It smelled like dust and old chicken, and I had an immediate, intense dislike of it. "It's gris-gris. Salt for the sea, ashes for fire, graveyard dirt for earth, and a baby's first breath for air. It's good medicine."
I didn't want to touch it, but I didn't see how to refuse. I took the thong in my fingers and lowered the thing into my backpack. When it was safely away, I took out my wallet and counted out ten hundreds onto the table. Dr. Inond茅 looked at the bills and then up at me.
"I don't want to know what's going on with this, do I?" he said.
"Probably not," I said.
He nodded, gathered up the money, and shoved it into his pocket.
"If I have more questions later?" I said.
"This sad fake is always at your service, Miss Jayn茅," he said in the theatrical voice. I smiled. He smiled back. As I opened the door to leave, a thought struck me.
"Inond茅?" I said. "Doesn't that mean...?"
"Flooded," he said with an apologetic rise of his brows. "You can pretend it didn't happen or you can make it part of the magic of the place. What other option have you got? And Dr. David Mackelwhite doesn't pull them in."
The rain hadn't slackened. Tiny streaks of silver and gray darted out of the sky and crashed onto the pavement like suicides. I walked under the awnings, as far from the street as I could manage, and my jeans were still getting wet. I thought about what I'd learned, if I had learned anything.
I knew that Amelie Glapion was possessed by a rider. That was firsthand knowledge, and I didn't have to trust anybody about anything. So that was the center to work from. Amelie was running a rider cult, and her granddaughter Sabine was attending rituals. I knew her other granddaughter Daria had the ability to see things that were true, but that she didn't necessarily understand herself. Again, that was direct evidence.
At one remove, I knew that the rider had been cast into exile, killed a bunch of people including Karen's old partner, and was now making its way back home. I knew Amelie Glapion had suffered a stroke at the same time New Orleans was wrecked by the hurricane. She had been a woman of serious importance in the community, but she was weaker now, and the community scattered.
I reached an intersection, ducked out from beneath the awning, and ran. The rain was hard, but warmer than I'd expected. My shirt and hair were soaked by even that short time. I double-checked my laptop carrier, but it was closed tight. Still, probably best to keep as dry as I could.
I turned down the street. A neon sign announced LARRY FLYNT'S BARELY LEGAL, white lightbulbs dancing above it. The pictures in the window showed airbrushed girls younger, I assumed, than I was. A woman in a bright yellow raincoat came out, lit a cigarette, and looked at me. She was wearing half a display counter worth of makeup, but underneath it, she looked tired. I smiled, and she nodded back. I had heard somewhere that the sex shows were the first businesses on Bourbon Street to reopen. At the time, it had been said in an approving voice, but I couldn't remember whose. I kept walking.
Nothing I'd heard conflicted with Karen's story. But if I were Legba, would I really choose Amelie Glapion for my victim? Someone that high in the community would be a coup, certainly, but I couldn't see why the rider would try to surround itself with people who were aware of riders and how they worked. If Karen was to be trusted, the local loa didn't think much of old Legba. Diving into an existing rider cult...
Maybe there was a reason. Maybe it made sense, if you looked at it from the right perspective. Eric would have known, could have put all the points in a line and seen what it all meant and what would happen next. But he was gone, and I was here.
And, much as I hated it, I did have someone I could ask. Karen had evaded my questions and played weird power games and all that, it was true. But if I wasn't seduced or cowed, I could insist that we talk about it. I'd present my questions in simple, clear words, and I'd just keep leaning until I had an answer. Then afterward, I could find a way to fact-check it.
I had just about