Neither am I, dear lady. I wish only one night with you.
He jumped at the sound of gunfire echoing from the mausoleum.
“Ah,” he said. “Now I am happy.”
“It should be activated now,” she said, turning and sauntering away. “Don’t forget: put it on right away or it will lose power.”
He bit back a laugh. So convincing.
He made himself comfortable and waited until the police and the ambulance arrived. He watched the EMTs carry “Just Jack” out on a stretcher with Michael Quinn walking behind. Both alive? Quel dommage. He hoped death wasn’t required to trigger the bracelet.
When all the intruders were gone, Jules made his way to the mausoleum and slipped through the still-open front gates. He headed to the rear of the altar and pried up the tile. A little digging and there it was: the Cidsev Nelesso.
He noted with glee that its stone had turned from green to red, confirmation that the bracelet’s power had been ignited.
He sighed. “You are such a genius, Jules.”
He slipped it over his left hand and was taken aback when it tightened itself around his wrist. But not too tight. Okay, not a problem. Custom fit wasn’t a bad thing. And he had no intention of taking it off anyway. If this trinket lived up to only a fraction of its advance publicity, the world would be his oyster.
As he stepped out into the night he heard a voice.
Two bucks, two bucks, need a dollar more to get a bottle, small bottle but better’n nothin’.
He looked around and saw a wino stumbling past the Boudreaux vault. His first thought was to drive out the trespasser, but then he realized the bum wasn’t talking. Jules was hearing him in his head. Hearing his thoughts!
Dear God, it worked. It worked!
Other thoughts streamed in.
Another drink and she’ll be ready.
Oh, I hope I don’t hurl, I’ll totally die if I hurl.
A young couple out for the night? He wondered where they were. But further speculation was cut off by more voices in his head.
Shout it was over Jim greatly alarmed me from the deepest reproach as it were soon all the other company I never thought he would my convict Do you mean that? but that it was in tomorrow but this style I had best endeavors let to see him next day when living had a but he had had no time after and apparently out old chap found the file still in—
He pressed his hands to his ears but couldn’t stop the voices, the thoughts from other heads streaming in from all over the city. The state. The county. The world. Mixing and interweaving into a mad torrent that ran straight into his consciousness.
“Stop!” he screamed.
But it didn’t stop. It thickened and quickened and ran more furiously into his brain.
Turns of yours this question mais ce style que j’ai eu mieux s’efforce de laisser burns that dread serious subcutaneous sickness of musze lub powiedzieĆ Że wiemy, Że nie ma chwili us and arms make coil must grunt Wir wurde mit einem guten Namen sicher glücklich cutaneous forthy takes the good wasn’t myself might have a life and the muscle to heartache if a—
He clawed at the bracelet but it wouldn’t fit over his hand. He pushed at it, digging its edge into his skin, drawing blood, but it was too tight to remove, too tight! He had to get it off!
Jules Chastain ran screaming through the night in search of help.
The ambulance pulled up in front of the emergency entrance at Tulane Medical Center.
Jack sat up and looked at the EMT at his side. “Thanks for the lift.”
“Hey, no worries,” the young man told him. “Quinn called, that’s enough for me.”
Good guy to know, this Michael Quinn.
As Jack exited the vehicle, a car pulled up behind it. Quinn sat behind the wheel. Jack nodded as he slipped into the passenger’s seat.
Quinn rubbed his jaw before driving out into traffic. “That’s one mean right hook you have.”
Jack said, “You’re no slouch yourself. My ribs are bruised to shit.”
Quinn laughed. “I’m glad I saw that green stone turn red when it did. It’s going to be hard enough explaining. Well, hell, I think we’re both beat up enough.”
“Seemed the right thing to do — letting Chastain get in there and take the bracelet after we ‘activated’ it,” Jack said. “If there really is a curse, then, the man deserved to have it.”
Quinn offered him a grim smile. “I hope you’re right about this — right about the way the curse will work.”
Jack’s own experience with an Infernal had come to a tragic end, but it could have been so much worse. They weren’t called Infernals for nothing.
“I’m just guessing,” he said. “No one can hide their thoughts from the wearer could also read Everyone’s thoughts are revealed to the wearer. And hearing literally everyone’s thoughts would definitely be a curse.”
“Nice touch,” Quinn told him. “I mean, firing your Glock into the floor after our fight. And reburying that bracelet so that Chastain could find it once we were out.”
“Not a bad deal that you’re friends with half the cops and emergency techs in the city, too.”
Quinn shrugged. “Well, like I told you, I was a cop once. Still work with them — with one great cop, an old partner, Larue. He doesn’t want me to explain things like curses and Infernals — he just wants me to take care of them.”
“I tend to avoid cops — nothing personal. It’s just the less they know about me, the better.”
“You have warrants out on you?”
Jack shrugged. “Need a name on a warrant, don’t you?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Well, then, I guess not. As for the here and now, we should know how things pan out by tomorrow. You know a place I can bunk for the night?”
Quinn smiled, not at all grimly then. “Yeah, I know a great place. Right on Royal. And when Danni wants to know why I’m beat to hell, I can say, ‘You should see the other guy’—and then show her that other guy.”
Jack laughed. He could get to like this Quinn.
It didn’t take long to reach the center of the French Quarter. Jack was impressed with the historic building with the sign that read THE CHESHIRE CAT.
But they didn’t enter by the front. Quinn hit a button on his dash, a garage door opened, and they moved through a beautiful garden courtyard to enter by a side door.
A woman was waiting there, tall and lithe, with a giant dog by her side.
“That’s just Wolf,” Quinn told him, greeting the dog, who accepted Jack right away because his master suggested he do so.
Quinn seemed a little awkward as he greeted the woman.
“Danni, you’re back early.”
“So I am,” she said, staring from Quinn to Jack and then back at Quinn again. “I guess you two should come in and get cleaned up — and patched up. And I guess you’re going to tell me that I should see the other guys?”
Jack looked at Quinn. They both smiled.
Jack said, “We are the other guys.”
“Interesting,” Danni said. “I’ll put on some tea and get out the whiskey. I’m looking forward to hearing all about it.”
Normally Jack would be looking for a beer, but after tonight, whiskey was definitely in order.
In the morning, Quinn tracked down Larue by phone and learned he was at the hospital. He rounded up Jack and drove him there. The front desk gave them the room number and they headed up.