The Axeman stopped advancing when he was perhaps four feet from us. I still couldn’t make out his face. He just stood there, his chest rising and falling with his rapid breathing. I could still feel the penetration of his gaze, even though Drake stood directly in front of me, with the barrel of his revolver aimed at the Axeman, the demon. I was so scared I couldn’t even think, couldn’t even breathe.
“Now, very slowly, put your hands on top of your head,” Drake said again, but he didn’t yell this time.
The Axeman brought his arms up to his sides and propped one hand on his head. He raised his other arm in Drake’s direction and swatted it through the air as if he were shooing a bothersome flying insect. I watched in utter disbelief as Drake became airborne and then was thrown forcibly backward, as if by invisible hands.
“Drake!” I shouted as I watched him land a good ten feet away from me. He groaned as he bounced against a tree before dropping to the ground. He released the gun and it fell down beside him. Shaking his head, he instantly found his feet and stood up, swiftly retrieving the revolver.
“Shoot him!” Drake yelled as I brought my eyes back to the Axeman. But it was too late. He was already rushing me. He pushed against me and I fell backward, away from him. As soon as I hit the ground, the Colt flew from my hands. Trying to catch my breath, but also realizing time was of the essence, I craned my head in the direction that the gun had fallen and watched it land in a patchy stretch of grass about ten feet away from me. I started to get up, but realized I couldn’t. It was as if my body suddenly refused to obey my mind. I attempted to shift my arms and move my legs, but they were frozen still. Meanwhile, the Axeman ambled closer until he stood directly over me.
“What are you?” I demanded when I saw that even up close, I still couldn’t find his face. He appeared simply as a dark shadow. He didn’t respond, but dropped down on his knees and straddled me. He held his hands about four inches above my face and I could see darkness pouring from them, blurring the delineation of his fingers until it looked like his coat sleeves terminated in black smoke.
All of a sudden, I felt my neck and head rising up off the ground. It was as if I were responding to his hands, which he held directly over my face. My mouth opened by itself, not voluntarily, and it suddenly felt as if a great wind blew throughout my entire body. The wind died down unexpectedly and was replaced by intense agony. It felt as if my insides were being ripped apart. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly against the pain and tried to resist the intensity of the creature’s hold on me.
“Leave her alone!” Drake screamed. I opened my eyes and saw him coming up behind the Axeman. Drake aimed his revolver at the man’s head, and, without wasting another second, pulled the trigger. The Axeman fell over instantly, and the indescribable pain I’d been experiencing suddenly vanished. I immediately sat up and caught my breath, while bringing my hand up to my throat. I tried to massage away the residual pain, which still lingered there.
“Drake!” I screamed as soon as my eyes met his. I watched his body as it suddenly lifted into the air directly in front of me. His feet dangled helplessly as if he were hanging by his neck. I looked up at his face and saw him turning white as if he couldn’t breathe. It looked like an invisible cord was choking the life out of him. Black smoke began pouring out of the Axeman, enveloping him in a dark cloud. The smoke wafted in a single line directly around Drake, surrounding him in its nightmarish web. Slowly, the darkness began diffusing into him.
I watched Drake lift his hand, which still clutched the revolver. He painstakingly brought the revolver to his temple. “Drake, no!” I cried out as soon as I realized what he intended to do.
The demon was in the process of taking possession of Drake. That much was as obvious as the black smoke now filled his body. And what was worse, Drake had to know that he would soon be rendered completely powerless against the demon’s control.
“I’m sorry, ma minette,” he managed to say in a tortured voice. I shook my head as tears stung my eyes and began rolling down my cheeks.
“Please don’t do it, Drake,” I begged before he shook his head and pulled the trigger. A jolt traveled through his body and he suddenly collapsed onto the ground. The smoke that was dissolving into him began billowing out of him, fleeing his body at an accelerated pace. The darkness coagulated in the air, just above Drake’s now-prone body. It began to float away from Drake, traveling through the air like a giant, black cloud.
That was when I saw it was approaching me. It was as if a huge army of airborne black ants suddenly combined to charge me as one, swooping down over me in a blast of blackness. I scrambled to get away from the cloud, but my body was stricken immobile. I collapsed against the ground before I was lifted into the air, as if by invisible hands. The blackness surrounded me. I could feel my skin prickling and stretching as the darkness began to engulf me, absorbing into my skin as it did so.
Panicking, my mind instantly went blank.
Was this how I was meant to die? I asked myself. The darkness was continuing to consume me, eating up everything that was Peyton Clark as its ugliness took control of me. I could feel my spirit weakening, lessening as an unbelievably powerful entity claimed my body as its own.
As the obscurity continued to fill me, knowledge began to grow within me, awareness. It wasn’t a knowledge that I’d previously possessed, however, but the knowledge of experience—and experiences, memories that weren’t my own. I realized, with horror, that as the demon was forcing its way into my body—and in the process, forcing me out—its memories and experiences were beginning to implant themselves inside me.
I was overcome with the understanding of what this demon was and where it had come from.
Images of days long gone began to infiltrate my head. I could see New Orleans as it would have been in the early twentieth century, the archaic automobiles offering a clue. I could feel myself running through the dark streets of New Orleans, hungry and thirsting for something I didn’t understand. I could hear my own heavy breathing and the uneven sounds of my footsteps against the pavement, even as I realized this wasn’t really me, this wasn’t Peyton Clark. It was merely the imprinting of the demon’s memories as it staked its claim on my body.
The image of the dark streets of New Orleans was then replaced with images of contorted and screaming faces I didn’t recognize. Moments later I remembered them. They were victims . . . my victims. With the memory came the tangible feeling of an axe in my hands. I noticed the blood dripping off the end of the blade. I glanced back at the faces of those I’d attacked and noticed they were bludgeoned, bloody, and unrecognizable. Although I knew I should’ve been appalled by the images revealing themselves in front of my eyes, there was a growing part of me that thirsted for the violence, thrived on it. Demanded more.
The images of the killings dimmed away and were replaced with a memory of how I’d taken form, how I’d come to travel from Guinee, the spirit plane, to this earthly one in the twentieth century. I was overcome with the feeling that I’d been called to the earthly plane, forced here through voodoo magic.
In my mind’s eye, I saw a mortal woman, hunched over a myriad of candles as she stood in the darkness of a ramshackle structure. Her long gray hair fell over her face, but I could still see her lips moving. She chanted words, incantations that begged for my return, uprooting me from my sleeping place and forcing me into the mortal world. Her eyes danced behind the screen of her eyelids. I could feel my power growing with every word she said. Moments later, I burst through the void separating Guinee from the earthly plane and captured the body of a large and burly man, forcing his essence out.
But this wasn’t the circumstance of the demon’s original birth, and 1918 wasn’t the first time he’d visited the mortal plane. No, I could feel the fact that this entity was much older. As soon as that thought birthed itself, I was overcome with memories of a time before 1918. The recollections surged into me,
confusing me as they became my own. I fought to separate myself from the memories, to maintain my own independence, but I failed. It was a sure sign that the demon was winning in the fight to take control of me.
I saw the circumstance of the demon’s first appearance on the earthly plane. It had taken the body of a slave woman in New Orleans. She’d summoned it through her voodoo, begged for it to use her body as a vessel, to exact revenge for her and her people. So it had. The entity had destroyed the entire household, the woman’s master and mistress as well as their children. But it hadn’t stopped there. The thirst for violence, for bloodshed, was deep within the demon and it couldn’t discern between those to kill and those not to kill. So it had murdered them all, every last person in the household, slave or slave owner.
Then the demon had started to hunt for more victims. The thirst, the hunger, was never ending. After a killing spree that lasted months, it was finally forced back to the spirit plane at the hands of a practiced voodoo priestess. But though the demon was gone, it hadn’t been forgotten. No, the entity had left its mark on the mortal plane and those who were in the know realized how powerful this demon was. And that information, when in the hands of the wrong practitioners, meant that the demon would continue to be called upon. It would appear, wreak its havoc on the mortal world, only to be exorcised back to Guinee by those who were strong enough to attempt it.
Until now . . .
Now it had captured my body and I was dying. And once my soul departed, that meant the demon would be free to use my body as a vessel in its murderous rampages.
Help me! I cried out in my mind to no one in particular.
And then I realized what I needed to do, to whom I needed to appeal. There was only one person, one spirit, who had the power and the ability to help me. I had to call for help from the Loa of the dead. Baron Samedi was the only entity I knew who could free me from the demon’s hold and send it back to the spiritual realm. I clenched my eyes shut tightly, burning with the feeling of the darkness as it infiltrated me. I could feel my whole identity being swallowed up by it.
Baron Samedi, I thought to myself. Please hear me, Loa of the dead! Baron Samedi, I need your help!
The black fog continued to encircle me, keeping me aloft as it fed from my life’s energy. The haze surrounding me began diminishing little by little as it continued to fill me up.
Baron Samedi, please hear me! I called out again. You promised me protection once! I need your protection now! Please help me!
Then I saw him. I wasn’t sure if he simply existed in my mind’s eye, or if I was seeing him in person, but I could breathe in his presence as well. The smell of his cigar filled my nostrils. I opened my eyes and found him standing alongside me, studying me curiously.
“Please, Loa,” I said, my voice strained.
“Please what, baby?” he responded. “I need ta hear yer request ’fore I can do anythin’ ’bout it.”
“Please send this demon back to wherever it came from!” I screamed, unable to resist being filled up by the foreign entity. My own power and life force was rapidly fading away. I was growing weaker by the second as the entity’s strength continued to build.
Baron Samedi laughed and took another puff of his cigar as I realized I wasn’t witnessing him from my mind’s eye. He was here with me, in the flesh.
“I’m not in the business o’ helpin’ without the favor bein’ returned, baby,” he said calmly, languidly, as if he wasn’t concerned that my life was dissipating right before his eyes.
“Whatever you want,” I whispered against the pain.
He smiled and shook his head. “That’s a big risk yer takin’ there, baby. Makin’ promises ’fore ya know what the consequences could be.”
The air filling my lungs was hot, like I was inhaling smoldering embers. I couldn’t lift my head off the ground and my appendages had long since grown numb. I was nearly dead. Whatever I had to do to repay Baron was worth it, as far as I could see. “Anything,” I whispered. “I’ll owe you whatever you want,” I continued before something occurred to me. “With the exception of my soul. I’d rather die than owe you that.”
Baron laughed and the sound reminded me of rolling thunder. “I ain’t interested in yer soul, baby.” Then he looked me up and down as if to say just what it was that he was interested in.
“Okay,” I managed, my voice starting to sound like a mouse squeaking. “Then we have a deal?”
“We have us a bone-if-fied deal, baby,” he answered, removing the cigar from his mouth and dropping it to the ground before stepping on it and putting it out. He disappeared into thin air, only to reappear directly above me, his face mere inches from mine. Then he did something I’d never seen him do before. He opened his mouth. He opened it into a wide circle and a bright, white light emerged from it, reminding me of a beacon of light at the end of a long and dark tunnel. Slowly, the Loa of the dead began to inhale. He opened his mouth even wider and sucked in a deep, powerful breath. I glanced down at myself and noticed the darkness of the entity being pulled away from me. It looked like a film reel of black ink thrown on me, only in reverse, the droplets of pitch-blackness pulling away from me as they were sucked into the maelstrom of light inside Baron Samedi’s mouth.
I could feel the demon trying to retain its grip on me, clinging as hard as it could to avoid being sucked into the vacuum of the Loa’s mouth. But Baron Samedi just kept inhaling more deeply until he sucked every last drop of darkness right out of me. Relief started to make itself known little by little as the numbness began leaving my fingers and toes. I could feel heat returning to my cheeks and my breathing began to grow more even as my vitality was restored. Baron Samedi took one final breath before closing his mouth and swallowing the demon.
I felt myself drifting back down to the ground, and once I touched the cold, dewy earth below me, I sat up, taking a deep breath. I felt dizzy. “Thank you,” I said as I looked up at him, panting.
Baron Samedi just smiled at me and held up his hand as a cigar magically appeared between his fingers. He plopped the lit stogie into his mouth and inhaled deeply, while the smoke wafted out from behind his dark, round glasses. “No problem, baby,” he replied. “You jist remember we made ourselves a deal.”
I nodded and took another deep breath, trying to focus on inhaling and exhaling in the hopes that the dizziness in my head would let up. “I won’t forget,” I managed.
“I look forward ta our next meetin’, mortal,” Baron Samedi said and then smirked broadly at me, as if he was privy to information that I wasn’t. Then, in a blink, he was gone.
I took another deep breath before I stood up, with my legs still wobbling. After a few hesitant steps, I could bear my own weight, and I hurried over to Drake. I knelt down and tried not to stare at the bullet hole in his temple where the blood had already pooled and was running down his face. His body still felt warm to the touch. His hair was matted with blood, but I couldn’t stop my fingers from running through it. I couldn’t resist my inexplicable need to touch him. My ceaseless tears splashed against his beautiful skin, and some of them washed away his blood.
“Ma minette,” his voice sounded in my head. “I shall always love you.”
More tears filled my eyes as something caught in my throat and I choked back my grief. The realization that I loved Drake suddenly dawned on me, overwhelmed me. “I will always love you, Drake,” I whispered softly, stinging inside with the weight of the realization. And then it struck me that I had always loved Drake. Even though our situation had made it impossible for us to be together, that didn’t mean that I cared about him any less. The truth was that Drake had been my confidant and my friend from the time I’d moved into our house and he’d made his presence known.
“Please don’t leave me,” I whispered as I ran my fingers over his cheeks and wiped the tears from my eyes. Glancing down at him, I suddenly noticed my fingers grow
ing more and more transparent. Blaming my blurry vision, I tried to stop crying. I wiped the tears from my eyes and then glanced back at my hands. They were disappearing, growing translucent just like my fingers had. Looking down at the rest of my body, I realized I was fading right before my eyes. It was almost as if someone were erasing me.
“What’s happening?” I asked, panicking as my voice wavered and I suddenly found myself consumed by darkness that was inky black, but felt balmy and warm.
“Peyton!” I heard a man’s voice cry out and I tried to swim through the black void of my mind, searching for a doorway that could lead me to the familiar voice.
“Peyton, wake up!”
Opening my eyes, I saw the face of an angel staring back at me. I blinked a few times, trying to focus my watery vision. His face was ever so handsome and his golden hair fell into his eyes, which were the warmest amber I’d ever seen. His rosy, plump lips parted into a smile of relief as he ran his fingers softly down the side of my face. “Peyton,” he whispered.
“Ryan?” I asked, taking a deep breath and sitting up to discover I was in my guest bedroom. Lovie and Christopher stood beside Ryan, each of them staring at me with unmasked relief. “What-What happened?” I asked in a groggy voice.
“We brought ya back,” Lovie answered with a warm smile.
I shook my head, fully lost and confused. I didn’t understand how I’d just been kneeling beside Drake in the freezing cold and now I was in my guest bedroom. “Drake is dead!” I cried out as the memory of his passing jolted through my mind. In response, tears burst from my tired eyes and I felt my entire stomach drop with the weight of my sorrow.
Lovie simply nodded with a sad expression, but then she smiled down at me. “He’s not gone, Peyton,” she said. “Talk ta him.”
At first I didn’t understand what she meant. I couldn’t bridge the gap that I’d watched Drake die right in front of me and yet Lovie was telling me he wasn’t gone and that I could talk to him. I started to shake my head before I remembered where I was. I was back in my own century, and then I understood. “Drake,” I thought in my mind.