Dark Lily: Shadows, Book 4 (9 page)

“And you’re overestimating what Gaby’s willing to do, to have done on her behalf, in order to stay alive. Three people died on Bokur, two bad, one innocent. Gaby’s not happy about any of the deaths, and neither am I. Particularly the innocent guy.”

“Gaby’s innocent.”

“But not willing to let other people die for her. Not to kill until Leshad runs out of high-flying henchmen. And here’s a thought. What if one of his pseudo Kamikaze killers possesses enough psychic power to sneak past the supernatural front line and whisk her off the island?”

Phoebe’s fists balled. “She’s off the island now, no psychic Kamikaze killers required.”

Mitchell controlled his temper and at the same time kept an eye trained on their surroundings. More than river rats lurked in the darkness down here. “I have a plan, okay? Gaby’s fine with trying something different. Bull by the horns does work on occasion, you know. If it doesn’t, we can always go back to Bokur.”

She stared at him in astonishment. “You intend to call Leshad out? To go head to head with him? Are you insane?”

“I’ll admit I’m leaning, but I’m not there yet. What I want is an up close and semi-personal with CJ. I think Gaby wants that too, and damn it, she has the right to at least be in the same room with him once in her life.”

“Short though that life may ultimately be.” Panic won out, and she grasped his hands. “You can’t let him see her, Mitchell. He’ll hand her to Leshad on a silver platter. Anything to climb another rung on his precious political ladder.”

“One on one’s not exactly what I had in mind,” he said dryly. Rain stabbed his face like miniature claws. “What happened to that faith you had in me earlier this week?” A brow rose. “Or are you thinking CJ’s not the only person who’s sold his soul to Leshad?”

She snorted, looked away. “Hundreds have sold their souls. More will as time goes by. But you won’t be one of them.”

“Glad to hear it. Now live up to that remark, stop trying to bulldoze your way into my head, and tell me what you know about Billy the doll.”

Snatching free, she gathered the trench coat she wore around her rail-thin body and jerked her chin up. “I wasn’t trying…”

“Yes, you were. You’re not proficient at it, but reading me was the hope.”

“Failed hope,” she muttered. “You have a strong mind.”

“Yup. So…Billy.”

Her mouth compressed. “My mother made him. I don’t know when or why. I don’t see him much now that Mama’s gone. I catch a glimpse here and there, but that’s all. I take it you’ve had more.”

“You could say. What can he do? What’s he capable of?” Mitchell clarified when her features clouded.

“I don’t know. I don’t.” She raised her hands. “That’s God’s truth. I don’t even know for certain what he is. Not a doll, obviously. More than wood and paint, less than you and me.”

“Is he a voodoo doll?”

“No, but I think he must have something of voodoo in him. He’s not dangerous if he likes you.”

“I wouldn’t call that a reassuring remark.” Mitchell flipped up the collar of his jacket. The rain seemed to have developed pointed teeth, like Billy when he grimaced. “I’m surprised Leshad isn’t trying for Billy rather than Gaby. If you’re right about him, that doll could be used as a formidable weapon.”

Phoebe laughed for the first time. “Never going to happen, Mitchell. First and foremost, Billy wouldn’t allow it to happen. Second, Leshad would be terrified of him. What little knowledge I have of the man—if you can call him a man—suggests an unabiding fear of voodoo and the supernatural. Thirteen steps on a staircase? He won’t climb it. Chicken feet and feathers on his doorstep? He’ll sell up and move. And before you ask, this knowledge came to me directly from my mother.”

“Your mother, who was the first calling-card murder victim.”

“I’m tired,” Phoebe said, her voice weary. “We need to end this.”

Even in bad light, Mitchell saw the lines of strain etched around her mouth and eyes. “Are you taking medication?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Muddles the mind. I want to see Gaby safe. Gaby and…” A sigh rolled out as she turned to stare at the Mississippi. “I’ve led such a wicked life. I disappointed my mother, messed up every relationship I ever had, lost more than one part of myself. And now a murderer wants my Gabrielle.” She turned back, took his hands again and implored him with her haunted gray eyes. “Please don’t let him get her. Whatever you have to do, whatever it takes, please stop him from trying to pervert what’s inside her.”

“Gaby won’t let him use her. I’ve just met her, and I know that. It isn’t what she wants, but if I can’t stop Leshad from taking her, from using her, she will.”

“Mitchell—”

“She will.” He held her brimming gaze. “No matter what the cost.”

Chapter Eleven

She was in the swamp. She’d stepped from a faded flower of a mansion straight into Snake Scream Swamp. Which was possible on a metaphysical level, Gaby supposed, but not in the real world.

She saw the hazy outline of Mad Mama’s Antiques, the shop where she’d purchased the secretary that had gone up in flames. A second later, the outline blurred, and she was standing in a retro plantation-style bathroom.

“Okay, that was off the scale weird,” she decided, looking around at the outdated fixtures. “Even for me.”

When five minutes passed and nothing further happened, she turned on the radio above the sink. Leadbelly and BB King kept her company while she ran a lukewarm bath, liberally scented with Celia’s lily-rose crystals. Before climbing into the tub, she made another wary circle of the room. “I know something just went down here,” she said to whoever or whatever had created the illusion. “But please don’t let this bathtub turn into a river full of snakes and alligators.”

The tub remained a tub. The scented water felt like heaven. Billie Holiday’s eerily beautiful voice slowly but surely smoothed the rough edges of Gaby’s unease. It didn’t touch the sexual frustration still simmering inside. Only Mitchell could do that. And he would. Eventually. She hoped.

Billie Holiday gave way to Stevie Ray Vaughan. Lulled but not deceived, Gaby kept an eye on the shifting shadows. Twenty minutes later, she stood, dripping, wrapped a large bath towel around her body and stepped over the edge of the tub into the swamp.

“This is getting really annoying,” she said to the night song that filled the air around her. “Is this you playing games, Billy?”

But her wooden friend didn’t answer, and she didn’t think he was responsible in any case.

“If I step on a snake, someone’s in a lot of—oh, shit! Trouble.”

She stumbled backward as a pair of skeletal hands stretched out of the darkness. It was all she could see of the person behind them. Fingers that were mostly bone, gnarled and dirty, reaching for her.

“No, don’t. Jesus!” She jumped back another foot. “I’m not— Who are you?” This as the fingers came within an inch of her throat. “Why can I only see your hands?” She looked again. “And your arms?” Also mostly bone and filthy. She retreated into the water. It struck her as curious that the swamp should smell like lilies and roses. “Where am I?”

A crackly voice emerged from the dark. “This is my home, Gabrielle. This is where it began twenty-eight years ago.”

Gaby was far too rattled to think that statement through. “Where what began?” she demanded. “Do I know you?”

“Child, you are me. You drew my picture in great detail.”

“I did?” It took longer than it should have for her brain to kick-start. When it did, she lowered her lashes and peered into the shadows. “Madeleine?”

The skeletal hands fell away. “Do I need to confirm what’s already inside you?”

Gaby rubbed her bare arms. “Denial of a thing only works for so long.” She repeated the words she’d spoken to Mitchell less than an hour ago. “Unfortunately. I know who you are, and I know how we’re related. I probably knew on some level when I saw you in my nightmare.”

Madeleine gave a low chuckle. “I’m a nightmare to you, am I?”

“You seemed that way when I dreamed about you. I don’t sleep well. Dead people often drop by to—well, I’d say to chat, but it comes out more like venting. My husband cheated on me, so I killed him. I cheated on my husband, so he killed me. That kind of thing.”

“Many people are murdered for ridiculous reasons. Both my life and my death were extremely complicated.”

Gaby wished Madeleine would move into the hazy moonlight, but she remained in the deep shadows. “Why are we in Snake Scream Swamp? This isn’t where you died.”

“No, it isn’t. But this antique shop—Mad Mama’s—was mine from the start. Your instincts serve you well, Gabrielle.”

“Sometimes they do. You said this is where it started. You mean you met Leshad here for the first time.”

“It was less of a meeting and more of an assault, but, yes, this is where I first had contact with the one I came to call Leshad.”

“Do you know his real name?”

“No. I can’t tell you why. I’m simply unable to find it inside me.”

Feeling bolder, Gaby eased closer. “Will you let me see you?”

“That is a question you have only to ask.”

The voice came from behind her. Spinning, Gaby confronted the brittle husk that was, or had once been, her grandmother.

She didn’t gasp, but Madeleine was a dreadful sight, more so up close than through the filtered lens of her nightmare. A crease formed between Gaby’s eyes. “This isn’t how you looked when you died. It can’t be. Why the horror-show exaggeration?”

“Because death can be a monstrous thing. Leshad didn’t take my life clean and fast. He put my eyes out one by one. Slowly. Deliberately. He wanted me to suffer, hoping the pain he inflicted would cause me to speak the words to release him. But I refused to do it, and so he killed me.”

“And there it is,” Gaby said softly, even though her stomach pitched. “He believes you put a curse on him. You wouldn’t remove it no matter what he did to you. Now he’s desperate to find someone who’ll do the job instead.”

Although Madeleine’s blackened eye sockets gaped at her, it seemed there was a blend of sorrow and wisdom in their depths. “I told him what was done could not be undone by another. He has chosen not to believe me. Did you know I was already blind when he put my eyes out?”

“I—no.” Gaby considered that. “Should I have known?”

“Phoebe should have told you.”

“My moth—Phoebe knew—knows?—everything?”

“Not every detail, but enough of them. Certainly more than you as Leshad’s present target.”

A sense of urgency swept through Gaby’s mind. “What can I do to stop him, Madeleine? Can I stop him? You don’t know his real name. Do you know what he looks like?”

“No.”

Gaby pushed her fingers into her temples. “Okay, way beyond frustrated now. Why not?”

“I never saw his face. Not when he blinded me and not later when he murdered me. He is not without a skilled mind. An evil mind, but a skilled one. Does that surprise you?”

Gaby shook her head. “No, but I think it frightens me.” When Madeleine raised a clawed hand, Gaby fought her revulsion and didn’t shrink away.

The swamp, or rather the illusion of it, wavered like a weak video signal. “Your own mind is tired,” Madeleine remarked. She drew an air circle around Gaby’s face. “You have my eyes, child. Look in the mirror, because you can, and know that.” Her tone grew cryptic. “You will always see yourself when you look. And you will always know that I am a part of you.”

The swamp faded in and out. More out than in, Gaby realized. Fear spiked. “No, wait, Madeleine, don’t leave. Not yet.” She made a futile attempt to reach for the bony hand and watched her own pass right through it.

Night mist swirled, the sound of a blues guitar grew louder and for a moment, the skin on Gaby’s cheek went cold. As if she’d been stroked by the tip of an icy finger.

Madeleine’s voice reverberated in her head. “Beware the mask of death, Gabrielle. Beneath it lies the true face of evil.”

The swamp went black, and Gaby was in the bathroom again, standing in the claw-foot tub with cool, scented water swishing around her legs.

She felt lightheaded, vaguely nauseous. Crouching, she braced her hands on the curved porcelain edge and lowered her head to them.

She was just beginning to breathe easy when the heavy paneled door crashed open.

* * * * *

“You failed, Caleb. Twice.” Leshad’s distorted voice had a crystalline quality, as if an ice floe ran from his brain to his tongue.

CJ didn’t let himself think the obvious question, but rather concentrated on regulating his breathing and hoping to hell his new aide had activated the security system when he’d left the riverside condo.

“Both of the men I sent were recommended by your people, Leshad. That’s not an excuse—”

“No, it isn’t.”

CJ stiffened. “But it is a fact. Two failures don’t equal defeat. I’ll send someone more efficient.” Saliva pooled in his mouth as his backbone slowly dissolved. “I’ll get her, and Mitchell Stone as well if that pleases you. Stone’s been helping her. I don’t know why.”

“He’s been helping her,” Leshad said in a taut tone, “because his father slept with the same whore you did.”

Shock took CJ back a step. “How on earth did you discover a thing like that?”

“I pay people to spy, Caleb, to creep and crawl and eavesdrop on my behalf. I buy people, the same way I bought you.”

CJ’s breath stuttered out.
Hate this, hate this, hate this
, he thought.
Hate you.
“I’ll send someone else to Bokur, Leshad. I won’t fail again.”

“You fail every minute that whore Phoebe Lessard remains alive.”

“I thought Gaby was more important. I’ve been working on procuring her.”

Leshad’s chuckle made the hair on CJ’s neck stand straight up. “Your brown-nosing skills are sadly lacking these days. Kill the whore. Leave your spawn to me.”

Desperation clawed in CJ’s gut. “I can have someone on Bokur within six hours.”

“I’m sure you can. However, the action would be pointless since Gabrielle is no longer on Bokur Island. She’s here, in New Orleans. With Stone, I imagine.”

“How do you…?”

“Creep, crawl, spy, eavesdrop. Your listening skills could use a polish as well.” His dreadful voice liquefied CJ’s organs. “While you’re an asset to me, I’ll allow you to live on. Disappoint me again, and you’ll die. Kill Stone and the whore.” His low laughter oozed evil. “Do those two small things, Caleb, before the night of the full moon.”

“But I—”

“Before the full moon, or see your fate in front of you.”

As CJ stared at his cell phone, Leshad’s trademark seven question marks vanished one by one, until all that remained was an empty screen.

* * * * *

The man who burst across the threshold would have knocked Gaby down if he hadn’t collided with something far more rigid than the door.

“What the hell was that?” Her would-be attacker dropped to a kneeling crouch on the threshold, arms extended and pointing a very large gun at her chest. “If you’re Gaby, tell me what the fuck I just ran into that felt like a concrete wall.”

She stared at him, as confused as she was startled. “How would I know?” But under her surprise, she had ideas. “You’re the armed intruder. I’ll settle for being grateful and suggest you not fire your weapon unless you have a death wish. Bullets can ricochet off invisible walls.” Backing to the end of the tub, she studied his face. “Did Leshad send…? No, he’s not in your head. I’m getting something though. A feeling of camaraderie.” It struck her the same way he’d struck the nonexistent wall, and she rolled her eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake, you’re a cop. Mitchell sent you to watch me.”

“I am. He did. I don’t think you need watching. Now tell me how the hell you turned thin air into an impenetrable barrier?”

“I didn’t.” She stabbed a finger at him. “You and I are related.”

“We say kin in this part of the country.” Rising, he stuffed the gun in his waistband. “My name’s Rick Ryder. Helene Dubose, your great aunt, was my grandmother. Flipside, Madeleine Lessard, your grandmother, was my great aunt.”

Gaby unwound his remarks and breathed out her tension. “Helene was Madeleine’s sister. Leshad killed them and left silhouette calling cards.”

“Leshad killed Madeleine, or so the story goes. He sent someone else to murder Helene.”

“The story’s true, at least in terms of Madeleine.” She swept a hand down her towel-clad body. “Do you mind?”

He grinned, and she had to admit, he was incredibly good looking. Dark, messy hair, blue or gray eyes, unshaven, tall, built. Apparently, New Orleans had some kind of sexy police force.

“Too bad we’re cousins,” he said as she walked past him.

“Too bad you’re married,” she tossed over her shoulder.

“Just as well, actually. Mitchell’d shoot my balls off for looking, even if we weren’t and I wasn’t. Her name’s Mia.”

“I know.” Gaby turned. “I’ll be down in five. You can tell me why you came through my bathroom door like a wrecking ball, and I’ll tell you about the visit I just had with your Great Aunt Madeleine.”

“Yeah, Mitchell said you had stuff. I’m not a complete skeptic, but I’m not the world’s biggest believer either.”

“You wouldn’t feel that way if you were wearing this towel, cousin. Give me five.”

She was down in four, sans makeup, with her hair pulled into a damp ponytail and her hiking boots laced to the top, just in case a quick escape was necessary.

Despite a welter of shadows, Rick Ryder—he told her to call him Ryder—eyed her legs, bared by fashionably torn denim shorts, and chuckled. “I thought Mitchell only liked women who were bookish and boring.”

“Among other things, I sell books.”

“But you’re not boring.” He rolled a shoulder. “What did I plow into upstairs?”

“A wall of will.”

“Ask an implausible question. Look, you don’t seriously expect me to believe you had a chat with your dead grandmother, do you?”

Shrugging, Gaby leaned against a scarred sideboard. “Belief’s up to you, but my guess is that implausible wall was her doing. Billy likes to startle people, but I don’t think he has the power to create physical barriers. You never know though. He’s a creature of mystery.”

“Billy the doll.” Laughing without humor, Ryder rocked his head from side to side. “Jesus, this is turning into a drug trip. Okay, if you know Billy, you must know Desdemona. Runs Madeleine’s shop in Snake Scream Swamp? Claims not to have the sight? Says Billy hangs out with her when he’s got nothing better to do?”

“We’ve met,” Gaby told him. “I liked her, and, no, she doesn’t have the sight. Why did Mitchell send you here, Ryder? What did he think might happen?”

“Sorry to say, Mitchell’s not big on telling people what he’s thinking or why. I owed him one, so here I am, no particular explanation. He said there’d be bourbon in the cabinet behind the sofa. Do you mind?”

She swept a hand toward the cabinet. “I’ll have a glass if you’re pouring. Now it’s my turn. Why did you break down the bathroom door instead of knocking on it?”