The Devil's Daughter Complete Box Set, page 103
part #1 of The Devil's Daughter Series
“My living counterpart has one already. Technically, that’s all she needs. Aloysius is a sniveling little cunt, but that works in her favor if she chooses to inhabit his body. If I can convince her to end her quest at that one brother to your achievement, will you give her the secret to developing true goblins for my army?”
Sere wouldn’t have trusted the real Marjory, no matter what she’d said. This hell version, however, was built with the same restrictions that came with every other doppelgänger, including the edict to always tell the truth. Sere had to ask herself whether she’d misunderstood what forced her kind to be unable to lie. If the dogma really was directly from Jennifer to the Cormorant, and hence to all who followed the birdbrain, then Madam Laroque could be as slippery as her real.
“First tell me why you sent your dragons against the Cormorant’s birds. I need to know what you intend to do with the full-sized combat version.”
“There can only be one ruler in hell.”
Sere didn’t really care who was in charge so long as the women kept their game in their own court. But with Sanguine standing in the middle, trying to moderate the conflict—as always—Sere couldn’t just turn her back on the situation. “So you two are just going to have it out in the air like rival drug gangs?”
“Hell is hell. Why do you care what we do? I want the secret potion, and you don’t want any more devils among the living. So do we have a deal?”
The woman had a point about hell no longer being any of Sere’s business. “If you and your real aren’t working together, how can I believe you could deliver on anything that you might offer? As you said, hell is hell, and you’re stuck here without a lifeline.”
“My other can’t bake her cookies if she can’t use the oven.”
Sere doubted the two women even knew where the kitchens were located in their respective mansions, but the message was as clear as it was surprising. “You’d turn over the voodoo totem mirrors voluntarily?”
The woman’s smirk made Sere realize she might have just given away Bart’s operation. “She has her realm to deal with, and I have mine. We rely on each other to a point, but when it comes to taking over our worlds, it’s every goddess for herself.”
She wondered how far the woman took the term goddess. For Madam Laroque to be able to regenerate after the real woman took over the body of Aloysius, the original old woman would need to be kept functioning. The mechanisms at play were more than Sere could handle in the reptilian brain, but presumably, Marjory had made arrangements for the immortality of her double. Sere had the itchy feeling in her scales that she was the one being played. She needed to get out of there and check on Bart. She’d given him all the time he should have needed. Either he had the totems, or he was in trouble.
“I don’t trust you, but the deal is reasonable. I’ll talk to the swamp witch. If she can add something to her potion that would prevent a dragon like me from escaping this realm, we have a deal.”
Madam Laroque leaned against the side of the limo. “I’ll be waiting, but don’t test my patience.”
Sere took flight before Madam Laroque stepped back into the limo. She needed to find Bart before the woman could alert her guards. If things had gone well, Sere wouldn’t have to worry about her end of the bargain, and if he’d failed, she could still hold onto the hope that the woman doppelgänger would hold up her end of the agreement. The worst case would be if Bart were in trouble. The threat of that made her swing her wings so fast the raindrops left an aerial wake behind her.
The speeding black shadow on the road below would have escaped her attention if it hadn’t been for the flames that trailed her, lighting up the whole neighborhood. Sere struggled to contain her excitement and fear, extinguishing not only the emotions but also the fire. With a quick banking turn around the Crescent City Connection’s support tower, she dove low enough over the river to be out of sight of the speeding limo. She set down on the cruise ship dock just as Bart sped up on the Honda Blackbird motorcycle.
She looked behind him to make sure he wasn’t followed. “Where’s your crew?”
He pulled a burlap sack off the back of the bike. From the size of it, she wondered if he’d taken someone hostage. “They’re running a distraction maneuver. I figured you might want to conduct the handoff away from prying eyes.”
“Those are the totems?” Her reptilian heart beat so fast the cold blood warmed in her veins.
“All eight of them. I won’t bore you with the details, but she had quite the demon-and-goblin army.” He checked behind him while revving the engine. “They’re probably not far behind.”
She took the bag in her claw. “We need to get you out of here. Marjory Laroque, either in life or hell, isn’t the type to take a setback sitting down. I can fly you out to the hellmouth.”
He nodded at the bag. “It’s best if we split up. You need to get those somewhere our enemies can’t find them then find out from Kendell what to do with them. I doubt I can just bring the sack through the hellmouth as checked luggage. I’ll yank Sanguine out of the war between the women then ride out to Joe’s old cabin in the swamp. From there, she can fly me the rest of the way out to the gate. When I know I’ve got control of the area without any Laroque or Cormorant interference, I’ll head home through the hellmouth. Now that we have Marjory by the totems, she can’t raise a new immortal, which means there’s no point in you staying in hell either. I’ll tell Sanguine to wait for you out on her island. We need to confront your body abductor on her own turf.”
She marveled at his command of the problem. “You’ve been giving this some thought.”
“Combat helps me focus. I’m done pussyfooting around with this woman. We’ve seen what we need to see in hell. The next conflict is going to be back among the living, and we’ll need to be at full force. I’m certainly not leaving the retrieval of your body in Doodlebug’s hands.”
The plan was too well-thought-out for her to argue, though she hated leaving him again. “Just be careful.”
He gunned the engine and spun the back tire toward her. “Weren’t you the one who always said careful and hell were mutually exclusive?” He smoked the tire on the wet concrete before she had time to respond.
Bart swung the bike back toward the Quarter. Though he was speeding straight into a fight between hell’s most powerful forces, once he pulled Sanguine from the trenches, Sere would see that he was safely back where he belonged. He was right. Nothing they were doing in hell was helping her get her body back.
She lifted the sack. The rumbling of the wooden heads as they banged against each other sounded like thundering voices from the trapped souls. “Why can’t this ever be simple?”
97
Chapter 12
Sere hated retracing her flight, but as long as she was hauling the totems, there was only one place where she could talk to Kendell without alerting either version of Marjory Laroque.
As she flew over the swamp, the bag grew heavier and heavier. I’m human in origin, this body is part science and part Wiccan magic, and these friggin’ totems are voodoo. The weight must have to do with the conflicting systems. She cleared the final line of trees before swooping down toward the meadow. Her eyes, ears, and lungs burned. She dropped the bag before her landing knoll, grateful to be back where Chloe could help.
Putting her legs down for the landing, she ended up face-first in the waterlogged ground then did a somersault onto her back. “Fuck me.” Everything hurt.
Chloe ran out from the tree line. “Just lie there for a minute. You’ll be okay.”
“The hell I will.” Instead of a raspy reptilian voice, Sere heard the uncomfortable tones of a human man. “What’s happening to me?”
The swamp witch leaned down next to her. After having seen the woman as a small human, having her loom over her felt like staring at a giant. “You burned out Smoke’s battery. With all of the flying and fighting, you’ve exhausted the magic that made him a dragon. We’re down to Bernie’s physical projection, which—due to being equal in size to the real man—is much easier to manifest.”
“Please stop talking.” Sere’s ears felt like a freight train was using them as a tunnel through her brain. She pointed out toward the field. “Voodoo totems.”
“Right.” Chloe looked up and over Sere. “I’ll raise Kendell.”
Sere struggled to sit up in the rain. Though she’d only been a dragon for a short time, being back in a human body with all of its sensitivities, aches, and limitations was nearly as bad as being in hell. With Chloe nothing more than a ghost, Sere forced herself to her feet. She had to check on the totems. They ran the risk of leaking ghosts after their race with Bart through the city streets and their rough landing with Sere.
She carefully opened the bag and lifted each rough-hewn voodoo sculpture. With their nail-head hair bent in all directions, the old wooden heads looked like they’d had a difficult flight, but each of the precious blue jars that nestled in the chest cavities was undamaged. “Well, the good news is the totems are safe.”
“And I guess we can all see the bad news,” Kendell said.
Sere swung around toward were Chloe stood and saw Kendell standing along with a holographic office full of people. “So long as you’ve got an answer for what to do with these trapped spirits, my physical form shouldn’t be an issue.” Sere really didn’t want to hear about how she’d flubbed up being a dragon, especially not from the people who’d started this whole hellish nightmare.
Myles put his hand on Kendell’s back. The gesture of support was one Sere had seen throughout her life. Kendell looked at him and smiled before turning back to Sere. “The only answer I could come up with was to directly undo what Marjory did. If Sanguine reopens the hellmouth, their souls can return to their bodies. First, though, we’re going to have to round up the zombies. The totems need to be loaded one by one into your vault while the zombies step into the one in the bank basement.”
Is that all? Sere thought but kept the question to herself. Getting snarky at this point would only degrade the conversation into an argument. “Well, I have the totems, and Sanguine should still have control of the vault in this dimension. Bart figured the next big battles would be on your side of the hellmouth. Hopefully, he’s on his way. Have you heard anything from Doodlebug?”
Polly hit the desk with her pencil. “She’s not exactly what you’d call forthcoming with her plans.”
“And this surprises you?” Sere couldn’t hold back her frustration. “Get ahold of her and tell her to mount a rescue of the eight zombies in Marjory’s basement. She’s going to need to figure out how to transport them. I don’t think that old VW is going to do it. When Bart shows up, he can work out a way into the bank basement. He’s probably already got something in mind.”
Polly tossed the pencil aside and leaned on the desk. “And what about you?”
The battle with Marjory Laroque loomed like a category-five hurricane blowing in from the gulf. “Bart won’t stop until he’s got me back in my body. Once we’ve got control of the two vaults, we can get me back where I belong, then Smoke can take this body and return to his dragon form.”
“I meant, how are you going to get out to the hellmouth?” Polly said.
Sere looked around like an idiot. “I’ll figure something out.”
“Make it fast. Once we get the zombies out of the basement, we’ll have a lot of brain-dead druggies to deal with. We can’t wait around for those totems for long without attracting Marjory’s goons.”
Sere waited until everyone had faded from sight before reloading the eight heavy sculptures back in the burlap bag. “How the fuck am I going to haul all of you souls out to the swamp? I no longer have wings. Bart has the motorcycle. And Sanguine is waiting out in the swamp. The only other being large enough to carry me on the wind would be the Cormorant, and I’ll be damned if I’m turning to her for help.” She got up and looked around the swamp again. Even if she could hike all the way back into town while carrying the bag, stealing a vehicle wouldn’t really be an option. As she slowly turned and looked around the meadow, she realized she didn’t even know which direction New Orleans was. “Fuck.”
A loud snort preceded the downing of a swath of grass four feet wide.
She dropped the sack and started running much faster than she was used to with the man legs. “Lefty! Please tell me that’s you, boy!”
The giant alligator’s head lifted over the grass. His tail wag sent green stalks flying into the rain. She stopped ten feet in front of him. Though he appeared happy to see her, she couldn’t be certain that his enthusiasm at seeing a man run toward him wasn’t based on the idea of a free meal. “It’s me, boy. Sere.” She reached out her hand, hoping he wouldn’t bite it off.
Lefty put his chin down to the ground with such force that the earth shook. His big swamp-green eyes looked her over while his tail continued to swing from one side of the meadow to the other. With a long yawn that separated his jaws so far that she could have walked upright between his teeth, he turned to present his side to her.
“I don’t know what magic lets you know that it’s me, but I’m not asking questions. Wait here. I need to grab my bag.”
98
Chapter 13
Riley’s Jeep hit every pothole like it was launch ramp. Doodlebug’s head still hurt from banging it on the roll bar as they left the parking lot. Riley hadn’t mentioned anything about the safety belt, apparently finding it far more entertaining for Doodlebug to learn of its advantages through firsthand experience. Though time had no meaning in hell, she felt like she’d been rattling around in the doorless tin can for hours.
“How much longer?”
“Maybe another half hour. I’ve got one last bar stop.”
A line of half a dozen trucks and two motorcycles followed the Jeep like fat drunk dudes pursuing the one hot chick. Doodlebug nodded back at the noisy beasts. “Do you really think those guys will be able to help?”
Riley turned the wheel hard to avoid an axle-busting rut. “I’d rather have Bart. That dude can wiggle his tight ass into the worst of situations, fight through it like a black bear, and come out smelling like a rose. There’s not a man trailing us that has his skills, but together, they’ll at least provide some backup.”
Doodlebug feared Riley was better at rounding up help than at devising a game plan. She looked behind the annoyingly bouncy Jeep. “We should have enough seats and truck beds back there for the zombies, but I suppose the more help you can round up, the better.”
Riley bent her naked leg, stepped on the clutch, and shifted the grumpy vehicle into a higher gear. “Cool. That just leaves breaking into the home of the most powerful family in New Orleans, rescuing eight prisoners, and delivering them to the bank. Remind me why I agreed to this?”
“Bart will help,” Doodlebug said, trying to think of someone else they could rely on. Turning to the idiots in the professor’s offices would only alert Marjory to what they were doing. The damn woman really had her fingers in every financial pie. “Wait! I’ve got an idea!”
Riley started shaking her head before she even turned toward Doodlebug. “You’re like an annoying little sister. Yelling at me while I’m driving is a sure way of landing us in a ditch.”
Doodlebug had been called far worse. “I need to get to the French Quarter. There’s a CPA who Sere always turns to when she’s stumped.”
Riley turned the wheel so sharply that Doodlebug wondered if she were trying to dump her out of the Jeep. “Seriously? I don’t think financial planning is going to help at this point.”
Doodlebug put her hand on Riley’s extended arm, as much to make a point as to stay in the car. “Trust me. This guy is a wiz at figuring stuff out, and he’s been possessed by a demon, so he knows how we think.”
Riley pulled into a bar parking lot. At least this one was paved. “I don’t see how that’s going to help in the least, but I’ll have my guys round up who they can here. Then you and I will head down to the big city.”
Doodlebug pushed open the CPA’s door on the dingy side street of the Quarter. “I need to see Montgomery Fisher.”
The ancient woman behind the desk glared over her reading glasses. “Do you have an appointment?”
Based on the blank calendar on the desk, Doodlebug assumed the woman was intentionally being difficult. “Nope. It’s important that I see him.”
“Mr. Fisher is very busy. Leave me your name, and I’ll try to fit you in next week.” The woman turned to the old computer monitor like she was getting back to her soap opera.
“I work with Sere Mal-Laurette.”
The woman’s glare turned into an icy stare. “Of course you do. Mr. Fisher is very busy. Next week.”
“I need to see him now!” Doodlebug yelled. She didn’t like raising her voice, but some messages required more than a polite tone.
The door behind the disagreeable secretary sprang open. “Is there a problem?” Montgomery Fisher stood there in a rumpled seersucker suit, looking like he’d just gotten up from a nap. “I know you, don’t I? We met at the professor’s lab.”
“That must have been my twin sister.” Doodlebug emphasized the last two words, hoping he would understand what she really meant.
“Come on in.”
The old woman behind the desk slammed her fist onto the calendar. “You have appointments. Why do I even bother?”
“Because I couldn’t get by without you. Hold my calls.”
Doodlebug followed the man into his office with Riley at her heels. “I have a problem. Sere says you can perform magic with numbers.”
He sat behind an old wooden desk. “What trouble is she in this time?”
