Black Heart Loa

  Kallie felt a smile tug at her lips. “Only because you insisted.”

  “I’d like tae speak wit’ Layne,” McKenna demanded.

  Layne-Augustine shook his head, a look of annoyance passing over his face as he felt Layne’s dreads sweeping across his back. “Damned things,” he muttered before saying, “Not possible, Ms. Blue. Valin has been secured in his so-called Fortress of Solitude at the moment, hopefully safe from any memory meshing or unraveling due to contact with Mrs. St. Cyr. If he were to—” He stopped speaking abruptly. His gaze turned inward for a moment, then a muscle jumped in his jaw.

  “Augustine?” Kallie asked, muscles tensing.

  Layne-Augustine shuddered, then said, voice grim. “May I suggest we hurry?”

  THIRTY-TWO

  HOODOO POSSE

  While she waited for Belladonna to get dressed so they could start the search for Le Nique and Jackson, Kallie helped Divinity gather the candles, incense, and sea salt that McKenna had requested for the exorcism.

  The fierce leprechaun of a nomad was kneeling in front of the rocker, dark brows knitted together in concentration as she drew chalk symbols—spoked wheels, suns, and other runic patterns—on the wood floor.

  The other two nomads, Maverick and Jude—a guy with an action hero’s impossibly ripped physique and a gal with ash-blonde hair and a gymnast’s light-footed grace—propped themselves against the wall nearest the consultation room’s doorway and snickered like two schoolgirls whenever Layne-Augustine spoke.

  Seems the sound of a upper-crust British voice coming from their clan brother’s mouth is the equivalent of a stand-up routine, Kallie mused.

  Dressed in the freshly laundered jeans and Inferno tee, Layne-Augustine sat in the rocker beside the bed and strapped on his flame-painted scooter boots, dreads snaking over his shoulders to the floor. He’d winced as he’d bent over and Kallie figured he’d felt the painful pull of the road rash stretching along his right side.

  “You okay?” she asked, bending to set the candles, incense brazier, and jar of salt down beside McKenna to join the fragrant incense, charcoal, and sand her aunt had already deposited. Straightening, she pushed her hair back from her face.

  “I am indeed, all considered,” he replied, ignoring the snickers shadowing his words. “No nausea, no dizziness, headache down to a dull roar. My considerable thanks to your aunt.”

  “Well, now, I didn’t do it fo’ you,” Divinity said, parking her hands on her hips and leveling her gaze on Layne-Augustine. “I did it fo’ Layne, so him, he be welcome. Now as for you—yo’ foolish Hecatean Alliance is gonna bring nothing but—”

  “Hey, will the magic misfires affect an exorcism?” Kallie hastily interrupted before her aunt could wind her anti-HA diatribe up to full swing. “Gabrielle’s invocation to Baron Samedi went south in a big way.”

  “Dat be a good question,” Divinity agreed. “Could end up inviting possession instead o’ ending one.”

  The sound of the chalk scraping across the floor stopped. McKenna looked up, expression uneasy. She glanced over her shoulder at Divinity. “Ye never mentioned a spiritual invocation going bad,” she said, “just spells.”

  “Musta slipped my mind,” Divinity said, shaking her head. She quickly filled the nomad in on what had happened following Gabrielle’s invocation to petition the Baron for Jackson’s life.

  “Shite.” McKenna raked chalk-dusted fingers through her black hair, leaving pale smudges in her angled anime-hero locks. “Shite!”

  “This might pose a problem,” Layne-Augustine mused, stroking his chin. “But we need to do something, and soon.” He looked at McKenna. “Does an exorcism involve magic and incantations or a ritual of mental focus, individual power, and will?”

  Kallie noticed that Maverick and Jude had corralled their snickers—for the moment, anyway—switching to a respectful silence.

  “It involves the latter, aye,” McKenna said, voice low. “So this still might work.”

  Divinity frowned. “It be de same way fo’ an invocation—focus, power, and will. But it still went wrong.”

  “Shite,” McKenna muttered.

  “Maybe it wasn’t the invocation itself that went wrong,” Kallie said, her pulse drumming in time with the possibilities racing through her mind. “Maybe it was the fact that Gabrielle was summoning a magical being.”

  Layne-Augustine’s green eyes lit up, cool and considering. “Yes. That makes sense, given the circumstances. Fortunately, Babette St. Cyr is not a magical being, just a dead one. I say we proceed. As soon as you’re ready to begin the ritual, I’ll exit Valin’s body.” Strain showed on his face—Layne’s face. Sweat beaded his forehead. “We’re almost out of time.”

  McKenna nodded. “Aye. Someone tie him to the chair.”

  “I’ve got rope and a roll of duct tape out in my pack,” Maverick said, shoving himself away from the wall, leather jacket creaking.

  “We’ve got duct tape here,” Kallie said, glancing at her aunt. “In the supply closet, I think.”

  “Dat we do,” Divinity confirmed.

  “Are ropes or duct tape going to hold him if Babette takes over?” Belladonna asked as she walked into the room, her woodsy patchouli perfume preceding her. She was wearing black cords, a short-sleeved blouse the purple-blue of ripe blueberries, and square-heeled black boots. The strap of her black leather bag was looped around one shoulder and across her chest.

  McKenna snorted. “They’ll hold. We’re dealing with a ghost using a man’s brawn, not the bloody Incredible Hulk.”

  Kallie chewed on her lower lip, troubled by one thought, one she decided to voice. “Once Babette’s out, what’s to stop her from jumping back inside of Layne?”

  “A ghost forced out by exorcism cannae return tae tha’ particular Vessel ever again,” McKenna replied. “It’s as though the Vessel becomes poisonous or radioactive to the ghost, or maybe the exorcism just seals the Vessel against the evicted ghost’s energy.” She shrugged, a frown on her lips. “I dinnae ken why. Wish I did.”

  A measure of relief trickled through Kallie. “If it works that well, I’m surprised you don’t perform an exorcism every time Layne gets possessed.”

  McKenna snorted in utter disdain. “Tha’ shows how little ye ken about Vessels.”

  Kallie’s hands clenched into fists. “Then enlighten me.”

  “From what Valin told me, an exorcism isn’t particular,” Layne-Augustine smoothly interjected before the pixie could reply. “His spirit could also be evicted along with that of the ghost.”

  A chill brushed against Kallie’s spine. “Meaning his body would be forever closed to him too?”

  “Aye,” McKenna growled. “But there’s another reason I dinnae perform exorcisms each time a ghost jumps into Layne’s body. Sometimes the bloody fool offers himself so a ghost can say their farewells to loved ones or reveal who their killer was if they’ve been murdered.”

  Kallie could picture that, Layne offering himself to lost souls, giving them a chance to find their bearings, to adjust, before traveling on to the realm of the dead or heaven or wherever they were destined to go.

  “I don’t think that makes Layne a fool,” Kallie said. “I think it makes him a man of compassion and heart. A man who accepts what he is.”

  “Then that makes ye a bigger fool than he is. And when he no longer remembers ye, then ye’ll know why.” Still kneeling in front of the rocker, McKenna began arranging the candles—white and purple and black—around the chalked symbols, the conversation clearly finished.

  When he no longer remembers ye …

  Kallie stared at McKenna as she filled the brazier with sand before topping it with a circular piece of charcoal for the incense. Whatever the hostile little nomad had meant by that, Kallie would just have to find out later.

  “You ready to go, Shug?” Belladonna asked.

  “Just about.”

  Inclining his topknotted head respectfully toward Divinity, Maverick asked, “Wher
e’s the supply closet, ma’am?”

  “I’ll show you,” Kallie replied, and started forward. Divinity stopped her with a hand to her shoulder.

  “I’ll show de boy,” she murmured. “You girls get going, you. Find yo’ cousin. Bring him back befo’ dis blowdown hits.”

  Kallie nodded, anxiety and dread a cold knot in her belly, a knot that had been growing larger with every passing minute since she’d learned that Evelyn had powered into a category five storm and was less than thirty-six hours away, maybe even less than twenty-four.

  And if I’m—I mean, if the loa inside of me is—the reason for the tainted wards, the hurricane? What then? The goddamned storm is winnowing away time.

  Drawing in a calming breath, Kallie decided that once she had Jackson home safe and hopefully sound, she’d do whatever was necessary to blunt the hurricane’s devastating fury. Her mouth dried as she pondered the odds of her survival, then she shoved the thought and her fears aside. Not now. Plenty of time to be scared later.

  “We’ll bring him back,” she promised her aunt.

  “And yo’selves too.” Divinity’s stern-eyed gaze skipped from Kallie to Belladonna, then back.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Kallie and Belladonna replied in unison.

  Divinity nodded, then eyed Maverick’s tall, powerful form. A hint of approval glinted in her hazel eyes. “Mmmhmmm. Now, you look like a man—unlike those shotgun-waving boys. Let’s get you some duct tape.”

  “Uh, yes, ma’am.” A bemused smile on his lips, the red-haired nomad followed Divinity out of the room and into the botanica proper.

  Not caring what McKenna thought, Kallie carefully sidestepped the chalk symbols and went to the rocking chair. As Layne-Augustine looked up at her, she bent and pressed her lips against his in a tender kiss.

  “Pass that onto Layne,” she whispered. “Keep safe, y’hear?”

  “I shall endeavor to do my best—on both counts,” Layne-Augustine replied, voice dry as sun-bleached kindling. “The first presents an interesting challenge, but one I accept.”

  Smiling, Kallie straightened and turned; then, without looking at Layne’s prickly ex, she crossed the room and joined Belladonna at the doorway. Belladonna arched an eyebrow. “You know that wasn’t Layne you were kissing, right?”

  “Yup. Augustine’s supposed to pass the kiss along.”

  “Oh. Ooooh!” Kallie saw a dreamy smile curve Belladonna’s lips as she swiveled around and led the way into the botanica. “Another thing I’d love to see.”

  “Wicked, through and through.”

  “Singing to the choir, Shug.”

  Just as they reached the back door, Kallie thought she heard the thunk of a car door slamming shut out in the parking lot, quickly followed by the thunks of several more. The frantic hammering of a fist against the other side of the door told her she’d been right.

  “Who’d be here so late?” Belladonna puzzled.

  Good question. Inner alarms blaring, Kallie lifted herself up on her toes and peered through the door’s spyhole. She exhaled in relief when she saw Gabrielle and Addie, who was wearing a bright blue rain slicker, along with several people behind them that she didn’t recognize.

  “Who out dere knocking at dis hour?”

  Kallie glanced over her shoulder at her aunt as she twisted the door’s dead bolt open. “Gabrielle, and it looks like she brought the hoodoo meeting with her.”

  Divinity stood at the sales counter, Maverick beside her, a roll of duct tape in his hand. “Den let ’em in, girl. Maybe dey got some good news for us.”

  Kallie hoped so, but the distressed expression she’d seen on the mambo’s face suggested otherwise. She finished unlocking the door and swung it open. The warm, humid night poured in, smelling of rain, wet concrete, and ozone.

  “Hey,” she greeted as the mambo and the others—and she counted ten in addition to Gabrielle and Addie—stepped inside, most pausing to wipe their feet on the doormat, and filtered into the botanica. “I’m surprised y’all came out here instead of just calling.”

  “Hey yourself, Kallie. I thought you and Belladonna weren’t due back from New Orleans until tomorrow,” Addie said, shooting a look at Divinity.

  Kallie remained quiet, uncertain of what her aunt had told Addie.

  “De blowdown brought dem home early,” Divinity said.

  “Uh-huh. No doubt,” Addie replied, tone dubious.

  “What be de word?” Divinity asked. “Y’all find a way to fix t’ings?”

  Gabrielle glanced at her, and Kallie was startled by the look of guilt in her pale green eyes. But the word the mambo’s lips soundlessly shaped filled her with skin-tingling dread.

  Run.

  Kallie had no idea why Gabrielle would be telling her to hightail it, but she knew there had to be a good reason. Better to go now and find out the why behind it later—from a safe place.

  Nudging Belladonna’s shoulder with her own and capturing her friend’s attention, Kallie mouthed, Let’s go now. Belladonna nodded, the question in her autumn-dappled eyes remaining unvoiced. But before they could step out the still-open door, one last hoodoo—a middle-aged man in a hooded yellow rain slicker and rubber boots—strode inside, kicking the door shut behind him.

  “Baron Samedi will be here soon,” he said, voice grim, “and he’d be damned unhappy if you weren’t here when he arrived.”

  Kallie’s heart sank. Gabrielle’s warning was no longer a mystery.

  The sound of crinkling plastic, followed by a bone-chilling shuh-shunk, drew Kallie’s attention away from the door and the man in front of it.

  Addie had pulled a shotgun out from inside her rain slicker and chambered a round. She leveled the weapon at Divinity and Maverick. “Everyone keep still and we won’t have any problems. We’re only here for the girl. Nomad, put any guns or knives or deadly whatnot on the floor.”

  Maverick’s ginger brows slanted down in a scowl. His free hand knotted into a large, fight-scarred fist. Kallie wasn’t sure he would comply with Addie’s request until Jude stepped into the doorway and said quietly, “It’s squatter business, Mav. Ain’t got nothing to do with us.”

  “Might be squatter business,” Maverick said, “but this woman tended to an injured clan brother, and we’ve been enjoying her hospitality as well. So that makes it our business too.”

  “Aye. He’s right,” McKenna growled from behind Jude. Kallie could well imagine what it had cost the leprechaun to say those words. “Put down yer weapons, both of ye.”

  “Addie Martin, what de hell do you t’ink you be doing?” Divinity demanded, eyes narrowed, knuckles against her lavender-skirted hips.

  “Ending the problem, fixing the wards, and saving Louisiana from Evelyn,” she replied, regret and anger both edging her voice. “We’re doing what you couldn’t: the right thing, no matter how hard.”

  “And what would dis right t’ing be? Dis t’ing dat you couldn’t discuss wit’ me? Dis t’ing you felt you needed to accomplish by force, you?”

  “Sacrificing your niece,” Addie replied. “And removing the loa she carries.”

  Kallie felt someone move up behind her, felt body heat and coiled tension, smelled sweat and desperation. But before she could step aside or whirl away, the cold steel edge of a knife pressed against her throat. Kallie’s pulse thundered in her ears.

  Divinity’s hands slid away from her hips, her face pale. “Addie, no. No.”

  “You gave us no other choice,” Addie replied, her words husky.

  Sorry, baby. I ain’t got a choice.

  A dizzying sense of déjà vu whirled through Kallie. History was about to repeat itself. She swallowed hard and felt the knife scrape against her flesh. Blood trickled warm down her neck. She wasn’t about to offer herself up as a sacrificial lamb, not with Jackson still out there, not with those she loved in danger because of her.

  An image from Kallie’s dream flared behind her eyes—the horse fighting to free itself from the poisonous black snare??
?and doubt simmered in the back of her mind.

  What if the loa wasn’t the cause?

  Divinity seemed to have the same thought. “Listen to me,” she said urgently. “I believe de problem be because Doctor Heron—”

  “Laid a hex on your doorstep,” Addie cut in. “I know. Gabi told us. But Baron Samedi believes otherwise.”

  Divinity’s gaze cut over to the mambo, fury blazing in her eyes. “Seems she done told you all manner of t’ings. So, dis be how you get back at me for stealing yo’ name?”

  Several people, including Addie, appeared confused by Divinity’s statement.

  “Dat’s right,” Divinity said, lifting her chin. “My true name be Divinity Santiago and I stole de damned woman’s identity—to protect my niece from her maman. I tol’ Gabrielle dat I would make t’ings right, but it seems like my word ain’t good enough for her.”

  The mambo looked at Divinity, expression dismayed. “No, that wasn’t it. I didn’t want this. I was forced—” She stopped talking, a wave of despair washing over her face. She shook her head.

  But Divinity’s glare only deepened. “Forced, my fanny. You can’t trust her. Dere ain’t no loa inside my girl. She’s just trying to get back at me. Vindictive, her.”

  “No,” Addie said, “The Baron told us—”

  “A being she summoned,” Divinity scoffed. “A being warped by tainted magic, a being dat probably ain’t even de true Baron Samedi.”

  “Addie …” someone said, uneasy. “What if she’s telling the truth?”

  “You saw the Baron,” Addie replied. “Felt his power. Heard him. Why would the loa of death and resurrection lie? Now, this woman”—she paused to direct everyone’s attention to Divinity—“clearly lies. And has for years. Stole an identity. She’d say anything to save her niece. Hell, who among us wouldn’t for our own kin?”

  “True, dat,” someone muttered.

  “We all knew this wouldn’t be easy,” Addie said. “But we also knew it was necessary.”