The Hoodoo Detective

by Kirsten Weiss

  On the freeway, a truck rumbled past. She gripped the flashlight, her palms slick on the cool metal.

  The dog growled. Even in the dark, she could see the ridge of fur on his back rise.

  Stretching before her, rows of crypts stood sentry, lining the narrow road. She stepped into the graveyard.

  A lurch, a crack. A shadow descended, plunging her into pitch, and magic rose, surrounded her, a seething stew.

  She found the energetic cords that grounded her, red ties extending from her solar plexus into the earth. The world tilted, rushed back.

  Greenish lights flared low in front of the crypts, lanterns forming a parade route for Riga and the dog. The vaults glimmered subtly, as if their stone had turned to living skin.

  In still air, the tree branches shifted, leaves sliding and clicking over one another, a plastic sound. But the freeway noise had vanished. Had she changed or had the world metamorphosed?

  Oz growled.

  She laid a hand on the dog's muscular shoulders. “We're not in Kansas anymore.”

  Donovan had to be told about the cloak. She turned and hit something solid, banging her nose. Cursing, she massaged it, running her free hand over an invisible wall. She shifted her weight, and something in her jacket pocket clanked against the bits of broken mirror. Carefully, she felt in her pocket and drew out the skeleton key.

  Her eyes widened. She'd left the key beside her bed in the hotel.

  “Maybe...” She pushed the key into the magical barrier. There was a moment of give, and the key rebounded, flying from her hands into the earth beneath the base of a tree.

  “I had to try,” she said.

  Stooping, she pocketed the key.

  She'd stepped through a barrier. Did it cloak the entire cemetery? Or had it shifted her into some parallel world? Either would take magic on an extraordinary scale. Not even the Old Man working with one or two others could do it. It would take a team, or someone incredibly powerful.

  Her stomach dropped. Could the Old Man be that strong?

  The leaves clacked and rattled.

  That settled that then. She wasn't getting out, and Donovan wasn't getting in. Pen was waiting, and Riga was on her own.

  The dog sniffed the ground. Not completely alone, she silently amended.

  She eyed the lanterns lining the road, curving into the distance. Well. Her enemies may have set this trail for her, but she'd be damned if she was going to take it.

  A grassy path led off to one side and she walked it, the lawn cool and springy beneath her feet.

  The air compressed. Darkness shifted in the corner of her eye.

  She ducked, too late. Something struck her shoulder, and she went sprawling.

  The dog barked. Whimpered.

  Hands extended like claws, she rolled to her feet, stumbled over a tree root.

  A masculine figure towered over her. Other figures surrounded Oz, the dog's head low, growling.

  The man stepped closer, his face pale, hard, chiseled. Marek. He wore a tuxedo, and for some reason it struck Riga as funny.

  “Bad timing, garçon. You need to leave.”

  He took another step toward her, and she shuffled back. His movements were stiff, jerky.

  “Get back on the path,” he said.

  “I told you to get out of here.”

  “Back.” His mouth worked, but no words escaped. His eyes burned with horror and fury.

  Ice pierced her core. Someone was controlling the vampire.

  The dog barked.

  She calculated the odds. There were at least half a dozen vampires riding herd. If whoever had constructed the cloak around the cemetery was controlling them too – she had no chance of taking that control. No chance at all.

  Riga edged backwards, onto the paved road. “I'm on the road. I'm headed down it.”

  The vampires melted into the darkness.

  Oz limped to her.

  They walked down the road, illuminated by the odd, green lantern lights.

  Wings spread, stone angels gazed down at them from atop the mausoleums. One shifted and Riga looked at it more closely. Her jaw clenched, and a wave of dizziness rode through her. The angel had no wings. Another vampire.

  Oz growled.

  Her heart banged in her chest. Their plan, such as it was, was disintegrating. But she'd expected it would, had known she'd have to improvise. She kept walking beneath the curving arches of the trees, leaves clicking like the pincers of a million insects.

  The heat of the watchers' eyes burned holes between her shoulder blades.

  She kept walking.

  Chapter 32

  The greenish light gave the nighttime scene an otherworldly glow. Lanterns illuminated crypts fashioned into miniature churches, the soft curves of Greek temples, feminine statues in gestures of mourning. The silence from the nearby freeway was uncanny, the rustling of the trees threatening. At Riga’s feet the road glimmered, a silvery trail.

  She flinched as she passed each angelic silhouette, expecting the statue to come to life, attack. Every shadow was a possible hiding place for her enemies.

  Stumbling over a spot where the pavement buckled, pierced by shoots of grass, she cursed.

  Oz halted, panting beside her.

  The road she trod was a spoke in a wheel, and it ended here, at a circle. A grassy mound rose in its center, and the outer ring of the road was lined with monuments. She remembered the spot on the map she'd studied. Millionaire's Row. On her left rose a pyramid-shaped monument guarded by a stone sphinx.

  A row of lanterns led up the steps to the top of the mound, ringed with lanterns. Her end point.

  “Pen?” Riga shouted at the foot of the stairs. “I'm here!”

  The rustling of the leaves softened, died.

  “Have it your way, then.” She walked up the steps, the soft tread of her footsteps loud in the unnatural silence.

  At the top, a female figure lay slumped over a bench, one arm dangling loosely over the side. Riga leapt up the remaining steps.

  “Pen.” Palms damp, she grabbed her niece by the shoulder and pulled her back. Pen's head flopped, eyes closed, lips parted, hair a tangled mop.

  Riga knelt beside her and pulled her into her arms. Felt the rise and fall of her breath. She was alive. Riga hung her head.

  Oz growled.

  The air compressed, thickened, grew foul with the stench of blood and rotting garbage. A veil fell over the scene, darkening it.

  She didn't have to call the energies, they were there, waiting, and her desire to flee, to keep Pen safe, to find shelter swelled in her chest.

  The doors slid open, and they slipped in between. The cemetery glow faded, replaced by a charcoal graveyard sketch. The sands shifted, blurred. From a great distance, she heard the dog howl. The world spun sickeningly, and she clutched Pen against her, the key digging into her hip. With her free hand, she reached into her pocket, closed her fist around it, heedless of the shards of glass slicing her palm.

  The edges of the world leapt into focus.

  With a wrench that rattled her teeth, she and Pen materialized inside a crypt. A grid of names and dates covered two walls. Though the night was moonless, the stained glass window at her back painted colors on the cool marble floor.

  Their trip in between hadn't freed them from that otherworld of the necromancer. She gazed through the mausoleum's locked gate. A figure paced on the mound.

  Gently, she laid Pen on the dusty floor. They'd be safe here, hidden until help arrived.

  Light flashed on the mound. Oz yelped, a pained cry. His agonized yips froze her.

  Trembling with fury, Riga lurched to her feet. She didn't want to hide anymore.

  The key dug into her clenched palm. The doors slid past, reality shifting beneath her. A lurch, a pull. A shiver of gray, and she was on the mound.

  Jenny spun, her black robe flaring about her ankles, obscuring the fallen animal at her feet. “How good of you to return. I do need my sacrifice.”

&n
bsp; “Or the Old Man takes your life. That's the deal, isn't it? Why? Why would you all agree to something so stupid?”

  “Life is so dull. We wanted a diversion.”

  “Did you? Or were you helping him bump off your colleagues, moving up higher in the ranks?”

  “I didn’t betray the others. The murders were all his, until now. I am sorry about my colleagues. Sorry they only played at being magicians.”

  “Unlike you. Though I think you've had some help with this.”

  “Just with the forum.” She gestured at the green-glowing cemetery. “The kill is all mine. First you, and then I'll find that niece of yours. She doesn't have much power, but waste not, want not.”

  Riga's lips peeled back in a snarl. “You bit—”

  Something dark snaked from Jenny's fingers.

  Riga leapt to the side, curling into a forward roll. Cold swept past. She sensed Jenny behind her and spun backwards, struck, knowing in her bones the woman would go down.

  Jenny's outlines dissolved and the side of Riga’s fist went through the necromancer. Momentum carried her onward, and Riga staggered into a line of bushes.

  Green mist moved across the ground, reforming on the other side of the hillock, in front of the thin line of bushes that topped the knoll like a tonsure.

  Riga gaped. Jenny was no vampire, but she'd turned to mist as if undead.

  The dog lurched to his feet and howled, dashing cold water on Riga's jumbled thoughts.

  Riga lunged, gripping her around the throat. Jenny grasped her wrists. Cold leapt from her touch, pain followed by deadening.

  Riga's fingers cramped, loosened. “No you don't.” She called the electrical spell, and energy arced through her.

  Jenny shook, twitching, eyes rolling as if jolted by a stun gun.

  Riga's vision blurred red and she tightened her grip.

  Jenny's eyes bulged.

  The woman had taken Pen, threatened to kill her. Her bluing face and useless thrashing made Riga’s heart warm with fierce pleasure.

  The dog whimpered.

  Riga let go, panting.

  Jenny cascaded to the pavement, no longer shining with that inner light. Her breath was odd, raspy, but Riga hadn’t killed her. Shaky, Riga wiped her hand on the front of her jacket, her own breaths shuddering.

  A car horn blared, and Riga looked up. Lights appeared in the houses opposite the cemetery. The green lanterns had vanished.

  Her legs wobbled. She turned, and Hannah and the Old Man stood grinning before her. Hannah extended a palm, chin height in offering. She puffed out her cheeks and blew.

  Dust flew into Riga's face.

  Riga flinched, blinded, spitting the dust that clung to her lips. Her head and stomach roiled in opposite directions. Her energetic tethers to the above and below severed. She was unmoored, mind, intent and soul fragmenting. She fell to the ground.

  Sensing a movement near her head, she rolled, felt a whoosh of air past her cheek. Something cracked in her pocket, stabbing her hip. Pebbles pressed into her side.

  Rough hands grasped her, hauled her upright, pushed. She crashed into a bush, its branches tearing her skin. Cruel laughter pricked her.

  She reached into her pocket, felt the sharp slices of the broken mirror, and pulled out the shards. “Repulsus!”

  The energies flowed back, the broken bits of Riga flying to her, sealing themselves back into place. A flash of light, and the fractured mirror in her hand repaired itself.

  Energy rolled outward, and there was no difference between that energy and Riga. She was that power, extending, growing. Filling with the everything, she was unstoppable. Her enemies would know what it meant now to challenge her, to threaten those she loved.

  The dog barked.

  Riga shook her head, blinking. Hannah lay on the ground, pale, her chest rising and falling. And Riga was just Riga again.

  The Old Man looked from Hannah to her, back to Hannah again. His brow wrinkled. “Out of professional curiosity, how did you manage that? You're no match for the combined powers of myself and, well, anyone really.”

  “A modified mirror spell. It reflects the spellcaster's black magic back at him or her.”

  “I know that.” He made a swatting motion with his hand. “But you don't have the power.”

  “A little help from my friends.” Her aunts had worked with her to infuse the mirror. “So I was right.” Riga stepped sideways, feeling for her center. “You never were disabled.”

  “I was, but I found a cure.” His lips curled, his hands balling into fists. He edged away, keeping his distance. “I doubt the FDA would approve it.”

  “The murders? The sacrifices? The demon you called? All to cure your disease?”

  He tsked. “And so much more.”

  “And Hannah? Was she your assistant all along?”

  “It was a fortuitous event, when one of the occultists hired her husband to kill you. Hannah thought it might be a good opportunity to rid herself of the lout.”

  “Hannah killed the hit man. I thought so. It’s almost always the spouse.”

  “You’re rather cynical for a newlywed.”

  “So you took advantage of the murder to introduce yourself to her?”

  “Just so. When I felt her leaving the restaurant, I knew we needed to meet. I followed her and watched. She's a remarkably efficient butcher. When she finished, I let her know we needed to talk and then returned to the restaurant.”

  “Why did you need her at all?”

  “Because of the Parkinson's. I was disabled. I couldn't have managed the first kills on my own. Too physical. But after the third murder, I started getting my strength back. Our hoodoo friend isn't necessary anymore.”

  “And that's why you left that matchbook pointing to her,” she stalled. Barrier down, Donovan would find her. Together they could deal with the Old Man. “It's over. You're under citizen's arrest for kidnapping and the murder of those occultists. And attempted murder.”

  He laughed, a low chuckle. “Citizen's arrest? Really? I still have a few tricks up my sleeve, but I think you're out.” He lowered his head. “Get her.”

  A wind buffeted her, and Marek appeared, grasping her wrists. She kicked him, but his leg felt like cement, his grasp iron.

  “Take her to the pyramid,” the Old Man said.

  Hands lifted her, struggling, down the steps to the white pyramid.

  Fear crowded her mind. The Old Man was controlling the vampires, but she was a necromancer of sorts, too. “Let me go,” she commanded.

  The vampires marched on, Riga raised above them.

  “I command you to release me.” She pulled the words from her center, and they rang across the cemetery.

  The vampires grasped her more tightly, and she grunted with pain. Oz hadn't been barking. What had happened to him? And where was Donovan? Had he encountered the vampires? No, if Donovan had been harmed, the Old Man would have used that to wound her. He was fine, and Pen was safe and hidden.

  “Riga? Aunt Riga!” Pen screamed, rattling the gate of her prison, the crypt. “Let her go!”

  Riga swore.

  “I was wondering where she went to,” the Old Man said.

  Riga twisted in her captors’ arms.

  He walked a little behind and beneath her. “You and you. Get the girl.”

  Two vampires separated from the pack and drifted toward Pen's crypt.

  “Stop.” Donovan's voice rang out.

  The vampires froze.

  “Put my wife down.” Nostrils flaring, Donovan strode toward the Old Man.

  Gently, they tilted Riga, lowered her feet to the ground.

  She leapt away from them.

  They edged away from Donovan. One of the women whimpered.

  “You...” The Old Man sputtered. “What...? You have no power. Pay no attention to him. Kill him.”

  The vampires swayed, as if uncertain.

  “Did you hear me?” The Old Man shrieked. “Tear him to pieces.”

&
nbsp; A female vampire in a gold evening gown lurched forward, her hair a dark cascade. She lunged, her hand thrusting deep inside Donovan's chest.

  Riga screamed. “No!”

  A look of puzzlement crossed Donovan's face.

  The vampire jerked her hand back. Animal howls grew low in her throat, short, surprised cries. There was the smell of rotting flesh, dissolution.

  The vampires murmured, retreated.

  Donovan blinked, his brows swooping together.

  Clutching her arm, the vampire spasmed, fell to her knees. Her screams came longer now. She thrashed on the ground. Her hand crumpled in on itself, turned gray and then black.

  Donovan strode to Riga. “What the hell is happening? Are you all right?”

  Riga stared at him. “They can’t touch you.”

  A final shriek and the vampire collapsed forward. Her hair turned gray, then white. Her form caved inward, turned to dust.

  “That does it.” The Old Man reached behind his back and pulled out a gun. Aimed.

  The dog leapt, biting his arm. A shot cracked the air.

  Donovan jerked, spun against the stone sphinx.

  The gun clattered to the ground, and the dog placed a massive paw on it. Head lowered, his lips peeled back exposing gleaming canines.

  Riga rushed to Donovan. Pressure on the wound. Had to put pressure on the wound. Where was it? She ran her hands over his body. Where was it?

  “Ow.” Donovan levered himself upright.

  Fear rocketed through her brain. “Where are you hurt?” Her voice was high and thin.

  Growls and shouts echoed behind her.

  Pen rattled the gate. “What's happening? Aunt Riga!”

  “Forget my shoulder,” he said. “I'm fine. Where's the gun?”

  She whipped her head around. The vampires stood apart from them, watching. The dog menaced the Old Man, frozen on the ground.

  “Take care of the Old Man,” she snarled.

  Smiling coldly, Marek nodded.

  She turned to Donovan and ripped back his jacket.

  “Riga, I'm okay,” he said.

  In the dark she couldn't see a stain on his black shirt. She ran her hand lightly over his chest, shoulder. No tears in the fabric, no dampness. “I don't understand. Something hit you.”