Black Heart Loa (35 page)

“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.”

“Maybe you and the Baron are right about the
loa,
Addie,” Kallie said, speaking quietly to keep from earning herself another nick from the knife. “And if you are, I won’t fight you. But I need to find my cousin first. Need to bring him home. Let me do that, then I’m all yours.”

“Kallie, no!” Divinity and Belladonna protested practically in unison.

Addie looked at Kallie, face bleak, eyes hollowed. “The Baron thought you’d say something like that. So he gave me a message to pass on to you: ‘You be all mine
now,
Kallie Rivière. And as for yo’ cousin—don’t worry yo’ pretty little head,
jolie.
We be finding him soon enough.’”

“Goddammit, Addie,” Kallie pleaded, her hands curling into fists. “Don’t do this. Let me find Jackson—”

Addie turned her face away from Kallie, a muscle twitching in her jaw. “John,” she called to a member of her posse. “Fetch the duct tape from the nomad and let’s get everyone in the back room. Let’s get this damned thing done.”

M
averick and Jude never
made it to the consultation room. Addie ordered the pair of glowering nomads to be triple taped at wrists and ankles, then locked in the supply closet as a safety precaution.

McKenna spared herself the same treatment with the words “I have an exorcism tae finish—a Vessel with a hostile spirit aboard.”

“Never met a Vessel,” Addie commented, voice in trigued. “All right, then.”

The first thing Kallie noticed once they’d been herded into the room was that although Layne-Augustine still sat in the rocker, he now wore his leather jacket. She also noticed that his Glock rested on the floor in front of his boots.

When a member of the hoodoo posse—skilled in hoodoo, but utterly inexperienced in subterfuge and hostage taking—picked up the gun, then moved away without bothering to search the nomad for additional deadly items, Kallie felt hope blossom within her.

He still had his knives.

But given the strain on Layne’s handsome face, the
tension in his body language, Kallie suspected that Augustine’s hold over Babette was wearing thin. She wondered how long he could hold out. She had a feeling he was wondering the same thing.

The dark-haired root doctor in his early forties named John moved from person to person in the crowded room, carefully binding everyone’s wrists and just as carefully avoiding their gazes, while Addie and her shotgun kept an eye on the proceedings. Once Kallie’s wrists had been taped together, the knife was removed from her throat, and she could finally breathe a little easier.

Divinity was perched on the edge of Layne’s former bed, Belladonna beside her, her duct-taped hands in her lap, her back stiff, a fierce and bitter fire burning in her eyes as she stared at Gabrielle.

McKenna knelt on the floor, wrists bound, with what looked like a slim willow branch inlaid with delicate curls and twists of silver clutched in one hand—her kosh, she’d called it. A wand she would use as a focus for her will and energies when she performed the exorcism.

Addie stood in the center of the consultation room beside the chalked symbols and burning candles on the floor. Tiny flames danced reflected along the barrel of her shotgun. The sweet smell of candle wax mingled with the musky earth tones of the incense wafting up from the brazier.

“I need tae begin the exorcism,” McKenna said, looking up at Addie. “Before his control slips.”

Addie studied Layne-Augustine for a long moment. Sweat beaded the nomad’s face. She nodded. “Okay, yeah. Go ahead and get started.”

Layne’s head cocked to one side, a tight smile curving
his lips as Augusine’s chessboard-assessing gaze shifted to Gabrielle.

Kallie wondered what the Brit had up his duct-taped sleeves. No illusion would work right in magic’s currently twisted stream. No time for smoke and mirrors. But … Her pulse picked up speed as she considered the foremost tool of any illusionist—misdirection.

“So
you’re
Gabi, Doctor Heron’s sweetheart,” Layne-Augustine said in posh tones. “Gabrielle LaRue—the woman clever enough, ruthless enough, to poison his clients and put him in prison when he refused to leave his wife.” He winked. “Hell hath no fury, indeed. Kudos.”

“What? No,” Gabrielle said, startled. She stared at the nomad. “I never—” Her words were cut off as the man she directed them to suddenly stiffened, then slumped in the rocker, his eyes rolling up white.

Uh-oh,
Kallie thought.

“Holy Mother,” McKenna muttered. She started chanting rapidly in a flowing language that Kallie didn’t recognize, a language the pixieish nomad spoke with ease and authority.

Layne straightened in the rocking chair and scanned the room, his icy green gaze coming to rest on Gabrielle. A chill crawled over Kallie’s skin when she saw Babette looking out through Layne’s eyes. She wondered if Augustine was still inside or if he’d bailed.

Layne-Babette rose to his feet awkwardly as Babette adjusted to the feel of a physical body after a ten-year absence. “Of course
you
never,” he said without a British accent or Layne’s easy tones. “It was
me
. I was the clever one, you husband-stealing, home-wrecking whore. And I taught you both a well-deserved lesson.”

Layne-Babette lurched forward, kicking aside Mc-Kenna’s candles and brazier, and spilling melted wax and hot incense across the floor, as he shuffled after Gabrielle, bound hands extended zombie-style.

“Shite!” McKenna scooted away from the wax and embers. Swiveling around on her knees, she resumed her melodious and exotic chant, her kosh aimed at Layne-Babette’s back.

“Sit back down!” Addie commanded, following Layne-Babette with the shotgun.

“It be de hostile spirit inside o’ him,” Divinity said. “Seems she holds an old grudge against Gabrielle.” She tsked. “No surprise dere. De exorcism will take care o’ de problem. Now, aim de gun at de floor befo’ you accidentally shoot someone.”

Flustered, Addie did just that. “John, grab the girl and let’s wait for the Baron in the other room.”

“Okay,” the root doctor replied, ripping his fascinated gaze away from the slow-motion chase and heading for Kallie.

Gabrielle stepped backward until she stood just in front of Kallie. Reaching back with one surreptitious hand, the mambo tapped something against her knuckles. A glance down revealed a folded pocketknife. Kallie’s heart gave a little leap. Grabbing the knife, she tucked it against her palm.