Dark Destiny: Book One of the Destiny Novella Series (Destiny Novellas 1)

by Kari Gray

  Lily frowned. “Not specifically, the name doesn’t ring a bell.” She scribbled it on a piece of paper and slid it over to Bennett, who sat next to her at the kitchen island. He shook his head and shrugged.

  “She was Veronique’s friend, from when they were both very young and Veronique had only just moved to New Orleans.” Mimi paused, cleared her throat. “Ronnie opened her shop and Lady Chamonix became New Orleans’ premier voodoo priestess over time. She was a good ten years older than Ronnie, but still very young to be one of such stature in the voodoo community. She was special to Ronnie, and a compassionate woman with a very developed spiritual sense.”

  “Did you ever meet her?”

  “Yes, on a couple occasions when I visited. She was very bright, very humble, more than you might expect someone of such lofty stature to be. And she had enemies.”

  “Why?”

  Mimi sighed. “The history is a long one, but to get to the crux of it, she was powerful and people wanted that power. Much like they wanted from your mother.”

  Lily swallowed, her mouth feeling suddenly very dry.

  “Ronnie knew Chamonix was in danger, and although Ronnie never gave me any details, she told me that Chamonix had given her information pertaining to some of her valuables, things that would spell danger if in the wrong hands.”

  Lily frowned. “I’ve lived with Ronnie for four years, spent my summers down here as a kid, and she never once mentioned this woman to me.”

  “Ah, but she wanted to keep you safe, my dear. You and Dahlia and Poppy. The three jewels we have sworn to protect.”

  “Oh, Mimi.” Lily swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I think I’ve made a huge mistake in not learning about our stupid gifts. You can say ‘I told you so,’ because it’s true, and now I’ve put Ronnie in danger.”

  Mimi laughed. “First of all, the gifts are not stupid. And secondly, nothing you have or haven’t done has put Ronnie in danger.”

  Bennett looked at Lily in sympathy and it was nearly her undoing. She wanted to hiss at him to stop being nice because it was making her cry and she didn’t deserve it anyway. Instead, she pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers and closed her eyes for a moment.

  “Ok,” she said, “so what do I do? What am I looking for? The man who contacted me said it’s some sort of pot tet. A talisman on a long chain.”

  Mimi sucked in her breath and her pause made Lily nervous. “Oh.”

  “Oh, what?” Lily moved from nervous to alarmed.

  “If it’s the one I’m thinking of, that talisman contains one hair from the head of each influential priestess for generations, predating Chamonix’ Jamaican ancestry, even. It came to this country in a roundabout way from Eastern Europe.”

  Lily swallowed. “What does it do?”

  “Oh, many things, supposedly. The one who wears it wields power no one person should hold, power that has, over time, become very dark. Power to create a zombie with a drop of the victim’s blood and a simple incantation. To call upon dark spirits who would wreak havoc on the living, that sort of thing. Chamonix herself never used the talisman. Preferred to pursue the light side.” Mimi paused again, and Lily heard the rustle of fabric as her grandmother began to move. “Ten years ago, Chamonix was murdered, and the culprit was never found. Only six months before that, she had given Veronique a letter that Veronique then gave to me to keep in the safe. I’ve never opened it.”

  Lily frowned, thinking. “I remember that,” she said. “It was just after Mama died. Ronnie came for a visit again not long after the funeral and was all kinds of serious about something. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew she was unsettled.”

  “Yes,” Mimi said, and Lily heard her shoes clicking on the wood floors of the Boston home. “It’s in the library.” Another pause, a few curses muttered under her breath, and Mimi must have been victorious in opening the family safe. “Here we go.”

  “I think I need that letter,” Lily said. “And that little journal Mama gave me when I turned 10. She said I’d need it one day.” She fought back a sense of nausea at what she was setting in motion.

  “I never thought I would live to hear you say that, Lily.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to.”

  “Is it really so bad, my sweet? Welcoming the legacy back into your life?”

  “This is what happens, Mimi—I mean look at it! My parents were killed. Veronique’s voodoo-priestess-bestie was murdered. Someone tried to kill me to send a message to Ronnie—this magic never leads to anything good. In the last decade, paranormal stuff has been high on my list of things to hate.”

  “And yet you moved to New Orleans as soon as you could. One of the world’s bastions of the paranormal.”

  Lily stopped. She opened her mouth to argue, but couldn’t.

  “Destiny, my dear.”

  “I don’t like destiny. It leaves no room for choice.”

  “Oh, we always have a choice. We can shape our own destinies. But some things can never be changed. Or avoided.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The small shrimping boat motored along a narrow passage in the bayou, nearly skimming the moss that hung off trees in wispy tendrils and trailed along the water’s surface. Clouds hung low and dark gray in the sky, threatening to let loose at any moment. The air was thick and humid, and cold. Lily shivered in her hoodie and wondered how long the ibuprofen would last. Most everything in her body that was bandaged or bruised was temporarily numb and she crossed her fingers that it would hold.

  Bennett chatted with the captain, giving him final instructions, and then turned his attention to her. He must have seen her shivering; he moved to her side and put both arms around her, pulling her close against his body’s blessed warmth. He rubbed his hands up and down her arms and she closed her eyes. It was such a comfortable fit.

  “You ok?” he asked, his breath warm against her hair and she turned her face upward. His lips grazed her forehead and she suddenly felt a little melty.

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “I’m good.” They traveled the remaining ten minutes in silence, watching the shoreline.

  Mimi was going to bring Lily the letter Lady Chamonix had given Ronnie, and the journal Lily’s mother had given her years ago, just before her death. Mimi planned to travel to New Orleans herself to be with Ronnie, and Lily had begged her to make sure Dahlia and Poppy stayed in Boston. The thought of her sisters in harm’s way made her sick to her stomach. The man on the phone had mentioned Veronique’s three nieces and Mimi—they might not actually have been any safer in Boston, but it made Lily feel a tiny bit better.

  The thought of doing nothing at Bennett’s house had made Lily’s mind revolt, so she’d told Bennett she wanted to see Lady Chamonix’ old house. After a little digging from his resources in the police department, Bennett had tracked down an address that still listed Lady Chamonix as the owner. She’d never married or had children—apparently Veronique had been her one true friend. She hadn’t left her property to anyone, and Lily hoped to find at least something still intact. What were the odds that the place hadn’t been looted ten times over in the years since the woman’s death?

  The captain guided the boat alongside a rickety old dock that Lily eyed dubiously for a moment, chewing on her lip.

  “Hmm,” Bennett said as he handed the man several bills. “I’ll pay you double to pull us out of the water if that thing collapses.”

  The man chuckled. “How long do y’all suppose ye’ll be?”

  “Not long, twenty minutes,” Bennett said and grasped Lily’s hand. “You will wait?”

  The man glanced down at the cash Bennett had handed him. “Yeah, I’ll be wantin the other half of my pay. But hurry, my brother don’t know I’m gone.”

  Bennett paused. “Your brother?”

  A nod, a flicker of a match lighting a cigarette, a disarming smile. “He owns the boat.”

  “You said you were the captain!”

  “Naw, I said I am ‘a’ captain. Jus
’ not of this beauty, here.”

  “Great.” Bennett tugged Lily forward and they climbed out of the boat and onto the rickety dock. They walked quickly, and Lily wondered if Bennett would have been more comfortable breaking into a run. She couldn’t blame him—she barely held at bay her own terror of water moccasins and silent, lurking alligators.

  Bennett swore under his breath. “If we’re lucky, he decides to wait, and if he waits, we might be here in time to see him get arrested for stealing his brother’s boat.”

  “Look on the bright side, the cops could give us a ride back.”

  He glanced at her, his lips twitching. “Can’t believe I let you talk me into this. Mimi would have my head.”

  “Yes, she most definitely would. But she’s not here yet, and she doesn’t need to know.” Lily looked ahead at the dense foliage as they reached the end of the dock and stepped onto spongy land that was knee-deep in overgrown vegetation. They paused at the threshold of a tunnel-like path that wound back into the swampy interior and she sensed Bennett tensing, knew he was going to turn them around.

  “We’ll call Jeremy and a couple other officers, have a group come check this place out.”

  “No, Bennett. They won’t know what to look for.”

  He cast a flat glance at her before turning his attention back to the undergrowth. “You don’t know what to look for.”

  “I’m clairvoyant.”

  He snorted and she scowled at him.

  “That’s convenient, Lil. You can’t even remember the last time you read an aura.”

  “I can too. I can read yours right now.”

  He turned and faced her squarely. “Do it.”

  “Now? We don’t have a lot of time before his brother brings the five-o and presses charges.”

  “See? You’re rusty and way out of practice. Not to mention you told my mom once that you might have abilities you don’t even know about yet. So you have no idea yet what you can or can’t do.”

  “How do you even remember this stuff? And for all we know, I’m in full possession of every witchy gift ever invented.” She felt a sense of desperation, a clawing fear that if she didn’t get into that old shack she would be missing something vital. The fact that staying the course was almost as terrifying as leaving was beside the point, and she was proud of herself for standing her ground. Spongy as it was.

  “Hold still.” She focused on his face, or rather let her gaze go out of focus, as though she were zeroing in on a point behind Bennett’s head that she couldn’t see. It had been so long—it had once been so easy and now she felt, what had he said? Rusty.

  Lily knew the exact moment when her gaze clicked into the right spot, the right intensity, the right amount of fuzzy out-of-focus that allowed her to, ironically enough, focus. His aura burst from him in an overwhelming array of blues and greens, and the shades came as no surprise at all. Calm. Strong. Content at his core. There were slight shadows of red on the fringes, signaling a mix of attraction and tension. He was either agitated or he wanted to kiss her. Maybe both.

  She blinked and staggered a little, and the colors faded. Bennett grabbed her arm as she swayed backward. “Ow. My head.”

  “What did you do? You did an aura read, right here? Geez, Lil, I didn’t think you’d really do it! Are you ok?”

  She scowled, her heart beating faster than she would have liked. It had taken much more of her concentration than she’d thought it would; she was ridiculously out of practice. “It’s not that big a deal. I’ve done it since I was a really little kid.”

  “No, you haven’t done it for, what, twelve years?” Bennett shook his head and moved her forward, pulling her arm tightly through his as they began picking their way into the dark. He retrieved a small flashlight from his pocket and flicked it on, sending a shaft of light through the foliage that showed a barely discernible path twisting forward into the swamp.

  She stumbled and he paused, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “If this hut doesn’t come into view in the next thirty seconds, we’re turning around. This was really, really stupid.”

  “Well I am sorry you think so. I’m not going to just sit around and do nothing while some crazy man spies on my whole family and tries to kill them all. If you’re scared, just go back and wait for me at the boat. I have a flashlight on my phone.”

  He looked at her as they walked and she made a point of not looking back at him. Her foot got stuck in some goo and ruined her performance as she pulled free, luckily retaining her shoe.

  “I am not scared, Lily Duschesne. I am pissed at myself for bringing you here.”

  “You didn’t have a choice—I’d have figured it out on my own anyway.”

  “That’s what scares me,” he muttered and pulled her closer as she slipped in more mud.

  “I’ll protect us with my mad paranormal skills.” She shivered in spite of herself as a twig cracked here, a splash sounded there, and the ever-pervasive dark closed in on all sides. Light from the outside world was all but obscured and she lost her sense of direction.

  “We don’t need your mad paranormal skills. I’ve had a permit to carry for over a year.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “You’re packing heat?”

  His mouth twitched. “The 70s cop shows called and want their lingo back.”

  “Aren’t you funny. ‘Packing heat’ is a perfectly normal way—” She cut herself off when he stopped walking and followed his gaze forward to a small building hidden in the undergrowth.

  It was every bit the haunted-looking shack she’d thought it would be. Run down, decrepit, and very dark. They stood still for a moment, studying the structure, before Lily finally squared her shoulders. “Ok, then.”

  Bennett glanced at her, his expression unreadable, and followed her when she began walking toward the small house and up the front steps. He reached around her to twist the doorknob and paused, his hand on the back of her neck as the door swung slowly open on hinges that loudly protested the invasion. “Let me go first,” he murmured.

  “Absolutely.” She stayed close behind him as he entered the little home, noting the smell of grit and mildew, old herbs and dirt.

  Bennett cast the light slowly around the room and Lily’s heart sank. “Of course it’s been ransacked,” she whispered. “I guessed it would be, but hoped not. What a mess.”

  She moved out from behind him and pulled her phone from her pocket, flicking through the apps and finding the flashlight. Walking slowly into the room, she cast the light on an overturned chair and a small sofa that was missing its cushions, and made her way toward the wall where an old potting bench sat with pots of dried herbs still on display. The rafters above it held a multitude of objects hanging from twine—an odd combination of feathers, bits of bone, and bunches of dried mint and sage.

  The floor creaked underfoot and sounded loud in the eerie stillness. Lily was struck by the fact that this humble place had been a woman’s home, her refuge. Physical objects that defined a life were left behind, offering nothing to the soul who had moved beyond them. “These things were important to her,” Lily murmured, and she bent to examine a shelf beneath the bench.

  A squeak in the corner of the room startled her and she lost her balance, falling to her butt on the floor.

  “Shit!” Bennett dropped his flashlight and it rolled to a stop, casting a beam on something small that flashed through the illuminated shaft of light and then disappeared with a scuttling of feet.

  “Rat?” Lily said as Bennett picked up the flashlight.

  “Who knows,” he muttered. “I’m afraid to look closely,”

  Lily shifted from the floor and got to her knees, using the bench as leverage. She shined the flashlight again on the lower shelf and noted the same things as above. Pots of dead plants, a few empty gris gris bags, nothing of note. She tried not to be disappointed, but what had she really expected? To walk in and find the talisman? Scary phone man would have searched the little hut by now, probably several
times over.

  A single dark hair caught her eye. It lay on the shelf next to a partially broken pot, and she reached for it, strangely drawn to it.

  “What’d you find?” Bennett asked, moving closer.

  “A hair.”

  “You going to do DNA testing on it?”

  “My, you’re a funny one today.” She focused carefully on the hair and shifted closer, moving her phone so the light shone more fully on it. Cursing when she bumped her hand against the bench leg and her phone wobbled as a result, she narrowed her eyes and squinted into the shadows. Locating the hair again, she gingerly picked it up between her thumb and forefinger, and very nearly dropped it as a jolt shot through her hand and up into her arm.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “What’s wrong?” Bennett dropped down beside Lily and grabbed her arm.

  “I don’t know…this thing shocked me.” Her heart pounded and a light sweat that had nothing to do with humidity broke out on her forehead despite the cool air in the hut.

  Bennett frowned and looked at the six-inch piece of hair she held between her fingers. It was wiry and black, and when Bennett held out his hand, she placed it in his palm. She looked at him expectantly and he shrugged.

  “Nothing?”

  He shook his head.

  “Let me see it again.” Lily took the hair from him and experienced a small jolt, nothing like the first. She closed her eyes and tried to relax. That was one thing she remembered from her mother. She had always told her to relax, whether she was reading an aura visually or emotionally. As she calmed her pounding heart, sensations crept through her consciousness—Lady Chamonix feeling worried, upset, angry.

  “It’s hers. It’s her hair.” She opened her eyes and looked at Bennett. With her concentration lessened, the sensation was much more subtle. But it was still there. Experimentally, she dropped the hair onto the floor. Nothing. Picked it up again with intense focus—the emotional connection was back.

  Bennett looked at the hair and then at Lily’s face. “Can you see her?”