by Raven Hart
“Gather ’round,” she said, opening her arms. As she drew a symbol on the stone, using what looked like cornmeal, the chant she sang sent a thrill of recognition through me. Earthly memories of Lalee flowing across time, across death: her beautiful face lit by candlelight as she cradled her firstborn daughter and pledged her to me. The terrible specter she’d become if anyone meant to do harm in her neighborhood. The grieving mother in the torchlight, helping the dying and sending their souls on to the next part of their journey. I missed her. The love and pain in Melaphia’s chant reminded me how much.
Suddenly the chant stopped, leaving complete silence in the room. A puff of wind surged through the damper, filling the air with the telltale smell of ash. Then Renee sat up and rubbed her eyes.
Melaphia sank to her knees. “Maman?”
Renee’s small hands cradled Melaphia’s face. “Oui, sweet one. I am here.”
Melaphia blinked and tears rose in her eyes. My own throat tightened and I too sank down.
“Maman, we need your help. We must call on your blood in all of us. We need you to teach us how.”
With that, she turned to me. I could see now that while the body might be her great-great-great-granddaughter’s, the living eyes were Lalee’s looking out at me after nearly three hundred years. “I have sworn so, have I not?”
“Aye, you have,” I said. “But I would have your love, not just your allegiance.” I swallowed. “As I have loved you.” She floated toward me, her feet a few inches off the floor. When she was close enough to touch she said, “Both are yours, Captain. As you have cared for me and mine, I shall care for your new family.” She shifted her gaze to Jack, then Eleanor, then finally to Werm. “Each in his or her own fashion.”
She placed her small hand on my head and closed her eyes. “In the dark you called on Maman Brigitte and Kalfu. We three helped you in your need, but now I would have you pray to Brigitte’s husband, Baron Samedi.
“Ghede.”
I heard Melaphia gasp in the silence that followed. Lalee turned slightly in her direction. “Yes, that’s right, girl. Ghede is death, the master of the abyss. The trickster.” She chuckled and patted my head. “Did you not meet him in the dark? You would have if you’d stayed longer.”
She grew serious again. “Call him into you, but only in necessity. He will come. Do not encourage his tricks, or his appetite for death. He is the final judge of a man’s worth. A vampire’s worth as well.”
I nodded.
She moved on to Jack. “Hello, my son. You are the heartbreaker, are you not?”
Jack stared at her for several long seconds. “I didn’t mean to,” he said, looking miserable.
“No, you did not.” Jack looked away from her gaze but with one hand on his jaw she brought him back. “The dead ones call your name. They say you are to pray to Legba. He is one of the loa of the crossroads and the door to the spirit world. Will you do that?”
Jack nodded. “He won’t make me ten feet tall again like you did? Will he? I mean, I don’t want to be banging my head on the lid of my coffin—”
Lalee’s burst of laughter was a combination of a woman’s mirth and a child’s giggle. “When you call, you’ll find out.” She leaned close to his ear. “Perhaps you might build your altar outside with only the stars above you.”
“Yes ma’am. I will.” He glanced at me. “Just to be safe.”
Eleanor was next. Lalee took a longer time studying her. She swung her head from side to side. “Your immortality is so new the energy still beats like a heart around you,” she said finally. “You were brave in the dark. You I give to Erzulie, the tragic mistress. She is the goddess of love but of sorrow as well. You have given your very soul for love, have you not?”
I could feel Eleanor’s gaze on me but I didn’t meet it. Of a sudden I had the sinking feeling that making Eleanor had been a greedy mistake.
“You belong to Erzulie now, above all others…even above him.” A slight nod in my direction made it obvious she was speaking about me.
“Yes, madam.” Eleanor’s voice sounded unsure but resolute.
I could feel Werm’s utter fascination like light itching my skin, and I knew that Lalee had turned her full attention to him.
“To you, I give loa Loco. The overlord of vegetation and healing herbs.”
For a moment Lamar’s expression fell. “You mean they get to be lords of death and ghosts and I get to be lord of the bushes?”
“Don’t back-sass me boy. We are not lords of anything. We are followers, petitioners. If the loas don’t bless us, we are nothing.”
Instead of answering, Lamar began to go transparent. Lalee, using Renee’s hand, reached out and grabbed his collar. “Come back now. That’s a pretty trick but I am talking about the ganja and tobacco, and other sacred herbs.”
Lamar immediately perked up and began to solidify again. “By ganja, you mean—”
“Ah, yes. That is something you understand. You may be disappointed unless you rouse Loco and prove your worth to him.” She passed her hand right through his now-solid-looking shoulder. “As for tricks…if you learn well I have another I would have you court. He would help with whatever magic you may possess.” She wagged a finger in front of his face. “But not until you learn manners, and patience. Not until you please Loco.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lamar said.
At that, Lalee dusted her hands together and folded them in front of her. “Now, all of you, lower your eyes. Reach out to those I have named. Melaphia and Renee will help you build the altars and learn the rituals. This is how you gain the power in my blood that runs in your veins.”
She clapped her hands together three times and said, “Ache!”
Another gust of air blew through the room. When I opened my eyes, Renee was back on the pillow where I had placed her. Even as I rose to my feet, she stirred and opened her eyes.
“Mama?” She gazed up at Melaphia. “I had the nicest dream. I dreamed that Maman Lalee was holding me in her arms and whispering in my ear.”
Melaphia smiled and gently lifted her. “That’s wonderful. Tell me what she whispered while I get you back to bed.” As she passed me, carrying her daughter, Melaphia said, “I’ll be back to make each of you a list of things you’ll need.”
Jack
“Here are the printouts you wanted,” Werm said. He had a sheaf of papers in one hand and some kind of sticks in the other. “And the incense you asked for, from Spencer’s at the mall.”
All conversation among the irregulars had stopped as Otis, Rufus, Jerry, and Rennie took in the spectacle that was Lamar Nathan Von Werm. His silvery white hair was gummed up into little icicle spikes all over his head. His black leather jacket was too big and boxy and his matching pants too tight. If that wasn’t enough to get his ass kicked in most of the dives where the irregulars hung out when they weren’t loitering in my garage, the eyeliner and black nail polish surely were.
“Boys, this here’s Werm,” I said.
Rufus and Jerry sniffed the air, making Werm for a vampire immediately. Shapeshifters and vampires can always spot one another or smell one another. Rennie, who was human, wouldn’t have been able to tell that Werm was undead if I hadn’t already warned him. Otis, who wasn’t a shifter but wasn’t completely human either, was looking at Werm like he was from the planet What-in-the-Sam-Hill-Are-You? Whether that was because he could tell Werm was a vampire, or because of the getup, I had no idea.
I introduced the irregulars, who grunted their acknowledgment of Werm’s presence but didn’t offer to shake. I couldn’t say as I blamed them.
We were all standing around the card table where the boys had brought the items I’d assigned them to pick up for me. Shopping is not easy for vampires. I don’t always have time to get out to the all-night Wal-Mart, and besides, the fluorescent lighting makes my skin look like I just stepped out of a wax museum. Makes the Wally-world “associates” a trifle nervous.
“What’s that rusty grill f
or, Otis?” I asked.
Otis had rolled in a waist-high charcoal grill, the old, round kind painted in black enamel. “It’s your altar,” he said proudly. “You said you wanted something you could set up outside. You can burn your candles and incense in here without starting any brush fires.”
“You’re nothing if not practical,” I said. “And if I get hungry I can always roast some wieners.”
“Or some wiener dogs,” Jerry suggested. He shrugged when nobody laughed. Nobody mentioned the V word at the garage, not even Rennie, who’d known me longer than any human besides Mel. Jerry referred to my nature indirectly from time to time, but I’d let him live. So far. He placed a pack of tea lights from Dollar Tree on the table. “Nothing but the best for you, hoss.”
“Thanks,” I said. Jerry was tall and muscular, unlike Otis and Rufus, who were lanky and wiry. I could probably count on him in a fight, but I’d never had to call on him to watch my back. Then again, for all I knew he might owe more allegiance to some pack leader somewhere than he did to me. He was big and strong, but I doubted he was alpha.
Rufus said, “What is all this stuff for again?” Rufus was a shapeshifter, too, although I had a feeling he was a different variety than Jerry. His ears weren’t as pointy as Jerry’s, but he never came around when the moon was full.
“Some voodoo ritual William’s housekeeper wants me to do. It’s supposed to make me stronger.”
“I’ve got to do one, too,” Werm said proudly, “to develop my own natural strengths.”
“Yeah, well, you look like you need all the help you can get, sissy boy,” Jerry observed.
Werm reddened with anger, but he kept his mouth shut and at least he didn’t do his disappearing act. I was sorry for the little whelp. He’d thought that becoming a vampire would make him an instant badass. No such luck. Poor little bastard was probably still getting sand kicked in his face down at the beach of a night. I’d made him swear not to bite humans, so he complained of being a vampire in name only. Still, it was better than him winding up in the city lockup with sunshine streaming through the windows until he was no-pink-on-the-inside well done.
Werm put the incense on the card table with the other things that the irregulars had helped me gather in what amounted to a messed-up redneck scavenger hunt. Rennie got the list Melaphia gave me and ticked off each item with a pencil. White rum, cigars, cedar sprigs, the white candles, incense.
“Who’s got the food offering?” Rennie said, and looked at the others over his Coke bottle–thick glasses.
Otis stepped forward with a small bag. “It’s a chicken leg from KFC,” he said. “Extra Crispy.”
“I’m an Original Recipe man myself,” Rufus said.
“Me too,” Rennie agreed solemnly, and handed the list over to me.
Jerry weighed in with an observation on the secret herbs and spices, and a debate broke out on the merits of pressure cooking versus slow roasting. While they were busy with their discussion, Werm sidled around the table and handed me the papers.
“And they think I’m a pussy,” he muttered sullenly.
“Watch yourself,” I said, folding the sheet Rennie handed me and stuffing it into the breast pocket of my shirt to keep it separate from the other papers. “Three of them could probably eat you in a couple of bites and pick their teeth with your bones.”
Werm must have thought I was speaking metaphorically because he only shrugged. “Why do guys like that always pick on me?”
I took the papers from him and began to scan them. “Have you looked in the mirror? Maybe it’s the ear bobs.”
“Why do your buddies smell funny? And why did my fangs tingle when I got within smelling range?”
“They’re shapeshifters,” I said. “Two of them, anyway. I don’t know about the other one. That’s one of the things I’ve got to teach you—how to recognize other nonhumans. Remind me later.” I glanced at the papers before folding them and sticking them into my back pocket.
“Shapeshifters?” Werm asked. “You’re shitting me, right? I mean, like, werewolves?”
“Yeah. Like werewolves.”
Werm stared at the irregulars with alarm. “Oh, man. How many other kinds of—of nonhumans are there out there?”
“Lots. Listen, you chose this existence, remember? Your nice little sheltered human life is over. You’re a creature of the night now, and you’ve only traded one set of guys who can kick your ass for a whole different set of guys who can kick your ass. Only this time, they’re not going to have baseball bats. They’re going to have long, pointy teeth, and you’re going to have to learn to deal or die. Welcome to the dark side, pal.”
Werm let this sink in, nodded, and drew himself up. Despite his appearance, the kid had heart. I was even beginning to think he had brains. If he kept his nose clean, I thought he actually had a chance to survive. For a while at least.
Changing the subject, Werm asked, “Why did you want to know about the Maya?”
“Never you mind.” I’d asked Werm to run an Internet search on the loa Legba who Mel had directed me to pray to, and a separate one for anything Werm could find out about Mayan goddesses. Right now I needed the voodoo lowdown to come up with my own spirit ceremony. The stuff on Connie I’d go over later in private.
“You run along and pray to that herb god or whatever it is that Melaphia told you about.”
He brightened a little. “The god of really secret herbs and spices. I’ve got some pretty good weed I can burn as an offering, maybe even get a good contact high. But first let me see how you do your ritual. Then I’ll know more how to do my own.”
I started to tell him to shove off, but I already felt guilty for not having the time to teach him any more vampire stuff than I had. He’d just gotten a rude introduction to shapeshifters because I hadn’t thought to prepare him for other creatures that went bump in the night.
“Follow me.” I swept the items on the table into the grill, replaced the cover, and rolled the whole thing right past the fast-food argument and out the back door of the garage. I settled the grill onto a nice flat spot.
“First things first,” I said. I screwed the already loosened top off the bottle of rum and threw it aside. “Here’s to the loa Legba,” I announced, taking a long pull. After swallowing I glanced at the label. This didn’t taste like the rum I was used to, but then it had been a while since I’d seriously assaulted a bottle. My poison of preference was JD bourbon without the rocks. I passed the bottle to Werm.
He sniffed it in a prissy fashion and said, “Don’t you want me to get us some Coke to drink this with?”
“Son, that would be the ruination of two good drinks. You’re a vampire now, a tough guy. Drink like one.”
Werm glanced at me doubtfully and took a sip. He busted into a prolonged coughing fit and handed the bottle back to me, glad to get rid of it.
Werm opened the package of candles and lit one while I bit the end off the cigar Jerry had brought and spat it into the dirt. I lit it off the candle and drew on it until I got it going real good. Then, while Werm was lighting the rest of the candles, I tried to remember Melaphia’s instructions. But the first thing that came back to me when I thought back to the meeting was the look on William’s face when he’d kissed Eleanor’s hand.
Hellfire and damnation. I took another long swig of the rum, feeling the odd burn all the way down into my guts. I had completely chickened out of telling William about Olivia’s discovery of Diana’s survival. But how could I tell him? In the days since Eleanor’s making, he’d been a different man—er, vampire. His mood was more upbeat than I’d ever seen it. He’d even been patient with Werm at the meeting; if that didn’t signal a sea change in William’s attitude toward the universe I didn’t know what did.
He was…happy.
I marveled at the thought. William and happy didn’t belong in the same sentence, but it was right there in his eyes. How could I tell him something that was going to make his world fall apart? I had to do it
to save myself. What was the rush, though? Like Olivia said, Diana and William had been separated for hundreds of years. What would another few days’ difference make? If I thought about it long enough, a solution would surely come to me. I took another long draw on the bottle, as if the answer to my problem was at the bottom.
I drew the papers out of my pocket and handed them to Werm, who began to read about the loa Legba by the light of the candles. “It says here that he is the great phallic deity.”
“I’ll drink to that,” I said. “That’s what the gals down at Eleanor’s used to call me, not in so many words, you understand.” I raised the bottle high in salute and took still another drink. “To loa Legba! My man! He can throw it over his shoulder like a continental soldier.” In my rapidly inebriated state, the words shoulder and soldier turned into a mouthful of slurred mush, making Werm giggle.
“Have you fed tonight?” Werm asked, taking the bottle from me.
“Nope. You?”
Werm screwed up his face, took a drink, and screwed up his face again. “No.” Werm swayed a little as he handed the bottle back to me and peered at the papers again. “The words are trying to swim away from my eyeballs. Hey, I didn’t know vampires could get drunk.”
“You bet your ass we can.” I took another drink. “Over the fangs and through the gums.”
Werm looked up at me in wonder. “Coooool,” he slurred. He stared at the words as if he was trying to interpret hieroglyphics. “It says that the loa Legba appears as an old man with a cane and a sack, and that he’s the guardian of the gateway.”
“What gateway is that?”
“The gateway from one world to another. That’s all it says. My inkjet cartridge ran out.” He shrugged. “Sorry.”