Her reflection glimmered like a ghost against the backdrop of the bruised sky—black tresses sweeping in hair-spray-lacquered waves to her shoulders, all trace of gray colored away; shadowed eyes, hidden; pale skin looking a good ten years younger than her fifty-four years; rose-stained lips pursed in a thoughtful frown; regal posture—chin up, shoulders back.
Plumper, yes, I’ve put on weight. But, really, who hasn’t?
Lightning flashed and the ghost vanished. From the windows, at least.
But inside, the past had never stopped haunting her. Rémy’s words from that awful night twenty-four years before returned to Helena with lightning-stroke starkness, crackling and electric.
Dey pulled de teeth from magic, cut off its balls. Made caricatures of de loa, turning dem into nothing more den parlor tricks performed by so-called voodoo queens. I tried to show dem de huge fucking mistake dey all was making. But I failed. And now I gotta leave you, chère. Dat’s what I be sorriest about, leaving you.
Even though time had blunted the rough and raw edges of Helena’s grief, it was summoned from the grave anew, a Frankenstein monster resurrected by wild, white-hot bolts of loss and molten rage.
Her hands clenched into fists, a bitter taste at the back of her throat.
You’ve nothing to be sorry for, my sweet love. They gave you no other choice. But as for the pricks calling themselves the Hecatean Alliance, they will never be sorry enough.
Helena watched the roiling thunderstorm dry-eyed and kept watching even after she heard the door open. Heard someone stride briskly across the carpet, then pause in front of the desk. Breathed in the faint scent of roses.
The late illusionist’s enigmatic assistant had arrived.
“Good morning, Mrs. Fields,” Helena said. “Quite a storm, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would, ma’am,” Felicity Fields agreed, her urbane British tones a far cry from the rough-and-tumble Cockney she’d once spoken. “Both mundane and magical.”
“Any word yet on what has caused magic to warp?”
“Not yet, ma’am. We know it began just after dawn and we’ve received word that it seems to be statewide, but that’s all the information we have at present. Concerns regarding the hurricane traveling toward the Gulf seems to have slowed the flow of information.”
“Ah, yes. Of course.”
A smile chilled Helena’s lips. She’d often hoped that the wards would fail and that the next hurricane would wipe New Orleans off the map and the Hecatean Alliance’s current order out of existence. But not yet, not before she finished Rémy’s work, unveiled his final masterpiece.
Lightning danced across the horizon, lit up the sky, and dazzled her sight. Thunder quickly followed in a booming shudder.
“I have every faith in you, Mrs. Fields. I know you’ll both find and remedy the problem.” Helena swiveled around in the captain’s chair to face the redhead. “As I would expect from the woman Lord Augustine named as interim master of the Hecatean Alliance.”
Felicity stared at her, expression stunned.
EIGHTEEN
CAN’T CHOOSE BLOOD
Compelled. Commanded. Come to me, wild one!
For a brief moment, something within Kallie responded to those words, kicking and screaming in a tantrum of savage denial and desperate refusal, then pain swallowed her whole as she felt herself—or something within her, a part of her—ripping loose from her moorings, her core, like a loa-sized piece of Velcro.
A split second—or a bone-twisting eternity—later, a heavy thrumming vibrated into her, ringing her core like a boxer’s bell, over and over and over, but without sound, reverberating out from her center in pulsations strong enough to shake dirt into the grave and knock her off balance.
Kallie landed in the mud on her ass, the heels of her hands slamming into the muck in an attempt to break her fall. The rotten-egg stench of sulfur singed her nostrils, mingling uneasily with the dank reek of mud and oozing swamp water.
Compelled. Commanded. Come to me, wild one!
The Baron’s words, spoken with utter confidence and force of will, as though the action had already been accomplished, echoed like thunder through Kallie’s mind in gradually diminishing rumbles. But the painful pull she’d felt as the Baron had laid down his trick, the unnerving sensation of being plucked loose, of her essence being unthreaded strand by strand, had vanished.
Along with the Baron.
And in his place … Kallie frowned.
From above, a man’s voice, low and surfing the edge of panic, questioned, “Where’d the chicken come from? And where’s Cash?”
Two great questions.
“I think you’re looking at him,” Kallie replied, studying the black-feathered rooster—wait, no comb, no waddle, make that a hen—pecking at the mud in a disgruntled fashion in front of her.
The hen regarded her with one accusing black eye, then resumed stabbing her beak into the mud. Kallie blinked. Chicken rage issues?
The one thing she knew it wasn’t was a pissed-off home invader with a grudge. She’d never heard of a single trick that could actually transform a person into a hungry hen. Or any other kind of animal, hungry or otherwise.
Certain potions could make you believe you were an animal and some conferred the temporary ability to look through a chosen animal’s eyes, a mind-to-mind linking, but she’d yet to witness an actual transformation. But she saw no need to enlighten Kerry. Not yet, anyway.
“Might look for some chicken feed in the house,” Kallie suggested. “It looks like Cash here has worked up an appetite.”
“Being cheval for a loa will do that,” Belladonna agreed with a wink.
“Jesus Christ!” Kerry cried. “Y’all gave me your word that you wouldn’t use no juju if I helped you and—”
“I know, I know, and you kept your word.” At Belladonna’s arched I got an update for you eyebrow, Kallie added, “Well, mostly, apparently. Look, I’m messing with you. That ain’t Cash, it’s just a chicken.”
Relief flickered across Kerry’s drawn features, only to fade as his gaze returned to the hen. “How do I know for sure? How do I know you ain’t messing with me by telling me that you’re just messing with me?”
From where she knelt on the muddy ground beside Kerry, Belladonna did a White boy, please eye roll. Kallie paid heed to her friend’s tight grip on the shotgun and the fact that its barrel was aimed unwaveringly in Kerry’s direction.
Looks like Kerry has managed to put himself on Bell’s bad-boy list—and not the fun and sexy bad-boy list.
Kallie sighed. “Sometimes a chicken is just a chicken, Kerry. But I really ain’t got time to debate the matter.”
“Not when Baron Samedi might rally and return,” Belladonna murmured.
“Damn straight.”
Kallie pushed herself up to her feet, automatically and uselessly brushing off the mud-coated seat of her cutoffs. She gathered Layne’s Glock and Jackson’s boot out of the mud, then tossed them topside. Both hit the ground with soft thuds. She eyed the hen. The hen eyed her in return. Fluffed her glossy black feathers. Scratched in the mud.
Kallie frowned. Was the chicken actually giving her attitude?
She wondered where the hen had been just five minutes before and how far she’d traveled. Wondered if the manner of travel had contributed to the bird’s grumpy disposition. Decided, Hell yes. Being yanked through the ether against your will would do that to a person. Or a hen. As the case may be.
Then she wondered if the Baron in his Cash suit was now standing in some feed-scattered yard with a bunch of startled chickens, the stink of brimstone and chicken poop filling the air.
Nothing in the image comforted or amused her.
A pissed-off loa was never a good thing.
Stepping over to Belladonna and Kerry’s side of the grave, Kallie hesitated, glanced once more at the hen, then sighed. She couldn’t just leave it there. What if it never managed to get out? Chickens could fly, sort of, but not very far
and not very high. “Goddammit,” she muttered.
Swiveling around, Kallie then spent several sweaty, frustrating minutes chasing the squawking hen around the grave, boots squelching and squishing, before managing to wrap both hands around its soft, feathered body and thrusting it up into the air.
“Take the damned thing!”
Another startled, but irate, squawk, then Kallie’s hands were empty. Wiping sweat from her brow with the back of one hand, she stretched up her arms. “Get me outta here.”
“You got it, Shug.”
Warm hands wrapped tight around Kallie’s wrists and hauled her up. Sucking in deep breaths of air untainted by mud or brimstone reek, she flashed Belladonna a grateful smile, then climbed to her feet.
As she did, she noticed paw prints and footprints—bare human feet—in the churned and muddy ground surrounding the grave. Kallie’s heart gave a little leap. Paw prints. Cielo? Had the husky rounded up Lassie-styled help for Jackson?
The Baron’s words snaked through her mind as she studied the human prints: “Blood ain’t de only t’ing I smell here. I caughts me a big ol’ stinky whiff of wet dog and … wolves. No, not wolves. Loups-garous.”
Her thoughts kaleidoscoped back to a long-ago summer night, the memory as soft and faded and blurry as a child’s much-laundered and well-used favorite blankie. A six-year-old’s recall.
She and Jacks race through the night-cooled grass and underneath the old oak’s thick twisted branches, chasing fireflies and capturing them in one of his mama’s— Tante Lucia’s—jam jars. When Jacks looks at Kallie, grinning, his mischievous eyes glow with a soft green light. Faerie dust and fireflies and summer moonlight.
“Wanna hear a secret? But you gotta swear never to tell.” A hand squeezed Kallie’s shoulder, drawing her back to the present. “You okay, Shug?”
Kallie nodded. “Yeah, but how’s Layne doing? How bad is he?”
Belladonna glanced down the long driveway, concern a deep shadow across her face. “Boy hit his head damned hard, no doubt about that. Doesn’t seem to be any broken bones, but …” Her gaze returned to Kallie and the worry cradled in her friend’s hazel eyes iced Kallie to the bone.
“What? What is it?”
“He and the Brit are no longer alone in there,” Belladonna said.
A sudden, horrible realization stole the breath from Kallie’s lungs, set her heart to kicking against her ribs. She stared at the silent house behind Belladonna. “Babette,” she whispered.
Belladonna nodded, her blue and black curls bobbing. “I potioned Layne up, but we need to get him to your aunt’s as quick as possible, maybe even to a hospital.”
“No,” Kallie said, another horrified thought popping into her mind like a flashlight-lit jack-in-the-box. “Hospital personnel might think he’s crazy, might try to detain him against his will …”
“He’s nomad—wouldn’t they need clan permission to hold him?”
Kallie shrugged. “I don’t know, Bell. Your guess is as good as mine. I ain’t too familiar with nomad rights as far as the law’s concerned, but if he needs to go to the hospital, then we’re gonna hafta contact McKenna—or someone in his clan—just in case.”
“Okay. I’m betting Felicity would know how to contact the pixie—I mean, McKenna. Meanwhile, what are we going to do with him?”
Kallie followed Belladonna’s gaze to dark-haired Kerry. He held the hen at arm’s length, studying it. The bird seemed to study him in turn, clucking amiably enough. “It seems to like me,” he mused.
“Kindred souls,” Belladonna muttered under her breath.
Kallie punched her in the shoulder, biting the inside of her lip to keep from laughing. “Well, sure, you ain’t chasing it through the mud.”
“You say this ain’t Cash,” Kerry said. Strands of wet hair clung to his forehead, the sides of his whisker-shadowed face. “But how do I know for sure? Cash was in that goddamned grave, now he ain’t. So where is he?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Kallie replied. “He was just gone.”
Kerry cradled the surprisingly docile hen against his rain-drenched T-shirt, its black feathers blending in with the material. His gaze lifted to Kallie’s, his expression unsettled. “Y’know, I saw it when Cash appeared behind you—out of thin air, like a magic trick, but without any smoke—then kicked you into the grave.” He looked away, swallowed hard. “Even with his weird getup, I truly thought it was him. But then his voice kept changing and the things he was saying …”
The hen gave a little cluck, a strangely sympathetic sound.
“You sure that ain’t Cash?” Belladonna whispered.
Kallie tapped her fist into Belladonna’s arm again. “Positive.”
“Ow, girl. Use words, not knuckles.”
“Knuckles are more to the point.”
“So’s a stick to the eye, Shug, but you don’t see me poking anyone.”
“Really? Then what’s your finger doing in my ribs?”
“Certainly not poking. Or making a point. Just checking for damage.”
“Checking? Or creating?”
“Excuse me,” Kerry intruded. “But can we get back to Cash for a minute?” He shifted restlessly, floating the warm and mingled scents of wet denim, feathers, and sweat into the air. “He may be an a-hole at times, but he’s blood, y’know. He’s my cousin. But here, today, he wasn’t just Cash, was he?”
Kallie looked away from Belladonna and her smug cat-in-the-cream smile and gave her attention to Kerry. “Your cousin? That explains a lot.”
“Can’t choose blood,” Belladonna agreed. “But you need to start standing up to Cash before he lands you in prison or”—she glanced at the grave—“worse.”
“Yeah,” Kerry said with a sigh. “I know.”
Kallie debated the wisdom of telling him that his hard-ass cousin had been possessed by the loa of death, wondering if she had the time or energy to deal with his swooning and/or potential hysterics, then realized that he had a right to the truth—a truth he seemed to suspect to one degree or another anyway.
“No,” she finally said, “he wasn’t just Cash.”
Kallie explained the situation to Kerry the best she could, with Belladonna affirming her words with gentle ones of her own, and emphasizing the key point—said possession would be temporary. At least, Kallie hoped that was still the case.
Kerry’s gaze skipped from Kallie to Belladonna, then back, a muscle jumping in his jaw. No swooning. No hysterics. He nodded in tight-lipped acknowledgment.
Black eyes fixed on Kallie, the hen clucked in a very disapproving manner.
“You absolutely sure—” Belladonna began, eyeing the hen.
“Goddamned positive.”
“Look, no disrespect or nothing, but I think y’all are jinxes,” Kerry said. “Me and Cash’ve had nothing but bad luck since we ran into y’all.”
“Well,” Kallie said, parking one fist against her hip, “if you consider storming into someone’s house wearing ski masks and waving around loaded shotguns as ‘ran into y’all,’ then, yes, beaucoup bad luck.”
“I know we brung it on ourselves,” Kerry said, a determined fire kindling in his dark eyes. “I was against raiding your house and I was against leaving your cousin buried underground, but I’ve done all I can to make up for that. I’m done and I’m splitting.”
“How you planning on getting back?” Kallie asked. “It’s a long ways back to Bayou Cyprés Noir.”
Lightning pulsed across the sky, thunder grumbling in its wake.
“Walk. Hitchhike. Skip. I don’t give a good god … dang. Just so long as I ain’t nowhere near you gals. No offense.”
Kallie shrugged. “None taken. And I ain’t got a problem with that. How about you, Bell?”
“Nope. I’m fine with that too. I’m tired of aiming this damned shotgun at him. Which I’m keeping, by the way.”
“And I’m keeping the chicken. Just in case y’all are wrong about Cash.”
“Well,
if the damned thing starts scratching out messages in the dirt, like ‘SOS’ or ‘Kerry, you’re a dumb ass …’” Kallie said, holding up a placating hand, before adding, “Not that it will. That hen ain’t Cash. You know where to find me.”
Kerry nodded, face grim. “That I do.”
“One thing I want you to remember,” Kallie said, stepping forward to make sure she had his attention. “Keep away from me and mine.”
“Trust me, that won’t be a problem,” Kerry replied. “But I can’t make no promises where Cash is concerned.”
“You die no matter which road your loa takes. But don’t worry none. You won’t be lonely. I’ll be sending your cousin to join you.”
Cold traced up Kallie’s spine to the base of her skull and she barely suppressed a shudder. Even when the Baron and Cash finally parted ways, one would be hunting her and the other Jackson. Something wound up clock-spring tight in the middle of her gut and stole her breath.
Hurry, hurry, hurry. Time is slipping away.
“I know,” she said to Kerry. “I won’t hold you accountable for whatever Cash does.” Reaching into a pocket of her cutoffs, her fingers sought and found the hair she’d yanked from his head. She handed it to him. “You helped, and I promised.”
Surprise flickered in Kerry’s eyes. A smile curled across his lips, then vanished. He snatched the hair from Kallie’s fingers as if he was afraid there might be a time limit on her generosity, one measured in milliseconds.
“You’re welcome,” Kallie said, voice dry.
Tucking the hen securely under one arm, Kerry said, “Good luck with your cousin.”
“Yeah, same to you,” Kallie replied. “Hope we don’t meet again.”
“Same here.” With the hen clucking, Kerry headed down the gravel driveway in long strides, waving one hand in a So long, kiss my ass farewell.
“A boy and his chicken,” Belladonna murmured with a soft, Ain’t it romantic sigh. “True love gets me every single time.” She paused, tilted her head, then added, “His ass looks pretty good from here, actually.”