Bridge of Souls (Cassidy Blake #3)(7)

6) THE LALAURIE MANSION



It all sounds fairly innocent, but I know by now that looks can be deceiving.

When the beignets are gone and the glasses are empty, everyone gets to their feet. Lucas dusts off his hands, even though he doesn’t have a speck of sugar on him.

“See you tonight?” asks Dad.

“Indeed,” says Lucas. “I think you’ll find this is a different city after dark.”

*

That night, Lucas is waiting for us in the hotel lobby, along with our film crew: a guy and a girl, a mismatched pair, linked only by the cameras hanging from their hands. They introduce themselves as Jenna and Adan. Jenna is small and bubbly and white, the ends of her black hair dyed electric blue, and a dozen silver chains draped around her neck. Adan is a giant, a towering guy in a black T-shirt, tattoos wrapping every inch of his olive skin.

He catches me staring at them and flexes so I can see the Christian cross on his bicep, the Egyptian eye on his forearm, the pentacle near his elbow. Some of the symbols I don’t recognize—a knot of triangles inside a loop, and a bold black mark that looks like a crow’s foot.

“That’s an algiz,” he says. “It’s a rune.”

He goes on to explain it’s not a crow’s foot, but an elk’s. I study the other symbols. I’ve seen people wearing one or two of them, but Adan has at least seven.

“What are they all for?” I ask.

“Protection,” he explains. A little thrill runs through me as my own hand drifts to the mirror around my neck.

“From what?”

He shrugs. “Everything.”

Jenna leans in and pats his arm. “Adan likes to keep his bases covered.” Her voice drops to a fake whisper. “He’s not a big fan of things that go bump.”

“Keep talking,” Adan says. “One day you’ll see a ghost, and you’ll get it.”

Jenna sighs dramatically. “I wish!” she says, pouting. “No one has ever haunted me.” Her eyes flick to my mirror pendant. “Cool necklace.”

“Thanks,” I say, twirling it between my fingers. Jacob winces when the mirror twists his way, and I close my hand over the glass before he can catch sight of his reflection. It happened once, back in Scotland. I can still see him the way he was in the glass: gray, and dripping wet from the river, and undeniably dead.

Jacob clears his throat, and I force a smile.

“Ready?” asks Lucas, his voice steady and sober, as if the answer might be no.

We step out of the Hotel Kardec, and the Veil rises to meet me. Without the sun glare and the heat, the press of ghosts is even stronger, tapping on my skull, swimming at the edges of my sight.

Music spills out of bars and off corners, but I can hear the music beneath the music. Ghostly tendrils of jazz drifting on the lukewarm breeze.

Mom squeezes my shoulder.

“Do you hear that?” she says, eyes dancing. “The city is waking up.”

I’m pretty sure we’re not listening to the same thing, but still, she’s right.

And so was Lucas.

New Orleans is a different city after dark.

The heat has faded to a drowsy warmth, but there’s nothing sleepy about the French Quarter. The streets are buzzing with people, crowds milling on curbs, drinking and singing.

Laughter spills down the street, and cheers pour out of open doors, and jazz instruments duel for space, and under all of it is the Veil. The worlds of the living and the dead feel like they’re colliding around me.

We pass a group on a vampire tour—they’re all carrying frozen drinks, the cherry-red contents staining their mouths, and wearing white plastic fangs, their cheerful energy at odds with their inspiration.

I’m so distracted by it all, I almost run into Adan, who’s stopped on the curb, camera raised. They’ve started filming.

Mom and Dad are standing in front of a redbrick building that’s clearly a hotel. It has a wrought-iron balcony and a white sign that reads PLACE D’ARMES. To the right, there’s an archway, just wide enough for a carriage, fronted by an iron gate.

Nothing special, nothing strange. But when I look through that archway, the space beyond cloaked in shadow, the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, and the Veil presses like a hand against my back.

I know if I’m not careful, it will push me through.

“Here in New Orleans,” says Dad, addressing the camera, “almost everything you see was built on the ruins of something else. Twice the French Quarter has burned down, once in 1788, and again only six years later. Countless blazes have broken out since, consuming rooms, or buildings, or blocks.”

“Perhaps that’s why this city is so haunted,” muses Mom. “One of the reasons, anyway. Everywhere you step, everywhere you stay, was once home to something—and someone—else.”

“Take this hotel, for example,” says Dad, gesturing at the building behind them. “The Place d’Armes.”

Mom rests her hand on the iron gate. “Long before it was a hotel,” she says, “it was a schoolhouse. When fire swept through the Quarter, many of the children were trapped inside.” Her eyes meet the camera. “They never got out.”

I shiver, despite the summer heat.

The gate creaks open beneath Mom’s hand, and together she and Dad turn, and step out of the streetlight and into the dark.