“We’re finished here, aren’t we?” I asked, getting up and leaving the room before anyone could stop me.
I’d already made my decision. My sandbox, my rules. No one else was going to die because of Toussaint. This was my problem, nobody else’s. And it was just as well. With one partner in the hospital, and the other one having thrown me under the bus, I was fresh out of partners anyway.
39
Upside Down is Only a Point of View
I sat in the SUV, fuming, waiting for Babs and Ferris to realize that they could stick a fork in me. I was done. The meeting was over and I wouldn’t be coming back.
Screw Ferris.
When push came to shove, I’d fessed up that it was my decision to enter the Chalmette residence without a warrant—to protect him. And what did he do? He threw me to the wolves, sharing, outside of my presence, that I’d shot at the wall, like I’d been caught in the throes of some psychotic vision. And Babs, with her soft, patronizing voice, intimating that I was crazy, exhausted, or in over my head. Or maybe all three.
Well, to hell with both of them. I’d seen Toussaint; if not because he’d physically been there, then because he’d been inside my head.
It all came down to their inability to believe in things they couldn’t see. Things from the spirit world where Voodoo and Hoodoo are real—the world in which I operate.
My own partners didn’t believe in me.
Way to leave me hanging, guys.
Within moments, Ferris and Babs climbed back into the car, with Vinny in tow. Silence screamed; tension reigned. Vinny started to speak but paused, eying us uneasily. “I’m hungry. Let’s head to Mama’s for dinner.”
“Good idea,” I muttered, staring out the window.
Even a corpse whisperer needs her mama when the world turns upside down. Besides, with the night’s battle still ahead, another dose of Mama’s magick couldn’t hurt.
“Mama’s it is.” Ferris glanced in the rear-view mirror. “What sounds good tonight?”
“A double shot of Luna.” Vinny’s stupid grin reminded me so much of Leo, it hurt.
Ferris stared into the mirror again. “Anybody else?”
I zipped my lip, but the brain bitch had a dying duck fit. How ’bout a bowlful of Benedict Arnold with a big, ol’ side of shut-your-pie-hole-you-backstabbing-Judas?
It’s a good thing one of us has a filter, even if we never know whose day it is to use it.
As Ferris pulled into Mama’s, Babs swiveled in the front passenger seat, turned and locked eyes with me. “Maybe you and I could have a drink later tonight. You know, really let our hair down. Woman to woman.”
The only answer I gave was the slam of my car door after I slid across the seat and climbed out. Freaking Psycho Babs. Almost had me sucked in, thinking she might have actually been a humanoid life form. All she wanted to do was pull out her DSM-5 book and diagnose me. Good luck with that, sister. And who would ever want to get to know Babs unplugged, hair down, woman to woman? I could barely stand the uptight, bun-headed bitch-bot I’d come to know and battle with over the thermostat.
Mama waited for me at the front door, propping open the screen-door with her arm. Eyes narrowed, lips taut, chin down. I’d seen that look before. For some reason, my ass was about to be grass.
“Welcome, my friends.” Mama smiled at Ferris and Babs, and then nodded at Vinny. “Miss Luna is busy working, young man. You can make eyes at her all you want, but you leave her be until after she off the clock.”
Vinny winked at Mama and kissed her on the cheek as he slid past her through the doorway.
She snickered and waggled her finger in his face. “Don’t tink you can win me over with those bedroom eyes. You treat my Luna like a lady, or you deal with me.”
Mama dug her nails into my arm and held me captive, while Luna appeared with menus and escorted the others to our table. “Aliyah Marie, why you come here with your soul all black and ugly? Such rage inside you. No one come into my home this way.”
She pulled a decorative bundle of sage hanging from a calico ribbon beside the door. “Stand still, missy,” she hissed, as she lit the bundle with a match and wafted it through the air, smudging me. “You can’t be doing battle like this tonight, all tied up in knots.”
“Doing battle?” I stared down my nose at Mama. “What do you know about tonight?”
Mama shook her head and sighed. “You have no secrets from me, child. I know where you go come midnight.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Don’t mention this in front of them,” I said, nodding to Ferris and Babs. “They won’t be there. This is my battle, not theirs.”
“Then center yourself, Little Bird. Tell me what vexes you.”
“Everything, Mama,” I whispered. “Everything is upside down.”
Mama placed the bundle of sage inside a clay pot on the porch to cool and wrapped me in a bear hug. “Tings are not always as they seem. Upside down is only a point of view, no? Go eat with your friends.” She bit her lip and smiled. “You not see it, but they are your friends—and that Ferris? He love you like no other. Oh, how that man worries for you. Lord knows, he ain’t the only one.”
“Really? Well, my friends have a funny way of showing it.”
“Get your nose out of the clouds, missy. Everybody need help once in a while—even the great and powerful Aliyah Marie Nighthawk.”
Little Allie winced.
“Nobody calls me that, Mama.”
“Don’t sass me, child. I turn you over my knee as soon as look at you.”
She patted my backside and sent me to my table, having dressed me down in a loving way that was somehow worse than Dickhead had ever done. Could it be that Ferris and Babs had ratted me out because they were concerned about me?
Never one to hold back, Little Allie added her thoughts: Did my running back to Mama mean that I was concerned about me too?
Stupid head hag. If she was going to be so judgmental, the least she could do was run her thoughts by me before I plowed headfirst into a steaming pile of poo.
No matter his reason, Ferris had thrown me under the bus and then backed over me. He had to own that. And despite everything they had seen, if neither he nor Babs could accept that Toussaint had actually planted those visions in my brain, they were in too far over their heads to be of help tonight.
So, for the time being, Babs could keep analyzing me like a bug under her microscope, and Ferris, who had yet to apologize, was still in the doghouse. Nothing had changed. When midnight came, I would be on my own.
Ferris’s eyes were on me as I wound through the restaurant toward our table. Was he hoping I would give him a pass and let him off the hotseat? Fat chance, pal. He snapped his eyes toward his menu as I flounced into my seat. Babs scowled and shook her head at me.
Like I cared.
She was parked on the same shit list as Ferris, and needed to dial back her eyeballs before I reached behind her cheaters and squished them like grapes. Vinny, no doubt tired of the melodrama he’d stumbled into, turned his attention to Luna, who quickly filled our table with all our favorites.
Food was the furthest thing from my mind. Even the smell of Mama’s red beans and rice couldn’t lure my taste buds to life. I ate what I could, and moved the rest around my plate to avoid another lecture.
Babs asked Ferris about his background and how he got into the agency. He answered politely, darting his eyes my way from time to time, although I pretended not to notice. Either Babs wasn’t picking up on his signals, or she felt the need to fill the awkward silence with equally awkward small talk.
Little hearts floated out of Vinny’s head every time he looked at Luna. I didn’t want to bring his evening to a premature end, but I was exhausted and needed more rest before I took on Toussaint. I got to my feet and told the group not to end their evening on my account, that I would Uber back to the hotel. Ferris wasn’t having it. He jumped out of his chair, nodding Babs a quick goodnight.
“
Stay here and relax,” I said. “I’m heading to bed any way.”
Ferris whipped the car keys out of his pocket. “No problem. I’m tired myself.” He turned to Babs and asked, “Think you can grab an Uber later, and make sure Don Juan here gets back safely?”
“No problem. You two must be exhausted after last night. Get some rest.”
Ferris fell in step beside me as I threaded through the tables.
“You can’t avoid me forever,” he murmured. “We need to talk.”
I pushed through the screen door and nearly bowled over Mama, who was sweeping off the porch with an ancient cornhusk broom.
Her eyes twinkled as I grabbed her arms to steady her. “Off so soon?” she asked. “With no kiss goodnight?”
“You know how cranky I get when I’m tired,” I said, shooting her the Allie eye.
“I know everything, child. And I sees everything, too.” She folded me to her chest and whispered a quick prayer in my ear. I kissed her cheek and continued down the steps, grateful for her blessing. But I stopped in my tracks when she turned to Ferris and said, “I have someting for you, young man.”
Mama turned her broom upside down, pulled out a husk, and ground it to powder between her palms. Chanting a spell I’d never heard before, she divided the powder between her hands, blowing one handful onto Ferris and pouring the rest into his hands. “You keep this,” she said, gazing into his eyes. “When the time come, you know what to do with it.”
A wide-eyed Ferris turned to me, as if awaiting further instructions. I shrugged and motioned for him to slip it into his pocket. When he finished pocketing the dust, he thanked Mama and hugged her awkwardly, as if she were made of eggs. She blew us a kiss goodnight and waddled back inside.
“What was that for?” he whispered, as we trotted down the steps.
“Hell if I know.”
Ferris was determined that I wouldn’t ignore him on the ride back to the hotel. “It’s not what you think,” he said, winding through the streets of Meraux.
“What’s not what I think?”
“The reason I told Boudreaux you shot at the blank wall. I didn’t tell him to discredit you.”
“Call it what you want. You threw me under the bus. The guy must think I’m a lunatic.”
“He’s worried about you, Allie. Me too.”
I stared at him, feeling my heart break. “You don’t believe I saw Toussaint.”
He fidgeted in his seat and flipped on the wipers to clean off a fresh round of rain that had begun to fall. “I know you believe you saw Toussaint.”
“But you think it’s because I was stressed, or under pressure, or something. Not because he was actually manipulating my brain.”
Now it was Ferris’s turn to shut down, which actually hurt worse. I never should have let him try to explain. The hole he’d dug, and the chasm between us, had only grown deeper.
He pulled into a parking spot at the Marriott and shut off the engine. “I’m trying to wrap my mind around this stuff. I really am. I love you, Allie girl.”
“You just don’t believe me.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “Just promise me one thing. Promise me you won’t go off to fight Toussaint on your own.”
“It doesn’t matter what I say. You won’t believe me anyway.” I jumped out of the car and slammed the door.
Ferris had enough sense (or was it compassion) to let me run inside and hit the elevator button before he climbed out of his car. When the door opened, I stepped inside, pressed the second-floor button and watched him walk slowly across the lot, until he disappeared behind the closing shiny brass door.
Once in my room, I stepped into the shower and let the hot water soothe my aching muscles. Babs would be back soon. I didn’t want to risk waking her when I left, so I lay down fully dressed, Mama’s gris-gris bag and her obsidian necklace clasped around my neck, boots and weapons on the floor within easy reach. The thought of calling Nonnie popped into my head, but the brain bitch took a hard pass. On a good day, conversations with Nonnie required both concentration and imagination. I was shit-out of both.
It was 8 p.m. If I hit the rack, I could get three hours sleep before I slipped out into the night to face down Toussaint. As I set the alarm on my phone and closed my eyes, Little Allie wondered if Toussaint would haunt my dreams, but all that came was the blessed relief of a dreamless sleep.
40
A Mama’s Love
I woke before my alarm sounded, the room pitch black and still except for Bab’s rhythmic breathing and an occasional sputtering snore into her pillow. I stared at the lighted dial on my watch and counted the minutes passing by, trying to visualize my battle with Toussaint. But the images in my brain disintegrated into a gelatinous pile of zushi, faster than a microwaved corpsicle.
Ah, what the hell. Visualization has never been my thing anyway.
When eleven o’clock finally arrived, I sat up and eased out of bed. The springs protested with a sharp squeak, but Babs rolled over and continued snoring.
I stepped into my boots, slipped into my shoulder rig and sheathed my knife. Then I strapped on my ankle holster and grabbed some extra mags. Afraid that turning on the bathroom light would wake Babs, I stood in the dark and tucked my hair beneath my Ungrateful Dead cap, then ran my fingers across Mama’s necklace hoping to feel her presence.
The fact that I didn’t made me uneasy.
The pouch of magickal Goofer Dust that Mama had given me sat on the night table, waiting to join the rest of my arsenal. Shoving it into my pocket, I crept across the room, opened the door and slipped out into the night to meet my destiny.
Lightning breeched the late-night sky; thunder roiled. I jogged to Congo Square beneath a steady mist, letting the rhythm of my footfalls clear my mind. Center, I thought, channeling Mama. Center.
With each step closer to the square, the air grew more hushed. Less than a week earlier, when I’d faced Toussaint at this same place, the sound of drums and the chatter of the spirits had echoed off the white stone pavers and filled my ears. The spirits were ‘rejoicing.’ That’s what Toussaint had called it. But on this ugly, expectant night, the revenants were nowhere to be found.
Why? Little Allie whispered.
Never mind, my thoughts answered. We’re better off not knowing.
The mist became a steady rain as I strode slowly across the pavers—skin tingling, senses acute, every noise and every sensation magnified a hundredfold. The air beside me whirred. I spun, coming face to face with Toussaint. His emerald eyes gleamed in the darkness.
“Little Bird,” he whispered, brushing his hand against my cheek. “After all these years, I still yearn for you. How is it that we’ve come to this?”
“I put down your wife. Remember? And then you turned my dad into a fucking rotter.”
Toussaint’s eyes flashed. Good. I’d hit a nerve. But he wasn’t finished baiting me.
“It’s true,” he conceded. “You and I, we’ve done…unspeakable…things to each other. But before all that, there was love. I was your first, shar. And now, before I kill you, I will be your last.”
Mama’s voice wafted through the thick night air. Center. Center.
Toussaint stared into my eyes and stretched out his hand. Energy arced from the tips of his fingers and filled the space between us. Within seconds, my body, through no effort of its own, inched closer to Toussaint’s.
An ugly smile crossed his face as he waggled his fingers toward my chest. Mama’s necklace lifted up over my gris-gris bag, snapped at its clasp, and floated through the air into Toussaint’s palm.
“A fitting souvenir for me, eh, Ti Kras Zwazo?”
I channeled my anger and summoned every ounce of power inside me. My mind pushed against his, plowing him backward onto his ass.
He leapt to his feet with a snarl, opened his arms wide and then swept them back together.
Something stirred.
Something in the darkness, beyond my line of sight, shuffled and
scraped toward me across the stone pavers. Closer and closer it came, shambling out from the storm, coming shoulder-to-shoulder with Toussaint—a band of biters, snapping their gnarly teeth at me in anticipation.
I planted my feet shoulder width apart, drew Hawk, and leveled him at the nearest deadhead.
With a single nod from Toussaint, the rotters surged forward in an unrelenting wave.
I exhaled, centering myself, aligning each shot, and took the biters down, one by one, closest to furthest away—until my ammo ran out.
“Letting your minions fight your battles for you?” I shouted, slamming in a fresh mag and racking the slide. “Wow. That’s weak. You’re not the necromancer I remember.”
Toussaint jerked as if I’d slapped him, but recovered quickly and flashed an inexplicable grin. “Yes. That isn’t worthy of either one of us, is it? Forgive me.” He raised his hands into the night sky and then flung them wide, silently scattering his biters back into the darkness from where they’d come. “It is only fitting that you should die by my hand alone, Little Bird.”
Hawk’s grip instantly blazed red-hot in my palm. Toussaint flicked his wrist and sent the 9mm sailing across the pavers.
I pulled my knife, but Toussaint locked onto it with his eyes and sent it airborne.
Unseen fingers constricted my throat and lifted me, suspending me inches above the ground. The more I struggled, the more the fingers contracted.
Lightning streaked across the midnight sky; thunder cracked on its heels. Memories of Mama and Nonnie, Headbutt and Kulu, Ferris and Rico, and my old partner, Harry Delk, swirled through my mind.
My vision began to blur. How had things gone so horribly wrong?
Mama had said that the light in me was stronger than the darkness in Toussaint, but he’d tossed my weapons aside like tinker toys. Where was Mama when I needed her?
Corpse Whisperer Sworn Page 26