Black Heart Loa (12 page)

Because the real Baron would either be lifting Jackson up out of the grave or filling it in, but in either case, he’d never strike or kick a living woman.

A knife in one hand, gun in the other, Belladonna raced down the driveway.

K
allie hit the bottom
of the grave with a thud that knocked what little air still remained in her lungs out between her lips in an explosive
whoof
. For a split second, the image of a heart bound in chains made of pale bones and fenced in by black
X
’s flared behind her eyes—then vanished.

Wait. I’ve seen that before. From my dying dream … a horse and a chained heart.

Her aunt’s voice whispered through her memory:
No dream, girl.

Trouble for another time. You’ve got other things to worry about. Like finding Jackson. Oh, and surviving a
loa
possessed by a mullet-wearing guy with a huge grudge.

Black spots whirling through her vision, her heart trip-hammering against her bruised ribs, Kallie struggled to catch her breath.

What the hell just happened? Baron Samedi and
Cash
? How …

Words spoken at the house just before she and Belladonna had split to find Jackson rolled through Kallie’s memory, a promise from Mambo Gabrielle.

Time is against us, so while you’re driving to Chacahoula,
I plan on asking the
Gédé
to intercede on your cousin’s behalf. I plan to summon Baron Samedi. If anyone can save your cousin, turn him away from death, the Baron can.

Lightning fractured the empty gray sky above her, followed by a low mutter of thunder. A grim possibility unfolded within Kallie’s mind. What if Gabrielle’s plea to the Baron had gone full pedal-to-the-metal south just like Divinity’s sleep trick had?

Jesus Christ. That would be all kinds of bad.

Kallie shoved the heels of her hands into the cold mud and pushed herself up into a sitting position. Mud coated her skin, her clothes, coiled her hair into mud-dreads. Lungs finally cooperating again, she drew in a breath of air reeking of decaying plants and swamp-muck as she gauged the grave’s depth.

Six feet. Higher than me. I’m gonna need help getting out.

The mud made sucking sounds as Kallie climbed to her feet. Intending to call Belladonna, she fumbled her cell phone from the pocket of her cutoffs, but her finger stilled on the send button when something half-buried in the mud caught her eye.

A boot.

Kallie took a squelching step over to it and tugged it free. A square-toed Dingo she was pretty damned sure was Jackson’s. Hope radiated through her, warm as summer sunshine on pavement.

Maybe he climbed out or someone pulled him out and the mud claimed his boot as a graveside trophy, but if so, then Jackson’s probably alive.

“Question be, for how much longer?” a nasal voice
asked. “I t’ink I smell yo’ cousin’s lifeblood mixed up in de earth.”

And then, as if the
loa
’s words had heightened her sense of smell or had woven an olfactory illusion, Kallie smelled it too, ever so slightly—the coppery tang of blood.

Everything inside her stilled. She stared at the boot clutched in her hand, refusing to let go of her hope. Maybe it wasn’t blood she smelled. Maybe it was some kind of mineral deposit or metal ore in the ground or …

“Oh, it’s blood all right. And it belongs to your mother-fucking cousin.”

Kallie’s jaw tightened. Goddamned Cash-in-Charge again.
This day keeps getting better and better. Wonder if I should pick up a goddamned lottery ticket?

A black fedora encircled with a purple band drifted down into the grave like a bouquet of dead violets, see-sawing to a gentle stop in the mud beside Kallie’s feet. She drew back her booted foot to kick it aside, then hesitated.

Disrespecting Cash was one thing. But disrespecting a
loa
? The
loa
of death, the gatekeeper between worlds, no less? Not to mention someone who could hold a grudge both in this world
and
the next if he wanted to?

That wasna’t something she cared to risk at the moment.

Kallie lowered her foot back into the mud. Without thinking, she reached for the little coffin pendant she wore, the Baron’s symbol, a gift of protection from her aunt, and remembered placing it into Layne’s palm as a crematorium gift for Gage. Fingers curling shut over her empty palm, she dropped her hand to her side.

“Blood ain’t de only t’ing I smell here. I caughts me a big ol’ stinky whiff of wet dog and … wolves. No,
not
wolves.
Loups-garous.
”

“Loups-garous?”
she questioned, lifting her gaze. “
Werewolves?
Seriously?”

The memory of a dream-vision tugged at Kallie—
her gaze seeks the shadow flitting among the live oaks and cypress on the bayou’s other side, a man-shaped shadow that drops from upright to all fours
—but she shook it off.

No time for weird-ass dreams or bullshit.
No matter how much they might nudge at the corners of her mind, trying to remind her of something just beyond the ragged edge of her recall. A child’s voice.

Wanna know a secret? But you gotta promise never to tell …

Baron Samedi-Cash lounged against the dirt wall, one shoulder braced against the grave’s mouth, but untouched or unstained by mud, his skeletal double grin fixed on Kallie. He blew a cloud of tobacco-fragrant cigar smoke in her direction.

“Smells cheap,” Kallie commented. “Sure ain’t Cuban.”

“Maybe I like cheap.” The Baron looked her up and down and Kallie saw her reflection in the lenses of his shades—wet and muddy, her hair hanging in long soaked strands over her face with mud-twisted dreads down her back.

Great. I look like a swamp rat for true.

The Baron winked. “I loves me a woman who can roll in de mud and get dirty.”

His grin vanished as if switched off. He lifted a middle
finger and extended it, and Kallie knew she was now looking at Cash again.

None of this made sense. The Baron could possess a human, ride him like a horse—any
loa
could. But the
cheval
’s personality and mannerisms disappeared, submerged beneath the
loa
’s more forceful and powerful personality.

Or so Kallie had been told.

She’d also heard a few people describe a possession as channeling a
loa,
but Belladonna had disagreed, stating that complete possession was far more accurate.

Regardless of how the Baron had discovered Cash—and Kallie had a strong suspicion she was right that Gabrielle’s invocation to the Baron had misfired—the hot-tempered outlaw’s personality should’ve been swallowed up by the
loa
’s.

Samedi-Cash tilted his head. “Perhaps you be right, girl,” he said. “I t’ink dat’s how it’s always been.” He puffed on his cigar, painted face thoughtful. “But not today.”

“Do you know why?” Kallie asked, pushing her bedraggled hair back from her face and wondering if the
loa
would confirm that Doctor Heron had placed a hex on her aunt’s house.

The Baron shrugged. “Maybe it just be time for somet’ing different.”

“Hey, Shug, you all right down there?” A soft and dangerous velvet purr.

Kallie glanced up. Then blinked.

Belladonna knelt at the grave’s lip with a pistol that looked like Layne’s held tight in both hands and aimed at the Baron, cold outrage on her rain-beaded face. As she leaned forward, Kallie caught a metallic glint at her waist.

Girl is strapped
and
she has one of Layne’s knives
tucked into her belt too. I don’t think she learned
that
on WebMD. If she did, I need to log on.

“I’m okay, Bell.” She held up her cell phone for a second before tucking it back into her pocket. “I was just about to call you.”

“So who’s the religion-dissing asshole with the mullet? The one kicking women into graves while dressed up as Baron Samedi?” Belladonna asked, her voice still a velvety purr. “Though he’s done a poor-ass job, since the Baron wears a top hot and a tuxedo.”

“Bell … it’s the Baron for true,” Kallie said. “I think Gabrielle’s invocation for help went wrong and … well …” She gestured at the tall Armani-suited form in front of her. “He claimed Cash as his
cheval.
”

A long silence; then: “How hard did you hit your head when you fell, Shug? You know, it ain’t been all that long since you smacked your noggin in New Orleans and maybe you’re—”

“She didn’t hit her head,” the Baron said, shoving away from the wall and looking up. He blew a plume of cigar smoke into the air. “Well. At least, not
dis
time.
Bonjour,
Belladonna Brown.”

Belladonna’s eyes widened as she recognized the man beneath the paint, the human carrying the
loa
. “Hellfire,” she breathed. “Mr. I-Don’t-Believe-in-Juju Cash.” Her gaze flicked over to Kallie, skimmed the boot in her hand. Fear glimmered in the depths of her eyes. “And Jacks?”

Kallie shook her head. “Not here.”

“No, he ain’t, and this is where the sonuvabitch belongs,” Cash tossed in, his voice low and feral. “But I’m gonna find him. He can’t hide from death.”

“Looks like he’s doing a damned fine job so far,” Kallie retorted.

Belladonna blinked. “Um … that sounds like Cash is—”

“In charge of the Baron,” Kallie finished. “Yeah. Impossible, I know. But there it is. They’ve been switching off like Augustine and Layne.” Her heart gave a hard, painful pulse.
Layne.

“Don’t worry,” Belladonna said, either reading Kallie’s expression or just working a little best-friend telepathy mojo. “Layne’s potioned up and out cold, but he needs medical attention as soon as possible.”

“Maybe I’ll take you with me,” Cash said, eyeing Kallie and drawing in on the cigar. “That way you can watch when I finally catch up with your motherfucking cousin.”

“Try it and I’ll empty this clip into your sorry ass,” Belladonna promised.

Cash cast a contemptuous glance at her. “Go ahead. As long as the Baron’s still inside of me, I’ll keep breathing. But Bonaparte won’t.”

Kallie’s hands knuckled into fists at her sides. “What the hell did Jacks steal from you, anyway? Your meth lab? Your girlfriend? Your hidden bank account? A goddamned
kiss
? What the hell did he take that’s so goddamned important that you’d risk your goddamned life and everyone else’s to get it back?”

“It ain’t
what
he took, it’s the fact that he took it from
me.
”

“And who the hell are you supposed to be? Some big drug lord? Some big pimp-pornographer?
What?
”

“His fucking
friend,
his drinking buddy,” Cash snarled. “That fucking Cajun bastard betrayed my trust and
stabbed me in the goddamned back without even a
Sorry, podna, I had no choice and I hate myself for doing this
.”

Kallie stared at Cash, stunned. She couldn’t imagine her cousin hanging out, let alone hitting the taverns, with Cash. But she couldn’t deny the raw emotion behind his words either. He was telling the truth.

Kallie had thought she knew all of her cousin’s friends—bayou pirates, outlaws, poets, fellow fishermen, and regular Joes. Now she wondered how many others Jackson had, friends on the seriously wrong side of the law, whom he hid from her and their
tante.

What else had Jackson kept hidden? Even though the question left Kallie feeling gut-punched, she clung to her belief that whatever he hid, he did so to protect them.

“No,” Kallie said finally. “Jackson would never betray or steal from a friend. Maybe someone set him up, spread a few lies around, knowing you’d go after him. Maybe someone—”

“Nobody had to set him up or spread lies,” Cash said quietly. “I caught the bastard dead to rights. I caught him in the act. And then he tried to kill me.”

“N
o,” Kallie said, shaking
her head. “I don’t believe that. Jacks might be a thief, but he’s no goddamned killer.”

Cash laughed and tossed his cigar into the mud. It went out with a hiss and a curl of smoke. “
Might
be a thief? You’re kidding, right?” Shadows undulated across the painted-skull landscape of his face, negative ghosts in a bleached night. “The only reason I’m still alive is because I jumped overboard while your cousin was busy puncturing the air with high-velocity lead.”

Kallie felt like she’d just taken another gut punch. But before she could say anything more to Cash—to refute his words, to question what he’d seen and, more important, who he’d thought he’d seen shooting at him—he stepped forward and pinioned her shoulders with fingers as hard and as cold as marble tombstones. Squeezed. She felt the bones in her shoulders and collarbone shift. She gritted her teeth against the pain.

“Ah, but you’d know all about goddamned killers, now, wouldn’t you,
ma jeune belle
?” The Baron’s nostrils flared. He dipped his head, brushed his cheek against Kallie’s. His breath, cold as dry ice and pungent with peppered
rum, fluttered her hair. “You be drenched in death and murder. I smell it all over you like sweat and heated musk, like a lover just rolled offa your luscious body.”

She’s bloody death in cutoffs and a tank top.

Words spoken by Layne’s ex-wife, McKenna, during the long and dreadful night that had ended only a few hours ago; words that pricked Kallie with their bitter truth.

“Sounds like I need to switch perfumes,” Kallie said, wishing she felt as confident as her words. Pinpricks needled her hands and fingers as the Baron’s hard grip cut off her circulation.