Night of the Living Demon Slayer (7 page)

The switch star boomeranged back to me and I caught it right as the newly-freed white alligator rushed me. Damn, it moved fast, hissing the whole way. I might not want to kill a guard, but I sure as hell had no trouble blasting an already dead beast. I aimed and hit it in the forehead with a switch star, watching the blade burn through skin and bone, sinking deep.

The alligator shuddered, its legs stiffening as its momentum carried it another several inches until it came to a rest at my feet. Dead.

"Okay, good." I huffed. That was easier than I thought. I drew off my soaked leather gloves and stuffed them into my belt.

Now we just had to get out of here.

Drums beat in the distance. It sounded like the entire voodoo congregation had heard the guard's cries, and it wouldn't take them long to get here.

"We gotta go," I said, keeping an eye on the alligator, skirting around the corpse and stomping over the red pillow to see how I could help Carpenter.

I saw the marks in the dirt where he'd fought, but the necromancer himself was nowhere to be found.

Oh, geez. "Carpenter?" I hissed, although heck, they already knew our location. We had to run. "Carpenter!" I said a little louder.

I followed the scuff marks and broken branches. Blood spattered the ground, along with sticky-sweet smelling purple flowers. I picked up a handful and shoved it in my pocket, trying to see through the dark.

With every movement, every word, I was betraying my location to people who very well might want to kill me. "Carpenter?"

I stiffened as a low hiss erupted behind me.

My breath sounded shallow, even in my own ears as I turned and faced a very alive, very ticked, white alligator. The switch star hole in its forehead smoked, and oozed with thick, black blood.

Oh, frick. "You won't even stay dead for a demon slayer."

The undead alligator rushed me. I hit it with another switch star in the same spot, hoping to at least slow it down. This one glanced off the wound and ricocheted into the trees beyond.

The reptile clamped its jaws on the same fricking leg the other one had. Teeth met metal, the shock of the impact driving through me as I hit it with a switch star to the neck. It let out a high-pitched squeal and clamped down harder.

It twisted its head, knocking me to the ground. Then it was on top of me, jaws in my face. I grabbed hold of its mouth, like I'd seen them do in the roadside gator shows. These suckers had crushing bites, but the muscles that opened their jaws were weak. I held its mouth open, right over my chin, but I couldn't keep the up for long.

Then I felt it. The dark soul calling to me. The animal bucked, thrashing against my side. It began to climb directly onto me crushing me with its weight as the dark soul inched up its chest, and into the back of its throat.

Now or never.

I braced the jaws with one arm, knowing they would snap shut at any second. With my other hand, I reached right through the soft skin of its neck. The black soul nestled like an ugly black marble. I closed my fingers around it and yanked it out.

"Mine, mine, mine
." It seethed. It struggled to bury itself in my skin. It wanted inside me.

The reptile had gone limp. I shoved it away, struggling to my knees as I hurled the black soul across the bayou. Birds erupted from the trees as it broke into dozens of blackened shards and escaped out into the night.

The alligator lay gray and dead at my feet.

Holy Hades. I'd let loose another black soul out into the world. Carpenter would have some more clean-up to do, but at least the voodoo cult wouldn't be able to get it back.

I'd done my job. I'd rid them of their prize. Now I just had to worry about finding the necromancer. And more. I stiffened as I saw lit torches in the distance, heading straight for me.

Chapter Six

The torches drew nearer. I braced myself, focusing my strength and my will. No getting around it, I was rusty when it came to the power of levitation. It was the one ability I'd never felt comfortable with, and as a result, had never truly mastered. My stomach felt heavy and my toes tingled as my feet lifted from the ground.

Ignore the wobble.

I rose as quickly as I dared. I had to escape and get my bearings.

Shaking, I grabbed hold of a thick tree branch twenty feet up and managed to swing a leg over the rough bark. It wasn't pretty, but I was up there. The branch crackled under my weight and my heart gave a jolt. Maybe I was too used to falling out of trees during levitation training.

There wasn't much time to dwell. I sucked in a breath as four shirtless men charged into the clearing carrying torches and machetes. Red and yellow paint streaked their faces and bodies.

The leader wore a thick stripe of purple down the bridge of his nose. He skirted the body of the fallen alligator, his breath coming in harsh pants. A charm made of bones and feathers slapped against his chest. "Brother Bode said he saw a woman. Spread out and search."

I clung to my tree branch, trapped, hoping to Hades none of them thought to look up.

One of the men passed directly under me. He stopped at the watery edge where I'd killed the alligator. "I smell death."

Who were these guys?

I strained my neck to see out past where they'd come. Thick foliage blocked much of my view, but I could make out enough. I clutched the bark in shock when I realized Carpenter hadn't simply led me to an isolated island on the bayou. Darkness stretched past the clearing below, but not far beyond it, a massive circle of torches blazed.

If that was the Alligator Man's congregation, we'd parked ourselves right in their backyard.

The men below me moved with ease as if they knew this part of the swamp well. Voices drifted up from the dark. "I have his boat."

"Leave it." The man with the bone necklace ordered. "We already have him."

Oh geez. They stopped directly below my tree, circling together as they planned.

"I see no girl."

"Perhaps Brother Bode saw a spirit."

Drums began a hard, steady beat in the large clearing ahead. Voices echoed over the bayou, in a French dialect I'd never heard.

"Come. It has begun. The ceremony is more important."

"The girl?"

"If she indeed exists in the mortal plane, she is of no use to us. We have the necromancer."

The leader stalked toward the massive circle of torches beyond the trees, toward the hard beating of the drums. All but one followed. The last man paused over the dead alligator. "Shall we take the vessel?"

The man in the bone necklace turned. "No. Give it back to the earth. It has served its purpose."

He took a long look over the clearing before he led them away. I counted four as they retreated and kept an eye on them until I could only make out torches, and not people.

The biker witches would have held back one or two witches, just in case. I didn't trust these people to do any different. Unless I really didn't matter to the church.

"Ha," I said under my breath. Let them count me out. They'd realize their mistake soon enough.

As long as I didn't fall out of this tree.

I drew upon my power and jumped, levitating just enough to make it to a thick branch, high on the other side of the clearing. I landed with a thud, my palms burning as they scraped against bark. I winced. It was better than taking my chances on the ground.

I leapt two more trees until I reached a small land bridge over the bayou. It was too far to jump, so I lowered myself carefully down on to the marshy ground and crouched low.

Aye-yay-yay!
Voices shouted from a large clearing ahead.

The drums beat louder.

I rushed across the wide-open space, ignoring the insects buzzing around my head and the aching in my bones. My boots splashed in puddles and sunk down into the muck. I was sweating like a pig. My heart pounded hard as the drums. I blinked in relief when I reached the trees beyond, kind of amazed I'd pulled it off. Still, I couldn't shake the unsettled feeling in my gut.

Perhaps the biker witches had rubbed off on me because I found myself preferring an all-out fight to all this sneaking around. I drew closer, careful to keep an eye out for the guards, and saw women in white dresses twirling and dancing in front of an immense bonfire. Painted, shirtless men, their backs shining with sweat, joined them, thrusting their bodies in a primitive dance.

A well-built man stood just beyond, his arms raised high. White body paint, drawn to resemble a skeleton, caked his chest and formed a macabre image of a skull on his face. "We beseech the Loa! Come to us!" The music changed. The drums stuttered out a staccato beat and the people screamed with abandon, thrashing their bodies.

I'd be willing to bet I'd found Osse Pade, Voodoo Bokor.

The crowd had spread. A man near the fire spun in a circle. He pulled a knife from the waistband of his jeans and, grinning to the heavens, he slashed the blade across his belly.

"Holy…" I uttered, unable to turn away. Somebody had to help him. Others saw. They had to. He'd sliced deep. Only the wound didn't bleed.

The crowd cheered.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead, not sure what to make of it.

A woman crouched near the bonfire and drew a heated poker. She smiled broadly, dancing with the scalding hot metal like she held a party balloon. I wanted to peel the sharpened rod of metal from her hand, to order her to drop it and back away. It glowed at the tip as she brought that burning edge down hard on her tongue. She did it again and again, and she didn't burn. Her tongue remained pink and whole.

Impossible.

Yes, I'd seen group magic before, but not like this. I didn't know what to make of the crowd or their worship or…oh my God. There was Carpenter.

Guards held him on both sides and dragged him to the center of the crowd. The necromancer struggled, bare-chested and hands behind his back. Black tattoos wound over his skin. He'd been gagged and beaten. The bokor laughed heartily, his long face held serenity and delight. He raised a gnarled stick with beads and feathers and an honest-to-God human skull on top. The priest began shouting something I couldn't decipher while his men tied Carpenter to the pole near the fire. I didn't even want to think of them burning him.

But I wouldn't put it past them.

I needed to do something. Fast. So far, the priest had brought an alligator back to life, which was wrong on about a hundred different levels, but it didn't deserve a death sentence. He'd tangled with black souls, but could I kill him for that? And what about his followers? Men, women, white, black, Asian, and all races in between. They looked like people I'd stumble upon on the streets of New Orleans. Save the wild dancing and the paint. Just because they'd taken part in this gathering, didn't mean they couldn't be redeemed. At least I didn't think so.

If I could only get closer…

I inched around the outside of the circle, still hidden by the trees. I was so focused on Carpenter that I almost stumbled over a burly guard before I saw him. Thank heaven he was distracted, entranced by the ceremony.

I'd have to sneak around the other way.

The woman who had been dancing with the poker, raised her hands in front of the fire. "Blood sacrifice to the loa!"

Pade held aloft a live chicken and made a great show of it, his muscular arms stretching high, spinning his body several times to display the squawking, frightened bird. The congregants pressed close, turning their faces up in rapture as feathers floated down to catch their cheeks and eyelashes.

With a knowing smile, he thrust the bird to the ground in front of Carpenter, who struggled, his hands lashed behind his back, his neck and feet bound to the pole.

The voodoo priest pointed his skull stick at the bird. He grinned manically as the animal let out a piercing squawk. Blood bubbled up from its chest, without him touching it, without him doing a thing except pointing that cursed stick. Church members collapsed to the ground, kicking and flailing as the bird thrashed, crying out as its blood splattered the congregants. It soaked the ground as it died at the necromancer's feet.

A sharp wind tore through the clearing and the drums stopped.

The people crouched—some crying, others silent—as a dark power seeped into the air like poisoned smoke.

I held my breath, as if that would protect me.

I knew better than anyone—there was nowhere to hide.

"It's the dark loa," one of the men hissed.

The bokor grinned like a madman, the white skull paint breaking into the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth, the black around his eyes making him look like a wicked demon. "The loa has blessed us." Feet bare, toes winding into the sandy soil, he stepped over the dead chicken and drew close to the struggling necromancer. "And now we have you as well," he said in a gravelly voice. "It took many moons to draw you to us. I was beginning to think we must slip that white gator into your bathtub. Call forth the loa in your living room."

Carpenter grimaced and tried to speak around the gag, his voice coming in angry, garbled bursts.

The bokor patted him on the cheek and turned to address the crowd. "It is the spirits of our ancestors who made us wait. They decided tonight was the night. They know the power of the blood moon." He stretched his arms out to the red-tinged full moon overhead.

The drums began to beat in a low, steady rhythm.

"Melona," the priest called.

A woman in white rushed to him, her head bowed. Hands shaking, she held out a plain, burlap sack to Pade. When he took it, she quickly bowed and backed away.

The corner of his mouth twitched in anticipation as he reached into the bag and drew out a heaping handful of dust "We call upon our ancestors," he said, casting the dust into the fire. It sparked when it hit, sending up a billowing cloud of smoke. "The dead who live among us." He reached deep for another handful, scattering it over the fire. More smoke hissed from the flames. It was thick now, and I could smell the sweet, cloying scent.

The priest breathed in deep, his nostrils flaring, while I tried to do the opposite. I shielded my mouth and nose against my wrist. The smoke made my head feel light. I began to see shadows among the flames.