Prophecy (Residue Series #4) (11 page)

Rolling back into a bending position, she clutched herself and concentrated. It took several minutes of writhing and moaning, but eventually her symptoms subsided.

Then it finally came to me what had just happened.

“Your touch will be as venomous to you as a black widow…,” I muttered, recalling the words, my teeth automatically clenching against my growing rage.

“Wha…?”

“Charlotte.”

“You mean the cast?”

I nodded, because I needed a second to douse my anger.

Jocelyn blinked, confused. “But we already tri…and you’re touching me,” she began to counter, and then her eyes widened with understanding. “If
I
touch anyone
else
,” she moaned, “I will feel the venom of a black widow spider.” Her head dropped and she stared at the floorboards. Then a quiet laugh shook her delicate shoulders. In it, I detected a sign of respect. “Clever…”

“She was smart enough to do it as she was leaving,” I said, my temper flaring again despite my efforts. “She knew that would hurt you,” I fumed, marching to the door to look outside, just in case the boat had broken down, just in case they might have returned for some reason, in case fate had somehow given me a chance to confront her and demand that she remove the curse. But the village was quiet, only the soft sound of Jocelyn’s footsteps approaching me from behind broke the silence.

“She did it to protect you.”

“She’s going to remove that curse,” I said in a low growl.

Because she couldn’t touch me, Jocelyn moved around until she was standing in front of me. “She won’t. We both know that. Don’t dwell on it, Jameson. I want to appreciate the time we have together.”

It took several long breaths and for Jocelyn to shift into my view for it to dispel but eventually my anger dissolved.

Still, I couldn’t stop my tone from being despondent when I said, “I’ve been apart from you for weeks, and now that we’re together, we can’t touch.”

Her eyes filled with sadness as she reached a hand up to my cheek, stopping before it got there. It hovered in midair before dropping to her side.

“I’ll find a way,” I vowed. “I will find a way, Jocelyn.”

She nodded, hopelessly, and shifted her eyes past me, out the door and into the bayou.

The sound of the motorboat Miss Mabelle was using reached us, telling us that we’d be leaving for our new, secret residence.

Damn
, I thought. I wanted just a few more minutes with her. Just a few more….

Jocelyn turned to me, oblivious of my need for her.

“So this is why Miss Mabelle and Miss Celia waited here all that time? Nine weeks on the platform? So that we could be led to safety?”

I nodded my confirmation, still trying to work through the need to be with her a little longer.

“Thank you, for coming for me and defending me.”

“Jocelyn, I love you. I will always come for you and I’ll always defend you.”

She smiled softly at me. “Do you know I always feel safe around you?”

“You should. I’d give my life for you.”

“And I would do the same,” she said, her insinuation clear.

“I know that, and soon my family will too. They’ll accept it, they’ll need to.”

She smiled teasingly. “Because I am the air you breathe?”

“Yes.”

“And the force that causes your heart to beat? The incentive for the blood to flow through your veins?”

“Yes,” I said, fighting the urge to pull her to me. “You are the reason I exist at all.”

An intoxicating grin rose up behind her eyes, stirring me.

Damn you, Charlotte.
Just wait until you fall in love.

A thump outside told me that Miss Mabelle had landed.

Jocelyn peered out the door but hesitated.

“You’re different now,” she said, turning back to me. “Something’s changed you. Our time apart, the Ministry, I don’t know, but you’re…more unyielding.”

She was right. I didn’t see anything the way I had when we first met. Back then it was simple: make covert deliveries to the prisoners, be an admirable Officer to the village, study hard. Everything had changed. Sacrifices were greater and harder to make. It felt like Death its self was seeking us out. I was more driven…diligent…mindful than I had ever been before.

“Is this a good change? Did I change for the better?”

She considered this for a few seconds and then a subtle smirk crept up and with her provocative voice she whispered back to me, “It’s an attractive change.”

That simple, sincere response made me feel the best I had in weeks. I didn’t think anything could improve on it, until I closed the door behind me. My hand lingered on the doorknob as it dawned on me that Charlotte’s cast kept Jocelyn from touching others, but it didn’t impose any restrictions on me.

“Come on, now,” Miss Mabelle snapped. “Hurry it up. You roomin’ tagetha’. If that don’t make ya rush, I don’t know what will….”

It did, because I had every intention of testing out my new theory tonight.

7
“BEDROOM”

O
UR NEW HOME WAS CRAMPED, DIMLY
lit, and reeked of mildew. Our hosts weren’t all that inviting, and the atmosphere of the place was gloomy. But it appeared adequate enough to do its job, which was solely to keep Jocelyn safe.

Lucky for us, a fog rolled into New Orleans while we were in the air, giving us cover to land just outside the door of Mr. and Mrs. DeVille’s store in the heart of the French Quarter.

It was a few hours past midnight but not everyone was asleep. Music from the clubs down on Bourbon Street was still pumping, and a light seeping through the small, dirty window next to the DeVille’s door confirmed that our hosts were up.

They shouldn’t have been. The place should have been empty, but it seemed that there had been a change of plans.

Miss Mabelle safely delivered us but she didn’t wait any longer than was needed. I thanked her, Jocelyn gave her a hug, and she left, walking alertly through the overgrown foliage of the DeVille’s courtyard and out the front gate.

We waited in silence and then the door opened. Mr. DeVille cautiously peered out. Recognizing us, he ushered us in and quickly closed the door, missing my heel by an inch in his hurry. It was clear he didn’t want to risk being seen, and that was diligent of him. It’s the kind of vigilance that kept you alive. He waved us on, guiding us down the narrow hallway and into their storeroom.

Mr. and Mrs. DeVille own a shop in the heart of the French Quarter, filled with various tools of sorcery that some in our world find important or appealing. The front room held a mismatch of statues, candles, gris-gris bags, and other miscellaneous objects placed where they were last left, in no particular order. The back room, which was off-limits to customers, was no different. It held stacks of outdated, dusty, leather-bound books, broken candle holders, and ceremonial furniture with either gutted cushions or broken legs.

Once inside, the dankness makes a person feel like they are in an underground cavern. My mother used to call her shopping trips here “field trips from reality”. Unfortunately, we’d come full circle now, where the surreal had become the new reality.

Mrs. DeVille ambled around the corner, where her hunched figure suddenly stopped. At first, I thought it was because she expected an argument from me as to why she wasn’t in hiding. But after a tip of her nose to stare over her glasses at me, she gave me a disapproving look from top to bottom. “Nice uniform,” she muttered snidely, strolling past me to a ten-foot tall mirror bordered by sterling silver serpents.

I glanced down and realized that I still looked like a Vire.

“Be nice, Love,” Mr. DeVille chastised, to which she responded with a look of disgust. “They’ve both been through a lot.”

“While managing to drag us into it all along with them,” she said as a glaring reminder before spinning around and dismissively sticking her butt in the air at us, as she began to dig for something in the pile of trash in the corner.

As I watched her there were several notions going through my head. First, her view of the situation was dangerously warped. Second, and more importantly, I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t
us
doing the dragging. It was our enemies, who were also
her enemies
, whether she wanted to recognize it or not. Someday they would be the ones knocking on her door, busting it down, and they wouldn’t be nearly as apologetic or as thankful as we are for her hospitality.

Bringing all this up wouldn’t help any of us. Instead, I directed my comment to another point of contention. “You’re supposed to be in hiding, Mrs. DeVille.”

“Mmmhmm,” she mumbled, deep in the boxes surrounding her head. “And we’re not supposed to be harboring known felons. It isn’t something I’m proud of, you know.”

“Felons?” Jocelyn said.

Mr. DeVille frowned and started for the front room, throwing his hands in the air at the door, and abandoning whatever effort he was going to make. “I’ll just tell you,” he grumbled. “They’re sending out declarations, saying you are the reason behind people disappearing, that you’re leading a Vire contingent around to kill or apprehend those who agreed to join you.”

“Jameson?” Jocelyn said, offended. While I didn’t need it, I appreciated her support. But none of this took me by surprise. I had been counting on it. The counter-propaganda lessons my mother had forced on me at age twelve, while Dillon and Burke were outside playing, were beginning to come in handy.

“So they’re trying to make the Dissidents fear me,” I assessed. “Does anyone believe it?”

“Some, not many. But every time they find some kind of possession of yours at the site of another abduction, your credibility-”

“Starts to stink,” Mrs. DeVille’s muffled voice broke in.

“You know whatever was left behind was planted there, don’t you?” After our houses were raided?” I ventured.

“We do,” he said in a way that told me not everyone else did.

I nodded, deciding I needed time to contemplate this information. Nothing could be done about it now, anyways.

“So we’re taking a big risk trying to help you two out,” Mrs. DeVille added in a surly tone.

“How is the rest of your coven?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Miserable,” she retorted.

“Are they safe?” I was insinuating, without having to point it out, that I had helped secure their secret homes too.

Her slight pause made me realize she’d picked up on my message. “Yes.”

“Good,” I replied.

“Mr. DeVille,” Jocelyn interceded. “Why is it you and Mrs. DeVille aren’t hiding like the rest of us?”

Mr. DeVille opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to it.

“Because we’re smart,” she snapped. “We left that ‘secure location’,” she said, stopping her dig long enough to raise her fingers and imply quotation marks. “We were on our way home before the rest of you Dissidents went and killed all those Vires in the swamp. But wouldn’t have mattered if you hadn’t. Killed ‘em, didn’t kill ‘em. Fight, no fight. There was no way I was going to stay in that hovel.”

Jocelyn and I glanced around her home noting they weren’t all that different, but neither of us bothered pointing that out.

“So you weren’t implicated,” Jocelyn clarified.

“How could we be?” she demanded. “We weren’t anywhere near that mess when it happened.”

That won’t make you innocent in the eyes of The Sevens
, I thought.
It’s only a matter of time before they come for you, too.

My gut told me to voice that perspective, but I knew she wouldn’t listen.

Jocelyn didn’t seem to be finished with her questions yet, anyways. And I didn’t blame her, either. She’d been out of the loop for nine weeks. “On the way here, we were told that everyone in hiding is strewn across the city, surviving in conditions similar to ours.”

“Yes, well, lots of people are displaced right now. All will be back to normal soon. You’ll see.” Her hand came free, swinging upward, her fingers clutching a brown canvas bag. “Aha! Got it!” Planting her free hand against the wall, she attempted to stand, but the weight of her round torso caused her to shift off balance and lean awkwardly to the side. Seeing her heading for the ground, I ran to help, stopping her fall just before her hip hit the sharp corner of a throne chair. She frowned and brushed me aside, straightened her clothing, and then shoved the bag at me. “Here.”

I took it, opened the bag, and made sure that its contents were just as I’d left them. It was odd to think that this one simple canvas bag, literally, held the keys to our defenses against The Sevens.

Without another word, her job here finished, Mrs. DeVille met her husband at the entrance to the hallway, and without a goodbye, they left for their residence in the back of the shop.

“Thank you,” Jocelyn called out, receiving no answer in return. When she gave up waiting for it, she looked around aimlessly. “Umm, okay…”