Jessica Andersen - Dawnkeepers

Nate tensed. “What’s wrong with Mistress Truth’s?”

The other man’s eyes slid away from his. “Nothing. Just trying to give family some business.” He reached over without looking, palmed his Motorola, and chirped home base to announce the pickup and his destination, then turned up the dance music on the radio in a clear signal that the convo was over.

Nate would’ve pressed, but from the set of the driver’s jaw he figured he wouldn’t get far. Stubborn recognized stubborn. He half turned back to look at Alexis, who lifted a shoulder as if to say, What can we do? It wasn’t like going to another tea shop was going to get them the knife. It was Mistress Truth or bust.

They traveled the rest of the way in silence broken only by the mindless syncopation coming from the radio, until the driver rolled them to a stop in front of a jazz club. “We’re here.”

Actually, they were more like four doors down, Nate saw, and tried not to wonder why the driver didn’t want to stop in front of the tea shop. If the guy was trying to give him the creeps, he’d done a pretty good job.

Nate paid the tab and added a tip. When the driver made change he included a card for his cousin’s place, but didn’t say another word, just gave a two-fingered salute and pulled back out into traffic.

“Smells funny.” Rabbit wrinkled his nose as he looked around.

“Can’t argue that,” Nate said, staring after the cab.

“You should’ve told him to wait,” Alexis said, her tone carrying a distinct edge.

Nate ignored her snippiness. It didn’t seem to be easing, which made him wonder whether it was more than delayed shock. But even if it had something to do with her vision of the day before, something to do with the two of them together, it wasn’t like he could—or would—do anything to ease the tension for either of them. So he shrugged and said, “Somehow I doubt he would’ve waited, tip or no tip. Seemed like he was in a hurry to get out of here.”

He took a long look around, trying to figure out why. The narrow street was cracked and heaved in some places, patched in others. Probably leftover hurricane damage, he figured, which might also explain the funky odor Rabbit had mentioned, which smelled like a cross between a bad air freshener and used sweat socks. The block they’d come to looked like most of the others they’d passed on the way: pieces of it old, pieces new, all of it vaguely fake-seeming, as though the contractors had tried to slap a gloss of cool over it, and missed. Mardi Gras had been a few days earlier, and confetti edged the street, lone wisps of streamers and colored dots that’d escaped the street sweepers lying now in the gutter, their once-bright colors gone drab.

The exterior of the jazz bar was slicked with a fresh coat of paint and sported a shiny new sign, but the next two places down were boarded up. Beyond them was the tea shop, which took up the corner of the block. The star-studded sign confirmed the cabbie’s implication that the place might call itself a tea shop, but the actual tea was ancillary to fortune-telling, palmistry, and other supposed magical practices. The shop was plain-fronted, with a facade that looked older than even those of its abandoned neighbors. Instead of being shabby, though, it seemed sturdy, as though the floodwaters had passed it by.

Or not, Nate thought, mentally dope-slapping himself for buying into the mystique that’d no doubt been painted on by the same contractors who’d done the rest of the block.

“We going in or what?” Alexis asked, then moved past him and headed for the store without waiting for an answer. Rabbit slouched along in her wake, and when he looked back at Nate he had a big old smirk on his face, like he was enjoying the tension between them.

“Punk,” Nate muttered, and stalked after them both, passing them and shouldering through the door to the tea shop so he was the first one in. As he entered, he braced himself for the smell of death or the sting of dark, twisted magic.

He didn’t get either. He got a tea shop.

It was bigger inside than it’d looked from the street. Large glass display cases flanked the door and ran along a central aisle, and chairs were grouped around small round tables behind the counters, set up for readings. And tea, he supposed. He could smell it in the air, an earthy mix of herbs that bore little resemblance to the Lipton his social worker, Carol Rose, had insisted he drink whenever they met.

That memory, though, hit hard when he smelled the herbs. He’d been tough and mean, hardened by his experiences in juvie, with defenses cemented in stone by what he’d seen and done—and avoided doing—inside Greenville. But lucky for him, Carol Rose had been tougher and meaner, and had refused to be scared off. She’d been the making of him as a man, and damned if he couldn’t see her face right there in front of him, when he knew full well her pack-a-day habit had caught up with her six years earlier.

“Hey.” Alexis tapped his shoulder. “You going to stand there all day?”

“I—” He broke off, shaking his head as Carol Rose’s image disappeared in a swirl of tea-scented leaves. Seeing nobody in the small storefront, he stepped aside. “Yeah. Come on.”

When the door swung shut behind her and Rabbit, a bell chimed in the rear. The paneling at the front of the store was light-toned wood, and the display cases were filled with low-key arcana: decks of tarot cards, incense and burners, and mass-produced voodoo dolls aimed at the tourist market. The big windows at the front of the store let in the light, and the whole effect was pleasant enough, if bland. Beyond that, though, the room darkened to a maze of tall bookcases set at crazy angles to one another. Nate couldn’t see the back wall, but the echoes told him that there was nearly twice as much space in the darkness as in the light.

The setup made the place feel like two entirely different stores. The front was a safe zone, where tourists could do their thing and come out feeling as though they’d scraped the surface of the local occult community. The rear of the store was where it was really at, though. No doubt about it.

“Stay here,” Nate said. “I’ll be right back.” He headed toward the bookcases.

Half a second later Alexis and Rabbit followed. Big surprise. He didn’t bother to order them to wait until he’d checked things out, though, because he didn’t figure it’d work. Besides, once he was past the first row of bookcases the light dimmed significantly, and damned if it didn’t feel like the walls closed in a notch. He knew it was probably an optical illusion or the power of suggestion, but it made him think the three of them were better off sticking together, just in case.

The first two rows of cases held the usual assortment of woo-woo texts and themed day planners, exactly the sort of tourist crap he would’ve expected. The next few contained some legit-looking crystals and some crazy clay blobs. By the time he passed the fifth row of cases and realized the store was way bigger than he’d thought at first, he was into shrunken-head territory, and gut instinct had him on alert. He didn’t feel power, per se, but there was a definite sense of danger, though he wasn’t sure if it was real or if he’d talked himself into it based on the scenery.

Moving deeper into the gloom with the others breathing down his neck, he paused when he caught a hint of motion in his peripheral vision, there and gone so quickly he might’ve missed it if he hadn’t been watching. “Mistress Truth?” he called softly.

“Keep coming,” a deep, yet feminine voice responded from up ahead, which meant she hadn’t been the source of the motion he’d seen. Filing that, he did as he was told, passing the last row of bookcases and stepping into a space that was at once both open and deeply shadowed, and appeared empty.