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“She is mad. She believed to know her name meant one could steal her power. If she gave no name to anyone, she could not be the target of any vengeful magic. I never knew her real name, and likewise I had no name until my father gave me one. She turned me over to him after that. Said she could not trust someone weakened by a name.”
Clearly insanity ran in my family.
“Bébé?”
“Oui?” I slipped into the habit of speaking French with her too easily.
“Do you have the necklace I gave you? The tiger’s iron?”
The necklace made me cranky because she’d once used it to help a sorcerer find me, but I knew she’d never have lied to me about what it did. Tiger’s iron warded against evil, and considering how much trouble I found myself in lately, I’d started carrying it with me again after my first assassination attempt on the highway. Fat lot of good it had done me in the bridal salon…though I suppose making it out alive had to count for something. Currently it was in a zippered pouch inside my bag. I wasn’t wearing it, which might have dulled the magic.
“I do.”
“You put it on before you go looking for La Sorcière.”
“Grandmere, you sound scared.”
“I am. You wear that necklace, girl.”
“Why?”
“Because if you ever needed a ward against evil, now is the time, bébé.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Arnie the swamp tour guide was the oldest living human I’d ever seen.
His lower jaw had shifted forward, giving him a toothless underbite. His nose was a huge, bulbous point jutting out from an otherwise sunken face. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper, and the sound of his lips smacking against his gums was louder than whatever he was saying.
His boat was a low wooden skiff that looked like it might sink under our collective weight. Arnie hiked his overalls up over his bare chest, a tuft of white hair peeking out from the bib. When he shuffled his way to the boat with one giant oar in hand, I turned to Holden with naked concern written over my features.
Holden imitated the twanging banjos from Deliverance.
“Sure, that pop-culture reference you know.”
“You got a pretty mouth, girl.” He winked.
“I hope you get eaten by a crocodile.”
“Alligator,” he corrected.
Arnie cleared his throat and angled his chin at the empty bench in the skiff.
“Close your eyes and pretend it’s Venice,” Holden suggested.
The moon was only a few days short of being full, and there was enough space between the sycamore trees and their blanket coverings of Spanish moss for a little light from the sky to make it all the way down to the brackish green water. Along the shore, the reflective eyes of wild animals shone like fireflies before vanishing.
We’d had to pay a premium for the night tour.
Arnie flicked on a spotlight mounted at the front of the boat, and a hundred yards away something splashed off the shoreline to escape being seen. I wondered how I would fare in one-on-one combat against an alligator. I didn’t particularly want to find out.
Holden plunked onto the bench and threw a booted foot over the side of the boat. “Come on, dear, let’s not hold up the tour.”
“’Urry up,” Arnie said. Smack, smack. He spit a wad of chewing tobacco into the water. Did they make a geriatric version of the stuff? Something you could gum into pulp when you didn’t have teeth left to chew with?
I sat next to Holden and pulled my leather jacket close around me. My gun was holstered beneath it, and I was glad to have it. I’d even thrown subtlety to the wind and strapped my dagger to my thigh. Arnie took one look at the Japanese-style knife, like a mini katana, and rolled his eyes. He must have thought I had a fantasy about being Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider.
Once we were both in place, Arnie used the oar to push us off, and I was surprised by how sturdy the boat felt once we were on the move. Holden pulled his foot back inside after Arnie gave him a warning smack with the oar. Guess we weren’t going gator hunting with Gucci loafers tonight. What a shame.
