The Voodoo Killings

by Kristi Charish

  I swallowed hard as I backed into the pool table. “Randall, whatever they’ve offered you, whatever they’ve threatened you with, it’s not worth it.”

  Randall didn’t look at me. “Well, you were right about one thing, kid. You never did know when to quit.”

  I realized why Randall had his hands below the bar: to hide the aluminum bat.

  “You were supposed to be in jail, kid, not able to walk into my bar.”

  “Morgan set me up for that murder….” I trailed off. Hold on, I hadn’t told Randall about the last two murders, or my hours spent in jail.

  Randall shook his head. “When Morgan didn’t show up, I figured she’d run into trouble. Should have gotten rid of her myself after the whole Cameron fiasco. Shows up in my bar with a fucking zombie.” He muttered in Filipino under his breath. “Couldn’t spot trick bindings from real zombie bindings to save her life. Messed up that ghost trap mirror I gave her to stick in your lobby. Was supposed to keep you busy looking for your ghost and out of my hair. Ought to thank that ghoul for taking care of her, though on the other hand, it’s yet another practitioner gone. You’d have been safe in jail, kid. I’d have found someone else….”

  Keeping my eyes on Randall and the bat in his hands, I inched my fingers along my phone’s call screen.

  “Don’t do it, kid. I’m old, but I’m still fast,” he said, pointing the bat at the phone.

  I slid my phone back in my pocket, gauging how far the back door was from me.

  I took a step, trying to wrap my head around everything. Randall’s family were practitioners, but as far as I knew, he’d never been. “You’re not even a practitioner,” I said.

  “I’m better than most of you, kid,” he said. “I know how to hide it.”

  Randall vaulted over the bar with ease and strode towards me. Like hell was I taking on Randall; I’d seen him break up too many bar fights with that bat.

  “I really wish it hadn’t been you, Kincaid.” He barked a command at the three zombies and they stilled their advance.

  Shit…

  I ducked as the bat hit a wooden beam close enough for me to feel the air stir. I didn’t get a chance to be relieved as Randall readied for another swing. I pushed a chair in his way and dove under the pool table as the bat came down. The chair shattered. I smacked the top of my head against the underside of the table as I scrambled out of reach.

  Randall frowned at having missed. I was running out of pool table.

  “I was gunning for Max, you know. Wouldn’t have had a problem killing him. Or Morgan, for that matter.” Randall readied the bat over his shoulder. “You? I’m going to feel bad about you.”

  Small fucking comfort…Randall edged around the pool table towards me.

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned the last few weeks, it’s that kids never listen. That’s why we’re both here, isn’t it? Mike never listened to a thing I said about speeding, and what happens? He races a bike off a bridge and kills himself. That’s what kids do, though. You should have taken my advice and stayed the hell out of this. Just remember whose fault this is.”

  “I know exactly whose fault all this is, Randall. Yours.”

  Randall’s feet were less than a foot away. “I always liked you, Kincaid,” he said. “You were a good kid. I really hate to do this.”

  Now.

  I tried not to picture my skull cracking under the bat and bolted for an oak table closer to the door. I scrambled under as the bat came down. Randall barked another command and the three zombies rushed to block the back door.

  “No one is getting in or out of here until we’re done, Kincaid,” Randall said, edging around the table.

  I crawled towards the middle of the table, hoping he couldn’t reach me. I focused on the zombies. Definitely four-lines, as I’d thought, but good, strong ones.

  I tapped as much Otherside as I dared and pulled a globe. Randall would notice the drop in temperature, so I’d have to move fast. I focused on the nearest zombie’s bindings, the one with the baseball cap, and threw as much Otherside at him as I could, biting back the nausea.

  The zombie stumbled, but before I could exploit the opening, other bindings filled in for the one I’d damaged. The zombie regained his footing.

  Shit, Randall really was good.

  The baseball bat cracked against the table and the legs groaned.

  “No Otherside!” Randall yelled.

  “You can’t bring your son back as a Jinn. It’d be living torture,” I yelled at him, half hoping Cameron had heard us. He wouldn’t stand a chance against three zombies, but maybe he’d have a stroke of brilliance and call Aaron or Lee….“Besides, you don’t even know if it’ll work. The ghoul couldn’t even hazard a guess, and he killed way more people trying than you have.”

  I took a deep breath and eyed the neighbouring tables, trying to map an escape route to the back door. “I’d watch that bat, Randall. It’d really suck if you killed me by accident,” I yelled, and dove for the next table.

  Not fast enough.

  I screamed as the bat hit the back of my thigh. Whether it was the angle or just luck, the bone didn’t break and I managed to scramble out of his range again. One more table and I’d be close enough to the back door to make a break for it….

  My hand slid out from under me as I hit something wet and slick. Blood. Why would there be blood? Then I noticed the trace of Otherside and followed it to the motionless orange form. Now I knew what had happened to Randall’s alley cat. I may have hated the damn thing, but I only used sea urchins, for Christ’s sake. Then it dawned on me that Randall hadn’t been trying to catch me with the bat and the zombies. He’d been corralling me. Here.

  The back door was to my right, but Randall and the zombies were now in the way. I had a clear route to the front door. Run on three, Kincaid. One, two, three—nothing. I threw myself forward again, and again was held fast. I scanned the bindings. They were eerily similar to the ones I’d found on Max. I’d triggered them when I’d touched the blood. He’d hidden the binding trap under the table so I wouldn’t see the blood sacrifice.

  “Always said it was worthwhile feeding that cat,” Randall said as I struggled. “I learned from Max. Those bindings won’t let you move or tap Otherside. I never thought the crazy old man would trigger the fire wards like he did.”

  “All right, Randall, you win,” I said. “There’s no need to practise on me. Hell, I’ll help you raise Michael as a Jinn if it means that much to you.” Not if I could help it, but I was out of options here.

  Randall squatted down so he was eye level with me. “Who said anything about raising my kid as a Jinn?”

  “Why the hell else would you be…” I trailed off as I remembered a passage I’d stumbled over in King Solomon’s text: “Bound in torment but granted power over life and death.” I’d assumed it referred to weapons, but that wasn’t the only interpretation. Randall must think it meant a Jinn could bring back the dead. He was further off the deep end than I’d thought.

  “For god’s sake, this isn’t a genie, it’s an undead. Jinn kill things on demand, they don’t grant wishes.” But I could see in his eyes that there was no point arguing. “I’m going to be really pissed off if you turn me into a Jinn for nothing.”

  A voice said, “I’d put down the bat.”

  Cameron. I craned my neck. I couldn’t see him, but all three zombies were on the floor, necks broken. Randall had been so busy with me, he’d somehow missed Cameron getting rid of his wrecking crew. We both had. One drawback to Otherside? It’s easier to get the drop on a practitioner when he is using it.

  Randall smiled before standing up to face Cameron. “I’m the one with the bat, zombie.”

  Cameron nodded. “But you’re forgetting I’m already dead, and much taller than you. Harder to reach my head. Do you really want to take the chance I’ll get to you before you can kill me? I’m pretty hungry.” Cameron flashed Randall a feral grin.

  I couldn’t look as I hea
rd the crack of the bat meeting bone, but it was Randall who yelled. Despite likely breaking all the bones in his hand, Cameron had caught the bat and tugged it out of Randall’s grasp.

  “Now, let Kincaid go,” Cameron said.

  Randall didn’t have much choice. I felt the bindings start to give as he peeled the layers away. We were actually going to walk out of here….

  But then he turned to face Cameron. “Seems I remember something about you feeling lousy around Otherside.”

  “Wait!” I screamed. “Randall, you made your point. I won’t fight if you promise to let him go.” Even as I said it, I knew how stupid it sounded. Of course Randall wouldn’t let Cameron go. Why the hell would he? He’d be an idiot to leave a witness.

  “No,” Cameron said. “It’s me who will do whatever you want if you let Kincaid go.”

  That got my attention—and Randall’s.

  “Seriously, raise me as a Jinn. I volunteer. That’s the right term, isn’t it?”

  “I need someone who’s alive,” Randall said, but I could see his mind turning. I hadn’t been his first choice, just his last resort.

  “How about this, zombie boy,” Randall said. “If it works on you, I’ll let Kincaid go.”

  “And if it doesn’t work?” Cameron said.

  Randall shrugged. “Then Kincaid will be next. You won’t care, though, because you’ll be dead.”

  “Set her free of those bindings and we have a deal,” Cameron said.

  The bindings tightened as if to remind me that Randall knew as well as I did that he wasn’t going to let me walk out of here, even if he managed to turn a zombie into a Jinn. Randall walked back to the table and hauled me around until I was half in, half out of the binding circle. I could clench my hands, but my legs wouldn’t move.

  “Half now, half later. Stand there, Cameron, back against the wall. And keep your hands where I can see them,” Randall said, pointing a cue at a spot behind the pool tables.

  With effort I scanned the room. Only one other person besides Lee would have known to take Randall’s zombies out by the neck. I’d taught that to Cameron since he couldn’t use Otherside worth a damn. Time to buy time.

  “Did you at least try to call someone?” I called to Cameron.

  “Didn’t seem much point,” he said.

  The back door was closed and I caught no moving shadows under the fluorescent lights.

  “That’s enough out of both of you,” Randall said.

  I winced as the bindings on my legs cinched tighter. Come on, Kincaid, front door, you can do it. It was still ajar.

  Randall crouched in front of Cameron and began tracing the symbols on the floor. Once he flooded them with Otherside, I wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing for Cameron.

  “Randall’s going to kill us, both of us,” I yelled.

  The bindings tightened so much around my waist, they knocked the wind out of me. “One more word, Kincaid, and so help me—”

  Cameron caught my eye then glanced at the bindings at his feet. “Someone once told me you suck at patience, Kincaid,” he said.

  I’ll bet they did. I didn’t know if Aaron was on the way, but I was damned if I was going to let these cards fall. I couldn’t pull a globe, not in this trap, but the beauty of such a trap was that the bindings were real specific. Hoping Randall had underestimated how reckless I was, I tapped the Otherside without a filter. And with that, I flooded pure, unadulterated Otherside into the bindings holding me. I don’t know if I was more shocked that it worked or by the pain that seared through my head.

  First I screamed. Then, when I felt the last of Randall’s work burn off, I cut my tap. I heard Cameron yelling followed by the crack of a gun sounding through the bar. Not that it mattered to me—I was doing my best not to pass out.

  When I was able to look up, Aaron was standing over Randall’s still form, holding his arm, blood seeping through his shirt. How the hell had a gun ended up in this equation? But there it was, in Randall’s hand.

  “I thought you were supposed to be the one with the gun?” I said to Aaron.

  “He already had his drawn,” he said, nodding at Randall. “I told you I didn’t think you were the killer.”

  With Aaron and Cameron’s help, I crawled away from the trap and stood. “That. Was. Stupid,” I said.

  Aaron almost smiled. “Agreed. Could you stop trying to get yourself almost killed?”

  “I wasn’t trying to get myself killed, I was trying to stop a killer.”

  “You were doing both.”

  I closed my eyes. I couldn’t believe it: two seconds and we were already arguing.

  “You were doing so well until you started talking,” I said.

  I opened my eyes as the corner of Aaron’s mouth turned up.

  I glanced down at Randall to make sure he was still unconscious, and noticed his chest wasn’t moving.

  “Shit.” I crouched down beside him then looked up at Aaron and Cameron.

  Randall was dead.

  —

  We settled on arson.

  I know how odd that sounds coming from a cop and a practitioner wanting to stay out of jail, but in the end it was the only solution we could think of.

  With Randall dead, I’d spend the next few months explaining to rooms full of skeptical police officers what a Jinn was and why a respected bar owner and supposed non-practitioner was trying to raise one. Even with Aaron backing me up, no one would believe me, but no one would be able to prove me wrong: two circumstances cops hate. Then there was the small issue of Cameron being a zombie….Since Max was gone, I’d probably end up charged for both Cameron’s raising and Randall’s manslaughter, and Aaron would lose his job.

  Much easier to throw the four bodies in the cellar, light the place on fire, and leave.

  Besides, it was almost the start of poltergeist season, and everyone knows a poltergeist loves a fire.

  I sent Aaron away after he helped us drag the bodies into the cellar. The bullet had only grazed him, but he still had to get the wound cleaned up.

  “Cameron, get yourself upstairs,” I said as I dumped whisky over the bodies. I knew somewhere I should feel bad, but I just couldn’t bring myself to.

  “All this over a Jinn fairy tale,” I said to Randall’s corpse.

  I felt a brush of cold behind me.

  Gideon.

  “How much did you hear and see, ghost?” I said.

  He shrugged. “Enough.” He examined my pyre in the making. “Interesting streaks of bad luck seem to follow the living everywhere nowadays.”

  Max, Randall, his kid, Marjorie, the two other victims—all for some mystical monster no one had seen in five hundred years? I grabbed the igniter fluid and added that to the mix, though the whisky should cover it. My foray into arson was the kitchen-sink edition.

  “We need to talk,” Gideon said.

  “I’m a little busy. Later.”

  “Now. It’s about your zombie friend upstairs.”

  I glanced at Gideon, who was perched on the pile of bodies. Well, not really, but it looked like it. There was something in his expression that brought Lee’s and Max’s warnings back to me.

  “I’m very sorry, Kincaid,” he said.

  I backed up towards the cellar stairs, not that it would do me any good if Gideon attacked.

  “Max was very good,” he said. “I don’t think I would have believed it if I hadn’t read the client accounts you found for me.”

  My throat was dry as Gideon continued to regard me. “Believed what?”

  He nodded up towards the bar. “That my payment was hidden right under my nose. Intricate binding layered over intricate binding so I couldn’t recognize what he was. Brilliant on Max’s part.”

  “What about Cameron?” I said.

  Gideon’s eyes never left mine. “Cameron is my payment from Maximillian Odu. A body I could inhabit.”

  I took another step towards the cellar stairs.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Gideon
said. “We had a deal, Kincaid, one all parties had agreed upon, including Cameron.”

  “Gideon, he doesn’t remember any deal.”

  “He can’t remember anything.”

  I licked my lips. “There has to be another way.”

  “You have nothing I wish to trade for.”

  Maybe if I screamed…

  “Kincaid,” Gideon warned, and I felt ice lash against my skin. “You know what I can do. Don’t think for a moment I won’t hurt you.”

  I knew not only what Gideon could do to me, but Sarah, Aaron, Lee…

  “So call Cameron. Nicely. Now.” He sent another wave of ice towards me.

  “Cameron, could you come down here for a moment.” I glared at Gideon as I heard Cameron’s footsteps. “You don’t have to do this,” I said. “He’s damaged and I don’t know if he can be fixed. Find someone else.”

  For a second I thought maybe, just maybe, Gideon might change his mind. I really did. Then he shook his head.

  I couldn’t let it happen.

  “Cameron, run!” I screamed. “It’s a trap.”

  The Otherside blast hit me and I dropped to my knees.

  “Kincaid?” I heard Cameron’s footsteps on the stairs as Gideon knelt beside me.

  “I’m feeling very generous, so I won’t kill you, Kincaid. But I’ll be taking Cameron.”

  “Fuck you,” I said. “I’d rather be dead than hand him over to a mad ghost like you.”

  Gideon’s face showed something close to disappointment before his mask of indifference returned. “I can arrange that.”

  Cold fingers wrapped around my throat as he lifted me off the floor, and I gasped. Cameron’s footsteps halted at the bottom of the stairs. Damn it, I’d told him to run. Now or never, Kincaid.

  “Stop fighting me and I’ll teach you anything you want to know,” Gideon said.

  “I don’t want anything from you.”

  Gideon’s eyes shifted from ghost grey to black. “Last chance, Kincaid. I’m not above killing you.”

  I shot a glance at the stairs. Cameron stood at the bottom, perfectly still. I flicked the lighter. Cameron saw it.