Black Magic Woman

by Christine Warren

  “Sosa is the name of one of D’Abo’s followers,” he said tightly, remembering how the angry man had roared his minion’s name at the club, ordering him to attack Daphanie. That minion, in fact, had been the one to tear the small strip of fabric from her shirt. It made perfect, crystalline sense.

  Except for one thing.

  “I remember the man.” Asher frowned. “He had all the personality and animation of a wet dishtowel. He just stared straight ahead of him unless he was given a direct order. I assumed he was one of the zombies D’Abo had bragged about creating.”

  “How did he move?”

  He glanced at the witch. “What?”

  “How did he move ?” she repeated. “That is one of the characteristics that identifies a zombie. A so-called thousand-mile stare is common, but zombies always move slowly and carefully because they only do so when directed by the bokor who controls them.”

  Asher remembered seeing Sosa reach for Daphanie and recalled that he’d moved with remarkable quickness.

  He told her and watched her shake her head very definitely.

  “If he grabbed her that fast, he wasn’t a zombie. They’re not capable. He might have been brainwashed, or heavily influenced, but he was clearly just a follower.”

  Or had he been a subtle mastermind who had recognized the familiarity of Daphanie’s features and seized an opportunity for action?

  “So if he wasn’t a zombie,” Graham puzzled slowly, “then…”

  “He is likely the very man we are looking for,” Rafe acknowledged. “I thought Logan had led us to the wrong place, or that our quarry had laid a false trail, but it seems I should have had more faith.”

  “Thank you,” Logan said wryly, emerging from the alley that ran alongside the building. “I could have told you that if you’d asked. Our guy was definitely here, recently. But he used the rear entrance. I would have gone in, but the place is full of people.”

  Erica pointed to a sign on the door. “Apparently, the Société is having a service tonight in honor of D’Abo. That’s what the notice says, anyway. It called it a memorial service, but I figured that was impossible. If D’Abo were dead, your problems would be solved, wouldn’t they?”

  Rafe shook his head. “It turns out that Sosa, not D’Abo, was the man behind all of this. He killed D’Abo sometime last night, and now we’re afraid he had further plans for Daphanie, as well.”

  The witch looked shocked. “Then you have to stop him. Is he at this memorial service, do you think?”

  Asher thought that would be too much to ask. But he intended to ask anyway.

  “We can only go and see for ourselves,” Rafe said, taking the woman’s elbow and ushering her toward the corner. “I thank you for your help, my dear, but we have reason to fear Sosa may be dangerous. You should take yourself home and out of harm’s way.”

  The Felix murmured reassurances to the woman as he walked her toward the corner of Second Avenue and hailed a passing cab. While he bundled her inside, Asher turned to Logan and asked, “How many people did you see?”

  “None,” the beta admitted. “There are no windows back there, but the outside is lit up like a beacon, and I can hear people inside. Smell them, too.”

  “Sosa?”

  “I don’t know. I know he went in at some point, fairly recently, but his scent is all over the place. He comes here regularly, which makes it hard to pick out what’s lingering and what’s current.”

  Asher tamped down his frustration.

  Graham jerked his chin toward the alley. “Let’s go check it out.”

  He ordered the bulk of the Lupines to remain where they were, then led Asher, Rafe, and his packmate toward the darkened alley.

  The alley turned out to be more of a narrow walkway, perhaps the remains of an old carriageway from the area’s distant past. It led them around the side of the building to the actual alley shared by several of the buildings on the block and giving access to the rear exits. As Logan had indicated, the area immediately behind the storefront blazed with the illumination provided by a pair of floodlights mounted above a riveted steel door. Just to the left of the entry, an old and cracked wooden sign hung from a hook embedded in the brick. The sign read, “Byenvini à la Société de Bon Anges. Antre kontanman.”

  Below it, an old domed doorbell sat adjacent to the door’s heavy handle. Farther down the alley, the pavement stretched into darkness, but in front of the Société there was light enough to read the look in another person’s eye. There just weren’t any unfamiliar eyes to be seen.

  “Okay, we checked,” Asher barked impatiently. “What do you suggest we do now? Because in about fifteen more seconds, I’m busting down the door and searching the place inch by fricking inch.”

  A faint sound had Graham turning his attention to the far end of the alley. He peered into the darkness for a couple of seconds and then grinned.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” he murmured and gestured to the figure emerging from the shadows.

  It was the shopgirl from that morning.

  She had obviously gone home and changed clothes. Instead of the jeans and T-shirt from before, she now wore a loose white peasant blouse and full matching skirt tied with a multicolored sash dominated by bold swaths of red and gold. Her short dark hair had been curled and styled and pushed back from her forehead with a wide red bandeau. The heels of her tall black boots had alerted Graham to her approach, which halted abruptly when she spotted the men gathered at the Société’s closed door.

  “Hey, I know you,” she announced with admirable powers of perception. “You two were at the store today looking for Papa D’Abo. Did you hear the news?”

  Graham and Asher exchanged careful glances before Graham nodded. “We did.” He gave the girl one of his fatally charming smiles. “I’m Graham. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember your name.”

  “Daisy.” The girl shrugged the strap of a large canvas purse higher onto her shoulder and sniffled.

  “We were very sorry to hear about it, Daisy,” Graham continued, injecting just the right tone of sympathy and friendship into his voice. “That’s why my friends and I stopped by again. To pay our respects.”

  Daisy nodded, looking unsurprised. “A lot of people knew Papa D’Abo. Everybody misses him real bad.” Her lips trembled, but she continued bravely. “Tonight’s ritual is private, though. It’s the boule zen . Mambo Amanda is in charge. There will be a public service in a few days, though. You’re welcome at that. I’m sure we’ll have the details in the store by tomorrow or the day after. You should check back.”

  Asher wanted to grab the girl by the throat and shake her until she told them where to find Sosa. He imagined using her as a human shield as he forced his way into the middle of the ritual and demanded Sosa as his human sacrifice.

  Rafe’s hand on his arm stopped him. The Felix nodded meaningfully toward Graham, who, Asher had to admit, was in the middle of one hell of a performance.

  “Mambo Amanda?” Graham repeated with a small, perfectly gauged frown of confusion. “I’m surprised. I thought Sosa would be the one to perform D’Abo’s ritual.”

  Daisy shook her head. “No, houngan Sosa was la place for Papa D’Abo. His assistant,” she explained. “So it was decided he should take all the highest-ranking hounsi with him and perform the dessounin in private.”

  Asher didn’t understand half the words she spoke, but he didn’t need to understand Creole to extract the gist of her message. Sosa was not at the Société tonight. He had specially selected a group of their most powerful initiates and taken them off to a secret location to perform an alternate, powerful ritual.

  His spider sense began to tingle.

  At the same moment, Rafe’s phone beeped. He smiled at Daisy politely and stepped away to answer. Asher divided his attention between the Felix and the alpha, but frankly he was more concerned with getting as much information as they could from D’Abo’s shopgirl. He could almost feel Sosa’s slimy little throa
t beneath his hands.

  “Of course.” Graham nodded, looking wise and knowledgeable and completely convincing. “I should have figured. Are they performing the day-sue-nan at the traditional site?”

  For the first time, the girl eyed him oddly. “At the crossroads? I assume, but no one other than the hounsi can attend. And three quarters of them weren’t even invited. How did you say you knew Papa D’Abo again?”

  Graham scrambled to cover his mistake. “Well, I just thought—”

  Rafe leaped back toward the little group so fast, he nearly overshot and sent Asher bowling into a surprised Daisy. “Never mind. Thank you for your help. We will check back about the public memorial. Good night.”

  He grabbed Graham and Asher by the backs of their shirts, jerked his chin at Logan as he propelled them all back toward the street.

  “Hey, what the hell is this?” Graham complained, trying to free himself with a shrug. “I didn’t screw up that bad. I could totally have salvag—”

  “Not now,” Rafe snarled, sounding in that moment every inch the jaguar. “We have to get back to your place.”

  “Why? What’s going on?” Asher demanded, a frisson of dread snaking down his spine.

  Rafe just pushed them faster until the small group was running toward the nearest avenue, the pack automatically falling in at their heels. The Felix’s sense of urgency was contagious.

  “Rafe!” Asher prompted, his stomach knotting. “What is going on ?”

  “Samantha has raised the alarm,” he bit out. “One of the guards thought she saw someone exit the club about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “So?”

  “So, she swears she thinks it was Daphanie.”

  Twenty-three

  Evil is as evil does. The trouble being, of course, that from time to time, evil does some pretty nasty things.

  —A Human Handbook to the Others, Chapter Two

  Daphanie’s body carried her unwillingly out of Missy’s front door and down the street to the neighborhood’s small, private park. She remembered glimpsing the black iron of the fence—hopelessly boring and of mediocre craftsmanship—and feeling the cool blades of grass under her feet; but that was the last thing she recalled before she opened her eyes to the sound of rhythmic drumming.

  Frickin’ drums again. Daphanie had grown to loathe the sound of drums. In fact, she was instituting a new rule that from now on, the bloody things were not allowed within seventy-five frickin’ feet of her. On pain of death.

  Daphanie wasn’t quite sure how you went about killing a drum, of course, but she figured one would make perfectly nice kindling for her forge. She also imagined her hammer would make a beautiful music of its own as it blew right through layers of goathide and oak.

  Gingerly, aware of an uncomfortable ache reminiscent of a wicked hangover, she turned her head to take in her surroundings. It took a few seconds for her to register that she could do so, that she’d done it of her own free will, and Daphanie had to bite back a whoop of glee. Finally, she was mistress of her own body again!

  With a sense of gratitude and a vow never to take the action for granted ever again, Daphanie pushed herself into a sitting position and propped herself up against the nearest vertical surface. Judging by the feel of it, said surface was a rough brick wall, crumbling in places and coated here and there with moss. That, plus the cool damp of grass beneath her butt told Daphanie she was outside.

  But where? The park down the street from Vircolac? She couldn’t picture the sound of drumming going unnoticed in such a quiet, upscale neighborhood.

  No, she must have wandered somewhere else.

  She looked around, squinting against the glare of a bright light, and realized she was staring into a roaring bonfire. Averting her gaze, she blinked her eyes twice with slow deliberation until she could focus on the dimmer corners of her surroundings.

  The bright glow of the fire cast most of the area into shadow, but she thought she could discern the outline of an enclosed area roughly forty feet square and bordered almost entirely by high brick walls. If she craned her neck, she could see that the wall against which she leaned belonged to some sort of building, as did the one directly opposite. On the left, the wall rose maybe a dozen feet in the air before ending in a cap of rough gray stone. The wall to her right reached about half that height with a gap of approximately six feet at the center spanned by a tall iron gate with a double door, currently shut fast. Matching iron rails surmounted the low walls on either side, bringing the fortifications on the street side of the courtyard into alignment with the others.

  Within the small yard, Daphanie could make out one tree, a towering, stately old elm, as thick around as a child’s wading pool. It stood just to the rear of the middle of the space, looking as if it had rooted there before the Revolution, its branches spreading out to canopy most of the yard.

  The space beneath the branches remained largely empty, and open. The neat carpet of grass stretched from wall to wall, obviously thick and well tended, broken here or there by pale stones jutting up out of the sod.

  Gravestones. And gravestones in Manhattan meant a churchyard, of which precious few remained. Daphanie knew the most famous, of course—the New York Marble Cemeteries, Trinity Churchyard, St. Paul’s. She’d wandered into most of them during her teenaged morbid phase, but this one looked unfamiliar.

  She thought she would remember it if she had seen it, if for no other reason than the appearance of the two distinctive graves in the back corner. One bore a stone sarcophagus with an effigy of a man—presumably the occupant—reclining along the marble lid. If she squinted, Daphanie could see writing carved into the side facing the yard, though she remained too far away to read it.

  Next to the grand tomb, wedged into the corner, stood a plain, granite obelisk, about four feet tall and as thick around as a ten-year-old boy. It bore no writing, no carvings, no distinct marks of any kind, and yet around the square base, she could see a row of X-shaped marks drawn on the pale stone with something the color of charcoal.

  Beneath the elm’s leafy branches, near the wall behind the sarcophagus, Daphanie thought she saw the figures of five or six men gathered around a low table that all but groaned under the weight of food and flowers and all manner of decorations.

  Her subconscious fit the pieces together in an instant.

  Drums + fire + graves + me = Someplace I really don’t want to be.

  Keeping her eye on the figures on the far side of the small graveyard, Daphanie carefully braced her hands on the ground, steeled herself against the agony in her head, and eased slowly to her feet. She stood there for a moment, verifying that her legs would hold her and more importantly would obey her commands, before she began to sidle toward the gate. Her progress was slowed by her desire to keep to the shadows, but she had made it nearly as far as the corner between the church and the street wall when a deeper shadow blocked her path.

  “Oh, no, Ms. Carter, you can’t leave us,” a man’s voice said, slick and obviously amused. “After all, you’re very nearly our guest of honor.”

  Daphanie didn’t recognize the voice, but she recognized the presence. It felt as thick and black and oily as Manon Henri had felt in her dreams, and when she forced herself to look, she recognized the face.

  Sosa.

  Before her stood the man who had grabbed her at D’Abo’s urging that night in the club. The man whose eyes had stared blankly into the middle distance while his “master” bellowed and blustered like a summer thunderstorm.

  Tonight, Sosa’s eyes looked anything but empty. Tonight they were filled with a kind of gleeful anticipation that had her stomach tightening and her instincts screaming in protest. Tonight they held a look of malice and an intent so evil she thought he must make Manon Henri a very suitable assistant.

  Daphanie Carter had been a lot of things in her life, though, and a coward had never been one of them. She didn’t care if her knees knocked, her teeth chattered, or her palms sweat. The only thing th
at mattered was that she would not cower before this monster. She hiked up her chin before she spoke to him.

  “You’re the one who placed a curse on me,” she stated simply, and she felt a rush of satisfaction that the words emerged calmly and evenly.

  She saw surprise flicker behind his cruel smile.

  “Very good,” he complimented her. “I had of course intended that you blame D’Abo for your predicament, but at this point, I suppose it hardly matters. Not that Charles will mind the confusion—”

  “Because you killed him.”

  Anger tightened his features for an instant before he managed to soothe away the strain and resume his expression of amused condescension. “It is true that I never imagined his body would be found quite so soon—something I believe I owe to your friends. My plan had been to continue with the charade until tonight’s work was complete, just to be safe. I do so like to wrap things up neatly, but he expressed the most distressing intention to attempt to stop the proceedings, and naturally I couldn’t have that.”

  He corrected himself.

  “We couldn’t have that.”

  “You’re planning to sacrifice me to Henri, to take away my soul and give her my body.” That managed to surprise him, and she took a certain amount of satisfaction in knowing he had thought himself too clever for her. “I should tell you that I don’t intend to let you do it. Did you think I would go along quietly? I happen to like being who I am. I have no intention of giving it up so you can be the bitch queen’s chief flunky, the same way you were for D’Abo.”

  Sosa threw back his head and laughed. “Is that what you think? That I would do all this to be a servant? You foolish girl. When Manon rises, she will call down Kalfou Himself, gran’ maître of all dark magics, and be granted all the powers of His world. She will become the new loa, Maman Manon, and in her gratitude to me, the one who raised her, she will make me the most powerful bokor who has ever lived.” His eyes flashed with greed and madness. “I will serve no one, especially not a pretender the likes of Charles D’Abo. He was never more than the means to an end. And the end is near.”