It was midmorning on Friday when we finally drove down the long, rutted dirt road to the gates of Raphaela’s Lafayette property. We were all tired and grumpy, having spent the two-hour trip from New Orleans stuck in a small sedan with squabbling Smiths. What marked the place most was utter stillness: not a chirping bird, buzzing insect or wisp of wind through the moss-draped crowns of towering bald cypress. It was as though a shroud had descended to smother the swamp and every living thing sought refuge elsewhere.
Elsewhere seemed an attractive destination at this point. I tried not to pay attention to the rising anxiety, not to think about the woman who’d made this remote place her home, not to acknowledge the bond we shared and the inevitability of our fates. I could only parcel small bits at a time or I would come undone. The judge seemed to adopt the same attitude, after I’d shown him our history and the enemy we were destined to confront.
“I should have known,” he kept repeating. “Vegas only ever addresses me as ‘Dad’ in extraordinary circumstances.” So he wasn’t quite as cool about it as the Traceurs, but at least he didn’t attempt to throw himself from the jet without a parachute.
My singlet glued my back and my joints were stiff from being wedged between the judge and Bea in the back seat. It was difficult to observe much of the lush Southern greenery, magnolia trees and charming French Creole architecture without leaning at an unpleasant angle and fostering a backache. I’d abandoned the effort after part way through the spectacular Atchafalaya Basin. The verbal jousting began the moment Judge Smith glimpsed the car Smithy had hired; none of it completely drowned out by my headphones blaring my favourite tracks by the Silversun Pickups.
“The cats will not fit in this sardine tin. We should get an Audi sports-wagon like mine. There is hardly a vehicle on the road faster, more comfortable or more endowed with safety inclusions.”
“This is an Evo X, light, quick and inconspicuous. Even in the land of muscle cars, your choice sticks out like an elephant’s gona—”
“Decorum, son,” Nash had said with a brittle tone.
“I assure you, Nash.” Bea massaged her temples. “The cats will finish the journey on foot and reach our destination prior to us.”
“What type of cats did you say they were, Bea? How could they cover two hundred and twenty kilometres at all, let alone so fast?”
The judge had declared it inhumane to keep panthers in a warehouse, in favour of releasing them into the wild. Even with Bea’s patient reassurances that these particular cats were exactly where they wanted to be, and that any wildlife within a considerable area was grateful of the fact, the judge took a while to accept it.
That hurdle negotiated, we’d barely made it from the airport when Judge Smith started about his son’s driving, the comments unremitting for the rest of the way. Admittedly, Smithy drove like a maniac. But his new Warrior senses helped, operating like radar for any obstacles to our purpose. Bea spent a great deal of the trip white-lipped and grabbing for her absent pearls. Especially when Daniel decided to drown the bickering by blasting a radio sermon on ‘letting Jesus into your heart’, to minimal success.
He looked about ready to explode by the time we pulled up. “For the love of all that’s silent, cease your quarrel! Everyone stay in the car. Let the cats do their job.”
The cats materialised at the base of the huge fence, one either side of the gate’s pillars. They lost substance and slithered up the side like smoky phantoms.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me they could do that?” I said.
“They are Katokotes,” Aunt Bea said. “Also known as Ne’er Tigers. These are my Familiars and straddle the spirit dimensions, attuned to wavelengths humans are unable to detect. It is rare, but any affiliated with the Order may acquire a Familiar in animal form. The animal makes the choice of master. Through them, I am able to discern anything of immediate relevance to the Trinity.”
“Cherish and Vovo are how you and Fortescue and Mrs Paget know everything?” I asked, amazed.
She gave me a terse nod.
I had a disconcerting thought. “But that means we’ve left the Trinity at home blind.”
“Enough lessons,” spat Daniel. He pointed at the mansion, perched on a barren hill in the hazy distance. “Look hard, Winsome. See with your Keeper’s senses.”
Oh, how I regretted doing as commanded, the true state of things solidifying under my focus. Smithy muttered an expletive, to which no one objected.
Raphaela’s house crawled with grey-skinned spider demons of the eyeless, twisted-limb variety, whose nose-slits wetly snuffled the air for intruders. A dense, undulating mass of chittering, drooling fiends, their internal organs pulsing beneath translucid hides, patchy and rotted, outlined the mansion. Their collective malice invaded my mind, an unbreachable wall of ill-will that made me queasy.
“We won’t be entering via the land side,” Daniel said.
“How do we get in at all?” Perhaps it was time for another hefty dose of allayver. I worried about my growing dependence.
Smithy caught my eye, concern in his tone. “You good, Bear?”
I yearned for the secure embrace of my Warrior. His comforting touch and soothing words. “Peachy.”
“Echoes, Daniel?” Bea asked.
“Echoes, I expected. Not the Sentinels, ugly little brutes. They are watching for something.”
“Us, already?”
Daniel shook his head. “I think not. The Crone is not subtle. She’d be here waiting for us. Something else has upset Anathema to be on such high alert.”
“What are we up against?”
“If anything sets foot on land scoured by the witch’s demons, the spectre of a slain soldier will rise up and repeat its final act. Not so problematic at the outer edges as they simply waited to join the front line, but as we near Raphaela’s house where Billie fought the heaviest numbers, row upon row would wake in waves, swinging axes and talons with the wrath of battle in their blood. The only countermeasure is to activate and avoid. They cannot be killed a second time, but can inflict a mortal blow to any who get in the way.”
“Outstanding,” Smithy said. “Why don’t we just skirt the perimeter of Raphaela’s land, keep away from the most intense fighting?”
“Nothing is ever that simple, Vee. If you set one off, you set them off in entirety. Alright if you’ve got the time it took for Billie to battle them. It would simply be a matter of waiting it out, but we don’t have hours.”
“That is why the cats are here. They are the only creatures capable of winning through. They clear a path of least resistance, so to speak,” Bea added. “The cats can dodge the blitz. In all my years with Cherish and Vovo, they have never had cause to be anything but pampered housecats. I pray we will not have to test their reflexes.”
“More importantly, if we were to trigger Finesse’s Echoes, she would know trespassers are present. We really do not wish to provide her with incentive to visit.”
“Water it is,” Smith said. “Let’s move away from this place, so we can spread the map out and plan.”
An hour later, we milled in the car park of a tiny marina that hired pirogues, nimble hovercraft and plain old tinnies with outboard motors, none of which in my opinion seemed sturdy enough to counter cottonmouths or copperheads or brown recluses or black widows … or alligators. Lime-tinged water lapped the short jetty, rippling in a gentle tide across an eerie lake of semi-submerged forest, buttressed trunks skirted by lily pads. The air was redolent with grassy vegetation and evaporating rainwater, and a litany of insects, trilling frogs and unidentified birds. Thankfully, we’d avoided Louisiana high-summer humidity, the lengthening shadows of afternoon bestowing a cool breeze. Smithy and his father were involved in another heated disagreement based on a suggestion Bea had put forward.
“Splitting up is a dumb idea,” Smithy argued. “You and the judge should wait here in the car. Once we’re in and out of Raphaela’s, we’ll all go and search for Maya.”
“In and out?” the judge said. “Even if that were the case, we have a clear advantage over youth and brawn.”
“What fighting advantage could we possibly offer, Nash?” Bea frowned.
“Never underestimate the persuasive cunning of age, Beatrice. It’ll save time for us to locate Maya, while you three seek the Key.”
Having grown up with a poisons expert, a sharp shooter and a swordsman, none of whom had spilled their secrets over the years, he’d nailed their shrewdness. It remained a poor justification for me losing sight of Aunt Bea. Smithy looked set to protest, Benji’s hideous plight stark in our minds.
“We’re wasting time. Nash is right,” Daniel said, ending the debate with a typical glare at each of us.
Smithy clenched his teeth. “Easy decision for you to make, Daniel. What have you got to lose?” He might never agree with a thing the judge uttered, but he didn’t want his father out of sight either.
“Everything I have ever cherished has already been taken from me,” Daniel answered coldly. “You two keep the weapons, except for our knives. Fighting our way out is not an option. There are too many of them. Stealth is our best defence now.”
His stare lingered pointedly on me, and Bea’s worried face said more than her manners permitted aloud. Smithy and his father fumbled a clinch of the barely acquainted, which enhanced the angst all around. If paternal affection was called for, things were really dire. We were heading into that wasps’ nest unarmed, and with a man driven by vengeance. My suspicions of an ulterior motive came crashing back. Was Daniel genuinely loyal to the Trinity or did we meet peril with the devil at our side?
