Chapter Twenty-Five Ree
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ree
Black spots danced in Ree’s vision when she came to.
A burlap sack covered her head, veiling the world.
The ground was cold beneath her, sodden with damp.
The back of her head pulsed with a dull, throbbing ache.
She must have fallen after Silas attacked her, hit her head.
She tried to move—no use. Her arms were twisted behind her, her wrists tightly bound.
With aurum, she suspected from the metallic stench of her own flesh burning.
Magic would be of no use then. She was out of cards, and the game was done. Saints, she was well and truly fucked.
Then it hit her—a soul-splintering crack in her chest, fissuring right down the middle.
Something in her snapped, broken, as bits of Marie’s memories rushed in, flooding her mind in fragments of sight and sound: Her mother standing in St. Louis Cathedral…
great fire in her hand, Jon descending from the air, a flock of black birds surrounding him…
Marie shoving her hand to the ground, invoking the sacred opening ritual of the Veil…
One last memory flared—blinding and final.
Marie cradling Ree as a baby, the little glowing star on Ree’s brow, the soft press of her kiss against it, sealing it with love and magic.
The image fizzled, then slowly faded from view, a little boat pushed out into a sea of nothingness, on the path of no return.
Her mother’s memories had reached their end.
And she knew why. Marie was dying. Oh, gods, Marie Laveau was dying.
She’d sent those memories in one final bid to Ree, and here she was too slow, too late—out of time.
The sack was ripped from Ree’s head, light returning to her world as a voice sneered her name: “Marie Laveau the Second.”
Her vision adjusted—she was in a darkened field, kneeling among swaying sugarcane, the stalks turned shriveled and pale against the moonlight.
Mayor Felix Corbin stood before her, leaning on his fleur-de-lis cane, countless of the city’s policemen proudly flanking him.
Behind him stood the shadow of a towering, galleried white house.
It was as her mother’s memories had shown her.
The great chateau, the palace where he’d long lived as a king, a man who’d built the riches of his court from sugarcane and blood.
“I hope you will forgive the circumstance of our meeting, Mademoiselle. But I’m afraid the matter is urgent.”
Now, as her eyes adjusted to the light, she found Henryk kneeling across from her, bound and gagged. To her horror, there were the others: Claudette, Nan, Ory, Fabrice.
“My apologies,” said Ree.
Corbin smiled at her, delighted. “You do have your mother’s tongue.” He twirled his cane. Her eyes darted to the hunting rifle at his shoulder. From the toxic smell, she was sure that it was loaded with aurum bullets.
“Why am I here?”
“Tell her, Silas.”
The smell of foxglove overwhelmed Ree. Silas stepped out from the shadowed corner of the fields.
Ree watched him, her blood boiling. The Grand Wizard’s eyes were blank.
Ree had seen her mother captured by the Brotherhood, betrayed by Silas, only to be saved by him in the end.
He had saved Ree too, hadn’t he? She remembered the bayou, the snatchers.
Hello again, little witch. Now she understood what the alchemist had meant.
But the Grand Wizard couldn’t be trusted, not completely, since he’d forced her mother into a bargain she couldn’t refuse.
That was why he’d known about Marie’s condition; they were tethered by some strange force of equilibrium.
“The mayor is a very generous man, little witch,” Silas said.
“He intends to offer us all a deal. You see, when the Inquisition begins their tribunal, they will leave no magical stone unturned. I highly doubt they will be satisfied with just your arrest and execution. They will want the Brotherhood too. Let us consider the source.” He turned to Henryk, took the gag from his mouth. “Is this true, Inquisitor?”
Henryk’s eyes narrowed into furious slits. “Fuck you.”
Silas only laughed, the sound of dry leaves underfoot. “Charming.”
Henryk turned to Ree, a rippling storm in his eyes—fury, longing, something tender and secret and only for her. They’d had one night. And maybe that would be enough. “Ree, say nothing. Agree to nothing.”
“I don’t have time for this—” Corbin seized Ree by the chin, examining her in the light as if she were a gemstone. “Join me, witch. This will be your only offer. If you don’t, think of what will happen to your lover.”
“Touch her, and I’ll fucking kill you,” the Inquisitor snarled.
“Is that so?”
And then Corbin backhanded her, hard enough that her teeth dug into her tongue, her vision dimmed.
The force of his hand left her jaw aching and the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, but Ree said nothing, choosing instead to glare at him.
“I find that some deals require a delicate balance of pressure,” Corbin said. “Tell me, was that enough?”
She spat blood onto the ground, eyes glinting. “Not nearly.”
Silas watched, leaning on his great staff. His face as impassive as cool stone.
Corbin stalked over to Henryk, wrenched him up by the hair to face him.
“You will find that I can be very persuasive, Inquisitor Broussard. Now, I will ask of you both one last time: Join me and avoid the persecution of the Inquisition. Refuse me and I throw you both to the wolves of the Inquisitors. You know what they do to traitors, hm, boy? Surely much worse than they do to heretics and witches.” He whirled, eyes scanning the rest. “Maybe your lover’s blood is not enough? Perhaps I should sweeten the deal, hm?”
Down the line of captives he went, skimming the fleur-de-lis end of his cane along their backs.
He was going to pick. Saints, he was going to pick one of them to die.
Who among them would break first? Ree’s eyes darted to Claudette.
Not her—she would never break. The fierce set of her jaw told Ree that.
Nan—no. Not quickly, at least. But Ory would.
Fabrice. Their blood would be on her hands.
But she couldn’t save them, could she? She was not the Quarter Queen, and she had no grand magic left.
“It kills you, doesn’t it? To not have any real magic of your own,” said Ree. “You’re so pathetic that you’ve got to devise a way to steal someone else’s. No wonder the Brotherhood didn’t want your sorry ass!”
A weak attempt at stalling, she knew. Delaying the inevitable. Already, she could feel her mother fading with every second that passed, her shallow breaths playing in Ree’s ears. She could feel her. Slipping away, minute by minute.
Corbin’s smirk faltered, like chipped glass.
He knew what she was doing. But he held the knife of the advantage now, and he was doing his damn best to twist it where it hurt.
“I reckon what I did to that boy, that stupid piece of shit I hung in that square ’til he was cold and gray”—his eyes narrowed down into his face, and Ree thought she might be sick.
Marcel—“I reckon I’ll do worse to you, you fucking witch. But first, I’ll enjoy breaking you.”
“No!” Henryk bucked and twisted, but Corbin only shoved the dirtied rag back into his mouth, then jabbed the end of his fleur-de-lis cane into his side, and Ree heard his ribs give a sickening snap.
He shoved Henryk onto his side, now screaming through the gag.
But the sound came out all wrong—the wild, panicked sound of an animal.
Corbin turned to Silas. “Cut off her hand. Let us see how pretty she is then.”
Silas bent over Ree, his hand tracing down her arm to her manacled wrists. He gave them an agonizing twist. Ree gasped from the pain, terror gripping her throat, but said nothing. She would not give him the satisfaction.
“Well, get on with it then,” said Corbin.
But Silas had gone strangely still. “You were right about one thing, Felix. I am here to make a deal. Just not with you.” He turned glittering eyes on Ree. “What are friends for, little witch?”
The manacles fell away from her wrists.
Shock left her speechless as she realized what he’d done. When he’d twisted her wrist, the alchemist must have quietly undone the lock. Ree understood at last the arrangement he was proposing.
Slowly, they both turned to look back at Corbin.
“What are you doing?” Corbin demanded, fear lacing his voice.
Silas cast a sidelong look at Ree. “Clearing the board.”
Swearing, Corbin jabbed a finger at Ree and Silas. “Fucking kill them!”
“Mutatio,” Silas yelled, slamming his staff down as the police fired.
A thin green barrier formed in the air in front of Ree, bullets ricocheting, the fire returned upon Corbin’s men.
Screams whistled in the air as bullets flew, some striking the house, some the men.
Corbin squealed; he’d taken a hit in the side.
Blood spewed between his fleshy fingers.
Silas quickly turned to Ree, one hand still holding up the green barrier between them and the police. It would not hold for long. “Perhaps now this will convince you of my loyalty.”
It had been a trick. A dirty, rotten trick. She remembered Corbin’s ball, the way she’d glimpsed that moment of fire and horror; the only thing she was sure of was that he was not who he said he was, that he was a man with two faces, and she never knew which she was looking at.
“You stupid sons of bitches think you can mutiny? Against me?” Corbin spat, eyes wild and blue in the moonlight. His fear betrayed him. “I have my men!”
Silas sneered. “And I have more.”
Darkness spread out from the center of his eyes, seeping like spilled ink until the whole of the white spaces were filled.
The pupils at the center shone as pale as bone.
He tapped his staff once on the ground, sending a vibration of pressure out, a wind that shook the stalks and the trees.
Dozens of Brotherhood alchemists stepped out from the cane fields.
They made for a frightening picture—a line of dark-robed white men with silver hair that blanketed their shoulders like freshly fallen snow, their faces obscured by long hoods.
Even through her shock, Ree registered the advantage. Their numbers outweighed Corbin’s now. The odds had turned. Henryk and Claudette watched the alchemists, their faces uneasy. It was the worst kind of deal, but it was the only one left on the table. An alliance was made.
Reading her surprise, Silas said, “It needed to look convincing. To get past his defenses. Kill him, Ree. And then there will only be one enemy left.”
The Inquisition. If only it were that simple. The Grand Wizard had no idea that the last enemy would not be the Church. It would be the Brotherhood of the White Hand. But not today.
Ree turned furious eyes on Corbin, who was cowering before her, inching along like a worm seeking soil. She would kill him, yes. But first? First, she would save her mother.
Ree slammed her hand into the ground, allowing the spell of the Veil to leak from her and into the earth, just the way her mother’s vision had shown her. Pulsing violet light spread from her fingertips, weaving across the dirt and into the sacred veve of opening.
“Open,” she commanded.
From the silence came a dull creaking sound, the groan of an old gate swinging open…
The whole of the sugarcane fields filled with a blinding white light. Ree was forced to shield her eyes with the back of her hand until the light receded and in its place stood a towering black door that was covered in a long white curtain. The Veil.
Despite the sticky heat of the night, Ree felt the air chill. It was the hand of death, reaching out from beyond the grave, sowing a bone-deep cold as its shadow passed over them all.
Ree glanced around her. The wind had frozen through the stalks, the people around her rigid where they stood, mannequins propped into position.
Time itself held its breath, and she was sure, somewhere in the very heart of the French Quarter, that the hands turning upon the face of St. Louis Cathedral’s great clock had stilled into place.
The bells would not toll. Only Ree moved and breathed, untouched by the presence of the divine. He was here.
The Veil stirred gently as if someone were moving behind it, their shadow slowly drawing closer.
The black shadow was too tall, too narrow to be human.
A withered brown hand reached to part the curtain.
In her sudden fright, Ree half expected some kind of dark creature to step through, a horrendous monster.
But it was only an old man who hobbled out from behind the Veil and into the mortal realm.
He leaned on a cane with one gnarled hand, a pair of copper scales in the other. The only sign of vitality he held was in the eyes: They glowed like red rubies out from the dark, smoldering furnace of his face, betraying his true divine nature.
“Marie Laveau,” the Lord of the Crossroads said. And with a smile he added, “The Second.”
“Hello, Papa.”