Chills & Thrills Paranormal Boxed Set (28 page)

"Izzy!" With eyes that were black dots of terror,
Grandmere
turned her head.

Ah, the seedling guardian. Come. Join the old one.

Her grandmother's expression abruptly changed to defiance.
"Never, Ankouer! The child will defeat you in the end!"

Do not speak such drivel, foolish one.

Even in her terror, Izzy recognized that the mental voice
contained an uncertainty that hadn't been there before, that somehow she could
help. What she needed to do came to her in jerky, random thoughts. The prayer!
She could help
Grandmere
say the prayer.

Still hugging the sheet tightly to her body, she began
reciting in her high, sweet, young woman's voice. As her voice grew stronger,
her grandmother's grew weaker.

"Izzy!" she called thinly.

And then the opal was hurling through the air. An irregular
ball the size of her fist, weighing no more than ounces, but the light inside
it sparkled like fragments of a fireworks show.

A silent scream rose from the unseen force, splitting her
eardrums, making her hands want to fly up to cover them. But the stone was
sailing toward her. She had to catch it, had to, had to. So fragile it was, and
it would turn to powder if it struck the wooden floor.

And then the nothingness, the speaker in the mind, the
hisser, the thing that terrified her
Grandmere
so bad, burst into
flames. Izzy steeled herself against the heat. Instead, she felt the nip of
cold. Creeping, seeping, biting at her sweat-damp skin, at her toes and
fingers.

Her hands felt clumsy now as she cupped them to catch the
opal. But she continued chanting the prayer— "Power above, power
divine" —while waiting, waiting, waiting for the precious object to fall
into a downward arc.

She heard
Grandmere
, knew she was speaking to her,
but she couldn't look, couldn't, couldn't. If she did the stone would—

"Take care, you . . . for the fire stone."

Flames now engulfed the room with a fire that froze. They
licked at her legs, her body, her small, child-woman's breasts, at the hands
that waited for the soaring opal, making her movements jerky and hard to
control. The fire stone. She must catch it before—

"You are . . . the last . . . the last guardian It is
up . . . up to you to defeat Ankouer."

*
I take the old one
, came a voice from deep inside
her mind.
For now. But you and I will meet again, seedling. I swear it.

"Power above, power divine," Izzy whispered.

The stone landed in her hands, soft and hard at the same
time, and she closed her fingers around the glittering object and clutched it
close.

With one last blinding flare, the flames vanished, allowing
summer's heat to return to the room. She swooned, she must have swooned,
because the next thing she knew morning had come. Her father sat beside her on
the bed, uncurled the fingers she'd wrapped so tightly around the precious
stone, and sadly told her that
Grandmere
had died in her sleep.

Even Mrs. Tricou's skillfully applied makeup couldn't hide
the blue stain on her grandmother's lips as she lay against the soft white
satin. And after they placed the coffin reverently in the vault, Izzy returned
home, packed a few belongings in a paper bag, and went in search of Zach. But
he scoffed at her fears and tried to talk her out of leaving. So, alone and
scared and not yet sixteen, she paddled her pirogue out of Port Chatre, leaving
the fire stone in her mother's care and doing her best to wipe out the memory
of that terrifying night.

Abruptly, the canvas shelter above her came into sharp
focus. The rain had stopped. The sun was rising. Liz idly stared at the fibers
that bound the canvas together and finally saw the patchwork quilt of her
entire life. The crazy events fell into place. The warnings in her mother's
journal, her father's insane quest, even Maddie's curt chastisements. The
obstacles Ankouer had placed in her and Zach's path.

And Harris. Suddenly she remembered everything he'd told her
that night in his bar. She had run from duty, had fled the certain knowledge
that Izzy held in her heart. Because of it, her mother had died as surely as if
Liz had actually slaughtered her. With that crushing realization, she instantly
knew where she'd find her father. Bolting to a sitting position, she leaned
over.

"Zach," she said urgently, shaking him awake.
"Zach."

His eyes fluttered open.

"I know why we're on Quadray Island," she told
him. "We're here to destroy Ankouer."

Still half-asleep, Zach brought Liz's hands to his lips and
stared into her ever-changing, amber eyes, trying to take in what she'd just
said. Afraid of saying the wrong thing, he delayed his answer. She held his
gaze and waited patiently.

"Liz," he said, breaking the silence. "You,
well, you've lived through a terrible event. I can see why . . ."

She didn't argue and this uncharacteristic behavior troubled
him more than her startling statement.

"I'll go hunt for your father's body," he said
wearily. "Go back to sleep until I return."

"He's not dead, Zach. Ankouer took him. Don't you see?
Le
fantome noir
is luring me to his cavern by taking him there."

"In your own words, Liz, Ankouer doesn't exist."

"I was wrong. He does." She covered the hand that
held hers and brought it to her breasts. He felt a quickened heartbeat that
belied her outer calm. "I remember, Zach. I remember why I left Port
Chatre."

As she began her story, he found himself wanting to reach
for the flask. Instead he pulled out a cigarette and listened to her tale with
an increasingly sinking sensation in his stomach. The events she described
stirred a memory.

He turned away from it. Yes, he believed the island was
evil. He felt the very presence of that indefinable quality in the air he
breathed. But to swallow the legend of
le fantome noir
? In his
philosophy, evil was a force, but it came from the dark impulses that resided
in each man and woman's heart, not from some single supernatural entity one
warred against like a marauding despot.

Sure, he found himself occasionally crossing himself, and
once or twice he'd been tempted to throw salt over his shoulder. At times . . .
at times the memory of his ill-fated journey for the orchid came flooding back.
And the occurrences of this trip went well beyond rational explanation. But Liz
was talking of fantastic things that science had long ago proven didn't exist.

She finished just about the time he stubbed out his smoke in
the sand next to the lean-to. "Have you ever heard of confabulation,
cher?"

"What?" She frowned as if the question was a non
sequitur. "It sounds familiar, but I'm not sure what it means."

"When the mind encounters events that don't make sense,
it makes up stuff to fill the holes. It's very common among Alzheimer's
patients."

"I hardly have Alzheimer's, Zach."

"No, but you've had a shock, which is another cause of
confabulation."

"I'm not making this up."

She responded calmly, as if nothing would shake her
conviction, and he realized he was wasting his breath. He turned to get his
shoes and began slipping them on his feet.

"Are you still going?" she asked with surprise.
"I told you already, Papa's in the cave."

"What about Maddie?"

"What about her?"

Zach reached for his jacket. It was caked with dirt, and so
were his clothes. Particles of sand abraded every crevice of his body. He ached
to get off this frigging island and have a shower. "She disappeared last
night, too."

"Oh, it's worse than I thought," Liz exclaimed.
"Maddie's probably dead, her soul feeding Ankouer's power."

It was all Zach could do not to roll his eyes. "Look,
Liz, I'm going to check on the boat. While I'm out, I'll also search for
bodies."

"You're wasting your time." She looked around the
lean-to, finally coming upon her shoes, which she picked up. "I need to
read more of Mama's journal, anyway. I missed so much of my training by running
away."

"Reading that journal's the last thing you should
do," he muttered.

But Liz was already unbuttoning the pocket on her
dirt-splattered overalls.

Zach scooted from beneath the shelter and climbed to his
feet, doing his best to shake away the gritty sand that plagued him.

Just then Liz uttered a soft sound.

"Liz?"

"I'd forgotten about this," she said, displaying
the chamois gris-gris bag. "Thank God, I didn't throw it away."

She loosened the drawstring and pulled out the macabre
voodoo doll. The red dots glared out of its coal-black face. "It looks
like Ankouer," she whispered apprehensively.

Oh, Liz, Zach thought sadly, turning away.

"I'll search the island," he said.

Too transfixed with the hideous effigy to acknowledge him,
she slowly returned it to the bag, and he knew she'd read the journal despite
his warnings.

The morning was getting warm, and the day, was as bright as
it ever got on Quadray Island, so he draped his jacket on a rock, then bent for
his flask and tucked it in his rear pocket.

"Don't go anywhere," he instructed. "And if
you're not going to sleep while I'm gone, you might pack up."

"Okay."

But she had already buried her nose in the journal, and Zach
doubted she'd heard a word he'd said.

* * *

Liz was frustrated. What she'd read so far seemed so much of
the same.

It starts. Ankouer has drank the souls of human
sacrifices, and now he comes for me with his cold flame. Only the opal can
defeat him, and then only if my heart is free of fear. But I tremble and shake
at thinking of his approach.

It was all the more painful, reading this now, knowing she
might have protected her mother from this evil if she hadn't run away. But it
was too late now, and her own night of reckoning was drawing near. She had to
prepare. How ironic that she alone of all the guardians had received no
training, yet she was the last of the line, the final hope.

In the hands of a fearless guardian, the opal will snuff
Ankouer's cold flame, and return him to the foul darkness of his own essence.

How did a guardian remain fearless? Liz flipped to the next
page.

Ankouer comes from ceaseless need, and in his hands the
fire stone feeds that need, unleashing his evil power on the-

Keep going. Keep going. It had to be here. She knew it did.
Finally her eyes hit something she hadn't read before.

When the guardian holds the stone, it becomes like water
on Ankouer's flame, and he begins to hiss the cry of death
.

Liz's heart leaped with anticipation. Here, this was what
she'd been searching for. Quickly she scanned the page.

To get to Ankouer's lair, she must first pass the
gatekeepers who guard the narrow inward passage. The evil object, blacker than
coal, with eyes aglow and a knife piercing his dark heart, defeats these foes.

Liz glanced at the
gris-gris
sack, secure once again
inside the plastic bag. Odd that until now she'd forgotten that Harris had
given it to her, along with his message that the doll alone was not enough.
Look
into your heart
, he'd said,
Izzy's
heart
.

The guardian shall walk into the darkest, blackest part
of him. Blind and cold will she be, but onward she must go, offering the opal
to heaven, and praying for protection with the fullness of love in her heart.
Do not hate, guardian, do not hate. Ankouer loves hate like we love sugar and
it feed his evil.

Was it possible to face evil with love? Liz wondered,
reading on.

But alone the guardian cannot prevail. A defender whose
love be pure, one who must battle his own demons on the way, shall stand by her
side. If he fails, the guardian shall surely die. If he triumphs, the two shall
fulfill the meaning of the verse.

Below this passage was the quatrain she'd come across early
in the journey. She'd been skipping repetitive passages, but she was now too
caught up in her swirling thoughts to move on. A defender whose love is pure.
Without one, she would die.

Papa had been her mother's defender. He'd failed to defeat
his demon in the form of sultry Maddie Catalon.

These new thoughts came with a certainty Liz didn't question
as her mind moved on to Zach. His love was pure, she knew, untainted by the
doubts she'd harbored. But his demons? What are they? His three former wives?
His distant son? The flask in his back pocket? Or was it his sudden and
complete rejection of ideas he'd once considered?

She couldn't blame him for believing she'd followed her
father off the deep end. Were positions reversed, she didn't doubt she'd come
to the same conclusion. Yet, even believing her mind had snapped, his love for
her remained. It had survived the news that she had died. It had survived her
fury at him for accusing her father.

A rueful smile crossed her face. How important it had seemed
to preserve the image she'd built since leaving Louisiana. How important to
defend her father, no matter the circumstances. With this new perspective, her
former intensity seemed childlike and self-absorbed.

Through time, nearly thirty years, Zach had loved her, and
contemplating the strength and endurance of his love made her feel safe,
something she hadn't felt since putting foot in Port Chatre. Something she
certainly had no reason to feel at this crucial moment. But to ask him to
confront this horror as her defender. Lord, it was too much, just too much.