| |
Sirens wailed. Engines revved. The cops had already turned off the main highway and started down the dirt roads.
Mordecai must’ve asked Sheriff Hallewell to send in the troops the second his minions dropped. Whatever the case, I’d failed the demon’s expectations. My turn to be punished.
Araceli stood her ground. She held Bubonic’s keys, ready to bolt, but the determined set of her brow made clear she wouldn’t leave without me. I almost told her to go. Fighting her Armageddon from a cell wouldn’t work.
I’d been left to rely on the hoodoo’s word: that the Devil would arrive and show me the way. So far, nothing.
The thought of never seeing Izaak again began to sink in. The more it settled into my constricted chest, the more I fought. I didn’t beseech the Above in the rapidly disappearing sunlight. I didn’t reach into the Below for more strength. That place had no use for the living. Me? I was alive! Breathing and bleeding and hurting so long, this clown wasn’t going to end me. Go head, Mordecai, you ain’t even the worst demon I ever fought. I’d been born fighting a silent evil, a cancer, which I’d earned based on nothing more than the color of my skin. None of it had put me down yet.
I dug deep. Down to a core which burned proud. Free. Unshackled by disease and commitments. I clung to the weightless sensation I’d felt in the field under Fortune’s spell and in the manor under the umbra cloak.
“Show yourself!” I cried, full-throated and shockingly loud.
Araceli jumped, reflexively reaching for her knives. Awe crossed her face and the recognition of a truth hidden in my agonizing shout. Her attention only slowly went to the brush and she stiffened. Something was near.
A red eye gleamed in the forest twilight. A low growl rumbled through the fast approaching sirens. Araceli drew her blade.
“Three times you come,” said a voice, not from the creature but behind us. “What knowledge you seek?”
Araceli and I both spun around. On the other side of the road, a man seemed to materialize. Skin so dark, I couldn’t separate this brother from the gloom until he’d gotten closer.
Wild and unkempt sideburns fringed his face from ears to chin. He could’ve been a beggar on the street, but the spiffy hat and charcoal suit said otherwise. Coke bottle glasses with chunky ebony frames like aviator’s goggles pressed tightly over a broad nose and flared nostrils.
Araceli’s eyes flashed from him to the beast. “What we need is the sword. Where is it?”
She sounded urgent, desperate. She’d stashed the car keys and held daggers in both hands. Incoming sirens had made her rethink her stance on infernal pacts.
The newcomer cracked a sly grin. “You’ve only been here twice, sister.” He swung those saucer lenses my way and caught the red of the hound’s eye. “I need commitment.”
Araceli moved to put her back against mine, facing down the hound. “Do it!” she hissed. “Ask him.”
It wasn’t that simple. Holding his gaze, I felt the gravity. Pacts and promises were being made here. Lasting ones.
I had obligations to Atofo, my mentor. And after the ritual in the plantation’s fields, I’d been visited by a spirit I’d never seen before. The Deer Woman had demanded something similar. Above, Below, all of this was different from the knot of energy in my gut that had come with wearing Kibaga’s Cloak and as Fortune yanked me from the clutches of Death. The same source I’d clung to just now to summon this brother from Below.
What I asked for was more than just the location of a piece of steel.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
Araceli nudged me and I raised an impatient hand. This couldn’t be rushed.
“I am known by many names. Legba, Ellegua, Eshu, Exu, Nbumba Nzila. But I will answer to none ‘cept those spoken at the crossroads. What I truly am is knowledge. You want tricks? I’ll show you.” His hand slipped into a pocket and he produced a pair of ruby dice with gleaming white pips. “Fate? Fortune? I’ll give you the skill to conquer both. Whatever you need, I can teach.” The dice rattled like bones in his closed hand. His smile widened. “Whatever ails you, I can cure.”
Every calculating thought stopped. Complications of dealing with spirits, my reasons for beginning this job, they all meant nothing. With a word, right here, maybe I could be cured.
“You can’t let him distract you! He’s tempting you!” Araceli pleaded. “The sword! I need the sword!”
Red and blue lights winked up the road. She needed the sword. I needed a cure. At full health, maybe I could find the boy on my own and still put him to rest. I’d have plenty of time once my oxygen supply wasn’t threatening to cut off. Cured, I could magic up an escape and lay low. It could work.
But how long would I have to skulk around here? Dodge Mordecai’s evil and his frame-up? Shit, it didn’t sound much different than the world I’d left behind. Maybe forgetting about all this and going home would be a better idea... My real home with my son.
Legba leaned closer, the red gleam glowing menacingly in his eye.
But how many years had that boy I’d promised to find been trapped between worlds? All he’d known was a life of slavery and then got lost in the cracks of reality. I recalled lying in the mud of that field where so many others had fallen. Trapped there. Eternity.
“Grant me your knowledge, Legba of the Crossroads. There’s a boy in those fields I must find and put to rest.”
The impish grin became more genuine and he tipped the brim of his hat. “Honorable choice. Can’t say that’s the one I’d make. Just know that with my blessing comes your commitment.” He arched his eyebrows and pointed across the road. “Jupiter,” he called out. “He all yours, boy.”
“What!?”
The beast’s charge caught us completely off guard. It barreled through her intent on reaching me and knocked her to the ground. My earlier armor spell exhausted, my gun full of mud, Atofo’s knife sheathed, and all I could think about was why I hadn’t just asked for the one damn thing I needed most in this world. I closed my eyes and let it come.
My limp body folded with the collision. I didn't bother fighting. But instead of being on the ground under a flurry of teeth and claws, I found myself slung across the beast’s back. Teeth dug into the leather of my shoe and the hem of my pants but didn’t tear them. Held firm, the shadow beast charged into the brush with me along for the ride.
One last glimpse of the clearing, I saw a sliver of pure silver rocket past from Araceli’s outstretched hand as she propped herself up in the dirt. As the knife sailed wide she scrambled to her feet under the flicker of the closing emergency lights and raced for Bubonic.
It took every muscle to avoid being dragged or having my head burst open on the sturdy trunks of the oak trees; muscles weak from fighting demons and disease. I jostled between the beast’s shoulders, branches and vines tearing at exposed skin.
We charged deeper into the woods. My ride bobbed and weaved through the dense thicket. I fought weariness and an urge to just sleep. Drumming paws became damp slaps then splashes as forest turned to wetlands. We’d run closer to the creek behind the Fenwick property. I thought again about trying to fight, but I couldn’t find the strength. Darkness continued to close.
And then we stopped. The hound rolled me gently into a pile of wet leaves where I collapsed. Muscles cramped. My head felt light. Every breath came as a choked rattle. Maybe I’d made the wrong choice? I closed my eyes.
Dog paws padded damply away along with panting breaths. I heard the claws scrambling up tree bark and a final little growl. I didn’t so much as twitch an eyelid until I heard a voice.
“Mister?”
The sun had set completely. I’d been left under a tree whose canopy seemed to stretch across the horizon. One branch, big around as a storm drain, dug like a lame appendage into the ground and arched above me. Perched atop it was a boy.
“Mister?”
The boy couldn’t have been older than fourteen or fifteen. He had a stringy build he hadn’t yet grown into and hands and feet which had made their way into adulthood without him. Hard work in the fields had left him stooped and hunched. In the dim light, I caught the red of his single eye.
I shuffled upright. “You the boy I came to find? And the hound?”
“I guess it’s so. You’d already found me, so just maybe you shoulda asked for a better gift from the Devil.”
Standing took me awhile. The boy watched, waiting to see if I could even do it. Brushing off dirt and leaves I said, “Can’t say I’d argue with that. But I’m here to help.” My voice rasped and I cleared my throat which launched another coughing spasm.
The boy looked on as I spit a mouthful of blood to the ground. “You don’t look so good. Maybe,” he said, sounding hopeful, “you’ll join me here and I won’t be so lonely. That’d be helpful.”
I wiped my mouth on my jacket and eyed him. “You’ve been here too long.”
“Yessir. I don’t know how long only that Master Hallewell put me here and all I done was what he told me.”
Half dead, I still felt a spark of rage. “Don’t ever call him that again. Don’t ever call anyone Master again, you hear me?”
He sat in silence, his one eye burning. “Yessir.”
“I’m going to take you to your dad. Do you know where he is?”
The boy gazed into the distance and pointed. “They buried him out behind the cemetery. I saw, but he couldn’t see me. Those Union men came and told people they were free. I’m thinkin’ pops is the only one who got that. Ain’t he?”
I couldn’t answer. Death offered a kind of freedom. But I’d stepped beyond the veil enough to know dying didn’t always set you free.
“He’s been waiting for you,” I said. “You just hold on. I’ll fix it.”
I let Atofo’s knife slip into my hand and pushed up my jacket sleeve. The obsidian blade trembled above my forearm in an unsteady grip. How much more magic I could channel, I wasn’t sure.
“Whatcha doing there?”
“Finding where that son of a bitch left you.”
“That’s easy,” he exclaimed. With a spry leap, he dropped to the ground. “Over here.”
The boy stopped at a hollow between two roots. They humped out of the ground like roadside barricades sprouting from the enormous trunk. No city park could ever contain this monster without it claiming a block’s worth of roofs and buried utilities.
“Jupiter?” I asked, taking in the majestic tree. “That your name?”
“That’s it. My mother knew secrets about stars and planets. She named me after one from my birthday.”
I dropped to my knees and started to loosen the earth with Atofo’s knife. “Did she see the future?”
“Yessir. I used to fight with the other boys. Wish I’d had more friends,” he said, downcast. “But she always seemed to know. She’d show up before I got in too much trouble.” He laughed. “Said I’s gonna start the fight that’d end ‘em all.”
I dug in silence. Not the best use of the knife, but better than my bare hands. Jupiter offered to help, and I told him no. This was my job to do. For him.
Arms on cruise control, I wasn’t so much willing them to move as they were subconsciously working to keep me alive. A heartbeat, a breath, another fistful of dirt closer to being able to leave for one more appointment with Atofo.
“You got a shovel?” I said, grimly.
“Left one here somewheres.” Jupiter disappeared around the back of the tree.
I struggled to my feet and followed him. Lodged inside the bark was the splintered handle and rusted blade of a shovel which looked every bit of a couple centuries old. Jupiter gave a pull. “No use. See? Stuck.”
I ran a finger down the handle and shook my head. “The bastard had you dig your own grave.”
“Had I known that I wouldn’t a dug it,” Jupiter said, unconcerned. “No, he had me bury his treasure. Stuff he didn’t want the Union to find.”
The sword had to be here. I couldn’t feel the magic, but this only made sense. Without it, I could still put the boy to rest, but I’d be left with a demon to deal with. I fell against the tree, a rush of dizziness percolating through my head. I had to find the strength. Get back at it with my bare hands.
Those who’d come before had been asked to do worse, none of it by choice. I could stomach a night of digging. I reached for the familiar strength again. I made a fist and wound it tight. Pacts and promises be damned, I’d use whatever power necessary to move this earth. I gave the tree trunk a determined tap with my fist.
Bark twitched and I backed away from the tree. The shovel fell into my outstretched hand. The brittle handle had been reinforced with whorls of greenwood. The iron of the spade looked pitted and rusted in the twilight, but under the veiny shadows of the tree, those spots healed. Strength flowed up my arm.
“Jupiter, I think your mama was right. We’re gonna start a war, but first, let’s get you home.”