by Angie Fox
Amie ignored the cool breeze along her back as she ripped the paper, shredding it into two rough hearts. She placed them together and, her voice hoarse, chanted, “I call on Erzulie, loa of the heart; Papa Ghede, loa of passion; my ancestors, women whose blood boiled strong with the love of their men.”
She now saw her ideal man clearly in her mind’s eye. He had a small scar above one arched brow, dark brown hair clipped short and tight, and the most arresting blue eyes. Sharp recognition wound through Amie.
He seemed to be looking right at her.
She drew the crystal against her bare chest, the roughened stone teasing her smooth skin, sending shivers down the length of her body. Her nipples tightened. She could feel the vibrations in the gemstone as she lowered it over the paper hearts.
“Send to me…” She paused. The man I just saw. In her haste, she hadn’t quite decided how to word her request.
She knew the more specific the better, but really, it wasn’t about six-pack abs or a body that sent her pulse skittering.
She wanted someone she could love.
How hard was that?
Amie swallowed. “Send to me,” she said, her voice husky, “the perfect man for me.” She didn’t care if he had that square jaw or that rugged look about him. She needed someone kind, loving, hers.
A man she could give her love magic to without being afraid.
Her stomach tingled at the thought.
Slowly, she wove the black and red threads into a homemade ring. All the while, she filled her mind with thoughts of love in its purest form—passion, giving, acceptance.
“The perfect man for me,” she repeated, tying off the ring and slipping it onto her right ring finger. She was careful to blow out the candle in a single breath before gathering up the hearts.
The room was nearly dark, which meant the sun had almost slipped under the horizon. Good. Because Amie was naked and she still had to bury the torn hearts.
She hesitated at the back door. This was the French Quarter, but still, what would the neighbors think?
Do it fast.
Amie double-checked the key in the pocket of her skirt before throwing the whole thing over her shoulder. She slipped out into the back alley, squinching her nose at the smell of old beer and garbage.
Never mind. The spell was complete. The burial only sealed it.
Luckily she kept a flowerpot filled with consecrated earth for that very purpose. Now if she could only keep Mrs. Fontane down the way from filling it with geraniums. Amie reached past the roots of the plant and buried the torn hearts deep.
“Earth to earth. Dust to dust.”
Now all she had to do was wait.
Chapter Two
Amie took a long, hot shower and changed into a simple white nightgown. She traded her contacts for glasses and eased onto the edge of her wide four-poster bed to comb out her hair. Amie loved her bedroom, with its gauzy white drapes and comfortable furnishings. Everything in here was well-used and loved.
She’d chosen the smallest of the three upstairs rooms as hers because it was the only one that faced the back of the house. She liked to forget she lived smack dab in the middle of Royale Street, in the heart of party central.
The old bordello’s main boudoir had become Amie’s living room—or given the bookshelves that lined every wall, her library. She’d converted the rest of the space into an efficient kitchen and eating area.
Amie smiled to herself as she slipped into bed. Perhaps before long, she’d have to set another place at her bright yellow kitchen table.
She’d just about drifted off to sleep with the latest Charlaine Harris novel when three distinct knocks echoed through the house.
“What the—?” She scrambled upright and managed to bump her glasses off the end of her nose and onto the floor.
The knocks sounded again.
“Isoke?” Amie slipped out of bed, using her toes to locate her glasses on the hardwood. Leave it to the dragon to be dramatic. It’s not like she hadn’t taught him how to disable the alarm.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
“Coming!” She shoved on her glasses and hurried for the back stairs. No telling what mythical monster fists could do to her back door.
Isoke claimed Kongamatos were bad with numbers. Well, if he couldn’t memorize a simple alarm code, she had a good mind to install a perch outside.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
“Hold your tail,” she said, flicking on the lights and punching the alarm code on the back door. “If you can’t remember how to let yourself in the house or to stop leaving muddy Kongamato tracks on my floor or dead mice in my shoes or—”
Amie flung open the door and gasped.
A man stood on the slab of concrete that was her back porch. Not just any man, either. Broad shoulders, tousled dark hair, a strong jaw—the man from her vision.
His lips quirked in a smile and he gave her a heated look that would have melted her into a puddle on the floor, if she’d been susceptible to that sort of thing—which she was not.
He strode straight for her, cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her. The rush of sensation shocked her, poured through her. His mouth was hot and demanding.
So this was what sheer desire felt like.
His touch stirred something deep inside her, an urge she hadn’t even known was there.
She couldn’t talk, could barely think as he wound his fingers through her hair and urged her closer. Her body collided flush with his. Her skin tingled. She’d never felt anyone so strong and hard and good.
He groaned deep, his hands sliding down the exposed skin of her arms, leaving goose bumps in their wake. He smelled earthy and elemental. Real. And she was a powerful, sexy voodoo mambo. Wild pleasure shot through her as she wound her arms around his shoulders.
She wanted to feel him, connect with him. No man had ever affected her in such an intense and immediate way. She’d never let one get close enough.
But now here he was, the man from her vision, and he was just as mind-blowingly perfect as she’d imagined. He slid his hands down to the small of her back, urging her closer, until she could feel him—every rock hard inch of him—against her.
It was the craziest thing she’d ever done. He was a complete stranger and yet he made her want to do things that she hadn’t let herself think about in years.
He nipped at the sweet spot behind her ear, trailed scorching kisses down her neck. She gasped with pleasure. He must have just gotten up in the middle of the night and come straight to her. It was insane.
“What are we doing?” she asked on a moan.
His hands circled her waist as his lips touched her collarbone. “You are going to be the love of my life,” he said, his voice husky, his Spanish accent pronounced as he turned his impossibly blue eyes up to her.
How could he even presume to know that? Amie traced her fingers over the faint scar above his right eye, exactly where she’d envisioned it. Unbelievable.
His eyes darkened as he stood and pulled her close. Her heart sped up. It all felt so right.
“My one true love,” he murmured, drawing her in for a slow, sensual kiss.
Mmm…he could say what he wanted. She wouldn’t argue. Not now, at least. For once, she could pretend to be in love. She ground against him. Or perhaps in serious lust.
He was merciless. She melted a little with every hot, hungry kiss until she was positively aching for him. She wound her fingers through his short dark hair. She gripped his muscled shoulders. She slid her hands down his back, past the sweat-slicked skin at his waist, to where his pants should have been.
If he’d been wearing pants. Amie gasped as her hands closed around his bare butt.
By Kalfu’s gate! This Adonis of a man was as naked as the day he was born.
Amie broke the kiss, her eyes darting over his wide shoulders, down his well-built chest, past the narrow stretch of hair that began just below his belly button, to where she should not have been looking at all.
&nb
sp; Heat shot through her. “I’m sorry,” Amie said. Great juju, the door was still open. She slammed it behind him, averting her eyes as he strolled past her into the storage room. The space suddenly seemed quite a bit smaller.
He didn’t seem to be bothered at all by his complete lack of clothing. As she watched his firm backside, Amie had to admit her mystery man had a lot to be proud of.
Amie shoved her hair out of her eyes and adjusted her glasses. He was going to turn around again. She had to get it together.
She scanned his handsome face, strong chest, flat abs—oh my! She wasn’t going there again.
“Forgive me,” he said, noticing where her eyes had gone. The man was impossibly tall. “I’ve never appeared naked at a woman’s door.” He ran a hand down his chest. “Or naked anywhere, for that matter.”
Amie tried to avert her eyes, but it didn’t work. She hadn’t seen anything like that in a long time. Ever, in fact.
She felt the color rise to her face. “How about we find you something to wear?” she said, reaching for the first thing she could get her hands around—a silk wall hanging of le grand zombie, a very powerful snake spirit.
He wrapped the green and gold cloth around his waist like a towel. Amie wished she could close her eyes. If anything, the fabric accented his hard, stiff…
“Much better,” he said, double-checking the knot.
If he only knew.
She’d asked for moonlight walks through the French Quarter, not this.
“Why on earth were you—”
“Naked?” he asked. “Not the best circumstances, I admit.” He drew her into his arms. Her heart fluttered as she leaned against the full length of him and let him brush his lips over hers. “Still, when you think about it logically, you cannot expect clothes to survive almost two hundred years.”
Amie’s gut dropped.
He frowned as she escaped his embrace. “Are you all right?”
She took two steps back, thought about it, and took two more. “By Ghede.” She wiped at the cold sweat on her brow. Her mouth felt dry. Amie took a deep breath and asked the question she really, really didn’t want the answer to. “Where did you come from?”
“You called me,” he said, as if that explained everything.
Dread slicked down her back. She’d asked for her perfect man. She didn’t call anyone from anywhere. In fact, she was hoping she’d meet a cute guy in church or maybe over a beignet at Café Du Monde.
“I’ll ask you one more time,” she said, as calmly as she could manage. “Where did you come from?”
He took a step toward her. “St. Louis Cemetery Number One.”
She froze on the spot. “Oh no.” She blinked hard. “You’re,” she forced herself to say it, “dead.”
He stood inches away from her, dark, brooding, and sexy as hell. “Not anymore.”
Her heart sped up. By Papa Legba, what had she done?
This was unnatural. This was wrong. She’d misused her magic in the worst possible way. How could she be so irresponsible?
“Thank you,” he said, touching her cheek. “You do not know how long I have waited for a second chance.”
Amie knew she was gawking, but she couldn’t help it.
She’d spent her life promising herself she’d never repeat her mother’s mistakes. She’d never date men who gambled her money away, who lied, who cheated. No. Her man would be different.
And he was.
He was a zombie.
Chapter Three
He brushed her hair out of her eyes. “It’s okay, Amie. It’s not every day you meet your ideal lover. This is overwhelming for me too.” He leaned down to kiss her.
“Stop it,” she croaked. He wasn’t her better half. He was a mistake. And how did he know her name? Of course, she’d called him. She’d asked for him. She’d practically given him her cosmic Social Security number. Think. I need to think.
He stepped back, giving her space. “I could use a bath.” He brushed at his muscled arms. “Grave dust.” He caught her gaze and held it. “Or once you calm down, perhaps we can take one together.”
“Oh no,” Amie stammered, “out of the question.” She wasn’t letting this man take one more step into her shop or her house, much less into her bathtub.
She already felt like he’d undressed her with his eyes.
“Do not worry. I will marry you first, if that is what you desire.”
Amie crossed her arms over her chest. He had to be kidding. This man wasn’t going to walk her down the aisle. He was going back to his grave.
Then she was going to take a long, cold shower and never date again.
While she was mentally reprogramming her life, he slipped past her into the shop.
“Stop,” she ordered as he clanged into the bowl she’d set down to catch Isoke’s drool.
Amie flipped on the lights to find her Spanish zombie inspecting her colorful display of gris-gris bags.
“Hands off,” Amie said.
“Of course.” He nodded, looking at her as if she was the one in the towel.
Amie wrinkled her nose at the smell of singed…floor. The Kongamato drool!
With one eye on the zombie, she rushed to the counter for a rag. She could feel his eyes on her.
“Can you wait in the storage room?” she asked, her rag smoking as she sopped up the mess he’d made.
“There’s no need. I’m much more comfortable in here,” he said, touching off a set of wind chimes. “I find your store utterly fascinating. Very well done, mi corazon. Beautiful and colorful, just like you.” His fingers closed around a glass bottle with a bejeweled skeleton label. “Florida water,” he said, turning the bottle sideways and watching the shaved orange rinds—her family’s special ingredient—float through the liquid.
“Give me that.” She dropped the rag and shoved the bottle under her arm. “And I’m not your love,” she said, retrieving the rag with two fingers and depositing it in the trash. Why had she ever thought she needed a man in her life? “This is a big mistake.”
Huge.
Her grandmother had told stories of voodoo mambos calling zombies, mostly to work in the fields at harvest. One particularly powerful voodoo queen asked for a bodyguard and gained a mobster with a price on his head. Little Mickey was killed (again) as soon as he set foot in New Orleans. It was considered gutsy to call a zombie. Rarer if one came, and even though zombies looked—and acted—like their human selves, to her knowledge no one had ever tried to date one.
Zombies lingered until they’d completed their task, and then they returned to their graves.
Well, she didn’t want this love zombie to do anything for her—or to her. She had to put him back and end this mess.
What she needed was a zombie neutralizing spell.
She’d have to look it up, but right off the bat, she knew she needed Florida water. She glanced at the bottle under her arm. Check. She’d need a pair of black candles…
Amie took two candles from the display next to the counter. While he browsed the books for sale, she grabbed a hemp bag off the hook behind the counter, tossing the ingredients inside.
She’d need grave dust. She looked her zombie up and down, from his strong jaw to his wide toes. “I think we have that covered.”
“Ah, The Complete Illustrated Kama Sutra.” The blue of his eyes deepened as he gave her a smoky look.
Desire tangled in her stomach. She ignored it because, well, it was just plain ridiculous. The kiss was amazing, before she knew what he was, but she certainly hadn’t asked for this. Amie stomped up to him with her hand out. “Give it back.”
He grinned. “The spine is creased.” He flipped through the pages. “Right here. Do you look at this book sometimes?”
The next time Isoke had any great ideas about finding her a man, she’d tie his beak shut with a fire hose.
He examined the Moon position. “Now that looks interesting,” he said, his fingers splayed wide over a couple having a lot more fun
that Amie ever had. She felt the heat rise to her cheeks.
“Stop it. We’re not doing the Kama Sutra. We’re not going to fall in love. I don’t even know you.”
“You will be my true love,” he said, as if he was informing her of the weather or how the Hornets had played the night before. “I can prove it.”
“How?” Amie asked, not sure she wanted to know.
He closed the book and placed it back on the shelf, seeming to forget about the Moon, the Lotus, and the rest of the positions she couldn’t quite get out of her head. “Come. You will go with me back to my grave.” He took her hands in his and kissed her on the top of the head.
Amie yanked her hands back and wiped them on her nightgown, ignoring his frown. His touch would have felt good, if she hadn’t known what he was.
“You know what?” Amie said, as she let a plan of her own take shape. “That’s a good idea. Let’s go see where you were buried.” She really didn’t want to put him back to earth right here in the storage room. There was the matter of the body. She couldn’t just carry it down Canal Street and back to the cemetery. But if she could follow him back to his grave, it would be like zombie express delivery.
His face lit up. “Fantastic. No one has visited my grave since the Roosevelt administration.”
“But you have to wait right here while I get ready, okay?”
“Absolutely, my dear.” He resumed his assault on her bookcase, one hand at his waist holding his silk wrapper closed.
She paused on the bottom step. “I’ll also find you something to wear.”
Amie almost asked him what he wanted to show her at his grave, but stopped herself. She didn’t want to be any more involved in his undead life than she had to be. Besides, she’d put him down as soon as they arrived. “Be back soon,” she said, taking the steep stairs as fast as she could manage.
“During that time, do you mind if I remove a few geraniums from the pot outside? We’ll be passing my grandmother’s vault on the way in.”
“Knock yourself out,” Amie called. She’d prefer her zombie outside anyway.
Amie dashed into the library and found her spell book. She flopped it on the kitchen table. “Zombie…zombie care, zombie feeding, zombie summoning…