The Hoodoo Detective (4 page)

Forcing her muscles to soften, she let the above and below and between flow through her, until her hands buzzed with energy.

The Old Man had wanted her here tonight, and the last time they'd tangled, just before her wedding, she'd barely escaped. Riga was stronger now, but he was better prepared.

Nodding to herself, she strode inside the hotel, past the marble reception desk, through doors and tight hallways until she found the courtyard. A fountain splashed in the center of its gray flagstones. Shadows of spiky plants and trees trailed across the brickwork, lengthened by the garden's spotlights.

The Old Man sat outside, beside a white-paned window and the woman Riga had seen in the restaurant video. Riga walked to them.

He was in a wheelchair, and her footsteps faltered.

Her eyes narrowed. Last year, he'd been on his feet. The chair seemed false. But everything about him seemed wrong to her.

Looking up, he laid his book in his lap. “Hello, young lady.”

“Good evening, Old Man.”

He turned his head toward the woman. “I'd like to speak to this lady alone, if you don't mind?”

The woman nodded, smiling, and went into the room behind them, shutting the door.

He leaned back in his chair. The wheels creaked. “I expected you a bit later. Perhaps the witching hour?”

Riga took the chair the woman had vacated, planting her feet firmly on the ground, letting magic flow through her feet, into her solar plexus.

“I don't really think that's necessary,” he said. “After all, we haven't even formally introduced ourselves.”

“I think I know you pretty well.”

“I doubt that. You, on the other hand, are an open book.” He clucked his tongue. “Careless. Reckless. Spreading your exploits all over the media.”

Reaching into her pocket, she held up a warning finger and dug out her cell phone. “Hold that thought.”

He rolled his eyes. “You of all people a slave to technology?”

“Have to check a text.”

“I thought you had better manners.”

“Not with you.” She took his picture, pocketed the phone. “No one I need to text back.”

“Are you done?”

“No. The hoodoo hit man – did you kill him or hire him?”

“The hoodoo... Oh yes, that poor soul at the restaurant. I do have some self-respect, you know. When I want you dead, I'll kill you myself. Though as you can see, I could hardly have murdered him.” He motioned toward his wheelchair.

“That's logical. You're capable of killing me but too feeble to kill Mr. Hoodoo?” The wheelchair had to be a ploy.

“His throat was cut, wasn't it?”

“Too mundane for you?”

“Too physical. There was a time I wasn't above that sort of thing – sacrifices, you know – but our other... methods do come in handy. If you live to be my age, you'll understand.”

“Interesting, you mentioning sacrifices. I saw photos of one here, today. Your handiwork?”

His eyes widened, pools of sham innocence. “I'm sure I don't know what you mean.”

“A sacrifice, a demon called. I wonder how the sigils will match up with samples of sigils you've drawn?”

“Doing handwriting analysis on sigils? I don't believe that's possible and neither do you. What a feeble threat.”

“I'll stop you.”

“Please. I'm just a helpless old codger.”

“I see you've got yourself a wheelchair. Does that get you to the head of the line at amusement parks?”

His lips pressed into a slash.

“And that woman – is she your nurse?” She put the last word in air quotes. “Sponge baths and spoon feeding. Pretty sweet set up.”

His bony hand fisted. Dark energy flared, hot and cold, twisting her gut.

She tensed.

“Do you think I'd be in this thing for one second if I didn't have to?” he snarled.

“If it got you out of a murder rap, sure. I suppose your nurse tucks you in at night? The turn-down service at the hotel must be a break for her.”

“Damn you.” His voice was a hiss.

“You don't have to play act around me. There aren't any hidden cameras. What's your game?”

His hand unclenched. “My game?” He chuckled. “You don't really expect me to tell you the rules, do you?” His brows rose. “Oh, but of course you do. You're Riga Hayworth, sledgehammering your way to the truth.”

Riga yawned, heart banging against her ribs, ready for his attack. He'd killed so many – the train wreck in Singapore, the contagion in Manila. And now he was here, and he was planning something deadly. When he was involved, it was always deadly.

“I didn't kill him,” he said. “And I didn't hire him. Is that what you came for?”

“You know what I came for.”

His eyes widened behind his spectacles. “But that would spoil the game.” He reached for a bell on the low table beside him. Its ring was metallic, grating.

The woman emerged from the room.

“I think I'm ready to turn in now,” he said.

She nodded, grasping the handles of his wheelchair, and steered him inside.

Back tight, Riga left the hotel, ready for his assault. Behind St. Louis Cathedral, the garden statue of the Virgin Mary stretched out her hands, casting a crucifix-like shadow upon its high, white wall. His attack would come. He’d invited her to his hotel for a reason, and it hadn’t been to chat.

Turning down Pirates Alley, she walked beneath yellow street lamps. A group of revelers exploded from a side street, and she leapt aside, heart thundering. Laughing, they stumbled away.

She crossed Jackson Square and made her way to the company van she'd “borrowed” from Sam and parked outside the French Quarter.

Getting in, she locked the doors, gripped the wheel.

Nothing had happened.

No hordes of zombies, no bolts of deadly energy.

The Old Man was up to something. But his denials about the hoodoo hit man had rung true. Subconsciously, had she fallen for the wheelchair act?

Riga reached for the keys. Metal crunched above her, and the van swayed. Her heart choked her throat, her hands slamming on the dash. Scrapes, slithering. Another thunk.

Swearing, she bolted from the van. “Brigitte! This isn't my car!”

A gargoyle peered down at her, its wings folded neatly upon its stone-feathered back. “I should hope not.” The gargoyle's voice was a French-accented smoker’s gravel. “It is
très
tacky. All you need are ze fuzzy dice and a bumper sticker that says, if this van is rocking—”

“Off the van.” Riga ground her teeth.

Spreading her wings, the gargoyle fluttered to the pavement. Brigitte sneered at the logo emblazoned across the side of the van:
Supernatural Encounters!

Riga surveyed the damage: talon marks in the black paint, a dent in the roof. She'd snaffled the van keys when Sam wasn't looking, because if she'd asked permission, she would have wound up with a curious film crew in tow. How was she going to explain the damage? He'd have every right to be furious.

“What has happened?” the gargoyle asked.

Riga slid open the van door. “Get in,” she said. Brigitte wasn't going to be brushed off, and she'd rather this conversation take place where the gargoyle wasn’t visible to stray tourists.

The gargoyle hopped inside, her wings banging equipment piled along the walls.

“Where've you been hiding yourself?” Swinging into the driver's seat, Riga slammed the door shut and twisted around.

“Ze cemeteries, of course. I hunch menacingly over ze graves, and ze tourists take my photo, never dreaming that they have encountered a gargoyle of living stone. It is quite amusing. And ze TV show?”

“It was a bust until today, when a hoodoo hit man threatened to kill me. But someone killed him first, and another reality TV show –
Mean Streets
– came crashing in. Now we're partnered up with
Mean Streets
, and I'm a consultant on the occult to the local cops. And the Old Man is in town. He was at the restaurant where the hit man was killed, but I can't figure out if he hired him or killed him.”

Brigitte scratched behind her head with stone talons. “Did you kill him?”

“I just told you someone else killed the hit man.”

“I meant ze Old Man.”

“No.”

“Why not? He will kill you and who knows how many others when he gets ze chance. You must strike now.”

“I'm not an executioner.”

“Faugh! How many times must we argue about this? I tell you to kill a necromancer. You say you cannot because you are not an assassin. And then what happens? You end up killing them anyway. I think you simply enjoy ze fight.”

“You know I don't.” She'd killed before in self-defense. But fighting off an attack was very different from murder. Murder was a line she couldn't cross.

“Your aunts do not make such fine distinctions.”

“My aunts aren't here.”

The gargoyle nipped at a bent feather. “If you do not kill him, you will regret it.”

“I already have.” Riga started the van and drove toward her hotel. “Where do you want to get out?”

“You are not taking me to your hotel?”

“The windows don't open. There's no way you could get in and out.”

Brigitte made a disgusted noise. “What sort of hotel is this? Why would you stay there?”

“Because the crew's there, and Pen...” She trailed off. It would be a while before Pen forgave her. But eventually she'd understand. She hoped. Riga gnawed her bottom lip.

“And how is ze brave Pen?”

“Going home tomorrow. I don't want her around this, not with murder and necromancers underfoot.”

“And how does Pen feel about this?”

Riga didn't respond.

“Let me out here,” the gargoyle said.

Riga pulled beside a levee, stopping beneath a live oak. Getting out, she opened the sliding door.

The gargoyle sprang, soared upward.

Riga walked to the top of the embankment, watching Brigitte soar above the Mississippi’s winding, dark path. In spite of the damage to the van, which she'd have to pay for, Riga was glad to have the gargoyle near. Brigitte had been a good friend, an ally, and her familiar. She'd helped Riga figure her way through the changes to her magic. Her presence was comforting.

Sending out a silent thank you to the gargoyle, Riga drove to the hotel.

The hotel was well outside the French quarter, near a freeway overpass. But management had made an effort at style, and she smiled at the clerk behind the granite-topped reception desk. The carpet, a modern geometric pattern, softened her footfalls. She took the elevator to the fourth floor.

The hallway walls were painted a soft blue, and a river of gold-painted whorls rippled through them. She ran her hands lightly along the golden trail, its texture tickling her fingertips. Why had she believed the Old Man?

Rounding the corner, she stopped outside Pen's door, rapping lightly with her knuckles.

Riga shifted, waiting. Knocked again.

Pen didn’t answer.

She extended her senses into Pen’s hotel room, a gentle push of her aura, felt life, energy, magic.

A mild shock zapped her.

Grimacing, she retracted her aura. Pen had pushed back. On the positive side, that meant she was practicing her defenses. On the negative side... Ow. Riga rubbed her shoulder, which had taken the brunt of the charge.

Pulling out her phone, she texted: We need 2 talk.

She sensed rather than saw the man, a pressure of air, a blur in the corner of her eye.

Riga spun, and the man hit her in the chest. She staggered back, nearly tumbling to the carpet. His hand grasped her neck and lifted her, pressing her against the wall. Pain blossomed in her throat, a hot ache.

He was big, close, his nose flattened like a boxer's, but he dressed like a businessman. Beside her, just out of reach, was a fire alarm. She stretched. If she could pull it, get attention...

She crashed her forearm atop his. His grip didn't loosen.

Against the wall, she couldn't turn, couldn't move to break free. Dots swam before her eyes. His breath was hot on her cheek, and smelled of onions and crawfish and beer.

She curled her hands into claws. Swiping down in quick, short motions, she slashed at his eyes, drawing lines of blood across his cheeks.

He swore, blinking, raising his hands to his eyes.

She kicked him in the crotch.

He doubled over, and she smashed her knee into his face. Riga whirled on the fire alarm and saw the extinguisher nearby. Wrenching it off the wall, she bashed him in the back of the head.

Pen’s door opened. She stuck her head out, paled.

“Call security,” Riga croaked. “Get help.”

Pen ducked inside and slammed the door.

The man lay face down on the ground now, groaning.

She dropped one knee on his back, the other on his neck, eliciting another gasp of pain.

A hit man in an alley, and now an attack in her hotel? It wasn't a coincidence.

Rage blossomed, a veil of red drawing across her vision. Her breath came in short rasps. She grabbed one of his arms and wrenched it upward, locking the shoulder, propping his arm between her knees.

The attack on her wasn't random, it wasn't a coincidence, and this time she was going to get answers.

A metal door bammed open. Two men in black t-shirts with SECURITY emblazoned across their chests charged down the hotel hallway. They were built like pro-wrestlers. No hair. No necks.

Riga knew what was coming next, but made the effort anyway. “I'm a hotel guest, restraining this man for the—”

One grabbed her by her collar and threw her to the floor. The fire extinguisher clunked at her feet.

“—police.” She gasped as he drove his knee into her back. Karma was a bitch, and her muscles quivered at the insult. “He assaulted me.”

“You can tell it to the cops.” Her captor let up some of the pressure on her back.

Riga knew the drill. Keep everyone restrained and sort it out later. “He's dangerous. Don’t let him up,” she rasped. Her attacker had done a number on her throat.

“He’s not going anywhere.”

Her attacker groaned.

She turned her head, cheek pressed into the carpet.

The other guard checked out her attacker, one hand on his shoulder. “This guy’s hurt bad. I think he needs an ambulance.” Guard Number Two looked to his colleague.