Miranda took in a deep breath of fresh air when they stepped out of the airport, and into New Orleans. Traveling with a girl who had a bone spear for an arm was brutally exhausting. Several airline employees had to secure her arm to various objects and three FBI agents were seated close to her at all times.

They were only barely allowed through, and all the while there were whispers about prophesies and chosen people just outside of her field of hearing. She had no idea what that all meant, but it was getting her through the airport.

Skylar, for her part, held her patience. She didn't complain about the frightened stares of mothers, the over jumpy flight attendants, or the impossible to convince marshals.

"I'm hungry." Skylar moaned. Miranda was too, the meals on the flight were pitiful.

"Let's find a place to eat." Miranda wished she had her old tablet that could tell her where the best deals were.

Soon enough they found a cheap place selling hamburgers with a big golden 'm' sign standing in the front. The food was awful, but they ate it and continued to what the locals referred to as the French Quarter.

This area was very rustic compared to other spots of the city. Where concrete and metal buildings dominated most landscapes she had seen on earth, this small section was built mostly out of wood. It had a certain refinement of people sticking to the best of the old ways.

Every other building had a wrap around balcony, street vendors greeted them on every turn with a smile, a fragrance of better food than her "hamburger" filled the air.

"Miranda, can we stop?" Skylar asked after about ten minutes of exploring. "Sit on that bench over there? I need to rest my legs."

Miranda nodded and they walked to the bench. It was inside a small park of sorts, there were two gold statues, trees, flowers and carefully trimmed hedges. To the east, a river ran through the city. Directly to the west, just on the other side of an open cast iron gate, was a large castle looking structure. Miranda guessed it was a church of some kind. The sort of atmosphere that would undoubtedly attract the phantom queen's crowd.

"We need to find a place to sleep," Skylar moaned as she swung her heavy bone spear arm onto the bench.

Miranda turned towards the church. "You wait here, I'm going to have a look around."

"But-"

Miranda didn't stop to hear the rebuttal. She crossed the gates and stepped up to the cathedral. Colorful stain glass windows accented the heavy wood door, the stone engravings, and the door greeters.

She pulled out the Dominion rod and activated it. It honed in on five soul jumpers. She swung it casually, creating locks on them, preventing any soul jumps. She put that back in her satchel, and pulled out the Ancestral Branch.

With caution, she stepped into the church. At first, the contrast of the setting sun against the entry way of the cathedral made it had to see. She thought someone was playing a trick on her eyes.

Once the door shut behind her, the field of view became clear. She was standing inside the spaceship Naprea. She checked with her Archive stone, no new memories had come to her through the door knobs. This was no trance.

After contemplating heading back out the door, she instead went deeper in, ready to shoot a memory at anyone she came across.

She came across no one. The ship was empty. And not only empty, but apparently unharmed by sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The thought came to her then, that this could be a similar ship instead of the same one. But still, what was it doing inside a large church in the middle of New Orleans?

After turning a corner, she stumbled and almost tripped on something. She straitened herself, and looked for the source of her clumsiness. There was none that she could see. She reached out her hand and felt the outlines of a bench. Invisible.

She moved slowly to her right, and reached out to touch the wall. Not solid. Her hand went right through it. After sticking her head through the wall, she discovered another section of the ship. A large room filled with tests tubes the size of humans. Green liquid filled them, and a few had a floating man or woman in them. Her hand went through everything. Something rattled in the distance. The sound of a tetrapath.

Miranda ran back for the entrance. Her foot tumbled on another invisible bench on her way. After turning the corner and running through the door, she had to take a moment to process her surroundings.

It was properly night now. And while the square hadn't been deserted when she entered, the place was now packed with people. Loud music was blaring everywhere. Some people were dressed head to toe in peacock like gowns, while others wore little at all. A few were dressed normally, and those people were looking around in disbelief.

A big sign hung above the iron gates: Welcome to Mardis Gras. The gates were closed. Miranda scanned around the crowds, looking for signs of Skylar. She was not visible.

Slowly, Miranda moved about the crowd. Some of them were intangible. Like ghosts, while others were solid. The pattern was the people dressed normally were solid. The party going dance crowd was not. But she was still leery, as a scribe may be hidden anywhere.

The closed gates proved to be an illusion as well. She walked through them with ease and headed for the bench. Skylar was watching the crowd intently. Her eyes followed the brightest dancers as they moved around the park.

A gun shot rang out, and everybody ran towards the gate, both hallucination dancers and real people, unable to distinguish the difference.

One real scribe was running with a knife drawn. Miranda grabbed the knife and pushed her to the ground, saving a man in a three piece suit.

"We have to go." Miranda held out her hand to Skylar.

"They just appeared out of thin air," Skylar swung her spear at a phantom dancer. "One second the sun was up and things were peaceful, the next it was midnight and people were dancing and showing off their-"

"Yes, that's great." Miranda shook her head. "But we've got to go before anymore trouble hits."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Trouble like that?" Skylar pointed to the closest statute, where man in a black hood materialized under the golden horse.

"Yes." Miranda pulled Skylar up from the bench, but not out of the mesmerized state she was in. "That's the kind of trouble we need to get away from."

The figure rubbed his hands together in an over the top display. Mists of dark purple formed between them as they separated and out came three ghostly looking creatures. Spots like a leopard, thin legs, big teeth, and bright red eyes. Their fur was black with gay undertones.

Miranda tugged on Skylar's arm and the three creatures charged at once. This brought Skylar back to the situation and they ran back towards the church. Skylar hesitated close to the gates, but Miranda pulled her through.

The creatures hit the bars and fell back. Miranda sighed with relief, but kept running. Skylar was right behind her, but had a hard time keeping up, due to the need to drag her heavy bone spear arm.

The creatures howled, and turned back into dark clouds. Miranda turned the corner and this part of the street was relatively quiet. She dodged around a couple making out, and almost ran into a sign: Quiet. Prayer center.

One of the jackal like creatures rounded the corner and ran down the alley way. Miranda shot it with the ancestral branch, but the orb of memory energy went right through it.

They reached the back of the church, and Miranda pulled them through the back entrance. Inside, it was the peaceful spaceship she had left. Skylar was panting heavily, her arm sagging with the weight.

They ran through the walls, which weren't really there, and stumbled on church pews, which were there, but invisible. Someone was shouting to their left. Miranda shot a barrage of memory trances out of her branch, praying for a hit.

After about five salvoes, the mirage of the ship was gone, and all that was left was the church. They were running down one of the aisles, towards the front of the church. Skylar tripped and Miranda turned back to get her.

When she got Skylar back up again, the front doors opened and the conjuror in the hooded cloak came in through the entrance. He floated, more than walked, and even in the light of the church his face was completely blacked out in shadow.

Miranda hit him with a heavy salvo from the branch. The memory orb passed right through him. He rubbed his hands together and conjured floating arrows. They were more smoke than wood or metal, but Miranda wasn't about to volunteer to test how real they would feel in her chest.

"Duck!" Miranda pushed Skylar into the pews and jumped in behind her as the shadow arrows hit the tops of the benches.

Someone was shouting to the right, but Miranda was distracted by a sudden hissing noise. She looked in the direction of the conjuror, but under the benches. She wasn't interested in an arrow to the eye.

On the floor at the back of the pews, more than a dozen shadowy serpents came into being. They slithered towards them like lions to a kill.

Skylar let out a scream, and the two of them scurried backwards as fast as they could. The snakes were unnaturally fast, slithering on a cloud, almost flying towards them. Arrows continued to pelt the tops of the benches, splintering the wood. They were running out of pews.

In the gaps in the benches, Miranda shot memory trances blindly to her right, hoping to bring down the real conjurer and take out this mirage. It kept coming. The snakes kept coming.

With about ten pews left, she grabbed a hymn book. On the move, she planted a simple memory of Skylar's head. It was small, but it would have to be enough.

"Skylar, take the branch, and when you hear me shout your name, stand up and shoot anyone you see!"

"I don't have any memories!" Skylar shouted back. "That thing works on memories."

Five rows left, and the snakes were ten rows away. Miranda pulled out a small handkerchief and placed in on the branch. "Go now!"

Miranda crawled to the left, and all of the snakes chased her. She got up on a pew, and they slid under her for going so fast. She held up the hymn book and played the memory of Skylar's head. It was a projection memory, so to a casual observer, it would look like Skylar stood up slightly over the pew.

Dozens of arrows shot at it. The snakes arched over the pew to bite at it, rather than slither back under.

"Skylar! Now!" Miranda shouted.

There was a pause. A long and horrible pause as the weight of the snakes brought them perilously close to devouring Miranda, as the pew was splintered to the point where it would soon cease to be an effective shield.

Just as the jaws of the closest snake widened around Miranda's face, it evaporated. The rest of the snakes followed suit. Arrows were no longer pummeling. She risked a quick glance, at the room. The cloaked conjurer was not in sight.

She sat up fully. Skylar was shaking at the other end of the pew, her spear arm through the bench for support, and the branch hanging by a few fingers at her side. Miranda went to her.

"That was great, Sky." Miranda put a hand on her shoulder.

"Thanks." Skylar panted, sounded like she was on the verge of a break down. "Now can we find a place to sleep?"

"Yes." Miranda took the branch from her hand and helped remove the spear from the pew. "I have to take some memories though."

She walked around and collected memories from all the tranced scribes in the room. This wasn't the time to pour through the memories just yet, but as they were collected, she went through some of them in fast motion, trying to catch glimpses of information.

"The scribe who was creating that cloaked conjurer isn't here." Miranda gestured to the fallen scribes. "He ran off when you started shooting the branch. We'll probably see him again."

She shot a few recording orbs into the pews and doors of the church. It was apparent this was the base of operations for the legion league in New Orleans. And when these scribes woke up, they would probably talk about what happened, and what they would do next. The orbs would record that in her absence.

"All right Skylar." Miranda nodded to the exit. "Let's get going. I saw a charming bed and breakfast while we were running around. Let's see if they have any rooms."