by Amy Cissell
Florence was dressed similarly, and we ate quickly as we waited for Raj to make an appearance. I paced, getting increasingly nervous. I wasn’t sure why he was cutting our planned timeline so close, but I had a sneaking suspicion he was avoiding me.
“Where’s Emma?” I asked. She’d been out with Florence, but I hadn’t seen her.
“She’s sleeping,” Florence said. “Or at least, she’s in her room.”
“Will she be okay here by herself?”
“I’ll be staying with her,” Petrina said. “I am still the ace in the pocket. Marie knows I exist, but she doesn’t know much else about me. And we don’t know what Medb knows. It’s best to keep me under wraps as long as possible.”
That made sense. I went back to pacing and staring at the front door, willing Raj to appear.
“He’ll be here,” Petrina said. I knew she was right, but she didn’t mention anything about him being here soon. I tried not to worry or sulk or pace or anything that would result in an outward display of my agitation. This was it. The big day. The chance for the third man in my life to betray me. I took a deep breath and told myself, you can’t change things, so don’t worry. It wasn’t helping. I knew Raj cared about me, but he’d been very clear that he cared about the sword more than anything—although maybe not more than anything if he was willing to let Vlad borrow it on an ill-conceived mission of mad and unrequited love. Okay, so he cared about me almost as much as he cared about his extended undead family. That was an excellent start. After all, he’d known most of them for centuries, and me for a mere six months.
My chest tightened uncomfortably, and I doubled down on my quest to avoid hyperventilation. I gave myself a pep talk. Eleanor Morgan, you will grow the fuck up, find your backbone, and go forth like the motherfucking dragon queen you are. So what if he screws you over. At least you didn’t fuck him, so you’re already learning some life lessons. I mean, if he does, you’ll obviously need to reevaluate your life and consider joining a nunnery, although I’m not sure marrying Christ is really a step up when it comes to choosing the right guy. Jesus Christ, I’m babbling to myself. Not that Jesus… “Argh!” I yelled. I was driving myself mad. When I opened my eyes, Florence and Petrina were staring at me. I couldn’t read Petrina well enough yet, but Florence was definitely laughing at me. She’d probably had a sneak peek into my head. “I wish we’d spent more time on my mental shields,” I said, not for the first time.
“He’s here,” Petrina said before anyone could answer. I ran outside, hoping to catch a moment alone, but Florence and Petrina either didn’t know or didn’t care that they were interrupting what might be my last chance to get to first base with my boyfriend.
“Now that everyone’s here,” Florence said, “into the car. It’s a bit of a drive.”
“I can fly ahead and scout out the area, make sure we’re not heading into danger.”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “You’re just trying to leave us behind. We’re all in this together. Haven’t you ever seen a horror movie?”
“Eleanor, I am usually the star of the horror movies.”
“Not this time. You’re part of the good guy gang, and therefore you have to stay with the group.”
Raj didn’t reply, but got into the front seat, even though I’d been sending him mental messages that he could share the back seat with me so we could snuggle a bit. In fact, he was ignoring all my attempts to engage him in telepathic conversation. I hated it when he wasn’t flirting with me. Last time, it was because he was worried about being challenged in Savannah—which led directly to him being terribly beaten and having to kill the Master of the City and take over when he really had neither the inclination or the time to do so. I was pretty sure, based on the few things he’d said about Marie, that he didn’t believe he was powerful enough to wrest control of New Orleans from her, but maybe he was afraid it was going to come down to a fight.
My chest started to tighten again. We were heading into her stronghold, knew she wasn’t necessarily friendly, and, if rumors were true, she had an army of ghouls at her command. I’d never fought a ghoul before. I’d never even seen one. How do you kill a ghoul?
I was about three seconds away from hyperventilating again, and the fact that neither of the mind readers in the car were reassuring me, or telling me to calm the fuck down, or talking to me in my head with innuendos and double entendres.
“What is wrong with everyone?” I yelled. The air in the car was starting to get a bit smoky.
“We’re all mentally preparing,” Florence said. “We have a big night ahead of us.”
I eyeballed the back of her head. That sounded reasonable, but yet…something wasn’t quite right.
Before I could grill anyone further, we arrived in New Orleans. Raj directed Florence to Louis Armstrong Park, and we pulled into one of the many open parking spots.
“Okay,” I said. “What now? Is now the time you tell me what’s going on? You all know how much I hate being left out of the loop.”
“Now,” Raj said, opening my door, “we wait.”
I grabbed my bowling ball bag—heh—and the three of us walked into the park and waited. Raj and Florence waited patiently, but I couldn’t be still. I paced. I looked at the sculptures, without really taking them in. The park was surrounded by what had once been a water feature, complete with fountains, but was now stagnant water, rife with flies, and extremely odiferous. Jazz music drifted on the heavy evening air, and even though I would’ve sworn I wasn’t a fan of jazz, it stirred of feelings of pleasant nostalgia—the Germans probably had a word for it. I was bobbing my head in time with the music and feeling calmer and more focused with every beat, and then I had a thought.
“Shit. When is Mardi Gras? I don’t want to be here for that.”
Raj closed his eyes when Florence said she didn’t know, and I figured he was sifting through people’s thoughts.
“Fat Tuesday is March 4,” Raj said finally. “If it were any other year, things would already be kicking off, but it’s going to be quieter this year since there won’t be a lot of tourism.”
“Two small mercies: we won’t have to be in the city for Mardi Gras, and it won’t coincide with the full moon.”
“How much longer will we have to wait?” Florence interrupted, revealing that she did not, in fact, possess infinite patience.
“She knows we’re here,” Raj said imperturbably, “and she knew we were coming. It shouldn’t be too much longer. She will enjoy making us wait, though. Especially if she knows Eleanor is uncrowned royalty.”
“Why would she enjoy that?”
“If you’d taken your throne already, you’d be her equal at the very least. There is a slight possibility that you’d be considered her superior. It’s been a while since we’ve had to delve into the protocol of the nobility to determine who outranked who between the Fae and earth-bound supernatural courts. If your station was determined to be above hers, she’d have to bow to you, and I’ve never seen Marie bow to anyone. Currently, you are still the heir apparent, and she can wield her power by keeping you cooling your heels on her doorstep as long as suits her.”
“Will she see us tonight, or will she make us come back again tomorrow?” I asked.
“I think she will see us, but she is unpredictable.”
We’d been in the park nearly two hours before a lumbering figure that unpleasantly reminded me of Frankenstein’s monster from old horror films appeared in front of us. “Come,” he said. He turned and shambled away. I eyed him askance but followed when Raj and Florence started walking.
He led us into a cemetery a few blocks away, and I had flashbacks to my time in Savannah. All the creepiest southern cities did their best business in graveyards.
He stopped in front of a mausoleum, and I noted, with some humor, that the plaque on the outside announced it to be the final resting place of Marie Laveau. The ghoul—for what else could he be?—pushed a brick on the side and the front slid open, revealing a lon
g staircase that led down into sporadically torch-lit darkness. I looked at Raj, and he shrugged. “She’s never received me in her home before. We always met in one of her more public meeting places, but I always knew she kept a residence under her own crypt.”
“It’s going to be damp, isn’t it?” I asked. “New Orleans is soggy.”
“It’s likely.”
“Go,” the ghoul said. He had no inflection, but I imagined he was getting impatient, so I went.
The stairs seemed to go on interminably, but eventually, I splashed down onto a solidish floor. I followed the unevenly spaced torchlight forward for at least twenty minutes until I came to a second set of stairs. These, thankfully, led up. My motorcycle boots had not been tall enough nor waterproof enough, to keep the water from soaking my feet. I was cold. From the random cursing in a variety of languages, I was assuming that Raj’s Italian loafers had also taken in some water.
In a couple of steps, I was out of the water, and we climbed up for as long as we’d climbed down, which annoyed me to no end. Why play the game of having us walk through what was probably sewer water? Power trip much?
When I got to the door at the top of the stairs, I discovered that there was no handle on the inside. I glared at it and then raised my hand to knock. It swung open before I could complete the action, and I walked forward into a room filled with candles. The flickering flames gave the huge room an eerie feel, and I felt like I was walking onto the set of a horror movie. At one end of the large ballroom was a woman sitting regally on an incredibly ostentatious throne. It appeared to be made of a combination of bones, gold, and rubies, and each arm was set with a skull with ruby eyes. There was a golden crown hovering in the air above her head, something long and pointy in her lap, and several figures prostrate in front of her.
I recognized her immediately from my dream, although she hadn’t appeared quite so…nauseatingly regal then.
“I was in disguise,” she said.
I cursed. Another motherfucking mind-reader.
She laughed, and it sounded like a cacophony of bells being rung with shards of glass, fingernails on a chalkboard, and wind chimes. It was disturbing and nauseating, yet somehow entrancing.
Raj strode forward and sank to one knee. It was weird seeing him bow to someone. I tried not to stare, but it was either stare at him, at her, or at the weird-ass fixtures in the little throne room of horrors.
“Your Majesty,” he said. “It is good to see you again.”
“It has been too long, Rajyapala.” It sounded like a rebuke.
“My apologies, Majesty. I have brought you Savannah as penance for my lack of attention.”
“You took Savannah?” she asked.
“I was there recently with the world breaker. The Master of the City was insolent, so I left it with a lieutenant who is loyal to you.”
“Thank you. I have wanted to add that to my territory.”
Raj permitted himself a smug smile and nodded to her. “I have one more thing for you, something I think you have wanted even longer.” He gestured me forward, and I walked up to the throne with my ball bag—heh.
Marie looked at the skull-adorned bag with curiosity. “I do not participate in human sports,” she said.
I unzipped the bag to reveal the head of Rasputin. It was no longer mummified as it had been when I’d first stuck him in there. Now, it appeared perfectly preserved even though it had been in a bag, not attached to a body, for four months. It blinked; I jumped. I did not toss the bag at Marie and run screaming from the room, which I thought deserved at least five gold stars and a shot of whiskey—or three. The mouth started moving soundlessly, and I was pleased that the rest of his body, including the lungs which were necessary to produce enough air for speech, had turned to dust in my motel room in Columbus.
Marie blinked. I was positive that was as big of a show of surprise as I was ever going to see from her. “Where is the rest of him?” she asked.
“I burned the heart, and his body turned to ash.”
“But his head remains animate?”
“Last time I looked, which was admittedly about four months ago, it was completely mummified.”
“You brought me a talking head,” Marie said. I think she was still a little shocked.
“I’m a psycho killer,” I said, grinning up at her impishly. My band puns were funny. Based on the smirk Marie was shooting my way, she found me amusing. It was about time someone did. “Where do you want this?” I asked. I was about done holding onto the ball bag—heh.
One of her sycophants jumped up and took it from me. He looked less than thrilled to be assigned head duty but didn’t protest. He wasted no time before rezipping the bag, though. He took it and exited the hall.
“Thank you,” she said. “That was truly a once in a lifetime gift.” I laughed out loud this time. Awesome. She was also a master of band puns.
Marie sobered. “We should get down to business. The Queen of the Dark Sidhe has sent a minion to bargain for the life of this girl,” she said to Raj, gesturing at me. I bristled at being relegated to ‘this girl’ status after we’d just shared some quality wordplay. “What they offered was gold spelled to kill anyone who touched it with desire. They thought me ignorant and believed either I would look on it myself or that I would offer it to you, Raj, as payment for betraying her. This angers me and lessens my desire to cooperate.
“However, I owe Medb a favor, and she has called that in. I will not use the cursed gold to harm you or any of yours, but I will ask you to hand over the girl. I will not trade something for nothing, though.” Marie held up the sword, and I felt Raj twitch beside me. It was saber-like but thicker and with more curve than my rapier. It looked incredibly old. The sheath was gold with inlaid rubies, but it was the ivory hilt that was the most eye-catching. It had three red gems set into each side of the grip. They looked as if they were even with the hilt itself, so as to not cause discomfort while holding it. Marie handed the sword to Raj, and he pulled the scabbard off reverently. The blade gleamed in the candlelight. “Damascus steel,” he whispered. “There is nothing like this anymore.”
I tried not to think about what I knew, especially since now I knew that Marie could pick up my thoughts. I did start to worry about what he’d promise to get this sword back. He was looking a little more acquisitive than I’d thought he would. I’d known he’d wanted it. He’d said he’d give anything to have it returned, and it was important. But I’d thought we’d find a way to work this out.
“She’s yours,” he breathed, not even looking at me. I trusted him. I did. I repeated it over and over, each time with increasing desperation.
“Unfortunately,” Marie said, “she is not human property to be disposed of so easily. I admire your attempt at subterfuge, though. You think to give me something that you have no right to, and then claim innocence when she burns down my house and disappears into the night. Thus, you have both your sword and the girl.”
“It is true that I had something like that in mind before holding my sword again,” Raj admitted. “But I will not play games now. She is yours. I will make it happen.”
“How are you going to prevent her from using her Fae magic to torch the place and escape?”
“Her magic is strengthened by her tattoo. Have someone tattoo over it with iron-containing ink, and it will bind her. The longer the tattoo is in place, the weaker she will become, and as long as the new tattoo exists, she will not be able to use the fire that is innate.” I stared at him. I couldn’t believe he was giving this information up.
“Can she still open the gates?” Marie asked.
“Yes. It doesn’t stop the flow of magic completely, just the fire. If you want to stop her from opening the gates, you’ll have to kill her.”
“Would you?”
“No,” Raj said.
I sagged in relief.
“It wouldn’t be in my best interests at this time. I want the gates opened, and I need her and this sword to make s
ure that things work out in my favor.” Raj hadn’t looked at me once since we’d arrived in New Orleans, and I was having trouble maintaining my mantra.
“If I have her bound will you take custody of her until the gates are opened and then turn her over to Medb?” Marie asked. She wasn’t looking at me either. I twisted around to catch Florence’s eye. I was ready to shift in front of Marie and everyone and fly out of here, but I wouldn’t leave Florence behind. Florence was absorbed in the exchange between Marie and Raj and didn’t spare even a glance for me.
“Medb doesn’t want the rest of the gates opened, does she?” Raj asked.
“She doesn’t, but she didn’t make that part of the favor she called in. She just asked for the head of the pretender to the throne.”
“That was the exact message? Interesting,” Raj said.
“Isn’t it, though?” Marie smirked.
I was trying not to panic. There had to be a plan. A way out.
“I have a very talented Fae that can probably do the tattoo, but it will take him time to prepare. I will ask Ms. Morgan to remain as my guest until such a time as we can commence.”
“How will you get her to cooperate in the meantime?” Raj asked.
“Is the witch necessary for the gates to be opened?”
“No,” Raj replied. “Her role has been to help temper the flow of magic as the gates are opened so that the region surrounding the gates is not saturated with more than it can handle. My daughter, Petrina, watched the process at the last opening and can duplicate it, so the witch is superfluous.”
I gaped at him. In all my wildest imaginings, this is not what I’d thought would happen. I’d expected him to say some hurtful things, was prepared to play along as we found a way to pull one over on the Queen of New Orleans, but this? He’d given her the key to my destruction, basically offered to behead me when it was all over, and now was coolly stating that Florence was unnecessary.
