Chapter 45 Delilah
Chapter forty-five
Delilah
The cemetery really was just down the road.
Mex led us through the streets of the French Quarter, slowly filling with gawking tourists and tired workers, chugging down coffee as they headed to their jobs.
Just as before, no one seemed to pay our rag tag group any mind, going about their business with their heads down, just trying to live their lives.
As we picked our way along the narrow road, Mex remained focused, her eyes constantly moving from side to side, then up to the iron balconies above us, as if she expected an enemy to drop out of the sky and had to be on constant alert.
It wasn’t as though Archer was any less vigilant.
The second we’d stepped out of Hullabaloo he’d directed Mal to take flight, wanting to have a set of eyes on the sky himself.
Mal had shifted immediately and now soared above us, his sleek black wings nearly silent as he patrolled the skies overhead.
I felt safer just knowing he was up there. Pandora did, too, if the soft snoring coming from inside her pouch was any indication.
By the time we reached the gates of the cemetery, what had started out as a bright October morning was quickly fading to a gray, dreary afternoon.
Thick, fat clouds hung low in the sky, the threat of rain obvious.
We stood across from the gate, in a patch of dry, dead grass and several leafless trees, staring as a stray cat ambled past, glaring at us accusingly before carrying on around the corner, tail held high.
Over head, Mal had taken up a position in one of the empty trees, his keen raven eyes watching us closely.
I stood there, my nose scrunched in impatience as my hand toyed with the pendant where it lay hidden beneath my dress.
The relic had started acting strange the moment we’d set foot in the city, the smoky stone practicality buzzing against my body.
At first I’d thought I was imaging it, and I’d been too overwhelmed by all the other feelings and sensations that had been bouncing around inside me, to really pay it any attention.
But now that we stood here, staring at what was apparently the final resting place of a man who had once been in possession of a piece of the Fallen Key, it was very clear that the piece that I currently wore around my neck was restless.
I remembered the way I had felt when I’d first encountered it in Boston, the overwhelming urge to get to it, to gather it in my hands and hold it close.
I had been ready to kill, the desire to lash out at anyone who I thought might try and take it from me had been frightening in its intensity.
The violent, all-consuming need to keep it only for myself hadn’t abated until I’d actually laid hands on the diamond, the contact immediately stemming those urges.
Standing at the gates of the cemetery, I couldn’t help but wonder if the second piece would have the same effect on me.
Or if it would be worse?
I guessed there was only one way to find out.
“Uh, what are we waiting for?” I finally asked, my anxiety rising the longer we stood still. My feet itched to move, to do something, anything that would take my mind off the swirling vortex of chaos that seemed to have taken up permanent residence within me.
“We are waiting, cher, to pay our respects.” Mex looked at me, her dark eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You don’t walk into a cemetery in this town without getting permission. That’s bad juju, girl. These spirits don’t play.”
I stared across the street, taking in the plain, weathered brick walls that circled the entire block and the cluttered grounds ensconced within them.
The tops of the crypts and vaults stood out against the dark gray sky, a stone field of narrow spires and squat crosses, all covered in a layer of moss and the heavy hand of time.
Even from across the street, I could feel the weight of the lives contained within it, as though they were all still there, present and aware.
It was so different from the cemetery at Trinity Church in New York.
There, you could feel the history, the years and experiences, but not the souls.
Here, at this wall of brick and iron, it was as though the veil between worlds had truly thinned, letting the dead stare back at us, waiting for us to join them.
It was as beautiful as it was creepy.
“So, is this an offering kind of thing?” I asked, stroking my hand over Pandora’s pouch, knowing it was more for my sake than hers. “Or are we talking about a true blue sacrifice?”
I didn’t especially love wet work, but if you wanted a spell to be powerful, blood magic was often the only way.
“Oh!” Vine chimed in brightly. “If we’re doing sacrifices, I volunteer Corson.”
“Get fucked,” Corson grunted, not even bothering to look at Vine.
“Nothing so primitive,” Mex said, squatting down and running her hands along the ground, digging under the leaf litter until she found what she was looking for.
Holding out her hand to me, I stared down at a small brown acorn, obviously dropped by one of the huge live oaks whose empty branches stretched above us.
“When bargaining with the dead, the best currency is life. You’ll need to take this to the gates and offer it up. ”
“Me?” I asked, shocked and more than a little hopeful.
“Yes, you, baby,” she said, mockingly. “What part of life didn’t you understand. They don’t typically open the gates for us demons. And I don’t exactly see any other humans with beating hearts around here, do you?”
“But, strictly speaking, she’s not really just a human,” Vine pointed out unhelpfully. “She’s a witch.”
“She’s got a beating human heart in her chest,” Mex argued, thrusting the acorn in my direction. “She’ll need some of that blood it’s pumping to get us in the gates.
“Not a fucking chance,” Archer cut in, stepping in front of me. “No harm will come to my mate.”
“How sweet,” Mex deadpanned, rolling her eyes. “I’m not talking about slitting her throat, Archer. Just a few drops splashed on the acorn to consecrate it and then present the offering. Once the spirits decide if they approve, the gates will open and we can stroll right in.”
“Archer,” I said, cutting him off with a hand on his arm. He turned, his dark eyes burning with what looked like concern, and my very human heart warmed. “I’ve got it under control.” When he didn’t look convinced, I went on. “I can do this, Archer. I want to do this.”
More than that, I felt like I needed to do it.
Since the beginning—since the night Heidi had sacrificed herself for my escape—I had felt like I was floating from problem to problem.
Never really doing anything, but somehow always finding myself in the way.
I was tired of just coasting, relying on Archer and the guys to solve all the problems as they came up.
I wanted to do something. To contribute to the team and have them look at me as more than just a damsel in distress.
“Consecration rituals are literally the only witchy thing I was ever good at,” I teased, resting a hand on his chest and internally begging him to understand.
Unsure of what I was doing, I attempted to send my sense of need through the bond, reaching for that tight guitar string feeling in my chest and plucking it in a way I hoped conveyed how desperately I wanted to be helpful for a change.
Archer stared at me, one arm coming around my waist as he debated. I didn’t think he had it in him to back down, though, so I took it one step further.
“Do you have a better plan? Because I’m not certain bulldozing your way in there with brute strength will gain you any favors with the residents.”
“Don’t push me, little witch,” he growled, but I could see his resolve weakening. “I’ll allow—I mean,” he paused, reconsidering, and I pursed my lips to hide the smile that threatened. “I’ll go with you, at least as far as I can, so I’ll be near while you preform the ritual.”
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. The resulting pulse of pleasure I felt from him was adorable.
Turning back to Mex, I held out my hand, ignoring the curious stare she was tossing at Archer.
“Do you have everything else you’ll need?” she asked, and I nodded, patting my trusty satchel, smiling at having it’s comfortable weight back on my body. “Well, then. Go do witch things, cher.”
With that, she dumped the acorn into my palm and then sent me on my way.
“You don’t have to do this,” Archer said, his voice low as we made our way across the deserted street and toward the gates of the cemetery.
The wall was better maintained near the gate, the brick sporting a fresh coat of bright white paint.
Peeking between the bars of the iron gate, I could see dozens of standing mausoleums, some barely the size of a household refrigerators, others looking like miniature mansions, designed to house generations of family members.
Each one was beautiful in its own haunting, macabre way, leaving me curious about the people who lay within them.
“Yes, I do,” I said simply, stepping up on to the sidewalk and approaching the gate. I could feel the power of the place, the oldest cemetery in New Orleans giving off intense waves of energy. The hair on my arms stood on end and I could almost taste the ozone.
My own magic responded, crackling to life within me in a way that it never had before. At my chest, Pandora stirred, her own magic waking up for the first time in ages.
What would we find beyond these gates?
“Stubborn witch,” Archer muttered, standing a few steps behind me. “I cannot approach beyond this point without permission,” he growled, his teeth clenched. “If there’s trouble, I won’t be able to help you.” He sounded worried, and that squishy piece of my heart fluttered in response.
“Archer,” I said, turning back to him where he waited on the street.
I could see his strain, the way he was fighting against an unseen barrier, pushing and straining to reach me.
In my chest, I could feel his panic, the fear that was racing through him, practically choking him.
The collar at my throat responded in kind, vibrating against my skin like an anxious chihuahua.
Taking a breath, I tried to quell his worry, to pull it from his side of the bond and stuff it down inside me.
When I could feel he had calmed, I moved back toward him, meeting him at the curb.
From my position on the sidewalk I stood a few inches taller, my eyes still nowhere near level with his, but closer.
“I can feel you, here.” Lifting my hand, I rested it on his chest, right over the space where my mark sat beneath his clothes.
“And I know there are still so many things we need to discuss, but right now, in this moment, all we need is trust. I need you to trust that I can do this, just as I trust you to save me if I can’t. ”
He stared down at me, his eyes showing everything he wanted to say, every argument he wanted to make, but to his credit, he made none of them.
Instead, he reached up, placed his hand over mine, and squeezed. The small gesture said so much, and this time I couldn’t stop the smile that broke across my face.
I didn’t even try.
“Thank you,” I said, rising onto my toes to press a kiss to his lips. Surprised, he froze, but only for a moment, before he deepened the kiss, taking everything I had to offer in that fiercely aggressive way of his.
Breaking the kiss, he pulled back, gently trailing his knuckles down my cheek.
“Always.”