Bad Juju (27 page)

“Alright.  I was going to explain all of this in my books I’m leaving you and Henry.  I would have preferred to explain after Henry returned from Haiti.  But you deserve some answers.  I’m afraid I’m on borrowed time anyway, so it’s just as well,” Lucien said.

“Borrowed time?” Jake questioned.

“Yes.  That’s exactly how I’ve been living.  You see, decades ago when I lived in Haiti, I was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer.  The doctor gave me weeks, maybe months to live.  I should be dead, but I’ve literally figured out how to borrow time,” Lucien said enigmatically.

“Borrow would mean you have to pay it back.  How can this be?” Jake asked.

“You are such a perceptive young man.  Yes, of course I have to pay it back.  Let me back up a bit.  Baron
Samedi
, my chief
loa
and
loa
of the dead, has been communicating with me since I was a young man, really a boy, a
couple of
year
s
older than you, perhaps.  It was he who would always possess me at a
fet
or ceremony.  It was he who I prayed to.  Years later, he and I became…closer.  I made an
angajon
…a pact with the Baron,” Lucien said.

“Like a pact with the devil?” Jake stuttered.

“Yes.  Just like my country did in 1791,” Lucien answered.

“Huh?  What does that have to do with…” Jake interrupted.

“
Haiti’s history has everything to do with its culture. 
That’s where I got the idea. 
You see back i
n 1791 a slave named
Boukman
held a
famous
ceremony
.  He prayed to
Satan
and asked
to
be
save
d.  In fact, he asked if all of the slaves in
St.
Domingue
could
be saved
.  That was the name of Haiti before she won her independence,” Lucien explained.

“So what happened? 
Were the
slaves
saved
?” Jake asked.

“Yes.  They revolted and eventually forced the Europeans into giving them independence.  It started with
Boukman
.  He cut open a pig, drank its blood, and all of the Creole and
Kongo
loas
descended upon the ceremony, possessing all of the participants.  This gave them all the inspiration needed to revolt.  First, in 1794 under Toussaint
Louverture
.  Then years later Napoleon got involved.  Over fifty thousand French troops died of yellow fever while trying to overtake the island.  Coincidence?  No.  In 1804 Haiti was born as a result of
Boukman’s
deal made with Satan.  That’s the Voodoo version of it, anyway,” Lucien said.

“What’s the non-Voodoo version?” asked Jake.

“
Boukman
just used Satan as a catalyst to inspire.  He was later captured and decapitated, serving as their martyr,” Lucien answered.

“You summoned Satan, like
Boukman
, asking for a longer life?” Jake asked.

“In a way, except my
angajon
is not with Satan.  It’s with Baron
Samedi
,” Lucien answered.

“Do you want to be a martyr like
Boukman
?” Jake asked.

“You have a keen mind.  And no, I don’t want to be anyone’s martyr.  The deal I made was foolish.  I regretted it years after I signed it with my blood.  You see, he gets my
ti
-bon-
ange
along with all of my wives and children’s
ti
-bon-
anges
once we die
.  We belong to him.  In return, the Baron allows me to live off of the dead.  It’s why I’m still here.  But now things have changed.  The dead are beginning to live off of me.  That’s how I know my time is almost up,” Lucien said.

“But your family, do they know you bargained their souls away?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure the Baron has visited them.  They’ve got to wonder.  Most of them hate me.  When I left Haiti I left them with nothing except my
bad reputation
.  I have a daughter who I talk to every five or ten years.  She’s the only one who will speak to me,” Lucien said.  His eyes looked away, filled with tears.

“Why did you have to leave?”

“Well…I went to jail and faced execution.  Funny you mentioned being a martyr.  That was my chance.  Could have been a martyr for religious freedom,
Bizango
freedom.  But I’m a coward.  It’s no excuse, but I was desperate
.  Brain cancer then jail, I felt that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain
,” Lucien said.

“What did you do?  Murder?” Jake questioned.

“You already know I was a
bokor
back in Haiti.  I killed many.  Some were for revenge.  The people I killed weren’t exactly saints, they were the
Petes
of the world, the takers.  There’s a blurry line
between
good and evil
; they are connected.  B
ut I had no right to kill.  No right then and no right now.  But I have also killed to
experiment
.  I found new
ways of using souls.  I could always justify
it,
but old age has made me see what’s right and what’s true.  Justice is left up to
Bondeye
,
” Lucien said.

“Am I a murderer too?  I certainly wanted Pete dead.  I even asked you to do it.  And T.J.?  That was no accident.  Is my soul’s fate the same as your children?” Jake cried.

“No!  Stop it!  You didn’t kill anyone!  And you’re a kid!  What Pete did to you…It was Pete who got T.J. killed and Pete who got himself killed.  That was defense, not justice, not revenge!  He would have killed you!  C’mon Jake, you were having an affair with his wife,” Lucien stated.

“And you know this because you were there.  You can turn into a wolf?” Jake cried.

Lucien nodded
, paused for a long time,
and
then looked him square in the face. 
“It’s called shape-shifting.  Part of my side of the
anjagon
.  I’ve been many different kinds of animals. 
The wolf is my favorite, a true protector. 
I wanted to protect you.”

“Protect?  You down right saved me, like some kind of guardian angel straight from Hell!” Jake exclaimed.

“I knew you were in trouble.  You and Leah were carrying on all over the place.  Pete would have had to be blind not to know.  I’ve been following you here in the trailer park for the last week.  I had a feeling he would soon make his move, and he did.”

“What about the police?  They’re never going to believe that.  They’ll think it’s me.  I could go to jail.  Leah is probably at the police station right now reporting him missing,” Jake cried.

“You didn’t tell her about you and Pete…”

“No!  I told her we went for a ride and then I went to bed.  I told her I had no idea where he was!” Jake exclaimed.

“Good.  And they’ll never find him.  I took care of that. 
He’s buried deep within those woods. 
He’s a drunk and a murderer in the eyes of the police.  Just keep quiet and this will blow over,” Lucien said.

“What about
Pete’s
car?” Jake asked.

“What about it?  It’s worth what?  $100?  Hardly worth taking. 
The easy story to believe is that Pete
left Leah for another woman.  She picked him up last night - case closed,” Lucien reasoned.

“His clothes?” Jake asked.

“They’re worthless rags.  Why bother.  No one cared about your uncle.  You said so yourself, he was evil,” Lucien said.

“So why did you pick me to mentor?” Jake asked. 

“Because I saw a very bright, kind, and talented boy who never stood a chance in life.  I see in you what I could have been.  You think I want to turn you into me?  Please.  I want you to be better, to
be just, and
not
wind up a selfish bastard like me
.  I’m giving you an opportunity to take what I’ve learned, what I’ve discovered, and apply it in a different direction.  You are like my son, my absolution,” Lucien said.  His hazel eyes had lightened to a dark green.

“I will try not to disappoint you.  What about the love spell?  Is that a good thing to do to somebody?  Was that selfish?” Jake asked.

“Don’t feel guilty about that.  You’re a teenager in love.  She’s a grown adult.  Maybe it’s a selfish thing to do, maybe not,” Lucien said.

“Do you think she loves me?  Or am I just someone to, you know…” Jake asked.

“Don’t know, Jake.  The love spells I gave you and Henry will last a maximum of six months.  Afterward if she still seems attentive to your needs and wants to be with you, then you can safely assume her feelings are real,” Lucien said.

“Thanks for saving me.  I’m sorry I got mad,” Jake cried.  “I’m also sorry you’re going to die.  I love you.”

“I love you too, my Jake.  You are my true heir,” Lucien said.

Chapter 32

After Jake left for school, Leah convinced
Rhianna
she needed a nap.  The two of them lied down for a few hours.  By the afternoon, still no Pete.  It was time to play the concerned wife.  She changed into her only conservative outfit,
the same
gray suit
she
purchased for her brother’s funeral, and headed down to the police station.  She worried Pete was not
missing
, but locked in a cell for some dumb, drunken thing he had done the night before. 
Try to be positive
, she thought.

Leah recalled
the first time she met Pete.  She was a junior at Lincoln High, the high school in the next town over from Hayward.  He was a young man of twenty-five, working in an auto-repair shop not too far away from her mother’s house.  Her father died a few years earlier and she never got over it.  Soon after his death, everything fell apart.  Her middle-class lifestyle abruptly ended after her mother found the family’s finances in ruin.  Leah admired her mother.  By working multiple jobs and other dealings, her mother saved them from having the bank foreclose on their home.

Leah was an average student, but disliked her classes.  The only thing she excelled at was dance.  She had lessons since she could walk, always one of the best, if not the best in her class.  The lessons ended once her father died. 

As a teenager she discovered drinking.  Her best friend’s older sister gave her an old driver’s license.  Leah and her friends found the bars much more entertaining than the high school
kegger
parties.  Drinking and dancing the night away proved to be the perfect arena for blowing off steam.  Because of her mother’s never-ending work schedule, she had no one at home to tell her no.  

She remembered the first night she met Pete.  He was muscular with almost black hair and green eyes, very sexy.  He could dance and play a great game of pool.  He treated her like a woman, pulling out the bar stool for her to sit down, buying drinks for her and her friends, listening to everything she said.  They started dating.  He owned a trailer in Chippewa
Park
.  He seemed full of ambition, announcing future plans of owning an auto shop, a real catch, or so she thought.  The summer before her senior year she got pregnant.  Her mother hated him, begging her to have an abortion and finish school.  Pete popped the marriage question, ecstatic about becoming a dad.  It was no contest.  He had
her fooled into thinking he was the older, wiser, father figure she longed for.  He was nothing like her father.  Looking back, her father would have hated him too.

Only months into the marriage she feared she had made a mistake.  She should have divorced him when he sodomized her against her will on their honeymoon or when he got drunk and seduced her best friend weeks before
Rhianna
was born.  She should have divorced him when he got fired from his mechanic job and made her go find work to keep up with the bills. 
Rhianna
was only two weeks old at the time.  She should have divorced him when he hit her, which happened more and more frequently, as single punches quickly became beatings.  She really should have divorced him after her brother died, knowing he had everything to do with it.  She was
so
ashamed
of herself
.  And now he was missing.  Like a gift from the gods or God Himself answering prayers she gave up on praying.

Leah parked in the visitor’s lot of the police station and unbuckled
Rhianna’s
car seat.  There was a spring in her step she immediately toned down.  Common sense told her it was unwise to march into the police station whistling Dixie while reporting a missing husband.