A/N: All my loff to Wee Boat (Gondolier) for being a fantastic beta and an all around fantastic creature.
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
The Lotos-Eaters, Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Erik led Carrie by the hand away from the Napoleon House through the darkened Pirate's Alley, watching her step and often reaching an arm around her to steady her as she tripped on the uneven flagstones. Her backpack dangled from her hand, often dragging on the ground as they wound through the Quarter.
Her gaze was focused solely on him, yet he knew that she could hardly comprehend the words he spoke in her ear every few steps.
More so, he counted on that.
In the alley, the air was still; he paused to press her softly against the iron fence surrounding the Cathedral. Bending his lips to her ear, he murmured melodically, "Relax yourself into my capable hands." Erik brushed his dry lips over the soft down behind her ear and Carrie sighed, her eyelids fluttering.
"Trust me."
He lowered his mouth to her neck and tasted the flesh tentatively. Smoke and a tangy perfume. She lifted her hand to his chest, and Erik pulled back. Her brow furrowed, and she looked up at him.
"The music…" she whispered, her eyes suddenly downcast. "I've heard it before."
"Impossible," he said darkly. Looking past her, Erik saw the bright floodlights on the white statue of Christ. He reached behind her and cupped her bottom, pulling her closer. She leaned into him and looked into his eyes.
"Not the melody. The underneath," she whispered. "The underneath."
He bristled, then hummed a wordless tune softly in her ear that wrapped around her mind, bade her close her eyes again and push her pelvis into his. Erik pulled her towards him and hurried them closer to Bourbon. Her breath made wisps of smoke in the frosty air, but Carrie couldn't feel the cold any longer.
Spying a street-front bar, he left her to lean on the wall next to him and ordered a tall beer. Carrie stared out at the crowd until he returned to her and lifted the cup to her mouth.
"Drink this," he said, and she obeyed. Several sips later, he finished the rest and threw the cup away. Carrie stumbled slightly and he reached out again for her. They walked along the length of Bourbon to Esplanade, where Erik knew to cross. Her dilapidated home was just off the main thoroughfare.
Just past Esplanade Avenue lay the Faubourg Marigny, a pocket of reality in the midst of a fantasy. It was a community of locals—true residents of the Crescent, who staked out a claim of ownership and custom and fought to keep the integrity of the culture very much in tact. Carrie's modest home was nestled in this savage garden, away from the bombastic Vieux Carré; an effort to capture something at once lost but hardly forgotten.
Erik walked her up to the front door, and quietly took her backpack from her hand. He pilfered through the front pocket, found the keys, and tried them three times until he successfully opened the door. Carrie watched all of this without a word, and let him lead her inside. She hadn't even reached for the lamp when Erik pulled her close.
"Darkness is to space what silence is to sound," he said as he touched his lips to hers. She opened her mouth and felt the warm caress of his tongue on hers. Her arms were still at her side when Erik put his hand on her throat, feeling the pulse of blood through her veins. Carrie's head tipped back gently under the weight of his palm, and he dropped his face down to kiss her neck.
He hadn't kissed a woman in this way since his fatal encounter with Christine. And even then, she had denied him this delicious access to her flesh. She had pushed him away, rejected his most perfect face, all for a delusion of grandeur and goodness.
Carrie sucked in a breath as one of his hands cupped her small breast, a thumb rubbing over the front of her chest.
This girl was willing, wanting and ready for him: a gift, for his bravery and challenge to start anew, to throw away old romantic notions, to grasp life with his arms bare and ready to assault. He had earned the soft whimpers he was creating through this body.
"Why should the Devil have all the good tunes?" she whispered.
Erik pulled away from her fiercely and regarded her with unfettered agitation. She lowered her head to her chest, trembling. "In the Cathedral, they will cry out and fling themselves to the ground, begging for mercy but desiring only more."
The fact that she was speaking clearly, when she should have been well within his thrall was enough to unnerved him mightily. But this…what she said to him…this was wrong.
"Carrie?"
She did not move. Erik expelled a shuddery breath and stepped in front of the girl. Her small frame betrayed no acknowledgement of his nearness, or even his presence. He touched a finger to her cheek, and she lifted her head.
"My heart hurts," she murmured. He lifted her up easily and wandered around for a few moments in search of her bedroom. Pushing open a cracked door, Erik beheld a small twin bed and laid Carrie down. Her hands floated to her abdomen, and he knelt beside the bed. Running his fingertips along her leg up to her thigh, she parted her legs and turned her head away from him.
"I can hear it, even now, and the sound makes my ears bleed," she said.
His hand stilled. She did not move. Erik sat back on his heels and watched her chest move up and down with her rapid breath. He reached down and pulled her chunky heeled shoes off, then reached up and pulled the elastic band out of her hair.
Erik backed away from the bed soundlessly, watching as she lifted an arm up over her head and relaxed into a seemingly peaceful slumber.
Closing her door, Erik set about exploring her home. Every part was his for the taking, and since his physical need was only peaked and not satiated, he glutted himself on her the only way he could. Opening her refrigerator, rifling through her mail, touching everything that smelled and felt of her, Erik made his own sensory exploration of Carrie's private life. His uncanny eyesight afforded him a view uncompromised by harsh light.
He found himself in her living room again, staring at a large painting over the mantle. It was a large white home with Gothic columns, painted fairly realistically with only a touch of abstraction. On the other side of the room hung a more modern work, full of jagged lines and dark colors. Her work, he surmised. She wasn't very bad at all. Still full of undisciplined youthful carelessness, but her intentions were evident, and he appreciated her style.
Her bookshelf was enormous; Erik was immediately intrigued. Running a finger down the spines, he cocked his head to the side and read the titles. New Orleans: A Concise History...Yellow Fever in the New World…The Serpent and the Song: Voodoo in America…
He paused when he came to a book with a web of cracks in the spine. Pulling it from the shelf, he studied the title: Gumbo Ya-Ya: Folktales of Louisiana. Flipping through the tome, he scanned the stories: "Street Criers," "The Creoles," "The Cajuns," "Riverfront Lore." Erik thumbed back to the table of contents and glanced over the page. One title stood out to him. Turning to page 75, he sat down on Carrie's couch to read "The Axeman's Jazz."
A little after dawn, Erik heard the creak of a door opening and barefoot feet padding down the hardwood floor. He turned to see a disheveled Carrie in the hallway, rubbing her eyes and then looking at him in shock.
"You're still here?" she asked, her voice cracking.
Erik smiled gently. "I didn't want to leave you alone in case you became ill."
"I… I don't remember what happened. I just," she interrupted herself and crossed her arms around her chest, rolling her dry tongue in her mouth. "We went to Nap House, it was closed, then we… went back to Bourbon Street?"
"That we did. You wanted a 'liquid dinner,' I believe you called it."
Carrie nodded, walking closer to him. "Yeah. I don't…" she paused and stammered. "How many drinks did I have?"
"Two," answered Erik calmly. "But I fear you may have had something slipped into the second drink."
Carrie's eyes widened, and she flushed red. "I don't remember anything really after that. Bits and pieces, I guess." Her eyes welled with tears. "I'm so… I'm so sorry."
Erik sat the book down and crossed over to her. "Please, don't apologize. It most certainly wasn't your fault. I was more than happy to escort you home and care for you, though you made it through the night with no more than a whispering sigh. I will confess," he said tenderly, " I did check on you throughout the night— to make sure you were sleeping on your side, in the event you would have gotten sick. I would never have forgiven myself if you had asphyxiated."
Carrie put a hand to her mouth, and the tears started to course down her cheeks. "Oh, God, thank you. I've never acted so stupidly. Really, I'm usually much more cautious."
"You are being too hard on yourself."
Wiping her face with the back of her hand, Carrie sniffled. "Thank you. Thank you very much." She looked over to couch and saw her book turned over. "Did you not sleep?"
Erik glanced back. "Oh, no. I wanted to be awake in case you needed me. And I was most enthralled by your collection. That one in particular."
Carrie smiled. "It's an old one, but I still love it. I'm glad you found something to entertain you since I—"
"Carrie," Erik interrupted, "no more of that. Can I fetch you some coffee?"
An hour later, Erik and Carrie sat on her screened-in back porch, sipping coffee and chicory and discussing the goings on at Jean Lafitte's. The leaves of the banana trees that lined her small backyard rustled as the breeze picked up.
"Well, I've worked there for, what, one year now?" Carrie said, laughing. "I'm a veteran!"
Erik chuckled. "Yes, of course. You've seen the people come and go, the ebb and flow of humanity," he teased.
"I have!" Carrie insisted. "It's not a bad gig at all. I have time during the day to paint. I've thought about going back to school. And I get to indulge my overbearing nostalgia."
Erik nodded. "It is a beautiful building." He set his cup down and looked at her thoughtfully. "Any more about Vincent leaving?"
Carrie shook her head. "That woman hasn't been back, not to my knowledge at least. Why? Have you heard something? Like, in musician's circles or whatever?"
"No, nothing. Though," he reached into his pocket and produced Melissa Touchet's business card, "the 'brazen harlot' did give me this."
Taking the firm cardstock from his hand, Carrie devoured the name. "She wants you to come work for her?"
Erik shrugged and sipped his coffee again. "I suppose so. I haven't called her back." He relished the way Carrie's eyes narrowed. He imagined that he could hear the gears cranking in her beleaguered little brain.
"You should call her. You could still play on the street if you like it, but this," she tapped the card on the table, "this is real."
He pretended to consider her argument. "May I use your phone then?"
Four hours later, Erik stood on his favorite corner, violin comfortably tucked under his chin, Carrie's copy of Gumbo Ya-Ya in his violin case for the time being.
She was useful, no doubt about that. She tasted good too. Erik played a brisk polonaise and considered her cryptic words of the night before. He glanced down at the book in his case.
This is a city of legends, he mused, and I shall turn their legends against them ten fold.
A/N: Erik maliciously quotes Marshall McLuhan, Canadian communications theorist, and Harley Parker, when he speaks of darkness and silence. When she references the devil's music, Carrie dares to speak the works of English evangelist Rowland Hill.