THE TEMPTING

by D. M. Pratt

  “Help me,” Zamara said.

  Aria rushed to her side and together they gathered Cora up.

  “Put her in the car,” Aria said. “Can you care for her?”

  “Will she remember?” Zamara asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  They got the back door open and slipped Cora inside.

  “What did you do?” Zamara asked.

  “It’s temporary. He’ll be back and he’ll be pissed,” Aria told her as she gathered the car keys and handed them to Zamara. “Whatever you do, don’t leave her alone.”

  Zamara reached out and grabbed Aria’s arm.

  “Can you help me get away from him?” Zamara begged. “Please. Please.”

  “You have to ask me.”

  “I’m begging you. I know no magic strong enough to protect me or her from him,” Zamara explained. “Help me.”

  Aria reached out her hand and touched Zamara’s shoulder. Aria recoiled as if twenty thousand volts of electricity were ripping through her. Aria stepped back.

  “What did you do? You gave yourself to him. You’re under his powers? How? Why?” Aria asked, the sadness tainting every word.

  “Not me, my father. He had to or everyone would die. I was the sacrifice. I just said yes to help my family. I didn’t know … I didn’t know what he was asking until it was too late,” Zamara said.

  “I’m sorry. You are beyond my powers. I might be able to protect her,” Aria said looking at Cora. “… and maybe I can save Miss Eve and the babies, but to break a spirit bond, I … Your father sacrificed you into that curse? With him?”

  “He had to. I was all he’d accept,” Zamara said.

  “Focus your powers on saving Cora. Make it so she doesn’t remember what just happened to her if you can. There are acts of selfless courage that can break the bond, but they come with a heavy price.”

  “Better to die in grace than to live in hell,” Zamara said. “What about Mister Beau?”

  “His blood is cursed by an ancient family curse. He has belonged to them since his birth and it is only a matter of time before he becomes what he is,” Aria said.

  “Can’t you try to cleanse him of that demon?” Zamara asked.

  “It could kill him, but I can try. I just can’t do it alone. Right now I need to find Eve and the children before Kirakin finds a way back and gets to them first,” Aria said. “Zamara, I need your help.”

  “Me? You can’t find her by yourself?” Zamara said.

  “No. I’ll have to summon another of the Nephilim,” Aria told her.

  “Madre de Dios, one as powerful as Kirakin?”

  “Gathian. They are the same spirit divided into good and evil. One cannot live without the other. One cannot die without the other - or so they think. Go! I’ll call you when I need your help, Zamara,” Aria said, looking at Cora, bleeding and unconscious in the car. “Get her home and heal her as best you can. I’ll prepare everything for the séance and then I’ll call you. Do you understand?”

  Zamara swallowed, her mouth turned dry from a surge of fear. She knew all too well what was about to be asked of her.

  “Zamara? Do you understand?” Aria shouted at her.

  “Yes, God help us all, I understand exactly,” Zamara said and tried to bless herself. Her hand twisted into a cramp. Zamara winced with pain.

  “I’ll wait for your call,” Zamara said

  Rubbing her arm she got into the Vantage as Aria looked at the empty pouch in her hand.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  In the early hours of the morning Mac slipped out and drove to the Creole Café. It was a small family-run business that had been there since long before he was born. He bought fresh chicory coffee for himself and Eve and delectable hot beignets dusted in powdered sugar with a glass bottle of fresh cold milk for the kids. Not healthy, but fun and very New Orleans. As he drove home, he listened to Jimi Hendrix singing his favorite blues song. “Hear My Train a Comin’” played an acoustic, twelve string guitar. Mac sang along off key, bobbing his head and letting the words and the passion that Hendrix laid down on those analogue tracks bend each note. Hendrix could make anyone feel like they had the soul to wail. Mac played air guitar on his seat belt as he waited for the light to change. The song ended, but Mac kept grooving until the weather man cut in announcing the heat index and humidity for the coming day, high winds and a coming storm. A big hurricane was brewing off the Florida Keys. The announcer said it was heading their way, but could fade before it reached them. Mac looked up and saw blue skies spotted with voluminous fluffy white clouds stretched above him. Mac inhaled deeply. He could sense the coming storm in the air. It was a gift, his grandmother told him, to know the weather. That gift had saved them in Katrina. His bones ached from the barometric pressure and the wind carried the scent of salt air. No doubt in his mind or his body, a storm was coming.

  He reached the house and delivered his treasures. Mac watched a sleepy Eve, her hair, loose and unkempt, falling past her shoulders as she gratefully took the offering and fed both Philip and Delia. They all shared the beignets. Mac smiled as Eve made sure to shake as much powdered sugar off the top of each beignet as she could.

  “Nothing worse than sugar-hyped kids,” she told him with a smile.

  Eve sipped her coffee, talking and playing with the kids as Mac watched. She was a good mother and even with sleepy eyes, strained from whatever event had brought her to him, she was beautiful. He tilted his head in amazement, watching as the sun reached through the window and kissed her hair. Each time she moved the light reflected off it, catching the honey color of her hair and enhancing each strand with the gold of the sun. If this wasn’t the definition of smitten, Mac didn’t know what else to call it.

  Eve finished her coffee and kissed both children before leaving them to play with crayons and coloring books in the kitchen with Mac close by. Eve gathered their clothes, a shirt, pants and dress to wash on the porch. Eve went to get their shoes and as she wandered down the hall, she peeked in the other two rooms. One held an old, oak framed bed and a matching armoire from the eighteen hundreds. The dresser in the second room was from the forties. It was made of a blonde wood with amber handles and a waterfall front. It had a beautiful vanity with drawers anchored together by a large circular mirror. Eve caught her reflection, but refused to look too closely. She didn’t want to see how deep the circles under her eyes had become. A small ancient rocker stood by the window next to an old Victorian rocking horse. The children would like that, Eve thought. In the corner were several boxes, neatly filled with old clothes and old papers.

  Mac was a bachelor, but he was obviously a neat freak. So the place was clean, which she appreciated. Eve went to the bathroom, peed, washed her face and hands and used her finger for a tooth brush. She found a good, boar’s hair brush to pull as many tangles as she could out of her tresses. She braided her locks into a rope and let it fall down her back. Eve took one last look at the face in the mirror, stuck out her tongue and grimaced, then returned to the kitchen. Mac sat with the children in the middle of the floor playing with them, surrounded by a pile of pots and spoons he’d spilled before them. He sang while they made a ruckus of clashing sounds as they laughed and played.

  “Thank you,” Eve said.

  “They’re amazing,” he said with a smile. It was obvious he was having as much fun as they were.

  Eve nodded yes, picked up her coffee and stepped toward the back door.

  “Can we talk out on the porch?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said with a nod.

  Eve opened the wood-framed, heavily painted screen door with its layers of colors from years of care, shade after shade peeking through the cracks and scratches. The door swung wide, screaming to be oiled, as they stepped onto the wood porch.

  “WD 40,” Mac said apologetically. ‘What on earth did we do before WD 40?”

  “Oil,” Eve said with a smile. “Can you grab—”

  “Oh, right,” Mac said.
r />   Turning with the grace of a dancer he grabbed the kids by their pants and carried them outside like two giggling, squealing piglets and sat them on the grass. Their laughter echoed across the small yard. Eve watched as he filled a pail with water, which he mischievously placed on the grass between the kids next to a small mound of black dirt. Eve laughed as she handed each a spoon and some tin bowls that must have belonged to a long gone dog. Mac crossed his arms and smiled as Eve happily mixed dirt, grass and water, showing the children the art of mud pies. Delia got it instantly. Eve cupped her hands into the water, scooped and splashed enough out to wet the dirt. Delia stabbed her delicate little finger into the mud and with an expression of joyous amazement made her very first mud pie. Philip was more studious, feeling the grit of the wet dirt between his fingers. He tasted it and made a face and held his dirty fingers out, uncertain if he liked the mess it made. Delia put a spoonful of mud in his open hand and when the mud squished through his fingers, he laughed with pure delight and dug in full force. The children played and left the adults to drink coffee and talk nearby.

  The overhang above the porch sheltered them from the morning sun. She looked at the carved eaves that turned gracefully into fleur de lis at each corner. So fancy for the simplicity of the house, Eve thought. But somehow it all fit. People had loved this house for a very long time. She looked at the cascades of lavender wisteria that draped lazily over the large arbor by the back gate. The whole yard was perfectly shaded by a huge, old oak that stood proudly in the center of the tiny yard, allowing just the right amount of sunlight to fall across the ground as delicately as moonlight through a piece of fine Chantilly lace.

  “It doesn’t have any moss on it?” Eve asked.

  “It would if I didn’t take it off. Moss is insidious. It’ll take over an old tree like that, wrap around its branches and leaves and suffocate the life out of it. It’s over three hundred years old, far too beautiful to let die,” he spoke of the tree, but his eyes stayed on Eve.

  “I know you’re busy and I shouldn’t have come …” Eve started.

  “I’m not busy and you should have come,” he said.

  “I apologize for the restraining order. Beau was so insistent, but I don’t want to get you in any trouble.”

  “Hell, too late for that,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve been suspended.”

  “Because of me? Oh, God, Detective Macklin, I’m so sorry.”

  “Mac. If I’m going to jail for harboring you, please, call me Mac. Okay?”

  Eve nodded and smiled.

  “And no, I got suspended because of me. I should have left you alone, but …,” he stopped. “Look, Honoré’s office was a coincidence and as for me following you through the cemetery, well, I was worried at how drained you looked. Then I saw that floating thing behind the cemetery and I had to help.”

  “I’m glad you did. Thank you,” Eve said. “I needed someone to witness what I saw.”

  They sat in the quiet of the yard, the silence broken by the occasional chirping of some birds and giggles from the kids. Finally Eve spoke.

  “I have to get to Egypt. Today,” she said.

  Mac looked at her as if to say, Seriously? And you’re telling me this because…

  “I need your help. We need passports for me and the kids. I have some money in my old account and some old credit cards I think still work,” she went on.

  “What makes you think all cops know guys who make fake passports?” he asked.

  “I don’t,” Eve said feeling embarrassed. “Do you?”

  “Actually I do. If I’m mistaken, you don’t have a purse unless it’s in the car.”

  “It’s not. I left it at the house.”

  “Then you can’t go to your bank. Look, I may have some money I can lend you.”

  “I couldn’t ask—”

  “… and I might even have access to a private jet,” he said.

  Eve looked at him and blinked.

  “Old oil guy with ridiculous money and all the toys in the world. Loves beautiful women and owes me a big favor,” Mac said.

  “Wow, Detective Macklin, I’m impressed,” Eve said.

  “It is bullshit until I pull it off, but it’s good bullshit,” he said. “Are you going to tell me that what we saw floating at the burned out house behind the cemetery has something to do with why we are going to Egypt?”

  “She’s part of my dreams. I haven’t put all the pieces together and I think she’s just the tip of a very deep iceberg. The scary thing is, I don’t know how deep it goes,” Eve told him. “Look, I have no right to ask for your help or put your life in danger, Detect—Mac.”

  “You don’t have a choice. The way I see it, I’m all you’ve got,” he explained. “Eve, I’ve seen the white rabbit and I’m going down the hole as deep as it goes until I get some answers. Look, I … I’ve been having dreams too. They won’t stop. They don’t make sense and I want to understand what is happening so I can get my life back,” Mac said.

  “And you’re the only person who understands what I’m going through,” Eve said.

  “Understand isn’t the word, but I am aware and something is very wrong with this picture. I’ll tell you what, I’ll share everything I’ve been dealing with on this twisted mental frequency of a warped channel that’s been pumped into my head since I met you, and you tell me what you remember of your dreams and visions. Fair?”

  Eve weighed the offer. He was right and Eve knew it. There was no one else she could talk to except him. They shared a common bond tied into the experience behind the cemetery, proof of something beyond strange, but they both knew there was so much more. Eve took a deep breath. She looked over at Philip and Delia and, as she did, Philip pushed himself up from the ground, his hands and body covered in mud, and reached for her. A moment later, Delia stood too. The expression etched on both their faces belonged on a grownup’s, not on two sweet, innocent children covered in mud.

  Philip walked over to Eve and Delia followed; two adorable little mud puppies staring at her with their beatific eyes.

  “Oh, Philip, you’re a mess. You too, Miss Delia,” Eve said with a sad little smile, knowing what it would take to clean them up.

  “He can’t protect you,” Philip said, his eyes locked on Mac. “But he will serve another purpose when the time comes.”

  “What?” Eve said, perplexed by the words coming from her too young son.

  She and Mac exchanged a look, both of them too stunned to speak.

  “You need Aria,” Philip said.

  “Zamara can’t know. She belongs to him,” Delia said. “So does Mommy.”

  “How are they doing that and what are they talking about?” Mac said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  Again Philip looked at him.

  “Time is growing short,” Philip said.

  “Please tell me you understand what and how they are saying these things,” Mac said.

  Eve gathered the mud-covered children, once again weightless, into her arms.

  “I don’t understand the meaning of the words, but I feel the urgency. Beau, Aria, Cora, Zamara and the children … he … they are looking for us,” Eve said, turning to head back into the house.

  Mac was on her heels. “Them? They? Who are they?” he insisted.

  “You know them from your dreams, Mac. The Nephilim and they are not of this world.”

  He opened the door to let her pass through with the children.

  “I’ll get the children clean.” What do you need for the passports and to arrange that jet? They’ll need clothes, shoes and jackets. We need to check the weather in Cairo. I’ll find a way to pay you back. I promise.”

  They stepped onto the mud porch where Eve found a towel, wet it and wiped the larger, dried cakes of mud from the two of them. Eve sighed; only a hose down in the shower and full bath would take care of the rest.

  “Okay, this… is freaking me out,” Mac said, obviously shaken.

  “More than Evine?” Eve ask
ed.

  Mac stopped. Something inside him whispered, Trust what you know and share what you are feeling. Hurry or you are all lost. The words echoing in his mind sent a chill up his spine. The voice belonged to his grandmother.

  “Okay. Photos for the passports. No one will believe they’re under two, so we’ll have to decide how old and what year they were born to be this mature,” Mac said.

  He picked up Delia as Eve picked up Philip and both headed into the house to run a bath.

  “You think at this growth rate we should err on the side of older rather than younger?” Eve asked, looking at Philip who seemed to age in her arms. “Make them size four.”

  The children seemed to be in a state of metamorphosis, spurts of physical transformation forcing them to grow up at an alarming rate. It made her heart ache. She feared she would never get to teach them things like normal children.

  Philip touched her face and sent her a thought in unspoken words to her, it’s alright. You are on a far greater journey, mommy. Eve looked into Philip’s eyes. She’d heard him just as clear as if he said the words out loud.

  The children were washed and their hair neatly combed by the time Mac came up with his digital camera and snapped several pictures, checking each to make sure it would work for their fake passports. He took a series of shots of Eve as well. When her eyes looked into the camera lens and connected with his, he felt his heart melt. The camera captured the soul in her eyes, the sensuality of her lips and the way the light danced in her hair. It made the emotions that spun in his heart open to an even deeper place.

  Eve told him she would feed the kids and put them down for their naps.

  “If they still need naps,” she said looking at how big they were.

  “I’ll be back in a few hours. Help yourself to everything, but I suggest you stay inside,” Mac said, as he slipped on an old baseball cap.

  Eve nodded. “I don’t know how to thank you, Mac.”

  Mac looked at her for a long time. Silence hung between them as palpable as a warm mist. He read in her eyes that she knew what he wanted to say. She knew he liked her, that much was obvious, and he wanted to believe she liked him. He could feel the words he wanted to say gathering like a turbulent storm in his mind. A visible shiver trembled through her. She stood there looking at him, completely vulnerable. She needed his help and his protection. The worst thing he could do was let whatever it was he was feeling for her come to the surface. So he let the storm subside.