by D. M. Pratt
“Did you hear that?” Zamara asked.
“Yeah, I did,” Aria said.
Eve looked at Philip. Again he smiled the same inexplicable smile and touched her face.
“It’s okay, mommy,” he whispered and touched his finger to his lips as if to say shush. “They can’t see or hear us anymore.”
Eve looked for what should have been her and the children’s reflection in the kitchen window. Philip was right, nothing was there.
“I don’t know what I think I’m hearing,” Zamara said.
“Sounds like raccoons mating under the house again,” Aria said.
“Is that what it is? Raccoons,” Zamara repeated.
Whatever Philip had done she would ask him later. Right now Eve knew she needed to take advantage of it and get out. She moved with the children across the kitchen. She felt as though her feet were walking on a cushion of air. The trio reached the back door.
“They can wait. I’ll call the gardener tomorrow. Right now I wanna’ go finish watchin’ this impossible show I can’t stop watchin’ before you have to take Delia home,” Aria told her.
“You think it’s really about George’s secret affair?” Zamara asked.
“Anything is possible,” Aria said.
Another moan echoed through the house and they both looked toward the parlor door.
The two women showed no expression. Eve was certain they knew. Without another word they took their snacks and headed back into the servant’s quarters.
Eve waited until they were gone. As she was trying to figure out what to shift in her arms to open the door, it slowly swung open. Again Eve looked at Philip.
“You’re gonna have to show mommy how you do that, okay?” Eve whispered to Philip.
“Okay,” Philip whispered back.
He did it again as they approached the Escalade. All the car doors clicked and swung open … Philip smiled. She placed the diaper bag in the back seat and leaned forward to strap the children into their car seats. They were well over fifty pounds together, but car seats were still very necessary. She reached into the glove box between the seats where Beau always left his key for the Escalade. The key and his Blackberry were stuffed inside along with an iPad mini—Beau was a gadget freak. He kept his laptop, the Galaxy and the IPhone with him, but the Blackberry and the mini stayed in the car. She was glad to have a phone just in case. It dawned on her she’d set her purse down when she grabbed the diaper bag. She looked at Philip’s window and for a second thought of returning. She shook her head. Nothing could make her go back inside now. Eve started the engine and pulled out of the garage.
As Eve drove past the parlor window a rush of tears filled her eyes. The possibility that she had lost both Cora and Beau crushed her heart, if indeed that really was Beau having sex with her best friend, Cordelia Belle Bouvier. The thought of losing both of them in one fell swoop was unbearable. She slowed as she drove past the big house and headed toward the main gate and glanced into the rear view mirror. The house looked at her, the way it had always looked at her, commanding her to come home like Eleanor to Hill House. Then she saw, parked out front of the big house, Cora’s new Vantage. It was so Cora to have the most expensive, luxury car on the planet along with her elegant life and bottomless trust fund. Maybe it was Cora and her Vantage who belonged there more than Eve and her Prius. The car sitting there—and Delia in the back seat—left no doubt: Cora was there and so was Beau.
Eve felt horribly unworthy. But why? She’d done nothing wrong. It was them. They’d cheated on her. What could she do if Beau was in love with Cora and Cora was in love with Beau? What could she do? She loved them both. The tears wouldn’t stop soaking her cheeks. Nothing felt real. She didn’t know what to believe anymore. She also didn’t know where to go or what to do. Maybe she should go back and confront them? A vehement surge of anger and the treacherous feeling of betrayal choked Eve. How could they? She thought. I loved them and I thought they loved me. How? Why? Why? Eve slammed her fist against the steering wheel. The sting of pain in her hand was just enough to give her pause. What had she actually seen? Was it Beau and Cora or was it … those things. How could they be real? Because I’ve seen them before, Eve thought. Was it the Gregoire curse, whatever that was? Was it a beast – a Vampire or a demon? She had to find out. Eve looked back one more time at the guest house shrinking in the distance and darkness. You saw them, but when?
As she drove through the gates, Eve remembered the vision she’d seen reflected in the glass door of the refrigerator. The thing ripping Cora to shreds had a human shape, covered in glowing red skin that looked like an insane niacin overdose gone amuck? The other thing had been in more than one of her nightmares, but wasn’t its pale skin the color of sand with a blush of blue?
“That one was gold. That was new,” she said out loud. “How many are there? Or are they real at all. They were real. They were real! Dear God, please don’t let me be losing my mind.”
The words fell from her lips. Prayers to a God she’d forgotten how to believe in since she was a little girl. That was when her grandmother killed herself and her brother contracted a rare disease and died. Eve prayed and prayed and still Ellis suffered and died. Eve wanted to die too even though she was only eleven. It hurt so badly to watch her brother get weaker and thinner, fighting so hard to stay alive only to succumb to the disease and die as she watched helplessly from across the room. Ellis’ death march had taken exactly three weeks from the day they got the news of her grandmother’s suicide until he left the world. Ellis’ death had given her bad dreams too. Eve remembered her grandmother coming to her in those dreams with her brother. She’d felt then as she felt now, that someone was trying to tell her something important, but Eve’s grief was too great to hear anything her grandmother said from the grave. Eve feared her grandmother’s insanity might be in her blood too and now that fear was scaring her again. She had tried to erase that fear from her mind all those years ago. She was determined to believe the old woman was selfish and didn’t want to leave this world alone so she had taken Ellis with her. In the dreams, her grandmother said, “You have to stay, child. You have things only you can do. You will know soon enough who you are.”
Eve hadn’t thought of those old nightmares in years. She didn’t want to think of them now, but perhaps her grandmother knew about this destiny she would have to face. Eve tried to tell her mother about the nightmares with her grandmother and brother, but it only made her parents concerned for Eve and fearful for themselves. Her worst childhood nightmare came not long after Ellis’ death. He was standing by the door calling her to join him rather than stay and face what was coming for her. Because they were twins the Doctor said that kind of thinking was normal. Survivor’s remorse or something. Eve remembered feeling inconsolably sad, frightened and so angry, but the dreams stopped eventually and Eve made her peace with Ellis dying. But those were dreams. Ellis’ death was real … logical. What the hell were these walking, living breathing nightmares and visions out of some demonic horror movie? They felt just as real as anything she’d ever experienced. No hallucinations could affect her like that … could they? Was this all really part of some curse?
Eve glanced back at Philip and Delia who’d fallen back to sleep. She re-focused on the mystery unfolding around her and the clues she was uncovering. Her last session with Dr. Honoré held a key. The last thing she remembered was the grassy field and trees, but there was a building - a tower. Eve stopped the car.
“I was at Thibodaux Hospital. There was a door,” Eve said.
Eve took off her seat belt, locked the car doors and closed her eyes. She made herself imagine the door at Thibodaux she had seen during the trance. Eyes closed, Eve’s hand reached out and turned the knob. It had a raised face on it…a man with fat cheeks and small eyes. A click and the door opened. Instantly, she was standing in a room with no walls, watching - herself. The six, naked, beautiful men were there too, caressing her body, tongues licking, lips kissing, hand
s fondling, fingers stroking and probing, but this time she was the observer, detached from the Eve stretched naked on the table being ritualistically seduced by seven perfect men whose naked flesh undulated from sandy wheat to a plethora of hues in the dim light. But that one, the big one wasn’t red or gold or blue, it … it was only flesh colored. Wasn’t it? All that had happened to her under hypnosis came flooding back to her. Eve, the observer, looked up and saw the ceiling spiral open above the Eve on the table, but from where she, as the observer stood, she couldn’t see what or who was inside the gaping space.
Eve, the observer, felt frightened for the Eve on the table; salty tears trickled down her face and ran across her lips. Eve opened her eyes and saw she was still in Beau’s car. She stared back at the dark ribbon of road that led to what was supposed to be her home, then turned, started the car and drove away. For a long time she kept her gaze on the highway. Ahead, a fork in the road made her stop. A flash of lightning followed by a low, foreboding rumble of thunder echoed around her. A storm was coming. Eve looked at the two roads as they stretched to either side of her. Suddenly, as if an answer were being offered, the full moon broke from behind a scattering of clouds and lined up perfectly with the road on the left which headed north away from the Gregoire estate in the direction of New Orleans. She knew people there: a few friends from work, Charles and Kathy Lee, Piper and Victoria Lynn, but they weren’t close friends. Cora took up all her free time. Besides, how could she explain what was happening when she herself didn’t understand.
She wished she’d taken the ancient book from Dr. Honoré that had been left by Evine. She thought about the doctor in Egypt. How could she help when she was on the other side of the planet? How could Eve get herself and two kids across the Atlantic and into Egypt? She didn’t even have her purse.
“Okay that’s the goal. Right now I need someone to talk to and a place for me and two kids to sleep tonight,” Eve said.
Another flash of lightning was followed by a distant rumble of thunder.
“Detective Macklin,” she said and reached into her pocket.
His card was there. His name and cell number stared up at her. Somehow, he already knew how bizarre the circumstances had become. He’d seen Evine floating in the air with her own special effects. Maybe, just maybe, he could help them. Okay, he didn’t know about Beau and Cora in flagrante in the parlor … if that was Beau and Cora. He didn’t know the details of her dreams and visions or what was happening to the children including Philip’s newfound abilities, but he’d seen Evine. Eve turned the wheel and pointed her car in the direction of New Orleans and her only hope … Mac.
Chapter Twenty
Beau and Cora lay wrapped in each other’s arms content in the pleasurable afterglow of passion and coiled around one another so intimately that one could not tell where one began and the other ended. As they drifted in spent sleep, Beau’s skin began to undulate and ripple. It looked as if he were shedding his flesh and from the supple shell, Kirakin emerged, lifting through Beau’s skin. Kirakin’s skin glowed, pulsating from shades of olive tan flesh tones through subtle blushes of ruby red and deep burgundy. He looked back at Cora and Beau, breathing as one and smiled, pleased by their tranquility. He then looked out the window at Eve’s car. Another being, pale with a blush of gold color emerged from Cora. No words were exchanged before the being with the shimmering gold hue to its skin turned to smoke and evaporated.
Kirakin’s body floated through the house from the parlor, up the stairs, from Eve’s room to Philip’s room. He looked into the crib. The children were gone.
She knows, he thought. But what and how much?
Kirakin searched for her, but she had always been too strong for him to find her by using his thoughts. He searched for Philip, but the fact that he was with Eve shielded him. And the girl child? She too would be his once Eve surrendered to him.
Kirakin lifted a sweater Eve kept in Philip’s room to wear on chilly nights to his face so he could breathe in her scent. He felt his body react. He wanted her, but more importantly, he needed her to exist. He breathed in her scent again and turned to see Zamara standing at the door. Without a word he slammed the back of his hand into her face. Zamara flew across the room. Before she hit the wall he held out his hand, wrapping her in a force field that held her in midair.
Zamara hung, suspended eighteen inches above the ground, her body trapped in the force field. She was being crushed. Her eyes stretched wide, her mouth gaped open in a silent, tortured scream. Kirakin closed his open fist, tightening his grip, squeezing the life from her.
“I … did … as … you … asked,” Zamara gasped.
The words hissed out of her mouth on the last breath left inside her lungs.
Kirakin opened his hand and slowly lowered her to the floor.
Zamara gasped, as though she’d had the wind knocked out of her. To reopen her lungs was as painful as having them crushed.
“I kept Aria away. I did as you asked,” Zamara said in a hoarse whisper.
“Silence,” he said as he crossed to the window that looked down into the front courtyard.
“What does she know?” he asked.
“I told you, I have never been able to penetrate her mind,” Zamara said. “What about Eve?”
“I felt her. She was in the transition chamber with the Brothers. I don’t know how or why. The Priests had her, Macon had her, and then she was gone,” he said.
“How? When?” Zamara asked.
“It doesn’t matter. She was there. It doesn’t make sense,” Kirakin said.
“You have bent an entire dimension to create this reality. How long can you make it last?” Zamara asked.
“As long as I need it. As long as it takes to get her back,” Kirakin said.
“And what of Gathian?” Zamara asked.
The mention of Gathian’s name caused Kirakin’s skin to flush a burning glow of red. His body grew larger as he turned to glare at Zamara.
“He’s searching for this dimension,” Zamara said. “I feel it.”
“Then we must make sure he never finds it or her and he must never find the spawn. These are my children,” Kirakin hissed at her.
“Not until she surrenders to you,” Zamara said.
“She has no choice. Her body hears my call. It’s only her mind I need to win,” Kirakin said. “Deal with the two humans downstairs. They will be tortured by their betrayal and their guilt will keep them vulnerable. Humans.”
“It wasn’t their fault,” Zamara said.
“I know and you know, but they don’t,” Kirakin said. “Use them to find her. You will not fail me, Zamara.”
Kirakin faded from the room, leaving the scent of spices and honey to linger, thick and pungent. The scent was so strong it almost choked her.
Zamara wrapped her arms around her body and rubbed herself. She ached from the bone crushing force field he’d held her in. She knew Kirakin could have crushed the life out of her, but he needed her and that had kept her alive. She could handle Cora and Delia, but she hadn’t quite figured out Aria. There was something about that young girl that made it hard to get into her head. The children had always been a distraction, perhaps even a barrier. Maybe Aria had her own shield, but if she did it was so subtle, so invisible, Zamara could not perceive or feel it. Perhaps with the children gone at least for the moment, she could find out why Aria was able to block her out.
Zamara stepped into Philip’s bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked tired, more tired than she could ever remember. She was only thirty-eight-years old and yet she felt a hundred. She wiped blood from the corner of her mouth while her thoughts once again went to Aria. The pouch, she thought. She always wore that leather pouch. Her mother’s Grigri, she’d called it. Zamara didn’t know what was in it, but perhaps it held powers: strong powers. Zamara knew Aria had come from Voodoo royalty and that her people dated back two hundred years. She’d let slip how as a child she’d watch them gather together
to perform their dark rituals, singing chants and making charms. She said she liked the smell of powders her mother used when she made jujus, grigris for her spells. Aria said she cut herself off from all of that and never looked back, but the pouch was her last connection to her mother.
An innocent? Zamara thought. Or was she?
Chapter Twenty One
Zamara Estrada was a lovely blend of African and Latina Spanish, Cuban to be exact. Her ancestors came from all over the Caribbean, anywhere slaves were taken by the Spanish, and their bloodlines blended with Africans, islanders and Spanish. The black magic called Santeria had come over from Africa. It protected them over the centuries and it was still strong in Cuba.
She, like Aria, had come from her own Latin line of magi. It had been years since her possession, but she would never forget the man who gave her soul away: her father, Keke Estrada, headed a Black Latin splinter religious group called the Santeria in the jungles of Cuba. She closed her eyes and could still see Keke’s face as he leaned into the dim light of his study: ancient, leathered, olive skin, sagging around two sparkling black eyes and a sliver of a mouth that opened to accept a cigar. Keke had a river of wild white hair that fell to his shoulders and framed his eerie face. He was old. Zamara had no idea how old. She suspected he was over a hundred when she was born. He always dressed in white, especially for the holy rituals where white chickens and doves were sacrificed. As far as the Santerias were concerned, Keke’s father and grandmother were big medicine from Cuba. Even before the “rising” had happened, their reputation drew people from all over the island of Cuba. At the height of his power, just as the revolution started, he was asked by the elders for protection. He performed the blackest of the dark rituals to build a special army, one strong enough to fight against Castro—an immortal army of men and women raised from the dead and turned into living zombies by the powers of the Santeria’s dark magic. They would fight against the armies that took their food and land and called it freedom. He summoned these dead men and women from their graves to rise and walk and fight, but he did not have the power to control or lead them against their enemy. They rose, half bone and rotted flesh from the dirt and turned on Keke’s and twelve other villages. They attacked the military and, at first out of fear, the army stayed away from the jungle people, but then the zombies, ravenous, turned on the villagers. They were strong and relentless; undead monsters with ghostly grey eyes and blank, vacant stares, killing and eating all living creatures in their path.