Chapter 12

 

I didn’t get a wink of sleep all night. Something about Mercy sitting on the other side of the room, her beady red eyes glowing and staring right at me, made falling asleep difficult. Half of me wanted to summon Beli—who I was hoping might take the form of the stake that he’d taken before—and take care of the problem. But Nico had my parents, and she was no doubt sent here by him to spy on me. Since Maman Brigitte had to be the one to sponsor her, that meant that she had to be in on Nico’s plan, too. Which, frankly, made sense—she was desperate to get her husband, Baron Samedi, back.

The one bright side to all of this, though, was that without any boys left in the first-year class—Pauli doesn’t count—I didn’t feel nearly as self-conscious getting dressed in front of them.

Ashley had settled in with Ellie on the opposite side of the room. Ellie’s bed had been replaced with bunks, and after Ellie informed Ashley that she liked to be on top, Ashley willingly took the more convenient lower bunk.

I nudged Pauli, who apparently hadn’t set the alarm on his phone and was still snoring thirty minutes before we had our respective trainings with our Loas.

“No!” Pauli shouted, leaping out of bed. “It’s hideous! The horror!”

“Nightmares courtesy of Kalfu?” I asked.

Pauli took his sheet and wiped the sweat from his brow. He shook his head. “No. I mean, it was a nightmare. But not from Kalfu. I don’t think even he is that sadistic.”

“What was it?” I asked.

“I dreamed that corduroy was making a comeback for the winter season.”

I laughed out loud. “You realize that corduroy is the herpes of the fashion world, right? No matter how many times it goes away, it will always come back.”

Pauli shook his head. “But not even an outbreak of the herps could ruin my weekend like corduroy.”

I rolled my eyes. “Get your sparkled ass out of bed. You overslept.”

I strolled over toward Ashley while Mercy, still reclined on her bed as she had been all night, her knee-high boots still laced and crossed in front of her, stared at me with a piercing gaze as I walked across the room. I casually flipped her off as I passed, which didn’t faze her in the slightest.

“Sleep well?”

My sister shrugged. “First night in a new place. Could have been worse. You?”

I shook my head. “No, for obvious reasons.”

“The vampire?” Ashley whispered.

I nodded. “But I don’t think whispering matters. I’m reasonably certain they have super hearing.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. She been staring at you all night?”

I nodded.

“That’s annoying. Why is she so fixated on you?”

I bit my cheek. Lying to my sister wasn’t something I was accustomed to. Still, involving anyone unnecessarily in the Nico situation would only put my parents at risk. “Maybe she knows about all the vamps we’ve been slaying the last couple months?”

“Well, she isn’t stalking me the way she is you.”

“I’m the one staking them all. I’m the bigger threat.”

Ashley rolled her eyes. “You think I’m not a threat to them?”

I sighed. “Doesn’t matter what I think. It’s what she thinks that matters. And no offense, I’m the one who has been staking them one-by-one back to the land of the dead.”

“I get it,” Ashley said as she pulled up her leggings. “Just be careful.”

“You be careful,” I said. “Erzulie’s ways can be a little… freaky.”

“I can take care of myself, thanks,” Ashley said. She was the big sister. The one who was supposed to protect me—and for the most part, she always had. And she was right—as a Shaman she was formidable in her own way. But she was in my world now, the Voodoo world, and it wasn’t going to be at all like her experience training with Roger at the reservation. Roger loved her… genuinely. These Loa, the ones who ran this place, even Oggie, had their own agendas. It wasn’t like they didn’t care about us. But their care had more to do with how we fit into their various plans than anything else.

I was sure after a session or two with Erzulie, Ashley would have more than her share of stories to tell. I mean, I once caught Ellie drawing a yin-yang. I thought, wow, I never pegged her for a Taoist—not that you couldn’t embrace Voodoo alongside other religious beliefs, but that would be an odd combination. Ellie proceeded to explain how the symbol resembled her favorite “number” (you know the one), and how it symbolized the balance between our innate sadistic and masochistic tendencies. That’s how things went, in my limited experience, with Erzulie. Everything related to our innate… desires. Compared to Erzulie, Freud was a puritan. Her college shrouded everything under the banner of “love,” but in truth, I wasn’t sure they knew the difference between love and lust.

As I briskly went out the door, heading toward Oggie’s office, footsteps approached me from behind.

The hair on the back of my neck rose. I quickly turned, and Mercy stood not two feet away from me.

“What’s your problem?” I asked.

Mercy shrugged. “Bark like a dog.”

I barked. “What the fuck?”

“Sing ‘I’m a Little Teapot.’”

I sang the whole damn thing, complete with the accompanying gestures. Mercy was smiling widely, exposing her nail-sharp incisors.

“How are you doing that?”

“Pick your nose.”

I obediently went digging for gold.

“How the hell?”

Mercy shrugged. “Vampirism comes with unique abilities. We don’t all have the same ones. One or two new ones come in every century or so.”

“So you just tell people to do shit… and they do it?”

“Every time.”

“What does Nico think about that?”

“Nico has his own share of impressive abilities. But this one came in while he slumbered, and I didn’t feel obligated to let him know about it. Not yet.”

“Does it work on him?”

Mercy shook her head. “He’s my sire. He might be the only creature in the universe who can resist my commands.”

“So that whole scene in the mausoleum…”

“When you kissed your goddess’s shoe?” Mercy smirked.

“I’m not calling you that.”

“You will if I tell you to.”

“But yes… that happened because of your abilities?”

“Of course,” Mercy said. “Nico thought you obeyed because you felt guilty about what you did to him.”

“I do feel guilty about that…”

“But that’s not why you obeyed my command. That was all me. But here’s the thing. I can’t control you every hour of the day. I’m simply here to ensure that you are not dissuaded from your task.”

“To control the Baron when he comes back?”

Mercy nodded. “Stay the course, and I’ll leave you alone. I’ll be a fly on the wall. Get any other ideas, and it would be a shame for your friend, maybe your sister, to suddenly become suicidal.”

“You bitch… you wouldn’t…”

Mercy shrugged. “Would you rather I make a meal out of them? Your sister looks quite… delicious.”

“Touch her and I’ll stake you in a second.”

Mercy laughed. “You’d have to get close to me first. And as you probably figured out, I don’t need much sleep.”

“One more thing,” I said. “How the hell did you manage to get sponsored here? Does Brigitte know Nico is alive?”

“He isn’t alive,” Mercy said. “Not exactly. And no, she doesn’t. This plan was my idea—Nico didn’t think I could pull it off. He was pleasantly surprised to find out that the Loa seemed so agreeable to my… suggestions.”

“You used your power to get in here?”

“Of course,” Mercy said. “But there’s one more issue we need to address. Your friend… the one who saw us the other night.”

“Pauli?” I asked.

Mercy nodded. “I have two concerns about him. First, he knows about us. See to it that he keeps his mouth shut. And second, what did he do before he showed up to rescue you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m asking nicely. I could force you to tell me the truth…”

I bit my lip. “He was looking for my parents. I brought him along because I knew he could get past your wards. I had to know that they were okay.”

“But there’s more, isn’t there?”

I shrugged.

“Tell me what else he did…”

I tried to resist speaking, but I couldn’t. “He bit Ramon. He’s possessed by Kalfu. He has a thirst for your blood.”

Mercy squinted. “Now was that so hard? Don’t ever hide information from your goddess again. That’s a command.”

I nodded. “So much for staying a fly on the wall.”

“Don’t be smart. Or I’ll have you on your knees at my boots again.”

“I understand. But please don’t refer to yourself that way.”

“As your goddess?” Mercy smirked.

“That term implies worship, and worship is an act of the will. You can’t compel that.”

Mercy grinned. “The human will is an illusion. My will is all that matters.”