Nona's mid-back length ponytail lay on the hairdresser's counter, lifeless but still warm. Gallant's long hands dusted her shoulders as he grinned behind her in the mirror.

"Like it?"

The hair still attached hung crisp and glossy to just below the young woman's jaw. Center-parted bangs framed her face, falling to the sides of her cheekbones like wings.

"Perfect," Nona said. She unzipped her black leather purse and pulled out a lipstick, applying it in the mirror to her mouth. "It's just what I wanted."

She stood, tossing the long strap of her purse over her shoulder. Walking to the register, she felt light and determined. The weight of her long hair still called to her from the hairdresser's station, heavy with emotion and death. Nona couldn't get away fast enough.

"Who did you say this guy was again," Gallant asked, swiping her card. "The one you're looking for?"

"Michael," she said. "Michael Langdon."

Gallant smiled tenderly, eyeing Nona's exposed neck. "Well be careful out there," he said. "This town, you know? City of the dead."

Nona exited the salon's double doors, annoyed by the hairdresser's words. City of the dead, indeed. Did he not know where she came from?

Were she still in New Orleans, Nona could have escaped to the cemetery, loamy with above-ground tombs, leaving wishes and Saralee pound cake in the small cathedrals with their statues of saints. She could have slipped, like a small cat, unnoticed into an overgrown mass of fallen city, invisible in black among the chaos and decay. But this was Los Angeles. Its very neatness, its newness, unnerved her.

Walking to meet Cordelia, she felt conspicuous against the sunny, bright strip. She was twenty-seven years old; a slender, long-limbed five-foot-seven, dressed in a simple black shift dress that fell to just above her knees and just below her elbows. The dress's neckline tied into a long, floppy knot, the same solid black as her tights. White basket-weave sandals stood in contrast to the rest of the outfit and afforded her an extra two inches of height with their square, blocky heels.

She reached the building and used a key card to let herself in, riding the elevator up several floors to the hotel suite where the Supreme was staying. Nona's bright shoes clicked, echoing, against the off-white, gold-flecked formica of the hallway. She'd known better than to jokingly suggest the Cortez. That might have been funny before what happened to Queenie, but it certainly wasn't a laughing matter now.

The fact that Queenie had returned to them--that it was Michael who ended up retrieving her--only served to make the subject even sorer for Cordelia. In her darkest heart, Nona sometimes wondered if the Supreme might have rather had Queenie stuck for eternity playing Go Fish with the ghost of James Patrick March.

"Delia?"

Nona let herself in, glancing around the spacious suite until Cordelia emerged from the bedroom, dressed in a floor-length black sundress. "Oh," she said first, "your hair."

Nona widened her brown eyes. "You don't like it?"

Cordelia came closer, surveying the pale face of her former student. Many of Robichaux's alumni were came from show-business stock and Nona was no exception: the granddaughter of a cult horror-film star from of the 1950s. Like her grandmother before her, she wasn't exactly a conventional beauty. She had a somewhat aqualine nose, a small mouth, and her long arms and legs gave her a mildly lanky appearance. But she was lean and well-proportioned, with large eyes, a delicate jawline, and a thick, shiny head of dark hair.

"No," mused Cordelia, gingerly touching one freshly clipped end, "no, I do. It suits you. I just wasn't expecting it."

Nona shrugged. "You know what they say, right? If it holds you back here, it'll hold you back down there."

"Yes, well..." said Cordelia curtly, pressing her hands together and averting her eyes from Nona. She walked to the center of the suite's main room and sat down on the white leather couch. "I trust you know why I chose you for this particular mission..."

"Besides the fact that I met his father? Well, not exactly his father, I guess..."

The Joseph of Satanism, Nona thought abruptly. The Joseph of Satanism is the ghost of a school shooter from the 90's. Blond and pretty. A little annoying. He cries a lot.

But she sat, both women knowing what Cordelia actually meant. Nona was a witch of average-to-good ability. She couldn't pass all seven wonders, but one in particular was her specialty. Descensum. Nona could slip in and out of the underworld with uncanny ease, and the force of its horror and despair didn't affect her as severly as it did other witches.

"You didn't have the pleasure of meeting Michael Langdon when we tested him for the supremacy..."

"No," she said with a smirk, "but if he's anything like his earthly father..."

"Nona, now is not the time to become overconfident," cut in Cordelia sharply. "I need you to be prepared, okay? This isn't some morbid little jaunt. Langdon may sense your power, your natural immunity to hell, and want to undermine it." She stopped, reaching for a water bottle from the glass coffee table and drinking. "Something tells me that he won't much like us encroaching on his turf."

Nona hung for a moment on the sense of unease in the room. Not wanting to be argumentative this time, she spoke: "What's he doing down there, anyway?"

Cordelia shook her head. "I don't know for sure. Hiding out. Biding his time. I'd thought that burning his allies at the stake might weaken him enough to bring him close to us, but I fear it only brought him closer to his own sense of destiny." Her eyes clouded, taking on a far-off gaze. "Destruction..."

Nona put a hand on the older woman's wrist for a moment, then awkwardly pulled it back. "And you think he can be reasoned with?"

"I think it's worth a try," Cordelia answered. "There's humanity in him, I saw it. And he's young."

"And if I can't get him to turn from the darkness?"

"Then at very least make sure he isn't causing too much havoc. I fear that he could make new allies in the underworld, more powerful ones. Papa Legba, for example, or worse. Just... don't be too much of a hero down there, okay? If he can't be reasoned with then take note of him, what he's doing, and report back to us. Understand?"

Nona nodded. Cordelia hesitated for a moment before reaching out and running a careful hand down the side of Nona's cropped hair. "God... I remember when you first came to us."

Nona laughed. "Fresh out of Murder House. I was fourteen. My parents came home and found me levitating on the bed, surrounded by Doctor Montgomery and his wife. Jesus, that place wanted me. It probably would have had me, at that age, if they didn't send me away."

"Attuned to the darkness, even then," mused Cordelia. "Look, Nona, I know I may have been hard on you at times...,

Because I didn't need you? Nona thought. Because I refused to cry on your shoulder like the other girls did?

"...But I don't want to lose you. I don't want to see you get stuck down there, or worse. Please be careful."

"Of course," said Nona quietly. She hesitated. "Well then..."

"If you're ready..."

Nona nodded. She smoothed her dress and lay supine on the suite's white carpet, shutting her eyes to feel the familiar darkness break through.