M.L.N. HANOVER - Unclean Spirits

The storm damage here wasn’t so bad. The bathtub ring wasn’t there on the buildings. A few places near the water showed some damage, the searchers’ X. And some had new windows. I stopped at a Subway and got a six-inch sub and some salt and vinegar chips that I ate sitting on the curb, watching the traffic and the street life. This wasn’t the Vieux Carré. The sense of history and place was less oppressive here. It was only a city, alive and functioning. A little damaged, but growing back. Becoming itself.

How do you put a city back together? One house at a time. One restaurant, one coffee stand. One hospital and one pothole and one cheesy tourist trap voodoo museum at a time. And you try to get ready for the next storm.

The safe house looked the same, but it felt different. It was like the space itself had been altered by what had happened there. I pulled up the drive. The Virgin Mary in front was covered in flowers and burned-out candles studded the lawn before her outstretched arms. Someone had left the Holy Mother a fifth of bourbon as an offering. I wasn’t sure what I thought about that, but at least she didn’t look like a tombstone anymore. I went to the door of the house I’d bought and knocked tentatively.

Mfume answered it.

He looked rough. Three days’ worth of stubble salted his chin and cheeks. He wore a white T-shirt that left visible all the pale pink divots in his arm where the shotgun pellets had been dug out. He smiled when he saw me, the wide, goofy grin I’d first seen in his police record. I smiled back, and he stepped inside, ushering me through. He was still limping pretty bad.

The sunlight in the front room was softened and indirect; shadowy without any actual shadows. It smelled like the chicken noodle soup I’d had when I was sick as a kid. Comfort food.

“She’s resting in the back bedroom,” he said.

“How’s that going?” I asked.

He shook his head and lowered himself to sit on the arm of the couch.

“She sleeps some, and then she doesn’t,” he said.

“I believe she is still discovering how much has been taken from her. That will go on for some time.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” I said.

“It could have been much worse,” he said. “It nearly was.”

“Yeah, well.”

“How are you?”

“I feel like a pit bull’s chew toy,” I said. “But it’ll heal. I’ll be fine.”

“And the others?”

“Ex is a little screwed up, I think,” I said. “I haven’t really talked to him yet, but . . . he was sleeping with a possessed woman and didn’t notice.”

“It isn’t obvious,” Mfume said. “The rider didn’t present itself. How could he be expected to know?”

“He’s pretty deeply into the whole self-blame thing anyway,” I said. “I’m not sure that being justified in the mistake will really slow him down much.”

“That’s too bad,” Mfume said.

“Yeah. And Aubrey’s still processing. But I think he and Marinette sort of made peace with each other during that last fight. He slept through the night last night. No particular nightmares.”

I didn’t add that I knew that because I’d been sleeping next to him. There hadn’t been any sex. Just sleeping. But still.

“And Chogyi?”

“Chogyi Jake’s Chogyi Jake,” I said. “I have no idea

what happens in his head unless he lets me in on it.”

Mfume nodded, started to cross his arms, then winced and put them back down at his sides.

“So,” I said, “I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t need this house. I’ve got a lot of houses and apartments and everything. I’d like you to stay here. Or, you know, if you want to. As long as you and Karen need a place, you can have this one. I’ll pop for the utilities and everything. Cable.”

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” he said, “but—”

“Here’s the thing,” I said, not letting him get out a whole objection. “You’re dead. I mean, Joseph Mfume’s dead, and if he’s not, then he’s an escaped serial killer. I’ve got it figured that you’re uncomfortable accepting help and all. You spent a bunch of time killing anyone who reached out, and that’s got to put a spin on things. Just classical conditioning, like you said. But it’s not about you anymore, is it? It’s about her now.”

Mfume’s eyebrows rose and he took a deep breath.

“You were a loner when Carrefour was driving, because that’s Carrefour’s shtick,” I said. “You were solo after that because . . . well, you were doing the fugitive hunter thing. Not really conducive to an active social life. But that’s done too. You have to take care of Karen, and I can help with that.”

“And why would you?” he asked.

“Because I can. It costs me essentially nothing and it makes me feel better. So, you know. Go me.”

The moment was fragile, but it was precious. He nodded.

“Let me think about it,” he said.

“Think as long as you want, so long as afterward, you say yes.”

He laughed. It was a warm sound, rueful and joyful and cathartic.

“All right,” he said. “I don’t have the strength to fight with two of you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” he replied with a smile that appreciated the irony.

The voice from the kitchen was weak.

“You’re Jayné,” Karen said.

She walked in wearing a robe. Her eyes were swollen from weeping. Three black scabs on her neck showed where Marinette’s fingers had raked Carrefour’s flesh. Two riders had fought, and Karen’s body had been the battlefield.

The woman I’d known was gone. The self-assured, hyper-competent, kicking ass and taking names occult mistress of darkness had always been a load of crap, whether it was her pretending it or me trying to live up to her.

“Hey,” I said.

“I remember you,” Karen said. “It hated you a lot. And it was . . . scared of you too.”

“I don’t know why,” I said. “I’m just me.”

“Jayné asked us to take care of her house while she is away,” Mfume said.

“Like caretakers?” Karen asked.

“Like that, yeah,” I said, picking up my cue. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Sure,” she said, holding the robe closed at her neck. “I can handle that.”

We talked for another few minutes until Karen started wearing out and headed back for another nap. We said our good-byes. Karen hugged me and said how glad she was to meet me.

So here’s the thing. Any sufficiently massive change is complicated. It’s not just good or just bad. Sabine Glapion lost her grandmother and got possessed by a rider, but she also became the undisputed voodoo queen of New Orleans with money and property and a congregation of cultists bent on protecting and supporting her. Karen Black escaped years of demonic possession and walked back into a world where she had no job, no family, no friends. New Orleans was broken under the storm, but it refused to die, and the city that it became—that it was still becoming—wasn’t the one it had been. It was better and worse, lessened and increased, richer and the place where something precious had been lost forever.

Less than a year before, I had known who I was: a failed college student on the outs with her family and

estranged from her church and the God she didn’t believe in. I had no particular prospects, I had no plans or goals or ambitions more sophisticated than not being homeless. And then I’d been given the world on a plate. Money, power, a secret war against evil that I could champion. But every sufficiently massive change is complicated. Because I’d gotten everything, and I had lost my sense of myself.

The good news was that, just like Sabine and Karen and the city of New Orleans, I could fix that.