Page 25 of Langiappe & Lost Legends

Kota pulled out her phone, her free hand still soothing Scout because he stuck his big head above his sister’s. "I'll call Phoebe and have her get over here. After what we found last night, and now this, we need her hel..."

But before she could dial, the river spirit in front raised her hand and a ripple of energy blasted us. "Time grows short. The corruption spreads. What was stolen must be returned beforethe damage cannot be undone." Her form flickered like sunlight through moving water. "The barriers between then and now wear thin. If they succeed in accessing the past..."

"How long do we have?" Dani cut her off. Her magic was visibly sparking around her fingers despite her attempt to stay calm. She was a few minutes from shifting into her dragon. If only our beasts could slay this enemy.

The spirit's form flickered like sunlight on water. Parts of her became temporarily transparent. "Until the river forgets its course completely. Days, perhaps. No more. Already, the waters of yesterday mix with today. Soon, time will lose its way."

"Not enough time to wait for backup," Lia said as she turned and headed inside. Her lucky charm bracelet jingled with a sound that seemed to echo strangely as if coming from multiple moments at once. "We need to move now."

Twenty minutes later, we were in Lia's SUV, racing toward the industrial canal. I'd packed every healing herb and potion I could carry, along with the spelled bandages and crystals I used to amplify healing energy. Phi brought the family journal and what notes we'd managed to take about the artifacts. She’d spread them across her lap as she searched for anything useful. Dea slumped against the seat with her phone clutched in her death grip as she fired off another text to Phoebe. The AC in the car was doing jack squat against the New Orleans summer heat that turned even breathing into a workout.

"Need a favor. Check plantation + river situation. Buy time. Please?" She added the please because manners still counted when asking your very pregnant friend to wade into supernatural BS.

The plan had been coffee and gossip this morning, maybe some beignets if Phoebe's demon spawn wasn't performing backflips in protest. But now? Total wash. Between the babies using her bladder as a trampoline and whatever magicalclusterfuck was brewing back in Maine, Phoebe couldn't exactly set up camp in the bayou. She was needed at home.

"Take the next right," Dea blurted. "The energy signature is getting stronger. I can feel the time distortions now. Some moments feel stretched, others compressed. It's making me dizzy."

"I'm getting it, too," Dani said. She was doing her best not to vibrate out of her skin next to Dea. "The crystal's gone from Zen master to rabid raccoon on bath salts. Someone's forcing it way off its normal frequency."

The Warehouse District rose up ahead of us like some hipster's wet dream gone wrong. These weren't the pretty parts with the converted art galleries and overpriced coffee shops. No, we were headed for the grimier edges where gentrification hadn't bothered to plant its flag. Past the National WWII Museum and the Contemporary Arts Center. I was glad to continue past the fancy condos and gastropubs that had taken over the old cotton warehouses on Julia Street. There were too many innocents around there. We were aiming for the sketchy-as-hell section near Tchoupitoulas Street, where some buildings still wore their Katrina scars like badges of honor. The morning sun was playing peek-a-boo between the old industrial buildings, and the shadows were dancing to their own beat.

"That one," Dea announced. She pointed at a crusty-looking warehouse that was probably old enough to have stored goods for the Confederate army. "The spirits are practically screaming about it."

"Holy shit!" I yelped when Dea's nose decided to audition for a Tarantino film. This had never happened before when she used her spirit powers. The crystal's temporal fuckery was written all over the impression of Niagara Falls her nose was doing. I’d never seen her bleed so much.

I practically assaulted her face with my healing powers. Normally my abilities worked faster than a caffeine junkie mainlining espresso. This time it seemed to take forever. It felt like trying to patch a tire while someone was still stabbing it. "Whatever time-warping shenanigans the Lost Legends are pulling with that crystal is treating your brain like a squeeze toy. I'm fresh out of supernatural Band-Aids, so we need to be careful with our magic."

Lia parked our mom-mobile behind some shipping containers like we were in some budget spy movie. The second I stepped out, everything felt wrong. Someone had taken reality, put it in a blender, and hit puree. My magic was going haywire and my healing abilities automatically tried to fix time like the overachiever it was. Everything felt like a cheap dollar store sweater that was one wash away from falling apart.

"Alright, sestras," I said, pulling us into a huddle that would make any football coach proud. I was sure to keep one eye on Dea's still-seeping nose. The river nymphs hadn’t been wrong about the danger the Lost Legends posed to everyone’s survival. And that scared the ever-loving crap out of me. "Remember last night's family history lesson. Our ancestors weren't dumb enough to try this solo, and neither are we." I started passing out little bags of my ‘please don't let time eat us’ herb mix. I’d put it together while I couldn’t sleep. I had added extra oak bark because we needed all the grounding we could get. "This won't stop you from going all Doctor Who, but it should keep your atoms from deciding to take a vacation to last Tuesday."

"Smith determination," Lia chirped. She tried to sound cheerful while her hands shook like she'd mainlined her energy drinks. Her charm bracelet was spinning like a possessed compass. I noticed a thin line of blood starting to form under her nose, too. Fantastic.

"Yearsley intuition," Phi finished. I noticed her wipe discreetly at her nose and silently passed her a tissue. The crystal's effects were spreading faster than mono at a middle school dance party.

We crept toward the warehouse like the world's most obvious ninjas. All of us periodically dabbed at our noses like we'd joined some sort of synchronized bleeding club. The place was trying real hard to look abandoned. It won the gold medal for the number of busted windows and the amount of rust it sported. At least there were enough danger signs to wallpaper a room.

My eyebrows furrowed when I noted the signs that someone had been playing house. There were fresh tire tracks in the gravel and a shiny new padlock. And oh yeah, the air was doing the fucking macarena around the building.

"Check out the hardware store special," Lia said, eyeing the lock while her lucky bracelet went full windmill. She didn't seem to notice when blood dripped onto her shirt. "I can pop that open in?—"

The lock apparently took that as a personal challenge and clicked itself open. The door swung wide as if it was saying, "Come on in, suckers!" The hinges screamed like they were auditioning for a horror movie. The sound echoed like someone had pressed the replay button a few dozen times. Each one made my head throb, and I saw double for a hot second. Past and present overlapped like a badly edited photo.

"This is definitely a trap," Kota announced as she reached for her dagger. She swayed slightly, and I grabbed her arm. The temporal distortions were hitting her now.

"No shit, Sherlock," Dani agreed. She was so agitated her magic was sparking. Though, it flickered like bad wifi every few seconds. Blood trickled from both her nostrils now. Her eyes were getting that glazed look of someone trying to watch six TV channels at once.

"We're still going in because we're idiots," Phi sighed and opened her crossbody bag to get a potion. Her hands left bloody prints on the leather. Perfect.

"Damn straight," I said as I retrieved my dagger. "Stay close. And if anyone starts feeling like they're starring in Groundhog Day - you know if you get dizzy or a case of déjà vu or start seeing multiple yous - speak up. I mean it. No playing hero. And for fuck's sake, use the tissues. You all look like extras in a zombie movie. Better yet..." I trailed off as I started healing each sister’s problem.

We were about to walk into what felt like a temporal blender, and I had six nosebleeds to manage. There wasn’t much I could do about mine, but I could stop theirs. Inside, the warehouse was larger than it appeared. Holy shit on a shingle. The center of the warehouse looked like someone had let a meth-head decorate a mad scientist's lab. Modern equipment shared space with steampunk wannabe devices that hummed like a drunk bumblebee. The computers were running calculations that made my eyeballs want to crawl out of my head and retire to Florida.

And there they were. No, weren't. Yes - fuck. The artifacts kept flickering in and out like the world's most annoying magic show. The stolen crystal pulsed with sickly green energy one second and vanished the next, while the Larmes du Bayou played the same game of temporal peek-a-boo. My healing powers were going haywire trying to fix reality itself. That felt about as great as getting hit by the streetcar.

"Phi, don't!" I shouted as my sister's face went chalk white. She was trying to freeze the moments when the artifacts appeared. She was stretching time like taffy. And it made blood pour from her nose in glowing rivulets. "You're going to kill yourself!"

"Almost... got it..." Phi gasped. Her eyes were focused as she fought against the fluctuations. The artifacts stuttered like theywere caught between moments like bugs in amber. "Grab them... can't hold it..."

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