Darkness Becomes Her

Sixteen

WE FOUND DUB, HENRI, AND CRANK IN THE PARLOR, SEATED on the floor around the coffee table playing poker with a pot consisting of coins, gold teeth, cameos, and an assortment of old jewelry. There was a container of gumbo and used bowls on the table. It smelled awesome.

“Where the hell have you guys been?” Sebastian asked tiredly, plopping onto the couch and stretching his legs.

“You went to a ball!” Crank tossed her cards on the table, eyes devouring the gorgeous black-and-white gown as I parked my butt on the arm of the couch, wincing as the belt around my thigh rubbed the sore spot on my skin. Dub cast an odd look at Crank, and immediately she went indifferent. “Looks like it itches.”

“It does.” I wished I could’ve stripped the dress off right then, but I was too damned tired to make it upstairs. One thing I could do was relieve myself of the blade. Standing, I angled my thigh away from the others, lifted the skirt, and removed the blade, setting it and the annoying strap on the side table.

When I turned back, it was to see all eyes on me. “What?”

Dub’s pale eyes went from the blade to me. “I really like her.”

Crank grinned. “I vote we keep her.”

Henri tossed a card facedown on the table. “Yeah,” he said on a sigh. “She does fit in with the rest of you weirdos.”

“Oh. Ha-ha,” Crank said, dealing him a card. “So what ball?”

“Arnaud Ball,” Violet answered in a singsong voice, skipping out of the room. Her footsteps echoed on the stairs.

Sebastian let out a long exhale and dragged his fingers through his hair. “What about you? I thought you guys were coming back to the house after I left.”

“We decided to do a little ransacking along the way.” Dub nodded to the pile of treasure on the table. “Whoever wins the pot gets to sell it to Spits.”

I pulled off my boots. “Who’s Spits?”

“Antique dealer in the Quarter,” Sebastian answered as Violet returned with Pascal, passing the parlor to let him out back.

“You want in?” Dub asked me and Sebastian.

“No,” I said, “but I want some of that gumbo.”

“Help yourself.” Henri gestured to the pot. “Ms. Morgan brought it by, and petits bébés here went apeshit over the stuff.” Crank kicked him. “Ow, that hurt.”

“Then stop calling us babies. And you went nuts over it too. Just like always.”

“No,” Dub said, “Henri went nuts over Ms. Morgan. He’s in loooooove with her.”

Henri colored fiercely, picked up a molar with a gold filling, and pinged Dub in the forehead with it. “I don’t love her, you idiot.”

Dub and Crank erupted into giggles as Sebastian filled two bowls. I slid onto the couch cushion and arranged my gown, pulling my feet under me. “Ms. Morgan,” he said, handing me a bowl, “is like a traveling teacher, comes through the GD once a week and brings food.”

“Yeah, Violet was telling me about her.”

I was so hungry I ate way too fast. But damn, it was good. And filling. The poker game continued. It didn’t take long for Crank to win the pot, with enough gloating to make a pro wrestler proud.

After learning the truth from Sebastian earlier — that Crank wasn’t really his sister — I watched her more closely, feeling sorry for what she’d been through. Poor kid.

I thought I knew a lot about New 2, but after coming here and spending the last couple nights, I realized I’d never had a clue what this place was really like. Besides all the supernatural stuff, I never thought there might be kids left to survive on their own, living in abandoned houses, making do in whatever ways they could.

And they were an amazing bunch of kids. I was proud to be here with them.

One by one, they went upstairs to bed, leaving me, Sebastian, and Henri.

Henri rested his back against the chair opposite the couch. “So is one of you gonna tell me what really happened tonight?”

The small lamp on the end table flickered, making the long shadows on the wall sway back and forth. The light made Henri’s eyes glow — a preternatural glow that reminded me of the watchful gaze of a jungle predator.

With my nod, Sebastian told Henri everything that had happened at the ball, leaving out my dance with Gabriel and our conversation in the courtyard guest house.

“So Athena caused the hurricanes,” Henri said, shaking his head.

“Who knows? She might’ve just made them worse, or caused the final one. Still”—Sebastian shifted his gaze to me—“none of it explains what your mom had to do with it.”

“I think Athena wanted my mom like she wants me.”

“Yeah, wanted you alive. Otherwise, she would’ve just killed you at the ball.”

“And you have no idea why a goddess of freaking war and the Novem would fight over you?” Henri asked. I shrugged. “So what now? She’ll come back for you. Here. Eventually she’ll realize you’re not with the Novem, and she’ll come here.”

With Dub, Crank, and Violet at risk. Henri didn’t need to say it aloud. I knew my presence here was a danger to them all.

A lump thickened my throat. “I’ll leave.”

Sebastian’s face screwed into a frown. “Outside The Rim she has full power. You leave and she’ll know the minute you do. You’d never have a chance. At least here the Novem has their wards on the city. Not enough to keep her out, but their power weakens hers.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“She’s afraid of you.” He ignored my sarcasm. “I can feel it, sense it from her. It’s because of your curse. . whatever she did to your family can hurt her somehow.”

I thought of Athena’s wrist, the way my hand on her skin had made it harden.

Henri got to his feet, stretched his arms over his head, and yawned. “Yeah, well, a lot of good that does us if we don’t even know what the curse is.”

I studied Henri for a long time. The grandfather clock ticked loud in the silence. “There is one way to find out,” I said, my attention shifting from Henri to Sebastian.

“Alice Cromley,” Sebastian said.

Henri froze, eyes going round. “Oh, hell no! I am not helping you with that freak of nature, Bastian. Not again.”

“You know where she is?” I straightened my posture, eyes on Sebastian. “That’s what Jean Solomon meant. You’ve used her bones before.”

“Years ago,” he acknowledged in a low voice. “We found her in Lafayette Cemetery.”

“Yeah, so he could learn the truth about—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sebastian interrupted, becoming more certain with each word he spoke. “We know where she is. I know how to perform the ritual. Ari will see the truth, and then maybe we’ll have a fighting chance.”

Against a goddess of war? I almost laughed.

“We’ll leave before dawn,” he said, his gaze daring Henri to say otherwise.

For a moment, I thought the tall redhead would argue, but he finally nodded and walked out of the room, mumbling about getting some sleep since dawn was only a few hours away.

Once he was gone, I asked, “Why dawn?”

“Because rituals always work better at the transitions between day and night, night and day.”

“Oh.”

The electricity flickered again. I scanned the corners of the large parlor, feeling as though we were on a tiny island in a sea of dark indoor space, totally isolated from the rest of the world.

Sebastian broke the quiet. “You should get some sleep.”

My thoughts went back to Gabonna’s, where I’d slept against him, where I’d woken to a warm, safe place. Heat crept up my neck. “Don’t think I can sleep right now.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

The silence should’ve been awkward, but it wasn’t. I drew in a deep breath and snuggled deeper into the couch cushions, resting my head against my arm, which lay draped along the armrest. No need for words. Neither one of us wanted to go upstairs, to separate, to try and sleep. A nap was all we could afford right now, if I could even manage that.

Sebastian shifted, getting comfortable, lifting his legs to rest them on the coffee table and leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes closing. I watched him for a while, trying to relax, trying to stop the whirlwind of thoughts coursing through my mind, jumping from event to event, repeating the last few days over and over, all the things I should’ve done, all the things I wished would’ve happened.

The τερας hunter, the one I’d left behind in the prison, kept coming back so vividly that I could smell the stench and the mud. And his voice. The bitterness. The brief moment of kindness when he told me the quickest path to freedom. But why? Why would he care? And why was he in there to begin with, besides obviously pissing off Athena?

The fact that we’d left him behind burned sour in my gut. A mistake, no matter what Michel and the others thought.

Alice Cromley’s bones held the key to everything. If I understood the power I held over the goddess, the reason she wanted me so badly, maybe it would be enough to guarantee my safety and keep Athena out of New 2 for good. And maybe, once all was said and done, I’d be able to return to the plantation house and set the hunter free.

Sebastian’s breathing deepened.

Funny how he could fall asleep so fast despite the situation. Bruce was the same way. He could fall asleep anywhere, in any position, and usually within five minutes.

Sebastian’s hair gleamed black in the light. A strand fell over his forehead, making him seem boyish and vulnerable. A burst of confetti shot through my stomach as I studied his profile. His face was relaxed, removing the near-constant frown he wore. The corner of his mouth twitched. God, how I loved the dark red color that flushed his lips. It was so unique, so captivating.

A laugh echoed in my head. Oh, Ari, you’ve got it bad.

It was so much more than that, though. There was a connection, made by similarities. Even here in the craziness that was New 2, he was different, born of two very different families.

I watched his chest rise and fall. He even breathes attractively. I snorted softly at that. Not a thought Ari Selkirk had ever had before, and one she’d die before admitting out loud.

Still smiling, I closed my eyes. Yeah, New 2 was affecting me in all kinds of bizarre ways.

I woke to darkness, my head on Sebastian’s chest, his arms wrapped around me. A peek at the windows told me that dawn had yet to break over the city. My eyes closed again, ignoring the part of my mind that said, Get up!, too comfortable with the warmth of Sebastian’s body and the smell of skin, like the scent of water from a crystal-clear lake in the Tennessee mountains.

His hand twitched on my arm, sending a chill racing down my skin. He was waking. Damn. He cleared his throat softly. I lifted my head and sat back as he scooted to a more upright position. I yawned and stretched my arms, avoiding his gray eyes and feeling a little self-conscious at having gravitated toward him in sleep.

The creaks overhead meant that Henri was up.

Sebastian peered closely at his watch, his eyes not yet adjusted to waking, his hair rumpled and cute. I smiled.

“Shit. We need to go,” he muttered, shoving the gown’s skirt from his legs, removing his feet from the table, and then leaning forward, elbows on his knees, black hair falling into his eyes.

Footsteps banged on the stairs, way too many to be from one person. Henri entered the room with Dub, Crank, and Violet on his heels. “I already told them they couldn’t come with us.”

Dub snorted. “I don’t know what you’ve been smoking, Henri, or what world you’re living in, but no one tells us what to do.”

Violet and Crank both nodded in agreement. Pascal was tucked under Violet’s arm, and she was back in her usual black dress, a Mardi Gras mask propped atop her head.

I stood, straightening my gown. “I need to change.”

I left them to figure it out while I went upstairs and changed into the clothes that Michel had left out for me during my stay in the Quarter. Once that was done, I made sure the blade was in my backpack.

Sebastian was just zipping up his bag as I jogged down the stairs. The others stood by the front door with grim, determined faces. “I take it we’re all going?” I said.

“It’s a free country.” Sebastian slung his bag over his shoulder. “If anyone gets hurt, Charity Hospital is nearby.”

As the others headed outside and down Coliseum Street, I paused. 1331 First Street in the misty darkness before dawn was an awesome sight. A black, hulking shadow. An eerie, silent giant that guarded the ravaged streets. I gave it a respectful nod.

This was home. And I loved it.

I’d be forever grateful for what Bruce and Casey had done for me, but Memphis was not the place for me. More than anything I wanted to stay here, to make a life in the GD. On my terms. Not on the Novem’s terms.

Whether I would ever have that opportunity was yet to be decided, though. There was the little matter of getting the Novem and the Greek goddess of war off my back.

“Ari!” Dub called.

With one parting look, I hurried down the street, catching up with the others and falling into step with Sebastian. “So, what did you mean before about anyone getting hurt?”

“Part of the cemetery was flooded during the storms. A portion of it sank some. It hasn’t drained.”

Henri laughed. “Lafayette Swamp Cemetery is more like it. City of the Dead. Land of the Creepy Crawlies.”

A hard shiver raced straight up my spine to the back of my neck. I shuddered. Great.

“Like I said, if anyone gets bit, the hospital isn’t far away.”

But which part of the cemetery held the bones of Alice Cromley?

I didn’t ask, not really wanting to know. Get in, get out. That’s what I needed to focus on. With our group, maybe we’d scare away any “creepy crawlies” before they got too close.

A brush on my arm made me glance down to see Violet, Pascal’s head bobbing up and down with her small steps. “I hope it’s in the swampy part,” she murmured with a wistful expression.

O-kay. Maybe you should keep Violet by your side. If there were any snakes, she and Pascal could take care of them. Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. Violet was going to stay right by my side.

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 was four blocks over from First Street. The approaching dawn had turned the inky sky to a dull purple, enough light to see, but also enough to cast shadows in dark places and illuminate the long, silvery moss that hung from the oaks and cypress trees inside and outside of the cemetery. Through the tall wrought-iron fence, tombs were visible, rising like gray ghosts from the soft ground. The gate whined loudly as Henri pushed it open, the sound making my pulse rise.

The smell of wet stone and mud hung heavy in the dewy air, reminding me of the plantation house on the Mississippi. Leaves and debris littered the grounds around the main gate. Thick, bushy vines grew over the iron arch. I ducked under the vines and stepped onto what had once been a paved lane, but now it was cracked and covered with moss and weeds.

The only sound was the shuffle of our footsteps as we disturbed the hallowed ground. Long rows of tombs, carved to resemble miniature churches of marble and stone, ran down either side of the lane.

Time and the hurricanes had left their mark, leaving discoloration, fractures, and broken marble strewn all over. Some tombs had been lifted by the flood tides and carried to a high rubble pile against the fence. Within the rubble and vines and leaves were human bones and funerary pieces left to the elements.

I watched Sebastian’s back, wondering what had been so important for him to have come to a place like this to search out Alice Cromley.

Henri stopped at the end of one long alley. Sebastian continued past him, turning down another cluttered row where tombs closed in around us. There was enough light now to reveal small details on the ground. I tripped, distracted by a broken skull stuck under a slab of marble.

Dub gave me a gentle push over a rubble pile. “Don’t bother,” he said, noting the direction of my gaze, but mistaking my reasons for looking. “The place has been picked clean.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. The stuff they were buried with. Rings. Necklaces. Keepsakes. I found a giant ruby in that one over there.”

“You stole from a tomb?” I knew Dub was a grave robber. Sebastian had told me, but I couldn’t seem to get past the idea.

He shrugged and kicked a small bit of marble from the path. “Sure. Not like they’re gonna need it. Where do you think we got all that stuff last night? We sell it to Spits, he sells it to antique shops, and they sell it to the tourists.”

The idea of unsuspecting tourists walking around wearing a dead person’s jewelry gave me the willies. My thoughts went to the bedroom I’d slept in. “Please tell me that skull upstairs is not real.”

Crank laughed over her shoulder, her pigtail braids sticking out from the back of her cabbie hat. “That’s Eugene Hood from Saint Louis Number One.”

St. Louis No. 1 was a cemetery in the French Quarter. No wonder the skull had unnerved me; it was real!

I ducked under a low branch that had fallen across the tombs. The alley dead-ended at the tall iron fence that surrounded the cemetery. Sebastian ducked around the corner of a tomb, following the fence line down the soft carpet of leaves and grass until the ground became soft and squishy, and the scent of swamp grew stronger.

Up ahead, rows and rows of tombs rose out of the black, brackish water.

Sebastian turned again, filling me with relief. At least we weren’t going forward.

The squish, squish, squish of our steps became louder. My relief was short-lived as the thought of sinking into mud riddled with corpses, set my stomach clenching and my nerves on edge.

“Here it is,” Sebastian said quietly, stopping and facing a tomb. Two steps led to a six-foot-tall iron door, both sides framed with marble urns filled with sludge, debris, and a few tufts of grass. The tomb was covered in lichen and algae. The inscription on the door read: THE RIVER ANGELS, 1867.

Black water seeped over the toes of my boots the longer I stood in one spot. Violet let Pascal down, and the alligator scurried away, probably off to hunt for breakfast.

I glanced behind me to the dark, shadowy swamp, seeing the faint glow of eyes, dozens of eyes, and hoping to hell they were frogs or alligators.

Henri helped Sebastian shove the heavy iron door inward until the space was big enough to squeeze through. Then he stood back and wiped his hands. “I’m staying out here this time. Y’all have fun.”

Sebastian let his bag slide off his shoulder, unzipped it, and pulled out a fat vanilla-colored candle. “Dub.”

Dub snapped his fingers over the wick. Flame licked into the air as Sebastian faced me. “Ready?”

One last glance over my shoulder revealed that more glowing eyes had appeared, rows and rows of them, tiny dots bobbing in the water. Watching and waiting. I moved forward, suppressing a hard shudder and shaking off the bizarre idea that those glowing eyes had come for me.

Deep breaths. Long one in. Long one out.

I stepped up the cracked marble steps as Sebastian entered the tomb, leaving a small orange light for me to follow.

I angled my body, slipping easily inside.

The musty, damp air made it hard to breathe. About eight feet deep and maybe seven feet high at its vaulted peak, the tomb was big enough for four, maybe five people to stand with elbow room.

On each of the rectangular sides were two long shelves stacked with urns and funerary boxes. More had been stacked on the floor beneath the shelves.

“The tombs were reused over and over. That’s why there are so many bodies here. Back in the old days, they’d remove the bones from the latest coffin, put them into one of those boxes, and then bring in a new coffin with a new dead body. Once the body inside was decayed or another family member died, they’d repeat the process. Kind of like musical chairs for the dead.”

“Nice.” I looked around the small space, noticing that the older funerary boxes were cracked and rotting, bones peeking through. My heart pounded, because I was trying like hell not to draw the smell of decaying corpses into my lungs. “Which one was Alice?”

Sebastian walked to the very back of the tomb, where what I thought was a long marble seat was actually a stone coffin lining the back wall. Above it, in a niche carved into the marble wall, was an old half-burnt candle covered in rot.

“You just said they moved the bones into the boxes.”

“All but this one. That legend you heard from the carriage driver. . the two bodies in the river? Just a story.” He placed the candle on the small niche shelf and then knelt at the tomb. “Help me push.” He took a spot at one corner while I knelt at the other, placing my hands on the rough marble lid.

“Okay, so what’s the real story then?”

“Alice Cromley was killed by her lover. A crime of passion. No one knows for sure exactly what happened, except that she wasn’t dumped in the river, and as she lay dying, she gave him instructions on how to prepare her body. Some voodoo ritual. He did as she asked, afraid of being cursed, and because, some say, he really did love her. Ready?”

I nodded, knowing I’d have to breathe soon. As it was, my lungs and heart could barely keep up. My teeth clenched as I faced the stone, finally dragging in a deep breath, knowing it was better to do it now than when the coffin was open and the air filled with. . Alice Cromley.

The weight of the marble lid had us both sweating by the time we managed to angle the top part. Once that was done, we went to the other end and did the same, until the coffin was opened almost halfway.

Sebastian sat back. Sweat dampened his hairline. “That should do it.” He swiped his forearm over his brow before standing up to retrieve the candle. He gazed down into the coffin, his profile grim.

I rose up on my knees, tall enough to see over the ledge of the coffin and down into the final resting place of the infamous Alice Cromley.

I gasped. Both hands flailed around for support, something, anything to keep me from falling backward. I gripped the end of the rough coffin.

A perfectly preserved, very beautiful Creole woman lay inside.

Alice Cromley.

Her dress was in decayed shreds, but her skin and hair looked like she’d been put in the stone coffin only hours earlier.

“This is impossible,” I whispered.

A chuckle made me turn away from the macabre scene, to find Sebastian grinning at me with one black eyebrow raised. “After all you’ve seen? Vampires. A goddess. A harpy.”

“Yeah, and every single one is impossible. Just like this.”

Sebastian’s chuckle sounded wrong in our current predicament. “Not in New 2. In New 2 anything is possible.”

“Even defeating a Greek goddess?”

Sebastian unzipped his bag. “We should hurry before the sun rises.” He pulled out garden shears.

“Jesus.” My stomach went from tense to sickened in a flash.

“Guess that means I’ll be doing the honors.”

Apparently he hadn’t expected anything else, because he was already turning toward the coffin. He leaned inside and lifted Alice Cromley’s bare foot. I noticed she was missing a little toe.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I turned away and flinched. The snap of bone between the shears bounced off the marble walls. Any minute it would wake the dead. The angry dead, angry for defiling one of their own. I almost fled the tomb.

“Quickly,” Sebastian whispered, sitting down with his back against the sarcophagus and pulling out the mortar and pestle from the backpack, skinning the small toe bone and then drying the piece and dropping it into the bowl. He began grinding, glancing up to see me on my feet and standing very still. “You want to know or not?”

I swallowed, forcing down the panic and fear that made my limbs numb and weak. Everything in me was shouting, Run. Run far, far away from this dark, nightmarish scene and never look back, never remember. But instead I sat woodenly on the floor as Sebastian continued to grind the tiny piece of bone.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew the contents of that bowl were going to find a home inside my body. But I didn’t think about it. Just watched and let my mind go blank.