Darkest Heart (12 page)

Estes stepped forward, depositing his key ring into the bowl the bored airport security officer held out to

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) him, and moved through the metal detector. There was a beeping sound and the look of boredom on the security officer's face was replaced with one of slight concern.

"Please step to the side, sir," he said, producing a detection wand.

"It's the silver toe-caps on my boots," Estes replied automatically as the security officer waved the detection wand around like a third-rate magician. He wondered how in hell Sonja thought she could get a bag full of weapons past the checkpoint. He glanced over his shoulder in her direction, but she was nowhere to be seen.

"You can go," the security officer said flatly, satisfied Estes was not hiding a gun or knife on his person.

Estes up-ended the bowl, dumping his keys back into his waiting hand. "Thank you," he muttered, still trying to figure out where the hell Sonja could have gone. There was nothing else for him to do but to do as she instructed and act like nothing was wrong and continue on his way.

"See? That wasn't hard, was it?"

Estes gave a startled half-shout, his breath caught in his throat. "Jesus, Estes!" she snarled. "What did I say about acting natural?"

"What's natural about that?!?" he retorted, one hand pressed over his breast. His heart was frantically beating against his ribcage like a trapped bird. One moment she was nowhere to be seen, the next she was walking alongside him. "How the hell did you do that?"

"It's called overdrive. It's a means of moving outside the perimeters of human perception. Most Pretenders can do it, if they've got the juice. If a vampire or a demon doesn't want humans to notice them, then they're simply not seen. Just like no one saw me walk around the security check point."

The hair on the back of Estes' neck prickled and his mouth filled with cotton. He glanced about, trying not to look nervous. "Do they give off any sign when they do that?" he whispered.

"Yes," she replied. "But none that you can see."

After a fifteen-minute delay, they were finally allowed to board the nonstop to New Orleans. They took their places in the First Class cabin, and Sonja secured the window seat. As they left one time zone and entered the next, dawn began to break across the sky. Sonja stared for a long moment out of the jet's windows at the clouds, pink with the blush of the coming day, and then pulled the plastic shade down tight. She removed her battered leather jacket and draped it over her chest as she angled back her seat.

"I'm going to rest until our plane lands. Despite what it may look like, I am not dead," she said in an even, conversational tone, in case any of the other travelers might be eavesdropping. "However, I would appreciate it if you could keep the stewardess from noticing I'm not breathing." She stretched back in her seat and, to all outward physical indications, died.

Estes found it rather disconcerting to watch someone go so completely still. Even in deepest REM sleep, people breathed, or muttered and shifted about; but Sonja was as silent and motionless as a department-store mannequin. He realized she had placed the jacket over herself not for warmth, but camouflage, as it hid the fact her ribcage was not moving up and down.

Two hours later, the stewardess came through the cabin to tell the passengers to return their seats to their upright positions for landing. Sonja, who seconds before had been as cold as a stone, jackknifed her seat upright like Max Schreck's Count Orlock rising from his coffin in Nosferatu.

Upon touchdown on the tarmac, they waited stolidly as their fellow travelers emptied into the, narrow aisle. Sonja walked several steps ahead of Estes as they made their way through the airport; her demeanor was that of woman nursing a world-class hangover. As they passed the luggage carousels, the tourists and business travelers glanced nervously in their direction, like gazelle that find themselves sharing a waterhole with a pride of thirsty lions.

"Where to, Cap?" asked the cabbie. He lifted an eyebrow as he caught a glimpse of Sonja and Estes'

clothes in the rearview mirror. "Lemme guess - French Quarter?"

Sonja leaned forward and handed the driver a scrap of paper. He glanced at the address, then back into the rearview mirror, mild surprise and a touch of alarm in his eyes.

"Okay, lady, if that's where you wants to go," he replied, flipping on the meter.

Sonja dropped wearily back against the seat, her shoulders slumping as if she had suddenly grown very old. She grimaced as the sunlight fell across her face, but said nothing.

"Where are we going?" Estes asked, after a few minutes.

"Someplace safe," she replied, her voice drained of energy. "Where I can rest undisturbed."

"I thought you said you could move about during the day."

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) She gave him a withering look. "Just because I can doesn't mean I enjoy it. Besides, going into overdrive takes a lot out of me."

Estes turned his face to the world outside the cab window, retreating into a silence as complete as her own. Maybe if he didn't look at her he could forget she wasn't human.

Instead of heading into the city, the driver took an old two-lane highway that winded its way along the levee that shielded the surrounding suburbs from the Mississippi River. Eventually the apartment complexes and condominiums that ringed New Orleans like mushrooms gave way to shotgun shacks and roadside vegetable stands.

The cab turned down a gravel side road and passed through a double column of river oaks that grew so closely together their upper branches formed a canopy, draped by yards of Spanish moss that fluttered in the humid breeze like tattered lace curtains. At the end of the verdant tunnel was an antebellum mansion that must have been a wonder to behold a century or so before. Even in its current state of genteel ruin, with its peeling paint, sagging veranda and dusty windows, it was still an impressive edifice.

As the cab came to a halt at the foot of the drive Sonja reached into her pocket and withdrew a couple of hundred dollar bills. "You did not see us. You did not drive us out here."

"You don't have to tell me twice, lady," the cabbie replied and pocketed the money.

Sonja got out of the cab and trudged up the wide porch steps that led to the front door.

The cabbie cast an uneasy glance in the direction of the rotting mansion. "You folks gonna be alright out here?"

"We'll be okay," Estes replied.

The cabbie shot Estes a look that told him he didn't believe a word of it. "Good," he grunted. "Cause I ain't comin' back out here. Ain't nobody gone come out here, `specially after dark." With that he threw his vehicle into gear, kicking up a spray of gravel in his wake.

As Estes neared the house, he heard a musical sound, like wind chimes. A collection of glass bottles, ranging from humble soda pop containers to old Milk of Magnesia bottles, blue as the sky over Eden, dangled from a nearby tree on lengths of string. With every breeze, they jingled like the pendants on a crystal chandelier.

Estes turned and followed Sonja up the steps. She was leaning forward, peering through the rusty screen door into the dim interior of the house. In the shade of the porch she appeared to regain some of her previous vigor.

"I knocked, but no one answered," she said. "They're probably around back."

"Who's probably around back, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Papa Beloved and his grand-daughter, VéVé. This is their house." Sonja walked along the veranda, motioning for him to follow. Their boot heels made a hollow sound on the worn boards.

The backyard of the house was in far greater disrepair than the façade; with weeds growing around a cluster of defunct automobiles situated a stone's throw from the steps. An old-fashioned laundry wringer squatted nearby, surrounded by a Jacob's ladder of wet clothes.

An young African-American woman dressed in a simple white cotton shift, her head hidden by a plain white kerchief, was bent over an aluminum wash tub atop a wooden bench, scrubbing a pair of overalls with a boar bristle brush, singing under her breath. She was an attractive figure of a woman, despite the dark splotches that covered her cafe au lait skin.

"Hello, VéVé," Sonja said quietly.

The young woman stopped what she was doing and squinted up at them. She drew her hands from the soapy water, her squint intensifying into a frown.

"Sonja?"

"Hey, VéVé," Sonja said, obvious affection in her voice.

"Lord, girl!" the other woman said, hastily wiping her hands dry on the hem of her apron. "We better be getting you inside!" VéVé hurried forward and grabbed Sonja's elbow, steering her through the back door into the house. Estes followed them into a large, airy kitchen with a wood-burning stove squatting in the corner like a household god.

Sonja paused to glance about the room, a quizzical look on her face. "Where's Papa Beloved?"

"Gran'daddy passed on," VéVé replied simply. "It's just me now." She pushed open a swinging door that lead to what had once, long ago, been a fancy dining room. The tables and chairs were no longer in residence, but a crystal chandelier, its pendants swathed in cobwebs, still hung from a hook in the ceiling.

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) Unlike the kitchen, the rest of the house's interior was gloomy, the shades drawn against the light. The furnishings were spare and the carpets threadbare, but the place was otherwise tidy, save for the ever-present dust that large old houses generate. VéVé steered Sonja through the front parlor and headed up the wide wooden staircase that led to the second story.

The second floor was easily just as gloomy and twice as warm as the first. Sweat instantly leapt from Estes' forehead and armpits as he struggled to breathe the humid air.

"Here, You can stay in my room," VéVé said, pushing open the door nearest the stairs.

VéVé's bedroom was filled with antiques that had never been retired from active service. A walnut chiffarobe large enough to house a family of three stood against one wall, the growling griffins carved into its top board frozen in eternal sentinel, and a colorful hand-made quilt was folded across the footboard of the whitewashed iron bedstead. Without a further word, Sonja collapsed across the bed. The springs squealed in rusty protest as her weight struck the sagging mattress.

"She'll be okay here," VéVé said quietly.

Estes studied the warped and mildew-stained chintz paper clinging to the walls. "Won't she be too hot up here?"

VéVé shook her head. "She don't feel the heat no more than she feels the cold." She turned to look at Estes for the first time. "You must be new to her if you don't know that."

"We met a couple of days ago," he replied. "My name is Jack. Jack Estes."

"You must be thirsty, Mr. Estes. Go sit on the porch. I'll bring you some lemonade."

Estes sat on the glider on the front porch, listening to the chains squeal in polite protest as he rocked gently back and forth, and stared at the magnificent oaks that lined the drive. It was not hard to imagine the mansion's original owner seated on the exact same porch, sipping mint juleps and fanning himself with the brim of his planter's hat as he looked out upon his domain.

"Wonderful view, ain't it?" VéVé set a serving tray with a sweating pitcher of lemonade and a pair of glasses onto a nearby table. Now that he was able to get a good look at her, Estes realized what he had first mistaken for splotches on her skin were actually markings of some sort. There were dozens of them, scattered about her body like freckles.

"Are those tattoos?" he asked, pointing to the filigreed anchor on the top of her right hand as she took a seat beside him.

"No, Mr. Estes," she said with a gentle smile that told him she was used to being asked such questions.

"They ain't tattoos, they's birthmarks."

He lifted and eyebrow and tried not to choke on his drink. "Is that a fact?"

As she flashed him a dazzling white smile, Estes realized for the first time how young his hostess truly was. "Sonja didn't tell you much about us, did she?"

"No, she didn't. To tell the truth, I didn't even know we were coming to New Orleans until a few hours ago. How is it you know each other?"

"How is it she knows you?" VéVé said, no hint of hostility in her voice. "My guess is she just kind of crossed over into your life, unintentional like. That's just her way, though. Her life bumped into mine a long time ago. She knew Papa Beloved even longer. He wasn't my actual gran'daddy, you know. Not by blood. I don't know who my real folks was. He treated me as his own, though, and that's what counts. He was a powerful houngan."

Estes' eyes lit up as he finally realized where he had seen the marks covering her body before. They were the ritual symbols associated with Haitian voudou.

"Your grandfather was a priest?"

"Yes. As I am a priestess. He was respected for his wisdom and the strength of his mojo. Some said he got his power because his mama conceived him while she was possessed by one of the loa."

"So how did he come to know Sonja?"

"She deals in occult artifacts. Papa Beloved was one of her customers. That's how they first come to know each other. Then, after she gave me to him, they got to be fairly close friends."

"She gave you to your grandfather?"

"It ain't what it sounds like. Only reason I'm alive an' kickin' is on account of her. Twenty years ago, while in Haiti, Sonja stumbled across a ritual in a graveyard. The worshippers were 'bout to up an' sacrifice a little-bitty baby to the cannibal spirits. I was that baby. Sonja saved me from the knife and, recognizin' me as marked by the loa, turned me over to Papa Beloved, who raised me as his own. That's why she'll always

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) have a safe harbor here at Mojo House."