She stared at him for a minute, then glanced over at me. “If I let you shower, then you’ll come back here and tell us all what the devil is going on?”
He nodded. The Shaman was being very stingy with his words right now. That was doubling down my worry all that much more.
But there really wasn’t anything more we could do until the man told us what he knew, now was there? And apparently, he wasn’t up to doing that without a shower.
Karen and Shaman Crowe left, and the rest of us just looked at each other.
“Now what?” I asked, looking directly at Mom. Of all of us, she seemed to know more about what was going. What with the joint chanting and all.
She shrugged. “I’d say we wait.” Then she set about cleaning up the protection circle. They tended to leave a bit of a mess behind. Not something we wanted the nursing staff to start asking about.
I stepped over to help her, and the men decided it was a good time to visit the lounge and collect coffee for all of us. Sounded like a plan to me. That just left me, Mom, and Lily.
Three women terrified of what had just happened.
I was trying to honor Mom’s wishes and wait, but it was almost too much to ask of me. Lucky for me, Lily must have felt the same way.
“Why do I get the feeling you know more than you’re saying?” she asked Mom.
Mom’s eyes flashed to her and then back to her cleaning task. “I don’t know anything, actually.” Then she hesitated. “But perhaps I have a touch of a suspicion.”
“So, give already.”
Mom took a couple of deep breaths, then nodded. “Last night, when that... thing... tried to suck me in, it felt wrong.”
Well, yeah. I mean, it couldn’t have felt right, could it? Not that I said that, of course.
“Wrong as in...?” Lily asked.
Mom shook her head. “I wasn’t sure at the time, but it kind of reminded me of something I’d read a few years back. When Archie and I had taken one of our clandestine trips abroad.”
“A trip to where?”
“Haiti, actually.”
Lily frowned and looked over at the bed with dread in her eyes. A dread that started creeping into me too. Not that it hadn’t already had a darn good start.
Crapsnackles, but this was bad. Because if Mom had read about that thing, or something like it while she was visiting Haiti, then the answer was rather obvious.
We weren’t just dealing with regular, run-of-the-mill magic. Not even regular, run of the mill black magic.
We were dealing with Voodoo. And now, I wanted a shower too.
IT WAS A FULL HALF an hour before the Shaman returned. He took the cup of rapidly cooling coffee the men offered him with a grateful smile.
“Thank you.” Then he looked at all of us with a bashful smile. “Sorry about that, everyone. I had hoped it wouldn’t be that bad.” He hesitated. “Unfortunately, it was.”
Mom looked him dead in the eyes. “Whatever is in her possessed you there for a few minutes, didn’t it?”
His head waggled. “Yes, and no. There isn’t technically a spirit inside Martha at the moment. Not that I can sense, anyway. What there is, is a vortex to the spirit. Although, spirit just seems the wrong word for him.” He took a long sip of his coffee, then shook his head. “To me, spirit has a peaceful tone to it. Like the soul of a lost loved one.”
“So, what you’re saying is that there is a vortex in my friend that leads to a vengeful spirit?” Archie asked, his face a mask of horror.
The Shaman looked at him and nodded sadly. “Pretty much, yes.” He took a deep breath. “It was a risk doing what I did, but we needed to know what or who we were dealing with here.”
Archie’s eyes narrowed. “Exactly what did you do? That... thing... isn’t still inside you, is it?”
Shaman Crowe gave a dark laugh. “No, praise the Goddess. I wasn’t willing to let that happen. That’s why I took such pains with the protection circle before issuing the invitation. I didn’t want it breaking through.”
“You invited that thing to possess you?” Yes, I may have screeched more than a little on that question. “What were you thinking?”
He looked at me sadly. “I was thinking that we needed answers, child. While I do not personally know the woman on that bed, I do know evil. And I know that the Goddess created our team herself to battle evil wherever we find it. I did only what needed to be done.”
“And what if it hadn’t left you?” I just couldn’t let this go that easily. Fighting evil was one thing. I could totally get behind that part of his statement. But inviting evil entities into our very own bodies? I truly thought that may just cross the line of sanity. None of my team was expendable, dang it all.
Shaman smiled at me. “I gave him only two choices. Stay trapped with me inside that circle, or go back through the vortex to his freedom.” He took a long sip of his coffee and his smile stretched grimly. “Plus, I put a timer on the invitation.” He lifted a shoulder. “One with a couple rather drastic consequences.”
That got my interest. Sometime soon, I wanted to hear all about that. I was always up for learning new things. But right now, I had to get my head back in the current game before me.
“So what are we up against?”
He hesitated, then sought out Karen’s eyes from across the room. After the Shaman had left for his shower, she had returned and immediately went to the furthest corner of the room. She was still sitting there on the floor, knees held tightly to her chest, rocking.
Standing, he crossed the room to her. Reaching out, he put a hand on her shoulder, then knelt in front of her. Ever so slowly, her eyes focused, and she met his gaze. Her rocking, however, didn’t stop.
I feared we may have broken the woman. And I truly didn’t want that on my conscience.
“Have there been any oddities about caring for Mrs. Donaldson?” he asked gently. “Anything at all?”
Karen swallowed, and slowly her rocking stopped. Shaman Crowe had managed to break through the scared Karen to the professional Karen. Smart, smart man, our Shaman.
She took a deep breath, then nodded. “A couple of things, yes. We have the monitors on all the time, and they are watched too. But every morning, there are black stains on her pillowcases. With absolutely no way they could have gotten there.”
Shaman Crowe nodded. He didn’t seem all that shocked by the woman’s words. It was almost like he’d been expecting them.
“Anything else? A smell perhaps?”
Karen’s eyes left him and she peered around him to look at Martha, still lying there motionless on the bed. “Now that you mention it, yes. I have smelt alcohol in here before. Almost as if she’d snuck out in the middle of the night to have a quick nip or something.”
“Did you recognize the smell of the alcohol? The type, I mean. Wine, beer... rum?”
She shook her head. “Not wine or beer. I’m afraid I don’t drink much. I’m not all that sure what rum smells like. Sorry.”
After another deep breath, she stood and walked over to the bed, looking down at Martha but making no move to touch her. “Could that thing take over me or one of my nurses?”
“Not without your permission, no.” The Shaman hesitated. “But the entity can be very enticing. It might be safer if we create a more permanent protection circle. One that would contain the evil but still let you and your staff close enough to care for her.”
Karen looked back over her shoulder at him. “Can you really do that?”
He nodded. “I can. And I will, with your permission.” Then he made a face. “In order to be safe, I’d probably need to do a bit of etching into the wood flooring. It would be a permanent thing.”
“Do it.” Then she gave him a grim smile. “I’ve always thought that this room needed a colorful rug, anyway. You know, to brighten it up.”
All of this conversation was helping her, and I knew that. I also knew that I was losing my patience. Especially as the Shaman still had not answered my qu
estion as to exactly what or who we were up against.
A question I very, very much wanted an answer to.
He must have sensed my agitation because his eyes turned to me next.
“I haven’t forgotten you, child. But I wanted to be sure before I answered incorrectly.” He gave a shiver. “The thing didn’t exactly leave a calling card behind. I recognized the flavor of magic, but that didn’t narrow it down quite enough to be sure.”
“But it is voodoo, isn’t it?” Archie asked. I could tell he really wanted the Shaman to say no. For the record, he wasn’t the only one who wanted that very thing.
“It is.”
“Wait, what?” Karen squeaked. “Voodoo? Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“I only wish I could, child. Unfortunately, I am not.” He reached down and fluffed the pillow behind Martha’s head and straightened the covers just a bit. I rather thought he was showing through his actions that there was nothing to fear from the breathing body on the bed.
Not that Karen believed that. Or me, actually. I thought there was a heck of a lot to fear. And I’d be bloody well sure to be there to help put a little extra zing in that permanent protection circle, too.
I didn’t want to wake up here one night and find a black-eyed Karen standing over me with murder on her mind. Or worse, a black-eyed Mom. I had a lot of research to do when I got home.
Here I’d always kind of doubted the whole possession thing actually existed. Talk about taking the blinders off.
Shaman Crowe stopped fiddling with Martha’s blanket and then glanced over at the camera by the bed. “Can you monitor that thing from anywhere? Or does it just go to your nurse’s station?”
Karen took out her phone and pushed a button, then showed him the screen. I glanced over to find the Shaman standing in the middle of the view on her phone. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I think maybe we need to take this conversation elsewhere. I really don’t want to have... him... listening in.”
Crapsnackles. He could do that?
Chapter 13
We ended up at the lounge again. Luckily, at this time of night, there were only the two nurses on duty, and they were all doing their thing and making their rounds. That meant we had the lounge all to ourselves.
Good thing, too. Otherwise, we’d all have probably been bound for a lunatic asylum. What we were discussing was just that crazy.
Voodoo, protection circles, magic. Not your everyday kind of conversation at all.
We refreshed our drinks and settled in. I looked at the Shaman again. “So, at the risk of repeating myself... who and what are we dealing with here? How bad is it?”
My last question was answered just by the fact that the man wasn’t meeting my eyes. That bad, huh?
He took a deep breath. “It is my belief that we are dealing with Kalfu. The Voodoo moon god and ruler of the night. That’s where the signs are all pointing, anyway.” The Shaman nodded to Karen. “It is said that those possessed by Kalfu shed black tears. That could be the stains you are finding in the morning. That would stand to reason, as Kalfu is more active in the dark of night.”
Mom nodded. “From what I’ve read about him, he has more than a little affinity with rum, too. If that is the alcohol you have been smelling.” She paused. “Although, to be truthful, most of the Voodoo gods have an affinity for that type of spirit.”
“Gods?” Karen squeaked. Then she gave a slightly maniacal giggle. “Of course, gods. I mean, what else would we be up against?”
I put an arm around her shoulder. “You aren’t in this alone anymore, Karen. My team is pretty good at what we do.”
Wild eyes turned to me. “And this is what your team does? They fight evil gods?”
“Among other things, yes. The Goddess needed a team to combat the evil that seems to be growing here on earth.” I hesitated. “I’m not saying that my team is the only one serving her in this manner. But we are sure as heck one of them.”
And most likely one of the strongest, too. But then, this was my family we were talking about. You just didn’t get much stronger than us. Especially now that we covered not just Air, but Earth and Spirit, too. The Shaman was the Spirit aspect of our team. In point of fact, he didn’t really consider himself a witch at all. We still did, though.
So did the Goddess. She’s the one whose opinion really mattered on that subject. Even more than the Shaman’s own.
If the Goddess said you were a witch, then you were a witch. End of story. Whether you wanted to put another name to it or not. Same thing in the end.
“Can I ask how you go about doing that?”
I nodded. She could ask all right. I just didn’t have an easy answer to give her.
“It’s different with each case, dear,” Mom said, pinch-hitting for me. “We’ve never dealt with Voodoo before. This will take some research, I’m afraid.”
She was right there. I had not a clue about Voodoo. Not beyond what I’d seen in movies and read in fiction books. Couldn’t really trust the information you got from there, now could you?
“Are we talking a Voodoo doll? Or what?” Arc asked. Yeah, there was our brother and sister link working again.
The Shaman raised a shoulder. “It’s entirely possible, yes. But dolls aren’t always used.” He paused. “But the most important thing is that I think something is feeding that thing. Every day. This kind of magic doesn’t stay this strong for this long without being fed.”
Then he looked each of us in the eyes. "There is one more thing you all should know. Voodoo is a very, well, personal magic. Whoever is behind this is likely to have a very personal reason for going this far. And if they are willing to go this far, who knows what levels they are willing to advance to?"
We looked at each other, then all of us turned to Karen. “How many people have access to Martha’s room on a daily basis?” Archie asked.
Karen shrugged, then gazed off into the distance, thinking. “On a daily basis? There are the two nurses. I’m day shift on her floor, and then there’s the night nurse. A third nurse works a couple shifts for our days off and weekends. Then there is the cleaning crew that comes in each day. One crew for the week, but it’s just one person for her floor, and then another one for the weekend.” She was quiet as we all did the math in our heads.
Five people. Five possible sources of feeding that thing. I liked the limited number. How hard could it be to check out five people?
Archie shook his head. “But you don’t really have security here, right? So anyone working on a different floor, or shoot, a visitor to one of those patients could walk up those stairs and into her room, right?”
“Not without being on that monitor in her room, no. And we watch them pretty closely. It’s our job.”
Mom and I looked at each other. Yeah. How boring would that be? Staring at those monitors day in and out. I was betting there was a lot of downtime when those monitors weren’t being watched at all.
“Are they recorded?” Archie asked.
Karen looked taken aback by that. “Are you questioning my staff?”
I took a deep breath. “Karen, think about it. You are a witch, you know within reason what the Shaman is saying. Magic doesn’t just keep feeding itself. Something, someone, is helping it along. They have to have a connection with Martha. A close, physical connection. Unless...”
I looked at Shaman Crowe and Mom. Mom shook her head. “We severed all ties to DNA located outside her body, dear. It was the very first thing we did. The thing didn’t even blink. Whatever is feeding that vortex is a constant thing. Most likely a link of some kind.” She hesitated. “I’ve never quite seen anything like it.”
Karen swallowed. Yeah. I didn’t much like the sounds of that, either. “Then I guess there is no harm in telling you that yes, the monitor feed is recorded. But we only keep seventy-two hours of the feed before it’s recorded over.”
“That should be enough. Would you be willing to share that feed?” Archie asked.
The woman just blinked at him. “I’m not sure I can do that. Legally or ethically. Not in the position that I hold.” She paused. “But I can review them myself and let you know what I see.”
It wasn’t perfect, but I could understand her reasoning. After all, she’d only known us for a matter of hours. Not to mention the fact that we were spouting some pretty crazy-sounding theories at her.
Voodoo gods and all. We were really lucky she hadn’t thrown us all out the front door and locked it behind us. We’d just have to take what she was willing to give.
But Mom didn’t seem willing to stop there. She looked over at Archie. “I really think I need to stay here, dear. Until we have this all sorted out, one way or another.” She paused with a glance over at Karen. “I don’t think it’s fair to put this all on the staff here. I’m better prepared to handle this, I think.”
Archie didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded. “I understand. But don’t think you’ll be here alone.” His chin jutted out. “That won’t be happening.”
She smiled and patted his hand. “I never thought it would, dear.” Then she frowned. “But I will need someone to take care of Drakken for me.”
I tried looking away, but it didn’t work.
“Amie? Would you be willing to do that for me?”
Crapsnackles.
I sighed. “You know he doesn’t like me, Mom.” Technically, that wasn’t true. Drakken hated me.
Our family didn’t have the regular run-of-the-mill types of familiars. Goddess, no. Not your normal cats for the Ravenswinds. The closest to normal was my cousin Ruby with her little Yorkie Doodle. And maybe me next. A cat would seem to be more your average familiar if you didn’t know about the Goddess-ridden thing. That put my Destiny leagues above and beyond the average kitty cat familiar. She was in a class all her own. And she knew it, too.
Well, if you didn’t count her sisters. They were just one slight step below her on that ladder.
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