Bridge of Souls (Cassidy Blake #3)(20)

I look at Lucas, the two of us hanging back from the group.

“What is voodoo?” I ask him softly.

“Not to be trifled with,” he answers. But I keep staring at him until he realizes I want a real answer. He tugs off his glasses and begins to clean them for the third time in half an hour. I’m beginning to see that it’s a habit, something to do while he thinks, the way Mom chews on pens and Dad rocks back and forth on his heels.

“Voodoo is a lot of things,” Lucas says slowly, weighing his words. “It’s a set of beliefs, a form of worship, a kind of magic.”

“Magic?” I say, thinking of wizards and spells.

“Perhaps power is a better word,” he says, setting the glasses back on the bridge of his nose. “The kind of power that’s tied to a people, and a place. New Orleans voodoo is steeped in history, in pain, just like this city.”

“Laveau’s power is believed to linger here,” Mom’s saying now. “Long after her death, people have come to ask for help, marking their request with an X.” She gestures to one of the chalk crosses. “If Laveau grants the wish, people return to circle the mark.”

Sure enough, a few of the Xs have faint rings around them. I wonder if I should ask Marie Laveau to protect me from the Emissary. I look down at the gravel, searching for a bit of white rock so I can make an X, but Lucas stops me.

“Don’t be mistaken, Cassidy,” he says. “It isn’t as simple as granting wishes. You’ve seen the shops in the Quarter, selling charms for luck, and love, and wealth, right?”

I nod.

“Most are for tourists. Voodoo isn’t just about lighting a candle, or buying a trinket. It’s a trade. A matter of give and take. Nothing gained without something sacrificed.”

The tarot card glows in my mind.

Give and take.

No way to win without losing.

The crew has moved on to another grave. Lucas starts toward them, and I follow, before realizing Jacob’s not with me. I look back at Marie Laveau’s tomb, and see him, crouching to examine the offerings left at its base, and I wonder what I’ll have to give up in order to win.

*

Halfway through St. Louis No. 2, it starts to rain.

A lazy drizzle, little more than mist. I huddle beneath a stone angel, its wings just wide enough to keep me dry, but Jacob doesn’t have to worry about getting wet. He stands on top of a nearby crypt, head tipped back as if enjoying the storm.

The rain falls through him, but I swear, it bends a little around his edges, tracing the lines of his floppy blond hair, his narrow shoulders, his outstretched hands.

I lift my camera and snap a photo, wondering if I’ll catch the outline of a boy, arms spread in the rain.

Jacob notices the camera, and grins, and then he slips, almost loses his footing.

He catches himself, but a shingle comes loose beneath his shoe. It skitters down the roof and crashes to the ground, interrupting one of Mom’s stories.

They all turn toward the sound.

Jacob grimaces. “Sorry!” he calls to people who can’t hear him, and I just shake my head.

I don’t think about the fact that ghosts shouldn’t be able to bend rain or knock shingles off roofs. I don’t think about what happens if he keeps getting stronger. I don’t think about what it means for Jacob, for us. I don’t think about anything but not thinking about it.

And the not thinking is loud enough for Jacob to look at me, and wince.

I’m grateful when it’s time to move on.

We take a cab to St. Louis No. 3 (I wanted to take a horse-drawn carriage, but apparently they don’t go beyond the French Quarter) and from there to Metairie Cemetery, a sprawling graveyard that used to be a racetrack.

If I listen, I can hear the thundering hooves, the rush of air against my back. It takes all my strength not to cross the Veil, just to see the spectral racers on the other side. But it’s easier to resist after Dad says the track was used as a Confederate campsite during the Civil War.

No wonder this place isn’t as quiet.

But as we walk down the cemetery’s wide avenues, lined with pale stone crypts, something drags at me. I turn, searching for the source, but all I see are graves. And yet, now that I’ve noticed, I can’t shake it. It’s like a compass needle, drawing my attention north. North, past the walls of the graveyard. North, toward something I can’t see.

But I feel it, leaning against my senses, not a pull but a push, a warning deep inside my bones.

And I’m not the only one who feels it.

Jacob stares in the same direction, a rare frown creasing his face.

“What is that?” he asks, shivering slightly.

I catch up to Lucas.

“Hey,” I say, keeping my voice down since Mom and Dad are filming. “What’s that way?” I ask, pointing in the direction of the tug. Lucas pulls up a map on his phone. I squint down at the grid of streets, looking for another graveyard, or a monument, something to explain the eerie draw, but there’s nothing. Just neighborhoods. Block after block of ordinary houses running all the way out to Lake Pontchartrain. The vast expanse of water intersected only by the long, thin bridge.

I remember Dad talking about that bridge. He said it wasn’t haunted, but then, there must be plenty of ghost stories my parents don’t know, ones they haven’t heard. But we’re too far from the lake and the bridge for it to be the tap-tap-tap of ghosts.