by Sara Clancy
“Louis,” Cordelia said with more concern.
Louis raked his hands over the back of his head, his elbows digging into his knees.
“What is it waiting for?” Louis muttered under his breath.
René crossed the small room and sat down next to Cordelia, silently passing her a candy bar from the vending machine. This couldn’t have been how they had expected to spend their honeymoon. It had to be easier for Cordelia, though. Like Louis, she had been born into the Dupont family. Voodoo and the paranormal were just another aspect of life, as true and certain as the seasons.
While this was the first time she had ever experienced a hostile ghost firsthand, she had heard the stories, seen the tapes, been told the warnings. René hadn’t had that kind of perpetration. It took a ghost running him off the road for the man to believe that the supernatural could be anything more than childish fancies. The truth had hit him hard. It had been more than an hour since he had last spoken, far longer than that since he had let Cordelia out of his sight.
“We need to get a plan together,” Cordelia said abruptly, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Maggie needs us to get the demon out.”
René scoffed, “They ain’t about to let us in there. Brown thinks we’ve been beating on her. He’d shoot us before letting us get within five feet of her.”
Louis raked his hands over the back of his head and stared at the tiles between his feet. What is it doing to her? Images flooded his brain at the thought, faster than he could force them aside. He released a pained groan and let his head hand lower. The demon had been fighting and scratching to get to Marigold. It was going to enjoy tormenting her. It was going to take its time. And he couldn’t do anything about it. Nothing but sit in an old chair in the middle of a forcibly pleasant waiting room.
He lifted his head to the quick clacking of shoes against the tiles, watching as his mother approached. She held her head high, her eyes cold with focus and determination. Louis wasn’t a stranger to his mother’s unconquerable will, but she had always been first and foremost his mother. Last night was the first time he had seen her as a voodoo queen above all else, seen the true strength that she wielded, and it had changed something between them. She was a living hurricane of psychic energy, strong enough to obliterate the ghost that had followed them from the boat. But all of that power meant nothing if they couldn’t get everything they needed for the ritual.
René waited until Ma sat down before he hissed out. “We’re screwed. You all know that right? Even if Maggie decides to tell the truth, we’re screwed.”
“It,” Louis corrected sharply. “That thing is not Maggie.”
“I don’t think the courts are going to make the distinction.”
“We have bigger concerns,” Ma said. “We currently have a demon that enjoys mind games in a hospital full of easy targets.”
“Well, we can’t just wheel her out of the front door,” René said.
Cordelia leant forward, “So what do we do?”
“Can you lock it in or somethin’?” René asked Ma. “You know, keep it in her body?”
“What?” Louis snarled. “We are not sacrificing Maggie.”
“I’m not saying we leave it there. Just keep it in there until we get another shot at doing an exorcism.”
Ma shook her head. “Exorcisms are complicated and are harder to perform successfully when the demon’s gotten settled. It’s like fighting a cancer or an aggressive disease. We’ll need to perform numerous rituals over time. It could take weeks. Months. For a demon this strong, it could be years before we manage to release it. And that’s if we start today.”
Louis gripped his hands until his fingers numbed and pressed his knuckles into his forehead.
“There has to be some good news.” The words distorted as he spoke them through his clenched teeth.
“I made a few calls to learn more about the ritual you performed,” Ma’s eyes narrowed on him as she said it, a spark of disgust mixing with her rage. They hadn’t had a moment alone for her to unleash her fury over Louis’ actions. He had performed black magic. Time wasn’t going to dull that rage. “From what I gather, the spell forced the possession.”
“And that matters?” Cordelia asked.
“Quite a lot. If she had invited it in, it would have full dominion over her. Since it was forced, she has a chance to fight. Hold it off as it were.”
“I have no idea what ya gettin’ at,” René said.
Ma looked at him with a hint of frustration. “There could be times when Marigold can force her way past the demon’s control. And it’s possible that she’ll be able to keep parts of her mind and soul away from it. The better she is at doing this, the more we can salvage.”
“Salvage?” Louis lifted his head and finally looked his mother in the eyes.
“An exorcism is like ripping a living creature out of a host. You can’t do that without leaving some scar tissue. The further it spreads, the worse the damage will be.”
Cordelia’s jaw dropped, “Are you saying she could get brain damage?”
“There’s a chance. But if she continues to fight, and does it successfully, it is possible that the damage will be minimal. Perhaps even reversible over time. For now, we all need to keep our defenses up. It knows each of us. And the more it knows you, the easier it is for it to manipulate you. It will exploit every advantage it has.”
As subtly as she could, Ma checked to see if Officer Brown was still watching them. She quickly turned back, dread sinking into her gaze. Louis looked over to Brown just in time to see a woman with a mass of wavy hair push through the double doors and disappear. He didn’t need to see the woman’s face to know instantly who she was.
“This can’t be good,” he mumbled.
“So that is who I thought it was?” Ma asked.
René glanced between them with mounting frustration. “Who?”
“I’m pretty sure the woman who just went in there is Nadia Waters,” Ma said. “She’s a reporter.”
“She writes for a tabloid,” Louis cut as he turned to Cordelia. “She’s the one I told you about.”
Cordelia tried and failed to hide her surprise. “The one that broke into your house trying to find Maggie’s address? That keeps writing about how you helped Maggie kill her aunt Delilah?”
“Yeah,” he said through clenched teeth. “We kind of openly hate each other.”
“You think she’s here to talk to Marigold?” René asked.
“Most likely,” Louis said.
“Oh, that’s just great,” René said. “It’s going to bury us.”
***
Nadia glanced over her shoulder to check the small window set in the swinging door. The second the police officer looked away she darted across the hallway and into the La Roux girl’s room. She closed the door as silently as possible. Marigold La Roux had been a prize she had been chasing for months. If she couldn’t get an interview, she might at least be able to do something with a few candid shots.
The small space was fitting for two patients, their beds set against opposite ends of the room. Twin curtains separated them from the rest of the room. Light poured in from the run of windows, brightening the thin material of the dividing curtains until they shone. The whole room smelt like fresh antiseptic. A heart monitor beeped, low and steady, as Nadia edged closer to the curtain to her left.
Few other cases could compete to the horrors the La Roux family constantly churned out. They were such a constant point that more than a few of them had become a fixture in New Orleans. Part of the morbid tapestry that never failed to draw attention. Dozens of reporters had made their entire careers on the backs of the family. Nadia had never thought that she would be that lucky. She had been convinced, like so many others, that the once prestigious line had come to a pathetic end. But then the La Roux family home went up in flames and revealed Delilah’s torture chamber.
The story had gone from pure gold to a goldmine when it was discovered that the
sole survivor had been a sweet looking doe-eyed girl who, apparently, had just found out who her ancestors were. The last La Roux. It was too perfect, and Nadia wasn’t about to let the opportunity slip away. She still didn’t know exactly how and why the Dupont family had gotten involved. It was a fascinating twist on its own. Generations ago, Marigold’s family owned and tortured Louis Dupont’s. Now he was helping her evade the media attention. It wasn’t a situation that screamed of innocent motives, and she had written a few articles as such. But even that notoriety hadn’t been enough to make Louis give up Marigold’s location.
Any doubts that she might have held to Louis’ innocence had left the moment she got the call from her sources at the hospital. A girl doesn’t show up in this kind of condition because of someone’s kindness. Nadia wrapped her fingers around the curtain, her phone posed and ready to snap a few quick shots, and pulled the fabric back. The person in the bed was a man, probably mid-forties, and definitely not the person she was looking for. The man didn’t stir and looked to be either heavily drugged or unconscious. Carefully, Nadia pulled the curtain back into place and turned to face the other bed.
Nadia’s breath caught in her throat when she found that the other bed was exposed. A woman sat upon it, her spine straight and eyes fixed upon her with an unblinking stare. Her hair was a tussled mass of brilliant red locks, her eyes sunken within deep bruises, her skin so pale that each red freckle looked like a droplet of blood scattered over her flesh. Nadia forced herself to smile and tried to still the sick feeling within the pit of her stomach.
“Marigold?” Her voice crackled and she cleared her throat. “Marigold La Roux.”
The woman didn’t respond. Didn’t even blink. She just watched Nadia with a chilling glare.
“I’m Nadia Waters. Do you know where you are? Do you remember what happened to you?”
Silence.
“Both your legs are shattered. You’re going to need surgery.” Marigold’s eyes narrowed slightly but her face remained otherwise placid. Nadia pressed on as she slowly edged closer. “They’ll need to put rods in each leg. The current estimate is that it will take twenty or so weeks for the bones to heal. Maybe a year after that for you to learn to walk again.”
Still, Marigold kept her silence.
“Did Louis tell you about me? No? I’m not surprised,” Nadia said with a conversational tone. Her pleasant smile became a little easier to hold. “I’ve actually been trying to find you for a while. I know a lot about your family, and Louis’, and I was worried that something bad might have happened to you.” She pointedly looked at Marigold’s legs. “But I guess I was a little late, huh?”
Marigold barely moved, turning her head just enough to keep Nadia in sight as she moved to the side of the bed. Nadia studied her face carefully, but didn’t give the slightest trace of emotion.
“I know about your parents,” Nadia said softly. “I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for you. They were nurses, right? You must have spent your whole life thinking that they were heroes.”
Marigold still gave her nothing to work on so Nadia eased down onto the side of the bed. Whether it was the drugs or shock, Marigold remained completely closed off. It was then that Nadia noticed the bed wasn’t angled up to give Marigold’s rigid spine any support. The pillow was dented like the woman was supposed to be laying down. An unsettling feeling slipped through the pit of Nadia’s stomach but she pushed it aside and forced herself to sit down on the edge of the bed.
“I’m not like the others, Marigold. I don’t think you ever had the slightest idea that they were killing their patients.”
She licked her lips and cupped a hand over Marigold’s own. Nadia pulled back slightly when she felt fingertips instead of the back of Marigold’s hand. But when she looked down, her hand was still flat against the bed, palm down. Marigold’s gaze never left Nadia’s face, as if waiting, watching for a reaction. Nadia swallowed and collected her thoughts.
“It was cruel for them to take Jasmine away. I bet you pretty much raised your little sister, didn’t you? They shouldn’t have killed her. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“They took too long.”
Marigold’s voice was sweet, delicate, but carried an almost hollow ring.
“The drugs wore off,” Marigold continued calmly, a small smile twitching her lips. “I woke up. They weren’t ready for that.”
Nadia tried to hide her delight at Marigold’s sudden addition to the conversation. Trying not to draw Marigold’s attention, Nadia used her thumb to turn on the recorder app on her mobile phone.
“They had only ever killed using overdoses,” Nadia said. “Do you ever wonder why they didn’t try and kill you like that?”
“Because we weren’t like the others.”
“You were their children,” Nadia said with sympathy.
“We were damned.”
Nadia sat up a little straighter, “What do you mean by that?”
Marigold fell back into silence.
“Did your parents tell you that? Or did Delilah?”
Still silence.
“Did Louis?”
Marigold only stared. She still hadn’t blinked once the entire time they had been speaking.
“Marigold, did Louis do this to you?” she said. “I know you’re scared. You don’t know who you can trust.”
“Can I trust you, Nadia?”
“Yes, you can. I’m here to help you.”
Marigold’s face folded and pulled into a wide, toothy smile. Nadia watched the slow progression and tried to ignore the icy chill that crept up her spine.
Chapter 2
Marigold plunged through the empty air, feeling the fall only by the twist of her gut. Her long hair streaked around her but remained completely still. Her clothes pressed against her as if she were suspended within the moment of the fall. It was like that, falling but not falling, until her back slammed against the floor and brought her to an abrupt halt. The impact robbed the air from her lungs and left her limbs empty and cold. When she could think again, she idly drifted her hands over the floorboards beneath her, her fingertips knocking into scattered toys that rolled and lit up at her touch. Electronic giggles joined the cluster and made dread seep into the pit of her stomach. Slowly, she blinked and studied the shadows that pooled against the ceiling that was suddenly above her.
She knew this room. The glow-in-the-dark stickers that had been a nightmare to get onto the high roof. The clutter that even the large built-in closet couldn’t contain, and so spilled through the open doors. The toys crammed under the bed in hopes that there wouldn’t be enough room left over for monsters to try and sneak in. This room didn’t exist anymore. It couldn’t. Not after that night.
Once the world had found out what her parents had been doing, grief had quickly turned to rage. But, since her parents had been killed during their arrest, there were few outlets left for revenge. Marigold had still been in the hospital when someone had burnt her house to ashes. Everything had been lost. Nothing had survived. And yet the room around her was Jasmine’s. Accurate to the smallest detail.
It’s all in your head, she told herself. But it was hard to believe it was just a dream, a cruel illusion, when each one of her senses insisted otherwise. She could smell the lavender fabric softener that her mother had liked on every breath. The air was cold because her dad, despite his insistence that he could, hadn’t been able to fix the heater yet. She could even taste the mint toothpaste on her lips and feel the familiar flannel of her favorite pajamas. Even the feel of the house was the same. She recognized each of the soft noises it made as it settled. It’s all in your head, she insisted. She didn’t believe it. Maybe because she didn’t want to. She was finally home.
Tears burned her eyes as she fixed them on the cluster of glow-in-the-dark stickers. Stars and unicorns and a zombie that had been left over from Halloween. Jasmine had insisted on it being placed with the others. Jasmine. Marigold closed her eyes, indulging the
thought that, if she were to sit up, she could find her little sister tucked into the bed beside her. Safe, alive, and peacefully asleep. The idea of getting up and discovering the truth tempted her as much as it terrified her. So she lay there, her mind struggling to come to terms with her newfound reality.
A soft sound of sloshing water wafted to her from beyond the room. Unable to stop herself, Marigold sat up. Her eyes flicked to the bed, her heart dropping as she found it empty. The sheets where warm under her hand as she braced against the bed and got to her feet. As quietly as she could, she crossed to the bedroom door, careful to avoid standing on any of the toys. The sound of running water continued, joined by hushed voices and shifting footsteps. The metal disc of the door handle fit snugly in the palm of her hand. She flattened her other hand against the wood, poised to slam it shut at any second. Holding her breath, she slowly bent forward and pressed her ear to the door. The sounds stopped.
The doorknob twisted easily in her hand and the door opened with a familiar creak of the hinges. Pale light filtered along the hallway and cast a soft glow over the white walls. When nothing stirred, she inched the door open a little wider and peeked down the hallway, tracing the source of the light to the bathroom at the end of the hallway. The light emitted through the partially open bathroom door. She spotted familiar pink tiles and a slip of the porcelain tub. Her toes prickled in the cold as she edged further out into the hall.
Shadows shifted across the bathroom door gap, blocking the light for a few seconds. The soft trickling sound of water came to her again. She edged further towards the bathroom, further from Jasmine’s room. Just run for the front door, she thought, but her feet refused to obey. The hall rug swallowed her footsteps as it inched down the hall, craning her neck to try and see more of the bathroom. Her heart throbbed painfully against her ribs, forcing her breaths into ragged gasps. That, and the sloshing water were the only sounds within the house.