Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Sorcha
We docked in New Orleans at dusk and instantly I knew something was wrong. There was no chatter in the street, no sound of children playing. The dockworkers did their tasks in an eerie silence. The crates and boxes they hauled barely made a sound.
“Never liked it here,” Andrew said, masking discomfort with a veneer of nonchalance. “Gotten worse since the last time I came through.”
“You heading east?” Ansel asked.
Andrew shook his head. “North on the river. Wife and daughter are in Montreal for now. Want to visit with them before I head out for work again. If you need me, they’ll be at that address for at least a year.”
He handed us a few copies of his card. Neal scribbled his father’s cottage on Islay onto the back of one and passed it back.
“We’ll be a few weeks yet,” Ansel said, “but you can reach us there.”
“Andrew?” I asked, hand slipping into my pocket where Milkweed had curled up to nap.
He couldn’t come with us. I knew he couldn’t come with us.
Neal was right. It was dangerous, inconvenient, immature to even consider.
Besides that, jackalopes were native to the American continent—it’d be cruel to drag Milkweed across the ocean to a freezing, wet island with none of his kind.
“Can I help?” Andrew offered.
“Take him,” I said, holding the little jackalope up. He kicked, ears twitching, but didn’t try to get away. “They don’t have them in Europe. He’ll get lonely.”
I kept my voice calm and measured, but I knew Neal could sense the tension in my frame as he slipped his hand in mine and squeezed gently.
I didn’t want to do this—not at all. Because inconvenient and dangerous as it was, at least having Milkweed along had brightened things up.
And as I glanced around the harbor, I didn’t see many other glimmers of hope or positivity available.
“My daughter will take good care of him,” Andrew assured me, taking Milkweed and tucking him into his overcoat pocket.
“Please stay,” Milkweed chirped.
I almost burst into tears right then. Leaving Chuckles back in Houston had been hard enough, and now this.
“Be good,” I told him.
“Now keep safe,” Andrew said as he headed for the other end of the docks where another steamboat waited. “Stay together. And get out of here quick.”
“Just how quickly can we manage?” I asked, shaking off the pang of loneliness as I slipped my hand back into my now-empty pocket.
“Train leaves in two days,” Neal said.
“In the meantime I think we may have some official business to attend to,” Ansel muttered, his eyes locked onto a middle-aged man in an expensive suit walking casually along the docks and calmly, quietly giving instructions to the workers.
The scene was odd enough for that alone—since docks were usually dominated by shouting—but the ferrule of his cane was emblazoned with a bloodred spiral, an eye in the center.
A cult symbol, out there in the open like there was nothing odd about it.
“We should find somewhere to stay before dark,” Neal said, voice tight.
I nodded and quickly followed after him.
The farther into the city we got, the more uncanny the experience became.
There were dozens of street vendors selling trinkets emblazoned with the eye and spiral.
Another block down was a shopkeeper casually mopping blood off his doorstep.
Fortune tellers lounged in their doorways draped in beaded versions of the symbol.
But the worst of it was a wealthy older woman walking quietly down the grimy sidewalk, clad in widow’s black, with the eye and spiral branded onto her forearm.
“I don’t think I like it here,” I muttered, tucking myself under Neal’s arm and wrapping both arms around my belly.
The hotel, like the entire city, was off.
It was opulent, decadent even, decorated to the point of being gaudy.
Chandeliers dripped with crystal. The mahogany paneled walls were inset with carvings and mirrors.
The parquet floors were covered in dark red oriental rugs that had clearly been expensive.
But everything looked oddly neglected. Dust clung to the surfaces.
The mirrors were smudged. The rugs were worn threadbare.
The clientele felt similar. Clearly wealthy.
But oddly shabby. And oddly detached. No one greeted us. No one looked at us.
“Do we have to stay here?” I whispered to Neal as Ansel booked us a room.
“I hate this as much as you do,” Neal replied, “but if Ansel says it’s our best bet, I’m inclined to listen.”
“Ansel strangled a man three nights ago,” I hissed.
“I’m not saying he’s the most level-headed person, but he is frighteningly good at keeping us all alive,” Neal said.
A porter, wearing a cult amulet around his neck, led us to our room without saying a single word. He didn’t even glance in our direction when he dropped our cases and departed.
“I’m going to find us some dinner,” Ansel said.
I nodded as Neal dropped my hand and proceeded to turn the room upside down—checking the mattress, the settee, the carpets, the baseboards, the windows and drapes, inside of the wardrobe.
Whether he was looking for pests, signs of foul play, or both, I didn’t know.
I didn’t particularly want to think about it.
“Are you going to make me sleep on the floor again?” I asked, standing in the middle of the space, not touching anything, arms still curved around my belly like I could somehow will the baby somewhere else, somewhere better, safer, less fundamentally unsettling.
“If I find something suspicious, then definitely,” Neal replied as he tapped at the back of the wardrobe. “Besides, I slept on the floor. You slept in my arms.”
“It’s still uncomfortable,” I muttered.
“And I will find you the most comfortable mattress the Outer Court’s infinite wealth can afford just as soon as we get to Scotland,” Neal promised. I cracked a smile in spite of myself.
He checked the mattress one more time, unhooked the curtains from the canopy bed frame and dumped them in the corner of the room, then finally sat down.
“Okay,” he said, “it seems fine.”
“Does that mean I get to take a bath and go to sleep?” I asked.