Jim Baen's Universe Vol 1 No 4 by Eric Flint

Author:Eric Flint [Flint, Eric]
Format: epub
Published: 2009-10-01T22:04:05+00:00

After five long minutes, the back of a weatherworn shack on flood stilts appeared out of the twilight. Cassie stopped several yards short of it. She removed her shades, then tucked them into a side pocket of the knapsack. A motorcycle was parked beside the towering oaks behind the shack—a Harley, Cassie judged.

Off to one side was a cistern to catch rainwater, and on the other side was an outhouse as weathered as the shack. As Cassie walked along the right side, she passed a tree stump holding an ax. She paused for a moment as unwanted slasher-film images popped into her mind; then, shaking her head, she circled around to the front of the shack. A porch with a dock extended to the swamp and the pirogue tied to it. A short flight of steps in front led to the porch.

"Hello?" Cassie called, her voice loud and uncertain in the silence. "Madame La Rue?"

A single cricket chirruped, then fell silent.

"Oui, girl," said the mambo'sfamiliar voice. "Over here."

Breathing a sigh of relief, Cassie glanced in the direction of the mambo's voice. An engine chugged to life, filling the air with a mechanical hum. On the right side of the porch, Gabrielle La Rue straightened up from the generator she'd started. A blue scarf matching the royal blue dress she wore, covered her curls.

"I be right wit' you," the mambo said. Giving the generator one last glance, she descended the steps to join Cassie. She looked Cassie over from head to toe, then shook her head. "Ain't you a sight in your red dress, girl? Mmm-mmm." She shook her head again. "Nothing subtle about you, Cassandra Danzinger. You might as well be wearing your Michelangelo's blood."

Heat rushed to Cassie's cheeks, and she was grateful for the deepening dusk. "No, I . . . that is. . . . " She lapsed into silence, wondering if Gabrielle was right. Had she chosen red to symbolize the thing she sought—to win her cause with the mambo's godson?

Gabrielle glanced past Cassie. "Introduce yourself, boy," she said.

Cassie whirled, the knapsack flying off her shoulder and thudding hard onto the grass-matted ground. In the lingering shadows cast by the cypress and oak trees, the mambo's godson stood no more than a handspan away from her.

"Evenin', mam'selle. I be Devlin Daniels," he said, his voice low, the rhythm of his words Cajun-spiced.

"Uh . . . evening," Cassie managed.

She quickly looked him over, her artist's eye noting details. He appeared to be in his early twenties, taller than Cassie's five-two by six or seven inches, his body lean, muscular, and broad-shouldered. Tangled black hair fell just past his shoulders and swept over the left side of his face, almost hiding the left eye. He was bare-chested and barefoot, his black jeans torn and weathered almost gray. A veve-etched ouanga bag on a leather thong hung around his neck, and through the blackness of his hair, she caught a flash of silver-and-red earrings. Two sets of scars—thick and white with age— crisscrossed his chest.

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