Gates of Eden: Starter Library

by Theophilus Monroe

  “Thanks, sis,” I said.

  Ashely nodded and gave me a hug. “Just be careful. I can’t help but think that this Kalfu creature is working something behind the scenes, something connected to what happened to us. If his sigil in our slave quarters means anything—”

  “It means that someone has or intends to attempt to summon him. That’s all I can say that the veve suggests.”

  “But why there, at that location?” Ashley asked.

  I shrugged. “Probably because he knows it would freak us out. He did see your memories.”

  Ashley gave a quick nod. “Let’s hope that’s all it is. And that whoever did it wasn’t successful.”

  “I have a hunch who it might have been… the same classmate who is trying to raise Baron Samedi.”

  “Sounds like a real asshole.”

  “You have no idea… but if it is him, it would make sense. Somehow he learned about us, about Isabelle and Messalina. And we know at least one person has summoned him recently.”

  “The boy that night had apparently done it by accident.”

  “Mikah… yeah. I’m still not entirely sure how he fudged that one up, but summonings are a bit tricky, even for second-years.”

  “And you think your first-year classmate could pull it off?”

  I shrugged. “Nico comes from a long line of vodouisants. I’m sure he has some knowledge he’s gained through the years, a few tricks he hasn’t learned in school. All I know is somehow he learned things about us… and if he reached out to Kalfu, well, that would explain it. The Loa basically knows all your memories.”

  Ashley nodded. “Just be careful. You know as well as I do that jumping in to tackle a supernatural problem on little more than a hypothesis…”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, well I’m not going to put too much stock in garlic this time.”

  Ashley grinned. When we’d taken down the vampire, we’d relied on some lore that suggested garlic could hurt vampires. We discovered the lore is only true to a point—vampires don’t like garlic. They think it stinks, they find it repulsive. But it doesn’t hurt them. Not really. We’d put too much stock in the lore, and we didn’t know what else to try—other than allowing Isabelle to take over, which she did. The vampire didn’t have a chance. Of course, it put me out of commission for a while. But it was better than becoming a meal.

  “I’ll try to keep an open mind,” I said, grinning. “Worst case scenario, I let Isabelle save the day.”

  Nice to be your Plan B…

  I cringed. That wasn’t what I meant. Okay… maybe it was. But I hadn’t thought how treating her that way might be mildly annoying. After all, she was more powerful than me, even with my dragon blade. And it wasn’t like I wouldn’t let her handle this if I thought we had any chance of seeing it through. The truth was, a part of me wanted to be the hero myself. I wanted to defeat Nico’s plan, I wanted to be the one who handled the Baron problem, the one who vanquished Kalfu forever. I had to free myself from my fears, not rely on someone else—even Isabelle—to do it for me. If I did that, if I didn’t face these fears head-on and win… well, I sensed they’d always be with me, they’d always haunt me.

  20

  “WHERE HAVE YOU been?” Pauli asked as I sneaked back into bed. “Shit is afoot!”

  “You stepped in shit?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “No! Shit with Nico…”

  I cocked my head. “What do you mean?”

  “That summoning shit you said he was planning… I think he’s doing it right now.”

  “Shit!” I said, jumping from my bunk.

  “That’s what I said. It’s afoot!”

  Ellie glared at me from behind her book. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, fine,” I said. “Just a project I’m working on with my Loa. Do you know where Nico went?”

  Ellie shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Who cares.”

  “I thought you liked him?”

  Ellie shook her head, smirking. “My Loa has given me a new perspective on men.”

  “I’m sure she has,” I said, turning toward the door.

  “Wait,” Ellie said. “I think you should know something…”

  “What is it?” I huffed.

  “I heard Nico talking to Sauron. He said something about an exorcism, mentioned your name. I wasn’t supposed to say anything, only get you to come after him in the gymnasium. But I don’t think he’s right. If you were possessed, I’d know it.”

  I cringed. More evidence that Nico had been consulting with Kalfu—how else would he know about Isabelle? “You’d know it?” I asked.

  “A side effect of my aspect. If any Loa had mounted you, I’d sense it.”

  I took a deep breath. At least she could only sense a Loa’s possession… she wouldn’t be able to detect Isabelle. “Well why didn’t you correct him?”

  “I tried,” Ellie said. “But he thinks my aspect is… unreliable. He doesn’t trust that I’ve mastered it yet. Kind of insulting, if you ask me. He says he has proof, though.”

  I bit my upper lip. “Trust me, I’m not mounted right now. I haven’t been at all, except for acquiring my aspect.”

  Ellie nodded. “I know.”

  “Do you know if he took anything with him?”

  “Only that doll he’s been working on in class.”

  I nodded. Of course he did. He was going to attempt this summoning tonight. He was going to use Messalina’s powers. Our plan couldn’t wait until morning. I had to stop Nico now… somehow.

  “Can you do me a favor?” I said, turning to Ellie.

  “I guess,” Ellie replied, setting her book down.

  “Can you get Oggie for me? Let him know that Nico is doing his ritual right now!”

  “But I can’t get to his quarters…”

  Ellie had a point. Each Loa lived in a wing belonging solely to their college—it was where Mikah lived, too. I’d end up there next year, if I chose to stay on campus. It was one reason I’d hardly seen the other Loa since I arrived—and it was also one reason Ellie wouldn’t be able to get to Oggie. At least, not directly.

  “Then ask Erzulie to tell him,” I said. “They’re married after all.”

  “I can do that.” Ellie nodded.

  “Ask her to have him meet me in the gymnasium. I have to stop Nico now…”

  “But that’s what he wants you to do,” Pauli protested.

  I brushed a stray strand of hair away from my face. “It might be a trap, but I don’t have a choice. He can’t be allowed to complete the summoning.”

  LET ME TAKE the reins, Isabelle said as we approached the gymnasium doors. A red glow emanated from around them. Nico had already begun… I wasn’t sure what the red glow meant, but I knew it couldn’t be good.

  I shook my head. I couldn’t let Isabelle take over. Not until I knew what we were dealing with. Not until I was sure I could keep my emotions in check. Something too shocking, even something that takes me the slightest bit off guard and rattles my emotions, would leave me back in the driver’s seat, debilitated by a migraine.

  “Are you sure you’re ready to go in there?” Pauli asked.

  I took a deep breath. “You’ve got my back, right?”

  Pauli nodded. “Unicorn power is on your side, honey.”

  “Don’t forget the rainbows.” I grinned.

  Pauli winked. “You’ve figured me out already. Say the word and I’ll ride my rainbow out of there more quickly than a redneck caught in the middle of a pride parade.”

  “That’s fast!” I said, raising my eyebrows.

  “I joke when I’m nervous,” Pauli said.

  I shrugged. In truth, Nico didn’t scare me that much. So long as he hadn’t managed to summon the Baron already, there wasn’t too much to fear. I mean, I’d faced worse than Nico. He was just a half-rate Hougan in training with a bad attitude. Nothing I couldn’t handle.

  I pressed the bar on the gymnasium door, throwing it open. “Nico! You have to stop!”

  N
ico stood there, not three feet in front of me. His arms were folded.

  “Thanks for coming,” Nico said.

  I looked around. I was standing in some kind of circle, and Kalfu’s veve was drawn on the floor in ash.

  “What the hell are you doing, Nico?”

  “Drawing the demon out of you, bitch.”

  I cocked my head. “What are you even talking about?”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know. Mikah already tried to summon him once. You think I couldn’t figure out what happened? Kalfu found a host…”

  “That’s not true!” I shouted.

  “You can’t leave the circle,” Nico said. “So don’t even try. It will bind you here until the exorcism is finished.”

  I ran headlong toward Nico. My body struck something as I hit the edge of the circle. It was like I’d run into a glass wall or something.

  “Nico, you don’t know what you’re doing! At least let Pauli out of here!”

  “Yeah,” Pauli said. “Let Pauli go!”

  Pauli extended his fingers and shot a rainbow toward the invisible barrier that held us in. The rainbow ricocheted off the barrier. I ducked as it shot past my head.

  “Poor Annabelle’s Paulsy,” Nico said, tracing fake tears down his cheeks with his fingers. “Your aspect won’t help you escape.”

  “Are you making fun of people with Bell’s palsy? Not cool!” Pauli snapped his fingers. “Making fun of medical conditions is not PC!”

  “Not like it’s a serious condition,” Nico said. “People get over it.”

  “Still, not cool!” Pauli shouted.

  “Sorry, bud, can’t let you out. It would break the circle. But you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. That is, so long as Kalfu doesn’t have a problem with you.”

  “I’m not possessed by Kalfu!” I screamed.

  Nico paced around the circle, Sauron standing a few feet behind him in the shadows. “Why don’t you tell us what you saw, Sauron?”

  “She was talking to someone else… someone in her mind. But no one was there.”

  I sighed. “When did you see that?”

  “First day at the Academy… I told Nico. We knew right away you were either possessed or crazy.”

  “I thought you were just a bit mental at first,” Nico said. “But I’ve been watching you. You’re cool and calculated. You’ve got your Loa wrapped around your little finger.”

  I huffed. “Oggie is not wrapped around my finger. Not even a little.”

  “I had to admit that it was strange when he declined to sponsor me and turned to some… unknown. A white girl from a slave-holding family. I knew something was at work, something insidious. Someone had deceived him.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  Just let me take over.

  I shook my head.

  “He’s talking to you right now, isn’t he?” Nico grinned. “I can see it in your eyes. Something is distracting you. He’s trying to tell you how you can break the binding.”

  “No, that’s not it,” I said.

  “Whatever,” Nico said, lifting up the Voodoo doll he’d made in class.

  “Don’t use that!” I shouted.

  “The Caplata whose essence this contains… she’s the same one who bound Baron Samedi. Her power can be used to bind Kalfu, too.”

  “You don’t get it!” I shouted. “I’m not possessed by Kalfu. I came here so I could learn how to stop him, so I could prevent him from coming after me.”

  “Something that someone mounted by Kalfu would say…”

  “And how do you know about Messalina, anyway?” I asked.

  “You mean, how did I learn that you were a part of banishing my college’s Loa?”

  “Exactly. How would you know all of that unless you were the one who’s been communing with Kalfu?”

  Nico narrowed his eyes, trying to penetrate my mind with his stare.

  “Kalfu possessed my sister, for only a second. He took her memories. There’s no other way you would know.”

  Nico shrugged. “Papa Legba told me.”

  “He what?” I asked, my voice rising a good octave or two. “He asked me to help you summon Baron Samedi!”

  “That was brilliant! I didn’t think the old Loa had it in him.” Nico was grinning widely.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “He knew you’d do anything to stop Baron Samedi, after what happened to your family. He knew you’d come here to stop me, just as I needed to lure you here to exorcise you.”

  “I don’t need a fucking exorcism!” I shouted.

  Nico shrugged. “It’s really kind of a euphemism, I admit. I mean, I’m not going to exorcise Kalfu out of you. I don’t have the power for that. I’m going to exorcise you… straight into the land of the dead.”

  “Exorcise me?”

  “Banish you, more like it,” Nico said. “College Samedi… that’s what we do.”

  “You don’t need Messalina for that!”

  “I need to call Kalfu out of you so that she can bind you, like she did the Baron.”

  That’s not what her magic did! Isabelle was practically screaming in my ears. Messalina cast a spell to sacrifice herself, to break the bargain, but her magic is what summoned the Baron to begin with. If he summons Kalfu…

  “It will be the worst version of Kalfu.” I finished Isabelle’s thought out loud.

  “Speaking to the demon, again?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “It’s a friend, but not a demon. If you use Messalina’s power, it will summon Kalfu, but not out of me. It will summon him here with me, and with a Caplata’s bindings, it will bring out the worst of an already nasty Loa. This binding circle won’t be able to contain him. You don’t get it! He wants you to summon him here, with me, because he wants my power!”

  “He wants Ogoun’s aspect?” Nico asked, rolling his eyes. “He has no need of that.”

  “No, not Oggie’s powers… my powers!” I shouted.

  Nico huffed and narrowed his eyes. “You can’t trick me so easily. I know the demon is in your ear.”

  We aren’t going to convince him, but we can’t let him use that doll…

  I coughed over my shoulder. I had an idea. I wasn’t sure it would work, but it was worth a shot. I couldn’t get out of the circle, but maybe, just maybe if I could he would hold off on using the doll.

  “Pauli, I need you to use your rainbow. Like we discussed earlier.”

  Pauli’s eyes widened as he picked up on what I was about to do. He gave me a quick nod as I extended my hand, shouted Beli’s name, and summoned my dragon blade.

  “You can’t cut your way out of here!” Nico shouted.

  I gave him a shit-eating grin. I’d outsmarted him. I sliced my blade through the air, forming a portal into Guinee. The bright light of the otherworld shone through, almost blinding me.

  “Pauli, now!” I shouted.

  Pauli extended his hand, and the colors of a rainbow shot out of his fingertips into the gateway.

  “Hold the gate! Don’t let it close.”

  Nico uttered something under his breath, and the veve beneath my feet started to glow.

  I nodded at Pauli. “You’ve got this!”

  I quickly dove into the portal. The bright sun of Guinee warmed my flesh as I landed in the grass on the other side. I looked back through the portal.

  “Wait… no!” I shouted as a figure emerged from the floor.

  It was Papa Legba. I suddenly felt relieved. He’d come to stop Nico, I was sure of it… until Legba’s eyes turned red. His saggy flesh swelled with muscles, snapping some of the buttons off of his flannel shirt.

  No… it can’t be. That’s not Legba, it’s Kalfu. Legba is Kalfu!

  Something illuminated his flesh—something I couldn’t see from my vantage point through the gate…

  And that’s Messalina’s magic… the Caplata’s spell.

  Nico was trying to bind him, trying to banish h
im. It wasn’t working.

  Kalfu grabbed Pauli from behind, enveloping his body in his massive arms.

  “Annabelle,” Kalfu said in his deep, gravelly voice. “Come back to me now, or I will kill your friend and you’ll be lost there forever.”

  “Don’t do it, Annabelle!” Pauli shouted.

  I was going to ignore him… if I went back, he’d get me. And if he got me, he’d get Isabelle. More than that, he’d get her power. How many more people would die if he commanded that kind of ability? Still, I couldn’t let Pauli die. If only I could get him talking… at least until Oggie got here.

  “Kalfu, how about we make a deal…”

  The corner of the Loa’s mouth curled up. “A bargain? What are your terms?”

  “Take me, but free Isabelle.”

  “You aren’t the one I need. You don’t have the powers I require.”

  “Don’t I? I’m the one who holds the blade that created this very gateway to Guinee. I could give you the ability to travel freely between worlds. You said before that you could separate our souls. You said you can free her. So do it, and I will follow you. I will give you free rein between worlds.”

  “An intriguing prospect,” Kalfu said, pondering my proposition. “And I’d be inclined to accept it if there were not a major flaw in what you suggest.”

  “What flaw? There is no flaw.”

  “Your soul blade is forged from both of your souls. If I free Isabelle…”

  He was right, of course. I knew as much when I’d proposed the deal. I suppose I’d just hoped he wouldn’t see through it. I’d hoped I could deceive him.

  “I’m much too old for you to trick, child,” Kalfu said. “You’ve had your chance.”

  And with those words, Kalfu sank his teeth into Pauli’s neck.

  “Pauli!” I cried. “No!”

  Pauli didn’t scream. His eyes simply widened in horror, in fear… Then his eyes turned black and he collapsed. As Pauli’s rainbow dissipated, the gateway I’d forged disappeared.