Birthright (Residue Series #2) (30 page)

He was still
uneasy
by the end of the day
when h
e
pulled to a stop
amidst
the mad rush of cars leaving school grounds. Being temporarily hidden by the Vires
from between two lifted trucks
, he
leaned out the window and
insisted on driving me home.

I felt perfectly capable of driving myself – frozen in a surreal
daze, yet, still
alert enough to
make it home
– but my cousins and I
have
been sharing vehicles since the Vires came into the city
,
so I
didn’t bring
my car.

Before I could even reject his proposal, he explained, “This is for you, Jocelyn. Not for me. I’ll keep my distance.”

I wanted to be with Jameson. I needed him. No one else could comfort me the way he
did.
If he was true to his word
,
and kept away from me, maybe there was a chance my emotions wouldn’t get the best of me.
Yeah, right…
Against my
better
judgment, I slipped into his passenger’s seat and we darted from the parking lot.

He didn’t badger me with questions about how I was dealing with the news from this morning
,
but I had the feeling he
was keeping
part of his attention on the road and part of it on me. I couldn’t be certain
,
because my eyelids fell a few minutes
into
the drive, giving way to the exhaustion that can only
come
from a broken heart.

Eventually, he came to a stop and urged, “Open your eyes.”

I did and found myself staring at a hospital emergency room sign.

Immediately,
the tears
I’d repressed
,
barricaded behind my
eye
lids
for most of the day, came rapid and intense
.

The guilt
I was
incessantly
battling,
for taking my father’s life,
slowly
waned
with the promise of healing another. Jameson knew
this,
and
for
that
reason, he brought me here.

Jameson’s arms
embraced
my shoulders across the console
; his warmth was
so inviting
it chased away
my guilt in accepting it. My fingers gripped his shirt, pulling him to me, clutching his
muscular
back. I couldn’t seem to get enough of him close enough to me.

He knew me, really understood me, and he was very likely the only one who did. It wasn’t fair that we couldn’t be together. It wasn’t fair that our fate set us up for failure. We were meant to be together.
It was these
reasons
that
kept me from letting go of him sooner.

Once I did, w
e spent the next several hours healing others, traveling from one location to the next
,
until it was nearly midnight and our next lesson was about to begin.

In an effort to hide the fact that Jameson and I were arriving together, I laid down in the back seat as he stopped outside the Caldwell residence.
Around that time,
I began to wonder what ailment, pain, or torturous lesson
would be
inflict
ed
on us tonight. From the moment I heard Miss Celia’s voice
,
after she took
her place
behind the wheel,
and Jameson slipped into the back of the car
,
I mentally prepared for it, as best
as
I possibly could.

“Evenin’, Jocelyn,” said Miss Celia
in such a way that I knew she expected me to be hidden inside the car
.

“Hello, Miss Celia,”
was all
I had time to
reply
before my body rolled swiftly against the seat as Miss Celia shot away from the curb.

She used her typically evasive driving maneuvers to lose the Vires following us from the Caldwell residence,
and stopped
at Aunt Lizzy’s house only after Jameson assured her she’d lost them.

When we did, I gave in to the urge to peek out the window at the space below the tree at Aunt Lizzy’s gate. Theleo wasn’t there in his usual position. In fact, he’d been suspiciously absent recently. Good riddance, I thought, sinking back down as Miss Mabelle
climbed
into her usual seat in the front.

Miss Celia took a different route tonight, driving right through abandoned warehouses and along streets with no lights. It was obvious she had mapped out her trip well in advance.

When Miss Mabelle verified that we’d lost the Vires
,
Jameson and I sat up
, finding
that we’d entered the French Quarter. She took Chartres Street until reaching the corner of Barracks. There, she pulled to a stop directly in the middle of the street and turned off her headlights.

“Umm,” I
mumbled
. “What happens when a car comes?”

Miss Mabelle shushed me
,
so we remained in our seats staring through the windshield as she turned off the heater and, when that wasn’t good enough, the engine.

Directly in front of us, facing Chartres Street were two-story brick buildings with iron banister balconies held up by metal posts planted in the concrete sidewalk.

When no one spoke, I
announced,
“I have no idea what we’re supposed to be looking at.”

Quietly, Miss Mabelle began to speak
then
.

“Yellow fever hit this city in the summer of 1796. It was the first of many outbreaks here that would span hundreds of years, some of which became full blown epidemics. It was known as the Black Vomit back then
,
because
it
would occur in the final stages of death. Starting as a fever, it progressed through a fit of chills leading to a quickened pulse, hot skin, pains in the head, and enflamed eyes. Finally, black vomiting, hemorrhages, and coma would set in.

“Cemeteries couldn’t keep up with the
growing
number of dead
,
so coffins were piled at the gate while laborers dug trenches for them and
in
preparation of the coming dead. When coffins ran out, bodies were piled up on the streets here,” she motioned in front of us, “and here,” she motioned down the street at our side.”

“Why are you telling us this?” I asked
,
because I’d heard enough.

“For the reason that every epidemic started with a friend of the Weatherfords or the Caldwells.”

Miss Mabelle filled in from there. “
At various times in history, the
Vires have used
numerous
means to reach your families, attempting to destroy or abate their lineage
.
Yellow fever was one of those instances. While they no longer use this particular method here, you will still find it elsewhere in the world.”

“Wherever a Caldwell or
a
Weatherford resides,” added Miss Celia.

“Jocelyn’s a healer so…I’m not clear on why we need to know this,” said Jameson
,
glancing between the two of them.

“We aren’t done yet,” Miss Mabelle’s
reply was
simple
,
as she started the engine and took off down the street.

She turned around,
finding
St. Peter Street, and parked. They told Jameson and me to stay in our seats
,
so we looked in the direction t
hey were staring and found an aged
, weather-beaten building across the street, tucked so close to the other buildings that a flat hand couldn’t fit between them on either side.

Seasons of rain left streaks down its slats and removed its original color so that smudges of red, purple, and green blended against the front façade
and gave
it
an
intriguing quality. A second-story balcony
stretched
the
entire
length
,
with three slender doors and a commonplace banister. Below, on the first floor, were two sets of barn doors with diamond cut outs at the top of each. I figure
this must have been a detail of refinement during the time it was built. To the
right was a metal gate leading down a carriage way. And hitching posts
,
to tie horses to
,
still stood ever few feet along the front and down most of the street.

“Concerts end at eleven,” Jameson said
,
hinting at why we were parked here
.

I was curiously waiting
for their response,
when
Miss Mabelle sighed to herself
and
asked Miss Celia, “Would you like to take this one?”

Her answer was insistent, “No, no. It’s your family who performed here. You go right ahead.”

Miss Mabelle paused to stare out the window again, in a
seemingly
personal moment of reflection, before speaking.

“This is where it all started, the first public clash between the Caldwells and the Weatherfords.”

Suddenly, the anonymous building
held
meaning to me
,
and I took a closer look, noticing the elaborate metal work on the gate and the banding around its roof.

“Do either of you know how it started?” asked Miss Mabelle. It was a simple enough question
,
but I felt
contrite
for not having the answer. The side of Jameson’s mouth turned down in a frown
,
so it was clear he didn’t want to be tested on
it
either. “The Sevens had been
trying
to destroy your families long before this event
,
but
they grew
tired of
trying to do so inconspicuously.
Quite a bit of forethought and perfect execution is required for something of that magnitude. So, one of The Sevens came up with the brilliant plan to hand the job over to your two families.

“Of course, there was no legitimate reason to start a feud
,
when only peaceful relations existed. In fact, your ancestors sat inside that very building
,
sipping on imported liquor
,
no more than a chair away
from each other, yet there was never
an unkind word spoken
between them.
Then
,
came
the case of mistaken identity. A Caldwell walked into the tavern one night and put a knife through the heart of a Weatherford.”

“Why?” I asked, stiffly
.

“Because the evening prior
,
a man wearing a Weatherford family stone took the life of a Caldwell. Unprovoked. Unwarranted. And back then, eye-for-an-eye, vigilante justice
was common.
Does anyone want to venture a guess as to who that man might have been?”

“A Vire,” mumbled Jameson.

“No. I’ll give you a hint. His surname was Sartorius.”

“Sartorius,” whispered Jameson, strangely. “Where did I hear that-”
Abruptly, it came to him and he
drew in a sharp breath
.

I, however, recognized the name the moment it
rolled off
Miss Mabelle’s lips.

“It was one of my grandfathers.”

“Yes, it was, Jocelyn.”

Jameson sighed in frustration and said to Miss Mabelle, using such a demanding tone she turned halfway in her seat, “Why are you taking us through all this?”

“We aren’t done yet,” Miss Celia
repl
ied, stepping
on the gas pedal,
once
again throwing us back in our seats.

She took us back through the French Quarter. While she kept to the more vacant streets, I caught sight of inebriated bar patrons and t
he neon signs summoning them in before s
he
pulled up to a side street beside Jackson Square.

“This time we get out and walk,” Miss Mabelle
stated,
indicating she already knew where we were headed.