Obligatory mumbo-jumbo: I don't own anything you recognize from the book El Club Dumas or the movie, The Ninth Gate, nor do I claim any rights to Neil Gaiman's excellent novel, American Gods. I seek only to entertain, I don't profit from this in any way. Please don't sue me, it would be an expensive waste of time.

If you just got here, you might want to read my stories, Ninth Gate: Corso's Choice first, followed by Fortune Foretold, then Reminiscence to have a better idea of how Corso survived the end of the movie and what's been going on with him since then. If you're unfamiliar with American Gods, I wholeheartedly recommend you read the book for maximum comprehension. It's worth it, honest!

Thanks as always for reading and reviewing, hope you enjoy it!

vanillafluffy

Chapter Three

A Friend of a Friend

Breakfast? That sounded like a really good idea. There was already a pot of coffee perking on the counter. As Shadow moved around the kitchen, he listened for sounds from the other room. At one point, there was a loud crash, like breaking glass, and he tensed, but there was no outcry or further breakage, so he continued buttering his toast, ears still tuned for any hint of what was going on.

After a while, there was another familiar noise; it sounded like a hot tub pump in action. Some kind of ritual bath, he surmised. Shadow cooked bacon and eggs and toast, and ate at a tidy dinette that looked like it had escaped from the fifties. When he sat down with his meal, he was joined by another resident of the house, who leaped gracefully up to sit at the head of the table and mrrrowed at him.

Looking at the blue-eyed Siamese cat who clearly wondered who he was and what he was doing in her kitchen, Shadow thought of something. ("I have eyes wherever my people walk.") He offered a strip of bacon, and was ignored. After some coaxing, the cat deigned to accept a morsel of cheese.

"Hey, Shadow said to her, "I don't know if you can get a massage to Bast--" The Siamese paused in its consumption of the cheese and looked fixedly at him, "--if you can, tell her I'll probably be seeing her soon. Okay?"

The cat began licking her front paws. After doing that, she sat meditatively for a moment, then made another comment to Shadow. (Not speaking Khat, he had no idea what.)

"Thanks," said Shadow, and got a response that certainly sounded like the Khat equivalent of "It was nothing." The feline finished the cheese, and pounced on Shadow's offering of bacon.

The hot tub sounds quit at about the same time Shadow finished rinsing off his plate and pouring himself a second cup of coffee. He returned to the living room and took a seat on the couch, idly toying with several coins. The Siamese came to watch, and in the course of her affectionate squirming, definitely confirmed his assumption of feline femininity. He scratched the tawny fur behind her ears and she rolled around on his lap in ecstasy.

Shadow and the cat both looked up as a series of high-pitched squeals came from beyond the French doors. The cat said something that Shadow thought sounded bawdy. "She's doing an exorcism," he guessed. "Casting devils into swine?" He would've sworn the cat shook her head and laughed at him.

The oinking--it had to be oinking, he couldn't imagine what else that piercing tremolo could be--was the only thing he could hear; there was no conversation, no voices at all. Listening closely, and more than a little tempted to put an ear to the door, Shadow did hear a brief outcry that might have been Corso's baritone; then the squeals died away and all was silent.

When the doors opened, and the fat lady returned with Corso, Shadow saw the other man was walking without assistance and appeared noticeably better. His hair was wet, his damp shirt hanging open, and he carried his suit jacket and coat over one arm.

"I see you've made friends with Jinx," their hostess remarked. The Siamese was lying across his thighs, belly up, her paws wrapped around Shadow's forearm as she sucked at the tip of his thumb.

"She's been keeping me company." Shadow looked over at Corso, who showed no signs of being in pain. "How're you doing?"

Corso actually grinned. "I think I'm stoned on all the pills I've been taking that I didn't need." He moved closer to the couch, and Jinx clawed Shadow's arm hard enough to draw blood, bit his thumb, and fled the scene before her victim could say more than, "Hey!"

"That's probably my fault," said Corso. "I'm still tainted." He looked over at the fat lady, started to say something, didn't. His dark hair was slicked back, and the gray at his temples didn't seem quite so pronounced. Shadow revised his estimate of the guy's age downward by several years. Late forties, early fifties, maybe?

"You'd feel even better with some solid food in you," Kerri Owen said, lumbering toward the kitchen. Her robe was wet, not enough to drip, but soggy enough to clung to the rolls of her obese body and give the illusion that she had several pairs of breasts marching down her abdomen.

"I'm gonna grab a smoke," Corso announced, fishing a packet of cigarettes out of his coat pocket. He opened the front door and cautiously stepped onto the front stoop. The door closed behind him.

Shadow got up from the couch and took his coffee cup into the kitchen. "Thanks for breakfast," he said to the woman. "I hope I didn't leave things in too much of a mess."

"My cat likes you," she said obliquely. "How badly were you scratched?" She caught his forearm, her left hand cradling it, the fingers of her right hand tracing the scratches lightly. "I can take care of that for you."

"I'll live. How's Corso, really?" Shadow had the funny feeling that she wanted to do more than apply iodine and band-aids.

"I've bought him some time, but he needs...let's just say, specialists." She walked over to a telephone hanging on the wall and pulled an address book from the caddy beneath it. She copied something onto a memo pad, tore the sheet off and handed it to Shadow. "These folks can probably give him more help than I can."

With bemusement, Shadow read: "Ibis and Jacquel (Funeral Parlor), Cairo, Mississippi". Better known to the denizens of ancient Egypt as Thoth and Anubis. It really was a small world, but somehow, he didn't think it was that small. If she knew them well enough to refer Corso, then she must have some mojo of her own.

He looked up at Owen; she was flipping over the leaf on the calendar from April to May, and several things clicked, then, in his brain. Kerri D. Owen? Good grief. It dawned on him what all the squealing had been about. May first--Beltane--fertility rituals--whether those goings-on had been part of the treatment, or a form of payment, he didn't know or care. No wonder Jinx had been laughing at him.

"More coffee?" she offered. There was a satisfied smile lurking at the corners of her mouth.

He held out his mug and made an educated guess. "Thank you...Cerridwyn." He'd had a brush with Celtic deities not so long ago, and now that he'd consumed enough caffeine to spark his brain cells, Shadow wondered that he hadn't noticed her name was a no-so-subtle allusion to the Sow Goddess.

Narrow eyes in a broad face studied him. "You're smarter than you look," she said grudgingly. "Not that you don't look good...." The last was delivered under her breath, and Shadow decided to pretend he hadn't caught it.

"I hear that a lot." That could be misinterpreted, he realized. Shadow held up the slip of paper to change the subject. "I worked with these guys for a while. They would've been my next stop."

That earned him an even more intense stare. Cerridwyn was chewing at the inside of her cheek, still gazing at him, then she snapped her fingers. "You! You're Wednesday's kid, the one that cleared up that mess he was trying to stir up in Tennessee a couple years back."

Shadow nodded.

"That guy is such an asshole! Him and his, 'no woman who's had me will ever want another man'--let me tell you something, sonny boy, that is pure ego on his part! If a woman doesn't want another man after him, it's because she's sworn off men completely!"

Shadow raised his hands, placating her. He could believe it. "Hey, if I'd inherited that from him, my wife might still be alive." He was about to give her the details, when Corso walked into the kitchen, smelling of tobacco and wearing a serene expression.

"It's a beautiful day out," he told them, unaware of the atmosphere in the room. "I don't even have much of a headache."

Cerridwyn snorted. "Enjoy it while it lasts. I told you, that's not a permanent fix. And you owe me a new crystal. I've never had a crystal shatter like that before, never." A look passed between them that Shadow managed to ignore. Talk about strange bedfellows! Yeah, this was definitely a whole new kind of weirdness.

Am still without power after Frances and relying on the kindness (and internet connection) of others. Thanks to everyone who expressed their concern. Now let's hope Ivan leaves us alone! Three hurricanes inside of a month is three too many!