“Malchance magic, I’m sure of it,” he murmured. “They’re good at soul stealing.”
D’Artagnon said, “Oui .”
“Julius Esposito,” Michel said into the box, “I call on you. Who captured your soul?”
“Give me back my soul. ”
“Tell us who has it, and we’ll retrieve it for you,” Michel soothed. “We can do that. We’re Gifted. We’ll help you.” Beneath the warmth of his promises, there was an unmistakable edge. He was lying. Izzy wondered if Esposito knew it, too.
“My soul! ”
Or perhaps Esposito was beyond caring. He was in agony. She had never heard such terrible despair in her life, and that included her father’s pleas to God Himself to bring his beloved wife, Anna Maria, back from the dead.
D’Artagnon murmured something to Michel, who nodded in reply. D’Artagnon extended his athame into the box.
“Stay well back,” Michel ordered Izzy.
There was a terrible shriek. The white candle on the altar flickered. The statue of Jehanne shifted.
New mist billowed from the floor, very white, very concentrated, so redolent of lavender that Izzy’s eyes watered. Neither Michel nor D’Artagnon paid it any attention. But the smell was choking her, making her cough and gag. The mist hung like a curtain between her and the altar.
A second, more horrible shriek followed.
The candles in the candelabra went out. A cold wind whistled around the room.
“What are you doing?” Izzy demanded, stumbling forward. She craned her neck—
A burst of brilliance filled her field of vision.
“Don’t look!” Michel cried.
But it was too late.
Where is your gun, Guardienne? He will take the gun and he will end the House of the Flames. You have to secure your gun. You have to do it now.
Izzy was running in the nightmare forest, dodging branches that grabbed at her as the wolves howled in a ring around her, their hot breath bathing the blood-red moon. The silver wolf at her side darted ahead, diving into the cattails at the murky bayou shoreline. Its tail bobbed like a periscope as the wolf searched frantically, howling and chuffing.
Baying, the other wolves charged in after the silver one, disappearing into the cattails. Water splashed as they all jumped in, and Izzy called out, “No! This way!”
The bayou was crawling with death. It was all around them. They had to get out.
“This way!” she yelled again.
Sharp rocks sliced her feet as she ran to a trio of cypress trees jutting from the water. She heard herself sobbing for breath.
The moon raced across the sky as if hunted like her. Death was coming like a whirlwind.
Pressing her fists against her abdomen as she sucked in air, she glanced up. Her lips parted in terror. Something hung from the center tree…a man…
She saw his shoes, and then his legs…
It was Jean-Marc, gutted, hanging from the tree, his face blackened, worms crawling from his empty eye sockets.
“It didn’t happen!” she shouted. “You showed me this before and—”
And he’s lying in surgery with his chest cracked open, a voice whispered to her. He’s dying, and he will rot, just like this. And it will be your fault.
Get your gun.
Chapter 4
I have to get my gun. I have to stop it.
Thrashing, Izzy sat bolt upright. A damp cloth tumbled from her forehead onto her lap, which was swathed in white satin sheets. Beneath the bedclothes, she was wearing an ivory satin nightgown. The rose quartz necklace, the ring and her crucifix still hung around her neck. Andre’s gris-gris was missing.
“Shh, Guardienne, it’s all right. You’re safe,” a woman’s voice murmured. Annette, her mother’s nurse, leaned over her.
“What happened?” she said thickly, as she tried to pick up the cloth. Two veiled women were holding her hands. “Where am I?”
“You’re in your bedroom in the mansion.” Annette took the cloth from Izzy and placed it on a silver tray on a dark wood nightstand beside the bed. She saw gray stone walls, heavy dark furniture and a massive fireplace similar to the one in the safehouse back in New York. In fact, the room was very like the one Jean-Marc had prepared for her in New York. Perhaps it was to make her more comfortable. The truth was, she found both rooms horribly oppressive.
“Reading the bokor’s corpse was too much for you. It made you very ill. We rushed you in here and took care of you. The doctor left only a few minutes ago to check on the regent and your mother.”
She remembered the agents, the box, the gremlin and the eye. And Esposito pleading for his soul. Everything past that was fuzzy.
Annette gestured to the dozen or so veiled women standing around the bed, holding each other’s hands. One of them was curled up beside Izzy on the bed.
“The Femmes Blanches linked up with you and shared their magical essence with you. The doctor gave you oxygen and ran some tests. Your electrolytes were severely imbalanced. That’s been corrected.”
“Thank you,” she said, and then, “What did we find out from the reading?”
A figure moved from the darkness and approached the end of Izzy’s bed. It was Louise. She said, “I’d like to clear the room before we discuss that.”
The Femmes Blanches moved and shifted. Izzy nodded at Annette, who seemed to be in charge. The woman holding her right hand released her. The veiled woman who was seated beside Izzy gave her left hand a squeeze and slid off the bed, joining her sisters as they walked toward the door.
“Please, if you weren’t on duty in my mother’s chamber, go home,” Izzy told them.
The Femmes Blanches had made a vocation of keeping vigil over Izzy’s mother. They worked in shifts, took vacations, and some of them even had jobs. They didn’t live in the mansion. Some had homes in the garden district, and a few occupied funky bungalows and elegant apartments in the French quarter itself.
Once the women had filed out of the room, Louise said to Annette, “You, too, ma’am.”
Annette shifted, unsure.
“It’s all right,” Izzy told her, although she was equally unsure.
As soon as Annette had closed the door behind herself, Louise said, “First, I want you to know that this is the most heavily warded space in all of Bouvard territory. Nothing gets out, nothing comes in. That’s the only reason I’m going to speak so freely.”
