“That’s because I did.” She bit her lip, thinking about the whole thing all over again. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know how to explain it. Listen, my throat’s really dry all of a sudden. Is there someplace nearby we could stop for a drink? Maybe that nice restaurant you took me to lunch at.”
“Oh, no. I’ve got a much better idea than that. I haven’t steered you wrong yet, mais oui?”
That brought a little smile to her face. “Well, you did ask me to come see this house.”
“Yes, I did. Are you ready to tell me what happened?”
“No. Not yet. Not until I have a stiff drink in my hand.”
His arm held her closer. “I can arrange that. You just follow me. We’ll have you relaxed in no time.”
“I just need some courage if I’m going to tell this story.”
“Katie Pearson,” he said to her, “I have a feeling that you might be the bravest woman I’ve ever met in my whole entire life.”
Chapter 11
The bar that Carlson brought her to was not far away. It wasn’t much more than a door set in between two other buildings, leading into a narrow space that was all serving bag and stools on one side and little square tables on the other, and barely enough space to walk between them. The music was just loud enough that no one could hear anyone else.
Nobody looked at anyone else. If New Orleans had a dark and forgotten corner, this place was it.
Katie swallowed half of her rum and coke before she got enough courage to start telling Carlson what she had experienced in Xavier’s house. She felt stupid saying that she’d somehow gotten lost in the upstairs. Even telling it to someone else gave it a surreal tone that made her question her sanity.
Carlson listened to everything she had to say. There was no judgment in his eyes. When she had to reveal to him that she had an ability to see ghosts, he simply nodded and urged her to go on. When she had to tell him that somehow, ghosts were drawn to her, he reached out across the table and took one of her hands in his.
When she got to the part of her story with the cloaked figures holding candles, and chanting around a pentagram, his eyes narrowed with keen interest.
“Could you tell what they were saying?”
Katie had been trying to remember those words, what exactly had been said, but it had been like listening to a foreign language. “No. They might as well have been speaking Martian. I think my brain was too keyed up to pay attention, to be honest. It might have been Creole. Some of the words were almost French.”
He seemed impressed. “You speak French, do you?”
“Je parle en peu,” she said, hoping her comical attempt at an accent wasn’t too horrible. “Um. Ou sont la salle de bain?”
He laughed, but it was a nice sound, friendly and playful. “That is not bad. If we are ever lost in the French Quarter and I need to use a bathroom, you can ask where it is for me.”
She smirked, and sipped at her drink again. The alcohol was doing its job. Or maybe, it was the feel of his fingers gently stroking hers. She found the willpower to really examine the images in her mind, to really remember the words that had echoed in the basement.
“Um. I think I remember then saying...something like loa, maybe? And cheval. That’s a horse in French.”
His eyes narrowed, a dark shadow crossing his face. “In French, yes. In Haitian Creole, it refers to someone being ridden.”
“Ridden?” Katie didn’t understand. “So was that supposed to be me? Is someone supposed to ride me?”
She felt herself blushing as she studied his face, those handsome, exquisite features, and thought about being ridden in a very sensual way.
The corners of his mouth twitched as the same thought occurred to him. It looked like he didn’t mind the mental image that stirred up at all. “Not quite like that. It means someone who is being, well, possessed. Ridden in the sense that a demon spirit is inside of them. In the language of voodoo, a ‘loa’ is a spirit. A demon.”
Katie’s blood ran cold, and even another gulp of her alcohol wouldn’t warm her up. “So what I saw... There’s no way I made that up.”
He blinked at her suggestion. “Did you think you imagined it? There’s too much detail, ma chere. That was real. All of it. I don’t understand why, and I don’t understand how, but you saw a voodoo ritual.”
Her stomach turned, a greasy roiling mess of acid that threatened to push her breakfast and the rum right back up. Voodoo. It was part of the New Orleans culture, but Katie had always thought it was just for the storefronts and the bad Hollywood movies like The Skeleton Key. She never thought people actually got dressed up and lit candles and chanted to the demon spirits for bad things to happen to others.
The one part she couldn’t tell Carlson about was the most disturbing part of all. The way she had seen a face in the circle of voodoo freaks. Her own face, lifting up from the haze created by that chanting, screaming toward her until Katie couldn’t tell which one of them was real.
She took a breath now, and squeezed Carlson’s hand, and told herself that this was real. Whatever she had seen in the basement--real or imaginary--she was Katie Pearson. Nothing was going to change that.
“I can’t go back to that house.” She took her hand back from him to cross her arms over her chest. “I’m sorry, I know you were hoping I could give you an idea of whether or not to buy it.”
He downed the rest of his drink, and slammed the empty glass down on the table. “I think you already have. I will not buy a house that is steeped in the evil side of voodoo.”
“Evil side?” she asked. He said it like there could be good voodoo. “You mean, like love spells or something?”
“Er, no. Forget what the movies have told you. None of that is real. That whole thing about the Chucky doll chanting a voodoo curse and transferring his soul. That’s just nonsense. Voodoo priests aren’t witchdoctors. There’s curses, sure, but they only work if the victim wants them to. Voodoo, at its heart, is a religion about connecting to the spiritual side of things. It’s about using the magic of the spirit to advance yourself and the people you love.”
“Wow. When you say it like that it doesn’t sound all that different from Christianity.”
“It’s not,” Carlson insisted. “A lot of voodoo elements come from the Catholics, to be sure. See, there are the public perceptions of voodoo, and then there is the reality. You are a very smart woman, ma chere. I feel like I should walk you back to your hotel. It’s the least I can do after giving you such a fright.”
“It wasn’t you,” Katie told him, and now that she thought about it, that was true. It wasn’t Carlson. He’d been nothing but a gentleman, even if there was that uncomfortable moment last night where he’d stripped her down to her panties and bra. It wasn’t like he’d tried anything, although Katie had to wonder how she would have felt if he had. Would that have been so bad?
Maybe yes, maybe no, and maybe that was a question to answer some other time. What mattered was that it wasn’t Carlson who had put her through that nightmare back on that nameless side street.
It was Xavier. That guy with his gaunt face and his stupid top hat and his smile full of crooked teeth. It was Xavier’s house. He had to know what was going on inside.
Even if those phantoms in the basement were ghosts, he had to know the house had a history of voodoo being practiced in it. If the people had been real flesh and blood people...then that was worse.
No way was Katie going back to that house.
“Come along,” Carlson said to her. He stood up, and held his hand out to her. “I will escort you back. I don’t want you to remember my beautiful city like this. We will find better memories for you, oui?”
Katie let him help her up, but then she didn’t let go of his hand. “Carlson...would you take me back to your apartment?”
His eyes lit up at her suggestion. “I would be honored to have you as my guest.”
“I mean, my things are at your place.”
Wi
th a knowing smile, he drew her close in the cramped space of the bar. “Of course. We wouldn’t want you to leave anything behind.”
His chest pressed against hers with every breath. She didn’t remember him leaning in, so close, but suddenly his lips were on hers, and she could taste the urgency on his lips.
Chapter 12
Carlson’s bed was even more comfortable than she remembered. Granted, the last time she’d been in it, she’d been unconscious.
This time she was very much awake.
Carlson’s body was hard under her hands, all muscle and masculine curves. The curve of his back was so smooth, and so responsive to even the slightest touch of her fingers. She lost herself to him, and how he used his mouth on her neck, and his hands on her hips, and how he seemed to know exactly what she wanted him to do to her.
Sparks ignited in her brain, and ran along her spine to explode in her core, and she liked it.
They were sheathed in sweat when they finally relaxed, panting, dropping separately onto the tangled sheets. Katie slowly relaxed her toes, even though the rest of her body was still thrumming.
“You know how to take a girl’s mind off things, don’t you?” His hand fell against her thigh in response, and she twitched away, giggling and eager to go at him again. Just not right now. “I need a drink of water. Where’s your bathroom?”
His eyes were closing, and she could tell by the way he was laying there that he was almost asleep. One hand lifted to point in the general direction of the bedroom door. “Down the hall, to the left. The doorknob sticks. Just jiggle it.”
Katie smiled at him, proud of how she had worn the man out. It didn’t matter if she never saw Carlson again in her life. She was always going to remember this time with him, right here in his bedroom. He’d made good on his promise to give her some happy memories of New Orleans.
In her bare feet--bare everything--she followed his directions and found the bathroom. She cleaned the sweat off her face and upper body with a washcloth, and used a paper cup from the dispenser to get a drink of water. In the mirror above the sink she looked herself squarely in the eyes, not ashamed at all of what she had done. The circular bruise above her right nipple actually made her smile. She remembered his mouth there. She remembered his mouth, everywhere.
On a shelf on the wall, there were several ceramic figurines. She hadn’t taken Carlson for the type of guy to collect this sort of thing. There was a unicorn, of all things, and a snake wrapped around a tree, a prancing brown horse, and others.
She picked up the horse, inexplicably drawn to the freedom that the sculptor of the piece had managed to convey. Its black mane and tail were flying away in an imaginary breeze. It looked like it might run away from all the troubles in the world.
With a smile, she went to put it back on the shelf with the other figurines.
A hand shot out, and took it from her.
Katie gasped and spun, reflexively covering her breasts with one arm. She stumbled away, and the backs of her legs hit the side of the tub, and then she was falling.
And Carlson caught her.
“Careful, ma chere. You almost took a nasty tumble there. You’re just lucky I needed to use the facilities. Wouldn’t have been here to save you, otherwise.”
He hoisted her back up onto her feet. His skin pressed against hers, reminding her of how nice it had felt to have him in his bed. She was over her fright now. She was just keyed up, was all. Maybe he didn’t have her as relaxed as she thought. Maybe she just needed to have him take her again, and work out whatever tensions she had left.
Hmm. She liked that idea.
He held up the horse between them. “I saw you were admiring this little trinket of mine.”
“I like the way it looks,” she said, trailing her fingertips along his bare chest. “It’s a free spirit.”
“Just like you.”
His smile warmed her heart. Heat was building within her in other places, too. His effect on her was intense, and swift. Like a horse running free.
“Let’s go back to bed,” she suggested. “I’m not tired anymore.”
“Me either,” he agreed. “In fact, I feel very...energetic.”
He was leading her back down the hall suddenly, his hands around her naked hips, an urgency building within them both.
In his bedroom, he pressed the ceramic horse into the palm of her hand.
“Keep it,” he told her. “It can remind you of me.”
Falling into his bed, pulling him down on top of her, she slid the horse onto the nightstand for safe keeping. It would be a nice memento of an amazing time. She wasn’t going to need it to remember this man by, however.
She would never forget Carlson Hastings.
Chapter 13
When she woke up, there was a smile on her lips.
No wonder, with the way Carlson and she had ended their night. Or was it the morning? Her smile got bigger, and she stretched, working out a cramp in her shoulders. The cool air felt nice on her naked skin. She reached down for the sheets, to pull them up and get another few minutes of rest.
She reached out for Carlson.
Her hands found nothing but cold, hard cement all around her.
She froze as the cold seeped into her skin and right down to her bones. She wasn’t in Carlson’s bed. She wasn’t in his apartment.
The smell of the place hit her next. She knew where this was. It couldn’t be.
Around her, deep and echoey voices began chanting.
“Loa. Cheval. Manter la tete. Loa. Cheval. Manter la tete.”
God, please no. Please no!
She opened her eyes, finally forcing them wide, panicking that this nightmare would turn out to be real.
There was darkness all around her. From that blankness, the voices kept chanting.
“Pran fi sa a, fe l’pou ou. Pran fi sa a, fe l’pou ou."
Katie tried to get up. She couldn’t make her body do what she wanted. It wouldn’t coordinate the way it was supposed to. Her arm flopped. Her leg twitched. She couldn’t catch her breath.
The chanting got louder.
“Pran fi sa a, fe l’pou ou. Pran fi sa a, fe l’pou ou. Loa. Cheval. Manter la tete. Loa. Cheval. Manter la tete.”
One by one around her, candlelight flared. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
The points of the pentagram.
Katie slammed her fists against the floor, again and again. Again, and again. Her lips felt as if they were sealed. They would not open for her to scream.
She wanted to scream. She badly wanted to scream.
“Loa. Cheval. Manter la tete. Loa. Cheval. Manter la tete.”
The spirit, and the rider. That was what Carlson said those words meant. Loa, cheval...the spirit, riding in her.
No!
Another candle flared into being, this one bigger and brighter than the others. Katie watched helplessly as it came closer, hovering right over her, illuminating the person carrying the candle.
The face she saw was her own.
This time the other her didn’t scream. Her eyes stared deeply into Katie’s, like they were studying her soul.
In the candlelight, the face that was not her face began to blur, and then evaporate into smoke that swept down around Katie and layered across her skin--and seeped into her.
Soaking through her flesh.
Filling every space within her.
Riding her.
Now her arms moved, but it wasn’t her moving them. She had no control. Her body was no longer hers.
It was the other Katie Pearson’s. It wasn’t hers. It wasn’t hers.
Now she screamed, and she couldn’t tell if it was her own scream or--
Katie sat bolt upright in bed. She was in bed. Carlson’s bed. She was shaking. Her head was spinning. No, the room was spinning. The world was tilting on its access and threatening to spill her off its edge.
Carlson was there suddenly to catch her, and hold her tight, and keep her from falling.
> He nestled her against the pillows, resting her head on the crook of his arm. His other hand held her chin gently as he spoke her name.
“Ma chere, it’s okay. I’m here. You were just having a nightmare. It’s over now. Oui? It is over now.”
Katie waited until she could breathe again and the world had settled itself back into place. Then she pushed herself gently away from Carlson’s reassuring embrace. “I was back there,” she explained. “I was back in the basement. Those men were there, with their candles, and the chanting, and I saw--”
She hadn’t told him this part yet. Should she tell him now?
Looking up into his eyes, she felt an overwhelming sense of safety wash over her, and her body trembled in response. Yes. She could trust this man.
“I saw me. Only, it wasn’t me. It was my face on someone else and that face keeps rushing towards me and gets inside of me. It’s like it becomes me, somehow.”
Just like he had at the bar, he held her hand in his, settling himself up close against her. His face looked thoughtful in the glow of a bedside lamp. “Maybe this wasn’t a dream,” he suggested.
She blinked as sudden tears threatened to sting her eyes. “Then what could it be? I’m here. I’m right here in this wonderful bed next to you. I couldn’t have been there, in that basement and then here again. That’s not possible.”
He had a look on his face that made her think he was going to suggest it was possible, that this was New Orleans, and magic ran deep beneath the surface currents of tourist shops and gumbo carts. Instead, he shook his head.
“Maybe,” he said to her, “it was a memory.”
“Of what?”
“I mean, maybe you are remembering more of what happened to you down in the basement of that house. You were so terrified that perhaps you blocked parts of it out. I’m worried now. I’m worried this was something more than ghosts or hallucinations, or whatever we might have thought it was before. Perhaps there really is a voodoo cult in that house performing warped ceremonies. I think perhaps, ma chere, that we should call the police.”
Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set Page 87
