Dead Man (Black Magic Outlaw Book 1) (23 page)

 

 

 

 

The vampire growled between taut lips. "Francisco."

I stepped inside, letting the door hang open. The building was essentially a large corridor with a high ceiling, the two of us squared off at opposite ends.

"You didn't think anyone
else
would come for you."

Tunji Malu licked his lips. "Perhaps not. You were resourceful to track me to Little Haiti through Namadi, but he was a public figure." The vampire's brow knotted. He cocked his head, flexing the muscles in his neck. "Finding me here is ever more curious."

He hadn't been prepared for my appearance. He didn't have his armor on. Just boots and pants. His bare chest was thick and ropey, his flesh a hide of dark leather. The metal in his teeth glinted, so I figured it for a permanent fixture. The knee spikes and curved hooks, not so much. The monster recovered his knives from the floor.

"The necromancer Martine knew of this place, but I dealt with her before she could've told you."

My face remained a passive mask.

"You still have friends in this city then," he guessed. "A secret ally? An old brother?"

I shook my head. "Thanks to you, I have no friends."

He laughed. "Ah, then a lost love, perhaps." His eye gleamed.

Whatever front I'd been holding up shuddered. The possibility that he knew about Em horrified me. My face flashed with anger. "There's no one!" I snapped, but the protest was too ardent.

The vampire smiled. "Perhaps Martine was not enough. I will need to flush out and destroy all other vestiges of your previous life. Or I will command you to do so."

I hissed. "Just like you did with my family?"

Tunji's confident smile vanished. "You remember this?" He stepped forward and studied me. "Your knowledge surprises me again. It was no accident we wanted you with us. Your potential is vast." He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "What else do you remember, shadow witch?"

My stomach turned at the banalities. "Why'd you have my family killed?" I demanded. "Why'd you make
me
kill them?" My chest heaved as I waited. I flexed my arms, reminding him that I was strong too.

Tunji Malu arched an eyebrow and shrugged. "I will tell you if you explain how you broke my hold over you. How you come to me now, no longer a dead man?"

I ground my teeth. He was toying with me, having fun with it, but he wanted information too: Who sold him out. Who broke his control. The facts I wanted weren't so strategic: A rational explanation. Some meaning to the madness.

"Laurent Baptiste dispelled your aura with his palm of death," I explained.

The vampire smiled, then broke into a chuckle. "Impossible. You overestimate his power. Even if he had been capable of such a feat, it would have left you a corpse. No, Francisco. I wish to know how you still walk this earth."

I scowled. "I don't have that answer."

"And the Horn?"

"I don't have that either."

The vampire nodded and looked me up and down, measuring me. "Of course not. A blind man swinging at shadows. For all your cleverness, you remain a disappointment."

"Tell me why you had me cut down my family."

He sighed so emphatically it was almost a yawn. "Because I
could
, Francisco. Your family was irrelevant, ignorant of our dealings. They never
needed
to die, but I made it so. It was a test of your loyalty. My brother, dealing death from the shadows. I had to know if you could be a fully trusted member of the Covey."

"I'm not your brother," I spat. "And I'm not a part of your covey."

"But you were, Francisco. Once you slaughtered your family, we knew you were one of us. We gave you free reign of the city." The monster's eyes lit up. "And what a wonderful reign it was. For eight years, we held Miami in our clutches. This great city was at our mercy. We were an incredible team."

Tunji was trying to rile me up, but I was past that. I recovered my calm and spoke with measure. "Only my family calls me Francisco. I won't stand you doing it again."

He licked his lips in amusement. I paced closer to the vampire and glowered. "I was never one of you, asanbosam. If you think this meeting ends with me pledging service to you again, you're dead wrong. Look to your pet spider, the anansi, for a more likely outcome."

The vampire frowned and scraped his knives together. "We are all pets," he said. "He and I were equals. As were you. You just don't yet remember."

"I wasn't your equal. I was your thrall."

Tunji chuckled and shook his head. "We were brothers. And we shall be again."

With a flick of his wrist, the vamp hurled one of his hooks. I phased to the side and the metal whizzed past me.

Tunji charged in a blur. As I rematerialized, I waved my hand and muddied the floor. The blur slowed considerably.

Still, Tunji Malu was impossibly fast. Reduced to the speed of an Olympic sprinter, he quickly bore down on me. I gathered the shadow from the surroundings and solidified it into a wall between us. The vampire slammed headfirst into it and roared.

He'd be dashing around more carefully after that.

He swiped his blade at the wall of ether and I was surprised to feel resistance. Walls like this could take time to build properly. I gritted my teeth and refocused the darkness, pressing the surface into him.

Another flick of Tunji's empty hand, this time back. It took me too long to notice the magical tether.

The curved hook he had originally thrown reversed direction and thudded into my back. I grunted and attempted to phase away, but I was hooked. Trapped in this world as with the handcuffs. Tunji laughed and yanked me closer.

I couldn't believe I'd fallen for a Mortal Kombat move.

I fought against his pull, grimacing as the blade pierced further into my hardened skin. An awkward twist allowed me to hook my arm in the middle of the circled edge. I braced my armored forearm against the metal and slid it from my body with a groan. Blood spilled from my back but I wasn't in dire trouble. With my arm against the hook, however, the vampire still had me tethered.

We struggled in a tug-of-war, using might against metal against magic. He pushed into my wall and pulled me closer with his blade. I leaned away and shoved my shadow against his mass. I was hoping the tether would snap, but its magic was strong. Absolute.

He did wield magic, then.

"How did you take me?" I asked, forcing the words through clenched teeth. "Ten years ago."

Tunji snarled, enraged at being unable to reach me. "Death took you," he answered.

I grunted against his power. I couldn't risk manifesting a shadow because that would dissipate my wall—the main thing keeping me alive.

"What magic?" I forced out.

He laughed, growing confident.

In that moment, I spun around and twisted my arm out of the blade's loop. It shot over my head directly at him. In the same instant, I dispersed the wall of shadow. Suddenly without resistance, Tunji stumbled forward. Off balance and surprised, he raised his hand to catch his blade.

He missed.

The rounded knife plunged into the vampire's chest and he tumbled to the floor.

I watched him on all fours a moment before continuing my interrogation. "I'm not only here to kill you. I want answers, Tunji."

"As do I," he breathed, yanking the knife from his chest. He let the bloody weapon clatter to the floor. "What did you do with the Horn before you came to us? How was it you broke free? There's no way that houngan could have done it. That fool was weak."

As Tunji climbed to his feet, the locked door on the wall behind him flew off its hinges and bounced past us. Impressive considering it was designed to open outward.

"Misconceptions," stated Laurent Baptiste harshly. The voodoo high priest casually strolled inside and smiled a set of double teeth.

 

 

 

 

Tunji Malu shied away from the new threat to avoid being surrounded. His gaze shifted between me and the leader of the Bone Saints. "This cannot be!" he asserted.

The high priest grinned and the scar on his neck seemed to smile as well. He had no cigar now, no snake, but he wore his death outfit to full effect. Tuxedo. Top hat. Bony fingers. He stood with resolve now and his voice boomed.

"I have told you, demon. The Baron refuses to dig my grave!"

Tunji and I remained tense. It was only Baptiste who appeared calm.

"I have killed you once," said the vampire. "I can do so again. You are both dead men."

Laurent countered. "You think a master of death can be so easily killed?"

Tunji let out a blood-curdling cry and lunged at the houngan. A sliver of shadow grabbed his legs and tugged him back just short of his opponent. As he twisted in frustration, the voodoo priest emptied a bag of powder onto him.

This wasn't a simple handful. I held the vampire down and Laurent unloaded his entire stockpile. A cloud of dust mushroomed over Tunji Malu. It overtook the houngan as well, but he didn't react.

The vampire screeched and convulsed, pulling against my tether. I fought to hold him steady as his skin bubbled. Smoke and pieces of burnt flesh filled the air.

Hidden in dust and smoke, the tugging at my shadow stopped. Tunji's screams weakened to subdued growls. It took a moment for the air to clear. When it did, the vampire was on one knee. Laurent Baptiste stood beside him, with a hooked blade in his stomach and another embedded in his chest. The man stood motionless, without expression.

"You think," growled Tunji Malu, "that I will cower against pain?" He stood and snarled as bits of his skin curled away from his body. "You can flay me. You can impale me. You can burn me. But I will not succumb."

The vampire grabbed both blades and pulled the houngan close. He flexed massive triceps and tore his weapons free from the man, slicing him in half in the process.

I backed away as Tunji buried his face in Baptiste's open chest, slurping and gnawing at the red juices. The vampire watched me from the corner of his eye as he feasted. I didn't interfere.

With a triumphant smack of his lips, Tunji rose. Refreshed. Already his skin had stopped burning, his eyes shone brighter.

"You could have been one of us," he said, reaching for his blades. "We offered you glory. But I think I shall taste your blood instead." The vampire stretched his arms wide and then cracked his neck.

I readied myself for any quick movements. "Is it so satisfying," I asked, "to kill a dead man?"

Tunji smiled, then quickly shook it away.

"You were right," I explained. "Baptiste really was dead." Tunji narrowed his eyes and turned to the body. "I know, he had a neat trick or two, but you killed him back in Little Haiti. For a man of his power to go down so easily, well, it's embarrassing really. The truth is, he couldn't pull off a resurrection like that. Nobody can return from the dead."

The vampire eyed me carefully. "Except for you, is that it?"

I shrugged. "In his case, anyway. It was me that brought him back. Not alive, but as a zombie."

He scoffed. "That was no dumb zombie."

"Sure he was," I said. "An automaton being driven."

"You did not control that man. I would've seen the tether."

"You're right on that count. Would've been too obvious. I had help from a bokor on the outside. He smuggled the body out of Bone Saints headquarters." I presented my whistle from my pouch. "I did the hard lifting, of course, but the bokor has other talents."

The vampire approached me slowly, grinning. "Tricks and shadows. But what have you accomplished? The houngan is still dead. And you are soon to follow."

He snatched at my neck with a clawed hand but I phased behind him. "It's not him that's important," I said as I backed away. The vampire sneered and turned to follow me. "It's what was done to his blood. Specifically, the blood you drank."

Tunji Malu froze in place and grunted. He shook his head and wiped his watery eyes. Black lines, like running eyeliner, streamed down his face. He stared at his hands and clenched them several times. When he looked up, black fluid was leaking from his nose.

Tunji spun and examined Laurent's corpse again. All the red blood painting the floor had now soured. It had darkened to black, like the blood of the fae.

"What did you do to me?" he demanded, then pitched to the floor.

I skirted his struggling form in a wide circle. "There are legends of asanbosam being obliterated in the motherland. Impervious to weapons, but devastated by blood-borne disease."

Tunji hacked up gelatinous gobs of blood.

"I can kill you quickly," I offered. "If you like. But first I want you to answer me. How did you enslave me? Why did you choose me?"

"You know this already," he spat, taking a feeble swipe at me with his hand. "It was for the Horn."

I hissed and a tentacle of shadow slowly unfurled. It leaned over his form and slowly undulated. "Why use me to get it? What does the Horn do? Why do you want it so bad?"

The vampire's body spasmed, but he remained on his elbows, refusing to back down to the last. "You ask the wrong questions. You ask the wrong person."

"Who then?"

He chuckled. "Pray you never know that answer."

The tentacle slowly wrapped around the asanbosam's neck.

Tunji broke into a fit of laughter. It abruptly cut off when he hacked out a piece of his lungs. The vampire smeared the blackness away from his mouth but it wouldn't wipe away. It tarnished everything except for his glistening metal teeth.

I tightened the darkness around his neck so he couldn't breathe. After a moment of struggle, I loosened it and the vampire gasped.

"No more abstractions, Tunji. I will have my answer or you will suffer. This covey of yours. If you're not its head, who is?"

"A being of primal power," he answered. "Magic personified."

My heart fluttered and I backed away. It was crazy to see the fear on Tunji Malu's face. Not of me. Not of death. But of the person he spoke of.

"Nothing you do to me can compare to his wrath," he continued.

"Don't bet on it."

He grunted. "Even now, he will save me."

I searched the darkness but no one was near. In a way, that unsettled me more.

"It doesn't look like it, Tunji."

He tried to laugh again, but groaned and twisted on the floor. "Then he will
avenge
me. And you will remain blind and swiping at shadows, Francisco."

His familiarity enraged me. Such confidence in the face of oblivion. With a wrenching crack, the shadow tentacle snapped the monster's neck. His body wriggled a little then ceased all movement.

"At least I'll remain," I whispered.

I stared at the crumpled form of Tunji Malu for some time. I wanted to feel something. Closure or satisfaction. All I got was emptiness.

I dragged the vampire and splayed him across Laurent Baptiste's body. I snatched another sack from the zombie's waist and poured the powdered contents over them both. There was no sizzling this time. No smoke.

I studied the spoiled mess on the floor and frowned. This was supposed to have been a moment of victory. Now, I wasn't so sure.

I struck a match, adjusting my eyes to the small amount of light. Black tears ran down my face. I dropped the stick on the bodies and they erupted in flames. I added Tunji's armor to the fire. His blades and belongings too. It would all burn. Nothing would be left.

My walk along the abandoned Everglades path had less purpose on the return trip. The stars weren't as bright. As I trudged back to the road, I knew I had killed the man who had killed me. I knew I had avenged my family against the one who had ordered their deaths. But all I could think about were Tunji Malu's last words.

A primal being.

I didn't want to believe it.