Jovienne

by Linda Robertson

  Knowing if she was on the path to fighting back outweighed any fear she might have felt.

  She considered returning to the warehouse, but neutral ground seemed a better choice. She headed for the junkyard where she’d met Damnzel. Using the ghost hands to check inside the vehicles, she realized they’d all been drained of flammable fluids. So, she stole motor oil from the work shed and picked a dark, isolated spot between rows of cars.

  Gramma taught her to invoke the elements and seal the circle so outside forces could not impact her inside the circle. To that end, she felt for polarities and located true north and faced it. “This is my moment in time, woven into the fabric of the universe.” The fluttering energy of the cosmos resonated through her every nerve, stroking her to a greater awareness and spurring her spirit to vibrate like an engine.

  “Here, the elements move to my command, astral energies listen to my words, and I…I dance to their sweet music.” She thought of her mother as she poured a large circle to contain the magic.

  The phrases that Gramma learned from her grandmother long ago in Polynesia, phrases Gramma taught to Jovienne, floated through her memory like ghosts, indistinct at first, and then reared up with absolute clarity.

  Once she said the words, she would be bound to this working, for good or for ill. She studied the invocation, formed each syllable, and carved each inflection so there would be no mistakes.

  “Ikiiki hahana, pekana hana mana a’po…ahi. Ahi!”

  Lured by the rising energy, ghosts appeared in their typical ethereal forms and huddled to form a circle, hoping to gain scraps of energy.

  “I summon Fire. Hear me.”

  She poured a second circle consisting of a wobbly line approximately fifteen inches across. Crouched before it, she repeated the chant three times to focus her will. At the end of her third chant, her fingers touched her lips and she blew a kiss into the small circle. Flames burst from the oil.

  She cut a wisp of her hair with the dagger from her thigh sheath and flung the strands into the smaller circle as she began a new chant, demanding to open the gates of Hell. “Kehena puka hamama!” After nine reiterations, she laid the dagger to the side and spat into the circle.

  Renewing the chant, her fingers tapped a complementary rhythm on her thighs. Immediately, the deep drumming resonated in her ears and percussive impacts pecked at her skin.

  The next step would reveal if what she’d discovered meant failure or a way to fight back.

  San Antonio, Texas

  ARAXIEL WAS HUNGRY again.

  Though he’d fed the day before yesterday and had hoped to make it until an evening service tomorrow, the traveling and anxiety burned through the eis he’d consumed. Using his smartphone, he located the nearest parish, Our Lady of something or another. Leaving the highway, he called and requested to meet with the priest about a matter of some urgency. There was hesitation until he promised cash.

  The confinement in the car left him stiff and sore, which became more pronounced as he climbed from the car. This body, aged more than fifty mortal years, was not as pliable and resilient as when he’d originally claimed it.

  He found the church door unlocked and the confessional located near the entrance.

  Inside the little box, he sat for a long moment before the window between them opened. “How long since your last confession?”

  “A long, long time, father. Pray for me.”

  “What do you have to confess, my son?”

  “Nothing.” Araxiel slid three hundred dollar bills underneath the screen that separated them. “Just pray for me, father. Right fuckin’ now. Take your time and make it good.”

  San Francisco, California

  JOVIENNE WOULD ONLY consider this a success if she could control the quintanumin.

  The next step involved great risk. A payment was demanded. The cinder had removed its own heart and wrung it like a rag to gain the black blood for its spell.

  She would have to replicate this offering. An animal could have been sacrificed, but Jovienne wanted to avoid death energy since opening a gate to Hell already had inherent links to dark energy.

  Lucky for her, it just so happened that since ‘no blessed weapon could kill her’ she was uniquely qualified to provide the necessary blood, as the cinder had.

  That didn’t mean it would be easy.

  She removed the gloved gauntlets, and then picked up the dagger again. She pressed the flat of the blade against her cheek to warm it. Pushing her jacket away from her left shoulder, the leather puckered over the base of her wing. Next, Jovienne felt the mound of her breast and located the right spot over her heart and between ribs. She placed the dagger tip there.

  Training taught Jovienne to bite into her pain, to taste the ache and swallow it down, feeding agony to her purpose.

  Squeezing the hilt in her left hand, her right fist began tapping against it with enough force to push the sharp point into her skin a fraction at a time. She kept a beat that was off-time to her chant and therefore between her words.

  At first, it was a stinging discomfort, but as the point slid deeper and blood trickled down her chest, pain jolted through her like electricity. Every self-preserving instinct demanded that she stop. That metallic cinnamon fragrance surrounded her, but this was not yet the blood she wanted. This ritual required hot blood directly from a beating heart.

  What if I die?

  This would all be over.

  But she’d experienced the wound from a blessed blade healing immediately. This will work.

  Jovienne blew out her breath. Her voice strained to finish the chant.

  With both hands, she tugged the dagger into her heart.

  She jerked as if struck, head snapping back. Coldness seized her. The dagger expelled itself from her skin and thumped onto the ground, but she managed to cup her left hand around the incision and catch a palm-full of warm blood directly from her heart.

  The dark, red-purple fluid resonated in her hand like nothing she’d ever felt. There was another note in the aroma of this blood, something earthy. She tipped her hand to allow a single drop to fall from her left into her right hand. The energy of her own life thudded into that palm like mighty timbers falling. As that drop also began to resonate, she choked, eyes widening. She tried to gasp for air but she couldn’t breathe. Her body rocked, at once feeling the spectacular glory of life as well as intense pain as those cells began to die.

  She flung the liquid into the small circular fire and, calling on the quintanumin flowing light energy, used it to deliver every trace of blood. Then, she grabbed the half-gloved gauntlets and put them on again.

  A tremor thrummed through the ground.

  Words tumbled into Jovienne’s head and spilled from her lips, a chant rising from singsong to war cry. Wind howled through the aisles of the junkyard.

  Lightning flickered repeatedly across the sky. Thunder growled a menacing sound without end.

  The wound itched. It was healing, disappearing as if it never existed at all.

  Concentrating on the blade lying before her, on that stem of shining redness in the light of the flames, she detected the geist plucking power from those slick drops, their invisible tongues tasting this excess and disbursing it into the air until her nostrils filled with a metallic tang.

  Pushing her weaver-energy at the small circle, she sang the Hawaiian chant. A smoldering heat kindled in her temples, setting a wildfire that redoubled in her brain. The hotter it burned, the louder she chanted to mask the strange inner inferno.

  This Call That Followed was more volatile than she’d ever known it because her body was at the epicenter of that summoning.

  The storm seethed around her, but it did not reach her. She didn’t care. The rite, glorious and horrible, was working.

  Beneath her, the ground shook and a tremulous roar echoed through the earth. The ground in that smaller circle crumbled like powder and fell away. A beam of yellow light shone up through the circle. The odor of sulfur wafted
from the hole in a blast of heat.

  The geist edged closer.

  Jovienne squared her shoulders. “Come forth, demon!”

  The yellow light of the hole flickered; something was crawling up from Hell, coming to accept her dark challenge.

  Every nerve tingled a warning she could not ignore. But the reward of grace was also triggered because a demon was coming and she stood ready to face it. Jovienne felt so energized, so vital, so alive.

  She grinned; she forced this complacency.

  Slavery was about to end.

  ELEVEN

  Chicago, Illinois

  NATHAN MARSHALL WAS vacuuming the waiting area of a dental office when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He switched off the sweeper and flipped the phone open. The screen flashed: “Restricted.” His shoulders slumped, but he answered anyway. “Hello?”

  “Nathan! Nathan…Nathan. It’s Patrick.”

  Nathan stifled a groan. He’d told his agent, Patrick Holder, that he didn’t want to do personal appearances anymore. He’d hoped his request would be honored, but he expected this call just the same. It was too close to Easter for ‘Slick Rick’ to resist setting him up. He pulled the cell phone away from his ear, ready to close it, and hang up.

  But money was literally on the line.

  “Nathan, you there, buddy?”

  “Yeah. I’m at work. Look. I don’t want—”

  “It’s a church in San Fran, buddy. They’re about to go belly up, close the doors, and stop spreading the good word. They need a touch. They need a miracle. They need you!”

  “Mr. Holder,” Nathan sank into the nearest chair. “You know how I feel. And why. I’ve got a real job. It seems to be working out. I can’t take any time off.”

  “Son, you are meant to help people. You’ve got to let me help you do that. That broom you push is beneath you!”

  Nathan shook his head. It always bothered him that Slick Rick spun a conversation so that arranging ‘work’ for him was a favor. It wasn’t like Mr. Holder ever forgot to take his cut. In truth, Nathan wasn’t ungrateful, he just didn’t want these favors. “I’m no better than anyone else, Mr. Holder.”

  “No better? Your humility is endearing, kid, but you are different. You can’t deny it. You’re special. You have a purpose. This is what you’re meant to do, not that dirty work. Think of how your talent could infuse this community in San Fran. You’ve seen it happen before. Think big! Besides, the Pope isn’t going to canonize someone who hates being a stigmatic.”

  Canonization wasn’t Nathan’s goal, despite Slick Rick’s argument that it would send his net worth soaring. He didn’t want to be rich. He wanted to live a normal life in a small town and never bleed again.

  Nathan crooked his neck to hold the phone with his shoulder while Mr. Holder jabbered on about the details. A sandy strand of wavy hair fell into Nathan’s face. He brushed it away and studied his palms. They looked so normal, but at any second they could split open and bleed.

  “Nathan, I know you don’t want to do this, but this one is personal.” Mr. Holder’s rabid-spokesman tones faded. For the first time in his life, Nathan thought the man was talking to him, not selling him on an idea. “I was raised in San Francisco. Father Everly performed my Baptism, my First Communion and my Confirmation and…he begged me,” Patrick added, softer. “He said he kept old news clippings of you. He was on the verge of tears. I…I couldn’t say no.”

  “You already agreed?” Nathan came to his feet. “You didn’t even ask me! You knew I didn’t—” Nathan stopped and forced himself to sit back down. He wanted to hate Mr. Holder, but that would have been wrong, hating anyone. Even someone as good at inspiring it as Mr. Holder.

  “Look, kid. It’s a week-long tour of San Francisco.” The salesman vibe returned. “New places, new faces. Spreading the good word.”

  “But Mr. Holder—”

  “What you do restores people’s faith. How can you refuse them that? Your embarrassment is selfish.”

  What Nathan did invited attention, but he’d didn’t want the spotlight. As an orphan under the care and guidance of nuns since birth, when the stigmata developed, they praised and exploited it. For a small admission fee, strangers could visit him. For a moderate fee, they could hold his small hands.

  Most wanted him to pray for them. Because they could charge premium, the nuns made him memorize certain prayers. They scolded him if he showed any resistance to the old and sickly with cash in hand.

  No one ever asked him what he wanted. No one protected him from the crowds and flashbulbs. They shoved the newspaper articles about him in his face and expected him to be pleased.

  The nuns planned for him to become a priest and arranged for immediate entry into seminary after high school, but when he turned eighteen, he walked out of the orphanage and never returned. He did not complete high school.

  Unprepared for the world outside the church orphanage, he’d ended up in a community shelter. One of the directors there called Mr. Holder invited him to come hear a trio who showed promise. Nathan stole the show when he bled.

  Rumors earned him gigs at local churches, then some farther away. They paid for his appearances, enough that Nathan could get a small studio apartment on his own. He’d gotten jobs, but never kept them long after it was discovered that he sprouted open wounds for no reason.

  The bleeding occurred without warning. He could go months without incident. Or he’d bleed once, or a handful of times, in a single week.

  Evening and nighttime janitorial work, where no one was around and he could just clean up after himself when it happened, was perfect as long as he minimized his time on the carpeting.

  He’d been on Mr. Scrubber’s cleaning crew now for five months. It was honest work. Staying financially afloat as an undereducated young man in Chicago proved difficult in the best of times. It didn’t seem much easier for a talent agent. Though the trio topped the rhythm and blues charts, they’d left Mr. Holder behind early on.

  “I sprung for the tickets, Nathan. No need to repay me. They’re already printed for you.”

  That was an unexpected bit of altruism from Mr. Holder.

  “After work tonight, go home and sleep. When you get up, do whatever you need to do to make arrangements job-wise, then pack your things and come by. Your flight leaves tomorrow night, well, early Thursday to be exact. I figured you’d want a red-eye flight since that’s the hours you’re used to keeping.”

  “Tomorrow night?”

  “Yes. And I told Father Everly that you would catch a cab to his home, that he needn’t fetch you from the airport at such an early hour. I have cash for you as well.”

  “Cash? They’ve paid in advance?”

  “No. I told you this one is personal to me. Father Everly will pay you the rest once you’re there, and he’s doing so from his personal funds. The church isn’t able to pay at all. This one’s all about the good work, son. Truly it is.”

  Nathan was stunned. The spirit never moved Slick Rick to pre-pay anything travel related out of his own pocket, let alone doing so without expecting repayment. Not even when the economy was better.

  He wondered if Father Everly absolved Slick Rick for something. “All right, Mr. Holder. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  San Francisco, California

  THE CRINGE!

  Andrei nearly fell from his barstool. He stood up stiffly. Though he’d finished a pair of McGhee’s double-shots of Boru, he was far from drunk.

  He fought against the sensation. He couldn’t do this here. In front of these people and McGhee—

  This feeling flowing over him was not like any other time. His skin didn’t threaten to crawl away. This prickled like gooseflesh. This chilled him. It was a caress and it was… arousing.

  He checked the clock. The cringe, or whatever this was, shouldn’t be. Sundown occurred more than two hours ago.

  Something’s happening to her.

  His glance slid across the sparse crowd, and then sett
led on the door.

  “You all right, laddie?”

  “I have to go.” Andrei dug into his pocket for cash.

  Lightning flashed outside. The lights flickered and failed as thunder boomed through the streets.

  “Holy shit,” a patron said.

  Andrei heard McGee rambling behind the counter. Probably groping for a flashlight.

  Someone said, “This shit isn’t possible.”

  “What do you mean?” another patron asked, flicking his lighter to add meager light to the room.

  “You need hot and humid air for thunder and lightning,” the first patron replied, scrolling through his cell phone for its flashlight feature.

  “What are you a weatherman?” the other patron asked.

  “Retired from the National Weather Service, so yeah. Our air comes down the coast from Alaska. Hell, even with global warming the Bay’s average temp is mid-fifties. Good conditions for fog, not thunder and lightning. As cold as it is, this shit isn’t possible.”

  The electricity kicked on and light returned. Heavy drops of rain blasted the windows.

  “Andrei.”

  Never before had he heard a note of fear in McGhee’s voice. He studied McGhee’s face. The man was spooked. His own strange behavior followed by the outage and storm had caused it. The patron’s conversation didn’t help.

  McGhee studied him back, then snorted a laugh as if amused with himself. He picked up a towel and wiped a glass that was already dry. “You can’t walk home in that, m’boy. Have another and see if it subsides a bit.” McGhee grabbed the Boru and refilled Andrei’s glass, and then filled the one he’d re-wiped. He lifted his glass in salute, indicated Andrei should lift his. “May the good Lord take a liking to you, m’boy, but not too soon.”

  Andrei tapped his glass against the barkeep’s and they drank.

  McGhee slammed his glass on the bar and made a face, then grinned. “It’s like a torchlight procession going down your throat! As I always say, two shorten the road. Again, laddie?”