While the tourists muttered their excited fear, Travis couldn’t help but snort at this dramatic warning. Sure, people disappeared in the French Quarter on a fairly regular basis, but there was generally a logical reason. The Deacons had been responsible for a number of such disappearances, the Ministry many others, but the tourists didn’t want to know about the real underworld of New Orleans. Billie met his gaze as he smirked, and he knew he’d been caught. He lifted a hand and gave her a little wave. Her eyes widened, then narrowed as if she’d swallowed something sour, before she hit him with a deadly glare.
“And remember, this tour is for paying guests only. If you haven’t already shown me your ticket, please do so now or head inside and buy one.” She nodded toward the tacky tourist bar they were gathered in front of.
A couple of people broke away from the group, but Billie ignored them, raising her eyebrows at Travis instead. He’d never imagined going on one of these tours in his life, never mind paying for it, but he guessed Billie thought he’d either leave or refuse to pay. He wouldn’t put it past her to call security. Fortunately for him, he wasn’t scared of security, but he couldn’t shake the desire to irritate the hell out of her and ruffle all her pretty little feathers.
With a smile in her direction, he turned and headed into the pub behind them, pushing through the crowd of low-rent drunks to get to the bar. He handed over good money for a ticket and then went back onto the street. Billie’s group was already halfway down the block, but he strode to catch up. She was talking about a restaurant that had a resident French ghost when she looked up and saw him. She stumbled over her words, losing her train of thought, as he flashed the ticket for her perusal.
“Welcome,” she finally said. “Glad you could join us.” But she didn’t sound happy at all. She glanced at the building behind them and then back to the group. “Now, where was I?”
“You were saying the ghost was a winemaker and had impeccable standards in his restaurant?” he told her.
“Oh, yes, right.” Billie didn’t thank him or smile. “Although it is believed there are a number of spirits in this particular restaurant, its French founder is said to be the most active and has never quite relinquished control. He wasn’t a nobleman, but he had a taste for fine things and good service, and still ensures this is what patrons of his restaurant experience today. Many of the staff here tell stories about him moving the silverware, napkins, tables—anything if it is not to his liking.”
He bit his tongue as the gullible people around him exclaimed over these things, getting more and more excited as Billie took them to some of the famous buildings of the French Quarter. They paused again on Royal Street.
“Right behind us now is arguably the most haunted house in New Orleans, known as the LaLaurie Mansion.” She gestured at the three-story house behind her as a number of the group lifted their smartphones and started snapping.
Aside from the delicate ironwork on the second-story balconies, the house was nothing special on the outside, but rumor said it once held a lavish interior, the place of many extravagant social gatherings. It reminded Travis a little of the Delecroix mansion, which was supposedly one of the properties they’d inherited from Priest.
“It was owned by Dr. Louis LaLaurie and his wife Delphine, and it is well documented that Delphine was a brutally cruel women who tortured her slaves on these very premises.”
Travis listened as Billie went on to tell a story he’d heard a number of variations of over the years. You didn’t grow up in the French Quarter without learning about its checkered past. He’d never had much interest in the paranormal, which was pretty much the “normal” in New Orleans, but Billie’s words enchanted him. Her voice was soft and lyrical, and if he weren’t such a cynic maybe he would have bought into the fantasy, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the first woman who’d told him these stories. His own mother had been so fascinated by all things ghosts and voodoo that she hadn’t even realized that tales of vampires, zombies and ghosts didn’t make good bedtime stories for a young child.
Then again, that wasn’t the only thing she’d screwed up when it came to motherhood.
Travis’s head started to throb. What the hell he was doing strolling through the streets of the French Quarter with a bunch of tourists listening to this crap? As if he didn’t have anything better to do.
“And behind us is one of the many haunted hotels in the area,” Billie told the crowd when they stopped in front of another building. “This hotel was once a morgue, and you can imagine the number of spirits who might haunt it. There’ve been rumors of children who died in the building during the city’s outbreak of yellow fever in 1905 running up and down the stairs at night. People actually come to this hotel because they want a paranormal experience. I particularly like the story of young honeymooners who stayed about fifteen years ago. They left disappointed after a week and requested their money back as they had not seen, felt or heard any ghosts. Two weeks later they developed the film in their camera and found a photo of the two of them sleeping taken from above. Convinced their mystery photographer was a ghost, they repaid their fee and now visit every year on their anniversary.”
While the crowd around him sighed, Travis scoffed. People could be so damn gullible. “One of the hotel staff probably snuck into their room and took a photo,” he said, loud enough so that everyone turned to look at him. “In fact, there’s a reasonable explanation for most of your stories.”
“I see we have a nonbeliever in our midst.” Billie tried to sound mocking, but the quiver in her voice gave away her annoyance.
“Not a nonbeliever, just a man who’s seen enough to sort the trash from the truth, and what you’re dishing out, sweetheart, is trash.”
Billie crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “The hotel doors have locks, and the couple would have had to be pretty heavy sleepers not to wake up for an intruder, who then somehow hovered above them and snapped a photo.”
Travis shrugged one shoulder lazily. “What hotel doesn’t have a master key?”
“Fine,” Billie snapped. “Even if a member of the staff did sneak in, how do you account for them taking a photo from above the bed?”
Maybe she had a point there, but he wasn’t one to admit defeat. “They probably have peepholes or a special camera stand.”
Billie rolled her eyes. “There’s always one.” She lifted her chin high and smiled at the crowd, but it wasn’t the full smile she gave the people that came into the gallery and she certainly didn’t aim it at him. “I hope you’ve enjoyed the tour so far. We have just one more stop, and I think this story is going to really intrigue you.”
“If that asshole doesn’t ruin it for us,” muttered a weedy-looking guy only a few feet away from Billie.
Knowing the guy was referring to him, Travis’s jaw tightened and he was about to retort when something made him bite his tongue. He was being an ass simply for the sake of being an ass. But that’s what being back in New Orleans did to him.
It unbalanced him. Made him act like someone even he didn’t like.
Billie led the still eager crowd onto the last stop of the night—a pub rumored to have been the haunt of a number of famous locals. As she spoke about Andrew Jackson and even voodoo queen Marie Laveau, Travis slipped away from the group and headed toward the Hotel Monteleone.