by Lynn S.
“It’s been awful boring, darlin’. Tell me what is coming my way that’s worth a raven above my chamber’s door.”
Two words were enough to capture the attention of the loa: “Francis Alexander.”
“Aw, hells no! Merde!” The loa spat on the floor, frustrated once again, guessing at reasons. “Don’t tell me that now we got to clean up some mess started half around the world by your Little Orphan Annie.” Brigitte lived at a crossroad at that involved a lot of responsibilities, none of which actually fit with her idea of a life of constant debauchery. And now, fairies had jumped in to mess up her spring.
Cursing, she walked a couple of steps to retrieve a red handkerchief, which she placed on the table before her. Blowing softly upon her closed fist as if about to take a gamble, Brigitte rolled, spreading her fingers open. Small shells fell upon the crimson cloth. Her eyes tinged yellow, read once, then twice, before her eyebrows met in puzzlement. Nothing.
“I didn’t come to ask you to find him.” Bansit placed her hand on top of the cloth, preventing Brigitte from making another roll. “You wouldn’t be able to find him even if you wanted to. You can say we taught him well. However, when Annand was given permission to hunt him down, the Universe decided to give us a wide range of action. We were allowed to influence him. Though we don’t know where Francis is right now, we planted in his head the idea of…coming here.” Bansit braced for another wave of profanity, but Brigitte simply cocked an eyebrow. “We don’t mean the harm, but we also need something that is contained within your domain, and might as well—”
“You are fiddling with my short fuse once again, Bansit. Spit it out. What do you need? I guess there’s no way out of it.”
“I need you to trace someone for us, a type of vampire we know inhabits this city. I need you to pinpoint a dweller.”
Brigitte’s burst of laughter rang through the ample room. Placing her fingers upon the table, she drummed them rapidly. Bansit was asking for something complicated and dangerous. Dwellers were elusive vampires, notorious for their need of privacy and, most of all, their vicious nature. They moved from body to body, as spirits bent on possession, sleeping for years on end, undisturbed, within a human host until the thirst forced them to wake. What made a dweller hard to track was that, during its hibernation process, neither vampire nor host were aware of the monster within. They had to be trapped in the precise moment, right as it woke up and was made conscious of their own existence, taming the beast enough to negotiate some sort of truce that wouldn’t end in blind rage and bloodshed.
Bansit was right about having an idea of where to find one. The Lady of the Cemetery kept good track of all the souls in the city: the living, the dead, and those who willingly fell between the cracks. Whether they were for Light or Shadows, she’d know. She laughed until a tear rolled down her cheek, and then her face acquired the hardness of business once more.
“You have a load of fresh in you, Bansit. First you tell me there’s something coming to my city, just to try to pass by me that y’all are steering it here. On top of it, you show up emptyhanded, requesting a favor of the kindness of my giving heart. One has to be quite pouffiasse, the right kind of little bitch, to ask with such an innocent face. No wonder the blind one sent you!” She bit her lip, stifling a mocking grin. Stretching, she adjusted the top that barely hugged her firm breasts. Leverage on The Phantom Queens was few and far between, and she planned to use it all.
For a moment, Brigitte fell silent, eyes narrowed and lips moving softly. She might have been saying a prayer but her words were shielded from the Morrigan. All Bansit could hear was the woman’s whispers and what seemed to be a serpentine hiss in reply.
“What do you require in payment, Brigitte?”
The Lady ignored her for a couple more seconds before answering.
“Me? I’d settle for chicory coffee and an order of beignets. But there’s someone here who requires something only you can give. Part with one of your feathers, Morrigan. That is my price.”
“No.”
Morrigan didn’t molt feathers. In their long existence, they had not lost one. Feathers were an extension of self. Immortality wrapped in soft black. The request was parallel to asking a human being to give a sliver of their soul. Brigitte didn’t care much for Bansit’s painful scowl.
“Let me make it clear,” she warned. “No feather, no dweller. That’s my final answer. For all I care, if you are not willing to deal, you are free to run about the streets of New Orleans shouting out for invisible vampires and see if someone answers. Knowing Annand, I bet she won’t let you return to your beloved Spheres until this business is closed. I hope you like lemonade and tea, cherie. They tell me this summer will be hot as hell.”
“One, you said. How am I to know you won’t use it to alter the balance to your favor?” Depending on her humor, Brigitte dealt equally for Light and Shadows. The oracle of New Orleans wore more than a mask, as she saw fit. However, as she asked, Bansit saw Brigitte’s face acquire a certain tenderness and abandon the customary sarcasm.
“I swear, my queen, that the feather is not even for me. It is a gift for Wedo. You know my little brother. He is as trustworthy as they come. It seems the little rascal has foreseen something and has been spending more time brooding among graves than the loa of life should. That has me worried.”
Brigitte never lied, not when it came to her brother. Wedo, the loa of life, had been spending too much time at the shade of the graves. Running about in some secret errand, involved in fixing some romantic scheme in which he should not be taking part, but that was life. “But as you know, darlin’,” the loa of death continued, “life shouldn’t be kept entertained with things pertaining to the tomb. Your precious balance might be affected and then it will be a worse price to pay than a simple feather. That is what the boy needs for me to get him off my back. That is what he’ll get.”
Bansit accepted, and pronouncing words lost to time, her whole frame trembled as she plucked a feather that became visible to the oracle as soon as she removed it from herself.
Brigitte brought the feather to the level of her eye. It was pure life energy. Tales of immortality pulsed in blue hidden among the black. A treasure, indeed. Knowing her part of the deal had to come forth, she read the design of shell over the crimson cloth once again. “Let the good times roll, sweetheart. I have your vampire in my sight.”
Chapter II
Things left Behind
New York
Marissa and Esteban left Innisfree. The inner gates of the house were closed, keeping the property safe from outside access, and any trace of things that transpired there during the last four days was erased from site and memory. O’Reilly kept her in the dark about how things were sorted out. As they drove, a smiling Hank said goodbye to both with a tip of his hat and a wave of his hand, closing the heavy, white outer gates to the property.
Marissa had been there as the security guard, coming back for duty on Monday morning, was surprised not only by the sudden disappearance of the widow O’Reilly and her mother, but the unexpected return of none other than the dearly departed himself.
Both men walked down the cobblestone path, away from the entrance of the house. The guard made an attempt at a phone call but Marissa saw how Esteban prevented it, taking the mobile off his hands. After a couple of seconds of obvious agitation, Esteban gripped Hank’s arms firmly and the guard simply eased into a conversation. It was a brief exchange of words, most of them coming from O’Reilly, but soon the guard seemed free of all dissent. Looking back, Marissa observed that the man was frozen in his post. Sitting in his booth, Hank grinned with an impossibly stretched smile that made him look bewildered.
“What exactly did you tell him? How did you convince him to keep quiet?”
“I didn’t say much. The less the better.” Esteban kept his eyes fixed on the road as he drove the vehicle Adriana had rented just a night before. Among other things, O’Reilly explained that her mother had left the ren
tal behind for them to have a means to return to the city.
“Are you telling me he didn’t have anything to say about your…resurrection?”
“He had questions, love. But for once, we must be grateful for Mother and Karlagh’s little precautions. Apparently, they saw fit to create some wards and glamour to justify my return. They planted a suggestion in Hank’s mind. If he ever saw my face, he’d soon accept the simplest explanation. It took me nothing to catch on to it and convince him that I was but a relative left behind to close the house and hand him back the property keys. As far as snooping, it won’t cross his mind. I made sure of that.”
“I see, that’s why he was so…resilient at first”. Marissa measured her words so as not to let slip a bit of disgust. She had chills when hearing Esteban pronounce Carla’s name with a slight change of intonation, much like the one Isabel used when she required her preternatural abilities. Not only that, but to see him so eager to settle into what the woman had disposed and fully accept a world of magic and treachery—it was a little too unnerving.
“As I said,” Esteban answered as if putting two and two together. “We must count our little blessings.”
Marissa smiled, tracing with her finger the scar at the edge of his hairline. Now it was but a fading white line, almost hidden from view. Esteban’s hair looked at least one shade darker and his face was framed by beard growth, which he had perfectly trimmed. He turned around, giving her a playful bite on the finger.
“Ouch!” Marissa protested. “What was that about?”
“I know what you are thinking, and the five o’clock shadow stays.” His fiancée didn’t raise much of an argument; facial hair was no impediment for the dimple that showed up whenever he smiled.
They reached New York City in a little under four hours. The apartment they had shared on Franklin Street lay undisturbed and looked as if they had been absent only for a day. Marissa, in her desperation, had sealed their world, leaving it all as it was when she received that awful call she’d rather forget. She crossed the threshold hurriedly but happily, as if the sight of the apartment was meant to erase the last echoes of the nightmare in her head. Esteban, however, looked taken aback, a little overwhelmed. He stood in the middle of the living room, looking at all with an air of suspicion. Swallowing hard, he licked and smacked his lips as if trying to suppress disgust.
“Are you all right, honey?” Marissa sought his arms for an embrace and he responded accordingly, allowing her to find solace in the warmth of his skin. His hands rested on the small of her back as he kissed her softly on the side of the face before lifting her left hand to his lips. The platinum engagement ring was still on her finger and Esteban removed it.
“Yes. I am fine, or at least as fine as can be expected. Innisfree didn’t affect me as much as these walls. It was here that we left so many things pending. The ring, for one, was not meant to be handed by my…Isabel.”
Esteban slipped the ring back down her finger and Marissa felt the same unaccountable sensation as the first time she received it from Isabel’s hand. The stones seemed to hum at Esteban’s touch as they settled, warm on her finger, almost as if they recognized the presence of someone of Alejandro blood. It was a stupid thought that ruined the moment. She hardly noticed that Esteban had knelt before her, intent on doing it right this time around. Soon he was making her giggle as he recounted happy events that brought them together and one or another stupid fight that threatened to tear them apart, now far away and forgotten. His closing words, though, seemed to come from someone else’s lips.
He didn’t let go of her hand, but intertwined their fingers and looked straight into her slate gray eyes. He didn’t wait for a reaction before speaking. “Your hand in mine, and now we are forever joined in an unbreakable Circle. You are bound to me, and my love is yours to claim as well.”
She stirred, nervous, slightly uncomfortable.
“Marissa, my love, not all about my family was terrible. Vows, for example, are meant to string generations together.”
“After what we all found this past weekend,” she managed to chuckle, “you can understand my dislike of unilateral vows.”
“Then say yours, and I will honor and obey as much as you want.” The hazel of his eyes rested upon her once more and she just smiled, shaking off her doubts, standing there with no words to say. So, he took it upon himself to rekindle the magic of the moment, crushing his lips against her, inviting her in once more. He kissed her with need, probing, as if their kisses were new and they both were trying out how wild and abandoned they might reach to be. And then, as if robbed of all reason, she just wanted to taste him, crazed by the scent of his skin, something that reminded her of endless days of summer. Still wordless, she pleaded for more, with her lips and her tongue.
Something inside her stirred, trying to win over her frenzied need, begging her to consider that details were off. She had always been shy, even when intimate, always picking up on his queues to take a step forward, but now Marissa felt a level of aggression that Esteban harnessed and turned into lust.
With a groan, he pulled her closer, circling her waist with his arms, pressing kisses down her throat, helping her out of her clothes to continue kissing to the mound of her breasts, easing her into a shiver that preluded total bliss. Marissa finally found her voice, just to softly moan his name, but instead of giving her one of those self-assured smiles, Esteban kissed her coarsely, almost hurting. Forget, erase from memory, adjust to this new rhythm. You are mine, mine only.
The warnings were subdued by passion. Esteban claimed her, heart and soul, and she soon found herself assured that everything was forgotten and forgiven, that they had reached once again that perfect balance. Up to that moment they had found themselves halfway out of the dark, and being together had been more than a release. They had found their way home. Marissa wanted to sleep, safely in his arms, and she did, carefree and happy. That was when the nightmare began.
Marissa opened her eyes, under the impression her senses had been drifting. She could distinctly smell water and apple cider vinegar. Her feet stepped onto freshly scrubbed hardwood floors that had been finished with a natural solution. Windows were open wide, welcoming a soft breeze that announced an eagerly awaited spring. Fortunately, the moon, full and at the height of the upper windows, marked a path to follow. The house was dark, no electrical appliances in sight.
A small kerosene lamp rested atop the center of a simple nightstand. The room was almost bare, but the bed was sturdy and ample, comfortable and of beautiful craftsmanship. Three boys slept in the bed, fair-haired twins, no older than three, and an older boy. The smaller kids slept huddled against one another, looking for refuge from a nightmare. The older child slept on his stomach, with his left arm extended over his brothers as if to protect them even as he lay vulnerable.
She recognized the elder boy as the Amish kid she had met earlier that week. This must have been his room, his house. His name was Malachi, and though veiled by a bit of mystery, the child had tried to help her, almost prophesying about the evils that awaited her at the house on the hill and truths she was about to uncover. The woman smiled at the picture of pure innocence before her and drew closer to the boy, who seemed to wake up, alerted to a presence. Mal opened his eyes, and though a little surprised, looked happy to see her.
“Hello, English.” His voice almost carried like an echo through the silence of the night seeping across the room. The moon sneaking through the windows gave it all a silvery-blue tint, but Marissa could clearly make out the brick-colored distortion in the boy’s eye. Malachi jumped out of the bed, arms stretched. Marissa was ready to receive his sign of affection, but that hug never came to be.
The boy stopped, just a few paces across from her, frozen. Mouth agape, he clearly sought air. His feet stopped touching the ground as convulsions set in—Malachi was being lifted and strangled by an unseen force. The brick stain in his eye almost covered the whole pupil, pulsing. Marissa was able to share h
is vision, but only in a partial form, enough to see a figure wrapped in shadow.
It might have looked like a wraith, but the arm that held the boy was strong enough to exert murderous pressure on his throat, robbing his life without much of an effort. The boy kicked in spasms, but even as he was about to lose his battle, Malachi managed his death throes, connecting with one foot to the iron base of the bed.
The killer did not stop, but a deep, angry wail tore through the silent house as the attacker’s arm materialized from the surrounding darkness. Strong, but almost china-white, defined by patterns underneath its skin that looked alive. Black ink, darker than the night itself, robbed her of her vision and all she could feel was the cool caress of hundreds of wings in flight…
Marissa woke up screaming. Her first impulse was to push Esteban away from her as he tried to hold her and give her some comfort. O’Reilly ignored her, grabbing her shoulders, forcing her to concentrate on the reality around them.
“Mary, Mary, look at me! Get a grip, you are having a nightmare.”
She looked at him with wide, fearful eyes, not expecting to find herself in their apartment, but back at the farm house in upstate New York.
“It was so real, I could feel his pain. My lungs burned as I gasped for air. And then, darkness and wings, nightmare birds like the ones I saw in the cabin…and I knew the pain I was going through was but a little bit of Malachi’s agony. Oh, poor kid! It was terrible!”
“Shhh…shhh…it is okay, Mary.” Esteban combed through her hair with his fingers, trying to soothe her despite the disturbing images that haunted her even awake. “Let’s try to sleep again, okay?”
“Don’t call me Mary again, please. When I spoke to that child…the one in my dream…I told him my name was Mary and he told me that it wasn’t, and if anybody ever called me Mary, that person didn’t love me.”
