The piano introduction would be a nice touch. Becka thought of everything.
“The music’s playing, Corey.”
And it was. It was muffled and off-key, but Corey heard music floating from the foyer, one of the old jazz ballads. “Getting to Know You.” He imagined himself dancing to the music with Becka like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in one of those old-school musicals, gliding across the floor.
“I’ll be here when you come back,” Becka said.
Corey felt his foot climb up the first step to go back to the foyer. He had already forgotten where he was going, or why, but he hoped he would remember when he got there.Pop. Pop.
You be careful on those steps, Li’l Angel.
On the stairs, a dark-haired black woman stood above him in his path. Although he could not see her face, her hair was in cornrows, and she wore a long dress showered in colors, with bangles and bracelets of cowrie shells draped across her wrists. She was an amazing sight.
Becka shrieked.“You can’t come in here, YOU BITCH!”
Sure enough, the woman was gone, as if he’d imagined her. Had he brought Gramma Marie in here? Was he strong enough to do that? Tears came to Corey’s eyes as he thought of his great-grandmother.She’d been here. Realizing that, he couldn’t pretend he didn’t see the horror of what Becka wanted him to do. Becka was trying to make him into someone else, like she tried to do that night with Bo at The Spot.
But he could still fight. He wouldbelieve he could fight even if it wasn’t true.
Corey stepped down, away from the stairs. He faced thebaka.
Corey’s stomach knotted immediately, and he doubled over in pain. This wasn’t the pain from Bo’s kicks. This pain went deeper, to his soul. Thebaka was taking him by force.
Already, Corey felt a curtain falling inside him, everything going gray. Corey felt words come from his throat, the last remnants of himself he could find. “I love my mom, and I won’t shoot her for you. I won’t doanything for you.”
Becka’s grin turned hard, cocky. “Oh, I see it differently, Corey. You’re going to shoot the man and then you’re going to shoot your mother.Count on that. I get what I want.”
Corey’s body seized, shaking. He was aware of a feeling of struggle, even if his mind was so stripped that he couldn’t recognize what the concept of struggle was, or whom he was fighting. Still, he held on, clinging to his fight as the pain swallowed him.
Corey felt the gun’s muzzle brush against the side of his head, his temple. His heart flew.
Fuck you,he thought, remembering himself once more.Mom will come for you.
With all his strength, Corey Toussaint Hill won his last fight.
Thirty-Four
FRIDAY
AANGELA SHOULD HAVE FALLENfifty times by now. She was running so hard that her head leaned forward as if she were burrowing her way into the woods. She kept her eyes down as much as she could, but her feet were on their own; stepping around knots, roots, holes, stones, and myriad other hazards in her way with each step. Each time she took a misstep, an overhanging branch or stable tree trunk was there to catch her before she fell too far, before she had to slow.
POW
Another explosion cracked in the woods behind her, a gunshot. Angela didn’t hear the bullet near her this time, but the last time Tariq fired, his shot had ripped into a tree within inches of her, flicking bark into her eyes. Maybe he was falling behind.
“I’ve got an idea, Snook,” Tariq’s voice boomed from the growth behind her. “I’ll count to ten, and you go hide. Isn’t that how you used to do, Angie? You’d hide so Myles couldn’t find you? I can’t say I blame you. I don’t know about you, but Myles seems kinda stiff to me. Especially now, if you know what I mean. The brother doesn’t have much personality.”
Angela sobbed once, and the half-second loss of concentration made her trip, nearly twisting her ankle on a vine maple root. Her legs tried to buckle as she climbed across the slippery bark, but she stumbled on, venturing a look behind her.
She saw only thickets of huckleberry, ferns, and evergreen stands behind her, a sea of green and brown. No visible movement. And she didn’t hear Onyx’s incessant barking anymore, a relief.
Maybe she had lost Tariq, or else he was tiring out, succumbing to his injuries. Before, never more than a second or two had passed before his head emerged from behind a shrub or a tree trunk, pursuing her in his wild, pivoting gait. Myles had hit Tariq solid in the thigh with his bow, but the injury hadn’t prevented Tariq from running within ten yards of her, sometimes less.
Shit.There he was.
Tariq appeared behind her, and he wasmoving. He pivoted off his injured leg as if it were made of wood, galloping. He’d pulled the arrow out of his shoulder, but the arrow in his leg was cracked in half, the arrowhead still embedded in his skin. Thebaka was helping Tariq run, Angela knew. Here, thebaka could give Tariq monstrous gifts. If Myles hadn’t shot Tariq, he could have caught her three times over by now.
He aimed at her again, and Angela ran on, ducking.
At least her legs were strong. Theyhad to be strong.
POW
The sound of the next gunshot made her cry out, anticipating a hit. But he missed again.
Each new gunshot made it harder for Angela to control her legs, made the signals from her brain misfire.Fast meantslow. Right meantleft. Her legs had to teach themselves how to run from scratch, but they always did it, driving hard. It was a killing effort, and now she understood why so many heroines in horror movies gave up, falling flat on their asses just when the monster got close. Their fear made them fall.
Be still,cher. Pas desplase.
Let me come to you.
Gramma Marie’s voice was potent, calling to her from the cascading rainfall, singing from the water as it passed from needle to needle, from needle to soil. Grunting to heave herself over another trunk blocking her path, Angela couldn’t free up the energy to answer Gramma Marie. Minutes had been winnowed down, each moment taking forever, full of dangers. Thorny bushes that might take out her eyes. Rotted wood that would break under her weight. Hidden nests and holes that could trip her, breaking her neck. And Tariq behind her, a madman propelled by a demon.
Slow down? Angela wished she could do more than that: She wanted to lie down and give up. She had given all she could. She had given her son, her husband, and her love. She had given her friends and her friend’s child. There was nothing else, no one else. Angela was empty. Her legs seemed to know what to do, but the rest of her was dead weight.
Yes, you’re hurting,cher. Pas desplase.
Angela tried to slow down. She told her legs to slow, but they would not.
As she ran, Angela heard a deep cracking sound ahead of her, a sound she remembered from her house a few days ago: A tree was falling. A massive Douglas fir trunk about three yards ahead of her was bending downward, toppling sideways, bringing an avalanche of limbs and needles down with it. But Angela still couldn’t make herself stop running.
I’ll outrun it,she thought, an instant before she realized shecouldn’t . It was falling too fast. But it was too late to stop running now.
Angela let out a hoarse yell, surging ahead.
The tree crashed behind her, shaking the ground. Angela couldn’t hear herself in the tumult, which sounded like an explosion, jarring her legs. Debris from the fallen tree flew into her neck and back, scratching her. But she had outrun its fall. She wasn’t dead yet.
Maybe it had been a friendly tree, she thought, and she almost felt glad. Angela’s last true moment of gladness had come two hours ago, when she’d seen Myles’s arrow soar above her. She thought about Myles’s sure arrow as she ran. Without that arrow in her thoughts, Angela knew she might have died by now. She wished her memory ended with the flying arrow.
That fallen tree had slowed Tariq down. For now, at least, Tariq’s voice was farther away.
“Angie, I’ve got it all planned out for us,” Tariq called, muffled by the trees betw
een them. He didn’t seem to be breathing hard; his voice was too vigorous. She heard twigs crack as he pushed through dense growth. “We’ll have a romantic night in the woods, just you and me, babe. I thought we’d pick up where we left off. We’ve got some talking to do, Snook.Real talking.”
Angela didn’t answer, crawling beneath a bed of ferns, praying he was still tangled behind the fallen tree, that she would have long enough to lose him this time.
“I was hoping you could show me what you and Myles Fisher did out here on prom night. Or, hell, you can show me what you didlast night. I’m good either way. I’m sorry about that little execution at The Spot, Angie, but the man was working my nerves. Myles isn’t here to fuck you, so you’ll just have to close your eyes and use your imagination.”
Angie had to suppress the scream of rage that tried to rise in her throat. She suddenly wanted to wait for Tariq and lunge at him, clawing at his face with her bare hands if she had to. Maybe that was what she would do. She knew thebaka was speaking through him, but it sounded like plain old Tariq to her, the part he’d always kept hidden under his skin. He sounded like the same Tariq who’d secretly wanted to hurt her, the Tariq who’d always been jealous of the memory of Myles in her.
“Where’d you go, girl? Don’t be shy. It’ll come back to you, Snook. You know what I like.”
Breathing heavily, Angela scurried like a crab to skirt around the upright trunk that had appeared in front of her after she emerged from the ferns. Maybe she’d bought herself a yard or two. She would start in a new direction, back toward The Spot. She would confuse him.
Somewhere behind her, Angela heard a shrill whistle.
“Onyx!” Tariq called. “Here, boy! Tell me which way Mommy went, then we’ll both go say hello.Come on, boy.” He clapped his hands.
Angela heard the barking again, sounding closer than she’d like.Shit. Spurred by the noise, Angela ran faster. Her legs quavered at first, but then they obliged her, giving her more speed. Her ancestors had run from dogs in the woods, she realized; this flight was embedded in her psychic memory. If she had allowed her heart to fall still a moment, she might have learned their names.
“Oh, that wasgood, Angie. Nice try, Snook. But he’s on your scent now. Don’t be fooled by the fucked-up haircut. This little mutt’s got a nose. And he canrun! He’s got you, babe.”
Despite herself, Angela turned to look back. She didn’t see Tariq. She saw thick, dense woods behind her, knots of trees and brush growing wild, untended. And too much darkness for so early in the day. It was late afternoon, but the sky was on the way to night.
The woods were getting dark.
Slow down,cher.Let me come to you.
Be still.Pas desplase.
After a leap over a thin fallen tree that nearly pitched her off her feet, Angela had no choice but to listen to Gramma Marie. Her legs didn’t want to work. Her instinct to flee flared, then died. Angela stopped, leaning against a hemlock tree for support while she caught her breath. She was no longer hearing messages from the trees and land out here; no one in her family had ventured this far before now. She was in new territory.
Angela raised her gun again. She’d never dropped the .38, even though she’d almost cast it aside many times, believing it was slowing her down. Her hand ached from holding the gun so tightly. If only she could greet Tariq with a surprise gunshot!
Was the gun still jammed? If she tried to test the trigger again now, she would give herself away if it fired. But it might be worth it. Angela decided she wanted to know.
Aiming for a tree trunk, Angela tugged on the trigger. It didn’t budge.
“Shit,”she whispered, her terror renewed.
“Oh yeah, Snook, somebody should have told you about that gun sooner,” Tariq called, his voice closer, although he also seemed to have slowed, walking. Taking his time. “My friend has me covered on that gun. If your Gramma Marie had any kind of juice, it would have fired last time around. But it didn’t. Not working now either, is it? It’s like I told your girl Naomi—you need to be more careful when you’re picking your friends.”
Finish what you began,cher.Let me come to you.
Pas desplase.
She had to pretend Tariq wasn’t there. She had to shut Tariq out of her mind.
Angela sat on the wet ground, crushing damp fir cones beneath her weight. She reached inside her bag for the index cards Corey had kept in his bedroom. Weeds waved in her face, at eye-level, but she ignored the tickling. She also ignored the barking, which was closer.
She ignored everything except her heartbeat.
At The Spot, Angela hadn’t had to think about writing the symbols in the soil with her finger, but whatever connection she’d had with Gramma Marie at The Spot had been broken, or else weakened. She was on her own. Angela lay the cards in a circle around herself, preserving their order by checking the numbers Corey had written on each one. Her sweet, smart boy had prepared these cards for her. Corey had brought her this far. The rest was up to Gramma Marie.
“Gramma Marie, help me,” Angela said, closing her eyes. She rubbed her hands across her scalp, where some of the muddy soil from The Spot still clung to her hair. She rubbed the sacred earth from her fingers across her lips. “Help me.”
The sensation didn’t come to her as sharply as it had at The Spot, but Angela experienced a shift inside of her. Slowly, the beating of the rain around her sounded more acute, and her mind could once again discern the rhythmic patterns that had been lost to her while she was running from Tariq.
Tap-tap-TAP-taptap Tap-tap-TAP-taptap
She leaned from side to side, allowing the rhythm to gently lift her shoulders. She invited the rhythm inside her, and it invaded. Suddenly, she felt as if she were teetering at the edge of a rooftop high-rise, ready to fall. Angela tensed, squirming and dizzy. For a moment, the expansive feeling inside her vanished. Once again, she was an exhausted, helpless woman sitting in the rain.
Onyx’s barking was so close, he could be here already.
Don’t fight,she told herself.You have to do this. Don’t fight it.
This time, Angela sat still. She met the edge of the rooftop again, and she felt herselfjump.
Angela flew. She did not fight, even when she felt her body rise to its feet, when her body began shuffling rhythmically within the circle of her cards. Her heartbeat blended into the drumming.
Drum, John. Drum for me. Drum for me, Myles. Drum for me.
Tap-tap-TAP-taptap Tap-tap-TAP-taptap
Angela’s hips swayed, lifting high. She whirled, but she didn’t feel dizzy. She feltlight, the drumming serving as her wings. Angela barely heard Onyx when he came springing out of the brush with a wagging tail.
As the skies bathed her, Angela fluttered her arms, her hips bucking.
She saw the first letter of Papa Legba’s word in her mind, anM.
She’s coming,she thought.Gramma Marie is coming.
Angela Marie Toussaint danced.
And spoke a single word.
Tariq was losing his patience.
Thebaka had promised him he would be shielded from harm, and yettwo of Myles Fisher’s arrows had pierced him, one only a twitch from his heart! Thebaka had promised him he could take Angie with ease because his legs would be faster than any man’s, and yet he was chasing her in the woods like a starving bear or wolf. In the Crossroads Forest, he was supposed to be agreater creature. He should have had her at The Spot.
He had seen it beforehand, perfect visual prophecy: killing Myles Fisher first, then dragging Angie to the exact place where she had lain with Myles as a girl, forcing her to stare at what was left of her lover’s face while he took her.
It would have been exquisite.
She was not supposed to have escaped him. That Bitch Marie was to blame. Instead of running for safety, Angie was summoning That Bitch this very minute. Tariq could feel Marie stirring, gathering strength as she sailed in the treetops, seeking a flesh form below, very near to him. That Bitch w
as especially emboldened now that Angela had buried heresprit in the sacred grounds.
But it was too late.
The little mutt had found Angie for him. Tariq could hear the change in Onyx’s bark.
Tariq grinned, leaping through a bed of ferns, but his grin disappeared when he landed on his injured leg and felt a spike of pain. The pain shocked him so much, he almost fell from his feet. Thebaka had dulled his nerves, making that leg as numb as stone, but what he’d felt that time reminded him of the moment the arrow had first torn into his flesh. Thatsonofabitch. If Tariq could bring Myles Fisher back to life, he would do it just so he could kill him again—and this time, he would shoot him in the balls before he shot him in the head, just to repay him for the pain.
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