As the siren faded into the distance, common sense caught up to me, and now I had a moment to wonder how I had been able to run so quickly. I had been literally zooming along.
I glanced down at the boots.
While I brushed my fingers over them again, they throbbed into my skin, as if they truly were a part of me.
I continued inspecting them while also listening for any sign of trouble round me. Soon enough, I was able to relax, but only somewhat, because I was still wondering how I could start backtracking in order to discover how I came by these boots. More important, I had the sense that they would lead to my identity.
Just as I was settling on which way to go next, a prickle of awareness brought me out of my questions. Someone near. Someone . . . watching?
Staying huddled behind the crates, I held my breath. Then I shivered as a shadow appeared across the alley, on the wall. A shadow that was sitting on top of the crates . . .
And it was aiming what looked to be a weapon at me.
It was as if my body took over, and without another thought, my hand zipped up to the shadow’s wrist. I grasped it, yanking it down from the crate with a strength I hadn’t known I possessed. I didn’t even stop to see who my attacker was as I disarmed it, a Taser clattering over the ground as I targeted a kick at the shadow’s throat.
But my attacker was nearly as fast as I was, and it had dodged, flipped to its feet, crouching, its hands in front of it, ready for another attack.
For a suspended second, I saw its entire black form, its electric-red eyes cutting through the falling night.
I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t, and as I automatically spun round and whipped out my leg to catch it square in the head with my boot, the creature did a back handspring.
Fuck this, said common sense.
I jumped into a sprint, my heart nearly exploding as I zoomed through the alley, took a corner, then began weaving through the drunks on the lantern-lit, karaoke-blaring street, feeling a splash of liquid on my arm when I upset someone’s plastic cup on my way.
What had that been back in the alley? And how could I make certain it didn’t follow me?
Light, I thought. Just head for a light.
I whooshed into the first doorway I could find, slowing down only when I was inside the building and trying to blend in behind what I realized was a rack of herbs and bottles of oils.
My heart was throbbing, my head swimming, my breath chopping when I heard a low, drawling voice behind me.
“Well, cher,” he said. “It’s about time you arrived.”
2
It was as if some sort of power had hold of me. I spun round toward the voice, one of my hands in a bladed position as I slashed at my target.
The man behind me jumped out of the way, as if he had expected my actions. But I wasn’t done. I hopped up and kicked out with my right leg, hitting him in the shoulder. He grunted, and when I followed up with a spinning whirlwind of another kick, he ducked, holding up his hands and laughing.
I settled into a knee-bent stance. He was . . . laughing?
“Whoa,” he said, smiling at me as if he encountered kung-fu psychos every day. “Didn’t mean to frighten you. Just calm down, darlin’.”
My pulse double-timed as he continued raising his hands in peace. He was no shadow attacker; he was definitely just a man. Most definitely. Tall, very tall, with longish black hair that he had pulled into a low ponytail. Gray eyes that burned against the toasty shade of his skin, eyes that pierced me and grinned at me at the same time. A long nose and full lips, broad shoulders and chest. Arms muscled under a black shirt with sleeves rolled up to his biceps. He wore jeans and black boots with silver tips on them and . . .
I stayed in that defensive position as I inspected him even closer. Was there something sticking out of the left side of his waistband, covered by his shirt? A firearm? My gaze traveled back up to his neck, where a leather strap held a pendant—a silver eye that gleamed against his smooth chest where his shirt gaped.
The Eye of Horus, I thought. The all-seeing eye. There went my useless memory again.
He cocked an eyebrow at me and gestured to our surroundings. We were in what looked to be the back room of a touristy voodoo shop, with carved juju masks and magick books on shelves and a ragged table to our right, half concealed behind a purple curtain. No customers round. No red eyes or shadow people to attack me here.
Another niggle tickled the back of my brain—was there something in this shop keeping that red-eyed creature from entering, and that was the reason it hadn’t followed me inside?
“Normally,” the man said, after taking a thorough look at me as well, “I would say that you’ve popped in for a quick reading, but I know better.”
Come again? “What do you know?”
“Quite a bit, except maybe not exactly what you’re searching for.”
I fit a few pieces together: the table to our right, this voodoo shop. “You’re a psychic who works here.”
“Yes.”
No time to waste. “Then—”
“I’m sorry, cher, but I can’t tell you your name.”
His statement was jarringly spot-on, and in more than a psychic way. Something tightened in my throat at this dead end, but I knew that I never cried. So I didn’t. “Then what might you tell me?”
He gestured toward the half-curtained table, inviting me to sit.
I shook my head. “I don’t have very much money.” Besides, New Orleans was full of shams, and he could very well be one. Everyone, even someone as clueless as I, knew that.
Yet something had been chasing me outside, so perhaps a short stay in here wouldn’t be amiss—only until I collected myself and decided what to do next. Wasn’t there a possibility, though, that if this man were a true seer, he might be able to aid me in discovering all that was lost to me? He knew I didn’t know my name, after all.
“The few dollars you might have on you mean nothing to me,” he said, looking me up and down again. He dwelled on my saucy boots before he sent his gaze back up my body, a slow, wicked grin claiming his mouth. “There are other ways to pay.”
I almost planted a boot in his face.
He was already laughing. “No. That’s not what I was saying.”
“It better not have been.”
He bowed slightly at the waist. “My name is Philippe Angier, and, as I mentioned, I have been expecting you.”
Should I trust him? This was a mystical city, full of twists and turns, so perhaps he could help. Also, he wasn’t awful to gaze at, so I decided to go with my better instincts and accept his hospitality.
He drew the rest of the curtain aside for me, pulled out a chair, and fixed the fabric so that it would block out the rest of the room.
“No,” I said, gripping his wrist, just as I had done with my attacker earlier. “I don’t want any surprises to creep up on me.”
He tilted his head, giving a long glance to his wrist, grinning that grin. I realized that I was still holding on to him when it wasn’t necessary. With my fingers burning, I disconnected from him and sat, but I did it sideways, in such a way that I could monitor the entrance to this rear room. I also managed to scoot the chair so my back was to a wall.
Leaving the curtain open, he sauntered to his seat. “Still on guard, are you? If you hear anything out front, I have an assistant working the counter there, so . . .”
“Don’t fret. I’ll spare her the karate chops.”
He gave me an entertained, touché nod, not at all fazed by my sharp tongue or my sudden appearance.
“You said you were expecting me,” I said, testing him. “Why?”
“A precognitive vision.”
“Really.”
He leaned back in his chair, surveying me again with that gray gaze. Lovely bumps crept up my arms.
“My visions are very real,” he finally said. “In this particular one, I saw that someday soon I would find a . . . different . . . sort of customer hiding near the love potions and herbs. I had time to come to terms with you.”
“Any con man would claim that.” But again, he had known that I didn’t have an identity.
“What if I told you,” he said, “that I sense these clothes you’re wearing are not your type?”
I glanced at the skull-and-crossbones tank, the cutoffs. The boots.
He laughed. “You had a sort of uniform you always wore . . .” His expression changed, from amusement to something serious. “You’ve come so close to death, more than once.”
I didn’t answer, but I thought of the red eyes outside. Had that been one of my near-death experiences?
He was still being vague, but then he narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re so alone in this world. No one to turn to, no one to go home to.”
It was as if he had punched me square in the gut. “I wouldn’t know.”
He leaned toward me, lowering his voice. “Do you trust me to tell you even more?”
No. Yet I wished to hear what he had to say, more than anything. I didn’t have many other options.
Resting his hand on the table—my, he had nice long fingers, didn’t he?—he turned it palm upward. “May I?” He gestured toward my hand.
Psychometry. Some psychics could get readings off objects or biotic things such as skin or hair. I knew that, too, as if it had been a normal part of my life at some time. I was getting the feeling that far stranger things had been a part of my existence as well.
I placed my hand in his, trying not to think about goose bumps or shivers. Trying not to think of how warm his grip was as he closed his fingers over mine.
A few seconds later, he took in a sharp breath.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Today,” he said, “you woke up just as alone as you have been for a while now, cher. In a room you didn’t recognize. You don’t know how you came to be there.”
His gaze softened. Pity. I recognized that well enough, though I suspected I had little tolerance for it.
“And . . . ?” I asked.
“And those boots you wear. They’re especially unfamiliar to you. They make you feel . . .” He seemed to search for words, then only came up with, “Powerful. Is that it?”