Ms. October Pt. 1
CHAPTER ONE – IMPROMPTU
The floor, spongy, damp, and with a strong bottom-of-an-ashtray kind of smell, crunched under her boots. It was gone. All of it. Black walls, paint bubbled and now hardened. Windows, a sepia of smoke stain, cracked like hard candy dropped and stepped on while still in its wrapping.
Why? And more importantly – who? Her life, the one she had made for herself, snatched away by vindictive hands.
Possibly a faulty wire, the police had said. Arson was what she knew. It was obvious. When everything, every last little thing had been smashed and cindered and doused, the picture of her standing in the jungle, looking at the camera. Tiny hand clutching the hem of her best dress, a white cotton lace thing her mother had made from scrap fabric. Eyes wide and hopeful. Honest. Honestly scared.
If only that picture had survived then Ms. October knew that whoever had done this, whoever was after her, was sending a message. They wanted to be found.
She crouched, picture in hand, frame bent, glass cracked. It had been an impromptu decision which put her in the hands of that woman. Her mom, at her wits end trying to make ends meet and feed the kids, do her work, pay the rent, stay alive. When the woman knocked on the door promising school for her eldest. That clever girl. She could give her an education, have her write home every day, and pay for the privilege of taking her. The building manager storming down the hall. The woman holding a check. It had been an impromptu decision but Ms. October was sure her mom knew, as she grabbed her arm and shoved her over to the woman, snatching the check as part of the movement. Her mom knew that it was the last she would see of her girl. That she, an honest woman who was just trying to make ends meet, was selling her daughter. Sacrificing one for the needs of the many.
Ms. October stood. Pulled the picture from the frame. Let the frame thud the floor. Took one last look at the empty husk of a house.
Being the one that was sacrificed had changed her. Shaped her. Made her. But not in the way everyone had wanted.
And this plan of theirs, Ms. October thought, a smirk playing over her lips, wasn’t going to turn out any better.
CHAPTER TWO – UNATTENDED
Thirty years ago . . .
She had stood, waiting, shifting from foot to foot, black Mary Janes squeaking against the scuffed and beige linoleum floor, flies buzzing and the fan beating down hot air from the ceiling. This place looked like the banks her mom had taken her to, but it was bigger, and dirtier, and had more people milling about all shoving paper at each other. Right now they stood in front of a wooden barricade that only adults had any hope of seeing over. The lady was talking to a woman on the other side, her nails click clacking every time she typed and her perfume, Lilly of the Valley overlaid with sweating pits drifted past the counter and down.
The young Ms. October rocked back and forth, heel to toe, squeaking with every round on that old floor until a hand came down, hard enough to make her neck crunch and ears ring. “Stand still, child!” it snapped.
The lady.
The one her mom had sold her to for rent.
The lady.
It turned out her name was Grenadine. Like the syrup that mom sometimes put into her orange juice to make it look like the rising sun, sweet, sticky, and not to be trusted.
“Sorry, Ms. Grenadine,” she had cooed. When her teacher’s got mad, it was this voice, this grasping at the hem of her dress, this looking up with her large brown eyes that always saved her.
“Hmph,” Ms. Grenadine returned, swatting away a fly that had begun to lap the bead of sweat which rolled down the pale woman’s skin. “What’s your full name? We need to fill out this form.”
“Leonie Antoinette October,” she answered, shoes squeaking again, as she rocked back and forth in time with the beating of the fan and the ticking of the lady’s fingers on the typewriter.
“That’s a crazy name,” Ms. Grenadine laughed.
Leonie Antoinette October balled her fists and stamped her foot, just like she did every time some runny-nosed boy or puffed up girl would say something just the same. “It is not!”
The lady smacked her again and pointed. “Go sit over there if you’re going to act like a hooligan!”
Leonie scuffed her feet along the floor, looking at the legs of all the people she passed on her way to the shiny wooden bench, and sitting down hard. Adults! This world was full of adults, and they didn’t care about a small, unattended girl lost and loose, forced to sit on a bench and wait for whatever was going to come her way.
Stuck and unstuck at the same time.
The doors to the outside swung open, flapping and bringing with it a new wall of heat. Leonie Antoinette October raised her face to the burning air, stood up, and walked forward, away from the sticky syrup lady and the faceless adults and the hard hot bench. She was going to go out into whatever awaited her, leg skin unsticking with a snap as she released herself from this situation.
CHAPTER THREE – SUNSHINE
Outside the sky so hot and bright it was pure white light. Leonie kept her eyes down, still adjusting from the dimness of the building she had come from, and walked forward. Sunshine radiated into her skin like flames licking crisping chicken. It was so close that she could even smell it. The hot roasting flesh, searing bubbling skin, juices dripping . . .
Wait! She could smell it. She looked up. Puffs of white smoke swirled into the sky on the barest breeze a ways down and over from where she stood. Leonie’s stomach tightened and twisted, like when she was sick and not hungry at all. But she knew this feeling. This was how it felt after being hungry too long. It was how she didn’t complain at her mom when food was scarce. How she let her younger siblings eat all the supper she cooked. How she went through school without much more than a sandwich, an apple, and some water when everyone else had snacks and five item lunches that included desert. This time though, she did want to eat. She wanted to eat badly.
Still keeping her eyes down, Leonie ran, her Mary Janes pat patting the ground even has her knees flew above the hem of her skirt. When she skidded to a stop by the open doorway of the bright yellow shop, her one white sock was down around her ankle and the other was dusted a fine yellow. She poked her head around the corner hoping there would be chicken on plates near the door that she could snag a leg or breast and run off with it. Instead there were people sitting around tables drinking beer and picking at bones. The counter was at the back of the room, but from where she stood she could see over the counter, through the kitchen and to the door which swung open to the yard.
Tip toeing, Leonie Antoinette October made her way through the narrow gap between the buildings. She scaled the fence and landed, two footed, in a yard full of chickens milling around a roaster. The rooster crowed. Leonie cowered, pressing her body against the building, trying to gage where the cook was.
“Now!” A hard female voice shrilled. “What do we have here? A chicken thief?”
Leonie spun and turned back to the fence. She was half way up when the woman snatched her by the back of her neck and carried her kicking and struggling into the kitchen, plonking her onto a stool.
CHAPTER FOUR – VERKLEMPT
Leonie sat on the stool, her legs sticking to the cool metal, feet flat on the ground, tears dripping to the floor. They were going to find out. They were going to give her back. And she was hungry. Everything was wrong. She was verklempt. At least that’s what Leonie’s neighbour back in her apartment building would have said. She said all those funny words when she was getting Leonie to help make potato latkes because her hands were too arthritic. What would happen to her neighbour now? Who would help her? Leonie closed her eyes and clenched her hands, wishing she could escape.
The woman, her captor, tapped her shoulder, a thick hard finger on her bone. Leonie looked up. The woman’s chest stuck out one way and her rear stuck out the other, she was frowning. “Where’s your mama?”
“Gone. She sold me to a lady.” Leonie hoped the truth would garner as much horror as she felt being pressed into this position. However the woman just smiled, like this was good news, making Leonie’s stomach sink in response.
“You hold still,” the woman said, pushing open the barrier that separated the kitchen from the restaurant. I’ll be right back. Carlos, you watch the girl.”
Carlos, a dark, lanky man with a wide dusky nose full of veins and pocks, narrowed his eyes and nodded from the stove.
“I’m hungry,” Leonie whined, once the woman was gone, hoping she might get some of that chicken out of this at the very least.
“Too bad,” Carlos grunted, turning back to his work.
Leonie sat there, wiping her tears with the back of her hand, some snot too. Her stomach clenched like a crushed tissue ball, hard and tight. A creak made her look up and over to the corner of the kitchen, opposite to Carlos. From the floor a small square trapdoor popped up and two purple eyes glittered from an angular face. The girl these eyes belonged to, crooked her finger, winking.
Leonie slid off the stool as quietly as she could, her feet clicking on the floor. Carlos turned around. “Hey!” he yelled, as she snagged a large chicken leg off a plate and slid into the door, letting it snap shut behind her – but not before sticking her tongue out at Carlos.
The room she found herself in made her skin shudder and her breath run backward down into her lungs. The girl who had invited her sat on a low chair by a crammed desk covered in chicken bones, feathers, guts, chalk, candles, animal skulls, beads, candles, knives and saws, jewels, pots of different colours of powders and dust, glitters and liquids. Incense swirled in twisted fingers, making the room blue and thick. Flowers dipped in blood and sulphurous lava.
“Who are you?” Leonie gasped, forgetting to eat the chicken clutched in her hand.
The girl turned from her desk, her bangles and bones on long gold strings chattered and jangled. “My name is Lobelia Morre. I’m going to be a Voodoo priestess.”
“Going to be?” Leonie picked up a book with a strange symbol on it, sharp lines and eyes, from the only other chair, holding it out towards Lobelia. “I think you might already be.”
Lobelia took the book. “This was my great grandma’s and no, not yet. I have a long way to go. What’s your name?”
“Leonie Antoinette October,” she said, waiting for the comment that always came next, taking a large bite of the chicken while she did so.
“Hmm,” Lobelia returned, disappointing. She turned away, lighting another candle and grabbing a small silver pot, just a bit larger than a table spoon with a very long handle. “Age.”
Leonie took another bit and talked around it. “Ten. Almost – OW!”
Fingers lightning, Lobelia plucked a single hair, then added it to the pot, along with a dark red powder. “What kind of trouble are you in?”
“I don’t know,” Leonie replied truthfully.
“Hmm,” Lobelia added a pinched of dried plant blackened plant and a sprinkle of water from a blue crystal jar. “Protection then and maybe . . .” Lobelia looked over her guest with her dark purple eyes, face pinching, lips pursing. “You’re with that pale woman, right?”
Teeth playing over her lip, Leonie said nothing.
“Right.” She pulled open five small dark wooden drawers in a tiny cabinet at the back of the desk, releasing a strong scent of smoke and dirt. “I’ve seen lots of kids leave with her, and never one to return. You’ll need something more. Something stronger.”
“You can make a potion?”
“Not a potion. A charm. General protection, plus stave death.”
“Stave death? What’s that? I can’t die?” Leonie asked.
Lobelia shook her head, her necklace ticking like small rat claws. “No. I’m not that strong. And it might not work. I haven’t done it before. But if it does, it means that if you are about to die, it will hold you where you are. It won’t make you better, it will just stop death from moving forward.” She held out her long dark finger, her deep red nail polish pointing right at Leonie’s nose. “For a while.”
A gulp stopped up Leonie’s throat.
“And one more thing,” she added a piece of her own hair with a flourish. “We will find each other again. When you need me most, I will show up.”
“How?” Leonie whispered.
Lobelia shrugged. “The spirits.” She held the pot over the candle her tongue turning and twisting verses. Green flame leapt and sparked. Leonie thought she saw flashing eyes, like an old woman’s. The room grew bright then spun back into hazy murk. Lobelia took a tiny silver spoon, no larger than her smallest nail and scooped up the dark ash from the pot, putting it into a Tic Tac sized capsule.
“A charm,” Leonie smiled.
“Right,” Lobelia smiled back.
“Are you going to make it into a necklace?”
“No. They’ll strip it off of you right away. We’re going to hide it.” Lobelia picked up a knife.
CHAPTER FIVE – SUBLIME
Her arm hurt. The small cut Lobelia Morre had made on her upper arm, neatly stitched under the sleeve of her dress, now held the tiny silver capsule. A magic charm that would protect her, save her from death, and call her new friend in her most dire need.
She wondered if it was true. Lobelia didn’t seem that much older than her. Maybe only four or so years. Perhaps she was just playing Voodoo and the capsule would end up getting infected and poisoning her. Maybe it would do nothing.
Maybe.
But at least she had a friend and that was more than what she had before.
She ran her hand over the bandage, feeling the bump. It gave her comfort after being handed over by Lobelia’s parents back to Ms. Grenadine. Although they attempted to hide it, Leonie, and Lobelia in turn, saw the money change hands before she was yanked away into the street. For the second time, she had been sold.
The lady, Ms. Grenadine, pointed to a seat in the large, cool restaurant she had lead Leonie to. The walls, chairs, and tablecloths were white. Ms. Grenadine smiled. It touched her mouth but not her eyes. “If you were hungry, you should have told me,” she cooed sweetly. “Not taken off.” She leaned her head towards Leonie. “We’re supposed to be friends.” Ms. Grenadine showed her teeth.
“Where are we going after this?” Leonie asked.
“Oh!” Ms Grenadine called out, as a waiter in white and red pinstripes laid down a small crystal bowl of ice cream on the table. “Look! Here’s your treat!”
Leonie picked up the small spoon on the lace tablecloth and stuck it in the white vanilla ball, already melting despite the aggressive air conditioning.
“Why did you pick me?” she asked.
“Eat up before it melts!” Ms Grenadine cheered.
She narrowed her eyes. “Did you follow me home? Did you watch my mom? Did you know she was desperate?”
“Silly girl.”
“Would you have taken anyone my age or do I really have something you want?”
Ms. Grenadine’s cheerful demeanor fell away like chunks of stucco in an earthquake. “Just eat,” she growled.
Ducking her head, and trying to make sense of the buzzing questions, yet unanswered, Leonie decided right then and there that she preferred friends who cut her with knives and sewed charms under her skin more than friends who didn’t tell you what was going on. She took a chunk of the ice cream and licked it off the spoon. It was sublime. A vanilla like she had never tasted before, strong, but sweet and smooth. Something real, and non-chemical about it. Lovely. She took a larger bite, trying not to rush, but enjoying it too much to slow down.
Even as she scraped the bowl, trying to get every last bit of it into her mouth, she noticed a fuzziness taking over her brain. Her arm, moving less like an arm and more like a floppy stuffed animal, over worn and over played. She gripped the table’s edge, but her head fell forward and sideways unable to find up. Was this the charm? Had Lobelia done it wrong?
Ms. Grenadine was still smiling, all teeth. “Check please!” she sang out.
CHAPTER SIX – SCHADENFREUDE
Swirling colours and shapes slowly snapped into place giving Leonie Antoinette October a clear vision of where she was. Her fingers touched the charm for comfort, because what was in front of her wasn’t comfortable. A long hall, beds on each side and children, so many children, all sitting, dressed in grey pants and shirts, eyes down.
Leonie sat up, the fabric of her own clothes scratching. Someone had changed her when she was asleep. Creepy. She stood and a rattling made her look down. Above her ankle, over her sock, was a clamp attached to a chain. Not heavy, not much anyway, but it did cause her heart to flutter against her throat.
Leonie frowned and lifted her ankle to see if she could maybe slip out of the chain, or if she could somehow break it.
“It isn’t going to work,” a voice said, from a few beds away.
“Maybe it might,” Leonie retorted, not giving up her efforts, sticking her baby finger in the key hole and trying to shift the lock. Then trying to push the ring over her ankle bone. She looked up at the speaker.
It was a kid, likely as old as she, was smiling as if this was the best entertainment they had had all day. “You’re wasting your time.”
“I can get out of here,” Leonie pushed harder, now bruising her bone and rubbing her skin hard enough to make a damp red spot on her sock.
The kid let out a giggle. “You’re just making it worse.”
“I don’t like the way you’re having such schadenfreude!” Leonie shot back using a word her neighbor had taught her, while she grated potato and chatted about the other people in the building, like the landlord who seemed to relish when someone was late with the rent.
The kid pushed back their fine white hair from their face and spun away, muttering, “You shouldn’t use made up words.”
“It’s not a made up word,” Leonie whispered. There was a clacking of shoes on linoleum down and away, but getting closer. “Is this a school? Ms. Grenadine said she was taking me to a school.”
“I don’t think so,” the kid said, voice also falling into a hush. “But I think that’s where we’re going next. Director Bedlam said we would be taking a plane to a lovely green place after the last student arrived.” They looked up. “I think that’s you.”
The footsteps got closer.
“How long have you been here?” she asked, her voice even quieter.
A figure, backlit and dark, stood at the end of the hall.
The kid shrugged, breathing back, “We’ve been measured and tested and weighed and given shots. Have they done that to you?”
The figure walked forward.
Leonie frowned. “No.”
Wide, tall, stiff, and forceful.
Leonie put her head down.
“Ms. October!” the figure boomed. “Our last student! We’re delighted you’re here!” A large, nearly red hand clamped around her foot, squeezing it tight. “Now let’s have a look at you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN – SPLENDIFEROUS
“Well, you’re a little underweight but a good height and not too thin that we can’t fill you up,” Doctor Bedlam said, rubbing his wide head with an equally wide red hand. His whole skin was red, like he was sunburned, but permanently. He checked her ankle. “Not too smart though, if this abrasion is any indication.”
“Why are you keeping me chained?” Leonie demanded, wincing as he dabbed her scrape with a cotton ball wet with rubbing alcohol.
“For your protection. You already wondered off once, and we don’t want you to miss the plane.”
“Plane? To where?”
Doctor Bedlam smiled widely, all his flat beige teeth showing. “To a most splendiferous place. So green and lush, lots of good food. Sweet juicy fruit just hanging from trees, and monkeys looking down laughing and laughing! You’ll have so much fun. It will be the best thing for you! Fresh air, fun times, a grand education, and a place to get positively fat!” He poked her belly making her laugh.
It did sound good. Leonie even started believing, a spark of hope firing in her chest, that maybe they really were sending her to a school. That she was chosen. That this was all going to work out. But then she remembered something her neighbour had said, ‘When people are trying to manipulate you, they will tell you that what they are doing is in your best interest.’ Somehow, this all seemed too good. Why would the give her all this for free? What were they getting out of it?
“Ms. Grenadine said I would write to my mother every day. Is that true?”
Doctor Bedlam chuckled. “You can write as often as you like. Or not. A lot of our students get so wrapped up in the fun of the island that they forget their parents. No harm in that, is there?” He grabbed the bottom of her shirt, tugging it upwards. “Now, let’s have a good look at you.”
Standing in her underwear, Leonie shivered, even though the heat from outside crept in through the gaps in the window frames. The bandage that Lobelia had wrapped around her upper arm her stood out. White on brown. A flag of surrender.
“What’s this?” Doctor Bedlam unwrapped the bandage and inspected the stitching. He poked at it. “There’s something in there.” He frowned. “Who did this to you?”
Leonie shrugged.
“Well, there is a foreign body in there. Maybe,” he chuckled, “it’s a tracking device put in by spies and ninjas.” He grabbed Leonie’s arm. “Time to get it out. You wouldn’t want spies and ninjas tracking you to such a wonderful place, now would you? They would ruin the fun we will have.” He picked up his scalpel, pointing it towards her. “Now hold still please, Ms. October.”
“Leave me alone!” She wiggled and wrenched in his grasp. He wasn’t affected. It was like she wasn’t moving at all. With a ping, the small silver capsule dropped into a curved metal dish and the sting of the rubbing alcohol hit her flesh and her nose.
“There! All better. Now to stitch you up.” He let go and turned away to grab his supplies.
Leonie grabbed the capsule and pressed it past her lips, securing it in the space between her cheek and jaw. Feet slapping the floor, she ran, grabbing a chair on her way and hurling it before her, through a wide window, diving after it. Glass slicing her skin, blood slicking her skin, running bloody and torn onto the road. Forward. Forward until she could find her way back to Leonie, or back home.
CHAPTER EIGHT – FAITH
Everything looked wrong and confusing. No street was safe. Cars, dogs, people, flashlights all made Leonie jump as she darted between houses, through back yards, down alleys and across streets. “Please, please, please,” she begged in her mind. “Please let me find her.”
She wanted Lobelia to sew the charm back into her arm, then she wanted to find a bus station to get back to the city and home. Her mom would take her back, probably. Hopefully.
The blue denim clouds shifted from the half moon and with a jolt, Leonie recognised where she was. The building Ms. Grenadine had done the paperwork was on her right. The yellow chicken shop was down the street. She had made it.
Rushing, breath catching in her lungs, doing her best not to swallow the charm still lodged between her jaw and her cheek, she slipped once more into the back yard – hoping the stupid rooster was sleeping. Feet patting down on the hardened dirt, the sharp scent of chicken droppings making her nose wrinkle, Leonie tiptoed to the back door. She gave it a tug, twisting the knob. It clicked and swung open with the slightest squeal. Eyes wide against the velvet blackness, she moved inside, leaving the door open to let in moonlight. The trap door was in the far corner of the kitchen. It was pure dark over there. Getting down on hands and knees, she crawled, feeling with her fingers for a break in the flooring. A few times she thought she had found it, but it had only been cracks and chips. Finally, there was the square outline and a small inset ring.
Arms tensing, Leonie gave it a tug. There was a pop and jingle, and the door opened. Below, was even darker than the kitchen. A dark that felt like a closed hand over her face. She felt for the ladder, and carefully moved her feet onto it, holding her breath as if she were diving. Her eyes were useless. She couldn’t tell if they were open or closed. Fingers feeling, toes pushing, Leonie left the ladder at the bottom and felt her way around the tiny room, eventually finding the desk. Here she paused, remembering the horrors that Lobelia kept there. Still, she had to have faith in the charm. It would protect her – from Ms. Grenadine, Doctor Bedlam, and the chicken guts that lay strewn on the desk.
Leonie stuck her hand out, fingers falling on what felt like a box of matches. It was cardboard and rattled in a dry shuffley way. “Please don’t be bones,” she whispered, startling herself with her own voice. She slid the box open and stuck her fingers in, finding thin wooden stick with the distinct sweet matchhead scent. Smiling, hands acting as eyes in a way that was already becoming familiar, she pulled out a match and struck it on the side of the box. It sputtered in a series of white-yellow sparks which were blinding in their brightness. She struck the match again with a high pitched grating igniting an orange flame, which gave off immediate heat. Using the new light Leonie quickly located a candle and lit it, then used that light to light the rest of the candles in the room.
Being able to see made Leonie relax. Relaxing made her cuts and bruises begin to pulse with pain. Her arm felt torn. Slashes from the shattered window stung. Her skin shivered, standing as she was in her underwear and nothing more. She looked around the room and found a pitcher of water, a cloth, some soap, and a basin. Using them, she cleaned up. Most of her wounds, she decided, were superficial enough that they would heal on their own. The one on her arm that Lobelia had given her, and the new one on her calf from her flight through the window, were a lot deeper. These would need stiches.
Leonie looked about the room for something to attempt stitching with, her brain shuddering at the thought of doing it to herself. Truly this was a nightmare. A horror become real. But what choice did she have? She was on her own. All the people who were supposed to look after her, be in charge, protect – they were the ones she needed protection from. It wasn’t fair, but what did that matter when there was work to do to keep herself safe?
She finally found the needle and thread and was moving to figure out how much thread she would need when a shadow fell across the desk. She froze and hoped the little charm would help her once more. That it was Lobelia her eyes would meet. Turning her head. Breath held tight inside her chest. Bottom lip firmly locked between her teeth, she looked.
Carlos stood, face blank, long kitchen knife in hand, at the bottom of the ladder.
Leonie opened her mouth to scream.
Nothing but a strangled squawk came out.
CHAPTER NINE – PERSPICACITY
Sweeping her leg into a chair and diving into a darkened corner, Leonie grabbed a knife, crusty with chicken blood and feathers from Lobelia’s desk, pointing it in front of her. Carlos walked, stiff, and unblinking forward, his blade waving.
Something seemed off. Leonie frowned and focused on all the details she could see. She called out, “I’m sorry for breaking in. I needed help. I though-”
Carlos stumbled over the chair, moving ever forward, crashing past the furniture and directly to the darkened corner knife mere inches from her face. Leonie skittered out of the way, dodging past his legs, the blade moving the air above her back making her arch.
“You can’t hear me can you?”
Carlos turned, reoriented himself to Leonie, and aimed for another attack.
“Who can you hear?” she asked. Knocking a stool into his legs and throwing a book at his head before jumping over to a shelf, wondering if it held a more adequate weapon.
“You have amazing perspicacity.” Lobelia’s voice came out of the darkness. “Carlos. Stop. You’re wreaking the place.”
Carlos came to a halt and stood, unmoving.
Leonie came out of hiding and crept closer to Carlos, sticking out her finger. “How alive is he?”
“Enough not to rot. Enough to keep my mother happy and protect this place. He’s not immortal but he’s not fully dead either. One of my most recents. I think I’ve started to get it right.”
Leonie shuddered and moved to Lobelia’s side, asking, “What’s perspicacity?”
“The ability to notice and understand things that aren’t obvious. It’s a good skill to have.” She looked Leonie over. “Now, you are bleeding more than you should, your naked, you have the charm in your mouth, and you’re back here. First day at the school didn’t go so well?”
Leonie smiled.
“Carlos go,” Lobelia ordered, before turning to her friend. “Let’s fix you up so you can go back.”
An ice bucket of emotion dumped over Leonie’s skin, soaking to her soul. “No.”
“Yes.” Lobelia picked up the chair and stool, righting things.
“No! I won’t.”
“Yes, you will.” Lobelia washed her hands in the basin, then grabbed the thread and some antiseptic.
Tears clamped her throat, making her choke with sharp pains. “Why?”
Lobelia poured the antiseptic on a cloth and pressed it to Leonie’s arm making it burn. “Because,” the girl reasoned, “we need to know what they are up to and find a way to stop them.”
“We?” She blinked.
“I’m going with you, since you can’t seem to manage on your own. Now hold still, I have a lot to sew up and we’ll have to find another place to hide the charm. Maybe in your scalp, behind your ear, under your hair. How do you feel about letting me unbraid it?”
CHAPTER 10 –ABHORRENT
Leonie looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair frizzed out in every direction making, what she thought of as a mushroom top on her head. Her mom’s neatly braided rows were gone, and now this fuzz made her face look, different. It made everything look different.
“What do you think?” Lobelia asked.
Her fingers running over the wide collar of the blue checked shirt with large red poppies covering the torso, then pulling at the tightness of the high wasted shorts on her legs, Leonie didn’t say anything. Even the boots, soft brown with a bit of heel, felt funny.
“Don’t you like it? I think it looks cute on you.”
“It’s okay.” She bit her lip trying to hold back the sudden tears.
“What?” Lobelia raised an eyebrow.
“It doesn’t look like me.” Leonie wailed, the violence , fear, and stress of the last few days catching up with her.
Lobelia lay a sturdy hand on her shoulder. “Good. You don’t want to be like you. You are weak. This – ” she gestured at the mirror. “This is someone new. Someone tougher. Who is she?”
Wiping her tears with the back of her hand, she glared into the mirror wondering. This girl had to be strong. She had to be fearless. She had to do whatever it took to survive, no matter what. Finally she said in a strong and steady voice, “I am Ms. October.”
“Okay, Ms. October, are you going to let those abhorrent sons of bitches get away with whatever they are doing?” Lobelia asked, a smile hiding under her seriousness, as this were a kind of game she was playing.
Ms. October shook her head. “No. But . . .” She turned away from the mirror. “I don’t even know what they’re actually doing.”
“Well,” Lobelia took her hand and pulled her to the ladder. “It’s time we found that out isn’t it.”
“How will we find them?” Ms. October asked, following Lobelia, up and into the kitchen.
The lights were on and a good number of people were in the restaurant, none of them happy and most of them armed.
“I think they might have already found us.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN – GREASY
Ms. Grenadine, Doctor Bedlam, and three new people all holding revolvers, all stood as the girls appeared. Doctor Bedlam stepped forward, wiping his red sweating forehead with a greasy handkerchief. “Ms. October, why ever did you run?”
“Do you know how much damage you did?” Ms. Grenadine snapped.
Shushing her with a slight flap of his palms, Doctor Bedlam continued to creep forward. “I was worried dear. I saw the blood on the ground.” His eyes ran over her body, all wounds fully covered by her clothing.
“I’m fine,” Ms. October said.
“How did you get in?” Lobelia demanded.
“Your mother let us in.” Ms. Grenadine said, her voice taking on that syrupy tone that made Ms. October shiver.
“Doubt it, but okay.” Lobelia walked out of the kitchen into the restaurant coming chest to chest with Doctor Bedlam. “So where are we going?”
“We only have a spot for Ms. October.” Doctor Bedlam’s red face grew scarlet.
“I see,” Lobelia said. “Fine with me. I’ll just explain it all to the newspapers.” She looked Doctor Bedlam right into his eye.
“Explain what, exactly?” Ms. Grenadine asked, an innocent smile stretching her face. “What is that we are doing?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Lobelia said, flipping her hair over her shoulder with her long fingered hand. “Truth in publishing? I don’t think so.”
“Wan’ me to shoot her?” one of the cronies asked, his pale face glistening with a thick layer sweat.
Doctor Bedlam’s hand clamped on her shoulder, red fingernails turning white. He gave her an avuncular smile. “There, there. We don’t need to go to such extremes. You want to come to my lovely school?”
Lobelia nodded with one sharp chin bob.
“Well then, Ms. Grenadine, I think we can make room for one more.”
Ms. Grenadine sneered before her smile flitted back to her mouth. “That would be wonderful, Doctor Bedlam.”
“So,” he bent at the waist so his eyes were right on Lobelia’s level, “what is your name?”
“Madame Morre,” she replied, grinning.
“That’s quite the name.”
“I’m quite the girl.”
Ms. Grenadine let out a huff. “We need to get going.”
“Agreed.” He crooked his finger towards Ms. October. “Ready to come, my dear?” he asked.
Ms. October craved a hiding spot far away from here. Her legs shook and her breath buried in her chest. She wanted to say nothing, just quietly follow behind Lobelia, but that’s what Leonie would do. Ms. October was a totally different creature. She was fierce. Strong. Unafraid.
She lifted her face, her eyes hard on Ms. Grenadine. “I’ll come. I’m not afraid.” She strode out, arms swinging stiff at her sides.
Doctor Bedlam took her hand in his. “Oh my little friend, there is nothing to be afraid of.” He squeezed her fingers hard. “Nothing at all.”
CHAPTER 12 – RESPONSIBLE
The tires screeched as the plane bumped to a landing onto the runway. Ms. October was tired, headachy, and thirsty. Her stomach rumbled. It had been a long flight and an even longer time since the chicken and ice cream. The plane was full of kids, with Lobelia squeezed into one additional seat which had been made just for her. Doctor Bedlam hadn’t been lying when he said they didn’t really have room for one more. Maybe he wasn’t lying about the school.
He stepped out from the cockpit as the plane taxied to a stop, looking over the kids and smiling. “You are about to have a grand adventure here at our jungle school. For many of you, this will be your first time outside of a city or town. I am responsible for you. We,” he cast his gaze on Ms. Grenadine beside him, “are responsible for you, and the jungle is a dangerous place. There are crocodiles, jaguars, poisonous snakes, and piranha in the waters. There are bugs everywhere that can make you very sick. It’s easy to get lost in the jungle and some of the natives don’t take kindly to strange kids wandering about. So,” This time he placed his gaze firmly on Ms. October. “You must not run away. The walls that surround our school are to keep bad things out, rather than you in. Do you understand, my children?”
They all nodded.
“Good,” Doctor Bedlam smiled. “Now you must be hungry and thirsty. Let’s go to the mess hall and after, you’ll get the tour.”
“What are we going to do at this school?” Ms. October’s voice piped up. “What kinds of things will we learn?” She asked as she followed the line of kids down the plane’s stairs, walking towards a long white building. Beyond that was an equally white wall with coiled barb wire on the top. After that was green. Dense, thick, green with buzzing, screeching, and even a low growl. She shivered, then firmly told herself to stop. She wasn’t that girl anymore. She was brave. She could manage this.
“An excellent question, Ms. October.” Doctor Bedlam smiled, walking backward so he could look at her while still leading the children. “You are all weak and underfed, so to start with you will be on a food and exercise regime to make you healthy. Once that is complete, you will learn some languages, basic maths, and other useful things. Depending on how you do, you will be sent to another location for further training.”
“Is that why we’re the only kids here?” Lobelia demanded. “I’ve seen loads of kids come through your facility, get on your planes, and never come back. Where do you send them?”
“Oh, that discussion isn’t for now.” Doctor Bedlam turned around again, his back stiffening. “Now let’s hurry children, lots to do, lots to do!”
Ms. October sidled up to Lobelia. “So, what’s the plan?” she hissed.
“Now, now!” Ms. Grenadine said, pushing between them. “Let’s keep quiet until we get to the mess hall shall we? And you, Madame Morre – ” She grabbed Lobelia by the upper arm. “You didn’t get your physical yet, so you best come with me.”
Ms. October’s fingers curled into her palm as Lobelia was dragged off to a small beige building not far off. Lobelia glanced over her shoulder and flashed a smile, as if she wasn’t the least bit worried, but her rising shoulders and reluctant walk gave her away.
“Be safe,” Ms. October whispered. “I need you.”
CHAPTER 13 - TOAST, BLACKNESS, SMILE
Supper had been substantial, thick buttered toast and a filling stew full of large chunks of meat, vegetables, and cubes of potato. They even had seconds. Having a truly full stomach made Ms. October smile despite her concern. It all felt too good. Way too good. Like she was lost in the jungle and Ms. Grenadine was the witch with a candy house, type of good.
Not to mention Lobelia still hadn’t appeared by the time the plates were gathered and everyone was led in a long thin line of content children, out into the court yard.
Ms. October tried to spot Lobelia as they went on the tour of their new home. The bunkhouse was sparse, concrete, and serviceable. It had cots with small lockers at the end, already packed with their new clothes. The shower facility was split by a wall to keep the sexes separated, but the toilets and urinals were all in one room as well as the sinks. Still, it wasn’t horrid, just strange.
The school room was sparse. A few lonely books on the shelf, stacks of paper and a tin can filled with pencils on a very battered desk, and rows of student desks of all sizes, as if they had been picked up second hand and at a deal. It didn’t look like much learning was going to happen here. Especially as there was only one room for the lot of them. Shouldn’t they have different rooms for different grades? It was at that moment, Ms. October realized that they were all around the same age. Lobelia being the exception at four years older. No wonder they hadn’t wanted her. She didn’t fit into their scheme.
This thought blasted icy cold through Ms. October’s chest and right into her toes. What if they had killed Lobelia? No one would see them do it. They could say she had escaped into the jungle and died. Tears began to blur Ms. October’s vision as the walked in their duck line to the running track and exercise field.
Was she really on her own again?
The long day finally ended with the sun setting crimson and purple over the deep green jungle. Strange animal noises making Ms. October jump. She missed the sound of cars and horns, people yelling across the alley, and her siblings screaming and laughing as they scrambled over the last bun or splashed in the bath together. She wondered what they were doing right now. Did they miss her? Were they lonely without her? Was her mother? Did she at least feel guilty?
Maybe not, Ms. October decided, but she felt lonely without Lobelia. Everyone else here was a stranger. She would have to make more friends. Maybe that horrible white haired boy. He seemed to have some spunk. She would need to choose her companions wisely. She didn’t need a tattle tale hanging around with her.
But first . . .
She listened. Light breathing and snoring filled the room. There was no guard. No teacher sleeping with them. No adult presence at all. All that talk about the jungle and its dangers were enough to keep them in bed and behaving. That and the fact that they were all scared and far from home.
Ms. October cracked open her eye. The room was draped with blackness. She slowly sat up, swinging her bare foot over the edge of the bed and slipping from the covers. Then with the utmost quiet she made her way to the door, swinging it open just wide enough for her body and slipping into the dim courtyard, on her way to the beige building they had taken Lobelia. Howls, shrieks, and low growl from the jungle beyond, rippling over the fine hairs on her skin and making her wish she wasn’t alone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - TRUTHFULLY
A yellow lightbulb buzzing and snapping with frantically flying insects lit the brown metal door of the beige building. This was the one building on the campus with no windows. It was large, or at least larger than the school house and slightly less so than the dormitory. Ms. October tried to listen at the door, her ear stuffed with insect scuttle and nothing more.
She tried the door handle, the rounded metal cold in her hand. It turned only slightly before sliding beneath her palm, spinning on its own. She let go and leapt back skittering around the corner, out of sight, crouching in the darkness.
“Well, we’ll keep her here for tonight and then prep her tomorrow to leave,” Ms. Grenadine’s voice rang through the think jungle sweat. “Truthfully, she’ll be a good opening salvo to Magnus. Should get him to sign the contract.”
“And if she lives,” Doctor Bedlam’s voice joined.
“If she lives, then he has a play thing on top of our gift.”
“Perfect.”
The footsteps, crunching on the coarse sand of the courtyard, they moved away. Slipping as quickly and silently as possible, Ms. October rounded the corner once more and jammed her outstretched digits between the rapidly closing door and the jam. There was a crunch as the heavy door shut on her fingers and she let out a small peep of pain, before yanking open the door with her other hand and slipping inside the building before the Doctor and Ms. Grenadine came back.
“Lobelia?” Ms. October hissed, tiptoeing through a hallway lined with doors, and rubbing her throbbing fingers.
“Here,” a voice replied from behind the first one. “The door’s locked.”
Ms. October grabbed the handle, giving it a twist and fully expecting it to be locked on her side too, but to her surprise it turned. “It’s open on mine.” She pulled the door open allowing Lobelia to push out in a flurry. “What is this place?” Ms. October asked.
“Doctor’s I think. But it’s creepy. The room I was in seems set up for surgery too.”
“Well,” Ms. October said, tapping her fingertip against her lips. “Perhaps they have to do surgery sometimes. We’re pretty far away from everywhere.”
“Maybe,” Lobelia agreed. “But something feels off.”
“Yeah, I heard that they’re going to prep you for something and then send you away and that you might die but if you don’t you’ll be some kind of gift for someone to use.” The words tumbled from Ms. October’s mouth as fast and furious as the bugs bumping the light outside.
“No one uses me!” Lobelia stomped her foot, hands on her hips.
“What are you going to do?”
“The same thing I was going to do before I found that out. I’m leaving.”
“What?” Ms. October, considered the growls and howls of the jungle beyond, pairing it with the very real threat from Ms. Grenadine and Doctor Bedlam. “But aren’t you scared?”
“Not really,” Lobelia said. “I figured I would end up having to go right away. That’s what the ball said any way.”
“Ball?”
“Crystal ball. I’m going to go into the jungle and find someone who can help.” Lobelia strode to the main door and cracked it open, her eye to the gap.
Ms. October sidled up behind her, “I’m going with you.”
“The ball says no.” She slipped out and moved quickly into the shadows, heading for the gate that led to the road.
“But, maybe it’s wrong.” Ms. October jogged to keep up.
“Maybe,” Lobelia stopped at the chain link gate, lifting the catch.
“So take me too,” she begged.
Lobelia tapped Ms. October’s skull, right by her right ear. “The charm. If you are in desperate need, I will find you and help.”
She clenched her fists. “How?”
“Trust the magic.” Lobelia swung open the gate, walked out onto the road, then pulled it shut behind her closing the latch. “Now get back to bed before they realize you are missing. You don’t want to be in desperate need so soon.”
Ms. October swallowed the stinging lump forming in her throat. “Okay. And I’ll figure out what’s happening here.”
“I’m counting on it.” Lobelia winked. “Stay safe.”
The older girl faded into the blackness, even as Ms. October whispered, “You too.” then raced back to the bunk house.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN – DIRT
Washing the sweat and dirt off her body from the two hour run around the track, Ms. October realized with a start how routine all this had become. It had been a month. At first she had spent most of the day with gut twisting sadness, alone and worried. Then she spent a good part of her time trying to figure out just what was going on, while avoiding the scowls thrown her way by the others who were growing ever more content with their home. Being fed well three times a day, getting snacks of warm sun ripened fruit and vegetables, exercise, sun, and, if not a great education, not completely useless, was actually not a terrible thing. Everyone thought she was crazy and paranoid. The white haired boy, Asher, particularly liked to poke fun at her, getting the others to laugh at her expense, his chest puffing proudly every time one of his jokes hit. She wanted to punch him.
But other than the irritation Asher gave her, she didn’t find anything that was suspicious and, as the weeks melted into a month, she found herself becoming one of them. Eating, exercising, and learning to live as though this was her normal life. Doctor Bedlam had even patted her on the head today and said how proud he was of her progress. She wasn’t. Standing here in the shower, Ms. October felt like a failure. Was there really nothing going on? Was she really just here to learn and get healthy?
“Use all the soap in the sponge!” Ms. Grenadine’s voice rang out. “Get all the nasty germs off of you.”
Ms. October scrubbed harder. This past week was focused on hygiene so much that they had been scrubbing their skin nearly off every night. That was about the only weird thing lately. That and the constant measuring they had been doing, checking the kid’s growths on their charts, especially their torso’s, like torso growth had something to do with brain growth or health.
After the shower they went to the dining hall where they found an empty serving area. Asher muttered under his breath about how they were up to something. This made Ms. October’s ears perk up. She frowned. If he believed that, why was he always making fun of her for trying to prove it? She shook her head and sat down, waiting just like the others for an explanation. Soon enough Doctor Bedlam and Ms. Grenadine strode in. The doctor announcing, “Tonight is our fast night. You will be brought clear juice and then tomorrow each of you will be taken for an examination before being placed.”
“Placed where?” Asher asked, even as the same words played over Ms. October’s lips.
“Well it will greatly depend on how well you did at our school,” he replied, his smile too wide, too bright, and too fake for Ms. October’s liking. He continued, “But to take your mind off the hunger, we have a special treat tonight. We’re going to watch a movie! Tomorrow is a busy day for all of you, so it will be a movie and an early bed time.”
“I don’t like this,” Asher muttered again. “This isn’t normal.”
Ms. October got up and moved over to where he was sitting. “Why do you think that?” she whispered, eyes looking elsewhere. Ms. Grenadine and Doctor Bedlam always watched her when she tried to talk to another student, often interfering if she stayed too long.
“I didn’t say anything,” Asher said, eyes narrowing. He lifted his chin to yell out an insult about her, as he always did.
Ms. October jabbed her fist into his ribs, hard, “Say one thing about me and I’ll break them all before they pull me off of you. Got it?”
Asher lowered his chin.
“Tell me.”
“My dad was a surgeon before he got sued into the poor house. He always had his patients wash away bacteria and fast before going into surgery. I want to know why we’re going to be operated on.”
“There could be another reason,” Ms. October said, but her memories of the night Lobelia had run sent off alarms in her head. She had told her that the room she was locked in had been set up for surgery. But for what reason? Why would anyone do surgery on a bunch of healthy students?
“I’m running for the jungle tonight,” Asher said. “I’ve had enough of this garbage. Come with me if you want.” He got up and went to sit with his friends, Ms. Grenadine’s eyes following him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN – LEMONGRASS
They played in the dormitory that morning, jumping from bed to bed. Asher wasn’t among them and nobody said anything. Not even Ms. Grenadine when she came to shuffle them off to school. This made Ms. October frown. She wondered if Asher had survived his first night in the jungle. If he had been caught. If he was with Lobelia. Or something worse.
Before they had even got to the school Ms. Grenadine stopped them and lined them up as a helicopter beat the air with ear thudding thumm thumms, kicking up sand and tossing it against their bare legs between their shorts and their socks. She pointed, yelling out names as she did. Picking out a dozen students to line up against the school house.
Ms. October studied the kids who were chosen. They were the smiley perky ones. The ones who were cute by old-aunty standards. Who would put up with pinched cheeks with an easy shrug and still hug the cruel old bat afterwards. They were slim. Not at all like the rest who had filled out with the good feeding and regular exercise. Instead they were willowy. Covering faces with hands and giggling. Boys and girls who dipped their eyes down and gave a demure smile when praised. They were the helpers. The pleasers. The ones who just “got along”. Never crying, or complaining, and always doing exactly as asked without backtalk, protest, or fight – no matter how distasteful the task or the asker.
Ms. October was not one of these kids. Nor would she ever be. Still she worried for them. They were the kind of kids who would only notice they were in trouble right as the teeth closed on their neck.
Ms. Grenadine patted each of the chosen ones on the head before sending them into the helicopter. Ten minutes later, with nearly a third of the class gone, the-kids-left-behind sat in their desks, eyes wide and fearful.
“Where did they go, Ms.?” a boy named Graham asked, voice high pitched and grating.
“To another school.” Ms. Grenadine smiled her overly sweet smile that made Ms. October’s teeth ache. “You were told last night. You are ready to be sorted into your new schools. Those kids are going have a lovely time at their new school learning to help others.”
“Oh. So where am I going?” Graham asked. “I can be helpful.”
“And you will be!” She passed out battered old readers. “Now, while you are waiting your turn to be assessed by Doctor Bedlam, we will be reading together. Ms. October, you can start.”
Ms. October opened to the first page and stood up beside her desk, as she had been taught, then read in a monotone. The book had an odd smell coming off its yellowed and crumbly pages, like the lemongrass tea her neighbour always drank. Memories of that kitchen, the warmth of her neighbour’s smile and hospitality over took Ms. October’s mind to the point that she had no idea what she was reading anymore.
“You can stop now,” Ms. Grenadine’s voice cut in, wafting away the happy memories with her viscous voice.
Ms. October realize she had read well past the one page she was meant to. She slid back into her seat, cheeks glowing, eyes on the stained and wrinkled page.
Eye flitting to the still open door and out into the courtyard, Ms. Grenadine called out, “Graham, you can go to the medical building now. I see Doctor Bedlam is ready for you.”
“Okay,” Graham said, gathering up his book and putting it Ms. Grenadine’s desk before exiting.
All eyes in the classroom watched him through the large square windows as he walked to the medical building. Ms. October could see by his hunched shoulders, hands in his shorts pocket, sidelong glance back at the school house, that he was scared. She told herself that she wasn’t.
She knew she was lying.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – HARD
The classroom was empty. Ms. Grenadine had given up all pretenses. She stood, arms crossed, even as Ms. October fingered the flaking pages of the musty brown reader, feet scuffing against the floor under her desk.
“You think you have us figured out, don’t you?” Ms. Grenadine shot.
Lips tight, Ms. October didn’t say anything.
No one had left the medical building. Twenty-eight in. Zero out. That wasn’t good. It had been over four hours. Twenty-eight in and she was next. Number twenty-nine. Her legs tensed. She glanced at the door, still open. The courtyard, through the window. The gate at the far end. It had a pad lock on it now. There was no more escape. Asher was the last one through. Twenty-eight in.
“You’re turn!” Ms. Grenadine called. “Come along!”
It was hard not to run. Hard not to punch, bite, kick, cry, cry, cry, screaming into the sky that this wasn’t fair that none of this was fair that her mom should have protected her that someone some adult should have –
She stood. Walked over to Ms. Grenadine. Looked up. Took her outstretched hand. Followed her to the beige building, heart pounding her throat, making it sting. Deep breath. She would finally find out what was going on. Deep breath. Slow the heart rate. Her fingers brushed through her hair behind her ear feeling for the lump. The charm. She was protected. Lobelia had promised. It was time to break Doctor Bedlam and Ms. Grenadine’s secret, then bring them down. No adult had done it so far. It was up to her. She was the only one prepared to make the sacrifice.
The door opened and the smell of blood hit her like a slap in the face.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – STITCHES
It had been swift. She had turned to run. Ms. Grenadine had blocked her. There was a jab in her arm. The hallway swam. She reached up against the overwhelming scent of oranges and formaldehyde. Her eyes closed and she was gone.
Now, waking up, she felt full. Her belly hard as river stones in a barely holding together wicker basket. She was fraying. Her mind, her body, her soul. It all felt like it was going to split and everything, all of her, was going to spill out in an unsightly puddle of blood, tears, and uncertainty.
Ms. October was sure something had happened to her, but what, was beyond her grasp. She lifted the stained and bloody sheet draped over her body. Her torso had a long line of stiches like a teddy bear’s middle.
With a shaking finger she touched them. They felt hot, and tight, and not a little inflamed. Moving slowly, so as not to unsettle the fullness she held inside her, Ms. October moved off the bed, bare feet hitting the floor. She grabbed a lab coat off the hook on the wall and wrapped herself in it, tying the belt around her waist, hem to her ankles.
There were other beds in the room. She crept over to one and pulled back the sheet. The girl, Miranda, had stiches as well, but a light prod brought forth only cold rigidity from the skin. Ms. October put her palm on the sleeping girl’s chest and felt no rise and fall of breath.
She shuddered.
She did the same for the next four beds she found. There were stitched children. Not breathing. Not moving. Not alive. The sixth child was breathing, but barely. On the verge of death. Graham. Ms. October shook his shoulder and he gave out a low groan. She shook him harder, and slapped at his cheeks, burning with heat. He wouldn’t wake up.
Sharp pains in her belly and blood seeping down her leg told her that she was about to join them. These unfortunate kids. It was time to run. Padding to the door, she listened before slowly opening it and looking out into the dim hallway. There were no people. In the distance she could make out an engine. Maybe a bus. People were about, she would have to be careful.
Moving as swiftly as she could with a cinderblock belly, she slipped outside and through the gritty sand into the shadows. It was night and the courtyard, lit as it was by floodlights, still held many dark pockets to hide in. The gate was wide open, having made way for the bus, which must have newly arrived, its engine still rumbling.
Seeing her escape, Ms. October moved forward, eyes on the opening. Moved forward, without much thought to her captors. She wanted out. She wanted to leave. She didn’t care what the plan was, or who was guilty, or what was going on. She wanted to go home and see her siblings, to chat with her neighbor, to sleep in her bed.
The next time she thought to focus on her surroundings she was in the jungle with no idea how she arrived. The moon was far overhead and mostly obscured by large leaves. The floor cut and grabbed at her feet, making them slippery. Her gut ached and burned. Her throat burned too. She moved forward without a path, without a plan, hands holding the stiches together, body feeling so heavy, until finally she fell. Her cheek bounced off the ground. Her arm caught a branch. Her eyes, closed against the pain.
She was dying and she didn’t know why.
She was alone and all she could whisper was, “Lobelia.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN – BOTTLE
Voices swirled in the darkened mist, drifting in and out of focus and range. It was like an out of tune radio on a highway driving between towns. Sometimes the voices were sharp and clear other times they were distant and crackling with words cutting out here and there. She tried to open her eyes, to speak out, to let them know she was here and not dead, but nothing moved. Her lips stayed soft on her teeth. Her tongue asleep in her mouth. Her lashes brushing her cheeks. Not even her finger twitched and the effort to break from her cocoon was more than she had inside her.
The voices came back into focus. “... ure I know her… ooks bad … oo … omething.”
“How is she even alive?” a second voice said, the tone as slippery as satin with a strong scent of coconut drifting from his skin.
There was a poke to her belly. “What is this stuff?” the first voice asked.
She recognized him. Asher. He’d made it out and found people.
“Let’s find out.”
There was a squelching and tearing at her belly. The pain burned like paper lit in the middle flaming outward until the whole page was black. She screamed and screamed and screamed without a single sound leaving her lips, or even her vocal chords vibrating at all.
“What the . . .?” Asher asked.
“Drugs. Cocaine by the looks of it. It’s packed into her.”
The heaviness that had pinned her belly to the jungle floor began to lighten.
Asher gasped. “Is she supposed to be that empty?”
“No. Not only are they running drugs using kids’ bodies, they’re taking their organs too.”
A thump landed beside Ms. October’s head.
“I am so glad I got out of there when I did,” Asher said, now by her ear.
“How is she still alive?” the slippery voice asked.
“Me.” There was a crunch of feet and a snap of foliage. “My charm is keeping her alive, but not for long.”
Ms. October wanted to cry and call out, to hug Lobelia and yell at her too for letting this happen. But still nothing moved but her mind.
“So,” Lobelia said, “it’s up to you.”
“I’m not turning a child,” the slippery voice said.
“I’ve already asked him,” Asher pouted. “He won’t do it. Not to me and not to anyone.”
Lobelia’s jangling bone jewelry snapped and cracked as she made some unseen move. “You have no choice.”
“What about permission. I’m not just turning someone who has no say in the matter,” the voice replied.
“Ms. October is under my protection. I give you permission. Besides. I have a way to stop the process by half.”
A loud pop as a bottle uncorked startled some animal or other and caused a minor crashing and cawing into the brush.
“Can I do that too then?” Asher asked.
“I’m not dealing with you right now,” Lobelia snapped. “Ms. October … the end of her charm. You can heal her. You can stop … crime. Or, after so many decades, have you become afraid?”
“What do …ou know … me?” the man asked.
“Eno...” Lobelia hissed, “D… it.”
“…ine. But if … ou for this,”
“Then you … he bru… he… ger.”
The voices had begun cutting out again. Ms. October felt further away than ever before. Like she was being tugged down under the ground. Then teeth crunched into her neck and a tongue swirled around the wound encouraging the release of blood. And just when she was nearly gone the biting stopped and her lips were parted. Flesh with beautiful warm blood found its home in her mouth. Life flowed back into her, warming, burning, boiling her throat. Making her alive and dead and beyond it all, all at once. Her stomach hurt like someone had released a thousand slithering eels all with needle long teeth into her gut. She grabbed at the man holding her, and found her fingers and arms worked. Holding tight, she drank and drank and drank, with each swallow she became more alive, a strange ember flame of life that was more like looking through tinted glass at the world beyond than being woken up from a sleep.
Finally he pushed her away, even as she reached for more. A bottle was shoved hard against her lips and a liquorice bitter cold slipped down her throat.
Ms. October roared. All the animals in the forest fled. Her fingers gripped the ground, dirt pushing under her nails.
Then she opened her eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY – HOPE
The jungle was different. Every sound was amplified, but not in a way that was irksome. It was more that Ms. October could pinpoint with great accuracy the type, source, and location of each sound. On top of that the world was brighter, even though the depth of night still wrapped its muggy arms around them with the scent of rotting vegetation and coconut. She touched her belly. The heaviness was gone and her skin, now stitched back together, was not marred in the least. Her fingers flew to the bump behind her ear.
“I think you’ve worn that charm out, child,” Lobelia drawled.
“You shouldn’t be alive,” Asher growled. “Now if only . . .”
“I told you,” the silky voiced man said stepping from the shadows, eyes sunken but quickly recovering. “I don’t turn children.” He locked gaze with Ms. October. “Without dire need.”
“Not fair,” Asher complained.
“Who are you?” Ms. October said.
“He’s Viper,” Asher answered. “He saved your life.”
“Thank you, but . . .” She pushed to an unsteady stand. “What did you do to me?”
Viper stepped forward and took her icy hand. “We traded blood. We are bonded now. You must stay with me.”
“Not fair!” Asher yelled again.
Lobelia snatched Ms. October’s hand away from Viper’s. “No. She’s still under my protection.”
Viper smiled, his long teeth flashing. “Your charm is broken.”
“I don’t need a charm.” Lobelia stuck out her chest and lifted her chin.
“Stop,” Ms. October ordered. “We have something else we need to do and it has nothing and everything to do with me.”
Asher’s lips lifted in a mischievous smile. “Revenge?”
Ms. October met his smile. “Revenge. Those bastards are going down.”
Viper nodded, “agreed.”
“It had been foretold,” Lobelia shrugged.
And for the first time in a long time Ms. October felt hope, and an itching lust for blood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – CABARET
The world was vibrant. Every colour was a layered kaleidoscope of beauty. Sounds reached out from the air and embraced her skin. The wind swirled confidences and certainties of what was to be now and in the future. All around was vegetation, moisture, soil, and decay. Insects skittered, rodents chittered, birds ruffled feathers. Bat wings, usually so silent, were a rustle of leathery skin pocketing air. Past traffic movement appeared as heat radiating off the road they walked down. Even the humidity held forth each droplet for Ms. October’s inspection.
The sky was purple-grey, deep as Lobelia’s eyes and filled with the same clandestine harshness. It spit out pinprick lights in a smear of stars and dust. It was all she could do to keep from tripping locked as she was to the celestial canopy. It was like she had never been alive before now. Flexing her hands against the rushing emotion of overfull joy, Ms. October spread her arms and beamed.
“Don’t get used to it. As soon as we’re home, I’m finding a way to turn you back,” Lobelia hissed.
“No,” Ms. October spat. “Besides, you were the one who agreed to it. I heard that.”
“Only to save your life. But this –” Lobelia nodded to Ms. October’s entirety, “is not life. It’s not even death.”
“I like this,” she replied fiercely. “I like it a lot.”
Lobelia snatched her hand and gave it a hard squeeze. “You think you like it. You’re drunk. Or a type of drunk. You’ll pay for this pleasure and I won’t have it.”
Snatching her hand back, Ms. October, strode away, saying, “You don’t have a choice.” She didn’t want to hear anything about going back to that pathetic cowering person she had been. The one with earplugs and blinders and the fear of everything. Now power surged under her skin, beating like war drums. She was going to take that beat and beat it into Ms. Grenadine and Doctor Bedlam and any other child killers she came across. She was going to take this power and heal the world, one dead criminal at a time.
Lobelia caught up to her. “It’s not going to go how you think.”
“How do you know how I think?” Ms. October snarled.
Bone jewelry rattling, Lobelia muttered, “Oh, I know.”
Viper and Asher reached the gate first, Viper tearing the padlock open and throwing the twisted metal to the side. They split up after that. Asher to the offices and dining room. Viper to the dormitory. Lobelia to the school house. Ms. October to the medical building.
“Are you sure you want to go?” Asher asked, for once looking sympathetic.
She nodded and marched off, tired of everyone not trusting her, like she was a broken thing that needed to be led to safety.
As soon as she tore the door open a wall of iron and salt, rot and heaviness slammed into her, knocking the air from her lungs. The smell of blood was stronger than she remembered it. It pulled at her lips, made her gut ache, her tongue darted out to the corner of her mouth before she clamped it tight behind her teeth.
Holding herself firm against these strange and overwhelming desires, she began to explore, looking for clues to where Ms. Grenadine and Doctor Bedlam had taken the children.
No.
The bodies.
Every room made her mind throb with blood splattered mess. It looked like they had cleaned most of it up. Like they were planning on coming back again, but now, in her heightened state, she didn’t think they could ever wash away the spots that stained these rooms. It was a murder scene full round blood smells and sharp chemical ones over lapping. The drugs they had packed into the children after the harvest.
She held her head in trembling hands, leaning against the wall for support. Why hadn’t she figured it out sooner? Why didn’t she save them? Or herself? They could have all got out with Asher. Instead they had been lulled into complacency. The unknown being a more fearful place than the horror knew was around them. Ms. October kicked the cabinet beside her, rage burning through her bones. A gong met her foot and the cabinet folded in half, making her stare at her foot and the marred metal. She was growing more powerful by the second, and more hungry. It was time to leave, there were no clues to be had here anyway.
Meeting the other three already in the courtyard holding her hands up to show she had found nothing, Asher spoke in low hissing voice. “I have something.” He held up a card, black and gold, with a stretched face man on it. “Madhouse Cabaret.”
“New Orleans,” Viper said. “Good. It’s time for Ms. October to meet the family anyway.”
Lobelia and Asher both narrowed their eyes while Ms. October shone. She couldn’t wait.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – BALLOON
The moon hung bright in the air above Bourbon Street as big and crinkly as a weather balloon. She and Viper had slept most of the day, first on the plane and then later at his small apartment. She had curled up on the smoky stained rust-orange couch. Viper had disappeared to his bedroom after setting the other two up on old canvas army cots.
“So, I can go out in the day?” Ms. October stared at the moon, silver light beaming off her greying skin.
“Yes,” Viper said. “Sort of. Sunlight is still harmful at full power. It burns and being out in it too long will kill. But reflected light, like off the moon, or weakened light, when it shines through clouds, can be tolerated. But,” he pulled down his wide brimmed purple hat sporting a long peacock feather, over his eyes, “It’s best to stay inside when possible.”
Asher looked on, his pale face pinching. “How will she get into the cabaret? She’s just a kid.”
Viper studied them all. “You’re all just kids, and I was wondering that myself.”
“Give me a place to work, some money for ingredients, about three hours – and I may have a solution, for a bit anyway,” Lobelia said, jangling her bone jewellery. “Long enough to find answers.”
Viper’s leaned towards Lobelia, his lip lifting, revealing his overly sharp teeth. “How much money?”
Three hours later the house was as hot and sticky as the inside of a marshmallow held too long over a fire, smelled like one too, all burnt sugar and wood smoke. Lobelia sprayed Asher in the face with the concoction. The green swirling mist of potion shimmered and gleamed in the air.
“Hey!” Asher yelled. “What’s the big deal?”
Lobelia held up a mirror.
Asher grabbed at his face. Looked at his limbs. Felt his chest and groin. “Woah!” His voice came out deep and dark, his white-blond hair had turned metal-white in the transformation, undulating with the blues, greens, and magentas of the nearby neon signs outside Viper’s large living room window. “How old am I?” he asked.
“Old enough,” Viper said.
“For what?” Asher asked, raising an eyebrow.
Ignoring the man boy, Viper glowered at Lobelia. “How long will this last?”
“Longer if I had more time, but this batch? I give it three hours.”
“How long if it were interrupted?”
“Hard to say.” She studied Asher, finally proclaiming, “Might work. Might not.”
“Not worth the risk then,” Viper said, grabbing his hat and cloak off the hooks by the door.
Asher glared at Lobelia. “Don’t you tell him anything that would make him say no.”
Lobelia didn’t respond, instead giving Ms. October her dose of the potion.
“Let’s get the job done before we start talking about what is and is not possible,” Ms. October said.
“Easy for you to say, you’re already turned,” Asher spat.
“Not for long,” Lobelia countered.
“I told you –” Ms. October snapped. “Don’t you take this away from me.” She pushed past Viper and grabbed the door handle. “Let’s go!”
“I give the orders in my town,” Viper said, pulling Ms. October behind him. “Understand?”
Ms. October rolled her eyes and followed him out into the hallway, Asher behind them. “Aren’t you coming?” he asked Lobelia.
She shook her head, the clacking of her bone bits accompanying her movements. “No. I still have more work to do.”
“Well,” Ms. October shot, “then don’t be surprised if I don’t come back.”
“You’re path is one straight to hell, and not the bright fun one you believe it to be,” Lobelia shut the apartment door. Ms. October stared at the wood, wondering if she really was heading the wrong way. But this brightness, this lust for every new experience, couldn’t be bad. And she wasn’t going to hurt anyone. Not anyone who didn’t deserve it anyway. What could go wrong?
“He’s going to turn me,” Asher whispered to her. “I know it.”
Ms. October spun back towards Viper and skipped to catch up, singing, “I don’t care.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE – MONKEY
The Madhouse Cabaret was packed with flashing silk suits and the sliding shuffle of alligator wing-tips. The jazz band bebopped and hooted all over the stage. Skirts rode high and tassels flung out in a wild frenzied spaghetti dance all around the room. The air was oven roasted hot and filled with slate-blue smoke rising up from red tipped cigarettes. Everyone winked and laughed, holding their drinks high and their morals low, not caring about tomorrow or the next day or even knowing if there would be one after sunrise. Lobster sang on salty sea sauce cracking open and holding forth lemon and butter high into the air. Tight dry wine and sloppy sloshing beer added to cigars and cologne, lily of the valley and grandma’s roses. Ruby and sapphire, jade and emerald decorated the place in metallic luxury accenting the deep velvet furniture and dark wood. Lights glinted off sequins and pearls and laughter rushed in at all sides. Ms. October, eyes wide and ears wider, tried to take it all in, but ended up feeing more like a panicked monkey was frantically rushing through her brain.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Asher asked, not appearing the least bit concerned by the surroundings.
Viper narrowed his gaze, whipping back his vibrant purple cloak and striding forward. “The biggest guy or gal here. Look for power.”
“What does power look like?” Ms. October looked around the room expecting to see someone glowing, or even floating above all others.
“All eyes will be on them. People will laugh with them, even if their joke isn’t funny. They will be at the centre of it all while being off in the corner of the room.” Viper spun and grinned at the kids who were not kids. “You’ll know it when you see it.”
Asher glowered. “And then?”
“And then,” Viper winked, “you listen.”
Ms. October pushed into the crowd, wanting to prove herself worthy to Viper. Maybe he would fight Lobelia on turning her back, and really give her a place in the world. She needed this power that flashed and sparked through her cells. It was the only way to be the someone she wanted to be. Lobelia just didn’t understand. She was probably bitter that it hadn’t been her. Just like Asher.
Sweat soaked and brackish arms and shirts brushed her as she moved. She could hear every heart. Feel the pulse of the dancing blood under their skin. Even the sound of it pressed against her like a whooshing constant wind. She bit her lip, drawing forth her own blood.
That only made everything worse. She clamped her jaw shut and went over her plan, trying to calm her mind. First she had to find the boss man or lady. Get them to give up Doctor Bedlam and Ms. Grenadine. Find those two. Then she would suck them dry. They were the ones who deserved it. No matter how much she wanted it now.
Right now.
A man joggled into her and grabbed her shoulders in a woosey dance. “Shoory misses,” he slurred. “Wanna come sit down with me? Hey yous cute. Howsaboutakiss?” He leaned into her, lips jutting out with glistening spittle, planting them on her cheek.
His pulse played against her lips. It beat until it took up her world. He grabbed her body to hers.
“Lez dnce,” he said.
Ms. October’s jaw released and her mouth opened, fondling his neck.
“Ohhh, baby. Iz loves you tooze,” the man drunkenly proclaimed, pushing harder into her, and gripping her tighter.
Her teeth played on his skin. She felt his pulse. His life. Mouth watering. She wanted it. She needed it. She started to push, but . . .
Did he deserve it?
He was drunk and being way too forward, but . . .
Did he deserve death? Was this her goal. Was this her rule?
Burning bile rose with her fear, scalding her throat and making her head swim with sudden and overwhelming anxiety. This wasn’t the plan. She didn’t want to be like this. This wasn’t who she was.
Was it?
Did she have a choice?
The man let go. Looked at her with concern. “You okay, doll?” he asked, his eyes lacking focus. “Iz sorry. I’m a jerk. I shouldn’t have act –”
She pushed him away, his face a broken puppy of guilt as she turned and ran, tears flooding her eyes, his blood pulling at her like sticky grabbing hops, tangling her in desire, until she punched through the metal door into the back alley and the damp pattering rain of the night.
The silence. The far off siren. Stray bouncing laughter. It quieted her need.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Rubbed her teeth with her finger, trying to push them back into her jaw bone. Then she turned and marched away, back to Lobelia, beneath the yellowing street lamps.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR – DOORWAY
Arms and legs dancing and swinging, people humming and swooning, yelling and hooting moved around Ms. October as if she were a stone stuck mid-flow in the muddy Mississippi. The moon was so bright it blistered her skin, sending up wisps of thin pale-blue cedar smoke. Her head pounded in time with all the people who passed - their foot steps, tunes, heartbeats. This was and was not what she wanted. This was and was not the freedom she sought.
Lobelia would tell her “I told you so!” with that pinched face of hers as soon as Ms. October walked in the door. It would be awful. A sigh, deep from within her wishes escaped from between her hopes. She knew she had to give it up, all this beauty, but it was going to be hard. Everything was so bright and new and shiny, however the price was sticky, dark, and cloying.
She moved on, treading down the street when a hand snagged her shoulder and yanked, stronger than any hand she had ever had pull her before, and quicker too. Within moments she found herself in an alley staring up at the sky, dirty concrete dampening the back of her dress, and two emerald eyes looking down at her, blinking. Crimson lips parted in a mystified smile. A tongue darted out, wrapping around white sharp teeth.
“So?” A seductive voice crooned as a tall lady in a cherry evening gown leaned, her piercing finger poking. “What do we have here?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE – EDGE
Ms. October sat on the edge of the smooth wooden chair, legs crossed at the ankle, fingers clamped to the edge. She glanced at the clock on the wall – a half grandfather clock, maybe called a grandmother clock? She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that it’s swinging brass pendulum and dark grained wood took up her attention and drew it away from the fact that she had less than an hour and a half left on Lobelia’s spell before she reverted to a child. She wondered if these people could see through the spell. They saw that she was a hybrid vampire right off the bat and then the questions came one after the other. Her mouth had clamped closed after the first one. Viper hadn’t said what she should answer and to whom. Now, with two moths bouncing and bopping off of the yellowed kitchen bulb, hanging bare on the vaulted plaster ceiling, Ms. October watched the woman and the man who accompanied her pace, as they tried to suss out the best way to get her to talk. Ms. October’s mind was entirely on how she was to escape and find Lobelia or Viper or even Asher before something bad happened. Her teeth ached, her blood pulled and she needed, more than anything, something to sate it.
Not these two, but the human in the apartment below her would do nicely.
She shook her head and gripped the chair more tightly. She could hold out against the blood lust, the questions, and against her own ego – now bruised at the fact that Lobelia had been right about it all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX – WATCH
With less than half an hour left, Ms. October could detect the undulation of her cells rebelling against her older form. The vampires who had captured her had grown weary of her silence and were discussing ways of getting Viper’s attention, the man they thought was at the root of it all. Rightly at that.
With their backs turned in discussion, Ms. October bolted, her feet clumsy as her body shrunk a little at a time, throwing off her balance. She slammed the door open wafting fourth the boiled goat and cheap whiskey stench of the hallway, stumbling towards the stairs and throwing herself down them, hands gripping the rail and brain hoping for the best.
The roar behind her told her that she had not gone undetected. These creatures were fast. Before she hit the first floor and the front doors, they had her surrounded, nails biting into her flesh.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the woman snapped, her snarling grin making Ms. October unbearably frustrated.
“Leave me alone!” she yelled in response. The doors were right there. “I don’t owe you anything!”
The man grabbed her other arm. “You might not, but the person who made you does. You are an abomination. A vampire only half turned. What good it that? What are you for?”
The woman gripped her face, pinching her cheeks and pulling Ms. October’s eyes to meet hers. “We want to know if Cuba made you. There’s been talk.”
“I don’t know who Cuba is?” Ms. October spat, kicking and squirming enough to slip down a few steps and out of their grip. She ran, smashing the glass in the front door as she did so, dashing onto the street, eyes darting wildly.
“She doesn’t, you know.” Viper stepped in front of her, Asher panting behind him. “She only knows me.”
“Okay, what is she then?” the woman asked. “Are you responsible for her?”
Viper nodded. “It’s not what you think though.”
“You work for Cuba then? You’re helping his take over,” the man bellowed rushing forward and stopping mere inches from Viper’s face.
Viper put up his palms, pressing the man back. “I’m not doing anything. I saved this girl’s life because I was asked. A witch stopped her progress to our side. It’s that simple. Just a spell. That’s all.”
Asher glanced at Ms. October leading her back a ways. “Your spell’s wearing thin,” he whispered to her.
“I know,” she whispered back. “I need to get to Lobelia.”
Asher’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you wanted this.”
“It’s worse than anything I thought. The blood lust. It hurts.”
“I could deal with it.”
Ms. October eyed him. “You’re bitter enough that maybe you could, but I hate it. I want it gone.” She looked around at the bright bright world. “Even if it means I lose this.”
“You’d give it up? All of it?” Asher asked, his tone both disturbed and envious.
“Help me get back, please. I’m running out of time.” Ms. October begged.
Asher nodded, hands running over his grown body. “Me too.”
The vampires were still discussing things and squaring off with chests puffed and eyes shooting daggers.
“Okay,” Asher said, “I’ll help you get back to your friend, on one condition.”
A woman walked across the street pushing a large baby carriage. Ms. October wanted nothing more than to pick up the child and feed on the tender sweet blood. “Anything,” she breathed. “Anything at all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN – GRIEF
Flesh snapping against fist and aggravated growls broke out behind Asher and Ms. October as they sprinted towards Viper’s apartment. Asher struggled to keep up. Ms. October struggled to stay the course as the fight between her hunger and her desire for justice tumbled and scratched in her skull.
“I’m human,” Asher panted, pushing more speed from his trembling legs. “Slow down.”
“I’m not,” Ms. October growled through clamped jaw. “and I can’t.”
Finally, at the end of both of them, they slammed the door to the apartment open, locking it behind them.
“Lobelia!” Ms. October called.
The place was dark. Not a light. Not even a candle. Asher snapped on a lamp casting their shadows onto the wall, elongated giants.
“She’s gone,” he said.
“No!” Ms. October screamed, turning towards the door. “I have to find her. She can’t be far.”
Asher stood in Ms. October’s way. “You promised.” He crossed his arms. “And you have to feed.” A smile crept up his lips. “Don’t you? You can hear it.” He stepped towards her, opening the buttons on his shirt, and pulling off his jacket. “The soft beating of my heart. It must sound so loud to you. It must nearly break every bone in your body resisting it.”
“Stop.” Ms. October backed away, hand out. “If I do. . . ”
“You’ll have what I want and I,” he reached out and grabbed her shoulder. “I’ll have what I want too.”
“I can’t.”
“You promised.”
“But,” A wave of grief crested in her chest bursting and filling her empty skeleton with sharp pinpricks of pain. Asher’s heartbeat was all consuming. It was all she could hear.
“You want justice. I want this. We’re both running out of time. Maybe giving me what I want will buy you the time you need.” He put his palm to her face. “I’m going to turn back to a child soon and if you take me, you won’t have broken your vow to only harm evil. I’m asking. Pleading. You are doing me no harm.”
Ms. October considered. It still felt so wrong, but what choice did she have. She was out of time, if she didn’t feed on Asher, she would feed on the first human she met. And Asher was right. She could already feel the aging spell unraveling, it was only minutes until they would be children again. She grabbed Asher in her arms and bit into him, letting her instincts guide her. Sweet sweltering blood pumped into her mouth, her anxiety faded and joy overtook her. Her mind quieted, the itch settled, she felt at peace and whole. All too soon the beautiful liquid slowed its flow. She licked, desperate for more. It did no good. Squeezing the body, she tried to get the flow to quicken. It was drying up and fast. The body was going cold.
Wait.
The body.
No.
Asher was cold.
Asher was . . .
She flung him back, horrified by what she had done. Was he gone? Had she killed him? Drained too much? She didn’t know how this worked. Crunching her teeth into her wrist she made her own blood flow fast. Pinching his jaw bone open, his eyes staring wide into the air, she let it run into his mouth. It filled the cavity, coating his teeth white, then poured out the corner of his lips, onto the carpet.
“No, no, no, no . . .” she pleaded.
Rubbing his throat, like she had seen her mom do with the little ones when they wouldn’t take their medicine, she tried to get him to swallow.
“Come on. Come on you stupid boy.”
Finally there was a cough. Then a choke. Then Asher’s hand clamped onto her wrist and held it firm to his own mouth, drinking deep. She laughed, but the sound was cut short as the pull of her own blood leaving tore through her body, like satin strings yanked, crumpling the rest of the fabric with it, wrecking it. She felt folded, a horrid rending echoing through her body.
“Enough!” Viper yanked each of them away, flinging them across the room. Asher smashing into the wall. Ms. October cracking the window and sliding down into a heap at the bottom, nursing her damaged wrist. “What do you think you are doing?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT – SONG
She sat there, her skull singing with whale song and room spinning vertigo. Asher looked about as good as she did, staring ahead, eyes turning red, hair even more silver than white. Still he stayed fully adult, if a young adult, looking more like a man who had just put his toes over the line of maturity only minutes before. She looked down at herself. She had also halted the unraveling of her spell-given time. Viper seethed, pacing back and forth, hands clutching and unclutching the air, words coming out as spit – incoherent.
He looked from Ms. October to Asher and back again. Finally he pointed his long finger right to Asher and said, “I was going to keep you with me until you were ready and then give you the gift of eternal life. If you wanted it by then. Once you understood.”
Asher crossed his arms and looked away, muttering, “How was I supposed to know that? You could have said something.”
“I did tell you.”
Asher stood, wobbling a bit, still scowling. “No, you didn’t.”
Face washed of all emotion replaced Viper’s anger. “I didn’t?”
“No,” Asher replied.
“I thought it at least,” Viper said, hands out, begging understanding.
“I was human. Not psychic. Not vampire.” Asher put a hand on his hip and stretched his jaw wide before adding. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. You want to help me, fine. You don’t, fine. I’ll figure it out either way.”
Ms. October struggled to a stand too. “Where’s Lobelia?”
The door opened as if on cue, and Lobelia, eyes glowing purple strolled in, a heavy bag clanking at her side with the sound of full glass bottles. She stopped cold as soon as she saw Ms. October. “You didn’t!”
Raising an eyebrow, Ms. October stepped forward. “Didn’t what?”
Lobelia slammed her bag down hard, the sound of cracking glass meeting her anger. “I told you! I told you it was going to end badly and now . . .” She glanced over to Asher. “You! How could you!”
“She offered, and if you were here, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”
This time it was Ms. October who crossed her arms. “You would have demanded until it did. Don’t lie.” She looked at Lobelia’s bag leaking strange grey liquid all over the table. “Did you bring a cure?”
Lobelia held out her hands. “For this? For full blown vampirism? You fed. You are one of them! How am I supposed to fix that? It would take stronger magic than this junk!” Lobelia swept the bag and its shattered contents to the floor, her body shaking and tears glistening on her sable cheeks.
Ms. October rushed to her, grabbing her shoulders. “Your charm kept me from dying when, by all rights, I should have been dead. Your magic makes zombies and protections, and who knows what else. It’s saved me before. It can do it again. You can do it again. You are stronger than you believe.”
Lobelia took a long, deep breath. “Fine.” She nodded. “Fine.” She straightened her body into a pillar of power. “But we leave now. We need to go to my workshop if I’m going to make anything near strong enough.”
Asher glowered. “But what about revenge? We found out that Ms. Grenadine promised Magnus a shipment of both children and drugs in three months’ time. We have to stop her.”
“No!” Lobelia snapped. “We have to stop what’s happening to Ms. October.”
“Neither is important!” Viper growled, stepping between the warring parties. “If you want to be a vampire so badly, then you need to leave these human concerns behind. I have found out there is a much bigger threat right now going by the name of Jacob Cuba.”
Ms. October stamped her foot, demanding attention. “It will take Ms. Grenadine and Doctor Bedlam at least three weeks to acquire enough children to be ready for the jungle. That hopefully gives Lobelia time to make her potion.”
“And us?” Asher asked.
Ms. October raised her chin and looked down her long wide nose at Asher. “We can handle this fine on our own. You have your precious vampire life to get to. You didn’t care about me before, so don’t start pretending you do now.” With that she spun and marched towards the door. “We’ll get revenge for you, and for everyone else, without any more of your help.”
Lobelia followed, shrugging. “She has a point.”
“Good luck then, witch,” Viper said. “I doubt what is done can be undone, but the girl is right, your magic is some of the most powerful I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m not a witch,” Lobelia snapped, “I’m a queen, but thanks, Viper. Good luck to you as well.”
“We have to go,” Ms. October said stepping into the hallway. In the back of her mind she could hear Ms. Grenadine’s voice telling another desperate mother about a wonderful school for their precious young son or daughter and waving money about. She had to be stopped, at any cost.
Asher ran up behind her. “I’m sorry. I hope everything works out for you. Really, Ms. October”
She turned to him. “And you too, Mr. Asher Mercury. May we never meet again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE – HOLLOW
Ms. October flipped the calendar from one month to the next, scowling at the cheerful image of a yard full of baby chicks pecking around a wrinkled, long eared dog. It had been nearly a month and she still didn’t have enough to shut down Ms. Grenadine and Doctor Bedlam’s operation, and the beds were filling up fast. They would be moving soon. Granted, her vampiric powers had helped in gathering the information she did have. She had been able to slip into offices and cabinets to photograph paperwork on visa’s and contracts, both of which were just barely legal – but legal non-the less according to Lobelia, so long as there was no dubious activity. Unfortunately, there was no proof that the place the kids were going wasn’t the school promised, as there was a learning facility and, as she discovered, Ms. October signed the kids over to other schools giving the responsibility to them and relieving herself of the missing students from her previous endeavours.
Although Ms. October’s body was that of a twenty-something, her brain hadn’t even crept close to high school. All the detective work, reading documentation and legal papers, and trying to figure out how to hijack security cameras made her head swim.
“You could just kill them,” Lobelia observed, stirring a think murky liquid in a heavy black pot.
“I know. I want to.” Ms. October sat heavily on the worn and dusty chair, crossing her legs. “But I know the other people involved will just source kids from somewhere else. I want to shut this thing down for good.”
“Hmm.” Lobelia threw in a dark green herb with a splash. “Sounds difficult. How do they keep track of their shipments? Money?”
Chin landing in tightening fists, Ms. October groaned. “I don’t know where to even start looking for those.”
“Me either. What about the Doc’s bag?” She moved her hands in a deliberate pattern then threw in a pinch of sand. “He has it with him most of the time, but I never see him use anything out of it. Either that or that Magnus guy might be sloppier, perhaps you can rattle him.”
“Perhaps.” A sigh slipped through Ms. October’s lips. “How goes the potion making? Any luck?”
“Getting close. Have you fed?”
A hollow gong echoed through Ms. October’s empty insides. “No. But it’s getting harder every day.”
Lobelia finally looked up, her purple eyes hard. “Well that’s too bad isn’t it? You want back, you’re going to have to stick it out.”
Uncrossing her legs and pushing to a stand, Ms. October turned and started up the ladder once more. “I hate you,” she spat.
“Yeah, I hate you too,” Lobelia returned, with equal venom before adding. “Good luck out there. Be careful.”
“I will,” Ms. October nodded, her head drooping down lower with each bob. “See you in the morning.”
Lobelia smiled, the corners of her mouth barely pushing to a stand. “You’ll crack it tonight.”
“Yeah, I hope so.” Ms. October pressed open the trap door and exited into the silver lit kitchen, still heavy with fried chicken grease. First she’d deal with Doctor Bedlam and his case, then she’d tackle Magnus. There were only three beds left empty. She was nearly out of time. She glanced back into the darkness of Lobelia’s work room. Both of them were.
CHAPTER THIRTY – SOAP
Getting Doctor Bedlam’s bag wasn’t difficult. A quick hop onto the second story of the building and sliding open the window to his office, got Ms. October the goods. She didn’t look in it. Not yet. The night always went faster than she wished and tonight was a new moon, perfect for skulking. In fact she never felt stronger, or more hungry.
At the Madhouse Cabaret she slipped in between guests, their pounding heartbeats tugging at her teeth. “Focus,” she muttered as she drifted through the crowd unnoticed as smoke drifting off a cigarette. She found Magnus, and remembering what Viper had said, watched from the wings. The night drew out in flashes of colour, shuffling cards, raucous laughter, and long ragtime trumpet solos, Ms. October found herself getting impatient. She was halfway through convincing herself to grab the crime lord and threaten any and all information out of him when a strong hit of lemon soap snapped her nostrils like a flicked finger. She spun and came face to trench coat with a man.
She looked up. The man wore a fedora and a crooked smile. His tie was iridescent lizard green and he looked clean, too clean, as if all his dead skin cells had been scrubbed off both in the present and in the future. He held his finger to his lips, shot her a grin, and crooked his finger, urging her to follow. Magnus didn’t seem to be going anywhere, so she obliged, following the man to a booth where they sat, eyes still on the crime lord.
“You want him too, huh?” the man said, lighting a cigarette and puffing out a ball of smoke which broke apart in tendrils snaking towards the ceiling.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Private eye. Hired to bring him down. He’s in some dirty business. You?”
“Same thing,” Ms. October admitted. “Without the private eye part. Or the being hired. I’m on my own. Magnus is working with people who hurt my friends but I don’t have enough information to bring them down. I was hoping maybe he would have some.” She didn’t know why she was telling the man all this. As she spoke her brain kept yelling for her to shut up, and yet, it was a relief to tell an adult, a real adult, what was going on.
“I’m Connor Alexander, by the way.” He stuck out his hand.
Ms. October took it and shook. She liked how it felt, strong, but not macho strong, like he didn’t have to prove anything. Like he didn’t care what people thought. “Leonie October.”
“Nice name.” He grinned again. “So, what do you have so far?”
“Not much,” she admitted, then detailed what she had found while part of her brain still protested how willingly she gave this information. She told it to shut up. She had powers. If Connor wanted to mess with her, she could handle it. “I have this too.” She held up the bag.
“What’s in it?” Connor asked.
“I don’t know. Shall we look?” Ms. October cracked the lock and pulled open the bag. Inside were rolls of bills in bundles of hundred-thousands by the look of it and a ledger book.
“May I?” Conner asked, reaching for the book.
Ms. October nodded and closed the bag on the money, looking around to see if anyone else had noticed it.
“Whoa. Is this for real?”
“If it’s about selling organs, using the kids’ dead bodies to transport drugs, while selling other kids into slavery – then yes. I was there. I saw it. It nearly killed me and it did kill some of my friends.”
Connor looked up from the book, his eyelids drooping as he met hers. He looked as emotionally exhausted as she felt. “I’m sorry he said. I only knew a small part of this. This is exactly what I’ve been hired to stop.”
“Hired by whom?” Ms. October asked.
Connor clicked his tongue. “Client confidentiality. Let’s just say, given your appearance, you likely know him.”
“Viper.”
Connor’s head bobbed slightly, then he turned back to the book. “Listen, I have enough between my investigation and this, plus statements from a bunch of people I’ve interviewed on the record. If you trust me, and I’m not going to talk you into that, you can decide that on your own, but if you trust me, then let me have the book and I promise you, I will put these people away for a very long time.”
Ms. October raised an eyebrow. “Can you promise that?”
Pulling down his fedora, Conner shrugged, then chuckled wryly. “Not really. I’ll do my best though and hope for a judge that isn’t corrupt. Good enough?”
Ms. October bit her lip, then nodded. “It will have to be.”
“You did well, finding all that information without being trained.” He reached into his trench coat. “If you ever need a job, let me know. I could use a side kick. I have a feeling you’d be a good one.”
Warmth rushed over Ms. October’s skin. It had been a long time since she had felt needed, or even wanted. She took the card. “Okay. You deal with Magnus, Ms. Grenadine, Doctor Bedlam, and all the other criminals in this rats’ nest. I have some things to do too. Once it’s all done, I may look you up.”
He stood and shook her hand, talking over his cigarette. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Ms. October. My client said you were one in a million. Good luck to you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Alexander. Good luck to you as well.”
Ms. October drifted out of the cabaret, bag in hand, feeling lighter than she had in a long time. She now had enough money for both her and Lobelia to live well, the possibility of a job, and if things continued her way, a cure for her vampirism.
She sang as she entered the kitchen and pulled open the trap door. What met her below was a mess of shattered glass, acrid smoke, and choked sobs. “What happened?” Ms. October gasped, rushing to Lobelia’s side.
Fists balled up, hair damp, Lobelia hunched over the desk snarling, “It’s not going to work. None of it is going to work!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE – HUNGER
Sharp snapping hunger scraped at her insides making Ms. October clutch her abdomen like a shipwreck survivor clinging to a life preserver in the middle of the ocean, wind whipping and huge swells trying to tear the puny saving device from her exhausted fingers.
Lobelia was trying again, shattered glass swept into piles, book retrieved from being flung into a corner now sitting open on its pedestal. “Hanging in there?” she asked.
“Sure. You look about as tasty as you did an hour ago,” Ms. October growled, while wishing she didn’t. “How’s it going?”
“Tch.” Lobelia let out a frustrated hiss of air. “I’m doing the same thing as before. I’m sure I didn’t miss a step but . . . I don’t know.”
Ms. October pushed to a stand, and did her best to shove Lobelia’s heartbeat to the back of her mind. “Let me read it out to you.”
Eye’s red with exhaustion and candlelight, Lobelia snarled, her bone jewelry clattering with frustration. “What good will that do? I know this spell. I’ve done it four times now.”
Melted candlewax and sweet herbs filled the air around the book as Ms. October settled herself above the pages. “I know. But that’s just the problem isn’t it.”
“What do you mean? How can being an expert be a problem?”
“Look, we’re both tired.” Ms. October laid a hand on Lobelia’s pointy shoulder. “Maybe you keep missing something, because you are reading what you know to be on the page instead of what is actually there. You might have missed an ingredient.”
Lobelia, narrowed her gaze and turned her head back to the heavy black pot. “Fine. Read. I’ll let you know if I’ve added it.”
The ingredient list was long and Ms. October had to have some help pronouncing all the words. Most of them were met with, “I’ve added that”. A few with just a nod. Some with grunts of irritation. Then – “What did you say?” Lobelia asked.
“Moonflower. You need five petals and some of the root, dried and ground. It says right here.” Ms. October pointed.
Lobelia shoved her aside. “Where? I don’t see it.”
She pointed again. “There. See. Moonflower. It’s the final ingredient.”
“That’s blank space. There’s no writing there.” Lobelia looked up, seething. “Are you trying to trick me? Do you want to stay like this forever?”
Ms. October stepped back, confusion rustling up hurt and emptiness. “No. I would have fed again if I wanted to be a vampire. I’m starving to death waiting for you to finish and I don’t know how much longer I can last.”
“How are you seeing it then?” Lobelia pounded the desk with her fist making the bottles jump, and the lit candle fall over and go out.
Ms. October backed away further, hand on the ladder. “I don’t know. I don’t.
“It’s not fair! I’m the one who got my grandmother’s book! Not you!” Lobelia raged. “I should be able to see all its secrets. ALL OF THEM!”
Hand over hand, Ms. October skittered up the ladder and slammed the trap door shut behind her. She didn’t have to stay and be yelled at. She had other things she could be doing. Like eating for one. Lobelia had practically given up. So what did it matter if she became a vampire for good. No one could hurt her anymore if she did. She could maybe find a bad person to eat. Maybe. Would it be so bad?
She sat down on the bench in the restaurant, wiping her arm at the fine coating of oil that glistened on the table’s surface. Everything smelled of fried chicken here, too rich, too thick, too salty. She caught her reflection in the silver decorations on the wall, her hair still in a wide afro. It looked pretty. Powerful. She liked her adult form, now that she had gotten used to it. Her siblings would never recognise her. Hell, she could beat up her mom if she wanted to – but she didn’t really want that. It would be more effort than the woman was worth. Ms. October sighed and settled her chin on her hand, other arm clutching her aching belly.
The trap door clacked open and Lobelia’s clacking footsteps approached. Ms. October didn’t look up. “I think I know why you can read the book,” she said.
“Why?” Ms. October responded, her voice a quiet breeze just before it turned into a furious storm.
“Because no one should turn a vampire back. Not without their consent.” Lobelia slid onto the bench beside Ms. October and took her hand. “Only you can read it because it needs to be your decision. So, do you want to turn back to a human?”
Ms. October nodded. “I don’t want to kill because I have to. I don’t want to kill because I want to either. I just don’t want to kill. It’s not right.”
“Okay then.” Lobelia pulled Ms. October with her, back to trap door. “Let’s do this, together. I have the ingredients I need, but I feel like there might be more instructions on the next page I’m just not seeing. Will you help?”
“Always.” Ms. October said, and followed Lobelia into the dark.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO – GREY
This liquid was not grey with swirling silver streaks like the past efforts. This new potion was muddy and orange. It had a tangible odor as if the molecules in the air carried their own sledge hammers. Ms. October recoiled pinching her nose. “Are you sure it’s right?” she asked.
“Oh yes!” Lobelia grinned, her teeth bright in the candlelight. “I can feel it. It has a magical energy.”
Waving her hand over the bottle which Lobelia so recently filled, Ms. October stated, “I can’t feel a thing.”
Bone necklace clacking, Lobelia laughed. “Well, of course you can’t. Don’t be dumb, child.”
“I’m not dumb and don’t call me a child!”
“You are a child, for as old as you look, and you aren’t as smart as me.” Lobelia glanced sidelong at Ms. October, then winked. “At least where magic is concerned.” She grinned again and added, “Child.”
Eyes narrowing, Ms. October growled, “Stop.” She focused on the liquid. “So what do I do? Drink it.”
“Yes. Obviously.” Lobelia pushed the bottle into Ms. October’s hand. “Go on. The sooner the better. We are at the end of our time and I hear there is more to do tonight. Your friend Mr. Alexander came by earlier with news.”
“What news?” Ms. October’s heart thudded with a shot of fear and adrenaline.
“Drink. Then we move. Go.”
Lifting the bottle to her lips she let the still hot liquid flow around her tongue. The taste was like no other, sharp, tight sulphurous pin pricks coupled with floral overlay and acidic burn. Her throat gagged and convulsed. She clamped her lips and pushed her mind completely into the trouble spots of her corporal form, forcing quiet. The liquid slid, taking skin with it, until it swirled a disturbed hornet’s nest in her stomach. Minutes later, every limb tingled and ached. Fingers and toes were pulled, bones snapping. She fell to the floor, balled up, thinking that she couldn’t do this, that it was impossible, but knowing she had no choice but to go through it, whether she liked it or not. Slowly her mind emerged from the black hole as the pain ebbed. It stretched itself out and poured itself into a new form of her body, like tea poured into a Ms. October shaped cup. She opened her eyes. The room was darker than she remembered. She stood, shaking, but still knowing an innate power was available to her, like she wasn’t her old self but instead something entirely new.
“Am I cured?” she asked.
Lobelia shook her head, bone jewelry clicking, eyes unblinking. “No.”
“But . . .” Ms. October could already sense the hot tears of frustration building behind her eyes.
“But you aren’t a vampire. You aren’t even half. You are something new. However,” Lobelia pointed a long finger with sharp pointed red nail at Ms. October, “you tangle with them again, and you will be fully turned, and unless I get a heck of a lot stronger – you will be stuck that way permanently.”
Ms. October’s hot tears turned sharp icicles. “I didn’t tangle with them in the first place. That was all you.”
“To save your life.” Lobelia extinguished the candle and turned towards the ladder. “Now, if you want to save some other lives, we should get going.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE – LOCK
Connor Alexander stood by while the children were slowly loaded into the bus, shackles chattering on their legs. Cold shuddering terror swept through Ms. October, locking her feet to the surface of the road. She remembered being where these kids were, afraid of what Doctor Bedlam had planned for them, of Ms. Grenadine’s sugary sweet smile and the poison it held beneath, afraid of the unknown.
Lobelia was the one who yanked Ms. October out of the Medusa’s gaze of trauma, reanimating her in the shadows. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “Do you want to be caught?”
Shaking her head, Ms. October clenched her nails into her palms and put a lock on her emotions. Now was not the time. It was zero hour. Either this worked or all these children were doomed. She looked to Mr. Alexander.
Using two fingers, he tipped his fedora towards her and flashed a smile. “Wait for it,” he said, before turning his attention to the bus. “I’m looking forward to how they explain this. The authorities were very interested in those papers you gave me.”
Before the last of the kids were loaded, the world exploded with cars and lights, sirens and shouting. The kids were stuck, wide eyed in the middle, while the FBI slapped cuffs on Ms. Grenadine before dealing with the, now crying, youth. Ms. October turned smiling and laughing to Lobelia, ready to shout words of triumph, only to find her gone.
More shouting found that Doctor Bedlam was also gone. Vanished in the chaos. Ms. October tried to catch a glimpse of the man but her more human eyes couldn’t see in the dark like her vampiric ones had. Connor Alexander was talking with the officers even as the local police turned up and amplified the aggression. No one told them that the gig was up and the gravy train had congealed. This stopped the search, if momentarily, for the doctor. Ms. October reached out with her strange hybrid senses and felt magic drifting on the humid swirling wind. Slipping behind the foliage, she rounded the building, fearing the worst.
It was quiet behind back here. The shouting was distant and crickets scratching their legs together took up most of the ambient noise. Ms. October waved her arm at the buzzing mosquitos bouncing off her skin. The moon, only a gash of silver, was enough to catch the blade of a knife, the gurgling, and a man thudding to the ground. Her feet pounded dirt in a light fwap fwaping. She knew that blade, she knew that magic, she knew what had happened and she wished it hadn’t.
Lobelia stood over Doctor Bedlam’s body, blood draining into the deep green plants from the gash in his neck. She didn’t look up as Ms. October arrived, but continued her incantation, plastering on herbs and potions until the body stood, fumbling.
“He wasn’t supposed to die!” Ms. October screamed.
“Why not?”
“He was supposed to pay for his crimes, tell everyone what they did. There are more than just the two of them.”
“Ms. Grenadine can do that. She was the brains behind it all anyway. He was just the hands. And now he’s my hands.”
“We don’t murder!” she stamped her foot.
“You don’t murder. Besides, that was your original plan, wasn’t it?” Lobelia finally looked up, moonlight shining off her neat pearl teeth, purple eyes glowing.
“But I changed my mind.” Ms. October whined. “Do you think I starved myself for that long so that we could kill him at the end? I wanted him to face his punishment.”
“Isn’t being my slave for the rest of his undead life a fitting punishment?” Lobelia pointed her long thin finger right at Ms. October’s heart, “You’re weak. You’ll always be weak. You can’t make the hard decisions that come with power. That’s why you couldn’t be a vampire. That’s why I had to protect you.”
Ms. October raised her chin, arms tight by her side, brow furrowed. “I don’t need you to protect me!”
“No?” Lobelia laughed. “Really?”
“I don’t need anyone! I’m a grown up now!” Ms. October felt young, yelling it out like that. She wished she could take it back. Say it better, but the words had flown before she had a grip on them.
“Okay.” Lobelia shrugged. “Go do grown up things.”
Tears prickled but Ms. October willed them away with steel hard thoughts. “I will.” She nodded, stepping back.
Lobelia turned and slid towards the darkness. “Good. I have my own stuff to do.”
“I hate you, Lobelia!” Ms. October shouted.
“In that case, It’s Madame Morre to you,” she said, a laugh at the edge of her words.
“It’s nothing! I’m never talking to you again!” Ms. October declared.
“Until you do,” Madame Morre said. She motioned to the corpse with a wave of her arm and Doctor Bedlam followed with stuttering steps. Looking over her shoulder, she gave one last smile. “Good luck to you, girl. You’re going to need it and when you do, I’ll be waiting. I’ve seen the future after all.”
Ms. October, well beyond that little girl of the past, burned cinders of her house crunching beneath her feet, the picture of her in the jungle still held between her hard pressed fingers, shook her head. “Well woman, you were right, as usual. I guess we can’t escape the flow of time in either direction.” She dropped the photograph and took one last look at what had been her home. Someone was sending a message and she was going to let them know that she had got it loud and clear. Likely at the end of her fist.
“Hmm,” came all too familiar voice, followed by the clacking of bones. Lobelia Morre strolled alongside her, the hem of her dress covered in soot and ash, a picture of the younger Ms. October in her hand. “You too, huh?”
“Well,” Ms. October said. “That makes this even more interesting, doesn’t it?”
“For them, yes.” Madame Morre purred in her deep voice. “They’ve just pissed off two of the most powerful people in New Orleans.”
“Indeed.” Ms. October swung her leg over her motorcycle and started the engine. “Get on. We have work to do and a hell of a lot of vengeance to pay out.”
The floor, spongy, damp, and with a strong bottom-of-an-ashtray kind of smell, crunched under her boots. It was gone. All of it. Black walls, paint bubbled and now hardened. Windows, a sepia of smoke stain, cracked like hard candy dropped and stepped on while still in its wrapping.
Why? And more importantly – who? Her life, the one she had made for herself, snatched away by vindictive hands.
Possibly a faulty wire, the police had said. Arson was what she knew. It was obvious. When everything, every last little thing had been smashed and cindered and doused, the picture of her standing in the jungle, looking at the camera. Tiny hand clutching the hem of her best dress, a white cotton lace thing her mother had made from scrap fabric. Eyes wide and hopeful. Honest. Honestly scared.
If only that picture had survived then Ms. October knew that whoever had done this, whoever was after her, was sending a message. They wanted to be found.
She crouched, picture in hand, frame bent, glass cracked. It had been an impromptu decision which put her in the hands of that woman. Her mom, at her wits end trying to make ends meet and feed the kids, do her work, pay the rent, stay alive. When the woman knocked on the door promising school for her eldest. That clever girl. She could give her an education, have her write home every day, and pay for the privilege of taking her. The building manager storming down the hall. The woman holding a check. It had been an impromptu decision but Ms. October was sure her mom knew, as she grabbed her arm and shoved her over to the woman, snatching the check as part of the movement. Her mom knew that it was the last she would see of her girl. That she, an honest woman who was just trying to make ends meet, was selling her daughter. Sacrificing one for the needs of the many.
Ms. October stood. Pulled the picture from the frame. Let the frame thud the floor. Took one last look at the empty husk of a house.
Being the one that was sacrificed had changed her. Shaped her. Made her. But not in the way everyone had wanted.
And this plan of theirs, Ms. October thought, a smirk playing over her lips, wasn’t going to turn out any better.
CHAPTER TWO – UNATTENDED
Thirty years ago . . .
She had stood, waiting, shifting from foot to foot, black Mary Janes squeaking against the scuffed and beige linoleum floor, flies buzzing and the fan beating down hot air from the ceiling. This place looked like the banks her mom had taken her to, but it was bigger, and dirtier, and had more people milling about all shoving paper at each other. Right now they stood in front of a wooden barricade that only adults had any hope of seeing over. The lady was talking to a woman on the other side, her nails click clacking every time she typed and her perfume, Lilly of the Valley overlaid with sweating pits drifted past the counter and down.
The young Ms. October rocked back and forth, heel to toe, squeaking with every round on that old floor until a hand came down, hard enough to make her neck crunch and ears ring. “Stand still, child!” it snapped.
The lady.
The one her mom had sold her to for rent.
The lady.
It turned out her name was Grenadine. Like the syrup that mom sometimes put into her orange juice to make it look like the rising sun, sweet, sticky, and not to be trusted.
“Sorry, Ms. Grenadine,” she had cooed. When her teacher’s got mad, it was this voice, this grasping at the hem of her dress, this looking up with her large brown eyes that always saved her.
“Hmph,” Ms. Grenadine returned, swatting away a fly that had begun to lap the bead of sweat which rolled down the pale woman’s skin. “What’s your full name? We need to fill out this form.”
“Leonie Antoinette October,” she answered, shoes squeaking again, as she rocked back and forth in time with the beating of the fan and the ticking of the lady’s fingers on the typewriter.
“That’s a crazy name,” Ms. Grenadine laughed.
Leonie Antoinette October balled her fists and stamped her foot, just like she did every time some runny-nosed boy or puffed up girl would say something just the same. “It is not!”
The lady smacked her again and pointed. “Go sit over there if you’re going to act like a hooligan!”
Leonie scuffed her feet along the floor, looking at the legs of all the people she passed on her way to the shiny wooden bench, and sitting down hard. Adults! This world was full of adults, and they didn’t care about a small, unattended girl lost and loose, forced to sit on a bench and wait for whatever was going to come her way.
Stuck and unstuck at the same time.
The doors to the outside swung open, flapping and bringing with it a new wall of heat. Leonie Antoinette October raised her face to the burning air, stood up, and walked forward, away from the sticky syrup lady and the faceless adults and the hard hot bench. She was going to go out into whatever awaited her, leg skin unsticking with a snap as she released herself from this situation.
CHAPTER THREE – SUNSHINE
Outside the sky so hot and bright it was pure white light. Leonie kept her eyes down, still adjusting from the dimness of the building she had come from, and walked forward. Sunshine radiated into her skin like flames licking crisping chicken. It was so close that she could even smell it. The hot roasting flesh, searing bubbling skin, juices dripping . . .
Wait! She could smell it. She looked up. Puffs of white smoke swirled into the sky on the barest breeze a ways down and over from where she stood. Leonie’s stomach tightened and twisted, like when she was sick and not hungry at all. But she knew this feeling. This was how it felt after being hungry too long. It was how she didn’t complain at her mom when food was scarce. How she let her younger siblings eat all the supper she cooked. How she went through school without much more than a sandwich, an apple, and some water when everyone else had snacks and five item lunches that included desert. This time though, she did want to eat. She wanted to eat badly.
Still keeping her eyes down, Leonie ran, her Mary Janes pat patting the ground even has her knees flew above the hem of her skirt. When she skidded to a stop by the open doorway of the bright yellow shop, her one white sock was down around her ankle and the other was dusted a fine yellow. She poked her head around the corner hoping there would be chicken on plates near the door that she could snag a leg or breast and run off with it. Instead there were people sitting around tables drinking beer and picking at bones. The counter was at the back of the room, but from where she stood she could see over the counter, through the kitchen and to the door which swung open to the yard.
Tip toeing, Leonie Antoinette October made her way through the narrow gap between the buildings. She scaled the fence and landed, two footed, in a yard full of chickens milling around a roaster. The rooster crowed. Leonie cowered, pressing her body against the building, trying to gage where the cook was.
“Now!” A hard female voice shrilled. “What do we have here? A chicken thief?”
Leonie spun and turned back to the fence. She was half way up when the woman snatched her by the back of her neck and carried her kicking and struggling into the kitchen, plonking her onto a stool.
CHAPTER FOUR – VERKLEMPT
Leonie sat on the stool, her legs sticking to the cool metal, feet flat on the ground, tears dripping to the floor. They were going to find out. They were going to give her back. And she was hungry. Everything was wrong. She was verklempt. At least that’s what Leonie’s neighbour back in her apartment building would have said. She said all those funny words when she was getting Leonie to help make potato latkes because her hands were too arthritic. What would happen to her neighbour now? Who would help her? Leonie closed her eyes and clenched her hands, wishing she could escape.
The woman, her captor, tapped her shoulder, a thick hard finger on her bone. Leonie looked up. The woman’s chest stuck out one way and her rear stuck out the other, she was frowning. “Where’s your mama?”
“Gone. She sold me to a lady.” Leonie hoped the truth would garner as much horror as she felt being pressed into this position. However the woman just smiled, like this was good news, making Leonie’s stomach sink in response.
“You hold still,” the woman said, pushing open the barrier that separated the kitchen from the restaurant. I’ll be right back. Carlos, you watch the girl.”
Carlos, a dark, lanky man with a wide dusky nose full of veins and pocks, narrowed his eyes and nodded from the stove.
“I’m hungry,” Leonie whined, once the woman was gone, hoping she might get some of that chicken out of this at the very least.
“Too bad,” Carlos grunted, turning back to his work.
Leonie sat there, wiping her tears with the back of her hand, some snot too. Her stomach clenched like a crushed tissue ball, hard and tight. A creak made her look up and over to the corner of the kitchen, opposite to Carlos. From the floor a small square trapdoor popped up and two purple eyes glittered from an angular face. The girl these eyes belonged to, crooked her finger, winking.
Leonie slid off the stool as quietly as she could, her feet clicking on the floor. Carlos turned around. “Hey!” he yelled, as she snagged a large chicken leg off a plate and slid into the door, letting it snap shut behind her – but not before sticking her tongue out at Carlos.
The room she found herself in made her skin shudder and her breath run backward down into her lungs. The girl who had invited her sat on a low chair by a crammed desk covered in chicken bones, feathers, guts, chalk, candles, animal skulls, beads, candles, knives and saws, jewels, pots of different colours of powders and dust, glitters and liquids. Incense swirled in twisted fingers, making the room blue and thick. Flowers dipped in blood and sulphurous lava.
“Who are you?” Leonie gasped, forgetting to eat the chicken clutched in her hand.
The girl turned from her desk, her bangles and bones on long gold strings chattered and jangled. “My name is Lobelia Morre. I’m going to be a Voodoo priestess.”
“Going to be?” Leonie picked up a book with a strange symbol on it, sharp lines and eyes, from the only other chair, holding it out towards Lobelia. “I think you might already be.”
Lobelia took the book. “This was my great grandma’s and no, not yet. I have a long way to go. What’s your name?”
“Leonie Antoinette October,” she said, waiting for the comment that always came next, taking a large bite of the chicken while she did so.
“Hmm,” Lobelia returned, disappointing. She turned away, lighting another candle and grabbing a small silver pot, just a bit larger than a table spoon with a very long handle. “Age.”
Leonie took another bit and talked around it. “Ten. Almost – OW!”
Fingers lightning, Lobelia plucked a single hair, then added it to the pot, along with a dark red powder. “What kind of trouble are you in?”
“I don’t know,” Leonie replied truthfully.
“Hmm,” Lobelia added a pinched of dried plant blackened plant and a sprinkle of water from a blue crystal jar. “Protection then and maybe . . .” Lobelia looked over her guest with her dark purple eyes, face pinching, lips pursing. “You’re with that pale woman, right?”
Teeth playing over her lip, Leonie said nothing.
“Right.” She pulled open five small dark wooden drawers in a tiny cabinet at the back of the desk, releasing a strong scent of smoke and dirt. “I’ve seen lots of kids leave with her, and never one to return. You’ll need something more. Something stronger.”
“You can make a potion?”
“Not a potion. A charm. General protection, plus stave death.”
“Stave death? What’s that? I can’t die?” Leonie asked.
Lobelia shook her head, her necklace ticking like small rat claws. “No. I’m not that strong. And it might not work. I haven’t done it before. But if it does, it means that if you are about to die, it will hold you where you are. It won’t make you better, it will just stop death from moving forward.” She held out her long dark finger, her deep red nail polish pointing right at Leonie’s nose. “For a while.”
A gulp stopped up Leonie’s throat.
“And one more thing,” she added a piece of her own hair with a flourish. “We will find each other again. When you need me most, I will show up.”
“How?” Leonie whispered.
Lobelia shrugged. “The spirits.” She held the pot over the candle her tongue turning and twisting verses. Green flame leapt and sparked. Leonie thought she saw flashing eyes, like an old woman’s. The room grew bright then spun back into hazy murk. Lobelia took a tiny silver spoon, no larger than her smallest nail and scooped up the dark ash from the pot, putting it into a Tic Tac sized capsule.
“A charm,” Leonie smiled.
“Right,” Lobelia smiled back.
“Are you going to make it into a necklace?”
“No. They’ll strip it off of you right away. We’re going to hide it.” Lobelia picked up a knife.
CHAPTER FIVE – SUBLIME
Her arm hurt. The small cut Lobelia Morre had made on her upper arm, neatly stitched under the sleeve of her dress, now held the tiny silver capsule. A magic charm that would protect her, save her from death, and call her new friend in her most dire need.
She wondered if it was true. Lobelia didn’t seem that much older than her. Maybe only four or so years. Perhaps she was just playing Voodoo and the capsule would end up getting infected and poisoning her. Maybe it would do nothing.
Maybe.
But at least she had a friend and that was more than what she had before.
She ran her hand over the bandage, feeling the bump. It gave her comfort after being handed over by Lobelia’s parents back to Ms. Grenadine. Although they attempted to hide it, Leonie, and Lobelia in turn, saw the money change hands before she was yanked away into the street. For the second time, she had been sold.
The lady, Ms. Grenadine, pointed to a seat in the large, cool restaurant she had lead Leonie to. The walls, chairs, and tablecloths were white. Ms. Grenadine smiled. It touched her mouth but not her eyes. “If you were hungry, you should have told me,” she cooed sweetly. “Not taken off.” She leaned her head towards Leonie. “We’re supposed to be friends.” Ms. Grenadine showed her teeth.
“Where are we going after this?” Leonie asked.
“Oh!” Ms Grenadine called out, as a waiter in white and red pinstripes laid down a small crystal bowl of ice cream on the table. “Look! Here’s your treat!”
Leonie picked up the small spoon on the lace tablecloth and stuck it in the white vanilla ball, already melting despite the aggressive air conditioning.
“Why did you pick me?” she asked.
“Eat up before it melts!” Ms Grenadine cheered.
She narrowed her eyes. “Did you follow me home? Did you watch my mom? Did you know she was desperate?”
“Silly girl.”
“Would you have taken anyone my age or do I really have something you want?”
Ms. Grenadine’s cheerful demeanor fell away like chunks of stucco in an earthquake. “Just eat,” she growled.
Ducking her head, and trying to make sense of the buzzing questions, yet unanswered, Leonie decided right then and there that she preferred friends who cut her with knives and sewed charms under her skin more than friends who didn’t tell you what was going on. She took a chunk of the ice cream and licked it off the spoon. It was sublime. A vanilla like she had never tasted before, strong, but sweet and smooth. Something real, and non-chemical about it. Lovely. She took a larger bite, trying not to rush, but enjoying it too much to slow down.
Even as she scraped the bowl, trying to get every last bit of it into her mouth, she noticed a fuzziness taking over her brain. Her arm, moving less like an arm and more like a floppy stuffed animal, over worn and over played. She gripped the table’s edge, but her head fell forward and sideways unable to find up. Was this the charm? Had Lobelia done it wrong?
Ms. Grenadine was still smiling, all teeth. “Check please!” she sang out.
CHAPTER SIX – SCHADENFREUDE
Swirling colours and shapes slowly snapped into place giving Leonie Antoinette October a clear vision of where she was. Her fingers touched the charm for comfort, because what was in front of her wasn’t comfortable. A long hall, beds on each side and children, so many children, all sitting, dressed in grey pants and shirts, eyes down.
Leonie sat up, the fabric of her own clothes scratching. Someone had changed her when she was asleep. Creepy. She stood and a rattling made her look down. Above her ankle, over her sock, was a clamp attached to a chain. Not heavy, not much anyway, but it did cause her heart to flutter against her throat.
Leonie frowned and lifted her ankle to see if she could maybe slip out of the chain, or if she could somehow break it.
“It isn’t going to work,” a voice said, from a few beds away.
“Maybe it might,” Leonie retorted, not giving up her efforts, sticking her baby finger in the key hole and trying to shift the lock. Then trying to push the ring over her ankle bone. She looked up at the speaker.
It was a kid, likely as old as she, was smiling as if this was the best entertainment they had had all day. “You’re wasting your time.”
“I can get out of here,” Leonie pushed harder, now bruising her bone and rubbing her skin hard enough to make a damp red spot on her sock.
The kid let out a giggle. “You’re just making it worse.”
“I don’t like the way you’re having such schadenfreude!” Leonie shot back using a word her neighbor had taught her, while she grated potato and chatted about the other people in the building, like the landlord who seemed to relish when someone was late with the rent.
The kid pushed back their fine white hair from their face and spun away, muttering, “You shouldn’t use made up words.”
“It’s not a made up word,” Leonie whispered. There was a clacking of shoes on linoleum down and away, but getting closer. “Is this a school? Ms. Grenadine said she was taking me to a school.”
“I don’t think so,” the kid said, voice also falling into a hush. “But I think that’s where we’re going next. Director Bedlam said we would be taking a plane to a lovely green place after the last student arrived.” They looked up. “I think that’s you.”
The footsteps got closer.
“How long have you been here?” she asked, her voice even quieter.
A figure, backlit and dark, stood at the end of the hall.
The kid shrugged, breathing back, “We’ve been measured and tested and weighed and given shots. Have they done that to you?”
The figure walked forward.
Leonie frowned. “No.”
Wide, tall, stiff, and forceful.
Leonie put her head down.
“Ms. October!” the figure boomed. “Our last student! We’re delighted you’re here!” A large, nearly red hand clamped around her foot, squeezing it tight. “Now let’s have a look at you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN – SPLENDIFEROUS
“Well, you’re a little underweight but a good height and not too thin that we can’t fill you up,” Doctor Bedlam said, rubbing his wide head with an equally wide red hand. His whole skin was red, like he was sunburned, but permanently. He checked her ankle. “Not too smart though, if this abrasion is any indication.”
“Why are you keeping me chained?” Leonie demanded, wincing as he dabbed her scrape with a cotton ball wet with rubbing alcohol.
“For your protection. You already wondered off once, and we don’t want you to miss the plane.”
“Plane? To where?”
Doctor Bedlam smiled widely, all his flat beige teeth showing. “To a most splendiferous place. So green and lush, lots of good food. Sweet juicy fruit just hanging from trees, and monkeys looking down laughing and laughing! You’ll have so much fun. It will be the best thing for you! Fresh air, fun times, a grand education, and a place to get positively fat!” He poked her belly making her laugh.
It did sound good. Leonie even started believing, a spark of hope firing in her chest, that maybe they really were sending her to a school. That she was chosen. That this was all going to work out. But then she remembered something her neighbour had said, ‘When people are trying to manipulate you, they will tell you that what they are doing is in your best interest.’ Somehow, this all seemed too good. Why would the give her all this for free? What were they getting out of it?
“Ms. Grenadine said I would write to my mother every day. Is that true?”
Doctor Bedlam chuckled. “You can write as often as you like. Or not. A lot of our students get so wrapped up in the fun of the island that they forget their parents. No harm in that, is there?” He grabbed the bottom of her shirt, tugging it upwards. “Now, let’s have a good look at you.”
Standing in her underwear, Leonie shivered, even though the heat from outside crept in through the gaps in the window frames. The bandage that Lobelia had wrapped around her upper arm her stood out. White on brown. A flag of surrender.
“What’s this?” Doctor Bedlam unwrapped the bandage and inspected the stitching. He poked at it. “There’s something in there.” He frowned. “Who did this to you?”
Leonie shrugged.
“Well, there is a foreign body in there. Maybe,” he chuckled, “it’s a tracking device put in by spies and ninjas.” He grabbed Leonie’s arm. “Time to get it out. You wouldn’t want spies and ninjas tracking you to such a wonderful place, now would you? They would ruin the fun we will have.” He picked up his scalpel, pointing it towards her. “Now hold still please, Ms. October.”
“Leave me alone!” She wiggled and wrenched in his grasp. He wasn’t affected. It was like she wasn’t moving at all. With a ping, the small silver capsule dropped into a curved metal dish and the sting of the rubbing alcohol hit her flesh and her nose.
“There! All better. Now to stitch you up.” He let go and turned away to grab his supplies.
Leonie grabbed the capsule and pressed it past her lips, securing it in the space between her cheek and jaw. Feet slapping the floor, she ran, grabbing a chair on her way and hurling it before her, through a wide window, diving after it. Glass slicing her skin, blood slicking her skin, running bloody and torn onto the road. Forward. Forward until she could find her way back to Leonie, or back home.
CHAPTER EIGHT – FAITH
Everything looked wrong and confusing. No street was safe. Cars, dogs, people, flashlights all made Leonie jump as she darted between houses, through back yards, down alleys and across streets. “Please, please, please,” she begged in her mind. “Please let me find her.”
She wanted Lobelia to sew the charm back into her arm, then she wanted to find a bus station to get back to the city and home. Her mom would take her back, probably. Hopefully.
The blue denim clouds shifted from the half moon and with a jolt, Leonie recognised where she was. The building Ms. Grenadine had done the paperwork was on her right. The yellow chicken shop was down the street. She had made it.
Rushing, breath catching in her lungs, doing her best not to swallow the charm still lodged between her jaw and her cheek, she slipped once more into the back yard – hoping the stupid rooster was sleeping. Feet patting down on the hardened dirt, the sharp scent of chicken droppings making her nose wrinkle, Leonie tiptoed to the back door. She gave it a tug, twisting the knob. It clicked and swung open with the slightest squeal. Eyes wide against the velvet blackness, she moved inside, leaving the door open to let in moonlight. The trap door was in the far corner of the kitchen. It was pure dark over there. Getting down on hands and knees, she crawled, feeling with her fingers for a break in the flooring. A few times she thought she had found it, but it had only been cracks and chips. Finally, there was the square outline and a small inset ring.
Arms tensing, Leonie gave it a tug. There was a pop and jingle, and the door opened. Below, was even darker than the kitchen. A dark that felt like a closed hand over her face. She felt for the ladder, and carefully moved her feet onto it, holding her breath as if she were diving. Her eyes were useless. She couldn’t tell if they were open or closed. Fingers feeling, toes pushing, Leonie left the ladder at the bottom and felt her way around the tiny room, eventually finding the desk. Here she paused, remembering the horrors that Lobelia kept there. Still, she had to have faith in the charm. It would protect her – from Ms. Grenadine, Doctor Bedlam, and the chicken guts that lay strewn on the desk.
Leonie stuck her hand out, fingers falling on what felt like a box of matches. It was cardboard and rattled in a dry shuffley way. “Please don’t be bones,” she whispered, startling herself with her own voice. She slid the box open and stuck her fingers in, finding thin wooden stick with the distinct sweet matchhead scent. Smiling, hands acting as eyes in a way that was already becoming familiar, she pulled out a match and struck it on the side of the box. It sputtered in a series of white-yellow sparks which were blinding in their brightness. She struck the match again with a high pitched grating igniting an orange flame, which gave off immediate heat. Using the new light Leonie quickly located a candle and lit it, then used that light to light the rest of the candles in the room.
Being able to see made Leonie relax. Relaxing made her cuts and bruises begin to pulse with pain. Her arm felt torn. Slashes from the shattered window stung. Her skin shivered, standing as she was in her underwear and nothing more. She looked around the room and found a pitcher of water, a cloth, some soap, and a basin. Using them, she cleaned up. Most of her wounds, she decided, were superficial enough that they would heal on their own. The one on her arm that Lobelia had given her, and the new one on her calf from her flight through the window, were a lot deeper. These would need stiches.
Leonie looked about the room for something to attempt stitching with, her brain shuddering at the thought of doing it to herself. Truly this was a nightmare. A horror become real. But what choice did she have? She was on her own. All the people who were supposed to look after her, be in charge, protect – they were the ones she needed protection from. It wasn’t fair, but what did that matter when there was work to do to keep herself safe?
She finally found the needle and thread and was moving to figure out how much thread she would need when a shadow fell across the desk. She froze and hoped the little charm would help her once more. That it was Lobelia her eyes would meet. Turning her head. Breath held tight inside her chest. Bottom lip firmly locked between her teeth, she looked.
Carlos stood, face blank, long kitchen knife in hand, at the bottom of the ladder.
Leonie opened her mouth to scream.
Nothing but a strangled squawk came out.
CHAPTER NINE – PERSPICACITY
Sweeping her leg into a chair and diving into a darkened corner, Leonie grabbed a knife, crusty with chicken blood and feathers from Lobelia’s desk, pointing it in front of her. Carlos walked, stiff, and unblinking forward, his blade waving.
Something seemed off. Leonie frowned and focused on all the details she could see. She called out, “I’m sorry for breaking in. I needed help. I though-”
Carlos stumbled over the chair, moving ever forward, crashing past the furniture and directly to the darkened corner knife mere inches from her face. Leonie skittered out of the way, dodging past his legs, the blade moving the air above her back making her arch.
“You can’t hear me can you?”
Carlos turned, reoriented himself to Leonie, and aimed for another attack.
“Who can you hear?” she asked. Knocking a stool into his legs and throwing a book at his head before jumping over to a shelf, wondering if it held a more adequate weapon.
“You have amazing perspicacity.” Lobelia’s voice came out of the darkness. “Carlos. Stop. You’re wreaking the place.”
Carlos came to a halt and stood, unmoving.
Leonie came out of hiding and crept closer to Carlos, sticking out her finger. “How alive is he?”
“Enough not to rot. Enough to keep my mother happy and protect this place. He’s not immortal but he’s not fully dead either. One of my most recents. I think I’ve started to get it right.”
Leonie shuddered and moved to Lobelia’s side, asking, “What’s perspicacity?”
“The ability to notice and understand things that aren’t obvious. It’s a good skill to have.” She looked Leonie over. “Now, you are bleeding more than you should, your naked, you have the charm in your mouth, and you’re back here. First day at the school didn’t go so well?”
Leonie smiled.
“Carlos go,” Lobelia ordered, before turning to her friend. “Let’s fix you up so you can go back.”
An ice bucket of emotion dumped over Leonie’s skin, soaking to her soul. “No.”
“Yes.” Lobelia picked up the chair and stool, righting things.
“No! I won’t.”
“Yes, you will.” Lobelia washed her hands in the basin, then grabbed the thread and some antiseptic.
Tears clamped her throat, making her choke with sharp pains. “Why?”
Lobelia poured the antiseptic on a cloth and pressed it to Leonie’s arm making it burn. “Because,” the girl reasoned, “we need to know what they are up to and find a way to stop them.”
“We?” She blinked.
“I’m going with you, since you can’t seem to manage on your own. Now hold still, I have a lot to sew up and we’ll have to find another place to hide the charm. Maybe in your scalp, behind your ear, under your hair. How do you feel about letting me unbraid it?”
CHAPTER 10 –ABHORRENT
Leonie looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair frizzed out in every direction making, what she thought of as a mushroom top on her head. Her mom’s neatly braided rows were gone, and now this fuzz made her face look, different. It made everything look different.
“What do you think?” Lobelia asked.
Her fingers running over the wide collar of the blue checked shirt with large red poppies covering the torso, then pulling at the tightness of the high wasted shorts on her legs, Leonie didn’t say anything. Even the boots, soft brown with a bit of heel, felt funny.
“Don’t you like it? I think it looks cute on you.”
“It’s okay.” She bit her lip trying to hold back the sudden tears.
“What?” Lobelia raised an eyebrow.
“It doesn’t look like me.” Leonie wailed, the violence , fear, and stress of the last few days catching up with her.
Lobelia lay a sturdy hand on her shoulder. “Good. You don’t want to be like you. You are weak. This – ” she gestured at the mirror. “This is someone new. Someone tougher. Who is she?”
Wiping her tears with the back of her hand, she glared into the mirror wondering. This girl had to be strong. She had to be fearless. She had to do whatever it took to survive, no matter what. Finally she said in a strong and steady voice, “I am Ms. October.”
“Okay, Ms. October, are you going to let those abhorrent sons of bitches get away with whatever they are doing?” Lobelia asked, a smile hiding under her seriousness, as this were a kind of game she was playing.
Ms. October shook her head. “No. But . . .” She turned away from the mirror. “I don’t even know what they’re actually doing.”
“Well,” Lobelia took her hand and pulled her to the ladder. “It’s time we found that out isn’t it.”
“How will we find them?” Ms. October asked, following Lobelia, up and into the kitchen.
The lights were on and a good number of people were in the restaurant, none of them happy and most of them armed.
“I think they might have already found us.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN – GREASY
Ms. Grenadine, Doctor Bedlam, and three new people all holding revolvers, all stood as the girls appeared. Doctor Bedlam stepped forward, wiping his red sweating forehead with a greasy handkerchief. “Ms. October, why ever did you run?”
“Do you know how much damage you did?” Ms. Grenadine snapped.
Shushing her with a slight flap of his palms, Doctor Bedlam continued to creep forward. “I was worried dear. I saw the blood on the ground.” His eyes ran over her body, all wounds fully covered by her clothing.
“I’m fine,” Ms. October said.
“How did you get in?” Lobelia demanded.
“Your mother let us in.” Ms. Grenadine said, her voice taking on that syrupy tone that made Ms. October shiver.
“Doubt it, but okay.” Lobelia walked out of the kitchen into the restaurant coming chest to chest with Doctor Bedlam. “So where are we going?”
“We only have a spot for Ms. October.” Doctor Bedlam’s red face grew scarlet.
“I see,” Lobelia said. “Fine with me. I’ll just explain it all to the newspapers.” She looked Doctor Bedlam right into his eye.
“Explain what, exactly?” Ms. Grenadine asked, an innocent smile stretching her face. “What is that we are doing?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Lobelia said, flipping her hair over her shoulder with her long fingered hand. “Truth in publishing? I don’t think so.”
“Wan’ me to shoot her?” one of the cronies asked, his pale face glistening with a thick layer sweat.
Doctor Bedlam’s hand clamped on her shoulder, red fingernails turning white. He gave her an avuncular smile. “There, there. We don’t need to go to such extremes. You want to come to my lovely school?”
Lobelia nodded with one sharp chin bob.
“Well then, Ms. Grenadine, I think we can make room for one more.”
Ms. Grenadine sneered before her smile flitted back to her mouth. “That would be wonderful, Doctor Bedlam.”
“So,” he bent at the waist so his eyes were right on Lobelia’s level, “what is your name?”
“Madame Morre,” she replied, grinning.
“That’s quite the name.”
“I’m quite the girl.”
Ms. Grenadine let out a huff. “We need to get going.”
“Agreed.” He crooked his finger towards Ms. October. “Ready to come, my dear?” he asked.
Ms. October craved a hiding spot far away from here. Her legs shook and her breath buried in her chest. She wanted to say nothing, just quietly follow behind Lobelia, but that’s what Leonie would do. Ms. October was a totally different creature. She was fierce. Strong. Unafraid.
She lifted her face, her eyes hard on Ms. Grenadine. “I’ll come. I’m not afraid.” She strode out, arms swinging stiff at her sides.
Doctor Bedlam took her hand in his. “Oh my little friend, there is nothing to be afraid of.” He squeezed her fingers hard. “Nothing at all.”
CHAPTER 12 – RESPONSIBLE
The tires screeched as the plane bumped to a landing onto the runway. Ms. October was tired, headachy, and thirsty. Her stomach rumbled. It had been a long flight and an even longer time since the chicken and ice cream. The plane was full of kids, with Lobelia squeezed into one additional seat which had been made just for her. Doctor Bedlam hadn’t been lying when he said they didn’t really have room for one more. Maybe he wasn’t lying about the school.
He stepped out from the cockpit as the plane taxied to a stop, looking over the kids and smiling. “You are about to have a grand adventure here at our jungle school. For many of you, this will be your first time outside of a city or town. I am responsible for you. We,” he cast his gaze on Ms. Grenadine beside him, “are responsible for you, and the jungle is a dangerous place. There are crocodiles, jaguars, poisonous snakes, and piranha in the waters. There are bugs everywhere that can make you very sick. It’s easy to get lost in the jungle and some of the natives don’t take kindly to strange kids wandering about. So,” This time he placed his gaze firmly on Ms. October. “You must not run away. The walls that surround our school are to keep bad things out, rather than you in. Do you understand, my children?”
They all nodded.
“Good,” Doctor Bedlam smiled. “Now you must be hungry and thirsty. Let’s go to the mess hall and after, you’ll get the tour.”
“What are we going to do at this school?” Ms. October’s voice piped up. “What kinds of things will we learn?” She asked as she followed the line of kids down the plane’s stairs, walking towards a long white building. Beyond that was an equally white wall with coiled barb wire on the top. After that was green. Dense, thick, green with buzzing, screeching, and even a low growl. She shivered, then firmly told herself to stop. She wasn’t that girl anymore. She was brave. She could manage this.
“An excellent question, Ms. October.” Doctor Bedlam smiled, walking backward so he could look at her while still leading the children. “You are all weak and underfed, so to start with you will be on a food and exercise regime to make you healthy. Once that is complete, you will learn some languages, basic maths, and other useful things. Depending on how you do, you will be sent to another location for further training.”
“Is that why we’re the only kids here?” Lobelia demanded. “I’ve seen loads of kids come through your facility, get on your planes, and never come back. Where do you send them?”
“Oh, that discussion isn’t for now.” Doctor Bedlam turned around again, his back stiffening. “Now let’s hurry children, lots to do, lots to do!”
Ms. October sidled up to Lobelia. “So, what’s the plan?” she hissed.
“Now, now!” Ms. Grenadine said, pushing between them. “Let’s keep quiet until we get to the mess hall shall we? And you, Madame Morre – ” She grabbed Lobelia by the upper arm. “You didn’t get your physical yet, so you best come with me.”
Ms. October’s fingers curled into her palm as Lobelia was dragged off to a small beige building not far off. Lobelia glanced over her shoulder and flashed a smile, as if she wasn’t the least bit worried, but her rising shoulders and reluctant walk gave her away.
“Be safe,” Ms. October whispered. “I need you.”
CHAPTER 13 - TOAST, BLACKNESS, SMILE
Supper had been substantial, thick buttered toast and a filling stew full of large chunks of meat, vegetables, and cubes of potato. They even had seconds. Having a truly full stomach made Ms. October smile despite her concern. It all felt too good. Way too good. Like she was lost in the jungle and Ms. Grenadine was the witch with a candy house, type of good.
Not to mention Lobelia still hadn’t appeared by the time the plates were gathered and everyone was led in a long thin line of content children, out into the court yard.
Ms. October tried to spot Lobelia as they went on the tour of their new home. The bunkhouse was sparse, concrete, and serviceable. It had cots with small lockers at the end, already packed with their new clothes. The shower facility was split by a wall to keep the sexes separated, but the toilets and urinals were all in one room as well as the sinks. Still, it wasn’t horrid, just strange.
The school room was sparse. A few lonely books on the shelf, stacks of paper and a tin can filled with pencils on a very battered desk, and rows of student desks of all sizes, as if they had been picked up second hand and at a deal. It didn’t look like much learning was going to happen here. Especially as there was only one room for the lot of them. Shouldn’t they have different rooms for different grades? It was at that moment, Ms. October realized that they were all around the same age. Lobelia being the exception at four years older. No wonder they hadn’t wanted her. She didn’t fit into their scheme.
This thought blasted icy cold through Ms. October’s chest and right into her toes. What if they had killed Lobelia? No one would see them do it. They could say she had escaped into the jungle and died. Tears began to blur Ms. October’s vision as the walked in their duck line to the running track and exercise field.
Was she really on her own again?
The long day finally ended with the sun setting crimson and purple over the deep green jungle. Strange animal noises making Ms. October jump. She missed the sound of cars and horns, people yelling across the alley, and her siblings screaming and laughing as they scrambled over the last bun or splashed in the bath together. She wondered what they were doing right now. Did they miss her? Were they lonely without her? Was her mother? Did she at least feel guilty?
Maybe not, Ms. October decided, but she felt lonely without Lobelia. Everyone else here was a stranger. She would have to make more friends. Maybe that horrible white haired boy. He seemed to have some spunk. She would need to choose her companions wisely. She didn’t need a tattle tale hanging around with her.
But first . . .
She listened. Light breathing and snoring filled the room. There was no guard. No teacher sleeping with them. No adult presence at all. All that talk about the jungle and its dangers were enough to keep them in bed and behaving. That and the fact that they were all scared and far from home.
Ms. October cracked open her eye. The room was draped with blackness. She slowly sat up, swinging her bare foot over the edge of the bed and slipping from the covers. Then with the utmost quiet she made her way to the door, swinging it open just wide enough for her body and slipping into the dim courtyard, on her way to the beige building they had taken Lobelia. Howls, shrieks, and low growl from the jungle beyond, rippling over the fine hairs on her skin and making her wish she wasn’t alone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - TRUTHFULLY
A yellow lightbulb buzzing and snapping with frantically flying insects lit the brown metal door of the beige building. This was the one building on the campus with no windows. It was large, or at least larger than the school house and slightly less so than the dormitory. Ms. October tried to listen at the door, her ear stuffed with insect scuttle and nothing more.
She tried the door handle, the rounded metal cold in her hand. It turned only slightly before sliding beneath her palm, spinning on its own. She let go and leapt back skittering around the corner, out of sight, crouching in the darkness.
“Well, we’ll keep her here for tonight and then prep her tomorrow to leave,” Ms. Grenadine’s voice rang through the think jungle sweat. “Truthfully, she’ll be a good opening salvo to Magnus. Should get him to sign the contract.”
“And if she lives,” Doctor Bedlam’s voice joined.
“If she lives, then he has a play thing on top of our gift.”
“Perfect.”
The footsteps, crunching on the coarse sand of the courtyard, they moved away. Slipping as quickly and silently as possible, Ms. October rounded the corner once more and jammed her outstretched digits between the rapidly closing door and the jam. There was a crunch as the heavy door shut on her fingers and she let out a small peep of pain, before yanking open the door with her other hand and slipping inside the building before the Doctor and Ms. Grenadine came back.
“Lobelia?” Ms. October hissed, tiptoeing through a hallway lined with doors, and rubbing her throbbing fingers.
“Here,” a voice replied from behind the first one. “The door’s locked.”
Ms. October grabbed the handle, giving it a twist and fully expecting it to be locked on her side too, but to her surprise it turned. “It’s open on mine.” She pulled the door open allowing Lobelia to push out in a flurry. “What is this place?” Ms. October asked.
“Doctor’s I think. But it’s creepy. The room I was in seems set up for surgery too.”
“Well,” Ms. October said, tapping her fingertip against her lips. “Perhaps they have to do surgery sometimes. We’re pretty far away from everywhere.”
“Maybe,” Lobelia agreed. “But something feels off.”
“Yeah, I heard that they’re going to prep you for something and then send you away and that you might die but if you don’t you’ll be some kind of gift for someone to use.” The words tumbled from Ms. October’s mouth as fast and furious as the bugs bumping the light outside.
“No one uses me!” Lobelia stomped her foot, hands on her hips.
“What are you going to do?”
“The same thing I was going to do before I found that out. I’m leaving.”
“What?” Ms. October, considered the growls and howls of the jungle beyond, pairing it with the very real threat from Ms. Grenadine and Doctor Bedlam. “But aren’t you scared?”
“Not really,” Lobelia said. “I figured I would end up having to go right away. That’s what the ball said any way.”
“Ball?”
“Crystal ball. I’m going to go into the jungle and find someone who can help.” Lobelia strode to the main door and cracked it open, her eye to the gap.
Ms. October sidled up behind her, “I’m going with you.”
“The ball says no.” She slipped out and moved quickly into the shadows, heading for the gate that led to the road.
“But, maybe it’s wrong.” Ms. October jogged to keep up.
“Maybe,” Lobelia stopped at the chain link gate, lifting the catch.
“So take me too,” she begged.
Lobelia tapped Ms. October’s skull, right by her right ear. “The charm. If you are in desperate need, I will find you and help.”
She clenched her fists. “How?”
“Trust the magic.” Lobelia swung open the gate, walked out onto the road, then pulled it shut behind her closing the latch. “Now get back to bed before they realize you are missing. You don’t want to be in desperate need so soon.”
Ms. October swallowed the stinging lump forming in her throat. “Okay. And I’ll figure out what’s happening here.”
“I’m counting on it.” Lobelia winked. “Stay safe.”
The older girl faded into the blackness, even as Ms. October whispered, “You too.” then raced back to the bunk house.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN – DIRT
Washing the sweat and dirt off her body from the two hour run around the track, Ms. October realized with a start how routine all this had become. It had been a month. At first she had spent most of the day with gut twisting sadness, alone and worried. Then she spent a good part of her time trying to figure out just what was going on, while avoiding the scowls thrown her way by the others who were growing ever more content with their home. Being fed well three times a day, getting snacks of warm sun ripened fruit and vegetables, exercise, sun, and, if not a great education, not completely useless, was actually not a terrible thing. Everyone thought she was crazy and paranoid. The white haired boy, Asher, particularly liked to poke fun at her, getting the others to laugh at her expense, his chest puffing proudly every time one of his jokes hit. She wanted to punch him.
But other than the irritation Asher gave her, she didn’t find anything that was suspicious and, as the weeks melted into a month, she found herself becoming one of them. Eating, exercising, and learning to live as though this was her normal life. Doctor Bedlam had even patted her on the head today and said how proud he was of her progress. She wasn’t. Standing here in the shower, Ms. October felt like a failure. Was there really nothing going on? Was she really just here to learn and get healthy?
“Use all the soap in the sponge!” Ms. Grenadine’s voice rang out. “Get all the nasty germs off of you.”
Ms. October scrubbed harder. This past week was focused on hygiene so much that they had been scrubbing their skin nearly off every night. That was about the only weird thing lately. That and the constant measuring they had been doing, checking the kid’s growths on their charts, especially their torso’s, like torso growth had something to do with brain growth or health.
After the shower they went to the dining hall where they found an empty serving area. Asher muttered under his breath about how they were up to something. This made Ms. October’s ears perk up. She frowned. If he believed that, why was he always making fun of her for trying to prove it? She shook her head and sat down, waiting just like the others for an explanation. Soon enough Doctor Bedlam and Ms. Grenadine strode in. The doctor announcing, “Tonight is our fast night. You will be brought clear juice and then tomorrow each of you will be taken for an examination before being placed.”
“Placed where?” Asher asked, even as the same words played over Ms. October’s lips.
“Well it will greatly depend on how well you did at our school,” he replied, his smile too wide, too bright, and too fake for Ms. October’s liking. He continued, “But to take your mind off the hunger, we have a special treat tonight. We’re going to watch a movie! Tomorrow is a busy day for all of you, so it will be a movie and an early bed time.”
“I don’t like this,” Asher muttered again. “This isn’t normal.”
Ms. October got up and moved over to where he was sitting. “Why do you think that?” she whispered, eyes looking elsewhere. Ms. Grenadine and Doctor Bedlam always watched her when she tried to talk to another student, often interfering if she stayed too long.
“I didn’t say anything,” Asher said, eyes narrowing. He lifted his chin to yell out an insult about her, as he always did.
Ms. October jabbed her fist into his ribs, hard, “Say one thing about me and I’ll break them all before they pull me off of you. Got it?”
Asher lowered his chin.
“Tell me.”
“My dad was a surgeon before he got sued into the poor house. He always had his patients wash away bacteria and fast before going into surgery. I want to know why we’re going to be operated on.”
“There could be another reason,” Ms. October said, but her memories of the night Lobelia had run sent off alarms in her head. She had told her that the room she was locked in had been set up for surgery. But for what reason? Why would anyone do surgery on a bunch of healthy students?
“I’m running for the jungle tonight,” Asher said. “I’ve had enough of this garbage. Come with me if you want.” He got up and went to sit with his friends, Ms. Grenadine’s eyes following him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN – LEMONGRASS
They played in the dormitory that morning, jumping from bed to bed. Asher wasn’t among them and nobody said anything. Not even Ms. Grenadine when she came to shuffle them off to school. This made Ms. October frown. She wondered if Asher had survived his first night in the jungle. If he had been caught. If he was with Lobelia. Or something worse.
Before they had even got to the school Ms. Grenadine stopped them and lined them up as a helicopter beat the air with ear thudding thumm thumms, kicking up sand and tossing it against their bare legs between their shorts and their socks. She pointed, yelling out names as she did. Picking out a dozen students to line up against the school house.
Ms. October studied the kids who were chosen. They were the smiley perky ones. The ones who were cute by old-aunty standards. Who would put up with pinched cheeks with an easy shrug and still hug the cruel old bat afterwards. They were slim. Not at all like the rest who had filled out with the good feeding and regular exercise. Instead they were willowy. Covering faces with hands and giggling. Boys and girls who dipped their eyes down and gave a demure smile when praised. They were the helpers. The pleasers. The ones who just “got along”. Never crying, or complaining, and always doing exactly as asked without backtalk, protest, or fight – no matter how distasteful the task or the asker.
Ms. October was not one of these kids. Nor would she ever be. Still she worried for them. They were the kind of kids who would only notice they were in trouble right as the teeth closed on their neck.
Ms. Grenadine patted each of the chosen ones on the head before sending them into the helicopter. Ten minutes later, with nearly a third of the class gone, the-kids-left-behind sat in their desks, eyes wide and fearful.
“Where did they go, Ms.?” a boy named Graham asked, voice high pitched and grating.
“To another school.” Ms. Grenadine smiled her overly sweet smile that made Ms. October’s teeth ache. “You were told last night. You are ready to be sorted into your new schools. Those kids are going have a lovely time at their new school learning to help others.”
“Oh. So where am I going?” Graham asked. “I can be helpful.”
“And you will be!” She passed out battered old readers. “Now, while you are waiting your turn to be assessed by Doctor Bedlam, we will be reading together. Ms. October, you can start.”
Ms. October opened to the first page and stood up beside her desk, as she had been taught, then read in a monotone. The book had an odd smell coming off its yellowed and crumbly pages, like the lemongrass tea her neighbour always drank. Memories of that kitchen, the warmth of her neighbour’s smile and hospitality over took Ms. October’s mind to the point that she had no idea what she was reading anymore.
“You can stop now,” Ms. Grenadine’s voice cut in, wafting away the happy memories with her viscous voice.
Ms. October realize she had read well past the one page she was meant to. She slid back into her seat, cheeks glowing, eyes on the stained and wrinkled page.
Eye flitting to the still open door and out into the courtyard, Ms. Grenadine called out, “Graham, you can go to the medical building now. I see Doctor Bedlam is ready for you.”
“Okay,” Graham said, gathering up his book and putting it Ms. Grenadine’s desk before exiting.
All eyes in the classroom watched him through the large square windows as he walked to the medical building. Ms. October could see by his hunched shoulders, hands in his shorts pocket, sidelong glance back at the school house, that he was scared. She told herself that she wasn’t.
She knew she was lying.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – HARD
The classroom was empty. Ms. Grenadine had given up all pretenses. She stood, arms crossed, even as Ms. October fingered the flaking pages of the musty brown reader, feet scuffing against the floor under her desk.
“You think you have us figured out, don’t you?” Ms. Grenadine shot.
Lips tight, Ms. October didn’t say anything.
No one had left the medical building. Twenty-eight in. Zero out. That wasn’t good. It had been over four hours. Twenty-eight in and she was next. Number twenty-nine. Her legs tensed. She glanced at the door, still open. The courtyard, through the window. The gate at the far end. It had a pad lock on it now. There was no more escape. Asher was the last one through. Twenty-eight in.
“You’re turn!” Ms. Grenadine called. “Come along!”
It was hard not to run. Hard not to punch, bite, kick, cry, cry, cry, screaming into the sky that this wasn’t fair that none of this was fair that her mom should have protected her that someone some adult should have –
She stood. Walked over to Ms. Grenadine. Looked up. Took her outstretched hand. Followed her to the beige building, heart pounding her throat, making it sting. Deep breath. She would finally find out what was going on. Deep breath. Slow the heart rate. Her fingers brushed through her hair behind her ear feeling for the lump. The charm. She was protected. Lobelia had promised. It was time to break Doctor Bedlam and Ms. Grenadine’s secret, then bring them down. No adult had done it so far. It was up to her. She was the only one prepared to make the sacrifice.
The door opened and the smell of blood hit her like a slap in the face.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – STITCHES
It had been swift. She had turned to run. Ms. Grenadine had blocked her. There was a jab in her arm. The hallway swam. She reached up against the overwhelming scent of oranges and formaldehyde. Her eyes closed and she was gone.
Now, waking up, she felt full. Her belly hard as river stones in a barely holding together wicker basket. She was fraying. Her mind, her body, her soul. It all felt like it was going to split and everything, all of her, was going to spill out in an unsightly puddle of blood, tears, and uncertainty.
Ms. October was sure something had happened to her, but what, was beyond her grasp. She lifted the stained and bloody sheet draped over her body. Her torso had a long line of stiches like a teddy bear’s middle.
With a shaking finger she touched them. They felt hot, and tight, and not a little inflamed. Moving slowly, so as not to unsettle the fullness she held inside her, Ms. October moved off the bed, bare feet hitting the floor. She grabbed a lab coat off the hook on the wall and wrapped herself in it, tying the belt around her waist, hem to her ankles.
There were other beds in the room. She crept over to one and pulled back the sheet. The girl, Miranda, had stiches as well, but a light prod brought forth only cold rigidity from the skin. Ms. October put her palm on the sleeping girl’s chest and felt no rise and fall of breath.
She shuddered.
She did the same for the next four beds she found. There were stitched children. Not breathing. Not moving. Not alive. The sixth child was breathing, but barely. On the verge of death. Graham. Ms. October shook his shoulder and he gave out a low groan. She shook him harder, and slapped at his cheeks, burning with heat. He wouldn’t wake up.
Sharp pains in her belly and blood seeping down her leg told her that she was about to join them. These unfortunate kids. It was time to run. Padding to the door, she listened before slowly opening it and looking out into the dim hallway. There were no people. In the distance she could make out an engine. Maybe a bus. People were about, she would have to be careful.
Moving as swiftly as she could with a cinderblock belly, she slipped outside and through the gritty sand into the shadows. It was night and the courtyard, lit as it was by floodlights, still held many dark pockets to hide in. The gate was wide open, having made way for the bus, which must have newly arrived, its engine still rumbling.
Seeing her escape, Ms. October moved forward, eyes on the opening. Moved forward, without much thought to her captors. She wanted out. She wanted to leave. She didn’t care what the plan was, or who was guilty, or what was going on. She wanted to go home and see her siblings, to chat with her neighbor, to sleep in her bed.
The next time she thought to focus on her surroundings she was in the jungle with no idea how she arrived. The moon was far overhead and mostly obscured by large leaves. The floor cut and grabbed at her feet, making them slippery. Her gut ached and burned. Her throat burned too. She moved forward without a path, without a plan, hands holding the stiches together, body feeling so heavy, until finally she fell. Her cheek bounced off the ground. Her arm caught a branch. Her eyes, closed against the pain.
She was dying and she didn’t know why.
She was alone and all she could whisper was, “Lobelia.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN – BOTTLE
Voices swirled in the darkened mist, drifting in and out of focus and range. It was like an out of tune radio on a highway driving between towns. Sometimes the voices were sharp and clear other times they were distant and crackling with words cutting out here and there. She tried to open her eyes, to speak out, to let them know she was here and not dead, but nothing moved. Her lips stayed soft on her teeth. Her tongue asleep in her mouth. Her lashes brushing her cheeks. Not even her finger twitched and the effort to break from her cocoon was more than she had inside her.
The voices came back into focus. “... ure I know her… ooks bad … oo … omething.”
“How is she even alive?” a second voice said, the tone as slippery as satin with a strong scent of coconut drifting from his skin.
There was a poke to her belly. “What is this stuff?” the first voice asked.
She recognized him. Asher. He’d made it out and found people.
“Let’s find out.”
There was a squelching and tearing at her belly. The pain burned like paper lit in the middle flaming outward until the whole page was black. She screamed and screamed and screamed without a single sound leaving her lips, or even her vocal chords vibrating at all.
“What the . . .?” Asher asked.
“Drugs. Cocaine by the looks of it. It’s packed into her.”
The heaviness that had pinned her belly to the jungle floor began to lighten.
Asher gasped. “Is she supposed to be that empty?”
“No. Not only are they running drugs using kids’ bodies, they’re taking their organs too.”
A thump landed beside Ms. October’s head.
“I am so glad I got out of there when I did,” Asher said, now by her ear.
“How is she still alive?” the slippery voice asked.
“Me.” There was a crunch of feet and a snap of foliage. “My charm is keeping her alive, but not for long.”
Ms. October wanted to cry and call out, to hug Lobelia and yell at her too for letting this happen. But still nothing moved but her mind.
“So,” Lobelia said, “it’s up to you.”
“I’m not turning a child,” the slippery voice said.
“I’ve already asked him,” Asher pouted. “He won’t do it. Not to me and not to anyone.”
Lobelia’s jangling bone jewelry snapped and cracked as she made some unseen move. “You have no choice.”
“What about permission. I’m not just turning someone who has no say in the matter,” the voice replied.
“Ms. October is under my protection. I give you permission. Besides. I have a way to stop the process by half.”
A loud pop as a bottle uncorked startled some animal or other and caused a minor crashing and cawing into the brush.
“Can I do that too then?” Asher asked.
“I’m not dealing with you right now,” Lobelia snapped. “Ms. October … the end of her charm. You can heal her. You can stop … crime. Or, after so many decades, have you become afraid?”
“What do …ou know … me?” the man asked.
“Eno...” Lobelia hissed, “D… it.”
“…ine. But if … ou for this,”
“Then you … he bru… he… ger.”
The voices had begun cutting out again. Ms. October felt further away than ever before. Like she was being tugged down under the ground. Then teeth crunched into her neck and a tongue swirled around the wound encouraging the release of blood. And just when she was nearly gone the biting stopped and her lips were parted. Flesh with beautiful warm blood found its home in her mouth. Life flowed back into her, warming, burning, boiling her throat. Making her alive and dead and beyond it all, all at once. Her stomach hurt like someone had released a thousand slithering eels all with needle long teeth into her gut. She grabbed at the man holding her, and found her fingers and arms worked. Holding tight, she drank and drank and drank, with each swallow she became more alive, a strange ember flame of life that was more like looking through tinted glass at the world beyond than being woken up from a sleep.
Finally he pushed her away, even as she reached for more. A bottle was shoved hard against her lips and a liquorice bitter cold slipped down her throat.
Ms. October roared. All the animals in the forest fled. Her fingers gripped the ground, dirt pushing under her nails.
Then she opened her eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY – HOPE
The jungle was different. Every sound was amplified, but not in a way that was irksome. It was more that Ms. October could pinpoint with great accuracy the type, source, and location of each sound. On top of that the world was brighter, even though the depth of night still wrapped its muggy arms around them with the scent of rotting vegetation and coconut. She touched her belly. The heaviness was gone and her skin, now stitched back together, was not marred in the least. Her fingers flew to the bump behind her ear.
“I think you’ve worn that charm out, child,” Lobelia drawled.
“You shouldn’t be alive,” Asher growled. “Now if only . . .”
“I told you,” the silky voiced man said stepping from the shadows, eyes sunken but quickly recovering. “I don’t turn children.” He locked gaze with Ms. October. “Without dire need.”
“Not fair,” Asher complained.
“Who are you?” Ms. October said.
“He’s Viper,” Asher answered. “He saved your life.”
“Thank you, but . . .” She pushed to an unsteady stand. “What did you do to me?”
Viper stepped forward and took her icy hand. “We traded blood. We are bonded now. You must stay with me.”
“Not fair!” Asher yelled again.
Lobelia snatched Ms. October’s hand away from Viper’s. “No. She’s still under my protection.”
Viper smiled, his long teeth flashing. “Your charm is broken.”
“I don’t need a charm.” Lobelia stuck out her chest and lifted her chin.
“Stop,” Ms. October ordered. “We have something else we need to do and it has nothing and everything to do with me.”
Asher’s lips lifted in a mischievous smile. “Revenge?”
Ms. October met his smile. “Revenge. Those bastards are going down.”
Viper nodded, “agreed.”
“It had been foretold,” Lobelia shrugged.
And for the first time in a long time Ms. October felt hope, and an itching lust for blood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – CABARET
The world was vibrant. Every colour was a layered kaleidoscope of beauty. Sounds reached out from the air and embraced her skin. The wind swirled confidences and certainties of what was to be now and in the future. All around was vegetation, moisture, soil, and decay. Insects skittered, rodents chittered, birds ruffled feathers. Bat wings, usually so silent, were a rustle of leathery skin pocketing air. Past traffic movement appeared as heat radiating off the road they walked down. Even the humidity held forth each droplet for Ms. October’s inspection.
The sky was purple-grey, deep as Lobelia’s eyes and filled with the same clandestine harshness. It spit out pinprick lights in a smear of stars and dust. It was all she could do to keep from tripping locked as she was to the celestial canopy. It was like she had never been alive before now. Flexing her hands against the rushing emotion of overfull joy, Ms. October spread her arms and beamed.
“Don’t get used to it. As soon as we’re home, I’m finding a way to turn you back,” Lobelia hissed.
“No,” Ms. October spat. “Besides, you were the one who agreed to it. I heard that.”
“Only to save your life. But this –” Lobelia nodded to Ms. October’s entirety, “is not life. It’s not even death.”
“I like this,” she replied fiercely. “I like it a lot.”
Lobelia snatched her hand and gave it a hard squeeze. “You think you like it. You’re drunk. Or a type of drunk. You’ll pay for this pleasure and I won’t have it.”
Snatching her hand back, Ms. October, strode away, saying, “You don’t have a choice.” She didn’t want to hear anything about going back to that pathetic cowering person she had been. The one with earplugs and blinders and the fear of everything. Now power surged under her skin, beating like war drums. She was going to take that beat and beat it into Ms. Grenadine and Doctor Bedlam and any other child killers she came across. She was going to take this power and heal the world, one dead criminal at a time.
Lobelia caught up to her. “It’s not going to go how you think.”
“How do you know how I think?” Ms. October snarled.
Bone jewelry rattling, Lobelia muttered, “Oh, I know.”
Viper and Asher reached the gate first, Viper tearing the padlock open and throwing the twisted metal to the side. They split up after that. Asher to the offices and dining room. Viper to the dormitory. Lobelia to the school house. Ms. October to the medical building.
“Are you sure you want to go?” Asher asked, for once looking sympathetic.
She nodded and marched off, tired of everyone not trusting her, like she was a broken thing that needed to be led to safety.
As soon as she tore the door open a wall of iron and salt, rot and heaviness slammed into her, knocking the air from her lungs. The smell of blood was stronger than she remembered it. It pulled at her lips, made her gut ache, her tongue darted out to the corner of her mouth before she clamped it tight behind her teeth.
Holding herself firm against these strange and overwhelming desires, she began to explore, looking for clues to where Ms. Grenadine and Doctor Bedlam had taken the children.
No.
The bodies.
Every room made her mind throb with blood splattered mess. It looked like they had cleaned most of it up. Like they were planning on coming back again, but now, in her heightened state, she didn’t think they could ever wash away the spots that stained these rooms. It was a murder scene full round blood smells and sharp chemical ones over lapping. The drugs they had packed into the children after the harvest.
She held her head in trembling hands, leaning against the wall for support. Why hadn’t she figured it out sooner? Why didn’t she save them? Or herself? They could have all got out with Asher. Instead they had been lulled into complacency. The unknown being a more fearful place than the horror knew was around them. Ms. October kicked the cabinet beside her, rage burning through her bones. A gong met her foot and the cabinet folded in half, making her stare at her foot and the marred metal. She was growing more powerful by the second, and more hungry. It was time to leave, there were no clues to be had here anyway.
Meeting the other three already in the courtyard holding her hands up to show she had found nothing, Asher spoke in low hissing voice. “I have something.” He held up a card, black and gold, with a stretched face man on it. “Madhouse Cabaret.”
“New Orleans,” Viper said. “Good. It’s time for Ms. October to meet the family anyway.”
Lobelia and Asher both narrowed their eyes while Ms. October shone. She couldn’t wait.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – BALLOON
The moon hung bright in the air above Bourbon Street as big and crinkly as a weather balloon. She and Viper had slept most of the day, first on the plane and then later at his small apartment. She had curled up on the smoky stained rust-orange couch. Viper had disappeared to his bedroom after setting the other two up on old canvas army cots.
“So, I can go out in the day?” Ms. October stared at the moon, silver light beaming off her greying skin.
“Yes,” Viper said. “Sort of. Sunlight is still harmful at full power. It burns and being out in it too long will kill. But reflected light, like off the moon, or weakened light, when it shines through clouds, can be tolerated. But,” he pulled down his wide brimmed purple hat sporting a long peacock feather, over his eyes, “It’s best to stay inside when possible.”
Asher looked on, his pale face pinching. “How will she get into the cabaret? She’s just a kid.”
Viper studied them all. “You’re all just kids, and I was wondering that myself.”
“Give me a place to work, some money for ingredients, about three hours – and I may have a solution, for a bit anyway,” Lobelia said, jangling her bone jewellery. “Long enough to find answers.”
Viper’s leaned towards Lobelia, his lip lifting, revealing his overly sharp teeth. “How much money?”
Three hours later the house was as hot and sticky as the inside of a marshmallow held too long over a fire, smelled like one too, all burnt sugar and wood smoke. Lobelia sprayed Asher in the face with the concoction. The green swirling mist of potion shimmered and gleamed in the air.
“Hey!” Asher yelled. “What’s the big deal?”
Lobelia held up a mirror.
Asher grabbed at his face. Looked at his limbs. Felt his chest and groin. “Woah!” His voice came out deep and dark, his white-blond hair had turned metal-white in the transformation, undulating with the blues, greens, and magentas of the nearby neon signs outside Viper’s large living room window. “How old am I?” he asked.
“Old enough,” Viper said.
“For what?” Asher asked, raising an eyebrow.
Ignoring the man boy, Viper glowered at Lobelia. “How long will this last?”
“Longer if I had more time, but this batch? I give it three hours.”
“How long if it were interrupted?”
“Hard to say.” She studied Asher, finally proclaiming, “Might work. Might not.”
“Not worth the risk then,” Viper said, grabbing his hat and cloak off the hooks by the door.
Asher glared at Lobelia. “Don’t you tell him anything that would make him say no.”
Lobelia didn’t respond, instead giving Ms. October her dose of the potion.
“Let’s get the job done before we start talking about what is and is not possible,” Ms. October said.
“Easy for you to say, you’re already turned,” Asher spat.
“Not for long,” Lobelia countered.
“I told you –” Ms. October snapped. “Don’t you take this away from me.” She pushed past Viper and grabbed the door handle. “Let’s go!”
“I give the orders in my town,” Viper said, pulling Ms. October behind him. “Understand?”
Ms. October rolled her eyes and followed him out into the hallway, Asher behind them. “Aren’t you coming?” he asked Lobelia.
She shook her head, the clacking of her bone bits accompanying her movements. “No. I still have more work to do.”
“Well,” Ms. October shot, “then don’t be surprised if I don’t come back.”
“You’re path is one straight to hell, and not the bright fun one you believe it to be,” Lobelia shut the apartment door. Ms. October stared at the wood, wondering if she really was heading the wrong way. But this brightness, this lust for every new experience, couldn’t be bad. And she wasn’t going to hurt anyone. Not anyone who didn’t deserve it anyway. What could go wrong?
“He’s going to turn me,” Asher whispered to her. “I know it.”
Ms. October spun back towards Viper and skipped to catch up, singing, “I don’t care.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE – MONKEY
The Madhouse Cabaret was packed with flashing silk suits and the sliding shuffle of alligator wing-tips. The jazz band bebopped and hooted all over the stage. Skirts rode high and tassels flung out in a wild frenzied spaghetti dance all around the room. The air was oven roasted hot and filled with slate-blue smoke rising up from red tipped cigarettes. Everyone winked and laughed, holding their drinks high and their morals low, not caring about tomorrow or the next day or even knowing if there would be one after sunrise. Lobster sang on salty sea sauce cracking open and holding forth lemon and butter high into the air. Tight dry wine and sloppy sloshing beer added to cigars and cologne, lily of the valley and grandma’s roses. Ruby and sapphire, jade and emerald decorated the place in metallic luxury accenting the deep velvet furniture and dark wood. Lights glinted off sequins and pearls and laughter rushed in at all sides. Ms. October, eyes wide and ears wider, tried to take it all in, but ended up feeing more like a panicked monkey was frantically rushing through her brain.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Asher asked, not appearing the least bit concerned by the surroundings.
Viper narrowed his gaze, whipping back his vibrant purple cloak and striding forward. “The biggest guy or gal here. Look for power.”
“What does power look like?” Ms. October looked around the room expecting to see someone glowing, or even floating above all others.
“All eyes will be on them. People will laugh with them, even if their joke isn’t funny. They will be at the centre of it all while being off in the corner of the room.” Viper spun and grinned at the kids who were not kids. “You’ll know it when you see it.”
Asher glowered. “And then?”
“And then,” Viper winked, “you listen.”
Ms. October pushed into the crowd, wanting to prove herself worthy to Viper. Maybe he would fight Lobelia on turning her back, and really give her a place in the world. She needed this power that flashed and sparked through her cells. It was the only way to be the someone she wanted to be. Lobelia just didn’t understand. She was probably bitter that it hadn’t been her. Just like Asher.
Sweat soaked and brackish arms and shirts brushed her as she moved. She could hear every heart. Feel the pulse of the dancing blood under their skin. Even the sound of it pressed against her like a whooshing constant wind. She bit her lip, drawing forth her own blood.
That only made everything worse. She clamped her jaw shut and went over her plan, trying to calm her mind. First she had to find the boss man or lady. Get them to give up Doctor Bedlam and Ms. Grenadine. Find those two. Then she would suck them dry. They were the ones who deserved it. No matter how much she wanted it now.
Right now.
A man joggled into her and grabbed her shoulders in a woosey dance. “Shoory misses,” he slurred. “Wanna come sit down with me? Hey yous cute. Howsaboutakiss?” He leaned into her, lips jutting out with glistening spittle, planting them on her cheek.
His pulse played against her lips. It beat until it took up her world. He grabbed her body to hers.
“Lez dnce,” he said.
Ms. October’s jaw released and her mouth opened, fondling his neck.
“Ohhh, baby. Iz loves you tooze,” the man drunkenly proclaimed, pushing harder into her, and gripping her tighter.
Her teeth played on his skin. She felt his pulse. His life. Mouth watering. She wanted it. She needed it. She started to push, but . . .
Did he deserve it?
He was drunk and being way too forward, but . . .
Did he deserve death? Was this her goal. Was this her rule?
Burning bile rose with her fear, scalding her throat and making her head swim with sudden and overwhelming anxiety. This wasn’t the plan. She didn’t want to be like this. This wasn’t who she was.
Was it?
Did she have a choice?
The man let go. Looked at her with concern. “You okay, doll?” he asked, his eyes lacking focus. “Iz sorry. I’m a jerk. I shouldn’t have act –”
She pushed him away, his face a broken puppy of guilt as she turned and ran, tears flooding her eyes, his blood pulling at her like sticky grabbing hops, tangling her in desire, until she punched through the metal door into the back alley and the damp pattering rain of the night.
The silence. The far off siren. Stray bouncing laughter. It quieted her need.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Rubbed her teeth with her finger, trying to push them back into her jaw bone. Then she turned and marched away, back to Lobelia, beneath the yellowing street lamps.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR – DOORWAY
Arms and legs dancing and swinging, people humming and swooning, yelling and hooting moved around Ms. October as if she were a stone stuck mid-flow in the muddy Mississippi. The moon was so bright it blistered her skin, sending up wisps of thin pale-blue cedar smoke. Her head pounded in time with all the people who passed - their foot steps, tunes, heartbeats. This was and was not what she wanted. This was and was not the freedom she sought.
Lobelia would tell her “I told you so!” with that pinched face of hers as soon as Ms. October walked in the door. It would be awful. A sigh, deep from within her wishes escaped from between her hopes. She knew she had to give it up, all this beauty, but it was going to be hard. Everything was so bright and new and shiny, however the price was sticky, dark, and cloying.
She moved on, treading down the street when a hand snagged her shoulder and yanked, stronger than any hand she had ever had pull her before, and quicker too. Within moments she found herself in an alley staring up at the sky, dirty concrete dampening the back of her dress, and two emerald eyes looking down at her, blinking. Crimson lips parted in a mystified smile. A tongue darted out, wrapping around white sharp teeth.
“So?” A seductive voice crooned as a tall lady in a cherry evening gown leaned, her piercing finger poking. “What do we have here?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE – EDGE
Ms. October sat on the edge of the smooth wooden chair, legs crossed at the ankle, fingers clamped to the edge. She glanced at the clock on the wall – a half grandfather clock, maybe called a grandmother clock? She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that it’s swinging brass pendulum and dark grained wood took up her attention and drew it away from the fact that she had less than an hour and a half left on Lobelia’s spell before she reverted to a child. She wondered if these people could see through the spell. They saw that she was a hybrid vampire right off the bat and then the questions came one after the other. Her mouth had clamped closed after the first one. Viper hadn’t said what she should answer and to whom. Now, with two moths bouncing and bopping off of the yellowed kitchen bulb, hanging bare on the vaulted plaster ceiling, Ms. October watched the woman and the man who accompanied her pace, as they tried to suss out the best way to get her to talk. Ms. October’s mind was entirely on how she was to escape and find Lobelia or Viper or even Asher before something bad happened. Her teeth ached, her blood pulled and she needed, more than anything, something to sate it.
Not these two, but the human in the apartment below her would do nicely.
She shook her head and gripped the chair more tightly. She could hold out against the blood lust, the questions, and against her own ego – now bruised at the fact that Lobelia had been right about it all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX – WATCH
With less than half an hour left, Ms. October could detect the undulation of her cells rebelling against her older form. The vampires who had captured her had grown weary of her silence and were discussing ways of getting Viper’s attention, the man they thought was at the root of it all. Rightly at that.
With their backs turned in discussion, Ms. October bolted, her feet clumsy as her body shrunk a little at a time, throwing off her balance. She slammed the door open wafting fourth the boiled goat and cheap whiskey stench of the hallway, stumbling towards the stairs and throwing herself down them, hands gripping the rail and brain hoping for the best.
The roar behind her told her that she had not gone undetected. These creatures were fast. Before she hit the first floor and the front doors, they had her surrounded, nails biting into her flesh.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the woman snapped, her snarling grin making Ms. October unbearably frustrated.
“Leave me alone!” she yelled in response. The doors were right there. “I don’t owe you anything!”
The man grabbed her other arm. “You might not, but the person who made you does. You are an abomination. A vampire only half turned. What good it that? What are you for?”
The woman gripped her face, pinching her cheeks and pulling Ms. October’s eyes to meet hers. “We want to know if Cuba made you. There’s been talk.”
“I don’t know who Cuba is?” Ms. October spat, kicking and squirming enough to slip down a few steps and out of their grip. She ran, smashing the glass in the front door as she did so, dashing onto the street, eyes darting wildly.
“She doesn’t, you know.” Viper stepped in front of her, Asher panting behind him. “She only knows me.”
“Okay, what is she then?” the woman asked. “Are you responsible for her?”
Viper nodded. “It’s not what you think though.”
“You work for Cuba then? You’re helping his take over,” the man bellowed rushing forward and stopping mere inches from Viper’s face.
Viper put up his palms, pressing the man back. “I’m not doing anything. I saved this girl’s life because I was asked. A witch stopped her progress to our side. It’s that simple. Just a spell. That’s all.”
Asher glanced at Ms. October leading her back a ways. “Your spell’s wearing thin,” he whispered to her.
“I know,” she whispered back. “I need to get to Lobelia.”
Asher’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you wanted this.”
“It’s worse than anything I thought. The blood lust. It hurts.”
“I could deal with it.”
Ms. October eyed him. “You’re bitter enough that maybe you could, but I hate it. I want it gone.” She looked around at the bright bright world. “Even if it means I lose this.”
“You’d give it up? All of it?” Asher asked, his tone both disturbed and envious.
“Help me get back, please. I’m running out of time.” Ms. October begged.
Asher nodded, hands running over his grown body. “Me too.”
The vampires were still discussing things and squaring off with chests puffed and eyes shooting daggers.
“Okay,” Asher said, “I’ll help you get back to your friend, on one condition.”
A woman walked across the street pushing a large baby carriage. Ms. October wanted nothing more than to pick up the child and feed on the tender sweet blood. “Anything,” she breathed. “Anything at all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN – GRIEF
Flesh snapping against fist and aggravated growls broke out behind Asher and Ms. October as they sprinted towards Viper’s apartment. Asher struggled to keep up. Ms. October struggled to stay the course as the fight between her hunger and her desire for justice tumbled and scratched in her skull.
“I’m human,” Asher panted, pushing more speed from his trembling legs. “Slow down.”
“I’m not,” Ms. October growled through clamped jaw. “and I can’t.”
Finally, at the end of both of them, they slammed the door to the apartment open, locking it behind them.
“Lobelia!” Ms. October called.
The place was dark. Not a light. Not even a candle. Asher snapped on a lamp casting their shadows onto the wall, elongated giants.
“She’s gone,” he said.
“No!” Ms. October screamed, turning towards the door. “I have to find her. She can’t be far.”
Asher stood in Ms. October’s way. “You promised.” He crossed his arms. “And you have to feed.” A smile crept up his lips. “Don’t you? You can hear it.” He stepped towards her, opening the buttons on his shirt, and pulling off his jacket. “The soft beating of my heart. It must sound so loud to you. It must nearly break every bone in your body resisting it.”
“Stop.” Ms. October backed away, hand out. “If I do. . . ”
“You’ll have what I want and I,” he reached out and grabbed her shoulder. “I’ll have what I want too.”
“I can’t.”
“You promised.”
“But,” A wave of grief crested in her chest bursting and filling her empty skeleton with sharp pinpricks of pain. Asher’s heartbeat was all consuming. It was all she could hear.
“You want justice. I want this. We’re both running out of time. Maybe giving me what I want will buy you the time you need.” He put his palm to her face. “I’m going to turn back to a child soon and if you take me, you won’t have broken your vow to only harm evil. I’m asking. Pleading. You are doing me no harm.”
Ms. October considered. It still felt so wrong, but what choice did she have. She was out of time, if she didn’t feed on Asher, she would feed on the first human she met. And Asher was right. She could already feel the aging spell unraveling, it was only minutes until they would be children again. She grabbed Asher in her arms and bit into him, letting her instincts guide her. Sweet sweltering blood pumped into her mouth, her anxiety faded and joy overtook her. Her mind quieted, the itch settled, she felt at peace and whole. All too soon the beautiful liquid slowed its flow. She licked, desperate for more. It did no good. Squeezing the body, she tried to get the flow to quicken. It was drying up and fast. The body was going cold.
Wait.
The body.
No.
Asher was cold.
Asher was . . .
She flung him back, horrified by what she had done. Was he gone? Had she killed him? Drained too much? She didn’t know how this worked. Crunching her teeth into her wrist she made her own blood flow fast. Pinching his jaw bone open, his eyes staring wide into the air, she let it run into his mouth. It filled the cavity, coating his teeth white, then poured out the corner of his lips, onto the carpet.
“No, no, no, no . . .” she pleaded.
Rubbing his throat, like she had seen her mom do with the little ones when they wouldn’t take their medicine, she tried to get him to swallow.
“Come on. Come on you stupid boy.”
Finally there was a cough. Then a choke. Then Asher’s hand clamped onto her wrist and held it firm to his own mouth, drinking deep. She laughed, but the sound was cut short as the pull of her own blood leaving tore through her body, like satin strings yanked, crumpling the rest of the fabric with it, wrecking it. She felt folded, a horrid rending echoing through her body.
“Enough!” Viper yanked each of them away, flinging them across the room. Asher smashing into the wall. Ms. October cracking the window and sliding down into a heap at the bottom, nursing her damaged wrist. “What do you think you are doing?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT – SONG
She sat there, her skull singing with whale song and room spinning vertigo. Asher looked about as good as she did, staring ahead, eyes turning red, hair even more silver than white. Still he stayed fully adult, if a young adult, looking more like a man who had just put his toes over the line of maturity only minutes before. She looked down at herself. She had also halted the unraveling of her spell-given time. Viper seethed, pacing back and forth, hands clutching and unclutching the air, words coming out as spit – incoherent.
He looked from Ms. October to Asher and back again. Finally he pointed his long finger right to Asher and said, “I was going to keep you with me until you were ready and then give you the gift of eternal life. If you wanted it by then. Once you understood.”
Asher crossed his arms and looked away, muttering, “How was I supposed to know that? You could have said something.”
“I did tell you.”
Asher stood, wobbling a bit, still scowling. “No, you didn’t.”
Face washed of all emotion replaced Viper’s anger. “I didn’t?”
“No,” Asher replied.
“I thought it at least,” Viper said, hands out, begging understanding.
“I was human. Not psychic. Not vampire.” Asher put a hand on his hip and stretched his jaw wide before adding. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. You want to help me, fine. You don’t, fine. I’ll figure it out either way.”
Ms. October struggled to a stand too. “Where’s Lobelia?”
The door opened as if on cue, and Lobelia, eyes glowing purple strolled in, a heavy bag clanking at her side with the sound of full glass bottles. She stopped cold as soon as she saw Ms. October. “You didn’t!”
Raising an eyebrow, Ms. October stepped forward. “Didn’t what?”
Lobelia slammed her bag down hard, the sound of cracking glass meeting her anger. “I told you! I told you it was going to end badly and now . . .” She glanced over to Asher. “You! How could you!”
“She offered, and if you were here, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”
This time it was Ms. October who crossed her arms. “You would have demanded until it did. Don’t lie.” She looked at Lobelia’s bag leaking strange grey liquid all over the table. “Did you bring a cure?”
Lobelia held out her hands. “For this? For full blown vampirism? You fed. You are one of them! How am I supposed to fix that? It would take stronger magic than this junk!” Lobelia swept the bag and its shattered contents to the floor, her body shaking and tears glistening on her sable cheeks.
Ms. October rushed to her, grabbing her shoulders. “Your charm kept me from dying when, by all rights, I should have been dead. Your magic makes zombies and protections, and who knows what else. It’s saved me before. It can do it again. You can do it again. You are stronger than you believe.”
Lobelia took a long, deep breath. “Fine.” She nodded. “Fine.” She straightened her body into a pillar of power. “But we leave now. We need to go to my workshop if I’m going to make anything near strong enough.”
Asher glowered. “But what about revenge? We found out that Ms. Grenadine promised Magnus a shipment of both children and drugs in three months’ time. We have to stop her.”
“No!” Lobelia snapped. “We have to stop what’s happening to Ms. October.”
“Neither is important!” Viper growled, stepping between the warring parties. “If you want to be a vampire so badly, then you need to leave these human concerns behind. I have found out there is a much bigger threat right now going by the name of Jacob Cuba.”
Ms. October stamped her foot, demanding attention. “It will take Ms. Grenadine and Doctor Bedlam at least three weeks to acquire enough children to be ready for the jungle. That hopefully gives Lobelia time to make her potion.”
“And us?” Asher asked.
Ms. October raised her chin and looked down her long wide nose at Asher. “We can handle this fine on our own. You have your precious vampire life to get to. You didn’t care about me before, so don’t start pretending you do now.” With that she spun and marched towards the door. “We’ll get revenge for you, and for everyone else, without any more of your help.”
Lobelia followed, shrugging. “She has a point.”
“Good luck then, witch,” Viper said. “I doubt what is done can be undone, but the girl is right, your magic is some of the most powerful I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m not a witch,” Lobelia snapped, “I’m a queen, but thanks, Viper. Good luck to you as well.”
“We have to go,” Ms. October said stepping into the hallway. In the back of her mind she could hear Ms. Grenadine’s voice telling another desperate mother about a wonderful school for their precious young son or daughter and waving money about. She had to be stopped, at any cost.
Asher ran up behind her. “I’m sorry. I hope everything works out for you. Really, Ms. October”
She turned to him. “And you too, Mr. Asher Mercury. May we never meet again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE – HOLLOW
Ms. October flipped the calendar from one month to the next, scowling at the cheerful image of a yard full of baby chicks pecking around a wrinkled, long eared dog. It had been nearly a month and she still didn’t have enough to shut down Ms. Grenadine and Doctor Bedlam’s operation, and the beds were filling up fast. They would be moving soon. Granted, her vampiric powers had helped in gathering the information she did have. She had been able to slip into offices and cabinets to photograph paperwork on visa’s and contracts, both of which were just barely legal – but legal non-the less according to Lobelia, so long as there was no dubious activity. Unfortunately, there was no proof that the place the kids were going wasn’t the school promised, as there was a learning facility and, as she discovered, Ms. October signed the kids over to other schools giving the responsibility to them and relieving herself of the missing students from her previous endeavours.
Although Ms. October’s body was that of a twenty-something, her brain hadn’t even crept close to high school. All the detective work, reading documentation and legal papers, and trying to figure out how to hijack security cameras made her head swim.
“You could just kill them,” Lobelia observed, stirring a think murky liquid in a heavy black pot.
“I know. I want to.” Ms. October sat heavily on the worn and dusty chair, crossing her legs. “But I know the other people involved will just source kids from somewhere else. I want to shut this thing down for good.”
“Hmm.” Lobelia threw in a dark green herb with a splash. “Sounds difficult. How do they keep track of their shipments? Money?”
Chin landing in tightening fists, Ms. October groaned. “I don’t know where to even start looking for those.”
“Me either. What about the Doc’s bag?” She moved her hands in a deliberate pattern then threw in a pinch of sand. “He has it with him most of the time, but I never see him use anything out of it. Either that or that Magnus guy might be sloppier, perhaps you can rattle him.”
“Perhaps.” A sigh slipped through Ms. October’s lips. “How goes the potion making? Any luck?”
“Getting close. Have you fed?”
A hollow gong echoed through Ms. October’s empty insides. “No. But it’s getting harder every day.”
Lobelia finally looked up, her purple eyes hard. “Well that’s too bad isn’t it? You want back, you’re going to have to stick it out.”
Uncrossing her legs and pushing to a stand, Ms. October turned and started up the ladder once more. “I hate you,” she spat.
“Yeah, I hate you too,” Lobelia returned, with equal venom before adding. “Good luck out there. Be careful.”
“I will,” Ms. October nodded, her head drooping down lower with each bob. “See you in the morning.”
Lobelia smiled, the corners of her mouth barely pushing to a stand. “You’ll crack it tonight.”
“Yeah, I hope so.” Ms. October pressed open the trap door and exited into the silver lit kitchen, still heavy with fried chicken grease. First she’d deal with Doctor Bedlam and his case, then she’d tackle Magnus. There were only three beds left empty. She was nearly out of time. She glanced back into the darkness of Lobelia’s work room. Both of them were.
CHAPTER THIRTY – SOAP
Getting Doctor Bedlam’s bag wasn’t difficult. A quick hop onto the second story of the building and sliding open the window to his office, got Ms. October the goods. She didn’t look in it. Not yet. The night always went faster than she wished and tonight was a new moon, perfect for skulking. In fact she never felt stronger, or more hungry.
At the Madhouse Cabaret she slipped in between guests, their pounding heartbeats tugging at her teeth. “Focus,” she muttered as she drifted through the crowd unnoticed as smoke drifting off a cigarette. She found Magnus, and remembering what Viper had said, watched from the wings. The night drew out in flashes of colour, shuffling cards, raucous laughter, and long ragtime trumpet solos, Ms. October found herself getting impatient. She was halfway through convincing herself to grab the crime lord and threaten any and all information out of him when a strong hit of lemon soap snapped her nostrils like a flicked finger. She spun and came face to trench coat with a man.
She looked up. The man wore a fedora and a crooked smile. His tie was iridescent lizard green and he looked clean, too clean, as if all his dead skin cells had been scrubbed off both in the present and in the future. He held his finger to his lips, shot her a grin, and crooked his finger, urging her to follow. Magnus didn’t seem to be going anywhere, so she obliged, following the man to a booth where they sat, eyes still on the crime lord.
“You want him too, huh?” the man said, lighting a cigarette and puffing out a ball of smoke which broke apart in tendrils snaking towards the ceiling.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Private eye. Hired to bring him down. He’s in some dirty business. You?”
“Same thing,” Ms. October admitted. “Without the private eye part. Or the being hired. I’m on my own. Magnus is working with people who hurt my friends but I don’t have enough information to bring them down. I was hoping maybe he would have some.” She didn’t know why she was telling the man all this. As she spoke her brain kept yelling for her to shut up, and yet, it was a relief to tell an adult, a real adult, what was going on.
“I’m Connor Alexander, by the way.” He stuck out his hand.
Ms. October took it and shook. She liked how it felt, strong, but not macho strong, like he didn’t have to prove anything. Like he didn’t care what people thought. “Leonie October.”
“Nice name.” He grinned again. “So, what do you have so far?”
“Not much,” she admitted, then detailed what she had found while part of her brain still protested how willingly she gave this information. She told it to shut up. She had powers. If Connor wanted to mess with her, she could handle it. “I have this too.” She held up the bag.
“What’s in it?” Connor asked.
“I don’t know. Shall we look?” Ms. October cracked the lock and pulled open the bag. Inside were rolls of bills in bundles of hundred-thousands by the look of it and a ledger book.
“May I?” Conner asked, reaching for the book.
Ms. October nodded and closed the bag on the money, looking around to see if anyone else had noticed it.
“Whoa. Is this for real?”
“If it’s about selling organs, using the kids’ dead bodies to transport drugs, while selling other kids into slavery – then yes. I was there. I saw it. It nearly killed me and it did kill some of my friends.”
Connor looked up from the book, his eyelids drooping as he met hers. He looked as emotionally exhausted as she felt. “I’m sorry he said. I only knew a small part of this. This is exactly what I’ve been hired to stop.”
“Hired by whom?” Ms. October asked.
Connor clicked his tongue. “Client confidentiality. Let’s just say, given your appearance, you likely know him.”
“Viper.”
Connor’s head bobbed slightly, then he turned back to the book. “Listen, I have enough between my investigation and this, plus statements from a bunch of people I’ve interviewed on the record. If you trust me, and I’m not going to talk you into that, you can decide that on your own, but if you trust me, then let me have the book and I promise you, I will put these people away for a very long time.”
Ms. October raised an eyebrow. “Can you promise that?”
Pulling down his fedora, Conner shrugged, then chuckled wryly. “Not really. I’ll do my best though and hope for a judge that isn’t corrupt. Good enough?”
Ms. October bit her lip, then nodded. “It will have to be.”
“You did well, finding all that information without being trained.” He reached into his trench coat. “If you ever need a job, let me know. I could use a side kick. I have a feeling you’d be a good one.”
Warmth rushed over Ms. October’s skin. It had been a long time since she had felt needed, or even wanted. She took the card. “Okay. You deal with Magnus, Ms. Grenadine, Doctor Bedlam, and all the other criminals in this rats’ nest. I have some things to do too. Once it’s all done, I may look you up.”
He stood and shook her hand, talking over his cigarette. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Ms. October. My client said you were one in a million. Good luck to you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Alexander. Good luck to you as well.”
Ms. October drifted out of the cabaret, bag in hand, feeling lighter than she had in a long time. She now had enough money for both her and Lobelia to live well, the possibility of a job, and if things continued her way, a cure for her vampirism.
She sang as she entered the kitchen and pulled open the trap door. What met her below was a mess of shattered glass, acrid smoke, and choked sobs. “What happened?” Ms. October gasped, rushing to Lobelia’s side.
Fists balled up, hair damp, Lobelia hunched over the desk snarling, “It’s not going to work. None of it is going to work!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE – HUNGER
Sharp snapping hunger scraped at her insides making Ms. October clutch her abdomen like a shipwreck survivor clinging to a life preserver in the middle of the ocean, wind whipping and huge swells trying to tear the puny saving device from her exhausted fingers.
Lobelia was trying again, shattered glass swept into piles, book retrieved from being flung into a corner now sitting open on its pedestal. “Hanging in there?” she asked.
“Sure. You look about as tasty as you did an hour ago,” Ms. October growled, while wishing she didn’t. “How’s it going?”
“Tch.” Lobelia let out a frustrated hiss of air. “I’m doing the same thing as before. I’m sure I didn’t miss a step but . . . I don’t know.”
Ms. October pushed to a stand, and did her best to shove Lobelia’s heartbeat to the back of her mind. “Let me read it out to you.”
Eye’s red with exhaustion and candlelight, Lobelia snarled, her bone jewelry clattering with frustration. “What good will that do? I know this spell. I’ve done it four times now.”
Melted candlewax and sweet herbs filled the air around the book as Ms. October settled herself above the pages. “I know. But that’s just the problem isn’t it.”
“What do you mean? How can being an expert be a problem?”
“Look, we’re both tired.” Ms. October laid a hand on Lobelia’s pointy shoulder. “Maybe you keep missing something, because you are reading what you know to be on the page instead of what is actually there. You might have missed an ingredient.”
Lobelia, narrowed her gaze and turned her head back to the heavy black pot. “Fine. Read. I’ll let you know if I’ve added it.”
The ingredient list was long and Ms. October had to have some help pronouncing all the words. Most of them were met with, “I’ve added that”. A few with just a nod. Some with grunts of irritation. Then – “What did you say?” Lobelia asked.
“Moonflower. You need five petals and some of the root, dried and ground. It says right here.” Ms. October pointed.
Lobelia shoved her aside. “Where? I don’t see it.”
She pointed again. “There. See. Moonflower. It’s the final ingredient.”
“That’s blank space. There’s no writing there.” Lobelia looked up, seething. “Are you trying to trick me? Do you want to stay like this forever?”
Ms. October stepped back, confusion rustling up hurt and emptiness. “No. I would have fed again if I wanted to be a vampire. I’m starving to death waiting for you to finish and I don’t know how much longer I can last.”
“How are you seeing it then?” Lobelia pounded the desk with her fist making the bottles jump, and the lit candle fall over and go out.
Ms. October backed away further, hand on the ladder. “I don’t know. I don’t.
“It’s not fair! I’m the one who got my grandmother’s book! Not you!” Lobelia raged. “I should be able to see all its secrets. ALL OF THEM!”
Hand over hand, Ms. October skittered up the ladder and slammed the trap door shut behind her. She didn’t have to stay and be yelled at. She had other things she could be doing. Like eating for one. Lobelia had practically given up. So what did it matter if she became a vampire for good. No one could hurt her anymore if she did. She could maybe find a bad person to eat. Maybe. Would it be so bad?
She sat down on the bench in the restaurant, wiping her arm at the fine coating of oil that glistened on the table’s surface. Everything smelled of fried chicken here, too rich, too thick, too salty. She caught her reflection in the silver decorations on the wall, her hair still in a wide afro. It looked pretty. Powerful. She liked her adult form, now that she had gotten used to it. Her siblings would never recognise her. Hell, she could beat up her mom if she wanted to – but she didn’t really want that. It would be more effort than the woman was worth. Ms. October sighed and settled her chin on her hand, other arm clutching her aching belly.
The trap door clacked open and Lobelia’s clacking footsteps approached. Ms. October didn’t look up. “I think I know why you can read the book,” she said.
“Why?” Ms. October responded, her voice a quiet breeze just before it turned into a furious storm.
“Because no one should turn a vampire back. Not without their consent.” Lobelia slid onto the bench beside Ms. October and took her hand. “Only you can read it because it needs to be your decision. So, do you want to turn back to a human?”
Ms. October nodded. “I don’t want to kill because I have to. I don’t want to kill because I want to either. I just don’t want to kill. It’s not right.”
“Okay then.” Lobelia pulled Ms. October with her, back to trap door. “Let’s do this, together. I have the ingredients I need, but I feel like there might be more instructions on the next page I’m just not seeing. Will you help?”
“Always.” Ms. October said, and followed Lobelia into the dark.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO – GREY
This liquid was not grey with swirling silver streaks like the past efforts. This new potion was muddy and orange. It had a tangible odor as if the molecules in the air carried their own sledge hammers. Ms. October recoiled pinching her nose. “Are you sure it’s right?” she asked.
“Oh yes!” Lobelia grinned, her teeth bright in the candlelight. “I can feel it. It has a magical energy.”
Waving her hand over the bottle which Lobelia so recently filled, Ms. October stated, “I can’t feel a thing.”
Bone necklace clacking, Lobelia laughed. “Well, of course you can’t. Don’t be dumb, child.”
“I’m not dumb and don’t call me a child!”
“You are a child, for as old as you look, and you aren’t as smart as me.” Lobelia glanced sidelong at Ms. October, then winked. “At least where magic is concerned.” She grinned again and added, “Child.”
Eyes narrowing, Ms. October growled, “Stop.” She focused on the liquid. “So what do I do? Drink it.”
“Yes. Obviously.” Lobelia pushed the bottle into Ms. October’s hand. “Go on. The sooner the better. We are at the end of our time and I hear there is more to do tonight. Your friend Mr. Alexander came by earlier with news.”
“What news?” Ms. October’s heart thudded with a shot of fear and adrenaline.
“Drink. Then we move. Go.”
Lifting the bottle to her lips she let the still hot liquid flow around her tongue. The taste was like no other, sharp, tight sulphurous pin pricks coupled with floral overlay and acidic burn. Her throat gagged and convulsed. She clamped her lips and pushed her mind completely into the trouble spots of her corporal form, forcing quiet. The liquid slid, taking skin with it, until it swirled a disturbed hornet’s nest in her stomach. Minutes later, every limb tingled and ached. Fingers and toes were pulled, bones snapping. She fell to the floor, balled up, thinking that she couldn’t do this, that it was impossible, but knowing she had no choice but to go through it, whether she liked it or not. Slowly her mind emerged from the black hole as the pain ebbed. It stretched itself out and poured itself into a new form of her body, like tea poured into a Ms. October shaped cup. She opened her eyes. The room was darker than she remembered. She stood, shaking, but still knowing an innate power was available to her, like she wasn’t her old self but instead something entirely new.
“Am I cured?” she asked.
Lobelia shook her head, bone jewelry clicking, eyes unblinking. “No.”
“But . . .” Ms. October could already sense the hot tears of frustration building behind her eyes.
“But you aren’t a vampire. You aren’t even half. You are something new. However,” Lobelia pointed a long finger with sharp pointed red nail at Ms. October, “you tangle with them again, and you will be fully turned, and unless I get a heck of a lot stronger – you will be stuck that way permanently.”
Ms. October’s hot tears turned sharp icicles. “I didn’t tangle with them in the first place. That was all you.”
“To save your life.” Lobelia extinguished the candle and turned towards the ladder. “Now, if you want to save some other lives, we should get going.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE – LOCK
Connor Alexander stood by while the children were slowly loaded into the bus, shackles chattering on their legs. Cold shuddering terror swept through Ms. October, locking her feet to the surface of the road. She remembered being where these kids were, afraid of what Doctor Bedlam had planned for them, of Ms. Grenadine’s sugary sweet smile and the poison it held beneath, afraid of the unknown.
Lobelia was the one who yanked Ms. October out of the Medusa’s gaze of trauma, reanimating her in the shadows. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “Do you want to be caught?”
Shaking her head, Ms. October clenched her nails into her palms and put a lock on her emotions. Now was not the time. It was zero hour. Either this worked or all these children were doomed. She looked to Mr. Alexander.
Using two fingers, he tipped his fedora towards her and flashed a smile. “Wait for it,” he said, before turning his attention to the bus. “I’m looking forward to how they explain this. The authorities were very interested in those papers you gave me.”
Before the last of the kids were loaded, the world exploded with cars and lights, sirens and shouting. The kids were stuck, wide eyed in the middle, while the FBI slapped cuffs on Ms. Grenadine before dealing with the, now crying, youth. Ms. October turned smiling and laughing to Lobelia, ready to shout words of triumph, only to find her gone.
More shouting found that Doctor Bedlam was also gone. Vanished in the chaos. Ms. October tried to catch a glimpse of the man but her more human eyes couldn’t see in the dark like her vampiric ones had. Connor Alexander was talking with the officers even as the local police turned up and amplified the aggression. No one told them that the gig was up and the gravy train had congealed. This stopped the search, if momentarily, for the doctor. Ms. October reached out with her strange hybrid senses and felt magic drifting on the humid swirling wind. Slipping behind the foliage, she rounded the building, fearing the worst.
It was quiet behind back here. The shouting was distant and crickets scratching their legs together took up most of the ambient noise. Ms. October waved her arm at the buzzing mosquitos bouncing off her skin. The moon, only a gash of silver, was enough to catch the blade of a knife, the gurgling, and a man thudding to the ground. Her feet pounded dirt in a light fwap fwaping. She knew that blade, she knew that magic, she knew what had happened and she wished it hadn’t.
Lobelia stood over Doctor Bedlam’s body, blood draining into the deep green plants from the gash in his neck. She didn’t look up as Ms. October arrived, but continued her incantation, plastering on herbs and potions until the body stood, fumbling.
“He wasn’t supposed to die!” Ms. October screamed.
“Why not?”
“He was supposed to pay for his crimes, tell everyone what they did. There are more than just the two of them.”
“Ms. Grenadine can do that. She was the brains behind it all anyway. He was just the hands. And now he’s my hands.”
“We don’t murder!” she stamped her foot.
“You don’t murder. Besides, that was your original plan, wasn’t it?” Lobelia finally looked up, moonlight shining off her neat pearl teeth, purple eyes glowing.
“But I changed my mind.” Ms. October whined. “Do you think I starved myself for that long so that we could kill him at the end? I wanted him to face his punishment.”
“Isn’t being my slave for the rest of his undead life a fitting punishment?” Lobelia pointed her long thin finger right at Ms. October’s heart, “You’re weak. You’ll always be weak. You can’t make the hard decisions that come with power. That’s why you couldn’t be a vampire. That’s why I had to protect you.”
Ms. October raised her chin, arms tight by her side, brow furrowed. “I don’t need you to protect me!”
“No?” Lobelia laughed. “Really?”
“I don’t need anyone! I’m a grown up now!” Ms. October felt young, yelling it out like that. She wished she could take it back. Say it better, but the words had flown before she had a grip on them.
“Okay.” Lobelia shrugged. “Go do grown up things.”
Tears prickled but Ms. October willed them away with steel hard thoughts. “I will.” She nodded, stepping back.
Lobelia turned and slid towards the darkness. “Good. I have my own stuff to do.”
“I hate you, Lobelia!” Ms. October shouted.
“In that case, It’s Madame Morre to you,” she said, a laugh at the edge of her words.
“It’s nothing! I’m never talking to you again!” Ms. October declared.
“Until you do,” Madame Morre said. She motioned to the corpse with a wave of her arm and Doctor Bedlam followed with stuttering steps. Looking over her shoulder, she gave one last smile. “Good luck to you, girl. You’re going to need it and when you do, I’ll be waiting. I’ve seen the future after all.”
Ms. October, well beyond that little girl of the past, burned cinders of her house crunching beneath her feet, the picture of her in the jungle still held between her hard pressed fingers, shook her head. “Well woman, you were right, as usual. I guess we can’t escape the flow of time in either direction.” She dropped the photograph and took one last look at what had been her home. Someone was sending a message and she was going to let them know that she had got it loud and clear. Likely at the end of her fist.
“Hmm,” came all too familiar voice, followed by the clacking of bones. Lobelia Morre strolled alongside her, the hem of her dress covered in soot and ash, a picture of the younger Ms. October in her hand. “You too, huh?”
“Well,” Ms. October said. “That makes this even more interesting, doesn’t it?”
“For them, yes.” Madame Morre purred in her deep voice. “They’ve just pissed off two of the most powerful people in New Orleans.”
“Indeed.” Ms. October swung her leg over her motorcycle and started the engine. “Get on. We have work to do and a hell of a lot of vengeance to pay out.”