TURN BACK

The dead taxi glided to a halt in front of Peaches’s house. This one was a battered old truck with no wheels. Its body hovered above the asphalt, making not a sound. Peaches took a breath and levered herself into the truck’s grimy bed.

The truck offered wooden benches for sitting and a dirty little window through which Peaches could see what looked like a half-rotten zombie nutria, its big ole buckteeth crusted with blue-green mold. The nutria aimed its vacant eye sockets in her direction for several seconds before Peaches remembered what was expected of her.

“Department of Streets,” she said softly. The nutria jerked its head like a pigeon, and the truck glided into motion.

Peaches didn’t care to see which route they took—and it wasn’t as if the drive to the Dead Side ever made sense, anyhow. She knew what she needed to do now, but she wasn’t sure her imagination was up to the task. Just the fact that she thought of it as imagination was a bad sign. At the best of times, she could convince herself that the entire exercise was real as real could be.

Sometimes, when she felt desperate and alone, Peaches spoke to her daddy. It wasn’t like her memories of his instructions or his telling her about the world as they sailed the Seven Seas. When she summoned him to her in this way, it was as if he alllllmost appeared. Peaches imagined him sitting beside her now, his corncob pipe clenched between his teeth, his clothes still damp from ocean spray. Instead of his usual red knit skullcap, he wore a tricorne hat cocked at a jaunty angle, and a patch instead of his glass eye.

As soon as she could almost see him, Peaches started talking, as if in the middle of a conversation. “Lotta folks still live here,” she said, speaking low in her throat so that the taxi driver couldn’t hear. “All them people and all the buildings. They precious to me.”

They ain’t strong like you strong, babygirl.

“I know.”

They cain’t take what you can take.

“I know it.”

What I done tole you?

“You told me protect the weak. Fight for them can’t protect themself.”

Yeahyouright.

Peaches fell silent for a while and just listened to the no-sound of the dead taxi making its way to its destination. She didn’t like thinking about the Department of Streets. In her mind’s eye, its windows and doors yawned like graves.

“Daddy, there’s a man,” she said. “A bad man. ’Cept he ain’t even a man. Not really. He something else. He says he ain’t awful. Awful is him. And he strong.”

Stronger’n you?

Peaches felt something at the edge of her awareness. A dim understanding fluttered just outside her grasp. “Ioknow,” she said. “Seem like he is.”

What about your friend, though?

“Who? Brendy?”

Naw. The other one. Dat boy you like.

Peaches’s cheeks heated at the question. “His name Perry.”

What about Perry? Perry strong?

“Aw, baby, what you think?” Peaches surprised herself by grinning. “Perry the strongest, ya heard me?”

He can pick up a tree, roots and all, right out the ground? Break a boulder in half with one punch?

“Naw,” Peaches said. “Naw, I guess not.”

Mebbe being strong don’t mean being able to hit the hardest. Mebbe being strong means standin’ up even when there ain’t no hope of winning through strength of arms, you dig?

“Maybe so. I think so.”

That bad man, he hurt ya like you ain’t thought nobody could. He didn’t just do it by punchin’, though, did he? He tole you some thangs got you shook up—and that was the point. Just because he can take a punch, that don’t mean he stronger than you is, do it? That don’t mean you cain’t beat him, do it?

“Nuh-no,” Peaches said. “I guess it don’t.”

What else I done tole you?

“‘Ain’t nobody invincible. Ain’t nobody can’t be brought down by somebody stronger than they is.’”

That’s it right there. That’s it, verbatim.

“Verbatim,” she repeated. “That’s a Perry word.”

Her daddy didn’t answer, and Peaches’s impression of him thinned a little. Like he wasn’t allllllmost with her anymore, like he was almost-almost.

“Daddy?”

What?

“Daddy, are you really here with me, or am I just talkin’ to myself?” As soon as she asked the question, Peaches wished she hadn’t. Not at a time like this.

You tell me. Am I?

“I don’t know,” she said. Her voice had risen, and now the nutria in the front seat cocked his head. Did zombies hear? Did they hear the way people heard?

“I don’t know where you at. The Yardbird Haint stole your letter to me. He stole your letter, and now I don’t know where to find the next one.”

Baby, letters is just writing on paper. Ain’t I more than that to you?

Overhead, thunder cracked, and fat raindrops fell on the truckbed’s canvas cover, just a few at first, but the flat, moist ring of them promised that more would be along directly. Soon, they would fall by the thousands of millions.

The interior of the dead taxi felt warm and dry and safe—but not for long. Soon enough, Peaches would have to brave the storm. She would have to step into a night after which might come no day.

“I don’t know,” she said sadly. “I don’t know what you are to me.”

An enormous crack of thunder startled Perry awake. The rain sounded like an army on the march. A gust of wind shook the house, rattled the windows. The Storm was here. It wanted inside. But then, suddenly, the noise ceased, replaced by a sound that was not a sound. It was as if a room full of people standing shoulder to shoulder—no, an entire Superdome’s worth of people—all stood silent, holding their breath, fighting to keep from screaming and cheering. Perry lay on his belly, hugging one of the pillows Peaches had given him, and waited.

He strained in the darkness, trying to hear anything at all. No noise filtered in from the street outside, no wind, not even the creaking of the branches on the trees. No chicken clucked; no dog barked. The bed was so full of Peaches’s scent that Perry did not realize right away that she was gone. When he did, the bottom dropped out of his heart. He didn’t even take the time to tell himself she’d gone to the bathroom or to check on the animals. He’d never been in the house without her, but in her absence, it felt the way he would have imagined if he’d taken the time to think about it: the house seemed to wait breathlessly for her return so that it could live again. The worst thing about it was that this was how Perry felt whenever he was away from Peaches for too long.

Perry sat up and swung his feet to the hardwood floor, and something in the action told him where Peaches had gone. She’d gone to Mr. Larry for help.

Mr. Larry. Lafcadio Hearn. That storehouse of information. Mr. Larry could tell Peaches which song would be next in Stagger Lee’s sights because he knew all sorts of things. He knew more about the city than anyone Peaches had ever met. But if he could tell Peaches, that meant he could tell Stagger Lee. If he and the Storm needed direction, who else could provide it?

Sickness gathered in the pit of Perry’s belly. The thought had occurred to him before, but he’d brushed it aside, knowing that he couldn’t share it with Peaches unless he could prove he was right. But just because he couldn’t prove it didn’t mean he was wrong.

Why would he do it, though? What did Mr. Larry have to gain from steering Peaches wrong? If the city was destroyed, haint or no haint, he’d be destroyed along with it, wouldn’t he? Perry pictured the old ghost in his mind’s eye: His stained clothes. The way his good eye drooped. His rounded shoulders. He was already dead, but he was terribly tired. Maybe killing Nola would destroy him—but maybe that was what he wanted more than anything.

He was still missing something. Perry held his head, thought hard. When nothing came, he took a different tack. Instead of thinking as hard as he could, he relaxed, shut his eyes, let thought empty from his mind.

Brendy’s voice: Nuh-Ohleans? What that is?

New Orleans is a different city, Mr. Larry had said. Much like this one, but sadly lost to time.

That was it. That was the moment Perry began to suspect that something about the old ghost was… off. His weary, disheveled bearing. His birdlike stare. The letter. Peaches seemed terribly hurt since her fight with Stagger Lee, but she’d been having trouble for a while now. She’d been showing strain ever since they’d ventured into Mount Olivet after the letter that living dark thing had stolen from her. Why would some haint steal her daddy’s letter? How would Koizumi Yakumo even know about the letters to steal one in the first place?

He’d know if Mr. Larry told him.

Unless Mr. Larry didn’t need to tell him.

Because Koizumi Yakumo and Lafcadio Hearn were the same.

How could the old haint have disguised himself so thoroughly that he fooled even Perry’s vision? Perry had no idea, but he was no less convinced. He bit his lip, cursed his stupidity. He was bone weary, but he had no time to waste.

He wished he could hop on Fonzy’s back, ride him to the rescue—but Fonzy was gone. Because of Yakumo. Perry remembered the oily black tentacles that had followed Peaches out of the grave back at the boneyard. What if Yakumo disobeyed his command to enter the Clackin’ Sack the same way Stagger Lee had? To face Yakumo—let alone the Storm—Perry needed stronger weaponry. Something that could not just contain but destroy.

He thought of the story his mother had told him about his fourth-great-grandmother and Grand Lahou. Each of the Last Nine had been armed. Surely, one of them had gotten something Perry could use.

As the thunder cracked and the wind gathered strength, Perry hurried from the bedroom and pounded down the stairs.

The rain had just begun to fall. Dark purple clouds roiled above the Missus Hipp, lit intermittently by lightning that, for now, stayed in the sky where it belonged. The parking lot was mostly quiet. The only sounds to be heard came from the odd car swishing up Decatur Street, and from the pulse of Tha Bangin’ Gardens over by Canal Place. From here, its actual magic could not be heard. Instead, one could feel the stuttering beat of its bounce music throbbing through the heels of one’s shoes.

One of the empty cars—a powder-blue hatchback—flashed its lights, and its radio played just enough of a tune for Stagger Lee to ride.

He materialized in the driver’s seat and sat still, drawing his Stagger Lee–ness about him like a cape. He had scared the little girl pretty good, but he knew she’d snap out of it sooner rather than later. Nobody who could hit that hard could be conquered by fear—not for long. Stag knew he was still hurt deep-deep. Every breath caused him pain.

He’d told her he’d kill her next time. Could he?

The very question made his chest smolder. He had never had to wonder—never in memory—whether he could kill anyone or anything. He was Stagger Lee, damb it, and at one time or another, he’d killed everything that walked or crawled upon the earth.

He gritted his teeth, and instead of opening the driver’s-side door, Stagger Lee folded his right leg, turned in his seat, and kicked that door straight off its hinges. It crashed into the car next to it and set its alarm to wailing.

Unhurried, Stagger Lee stepped into the lot and scented the air. Gardenia, the rushing river, and wild, wild magic gathering in the sky. It wouldn’t be long now before ambient magic unmade Nola and set Stag free at last.

I know this week done you downbad

I know you feelin’ some kinda way

I know they don’t treat you right at that job of yours, honey,

And this mornin’, it felt like somebody turned the gravity way up!

But it’s the weekend now, baby. It’s Friday mutha. Fuckin’. Night.

So lemme tell ya what we finna do…!

The voice blared from the Garden’s speakers, surrounded by an eerie-calm silence. Stag had never encountered this magic before, but something about it felt young, new. It would be no match for him.

Smiling jewels from one side of his mouth, Stagger Lee started toward the high-rise club. He limped slightly. Damn if that little thing couldn’t hit.

Eyes on the prize, Negro, Stag thought. Eyes on the prize. Time to find Tipsy Tina and introduce her to his.45.

Perry turned his face to the angry sky. The rain helped him focus, to ignore the hissing voice in the back of his mind.

Too late. You’re too late. Mr. Larry’s got your Peaches, and it’s all all over already.

“No.”

Perry couldn’t tell whether he’d spoken or thought the word. He thrust his hand into the front left pocket of the jeans he didn’t remember drawing back on, and it closed around the Clackin’ Sack. He pulled it free, shook it open, and thrust his right arm inside it.

Don’t fall in, he thought.

He swept his arm back and forth, his fingers questing for some magic object empowered to set everything right. The not-quite-day was electric around him with lightning and fear. The thunder had begun to roll, and it sounded as if it was gathering strength. Perry ignored it. What would Milo do? he wondered, and now he realized that it had been a long, long time since he’d asked himself that question.

It didn’t matter what Milo would do. He wasn’t Milo; he was Perry. Milo had never had to save his favorite person. Milo had never faced down Stagger Lee. Milo had never held Moses’s enchanted staff—not even for an instant.

Perry’s fingers brushed against something metal, and a thrill of power raced up his arm. The energy rang like a bell as it reached the vault of his skull and caromed around it. This was the deepest, most potent magic Perry had ever encountered—except for that of the sack itself.

Perry stood on the dirt floor of what, at first glance, he took for a barn. But barns didn’t have high, narrow, stained-glass windows like the ones he saw over the heads of the crowd. And what a crowd! Dark faces of men and women in varicolored shades of tan, beige, and brown who stood before him, wearing old-timey clothes. Some of the colors were peacock bright, but they still gave Perry a sense of murk, a sense of Street. The lines on their faces and the glaze in their eyes told Perry that each one of these people had seen more than he had, and that they were impatient. They seemed to wait for some play or speech to resume, and it was up to Perry to satisfy them.

The room stank. It smelled like the insides of Perry’s daddy’s running shoes—but the reek was more than that. It smelled of booze, of tobacco smoke—pipe, cigar, and cigarette—a little bit like earwax, a little bit like belly button lint.

Unable to think what else to do, Perry took a big breath and raised his horn to his lips. As he did, it slid from his grasp, and he snapped back to himself again. Was that what had happened before? How many times had he reached into the Clackin’ Sack in search of a weapon and been disoriented by a vision that left him empty-handed? He’d never even thought to ask what all was in the sack to begin with! Why hadn’t he?

Because he knew his mother couldn’t tell him. She was no Wise Woman, after all.

But Mama Lisa was. Mama Lisa would know.

But what if she won’t say? Perry thought.

“If she won’t say,” Perry said aloud, “I’ll make her tell me.”

In some other life, Tha Bangin’ Gardens had been a parking garage with a helix of steep spiral ramps coiled together like DNA. That was so long ago that only the garage’s skeleton remained, overgrown with tree roots and bioluminescent plants whose glow stuttered in time with the chopped-up beats. One fat, barrel-chested doorman stood at the mouth of the entrance ramp. A tight fade clung close to his scalp, as if imitating his tight black T-shirt with the SECURITY legend in white block caps across the front.

“All right!” said the guard, and something about his tone rubbed Stag the wrong way. “Welcome to Bangin’ Gardens. No outside food or drinks, please! No weapons, please! You strapped, sir?”

Stagger Lee glared at the man until beads of sweat gathered on his brow.

THAT YO WAY OF AXIN’ DO I GOT ME ONEA THESE? he said, and the.45 appeared, big as life, in his left hand.

The doorman averted his eyes. “I’m not supposed to let you in with that,” he said quietly.

THASS RIGHT. WHAT YOU SAID? NO OUTSIDE FOOD OR DRANK. NO WEAPONS?

“It’s not my rule,” the guard said. “I got kids to feed.”

SIN AND A SHAME, PODNAH. ORDINARYWISE I’D TELL YOU TO FIND ANOTHER JOB, ’CAUSE WON’T BE NOTHING LEFT OF THIS PLACE WHEN I’M DONE UP IN HERE. ONLY THANG IS, THASS TRUE FOR THE WHOLE DAMB CITY, HEARD ME? BEST GO HOME, HUG THEM CHIRREN.

The doorman looked down at his shoes. His expression suggested that he wished he could be anywhere else.

WHAT YO NAME IS, DOORMAN?

“Irwin.”

WELL, IRWIN, YOU BEST TAKE MY ADVICE, YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU. Stag waited until the man glanced up at him, then gave him a slow, exaggerated wink.

The doorman shook like he would fly apart.

Stagger Lee’s grin widened. He took a step toward the man and leaned in close. The man’s cowardice smelled a lot like fear, and in Stag’s estimation, there were precious few aromas tastier than fear.

SEE YOU NEVER, NEGRO, he said. IF YOU LUCKY…

As he stepped into the club, Stagger Lee heard the fat doorman’s running footsteps behind him.

This was shaping up to be a beautiful night.

Inside, the club was like Mardi Gras stood on end. Stagger Lee wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a Mardi Gras for himself, but to exist in the city was to be aware of Carnival and its character. Costumed revelers danced up and down the entry and exit ramps or stood in clumps, shouting at each other over the music. The air in the club smelled of wet concrete, motor oil, fried dough, and cooking food.

As Stagger Lee passed, club guests would cease dancing to stare, motionless, or fall silent, their faces clouded with shame. All of them seemed to understand that whatever fun they’d been having was over. When Stag cast a glance over his shoulder, he saw costumed clubbers marching, dejected, down to the exit. Not one person came the other way.

Taking his time, teeth gritted against the throbbing beat and siren noise of the music, Stag made his way to the first dance floor.

The place was enormous. Scanning its expanse, Stag could see that at one time the walls had been open to the elements, but now glowing moss and vines had choked those open spaces until the club was bathed in perpetual twilight. As Stag left the ramp, people gyrated and bounced in twos and threes, doing dances Stagger Lee couldn’t have named if he’d cared to. He supposed he’d heard of twerking, but for all he knew, it meant mowing a grassy lawn.

Put your, put your, put your back in it now!

Put your, put your, put your back in it now!

Put your, put your, put your back in it now!

Put your, put your, put your back in it now!

Put your, put your, put your back in it now!

The stuttering clap of the beat and the rough, rubbed-raw bass rhythm gave way to a spiral of notes that sounded almost like horns, and for a moment, Stagger Lee felt light-headed. This Bounce Magic was more powerful than he’d given it credit for, and its potency was boosted by so many of its disciples enacting ritual in the same place. He was a soldier behind enemy lines, and at any moment, the opposing force would notice his presence and demand he state his business.

And then what?

And then nothing.

That little redbone girl must have rung Stag’s bell harder than he thought. He’d been thinking like a mere man. Finite, bound to inhabit one moment, once place, at a time. If the Bounce Magicians recognized his purpose, if they turned on him, they would thwart him at worst, delaying the inevitable by hours. Besides: their power could be blunted.

Stagger Lee raised his gun and fired once at the ceiling.

The warm flutter in Stagger Lee’s chest told him that even that warning shot had been fatal for someone up above.

At least twenty dancers covered their ears, turned to look, as if they didn’t know a gunshot when they heard one. Scores of others scattered like insects revealed by an overturned rock. No one screamed or cried out, and the music didn’t stop.

Stagger Lee grinned his jeweled grin and advanced, firing into the crowd.

The Dead Side of Town had begun to flood. The streets rushed like streams, more like the Missus Hipp than the calm of Bayou Saint John.

As Peaches climbed down from the bed of the dead taxi, a school of paper boats bobbed by, their bases filling with water as the raindrops and wind gusts buffeted them this way and that. As Peaches watched, the biggest boat was overwhelmed. Its triangle mast dipped into the water and didn’t come back up again. Now it was trash. Just a piece of litter floating away and away.

After only a second or two, she was soaked to the skin. Her raggedy dress clung to her like she was all it had.

Won’t need no swim this week, Peaches thought as she fished in her sodden pocket for a hell note.

Something made her stop short and look around. She stood on the curb outside what looked like six or seven different houses trying to resolve themselves into one dwelling. Bare wood shaded into candy-colored siding, into wind-scoured paint that was no real color at all, into bricks, into glass and steel, even. Peaches turned back to the taxi, then skirted around it to rap on the driver’s door.

“Hey!” she said. “You was sposedta take me to the Department of Streets!”

Slowly, the zombie nutria turned its head to train its eye sockets on her. The emptiness where its eyes should be looked somehow sad.

“No closer,” it rasped. “Bad things.”

Peaches’s skin crawled, but she couldn’t tell whether the sensation came from anger or fear. “You shoulda told me that in the first place!” she said. “I don’t even know where I’m at.”

“Not far, but storm is here,” rasped the nutria. “Take shelter. Turn back.”

Now Peaches’s anger boiled over. It heated her face and make her limbs weak and shaky. “Don’t you think I would if I could, dummy?” she yelled. She pulled her sodden Afro puffs away from her face to look the nutria square in his lack-of-eyes. “I ain’t like y’all, though! I’m still alive! Somebody gotta do something, and ain’t nobody but me! Y’all kill me, always needing somebody to fight your fights, and can’t never help out or say ‘thank you, Peaches!’”

“Thank you, Peaches,” said the nutria. “Thank you. No more fight. Turn back. Shelter.”

Somehow, the thanks made Peaches even angrier. “Nutria, is you deaf?” she shouted. “This is it! This as much as I can do! Stagger Lee gone cuh-kill me, this time! Mr. Larry can’t help me! Can’t nobody help me! I’ma be dead as you—deader—’cause I won’t be able to drive no ratchet-ass taxi!”

Peaches’s breath rushed in and out of her chest, and she stood with clenched fists, grateful for the rain that hid the hot tears streaming down her face. She wanted to keep shouting. She wanted to scream. She could feel a scream scrunched down inside her toes, and as soon as she noticed it, it crept up into her calves. It wanted to move all up through her, but if she let it into her throat, there was no telling what would happen. One time, she’d seen her daddy shout a pirate ship to pieces. One blast of his voice had reduced it to matchsticks, and all the cutthroats and swabbies flew this way and that, winding up straight in the drink.

Peaches pressed her fists against her belly and tried to focus on her breathing. She tried to crumple that scream into a little wad of noise and shove it back down inside her. She sobbed as she did, and her back ached. This is what it must feel like for normal people to carry heavy, heavy things.

“Peaches,” said the nutria.

Peaches didn’t look up right away. When she did, the driver looked sadder than ever.

“Whoever you looking for in that building,” he said very clearly—the rasp was almost entirely gone from his voice. “He wa’ant never there, ya heard me?”

“You don’t know what you talking bout,” Peaches said. “And you can get the hell on. You turn back. You shelter. I don’t need you. I don’t need nobody.”

The zombie nutria dipped its head, reluctant. “So sorry,” it rasped. “Not there. Never was.” It wavered a beat, then turned away to gaze out the taxi’s windshield again. It didn’t touch the steering wheel, but the truck sloshed into motion, then lumbered slowly away.

Peaches glowered after it, feeling as if she’d said a thing, said many things, that couldn’t be taken back.