by Cutter, Leah
Kai watched as the clerk, after the most recent customers had left, walked over to a shelf and pocketed a small statue. “Horrible how all those tourists are shoplifters, ain’t it?” Kai drawled.
“Mmm hmm.”
The picture showing the shop and the alley suddenly fuzzed. “What’s that?” Kai asked.
“Not sure. The feed’s clean. Interference from something,” Orlan said, starting a search on a different monitor.
The picture came back after a few seconds.
When it happened a second time, Kai started paying careful attention to the feed.
Just before the picture faded for a third time, Kai thought she saw something.
Momentarily imposed on the garage door had been a different structure. One made out of brick, with three doors.
Kai bit her tongue and didn’t ask Orlan if he’d seen that. “Must be a glitch or something.”
Orlan continued to try to clear the feed.
Kai deliberately turned her attention back to the store, pointing out the change of shift, how a new clerk was coming on, trying to distract Orlan from the other camera.
Something was there, though. Kai was certain.
Something other, like Kai, like Caleb.
* * *
Heat still held the afternoon hostage, despite the cheery blue sky and fluffy clouds. Kai felt as though she’d stepped into a bathroom after the shower had been running for hours when she left Orlan’s place. The Marigny was quiet this time of the afternoon—people were either working, or if they had kids, were napping with them. Kai liked the houses better here than in the Quarter: while some of them were just as fancy, with carved pieces holding up the roofs and ornate balcony railings, they looked more lived in, less for show.
Kai hadn’t walked even half a block from Orlan’s place when her phone rang—an unknown number. She paused in front of a cute blue and white creole cottage and answered.
“Have you found Gisa?” Rilke’s shrill voice came over the speaker.
Damn it. Kai had gotten sidetracked with the Chinese shop and then Caleb’s “emergency.”
She had to go back to that stupid mall. That had been the only clue she’d had so far. “I’m making progress,” Kai said. It wasn’t exactly a lie.
“Make it faster,” Rilke snapped.
Kai bit her tongue. The weather that morning had said the storm off the coast was getting worse, not better. Winds weren’t bad enough for the storm to have a name, but it was close. She really did need to find the siren, soon, before she had a much worse problem on her hands.
Still, she couldn’t help but ask, “Does your sister know any drug dealers? Or do you? Like one named Randall?”
Even over the phone, Rilke’s disdainful sniff was impressive. “Really? That’s the progress you have?”
“She was at an abandoned mall. One run by a drug gang,” Kai insisted.
“Why would she be there?” Rilke said. “No, you must be wrong. We don’t do drugs.”
Kai rolled her eyes, glad Rilke wasn’t there. “I’m not saying you do. What would a drug dealer want with one of your kind?”
The sigh Rilke replied with was impressive. “The myths lie, you know. We don’t have piles of gold under the river.”
“The money was kind of flowing yesterday,” Kai pointed out.
“That’s just good long-term planning,” Rilke explained. “We are not generally impulsive.”
“But Gisa was,” Kai said, remembering the wildness in Gisa’s scent.
“She would not be friends with such people,” Rilke insisted.
“She might know them, though? Might have met them while she was traveling?” Kai pressed.
The silence flowed heavily over the phone. “Maybe,” Rilke finally admitted. “But I’m still not sure what they’d want with her.”
Kai didn’t know, either. But she knew she was going to have to get up early tomorrow and buy the professor breakfast. She just didn’t know enough.
“I’ll go back to the mall this evening,” Kai promised.
“Thank you,” Rilke said slowly, as if the words were difficult for her. “You know what happens if you fail,” she warned before she hung up.
Kai nodded, slowly putting her phone back in her bag. If she failed, maybe the whole city would become like that mall, abandoned for good.
* * *
The sun spread sticky orange fingers across the sky by the time the bus dropped Kai off near the abandoned mall. The heat hadn’t improved the smell of the place: along with the mold, garbage, and sickly meth smells came the addition of urine and vomit. A drunk lay passed out just under the overgrown bushes, his hair shocking yellow, his arms over his face as if trying to protect the sunburnt skin, pulling up his shirt, showing his neon white belly, like a beached whale.
Kai walked carefully across the blacktop parking lot, trying to avoid the glass and debris as well as the few choked weeds pushing their way out through the cracks, bristling with nasty thorns. About halfway across, the wind shifted and Kai got a good, strong scent of Gisa.
Was she there, now, in the mall? Rilke had said her sister was being held on dry land. However, Kai would have expected her further inland, closer to the city. Hell, in the Quarter, even.
In her excitement, Kai took a few quick steps, kicking a bottle in the process, sending it skittering into another bottle, both of them breaking.
Damn. The two street kids Kai had seen earlier came strolling out from behind the moldy building. They didn’t say anything, just looked at her as they broke out a pack of cigarettes.
Kai knew she couldn’t pass as a junkie looking for a score. Hell, she couldn’t even pass as a college kid looking for some adventure.
But maybe that beached drunk could at least get her closer….
“Excuse me!” Kai called out to the two boys, exaggerating her drawl and waving. She started hurrying across the parking lot. “Albert’s just flat-up drunk himself into a stupor again. I’d like to call my boyfriend, get him to haul fat Albert’s ass outta here, but my battery’s gone dead. Can y’all help me?”
The smell of cool gunmetal pooled around the tall boy’s feet. His tan hair blazed out in a wild afro, though his skin was lighter than Kai’s, and his eyes were an odd hazel. He wore a grubby white T-shirt under a blue short-sleeved shirt and jeans buckled very low around his hips.
“Naw, got no phone, xiao jai,” said the shorter one. He looked Asian, with pocked cheeks and greasy black hair, wearing a puke-green vintage T and white board shorts.
“Do y’all know where there’s a pay phone?” Kai asked, coming closer and looking beyond the two boys, as if maybe there was one still in the mall.
The building’s odor was worse this close: The very walls were rotting and stank of sulfur and mold.
Suddenly, Kai drowned in dirty water, submerged and still steaming, the waves relentless, choking off her air.
The building remembered being drowned during Katrina. It was pissed off and grabbing at anyone who might feel its pain.
“You okay?” the tall one asked as Kai shook her head, coming back into the New Orleans evening, taking a step back.
“Sure, sure, hon,” Kai said, backing away.
“You go get your boyfriend,” the Asian boy sneered. “Or come back here and experience a real man,” he said, grabbing his crotch.
“No, no, I have to go,” Kai mumbled, turning. She couldn’t stay there. Couldn’t even step foot in that place. That building remembered too much, and hated all the living who’d escaped.
The problem was, under all the rot and piss and death, Kai knew Gisa was there, or had been, recently.
Kai was just going to have to find a way to get into that deserted mall, and survive.
Chapter Four
Kai heard the loud disco music blasting halfway up Dumaine Street. Either Sweets was trying to drive away a flock of tourists from the Clover Grill, or he was in a dancing mood.
Either way, Kai paused and took a de
ep breath before pushing her way into the diner. The two sets of tables on her left were full of obnoxiously loud frat boys, trying to shout their orders to Sweets over the music. In the booth to the right sat a young white woman with dishwater-blond hair, wearing a resigned expression, as if this was probably the best her day would get.
The red, swiveling counter seats were mostly empty. A young black man in car mechanic overalls sat at the far end, next to the kitchen door. Kai slipped onto the seat at the other end, opposite the grill. Despite being a regular, Kai didn’t expect any special treatment: Sweets specialized in Fair—the only time Sweets would serve someone out of order was if they’d just been tossed out of the diner.
Dusty manned the cash register. A tall, white-haired vet with the coldest blue eyes Kai had ever seen, he was wiry and made of solid muscle. Desert heat rolled off him when the tourists got too loud. Kai expected she’d read about him someday, after he’d snapped and shot up a bunch of people.
A new guy stood at the grill, banging hubcaps down on the burgers (a Clover Grill specialty.) He had a long ponytail pulled back tightly, with a good deal of bald skull on top. His tattoos looked old and worn, faded blues and reds that covered his arms from wrists to the edges of his white T, then crept further up his neck, as if he were afraid of ever being naked.
Sweets slapped the tickets up over the grill, got the tourists their drinks, then finally came over to Kai. He looked like all the frat boys who stupidly drank themselves sick every week—clean, white, blue eyed, and blond haired. It was only when he gave that wicked smile or started talking that Kai figured out that his frat boy look was just an act: Sweets was smarter than most, with a huge vocabulary as well. Kai wouldn’t have been surprised if there were rich parents and a pile of money somewhere in his past, that he’d walked away from so he could live the life he chose in the Quarter.
“Hey darling, looking good today,” Sweets said, leaning his meaty arms on the counter, pen in one hand, pad in the other.
“Really?” Kai asked, surprised. She hadn’t slept well that night—too many nightmares of water stalking her like a lion through an old house, with endless, dark wood corridors and nowhere to escape, no matter how high she climbed.
“You do,” Sweets assured her. He was sweating under the white triangular paper hat all the workers at the Clover wore. His white T was still pristine, though, and his dark brown eyes were blazing.
“Thanks,” Kai said. She was glad she wore a navy blouse today, over her beige skirt—both were too dark to show the sweat stains sure to blossom before the end of the day.
“So what’ll you have?” Sweets asked, pencil poised.
“Tater tots, eggs with everything, and a chocolate shake.”
“Oooh, darling, what you got planned?” Sweets teased. “You must have something special going on for all those calories.”
“Might be seeing the wild one later this afternoon,” Kai replied with a saucy wink.
“Girl, you just let me know when he want it a bit more wild, if you know what I mean,” Sweets flirted, then sashayed away and stuck her order up next.
What Kai wanted to do with Caleb wasn’t that kind of wild: She wanted him to chase away the two drug dealers while she looked for Gisa inside the mall.
She just had to remember the ground was dry, and the storm was at least a few days away; she had to concentrate on the here and now, and not let the mall’s nightmares of the past get to her.
By the time Sweets served Kai her order, the professor still hadn’t shown up. Though Kai had money now, she was still disappointed; she didn’t want to waste it. She had fun flirting with Sweets, though he held it as a point of honor that he’d never tried pussy—it was sausage all the way for him.
Finally, the rowdy group of frat boys left. Sweets immediately turned down the music. “We can party without that,” he said, giving Kai a wink.
Kai nodded, but still sighed. She’d delayed her meal as long as she could and was still finishing her shake; however, the professor hadn’t come in. How could she learn about the sirens? Maybe she could go to the library, near Tulane. Maybe she could call Papa, see if he still was on that job out there.
Just as Kai pushed herself off her seat, the professor finally came through the door. He was too wide to fit through half, like most people, and instead came barreling through the center of both doors. He wore his usual blue-and-white seersucker suit, with a crisp white shirt and a black string tie. On his arm hung his day basket, made of light-colored wood woven together in wide strips, and the top covered with a deep purple cloth.
Kai raised her hand and leaned back against her seat. The professor lumbered over to her.
“What are you doing up so early?” he asked, his black eyes as hard as flint, staring at her through his round, gold-frame glasses. “Or have you been up all night?”
Kai gulped. She hadn’t expected the professor to piece together her life that way. Then again, it was the Quarter, a small enough neighborhood for people to be in and out of each other’s pockets.
“Waiting for you, of course,” Kai said with enough cheek that the professor could pass if off as flattery.
“I would have been here earlier, but someone had the music turned up to eleven,” he said with a glare thrown at Sweets.
“Shh,” Kai said as she hopped back up on her seat. “You know if he hears you, he’ll turn it up every time you come in.”
“Possibly. But possibly not,” the professor said with a wicked grin. He hefted his bulk up easily onto the stool beside Kai. “Tell me how I may be of service to you, then.”
Though the words were mild enough, Kai did not want to be beholden to this man.
“Let me buy you breakfast,” Kai offered.
When the professor raised a single eyebrow at Kai, she realized her mistake. A Southern man would never let a woman pay publically. She’d slip money to her man on the side, or maybe before they even went out.
By making such an offer, she’d just shown her need.
“No, no, I couldn’t let you do that,” the professor added dismissively.
The ball was back in her court.
“My cousin Alicee is having a baby soon,” Kai said slowly. “Any good soaps you have for newborns?”
The smile the professor gave Kai was almost real.
“My dear, I have just the thing.” The professor pawed through his basket for a moment before pulling out a beautiful lavender-colored bar.
Even over the smells of grease and fried meat, Kai could smell cinnamon, lemon grass, and dusty oatmeal. She held out her hand and the professor placed it in her palm gravely. It was heavier than it looked, and the feeling Kai had was of a snake shedding its skin, layer after layer, until only the true core remained.
It wasn’t any kind of true magic; the soap merely suggested things, like finding one’s true path, washing away things that weren’t necessary.
As Kai turned the bar over in her hand, she got a glimpse of the professor when he had made the bar.
Kai had always known that the professor was xita. Just what exactly were his abilities, Kai had no idea, and she’d never wanted to ask. He’d been the only xita that she would contact regularly, before Caleb.
In her brief vision, the professor was still human, standing with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up. He held the bar in hands and chanted over it, his eyes golden and slitted like a gator’s.
“I’ll take it,” Kai said, without bothering to ask how much it was going to cost her.
“Splendid,” the professor said. “Class is now in session.”
* * *
Of course, Sweets turned up the music again before they could talk, as more tourists came in, so after the professor ate, they went to Harry Royale’s Coffee Shop. The front room was full, of course, the tables lined along the bright yellow walls full of tourists.
The professor merely walked by the hissing espresso machine, holding up two fingers for the barista. Harry came out from behind the b
ar, a handsome black man whose face looked younger than his white-tinged, closely cropped hair suggested.
“Professor,” Harry said with a nod, barely glancing at Kai. He walked out onto the patio and removed one of the large RESERVED signs from the center of one a tiny round table. Brilliant orange and red flowers, tropical plants with thick leaves, and squat palm trees lined the edges of the tiny outdoor patio.
Despite being outside, the fans mounted on the tall, gray cinderblock walls blew through a mist, keeping the area cool.
“So, what can you tell me about sirens?” Kai asked, sipping her excellent coffee after it had been delivered. Harry didn’t have any magic—he was pure human—but he had the best coffee in the Quarter, possibly the entire city. She couldn’t afford it usually, though.
“What type of siren?” the professor asked.
“German, I think,” Kai said.
“Ah, the nixe,” the professor said knowingly. “Sometimes called the Rhine Maidens. Very tight-knit families. Very cold to outsiders.”
Kai nodded. That made sense.
“They say their gold is still buried under the river,” the professor mused.
“Really?” Kai asked innocently. She wasn’t about to let on that she’d been told that wasn’t true.
“Now, the men, they can take many forms, animal and human.”
“There are sirens that are men?” Kai asked, incredulous. She tried to imagine a male form of Rilke and shuddered.
“Among the nixe, yes. Women, on the other hand, only lose their tails, gain their legs, and take human form.”
“Wait, they’re like mermaids? With a shiny tail?” Kai asked, fascinated.
“No, not your Disney variety, no. They have the teeth of a shark, row upon row of them, with spiked fins on their arms and back to match. They can tear you apart just by brushing up against you. Fearsome warriors.”
“And on land?” Kai asked. Was Rilke actually tougher than she looked?
“Legend says you can tell a nixe in human form because the bottom of her skirt will always be wet, or the hem of the pants of a man.”
Kai thought back. Had Rilke’s capris been wet along the bottom? They’d been designer made and expensive. The siren had smelled of water, but Kai couldn’t recall any of Rilke’s clothing even being damp. She couldn’t imagine the high fashion, high strung Rilke wearing anything that wasn’t crisply ironed and perfectly dry.
