"Grifter, call the cops!"
The agent halted, alarmed. Suddenly, big men in uniform began to converge on the float. Jerome took advantage of his opponent's momentary stiffness to cannon into him. They leaped off into St. Charles Avenue just as they reached Canal Street. Jerome grappled with him, but he broke every hold. The man had training! The officers flanking the parade route moved in and grabbed him. The man fought free of their grip and tried to catch up with the king float, but Cos already had the scepter held high.
"I bind the element of Earth!" Cos bellowed. "Let the power be settled and protect this city, in the name of God!"
Jerome was knocked sideways as a shock wave hit him. It felt as if he were standing in the surf and got hit by a major roller. It felt heavy but natural, a little dangerous but good. Invoking his Maker gave Cos the strength of the pure. That was nothing to be sneezed at. Jerome respected a man with genuine faith.
The surge of power disoriented the police, too. They staggered. The agent took the opportunity to shake free of their hold. He fled into the crowd. Jerome thought about chasing him, but there was no point. He hadn't gotten what he came for. He clicked his mike.
"Griffen, we're good! One down, three to go!"
He caught up with the float. Cos leaned down and hauled him up.
"Wow," Cos said. "Did you feel the earth move back there?"
"Yeah," Jerome said. "That was pretty good. Normally, I have to have a lady with me for that, but this was cool, too."
"That was some pretty fighting," Cos said. "Come and have a beer with me when this is over. Meanwhile, hand me some doubloons! We got kids shouting at us."
"So you're really a clinker!" Holly said, admiring the cockscomb scales on the small male's head. Wearing her diaphanous chiton, she sat strapped into her pale blue throne surrounded by fluffy white tulle sculpted into clouds and lit by twinkling LEDs. Her float was fashioned into the image of an enormous cumulus cloud with a screwed-up face that looked like it was blowing her throne down St. Charles. All the floats that followed hers were based on the theme of Stormy Weather. The jazz band marching behind them played the classic blues song as they went. Chinese kite flyers made their neon-lit toys dance on against the night sky, to the laughter of the children watching. She waved her scepter at the crowd with one hand, blessing them, and tossed necklaces with the other from pots of throws on either side of the throne. She had cups, doubloons, fans, and a special box for later on.
"You keep sayin' that, lady," the clinker said, crouched in the mass of fabric. "My name's Charlie."
"Charlie the clinker?"
"Don't call me that!"
Holly cocked her head sympathetically. He swore like an X-rated movie, he was cocky as hell, but he fascinated her. She was delighted to meet another genuine human- something else hybrid. He had demonstrated his fire-starting powers for her, to her open admiration. Since then, he had responded to her in a pigtail-inkwell kind of way. This had been her favorite day ever since she joined the craft. "Is that a sore spot?"
He made a sour face. "Every damned day!"
"I'd really like it if you would come and talk to my coven," she said.
"Lady, I don't do no lecture tours. Unless you pay," he added, hopefully.
"Wait a moment," Holly said. She listened to her earpiece. Charlie heard it, too. "Heads-up. Antaeus just got attacked. Jerome says we're next. Look out after we pass Lee Circle."
Charlie braced himself. "They be sorry they try us."
She kept in touch by radio with Ethan, five floats behind her, and her captain, Nish, riding with her lieutenants at the front on Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
"Anything?" she asked, over and over.
"Nope. We'll see 'em if they come in from anywhere," Nish replied, over the roar of her engine. Holly acknowledged it as she bent down for another handful of doubloons. They couldn't sneak up on her unless . . .
They came from behind. A large man with no expression on his square face was suddenly there. He grabbed her wrist and pried at her fingers, trying to take the scepter.
"No, sir!" Charlie bellowed. He jumped onto the man's back and held on. The agent let out a bellow. Smoke started to rise from his clothes. He let go of her and batted at the clinker, but Charlie's grip was too good. The man fell off the float. Nish signed to the other riders, who gunned their bikes to surround him and held on to him until the police could run in and arrest him. Holly breathed a sigh of relief.
But he wasn't alone.
A taller man with a long face appeared on the other side. He snatched the scepter right out of Holly's fingers. He dove off the float and did a barrel roll on the pavement. Charlie ran after him. The man drew a gun. The people in the crowd screamed.
Charlie dodged from side to side, then sprang. The man tossed him off before he could get a good hold. The clinker landed in the crowd. The people he landed on yelled as his hot skin burned them.
"No!" Holly shouted. "Let him have it! Please! Come back!"
The clinker looked at her. The man dashed away, shoving over ladders full of screaming children as he went. Irate parents hurried to straighten them up. He vanished, under cover of darkness. Charlie's shoulders collapsed. He trudged back to the float. Holly pulled him up, ignoring the heat from his hand.
"I blew it!" Charlie wailed. "Ms. Beautiful is gonna tear me a new one!"
"No, we haven't failed," Holly said calmly. "Have you ever heard of the Law of Contagion?"
Charlie looked at her sideways. "Yeah, if you cough without covering your mouth, you can make other people sick."
Holly smiled. "No, not that one. If you touch something to something else, they are bonded forever and have the same properties." She opened the last sealed cardboard box. It was full of scepters just like the one that had been stolen. She started throwing them to the crowd. "That was plastic, just like these. I enchanted all of these last night with the original, which is in a safe place, by the way." She raised one of the substitutes as they reached the intersection at Canal Street. She felt the down-to-earth strength of Antaeus, and concentrated on tying in that of Aeolus. "Air!" she cried, and recited the words of the ritual. She activated her radio. "Griffen, we're clear!"
"Y'all know you look like Aquaman," Gris-gris told Bert again, as they turned onto St. Charles from Jackson Street. The king of Nautilus had a scaled, marine blue hip-length tunic and black tights with black boots laced up the front, and a crown made of spiral shells. Gris-gris didn't feel much better about his own costume, which looked like it came out of the Gladiator movie. At least it had leather pants, not a skirt.
"Yeah, I know. I told the seamstress that when she showed me the fabric, but she said it's sea blue, and what do I expect?" Bert gave him a wink. "So I just settled for thinking there's something for the comic-book fans, too." His throne looked like a big shell. Gris-gris sat beside him on a clump of fake red coral filled with neon-edged clown fish. Giant seahorses attached to the front of the float looked as if they were pulling it. Stick-manipulated giant puppets that looked like sea monsters danced around them as the nearest band played "Under the Sea."
The Nautilus krewe had welcomed Gris-gris as an asset. He felt disadvantaged, thrown into a social group he normally slunk around, resenting, but his Val had brought him into a new world. He'd live up to the situation for her. So far, if he was honest, it had been fun. If he was afraid he'd be made fun of, most of the people he hung around with were driving tractors that day. He was riding on the king's float. So how do you like that?