Voodoo Queen

by Theophilus Monroe

  “What did you see?”

  “I don’t get it,” Pauli said.

  “Kalfu, Pauli. Where is Kalfu?”

  “He’s at your plantation… where your house used to be. Why would he?”

  I shook my head. “Because he either thinks I’ll go there eventually… or Mom and Dad will. And he’s probably right.”

  “But why would they go there if they’re looking for Kalfu?”

  I shrugged. “He doesn’t know they’re actively trying to fall into his trap. Did you see anything else?”

  “Yeah,” Pauli said. “Hailey. Look I don’t think she’s just some innocent girl who got caught up in Kalfu’s shit.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “She got some kind of altar set up, like she’s going to sacrifice something. She was dressing it with oils.”

  I sighed. “The binding ritual. She’s preparing for a soul-fusing.”

  “Between who?” Pauli asked.

  Who do you think? Isabelle interjected. He thinks he has everything he needs to claim me…

  “Not if he doesn’t have my parents yet,” I said. “Did you see them at all?”

  “No, they were nowhere to be found.”

  “Then we still have time. Pauli, take us to the plantation.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “The fucking nerve,” I said.

  There are so many of them…

  Kalfu had effectively gathered a whole army of Bokors and assembled them on my property. Yes, my property. The plantation that had been in my family going back to almost a century before the Civil War. The way Kalfu was stomping around you’d think he owned the place.

  I ducked behind a bush—at the very least, while it pissed me the fuck off, the fact that he’d made base on my land meant that I knew the place better than he did. There was hardly a blade of grass on my land that I didn’t know.

  “Why do you think he set up base here, of all places?” Pauli asked.

  I shook my head in disbelief. “I wish I knew. Maybe to get under my skin, maybe to lure me here.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, it worked on both accounts.”

  I think there might be another reason, Isabelle said as I watched Kalfu, complete in his old-fashioned top hat and tuxedo, step inside the old slave quarters.

  He’s doing something in there. That place isn’t random.

  “It’s where it happened… where we became fused.”

  Kalfu stepped outside again. This time Hailey followed behind him. She was holding a wand—she’d been doing something in there, preparing something. My blood boiled—the girl who looked so afraid, so sheepish… now she gallivanted around my property with an unmistakable air of confidence about her. She and Kalfu were talking about something. I didn’t know what. He squeezed her shoulder. She turned her head away and giggled.

  “Holy shit,” Pauli said. “She has a crush on the devil!”

  “Unbelievable,” I said, shaking my head in disgust. “He’s not even remotely attractive. He doesn’t wear that body with the same flair that you used to.”

  Pauli shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d do him.”

  I punched Pauli in the shoulder—just hard enough to give him a little smart.

  “I mean, if he wasn’t all homicidal and villainy… because I always choose my men based on their personalities.”

  “You do?”

  “Sure. Personalities and penile girth. Both are equally important.”

  “I think with Kalfu you’d be disappointed on both accounts.”

  “He’s in my body, honey. I know what he’s packing.”

  “No wonder you’re attracted to him,” I said, grinning widely. “Can we focus on why we’re here? Isabelle, do you sense anything? I mean, I know you can’t sense my parents since they’re vampires. But is there anything out of the ordinary?”

  Only Kalfu’s aura… so red, so much rage. The fury isn’t his own, though. There’s an anger emanating from within him, somewhere deep…

  “The vampire spirits, the powers… they don’t belong to him.” In truth, I didn’t know what to call what a vampire’s spirit was. It wasn’t a soul, not exactly. A part of what a vampire craves is souls—bits of soul stolen from their victims—precisely because it fills the void from the soul they’d lost when they turned. But you add that mixture of soul pieces with whatever remained of a vampire’s consciousness and you had something unique, a powerful creature, no less, but not a soul. Not in the strictest sense of the world.

  Yeah. They’re pissed.

  “Can’t say I blame them.”

  “He’s probably torturing them even as he’s using them,” Pauli said. “That’s what he did to me…”

  I shuddered. Mom and Dad had been through enough. I know there was a whole “big picture” here going on, that his powers would ultimately do more than create a hell in people’s minds. He would bring hell on earth if that’s what it took to get Isabelle from me—and even after he did that, he’d unleash an extra dose of hell on God’s creation just because he could.

  “Kalfu!” a voice shouted from the tree line on the opposite side of the slave quarters.

  I knew the voice. When he stepped out into the open, I felt my stomach churn in anxiety.

  “Dad, no… Don’t do it.”

  “Hailey,” my dad said. “You can come with us. It’s safe. You don’t have to do this anymore.”

  Kalfu, even as he backed away from Dad, cackled a little. “The witch is here by her own free will,” Kalfu said. “I didn’t need to manipulate her. She’s like most of us. She craves power, and she knows where she can get it. Join me, let me feed upon you, and you can share in this power.”

  “She’s coming with me, Kalfu,” my dad said forcefully. “You know what I can do to you.”

  “I do,” Kalfu said. “Which is precisely why I’m glad you came.”

  Hailey extended her wand and zapped my dad with some kind of spell—it bound him in place, put him in some kind of stasis.

  “Mr. Mulledy, I’ve had my fill of new abilities. But my apprentice here, she could use a little something of what you possess.”

  Holy shit, Isabelle said, he’s going to try to soul-fuse your dad with Hailey.

  “But Dad is a vampire. He doesn’t have a soul, strictly speaking. It can’t be…”

  Kalfu looked at Hailey, beaming with a look of pseudo-pride. It was manipulation—even if he wasn’t compelling her, even if he hadn’t bound her by a bargain as he typically did. He was still using her. Using her vulnerabilities, acting the role of a father figure to her. I didn’t know why he didn’t just compel her or try to exact a bargain with her. There was something in her that prevented him from using those tactics, but I wasn’t sure what. So far, the only thing I knew that could prevent someone from being locked into a deceitful bargain was Erzulie’s aspect. Hailey didn’t have that, but there was something.

  “I can’t let this happen,” I said. I called to Beli, and my soul blade formed in my hand.

  Annabelle… no…

  “I’m not letting this happen, Isabelle.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Shut up, Pauli.”

  I dove out of the woods with a fury and charged toward Kalfu with my blade. Hailey released my dad for a moment and zapped me with the same stasis spell.

  “Hailey!” I shouted. “I told you I’d help you!”

  “You think I ever wanted your help? You’re so pathetic, so easy to deceive.”

  “He’s going to use you, Hailey. You’re a vampire now. It’s just a matter of time before he bites—”

  Before I could finish my thought, my dad charged Kalfu, a giant aura of red energies surrounding him. When he collided with Kalfu, a shower of energies seemed to pour out from Kalfu’s body, and a wave of energies cascaded through the air until it struck me.

  I felt something of a pain—something deep inside of me. Then I saw her, Isabelle, floating outside of my body. Her form was illuminate
d with the jade energies that she drew from the Tree of Life.

  A dozen or more forms also swarmed around Kalfu—he reached out with his arms, laughing maniacally.

  Amongst the forms was one I recognized—Baron Samedi—but it was like his whole translucent figure was floating unawares, like he was asleep. In fact, all the souls that poured out of Kalfu appeared to be in a daze, like they’d been so traumatized by whatever Kalfu had put them through that they could do nothing but fall back onto his frame… like they suffered from Stockholm syndrome and actually empathized with their captor.

  “Isabelle!” I shouted. “Can you…”

  Isabelle nodded and charged after my dad, trying to pull him away.

  But Kalfu was quick—he’d acquired Aida-Wedo’s aspect, in fact, when he took over Pauli’s body—he appeared behind my dad and sank his fangs into his neck.

  “Dad!” I shouted. “No!”

  I heard a shriek from the woods. “Mom!” I screamed. “Run away!”

  Suddenly Hailey released me. I gripped my soul blade and went after Kalfu. Before I could get to him, he unleashed a force against me—it was like he was manipulating space itself. The harder I pushed toward him, the larger the gap between his position and mine became.

  He grinned widely, showing off his bloodied teeth… my dad’s vampire blood dripping from his lips.

  Isabelle charged after him, green energies enveloping his form. Hailey aimed her wand at Isabelle and shot some kind of black energy at her, and it enveloped Isabelle’s form. I could feel her pain, her struggle, as whatever power Hailey wielded squeezed her.

  “Isabelle!” I screamed. “You have to fight it! You can’t let him…”

  Hailey extended her hand, holding a vessel—a jar of some kind—and she forced Isabelle inside of it.

  “Finally,” Kalfu said. “She’s mine!”

  I screamed, tears falling from my cheeks. Kalfu nodded at Hailey—and the vampire witch took aim at me again with her stasis spell. My body froze. Hailey appeared behind me, grabbed me by the hair, and yanked my head to the side.

  Then something constricted around me, pinning my arms to my body. I dropped Beli. It was Pauli…

  A flash of refracted light, a sense of release, and I was gone.

  Chapter Twenty

  I landed at the foot of what had once been my bed in the academy dormitories. Pauli brought me here, a place where I’d be safe. And more than that, a place where I could totally melt down without losing face in front of my friends. I was supposed to be the Voodoo queen.

  “We failed,” I said. “I can’t believe my dad… and Isabelle… she’s…”

  “She’s tough,” Pauli said. “If anyone can fend off Kalfu from within, it’s her. And I’m sorry about your dad.”

  I choked down my tears. I hardly knew my dad—and even if I was destined to spend the rest of my life getting to know him as a vampire, it was far better than what I’d had before. It just felt like some kind of sick joke being played on me by the universe. I’d resigned myself to the fact that, when my parents were losing their minds in the home, I’d never really be able to have a relationship with them. But I’d had a dash of hope, albeit a complicated one now that they’d come back as vamps. Still, it was hope no less. Seeing Dad die now… it was a thousand times more painful than it would have been if I’d never been given any hope to begin with. But Isabelle… she wasn’t dead. I mean, not completely. Technically, she’d been dead ever since I first met her. And in a sense, my parents were dead too—since vampires weren’t, medically speaking, alive. But life and death isn’t about brain activity or functioning organs—it’s about the ability to forge a relationship. In that sense, my relationship with Isabelle was always very much a living thing. I took a deep breath. I had no idea what happened to my dad and his spirit now that Kalfu had it. But maybe there was a chance to save Isabelle.

  “Pauli,” I said, squeezing his hand, “you saw those other spirits…whatever they were. Even Baron Samedi looked like he’d been mind-warped by Kalfu. If Kalfu can do that to another Loa, what’s he going to do to Isabelle?”

  Pauli, now shifted back into human form and half-dressed, squeezed my hand back and rested his other hand on my shoulder. He was there for me… but I’d never felt so alone. I had to wonder, was this what normal people felt like all the time, people who didn’t have another soul fused to theirs? I was vulnerable, distraught, and even though Pauli was there, there was a giant hole inside of me. Isabelle wasn’t just another soul crammed into my body. She’d become a part of me. Now, I’d been torn apart, and everything inside of me was reeling from the pain.

  A loss like this—you have to take time to grieve. But I didn’t have time. If there was anything I could do, anything at all, I had to find away. Isabelle… gone? I couldn’t accept it. I wouldn’t accept it. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Kalfu win. God only knows what he planned to do next.

  “Pauli,” I said, “when you were possessed, you managed to get control somehow. How did you do it?”

  “Well it didn’t last… obviously.”

  “Yeah, but you still did. And we don’t need it to last. We just need a moment.”

  “When Kalfu possessed me, he gave me horrible visions. Images of people I loved… horrible things happening to them. It was like he was trying to use fear to keep me in check. When I figured that out, I just started laughing at everything, joking about it. It made him pissed… and once he got angry, I had the upper hand.”

  “Fear and intimidation,” I said. “The tools he uses to control others… they’re also his weakness.”

  “It only worked because I have such a warped sense of humor,” Pauli said. “I could see humor in the horrors he was showing me.”

  “You do tend to find jokes in even the most dire of circumstances,” I said.

  “I know… it’s inappropriate. I just can’t help—”

  “No,” I said, cutting him off. “That’s one of the things I love about you. When we take shit too seriously, that’s when we start losing control.”

  “Fine,” Pauli said. “But how is that going to help Isabelle?”

  It was a fair question. Isabelle was not Pauli. If anything, she took things too seriously.

  Kalfu was the sick kind of bastard that found other people’s suffering amusing… especially if it was at his hand. Like those Hostel movies which, in all honesty, are the only horror films I’d ever watched that actually kept me awake at night—and I binge-watch a lot of them. I mean, after actually being attacked by zombies as a kid, it was hard to find a film that would elicit a genuine fright. But Hostel did… that damn movie left me tossing and turning for weeks. It was because the monsters in the film were human, too human. People who got their rocks off by torturing others. That was Kalfu… but it could be any of us. What made Kalfu so terrifying wasn’t that he was some kind of anti-human demon. It was that he was too human, too much like the dark side within all of us that we spend most of our waking hours trying to suppress. Until we unleash it—and then, well, like they say, once the genie’s out of the bottle… Ever watch an interview with a serial killer? I’ve watched a few—and if you can see past some of their bravado and post-conviction fame-seeking, what’s most disturbing about them is that they can be so relatable. And if that doesn’t unsettle you at your core, I don’t know what will. In our world, what we fear in others is usually a reflection of what we fear the most about ourselves. We judge people we deem “monsters” for having the gall to actually be what we’ve all thought about becoming in the quiet of the night, in those dark moments when our minds wander into the domain of despair. We condemn them, and judge them, not because we want to punish them, but because we’re punishing ourselves.

  I heard a muffled voice from the burlap sack, still dangling from my waist. I’d almost forgotten he was in there. I retrieved Legba’s shrunken head and looked him in the eyes—well, where his eyes used to be. Shrunken heads don’t have eyeballs, technically speaking.
/>
  “Anything to add, Papa Legba? We could use some help.”

  “Pardon me for saying it,” Legba said, “but have you thought through the events that just occurred?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “On account of being stuffed in this sack of yours, I didn’t see what was going on. But I could hear it all. Think, Annabelle… why does Kalfu need the witch?”

  “He said something about giving her power,” I said.

  “But why?” Legba asked, repeating himself with more emphasis this time.

  I shrugged. “Maybe he can’t handle it all. I mean, how much power can his host handle?”

  “Honey,” Pauli said, “that body can handle more than one person inside of it at one time. Trust me.”

  I chuckled. It was, after all, Pauli’s original body that Kalfu inhabited. “More than one is different than a Loa, dozens of vampires, including my dad…”

  “True,” Pauli said. “I’m just saying…”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Legba said. “Though I do appreciate the fact that the body he inhabits might have some fortitude about it.”

  “What is your theory then?” I asked.

  “He absorbed your father’s power. I don’t think that was his plan.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You being there, your father separating souls… he jumped at the opportunity to control that ability. But if he taps into your father’s ability, every power inside of him will go haywire. It could be happening already.”

  “He’d meant to give Hailey that power,” I said. “His plan was to soul-fuse Hailey with my dad.”

  “And he’d hoped to claim Isabelle for himself. But now, so long as your father’s power is inside of him… Isabelle is a real, genuine soul. What he has inside of him so far, they aren’t whole souls. Fractured collections of souls, sucked out of vampires, are not the same. Baron Samedi’s presence is not a human soul—he’s bound to Kalfu much the same way that Kalfu had been bound within me for so many centuries.”