by Hudson, Tara
My fears were short-lived, however, when he gave one of the gates a light shake. The chain holding the gates closed slithered off, falling to the concrete path with a thunk.
“Huh,” Joshua said, staring down at the chain and then at the small opening between the gates. “Looks like the Voodoo girl made good on her word.”
“Oh. Yay.”
Those two unenthusiastic syllables just slipped right out of my mouth.
Honestly, I didn’t know which was worse: being locked outside, scared that Joshua might get stabbed, or going in and finding out exactly what Gabrielle could—or couldn’t—do.
Hearing my lukewarm response, Joshua grinned back at me.
“Come on, Amelia Ashley,” he teased. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
I’ve had more “adventures” in the last three days than I care to ever have again.
That’s what I should have said out loud. Instead, I conceded.
“Okay, okay. Lead the way, Captain Adventure.”
Joshua laughed quietly and then opened the gates farther. After we both stepped through the opening, he bent down to pick up the chain. As he threaded it back through the bars, he explained, “This will keep anyone from getting suspicious that people are in here.”
I snorted softly. “Captain Adventure also happens to be the captain of covert operations?”
“Yup,” he whispered back. “I’m an expert in both fields.”
Then he took my hand again and began leading me down the concrete path, deeper into the cemetery.
As we walked, I couldn’t help but gawk at the scenery. Here, all the graves appeared to be housed in aboveground mausoleums. Many were tall—a good three or four feet above my head—but a lot of them rose only to my knees. These crypts, which crowded together around the pathway, stood in various states of repair. Some had walls of gleaming white stone, firm and strong against the elements, topped with weeping sculptures and carved urns. Others were nothing but piles of crumbling brick held together by a network of scraggly weeds. Various bits of these crypts lay fallen on the pathway, and I had to skirt them as I walked.
Joshua, who led our way through the weaving, labyrinthine paths, whispered back to me.
“They look like creepy little houses, don’t they?”
“Cities of the Dead,” I murmured, repeating the cabdriver’s phrase. When you put it in those terms, this really was a fitting place for a Voodoo ceremony.
I peered closer at the tombs, trying to read their weathered epitaphs. But all I could really make out were a few of the clearer surnames: Deforges, Morphy, Charbonnet. Beneath those I could barely discern long lists of more names, and dates. Illegible, weathered reminders of the people who lay buried inside … and who had perhaps walked these paths after their deaths just as I’d done in my own cemetery.
Maybe I’d even met a few of them last night in Jackson Square. Maybe they would soon become my only companions.
The thought chilled me. I followed Joshua more closely, keeping silent until, suddenly, he stopped short and I nearly bumped into him.
He whispered back to me, in a voice so low and reverent I could hardly hear him:
“We’re here.”
Chapter
EIGHTEEN
The instant Joshua announced our arrival, a thousand goose bumps—real ones—erupted across my skin. I clung tightly to his back, not sure I wanted to move forward. Ever.
But eventually, Joshua’s stillness and my curiosity got the best of me. I leaned to one side to peek around him. Then I reeled backward.
As promised, a tall, bloodred crypt loomed to our left. The pathway it faced intersected another row, which bore the dining-table headstone that Gabrielle had mentioned, along with more standard, shoulder-level tombs.
And there, waiting in the intersection of these pathways—looking every bit the Voodoo priestess—stood Gabrielle.
A small fire burned in a metal pot at her feet and illuminated her from below, casting mysterious shadows across the planes of her face. This lighting somehow made her look older. More powerful. Her loose, floor-length dress shifted in the wind, as did her wild hair. She caught my eye and raised an arm in welcome; her other arm was occupied, holding a large, vine-wrapped black book.
A family Bible, the same kind of item I’d seen Ruth use in her exorcism rituals. Not necessarily a sign of good things to come.
Gabrielle beckoned again with one hand, signaling us to join her.
“It’s almost midnight,” she called. “Let’s get started. Amelia, I’m going to need you at the center of this ring.”
I looked down to where she had gestured. There on the ground, drawn in a broad circle that encompassed both Gabrielle and her small fire, was a ring of dust.
Voodoo dust.
I shook my head vigorously. “You do realize there’s no way I’m stepping into that thing, don’t you? I mean, even if I could.”
Gabrielle laughed low.
“This isn’t banishing powder. This is the protective stuff. It keeps out whatever means us harm.” As if to demonstrate, she lifted her arms and spun around, letting the gauzy hem of her dress twirl with her. “We’re safe in here, to do whatever we like.”
Still unconvinced, I frowned. “What about Joshua?”
Gabrielle shook her head. “He needs to stay out of the circle since he isn’t a part of the ceremony.”
Joshua wrapped his arm around my waist and gave me a slight hug. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’m right here, watching. If anything goes wrong … I’ll be here.”
I hugged him back, not wanting to tell him that I wasn’t worried that I would need his help; I was worried that he would need mine. But he looked so intent, so certain, that I nodded.
“All right. I’ll give it a try.”
“Good,” Gabrielle said, sounding relieved. “Now hurry. We don’t have a lot of time left.”
I stepped forward reluctantly while Gabrielle knelt to arrange a collection of items at her feet. She placed the first—a small, portable stereo—just outside the circle. When she noticed me watching her, she gave a one-shouldered shrug.
“Drums,” she explained. “Since it’s just me, we’ve got to make do with recorded drumming.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling incredibly out of my element. “Drums. Of course.”
As Gabrielle arranged the other items—a small bowl, a plastic bag full of dried herbs, some kind of gourd, one bottle containing clear liquid and one containing dark—I took another tentative step toward the circle. I inched one foot and then the other closer to the outer line of chalky white powder. With a deep breath for courage, I muttered, “Here goes,” and took my first step inside the circle.
This time my foot landed where I wanted it to; this time I didn’t feel the solid, impenetrable barrier of Ruth’s magic. Instead, I felt … nothing. Nothing at all.
I sighed in relief, and stepped fully into the ring. Gabrielle glanced up from her work with a wry half grin.
“Congrats. They say the first step’s always the hardest.”
I rolled my eyes and folded my arms protectively across my chest. Just because I’d made it inside her circle didn’t mean I trusted her yet.
Gabrielle, however, didn’t seem to care much about my disdain. She was too busy placing the empty bowl near the fire and then crumbling the dried herbs into it. She grabbed the bottle of clear liquid, removed its cork, and began pouring it in careful increments into the bowl.
“Rum,” she said distractedly. “A gift for the Loas, so that they’ll help us.”
Again I couldn’t manage much more than a bewildered “Oh.”
Gabrielle dipped her fingertips into the bowl and withdrew them to make little splashes upon the ground at my feet. She splashed a few more drops on herself and then ran her wet hand down her face, murmuring something incomprehensible under her breath.
Finally, she grabbed the gourd and the bottle of dark liquid, and stood.
“Sit,” she comman
ded me, gesturing to the ground with the bottle. So I crossed my legs and dropped to the concrete. Then I folded my hands in my lap and turned my most skeptical expression up to her.
“Look,” I said. “I’m not sure what you have planned for tonight. But mostly I just want the bad dreams to stop. Do you think you could do that?”
I couldn’t tell whether she’d decided to ignore me or just silently process my request. Either way, she didn’t respond as she bent down to press the PLAY button on the stereo. Immediately, the pounding sound of drums filtered out, as well as other, jangling noises.
Finally meeting my gaze, Gabrielle hissed, “Stay quiet until I say.”
Then she raised her arms. In a strange, melodic language I didn’t recognize, she called out to the midnight sky. I tried to catch some of the words—Legba, souple, lavi—but wasn’t really sure what I’d heard.
Still chanting, Gabrielle closed her eyes and slowly began to spin in a circle. With one hand she shook the gourd, which made a dry, rattling sound. With the other she held the bottle upright, letting its dark liquid slosh with her movements.
Soon, the sloshing and rattling synced with the drums. Combined, the noises started to take on their own rhythm—a kind of music to which, I now realized, she was dancing. The chiming of her chandelier earrings and clanging of her bracelets only added to the effect.
Despite everything I’d been through, I remained a skeptic about things like this. Yet as I listened to the music swell, as I watched Gabrielle’s dancing grow more hypnotic and frenzied, I felt myself falling into a sort of trance. I had no idea where Joshua was, but I couldn’t turn my head to look for him. I just couldn’t pull my eyes away from the clamor occurring in front of me.
“Loa,” Gabrielle chanted over and over. “Loa.”
She repeated other words, too, like that lavi I’d heard earlier. Then she added a mantra I actually recognized: “Please.” She whispered it frantically, like a prayer.
After God knows how long of this chanting, she dropped the gourd to the earth and continued to dance as she uncorked the bottle of dark liquid. She poured its contents carefully onto her hand, which she lifted to the sky and then flung to the earth, splattering the ground with dark drops.
I leaned forward, just an inch, to examine the splatters closely in the firelight. Then I recoiled.
The dark droplets, which I’d first taken as black, were actually red. Deep, arterial red.
Bloodred.
I gasped, but Gabrielle ignored me. She’d stopped dancing and was now swaying, occasionally pouring more of the bloodred liquid into her cupped palm before flinging it onto specific places around the circle.
Suddenly, I was desperate to find Joshua. I craned my neck, searching for him in the darkness outside of the Voodoo ring. I found him quickly enough, leaning against the side of the brickred tomb. Unfortunately, he looked as transfixed as I’d just been.
I spun back around to Gabrielle, whose arms were now covered in trails of red streaks from where the liquid had escaped her palms.
“I want this to stop now,” I demanded. “You stop this right now, Gabrielle.”
The sound of drums and jangling metal, however, drowned out my demand. Gabrielle either didn’t hear me or didn’t care, since she kept swaying and chanting and pouring.
I thought that the ceremony would never end—that I would forever sit in this circle, watching a ghastly display of fire and blood—when Gabrielle froze midsway.
For a long second she remained completely motionless, completely silent. Then, without warning, her eyes flew open and she turned them on me.
What I saw in them made me choke.
Where her irises had once been a stunning, vibrant blue, they were now the color of tar. As black as her pupils, as deep and dark as the abyss I’d seen under the netherworld High Bridge.
I was choking, struggling to warn Joshua that he should run, when Gabrielle dropped into a crouch and lunged for me.
I shrieked and tried to scramble backward, out of the circle. But I suddenly found my back pressed to some barrier—one that I instinctively knew wasn’t visible.
Despite her promise, Gabrielle’s protective circle had turned on me. Trapped me.
Gabrielle reached a hand for me. This time, however, I lunged forward. She was alive and probably couldn’t touch me, but I was the poltergeist. I could at least try to fight her off. To keep her from Joshua, if I could.
But instead of clawing at me as I’d expected, she leaned in and softly pressed her blood-tinged fingertips to my collarbone. With an eerie smile, she whispered one Creole word:
Rete.
Then, with that simple oath delivered, her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed, unconscious, upon the ground.
For a moment I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
I stared down, mesmerized by Gabrielle’s slumped form, which had fallen across the hem of my dress. While I stared at her, I didn’t feel anything. Just numbness. Emptiness.
But the longer I sat there, the more a hot, uncomfortable stirring began to grow within me.
At first it felt like fear. Like adrenaline and nausea and fire mixing together in my core. Soon I could tell that it wasn’t just in my mind, wasn’t some mental side effect of what I’d just seen. This sensation was real, spreading out from my abdomen and tendriling its way to my limbs.
I thoughtlessly let it burn me for a few seconds more, until suddenly, my legs twitched beneath me. I jerked them out from under Gabrielle and sprung to my feet. I spun around toward Joshua, who was still looking gape mouthed at the Voodoo circle.
With a sharp intake of breath, I threw myself at him and very nearly shouted a prayer of thanks when I landed in his bewildered arms. Apparently, Gabrielle’s barriers had faded with her consciousness, releasing me from the hellish circle.
“Amelia?” Joshua murmured, still fighting his way out of the trance.
“We have to leave,” I said, grabbing his hand. “Now.”
He didn’t protest when I dragged him down the pathway, moving as fast as his stumbling, muddled pace would let me. I would’ve sprinted if I could, but there was no way I intended to leave Joshua stranded in this place.
A few times I took a wrong turn and ended up in a dead end of crumbling tombs and weeping statuary. Each time that happened I would groan in frustration and then spin around, tugging Joshua along with me on an alternate path.
Finally, blissfully, we made it into the broad, open area where the cemetery gates waited. I pulled Joshua toward them.
“The gates, Joshua. You have to open them.”
He shook his head, obviously still disoriented, but began to fumble with the chain. When his hands kept slipping, I moaned softly. “Please, Joshua, hurry.”
As if he were a zombie under my command, Joshua deftly removed the chain and let it slither to the ground beside him. He’d only had time to pull one gate open before I was shoving him out of it and onto the sidewalk. I followed him out, folded one of his hands back in mine, and pulled him onto the street.
There I started to run, picking up my pace once Joshua gained better control of his feet. The sound of his shoes pounded on the pavement as we dodged the traffic on Rampart Street and crossed back into the French Quarter.
Even though we’d made it back into the Quarter, we both continued to run mindlessly in the direction of the town house—holding each other’s hand and sprinting past pedestrians and restaurants and shuttered town homes.
While we ran, my brain buzzed with thoughts. Unpleasant ones. Each beat of my feet against pavement brought me closer to a horrible, inevitable conclusion.
This is it, isn’t it? I asked myself. This is the end.
And I knew, without a doubt, that the answer was yes.
I couldn’t keep letting things like this happen. I couldn’t keep placing Joshua in danger with these constant, hopeless attempts to stay with him. Fleeing Oklahoma, only to wind up in potentially demon-infested clubs; participating i
n failed Voodoo rituals? These were crazy, desperate acts that hurt him far more than they helped me.
He could have been possessed tonight, by whatever dark force had taken over Gabrielle. Worse, he could have been killed. Besides, the longer I lingered by his side, the more opportunity I gave the evil netherworld spirits to find me, and thereby him.
Every second he spent with me, every instant he touched me was like a slow-working poison. Which meant that everything I’d done in the past few days was unforgivably selfish. Done to prolong my time with him instead of to protect him.
So I didn’t have two nights left with him. I didn’t even have one night.
I had to end this, now.
When I saw that we’d made it to the relative safety of Ursulines and Royal, just north of the Mayhew house, I yanked him to a stop. He instantly flopped back against a brick wall, panting, looking grateful for the chance to rest.
I, however, didn’t rest. I paced madly in front of him, trying not to cry. Trying to think of exactly what to say. It didn’t help that the weird, burning sensation was still snaking its way through my body. It made me feel heavy and jittery at the same time, simultaneously light-headed and weighted down.
Joshua looked worse for wear too. He clenched and unclenched his hands a few times and then ran one hand through his hair, letting it rest on the back of his neck.
God, why did he have to do that? I thought. This would be so much easier if he wouldn’t do things like that.
“You okay?” he asked me, sounding winded. “What the hell happened back there?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I shook my head bitterly. “It’s not going to happen again.”
Joshua made a small noise somewhere between a grunt and a laugh. Then he grinned widely, like someone under the influence of a danger-induced rush.
“Oh, I agree—we won’t be going back to the St. Louis Number One any time soon.”
I shook my head again, more strongly. “No, Joshua. You don’t get it: it’s not going to happen again, because nothing’s going to happen again. Not between us. Not anymore.”
