Bella Flores Urban Fantasy Collection

by R D Martin

  The light blasting her softened a little, and the old woman spoke again.

  “Ah, you’re here.” Her voice was almost normal, apart from the background chorus echoing the words, but there was a sense of sadness underpinning her voice. “I’m sorry it’s got to be like this, but it’s time and there ain’t no one left to fight anymore.”

  “What are you talking about, Mama Ade? Sorry about what? What fight?” The old woman wasn’t making any sense.

  “The others all died, but I stayed. Had to fix our mistake. It wasn’t his fault, see? We done it to him.”

  “Done what? What did you do?”

  The woman ignored the question and, stepping away from her chair, slid between the dancers with ease.

  Trying to follow, Bella threw her arms up to block the hand flying at her face, but still grunted in pain as a dancer’s elbow caught her in the ribs.

  Catching up to the glowing woman, she tried talking to her, asking what she meant, but she may as well have been talking to a tree stump. The woman ignored everything as she continued her stiff march forward. Scanning the crowd, she realized the Voodoo woman was making her way toward the giant man covered in tattoos.

  His target in sight, the tattooed man renewed his jerking movement, pushing off the half-dozen people hanging off him in their attempts to slow him down. One man received a fist to the face, sending him flying, while a woman shaken loose was stepped on and ignored as the tattooed man pressed her head into the dirt.

  The moment Mama Ade came within reach, the man lunged for her, arms outstretched and ready to crush her frail bones to powder. The woman didn’t move, just standing there, letting the hulking man attack. His ham fists encircled her throat and contracted, pressing into her flesh with the unstoppable force of a python squeezing the lungs of a fresh catch.

  His fingers barely made an indent, however, when they came to a sudden stop. For all the discomfort Mama Ade showed, she may as well have been wearing a shirt with a too tight collar.

  The face of her attacker didn’t betray any more emotion than it had before. Neither anger nor rage marred its features as it renewed the assault. Whatever controlled the large man must have realized the attack was useless because it stopped choking the woman and instead tried to lift her.

  Wrapping his burly arms around the frail woman, he grunted and lifted. Veins popped out on his arms and his legs shook under the effort, but the woman refused to move.

  Almost as if she was bored with the fight, Mama Ade reached up one arm, sliding it out of his grasp as though it wasn’t there at all, and placed her palm on his forehead. The man’s legs, straining from trying to lift the implacable woman, stopped shaking and dropped him to his knees like the strings holding him upright had been cut.

  She continued to press his forehead, and his arms fell lax, leaving him kneeling at her feet like a man before an altar. A moan escaped his lips, the first sound he’d made, and it filled the air with pain and sorrow. The sound changed octaves, shifting higher and higher as the sound changed from moan to shriek to scream. Unable to contain the agony tearing its way from his lungs, the man’s mouth clicked shut and, shivering like someone had plunged him into an ice bath, he fell to the ground.

  Ignoring the man’s thrashing, Mama Ade turned and made her way to the next attacker. The processes repeated and shortly another man lay shaking on the ground. Some ceremony attendees went to the aid of the fallen attackers, but most stood in place, staring at the awe-inspiring sight of a Voodoo Queen in her prime.

  It didn’t take long before she littered the ground with shaking bodies, leaving only the woman in the flowered dress standing. A half-dozen men and women held her back, though from the drag marks in the dirt, they’d only delayed her assault.

  At the old woman’s nod, her defenders fell back, releasing the woman to jerk forward. Just as with the others, Mama Ade allowed her to approach unhindered without raising a hand to protect herself. Unlike her companions though, the flower dress woman stopped and opened her mouth wide, letting a sound pour from her lips that could have been all the wailing souls in hell combined.

  Bella, along with most of the assemblage, threw her hands over her ears at the onslaught of sound. From the corner of her eye, she watched Karina do the same, though not fast enough as the sound overcame her and she dropped unconscious to the ground, a thin trickle of blood issuing from her ear to roll down her face.

  Dropping to her knees, doing her best to ignore the sound tearing through her mind like a tornado in a trailer park, Bella let magic flood through her and pour into Karina. As the magic filled her, the sound became less piercing, as though she were hearing it through earplugs. It wasn’t much, but it cleared the static filling her mind enough for her to see everything happening around her, and what she saw made the blood in her veins run cold.

  Everywhere she looked, men and women were clutching their ears against the noise. Some, like Karina, had already gone unconscious, while others looked to be on the verge of passing out. The only one not affected by the noise was Mama Ade, and she wasn’t looking good either.

  Though the old woman seemed to have some protection from the sound, it was still taking a toll on her. Even as Bella watched, she swayed in place, rocking back and forth as if caught in an unexpected breeze. The swaying continued, increasing in tempo until the woman could no longer stand and dropped to her knees, losing contact with the flower dress woman.

  As her knees came into contact with the ground, the light shining from her flickered and dimmed as though the power behind it was being choked off. Tilting forward, the old woman, now showing her age, fell to her hands.

  The shock and fear racing through Bella burned away under the intense rage rising from her gut as she watched Mama Ade collapse. Without thinking, she summoned magic and threw fists of energy at the screaming woman. Blue-white light flared into life and shot across the yard, fed by every ounce of burning anger Bella could muster.

  The magical rocket struck the young woman in the center of her chest, exploding in a cascade of bright light, and disappeared just as fast, leaving the woman standing unharmed. Another fist of energy followed, and the result was the same.

  Cursing under her breath, Bella opened her sight and through the rainbow hue of magic saw a black hole in the center of the woman’s chest.

  Icy fingers gripped her heart. Was this woman connected to her artifact thieves? Why was she attacking the ceremony? What the hell was going on?

  A new scream pierced her thoughts. Shifting her focus down, she saw Mama Ade lying prone on the ground, the light of magic filling her dimmed so low it was almost impossible to see as dark tentacles of magic extended from the chest of the younger woman to plunge into the older one.

  As confused as Bella was, helping the Voodoo woman was more important at the moment. Summoning the flame, she fed everything she had into it, noting for the briefest of moments how easier it was becoming. In less than the space of a breath, every distraction was gone and all that was left was her and the magic.

  Opening herself up to the flow of power, she sent it hurtling through the mist between them, splitting it in twain as she had done before to strike at the woman from two directions. As the greater thread of power struck and was swallowed, the lesser thread curved and struck her in the back. For the barest of moments, the noise from the young woman stopped as she staggered forward, almost stepping on the unmoving form of Mama Ade in her stumble.

  Righting herself, the woman turned and faced her. By this time in her life, Bella had faced powerful men and monsters, but the utter lack of expression on the woman’s face was, without doubt, the most bizarre thing she’d ever seen. There was neither hatred nor anger in her expression. There wasn’t even puzzlement at what struck her. There was in fact nothing to betray any emotion at all. The woman’s face might as well have been molded from skin-colored plastic.

  The woman opened her mouth to scream again, but before any sound could burst forth, Bella sent another th
read of power at her, splitting it again as it flew. As expected, the dark circle in her chest shifted to absorb the larger thread, unable to move fast enough to stop the smaller from slamming into her side. As it did, the woman stumbled to the side with a grunt, the first human sound she’d made.

  Seeing her advantage, Bella pressed it, sending more threads of power at the woman, battering her, pushing her farther and farther back from Mama Ade's still form. For every step back the woman took, Bella moved forward until she was the one standing over the old woman.

  Another volley and the young woman’s feet lifted from beneath her as she flew back a half dozen feet, rolling to a stop in the dirt.

  Dropping to a crouch, Bella fed healing magic into Mama Ade, hoping she wasn’t too late. The light filling the old woman was gone, and though Bella probed as deep as she could, she couldn’t see any of the spark of life in her. Digging deeper, her stomach twisting in knots and sweat beading down her neck, she searched the darkness, looking for even the smallest sign of life. Panic seeped in through the edges of her state of emptiness, threatening to fill her like a cup and sliding between her fingers like water as she tried to push it away.

  There. One small spark, hidden so far in the darkness it might as well have been worlds away. She thrust her magic toward it with as much speed as she dared. Magic could heal, but uncontrolled magic would snuff out that light as surely as a typhoon would snuff out a matchstick.

  Surrounding the ember, she fed it tendrils of magic so small they’d make a human hair look like a tree trunk. One thread after another attached themselves to the small flame, and as they did, the flame grew.

  The panic threatening to overwhelm her poured away like sand through a sieve, and she felt her own sprig of hope take root and grow.

  Sitting back, concentrating on healing Mama Ade, she didn’t feel the blow as something solid slammed into the side of her head, sending her crashing to the ground. Through tearing eyes, she saw the flower dress woman, perfect coiffure destroyed and dress ripped, standing over her.

  Before she could push herself up, or even clear the ringing in her head, the woman turned and without hesitating, kicked Mama Ade in the head. There was a sickening crunch as the old woman’s head snapped back and her torso twisted. At the same instant, the magic Bella fed into the spark of life snapped as the tether between them was snuffed from existence.

  The wail Bella heard this time came from her as she felt the last of Mama Ade’s life fade from existence. Pushing herself up, she raised her hands, ready to destroy the murderer in front of her. As her magic flared, the young woman turned and, for the first time, expressed some emotion. It wasn’t the joy or satisfaction she’d have expected, rather the woman looked as though she’d realized what she’d done and was horrified. Raising her hands to her face to block the sight of what she’d done wasn’t enough, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she crumpled to the ground like a marionette with cut strings.

  As tempted as Bella was to take her fury out on the unconscious figure, she pushed the need for revenge to the side as she rushed to Mama Ade, though she knew there would be nothing she could do. The woman lay crumpled in the dirt, head and neck twisted at odd angles and arms akimbo, unmoving. Dropping to her knees, tears welled, leaking down her cheeks in burning rivulets. Magic was powerful and wondrous, but there were things it still could not do. Bringing back the dead was one of them.

  The dam holding back her emotions broke and the world around her became a blur. She didn’t know how long she stayed there, kneeling in the dirt, and was surprised when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Looking up, scrubbing her arm across her face, her eyes met Karina’s and she knew her night wasn’t over yet.

  14

  Gray, low-hanging clouds covered the city in a cold drizzle that chilled everyone to the bone as even the sky seemed to mourn the passing of the old gris-gris woman.

  Funeral arrangements took less than twenty-four hours. The longest part of the process was getting the body released to the family. After that, things happened fast.

  When Mama Ade said she had a big family, Bella assumed she meant five, maybe ten people. So she wasn’t prepared for more than a hundred members to show up at the little church on the outskirts of the city. She was even more surprised when another hundred people not related at all just showed up to pay their respects. Apparently, the woman had a lot of friends, too.

  Bella had expected some kind of Voodoo funeral ceremony for the sendoff, though she wasn’t sure how much more she wanted to do with the religion. She was relieved then to learn the final services were being held in a church. The funeral was like any other she’d attended before, with a preacher giving a eulogy and people rising to tell their thoughts about the deceased. d When she asked Ray, all he would say was that’s how it goes in the South.

  Her heart broke for the man as she watched him dealing with his grandmother’s passing. She hadn’t known the Voodoo Queen as much as she would have wanted, but having mourned the passing of her own father, she understood what he was going through. As much as she felt for him though, the death of the woman was a reminder her own neck was on the line.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ray said when she brought up the subject of retrieving the artifact. His voice didn’t betray any anger at the question, but she still felt tacky bringing it up. “I talked with Cousin Frank. He’s got an air boat he can lend us, just has to put the motor back in first. We’ll be able to go out tomorrow.”

  That was cutting it closer than she’d have liked, but it still put her inside the three-day deadline the Finder gave her, if only just.

  A group of mourners coming to speak with her interrupted them. The story of her attempt to save Mama Ade, unsuccessful as it was, had spread enough that random strangers kept coming up to give her thanks. The first few times embarrassed her, but by now it was becoming old hat. She just had to hope the story didn’t make it back to Karina.

  Turning her head, she looked at her friend sitting in a metal chair against the wall. The way she looked sunken in was like nothing Bella had ever seen from her, and truth be told, it scared her somewhat. She hoped the woman’s boundless energy and enthusiasm would return, but only time would tell.

  Karina raised her head and, locking eyes with Bella, jerked her head away as if to avoid looking at her. The action made Bella’s heart ache and stomach twist. She wanted to reach out to Karina, but there was something strained between them that she just couldn’t put her finger on.

  After being roused, she had only vague memories of the attack and accepted the cover story of the ceremony being ambushed by a group of racists intent on disrupting it. Coming from the city, she was used to protests and counter protests for everything, so it was a story she could accept. The hard part came when she asked about the glowing light bursting from Mama Ade.

  The question brought Bella to a stop as sure as if she’d run into a brick wall.

  One precept of magic she’d taken for granted as a child was she could see the magic being formed and used. To her, it was no different from watching an artist slap paint on a canvas until the picture was complete. Those without magic never saw the multitude of colors. Instead they only saw the effects magic had on the world around them.

  Only those with magic should have been able to see the light pouring from the woman, so that could only mean Karina had some affinity for it. And that could lead to some serious trouble. Not only would she have to take more care with magic around her friend, but if her affinity was strong enough, she’d be forced to report her to the Imperium.

  There was nothing wrong with being magical, but magic ran in families. Witches learned control at a young age with the guidance and help of their family and familiars. An untrained Witch, someone who knew neither their strength in magic nor how to control it, was a very real danger. One of the first laws of the Imperium was to report untrained Witches. Imperium shock troops would sweep in, grab up the hapless Witch, and disappear with her into the night. Th
ey claimed to be teaching the Witch control, but that didn’t explain why very few ever returned.

  Watching Karina shift in her seat, Bella shuddered. She felt stuck between a rock and a hard place, and it looked as if she would lose her friend no matter what she did.

  “Excuse me,” a voice near her elbow said. Looking down, she recognized the small girl as Mama Ade’s helper from the ceremony. “Sorry, ma’am, but you’re Miss Flores, right?”

  She nodded, and a look of relief spread across the girl’s face as she smiled.

  “She didn’t tell me what you looked like, just that I’d know you when I see you.” She couldn’t have been over ten years old and already had a thick Louisiana drawl. Reaching into her pleated skirt, the girl drew out a long white envelope and held it up. “She said I was to give this to you today. Didn’t tell me what it is, but that I had to give it to you first chance I got.”

  “Who said that? What is it?” Though the little girl expected her to take it, living in the city made her wary of accepting anything from strangers.

  The child shrugged. “Don’t know. She just said to give it to you today. Said I’d know you when I see you.”

  “Who?”

  “Mama Ade. She said I had to give this to you straightaway, not to waste time.”

  A cold chill unrelated to the weather outside ran up her spine and she reached for the letter. As soon as she had it in hand, the child sprinted away without even waiting for a thank-you.

  Turning the white envelope in her hands, she saw her name scrawled across the back in neat cursive with a small dark red blob of wax sealing it closed. Confused, she popped the wax blob with her fingernail and pulled out the folded paper inside. Opening it, she read.

  Bella, I know this letter doesn’t find you well. Ain’t nobody well at a funeral, but that’s just how it is. People don’t like to let go of the past, but I’ve been around too long to mind. ‘Bout time I get a bit of peace in my life too.