“I don’t think so, baby. I might be driving your ass home tonight and escorting you to work in the morning.”
I was beginning to worry about where she was taking me and what she had planned when we got there. Sugar and I had gotten close, but I knew relatively little about what she did when she slipped into the underbelly of the city. The question was, was she planning on taking me with her into said underbelly tonight, and would I live to regret it?
We drove down a two-lane road for about a half hour, passing through stretches of Savannah’s signature old oaks covered in Spanish moss before coming up on a few houses on the left-hand side. They were spaced a few acres apart, the last house being the one we were heading for. It was basically a box with weathered plank siding, a gabled roof, and a small front porch that favored the far-right column holding it up. There was a well-tended garden on the side of the house.
“What is this place?” I asked, refusing to get out of the car and test that porch unless she told me who or what was inside.
“Come on, Katie. You’re about to meet my maker.”
I hesitated with my hand on the door handle. “By ‘maker’ I hope you mean your mother.”
She gripped her hips. “Well, what the hell do you think I am? A goddamn vampire? Of course I’m talking about my mama.”
I steadied my nerves. “Why are we here?”
Sugar had revealed just the other day that her mama was a conjure woman, which had my blood pumping from all the images of what I might see behind that old door a half a dozen yards away. I assumed our visit was for official hoodoo business, Sugar’s way of protecting me. But once I gave her a demonstration of what my dragon could do I’m sure it would ease her mind about my ability to take care of myself. But we were here, so I decided to humor her.
The light in the living room grew brighter as we approached the rickety steps leading up to the porch. “You sure it’s safe for both of us to stand on it?”
“This old porch is strong as dynamite. Mama lets it sag like this to keep the solicitors away.” With the heel of her shoe she pressed down on the first plank that was painted a shade darker than the rest of the decking. “See that?” she said as it bowed in the center and nearly split. “Mama did that one herself. Folks around here know better than to step on that one, but strangers think the whole damn porch is about to come down.”
“Hmph,” I said, nodding. “Now I know where you get your brains from.”
We stepped over the trick plank and Sugar turned the doorknob. “It’s just me, Mama. I brought me a friend.”
An elderly African American woman who could have just as easily been Sugar’s grandmother came walking into the small but surprisingly roomy space, I suspected at the expense of the rest of the tiny house. She was wearing a yellow apron over a housedress covered in tiny little flowers, and her white hair worn closely to her scalp reminded me of a bouquet of baby’s breath. Her eyes were hazel like Sugar’s and twinkled like glossy gems as the light above our heads reflected off of them. She looked at Sugar and grinned from ear to ear, revealing a mouth full of dark spaces between the handful of teeth that were still intact. I glanced at Sugar, wondering just how old she was. I’d always guessed her to be in her late thirties, but the woman she called Mama couldn’t have been a day younger than ninety.
“Where you been, Ray?” she asked in a lyrical voice that matched her wide grin. She moved surprisingly fast for her advanced age and gave Sugar a thorough hug. Then she felt the long strands of hair from the blonde wig and nearly tugged it off Sugar’s head. “What the hell you got here, boy?”
Sugar exhaled dramatically, ignoring her mama’s comment. “This is Katie Bishop, Mama. She’s a friend of mine. This is my mama, Pearl May Mobley.”
Are you supposed to extend your hand to a ninety-something Southern lady? Or is a hug more appropriate? She didn’t wait for me to decide and gave me the same welcome she’d given Sugar. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Mobley,” I said as she stood back to get another look at me.
“Mrs. Mobley was my ma. You call me May,” she said, patting the sides of my arms. Then she turned back to Sugar. “Where you been, son?”
“Now come on, Mama. I ride out here to see you every week.”
“The hell you do!” Her quiet Southern charm was replaced with a cantankerous beast. “I ain’t seen you in months, boy!”
Sugar looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Mama got a little issue with remembering certain things. But you ain’t got no problem remembering the root, now do you, Mama?”
May suddenly shot me a look that made my heart skip a beat, ignoring Sugar’s question about her diminishing memory. Her bright hazel eyes lost their shine as she regarded me with concern. “You got a whole mess of worry, girl. Got that trickster in your head.” She walked a circle around me and then stood a foot away and looked me in the eye. “What’s wrong with you?”
Sugar jumped in. “That’s why we’re here, Mama. Katie is working with Lillian and Fin.”
May looked distraught, shaken from something I did or said since walking into her house. “The society?” she asked.
“One of them spirits found its way out of that book, and Katie here helped it manifest.” Pearl May Mobley’s suspicious gaze turned venomous, spiking my discomfort and fear of what the conjure woman standing in front of me might do next if Sugar didn’t clarify that statement quickly. “Now hold on, Mama. It wasn’t intentional.”
“I know, I know, boy. I can see!” She turned back to me and lifted her hands to cover my eyes. “That Legvu is a trickster. You got herself a real gift, but the spirit got more. You got to learn to see him, else he’ll come right up on you and put the bone to you.” She removed her hands and pinned me with her eyes on the word bone.
“I figured maybe you could throw a little protection on her, Mama. At least till Fin and them society folks can figure out how to capture that thing. I already put a little angelica root around her house, but that ain’t gonna last very long.”
May was barely listening to Sugar. She just kept peering into my soul via my eyes. “Juju ain’t got no power against them bones. You got to get them bones before they get you. You understand what I’m telling you, girl? Ain’t no amount of angelica root or salt gonna keep it away.”
Lillian Whitman had told me a story about bones. Legvu had in his possession a bag of bones. I gathered that the bones Pearl May Mobley was referring to were one and the same, the ones buried at a crossroads, which could be anywhere.
“It was nice to meet you, May. I’ll remember what you told me.” I looked at Sugar. “It’s getting late. We should go.”
We left May’s house, careful to avoid the trick step. The sky was turning to dusk and Jet was probably standing over an empty bowl on the kitchen floor, waiting for his dinner. “I need to get home and feed Jet,” I said, heading for the car.
“Being here in Mama’s neck of the woods reminds me of something,” Sugar said. “You better keep that cat inside. A black cat in hoodoo country ain’t safe.”
“I know. Already been warned.” Jet found me right after we moved to Savannah. One morning he was just sitting on my patio, staring into the kitchen like he was waiting for me to let him in from his nightly carousing. When I opened the patio door, he waltzed in with his tail pointing to the ceiling. I knew all about the cruel practice of collecting black cat bones, a warning already given by a technician at the vet’s office. Most people I talked to said the practice was dead, but I preferred to play it safe and keep Jet inside, and he’d been more than happy to comply.
We climbed into the Eldorado and headed back to the shop. “Ray?” I asked. “Is that the name on your birth certificate?”
“Raymond. Mama ain’t never gonna accept who I am. I’m still Ray when I walk through that door.”
I’d noticed the way May seemed to look right past the makeup and clothes, at the son she gave birth to. For a second I thought she was going to tear the wig right off Sugar’s head. Ma
ybe it was all a show of rebellion, a subtle demonstration of her refusal to acknowledge something she considered a choice. Then again, maybe she just lived in a bubble of denial when it came to her own offspring.
“Promise me something, Sugar.” She glanced at me and then steered her eyes back to the road. “Take care of Jet if anything happens to me. Marvin doesn’t get along with cats, and Mouse can barely take care of herself.”
Sugar hit the brakes in the middle of the empty road and shifted the car into park. “What the hell kind of nonsense you talking about?”
“You’re going to get us killed, Sugar.” The road was clear for the moment, but it would only take an instant for a car to come barreling over the top of the hill and hit us in the middle of the dark road.
“Well, if you’re already planning your funeral, what difference does it make?” She emptied the air from her lungs and reached over me to the glove compartment for a pack of cigarettes. She lit one and dangled it out the window in her left hand. “The Katie Bishop I know is a fighter. Who the hell are you?”
“I thought you quit.”
“Oh, I did, but this is medicinal tobacco. You making me ill, woman.” She took another drag and flicked the lit cigarette into the road. “We need us a strategy to catch that thing, and I think it’s about time you showed me that creature of yours.” She shifted the car back into drive and set off down the road, just as a pair of approaching headlights glowed in the rearview mirror.
She was right on both counts. It wasn’t a question of if the spirit would come for me, but when. The other half of that demon was still trapped inside the grimoire, but if the first one got out, the second one would probably escape the same way. And since I seemed to be the only one who could aid and abet in manifesting them into the corporeal, it was just a matter of time before the second one paid me a visit. Right now, my biggest fear was that I’d have another one of those dreams, followed by a call from Fin warning me that the other one had escaped.
“Okay,” I said matter-of-factly. “I’ll show it to you.” Next to Sea Bass, she was my closest friend in Savannah, so it was only a matter of time before the dragon came out in front of her anyway. It’s funny how people always think they can handle seeing things that aren’t normal. But the dragon on my back wasn’t some unsightly birthmark or a missing toe. Might as well prepare her for it before we found ourselves in a dangerous situation and she got to meet it in person.
We drove into town and passed by MacPherson’s Pub on the way to the shop, making me itch to pick up the phone and call Christopher for another little diversion. We’d been hooking up more than usual lately, which fueled his ideas about that relationship that would never happen. He’d eventually find himself a nice trophy wife that fit the mold of an assistant DA’s spouse, so when he finally pulled the trigger on that political career he was always harping about he wouldn’t have to explain all her tattoos, or the scant skirts paired with the occasional combat boots. If that didn’t kill his public image, the dragon certainly would.
“Hmph,” Sugar said. “Looks like them biker boys is making themselves right at home.”
As we came around the block in front of the bar, I saw what she was referring to. Jackson Hunter and four other men came out of MacPherson’s and headed for the row of Harleys parked out front. Under the weight of that arm I’d just tattooed no more than three hours earlier was a redhead wearing a skimpy tank top and a pair of ultra-tight jeans rolled up above a pair of stiletto boots.
“Slow down,” I said. She eyed me contemptuously. “Don’t you look at me like that, Sugar.”
“Like what? Like you done lost your ever-lovin’ mind? Men like them ain’t nothing but trouble, girl. Nothing but trouble.”
“Look at that fake redhead,” I said. “Wearing that trashy tank top.”
I heard a snort come from the driver’s seat. “Yeah, kinda like the one you got on.” She slowed down like I asked—maybe a little too slow—but before I could get a good look at his face, she hit the pedal and left MacPherson’s Pub in the dust.
I filled Jet’s bowl with dry food and put a plate of canned food next to it. “You’re hungry, aren’t you, baby? Bad mommy for coming home so late.”
Sugar decided to do a sweep of the house before we got down to the business of the dragon. “Place is clean,” she announced. “No spirits stuffed in the closet.”
“You really think you’d see it if it was?”
She dropped down on the couch and crossed her long legs. Then she draped her arms across the back and waited for the show to begin. Without further ado, I stripped off my self-described trashy tank top and stood there in my bra, feeling completely at ease standing half-naked in front of a man who identified as a woman. “Ready?” I asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” She twirled her finger, gesturing for me to turn around. I turned to show her my back, where my dragon was sound asleep. “Well now, I have to admit, baby, that is a fine tattoo. Must have put you back about twenty hours of pain.”
Like most people, she’d only seen the parts that peeked out around my clothes. I sighed and dropped down on the couch next to her. “See, that’s just it. It didn’t take twenty hours to complete. It didn’t even take one.”
She turned and looked at me like I was off my rocker. “What the hell?”
“It’s like a birthmark. I was born with it.”
She laughed in a short burst and shoved me playfully but firmly against my arm. “Stop messing with me—” Her cocky smile flattened as a low growl came out of my mouth and my eyes flashed a brilliant green. The shove didn’t hurt, but the creature on my back didn’t take kindly to anyone pushing me around, playful or not.
She bolted off the couch and gawked at me, her face sober from what she apparently wasn’t prepared to see. I took advantage of the brief appearance and turned around to let her see the lines move before the dragon settled back down. I could feel it undulating under my skin, restless and waiting to emerge at the next sign of trouble.
She blinked a couple of times to shake off what she was seeing. But of course, she couldn’t make it go away. “Now that there is some fucked-up shit,” she said as I put my shirt back on and turned back around.
12
I was pretty useless the next day. Images of bones flying in and out of my head, Pearl May Mobley’s frantic eyes staring back at mine, the look on Sugar’s face when I came out to her the night before. Jackson Hunter walking out of MacPherson’s with a woman under his arm was the real distraction, though. It was bad enough that he and his meandering flock of bad boys were invading my shop, but now he was making himself comfortable at my bar, too? There were hundreds of bars in Savannah and he had to pick my bar?
Christopher had been more than happy to rearrange his plans for the evening in order to satisfy my desire to play, and if Jackson was there to witness it, all the better. Maybe that would end this unwanted obsession I had with a man who irritated the hell out of me.
In a skimpy little skirt and my signature tank top—you know, the trashy kind—I got out of my car and headed around the building. I’d driven up to MacPherson’s from behind and parked in the rear lot. It was around ten p.m., and I’d intentionally gotten there a little earlier than Christopher planned to arrive so I could loosen up at the bar and have a little chat with Fiona.
I rounded the side of the building and halted the second I saw the row of Harleys parked near the front door.
“Okay. I can handle this,” I told myself before marching up to the battered green door with the word BEWARE in small letters on the front. It was a joke that someone had painted on the door years ago, Fiona had told me, that became a permanent part of the bar’s charm.
I reached for the handle to open it, but before I could take a step inside an empty beer bottle came flying straight at me. I instinctively ducked and watched it somersault through the air and shatter as it hit one of the bikes parked directly in front of the door. That was about the same time the noise from
the brawl taking place inside hit my ears.
“Get the fuck out of the way!” someone yelled.
I flipped my back against the outside wall next to the door as three guys rolled out of the pub, fists flying as the smell of sweat, liquor, and blood all seemed to hit my nose at once. I was close enough to reach my hand out and touch them. The smart thing would have been to head back to my car, but instead I slipped right past the fight and into the pub. It was worse inside.
“Get out of here, Katie!” It was Fiona warning me to get back outside, but I froze when I caught Jackson Hunter in my peripheral vision about six feet away. He was in mid-punch when he spotted me. The guy at the other end of that punch took full advantage of the distraction. Jackson’s face jolted from the sharp blow to his right cheekbone, a spray of blood releasing from his mouth and peppering the wall behind me.
It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me because it had been. My head hit the wall as two guys barreled into me on their way to killing each other. I shook off the throbbing pain at the back of my skull and scurried toward the entrance, sliding along the wall to clear the brawl that was still taking place outside the door. By the time I made it around the corner of the building, I was paralyzed with the overpowering sensation that I was no longer in charge of my own legs.
I swiped my hand over something wet on my forehead and looked at the bright red blood on the tips of my fingers—his blood.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Jackson Hunter came around the corner of the building and looked down at me with those perpetually angry eyes of his.
“What am I doing here?” I repeated, incredulous to the question. “This is my bar.”
“Jesus,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve got enough shit to deal with. Now I have to keep you from getting your head smashed in by a bunch of jacked-up dicks in there.”
My eyes were already starting to burn, and my skin was literally crawling from the beast trying to get out. His self-righteous expression began to fade, and I noticed a slight cock of his head as he watched what must have been a fascinating but terrifying transformation taking place in front of him.
Crossroads of Bones (A Katie Bishop Novel Book 1) Page 11
