by J. D. Horn
“Not necessary.” Collins flashed her a precise and, Fleur felt certain, calculated smile. “We’re detectives, we can find our own way.” A glint of sincerity rose to her eyes. “I am sorry for your loss. We’ll get Demagnan. You have my word.” For an instant Fleur felt a true human connection to the woman, and then it was gone. Frost covered Collins’s features. “Tomorrow. First thing.”
“Without fail,” Fleur promised, even though what she meant was “if I don’t have something more pressing to deal with.”
“Thank you,” Collins said. “Come on,” she commanded Morel. He followed, though not before casting a look in Lucy’s direction. Lucy went slack-jawed and wide-eyed, sarcasm and sympathy intertwined. That was her girl. Morel gave an almost imperceptible nod, then followed his partner out of the room.
Fleur held her finger up to her lips, listening to the receding footfalls, waiting for the click of the door. Daniel crossed the room and stood beside the window, watching. “They’re pulling away.” He turned to her. “You’ll be using ESP to reach Nicholas, of course?”
“Of course.” Fleur began rubbing at the knot that had formed in her shoulder.
“She’s wound a bit too tight,” Lucy said, “but I like him.”
“I didn’t see a ring,” Hugo said, appearing right behind her.
Lucy jumped. “Shhhh . . . shimeny.” She turned and slapped his shoulder. “How many times have I told you not to do that?”
“Evidently not enough.” He circled around Lucy and walked to the tantalus bar set resting on the side table. He undid the latch and selected the center of the three decanters. Bourbon. He pulled out the stopper and tipped the bottle to his lips, his Adam’s apple jumping as he drained the equivalent of a tumbler’s three fingers in a single go.
“Oh, Hugo,” Daniel said in dismay. “I raised you better than that.”
“Yes,” Fleur said, “if you’re going to drink yourself into a stupor, at least use a tumbler.”
Lucy clapped, then assumed an innocent look when Fleur turned on her. “What? It’s nice to see I come by it naturally.”
Fleur would’ve scolded her if she weren’t correct. She approached her nephew instead, touching his hand first, and then grasping the neck of the bottle and setting it beside its stopper on the table. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That came out . . .”
“Honest and without filter?” Hugo’s face turned gray and impassive as he looked down at her. Imagine it. Hugo. Looking down at me. She could still see him in that ludicrous short pants suit Astrid had dressed him in to attend her wedding to Warren.
“It’s okay,” he continued. “You’ve left D.C. You don’t have to practice dissimulation anymore.” He’d been a little boy when she left New Orleans. She had spent some months of his young life with him, right after Katrina when Nicholas had sent him and Alice to stay with her and Warren. Other than that, she’d missed seeing him grow up, catching him at one- to two-inch increment increases in stature. Now he was full-grown and more of a needy little boy than he had been all those years ago. “And by ‘dissimulation,’ I mean lying to everyone, including yourself.”
She ran her hand down his arm. “How much did you hear?”
“Hmmm . . . let’s see. Daniel crapping crackers until you got here. Lucy coming on to Officer Mushroom. Oh, and Mom’s corpse stuffed and mounted.” His head tilted to the side. “Did I miss anything?”
Fleur retrieved the bottle and handed it back to him. “No,” she said, crossing to sit on the Bergère chair that, when all was said and done, didn’t matter to her one damned bit. It wasn’t, she realized, even comfortable. Nothing more than a piece of scenery, and Fleur was sick and goddamned tired of worrying about appearances and putting on shows for others’ benefits.
“I saw the cop cars outside,” Hugo said. “No sirens. No lights. I decided to go into Casper mode till I knew what was up.”
Fleur realized this explained why the door had been ajar when they arrived. “We thought you would still be tending to Ms. Caissy’s club.”
“Not to worry. I left both the woman and her bar in good hands.” Color returned to his face, and a warm gleam to his eyes. “I can personally vouch for a couple of those hands.” Hugo was back, Fleur thought, but then he flickered out again. His eyes lowered. He put the stopper back in the decanter and returned the bottle to the tantalus. He turned to Daniel. “Didn’t you text them?”
Daniel’s eyes widened. “No. I didn’t have the chance. I’d only messaged you when the officers arrived.”
“Message us about what?” Fleur tensed, not sure she could take another surprise tonight.
“Alice,” Daniel said. “That’s why I couldn’t let you leave. We’re going to bring her home. Tonight.” He glanced down at his wristwatch. “In precisely two hours and twenty-seven, no, twenty-six minutes.”
SEVENTEEN
Nathalie had been clear, sincere—and, to her shame, mildly profane—when asking both Daniel and his cat to kindly leave her the hell alone. Upon leaving the Marin residence, she’d wished them much luck in their efforts, but made it abundantly clear she wasn’t ever coming back. They were on their own. Sorry and sayonara.
She might not get clear glimpses into her future, but either someone in Alice’s house could, or Daniel had picked up on something in her character that she hadn’t seen in herself, because it sure looked like someone expected her. Nathalie stood at Alice’s door, watching it creak open before she could even make a fist to rap.
A pair of twins holding hands stood together in the center of the foyer. They were middle-aged and kind of plastic looking, like their appearance had taken a lot of artifice. They wore identical outfits, floral-print smocks, teal with oversize navy flowers, navy mid-thigh shorts, and brown pumps. Nathalie noticed the heels of their shoes were different lengths, lifting one of the two an inch higher to give the pair the illusion of being the same height. Their jet-black hair was cut in the same flapper style. Their lips had been painted into bright red hearts. Other than the difference in their height, the only way Nathalie could’ve told them apart was that one seemed to be wearing heavier foundation makeup than the other. They gazed at her with the same inscrutable expression.
Nathalie felt a thousand tiny pinpricks rushing over her. New witch. New witch. Their shared thought tickled her brain. It felt like she’d walked into a spiderweb that could pass straight through her.
“I’m not a witch,” she said, bracing herself against the doorframe. The two cast a glance at each other before turning back to her, matching incredulous smirks lighting their faces. A force shot out from them and tugged her over the threshold. The door slammed behind her.
Nathalie held her hands up, ready to fend the pair off. Hot white sparks danced along her fingers. She turned her hands and gazed down at her palms in wonder. The veins of her wrists were glowing, as if the power in her hands was pulsing in her blood.
Nathalie looked up from her hands to see the twins watching her with unabashed amusement. The two rested their heads together. Not a witch. Not a witch. Their matching thoughts the punchline of a private joke.
No longer sensing a threat, she felt the force within her recede. A glance down at her hands revealed they’d returned to normal—or at least what used to be her normal. She felt another volley of the twins’ magic hit her. Recollections of years long past rose up around her and raced by. The pair of matching witches moved around in them at will, touching and moving objects like props, examining the people who haunted her memories. Nathalie knew she should be angry, but she was too darned shocked.
“Nathalie?” a voice pulled her back. She looked up to find a young woman—pretty, blonde, and familiar—calling to her from the second-floor landing. Nathalie lowered her hands and nodded her response. The girl beamed down at her. “Be right with you.” Nathalie watched as the young woman swept down the steps in the most ridiculous heels she had ever seen—more like stilts than shoes. Last July, Nathalie had driven this blonde girl and he
r mother to a memorial down by the river. They’d emptied the mother’s brother’s ashes into the Mississippi down at the end of St. Ann Street. She drew nearer, studying the twins as she passed them.
Nathalie scoured her memory for the young woman’s name, retrieving it at the same moment the girl spoke again. “Hello, there. I’m Lucy.”
Lucy and her mother were friends with Evangeline Caissy—and the Perrault family, too. Nathalie hadn’t made the connection between the beautiful, delicate young woman in the photo and these people. Daniel had spoken of the gravity of rightful destiny, saying its force had been drawing Nathalie closer and closer to Alice, but in a flash, Nathalie comprehended that Alice figured as part of a larger puzzle.
She felt as if a noose were tightening around her. Adrenaline urged her to bolt.
Nathalie looked from Lucy to the twins.
Lucy followed her gaze to the pair. “Crazy, right?” she said. “You have to have amazing legs to pull off that look. I hate you both.” The duo, pleased with her malice-lined compliment, smiled and curtsied in unison before turning and walking off toward the rear of the house.
Lucy turned back to Nathalie and gave her the once over. She pointed at Nathalie. “Wait. I know you. Oh, yeah . . .” Her smile fell flat as she remembered the circumstances in which they’d met, but by the next beat she was beaming again. “Wow. So, you’re the one with the . . .” Her brow furrowed and she snapped her fingers a few times. “The gravitational destiny rights.”
“I think you mean ‘the gravity of rightful destiny,’” Nathalie corrected her, “but I don’t think it’s something I own. It feels more like something happening to me.”
Lucy folded her arms over her chest. “Welcome to the family. The less you struggle against the undertow, the better your chances of survival.”
“There you are,” Daniel’s exasperated voice caught her attention. He bounded down the stairs to the foyer. “Good heavens, girl,” he said, addressing Lucy. “You know we’re on a tight schedule.”
“Hey.” Lucy threw up her hands. “I came down to fetch her like you told me to. The Twins were the ones batting her back and forth between their paws.”
“We’ll overlook that,” Daniel said, patting Nathalie’s shoulder with a soothing touch. He pulled back as his brow furrowed. “They didn’t have to come.” He said it loudly enough for them to hear, his voice defensive, then leaned in and whispered into Nathalie’s ear, “Their magic is worth the inconvenience.” She sensed it was an intimation aimed at drawing her further into his well-meaning conspiracy.
Daniel grasped Nathalie’s arm, a manic smile on his face. “Now, if you please,” he began, tugging her toward the staircase, “it would be of great help if you could spend a little time talking to her, so she gets accustomed to your voice.”
“Her?” She dug in her heels, bringing them to a lurching stop.
He looked at her with an annoyed grimace. “Alice, who else?” He tugged Nathalie up the first few steps. “She’s in her room. At least her physical form is.”
“What is she supposed to do?” Lucy said, coming up behind them. “Wake her with a kiss?”
“If only it were that simple.” Daniel sighed.
“Actually,” Nathalie said as she tried to pull her arm out of Daniel’s vicelike grip, “the whole fairy-tale thing has always seemed kind of creepy to me. I mean, kissing a defenseless person who has no way of telling you if she wants to be kissed—”
“She does have a point.” Lucy cut her off.
“We’re all on the same page with that”—Daniel paused on the steps between them—“but no one is forcing their attentions on anyone.” Catching sight of his own tight grip on Nathalie’s arm, he released her. “Please, follow me.”
He mounted the final steps, and Lucy came up beside Nathalie, flashing a smile that was no doubt meant to be reassuring. She placed her hand on Nathalie’s upper arm, and a chill shot through her. Dead. Nathalie pulled back, though she did her best to return the smile. She didn’t understand the stray thought, but she hoped, no, felt that it wasn’t linked to Lucy’s future. Death was a part of her past, but it still followed her as close as a shadow.
“I know you don’t know Alice,” Lucy said, misinterpreting Nathalie’s discomfort. “Heck, even I don’t know her well, and she’s my cousin. But she’s worth it. Whatever Daniel asks you to do, Alice is worth it.”
Nathalie reminded herself for like the twentieth time today that if Daniel’s plan worked, if they managed to bring Alice back to her body, the Alice who came through wouldn’t be the woman Nathalie had imagined in her self-indulgent fantasies. Daniel stopped before one of the doors and eased it open. He waved Nathalie forward, then guided her into the room with a hand on the small of her back.
And there she was. Nathalie froze in wonder before Alice. The beauty from the picture, though her eyes were closed, not sparkling with humor and warmth. Her skin so pale, her delicate features gaunt. Nathalie’s eyes traced the line of Alice’s long, graceful neck.
A movement. Nathalie noticed the tiny ball of gray fur curled up on Alice’s chest. The cat, the one that had been stalking her since she’d arrived at work yesterday—how could it have been only yesterday?—looked up at her with its oversized peridot eyes. The cat, too, seemed lessened. Weaker. An instant connection formed between them. Could a cat feel relief? Gratitude? It relaxed, its eyes going empty and closing.
Daniel dashed forward and snatched the cat into his arms. “No more,” he said, raising the animal’s tiny head to his lips. He placed a kiss there. Its eyes fluttered open, but it seemed woozy, pushing back in his arms to look at him before surrendering to his embrace. Daniel caressed the feline’s fur with gentle, caring strokes.
“Wow,” a surprised voice spoke from behind her. Nathalie turned to see a muscular but compact guy with curly blond hair and a devil’s blue eyes. This was a guy who took breaking hearts as his birthright, but that was all surface. At his core, he was a guy who’d been broken himself. Nathalie had seen him once before, she realized, at the memorial by the river, but other than for the obvious affection she’d noticed between him and Evangeline Caissy, Nathalie hadn’t paid him too much mind. That day her focus had been on the Perraults, Lisette in particular.
Nathalie noticed the pupils of those devil blues were dilated. It was cool in the room, but there were beads of sweat on his brow. He had a slight resemblance to Alice, visible in the curve of his mouth, the set of his eyes.
“I never thought I’d live to see the two of you making nice,” the newcomer continued. “I thought you two hated each other.”
“Perhaps we misjudged each other. We are both secure enough to admit to our mistakes. Isn’t that right, my dear Sugar?” He lifted the cat higher, and she rubbed her head on his chin. “She’s been giving of her own life force, the silly thing,” Daniel said. “She’s trying to lend Alice’s body her own formidable strength, but I’m afraid”—he held the cat out before him—“from time to time she overestimates herself.”
The blond guy entered the room and held out his hand to Nathalie. “Hugo Marin. Profligate, iconoclast, least likely to succeed, and still the last man standing.”
“And drama queen,” Lucy said. “Don’t forget drama queen.”
“Alice’s brother,” Daniel explained.
“Oh,” Nathalie said and shook his hand.
“Oh,” Hugo parroted her. He winked at her, released her hand, and made his way to a chair in the corner. “Okay, Big D.,” he said, running his fingers through his thick curls as he sat, “I’ve finished with the sigils you wanted me to put on the floor. Hope you don’t mind, but I decided to carve them into the wood rather than paint them.” A smirk rose to his face. “No doubt Nicholas will have a conniption fit when he gets back.”
“I,” Daniel said, “do not give a”—he paused, gathering steam—“damn. There, I said it. I do not give a damn what Nicholas thinks. About anything.”
Hugo laughed. “Easy there, bi
g fellow. Sounds like there’s revolution in the air.”
“Nicholas has driven me to wrath. He’s deserted her. He’s deserted you.” The anger in his eyes faded into sadness. “He’s deserted us all.”
“Nicholas?” Nathalie said, regretting her curiosity the second it got the best of her.
“My uncle.” Lucy pointed one finger at Hugo and the other at Alice. “Their dad.” She nodded toward Daniel. “And his Geppetto.” She lowered her hands. “Nicholas has been gone—like second-act Peggy Schuyler gone—for months. Oh, wait.” Her eyes drifted up like she was considering a problem, and her head bobbed from side to side. “Truth in advertising.” She turned her focus back to Nathalie. “Nicholas isn’t really Alice’s dad. He’s her half brother. Oh, and Daniel isn’t made of wood.” She studied Daniel. “At least I don’t think so.”
“No,” Daniel said, turning the cat over to Lucy’s care, “I most certainly am not made of wood, though sometimes I think your head might be.” Nathalie could sense a sharp retort building, but Daniel derailed Lucy before she could hurl it at him. “I do hope your mother gets back soon.” He paced around the foot of the bed and looked out the window. He turned to face them, but then spun back around to observe a passing car. Placing his palm against the pane, he surveyed the street.
“Where did she go?” Hugo asked, slumping in his chair and wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.
“I sent her out for a few . . . supplies.”
“Eye of newt?” Lucy said.
Daniel turned and crossed to Alice’s side. He lowered his eyes and bit his lip. “Relics.”
Lucy’s mouth fell open. “Relics?”
Daniel turned his face toward Lucy. His eyes gleamed with an angry fire. “Well, forgive me, but we’ll need all the help we can get. We’re going to need all the relics we can lay our tarnished hands on.”
“Where,” Hugo spoke, “did you send her to collect these relics?”
