The Quick and the Dead

by D. B. Sieders

  Faded rugs covered much older carpet, clean but worn, and a collection of knickknacks that only an older woman could assemble littered the surfaces of end tables, an old sideboard, and an ancient stereo system that probably hadn’t played a tune in several decades. More family photos were scattered between the detritus of porcelain figurines, souvenir ashtrays from places like Destin, Myrtle Beach, and one from Las Vegas.

  Those photos showed a long tradition of interracial marriage in the family, a testament to the family’s legacy of defiance and fortitude. Some of those pictures were taken prior to the 1960s when anti-miscegenation laws were still on the books and brutally enforced—officially and otherwise. Vivian considered how that mixture of family pride and constant vigilance would shape its members.

  Olive had disappeared through a heavy door after inviting them in. She reemerged with a tray full of drinks and cookies. Sweet tea, most likely, and she’d bet those cookies were homemade. She accepted a glass and a cookie with thanks, as did Darkmore. Briggs took a glass and sat on one of the mismatched love seats.

  Taking his cue, Vivian and Darkmore sat opposite him on a small sofa, leaving Olive to take what was clearly the seat of power in the room. Most recliners didn’t normally double as a throne, but most recliners didn’t host Auntie Olive. For all of her deference to her nephew, it was clear that Olive was in charge in the household space.

  Olive took a sip of tea before speaking, her attention focused on Briggs. “She’s been better this week. She’ll be glad to see you.”

  “You mean she’ll know me this time,” he said, almost snorting. “Even when she doesn’t recognize me, they do.”

  A moue of distaste crossed her fine features, but she didn’t comment. Presumably “they” were something of the supernatural realm. His Gran must have a connection, then, like her grandson. Either Olive refused to believe, which seemed unlikely given her straightforward manner, or she was uncomfortable with it.

  “They might not like your friends,” Olive said, studying her cookie. “They give her enough trouble. She deserves her peace.”

  Darkmore spoke, his voice pleasant and neutral. “We’ll preserve her peace. I give you my word.”

  Briggs gave the reaper a sharp look. Olive, apparently still in the grip of Darkmore’s charms, flashed a shy smile. “Did Waylon tell you about her?”

  Vivian tensed. She had no idea what Darkmore intended, but it likely wasn’t good. Not necessarily evil, but the reaper was rarely neutral. It was in his nature to inspire and inflict pain, cause chaos, stir trouble. Olive had done nothing to deserve the reaper’s…interest.

  Not as far as Vivian knew. She shuddered. The reaper could see into the deepest darkest corners of mortal hearts, minds, and souls. Vivian had experienced that firsthand.

  As if sensing her discomfort, Darkmore relaxed his posture and smiled. “She carries far too many burdens. Most of the elders do. Vivian has a…calming effect on troubled souls. Whatever the loa share with us will not harm or frighten one such as mambo asogwe Bijoux Briggs.”

  Briggs barked out a laugh filled with more bitterness than mirth. “She hasn’t been that for a long time. Stopped practicing when she left Haiti, around about the time her mind started going soft.”

  Olive scowled at him. “Fine way to talk about your elders. Suppose you’ll badmouth me when I get dementia.”

  “No badmouthing. It’s the truth.” Briggs turned to Vivian, pointedly ignoring the reaper. She didn’t blame him. Darkmore knew more than he should. Being trapped in corporeal form hadn’t robbed him of his dark gifts. “We brought her here in 2010, after the earthquake. She was already old then. Probably would’ve died if we’d left her. Never was the same after the move.”

  “Alzheimer’s,” Olive said.

  “Trauma,” Briggs countered. “She doesn’t want to remember what happened, so she sits and watches soap operas all day and lets the loa come and go as they please.”

  Vivian frowned. “What are the loa?”

  Briggs kept his eyes on the reaper while answering her question. “Spirits. Not Bondye, but those a step or two lower, like the saints in Catholicism. They’re intercessors.”

  Like us, she thought, or more accurately, like guardian and reaper spirits, perhaps. Intercessors, but for what? Did they intercede between the world of spirits and living? Did they grant favors to the righteous or faithful? Were they evil or benign, or both, or neither?

  “What do they do, and what do they want in return?” she asked.

  Briggs turned his unreadable gaze to her. “The spirits can offer advice, if they feel like it. Some look out for their descendants, or take care of unfinished business if they can find someone to act as their instrument. Some carry messages or prophecy. Some are probably just bored if they haven’t moved on.”

  That was interesting. Then, all of a sudden, it dawned on her. Voudon. Jeanne told her she’d been in touch with some of the spirits familiar with the practice, and Briggs had mentioned he knew someone. That had to be it. No wonder the reaper was so interested. The key to severing the ties that bound him to his mortal form might be found in these spirits.

  But at what cost?

  Briggs clearly wasn’t keen on dragging his Gran into it. She didn’t blame him. Guardian spirits and especially reapers craved the life forces of humans who were infirm, vulnerable, and unable to live the sorts of “normal,” functional lives that most people took for granted. That he’d allowed Vivian to bring Darkmore astounded her. Darkmore, who’d coveted Mae’s powerful soul trapped in a helpless shell of a body and, she hoped to all the fates, a blissfully unaware mind.

  “Will you excuse me for a moment,” Vivian said in a voice that only shook a little. “I need some air.”

  Darkmore blocked her escape route through the door they’d used to enter, so she spun on her heel and stumbled from the living room through a hallway that led to a mudroom, one with a door leading outside.

  What she found in the backyard took her breath away.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The green lawn and hanging flower baskets she’d seen in front of the house had nothing on the backyard.

  Bordered by the same chain link fence, most of the metal was concealed by winding vines, shrubs, and trees, enclosing the small patch of paradise from the outside world. Like the front, green accentuated by brilliant bursts of color filled the small space. Flowers grew in haphazard patches. The patches were bordered by stones or pieces of wood and were free of weeds, but without rhyme or reason behind the design. Old, rotting barrels sprung from the ground like relics of the trees they’d once been and filled to bursting with petunias, marigolds, dusty millers, and other familiar plants.

  Strange. They were past the season for these flowers. It was time for mums and winter pansies, not heat-loving varieties that had already withered and died in the Tennessee chill. Mississippi was warmer, but not that much, and the surrounding landscape was so dry and barren.

  A vision of Zeke’s grave flashed through her mind, yellow blooms and green in the midst of winter, and her heart lurched with the ache of loss and desolation.

  “Olive? Is that you?”

  The voice was strong and clear in contrast to its bearer. Sitting in the corner of the yard under the shadow of wisteria was a woman dressed in dainty button-down shirt and slacks pressed to perfection, her gnarled hands on her lap. She held something resembling a well-worn handkerchief, twisting it as if nervous.

  “No, ma’am,” Vivian said, taking slow, careful steps toward the woman so she wouldn’t spook her. “My name is Vivian. I’m a…friend of Waylon’s. He thought you could help me with a, um, a spiritual problem.”

  Dark, vacant eyes turned to gaze at Vivian. The woman was beautiful. Vivian was pleased to see her clean hair shining in the bright autumn sunlight, shimmering almost as brightly as her painted nails. Olive clearly took good care of her, as did Briggs, apparently. For all of his bitterness and military stoicism, the man cared for his family. Vivian
stopped a few feet short of the woman’s bench.

  Something else glowed around her, brighter than her shiny hair and fancy nails, brighter than the sun in the sky above her.

  Waylon Briggs’ Gran carried more spirit light energy than any living soul Vivian had ever encountered, except for Mae. Power, raw and enticing, emanated from every pore. How did they safeguard her from greedy guardian and reaper spirits, especially with a living soul broker at the ready for harvest?

  Mrs. Briggs shook her head and finally seemed to see Vivian. She furrowed her brows and clutched her handkerchief tighter. “Were you talking to me, honey? I am sorry. My mind is not what it once was. I get confused…”

  Vivian’s heart broke for her. Before time and age ravaged her mind, she must have been a force to be reckoned with. Her voice ran over Vivian like a warm summer breeze, lovely with a hint of French, but it held a trace of power and authority. Darkmore had called her mambo asogwe, her title spoken with great reverence. Lazarus Darkmore said many things about humanity, but reverence was not something he bestowed upon most mortals.

  Bijoux Briggs must be powerful.

  Vivian knelt beside her. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to disturb you. Your flowers are beautiful.”

  A smile graced Mrs. Briggs’ face, one filled with childlike delight. “They do grow well here, don’t they? And in all seasons, even when it gets hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. Weather is no match for the loa.”

  The hairs on the nape of Vivian’s neck rose as the temperature around the woman rose. She blinked as the energy and light flitted to and fro, taking shape and then disappearing before she could make out the faces of the spirits. The light came closer. Vivian fought the urge to flinch, to back away, and to run in terror.

  “It’s all right,” Mrs. Briggs said. “They are curious about you. They want to taste your light and know you.”

  “Bad idea,” Vivian said, standing and backing away. “The last time one of the powerful dead tasted my light, it didn’t end well. That’s why I’m here.”

  Mrs. Briggs’ face changed. A new, different intelligence shone through her gaze, this one darker, cunning. It smiled, twisting the old woman’s face into a rictus of malevolence.

  “Yes. You are a raiser of the dead. Rare. Coveted. These fools would have you raise them, too.” The entity flicked Mrs. Briggs’ wrist, indicating the spirits floating around them. “Fools. They would be trapped in a mortal body, a sack of meat decaying all around them. There’s no freedom in such a form.”

  “Who are you?” Vivian asked. “One of the loa?”

  “I am the one you seek, soul broker. You want to free your reaper. What would you offer me in exchange for the means to free him?”

  Bargaining with the spirits was tricky, particularly unknown spirits. The temperature suggested guardian spirit, who tended to run hot. But that didn’t necessarily mean “good.” And she had sense enough to realize that there was a lot more out there than she’d seen. Darkmore might know this one, but she wasn’t ready to bring him into the negotiations quite yet.

  Nor was she ready to bring Darkmore near Mrs. Briggs, the fragile mortal vessel for a vast and tempting well of spirit energy.

  “I don’t know who or what you are, so I cannot imagine what I have that would be of value to you.”

  The laugh that came from Mrs. Briggs’ throat was deep, rich, and malevolent. It was also familiar. Vivian knew very little about Voudon, but Darkmore had briefed her on the basics. Rather than being all about dark magic and blood rites, it seemed to be steeped in the African tradition of honoring one’s ancestors.

  “You’re Waylon’s father?” She tried not to make it sound like a question. Her intuition was good, but not infallible. If she’d played her hunch wrong, she might offend the spirit.

  “No, child, but you’re on the right path. The body I’ve borrowed is one of my line, as is Waylon. As for what you might have to offer me, you’ve managed something necromancers through the ages could only dream of—you raised the dead.”

  She shivered, hoping it didn’t show. “Not exactly. Darkmore wasn’t dead.” Not as far as she knew. “At least, he was more than a departed spirit.”

  “You caught him,” the voice said, dark and full of avarice. “He’s bound to this plane and bound to you. You own him.”

  “No,” she said, horrified at the prospect. Did this evil spirit want to own Darkmore? She didn’t intend to return him to his former state to turn him over as a slave. That was the very fate they were trying to avoid. Should Darkmore die while trapped in this mortal form, his soul would emerge as that of a newly departed, powerless, low on the afterlife management totem pole, and fair game for any more powerful spirits to claim.

  Darkmore had made a lot of enemies over his long, long existence. Plenty of spirits would be pleased to own him. Their vengeance would be slow, painful, and quite possibly eternal.

  But the spirit would know that. Apparently, he knew she wanted to set the reaper free. So, it stood to reason that he would want her to raise another spirit from the dead, possibly to own and control. Though she knew little of the loa, possession of those who venerated these spirits was part of the ritual, just as the powerful spirit currently occupying the body of Waylon’s Gran had possessed her. It was a temporary arrangement as far as she knew.

  If the loa depended upon possession to work their magic and enforce their will upon the world, having a living minion would come in handy.

  “You want me to make a zombie for you?” she said, incredulous. “That’s a little cliché.”

  “Your reaper isn’t a zombie. He has free will…for the most part. But if you command him, he will do your bidding. You might not even have to use your authority, smitten as he is.”

  She’d have to think on that little revelation later. The idea of commanding the reaper, or any living or formerly living entity, was uncomfortable. Such power could be seductive and, she feared, addictive.

  “But you want me to resurrect someone, or encase some spirit in a mortal form. To be honest, I’m not sure how I managed the first time. I only wanted to save Darkmore, to heal him so he wouldn’t die in his corporeal form.”

  The spirit smiled at her. It was all wrong on the old woman’s face. The regal, wizened face wasn’t made for that kind of malevolence. “You’ll call upon those powers again when the time is right, and you’ll save two lives and many souls.”

  That didn’t sound too bad.

  “There will be a price.”

  Vivian sighed. “Isn’t there always?”

  “Don’t be flippant, child. You’ve only glimpsed at what awaits beyond the veil, but enough, I think, to respect it, revere it, and fear it.”

  Vivian bit back a smart-assed comment. She may not like whatever had taken over the old woman, but it was right. There was much to fear in the afterlife. She’d seen suffering on a scale barely fathomable during her trip to the reaper’s dark realm. His was but one of many, and the dark things that lived in those places, that ruled them, knew what scared the souls trapped within. The dark things brought terror, pain, and ultimate suffering to life in vivid, agonizing detail.

  Speaking of dark things and torment, it was time to end this conversation. “What do you want from me?” she asked.

  “Maeve’s vision revealed most of what I want. There’s a traitor in your midst, one my descendant cannot—or will not—see. A trickster. You must root out the trickster and put Waylon back on the path he wishes to follow, futile though it may be.”

  The trickster, the raven…that must mean Briggs was the bear and she the wolf symbolized in her vision. Yeah, finding someone in Briggs’ blind spot would be problematic on so many levels, not the least of would be convincing Briggs when she found the traitor. She had access to finances, which could prove useful. A traitor in their midst might be siphoning cash, if the traitor’s motive was sabotage. The other currency in which the rebels dealt, soul energy, could prove more problematic. First, she’d have to d
iscover where the rebels stored their excess spirit energy.

  Darkmore could help.

  Then again, there could be an easier explanation, one in plain sight. “Are you the repository of soul energy?”

  The entity possessing Mrs. Briggs said, “No.” Her expression was neutral, almost deliberately so.

  “Let me rephrase,” Vivian said. “Is mambo asogwe Bijoux Briggs the repository?”

  Mrs. Briggs’ face split into a malevolent grin. “She receives what Waylon collects. My descendant isn’t completely stupid. Neither are you, it seems. No one in the rebellion knows about the mambo. Should the traitor discover her, it would be disastrous.”

  The fact that Briggs trusted Vivian, not to mention the reaper, with such a secret, spoke volumes of the trust he apparently had in her. Or was it simply part of the bargain? She’d offered her services in exchange for his help in freeing the reaper. Was it honor, or did he suspect something was off with his rebellion?

  “Why does he trust me? Why do you?” she asked.

  “This isn’t the first time you’ve gotten your reaper friend out of a jam, and at great personal cost. You’ve freed many souls, used your gifts to assist the living, and you defied the Archangel Guardian Council. Your sense of honor and your abilities make you a valuable asset to my descendant. And to me.”

  “Why don’t you just tell Briggs all of this yourself?”

  “Where would the fun be in that? I don’t get out much. There are so few vessels, and I have what you might call a timeshare arrangement with the mambo. I’m an observer, as is the nature of the loa…mostly. And before you ask, no, he won’t believe you if you simply tell him. Blind spot. My descendant does everything the hard way, much like you. Do we have a bargain?”

  “Not yet,” she said, thinking fast. “You want me to look out for Waylon and raise someone from the dead for you in exchange for restoring the reaper to his former state. You’ve asked me for two things that will apparently cost me. What else will you grant me?”