by Greg Herren
“Does this mean we’re going to win the Super Bowl?” I asked, gesturing at the jersey.
“Such things do not concern me,” She replied with a wave of her hand. “What care I for your silly human games? The pride and self-absorption of mortals—sometimes it is too much to be borne! What does who wins a game have to do with the Great Plan, with the Eternal Cycle? What does it matter whether some mortal gets a job promotion, or some child gets a bicycle as a gift, or some teenager passes a mathematics test he did not prepare for? Such things do not matter, and in the endless passing of time are soon forgotten.”
“I thought everything was connected,” I replied. “Every event has an effect and changes the future—you’ve told me that enough times. When a butterfly beats his wings in China it has an effect here.”
“Your mind cannot comprehend Truth as I can, Scotty. It is best if you do not ask questions you cannot handle the answers to.”
“But, Great Mother—”
The air got colder. “Are you questioning me?” Her voice whipped around me. “Do you dare?”
“Of course not, Great Mother.” I bowed at the waist. “I am merely confused. I am, after all, merely a human.” I gestured to the jersey again. “And seeing you in a Saints jersey, well, I could not help but assume there was a meaning in it.”
She fingered the hem of the jersey. “Surely you know that when you see me, you see me in a form your mind can handle. Hence this oversized blouse made of this unpleasant fabric. But if it makes you feel any better—” She gestured with Her left hand, and the jersey transformed into a luxurious velvet toga in a stunningly beautiful shade of purple I’d never seen before. “Enough of this talk of silly games! There are much more important things for us to discuss.” She gestured for me to follow Her. “There is great danger,” She said, Her voice drifting back to me on the gentlest of warm breezes.
“Isn’t there always,” I muttered under my breath.
She stopped walking. “I chose you, Scotty. Out of all the mortals, I put my mark on you. I gave you a great gift, one that many would appreciate, that many would give their right arm to have. But there’s always a price, Scotty.”
“I know, Great Mother,” I replied. “I do appreciate it.”
“I doubt that you do.” She turned Her back on me.
I followed her, and She waved Her hand as I came up alongside Her.
We were standing on a cliff, and far beneath us wasn’t a valley, but a road I recognized as Airline Highway, with its box stores and fast food joints. There was a massive structure just on the other side of the highway from us—behind a vast parking lot filled with angry people carrying signs and shouting.
“There.” She pointed.
“The Dove Ministry of Truth?”
“There is no truth to be found in that place,” She whispered to me as the voices grew louder. I could barely make out the words—“No more hate! No more hate!”
“Is that the protest? The one this Saturday?”
“There will be trouble, Scotty, and it is up to you to make sure that it doesn’t happen.” She continued, “This trouble, if it is allowed to come to fruition, will poison the next few years and lead to even more trouble, to great deaths and much destruction.”
“You want me to convince Mom to not have the protest?”
As I watched, the front doors of the church opened and a wave of people came rushing out, heading for the protestors.
“Violence is never the answer, Scotty. It scars the plane—and those scars take an eternity to heal—and more evil comes into the world from those scars.” She began to turn away from me as the mist began to rise again. Airline Highway, the sound of angry voices shouting, and the church disappeared into it.
“You must find out the truth before the violence takes control,” She whispered.
And disappeared into the swirling mist.
“Scotty!” Colin’s voice penetrated the darkness—and the pain.
It took me a few seconds to force my eyes open. My head was pounding, and it was cold. Slowly Colin’s face swam into focus in front of me. Just beyond him I could see the Lucky Dog vendor in his white and red striped shirt across the street, and Oz just beyond him. Out of the left corner of my eyes I could see the front steps of Marie Laveau’s Voodoo Shop. “What—what happened?”
“A car tried to run us down,” he replied grimly. “I pushed you out of the way—a little too hard, I guess—and you hit your head on the wall.” He pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. “Let me call an ambulance—”
“No.” I winced as I sat up, and closed my eyes until the wave of dizziness and nausea passed. “I don’t need to go to the emergency room. I hit my head. No big deal.”
“You could have a concussion—”
“I’m fine,” I snapped. “I have a headache, that’s all.” I felt around the back of my head and felt the painful knot. “It’s 2010, Barack Obama is president of the United States, your real name is Abram Golden, my name is Milton Scott Bradley, we’re on the corner of Bourbon and St. Ann, the date is January twenty-first, and I’m not seeing double.” I forced a smile on my face to take the sting out of my tone. “I’m fine.”
“I’d feel better if you got checked out,” he replied dubiously. “Head injuries…” His voice trailed off, and he gave me a smile. “Okay—but if you don’t feel better later, we’re going to the hospital, no arguments. Is that clear?”
“Aye, aye, sir.” I winced as I tried to get up. I must have landed on my shoulder wrong, because it also ached. “Help me up, would you, please?”
Colin shoved his big hands into my armpits and lifted me to my feet effortlessly. I always forget how strong he is. I leaned on him for a moment, hearing his heart beating and enjoying the warmth radiating off his body. It really was cold. He kissed the top of my head. “Come on, we’d better get you home.”
I started to argue, but another wave of dizziness stopped me as I tried to stand on my own. “Okay.” I swallowed. “Someone seriously tried to run us over?”
He nodded. “Yeah.” He said it with a grim look on his face, which didn’t bode well for the driver should Colin ever get his hands on him. “Headed right for where you were standing—if I hadn’t pulled you out of the way—” His voice choked up.
I closed my eyes and tried to remember. The last thing I remembered was walking out of Domino’s. I took another step and winced. “Man, my head and shoulder are killing me.”
“We need to get you home,” he said again.
“What about the investigation?” I protested. “We’ve barely started on the list.”
“It’ll have to wait.” He shook his head. “Can you walk?”
I took a step without losing my balance or getting dizzy. My head was still throbbing, though, and my shoulder was screaming for Ben-Gay. I nodded. “Yeah, but stick close, just in case. Just get me home and you can go on without me.”
“I’m not leaving you alone. What if…” His voice trailed off.
“Call David and have him come over to babysit me,” I replied crossly. Colin and Frank both have an annoying tendency to try to cover me in bubble wrap, if I’d let them. I mean, come on—I’m hardly a hothouse orchid. “He should be home from work by now. He’ll love the chance to mock me. And I can get the lowdown on Jesse, see if David confirms his alibi. You got the plate number of the car, right?”
“It didn’t have one.” He scowled as we started walking up St. Ann Street toward the river. When we reached the Lucky Dog cart, the vendor called over, “You all right, man?” He had a thick St. Bernard Parish accent. I nodded and gave him a weak smile. He just shook his head and started mumbling something about asshole tourists who don’t know how to drive in the Quarter.
Colin went on, “It was a dark blue Honda—I didn’t get much of a look at the driver, but I could see it was a man, and there was no license plate on the back either.”
“He was wearing a ski cap pulled down over his face—a Saints one with
the gold fleur-de-lis on the forehead. But why would someone try to run us down?” It didn’t make sense. Okay, maybe my brains were still a little scrambled, but I couldn’t think of any reason someone would want to run us down. “And you’re sure it wasn’t an accident? Maybe he was just drunk or something.”
“No, it was deliberate, all right. He headed right for us—and he drove up over the curb before veering back into the street.” Colin’s face was grim. “He was definitely trying to run us down.”
“But why would someone do that, Colin? It doesn’t make any sense—none at all. Nobody knows we’re investigating Tara’s murder—hell, nobody even knew she was dead until the story broke just now. Unless—”
“Whoever it was might have just been after me,” he finished the sentence for me. It was eerie how he could do that. “I’ll call Angela—get her started looking into it. Maybe someone tracked me here—it’s always a possibility.” He looked away from me. “You know, it’s always been a fear of mine—”
“Stop right there.” I cut him off as we turned down Royal Street. Colin was careful to make sure I was walking on the inside. “Don’t even go there, Colin. We don’t know anything, so don’t make any assumptions, okay?” I folded my arms, wincing as a lance of pain shot out from my shoulder.
“We have to face the possibility.” He put his arm around me. “Maybe it would be better if—”
“Stop right there.” I cut him off. “Yes, there’s always a chance some lunatic terrorist or assassin or whatever might track you here. And yes, they might use Frank or me or Mom or Dad to get to you. That’s a risk we’re all willing to take.” I poked him in the chest. “We lost you once before, and none of us are willing to go through that again. Understood?”
His eyes welled up, and he looked away quickly. “I know, but—”
“No buts.”
“I have a lot of enemies, and there are a lot of people who would love nothing more than to put a bullet in me.”
“Exactly—who’d want to put a bullet in you.”
He put his key into the gate lock. “But run you down with a car? And a Honda, at that? That doesn’t say professional killer, at least not to me. It’s kind of amateurish, don’t you think? I mean, I can hardly imagine some international gang of terrorists deciding the best way to get rid of you is to run you over on a public street with a beat-up old Honda.” As we walked, the memory was slowly coming back to me. “There was a dent in the hood, and a crack in the windshield.”
He didn’t say anything else until we were inside the apartment. He helped me to the couch and placed a blanket over me, tucking it in around me. I bit my tongue. It was irritating, but if it made him feel better about going back out and leaving me, so be it. He got me some pain relievers and a glass of water. The pain had subsided to a dull throbbing. I gulped down the aspirin and the water. He sat down next to me. “Yeah, you’re right,” he finally said. “It does seem amateurish. But I’m still going to call Angela.”
“You’re not the only person with enemies, you know.” I nestled down under the blanket. “I’ve made a few myself.” I thought for a minute. “There’s those neo-Nazis who worked for Willy Perkins, remember? And I’m not exactly popular with the Pleshiwarian fundamentalists we helped thwart last year. Or those Russian mobsters.”
“True.” He got up. “I’ll call Angela—and Storm, let him know what’s going on.” He pulled his cell phone out and walked out of the room.
I closed my eyes and stretched out on the couch. It’s not pleasant to think someone wants to kill you—but when it’s reality you have no choice but to deal with it.
I was actually more concerned about the cryptic warning from the Goddess.
My relationship with the Goddess had become a little dysfunctional over the last few years—not that it had ever been normal. She’d first appeared to me during the Southern Decadence nightmare, when Woody Perkins and his band of neo-Nazis had plotted to destroy the French Quarter by blowing up the river levee. Before then, I’d primarily channeled my psychic gift by reading the Tarot cards. Sometimes She spoke to me through the cards, sometimes She just ignored me. During another case, She allowed me to communicate with the spirit of a dead man to help me get to the truth. But after the Mardi Gras case—when Frank and I thought Colin was a murderer, and She’d allowed me to go on thinking that—I turned my back on Her. Six months later Katrina came barreling in from the Gulf and She wouldn’t even speak to me through the cards. In my bitterness and anger over the city’s destruction, I was more than happy to be done with Her and the stupid gift once and for all. She’d come back during the Pleshiwarian case—along with Colin, who turned out not to be a killer after all—and our relationship had been a little contentious since then.
She never showed herself to me without a reason—and usually it was important. Something terrible was going to happen at the PAM rally and counter-protest this Saturday if we didn’t get to the bottom of the Bourgeois case before then.
I was about to reach for the cigar box I kept my Tarot deck in when Colin walked back with a grim look on his face. “Well, Angela’s going to put out some feelers—but she hadn’t heard anything.” He swallowed. “She’s worried it might have something to do with my last mission—we thought it was over, but maybe not.” I opened my mouth, but he held up his hand. “Angela thinks it very likely a professional would try to make it look like a simple accident. She’s going to send us some backup.”
“Great.” I rolled my eyes.
“Don’t be like that. She’s sending the Ninja Lesbians—you like them, don’t you?”
I’d met Rhoda and Lindy during the Pleshiwarian mess, and yes, I did like them. “I thought they worked for the Mossad.”
“The Mossad owes Angela a few favors, and they know the city—and you, Frank, and the rest of the family. I think it’s a good idea.”
I sighed. “If you say so.”
“We don’t know what we’re up against and it’s better to be safe than sorry. I also called Storm, to let him know what’s going on.” He winked. “I made sure to emphasize not saying anything to Mom and Dad.”
I blew out the breath I’d been holding in relief. Mom would have run every step of the way to my side, and would have been impossible to get rid of. Don’t get me wrong—it’s great having such a loving mom, but it can be a bit much sometimes.
When I’m fifty, I’ll still be her baby.
“Storm’s back at the police station—he’s going to head over here when he’s done there. They aren’t charging Jared, by the way.”
“Did you tell him about Jared’s alibi?”
“Since they aren’t charging him right now, I thought I’d let you have that pleasure when he gets here.” He grinned, dimples marking his cheeks. “And David’s on his way over. When he gets here, I’ll try to track down these other suspects. What time will Frank be back?”
“Probably not until around ten,” I replied, reaching under the couch and grabbing the cigar box. “I can do some background checking while you’re gone.”
He sighed. “I’d rather you just lie there and rest, but I suppose that’ll be okay.”
“I’ll use the laptop so I can stay on the couch,” I offered.
The gate buzzer rang, and Colin moved to the intercom. “Yeah?”
David’s voice came through the wall. “It’s me.” Colin hit the buzzer to unlock the gate. A few moments later there was a rap at the door. Colin leaned down and kissed me on the cheek before opening the door. I heard them murmuring to each other, and the door shut again.
“You look like hell,” David said with a big grin, sitting down in a reclining chair after removing his jacket. “I guess the gym’s out of the question today?”
“Cute.” I grinned back at him. David is one of the best friends anyone could ask for—particularly, as he liked to point out from time to time, since being my friend is dangerous. Thus far, he’s had his nose broken, his car totaled, and his house shot up. But he can alway
s be counted on, any time I need him—and for pretty much anything.
Of course, one has to put up with his sarcasm and teasing.
He leaned back in his chair and pulled a joint out of his shirt pocket. He lit it and took a deep inhale. “Can you believe it’s open season on the anti-marriage crowd?” he said, blowing out the smoke and offering it to me. “Pity.”
I hesitated, remembering my promises to myself to not smoke so much. I did have to talk to the cards, apologize to the Goddess, and do background checks online…none of which, I realized, would be impeded by being a little buzzed.
I took the joint. “Just one,” I said, taking the hit.
“I can’t say I’m sorry someone killed that Bourgeois bitch,” he said, accepting the joint back. He took another hit before pinching it out and dropping it back in his pocket. “But Marina Werner, too? Now if only someone would shoot Peggy MacGillicudy, the world would surely be a better place.”
I stared at him. The pot was relaxing me, and at the same time opening my mind a bit. Of course, Marina and Tara both have been killed—the two murders have to be related.
It couldn’t be a coincidence that two of the movers and shakers for the Protect American Marriage rally were now dead.
And both were killed within a twenty-four-hour period.
“You’re a genius,” I said slowly.
“Underappreciated most of the time, but yes, I am.” He grinned back at me. “So what happened to you? Colin said you were almost hit by a car.”
“Yeah, I hit my head.” I reached under the coach and got my deck of Tarot cards. I sat up and started shuffling. “I have a bit of a headache—had,” I corrected, realizing the combination of aspirin and pot had taken the pain away. “Speaking of which, what’s the deal with you and Jesse Santana?”
He started. “How do you know about that?”
I laughed and filled him in on Jared’s possible involvement with Tara’s murder—and Mom’s gun. “When we were at Domino’s, Jesse brought you up. Come on, spill.”
