Her actions...weren’t her own.
Someone else had made her do this.
The other Katie Pearson. The loa. The spirit.
Riding her.
No...
“Katie?”
She heard Carlson’s voice from behind her. She twisted around to see him standing there, not daring to move her feet.
“Help me,” she begged him. “Carlson, please help me.”
“Katie,” he said again. “What did you do?”
Chapter 19
Standing in Carlson’s shower, she couldn’t help but think what a horrible idea this was.
The hot water poured over her, and washed away the blood, swirling pale pink down the drain between her feet. She stayed there, her head soaking under the spray, until the water ran clear. It didn’t matter. She could wash away the blood, but not the memory of what she had seen.
Or what she had done.
She cried for a time, but her tears mixed with the water until she couldn’t tell which was which.
Covering up a murder didn’t seem like the right thing to do. It had been Carlson’s idea, but she hadn’t argued him out of it. She wanted this to go away. All of it. She wanted none of it to have happened.
So, when suggested getting rid of the body, and the blood, and not saying anything to anyone, she had simply nodded her agreement.
If they called the police, her life would be over. No one would ever believe that a spirit made her do it. Not even the police here in New Orleans.
Carlson had picked her up out of the pentagram, and swung her to the side so her feet wouldn’t touch the blood, and then carried her back upstairs. He’d stripped off her clothes. Started the water. Then he put her in the shower and told her not to move until he got back.
How long ago had that been, she wondered. Long enough to make a body disappear?
Forget about it, an inner voice urged her. Let it go, and forget about it.
No. She couldn’t do that. A woman was dead at her hands.
No. Not hers. The other her.
More than ever, she was convinced that what she had seen in that basement was really real. Somehow, Xavier had managed to put a loa inside of her.
What was she going to do?
She felt it when Carlson stepped into the shower behind her. The curtain screeched back across the bar, and then it was just the two of them. Katie stood there, under the water, with her hands against the wall, and her back to him. She couldn’t face him. Not yet.
But she loved the way his hands felt as they smoothed their way up her back, onto her shoulders, massaging her muscles and helping her to relax.
After a moment, she was finally able to talk to him. “Did you do it? Is she gone?”
“Oui, Cherie,” came the answer. “She is most definitely dead and gone. You did good work, you did.”
That was not Carlson’s voice.
That was Xavier.
A scream caught in her throat as she whirled around on him. Her feet slipped on the sluicing water and she nearly found herself dropping ass first in the tub but she caught herself, and pushed her wet hair aside, and stared into the skeletal face of a man who had done horrible things to her in the basement of his house.
His dark eyes grinned at her. “Hello there, dearie. You and me are gonna have some fun now, I guarantee.”
The press of his naked body against hers was a foul sensation. She tried to push away from him, but there was nowhere to go. She tried to make her body run away, or fight back, or do anything, but she couldn’t move.
Then he spoke again as water ran down his face in rivulets. “What? You ain’t got a kiss for your lover? Kiss me, now.”
Katie felt herself smile. Now her body moved, closer to his. Her lips puckered, and she closed her eyes, and no matter how hard she tried she could not stop her body from obeying him. It wasn’t hers to command anymore. It was his. He commanded her.
He spoke to the spirit inside of her, and it obeyed.
This Katie Pearson wasn’t her. It was the loa.
Xavier laughed at her, as she helplessly gave herself over to him in a kiss...
“No!”
The scream echoed dully around the bathroom and now Katie’s arms flailed like wet hammers at anything and everything around her. One hand caught the shower curtain and tore it from the hooks and pulled it down to the floor. The other found something soft and unyielding and she knew it was a body and she slapped against it with all of her strength.
“Katie. Katie! Stop it. Stop it, it’s me!”
It took her fogged brain a long moment to realize it wasn’t Xavier in the shower with her. It was Carlson. The rest had been an illusion, or her nerves getting the better of her.
Or, she thought, it was part of a voodoo spell.
Xavier had reached out to her from wherever he was, commanding her mind and body here in this room to see what he wanted her to see. To do what he wanted her to do.
The water from the shower head went all over the bathroom as she fell into his arms and let him hold her and tried to pull herself together. This was too much. This was all too much.
She needed it to end.
Forget it all, her inner voice told her again. Forget, and be free...
“No! Shut up, shut up, shut up!”
“Katie, stop.” His voice was gentle but insistent, and he held her fast even as she tried to struggle against him. Finally she realized there was no reason to struggle. Not with Carlson. He was her safety net. She was falling, and he was here to catch her.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she said, in a voice that shook so hard she could barely understand her own words. “Please help me. Please.”
He nodded, and reached past her to shut off the shower. Still holding her closely he patted her dry with a comfortable, fluffy towel, and brought her into his bedroom to lay her down. Sleep. Yes. She needed sleep. Maybe when she woke up, all of this would just be another nightmare.
There was no chance of that, she knew. A woman was dead, and Katie had killed her. She was possessed. A madman was trying to control her with voodoo.
Nothing was all right, and there was no way she could fall asleep, even with his arms around her, and his comforting voice whispering in her ear, and the scent of him filling her with a sense of calm.
That thought didn’t even finish itself, before she was gently snoring.
Chapter 20
Katie had never been so scared in all of her life.
In her life, that meant more than it did for most.
Somewhere during the night, Katie had started chewing on her nails. It was a nervous habit she had done when she was little, living with her mother. When things went wrong, or bad things came their way, she would run to her room and throw the covers over her head, curl up into a ball, and chew on her nails until her mother came to find her, and make it better.
It was a childish. She told herself to stop.
She blinked her eyes open, and there was Carlson, sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her.
“Hey there, beautiful woman. Did you sleep well?”
Katie pushed herself up, curling under the blankets as she did. She was still naked from the shower and a little cold. Nobody thought of this stuff when they said they wanted to stay naked with their boyfriend for days on end. There was only so much bare skin a woman could take.
Well, at least when her ass was in danger.
“Did you do it?” she asked him, her voice raspy from a dry throat. “The...mess downstairs, I mean. Did you take care of it?”
He nodded, his hand covering her knee over the blanket. “Please don’t ask me the details.”
“I won’t, believe me. Oh, Carlson, what are we going to do?” Tears were in her eyes. “I killed someone. That fortune teller. What was she even doing here? Why was she here, Carlson? Why would I kill her?”
His face looked so serious. There was obviously something he wanted to say to her. She was terrified what he thou
ght of her now. How could he want to be anywhere near her? Not only was she a murderer, but now he was an accomplice for covering it up. She’d done that to him.
She’d ruined both of their lives.
What was she going to do next? What was this voodoo spell going to make her do?
“I need to leave,” she decided suddenly. “I need to just get away from New Orleans and put some distance between me and all of this. I’m sorry, I just need to not be here.”
“I don’t want you to go,” he told her. “I’ve gotten used to you being here, to be sure.”
She didn’t want to leave him behind. He might be the best thing that had wandered into her life in a very long time. It wasn’t fair that she had to leave him.
At the same time, she couldn’t live with herself if someone else died. She might not be able to live with this one death on her conscience, either. That would be something she found out about herself in time, she supposed.
Right now, she just needed to get away from all of this.
“No, Katie,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “I have a better idea. You and I can figure this out. If we go back to Xavier’s we can find the answers to why this is happening. We need to put a stop to it here. Even if you leave, it might not end.”
She’d thought of that, too. It was an unpleasant thought that anywhere she went in the world, Xavier might still have a hold over her. If she hadn’t believed in voodoo before, she certainly did now.
Amazing how much things could change in a matter of days, when you were in a place like New Orleans.
The thought of going back to Xavier’s house, however...
“No, Carlson. I’m sorry, but I have to go. I can’t stay here. Not any longer.”
“Not even for me?” he asked her, taking one final try at getting her to change her mind.
She reached out, and cupped his face. She wondered, was it her moving her hand, or the other Katie Pearson? Was her mind still her own, or did it belong to this spirit infecting her body?
“Come with me,” she offered. “I want you to be with me. I want whatever this is turning into. I really do.”
His smile was sad. “I can’t, Katie. My whole life is here. I can’t just up and leave New Orleans. Believe me,” he added, kissing her forehead. “I wish I could.”
“Then that’s it,” she said, feeling her heart sink in her chest. “You can’t go, and I can’t stay. Carlson, don’t make this any harder on me than it already is. Help me get my things together, and take me back to my hotel. Please?”
“Of course, Katie. Whatever you need.”
He lingered on the edge of the bed a moment longer, his eyes staring deep into hers. Then he got up from the bed and left without another word. She could hear him walking down the hall, further into the apartment.
Katie dropped her head into her hands the moment he was gone. This was such a nightmare. All of it. She should’ve never came here. She should have stayed in New England. Or gone out west to visit her friends out there.
She couldn’t help but blame Riley for all of this. He was the one who had ruined things back home for her. He was the reason why she’d needed to get away. If it wasn’t for him, she’d still be home, and everything would be perfect.
If she had him here, right now, she’d wring his neck. She’d tell him off in no uncertain terms and then she’d slam his balls so far up his body that he could taste them. If she didn’t cut them off. Just pick up a knife, and carve her initials into him so that he would never forget her.
Cut him. Drive the knife into him.
Watch him bleed.
Make him pay.
“Katie!”
When she heard Carlson cry out, she stopped. There was a knife in her hand. She was standing over him, lying there on the kitchen floor, his hands up to protect himself from whatever she had been about to do.
The knife was in her hand.
Katie gasped and threw the weapon on the sink top. Throwing her hands over her mouth, she stumbled over to the table and sat there, naked, wondering what had just happened. She’d been thinking such violent thoughts. That wasn’t like her. She never wanted to hurt anyone. Not even Riley, after he’d hurt her so bad.
And certainly not Carlson!
She was crying hysterically when he came over to her and held her and pressed her head down against his shoulder. She couldn’t take this. She couldn’t keep letting this happen.
This had to end.
“Katie,” he asked her. “Are you sure you don’t want to go back to where this started? I want to help you, and I think that might be the only way.”
She knew he was right. Dear God, she had almost killed Carlson. She hadn’t been in control of herself and whatever had her in its grip had almost made her kill Carlson!
It had to end. No matter what the cost.
Even if it meant going back to that basement.
“All right,” she finally agreed. “Take me there.”
Chapter 21
Katie got dressed in Carlson’s bedroom, putting on the clothes she’d been wearing yesterday, before the death of Madam Parlander. Over on the table she saw her little ceramic horse.
“Blessed by a junior priest,” she muttered, picking it up and staring into its painted eyes. “Some gris gris you turned out to be.”
She picked it up anyway, and slipped it into the front pocket of her jeans. Any protection was better than nothing.
They drove in Carlson’s vintage 1967 Stingray. Katie did not want to walk the streets of New Orleans in the dark. Not only that, but she would never have been able to find her way back to that house on her own. Not with all the winding side streets. She remembered the houses, mostly, because she had an eye for that sort of thing.
When they got close again to Xavier’s house, she didn’t need her eyes. She could feel it.
Like there were reins around her head, and a bit in her mouth, and someone was tugging on it.
In the dark, the house loomed over her, staring down at her through its windows. She didn’t want to go in there. She didn’t want to be this close to it.
She couldn’t bear to go in, and at the same time she couldn’t bear to keep herself away.
“It’s all right,” Carlson told her. He took her hand, and squeezed it quickly. “I’ll be right here with you.”
“You know that makes me feel better, but--I'm still scared.”
“I know. Don’t worry. We’ll find Xavier.”
The thought of seeing that man again, in the flesh instead of in some spirit-induced fever dream, chilled her. The only warmth she could feel was the touch of Carlson’s hand.
“All right,” she told him. “Let’s make this bastard pay for whatever he did to me.”
It was eerie in this part of New Orleans at night. There was no one around that she could see and yet, whispery bits of conversations filtered to her from the shadows. If there was music somewhere else in New Orleans it didn’t penetrate to these streets. Somewhere a dog barked, and then went suddenly silent.
Above them, a nearly full moon layered a silvery light over everything, which only made the darkness that much darker.
The perfect night for a horror story.
They skulked their way to the front door, slipping past the first floor windows, right up the steps. Carlson slowly turned the knob, only to find it was locked.
He took a key out of his pocket, and smiled at her. He’d been thinking about buying the place after all. Katie was almost happy about that in this moment.
There were lights on inside. Small plug-in lights along the hallway gave just enough illumination to see the way forward, and the gaping holes of the doorways to left or right. It occurred to Katie suddenly that they hadn’t thought this through at all. They weren’t armed. They didn’t have any flashlights. Hell, did they even know if Xavier would be here?
“Is he living here?” she whispered to Carlson.
“What?”
“Does Xavier live here? I tho
ught he lived somewhere else.”
He stopped for a moment to take a look inside the kitchen to their left. “He has an apartment somewhere else in New Orleans but I think he’s been spending his nights here. Something about the way the house looked when we were here last makes me think him saying he wants to sell was just a lie. A ruse, to lure people in.”
“Like me.” She felt little tingles all along her skin. Of course. How could she not see that before? Selling this house to be a nightclub made no sense. It had to be Xavier’s way of luring in victims for his rituals.
Victims like her.
They moved further into the house, careful of their footsteps on the creaky wooden floor, straining their ears to hear everything around them. If anyone else was in this house, they were hiding themselves very well.
Katie cringed at every room they passed, expecting something to jump out at them. Expecting Xavier to grab her and pull her down to the basement. She kept pinching her arm, wanting to make sure this was her standing in this hallway next to Carlson. Her, and not a loa in her skin.
Nothing came for them. The house was silent.
At the end of the hallway was the staircase, and the door built into the side of it. The door that led down to the basement.
Katie froze. She couldn’t go another step closer. Carlson’s felt the tug on his hand as she pulled back, and he stopped with her.
The basement.
She could not go down there.
He realized the problem immediately. “It’s okay, ma chere. You stay here.” He took out his cellphone and turned on the camera’s light. It looked as bright as the sun. “I’ll take a quick look down there. If I find anything, I’ll come right back. Okay?”
She nodded, because there were too many words trying to come out all at once for her to say anything. She wanted to tell him not to leave her, to call the police and let them handle it, to take her with her not because she couldn’t go down there but he had to go because the nightmare had to end and there was no way she could stay in this house alone--
Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set Page 90
