Doctor Who_ The City of the Dead - Lloyd Rose [15]
He walked over to the considerably more modest neighbourhood of Death's Door on pavements broken and up thrust by the roots of oaks. The narrow one-storey 'shotgun' houses he passed made up for their lack of width by extending back into surprisingly deep gardens. These were full of leafy growth, some of it speckled with flowers he didn't recognise. The night smelled green.
Death's Door was in a big wooden house with a tall porch, like all the houses the Doctor had seen in this area, it was built high with plenty of room underneath for floodwater. The walls were scarlet, the shutters and porch trim black. The Doctor mounted the concrete steps carefully, partly because they were badly cracked and partly because he wasn't too sure he really wanted to go to this particular party. He sensed it might be depressing.
Sounds of conversation and music drifted out of the open door. When the Doctor entered, his eyes were immediately drawn up towards the black two-storey ceiling from which depended a glass chandelier swathed in fake spider web. Next to this, hunched at the very top of a staircase that ran steeply to the second storey, sat a skinny man in his twenties with ragged hair.
'I've come to the party' said the Doctor.
The man stared but didn't reply. After waiting a second or two, the Doctor turned towards the room to his right and almost bumped into a girl with short black hair wearing a pair of chartreuse alligator-skin shoes.
'That's Teddy himself,' she whispered. 'He never comes downstairs. Do you know his work?'
'I'm here to learn,' the Doctor said, and the girl obligingly took his arm and led him away.
Anji and Fitz stood on the pavement outside the French Quarter bar, where the ghost tour was to start. Anji eyed the lurid sign. '"The Zombie Bar",' she read. '"Drink Like You're Dead". That doesn't even make sense.'
'You're right,' Fitz agreed. 'It should be "Drink Till You're Dead".'
'Ha, ha.' Anji cast a sceptical eye on their fellow ghost tourists.
A young couple in matching black, three college-age girls in jeans, a pasty-faced man in glasses clutching a copy of Crescent City Ghosts.
'Greetings,' intoned a deep, whispery voice. Everyone turned. A nondescript door to an alley at the side of the bar had opened and a man stood poised in it like an actor making an entrance. Anji recognised the beard and bald head. 'I am Jack Dupre,' the man announced sonorously.
'Jack as in the Ripper. Dupre as in Do Pray. Not that it will do you any good.'
He smiled, showing very white teeth. Only Americans ever had teeth like that, Anji thought. Americans and actors. Maybe Dupre was both. He swept past the group, flourishing his long black cloak, then whirled to face them. 'I trust you are all prepared*.'
Nope, Anji decided. Not an actor. Just a ham.
'We've all paid our admission,' said Fitz, 'if that's what you mean.'
The rest of the group shot him disapproving glances. Dupre smiled plummily. 'Ah,' he sighed. 'If only that were all you might have to pay. This tour -' he drew himself up to full height, which was in fact rather tall - 'is not like the others. Those half-baked mishmashes of local history and legend.
Those foolish guides who fancy themselves witches -'
'Put a sock in it, Jack!' yelled a woman across the street with a small group of her own in tow. She had Morticia Addams hair and wore a black dress showing plenty of cleavage.
'Let's join that tour,' Fitz whispered to Anji. She ignored him.
'- or warlocks or sensitives,' Dupre continued unperturbed. 'This is a journey into the darkness.'
'I don't see how it can't be,' Fitz said, 'seeing as it's night.'
Dupre glared. Anji realised she had done his eyes an injustice. They really were