The Final Days of Magic Read online

  ALSO BY J.D. HORN

  Witches of New Orleans

  The King of Bones and Ashes

  The Book of the Unwinding

  The Final Days of Magic

  Witching Savannah

  The Line

  The Source

  The Void

  Jilo

  Shivaree

  Pretty Enough to Catch Her: A Short Story

  A Peculiar Paradise: A Short Story

  One Bad Apple: A Short Story

  Pitch: A Short Story

  Phantasma: Stories (contributor)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Jack Douglas Horn

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by 47North, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and 47North are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542040143 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1542040140 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781542040136 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1542040132 (paperback)

  Cover design by Rex Bonomelli

  First edition

  To the witches, both real and imaginary.

  I hope I’ve done you proud.

  CONTENTS

  CHARACTER LIST

  DECEMBER 19

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  DECEMBER 20

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  DECEMBER 21

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  DECEMBER 22

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHARACTER LIST

  THE MARIN FAMILY

  Celestin Marin—Patriarch of the Marin family and deposed head of the Chanticleer Coven, once New Orleans’s most powerful and influential coven. Celestin, intent on commanding the power promised in The Book of the Unwinding—a legendary grimoire that reveals the secrets of how to survive and prosper in the final days of magic—murdered his own son and grandson and slaughtered many of the region’s witches at the ball intended to memorialize him. In revenge, his body was cut up, and the pieces passed out as magical relics.

  Laure Marin—Celestin’s deceased wife. Obsessed with another woman’s husband, Laure encouraged her rival to work a risky spell outside the auspices of the coven, claiming it would protect their children by suspending the dangerous The Book of the Unwinding between realities. The spell led to Laure’s commitment to a psychiatric facility for witches and her rival’s death. Laure died in the institution nearly twenty years ago. Laure was the mother of Nicholas, Vincent, and Fleur.

  Nicholas Marin—Celestin and Laure’s elder son. Nicholas challenged Celestin to become the head of the Chanticleer Coven but has now lost the coven and the one woman with whom he may have found love. Nicholas is the father of two sons: Luc and Hugo.

  Astrid Andersen Marin—Nicholas’s missing wife. Though Astrid was once regarded as a fragile, artistic witch who used her magic to escape the Marin family intrigues, her surviving children have come to understand she, too, attempted to gain control of The Book of the Unwinding. Instead, the grimoire now has her under its control.

  Luc Marin—Astrid and Nicholas’s eldest child, and failed challenger to his father’s position as head of the Chanticleers. Celestin murdered Luc as part of his plan to access the magic held in The Book of the Unwinding.

  Hugo Marin—Astrid and Nicholas’s younger son. Hugo has long relied on drink and drugs to mask his own sensitive nature.

  Alice Marin—Raised to believe herself to be Astrid and Nicholas’s daughter, Alice has learned that she’s the product of an affair between Astrid and Celestin. Alice has made her way back from the Dreaming Road but may have brought some of its darkness back with her.

  Vincent Marin—Celestin and Laure’s middle child. Murdered by Celestin, who then assumed his identity. Vincent was blessed with a lack of magic that for a while allowed him to lead an independent life of his own choosing. Unmarried and childless, he long tried to act as a father figure for Nicholas’s neglected children.

  Fleur Marin Endicott—Celestin and Laure’s youngest child. Celestin forced her into a marriage of convenience with a Washington up-and-comer, Warren Endicott. As that marriage comes to its dissolution, Fleur is determined to become her own woman. But after the slaughter of witches, she finds herself facing much greater challenges than building a new life.

  Lucy Endicott—Like a millennial Mephistopheles, Fleur’s outwardly superficial and undeniably spoiled teenage daughter feigns indifference, but always finds ways to improve the lives of those around her.

  THE SIMEON—PERRAULT FAMILY

  Soulange Simeon—The spell that led to Laure Marin’s commitment also caused the death of this once great Voodoo practitioner. Bad blood has run between the families ever since Soulange was found dead and Laure wandering mad out on New Orleans’s haunted Grunch Road. With her daughter Lisette’s help, Soulange’s spirit derailed Celestin’s scheme at the slaughter of witches. Soulange was the original proprietor of the famous French Quarter Voodoo supply store, Vèvè.

  Alcide Simeon—Soulange’s husband, musician. Blames the Marin family for his wife’s death.

  Lisette Simeon Perrault—Soulange and Alcide’s daughter, Lisette has run Vèvè since her mother’s death. Though struggling to recover from a stroke triggered by dark magic, Lisette has uncovered a connection between the twilight of magic and the founding of New Orleans.

  Isadore Perrault—Lisette’s husband and owner of one of New Orleans’s premier landscaping companies. Although Isadore takes pride in having a true partnership with Lisette, he defers to her in matters of religion.

  Manon Perrault—Lisette and Isadore’s elder child, Manon is a no-nonsense self-starter who has recently completed her undergraduate degree in business. She is preparing to marry her partner, Michael, and is expecting their first child.

  Remy Perrault—Lisette and Isadore’s teenage son. A visual artist, Remy has recently begun to attend college.

  THE WITCHES OF NEW ORLEANS

  Evangeline Caissy—Stereotypes would imply that the solitary witch, a red-headed Cajun, is more temper than heart, but her past has taught her both patience and compassion. A former exotic dancer, Evangeline now runs her own Bourbon Street club, Bonnes Nouvelles. She finds herself at the center of machinations put in play centuries before her birth.

  Mathilde, Margot, Marceline, and Mireille—The sister witches. Having arrived o
n the banks of the Mississippi before New Orleans became an American city, the four sister witches are New Orleans’s first and oldest sorceresses. They are heartless, ruthless, and capable of changing form to meet their needs. Mireille, the youngest of the sister witches and Evangeline’s mother, died after falling for a storefront church preacher and turning against magic. The surviving three acted as Celestin’s accomplices at the slaughter of witches.

  Frank Demagnan—The slight, though preternaturally strong, funeral director whose family had met the mortuary needs of the witches of New Orleans for as long as there had been witches in the Crescent City until the day he found himself victim of another’s dark magic.

  The Chanticleer Coven—Once dozens strong, at the time of the slaughter of witches, the moribund coven had dwindled to the Marin family and eight degraded witches: second in command, covetous Gabriel Prosper and his sister Julia, the vain and punctilious Monsieur Jacques, the steadfast and sturdy sergeant-at-arms Jeanette, the elderly and addled Rose Gramont, Rose’s much younger self-appointed caretaker Guillaume (Guy) Brunet, and a brother and sister duo known as “les Jumeaux” or “the Twins,” who strive to function as a single, indivisible entity. Only the Twins survived the slaughter unchanged. Rose Gramont found herself rejuvenated, both in body and in magic, from the charged blood of the murdered witches, and she has joined forces with her former friend, Astrid.

  Nathalie Boudreau—Part-time chauffeur, full-time psychic, Nathalie has a sixth sense that lands her in situations her good sense would tell her to avoid. Assisting Soulange and Lisette in their battle against Celestin has awoken Nathalie’s own dormant magic, even as Alice Marin has reawakened her heart.

  Lincoln Boudreau—Nathalie’s cousin. Charming and flirtatious, Lincoln is a street musician who has Evangeline Caissy in his sights. He also has a secret.

  Washington (Wiley) Boudreau—Lincoln’s younger brother and fellow performer. Hardheaded and passionate, Wiley shares his brother’s secret.

  Michael Parrish—Manon Perrault’s fiancé, Michael has been conspiring with Astrid against the Perrault family.

  and

  Babau Jean—Also known as “John the Bogey,” Babau Jean is New Orleans’s own born and bred bogeyman. Go on. Turn out the lights. Face the mirror. Call his name three times. He’ll see you.

  DECEMBER 19

  ONE

  Lisette Perrault remembered a time when she wasn’t filled with rage. Golden in hindsight, grotesque in light of what was to follow, those final days of contentment were now fixed in her memory, preserved, though extinct, like an ancient bug trapped in amber.

  Since the stroke, Lisette’s left arm hung limp at her side. She used her right hand to raise the arm and position it, forearm up, on the cold metal surface of an industrial workbench. A half-empty fifth of rum sat beside it.

  The old man watched, nodding and grinning around the bit of his unlit corncob pipe, as Lisette took the single-edged razor blade between her thumb and forefinger and rested one sharp point against her skin. Overhead, a failing fluorescent light blinked on and off, its buzzing an incessant lamentation to protest its own mortality. Her heart beating out of her chest, she paused and glanced around the shop floor of the former factory that now housed her husband Isadore’s landscaping company. This was the last place her daughter’s fiancé, Michael Parrish, would think to look for her. Hell, until she heard herself giving the taxi driver the address, she hadn’t expected to find herself here either.

  Now, she realized the old factory was probably the last place on earth she felt at all safe.

  Her mother’s shop—her shop—had been desecrated, and no number of new fixtures or fresh coats of paint could keep her mind’s eye from seeing the racial slurs and symbols of hatred sprayed on its walls.

  Her once beloved home offered no sanctuary. The enemy now lived there, beneath her roof, acting as her caregiver. Feigning devotion, while preventing her recovery.

  She drew a breath, then cut the first slit—long enough and deep enough to leave a scar. To leave a scar was the point. This wound and the six to follow, each in honor of Erzulie Dantor, would form a gad, part invocation, part petition for protection. A curse had been placed on Lisette, and tonight she was appealing to Erzulie Dantor to rid her and her family of the man who’d laid it.

  The stroke hadn’t only affected her arm. It had also gifted her with a tremor, a halting step, and slurred speech. Perhaps Dantor, whose tongue had been cut out by those she’d trusted, would feel a stronger affinity for her because of it. Besides, Dantor was a mother, too—a mother who protected her children with the same fierceness Lisette felt burning in her own breast.

  It had taken a visit from Papa Legba himself to awaken Lisette to the truth about Michael. Lisette wouldn’t have accepted the revelation from any other source, even her own best instincts, as Michael’s power allowed him to make a person see him in whatever light he wanted. He’d deceived her for years, and she hadn’t had a single inkling.

  Lisette should have acted sooner, but he’d kept her just weak enough to make sure she was housebound. And neither her husband, Isadore, nor her son, Remy, would listen to any word spoken against Michael; they had both fallen under his thrall. Only Lisette’s father seemed immune to Michael’s influence, and Michael did his best to keep her and her dad separated. Lisette knew the only reason she’d managed to slip away tonight was because Michael would’ve never suspected she’d leave Manon’s side at such a time.

  The pain and the sight of her own blood oozing up from the wound fed her anger.

  The bastard will pay, and Erzulie Dantor will be the one to collect what is due.

  Lisette wasn’t sure if the thought belonged to her or to the old man. He regarded her with glistening dark eyes, his look telling her it didn’t matter. He was with her, and she with him. For now, there was no separation. He reached up and pushed back the straw fedora he wore. Only then did she notice the black-and-red band encircling its crown.

  Blood ran in a solid trickle down her forearm. A red pool began to form on the workbench’s surface, her lifeblood’s coppery scent now competing with the pungent, almost peppery smell of gasoline and sharp green perfume of cut grass that, regardless of season, permeated the building. Above them all floated the crisp chemical pine of a hanging car freshener one of Isadore’s workers had hung on the tinsel Christmas tree Isadore insisted on setting out every year. It stood this year, as every year, beside the entrance of the staff breakroom, about five yards from her current workbench. The tacky antique held no lights, just twenty or so sparse green branches adorned with the perennial dollar-store silk ball ornaments—red, green, and a champagne color that might have once been gold. The angel on top regarded the scene enacted before her in frozen horror.

  Lisette damned the angel for judging. She made the second gash.

  The old man chewed on his pipe and squinted, as if he were considering a puzzling question. He drew the pipe from his mouth, used his free hand to grasp the mug that contained the other half of the rum, and lifted it to his lips for a quick, though appreciative, sip. As the old man returned the mug to the table, Lisette considered the words printed on its side.

  Hell, yeah. She hated Mondays, too. And of late, every other damned day of the week.

  From the moment Lisette had spotted her father, Alcide Simeon, teetering along drunk down Chartres Street, determined to play Celestin Marin’s soul into hell with the unfamiliar silver trumpet in his hand, her world had grown more tumultuous with each passing day, the unthinkable manifesting itself with a disconcerting, disheartening regularity. Each week brought a new earthquake to shake and fracture her once firm foundation. Her bedrock had crumbled into shifting sand.

  And now her baby girl was dying.

  Severe preeclampsia. At this very moment, Lisette’s girl was in the emergency room at Touro. The good doctors there were doing their damnedest to save both Manon and her unborn child. Michael’s unborn child. CT scans, and ultrasounds, and cardio-s
omethings-or-other. Fancy tests could diagnose Manon’s condition, but no medical intervention could strike at the root cause: the baby’s father.

  It was up to Lisette to do that. She made the third and fourth cuts in quick succession, a feeling like an icy finger tracing down her spine even as her arm caught fire.

  Leaving Manon, slipping away from Isadore and Remy, had pretty near ripped her heart out, but until she could protect herself, she could do nothing for her daughter. Still, the sight of Isadore hunched over in the waiting room, his fists clenched, his skin ashen, would haunt her the rest of her life. She couldn’t even let herself consider what her baby girl must be going through.

  Ends and means, Devil and deep blue. She’d sort through rights and wrongs once she got the job done. Lisette drew the sharp edge along her forearm once more.

  The old man rocked back on his stool, nodding in approval at the growing tally. She’d cut her arm clean off if that’s what it took to keep Manon in this world. She would not let her daughter die.

  Lisette had died, briefly.

  Michael was the one who’d killed her.

  A bead of sweat formed on her forehead as the second thought trampled over the first.

  There had been no pearly gates opening wide, no bright light reaching out to embrace her. Instead she’d found herself in a strange world where fire burned cold and dark. Now, whenever she closed her eyes, she saw the exquisite, fearsome face of the fair witch who’d hovered above her, leading a versicle and response recantation of the spell for which Lisette’s mother had given her life—a spell to hold The Book of the Unwinding locked between realities.

  The witches had returned Lisette to life as a means to counter her mother’s magic, rendering her mother’s self-sacrifice meaningless. To them, Lisette was a pawn. A key to turn in a lock. Their counterspell required only that they resuscitate her. They’d shown indifference to, or perhaps had even taken delight in, sending her back damaged.

  The rising dark tide of greed and violence, lawlessness and disdain for common decency reported in the daily paper and on the evening news bore witness to the fact that the wicked had been successful in their efforts to return the foul book to this world. Where it all would end, she couldn’t hazard a guess, but tonight was about shoring up the levees that protected her and her own.