by Angie Fox
Grandma opened the box. A blue mist swirled from inside, curling over her fingers. "Looks good from my end."
"Then let's do this," I said, closing in on the doll. The air right around it felt hot, sharp. It settled over me, stinging as if a thousand tiny needles pricked my skin.
The last time I'd touched a black soul, I'd pulled it out of a werewolf's chest and nearly killed him.
This one pounded for release. It was angry. Trapped. Waiting. It needed a place to be, it missed having a body. It would take mine if it could.
I rolled my shoulders, trying to keep them loose. Focus.
My palms slicked with sweat. Cautiously, deliberately, I touched my fingers to the cloth, willing myself to stay calm as a tiny, marble-sized knot bubbled to the surface. In a million years, I didn't think I'd ever get used to that feeling.
Now. I tore through the flimsy covering and reached for it.
It skittered sideways.
"Frick." I chased it. For a second I gave in to desperation. I lost control.
But in my job, any loss of focus could be deadly. I forced myself to pull back, all the way out. I held my hands out to my sides. Not so fast. It wanted me to make a mistake.
I'd kept the pentagram and the rest of the trap in tact. Tearing the cloth helped me get to it, but the move hadn't allowed it to escape.
"You okay?" Grandma asked, her voice even more gravelly than usual.
"Yes." I opened my mind, forced myself to concentrate on directing my power instead of dwelling on the fear of what would have happened if I hadn't touched this first, if someone non-magical had stumbled across it, if the trap broke, if I let it get away. I braced my hands around it again, brushed the hard knot with my fingers, and gripped it tight, yanking it straight through the cloth.
Holy Hades. It sucked me down. I felt the blackness overtake me, the power of it seep into me. My mind swam.
"Let it go," Grandma ordered.
"I am!" I tried to open my fingers, but they wouldn't move. My head felt like it was stuffed with cotton.
"Lizzie!" She gripped my shoulder. It didn't matter.
It called to me.
Another body. Mine!
It feels so good.
I'm almost in.
I swayed, but managed to stay upright, harnessed by the tight whisper of fear. But that gave it power—my terror, my emotion. I let it go. I let the negativity fall from me as I reared back and hurled the malignant spirit away from the people I loved.
The air crackled as the black soul caught on the witches' wards. A cord of hot, red power zipped down my arm, driving a stinging shock through me as the black soul broke into a million tiny pieces that soared toward the afternoon sun.
As I came back to myself, I felt my palms, hot on the concrete, my knees scraping against the rough path.
Grandma had me by the shoulders. "Damn it, Lizzie. You scared the crap out of me." She gave me a shake. "How are you feeling? What do you need?"
My mouth and throat felt painfully dry. "Nothing." At least I didn't think so. I was covered in a thin layer of grit. "I didn't kill it, did I?"
Truth be told, I had mixed feelings about shadow people. The expedient thing was to eliminate them so they could never attack again. But I also knew a fraction of them could be saved with the right kind of intervention. Who was I to deny any soul that chance?
The lines around Grandma's mouth deepened as she squatted down next to me. "You didn't kill it. Or hurt it when it went to pieces. That's what they look like when they're…" She waved a hand at the sky.
"Free," I finished. Free to evolve if they so choose, to seek the good.
Free to hunt.
Grandma gripped my wrist and helped me up. I didn't need it, but it made her feel better. I winced at my stiff knees and tingling legs and shook them out, trying to get the circulation back. I didn't like the idea of that black soul out in the world, but it was a hundred times worse to have it in a position where it could infect anyone who touched that doll.
I planted my hands on my hips and looked to the sky where it had disappeared. "I just want to know where it came from." Grandma's wards should have kept out anyone who wanted to do us harm. They sure zapped that soul on the way out.
Before she could answer, the back gate banged open. There stood a man in a long leather overcoat with a black Stetson tipped over his eyes.
"Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the mule." I never thought I'd see him again.
Chapter Two
Carpenter strode into the courtyard, his eyes on me. "Where is it?" His steps were measured. His leather duster jacket swirled around his legs. Evan Carpenter was a cutthroat, hard-ass, raiser of the dead who had helped me exactly one time before he'd declared himself a loner and refused to work with me again.
I couldn't imagine what he wanted now, but I had a feeling he wouldn't be shy about it. Necromancers were rare. Their magic gave them special powers in the spirit realm. This one was especially powerful.
He hitched a hand over his belt, displaying the ornate bronze clockwork ring on his right hand. "What did your dragon do with my black soul?"
Way to blame it on the dragon. "Why did you have a black soul?" I asked. Offense is the best defense, right?
He stopped right in front of me and stared, as if he couldn't quite believe I'd asked that. "I need your help analyzing it. I had it secure, until your dragon swooped down and stole it."
"About that…" I glanced down at the ground, to the broken trap at my feet.
"No." He grabbed for it, turning it over in his hands, frantically inspecting it for the lost soul.
"We didn't know it was yours," I said quickly. "We had no idea you were even outside. I had to disable it."
He closed his eyes, pinched his fingers to the bridge of his nose. "I get it. It's fine."
No, it wasn't, but I wasn't particularly interested in pushing the point. "Where did you get that thing anyway?"
He stood slowly. "There's a voodoo bokor down in New Orleans. He's trapping black souls. Hard to know how," he said in that careful, deliberate Louisiana drawl. "He doesn't have powers like yours or mine. I was going to show you the trap I stole, see if you could help me figure out how he snares them. But that ship has sailed."
Indeed.
He stood straighter. "In any case, I need you to come down South with me. Immediately."
"As in right now?" I asked, surprised, and a little galled by his attitude.
His blue eyes blazed hot while the rest of him remained ice cold, controlled. "You do owe me."
Way to bring that up. "I get it."
Carpenter had been invaluable on my last adventure. He'd helped me kill a powerful demon and he'd saved my dog's life. He didn't need to hold it over my head in order to get me to listen. But it did show me just how important this was to him.
"I'm having trouble with the dead in New Orleans," he explained.
That didn't sound good. "I sincerely hope you mean ghosts." I'd met a few over the last year or so and I'd had decent luck. Then again, considering he'd brought along a black soul, odds were this would be a lot stickier. Especially if it was something a necromancer couldn't handle.
"A reanimated alligator," he said, serious as a heart attack.
I snarfed. "You've got to be kidding."
He frowned. "Why would anyone joke about reanimated alligators?"
He had me there.
Carpenter glanced at the increasing number of witches gathering in the courtyard, before drawing me a few more steps away. "The undead reptile is the work of the same bokor who trapped the black soul. His name is Osse Pade. They call him "The Alligator Man." The scaly beasts are his personal animal totem. He holds sway over them, you see."
"I think I do," I said, decidedly uncomfortable with the strange and deadly kinds of magic out there, and with what Carpenter might want from me.
He moved in closer, his voice lowering. "Pade has a church on the edge of the bayou. He doesn't associate with anyone outside hi
s circle of followers, but locals say he has powerful magic, that he has a direct line to their ancestors." The necromancer's jaw tightened. "I think he's doing more than talking to poor departed Uncle Freddie. I can feel the kind of power he pulls up. It's dark. And he's done something lately to make it even stronger." Carpenter drew back, glowering. He pulled off his hat and scraped a hand through his spiky brown hair. "Last night, I failed to put down Pade's latest 'experiment.' I need your help to kill it."
I hated to point out the obvious, but, "I'm a demon slayer."
He shook me off. "A black soul is giving the animal life. I can handle the soul itself, but the alligator nearly took my hand off. This is a two-person job."
I understood his point. Still, I had to wonder, "Can't you just get an alligator wrangler?"
He gave me a dry look. "And tell him what? And keep him safe how?" He quirked a brow. "You handle demons. An alligator should be no problem."
Good point. "That's all you want?" In my line of work, things were never that simple.
He ran a hand along the back of his neck. "I was hoping you could help me figure out how they're trapping the souls." He glanced to the sky where the soul had taken off.
"Maybe we can still figure it out." I could at least help him with the alligator. "Although it seems odd. I've heard of voodoo mambos raising the dead." Unlike shambling movie or television zombies, magic-based zombies were real. "But from what I hear, voodoo zombies have no souls or awareness."
"This is more than a mindless, drugged, walking corpse," Carpenter said. "The alligator is alive and aware. I drove a stake through its head and it kept coming at me. I've never seen anything like it." He shook his head. "Osse Pade shouldn't be able to summon a black soul that can keep a beast like that alive."
But he had.
"This is crazy," I mused. Ask me to put a switch star into the forehead of a minion of hell and I was your girl. As for the rest of it—necromancy, dark magic—it was a little out of my league.
"So you'll do it," he said.
"I will." Carpenter had been there for me when I needed him. I glanced over to Grandma, who stood nearby, not even bothering to hide the fact that she'd been listening in. "You're coming with me, right?"
"Wouldn't miss it," she said.
Carpenter held up a hand. "Not a good idea," he said. "I traveled here through the Between Realm."
I'd heard of that. It was a special system of super fast travel open only to those approved by the Department of Intramagical Matters. He was more connected than I'd thought. "I've always wanted to see the Between Realm."
"I'd be glad to show you," the necromancer said, keeping an eye on Grandma. "But this isn't a rave. I can't take you and thirty of your closest friends." He returned his attention to me. "Just you."
Impossible. "I need them."
Now he was starting to get irritated. "This is just a quick trip down and back."
I got that. But my gut told me to keep my team together. "When facing undead reptiles, I find it useful to enlist all the help I can get."
Ant Eater grinned. "Want me to show him what we can do?" she asked, raising a spell jar.
"No," Grandma and I both said at once.
Let's just settle down," I added, before the necromancer got a taste of a Mind Wiper, or a Frozen Underwear spell, or whatever else glittered in that jar. I leaned in close to the necromancer. "Humor me on this one. Please."
He let out an undignified huff. "Now I remember why I escaped back down to New Orleans the first chance I got."
"That's the spirit," I told him.
"All right," Grandma said, rubbing her hands together. "Let's start packing up."
"Already taking care of it," Ant Eater said, motioning to the dozen or so witches now scurrying around the courtyard. "I've also got a spot in mind for us to crash once we get down there. My family has a place big enough for the coven."
"Fantastic," I said, surprised by her revelation. "I didn't realize you were from New Orleans."
"Not anymore," she shrugged.
"This could be good," Grandma said, warming to the idea. "Ant Eater's family owns hotels all over the city."
Now that surprised me. I took another look at Ant Eater, the hard-ass champion of beer can pyramids who couldn't seem to get the garden dirt out from under her fingernails. "You come from money?"
The gold-toothed witch huffed. "Could be why I'm so high maintenance."
Grandma clapped her on the arm. "We don't have to let them know you're in town if you don't want."
"I'm not breathing a word," Ant Eater said, with a touch of sadness. "We'll bunk down in my Grandma's old house. It's so haunted, the family pretends it doesn't exist. Nobody's been there since she died in 1962."
"Then it's settled," I told her. We didn't mind fixer-uppers.
"I do have to warn you," Ant Eater said, holding up a finger, "the walls bleed."
"From black magic?" Grandma asked.
"No," the Ant Eater said quickly, "angry ghosts."
"That's fine, then," I said. "Let's do it."
Carpenter watched the entire exchange with slack-jawed horror. He'd learn soon enough.
Meanwhile, Pirate scampered up, running so fast that he nearly collided with my leg. "What are you doing here? I asked. Jumping on my bed should have occupied him longer.
He turned in a circle and sat. "Does this house have a porch big enough for a dragon?"
"That dragon is not making a nest on the porch," Ant Eater barked, before I could answer.
Pirate didn't flinch. "Then I'll share my room."
"We'll figure it out," I said. I still couldn't believe we were actually going to do this.
Neither could Carpenter. "I really think you and your friends are over-preparing here."
"You can ride with us," Grandma offered, which I considered rather generous after he'd tried to cut her out.
"On motorcycles," the necromancer drawled, "across country," he added, as if the whole idea were absurd.
Ant Eater grinned and said what we were all thinking. "Sounds great to me."
He crossed his arms over his chest. "I'll stick to the Between Realm." He stopped and thought for a moment. "How long will your way take?"
"Three days," I said. Or we could fly. I really hated to leave the bikes behind, though. They were great for quick escapes. Trouble was, ever since Ant Eater broke up with Sid the fairy we'd been tossed off the lightning-fast fairy paths.
But Carpenter was already nodding. "Three days actually works. They're having a ceremony for the blood moon. We can neutralize the alligator then. You'll get a chance to see them in action. I'd like your opinion."
"I'll be there," I told him.
He drew a pad out of his pocket and wrote down an address on Royal Street before tearing it off and offering it to me.
He held onto the paper a second too long as I took it.
"My friend's place. Meet me after dusk on Wednesday."
Interesting. I wondered exactly who this friend might be. "I'll be there," I said. And we'd just see what the Big Easy had in store for us.
Chapter Three
The witches didn't waste any time packing. Only instead of prepping for a fast bug-out on their Harleys, they began pulling out massive wooden crates. I'd never seen anything like it.
"What are you doing?" I asked Grandma, who had retrieved a clipboard from her room and was busy taking notes.
She glanced up at me. "Advanced logistics," she said, gnawing on the end of her pencil. We both stepped out of the way as Frieda scooted past with a basket full of dried herbs.
Grandma caught the blond by the arm and pointed to some of the others who were removing stacking trays from the crates. "Pack the active ingredients for the protective spells in a separate box from the trouble-making potions." The set-up reminded me of a tricked out version of the containers I used to pack holiday ornaments. "I don't want our shielding compounds coming into contact with any Light Eater spells. Or worse, the Bat out of H
ells."
"I've never heard of that last one," I said. "What does it do?"
Grandma chuckled. "Makes you run like a bat out of, well… you know." She shot me a conspiratorial look. "We got plenty. Want to try one?"
"Not yet," I told her. I wanted to say 'never,' but we both knew better than that.
A furrow formed between Grandma's brows as she flipped the page and looked over the second half of her list. "I can't get over all the stuff we've managed to collect while we've lived here. I swear our stuff is breeding while we're not looking."
In their case, it could be possible.
I just didn't get why they had to pack so much of it. "This is a quick down and back," I reminded her. I was starting to see Carpenter's point. "It's just me and him, going in for one night."
"We like to be prepared," she said, "in case things get sticky." She gave me a wink. "It's what kept us alive for thirty years before you showed up."
I got that. I did. But I also wondered if there was something else behind all this.
It had to be tough to live so long without a permanent home, only to find one and have to leave it so fast. "You have to realize you are coming back," I pointed out.
Grandma leaned in close to me, her gray hair tangling around her shoulders. "This is what we're calling a semi-light bug-out." She watched Ant Eater scoop a fish out of the sacred pool with a net. "We only take the magical stuff. Not a lot of personal do-dads. No entertainment or fancy clothes."
"Ah, so you mean the dart board and your silver studded leather chaps," I clarified. The witches hardly lived with excess.
Ant Eater strode up. "I've got the transport set up and cleansed." And by that, she didn't mean with soap and water. The stout witch turned to the group and clapped her hands. "Let's start loading."
"What exactly are you using to haul everything?" I asked. The witches didn't have a truck.
"Don't worry about it," Grandma told me. Neal is lending us an old school bus."
Great. "We're not going to be conspicuous at all driving into town."
"Hey," she said. The silver eagle ring on her finger glinted in the sun. "We're not trying to sneak. If anything, we're your excuse to get close to that voodoo bokor. You're fleeing the crazy witches and seeking out a whole 'nother brand of odd."
