Chills & Thrills Paranormal Boxed Set (6 page)

The sideboard was still around after all, but overturned,
and its shattered doors lay open. Blue pottery dishes were spilled on the
ground, some so badly crushed, they'd turned to rubble. And there were jars,
dozens and dozens of clear glass jars, many of which were also broken. Crumbled
leaves and twisted roots mingled with the pottery dust.

Liz walked slowly into the kitchen, crouching beside the
pile of glass Zach stepped in after her, his toe brushing an unbroken jar. It
rolled, struck another jar, which also rolled to strike another, which struck
another. The floor became filled with rolling jars, clicking and clanking in a
crazy domino effect. One of the larger ones tumbled like a hamster's wheel,
then came to rest at Liz's feet. She looked down at it dispassionately.

"Who on earth could have done this?" she asked.
Softly, unemotionally, completely without feeling.

"I expected you to be more upset by finding your folk's
place trashed," he said. "Most people would be."

She looked up, her eyes clear. "It is what it is.
Nothing I can do now, except clean it up. I learned that lesson a long time
ago."

If Zach had harbored any hope that Izzy still existed, this
response wiped it away completely. Izzy would have burst through the front door
the minute her father hadn't answered. She would have wailed out her despair in
the face of this destruction. Izzy wouldn't have talked business on a cell
phone at her mother's wake. She would have stayed at the cemetery, throwing
herself on her mother's rain-wet vault, pounding and sobbing loud enough to
wake the dead.

Maybe your pa did it, Zach thought. Maybe your pa killed
your ma, your grandma. Maybe he even killed my funny, loyal,
too-courageous-for-his-own- good kid brother and that poor sonuvabitch whose
biggest crime was holding an ounce and a half of cocaine. Maybe there is an ax
murderer, and maybe his name is Frank Deveraux.

Some part of him wanted to say all that, and if he'd had
more booze inside his belly, he might have. But he didn't. Could be that he was
too good an investigator to forget you couldn't judge a man by how he reacted
to tragedy. Could be that some of his early optimism about people had survived
the loss of Jed. So he kept his peace. But that didn't change the connection
between Frank and his brother, and someday he might be forced to speak those
words, regardless of his present restraint.

He remained silent as Liz picked up a large jar that had
rolled to a stop at her feet. Furry tentacles came alive, clawing at the glass,
but Liz stared at it unaffected, then put the jar back on the floor.

"Is that a tarantula?" Zach asked over the sudden
tightening of his throat.

"Where?" She sounded dazed. "Oh, the jar.
Yes. Mama liked to keep them around. Said they were good luck." She tilted
her head in question. "Don't you remember?"

"Some things are better forgotten." He toed one of
the jars closest to his foot, hoping nothing moved inside. It was labeled in
French and contained a gray powder that broke apart in chunks as the jar rocked
back and forth. He looked down at the others, all filled with various powders,
crushed leaves, and other substances he wasn't sure he wanted to identify. Each
jar had a label, with names written in careful handwriting, some in English,
but mostly in French. Some were medicines, but some could easily be poisons
meant for
gris-gris
bags to ward off evil.

He hadn't seen jars like this in years. Not since he'd
attended college, met and married Rita, with her round, full-busted body, her
sloe eyes and dark curly hair, her soft, slurred voice and sweet dependence.
They'd settled in Baton Rouge and only went to the Port on holiday weekends.

But in the sweet days of his childhood, the ladies of Port
Chatre furtively boated out to see Ellie, begging her to gaze in her crystal
ball or lay out the Tarot and reveal the loves and fortunes coming their way.
Nor were the men immune, but they came by night to learn how to defeat a rival
or to get a concoction to cure baldness or impotence or other ailments Zach
hadn't even known the meaning of at the time.

And always there was Izzy, impulsive, irrepressible,
emotional. As unpredictable as the winds. "Do you still read Tarot
cards?"

Liz gave him a look that said she doubted his sanity, then
stood up and grabbed one edge of the sideboard. "Can you help me lift
this?"

"I'll do it for you."

"No, no. It's too much for one person." In
contradiction, she already had one foot on the base and was doing her best to
lever the huge cabinet up. Zach took a few hasty steps and took hold of the
top.

When the piece was back in place, she picked up the jar with
the tarantula and put it on a shelf. Next, she got the single unbroken dinner
plate and turned it around in her hands.

"Mama was so proud of this set," she said. "I
mean, look at it. It's just stoneware she got from a grocery in Abbeville, one
place setting at a time, but she always kept them in the sideboard to use when
papa boiled crawdads for a
fais do-do
." She smiled sadly.
"Remember how everyone brought out those old tin instruments, and the
music would play, and we kids would jump around between the old folks dancing
on the grass and sneak sips of beer when they weren't looking?"

Surprised by her fervency, Zach only nodded.

She set the plate on a shelf, then reached for a teacup with
a chunk broken off. Still holding it, she knelt and began brushing through the
sharp pieces on the floor until she came up with the missing section, still
fairly well intact. She looked up at him with another sad smile. "Maybe I
can glue this back together."

Holding the handle between her thumb and index finger and
daintily crooking her little finger the way one might at a Ritz-Carlton high
tea, she gazed at the worthless cup from the grocery as if it came from a
rajah's treasure chest.

Zach noticed a bead of blood.

"You cut yourself." He took her wrist and gently
removed the cup from her hand. Her pain had become so visible, and he had the
feeling she didn't know it, that she honestly believed she was just talking old
times. He wanted to pull her close and ease that pain, and made a move to do
so.

Liz immediately read his intention and was so tempted. Lord,
to just sink into Zach's arms and let things be okay again. But she'd left that
all behind, left him behind, and hurt him badly. And she couldn't even give him
an explanation, at least not one she felt made sense. I was afraid. What kind
of explanation was that?

He hadn't deserved that treatment, and she didn't deserve
his comfort. It wasn't fair.

If she'd learned anything from her life, it was that being
fair brought its own rewards, so she allowed herself the pleasure of his
comfort for only the space of a breath, then stepped away.

"It's not that bad." She carefully placed the
broken pottery triangle inside the cup, then took it from his hand and put it
beside the plate. After that, she went to the refrigerator for cleaning tools—a
broom, mop, and dustpan—that were stored in a space between it and the wall,
thinking that Zach looked hurt by her rejection of his solace.

"Amazing," she exclaimed. "A refrigerator, an
electric stove. To think Mama used to cook all our meals in that
fireplace."

Zach didn't say a word.

She got busy sweeping the floor. The jars clanked, and she
shoved them aside with her foot. "When Papa bought the butane stove she
almost fainted with joy, but she said she still cooked her jambalaya and
etouffee in the iron kettle over the open fire because they tasted better that
way."

She chattered nervously to fill Zach's silence. "But I
guess progress caught up with the Deverauxs, even way out here in the bayous.
Can't stop it, can you? Sometimes I wish—"

Just then she heard a noise. Turning, she saw Maddie Catalon
bending over inside the frame of the back door. As soon as Liz caught sight of
her, Maddie straightened abruptly, one hand behind her skirt.

"
Le fantome noir
done this," she said,
surveying the vandalized room.

"How long have you been there?" Liz demanded.

"Ankouer come around midnight and take the opal."
Maddie leaned against the door jamb, one arm beneath her small breasts,
emphasizing the angles of her collar bones. She wore another sleeveless,
scoop-necked dress, ankle-length and of a wispy fabric. A necklace of bone and
teeth was tied around her neck, and a bright red scarf held back her hair.
"Frank got in his boat early and go after it.

Liz made a disdainful noise, then briskly resumed sweeping.
"Papa's not here, Maddie, and you and I are hardly best of friends, so if
you don't mind . . ."

" 'Hardly best of friends,' " Maddie repeated, her
usually husky voice precisely mimicking Liz's. "Who'da thought Frank and
Ellie's wild swamp girl would turn into such a prissy miss?"

"What do you want?" Liz really didn't care if she
got an answer. "Hand me that dustpan, will you, Zach?"

Instead of giving it over, he bent and held it in front of
the pile of debris while he regarded her and Maddie. As Liz swept the shards
into the pan, she wondered what he found so fascinating. She also wondered what
Maddie wanted. After all—

"Didn't Papa spend the night at your place?" she
asked sharply.

Maddie's smile held triumph. "All you need to know,
girl, is he gone to Quadray Island."

"Quadray Island?" Zach stood up so quickly he
spilled glass onto the floor. He grabbed a cigarette from his pocket, and as
Liz was about to suggest he take his smoke outside, she noticed he looked kind
of shaky.

"What's the deal?" she asked. "Quadray
Island's a myth."

"Yeah, right, you're right." He lit up the
cigarette, took a puff and began pacing the small room, repeatedly crossing
between Liz and Maddie as he spoke. "But the area where it's reputed to be
is full of unpredictable eddies. Tornadoes touch down, even when they miss
every place else, and it's ru- mored the water is poison." He stopped in
front of Maddie. "Nobody goes that way. Why the hell would Frank head out
there?"

"I already told you. To find Ankouer and get the opal
back for Izzy." Maddie glided to stand in front of Liz. "You gotta go
after him. His life, it depend on you."

"For God's sake, Maddie!" Zach barked. "Cut
out this crap!"

"T'weren't Catalons who bring Ankouer to the bayous.
Deverauxs brung this curse. Now Izzy is the only one left and she don't know
jack about using that opal or nothing."

"I don't need to know about ridiculous superstitions,
and I sure don't plan to go out and fight one," Liz replied indifferently.
"I'll leave that to you."

"If it could be, I would do it. Only a Deveraux woman can
tame
le fantome
. You been running and running, Izzy, but now your duty
come a'calling."

"What do you have behind your back?" Zack asked
suddenly.

Maddie jerked her head to stared at him. "Nothin'.
Ain't nothing. Just some papers I've been needing."

"From here?" Liz looked at Maddie suspiciously.
Who could tell what was going on in that woman's head, but her movements
revealed a certain secretiveness. "Did you get that from here? Let me see
it."

She darted a hand around Maddie's side. Before the woman could
react, Liz had snatched the item from her hand. It was an envelope, and she saw
her own name written in dark black ink across the front.

"This is for me," she said. "This is Mama's
handwriting."

"It tell everything about Ankouer, and Ellie knowed
you'd never take it, that's why she give it to me," Maddie said. "Now
let me have it back. It don't belong to you anymore. You don't deserve
it."

Furious, and wanting absolutely nothing to do with anything
that pertained to Ankouer, Liz let the broom clatter to the floor and stormed
out of the kitchen toward and through the front door. Then swinging back her
arm, she prepared to hurl the package into the water.

"Don't!" Maddie commanded.

It wasn't the power of Maddie's order that stopped Liz. It
was the uncharacteristic tremor of terror in her voice. She pivoted slowly to
face the woman, noticing an odd flicker to her eyes and a softening of her
features as she started to speak.

"You go into great danger, Izzy.
Le fantome noir
come from the deep, dark, swirling chaos. Chaos he is and chaos he always
be."
 
This wasn't Maddie. The voice
was soft and sweet and so achingly familiar. "You have power. You must
seek it now, claim it!"

Transfixed, Liz reached out her empty
handv."Mama?"

"Turn your back on it and you are doomed. . . .
Le
fantome noir
will prevail. His evil will seep into the world. . . .
Darkness will be the end. It is up to you, Izzy. You are the last
Guardian."

"That's enough, Maddie!" Zach snarled.

His heated order cut through Liz's trance. She jerked backed,
startled beyond belief to see her fingers caressing Maddie's face. Her other
hand still clutched the envelope.

"This is just too much, Maddie," Liz said wearily.
"Would you please go home?"

"Okay, okay. Only don't be throwing the package away,
okay?"

Liz unclasped the envelope's metal prongs and lifted the
flap. Slipping her fingers inside, she pulled out a small journal. Shaken by
the fleeting instant when she'd thought she'd been listening to her mother, she
brought the book to her breasts, breathing deep, hoping to smell her mama's
scent, feel the hand that had once crossed the pages inside to record her
thoughts.

"I'll keep it then," she said stiffly. "Now
please leave."

"Okay," Maddie said. "But take heed, you.
Your papa's in trouble, and you need to go to Quadray Island and help
him."

"Quadray Island is a fantasy, and I'm not going
anywhere." Still holding the book close, she started for the door.