Just keep singing. The nightmares will go away if you just keep singing.
Things only change if you change them, Ridley, a voice said from somewhere in the back of her mind—a voice she recognized. Don’t forget that. The Dark part of you will always protect you, just like the Darkness protected me when I was Claimed. But you have to control your power. Never let it control you.
Ridley realized who it was. Auntie Sarafine. The only person who didn’t turn her back on Ridley when she was Claimed.
I can’t, Ridley answered silently. I’m not strong enough. The rats will come back, and the nightmares.
But she kept hearing Sarafine’s voice: Things only change if you change them, Ridley…. Control your power. Never let it control you.
Ridley didn’t feel strong enough to control anything—not the rats or the blinding light or the fire or the pain. She focused on the pain and the memories, and realized there were other voices. Voices from the memory of the pain and the fire and the blinding light. So Ridley did the unimaginable and listened to those voices, too.
“Is the infusion ready?” a man asks. “Read me the specs.”
“Patient 13. Siren. First Trial. Administering Power Infusion: Illusionist,” another says.
“If this takes and she doesn’t go crazy or die when the new power hits, we’ll have made history. You know that, right?”
“Concentrate on giving her the infusion first.”
A different kind of fire burned through Ridley—one she hadn’t felt since they took her away.
Rage.
She couldn’t remember who the two men were—the ones who referred to her as Patient 13—or who had locked her in this cage. So she played the song over and over in her mind, until the only voices she heard belonged to the black-boned rats, and she realized what she needed to do. It was her last thought before she drifted off again.
I’ll make them pay.
Just like Auntie Sarafine taught me.
CHAPTER 14: LINK
Electric Funeral
The Girl with the Velvet Voice was a wild card, an unknown variable in an already complex situation—at least that was what Liv said. Still, John trusted Robert Johnson, and the whole Caster Archivist angle had Liv itching to find her.
“Why? Are you jealous?” Floyd looked amused every time Liv brought it up.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I just think it’s a bit odd, that’s all. Keepers have been chronicling the Caster world for hundreds of years.” Liv sniffed. “Why change the system now?”
“Things change. The Order of Things. Us. The universe. Change isn’t always a bad thing.” Floyd shrugged.
“It’s not always good, either,” Liv said.
John and Link knew better than to say a word.
As they made their way through the Tunnels, Sampson ducked into every Dark Caster club they passed, asking around to see if anyone knew the location of Ravenwood Oaks. Link didn’t think anyone would be willing to talk, but Sam said he was wrong; plenty of scumbags offered him information. The trouble was, every one of them named a different place—from bartenders and doormen to dealers and thugs, he heard everything from Savannah to Saint Croix.
By the time they reached the French Quarter, Link was losing it.
“How come nobody knows where the hell that plantation is?” he asked, following Lucille down the dark sidewalk. “It’s like we’re tryin’ to find Wonder Woman’s invisible plane. Or maybe S.H.I.E.L.D.’s secret base, the one in the desert.”
“None of the people Sam asked had ever been there,” John pointed out. “My guess is it’s some kind of Cast. Maybe you can’t find Abraham’s old place unless you’ve actually been there.”
“Unless he messes with everyone’s head so they can’t remember,” Link muttered, his mood getting worse by the minute.
“Cloaking Casts like the kind John is talking about relate to the location itself, in this case Ravenwood Oaks,” Liv said. “You can’t Cloak a place from people who’ve actually been there.”
“Let’s hope this Velvet Voice chick has.” Link stopped at the corner and looked around. “How much farther is it to the House of Blues?”
Floyd looped her arm through his and pulled him down the street. “It’s House of Voodoo, and we’re almost there.”
When they reached Madame Blue’s House of Voodoo in the older section of the French Quarter, the shop was dark.
Link kicked an empty can against the side of the building. “Crap. It’s already closed.”
John cupped his hands and peered through the dirty front window. “Ring the bell anyway.”
Link pressed the buzzer next to the front door, and within seconds, a light switched on somewhere in the back.
“Check out those voodoo dolls.” Floyd elbowed Sampson and pointed at a row of goofy-looking stuffed dolls wearing top hats on the other side of the glass, thick pins sticking out of their chests.
“Looks like a typical souvenir shop in the Quarter.” Necro gestured at decks of tarot cards and plastic bags full of coins and trinkets labeled LUCK BAGS in the window.
John hit the buzzer again. “It’s still worth a shot.”
The door opened, and a woman who looked a lot like a blond Tina Turner from one of Link’s favorite movies, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, stood on the other side.
“You only need to ring the bell once,” she said.
“Sorry about that, ma’am,” John said.
“The name’s Magnolia Blue.”
“Maybe you can help us, Ms. Blue,” John continued. “We’re looking for the Girl with the Velvet Voice.”
The woman’s eyes widened and she gasped, staring back at him from behind her wild mane. “Only one person has ever called me that. But there’s no way—”
Link took another look at her hair, remembering the photo Robert Johnson had showed him of the Caster girl he’d left behind.
Could she be the same person?
“This might sound crazy, but Robert Johnson sent us, ma’am,” Link said.
The woman brought a hand to her lips. “Is Bobby all right?”
Sampson shrugged. “Sure. For a guy who’s trapped in a house by himself, in the middle of nowhere.”
“I knew he wasn’t dead,” she whispered, her eyes welling.
Lucille circled Magnolia Blue’s ankle, purring, which made Link feel better. Lucille was a pretty good judge of character.
A lot better than me, anyway.
Magnolia Blue bent down and scratched Lucille’s ears. “Why did Bobby send you to see me?”
“He said you might be able to help us,” Necro said.
She swallowed hard like it was difficult for her to talk about him. “If Bobby wants me to help you, I’ll do whatever I can. Come on in.”
Inside, the shop seemed even more like a tourist trap. Alligator-foot key chains and bottles of powder with labels like BAT WING and LOVE ROOT were lined up on the shelves above papier-mâché skeletons dressed in tuxes and top hats. Link wasn’t sure why the skeletons were dressed like they were going to prom, but they looked about as authentic as Barbie dolls.
Necro eyed a taxidermy caiman and scrunched up her nose. “We’re looking for Ravenwood Oaks, Abraham Ravenwood’s plantation. Mr. Johnson told us you’re the Caster Archivist, so you might know where to find it.”
“I’m not sure how Bobby heard about that, but he shouldn’t be telling people,” Magnolia Blue said. “I can’t do my job if everyone knows I’m the one doing it.”
Liv cleared her throat. “Ms. Blue? I’m studying to be a Keeper, and I’ve never heard of a Caster Archivist. So I have to ask … what exactly is your job?”
“Relax. I’m not trying to steal yours, darling. When the Order of Things was broken, it caused unforeseen changes in both the Caster and Mortal worlds. It’s my responsibility to identify and monitor those changes.”
“I thought things settled down after the New Order replaced the old one,” Liv said.
&nbs
p; Magnolia Blue gave her a knowing look. “If you’re talking about weather anomalies and insect infestations, then I suppose it would look that way. But the New Order gave us a lot more than a new breed of Supernaturals.” She smiled at Sampson. “Like you, from the look of it.”
He nodded, and she continued. “The New Order also upset the balance in every realm—Caster, Mortal, the Otherworld, even the Abyss.”
The Abyss—the demon realm where terrifying creatures like Vexes were trapped until a nutbag like Abraham Ravenwood summoned them. It wasn’t Link’s favorite subject. He picked up an alligator-foot key chain and dangled it in the air. “What do these things have to do with the New Order?”
Magnolia Blue snapped her fingers, and the air shifted in front of the shelves like heat waves rising off hot asphalt. The tux-clad skeletons and potion bottles blurred, transforming into rows of books and unfamiliar objects—a glowing compass and a weird clock with pictures around the face like the images on a tarot deck.
Link pointed at it. “Hey, Liv, that thing looks like your crazy watch.”
Liv turned to Magnolia Blue. “Is that a selenometer?”
The Caster Archivist noticed Liv’s watch-that-wasn’t-a-watch and smiled. “It measures the moon’s gravitational pull.”
Liv nodded, mesmerized. “It’s a real beauty. Perhaps the finest I’ve ever seen.”
Sampson walked over to a map on the wall. “Nice illusion.”
The wild-haired Caster frowned. “I’m not an Illusionist.”
Floyd frowned. “What do you mean? I haven’t seen an illusion like that in years.”
“While I appreciate the compliment”—Magnolia Blue fluttered her fingers at a jar of change next to the register, and it transformed into a margarita glass—“I don’t disguise things. I change them.” She took a sip of the drink.
“A Shifter. I should’ve known.” Floyd said it the way the girls on the Cheer Squad in Gatlin said Pep Squad.
“Aren’t Illusionists and Shifters kinda the same? You know, like lions and tigers?” Link asked, anxious to change the subject. The finer points didn’t matter. Right now, he was more interested to know if Magnolia Blue’s powers could do more than just tell them where to find the plantation.