“We’ll go.” Rashad stepped back from Odinga then took Savannah’s hand. She felt the surge of anger from his mother’s curse.
“We’ll go to your services together,” Rashad said.
Papa Marcel’s eyes grew wide with alarm. He reached for Rashad, but stopped short when he felt the air around him throb with a cold power. He turned his attention to Odinga. “They have agreed, frè. Shake on it and seal your deal.”
Odinga struggled to his feet, groaning. He held his wound with one hand and pushed against his heavy chair with the other. He dug his index finger into the wound then twisted it, around and around. When he pulled his finger from his flesh, the crimson tap root covered his hand like a moist bandage. He extended it. “Shake on it?”
Savannah pulled her hand free of Rashad’s grasp then reached past him to clasp Odinga’s bloody hand. “No tricks.”
Odinga shook Savannah’s hand, grinning as blood dripped onto the floor between them. “Me? Never.”
Rashad placed his hand on top of Savannah’s. Papa Marcel threw his own old, gnarled fingers into the mix.
“Let’s get on with this, non?”
Savannah felt it again – a faint glimmer of hope. She did her best to hang onto it. Maybe this motley crew of fools can pull this off. Maybe.
The earth creaked. Savannah heard the faint slither of roots worming through the dirt all around them.
Maybe not.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Lashey remembered being in the Mayor’s house. She remembered the spirits being torn from inside her and locked away into crystalline cubes. The mayor had saved her life, Lashey knew, but whatever he had done had not quite fixed her up. She felt hollow and fragile, like the spirits had stretched her skin and now it was too loose to fit right on her bones. Whenever she moved, it felt like her arms and legs were wobbly and weak. The feeling scared her, so Lashey just stayed put.
She did not know where she was or how she had gotten there. She remembered something had gone wrong, but she could not pin it down. Her memory was shot full of foggy holes that swallowed up her thoughts.
Lashey hoped someone would come and get her out of this mess. She knew her mama was looking for her, searching high and low for a way to help her little girl. Her daddy, too, though something at the back of Lashey’s thoughts warned her that her daddy had changed, somehow. That maybe her daddy was dangerous now.
Thoughts of Rashad, no matter how strange and shadowy he now was, raised Lashey’s moods. Her daddy was strong, in ways that no one really understood, not even Lashey. She could almost hear his voice, faint but beckoning.
There were no words at first, just a drifting tone that teased Lashey’s ears. Before long, though, the wordless crooning formed itself into syllables. Nonsense at first, like her daddy was a baby again, babbling out whatever tickled his fancy.
Then, “Lashey.”
She strained to hear more, but there were no more words. “Daddy?”
Lashey reached out into the darkness, straining her senses, searching for her father’s familiar presence. She felt something – a faint graze across her mental fingertips. It was warm; wet. Lashey recoiled from its touch. This was not her daddy.
Fleshy bracelets fell around her wrists then held as tightly as clamps. “Ah, here you are.”
The words were mushy and slurred, strange and threatening.
“Who are you?” Lashey asked.
Her wrists were released. She crumpled to the floor. Flickers of light lit the darkness, spreading through the inky air to reveal a dimly-lit room with walls of stone and a floor of polished wood.
A hunched shadow lurked at the edges of the light, glittering eyes fixed on Lashey. “You gave us a little bit of a scare. Feeling better?”
Lashey squinted at the shadows. There was a woman’s silhouette, black against a pale, guttering candle’s light. “Yes, ma’am. A little. I guess.”
The shadow moved closer. Lashey smelled sweat, perfume and the rich, coppery scent of fresh blood. She wrinkled her nose.
The shadow moved closer still. “You and I are much alike.”
Lashey nodded, but did not mean it. She was not like anyone else. Not even anyone in her own family, and they were as close to her as anyone could get.
“You don’t believe me?” The figure stepped away from the candle, giving Lashey a glimpse of a face that was too long and hands that seemed too big and too small at the same time.
Lashey scrambled back across the cold stone floor. “Mama says ain’t no one else like me in all the world.”
The woman flickered and vanished. Something pinched the back of Lashey’s neck so hard she saw stars for a moment. “You’re special, then? A precious little gift from the heavens, sent to Earth to light our way?”
Lashey was lifted off her feet by the back of her neck, dangling from the woman’s grasp like a kitten in its mother’s mouth.
“Please,” Lashey cried. “I didn’t mean to say somethin’ bad.”
The woman shook Lashey so hard the girl’s knees knocked together.
“We’ve heard it all before. You all think you’re so special. Unique little sparks of light, here to warm the rest of us with your precious flame. But you’re just tools. Keys to doors you can’t even imagine.”
Lashey’s thoughts raced. If she had her hoodie, maybe she could call up one of her spirit friends; someone who knew how to fight; who was strong and would help her escape. But she had no hoodie.
Something long, hot and wet lapped against the side of Lashey’s face, dragging a thick line of moisture along her cheek. When the voice came again, the speaker was so close that her words fell on Lashey’s skin like the heat of a furnace, drying the sticky moisture into a stiff scab. “I can hear them out there… clamoring and screaming to get back into you.”
Lashey’s breath came in harsh, jagged pants. She did not know what would happen if all those tainted spirits came back, but she figured it would be very bad for her. She might lose her mind, or something in her head might die. “Please, ma’am,” Lashey whined. “No!”
The hand clamped to the back of Lashey’s neck hoisted her even farther off the ground. She was hauled out of the stone room into a larger, circular chamber where the walls were rough and natural, like the old cavern where Lashey’s daddy gathered the blind crickets for his charms. This room stank, like cat pee and rot – a stench with a physical presence that threatened to choke the air from Lashey’s lungs. She gasped. The woman holding her laughed.
The walls glowed – a ghostly, yellow light that rose from the bloated crowns of scores of mushrooms. By the light, Lashey could see a low stone table against the far wall. It seemed to have been fashioned from the wall itself and was twice as wide and three times as long as Lashey was tall. Before she could take in any more, Lashey was slammed down onto the table. Her lips split, and her nose bled. Rough hands spun her over onto her back.
The woman holding her was beautiful and terrible. Her slender, muscular body was wrapped in layers of plain white cotton that hung loose around her body. The upper half of her face was a mask of perfection, hazel eyes and a wide nose with slightly flared nostrils. Her upper lip was full and wide, curled up into a smile that revealed a neat row of white, even teeth, strikingly bright against her midnight-black skin.
But below that, the woman’s face was gone. She had no lower jaw, and the skin of her throat and chest was peeled away to reveal a deep, red V that ran down between her breasts. Her tongue whipped back and forth, flinging droplets of bloody spit every which way.
Lashey wanted to scream, but her throat seized and her terror squeezed out in a thin, high-pitched hiss.
The woman grabbed Lashey’s chin in her strange hands, the index fingers three times as thick and twice as long as they should be, thumbs carrying an extra joint. Her voice came from deep within her chest – a spectral echo that rang in Lashey’s head as much as in her ears. “Don’t you worry, little girl. We went to great pains to prepare you for yo
ur part. You will remain hollow, empty, waiting to be filled.”
She spat a word at Lashey, something foul and malignant, and Lashey could no longer move. She could only lie still and whimper, while her mind was submerged beneath a wave of madness.
From the corner of her eye, Lashey could see the conjured girl lift a little blue cooler then set it on the table between Lashey’s legs. She flipped the lid open then rooted around inside it. The conjured girl pulled something dark and sleek from the cooler then held it up in the purple light.
It reminded Lashey of the fancy game pieces she had seen Carter use one time when he played that game with her daddy – something with African wizards and dragons – Ki Khanga, she thought it was called. But those were made of pewter, and this looked to be carved from a piece of the night itself.
The conjured girl traced the little chunk of darkness along the top of Lashey’s thighs, drawing a straight line from her hip bones to her knees; first the left, then the right. “You’re perfect.”
She stopped moving her hand. Lashey felt something sharp press through her dress and into the flesh just inside her hip.
The pain was sudden and brilliant. It turned Lashey’s world white with agony, burrowing into her flesh, spiraling down through her hip and rooting up through her belly. Searching, seeking. The dark power was heedless in its flight through her body. A pinky broke in three places. One of her ribs cracked.
The pain was raw – an insatiable hunger that raced through her. Then, with a screech that made her teeth grind, it was gone.
Lashey panted on the stone table, eyes bleary with bloody tears. All her muscles were tight and loose at the same time, and her bones felt bruised straight through. “Please, don’t hurt me no mo’, ma’am.”
The woman patted Lashey on the forehead then smoothed the hair back from Lashey’s brow. “There, there… that wasn’t so bad. And look what we did.”
The conjured girl lifted Lashey’s head so she could see down the length of her body. A black light throbbed from the carved spike stuck into the flesh of her hip. Blood sizzled around the wound. Lashey felt faint.
“We’ll be done soon.” The woman dug into the cooler, retrieving another sliver of darkness. “Just twelve more to go.”
Lashey sobbed as the torture began in earnest.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Odinga’s cream-colored Bentley sped along the road, spewing a storm of rocks and a cloud of dust. A chunk of the stone smacked into Savannah’s windshield, leaving behind a stark-white splatter as it ricocheted toward the side of the road.
Papa Marcel flinched at the sharp crack of the rock against the glass in front of his face. “That gra bata is gonna get me killed.”
Savannah shook her head. “If he’s after anyone’s head, it’s mine.”
Squinting at Savannah, Papa Marcel waggled a bony finger. “Me’n Odinga go back befo’ yo’ manman came ‘round. We ain’ never seen eye-to-eye about noten’. If he could get his nasty ol’ tree to throw a wòch at my tèt, he’d do it in a heartbeat.”
Odinga’s driver slowed then swung the Bentley onto a dirt road.
Savannah checked her rearview to make sure Rashad saw her turn. Her husband was tight on her tail. She had put him in back, not just because Odinga was leading them, but because she wanted to keep him from tearing a blue streak across the winding roads. Nobody could drive like Rashad. She could see the irritation in his face. She grinned at him through her rear window.
Papa Marcel frowned at Savannah. “You keep tauntin’ dat boy, he gon’ make you into a toad. Or a catfish. Den I’m gon’ have to eat you up… wit’ hot-sauce.”
The humor was lost on Savannah. Seeing Rashad this way – knowing what he had done and how it had changed him – she did not see much that was funny about his use of dark magic. Savannah shoved the thought aside then put her mind to the unpleasant task of keeping the promise she had made to Odinga. “He knows my baby girl’s out there somewhere, right?”
Papa Marcel glared at the Bentley. “Oh, dat ol’ bata know. He just don’ care.”
They had been on the road almost an hour, winding their way into the poorest part of the SWATS. This was Odinga’s territory, where the desperate and ignorant lived in self-imposed exile from the rest of the SWATS’ people. Here, the answer to a needy man’s midnight pleas was as close as a prayer, or an armed robbery and Odinga and his old nature god had all the answers. Savannah almost never came down here. No one did. “Why’d you let me agree to this stupid shit?”
Papa Marcel laughed, then coughed. “I hate the mean ol’ enbesil, but we need him. Think he knows he needs us, too. This ain’ somethin’ fo’ one man to be messin’ ‘round wit’.”
The Bentley made another hard turn. Savannah followed the car into a trailer park. The dirt road branched off, vanishing into a maze of rusting trailers perched on cinder blocks. A handful of mangy dogs glared at the Bentley for disturbing their naps.
“Damn! What self-respectin’ man could live like dis?” Papa Marcel let himself out of the SUV. He spat a yellow glob of tobacco juice onto the dirt between his feet.
Savannah climbed out of the SUV, tucking her pistols into the back of her waistband as she stepped onto the dirt. She thought of Papa Marcel’s ratty little shack and said, “Pot… kettle, old man.”
Papa Marcel waved a dismissive hand at Savannah. “These folk ain’ got a pot to piss in. I just go down and piss in the creak… de way God intended.”
Odinga sauntered toward Savannah, supporting his massive frame on his cane. “You do not do anything the way God intended.”
Odinga turned to Savannah. “Let’s go and see to my people. They have not heard the word of God since that wretched girl defiled my restaurant.”
Savannah rolled her eyes at the back of Odinga’s bald head, but followed the old man. She motioned for Papa Marcel and the rest to come along, but Carter did not get out of the Country Squire.
Other than their state of decay and ingrained squalor, the trailers were all different. Some were white, streaked with rust; others were blue, streaked with rust; still more were a rust-streaked yellow. By the time they had walked past the third set of rust-streaked trailers, Savannah decided maybe they were not that different at all. She figured a tornado coming through the region would only improve the property value.
The wind blew dust into Savannah’s eyes. She wiped it away with an irritated swipe of her hand.
Jimmy Odinga reached the first trailer, tapping on its flimsy aluminum door with the head of his cane. When no one answered, he tapped again. “Brother Kimbo, I have come to pray with you.”
Savannah slipped up alongside the trailer then cupped her hands against a fly-specked window. The interior was dark, but enough sunlight slipped through the grimy glass to show her a sagging couch, a ratty recliner, and a dog-chewed coffee table covered with a mound of cigarette butts and a crooked pyramid of dented Olde English 800 cans. “Nobody’s home, Rev’.”
Odinga grumbled then hobbled down the steps. For an old, fat man with a giant hole in his gut, he seemed pretty spry. Savannah and Papa Marcel followed him from trailer to trailer, peeking in windows while he banged his cane against the doors. No one answered.
Meanwhile, Rashad crouched down in the middle of the crossroads then drew a neat circle in the dirt around his feet with his finger. He muttered a handful of old words, then pressed his palm flat against the cracked earth. The dust shuddered at his touch. A dozen dogs, himself, an old man, one man who was not only a man, a young man and a middle-aged woman tougher than a man. That was all he got – no sign of the people from the trailers; no children playing in the scattered thickets of dogwood trees or hiding in the rutted, shallow valleys on the back of the makeshift trailer park. No one.
“Savannah,” he called out. “There’s no one here. They’re gone.”
Odinga grunted with frustration. “Son, look around. How many cars and trucks do you see?”
He was right; every trailer ha
d a car or truck or banged up four-wheeler parked in front of it. Rashad doubted they all had spare cars. But, still… “The earth doesn’t lie, priest. There’s no one here.”
“I am the earth, boy.” Odinga scowled, but did not argue. Instead, he limped toward another trailer. Savannah and Papa Marcel trailed behind him.
Odinga did not bother knocking at the next trailer. He turned the knob and shoved the door open. It skidded a few inches across a threadbare carpet, then stopped with a squelch. He grunted as he threw his weight against it, bowing the door out of shape in the middle, but it did not open any farther.
Savannah put her hand on Odinga’s shoulder. “There’s something on the other side. You’re not going to get it open like that.”
There was just enough room for Savannah to squeeze into the trailer. She felt the bent door scrape across her breasts and hips as she forced her way through the tight gap.
The trailer was dim. She reached back to the wall next to the door and found the light switch. She flipped it. Dull yellow light flickered from the fixture overhead.
The room was much like the last she had peered into. Old furniture, with blown springs and holes in the upholstery patched with duct tape, sat against the walls. There was a little box of a television with a pair of crooked rabbit ears sprouting out the top and a screen filled with ghostly images struggling to fight through walls of static.
A Haunting in the SWATS (The Savannah Swan Files Book 1) Page 24