Crescent Moon - By Lori Handeland Page 0,44

head. "He looked the same as the day I met him."

She stopped again, right inside Jackson Square. The artisans and psychics were still there; the music had stopped.

"You're saying his throat wasn't bloody and gaping? His body hadn't started to rot?"

"I think I'd have noticed." Along with everyone else on the street

She bit her lip and stared at the ground. "Weird."

"What are you getting at?"

Cassandra lifted her troubled gaze to mine. "Ever seen Night of the Living Dead?"

"No."

"Zombies aren't supposed to appear alive. They're a walking corpse."

"The movie could be wrong. And wouldn't that be a shock?"

She didn't answer, which was answer enough.

"You don't think so."

"No." She cut past the cathedral, and I followed. "Maybe Charlie is too newly dead to decay."

"Then how did he heal his throat wound?"

"Yeah." She glanced at me. "How did he?"

"You're the voodoo priestess."

Cassandra scowled. "Whoever did this has power beyond anything we can imagine. Not only was Charlie raised; he was healed." She shook her head. "I don't like it"

I had to say I wasn't crazy about it, either.
Chapter 19
Frenchmen Street was deserted except for bartenders, waitresses, and local musicians ready to play a set for tips.

"Won't get busy here until after nine or ten," Cassandra said. "If you like, once we're done, we can hang out and listen to the best jazz in town."

I wasn't sure what to say. We'd come after a zombie, and once we put him back... wherever... Cassandra wanted to listen to music and drink wine spritzers.

When in Rome, I guess. By then I probably would need a drink.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Now we start walking through alleys, peeking in bars."

"Seems a little half-assed to me."

"You got a better idea?"

Actually, I did.

"Hey, Charlie!" I shouted. "Chaaaaaaarlie!"

One bartender and two waitresses stepped onto the sidewalk, saw us, shrugged, and went back to work.

I glanced at Cassandra. "You said names have power."

"I did, didn't I?" She took a deep breath and shouted, "Charlie!"

Farther down, past the jazz clubs, a head poked out between a grocery store and an abandoned building. I recognized that head even before Charlie stepped into the flare of a streetlight.

"Bingo," I whispered.

"Get the powder."

I did as she said, and each of us took a little into our hand.

"Remember, blow it right into his face."

We took one step in Charlie's direction and he ran.

"Hell!" Cassandra snapped, and started to run, too. "He isn't supposed to run."

I hustled after her. I had longer legs, but Cassandra had less weight on hers. "Why not?"

"Because it should be all he can do to shuffle. This guy is weird."

"This guy is dead."

She didn't bother to answer. Charlie was too fast to keep up a conversation and keep up with him.

He led us away from the dewy lights of Frenchmen Street, down roads I couldn't name without a sign, past signs I couldn't see without a light. Cassandra didn't seem disturbed, but then, she probably knew where we were going.

Nevertheless, I didn't think it was a good idea to chase a corpse all over New Orleans when all we had for protection was a zombie-revealing powder that might or might not work.

"Maybe we should let him go," I wheezed.

"Not on your life." Cassandra wasn't wheezing, of course. "This is the closest I've ever gotten to a zombie. I'm not giving up the chance to - "

Ah, she did have to take a deep breath. I felt so much better.

"To what?"

She frowned, her gaze flicking past me. "That's Louis Armstrong Park."

I stopped running.

Louis Armstrong Park was not a place we wanted to be after the dark. The only place worse was -

"He's going into St. Louis Cemetery Number One."

That.

All the guidebooks said, in big, bold, red letters, not to enter any of the cemeteries at night. And not because of a zombie problem, either. There was a certain diceyness, even in the daytime, that made it best to visit in groups.

Up until about eighty years ago, this part of New Orleans had been known as Storyville and was the only legal red-light district in the country. Customers could peruse a book that listed the bordellos and even had pictures of the prostitutes. Jazz flourished, too, since the musical movement was not considered legitimate until much later.

Even after prostitution became illegal again, Storyville remained the place to find a certain kind of girl well into the 1960s.

A police station had been built nearby. However, the area still had a dangerous aura that never seemed to go away.

"Let's go back to your place." I tugged on Cassandra's