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We should pay a visit to Maman Danflous.

The French Quarter is the heart of touristic New Orleans. Cultured travelers like to stroll its handsome, colorful streets, admiring the stately colonial townhouses and churches and inspecting the relics of French rule over the city. Less salubrious types flock here because of Bourbon Street's burgeoning reputation as a hub of vice, with its dive bars, brothels, gambling dens, burlesque shows, bare-knuckle boxing arenas, and endless blaring Devil music.

The city's Voodoo heritage draws in tourists of both types. Little shrines dedicated to Damballa, Baron Samedi, and other powerful loa line the streets, decorated with rosaries, feathers, and Catholic and African iconography. A great many little shops, nestling between the dens of vice, sell cheap Voodoo knickknacks at inflated prices to the morbid and the curious: souvenirs to show the folks back home, conversation pieces made edgy by their aura of hellfire and black magic.

Maman's Gris-Gris Emporium is one such store, tucked away on a discreet backstreet leading off Bourbon Street but close enough to the action to get a good volume of foot traffic. Lurid Voodoo objects are on display in the windows: dolls and skulls wearing top hats and little bags and bottles filled with miscellaneous magical ingredients.

There are no customers at Maman's today. The door is firmly locked.

Cleo tries the door handle several times. "That's odd. This is prime business hours. Maman should be open. If she was sick or out of town, there'd be a sign in the door." She frowns, concentrating. "Something's wrong. We have to get inside."