“My mother’s second Book of Shadows. It’s a type of journal witches keep. Look, I don’t intend to discuss this with you unless you quit towering over us like you’re going to pounce any minute. I could force you to leave, but my aunt seems to think we have more to talk about with you.”
Hell, he couldn’t fault her nerve. Or perhaps it was stupidity. She seemed to think just because whatever little trick she pulled on him when she sent that wind through the room and sparks from her fingers caught him by surprise, she could protect herself from his displeasure. His gaze wandered to her fingers again, and he jerked it away.
He’d be better prepared for their next face off. For now, it would be easier to let her keep her false conception that he was wary of her so-called powers, at least until he found out what he wanted to know. He hadn’t made his fortune in California by not knowing when to attack, when to make a false retreat.
After a quick scan of them both, he nodded and limped back into the parlor. The brandy was wearing off--had worn off while he waited on the porch. He’d known it would and filled a silver flask before he left the house. Filled it in the parlor, because he wasn’t about to go back into the study and face the destruction he’d done to the portrait.
He left the kitchen door open behind him, and after he eased himself into one of the chairs at the table, he was surprised to see they hadn’t shut it after him. Wendi stood with her back to him, her slender figure taller than her aunt’s, but her aunt’s wider hips and skirts flaring from where she stood in front of her niece.
He took the flask out of his trouser pocket and uncapped it, swallowing a satisfying amount without taking his eyes from them. They were either communicating in that wordless way again, or in whispers, as the only thing he could hear was a mockingbird in a wisteria bush out by the street.
After a few seconds, Wendi turned and came toward the table. She closed the door behind her, leaving her aunt in the kitchen, and he raised an eyebrow in inquiry.
“Aunt Sybilla is going to start supper,” she said. “She expects Tangie to show up with some shrimp any minute, but she can start the gumbo without that.”
Somehow he kept his stomach from growling in reaction. By the time he got home, Miz Thibedeau should have his own meal ready.
Wendi took her seat and cupped the lure in her hands. Nick hadn’t paid much attention, but now he realized the glow had died until she touched it. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked at him in intense concentration, although her gaze skittered away from his eyes. Instead, she looked up and down his body, and when she spoke, her voice was feathery and indistinct, but clearly understandable.
“You’ve been living by the ocean, but it’s not like our Gulf here. You like the water, and you prefer travelling that way instead of on horseback.”
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. Hell, it didn’t take a witch to figure that out. With his injured leg, ship travel was a hundred times more comfortable than either horseback or an uncushioned stagecoach seat.
“It’s not only because of your leg,” she said, and he clenched his fingers on his arms to control the start of surprise that maybe she’d read his mind. She frowned in concentration. “Your business out west is in shipping.”
“I thought we were going to talk about here and now. I already know what my past life has been like and what I do for a living.”
She met his eyes this time. “Here and now is mixed with the past. As is the future. Your future has been coming to this since you were born, Monsieur.”
“You can talk in all the riddles you want and it won’t make any difference. But I guess that’s how you fortunetellers do things. You never make a clear statement, then you can interpret your readings according to what happens later on.”
“You think you killed my mother,” Wendi said in a ringing voice. “Is that clear enough for you?”
#
The pain filling his eyes hit Wendi like a blow to the stomach, and only rigid control kept her from dropping the scrying speculum and curling her arms around herself. She clearly heard him mentally howl with the pain, like a lobo wolf finding its life mate dead and cold. The silence of the rending sound made it all that much more ghastly, and it showed in his eyes. Deep blue and endless, the attempt at coldness was shattered by his mental agony, and his jaws clenched too tightly for him to respond to her taunting words.
Those full lips would be beautiful if he ever smiled, she mused. He’d worn down-turned grooves in the corners of his mouth, though, and it would take a miracle to smooth those out.
Pain.
She sensed so very much pain in him. She wanted to soothe him more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life, but something told her she would make his pain much worse before it got better.
She gazed down at the speculum, desperately wanting to see his future, as she’d seen the future of plenty of others. The glow had died, though, and no matter how many mental pleas she sent winging to her guiding spirits, the speculum remained dark and cold. Trepidation filled her. The nonresponsive blackness in his future could mean different things, one of them being his death. She needed to talk to Aunt Sybilla.
Standing, she said, “I think you should leave now.”
His bleak gaze met hers. “You’ve been throwing me out of here ever since I arrived. I’ve told you more than once that I’ll go when I’m damned good and ready. Tell me about this shadow book you were looking for in my garden.”
“Book of Shadows,” she corrected as she took her seat again
--not because he refused to leave but because Sybilla whispered an order into her mind to do just that. Sighing, she picked up the speculum, but it mocked her with its non-responsiveness. She laid it back down and looked at him.
“My mother’s Books of Shadows were a chronicle of her life, as well as a list of her magic spells. All true witches keep one of these--more than one, if their life has merited it.” He sneered at that, but she let it pass. “They’re both a book of spells that work for us and a way to record our lives for continuity down through the years.”
“I don’t believe in this magic shit.”
“That’s extremely clear, by your actions. However, for some reason you’re still here listening to me. So why don’t you suspend your disbelief for a few minutes and pay attention.”
With a scornful twist to his lips, he gave a curt nod indicating for her to proceed.
“I’m not exactly sure why, but I feel you need to know something about us in order to understand what’s brought you here. You see, witchcraft is not an evil practice with us. It’s a oneness with the earth and part of what we are. It’s the religion we honor.”
“So is voodoo,” he sneered.
“No. No, voodoo is different, but I’m not going to get into that with you. Our witchcraft is white magic, and we don’t use it for harm. In fact, we believe if we harm someone, the harm will come back on us threefold.”
Her words seemed to spark some memory in him, but he maintained the thread of their current conversation.
“That’s not what the common consensus is.”
“And the common consensus is always right, Monsieur?”
Her question lit the pain in his eyes again, and she caught a sense of longing in him. A deep longing to come home from a faraway land, but a knowing he would be unwelcome. For a flickering second, she thought he might make an attempt to understand, but he stayed quiet, his fingers whitening on his walking cane the only other sign of his emotions.
“Do you believe in life after death, Monsieur Bardou?” she asked.
“No,” he snapped. “Hell’s right here on earth, and it’s enough to make me look forward to the void of death.”
She blew out a breath, chasing a stray curl from her forehead and noticing his gaze follow it. “Well, whether you personally believe or not, you need to understand that we do. And I’m getting to what this means as to the Books of Shadows,” she said to the impatient look on his fa
ce. “My mother’s Books of Shadows should be mine, but her violent death has done something to my karma--and perhaps to yours, since you’ve been brought back here from so far away, when you believed you never wanted to see New Orleans again.”
He at least had the grace to acknowledge she’d voiced something she couldn’t have known. Still the skepticism on his face could have been written in words.
“My magic should be growing as I get older,” she went on. “But it seems to be stalling and at times, even be blocked for some reason. And Aunt Sybilla’s magic is weakening. We need the second Book of Shadows to try to figure out what’s going on.”
“And you thought it was in my garden.” He didn’t question, but stated a fact.
“Aunt Sybilla had a vision. She saw a marble statue of Aphrodite, and she remembered my mother saying there was one in the Bardou gardens. Your father told her.”
“Yes, my father,” he snarled. “In bed or out?”
“Look,” Wendi said in exasperation. “Your father and my mother were lovers. There’s no getting around that, and we all know it. And the consensus is--you killed my mother, but there wasn’t enough evidence to arrest and try you. The resulting scandal over your possibly killing your father’s mistress devastated your mother and she died by her own hand.”
Mentally she applauded his control. She didn’t even know herself where those words came from, and had she flung them at any other man she knew, he’d probably have his hands around her throat right now. Nick only tightened his fingers on that walking cane instead of her throat, until she thought surely the knob on top would powder into dust, and stared steadily at her.
“You really are either foolishly brave or bravely foolish,” he said in a musing voice. “I may have been gone ten years, but the Bardou name still has power in this town. And the consensus is, I got away with murder once.”
Wendi pulled her courage around her, somehow knowing what had to be said even without Sybilla’s mental agreement with her thoughts. “Did you? Or is that one of the wrongs that needs to be righted before the karma can be corrected?”
“Screw your karma.” He said it mildly and, leaning heavily on his cane, rose to his feet. “I came here to warn you to stay out of my life. I’ll only be in town a few days, and that alone is making me miserable enough. If you cross my path again before I leave, I’ll make you wish my father had seen your mother’s true ugliness beneath her beauty. And when I depart for good again, I’ll leave behind word that if you’re ever seen on Bardou property, you’re to be arrested. When I’m notified of the arrest, I’ll be back here to see that you’re tried for witchcraft and at the very least, banned from New Orleans.”
His cold, deadly glare told Wendi he meant every carefully chosen, lethal word. Somehow she maintained her staring match with him, although her hands twisted in her lap to hide their trembling. Anything she said right now would only make matters worse, and at least he appeared to be leaving. That’s what she wanted, wasn’t it?
He limped toward the door, jerking it open.
“Monsieur.” Oh, Great Goddess, what on earth had she done now? She bit down hard on her tongue to keep it from moving, but he looked back over his shoulder with a sneer of contempt and she let her tongue loose.
“I can help that pain in your leg.”
His contempt crumbled into disbelief, matching the stunned amazement in her mind. Now what, or who, on earth had made her say that?
“I’d sooner die from the pain than let Sabine Chastain’s daughter lay a hand on me,” he spat.
The door crashed behind him, shaking the walls of the small house. After a moment, a horse galloped away, and she wondered how he could stand that frantic pace with his injured leg. A second later, the kitchen door opened behind her.
“I couldn’t give him a reading, Aunt,” she said without looking at Sybilla. “The speculum stopped glowing after only a moment.”
“I thought that might happen.”
Wendi didn’t question Sybilla’s enigmatic words. Her aunt had no way, either, of knowing whether the speculum’s non-responsiveness meant Nick Bardou had no future.
She’d barely met him, so why did that thought bring her as much pain as when she’d seen the same thing for Cherie Bonheur?
Chapter 5
Wendi allowed two days to pass--two days when she and Sybilla had to turn away a half dozen clients each. The Fates appeared to be conspiring to force them in some direction, as yet unclear but not to be ignored. The speculum wouldn’t glow. The cards, dealt as a last resort, foretold nonsense neither one of them wanted to attempt to interpret for their customers. Instead, they sent them away, explaining they would get word to them when their abilities appeared to have returned. If something didn’t happen soon, they’d be out of food again.
The second evening of the troubling days, she and Sybilla shared a pot of tea before going to bed.
“You know you’re going to have to go see Nick,” Sybilla said.
“And ask him what?” Wendi demanded. “To search his garden again? To look in the house? ‘Oh, by the way, Monsieur. By any chance do you think your father may have brought my mother here into the house--perhaps into one of the bedrooms--maybe while your mother was gone somewhere? Could I look and see if there’s a statue anywhere that my mother might have hidden her Book of Shadows beneath’?”
Wendi shook her head. “You know as well as I do that being a witch doesn’t make me immortal, Aunt. You better pick out which gown you want to bury me in before you send me on that mission.”
“You don’t really think the man who was here killed Sabine, do you?”
Wendi set her teacup down and stood to pace the room. Twilight lingered these days, but they’d lit a couple wall sconces in the parlor, anticipating each would read for a while before they went to bed. The threadbare rug on the floor only slightly muffled her footsteps as she gave the question careful consideration. Finally she paused in front of the window and turned to look at Sybilla.
“Can you honestly say you’re sure he didn’t?” she asked.
Sybilla’s face creased with a frown of worry. “No,” she admitted. “No, I can’t. I believe that’s what’s nagging at me as much as anything--whether or not he did or didn’t kill her. And I don’t understand why ten years have gone by with nothing happening. Then all of a sudden . . . .” She shrugged and patted the hound at her feet.
Wendi crossed the room and sat in the horsehair settee beside Sybilla. “If you’ll think on it, Aunt, like I have been the last two days, you’ll realize our problems began around the same time Nick Bardou probably started thinking of coming back to New Orleans. About a month or so ago.”
“He was on one of the ships that comes out of Galveston,” Sybilla mused. “So he probably came by rail across the country that far. Yes, a week to get his business ready so he could leave it for a while, and two or three weeks to get here.”
Wendi agreed with her. They both read anything they could get their hands on, including the weekly papers when they could afford them--week-old ones tossed in the trash when they couldn’t. They knew as much about politics and how the country was growing as any man in the city did. Rail travel consisted mostly of lines built to get cattle to market more than to carry people, at least in the south. Since shipping was the easiest route in and out of New Orleans, and there were waterways across the entire state of Louisiana to travel, no one had bothered yet to connect that state by rail. With the huge areas of swamps that would have to be negotiated, they doubted anyone would consider it for a number of years.
“I understand what you mean, though, Aunt,” Wendi said. “My mother died a violent death, an unavenged death, yet her soul hasn’t made itself known. You can’t contact her, and neither can I. And now something’s happening here, and none of our other guiding spirits appear to be willing to let us in on what the plans are.”
“We need Sabine’s second Book of Shadows. Sabine’s magic always was stronger than mine, even though I wa
s so much older. There’s got to be an effective spell in her Book to contact a reluctant soul. We need to talk to your mother and see what’s going on here.”
“Either that, or the karma is playing out the way it should, and there’s not a darned thing we can do about it. If that’s the case . . . .”
“If that’s the case,” Sybilla finished for her, “we need to confront Nick Bardou even more than ever.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He’s the key to everything, Wendi. He’s been gone ten years. Now he’s back, and I don’t believe it’s just coincidence that we’ve started having problems in our lives around the same time he starts crossing our path. You know sometimes we have to read the subtleties as well as the obvious. His life is intertwined with ours--has been, ever since his father and your mother first talked in the park so many years ago.”
“So we’re missing the subtleties, and that’s why we’re being forced into action by not being able to earn enough to even buy food.” Wendi smiled wryly. “Hunger can be a powerful motivator, I guess.”
Sybilla stood and patted one plump hip. “Well, I can last a little longer than you can, but I’d rather not let Alphie here go hungry. He does such a good job keeping that nasty cat next door away from me.” The dog lying at Sybilla’s feet thumped its tail in response to her loving look.
“Some witches like cats, Aunt. In fact, they use them for familiars.”
“Well, I’m not some witch,” Sybilla said with a huff. “I don’t understand how anyone can like one of those sneaky, hissing creatures!”
Wendi leaned back on the settee and laughed as Sybilla waved a ta-ta motion with her fingers, ordered her not to stay up too late, and headed for her bedroom. The hound--not a male as the name indicated, but Wendi didn’t have the heart to tell her aunt
--padded after. Alphie had been Sybilla’s unswerving companion since the day it raced out of the bushes during one of Sybilla ongoing confrontations with the neighbor’s cat. Her aunt had even resorted to making a cross with her fingers to ward off the cat, but it hadn’t fazed it. The hound managed to send it back across the fence, however, and earned Sybilla’s unflagging gratitude.
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