The Demon Curse (2 page)

The compartment door rattled open, and an attendant wheeled in a trolley crowded with silver-domed platters. Elderly, plump, and wearing a uniform that had gone a little moldy in the heat, he positioned the trolley in front of Harry and his friends and bowed. Harry folded up the letter hastily and glanced back through the window. The train was still rattling alongside the river, but he could make out some broken-down buildings on its farside and, peering ahead, he saw more buildings still.

“Did everything your friend requested!” The attendant rose from his bow. “Every particular!”

“Our friend?” Billie asked.

“Why yes, young missy. You must know him? Tall fellow, wearing a pale suit, and with an ever-so-neatly trimmed white beard.” The attendant pointed back into the corridor. “I met him out there last night. Standing outside the door, he was. The curtain was down, and he showed me your tickets and said you weren't to be disturbed until ten minutes before the train arrived. And that's now!” He lifted the dome from a platter, revealing bacon, eggs, and sweet-smelling plumes of steam. “Tipped handsome too, your friend.”

“Hmmm.” Arthur lifted a silver fork and gave the bacon a careful prod. “So, in ten minutes, this train is going to arrive—where exactly?”

“This is the Crescent Express!” The attendant lifted another dome, revealing pastries. “Only one place it can be heading: the great southern city of New Orleans!”

“New Orleans?” Billie gasped.

Harry saw her reflection, curved out of shape on a silver dome, and then looked at Billie herself and thought that she was a little altered too. Various expressions were flashing across her face—interest, puzzlement, and even a flicker of sadness—and Harry was about to ask her about it when he saw something else out of the corner of his eye and swung toward the window.

Another train was hurtling along beside them, on tracks about twelve feet away. Hovering in one of its windows was a face.

The attendant stared at the other train too. “Say, isn't that your friend? Right…there?”

A
pale
suit. A neatly trimmed beard.

It was the man Harry remembered from New York.

“Harry!” Billie yelled.

But Harry had already pushed down the handle of the door. He threw it open, the billowing wind slamming it against the carriage's side. Pushing away the breakfast trolley, Harry took two steps back from the open door, four steps, five. He crouched down and felt his whole body tense as he prepared to run and leap across to the other train, just twelve feet away.

“Harry, don't do it!” Arthur's voice shouted in his ear. At the same time, he could feel hands grabbing him, pulling him back, hands that belonged to the attendant and to Artie and Billie too.

They've got a point
, Harry thought as he stared out at the other train.

It was curving away. It wasn't twelve feet away anymore; it was fifteen feet, twenty feet.
Too
far
, he thought.
Even
for
me
. But he kept his gaze fixed on the other train and at the man staring right back at him.

He was exactly as Harry remembered him. His pale suit was immaculately tailored, his beard neatly trimmed. But it was the stare that Harry recognized most, even though the man was some distance away.
Two
piercing
gray
eyes…

The other train curved off to the west, and the face drew away until it became a dot, a tiny pale smudge.

Harry kept watching.

But then the train hurtled behind some buildings, and the man in the pale suit vanished from view.

“Orleans Central,” said Harry, reading the large sign welcoming them to the station. He jumped down from the train and swept along the platform, dodging the other passengers as they heaved their luggage out of the carriages. Trolleys rattled, porters shouted, and steam billowed from the train's engine, blotting out the late-afternoon light. Harry took a bite from a pastry grabbed from the breakfast trolley as he left. Beside him, Billie and Arthur munched on various breakfast snacks too.

“Tasty.” Arthur nibbled at a sausage. “That's one thing we know for certain about our friend—he puts on a good breakfast.”

“Sure, but it's the
only
thing we know.” Billie wiped bacon grease from her mouth. “Unless any more magic ink's shown up on that letter, Harry?”

“Sorry, no.” Harry checked the letter again.

“So we're still in the dark,” Billie tutted. “All we can be sure of is that we're mixed up with someone who's bought us breakfast and works for an organization that's perfectly happy to drug three kids, lock them in suitcases, and transport them hundreds of miles away.”

“It's also an organization that unmasks and defeats evildoing, remember?” Harry tapped the letter, safe in his jacket pocket.

“So we're told.” Arthur fished out a leather notebook from his pocket, flicked through pages of purple handwriting, and twiddled a fountain pen. “Look, if you ask me, we should get the next train back to New York. Apart from anything else, Harry, we need to keep working on our act at the theater.” He jotted a few notes. “Escaping from the underwater cage is all very well, but we've got to keep thinking up more ideas for death-defyingly dangerous magic—our fans will get bored otherwise. I've been writing down some thoughts... Have you had any?”

“One or two,” said Harry. They were out through the platform gate, and he had noticed a food stall standing a short distance away across the ticket hall. Fresh fish sizzled on a grill. Coals burned furiously below.

Harry's thoughts snapped back to the moment in the train carriage, his friends holding him back. They were right to do so, but the energy of those few seconds still quivered inside him, and it would be a waste not to use it. Besides, his friends had noticed the burning coals too.

Harry stared at them, and they stared right back, nodding.

Billie hurried across to the stall owner and talked to him. Arthur ran to another nearby stall and fetched Harry a glass of water. Soon, Billie was fishing among the coals beneath the grill with a pair of iron tongs while Arthur marched up and down, attracting the attention of a few passersby.

“Prepare to be amazed!” He waved his arms. “Prepare to be astounded! Prepare to witness Harry Houdini, the boy who has no fear! For what need has he of fear…when magical powers are in his grasp?”

Nicely
put
, thought Harry. Arthur was good at speeches, and he had done a good job with making up that name for him too, back in New York. Harry drained the rest of the glass of water, handed it to a man in the crowd that had gathered, and stepped forward. Billie was holding up the tongs, and gripped between them was a coal, bright red with heat.

She threw it straight at him.

Harry thrust out a fist and jerked it upward just as the coal hit. As the coal flew up into the air, pain bit into the skin of his knuckles, but he ignored it, keeping his eyes fixed on the flaming coal as it soared back down again. This time he bounced it off his arm, and he saw wisps of smoke curl from the point where it had hit his jacket sleeve. Next, he caught it on his boot, kicking it up in the air again as high as he could. As it started to descend, he turned to the crowd and raised an eyebrow. Then he held up an arm perfectly straight and tilted back his hand so that the opening of his sleeve gaped, waiting.

“Behold Harry!” Arthur cried. “The boy whom fire cannot harm!”

The coal gathered speed as it rocketed downward, glowing white. The crowd, Harry noticed, was already quite big, and every face was totally absorbed in the trick. He stared up and muttered a few phrases of Hungarian, his old language, knowing that the unfamiliar words would sound mysterious, magical even, to his audience. His arm remained upright, and he tilted his hand even further so that the sleeve was open wide enough.

The blazing coal shot straight down inside it.

Screams from the crowd. A woman fainted, collapsing into her friends. Harry, contorting his face with expressions of pain, clutched at his wrist, then his elbow, then the base of his arm as the coal tumbled down inside his sleeve. He clutched at his chest as it traveled under his shirt, burning into his skin.

Except
it's doing no such thing
, he thought with the tiniest smile as he whisked the upright arm down and glimpsed a fiery glow trapped between the hem of his jacket sleeve and the thick cuff of his shirt. A flick of the wrist had caught the coal there, and another dart of his arm tipped it into the side pocket of his jacket as his other arm continued to hold his audience's attention by furiously clutching at his stomach. He tugged at his belt and started to mime the descent of the coal down the inside of his left trouser leg, gritting his teeth with pretend agony. He glanced down at his jacket pocket and saw wisps rising from it, but he knew he had a few more seconds, thanks to the fact that he had tipped half of the glass of water down his sleeve just before the trick began.

Another wince of pretend pain. Harry crouched down and scrabbled at his left ankle, as if the coal were stuck there.

A
flash
of
an
arm. A flick of a wrist.

The coal was out of his pocket, lodged beneath the heel of his boot. No one saw, too gripped by the way he was scrabbling at his ankle. Harry sprang away, shaking his leg, and there the coal was, lying on the ground just as if it had dropped out of his trouser leg. He gave it a skillful kick, sending it flying up toward Billie, who was waiting with a bucket of water. It shot straight in and disappeared in a hissing cloud of steam.

The audience burst into applause, clapping, cheering, and waving hats in the air. During the short time of the trick, the crowd had nearly doubled in size, and Harry spread his arms wide and lowered himself into his usual bow, straightening back up in time to catch every one of the coins that were being thrown at him. Swiveling around, he set off across the ticket hall, counting the coins and dividing them out between himself and his two friends, who were marching alongside him.

“The Flying Coal Trick,” said Billie. “Always a hit.”

“I'm thinking of using two coals next time.” Harry licked his slightly burnt knuckles and smiled. “Obviously that might take a bit of practice.”

“Two coals or one, maybe we should include it in our stage act a bit more often.” Arthur took out his pen and notebook again and started scribbling. “Anyway, I still reckon we should head back to New York. But there's probably not a train back until tomorrow at least, and since we're already starting to draw crowds here, why not take advantage of that? You know how quickly word spreads. Maybe we could even find a theater, persuade them to book our act.”

“Good idea, Artie,” Harry said. “Just because New York's talking about us, no reason why New Orleans can't start doing the same, eh?”

“So I guess we need a place a stay,” Arthur continued. “Any ideas, Billie? You're the one who knows your way around, after all.”

“Sure do,” said Billie. “That's the oddest thing of all about this business, isn't it?”

Harry and Arthur looked at her. Ahead of them were the doors leading out of the station, and Harry saw that Billie's gaze was fixed on them and at the blurred shapes in their frosted windows, hints of the city beyond.

“Of all the places we could have ended up, who'd have thought it would be New Orleans?” Billie hurried on. “The one place in the whole of America that I know best. This is where it all started off, guys—my long journey on the road north, just me and a bag on my shoulder to keep me company…”

“That's right. After your escape from the Grace Villa Orphanage.” Arthur chuckled. “When you tied up the owner and lowered yourself out a window with a rope of knotted sheets. I've always loved that story.”

“A fair few other things happened to me before that, here in New Orleans. Some good, some not so good…” She pushed straight out through the doors to the station. “Anyway, I definitely know somewhere to stay—come on!”

Harry grabbed Arthur's arm, and together they chased after her, but Billie was already halfway down the steps outside, her smock fluttering out behind her in the breeze. Harry and Arthur followed Billie out into the city, along streets unlike any others Harry had seen before.

The late-afternoon sun was fading, but every building seemed to gleam, white walls and shutters pulsing with light wherever the sun touched them. Wrought-iron balconies jutted out into the street, their intricate loops sparkling. Chains dangled from the balconies, and at the end of each one, a huge flowering plant hung, the sun shining onto the purple flowers, making them glow. Harry sniffed the rich perfume wafting from the blooms. But then his nose wrinkled as he swung to the left and followed Billie down a dark alleyway.

Sour odors drifted in the gloom. Harry felt a drip of water on his neck, and he looked up to see hundreds of laundry lines crisscrossing between the rickety buildings, each one crowded with clothes attempting to dry in the humid heat. Voices, some in English, some in languages he didn't understand, floated out of broken windows, along with the sound of someone playing the piano, slightly out of tune but incredibly fast. Billie led them out of the alley, across another street, and up to a low, broken-down wall. Harry looked over it and saw the huge brown river, stretching away into the distance.

“The Mississippi River.” Billie swung over the wall and trod down some steps onto a rickety wooden wharf. “C'mon. They're always around here this time of day.”

Harry followed her down the steps. He looked around at the vast, murky river, glittering in the sun. Its farside was thick with haze, but he saw buildings, docks, and factory towers there. Steam ferries, rowboats, and schooners plowed the waters, along with a vessel he didn't recognize, a huge white one built out of clapperboards, with a circular paddle rotating behind. Harry heard voices—high-pitched, excited ones—and saw that Billie, who had stopped halfway along the wharf, was surrounded by small, ragged children, tugging her clothes and laughing.

“Billie! It is you, isn't it?”

“You came back!”

“Where have you been?”

“We always knew you'd come back one day!”

The wharf creaked as the children leaped about. More ran in, some about five years old, some younger. Harry listened to their voices and realized that the children had almost exactly the same accent as Billie, the same bouncing drawl. He watched them as they left Billie and ran back along the jetty toward a cluster of moored fishing boats at its end. A group of men and women were lugging baskets of fish, and the children crowded around them, laughing and pointing back at Billie.

“Who are these people?” Harry asked. “How come you've never told us about them?”

“You've told us pretty much everything else that's happened to you,” Arthur added. “You and your stories of life on the road. Chefs in Chattanooga, blind tramps in Tennessee, sabotaged laundries in Atlantic City—”

“Some stories aren't so easy to tell.” Billie looked out across the river. “Doesn't mean they don't matter though. The Islanders, that's who these folk are. Come and sell their fish in the markets every day. But that's the bit of New Orleans they live in, always have done. Fisherman's Point. Right out there.”

She pointed across the river toward the haze on the other side. Harry made out an outcrop of land, surrounded by jetties and fishing skiffs, with a collection of huts on it. Smoke rose from the huts' chimneys, darkening the haze, and Harry saw tiny shapes moving on the jetties. He heard something and glanced back at Billie. Her eyes, he noticed, seemed strangely bright.

“They took me in,” she said. “We'd just arrived in New Orleans, me and my ma…”

“Your ma?” Harry frowned. “But I thought you were an orphan.”

“I am.” Billie looked at him. “Things don't always stay the way they're meant to be, do they?”

Harry felt a blush climbing up his neck and spreading over his face. He looked down at the rickety timbers tilting under his boots. Harry felt Billie take hold of his hand, and he looked up.

“It's not your fault, Harry. I've never told you this stuff—can't expect you to guess it, can I? And it happened a while ago—two years, more or less. I should be getting used to it by now.” She looked back across the river. “We were on the road, me and Ma. We'd been doing fine, like we always did. But then Ma got sick. Real sick. The Islanders, they took us in, and they did what they could to help her. Used some of their medicines and special prayers. It wasn't enough but…” She managed a smile. “At least I wasn't on my own. And I wasn't on my own afterward either. They told me I could stay as long as I wanted and—”

“And for a while, you did.” A voice cut in. “But only for a while.”

Harry turned, the warmth still lingering in his face. He watched Billie move away from him toward one of the Islanders, an elderly woman with children clustered behind. Billie stepped forward and then hesitated, waiting.

“Child, you have come back.” The elderly woman spoke. “My fears are at an end.”

She walked up to Billie, her cotton dress stirring in the breeze, her gray hair tied under a plain lace bonnet. She looked down, intricate wrinkles spreading out from her eyes. Wrinkles spread over her hands too—hands that she placed on Billie's head.