Black Heart Loa (19 page)

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.”

“Yup. Incorrigible, true-blue, one hundred percent pure evil. That’s you.”

Belladonna flapped a hand at her. “Stop. You had me at
incorrigible
.”

A
fter Kerry had ducked
past the glistening palmettos at the end of the driveway and vanished from view, Kallie spun around in the mud, cupped her hands around her mouth, and yelled,
“Jacks!”

“Wait. I thought he wasn’t here,” Belladonna said.

“He got out of that grave, Bell,” Kallie replied. “But since the Baron mentioned smelling blood, he could be hurt and holed up somewhere.”

“Jacks!”
Belladonna cried.

Thunder muttered, low and deep, moving away with the storm. The rain slackened, slowed to a stop, leaving the air hanging heavy with the smells of wet earth and ozone.

Kallie circled the silent house, peering in windows and yelling her cousin’s name as she went, Belladonna echoing her cries; but as hard as she listened for the sound of his teasing voice—
Over here,
p’tite peu.
Hey, short stuff, you blind?
—all she heard was the rain dripping from the eaves, the growl of fading thunder, and Belladonna’s shouts.

As Kallie came back around to the grave, she noticed
tire tracks in the mud. According to Kerry, the assholes who’d grabbed Jackson had tossed him into his own truck. But the Dodge Ram was no longer here.

Breathing in a thick perfume of wet greenery, moisture-beaded hyacinths, and decaying wood, Kallie allowed her gaze to follow the tire tracks leading to the mouth of the driveway, and a horrible suspicion flashed like cheap neon in her mind.

Jackson had gotten out of his grave and managed to drive away in his abandoned truck, probably tearing up the gravel driveway to the dirt road. Hell, she would’ve floored the gas pedal in his place.

And he’d peeled out onto the road just as Layne had arrived.

Pushing her wet hair back from her face, Kallie studied the tire tracks. No. Jacks would’ve stopped if he’d collided with anyone. He never would’ve left a man lying beside the road, no matter the cost to himself.