New Orleans Magic: Urban Fantasy Series (The Voodoo Dolls Book 1)

by J. L. Hendricks

  We were searching for a werewolf. This particular werewolf just happened to be a priest. Pretty ironic, really. The only one I ever felt remorse over killing. The poor guy never even knew what he was. May God have mercy on his soul.

  “Sure thing, boss. Hey, are those the triplets?” Kyrie pointed to Amaline and Adalaide.

  “Yes, let me introduce you to all of the ladies. We have six here to help keep good coverage of the monitors.” I motioned for everyone to join us and introduced them all. Jenna joined us just as I finished up the introductions.

  “Jenna, this is Kyrie. He’s my tech guy. No one out there is better than him.” I patted Kyrie on the shoulder, and he practically blushed. Not that shifters blushed much, but he looked down, and I could swear his cheeks had a pink hue to them.

  “Nice to meet you, Kyrie. Can I get you some water? Or sweet tea?” Jenna offered.

  “Sure, some southern tea would be great. It’s really getting hot outside these days. What happened to spring? Summer just jumped up out of nowhere, didn’t it?” Kyrie wasn’t the most social guy I knew. Like most tech geeks, he didn’t interact with many women.

  Jenna’s giggle was cute and sounded like pixies. “I know. We were wondering about that too. Guess it’s time to start making tea by the barrel, huh?” It was hard not to like Jenna with a smile like hers.

  When Jenna went into the kitchen, I helped Kyrie move the furniture around so the computer and monitors could all be close to the outlets on the wall. I moved their TV stand over to the end of the wall and set up a folding table. Kyrie went downstairs and began bringing up the rest of the equipment we would need here.

  I looked at Jenna in the kitchen and sighed. How long would it take to get her to see me as more than a friend? Then I walked out to help Kyrie grab more equipment.

  “Hey, boss, I know it isn’t the best time, but do you think that Sam would go out with me? She’s pretty hot.” Kyrie was always falling for women. I don’t think he ever went more than a couple weeks without a crush. Rarely did he ever get the nerve to ask any of them out.

  “Hmm, you’d have to ask her to find out. I won’t stand in your way. However, I would suggest you wait until we find Acadia. I think she might turn you down if you asked too soon.” I should know.

  Maybe that was the problem? Would Jenna say yes after we brought Acadia back safe and sound? Something to consider for another day.

  “Oh, yeah. Good point. Thanks, boss.” Kyrie gave me a goofy smile before he picked up the computer that would act as the local server for this operation.

  We both walked back upstairs with arms full of hardware.

  “Hey, guys, Jenna left you some tea and fruit. She had to go down to the shop. It’s her turn to man the store.” Sam pointed to a tray set up with two glasses of ice cold tea and a plate of fresh fruit.

  “Thanks, Sam. That looks very refreshing.” I watched Kyrie as he kept looking at Sam out of the corner of his eyes.

  This was going to be fun. The kid had only asked out a couple of women, to my knowledge. Would he have the cajones to ask Sam out? I hoped so. She seemed nice. Jenna said Sam was a bit of a computer geek herself. They might make a nice couple.

  My phone began to ring so I walked outside to answer it. “This is Rico.”

  “Hey, Rico! This is Mitch, the manager of the Blue Bayou. Do you know those chicks, The Voodoo Dolls?” Mitch was an alright guy. A few months ago we helped him out with a witch issue.

  Two witches had spiked his kegs with a spell that caused everyone to turn into toads. Just about everyone in his club was green and slimy when we showed up. I was able to convince the two cackling witches to the do the right thing and turn everyone back into regular people.

  Sadly, not everyone that night was drinking beer. I had to call the local wizard to come and fog up some memories.

  “What makes you ask?” This was out of left field.

  “I was looking at their website and saw you in several of their pictures. My band for tomorrow cancelled on me. The lead singer is in the hospital. Do you think they would be available to stand in at the last minute?”

  “Um, I can ask them. Why didn’t you just call them yourself?” This was a strange request.

  “I did. They said they weren’t taking any new bookings right now. I thought it was strange. Maybe they just don’t do last minute gigs? Any help you can give would be awesome! I have wanted to book them here for a while now. If you get them to do this, I’ll give you free drinks all night.” Mitch was really trying hard to get the Dolls.

  Either they were the true up and coming band, or something else was going on here.

  “I’ll ask Kat, their manager. Talk to you later.” I hit the end call button and stood there a moment thinking about this.

  Either I was just being paranoid, or someone was trying to set a trap for the Dolls. Or, maybe I’m not seeing straight when it comes to them. I’m also surprised that Kat turned him down. The Blue Bayou was a huge nightclub. Other than the one night with the witches, it’s also a great place to go.

  As far as I knew, the para’s tended to stay clear of that club. Too much exposure. Those witches ended up in some serious trouble with their leader. In fact, I haven’t seen them around since.

  Knowing the girls needed this gig, I called up Damien, my second in command. “Hey, it’s Rico. I need you to check into the Blue Bayou. Their manager is trying extra hard to get the Dolls to perform there tomorrow night. See if he’s connected to any para’s, especially witches.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s working with witches, especially after the toad incident.” Damien was really connected with the shadier part NOLA. If there was something going on, he would eventually sniff it out.

  Now to go back and speak with Kat about this opportunity. Why would she have turned it down?

  Chapter 7

  Rico

  I walked back inside looking for Kat. “Hey, Amaline, you seen Kat?”

  “Yeah, she went downstairs to help Jenna in the shop. I think there were multiple customers.” Amaline shrugged and grabbed a purple grape off the plate of fruit.

  “Thanks!” I said over my shoulder as I went to the stairs which led down to the shop.

  I walked into what looked like a bus load of tourists trying to buy the store out. All four of the Dolls were busy helping customers. There was a long line at the cash register, too.

  “Ahhh, Kat. What’s going on?” I scratched my chin and wondered why there were so many gray-haired women going on about how cute the voodoo dolls were.

  “Seems a tourist bus broke down, and half of them decided to check out the local voodoo shop. Hey, do you know how to run a cash register?” Kat grabbed my arm and pulled me over the register.

  “Ah, sure. Need some help?” I smiled at the little, old lady in front of me.

  “Yes, I want to buy this cute little doll for my granddaughter. Do you have any pins that would be safe for a ten-year old?” She handed me a voodoo doll which looked a lot like Indie’s last boyfriend.

  “You do realize this is a voodoo doll, right? It’s not for kids. It’s intended to use on adults. You stick pins in it to hurt someone.” I shook my head and wondered if this little, old lady knew where she was or not.

  “Listen here, sonny. Voodoo’s not real. Or at least as long as you aren’t worshiping the devil, it’s not. My little Sonja would get a kick out of this doll.” She shook her pointer finger at me while squinting.

  “Ooookaaaayy. I don’t think we have any pins fit for kids. In fact, nothing in this shop was designed for kids. Could I interest in you a tonic to take away your aches and pains instead?” I looked around and noticed most the grandma’s were picking up voodoo dolls and looking at the pin collection.

  A few were hovering around the aphrodisiac fudge. Oh, I couldn’t imagine any of these ladies using that fudge. Although, if I was old, I would probably rather eat the love fudge than take a little blue pill.

  “What makes you think
I need anything for aches and pains? Just because I’m old enough to be your mother, doesn’t mean I’m old. Hmph.” The lady sure had spunk, I had to give to her.

  “Sorry, Ma’am. Is there anything else I can help you with?” She was a little spitfire. I liked her.

  “Yes, I want a pound of your sexy fudge. My husband would get a kick out of it.” She winked at me and smiled.

  “Sure thing. Anything else?” This wasn’t the least bit awkward. Oh boy.

  “No, that should do it.” She pulled her wallet out and handed me a black Amex card.

  “Okay, so we have one voodoo doll and a pound of special fudge. That will be $55.50” I took her credit card and swiped it. While I waited for the receipt to print I noticed that the line to buy was getting longer.

  I handed her the receipt and asked her to sign the slip. When she handed it back to me, she squeezed my hand and winked at me.

  Did that old lady just flirt with me?

  I stood their shocked with my mouth hanging open when the next gray-haired lady stepped up to the counter with five dolls, five sets of pins, and a silver bottle of who knew what type of potion.

  “Hi, will this be all?” I started to ring up the sale but stopped when the bottle didn’t have a price on it.

  “I need a pound of the love fudge too.” The woman in front of me began to giggle like a schoolgirl. Where did these women come from?

  Two hours later, all of the customers had been helped and Kat was locking up.

  “Wow! That was the best day of sales we’ve ever had! I think we’re almost out of voodoo dolls now.” Kat had a huge, cheese-eating grin on her face.

  “I know! It was awesome! Did you see how fast the fudge went? I can’t believe all of those ladies wanted to get down with their men. I never knew old people still had libidos.” Indie laughed and walked down the aisle of voodoo dolls and began organizing.

  “Where did they come from? Do you normally see busloads of gray-haired ladies with walkers and canes?” All of the times I had been here, I had never seen so many people here at once.

  “They came from the Shady Acres Retirement Home. They were on their way to play bingo, and their bus broke down around the corner. One lady told me she saw our sign while waiting in line for frozen yogurt and came over here instead. She went back and told her friends, and then we had a line out the door.” Sam laughed and picked up a pad and pencil and joined Indie in the voodoo doll aisle.

  “Huh, maybe you should advertise to retirement homes. Or provide delivery services for the fudge.” I don’t know where that idea came from.

  What was I thinking? Old folks shouldn’t be eating that stuff, if what Indie claims is true.

  Jenna walked up to me and put her hand on my arm. “Rico, come on now. It’s just fudge. I know magic is real, but we don’t have magic.” She laughed and shook her head.

  “I don’t know about that. Your customers swear by it. Maybe Indie has magic and you just don’t realize it?” It could be possible. Although, I doubted it.

  Jenna sighed. “Rico, Rico, Rico. Does Indie look like she worships the devil or hangs with vampires? She just makes really great old-fashioned fudge. Our ingredients come from the local grocery store, not the corner ‘Witches-R-Us’.”

  I laughed, she got me there. “Alright, but why do your items work so well for your customers? You have very few complaints.”

  “True, but the power of positive thinking is real. If someone has low self-esteem and we tell them that the fudge will make their spouse horny, and they believe it, they will act accordingly. It gives them the confidence they need in order to do what’s needed.” Kat walked up and leaned on the counter.

  “Okay, I can believe that. What about your impotence potion? The person drinking it doesn’t even know there is something in their drink. How does it work?” I had heard stories from some of the women who bought it and came back congratulating the girls on a fantastic potion.

  “Easy, it’s ipecac. That will make anyone impotent.” Sam walked up and put her notepad on the counter. “By the way, we’re going to need to work all night on some new dolls. The shelves are pretty empty and so are our reserves.”

  “Perfect, we can have a voodoo doll party tonight while we all take turns watching the feeds. We can actually do that for the next few nights. Build our stock up.” Kat picked up the notepad Sam had put down and looked over the numbers. “Indie, your Brian dolls are really popular. We only have ten left. Nice job.”

  “Thanks, those happen to be my favorites as well. I still enjoy picking one up and poking the stomach with the purple crystal topped pins.” Indie could be scary at times.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. Kat, I came down here to talk to you about a gig. Do you know the Blue Bayou?” Mitch said he called her, but I wanted to make sure she was the one he spoke with.

  “Yeah, they called earlier asking if we wanted to perform tomorrow night. Something about their band backing out last minute. Why?” Kat scratched her forehead and then crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Mitch, the manager, called me earlier. He really wants your band to perform. Why’d you say no?” This was a great opportunity for them to get more exposure. I didn’t think Kat would ever turn down a top rate club.

  “With everything going on right now, I felt it safer to stay home. I know, that doesn’t sound like me. I’m worried we might miss a call from Acadia, or something. If we’re up on stage, we can’t answer our phones. Plus, you said we shouldn’t take a gig without your protection.” Kat looked to her sisters who were all shocked she turned down a gig.

  “You turned down the Blue Bayou? Kat! We’ve wanted to play there since, forever! Amaline and Adalaide would understand if we took a gig right now. Besides, if Acadia called anyone, it would be them. Not us.” Jenna shook her head and sighed.

  “What if Rico found something out? He’d call you, Jenna. Not the sisters.” Kat had a point, I would call Jenna first.

  “If you have a gig, I can call whomever you want me to, if there is some news to report. Although, I would probably be at any gig you had anyway.” All three girls turned to look at me.

  “You would? Who would be looking out for Acadia?” Indie asked.

  “My beta, Damian, or Joshua. You remember my alchemist, right?” Joshua was our pack’s and company’s alchemist.

  He helped Jenna the night some guy tried to get her to drink the death curse. I think that was the moment I knew I wanted to meet her. She threw the drink in the guy’s chest after he kept pestering her. She was fearless and beautiful.

  “Sure, he’s cute.” Indie laughed.

  I never really thought of Joshua as cute, but I guess some women might feel that way. He wasn’t as tall as me, but he was built well. He joined me regularly in my workouts and sparring. I guess one could say he was ripped. However, compared to the wolves, he was just average.

  “Indie, you think all men with sandy-blonde hair are cute.” Sam pushed Indie’s shoulder.

  “True, but I think he had eyes for Kat. Too bad Kat’s heart is already taken with another,” Indie teased.

  Kat narrowed her eyes at Indie. “And who would that be?”

  “Oh, a secret lover, perhaps? The man you used to sneak out at night to visit? The one you refuse to tell us about?” Indie arched an eyebrow.

  “I don’t know who you are talking about.” Kat pursed her lips.

  “Well, as fun as it is to talk about other men, I need to let Mitch know what you think about the gig. If you’re worried about protection, I can have several of my pack come to the club to keep an eye on you. I’ll also have a few come over here to watch over the sisters, Amaline and Adalaide.” The dolls didn’t know this, but every gig they have performed at since we met, I’ve been at. Several from my pack have as well.

  “So, you would make sure a few guys stayed here with the triplets?” Kat asked.

  “Of course. I wouldn’t leave them alone. I wouldn’t leave any of you alone, not right now.” I wasn�
�t sure what had Kat worried, but I would make sure they were all safe.

  “Okay thanks, Rico. We’ll take the gig.” Kat looked at the other dolls. “Unless you don’t want to?”

  All three at once said, “We’ll take the gig.”

  They all laughed, and Jenna said, “I think we could use a night of not thinking about what’s going on. The situation with the vampires has us all on edge and looking over our shoulder. Even in the daylight.” She pursed her lips, and I imagined she was thinking about that vampire who bit her last month. He’d almost sucked her dry.

  “I can understand. Don’t worry. You’ll all be safe. I give you my word.” I put my hand over my heart and dipped my head.

  Chapter 8

  Indie

  “Oh! This is fantastic! Look at how big this stage is!” I turned around in the middle and practically drooled over all of the space.

  This had to be the biggest stage we had performed on, to date. It must have been at least thirty feet wide, which is almost double our usual stage. It was also deeper, maybe fifteen feet? I think the normal stage is only about ten feet deep. This would give Jenna plenty of room to move around and attract the guys. Men were our biggest fans. Who could blame them, Jenna was really sexy when she was up on stage.

  Normally, there was very little room between my drums, the speaker, and my three bandmates for us to move around much. Not that I moved around during our performances. The drummer doesn’t get to get up and dance around. Now that I’m up here, I think I’m glad I don’t have the talent for the guitar. I prefer being behind everyone and not having to worry about men ogling me all night long.

  “Kat, I can’t believe you turned this gig down! We have wanted this club for ages! Thankfully, Rico is well connected.” I slapped Kat on the arm for almost losing out on this fantastic opportunity.

  “I know, I know. What was I thinking?” Kat shook her head.

  “Alright, let’s get our equipment all set up. Cuz, you know, fame and fortune wait for no one!” Sam yelled.

  We all chimed in with, “Except the Voodoo Dolls!” It was our mantra. Someone always started it out before a concert. Although, we usually said it before we were already on stage. Guess our minds are still a bit distracted.