by Domino Finn
The teeth of my companion chattered impatiently. "There's always more. Service into such pursuits is endless."
I sniggered. "That's the deal, isn't it? Service? The binding to the Horn. The Taíno pictographs. It's all part of your curse. You're destined to serve the bearer of the Horn no matter what bargains they make, aren't you?"
The conquistador waited a tense minute before turning sourly to me. "Curses can be skirted, brujo. You have firsthand experience of this. And things are not turning out well for your enemies."
I wondered if that was a threat or a mere statement of fact.
"I get your point," I conceded. "I did make a promise. And I'll do my best to keep it, but I can't be responsible for more evil in the world."
The wraith didn't reply, letting the silence speak to his mood. I considered his past. His true intentions. He was a useful ally but I was no monster. I couldn't let him skew my morals.
"The Covey wants you for a reason," I said. "And you have more power than you've shown me. I'm not sure how fair our bargain is, even after I changed the terms."
His eyes burned brightly. "What is not equitable, brujo?"
"You tell me. Since I've found the Horn, my life has been nothing but trouble. Protecting the Horn got me ten years of zombie service. It got my family killed. Compromised my best friend. And then there's the Wings of Night. I'm using arcane spellcraft I have no business knowing. Not to mention the weakening of the Murk, as you called it. My victims have been coming after me with uncanny precision. The corpse of my own father attacked me, yet you casually deny it all."
I heaved excitedly as I finished, figuring I had the apparition where I wanted him. Answers, finally.
"All those instances have reasonable explanations, whether they are known or not."
"That's not good enough," I snapped. "You've been nothing but bad news. For all I know, the Taíno locked you in that Horn for good reason."
My companion was silent. I wanted him to tell me what he was in life. To confess his sins. Instead, he studied me unnervingly. Only when I was about to explode did he finally respond.
"You blame me for your recent luck," he said through yellowed teeth. "Once you discovered the Horn, everything soured. Yes? But what absolves you of your part? It was your choice to seek out the artifact. I was not a party to that. We are both necromancers. The spirits would haunt you regardless of my presence. They are drawn to you. As was I."
I turned to him.
"In a sense," he continued, "one could say it was you who summoned me. Consider, brujo, that Opiyel is a guide for spirits. An escort to the land of the dead. The flesh you handle is steeped in voodoo and ritual, but the shadow inside you manipulates a greater energy. Only when you understand your true power will you realize that you are the cause of your life's events. Not me."
I watched the road with a scowl. I couldn't say why Opiyel had chosen me. I'd just known voodoo wasn't my life's calling. Something about the shadow felt right.
The wraith had hinted at my link to the Taíno before. I'm Hispanic. Cuban. No Indigenous heritage that I know of. But the Caribbean was shaped by generations of conquest. Maybe something of my spellcraft was born there.
Maybe I had compelled the Horn to me. The Covey used me to get it for a reason. Maybe this was my doing after all.
But the wraith had also chosen to stay with me. Ten years ago, when Martine and I could've sold the Horn, it was the Spaniard who'd warned against allowing the artifact into evil hands. Whatever I would've ultimately done, the Spaniard chose his path.
Had that been altruism on his part? Or was I simply more useful to him? The bonds of necromancy or the Taíno could've played a part, but there was no real way to know. Yet I had already entered a pact that set my hair on edge. Nothing would stop my vengeance, which meant that, one day, I'd be obligated to free my ghostly companion from his prison.
I nodded and licked my lips. "When justice is served," I said.
Chapter 35
One last thing.
There's always something, isn't there? One last thing to take care of. Only it's never really the last. These connected experiences we call life do have an end; it just doesn't happen nearly as often as we fear. And in some cases, as with the Wings of Night, the end can even be the beginning.
But this one last thing didn't feel like a beginning to me.
The sun on my face was liberating. I know that flies in the face of necromancing and shadow charming, but this is the Sunshine State. I'm comforted by warmth just as much as the next guy.
Lately, it seemed, most of my comfort came during the day. Like the Taíno bats that flew from Coaybay, it was the daytime when I slept. When I could dream and pretend things were like they always had been. When I could pretend tomorrow would be the same.
After the whopper of a night I'd had, you'd think today would be no different. I was spent. I'd crash hard without a doubt. But part of me finally knew what true loss was. Part of me didn't dare to dream anymore.
Yup, one last thing to take care of.
I parked outside Evan's house and shuffled up the driveway, considering all the years my daughter had lived without me. Without even knowing who I was. It was depressing to realize that might never change. Sometimes I wondered if it should.
Emily surprised me by opening the door before I'd knocked. I halfway hoped she'd be in a nightgown, but she wore a plain blouse.
"Cisco! It feels like you were just here."
"A lot's happened since then."
"Oh? Well, you missed Evan. He was called out an hour ago. Some emergency."
I winced and held my tongue. Emily's face went dead. She always could see right through me.
"That was you, wasn't it?" She sighed and fell back into the house with her hands up. "I knew you were gonna do something stupid."
I followed her in. "Cut me some slack. I've had a long night."
She sighed and crossed her arms, looking me over. I wasn't sure what to say so I turned my full attention to closing the door.
Her eyes lit up. "Oh! I found that album you asked about." She led me to the kitchen and tapped on the binder resting on the side table beside the garage door. "Is this the one?"
I'd forgotten about that. I picked up the book hesitantly and flipped through page after page of my Cuban ancestors. The centerfold expanded into an intricate family tree. My finger traced over the branches till they reached my parents, Oscar and Lydia Suarez, then to me and Seleste below. Fran and Emily were absent. "This is the one."
"Great," she said with a smile. "What exactly are you looking for?"
I slammed the binder shut and dropped it on the table. "It's what someone else was looking for, actually. But I think I already figured it out. It was about tracing my heritage. The Caribbean's a giant melting pot, right? The Spanish and French brought African slaves and intermingled with the indigenous population. I figure there's a trace of Taíno blood in me."
It's funny. I'd never considered that before. My patron, Opiyel, gifted me with such power, and I'd never asked why. But the wraith had laid the truth clear.
"Speaking of family," I continued. "I know you don't want to talk about it, Em, but I remember how your father died now."
She froze. "But it happened after—"
"I know. But recent events illuminated me." I locked eyes with the woman I loved and told her as plainly as I could. "While I was a thrall in the service of a vampire, I killed your father. Same as I killed mine."
Emily brought her hand to her mouth in shock. "Cisco..."
I shrugged. "It's what hit men do. And I was a good one. I didn't like the man, Emily, but I never would have done that willingly. It's just another black mark to add to my ledger."
Emily didn't say anything. Her eyes were cold. Analyzing. I wanted to be inside her head, but she was better than me at hiding her emotions.
I cleared my throat. "The thing you never told me, though, was that Kita Mariko's your half sister."
Emily's
eyes nearly bugged out of her head. So much for hiding her innermost thoughts. That was all the confirmation I needed.
You see, I'd been thinking about that final poltergeist-turned-revenant. The more his voice had crystallized, the more his face took form—the more I'd sworn I recognized him. And then we were in the Murk. A wildly disorienting experience that shook me deeply. But there, I could see the man's true features. I could see who he was.
Henry Hoover, international man of mystery. Traveler, investor, and real estate magnate. And, most important of all, Emily's father.
A bad father at that. After Emily's mother had passed when she was young, Henry Hoover became a notorious womanizer. A man with his money and reach, well, it wouldn't surprise me if he had a child on every continent.
Emily had been the first. She'd had the benefit of traveling the world with the man. Kita Mariko was likely the product of a fling in the Far East, born into riches but forced to stay with her Japanese mother. An estranged sister that Emily had never mentioned and I'd never known about. Except, apparently, not so estranged.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" asked Emily.
"Because I get it now, Em. All of it. I understand it was you and Kita who ordered your father's death."
"What?"
"Don't deny it," I said. "The lies won't work anymore. All the pieces have slowly fallen into place over the last week. My life's been a hodgepodge of questions and conspiracies since I came back. This part finally makes sense."
I paused and watched the acceptance creep into her face. If you get arrested by the police, you might still deny it as the handcuffs go on. You might think you don't get arrested. But eventually reality sets in. We all need to deal with cold, hard reality once in a while. Emily was getting there, but her guard was still up. I saw some fight left, so I pressed further.
"Ten years ago," I explained, "I boarded a boat to look into a crew wanting to buy an artifact from me. The Covey, I now know. One of my possessions was this darkfinder." I placed it on top of the binder. "Except it was broken. Sabotaged. The charmed mercury had been removed. I'd been left to believe that I wasn't in danger." I swallowed, finding it harder to go through with the accusation than I'd thought. But I had to. Reality.
"You were the only one that played with my gear like that," I said.
Emily's eyes narrowed, but I still wasn't done.
"And my shotgun shell too. I recovered the old one, still chambered. I'd never used it back then, but I did a couple days ago. It misfired on me. It wasn't until I closely examined the hull that I noticed the powder had been emptied."
I gritted my teeth, choking on the implication. But I raised my voice and forced it out. "You set me up to die, Em."
"I didn't know they'd kill you," she protested.
"You did. You knew I'd found the artifact. You knew I was boarding that boat, ready to lie about the Horn. Like you said, you always knew when I was about to get in trouble." I turned my back on her. "And somehow, Tunji Malu and his crew knew I had it. You set me up. You killed me." I grinned sardonically. "And for what? Nothing. You never got your artifact. And to add to your failure, you killed your father for his fortune, only to find it squandered."
"Failure?" Emily suddenly laughed in my face. "His money was useless to us. It was always about his land holdings."
Her reaction was boastful. It surprised me, to be honest. But hearing her speak, seeing her so animated, was good. I could tell the truth was finally coming out. There was the acceptance. The reality. Above all, after everything, that was what I wanted.
Even if it ruined my life.
"When my father and I moved here," she said, "the Covey got to work. My first order of business was engaging with the occult community. In Miami, that meant necromancers. So we made ourselves known."
"We? But you're not an animist."
She laughed dismissively. "Word quickly spread of the outsider. The one who used Taíno magic. And we already had our sights on the Horn. With it, Miami would bend to us."
I recalled what the West African vampire had mentioned. Something about getting a foothold in the United States. Miami was an international town. The capital of Latin America. It was easy entry for a foreign power.
"The problem," continued Emily, "was finding the Horn. And the answer was you, Cisco. The one shadowed by Opiyel. The Horn was bound by the Taíno black arts. The Horn practically called to you. All we needed to do was point that bitch Martine in the right direction and wait till you found it."
I frowned. "Then you'd cement your supreme status in the necromantic underworld."
I paced away from her, disgusted. How could I have been so blind? I wondered what else I didn't know. Maybe Emily was magically inclined herself. Even worse, I questioned if there had been anything real between us.
"The whole time," I spat. "From the moment we met, I was your mark. You stepped into my college class and made eye contact with me, knowing I'd follow you like a lost puppy."
She shrugged without a trace of guilt. It pissed me off even more.
"You used a lot of people, didn't you? Tunji threatened Evan, the city commissioner, and who knows who else out there. The Covey found a lot of suckers, but I was the biggest of all, wasn't I? Finding the Horn. Becoming your swift hand of justice. Unlike your more monstrous friends, I could fit in, do the job, then slip into the shadows like I was never there."
"That's right Cisco. You're... forgettable."
I sneered. "Everything we did together! The flirting. The fucking. It was all a big shadow play, and I was your puppet!"
I swept the binder off the table. It tumbled against the wall, opening on a page with a photograph of my sister, Seleste. I stared at her image and bit down.
"Your family wasn't my idea," breathed Emily. "It was Tunji's. He figured it was a good test of loyalty. See, he thought you were somehow hiding the Horn. Having you kill them was the only way to truly know if you were completely in our control." Emily cocked her head inquisitively. "Except, we never discovered the truth about the Horn. Did you sell it to a higher bidder? Did you lose it?"
I shook my head.
"I figured you destroyed it," she finished. "It sounds like something you'd do. Free a trapped comrade instead of considering his use."
I closed my eyes. It physically hurt to hear her speak like that. All the life had fled from her voice. She was cold and calculating, not the spontaneous firecracker that I'd known.
"Just tell me that your sister forced you into this," I pleaded through a clenched jaw. "Tell me that Kita's the one responsible for it all."
There it was. An offer to walk away from this. I'd told myself I wouldn't wave a white flag, but I did anyway.
Emily only chuckled in response. She enjoyed this. She reveled in my turmoil. But something cut her mirth short.
I opened my eyes and saw her for what she was. For the first time, I saw her vulnerability. Her struggle for power and control. Her fear of getting too close or caring too much about anything.
My boots clacked against the floor as I advanced on her, my face inches away. Her breath against mine would've excited me at one time, but in this moment I had nothing but contempt for the woman. I soured as I studied her. I condemned her with my eyes.
As dark as my thoughts were, Emily Cross met me with a defiant smile.
"What are you gonna do, Cisco? Kill the mother of your daughter?"
There were a lot of things I could do. Act in passion. Satisfy vengeance. I had any number of attacks at my beck and call, seconds away.
"I have it," I said in a low growl. "The Horn. And I'm not hiding it any longer. The Spaniard is with me now. We're a team. And we're not gonna stop until every last bad deed is accounted for."
Something close to fear crept into Emily's eyes. She swallowed uncomfortably.
"Mom?" chimed a small voice, bright as day.
We both spun at the sudden appearance of Fran. The girl wiped the sleep from her eyes and straightened her disheveled
hair, but it wasn't necessary. She looked like a dream to me. Squeezed under her arm was the pink fairy doll I'd bought her. Considering the current revelation, it was strange that Emily had given it to our daughter.
"Who's this?" asked Fran, watching me warily.
Emily cleared her throat. "No one, honey," she answered, her voice once again warm and comforting, like the sun. "A friend of your father. He was just leaving."
A low rumble coursed within me, but I kept it from escaping. I smiled politely and mussed my daughter's hair on the way out, pushing the blackness deep down.
-Finn
HEART STRINGS
by Domino Finn
Copyright © 2016 by Domino Finn. All rights reserved.
Published by Blood & Treasure, Los Angeles
First Edition
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to reality is coincidental. This book represents the hard work of the author; please reproduce responsibly.
Cover Design by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design LLC.
Print ISBN: 978-0-692-70387-8
DominoFinn.com
Contents
Title
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33