I wanted him. Oh, how I wanted him! Now. Forever.
I reached for him, drew him to me with a desperate plea. He laughed softly, making me burn even hotter for him, and then—so slowly, the moment seemed forever prolonged—he lowered himself to me. I raised my hips to meet him, and the joining instantly became wild, frantic…almost savage. Our bodies slid together in glorious abandonment. Time stood still, then spun forward at a dizzying, heart-stopping speed.
And still I wanted him.
With his hands all over me, his mouth devouring mine, still I couldn’t get enough of him. With our bodies linked, our souls mated, still I craved more. Even when the first waves of fulfillment rippled through me, even before the deep, powerful shudders of release had faded—already I wanted him again.
“What have you done to me?” I whispered once, when we were lying together, sprawled against one another, exhausted but not sated.
“I’ve put a spell on you, Christine.” His hands moved against my oiled and fragrant skin. “The scent of violets,” he murmured, drawing me against him. “True believers say it inflames passion, increases sexual desire.”
“But you’re not a true believer,” I reminded him.
He said, as he’d said before, “I’m not a serviteur, no.” But there was something in his eyes, a strange, secretive glow that made me shiver even as I was reaching for him, drawing him to me again and whispering to him my darkest secrets, my deepest desires….
* * *
Sometime just after dawn I awakened from a deep and dreamless sleep.
The filmy white curtains billowed ghostlike in the breeze. The candles had all been extinguished, but the room was softly illuminated by the blossoming light outside.
There was something in the wind, a chill, that seemed almost…ethereal, not quite earthly.
And I heard voices. Soft, furtive voices…
Shivering, I pulled the sheet around me as I sat on the edge of the bed. The voices were coming from the living room of Reid’s suite. I gathered the sheet around me and moved toward the door. It was opened a crack, but I pulled it back a little farther, peering through.
Dressed in jeans and a dark cotton shirt, Reid stood at the front door, speaking in angry tones to someone in front of him. I couldn’t see the other person, but I knew it was a man. Both their voices were low, the unfamiliar one sounding almost frantic at times. And very defensive.
As I stood watching them, Reid lifted his hand and drove his fingers through his hair, an obvious sign of his agitation. Then, quite clearly, I heard him say, “Damn it, it has to be tonight!”
The other man muttered a response, and then I jumped as Reid grabbed the man and violently hauled him into the room. “Damn you. No excuses this time. You’re running out of chances.”
Reid released the man, and he staggered back, away from Reid. I saw the man’s face then, and my heart plunged to the floor.
Jean Marc! The driver who had abandoned me at the cemetery. The man who had denied the car window had been broken, denied that I’d been attacked. Jean Marc, who had told me so clearly, “I take my orders from Monsieur St. Pierre. We all do.”
“But I did exactly as I was told!” Jean Marc argued, echoing my memory with heart-stealing precision. Reid cast a glance over his shoulder, and I shrank back. When I looked again, he was shoving Jean Marc out the door. Reid followed him into the hall and closed the door between us.
I stumbled back into the bedroom, my heart hammering against my chest. “It has to be tonight.” Oh, God, tonight! Tonight was the Seventh Night.
It was Reid. It had been Reid all along. It was Reid who wanted my father’s soul.
Why couldn’t I have seen it? Why couldn’t I have known?
I had seen it. I had known.
I just hadn’t wanted to believe.
But it was Reid who would gain the most from my father’s death. It was Reid who would do anything to keep the St. Pierre in his possession. It was Reid who was ambitious, power hungry. Reid, who always found a way to get what he wanted….
And he’d wanted me. Wanted me because he knew as soon as he killed my father, I would inherit half of the St. Pierre. Two deaths might look too suspicious, but if I were in love with him…if I were under his control…
Oh, and how easily I’d fallen under his control. He’d told me everything I wanted to hear. He’d made me feel everything I wanted to feel. He’d used me so cleverly, so masterfully…and I’d been his most willing victim.
Frantically, I reached for my clothes, pulling on my dress, then searching for my shoes. Damn, I couldn’t find one of my shoes….
I sank to my knees and looked under the bed. The shoe was there, and as I reached for it, I felt something else on the floor. A red cloth bag—similar to the gris-gris Mama Vinnia had given me, only larger—was lying underneath the bed. I drew it out, then dumped the contents on the floor.
“The magic is strongest when you sleep.” I remembered Mama Vinnia’s words as I stared at the articles on the floor.
Threaded through a broken chain, a gold snake ring glinted dully in the murky light. And lying beneath it, my paper image smiled up at me. The picture was an old one, one I’d sent to my father several years ago. I held it up to the light, my fingers trembling. There was a small indentation on the picture, just above my heart, exactly like the one I’d seen on my father’s picture. A vévé….
But what drew my gaze, what had me gasping in terror, was the knife that lay on the floor. A dagger with an intricately carved, bloodstained handle. I had seen that knife before, lying on the ground beside Lawrence’s mutilated body.
“Find the evidence,” Mama Vinnia had said. “Find out who wishes you harm. Search for the amulets and charms with which the bokor works the powerful magic. Search for something personal of yours that is now in the bokor’s possession. Find the evidence and bring it to me. Only with those items can we reverse the spell. That is your father’s only hope, my child. I fear it is yours, as well. Whose evil has been cast upon you, then shall it be cast back.”
And then, in my mind, I heard Reid’s voice as he’d gazed down at me. “I’ve put a spell on you, Christine.”
I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to believe that he cared about me, might even be in love with me. I wanted to believe that he’d fallen for me years ago, when we’d first met, just as I had for him. Just as he’d implied.
“You knew, Christine. We both knew.”
“You let him touch you, and you were mine.”
“Does that sound crazy? Macho? Chauvinistic?”
How easily he had manipulated me. He’d read my thoughts, my soul, and knew exactly what I wanted—needed—to hear. He knew my every weakness, and he’d used them against me so thoroughly, so mercilessly.
I had to get out of here. I had to get out of here before he came back. I couldn’t let him see me, didn’t dare let him know that I knew. And one look at my face would be all he’d need.
With shaking hands, I put the picture, the dagger and the ring back inside the bag and drew the strings. Then I put on my shoes and, clutching the bag tightly in one hand, moved toward the door, drew it open and peered out.
Reid wasn’t there, but I wondered if he and Jean Marc were still outside, talking in the hallway. Would he see me when I opened the door? Would he read my face? Would he know?
Silently I moved across the floor and stood at the door, listening. Nothing. Were they gone? Or were they still out there, just out of earshot? It was a chance I had to take. I had to get out of here and I had to get help. I had to find my father before Reid could…
I couldn’t even think it. Even with the evidence in my hand, I still couldn’t believe he was capable of it all.
The door opened without a sound, and I slipped into the hall, my heart in my throat. It was empty. Thank God they had gone.
I fled down the hall to the elevators and saw that one was moving upward, steadily upward, to my floor. Reid! H
e was coming back.
I pushed the down button time and again, silently willing the other car to open. Miraculously the doors slid apart as the bell sounded on the other one. I stepped inside, punched the button, and the doors closed just as I saw Reid step into the hallway.
He didn’t see me, didn’t even glance in my direction so sure was he that I would still be waiting for him. But just before the doors slid closed, I saw his face.
And the angry scowl, the complete look of determination that glittered in his eyes, took on a new and terrifying meaning.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Seventh Day
Within minutes, I was in Rachel’s car, flying down the mountain, away from the St. Pierre, away from Reid.
“Just so you know, Christine. There’s no place you can run to. No place you can hide from me.”
He’d told me that yesterday. He’d warned me himself. Why hadn’t I listened? Why hadn’t I seen him for what he really was?
“The dreams tell you what you need to know. Listen to them,” Mama Vinnia had told me.
Reid had been in my dreams the morning I’d found Lawrence Crawford’s body, and Reid had been wearing the ring around his neck just like Lawrence’s murderer had. In my dream, Reid had slipped the ring onto my finger, claiming me for his own, telling me that now I was his, completely under his control.
The warnings had been there all along, just like Mama Vinnia had said. The dreams had told me what I needed to know, but I hadn’t wanted to listen. Hadn’t wanted to believe what I knew in my heart was true.
Reid could never love someone like me.
I was a means to an end, that was all.
With the back of my hand, I wiped the moisture from my face and tried to focus my attention on the road. As soon as Reid found me gone, found the gris-gris missing, he’d know that I’d found him out. He’d know, and he’d try to stop me.
“It has to be tonight!”
The Seventh Night. The Seventh Night. The Seventh Night.
The chant beat against my mind, grinding itself into my brain until I wanted to scream with agony.
Tonight.
I had to find my father before midnight tonight, and there was only one person I knew who could help me.
Gripping the steering wheel as though the devil himself were behind me, I plunged the car down the mountain, toward Port Royale.
In front of me, to the east, the sun burst over the sea, a great flaming ball of hope that sent shadows and night chills fleeing.
The seventh day had begun.
* * *
The narrow maze of streets that led to Mama Vinnia’s house was booby-trapped with potholes, broken glass and abandoned cars that made passage nearly impossible. Reid had navigated the streets well enough the other day, but I somehow doubted my own ability, especially in my present state of mind. Besides, I didn’t want anyone seeing me approach Mama Vinnia’s house. For all I knew, that could very well be the first place Reid would look for me.
So, like before, I pulled Rachel’s car to the curb and got out to walk the rest of the way, once again stopping to ask directions. The hour was still very early, and the few people who were out and about eyed me with a fair amount of suspicion.
I even saw one old woman cross herself as I passed by. It was a very disconcerting sensation, being the object of so much suspicion. I, who had done nothing wrong except come to a place where I didn’t belong, would apparently never belong.
But don’t think about that now, I warned myself. Don’t think about Reid’s betrayal. Think about tonight. Tonight, when it would all be over….
If I thought about Reid now, about what he had done, I knew I would go crazy.
There was a strange stillness in the air as I approached the house. An almost waiting calm. Behind closed doors and windows, I had the uncanny notion that dozens of eyes were watching me. I could almost hear the chants, the silent prayers. I was the stranger who walked among them. An outsider who no one trusted and who could trust no one.
Mama Vinnia’s little wooden house seemed to sag from a great, invisible weight. With both the envelope from Lawrence Crawford and the “evidence” I’d found in Reid’s suite, I started across the street toward Mama Vinnia’s, but something stopped me, an unfamiliar sense of caution, as though someone had caught me by the arm and stopped me.
And then suddenly, a breeze rippled through the trees. Something touched my face, a hand as light as air, a mere whisper….
“Danger. I see danger and fire and blood. Guard yourself well, child.”
My fingers slipped into the pocket of my dress and pulled out the gris-gris that Mama Vinnia had given me yesterday. The red cloth bag felt warm in my palm. My skin tingled with awareness.
“Never leave it from your person.”
Then the breeze in the trees died away, leaving me alone on the street.
I lifted my gaze and stared at the distant hills. The sun was already lifting over the mountains, casting great shadows on the countryside. Like a giant gray bat, mist swooped down from the summits, shrouding the mountainside with premature gloom.
A cold, black heaviness stole over me, as though icy fingers had seized me. I couldn’t seem to move. Images danced through my mind. Terrifying pictures that held me in thrall.
The goat being slashed. A snake coiled to strike. Lawrence Crawford’s mutilated body.
And blood everywhere.
Danger and blood and fire.
Somehow I knew I was being warned again. Not by Vinnia this time, but by the evil one. The malfacteur. The bokor. The murderer. The person who wanted to steal my father’s soul.
And, God help me, I thought I recognized the whisper, thought I knew the touch. The evil seemed…familiar to me, and I wanted to weep with despair.
How could you? I silently cried. How could you do this to me?
The only answer was the faint echo of laughter in the wind as it blew through the trees toward the mountains.
Frightened by my thoughts, I remained in the shadows several long minutes. Then slowly I crossed the street, pushed open the creaking gate and climbed the steps to Vinnia’s front door.
It opened with a high-pitched squeal that had me jumping as if someone had screamed in my ear. My heart pounding in my chest, I pushed the door open wider and called to Mama Vinnia.
No answer.
I turned to leave, not wanting to venture into her private domain without an invitation. But a slight noise at the back of the house halted me, had me listening intently to the silence.
There it was again. A tiny, scratching noise, like fingernails being raked down a chalkboard. My spine tingled with awareness as I moved toward the darkened hallway and through the kitchen, to the tiny room at the back of the house.
“Mama Vinnia?”
The room was dimly lit with one red candle placed on the low, wooden table that Vinnia had sat behind when I had visited her before. My gaze traveled over the room, taking in the shelves of sparkling liquid jewels, the hanging herbs and spices, the pile of bones. On the top shelf, a human skull grinned down at me.
I gasped and jumped back, spinning around to leave. Then I heard the noise again, the scratching that sent deep chills up my back. I picked up the candle and lifted it, letting the light flicker toward the dark corners.
There on the floor, I saw Mama Vinnia. She was lying on her back, her eyes open and glassy, staring at the ceiling.
She was dead. I knew immediately she was dead, but that fact somehow didn’t seem to register. What registered with me now, what made my heart tear at my chest and my blood freeze in my veins was the tiny beady eyes of the rat that was busily scratching at something Mama Vinnia clutched in her lifeless hand. A gris-gris.
On her chest lay the crude, wooden crucifix that had once adorned her wall.
“Oh, God. Oh, dear God…” I stumbled backward, banging into the table and losing my balance. Both the table and I crashed to the floor, and I lost my hold on the candle. Still lit, it
rolled across the wooden planks, sending giant shadows looming over the room. Then the light went out, and the room was plunged into blackness.
In the intense silence that followed, I heard nothing but the sound of my own labored breathing. Then, after four or five seconds—no more—the scratching began again.
I scrambled to my feet, half crawling, half running toward the door. Outside a shadow moved in the hallway. A chill sped through me.
“Is someone there?” A ridiculous question. I knew someone was there. I could smell the sharp, acrid odor of sulfur, and beneath that, more subtly, the distinct scent of violets.
My breath caught in my throat as my heart slammed into my chest. I knew. I knew who was out there.
An open doorway—the only way out—stood between me and Lawrence Crawford’s and Mama Vinnia’s murderer.
Scream! Scream!
But I couldn’t. My throat was paralyzed with fear, with grief. I scrambled away from the door just as I saw something flash in the entrance. A streak of white—
Suddenly there was a whirl of motion. Someone rushed toward me in the darkness. I dropped the will and the evidence bag, flinging my arms to fend off the specter. The arms that grabbed me were strong, incredibly powerful, as they held me in their death grip. I tried to struggle, tried to rip myself from the clutches of a maniac, but something sharp pricked my arm.
And then my veins were on fire, as the poison rushed through me. It seemed as though a million ants had invaded my body. They were in my hair, all over me, biting me, stinging me, setting me aflame with agony. Tearing at my skin, I dropped to the floor, screaming and screaming until, mercifully, the rolling darkness came to engulf me.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Seventh Night
When I opened my eyes, I thought I must be dead. I felt numb. Weightless.
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