Chapter 16

 

The moment I realized it, everything went silent. Isabelle and Mercy faded from view, just as a jolt of green energy shot from Isabelle’s fingers and struck a figure. Not Mercy… but something else. I didn’t see it before everything in front of me was consumed with smoke.

Two glowing orbs approached in the distance. Red, and then green. It flickered between the two, more green than red the closer it got to me.

I saw the top hat, the old-timey suit, as the emaciated form of Baron Samedi came into view, his eyes now fully glowing green—like Isabelle’s.

“You’re here as the Reaper, aren’t you?”

The Baron looked at me curiously.

“I’m dead… aren’t I?”

“You wear the mask… at least your body does. It seems she is now in full control.”

“To be apart from the body,” I said, recalling my Catholic schooling, “is to be with the Lord.”

“Eventually,” the Baron said. “If that is the path you would choose.”

“I certainly don’t want to be stuck here. I don’t want to be a wraith.”

“When you pulled me out from the ley lines, when you came here before, I looked you in the eyes before we mounted your dragon and returned to earth. Do you remember that?”

“It gave me chills… but yes.”

“That sensation was my aspect.”

“You gave me your aspect?” I asked, tilting my head and narrowing my eyes.

The Baron nodded. “And with it a single opportunity to return to your earthly life, should you so choose.”

I had never wanted to die. I’d never even seriously considered suicide. But when you’ve crossed the threshold, and eternal peace is within your grasp, when your life has been… hard. When you were destined to share your body with someone else the rest of your life. The idea of simply embracing death, of moving past the here and now to the evermore… there is an appeal to it.

“What about Isabelle?” I asked.

“She would finally have the opportunity to live out her earthly life. It would be in your body, of course. But it would be a full life.”

“That’s so tempting,” I admitted. “No more pain. Isabelle could really be with Mikah, or do whatever she wanted with her life. But you gave me this gift. How many souls get this opportunity?”

“Only those few who receive my aspect,” the Baron said.

“And Lazarus,” I interjected. “Jesus, too. But I suspect you had nothing to do with that one.”

The Baron smiled. “I did not. I am not the only one who has power over the threshold between death and life.”

“But there had to be a reason,” I said.

“Everything has a reason.”

“No, I mean a reason you gave me your aspect.”

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose… a time to be born, and a time to die.”

“But this isn’t my time?”

The Baron shook his head. “I live in the in-between, a place where such times are known always. I do not know when you will die before you die. But I dwell beyond your timeline. It is why I always hesitated to return to earth, to go back to the Academy, even though Erzulie’s spell compels I do so again. It has never felt natural for me to dwell within time.”

“But you said I have a choice. If it is already known that this isn’t my time, then what choice do I really have?”

“In a sense, you do not have a choice. I already know you will return to your body. But what is ever-known does not determine your choice. Your choice is still your own.”

“So you gave me your aspect to just honor the inevitability of what you always knew would happen? That doesn’t make sense. If it was inevitable, you could just do nothing.”

“Fatalism is a paralyzing thing,” the Baron said. “But the mystery I speak of is not some kind of static fate. I knew you had to come back because everything else depends on it. If you’d like, I could play the role of Clarence. I could show you how life might look if you’d never been born. I could play the role of the ghost of Christmas future and reveal how life would turn out for Isabelle if you chose to go on to heaven, how it would turn out for Ashley, and everyone else. But these would be illusions—conjectures that fail to account for the truth of the ever-known.”

“So It’s a Wonderful Life was all bullshit, that’s what you’re saying.”

“Dickens was full of it, too. As are most authors. That’s why we call it fiction, Annabelle. But your life is not a fiction. I cannot, or at least should not, conjecture to show you what a life would be like for those whom you love if you were to choose to go to heaven, if you were to move on. What I can tell you is that I once made a bargain with a young man who was caught in Guinee, a man who hoped you would save him. And I promised him you would, though not in the way he believed.”

“But that was after you’d given me your aspect.”

“There is no after here, Annabelle, and there is no before.”

“But Mercy and Isabelle are there now, trying to rescue Ramon after I staked him and sent him here.”

“The after applies to them—and they will find Ramon because it is their time that guides them here.”

“And then what happens to me? After I go back to my body. After I tell Isabelle, sorry bitch! I was almost going to let you have a life of your own…”

“She won’t see it that way, Annabelle. You’re worried that your inevitable decision is a selfish one. And so you justify it by presuming that Isabelle is selfish, too?”

“Isn’t everyone, at their core?”

The Baron smiled. “You aren’t going to philosophize your way out of the ever-known, Annabelle.”

“But you made a bargain with Nico. You turned him into a vampire.”

“Those who live in fear, in anger, can only know the red Baron. But you have hope, underneath all the pain, all the frustration about your life. You’ve always had hope. The mask you wear down there, the mask that honors death, it’s just paint, Annabelle. But you have always honored death even as you honor life. You have hope and faith. That’s why when you encounter me, I inevitably become myself, I become the green Baron—the Loa of death for those who live and die in hope. I may be the Reaper, but these tidings are not grim for you.”

“But you still made Nico into a monster… a murderer…”

“He has never taken a life whose time it was not already ever-known to die.”

“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t responsible. If foreknowledge doesn’t strip me of my choice, it doesn’t exonerate someone of responsibility, either.”

The Baron removed his top hat, recovered his flask from his jacket, and took a swig. “I’m immune to the effects of whiskey, by the way. It’s just the only thing I can taste. It’s also how I seal a bargain. And I am incredibly careful about how I word my bargains and with whom I enter them.”

“Like with Messalina?” I asked.

“I was under a Caplata’s compulsion, if you recall. But even the red Baron, under such powers, is not so foolish or evil. He, too, will respect the ever-known. Were it not for her, we would not be here today.”

“And Nico would never have went to Guinee, so none of this would matter.”

The Baron shrugged. “We’re dabbling in conjecture again, Annabelle. But what do you suppose might have happened with Kalfu—a Loa who has no scruples, who has no respect for the ever-known, who is little more than an emissary of Lucifer himself?”

“He probably would have possessed Mikah, taken him as a host. If I hadn’t been me… if I didn’t have Isabelle.”

“Do not regret the past, Annabelle. But do not shut the door on it, either. The past has made you who you are. Honor it.”

“Your bargain with Nico,” I said. “It made him a vampire. But there has to be more to it than that.”

“I also agreed that I would restore his soul, his humanity.”

“Which is why he wanted me to retrieve you to begin with.”

The Baron nodded. “His memories of our time in Guinee are broken, disjointed. When one becomes vampire, the sense of one’s past becomes warped. But as he broke me, over and over again, in the garden groves, and again in Samhuinn, I persisted. Not that I might destroy him. I persisted to do battle with him that he might submit to this bargain. It was the only way to save him, to bring him back to life.”

“Even if it meant wandering the earth for centuries as a vampire? Even if it meant he would create… monsters… like Mercy Brown?”

“He saved her, you know. From tuberculosis.”

I shook my head. “This still doesn’t make sense. If you made a bargain with Nico that he’d find his way back to earth through some gatekeeper, but he’d be a vampire and you’d eventually return his soul, what was your side of this? I know one thing about the Loa and their bargains—you don’t enter a bargain as an act of charity.”

“When he recovers his soul, he will also assume my essence.”

“He already has your aspect. That’s why he’s a vamp.”

“Not my aspect, my essence. Like Ogoun’s host possesses his.”

“You’re going to possess him? Like fully?”

The Baron nodded.

“But Oggie’s host… he isn’t there.”

“He has moved on,” the Baron said. “And that’s what Nico wanted. He wanted his soul back.”

“So he could die… as a human.”

“Precisely,” the Baron said. “And by making this happen, I will also fulfill the terms of Erzulie’s spell. I will return to her, though on my terms, with a host who has learned over the centuries how to hope. His soul will move on. But the soul leaves an impression on the body.”

“He’ll keep you green,” I said. “And we’ll never have to be locked into some kind of cosmic battle like you’d said before. You’ll get to go back to the Academy. You will tilt the balance of power back in favor of Ogoun. You could tell Marie Laveau the truth, and remove Erzulie from her place as headmistress.”

The Baron grinned widely. “Again, let us not conjecture about the ever-known. I will by this action release myself from Erzulie’s spell. What happens after that is ever-known, but not mine to reveal.”

“I’d feel much better if you just confirmed the ends, so that I could justify the means.”

“The ends never justify the means, Annabelle. But the choice you are making, to return… it is a good one.”

“All right, so when do we go? How do we do this? You zap me back into my body, Beli shows up, and we all ride back to the land of the living?”

“Take Mercy with you. She does not belong here. And Ramon… you can always send him back here again. But as atrocious as he can be, it is nothing compared to how brutal Mercy might be without him.”

“And you’re just tagging along for the ride? I’d offer you shotgun, but Beli doesn’t offer first-class accommodations.”

“I’m not going with you in this form,” the Baron said as he retrieved a small box from his jacket and pulled out a cigarette. “This contains Nico’s soul as well as my essence. When he takes it and smokes it, it will fulfill the terms of our bargain.”

“That box contains other souls? Of vampires?”

The Baron nodded slightly.

“My parents… can you save them, too?”

“Their souls were never party to my bargain, but if we ever have a chance to enter a bargain again after I’ve possessed Nico, we might be able to come to terms that you would find favorable.”

“All right, well that gives me something to hope for.”

“You’ve always had hope, Annabelle,” the Baron said as he handed me the soul-infused cigarette. Never having been a smoker myself, it felt awkward holding it. The fact that it contained Nico’s soul and the Baron’s essence surely compounded the discomfort I sensed as I tried to grip it between my black, shadowy fingers. “Never lose your faith.”