“You’re right,” she said. “You’ve come for a reason. There’s somethin’ I’ve gotta tell you.”
Fear trickled over me, leaving behind icy sweat and a thick nasty taste at the base of my throat. “Jimmy—” I began, then—“Luther.”
I started to get dizzy, realized I wasn’t breathing, then did with a huge, loud gasp on the word, “Faith!”
Ruthie snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Focus, Lizbeth!”
It wasn’t easy, but I got it together. “I’m okay.”
“If the Nephilim believe you have a weakness”—she narrowed her eyes—“or three. They’ll use it.”
I knew that. Had been warned over and over not to care too much. But I couldn’t help it.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Everything,” Ruthie said, then touched the center of my forehead with her thumb.
My eyes crossed, I blinked, and in that instant I was somewhere else.
A dark, deserted street—sidewalk broken, a few streetlights, too. The air thick and hot; it still smelled of rain.
“New Orleans,” I whispered. I’d know that scent anywhere.
Rows of buildings seemed to hunch with age. Ahead I could just make out the towering spires of a church, and across the way—
“Saint Louis Number One.”
The oldest existing cemetery in New Orleans, and a very dangerous place to visit after dark. Good thing I wasn’t really there.
St. Louis Cemetery Number One had been built on what had once been Storyville, the only legal red-light district in the country. The place was a helluva lot quieter now. Although as I watched, lightning began to sizzle and thunder to rumble. Both seemed to be focused directly above the cemetery. A low, deep voice lifted from beyond the white brick walls—a voice I recognized.
“Mait.” I started for the gate.
He did say he’d been reading the book.
Was that Ruthie’s voice, or my own? And what did it mean?
I inched closer. The gate was closed, locked, but that didn’t matter. I wished to be within and I was.
I’d been here before, but in the daylight and on a tour. The place had been spooky then, now it was downright unearthly.
Since New Orleans had been built below sea level, they buried people aboveground; otherwise their coffins popped up and floated away during the rainy season.
Interestingly enough, the cemeteries were the most desegregated places in the city. In death, folks were separated by religion, not race, and every single one was treated the same.
After a year and a day spent on a shelf inside a brick monument, quaintly called an oven, their remains were dumped into a well with whoever had been there before to make room for the next occupant. Though St. Louis Number One spanned only a single block, it was the resting place of more than a hundred thousand souls.
White monuments shown luminescent in the moonlight. Shadows danced across the rock-strewn ground. Here the outline of an angel perched atop a tall thin crypt. There the ghostly form of the Virgin cast by a statue surrounded with sunburned grass.
I followed the sound of Mait’s voice. He wasn’t trying to be quiet. No one was really here but him.
“Arise!” he shouted.
Uh-oh.
The figure of a man darted toward the gate. At first I thought it was Mait; then I heard the sosye speak again nearby. “Not all has been lost.”
Two more silhouettes sprinted between the crypts. The gate rattled. I peeked around a statue. Mait clapped once, and something creaked—very Addams Family—followed by the rhythm of retreating footsteps. A quick glance toward Rampart Street revealed the gate now stood wide open as half a dozen figures scooted through then scattered in different directions.
Damn.
He had been reading the book.
I watched, both repelled and enthralled, as Mait set his hand against another glistening white tomb and murmured, “Arise.”
I waited for the door to open, or perhaps for the stone to fall away. Maybe smoke would trail out of a crack and form the shape of the undead, becoming more and more solid until the newly risen spirit could cause the footsteps I’d so recently heard as it ran away to Samyaza-only-knew where.
Instead, another human-sized shadow flitted between the tombs and out through the gate. Now you don’t see him, abracadabra, now you do.
The heated, overripe night suddenly felt far too cool. No matter what we did, we couldn’t seem to get ahead in our battle against the forces of darkness. I knew everything was inevitable, but sheesh, couldn’t we just once catch a break?
Burn the book to keep them from raising another army of the undead only to discover that the keeper of the book had memorized the freaking thing.
The next instant I sat across from Ruthie at the kitchen table. Her tea was gone; mine was cold.
“What the hell?” I muttered. “All he has to say is ‘arise’ and they do? What kind of spell is that?”
Her dark eyes contemplated me for several seconds, as if she was trying to decide if she should tell me the truth or not. Then she sighed.
“The spell in the Book of Samyaza doesn’t raise the dead, child, it creates someone who can.”