Darkness Becomes Her

Sebastian shook his head, annoyance flashing in his gray eyes. “Outsiders think they know everything. Josephine, my grandmother, is head of the Arnaud family. The Arnaud family is one of the nine who bought New Orleans thirteen years ago.”

A short laugh burst through my mouth. But he wasn’t laughing. He was deadly serious. “Your family. Your family owns part of New 2.” I paced in a small circle, giving another disbelieving laugh. “And your granny knew my mother and paid her doctor bills. This is unbelievable.” I turned my back on him and placed my hands on my hips. Anger coursed through my veins as my eyes slowly took in the sterile room — the exam table, the two carts with two bodies under blue cotton tarps set against a wall of small square doors that probably held more bodies. …

Seriously unbelievable. I spun back round, forcing myself to remain there. Putting your back to two dead bodies was definitely not something that felt anywhere near comforting.

I shook my head and cursed softly, not understanding any of it. My mother’s warning, the attack, the disappearing dead guy. The curse that now apparently extended to me, and now this — a head of the Novem actually paying my mother’s medical bills. Did they know about me, then? Is that why they wanted to see me? Had they been looking for me this whole time?

“So, what now? Go have a talk with dear old Grams? Ask her why she tried to have me killed?” I ran my hands down my face, shaking my head and denying this was all even happening.

“Yeah, that was the plan. I think we should go talk to her.”

“Sure you do. That’s what you do, right? Do what they say.” I backed away, the rush of paranoia fueling my fear like lighter fluid on hot coals. “Thanks, but no thanks. I think this is where we part ways.”

I moved to the other side of the exam table, putting some distance between me and Sebastian. My hands curled around the cold edges, ready to shove it at him if he so much as twitched the wrong way.

One corner of his mouth lifted up slightly into what might’ve been a sad smile. “That would hardly stop me if I wanted to hurt you.”

I cast a quick glance over my shoulder, looking for another way out of the room. But there was none. Sebastian stood in front of the only exit. He regarded me patiently, like a parent waiting for a child to get over a fit, and it made me want to slap the look off his face.

“Ari,” he said finally, “Josephine Arnaud is a bitch and a manipulator, but she’s not a killer. The Novem doesn’t employ sword-wielding foreigners, and I’ll stake my life on that. If she knew your mother, then she probably has every answer you’ve ever wanted. I won’t let her or anyone else hurt you.”

“You don’t even know me! You don’t even want to know me, so why the hell are you going to protect me?”

He was quiet for a long moment, completely unreadable. His eyes darkened to steel gray. The muscle in his jaw ticked a few times before he said, “We’re the same. I know what it’s like—”

“Oh, please. You don’t know, okay? You don’t know anything. You have no idea what—”

“—it’s like to be different? A freak among freaks? Try me. You’re in New 2, Ari. Half the kids around here don’t even go to school. They have jobs. Jobs. The other half are Novem and more fucked up than you could ever imagine.”

So much of me wanted to meet his challenge, to tell him exactly how bizarre I really was, but I bit my tongue. It wasn’t worth it. And it wasn’t like he was going around telling me all about his weird-ass hypnotic abilities anyway. Why should I share mine?

“Whatever,” he finally said, and opened the door. “Do what you want.”

Screw him. He could leave if he wanted to. I was better off on my own. I’d always been better off on my own. This was New 2, the place for all things supernatural. If there was any way to learn more about my curse, it was here. I didn’t need Sebastian. Yeah, and your own mother lived here, yet she’d failed to lift the curse. I chewed softly on the inside of my cheek. It was still raw from where I’d bitten it before.

I let out a frustrated sigh as that realization sank in. “How much do you know about curses?”

Sebastian stilled. I knew what he was thinking, that he should just leave and be rid of me and my bad attitude, and maybe it was for the best.

He moved backward and closed the door, turning to face me. It didn’t take a genius to see he was pissed as hell. Just about as pissed as I was.

“Some,” he said. “Why?”

The letters went through my mind. My ancestors, all cursed to die at twenty-one. And though I wanted to, I couldn’t deny the truth. I knew it was real; I felt it. The dead guy, my hair, the letters. It was all real. “Because my family is cursed. I’m cursed. Not ‘cursed’ as in my life sucks or I’m different, but seriously cursed.” Yes, it was real, but it sure sounded like a bunch of baloney when said out loud. “Look, all I need is to be pointed in the right direction. I want this ‘thing’ gone, off me, whatever it is I need to do.”

The anger of before gave way to defeat and a whole lot of pessimism. My shoulders slumped, and I grew as cold as the corpses in the morgue.

“How about this?” Sebastian said. “I know a person who can lift curses. I’ll show you the way to the most powerful voodoo priest in New 2. And after that, you let me show you around the Vieux Carre. Then we’ll go together to quiz Josephine about your mother.”

I was pretty sure I knew what I looked like: a cartoon hamster in the headlights. Totally not what I expected him to say, especially after I’d just implied he was one of the bad guys. “Uh. .” What the hell was I supposed to say to that? “Okay?”

A grin split Sebastian’s face, slicing two dimples into his cheeks.

Holy Mary Mother of God. I actually stopped breathing for a second.

“Good,” he said, still smiling. “Let’s get out of here. It’s freezing.”

Six

CRANK WAS RIGHT. THE NOVEM HAD CONCENTRATED MUCH, IF not all, of their effort and money on rebuilding the French Quarter, or the Vieux Carre, as Sebastian called it. As we ambled down Bourbon Street, every building had been restored, every windowpane, shutter, and iron railing refurbished. Even the sidewalks, which Sebastian told me were known as banquettes, ad been repaired. Like every postcard image I’d ever seen of the French Quarter, they left nothing out. The area thrived, too. This was their moneymaker. This was where the tourists came, where Mardi Gras still drew enormous crowds.

And Mardi Gras was in full swing, having begun on January 6. In a few weeks, it would end with the biggest parades and balls on the night before Fat Tuesday in February. In the meantime, there were balls every weekend, local parades, and vendors selling masks and costumes like crazy.

The Quarter teemed with activity, a vibrant place with doors thrown open to bars, antique shops, restaurants, clubs, and bed-and-breakfasts. Mules plodded by pulling carriages. Musicians played on busy corners. And the only traffic was the occasional delivery truck — no personal vehicles allowed in the Quarter. “To preserve the ambiance and history,” Sebastian explained.

“Voodoo Alley,” he said as we turned onto Dumaine Street.

The street was a colorful mix of homes and businesses, mostly voodoo related. “The ones like those”—he pointed to a ground-floor shop filled with small pouches, spell packs, relics, statues, scarves, and handmade dolls —“those are tourist traps.”

As we went by, a small walking tour exited the shop, the tour guide dressed like the old Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau.

“Where are the real shops?” I stepped off the sidewalk and onto the street to go around the tour.

Sebastian shoved his hands into his pockets. “Back rooms, courtyards, private homes, the swamps. .”

We angled back onto the sidewalk, passing a long strip of houses on both sides of the street. The area