Sympathy for the Devil - By Tim Pratt Page 0,22

but something smarter than you’d expect of an animal, too. I lift my gaze back up to meet Staley’s.

“I think I know someone we can talk to,” I say.

The way William had talked him up, Staley expected Robert Lonnie to be about two hundred years old and, as Grandma used to describe one of those old hound dogs of hers, full of piss and vinegar. But Robert looked to be no older than twenty-one, twenty-two—a slender black man in a pin-striped suit, small-boned and handsome, with long, delicate fingers and wavy hair brushed back from his forehead. It was only when you took a look into those dark eyes of his that you got the idea he’d been a place or two ordinary folks didn’t visit. They weren’t so much haunted, as haunting; when he looked at you, his gaze didn’t stop at the skin, but went all the way through to the spirit held in there by your bones.

They tracked him down in a small bar off Palm Street, found him sitting at a booth in the back, playing a snaky blues tune on a battered old Gibson guitar. The bar was closed and except for a bald-headed white man drying beer glasses behind the bar, he had the place to himself. He never looked up when she and William walked in, just played that guitar of his, picked it with a lazy ease that was all the more surprising since the music he pulled out of it sounded like it had to come from at least a couple of guitars. It was a soulful, hurting blues, but it filled you with hope, too.

Staley stood transfixed, listening to it, to him. She felt herself slipping away somewhere, she couldn’t say where. Everything in the room gave the impression it was leaning closer to him, tables, chairs, the bottles of liquor behind the bar, listening, feeling that music.

When William touched her arm, she started, blinked, then followed him over to the booth.

William had described Robert Lonnie as an old hoodoo man and Staley decided that even if he didn’t know a lick of the kind of mojo she was looking for, he still knew a thing or two about magic—the musical kind, that is. Lord, but he could play. Then he looked up, his gaze locking on hers. It was like a static charge, that dark gaze, sudden and unexpected in its intensity, and she almost dropped her fiddlecase on the floor. She slipped slowly into the booth, took a seat across the table from him and not a moment too soon since her legs had suddenly lost their ability to hold her upright. William had to give her a nudge before she slid further down the seat to make room for him. She hugged her fiddlecase to her chest, only dimly aware of William beside her, the rabbit in its bag on his lap.

The guitarist kept his gaze on her, humming under his breath as he brought the tune to a close. His last chord hung in the air with an almost physical presence and for a long moment everything in the bar held its breath. Then he smiled, wide and easy, and the moment was gone.

“William,” he said softly. “Miss.”

“This is Staley,” William said.

Robert gave her considering look, then turned to William. “You’re early to be hitting the bars.”

“It’s not like you think,” William said. “I’m still going to AA.”

“Good for you.”

“Well,” William said. “Considering it’s about the only thing I’ve done right with my life, I figured I might as well stick with it.”

“Uh-huh.” Robert returned his attention to Staley. “You’ve got the look of one who’s been to the crossroads.”

“I guess,” Staley said, though she had no idea what he meant.

“But you don’t know who you met there, do you?”

She shook her head.

Robert nodded. “That’s the way it happens, all that spooky shit. You feel the wind rising and the leaves are trembling on the trees. Next thing you know, it’s all falling down on you like hail, but you don’t know what it is.”

“Um…” Staley looked to William for guidance.

“You’ve just got to tell him like you told me,” William said.

But Robert was looking at the shopping bag on William’s lap now.

“Who’ve you got in there?” he asked.

Staley cleared her throat. “We were hoping you could tell us,” she said.

William lowered the cloth sides of the bag. The rabbit poked its head up, raggedy ear hanging down on one side.

Robert laughed. “Well, now,” he said,