American Quest

by Sienna Skyy

  Forte emerged from the woods beyond, chortling from the distance. “Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy doo-WOO-oh-WOAH!”

  They all turned and looked at him.

  He stopped just short of the van. “What’d I do?”

  Shannon smiled, fluttering a hand over her face as though she were brushing away the down of a milkweed instead of tears.

  She shook off the sadness and her smile suddenly affected mischief. “Nothing, baby. We just decided we were going to switch off the radio and have one of us play air guitar all the way to Knoxville. Drew straws. You lost.”

  Forte shrugged with a grin. “Is that acoustic air guitar or electric? How ’bout a little slide?”

  Forte walked over to Shannon and kissed her on the top of the head as the others stepped back. He hugged her head to his chest and then they looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment.

  Bedelia produced a box of premoistened napkins. “Here, now everyone take one of these towelettes to wash your hands before we eat.”

  Emily did as she was told, then narrowed her eyes at the tree line. She trotted over that way while Bedelia passed around the chili dogs. Bruce watched Emily as she bent over the cat. He tensed.

  But Emily immediately came running right back again.

  Bedelia raised the chili dog to her lips. “Not the healthiest thing in the world, but I’m starv—”

  Emily bounded up to her and slapped at the chili dog. The thing missiled out from the bun and went flying, chili spiraling along with it.

  Everyone froze.

  Bedelia’s blouse was covered with chili. Shannon, who’d been standing next to her, got it in her hair.

  Emily gaped. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I saw . . . a bug!”

  Bedelia shook globs of chili from her shirt. “It’s all right. It was an accident.”

  Jamie passed around Bedelia’s premoistened napkins again.

  “Here folks! I’ve got a replacement!”

  Bruce jumped. He turned and saw the frogman standing right behind him. He frowned, looking from him to wide-eyed Emily.

  “Thank you,” Bedelia said, accepting the new chili dog with a puzzled frown.

  Jamie raised her eyes to Bruce. “Well, we’d better hit the road. We’re losing time you know. We’ll eat in the car.”

  The frogman nodded with a curl at the corners of his mouth, white clouds reflecting in his glasses.

  They assembled in the van and Bruce got behind the wheel. The frogman stood there, continuing his curl-mouthed nod like a bobblehead figurine as they pulled away.

  “What is it, honey?” Bedelia said to Emily. “Is there something wrong with the food?”

  Emily drew back her lips under her lower teeth with a shake of her head. “The stray cat barfed. But it wasn’t just barf, it . . . it was . . . eew.”

  Jamie grabbed a pen and picked up one of the bags. She closed the top of it and folded it over twice, and then on the broad side of it she drew the symbols from the golden sapling.

  They watched. They listened.

  And then it sounded like something moved inside the bag. A wet crackling. It grew louder.

  “Bruce, pull over!” Jamie barked.

  But even as he slowed, the sound in the bag increased and then turned to buzzing. Jamie’s knuckles gripped the crimped edge of the bag. She folded the top in one more turn. The buzzing grew louder and was joined by popping sounds.

  “Pull over!” Jamie shrieked.

  Bruce slammed on the brakes.

  The bag expanded. Jamie opened the door, leaped outside, and threw the bag away from her. It exploded in a confetti of blowflies. The bag, now torn, gaped with the food still inside. Even from the distance, they could see worms squirming over what remained of the chili dogs.

  And then the flies and the dogs puffed into ash and disappeared.

  The travelers gaped.

  A bird chirped from the woods beyond and the breeze rustled in the bushes. As if nothing freakishly insane had just happened.

  “Do the other one,” Emily commanded.

  Jamie did, and they watched it go through the same metamorphosis, this time from a safe distance like spectators at a fireworks display.

  Bedelia’s voice held a tremor. “I was just about to eat one of those things.”

  Shannon’s lips curled back. “I had that stuff in my hair. I think I have just been cured of my obsession with chili dogs.”

  Bruce turned to Emily and brushed a hand over her head. “Standing guard for us all, are ya, kid?”

  He suddenly felt much more confident in their decision to follow Emily’s advice and go to New Orleans.

  NEW YORK

  In previous efforts, Enervata would have never been so careless as to risk giving another unsanctioned access to his bond-recherché. This oversight would be all Isolde required to exact her vengeance. Rafe’s vengeance. For to spill the blood of the dark-haired woman would be to sever the bond before Enervata could manifest its power. And considering his unqualified fascination with her, the loss might be damaging enough to weaken him permanently. Perhaps even to destroy him.

  Isolde opened the door.

  The young woman, Gloria, was standing at the window, fingers pressed to the glass. She turned her eyes slowly, almost sluggishly, and caught her breath when she saw Isolde.

  They stared at each other for a long moment. And then Gloria moved, at first with trepidation and then with determined acceptance, stepping toward Isolde.

  A lovely thing. Her simple, lace-trimmed dress might be but a modern version of that worn by a vestal virgin awaiting sacrifice.

  Isolde smiled.

  “You,” Gloria said. She lifted a hand and almost touched Isolde’s cheek, but then she paused. “I know you. You’re beautiful. He sent you to watch me, watch us, Bruce and me. Didn’t he?”

  “It’s true, my lamb, and I did as bidden. Though from your keen eyes I could not stay hidden.”

  Gloria blinked, hands open, soul open, throat open. Ready for the razor point of Isolde’s swift talon.

  “You’ve changed. You were all in white then, when I saw you on the streets and then later in the chandelier.”

  Isolde nodded and shifted her body ever so slightly, preparing for her warrior strike. There was no need to cause suffering. Let this child’s death be quick. Like the death she herself craved but would forsake in slaying this young woman.

  Isolde’s own treachery assured her place in the Hall of Amusements. And she didn’t even care.

  Gloria turned her eyes back to the window, her openness like the scent of jasmine in a summer arbor. “You’ve come to kill me, haven’t you?”

  Isolde paused.

  Gloria kept her gaze leveled at the window as if watching for a ship that might at any moment pull into a phantom harbor. “I could tell the moment I saw you in the doorway. I thought it might be Sileny. I knew it wouldn’t be him. But when I saw you, I thought, ‘There’s the canteshrike. She’s come to end it.’”

  Gloria turned then, meeting Isolde’s eyes once again.

  “And if you don’t, and if I give in to him, something bad will happen, won’t it?” Her gaze pierced through Isolde. “I don’t know what exactly or why I believe that . . . I just have this feeling. He’s not telling me something. I wish you would tell me.”

  Isolde paused. This young woman surprised her. No vestal virgin. Gloria’s perceptions seemed as sharp as one who’d lived for centuries.

  Gloria’s eyes wandered. “It would almost be easy to give in to Aaron. Bruce is gone from me. Gone forever. I know it. And I could just lose myself in Aaron’s mind and his conversation. I could dress myself in lovely things, share his table, sip aromatic wines. Try to forget.”

  Her gaze rested at her feet. “If you don’t end this, canteshrike, I might just give in to him. He is too powerful. I would hate myself but I might just do it. It’s an aphrodisiac. It’s like he’s invincible.”

  Isolde wet her lips, searching for the desire to spill this blo
od. She turned her head back toward the door, seeing the living area that Gloria had frequented, and in her mind, seeing the Hall beyond it, which Gloria had not.

  Isolde felt a sting at her throat. “Not invincible. His heart betrays, and he falters while beneath your gaze.”

  Gloria looked at Isolde and Isolde felt as if those eyes pierced her very being, exposing waves of centuries that purled a lifetime: the lustful indulgences, the sustained decay of her soul, the bitter love of Rafe.

  Gloria drew in her breath. “What about the other? There was another canteshrike. I saw him in the window on the street. Is he here with you?”

  Isolde’s stance grew slack. Gloria turned toward the door, looking for that other, for Rafe. Somehow, that simple question, posed by one who knew nothing of their history, seemed agonizingly empathic.

  Isolde felt a welling of grief. Sudden and molesting. She would not allow for it, no. She burned it, invoking with desperation her canteshrike urges. Probed for the bloodlust that would finish this, finish her.

  But as she looked upon the skin of Gloria’s throat, she yearned not to open it, but to taste it with gentleness; to let her fingertips linger down the soft fabric of Gloria’s dress.

  From beyond, there came the sound of a door opening.

  Gloria gasped.

  Isolde listened.

  Enervata.

  In a moment, he would discover her. But within that moment she might yet complete the task she’d set out to accomplish. If she acted with enough speed, she could dispatch this young woman to the next world and greet Enervata’s wrath with sneering acceptance.

  Isolde and Gloria regarded each other. Gloria’s face was expectant.

  Either way, Isolde would find herself at Enervata’s mercy when he discovered her.

  But her talons stayed. A failure that meant she would face Enervata’s wrath without even having exacted her vengeance. Isolde began to shake as the sound of Enervata’s footsteps drew nearer in the living area beyond.

  Gloria breathed in, her anticipation shriveling, and turned away from Isolde. She strode to the door before Enervata approached. “Hello, Aaron.”

  She passed through it without a single backward glance. And then she closed it behind her, blocking Isolde from falling under Enervata’s gaze.

  Buying her another day to weigh the salts of survival and revenge.

  24

  LOUISIANA

  FORTE WATCHED THE NEIGHBORHOODS whiz past. Even the old, worn-out houses here had fancy trim on them.

  Emily pointed to the green sign. “Look, we’re in Slidell!”

  Shannon grinned. “Sliding out of Slidell, sliding into New Orleans!”

  “Well, laissez les bons temps roulez!” Forte reached over and grabbed a hunk of Shannie meat just below the knee. She squealed.

  “Bea, will you braid my hair again before we stop?”

  Bedelia cocked her head at Emily. “I thought you said the braids made you look weird.”

  “They do! But I like them. They keep everything in order. And I don’t have to worry about getting hair in my food.”

  Food. Forte’s stomach began to rumble. They’d all kind of lost their appetites after the chili dog gig, and then they’d been too suspicious to really eat anything since.

  In sync as always, Shannon snagged that thought. “Speaking of food, I am STARVING! Let’s hit an oyster bar! Fried oysters, chargrilled oysters . . .”

  Bedelia nodded. “That sounds good.”

  “. . . Oysters on the half shell, oysters Rockefeller . . . Ooh! Oyster Po’ Boys!”

  Emily squinched her lips. “I don’t know. I never had oysters.”

  Shannon gave her a wink. “When in Rome, baby.”

  Emily frowned. “Rome? But we’re on our way to New Orleans.”

  Bedelia patted her hand. “It’s a saying, sweetie. Oysters are really good for you. Lots of iron and important vitamins. It’ll balance out some of the things you’ve been missing.”

  “I don’t know,” Jamie said. “I don’t like the idea of eating anything we can’t check out.”

  Forte groaned. “Come on, live a little.”

  “I’m not saying we shouldn’t eat them, I guess. I just want to be able to screen them first. You get a bag of fast food or something, it’s easy to draw the symbols on it and see what happens.”

  The van fell silent. Right now, fast food sounded about as happening as elevator music. Forte made a mental note to grab Shannie and slap some sidewalk as soon as this starship landed. Bruce and them were cool and all, and Forte wanted to help out, but he really didn’t know what to do for Bruce’s girlfriend and—God! They were gonna be in New Orleans! He couldn’t not check out the music scene. Or the chow.

  Bedelia braided Emily’s hair again as the van rolled over a hazy stretch of Lake Pontchartrain and into the Big Easy. They found a place to park in the Quarter and buzzed out of that van like, well, like hornets from a freak’s teeth.

  Hot wet air filled Forte’s lungs. He made a mad-dog scope of the scene, planning his escape.

  Bedelia eyed a tchotchke stand and hollered for Emily. She picked up a pink wide-brimmed hat with a plastic daisy on the front. “Come here, sweetie, we need to get you a hat to keep that sun off you the rest of this trip. You’ve suffered way too much sunburn already for a girl your age.”

  Emily blanched, and looked like she was going to hurl on the floppy pink hat. “I don’t know, Bea, what about this one?”

  She picked up an olive green baseball cap and tried it on.

  Shannon whooped. “Ha! With that hat and those braids you look like a little soldier!”

  Bruce put his hand on her back. “Standing guard.”

  Emily looked around suspiciously. “You never know what might happen. We have to stick together. Everyone make a chain.”

  She grabbed Bedelia’s hand and then Jamie’s, and looked expectantly at the others. Bruce smiled, taking Jamie’s free hand, and it looked like Shannon was about to join in.

  But Forte hooked his fingers into Shannon’s, preventing her from joining hands. “So, you know, I’m thinking the thing to do is to divide and conquer, you know? See if we can find some pillars and stuff.”

  Forte’s internal dowser started pinging in the general direction of Bourbon Street, and he started making tracks. “You guys can draw symbols on food, and we’ll, you know, hook up later with, like, pillars.”

  Bruce gave him a suspicious look but his eyes were smiling. “You got your cell on you?”

  Still backstriding, Forte waved his phone in the air.

  Bruce shook his head and Forte didn’t wait around to see what might come next. He figured Bruce was a big meaty-muscle guy. He could handle stuff on his own without a scrappy rocker for a while.

  “Come on, babe,” he said, pulling Shannon along with him.

  Shannon laughed.

  Bourbon Street was tilting! People were cackling and swaying, carrying plastic cups filled with something other than soda pop, and it wasn’t even dark yet. Shannon looked kitty-cool in her sleeveless tee and denim skirt.

  They strode hand in hand, heads going back and forth at the gaggle like they were watching a tennis match. He didn’t know whether to sniff out some tunes or troll for chow. Some old guy was playing horn on the sidewalk and Forte chucked a fiver into his case.

  Shannon eyed him. “Are you sure that guy’s okay? He looked a little unusual.”

  Forte groaned. “Oh no, not you too, babe. Ease up! We’re in New Orleans. Everything’s unusual.”

  She gave him a dazzle. “I’m just trying to look for signs.”

  An electric strum sounded from a dark doorway across the street, and that internal dowser of his went wild.

  He crooked a finger. “You’re right. I hear a sign right now. We’d better go check it out.”

  Shannon rolled her eyes and allowed him to drag her into a skeevedout bar. The crowing guitar filled his head and got his blood pumping. The bar wasn’t much but the place
was good and packed. Forte knew the tunes were what brought them in. He led Shannon to the front where the dude onstage was letting it fly.

  Aside from the lead guitar, they had a bass player and some drums, plus a guy on keyboard. But those others were sitting back and letting the lead guitar do his solo thing. And rightly so.

  Shannon rose up on her tiptoes and called into his ear. “Charlie, I don’t know about this.”

  He swung an arm around her and gave a squeeze.

  The dude onstage was shredding through riffs like he owned them. The base song was preordained and intact, but Forte could tell that he was ad-libbing a good chunk of it, too. He cranked the chords just a taste so they went from a C major to a B minor, and it threw a whole new feel down the side. Forte’d seen a lot of cats try to make something like that happen in an improv, but very few pulled it off.

  Not this guy. He knew how to use his instrument.

  The guitarist was rubber band thin and his hair curled low over his ears, making his already-broad nose look broader. When he concentrated, his chin dimpled up into his lips. He wound the tune to an in-yourface finish and Forte pounded palms. Shannon got into it, too, giving her little whoop and bounce that was always so dastardly cute.

  Forte put two fingers to his mouth and sailed out a whistle. It caught the guitar player’s attention because he looked him straight in the eye.

  The guy bent down and lifted his chin at him. “Hey pal, you a player?”

  Forte gave an easy shrug. “Sure, I can swing an axe.”

  But the guy shook his head. “No you can’t.”

  Forte snorted with a narrow-eyed laugh. “Matter of fact, pal, I beg to differ.”

  The guy straightened back up again and got on the mic. “This dude down here says he’s a player. But what he don’t know is no one can throw down with me.”

  Forte laughed, shaking his head. Straight up, if doves had carried the invite on the end of a satin ribbon and dropped it in his lap, he couldn’t be more raring to go. He leaped up onstage and the crowd responded with “woos” and “whoas.”