60

Paulus sits in protracted, menacing silence for far longer than is comfortable, just looking at you with his strange, dead eyes. Then he places the Stone of Shambala back in the crate and extracts something else. Removing its wrappings, he lays the object down on the table in front of you.

"Moving on," he says. "The amulet of Chantelle LaValle. I admit we know very little about this one. We were not there, after all. It seems you are just as adept at making enemies at home as abroad. But what we do know appeals to me, I confess. I have always had a taste for the baroque, the grotesque, the sinister, and this seems perfectly tailored to my interests. So tell me this tale, Dr. Spillane. This tale of voodoo, of devil worship, and of degenerate blues music."

You close your eyes, and the events of the past play again before you. A humid spring evening in New Orleans. The smell of woodsmoke on the sluggish breeze. The ubiquitous buzz of the cicadas drowned out by the angry cries of protesters in the sultry Louisiana night.

Once again, you remember.

Two Years Earlier