“Think as long as you want, so long as afterward, you say yes.”
He laughed. It was a warm sound, rueful and joyful and cathartic.
“All right,” he said. “I don’t have the strength to fight with two of you.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” he replied with a smile that appreciated the irony.
The voice from the kitchen was weak.
“You’re Jayne,” Karen said.
She walked in wearing a robe. Her eyes were swollen from weeping. Three black scabs on her neck showed where Marinette’s fingers had raked Carrefour’s flesh. Two riders had fought, and Karen’s body had been the battlefield.
The woman I’d known was gone. The self-assured, hyper-competent, kicking ass and taking names occult mistress of darkness had always been a load of crap, whether it was her pretending it or me trying to live up to her.
“Hey,” I said.
“I remember you,” Karen said. “It hated you a lot. And it was… scared of you too.”
“I don’t know why,” I said. “I’m just me.”
“Jayne asked us to take care of her house while she is away,” Mfume said.
“Like caretakers?” Karen asked.
“Like that, yeah,” I said, picking up my cue. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Sure,” she said, holding the robe closed at her neck. “I can handle that.”
We talked for another few minutes until Karen started wearing out and headed back for another nap. We said our good-byes. Karen hugged me and said how glad she was to meet me.
So here’s the thing. Any sufficiently massive change is complicated. It’s not just good or just bad. Sabine Glapion lost her grandmother and got possessed by a rider, but she also became the undisputed voodoo queen of New Orleans with money and property and a congregation of cultists bent on protecting and supporting her. Karen Black escaped years of demonic possession and walked back into a world where she had no job, no family, no friends. New Orleans was broken under the storm, but it refused to die, and the city that it became-that it was still becoming-wasn’t the one it had been. It was better and worse, lessened and increased, richer and the place where something precious had been lost forever.
Less than a year before, I had known who I was: a failed college student on the outs with her family and estranged from her church and the God she didn’t believe in. I had no particular prospects, I had no plans or goals or ambitions more sophisticated than not being homeless. And then I’d been given the world on a plate. Money, power, a secret war against evil that I could champion. But every sufficiently massive change is complicated. Because I’d gotten everything, and I had lost my sense of myself.
The good news was that, just like Sabine and Karen and the city of New Orleans, I could fix that.
When I got back to my room, I showered, changed the dressings on my various cuts and scrapes, and went to Aubrey’s room. He was in slacks and a gray T-shirt with a golden fleur-de-lis on it. His smile was warm, but exhausted.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“Talked them into it,” I said, sitting on the bed beside him. He smelled like soap and sandalwood. I leaned against his shoulder. “Karen was easier to convince than Mfume.”
“She’ll be okay, you think?”
“I think,” I said. “Given time. What about you?”
He turned to look at me, his eyebrows raised a millimeter.
“Marinette,” I said. “You and her all copacetic now?”
He laughed, then winced. His ribs were a little tender too.
“Better,” he said. “Not… good, but better.”
“So you’re not too spun by it showing back up and taking over?”
Aubrey took a long breath, his brow furrowing itself. Slowly, he shook his head.
“No. It was… different. When it wanted the same thing I did, it was more like it was on my side. And I cannot tell you how good it felt to kick the shit out of Carrefour.”
“Even though it wasn’t you in the body?”
“It was, though. It was both of us. Me and Marinette both. When it left… Well, I didn’t want it to come back, but I could understand why someone would.”
I was quiet for a moment.
“But it
“Oh yes,” Aubrey said, taking my hand. “It’s not subtle. If it were still in me, you’d know.”
“Good,” I said, and kissed him.
I wanted to push him back on the bed, curl up beside him. Sleep or make out or a little of both. But I had a larger plan to put in motion, and I had one other thing to do before I could.
Ex’s hotel room was on the second floor with a balcony that looked out over the street. He’d left the door to the hallway open, and a breeze stirred the curtains. A Bible lay open on the bed. He was sitting at the small, black writing desk, looking into the air with an expression that seemed numb. He had one of his black button- down shirts on, his hair loose and hanging to his shoulders.
“Hey,” I said.
He looked up at me, pleasure and dread and the expectation of punishment flickering across him in less than a heartbeat.
“Hey,” he said. I sat on the edge of the bed.
“So,” I said. “We probably need to talk.”
“If you want,” he said.
“That stuff you threw at me in Atlanta? The sexuality and failure of leadership thing? You were out of line,” I said. “I was down, and I was hurt, and you kind of kicked the shit out of me.”
“Yes, I was,” he said. “I’m not proud of that.”
“Good. Don’t be. But here’s the thing. I was out of line too.”
The confusion in his expression was interesting. He didn’t see it. I wondered if he ever really saw anyone’s sins besides his own.
“That whole firing you thing was shitty of me,” I said. “I was kicking back, and I went too far. I don’t get to pull rank on you. Or on Aubrey or Chogyi Jake. I need you guys to be my friends, not my employees. And that means I don’t get to go straight to the nuclear option when you piss me off.”
“You weren’t out of line,” Ex said. “I deserved it.”
“Doesn’t matter. There will be a time when you need to kick my ass and tell me I’m full of shit. And I need to be able to hear that. If we set precedent where I get rid of anyone who confronts me about something, I’m screwed.”
“I suppose it’s all about setting the right boundaries,” he said. There was something wistful in his voice. I hadn’t meant to tackle that too, but the issue was right there, and I went for it.
“I’m going to be straight here, okay?”
“You were being crooked before?” he said.
“I may be sleeping with Aubrey,” I said. “I’m kind of into him. And if that’s a problem for you-”
“It isn’t,” Ex said.
“You’re sure?” I asked.
He was lying, or if he wasn’t, he was fooling himself. Ex shook his head, then plucked a black band from his pocket and tied his hair back in a severe ponytail.
“I know what Chogyi Jake told you,” he said. “The first thing he did this morning was come to me and confess.”
“Yeah, that sounds like him,” I said.
Ex held up his hand.
“I wish he hadn’t done what he did. I think he’s wrong about the motives behind my… poor behavior. I don’t need you to feel anything in particular about me,” he said. “I’m a grown-up. I’ll handle it. I only need you to treat me with respect.”
“I can do that,” I said, then a moment later, tapping on the doorframe, I added, “if you can do the same. The part where you dis me in public for not being able to control my sexuality?”
“I project a little sometimes,” Ex said, blushing. “Karen… Carrefour messed with my head. I was talking about myself more than you. I just didn’t see it at the time. I’m not as good a person as I would like to be. But I’m trying, and I’ll get better.”
“Pax, then?”
“Pax,” Ex said.
A little knot of anxiety I hadn’t known was there loosened in my chest. The gang was back together, and all was right with the world.
“Come on down to the coffee shop?” I said. “Planning session.”
Aubrey and Chogyi Jake sat at the small table near the street talking passionately about which Stephen Chow movie was better. Bright, complex Dixieland jazz played on the speakers, just the way it had, it seemed, for years. I sat down, and Ex sat across from me. Chogyi Jake’s smile passed between us before returning, satisfied, to Aubrey.
“All right,” I said. “Carrefour is thwarted. Sabine is… well, still possessed, but at least by a demon she knows. Karen Black is being nursed back to health. I declare our work here done.”
“About time,” Aubrey said with a lopsided grin. “What’s next?”
“Portland, Oregon,” I said.
