Chapter 24

 

A war is coming. Oggie said as much the first time we met. The Bokors were going to be involved. They were insidious Loa who didn’t have humanity’s best interests at heart, who craved only power. He was right about that, too. Most of the other Loa dismissed Oggie’s warnings like those of a crazed lunatic. But that was the whole reason he brought me to the Academy to begin with. It was why he put his last hope in me. It was why he was willing to tell Mikah to sacrifice him just to give us a momentary advantage in our conflict with Kalfu. Everything Oggie had said would happen was happening. I just never anticipated I’d be facing it without Isabelle… without Beli… without a lot that I’d lost.

“So by accessing the crossroads, I can bring in other Loa to help?” I asked.

“Not easily,” Legba said. “You can’t bring any back from the void unless you go there, as you did for me, to escort them back.”

“Then what can we do that will help?” I asked.

“You can contest the crossroads,” Legba said. “It has always been a struggle between Kalfu and myself who would hold the crossroads, who would govern which spirits and creatures of the eternal realms, of Guinee and Samhuinn, might cross over.”

“Sounds like this is a battle between you and him,” I said. “What is my place in this?”

“For centuries I ruled the crossroads. Kalfu was always inside of me—a part of me. The battle over the crossroads was one levied in my person—in the body that once belonged to the very mouth through which I speak. And for centuries I dominated. From time to time he would get the upper hand—the travesties that befell the earth on those occasions was great. But I fought the good fight, I always prevailed in the end.”

“The travesties? What are you talking about?”

“The disease that wiped out the original inhabitants of this continent, the slave trade, the holocaust. I could go on and on. All travesties, plagues on this earth. All due to momentary lapses, single occasions when Kalfu gained control over the crossroads.”

“So you’re saying that Hitler, to name one example, was a demon brought over from Samhuinn?”

“No,” Legba said. “Hitler was a man. But he was influenced by a devilish Loa whom Kalfu brought forth from Samhuinn. You need to contest Kalfu for the crossroads.”

I shook my head. “You do it.”

“He overcame me before because my former host had grown old. In a manner of speaking, the new one is too young. A Loa and his or her host require a period of maturation. But our lives are now bound together. We stand the best chance if you stand against him on our behalf.”

“If you haven’t noticed, I’ve lost all my major abilities. Everything about me that he might have feared—Isabelle’s power, my soul blade—it’s all gone!”

Papa Legba looked at me as if he were trying to manipulate his shrunken face to show empathy and understanding. Instead, he just looked constipated. I was pretty sure that wasn’t it on account of the fact that he had no bowels. “They respect you, Annabelle. Your friends. You are leading them. I don’t believe Marie Laveau chose you to replace her for your magical abilities, Annabelle. It’s your leadership, your resolve, and your better nature that made you her heir apparent.”

I smiled slightly. “That may be, but leadership isn’t going to do squat in a one-on-one contest over the crossroads.”

“Oh, it isn’t a one-on-one contest.”

“Then you could join me after all?”

“I would not be your best choice. Both the one who holds the crossroads—in this case, Kalfu—and the challenger may choose a second.”

“Like a tag-team partner?”

“In a manner of speaking, but you will not tag one another in or out. A crossroads, by definition, contains two roads. Two paths, like two lives, intersecting at a single point. To gain control over the crossroads you and your second must possess both paths, you must control both roads.”

I bit my lip. “So when you lost control of the crossroads…”

Legba sighed. “It is easier to hold control of the crossroads than it is to lose it. Even if contested, so long as the current holder can maintain his control of one of the paths…”

“Or her,” I said.

“Of course. Or her control of one of the paths, as we hope may soon be the case. I did not lose control of the crossroads because my second failed. I lost control because my second succeeded.”

I cocked my head sideways.

“Kalfu was my second, Annabelle. He would grant anyone passage, any creature, good or evil. But as the first, I never granted such consent. But Kalfu—who himself could only access this world through me as a vessel—gradually grew stronger as I, in an earthly host, aged and became weaker. When he took over, when he finally suppressed my consciousness, he also managed to kick me out of the crossroads.”

“How could he do that if he was your second?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Legba said. “But I think it had to do with my aging host. Our hosts are not immune to ailments, sicknesses. During the era of the slave trade I’d taken to the seas and my host contracted scurvy. The result? Kalfu seized control while I was in a weakened state and brought forces to the world that plagued the middle passage for four hundred years. When my host contracted polio, the holocaust followed. In both cases, I was eventually able to regain control, to retake my place. This time, I think my host was dying. Not from a sickness. But simply from age. And because he wasn’t getting better…”

“You could never regain control.”

“I could not. And since Kalfu killed my host—expediting what was, I believe, the inevitable—there was no way to test that hypothesis.”

“But Kalfu still has control of the crossroads now that he has a different host?”

“He doesn’t have control of the crossroads. Not entirely. That’s why, until now, he hasn’t been flooding the earth with armies of creatures from Samhuinn. The crossroads remain contested—which means you have chance to challenge his claim.”

“But I don’t understand, why hasn’t he simply assumed control in your absence?”

“Because he required a second. Someone who, of their own free accord, would join him. Someone he couldn’t compel, couldn’t bind by a bargain…”

“Hailey,” I said.

“A girl with power, indeed. But one still impressionable enough that he could figure out ways to manipulate her in more… conventional ways. Not with magic, not with bargains…”

“But with mind games, promises of power.”

“Indeed.”

“So who should I choose as a second?”

“Choose carefully, Annabelle. Choose whoever you believe will guard the crossroads faithfully. Choose one whose heart is in this fight as much as yours. And keep in mind—the best choice might not be the obvious one.”