The Casquette Girls (59 page)

The glorious smell of grill-marked beef encased us, and I was immediately grateful Désirée had changed my mind about ordering.

The very first swallow of previously frozen protein felt like a sponge absorbing the tidal wave of anxiety crashing in my stomach. I eagerly took a second mouthful. Dee spit out her fangs and munched her sandwich with the small, controlled bites of a supermodel, smiling with verve, and Isaac grabbed his second patty before he had finished his first, making us both laugh. Then for a few minutes, the only sounds coming from our table were the rustles of napkins wiping grease-dripped chins.

But, as the last bits of crust disappeared, the vibe became heavier, and I knew the same question weighed on all of our minds:
Is this our last supper?

“Merci beaucoup,
Dee, for everything,” the words flew out of my mouth in a garble.

“I don’t think you need any more stimulants.” She pushed my coffee cup away.
I grabbed one more sip of m
y
café au lai
t
before relinquishing my mug to her.

“You ready?”
she asked me.

“Laissez les bon temps rouler.”

* * *

The door dinged as we exited onto a sunset-pink-hued Bourbon Street.

Despite the confrontation to come, I couldn’t help but feel happiness at the sight of people lollygagging. The post-Storm haze was enlivened by the brewing energy coming from folks in brightly colored costumes.

“I wonder if they are going to try and enforce the curfew tonight?” Isaac asked.

Désirée and I laughed in response. He raised one eyebrow.

“You’ve never been to a parade in New Orleans,” I explained. “The cops are going to have many a thing to enforce tonight before they get around to the curfew. Plus, if everything goes according to plan, they can count on
extra
mayhem tonight.”

Désirée smiled in agreement.

“All right, everyone’s dosed. We bound our circle. Time for me to head back to the shop so I can start casting those protection spells Marassa and Susannah used three centuries ago.”

My pulse began to race, and my chest tightened as Désirée continued, “I’ll hold off as long as possible on activating the
Artemisia Absinthium
so they don’t suspect anything too soon.”

I turned to Isaac. He had the hardest job… provoking the vampires to chas
e him into the attic. “Are you sure you’re okay with this, Isaac? It’s so dangerous.”

“Maybe the leather pants were a bad idea?” he joked, pretending to stretch his leg.

An image of Gabriel ripping into Lisette’s throat flashed through my mind.

“Hey,” he said, looking at me. “Me pissing off the Medici clan enough to get them to chase me is the only part of this plan that’s guaranteed to work.”

Désirée scoffed, but then said, “True. You do have that effect on people.”

“All right, I’ll be waiting on the convent roof,” I said. “You better fly out of that window fast.”

I tried to give him a smile so he couldn’t tell how nervous I was to have his life in my hands.

Breath
e
.

Isaac cracked his knuckles.

Désirée strapped on her miniature backpack of witchy goodies. “I’ll see you at the rendezvous point when it’s done,” she said, just as sure about our victory as she was that the entire senior class wanted to take her to the homecoming dance. “And Adele, if you see Gabriel tonight, kick him in the balls for me.”

“Will do.”

Isaac cringed. With a cock of her hip, Désirée took off before we could have any kind of coven-bonding moment.

“How does she do it?” I asked. “She looks like such a badass.”

“She does look like she was born to slay vampires.”

I tensed up. He noticed.

An awkward silence crept over us as we realized we had been left alone. Possibly for the last time.

“Oh, I have something for you!” I pulled the chain from my bodice and started to unlatch the silver feather. “I think you dropped it on our steps that day we were figh—”

“No need.” He wrapped his fingers around my hand.

“Why?”

“Because I made it for you.”

“You did? Why?”

“Adele, are you kidding me? You are the girl of my dreams.
Literall
y
.
I almost had a heart attack the first time I saw you through the window of Café Orléans. Watching you make coffee all those days… I thought I had entered some kind of alternate universe in New Orleans.”

My cheeks burned, but my eyes didn’t move from his. “I think you kind of did.”

“I think you’re right.”

“Um, can I get that on record, please?”

“Plus, I like seeing you donned in feathers.” He dragged his fingers across my ostrich skirt, sending shivers up my spine. Only then did I realize how many feathers I was wearing. “Even if it’s just for tonight,” he quickly added.

The plume atop my head swayed as I gently nodded, unable to get even a thank you out.

“You ready?” he asked as he gently brushed the glitter on my cheek.

I nodded again. “I’ll see you when it’s over,” I said, beginning to get nervous. “Promise me you won’t do anything too stupid?”

He slowly nodded, and we both turned in opposite directions into the thin crowd.

I got four steps away when my arm was jerked back.

Isaac pulled me into his chest, wrapping his arms around me.

His forehead gently knocked into mine. I took a deep inhale of his musky scent and committed his warmth to memory. My heart pounded wildly, reminding me what it meant to be alive.

“I really, really want to kiss you, Miss Adele Le Moyne. One of those epic just-in-case-it’s-our-last-chance kisses.”

“But that would be like sealing our fate.”

“Exactly.”

“So, then let’s get out of this alive, okay?”

“I promise we will.”

Blood rushed to my cheeks, remembering the magic of our first   kiss – something I hadn’t allowed myself to think about because of a certain
Italiano
. Isaac tilted my head and kissed my temple. The touch of his lips nearly made sparks fly from my fingers.
Is it the effect of the elixir?
We parted a second time, both wearing my glitter.

A surge of confusion hit me a
s
I feverishly walked towards my post
.
Am I really going to die tonight? As a sixteen-year-old virgin with only one passport stamp and no driver’s license
?
My breathing picked up, and I was shocked to find myself wishing I had kissed Isaac.
What if that really had been our last chance?
I spun around. There was still time. He couldn’t have gotten that far. My neck craned as I rushed back through the thickening crowd to find him. But I slowed when he came into my sightline. He was shaking hands with a dark-haired guy, and he didn’t seem happy about their agreement, whatever it was.

The guy turned to leave, and I
abruptly halted .

Niccolò.

“What the hell?”

My feet flipped back around, and I quickly walked away
. They hate each other
!
My wings whipped behind me as I gained speed.
What could they possibly have been agreeing on? And tonight of all nights?

All morning, I had wanted nothing more than to hunt Nicco down so we could watch his stupid art-house film, limbs intertwined.
If I had to restrain myself from fraternizing with the enemy, then what was Isaac doing with him?

When I got to my turn, I just kept walking straight
, all the way down Bourbon to Esplanade, and then continued straight out of the French Quarter. I felt an immediate sense of relief when I crossed the neutral ground of the avenue I knew
they
couldn’t cross.

I didn’t stop until I got to NOSA. No progress had been made on the campus since the last time I was there, but the familiarity brought me a slight sense of calm. It was too difficult to sit in my costume, so I lay on a patch of grass underneath the ballerina.

Deep breaths went through my nose and gushed out of my mouth. After a few more tries, I felt more in control.
How the hell did I get into this? How is this my life?

All signs pointed to the Storm.

I wondered what would happen if I just kept walking… out of the Marigny, through the Bywater, out of Orleans Parish
.
Surely someone would pick up a sparkling hitchhiker? Could I make it on my own? In some new town? Away from all of this…
I opened my eyes and stared up at the changing sky. The sun was almost completely gone, which meant the vampires would soon come out to play. One of them already had. Goose bumps invaded my flesh.

I stood, brushing grass from my skirt.

Who am I kidding?
My heart and soul is in this place.
They
need to leave. The vampires. And currently, there were only two ways to make that happen.

Kill them all, or close Pandora’s Box.

A flame rose from my hand so I could take one last look at the Mardi Gra
s-
masked statue. I envied her anonymity.

I hovered the flame over the ends of the thin metal mask, heating it just enough so I could pop it off.

“I’ll return it later, promise.”

I pulled one of the extra laces from my corset bow and used it to tie the disguise over my own eyes.

When I looked up through the mask, I found my mother staring back at me, perfectly re-created in bronze.

What?

She had been hidden by a mask.

Frozen in time.

With me all of these years.

I had never known the ballerina was modeled after her.

Could anyone ever love someone as much as my father loved my mother?

I ran back towards the Quarter. And when I say ran, I mean
ran
.

Like all magic, the elixir felt wholly natural and utterly unnatural at the same time. The effects were physically instinctual, but shocking to my psyche: the amount of weight my muscles could handle, the speed my legs could carry me, the depth of my vision. Every tree root splitting the sidewalk became an obstacle as my mind struggled to
keep up with the super-charge.

I slowed down and paused from the sprint, bending over my knees to give my lungs a minute to catch up. The head-rush was exhilarating. When I waved my hand in front of my face, my eyes had trouble
following the blur of motion.

In the next few minutes that all changed, too. My vision became sharper, and the pounding of the distant bass drums felt like they were deep in the pit of my stomach instead of half a mile away.

Is being a vampire like this? Times ten?

As I continued the trek back through the Marigny, my internal systems synched, my coordination became more natural, and my confidence grew. The music pulsed louder into the fresh dark of the night, and the scenery whipped by as if someone had hit the fast-forward button. A soft, billowy material hit my face. I stopped mid-stride, nearly wiping out.

“What the…?” I was surrounded by hanging fabric.

I waved my hand with the intention of bringing a small flicker of light from my finger, but a giant flame shot from my hand, setting one of the flowing linens ablaze. The light showed the sea of ghosts that surrounded me.
So, this is what everyone in Ren’s hood had been prepping their sheets for
.
I strained my neck, looking up at the floating heads, which had been crudely made by stuffing tufts of newsprint in the center of the linens and tying them off with twine. They were strung across the useless power lines, creaking, dancing in the breeze.

The fire quickly flamed out, and the ashes of the singed ghost blew away into the damp night. I carried on my way.

The closer I got to the Quarter, the more of them there were: hundreds, thousands of ghosts casting oblong shadows, backlit by the tin-can fires in the street, the tiki torches on lawns, and the altars of candles on porches. Weaving in between them, faster and faster, I became paranoid by the shifting shadows. I pushed one sheet away only for another to fall in my face. Drowning in a river of ghosts, I broke into a sprint.

At the end of the street, I halted under a large spray-painted banner made from a molding quilt.

Blessed are the unnamed souls lost in the Storm.

You will never be forgotten.

Rest in Peace

I choked back tears, turning back to the army of ghouls floating under the moon. There were so many of them. Death. Death was everywhere. My own mortality suddenly became very comprehensible.
Am I really prepared to die tonight
?
My chest tightened, and my throat closed. I remembered Désirée’s warning and threw my arms over my head, telling myself that the anxiety attack was just an effect of the elixir.