“Tisk-tisk-tisk.”
Lisa spun on her heels to find the wives there, staring directly at her. “One of you open this damn door and let me out of here, or—”
“Or, what?” Jo challenged her. “Lisa, understand something. This is my domain. Not yours. I control every inch of this land, including the house that rests upon it. You are a visitor. Hell, even your daddy knows that when he comes to visit, he needs permission for everything. So, he sticks by me, because my house tends to play tricks on visitors, Lisa. How many doors were there when I dragged your ass in? Hmm? Was it two? Was it three? Because I only see one. How many floors are here? Is it three? Is it two? You wouldn’t know because you don’t pay attention. Sadly, that’s just another reason your parents called me in to help. You need to be busted down and rebuilt. And, honey, that you will be.”
“You don’t know shit about me,” Lisa managed through closed teeth.
“If I don’t, then why are you crying?”
The tear kissed her cheek and tickled as it rolled down to her chin.
“In that case… you don’t know you. Oh, but you will.” She stared at Lisa as if to be squeezing her thoughts. “My Angel. Someone needs a head-to-toe.”
Annalissa didn’t know what that was, but she was sure to find out after the wives took her to the gym somewhere in the home, and Dior all of cracked Annalissa’s jaw for the second time. Lisa coughed, spitting out blood onto the mat below, with pools in her eyes.
Sitting on a bean bag, Jovan watched, squeezing a Superman stress ball in her palm. “Young Pharaoh, I am a leader. Do you understand that? I have trained and organized women who were much worst off than you are at this very moment. Every ounce of poison in your body will secrete like sweat from your very pores. Your anger, your rising volume, your threats and your swears do nothing for me. You don’t have to like me, Lisa… but you will respect me. You will respect yourself.”
“Just take me home,” she whimpered on her side; halfway curled into a fetal position. Almost every inch of her body hurt. No matter how she tried to fight back, Dior, who was much shorter, had the one-up and the stronger hand.
“Lisa, you have a major lack of respect, beautiful. Lack of respect for your parents, your family as a whole, the ancestors before you, and most definitely for yourself. But it’s not your fault, is it? It’s not your fault that you laid on your back and gave away something so irreplaceable to a man who is beneath you on your worst day, is it?”
Lisa tuned Jovan out, trying her best to keep from crying in front of the warlord more than what she already had.
“Rise, Young Pharaoh.”
“Leave me alone,” she lowly squealed.
“Whose fault is it, Lisa?”
“What?” She sniffled.
“My Angel.”
Dior used the ball of her naked foot to turn Annalissa over onto her back, where Lisa cried to the heavens over the painful bruises being smooshed against the thin mat on the floor.
“Can you hear me now?” Jovan yelled. “Whose fault was it that you became empty?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she cried between heavy breaths.
“Whose fault was it that you became empty?”
“I’m not empty!”
“Angel.”
Dior lifted Lisa by her blonde locs, dragging her to her feet.
Lisa held on to her ribs with tears streaming down her red cheeks.
“Denial,” Jovan sang. “Kneel.”
“No.” Annalissa immediately drew in a breath to keep her tears at bay, all the while shivering as if she were freezing.
Jovan cut her eyes at her wife, who in turn kicked the bends of Lisa’s legs, forcing her to kneel in front of Jovan. “Now, gorgeous, you will stay there and think of the question I’ve asked of you. And when I return, I want my answer.”
Annalissa wanted so badly to get up, but with pain striking her all over, she had no choice but to sit on her knees. She wanted more than ever the embrace of her mother and the protection of her father.
Chapter
Four
Fairest nudged her brother on the steps of a newly built home in Alabama. She could tell that he was a bit off. Peresh looked over at her with blank eyes. “Brother, are you alright?” she asked him with a concerned voice.
He sipped from the to-go cup in his hand, filled with lavender tea. “As good as I’m going to be,” he flatly returned.
“Have you been sleeping alright?”
“Not really, but it’s a part of the job, isn’t it?”
“Brother, I think you need a break.”
He lowly chuckled. “Thank you for your concern, Fairest, but there are demons that need hunting, and although we’re not the only family to do it, it’s our calling. Sometimes sleep isn’t as important.”
“That’d be true, but sometimes we can use a little break. With as much energy as we put into it, we have to regenerate. How have you been eating?”
He huffed as he turned to her, stuffing his free hand inside his pressed black slacks. “I’m not possessed, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Maybe not by a demon, but it’s something else that’s got a hold on you. You better not tell me that Mary Lou is pregnant.”
“If I hear that girl’s name one more time,” Cinderella complained as she climbed the stairs with her husband in tow. “Nobody— and I do mean nobody—touch that damn girl. She’s gonna give y’all rabies and scabs on your privates, to boot.” With a loud sigh, she tied her long, brown, crinkly hair up into a bun, kissed her son’s cheek, then politely knocked on the door. “Now, everybody put your game faces on. I’m not trying to be here until dawn. Peresh, your sister is right. We need to rest every now and again. I have something that’ll help you sleep.”
“I don’t need potions, mama,” Peresh argued.
“Boy, I’m talkin’ about Benadryl.”
Their job was a success with class-A EVPs and supernatural phenomena caught on tape. They were able to exorcise a home and keep the shadow people away from the children that resided there. Afterward, the Northgates returned to their family home instead of the children going off to their own abodes.
Peresh swallowed two Benadryl and was laying comfortably on his old twin-sized bed, staring up at the ceiling. He often wondered why his parents didn’t move with what all they collected over the years, but it was just another thing that kept him humble. His Gypsy roots were important to him in a sense that he wouldn’t disrespect his family by offering to leave behind their history or their legacy. Besides, with what all he’d witnessed, the family home was the closest thing he’d come to realize was solid and in fact unbreakable and impenetrable.
“Woody.” Fairest laughed from the doorway. “I can’t believe you’re content with these Toy Story cartoons staring at you.”
Peresh looked over to the door and smirked at his sister. To him, his family were the only people who didn’t look at him as if there was something wrong with him. Either he made panties drop or elderly women clutch their purses. He couldn’t stand it.
“Tell me what’s bothering you, Peresh.” Fairest waltzed over to the bed to sit on the side, staring at her brother with soft eyes.
Painstakingly he sat up, allowing the white sheet to fall to waist. “Have you… Have you ever been in love?”
“Yes.” She quietly giggled.
“Did he love you back?”
“Yes… Until he realized that Gypsies come in many different shapes and sizes. He was one of those people who loved you for who you are until he finds out your cultural background.”
“So, because you were Gypsy, he didn’t want you anymore?”
“That’s precisely why.” Playfully she pinched his nose with a grin. “But, Peresh, in our line of work, it teaches us to value what we have because tomorrow it could be gone. Either we die, or our lives are snatched away by something so dark and insidious that there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s his loss, not mine. So,
whomever you’re worried about, go face-forward into the situation and be honest with her. By the way, dinner’s almost ready, but I’m assuming you’ll be sleeping through it.”
“You know it. Mama’s orders.”
“Well, sweet dreams. And try to enjoy your own dreams this time, okay?”
“You wish.”
Purposely she wiggled her fingers through his hair before she left, hoping for the better for her brother.
Peresh, on the other hand, knew that his dreams wouldn’t be sweet until he was sure that the woman he wanted was aware of who and what he was.
***
Busy at the iron stove, Cinderella’s sensitive hearing caught on to the sounds of crushing rocks in front of her home. She wiped her hands off on her waist apron, then pulled the curtain back. “Honey, you got a visitor,” she alerted Kirko, who was rocking in his chair in the corner of the room.
A few moments later, Kirko hollered, “It’s open!”
Through the door came a golden complexion the husband and wife were quite fond of.
“Why, David-Damn-Pharaoh!” Cinderella excitedly greeted him. “Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes on a Sunday? Come hug my neck!”
Pharaoh gave her a smirk as he smoothly walked over to give an old friend a hug. “Cinder, you still look a lot like sixteen and less like pregnant,” he joked, digging at a once eighteen-year-old Kirko who claimed his wife shortly after their nuptials. “I hope that’s possum stew on that stove.” He pulled away to look down at the small woman. “You know I didn’t come all this way just to chit-chat.”
“I know you ain’t,” Kirko said with a grunt. “Pull up a chair and talk to me. It’s not so often that the king of voodoo makes a surprise visit to these backwoods.”
“Oh, hush, Kirko.” Cinderella swatted at him as Pharaoh sat in a wooden chair across from someone who used to be a classmate. It’s how far back they had gone and how acquainted they were with one another to toss cruel jokes back and forth.
“What’s crowdin’ your mind?”
Pharaoh wiped his mouth, looking over his shoulder to make sure Cinderella was out of earshot before he rested his elbows against his knees, leaning forward. “Kirkland, I need something big from you.”
“You’re already married. You ain’t gettin’ my daughter, David.”
“No, no, no!” Pharaoh’s face balled. “Listen. Have you ever trapped a ‘coon, but the little motherfucker was somehow still mobile?”
Kirko tilted his head at his old friend as if he’d lost his mind.
“Okay, maybe that was a bad analogy.”
“Spit it out, David. How much am I gettin’ paid for this, and how soon do you need it done?”
“That’s the thing, Kirk. I don’t know.”
“What’n the hell do you mean you don’t know?” Kirko’s eyes turned to slits as he leaned forward in the chair. “David, what the hell have you done?”
“It wasn’t me. New Orleans has seen a serious rash of demonic possessions. I’m trying to ward them off as much as possible since Robyn can’t host as much dark energy as I can, Moses is getting ready to get married so he’s basically off the clock, and Lisa is abroad. Kirk, I need one of the best goddamn demon-hunting families I know, man. I even caught one of them in a cemetery. The goddamn thing was less than a mile away from my house. The only problem is, I can’t get it to be the fuck still long enough for me to question it.”
“What’n the hell do you mean you can’t get it—”
“Just what I said. Now, I know your first boy can speak to them. I need—”
“You got yourself a speed demon.” Fairest folded her arms, walking through the living room to stand beside her father’s chair with pride. “You expect for my brother to speak to a speed demon?”
“Well…”
“First off, it’s nice to finally meet you in person, Mr. Pharaoh. I’m not sure if I should bow or call you sire. I won’t be doing any of those, by the way. And… the only way to trap a speed demon is with the Seal of Solomon.”
“I did that,” Pharaoh stated.
“Cool. But what you did was put it in a never-ending loop. That thing is out there possibly bouncing between symbols like a pinball.”
“That’s exactly what’s happening. That’s why I need your family’s help.”
“Mr. Pharaoh, the only way a speed demon gets loose is if someone opened a gate.”
He squinted; his eyes bouncing back and forth between confident Fairest and her quiet father. “How do you know that?”
“I graduated at the top of the class in demonology, Mr. Pharaoh. Now, you can feel free to break the seal, but it won’t do you much. However, you’re asking for us to put my brother face-to-face with one of the most powerful forces on earth. The only way to stop a speed demon long enough to speak to it is to offer it innocence. But you have to stop time. Your second option is to find the gate and close it, sending your little ‘coon right back where he came from.”
“Kirko,” Pharaoh mumbled. “Your daughter scares me.”
His shoulders hurdled. “Yeah, well, get in line. She scares a lot of folks with that brain of hers. Now, my next two questions are very important. One, how much are you paying me? And, two, how soon do you need us in New Orleans?” IN
Pharaoh smirked. He knew that he could count on his old friend. However, he wished that Annalissa would finish up with Jovan and join the fight. He really needed his daughter on the home front.
Chapter
Five
Broken, sore, and feeling alone, Annalissa shivered in the attic with a thin blanket wrapped around her body. It did nothing for her but force her teeth to chatter twice as hard. There were no more tears to cry. Her knees were bloody red. All because she refused to tell Jovan whose fault it was that she was empty.
On a whim, she forced a sleep spell over herself by chattering a chant in hopes that it worked. She wasn’t sure if it had or if repeating the words so many times and for so long made her fall asleep. She was only grateful to be standing on the porch of the plantation home.
Immediately, she screamed, “Him! Hiiim! I know you can hear me!”
Lisa splashed through the chocolate river, weaving through the gummy bear trees, until finally her legs gave out in a field of marsh mellow. She silently cried, holding the ends of her long, off-white summer dress in her hands.
“Her?” she heard.
Her ears perked at his voice. “Him!” she hoarsely called. “I’m in the—” Her sentence was shut off when she saw his pudgy, tall figure coming through a set of trees in the distance. On weak legs she rose and did her damnedest to run through the stickiness of the marsh, all so that she could race to him and land inside his arms.
“What’s wrong? Take it easy,” he cooed her; swaying with her to get her to calm down. “I got you.”
“Everything’s a mess,” she cried inside his chest. “My parents got rid of me, I’m being tortured—”
“Wait, what?” He pulled away from her to get a closer look. Sure, it wasn’t Friday, but it seemed as though this was one hell of an emergent situation. “Slow down. Speak slower. Gather yourself.”
She gulped, then licked her lips to compose herself. “My parents sent me to live with some sort of witch and her wife. I’m being punished for things I didn’t do. I need your help. You’ve got to get—”
The clouds overhead weren’t so crispy and neon anymore. They were turning gray.
“No,” she mumbled.
“Yes,” she heard familiar voice.
“No! You can’t do this!” Wildly her eyes searched the skies for a face, if any. “No!”
“You’re coming with me.”
“Noooooo!”
A red light flashed before Annalisa’s eyes just before she found herself on the soreness of her knees, in fact kneeling in front of Jovan. Slowly she shook her head with a twisted face. Though there weren’t tears, Lisa still sobbed.
“You’re a fucking piss-ant, you know that?” Jova
n questioned. “I tried to give you an easy way out, and you spat that in my fucking face.”
“Fuck you!” Lisa scratchily screamed. “Fuck you! Fuck you, and my weak ass mama, and my fuck-tard ass daddy, and the ultimate boot-licker of a brother I have! Fuck you!”
Jovan took a backhand to her cheek with a straight face.
Lisa yelped as she fell over, struggling to breathe.
“Whose fault is it that you’re the weakest of your clan, Young Pharaoh?”
“They have the legacy—”
“Whose fault is it that you’re the weakest of your clan, Young Pharaoh?” Jovan repeated a tad louder. “Answer my question.”
Like before, Lisa remained silent, only sobbing as saliva dripped down her chin.
“Let’s go.” Jovan rose, pulling Lisa by the back of her shirt through the first level of the home, until they came up on a door that looked like a closet. Jovan opened it, pushing Lisa inside. Afterward, she flipped on the switch along the wall. “I want you to meet somebody.”
Breathing erratically, Lisa stumbled through a slim corridor, not sure of where the crazy immortal was taking her next. There was a golden hue at the end of the corridor, and what looked to be a tank. Inside that tank was a man the size of a mammoth. He was the tallest, most muscle-bound man that Lisa had ever laid her eyes on. She screamed, backing into Jovan.
“Relax,” Jovan sang. “He’s family, Lisa.”
“Wha-What?”
“Meet Triton. My big brother who wanted the crown so badly that he was willing to kill me for it.” Jovan circled the tank as she lit a cigarette and took a strong pull from it. “I didn’t have to stitch him back together. He was able to regenerate. But by the time he did, I was already blessed with my own energy and my mother’s. So, Triton has been in a coma for thousands of years. I keep him that way. If he were to get out, who knows what kind of hell he could unleash on this earth.”
Claiming the Voodoo Princess Page 3
