Her tight, spasming heat finally overcame him. His head tipped back on a roar, every muscle tensing, threatening to snap his body in two as he poured himself helplessly inside her.
His last thought, before he collapsed on her in a sweaty, inconsiderate heap, was that the decision had clearly been taken out of his hands. It was no longer a matter of whether or not he should allow Daphanie Carter a place in his life.
She had already taken up residence in his heart.
Twelve
Psychic phenomena, it is important to realize, have no direct link to the Others. While some species of Others might possess talents of a psychical nature, it is equally true that humans may be born with—or even, in rare cases, acquire—similar gifts. Such abilities may include telepathy, clairvoyance, mind reading, telekinesis, psychometry, mediumship, precognition, and many other fascinating skills.
It is also interesting to note that while humans have been forced by the Unveiling to accept the presence of supernatural creatures in the world, some remain reluctant to acknowledge the possibility of ordinary humans with supernatural abilities.
—A Human Handbook to the Others, Chapter Nineteen
It took at least an hour for Daphanie’s heart to start beating again, and another few minutes for Asher to get her settled comfortably, if limply, in the center of his big, wooden bed. She barely remembered the trip from Niecie’s apartment. She felt a twinge of dread wondering if he meant to have another go at her, because she was fairly certain a second round would have killed her, but thankfully he simply climbed onto the mattress beside her and gathered her to him until she slept.
She slept deeply, waking only once after several hours when she felt his warm length shift away from her and slide from the bed. She must have made a sound of distress, because she had a dim awareness of him murmuring something against her ear, pressing a kiss to her forehead and ordering her back into sleep.
She had no trouble obeying.
It was too bad he didn’t instruct her not to dream.
Again, she found herself in the now familiar tent in the woods, only this time she could see the old, stained canvas. Her eyes, this time, were open. She looked around the moderate space, noting the dozen people gathered around a long plank of wood near the tent’s entry flap. The board had been balanced between a couple of logs to create a rough sort of table and piles of food and drink had been stacked atop it. People stood there, talking, laughing, eating, the air thick with a sense of anticipation.
She shivered, still unused to the cool of the night air. Back home, no one shivered in summer, unless they shivered in fear. Even in total darkness, back home the heat kept a body and soul together. She supposed she could have worn something different, put a heavy wool pelisse over her loose white blouse and skirt, but that would have restricted her movements, and a restricted woman couldn’t dance. The colorful turban she had wound around her head would at least keep some of her heat in. And once the drums started beating, she knew she would never feel the cold.
At the other side of the tent stood the pé . She gazed at the altar with satisfaction, noting the flowers and candles, the jumble of beads, bells, amulets, stones, rattles, and even bits of precious money. Rum and food lay there, too, soon to be offered to the hungry loa.
She herself had provided the tobacco, traded with a white farmer in exchange for a taste of her black ass. She didn’t count the cost. Sex, after all, was the readiest kind of coin she had, and the one she’d traded in the longest.
At the center of the peristyle , their temporary, secret hounfort, the center post doubled as the poteau mitan, because in trying times, compromises had to be made. Nearby, though, the fire already burned, and in her pocket, she felt the weight of the farine guinée she would use to trace His vévé in the dirt. Tonight, she could call Him from the crossroads, and he would come to her. Once He came, he would give her His power and Manon Henri would live long enough to revenge those who had wronged her. She would live long enough to reclaim her rightful place as Queen of the new world, the most powerful mambo who had ever called the names of the ancestors.
Manon Henri would live forever.
Daphanie woke almost gently this time. She didn’t bolt upright in a panicked sweat, didn’t feel her muscles twitching in response to the lingering beat of drums. This time there had been no drums. This time, the ritual hadn’t yet started. She should feel relieved.
Instead, she felt chilled all the way down to her bones.
No fog followed her into consciousness this time. Her mind was clear, her senses sharp, and her soul weighed down with a black, oily film of evil.
Daphanie trembled and pulled the thick down duvet up around her ears as she stared into the dimness of the unfamiliar room. She knew exactly where she was; she remembered Asher carrying her here yesterday evening, after that ridiculous bout of sex on her sister’s floor, but she had been too overwhelmed and too exhausted to make note of her surroundings.
Now she was too frightened.
She didn’t want to move. Something inside of her screamed that if she moved, the spirit directing those movements would not be hers. If she moved, she suspected that her fingers would trace strange symbols on the walls and floor. Her feet would move in swift, stomping patterns across Asher’s floor, and she would speak a strange kind of French, using words she had never heard during her year in Paris, or the weeks winding her way through the Languedoc. If she opened her mouth, her voice would call out a name she couldn’t even bear to let her mind acknowledge.
Something, she knew, was very, very wrong.
Daphanie trembled, feeling suddenly and utterly alone. She strained to listen to the sounds of the quiet apartment, hoping to hear Asher’s soft footfalls, or the rattling of dishes, or even the tinny voices of a television set in the other room. Nothing. The place was silent, eerily silent. A kind of silence that made her wonder hysterically if the dream had really ended, or if this was just another scene, another facet of the nightmare that had become nearly as familiar as her own name.
Daphanie Elizabeth Carter.
Manon Séraphine Henri.
Which one was she?
Which name was hers?
A hysterical giggle boiled in her throat.
God, she really was losing her mind. Not that it wasn’t becoming a little crowded in there. Oh, she knew she was Daphanie. She knew her name and where she’d been born and where she grew up and who her parents were. She knew where she’d gone to school and who her friends were and what was the name of the President of the United States. She even knew what day it was.
But she also knew that in the back of her mind, something unfamiliar crouched. Something that hadn’t been there before. Something she recognized but didn’t want to engage with.
Something that scared the shit out of her.
The shrill ring of the telephone split the silence and made Daphanie jump. She contemplated yanking the covers up over her head and hiding, but she was afraid to be alone even in a soft, stifling cocoon.
She heard another ring and gritted her teeth. She didn’t have to answer. After all, it wasn’t her phone, and Asher must have some kind of voice mail service. But what if it was Asher calling her? She had no idea if he’d thought to bring along her cell phone when he’d carried her out of Danice’s apartment.
Turning her head, she glanced warily at the bedside table. An old-fashioned desk phone in dignified black occupied one corner. She thought she could just reach it.
A third ring. Carefully, Daphanie snaked her hand along the sheets, keeping it under the covers for as long as possible before darting it out and snatching the receiver from the cradle. She tugged it beneath the duvet with her.
“Hello?”
“Daph?”
“Corinne?”
There was a brief pause. “Yeah, it’s me,” the woman said. “Sorry, you just sounded really weird for a minute.”
Daphanie gave another short laugh. “Really? Imagine that.”
“Daph, are you all right?”
“Oh, you could say that.” Shifting the blankets to answer the phone had left a gap in the edge of her cocoon, and Daphanie shivered as a tendril of cool air reached her. “How did you know I was here?”
“At Asher’s place?”
Daphanie hummed.
“He told me. I was with Missy when he stopped by to get Graham. On their way out, he told us that if we needed to reach you, to call his number. I thought I’d check and see if you wanted some company. We all heard about the apartment, so I thought you might need a distraction.”
She frowned. “Why was Asher picking up Graham? Where did they go?”
“To talk to D’Abo.” Corinne sounded surprised that Daphanie would ask. “Since you had to deal with the break-in yesterday instead of tracking him down, Asher said he wanted to take care of it this morning.”
“Is it morning?”
“It’s ten forty-five.” Another pause. “Daphanie, are you sure you’re okay? You don’t sound right. Do you need me to come over there?”
Part of Daphanie wanted to say yes, to beg the ever confident, ever capable Corinne to burst through the door and come save her, but that was her cowardly voice. The rest of her knew that the only way to deal with the thing that scared her was to confront it head-on. Just a few more minutes under the covers and she would do it. She swore she would.
“No, don’t bother,” she said, trying to inject some confidence into her voice. “I’m fine. Just a little muzzy. I only woke up a few minutes ago.”
“Really? Are you sick? I’ll come over. I’ll stop at Sarge’s and pick up some matzo ball soup.”
“I’m not sick, and you don’t need to come over.” Daphanie debated with herself for a minute and then decided it was better to know than not know. “You could do me a favor, though.”
“What do you need?”
“Would you be willing to do a little more research for me?”
“Oh, honey, research is my middle name! My bread and butter. My raison d’être.” She mangled the French while Daphanie tried not to wince. Not because of the pronunciation, but because of the memories of mangled French in her dreams. “In other words, be happy to.”
“I, um, I heard a name that I wondered about. Like, maybe if it had any connection to this whole voodoo thing.”
“Let me grab a pen.” Papers rustled, then Corinne grunted. “Okay, lay it on me, my friend.”
Daphanie gritted her teeth against the lingering taste of corruption and spat the name into the phone. “Manon Henri.”
Silence met her revelation.
Daphanie felt her stomach flutter. “Corinne? Hello? Are you still there.”
“Oh, I’m here,” the other woman said on a stilted laugh. “You’re kidding me, right? Manon Henri? I told you about her days ago.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Yes I did,” Corinne insisted. “When I gave you what I found on D’Abo. Manon Henri is the voodoo priestess who moved here from New Orleans and founded the temple D’Abo now runs. That’s where you got her name, right?”
Daphanie only wished that were true.
“No, you never mentioned her name,” she said. “You told me about how she founded D’Abo’s temple, but we were too busy talking about him. You just kind of glossed over the woman.”
“Then where did you hear her name?”
“In my dream.”
Corinne swore. “Don’t fuck with me, Daph. You’d have to have some kind of psychic thing going on to know something like that from a dream.”
“Trust me, I’m pretty sure I’m not psychic, and I’m positive I’m not fucking with you. The dreams I’ve been having are about Manon Henri.”
“This is too weird.”
Daphanie snorted. “Tell me about it.”
“Shit. I already told you what I know about Henri, Daph. She came here from Louisiana around 1795, she founded a voodoo temple with an official start date of 1797, she died. Fast-forward a couple hundred-plus years and in comes D’Abo. That’s the story.”
“Which is why I need you to dig deeper. Why did she end up in New York? What kind of person was she? How old was she when she died, and how did it happen? How well-known was she in Manhattan, and what did she do while she lived here?”
“Just the basic outline then,” Corinne quipped.
“I know it’s asking a lot, but it’s…” She sighed. “I can’t tell you why, but I just have a feeling that for some reason, she’s important to what’s going on.”
“Despite having been dead since before the Civil War.”
“Despite that.”
“All right,” Corinne agreed. “Give me some time, and I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
When she hung up, Daphanie spent several minutes staring at the phone and remembering the scene in her dreams. She had meant what she told her friend. Somehow, Manon Henri was the key to this whole mess, Manon and the dream.
Now if only Asher would come back so she could tell him all about it. Or so he could make her forget all about it. At the moment, Daphanie didn’t think she could afford to be picky.
Thirteen
There exists a curious similarity in the role that reputation and perception play in the social hierarchies of both the human and the Other world. Obviously, the perception of an alpha’s power governs his ability to hold onto his position within the pack in the same way that a politician’s efficacy or moral authority can govern his ability to hold onto his office.
In no other group, however, does reputation and perceived power seem to have a greater positive or negative effect than among magic users (i.e., witches, sorcerers, voodoo priest/-esses, summoners, etc.). In fact, there is some speculation among outsiders (magic users being by and large notoriously secretive and insular) that the level of fear and respect accorded to a magical practitioner may actually enhance or diminish that person’s natural power.
—A Human Handbook to the Others, Chapter Seven
The jingle of the bell perched atop the door announced Asher’s entrance into the small retail space. The scent of herbs and incense immediately greeted him, and behind him, Graham gave a small, choked cough.
“La Société de Bon Anges, Charles D’Abo, houngan & prop.,” just off Delancy Street, turned out to be quite stark and sparsely stocked compared to what Asher had expected. The interior and shelves had all been painted white, and most of the shelves were pushed back against the walls on three sides of the modest room. Books, candles, decorative items, stones, poppets, and bundles of herbs took up most of the display space, lending small bits of color and interest.
On the right side of the room, a nicked and worn-looking glass counter ran most of the length of the space, with the shelves behind it stacked with uniform, clear glass jars, each bearing a neatly hand-printed label in black marker on white paper. The jars appeared to contain various amounts of herbs, spices, and resins, presumably for magical rather than culinary purposes. Inside the counter, two shelves offered up a variety of jewelry, baubles, magical tools, and small colored cloth bags.
Opposite the counter, two ancient chairs with worn and faded cushions flanked a low round table about eighteen inches across. In one of the chairs, a young Latina woman sat poring over a book. She looked up when the men entered and offered a blank and expressionless stare.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a voice devoid of either interest or enthusiasm.
“I’d like to see Charles D’Abo,” Asher informed her.
“Sorry, you can’t.”
She bent her head back to her book.
Behind him, Graham snickered softly. Asher sent him a glare, mostly out of a sense of obligation, because he understood the sentiment. She hadn’t sounded very sorry at all.
Still, Asher wasn’t in the habit of allowing himself to be dismissed by rude human teenagers (O the redundancy!). He leaned forward and adopted a more menacing stare.
“
I want to see D’Abo. Now.”
This time when she looked up, the girl blinked. But she still shook her head. “H-he’s not here,” she stammered.
He dug for patience. “When will he be back?”
“N-no, I mean, he’s not here. At all.” She swallowed. “He never came in today. No one’s seen him.”
This time, when Asher frowned, it wasn’t for effect. What did she mean, no one had seen him?
“Did you expect him to come in?”
“Sure. He comes in every day. Even when the store’s not open, he at least goes to the hounfort to work. He’s a very busy man, you know, and very powerful. Someone is always seeking him out for advice or magic or to learn the ways of the société .”
“She sounds like a damned recruitment poster,” Graham murmured behind Asher’s back. “Is this a temple or a cult?”
“Does there have to be a difference?”
Asher agreed that the shopgirl sounded as if she’d memorized her answer from a proselytistic tract, but at least her eyes weren’t empty. She had the look of a true believer rather than a zombie minion.
“Has anyone tried getting in touch with him? Called him at home, gone to see him?” he asked her.
“I tried calling the number on the side of the register.” She waved at the counter and the ancient electronic cash register perched on top. “But no one answered. No one in back seemed to know where he was, either, but they told me not to worry. They said he has been under a lot of stress lately, with almost constant attacks from his enemies. He probably stayed home to rest.”
Asher could only assume that “in back” referred to the hounfort, the home of the temple where private ceremonies, rituals, and magics were performed. It surprised him that no one in the whole building knew where D’Abo was.
It also irritated him. He wanted to know where the man was at all times so he could ensure Daphanie’s protection.
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