Rose sighed and looked over at us, as if we were supposed to say something. The thing is, I didn"t know what. The whole Voodoo zombie angle was Rose"s idea, not mine. I wanted that haunted house and I had a feeling an ailing Voodoo priestess would be no help with that.
"Maryse, I have some people here I"d like you to meet. Ambrosia told you about them, didn"t she?"
"Ambrosia tells me a lot of things. I never listen."
Wow, being Maryse"s apprentice was starting to sound like a pretty s.h.i.tty job. I started to wonder what Ambrosia"s deal was when I felt my gaze being drawn to the bed. Maryse was staring right at me, I could feel it.
"Who is that young man?" Maryse asked in weird disbelief, a crooked finger extended in my direction.
I pointed at myself. "Me?"
"You seem familiar."
Well, that certainly wasn"t possible. I looked up at Maximus hulking over me and elbowed him. "This guy, I"ve heard you met him before." I shot him a look to step forward. Apparently he was feeling nervy too.
He cleared his throat and came toward her, one slow step at a time. "Mambo Maryse. Do you remember me? It"s Maximus."
She fell silent. The whole room did. Outside, you could hear the crickets and cicadas, the drone of dragonflies. Finally she said, "I don"t think I know you. Who is this man, Rose?"
Rose tilted her head at him apologetically before answering her. "He was my...we worked at the bar together. I know you can"t really see him now, but he was tall, handsome, with red hair. We were...together. A lot. You know him, Maryse."
More silence. I was about to say "Ouch" on his behalf, since he failed to make an impression on her over the years, but suddenly Maryse sat up straighter, her posture rigid in the dim light.
"Jacobs," she whispered.
The way she said his last name made chills run down my back, stopping at my b.a.l.l.s, and continuing to my toes. Perry applied pressure to my hand, perhaps feeling the same way. Except for the b.a.l.l.s part.
"That"s right," Maximus said, his voice shaking a little. "Maximus Jacobs. I used to be in love with your Rose here."
"But..." Maryse trailed off, shaking her head. "You"re mortal."
Rose and Maximus"s eyes flew to each other, both of them wide and shining with horror.
"Of course he"s mortal," Rose said quickly, trying to laugh it off. "He-"
"No," she interrupted Rose, her focus back on him. "No, you changed. You"ve gone rogue. I remember now."
I raised my hand even though she probably couldn"t see me. "Uh, miss Voodoo lady? I hate to break it to you but this dude"s been mortal for a long time. He was my college roommate and I drank him under the table time and time again."
"You," she seethed, her finger pointing at me again. I cringed a bit, feeling like she was poking into my soul. "You. I know you, I know about you! You"re the exception."
I raised my brows and looked down at Perry. She was shaking her head in confusion. "Exception to what?"
"Get out," she suddenly yelled, her glinting eyes on Perry now. "Get out, all of you, you too, Rose! I"m tired of people just showing up in my life and wanting things from me, disturbing everything. You"re all a bunch of idiots, dabbling in things you don"t understand, bending the laws with no regard for this world or the one next to us, or the one above us or the one under us. I"m too old to deal with this baloney anymore."
And with that she flopped back on the bed and pointed at the netting. "Now close the netting and leave."
Rose quickly did as she asked, looking fl.u.s.tered, and we all got out of that room as quickly as we could. Rose closed the door behind her and we scrambled out into the kitchen just as Ambrosia was coming toward us with a pot of tea.
She gave us a waning smile. "I suppose I should have warned you that she"s got a bit of dementia and has been talking gibberish for the last few days now."
"Yeah," I said carefully, "a little warning would have been nice."
She beamed at me, her teeth so white, lips so full. I felt kind of dazzled. "I"ll go bring her the tea, but I"d love to talk to you guys more about all of this, even if she doesn"t want to. I have a friend whose blues band is playing in the city at Deep N" Easy. Why don"t we all meet there tonight? I"ll even put you on the guest list."
I looked to the others for their opinion. The women looked less enthused than the men, but Rose still nodded brusquely and said, "Sounds good, see you there."
We left Maryse"s swamp house in a hurry, and all I could think about as we got back in the truck was how that frail old witch said she knew me. She obviously did have dementia, I mean she was surprised that Maximus wasn"t immortal anymore and probably saw a bunch of pixies dancing around her head, but it was the conviction in her words that was doing me in.
I had too many strange messages for one day. The Big Easy was turning out to be harder than I thought.
CHAPTER NINE.
"Well, what did you think about that?" Perry asked as we closed the bedroom door behind us. It was the first time we"d been alone since the morning, and the whole drive back into NOLA was filled with s.h.i.tty radio, none of us even daring to talk about what had just happened. Well, I wanted to talk about it, but both Rose and Maximus were so uncomfortably tight-lipped that I wouldn"t even get any joy out of ribbing him.
I walked straight over to the bed and flopped face-down on it. I felt utterly and completely drained. I turned my face to look at her. "Come lie with me," I mumbled against the sheets.
She lay down beside me, on her back, her eyes on the ceiling. "That was weird."
"What isn"t weird anymore?" I pointed out.
"True," she said, folding her hands across her stomach. She turned to look at me, her expression earnest. "Have you seen that woman before?"
"The crazy Mambo?" I shook my head. "No, never. Granted, I couldn"t really see her since she"s apparently a vampire as well. But no. You believe me, right?"
"Of course I do. I just think it"s weird."
"As weird as her saying Maximus is immortal?"
"If not weirder. Obviously she is just a crazy old kook." Crazy, and yet part of me wanted to believe her.
"She"s white, too," she said. "I expected her to be Haitian or something."
"Well, Ambrosia"s of mixed descent."
At the mention of Ambrosia"s name, Perry stiffened. Interesting. It really did seem like my woman was jealous and I was finding it immensely flattering. I spent so much time wondering about Perry"s true feelings for me, if they were more than a s.e.xual fixation, so it was really nice to see she cared about me at least that much. I really hoped I wouldn"t use it to my advantage, because that was definitely something the old Dex would do-make them jealous to see if they cared.
Nope, I told myself, you have to be more mature than that. I reached over and tugged at the band of her leggings, trying to get her attention.
"Hey, kiddo."
She relaxed and smiled at me. "Hey. Sorry, I guess I"m just tired too. Jet lag finally catching up to me."
"We could nap until we went to the bar."
"Right. Like we would ever just nap."
I frowned in mock disgust. "Hey, you don"t see me pawing you right now, do you?"
I turned over on to my side and pulled her to me, wrapping my arm around her waist until she was pressed up against me. "Let"s just sleep," I whispered in her hair. "We"ve earned it."
We were out in seconds flat.
Deep N" Easy was located on Frenchman street, just out of the Quarter. Perry and I trailed behind Rose and Maximus as we walked down the rough sidewalk, peering at the never ending vibrancy around us, from the open-air bars spilling out onto the street, to the endless music coming out from all directions, to the various tattoo shops.
I pointed to one of them. "Ever think of getting a tattoo?"
She shrugged and bit her lip. "I have some ideas..."
"Tell me," I said. I never pegged Perry to be one of those types; she seemed too indecisive for that.
She shook her head, suddenly coy. "No, it would be a surprise."
"A surprise?" I both loved and hated surprises. "Is it a picture of my c.o.c.k? Did my letterman jacket give you the idea?"
She rolled her eyes. "I"m not telling you." She kept walking, trying to catch up with Maximus and Rose. I waited a few beats, concentrating on her, hoping I could get a thought out of her and find out what the surprise was. All I got was the sharp stab of a headache instead.
I hurried after her and she tossed me a smug look over her shoulder. She was enjoying her tattoo secret too much. I supposed I hadn"t been too forthcoming with my "Within your Light I Lose the Madness" on my back either.
"Is it a fleur-de-lis?" I asked, rolling up my t-shirt sleeve to show her the one on my insanely buff arm. "Considering there are fleur-de-lis all over the place here, you"d fit right in. And we"d match."
Her eyes paused on my muscles briefly before her blase look returned. "That"s pretty lame, Dex, even for you."
"More or less lame than the c.o.c.k?"
"Would y"all hurry up?" Rose yelled. They had stopped outside a bar, the slow thumping of ba.s.s pounding through the brick walls. The light inside was bathing everyone in red.
"Deep N" Easy," I remarked, reading the faded sign. "Just the way I like it."
Rose shook her head, unimpressed, and we followed her inside where we lined up in front of the bouncer. I leaned into her. "You never smile, do you, Rose?"
She rolled her eyes and told the bouncer our names. He checked us off the list and told us to go inside.
Ambrosia spotted us first, waving casually from a table near the stage where the band slowly rumbled on. Like last night, it was a three piece set-up, but with a somber, coal-colored singer on acoustic guitar. His soul was bleeding out through the strings and I was excruciatingly jealous.
We sat down and Perry immediately got up and told us all she was getting the first round of drinks.
"Tell them you"re with locals!" Rose yelled after her. "Don"t let them give you the tourist price."
Ambrosia smiled at Maximus and I and I felt strangely giddy inside. It didn"t make any sense and I had to shake my head to get rid of it. Fortunately, no one else had noticed. They were all staring at the band while Ambrosia explained who they were.
"Dead Frog"s Blood," she explained.
"Poetic," I said. "I guess they aren"t known for being upbeat."
She leaned toward me, her eyes sparkling. "Oh, Mr. Foray, something tells me you know a lot about the blues. Even the blues can have a happy tale to tell."
"Mr. Foray?" I repeated. "You make me sound so old."
"Well, you can"t be more than twenty-five," she said sincerely.
"Is it because I"m immature?"
"That." She winked at me and then tossed her hair over her shoulder. "And your girlfriend can"t be much more than twenty-one."
"She"s twenty-three," I explained.
"And how old are you?"
I swallowed. "Thirty-two."
"That"s quite the age difference. I"m impressed."
I shrugged. "You gotta get them while they"re young before they know what they"re getting into." I played it off like the age difference between us didn"t plague me from time to time. That little niggling fear that I wanted what I wanted from her because I was older and ready for more in life, while she was still young and almost virginal (well, a little more experienced after last night), and probably had fields of wild oats in her left to sow. I didn"t want to think about that.
Perry came back with the drinks: a pitcher of local brew for everyone else, a mint julep for herself, and a Jack Daniels and lemonade mix for me. It wasn"t exactly what I wanted but it would do the job.
We all clinked gla.s.ses across the table and got down to business. Maximus explained to Ambrosia about the haunted house we wanted to film, while Rose told her that perhaps we were better off looking into the whole zombie epidemic. Ambrosia wasn"t as thrilled with that idea.
"Rose," she said with a smirk, "sending tourists off into the inner city isn"t the smartest thing you could do."
"We"d be with them," Rose said, pointing at Maximus. "We"re not tourists."
"Right, as if that makes a difference," she said. "I"m half black and I"d still get held up in seconds, if I was lucky. Trust me, I want to figure out what"s going on as much as you do, but I don"t think they came here to dig up Voodoo. Just ghosts."
"Well," Perry spoke up, a strange fire burning in her eyes as she looked at Ambrosia, "personally, I think investigating this whole zombie thing is a lot more interesting than the whole haunted house deal. I mean, I hate to sound condescending about the afterlife, but this is something new to us."
If Ambrosia was put off by Perry"s argument, she didn"t show it. She smiled gently at her and said, "You"d be right about that. For as long as I"ve been studying Voodoo, I"ve never seen a single case of this happening."
I laughed. "Sure, but you can"t be much older than...what, twenty-eight?"
"I"ll pretend that was a compliment. I"m twenty-six. But I"m a descendent of the great Marie Laveau. Perhaps you"ve heard of her?"
I sipped my drink. "I don"t know, I hear a lot of things. Who is that?"
Rose spoke up. "Ambrosia"s mother claimed to be the daughter of Marie"s son."
"Not claimed," Ambrosia said, glaring at her. "Proven. I have the DNA."
"Even though Marie"s children by Paris both died at a young age of yellow fever," she countered.