Royal Street

by Suzanne Johnson

  He moved beside me, shifting the screen to look at it more closely. Red stars had begun popping up on the map, and all of them were blinking.

  “Good grief. All those are breaches?” I counted the blinking stars—sixteen of them. The stars were bigger than the street names so I couldn’t tell their exact location. Using my index finger, I stabbed at one in frustration. With a soft whirring noise, a portion of the map rose from the grid. The blinking light disappeared and in its place was an address in the Central Business District.

  Alex wrote down the address on a notepad while I punched the second blinking star: a spot in the French Quarter. We wrote down all sixteen addresses. One was in Lakeview—Gerry’s house.

  “I want to check Gerry’s first,” I said. “We can tell from your portable tracker if it’s the old one from whatever showed up there after the storm, or if it’s new.”

  Alex set his notepad down and stared at me. “What are you talking about? How do you know for sure anything showed up after the storm?”

  Oops. I’d meant to tell him about finding Gerry’s most recent journal. I really had. Eugenie had distracted me. “Gerry had a visitor the day before he went missing. That’s all I know.” I went back in the kitchen and brought it to him.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” He frowned as he read the last entry. “Are you sure this is all you found?”

  “Yes.” I turned to go upstairs for my backpack. He wasn’t the only one who could converse in single syllables.

  I’d planned to spend the morning calling the last people Gerry had talked to before he disappeared—I’d pulled their names from the journal. Instead, I’d check out a few breaches with Alex and see if I could wipe the suspicious look off his face.

  I slid small vials of salt and mercury in my pocket, then checked the contents of my backpack: premixed potions for camouflage and immobilization; elixir of magnolia root and liken-grass for memory modification; and duct tape and WD-40. Anything magic couldn’t fix, duct tape and WD-40 could.

  My nerves jittered as I gathered my supplies. This is what I’d been waiting for, wasn’t it? The chance to prove I could handle runs on my own? Oh God, please don’t make me have to be rescued by the enforcer.

  I took a few deep breaths, grabbed my bag, and got downstairs just as Alex came in the back door. I stopped and gawked.

  He’d slipped on a black sports jacket and was checking the clip on a big black pistol. Not the little one from his briefcase, but the one from our first meeting. I had no idea where he’d been hiding it. He probably had weaponry stashed all over my house.

  He slid the pistol into a shoulder holster under the jacket and picked up the shotgun he’d used to blow Jean Lafitte back to the Beyond. Finally, he clipped a tracker onto his belt—must have been a duplicate, because I still had the one I’d stolen from him hidden in my dresser. Just because I didn’t see any grenades didn’t mean he wasn’t carrying.

  Not in my town. “Whoa, cowboy,” I said, holding up my hands. “We’re just checking things out, not blasting our way into the Beyond.”

  If Alex thought we were storming into Lakeview or the CBD, guns ablaze, he needed a reality check. Mollycoddling preternatural interlopers like my favorite undead pirate could be tedious, but it was better than blowing their heads off. Besides, there was no point in overly pissing off the undead, just on principle. For one thing, you never knew when they’d come back.

  Plus, discretion is an important part of this business. Nothing would attract the attention of real cops, not to mention the nervous young National Guardsmen swarming all over New Orleans, like a big Mississippi boy wielding deadly weapons in broad daylight. They were understandably jumpy, and they might shoot Alex before he could whip out his FBI badge.

  I tried to explain all this.

  Alex didn’t care. “We try it your way first, but this is what I do. Live with it.” His expression dared me to argue.

  I wasn’t sure which worried me more—going into a potentially volatile situation with him or without him. Not that I had a choice. “Come on, then.”

  I scowled at him as I walked out the back door and headed for the Pathfinder. I was driving; he was riding shotgun. Literally.

  CHAPTER 18

  Nothing much had changed at Gerry’s except we could get there without a boat, and I wasn’t nearly as squeamish about getting mud on my vehicle as Alex. I cringed as I walked across the living room, trying not to stir up the odor of swamp crud soaked into rotting carpet. I stood next to the pass-through into the kitchen and studied the living room wall. In two days, the mold had visibly advanced in its march toward the ceiling. I’d left my mask hanging around my neck when I walked in, but now snapped it over my nose and mouth.

  Alex’s tracker screen remained blank as we walked through the rooms. It was just another empty, flooded house full of muck and memories. I looked closely at the transport in Gerry’s bedroom, looking for any clue to his visitor. Nothing.

  Back outside, we studied the remaining addresses and decided to visit the unflooded areas first, where more people were around who might be impacted by an active breach.

  First up, the CBD, where we found an undead Huey Long pontificating in Lafayette Square before a gaggle of camo-wearing guardsmen and four or five sweating cleanup workers in stripped-down hazmat suits. He’d wandered in, obviously thinking he could do a better job than the current politicians in cleaning up the post-hurricane mess. I figured a lot of folks would agree with him.

  I’d convinced Alex to leave the shotgun in the car, and we managed to lure Huey away from his audience and dispatch him to the Beyond under the pretense of sending him to the governor’s mansion in Baton Rouge to take over the cleanup efforts. He’d probably be back as soon as he figured out we’d led him down a primrose path straight to Old Orleans.

  Then we headed to the French Quarter, where we found a goblin sitting in a corner bar on Decatur, downing Jack Daniel’s. I wondered where he’d gotten money to pay for it.

  His dark skin was leathery and wrinkled, gray hair long and plaited into pigtails that trailed down the sides of his neck from beneath a red bandanna do-rag. He looked like a really decrepit Willie Nelson and glared at us with beady black eyes as we approached. Alex finally forced him to cooperate with the threat of a cold iron blade.

  “I don’t know why you bothered,” I said. “He just wants to get drunk, and goblins don’t like to fool with humans unless they’re serving alcohol. The breaches are obviously standing wide open. He’ll just come back.”

  Alex looked at the next breach address and grimaced. “It’s the principle.”

  We got in the Pathfinder to head for another blind date with the Beyond in a different part of the Quarter. “We have real work to be doing, and this feels like busywork,” I groused, slamming on my brakes to make way for a speeding Hummer.

  “There’s not a lot we can be doing about Gerry without more information,” Alex said. “We need to at least check these breaches out.”

  Maybe he didn’t know of things we could be doing, but I did. “Well, I’ve been thinking … maybe I should try to summon Marie Laveau.”

  Alex slammed his foot on an imaginary brake pedal on the passenger side as I dodged a Jeep. “Watch where you’re going. And don’t summon anybody. Don’t even think about summoning anybody.”

  “Why not? Marie Laveau, or some of the voodoo followers, are involved in all this somehow. Why not just ask? Even if it isn’t her, she might know something. I’ll even let you shoot her.” If all else fails, dangle the promise of violence in front of him.

  Alex let out a breath as I parked on Royal Street. “Look, the Elders said wait so we wait. Whatever this voodoo thing is, it might be in violation of an existing treaty and they’ll want to explore that first. Sending us after Marie Laveau would be a last resort.”

  Somehow, our positions had been reversed. He was playing the politician and I was advocating violence. We might not be good for each other.

  I
let it go. I didn’t need his permission. If I wanted to summon Marie Laveau, Jean Lafitte, or Elvis, for that matter, it was no concern of his.

  The next address given us by the magic box, as I had decided to call the Elders’ new mode of communication, was at Royal and St. Louis. In normal times this was a busy corner, with the massive old Royal Orleans hotel, framed by Antoine’s and Brennan’s restaurants and an assortment of specialty shops carrying everything from collector porcelain dolls to antique firearms.

  Today, like the rest of the Quarter, it was mostly deserted. A couple of stray locals who’d refused to evacuate for Rita wandered down the street, and police officers buzzed in and out of the eighth-district station on Royal. We had our pick of parking places, unheard of in the Quarter pre-Katrina.

  Next time I’m having a chat with the Elders, I’m going to suggest improvements to their reconnaissance methods. Too much guesswork. We didn’t know if we were looking for a demon from hell or a rampaging politician, assuming there was a discernible difference. Alex’s tracker headed us in the right direction but didn’t tell us what we were looking for.

  Finally we heard him, a lone cornet player sitting on the curb of St. Peter Street in front of Preservation Hall. Since the early 1960s, it had been the Mecca of traditional New Orleans jazz. I’d heard Katrina had battered its roof, scattered the musicians, and shut it down indefinitely.

  I recognized the musician immediately—Louis Armstrong, with his close-cropped hair and a face that looked like it had done more laughing than frowning. He wasn’t laughing now. A few soldiers and bohemian Quarter residents gathered around him, their faces solemn. More than a few wiped away tears, but the set of their jaws was hard. We’d all mourn for a while, but at the end of the day we were a tough lot, and we’d survive.

  At the end of the song, the cornetist bowed his head, and the onlookers applauded.

  The streetlights flickered on to signal nightfall, drawing an even bigger round of applause. Electricity! It felt like a luxury, even though the juice had been back on a couple of days in the Quarter and Uptown. I’d never take it for granted again.

  Louis got to his feet, and we waited while several people crowded around him. He handled the attention like someone who was used to it.

  “Yeah, I hear that a lot,” he told a young couple marveling at his resemblance to the Louis Armstrong. “We mighta been related back in the family somewhere—you never know ’bout those things.”

  He pulled a white handkerchief from the breast pocket of his black suit and wiped his face with it. The temperature hovered around ninety, but he didn’t seem to mind despite the old-fashioned suit and bow tie. After making people cry with his music, he was now teasing them into laughter.

  Louis was one smart cookie. If he’d come back claiming to be the memory-fueled version of the city’s most famous musician, we’d be doing damage control. Instead, he was charming his new fans without ever saying who he was or what he was doing here.

  Finally, the last of the crowd wandered away, and Alex and I introduced ourselves. He squinted at me and gave me the patented Armstrong grin. “Never did meet a wizard before, I have to say. But I figured somebody would know if I just came wanderin’ out of the Beyond.”

  “Mr. Armstrong, exactly how did you get here?” Alex asked. “Did someone summon you from this side, or send you from the Beyond?” We weren’t sure if our historical undead were just stumbling into the breaches or coming across intentionally. No questions about the goblin’s motive. Goblins followed the alcohol.

  “Call me Pops,” he said. “Everybody does. No, I came on my own. I wanted to see what happened in the hurricane.” Louis’s gravelly voice sank to a whisper as he nodded toward Preservation Hall. “Never thought I’d see this place closed down.”

  “Can we buy you dinner?” I asked, earning a startled look from Alex. I wasn’t sure if he was shocked at the invitation or the idea that the historical undead, unlike garden-variety ghosts or other undead like vampires, could eat, drink, and (if Jean Lafitte was any indication) engage in all kinds of human activities. The only thing they couldn’t do was die—at least not unless everyone forgot about them and took away the memory magic that fueled them.

  Besides, I had an ulterior motive—I thought Pops might be able to tell us how riled up the scarier denizens of the Beyond might be.

  The only open French Quarter restaurant we found was on Esplanade, a small mom-and-pop dive already crowded with off-duty guardsmen. They were bellied up to the bar three bodies thick, snagging bottles of cold beer as fast as the bartender could open them.

  Once we’d gotten a table and ordered burgers—the only thing on the chalkboard menu—I touched the legendary bandleader on the arm. “Louis, how did you get here? Did anyone help you?”

  Louis took a big sip of soda and smacked his lips. “Man, that’s good.” His smile faded. “Old Orleans is buzzing about the hurricane and how easy it is to come across now.”

  Old Orleans lay like a thin veneer between modern New Orleans and the rest of the Beyond. Most of the historical undead lived there, plus anybody else from the Beyond who wanted a change of scenery. It was a free-for-all zone for preternaturals and a dangerous place for mortals to wander, or so I’d heard.

  “Are there people in Old Orleans involved with voodoo?” Alex asked. “Do you know if Marie Laveau is there?”

  Louis took a bite of his burger and nodded. “She’s there all right. But I got nothing to do with her. She don’t mess with me, and I don’t mess with her.”

  A kernel of a plan nudged at my brain. “But you play in clubs there, right?” I asked. “And you hear things?”

  “Yes, I play. And I guess I could hear things but I mind my own business, you know what I mean?”

  I chewed my lip and pushed my burger away. Suddenly I wasn’t so hungry. I wondered how close the Elders were to repairing the breaches and doubted the Speaker would give me a straight answer if I asked. To find Gerry and see how he fit in with the voodoo puzzle, I’d have to do it myself.

  “Louis, would you like to stay in New Orleans awhile?” I asked. “Maybe play a little music?” From my peripheral vision, I saw Alex’s eyebrows meet in the middle of his face.

  “I would, Drusilla,” Louis said. “But where would I stay? And where would I play?” He chuckled at his own rhyme.

  I slid my gaze to Alex, who was giving me his most intimidating stare. It didn’t work. “Any ideas? Can Louis stay at Jake’s since you aren’t living there?”

  He clenched his jaw and pulled his phone out. I could practically see the wheels turning in his head: the good little soldier wondering what I was up to, if the Elders would approve of it, and figuring the answering was probably no. He made the call anyway. I think I was winning the bad influence contest.

  While Alex called Jake, I filled Louis in on the basics of cell phones, which he found fascinating. If we had time, we’d have to show him the Internet.

  “Okay, I think we’ve solved the problem,” Alex said, snapping the phone shut. “Louis, how would you like a few days at the Green Gator? My cousin Jake owns it, over on Bourbon Street. He just reopened. You could play there at night, and he has an apartment upstairs you can stay in.”

  Louis raised his eyebrows. “What’s the catch?” Louis hadn’t been born yesterday, after all. There’s always a catch.

  CHAPTER 19

  It took some convincing, but Louis finally agreed to be my spy. I had no doubt Alex would go running to the Elders as soon as he got a chance.

  “I told Jake your name was Jackie Williams and you were a Louis Armstrong impersonator,” Alex said as we got back in the Pathfinder and headed for Bourbon Street.

  Talk about an understatement. I wasn’t too concerned about anyone finding Louis suspicious, though. Ordinary people don’t know there’s magic in their midst and will go to great lengths to explain away things they don’t understand. This just might work. Louis would play the Gator at night and live upstairs at Jake�
�s, but would keep tabs on the Beyond during the daytime and report back to us.

  “Don’t get involved in anything yourself,” I said. “Just tell us anything you hear involving voodoo practitioners or gods—or wizards.”

  He sat in the front seat, studying the storefronts as we drove through the Quarter. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about me getting involved, no ma’am,” he said, laughing. “I want nothing to do with those people.”

  I had a feeling his definition of those people differed from my dad’s and Gran’s.

  The Gator was open, and we headed in to get Jackie Williams squared away with Jake. The lone bartender, Leyla, stood behind the long wooden bar that ran along the left side of the room, tossing long black hair over supermodel shoulders the color of café au lait. She gave Alex soulful cow eyes as he introduced us. He winked at her and got a giggle in return. Oh, please.

  Jake walked in from the back hallway and I knew just how Leyla felt.

  He nodded at Alex, shook hands with Louis, and gave me a smile that made my heart speed up. What was it about this guy? The dimples were nice, but I thought the biggest attraction was his high normal factor. He was simple and safe and plain-vanilla human.

  Jake tossed a key to Alex. “Why don’t you help Jackie there settle into his room? I’ll keep DJ company till you come back down, and then Jackie and I can talk business.”

  Alex stopped just short of a snarl and led Louis toward the back hallway. Jake got Leyla’s attention and pointed toward the back. She nodded and flicked a cool, appraising glance at me before turning back to the bar.

  A small stage on the right held a piano and bench, and an old-fashioned jukebox in the corner pumped zydeco music to the small crowd already filling the scattered tables. Mostly cops and soldiers, judging by the haircuts.

  “Let’s get away from the jukebox.” Jake put a hand on my shoulder and guided me toward the far wall. He leaned close to my ear so I could hear him. “You want something to drink?”