In the middle section, right when you came in, was a small area with funky clothes, bookshelves lined with all kinds of alternative books, and other shelves with candles, incense, herbs, and oils.
To the far left was a smaller section, less well lit, with more shelves of books. These were more serious, books about witchcraft and voodoo, with detailed information on herbs and stars and the tarot. These were for scholars, people who practiced the craft. The books out front were more for dabblers, people who were curious but not necessarily serious.
At the back of the darker section was an area that was actually restricted. Two rows of bookcases faced each other, with a gold cord across the opening and a sign saying that no one under eighteen was allowed in.
It was easy to duck under.
After the rite, I’d been so upset about Daedalus and what I should do. I couldn’t believe Clio didn’t feel the same way. But my huge emotions had boiled down into one cold, coherent thought: revenge. I was here to figure out what form that revenge could take. After seeing Luc, I’d thought about doing something like that, only permanent. But Daedalus didn’t seem like he would care about his looks much. Daedalus was all about power.
So I wanted to take his away from him.
Of course, I had no idea how to pull it off. As Clio had pointed out just yesterday, I wasn’t a trained witch. I did have some power, and Clio and I together had tons of power, but she’d made it clear I would be doing this alone. This was my first recon trip—I needed to do research, figure out what was involved. If there was anything that I could do now, I would. If it was something that would take years of training, well, I probably had the time.
The books on these shelves looked older, beat up, as if their lives had been hard. Who knew how many generations of witches had used these books and for what purposes? They were loosely organized, but nothing was labeled Dark Magick (Revenge).
I started pulling things out. There were books about garden spells, crop spells, spells that used the moon phases, spells based in herbs or crystals or other tools. A few of the books had spells that seemed kind of dark—like how to make your neighbor’s crop fail while yours thrived. But nothing seemed big enough, specific or ruthless enough.
One by one I examined titles, and again and again I had to stop myself from getting lost in something fascinating that didn’t relate to my mission. There was a whole book about how women could use spells in conjunction with their monthly cycles, drawing on their changing power. Who knew if that was real or not, but it would be so awesome to read. I had to flip through as many books as possible before someone kicked me out. Next month I would be eighteen, but they probably didn’t care about that today.
Finally I saw a book with Bewarewritten on its spine in faded, flaking gold leaf. I pulled it out carefully and opened it, half expecting its pages to crumble into dust in front of me. In fact, inside, its ink was so faded that I could barely make out words on the pages. Frustrated, aware of time ticking by, I rifled the pages with my thumb, wishing that suddenly one page would be totally clear and exactly what I needed.
Which didn’t happen. All that happened was a small piece of folded paper fluttered out from between the pages and seesawed its way to the dark green linoleum floor. I picked it up and of course opened it. Maybe it was an ancient shopping list. Maybe a love note from someone.
It was an address, scrawled in faded pencil, hard to make out. It said, Mama Loup’s.I didn’t recognize the address. Which meant nothing, because I was still finding my way around this city and constantly got lost on the meandering streets. I slid the book back onto its shelf, ducked under the gold rope again, and headed to the front door, where a stand held tourist stuff in case someone happened to wander in off the sidewalk.
I pulled out a map of New Orleans and looked up the street, just out of curiosity. I mean, I’d found it in a book called Beware, in the restricted section of Botanika. The street turned out to be really short, maybe three blocks long, stuck between two longer streets that framed it like the letter H.It was on the edge of the Quarter, close to Rampart and Esplanade.
I decided to go.
It took me a while to find it, despite having looked at a map. I drove down the block, looking for a parking space, and I noticed how run-down everything looked here. New Orleans in general seemed to have a laissez-faire attitude toward litter and keeping public spaces tidy, but I was always shocked when I went through the poorer neighborhoods and saw how incredibly third world they looked. I was equally shocked by the fact that no one seemed to think this was unusual or alarming.
This was one of those streets. Only four blocks from the bustling French Quarter, with its tour buses disgorging tourists by the thousands, this street seemed far removed from anyone’s attention. It was distinctly run-down, with crumpled wire hurricane fences sagging on their posts, trash and weedy brown grass clumps everywhere. It was mostly residential, and the houses here were small and unkept, with tiny, raggedy yards, peeling paint, shutters lurching on one hinge.
After circling the block, I took a parking spot on the street that had at first seemed too far but now appeared to be a reasonable option. I sat in the car for a moment and said every protection spell I could remember of the ones Petra had taught me. I tried to protect the pathetic tin-can rental car, myself, the air around me, and so on. I was aware of people walking by, looking at me, a white anomaly in their neighborhood of color.
I read the numbers on the address again, then got out of my car, locked it, and headed down the street. The address led me to a regular house, and I stood in front of it, frowning. Then I noticed it wasn’t a totally regular house. A strip of broken sidewalk led around the side, and there was a crude, handwritten sign that said Mama Loup’swith an arrow pointing toward the back. As I was wondering what to do, a woman came down the side alley and walked past me.
“You can go on if you want,” she said in a friendly voice, gesturing toward the back, then passed me through the rusted iron gate.
“Okay,” I said, still hesitating. Then I thought, If I can’t even walk down a slightly spooky alley in broad daylight, how can I ever expect to take revenge on one of the world’s most powerful witches?Did I want to do this or not? Had I thought it was going to be easy? That it would be clean and fun and light?
Feeling disgusted with my lameness, I strode down the alley. Ragged bamboo fencing made a six-foot screen to one side, hiding the house from its neighbor. At that moment, the sun blinked out. I stopped and looked up to see that rolling thunder-clouds had filled the sky. Great. Because this place didn’t have enough atmosphere.
A man came out, letting a screen door slam behind him. He brushed past me fast in the alley, head down.
I stopped in front of the door. A single lightbulb in a rusted fixture hung crookedly over the doorway. The door needed painting, and the screen had several holes rusted out. I couldn’t see anything behind the screen. I swallowed hard and pulled it open.
I stepped in, unable to focus on anything. Blinking rapidly, I stayed right inside the screen, ready to leap backward if I heard something—the sound of a gun cocking, for example. Oh God, I was so scared. I suddenly thought of everything bad that could happen to me here, of how stupid I’d been, of how I was going to end up floating down the river, Jane Doe—
“You need help, sugar?” someone asked, and I almost screamed and leaped into the air. The southern accent was so strong I could hardly understand it.
“Uh,” I said, looking around wildly. Now I could see things, I realized. Shelves and posters on the walls and another bare lightbulb casting a weak light over in the corner.
“You looking for something? You lost?” The voice seemed bemused by my presence, but not unkind.
“I was looking for Mama Loup’s,” I said, my voice wavering.
“You done found it, honey. Whatcha want with Mama Loup?”
The shelves held candles of all colors. Some of them were shaped like people. Or body parts. Including a—
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“Need a spell,” I mumbled, my eyes taking in the old posters thumbtacked to the bead-board walls. I saw a faded, ripped one for a concert, a band called the Radiators.
“What kind of spell?”
Now I focused on the person talking to me. It was a woman somewhere between the ages of thirty and sixty. A brightly colored kerchief covered her hair. She wore African-style robes of intricately patterned material and plastic flip-flops on her feet. One hand held a feather duster, which she had been flicking over the shelves.
“Honey, you want like a love spell for your boyfriend?” She was amused now, starting to head toward a cracked glass counter case. “He foolin’ around on you? You want him back? Want to make him sorry? I got what you need.”
“No,” I said, barely audibly. I cleared my throat. Get it done, Thais.“No,” I said more clearly. “I need a spell to strip a witch’s power from him.”
The woman paused halfway behind the counter and looked at me. Adrenaline had flooded my veins, and my heart felt like it would pump right out of my chest. I stepped closer, trying to look strong and unafraid.
“I’m a witch,” I said firmly, hoping it wasn’t a lie. “Another witch has wronged me. I want to strip his power away, leave him like an empty shell.”
The woman blinked, then looked me up and down, as if a stuffed animal had suddenly started talking to her.
I don’t know what made me do this, but I stepped closer still and touched my fingers to the back of her hand. I had to convince her, make her help me. I looked deeply into her eyes, concentrating on the power flowing from my fingertips.
Her brown eyes widened. She stared down at my hand, then looked up at my face. I saw her gaze rest on my birthmark for several seconds. She was solemn now, not joking, not patronizing.
I saw her thinking, felt her indecision. I waited, trying to calm my breathing.
She drew her hand away, looking uncertain, then murmured, “Wait a minute.” Turning, she went through a hanging bamboo curtain that almost concealed a doorway behind the counter.
I waited. No one else came into the shop. The air was full of incense that tickled my nose and throat. My eyes had adjusted, but everything still seemed unusually dim, as if light was actually being sucked out of the room. I’d gone from terror to a milder, barely controlled panic.
“Hello.”
The voice came from behind me—I hadn’t heard or sensed anyone nearby. Whirling, I came face-to-face with another dark woman. I couldn’t make out her features—it was as if she wore a thin, invisible veil over her face.
“Mama Loup says you need a spell.”
My voice was gone. So this was not Mama Loup, then.
“My name is Carmela,” she went on. I couldn’t make out her accent or whether she was black or white or Hispanic.
“I’m—” I began automatically, then stopped. Give a fake name?
“What are you looking for?”
“Someone killed my father,” I got out, the words sounding harsh and bald in that quiet room. “I want revenge. He’s a witch. I want to strip his powers from him.”
Suddenly this all seemed so impossible, so unbelievable. What was I doing? Who was I? This wasn’t even me.
“You believe in witches, then?”
“I have to. I am one.” Oh God, what if this was a cop or something? Was I doing something illegal? Was this a trap? Get me out of here!
“And this witch wronged you?”
“He killed my father. I want to destroy him.”
“Destroy but not kill?”
Going into the Treize’s immortality would be too much. “Losing his powers would be worse than dying to him.”
“Yes,” the woman murmured, moving away from me. “It would be, for a witch.”
She walked slowly through the shop, as though thinking things over. Every once in a while I felt her dark eyes on me. I prayed a SWAT team wasn’t about to bust in here. All I wanted was to run screaming down that alleyway, out to the open street and my car. Let me make it out of here alive, I prayed, holding my breath.
“A spell that would strip his powers away is dark magick.”
No duh, I thought with rising hysteria.
“It’s very dark magick. You’ll bear a mark on your soul forever.”
“He killed my father.” I felt like tears were not far away.
“I will teach you a spell,” the woman said, “if you are truly determined to do this. It won’t be easy. Are you prepared for pain? For fear? For darkness?”
His or mine? “Yes,” I said, quaking.
“You will need these supplies. Come back when you have them.”
A slip of thick gray paper seemed to materialize out of the air.
I took it, my hand shaking. “Okay,” I barely whispered.
“Go home, little girl,” she said. “Do not come back until you’re ready.”
“Okay.” I nodded. Then, without waiting for her to say anything else, I wove my way through the dimness to the screen door and its patch of gray light leading to the outside. I crashed my way out, flinging aside the door and then breaking into a run down the alleyway. The air felt heavy and still, but so much fresher and more real than the air inside Mama Loup’s.
What had I done?
Damned All Over Again
Marcel wished services were still in Latin. How much more majestic they had been, more mysterious, seeming truly more divine than human. Now everything was in everyday English, boring, pedestrian. Impossible to communicate the glory and terrifying omnipotence of the Christian God.
Marcel winced. He meant God. His God. The One God.
Deep in his soul, he still had doubts.
This church was pretty, St. Louis Cathedral, right on Jackson Square. He remembered when this one, the third church to stand on this spot, had been built in 1849. It still held daily masses and three services on Sundays.
The sparse congregation, consisting of a handful of ancient women in black veils, some tourists, and a couple of nuns in modern habits, stood. Marcel stood with them. People opened hymnals, but Marcel had no need to. He had memorized everything in the hymnal and the Book of Common Prayer decades ago. Sometimes the wording was updated, modernized, but Marcel always found his footing again.
The priest and altar servers made their way down the wide middle aisle, singing the final closing. Marcel filed out behind them, heading out into an afternoon that had clouded over and dropped about eight degrees. Which meant it was about seventy-eight. Welcome to October.
Marcel kept walking, through Jackson Square and across the street to Café du Monde. Having done today’s penance, he could indulge in coffee and beignets, a silly, childish treat. And completely incon-sequential, compared to a lifetime of burning in a Christian hell.
He was standing inside the outdoor railing, looking for a vacant table, when he heard his name called.
“Marcel!” When he looked over, his stomach knotted. Claire and Jules. He’d always liked Jules, liked his quiet dignity.
But what Jules saw in Claire, Marcel would never know.
There was no avoiding them; they’d seen him and were waving him over.
“Hello,” he said stiffly, pulling out a chair and sitting down. A tiny Vietnamese waitress hurried over and he gave her his order.
Claire took a bite of beignet, sending powdered sugar raining down. The server brought Marcel’s coffee and his own three beignets, and he took a deep breath, inhaling the rich coffee scent, tempered with chicory and made with boiled milk. The best coffee anywhere.
“So, Marcel,” Claire said, still chewing. “Looks like heaven spit you back out again, eh?”
Jules paused in mid-bite, his dark eyes turning to look at her.
Marcel also froze. Trust Claire to be the bull in a china shop. He didn’t answer her but blew on his coffee and took a sip.
“I’m just saying,” said Claire. “I mean, what were you thinking? Jesus, if a measly knife in the heart would do it, you think I wouldn
’t have checked out long ago?”
“Claire.” Jules frowned.
She looked at him impatiently. “Come on, you know it’s true. And I’m not the only one.” She turned back to Marcel. “What made you think it would possibly work?”
Again a black, bleak depression settled on Marcel. His chest actually still hurt where the knife had gone in. He’d been so hopeful, so ready to die. And then to find out he was cursed to continue walking the earth for who knew how long …
“I thought the power from the rite,” he got out with difficulty, then prevented himself from saying more by biting into his hot doughnut. It was, as usual, as close to heaven as he would probably ever get.
“Well, it’s not gonna be that easy,” Claire said. “That bastard pulled us all here for his big magic show—like we’re effing puppets—and then he’s all surprised when lo and behold, not everyone’s being their most cooperative. Idiot.”
Marcel glanced at Jules over the rim of his heavy china coffee cup. Jules was pretty much Daedalus’s oldest confidant. It was a somewhat unlikely alliance, but Marcel knew they’d been traveling together, studying together, off and on for about a hundred years.
“Daedalus is very ambitious,” Jules said now. “He feels that he—that all of us—were wronged during Melita’s rite, and he wants to repair what he can, enhance what he can—in essence restore some kind of balance to our lives.”
Claire looked at Jules for a minute. She leaned over and put her hand gently against his cheek. “Dear, sweet, naive Jules,” she said in a honeyed voice. “Yes, I’m surethat’s it. I’m sure Daedalus is trying to restore balance to our lives.“ She dropped her hand and rolled her eyes while Jules looked uncomfortable. “You guys—Daedalus has never, in his long, controlling, avaricious life, everdone anything for someone else—unless it benefited him somehow.”
Marcel watched Jules, watched the emotions cross his face. Jules looked like he wanted to refute Claire’s words but seemed to realize that example after example proved her right.
Claire ate another doughnut, as though she had all the time in the world for Jules’s illusions to be stripped away one by one.