Black Heart Loa (14 page)

Belladonna arched an eyebrow. “A
little
? Please.”

“Okay, maybe a lot weird, but it’s you who ain’t appreciating the situation,” Kerry insisted, returning his gaze to Belladonna. “I don’t pretend to know how Cash got here or what the hell he’s doing, but I’m getting us out. Me and Cash, we’re gonna take your car and split. Now, toss the gun!”

“Hear my voice, nameless and untamed
loa
. Yo’ lord, Baron Samedi, commands and compels you to leave de girl’s warm flesh. Yo’ master, Baron Samedi, unthreads
you from her being with each word, every command. Come to me.”

Belladonna’s muscles cabled tight across her shoulders. She couldn’t let the Baron finish laying his trick, couldn’t risk his killing Kallie with his commands. Maybe the
loa
’s magic would backfire.
Maybe.
But she refused to gamble with her friend’s life.

“That’s not Cash down there, not exactly,” Belladonna said, shifting her gaze from Kerry to skull-painted Cash in the grave. “But fine, have it your way.”

Narrowing her eyes, Belladonna sighted in on her target and hurled the Glock. The gun bounced off the back of the Baron’s head with a loud
thok,
then pinwheeled into the mud.

The chanting stopped. The Baron looked up at Belladonna, wagged a
Naughty, naughty, you’ve got a spanking coming, girl
finger at her, then returned his attention to Kallie just in time to backpedal away from her rocketing fist.

“Yo’ lord, Baron Samedi, commands you, wild
loa,
unnamed spirit …”

Kerry took a step closer to the edge of the grave. “Cash! C’mon, man, forget about her. I’ve got the car and the shotgun and—”

His words cut off abruptly as Belladonna reached up, yanked the shotgun from his rain-slick grasp, twirling the weapon around so that its muzzle was aimed at him. “Wrong on both counts,” Belladonna purred. She tsked. “Y’all really don’t know how to hold on to a shotgun, do you?”

Kerry buried his face in his hands. “Fuck,” he groaned. No apology for his “French” was offered; the manners his mama had taught him apparently worn thin.

“Compelled. Commanded. Come to me, wild one!” the Baron shouted.

Fear stabbed a cold blade into Belladonna. Just as she thought,
That sounds like a finished trick,
and flashed an anxious glance at Kallie, a hard blast of power pulsed up from the grave and out, knocking Belladonna onto her ass in a rush of heated air reeking of brimstone and ozone and prickling with
wrongness.

Her teeth clicked together, narrowly missing her tongue, as her hind end hit the wet ground. She heard Kerry cry out in confused terror, followed by a soft thud. Knocked to his ass too. Or swooned. She’d lay odds on swooned. She also thought she heard a chicken clucking in an unhappy way.

Stewpot?

Belladonna crawled back to the grave’s muddy edge and peered down. Then blinked. Kallie was also on her ass in the muck, a dazed expression on her face. And in front of her …

“Where’d the chicken come from?” Kerry asked. “And where the hell’s Cash?”

“Y
ou feeling any better?”
Gabrielle asked. “Has the potion finally worn off?”

“I’m awake, me,” Divinity replied. She paused her teacup at her lips, and its aroma, redolent of black tea, honey, and ripe cherries, curled into her nostrils. “But feeling better? After what you told me? Hell, no.”

She studied the makeshift altar on her coffee table, thought of the words Gabrielle had spoken as soon as Divinity awakened from her oh-so-restful damned snooze.

“Baron Samedi is hunting your nephew. And it’s my fault.”

“So de Baron just vanished? After saying Jackson was getting what he deserved?”

“In a puff of smoke, no less. And taking his new
cheval
with him too.” Gabrielle shook her head, her eyes pools of disbelief. “Never seen nothing like that before.”

Divinity could imagine.

But what she
couldn’t
imagine was how an invocation for help had managed to go so wrong, downgrading her nephew’s situation from bad to Sweet-Jesus-it-can’t-get-much-worse.

Gabrielle looked genuinely troubled, but any hoodoo or mambo worth her salt knew how to
act
when it was necessary to show a client or student or worshipper what they needed to see when it mattered most.

“So, den,” Divinity said, leaning forward and resting her teacup on the table, her gaze on Gabrielle, “I be safe in t’inking what happened with yo’ invocation had nothing to do with my borrowing of yo’ identity?”

Gabrielle’s cup of tea froze in midair. She stiffened in her rocker and shot a barbed look at Divinity. “You can’t
borrow
an identity,” she stated, her tone level, yet hot enough to weld iron. “But you can obviously
steal
one. The problem between us has
nothing
to do with what happened. Unlike Jean-Julien St. Cyr, I’d never harm an innocent over a crime committed by someone else.”

“Never thought you would, you,” Divinity lied, meeting the other woman glare for glare. “Just stating facts. Don’t get so riled up.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Dubious. Gabrielle’s cup resumed its journey to her lips. “I got no reason to wish ill on your nephew or your niece.” She sipped at her tea. “Now,
you,
however …”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get yo’ chance, you. We’ll hash all dat out later.
After
Jackson and Kallie are safe.”

Gabrielle eyed Divinity from over the rim of the delicate rose-patterned cup. “After,” she agreed. “But until then, I’d like an explanation to tide me over. You owe me that much.”

Divinity nodded. “True, dat. But it’s gonna need to be de Reader’s Digest condensed version. We ain’t got de time to waste on de past just now.”

“We don’t. Agreed. So let’s hear it.”

Clutching her cup and taking a sip of the cooling tea, Divinity gathered her thoughts for a moment, picking and choosing, saving others for a later date. “When I figured out what Sophie had done, I knew de day would come when I’d need to steal Kallie away and hide her. I just didn’t know when dat day would be. So I prepared.

“I knew dat you’d gone to Haiti just a year or two before Kallie’d been born—after Jean-Julien had gone to prison—and I didn’t figure you’d be back, so I buried my name and gave new life to yours. I wanted to be sure no one could link Gabrielle LaRue to Sophie Rivière.”

“But why? Didn’t you say your sister’s locked up?”

“
Oui.
In Saint Dymphna’s for de criminally insane. But,” Divinity said, holding up a finger and capturing the mambo’s gaze, “I also knew dat my sister couldn’t’ve done dat evil t’ing to her daughter—her own flesh and blood—alone. It had to’ve been a group effort.”

“A group effort,” Gabrielle repeated, stunned realization widening her eyes. “So that’s who you’re hiding the girl from.”

“Dat I be. I be hiding her from her mama too. If Sophie knew where Kallie is, she might pass de word along.”

The mambo’s brow furrowed. “Doesn’t she know Kallie’s with you?”

“No. De authorities done kept dat knowledge from Sophie, since dey still consider her a threat to Kallie.”

“Bon Dieu. Do you know who the others are?”

Divinity shook her head, a familiar knot of anxiety twisting around her heart. “Dat I don’t. And it worries me for true. But enough of dat. We got udder t’ings to figure out—like how my sleep potion and yo’ incantation went so wrong.”

Gabrielle eyed her for a moment before nodding and
saying, “All right. But this matter between us is far from finished.”

“Ça c’est bon,”
Divinity agreed. “Once t’ings be settled, we’ll get back to it, us. Now, tell me again what happened when I laid down dat sleep trick and don’t skip a detail. We need to straighten dis mess out.”

Gabrielle leaned back into her rocker and started speaking.

Divinity took another sip of the black cherry tea Gabrielle had brewed for her, but its honey-sweetened warmth was incapable of melting the cold lump of dread—growing colder and heavier with each word from the redscarfed mambo’s lips—icing her belly ever since she’d awakened from a refreshing nap on the sofa to the sound of rain drumming against the roof.

And that was another thing, that. An unexpected and shocking awakening, given that her last memory had been of laying a go-to-sleep trick on that foul-tempered, ornery boy who’d broken into her house.

The same foul-tempered and ornery boy who now housed the
loa
of death, and who’d stood by and watched as Jackson was buried alive … Divinity shook the bleak thought away.

No. Dat boy—my sea-roaming, Robin Hood–faring man—still be alive. I won’t have it no other way. Our Kallie-girl will find him and bring him home again.

Divinity felt a sharp pang of guilt.

After all dat poor girl’s endured in de last twenty-four hours? After all she’s learned? You lay another burden on her and with no rest.

Divinity realized she was no longer certain who she chastised—the Lord, the
loa
and the saints, or herself.

Sweet Jesus, my girl
died
last night and she’s only alive now because de t’ing dat I tried to hide from her all dese years, tried to keep from awakening within her, kept her missing soul safe. Looks like her mama did her an unintended favor.

All because of one man’s misdirected need for vengeance.

With a soft sigh, Divinity lifted her cup to her lips again, but this time the cherries-and-honey aroma only made her belly clench.

Dat ain’t de whole truth, now, be it? One man’s misdirected need for vengeance and yo’ desire to keep dem children safe. But you grabbed de wrong identity, you.

Gabrielle halted her recounting of the invocation gone wrong. “Want me to stop? You’re looking awful grim,” she commented from her rocker.

Divinity snorted. “Dat be de pot calling de kettle black.”

And that was the absolute truth. The trim mambo in her red blouse and tan cords seemed to have aged since Divinity had sleep-tricked herself onto the sofa. Lines had deepened beside the woman’s mouth, creased her forehead; worry and regret haunted her dark eyes.

No wonder. Her invocation to Baron Samedi hadn’t fared any better than Divinity’s go-to-sleep potion had on Cash, and the
loa
of death had poured himself into Cash’s pride- and hate-poisoned heart. Now both, man and
loa,
hunted her nephew.

Divinity shook her head. As if being buried in the deep, dark ground weren’t bad enough.

Her troubled thoughts returned to the magic back-fires—her potion and Gabrielle’s invocation. Had they
been due to a hex placed on the house by Doctor Heron? Or something else entirely? Something darker and deadlier than a final shard of bitter laughter from a dead man?

And dat would be …?

Nothing useful popped into mind, but a deep sense of unease glided through her like a partially submerged gator and her gaze slid over to her worktable and the poppet with the violet button eyes and brown yarn hair.

No, de
loa
still be sleeping. Dat much I’m sure of. Awake, it would take over de girl, maybe even destroy her mind, force her to do evil t’ings. She sure as hell wouldn’t be searching for Jackson. Awake, de
loa
would eventually cast her body aside, a ruptured cocoon. No, de
loa
still be sleeping, for true.

Yet her unease threaded dark roots into her heart and anchored itself deep.

Divinity set her cup of tea aside on the coffee table, next to the flame-snuffed remains of a white candle. The faint odor of rum, tobacco smoke, and hot peppers still spiced the air.

“How long’s it been since de girls left?” Divinity asked, rising to her feet and walking to the front window. The old oak floor creaked comfortably beneath her feet, familiar and solid.

Rain streaked the double-paned glass, the beads of water rippling with the deep green of the weeping willows and oaks and lawn beyond. Thunder muttered, but the storm seemed to be passing.

Divinity’s heart gave a hard and painful pulse. Had the girls reached Jackson before the storm?

“Nearly two hours,” Gabrielle replied. “They could be on their way back.”

But what neither of them voiced lingered in the air nonetheless, like black smoke heavy with tension and dark possibilities:
Then why haven’t they called to let us know one way or another?

Divinity unlatched the window and pushed it up. The mingled rain-fresh scents of roses and tree bark and rich, wet soil flowed into the room. She studied the empty driveway—no Dodge Ram truck, no Siberian husky chasing squirrels, no niece or nephew arguing or blasting music—and felt just as empty inside.

“I’m gonna give Kallie a call, see if everyt’ing be okay,” she said. “Den we need to cleanse dis house of dat man’s evil, top to bottom, inside and out, and break his damned hex.”

“Agreed,” Gabrielle said, then paused, a troubled expression shadowing her face. She set her teacup on the candle-cluttered end table between the cherrywood rockers, then leaned forward, holding Divinity’s gaze. “But we need to consider one very important thing before we begin.”

“And dat very important t’ing would be?”

“What if a cleansing backfires just like the tricks did and we end up inviting
more
evil in?”

Sweet Jesus.
Divinity hadn’t even considered that possibility.
Refused
to consider it. “We’ll use holy water first. Ain’t no way dat can backfire.”

“I used holy water during my invocation,” Gabrielle said, casting a pointed glance at the makeshift altar on the coffee table.

Tapping a finger against her lips, Divinity mulled over the problem, perusing the sad altar and its remnants—candles, brazier, cup of coffee, small wood penis, symbols etched in dragon’s blood ink on the back of a magazine.