Black Heart Loa

  Resisting the urge to press her lips against Layne’s, Kallie reluctantly straightened and shifted her attention to her aunt. “Have you had time to do a reading? About Jackson?”

  “Dat I did, me. Just finished one.” Divinity nodded at the table.

  Gabrielle stood. “If you don’t need anything else, then I’ll be heading to Crowley for this Addie Martin’s conclave of local conjurers.”

  “A meeting?” Kallie asked, glancing from one woman to the next. “What kind of meeting?”

  “A meeting to figure out how to fix de mess we all be in,” Divinity replied, candle flame highlighting her grim expression. “Before it be too late.” She inclined her head at the mambo. “Gabrielle’s going in my place, since we got yo’ cousin and yo’ dreaming nomad to contend with.”

  Dread and guilt twisted through Kallie. “Yeah,” she said, voice low. “We need to talk about that.”

  “Dat we do. But in due time, child.” Divinity looked at Gabrielle. “You got de address and directions?”

  “I do, yes.” Gabrielle crossed to the doorway, cords whisking with each step, then she paused. “I’m heading home first. I’ve got my own place, my own people, to worry about. Once I have things squared away, I’ll head over to Crowley. I’ll let you know what happens, but I’m not coming back—not right away.”

  “Dat’s understood,” Divinity said. “I can’t t’ank you enough for everyt’ing.”

  Gabrielle half turned and looked at Divinity, one hand on the threshold. Her face was composed, cold. But Kallie saw fire simmering in her eyes.

  “We’re not finished, you and me,” she said. “We got stuff to work out. Big stuff.”

  Divinity met the mambo’s gaze and held it. “True, dat. I ain’t going nowhere. When dis nightmare be fixed and done, I’ll take care of my debt to you.”

  With a curt nod, Gabrielle strode from the room and out the botanica’s back door. A few moments later, Kallie heard the VW’s engine start up.

  “How do you plan to make it up to her for stealing her identity?” Kallie asked.

  “I’ll t’ink o’ somet’ing,” Divinity replied. Rising to her feet, she went to the rocker Gabrielle had just vacated and plunked down into it. “Go take a look at de reading. Tell me what you see.”

  “Okay.” Easing up from the bed, Kallie padded over to the worktable. Perching on the stool, she studied the cards and shells arranged on top of the table. She smelled fragrant frankincense from the white votive candle placed at the head of the cards, its light dancing across their slick surfaces.

  Seven rows of six cards each formed a square that was read from left to right, then from top to bottom, again going down from left to right. She scanned the layout—so many goddamned spade cards—several cards in particular capturing her attention.

  King of diamonds: An older man or a green-eyed man with blond or red hair

  Nine of spades: Disappointment and failure, sorrow or tears

  Eight of spades: Controversy, conflict with others or even family members

  King of spades: Bad luck coming from a man

  Queen of hearts: A woman with blue or gray or hazel eyes

  Jack of clubs: A male child or a flirtatious person of either sex

  Jack of hearts: A female child or a proposal of marriage; a promise

  Ace of spades: A change of residence or unexpected, rapid events; death

  Queen of spades: Bad luck coming from a woman

  Ace of hearts: Home and environment

  An icy blade of fear pierced Kallie’s heart when she realized that the ace of spades was nestled against both the queen and king of spades, altering the meanings of the cards.

  A woman will die. A man will die.

  With the queens of spades and hearts both in play, the doomed woman could either be dark-haired or one with blue, gray, or hazel eyes.

  As for the doomed man … Kallie’s gaze flicked from the king of spades to the king of diamonds. A dark-haired man or maybe a blond or red-haired man with green eyes. Her heart skipped a beat.

  Blond. Green eyes. Layne.

  “You stiffened up,” Divinity said from the rocker. “I’m guessing you saw it. De reading be for Jackson, so de man and de woman marked fo’ death be known to him. But de cards only show possibilities, child. Not certainties.”

  “I know,” Kallie replied. Even so, the chill wouldn’t leave her. So many of the women in Jackson’s life possessed dark hair—as far as she knew, anyway—Belladonna, Divinity, herself, among them. And now she was determined to keep Layne as far away from Jackson as possible. Just in case.

  “But did you notice de pair of jacks?”

  Kallie nodded. “Yup.” Separately, the cards meant one thing, and another thing entirely as a pair. In this case, the two jacks indicated the return of what was lost or the return from a journey. “I think we’re gonna find him, Titante.”

  “Tell me what else you see.”

  Kallie’s gaze flicked across the cards, piecing together meaning and connections. “The pair of aces indicates trickery from enemies—I think Cash and Kerry fall into that category. Jacks was forced from his home, betrayed, caught in conflict and facing failure and possibly death. And I think one of his captors is a woman.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Divinity’s tone was noncommittal.

  “But, except for the queen of hearts, I don’t see anything here that we didn’t already know.” Kallie glanced at her aunt from over her shoulder, frustration kinking her muscles. “I don’t see a single thing that points to where Jackson is.”

  “Keep looking. You ain’t getting the whole picture.”

  Kallie sighed, knowing Divinity was right. Exhaustion blurred the sharp edge of her thinking, muffled her intuitive sense. She knew she needed sleep, but had too much on her mind and heart to keep her eyes closed.

  Returning her attention to the table, Kallie caught a faint and bitter whiff of vervain from the Green Blood of the Earth potion her aunt had used to consecrate her shells before the reading.

  To the right of the square of cards, five cockleshells rested on a straw mat marked with a cross shaped out of powdered egg shells. To the practiced eye, the apparently random positions of the shells revealed a potent pattern brimming with meaning.

  Kallie’s breath caught in her throat as she read that pattern: Strength. South. Fierce animals. “This is talking about undeserved and unnecessary punishment and judgment from others,” she said. “Says Jackson needs to do whatever’s necessary to protect himself from it. That he might become someone’s scapegoat.”

  Thinking of Doctor Heron, Kallie’s jaw tightened.

  “True, dat. It also mentions dat de boy needs to rely on his inner strength, dat if he hopes to survive, he can’t allow himself to rest. He be in a fight fo’ his life.”

  “Did the fifth shell land as negative or positive?” Kallie asked.

  “Negative,” Divinity replied, voice low.

  Kallie’s heart sank. “So he’s in a bad way. Hurt.”

  “I been saying Psalms o’ protection for yo’ cousin. Trying to send him all de strength he needs to see him tru.”

  “Strength,” Kallie murmured. “South. Fierce animals.”

  Sliding off the stool, she returned to the bed and sat down carefully so as not to disturb Layne’s healing sleep. She looked at her aunt’s gloom-shadowed face. “I think I might have a lead on Jackson. But which do we wanna discuss first—Jackson or what we’re going to do with me … with the loa.”

  Divinity’s gaze slid past her to Layne, and something Kallie couldn’t quite name rippled across her aunt’s face—a sharp-planed grief, a stoic resolve, she couldn’t be sure. But whatever it was, it left her uneasy.

  “Let’s start wit’ yo’ cousin,” Divinity said finally. “What’s dis lead?”

  “You ever heard of a place called Le Nique?”

  Divinity’s chair rocked as she considered, frowning. “Oui. I heard of Le Nique. It’s about forty miles southeast, out toward
Chacahoula.”

  “Southeast,” Kallie whispered. Strength. South. Fierce animals. She was more sure now than ever. Certainty and hope blossomed within her.

  “But de place ain’t marked or nothing,” Divinity added.

  “Because it’s hidden, right?” Kallie asked. “A loup-garou village.”

  Divinity tilted her head. “Dat’s de rumor. What dis have to do with Jackson?”

  Kallie held her aunt’s gaze. “A long time ago, Jackson told me that Nonc Nicolas was a loup-garou and that he himself was a half blood. Told me they used to go to Le Nique all the time.” As her aunt’s mouth snapped open, an accusation in her eyes, Kallie held up a Hold on, I ain’t finished yet hand. “He swore me to secrecy. We were little kids and I thought it was just a game. He never mentioned it again and I forgot all about it.”

  Divinity grunted, then looked away. The rocker moved faster, the runners creaking in a soothing rhythm against the hardwood. After a moment, she asked, “What brought up de memory now?”

  “Baron Samedi. At the grave, he told me he smelled dogs and loups-garous.”

  “I wonder if dat’s why Nicolas and Lucia divorced,” Divinity mused, lifting her eyes to Kallie’s. “I only met Nicolas a few times. Beaucoup earthy, dat man, wild and strong. Good-looking in a rugged way. Quiet and watchful. But de man loved to laugh. And he loved my sister, him.” After a moment, she murmured, “Loup-garou. Coulda been, I suppose. Never met one.”

  Kallie stared at her aunt, caught off guard. She’d been positive that Divinity had been hiding the truth about Jackson the same way she’d hidden the truth from Kallie about her own past.

  “… a big wrong’s been done to you.”

  Kallie had expected Divinity to flap an annoyed hand at her and snipe something along the lines of Of course yo’ cousin’s a werewolf. What’s de matter wit’ you? You need to pay mo’ attention to t’ings, girl.

  “Seriously? You didn’t know?”

  “Nope. Like I said, I only met Nicolas a few times.”

  “So it’s possible Jackson told me the honest-to-God truth that night.”

  “What does yo’ gut tell you?”

  Kallie trailed a hand through her drying hair. Thought of two little kids lying in the grass on a sultry summer night, sharing secrets. “That he was telling the truth.”

  Which created an even greater mystery. Why had he never mentioned it again? And though Kallie was deeply grateful that they had, how had the loups-garous found and rescued him?

  Another thought occurred to her, a dark and disconcerting possibility.

  What if she was making a huge-ass mistake in assuming the loups-garous meant Jackson well?

  “I need to find him,” Kallie said, curling her hands into fists, stretching the skin taut over her knuckles. “I need to get back out there.” But she kept other words unvoiced for fear that speaking them aloud would make them come true: Before it’s too late.

  Divinity sighed and rose to her feet. “I know. I keep t’inking of de boy too. I keep wondering what dis blowdown will trigger in him if we don’t fix de wards before Evelyn reaches us.”

  “I’ve been thinking of that too,” Kallie admitted softly.

  Divinity went to her worktable. Grabbed the teakettle. “You want some tea? Me, I need a cup.”

  “Sure,” Kallie lied, figuring refusal would only make her aunt resort to less obvious methods of sleep-trickery. “How come you only met Nonc Nicolas a few times? My folks used to take me to their place in Houma all the time, and Jackson and his sisters used to visit us all the time too. Until we moved to goddamned Shreveport.”

  And less than a year later, two gunshots and a whispered apology changed Kallie’s life forever. And ended her father’s.

  Divinity filled the kettle in silence, then set it on one of the burners of the two-burner cooktop beside the table. She turned around to face Kallie, her back against the table, her arms crossed loosely over her chest. The dim lighting and cobwebby shadows made her face unreadable.

  “Y’know,” Kallie said, “I didn’t even know I had another aunt until you arrived at the hospital in Shreveport to take me home. That was the first time I’d heard of you.”

  “I know. I planned it dat way.”

  “I hope to hell you don’t think that statement alone is going to cut it.”

  A smile quirked at the corners of Divinity’s mouth. “I don’t.”

  “Do I have to pull the info out of you word by goddamned word?” Kallie growled. “What did you mean by that?”

  “I had a falling-out a long time ago with my sisters, and no, de reason for dat ain’t none o’ yo’ business. Suffice it to say dat your mama and Tante Lucia weren’t talking to me no more. Course, to my mind, I wasn’t talking to dem. But even so, I kept up with what was going on in deir lives. And yours—you kids, dat is. And dat’s when I learned what yo’ mama had done.”

  “How did you find out?”

  Divinity shook her head, a familiar stubborn glint in her eyes—eyes that were more green than hazel in the dim light. “Dat be a story for anudder day, girl.”

  A muscle twitched in Kallie’s jaw as she glared at her aunt. Pick your battles. This one can wait. “Fine,” she grated. “Then what?”

  Divinity shrugged. “Den I stole Gabrielle’s identity and made a new life for myself because I knew de day would be coming when you would need me—a mysterious stranger with a false name who could hide you from dem dat would finish what yo’ mama started.”

  A chill traced the length of Kallie’s spine. “You saying Mama didn’t act alone?”

  “Mm-hmm. Dat’s what I be saying.”

  “But who—”

  “Now, dat I don’t know, hun. I never did find out who Sophie had been working with, but I know for true dat she had help. I just wish I knew who. And why.”

  “So you think they’re still looking for me—Mama’s partners?”

  Divinity snorted. “Course dey be looking for you. Dey go to all dat trouble to yank out yo’ soul and stuff a loa inside? What you t’ink, girl?” She glanced at the kettle.

  “Ah, de water’s hot.”

  Kallie waited while Divinity busied herself with pouring the hot water into mugs and steeping the tea. This newest bit of information stunned her. She’d always believed her mother had acted alone for reasons beyond her understanding. To learn that everything—her father’s murder, her being shot, the soul-loa transfer—had been coolly planned and deliberate and a group effort left her feeling gutted, a fish twisting on a hook of brutal and inexplicable truth.

  Dread coiled ever tighter in Kallie’s chest as she listened to the rain thrumming against the roof in a hard, steady patter, heard gusts of wind hitting the windows.

  The goddamned clock is counting down.

  Divinity returned to the bed and handed Kallie a warm mug fragrant with strong black tea flavored with blueberries and what smelled like bergamot. “Drink all o’ dat,” she commanded.

  “Thanks,” Kallie said. She waited until her aunt had settled into the rocker, her own mug in hand, then widened her eyes and said, “Shit! I don’t think I locked the back door when I came down. I’ll go and—”

  “No you won’t, you,” Divinity interrupted. “I’ll take care of it. You just drink yo’ tea.” Setting her own mug on the bedside table beside the pads of gauze, Divinity rose to her feet, then strode from the room.

  Kallie stood and quickly switched mugs, replacing her aunt’s with her own. Another nap wouldn’t hurt her, she thought, easing back down onto the bed and lifting the mug to her lips just as Divinity returned. Kallie sipped at the tea, feeling its warmth flow from her belly and into her bloodstream.

  “De door was locked,” Divinity said, settling into the rocker once more. “Yo’ mind might be sleep-deprived, but yo’ instincts still be working at least.” She picked up her mug and took a swallow of tea.

  “I was thinking I might try to talk to the loa,” Kallie said, looking at her aunt from over the r
im of her mug. “See if I can reason with her. I honestly have nothing to lose by trying.”

  Divinity stared at her, mug frozen in the air. “Her?” she questioned.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen her in my mind’s eye.” And reflected in the Baron’s sunglasses, but Kallie decided to keep that to herself. “Long cinnamon curls and café-au-lait skin, wearing a vévé that shows a heart bound in chains made of pale bones and surrounded by black X’s.”

  Divinity lowered her mug. “You sure, girl?”

  “Positive. I saw her when I died. I think she was a horse then, a talking horse, an obnoxious one, actually, but that’s all fuzzy and …” Suddenly light-headed, Kallie’s words slowed to a stop as she lost her train of thought. Drowsiness swept over her in a heavy tide, weighing down her eyelids and blurring her thoughts.

  “Goddammit,” she whispered, struggling to focus on her aunt. “You tricked me.”

  “You tricked yo’self, child.” Divinity was standing in front of her. She gently plucked the mug from Kallie’s fingers and placed it on the bedside table. “You coulda kept de mug I gave you, but I knew you wouldn’t. Headstrong, dat’s you.”

  “I can’t sleep … Jackson …”

  “Dere’s nothing you can do for him right now. Not with de shape you be in. You need rest and strength for what lies ahead. We both do. So curl up against yo’ nomad and close yo’ eyes.”

  “Goddammit,” Kallie repeated. Hands guided her head down to the pillow. Lifted her legs onto the bed. “No …”

  “Hush now and sleep.”

  As if by instinct, Kallie rolled over and pressed herself against Layne’s warm body, drew herself in tight against his lean-muscled length. She tried to keep her eyes open, but failed, her eyelids heavy as steel. Her eyes closed.

  As she slid into a velvet-soft darkness full of fireflies, she heard the wind rattling like a bad thief at the windows. Heard her aunt whispering, “Rest, chère. I’m gonna see you and Jackson tru dis nightmare. I ain’t giving up on either of you. Family never does.”

  Sleep enfolded Kallie, and she surrendered.