“That’s what we thought. Another boy at the school tried to summon Legba…”
“The school?” Lugh asked.
“A Voodoo Academy.”
“Whatever is your business at that place?” Lugh asked.
“We were invited… a Loa named Ogoun.”
“I see,” Lugh said. “Never mind that. You said a boy attempted to summon Legba but he evoked Kalfu instead?”
I felt Isabelle’s head nod. “Mikah is the boy’s name. He’s become a friend.”
“And you are certain he evoked Kalfu by accident?” Lugh asked.
“I trust him.”
Lugh nodded. “It may not have been the boy’s intention, but it was not an accident.”
“What do you mean?” Isabelle asked.
“One does not evoke one like Kalfu in the same way that one might call upon Legba. They are two sides of one Loa—or two Loa in one—but they are appealed to in quite different ways. The boy either intended to evoke Kalfu, or he was deceived into doing it.”
Isabelle shook our head. “He is kind… a good-hearted boy. He wouldn’t…”
“As I said,” Lugh continued. “He could have been deceived.”
“Then what do we do? How can we get rid of Kalfu?”
“When the boy summoned him, it gave Kalfu a foothold in the material realm. Legba knows to bind himself when he rests. If Kalfu has come forth, however, as the dominant one, it means that Legba has lost the ability to suppress Kalfu even when he is awake.”
“Legba had called on Annabelle—both of us, really—when we first got to the Academy. He asked us to help free Baron Samedi.”
Lugh folded his arms. “And that is why you’ve come to me?”
“It is… not that we want him free, but is there any other way?”
“I fear not,” Lugh said. “Baron Samedi is the Loa who not only rules the realm of the dead—or at least he did—but he was the one whom the All-Father appointed to divide life from death itself. Here, the divide is manifest between the blighted land of the dead, Samhuinn, and these garden groves of life. But this divide is not merely a boundary in this immortal realm. In humans, the divide is writ into the will. The inclination to do good and the consumption with evil. Amongst the Loa, a single Loa governs that divide, manages it…”
“Papa Legba? The Loa of the crossroads?”
Lugh nodded. “A Loa of dual aspects… the divide between the two established by Baron Samedi.”
“And he needs Baron Samedi to restore the divide?”
“If Kalfu has encroached upon Legba, then the divide is threatened. If not restored, Kalfu will take over completely. And once he does, all the Loa will be consumed with his nature, his evil.”
“They’ll all become… like demons.”
Lugh nodded.
“If this is true, why have you held the Baron all this time?”
“I haven’t,” Lugh said. “I simply freed him from the Caplata’s summons and returned him to his place.”
“His place?”
“He inhabits the border between both sides of this realm. If he has not returned to Earth, even in his true form, it is not because I’ve prevented it.”
“So he’s just letting this happen…”
“I do not know his reasons. You will have to speak to him yourselves.”
I wanted to take a deep breath—but I wasn’t in charge of our lungs at the moment. Speak to… Baron Samedi? The Grim Reaper. The motherfucker who has haunted my nightmares since childhood. Just speak to him?
Isabelle nodded.
Lugh raised one of his crooked fingers. “But you must be sure you are ready before you approach the Baron.”
“Ready in what way?” Isabelle asked.
“You must speak to him single of purpose, with no divided motives or intentions. Such would be a challenge for anyone. All human beings have mixed motives. Still more, he already knows and will sense both of you. Your motives must be individually pure, but also united. You must speak to him as one.”
And if we don’t? I asked, expecting Isabelle to relay my question.
Lugh seemed to hear my words nonetheless. “If you do not, he may very well decide that your time has come.”
“Our time?” Isabelle said.
“He is the Reaper,” Lugh indicated. “He may decide that your lives… have expired.”
So this is literally a life or death conversation…
“Do not take it lightly, and if there be any animosity between you, see it settled before you approach him.”
Isabelle smiled. “Thank you, Lugh, for all your help.”
“Always, my future apprentice. Your time will come, then you will be the one granting sage wisdom to the rare traveler who ventures into our world.”
“I’d say I’ll look forward to it, but… that wouldn’t be fair to Annabelle.”
“Understood,” Lugh said with a tone that made it sound like he would have smiled if he could. If his face wasn’t rigid and seemingly constructed of bark. His body collapsed back into the ground, absorbed again by the soil at the base of the Tree of Life.
“I suppose we should talk some things through,” Isabelle said. “Would you like to take back the reins?”
My thoughts halted for a moment. Would I like to? There was something more fluid, more pure about our union here than when we were back on Earth. I was happy, whether I was in control or not. I felt no envy, no worry about how Isabelle might be using my body.
I’m actually fine with it, either way…
“I think you are better suited to do the talking. Aside from talking inside your head, I don’t have a lot of experience talking to people… not recently anyway.”
Yet you have more wisdom that I do, most of the time.
“That depends on the situation. With boys…”
You’re impulsive?
“Yes… I still can’t believe I kissed Mikah like that.”
Worse things have happened to me… and it’s not rocket science why you did it. You like him.
“Still, it was not appropriate. After all the times I’ve told you how dirty it felt when you were with boys and I had no consent in the matter.”
Well, I appreciate the apology. But it really isn’t needed. It may be that you have better taste in men than I do, after all.
Isabelle giggled. “You mean you’ve finally come around to the idea that hooking up with a married Loa might not be in your long-term best interest?”
Something like that…
“I’m sorry, Annabelle. I know you liked him.”
I still do… I can’t help it. But I’m not going to get involved in a marriage between two Loa. That’s just asking for it.
“On the other hand…” Isabelle paused a moment, as if thinking carefully through her words. “Have you considered how unhappy he must be? He has to share a wife with two other men.”
I laughed to myself. I really can’t imagine. I mean, men are really territorial about their women.
“And women aren’t that way? I mean, look at us!”
You have a point, I guess. Giving someone your heart… that’s kind of like when a dog pisses on something.
“Marking one’s territory. Could you think of a cruder analogy next time?”
I’ll try… I really will.
“But we are going to have to get over that… the whole territorial thing… if either of us is ever going to be happy. If either of us stands a chance at love.”
Do you think we could love the same person, without becoming jealous?
“Do you think we have a better chance at loving two different people, forcing each of them to have us only half of the time? That wouldn’t be fair to anyone we’d want to be with.”
I’ll tell you what… if we get through this—
“When we get through this, you mean…”
Yes, when we get through this, I’ll try to have an open mind about Mikah. And one more thing too…
“What’s that?”
I think i
t’s time we start looking for a remedy for these headaches, because it’s high time I let you have your share of the time in charge.
I could feel our eyes welling up… Isabelle was about to cry.
Please don’t cry…
“You don’t understand how hard it has been, to die so young—as a slave no less—to be sent back as a ghost, to have my spirit manipulated by my sister… then to have to sit back and watch a whole other life unfold that isn’t my own.”
You’ve never really had a chance to live.
“I’ve only existed. For almost two centuries I’ve existed… but no, I never lived.”
Well, that ends now. Once we get through this.
“Do you promise? Because if you’re joking, if you’re going to just take it back… I mean, that’s fine. It’s your life. I have no right to demand.”
I promise.
Isabelle rubbed our eyes. “I think we’re ready to talk to Baron Samedi.”
But you should do the talking.
Isabelle shook our head. “You are still afraid of him, aren’t you?”
I sighed. He terrifies me…
“Then that’s exactly why you need to be the one to do it.”
How does that make a fuck’s worth of any sense?
“Because if Baron Samedi really comes back, how are you going to go to that school every day, knowing he’s around the corner, if you haven’t faced your fear?”
I don’t know…
“Which is why you are doing the talking.”
With that, I felt Isabelle simply let go of the reins. How the hell did she do that so easily? I usually had to work myself in to a state of artificial calm.
I felt my consciousness resume control of my body. My fingers tingled. They always did when I took over again, but I usually didn’t give the sensation a second thought on account of the migraine that usually struck me at the same time. But this time, I felt totally fine. No headache. No pain at all.
“Isabelle! My head…”
If you need to lie down—
“No, my head… it doesn’t hurt at all!”
Do you think it’s this place?
“I don’t know. Honestly I don’t think that’s it at all.”
Then what is it, do you think?
“I think it’s because we are at peace… together. I mean, you never felt it when you took the reins before.”
I just figured it worked different…
“It’s because I couldn’t accept it. I think it was my distress, the feeling of helplessness. It’s like when you took over, I craved control again. I was like an addict going through withdrawal.”
But the headache came afterwards?
“The hangover always comes the next day.”
Let’s hope that’s what this is. If so, it will make everything we talked about before so much easier when we get back.
“Yeah, I wasn’t really looking forward to popping a bunch of Mikah’s homemade pills every time we exchanged reins…”
Isabelle laughed. I know what you mean. That stuff gives us gas anyway.
I almost choked on my tongue. “Well I guess you would know…”
Mounting Beli was a little easier the second go-round. And the flight was even more freeing. But I still had a lot on my mind. I was angry. I was also worried. Pauli was my only real friend at this school. If he didn’t make it… if he was dead.
I couldn’t allow my mind to go there. We were not going back to his funeral. We were going back to save him… to save everyone. That was what I had to tell myself, but deep down, I suspected and feared the worst. And it tore me apart. Now, I was putting all my hope on the very same Loa who’d destroyed my family, who I’d dreaded for nine long years. I’d have to put my big girl panties on for this one… for Pauli’s sake.
22
CROSSING THE LEY lines from the groves into the blighted land of the dead was like flying out of a day spa and directly into an oven. I could feel my skin broil beneath Samhuinn’s heat.
“I don’t understand,” I said out loud, talking to Beli and Isabelle both. “Didn’t the Dryad say that Baron Samedi lives on the border, between the two sides of Guinee?”
He did… but the border is long. He didn’t say what part of the border.
“But Beli knows…”
The dragon snorted—I could feel it rumble beneath my thighs. Some people would pay good money for a sensation like that. I might have enjoyed it more if it wasn’t for the damn heat. I thought about releasing a touch of Isabelle’s magica into my skin—the stuff is more soothing than aloe vera, but not nearly as sticky. Still, I was basically flying a dragon into hell and I was about to go see the Grim fucking Reaper—the same bastard who’d haunted my dreams for years. If shit went south, I’d need whatever magica I could draw.
“Can’t we just fly on the other side?” I asked as Beli started flying parallel to the ley line.
Again, he snorted. “I like the feeling.”
I guess it would make sense that a dragon might not be fazed by heat—I mean, I hadn’t exactly seen him do it yet, but I guessed he could breathe fire.
“You might like how it feels, but it feels like I’m flying through an air fryer. I don’t know how long I can take this.”
Beli didn’t speak but cocked his head to the left and the rest of his body followed. The soothing breeze cooled my skin the moment we passed back across the ley lines.
“Thank you,” I said, patting Beli on the side of his neck.
I could swear I felt him chuckle. Suddenly, I found we were flying straight up. Quickly. I struggled to hold on, gripping the dragon as tightly as I could with my legs while clinging for dear life to his scales. I would have screamed, but Isabelle was giggling at the thrill.
Then we stopped, hovering in midair as Beli flapped his giant wings.
“What was that about?” I asked.
The dragon didn’t respond. Instead, he looked toward the ground and drew in a massive breath. A half second later we were plunging toward the ground, directly for the border between the grassy groves and the deathly blight on the other side.
“What the hell!” I shouted, but we were diving so quickly my words were lost on the wind.
Beli exhaled, a torrent of flames pouring from his wide-open jaw, striking the ground. When the flames hit the border, it looked as though the earth split apart at the seams. It wasn’t a tunnel or a cave—not exactly. It looked like a black hole, summoned out of the ground. I’m not a big sci-fi geek, but one thing I know about black holes from the movies is that you never want to get sucked into one. But we were flying directly into it… and Beli was not about to be dissuaded.
Everything went completely black. Cold and dark. The g-force of falling gave way to a graceful glide through the abyss.
This is what dying feels like…
“It’s… strangely peaceful.”
But we aren’t dead…
“Are you sure?”
We’re still together, right?
I nodded. We were together. I could still feel Beli beneath my body. His warmth helped fend off the chill of this… place. If you could call it a place.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“We are between death and life,” Beli replied, his voice calm and cool.
“This is where Baron Samedi lives?” I asked, looking around but seeing nothing but blackness… nothingness.
“Lives?” Beli huffed. “It is where he might be found.”
I looked around again. Still, I saw nothing.
Say his name…
“What?”
Say his name. I had no memories of this, until we arrived. When I died, someone said my name. That’s when I was drawn out of the abyss.
I took a deep breath and nodded, giving myself permission to say it.
“Baron Samedi…”
The name echoed throughout the void.
Then I saw two lights in the distance. One was green, the other was red. It made me think of Christmas—bu
t I suspected what we were about to encounter was anything but jolly.
As we flew closer I saw two figures, each illuminated by the lights flooding from their eyes, their ears, even their pores.
The two figures were identical, aside from the hue of the magic that filled them. He looked just as I remembered him. Tall and lanky, dressed in a black suit that looked like it had come out of the nineteenth century.
The two figures appeared locked in a struggle, each floating through the air, exchanging blows with the other. Neither seemed to have an advantage.
“I wonder how long…”
Ever since that night…
I nodded.
When Isabelle spoke, the figure illuminated in red turned toward us, a combination of hate and lust seeming to pour from his inflamed eyes.
“Finally!” the red Baron shouted. “The power!”
My whole body trembled. This was the demon… the evil Loa exactly as he’d been when I saw him that night.
He’s still consumed by a Caplata’s magic, by Messalina’s summons.
I gripped the totem that Ashley had given me, now hanging around my neck. It was the only thing I had that connected me to her… and I wanted my big sister.
When I touched it, I felt a strange calm come over my body. It felt like electricity, coursing between the totem and my bosom.
“Are you doing that?” I asked Isabelle.
Not exactly… not intentionally… but it’s still my power.
Then another voice entered my mind… a voice I knew well.
He can’t hurt you, little sis.
“Ashley?”
I’m here…
“How the hell?”
Shaman magic. Stand up to him. He thrives on fear. The magic within him, Bokor magic, it’s all powered by fear.
I felt my dragon dissipate beneath my thighs, and suddenly I was standing in the middle of the void. My feet hit some kind of surface, but I couldn’t see anything there to secure my footing.
As the red Baron approached, I looked in the distance. The green Baron stood still, his eyes meeting mine. It was as though he was begging me to call to him.
I think she’s right, Isabelle said. So long as you are afraid, the red Baron is in control.
I felt the red Baron’s cold, bony hand touch my cheek.
“How long I’ve longed to claim you both. You’ve grown up. You’ve become… beautiful.”
Gates of Eden: Starter Library Page 68
