by Kiki Howell
“I promise I will stay with you after you cast the spell on Halloween. I promise I won’t try anything foolish nor cross you in any way.” Feeling hollow would be an improvement to my situation right now. I can’t risk Marie Claudette harming Clara any longer, so it’s not like I have an option.
The witch reluctantly whispers a few words and with a little flick of her wrist, Clara lies back on the bed in apparent peace. I give a sigh of relief that lasts only until Marie Claudette speaks again. “Now, to the practical side of things. I’ll take Clara back to the hospital. You can go with her for now because I need you to make sure she follows your instructions. The spell must be cast on Halloween at Club Desire since that’s where you were hexed and died. I don’t care what you must do to accomplish it, but you must convince Clara to ensure the club is empty for the day, except for you, me and her.”
“Leave her out of this. I understand you needing her help to secure the place, but I don’t want her there. I don’t trust you. Why do you need her at the club when you cast the spell?”
“Besides gloating, you mean?” Marie Claudette’s getting on my nerves. I cast a murderous glance at her, which earns me a roaring, humorless laugh. “She’s an empath. It helps having one around when casting complex spells.”
“Why do you need her for this particular spell? Your followers didn’t have Clara near when they brought you back.”
“I had a strong enough reason to want to return and so did my following. Our connection cemented the spell, making it stick. Now, I’m no fool. I know you don’t want to be with me. Although, I will convince you otherwise in time, you need a good reason to collaborate with the spell. I’d say wanting Clara alive and well is a good enough reason, don’t you agree?”
Damn the spell she’s using to protect her thoughts. I could use some telepathy right about now because Marie Claudette’s story is fishy. I’m sure she’s hiding something. Then again, I’ve got plans of my own for the upcoming Halloween night. Too bad for the witch I doubled the inheritance my mom left me, playing poker when I was going to college. And I always play my cards close to my chest.
“Fair enough. You’ve been straightforward with me, so I’ll be honest with you. I’ll do my best to convince Clara of this, but she’ll see right through it. She knows me. She won’t believe I’d choose you over her.”
“No need to tell her that. Don’t be obtuse. Lie to her, I don’t care. Make sure Clara is at Club Desire on Halloween next week. I’ll take care of things from there.”
Stomach queasy, I nod. “You win. We’ll both be there. Now take us back to the hospital.”
With a sidelong leer my way that makes more bile burn my throat, Marie Claudette creates a ball of violet energy between her hands. As she chants, the ball floats in the air and expands until it engulfs the three of us. In the blink of an eye, we’re at Clara’s hospital room. She’s on the bed, again hooked up to the monitors. A nurse rushes in, trailing the yellow police tape that was blocking access to the room behind her.
“The heck goin’ on here?” She yells at Marie Claudette before the damned witch vanishes before the nurse’s ever widening eyes. I remain behind, but the woman can’t see me, so she scrutinizes the room around herself with a pitiful crazed expression in her stare. For a split second, she considers not calling the cops because nobody will believe her story. That’s not an option, so she drops her head to her chest and goes back to her station to make the call, hoping she still has a job afterwards.
Chapter Ten
CLARA – HALLOWEEN 2017
Following Marcel’s instructions wasn’t easy. Fran did her best to help me convince Club Desire’s owners to rent me the place for Halloween, but in the end the boatload of money that I transferred to their account was the only argument that made any difference to them. I understand their concerns for the business though. I’d probably have done the same. I mean, who would rent their space to a unique customer for less than they’d make on a regular night. I just never suspected Club Desire was that lucrative.
Since I told them I was hosting a themed party, I also had to tell them I was bringing my own staff, so they dismissed their people. Marie Claudette wants privacy for the spell. She’s not even bringing her entourage of followers. I wonder how many she actually has left. It took me a couple of days, after I came to, but I finally remembered what happened between the three of us in Marie Claudette’s basement. Every detail of our exchanges.
Marcel has been lying through his teeth, saying he’ll get rid of her and stay with me after the spell is cast, but I’m willing to bet the damned witch has threatened me, so he’d agree to stay with her. I pretend I believe him because I know he’s protecting me. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s not aware of all that Marie Claudette’s spell requires for it to work. She never said it in so many words that day. I doubt she’s contacted him since. I know better though.
When I searched for a way to break the curse, a few voodoo practitioners offered to bring Marcel back to life. Like I said that day, there were no guarantees the spell would work and even if it did it wouldn’t last long. Tempting as it sounded, I refused the offers every time. I wouldn’t mind paying the obscene amounts of money they asked of me if I didn’t know that evil spirits don’t give away anything. They barter for their services and they only accept equivalent goods. That means if they’re giving away the gift of life, they’ll expect to receive the same in return. I’m not talking animal sacrifices here. In exchange for a high order dark magic spell such as a resurrection one, they would expect nothing less than another human life in exchange. That’s why I was surprised to hear Marie Claudette’s followers agreed to sacrifice themselves for her to come back. I can only imagine what kind of things she promised them in return. ‘Conquering death’, as she put it, didn’t seem a good enough argument to me. Mainly if one considers she’d be the only one conquering death as her followers would depend on other people’s sacrifices to come back from the great beyond.
Unless I am missing something.
That is the flimsy hope I still entertain, the one that’s been keeping me going for the past week. The hope that I’m wrong in assuming Marie Claudette needs me around tonight as the proverbial sacrificial lamb. I’ll gladly trade my life for Marcel’s, no doubt about that. What’s unbearable to me is the thought that she’ll get to keep him. So not fair.
A side effect of breaking the curse is the fact that Marcel has lost his mind reading abilities. We don’t understand why, but it has helped me keep information hidden from him. Still, he knows me too well, so I’ve been keeping myself in check to avoid giving it away. It’s been a stressful week, to say the least, between the Marie Claudette situation, the FBI investigation into the unbelievable circumstances surrounding my kidnapping and the disappearance of Peter and his husband. I can’t catch a break.
Halloween is finally here and at this point I just want this situation to be over and done with. As I open the door to the Golden Suite at Club Desire, I gasp. Marcel told me he trashed the place when he heard about my disappearance, but the sight of it gets to me. They’re fixing the place, but for some reason, the halfway reconstruction somehow feels so painful to witness. I close my eyes and sigh. That’s when the air drops several degrees around me and Marcel materializes in front of me.
I love Halloween.
Heart beating in my throat, I throw my arms around his solid neck and pull his head down. Our mouths meet halfway, locked in a passionate kiss. Tongues swirling around, stroking each other as hands pull at hair and pieces of clothing. Temperature rises as the heat from both our bodies mingle and envelop us in a warm cocoon of lust and desire. Yes, I’d give anything to have these sensations be real throughout the year, but when we reluctantly let go of each other’s mouths for air to stare into each other’s eyes, I know I’d sacrifice anything so Marcel would get a chance to live again. I run my thumbs over his eyebrows, then his cheeks and his lips.
I have to say the words before they choke me,
so I whisper, “I love you, Marcel Revault. Now and forever, with all my heart. I’ll do anything in my power to make you happy, no matter what.”
The glint in his hazel eyes is almost too bright for me to bear, when he cups my cheeks and replies, “I never doubted that because that’s exactly how I feel. I never loved a woman as much as I love you, Clara Hervaux, before or after I died. You’re the only one for me. I’ll do anything to keep you safe, to make you happy.”
When our mouths reconnect, a myriad of colorful specks of light illuminate my closed eyelids. Intrigued, I open them to see that Marcel and I are surrounded by a refulgent beam that swirls around us in multi colors like an endless rainbow. Lightheaded, I notice the light shines through Marcel’s body illuminating his cells. I don’t understand how I can see that happening with my bare eyes, yet Marcel’s body appears to reflect the light at the same time as the photons become part of him.
That’s when I distinguish Marie Claudette’s words as she whispers an incantation. She stands in the middle of the room, eyes closed and eyebrows knit in deep concentration. She has her arms stretched out over her head, palms turned up as if to capture the energies she’s using in her spell. She opens her eyes, but they’re rolled back so all I see are the whites and it’s a disturbing sight. As she spits the words out, increasingly louder and faster, Marcel’s body shimmers in my arms and I wonder if she’s bringing him back or if this was an elaborate hoax for her to exact some twisted form of revenge on him. However, as his body disappears and reappears, it feels more concrete every time he materializes again. Although Marcel felt solid to my touch before, it’s as if his body is growing more real as Marie Claudette chants her spell.
Marcel’s eyes grow wide when he looks down at me. I follow his stare to find that my body is becoming translucent as millions of specks of light transfer from me to him within the beam of light that’s connecting our bodies.
“That’s fine, sweetheart. I knew this was going to happen,” I whisper.
“You lying bitch,” he roars at Marie Claudette. “Shut up. Stop this incantation right now.”
Marcel disentangles himself from my arms, but the beam of light keeps him from moving away. He can’t get to Marie Claudette, which is the obvious movement he’s trying to do. I grasp his upper arms, intending to make him look at me, but Marcel doesn’t budge.
“Marie Claudette, I swear I will hunt you down for all eternity if you don’t stop it right now. You promised you wouldn’t hurt Clara. You’re killing her.”
She focuses her black stare on both of us as if she was seeing us for the first time. Tilting her head to the right, she eyeballs Marcel and raises an eyebrow. She conjures up a ball of flaming red energy and when she throws it at us the ball hits an invisible obstacle in the way, exploding into harmless fragments that fall on us like droplets of fire too small to cause any real damage.
Two gigantic figures appear in the room between Marie Claudette and us and I recognize them as African orishas, or manifestations of the gods. Before us stand Oshun, in her traditional bright yellow robes that billow around her as if blown by an invisible wind, and Eshu, his nakedness framed by an enormous pair of black wings stretching behind him.
Oshun’s melodic voice reverberates in the room when she addresses Marie Claudette, “Unfaithful servant, you lied to us when you promised us that this man loved you and no other. As protector of love and destiny, I will not tolerate your interference in theirs. I allowed your execution of your followers because you were unknowingly exacting their destinies. They had committed transgressions that needed rectification and you were my tool in that. This woman before me has committed no deed that would warrant her to be punished with death and this man has paid for his errors. Halt your incantation at once.”
Eshu delivers his sentence in the same resounding type of voice, but with devastating cruelty. “The gods speak through me as I am their messenger. And they have spoken to condemn your misuse of their sacred gifts to you. Your powers were strong enough to make the resurrection spell last up until now, but I am revoking your powers effective immediately. You will wither and fade away, much like the death you imposed on this man. At the same time, his original lifespan will be restored to him, enabling him to live and age as if your interference had never occurred.”
Marie Claudette opens her mouth as if to speak, but she gasps and falls to the floor unconscious instead. Eshu spreads his dark wings and scoops Marie Claudette’s body into his arms before closing the wings around the two of them and vanishing without a trace.
Oshun turns to face us, her bright yellow robes still flowing around, as her expression softens and her soothing voice fills the air. “Eshu’s taking her to her house to show her last misguided followers who their leader really is. You need not worry about this woman any longer. She has met her destiny, as have you. I have made sure of that.”
I frown as something doesn’t feel right. “If Marcel and I were meant to be, why did you allow us to spend all this time in different planes?”
I feel like a little child who’s asked a parent to explain why the sun comes up and sets down each day when the orisha smiles at me before addressing my question, “Human lives are far more complex than you can conceive. It should be enough for you to know at this point that both of you needed to learn to treasure true love and believe in destiny before both could manifest themselves in your lives. If you had received these gifts ahead of time, when you were not ready for them, you would have wasted both. Your true feelings for each other conjured me here today, not Marie Claudette’s magic. I came to protect your love because it called out to me. Eshu, on the other hand, came to execute the sentence the gods had passed regarding Marie Claudette’s misdeeds and that’s why he took her away. You need not worry about her for you will not cross paths with her or any of her followers again. Now ensure my ruling over this case is honored by going forth and loving each other truly.”
Chapter Eleven
MARCEL – HALLOWEEN 2017
When a god, or a representation of one, tells you to do something, you’d better not take it lightly. And that’s exactly what Clara and I decide to do. Take Oshun’s command to heart and follow it every chance we have. We start as soon as the orisha vanishes from sight. I mean, we have Club Desire all to ourselves, so I figure we should make good use of the opportunity.
After three hundred and sixty-five days away from Clara, I can’t get rid of her clothes fast enough. I take pride in being a patient lover and taking care of my partner’s pleasure is paramount to me, but when the delicate mother-of-pearl buttons in Clara’s top refuse to leave their tiny buttonholes, I rip them off with one swift tug, freeing her confined breasts. I cup the large mounds in my palms, squeezing them together, thumbing the nipples as I kiss the tops of each breast with reverence.
Combined with her moans, Clara’s fingers spearing through my hair and her nails scraping my scalp are all the leads I need to know I’m on the right track. I scatter open-mouthed kisses on the exposed skin of her breasts as well as on the thin lacy fabric covering them. I wet the material, making it cling to her hardened nipples when I suck them.
“Marcel, I missed you so much,” she whispers into my ear.
Torturing us both, I abandon her breasts to trail kisses down her belly. I kneel in front of her, one hand splayed on her back, holding her in place, as the other works the zipper on her navy-blue pinstripe skirt. When it’s open, I use both hands to pull it down. I grab her tiny waist, pulling her close, licking her bellybutton then biting the strip of the garter she’s wearing, one of Clara’s trademarks. My hands then follow the flaring curve of her round hips, while my mouth follows the soft skin the skirt exposes as it moves down her body.
She hisses and pulls at my hair when I avoid her sex and lick the top of her soft thighs, right above the elastic band of her thigh-high stockings. She tries to angle her body, certainly to entice me to taste her core, but I tighten my hold on her butt cheeks, smack one of them, and kee
p her where I want her to be.
“Behave,” I command and years of submissive training kick in, so Clara stops fussing. Just her nails scraping my scalp and her muffled groans indicate the effect I have on her.
My hands move along her shapely legs covered in smoky-hot black silk until the skirt pools on the floor around her stiletto pumps. Clara kicks the skirt away and I lean to kiss the arch of her foot, then I trail my speared tongue up the inside of her calf and thigh until I stop inches away from its top. Clara moans in anticipation, but I move to her other thigh and lick a moist path to her foot.
“Stop teasing me,” Clara begs and I sit up on my heels.
Looking up, I chuckle at the magnificent view in front of me. Her soft curves covered only in the skimpy lingerie and sheer stockings, with the garters adding a touch of sexy kink into the already explosive package.
I cast my eyes down to realize Clara started unbuttoning my shirt, but stopped midway when I took over control of the situation. “I feel over-dressed. What are you going to do about it?”
Clara doesn’t need a second command. She drops to her knees and quickly gets rid of my suit, necktie, vest and shirt. When she throws the white shirt on the floor, she latches onto my nipple and sucks at it with gusto. I arch my back and hiss when she repeats it on the twin nub.
I fist my hand in her long, curly red hair and guide her mouth down my body until she’s facing my belt. She unfastens it and gets my pants down in one fluid movement. I sit on the carpeted floor, lifting my butt as she pulls the pants along my legs and throws them carelessly behind her.
I don’t see where they land and I don’t care. I only care for the hunger in her expression as she eyes my erection that now juts proudly upward, the purple head of my cock glistening.
She palms me with something akin to reverence glinting in her eyes. “I’ve always loved your cock, you know. Today, it feels special, though,” Clara whispers as she positions her herself between my thighs keeping them wide apart, then leans forward and presses her tongue to the slit and I see stars.
