“Bridgett and I have been good friends for a long time. She was the one who suggested you be brought here,” Mora informed her.
Laurel’s eyes focused on the girl who stood a few feet behind Mora.
She was a small girl, with hair so blond it could have been spun from moonlight. Her huge, silver - gray eyes were full of curiosity.
“Bridgett my dear,” Marcos strolled to the girl and grabbed her hand. “I cannot thank you enough for your help.”
Bridgett’s full lips spread into a wide smile. “I only wish I could do more.”
Laurel was taken aback. Not so much because the two seemed to know each other, but because Bridgett didn’t react with fear or nervousness.
Prying her eyes from the girl, Laurel looked at her friends. “What are you two doing here?”
Before either of the girls had a chance to answer, Marcos spoke for them. “Arlene and Mora are your friends, which puts them in danger. I thought it best to keep you all together. Do not think for one moment the Dark Prince will not use those close to you to gain his ends.”
“Why would you go through so much trouble to help us?” Laurel asked.
He smiled in the same irritating way she was fast growing accustomed to. “Perhaps I look at it as an investment. The more witches I have on my side, the better,” he finished, giving her a wink.
Laurel felt it would be useless to question him further, though she was sure there was a little more to his motives than he was admitting.
“So what do we do next?” she asked.
“I must be on my way … for now. The others will catch you up on what you need to know,” he told her.
With that, he spun on his heels and was gone.
Turning her attention to the girls, Laurel asked, “What is he talking about? How did you convince him to let me come here … instead of forcing me to go with him?”
“I did that,” Bridgett answered before the other two could say anything. “Marcos is my cousin, so convincing him that this was the best course of action wasn’t difficult.”
“I swear I didn’t know!” Mora cut in. “When I came here to ask Bridgett’s advice, she told me that St. Claire was a cousin of hers. It was then we decided to move house over here for a time … but you took off before I could tell you.”
Of course it hadn’t been Marcos’s idea, though he’d made it seem it was.
“I’m sorry,” Laurel apologized. “When I saw Marcos at Magnolia Hall, I felt cornered. All I could think to do was run.”
Turning to Bridgett, she asked, “If what Marcos told me is true … how can you be related?”
Her face twisted with turbulent emotion. “Why don’t we have some tea? This is a long story.”
Chapter Ten
His footsteps echoed through the empty halls of Cypress Grove. Stopping at one of the paintings that hung in the huge upstairs foyer, Marcos stared at the image of a life snuffed out too soon.
There was a time when looking at the portrait of his mother was the only way he could spur any emotion, but that was beginning to change. Laurel was making him feel again, and he found it fascinating.
Before the angel witch came into his life, the only time he’d felt anything was when his mother was alive. In spite of knowing what he was, she’d loved him as only a mother could.
A mother loves her child, even if he is a monster.
Monique St. Claire never treated him as the monster she knew him to be. She would cuddle him, tell him bedtime stories, even kiss him goodnight.
His mother did all of this, as if she were completely unaware of what he was.
He suspected that his mother pretended. In her mind, he was just a normal little boy.
Monique St. Claire was one of the most beautiful women to ever grace Louisiana, but she was a witch, as was her sister, Natalie. The St. Claire family had been witches for generations. They were part of the Coven of Lazar.
Life in Louisiana was good to the St. Claire family; at any rate it was good until the War of Northern Aggression.
After the war, life changed for everyone, including the coven. To regain even a semblance of their former lives, each coven family offered up a daughter to the Dark Prince.
His mother was chosen to be the sacrificial lamb for the St. Claire family.
The daughters of the coven brought forth the children of the Dark Prince. All would have been well if Annette hadn’t betrayed them.
He should hate Laurel for her mother’s betrayal, but he didn’t. Laurel was as much of a victim as his mother had been.
Marcos closed his eyes, trying to shut out the image of the raven-haired beauty that was his mother, but as usual, closing his eyes wasn’t very helpful. He could still see that nightmarish scene as clear as if he were reliving it all over again.
That was the night Hell came to the world of man.
He could still hear his mother’s voice as she told him his favorite troll story, but then he’d drifted to sleep. The next thing he recalled was his mother’s screams.
Scrambling from his bed, he ran to the window, where he could see the front courtyard.
Monique St. Claire was being dragged out of the house, kicking and screaming.
“Please don’t take me from my son!” she begged.
Her please were ignored.
Even now his insides would shrivel when he thought about what they’d done to his mother. It was the same as they’d done to all the daughters of the coven.
She’d been burned as a witch.
The memory of her shrieks was so real that he would still hear them at the oddest times.
Was his mother’s ghost haunting him - blaming him for what happened to her?
The coven killed his mother and the other daughters, but they did so to save their own lives. They knew what Annette’s betrayal meant.
Demons had been unleashed from Hell, and they would come for each of the girls, tearing them to bits, along with any family members. Offering the girls as a sacrifice was the only way to save the coven.
The Dark Prince didn’t care that twelve of the daughters had given birth to his progeny, it was the betrayal of the thirteenth daughter that mattered.
“Where’s the witch?” The gravelly - female voice drew him out of the memory.
Marcos turned to see Sue Bennett standing behind him.
When he was a child, he’d called her Sooie. Her pug nose reminded him of a pig’s snout, but he’d only dared do it when she wasn’t around.
As she stood there glaring at him, she looked exactly the same as she had the first time he’d seen her, over two decades before.
Her stout body had a little too much ham on it in the wrong places, and her hair was the oddest red color he’d ever seen, kind of a sickly, yellow - orange.
One day she’d appeared on the doorstep of Cypress Grove, offering her services as nanny to the son of the house. It was no coincidence that each of the coven’s special children got nannies at about the same time. All of these women arrived, demanding entrance into the lives of the Dark Prince’s progeny.
At first he hadn’t realized what she was, but over time it became clear. Sue Bennett was really a demon sent to nurture him to be what he was born to be. She was constantly pushing him to bury his humanity and embrace his dark nature.
As he stared at her now, he could see traces of her true form beneath her human disguise. Her blue eyes had a red sheen to them that was noticeable only at certain times, such as in a dimly lit room, or when she was angry.
Only once had he seen her in her true form.
It was the night she’d come into the room and found him reading the troll book. The tears in his eyes had infuriated her.
Grabbing the book out of his hands, she’d thrown it in the fireplace. “Never think of that whore of a witch again!” Sue bellowed.
In that instant, he saw the rotting corpse of her body and the serpent’s tongue in her mouth.
Still being a child, he’d cowered from her anger. Th
at wasn’t the case now. He was of a much higher status than she was, but the demon bitch still hadn’t learned her place.
“I am handling the situation the way I see fit,” he responded in a flat - even tone.
“She is the last … the daughter of the thirteenth daughter. The witch must carry his seed, or every family will be destroyed.”
Sparks of fury flew from his eyes. “I will take care of this in my own way.”
Without another word, he turned and left her standing in the foyer.
“You are running out of time, Marcos! We will devour her flesh and soul!”
He didn’t bother to respond. There was no reason to. Time was running out, not just for Laurel, but for all of them.
He wasn’t interested in saving his own hide. Maybe Hell is where he belonged, along with the rest of the coven.
But Laurel didn’t deserve it. The betrayal was her mother’s, not hers.
* * *
When Bridgett finished her story, all three girls were gaping at her.
Finally it was Laurel who broke the silence. “So your mother was Natalie, and Marcos’s mother was Monique?”
Bridgett nodded. “Our mothers were sisters. It was only by fortune that mother was away at school when this happened. With her being the younger sister, she would have been the chosen one.”
“Does Marcos resent you for this?” Arlene inquired.
Bridgett lifted her slight shoulders. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. You must understand … I am as dead as he is when the demons come for the coven,” she explained.
Laurel felt the blood rush to her face when she realized that she would be the cause of so much death, if she did not submit.
“Maybe I should …”
Mora cut her off. “Nonsense! Their pact with the devil has nothing to do with us … any of us!” she added, directing her words to Bridgett.
Tapping her long fingernails against the delicate china teacup she held in her hand, Mora continued, “There has to be a way out of this.”
No one responded.
“But the two of you are safe here … right?” she asked Bridgett.
Bridgett nodded. “Marcos and I put a protection spell on St. Claire House.”
The image Bridgett painted of Marcos didn’t fit well with how Laurel had come to view him.
Laurel was willing to admit the possibility that she was only seeing the dark side of him, if there could be any other side to an offspring of the devil.
“The St. Claire family have always been powerful witches,” Mora put in with another nod of her head, “but are they powerful enough to hold off a herd of demons? That’s the question.”
“I also have this.” Bridgett lifted the amulet that hung between her full breasts.
Laurel reached up to feel the amulet beneath the fabric of her gown. “I have one of those too.”
“My mother always said that as long as I kept it on, the amulet would protect me. Perhaps she was referring to the demons,” Bridgett offered.
Leaning forward, Mora set her cup on the little table in front of the divan. “It’s not enough. We need a plan.”
Laurel was uncertain of what to say. There was no question about the fact that they needed a plan, but actually coming up with one that would work, was the trick.
How did one fight off Hell’s demons?
Finally Bridgett stood and placed her hands on her hips. “Well until we do form some kind of plan … you are all welcome at St. Claire House, but there’s work to be done here. We serve spirits and green fairies, and we do what we can to entertain the customers … within reason of course,” she added.
None of them had a problem with helping out, but Bridgett wasn’t done yet.
“There are times when we do have clients of a different sort. Those are the people we take into the back room. It’s easy,” she told them with a shrug of her shoulders. “Mostly they just want something simple, like a potion to get rid of warts, or a spell to find true love. Nothing especially sinister.”
“What about vampires?” Laurel asked, looking at each of the girls.
The sudden silence was so complete, one could have heard a dropped pin hit the floor.
Arlene cleared her throat. “Why do you want to know about vampires?”
Laurel told them of her encounter after leaving Magnolia Hall.
“I didn’t even know vampires were real,” she finished.
“They are as real as you or I,” Mora said, getting up from the divan. “Until recently they’ve kept away from us. They prefer easy prey, to a witch. Feeding from a witch is too risky for them.
Without looking at the others, Mora began pacing the floor. “Witches and vampires have always been in this city, and they’ve coexisted peacefully, until Omar brought his nest here. He is an ancient, and just as much of a threat to us as the demons.”
Now it was Arlene’s turn to stand up. “It would be my suggestion that we tackle one problem at a time. At the present, the vampires are after any witch, not us in particular. As long as we remain indoors after dark, we should be safe enough.”
“Not necessarily,” Mora interrupted. “This is a place of business … a public building. They could come here if they choose to.”
Bridgett shook her head. “The protection spell will keep the vampires out too, but we will still need to take care when we go out after dark.”
Chapter Eleven
Dropping a deck of tarot cards in Laurel’s hands, Bridgett motioned to the back room. “Mrs. Jensen will be here soon. She always comes for a reading on the second Wednesday of the month. I would take care of it, but Jack will be late coming in today.”
Jack Lambert usually tended bar, but lately he’d been skipping out on them.
Laurel didn’t mind helping out with other things, especially since she had no talent for mixing drinks. The problem was that she also didn’t know how to give a tarot reading.
“But I’ve never given a reading before,” Laurel protested.
“You already have the ability, just use it. When you look at the cards, read them with your third eye,” Bridgett instructed.
“I’ll try.” Thinking of a grotesque third eye sitting on her forehead was enough to bring on a frown.
Bridgett called the back room, her workroom. This was where she performed all her magic.
The workroom was at least as large as a fairly good-sized parlor, and painted completely black. She used black, not because she dabbled in dark magic, but because it was powerful. Also, it added to the atmosphere her patrons expected.
That might be true, but Laurel felt the black to be too oppressive, which did little to ease her anxieties.
Almost as soon as she entered the room, there was a knock at the side door. This was a separate entrance, used exclusively for those customers who came for other reasons.
Laurel opened the door to see a little old lady standing there.
Mrs. Jensen’s milky blue eyes opened wide with surprise. “Oh dear! I was expecting Miss St. Claire.”
“Bridgett asked me to apologize for her not being available. She had urgent matters to attend to, but asked if I would help you. That is if you don’t mind?” Laurel smiled, hoping to ease the woman’s discomfort.
Mrs. Jensen’s deeply lined face twisted into a scowl. “I don’t know. This is a delicate matter. Perhaps I should come back another time.”
Laurel scrambled to sway Mrs. Jensen. Bridgett had been so generous with her and the other girls, she didn’t want to disappoint her.
“Of course you may make another appointment, but I would love to help you. I was trained by Miss St. Claire,” Laurel added.
It was just a little white lie, but still the heat of shame flooded to her face.
Her Catholic upbringing was deeply engrained. Lying wasn’t something she did casually.
Mrs. Jensen seemed to consider her options for a long time before she finally nodded. “I suppose once will be fine.”
Laurel led Mr
s. Jensen to a little round table, positioned in the middle of the room. The candles in the candelabra had already been lit. Though the room was still dim, the flames from the candles provided enough light to read the cards.
Laurel had watched Bridgett when she gave Arlene a reading, though she wasn’t sure how much of it she’d retained. At the time, she’d had no idea that she would need to know how to read the cards.
Laurel did remember that she would have to shuffle the cards, and then Mrs. Jensen would need to cut the deck.
Closing her eyes, Laurel focused her energy on the deck before placing five cards on the table, facedown. When she opened her eyes, she flipped over the first card, as she’d seen Bridgett do.
It was the Death Card!
At first she was startled, but then she recalled something Bridgett said. She’d told them that the meaning behind the Death card wasn’t necessarily literal. The card’s meaning would ultimately depend on the other cards that showed up in the reading.
Taking a deep breath, Laurel flipped over the next card. It was also the Death card.
That was impossible!
There was only one Death card to the deck.
Frantic, she quickly flipped over the rest of the cards. They were all Death cards.
“No … it can’t be!” she said, shaking her head.
“What’s wrong dear? Are you feeling well?” Mrs. Jensen asked, but there was something strange about her voice. It was deep, like a man’s voice.
Laurel looked up at the woman sitting across the table, but it wasn’t Mrs. Jensen she saw. It was a man so pale, he could have easily been mistaken for a ghost.
Maybe he was a ghost!
He was wearing a long black overcoat and a top hat. One of his hands rested on a walking cane that he’d placed at his side.
“My … you look positively ill, Laurel,” he said, his lips spreading into a wide smile.
“Who are you? What have you done with Mrs. Jensen?” Though she was terrified, she managed to keep her voice from shaking.
“Nothing … yet,” he added. “I’ll come for the old girl soon enough, though I’d suggest that you not be blunt with that information.”
Daughter of the Thirteen: Bourbon Street Witches Book 1 Page 7
