The Malveaux Curse Mysteries Boxset 2

by G A Chase

  She wished they were still battling with fire. At least then she would have the upper hand. “I guess I’m still searching for what I want. I’ve only been at this life for twenty-four years. With your vastly greater experience, what’s your answer? And please don’t say that damn cane.”

  “My conflict with the loas of the dead goes far beyond my possession of a magical stick. I promise you, my mission is worth multiple lifetimes. Hear me out without jumping to judgment. Once I’ve stated my case, if you still don’t believe I should own the cane, I’ll listen to whatever alternate plan you can devise. At this point, what have you got to lose?”

  I don’t know, and that’s what worries me. “Only on the condition that you stop threatening my friends.”

  “See, you’re learning from me already. Never agree to anything without getting something in return.”

  48

  Myles sat in Delphine’s back room with the band huddled around Kendell’s body. They’d done all they could. The trip out to the shipwreck had revealed exactly nothing. If the vault was there, they had no way of detecting it. Professor Yates had agreed to stand watch, though Myles doubted he’d be able to do anything useful should the vault appear. Contacting Kendell through the open gate had been equally useless. She was truly a spirit adrift.

  “I can’t just sit around like this,” Polly said. “Let’s sing or something. Anything is better than this death watch.”

  “What should we sing?” Minerva asked as she picked up some ritual bongos from Delphine’s shelf.

  Lynn stood and walked to the voodoo totem. “It may not help, but I’ve been singing ‘My Girl’ to Cupcake. Every time I break into the Temptations classic, she comes running. Since the pups are with Kendell, maybe they can lead her back here. They do have enhanced hearing.”

  As the band broke into four-part harmony, Myles closed his eyes to let his mind slip away, into the song. Even Cheesecake howled out her accompaniment. If the pups would respond to anyone, it would be their mama and their human companions.

  Myles’s enjoyment of the song was interrupted by the pack of three adorable Lhasa apso puppies busting through the retail shop as if they were still in their hellhound forms. Doughnut Hole jumped on top of Kendell’s body as if he were playing king of the hill. To Myles’s surprise and relief, Kendell sucked in a deep breath and sat upright, but the look of terror in her eyes quickly squelched his enthusiasm.

  “It’s okay, Kendell. You’re home.”

  She bolted off the floor and backed up to the small room’s farthest wall. “Where are my protector hounds? All I hear are screams, and everything around me is on fire. Make it stop.”

  Cheesecake ran up to Kendell and lay at her feet. Kendell continued to look around the room as if she were being attacked, but she bent down to pet the shaggy coat. “Cheesecake? My sweet girl. Don’t leave me.”

  Delphine joined the group after sufficiently distracting her clientele from their pursuit of the puppies into the back room. “She’s out of phase.”

  Myles had had enough of Delphine’s useless contributions. “Tell me something I don’t know—like how to fix her.”

  But it was Polly who took the lead. “Time to break out ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’ I know we’ve never mastered it, but if anything will bring Kendell back into harmony, that number will.”

  Kendell’s attention darted to every band member as they formed up around their leader. It was as if her senses were drug enhanced.

  Myles put out his hands. “Make as few movements as possible. Just sing. Hopefully, she’ll be able to focus on the words and let her inner magic bring her across.”

  Polly started out singing soft and low as if trying to calm a wild animal. The others joined in with the same degree of vocal caution. By the time the band got to the complex harmony, Kendell was struggling to sing along. In her state of fright, she spoke more than sang the words. Not until they were singing about Beelzebub did she fully synchronize with the band. When the song ended, she was no longer staring around the room in terror.

  Myles rushed up and took her in his arms just as her strength failed. “I’ve got you, and I’m never letting go.”

  * * *

  The morning after reuniting body and soul, Kendell woke to the sun beaming through the French doors. Cheesecake and Doughnut Hole were lying at the foot of the bed like guardian lions protecting their mistress.

  Kendell’s memories of her time in Colin’s vault were as scrambled as a beaten egg.

  Myles brought in a tray filled with pancakes and coffee. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like the devil stole my soul and played it like a cheap guitar. My mental strings are pretty frayed. You saved my sanity by sending the puppies.” She reached down and rubbed Doughnut Hole’s back. “You are your mama’s boy. I don’t know if even Cheesecake would have done a better job at rescuing my soul.”

  Myles set the tray on the bed and took one of the cups of coffee. “Do you remember anything useful?”

  Do we really have to go there right now? But she knew, as always, that time was against them. She was free of the melee, but Sanguine would still be in the devil’s sights. “Not much. He wants the cane, but you know that. My best guess is Sanguine was the angel beast that saved me with her flaming sword, but the battle isn’t clear in my head.”

  Myles nodded as if he’d made a decision. “Though the cane belongs to me, I’d never do anything with it before consulting you. I’ll give it to him if it’ll end this madness. Sanguine said he promised to leave this dimension alone. At this point, that’s good enough for me.”

  All she wanted to do was cuddle up with her dogs and Myles. “Colin has beaten me in every way I can imagine. I don’t have any fight left in me. He’s won. But that cane is our final negotiating chip. We have to hang onto it in order to back Sanguine’s play. She’s our last best hope.”

  “And if he’s playing her like he’s played everyone else?” Myles asked.

  After days locked in an iron vault like a submariner who’d sunk to the ocean floor, she found that the sunshine and fresh coffee were working their magic on her spirit. “He’s lost me as his hostage. That gives Sanguine the edge. She also looked pretty intimidating wielding her sword of justice. If she says to turn over the cane, I’ll agree with her request. But until then, I think we need to let her play her hand.”

  “I just wish I knew what hand she was playing. I worry she may be down to the queen of hearts.”

  Kendell struggled to sit up. “We need to talk to her, but obviously, I’m not risking the use of my gate again.”

  “We figured Colin had found a way to eavesdrop on any of the gates. We just need to keep mixing up our use of all seven of them to keep him guessing. The most secure way of talking to Sanguine would be over her gate. He can’t break into the line of communication like he did with yours, since he used the curse for that, so he’ll have to be with her in the swamp if he wants to bust in on our conversation. We can head out to find her once you feel up to it. There is, of course, the problem of finding her island.”

  Though the coffee was helping, Kendell still felt lightheaded. “I remember she left a canoe hidden in the reeds. But finding our way through the bayou is going to be a challenge.”

  “The band and I discussed the idea while you were trapped in Colin’s vault, so I’ve had some time to think about what I’d do in Sanguine’s place. She has to expect at some point we’ll be headed to her gate. All we can do is go out there and hope she figured out a way to guide us to her island.”

  Kendell lounged in bed with the dogs while Myles rounded up the band. She hated feeling like an invalid, but having Myles take point while also waiting on her hand and foot wasn’t the worst way to spend a morning.

  Even though the canoe Kendell remembered only sat three people, the whole band insisted on coming along for the ride. She lay on the bench seat of the bus and rested her head in Myles’s lap. Though noisy, the VW engine lulled her back to sleep on the hour-lo
ng ride out to the bayou. The sounds and vibrations assured her she was back among those she loved and directed her dreams away from nightmarish images of waking up between dimensions.

  The VW quieted down just before a firm jolt brought Kendell back to full consciousness. “We’re there already?”

  Polly peered over the back of the seat. “You were snoring so loud I thought there was something wrong with Minerva’s bus.”

  The ribbing by the bandleader added to Kendell’s feelings of her life getting back to normal. “Being locked in a spiritual cage isn’t as restful as you might think.”

  “Come on,” Polly said. “The band decided I should go with you and Myles while the rest stand guard. With three gates represented, there’s no way Sanguine will be able to ignore our call.”

  Even though Kendell was still feeling stiff from too many days of inactivity, the sun on her face and the fall breeze against her skin made her glad to be outside. While she stretched out her limbs, Myles walked upstream along the bushes, saplings, and reeds, in search of the canoe.

  He jumped out of the brush and ran back to the gravel parking lot. “I don’t want to alarm anyone, but there is a big fat gator lying next to the boat.”

  Kendell walked toward the riverbank. “Do you think he’s a guardian or guide?”

  “I think he’s ten feet long with scary sharp teeth and didn’t want to be annoyed with human questions.”

  Kendell wasn’t particularly curious about swamp creatures, and after her experiences of the last couple of days, bravery wasn’t an emotion she embraced. But if Sanguine had left some animal in charge, she couldn’t have chosen a better intimidator than a gator. “Let me go talk to him. If he is Sanguine’s ambassador, he should respond to my voice.”

  She didn’t even get to the edge of the gravel lot, however, before a rustling in the weeds caused Myles to grip her around the waist. A quiet splash from upriver called forth all the members of the band. The alligator that emerged from the vegetation occupied nearly the entire width of the river. A rope trailed behind him, connected to the swamp-water-stained canoe. He had to swim thirty feet out into the lake for the boat to line up with the beach.

  Polly kept behind Kendell and Myles. “Maybe I’ll rethink coming with you two.”

  Kendell didn’t waste any time in climbing into the front of the boat. “I’ve paddled upriver before. The journey is hard on the arms. If Sanguine is providing gator power for the trip, I’m not going to object.”

  Myles climbed into the back, leaving the middle seat for Polly. “We’ve trusted our lives to scarier creatures. Come on, Polly. You can’t tell me this river lizard is any more impressive than Muffin Top when she goes all hellhound.”

  Polly gingerly stepped on the rocks that lined the riverbank. As a woman who normally wore stylish dress shoes, her tentative steps indicated she didn’t have full confidence in the brand-new tennis shoes. “If I slip into the water, you’re buying me a steak dinner.” She eyed the swamp monster. “Complete with deep-fried gator bites.”

  Once everyone was settled, the alligator swam around to pull the canoe upstream. Kendell felt like a little kid holding onto the sides of a giant cardboard box that her father was dragging around the yard. The gator’s smooth swimming style didn’t create a single ripple on the water. His powerful tail moved the narrow boat along much faster than Kendell and Myles had managed in their poor attempt at paddling under Sanguine’s supervision. Myles used a paddle at the back of the boat to steer them into the middle of the waterway and out of the thick water hyacinths.

  The alligator had them at the island in half the time it had taken to paddle that distance. Myles steadied the canoe with his oar while Polly tried to keep her balance and step onto the shore. “I hate small boats. If it isn’t big enough for a full-sized cooler filled with beers, you can count me out. A yacht large enough to justify a bartender making mixed drinks would be even better.”

  “Noted,” Kendell said while joining Polly onshore. “But you can see the logistical problems of getting such a vessel up this small winding river.”

  Myles was the last to get out. “Normally, I’d tie off the boat, but I don’t want to overstep my bounds. Think Gatorboy will hang around and wait for us?”

  Kendell held Myles’s hand. “I’m sure he will, and if not, we can complain to Sanguine.”

  Polly picked her way through the vines and grasses as if she were avoiding Bourbon Street’s potholes filled with unknown liquids. “Why am I out here again?”

  Kendell couldn’t help but rip the city girl just a little bit. “Scouting out locations for our next gig. Just imagine this place at night with all manner of swamp people getting their groove on.”

  “Not even if you filled the rivers with moonshine.”

  Myles poked at some thick elephant grass with a stick he’d been using to scare away any hidden snakes. “Where do you suppose Sanguine set up her gate?”

  From the top of the island, Kendell could just make out the old swamp witch’s cabin in the trees. “You don’t think she used Agnes’s old home?”

  “That’s just it—I do. But we were in hell and Sanguine had come out here to get her grandmother’s permission before forming the gate.” He pointed the stick at the cabin twenty feet up in the cypress tree. “That house wasn’t always up in that tree. I’d guess Sanguine went back far enough in time to visit her grandmother before the hurricane moved the structure.”

  Kendell looked around the small meadow bordered with trees. “This wouldn’t be the worst spot for a homestead.”

  He poked again at the tall stalks of the elephant grass. “That’s what I was thinking. It feels like there might be a brick pier for a raised structure in the middle of these plants. Spread out and look around for the veve Sanguine would have drawn to complete the ceremony. If I were her, I’d have used something that would remain after the home was relocated.”

  “Like that pier?” Polly asked.

  Kendell handed Polly a stick. “Just watch for snakes.”

  “Have I mentioned how much I hate this swamp?”

  * * *

  Sanguine loved her swamp. The plants, animals, and solitude felt a million miles away from the hustle and bustle of New Orleans. This was her sanctuary from Colin—a place to process her emotions where he wouldn’t even think of visiting.

  Lefty heaved his alligator body up the small incline to the field and snapped his iron-trap jaw.

  “Really? You know how I hate visitors.”

  He blinked both his horizontal and vertical sets of eyelids and headed back into the reeds.

  “If you and Righty let them in, it must be important.” She dragged her feet through the knee-high grass like a girl who’d just been called in from playing to do her homework.

  The veve she’d carved into the long-unused brick support was covered in wisteria blossoms—the only section of the maze of vines that snaked up every vertical surface to be in bloom.

  She pulled at the thick knotted cords. Why did I let Kendell talk me into being a part of these gates? It would have been so much easier to destroy Colin if I hadn’t given in. She could have taken care of herself without my help. But the unyielding cords of wisteria vines were like the emotions wrapped around Sanguine’s heart—beautiful, tenacious, destructive, and in the end, desired.

  She dusted off the dirt that had caked into the carving. “I’m here.”

  When Kendell, Myles, and Polly came into view, Sanguine wondered who’d been abducted this time.

  Myles sat cross-legged on a patch of cleared dirt. “We wanted to present as united a front to you as we could manage. Without even knowing your plan, we support you completely. Running all these different agendas has only divided us and given Colin the upper hand. Tell us what you need, and we’ll do our part.”

  If the image had been a television, Sanguine would have rapped it on the side to make sure it wasn’t on the wrong channel. “So you’re just giving up?”

  Kendell put he
r hand on Myles’s shoulder. “No, we’re not giving up. All he meant was we’re letting you take charge. I can’t handle another confrontation with Colin. I just don’t have it in me. And left on his own, Myles would probably get into a fistfight with the devil. I don’t imagine that would end well. Polly and the band have done the best they can, but Colin proved even our gate system is no match for his cunning. You’re all we have left.”

  Sanguine wasn’t buying it. “And you’ve come all the way out to my island to tell me this?”

  Myles playfully twirled a stick. “Only as a preamble. I didn’t bring the cane the loas left me, but it’s at your service. If it comes down to you or the walking stick, give him the damn thing and come home. We can live with his promise not to invade our reality again.”

  “You’d all better sit down for this.”

  They got comfortable, and Sanguine did her best to explain Colin’s plan for resurrecting the dead, putting minimal emphasis on how they were all to blame for creating a hell where he could enslave every human being.

  Myles tossed the stick he’d been playing with into the bushes. “So that’s why he wants the cane? I thought he was just after more power.”

  “What’s more powerful than having people owe him their souls?” Polly held her arms tightly around her stomach as if the vines might turn into snakes and bite her. The pose, combined with her too-tight jeans and cotton shirt, made her look like a city girl who’d been forced out to the swamp on a school field trip.

  Kendell sat close to Myles. “And what does he want from you?”

  “I’d be Mother Nature to him as God. Though Grandmother built this realm, she gave me the keys to operating it.” Sanguine spread her wings. “In hindsight, I guess having these things kind of tipped my hand as to my powers.”

  Polly looked as if she’d swallowed a bug and was trying to figure out what kind it was, based on the taste. “But the human projections in hell aren’t your creation. Professor Yates, Delphine, and Luther Noire jointly built that reality overlay.”