M. Hanover - Darker Angels

“It’s okay,” I shouted. “I’ll risk it.”

A different thought struck me.

“You have to go,” I shouted. “You have to get out of here. Now!”

“We can all go,” he said. “I have to-”

“No! You have to get out. The cops are going to come. They’re going to be here. If they find out you’re alive, you’re heading back to prison.”

Mfume rocked back like I’d slapped him. He’d forgotten that he was an escaped serial killer. He looked around the carnage and panic, and his expression was anguished.

“I’ll take care of it,” I said. “Just go!”

“I will stay close,” Mfume said. “I will find you.”

“It’s a date. Now run!”

He stepped back, hesitated, and then turned, running toward the back of the place. I wondered what escape routes he could find. I didn’t think there was an alleyway behind the building, but there might have been a connecting passage or a way up to the roof.

I couldn’t worry about it. Another volley of gunfire came from the street, then the screeching of tires probably about a hundred times louder than my abused eardrums could register. I crept forward. The fire in the front room was getting bigger. I couldn’t see the darkness of the street on the other side, so I assumed that if Karen was still out there she couldn’t see me. The doorway was bright, the flames dancing wildly. The heat came off it like an assault. I scuttled forward, grabbed Amelie’s blouse at the shoulder, and hauled her back. Above us, the ceiling was almost lost in a roiling white smoke. A voice I didn’t recognize shouted somewhere to my left. I heard glass breaking from up the stairs and hoped it had been intentional.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said, then looked down at the woman I was carrying and knew that it wasn’t.

Flying glass had stripped the skin from her cheeks, revealing deep red tissue and white cheekbone. Her throat was bloody. Her hands hung in the air, laboring under their own weight. Her legs where they had lain nearest the fire were blistered. A sweet smell like cooking pork cut through the smoke, and I tried not to retch.

“I’ll get you out,” I said. “I’ll get you out of here.”

“There is no need,” Legba said. Unlike every other sound, its voice was perfectly clear. “The woman is gone.”

“But-” I began, then didn’t know where to go. But she can’t die. But she was just here a minute ago. But I still need her. I didn’t know if I was weeping from the smoke or something else.

“Carrefour is a clever, deceitful beast,” Legba said. “I had believed that we were safe. That there would be time. More time.”

The woman’s dead body, still animated by the power of its rider, shifted and rose unsteadily until it sat before me. The roar of the fire in the next room was like a waterfall. The dead lips smiled at me, exposing a hundred needle-sharp teeth.

“I have fallen,” it said. “There is no longer any hope for this one. It is in my child’s hands now, but she is weak. Young.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I absolutely get that.”

“The pact you took with me is broken with my death,” it said, “and I cannot bring myself to beg.”

“Hey, don’t. I mean, you don’t need to beg or anything. I said I’d stand up, and I’ll do it.”

The eyes were black, the woman’s flesh losing its own form, shaped more and more by the thing still alive within her. Alive, but fading. I glanced around, and we were the only two left. The others had gotten out. The three empty cots against the wall were barely above the lowering smoke. The heat of the fire was like a hand pressing against my cheek. The undead voodoo queen of New Orleans considered me.

“We have not been allies,” it said.

“I’m not saying I’d marry you,” I said. “It’s just… I’ll look out for the kids. I’ll do what I can.”

It looked out toward the street. I coughed. I was getting a little light-headed.

“First the flood and now the fire,” Legba said, as if laughing at some private joke. “Go, then. Leave me. Save my city.”

I should have run. I should have been running the whole time.

“I will,” I said.

Legba took my hand, and I could feel its strength failing. Without knowing I intended to, I leaned forward, cupping the dead woman’s skull in my palm, pressing her forehead to mine. Something seemed to pass between us-not magic, not spirit, but understanding. And grief.

“Go,” the rider said. “I will clear your way.”

And the world stopped.

Silence rushed in where the roar of flames had been. The roiling smoke stilled. Amelie Glapion’s body nodded toward the front room, and I rose. The air seemed to tingle, but the heat wasn’t unbearable. I walked toward the front room and its ongoing conflagration. Bright flames hung in the air, still as stone but glowing. I brushed one with my hand like I was petting a cat, and it felt like velvet.

The street came more clearly into view with each step. The blackened shell of a car lay on its side in the middle of the pavement. Men and women were crowded on the sidewalk across the street, and down far enough that the heat of the flames was bearable. Two policemen stood like temple guards, keeping the crowd back.

I wondered how long it had taken-five minutes? ten?-to go from the sense of power and freedom and safety of Legba’s ward-breaking dance to this. I caught a glimpse of Aubrey near one clump of people, his arm raised to shield his eyes. He didn’t react as I came near, not even to breathe.

I turned back toward the fire.

“Okay,” I said, my voice no louder than a conversation between friends. “Thanks. I’m clear now.”

A breath later, the world turned back on. The roar of the fire, the distant sirens, the assaulting smell of burning wood and spent explosives. I felt a tug at the back of my mind, like a kid yanking on her mother’s sleeve, and I knew that Legba- the Legba that had lived in Amelie Glapion-was gone. Aubrey shifted to the side, squinting into the fire.

“Hey,” I said.

He yelped, whirled, and then scooped me up in a bear hug that made me yelp right back.

“Ribs! Watch the ribs!”

“Right,” he said. “Sorry. But you’re out. You got out. Daria, she collapsed. I mean, I think she’s okay now, but I had to carry her out. I saw you going after Amelie, and then I didn’t see you go past, so I thought you were still… I thought…”

“Guess that was kind of dangerous,” I said. I felt disconnected. Like the world was still at one remove, and I was still moving through the crossroads. “I didn’t really think about it.”

“What about Amelie?”

“She didn’t make it,” I said. “She’s gone.”

Aubrey didn’t answer. At the far end of the street, a fire truck arrived, its lights flashing and its siren clearing the path of onlookers. Another police cruiser was behind it, then two, then five and an ambulance. The city of New Orleans had arrived at the crisis. They were on it. I crossed my arms and watched, unable to offer anything but moral support. Slowly, like I was waking from a dream, human concerns started to occur to me.

“Chogyi Jake,” I said. “He was…”

“He’s down there with the others.”

I looked where he pointed. Down the block, a small cluster of people had set up a kind of ad-hoc relief station. Two people lay on the sidewalk, three others standing or squatting beside them. Chogyi Jake was sitting on the curb, someone’s jacket wrapping his hips. Daria Glapion stood beside him looking back at us. Even from half a block down, the fire reflected in her eyes.

“Come on,” I said.

The police, reinforced by the newly arrived squad cars, pushed the crowd further back and the firefighters rushed in. Chogyi Jake looked up at me and smiled wearily.