl, that doctor, so that they could introduce a cure. He'd been able to touch and smell, hear and taste, but he had not been there enough to intervene. And that felt so unfair.
But if he had intervened? Stopped them, somehow? How many more would have died?
He cursed, stamping on the brakes and slewing around a corner, taking out his anger on the road.
Ray's words came back to him. Follow it, magic yourself up, like runnin’ your feet along a carpet to build up static, and at the end of the map you'll find Matrisse. Then maybe he'll help you through.
Perhaps it was because it was fresher in his memory, but this Moment had felt much more real than the others. He had almost been taking up space in that replay of history rather than merely witnessing it. During the other Moments, all his senses had been delving into the past, but this time he had felt less like a bystander. It had affected him— involved him—in some way the others hadn't.
That man stared at me! Max thought. He sensed me there, maybe even heard me.
Maybe he was magicking himself up, as Ray had put it. Perhaps it was a cumulative thing, and every time he viewed a Moment, understanding came closer.
“But how will I know?” he muttered.
A gray sedan cut him off at the next intersection, horn blaring, and Max's heart jumped. He jerked the steering wheel to the right, bouncing over the curb at the corner and getting back on the street just in time to avoid hitting a parked car. The car that had cut him off slowed.
He caught his breath and slowed as well, staring at the sedan, almost expecting to see a man leaning out with a gun at the ready. What he actually saw were two small kids, turned in their seat and waving to the man their mother or father was likely cursing.
I cut them off, Max thought. He waved back and drifted to a stop at the curb, watching the other car drive away.
He glanced in the rearview mirror. Real though that Moment had been, it did not compare to the sound and feel of the RAV4 crushing that man against Coco's car. Because I did that, Max thought. And he wondered if the man was dead.
He breathed deeply and closed his eyes, letting the sounds of the street wash through his partially open window. Had he killed? He did not know, and there was no way he could find out. He was alone on the streets of this ruined city, and the sooner he left, the better. But not yet.
Each time he blinked, he witnessed that sick little girl dying beneath a shower of Tordu blood. He was still confused at what he'd seen—the brutal, heartless Tordu apparently curing the plague—but the more he dwelled on it, the less he understood. Why would those dark magicians use their magic to help the people of New Orleans?
“Hey!” Someone rapped on his window and Max jumped, heart fluttering in his chest. He reached for his keys, wincing against whatever violence was about to come.
“You're in my parking spot!”
Max looked at the old man standing beside the RAV4— tall, bald, face like a crumpled leather jacket, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. He frowned at Max, pointing at the car, then down at the road.
Max smiled. Relief flooded him, relaxing his tensed muscles. Normality did still exist. He wound down his window.
“Sorry,” he said. �
�Just taking a break.”
“Yeah, well, break somewhere else. I gotta load up my car.”
Max pulled away slowly, moving out into the road and waving at the tall guy.
He drove, edging south without realizing it and finding himself heading back toward the university. He tried to hunker down in his seat, but the vehicle was high, and he felt on display to anyone who might be looking for him.
And they were looking for him. After Max had crushed that guy who'd chased him from the library, Coco and his cronies would search until they found him. From the current of fear their name inspired and the way the police had responded to it, it seemed likely the Tordu had a web of contacts through the city. Some strands may have been snapped by Katrina, but it still felt as though a deeper, darker level of the city than most people saw was theirs.
I'm being hunted, he thought. The sights, sounds, and smells of the last Moment would remain with him forever, but this was reality. Corinne's death had implications in the here and now, rather than being a snapshot of old history. And in the reality of here and now, action remained his only recourse. Momentum.
He glanced in his mirror, then drifted to a stop before an empty, boarded-up house.
The map lay on the passenger seat, folded, enticing. The Fifth Moment would be on there now, the fourth already faded away to the memory it really was. He grabbed the map and opened it across the steering wheel, looking everywhere but at the map while he smoothed it out. A couple of cars passed by him, their drivers apparently uninterested.
Across the street, three men in overalls walked along the pavement, dragging their feet, heads bowed. One of them seemed to be talking, but Max could not see whether the other two were even paying attention. They carried long-handled tools over their shoulders. The buildings across the street from him were faceless, windows gleaming with reflected sun. If someone was watching him from there, he would not see them.
They can't be everywhere, he thought. If they were, I'd be dead already
So, finally, he looked down at the map.
He scanned areas where no Moment had appeared before, but eventually his eyes were drawn back to the French Quarter, only a couple of blocks from Jackson Square, where the Second Moment had occurred. A small box had appeared there:
The Fifth Moment:
The Civil War Dead Unite to Avenge
a Heinous Tordu Crime
June 8, 1935
Later again. Each moment represented a shift forward in time, marching toward the present. He wondered how many more there could be after this one, and the strange sensation of something closing in on him made him shiver.
Maybe they don't always win, he thought, taking in those words again and trying to make sense of them. But he could make little sense, because he knew so little. He knew the Tordu existed, but not why. From his first meeting with
Coco, it had been apparent they were involved in drugs and prostitution, some kind of crime family, holding the city in a terrible grip. According to the Moments he had seen, they had been preying on New Orleans, living off the city, for centuries. But what did their rituals and conjurations have to do with any of that? Were they ruling this town with dark magic, the same way organized crime families controlled other cities with fear and money?
Their influence on New Orleans could not be denied. And Max felt certain that someone with an intimate understanding of the city would have to know at least something about the Tordu …even if they never spoke of it aloud. Even if fear made them erase such knowledge from their minds.
“Charlie,” he said. His old friend from the university, chased away by the Tordu. There was only one reason for them to warn Charlie away: they'd been afraid he would speak of things meant to be secret.
Max sighed and folded the map. He had transportation now, and he could be at the site of the Fifth Moment in maybe fifteen minutes, but the streets were dangerous for him. The Tordu were looking for him and for this vehicle.
“Charlie, you can tell me,” he whispered.
He couldn't break his momentum. He had to forge ahead to the next Moment, and witness its memory and truths. At first, he had not seen the pattern, not realized it at all, but the Map of Moments contained within it the story of the Tordu establishing a hold upon the heart of New Orleans. And if Max hoped to survive contact with them, he needed to reach the end of the map, the end of the story, and unravel the secrets of the Tordu. This wasn't just about making peace with losing Gabrielle anymore, or even some hope that he might reach back to save her, or forgive her, or forgive himself.
Now it was about getting out alive.
But the closer he got to the end of the map, and the more recent the Moments became, the more he felt a part of them. And last time…
Last time, amongst all the sickness and rot, the Tordu man had sensed him.
If the trend continued with the Fifth Moment, Max might find himself in mortal danger from the past.
True, forward was the only way to go. But he needed to discover as much as he could about the Tordu's past before he walked into it again.
The bar reminded him of the place where Ray had given him the map. Physically, it was much different, because it had not been touched by the floodwaters. But it had been irrevocably changed by Katrina. The owners played jazz through a stereo that sat behind the bar, but the drinkers’ minds did not seem to be on music. They stared into a middle distance at something far away.
He approached the bar. The barman was short and fat, his bald head bubbled with perspiration, the pale skin of his jowls seeping sweat. His eyes bore an impression of lifelong fear, and Max wondered how someone like this could come to run such a place.
“Getcha?” the man asked. His voice was high, and any other time Max might have smiled.
“Coffee'd be fine,” Max said. “Do you have a phone I could use?”
Something changed in the man's demeanor. He seemed to stand up taller, lifted his chin, and his eyes grew sharper. “Booth at the back, by the john.”
Max nodded his thanks and weaved his way through the tables and chairs. Had he really upset that guy just by ordering coffee? He supposed it was possible. Everyone here nursed a beer or a whiskey. Maybe not drinking was enough to set Max apart from the rest. That, and the absence of a thousand-yard stare.
The phone was in an old booth at the end of a short hallway, restroom doors heading off left and right. Max tried to close the door, but it was rarely used in these times of cell phones, and it stuck halfway.
He sat there for a beat, eyes closed. The quiet jazz washed over him and took him back to the times he'd visited places like this with Gabrielle. A rush of memories came, their pureness pleasing him: Gabrielle grinning as they downed their fifth cocktail of the night; her delighted laughter as they were rained on rushing from one bar to the next; her softer, more sensual smile later, arms around his neck, lips brushing his as they waited for a cab. Good memories, untainted by what had happened recently, and as yet untouched by his discovering her with Joe Noone.
Noone's name shattered the memories into a thousand bloody fragments.
Max's eyes snapped open and focused on a piece of graf-fitti on the wooden wall of the booth: fuck suck pussy anal, it said, and then a number that had been scratched out. He sighed. The grime was always so close to the surface, but in that, at least, New Orleans was no different from any other city.
The receiver was cold and greasy, and he wondered who had used it before him. He rooted around in his wallet, looking for a business card that had sat in one of the slots behind his medical insurance card for over a year. The card belonged to Cornelia Trask, who'd been head of the Tulane English department when Max had taught at the university. He'd never called the number on the front, but over the duration of his employment at Tulane, on the back he'd scribbled eight or nine other numbers of colleagues and friends he'd made. Since moving back to Boston, he'd never so much as drawn the card out of his wallet, never mind called any of them. It stuck to the leather
as he tugged it out now.
There would be other ways to track down Charlie, if he had long enough, but this was his first hope. Max had once mentioned that he'd never visited Houston, and Charlie had given him his parents’ phone number, saying that if he ever went, they'd happily put him up for a few days. They had a big house, Charlie'd said, and rattled around it like two peas in a pod. Max never would have taken him up on it, of course. Southerners might really be comfortable offering that kind of hospitality, but boys raised in the Northeast would never be comfortable accepting it.
He'd dutifully written down the number, so as not to appear rude. Now he stared at the digits and thought of the organs he'd found pinned to Charlie's office door. Cattle organs, he'd tried to convince himself at the time. Not human.
Max took a deep breath, then tapped in the number.
An old man answered—Charlie's father, Max figured. When he put his son on the phone, Max wasn't really surprised.
“Hey, it's Max.”
Charlie was silent for a long time. Max could hear his friend breathing, fumbling at the other end of the phone, and in the distance he heard the sound of a child's voice, raised in delight or distress, he could not tell. Tempted though he was to prod a response from Charlie, he knew he should give him time.
“Max,” Charlie said at last. “You home?”
“Not yet,” Max said. “I'm still in New Orleans, and I need—”
“What the hell are you still doing there?” Charlie tried to sound angry, but his voice came across as scared.
Max looked along the small hallway. Although there was no one there, he had the sense that someone was listening.
“I've got a feeling you know what I'm doing, Charlie. You were pretty adamant about staying in New Orleans yesterday. Today you're in Texas.”
“Yeah. Drove all afternoon and half the night. There was no way I could stay. I'll never know why I ever thought of it as somewhere to bring up a family. It's …not a place to call home, Max.”
Max frowned. “You were born and raised here.”
The Map of Moments Page 16
