Minion (2 page)

She heaved and vomited, wiped her mouth, and clawed the dirt until she could push herself upright. She stared up at the sky and then at the lit window of her daughter's room. Sarah walked slowly back to the house and reached for the telephone. The church matriarch should send her daughter, Marlene, to look after the baby tonight, she heard her inner voice say. Marlene was good with infants. She was a nice young woman.

Right now, Sarah Richards had an errand to run. One that she'd put off all these months. She needed something more than prayer. Her husband was with
a man,
and the church elders didn't know nothing about pain like that. The old lady who lived on the edge of the swamps had potions and such to correct these kinds of abominations. And what Sarah would tell her would stay between her and the old witch.

 

For three days Sarah sat at the living room window as the church elders held the prayer vigil at her home. Young Marlene had brought them with her when Sarah had hysterically called for a baby-sitter at that odd hour of the night, and had told the girl that her husband was gone. What else had she expected? One didn't call at that hour and think the girl wouldn't have to explain things to a mother, who would then call in church reinforcements—not
when there was a problem at the church head's house.

But desperation had kept Sarah from thinking things through that far. If they thought he'd just run off, fine. That had been enough for the old folks to mount a prayer posse—Minister was nowhere to be found, his wife and child had been abandoned. Evil was at work. That was all Sarah would say on the matter.

She slept in the parlor chair while she struggled with her plan, unable to ever go back to her own bed, unable to even lie down on the couch. She refused to eat, barely took a sip of water, didn't move, just stared. Who knew what other piece of furniture had been violated within her home? Each day that passed the black bag she'd hidden in the pantry issued a more urgent call for her to take matters into her own hands. Yet, to do so would be a death of all she'd been brought up to believe in. It would be flying directly in the face of the Lord. Three days, and three long nights, Sarah pondered the seductive choice.

She quietly thanked the praying people that had descended upon her house, never saying so out loud, just in her mind. Their eyes remained lowered and she appreciated their discretion, and she said a prayer of thanks that young Marlene Stone was taking such good care of her child while her nerves took leave.

Sarah Richards knew that she had checked out of life. Her eyes simply watched the point of nothing beyond the window. But on this third night, she also knew what she had to do. The elders, for all their prayers, didn't know where her husband's car had disappeared to, or where the good Reverend was, for that matter. But the old seer had spoken of a mansion—a plantation. Had given her directions and landmarks to follow. And she would arm herself with her spell and a butcher knife to right this wrong as soon as the sun set . . . just as the witch had advised.

Without a word, Sarah stood and feigned illness, leaving the prayer warriors who had murmured without relent since the night she'd seen too much. Sarah went to the bathroom and splashed water on her face, then snuck into the pantry to collect her bag that had been secretly readied. In her bare feet and robe, she slipped from the house and into the night without a sound. She was gonna fetch back her husband, or die trying.

 

Sarah stood in the center of a circle of weeping willows with tears streaming down her cheeks and stared at the expansive estate. Elaborate ironwork graced the veranda that rimmed the entire second floor of the mansion. Tall white columns created a formidable entrance to the place she'd dared to go. Spanish moss billowed from the trees and nary a cricket sounded. Her husband's car was in the driveway, just as the old woman had prophesized. Sarah's hand clutched the satchel and her feet never consulted her brain as she moved forward, rounding the mansion to the back door that was surprisingly unlocked.

The mansion was eerily quiet as she slipped into the darkness within. Money, power . . . what riches had been promised her husband by this wealthy perversion of a lover, she wondered? How could a man she'd loved with all her heart and soul do this to her? How could he live such a lie, allow her to bear a child for him? How could he do this to his baby girl?

New tears replenished the salty stream that had dried on Sarah's face. She'd loved Armand Richards since they were children, and had never known any other man in the world but him.

Her footsteps took her through the house, each room making her walk more quickly as she saw sumptuous wealth—but not her husband. She hurried up the winding staircase toward the
upper levels of the mansion, listening intently for the sounds of her husband in the throes of passion, but heard nothing. Every well-appointed room was vacant. The seer had been wrong. Armand was not here. But it was clear that her husband had been here at one time. Perhaps he and his man-friend were out on the town, or secluded in another love nest? Sarah's mind took a sinister turn; she squeezed her eyes shut as she saw them naked together. Bile rose within her throat as images of her husband with this seductive man lacerated her spirit. No. This had to be fixed! This was the only way.

The opportunity their absence provided was perfect. She would do what she had to do—go into the wine cellar, the base of the house, and cast the spell. Sarah covered her heart and said a prayer for her child, and asked for forgiveness. She knew her prescription was wrong as she tiptoed down the long hallway, found the stairs, and descended to the first floor. The long walk gave her time to explain with contrition that she had to
do
something, could not just sit and wait for this to be
made
right. All she asked was that Father God would understand and spare her baby girl—despite what it said in the Good Book about soothsayers and spell-casters . . . or taking matters into one's own hands. This was a special case, and He had to understand her desperation.

Her bare feet stung with the cuts and abrasions she sustained from walking, crazed, through the woods, over bramble, across driveway gravel for five miles in the dark. The bag of black magic weighed heavily in her hand as she shifted the bulk of it onto her hip, extracted a black candle and a small box of stick matches, lit the candle, then clumsily stowed away the matches, and resumed her slow descent down into the damp cavern of the first level of the mansion.

Slick stone walls reflected the light from the sputtering flame,
and the coolness of the room belied the humidity that made her summer robe and gown cling to her skin. Perspiration due to her shattered nerves seeped from her pores, sending a rivulet of adrenaline-filled sweat between her breasts and down her back. Undaunted, she began making the circle in the dirt, using the butcher knife to carve the strange star shape that the old woman had drawn for her on a crumpled piece of paper. Sarah's lips moved with purpose as she opened the Mason jar and splashed blood from the gutted rooster upon each point of the star. And as she set each black candle in place, and closed her eyes, constantly murmuring, the floor beneath her began to move.

Immediately plumes of thick, yellowish smoke rose, choking her in a sulfuric, blackening haze. The rack of wine bottles on the wall began to explode, sending shards of glass to cover her. Splinters from flying wood and glass cut into her skin like shrapnel. A scream choked by spit, terror, and smoke was torn from her throat as she ran and huddled in a corner against the wall.

 

He could not believe his good fortune. Fallon Nuit contained his amusement as his strategy took root. Providence of this magnitude couldn't have been conjured by the highest sorcerers of old. A fluke. A variable. A tiny rip in the fabric of supernatural law, all caused by a frightened, but foolish, woman. Jealousy had ironically released the green-eyed monster within her—along with another, more dangerous entity that the poor human creature obviously hadn't anticipated . . . nor had the Vampire Council. Pity. A gross oversight. They couldn't keep him incarcerated for a violation of their staunch, outdated High Council rules, as they had planned. There were things that even vampires frowned upon. Then again, there was this variable called luck.

“You have inadvertently been summoned to my lair,” Nuit
crooned in a seductive tone toward the demon that arose with him from the billowing cloud of smoke.

“I was called, yes. That gives me the right—”

“No,” Nuit replied with a lethal warning between his teeth. “You have no
rights,
but you do have the misfortune to be a demon trapped in a master vampire's lair.”

Two formidable adversaries stared at each other for a moment. The snakelike creature appeared stunned, then outraged. However, when it offered no rebuttal, Nuit pressed on, his hunger for the fresh taste of blood, stoked by the scent of the frail female human trying to hide herself in the corner of his wine cellar, notwithstanding.

“Cohabitation without cooperation is not an option.” Nuit studied his manicured nails and sighed. “Do remember that I am of the more evolved order of the dark realms, and now freed, I could make existence for you here torturous. But I am a man of reason.”

The demon looked at him, and then glanced at the cowering woman on the floor. “We could come to terms. Fair exchange is no robbery.”

Fallon Nuit threw his head back and laughed. “Indeed!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being unconquerable lies within yourself;
being conquerable lies within the enemy.

 

—Sun-tzu,
The Art of War

 

 

 

Nighttime, summer
Philadelphia

 

D
AMALI
R
ICHARDS
could still feel the electricity of the crowd and the adrenaline rush of her spoken-word performance pulsing through her veins as she entered the backstage dressing room. The club was jumping so hard it seemed like even the walls were sweating. The bass thumping from the extensive speaker system was like an insistent heartbeat that she could feel vibrating through the floor and smoke-thickened air until it entered her body through the soles of her feet. Dirty aqua-colored paint peeled at the corners of the cramped space, as though it was trying to escape the throbbing scene.

She glanced around at the ugly, stained brown sofa, and the sparse collection of wooden and metal chairs, immediately opting to stand rather than flop on any of the seating choices. How many performers' body funk had been permanently tattooed on that sorry excuse for a couch, she wondered? Even the one mirror in the room was covered with a white, filmy layer of grime. Yuck. And people thought this was the glamorous life? She, Marlene, and a five-man squad crammed into a dump. Pullease.

Sweat, icy yet burning, made her clothes stick to her skin. Her heavily beaded, Nzinga queen warrior headdress had suddenly become an intolerable weight on her damp scalp. Damali
roughly removed it, tossing it onto a chair, and she held her shoulder-length locks up off her neck to give her overheated body a much-needed waft of air. The semiprecious stone and lion's teeth adornments, affixed to her locks with silver and copper wire, gently clinked as she moved her hair. She grimaced at the sound that was now too close to her skull. All five feet seven inches of her felt on fire. Being an artist was great, but this was no way to live.

“Lot of activity on radar tonight,” Marlene said in a near whisper, as though talking to herself. “Most times we get a visit from one or two vampires. I'm sensing many.”

“Yeah,” Damali croaked. Her vocal chords still ached from the intense performance, so she kept her response short. Besides, what else was there to say to her manager, who was like a surrogate mother to their group?

Damali and Marlene shared a glance. They both knew what had to be done. Things were heating up. Before, one vamp might follow them, at most two. But ever since they'd turned the tables and went on the offensive a couple of times, seeking out the action instead of waiting for it to come to them, nothing had been the same. The rare random ambushes were now becoming a regular phenomenon. Valuable junior team members had been lost because if it. Irritation coiled within Damali. She'd told Marlene this shit would go down like that once they started hunting. Shoulda let sleeping dogs lie.

Marlene shot her a look that said
don't start
. Screw Marlene and her pious yang. Not tonight. Sure, she loved Mar like a mom and all, but wasn't feeling sister-girl right now. Yeah, they only went after vampires that were acting up. But that wasn't the point.

“You didn't hear me, did you?”

Damali cut Marlene a hard glance, then looked away. “No. What did you say?”

Marlene waited until the two women's eyes met again. “I didn't
say
anything. I thought it, and you didn't hear me in your head. But I'm able to read you loud and clear. That concerns me.”