[Bayou Gavotte 03.0] Heart of Constantine (6 page)

She swerved into the Chicken Bin drive-through for a breakfast sandwich—not for herself but for Lawless. He loved Chicken Bin, but people food for dogs had been against Pauline’s rules. She sent up a silent apology to Pauline’s spirit, hoping that maybe in the next life, whatever and wherever that was, there was no need for all those rules. Marguerite didn’t have an affinity for dogs, and she didn’t know much about how to take care of one, but she did know they liked company. Maybe a treat would make up for being gone all night.

“Hey, Miss Marguerite.” The kid at the window, she remembered suddenly, was a friend of Zeb’s.

“Hey, Jimmy. Is Zeb still working here?”

Jimmy grinned. “Nope. Fired for cussing out the boss.”

This was how Zeb lost almost every job. “Where does he work now?”

“No idea,” Jimmy said so glibly that it had to be a lie. She paid for the sandwich and left, wishing it weren’t so obvious where Zeb must be working. Some of the clubs in town weren’t all that picky about checking the ID of underage workers, and although Zeb was only seventeen, he looked eighteen or older. If he didn’t want to be recognized, he would sign up to be one of the painted messenger boys who set up sexual contracts between patrons in the sex clubs. With his physique, they’d hire him in a snap.

The last thing she wanted was to cruise the sex clubs, and she didn’t even have entrée to some. Not that a pretty, scantily dressed girl couldn’t get in if she chose—but at a potentially horrendous cost.

She and Pauline had hired Zeb for heavy chores before. If he had no work, he might be available to mow her lawn—hopefully today—so she could question him about what he’d been doing on the mound and why he’d taken the knife.

On the way home, she stopped at the bookstore for a cappuccino. A display at the front of the store featured the most recent Constantine Dufray biography. She resisted temptation and went to look at the romance shelves. After spending fifteen minutes not making up her mind, she gave in, picked up a copy of the biography, and sat at one of the tables in the cafe. The author claimed to have dated Constantine in college. Hopefully her memories weren’t entirely accurate, particularly not the bit about his thirteen-inch penis.

Not that it mattered to Marguerite one way or the other. Despite that kiss, she wasn’t really involved with the rock star, and she wasn’t going to be.

“Good God, Marguerite,” said an irritable male voice behind her. “Tell me it’s not true.”

CHAPTER THREE

C
onstantine wrapped his arms around the huge branch on which he sat and laid his cheek against the roughness of the resurrection fern that covered its upper surface. From his vantage point high up in the live oak at the top of Papa Mound, he could see all three mounds and the museum. Over by Mama Mound, his people were clearing what little trash remained from last night’s concert. He’d had them remove the firewood and kindling from Papa Mound first. The disgruntled Myra, after bitching at them for a few minutes, had retreated to the museum.

His guide, still in the form of a crow, perched twenty feet away at the end of the branch. It didn’t say much; it didn’t need to. The damned crow radiated self-satisfaction. One would think, judging by its glee, that it and not Constantine had kissed Marguerite.

It had also convinced itself that a torrid affair would soon ensue.
You may even marry her
, it said.

He refused to rise to that bait. Another marriage was even more impossible than casual sex. He had to get his mind under control first. The only way to avoid hurting the woman was, quite simply, to avoid her altogether.

For the umpteenth time, he wished he could get rid of the damned bird. Far too often, its advice was cryptic and
contrary to logic and common sense. During his worst periods, he’d taken potshots at the current manifestation, but the guide always showed up again, patient, persistent, and, in retrospect, usually correct.

Always
, the crow said.

He refused to get into that argument either. The guide wasn’t infallible, but it saw patterns that Constantine couldn’t, and its timing wasn’t always right. Now and then, they managed to work in sync. The guide had pestered him to hold that impromptu concert at the Indian mounds, and everything had gone well enough, or so he’d thought… until this morning, when it became all too obvious it hadn’t.

It was a step in the right direction,
the crow said.

Toward controlling the powers of his mind, yes. Toward identifying his Enemy, maybe.

Toward getting laid
, the crow added predictably.

He tried to address the bird with logic. He didn’t trust Marguerite. Well, he didn’t really trust anyone—but he couldn’t let her come to harm. “If I don’t get involved with her, she’ll have a better chance of survival. I’ll head out west, disappear into the mountains, and become a hermit. If I’m not around to be accused of anything, the Enemy will leave her alone.”

Silence. The crow gazed into the distance.

“It’s not a cowardly approach,” Constantine insisted.

The bird ruffled its glossy black wings.

“I’m trying to protect her, damn it all.”

The crow picked at its breast feathers.

Once again, Constantine wondered what he had done to merit the persecution of such a persnickety creature. “He won’t risk harming her if it doesn’t affect me.”

The bird didn’t reply. A squirrel scolded, and Constantine snapped at it, driving it away to the tip of a branch, where it chittered rudely before leaping to another branch below. The crow stared coolly for a moment or two, flapped its wings, and sailed off. Back in the day when Constantine had deliberately ignored his guide for months and ended up in that catastrophic marriage, it had first hammered at him until he had almost gone insane and then left him completely alone and bereft. Now they had a better working arrangement. Once the bird had made its point, Constantine wished it away, and it went. When it had something useful to say, it returned.

Constantine took out his cell phone and made a call.

“Yo,” came the sleepy voice of Detective Gideon O’Toole, followed by a jaw-cracking yawn. Gideon was a good friend and the closest thing to a liaison between the police and the Bayou Gavotte underworld.

“Kid keeping you up nights, sport?” Constantine said.

“I would have done fine last night,” Gideon retorted, “if you’d gone home after the concert. The curator woke me up not ten minutes ago to pick up where she left off at midnight. Said you’d been on the mound all night, which is against park regulations.”

“That’s all? What about the rape and human sacrifice?”

“Jesus, Constantine. Where did that come from? Even you wouldn’t encourage that sort of story.”

“Someone else kindly did it for me.” Constantine recounted the morning’s events, omitting mention of the guy who’d taken the knife.

“Marguerite McHugh,” Gideon mused. “If there wasn’t a connection between you and her roommate’s death before,
there sure is now.” He blew out a long breath. “There was no reason to believe Pauline’s death was anything but suicide, but it didn’t feel right. Not that she went outdoors—she loved her garden—but that she wandered into the street and just happened to get run over. It seemed a little too macabre to be real. Nice to know my instincts are working.” Pause. “Not so nice to know it might have been a murder.” Another pause. “I suppose I shouldn’t be glad that this almost certainly means your ‘Enemy’ is real.”

“Finally beginning to believe me?” Constantine rasped. He’d had to suppress all his instincts to force himself to discuss his Enemy with Gideon. He didn’t usually get along with cops, and he preferred to work alone.

But someone had been trying to destroy him for over two years now, starting with the poisoning of his estranged wife. Sheer luck had taken Constantine out of town the same night she was killed, or he would have been the prime suspect. The media, led mostly by Nathan Bone, had refused to let go, and unsolved crimes—and even some solved ones—were attributed to Constantine in the tabloids, and the methods described were all too possible for one of Constantine’s abilities.

Those very abilities were the big issue. Nathan didn’t know enough to understand what Constantine really could and couldn’t do. Someone else did, though, and Constantine had squeezed a confession from Nathan that he had an unidentified source. That had led to suspecting every other vigilante, every bodyguard and roadie and friend—anyone who might have figured out more—but the search had led nowhere.

Constantine’s fury and frustration had come out in his songs and then in his concerts. He’d lost control of his telepathy, blasting violence and hatred, death and destruction, and fans had been killed. Then the long hiatus, when he couldn’t bring himself to perform. He’d meditated and prayed. He’d done sweat lodges and healing ceremonies with the bird’s help. Gradually, he had seemed to improve.

Last night’s concert had gone well—almost perfectly. Followed immediately by near catastrophe this morning on the mound.

“I always wanted to believe you,” Gideon said, “but I’m a cop. I prefer solid proof.” There was a brief silence. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be what I’m not telling you anymore.”

“If you really want my help, you might consider being more cooperative,” Gideon said. “It’s damned difficult working with you.”

“Virtually impossible,” Constantine replied.

Gideon sighed. “You think Marguerite was raped?”

“Probably not. Why would someone risk leaving his own DNA behind if the idea was to frame me?”

“If she calls us or shows up at the hospital, I’ll let you know,” Gideon said. “I wonder why she supported you in such a dramatic way. It seems way out of character. She struck me as scholarly and reserved.” Pause. “She’s a pretty girl, though. Smart, too. And—”

“Gotta go.” Constantine ended the call before Gideon, who did anything his wife demanded like the love slave he was, started in on how badly Constantine needed a wife, too.

There. Duty done, responsibility discharged. From now on, he would stay out of Marguerite’s way. If Gideon thought the girl needed protection, he would take care of it. Mentally, Constantine brushed her out of his life.

The crackpot bird said nothing. It should have at this point, but Constantine brushed away his consequent uneasiness as well.

His phone rang: Ophelia, Gideon’s wife. She was a hereditary vampire, one of those rare human beings born with a gene that, with the onset of puberty, resulted in fangs, powerful sexual allure, and useful attributes such as excellent hearing, night vision, and physical strength. She was also a landscaper and one of Constantine’s staunchest friends. “You don’t know who Marguerite is, do you?”

He hated not knowing stuff, especially stuff that mattered. “Apparently not.”

“Neither did Gideon,” Ophelia said in a satisfied tone. “Her father was a filmmaker. He made some of the first great porn for women. I know exactly how great, because I watched a lot of it during my dry years.” Before her marriage, Ophelia had gone celibate for a while, and she’d tried everything to keep her desires under control. “It’s really gorgeous as porn goes, but there was a huge scandal when he was caught using a sixteen-year-old actress who had gotten hired with a fake ID. If he’d been an ordinary porn king, it might not have mattered so much, but he preached his own version of women’s rights, which got a lot of influential people riled. The press ran with the concept that he was a pedophile.”

“Sucks,” Constantine said, “but so what?”

“Well, for one thing, it wasn’t true. The guilty party was a male vampire who wanted the girl to be his leading lady in one of the films.”

“And you know this how?”

“Tony told me.” Tony was an older vampire who owned a restaurant in town. “McHugh’s dead now, but there was a lot of respect for him in the vampire community because he didn’t out them to save his own skin. But keep this to yourself, because Tony says Marguerite doesn’t want her background generally known.”

Good luck to her. Ninety-nine to one, Nathan would dig it up. Why had she taken such a risk with her story about tantric sex? Maybe it wasn’t to protect Constantine at all but to protect herself from a rape story instead. Absurdly, a vague disappointment pricked at him.

At a tremulous wail in the distance, Ophelia said, “Talk to you later,” then added smugly, “I just thought you and Gideon should be in the know.”

Fine, but Marguerite’s past didn’t make any difference to him. With any luck, he wouldn’t have to see her again.

He laid his head down again and resigned himself to a long wait. During a short reconnoiter when he’d returned to the mound, right after Marguerite left, he’d learned a little about the Enemy: a reasonably agile man of medium weight with around size eleven boots. Couldn’t get much more average than that. The dude had done a hell of a lot more damage slogging up the mound, carrying Marguerite, than Constantine had in months of running. More interesting was last night’s guitar. The kid had wrapped it in a sweatshirt and stowed it in some brambles on the back slope of
the mound. When? Constantine wondered. Why hadn’t he taken it home?

With luck, he’d be back for it soon, and Constantine would get all the answers he needed.

He dozed for a while in the dappled shade of the tree. A crow—possibly the same one—flapped onto a higher branch and alerted him, then soared away again. Now there were people in the park—four of them, headed slowly toward his mound. Two white men, one fortyish and balding and the other younger and taller, with a wavy bush of yellow hair. A woman in her thirties, with a voluptuous figure, smooth café au lait skin, and a faint frown. And Myra again, red-faced and angular with an impatient stride.

Constantine shifted against the great branch and visualized himself as one with the tree. With a little concentration, he could alter people’s perceptions. He could make them feel ecstasy or pain; he could make them see things that weren’t there. He’d done it regularly at concerts, sending visions into the minds of the audience. It felt like a combination of telepathy and some kind of aura manipulation—similar to giving one-touch orgasms but with mental rather than physical touch.