The King of Bones and Ashes

by J. D. Horn

  “What is this about?” Fleur said, addressing her brother and Gabriel with a single question.

  Vincent began to speak, but he cut himself off and turned his attention to Gabriel, indicating they should do the same.

  Gabriel cast a glance at his sister, who came to stand beside him, beaming as she took hold of his hand. She nodded at him.

  Gabriel cleared his throat, then smiled broadly. “Nicholas has stepped down as the head of the coven.” He paused. “It is with great humility that I now accept that role.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Evangeline opened the door before Nicholas could knock. She had sensed him coming, preceded by a cloud of resentment and anger, fear and needing, at least fifteen minutes ago. He was freshly showered, his suit gone—hopefully burned—and replaced with faded jeans and a white button-down. His still-damp hair had more gray in it than on his last visit. Maybe even more gray than there had been earlier today.

  She pushed a vodka lime into his hand. “If ever there was a day for day drinking, this is sure as hell it,” she said, turning away from him. Evangeline herself was on her second, maybe third round. Easier to lose count some days than others. “Close the door behind you.” She wondered for the thousandth time whether she should lead with her feelings about watching him bash in an old woman’s brains, or with her shame over the certainty that it was her own mother’s cohorts who had tortured and entombed Delphine in the first place?

  She went and sat cross-legged—after jumping over her threshold like a panicked deer, she’d shed the dress and changed into cutoff shorts and an oversize white T-shirt—in her thrift-shop upholstered club chair, leaving the sofa all to Nicholas. The low coffee table formed a barrier between them. She needed that space.

  Nicholas seemed to get the message. Staring into his drink, he set it down on a Saints-logo coaster without taking a sip. He collapsed backward onto the sofa, rubbing his hands together as if he were trying to warm them. Finally, he raised his eyes to meet hers. “It’s broken,” he said, then fell silent.

  “What’s broken?” She heard her own voice crack.

  “The whole damned world,” he said.

  She took a sip of her own drink, but said nothing. She leaned forward, wondering if she should go to him, but she feared if she did, he might never say the words she sensed he wanted to say. A sinking feeling hit her stomach. All this talk about what was wrong in the world was bound to spiral inward, toward the specifics of what was wrong with Nicholas’s life—and at the center of that, she felt sure, was bound to be everything he felt was wrong between the two of them.

  “I’ve stepped down as the head of the coven,” he said, looking up at her, smiling. The warmth didn’t reach his eyes, which were full of pain. “Just like you always wanted me to.”

  She felt her temper flare. “You didn’t do it for me,” she said, her tone coming out harsh, accusatory. She shifted, turning a bit to the side, a movement that was both a signal and a shield.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t do it for you. I should have. Years ago. But I didn’t.”

  “Then why? Why now?”

  “Sometimes things get so damaged, so broken,” he said, “you’ve got to throw it all away. Start over.”

  “Wow. Great way not to answer my question.”

  “I was asked to step down,” he said, his face flushing red. “Asked,” he repeated the word with irony. “I was . . . told to step down. Told that I’ve lost the confidence of the coven. Told that it’s time to hand over the reins.” He looked out into the distance, as if he were contemplating a landscape Evangeline couldn’t see. “It’s almost as if they blame me for their own failing powers.” He shrugged, his gaze sharpening as he returned to the room. “Who knows, maybe Celestin would have found a way to hold on.” His head tilted. “Perhaps Luc could have.”

  “They can’t simply make you step aside. They have to challenge you. Like Luc did. You defeated him, after all.” She let herself once again feel the fullness of the old loss, the bitterness she’d tried so long to set aside.

  “There will be no challenge, formal or otherwise,” he said, anger flashing in his eyes. “I’ve been offered a ‘compromise.’ Gabriel and Julia. They’ve learned things. Things about me. About my family. Things I just couldn’t bear to let them gossip about.” He held his hands out, palms up.

  Of course. It had been his pride that had driven him to step down—not concern for his family, not his feelings for her. How could it have been otherwise? She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to comfort him. She didn’t know if she wanted to comfort him.

  He glanced around the room, almost like he was looking for an escape, then his moist, reddening eyes settled on her. “I’ve told you that I can’t give you the life you want. But we can’t go on the way we have been.”

  There it was. Evangeline imagined that she heard the heavy sky crash down around them. “Yes, that does seem to be familiar territory.”

  Sugar padded into the room, then stopped, flashing them a comical wide-eyed look, as if surprised to find them there. She turned and fled back to the bedroom. Nicholas’s eyes followed her as she made her retreat.

  “So this is it then? You’ve given up the coven. You’re breaking up with me. Make it all one big clean slate?” she snapped. He sat there in silence, focusing on her legs, looking at her and not looking at her at the same time. The awkwardness made her temper start to spark again. “Come on,” she taunted, wanting to provoke him, wanting him to give her a reason to haul off and slap him into next week, “just spit it out. It’s not me. It’s you. It’s—”

  Nicholas’s shoulders slumped forward. He rose and crossed to Evangeline, then sat before her on the coffee table. “I’m not breaking up with you. I’m just finally getting around to telling you the truth.” He reached out, grasping the sides of her knees between his hands. “Though once I do, I suspect you might choose to break it off on your own.” He bowed his head. “There are things you don’t know. Things I myself don’t understand. Ways I myself have been betrayed—”

  “I’ve never betrayed you.”

  “No,” he said, glancing up and flashing a smile at her. “You’re a liar and a thief, and you let that hotheaded Cajun temper of yours get the best of you,” he said, holding up a hand to stop her from protesting. She had no intention of protesting. What he said was true. “But somehow,” he said, reaching out to take her hand, “you’re still the most trustworthy human being I have ever met.” He kissed her hand, then took it between both of his, caressing it. “No. I’m not speaking of you.”

  “Astrid, then.”

  He laughed. “Well, yes, Astrid, too. But no . . .” He hesitated, biting his lip. “You’re impatient, you know.” She tugged back her hand, folding her arms over her chest. His eyes narrowed, and his lips pulled into a tight smile. “See, I told you.”

  She almost snapped at him, but then she’d be playing his game—he was simply buying time.

  He really did believe that what he was about to tell her would cause her to end things with him.

  “Tell me,” she said, turning back to him, taking his hand.

  He leaned back, almost pulling away, but he stopped just short. “My mother may have been a complete and utter madwoman,” he said, “but she was a talented witch.” His gaze softened, his mind seeming to reel back to a memory. “Perhaps she wasn’t quite a modern-day Medea, but she was willing to make certain . . . sacrifices.” He closed his eyes, seemingly incapable of facing her reaction. “Soulange Simeon. Herself. Me.” He held her hand up to his forehead. “And the damnedest thing is I never knew why.”

  Evangeline was long acquainted with the rumors that Laure Marin had tricked the Voodoo priestess out to old Grunch Road and killed her, and she’d heard dozens of wild conjectures as to why, each exponentially stranger than the last. But until this moment, she’d never suspected that Nicholas had suffered any harm from the incident beyond having to bear the disgrace of a psych
ologically damaged mother. “I don’t understand,” Evangeline said, leaning in. “What did your mother do to you?”

  His eyes shot up to meet hers. “I can’t give you children. I am incapable of fathering children. And no magic, no science can help the situation.”

  Evangeline laughed from shock. “That’s ridiculous. You had three children with Astrid.”

  “No,” he said, the word a forceful exhalation. “No,” he said again, this time his voice soft. Wounded. “I had two children with Astrid.” His eyes rose to meet hers. “I had two sons. But Alice . . . She isn’t mine.” He pushed back, rising. His face pale with rage. “And God help me, I hate her because of it. I can’t bear the sight of her.”

  He stepped back, staring down at her, seeming to read something in her eyes that she herself hadn’t even consciously registered yet. She felt a wave of nausea wash over her as the thought she’d been denying pushed its way to the surface. Nicholas, she realized, had been willing to make a sacrifice of his own.

  “But it isn’t the only reason you don’t want her here, is it?” She rose and began backing away from him.

  He rushed forward, reaching out to her, but she threw up both hands, ready to blast him with any magic she could muster and, failing that, fight him with her bare knuckles.

  He stopped, seemingly surprised—no, shocked. He looked her up and down. “I guess we’re done here then?”

  Evangeline held her fighting pose. She nodded. “Yes, I believe we are.”

  He nodded, then turned, crossing the front room and leaving the front door open to the street as he exited.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Technically the corner of Badine and Canal fell into the French Quarter, and the Vieux Carré was tourist central, but Lucy couldn’t imagine what was so special about the masked freak who stood performing magic tricks beneath the twin palms at the intersection of the two streets. She could barely maneuver her shopping bags through the gathered crowd.

  Lucy had had less than zero desire—no, really—to waste the morning at Celestin’s house listening to the Chanticleers’ joints creak as they independently and as a single body lost their shit over what had happened yesterday at the cemetery. She had no magic, never had, so she was more than happy to take a pass.

  Besides, she’d taken a peek into the little black bag of horrors her cousin Alice called a suitcase, and no number of cartoon mice could make any of the garments crammed into it work for a formal occasion. So she had volunteered—rather graciously, she reflected—to go shopping for an ensemble for Alice to wear to the ball. Of course, she didn’t really know what Alice’s style was, but after all the time she’d spent in the asylum, chances were Alice didn’t either. Lucy had decided to treat her cousin’s wardrobe as a clean slate.

  For the ball, she’d picked out a black, sleeveless V-neck jumpsuit and, since Alice probably hadn’t walked around in heels at the looney bin, a pair of flats. Not just any flats, of course—these were suede and crystal studded, with a pointed toe. For a bit of sparkle, she’d chosen a sterling-silver choker with a variety of semiprecious stones. Nothing too garish, nothing too girly for her hard-to-pinpoint cousin.

  She smiled, pleased with herself—Alice was going to stand out, and stand out in a way she would love. The suit would fit her cousin like a glove. After all, eyeballing a woman’s true size was kind of Lucy’s superpower. She had realized, a bit late, that maybe she should’ve offered to take Alice along, but hell, she wasn’t a saint. Besides, the shopping trip provided her with an excellent cover for a few other clandestine activities.

  A cry of appreciation rose up around her as the street magician continued to amaze and astound. She glanced over and decided he was either a basketball player in nine-inch stiletto heels or wearing stilts. His undecorated Mardi Gras mask glinted in the sun, sending a dark trace through her vision in spite of the new sunglasses she’d just purchased as a reward to replace the ones she’d given Alice. She blinked.

  Maybe she was just being paranoid—watching a mutilated crone tumble out of a wall grave would set anyone on edge—but it felt like the black holes of his mask were following her as she struggled upstream through the pack of slack-jawed tourists.

  First she had to maneuver the full, heavy bags past a wall of gym-rat guys dressed to impress in “Sun’s Out, Guns Out” tank tops or tight “Southern Decadence” T-shirts. She grimaced as she dodged one sweaty, hirsute shoulder, biting her tongue to keep herself from offering to set up a crowdfunding page to raise the money to pay for electrolysis.

  The throng was enthralled, impervious to calls of “pardon” and “excuse me,” so she’d given up on politeness long before she came up behind a pair of middle-aged women wearing overloaded stretch pants and the most god-awful T-shirts Lucy had ever seen—one lime, one neon salmon, both with a cartoon stripper hanging sideways from a pole. Lucy paused behind the women, offering up a moment of silence for the cotton that had died to make their shirts, then pushed between them, her bags banging back against the women’s shins.

  A collective gasp of surprise floated up from the crowd.

  Lucy might’ve been curious enough to stop and watch a trick or two, despite the weird feeling the performer had given her, but she heard the Natchez’s calliope blowing ragtime music. However much she wanted to hate it, the music conjured images of hot-day cherry sno-balls with Uncle Vincent in Woldenberg Park. Then she remembered he’d taken her out because her parents had been in the middle of a real dustup. She slid her new sunglasses down and squinted in the calliope’s direction. Maybe she hated the music after all.

  She glanced down at her phone. It was a bit after two, and she’d promised to be at the ferry landing twenty minutes ago. She kept walking, but she didn’t pick up her pace. She hit the phone screen. Two old and until now ignored messages from her mother. “Have a good time.” Then “Be sure to use your father’s card,” followed by two smiley faces. She sighed, regretting ever having taught that woman about emojis.

  Another gasp, followed by a flock of “what the hells,” sounded from behind her. She stopped in midstride to glance back. The freak had disappeared into thin air. His audience milled around, looking stupidly at each other, laughing. A little boy began to cry.

  Okay. She was impressed. At least enough that she’d stop and watch a bit, the next time she passed him.

  She kept one eye on the ground, guarding the heels of her shoes, as she crossed the train tracks at an angle. There he was. She spotted Remy sitting on the steps of the ferry terminal. He rose as she approached, standing at attention and raising a silver trumpet to his lips. The sound that came out of that poor horn made her laugh, really laugh, just as she knew he’d hoped it would.

  She loved him, or thought she might, though Lucy knew herself well enough to know the long distance and the forbidden aspect of their relationship had made it more interesting. Would she feel the same way about him if they could simply be together?

  He lowered the horn and came down the steps to join her, drawing her into his arms and kissing her. Electricity caused her hands to release their grip on the bags, which tumbled to the ground. He laughed and kissed her again, then scooped the handles of both heavy bags into one large hand. Yes, she decided, she would still feel the same way.

  It took Lucy a moment to collect herself. She stared up into his entrancing—yes, that was the word for it—entrancing eyes. She could have stood there forever, or at least until her feet started to hurt, staring up at him, but he held the silver trumpet out for her to examine. “Here it is, the horn of hell.”

  His expression turned serious again, more serious than she’d seen it in a long time, though admittedly, they hadn’t had a lot of time to call long. They’d met two years back. Flirted. Figured out that a family feud, years in the making, sat between them. Fell in love. All in a two-week visit.

  Last year, she’d shocked her mother by asking to spend her summer break in New Orleans. In the end, she’d gotten six weeks here, half of the
time in the Garden District under Vincent’s supervision, the second half in Bayou St. John, in Nicholas’s house—less under his supervision than under Hugo’s bad influence. Hugo was the only one who knew about her and Remy. He had helped them spend time together, but it kind of bothered her that he’d seemed more motivated by the thought of sticking it to his dad than the pure pleasure of helping her. Still, gift horse. Mouth.

  Now it wasn’t just a visit. Now she was going to be stuck living here. That meant changing schools. Missing friends. But . . . he leaned in and kissed her again . . . hello, silver lining.

  Silver. As he leaned back, a glint from the horn caught her eye. She reached out to touch it, but pulled back without knowing exactly why.

  After the funeral, she had texted Remy—texted him with a level of what the hell unlike any what the hell she’d ever known before. He’d explained his grandfather’s nutty plan.

  “Seriously, what is wrong with your grandfather?” She regretted her choice of words, the harshness of her tone. She’d only intended to ask if he were sick, but she’d spent half her life building up her sarcasm muscle, and, well, the sun was out . . .

  “I guess he still blames your lunatic grandmother for killing mine,” Remy said.

  From anyone else, this answer would’ve provoked a nuclear response. But Remy stared down at her, and she up at him. He wrapped the arm that held the trumpet around her. “I mean, we all know she didn’t do it herself, but he thinks she was the reason Grandma was out on Grunch Road the night she died.” He gave her a squeeze, then bent over and placed a kiss on the top of her head.

  “To be honest, though, I think Grandpa is slipping a bit. I mean, this is a perfectly good trumpet. We could clean this thing up, give it to a kid to practice on. But the old guy is freaking out. Made me promise to drop it halfway between here and Algiers.”