She smiled again, although there wasn’t a bit of friendliness to it. “The tonton macoutes have killed four times in my home, and the bloodshed has been glorious each time.”
Four times.
Mom and Dad, Gran, Alan.
Four deaths all tied to me.
I stared at her, and a nudge of intuition prodded at me. “You killed people you enslaved, didn’t you?”
The door burst open behind me and I turned to see Penny step in, her eyes flashing. “Bree, Alan said you might be in trouble.”
I looked past her to the sidewalk where Alan stood, his back to the house. “That was quick.”
“I Ubered.” She smiled at me.
Alan had come back at least. I’d give him that. “Yeah, I wasn’t sure. Not as bad as the demon last week, but not good either.”
The ghost gave a low hiss. “You will fear me!”
I rolled my eyes. “You might have been dangerous in life, but not now.” I snapped my fingers and pulled her to her feet. Her eyes widened further and her fingers wrapped tighter around the handle of the bullwhip.
Penny’s eyes had locked on the ghost sitting on the floor. “That bitch killed and tortured a lot of people.”
So I’d guessed correctly. Feeling another nudge of intuition, I stalked forward and plucked the whip out of her fingers. “Without this, I’m guessing the others here can’t be hurt by you?”
The ghost screeched at me, her face contorting like putty, melting and reforming over her bones until her appearance was as ugly as her soul.
From all around us, other ghosts crept forward. The woman with the whip had been given power over them for no reason other than their dusky skin, but they were no longer powerless against her. I had her damn whip.
And they knew it.
The former enslaved converged on their tormentor, and the mass of bodies went down in a tidal wave of screeching and limbs, sliding through the floor and disappearing in a matter of seconds.
Silence seemed to echo through the big house.
Penny looked at me. “How did you take her whip? When the house burned down, they never found it.”
I looked down at my hand. The whip was no longer there, but I held in my palm the tiniest fraction of a piece of leather. “I don’t know. I just took it.” I tucked the leather into my pocket.
Penny tapped my arm. “I hate this place.”
“This is where they all died,” I said softly, “Gran, my parents, and Alan. By something called a tonton macoutes.”
Penny sucked in a sharp breath. “That is . . . that is very bad, Bree.”
I stared hard at her. “How bad. What is it?”
“They. It is an army of the undead, Bree, raised to control people. They’re not supposed to exist anymore. I thought . . . I thought our coven had put them to rest years ago. They kill with their bare hands and tear out throats with sharp, claw-tipped fingers.” Her arms shook as she clutched at her cane with both hands.
An army of the undead. I could only imagine the terror of my parents, of Gran, and even of Alan, when they saw what was coming for them.
I looked around the house, trying not to dwell on the thought of the tonton macoutes.
“Okay, an undead army is damn ducking bad. But what if the thing we’re looking for is here in this house? What if that’s why Gran and my parents came here? Because this was where the thing—the ingredient—is?”
Penny closed her eyes and nodded, giving the floorboards a single tap of her cane.
Which was how we ended up searching the house room by room despite the fact that the place made our skin crawl. As we searched, Penny filled me in on the whole undead army angle.
“The tonton macoutes aren’t really dead, and they aren’t really alive. They don’t feel pain, but they can be killed.”
“Head shots?”
She gave me a look. “This is not fantasy, Bree. A wound that could kill you or I would kill them. Head. Heart. Removal of limbs. They don’t feel the pain though, so if the blow is not an immediate death they will keep coming until they bleed out.”
I grimaced as I flipped open a closet. A small ghost huddled inside. I held out my hand. “That terrible woman is gone. You are free now.”
Dark eyes looked up at me, and then she smiled and streaked past me, a rush of cold air that was there and gone in a flash.
An hour ticked by, and then another. The sun was fully up now, and if I hadn’t been exhausted before, I surely was now.
Sitting on the third stair from the bottom on the main floor, I gripped the wooden banister and pulled myself upright. “Penny, I don’t think it’s here.” Okay, so I was a little afraid to say out loud that we were looking for angel wings, because let’s be honest, who was listening? A bunch of ghosts for sure. Maybe others.
Penny joined me. “Let’s go then. This place . . . it is terrible to be where those you loved were killed. Their last moments might have been spent here, but this is not where you should remember them.”
She was right. I didn’t want to be there, and while part of me wondered where it had happened, the rest of me didn’t even want to guess.
Swallowing back tears, I let Penny tuck her arm into mine and lead me out of the house. We headed down the sidewalk, making our way toward the coven’s safe house. Alan fell in beside us, to my right, and I made myself speak to him.
“Thanks, Alan.”
He startled. “For what?”
“For getting Penny and Kinkly,” I said. “I wasn’t in as much trouble as I thought, but you went and got them.”
He cleared his throat. “Sure thing.”
Penny was quiet.
A few minutes later, the sound of Kinkly’s wings snapped my eyes upward. She heaved a heavy sigh as she dropped onto the top of my head. “You okay?”
“Scarlet’s such a bitch,” she growled and punched the top of my head.
“Ouch!”
“Sorry, sorry,” she muttered. “She’s going on and on about how we shouldn’t be here, saying that she should get the wings! I pointed out she already has stupid wings. What a dumb runt.”
I’m going to pretend that she said runt. I can’t even say the other one in my head without cringing.
I paused and looked at Penny, who shook her head. Yeah, we needed to talk about this when we got back to the safe house.
Because the real question burning through me was what in the world was a fairy doing looking for the wings of a fallen angel?
13
Back at the safe house, I took note that no one else was awake. Corb, Sarge, and Feish were still in their rooms.
“Thank you, Kink,” I said to the now incredibly grumpy fairy. I made a small hot chocolate with extra sugar and pushed it toward her. “Drink up, you deserve it.”
“Oh, you are my favorite,” she breathed out, and then all but inhaled the entire mug. Impressive since it stood half as tall as her. She stumbled to one knee and I held out my hand.
“Maybe you should sleep it off?”
“Shgood ideash.” She mumbled and slumped in my hand. I took her up to the bedroom I’d claimed and laid her on the pillow. Obviously, I’d planned it like that. Not that I didn’t want her to know what we were talking about, but I was taking Penny’s words to heart. Maybe . . .just maybe my friends might be pulled in other directions. And given that another fairy was looking for the wings of the fallen angel . . .
Down on the main floor, I found Penny waiting for me, a large leather bound book in her lap. “What was a fairy doing looking for the wings of a fallen angel?” she mumbled to herself as she slowly flipped through it.
My question exactly.
“You said some spells have a lot of the same ingredients, right?”
She nodded. “But the two we know of, the blood of a bigfoot and wings of a fallen angel, help narrow it down. Still, I don’t think the one Celia knew about was written down in any of these.” She tapped the book in her lap. “I’d bet she spread out what she knew in sever
al places, only places that made sense to her. To keep it as safe as possible.”
That made sense. “And they’d be numbered.” I thought of the 3 etched onto that one slip of paper. Third stanza maybe? I shook my head and focused on the moment again.
“You think the fairy queen might want the same spell as . . . whoever took Gran?” My brain hurt from trying to put those pieces together.
“No, no I don’t,” she said. “Karissa is not evil, but she is controlling. It’s why she doesn’t like cats.” I snorted and Penny went on. “I’m not sure what Karissa’s trying to do, but from what I’ve seen, the options range from a healing spell, to a spell of protection, to a spell to give a fairy back their wings.”
That last one seemed to make the most sense. Scarlet’s words about Crash rang in my head, reverberating. “Any sort of controlling spells attached to angel wings?”
Penny shook her head, but she took my question differently than intended. “Nothing like the tonton macoutes.”
I was quiet as I mulled over what we’d learned. Where Gran, my parents, and Alan had been killed. What they’d been killed by. I rubbed my face. “I guess it doesn’t really matter why the fae are looking for the wings, unless they are working for the person who has the tonton macoutes?”
“That is unlikely,” Penny said. “The tonton macoutes will be controlled by a very dark person. I doubt such a person would even think to reach out to Karissa.”
That was good, I guess.
She looked me over. “You haven’t slept. You should try to get at least some rest.”
Penny was not wrong. I was exhausted. But I didn’t want to go up to my bedroom. It wasn’t really mine and I couldn’t bear to look at Gran’s stuff right then. “I’m good here.” I stretched out on the couch and pulled a loose throw over me. Good enough. My eyes closed, and I heard her leave, listening to her steps as she slowly made her way up the stairs.
I lay there a long time, thinking I would just drift off. I felt Alan drift away, felt him go upstairs. Weird. I didn’t like that I was even more tied to him.
I might have dozed, but I found myself jerking awake every few minutes, the sting in my shoulder irritating me. That leather whip score was nasty.
Sleep was avoiding me, so I thought I might as well do something productive. I got up, retrieved my hip bag from the room upstairs, putting the files on the three murders away, then returned to the sofa to study Gran’s big spell book as well as the smaller book of curses.
The book of curses flipped itself open again, showing the same page as before. I looked through some of the spells, trying to find ones that used the blood of a bigfoot and/or the wings of a fallen angel, but I didn’t see anything else of use.
Gran’s book didn’t help me in that department either. Groaning, I put my head on the book and closed my eyes.
A memory whipped through me.
Gran sat across from me and tapped her finger against a small stone cup. “Spells fade, Breena. It’s why my garden must be tended to regularly. It’s why we must renew our strength on the nights when the moon is at its zenith.” She tapped the cup again and a curl of smoke swirled upward.
“I’m not good at this,” I said. Twelve, I was twelve years old and no good at typical witch things.
“You are good at what you need to be good at. Now, remember this, all spells fade, but the ones designed for protection fade the fastest. Especially if the caster of the spell is no longer alive.”
I opened my eyes. “Holy shit, Gran. You spelled the angel wings to be hidden, but the spell is fading, isn’t it?”
I looked at the clock. One in the afternoon.
The tapping of a cane on the floorboards lifted my head and turned me around. Penny stood in the doorway to the sitting room. She’d changed into a long flowing house dress with a pattern of skulls and crossbones and some drooping white lilies that had no doubt been thrown in to soften the look.
I gave her what I knew was a tired smile. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“Strange thing about getting older. Some days I could stay in bed for a week, and others I can’t sleep for all the money in the world,” she said. “Would you like to talk? I could feel your energy all the way across the house. Sad. Jittery. Shocked.”
I sighed. “Sure.” I pulled the chair across from me a little closer. Penny made her way to it and carefully lowered onto the cushion, her joints creaking until she was settled.
She waited for me.
“I think that Gran put a spell on the angel wings, a protection spell. And with her gone, it’s fading. That’s why this is all happening now. Is there like a deadline on spells?”
Penny gave a slow nod. “Yes, but I would have thought . . .well, I wouldn’t have thought it would last so long. Then again, I think Celia concealed her true strength from us.”
“That’s why it’s happening now,” I said again, “Why the fae and whoever has the undead army are pushing hard to find them, because now they can be found.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
The way she said it . . . “Wait, you knew?” I spluttered.
She shrugged. “Celia wanted you to find your way, to make mistakes and learn from them. I told her if you came to me, I wouldn’t lead you by the nose. Besides, it’s fun to watch you figure it out, to see all the knowledge she gave you,” She tapped my head with her cane, “Come flowing out of you. Amazing really that the spells she laid on you were with you for so long, and are only now dissolving.”
Spells on me? I knew about the glamor that seemed to be fading, but did this mean there were others?
Nope, nope, I would come back to that at a later date. “It’s making this harder, you know. Guessing. Finding trouble.”
She smiled, then let out a low laugh. “Trouble, trouble, and more trouble. That’s how it goes for some of us, Bree. You got away with none of it for years, blocked off from your abilities and from seeing the shadow world. I think you’ve got about twenty years stored up, and it’s crashing down all at once.”
I stared at her. “Seriously? This is like stored karma?”
“Not quite karma.” She shook her head. “But the shadow world always has shit going on, just at different levels, and sometimes it waits for a person like you to come along to sort it all out. It’s about balance, and your balance has been out of whack for a long time.”
“Charming.” I stood and stretched, the need to move sweeping over me. “You think it’s safe to go for a walk? Or would that be asking for more trouble?”
Penny stood slowly. “Not safe for you even in full daylight, but let’s see where your feet take us. Maybe we’ll learn something new. Something helpful.”
I sighed. “You don’t have any friends here we could talk to? Someone who could point us in the right direction?”
A sad smile flitted across her face. “The old coven, the one your gran and I were a part of, has been mostly wiped out. The new coven that is spread out across the southern states is not inclined to discuss anything with me.”
I frowned. “They don’t come to you for advice or teaching?”
She shook her head. “The young ones think they know it all. That’s partly what makes Missy so damn mad all the time. She hates that she’s been written off as if she were nothing, when she is a whomping strong witch, almost as strong as your gran. Maybe put on your working gear this time, rather than jeans and a shirt that can be cut through like wet tissue paper.” She touched my shoulder where the ghost whip had cut through my shirt. I winced and nodded.
I hurried back to my room and pulled on my still dirty clothes, the smell of sweat and blood and fear lingering in the fibers. Kinkly was still asleep on my pillow, but Alan glanced at me from his perch on the bed. “What are you doing?”
“Going for a walk.”
He frowned. “I want to come.”
For some reason I shook my head. “Not now. I want to talk to Penny on my own.”
“I won’t stay here,” he snapped. “You could nee
d me again.”
I looked him over, not sure that was why he wanted to be with me, and decided against him coming.
I stuffed my feet back into my boots. “Penny and I are going to be discussing menopause, and the way my flow has changed now that I’m older. You really want to take part in that?”
He sat down on the bed, avoiding eye contact. “I’ve changed my mind.”
“That’s what I thought.” I left the room, knowing he wouldn’t follow now. If anything made him squeamish, it was the thought of a woman’s cycle and everything that went along with it.
Because despite the fact that he had gone for help . . . he was Alan. And I really, really didn’t want him around me. Of all my companions here in New Orleans, he was the one I trusted the least.
Back downstairs, I found Penny waiting at the front door. She ushered me out first and then followed a half step behind me, letting my feet lead us.
“You went to NOLA before with your gran, years ago, after you passed by my place in Montgomery. I haven’t been here for a long time,” Penny commented as we walked down the driveway and onto the street, the feeling of magic sliding over my skin as we crossed the line between her home and the city proper. I found myself looking over my shoulder toward the empty spot that had been occupied by a robed figure the night before.
“I don’t remember much of it, to be honest,” I said. “Tell me more about this new coven that won’t talk to you.”
She held out a hand, and I let her lean on my forearm as we walked. “It’s a little more complicated than that. There’ve always been two southern covens, you see.” Penny kept her pace, staying slightly behind me even though she held my arm. I found myself taking the streets as if I knew where I was going. There was a flow of something underneath us, like an unseen river that streamed around my ankles and pulled me forward. It reminded me of the fae magic I’d felt before, so I let it coax and guide my tired feet.
“There is a Coven of Silver witches,” Penny continued, “and a Coven of Darkness. We balance each other, and within each coven there are gradients of good and bad. Missy’s in the silver coven, for example, but she definitely leans into the shades of gray.” She winked at me, and I snorted.
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