by Abigail Roux
“Oh, son of a bitch,” Digger said, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he dug around in a pocket.
Nick held out one hand, and Digger slapped a twenty dollar bill onto his palm. “Never bet against the crazy hoodoo ex,” Nick said as he folded the money into his own pocket.
“You’re both assholes,” Ty told them.
Zane turned to look at them, and he was still glaring when he met Ty’s eyes again. He held the bag up. “Don’t scare the doctors with this voodoo stuff, huh?” he said after too long of a pause. “I don’t want you hurting.”
“What are you talking about?” Ty asked as he took the bag with clumsy fingers.
Zane motioned to the bag. “This superstition stuff. The doctors might take you seriously and kick you out of here. That nurse has voodoo dolls at her station out there.” He sounded a little unnerved, which was unusual.
“Voodoo dolls are usually used for good things, you know,” Ty said. He frowned as his fingers began working on the string of the bag. “It’s a religion, Zane. Nothing sinister.”
“Sure.”
Digger grunted. “You sound like a skeptic.”
“I am a skeptic,” Zane confirmed.
“Well,” Ty murmured as he tried to find a more comfortable position. He settled on instructing Zane to lift the head of his bed so he could recline and still inspect the gris-gris bag without too much discomfort. “You might think it’s just fairy-tale stuff, but this is serious. Serious business.”
Zane frowned. “So what is that thing?”
“It’s gris-gris,” Ty answered slowly. He was probably slurring, but as far as he knew he was still making sense.
“Yes, dear, we got that part,” Nick said. He and Digger came closer, and Digger sat on the end of Ty’s bed, jarring it. Ty didn’t care.
Zane nodded, glancing at the others again. “You asked specifically about the color,” Zane prompted.
Ty gazed up at him, wishing he had the ability to convince Zane to take him seriously. He knew Nick, and probably Zane, thought all of it was stupid. A least Digger believed.
“He’s so fucking stoned,” Digger said, laughing as he patted Ty’s leg.
“His mind is processing at turtle speed,” Nick added, snickering behind his hand.
Zane placed a hand on Ty’s forehead, and Ty’s eyes fell shut. The warmth of Zane’s palm was like heaven.
“You know about this voodoo stuff, right?” Zane asked.
“Yeah,” Digger answered. Ty felt him shift on the bed. “The color and material of the bag are just as important to its purpose as the contents. I’m not an expert, but I’m betting if we get it open, Grady and I can tell you what it was meant to do.”
Ty opened his eyes at the sound of his name.
“You want me to open it?” Ty asked. Zane and Nick both nodded. “Are y’all going to freak out if I open it?” He held up the bag gingerly. He wasn’t an expert by any means, but he knew enough about the purposes and the ingredients to get a good idea of what the bag had been intended to do. And what he didn’t know, Digger probably did.
“Why would we freak out?” Zane pulled the little rolling table over to the bedside and turned it so Ty had a flat surface in front of him.
“You freak out over things like that,” Ty mumbled. He pulled at the opening to the bag but couldn’t get the string loose. His fingers weren’t working. Digger finally took it from him and carefully poured the contents onto the shiny surface of the table.
Ty looked up and around the room, his mind chugging to work. Finally he pointed at the boxes of sterile gloves that were attached to the wall. “Hand me some of those, please.”
Zane amiably nabbed a couple of pairs and brought them back. “Things like that,” he repeated.
“What?”
“You said I freak out over things like that.”
Ty pulled on one of the gloves. “You just . . . don’t believe in them.”
“You’re right,” Zane said with a shrug.
“Ty don’t touch home plate before the first pitch,” Digger added. “He believes in everything.”
“Shut up,” Ty muttered. He poked through the contents as Digger and Nick laughed at him. He began to separate the different things, making little piles, forgetting what he was doing.
“Hey Ty? Buddy?” Nick finally said gently. “Time to stop organizing and get back on task.”
Ty looked up at him. Nick was smiling fondly.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You can straighten them later.”
Ty nodded. He knew they were humoring him, but he also didn’t give a fuck. He bent his attention back to the gris-gris bag. There was a small roll of parchment, a sprig of crushed juniper, a mossy substance he couldn’t identify, a root of some sort, what appeared to be iron shavings, and two large teeth. Ty pushed them around the table, tidying up his little piles.
“How do you connect not believing in something with freaking out about it?” Zane asked. He’d pulled one of the chairs over to the side of the bed and was now sitting at Ty’s side.
“I meant, are you going to make me feel stupid for believing this was put under my mattress to kill me?”
“Is that what you believe?” Zane sat and leaned back in the chair, right ankle propped on his left knee.
Ty narrowed his eyes, recognizing Zane’s interrogation posture.
Nick leaned forward. “Is that what he does when he’s questioning suspects?”
“Yes,” Ty groused.
“Well hello, Agent Garrett,” Nick said, laughing.
“Behave yourself,” Zane grumbled. He looked back to Ty. “Is that what you believe?”
“Yes,” Ty answered after a moment of thought.
Zane was watching him intently despite his casual pose. “Can you explain to me why?”
Ty looked back down at the assortment of items that had been in the gris-gris bag. He was blushing, but during the course of his time in New Orleans, he’d seen and learned things that made it impossible to dismiss the power of simple faith.
“Ty?” Zane sounded more curious than anything. Not amused, and certainly not angry or frustrated like he got when he couldn’t figure out a puzzle by logical means. He was probably still humoring Ty, but hopefully he wouldn’t dismiss any of this, thinking the drugs were making Ty goofy.
“It’s about faith,” Ty finally said, looking first at Zane and then at Nick and Digger. Nick was frowning now, and Digger was nodding. Ty met Zane’s eyes again. “I’ve seen things I can’t explain. And I believe in things I can’t see. I believe in fate and luck and curses.”
Zane crossed his arms. “Really?”
Nick nodded. “Really.”
Digger was nodding too. “So do I. I also know that people around here don’t take this stuff lightly. And this bag here is quality work; it’s no tourist prank.”
Ty took a deep breath. “It’s a murder weapon. Just like a gun or knife. It’s poison. It was put in our room by someone with knowledge and belief in the power to cause us harm.”
Nick turned to whisper into Digger’s ear, but Ty heard his words anyway. “Goddamn, I hate it when he uses real logic.”
Digger made a dismissive noise and shivered.
Zane didn’t speak for a long moment as he studied Ty, and then he abruptly nodded. “All right.”
Ty watched him with narrowed eyes. Zane never agreed with him that easily. Maybe he was just taking pity on him since he was in pain and medicated and planned to continue the conversation later. Ty nodded, though, willing to accept it for now.
Nick stood again and leaned over him, studying the contents on the metal table. “Can you tell what’s in it? What’s it meant to do?”
“I’m not sure what this moss is, but the rest . . . This is juniper, and I think this root is High John the Conqueror root.”
“What do those things do?”
Ty shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know.”
“Dammit, Ty,�
�� Nick grunted.
“The red felt bag is usually used to attract a lover, but the contents aren’t consistent with that purpose,” Digger offered. “They’re meant to draw something. Like those iron fillings.”
Ty sighed. “Yeah. So basically . . .”
“The whole bag is one big-ass hoodoo magnet.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “Thank you, Digger, as always, for your contribution to the sanity of the group.”
“So it’s a magnet,” Zane said.
Ty nodded. “A bad one.”
“A magnet to draw something bad to us,” Zane concluded.
“A big bad magnet.”
Digger snorted. “That’s where the teeth come in.”
Ty held one up and looked at it critically. “Gator teeth?”
Digger nodded. “They look it. They good luck, though.”
“Not for the gator we ate last night,” Nick said.
Digger waved him off.
“They are good luck,” Ty said.
“But gris-gris bags are only supposed to have one,” Digger told them. “And they’re supposed to have an odd number of ingredients. So throwing in an extra tooth to make it even, I’m assuming, is bad.”
“Or whoever put it together just tossed some things in,” Zane suggested. “And then planted it to scare us.”
Ty nodded and lowered the tooth.
“The fact they planted it at all scares me,” Digger added. He looked at Nick critically. “You didn’t hear ’em? See ’em?”
“I . . . I may have climbed a building last night. I don’t remember a lot.”
“We think they came in as housekeeping. I heard them from the shower but didn’t think anything of it.”
“Makes sense,” Digger said. “We had a fuckton of fresh towels in our room when we got back. Then we had someone knock again trying to clean the room.”
Nick frowned. “If that’s the case, whoever it was went to all our rooms, hunting for Ty. That’s a lot of trouble to go to for a scare.”
Ty bit his lip, wondering if he should even be pondering this while the cold buzz was still running through his system. He looked up and winced. “It wasn’t meant to scare us because it was too well hidden. A tiny bag behind your mattress can only scare you if you know it’s there. If I hadn’t woke up like I did, we never would have looked for it, we never would have found it.”
“A fair point,” Zane said. “I may not believe in this, but I do believe in you. If you say we should take it seriously, then we will.”
“I think we should,” Ty said. “I mean, shit, if this can shake loose a kidney stone, I don’t want to see what else this guy knows how to do.”
Zane laughed and scooted his chair a little closer so he could lean sideways against the bed. “First Edgar Allan Poe, now voodoo. Great.”
“I’m never inviting you two to a party again,” Nick grumbled.
“You and your goddamn coconuts,” Digger added. He shifted on the edge of Ty’s bed, jostling him and making a full-body shiver run through Ty.
“Did you call that detective from last night?” Ty asked as he continued to push around the little bit of moss.
“No, why?”
“Girl dies with a gris-gris bag in her hand. Next morning . . .”
Zane hesitated, sharing a glance with Nick. “You want to call the police and report this?”
“Maybe you two can sniff around. See if it’s connected. But you can’t bring me into it.”
“They’ll boot us out as soon as we show our creds,” Nick argued. “They were already all over us just for being there last night.”
“Can you try?” Ty asked.
Nick sighed loudly and looked away.
Ty carefully put everything back into the bag. He picked up the roll of parchment and pulled it apart, cold settling in him when he saw “Tyler Beaumont” written in beautiful calligraphy.
“Wait, is that like the paper Garrett took a picture of?” Nick asked, sounding shocked.
Ty nodded.
Zane craned his neck to look at the parchment. His face clouded over. “Yeah, okay, that’s enough connection for me,” he admitted. “Was that your alias while you were here?”
Ty nodded, rolling the parchment up as it had been.
“If that’s bat’s blood ink, you’re fucked,” Digger drawled with all seriousness.
Ty shot him a glare, careful to leave out the roll of parchment and one of the alligator teeth as he put the bag back together. It wouldn’t make it a good luck charm, but it would lose most of its power. In theory.
He cleared his throat uncomfortably. He wasn’t ashamed of the fact that he put stock in this, but he still felt a little silly.
Ty pushed the bag away and began plucking at the fingertips of his gloves. His fingers trembled and he couldn’t seem to grab the purple glove to get it off.
Zane reached out to still his hands and took over peeling them off.
“We could just go home,” Ty said. “But now I’m hexed. It’ll just follow.”
“Ty, you’re not hexed,” Nick said.
“Disagreed,” Digger grunted.
Zane sighed. “We can’t go home. One, you’re in the hospital with a kidney stone. Two, there is a murderer out there and we have possible evidence in the case, and I don’t think any of us could just walk away with a clear conscience. And three, you really believe in that gris-gris stuff, so there’s no point in trying to run. Every little paper cut and stubbed toe you get will be the bag’s fault until we fix this.” Zane dropped the gloves onto the table and then pushed it out from between them and away, keeping Ty’s hand in his.
Ty relaxed back into the bed, holding Zane’s hand. He watched him in open admiration. Not many people would so easily accept that he was cursed after one little trip to the ER and because he said so. He was, but not many people would believe him. Or pretend to believe him. Except Digger, but fuck, Digger was certifiable so that didn’t make Ty feel better.
“Thanks, Zane,” he whispered.
Zane pulled Ty’s hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles.
“Ugh, gross,” Digger said with a laugh.
“And we’re leaving,” Nick added. They headed for the door, but Ty knew they wouldn’t go far. They could smell trouble just like he could. The door closed and Ty returned his gaze to Zane.
“I hate seeing you like this,” Zane whispered.
Ty laughed. Hard. He was folded up in a rolling hospital bed with an IV in his arm and a catheter in a less pleasant place, wearing hospital-issue socks with little rubber paws on the bottoms and a gown that didn’t close all the way in the back. And Zane hated seeing him like this?
“I hope so!” he said. He covered his mouth to stop the snickering, but his eyes watered as he watched Zane. His partner did offer him a weak smile, but he wasn’t hiding the worry in his eyes.
“Oh come on, Zane!” Ty said as he squeezed his hand. “Enjoy it while my meds last.”
“I’m not enjoying anything until you’re healthy and out of here.”
Ty sobered and looked at him apologetically. He patted his hand. “Last time it only took a few hours from start to finish. I just didn’t have any drugs, so I was begging O and Eli to kill me the whole time. This time is much more fun so far.”
Zane moved his other hand so both of them closed around Ty’s. “Maybe some of it will be lingering when I get to take you out of here. You can be a lot of fun when you’re so open to suggestion,” he drawled, making a visible effort to relax.
That got another round of laughter out of Ty, and he had to be careful not to move his legs or roll as he cackled at his lover. “Because nothing says sexy like a catheter.”
Zane finally laughed with him. “Not my kink, but okay.”
Ty was still laughing when a nurse poked her head into the room to check on them. “I see he’s feeling better.”
“Don’t let it fool you,” Zane said, turning his head to look at her. He didn’t let go of Ty’s hand. “H
e’s got the good drugs.”
“Oh I know it, honey, I gave them to him.”
Ty was still laughing. The nurse came into the room and changed his saline bag, telling him the more he got in him, the easier the stone would pass. She checked his vitals, then moved on, leaving them alone again.
“I almost think I’d rather be gut shot than have to pass a kidney stone, from the sound of it,” Zane said once she disappeared.
“Same here,” Ty muttered. Suddenly, nothing was all that funny anymore.
Nick and the others were in the waiting room, sprawled among the sick and injured, when Zane joined them. Zane had no idea how to proceed. He didn’t want to be around Ty’s Recon team without Ty there as a buffer, and he certainly didn’t want to go to the New Orleans PD and tell them his lover had been cursed by voodoo and wanted them to investigate. He wished Ty had never answered that phone call in Baltimore right now.
“How’s he doing?” Kelly asked.
Zane winced and shrugged. “He’ll be fine. They’ve got him drugged up. Now he just has to wait it out, I guess.”
“The one thing Ty hates doing most,” Digger mused. “Waiting. So poetic.”
“You’re a sick man, D.”
“He ruins every trip,” Nick muttered. He smiled at Zane. “What do we do about the hoodoo thing?”
“What hoodoo thing?” Owen asked.
Digger poked at him. “That voodoo you do, baby!”
Owen batted Digger’s hands away. “Stop it, what is wrong with you?”
“Ty found one of those gris-gris bag things under his pillow this morning,” Nick explained.
“Like the one with the dead girl?” Owen asked.
“He thinks he’s cursed.”
“He wants us to report it to the police,” Zane said with a grimace. The bag was in his pocket, and he pulled it out to look at it.
“He wants to report being cursed to the police?” Owen’s voice had gone flat.
Nick stood and stretched. “I’m going out on a limb and guessing they get that a lot down here.”
“So what do we do? Are we really going to call the police?” Kelly asked, smirking. They were all looking to Nick to make the decision. Zane supposed that was their habit, since Nick had been the team’s second-in-command.
“He does have a point. The dead girl had a hoodoo bag, and whoever put that shit in Ty’s room was slick enough to get in and out without either him or Zane noticing.”
