Tempter (14 page)

Chapter Nineteen

It had been months since Rossiter last traveled outside the city. As he streaked along the Old Belle Chasse Highway in Scramuzza’s TransAm, its owner bundled into the backseat like a pile of dirty laundry, it was clear he had not missed much. There was nothing to see but swamps, mosquitoes and gators.

He pawed through the collection of CDs in the car, hoping to find something to drown out the dying man’s gurgles, but all he found were Chris Brown and 50 Cent albums. Rossiter powered down the driver-side window and consigned Tony’s rolling music collection to the roadside. He glanced into the rearview to make sure he wasn’t being followed, but the blacktop behind him remained dark. He punched the buttons on the radio and managed to pull Roxy Music’s
“Love Is the Drug”
out of thin air. He nodded in time to the music, glad to have something to divert his attention from the thing in the backseat.

“
Everything is different, yet still the same.”

His doppelganger was back, this time sitting in the passenger seat, peering out the window at the passing scenery. In profile he looked like Peter Pan; not the cleaned-up Disneyfied version, but the feral, fox-faced man-child of the original illustrations.

“What do you mean by that?”

The doppelganger pointedly ignored the question. “
We’re getting close. Slow down, or you’ll miss the turn-off.”

Rossiter obeyed, allowing the TransAm to go into a coast. The high beams illuminated a green metal sign with reflective white lettering:
You Are Now Entering Redeemer Parish
.

“
Turn here!”

Rossiter pulled off the blacktop onto an unpaved access road that was all but invisible from the highway. He swore under his breath as the low-slung vehicle jounced its way along the unpaved road, rattling his teeth. The headlamps illuminated trees dripping Spanish moss and wrapped in swaths of creepers.

“
Stop!”
The doppelganger shouted.

Rossiter put on the brakes and killed the engine, peering out at the darkness. “Where are we?” he whispered.

“
Seraphine,”
the doppelganger replied in a hushed voice.

Rossiter looked out through the windshield and saw a large, dim shape set against the greater darkness of the surrounding wilderness. As his eyes grew accustomed to the night, he could make out moonlight glinting off the remaining white plaster that covered the huge, squared pillars fronting the house. There were thorny natural barriers everywhere, and the aroma of roses and over-ripe blackberries was overpowering in the warm night air.

“
I will meet you inside,”
the doppelganger said as it disappeared from the front seat of the car.
“Bring the meat with you.”

Muttering curses under his breath, Rossiter climbed out of the Trans Am, swatting at the swarms of mosquitoes eagerly battening onto his exposed flesh. Even in the middle of the night the humidity was staggering; it was like he had walked into the world’s largest open-air steam bath. Within seconds torrents of sweat were trickling down his back and dripping off the end of his nose. He took the book of spells he had stolen from Tee and stuck it inside a knapsack, which he slung onto his back, before turning his attention to his passenger. To his amazement, Scramuzza was still breathing. Rossiter had no idea how the other man could have hung on for so long, considering there was a good-sized piece of gray matter sticking out of a crack in the top of his head. Then again, Rossiter suspected Tony was used to living without much in the way of brains.

He stared at the dying man as he lay crumpled in the back seat, struggling for breath. It still wasn’t too late, he told himself. He could drop the poor bastard off at some suburban emergency room and peel off before anyone had time to ask him any questions. If he survived, it was a good bet he wouldn’t be able to talk again, much less identify his attacker. Just as these thoughts crossed Rossiter’s mind, his victim’s labored breathing turned into a death rattle, taking with it his last minute emergency room fantasy scenario.

Rossiter sighed and pulled the dead body free of the back seat, shouldering its slack weight in a fireman’s carry. Although the thought of brains dripping onto his clothes made him cringe, he hoped the mosquitoes would prefer an unresisting meal and thereby leave him alone.

He trudged up the wide front steps of the rotting mansion, swearing viciously each time his jeans became tangled in the surrounding briars. As he reached the porch, he something crunched under his boot heel. Glancing down, he saw six cat skulls arranged in a circle, the stub of a black candle set in its center. He recognized the arrangement as a means of warding off evil. He scanned the surrounding undergrowth and spotted various other tableaux involving cat and rat skulls. The most ominous of the totems was a bleached goat skull affixed to a stake, its curved horns wrapped in strips of painted leather and faded ribbon, with dried blood daubed onto its forehead.

Rossiter looked to Seraphine’s shuttered windows, then to the sky spread above its sagging roof. He remembered his vision of stars trapped within a web of red and black thread and shivered. When he looked back at the house, he saw faintly shimmering bars of light surrounding it, like the bars of a cage. At that moment all he wanted was to be back in New Orleans, safe in bed with Tee--or even Charlie, for that matter. He wanted to be anywhere else in the world but in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, with a dead man slung across his back like a side of butchered beef. But there was no other choice for him but to enter the rotting remains of the plantation house.

As he moved forward, he steeled himself in expectation of the dimly glowing barrier to react like an electrified fence. To his surprise, there was no flash of light or crackling sound. All he felt was a minor resistance, as if walking into a slight headwind, which disappeared after his second or third step.

The front door was the largest he had ever seen on a private residence, with beveled glass panes fogged by generations of grime and exposure to the elements, and an ornate brass knocker completely covered in verdigris. As he drew closer, he saw that what at first appeared to be a withered Christmas wreath affixed to the door was yet another gris-gris, this one made of empty snake skins.

The hinges screamed like a murdered woman and the door would only open halfway. Rossiter was forced to place his grisly burden on the ground and push against the warped door frame with all his might until he was able to force it back wide enough to drag the corpse through by its ankles. Once inside, he let the body drop and turned to look around.

He found himself standing in a huge, barren front hall dominated by a wide, sweeping staircase that connected to the upper stories. To the left was a massive pair of closed oaken doors, to the right a smaller door that stood open, revealing an equally empty parlor. Everywhere he looked he saw faded, yellowed wallpaper hanging in moldering strips, exposing the rotting lathe and plaster underneath. The whole place stank of mildew and decay. He could feel dust motes settling on his damp skin, making the corners of his eyes itch.

“Come upstairs.”

Rossiter turned in the direction of the voice and saw something move amongst the shadows at the top of the stairs.

“Bring the meat to me.”

The doppelganger’s voice had lost its youthfulness and now sounded brittle and papery. The skin on Rossiter’s arms and scalp tightened. He didn’t want to think about why the doppelganger’s voice would change so drastically. In fact, he didn’t want to think about anything at all. He grabbed the corpse by the feet and began backing his way up the stairs, Scramuzza’s ruined head thumping wetly against the risers with every step. He kept as close to the wall as he could, as he did not trust the banister. His shoulders ached, his eyes stung from the sweat dripping into them, he was tired, uncomfortable and scared, but there was no turning back. Not now. Not ever.

Upon reaching the second floor, he spotted the doppelganger standing in the shadows at the end of the hall, eyes glowing like banked coals. The figure silently beckoned Rossiter toward an open door, but did not move to help him with the body. As Rossiter dragged his lifeless burden across the threshold of the room, the heavy oaken door slammed shut behind him. Rossiter recognized the room as the study he had seen in his dreams, altered by decades of decay. Near the marble fireplace and its moldering portrait of Narcisse Legendre stood a four-poster bed, its canopy gray with dust and its mildewed velvet curtains pulled tightly shut. There was a sudden cough, like that of a lion in the bush, and a fire burst to life in the cold grate. At the same time the bed curtains twitched, as if moved by a hidden sleeper.

“What are you?” Rossiter whispered, his voice hoarse with fear.

“I am and yet I am not,” replied the thing in the bed as it pushed aside the heavy curtains. “You may call me Tempter.”

The creature that stood before him was as far removed from the handsome young doppelganger as a saber tooth tiger is from a housecat. Its skin was the color of aged ivory and as parched as that of an unwrapped mummy, with the flesh on its face split and peeling, revealing naked bone. Long white hair as fine as spider silk drifted over its shoulders and dangled as far as its waist. Its hands were skeletal, with long, sharp fingernails, like those of an ancient Mandarin, and it was dressed in the moldering tatters of a loose-fitting silk shirt, woolen trousers and old-fashioned high-button shoes. Its red eyes shone in the dim light like twin glasses of wine held before a fire, its nose as shriveled and upturned as that of a bat.

Rossiter felt his lungs falter and his head fill with static. He tried to scream, but his mouth would not open. It was hard to think in the creature’s presence.

“I can tell by the look in your eyes I must not look my best,” the thing called Tempter sighed, brushing a mummified cheek with a fingernail long enough to eviscerate a man. “Not to worry: that can be easily remedied. You have been very kind in providing me with the means to begin my restoration.” The creature knelt beside the corpse, boney fingers probing the dead man’s wounds. “Excellent! The freshly dead are the best to work with.” Tempter grinned up at Rossiter, revealing yellowed teeth filed to points. “Bring me the chest that sits at the foot of my bed.”

Rossiter nodded dumbly and did as he was told. He found a wooden sea chest, the lid of which was carved with obscene images that seemed to crawl in the flickering light from the fireplace. He set the chest beside Tempter, who made a pass over the container with one hand while muttering under his breath. Rossiter gasped as the lid opened of its own accord. Tempter reached in and removed a knife fashioned from volcanic glass with an ornate golden hilt. Rossiter watched in horrified silence as the wizened creature sliced away the piece of exposed brain poking through the top of Tony Scramuzza’s cracked skull and popped it in its mouth. The demon wizard’s ruby eyes rolled back in their sockets, exposing whites the color of piss.

“Ah! After so many years of privation—this is absolute ambrosia!” Tempter brought the knife’s weighted hilt down on the skull, cracking it open like a coconut. He then greedily devoured the dead man’s medulla oblongata like a handful of choice brie as he growled like a hungry dog. Rossiter stared, unable to look away, as the bitter taste of bile burned the back of his throat.

Once the wizard was finished with his cannibal feast his skin no longer resembled dried leather. Countless lines still webbed the corners of his eyes and mouth, but new, plumper flesh now filled out his cheekbones, and his long, flowing mane had gone from white to gunmetal gray. As he stood up and turned to face Rossiter, the musician blanched and quickly looked away, afraid to meet the monster’s gaze.

“Did you bring the
Aegrisomnia
?” Tempter asked.

Rossiter nodded, taking the spell book from the knapsack he carried on his back. Tempter snatched the volume, his face splitting into a sharp-toothed mockery of delight as he ran his claw-like hands over the binding like a long-lost lover.

“You have served me well, Alex Rossiter,” Tempter said. “I am pleased.”

“What—what about the things you promised me?” Rossiter managed to stammer.

The demon-wizard fixed the musician with his burning red gaze. “To claim the prize I promised, you must obey me as you would a god. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” he replied thickly. “Whatever you ask, I will do it for you.”

“So be it. Your reward shall be a new life: one free from the ravages of age, sickness, sorrow and care. Does that appeal to you?”

Rossiter nodded. He liked that idea. Liked it a lot.

“Very good. But first I must consecrate your heart to my service.”

As much as Rossiter liked the idea of immortality and power, he didn’t much care for how hungry Tempter looked...

Chapter Twenty

Charlie squinted at the front of the building and then checked the numbers against the address scrawled on the paper she held. When Alex told her that his band rehearsed in a converted loft near the riverfront, she assumed he meant one of the nicely refurbished warehouses in the Artists’ District. Instead, it turned out to be located along one of the seedier stretches of Tchopitoulas Street, which was saying something in and of itself.

Massive delivery trucks trundled up and down the wide avenue during the day while street people wandered it at night. A combination lunch counter and bar called Maxie’s Stagger Inn, which catered to the blue-collar workers that populated the area, took up most of the ground floor.

The door to the bar opened and a tall, thin black man wearing dreadlocks walked out. Charlie recognized him as the drummer for Alex’s band. The drummer headed around the side of the building and climbed a set of exposed wooden stairs that lead to the second floor. Charlie hurried after him, pausing to wipe away the sweat beading on her upper lip before knocking on the door he had entered. When she did not get a response, she stepped inside anyway.

She found herself in a long hallway lined by nondescript doors, each with an index card tacked at eye-level. She recognized some of the names hand-printed on the cards, such as The Hitmen and the Blooz Blowers, as belonging to local bands. The last door on the left had a card that read ‘Pigfoot’, which was the name of Alex’s band. She opened it without knocking.

The rehearsal space was a medium-sized high-ceilinged room with discarded foam rubber covering its sheetrock walls and mismatched carpet remnants blanketing the floor. An air-conditioner that was far too small for the job rattled in the solitary window. Three men, two black and one white, sat facing one another on folding chairs stenciled
Property Of Reliable Funeral Home.
The bassist, his eyes hidden behind darkly tinted sunglasses, fretted an unamplified bass, while the keyboardist balanced a Casio on his lap. The drummer sat between them, sticks dangling from one hand, apparently lost in thought. The bassist halted, tilting his head in an odd manner. With a start, Charlie realized he was blind.

“Seems we got ourselves some company. That you, Rossiter?”

The keyboardist looked up at Charlie upon hearing his friend speak. “Not hardly,” he said with a dry laugh.

Charlie smiled tightly and stepped forward. “Hi, my name’s Charlotte Calder. I hate to interrupt, but I’m looking for Alex...”

“If you’re looking for Rossiter, you’ve come to the wrong place,” the blind man said, resting his arms on the neck of his bass.

“He’s not here?”

The blind man swiveled his head as if scanning the room. “I don’t see him. How bout you, Hoo-Yah?”

“Don’t be messin’ with the lady, Paulie,” the keyboardist chided. “Fact of the matter is, ma’am, we been lookin’ for him, too. We got a gig comin’ up in a couple days at Tipitina’s. We’re openin’ for the Neville Brothers. It’s a big break, no?”

“It’s been two days since we last heard from him. It’s like the bastard just up and vanished into thin air,” the drummer said testily.

“Oh. I see,” Charlie said uneasily. “Sorry I interrupted your meeting.”

“If he shows up, I’ll be more than happy to tell him you’ve been askin’ for him,” the keyboardist said gallantly.

Charlie smiled at Hoo-Yah and nodded uncertainly at Paulie and the drummer. It bothered her that none of them seemed to know who she was or recognize her name. “Thanks. I appreciate it. And good luck with your show at Tip’s.”

“You’re more than welcome. Here, let me walk you out,” Hoo-Yah said, setting aside his keyboard. “Sorry we couldn’t be of much help.”

“Maybe you can. Do you happen to know anyone named Seraphine?”

“Seraphine?” the Cajun frowned. “I know
a
Seraphine...but it ain’t a
person
, it’s a
place
.”

Now it was Charlie’s turn to frown. “Beg pardon?”

“Seraphine’s an old deserted plantation near my grandpa’s farm. It is
une maison hantée
-- a haunted house,” he explained.

“I doubt it’s the same Seraphine, then,” she said with a sigh. “Thanks, anyway.”

“ ‘Let me walk you to the door’,” Paulie chuckled. “She must be pretty, the way you was carryin’ on. Sounded like you had a honeycomb stuck in your mouth!”

“She’s more than pretty,
mon ami
!” Hoo-Yah shook his head in disgust. “How is it a prick like Rossiter gets a woman like that?”

“Yeah, you right,” Arsine sighed. “But what was that trash you was handin’ her about a haunted house?”

“It’s God’s honest truth! Me, I only saw the place once. I went out to see it with my cousins when I was eight. It sure as hell looked like it had ghosts in it! Paw-Paw, when he found out we snuck out to Seraphine, he got as mad as a gator on a hook! He switched us good and told us to never go there again! He said even if there weren’t no ghosts out ‘chere, that place she was full of snakes.”

Since the rehearsal space was a bust, Charlie decided to double back to Alex’s and leave a note on his door. She parked her car at the curb and walked around the tri-plex house to Rossiter’s apartment, which was located at the back of the house. She reached into her purse to take out a pen to write with, but halted when she saw another woman walking towards her from the direction of his apartment. She was a tall African American in her early twenties, built like a dancer, with hair worn in elaborate cornrows. There was a large white bandage taped to her forehead.

The bandaged woman looked Charlie up and down. “You tryin’ to find Rossiter?” she asked tartly.

Charlie nodded warily.

The other woman cast a withering glance over her shoulder in the direction of Alex’s door. “Bastard’s not home. Leastwise he ain’t answerin’ any knocks.” She turned her attention back to Charlie. “What’s he to you?”

“He’s my boyfriend,” Charlie replied, squaring her shoulders.

The bandaged woman gave a short, humorless laugh. “Figures! Look, if you’re smart, girl, you’ll drop that sucker cold. He ain’t nothin’ but trouble.”

“Who are you to talk about him that way?” Charlie retorted, her voice dripping icicles.

The other woman smiled wryly and shook her head. “Look, just tell him I
didn’t
call the law on him. I
could
have, but I
didn’t
, see?” She pointed at the bandage. “But if he don’t give me back what’s mine, I’m gonna come lookin’ for him, an’ I don’t need no mojo bag to put him in a world of hurt.” She reached into her purse and pulled out something that looked more like a trick cigarette lighter than a gun.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Charlie replied frostily.

“I’m sure you don’t, either, sister,” the other woman sighed, returning her weapon to her handbag.

Leticia Banks strode angrily to the bus stop. It was a good thing Rossiter hadn’t been home, since she probably would have put a hole in him if he was. At the very least she would have shot off his pecker. Her head began top throb again, forcing her to slow down. The attending physician at University Hospital’s emergency ward said she was lucky to have escaped with only a concussion. As it was, she’d been forced to spend two full days under observation. She had left the hospital earlier that day, despite the doctor’s concerns. If she had stayed another day she would have lost her mind. The sidewalk tilted suddenly under her feet. She lifted a hand to her temple, as if that would somehow steady the world around her. Her eyelids fluttered like moths preparing for flight.

“You okay, darlin’?”

A thin but surprisingly firm hand gripped her elbow. She looked down and found herself staring into the face of a very old woman who was missing most of her teeth as well as an eye. Although she had never met the old woman before, there was something familiar about her.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere, auntie?” she asked in a puzzled voice.

“It’s possible. I’ve lived in this city all my life,” the crone replied as she steered Tee to the bench at the bus stop shelter. “Gracious, that’s a nasty-lookin’ bump. Here, darlin’, you best sit down before you
fall
down.”

Tee felt her mind start to clear again. She glanced at the elderly woman seated beside her, and this time recognized her. “You’re the old lady who sells charms in the Quarter...the one called Mad Aggie.”

“I recognized you, too, my dear,” Aggie admitted, patting Tee’s smooth hand with her wrinkled one. “But not from this life.”

Tee adjusted her bandage, eyeing the old woman cautiously. “What do you mean by that?”

“Do you still have the book?” the old woman asked. “
The Aegrisomnia
?”

Tee’s spine went as straight and cold as a frozen flagpole. “How do you know about that?”

The old woman smiled sadly. “Just guessin’, really. I knew the book had to be floatin’ around this city somewhere, or Rossiter would never have gotten involved in this mess.”

“What do you know about me an’ Alex?” she frowned. “You been spyin’ on me, old lady?”

“Not on you, anyways,” Aggie replied with a shrug. “I was keepin’ tabs on the white gal. But when I saw you, I understood how it all fit together. You are the missin’ piece from a very
old
puzzle, child.”

“I don’t know who the fuck you are or how you knew about Great-Granny’s spell book, but I don’t want no part of the kinda trash you’re talkin’.” Tee said as she tried to get to her feet. She meant to walk away from the crazy bag lady, but the world began swimming again and she dropped back down onto the bench.

The old woman grabbed Tee’s hand and held it tightly in her wrinkled, bony one. “Please, child,
don’t
be afraid!” she begged. “I gave up hope of ever findin’ one of Celine’s young’uns years ago. An’ now, seein’ you today, it’s enough to break this old heart of mine in two.”

Tee stared into the old woman’s seamed face. “Celine? That was Great-Granny’s name. My mama was named after her.”

Mad Aggie’s smile trembled and Tee saw tears glistening in the wrinkles furrowing the old woman’s face. “We have
much
to talk about, my child.”