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By Root 590 0

Doctor slowly straightened. He had come out of the trees and the rainy gloom into an equally rainy night. Thunder was echoing. The keening wind smelled of salt and ozone. In the darkness, pale rectangular shapes glimmered, like architectural ghosts. Then lightning sparked and crackled and, away at the end of the long alley of tombs, he saw the TARDIS, waiting for him.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Only a Motion Onion

Anji persevered in her resolution not to worry about the Doctor for a day and a half. After going with Fitz to file the missing-persons report (and avoiding looking up Rust), she visited the mansion that had intrigued her on Dupre's ghost tour. She took a tour of the courtyards in the French Quarter.

In the evening, she went bar-and band-hopping with Fitz. The following morning, she spent a couple of hours in the Louisiana State Museum, particularly admiring the Newcomb pottery made around the turn of the twentieth century by young ladies needful of a genteel skill by which they could earn a living.

Times change, Anji thought. She knew it was a cliché, but New Orleans was the sort of place that continually brought that particular cliché to life.

You only had to look at the slave quarters facing so many of the gracious courtyards.

Ever since she and Fitz had left an urgent note for the Doctor, on the evening they visited Thales, she had not been by Owl. No sense alarming Laura by seeming too concerned. The Doctor would phone when he got the note. Which meant, she thought as she left the museum, he hadn't got the note yet. Which meant nothing. He was probably off doing whatever it was he did when he was off doing something that you didn't know what it was.

There was really no sense in stopping in at Owl. What was to be learned?

Even if the Doctor had, for reasons of his own, not phoned as soon as he returned, Laura would have. If there was any news, it would be at the hotel.

There was no news at the hotel, so Anji walked down the street to Owl, where Laura told her about Teddy Acree's death.

'Could be a coincidence,' Fitz said when she tracked him down later in a bar that featured afternoon blues music. He didn't sound very confident.

'Pigs may fly,' Anji responded tartly before she remembered Nicola TV, where the pigs, or something that looked very like pigs, did fly. An unhygienic situation in her opinion.

'Are they sure it isn't murder?'

'Seem to be.'

'I suppose we could talk to Rust.'

'No,' she said, a bit too quickly. 'We've bothered him enough.'

Fitz looked as if he were about to say something but didn't. 'Have a drink.'

She had two margaritas in quick succession. Fitz watched her a bit warily but still didn't say anything. After the second drink she sat slumped with her elbows on the bar, staring into the glass.

'Why do they put salt on the rim?'

'No idea.'

'This isn't helping,' she said. 'I have to do something.'

So they went to Dupre's.

This was Fitz's idea. Anji didn't think it was a very good one. True, she was temporarily in too fuzzy a state to come up with an alternative plan, but that didn't make this one any better.

'He got eaten,' she reminded Fitz as they approached Dupre's looming house.

'According to Acree. Who was, frankly, barking. The Doctor didn't mention any devouring, did he?'

"The Doctor is reticent to the point of duplicity.'

Fitz couldn't come up with an argument to that. He peered through the glass and tried the doorknob. Anji snorted.

'Why not just ring the bell?'

'What, and be obvious?' Fitz took a peculiar-looking tool from his pocket.

'What's that?'

'Finally got a proper lockpick, didn't I?'

'Where'd it come from?'

'Oh, around,' he said evasively. "The important thing is that it does& this.'

He pointed the implement at the lock. Nothing appeared to happen, but when he turned the knob again the door opened.

'Does the Doctor know you've got that?'

'Of course,' Fitz replied unconvincingly as they slipped inside.

He examined the decor dubiously. 'Bit gaudy.'

'Perfectly in character.'