“I’m Welch, too, you know. My father does a great Tom Jones. And yes, I know who Muddy Waters is. Hey, I even know Ethel Waters. I just didn’t put the word mojo together with a woman’s purse.”
“It’s not a woman’s purse. It’s a small silk or flannel bag with magick items it in to ward off evil, or help bring about some desired result. It’s used in Santeria and Voodoo and by practitioners of Hoodoo. They call it a charm bag or a prayer in a bag. Ms. Foret must believe there’s a spell on Maral and she’s trying to lift it. Well, that’s not going to work.” I motioned him to be quiet and listened again.
I could hear the traiteur. “I’m gonna rub dis dirt on you, sha, den you can wash it away again in de bat’. After dat, we’ll pray de Lord brings love into your heart.”
“I need to go in there now, Peter,” I said. “By myself. Maral will talk to me, I think. If she sees you, I don’t know what she’s capable of. She might be able to shift, and if she disappears, we’re screwed. She wouldn’t go back to her mother’s house, and unless she goes back to Theda and Charles, I wouldn’t know where to find her. I don’t think she can change her manifestation yet— she’s too newly born— but she can attack in her vampyre form. She’ll attack you in a heartbeat. I need to talk to her alone.”
“We know she killed them, Ovsanna.” Frustration flooded his voice. “What is there to talk about? The real question is what happens next? We don’t have a lot of options.”
“You’re law enforcement, Detective King. Are you really going to convict someone based on a vampyre’s psychic vision? Without a confession? Without even interviewing the suspect? That’s not like you.”
“None of this is like me.” Irritation replaced the frustration. “You think sleeping with a vampyre is like me? Hell, we don’t even sleep together. Letting a vampyre take over my life? Knowing you things even exist— is that like me? Oh hell, just get in there. Talk to her before I totally lose it. But if she confesses, we’re still not going to have a choice. It’s not like I can slip a pair of handcuffs on her and keep her behind bars.”
I slipped quietly out of the truck.
“Ovsanna,” he hissed at me before I closed the door, “I’m going to be standing outside that trailer door. As soon as you’re sure about her, I’m coming in.”
“You can’t be that close, Peter. Even with the wind and the rain, she’ll smell you. She’s like me, now, remember? Just stay by the trees. And if this wind gets any worse, get back to the car. I was with Daniel Defoe in London when the Great Storm hit. Believe me, you don’t want to be outside.”
39. MARAL
Ovsanna had come. I could smell her.
I was standing in front of the leather chairs in Miz Foret’s living room. She’d made a circle on the floor out of crushed abalone shells. So yes, they must have something to do with her healing work. She wanted me to stand inside the circle, but the wind was knocking the trailer so hard the shells kept skittering across the floor and the circle wouldn’t stay a circle. I was partially nude. My arms and back and breasts were covered with dirt. Some spiritual dirt that’s supposed to do good for me. Miz Foret had candles and incense burning, but that’s not what I was smelling. I was smelling Ovsanna. The Chatelaine. The bloodmaster of the Vampyres of Hollywood. The bitch who turned me and then sent me away; left me hollow inside. Made me a flesh and blood shell only good for filling with others’ flesh and blood.
She knocked on the door.
Miz Foret was brushing the dirt from my back. “Who’s dat, sha?” she asked. “You have your mamère comin’ to help?” I shook my head no. She’d left a robe for me on the burgundy chair and she handed it to me, saying, “I’m sorry, Maral. I didn’t think anyone would come out in dis storm. I can’t finish dis work wit’ you now. Lemme see who dis is and we can do some more when dey leave.”
I started to tell her “I know who it is” and stopped myself before she got to the door. Mais, Maral, you know who it is because you can smell her standing out in the rain. And you can smell her ’cause you’re not human anymore, you. How do you explain that to the rootworker?
Miz Foret opened the door. Ovsanna looked like she’d been swimming in the baya. She was wearing a deep cut, hunter green t-shirt, with her jeans tucked into the black suede Stuart Weitzman boots I’d given her last Christmas. Her clothes were drenched and her hair was sopping. She looked beautiful.
Ovsanna said, “Ms. Foret?” She saw me over the vielle’s shoulder. “I’m a friend of Maral’s. May I come in?”
Miz Foret looked to me. I nodded. Maybe Ovsanna wanted me back. She was wearing my gift. Maybe she’d come to tell me she wanted me in L.A.— ’cause no one could take care of her like I do.
“Mais, come in, of course,” she said. “You shouldn’t be out in dat rain, for true. Come in, let me get you a towel. And look at you, you need a blanket, too.” She let Ovsanna walk past her, and then disappeared into the back of the trailer.
I stayed standing in the middle of the circle. The dirt was making my skin itch. I wanted to run outside in the nude and let the rain wash it away. Instead, I pulled the robe tighter. “Why did you come, Ovsanna? How’d you know I was here?”
“Your grandmother told me. She’s worried about you. And I am, too. She thinks you have a spell on you. Is that why you came to see a rootworker?” I stared at her without speaking. There was nothing in her eyes I recognized. No warmth, no affection. She doesn’t want me back. Mais, she’s worried about me, for true. She’s worried about what I’ll do.
“You know there’s no spell, Maral. This is you. This is your nature now. Nothing the healer does is going to change what you are. Or what you’ve done.”
“Oh? What have I done, Ovsanna? What do you think I’ve done?” I moved away from her, putting one of the leather chairs between us. Could I kill her if I had to? Could she kill me? Yesterday morning I was begging her to make me dead, but she wouldn’t do it.
Miz Foret came back into the room. She must have sensed the tension between us because she stared at both of us deliberately before speaking. “Here you go, chère,” she said to Ovsanna, handing her a bath towel. “If you wanna step out of your boots, I’ll go look for a pair of slippers. It might take me a few minutes.” She didn’t wait for a reply. She turned and went back to the bedroom, sliding the pocket door closed behind her.
The wind outside was raging, pounding against the metal trailer. Miz Foret wouldn’t be able to hear anything we said, but Ovsanna spoke softly, anyway, “Derek Connors is dead, Maral. Did you know that? The police suspect his estranged wife, Annie.”
I whispered back. “And do you care? Does it matter to you?”
“Of course, it matters to me. I don’t think Annie did it and I’m not going to let her be charged with a crime she didn’t commit.”
“Well, sure, she’s one of your stars. You can’t afford to lose two leads in the same series, for true. But that’s not what I meant. Did losing Derek matter? Did it work?”
“Did what work? What are you talking about?”
“Derek dying. Did you feel something? Did you suffer, even a little bit? Because that’s what I wanted.” The chair blocked my hands from Ovsanna’s view. I released my talons. Just in case.
Ovsanna stopped whispering. “You killed him, didn’t you? You dragged him into that room and used the obelisk to throw suspicion on Annie. Why? You barely knew him. You didn’t feed on him.”
“I came to you for help, Ovsanna. I begged you to let me come back to you. At least let me be with you, even if I couldn’t feel any human feelings anymore. Or else kill me. Make me dead so I don’t have to spend centuries like this. But you sent me away. And I was so pissed at you that I tracked him down. Handsome, philandering Derek Connors. Star of Mid-Evil. Your friend, supposedly, as much as you have friends. I knew he wasn’t one of your clan— our clan— so I knew he’d be an easy kill. And if I could make it look like Annie Ross killed him, then you’d lose two people you needed— professionally, at least—
and I’d make you pay. You say vampyres don’t need anyone, but you’re not just a vampyre, are you? You’re a businesswoman, too. So maybe you did need him, just a little bit, and now you don’t have him, just like I don’t have you.” I grinned and showed my fangs.
Miz Foret slid open the pocket door.
40. OVSANNA
The traiteur heard Maral admit to killing Derek; I could tell by the look on her face. Then she saw Maral’s fangs. Her face turned white. She dropped the slippers she was carrying.
She began praying. “Je me lèverai dans le nom du Seigneur.” I will rise in the name of the Lord. “Et je errer dans son chemin par sa parole et je supplie notre Rédempteur qu’il peut me prêter, trois de ses anges.” She was asking for God’s angels. As she spoke, she backed away from us until she had her hand on the front doorknob. “Je prie pour cela: la première est le courage, l’autre est la force, le troisième garde ma chair et le sang de tout mal et mon âme de toute iniquité.” Asking God’s angels for courage and strength and protection from wickedness. Well, sorry, Ms. Foret, all you’re going to get is me. I hope that’s enough.
“For true, Miz Foret,” Maral hissed, “now you know why I came to you. There’s no cunja on me. No gris-gris that your dirt and baths can cleanse me of. Now you know why I brought you the blood and the eyelashes— for the black magick. For the remedy you say will work to bring me feelings again. ’Cause this beautiful beast here turned me into one of hers. She gave me eternal life… but it’s a life without any feelings and I hate it. That’s why I needed your remedy.”
She answered back. I’m sure she was terrified, but she held her ground. “Mais, what are you now? You’re not one of God’s creatures. You’re not human, are you? Dis is not somethin’ God wrought. Dat remedy won’t help you. It won’t help you at all.”
Maral’s smile became a rictus of rage. Her eyes flooded red. Her talons cut into the back of the chair as she gripped it.
“You said it would work!” she seethed. “I killed to bring you the things you said you needed to make it work! You said it would work!”
I moved in front of Ms. Foret to protect her. Keeping my voice calm, I asked, “Who did you kill, Maral? Justin Passenger? You took his eyelashes, didn’t you? And his blood?”
“Oh yes, Ovsanna, I killed your precious Justin. But he wasn’t my prey. Peter was. Just like with the rougarou— before you ever turned me. If I killed Peter, then when I came to your room Saturday morning, you wouldn’t have had a choice. You’d want me back in your life. I almost killed him Friday night. Did he tell you?”
“He said he dreamt someone was in the room with him, attacking him in his sleep, but that was Saturday night, not Friday.”
“Oh, he didn’t know it was me Friday night. He thought it was the crazy woman who’d attacked you at your table. She was wearing a Buffy costume. I killed her, too. That I did for you. She thought she could slay an actual vampyre with her silly little pencil stake, but a vampyre slayed her instead. And then I put on her costume and I went after Peter.” She turned on the rootworker. “You make it work! You make it work or I’ll tear you to shreds! I’ll use your blood to bathe in!”
Maral started toward us. I bared my fangs and stepped forward to grab her, while Ms. Foret pulled the door open. She threw open the screen and stumbled down the stairs, but the wind was too powerful. She couldn’t keep her balance. We watched as it pushed her across the yard and slammed her against a tree. She collapsed in the dirt.
Maral shifted. One second I had her in my grasp, the next, she was standing over the traiteur, her back pressed against the tree for support, her claws cutting into the woman’s throat. From across the sculpture garden, Peter stepped out of the lighthouse. He had his gun in one hand and the stake from his mother’s memorabilia in the other. Broken angels, ripped by the wind from the lighthouse walls, rolled across the ground in front of him.
He raised his gun. He was sixty feet away. He was going to have to climb over the statues to get closer, but the path a bullet would take was clear.
“I can kill her from here,” he yelled. “Just tell me how, Ovsanna. Is she just like you? Where do I need to aim to kill one of yours?”
The wind whipped the sound from his words, but Maral could hear him. She pulled Ms. Foret to her feet and spun to face Peter, using the unconscious woman as a shield.
“No, Ovsanna!” she screamed at me over her shoulder. “It’s not going to be him! I won’t let him! You need to make me dead! You! Do it! Do it!”
I shifted. Instantly, I was in front of her and the healer, fighting to keep my balance against the wind. I had my back to Peter. If he fired, he’d hit me first. “Maral—”
“I’m begging you, Ovsanna. I don’t want to live like this. You gave me this life— you can take it away. Please. I am begging you!” She lifted Ms. Foret off the ground. “I’ll make you do it!” Without warning, she sank her fangs into the healer’s neck and flung her up in the air like an animal. She held her there with her own head thrown back, exposing her neck to me.
I sliced my claw across her throat, rending the flesh and the muscles beneath it. Blood shot out, filling my eyes, momentarily blinding me. Maral could have attacked then, but she didn’t. She tossed the woman away and dropped to her knees. And she stayed there, leaning forward into the wind, clutching her neck, with her blood pouring out over her fingers.
I’d severed her larynx. She couldn’t speak. She tried, but no sounds came out. Her eyes burned into mine. She moved her lips and I read her words. “Yes, Ovsanna. Thank you. Finish it. Please. Make me dead.”
Peter came up beside me.
He handed me the stake.
41. PETER
We used the hurricane to explain the healer’s death and Maral’s disappearance. It was a partial truth, at least.
After the wind pitched her against the tree, Ms. Foret never regained consciousness. Maral did her more damage when she bit into her neck and then when she threw the woman, she cracked her skull. Ovsanna was able to close her wounds, but she couldn’t keep her alive.
And Maral… well… she dropped down on her knees after Ovsanna tore out her voice box. With no sounds coming from her mouth, she begged Ovsanna to kill her.
Ovsanna stared at her for the longest time. She didn’t move. Her face showed no emotion, but her eyes… her eyes were filled with a sadness I haven’t seen her express before, even on film. Gently, she took the stake from me and plunged it into Maral’s heart.
We stood still and watched as Maral dissolved into that gelatinous sludge I’d seen become of Rudy Valentino. Forget the ashes to ashes and dust to dust. I guess that’s what happens across the board with vampyres. Oh shit, did that mean…? Ovsanna— like that? I didn’t want to think about it.
Probably wouldn’t be around to see it anyway, if it was “natural causes”. She’s got a couple hundred centuries to go.
Gradually, the rain diluted the viscous ooze. After a while, all that was left of Maral was washed away.
“It was suicide by cop,” I said, as we moved Ms. Foret’s body. “She forced you to kill her, Ovsanna. There’s nothing to feel guilty about. If you hadn’t killed her, she would have torn this woman to shreds.”
“I don’t feel guilt,” she replied. “Guilt is a human emotion. Birthed by thousands of years of religion, as far as I can tell. Rarely do I even feel regret, but this time, I do. If I had known, I never would have turned her. Over the centuries, I’ve turned a few— we call them newly-mades— and never did one react like Maral. I regretted turning Rudy, yes, but that’s because he became such a megalomaniac. He loved the existence I gave him. There was no way I could have known Maral would hate it.”
My mother had some furniture pads secured in the bed of the truck. I spread one out and placed Ms. Foret’s body on it. Then I covered her with another and tied everything down to keep it safe from the wind. “I’ll tell Sgt. Cyphers who Maral was to you— how you fired her as your assistant when she became too po
ssessive— and how you began to suspect her of killing Derek and Justin when you learned she was in New Orleans at the times of their deaths. I’ll tell him we tracked her to Chauvin and when you confronted her, she confessed. She said she wanted revenge for you kicking her out of your life. She couldn’t get at you, so she killed your two co-stars. And then after she confessed, she tried to escape down the bayou. She drowned. We couldn’t find her body.”
“And Maw-Maw and Jamie? What do we tell them?”
“I’ll convince Cyphers to keep Maral’s name out of the papers, to protect you and the studio from damaging publicity. Her grandma doesn’t need to know about the murders. Maral drowned trying to help Ms. Foret. That’s what we’ll tell the family. We tried, but we couldn’t save her.”
42. OVSANNA
I couldn’t save her.
I never should have saved her to begin with. I should have let her die eight months ago, after she tried to kill Peter.
Instead I turned her. And then, there she was, on her knees, begging me to make her dead.
Peter handed me the stake. The perfect tool to kill a vampyre. That was one of the few conceits Tod used in Dracula that is actually true about our species.
I’d lacerated her throat. She had her fingers clutched around her neck, blood pouring out between them. Even as she begged me silently to kill her, I watched her torn flesh begin to heal itself.
Her lips moved. “…Finish it. Please. Make me dead.” We stared at each other and I knew she could read the meaning in my eyes. She knew what I wanted her to know. She knew that as much as I am capable of, I cared for her. And that I had cared for her deeply in the ten years she’d been with me. And that I cared enough now to do as she asked.
I thrust the stake into her heart.
* * *
We secured Ms. Foret’s body in the back of the truck and went back to the trailer to ride out the storm. Neither of us spoke. I brushed the abalone shells out of the center of the room, but I kept them in the shape of the circle. My mother was a strega; I was raised knowing what witchcraft can do. I collapsed on the floor with the shells surrounding me. The boots Maral had given me were ruined. I took them off and then stood and peeled off my jeans. Peter had stayed standing by the door, watching me. He moved inside the circle. With his eyes, he asked permission. I raised my arms and he pulled my t-shirt over my head. No bra, no panties. Just my wet, black hair. I knelt in front of him, removed his boots, and reached up to unsnap his jeans. Then I buried my face in the warmth of his body. Scratched my cheeks against his body hair, brushed my eyelids against his abdomen. And finally… took him in my mouth. No fangs. No talons. Just my mouth. Around him, licking him, sucking him. A thirst was on me, yes, but not for blood. Not a vampyre thirst.
Make Me Dead: A Vampyres of Hollywood Mystery Page 17
