Cash lowered his hand, knotting it into a fist. “What you gonna do with that?”
“What do you care? We’re all deluded, right?” Kallie slipped the damp lock of hair into the right pocket of her cutoffs, then tossed the scissors onto the coffee table. She offered Cash a smile. “Guess you’ll just hafta find out.”
“You can’t do nothing to me,” Cash challenged. “’Cuz I don’t believe—”
Kallie cut him off. “Yeah, yeah, we know, Mr. Don’t-Believe-in-Juju. No need to repeat yourself.”
She went into the kitchen and rummaged through the junk drawer until she found a roll of duct tape, then she turned around to fetch one of the wood chairs from the table. Her heart constricted when she saw the box of Trix sitting on the table, the shoved-back chair, and the purple glass mixing bowl sitting on the floor.
Looks like Jacks had cereal for dinner, then put the bowl down so Cielo could lap up the milk. For a dog, she’s always had a cat’s sensibilities. Then they came for him—whoever the hell they are—before he could even pick up after himself.
No way a bowl of goddamned Trix is gonna be Jacks’s last meal. Ain’t gonna let it happen.
Kallie strode back into the living room and thumped the chair down in the middle of the floor. She looked at Cash. “You’re gonna sit your ass down in that chair and I’m gonna tie you up. You put up a fight and we’ll do an old-fashioned sleep trick, one involving a shotgun butt and your skull. Your choice.”
Cash studied Kallie for a long moment before walking over—Belladonna right behind him, shotgun aimed at his back—and planting said ass in the chair as requested. “I ain’t forgetting you, darlin’,” he said, his dark gaze promising things much worse than a kitchen chair, rope, and duct tape.
“You might wanna rethink that, darlin’,” Kallie drawled as she took the lengths of rope Gabrielle extended to her and draped them over her shoulder. “You cause me or mine one more lick of grief, I’ll put that lock of hair to work.” She tore a strip free from the roll of duct tape, the sound ripping through the room—nearly silent but for her aunt’s snoring.
“And she can use it in any number of ways: potion, poppet, hex,” Belladonna helpfully pointed out. “She could have you dancing naked but for a tutu in the parking lot of the Z & M truck stop with the words Kick my ass, pretty pretty please painted on your scrawny chest.”
“You ain’t scaring me,” Cash said, gaze fixed on Kallie. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about that fucking piece of hair.”
“Duly noted,” Kallie replied, slapping the piece of duct tape over his mouth. She bent and tied Cash to the chair, wrists and ankles, knotting the rope tight enough to earn more than one grunt from him.
“What about your aunt, Shug?” Belladonna asked, lowering the shotgun to her side and nodding her head in Divinity’s direction. “You think it’s safe to leave her alone? We could always lock this asshole in the garage until we get back.”
“I’ll be staying here, so don’t worry about her.”
Kallie straightened, then turned to face the mambo, meeting Gabrielle’s dark and steady gaze. Worry flickered candle-bright in her eyes. But given that the woman had never met Jackson, Kallie couldn’t imagine that her concern was solely for a man she didn’t even know.
“Is there something else we should be aware of?” Kallie asked.
Gabrielle considered, a crease etching the smooth dark skin between her brows, her fingers gently tapping her lips. “Don’t know yet. But your aunt’s trick boomeranging like that? Worries me. I don’t know if it’s something to do with your aunt or this place or because of what happened with Doctor Heron, but be careful, hear?”
“Double careful,” Belladonna agreed.
Kallie suddenly remembered something the mambo had said earlier, something that had given her pause, since it didn’t match the information she already possessed. “You said that Doctor Heron has a place in Chacahoula. But I found an address for him in Delacroix.”
Gabrielle nodded. “Delacroix is where his daughter moved after her mama died. Chacahoula is where Jean-Julien and Babette lived before he was sent away to prison. But I don’t know if he kept the place or sold it.”
“I have a feeling he mighta found a way to keep it,” Kallie said.
“He might’ve at that,” Gabrielle said. She inclined her head at Kerry. “You girls grab this one and get going. Time is against us, so while you’re driving to Chacahoula, I plan on asking the Gédé to intercede on your cousin’s behalf.” She looked at Kallie. “I plan to summon Baron Samedi. If anyone can save your cousin, turn him away from death, the Baron can.”
Hope pulsed through Kallie. The Gédé—the loas of the dead and keepers of ancestral knowledge—were skilled healers able to keep a soul from entering death’s realm before its time. And presiding over the Gédé was Baron Samedi, loa of death and resurrection, gatekeeper to the world of the dead.
Kallie’s fingers automatically reached up to curl around the Saint Bernadette medallion hanging around her throat, the metal cool against her skin. She missed the smooth feel of the little coffin pendant—representing Baron Samedi—that she’d worn at Divinity’s insistence for nine years. She’d given the pendant to Layne as a gift to burn with Gage’s body in the crematorium in New Orleans.
Gabrielle was right. If anyone could help Jackson, the Baron could.
“I appreciate that,” Kallie said quietly, throat tightening. “Merci bien.”
“No need to thank me, child. I’m a priestess and I think your cousin needs all the help he can get.”
“Do you need help with the invocation?” Belladonna asked. “I’m in training to be a mambo, so I know the rites for invoking the spirits of the dead.”
Kallie nodded. “If you need her, keep her. I don’t need help handling Kerry.” She bent, hooked a hand around Kerry’s hard biceps, and helped him haul himself up to his feet. Straightening, she looked at the rope-bound outlaw and arched an eyebrow. “Do I?”
Kerry kept his attention on the floor and his dusty boots and shook his head mournfully. “No, ma’am.”
“Thanks for the offer, girl,” Gabrielle replied, smiling at Belladonna, “but you go with your friend. I been doing these invocations for years.”
“Let’s go, Bell,” Kallie said, steering Kerry toward the screen door. “Jacks is waiting. Grab your mambo scout bag and let’s keep the shotgun too. Just in case.”
“Right behind you, Shug.”
Kallie stepped out onto the porch and looked up into the darkening sky. Even though dawn was still fresh on the horizon and dew beaded the grass and the petals of her aunt’s rosebushes, gray swollen-bellied clouds bruised the sky, stealing the morning’s brightness along with its flush of peach and apricot pink.
Humidity thick with the smell of roses, impending rain, and decaying vegetation from the banks of the bayou behind the house drenched the air. Sweat sprang up along her hairline.
Goddamned five of spades. Enough with the setbacks, already!
“Storm’s coming, Bell,” she said, chest tight. As she propelled Kerry down the porch steps, she thought of Jackson in his grave, the weight of rain-churned mud squeezing the last bit of air from his lungs. “And we gotta beat it to Chacahoula.”
Belladonna paused in the doorway, her gaze on the sky. “Hellfire.”
FIVE
KINDRED SOULS
Panting, tongue lolling and flecked with foam, Cielo follows her nose down the dirt road, inhaling scent and information with each whiff of air. The damp dirt is ripe with moldering green leaves, sour bugs, cool grass, but the scent she cares about, the scent she follows—the stinky exhaust from Daddy’s Get-in-the-Truck and hot rubber from its round paws—is fading.
Other scents from the still water beyond the road’s sawgrass and vine-choked edge entice her, make her nose twitch: stinky dead things caught in the cattails. And even though she loves stinky dead things, she doesn’t slow or pause. Not even for a drink. Daddy’s energy is nearly g
one, his voice a fading whisper cupped within her inner ears.
Here, girl. Here.
Her paws throb, prickling with owies from running along the highway all night. But she didn’t run it alone. Sometime during her run, she became aware that fleet shapes raced alongside her, paralleling her on either side of the highway, black shadows slipping in and out among the moss- and lichen-draped trees on graceful paws. Radiating curiosity. Play.
But Cielo has no time for play.
She remembers the pungent smell of Daddy’s blood as the men knocked him down in the yard, then threw him into his Get-in-the-Truck. She also remembers the smell and taste of their blood, and their musky, fur-spiking scent.
She growls low in her throat. She will always remember.
Cielo pads, limping, beneath the low, grass-sweeping branches of a tree pungent with the smell of spring sap, and into an overgrown yard. A people-den sits quiet in the morning shade, the porch and its swing empty, the windows closed.
She lifts her muzzle and sniffs for threat, for the stink of the men who’d grabbed Daddy. But all she smells is decayed wood, mildew, and termites, and the thunder-and-rain odor of a shadow woman.
Shadow people often drift through Tante’s den, wisping through and away like bits of early morning mist.
Dey be traveling, dog, so leave dem be, hear? No growling or barking. No howling or whooing. Deir journey be a long one, for true. Dey don’t need none o’ yo’ foolishness, so be a good dog, you.
Since Tante is alpha female of the den, Cielo listens. Mostly. She is, after all, a very good dog.
The shadow woman, threadbare body shafted through with sunlight and edged with wagging tails of thick, black night, stands in the driveway just beyond the porch, her gaze on a low pile of fresh-turned dirt. And beyond the pile of dirt, Cielo sees a Get-in-the-Truck parked beside the empty den.
Daddy’s Get-in-the-Truck.
Cielo’s blood sings, her heart leaps, and, despite the bad energy crackling around the shadow woman, she races across the yard, aimed for the Get-in-the-Truck. But she slows to a stop beside the pile of dirt, muzzle lifted as she sniffs the air. The mingled odors of roots and green things, slugs and wriggling worms, decaying vegetation, and the cold metal tang of a shovel blade dance into her nostrils.
Cielo goes still. Inhales deeply.
She catches a whiff of the pungent sweat and adrenaline from the bad men. And Daddy. She breathes in blood-smell, and not just Daddy’s. Breathes in sweaty, heart-pounding desperation.
Here, girl.
Like words from a shadow person now, threadbare and shot through with light.
Cielo stares at the pile of dark, moist dirt. Tilts her head. The bad men buried Daddy like he was a yummie to be hidden and savored, like a treasured squeaka, or a squirrel that quit moving. (No, Cielo-girl, no. Squirrels are not squeakas. You can’t squeak ’em and expect them to keep breathin’.)
But Daddy wasn’t a yummie or a squeaka or a non-moving squirrel and he didn’t belong in the ground. Cielo bolts to the long pile of dirt, nuzzles it with her nose. She whoo-whoos.
Daddy?
Here … Like a final squirrel-squeaka breath.
Cielo starts digging.
Cielo ignores the shadow woman and digs faster, dirt flinging out from under her paws. The thunder and rain scent intensifies and, for a moment, drowns out Daddy’s scent in her nostrils. A cold hand sinks into her fur.
Cielo pauses and growls low in her throat, a deep, warning rumble. The hand vanishes from her fur, but the cold lingers. She resumes digging.
Cielo burrows deep into the pile, dark earth flying into the air by the double pawful, but it seems like she’s no closer to digging Daddy out of the ground than when she began. When she sends her inner voice to him, she hears nothing in return. She redoubles her efforts. Blood and foam fleck the soil.
She hears soft padding behind her and her hackles rise. Dark shapes slip out from around the trees. She smells heated fur and musk, the reek of wolf and something other, something she doesn’t recognize.
A howl rakes the morning, a morning that has steadily darkened as Cielo’s paws tore through the dirt.
Just as she whirls around, forelegs planted in the dirt, muzzle lowered and lips wrinkled up, revealing her fangs, thunder cracks along the horizon. Her fierce warning growl rumbles to a stop in her throat at what she sees.
Three wolves, one black, the others rain-cloud gray, roll in the dirt that Cielo has tossed into the driveway. Roll and yip-yipe and shudder as if their fur is on fire or their paws prickling with thorns. Their bodies ripple and blur.
Thunder booms again, an angry fist pounding the sky.
And rain pours.
SIX
LOA OF DEATH AND RESURRECTION
Gabrielle watched through the porch door’s screen as Belladonna steered her age-weathered Dodge Dart down the rutted dirt driveway, her tied-up and nervous guide strapped into the passenger seat, while Kallie sat in the back behind him, his shotgun lying across her bare thighs, her cousin’s red flannel mojo bag tucked into her pocket.
“Lord have mercy,” Gabrielle prayed. “Christ have mercy, ago-ago yé. Saint Expédite, pray and intercede for that poor boy buried in the ground, and grant his cousin speed and perfect timing. His life is in the hands of Bon Dieu.”
As the lime green vehicle bounced out of view in a wake of pale dust, Gabrielle added, “And in the Baron’s.” She could only hope that it wasn’t already too late.
Closing the front door, she twisted the simple lock into place. No dead bolts here, no security chains or bars on doors or windows. Most folks would never dream of crossing a conjurer’s threshold uninvited.
Well, not the locals, anyway. As for those who don’t know better … Gabrielle glanced at the sullen expression above Cash’s duct-taped mouth. A smile brushed her lips. A fist-throwing, shotgun-grabbing niece will do the job just as nicely.
And as for unseen and otherworldly danger, a hoodoo’s wards usually guarded the home quite handily, but the tingle Gabrielle had felt—the warm spiderweb touch of protective gris-gris against evil—as she’d stepped into Divinity’s cozy, frankincense- and rose-fragrant home a few hours earlier was now inexplicably missing.
Gabrielle walked into the living room, her gaze skipping from that chair-bound fool Cash to Divinity’s softly snoring form on the sofa. The woman’s face was untroubled, her light cocoa-colored skin uncreased by worry, fear, or doubt. And Gabrielle had seen every one of those emotions chase across the rootworker’s face that morning since she’d learned of her nephew’s dire situation.
How in the name of Bon Dieu and all the saints and angels had Divinity’s spell backfired? How was such a thing even possible?
Power peals through the room in a deep, bone-thrumming vibration and Gabrielle’s heart stutters.
A cold hand trailed ice down Gabrielle’s spine—and not for the first time that morning either. Something was very wrong, something that traveled deeper than backfiring spells and suddenly missing house wards.
Maybe it was more of Jean-Julien’s—no, make that Doctor Heron, the Jean-Julien she’d once loved had disappeared the day he was arrested for murder—dark work, a hex laid down before Kallie and her handsome dread-locked nomad had ended his dark work forever.
Maybe it was due to the fact that Kallie carried a loa inside of her instead of a soul—a fact her aunt had hidden from the girl until just an hour or so ago.
Yo’ soul—yo’ Gros Bon Ange —was removed to make room for de loa placed inside you. De same loa dat your mama tried to awaken with bl
ood and darkness by murdering yo’ papa and shooting you.
But why was a loa put inside me? Who did it? How? And why the hell would Mama want to awaken it? And where’s my soul?
Well, see, dat be de problem. We don’t know. Your mama was de last one who had it, and she ain’t talking.
Gabrielle shook her head, still amazed. She’d never heard of such a thing. A child’s—no, an infant’s—soul stolen, the emptiness inside filled with a sleeping loa—one that apparently craved violence.
Which explained—somewhat—what Gabrielle had seen Kallie do as Jean-Julien’s soul had escaped his dying, knife-savaged body.
The black dust coating Jean-Julien’s soul ripples, then flows backward and down into Kallie’s waiting palm. The root doctor’s spirit unravels inch by inch, molecule by molecule, until the air is empty.
Gabrielle’s fingers plucked at the edges of her scarf, then she mentally shooed away the image of her former lover’s ultimate death. Just who or what resided inside of Kallie Rivière? And why? Questions asked by the girl herself, questions that remained unanswered—so far.
A surge of anger stiffened Gabrielle’s spine. Stealing identities. Costing innocent folks their lives. Lying to her niece—even if to protect her from her mother’s inexplicable and reprehensible actions.
Divinity Santiago has a helluva lot of explaining to do and much to answer for. A shame her niece and nephew are paying for her foolishness. And thinking of that poor boy …
Maybe, just maybe, there was still time for Gabrielle to help Kallie rescue her cousin from the fate Jean-Julien had no doubt spun into motion even before he’d attempted to kill Kallie body and soul—and would’ve succeeded, if not for her missing soul.
Gabrielle quickly cleared the coffee table of empty Abita bottles, a blue glass vase full of white roses with peach-rimmed petals, magazines—Boat World, Star Magazine, Louisiana Cookin’—and a slim, well-thumbed copy of The Complete Poems of John Keats.
Black Heart Loa Page 4
