The Demon Curse (3 page)

“I'm sorry, Auntie May,” Billie whispered. “I tried to explain to you…”

“You did! So many times! And so many times, I told you my reply! When we took you and your poor mother in that day, this home became yours! And when all was lost…” The old woman pushed her fingers through Billie's hair. “Why, then our village became your home more than ever. And a home is not something to be lightly thrown away! Don't you see, Li'l Billie?”

“I do…” Billie's voice faltered. “But I had no choice. You hardly had enough food for your own children then and—”

“It's true, it was a difficult time. But we Islanders have known plenty of those, and we always will.” Harry noticed the old woman's eyes, just for an instant, move off in another direction, back toward the city. But then they returned to Billie. “Somehow, we would have found a way. I told you that plain at the time. Not that I believed for a moment that you'd listen.”

“I beg your pardon?” Billie looked up.

The old woman was smiling. The wrinkles on her face shifted their positions, and the corners of her mouth curved upward. Harry saw that, behind her, the other men and women were gathering, and he saw that they were smiling down at Billie too.

“A tough little customer, you've always been that.” The old woman tutted. “It was what made me fond of you in the first place, so I can hardly complain, can I? Even if I did, you probably wouldn't listen to that either.”

“I…but…” Billie blustered.

“Don't worry, Li'l Billie.” Auntie May beamed. “You may be tough, but you'll always be true too. Not everyone who comes across us Islanders trusts us, understands our ways, our practices. But you did. I knew you'd never forget us. And so it has proved, Li'l Billie, so it has proved.”

Her arms swooped around Billie, and in a single move, the old woman was embracing her. Other Islanders joined, and soon Billie was lost in a mass of encircling arms, and when Harry glimpsed her, he saw a single tear shining on her cheek. At the same time, he realized that Arthur was touching his shoulder.

“Who would have thought she'd never have mentioned any of this?” Arthur whispered. His eyes, Harry noticed, were shining too.

“It's like she said—some stories aren't so easy to tell. She's probably been thinking about it the whole time we've known her,” Harry said. “We might never have found out about it if we hadn't ended up here.”

“I guess so.” Arthur hesitated for a minute. “Maybe it's that last bit that's slightly…strange.”

“Arthur?” Harry turned. He noticed his young friend's head was slightly tilted to the side as he stared at Billie and the Islanders.

“It's just—what on earth is this Order of the White Crow organization up to?” Arthur tapped Harry's pocket, in which the pale green letter could just be seen, protruding. “Knock-out drugs, locked suitcases, mysterious instructions about an investigation. Not only that, but it's brought us to the one city in America where Billie knows someone, cares about someone…” He nibbled his lip. “What's going on, Harry?”

“I'm not sure,” Harry muttered as he tried to puzzle out what Arthur was saying.

“To the boats!” one of the Islanders cried. “Quickly!”

The huddle of arms flew apart, and Auntie May was staring back toward the city, a worried look on her face. Harry turned too. He heard a throb of noise echoing out from the city's buildings, screams, the pounding of boots. He felt vibrations from the din making their way through the wharf's timbers.

“What's wrong?” Billie pulled at Auntie May's dress.

“You left us in difficult times, child. But there have never been more difficult, more terrible times for us Islanders than these.” Auntie May shook her head. “As I have said, not everyone understands our ways… Come with us. Come back to Fisherman's Point.”

Two other Islanders tugged at Auntie May's arm. They hurried her down the wharf toward the boats, which were a blur of untying ropes, hoisting sails. Harry saw that some of the children who had greeted Billie were shaking with fright as they scrambled into a boat and huddled in a prow. He turned around and concentrated on the terrible noise, which was even louder now.

A deafening, ugly roar.

Harry ran up the jetty. He climbed the steps three at a time and vaulted over the wall into the street. The noise was coming from a nearby street, and he headed for it. He heard footsteps behind him and saw Billie and Arthur following him. He waved them on, ran around the corner of the street, and froze.

Hundreds of people were surging toward him, waving placards angrily. Harry stumbled back, trying to get to the side of the street, but it was too late. The crowd swallowed him up, and Harry saw the writing on the nearest placards, daubed in red.

“BANISH THE ISLANDERS!”

“THE ISLANDERS! RID US OF THEIR EVIL!”

“THROW THEM OUT! DRIVE THEM FROM OUR CITY!”

The crowd swept up the street. Craning his neck, Harry saw Billie and Arthur bobbing along further back, too far away to reach.
At
least
they're together
, he thought. Swinging around, he stared up at another placard. “ISLANDERS, BE GONE.” Then he looked at the people in the crowd.

They were shouting, wailing, shaking their fists. Craning his neck again, Harry saw other people gathered at the sides of the street and up on balconies, watching the crowd go by. Their expressions were wary; none of them made any attempt to stop the crowd, and Harry couldn't blame them, feeling the strength and speed of the bodies sweeping him along. He looked back at the faces around him, which were alive with fear, determination, and rage.

“What's going on?” Harry asked the man closest to him.

“Haven't you heard?” the man roared back. “The whole city's talking about it! Those folk on Fisherman's Point, they've gone too far this time!”

“Don't tell him. He's only a boy!” A woman, her eyes peeping fearfully out from under a ribboned bonnet, bobbed past. “Some say dark deeds like these can spread their wickedness simply by being spoken of!”

“Dark deeds?” Harry tried to keep his balance.

“Spells, hideous curses, wicked dealings with spirits! Oh, those Islanders and their terrible ways!” The fearful woman bobbed on. “We do not wish to know of such evil…”

“We have no choice!” Another man, keen-eyed and wearing the white collar of a priest. “Mayor Monticelso didn't have a choice, did he?”

“Mayor Monticelso?” Harry asked.

“The best, kindest mayor this city's ever had! Set up brand-new hospitals! Saved whole neighborhoods from the floods! A worthy man!” The priest swung around and turned pale. “Not that it did him much good! Look, look at what the Islanders have done to him! There he is!”

The crowd burst out into a square. Across it, a building loomed, ten stories high, with marble steps leading up to bronze doors. Harry saw a horse-drawn cab with a coat of arms on its side wheeling up to the steps. A door flew open, and liveried men stepped out, carrying a large, gilded chair, which they hoisted onto their shoulders. Tied into the chair with silken ropes was the struggling, flailing body of an elderly man with the most terrified face Harry had ever seen.

The old man shuddered all over. His eyes bulged, his lips stretched, and his teeth chattered. All the blood seemed to have drained from his face, and yet he was hideously alive, every muscle quivering. The men carried the chair up the steps, and Harry watched and flinched. He realized that the crowd had frozen, staring as the men carried their trembling load up the steps.

“Save Mayor Monticelso!”

“Banish the Islanders!”

“Banish them! Banish them forever!”

The crowd surged forward again, across the square, and Harry stumbled with it. The men with the chair sped up, arriving at the bronze doors and vanishing through them, but the crowd had already reached the steps and would have swept all the way up them too had it not been for a tall, perfectly bald figure dressed in black who had leaped ahead. He strode up the first few steps and swung around. His arms, unnaturally long, shot out on either side of him.

“Your rage is just, my friends!” the man cried. His mouth was quite small, Harry noticed, despite the fierceness of the words flying out of it. “How can we not be driven to anger at the sight of our poor mayor, returned from the hospital in this terrible state! Why, he is in the grip of a living torment! And we know who is responsible for that, do we not? Who else could it be but—”

“The Islanders! The Islanders!”

“They're the ones behind it!”

“You tell them, Dupont!”

“Oscar Dupont! You hear us if no one else does!”

The crowd began to surge up the steps, a roar of noise. But the thin, bald man fluttered his hands, and the action seemed to hold the crowd in place. He glanced over his shoulder, and Harry saw a corner of that little mouth curve into a smile. A collection of elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen had emerged from the bronze doors, nervously staring down at the crowd. At their head was a gray-haired lady who, after exchanging a few words with the others, descended the steps. Her taffeta dress rippled, and her left hand gripped a long ivory stem, at the top of which was a pair of spectacles held in front of her eyes. Oscar Dupont waited for her to join him.

“You have heard enough from me, citizens of New Orleans,” he said with a bow. “Madame Melrose, acting head of the council, will address you now.”

“
Tout
à fait!
By which I mean, indeed I shall!” the lady stuttered, her voice heavy with a French accent even when she used English words. “Citizens, I have been given the responsibility of acting head of the council during this terrible crisis. And it is on behalf of the council that I speak now!” She waved feebly up at the ladies and gentlemen by the bronze doors. “
Mais
je
n'ai rien de plus à ajouter
—that is to say, I have nothing further to report…”

“Impossible!”

“There must be something!”

“Tell us! Tell us!”

“
Silence, je vous prie!
For the sake of dear Mayor Monticelso himself!” Her spectacles wobbled on top of their stem. “He has been brought back here to the mayoral residence in the hope that he will benefit from calmer, more familiar surroundings. He has lived and worked here for so many years, after all, and we have asked many of those who benefitted from his works to come and wish him well—patients at his hospitals, pupils of his schools, beneficiaries of his charitable schemes. We believe he is still conscious of his surroundings. Perhaps well-wishers will stir happy memories in him of the good deeds he achieved within these walls. But how can such a plan work if all he hears is
une
foule
en
colère
, by which I mean, an angry mob!” Her voice broke as the crowd's cries swelled. “Is that not true, Dr. Mincing? Why, you have been tending to him day and night!”

Madame Melrose gestured desperately at a stooped figure who was treading down the steps, clutching a small leather bag. Dark rings circled his eyes, a straggling beard sprouted from his chin, and he seemed even more nervous than Madame Melrose, his bag wobbling in his grip.

“I fear Madame Melrose is correct, citizens of New Orleans.” His voice wobbled too. “There is no improvement in the patient. I can only report what is already known—that Mayor Monticelso was found collapsed at his desk three days ago. I suspected a heart attack at first or a stroke, but I fear such theories have turned out to be somewhat…optimistic.” The dark-ringed eyes stared. “Mayor Monticelso does indeed seem to be in the grip of a terrible convulsion. His body is alive, and yet his mind seems entirely out of his control. Strange nightmares grip him, from which he has no escape, and they produce in him the symptoms of the most extreme fear. His muscles shake, his teeth gnash, his skin sweats profusely—nothing can relieve him. My apologies, citizens of New Orleans. I can only say that I will work day and night until I arrive at a proper medical diagnosis.”

“I wish you luck, Dr. Mincing!” Oscar Dupont's arms shot upward again. “But the citizens of New Orleans are beginning to reach their own understanding, medical or not!”

Harry glanced around to see every face in the crowd staring at that tall figure. He looked back and saw Dr. Mincing backing up the steps. The other ladies and gentlemen of the council edged toward the bronze doors too. Only Madame Melrose stood her ground, gripping the stem of her spectacles.

“The Islanders!” The words thundered from Oscar Dupont. “How can anyone deny it? Them and their dark ways! For as long as anyone can remember, those folk have lived out there on Fisherman's Point. Who knows when they came to New Orleans or where they were before? But one thing we do know—their ways and practices are different from ours. Different and dreadful too. Deadly magic, that's what they practice, there in those filthy huts!” He glared at Madame Melrose. “Deadly magic that is more than capable of reducing another human being to the state in which our poor mayor finds himself. His mind has been taken over by a force he cannot control! The Islanders—they're behind this terrifying act! You know that, same as I.”

“Monsieur Dupont, citizens of New Orleans—there is no foundation to your fears!” Madame Melrose backed away. “Why, there is no greater friend of the Islanders than Mayor Monticelso himself. Indeed, he took a special interest in them, visiting them, learning their ways. He even wrote about their unique history and culture in a small book he published. He cared for them, just as he cared for us all!”

“More fool him!” Oscar Dupont howled. “They bewitched him, it would seem! Possibly he refused some demand of theirs, for money or for favorable treatment under the city's laws. And they have avenged themselves most swiftly! A curse—that is what they have devised. Using their magic, they have raised a spirit and set it on him. That is why he contorts so! That is why his mind and body are no longer his! A spirit lurks within him, and not just any spirit, I would wager…”

His arms swung even higher. The words hurtled out of that tiny mouth.

“A demon! That is what they have put upon him! A demon curse!”

“A DEMON CURSE! A DEMON CURSE!”

There was no controlling the crowd. It pushed up the steps again, and Oscar Dupont stalked at the head of it, thrusting an arm toward Madame Melrose, who shrieked and fled up the steps. But Dupont kept striding after her, and the crowd pursued her too, chasing her all the way up to the bronze doors and hammering upon them. Harry stood apart and watched the rest of the crowd race past. He recognized some of the faces from before: the fearful woman with the bonnet, the keen-eyed priest. Both of them had changed, and their expressions seemed to contain nothing but rage.

“Harry?”

Harry turned around and saw Arthur standing just beside him, red faced and out of breath.

“Quick! It's Billie. She heard what they're all saying…” He pointed into the crowd. “About her friends! She says we've got to help them. Come on!”

Harry was already diving through the crowd, pulling Arthur along with him. He ducked under arms, dodged around shoes, and scrambled out onto the cobbles of the street. Arthur toppled out too, and together they ran off down the street leading away from the square.

Harry's gaze swung to the left. He had seen something.

The horse-drawn cab with the coat of arms was waiting at the side of the street. Its driver, wearing the same livery as the officials who had carried Mayor Monticelso up the steps, leaned against the cab, smoking a pipe. Various other servants wearing the same uniform stood with him, smoking pipes too. But Harry wasn't looking at any of them.

Two men, not wearing uniform, were walking along the sidewalk. Both were scruffily dressed—one had a greasy beard shaped like a dagger and the other a pair of darting yellowed eyes. The man with the beard was extending his arm, his fingers fluttering just next to the driver's coats.

A tiny flash of light. That was all, but Harry had seen it. He glimpsed a small bundle of keys lifting out of the coat's pocket, their metal catching the sun, and then they were gone, buried in the dagger-bearded man's fist as he hurried on along the street, his friend beside him.
Skillful
, thought Harry.
A
quick
move, even for me.

“Harry! C'mon!” said Arthur, pulling him away. Harry stumbled after him, still trying to look at the two men, but they had turned sharply off to the left, down an alleyway, and disappeared. The driver and the other servants carried on talking and smoking, city hall looming beyond them at the end of the street.

Maybe
just
ordinary
pickpockets
, Harry thought.

And he ran off after Arthur as fast as he could.