Devotion Calls
By Caridad Piñeiro
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 1
Spanish Harlem, New York City
T he saints’ eyes followed him as he worked, scolding him for using them for his lie. Mocking him for denying the truth about what he was.
Ricardo Fernandez paused and laid his hands on the altar that embodied the fraud that was his life. All around him the statues of the saints condemned him. But he was used to such censure from those who refused to believe in his powers. Those whose fears forced him to hide behind the guise of a santero.
He looked down at his hands and, as he had countless times in his thirty years of life, considered why he had been chosen to carry this burden. Why these hands, which looked just like those of any other man, possessed the power to give life or take it away.
If he was a lesser man, he might have fallen into the trap of considering himself almost godlike. He might have opted to sell his abilities to those who paid the highest price to be saved. He could have even made a perfect assassin, able to kill without leaving a trace.
But Ricardo had done none of those things. Neither regrets nor revelry had a place in his life now, so he resumed his task. With a gentle touch, he removed the offerings he had placed on the altar the day before: the fine cigar, now just a half-burned stub and a pile of ashes, and the shot glass of fragrant rum, which had nearly evaporated from the heat of the radiator just a few feet away. After checking the water level in the vase of sunflowers he had placed beside one virgencita, he shifted to the last offering.
A small pile of coins lay at the foot of one statue. He gathered up the money in his hand and thanked the deity. While he himself was not a true believer in Santería, his customers held to this faith and he wouldn’t besmirch their tenets. He hoped his prayer was deemed respectful enough by the deities that allowed him to use the powers with which he had been born.
Ricardo didn’t like living a lie, but posing as a santero—a priest of the Afro-Caribbean religious Santería—was the only way he could use his healing gifts. Many of the people who sought him out might not have come to him if they realized his abilities were earthly. They preferred to think the powers came from rituals beseeching their gods.
Of course, if some god hadn’t decided to give him this boon, who had? Ricardo refused to consider the alternative, since he had sworn never to use the dark side of his gift. Not even when someone asked for it.
As had happened just the other day with Evita Martinez.
He had been seeing Evita for just over a year now, ever since the doctors at one of New York City’s more prestigious hospitals had told her that there was nothing else they could do for her cancer. They’d sent her home to enjoy what was left of her life.
But Evita hadn’t wanted to die just yet. Having heard about his unique abilities from some of the other ladies in the neighborhood, she had come to him for help. She and her daughter, Sara.
Sara, he thought with a sigh, recalling the way she had stood before him nearly a year ago, condemning him with her body language as he talked about what he could and could not do for Evita.
He knew that Sara hadn’t believed him. Worse, that she considered him a charlatan. Her bright hazel eyes had skewered him with disbelief, much like those of the saints.
The disbelief in her eyes turned to trepidation when, after finding out that she was a nurse, he had asked for payment of a most unusual kind—blood. For a moment he’d thought she might run, and take her mother with her, but then despair had crept into her eyes.
Sara loved her mother, and at that moment she had been desperate enough to do anything to help her—even if it meant bringing bags of blood to a man she considered less than dirt. Ricardo hated relying on that despair. He hated the lying, but he did what he had to so he could help people.
When Sara brought a blood bag later today, he would have to tell the prickly nurse that her mother’s cancer was growing faster than he could contain it, and that Evita had asked him to help her pass peacefully when the time came, rather than suffer with the pain.
Healing and killing. His gift and his curse.
A tap sounded against the glass of his door. He turned from the altar and stared toward the front of his store.
Sara Martinez stood there, her chin tucked into the thick collar of the charcoal-gray down jacket she wore against the lingering chill of winter. A crazy gust of March wind sent her silky shoulder-length brown hair swirling around her face. With a gloved hand, she combed it back and shifted from foot to foot, impatient and intractable as always about these visits.
The early morning sun played across her pretty, heart-shaped face. She had a hint of a cleft in her chin, and hazel eyes that expressed so much with just a look. In his case, generally disgust. But he had seen how those eyes could warm to a molten caramel when they gazed upon someone she loved.
And her lips…They were full, at least most of the time. Not when she shot him a grim look, as she did right now as she waited at his door.
Drawing a deep breath, he prepared himself to break the news that would surely devastate her.
Sara peered through the glass door of the botánica. It was early, but she had just come off a double shift and wanted to get home, sink into bed and not get up until it was time to go back to work again. Before that, however, she had to make her payment to the santero. Plus, she wanted to hear what he had to say about her mami. Her mother had been looking pale lately and Sara wanted to make sure he was doing everything he could do.
The plastic sign hanging behind the glass door said Closed, but she could discern the silhouette of someone at the back of the shop. Even in the dim light, the size and shape were familiar. Over six feet tall. Broad-shouldered and lean-hipped. Powerful.
She could go on and on about his many physical attributes, but there was enough of that talk from the women in the barrio.
So what if his hair, the color of rich soil, hung in thick waves to his shoulders? Or if his eyes were so green they reminded her of the deepest part of a pine forest? Or if his face, composed of finely chiseled lines and high cheekbones, was inherited from some Aztec ancestor?
None of that changed anything. She had sworn off handsome men some time ago. Especially handsome men with little
means of support. After her one bad experience, the bitter taste of being used still lingered in her mouth.
She rapped on the glass with her gloved hand and he turned.
He must have noticed her, for he sauntered toward the door, moving with a grace that should be illegal. As the light from outside spilled in, illuminating his face, she noted his serious demeanor and the harsh, thin line of his lips.
He was angry.
When he opened the door, she immediately began an apology. “I’m sorry I came so early, only—”
“It’s not a problem, really. I was working,” he said, stepping to let her enter.
Working. A funny word to use. She wondered if the priests of her own faith, Catholicism, considered what they did work and not devotion.
She walked into Ricardo’s store. The smells of the various herbs, flowers and candles he kept calmed her nerves almost instantly.
The anteroom of his shop invited her in. He had set up a small sitting area in front of a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf and a display of candles and icons related to various religions. She had waited in one of the comfortable armchairs more than once when she’d brought her mother for treatments.
Ricardo followed her there and held out his hand toward the small sofa. “We have to talk.”
“Sure,” she said with a nod. When she sat, she opened her knapsack and removed the paper bag containing the blood bank pouches. She handed it to him.
He hesitated before taking the sack and peeking inside. One dark brow arched upward as he noted the contents. “Two?”
With an uneasy shrug, she said, “I thought that maybe with more blood…”
She looked away, unable to finish, because in truth, she didn’t understand what he did with the blood, nor did she really want to know. All that mattered was that her mother seemed to have gotten better thanks to whatever rites he performed. Until lately. In the past week or two, her mom had started failing once again. Sara was too astute a nurse not to notice the signs of her mami’s pain and weakness.
“Sara?”
She raised her face and met his intense gaze. Understanding mingled there with something else. Something she wasn’t prepared to admit.
“You wanted to talk,” she said.
He barely dipped his head in acknowledgment, and shifted forward to the edge of his chair. Leaning muscled forearms on his knees, he clasped his hands together. They were strong hands, she noticed, with long, well-shaped fingers. Magical hands, her mother had said after the first time he had laid them on her during a treatment.
“Your mami…” He stopped, and his hands moved up and down nervously a few times before he continued. “The cancer’s back and it’s spreading. More quickly than I can—”
Sara waved her own hands to stop him. “If two blood bags aren’t enough—”
“It’s not that,” Ricardo said, but he could tell that she had shut down and wasn’t likely to listen.
She shook her head. “What do you want, then? Money?”
Ricardo sighed harshly and raked his hand through his hair in frustration. “It’s not about money.”
“Bullshit. How much do you want? I don’t have a lot, but whatever I have, it’s yours.” She grabbed her red knapsack, opened it and pulled out her wallet.
Ricardo reached out to stop her. As soon as his hand connected with hers, he sensed her life force. Within it existed a bit of power similar to his own, creating an unexpected harmony. The synchronicity of their forces sent a tingle up his arm, followed by heat. A strong wave of sexual heat that swiftly raced to his groin. But it was the wrong time for such emotion, so he tamped it down.
Sara ripped her hand away. The surprise on her features and the flush across her cheeks told him she’d been similarly affected. “What was that?”
It had been a long time since he had accidentally allowed his force to merge with someone else’s. The last time had been during a rather intimate situation well before he had learned how to truly harness and control his power. That Sara could cause such a loss of control was…confusing.
So he lied. After all, what was one more lie on top of all the others he had already told her? “I just finished contacting one of my orishas—” At the her confused look he explained, “The living entities that represent the forces of nature and function as sacred patrons. Kind of like your guardian angles.” She nodded and he continued. “Maybe after contacting my orishas there was a remnant of that energy.”
She rubbed her hand, almost as if trying to wipe away dirt or something foul. It bothered him more than he liked. “So my touch is only good enough when you think it will heal your mother?”
“That’s not it.” Although she denied it, she continued to rub her hand.
He ignored her actions and pressed ahead with what he had been trying to tell her earlier. “Your mami is getting worse. If she does get bad—”
“She’s not going to get bad. She’s going to get better.”
Before he could say anything else, Sara grabbed her knapsack and raced out of the store.
The glass rattled as the door slammed shut, but after that, silence reigned.
Ricardo heaved a sigh, hating that he hadn’t been able to get through to Sara. Plus, he worried that his concern for her had caused him to lose control for that one moment. A moment that had allowed him to connect with her on a deep emotional level. A sexual level. Even now he could recollect the way her hand had felt beneath his. How the flush had come to her cheeks and her hazel eyes had become that deep golden color he’d imagined earlier, rich with the promise of passion.
No matter how he wanted to, he couldn’t explore that initial flare of attraction. Getting emotionally involved with a client could only complicate things, especially when the entire relationship was based on a lie. He knew enough about Sara to know that she wouldn’t tolerate a liar.
Rising from the sofa, he picked up the brown paper bag she had brought. No sense wasting the blood, he thought as he headed to the phone to dial a friend who would appreciate the treat.
“More blood, Samantha?”
The attractive vampire sitting across from Ricardo held up her china cup to assure him that she was fine. “No, thanks.”
It had been nearly three years since he had first met Samantha Turner, at dusk one day when he’d been coming out of his recently opened botánica. After bumping into the attractive young woman, he had sensed an oddness about her life force and realized instantly that she was something other than human.
She had sensed his unusual force, as well, and had transformed to her vampire state, ready to protect herself. He had backed away, summoning a calming push of energy in order to soothe her. As he’d raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, Samantha had realized he meant her no harm, and returned to her human state.
In the time since then, he had become her friend and keeper of sorts, helping her get blood to satisfy her vampire needs.
Like today’s delicacy, he thought, watching her sip the blood. No matter how many times he saw her feed, he didn’t think he could ever get used to it.
He cradled his own thick earthenware mug filled with hot English Breakfast tea, and inhaled its earthy aroma. As he did so, he took a moment to push outward and touch Samantha’s life force. The streaks of anger and hurt that had marred his friend’s aura for so long were gone.
“Things are going well?” he asked, just in case he had misread the energy humming off her.
Samantha smiled. Happiness filled her crystal-blue eyes. With a sure nod of her head, she confirmed his observation. “Very well,” she said, and picked up her cup, pinky extended in a very proper pose.
When she finished, she daintily dabbed at her lips, but not before he caught a glimpse of the telltale black-cherry color staining them. Fresh blood from one of the bags Sara had brought earlier that day.
Sara. He wondered whether she had recovered from their earlier accidental encounter. He also worried about how her mother was doing. She had been feeling so poorly the other day, even after his treatment.
“Something bothering you, mon ami?” Samantha asked, breaking into his reverie.
Looking down at the mug nestled between his large hands, he considered what had happened that morning. Needing to unload, he said, “Do you know Sara Martinez?”
“Pretty young nurse from the apartment building around the corner?”
“Is she pretty?” he said, because Samantha would only be too eager to start playing matchmaker if she thought he had any interest in Sara. He couldn’t imagine what his friend would do if he confessed to what had happened earlier.
“Possibly even beautiful. Not to mention hardworking and honest. Respectful.”
“A veritable paragon. Unlike me.” He took a sip of his tea and avoided Samantha’s discerning stare.
“I’m assuming your rather grumpy state is because you had a run-in with this paragon.”
With a shrug, he replied, “Her mother isn’t doing well. I tried to explain that to Sara.”
“But you weren’t able to?” Reaching out, Samantha laid her hand on his and squeezed. “No matter how hard it may be, you need to make her understand.”
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