chapter Twenty-Three
I picked up Holden at the St. Francisville city limits, far enough from Callum’s compound I didn’t think I was being watched. We drove in silence because I was sick of the classic-rock radio station, and there was nothing I felt needed to be said.
It took us a little over an hour to get from St. Francisville to Maurepas, and the only time Holden spoke on the whole trip was just beyond Baton Rouge when he not-so-politely reminded me that if he’d been allowed to drive we would be there by now.
Night was waning and I didn’t feel like tempting fate by going into the swamp tonight. An old budget motel was on the side of the highway about ten minutes from the main park entrance. The motel’s backyard slopped into the edges of the swamp itself, and a homemade sign next to the office said Watch for Gators.
A balding man with a beer gut and a faceful of acne scars gave Holden and me a key to room 5 and kept sneaking glances past us out the window to the parking lot where we’d left the Mercedes I’d borrowed from Callum. I was in jeans, but Holden was wearing a smart blazer and looked like he’d sprung to life from the pages of a fashion magazine. The desk clerk appeared to trust us about as far as his twig-thin arms could throw us.
“You folks planning on staying long?”
“Just for the day. We’ve had a long drive and we’re hoping to get some sleep before we make our way to New Orleans,” I lied smoothly. “We might want to go into the swamp tomorrow. Can you recommend a good tour?”
The man gawked at me as if I’d requested a guided tour of the seven levels of Hell but handed me a crumpled pamphlet that had been crudely made on a home printer. It said Swamp Tours! and even I thought the exclamation mark looked like it was trying too hard.
“’At’s Arnie’s tour. Ain’t much, but he got a boat an’ he’s a dead eye if you run into any gators.”
“Well, that’s a promising pitch,” Holden said.
“Sounds great, thank you.” I slipped the pamphlet into my purse, next to my gun. “Have a great night.”
Grabbing Holden by the arm, I dragged him from the office, but not before he said, “Can’t keep her off me.”
In the room I found the phone had no dial tone.
“It’s like we’ve stumbled into the premise for a terrible horror movie,” I grumbled, slamming the handset down in frustration.
“Yeah, unsuspecting couple alone in a motel run into vampires and…oh wait. We’re the vampires.”
“Have you ever seen a horror movie? If you’re at a budget motel next to the swamp, it’s not vampires you need to worry about. It’s like…sludge creatures or inbred mutants.”
Holden flopped next to me on the sagging bed. The headboard had one of those Magic Fingers vibrating features, but I didn’t think the bed could handle anything so forceful without collapsing.
“I’ll take the mutants,” Holden said with a chuckle. “I bet their blood tastes great.”
“Freak. Give me your phone.” I held out my hand.
“Say please.”
“Please.”
He put his cell in my open palm, and I was relieved to see at least one of us had decent coverage. My phone had stopped beeping about service and had begun to laugh at me whenever I turned it on. It was crammed inside my purse so I didn’t yield to the urge to destroy it. Brand new and totally useless.
I dialed Grandmere’s number by heart and listened to the rings, hoping she wasn’t out doing some spring ritual. She tended to sleep irregular hours, a habit she’d picked up raising me, and even though I’d been gone for years, she still hadn’t gone back to sleeping through the night.
“’Allo?” Her Cajun accent sang through the line and gripped me like a long-distance hug.
“Grandmere, it’s me.”
“Mon chérie! Comment ça va? Ou et toi?”
“I’m good,” I replied in English. “And I’m in Louisiana.”
For a moment I thought the connection had dropped, then she spoke again, her accent thicker somehow. “You’re with the pack?”
“Callum asked Lucas and me to come down. He’s…hesitant to let us go through with the wedding.” For the next ten minutes I told her everything I had learned in the last week. About Ben and Eugenia, and while I skipped over the attempts on my life, she was still pretty wound up by the end of my story.
“Grandbabies!” she chirped.
Leave it to her to get only one thing out of the whole conversation…that she had more grandchildren.
“You might have mentioned sooner that your mother was a big-bad witch living in the swamps.”
“Oh, bébé, how was I to know? My mother, we was…wild. She was always running away. Even now, as an old woman, she still hides from me. She gave me my magic. I need nothing else from her.”
“But—”
“Non, no but. You and your mama are not best friends, oui? Why should you expect me to plait braids with mine while we make potions? Family, it is not always pretty, chérie, you know this.”
I had to give her that. “What’s her name, your mother.”
“Je ne sais pas.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“She is mad. She believed to know her name meant one could steal her power. If she gave no name to anyone, she could not be the target of any vengeful magic. I never knew her real name, and likewise I had no name until my father gave me one. She turned me over to him after that. Said she could not trust someone weakened by a name.”
Clearly insanity ran in my family.
“Bébé?”
“Oui?” I slipped into the habit of speaking French with her too easily.
“Do you have the necklace I gave you? The tiger’s iron?”
The necklace made me cranky because she’d once used it to help a sorcerer find me, but I knew she’d never have lied to me about what it did. Tiger’s iron warded against evil, and considering how much trouble I found myself in lately, I’d started carrying it with me again after my first assassination attempt on the highway. Fat lot of good it had done me in the bridal salon…though I suppose making it out alive had to count for something. Currently it was in a zippered pouch inside my bag. I wasn’t wearing it, which might have dulled the magic.
“I do.”
“You put it on before you go looking for La Sorcière.”
“Grandmere, you sound scared.”
“I am. You wear that necklace, girl.”
“Why?”
“Because if you ever needed a ward against evil, now is the time, bébé.”