Chapter Twenty-six

I was greeted by a tiny, dark-haired young woman with a startling white streak at her temple. She was wearing loose j eans washed nearly white and a red T-shirt that matched the polish on her bare toes. I figured she was hired help from Tulane.

“Welcome,” she said, as a surly wail rose from beyond the cascade of beads that shrouded the open doorway behind her.

Her smile was one of pure j oy even before a man stepped through with the baby in his arms. I couldn’t help but stare. He was the most exotic-looking guy I’d ever seen.

His hair had once been brown, before the sun streaked it a hundred shades of gold. Tangled in the long, unruly strands were a few feathers and several beads, which clacked when the baby yanked on them. He laughed and the expression carved lines next to his misty gray eyes.

The hoop in his left ear brought to mind a pirate, as did the golden bracelet around his bicep. I didn’t know what to make of him.

The baby was adorable, with dark curls and light eyes the same shade as his father’s.

“Ma!” he shouted, and reached for the girl.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I’ve been summoned.”

I blinked. “You’re Cassandra?”

“Ma!” the baby reiterated.

“Yes. Cassandra Murphy.” She smiled into the pirate’s eyes. “Now.”

“You were supposed to be unavailable until after Mardi Gras,” I said.

“Close enough.” She tucked the child onto her hip like a pro and tilted her head. “Have we met?”

“Sorry, no. I’m Anne Lockheart. I heard about you from Maggie.”

“Maggie.” Her smile deepened. “Great kid. I haven’t seen her in a while. How is she?”

I tried to keep my face blank, but she knew. I don’t know how, but she did. Her smile faded; her hands tightened on the baby, and he squawked.

“Devon, take him.” She handed the child to his father, who stared at me consideringly.

Contrary to his laid-back, beach-bum appearance, his eyes were sharp. His lean body and honed muscles made me think he did more than work behind the counter of a trinket shop when he wasn’t taking care of the baby.

“Come along then, Quinn, me man,” he said with an Irish accent that sounded quite real. “You and your da will be havin’ a bit of lunch.”

“Schnake!” Quinn announced.

I jumped. “Did he say ‘snake’?”

Cassandra’s lips tilted, though her face remained strained and her eyes wary. “Lazarus.” She indicated a chicken-wire enclosure in the corner.

I narrowed my eyes. “Is that a python?”

“Good call. My met tet is the loa Danbala, represented by the snake.” At my confused frown, she elaborated. “A met tet is like a guardian angel. Snakes and I have an affinity.”

“Like a voodoo familiar?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She spread her hands. “Quinn is fascinated with Lazarus.”

“I suppose any little boy would be.”

“He can’t seem to get his mouth around ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad,’ but ‘snake’ he can manage.”

The child and his father disappeared through the beads and soon the clatter of dishes and silverware, the opening and shutting of the refrigerator, ensued.

“What happened to Maggie?”

Cassandra didn’t waste any time. I liked that in a voodoo priestess.

“She disappeared.”

“Seems to be going around.”

“You have any idea why?” I asked.

She moved past me to the front door of the shop, locked it and flipped the sign on the window from open to closed. “Why don’t we step into my garden?”

I followed her to a side door and through it into a lovely courtyard filled with plants and flowers. The faint sound of running water I traced to a fountain circled by a low stone wall.

Two chairs bordered the fountain. I could imagine Cassandra and Devon sitting there at the end of the day, watching to make sure Quinn didn’t tumble in headfirst.

“Have a seat,” she offered, and took one herself. “Why did you come to me?”

I considered what to say and then didn’t say anything.

Cassandra put a hand on mine. “Have you seen something that can’t possibly be true?”

“How did you know?”

“I’m a voodoo priestess. Knowing things is what I do.” She sat back. “Tell me. I promise not to call the men in the white coats.”

After taking a deep breath, I began. “I came to New Orleans to find my sister. She went missing three years ago. Someone sent me a fake picture of her outside a j azz club called Rising Moon.”

“Fake?”

“Digitally altered.”

“They wanted you here.”

“I guess. What I don’t know is why. I came to New Orleans to check things out and was directed to Detective Sullivan—”

“Sullivan?” Cassandra snorted. “He’s got his little paws in everything.”

I j erked at the word “paws.”

“What?” she asked.

I rubbed my forehead. “This is going to sound crazy, but the last time I saw him, he actually had paws.”

Cassandra stilled. “Hell. I knew sooner or later his big nose was going to get him killed.”

“But he wasn’t dead, or at least he was walking around, talking—not like himself, but—”

“Let me ask you something. Did Sullivan have a little accident recently? Maybe get bitten by an animal of some sort?”

“He had a pretty huge hole in his throat. He said he saw a wolf and it had—” I stopped, unable to voice any further insanity.

“Human eyes?”

Our gazes met and in hers I saw everything I needed to. “Yes.”

“You’re not crazy, Anne.”

“That’s good to know. I keep wondering, even when I see things myself.”

“Does anyone else know about this? Did Maggie?”

“No. I went to see her after Sullivan was hurt. She was already gone by then.”

“How did you meet?”

“She’d been helping me research some things I’d found. An altar. Small icons of animals.”

Cassandra frowned. “Where did you find those?”

“Rising Moon. Maggie thought someone was placing a curse, or maybe trying to remove one. She also brought up the term ‘lougaro.’”

Cassandra’s expression sharpened. “Voodoo werewolf.”

“She said a lougaro could be anything.”

“Yes. A lougaro becomes a shapeshifter by choice, not through a curse or a virus.”

“What virus?”

“The lycanthropy virus is passed through the saliva when the victim is bitten, causing changes in the
DNA.

Within twenty-four hours a human will become a beast—day, night, full moon, new, it doesn’t matter.

The first time.”

“And then?”

“Then the change can only occur between dusk and dawn.”

“Under the full moon?”

“Under any moon. Though under the full moon, werewolves must shift and they will kill. They can’t help themselves. The lycanthropy murders their humanity; they become demonic.”

“Possessed?”

“Pretty much.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about this.”

“I’ve had occasion to learn more than I ever wanted to.”

“What do you know about the legend of the loup-garou?”

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you know about it?”

“Only what Maggie said.” Quickly I shared what that was. “Do you think she might have been killed because she told me? She did say anyone who’d tried to write it down had wound up dead or missing.”

“Could be. Although she might have seen a werewolf or ten and decided to get the hell out of Dodge.”

I hadn’t thought of that. I liked Cassandra’s explanation much better than my own.

“So there is a loup-garou in New Orleans?” I pressed.

“There was.”

“What do you mean ‘there was’?”

“Last I heard he, it, whatever was behind silver-plated bars.”

“But—”

“But what?”

I told her about Sullivan’s theory of a serial killer, his file, his notes, and what I’d discovered about the deaths and disappearances as they related to the phases of the moon.

“Sullivan thought your boss was a serial killer?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you think?”

“I’ve been with him on the night of the full moon, the crescent moon too. Not a tail or a fang in sight.” And I’d seen pretty much all of him.

“You were with him from dusk to dawn, every minute on those nights?”

I frowned. “No.”

“Werewolves must only shift and kill under the full moon—or the crescent if you’re talking loup- garou—once they do, they’re free to turn back.”

Rats.

“Anything else about him that’s odd?”

“He’s blind.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Well, that would preclude his being a member of the furry club of any flavor.

Becoming a werewolf heals most ills, including the one that killed you.”

I’d figured that out after my first glimpse of Sullivan’s smooth, unmarred throat.

“Although scars obtained before the transformation remain.” Her brow creased. “Don’t ask me why.”

“Could there be a second loup-garou? Or maybe just a werewolf who prefers the crescent moon to the full?”

“Damned if I know. We’re talking about werewolves here. Anything could happen.” She bit her lip, thinking. “Seen any other weird people who’ve behaved badly?”

“There was a man at Rising Moon; he attacked John, that’s my boss. Long story short, the guy ended up running out of the place with a knife embedded in his chest.”

“Werewolf,” Cassandra muttered. “If the knife wasn’t silver, it wouldn’t even slow him down.”

I fingered the package in my lap that contained the letter opener. At least I was on the right track.

“Of course, if it was silver, then we have another problem altogether.”

“What?”

“Different monster.”

“Monster,” I repeated.

“There are more things on this earth than any of us realize, and some of them can’t be killed with
silver.”

“Do I really want to know this?” I asked.

Her lips twitched. “Probably not. Did you ever see your ‘should be dead’ friend again?”

“In today’s paper. His body was found in the swamp burned to a crisp.”

“We’re back to werewolf again. Silver causes them to burst into flames.”

That didn’t even surprise me. The question was—

“Who else knows about this?”

“You mean who knows enough about werewolves and silver to torch the guy in the swamp?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll make some calls.”

“To who?”

“That I can’t tell you.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you a secret agent or something?”

“Or something. Any more questions?”

“About a million, but I doubt you’ll answer them.”

“Try me.”

“You said lycanthropy is a virus.” She dipped her chin. “Is there a cure?”

“For some.” . “You’re beginning to get on my nerves.”

“I have that effect on a lot of people.” Cassandra leaned forward. “Like I said, I’ll make a call. We might be able to help Sullivan, but we’re going to have to catch him first.”

“Catch him? As in trap, cage, get near his sharp, pointy teeth?”

“Uh-huh.”

“We can’t just slip some medicine into his Alpo?”

“No.”

“Hell.”

“Welcome to my world,” Cassandra muttered. After a few seconds she continued. “You said Sullivan came to you after he was hurt. Is there something going on that I should know about? You sleeping with him?”

“No!”

Cassandra quirked a brow.

“I’m not. I wasn’t. We didn’t.”

“But…”

I lifted one shoulder, then lowered it again. “I liked him. We have—or we had—a lot in common. He’s a nice guy. Or at least he was before he grew a tail.”

“He liked you too?”

I remembered the times Sullivan had touched me, when we’d kissed. “Yeah, he did.”

“Which is probably why he came to you. The virus may murder a person’s humanity, snuff their soul, but there’s always a little bit of their former self inside. Sullivan wanted you. Now that he has no scruples, he means to have you.”

I frowned. “Have me?”

“Sexually.”

My eyes widened. “But he’s a wolf.”

“Not all the time, though werewolves do like it kinky.”

“Terrific.”

“You probably shouldn’t wander around alone. You definitely shouldn’t be out alone at night.”

“It’s Fat Tuesday. Rising Moon is going to be so full of people I doubt even a wolf could squeeze in. I definitely won’t be alone.”

“Nevertheless, keep something sharp and silver nearby.”

“Like this?” I withdrew the letter opener from its wrapping.

Cassandra’s bright blue eyes met mine. “I like a woman who thinks ahead.”