Once Jericho left, he immediately had the wait staff - minus one man with a limp in the kitchen that he personally pulled out of the back of the hotel and threw into a dumpster for spitting in Toni’s food the day before - brought a parade of food and drinks to her suite.
They lined each silver pushcart up and down the hallway for her to receive, one-by-one, causing other guests to stick their heads out their doors to see what was going on.
She inspected each tray of treats as the staff brought them up to her door, and she brought them inside alone as Jericho had instructed.
Before she could get settled, she heard another knock on the door. When she opened it, she found Jules behind a large bouquet of fresh red roses.
“Hey,” she said, stepping aside for him.
“Hey yourself.” Walking in, Jules closed the door behind him. “I guess I don’t have to tell you who these are from.” Setting down the vase down on the bar, he turned to inspect her, surprised that she was still in the same yellow dress from the night before.
“Wow, you’re glowing. I guess, last night ended better than it started,” he joked.
“You could say that.” She blushed. “I was just about to take a shower.”
“Jericho wanted me to bring these by to let you know that he was thinking about you, but I came by to thank you for keeping our secret. You really saved my ass at the house.”
Toni was actually glad to have a secret of her own. “Thanks for trusting me enough to do it.”
“So. How are you fairing with all of this?” he asked, noticing a visible difference in her since their last encounter.
Toni nibbled on a chocolate strawberry and leaned against the bar. With a huff, she shrugged. “It’s a lot to take in, Jules.”
“I know. I know,” he said, sitting down on the sofa. His long legs sprawled out over the carpet. “But would you really have wanted to not know who you are your entire life?”
Toni raised a brow at his silver lining. “No, I’m glad I know, but to realize all this about myself and my family all at once is overwhelming.”
Jules felt partly responsible. “I had a choice. I could gamble and intrude, or I could sit back and let you figure it out all on your own. But why waste the time? Why put you in danger by not telling you who you really are.”
Toni could see that he was grappling with his decision. Wiping her mouth off, she went and sat beside him. Putting her head on his shoulder, she twisted up her lip. “This is definitely your fault,” she said playfully.
He smirked at that.
“But you did a good thing,” she said lovingly. “I wouldn’t know about my family. I wouldn’t know that those women were my sisters. And I wouldn’t have Jericho without you.”
“You sort of like him, huh?” Jules knew without asking that the same applied for his big brother.
A smile flitted cross her lips at the thought of Jericho Laveau. “Yeah, I sort of love him. And that is what trips me out. We haven’t known each other a week, and I’m actually using the word love.”
“People have fallen in love in a lot shorter time than that. Hell, I’ve seen couples fall in love at first sight. I’m living proof. I fell in love with Nadia the moment I saw her outside a flower shop in Paris. It was spring, right after World War II ended. I was there on furlough and just happened to be across the street at a bistro. It was like the universe stopped when she turned around and looked at me. I knew then I would never want another woman again.” Jules put his arm around her. “So, you see, it doesn’t matter what the world thinks about your relationship. It matters how you feel.”
“You’re a good brother,” Toni admitted to him. “I never had a sibling growing up with my stepparents. Jericho is really lucky to have you.”
That meant a lot to Jules. “Well, you have five brothers, five sisters and a new father now and one very protective…” He caught himself before he said the wrong thing. He had overstepped before; he wasn’t about to do it again.
“Very protective what?” Toni asked.
“Beau,” Jules said with a smile. Rubbing his hands down his jeans, he stood up. It was best to get out of here before he put his foot in his mouth again. “I need get down to the bar. It won’t run itself.”
“And I better get back to work,” Toni said, wondering what it was that Jules wasn’t saying.
As Toni saw Jules out of the door and locked it behind her, it was suddenly very apparent that the Laveau coven planned to keep their word to keep her safe.
But she had her own promise to herself.
If all she could do was sit in front of the clues she had in front of her to try to figure out where the other Laveau clan was hiding or where their pentagram was, then she would do it.
***
Left alone after the bustle of people went on with their day and after a long shower, Toni put on her working pajamas and pulled out all her hand-written notes, photos, police reports and files and spread them around the spacious parlor until they littered the entire room.
Having been in Jericho’s bed for nearly half the day, she didn’t feel like doing her work in the master bedroom.
The parlor was nicer, brighter. With three large windows, a table for four, a long bar, a couch and several chairs, she had plenty of space.
Since Jericho forbade her from opening the windows or the balcony doors, she turned on the television and flipped to the news for a little background noise.
Then she lined up the pictures of her dead sisters on the black marble bar beside a large bouquet of roses and the tiny tray of half-eaten chocolates. The contrast of living the sweet life while trying to solve their untimely deaths could have never been more pronounced then in that presentation.
Once she set the stage, she stood in the middle of the room and took it all in.
She had to put the pieces together to figure out what still missing.
Jules had told her two nights before that if she just opened her mind, she could see.
Well, what was she supposed to see?
She sat on the sofa staring at the papers in silent meditation. At first, there was nothing – just the sound of the television and her heart beating.
Then suddenly, she felt a pull within, something odd, something that she had never felt before.
Her hands began to tingle in the palms and the nerve endings at the tip of her fingers started to jolt alive.
“That’s it,” she said, excited.
Tapping into the supernatural pull, she stretched her hands over the paper, like she had seen Jericho stretch his hands to the ceiling, and closed her eyes.
At first, she pursed her lips together and tried to force a vision to come forth, but then she remembered what Jericho had said.
Taking a deep breath, she spoke. “Reveal yourself.”
Abruptly, the papers began to move without her touching them.
Digging deep inside of her, she felt a power emerge, and then the papers rose up, suspended in the air, the way that she had been suspended the night before.
Words on the paper started to light up in her mind.
Closing her eyes, she read the notes without seeing them.
Then suddenly, clues started to pop out.
She could see her sisters lying in bed in room 325.
She could see them wake from their sleep, eyes flashing open with a fright.
She could see them as they slowly got up from the bed.
She could see all the things she had seen in her vision with Jericho and her family, only now she could now see by herself.
She focused in, past her reason, past the words on the paper to their actions.
“Where is it?” she asked aloud. “Where are they hiding the pentagram?” Her voice echoed around the parlor.
The vision rushed forth like she was sitting in the room with her sisters. A gust of powerful air moved through her hair, pushing it back off her shoulders. A chill shot down her spine and then, she saw it.
A blazing, fiery pentag
ram. It burned her lids to zero in on it. A fear and pain gripped her. Jericho had been right, this thing was created with malice, hate and evil. Just looking at it in her mind’s eye was painful.
“The ceiling,” she said, eyes flashing open. Her heart thudded in her chest, making it hard to breathe, but at least the burning stopped when she released the vision.
The whole time it had been right under everyone’s noses. How was that even possible that someone didn’t think to look before? “That is where the pentagram is, on the damn ceiling. It’s not one pentagram. It’s two. One with them. One in the hotel room. Some sort of a transference or portal.”
There was no time to think.
Jumping up from the sofa, she grabbed her key card and headed out of the front door.
It wasn’t enough to rally the troops on her half-cocked vision and pull them away from their own investigations. She had to see it for herself before she summoned Jericho back here.
Besides, it wasn’t like she was breaking her promise. She wasn’t leaving the hotel; she was simply leaving her room.
As she crossed the threshold of her hotel suite, she felt a rip in her heart that nearly jolted her backward.
Grabbing the door to keep from falling backward, she let out a deep breath.
“Shit.”
Something or someone was commanding her to stop, but she ignored the warning – had to. This was too important.
Shaking off the foreboding feeling, she headed down the hall as fast as her feet could take her.
Chapter Thirteen
“The last guard shall fall, destroyed by her own blood and she shall be cast aside with a mighty blade, and the chosen shall replace the guard, standing as husband and wife of the end, ushering in 16 hooves of red, white, black and pale and giving their son the earth to stand upon and fight for man’s future alongside the righteous.”
The Prophecy
T rying to play it as cool as possible, Toni went down the concierge desk and prayed that Anna was working.
Thank God, she was.
Standing in her normal black uniform of slacks, a black button down and tie, Anna looked up as Toni approached, clueless as to why the reporter was donning flannel Christmas pajamas and a tank top in the middle of the day.
“How can I help you, Ms. St. John,” Anna asked, voice as hospitable as her presence.
With an equally bright smile, Toni rested her elbows against the cool marble counter and raised up on her tip toes. “Hey, Jericho told me earlier that I could run by room 325 for my story, just to take a few notes, but he said that I’d need to come to you for a key.”
Anna frowned at the request. She hadn’t been told about a room tour today. Her suspicion rose, noticing the sweat mingling in Toni’s perfect brows. “Why didn’t he just get the keys for you before he left?” That wasn’t exactly like her boss, but then again, it also wasn’t like him to parade around with a woman who was staying at the hotel as was the gossip from the doorman.
Toni shrugged indifferently. “To be honest, I really don’t know. He just dropped me off a few hours ago, before going to run some errands. Unfortunately, we stayed at his father’s house at Cypress Pointe too long, and by the time he got back, he was pressed for time. You know how he is. Work, work, work. He was in a rush, I guess.” Toni licked her lips in desperation, trying to drop enough names to keep the woman from picking up the phone and making a call.
“I don’t know. He told me not to check anyone into that room.”
“I know, but I’m not checking in, just checking it out. You’d really be helping me out, Anna. I’m on a deadline, way behind from hanging out with Jericho all night, and this is the last part of the story. My editor is really riding my ass.”
Anna knew a thing or two about pushy bosses. “How did your story turn out anyway? You find anything interesting?” She typed on her computer, pulling up the room’s information.
“No leads. As you all said, just a string of suicides. I’m wrapping up the details now, so I can start to try to enjoy my next three days here, before it’s back to the normal bump and grind.” Her heart raced under her calm exterior.
From the looks of things, you’ve already started your vacation, Anna thought to herself with a raised brow. It was amazing to her what men considered attractive. For years, Jericho had avoided women, rich and easy alike, as though they were offering the plague. Then, this beautiful mess comes barreling in, and he suddenly losses his mind.
Men.
Anna passed the keys to Toni and smirked. “Please bring these back as soon as you are done.”
Toni grasped the key card in her hand and released a grateful sigh. “Will do. Thanks so much, Anna,” she said, making her way back to the elevator before anyone else could see her.
***
This was the ultimate test.
If she was ever going to believe in her gifts, she had to do this alone. It was the only way to make sure that she wasn’t going crazy or being led around blindly by someone else for their own entertainment.
The hallway was long, like one of those scary movies where the woman kept running, but the destination kept moving farther and farther away as she tried to escape her maniac attacker.
As she eked down the narrow hall, painted eggshell white with red borders and elaborately detailed red carpeting, she suddenly felt a chill. The temperature had dropped at least two to three degrees since she got off the elevator – a warning that she should turn back.
“This is crazy,” Toni admitted aloud.
Two days ago, she would have never gone to this room alone, but after her vision and the long discussion with Lafayette and Jericho, it was apparent that she had no choice.
When she arrived at the door at the end of the hall, she felt like someone was behind her, watching her every move.
Turning fast, she cast a glare over her shoulder to find she was still alone, but the fine hair on her arms was standing up and strange dull ache started to form in her stomach.
Toni knew that this was stupid, if not downright dangerous, but she also knew it was too late to turn back.
There might not be another chance to find out if the pentagram existed. And once Jericho found out it was there, he might not ever let her go near it, which meant she might never be able to find where Ophelia’s coven was hiding.
There was too much at stake. She had to try – for her family, for her sanity.
“Don’t punk out,” she said aloud, trying to dispel her fear.
Slipping the magnetic card into the reader, she heard the door unlock. She gripped the brass handle and pushed down, opening the door to the first floor of the dark suite.
Stepping inside, she rubbed her bare arms as her eye sight adjusted.
“Hello,” she called out, not expecting a response.
The door slammed behind her with a clang, making her jump and turn around.
“Shit,” she whispered, heart racing. Turning back to face the room, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then proceeded with her investigation.
The split, two-level floor plan had a downstairs parlor complete with sofa, tables, chairs and a stairwell that led upstairs to the small red-walled bedroom complete with a king-sized bed and a bathroom. It was just as her visions had shown her when she was in the pentagram with Jericho.
The sun was starting to set across the horizon in a purple hue. What was left of the day’s light came in through the wide-blade plantation shutters on the French doors that led out to the private balcony.
She could hear the music coming from Bourbon Street and the sound of people laughing and talking as they passed by on the street below.
A more careful part of her wanted to turn on the lights to make sure no one was lurking in the darkness, but she needed to see things the same way that her sisters had seen them in order to try to summon the pentagram.
With her hand tightly gripping the rail, she inched up the iron stairs to the bedroom on the second floor.
A
queen-sized, pillowtop bed took up most of the room. Inviting as it seemed, she could sense the presence of something evil all around her.
This was the same place that her sisters had been, the same stairs they had descended out to their deaths. And here she was facing it all alone.
“No time like the present,” she uttered walking up to the bed. Her hand ran over the comforter before she crawled into its softness and laid on her back.
Resting her head back on the pillows, she looked up at the ceiling and bit down on her bottom lip.
She was afraid, very afraid, but she sat there as dusk transitioned into night, looking up in the rafters, waiting for something to happen.
Inhaling, she closed her eyes, dug deep into her inner being and whispered the words.
“Reveal yourself,” she said forcefully.
Lifting her hands to the ceiling the way that she had seen Jericho do, she said the words again. “Reveal yourself to me.” Her voice strained with anger.
Her command was heard and obeyed.
A wave of energy emanated from her fingertips and connected with the ceiling. The current moved through her entire body, locking her into position.
There was a gentle bump first, nothing that Toni felt alarmed by. But then walls began to violently tremble, knocking the painting directly across from her unto the floor along with the lamps on the nightstands.
She kept her arms up despite her first mind to flee as a jolt came from below her and a bright, blinding light shot from her hands into the ceiling.
“Reveal yourself to me!” she screamed, feeling her power grow.
Chips from the popcorn ceiling fell down on the bed and mingled in her hair and the large bed rocked her like it was going to buck off the balcony and land on the first floor.
Finally, the pentagram, revealed itself, etching like a brand into the plaster. It was the same one from her vision; the exact same one used to kill her family.
“Gotcha,” Toni said with a proud grin. “Now, I’m going to destroy you. All of you.” Letting her arms fall to her side, she inhaled a breath. Never had she ever felt so powerful, so in control, so aware. And she had done it on her own.
Warlocks_The Creole Coven Page 16
