Embers and Echoes

by Karsten Knight

  Violet’s too fast for him. The electricity shoots out of her palm and into his open mouth. He instantly crumples to the ground. “Storm’s already here,” she corrects you. She reaches down with her hand to shock the convulsing man again.

  You catch her by the wrist. “He’s out already. What the hell took you so long?”

  “Patrol was lingering outside. Had to send a lightning strike onto the apothecary to lure them away.” Violet gestures to the vault door. “What’s taking you so long?”

  You pull back your mask so that you can see better. “Cast-iron door, probably two feet thick, clad in steel plating with a layer of copper buried in there to slow down a torch.”

  Violet toes the fallen night guard, who has finally stopped shuddering. “Will it slow down your torch?”

  You slip off your overcoat and toss it to the ground. “Just get the sacks ready and keep your eyes on the door, Vi.”

  “Yes’m,” she replies, and heads down the hallway.

  You roll up your sleeves.

  You press your left hand to the metal vault door.

  You feel the wheel turning in your mind, which, much like a bank vault door, requires the proper combination to unlock the abilities within you.

  Then the metal slowly begins to give way.

  Your fingertips penetrate the top layer first as your hand heats the metal to three thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Your powers of conduction continue to radiate through the door into the thick layer of cast iron first, then through the copper alloy, which your skin melts through. The copper pools around your hand like hot molasses.

  When all is said and done, your hand sheers through the dual lock mechanism, and you’re able to rip the lock piston right out of the hole.

  You whistle down the hallway. “Vi—we’re ready.”

  You pull your arm free of the destroyed door. The already cooling liquid metal coats your left arm. There will be time to melt and slough the rest of it off later, but for now you use your right arm to pry open the vault door.

  The two of you make quick work of the bank vault, emptying the teller trays into your bags. Every bank vault is different, but given that this is your eleventh robbery in the last year alone, you’ve learned enough to survive—like how much you can carry before the load will slow you down.

  On your way out of the vault, you almost don’t see the night guard stirring in time. His eyes are clearly struggling to focus, but he angles his Colt Banker’s Special up at you.

  You twist and thrust out your metal-covered arm right as you hear the bang. The bullet hits you in the palm, and the force sends you backpedaling into the mangled vault door. You regain your balance and kick him across the face before he can fire off another round. It’s going to take a lot of moonshine for him to nurse that headache when he wakes up.

  You try to shake off the remaining sting in your left hand, and hold it up to observe the bullet you caught at point-blank range. The round protrudes out of the metal like a wart, and you pluck it out with your free hand.

  “Come on,” Violet urges you. “Now’s not the time for a palm reading.” She kicks the fallen guard in the stomach for good measure.

  Outside, your getaway driver, Brigid, has the car idling in the shadows across the street, but she wheels around and pulls right up to the curb just in time for the two of you to toss your bags into the trunk. Violet slips into the passenger seat and you take the back.

  “What’s the haul?” the wheel woman asks the moment you climb into the car.

  “Enough to take a little vacation,” you reply. “Save the accounting for later and concentrate on putting some miles between us and the bank.”

  “Shit,” Violet growls as she adjusts the rearview mirror. “Looks like the suits are already coming out to play.”

  Through the back window you watch as one police car comes blazing around the corner so fast that it nearly tilts onto two wheels. One of the policemen pulls himself out of the window and aims a pistol at your rear tires.

  You reach beneath the backseat and withdraw the tommy gun concealed beneath. With your one usable arm you poke the tommy gun out the window and squeeze off a burst of fire, wide enough to intentionally miss the vehicle behind you, but close enough to frighten the policeman, who slides back into the car.

  “My turn,” Violet says. She straddles the door frame, so that her head’s outside of the car while one leg remains inside to anchor her in place.

  It had been a flawless warm Louisianan night before, but Violet telegraphs her usual prayers up into the clouds, and the maelstrom gates open. A heavy shower hammers down on the police car.

  With the downpour obscuring the windshield, the passengers probably can’t see that the storm is miraculously leaving the Tiki Bandits in peace.

  Your pursuers forge blindly on, but Violet’s not done yet. The precipitation shifts to freezing rain, which crystallizes into ice as soon as it hits the road.

  The driver of the police car, unaccustomed to icy roads in New Orleans, panics and twists the wheel hard in the opposite direction. As a result, their spinout worsens and they slam sideways into a lamppost.

  With your pursuers incapacitated, Violet slips back into the car. From the wicker basket in the front seat, she produces a bottle of real French champagne—a gift from Vi’s bootlegging contacts. She pops the cork and pours two glasses. “Sorry, Brigid,” you say as you take a glass. “Somebody has to drive.”

  Brigid just mutters something about how you better save some bubbly for her or she’ll send the Wild Hunt after you.

  As you cruise past the eclectically colored residences of the French Quarter, Violet slides into the backseat so that she’s sitting between you and the money. “We did it, Baby Sister,” she says, and raises her glass. “Here’s to another great heist.”

  You hesitate. Tonight was a close call. It was sloppy of you not to hear that guard sneak up from behind. And when you started down this path of thievery with Violet, you promised you’d take only as much as you needed to survive. Not only do you now have enough to live comfortably, but you’ve landed in a city that you’ve come to love—and best of all, found a man who adores you.

  You reach up and tug off your wooden mask, which you cast out the window and into the street. It collides with a lamppost and falls facedown to the sidewalk.

  You finally clink your champagne flute with your sister’s and say, “Here’s to my last.”

  For the better part of the next morning and afternoon, you lie in bed, drifting in and out of sleep—because you know that the moment you climb out from beneath your covers, your life of adventure is officially over, for better or worse. You also don’t want to face Violet, whose silence when you got home last night can only mean she’s taken your retirement personally.

  Violet finally barges into your room closer to sundown and throws a dress onto your head. When you claw the fabric away from your face, Violet is already walking for the door. “You can retire all you want, Lucille, but you are not making me go to the governor’s party all by my lonesome.”

  You spread out the dress on the bed and wrinkle your nose. You’re still a country girl at heart, and you’re starting to realize that when you threw that mask out the window last night, you may have only been trading one disguise for another.

  The governor’s soirees grow increasingly lavish every time he throws one. Tonight is no exception. When you get there, the old plantation’s backyard blazes with a small galaxy’s worth of lanterns. You and Violet have received regular invitations, much to the chagrin of the governor’s wife, ever since Governor Dupre discovered the two of you walking down Bourbon Street—his “island ambassadors” he called you, “come to bring the sunshine to this great community.”

  You sit on the weathered picnic bench and watch the crowd of old-money husbands and wives, the New Orleans aristocracy, accumulating on the sweeping lawn. “I wonder,” you say, “how welcome we’d be here if the governor knew we were stealing his money from a bank jus
t last night.”

  Violet snorts. “Consider it payment for the fact that the weather is always immaculate at his parties. If it weren’t twenty degrees cooler than everywhere else, he would have sweated through his Parisian suit four times by now.”

  “And judging from the glaze over his eyes when we came to the door, he probably has a bathtub full of moonshine, so he would be the last person to pass judgment on our unlawfulness,” you say as you unscrew the cap of your flask and take a swig. “Not that I’d be the one to judge his temperance either.”

  You squint at a figure making his way around the side of the house, decked out in a black tuxedo. Is that him?

  Violet notices your fixation on the newcomer and gives you a hard shove forward. You topple off the picnic bench and nearly land on your knees. “Go,” she says. “Go find your strapping fiancé and smother him with affection, you card.”

  You smile and walk backward. “Only if you go find a rich widower or an unhappy husband.”

  Violet raises her flask to salute you. “Your will shall be done.”

  Sure enough, the handsome newcomer is walking your way—he’s always been able to seek you out like an arrow to its target, even in crowds—and he wraps his arms around you as soon as he’s within range. His muscular hands pull you tightly against his body and lift you off the ground, then spin you in a pirouette. Even when he sets you back down to earth, he never lets you go.

  Instead he eyes your arms, which are encircling his neck. You melted the metal off your arm after the heist, but it didn’t completely slough off in some spots—a few traces remain, delicate copper veins intertwining from your elbow to your wrist.

  He releases you but gingerly unfolds your palm to inspect it. Your life line and love line, too, are still embossed with metal that wouldn’t melt out of the groove.

  “What were you doing last night?” he asks suspiciously, then his eyes grow wide. “Please tell me you didn’t melt the—”

  “Don’t worry.” You hold up your other hand, and the enormous ring glitters underneath the cloudless moon. “Gleams as bright as the day you gave it to me. Although if I ever catch you eyeing another woman, don’t be surprised if I turn this ring into a puddle.”

  Your fiancé adjusts his lapel as though he’s suddenly become too warm. “I’m pretty sure you’d turn me into a puddle first.”

  Before you can explain to him that he can expect a far more painful end if there’s ever even a question of infidelity, the two of you are interrupted. The governor has spotted you. “Lucille,” he purrs in his gruff and musical Cajun accent. He takes you by the left hand and presses his lips to your skin. You pray that he won’t see—or taste—the residual metal.

  “Governor,” you reply, and give a slight bow. Such formalities always seem to please him, though you could probably spit in his face and he’d still be delighted. You’ve never seen him frown.

  He gestures to the skies. “I swear every time you come, you bring your beautiful island weather with you. Our delta never saw such heavenly skies before you and your sister came to our shores.”

  You nudge your fiancé, who is now smirking wildly. “I like to think,” you say, “that we find good fortune wherever we go.”

  The governor finally acknowledges the man at your side. “And this dapper, grinning fool must be the mountain man who stole my Lucille away.”

  “Not too many mountains where I’m from,” he replies, and extends his hand.

  “Well, even if you were from the plantations of hell, you’re welcome here as long as you make this lady glow.” The governor envelops your fiancé’s hand with both of his own. “Do you have a strong name to go with that strong handshake?”

  “I certainly hope it’s strong, since it’s soon to be hers as well.” He winks at you. “The name is Colton Halliday. Call me Colt.”

  “Well, Halliday, you two dote on each other enough for them to feel the beating of your hearts in Baton Rouge.” The governor takes Colt’s hand and places it in yours. You’re surprised that he doesn’t offer to read your marriage rites then and there. “I have a feeling,” the governor says, “that this truly is a love that will last a lifetime.”

  Colt touches the side of your face with his free hand. “I think we’ve got a good shot at lasting longer than that.”

  HACIENDA PARTY

  Thursday

  There was someone sitting on Ash’s bed.

  One moment she was in Prohibition-era New Orleans, the next she was awake in the artificial cool of an air-conditioned Miami condominium, with a very alert-looking Wes perched on her bedside. The sinking of the mattress under his weight must have woken her from the dream—the memory?—the reality of which she would have to save until later to deliberate. Wes was watching her intently, and as soon as she blinked and pulled herself up into a sitting position, he said, “I have a very important question for you.”

  Ash rubbed her hair, self-conscious that thirty-six hours into meeting her, Wes had now seen what a train wreck she looked like when she first woke up. Goddesses were not immune to the concerns of normal mortal females. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Do you,” he said deliberately, drawing out each word, “prefer white or whole wheat toast? We’re fresh out of pumpernickel.”

  So he was making jokes now, his soft grin and sarcasm resurrected just hours after his sober departure from the roof last night. Still, she wasn’t about to start asking about his dead father—whom Wes had apparently killed himself, though Aurora had left the details vague. So instead Ash said, “Aren’t carbs illegal in Miami? Am I allowed to eat toast?”

  His eyes unashamedly swept from her shoulders down to her waist. “Whatever your current diet consists of is treating you well, so don’t go starving yourself on Miami’s account.”

  She pulled the sheets back up to conceal her body and kicked him through the covers. “Thanks, pervert. Give me ten. Surprise me on the toast.”

  “As you wish.” He gave an exaggerated bow and backed out of the room.

  Ash collapsed onto her back in a human T, letting the pillows cushion her head as she went down. The current state of her love life was rapidly growing back into a tangled briar patch.

  If last night’s dream was a true echo of her last time on earth, then Colt wasn’t just her ex-boyfriend in this life. He was her fiancé in the last as well.

  Now she was potentially being courted by a night god she’d temporarily moved in with, even though she barely knew him. If their conversation on the roof was any indication, his flirtatious, carefree playboy demeanor was just the skim layer of an abyss of baggage.

  Colt had tried to conceal his godliness from her, whereas Wes had been honest with her from the start. Did that mean she’d learned her lesson in the male department? Or was the fact that she was contemplating the affections of yet another god proof that she hadn’t learned her lesson?

  Days like this made her almost wish that she was back in Scarsdale, oblivious to her fiery powers and still dating juvenile yet predictable mortals like Rich Lesley.

  Wes chose that moment to wander past Ash’s open door on his way to the kitchen, and she caught a glimpse of his bare abs. Apparently he’d decided to cook shirtless this morning.

  Maybe Ash could live with complexity.

  And suddenly she was stomach-numbingly hungry.

  Breakfast might have been delicious, but Ash couldn’t particularly remember. For some reason most of what she remembered from the morning meal consisted of throwing her dignity to the dogs and sneaking glances at Wes while he made omelets.

  Aurora, who had been snickering at Ash’s wandering eyes, left as soon as she’d wolfed down her plate of eggs. She had a cooking gig at a restaurant on Ocean Drive, which, judging from the back-and-forth between her and Wes, was some source of tension.

  Why Wes so adamantly disapproved of Aurora’s job, Ash couldn’t say. Aurora’s loose-fitting white button-down totally concealed her folded wings well. It wasn’t like she was wai
tressing in a low-cut tank top.

  Besides, Ash thought, if she were living in Wes’s pad full-time, she’d feel awkward just coasting on Wes’s inheritance—an inheritance that was already shrouded in mystery as it was.

  After breakfast Ash took the opportunity to call home to Scarsdale, since a small library of voice mails and texts from her parents had already accrued in her cell phone’s in-box. She hoped that by calling the house she could get away with leaving a voice mail, but Gloria Wilde picked up almost immediately. It wouldn’t have surprised Ash if her parents were taking turns working from home just to thwart her attempts at avoiding direct contact.

  So for the next fifteen minutes, Ash improvised a wild story about following a lead that Eve had “enrolled in art school” somewhere in Miami. She was even able to work some half-truths into the tall tale, like how her search for Eve had led her to a white-tie event at a seaside mansion. Making the whole trip sound like a trip to the museum seemed to calm some of her mother’s anxiety . . . but even then, Ash still had to spend the remainder of the conversation dodging her mother’s insistence that she fly down.

  “Everything’s going to be just fine,” Ash assured her mom yet again. “I’m staying with friends now, and they’ll make sure I stay out of trouble.”

  “I didn’t know you had friends from Blackwood who lived in Miami,” her mom said, surprised. “And their parents are okay with them escorting you around the city?”

  Ash peeked out the door at Wes, who was humming to himself as he rinsed off the breakfast dishes in the sink. Surely no one in the history of the civilized world had managed to look so sexy using a spatula to scrape burned egg off a frying pan. “Actually,” Ash said, “the head of the household is all for it.”

  Once Ash finally hung up with her mother and returned to the kitchen, Wes cryptically mentioned that he wanted to take her to visit a friend, and that she should wear beach-appropriate shoes. Ash resisted at first. She had come to Miami to find Rose, not to socialize. But for the time being at least, she was out of leads. Maybe some fresh air would help her to generate a plan of attack.