Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 02 - Dark Carnival (5 page)

When I pulled up into
Miles’ driveway the next day, there was a white Prius already there.  I parked
on the side of it and must have sat in my car for ten minutes before I accepted
that I could no longer put off my task and got down.  I went to ring the bell,
but noticed the door was open a crack.  I politely knocked and opened the door
wider.

“Hello?”
I said, as I entered the foyer.

“Leigh,
come in,” said Miles, gravely.  He was standing next to a young, pretty woman
with long, curly brown hair, brown eyes and lightly freckled, porcelain skin.  She
was in jeans and a white, button-down shirt.  “This is Sister Nadia Ancelet,”
he said.

“Sister?”
I said.

Nadia
smiled and shook my hand.  “I’m with the Order of St.
Geneviève
.  I’ve heard good things about you, Leigh,” she
said, with a slight Parisian French accent.  I raised one eyebrow, surprised
that Miles would say good things about me.  “Cee Cee thinks highly of you,” she
continued.

“Oh,”
I said.  I should have known it wasn’t Miles.  I took in Nadia’s appearance.  “So,
where’s your habit?”

She
laughed, and it was a lyrical shot of sunlight that seemed to brighten the
darkness the mahogany and Miles’ grave face brought to the foyer.  “My order is
cloistered, but I’m not.  Technically, I’m not a nun.  I serve the order
through common prayer, study, community life and service.  I’m a social worker
on behalf of the Dominican order, so I often wear plain clothes when working on
cases.  I wear proper attire for my duties at the convent.”  Nadia was a very
warm and inviting person, and I hoped that she would stay for awhile.  It
helped to have a buffer between Miles and me.

“Ah.
 Are you working on a case right now?” I asked.

“Sort
of.”  She looked at Miles with questioning eyes.  He nodded his approval, and
she turned back to me.  “Cee Cee said you’re one of us.”

“You’re
… a paladin, too?”

“Yes.
 I’m here to help track something down.”

“Yes,”
said Miles.  “And I think you should go now.  Leigh, you go with Nadia.”

“Where
are we going?” I asked.

Nadia
gently grabbed me by the arm and led me to the door.  “C’mon.  I’ll explain on
the way.”

Just
as we got into Nadia’s Prius, a dark red Corvette blaring hip-hop Reggae from
the speakers pulled up in the large driveway, coming to a stop diagonally
across what could easily have been three parking spaces.  The music stopped
instantly as the ignition was turned off.  The door opened and out stepped Ruby
Baptiste.  She passed an uninterested glance our way, and Nadia gave a polite
wave.  Ruby tilted her head up in recognition and walked up to Miles’ front
door with all the predatory grace of a wild cat.

“She’s part of your
group?” I said with surprise, trying to hide my dread.

Nadia whispered a chuckle
as Ruby entered the house and shut the door behind her.  “So you’ve already had
the pleasure of meeting her, huh?”

“Pleasure.  Yeah.”

Nadia stifled a giggle.
“It’s awful of me to say, but I’m still not convinced that she and Cee Cee are
related.”  She reached into the glove compartment, pulled out a color print out
of a picture and handed it to me.  “This is what we’re looking for,” she said,
as she started the car.

I took the picture and
studied it.  It was an antique Venetian mask, full face, black with sinister gold
accents.  The caption read:
Masque de L’âme Noire
—
Marseille, France, 1779.  
“That’s a mask that belonged to a minister of
King Louis XVI’s court,” she said, pulling out of the driveway.  “He wore it to
a masquerade ball in Marseille where Louis and Marie Antoinette were invited by
friends on holiday.  This man, Jean-Phillip Laurent, was an evil man who
secretly tortured those who went against the king.  Laurent was part of the
Dark Ones, Les Foncés as Cee Cee tells me they say in your part of Louisiana.  The
night of the ball, he was stabbed by a man whose son was killed by Laurent a
year earlier.  He died with the mask on.  It was collected as evidence and
stored away for a few years until the French Revolution upended everything, and
the mask went missing.

“It was found again by
one of Napoleon’s soldiers, another evil man by the name of Gaston Rousseau.  He,
too, followed The Dark Ones.  Just like Laurent, Rousseau was a torturer, and
he wore the mask during his interrogations to give a greater element of fear to
his victims.  He also died with the mask on, after his fort was raided by the
British.

“After that, there was no
record of the mask until the early twentieth century, when the museum of the
British government hired an additional curator to sort through a large
storeroom of items that had not yet been classified and labeled.  All of the items
deemed unimportant to British history were sold to antiquities collectors.  The
mask was sold to one collector in London who cleaned it and put it up for
auction, where it was then purchased by a museum in Nice, France.  They called
it
Masque de L’âme Noire
—
Mask of the Black Soul
.

“The mask remained in
that same museum until two weeks ago, when it was bought by another collector
here in New Orleans.  Miles found out that the Krewe of Grigori wants the mask
to use for an initiation at their faux Mardi Gras ball.  They plan to crown a
King.  We have to get the mask before they do.  The problem is we don’t know
which antique shop has the mask.  The museum wouldn’t tell us for security
purposes.”

“Trying to find a mask in
New Orleans four weeks before Mardi Gras.  It’s a little
needle-in-a-haystack-ish, don’t you think?”

“We have to try.”

“Who are the Krewe of
Grigori and what do you mean by
faux Mardi Gras ball
?”

“The Grigori are a group
of Dark Ones.  They have cleverly disguised themselves as a Mardi Gras krewe to
recruit more people to the dark side.  They are mostly made up of a group of
fallen angels who were once sent to Earth to protect humans.”  She said this
rather nonchalantly, and I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not.

“Fallen angels?” I said in
disbelief.

She nodded. “I’m afraid
so.”

“Well, why do they want
the mask so badly?”

“We think it’s because
it’s cursed.  Two evil men died wearing it, and that gives it a dark power that
can be transferred to the next one to wear it.  They are going to convert more
people over to their side with an elaborate Mardi Gras ball for their pretend
krewe.  When the Grigori crown their new king, he will absorb the power, and The
Dark Ones will become stronger, tipping the scales on the dark side.  This
makes it much harder for us paladins to stop them.”

Nadia turned down the
very trendy Magazine Street, drove a couple of blocks, and pulled up to the
curb in front of an old antique shop.  When we entered, the door gently swung
shut behind us with the sound of a tinkling bell.  The smell of fresh coffee
was in the air, and it overpowered the musty odor from the eclectic collection
of baubles and trinkets from years past.  Everything was organized in different
collections; sets of dishes here, linens there, a locked glass counter full of
antique jewelry and a display of Mardi Gras and Venetian masks along the back
wall.  Near us was a shelf of musical items, like snow globes and ornate music
boxes.

It occurred to me that a
music box would be a wonderful souvenir for Lyla.  I glanced at them, and one
in the back on the second row caught my eye.  It was cherry wood, inlayed with
a gold rose-and-vine design.  I picked up the music box in the front and
cradled it in my left arm.  I handed Nadia the second box.  “Hold this for a
sec,” I said.

“Oh, wait—” she started,
but stopped as I thrust the box into her hands.

I reached back toward the
wall and grabbed the last music box.  I turned it over and saw the price tag
was $80.00.  “Ouch,” I said.  Well, not that bad for an antique, I guess.  ‘Course
you never know if they’re pulling your leg about the whole antique thing.  Might
have been made in 1997 for all we know.”  I laughed, but Nadia was silent.  I looked
back at her, and she was staring off into the distance with tears pricking her
eyes.  “Hey, are you okay?”

She nodded meekly and
sniffled.  “Sorry.  It’s … well, my ability—”  She looked at me and saw the
perplexed look in my eyes.  “I can see the history of anything I touch.”

“Oh.”  After an awkward
moment, I said, “What’s the story with that particular music box?”

Nadia smiled sadly and
her gaze shifted from me to something I couldn’t see.  “A man in 1960’s
Czechoslovakia bought this for his girlfriend, the love of his life.  They
wanted to get married, but her parents didn’t approve.  She became pregnant,
and she and the baby died during childbirth.  Her parents ran him out, and he
moved to New York City to be a piano player.  Every day he played the tune from
this box.  He jumped from the top of his apartment building in 1969.  This box
was left on the roof with the song playing.”

Nadia sniffled again and
gently placed the music box on the linens table beside her.  I looked at the
box I wanted for Lyla and thought twice about it.  I put it back where I found
it and returned to the shelf the other one I had in my arm.  I picked up the
sad little box Nadia had placed on the table.  It wasn’t as pretty as the one I
wanted; it was made of pine and had a couple of deep scratches in the wood.  Instead
of golden roses, it was hand-painted with tulips, the paint faded and chipped
long ago.  I opened the box and listened to the little tune.  It was nothing I
recognized, but the tiny plastic couple who danced to it seemed pleased with
the melody.

“Some things should get
happily-ever-afters,” I said, tucking the box into my arm.  Nadia smiled at me.

“Hello?”  We turned
toward the sound of a man’s voice behind the front counter.  “Can I help you
ladies?” he said, smiling.

Nadia dabbed the corners
of her eyes and gave one last small sniffle before she walked toward the
counter.  I followed with the music box cradled in my arm.

“Yes, sir,” said Nadia.  “We
were looking for a very old antique mask from France, circa 1779.  We
understand you just got a shipment in recently.”

“1779?” said the man
behind the counter.  He was plump, balding and had a bushy mustache that had
traces of powdered sugar on it.  I suspected he had beignets with his coffee.  He
smiled again.  “That
is
pretty old,” he laughed.  Nadia and I politely
returned the smile.  “I did get a shipment a couple of days ago, and there was
a mask in it, but none of those items are for sale just yet.  I let the museums
have first crack at ‘em.”

“Well, do you mind if we
look at the mask?” asked Nadia.

He thought about it for a
second.  “Don’t see any harm in that.  I’ll be right back.”

I placed the music box on
the counter while we waited for the shop owner to return.  “What do we do if it
is the mask?” I asked.  “You heard him.  Not for sale.”

“He’ll sell for the right
price.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Everyone has a price.”

“How much money do you
guys have exactly?”

“Me?  I’m pretty broke.  The
convent takes care of my needs, so I don’t really require much money.  We’re
paying for this with Miles’ money.”  That didn’t surprise me in the least.  One
look at Miles’ house and the fully-loaded Mercedes he drove and anyone could
tell he was loaded.

The shop keeper came back
a couple of minutes later, carefully carrying a small display case containing a
mask that looked similar to the one in the picture.  He gently set it down.  “Sorry
it’s a little dirty.  Haven’t had a chance to get the pros in here to clean it
yet.”

“That’s okay,” said
Nadia.  “May I hold it for a second?”

The shop keeper looked
worried.  “Uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.  The acid in your hands—”

“I promise I’ll be very
gentle with it and it’ll only take a second,” she said, smiling sweetly.

The man wrestled with the
decision.  “Well … okay.  But let me get you some gloves first.”

He went into the back
room, and Nadia quickly lifted the display case and touched the mask.  “Shoot!”
she whispered and hurried to put the glass back.  The man came back with a pair
of latex gloves and handed them to Nadia.  “Oh, you know, I was thinking.  You’re
right.  It’s best not to handle the mask at all.  I’m such a klutz and I
wouldn’t want to damage it.  Might hurt the re-sale value,” she said, with all
the grace of a seasoned liar.

The shop keeper frowned.  “Okay.
Well, uh … can I help you with anything else?”

“Yes,” I said with a
smile, pushing the music box toward him.

He perked up.  “Okie
doke,” he said, ringing up the sale.

He thanked us for the
business, and we left.  As soon as we walked outside, Nadia said, “I thought
for sure that would have been the mask.  It looked enough like it.”

“Maybe that was the style
back then,” I mused.

She sighed.  “Guess so.  Let’s
go.”

From there, we continued
down Magazine Street and checked with three more stores.  None of them had the
mask we were looking for.  Nadia was a little discouraged.

We walked out of the last
store and into the parking lot.  Before we got in her car, I noticed the same
good-looking guy from the bar—the one with the scar on his arm—across the
street looking our way.  He was at a café, sitting at one of the outdoor
tables, sipping coffee.  As soon as he saw me looking at him, he looked down at
his cell phone and started texting, or pretending to text.

Nadia unlocked the doors,
and we got in.

“Hey, you see that guy
across the street at the café?” I said.