by Terri Garey
Tears of frustration threatened, but I blinked them back.
"I don't need to talk to Peaches! You don't need to talk to Peaches. Peaches is dead. If anything's holding her here, it's you! Your guilt! You have to let her go."
She stared at me, opening her mouth to say something. But she didn't say it. In her eyes, I read the first signs of hesitation, and pushed even harder.
"Sammy's a liar, Kelly. That's how he got to Peaches—he made her think he was her only friend, and then he took advantage of her."
"In more ways than one," Sammy said smoothly. "They don't call me the Father of Lies for nothing."
Time stood still.
Kelly showed no reaction to what Sammy had just said. It wasn't just my shock… Sammy was up to his tricks with time and dimension again.
The Father of Lies.
I turned my head, very slowly, and looked at him where he sat—oh so nonchalantly—at the velvet-covered table.
"What…" I licked suddenly dry lips. "… what are you saying?"
"Oh, Nicki," Sammy said, leaning back in his chair. He was all in black today, in a lightweight silk jacket over a black cotton tee. He could've stepped from the pages of a fashion magazine, been a model for Armani. "You're so good at secrets. Surely you can figure this one out? Don't you see the family resemblance?"
It was so monstrous, so unbelievable, that my mind just wouldn't go there. "You're lying."
Sammy shrugged. "That's the problem with lies. Nobody wants to believe you when you speak the truth."
"Tell her, then," I shouted. "Speak the truth! Tell Kelly who you really are!"
"I'd rather wait until she's in my bed," the Devil said wickedly. "It gives a delicious little twist to the words 'Daddy's little girl.'"
My heart sank to the level of my shoes. I wanted to rip his blond head off, despite the way my hands were shaking; I wanted to run, to snatch Kelly and drag her away from this evil man, this evil place—but there was nothing I could do.
"It's not too late to save her, you know." Sammy plucked my thoughts from the air.
He touched the Ouija board in front of him with the tip of a finger. "You could come to work for me, help me recruit a few more souls."
I'd been doing my best to ignore the board—it had come to symbolize all that was ugly, all that was evil. I hated it.
He picked up the planchette. "You're the one I want," Sammy said, giving me his best rock-star grin. "Last chance."
Last chance.
Last chance to go back to Little Five Points, to Evan, as a person in charge of my own life. Last chance to run Handbags and Gladrags as an honest business person who knew how to succeed, on her own, without selling out. Last chance to have Joe, all to myself, for ever and ever, because he loved me for being myself.
Last chance to save my sister's soul. Even if she didn't wanna be saved.
"Haven't you given up yet, you old goat?" Bijou's voice came as a complete shock, yet there she was, stepping from a dark corner. Her black dress and feathered hat blended perfectly with the shadows, her face a pale, round moon in the dimness.
Sammy sighed, looking annoyed. "Really, Bijou, this is getting tiresome. Aren't you supposed to be dead?" He wiggled his fingers at her in a fine display of rock-star arrogance. "Run along."
"We had a deal, Samael." The way Bijou said Sammy's name gave me goose bumps. "You've tempted them and you failed. Peaches is dead, her contract is up. The girls are free now."
"But I'm not finished yet," Sammy said mildly.
"Nicki knows that the only way to win against evil is to never play the game." Bijou was talking to Sammy, but looking at me. Her eyes were dark pits of sadness, full of hard-won wisdom. "Do the right thing, Nicki—every time—and things will work out."
Easy enough for the old woman to say, but I was only twenty-nine and had no freaking idea what the right thing was.
Sammy's lip curled into an ugly smile. "Nicki may be a lost cause, but she's not the only player in this game." He released a heavy sigh, as though pained. "I can see a demonstration of my power is in order."
A cold breeze ruffled my hair, bringing a foul stench with it. My stomach churned.
"Hello, little goth girl." Psycho Barbie's voice made me jump. The basement was getting awfully crowded. Barbie was standing beside the table, smirking at me.
"Don't be so full of yourself," Sammy snapped at her. "I'm very disappointed in you."
Barbie's model-straight posture wilted before my eyes. She looked fearful, uncertain. "I did what you asked me to, Master. I tricked everyone—no one knew it was me."
Sammy's gaze flicked scornfully over the blond woman at the table. "Stupid bitch." He gave a careless nod in Kelly's direction. "The sister figured it out, and so did the boyfriend. You're useless."
It was sickening to see a beautiful woman grovel. "Please, Master, I'm sorry. I'll do better next time." The fear on her face was plain to see.
"There will be no next time," Sammy spat.
My veins filled with ice.
"Your contract is up, and our bargain is over. I should've taken you a month ago instead of giving you an extension. You're dead, Saundra, and it's time to pay up."
Saundra. Her name was Saundra.
"That which you fear the most shall become your world, from now until the end of time. Here." He thrust something at her, from which she recoiled. "Take it. Take it and embrace your fate."
It was the mirror—Kelly's scrying mirror—glittering as it caught the light. Like a robot, Saundra took it from Sammy's hand, terror distorting her features.
"After all," Sammy murmured, a smile turning up the corners of his lips, "beauty is only skin deep, and your skin has been dead for weeks."
Saundra looked into the mirror and screamed, a high-pitched, horrible scream that made me want to cover my ears.
Then, even more horribly, I began to see why she was screaming.
The skin of her face and hands turned a mottled shade of greenish-black. Her eyes began to bulge from their sockets. Fluid began to weep from the corners and drip from her nose. A putrid smell arose in the room, making me want to gag.
I wanted so badly to run away, but I couldn't leave Kelly standing there like a statue. She had no clue what was going on around her, and I envied her for it.
"Do something!" I said to Bijou, who stood calmly by, watching. "Make it stop!"
Sammy laughed, a nasty laugh. He ignored both Bijou and me, enjoying the fright show too much to be distracted.
"There's nothing we can do, dear," Bijou said sadly. "This poor soul made a bad bargain, and the cost of it has nothing to do with us."
Saundra's screams had faded to whimpers, but still she stared into the mirror. Her face was lopsided now, one side drooping more than the other as the putrefying flesh separated itself from the bones. The hand she rose to hold it in place was swollen, the fingernails an ugly bluish-gray, the white tips of her French manicure emphasizing the decay.
"Behold your ultimate fate, Nicki Styx." Sammy raised a hand toward the sobbing, gibbering corpse. "Food for the worms, that's all you mortals be." His speech became more antiquated when he was being diabolical. "Unless you'd like to partner with me. I can offer you much, much more."
"I've seen how you treat your partners," I said boldly, though my knees were shaking. I wanted so badly to throw up, but I didn't want to add to the whole Exorcist vibe.
Besides, the creep would probably enjoy it too much.
Refusing to look at Saundra again, I closed my ears to her mad whimpers, refused to hear how they clogged in her rotting throat. The face that was once so pampered and smooth, taut from countless surgeries, was no more. The thing that sat at the table was the stuff of nightmares, and I was sure I'd see it over and over again in my dreams.
For now, I'd seen enough.
Sammy sighed, disappointed. He waved his hand as if waving at a gnat, and the thing that once was Saundra disappeared. The odor of decay lingered, but I did my best to br
eathe shallowly and ignore it.
"Let's see what Kelly has to say then, shall we?"
"What's going on, Nicki?" Kelly's voice made me jump.
Time was back on track.
"Never mind." She frowned at me, reading the strain in my face. "If you see something I don't see," she glanced at Sammy uneasily, "then maybe I should listen to you." She paused. "I trust your judgment." She lifted her chin in the way I already knew so well. "Sammy, I think you should leave."
Sammy slammed his hand down on the table, making the candles rattle.
Kelly and I both jumped, clutching at each other.
"How utterly boring you've all become."
He rose from the velvet-covered table, a sneer on his handsome face.
"Milton was right: 'Tis better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.' You do-gooders suck the fun out of everything. I'll leave you to it, then."
And he was gone, just like that.
Kelly gasped and squeezed my arm, then gasped again as she saw Bijou, standing in the basement shadows. I wasn't sure how Bijou had suddenly managed to appear to us both, but I felt a surge of relief to know that Kelly could see her, too.
"Do you see her?" I asked, just to be safe.
"I see her," Kelly whispered.
The sharp sting of her fingernails grounded me in the moment—let me know I wasn't crazy—even though I'd be bruised tomorrow.
Bijou took a few steps forward, resting a black-gloved hand on the back of the chair. The chair where Sammy had just been. Her ostrich plume gave a graceful wave as she nodded to Kelly.
"Don't be afraid," Bijou said. "You girls did well."
She smiled broadly. "I can tell you everything now. Better yet, everything will be all right."
Easy for you to say.
"What's going on?" Kelly was in shock, not yet used to seeing people appear and disappear before her eyes, I suppose. "Where did she come from? What just happened?"
"The Devil tried to trick us," I said tiredly, "and our crazy dead grandma sent him on his way with a bug in his ear."
"I can hear you, you know." Bijou Boudreaux apparently never forgot her manners. "It's impolite to talk about someone as though they weren't there," she said primly. "And it wasn't I who sent him on his way with a bug in his ear." Bijou looked at both of us, beaming. "It was the two of you, and the love you have for each other."
Kelly's tension eased. She relaxed her grip on my arm.
I wanted to rub where she'd bruised it, but didn't wanna hurt her feelings.
My shaky knees, however, were another matter, and they'd reached their limit. I stepped backward and sank to the ground, letting my butt find the bottom step all by itself.
Sammy was gone. The Devil was vanquished.
All because I'd been willing to do the right thing, and because Kelly had trusted me enough to do it.
It couldn't possibly have been that easy.
Could it?
* * *
CHAPTER 23
"Sit, girls." Bijou gestured toward the velvet-covered table. "I have a story to tell you."
"Not another story," I groaned. I wasn't up for this. I wanted out of this basement, and out of this house.
Kelly looked at me, questions written all over her face. If she didn't get the answers she needed, she'd be looking for them somewhere else, and who know what kind of cosmic trouble she might stir up next?
"Okay, okay." I hauled myself up from the bottom step. I started toward the table, but found myself hesitant to pull out a chair. "Can we move this thing first?" I gestured toward the Ouija board. The mirror was gone, taken with Saundra into whatever hell she inhabited.
Kelly was the one who took the board away. She seemed to have no fear of it, and put both board and planchette on the floor against the wall, where I could no longer see them.
"We should break that thing into kindling," I murmured.
"No," she said.
I opened my mouth to argue.
"It needs to be left on the steps of a church for a priest to deal with." Kelly wasn't kidding. "That's the only way to destroy a Ouija board."
Bijou spoke up. "You're absolutely right, Kelly." She was still standing, black-gloved hand on the back of her chair. "Not very many people know that."
Kelly shot Bijou a shy glance, looking pleased with herself.
I hadn't known that. "Where'd you pick that up?"
"The Internet, of course."
Of course.
Kelly and I both sat down at the table. As I looked down at the velvet tablecloth, I had the oddest sensation… This was where my mother once sat. The worn spots on the velvet near the edge were from her hands, and the tiny burn hole in the fabric was from the time she dropped a lit match when she was lighting a candle.
I knew it… I could almost see it… and then it was gone.
"Please be patient with me," Bijou said. She looked away, vulnerable in her old age, all wrinkled skin and sagging jowls. "Let me tell you about your mother in my own way."
She'd been reading my mind. I knew it, without a doubt.
"Once upon a time," Bijou began, "a young man was born with a problem. It wasn't lack of money, for his family had plenty of that. It wasn't a dread disease or a hideous deformity." She stepped behind her chair, resting both black-gloved hands on the back. The bags beneath her eyes looked darker in the shadows, pockets of grief and worry. "The young man's problem was that everywhere he went, he felt he didn't belong, particularly with his family. In fact, he had a very strong suspicion that they'd be better off without him."
Who was this guy and why did we care?
Tempted as I was to speak my thoughts aloud, I bit my lip. Kelly seemed fascinated, and I was willing to give the old woman a little bit more time to get to the point.
"The young man decided to disappear." The ostrich plume in Bijou's hat was perfectly still. "He decided to create his own place, a place where he belonged."
And they all lived happily ever after.
"But the young man was weak." Bijou's fingers were gripping the chair back pretty hard. "There was one thing about his old life that he just couldn't leave behind. His baby daughter."
Kelly made a sympathetic noise.
"So he took his daughter and he moved far away. He changed his name and he changed his life, and his daughter's life was changed along with his." One of Bijou's hands came up to toy with the black lace at her throat. "And not always in a good way."
This was all very interesting, but I'd been through a lot that morning and I wanted to get out of the dark basement.
»
"Okay, Bijou, what is it you're trying to say? What's the point of this story?"
Kelly nudged me under the table to be quiet, but I'd had enough.
"Can't you just tell us straight out?"
Silence, just for a moment. Then Bijou reached up and pulled off her hat, bringing a gray wig along with it.
"You must forgive an old man," Leonard said, bald pate gleaming. "Sometimes I have trouble getting to the point."
Kelly made a strangled noise, and I'm sure the choked gasp I gave wasn't much better.
"What the hell?" Those three words were the only ones that came to mind.
"You're…" Kelly couldn't even finish her sentence.
"Please." Leonard held out a black-gloved hand. He looked ridiculous standing there—gray wig with an ostrich feather in one hand, overdone makeup, a woman's clip earrings gleaming from his ears. "Let me explain."
Kelly stood up, agitated. "What happened to Bijou?" She was in shock. "Why did you lie to us?"
Leonard's reply was put on hold as heavy footsteps sounded on the basement stairs.
"Nicki?" It was Joe. "Are you down here?"
"I'm here!" I shouted.
Joe's feet, then Odessa's, appeared as the two of them came down the stairs. Joe stopped dead at the bottom, obviously as shocked to see an old man dressed in drag as we were.
«
Drag was drag, whet
her it was a tasteful black mourning dress or a shiny sequined gown.
"Leonard!" Odessa scolded. "Get your wig back on, honey. You look like a plucked chicken."
"You knew about this?" Kelly rounded on Odessa, obviously not expecting that one.
Odessa met her gaze evenly. "You need to keep an open mind, child, and listen to what he has to say." A look passed between them—the angry young white woman with long brown hair, the ornery older black woman who outweighed her by a hundred pounds.
Kelly said nothing, but her chin rose. Odessa and Leonard were gonna have to do some fast talking.
Odessa glanced at me, and surprisingly enough, seemed satisfied by what she saw in my face.
Either that or she was just happy I was keeping my mouth shut.
"Y'all come on up outta this basement. Leonard hasn't had breakfast yet."
"I'm not going anywhere until I have some answers," Kelly said firmly. She turned her back on Odessa and took a seat again, next to me.
"Yeah," I said, in a weak show of support. "We want answers."
What I really wanted was a stiff drink.
"Why are you pretending to be Bijou Boudreaux, Leonard?" Kelly wasn't wasting any time.
Joe came up behind my chair. I lifted a hand, and he took it, resting his other hand on my shoulder.
The world became a more stable place. I felt I could cope with just about anything with a man like Joe behind me. I'd already dragged him through hell, but he still had my back.
Leonard did as Odessa ordered and slapped his hat and wig back on, but they were crooked. He knew it, too, because he was still fiddling with it while he answered.
"I wasn't pretending, dear. I am Bijou Boudreaux, wealthy widow and well-respected member of the community. Past president of the Savannah Historical Society, in fact." A final twitch of an ostrich plume, and Leonard was a well-dressed elderly woman again. "But I'm also Leonard Ledbetter, florist. I'm your grandfather, and proud of it."
"Are you gay?" Evan might have a fit over my stereotyping, but I was entitled to be blunt.
"Heavens, no, dear." Bijou smoothed her gray wig a final time. "Most of us aren't, you know. You'd be surprised how many men like to wear women's clothes. I adore women—wearing their clothing only increases my appreciation for the fairer sex." Bijou/Leonard beamed over Kelly's head at Odessa. "Particularly when one is surrounded by the fairest of blossoms."
