“Messalina?” I asked. “You went and dug up some of her bones?”
Nico nodded. “So I used that doll to help my classmate use the Baron to fend off this other Loa, and then, after taking me to Guinee to help the bitch left me there. In a world outside of space and time, to basically fight off the Baron for... God knows how many years."
I sighed. "I'm sorry that happened to you. I sort of know what it's like to get... you know... stuck in a world outside of space and time."
"But you weren't trapped there destined to do battle with Baron Samedi, were you?" Nico asked.
I shook my head. "No. But I've had my issues with the Baron. Back when I was just a tweener."
Nico nodded. "I'm aware of the incident. Marie told me."
"So, how exactly did you become a vampire?" I asked.
Nico sighed. "I made a bargain with the Baron. My freedom, a chance to come back to earth, in exchange for embracing his aspect more fully... for becoming... this. The first vampire."
"You're the first?" I asked.
"I am," Nico said.
"Holy shit," I said, shaking my head.
"You're telling me. Little did I realize when I made that bargain Baron Samedi would end up sending me back to earth like a thousand years before I was born."
"What a dick," I said, shaking my head. "And you've been waiting all the time to get back to your own lifetime?"
Nico nodded. "Ironic, isn't it? I mean, just when I've started to feel like I've had enough... and now I'm only a little more than a century from getting back to my time."
I shrugged. "Can't Marie just take you back? In her headshop time machine?"
Nico shook his head. "She can only go so far forward into the future. And if I went back to the time where she is now, well, my human self is still there."
"And since no soul can be in the same time and place twice... that's oddly what got me trapped once in the void."
Nico nodded. "I think it's more like the spirit of a person rather than the soul, strictly speaking. But I don't know. I mean, the soul. The spirit. What is it, really, anyway? All I know is that I can't exist at the same time as my human self. If I were to be there, like this, and then I was born... or I went there like this, after I was born. Who knows what would happen. I mean, would this version of me be the one kicked into the void? Or, would it be my human self?"
"It would be this self," I said. "It would have to be. Because your human self wouldn't go to Guinee when it did, most likely, if that happened. And then, you wouldn't be here now as a vampire to cause the whole problem to begin with."
Nico laughed. "I suppose that's right. Maybe. I mean, like you said. Time travel..."
I nodded. "I know, right? Where we going anyway? You said Marinette sacrificed a pig during the Haitian revolution. Is that where we're going?"
Nico shook his head. "If we were, I suppose, travel might be easier for you."
I shrugged. "Yes and no. I mean, I could swim there as a mermaid—still a long way to swim. But if I had access to enough magic, I could shift into dragon form. If I was in contact with the sea, I'd become a wyrm."
Nico laughed. "Well, I wouldn't be coming with you. Don't get me wrong. Vampires don't technically have to breathe. So I could ride you... but..."
I shook my head, "I wouldn't be big enough. I only shift large enough to match the mass of my natural body. Anything more than that, well, I have to get the mass somehow. So I'd have to pull it in from all around. Then, when I'd shift back, it's tough to separate your own essence from other matter absorbed."
Nico cocked his head. "I suppose that makes sense. I mean, if you just shifted into a large dragon or wyrm... that extra size has to come from somewhere."
I nodded. "Can't pull the extra mass from your ass."
Nico laughed. "I suppose you can't."
"So you still didn't tell me where we're going," I said.
"I know," Nico chuckled. "I suppose I've been stalling a bit."
"Stalling?" I asked.
Nico nodded and glanced about a hundred feet off the sidewalk where we were standing. There were two horses... in stalls...
I smiled. "So you've got jokes! Stalling... yeah, I get it."
Nico grinned. "Come on. We've got a bit of a ride."
"Where to, exactly?" I asked.
"Baton Rouge," Nico said.
I nodded. "Grew up there..."
"You did. You grew up exactly there."
"Nico," I said. "Marie made it clear we should steer clear of my family!"
"And we will," Nico said, approaching one of the horses and petting its long face. "But before we can find Marinette, we need to find one of the caplatas of her coven."
"Are you saying... one of my ancestors..."
Nico shook his head. "She is not a Campbell. But she is in their employ."
"My ancestors hired a caplata? Surely they didn't realize..."
Nico shook his head. "I doubt they did. But I only learned of her from Marie a few hours ago. Apparently, she's the nanny."
Chapter Fifteen
There was more than one reason why I was uncomfortable going back to my old home, the plantation where I was raised. Even if I was going there long before I was ever born.
It wasn't just the risk of screwing something up with my family. I half wondered if I'd done it already. By messing with Henry's pharmacy order...
The caplata who raised from the grave had come to claim me- a female heir to Asbury Campbell, a siphon himself, that she might bind my abilities, magnify her own power in me as if I were an incubator. Then, extract her power from me again-absorb it herself since, it seemed, any magic I threw at her at the time didn't phase her. She stole it as if she were a siphon of a kind herself.
What would happen if somehow, lingering in her grave, she sensed my arrival and rose to do what she'd failed to accomplish when I was just a girl?
This Messalina wouldn't know she'd failed. It hadn't happened yet. But I wasn't the young, naïve girl I was the first time who'd barely started to come into her abilities.
I didn't have a dragon's essence. I hadn't become a Wyrmrider or defeated a voidbringer.
But the first time I encountered her, she'd summoned Baron Samedi... the same Loa who'd made Nico a vampire.
"You sure it's safe to go there?" I asked. "If the caplata buried there in the graveyard senses my presence... if she emerges from the grave and summons Baron Samedi."
Nico took a deep breath. "We must heed Marie's warning. We need to be careful. This could, effectively, change the course of history in many unpredictable and likely undesirable ways."
"So, do you have a plan B?" I asked.
Nico shook his head. "We still need to find Odette."
"The nanny?"
Nico nodded. "You must stay away from the plantation. But no worries, Joni. I can be... persuasive. It is Odette's assistance we need, not your ancestors. Allow me to take care of that. If she realizes a Loa has arrived and seeks her aid and that she has recruited the aid of the Baron's original vampire... well... I don't think any caplata could resist."
I grunted. "I told you, I'm not a Loa."
Nico nodded and, from the way he pressed his lips together, it was clear he was trying his best to suppress a smile. "You are La Sirene. Also, the Wyrmrider of legend and wife of Agwe. Call yourself whatever you like. But if Odette, at least, believes you are a Loa and seeking Marinette... it would suit our purposes well if you at least allowed her to believe you are, in fact, a Loa."
"So the masquerade continues?" I asked.
"Perhaps," Nico said, as he led the first horse from its stable and tossed a saddle over its back. "Either way, it would behoove your to play the part."
I nodded as Nico prepared both horses for a ride. It wasn't the first time I ever rode a horse. I'd even taken lessons as a girl. But taking a horse on what was typically an hour-long drive from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and would surely take a lot longer on horseback was going to be a new experience.
It's one thing to ride a horse in a field or on a trail. It was another thing to take a trip by horseback.
"You nervous?" Nico asked.
I nodded. "You could say that."
Nico laughed. "The Wyrmrider is anxious about riding a horse?"
I shrugged. "It's different... riding a wyrm. It's more like a partnership. Even a friendship."
"Consider it the same with a horse," Nico said. "You might not have the same connection to the horse that you do with your wyrms, but these stallions are well trained. You will do well. Respect your horse, and he will respond to you just as well, I imagine, like a wyrm."
I don't know why we even bothered with the comparisons. Riding a horse is a totally different experience than riding the wyrm.
So many differences. Not the least of which being how much riding this horse was hurting my ass.
The human butt can only take so many gallops. And my thighs. Screaming. Twitching. Not used to straddling anything for so long. When I rode a wyrm, I just tossed my tail to one side. Come to think of it, a side-saddle might not be a bad idea if we could come up with something wyrm-sized.
I'd have to get with the Fomorian armory on that matter when I got back.
The ride to Baton Rouge took most of the night. That meant, of course, we'd have to wait the day before Nico was free to proceed with his recruitment efforts free of the damaging effects of sunlight.
Truth be told, the sun didn't treat me too well either. I mean, I used to have a pretty decent base tan. But after being underwater for so long, even after shifting back into human form, I was white as a ghost.
Funny how many modern conveniences we take for granted. Things like sunblock. Thankfully, the ride northward was under the cover of night.
Nico had connections everywhere, it seemed. Not all of the plantations in the South survived abolition. No slaves meant plantation owners had to rethink their production. A lot of the slaves, so far as I knew, were simply re-hired by their former owners. While they were technically free, though, many of the plantation owners figured now that they were paying their laborers wages, they could stop providing meals, housing, and the like. Not unless, of course, the freed workers paid "rent" for their former lodging.
The end result? Life for a lot of freed slaves didn't change much. And with few opportunities for these men and women to do anything other than they did before, many plantations resumed operations. A lot. But not all.
Some of the plantations were too devastated by the war to continue operation. The Battle of Baton Rouge, won by the Union, in 1862 left a lot of the area in shambles.
I knew my family's plantation had catered to "King Cotton" in the Antebellum period, and, apparently, they resumed production the best they could after the war.
I was inclined to, at least, tour the area from a distance. I wanted to see for myself what my old home used to be like.
"I told you," Nico said, settling into an abandoned former slave quarters on one of the less fortunate plantations. The quarters were ideal for a vampire-no windows. I mean, aside from the fact the old quarters were in poor shape and neglected. "You should steer clear of your family's plantation."
"I know," I said. "But I know where Messalina was buried. I can stay away from that part. I just want to see... I mean, this is my history, Nico. My family's history."
Nico nodded. "Whatever you do, don't be dumb. Try not to talk to anyone if you can avoid it. And meet me back here before sunset."
I gave the horse I'd been riding a pat on the side. Both of them were tied to a post not far from where Nico was staying. I imagined they were as exhausted as I was.
I also wasn't in the mood to sleep through the day. I'd take a nap when the sun went down while Nico tried to track down Odette.
I made my way to the Campbell plantation. It was an impressive mansion, even in my day. When my parents and I moved to St. Louis, we sold it to a historic society. They gave tours and such. Put a little museum in our former living room.
I was impressed, though, how nice our old home looked—the six columns in the front were whiter than they were when I lived there. The gardens around the place were simpler, I suppose. But still charming. Mostly overgrown with weeds in my childhood, the fields were lined with cotton crops. Rows upon rows of white, Like the clouds had fallen from the skies and rested on the ground.
Several workers were busy picking the crop by hand.
A few of them nodded at me as I passed by. I smiled and waved. I couldn't imagine how hard their lives had been. It was on these men's and women's backs my family's wealth was built. It was from the sweat of these brows that I had grown up in relative luxury. What had I done for it? I was simply lucky enough to be born who I was.
But these people... they earned it. They deserved it. And all they'd get was a pittance for their day's labors.
My stomach churned. I'm not sure it was a sense of guilt so much as it was disgust. I'd always known my family was well-to-do. We had money in the bank, money earned ages ago and wisely invested over time. I was always grateful for that.
But until now, when I thought about it, I'd always envisioned it being my ancestors to whom I owed my gratitude. People like Asbury or Henry. My grandfather and father. But it was these workers, these cotton-pickers, to whom I owed my most outstanding debt of thanks.
It wasn't like I could tell them. "Hey, guess what? Y'all made me rich. Thanks for your dedication!"
I suppose I knew this was still going on. In the old library of the plantation home, where I grew up, there were records of yearly income from cotton. During the Civil War, of course, production was severely restricted. But in 1886, the plantation had the highest proceeds in its history. For the most part, it maintained levels comparable to the pre-war period several decades later.
Primarily because of workers like these. Freedmen and women living lives not that different than slaves. I mean, when you're livelihood is beholden to an employer, when that person gets to tell you when to be where, and you have little to no choice but to comply... it's not so far removed from slavery as we think.
Even in the twenty-first century, people find themselves trapped in jobs they hate, earning less than they deserve. Sure, they could quit at any time. But fear keeps them where they're at, along with the need to keep their family's head above water.
And for these freedmen and women picking cotton... it was real. What else could they do? Emancipation didn't guarantee better jobs. And for many of these workers, it seemed, they likely didn't have much of any other choice.
I heard a few footsteps shuffling behind me.
I turned.
"Good day, ma'am," the man said.
I smiled at the man. "Good morning!" I said. He was a tall, Black man. Not bad looking at all. His fingers capped with blood. "Are you okay?" I asked.
"Yes'm," the man said. "We find it best to do our picking before the sun gets too high in the sky. But what brings a lady such as yourself out to our field this time of the mornin'?"
I smiled. "I'm from... out of town, sir. This place, it just reminds me a bit of home."
The man smiled at me. He was missing a few teeth, but there was something nonetheless endearing by this grin. "No place like home, am I right?"
"So true," I said. "Tell me, sir. You're free, aren't you?"
"Well, of course, ma'am. All of us are."
"And there's nothing else you could do for a day's wages?"
"Ma'am, I'm just happy to have work to do. I ain't gonna fixate on what else I could be doing. I call this job a blessing. Helps me put food on the table for my three girls and my boy."
"But this doesn't remind you of slave work?" I asked.
"Mister Campbell treats us well. Always has. No matter if we was slaves or not. You like to meet him, ma'am?"
I shook my head. "Like I said, just out for a morning stroll. Reminiscing if anything. I have no business with the Campbells."
"Well, it looks as though he'd like to meet you no less," the man s
aid.
"Can I help you, miss?"
I turned, and there stood Henry Campbell. My great, great, well, I don't recall exactly how many greats it was, grandpa. Shit, I said to myself in my head. This is precisely the sort of thing I was supposed to avoid.
"No, sir," I said. "Visiting from out of town. I grew up on a plantation, sort of like this one. Wanted to take a look, you know, for old times sake. Was curious to see a successful plantation after emancipation."
"From out of town, you say?" Henry asked.
"From the south of here," I said. "Just here on some personal family business."
Henry nodded. "And I suppose your husband is handing those affairs. Does he know you're out in the fields fraternizing with nig-"
"He does," I said, cutting him off. I knew what he was going to say but didn't want to hear it. "And please don't call these good people that."
"You sure you're from further south?" Henry asked. "You talk the nonsense of a Yankee."
I nodded. "Yes, sir. And my husband does not care at all if I fraternize with these men. I'd have you know, my husband is a man of color himself."
Henry snorted. "So you're one of those, are you?"
I shrugged. "What in tarnation is that supposed to mean? One of those..."
"I must ask you to leave," Henry said. "I won't have some trollop distracting my men from their work."
I snorted as Henry turned to walk away. I don't know what came over me. But this man, who was supposed to be my ancestor, angered me so much I just blurted it out. "Tell me, sir, how many children do you have?"
"A single son," Henry said. "And my family affairs are none of your concern."
A single son. He'd told Chad, at Marie's, his wife had given birth to two. "And what of your second? Your daughter?"
Henry clenched his fist. "How dare you speak of her! Everyone knows my daughter didn't survive but a week of life."
I nodded. "What they don't all know is that you're to blame for that. And that you're prepared to do the same to your next."
Henry stared at me blankly. "I don't know who you think you are, miss. Or where you've got such notions. But you best leave now before I have no recourse but to call the Sheriff."
Wyrmrider Vengeance: An Underwater Magic Urban Fantasy (The Fomorian Wyrmriders Book 2) Page 9