“Am I being dim here?” Aubrey said. “What are we talking about?”
“We need your friendly neighborhood serial killer,” I said. “We need Mfume.”
SEVENTEEN
We landed in New Orleans a little over five hours later. The flight had been wildly uncomfortable, the cramped seats made infinitely worse by the almost random stabbing pain in my cracked ribs. I hadn’t rested at all, but I felt more annoyed than exhausted. The rental joint was out of our usual minivans, so we wound up in a luxury sedan that got maybe six miles to the gallon, but had every conceivable bell and whistle, including self-heating seats and programmable memory that shifted all the mirrors to the right height for any given driver. Anyone who saw us and didn’t at least consider carjacking just wasn’t paying attention.
The air smelled of the Gulf, the lakes, the river. The sun, already low in the west, was wide and red and angry, and the highway hummed beneath our tires.
“Okay,” Aubrey said as he drove. “What’s the plan? I mean, it’s not like we can just put up signs and find Mfume. The lawyers don’t know where he is. We don’t know where he is. The police think he’s dead.”
“Just head for the French Quarter. I’ll navigate you in when we get close.”
“You have something?”
“It’s a desperation move, but yeah,” I said. “Something.”
The Authentic New Orleans Voodoo Museum looked cheaper and smaller in the gray shadows of twilight. The doors were open, and a low chanting spilled from tinny speakers out into the street. The air was thick with incense. I could see Aubrey’s uncertainty, and looking at the tawdry signs and tourist-trap flyers, I felt a little unsure myself. But the worst I could do was fail. I led the way in.
“Miss Jayne! How can the world of voudoun be of service to you this night?”
“Dr. Inonde,” I said. “Hey, Doris.”
The snake shifted to look at me with its other eye, black tongue flicking the air. We four human beings and the giant snake effectively filled the room. The place seemed smaller than the first time I’d been there, the red curtains more dusty and threadbare, the portrait of Marie Laveau even less flattering. I sat down, rooted through my backpack, and pulled out the ugly little charm he’d given me. Even with a little rain damage, it still felt like holding a spider on my bare palm.
“So,” I said. “You aren’t actually as much of a fake as we said. Are you?”
Dr. Inonde looked at Aubrey and Chogyi Jake as if sizing up my bodyguards, then shrugged.
“I know a few things,” he said. “Not much. Some. You need some juju done?”
“I do,” I said. “I need to find someone named Joseph Mfume.”
Dr. Inonde sat with a grunt. His eyes seemed to lose their warmth for a moment.
“You have anything this Mfume fellow owned? Shirt. Book. Anything?”
“No,” I said. “But I think he’s been hanging around with Amelie Glapion.”
“So you want to find this Mfume fella, or do you want Amelie Glapion?” he said.
“Either one would do,” I said. “I don’t want any trouble. I just need to talk to them.”
Dr. Inonde shook his head, smiling apologetically.
“You seem like a nice person, but there isn’t enough money in the world to make me cross Amelie. If she doesn’t want to be found, there’s no finding her. You know what happened to her after the last time you came in here? Something tried to kill her granddaughter.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was there. I was one of the people who helped save Sabine.”
“Were you now?” He didn’t sound convinced.
“Jayne could have been killed,” Aubrey said with an anger I hadn’t expected. “The least you can do is try to help.”
“It turns out Amelie and I have an enemy in common,” I said. “The thing that’s after Sabine is also threatening a friend of mine.”
The wind shifted the door. Somewhere nearby, a band burst into full-throated jazz. Someone yelled in what might have been celebration or distress.
“Come back in an hour,” Dr. Inonde said. “We’ll talk.”
I nodded my thanks, and together the three of us walked back into the deepening darkness. Aubrey made an impatient sound. Behind us, the museum door shut, and I heard the deadbolt slide closed.
“Do you trust him?” Chogyi Jake said. He managed to make the question sound like idle curiosity.
“Not particularly,” I said.
“So what do you think he’s doing in there?” Aubrey asked.
“I think he’s asking permission,” I said. “We may not need magic after all.”
Jackson Square at twilight was still populated. Tarot card readers, T-shirts, face-painters; they were all there, sitting at folding card tables, sitting on cheap plastic chairs, but it had the feel of day’s end. The sky above us was sliding from blue to gray to black. A slow, heavy breeze was wafting in from the south. The men and women at the stalls seemed tired. Not listless, but worn down. They’d spent another day feeding off the story and mystique of New Orleans, or else propping them up. Maybe the two were the same.
Restaurants were coming sluggishly to life, the early dinner crowd rolling in without filling the tables. It wasn’t Mardis Gras, there wasn’t a festival going on. It was just a Monday night in the jazz capital of the world, the home of American voodoo, the Crescent City, the Big Easy. The fallen city doing its best again, because that’s all there was to do. I looked through the clean glass at the starched linen tablecloths, the classic black lacquered wood. The smell of pepper and seafood wafted out across the sidewalk as we passed the corner of Decatur and St. Ann, but it didn’t make me hungry. My belly was knotted tight, my gaze flickering between the faces, hoping and dreading to see someone familiar.
“I don’t think we should go back,” Aubrey said. “I think we’re making a mistake.”
I paused, looking at him closely for the first time since we’d come back to the Quarter. His shoulders were pulled forward, his head hung low, almost like he was cradling something to his chest. Chogyi Jake tilted his head, inviting Aubrey to go on. A kid on a bicycle swerved around us and pedaled out into the gloomy narrow streets.
“Let’s…” Aubrey said, gesturing to the south. We started walking again, Chogyi and I flanking Aubrey, who seemed to be struggling to find the right words. We got halfway down the square before I broke the silence for him.
“Mfume could have killed me,” I said. “Sabine could have. Seriously, when that thing in the rain was done with me, any third-grader with a nail file could seriously have kicked my ass. They took me to the hospital.”
“Is that the issue?” Chogyi Jake asked. “Safety?”
“Yes,” Aubrey said, and then, “No. Not exactly. I mean… Okay, I understand that they didn’t take advantage of it when Jayne was vulnerable. And maybe they can team up with us. Maybe all of us want something that we can work with, the way we did with Midian in Denver. But…”
Frustration buzzed in his voice. And fear. He was looking for the words that would say what he needed, but he was my scientist. His vocabulary was all about predation and genetic frequencies, host behavior and parasite load. Even after feeling Marinette take his body from him, he couldn’t say what he felt.
I could. I took his hand.
“But these things are demons,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, the word rushing out of him. “Yes, they’re evil. These things are evil and they’re smart and they’re dangerous. Even if we have a common enemy, how can we leave ourselves open to things that can do what they do? What do we do if something happens?”
We reached the steps at the southern end of the square and started up them. High overhead, an airplane’s contrail caught the last rays of sunlight, glowing gold and fading quickly to the gray of spent cigarette smoke.
“You mean now that Ex is gone,” Chogyi Jake said, clarifying the thought. “Now that being possessed isn’t something we can easily undo.”
“What are we here for?” Aubrey said. “Are we trying to stop Carrefour? Or Legba? Or both? Ex is a grown-up. And after all the crap he pulled on Jayne, I don’t really see that he’d welcome our help anyway.”
Aubrey stared out at the dark water, frowning, not meeting my eyes or Chogyi Jake’s. I didn’t know what to say. Without betraying Chogyi Jake’s confidence, I couldn’t explain that Ex was in trouble partly because he had a thing for me and I hadn’t picked up on the signs. I couldn’t say that I was pissed off at Karen for fooling me and at myself for letting her without approaching industrial-grade pettiness.
And it didn’t matter, because Aubrey knew why we’d come: Ex was in trouble, and we could help. I didn’t really understand what he was saying.
Chogyi Jake did.
“Was it that bad?” he asked.
Aubrey snapped his head back like the gentle words had been a slap. His grip on my hand went so hard it almost hurt. I didn’t let go.
“I can’t explain it,” Aubrey said softly. “I don’t know how to say…”
“I’ll presume,” Chogyi Jake said, stepping in. “You knew intellectually how it all worked. In your time studying with Eric, you’d seen riders and what they can do. But, irrationally, you thought you were different. You wouldn’t have said it, not even to yourself, but you suspected that the people who were ridden-who were
Aubrey was weeping a little, but otherwise his face was stone.
“It happened to you too?” Aubrey said.
“No,” Chogyi Jake said. “Not possession. Or not by riders. Something else. But I lost that sense that the rules didn’t apply to me. I still miss it sometimes.”
“I don’t think I can do this,” Aubrey said so softly I almost didn’t hear it, even standing right beside him. “I don’t think I can face them anymore. I thought… I thought I could.”
