by Lyra Byrnes
“Mama, stop.”
I froze, dripping mustard sauce on the mahogany. “What?”
“I know—Yevgeny,” said Mojo heavily. “It’s Russian for Eugene, so you can see why I prefer Mojo.”
“You’re Baba Yaga’s son?”
“It’s been like this all afternoon,” Rye sighed, filing her nails.
“I feel a little bit responsible for Rye here, and with good reason. She’s in trouble.”
“We’re both in trouble.”
“Yeah, yeah. I thought I could help. You’re welcome.”
“Yasmina! More soy sauce! And Bellinis!”
Baba Yaga zapped a dish of brown liquid and three full glasses onto the table. A sprinkle of violet light drifted from them and melted into the air.
“No drinks,” I said sternly. Nomore drinks. “Look, Barb, is there any way you can help us stop the Emissary from coming?”
“Me? Not a damn thing. To know how to stop an entity, you have to understand all its tricksy ways, and I told you, I don’t know the first thing about voodoo. Not that I care to. Witchery is elegant and pretty. But voodoo? All that blood and feathers and graveyard dirt.” She grimaced. “So crude.”
“But you did know the witch who cursed me. Any information you have would be deeply appreciated. I’d give you my firstborn, but…” I gestured at Mojo, who glared. A pacifier had appeared in his mouth and a bonnet on his head, and I doubted very much that was something he’d conjured himself. “You already have one.”
“Hold on now. She only arranged it. I knew her from here and there. Spellcasters kind of bump into each other, haven’t you found? Like left-handers and stamp collectors.”
“Was she always evil?”
“She wasn’t evil, more of a mix. There’s a fine line between white work and dark work,” she sniffed. “Some of us can control ourselves.”
That got me all of nowhere.
“Okay, thanks for trying to help. If you remember anything else before midnight…”
Baba Yaga tipped back her Bellini and threw a handful of egg rolls into her purse. “Sorry kid. Only what everyone else knew about her. She loved the hell out of that red Caddy. I wonder what happened to it after she died.”
*****
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” At least, I think that’s what Rye said. The voice came from far away. My ears filled with white noise, my muscles seized up as if I were lifting an anvil.
The old witch—or house on chicken legs, or whatever she was—had sailed out of the room, leaving a dropped grenade behind her. It was about to blow up in my face.
“I know who the Emissary is.” I picked up Mojo. “I have to pick up some items for tonight.”
Rye rose. “I’m coming with you.”
“No, it would be just my luck to drag other people into my mess.” Well, a person and a head, who used to be Yevgeny, son of Barb. My already weird life had gone into weird hyperdrive lately. “I have to do this alone.”
Getting that bone to the cemetery was my only hope, and even if I could bury it, there was a chance it might not break the curse and Draven would snatch me anyway. I could still taste his kisses, but their sweetness had turned foul.
Chapter Twelve
It was already dark when we arrived home, a bag of fun stuff in the trunk. The rum, egg and Turtle Wax had been easy to find, but I had a hell of a time convincing the lady at the Shop4Less meat counter to sell me a pint of pig fat.
The rain started out of nowhere, pocking the sidewalk. Not a warm summer storm of the south but a chilly, needlelike rain. Upstairs was probably safer than the shop. I didn’t want any stray customers to wander in expecting a reading.
Mojo had insisted I bring the book. Apparently, Barb brought it for him, a kind of keepsake from his dear mother, his wicked, ancient mama feared throughout all of witchdom, never mind mankind.
“It’s a compendium of the main points of the major occult classes,” he said as I set it up right on the table. “A magic encyclopedia, if you will, with a fair bit of demonology. So a valuable tome in general. Tonight in particular.”
I turned opened it to a page titled Vodoun. “Just read.”
“Are you certain Draven is the Emissary?”
“I’m sure. He claims to be from the swamps of Louisiana, like me and Serafina, that adds up. Then he shows up here in Assafrass and tries to get close to me.” With success, I did not add. “Remember what he said that night at Sweet Willie’s—I’m not the first who something something, I forget exactly.”
“Who finds your charms irresistible,’ rather flattering.”
“Right, ‘And I won’t be the last.’ He’s talking about Mr. Doll! Two men after me, but for the same reason.”
“Sleeping with him might not have been the best idea,” said Mojo.
“I didn’t—how did you know?”
“Shirt’s on backward.”
I flushed. “Anyway, here’s the kicker—he owns a red Cadillac. I’m sure it was Serafina’s. There were creepy runes carved into the steering wheel.”
*****
How much tea can a person drink? Apparently six pots, before feeling nauseated and eating a power bar as a defense against barfing. What I wanted was a nice relaxing drink or fifty and a long, oblivious sleep. But I had to stay alert and keep turning the pages for Mojo.
I turned a page with one hand and did curls with the other. If worse came to worst, maybe I could punch the Emissary in his stupid zombie face. “Anything good?”
“It’s all quite fascinating. It says here practitioners believe the soul is divided into two parts. Theti bon ange is specific to a person, his individuality, personality. It leaves the body when you dream but otherwise it’s what makes you you. As far as I can tell, that’s the part you’ll be losing if Mr. Doll gets you.”
“Yeesh. How much of me will be left after I become the Stepford Wife of Satan?”
“Not Satan,” he corrected me. “Remember he’s low on the voodoo food chain. Thegro bon ange is more like the life force. It only leaves the body in death. Put aside your panic for a moment and apply those terms to the Emissary.”
Draven, the dead, brain-eating messenger ghoul sent to pick up a package I’ve grown very attached to.I’d been starting to fall for him. I had sex with him. Withit. I tried to shake the horrorshow out of my head and think rationally.
“So he’s lost the big part—the being-alive part—but kept the little one.”
“Correct. Zombies can pass as human for a time before they begin to break down, because what keeps them functioning semi-normally is a kind of muscle memory of the soul, theti bon ange. Turn, please.”
I put down the dumbbell and shook out my arm. Something rattled against the window although there was no tree close enough to touch it.
“According to this book, there are signs. Their bodies are cold—“
“Wait. Did you hear that?”
It came again, a sharp, glassy knock. I ran to the window and peeked out.
“Jinx! Come down, I have to talk to you!” His voice was muffled through the glass by the sound of pouring rain. I opened the window and leaned out.
“Cole! What are you doing here?” He looked drunk, listing over to one side, his suit and hair soaked. Maybe he’d gotten hammered at Sweet Willie’s and needed a ride. Or maybe he was just crazy in love with me. It could happen.
“Come down and let me in!”
I hurried to put my shoes on, but Mojo stopped me. “Jeannette, don’t. There’s another fact I haven’t told you yet.”
“He may be able to help.” I wasn’t sure what a lawyer could do to help, but it was nice to have backup.
“He knows nothing about your situation. We have less than an hour. Get rid of him.”
“All right, I’ll be nice about it.”
I started down the stairs but froze when Cole shouted hoarsely, “You have something for me. Give it!”
Give it, I heard the Baron scream in my nightmares.
/> Nope to all that. I ran back up, yelling on the way. “No! Go away!”
“Stubborn. I like that in a girl.”
Crap, crap, crapstorm shitbuckets of fuck.
“Looks like we found our zombie,” said Mojo. “Where is he now?”
I peeked out, shaking. Cole was slumped to one side, blank-eyed. “Directly under the window.”
“Get the dumbbell. Then go downstairs and grab a broom. On my go.”
I did as he instructed, my mind on fire. Cole, the “family lawyer” whose last name Rye didn’t know, his cold handshake, his untouched plate and undrunk beer, lack of pop culture knowledge. How long had he been dead? I shuddered to think of it.
Fortunately, the windows on the street side were vertically stacked, so I took position with the broom in front of the shop window. No lights were on inside and the neon sign was off, but I worried that Cole, or what was left of him, could see my silhouette in the darkened room. That bastard had called my sign “ghastly.” I should have known right then.
“I want it now. Give it!”
“Go!” boomed Mojo. I struck the broom handle against the ceiling. Nothing happened. I hit it again, then started slamming hard and fast until the room above shook. I heard things falling but no shattering glass. Mojo’s crystal ball was heavy enough to withstand my weak arms and a kitchen broom.
From outside, a wet thump and hard crack. Cole was down. I wish I could say his undead head was split open like a cantaloupe but the weight seemed to have hit his shoulder and knocked him on his side.
“Go, go, go!” shouted Mojo. “I love you, Jeanette.”
I threw the broom aside, swiped my keys from the hook by the door, picked up the bag of offerings and sped outside, giving the zombie’s groaning body wide berth.
Aw, Mojo loves me.
Chapter Thirteen
A graveyard is a spooky enough place when you’re not visiting one at midnight to bury the bone of a maybe-chicken in order to release yourself from a voodoo curse. But that night it was really, really spooky. The rain had congealed into a low, thick mist, cold fingers of it reaching under my clothes and chilling my skin. Worse, it had taken longer than I expected to reach the awful place. In the dark I’d made some wrong turns. Every time I looked at the car clock, it had jumped ahead five minutes. By the time I pulled up at the heavy iron gates, my heart was beating out of my chest, my hands were clammy and trembling.
“In the shadow of a headstone,” read Julius Spyglass’s note. There were no shadows, just blackness, gray mist and silvery puddles. I chose a likely place and unpacked.
It was 11:57.
Sprinkle rum on ground—check.
Rub bone with pig fat—ew and check.
Dig, dig dig. I clawed up the dirt as best I could, apologizing under my breath for desecrating the poor sucker’s grave.
Place egg in hole. Spit on bone. Blow pubic hair into hole.
As Draven the non-zombie could attest, I keep the runway clear, but I’d found a tiny stray and tweezered it out with a cry of pain and folded a piece of paper around it. It was too late to get it out and too dark to see, so I blew the tiny envelope into the indentation in the dirt. Now for the words.
“Hiya, angelface. Boy, did I get lucky with you. Some of my girls turn out to be real woof-doggies.”
Mr. Doll stood over me, idly scratching between two long pointed front teeth with his claw. Even in the dark, his skin was red and shiny. He wore the pinstripe suit I’d seen in my visions and gave off a stench of something meaty and unpleasant burning.
“You can’t take me,” I said, brushing dirt over the hole. “You’re a puny little weakling.” At least I hoped that was the case. I’d knocked Cole down but he couldn’t do the zombie shuffle fast enough to reach the cemetery.
Time, though, was the issue. It was past midnight. Happy birthday to me.
I put the bottle of rum and the Turtle Wax on the grave and stood. Mr. Doll was half my size but his head was twice the size of a human’s.
“Wrong again, girlie. I’ve got a harem full of magical gals in my lair and they give me strength. Coupla other things besides,” he snickered. Gross.
I did the only thing I could do. I kicked him in the balls.
He doubled over, hands tucked in his crotch, howling. “Ow! What’d you do that for?”
“Marinette, Kalfu, Papa Legba who rules the crossroads,me liberer—“
“Bitch!”
I kicked him again, glancing down at the words in my hand, but this time Doll grabbed my ankle. I began to scream. The demon began to scream. So there we were, screaming, me hopping around like an idiot with Doll still holding onto my leg. It wasn’t the most dignified scene but at least I still had possession of all my bon anges.
Somewhere, a car door slammed and voices reached me from the cemetery gates.
“Jinx! Are you—AAAHHH!”
Now Rye was screaming. Draven came running up beside her, breathing hard but otherwise blessedly silent.
“Hit him!” I yelled at Draven. He punched Mr. Doll in the head and the monster fell backward, releasing me, whereupon I also flew back onto my ass. Now Rye was the only one screaming.
There was no time to ask how they’d found each other or me. I jumped to my feet, picked up the rum bottle and held it up like a gunslinger about to start a fight in a saloon. “Hit him again! Smash him!”
“Jinx, he’s a god, not a guy.”
“He’s a nothing,” I spat, breathing hard and staring malignantly at Mr. Doll. “Just a shrimpy little nobody who could be squashed like a bug. Baron Samedi said so and he’s your boss.” If I couldn’t vaporize him with magic words, at least I could piss him off.
Draven stood up a little straighter, a light in his strange eyes. “Bug! That’s it. Rye, now!”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“This shriveled little monkey demon is going to kidnap you and steal your magic.”
Rye looked like she was going to cry.
“And make you do horrible things with him!” I yelled. “Sex things.”
That did it. She began to tremble, a lavender perfume filled the air. Slender bolts of purple light shot around her arms and hands. A burst of violet light tinted the mist and for a split second the graveyard looked like a wonderland. Mr. Doll was gone.
“You did it!” I shrieked, literally jumping for joy.
“Not yet.” Draven pointed to the pile of offerings. A dark blot scurried across the Turtle Wax bottle.
Bug. Wonderful Rye and her wonderful kill-stupid-idiots magic. I squished Mr. Doll under my sneaker and took a long pull from the bottle of rum.
Chapter Fourteen
I swayed in Draven’s arms, the best place to be, if you ask me. Sweet Willie’s was having its best night ever, since Rye decided she wanted a bachelorette party do-over and invited the whole town to celebrate. Everyone in the place was wearing one of the tasteful penis necklaces she’d bought for the occasion, from the bartenders to the band to the giggling girls and hat-tipping rednecks.
“You look dark and dangerous in sunglasses,” I said.
Draven grinned. “You think so?” Granted, they were pink novelty glasses withTeam Bride across the top, but you can’t have everything. And he did look super cute.
He led me by the hand off the dance floor and we sat down. Rye was off in the corner with a bunch of very pretty girls, not bridesmaids this time, but the local witches. Along with donut shops, apparently Assyltania is heavy on the witch population.
“If you’re not a zombie, what the hell are you?”
“I’m human, if that helps.”
“It helps a lot. I should have known you weren’t the Emissary from the first time—“
“The first time what?”
I suddenly felt shy. “I smelled you. You smell delicious and your skin is warm. Cole had cold hands and he hated my sign. What a jerk.”
Draven smiled gently. “Whoever the real Cole was, what happened to him wasn’t his fau
lt.”
“I didn’t have time to tell you, Jinx,” Mojo cut in. He didn’t look as cute in the sunglasses, but it was nice of him to wear them. “It was in the book. Apparently, if a curse is made on another’s behalf, a mambo can temper it. Serafina also conjured up a protector for you.”
“Like in Sleeping Beauty, where the bad fairy curses her to sleep forever but the good fairy puts in the stuff about true love’s kiss.”
“The Sleeping Beauty, if you want to call her that, was selfish little shrew,” Mojo sniffed. “But you didn’t hear it from me.”
Draven sipped his beer. “Only I’m not a conjuring. I’m her nephew. Hence the car.”
Oh. I had gotten a lot of things wrong. Then again, it all came out pretty much right. Cole crumbled into a pile of dust and washed away in the rain after I squashed Mr. Doll like the bug he was. Rye was still engaged to Stan or whatever but had discovered her powers and was training with a coven of supermodels. Ninja Pete was too young to attend the party but Rye had sent him an edible arrangement and offered to pool their magical resources, and Julius was there, getting down on the dance floor to rhythmic clapping from the crowd. Mojo had decided to stay with me and not return to terrorizing the countryside with Baba Yaga.
And I had Draven.
“So what’s that writing on the steering wheel?”
“Quod superius, sicut inferius. My aunt never wanted to forget that the light and dark were both part of a spectrum.”
“As above, so below,” said Mojo.
“Are you, uh, in the family business?”
Draven laughed and shook his head. Even his laugh was low and rumbly and sexy. I felt it all the way to my toes. “I’m a mechanic.”
Whew. Good thing, too. The supernatural racket was a tough way to make a living. I should know.
Rye came over and kissed us all on the cheek, even pecking Mojo’s crystal ball, making him blush. “I’m having the best time, y’all! I’m gonna be so sad to leave.”
“Where are you going?” Lucky her. I felt my time in Asswobble was over, but where to go? I’d just inherited a butt-ton of money and was ready for something new.