Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 02 - Dark Carnival (14 page)

“Stay close to me,”
whispered Noah.  He led us through the rows of porn and up the staircase, which
was near the front door of the bar.  The landing was abandoned.  It led to a balcony
that overlooked the street below.  Just to the left of the landing was a shut
door with yellow light seeping through the cracks.  Noah knocked and then
opened it.

It was a small office
with a desk, one chair and a couch.  A few men and women passed around a needle
while a couple more took hits from a crack pipe.

“Can we go?” I whispered
to Noah.

He ignored me.

“Edgar here?” he asked
the room.

“In his office,” said one
of the men.

Noah closed the door, and
we continued to the right of the landing where the only other room was.  He
knocked and opened the door.

This office was a little
larger than the other one.  A slightly pudgy guy in his thirties, wearing a
stained green sweater and reading glasses, sat reclined behind a desk, reading
a worn copy of Dickens’
Oliver Twist
.  When we entered, the man, Edgar,
greeted Noah with a smile that could charm the Devil.

“Noah.  Glad you decided
to come,” he said, marking his place in the book and closing it, setting it
down on the desk near a little lamp.

“Sorry we’re late,” said
Noah.

Edgar glanced in my
direction.  “She’s not a cop, is she?”

“C’mon, you know me
better than that.”

Edgar nodded, taking Noah
for his word, but still suspicious.  I found myself wishing Lucas was there
with me.  I always felt safe with him around.  Yet here I was, in a seedy,
underground porn-and-drug ring, my security guard a convicted murderer who
hated me.

“So, what you got for
me?” asked Noah.

Edgar reached into his
desk drawer and withdrew a pair of tickets.  “Krewe of Grigori’s having their
Mardi Gras ball next week.”

“How’d you get those?”

“A guy came in here
yesterday to look around.  He didn’t buy anything, but asked me if I wanted a
pair of tickets to the ball.  I laughed at him and told him I’m not the ball
type.  Then he starts getting a little creepy.”

I’d hate to think what
this guy calls creepy
, I thought.

“He starts trying to
persuade me to join them, saying I can have everything I ever wanted,” he
continued.  “I asked him how that was possible.  He told me they have ways.  Then
his eyes start moving really funny.”

“Like how?”

“Like the pupils kind
of—I don’t know—
swim
.  It was weird.  Then he holds his hand out, and a
pair of tickets appear out of nowhere, like he was a magician or something.  I
know you deal with all that supernatural shit, so I figure you’d want in on
this.”

“What did he look like?”

“Blonde hair, blue eyes.  White
as a sheet.”

“Sam,” I whispered.  Noah
shushed me.

“Who?” asked Edgar.

“How much?” asked Noah.

Edgar thought it over,
rubbing the tickets back and forth between his thumb and forefinger.  “A
thousand.  A piece.”  He looked Noah dead in the eyes, practically daring him
to bargain.

“Does it say when this
ball is?”

Edgar nodded.  “Written
right there on the tickets.”  He smiled that charming smile again, and I felt
like I needed a shower.

Noah pulled out his
wallet and counted out two thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills, placing
them on the desk before Edgar, who then handed over the tickets.  Noah looked
at them, put them in his wallet and placed it back in his pocket.

“All right, thanks man.”

“You got it.”

We turned to leave, but
Edgar said to me, “Wanna stay and have a little fun?”

“No thanks,” I answered.

I started to walk out the
door, but Edgar grabbed my hand.  Noah pulled his hand off of me.  “She said
no.”

“Sure, Noah.  See ya
later, okay?”

“
Oliver Twist
?” I
muttered as we stepped out into the alley and started walking to his Charger,
which was parked along the street in front of the alley. 

“Dickens is the only
author he reads.”

“That’s fascinating, but
that guy could win an award for ghoul of the year.  So, what do we do now?  Just
go back to Miles’ and—”

Noah stopped, cocked his
head.  His nostrils flared a little as he sniffed the air.  I stopped, too.  “What
is it?”

“Hush,” he whispered.  I
strained my ears and sniffed, but noticed nothing out of the ordinary.  Noah
turned around, and I could sense him bristling.  I looked in the direction
where he was staring.  At the end of the alley, deep in the shadows, were two amber
marbles that caught the glare from the streetlight on our side of the alley.  They
seemed suspended in mid air, and I stupidly thought how that could be possible.
 I heard Noah’s breathing intensify.  “Get back,” he instructed, his voice low
and hoarse.

“Why?”

Never taking his gaze
from the amber marbles in the shadows, he put one arm in front of me and
cautiously pushed me behind him.  I peeked over his shoulder, and I could swear
I heard a low growl come from his chest.  Suddenly, the two marbles started to come
toward us.  Noah took off in a flash, and there was just enough time for me to
realize how idiotic it was of me to think those were marbles when he tackled
the woman with amber eyes, sending her crashing into one of the dumpsters
lining the brick walls.  I gasped when I saw her face.  It was morbidly
gruesome; her flesh looked rotted and her teeth were yellowed and snapped at
Noah, trying to bite him.  Her fingernails were long and blackened and they
scratched at him, trying to fend him off.  My first instinct was that this
woman looked like she died a couple of years ago.

They wrestled on the
ground for a few seconds when Noah got hold of her head and twisted it until
her neck broke with a dull snap.  All the growling and snarling stopped and
Noah leaned back against the wall, breathless, staring at his work with
loathing.  I looked away, feeling awkward, like I was spying on some intimate
moment.  And one person taking the life of another is, I’m sure, a very private
sort of thing.  Although, that other person lying lifelessly by the dumpster
seemed to have not been a person for a very long time.

I heard Noah get up, lift
the lid of one of the dumpsters, heave the body into it and shut the lid.  I
then heard footsteps approaching from behind as he came into view and continued
to his car.  I got in, shut the door, and he started driving.  I gave him a
moment to clear his head of what just happened and then said, “What was that
thing?”

“Reanimated dead.”

“Wait.  A zombie?” I
asked in disbelief.

“I guess if you want to
use that word, sure.”

“You’re telling me there
are real zombies?”

He nodded.  “They use
them down here from time to time.  It takes a skilled Voodoo practitioner to do
it, but they don’t use them much.  They’re pretty simple and weak.  They mostly
use them to scare people.”

“You mean they don’t just
walk around, trying to eat people’s brains?”

He rolled his eyes.  “You
watch too many movies.  They’re reanimated, and the person who controls them
tells them what to do and they go out and do it.  In this case, to follow us
around and find out what we’re up to.  Then they go back and report what they
see.”

“They can talk?”

“Some better than others.
 Depends on how long they’ve been dead I guess.  This is only the second one
I’ve ever dealt with.  Like I said, they don’t like to use them.  This one’s
been following us for a while.”

“She has?”

“Since yesterday at
least.  I knew it would be following us tonight, and I didn’t want to lose her
in the car, so that’s why we walked.  I’d had enough and wanted to take her
out.  That’s why I wanted you waiting in the bar for me.  They don’t like to
draw attention to themselves, so I knew she wouldn’t bother you there.”  After
a hesitant second he added, “Believe it or not, that bar is the nicest one in
this part of town.”

“Yeah. I believe it,” I
said, still angry over what happened.

He noticed the tone of my
voice and, after a minute, said, “I didn’t know that was going to happen to
you.  I really thought you would be safe there.”  I took that as an apology of
sorts, but refrained from telling him it was okay.  We drove another half mile
in silence.

“Zombie,” I muttered.  “I
guess I was wrong about who wins ghoul of the year.”  From the corner of my
eye, I saw Noah try to hide a smile.  

“I’ve always heard about
vampires in New Orleans.  Are they real, too?”

He chuckled softly, but
did not answer me.  I decided to let that one go.  After tonight, trying to
wrap my brain around vampires would make it explode.

When we got back to
Miles’, I followed Noah into the kitchen.  “So, what’s next?  Do we go to
Pontchartrain Beach?” I asked.

“
You’re
not, but I
will.  Probably me and Miles.”

“Why can’t I go?”

“Too dangerous.”  He
carefully removed his jacket and winced, letting out a shallow breath.  “End
of discussion,” he said, strained, as he tossed his jacket on the table
and started running water in the sink.  I noticed there was a deep spot of
blood on the lining inside the jacket.

I reached out to him and
turned him gently around so that he faced me.  His long-sleeved shirt was
ripped in the stomach area, and the dark plum color of the material was turned
black from the blood still trickling out from his wound.  “Oh, God,”
I whispered.

“No major organs.  It’ll
be fine,” he said, wetting a wash cloth.  I started to lift up his shirt
but he stepped back.  “I said it’ll be fine,” he said through his
teeth.

“Let me try.”  I
gently lifted his shirt again and placed my hand softly on his wound.  At
first, nothing happened.  I began to get frustrated, but I tried to remember my
training and pretended like I was at the convent doing my rotations.  I kept
visualizing a blue flame and, very slowly, my hand began to warm up.  Noah’s
breathing got deeper, and he leaned back against the counter, closing his eyes
as I kept my hand pressed against his hard stomach.  The blood started to
congeal under my fingers and soon stopped from escaping altogether.  Noah
opened his gray eyes and looked at me with a combination of relief, gratitude
and—
fear? Why would he be afraid of me?

For a moment, neither of
us knew what to say.  We were both suddenly so awkward and unsure of
ourselves.  At least I was.  But being this close to him, his face inches
from mine, wasn’t as uncomfortable as it should have been.  Instead of the
dense atmosphere of mutual disregard that surrounded us lately, there was
something else in the air—some kind of miniscule charge.  Our eyes locked on
each other, and it occurred to me that maybe he wasn’t afraid of
me
.  Maybe
he was afraid of
himself
.

That tiny charge in the
atmosphere was doused almost as soon as I detected it, because Ruby walked in
at that moment.  The look in her eyes was confusion, plus hurt, plus jealousy.  Those
three things added up would turn into one giant slingshot, and I knew that I
would be the target sooner rather than later.

I removed my hand and
inspected the wound on Noah’s stomach.  It was ugly, but no longer bleeding.  “You
should take some antibiotics just in case,” I said.

Ruby looked alarmed.  “What
happened?” she said, more to Noah than to me.

He put his shirt back
down and suddenly couldn’t look me in the eyes.  “Had a run-in as we were
leaving the contact,” he said, as he turned back to the sink to wash up.  He
handed me a wet towel to wipe my hands.

Ruby went to Noah and
lifted his shirt to inspect the wound.  “Are you okay?” she asked,
worried.

“Yeah,” he
said, backing away from her.  “It’s nothing.”

Ruby looked at the wound
and then at me.  I stared at the floor, not being able to take her glare.  She
let his shirt drop back down and quickly changed the subject.  “Y’all come
in the living room when you’re finished up in here.  Miles needs to talk to
us.”  She quickly turned and left the kitchen with a slight angry twitch
to her non-existent cat tail.  If she had fur, it would have been bristled.

“I’m going to run next
door and change.  I’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” said Noah, still
not looking at me.

“Okay.  I’ll let
them know,” I said, and nervously bit the corner of my lower lip as I
washed my hands.

Noah exited through the
side door of the kitchen and out through the back yard.  As he walked out the
door, he started to take off his shirt.  I noticed two old scars on his
shoulder blades before the door closed behind him.  Being a paladin appeared to
be harder work than I realized.

I dried off and then
crossed the foyer and into the living room.  When I went in, Miles was at a
mahogany desk in the east corner of the room, going over some documents, and
Ruby was lounging on the couch, one leg extended across the cushions and one
leg on the floor.  She had a drink in her hand—brandy, it looked like—and her
cat-eyes were brooding as she stared across the room at a painting of old New
Orleans.  I suspected she wasn’t studying the artwork at all.  She could have
been looking at a thumb tack for all she noticed.  It was just something to
avert her eyes from me.

“Noah’s changing his
shirt.  He’ll be right back,” I announced to the room.  Ruby didn’t even
blink as she kept her gaze forward toward the painting.  Miles barely grumbled
an “Okay,” as he was distracted by whatever he was doing at the desk.
 
Fun times in the Garden District
, I thought sarcastically and took a
seat in one of the antique chairs by the door that led to the foyer.

The three of us said
nothing while we waited for Noah.  I kept myself busy staring mindlessly into
the crackling fire in the huge fireplace opposite the couch.  My mind, however,
soon started to replay the scene in the kitchen before Ruby walked in.  Was I
imagining that look in Noah’s eyes or the way he reacted?  
No
, I quickly
answered myself.  Before I could continue my thoughts, he entered the room,
wearing a fresh shirt.