Music and Malice in Hurricane Town, page 5
“But who’ll mind the store?” Jude asked Sofia.
“Belle will be here for the afternoon shift soon,” her friend replied. “She has her own key. The store can stay shut until then.”
So she locked up and the two of them made their way to the Blue Lady. It started to rain as they reached Moonshine Boulevard and the neon lights shone through the drizzle, flashing in the puddles that formed on the uneven cobbles, flickering between blue and pink and green and orange. The bar’s sign depicted an elegant lady in a tasteful blue bonnet, with a parasol slung casually over her shoulder. A velvet rope guarded the entrance, along with a large man with a Subject charm dangling from his wrist. If an ordinary Citizen – or Scrap, as they were more commonly known – was able to ingratiate themselves with a Royal somehow then they would be awarded Subject status, which generally came with various perks and better treatment. Pretty much any ordinary human of any importance was a Subject, and that included the Mayor, the police and all the politicians. The city was corrupt down to its bones.
The doorman glared at Jude the moment he saw her and said, “Royals only.”
Sofia looked every inch the witch with her amulets, corset, divine hair and the magical daggers tucked into the waistband of her black leather trousers. Jude, on the other hand, wore her usual dungarees over a tatty old vest, along with a pair of swamp boots that needed cleaning. Her red hair was cropped short in a boyish style, exposing the musical notes tattooed behind her right ear and all the way down her neck. And of course she had too many freckles on her fair skin and did not look the part of cajou Royalty one bit. She therefore very much enjoyed holding up her bracelet to dangle her crown charm in the man’s face.
He gave her a startled look and quickly apologized, his entire demeanour changing instantly.
“My apologies, ma’am,” he said. “No offence meant.”
It was dark and smoky inside the club, with a long bar taking up most of one wall and a raised stage at the other end. In the middle there were tables and navy velvet booths, each with its own small beaded lamp that gave off a cool blue light. A row of stuffed alligator heads adorned the wall behind the bar, and strings of Cajou Night plastic beads hung from the ceiling, the light fittings and the paintings. They were all different shades of blue, the colour of the witches, from bright teal to dusky indigo. There were a few guests sitting nursing their drinks with their crown charms glowing in the low light.
Where did it happen? Jude silently asked Ivory.
The bathroom, the cajou queen replied. I think.
You think?
I can’t remember properly. It’s all a bit of a fog. Take me back there. I want to look around.
Jude sighed. “Where’s the bathroom?” she asked Sofia.
“Over there,” the witch replied, indicating a door on the other side of the room.
They went through to the corridor at the back of the club, only to find that the women’s toilets had an Out of Order sign taped to the door, along with a couple of lines of police tape. Ignoring this, Jude pushed open the door and ducked under the tape. She switched on the light and both girls instantly gasped.
The bathroom, like the rest of the club, was lavish and luxurious. A huge floor-to-ceiling fish tank shaped like a pillar stood in the far corner, filled with blue seahorses. The sinks took the form of giant blue shells, held up by savage-looking mermaids. The mirrors hung in gold frames. The walls and the floor were pearly white. Or at least they had been.
Someone had clearly attempted to clean up, but the bloodstain in the centre of the room was still there, shocking and surreal in its faded scarlet gore. Jude felt something then that she hadn’t felt since that day eight years ago when the swamp had churned pink and her brother was torn apart in the water – a desperate sense of horror and revulsion that made her want to crawl right out of her skin if that was what it took to get away.
Closer, Ivory rasped inside her head.
“Isn’t this close enough?” Jude groaned.
The cajou queen didn’t bother to reply but took control of Jude’s body and walked her over until her swamp boots were in the very centre of the bloodstain. Then Ivory jerked Jude’s head up towards the mirror, forcing her to look at a reflection that wasn’t hers. The cajou queen stared out of the glass, her mouth twisted in some unspeakable torment as the memories of that evening came rushing in.
Before Jude’s eyes, the reflection morphed. Sofia disappeared and the room was empty but for Ivory. The bloodstain was gone. The sound of jazz, hot and smoky, came muffled through the door. Jude stared out from behind Ivory’s eyes as the cajou queen moved over to the sink and washed her hands before putting her white evening gloves back on.
There was the sound of the door closing and the soft click of a key turning in the lock. Ivory turned round, only to find that the room was empty. Frowning, she walked over to the door and tried to push it open, then raised her hand to rap her knuckles on the wood.
“Excuse me!” she called sharply. “I’m still in here!”
There was no reply. And then a small object rolled through the crack in the door. Ivory glanced down and saw that it was a coin, a large gold one, dull and tarnished with age. She felt a flare of dread deep in her gut and then there was something warm running down her face. When she put a hand to her hairline, her gloved fingers came away sticky with blood.
Jude couldn’t quite tell where her own thoughts and emotions ended and Ivory’s began. Perhaps they were all tangled up together in one big messy knot. She looked slowly over to the mirror and saw that several more lines of blood were snaking their way down the cajou queen’s face from small cuts that were appearing all by themselves. Ivory’s skin was old and paper-thin and Jude saw another piece split before her eyes, like the skin of a grape.
Ivory stared into the mirror and the next moment something slashed right through her throat. She never saw any weapon but she felt the skin tear and the rip of soft flesh as her vocal cords were severed. There was a moment of complete rage, followed by fear and agony as the pain of the injury suddenly burst into her awareness in a blinding-white star that felt as if it would take the top of her head off.
Blood poured down Ivory’s front, splattering down her blue dress and over her white gloves as she lifted her hands to her neck in a hopeless attempt to keep her throat together, staggering to stay on her feet as all the strength drained from her legs.
The cut to her throat was too wide and deep and her fingers snagged in the tattered flesh. The room spun about her and there was nothing she could do to prevent herself falling on to the marbled white floor, feeling her life drain away with her blood.
Her arms fell out to her sides and she could no longer move at all – was powerless to do anything other than lie there, trying to call for help through a ruined throat that only gurgled wetly. Ivory’s eyes darted about but there still didn’t appear to be anyone else in the room, just that gold coin, gleaming across the floor at her like a serpent’s eye…
Ivory didn’t want to go. Old as she was, she didn’t want to die yet, but her heartbeat slowed and then stopped, before she fell into the deep, dark blackness of a never-ending night.
Jude staggered back with a yell, straight into Sofia who put her hands on her shoulders to steady her.
“Hey, are you OK? You’ve gone white.”
Jude shook her head. “I just … I was back there,” she gasped. “When Ivory was murdered.”
Without waiting for her friend to reply, Jude turned and hurried back to the main room. She went straight to the bar with Sofia on her heels, pulled up a stool and leaned across it to the barman, a small, squirrelly man with a Subject charm hanging from his wrist.
Jude looked right at him. “Give me the strongest drink you’ve got,” she said.
The barman frowned at her, then his eyes dropped to her hands, spread on the bar, and the crown charm she wore.
“Comin’ right up,” he said.
He poured a strong stiff drink into a glass but because this was the Blue Lady and not a rough-and-ready bar, he started fussing around with diamond swizzle sticks.
“Never mind all that,” Jude said. She leaned across the bar, snatched the drink from him and downed it in one, relishing the burn as it slid down her throat. She slammed the empty glass back on the bar. “Again,” she said.
How exactly is this helping? Ivory asked inside her head.
“It’s helping me plenty,” Jude snapped.
The barman looked up. “I’m sorry?”
“Just pour the drink.”
Sofia hopped up on to the stool next to Jude.
“Anything for you, Sofia?” the barman asked as he set Jude’s drink down.
“I’ll have a Steamboat Slaughter,” Sofia replied. “On the rocks.”
Jude felt like she could still taste murder at the back of her throat, could feel death reaching for her with greedy, clutching fingers. She felt skin tear and blood pour down her front again, and shuddered, knowing that she would relive that moment over and over again in her dreams.
It wasn’t pleasant for me either, you know, Ivory said. I can’t think what you’re carrying on for anyway. I’m the one who was murdered – not you.
Jude ignored her. She sipped her drink, slower this time, and tried to concentrate on breathing. She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong about what she’d just seen, something that didn’t quite make sense. The thought niggled at her but when she tried to reach for it, it scattered like smoke.
What happened? she asked Ivory. There was nobody there! How were you killed?
I remember it now, Ivory replied. That was a devil’s coin that rolled through the door.
Jude had heard of devil’s coins but had never seen one. Everyone knew that devils lived in the swamps and that if you wanted to make a pact with one then you didn’t go to the crossroads any more – you went to the Black Bayou and sought out the devil’s wishing well, where the price would be a piece of your soul. In return the devil would give you a devil’s coin, which would allow you to do wondrous and unspeakable things. You could only spend it once and after that it lost most of its power. But it was still an extremely valuable item, not least because it could be used as an aid to hexes and curses.
“So, Harry,” Sofia said, as she stirred the ice in her drink. “Were you working the night Ivory Monette was killed?”
The barman shook his head. “No, but I heard all about it from Frank,” he said, eager to share gossip. “The cajou queen went to the bathroom and she didn’t come back. Her granddaughter got worried and went after her but the door was locked. They had to get some vampire to break it down and then they found her, lying there in all that blood.”
Who else was here? Jude asked Ivory, picking up her drink. Who were you with? Did you see anyone in the room you weren’t expecting to see?
Turn round, Ivory replied. Let me try to remember.
Jude shuffled in her seat until she was facing the room. She felt the cajou queen’s mind casting back and suddenly the scene shifted and changed, just like it had in the bathroom, and Jude was looking at the Blue Lady as it had been on the night of the murder.
She was no longer sitting at the bar, but at one of the tables near the stage, clasping a long cigarette holder between her gloved fingers. Wisps of blue smoke curled in the air from the many cigarettes and cigars. A jazz band played on stage and the room was bustling with people. A girl sat across from her, wearing a peach beaded tea dress that matched her skin colour, and looking rather bored by the proceedings. She was extremely petite with a tumble of blond hair piled up on top of her head, threaded with cajou charms.
My granddaughter, Ivory whispered inside Jude’s head. Charity. And the drip next to her is her boyfriend, Wade.
The young man sitting beside Charity had light brown hair, pale eyes and a vacant expression. There was a thin, sickly look about him and a greyish tinge to his already ghostly pale skin. He did not look at all well.
Consumption, Ivory said, hearing Jude’s thoughts. Not long for this world, if I’m any judge. I took them out for Charity’s birthday. She turned sixteen last week.
It was hard to hear much over the sound of the jazz but Jude watched carefully from behind Ivory’s eyes as she gazed around the room. Suddenly the cajou queen noticed someone and gasped. Jude felt the swell of her heartbreak, an emotion so intense that it took her breath away. It was a feeling she recognized, her pa had broken her heart several times over since Daryl died, but she was amazed that anyone had ever managed to make the cajou queen feel that way.
Yes, Ivory whispered to herself. Yes, he was here that night. I remember now.
Who? Jude asked.
Etienne Malloy.
Jude saw the man Ivory was focusing on – tall, with ice-blond hair slicked back from his face, high cheekbones and blue eyes. He wore a dark suit that was probably worth more than Jude made in a year. He didn’t look like he could be older than thirty but that didn’t necessarily mean anything in Baton Noir. He was one of the most handsome men in the room.
Who is he? Jude asked.
He’s the love of my life, Ivory replied.
Her agony was an awful thing. Jude could feel it clawing away at her guts, like it was desperate to get out.
But if he’s the love of your life then surely you don’t think—she began.
Look at him! Ivory snapped. He’s a vampire. I’m a human. I aged. He didn’t. He dropped me when I stopped being young and beautiful and I … I did not take it well. He broke my heart, you see. So I broke his right back. She sighed. No, Etienne Malloy has every reason to hate me. More reason than most, in fact.
He stood at the edge of the room, gazing around as if looking for someone. Then he saw Ivory and his eyes, if possible, seemed to turn even colder. Jude flinched.
The next moment, the vampire had turned away and disappeared from the room. Ivory’s memories faded and the present-day half-empty Blue Lady returned.
Did you see him again that evening? Jude asked, shifting back round in her bar seat. Did he approach you? Speak to you?
No, Ivory said in a flat voice. But he hated me enough to do it. I know he did.
They left the club and Jude filled Sofia in. When she got to the part about Etienne Malloy, the witch stopped in her tracks.
“Etienne Malloy?” she repeated.
“You’ve heard of him?” Jude asked.
“He’s one of the most dangerous vampires in Baton Noir,” Sofia replied.
“Well, most vampires are dangerous.”
“Etienne doesn’t wear a humanity charm any more.”
“Oh.”
When vampires turned, they lost most of their humanity in the process of dying and coming back to life and became cold, heartless versions of themselves; retaining their memories, their likes and dislikes, but losing some vital part of their soul, including the crucial bit that allowed them to love.
Then cajou practitioners created humanity charms, which could restore some of the vampire’s humanity or at least magnify whatever shred of it they had left. Many vampires chose to wear them, claiming life was more interesting and exciting when you could burn with passion, but there was the occasional vampire who chose to damp down their emotions, who preferred to be cold and a little dead inside, for whatever reason.
It was my fault, Ivory said softly in Jude’s head. He took off his humanity charm because of me.
You’d better tell me the whole story, Jude said silently to the cajou queen. But not right now. I’m expected at Moonfleet Manor this afternoon.
Moonfleet! Ivory exclaimed. I could tell you stories about that place which would make you sick! Why on earth would you want to go to that cursed house?
I work there, Jude replied. I play the trumpet for André Majstro twice a week.
Do you now? Ivory replied. Well, well. I never saw you.
I saw you, Jude replied. From the Owlery. That’s where he likes me to play.
The Phantom doesn’t want you in the house, I suppose.
What did you go there for? Jude wondered. She had always been curious.
But Ivory clammed up immediately. That’s none of your concern, my girl, she said.
Well, I’ve got to go, Jude said. I suppose you won’t like it but I can’t afford to give up paid work, cajou queen or not.
She expected Ivory to raise a ruckus but to her surprise she agreed readily enough.
It’ll give me time to work out what to do about Etienne, she said. If you could get a lock of his hair then I could perform a spell that would compel him to confess, but he spends most of the time at his club, and that’s invitation only.
Jude didn’t think she’d stand much chance of getting a lock of the vampire’s hair even if she did have an invitation to his club.
Let me worry about that, said Ivory.
Jude shrugged and said goodbye to Sofia. She then went home to collect her trumpet before going straight to Moonfleet Manor.
Moonfleet Manor had stood in the Fountain District for the last three hundred years – a strange, beautiful abomination of a house, designed and built by madmen. It was undoubtedly one of the finest homes in Baton Noir. It was also the most infamous and indeed worthless, since no one but a Majstro would live in the place after the things that had happened there. It even had its own graveyard in the garden, filled with the skeletons of past Majstros from days gone by.
The edge of the swamp lapped at the graveyard and Jude could just make out the swamp boat moored there, as well as the old paddle steamer, slowly rusting away into ruins. The mansion sat in the middle of the extensive grounds, hulking down like a spider amid the outbuildings, of which there were several, including the conservatory, the gazebo and the Owlery – a magnificent red-brick tower several storeys high. Alcoves lined the walls all the way up, with perches for the various owls.
