weaving its way through the railings and the wood, catching in the paddles at the stern. There were men on the ship, a crew of them. She’d been planning this.
A man wearing a tailored suit stood behind her. Not part of the crew.
“Oh, where are my manners?” Mom actually clucked. “Let me formally introduce Jack Landers.”
Jack was so pale he was almost transparent. His eyes were dead in his face.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance.” His overconfident tone suggested that he was used to getting what he wanted, and his slick smile told me the rest. A woman in a dirty yellow coat stepped out from the shadows.
Her nail-bitten fingers worried the buttons—open and closed, open and closed, over and over again. She didn’t look at me, didn’t even acknowledge where she was standing. Her eyes were vacant. Lost. She had to be strung out on something.
Jack ignored her and moved forward, leaning heavily on a cane, the smile growing wider. “I’ve waited a long time to meet you. I look forward to doing business with you.”
“I can’t say the same.” Growing up in New Orleans taught me not to do deals with the devil. It was always a bitch when he came to collect.
Jack studied me. “What have they told you about me, Hallie?”
“You manipulate people to get what you want.” I rolled to a sitting position, wincing when I tried to stand and couldn’t. My ankles weren’t ready, and I felt too vulnerable on the ground. “I’m guessing you’re responsible for whatever’s wrong with her.”
He looked at the woman beside him. “I haven’t done anything she didn’t ask me to do.”
“You steal memories, and she doesn’t look like she can remember her own name.” The woman stared vacantly in the direction of the shore. Flecks of spittle gathered at the corners of her mouth. “Did she ask for that?”
“She asked me to make life better for her, which involved erasing some things she wanted to forget. It took a while, since there were a lot of … situations to work through.” The two of them came closer. Her hair was short and unkempt, and she couldn’t focus on anything for more than a few seconds. “However, erasing you from the memories of your new friends shouldn’t be too difficult. Erasing all of them from
The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. If being erased resulted in the ruin of the woman standing in front of me, screw my aching ankles. It was time to start running. I tried standing again.
“You think they’re your friends, but they’ll forget you easily. They’re all so malleable.” Jack looked at my mother. “Does Hallie know Lily told us where to find the pendant? On Halloween, when I ‘borrowed’ her from the Hourglass.”
My chest tightened at the thought of Lily doing anything to help Jack or my mother. “What pendant?”
Jack answered for her. “Obviously, your mother never needed to search for the Infinityglass. But she did need the thing that allowed the Infinityglass to transfer abilities.”
I made it as far as one knee and one foot on the floor. “I don’t believe for one second that Lily would help you find it.”
“Lily didn’t know. Still doesn’t. We made her think it was a simple location test, so I didn’t even have to wipe her memory. Tell me.” Jack leaned over conspiratorially. “Does Emerson like you? I hope she does. She’s already so fractured. If she’s formed an attachment, erasing you from her mind will take her one step closer to where I need her.”
His eyes held a sick elation. I wondered how someone could be happy about causing so much pain, and then I thought about the things Jack had done to Emerson. Changed her time line, erased her memories. Her words came back to punch me in the solar plexus.
If Jack kept going, would he rob her of the happiness she had now? Would she end up mindless and empty, too?
Jack was too pleased with the sound of his own voice to shut up for long. “Dune will be harder. He loves you, and that just makes it all the more tragic. Because if he or your father gives us trouble, we’ll take care of them the same way we took care of Gerald Turner.”
Even though I was still on the floor, I lost my equilibrium. I put my palms flat as my vision blurred. When it cleared, I stared up at my mother. Not an ounce of emotion crossed her face.
“How is it that you haven’t given Jack ‘trouble’?” I asked. “Why hasn’t he taken your memories?”
“I know how to block him. He’s the one who taught me how, back when we were both in Memphis.”
Jack looked like he regretted the choice.
“Too bad she didn’t learn the trick.” I gestured to the woman beside Jack. “Whoever she is.”
“I’ll introduce you.” He took my arm and hauled me to my feet. “Cat, you’re being rude. Shake hands with Hallie.”
Cat stared at Jack for a long moment.
He nodded, and she made a grab for my hand.
My very bones vibrated the second she touched me. Time slowed down, my body roaring as if an electrical fire burned under my skin. Something that felt like a rectangular piece of metal branded the skin below my collarbone.
“Let go,” I screamed over the sound of the wind in my ears and tried to jerk my arms free, but got nowhere. “Let me go.…”
Cat’s mouth formed an O shape as her skin tightened on her already skeletal face. I was draining her energy. I felt it flowing through me. To Jack. His hand was still on my arm.
All the noise and activity dissipated in a rush. I hit the ground again.
Cat followed.
A mere husk of the woman lay crumpled in a heap. Aftershocks of power surged through me, but I ignored them and put my fingertips on her throat, searching. She looked like an addict who’d taken things too far. Desperate, starving, ruined.
Dead.
Jack held a spinning purple sphere in his hands. It gave off a crazy, glowing light, and crackled with electricity, just as I had thirty seconds ago. I’d seen Poe with something similar. Exotic matter.
“It worked,” Jack crowed, mesmerized. “She transferred Cat’s ability to me.”
Whether Cat had been willing or not, she’d overdosed on Jack Landers and his ability to take away pain. He had been her illicit drug.
I looked at the dead body beside me and wondered if he was about to make me his next addict.
I hadn’t underestimated the power of the Mississippi. Muddy, churning, and teeming with life, the current pulsed strong and willful. The closer I got to its banks, the more it pulled at me. Regulating my intake of air was the first step to maintaining control, the second, exhaling.
The desire to see what I could do was powerful, flowing through my veins faster than my blood. The desire to keep Hallie alive was stronger.
The cab dropped me off just below the Port of New Orleans, and I followed the coordinates Lily had texted me. They led to a docked riverboat. I could see Hallie lying on the deck. Jack Landers stood beside her, holding a spinning ball of exotic matter in his hands.
The loading dock was at the other end of the boat. I approached it at a run, slowing down as I crossed it, and only then to soften the sound of my footsteps.
