Black Heart Loa

by Adrian Phoenix

  —the dream shifts.

  Kallie finds herself running through a night-blanketed forest, cold mud squelching between the toes of her bare feet, gray fingers of Spanish moss whispering soft against her face as she ducks beneath oak branches.

  A cry cuts through the air, a horse’s terrified scream. Kallie’s heart drums against her ribs. Ahead, she hears the thunder of hooves trampling the earth, behind she detects the stealthy and measured tread of a predator.

  She’s caught between—racing toward one and fleeing the other.

  And uncertain which is worse.

  A huge weeping willow looms in her path, moonlight bleaching the cascading waterfall of pale leaves bone white. The slender, drooping branches rustle as though something crouches within the darkness beneath. Waiting.

  A bird trills, a haunting sound. A nightingale.

  Kallie slows to a stop, suddenly uncertain. Sweat plasters her short, black nightie against her breasts, her thighs. Beads her forehead.

  Something thrashes beyond the willow branches. Hooves thud against the ground, the impact vibrating up through the soles of Kallie’s muddy feet and up along her spine to the base of her skull.

  Behind Kallie, something pads with steady and dreadful purpose. The hair rises on the back of her neck. The horse screams again, a wild and desperate sound. And Kallie moves, brushing aside the willow’s slender branches as she dashes into the tree’s shadowed shelter.

  But what she sees beneath the willow brings her to a sudden and stumbling stop. Launches her heart into her throat.

  A black cobweb entangles a purple-maned ebony horse in glistening, ropy tendrils. The horse’s hooves slash frantically at the web, but the coils just re-form and loop even tighter around the struggling animal.

  No, not an animal, not only or just a horse. A vévé depicting a heart bound in chains made of pale bones and surrounded by black X’s hangs on a braided silver chain around the horse’s muscular neck.

  For a second, the scene flickers, and Kallie sees a young woman entangled in the black, sticky cobweb instead, a woman close to her own age with café-au-lait skin and long cinnamon curls, her curves caressed by a purple silk dress, the vévé tattooed into the smooth flesh just above and between her breasts.

  The loa. Her loa.

  Another flicker and the horse returns, rearing, hooves lifting, black eyes rolling wild. A dark and twisted energy pulsates out from the pythonesque web and into the night.

  A whisper in the grass behind her, followed by a whiff of moon-washed fur and coppery blood, warns Kallie that something has launched itself into the air—all wicked fangs and claws and savage hunger.

  She bolts forward, just as the horse’s hooves slash down, headed straight for her chest with rib-splitting force.

  Kallie jerked awake with a sharp gasp and found herself looking into pine-green eyes framed by long honey lashes. Concerned eyes. Layne lay on his back, his face turned toward hers, and that now-familiar sense of connection—heated and soothing—rippled through Kallie, wiping the last traces of the nightmare from her mind.

  “Hey, sunshine. Bad dream?”

  Snuggled up against the hard-muscled warmth of his boxers-clad body, the sandalwood scent of his dreads perfuming her nostrils, Kallie remembered the sizzling ’n’ sexy earlier part of her dream.

  And before she even knew what she was doing, before she allowed herself a second to think, Kallie cupped a hand against Layne’s face and closed her mouth over his in a tender, exploring kiss. A soft mmm of surprise from him, the sound sliding down into a hum of pleasure that vibrated against her lips as he deepened the kiss, one hand reaching up to entwine itself in her long, thick hair.

  His lips tasted of Divinity’s potion, of allspice, poppies, and cinnamon and, faintly, of blood. Kallie trailed her fingers along his jaw, feeling the smooth glide of his slim sideburns. Fire, stoked and smoldering since the dream, since their first kiss in Augustine’s office, flashed into white-hot flame. Pooled molten in her belly.

  His arm snaking over her hip and pulling her even closer, Layne rolled over, then grunted in pain as his bandaged, road-rash-damaged side came into contact with the mattress. But it was Kallie who broke the kiss and shoved him onto his back again.

  “You’re hurt,” she whispered breathlessly. “How’s your head? You took one helluva knock.”

  “Ain’t the first time, betcha it won’t be the last,” Layne replied, toying with a strand of her hair, green eyes amused. “But thanks to your aunt, I’m feeling a helluva lot better than I was when I got here.” He studied Kallie’s face, his amusement fading. “How did you find me, anyway? I mean, my trip to Chacahoula was spontaneous and I thought you were gonna get some sleep.”

  Kallie rolled over onto her belly, propped herself up on her forearms. “And I was,” she said, looking at Layne, “but then I found my cousin’s mojo bag lying in the yard, leather strap broken as though it had been ripped from his neck. And I knew something bad had happened to him.”

  A muscle worked in Layne’s jaw. “Motherfucking Doctor Heron.”

  Kallie nodded, throat constricting. “Exactly.” Speaking in low tones, she told him everything that had happened between the time he’d said good-bye to her at dawn and ridden away for New Orleans and the time she and Belladonna had helped him stagger through the botanica’s back door, even sharing her blossoming belief that her missing cousin might be part loup-garou.

  Layne listened without interruption, tension flickering across his face when she described discovering her cousin’s grave, his eyes briefly squeezing shut in relief when he learned the grave was empty. And when she talked about loups-garous, his expression was thoughtful and full of speculation—not disbelief.

  But given that Layne was a Vessel who housed the dead, not to mention being a nomad raised in a natural and pagan belief system where the supernatural was all part of the whole, Kallie wasn’t surprised that talk of were-wolves hadn’t triggered his Stop feeding me bullshit eye-rolling mechanism.

  “Shit, Kallie, I left too soon,” Layne said when she finished speaking, face hard. “I made a huge goddamned mistake in assuming that just because that bastard Heron was dead, you were safe. I shoulda made sure.”

  “My safety ain’t your responsibility,” Kallie said softly, holding Layne’s gaze and trying to ignore the stubborn light suddenly glinting in their depths. “So knock off blaming yourself, okay? I can watch out for myself just fine.”

  “I know you can. Never said you couldn’t,” Layne replied. “But I refuse to take chances with your life, not when Gage paid for it with his own.”

  Guilt and sorrow pricked Kallie and she heard what he didn’t say: I lose you, I lose Gage all over again.

  “I shoulda made fucking sure,” Layne repeated.

  Kallie stared at him in exasperation. “So, what—you planning on following me around forever? Saving me from scraped knees and broken hearts?” A part of her thought that wouldn’t be so bad, and that she could do a lot worse than having a hot and gorgeous nomad stalking her. Especially this hot and gorgeous nomad. “I don’t need a goddamned babysitter.”

  Layne glared back at her. “Never said you did. All I want is for you to be safe.”

  Kallie returned his glare. “And I was safe. What happened with Cash and his cousin and with the Baron had nothing to do with Doctor Heron.”

  “Maybe not,” Layne allowed, glare deepening. “But being held hostage by shotgun-toting outlaws, then threatened with death by Baron Samedi, don’t fall under the I was safe category in my book.”

  Kallie narrowed her eyes. “Really? Speaking of safe, how did you wind up wrecking your bike, anyway?”

  The glare-a-thon ended when Layne’s eyes widened, his focus shifting inward. “Shit. Maybe I saw your cousin. Does he drive a pickup? A Dodge Ram?”

  Kallie’s heart gave a hard pulse. “Yeah, he does.”

  Layne told her about the pickup that had blasted out of the driveway, steered by a guy with tawny
hair and beard, practically taking the turn onto the road on two wheels, and of the Siberian husky and two wolves staring at him from the truck bed as he and his Harley were going down into the gravel.

  “Cielo,” Kallie breathed, hope awakening. She sat up. “That’s Jackson’s dog. Maybe he was in the back too, since he wasn’t driving. And the wolves …”

  “Just might be the loups-garous Baron Samedi mentioned,” Layne finished for her.

  “The question is, if the man and wolves you saw are loups-garous, where did they take my cousin? Where the hell is Le Nique?”

  Memory tugged, and Kallie dipped down into the past, heard herself asking that same question, but in a six-year-old’s curious voice.

  “How do you get to Le Nique? Does your papa drive or do you need magic?”

  “Nope, no magic. We drive most o’ the way, then we take a pirogue up Bayou Cocodrie or … wait … maybe it be Tiger Bayou. I don’t ’member exactly …”

  Cocodrie—alligator—and tiger.

  Strength. South. Fierce animals.

  “Holy shit,” Kallie breathed. “I think I might know where to look for Jackson.” Excitement curled through her. She believed both bayous were south of Bayou Cyprés Noir, but she’d need a map to locate them. She could check one, then the other. She’d bet anything both bayous were relatively close to Chacahoula—at least as far as running wolves were concerned.

  She paused to look at the clock. It read 2:11 a.m. Shit! I’ve been asleep nine or ten hours. Jackson … “I need to get my ass goddamned moving. I need to find him before …” She allowed the sentence to trail off, unable to finish it, refusing to voice her fears.

  “Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” Layne said. “You’re gonna find him.”

  “I can’t wait on you,” Kallie said, looking into his eyes. “I wish I could, but—”

  “Don’t you worry about it, sunshine,” Layne interrupted, brushing the backs of his fingers against her cheek. “You go find your cousin. That’s the only thing that matters. I wanna help, but I got a fight on my hands here. I’m no good to you right now.”

  “Merci,” she whispered. “You just keep safe, okay?” Layne’s hand trailed away from her face, then he squeezed his eyes shut. “Enough with the damned bell,” he grated through his teeth. “I hear you. Hold on, just hold on for a moment.”

  Kallie realized Layne was having a conversation with Augustine. At least, she hoped it was Augustine. She couldn’t imagine Layne having words even resembling civil to say to Babette St. Cyr. Couldn’t imagine how it must feel to have the cold and bitter ghost of Doctor Heron’s murderous wife inside your body, nestled against your heart, and against your will.

  An image from Kallie’s nightmare flashed behind her eyes. A black cobweb entangles a purple-maned ebony horse in glistening, ropy tendrils. Repressing the urge to shiver, she reached for Layne’s hand and laced her fingers through his, squeezed.

  Looks like we’re both carrying things inside that were forced upon us.

  Opening his eyes, Layne looked at her. She noticed sweat gleaming at his hairline. “Gotta go, Kallie. Babette’s starting to break free.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  Layne closed his eyes again. “See if your aunt can find someone who can handle ghost exorcisms. Augustine knows how to banish …” His words trailed off as though he’d fallen asleep midsentence, but the tension in his body and in the line of his jaw declared otherwise.

  Kallie trailed a hand through her hair, wondering if Divinity had any experience exorcising body-snatching ghosts, or if she knew of anyone who could. Since Layne’s ex was two-plus hours away in New Orleans, Kallie didn’t see a point in trying to contact McKenna.

  “You’re awake,” Belladonna’s welcome voice stage-whispered from the doorway. “It’s about time. I was beginning to think Layne’s coma was contagious.”

  “One—Layne ain’t in a coma, and two—goddamned Divinity potioned me,” Kallie said as she swiveled around on the bed. “But I think I might have a lead on where Jackson might be. Something I remembered him saying. You ever heard of Bayou Cocodrie or Tiger Bayou?”

  Belladonna stood in the doorway, a blue plaid bathrobe belted around her tall, slender frame and fuzzy blue kitty slippers on her feet. “I’ve heard of Bayou Cocodrie,” she replied. “I’ve got a map in the car, Shug. When do you want to go?”

  “Now.”

  Holding a Shush finger against her lips, Belladonna glanced over her shoulder into the heart of the botanica.

  Kallie held her breath and listened. She heard the low murmur of voices, male and female, heard the clump of boots against hardwood, heard low laughter. She frowned.

  They weren’t alone.

  Had Gabrielle returned from the meeting with a few of the hoodoos in tow?

  Releasing her breath, Kallie watched as Belladonna lowered the finger from her lips and shuffled into the room in her fuzzy blue kitty slippers and over to the bed, bringing the clean scent of Ivory soap and jasmine-and-honey shampoo along with her.

  “Nomads,” she whispered, sweeping an appreciate gaze over Layne’s boxers-clad form, then plopping down on the mattress. “The pixie, in particular.”

  Kallie stiffened. “McKenna? She’s here?” She darted a quick glance at Layne, but his expression of closed-eyes concentration remained unchanged as he dealt with the ghosts he carried inside. Belladonna’s words hadn’t been heard.

  Belladonna nodded. “Yup, she arrived several hours ago with a couple of nomad buddies, soaked to the skin, and about as friendly as a possum cornered in a blackberry bush.”

  “Did she see—”

  “Oh, she saw, all right. She kept insisting.” Belladonna dropped her voice into a rough brogue that sounded more gangsterland New Jersey than Scotland and quoted, “‘Where is he? Wha has tha’ sodding swamp witch done wit’ him?’”

  “‘Done with him’?” Kallie said indignantly. “What makes the woman think I’d do anything with him?”

  Belladonna’s eyebrows arched toward her hairline.

  “Well, besides that, I mean. I sure as hell don’t mean the man any harm.”

  “Mmm-hmm. And I think that’s the problem. But you haven’t heard the best part. So your aunt led Leprechaun Girl back here so she could see for herself that Layne was alive and snoozing and”—a cat-hoarding-the-tuna smile played across Belladonna’s lips—“Shug, you shoulda seen the steam pouring out of the woman’s ears when she saw you snuggled up against Layne, all nice and cozy.”

  “I can just imagine,” Kallie muttered. “Well, whether we like it or not, we’re probably going to need the woman to exorcise Babette from Layne, so maybe it’s just as well that she’s here.”

  “Well, tha’ makes me feel so mooch better, tha’ it does. Tae be needed by the likes of you,” said a voice with a genuine Scottish brogue, rolling and full of brambles.

  “Speaking of the pixie-leprechaun-devil …” Belladonna mumbled.

  McKenna marched into the room in black jeans and a tight leather jacket, boot heels tapping against the hardwood floor, a mocking smile on her lips to match the mocking words. She stopped at the foot of the bed and Kallie caught a whiff of wet leather and body-warmed amber.

  She met the pint-sized nomad’s scornful gaze and offered her a praline-sweet smile. “Goody. ’Cuz making you feel better is my raison d’être, after all.”

  “Aye, right,” McKenna scoffed. “Well, at least ye have clothes on this time.”

  “I had clothes on last time. In fact, I was wearing clothes every time.”

  “If ye reckon bra and tiny skivvies tae be clothes, then aye, ye were clothed—stripper-style. And most likely clothed by accident.”

  As Kallie and McKenna tried to murder each other with increasingly strained and saccharine Die bitch die smiles, Belladonna piped up with, “Speaking of tiny skivvies, I think that’s what you both should wear during your inevitable cage fight. We can even call your sure-to-be-epic battle the Die-You in the Bayou. Sell t
ickets.”

  McKenna blinked—breaking the death match—then joined Kallie in staring at her best friend. A triumphant smile curved the mambo-in-training’s lips.

  “Bell, what the—”

  Belladonna arched an eyebrow. “You think the two of you could maybe focus on what Layne needs instead of picking each other apart?”

  And yet another reason in an endless list of reasons why Belladonna was her best friend, Kallie reflected. She always manages to redirect my attention to what’s truly important. Not that I plan to tell her so. I’m worried she’ll poof-turn into the Cheshire Cat if I do.

  “Yeah,” Kallie agreed. “I can do that.”

  “Aye,” the pixie-nomad growled. Leather creaked as she folded her arms over her chest. She shot Kallie a look, one that said, For now. Then McKenna’s dark eyes shifted from Kallie to Layne. Worry glimmered in their depths. “How’s he doing, anyway?”

  “He’s doing better.” Kallie kept her fingers firmly folded through Layne’s.

  “Thanks to yer aunt,” McKenna agreed. Her gaze shifted to Kallie and it was easy to read what she hadn’t said: But no thanks to you.

  “Pixie, please,” Belladonna purred, voice a low and dangerous swipe of the claws. “We’re the ones who found him. We’re the ones who hauled his fine nomad ass off the ground, into the car, and brought him back here”—she paused to eye-molest Layne before adding—“every hard-muscled inch of him.”

  “Aye,” McKenna growled. “So ye did.” She seemed to choke on any other words she might’ve added, like, Thank you or I appreciate you rescuing my ex-husband’s fine nomad ass. Instead, she said, “I ken tha’ he has another ghost in the cargo hold.”

  Kallie nodded. “Yeah, he does. Babette St. Cyr stowed away while he was unconscious. That’s why he needs an exorcism as soon as possible.”

  Another voice entered the conversation, speaking in a posh British accent from Layne’s lips, “That he does, Ms. Rivière. In fact, we need to commence with the exorcism immediately. Mrs. St. Cyr is about to break free.”

  Layne—or rather, Kallie realized, Layne with Augustine at the controls—eased himself up into a sitting position on the bed. One honey-blond eyebrow arched up as he regarded their linked hands. “Going steady, are we?” he murmured, gently unthreading his fingers from hers.