Chapter 16

 

“Why are Mom and Dad so fucking dumb?” I asked Ashley—it was a rhetorical question. I didn’t expect an answer.

“You know they aren’t. Just idealistic…”

“They’re like baby vampires, barely have their cravings tamed and now they’re off to save a girl who betrayed us to begin with? And Dad probably doesn’t even realize he’s risking everything to save this girl, this girl we barely know… So… fucking… dumb.”

Ashley shrugged. “I’m as worried as you are, Annabelle. But think about it… they missed their chance to parent us. I mean, in any meaningful way. And what they were there for over the last nine years, they don’t remember. I don’t know Hailey—we weren’t here. But she’s still young, without parents. She was settling into a new world with no one but Mercy to guide them.”

“Mercy is older than Mom and Dad, by quite a bit.”

“As a vampire. But as humans, Mom and Dad were connecting to their human side, whatever of it still lingers. They couldn’t save us. They couldn’t spare us from a life of pain. Maybe they saw a chance to do what they wished they could have done for us.”

I rolled my eyes. “With a girl they’d barely met?”

“Look, it’s just a guess, Annabelle. Don’t ask me to psychoanalyze Mom and Dad.”

“I didn’t ask you to. I just asked you why they were so dumb, which was more of a statement than a question. You’re the one who started mind-shrinking them.”

“And now you want to go be the hero. Go save Mom and Dad again. Right?”

“They don’t stand a chance, Ashley. We just got them back. I’m not losing them again! And if Kalfu gets Dad’s new ability, trust me, Kalfu will have no problem mastering it. It’ll take him a whole five seconds to figure it out.”

Ashley glanced at the small crowd of people who’d gathered in Vilokan. My friends, and Mercy. I couldn’t include her under the “friends” moniker. Maybe I should have—but I still viewed my relationship with Mercy as one of mutual convenience. She was a friend only insofar as being the enemy of my enemy made her one. “And you think they can afford to lose you, Annabelle? Hell, do you think the world can afford to lose you? That hideous thing on your head suggests you have bigger responsibilities than taking care of Mom and Dad now. Put a little more faith in them.”

“It’s not hideous. It’s a Voodoo headdress!”

“It’s hideous, Annabelle.”

I chuckled. “I guess it sort of is, in a way. But there’s also a certain style to it. I could get used to it.” I removed the headdress. “I think it’s just a ceremonial piece anyway. It’s not like Marie Laveau wore the thing all the time.”

“Pauli has been standing there with his hand over his mouth fashion-shaming you since you two arrived.”

“No he hasn’t…”

“Look!”

I turned and looked at Pauli, who quickly pivoted away and covered his face with his hand, pretending he wasn’t staring stupidly at my newfound style sense. But I saw it. He was gawking, and not in a good way. It was the sort of ogle that happens when you spy Walmart people in all their unfashionable glory and you just can’t stop looking.

“Pauli!” I shouted. “Get some clothes on. You have no room to gawk right now!”

Pauli smiled wide. That boy, if he was going to keep shifting back and forth between human and snake form, was going to have to find some solution to the clothing problem.

“Hey, guys!” I said. “You all want to see something creepy?”

“Why would we want to see something creepy?” Ellie asked.

Sauron shrugged. “I’m game for creepy!”

I snickered. Loosening the drawstrings on the burlap sack, I retrieved Legba’s shrunken head.

Sauron shrugged. “Just a shrunken head. Seen those before.”

“But you haven’t seen one like this!” Legba said, speaking through it.

Ellie and Ashley shrieked in unison. Sauron started laughing, and I joined her. Pauli smiled wide. Mercy was sulking in the shadows somewhere and didn’t seem to notice.

Noticing Mercy’s absence, my expression softened. I let Pauli take Legba for the moment—not sure how Legba felt about that, but these had been Legba’s students at the Academy as much as I had been. He surely had things to say to them as much as he did to me. Of course, his newly embodied self was still tending to Marie Laveau. Her condition was steadily deteriorating, and he nobly wanted to keep her company as her final days approached.

I stepped into the shadows with Mercy—not something I’d usually do with a vampire, but Mercy was on our team, at least for the time being.

“You okay?” I asked.

Mercy shook her head. “Just pissed. That’s all.”

“It’s not your fault. About Hailey.”

“I know it isn’t,” Mercy said, leering at me. “It’s yours!”

“Pardon me?”

“You should have staked her. The moment she started to turn.”

I nodded. “Maybe. Maybe not. To tell you the truth, Mercy, I don’t know what I’m doing any more than any of us do. This title—”

“The Voodoo fucking Queen of New Orleans?” Mercy said with more than a hint of disdain in her voice.

“I know I don’t deserve it. But Marie Laveau chose me. For whatever reason, she wanted me to lead these people.”

“It’s not about the title. This isn’t about your little Voodoo world for me. This is about vampires. If you saw it, how easily he took them out, one by one. He moved fast. Faster than I ever could. And Hailey’s spell… I was powerless to stop her because I was out of practice.”

“You mean in terms of your witchcraft?” I asked.

Mercy nodded. “She cast a spell that froze us all in place. Like some kind of stasis. How do you even fight back against something like that?”

I bit my lip. “Maybe Ashley and Roger can help. A ward of some kind?”

“Possibly,” Mercy said, still twiddling her witch’s wand in her hand. “But there’s only one way to fight a witch.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“It takes another witch.”

“I need you, Mercy.”

“I know you do.”

“Not just to defeat Kalfu. I need you to unite these people.”

“How in the hell is a vampire going to help you unite the Voodoo world against Kalfu?”

“The vampires are a part of our world—you share Samedi’s aspect. That has to count for something. Not to mention, if you’re willing to follow me in spite of our differences…” I paused for a moment and rethought my words. “Not follow me. Stand beside me… then it shows the rest of the Hougans and Mambos that where we come from doesn’t matter. It’s what we can do together. Like I said. I need you, Mercy.”

“I suppose you do. But what you really need is Mercy the witch who will stand beside you. You need someone who can counter Hailey.”

“I need Mercy the vampire and Mercy the witch.”

“Just remember your promise… when all this is over.”

“I’ll take you to the land of the dead. To redeem your brother. I haven’t forgotten.”