We walked back to the hotel in three groups; Ex and Chogyi Jake at the front, Aubrey by himself close behind them, Karen and I bringing up the rear. My cell phone said it was a little bit after five, but the sun was already hidden. I’d barely started my day, and the darkness was coming on.
I’d had sex with Aubrey. Again. Months of keeping myself at arm’s length and agonizing about the divorce papers that were still in my pack had turned irrelevant. The thought alone was surreal, then add in that he was walking two strides ahead of me, his hands in his pockets, and his shoulders tensed up around his ears. Part of me wanted to skip up beside him, pull his arm around my shoulder, and lean my head against him or his against me. The rest of me thought that would be a hilariously bad idea, and kept walking with a scowl through the French Quarter.
It wasn’t a big deal, I told myself. It wasn’t like sex was entirely new territory for us. I remembered the things Karen had said about the rider overcoming inhibitions. The first time out, it took a lot of work to get past the fear and uncertainty and resistance. The time after that, not so much. He was shocked and vulnerable and hurt, and he’d needed that reassurance.
And still, it wouldn’t have killed him to walk beside me.
“And what about you?” Karen asked.
I blinked. For half a second, I thought she was asking how my needs and feelings fit in with Aubrey’s renewed sex life. She went on.
“With the boys tied up with the safe house, what were your plans for the evening? Dinner and an early night?”
I laughed.
“Early night isn’t really an option,” I said. “Right now, I’m barely up to late morning. I was figuring I’d hang at the hotel, do some research.”
“Research?”
“More about the loa, and Legba. More about the serial killer thing, and what the rider does. Ever since I took over the gig from Eric, I feel like I’m cramming for the big test.”
Karen made a noncommittal grunt. Her expression went blank.
“Why?” I asked.
Karen glanced at me, her eyes almost apologetic.
“I’m feeling a little keyed up,” she said. “Whenever I was on a case and we saw some action, we’d have to stop and file reports afterward. I hated that part. It always broke my stride. This part where we have to wait on the safe house and your lawyer feels a lot like that.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Oh, no,” Karen said, her hand touching my elbow. “That sounded like criticism. I didn’t mean it that way. I just need to get my mind off of things for a couple hours. Blow off some steam.”
“That would be nice,” I said wistfully. Not thinking about Aubrey’s hot-and-cold or Glapion’s attacks or Ex’s moralistic disapproval sounded like a little dark-chocolate slice of heaven.
“We’re on then?” Karen asked. The sly smile looked playful now. “Change into something slutty, I’ll take you dancing?”
My first response was surprise, my second was resistance, and my third was an almost defiant resolve. All in all, I didn’t think about it for a minute.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
KAREN AND I got to The Dungeon just after nine o’clock; it was still early for the nightlife. The club wasn’t entirely open yet, but we could get in the front room, which was good enough for a couple beers and some coin-operated pool tables. Karen was in a small green skirt with seamed stockings, a halter top that made her look considerably more stacked than I’d thought she was, and lipstick the color of fresh blood. I was in my most outré outfit: tight black blouse with a neckline down toward my cleavage and matching skirt slit up the side. I’d done my best with the makeup, but I didn’t usually wear more than a little light eyeliner and lipstick for special occasions. Beside her, I looked like I was in a school uniform.
All the colors in her outfit were saturated and bright and confident. Her body was closer to magazine-cover perfect than mine had ever been. She looked like a 1950s pinup girl come to life, but what made her beautiful were the scars: the white line at her collarbone, the barely visible pucker on her right arm, the ancient star-shape that made me think of bullet wounds on her ribs just at the hem of her top. Karen’s flesh bore witness to a lifetime of risk and violence, and her acceptance of them—her lack of shame or apology—drew my eye more than admiration or envy.
I had one set of finger-marks where a rider had stabbed me with its claws, and that alone was enough to keep me in a one-piece bathing suit.
“So how did you get into the business?” Karen asked me as she racked up a game of eight-ball. “All Eric’s doing? You break.”
I chose the stick that seemed least warped and took my place at the table. Karen leaned on the side, a bottle of Dos Equis in her hand. I knew the rules, but I’d never played pool before. I wasn’t about to admit it.
“More or less,” I said. “He left me everything when he died, and I kind of pieced it all together from there. The boys all know more about it than I do, really. Aubrey got into it because he’s really a parasitologist, and Eric thought maybe there was something there.”
“And Ex?”
I chalked the end of the stick, lined up the cue ball, and did my best. The report was loud and satisfying, and through blind luck two balls dropped into pockets, one solid and one striped. I figured that meant I could pick which one I wanted.
“Ex and Chogyi Jake had both worked with Eric, one time or another. I got in over my head, and I called Aubrey. Aubrey got the others,” I said, lining up what looked like a plausible shot on the nine. “The rest is history.”
Karen shook her head.
“I never pictured Eric as the kind of guy with a family,” she said.
“Everyone comes from someplace. He and my dad… didn’t get along. I was really glad to have Eric as an uncle, though,” I said. The nine went in its pocket too. I thought maybe the fifteen next. It would mean bouncing it off one of the sides, but it looked possible. “What about you? What does your family think about the whole combating abstract evil thing?”
“Nothing,” Karen said. “I was an only child, and my parents are both dead. There was a fire a couple years ago.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry,” I said.
Karen smiled gently and shook her head; she didn’t say anything. I took my shot as a way to avoid the increasingly awkward silence.
“Nice,” Karen said.
“Thanks,” I said. “So I don’t want to pry or anything…”
“Pry away.”
“How do you do it?” I asked, leaning on my stick. “I’ve been running around for the last six or seven months doing nothing but cataloging and studying and practicing little cantrips, and I don’t feel like I’ve got a clue what I’m doing. You know?”
“I do,” Karen said. “That never stops. You get better, you know more, but that feeling that you’re a fraud? You never get over it. At least I haven’t.”
A thick-wristed man with fading tattoos came up to the table, nodded politely, and put two quarters down on the rail. I realized how rude it was of me to hold up the game talking, lined up the twelve, and sank it.
“You have friends,” she said. “That counts for a lot. I miss having someone I could work with. Davis was a good man.”
It took me a second to remember that Michael Davis was the partner that Legba had killed, but Karen hadn’t noticed my momentary confusion. She kept talking, her voice taking on a distance.
“I sure as hell never meant to get here. I started out trying to stop bad guys. Drug smugglers, kidnappers, terrorists. And honest to God, I think I did some good. After Mfume, I figured out there was a whole class of bad guys I couldn’t even touch. And because I wouldn’t let it go, I lost the bureau. Except Davis. And then I lost him too.
“We do what we have to,” she went on. “It’s not about whether we like it or not. Whether we’re particularly suited to it. We are what we are.”