Beautiful Chaos (14 page)

I cringed. The man smiled and tipped his hat. “You kids pass a good time in the City That Care Forgot.”

I wasn’t betting on it.

The old man bent further over his cane. Now he was holding his hat out in front of us, shaking it expectantly.

“Oh, sure. Okay.” I fumbled in my pocket, but all I had was a quarter. I looked at Link, who shrugged.

I leaned closer to drop the coin into the hat, and a bony hand grabbed my wrist. “Smart boy like you. I’d be gettin’ myself outta this town and back down into that Tunnel.” I pulled my arm free. He smiled big, pulling his lips wide over yellowed, uneven teeth. “Be seein’ you.”

I rubbed my wrist, and when I looked up, he was gone.

It didn’t take long for Link to pick up Amma’s trail. He was like a bloodhound. Now I understood why it had been so easy for Hunting and his Pack to find us when we were searching for Lena and the Great Barrier. We walked through the French Quarter toward the river. I could smell the murky brown water mixed with sweat and the scent of spices from nearby restaurants. Even at night, the humidity hung in the air, heavy and wet, a jacket you couldn’t take off, no matter how badly you wanted to.

“Are you sure we’re going the right—?”

Link threw his arm out in front of me, and I stopped. “Shh. Red Hots.”

I searched the sidewalk ahead of us. Amma was standing under a streetlamp, in front of a Creole woman sitting on a plas
tic milk crate. We walked to the edge of the building with our heads down, hoping Amma wouldn’t notice us. We stuck to the shadows close to the wall, where the streetlamp threw out a pale circle of light.

The Creole woman was selling beignets on the sidewalk, her hair styled in hundreds of tiny braids. She reminded me of Twyla.

“
Te te
beignets? You buy?” The woman held out a small bundle of red cloth. “You buy. Lagniappe.”

“Lan-yap what?” Link mumbled, confused.

I pointed at the bundle, whispering back, “I think that woman’s offering to give Amma something if she buys some beignets.”

“Some what?”

“They’re like doughnuts.”

Amma handed the woman a few dollars, accepting the beignets and the red bundle in her white-gloved hand. The woman looked around, her braids swinging over her shoulder. When she seemed satisfied no one was listening, she whispered something quickly in what sounded like French Creole. Amma nodded and put the bundle in her pocketbook.

I elbowed Link. “What did she say?”

“How should I know? I may have supersonic hearin’, but I don’t speak French.”

It didn’t matter. Amma was already walking back in the opposite direction, her expression unreadable. But something was wrong.

This night was wrong. I wasn’t following Amma out to the swamp in Wader’s Creek to meet Macon. What would send her a thousand miles from home in the middle of the night? Who did she know in New Orleans?

Link had a different question. “Where’s she goin’?”

I didn’t have an answer to that one either.

By the time we caught up with Amma on St. Louis Street, it was deserted. Which made sense, considering where we were standing. I stared at the tall wrought iron gates of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.

“It’s a bad sign when there are so many cemeteries they’ve gotta number ’em.” Even though he was part Incubus, Link didn’t look crazy about wandering around the cemetery at night. It was the seventeen years of God-fearing Southern Baptist in him.

I pushed open the gate. “Let’s get this over with.”

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 was unlike any cemetery I’d ever seen. There were no sprawling lawns dotted with headstones and bent oaks. This place was a city for the dead. The narrow alleyways were lined with ornate mausoleums in various stages of decay, some as tall as two-story houses. The more impressive mausoleums were surrounded by black wrought iron fences, with enormous statues of saints and angels staring down from the rooftops. This was a place where people honored their dead. The proof was carved into the face of every statue, every worn name that had been touched hundreds of times.

“This place makes His Garden of Perpetual Peace look like a landfill.” For a minute, I thought of my mom. I understood wanting to build a marble house for someone you loved, which was exactly what this whole place seemed like.

Link was unimpressed. “Whatever. When I die, just throw some dirt over me. Save your money.”

“Right. Remind me of that in a few hundred years when I’m at your funeral.”

“Well, then I guess I’ll be throwin’ some dirt on you—”

“Shh! Did you hear that?” I heard the sound of gravel cracking. We weren’t the only ones here.

“Of course—” Link’s voiced faded into the background as a shadow blurred past me. It had the same hazy quality as a Sheer, but it was darker and lacked the features that made Sheers look almost human. As it moved around me, even through me, I felt the familiar panic from my dreams crushing me. I was cornered in my own body, unable to move.

Who are you?

I tried to focus on the shadow, to see something more than the blur of dark air, but I couldn’t.

What do you want?

“Hey, man. You okay?” I heard Link’s voice, and the pressure dissipated, as if someone had been kneeling on my chest and suddenly got up. Link was staring at me. I wondered how long he’d been talking.

“I’m okay.” I wasn’t, but I didn’t want to tell him that I was—what? Seeing things? Having nightmares about rivers of blood and falling off water towers?

As we made our way deeper into the cemetery, the intricately detailed tombs and the sparse, crumbling ones gave way to alleys lined with mausoleums in complete disrepair. Some were actually made of wood, like the dilapidated shacks that lined parts of the swamp in Wader’s Creek. I read the surnames that
were still visible: Delassixe, Labasiliere, Rousseau, Navarro. They were Creole names. The last one in the row stood apart from the rest, a narrow stone structure, not more than a few feet wide. It was a Greek Revival, like Ravenwood. But while Macon’s house was like a picture you’d find in a South Carolina photography book, this tomb was nothing much to look at. Until I stepped closer.

Strands of beads, knotted with crosses and red silk roses, hung next to the door, and the stone itself was etched with hundreds of crude Xs in various shapes and sizes. There were other strange drawings, clearly made by visitors. The ground was littered with gifts and mementos: Mardi Gras dolls and religious candles with the faces of saints painted on the glass, empty bottles of rum and faded photographs, tarot cards, and more strands of brightly colored beads.

Link bent down and flipped one of the dirty cards between his fingers. The Tower. I didn’t know what it meant, but any card with people falling out of the windows probably wasn’t good. “We’re here. This is it.”

I looked around. “What are you talking about? There’s nothing here.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” He pointed at the door of the mausoleum with the water-stained card. “Amma went in there.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Dude, would I joke about goin’ into a creepy tomb at night, in the most haunted city in the South?” Link shook his head. “’Cause I know that’s what you’re about to tell me we’re gonna do.” I didn’t want to go in there either.

Link tossed the card back into the pile, and I noticed a brass placard at the base of the door. I bent down and read what I
could make out in the moonlight:
MARIE LAVEAU. THIS GREEK REVIVAL TOMB IS REPUTED BURIAL PLACE OF THIS NOTORIOUS “VOODOO QUEEN.”

Link took a step back. “A voodoo queen? Like we don’t have enough problems.”

I was only half listening. “What would Amma be doing here?”

“I don’t know, man. Amma’s dolls are one thing, but I don’t know if my Incubus powers work on dead voodoo queens. Let’s bail.”

“Don’t be an idiot. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Voodoo is just another religion.”

Link looked around nervously. “Yeah, one where people make dolls and stab them with pins.” It was probably something he’d heard from his mom.

But I had spent enough time with Amma to know better. Voodoo was part of her heritage, the mix of religions and mysticism that was as unique as Amma’s cooking. “Those are people who are trying to use dark power. That’s not what it’s about.”

“I hope you’re right. Because I don’t like needles.”

I put my hand on the door and pushed. Nothing. “Maybe it’s Charmed, like a Caster door.”

Link slammed his shoulder against it, and the door scratched across the stone floor as it opened into the tomb. “Or maybe not.”

I stepped inside cautiously, hoping to see Amma bent over some chicken bones. But the tomb was dark and empty except for the raised cement casement that held the coffin, and the dirt and cobwebs. “There’s nothing here.”

Link walked to the back of the small crypt. “I’m not so sure about that.” He ran his fingers along the floor. There was a
square carved into the stone, with a metal ring in the center. “Check this out. Looks like some kinda trapdoor.”

It was a trapdoor, leading under a cemetery—in the tomb of a dead voodoo queen. This was beyond going dark, even for Amma.

Link had his hand on the metal ring. “Are we doin’ this or what?” I nodded, and he lifted the door open.

9.15

W
hen I saw the rotting wooden stairs, illuminated by a dim yellow light from below, I knew they didn’t lead to a Caster Tunnel. I had stepped onto my share of stairs that twisted down from the Mortal world into those Tunnels, and rarely saw them when I did. They were usually veiled with protective Casts, so it looked like you could fall to your death if you dared to make the leap.

This was a different kind of leap, and somehow it felt more dangerous. The stairway was crooked, the railing nothing more than a few boards haphazardly nailed together. I could’ve been staring down into the Sisters’ dusty basement, which was always dark because they never let me replace the exposed bulb above the door. Except this wasn’t a basement, and it didn’t smell dusty. Something was burning down there, and it gave off a thick, noxious odor.

“What’s that smell?”

Link inhaled, then coughed. “Licorice and gasoline.” Yeah, that was a combination you encountered every day.

I reached out for the railing. “You think these stairs will hold?”