“Bones. Reaper,” he replied, addressing me by my nickname. “You may leave your vehicle with me. Majestic is waiting for you.”
“Ooh, you have a doorman?” Tyler sounded impressed. “I don’t know why you live in that hillbilly hideaway instead of here.”
“He’s not a doorman,” I said, cursing to myself. “He’s Marie’s right-hand man.”
Tyler glanced at the ghoul with more interest. “Really? I thought you hadn’t called her to tell her you were coming?”
“You thought right,” Bones said, getting out of the car. Neither of us bothered to bring our weapons. They were all useless against Marie.
Tyler glanced at Jacques again before meeting my gaze. You’re fucked then, aren’t you? ran across his mind.
My smile was brittle. Marie always granted safe passage to and from a meeting, but once our audience with her was over, all bets were off.
“That remains to be seen.”
Bones handed the RV’s keys to Jacques before giving a different set to Tyler. “Go inside. We’ll be back later.”
If he had any doubts about what would happen after our meeting, they didn’t show in his tone. I squared my shoulders and adopted his confident attitude. So Marie’s spies had found out that we’d crossed into her city. On the bright side, now we wouldn’t have to wait to see if she’d agree to speak to us.
On the negative side, I doubted she’d sent someone to fetch us immediately because she’d missed us, but there was only one way to find out what she wanted. I forced an unconcerned tone as I turned to Tyler.
“Don’t have too much fun while we’re gone.”
He gave a pointed look at the massive ghoul before replying.
“I’ll save that for when you’re back.” Then to Jacques he said, “You’re not driving this thing anywhere until I get my dog and her cat.”
As a rule, cemeteries didn’t bother me. They were filled with dead people, and as I’d known since I started hunting vampires at sixteen, truly dead people couldn’t hurt you. It was the living and the undead you needed to worry about, so it wasn’t walking among the thousands of remains in Saint Louis Cemetery Number One that made a shiver creep up my spine. It was the knowledge of what lay beneath the crypt of the cemetery’s most famous resident.
Marie Laveau’s tomb would be easy to find even if I didn’t know where it was located. Over six feet tall, it had several sets of dark X’s scrawled onto its whitewashed sides. It also always had offerings in front of it despite grave-tenders cleaning it on a regular basis. Tonight’s contributions consisted of unlit candles, flowers, coins, beads, hard candy, pieces of paper, and a pair of iPod headphones. I ignored all the tributes as I stepped up to the front of the crypt and rapped on its top square.
“We’re here, Majestic.”
The grinding noise began at once. I jumped back and watched as the cement block where I’d stood pulled back to reveal stygian darkness. All of the offerings that had been over that area fell with a wet thudding sound into the blackness beneath.
No voice told us to enter. None had to. This was as much invitation as anyone got from Marie. I had to give it to the voodoo queen. She knew how to maximize her version of home-court advantage.
I was about to jump into the hole when Bones stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
“I’ll go first, Kitten.”
I didn’t argue. This wasn’t a slap to my feminism—it was good battle strategy. Bones might not have mastered his telekinesis, but a little ability to control objects with your mind was a lot better than none. Marie was also unaware of his new power, so if things took an unexpectedly lethal turn, we had the element of surprise.
Bones jumped into the pit, landing with a small splash about twenty feet down. Nothing underground in New Orleans could stay dry forever, even with the impressive pump system Marie had beneath the cemetery. I jumped in next, glad I had on boots so that whatever squished beneath my feet didn’t end up splattered on my skin.
The hole above us closed at once, plunging the tunnel into as near to complete darkness as was possible for vampire vision. There was only one way to go, so Bones headed deeper into the tunnel, and I followed. We had to walk single file to avoid touching the walls, and I wanted to avoid them for more reasons than their layer of spongy mold. Madigan wasn’t the only person who loved booby traps. Marie had rows of long knives hidden in these walls, and one flick of a switch would send them shooting out to julienne whoever was unlucky enough to be in their path.