Callie

It didn’t go well.

  Callie lost the trail twice, only to pick it up again blocks or whole streets out of her way. She imagined the loup-garou to be cunning as well as vicious, and knew from her reading at Tulane University’s famed library that while it could not collect her soul, it could still kill her if she wasn’t careful. She had learned the hard way, in the beginning, that while Keepers may be difficult to kill, it certainly wasn’t impossible. Immortal, but not invincible. She’d had more than one close call in those days.

  She also learned her ability to heal had changed. She could use the light within her—Brighid’s Flame—to save lives that might not otherwise be saved. As it also turned out, that same Flame healed her at an unprecedented rate. Since she had arrived in New Orleans, however, the flame had dimmed somewhat. That worried her—it might mean she was weaker here, though she couldn’t think why, unless she were being blocked in some way.

  A distant howl set the neighborhood dogs to barking. Callie climbed a rickety fire escape to the roof of a pool hall to get a bird’s eye view of the immediate area. After a moment, she lifted the binoculars she always carried with her from the case at her belt to her eyes. There was nothing at first, except for the wind swaying the trees, rustling the leaves and twisted branches of live oak.

  She turned when she heard a muffled footstep below her, quickly hushed. She felt eyes on her, prickling over her skin. Felt the hot breath of Hell spice the thick air around her. There was still nothing to be seen, but that didn’t mean there was nothing actually there.

  She replaced the binoculars with slow, steady movements, her eyes still on the damp alley below. With the other hand, she drew her sword with the same smooth, silent pace. When a shadow passed over a shallow puddle and through the oily gleam of the pool hall’s lights, she dropped.

  The first stroke of her sword missed her unseen opponent, as did the second. She feinted to the left, reverse-swung, and earned a pained yipe when she hit her target. An invisible open maw hit her with a furnace blast of heat and stench as it tried to latch onto her arm. She kicked it, hard.

  Callie hit her back as it bowled her over in a sudden burst of power and speed. She rolled to her feet, swearing, and pursued.

  She followed its progress through a network of back alleys and courtyards, vaulting low walls and scaling fences. But it was invisible, silent, and fast.

  Too fast, in the end. She lost the beast for a final time in a cemetery, called a City of the Dead because of the house-like tombs lined along its grassy avenues. Hand pressed against the stitch in her side and breathing hard, Callie searched street after street, to no avail.

  The next day she walked to the far edge of the Quarter, to Rampart Street, to what some referred to as the “Harlem of New Orleans”. Predominantly a black working class community rife with so much crime and disorder, not even the local mafia wanted anything to do with it. Besides boasting the best music in New Orleans, it was also the local center of voodoo. Moreover, with segregation still going strong, whites were more than tolerated on Rampart Street—they and their money were made welcome.

  Callie strolled along the six or eight blocks of restaurants, apartment houses, and night clubs, the latter shuttered for the day while their owners and patrons slept of the night’s adventures—usually right in the doorways and gutters of those same clubs. Finally she paid a fifty-cent piece to a barefoot little urchin with wide eyes and a wider smile to direct her to the best gumbo in the neighborhood. “Just don’t ask what’s in it,” the urchin advised wisely.

  “Thanks.” She backtracked a few blocks and turned a corner to find the shop in question. It was small, but clean, and the smells that emanated from the open door made her send a mental prayer of promise to Brighid to be a better person if only the gumbo lived up to the mouth-watering aroma. The place was called Mama Matie’s, and Mama Matie ran the joint on the very simple premise that she was Mama Matie, and she knew what was best for everyone, and what was best for you was that you cleaned your plate. There was no menu; you ate what was put in front of you, and were thankful for it.

  Callie joined the lunch crowd at the counter. Within moments a big, steaming bowl of gumbo and a tall glass of lemonade was placed before her. Callie thanked the rail-thin, bespectacled Mama Matie with a mixture of warm gratitude and respect, and cleaned her bowl. It was magnificent, and she didn’t need to ask for seconds. It was provided to her as a matter of course. At Mama Matie’s everyone got seconds.

  Matie crossed her arms and watched her eat with the fierce affection she gave all her customers. When Callie sat back with a satisfied groan of undisguised bliss, the fierce expression softened with a nod. “You come back into the kitchen for coffee and pie, so we can talk in private.” Callie paid her bill, leaving a healthy tip, and followed without protest.

  The kitchen bustled with a coterie of children and grandchildren, the pots banging and chatter rising above the unrelenting heat. Matie took her through the back door to the relatively cool shade of a raggedy tree gasping for its last breath. Callie joined the cook at a table with two chairs, followed by a granddaughter carrying two plates of pecan pie, followed by a younger grandson with chicory-laced coffee.

  “You came because of the loup-garou,” Matie guessed.

  Callie stirred a dollop of cream into her fragrant coffee. “How did you guess?” She was always careful to leave her sword behind in her daylight excursions.

  Matie tapped her forehead with one long finger. “Matie knows. She knows the beast is looking for something. Perhaps it is looking for you?”

  She shook her head. “It ran from me. I’m trying to track it down.”

  “Good. Good. The creature must be stopped.” Matie dug into her pie. “It is an old one. You will need powerful protections.”

  “I’m also concerned I may not have…full access, to my abilities while in the city.”

  Matie nodded understanding, and set her fork down to extract a pad of paper and pencil from her apron.“This is the Loa’s realm, not yours. But there’s a way around that.” She scribbled an address on the pad in untidy scrawl and passed it to Callie. “Now finish your pie. Then you go to that shop, and that witch behind the counter Mama Matie sent you.”

  SIX