As she stalked the streets, searching for her prey, what Claudia had told her about the kids and homeless gathering in their own little conclave in the abandoned amusement park kept coming back to her. That much power in one place would tempt any witch to pay a visit. It was also possible one of them held answers that she needed, though she knew with an absolute certainty that the witch she sought wouldn’t be among them.
She hailed a taxi and slid into the backseat.
“Where to?” the driver, a large man with dreadlocks, asked.
“Jazzland.”
“Miss, that was destroyed by Katrina.”
“Jazzland,” Desdemona repeated.
“Okay. Didn’t take you for an urban-explorer type, though. Usually they have big, fancy cameras.”
She didn’t answer, just sat back and watched the city flash by her window. She had never been to New Orleans before, but even she could feel the desperation of a city still half in chaos, struggling to reclaim what nature had taken away. They didn’t understand; nature was a tool, just like everything else. It was a means to someone’s or some thing’s end.
A strong enough coven of witches could have prevented the majority of the devastation. Or they could have caused it, she thought idly.
At this point, she had no way of knowing if the witch she was looking for had even been in the city back then.
The driver finally pulled up outside a closed-off parking lot. “This is as close as I can get you, but you should know, the city owns the place and they could arrest you for trespassing.”
“I’ll take my chances,” she said, passing her fare through the slot in the window that separated the front seat from the backseat. She opened the door and got out.
There was power here; she could feel it. It called to her like a siren and she could feel herself drinking it in. It wasn’t just the other magic practitioners, of whom there seemed to be quite a few by the way things felt. It was everything. The destruction and decay gave off their own dark energy, and she could feel it infusing her. She could feel the earth beneath all the concrete. This had been swampland and the swamp was still there, slowly eating away at the underpinnings, ready to reclaim what it had once lost to mankind’s ambition.
Her driver started to get out of the car and then froze, one foot still inside. A small red bag of some sort seemed to fall out of his pocket and hit the ground. She took a couple of steps to the side, wondering what was wrong with him. His head was tilted slightly and his eyelashes were fluttering rapidly. There was a sort of frozen look on his face. Curious, she moved closer so she could get a better look at him.
He was staring at the entrance to the abandoned theme park. His pupils were dilated and his eyes were moving incredibly fast, almost as though they were vibrating.
“What is it?” she asked.
He remained still as if frozen except for his eyes, and she couldn’t tell if he’d even heard her. She passed her hand in front of his eyes, but he didn’t react to it. Something in the abandoned park was calling to her, and she didn’t have time to wonder about what was wrong with him.
She turned to go and suddenly he clamped his hand around her wrist, his fingers squeezing tight.
“Don’t go,” he said, his voice deep and hoarse.
“Nothing here can injure me,” she said.
“Don’t be so certain,” he said, his fingers tightening until they were nearly crushing her wrist. She looked more closely at him. His expression had not changed.
“What do you see?”
“More than he sees.”
The hair lifted on the back of her neck. There was something speaking through the man.
“Do you know who I am?” she asked.
“Yes. Do you?”
The question took her back. “Do you know what I am?” she countered, pushing menace into her voice.
“A witch.”
“Yes.”
“A powerful witch. A foolish witch. A witch who did not study or hone her craft for sixteen years.”
Anger flared through her, tinged with fear. She tried to rip her arm out of his grasp, but he was too strong, and whatever had him in its grip kept hold of her as well.
“And how long have you been a witch?” she demanded.
It was the most logical explanation. Witches could puppeteer other people. It made sense that it was a witch who was speaking through the driver.
“Not a witch.”
“Then who are you?”
“Not flesh.”
“Not flesh,” she said, struggling to keep her voice calm. “Then you are spirit. Are you a ghost, a demon?”
“Not for you to know what I am,” the voice said, growing even hoarser. “Only for you to heed my warning.”
“I won’t,” she said. “There are people here, people I need to see.”
“People. They once were.”
“What does that mean?” Desdemona demanded, tired of the cryptic nature of the entity speaking to her.
The sky suddenly darkened and she could smell a storm coming. Her driver’s head twisted slowly toward her, as though turning on the neck instead of with it. The eyes were still wildly flitting about, and when the mouth opened again he looked like a marionette whose lips were being pulled upward with invisible strings.
“Only death waits for you here.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Suddenly the driver collapsed, all his muscles going loose at the same time. His fingers slipped off her wrist and he half fell against her. Startled, she barely managed to keep them both from falling. Finally she managed to push him back down into the driver’s seat. His head lolled forward onto his chest.
She took a step back and looked around. A wind had come up and was blowing trash around the abandoned parking lot. The dark skies seemed to grow darker, more ominous.
Maybe I should come back another day.
She clenched her fists, furious at the cowardly thought that had overtaken her. She stepped backward, determined more than ever to go.
The driver groaned and began to twitch. She paused, curiosity building in her. Finally he lifted his head.
“What happened?” he asked.
“You tell me,” she said, warily, wondering if he had any idea what had just happened to him.
“I don’t know. I had this terrible feeling that you shouldn’t go into the park. I got out of the car to tell you and then—”
He stopped talking as he saw the bag that had fallen from his pocket. He reached down and snatched it up as if it were the most precious thing in the world. Hastily he stuffed it back into his pocket.
“What is that?” she asked.
“I—I didn’t say anything to you, did I?” he asked, refusing to meet her eyes now.
“Maybe, why?”
“What—what did it—I say?” he asked, licking his lips.
“Not to go into the amusement park.”
“Then you should listen!” he burst out so vehemently that he startled them both. He hunched his shoulders and buried his face in his hands. “Please, miss, I’m worried for you.”
“Well, like I told . . . you . . . before, I can take care of myself,” she said.
She turned and walked away.
“You were warned,” she heard him say behind her. Then she heard a door slam and a moment later the squeal of rubber as he floored the gas pedal.
Each step that she took across the parking lot to the park entrance felt heavier than the one before. The air was growing hotter and muggier and she struggled to breathe as she felt the pressure building around her. A storm was coming. It might be safer to be somewhere else.
But she was Desdemona Castor and she feared neither man nor spirit nor nature. She squared her shoulders and continued on. The wind that had been blowing trash around grew stronger until it was pushing against her so hard that it became a struggle to continue walking forward.
She glanced up, wondering what kind of storm was coming. She could feel the electrici
ty in the air and she told herself that was what was setting her teeth on edge and making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She could practically feel the electrical charge build up on her fingertips as though racing back and forth among them. The wind began to lessen and her red hair began to fan out around her as though lifted by an invisible hand.
Everywhere there were signs of destruction, flood damage, rot, decay. Mother Nature had had her way with this place and it looked as if she was about to let loose again.
Desdemona bared her teeth. She had nothing to fear here. She lifted her hands into the air and pulled some of the electricity out of it and into her body, giving her a supercharge. She could feel the energy coursing through her body and she was sure that her eyes were actually glowing with it.
She reached the front gate and the turnstiles. Gates had been pulled across behind them, but one sagged open. She easily climbed over the turnstile and then walked through the open gate beyond.
The streets were littered with all manner of trash and debris from the decaying buildings, including a large silver ball that must have once been raised high. The stench of decay and death hung in the ionized air, making her wrinkle her nose.
Buildings lined both sides of what had been the park’s version of a main street. To her right was the Carriage House Mercantile, its two front doors flung open wide and half the glass panes missing. She could feel more than see something scurrying about in the darkness just inside.
A few bits of graffiti stained the weathered paint. Gimme that ol’-time religion had been scribbled on one of the walls. She felt a smile twisting her lips. Just which religion had the writer been referring to?
Next to that building was another one, trimmed in purple. , the sign declared, though a couple of letters were missing. There was considerably more colorful graffiti on that building. A large round planter had been tagged with the words NoLa Rising. Optimism for a decimated city, or something darker?
She walked down the street, weaving around the piles of debris. She could still feel the ripples of power in the air, evidence that a great many people with abilities were somewhere nearby. That feeling, though, was practically overwhelmed by the spiking energy in the air around her as the storm continued to brew.
She saw a sign that had been spray-painted over. Instead of welcoming people to the park, it now proclaimed .
She reached the end of the short street and hesitated, debating whether to turn right or left.
Don’t go right.
She turned, swearing that the whispered voice had come from behind her. There was nothing there, though. She hesitated, wondering what was telling her that and what its motivation was.
After a moment she turned and took a step toward the right.
No! If you go right, you will die!
The voice was louder, more insistent, but still disembodied.
She didn’t know what to do. Once upon a time she would only have listened to a voice coming from inside her, but now that voice belonged to the hateful one, the other. She didn’t want to trust the voice coming from without, though, because she didn’t know whether it meant her good or ill.
Clenching her fists, she strode resolutely to the right, shutting out the sound of the voice wailing behind her.
Something hard and cold settled in her stomach, and her back tensed up so tightly that her spine actually hurt. She forced herself to keep walking.
To her left was a swing ride. A sudden gust of wind caused the swings to move, rattling their chains and bumping against one another. She spun toward the sound, nerves on edge.
There was no one there. Before she could relax, though, the entire ride began to move, to spin slowly as it must have done once long ago. The wind wasn’t strong enough to do that. Something else was pushing against the canopy holding the swings.
You are not welcome here.
This voice was different. It came from in front of her and it made the blood in her veins feel as if it had turned to ice. She thought of what the entity had told her in the parking lot, how it had reminded her that she had gone sixteen years without study, without practice.
She had thought she had learned everything there was, knew all that she needed to know.
As laughter exploded in the air around her, she knew now that she was wrong.
3
Desdemona took a few steps ahead, forcing her eyes away from the spinning swings, and she came face-to-face with a carousel. Sudden images came to her crystal clear. Her other self was in an amusement area, after dark, and something happened at the carousel.
She hadn’t wanted to know anything about the other self, Samantha, and the things that she had done with her life, because they were hateful to Desdemona. She was in mortal danger, she knew that, but what terrified her more was she didn’t know why or how she was even aware. Clearly the knowledge was coming from that other self. Now as images of blood and dead witches rushed through her mind, she realized that might have been a tactical error. A potentially fatal one. If she made it out of here alive, she vowed to fix that.
Knowledge was power. That had been one of the first rules she’d learned, and she’d let her own disgust and mistrust get in the way of that. Fool! she cursed herself even as she spun around, sure that someone was creeping up behind her.
Only rot and decay met her eyes. The swing continued to turn, taunting her, challenging her. It felt as though it was warning her to go back.
She forced herself to keep going, to walk past the twisted merry-go-round. Beyond that was another decaying building and next to it a bathroom that someone had spray-painted to indicate which side was for female roaches and which side was for male roaches.
She wrinkled her nose. To her left were the remains of a Coca-Cola Cool Zone. She passed by it and realized she’d arrived in Mardi Gras land. A deranged clown peered over the top of one of the buildings, and another clown head lay smashed on the ground.
Suddenly the earth beneath her seemed to shake and she felt a rush of power swirl around her and then pass by as if driven before a violent wind. She gasped and went icy cold all over. She felt as though something were trying to pull her out of her own body, rip out her very essence, and she lifted up her hands in a vain effort to ward off whatever it was.
She was literally being torn apart and she could feel the energy, the power, her very abilities traveling through her body, down her arms until shafts of golden light were shooting from her fingertips.
Something was trying to rob her of her power. She screamed in defiance and struggled to force the muscles in her arms to respond to her. They had gone rigid, pulsing with the energy that was flowing through them and out of them. It was unlike anything she’d ever known. She had fleeting images of her other self being used, drained like a battery, but this was different. The force behind this wasn’t just taking her energy. It was taking her ability to wield magic at all, ripping that part of herself away from her.
Around her she heard other screams, rising in a chorus from a hundred unseen voices. The giant clown head began to roll across the ground, the mouth gaping open as though intent on swallowing anything in its path. It was heading straight for her, and unless she could move it would ram her. Given how heavy it looked, she worried that it might crush her.
Images flashed through her mind of what going through life without the ability to manipulate the energy around her would be like. A life without magic was unthinkable, but as pain began to shoot through her chest she realized that would never happen, because if she lost the magic here and now, her body would be too damaged to survive it.
Still, her arms were flung out straight before her and there was nothing she could do to stem the tide of magic flowing out of her. Behind her the screaming grew more intense and she twisted her head just enough to see an army of people emerging, staggering, from the various buildings. They were moving stiff-legged, arms similarly thrown out in front of them, and their screams gradually turned to hideous moaning sounds.
&
nbsp; Zombies, that’s what they resembled, and she realized that she did, too. They staggered toward her, faces contorted in pain, eyes rolled back in their heads. They were young and old, some in tatters, some in regular clothes. They had to be the teen runaways and the homeless people Claudia had told her lived here. They were being stripped of their magic just as she was.
She had to stop it. She had to find a way to move her arms, redirect the energy flowing from her fingers back into her own body, set up a feedback loop. But how could she do that when she couldn’t unlock her muscles?
Break your arms.
The voice came from inside and she knew it was that other self whispering to her. She was beginning to panic. “How, when I can’t move them?” she shouted.
Look down.
She looked down at the concrete beneath her feet. Her legs were beginning to stiffen and she was starting to feel a compulsion to walk forward, just as the others were doing. The clown was nearly upon her.
Desdemona threw herself forward onto the ground as hard as she could. The bones in her arms broke on impact and tore the muscles. The pain was blinding, but her arms collapsed beneath her and she fell on top of them on the ground. Her arms were still just as useless, but now they were pinned beneath her body and she contorted her chest so that her fingertips were touching her own stomach.
She felt a zap of electricity, as though she was being electrocuted, and then she could feel the energy flow out of her and right back in. She had trapped it.
Something slammed into her side and she realized it had to be the giant clown head. It pushed against her, shoving her slightly across the ground.
It served as a barrier, though, and the others parted around it, then streamed past her on either side, headed for wherever it was their magic was being pulled to. It was going to kill them. She could see the faces as they passed by. Skin was shriveling, like dead, dried fruit, and clinging to the skulls beneath. Skin on the outstretched arms was bleaching white and black; oozing gashes were appearing like lesions all over. The loud moans were becoming more hollow, empty sounding.