Ritha rubbed her temples. “We can use the refrigeration at the bars along Bourbon for any overflow.”
I now realized why they kept bringing up refrigeration. My stomach wrenched. They needed a morgue. “We can’t let all these people die! We have to figure out how to get these souls out!” The outburst depleted my remaining energy.
Manon turned to me. “We’re going to war, Désirée. There will be casualties.”
That’s a little dramatic. Again, the light flashed behind my eyelids. No. Not in front of Ritha. Not in front of Thing One and Thing Two. I refuse.
“What the hell?” yelled the SigEp guy, aggressively ripping away his splint and smacking his frat brother with it, diverting everyone’s attention. Thank Goddess.
“I thought you mirrored them!” Ritha snapped at Manon.
“We did! They’re not possessed; they’re just idiots.”
Ritha strode over to them, blew a fistful of chamomile in their faces, and they went down like sacks of oysters. She turned back to my cousins. “Go to the Bourbon Orleans. Check the power and water. If they’ve been cut, have your Uncle Morgan get them running. I want every room secured before sunrise. Bring every witch we can spare. The most sickly will remain here; the rest get transported. Ana Marie, cleanse the kitchen and bring the dead over with your sister. I know you’ll handle them with grace.” She paused, glancing at the corner altar she’d built for Ghede-Linto. “There’s too much death in this house.”
I made a mental note to never eat at the Bourbon Orleans when this was all over.
My mom kissed my cheek. “You looked beautiful tonight, baby.” I glanced down at my Hexennacht dress as she shuffled Remi and Manon out of the room. It was a cute dress.
Ritha came over to me and Sébastien, removing a tin from her apron pocket.
“What should I do?” I asked, aggressively suppressing a yawn.
She smeared a greasy salve over the still-open-but-not-nearly-as-deep-as-when-he-arrived burn on Sébastien’s face.
“You, my dear, go sweep the altars and refresh the offerings.”
“I’m tired of being the Cinderella stepchild!” What would she have me doing if I’d joined the family coven?
“Désirée, I’m gifting you the responsibility of tending to our ancestors while your cousins were sent off to turn a hotel into a magical asylum.”
I gulped.
“If I have to explain to you the hierarchy of tasks here, then perhaps I was wrong when doling them out.”
“I’m sor—!”
“Cinderella? Child, please.”
“I’ll make fresh coffee for great-gran—I know she liked it with condensed milk!”
“That’s more like it.” She gave me only a slightly more approving look and then went on her way out the room. “Heavy on the chicory!” As her voice faded down the hallway, I wondered what my ancestors thought about this mess. Goddess only knew what would have happened if Ritha and Chatham hadn’t had the foresight to protect the cemeteries.
“Are you Isis?” Sébastien asked, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. He was gazing up at me with droopy eyelids.
“The Egyptian Sun goddess?”
“Technically, yes, I suppose.” He patted his face for his glasses. “But I was referring to Shazam! DC Comics, 1976, issue twenty-five.” He squinted up at me. “Désirée Borges?” I almost reached for his glasses, or what was left of them, but then I realized foggy vision might work in our favor given what was going on in the room. “What happened?”
“There was an accident in the lab.”
“What? No, there wasn’t. There was a motorcycle gang. We were attacked. Someone—that guy always hanging around Adele with the hair . . .”
“There was an explosion at D-MORT. You barely got out alive.”
“What’s that smell?” He sniffed his arm. “It’s . . . embalming fluid.”
Gross. “See. Mortuary explosion.”
“Why are you here? Is this a FEMA tent? Is Isaac here? Where’s my sister?”
I wanted to grill him on what happened. I wanted to know every single detail about how Callisto Salazar’s coven did it. What magic they used. How they invoked the power of the Flower Moon. But I knew I should be trying to help him forget everything about the night rather than helping him access his memories.
“Yeah, we’re with FEMA. Isaac’s around here somewhere.” Instead of reaching for a scoop of memory powder from my apron, I squirted an eyedropper of my sleepytime potion into a cup of tea and helped him take a sip.
His face curdled. “Tastes like feet.”
“It’s the valerian root. Try to get some sleep.”
“Your arms are shimmery,” he said, eyelids heavy again. “Most people think Isis didn’t come around until DC’s New 52, but they are wroooong.” His words began to slur. “Did you know she traveled the Middle East freeing enslaved children?”
“Is that so?”
“And she could manipulate natural . . . elements.” His eyes sagged closed.
If he only knew how much this Isis and I had in common.
The blistering burn on his shoulder hadn’t healed properly. Ritha would kill me if she found out I was still using my magic. But it’s Sébastien. French Quarter rats for life. I placed one hand over the wound and waited for the ethereal tingling of my Spektral.
Instead, I got an electric shock and fell over, clutching the back of the couch. I bit my fist, swallowing a scream. Magic is pain. Growth is pain. I accept this challenge with grace.
Panting, I opened my eyes and was relieved to find the blisters had gone down.
Success.
I made it halfway across the room before I felt like I was going to pass out. No. Do not let Ritha down. I wanted to work with our ancestors.
Fingers grazed my hair across my back, and I snapped upright.
“How’s your hair so straight?”
My nostrils flared at the frat boy’s uninvited touch. “Magic,” I said through clenched teeth. Do not lose your cool. But then his hand slithered up my leg. I bolted forward.
“Where ya going?”
Don’t let him see you rattled. I spun back to him.
“Aren’t we going to play doctor?” He waved his finger in the air.
I am not in the mood for this shit. “Yeah, it’s time to play.”
I murmured words I wasn’t supposed to use, pulling the last bit of magic from the depths of my soul.
A look of horror corrupted his J. Crew catalogue face as his finger elongated, blackening and growing scales. It slithered through the air, splitting open at the end to reveal a flickering tongue.
I hissed, baring my teeth, and the snake mirrored the sound and plunged its fangs into his chiseled jaw. He shrieked like a little boy. Douche-canoes number two and three yelled as it struck again.
“Hope it’s not venomous,” I said, and walked out of the room, hiding the snicker.
The snake charm would wear off in a few minutes, and he’d be dosed with memory powder, but I hoped he dreamt about it for the rest of his life. I hoped he heard the hiss in his ear if he ever thought about touching a Black woman’s hair again. But the adrenaline plummeted as quickly as it had risen, and I fell against the hallway wall.