Chills & Thrills Paranormal Boxed Set (16 page)

Liz covered her nose and throat. "Hurry, Zach."

"Amen."

He punched up the speed even more, then bent for his flask.
Liz suddenly wished she also had a convenient way to ease her fear.

Even after the burning raccoon and its caretakers were many
miles behind them, she and Zach spoke no more of it. Deeply reluctant to
explore the incident, Liz busied herself putting the rest of the items back in
the bins. When she finally sat back down, she made a guess that Zach
didn't
  
want to talk about it either.

The seat felt hard and uncomfortable, and she was getting
stiff. As she lifted her legs to prop them on the console, she felt the journal
shift in her pocket.

Without knowing why, she'd felt compelled to read it. When
she'd left Harris's that morning to walk back up the road with Zach, the
journal had been a large presence in her mind, but the wreckage on the boat and
the appearance of the aberrant raccoons had made her forget.

Now was as good a time as any to return to it. She pulled
out the bag she stored it in, and saw it contained a new item. Turning the
plastic bag upside down, she let both of them drop to her lap.

"Where did this come from?" she idly asked aloud.

Zach looked at her in question.

"This
gris-gris
bag. It wasn't here
yesterday."

Zach's laugh carried an odd ring. "Just what we need. A
charm to keep us safe."

Somehow she thought he believed it, if just a little, and
she herself was very curious about what the little bag held. Small enough to
stick in a pocket or a purse, it still felt heavier than she remembered them to
be. She loosened the drawstring.

"You don't know how you got it?" Zach leaned back
in his seat and reached for a cigarette.

"No." She had an image of a wrinkled black hand
pressing it into hers, but it refused to come into focus. Neither did the
contents of the bag. Black inside there, very black, due to a larger object
blocking the light.

She tweezered her fingers around it and tugged.

The piece slipped from her grasp when it was halfway out and
lodged there, its two outstretched arms hanging over the opening. A small
needle protruded from the space between the arms.

"Ugh!" Liz gaped at the thing in horror. A voodoo
doll, painted entirely black and staring at her with malicious round red eyes.

Zach jerked his head and uttered an equally disgusted sound.
"Throw it overboard, Liz!"

She took it between her thumb and index finger, preparing to
do just that, but as she slipped it out, she got the oddest feeling it was
there to do her will. "In a second," she said, leaning to put it on
the deck between their seats. "I want to see what else is in here."

"Not more black magic, I hope." He puffed quickly
on his cigarette, then turned away.

Liz shook the remaining contents of the bag on top of the
journal, hoping she wouldn't find them to be of the same ilk. A small green
stone and a cellophane packet appeared. "Green chalcedony. And what's
this?"

She picked up a celophane packet, pulled the folded edge
apart and peered inside. A sweet and pleasing fragrance reached her nose.
"Rose petal dust. Two to keep the one at bay."

"What?"

"Something Mama used to say. If someone is in danger,
you give them a malevolent object along with two benevolent ones that control
it. I'm surprised I remember after so long, but it almost feels like I just
heard that phrase." She put down the packet and picked up the small green
stone. "And I also remember what this gem is called." She dropped the
stone into the chamois bag, then did the same with the packet. Finally, feeling
irritatingly nervous about it, she gingerly lifted the voodoo doll from the
deck and started to put it away.

"Aren't you getting rid of that creepy thing?"
Zach asked, puffing tensely on his brightly burning cigarette.

"No. I don't think so. It came with the bag and having
it reminds me of Mama."

Getting the doll back in was a struggle. The needle
continually snagged on the fabric as she pushed it through the opening. She
reached to pull the needle out.

"Don't!" Zach said sharply.

She pivoted toward him in surprise.

"If you have to keep it, at least let it remain
wounded."

Liz laughed. "I guess you can take the boy out of the
swamp," she teased, "but you can't take—"

"—the swamp out of the boy," Zach finished,
smiling and keeping his voice light, but he stubbed out his cigarette and
reached for another.

Leaving the needle in place, Liz worked the bag around it
and finally managed to get the doll inside. Giving a pleased sigh, she pulled
the drawstring tight, then placed the
gris-gris
back in the plastic bag.

"Satisfied?" she asked, grinning again.

Zach looked at her wryly. "Call me superstitious,"
he said, "but I'd hazard a guess your ma and her kind understand these
things better than we do. They'd probably also have answers for aggressive
alligators and deranged raccoons that run around in broad daylight."

"Probably, Zach." She patted the journal.
"And I'll bet the answers are in here."

"You've been dying to read again, haven't you?"
Liz nodded.

"If you find anything out, let me know."

"Sure thing."

Liz opened the book on her lap and flipped to the page where
she'd left off.

I feel le fantome noir stir deep in the bayou. He found a
poor soul to swallow, maybe more. How this unfortunate person or persons
happened on Quadray Island, I know not, but I see the fire opal spark and ebb
and know it is disturbed by Ankouer's new wakening.

His power grows from this milk of human warmth. Soon the
cold, cold bodies wash up to rip another loved one's heart to shreds. I weep
for them, but in my sorrow I cannot forget my duty.

Here her misery seemed to eclipse even the grief she'd felt
when she'd thought Liz had died. Liz looked up, once more struck by how much
pain this mythic being had given her mother. Such a burden, and none of it was
real, no realer than the gruesome figure inside the chamois bag. Throat thick,
she resumed reading.

If I should fail, it falls to Izzy to guard the opal, so
I write these warnings to smooth her way.

Liz rubbed her arms, suddenly cold, although the day was
warm, then read on. The warnings contained a lot of nonsense that never failed
to anger her. According to her mother, once Ankouer had bled the life from a
human sacrifice, he was able to control the thoughts of men, often appearing as
their ghostlike forms in odd and sundry places. Other times seducing them to do
his will.

And, as the book had said before, Ankouer desperately sought
the fire opal, which would allow him to permanently take over a person's body.
Once he'd done this, he would proceed to build an empire and incite warfare
throughout the world. But only if he defeated the guardian.

Sighing, Liz put down the book, but even as she closed it,
she felt a call to continue reading. After a moment's hesitation, she opened it
again. The pages fluttered in the blowing wind coming over the windshield, and
when she finally flattened them, she found herself looking at a quatrain
written completely in English, which hinted that her mother had copied it from
somewhere else. Quite beautiful, it contained the saying Liz had mentioned to
Zach not long before.

THE KEY

Beasts lay panting on the trail.

The two keep the one at bay.

When two join as one,

The soft overpower the strong.

"Listen, Zach," she said, reading it to him.

"What the hell does it mean?"

"I've no idea. It's as incomprehensible as an I Ching
verse."

"Not unlike the stuff happening out here," he
muttered.

Liz chose not to respond. She had a feeling he hadn't
expected her to, anyway. Fingers of apprehension crawled along her skin. The
incidents had started out easy enough to explain. A bull alligator regarding
the boat as a rival might see her dangling bare legs as an area of
vulnerability. Even the mad raccoon attack of last night could be rationalized
away. But an entire pack of raccoons coming for their dead companion in broad
daylight, then showing no fear of a shouting man? This was moving into the
realm of the totally eerie.

"Zach," she asked, "anything like this ever
happen to you before?"

"No," he said tersely.

"That's what I thought."

She shut the journal. Maybe she'd read it later.

At the sound of the closing book, Zach turned to her.
"We need to talk."

"About what?" Her expression made him think she
was steeling herself for a rehash of their argument the night before. He
figured what he really had in mind would disturb her a whole lot more.

"About heading back."

She touched the breast pocket of her overalls, emphasizing
the cylindrical shape of her father's pill vial. "How much farther before
we reach the main waterway?"

"Ten or twelve miles, barring any dead ends."

"Oh, not far," she said with clearly forced
brightness. "We'll make it there in less than half an hour. It's not even
noon, so we still have all afternoon to search for him."

"For all we know, your pa's already gone home."

"If he's home, he's safe. But if he's out here, he's
not."

Zach glanced out the windshield, and changed course to avoid
a current that hinted at a submerged tree. "I'm not sure we're so safe out
here ourselves."

He expected a retort laced with sarcasm. Instead, she
remained silent, rubbing the pill bottle and turning to look nervously in the
direction from which they'd come.

"We've got this big boat," she said after the
pause had grown in length. "And he's in a small one."

She leaned forward, speaking fervently, and he wasn't sure
who she wanted to convince, him or herself. "Please, Zach. Just until
midafternoon. If we haven't found him by then, we'll go back to the river. That
would get us home before dark."

"You have been away a while."

"So?"

"So .
 
. . the
correct turnoff's supposed to be a cypress swamp. They aren't so easy to
navigate."

"You'll get us through. I trust you."

Zach crumpled like an empty cigarette pack. Christ almighty,
a woman in distress. Even now, knowing where his former stupidity had led, he
couldn't resist.

"All right," he replied reluctantly, reaching for
the Winstons he'd bought from Harris. Before pulling them out, he looked down
at his watch. "Until two-thirty. Then we turn back. Agreed?"

"Agreed." She picked up the book again, lost to
him for the time being.

Although she didn't seem upset with him, he wished he could
take away the harsh words he'd spit out in his drunken haze. Hell, he'd
promised himself he'd cut back, but since embarking on this trip he could
hardly keep his hands off his flask. Or off Liz.

That didn't justify the way he'd jumped all over her. Still,
he found it difficult to believe she'd so thoroughly forgotten the night she'd
begged him to take her away that she accused him of abandoning her. He'd always
been there when she needed him. Hadn't he listened without scoffing to her
fantastic tale of
le fantome
coming for her grandmother? And if he'd
even half believed she would really leave, he would have taken her.

So what was up with her denial? Could she honestly think
she'd never told him that story? He glanced at her, saw she was still absorbed
in her mother's writing, and suspected that if she'd truly forgotten, the
contents of the book might very well revive the memory not only of their conversation
that night, but of her entire heritage. If that happened, she'd need him,
because he sensed Liz Deveraux was a woman who didn't face her self-deception
well.

The possibility quickened his heart, and if not for his
sinking feeling that their journey was leading them into trouble they weren't
prepared to handle, he might have felt a burst of joy.

A while later he glanced at Liz again. "I'm going to
need your help navigating the cypress knees soon."

They'd just passed a shore with a cluster of maple trees
that resembled the ones drawn on the map. But so had several other locations,
and he didn't feel much hope as he turned from the river.

Liz appeared a bit dazed as she lifted her head from the
book. "I need a break anyway."

She rubbed her arms, and he noticed she had goose bumps.
Somewhat odd, since a while back he'd unbuttoned his shirt and rolled up the
sleeves to get cooler.

"This part is all about Ankouer. She says he's alone,
suffering something akin to sensory deprivation, and that he badly longs for
the joys of human life." Her voice took on a mocking tone. "But he
fears love, which he also knows is his only salvation. Can you believe it,
after all she's said about his evil heart, she's suddenly sympathetic?"

"I don't pretend to understand Cajun lore," he
replied, a bit uneasy over her agitation. "My folks took us to mass on
Sunday, but that's as close as I ever got to mysticism. They never talked about
the old legends."

"According to the journal, hardly anyone does these
days." She let out a sound halfway between a sob and a cough, then put the
book back in the bag and returned it to her pocket. "I've been reading too
much. She has a way of making it all seem real."

The reason for her chills. Good thing he'd interrupted her.
Strangely, and despite his earlier anticipation that reading the book might jar
her memory, he preferred not to hear more. True, he hadn't been raised amid
dark legends, but this discussion refreshed his recall of the journey in his
pirogue, and he was beginning to shiver just like her.