Chapter Text
The warehouse floor groaned under Alderman Herpin’s ruined leg. He dragged himself down the hall, sobbing, toward the shadows. Alastor followed behind at a leisurely pace, hands in his pockets.
"Do keep up the pace, Alderman!" Alastor called out. "You're losing the momentum of the scene!"
A sob came from Herpin as he tried to hide behind a stack of pallets, and Alastor paused, tilting his head to catch the sound of the man's heart. "It's a tragedy, my good fellow," Alastor remarked, "A gentleman of your respected connections reduced to scurrying in the dark. No secretaries to answer your calls. No guards to open the door. Just you and the evening wind…and me."
Sweat coated Herpin’s face as he ran for a door at the end of the building, lunging for the handle and swinging the door open. Herpin tumbled onto the pavement, gasping for air.
Instead, Alastor already stood waiting in the center of the street.
"Going somewhere?" Alastor asked, a wide smile beaming across his face.
Herpin swung. Alastor stepped aside and caught the man by the throat. The shadows in the alley stirred, winding around Herpin's limbs like living ink. "You were a marvelous distraction," Alastor murmured, “But you've overstayed your welcome here."
His darkness wound tightly around the man's limbs, and Alastor felt the internal snap of realization within his victim. He squeezed his fingers. The Alderman went limp in Alastor’s grip, and he let the body fall onto the street with a quiet thud. For a moment, nothing happened.
Death had once been such a tidy thing. A breath stopped, a soul slipped loose, and gravity did the rest. Downward into Hell where the Sinners belonged. Alastor looked up, and Herpin's soul was caught in the shimmering lattice in the sky.
"Come now," Alastor said as he lifted his cane, "you were overdue."
His shadow lurched upward, tearing into the Sieve. It hooked into Herpin’s soul and dragged him through the lattice, down to Hell where he belonged.
Stepping over the recently departed man, he slipped back into a washroom near the rear of the warehouse. Alastor dabbed a speck of blood from his cheek, straightened his collar in the mirror, and walked out.
The New Orleans humidity settled heavily around his shoulders as Alastor walked to his car and eased into the driver’s seat, driving toward Royal Street with the windows down. The damp fall air swept through the Cadillac, and Alastor breathed in deeply. Hell had its charms, especially for him, but he would always far prefer the scent of the living. On the radio, an announcer droned on about the Guadalcanal campaign and the necessity of rationing. Alastor ignored him and tuned the dial to a jazz station.
He turned the dial again, searching for his old station. The only sound was the hiss of dead air. Pity. He parked the Cadillac in front of his house, went inside, and poured himself a scotch. In the study, a map of New Orleans was pinned to the table, and he studied the marked streets.
The room’s silence was interrupted by a violent pop of displaced air. His smile fixed in place, Alastor turned slowly toward the source of his irritation.
Lucifer stood near the fireplace, dragging the odor of burnt feathers into the room, looking exhausted. Alastor set his glass down, "You know, they sell some lovely cologne down on Canal Street. I would be happy to buy you a bottle. The charred poultry aroma is a bit unbecoming."
"It is the odor of an impending disaster, Alastor. Learn to tolerate it. That Sieve they are running upstairs is making a mess of everything. Have you found the anomaly yet?"
"I haven't spotted our elusive little prize just yet, Your Majesty. I did, however, help a nasty little man along his way this evening. The fellow was nearly a year overdue for his brimstone accommodations."
Lucifer exhaled, "Stick to the arrangement, Alastor. Do not take anyone not meant for us. I do not want Heaven knowing what we are doing."
Alastor took a long sip of the scotch, letting his smile stretch wider. "I kept to a strict code while I was breathing, my standards are hardly going to change their course now. I must confess, though…this extraction business is quite pleasurable."
"Don't get too comfortable up here," Lucifer warned, lifting his eyes to meet Alastor's. "There's an extermination scheduled soon. You'll need to come down and help Charlie with the hotel. In the meantime, find the anomaly, bag it, and get the damned souls to Hell where they belong."
Alastor swirled the amber liquid in his glass, grinning, watching Lucifer leave. A scavenger hunt with no map was proving wonderfully entertaining. Nearly as entertaining as dragging overdue souls down to Hell by hand.
Setting the glass on a coaster, he strolled over to his desk, pulled a sheet of note paper from the drawer, and uncapped a pen.
Rosie, darling,
A new game is afoot in the Quarter! Our feathered upstairs neighbors are sniffing around the parishes for a misplaced trinket, and the King has me playing hunter without a photograph. Keep those lovely ears to the ground for me, won't you? Tell me if the local pond ripples.
Yours,
Alastor
He folded the paper with a quick jerk of his wrists and sealed it with a drop of wax. Alastor pushed the letter aside and reached for a small, velvet-wrapped box resting at the corner of his desk. He unwound the black fabric around a deck of tarot cards, their edges soft from decades of handling. The thick cardstock made a dry, rhythmic snap-snap-snap as he bridged them together. He loved the physical satisfaction of the shuffle, the way fate yielded to his hands. If Lucifer couldn't provide a photograph of this evasive little thing, the cards would sketch its outline. He cut the deck and flicked three cards face-up onto the wood in quick succession.
The Star. Eight of Swords. The Devil.
Heaven hadn’t lost some misplaced artifact; they had lost a woman. He studied the Eight of Swords one last time before sliding the deck back into its velvet box. The cards had given him a location and a condition: she was trapped. Somewhere in the Quarter, a heavenly spark was choking on the misery of the streets. Alastor poured himself another finger of scotch and smiled. He did love it when the prey was desperate.