by Lyn Brittan
This bunch waited for them in the middle of a swamp on a houseboat. Callie and Sean exchanged fire with them while Luca focused on the undead spirit floating nearby. He knew she must have been here, but he didn’t expect her this soon.
“Marguerite Durand. I wish I could say that I am shocked to see you.”
The bitch emitted throaty laughs as she commanded them all: Roma soldiers, spirits, and the reanimated to attack their powerboat. Under her direction, this assault lasted much longer than the others. As before, the Roma soldiers went down fast and easy under Callie’s well-trained shooting. The reanimated were harder, but often still in early stages of confusion and seemed almost willing to die. The spirits, however, were by far the worst and those only he could handle. It required essence draining magic, but he was Rom Baro, and it was his job to do it.
Throughout each fight, Durand watched but didn’t interfere. She alternated between laughing at him, congratulating herself, and offering all combatants halfhearted advice. Her form appeared and vanished until the last man from her army, living or otherwise, fell. Then she’d drift away and do it all over again.
She showed up at several points in the evening to lead her disgusting army and deliver updates on Fanchon Marie’s “visitation.” He’d maintained his composure by blocking out her words and only focusing on her lackeys. It worked well enough, until her latest visit. This time, her words knocked him to his knees.
“My dear Rom Baro, you may as well stop fighting now,” she said. “Fanchon Marie has joined the...the choir invisible.” His heart clenched, and he thought he felt the earth give way beneath him. Tears flowed from his eyes, but he didn’t try to stop them.
“Would you like to join me? Join her? You’ll be the most prized horse in my stable.” Her silky voice turned harsh again as she delivered her final orders to this latest group of fighters. “Kill the dogs, but let him live. I want to feel him for years to come.”
Luca’s throat clenched as he lost his stomach over the edge of the boat. Fanchon Marie? Gone? It didn’t seem possible. He screamed into his arm and pummeled his fist into the side of the boat.
Living without her would be impossible, but dying? Would it be so bad? At least he would spend an eternity with his Fanche. Over his heartache, he could hear Sean and Callie calling for his help. More screaming, but this from the other side of the water. The wolves’ bullets must have found homes in two human chests. He didn’t care. Without Fanchon Marie, he couldn’t find the will to muster an emotion other than—
“Noooo!” Sean’s scream cut right through him. It was the sound he’d made moments ago, and it mirrored his own breaking heart.
Luca turned to the right to see Callie lay limp in the wolf’s arms. For the first time in what must have been years, Sean lost his ability to control his form, alternating between shattered wolf and broken man every few seconds. When he was able to hold on to his wolf, Sean jumped from his boat to theirs and ripped the remaining humans apart with little regard for his own life. He stopped for one second to share a look of shared loss with Luca. It was enough to snap him out of his own heartbreak.
That’s when Luca became the Rom Baro he’d already imagined himself to be. On unsteady feet, he let his devastating torment fuel his magic. With arms outstretched in front of him, Luca’s power grew until his skin burned a bright vermillion. The river currents swirled like oceanic whirlpools in the face of his power. When the blasts left his body, they took out every single spirit along the river, even ones lost for centuries, present, but in no way involved with the fight.
As the light from his magic died down, Luca noticed a small powdery orb traveling across the water at amazing speeds. It headed directly for him. Sean growled, but Luca laid a calming hand on the back of his broken friend. The orb felt like home. It felt like Fanchon Marie.
Chapter Fourteen
When Fanchon Marie died, her spirit jumped from its earthly bindings to find a permanent, eternal home. Or at least, it tried. Breznik had other plans. At the moment of her death, he initiated the splitting ritual to separate her soul from her spirit. Without both, Fanchon Marie’s body ceased to exist. Well, it started to fade anyway. Second after second, she became less tactile, more translucent. Her skin, her eyes, her entire essence split between this world and the next.
Breznik perfected the skill of separation, Lord knows the man practiced enough, and Fanchon Marie knew she needed to move quickly if she had any hope of getting her life back. She also knew, however, that he’d been dealing with spirits whose bodies had been dead for ages, in some cases centuries or longer – spirits whose souls were long gone. So while this might have been new and cutting edge stuff for Breznik, this was old school Vodou for her, and she had a plan.
Fanchon Marie didn’t fight death when it came, as so many naturally do. She’d been prepared for this. Instead, she put her full energy in holding on to her soul. It wasn’t easy. Her soul was feisty! That thing swayed and bucked like an errant star or a mechanical bull in a cheap bar. She didn’t care and had no intention of letting go.
“Let me help.” The voice that came to her was familiar but far removed. It was faint and stretched like a call from a cell phone with bad reception.
“Let me help,” the voice said again. “I told you this would come.”
The old woman! Fanchon Marie opened a small section of herself that was quickly exploited, filled with a power not her own.
Ophelia. Her name is, or was, Ophelia. She knew the totality of her. In that one second, she saw an eternity of the woman’s life. The fullness of it. And its death. Fanchon Marie’s heart wrenched at what she saw.
“I am free now, and you must fight. You will live, and I will go.”
A burst of something unknown gave her the power and skill to wrest her soul to her. The hot second she got it under control, she filled her displaced mind with thoughts of Luca and willed her new form to take her to him.
It did.
She filled her mind with a prayer of thanks to Miss Ophelia, but no one answered. The woman was– separated from her, forever. Her last mission on Earth complete, whatever had been left of her simply ceased to exist.
****
Luca slipped on the blood-soaked deck of the boat in an attempt to grab hold of the small ball of energy. It was a tiny thing, no bigger than a marble, but it held his whole world. All the cold and loss he felt dissipated as the marble expanded to baseball then beach ball and finally human size.
“Fanchon Marie!” Luca threw his arms around her but only succeeded in hugging himself. His hands passed right through her spiritual form.
“Well, that’s weird. What’s it feel like? Gross, right? Am I gooey? I’m gooey, yeah?”
Luca didn’t know what to feel. Within the span of a few hours, his brand new wife had been kidnapped, killed, reanimated...sorta and was joking about it? “Are you insane?”
“It’s okay Luca. I’m dead, not dead. There’s a difference. I guess. Look, we can fix this, but we don’t have much time.”
“How? I’m confused, Cara. Happy, but confused.” His little blue sparkling wife rolled her eyes.
“It’s pretty simple really. Probably. Just get my body back from the evil bad guy and the psycho dead woman who can probably see us coming a mile away. That’s it.”
“That’s it, huh?”
“It’s the only way. As long as I’m in this form, I have control of my soul. It means that Breznik can’t have my spirit and can’t control me. I…oh, Callie.”
Back in human form, Sean brought over Callie’s body, cradled tenderly in his arms. “Fanchon Marie?” Luca had forgotten about them both. He watched as Fanchon Marie’s soul burst into a warm purple. “It’s all right, Sean. I can’t feel her here. I don’t think it’s her time yet.”
Hope returned to the naked man’s redden, swollen eyes. “I have to take care of her. She’s all I have. I’m sorry, Fanchon Marie, but I need to get her out of here. I wish I could help but–” “Luca, I’m
sorry,” he said, but he’d already turned away towards the first boat.
Luca nodded his head in understanding at the man’s back. As much as he needed the extra help, he knew that Sean’s priorities were elsewhere. “Go back to house. If you pass the others along the way, tell them the direction we’re heading. Trust only my father and Gregorio completely!” Luca had to shout out the last bit of his sentence. Sean had nearly propelled the boat out of view by then.
He turned back to Fanchon Marie, burning tears welling up in his eyes. Luca ached with not being able to hold her, but he hadn’t planned on this being a permanent situation. “So as long as you have a soul, he can’t control your spirit. This is good, right?”
“It is.”
“But, I heard an unspoken but back there.”
Fanchon Marie sighed...well sighed as much a bodiless, airless soul could do. “There are several buts. First, only a soul OR a spirit can exist after death, not both for very long. Secondly, a spirit can exist indefinitely. It’s not pretty, but we’ve both seen that it’s possible. A soul however, not so much. We’ve basically got to find that body – my body – while it’s still some good. Otherwise I’m toast. Which leads us to problem three.”
“There’s a number three?” As if this wasn’t impossible enough already.
Fanchon Marie threw iridescent, agitated arms in the air. “Do we have a choice?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. Typical. “Third problem, I can’t take on another human form, Luca. It’s either my body or no body at all. As long as the soul survives, it’s in a sort of state of stasis. Helluva way to start a marriage.”
A humorless smile eased its way onto Luca’s face. “We will get through this you know. I shall save the day. That’s what we good looking, hero types do.”
“I know you will, baby.” Fanchon Marie rocked back on her heels...which didn’t seem to touch the floor. “So? You ready?”
Chapter Fifteen
They weren’t ready. Nowhere near close to being ready. As much as Luca would have loved to charge off after Breznik, they couldn’t leave their spot. He had to make contact with Gregorio and the only way to do that, in the absence of cell phone towers, was to meet him at one place along the river he knew Gregorio would have to pass. Assuming, of course, Sean bothered to pass on the message. Not only would it increase the mileage they could cover in search of the body, but even the Rom Baro need to discuss the marimé issue, if he could hope for a positive resolution. Roma, the world over, viewed dead bodies, or nearly dead bodies as being too unclean to touch without preventative cleansing rituals performed by the Rom Baro. Basically, he needed to make sure that if they found Fanchon Marie’s body first, they’d be willing to bring it back instead of destroying it.
They took watch in shifts. Souls didn’t need sleep per se, but they also didn’t need to waste their energy. Similar to spirits, they had a finite cache to pull from. Unlike spirits though, they did not have the ability to siphon off additional sources from humans.
Luca’s back knotted up as he slunk against the side of the boat. His reserves, physical, mental, and magical were at perilous lows. Adrenaline and love provided most of his energy, but if he intended to take Breznik head on, he needed to refuel. Luca rested his head on a deflated life vest fastened to the side of the boat. He moved until he was as close to Fanchon Marie as he could get without touching her.
His desires were torn. He wanted to stay up and stare at her, make sure she didn’t fade away in the night, but he also knew that he was more useful to her if he got some sleep. Reason won out, though he spent most of night tossing and turning. Every time he woke, he turned to face a soothing, pulsating florescent blue smile. Only then could he find peace for another few moments.
“You are beautiful, you know. Even like this.”
“What? Blue?”
“Hmm. Blue. You were purple a few minutes ago – that was pretty hot. Think you could pull of a red?”
Their falsely cheerful banter helped him make it through the night. He suspected it did the same for her. Yeah, it seemed too lighthearted and perhaps sophomoric, but at the end of the world, what else was there? If this was it, he wanted every moment with his woman to be spectacular. They talked about their first meetings together, the wedding the--
“Mio Dio! Fanchon Marie, our baby? Is he—”
“He? Says who? Maybe it’s a she,” she teased. “Although, I do know now. I saw h--I saw our child, and everything’s fine. I left so quickly that our baby went right into stasis.” Fanchon Marie’s colors faded to a dull gray. “I hate that I’m not there, but I can’t risk returning to my body while Breznik’s around. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing. In fact, he has no clue. Souls are new to him and as long as he’s not sure if I’m in there or not, he’s going to keep my body close. I’m his bargaining chip. I’m pretty sure his whole plan hinged on being able control me like those spirits he’s been using against us. Now, he’s working on the fly.”
Discussion over Breznik’s plans ended under an incoming hail of gunfire. “Get down!” she shouted over the noise, but Luca was too busy releasing the safety to respond. He saw anywhere from fifteen to eighteen men— grossly outnumbered. They scrambled up to the captain’s deck. Luca and Fanchon Marie made another unsuccessful attempt at a kiss then went after their respective targets.
“I need to save as much of my reserves for Breznik. Can you hold a gun, Fanchon Marie?”
“Now? Now is the time you turn Mr. Misogynist Pig? Really, Luca, just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I—”
“Can you hold a gun as a sticky, see thru, non-tactile entity, Fanchon Marie? Jesus.”
“Oh.”
Turns out she could. “Listen, shoot if you have to, otherwise, let them get as close as possible.”
“Why?”
Really? “Would you please just do what I say for once!” Luca worked on recreating a base of energy. One by one, he shut down all of his primary senses until he could only feel the metal of their guns approaching. He tried to outline them in his brain, matching relative locations with materials. Each weapon became a sketch in his mind, recreated like a digital copy. Each image was mentally placed together with the others until he had a full on alchemist’s map, a blueprint, of their firearms.
“They’re right here, Luca!”
Perfect. The map in his mind glowed to life as all the guns came into his magical range. In rapid succession, each one turned on its owner, firing one, point blank kill shot. As much as they didn’t deserve it, Luca did a quick patrin for death for each man, ensuring a final peace. No need to give Breznik anymore people to bring back.
After the final rites, he kicked, pushed, and shoved each body overboard. “We just brought us some time, but not much.” Two hours later, his words were proven true. A new batch of fighters arrived, this time composed of the living and undead. Great.
“Fanchon Marie, I’m going to need you to send those spirits back to the Praio Tem.” He double checked his ammunition then threw what he hoped to be a comforting wink. “I will handle the ones who are still breathing – make that condition a temporary one.” He knew which one to start with – Stephan. The little bastard had the nerve to wave from the bow of the ship.
Luca returned the gesture with a volley of gunfire.
“What? You’re surprised?” He heard still hidden Stephan yell, “You had to have seen this coming! Is it a long, drawn out story that I need to explain to you?”
Luca cocked his weapon. “Make it a short one.”
“How did you expect us to react?” Stephan near frothed at the mouth in rage. “Our people demand purity as they have for centuries!”
“Trying to make excuses now? Huh?” Luca sent over another few rounds of bullets. “What’s wrong? Things not exactly working out for you?”
“Oh, I’d say I’m in a little better shape than you...and certainly our little mixed blood Beluni over there. Speaking of, hello, Fanchon Marie. I’ve been kicking you in
the face all night.”
Luca heard her shout “Go to hell!” But she wasted no more time on Stephan and put her full attention the spirits that had arrived with him.
“Well, at least she’s still go spirit. Get it?” Stephan doubled over at his own twisted joke. Luca jumped at the opportunity. After narrowing his eyes in focus, he tried to see into the inner workings of their weapons again. Stephan guessed his moves immediately.
“Sorry to disappoint you, my dear Rom Baro, but I’ve been with you for years. Don’t you think I’d know better than to bring a metal gun with me?” He touched his head with the barrel, as if to indicate his intelligence.
“Yep,” Luca responded. “But he doesn’t.” Luca pointed to the man standing on Stephan’s right in the same instant that he twisted the man’s gun towards Stephan and pulled the trigger. Good riddance, though Luca’s relief didn’t last long. Fanchon Marie called his name. It sounded weaker than he’d ever heard.
“There are too many of them. I need help.” Her once vibrant neon lights bleached out to pale pastels. She was fading fast and without a body nearby, her own body, he could lose her forever. Time for the big guns, metaphorically speaking. Luca directed his concentration now to their boat. Plexiglass, damn! Mostly useless, though he could do something about that motor. He didn’t have time to get it fully outlined. It was a complicated piece of machinery, but he managed enough to know where to attack. It was a huge gamble, but if his plan worked, he could buy him and Fanchon Marie a few hours rest.
Luca sent his last bit of strength into the catalytic converter, causing an explosion that ignited the gas line and sent the boat into hundreds of pieces at the bottom of the swamp.
The last thing that Luca saw was Fanchon Marie’s flickering light. The spirits still attacked. He shot his last bit of energy against them and prayed it’d be enough. He didn’t know for sure, though, the world started to spin seconds later. Weak fingers rubbed the gris-gris around his neck. He should have been long dead, but Fanchon’s magic kept his heart beating.