“Let’s go,” I said, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “We have to run.”
At that, there was a thump from up above us. Something or someone in the attic.
She swallowed hard, her eyes searching the ceiling. “What else did you find up there?”
“I’ll tell you in the truck,” I said, pulling her. I didn’t see anyone else in the attic, except Tuffy. I hoped it was just the house starting to collapse on itself.
I picked up my camera, which had skittered across the ground, and we quickly hopped down the aging stairs, careful to sidestep the ones we’d broken. The fire grew louder behind us, and once we hit the main floor, I was met with the idea that the house might not let us leave at all.
I was about to warn Maximus about this, but he crossed through the front door to the porch easily and Perry and I followed. I glanced down at the door frame as I stepped over it, and noticed a thin line of salt. If I had the time to stop and investigate it, I felt like I’d discover it went all the way around the house.
Maximus was already at the truck and starting it, Perry was climbing in the front seat, her eyes begging me to run faster. I caught up and jumped in the back, looking up at the house as we pulled away in time to see flames spread along the roof.
The window in the attic shattered, the sound competing with the noisy truck as we roared off, and I wondered if it was the heat that caused it or if someone had broken the window, trying to escape. And if it were the latter, should I have felt relieved or not?
Maximus drove like a madman out of the neighborhood, all of us silent and breathing hard, pulses racing.
Perry turned around in her seat to look at me. “What happened upstairs, Dex? Where did he come from?”
“Aside from a fresh grave? I don’t know.” I explained to them what I saw in the attic, the circle of candles, the live snake pinned to the ground, the hanging chicken feet, then Tuffy G rising from the corner of the room, glassy-eyed and enraged. I left out the part about my mother. They would have thought I was nuts.
“I captured it all, I think. Until he started running at me and then I just ran like hell.”
“Leading him to me. My god, I thought I was done for,” she said with a shiver. “He was dead but he wasn’t dead. I saw him on the machine for just a second before I dropped it. He was orange-red, just like the rest of us.” She was still visibly upset but she was handling herself a lot better than I was. My gut was twisted up over the image of him manhandling her, over what depraved thing could have happened if Maximus and I hadn’t acted fast, while my brain was warped over what I’d witnessed in the attic, the candles, the animals, my mother, the pull of the house, the salt.
“This couldn’t have been an accident,” I said suddenly. “Someone knew we were going there.”
“No shit,” Maximus said dryly.
“Well if that’s what you’re thinking, then why aren’t we talking about it, huh?”
“I still think it’s Ambrosia,” Perry said stiffly.
Maximus’s eyes flew to the mirror to meet mine. I knew we were thinking the same thing, that Perry didn’t like Ambrosia, so of course she’d think that of her. But call it a gut feeling, I knew Ambrosia meant no harm.
“Ambrosia’s not capable of that,” Maximus told her. “She doesn’t have the power, she’s not even been initiated into the Societe La Belle Venus yet. She has years and years to go.”
“Who told you that?” she asked.
“Rose did.”
Perry crossed her arms in a huff. “You’re both thinking with your dicks.”
I nearly laughed. When didn’t I think with my dick? But there were better times to make jokes and this wasn’t one of them, not when a zombie nearly tried to munch on my girlfriend.
I exhaled and sat back, trying to calm myself and go over what had just happened, when I noticed we were passing the bed and breakfast.
I tapped Maximus on the shoulder. “Where are we going?”
He eyed me sternly in the mirror. “We’re going to get Rose. And then we’re going to see Maryse. I want some damn answers.”
***
Rose was visibly worried when we pulled her from her bar duties, enough that she didn’t mind leaving Nameless to one of her newer employees while she got in the truck with us and headed out to the bayou.
We told her everything from start to finish, but she was particularly interested in what I saw upstairs.
“What color were the candles?” she asked.
“Black. Some were red. But most were black.”
“Did they have names carved on them?”
I leaned my elbows onto my knees and eyed her as she drove, Maximus now riding shotgun. “Why yes, while this f**king snake was dying a painful death in the middle of the room, the chicken feet were swaying in the imaginary breeze, and I saw a dead man rise from behind a full-length mirror that reflected nothing back, I decided I had enough time to pick up one of the candles and get a better look at it. I wanted to know if it was scented or not.” She stared at me blankly. “No, I never saw if there were names carved on them.”
“Did they look oily?”
I frowned, remembering that they had. “More so than normal. I thought maybe it was the wax.”
“Maybe, maybe not. It could be sacred oils. Maryse will tell us.”
Maryse might be behind all this, I wanted to say. I bit my lip and sat back. Perry wrapped her arm around mine.
Soon we were coasting down the bumpy dirt road lit only by Rose’s headlights. The dark trees and swamp water flew past us, and I could only imagine what we’d see if we swung the lights that way. Probably a sea of glowing eyes, watching our every move, waiting for the next bite.
Rose parked the truck beside Maryse’s house and tossed us the mosquito spray again. “Cover your mouths and noses and spray it in here. You’ll get eaten alive the minute you step out of the car.” While we coated ourselves with it, coughing at the toxicity, she pulled two flashlights out of the center console, keeping one for herself and giving me the other. “Don’t want you taking a wrong turn and stepping into the swamp.”
“Is there anything in this city that won’t try and take a bite out of you?” Perry mumbled as we got out of the truck. The whine of the insects was everywhere, buzzing dangerously close to my ears. Despite how badly I stank to them, I still felt a few of them stinging at my neck and arms.