A Chalice of Wind b-1 Read online

  " Wha, wha-"

  "I heard you yell," Axelle said, and with difficulty I brought her into focus.

  Slowly I struggled upright, my hand to my throat. I was still gasping, still choked by panic. I looked around, I was in my little room at Axelle's in New Orleans, She looked uncharacteristically disheveled-hair rumpled from sleep, grumpy, her body barely contained inside a red lace slip.

  "What happened?" I croaked, my voice as hoarse as if Td been coughing all night. Looking down, I saw that my top sheet had gotten twisted into a thick rope, and this had been wound around my neck,

  "I was having a nightmare," I said, still trying to orient myself. "A snake…" I pushed the sheet away, kicking it away from me, wiping my hand across my damp forehead, "God."

  "I heard you yell," Axelle said again,

  "How did you get in? My door was locked."

  She shrugged. "It's my apartment. Nothing is locked to me."

  Great. "Well, thank you" I said awkwardly, "I thought I was dying-it was… really realistic," I swallowed again, my hand brushing my throat, which ached,

  Axelle frowned and nudged my fingers away, tilting my chin. She looked at my neck, at the sheet, and back at my neck. At the expression on her face, I got up and shakily made my way to the little mirror over the white bamboo dresser. My neck was bruised, scraped, as if I truly had been strangled.

  My eyes widened, Axelle went to my window and ran her hands around the edge of it. The shutters were pulled and bolted from inside, and the window had been locked.

  "It was just a dream," I said faintly. Unless of course Axelle had been trying to kill me. But I didn't sense danger from her-she'd just woken me up. It sounded stupid-it was hard to explain. But sometimes I had a sense about people-like in seventh grade, when I had instantly hated Coach Deakin, even though everyone else had loved him and thought he was so great. I'd hated him immediately, for no reason. And then six months later he had been arrested for sexually harassing four students.

  I went to the bathroom and splashed water on my face, then drank some, feeling the ache in my throat as it went down.

  "I don’t see how you could do that to yourself? " Axelle murmured as I shook out the covers, untwisting the sheet and spreading everything flat, "You dreamed it was a snake?"

  I nodded, folding my covers way down out of the way at the bottom of the bed. I didn't want them anywhere near my head, "In a swamp."

  Axelle looked at me thoughtfully, and, for the first time since I'd known her, I saw shrewd intelligence in her black eyes, "Well, leave your door open tonight," she said, pushing it wide. "In case you… need anything." Okay.

  Murmuring to herself, Axelle traced her fingers lightly around my door frame, almost like she was writing a secret message with her fingers.

  "What are you doing?"

  She shrugged, "Just making sure the door is all right."

  O-kaaay.

  "Call me if you… get scared or anything," Axelle said before she turned to go.

  I nodded. And the weird part was: I actually found that comforting.

  Then she was gone, her red slip swishing lightly through the kitchen.

  I sat up in bed, propped against the headboard, and didn't go back to sleep until the sun came through my shutters.

  Time Was Running Out

  Jules spread his latest acquisition over the worktable in Axelles attic room.

  "What year is that?" Daedalus asked.

  Jules checked. "Nineteen-ten."

  This was painstaking, often frustrating work, Jules thought. But perhaps they were making slow progress.

  "Look" Jules said, tracing a ringer down the Atchafalaya River. "It’s different here, and here."

  Daedalus nodded. "It must have jumped its banks between the time this map was drawn and the one from… 1903…

  "Lets get a computer up here so we can double-check hurricane dates, floods, things like that" Jules said.

  Daedalus gave him that patient-father look he hated. 'We can't have a computer up here," he said, just as Jules remembered that electrical appliances wreaked havoc with magickal fields.

  "Oh yeah" he said, irritated that he hadn't thought of that. "Its just a pain to run up and down those stairs every time we need to check something. And that girl is on it a lot."

  Daedalus glanced at him, keeping his finger on a map. "Is Axelle monitoring her?"

  Jules shrugged. 'I don't know."

  He heard Daedalus sigh as though once again, he himself had to do everything, had to make sure everything was being done right, done his way. Jules clenched his jaw. He was getting fed up with Daedaluss attitude Daedalus wasn't the mayor, after all. They were all equal in the Treize, right? Wasn't that what they had agreed? So why was Daedalus issuing orders-find this, get that go look up such-and-such? And Jules knew he wasn't the only one whose nerves Daedalus was stepping on.

  Richard came in, holding a bottle of beer. Jules tried not to glance at his watch but couldn't help it. And of course Richard saw him.

  "Hey, its five o'clock somewhere" he said, popping the top. He took a deep drink, then breathed a contented sigh, "Now that's a beer," he said, shaking his hair back. "Thank God for microbreweries. Have you tried this Turbodog?"

  "I don't drink," Jules said stiffly, moving to the bookcase and selecting a thick volume with a cracked leather binding.

  "It does dull your magick, Riche," Daedalus said mildly, still poring over the maps.

  "I'll cross that bridge when we come to it? Richard said, seating himself on a stool by the worktable. One knee poked through the huge rip in his jeans. "We don't seem to be close to needing my magick, such as it is."

  "It won't be long" Jules said. "We're working on the maps. We're getting the rite into shape, practically everyone is here-we each have a role to perform, and we're doing it" Unconsciously he looked at Daedalus, and the other man met his eyes. Some roles were more challenging than others.

  "Practically," Richard said, seizing on the word. "We're missing Claire, Marcel, Ouida, and who else?"

  "Ouida's on her way," said Daedalus, 'As are Manon and Sophie, I believe. We're still working on Claire and Marcel."

  Richard gave a short laugh.'Good luck. So we'll have the map, the rite, the water, the wood-and a full Treize, yes?"

  Daedalus straightened and smiled at him. "That's right. This is the closest we've ever come. Nothing will go wrong-we wont let it,"

  Richard nodded and took another swig from his bottle. Jules didn't look up from the book, pretending to scan the old-fashioned French words. He didn't share Daedalus's optimism. There were too many variables- too many things that could go wrong. And time was running out.

  Thais

  My life had settled into a routine at Casa Loco: I had somehow become the general houseboy, maid, gofer, and all-around girl Friday. Not that Axelle was forcing me into these roles at gunpoint. Some I did for my own comfort and survival, some out of boredom, and then there were a few things that Axelle asked me to do and I had no good reason not to.

  Now that I lived here, there was usually actual food around. The ant problem in the kitchen had been licked, and I could cross the main room in the dark without killing myself. I tried not to think about home or what I would be doing there, but every once in a while I was overwhelmed by longing for my dad and my old life. He used to take me canoeing on the weekends. Or skiing in the winter. Once he'd broken his ankle skiing, and he'd let me decorate his cast, all of it, by myself.

  When I got older, my best friend, Caralyn, and I would both get summer jobs at whatever shop in town was hiring. I'd worked at Friendlys Hardware, Marybeth's Ice Cream Shoppe, Joe &Joe's Coffee Emporium, you name it. And after work we'd meet at the pool and go swimming, or hit the movies, or go to the closest mall, twenty miles away.

  When I'd mentioned getting a summer job to Axelle, she'd looked at me blankly, as she so often did, and then had pulled two hundred dollars out of her wallet and handed it to me, I had no idea why I shouldn't get a
job, but whatever.

  After a couple days of lying on my bed, wallowing in despair, I'd realized that I needed to do something, anything, to stay busy and keep my mind off My Tragic Life, Hence my springing into action and becoming a domestic goddess.

  Today I'd braved the heat and the wet, thick air to go out to get the mail-pathetically, getting the mail was the highlight of my day, Axelle got tons of catalogs, and I got a kick out of looking through them. Some of them sold freaky stuff for, like, pagans and "witches," I didn't know how anyone could take this stuff seriously, but she obviously did, I remembered how she'd run her fingers around my door frame after my nightmare. Had she been trying to do some kind of magic? How? What for?

  Anyway. I loved her clothes catalogs, for the little bit of leather queen in all of us.

  Sometimes I got letters from my friends or Mrs, Thompkins back home. Mostly we e-mailed, but they also sent me funny articles and pictures-which almost always made me cry.

  I hadn't gotten anything from my dads lawyer about his estate, and Mrs, Thompkins said they were still sorting through everything. It sounded like a total headache. I wanted it to be all settled-I could put the house furniture into storage, and when I escaped from this loony bin, I could set up my own apartment or house back home, I was counting the days,

  Thais Allard, one envelope said. It was from the Orleans Parish Public School System. I ripped it open to find I was to attend Ecole Bernardin, which was the nearest public school. It started in six days. Six days from now, a brand new school.

  So, okay, I'd wanted to go to school, but somehow accepting the fact that I would attend school here felt like a ton of harsh reality all at once. An oh-so-familiar wave of despair washed over me as I headed up the narrow carriageway to the back of the building.

  I went in, got blasted by the air-conditioning, and dumped Axelle's mail in a pile on the kitchen counter. A weird burning smell made me sneeze, and I followed it through the kitchen and into my bedroom, where Axelle was-get this-burning a little green branch and chanting,

  "What the heck are you doing?" I asked, waving my arms to clear out the smoke.

  "Burning sage," Axelle said briefly, and kept going, waving the smoldering green twigs in every corner of my room.

  Burning sage? "You know, they make actual air fresheners," I said, dumping my stuff on my bed. "Or we could just open the window,"

  "This isn't for that," Axelle said. Her lips moved silently, and I finally got it: the burning sage was some "magic" thing she was doing. Like she was doing a "spell" in my room for some reason. So. This was my life: I lived with an unknown stranger who was right now performing a voodoo spell in my own bedroom. Because she actually believed all that crap. I mean, Jesus- Not to take the Lord's name in vain.

  Axelle ignored me, murmuring some sort of chant under her breath as she moved about the room. In her other hand she held a crystal, like you can buy at a science shop, and she ran this around the window frame while she chanted.

  I freaked. I couldn't help it. At that moment my life seemed so completely insane. Without saying a word, I turned around and ran out of that apartment, down the carriageway, and through the gate. Then I was on the narrow street, with slow-moving cars, tourists, street performers. It was all too much, and I pressed my hand against my mouth, trying not to cry. I hated this place! I wanted to be somewhere normal! I wanted to be home! While Welsford wasn't exactly a mime-free zone, still, I wouldn't encounter them on the street right outside my house.

  My eyes blurred and I stumbled on the curb. I had nowhere to go, no refuge. Then the word refuge made me think of a church, and that made me remember a place I had seen a couple of days before: a small, hidden garden, behind a tall brick wall. It was attached to St. Peters, a Catholic church between Axelles apartment and the small corner grocery store where I shopped.

  I headed there now, walking fast down the brick-paved sidewalk. When I reached it, I pressed my face to the small iron grille inset into one wall, about five feet up. I walked the length of the brick wall and pushed some ivy aside to find a small wooden door, made for tiny Creole people of two centuries ago.

  With no hesitation, I wrenched on the latch and shook the door hard until it popped open. Then I slipped under the ivy and entered a serene, private world.

  The garden was small, maybe sixty feet square, and bordered by the church in back of it, an alley on one side, a parish office to the other side, and the street in front. But although all that separated me from the world was a seven-foot brick fence, this place was unnaturally quiet, set apart, not of the secular world somehow.

  I glanced around. A few windows overlooked the garden, but I felt safe and private. Beneath a crape myrtle tree, its bark hanging off in silken shards, stood an ancient marble bench, and I sank down onto it, burying my face in my arms. I didn't make a sound, but hot tears squeezed out of my eyes and dripped into the crooks of my elbows. I expected someone to come tap me on the shoulder at any minute, telling me the garden was private and I had to leave, but no one did, and I lay hunched over that cool marble bench for a long time, my mind screaming variations of, Someone, for God's sake, please help me.

  Finally, after my arms felt numb and one thigh had gone to sleep, I slowly straightened up. I felt waterlogged and puffy and sniffled, wiping my nose on my shirtsleeve.

  Try this.

  I jumped, startled, almost losing my balance over the back of the bench. To make my total humiliation complete, there was a guy about my age there, holding out a crisp white handkerchief.

  "How long have you been there?" I demanded, all too aware of what I must look like: flush-faced, swollen eyes, Rudolphs nose.

  "Long enough to know you could use a handker-chiefT he said wryly, shaking it gently in front of me.

  Okay. It was either that or blow my nose on my sleeve. Ungraciously I took the handkerchief and wiped my nose and dabbed at my eyes. Then what? Did one return a used hankie? Gross. The guy solved my dilemma by taking it from my hand and standing up. He walked to a small fountain that I hadn't even been aware of. a blue-caped, Nordic Virgin Mary, with thin streams of water running from her outstretched hands.

  The guy wet the hankie and came back, wringing it out. I sighed and took it again, and since this situation was already too far gone for me to possibly salvage it, I wiped the cool, damp cloth over my face, feeling tons better.

  "Thank you," I said, still unable to look at him.

  "You're welcome" Uninvited, he sat down next to me, I was in no mood to make friends, so I just pre-tended he wasn't there. Now that I was calmer, I looked at the fountain, the different flowers growing in the somewhat untidy beds. Narrow walkways of well-worn brick made a knot of paths around the fountain. Small birds chirped in the thick growth of shrubs that hid the brick walls from inside.

  The air was still humid here, marginally cooler than on the street. A vine grew thickly on several walls, its shiny dark green leaves surrounding heavily scented creamy flowers.

  "Confederate jasmine," the guy said, as though he knew where I'd been looking. He knelt quickly and plucked a crisp white flower off a smaller shrub. Finally taking in his features, I saw that he had dark brown hair, almost black, and was tall, maybe almost six feet.

  "Gardenia." He handed it to me, and I took it, inhaling its fragrance. It was almost unbearably sweet, too much scent for one flower to bear. But it was heavenly, and I tucked it behind my ear, which made the guy laugh lightly.

  I managed to smile.

  "I guess I'm trespassing," I said.

  "I guess we both are," he agreed.'But I love to come here in the evenings, to escape the crowds and the heat."

  "Do you work at the church?" I asked.

  "No. But my apartment is right up there." He pointed to the third story of the building next door. "I didn't mean to spy on you. But I thought you might be sick."

  "No," I said glumly, thinking, Sick of New Orleans,

  "I understand" he said gently. "Sometimes it's all too much" He
had a precise, crisp way of speaking, as if he'd gone to school in England. I looked at him, into his eyes, and wondered if he could possibly understand.

  No, Of course not. I got up and rewet the handkerchief in the fountain. I knelt by its base, wrung out the thin cloth, and wiped my face again and the back of my neck.

  “I’ll have to start carrying one of these,” I said, pressing the wet cloth against my forehead.

  "You're not used to the heat," he said.

  "No, I'm from Connecticut," I said. I've only been here a couple of weeks. I'm used to my air actually feeling like air."

  He laughed, putting his head back. I realized that he was actually really good-looking, his throat smooth and tan, and I wondered if his chest was that color. I felt my face heat at that thought and looked down, embarrassed. When I looked up again, he was watching me intently.

  "They say the heat makes people crazy" he said, his voice very quiet in the private garden. "That's why there are so many crimes of passion here-the unending heat works on you, frays your nerves. Next thing you know, your best friend has a knife to your throat."

  Well, I was a little creeped out, but mostly his voice worked slowly through my veins like a drug, soothing me, calming me, taking away my raw pain.

  "What did you do?" I asked seriously, and a glint of surprise lit his eyes for a moment.

  He laughed again, and there was no mistaking it-I saw admiration in his eyes. Attraction. "I was speaking metaphorically. Fortunately, so far I haven't stolen my best friends girl."

  For just an instant, I pictured myself, going out with some unnamed best friend and then meeting this guy, feeling this electric attraction, and knowing that soon he would steal me away. I shivered.

  "What's your name?" he asked, his words falling as softly as leaves.

  "Thais," I said. Tye-ees.

  He stood and offered me his hand. I looked up at him, his even features, the dark eyebrows slanting over incredible eyes. I took his hand. Unbelievably, he pressed my open palm against his lips, leaving a whisper of a kiss. "My pleasure, Thais," he said, awakening every nerve ending I had. "My name is Luc"