Episode 9: Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler, Chapter 5

Jenkins looked down at the neatly sorted piles of artefacts arranged along the central desk of the office. He had had to remove a few other research items, but nothing critical or that he couldn't lay his hands on easily enough should it be required. He patted the desk thoughtfully, surveying the scene with sightless eyes. His mind was elsewhere. Knowledge was a dangerous thing. A lack of it could be easily remedied. A surfeit, however: not so much. Did he wish he didn't know? Perhaps. Would not knowing change the ultimate outcome? No. It might allow him to better prepare for the unavoidable fallout, but knowing what was to come would not change it in any way. That was the downside of oracular artefacts.

One item was not on the long desk; instead, it hung heavily over the stand he had brought with it from the cloak room. It was a relic that would be used for his own transformation, along with another that had yet to be determined and the artefact suggested by his wily apprentice as a power source for all apotheoses. He could still remember the day another thief had brought it back to the Library, roaring drunk and bellowing like the bull of a man he was. The Deacon had been the epitome of everything Jenkins had loathed, but, as he had oft been reminded: the Library chooses the Librarian. Once again it – she, he corrected himself – had chosen a thief. Once again, he had begun his association with that thief hating every single thing about him. Unlike as with the Deacon, he had found himself warming to the rogue element in their midst. Now he found himself questioning the Library's choice once again, and for more than just his own sake. Could it be done? Should it be done? Surely the boy's presence alone was proof of the former. On top of what the mirror had shown him, though, such knowledge did nothing to allay his fears. The bloodlines were different, but the circumstances too similar to be ignored. There were too many variables. Not enough time. Always, it came back to that: not enough time. If the twilight of the gods had not been fast approaching. If there were only some more knowledgeable person he could turn to for advice. If he had not been so utterly certain the boy was going to do his damnedest to be a hero no matter what he, Jenkins, tried to do about it! A huff of air left him and he dropped his head into his hands. He had never thought much about the possibility of a family. Not until Flora, at any rate. Now, after long years feeling the lack of that which he had never hoped to gain, he was once again surrounded by a clan of mortals dependent on his wisdom and protection for their safety. This time, the clan was somewhat less related than before, their lands were no castle but a magic realm of incomparable size, and he alone stood at the head of them. He missed his wife, more than ever he had before. Had he taken her for granted? Taken their time for granted? Of course he had. Now both were gone.

XXXX

"Well, bon jour to you, pretty lady!" grinned André at the approaching vision of Cassandra. Glancing over her shoulder, he gave Stone a cheery nod. "And to you, monsieur, and to you. Now, you two look like you are in need of some transportation. My name is André and this here is my transport. Anything you need, you just call this here number and André will see you right. Where in this beautiful city can I take you today?"

Cassandra, blushing and dimpling as only she could, presented her hand. "Pleased to meet you André. I'm Cassandra, and this is Jacob; Flynn Carsen sent us to you. He said to call you Cousin André? He said you worked with him a decade or so ago, when he came here for a vacation. You said he was 'The' tourist."

"Oh, Mister Professor man? He ain't dead yet!" André exclaimed, shaking Cassandra's outstretched hand with gusto. "Well sure: I remember him. We had some adventures, he and I!" André turned his attention to Stone, grabbing the hand that was half outstretched and shaking it even more vigorously than he had Cassandra's. He paused and looked from one to the other of them. "Now it ain't been ten years since I last saw Flynn Carsen. Y'all tellin' me the world needs saving from vampires again?"

"That was here?" Cassandra blinked.

"It's a tad more serious than that," winced Stone.

"More serious than vampires?" André deadpanned, brows rising in disbelief. "I think we'd best continue this in transit." Without looking behind him, André tugged open the taxi door. "After you ma belle dame."

XXXX

Eve watched her beloved with folded arms and gentle gaze. No more did she have to appear to sneak glances at the mysterious Librarian half in and half out of her life. She was his wife now, and he her husband. Their lives were and ever would be utterly and inextricably entwined, and she could watch him work as openly and as admiringly as she liked. If she occasionally chose to shift her focus from his extraordinary mind and sparkling personality to the way his eyes lit up at some new revelation of the clues he followed or the way the fabric of his suit shifted as he stooped to examine the base of a baptismal font, well, that was her wifely right.

The portion of fabric she was currently admiring shifted out of view as her husband happily hunkered down by the font to study the carvings more closely. A smile tugged at her lip and Eve pushed herself off the wall she had warily kept at her back to join the man of her dreams at the solid stone font.

"What is it?"

Flynn tore his eyes away from the base of the font to smile up at his wife. "something one would not expect to see in a Christian place of worship, my love," he replied. Lifting her fingers briefly to his lips, he placed them on the carving that had caught his attention. "What do you feel?"

"Other than the nearness of you, my love?" Eve echoed, her lips curling as she met her husband's eye. He smiled back and, for a precious moment, the world fell away. It was some time later that, hair ruffled and clothes considerably more wrinkled than they had been, she finally answered Flynn's question. "It's a carving," she shrugged. "A person holding a staff. There's something over their shoulder too…"

"On, not over," Flynn corrected, stuffing his cravat into his jacket pocket. "A bird, if I'm not mistaken, which does actually happen more often than you'd think, but I don't think so here. This, I believe is a carving of a raven, sitting on the shoulder of an unusually tall old man bearing a spear, not a staff. Indeed the old man isn't even an old man, really: he's a god. Odin, to be precise."

"Why would there be a carving of Odin in a Christian church?" Eve frowned, her attention now definitely focussed on the carving. Well, mostly focussed on the carving, she admitted to herself.

Flynn shrugged and re-buttoned his waistcoat. "Many early churches used old stones from the places of worship they'd torn down to build the edifices of the 'new' and 'true' faith. Many worshippers were less dogmatic about the switch. Plenty of the modern Christian holy days borrowed their timing from the preceding pagan ones. Either they also borrowed the idea of the baptismal font, or this single chunk of stone once had a different function and the presence of that little carving is a relic of that time, or, as I happen to believe given other little clues that brought me here in the first place, that carving was placed there deliberately to mark this monolith as the resting place of one relic the early Christian church would have just loved to demolish. The spear of Odin: Gungnir. It's funny: the first relic I ever found was a spear of equal magnitude and importance to that very church. Such a shame so many religions seem to come with the idea that, if they are right, everyone else is wrong."

XXXX

Simmonds looked up: it was the more favourable of the available alternatives. The cliff stretched out above him to a dim and distant cliff edge. As distant as it was, it was within sight at least. On either side of him the wall of unhewn rock stretched out until it disappeared into obscurity. Below him, it fell into the black despair of Tartaros save only at the narrow bridge he had crossed to begin his climb. If his hold failed him now, he would count himself lucky to land on that bridge, no matter how painful such a landing might be.

His eyes left the safety of the cliff edge to cast about for his next series of holds. Blood should have been oozing from a myriad of cuts and scrapes obtained along the way, but the first test of his skin had proved the power of the river he had bathed in. The result of his ablutions, deliberate and otherwise, had made it impervious to knife or nail, or even the constant abrasion of dragging his body weight and more up a mile and more of cliff wall. An unforeseen advantage, at least by him, to aid him in his quest.

Winds as cold as death wrapped round him, plucking at him as a hand at his shirt. They whistled and whispered in his ears, dragging down to him the jeering howls of the ever-dark night. No starlight or shining moon lit his way. Instead, the stones glowed blood red in the reflected light of the pit below. Shadows wavered in the fiery light, but stretched out clear above the minimal juts and outcroppings that could and would prove useful to him. Ignoring the complaints of his weary muscles, he reached out for another hold and drew himself ever upwards.

XXXX

"And that's everything?" Charlene demanded, raising an eyebrow at the uncomfortable boy before her. He opened his mouth to speak, a shadow of his old self flickering across his face, and she raised a hand. "Everything relating to this particular problem."

Ezekiel's face slumped into a sulky pout and he shrugged. "I guess."

"You guess?"

"That's everything," he snapped, drawing his knees up and resting his chin on them. "That's way more than everything and you know it!"

"Do I?" Charlene murmured, sitting back in her armchair and studying the boy curled up on one end of the reading room sofa. The farthest end from her, she noted. "Listen up, kiddo: if you're planning on embodying the Norse god of courage and bravery, you could start by trying to be a little less scared…"

"I'm not scared of you!" Ezekiel shot back, unfolding himself so fast he was on his feet before his hands had finished making fists.

"I wasn't suggesting you were," replied Charlene, folding her hands over each other with serene grace. "Yourself, on the other hand…"

"Why would I be afraid of myself?" Jones frowned.

"An excellent question," continued Charlene, nodding.

"Though not, I believe, an unanswerable one," chimed a voice from the doorway.

Ezekiel spun on the spot while Charlene merely transferred her gaze placidly from the young man to the old one. "You know?" Her enquiry held within it the tacit knowledge that what she wanted was not an answer but an explanation.

"How much has he told you?" Jenkins replied, inclining his head towards the thief.

"He says 'everything' but…" Charlene spread her palms in an eloquent shrug.

"Indeed," acknowledged the Caretaker. He nodded at the tray in his hands. "I felt this might be in order."

"Typical Brit," smirked Charlene. "Is there anything you don't try and fix with tea?"

"Worked for the Cuban Missile Crisis," muttered Jenkins, advancing upon the nearby table and depositing the tea tray. "Shall I be mother?"

"It never was my strong suit," sighed Charlene.

Ezekiel, who had been looking between the two like a spectator at a tennis match, dropped back down onto the sofa and held up his hands in time to accept the cup and saucer that was gently placed in them. "One of you two want to tell me what's going on here?"

"Well," sighed Jenkins, passing a cup to Charlene and seating himself with his own, "it's about time someone did."

"What no sugar?" Charlene complained, casting an eye over the now abandoned tea tray.

"Already in the cup," explained Jenkins. "Didn't want to risk a spill. Just give it a stir."

"Ah, of course," she breathed, picking up the teaspoon from her saucer. "That's why you're the Caretaker and I'm just a Guardian."

"There's no such thing as 'just' a Guardian…"

"Okay, you two are officially starting to freak me out," cut in Ezekiel, his hands still cradling the cup and saucer in mid-air. "And I was already freaked out enough to begin with!"

XXXX

"This is the old French Quarter, isn't it?" Cassandra smiled, peering in delight at the antique buildings the cab rolled by.

"Yes, indeed, ma belle dame, yes indeed," grinned André in the mirror. "This here is the genuine Vieux Carré and we are at this very moment on Royal Street."

Stone's brows flicked together in thought. "Royal Street, huh?"

"The very same, mon ami, the very same."

"What are you thinking?" Cassie murmured, studying her love's features with analytical precision.

"One of the great characters of New Orleans' history, Madame Delphine LaLaurie, lived on Royal Street. One, one, forty Royal Street to be precise. And, also to be precise, when I say 'great', I don't exactly mean 'good'. She was as evil as they come. Owned an unknown number of slaves. Tortured and, allegedly, murdered them. Not that she was ever prosecuted of course. Like so many others, it all went on unseen and behind closed doors. Only two cases on record were of a man and a girl who, each on separate occasions, fearing her wrath more than the alternative, jumped to their deaths from upper windows. Various investigations led to the LaLauries being charged with cruelty and fined a bunch of slaves, who of course they just bought right back. Eventually the house went up in flames. Neighbours had to break in to rescue the surviving slaves, some of whom were chained up like dangerous animals even though they were so malnourished and maltreated they could barely stand let alone walk to escape the blaze. What they found in the remains of the place after that ended up in horror stories and museums. Enraged locals stormed the house after seeing the state of the people rescued, looking to inflict retribution on the LaLauries, and pretty much destroyed everything the fire hadn't, bar the walls themselves. Madame Delphine and her husband escaped and were never seen again. The house was restored and has been a bunch of things since. I don't know who owns it now though."

"My friend, you are just like your boss," grinned André. "Ain't much he didn't know either; and what he did not know, he knew how to find out."

"Are we headed to the LaLaurie mansion?" Cassie asked, peeping out around the driver's seat to scan the road ahead.

"That's it right on up ahead there," nodded André, inclining his head at a square, three storey building standing tall above the others. "You can still see the closed up window the first of those two suicides jumped from, God rest his soul."

"Who owns it now?" Jacob enquired, surveying the now looming building. "And why are we here?"

André pulled over and switched off the engine. "Just like Mister Professor Man indeed," he grinned. "Well, you might not know this, but after our little adventure of the vampires, cousin Flynn and I kept in touch. Now once a man knows a thing like magic exists it's hard to not start seeing it's effect here and there. I added a few files to my little mental rolodex of the city's amiable, and sometimes not so amiable, providers. Whenever cousin Flynn is in town, he looks me up. We catch up, swap stories, and I give him the low down on how the more mystical side of New Orleans is doing. I know every mage, monster and myth in town and two of them are currently residing in this here building."

Cassie slid out of the door André had opened for her. "Amiable or not so amiable?"

André laughed. "I guess that depends on how we find them. Come on, ma belle dame, let me introduce you to my cousin Enoch and his pet parrot."

"Parrot?" Cassie blinked, following their guide to the door of the mansion.

"Don't try and pet it," warned André.