Hoodoo Woman (Roxie Mathis Book 3)

by Sonya Clark

  “I generally use it to help people.” I wanted a look at his aura but didn’t dare, not yet. If he was sensitive enough to tell what I was doing, it was too early to risk it.

  He said nothing, the derision evident enough in his face without words. “Rozella Kent had an unfortunate streak of that in her. Never could disabuse her of the notion.”

  My mentor’s old warnings to stay away from the Parker family and Andrew in particular made more sense in light of the contents of this cabinet. Still, though, the idea they’d had some interaction both intrigued and frightened me. “I can’t imagine you having any influence on Miss Rozella.”

  He didn’t like that, not one little bit. A brief spark of flame lit his eyes as the air hummed with energy. To me, magic always had the taste and feel of nature, of earth and air, fire and water. Both what I practiced and others. It might be dark. It might be a tangled twist of elements and intentions. But there would always be something in there I could recognize, make sense of. For the first time I could make no sense of magic. What curled upward and outward from Andrew Parker was an eldritch, murky thing, tainted and sulfurous.

  To hell with looking like a tough girl. I took a step back.

  “She had an unfortunate stubbornness about her. I didn’t care for that. You won’t like hearing this, being so young, but things were much more organized and orderly when everyone knew their place.”

  I was unsure if he was referring to Rozella having been a woman, black, or both. “If you derive your place at the top of the food chain from an accident of birth, maybe, and not ability. Personally I’ve never had much respect for anyone who tried to tell me my place.”

  Parker beat the cane on the floor once. The sulfur tentacles of his magic wrapped themselves around my throat, squeezing the breath from me. Half closing my eyes, I switched my focus to inward, tasting rain and whiskey as I pushed back. The spell broke with a suddenness that surprised him as much as it did me. I gulped in air. He stared, one hand tight on his cane, the other on the glass cabinet, fingers spread like spider legs.

  “I had you marked, girl,” he hissed. “You could have had the chance to learn from me, here at my side like one of my own kin, but she got to you first.”

  “I met her first. I wouldn’t have had anything to do with you, anyway.”

  Parker grinned, his teeth giving him a skull-like appearance. “She sought you out. Both of us sensed you in bloom. She went directly to you. I did what I thought was the right way. Engaged with your momma for your services as a companion for my daughter Peg. You met her on your way in.” He paused, giving me a curious look. “Every day after school you were to come here. Sit with her for a while, up in her room or in the garden. Then you were to come here.” He gestured at the study around us. “Spend time with me.” He took slow, careful steps around the cabinet. “Can you imagine what that would have been like? I can, little girl. The things I would have taught you.”

  I shuddered, as much as the thought of being companion to the wraith on the stairs as being student to her psycho father.

  He stopped three feet away. “You would be a very different witch now, Roxanne. A very different person altogether.”

  Hearing him say my name disgusted me almost as much as everything else he’d said. “I don’t know whether to believe you or not. My mother never said a word about any job in this house.” Nadine would have forced me to do it, too, had the offer been real.

  Parker chuckled. “Oh, believe it. I had that bitch Nadine eatin’ out of my hand, ready to do whatever I said. I do believe she would have turned you over even if she’d known the truth, she was so desperate to curry favor with me.”

  I grimaced. Yeah, that sounded like my mother. So what happened?

  The old man answered my unspoken question. “But the Kent woman, she refused to stay on her side of town. Went meddling where she had no business.” He stepped closer, the cane thunking on the hardwood.

  I steeled myself for attack but none came. “What did she do?” At this point keeping him talking seemed like the best plan. I still didn’t know exactly what he wanted.

  “She worked her will on your momma, made her change her mind. Then she went looking for you, I suppose. I don’t know exactly how you became her student. That part matters little to me. What mattered then and now is that she took something I wanted for myself.”

  “People aren’t toys to be bought and sold. Not even by you.”

  “I could have anything I wanted from you, anything at all. Right this minute.” He raised the cane, pointing it at the poppet wearing a gold star. “You just have to know a person’s pressure point, Roxanne. The thing that will make them sell themselves and everything they hold dear. I believe I know your pressure point, young lady. I’ve known it all along. Seen it in the cards and the bones and my own dreams. I know how to own you and I intend to do just that.”

  “You’re out of your fucking mind, old man.” The time for manners and fake respect was past.

  “Everyone has something they want. In this life and the next.”

  The next life? What the hell was this about? “What did you do?”

  “My sons are useless to me, always have been. The magic came from my mother and her people so I suppose it made some sort of sense it passed to my daughter and my granddaughter. Would have marked my great-granddaughter too but Britney thought she and her little bastard child could change things.” Contempt twisted the word change into more of an expletive than bastard.

  Parker was between me and the door. My spirit familiar was temporarily out of commission, my vampire was off getting drunk somewhere, and Ray couldn’t legally get into the house without probable cause. I needed to be careful what I said and how I said it. “Did you have your granddaughter killed because she wouldn’t follow orders anymore?”

  Or I could just blurt out the most outrageous accusation guaranteed to piss off the old sorcerer.

  “She got herself killed, thinking she was special. Thinking she could do whatever she wanted. She never understood that if you don’t take power for yourself, you’re giving it to someone else.”

  “Did you have Britney killed?”

  “She thought she could get away with anything, because of her name. Because she was young and beautiful. She’d play witch like it was a game but she never fully embraced it. You know what that’s like, don’t you?” He waved the cane at me. I flinched, stepping back. Laughing, he said, “Yes, that’s right! I know about you. Saw it in the cards and the bones both. You played a game for a long time, a little girl with jacks and hopscotch and all the silly games children play. Then you needed it for real and found out what was really in you. Isn’t that right?”

  “Did you kill Britney?”

  Parker advanced, the heavy tap of the cane on the floor an ominous announcement with his every step. “You answer my question, I’ll answer yours. You’re not a child anymore and this isn’t a game. You get no quarter from me.”

  “All right, yes. You want to know, I’ll tell you. I treated it like a game for years. Worse than that, like something to hide away. Hide from.” I thought of the flood, water rushing into my house and over my head. Conjuring help from any and every source of energy my magic could touch in that moment saved my life and created Stack. “Then I didn’t.” I met his gaze, blazing with a fierce insanity, with a look that called forth a touch of the storm that stayed with me all the time now. “And I’ll never go back.”

  Parker cocked his head, examining my eyes and stance. The hard line of his mouth quavered for a half second and he stepped back. I knew then he’d seen it, seen the storm and the power that lay curled and sleeping inside me. Perhaps he even saw it better than I did myself. Whatever he made of my magic, it made him take that step backward.

  I pressed my unexpected advantage. “Mr. Parker, did you have Britney killed?”

  Defeat drained his features of vitality. “No.” His voice choked. “But I have bound her spirit and I’ll keep her here until I get what
I want.”

  What the hell? “Why would you do that to her? She’s haunting the entire town! You have to let her go.”

  “I don’t have to do a damn thing.” The old man rallied, pulling himself straighter, tapping his damn cane again. “She can tear up the whole county for all I care. I’ll keep her bound until I get what I want and if that’s not enough to do it, I’ll add another to the altar.” He picked up the poppet meant to represent Ray and held it in front of me.

  “You sure you want to threaten him? You sure you want to bring that hell down on your head, old man? You think what Britney’s doing to this town is bad? It’s nothing compared to what I will do to you if you hurt him.” I snatched the poppet from his hand and shoved it in my pocket.

  A grin like a snake gliding over cracked earth spread across his face. “I don’t need that. You keep it as a souvenir. A promise.” He stepped around me, giving me a shot at the door for the first time. “He’s a good man, Ray Travis. A good deputy. Good citizen.” Parker eased into the chair by the fireplace. “Always opens doors for ladies. Helps children and the elderly. Has Sunday dinner with his momma and daddy every week he can and makes sure to donate blood.”

  A chill hit my gut, a knife made of ice working itself into me.

  Parker said, “It’s a hell of a thing, what you can do with blood.”

  I took a step toward him, a storm at the edge of my senses despite Stack’s absence.

  “It’s a hell of a thing, too, what folks will do for enough money, without asking any questions at all. Like slip a little blood in the beer of a new but very friendly customer.”

  The knife split me open and filled me with a terror so cold it burned.

  Parker grinned. “How long before your vampire starts to think of your deputy as supper?”

  “God damn you!” Energy crackled in every cell of my body, begging to be turned loose.

  “I will have what I want. It was denied to me by whoever killed Britney but I came up with another plan.”

  “What the hell is it you want, you freaking psychopath?”

  He leaned forward, raising the cane and slamming it onto the hardwood floor. A bolt of energy spread lightning fast, hitting me with the choking sulfurous fury of his magic. “Progeny!” He settled back into the chair, looking pleased with himself. “I will have progeny to carry on the magic that is my family’s true legacy.”

  It took a few seconds for me to shake off the cloying blast of the spell, then a few more for the full weight of his meaning to sink in. “You are beyond insane. God, you’re not even in the same time zone as sanity.”

  “I will have what I want!” He lifted the cane again.

  I’d had enough of Parker’s crazy and his damn cane. I raised my hand, sending my will into ripping the thing from his grasp. He struggled to hold it but couldn’t compete just then with my fury. I yanked it from him, then twisted my hand to break the wood in two. To add insult to injury I hurled it into the fireplace and called on fire. A blaze sprang to life, engulfing the broken cane.

  Mouth tasting of whiskey and rain and a bit of ash, I lowered my hand and sent what energy was left into the ground. “Stay away from my friends.”

  He cackled. “Or what, hoodoo woman? You gonna hex me?” He laughed and laughed, as if it were the most ludicrous thing he’d ever heard.

  “I’m gonna free Britney and if you’re very lucky, I won’t turn her loose on you first.”

  His laughter followed me as I left the house.

  Chapter 36

  Ray’s truck idled at the exit of the cul-de-sac. I shivered as I made my way to it, more from the magic than the cold. As soon as I climbed inside I told him to go.

  We were three blocks away before he spoke. “What happened?” He turned the heat up, apparently having noticed my shaking. “Are you hurt?” He placed a hand on the back of my neck, paying more attention to me than driving.

  “Andrew Parker is definitely stone cold crazy. He’s a truthful kind of crazy, though. At least I think so. He says he didn’t kill Britney.”

  The truck eased into the gravel on the side of the road. “You might want to do that driving thing,” I said.

  Ray put both hands on the wheel and more or less watched the road. “Then who did kill her? Is Parker hoping you’ll find the killer?”

  I rubbed my face, going over the encounter in my head. “He’s got her spirit bound somehow, keeping her here. He doesn’t know or seem to care who killed her.”

  Ray looked at me, then the road, then back at me again. “That doesn’t make sense. Did he kill Martin Holt?”

  “Shit! I forgot all about that.”

  “How could you forget that?”

  “Well, gee. First there was Peg, who’s so bat shit crazy she quoted Shakespeare at me. Then there was her father Andrew, who says he’s had somebody stealing the blood you donate and slip it into Daniel’s drinks so he starts to think of you as a meal. Oh and also, he wants me to have his evil babies so his magical lineage is continued. So is that chock full of nuts enough for you to give me a pass on forgetting about the dead coroner?” I could hear the hysteria rising in my voice by the end of my tirade. Leaning over, I put my forehead on my knees and tried to breathe slow and easy.

  “Jesus H. Christ.” Ray stroked my hair, then worked his hand under it to rub my neck. “I shouldn’t have let you go in there alone.”

  “They wouldn’t have let you in the door.” I straightened, staring out the windshield into the night. Britney was out there somewhere. Whether she was actively haunting or just hanging out, I didn’t know or right then care. I turned to Ray. “Can we go back to your place? I know you wanted to be out tonight in case something happens but I need a break.”

  “You sure? I mean, I can take you home.”

  “I don’t want to be alone and Daniel’s likely to be out most of the night.” A nervous laugh slipped out. “I promise to be a good girl and keep my hands to myself. I just want company.”

  He cut his eyes from the road to me in a quick assessing glance. “You’re always a good girl,” he said lightly. “Especially when.” He stopped, swearing under his breath. “I don’t want to joke right now. I’m gonna take you back to the house and make you some cocoa and we’re gonna cuddle up on the couch and talk or watch TV or sit there and stare at nothing in total silence or whatever you need.”

  “What do you need, Ray?” I couldn’t remember ever asking him that, even when we dated.

  He didn’t answer for a long time, until we were almost to his house. “I just need you, baby.” His voice was soft as a feather-light kiss but the words filled me with an expansive warmth.

  Half an hour later Ray had fully delivered on his promise. Empty cups of cocoa sat on the end table. The stereo played Eric Clapton at low volume. Huddled under a blanket with Ray’s arms wrapped around me, I drifted into a pleasant lassitude, happy to forget about ghosts and sorcerers and even vampires for a change. It lasted for a whole five wonderful minutes, until I remembered the poppet stuffed in the pocket of my hoodie. With reluctance I crawled out from under the blanket and went to retrieve my hoodie from the coat tree.

  “What’s up?” Sounding half asleep, Ray rubbed his face and ran his hands through his hair.

  I showed him the poppet and the sprig of dried lavender I’d also forgotten about. “Souvenirs from the House of Crazy.”

  He moved the blanket from his legs to the end of the couch. Pointing at the herb he said, “What’s that?”

  “Lavender. Aunt Peggy who’s not retarded gave it to me.” I told him about the encounter with Ophelia’s spiritual sister.

  “They’ve let people believe for decades that she wasn’t right.”

  “Oh, she’s definitely not right.”

  “You know what I mean. That she was autistic or something. One year at Halloween I got called out there. A family that was new in town, didn’t really know who the Parkers are, sent their kids trick or treating in that neighborhood. Peggy put frog entrai
ls and bird bones in their little plastic pumpkins on top of their candy. Told them some story about digging in the garden to visit her babies and how she didn’t want frogs and birds to bother them, so she killed them.”

  “I’m surprised anybody was sent to the Parker house.”

  “It was mostly to calm the kid’s mother. She was more freaked out than the kids. Terry was a real asshole about it. What I remember most was Peggy’s hands. They were covered in dirt and.” Grimacing, he held up a hand as if trying to pluck the right words from the air. “Stuff. Wet, nasty smelling stuff. Frog guts, I guess. Before Terry could get her back in the house she smiled at me. That smile was about as nasty as the mess on her hands.”

  “I can tell you this much. What’s wrong with that woman, and her father, isn’t covered in the DSM. There’s no diagnosis that covers practicing dark magic until your world and the real world don’t match up anymore.” As dispassionately as possible I told Ray the rest of it, including the insinuation that Parker had wanted me under his influence for years.

  “He’s got Britney’s spirit bound in some way? You think he sent her to me, thinking it might be the best way to get you back here?”

  The possibility had definitely occurred to me. “It doesn’t matter how I got here. I’m here now and I’ll see this through. What I’m more worried about is Daniel. If he’s really been getting a little of your blood in his drinks at a time, that’s not good.”

  “Where does he normally get his blood?”

  “He buys it on the black market. I don’t ask questions. All I know is, it is donated blood, still in the bags. He’s never around the donors. I don’t know what this will do to him long term so we need to stop it just in case he does start to associate your scent with food.”

  “He told me I smelled good. At his house after the séance, when you were passed out. I just figured he was gay and didn’t think anything of it.”

  “He’s bi. Can I look at your stuff on the murder again?”