Chapter Nine Ree #2
He caught Ree’s gaze and smiled cruelly, his teeth stained dark. She stared back, hatred and defiance burning in her chest. She would remember his face. And one day, if no one else would pay for what was done to Marcel, it would be him, she decided. Someone had to pay.
Ree forced her gaze back to Marcel. She must have just missed his murder. If she had gotten there just moments before, perhaps she still could have saved him.
Done what? a voice whispered in the back of her mind. Risked starting an uprising against the police? Gotten more Voodoos and innocents killed? Stupid girl.
Flies were beginning to buzz in the air above, scattering like handfuls of black seeds tossed into the sunlight.
Handsome, even in death. He was not gray yet, still deeply sun-browned, eyes closed and unseeing.
She wanted to look away, the same way she had always done when the slaves passed by too close and she was too ashamed to meet their narrowed eyes.
But this was different. This was no faceless stranger whom she could easily put from mind.
This was one of her own, her best friend.
Ree could hear her mother again, the same hot scolding on her tongue.
Open your eyes, Ree. And so she did. Ree watched Marcel’s body swing from the rope, lifeless and limp.
They would leave him up ’til nightfall, perhaps even sunup.
The lawmen would want the Voodoos to go on about their rituals while one of their brothers swung above them, cold and gray, a warning of what might befall them too if an ounce of magic was misused.
But now someone moved at the center of the square. Tap. Tap. Tap. Ree squinted and felt a sharp stab of panic rise in her belly at the sight of the man who strolled from the crowd, brandishing a fine blackthorn cane. It was the mayor of New Orleans.
Felix Corbin was known for his immaculate dress—today’s choice was a rich black frock coat with golden buttons, a felt hat with an ostrich feather at the corner that sat atop his straggle of gray-streaked hair, and of course his infamous fleur-de-lis cane, which he twirled back and forth in his hand like a wand.
The weathered skin on his forehead and neck told Ree that Corbin was mid-sixties, and he might have been handsome if not for the unsightly scar that ran the length of the right side of his face.
Gossips whispered it was the mark of one of his slaves who turned on him, but Ree knew better.
It was an old plague mark, a reminder of a time when disease had laid siege to the city, when the wealthy had something proper to fear at last.
Corbin strode below Marcel’s body, pacing like he had all the time in the world.
This, those laughing eyes promised the crowd, is mine.
He used his cane to jab at Marcel’s corpse, and Marcel swung back and forth in the wind, the rope creaking.
Ree swallowed down the surge of rage in her throat, black spots dancing in her vision.
“I like to think that New Orleans is not like the rest of the South,” Corbin said, his voice an exaggerated drawl.
“We don’t torture. We don’t maim for fun.
We, the people of the good city of New Orleans, live by a single code—that all within our city abide by our God-given rules.
But when those rules are broken, well, we answer kind for kind. Blood for blood.”
To Ree’s surprise, a murmur of agreement started among the crowd. It caught like wildfire, catching on tongues eager to agree at last. Ree had never felt so small, so alone, draped in her cloak. She held her cowl closer. There were no friends here.
Corbin lifted his cane, gesturing out to the crowd as if he were taking aim.
“I hereby decree the punishment as fitting and just by the sovereign rules set forth by the Code Noir.” Corbin reached into the pocket of his frock coat, producing a scroll of parchment bearing the city’s fleur-de-lis seal.
He began to read loudly, “Article Twenty-Eight clearly states: With regard to outrages or acts of violence committed by slaves against free persons, it is our will that they be punished with severity, and even with death, should the case require it.”
When Corbin spoke again, his voice had grown stronger at the crowd’s agreement, like rolling thunder.
“This boy practiced Voodoo and used his magic to kill another law-abiding citizen for his own gain. Violent, why yes. Unlawful, I would surely agree. But I am here to tell you today that Marcellus Dumond is guilty of the worst infraction, for his actions represent a sin this city will not ever forgive.” Corbin paused, allowing his words to land on every ear with dramatic flair.
“Insurrection. But I have to wonder, who put these ideas in his pretty little head? Perhaps it was his so-called Quarter Queen, the benevolent Marie Laveau.”
The murmur grew into vicious agreement. Haiti’s revolution had cast a long, bloodied shadow, even now, some forty years after its end.
A revolution New Orleans would not soon forgive, nor forget.
Haitian slaves had rejected the Code Noir, that wicked document of governance.
Ree shifted, nervously glancing at the faces that told her they were afraid that folks here might do the same.
“So, where is your Quarter Queen? Where is your precious Marie Laveau? Perhaps she owes us all a proper answer,” Corbin jeered.
Blood thrummed in Ree’s ears, deafening. It was now or never.
She could feel the power thrumming in her veins, the static of lightning and the heat of cauldron-fire, alive in its own way.
No more, priestess, said the voice in her ear.
You will hide no more. Ree gritted her teeth and swallowed down the lump of fear in her throat, all the way down to her belly, where it sat like a stone.
For just this once, she would have to agree: She would deny what she was no more.
Ree removed her hood and stepped forward to face the crowd unmasked.
Ree drew in a shaking breath and allowed herself to say the words she’d long denied herself. “I am Marie Laveau.”
A murmur moved through the crowd, slithering from tongue to tongue like a worm. Ree could feel every eye on her, appraising, as if to some she were a jewel to be prized, to others a bauble to be discarded.
Corbin’s eyes fixed upon her, coldly appraising. “Marie Laveau the Second.” He smiled, and it struck Ree then that he possessed a face that shouldn’t smile at all. “Where is your mother?”
“I—”
A flash of movement at the corner of Ree’s eye.
It all happened so fast—one moment she was facing the mayor of New Orleans, and the next there was Anabelle, beautiful Anabelle, pressing her way from the whispering crowd.
Ree stared, dumbly. She thought for one strangled second that Anabelle was simply walking toward her.
But Anabelle was not walking toward Ree.
She never would again. She was walking toward Corbin, a glowing hand raised in the air, black sparks flying from her fingertips.
The blast struck Corbin square in the chest, and he went flying across the square, ostrich hat toppling from his head in the wind.
“No!” It was a stupid reflex. But Ree felt herself reaching out, steadying Corbin before he could hit the ground. She left her arm extended, still holding him with the weight of her magic, while she turned to face Anabelle, who was sneering at her.
Ree stood frozen. She did not know this face. The voice was at her ear again, laying soft kisses along her neck. Perhaps you never did.
“Anabelle?” Ree hated the sound of her voice, so small it was among the growing unrest.
“Let him go, Ree. He deserves this.” She was still looking at Corbin, hanging suspended in the air.
“You don’t know what you’re doing—”
“Don’t I? I’ve known exactly what I’ve been doing this entire time. Did you?”
Ree’s heart gave a sickening lurch. Something about those words. Did you? She felt her heart breaking in her chest, splintering right in two, and there was absolutely nothing that she could do about it. “Anabelle…what have you done?”
“Everything you Laveaus wouldn’t,” snarled Anabelle. “Some of us prefer the old way. Some of us still remember the way of High Jon.”
It all went back to Jon. Had her mother truly rid the world of him? There was no escaping him, she understood now.
Ree moved in a slow circle, keeping Corbin in the air. “If you kill him, harm him in any way, it won’t just be you they hurt. They will hurt all of us. You would…you would start a rebellion, Anabelle.”
Anabelle’s lips tipped into a red half-moon. “And that, mon amour”—magic propelled from her in waves—“is entirely the point.”
Anabelle let out a cry, and the startling voice of Erzulie, loa of love and protection, screamed through her, an earsplitting sound, the goddess’s maternal wrath shaking the very air, rippling right toward Ree.
But she bucked against the magic with the sudden force of Bade’s wind, and Anabelle’s magic bounced from Ree and back across the square.
Anabelle was pushed some feet back, her hair windswept behind her, gnashing her teeth from the force of the blow.
Ree gasped. Bade was a loa of justness and scale and longed for balance in all things. What was asked from him, he took in equal measure. The air in her lungs constricted as the hand of the god of wind squeezed for control.
“You can’t best me, Anabelle,” said Ree, breathless from the seizing force of Bade’s magic.
Anabelle was strong, to be sure, but she was not the daughter of Marie Laveau.
“But I bested your mother, didn’t I?” asked Anabelle, a toying edge to her voice. “Where is the great Marie Laveau, I wonder? Perhaps enjoying the deep sleep I put her in? Amazing what a little too much Conjurer Root can do.”