Gonzo’s waiting for some direction from me, but hell if I know what we’re looking for. Junior Webster’s sunglasses feel heavy in my hands.
“Cypress Grove,” Gonzo says. “Or the …”
“There’s one called Cypress Grove?”
“Yeah. Over there. The small one.”
“This way,” I say. We pass under the wrought-iron arch that spells out Cypress Grove and into the cemetery. A grass and gravel path leads us past limestone mausoleums, pretty little houses for the dead. Set into the ground are raised stone platforms with inscriptions that read OUR BELOVED BROTHER or OUR DARLING BABIES.
“What are we looking for?” Gonzo asks.
“An angel.”
We scan the mausoleums and headstones. In this row alone, I count twenty-seven angel statues.
“Could you be more specific?” Gonzo asks.
“He said I’d know it. Let’s keep looking.”
“Hey, check this out!” Gonzo yells, climbing up onto the platform of a coffee-colored mausoleum. “It’s like a f**king castle. Oh shit. Can you say ‘fuck’ in a graveyard or will that jinx you with the undead?”
I suck in my breath. “Well, it’s too late now.”
Gonzo’s eyes get huge and I can tell he’s heading for a full-on feardown. “Seriously. You don’t think there’s some voodoo action on this place, like hands sticking up through graves and stuff? Dude. For real?”
“Gonzo, no hand is going to break up through a stone mausoleum, okay? Chill out.”
“Yeah, okay,” he says, letting out a deep breath. “This could be zombie heaven, man. Dude, I wish we were making a horror film. That would be mad awesome!”
Gonz snaps a few pics with his cell phone. Weird shit like his hand resting clawlike against a headstone so that it looks like he’s rising from the dead, horror-movie-poster style. These are accompanied by “aargghs” and “aaaahhhs” and various zombie-esque grunts made deep in his throat.
“Funny. Can you stop playing Dawn of the Living Ass-Hat long enough to help me find Junior’s message?”
A few feet away, three blond girls jabber on in German as they snap photos of the decaying headstones. One of the girls asks me in halting English if I’ll take a picture of them together.
“No-a speak English,” I say, turning away.
“Here, I’ll do it,” Gonzo says.
I start to remind him we’re here for a purpose, but he’s already got their camera and is using a mix of Spanish, English, and hand gestures to direct them while they bump into one another in confusion and laugh.
“Copenhagen Interpretation?” one girl says. She plays a snippet of song from her phone, and Gonzo nods, smiling, and they all nod, smiling.
I wander off down the narrow lanes till I’m alone. The air is heavy with the rain that won’t come. It presses down on me, making my legs heavy and my chest tight. I find a place to sit on the stone steps of a gravestone hidden by a weeping willow. The moss hangs so low it tickles my cheek and nose. It smells like sorrow.
“Hey, cowboy.”
At the sound of Dulcie’s voice, I whip around, left and right, searching.
“Up here,” she calls.
“Ah. Very cute.” She’s posed on the top of a white, churchlike mausoleum, her wings folded, her chin resting on her hands like the Thinker Angel. She could blend right in, except for the boots and the bright pink hair.
She hops to the ground with an impressive thud, her boots sending puffs of ancient Southern dust onto my jeans, and settles onto the new grave of a soldier. “So what do you think of the Big Easy?”
“I don’t know,” I say, sitting next to her. “It’s kind of depressing.”
Dulcie puts a hand on my shoulder. “Cam, you’re in a graveyard.”
“Funny.”
Dulcie nods at the sunglasses in my hands. “What are those?”
“Sunglasses.”
“Going for the literal. Okay. I’m game. Where’d you get them?”
She could be putting me on. For all I know, she’s been watching the whole time and has seen everything. “This guy named Junior Webster,” I say, waiting for a reaction. But her expression doesn’t change and I figure she really doesn’t know anything, which means she’s the lamest angel ever. I go ahead and tell her about our night, the Wizard of Reckoning and his Fire Giants—the dark energy—showing up to our little party, Junior’s death. The only thing I don’t tell her is how scared I am. In the distance, I can hear a smattering of German and laughing. I can make out Gonzo playing director. He’s telling one of the German girls to act like a zombie.
