Black Heart Loa

by Adrian Phoenix

  Belladonna, on her third shift in the protective circle, and wearing a borrowed yellow rain slicker against the storm, stared in wonder as brilliant white light shafted out from around the cabane’s door seams and from around the edges of the plywood nailed over the windows, illuminating the afternoon’s gloom in thin stripes.

  “Hellfire,” she breathed.

  A voice rolled in on the thunder. The Baron’s. “Time be up, Kallie Rivière.”

  “Not yet it isn’t!” Belladonna cried.

  The cabane shuddered as though rocked by a small explosion, then the door was blasted off its hinges and the plywood blown from the windows as blinding light shafted from the cabane’s interior.

  Shielding her eyes with the edge of her hand, Belladonna twisted away from the light. Power pealed through Le Nique like a wedding bell. The smell of brimstone curled thick into the air—spent magic.

  Belladonna’s heart gave a little leap. “She did it. I knew she would.”

  Over by the stone cottage, wolves lifted their voices in an eerie howl.

  A sheet draped around her body, Kallie staggered into the doorway, panic on her face. She looked in the direction of the howling wolves. “Jackson,” she whispered, and stumbled down the steps.

  “Shug, wait!” Belladonna chased after her.

  FORTY-ONE

  TO THEIR PROPER NATURES

  The wolves ringing the stone cottage stopped howling and their multitoned, primal song dropped away to be replaced by the wind’s rising voice. Kallie pulled to a stop in front of the cottage, her bare feet sliding in the rain-slick grass.

  A cold hand spider-walked up her spine. The heavy stone door stood wide open. Storm-thinned daylight trickled inside. Her heart contracted. Was she too late?

  Time be up, Kallie Rivière.

  She heard footsteps squelching to a stop beside her. “Hold on, already,” Belladonna said, grabbing hold of Kallie’s arm. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Me too.” Layne joined them, clad only in his jeans, earning himself a look of appreciation from Belladonna.

  Flashing a grateful smile at both of them, Kallie walked into the cottage. The musky wounded-animal smell had faded underneath the fresh air. Jackson lay curled on the straw-littered floor, eyes closed, his bare skin a pale smudge in the cottage’s shadows.

  In human form again. His Change finally complete. But he was so still.

  Holding on to her improvised sheet sarong, Kallie hurried across the straw to her cousin, kneeling beside him. Just as she reached a hand toward him to brush the hair from his face, she became aware that someone besides Ambrose waited in the cottage. She smelled hot peppers and rum.

  Kallie swiveled around on her knees, pulse pounding, and looked up into Baron Samedi’s skull-painted face—or rather, Cash’s skull-painted face. She realized there was something different about him, something she couldn’t put her finger on. Exhaustion buzzed through her, blurred her thoughts. Only adrenaline kept her more or less upright.

  “Jackson’s safe,” she insisted. “I restored things to their proper natures.” Doubt wormed through her. “Didn’t I?”

  “Dat you did, ma jolie,” the Baron replied, sliding a gloved finger along the brim of his top hat. And Kallie realized that the fedora and Armani suit had been replaced by the Baron’s traditional top hat and tuxedo. “Everyt’ing be where it belongs. Except my cheval.”

  “And my cousin?”

  “You made de deadline, little hoodoo. Barely. So yo’ cousin lives and you get to keep de loa—until such time as you find yo’ soul, dat is.”

  “Then what happens to the loa?” Kallie asked.

  The Baron shrugged. “Ain’t none o’ yo’ business, little hoodoo,” he said. “Now, as for dis cheval, I t’ink I’ll take him back to where I found him.”

  Kallie thought about how well that would go—the Baron depositing Cash like an empty bottle at her aunt’s house. “A better idea would be to take him to his cousin, Kerry. He’s been worried that Cash was changed into a black hen.”

  At worst, Kerry would faint at the Baron and Cash’s sudden arrival and the hen would cluck disapprovingly.

  “Dat be a fine idea.” The Baron thumped his walking stick against the floor. Then slid it between his legs and waggled it back and forth suggestively. “If not for my beautiful Maman Brigitte …” Grinning, he vanished in a puff of cigar smoke—even though he hadn’t been smoking one.

  Kallie sat back on her heels, exhaling in relief.

  “I can see there’s never a dull moment around you,” Ambrose drawled, an undertone of amused irritation threaded through his voice.

  “Then you haven’t been shopping with her,” Belladonna said. “Girl buys the first thing she sees. Doesn’t try things on. Doesn’t compare. Doesn’t even squeal when she scores a tasty item—like these boots,” she extended her foot. “Knockoffs, sure, but you’d never know it. Trust me. She offers plenty of dull moments.”

  “Thanks, Bell,” Kallie growled.

  “Don’t mention it, Shug.”

  Ambrose blinked. “Poor Jackson,” he murmured.

  Kallie swung around to face Jackson again. Leaning over, she smoothed his tangled espresso locks back from his face. Although dried blood smeared his lips and one cheek, he looked peaceful.

  “When I heard the wolf song,” she said, “I thought that maybe he had …” She let the words trail off, reluctant to say them aloud even now.

  “That was a song of celebration,” Ambrose replied. “First Change successfully completed.”

  “I was right about his fine ass,” Belladonna murmured approvingly.

  “He’s my cousin, Bell. My cousin. Quit looking at his ass.”

  “She can look,” a soft voice slurred, “as long as I get to look at hers too.”

  “Deal,” Belladonna replied.

  Kallie looked into Jackson’s sleepy, honey-colored eyes, saw the smile brushing his lips, hinting at wickedness. He reached up and grasped her hand, folded his bloodstained fingers through hers.

  “I ain’t had enough yet, short stuff,” he said. “Merci beaucoup, Kallie.”

  “Tais-toi. Just go back to sleep.” Tears stung her eyes. Happy tears, this time. Tears she didn’t bother to blink away. She squeezed his hand.

  “Bossy, you,” Jackson said, eyes shuttering closed again.

  The click of claws on stone and the jingling of her collar announced Cielo’s arrival. The Siberian husky—no longer the stealth variety—trotted over to Jackson and deposited a freshly killed squirrel near his head. Nudged it toward him with her muzzle.

  “Dog, please.” Belladonna’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “You can’t be serious.”

  Cielo looked from the squirrel to Jackson, then back to the squirrel.

  “Gah,” Belladonna declared.

  “Um … good girl, but Daddy’s sleeping,” Kallie said. “He’ll eat later, okay?”

  Tongue lolling as if in agreement, Cielo sat and waited.

  As Kallie watched Jackson sleep, wondering if she had the energy to climb to her feet, she became aware of an irregular thunk-thunk against the roof—like tree branches pushed by the wind—became aware of drumming rain. Her heart contracted. The hurricane was still on its way.

  “Divinity needs to contact the ward hoodoos and make sure the wards are working,” Kallie said, twisting around to look up at Belladonna. “Evelyn’s still on the way. How long till landfall?”

  Belladonna opened her mouth, but it was Divinity’s voice that answered as the hoodoo walked into the cottage. “About five hours, chère. And I contacted the ward hoodoos the moment I saw yo’ light shafting tru de village. We be hoping it ain’t too late for de wards to slow Evelyn down, steal some of her punch.”

  “I think y’all will be riding the storm out here,” Ambrose said.

  “True, dat,” Divinity said, joining Kallie. “Boy looks like a mess, but he be alive, t’anks to you and yo’ nomad. And you both look dead on yo’ feet.”

&nbs
p; Ambrose knelt and draped a blanket over Jackson, then gathered him into his arms. “Let’s get y’all over to my home, get ready for the blowdown.”

  Releasing Jackson’s hand, Kallie rose to her feet. Her vision grayed and a high-pitched humming filled her ears. The cottage’s dim interior spun.

  Kallie felt herself falling, then felt strong arms snapping around her. She caught a whiff of musk and sweet orange and knew the arms belonged to Layne.

  “I’m surprised de girl stayed conscious dis long,” she heard her aunt say.

  Then nothing as Kallie tumbled into a dreamless dark.

  FORTY-TWO

  EVELYN

  The eerie shrieks of a thousand furious cats shredded the dark and yanked Kallie up from sleep. She stared at the unfamiliar ceiling above her, heart pounding, struggling to remember where and when and what—until the wind’s steady howl sank in.

  Le Nique. Blowdown. Evelyn had arrived.

  Rain machine-gunned the house. The roof creaked and groaned.

  Kallie sat up, pushing a quilt off her legs. She realized she still wore the sheet she’d grabbed from the cabane and that she was on a bed in a darkened room that smelled faintly of ripe apples. Layne slept on his back beside her, his face turned away toward the plywood-protected windows. Beyond them, Evelyn raged.

  Kallie slid off the bed and stood, then gasped. Every muscle in her body ached and she was sore in some very tender places. She glanced over her shoulder at Layne. And no wonder. A marathon eight hours.

  Her cheeks heated as a tide of emotions—embarrassment, affection, uncertainty, yearning—washed over her. It was a ritual, she reminded herself, a necessity. Not a romantic hookup. Not even a date. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from turning around, leaning over the bed, and trailing a finger along one pale dread.

  When Kallie straightened, she noticed her clothes resting in a neat pile on the nightstand. Removing her sheet-sarong, she dressed quickly. At the door, she paused to give Layne one last look, then slipped from the room.

  Clad in a white tee and jeans, Jackson sat hunched forward on the sofa in the front room, his body knotted, his fisted hands braced between his knees. Shadows and soft light from the lantern on the end table flickered across his face. The bottom edge of his tattoo peeked out from beneath his right sleeve.

  Gone, but never forgotten

  Nicolas & Lucia Bonaparte

  Junalee & Jeanette, my angels

  Je t’aime toujours

  A pang of sympathy cut through Kallie. She suspected that the hurricane outside had nothing on the blowdown of grief and rage and survivor’s guilt Evelyn had resurrected within her cousin.

  “Hey, Jacks,” she said.

  He looked at her, his eyes glowing a pale absinthe green in the lantern light. “Hey back,” he replied, rising to his feet as she crossed the room to join him, a smile on his lips. “Comment ça va?”

  “Ça va bien. How about you?”

  “Never better, short stuff. Thanks to you.” Jackson wrapped Kallie up in a tight hug. As always, he smelled of the sea—brine and surf and wet sand—a soothing, familiar scent. “Ti-tante said that you and Bell never stopped searching for me, never gave up.”

  “You’d do the same for me,” Kallie said, looking up into his honey-eyed gaze.

  He grinned. “In a fucking heartbeat.”

  “What happened to you—the Change—was all my fault,” she said, throat constricting. “If you’d … if anything had …”

  “Bullshit. It was my mother’s fault, Kall, not yours. All you did was set me free.”

  “And nearly killed you in the process!”

  “Again, wasn’t your fault, chère. Ti-tante told me what happened.” He chewed on his lower lip as though mulling over the words he’d just spoken. “Or most of it, anyway. She told me that we-all needed to have a long talk when we got home.”

  “Understatement,” Kallie muttered. She wondered how her cousin would react to the news of his aunt’s new identity—correction: original identity.

  Kallie reached up and pushed Jackson’s dark hair back from his face. No pointed ears like Devlin Daniels’s. “How did it feel?” she asked. “Changing.”

  Releasing her, Jackson stepped back a pace. “You know when you get a tattoo, how it hurts like holy hell as the needle pierces your skin over and over until your brain kicks out the endorphins and everything goes numb and you’re riding an awesome endorphin high?”

  “No, actually, but I’ve heard that’s how it works,” Kallie replied.

  “You didn’t pick up any tats while in N’awlins?”

  “Nope. But was that how Changing felt?”

  “Oh, hell, no. Changing hurt like a motherfucker.”

  Kallie whapped his shoulder. “While I’m really sorry to hear that—I’m relieved to note that you’re still a goddamned brat.”

  Jackson snorted. “I coulda told you that.”

  Kallie hesitated for a moment before saying, “Y’know, it took me a while to remember what you’d told me when we were little—about your papa being a loup-garou. It’d been so long, I’d forgotten about it. How come you never mentioned it again?”

  With a low sigh, Jackson sank back down onto the sofa. “After Papa moved out of the house and Mama told us that we’d never Change, that it wasn’t in us, I was so disappointed”—he shrugged—“that I didn’t want to talk about it. For a while, I even thought Papa had left because we couldn’t Change.” A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I know different now.”

  Kallie sat beside him. “How you doing with all of this? You’ve had a ton of shit dumped on your plate in the last forty-eight hours.”

  One dark eyebrow quirked up. “So have you,” he pointed out. “Me, I’m fine.”

  Kallie knew better, but she let the lie pass. She looked around the shadowed room to where Belladonna and Divinity sat at a lantern-lit table playing cards with Ambrose and January—Go Fish, given Belladonna’s polite request for Divinity’s twos and her aunt’s crowed, gleeful response. An anxious whoo from beneath the table and the gleam of lambent eyes revealed Cielo’s huddled presence.

  “Where’s everyone else?” Kallie asked.

  “Gabrielle left fo’ Lafayette right after de magic fix,” Divinity replied. “Some o’ de udder hoodoos left about den too; a few stayed to ride out de storm. Dat little nomad, McKenna, she be over at Angélique and Merlin’s place. Me, I invited her to come here, but she refused.” She glanced at Ambrose. “Gimme all o’ yo’ fives.”

  The Alpha sighed. Plucking two cards from his hand, he gave them to Divinity. “Never play cards with a hoodoo,” he grumbled.

  “Mmm-hmm,” Divinity affirmed.

  Kallie could understand McKenna’s refusal. Could imagine how she would feel in the shuvani’s place if an ex-husband she still loved had just spent eight sweaty, passion-drenched hours in the sack with a woman she despised.

  “How long was I asleep?” Kallie asked. “And when did Evelyn make landfall?”

  “Almost six hours, Shug, for sleep,” Belladonna answered, “two hours since landfall. It’s a little past midnight. I thought maybe you’d just snooze through the whole thing.”

  The house shuddered in a fierce blast of wind, the rain’s nonstop staccato hammering sounding like a herd of cows tap-dancing on the roof. Something thudded hard against the side of the house.

  “Not me. But it looks like Layne might,” Kallie said. “For some reason I thought he’d be a light sleeper, since he’s a nomad and all—”

  “I potioned him,” Divinity explained. “His head was hurting again. The sleep will do him good.”

  “It will,” Kallie agreed.

  A heavy crash from outside jarred the house. Cielo backed farther into the shadows under the table. Jackson jumped to his feet.

  “Just a tree, boy,” Ambrose commented. “It missed us, otherwise the wind would be whipsawing through here, tearing everything apart.”

  “Gonna check.” Tension edged Jackson’s voice
. He winced as he headed for the kitchen and the back door at its end, his stride as slow and stiff as that of an arthritic old man.

  Bet he hurts everywhere. Muscles. Joints. Tendons. Even his skin and teeth.

  But it was Jackson’s haunted heart that worried Kallie the most.

  She rose from the sofa and hurried after her cousin, catching up with him at the back door as he was lifting up the wooden bar barricading the door. Kallie blinked. Seemed that loups-garous didn’t believe in locks, just slabs of wood to keep doors shut during blowdowns.

  The wind wrenched the door from Jackson’s grasp and slammed it open against the counter. Falling in horizontal sheets, rain slashed into the kitchen, slicked the floor tiles. The din outside was deafening—a monstrous roar. Things thumped and snapped and twanged in the pitch-black darkness beyond.

  Wind blasted into the kitchen, sucking at Kallie’s breath and yanking at her hair. “Close the door!” she shouted over the noise. “You can’t see nothing anyway!”

  Jackson grabbed the doorjambs and braced himself. “I wanna see if the water’s rising. I’ll grab a lantern.”

  “Even if it is, the house is on pilings. The water can’t reach us. Forget the goddamned lantern and close the goddamned door!”

  Rain needled Kallie’s face, stung her eyes. She spun away from the door and Evelyn’s savage maw. Wind grabbed at her, shoved.

  “Our house was on pilings too,” Jackson yelled, trying to be heard over the storm. “Ten feet up, remember? And it wasn’t enough. Not even close. Gaspard’s storm surge turned out to be eighteen fucking feet. We never had a chance.”

  Kallie’s heart drummed against her ribs. Those were the first words he’d ever spoken about what had happened during that awful day nine years ago. She turned back around to face him. Jackson was struggling to wrestle the door shut, fighting the wind, the muscles cording in his arms and neck. Kallie joined him, and it took all of their combined strength to close the door.

  Panting, Jackson dropped the thick wood bar back into place. He was soaked to the skin, his white tee rendered transparent by the rain and clinging to his chest and flat belly. He shoved his wet hair back from his face. Behind him, the shrieking wind pounded at the door, rattling it in its frame.