Blood Divine

by Greg Howard

  Eudora raised an eyebrow. “And just how do you think we should look? Like this?”

  Her body faded away into a shimmering ripple of light, like the disturbed surface of an otherwise still body of water. Cooper couldn’t move. Breathing wasn’t an option, either. She’d called his bluff and now she was a freaking wall of light.

  Eudora’s voice sounded in Cooper’s head. Or should we look like this?

  The wall of light changed before his eyes, forming a fluffy cloud of white smoke.

  Cooper dug fingers deeper into the fabric of the armrests.

  The apparition rippled again, and Eudora’s voice permeated his brain like it was on a loudspeaker. Or this?

  The white smoke morphed into the decomposing corpse of a woman with stray clumps of hair sprouting out of her skinless skull and sunken black holes where her eyes should be.

  Cooper pushed back into the chair, his arms straight and stiff as boards. “Jesus Christ!”

  Eunice chuckled from her perch by the window. He shot a glance her way hoping she didn’t look the same way. When he looked back, Eudora sat holding the book in her lap, as fully formed and matronly real as she had been when he first walked into the room.

  “So sorry to have startled you,” she said. “I thought we should get that out of the way so we can get down to business.”

  Cooper eased his grip on the armrests and took in a deep breath.

  “Are you all right?” Genuine concern laced Eudora’s eyes. “You look as pale as we do.”

  Cooper relaxed his shoulders and exhaled. Another insane truth to be cataloged and swallowed away. Eudora and Eunice Phipps were ghosts—spirits—whatever the hell they wanted to call it.

  They were like Blue.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Do not concern yourself with Blue right now, Cooper,” Eudora said, extracting the name from of his head with all the finesse of plucking feathers out of chicken.

  Cooper stood and walked behind the wingback chair, creating a barrier between himself and the women. He scratched the crown of his head, not knowing where to begin. He’d never conversed with spirits before. Not sober, anyway.

  “Betsy called or summoned you, or whatever.” He gripped the back of the chair like he stood behind a podium. “So, you must know about this Alexander.”

  “Betsy,” Eunice said, punctuating the name with her loudest snort yet.

  Eudora ignored her twin and shifted her body toward Cooper. She laid her book on the seat cushion, clasping her hands in her lap as if she was about to tell him a bedtime story.

  “Betsy. Yes. Troublesome woman, though she was right to call on us in this case. And we have had our past dealings with that devil, Alexander Montgomery, believe you me.” She cut her eyes to Eunice as if daring her to add comment. Eunice behaved and remained silent.

  “Now. About your power,” Eudora said. “Why do you bury it so deep inside you? You have been blessed with the Seraphic gene. You are descended of a storied Divinum bloodline. And with the Vodoun properties mixed in your blood, your potential is immeasurable.”

  Cooper stared at her with his mouth hanging open, wondering how the hell he was supposed to respond. “Seraphic gene? Vodoun properties? You make me sound like some kind of cursed supernatural test-tube baby.”

  Eudora stood—or rose, rather—and drifted over to him. He wasn’t sure her feet touched the floor under her voluminous skirt, and he was just fine keeping that a mystery. She stopped two feet away from him and again clasped her fingers, resting them on her plump belly.

  “Cooper, you are Divinum, like Sister and I were. That means you are descended of the Seraphim. Your power is a gift from God. It is not a curse.”

  Cooper coughed out a chuckle and walked over to the fireplace. He stood with his back to them and caught his own reflection in the mirror hanging over the mantel. “Angels? A gift from God?” He coated the words with a thick layer of sarcasm and turned to face them. “Is that right?” He looked Eudora in the eye. “I have a hard time believing this is a gift from God. This thing inside is not angelic. It’s evil. I’ve hurt people.”

  Eudora took a step toward him. “It’s true. You have the potential to be wildly powerful, but you must learn how to balance the light as well as the darkness inside you. That is your unique challenge.”

  Cooper hung his head, the nagging heat of shame filling his cheeks. Challenge was right. He’d lost that battle between light and darkness more than once with horrendous results.

  Eudora placed her hand on his shoulder, though Cooper barely felt the contact. “Tell us about him. Tell us about Trevor.”

  Cooper looked up and reared his head back like she’d thrown a punch at him. He stuck a shaky index finger directly in her face. “Stay out of my head!”

  Eudora raised her hands and withdrew, retreating to her seat on the sofa.

  Cooper scrubbed a hand over the day-old stubble on his face. Eudora had no idea how many demons he had locked away. So many parts of his past and his present lay hidden behind forbidden doors. He wasn’t ready to peek behind any of them. Who knew what he might find?

  Keyed up and irritated, Cooper barreled through the swinging door into the kitchen. He noisily pillaged around in the walk-in cupboard for several minutes in a frantic search for his grandmother’s whiskey. With no luck there, he tried the kitchen cabinets, riffling through an unorganized maze of pots, pans, and oversized serving utensils. He slammed a cabinet door above the stove, and turned to find Eunice’s rail thin frame poised in the center of the kitchen, not a foot away him.

  He flinched and stepped back. “Jesus Christ! Don’t do that.”

  With arms crossed over her chest, every muscle in Eunice’s face turned down in reproach. “If you ever take that tone with my sister again, I will skin your hide so bad you will have to shit standing up for a month. Do you hear me?”

  Her narrowed eyes and pursed lips told him that she was dead serious. Heat flushed his cheeks, and he simply nodded.

  Eunice planted a hand on her bony hip. “What my sister was getting at, Mr. Einstein, is that your powers are blocked by your guilt over what you did to Trevor. And Betsy said you shot blanks last night.”

  Cooper had to process her words a moment before realizing she referred to his less than stellar performance during the zombie-vampire attack in the foyer.

  “You must get past this mental block before you get not only yourself but everyone around you killed. This is no game, Cooper Causey. Your life is not the only one at stake here.”

  Cooper shoved his hands in his pockets, shrugged his shoulders, and sighed deeply. “Trevor was just someone I knew in high school. I haven’t even seen him since that night.”

  “The night you hurt him.” Eunice’s words were flat and void of consolation, not that he deserved any.

  All Cooper could do was nod. He moved over to the sink, filled a glass with water, and downed the whole thing in one gulp. He sat the glass on the counter and looked back at her.

  Eunice clasped her hands in front of her and cocked her head at him. “Were you close to him?”

  A sigh passed through Cooper’s half-parted lips. “About as close as any two people can possibly get. At least I thought we were.”

  He waited for Eunice to say something. She didn’t. Apparently, she wanted more. He leaned against the kitchen counter and ran fingers through his hair. “We met around the same time I discovered my… what I can do.” He and Trevor had shared some good times, and the thought made him smile. “We were eighteen. And I was a mess.” A closeted freak with unexplained power shooting from his fingertips was even dangerous before you added teenage hormones to the mix.

  Eunice rolled her eyes, as if it pained her to participate in such sentimental recollections. “So you cared for him a great deal. Then what?”

  Cooper turned away from her a little, leaned his hip into the counter, and peeked out the kitchen window. The sky was clear, the sun bright. The freak winter storm had fizzled as quickly
as it came on.

  “I cared for him more than I should have. I let my guard down, and he betrayed me. He denied what we had and made me the laughing stock of the whole school. And I made him pay for it.” He faced Eunice, not meeting her eyes. He’d said too much already. It didn’t matter, though. She plundered his brain like a nosy neighbor until she gathered all the pertinent facts she needed.

  Eunice moved toward him at a slow and unnervingly fluid pace. “You know, I had a friend like that once—well, I thought we were friends. I adored her. I wanted her to like me, to accept me so badly. She betrayed me too, and I exacted my revenge much like you did. And my Divinum blood is not even tainted with malevolent properties like yours.

  “Still, I wanted to hurt her. We all make choices. We all make mistakes, whether there is inherent darkness in you or not. You can control it, if you try. You can choose light over darkness or love over hate.” He looked up at her and caught a brief glimpse of tenderness. She blinked it away and rolled her eyes. “God’s balls. Lillie Mae should have prepared you. She understood your internal struggle as well as anyone.”

  “That was a bad time for Lillie Mae.” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We lost my brother that year.”

  Cooper stared down at his feet. The motorcycle accident. He’d always assumed he’d been responsible for that too, though he’d never been sure. He and his brother had fought that day, and he’d wished Kevin dead. Six hours later, he was.

  A suffocating sadness fell over him, the kind he’d become so good at keeping at bay with a revolving door of beautiful and disposable men. He’d lost nearly everyone—his parents, his brother, and Grandpa Joe. All gone. Lillie Mae was all the family he had left. A tinge of resolve formed in the pit of his stomach. He could not lose her, too. He would not lose her. Eunice’s face was as blank as a clean chalkboard, not a flicker of emotion in her eyes.

  “What time is it?”

  Eunice narrowed her eyes on him. “Almost ten o’clock. Why?”

  Cooper stood up straight. To hell with Betsy’s warnings. “I can’t just stay locked up here and do nothing.”

  Eunice clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth three times and shook her head.

  Cooper dismissed her disapproval and headed for the hallway, but she planted herself in front of him with her hands on her hips, blocking his path. Cooper stepped around her, wondering for a moment if he could have just walked right through her.

  “Go see him, Cooper,” Eunice called behind him. “Go see Trevor. You must confront your demons in order to exorcise them. You will need your powers to survive this, and that’s the only way to get control of them.”

  He shot her a glance over his shoulder. “No. I’ve done enough damage already using my power. I won’t take the chance of hurting Lillie Mae, too. I’m going back to Warfield to find her.”

  Eunice threw up her hands in a huff.

  Cooper didn’t care. He hurried down the hall to the guest room to get his shoes. Although he had plenty of time, he didn’t want to waste one more minute of daylight.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sunlight broke through the threadbare branches of majestic pines that cloaked Warfield Road. Though the road was much less intimidating in broad daylight, still a knot formed in the pit of Cooper’s stomach as his tires churned down the slushy lane. He kept his speed steady, his fingers sealed around the steering wheel, and his eyes alert.

  His plan was simple. Get to the plantation during broad daylight, go directly to the kitchen house to find Lillie Mae, and get back to Phipps House before dark. Simple. He even went so far as to check the exact time the sun would set. 6:58 PM. He glanced at the digital clock on the console. 10:36 AM. Plenty of time.

  After passing through the stone gates and into the cover of full sun, he stared straight ahead, ignoring the cabins of the slave village surrounding him. If any stray spirits were hanging out on the crumbling porches, he didn’t want to see them. Two in one day were plenty, thank you very much.

  Brilliant streaks of sunshine mapped his trek down the oak-lined drive. A few straggling clumps of Spanish moss clung onto bare branches for dear life, determined to survive the winter. It reminded him of the way Lillie Mae hunkered down and rode out threatening hurricanes over the years.

  Just a little rain, she’d say. Nothing to get all in a tizzy about.

  The manor house appeared innocuous enough. Of course, now he knew that was just an external illusion. Emboldened by the cloudless blue skies and beaming sun, Cooper continued around the corner, driving right up to the kitchen house. He stopped the SUV ten feet from the building, got out, and inspected the modest structure. It looked just the same as it had last night, but in the almost cheery sunlight, it exuded a significant dose of charm.

  Cooper walked up two steps to the front door, placed a hand on the coarse rotted wood, and pushed it open. A daunting, extended creak invited him in. He slipped inside.

  Sunlight peeked through cracks in the walls, casting long streaks of light and shadow across the length of the small room. A crumbling fireplace anchored the back wall. A long wooden table sat in the middle of the room, covered with a thick layer of dust. Outlining half the room, a wide L-shaped counter topped empty shelves underneath. Uneasiness permeated the dismal little space from the dust-covered floors to the cobweb-coated ceiling, as if the spirits of the imprisoned souls that once worked in the room were there with him, warning him to leave while he still could.

  A vibration on Cooper’s hip made him jump a little. He fished his phone out of the front pocket of his coat and looked down at the screen. Only half of one service bar was lit, sending the incoming call straight to voice mail. Randy was probably checking on him. Cooper didn’t think he’d have anything new to report in the search for Lillie Mae, because she was here somewhere. He could feel her. He tucked the phone back into his pocket as a pinch of guilt formed in his gut. As much as he would have liked Randy by his side at that moment, he couldn’t risk dragging him into this after what he had witnessed last night. Too dangerous.

  Though he could scan the entire space standing in one spot, Cooper moved around the room at a reverent pace. He inspected every crevice in the ceiling, looking for an attic door. Nothing. Crouching down, he ran his fingers along the dusty floorboards. He finally saw it near the back wall. Two rusted hinges bolted to the floor. He scrambled over to it and dropped to his knees, running the palm of his hand over the cracks between the boards. Cold air tickled his skin, igniting a flicker of hope in his chest. He brushed dust away from a two-by-two square patch of board outlined in the floor. A cellar door. His heart raced. He wedged his fingertips into the widest crack in the seam and pulled, but it had been nailed shut.

  His body temperature rising by the second, he shed his coat and cast it aside. He jammed his fingers into a crack between the boards and pulled with every ounce of strength he could summon. Lillie Mae was down there. He knew it in his bones. When he opened his mouth to call out her name, a blanket of ice-cold air spilled over his entire body. The already chilly room dropped twenty degrees in an instant. He froze. Deep, raspy breaths sounded behind him, their clammy residue singeing the rims of his ears. Every muscle in his body contracted with fear, paralyzed by a foul presence filling the room. He was too afraid to look. He knew what he would find.

  Close your eyes. You can’t see him if you close your eyes.

  But he couldn’t close his eyes. He had to see, had to know for sure. He forced himself to turn and peek over his shoulder, if only to bolster his case that nothing was there. A pair of azure eyes stared back at him. Blue. The massive man towered over him like a dark, threatening storm cloud. Ebony skin shimmered in streaks of sunlight. A milk-chocolate scar etched the left side of the leathery face. Eyes full of death and malice locked on to him.

  Bile crept up in Cooper’s throat, and his hands slicked with sweat. He scrambled around to face the spirit, his hands planted onto the floor and fingertips digging into the splinte
red wood. Blue moved toward him, the floorboards creaking under his heavy steps. Cooper shook his head and scooted back to the wall. The hinges of the cellar door pressed into the seat of his pants. He pulled at the loose boards underneath him. His quickened heart rate and erratic breathing sparked something deep in his core. Blue reached a massive hand out for him, the same open palm he remembered from their first meeting twenty years ago.

  Cooper dug his fingers into the floor. The power inside him swelled, as if agitated by Blue’s presence. It spread up through his torso and down into his arms. The tips of his fingers, like ten short-fused firecrackers sprouting from his hands, exploded into the wood. A loud crackle sounded, and the cellar door gave way under his weight. For a moment, he floated face up on a cloud, cascading downward in dreamlike slow motion. Then his body made contact with hard and pointy edges. He flipped over, completing an unintended somersault. Wood cracked as it snagged his shins. Sharp pain shot up through his legs. He landed on a hard, unforgiving surface with one more blow to the back of his head.

  Cooper lay still—disoriented, bones aching, vision hazy. He gasped to refill his lungs and moaned through the pain when it returned. He blinked twice, trying to dispel the blur from his eyes. A face loomed over him, fuzzy at first and then familiar for a split second before fading into darkness.

  Lillie Mae.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A whispered voice sounded in his ear. “Lie still.”

  Cooper opened his eyes to see her face inches away from his. Faded traces of copper hair overtaken by a nest of gray spilled unkempt around her shoulders. Deep wrinkles creased the pale skin of her face like a maze of family secrets and canyon-sized heartaches. She dabbed his forehead with a damp cloth. Bruises circled her wrists, and a square bandage covered the side of her neck. He resolved to make Alexander pay for what he had done to her.

  A sharp pain stabbed through Cooper’s head like someone had rammed a hunting knife into the base of his skull. He winced and closed his eyes. Oh right. He had just fallen through a hole in the floor of the kitchen house. He was not dreaming. He pushed through a throb of pain and raised his heavy eyelids. Lillie Mae sat beside him, a weary smile etching her face. Damn, it was good to see her.