Josephine held out her hands, offering to help carry something. Agatha jutted her elbow out, pointing crookedly at the parasol, so her friend picked it up and closed it, then held it under her arm. “You give them too much credit. For all we know, they’re the ones who brought the dead. We didn’t have any zombis before they moved in, now, did we?”
“You’ve got me there. Hey, mind your mouth.”
Josephine boosted an eyebrow, but didn’t ask questions. A moment later, she heard the pounding footsteps of someone jogging up behind her. She pivoted on her heel and saw a man in his twenties sporting a brown uniform, homing in on her like a man with a purpose.
She bristled and gritted her teeth, but Agatha put on the sort of smile worn by a woman who earns her living dealing in pleasantries with unpleasant people. The fortune-teller exaggerated her accent when she called out, “Bonsoir, boy—and there’s no need to rush us. We’ll be on our way, you just give us half a minute.”
Huffing and puffing, he drew up to a stop immediately before them and removed his hat. “Not trying to rush you, ladies. I’m—” He threw a fast, sharp look back at the rolling-crawlers, and toward Colonel McCoy. “—I’m looking for Miss Josephine Early, and that’s you, ain’t it, ma’am?”
Cautiously but coldly, she replied, “Yes, that’s me.”
He crushed the brown flop hat in one hand and punched it absently with the other. “Ma’am, I have a message from Fletcher Josty,” he said.
Agatha was puzzled, but Josephine was careful not to reveal any hint of recognition. “I’m sorry, I can’t say that I understand.”
“This ain’t my uniform, ma’am. I took it off a fellow I left back in the Rue Toulouse alley. Fletcher said to give you this.” He reached into his pocket and produced a folded note. “And I’m begging you, read it fast. It’s only a matter of time before some of these boys figure out none of ’em know me.”
Josephine hesitated, but took the note. She recognized Fletcher Josty’s handwriting immediately: Barataria attacked. Rick injured. Holding on at the fort. Her stomach clenched, but she had too many questions to lapse into outright panic.
“Wait, now—wait,” she said, holding out one hand toward the man in the Texas uniform. “Someone’s hit the pirate quarter?”
“That someone over there, on the lead brownie. His first rule of business when he got to town the other day was to plot it out, and yesterday he ordered the raid. Ma’am, we need to get off these streets. Hurry along, will you? I’ll walk back with you to the Garden, all right?”
“All … all right?…,” she said, not moving, not taking her eyes off the note. “I just, I don’t understand.”
Agatha broke in. “You heard him, let’s go. I’ll come with you, we’ll all of us walk.” She put an arm on Josephine’s hand and tugged.
“You’re right. Let’s go. Here, I have an idea.”
With a swift knock of the parasol’s handle, she struck Agatha’s box out of her grasp. It toppled to the ground and landed on a corner, breaking in two. The fortune-teller said, “Hey!” but the pretend-Texian got the idea and said, “I’ve got it, ma’am. Let me help you carry these things.” And in a whisper he added, “It’ll give me an excuse to join you, see?”
Throughout the rest of Jackson Square, the last of the stragglers were being ushered on their way, and the Texian soldiers were assisting where it was necessary or helpful, or where they were impatient to have the streets cleared for the evening hour.
Josephine struggled to keep from shaking as the three of them abandoned the common area. The church doors closed as they walked past, and the darkness had fallen nearly enough to call it night—so that when they ducked into the alley to the right of the church, they were suddenly all but invisible. In those narrow minutes between the sun going down and the gas lamps being struck, they were indistinguishable from the shadows.
The cathedral loomed above them, its iron fencing and thick stone walls blocking them in like a fort. Josephine drew up short in the alley, unwilling to step into the Quarter beyond, not yet. She seized the young man by the shoulder and spoke quickly, quietly.
“Why would McCoy invade the bay? What was my brother doing there, and how did he get hurt? Where is he now?”
As fast as he could, the man rapid-fired his responses. “I don’t know why McCoy took the bay, I only know he gave the order and it happened—but it took ’em all day. Pirates don’t hand over easy, especially not when they’ve been dug in somewhere for so long. Your brother was there hitching a ride on a Cajun rig called the Crawdaddy, doing I’m-not-sure-what. Rick got caught in a firefight and he’s taken two bullets. Neither of them killed him, but he needs a doctor, and that means he’s got to get upriver. Nobody in the city will risk treating him right now, and with the curfew—well, he’s still at Barataria, holed up with Fletcher and one of the Lafitte boys,” he said. “But they’ll move him out one way or the other, come morning. They’ll get him someplace safe.”
“How bad is it? And don’t you lie to me, now.”
“I didn’t see him, I only agreed to run the message from Fletcher. Let’s get back to the Garden Court, and we can talk about it. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“I have to go to my brother.”
Horrified, Agatha said, “You don’t mean it, Josie! Let the men take care of their own. When he’s out of town and all healed up, you can go meet him. You’ll do nobody any good by throwing yourself in harm’s way. Think what Rick would say if he knew you were coming.”
“He’d tell me to get the hell back into my house and he’d see me on the other side. But he isn’t here, and I never listened to him much, anyway.” Her words cracked around the edges, and she was glad for the darkness. “I’m the elder. It’s his job to listen to me, and mine is to…” She tore the note to tiny pieces and dropped it into a stream of manure and river runoff along the street’s edge. “Mine is to take care of him. Just like I promised Momma I would.”
A rolling-crawler went roaring past the alley, filling the slim space with diesel fumes and a rattling echo that rang around the walls. It dimmed, the brownie moved on, and Josephine continued. “I won’t leave him out there, nursed by pirates who can’t stitch a button. I’m going to him, and I’m going to take him to the bayou myself—so Edison Brewster can run him north and get him the help he needs, if he needs more of it than I can give him.”
“Josie, you’re daft.”
“You know it’s true, both of you,” she appealed to her companions in turn. “If he stays there, under siege on the islands until morning … God knows what’ll become of him. No.” She shook her head, not clearing her thoughts but winding them up. “No, I’m going after him. I’d rather die knowing than sit at home and wonder.”
The young man sighed and caught her arm when she turned to run back the way she’d come. Before she could haul off and hit him, he said, “Fletcher told me you’d say as much. He said you wouldn’t stay put and it was up to me to keep you from coming out there, but he also told me it was a lost cause from the get-go.”
“Do you know where they are? Right now?” Josephine asked. She pried her arm out of his grasp.
“Just like the note said, they’re at the fort—unless somebody’s moved them. I’ll take you there, if you won’t have it any other way. But first, we have to get off the streets. The patrols will catch up to us any minute. Hurry up now, back to the Garden Court,” he begged. “We can leave from there—it isn’t far, is it?”
“Only a few blocks. And you’re right, I have to go home first. Come on, let’s go.”
“Josie?”
“Aggie, you coming, too?”
“No, I’m heading back to my own place like a law-abiding citizen. But I want to say good luck, and I love you.”
Josephine swallowed hard, then kissed Agatha on the cheek. “Don’t say such things. It’s like you don’t think I’ll be back.”
“I hope you’ll be back,” she said. Josephine didn’t answer.
Instead she fled the alley and rushed back down the warren of narrow blocks overhanging with balconies and lamps, streets wet just like always. Her feet slapped side by side with the young man’s as together they darted through the Quarter. All along the way, doors were being closed and windows were being drawn; shutters were being pulled and lights inside were coming on, same as the lights in the streets—lit one by one as low-ranking Texian enlisted men complained their way up and down the ladders to spark the lights and brighten the gloom.
They slipped inside the Garden Court just ahead of the first patrol of rolling-crawlers, their dastardly engines churning and lumpy wheels rolling up and down over the curbs, splashing through puddles, and spewing ghost-gray clouds with every shove of every cylinder.
Josephine slammed the door shut behind them and nearly locked it, but changed her mind when she realized she was only frightened.
Curfew or no, this was an after-hours business. So long as customers stayed off the streets, no one had gone to the trouble of shutting them down. Business was off by about 30 percent, yes. But it could be worse. It could be off altogether, and locking the front door would be a start in that direction.
The madam’s sudden and dramatic entrance stunned the lobby’s occupants into silence.
Delphine Hoobler and Septima Hare had been talking together on the long dais, but their conversation drew up short and now they stared at their employer. Likewise, Olivia Tillman and her suitor had paused on their way upstairs, and the perennially present Fenn Calais had stopped in his tracks, Ruthie under one arm and Caroline under the other.
“Miss Josephine?” asked the old Texian with the deep pockets and large appetite.