A Soul's Surrender (The Voodoo Revival Series Book 2)

by Victoria Flynn

  I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong or differently. I tried again and still nothing happened. I attempted it a third time, trying to magic my way into the contraption, still, there was no response. Shit! I thought, tossing the damned thing aside. Why did nothing ever go right?

  How had it all come down to this? The Baron was a far cry from the man I had thought he was. He was a monster. So many people had been lost. Too many. I began to question the validity of everything the Loa had ever said to me. None of it made any sense.

  I could still see the glassy, far off look in Della’s eyes after she’d passed and the anger for the infernal self-proclaimed king burned through me. I vowed then and there that I’d make him pay for every single thing he’d done.

  I got to my feet, resolved to figure out a way back to Rhys. He was the only person I could really trust. My gut twisted at the idea of him sprawled out and unconscious. I had only been married a handful of hours and I hadn’t learned the ins and outs of the bond forged between the Baron and myself. I was afraid that if I pulled on his magic, he’d know instantly and maybe it’d give away my location. That was assuming he didn’t already know. The land and everything in it was directly tied to him. And I guessed I was too.

  I was frustrated, yet I didn’t think it would do me any good to abandon the locked box after everything I’d gone through to get it. I snatched it up and pulled the top layer of my dress up, looping it through the ribbon about my waist to make a rough sack. I shoved the enchanted contraption into the makeshift bag and started on my way.

  I stopped every so often to hone in on any magical signatures that might have been able to help me. Several more hours of walking felt like days. My belly ached in hunger and my mouth was sticky and dry. Blisters had formed on my heels and my gait had morphed into a gimp. I didn’t allow my pace to slow any; I just prayed that my feet and calves would go numb.

  The monotony of walking drowned out any fears I would have otherwise had. It seemed like there was nothing out here, which I found hard to believe. My legs ached and I hadn’t come across a single sign of life and there weren’t any landmarks that shouted gateway. I felt the presence of the spirits, although none ventured close enough to really register on my radar. Were they following me? I couldn’t be sure. The sounds of my feet plodding along the soft ground were my only companions. It left me alone with my thoughts and that was dangerous. My mind began to wander back over everything that had happened.

  A memory, which didn’t seem like anything at the time, filtered back to me. Drake seemed like he knew the hooded figure who came for him right before he died. His anger and disbelief at the realization that the disguised visitor was the Baron began to make sense. Had Drake not realized who he was dealing with? He had begged for more time before his damnation. Understanding dawned, he only would have asked for more time if he was working for the figure. His shock must’ve been from the betrayal.

  Drake had been working for the Baron Samedi, I was sure of it. Nothing else made sense. Everything was so much bigger than Drake. He was just a pawn in the game of backstabbing, warring voodoo deities.

  If my instincts were right, which I was entirely convinced, the ramifications were huge. Drake wasn’t the only one betrayed by that sadistic man. Drake wouldn’t have made a move without instruction from Samedi. The man who I had married not only tried to kill me, but he had succeeded in killing my parents.

  The fury was building inside me and my hands had begun to shake. Sparks jumped from my hands with the barely contained rage. Angie and so many innocent people had been hurt or even killed by that twisted motherfucker. Each little detail knit together to create the great big picture I’d been so blind to for far too long.

  Was Damballah in league with Samedi? It would explain the attack on Rhys. I still didn’t understand what he was playing at. What was the end game? Chaos? Destruction? All were things men like him reveled in, but it seemed too simple.

  I was so blind with anger and confusion that I almost missed the glimmering green light radiating from the box. Oh now you decide you have something to say? I angrily rolled my eyes, thinking that the lady inside couldn’t have picked a worse time to make herself known. Nope, I wasn’t going to do it. I refused to pick it up and give it any of the attention it was craving. Not right then.

  The nagging light grew brighter, more insistent. I glanced at it out of the corner of my eye then away again. I convinced myself the woman inside would just complicate matters more than they already were and that was enough to dismiss the call.

  The longer I refused to touch it, the brighter it grew. Power began to seep away from the box. That was what intrigued me and made me pay attention. Power called to power, and I was hopeless to resist.

  I snatched it up and found the tiny button on the rear corner that was hidden by the crisscrossing lines encircling the container. It gave little resistance as the tiny finger prick popped out. I let it impale my thumb just as it had in my dream. My blood flowed down the length of it and gathered inside of the lock. My magic was in my blood, it made sense that it would require something powerful like blood to undo the cursed lock. The logic behind it didn’t make it hurt any less or make me enjoy in the east. It was necessity.

  Without some sort of fantastic show, the green light just dimmed until there was nothing left coming from the box and the power went with it. The lock had popped and I lifted the lid. The wooden walls were singed like someone had burned it from the inside out. The floor of the container had symbols carved into it. I couldn’t make out what they were; they weren’t symbols I’d seen before, but the one in the middle was very familiar to me. I’d seen it half a dozen times since my imprisonment.

  It was the veve of Brigitte.

  I felt a piece of hair lifted from my shoulder and spun to find the woman from my dream standing behind me in the flesh. She no longer had a translucent iridescence to her. Her exotic green eyes drew me in and I was sure she could easily make any man fall under her thrall.

  “Thank you for your help,” she said, bowing her head to me.

  I was struck dumb, not knowing what to say.

  She stood upright and looked around at the bleak landscape before inhaling deeply. “It’s good to be home.”

  “Home?” I asked, not quite capable of putting two and two together.

  She smiled coyly. “Yes, this is home to me. I am Brigitte. And you are…?”

  Her nonchalant demeanor was disarming. She was the type of person you wanted to spill all your secrets to within minutes of meeting her.

  “Umm…I’m Maya Thibodeau.”

  I was still reeling at her tiny confession. The temptress was Brigitte after all. We’d gone to St. Martinville with the hope of finding her and as it turns out, we did. Mateo still died needlessly, but we’d accomplished what we set out to do. It was a gratifying sensation tinged with guilt over his death. It still didn’t answer the question of who Ronda Beamis was. We hadn’t found any signs that she’d ever existed. I had so many questions, I just didn’t know where to start.

  “Maya, a beautiful name. I sense something familiar in you, something I saw once before. Do you have any relation to Marie Laveau?” she asked, her head cocked to the side like a confused puppy.

  Her question was innocent enough, but what was I supposed to say? Yeah, hi. I’m your husband’s new wife. I’m also Marie Laveau’s granddaughter who was promised to Samedi a couple of hundred years ago. Nice to meet you! I thought it was not the most prudent course.

  “Yes, actually. She was my grandmother.” I thought it best to leave out the bit about being married to her lover. Things like that tended to get folks off on the wrong foot.

  “I see it now. There’s something about you that’s so much like her. She was a good woman, strong and loyal. You could do worse.”

  It was strange to think that there was a part of me that was so tied to her. She’d found a way to bridge the span of time and leave a part of her behind in me. Though I was so confused
by the entire exchange.

  “What? How? But… I’m sorry. I just don’t understand what’s going on right now.” By the time my half assed questions spilled out, I was pacing as if it would help it all make sense.

  “I am very sorry for your confusion, but I must ask you a question before I can answer any. What has he done?”

  “He? He who? Samedi?”

  She nodded. “I am afraid. He’s done something horrible and I believe he has gone too far this time. It won’t end well for anyone.”

  Damn right he’d gone too far. That was my chance to figure out what the hell was really going on.

  “What’s he done? How did you end up in that box? And for crying out loud, who is Ronda Beamis?” I knew even before she answered that there was so much more going on than I had known. I knew I wouldn’t like her answer. No one would get rid of their wife of centuries without something huge going on.

  “Ronda Beamis is not a real person, not really. It’s an anagram. It’s a code we would use, Samedi and I, when we wanted a little rendezvous.” Her eyes twinkled as she said it, like she was remembering an intimate moment they’d shared. I felt nauseous knowing that someone actually wanted him that way after seeing his little hobby and his tendency to force himself on women.

  I pushed my spiraling thoughts away and focused on what she was telling me. Ronda Beamis wasn’t real. I thought about it for a second when things began to come together.

  “That’s how you knew he was waiting for you, wasn’t it? He would put an anagram of his own name on your list then you’d hook up?” It was clever, yet I didn’t really see the need for it. “Why though? What’s the point? You’re both consenting adults, so why all the cloak and dagger?”

  She was nodding as if she understood where I was coming from. “Can you imagine how dull and boring things could get after half a millennium?” She quirked an eyebrow, trying to get her point across.

  I had to swallow the rising bile. “So that still doesn’t tell me how you ended up there? Or who put you there?”

  Brigitte’s features darkened with sadness and anger, betraying the tiny creases of time near her eyes. “We were out on collection runs. I had found some information that was quite damaging to him and we’d fought about it. We hadn’t seen much of each since our spat. Then, I saw the name on my list and thought he was extending an olive branch. We had a cozy cottage where we’d always meet. When I got there, he hadn’t arrived yet. So I poured myself a drink and waited.”

  “What was the information you found?”

  “There are things that are forbidden to us. Ancient texts that foretell of a way to harness the power of Damballah himself. Samedi found them and he began talking about all of the possibilities. I told him it was forbidden and he should forget about it.”

  I wondered to myself if she knew who I was? Was she aware that I was the other woman, albeit unwillingly? Did she know about the deal he’d struck with Marie? She hadn’t asked much about me, yet I was almost sure she knew much more than she was letting on. “Did he follow through with it?”

  Not answering my question, she continued on with her story. “When he finally showed up, I’d been waiting for hours. I knew something was different as soon as he walked in. He’d done exactly what I’d advised him against. He said he was sick of being subservient to Damballah when he couldn’t care less about us or anyone else for that matter. He wanted to change things and make us the masters we used to be. Make us revered like we used to be.”

  It didn’t sound like Samedi was interested in working with Damballah. Why would the great one have gone after Rhys if he wasn’t working with the Baron?

  “Used to be? I wasn’t aware that you weren’t still.”

  “Oh yes, there used to legions who worshipped us like gods. So many with the light blood magic that we ruled supreme over the lands. However, the numbers have dwindled over the years to almost nothing. There are so few and we have been reduced to legends and folklore in the eyes of the world.”

  I remembered the stories Mama Yansa had told me of voodoo practitioners who’d been rounded up and slaughtered by the hundreds under the guise of religious cleansing. Tituba, during the Salem Witch Trials, was another. She was right. I didn’t know anyone who actually believed in the Loas or any who could name more than two. Those numbers dropped even further the farther outside of New Orleans you got.

  “So what is he trying to do? He can’t overpower Damballah, can he?”

  “He’d found a way to siphon Damballah’s essence to himself and use his powers however he saw fit. He said he’d eventually deplete the almighty one. The Ghede would no longer be limited to the shadows and Samedi would become Damballah’s replacement.”

  “Oh my god.” It was the only uttering I could muster that even somewhat scratched the surface of the horror I was feeling.

  “There’s a precarious balance between good and evil with a very, very large grey area in between the two. He will tip the scale and the outcome would be catastrophic. The Bacalou would roam free, feeding on the mortals. The other beings will ravage the entirety of mankind and we would be plunged back into the Dark Ages. I cannot let that happen. When I refused to help him, he put me in there,” she said, pointing to the box by my feet. “He’d already grown so powerful. I couldn’t stop him. He’s consumed by power and greed.”

  If he was stealing Damballah’s powers then maybe it hadn’t been the almighty one who’d attacked Rhys. It made a lot more sense than for the all-powerful to target someone so randomly.

  “We need to get out of here and back to the mortal world. Do you think you can open up a portal?” I had slipped into planning mode and I knew that our best chance was to get to Rhys and Mama Yansa before we came across the Baron again. While I could pull on his magic, he could do the same to me, and I knew then I was vastly out matched.

  She stared at the ground and refused to make eye contact with me as if she were ashamed. “I can’t. He stripped my powers when he put me in there. I am useless.”

  Shit.

  “No you’re not. I can figure this out. Just give me a minute to think.”

  I wasn’t sure what to do, what we could do. I would never tell her, but I was highly disappointed with her lack of abilities.

  Pacing back and forth, I tried my hardest to brainstorm a way out of there, but short of attempting to open a portal myself, I was coming up empty. I couldn’t just keep aimlessly walking and hoping to stumble across another gateway.

  I still had questions, yet I wasn’t brave enough to voice them to my company at the time. Did the new development void the marriage pact between the Baron Samedi and myself? I prayed so, otherwise I needed to quickly find out what the ramifications were for killing your spouse when he wasn’t technically human.

  “I think I might be able to open a portal,” I finally said, mostly to myself. I didn’t see another way out.

  “Really? How? You’re no Loa.” Brigitte said.

  I didn’t want to correct her on my newly changed status because I’d just be borrowing trouble, yet I wasn’t sure how I could explain how my magic could do things that were beyond normal for someone like me.

  “I don’t know. I just think I can.” The explanation, as skimpy as it may have been, would have to suffice.

  When I opened the gateway, it would require blood, but I didn’t remember the Baron ever using blood when he opened a portal. Maybe he’d used it without me seeing? It made sense, and that was a little more dependable than the alternative option, which was just to magic one open. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to slice my palm or finger open because the trek had left my heels raw and bleeding slightly. I ran my fingers over the raw edges of my torn ankles, collecting what I could. Veves typically were used at openings. I thought of the Gates of Guinee and the rare ones which held it open. The more I thought about them, the more the symbols resonated with something inside me.

  Damballah. The Serpent Loa. Things were beginning to click neatly into place. Thos
e veves I had seen were serpents, likely denoting their creator. I had never met the almighty Loa, but I assumed he must be powerful beyond imagination to create gateways between the worlds and to hold the Loas under his rule. However, I wasn’t sure how much longer that would last. His only chance was for us to succeed in stopping Samedi.

  I held my two fingers up and let my magic intermingle with the sticky crimson liquid that clung to the tips of my fingers. Moving my hand through the air, I drew a veve I knew I’d never seen before. My hand moved along in curves and lines, making something brand new. I let my magic guide my hand as the concoction hovered like I had painted it on an actual wall.

  “What are you doing? That’s nothing!” Brigitte said from behind me, still unable to break my concentration.

  “It’s not nothing. It’s mine.”

  I let my magic form the image that I was claiming as my veve. Tiny stars and curls rolled around the lines of a cross tipped with the fleur-de-lis. Miniscule X’s garnished the sides and were broken up by two small hearts on each side which finished the masterpiece. I stepped back from it and examined my artwork. It was unique and totally mine.

  I held both hands up and tried to picture the veil between worlds parting easily so we could step through. The lines of blood began to glow and excitement jumped within me. I spared a peek at the woman behind me, who was slack jawed and wide eyed as she stared on.

  “What are you doing? This isn’t…it’s not…right. You shouldn’t be doing this. How?” Her tone was a mix of curiosity and fear. I think she might’ve been a bit impressed too, but that might have just been my ego talking.

  I didn’t answer her. Instead, I pushed on, determined to get us the hell out of there. The partition between the worlds was thin, yet so strong that it repelled my attempts easily. Breaking through wasn’t going to be an easy feat by any means. The more I pumped in to it, the more it seemed to stretch and push back.