My Reaper's Daughter (10 page)

“My love will come.” Though she could not see his face, she knew he would be as

handsome as a man could be. He would be a man every woman in the village would

envy her having.

And he would be entirely hers.

The cabin was dark except for the glow of the red candle in the shape of a man that

sat upon the altar covered in black cloth. Clove incense filled the air and the string with

which she worked had been dressed with the appropriate lover’s oil consisting of the

oils of cinnamon, olive, patchouli, rose and sandalwood.

“My love will come,” she said for the last time. She worked the yarn into a heart

shape then put it in the pocket of her gown. “So mote it be!”

For a moment she continued to kneel in front of the altar, staring down at the skull

and crossbones that decorated the black altar cover. Her black eyes moved over the

chalice and caldron and iron cross, the incense burner and skull candleholder and

bowls of dried flowers, the gourd rattle and the ceremonial drum and the copper bell.

There were dolls that represented the Seven Powers, statues of saints and photographs

of her ancestors. The gris-gris and mojo bags and the boxes filled with colored string

and glass beads, the various tins and bottles and saucers of herbs, oils, incense and roots

were all intricate to her spellcasting. She watched her pet black snake slither across the

altar then drop to the floor.

“Why did you do that, Ayida Weda?” she asked the serpent, following its progress

along the grass floorcloth. In her religion—that of her ancestors handed down secretly

to the initiated—snakes represented the power of lightning and the judicious deity

known as Dumballah. For one to cross the altar bore meaning, held some strong

magical purpose.

She listened for the creature to speak to her and when it did not, she rose gracefully,

shaking out the skirts of her long white dress. Her bare feet trod silently over the floor

cloth as she went to the iron cot against the wall and removed her white tignon head

covering then the pristine ceremonial dress. Beneath it she was naked, her pert young

breasts capped with taut brown nipples.

Clothing herself in the drab black skirt, binding her small breasts behind a white

cloth wound around her slender chest then donning the starched white blouse her

employer demanded she wear, she reluctantly slipped her delicate feet into the leather

sandals he had provided for her. Had she been allowed, she would have gone barefoot

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

as was the custom of her people, but in her employer’s house, it was prohibited.

Expertly wrapping a headscarf of madras fabric around her short black curls, she was

prepared to begin her day’s work as the housekeeper of Sagewood Plantation. She slid

back the bolts on the door locks and quietly left her cabin—careful to padlock the door

behind her for it would not do to have an outsider discover the secrets she kept so

carefully. With pride, her eyes traveled over the turquoise blue color with which she

had painted the shutters. It was a color that spoke volumes to the inhabitants of

Sagewood Plantation.

Following the oyster-shell walkway that led from the village to the main house, she

ignored those few who dared greet her for she considered the other servants beneath

her. Most feared her and that was the way she preferred it. To her, they were nothing

more than cattle to be led. Though they came to her for the spells and charms and magic

they knew she could provide, they cut a wide berth around her, striving not to garner

the mambo’s notice.

“Mambo,” she whispered, relishing the word, for she was carrying on the tradition

of her mother and her mother’s mother before her—back into the mists of time when

those of her tribe had dwelt in a land across the sea. She was a priestess of a religion

more ancient, more powerful than the one her employer insisted she practice in the little

clapboard church behind the main house.

John Dirk, the white man who held the coveted position of plantation foreman, was

waiting for her beneath a large spreading oak festooned with draping moss. He stood

with his back to the tree, one foot propped against the gnarled trunk. In his hand was a

sharp knife he used to whittle at a piece of wood.

“
Bonjour
, Leilani,” he called out to her, never looking up from his work.

Though she would have preferred to pass him by without acknowledging his

greeting, she dared not, for of all the inhabitants of Sagewood, it was John Dirk she

feared. She nodded to him, her eyes wary of his movements, taking in the hard grin on

his dark face.

“
Bonjour
, Monsieur Jean,” she said, granting him the correct pronunciation of his

name.

“I am watching you, wench,” he told her.

She ducked her head and hurried on, refraining from looking back at him even

when she felt his cold eyes boring into her back. She knew what he was and feared him

as she did no other.

Her heart was thudding hard in her chest when she entered the kitchen and stood

just inside the door trembling. She had learned early on that there was great evil in the

world and John Dirk was as malevolent as they came. The man was a stone-cold killer

who liked to torture those he was about to remove from this world before he finally

ended their lives. Pain excited him, drove him, and the only reason he had not come

after her, had not forced her to his bed, was because he was leery of what powers she

might be able to wield.

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My Reaper’s Daughter

Those powers he suspected she might have had not prevented him from forcing the

other women of Sagewood to service his needs, and many had come to Leilani to rid

themselves of the unwanted outcome of such brutal matings.

“Mr. Simmons says we are to have a guest this evening,” Mattie the cook informed

Leilani. “He wants everything just right for his lordship.”

Leilani looked up at the aging white woman who had worked at Sagewood since

she was a young girl. “The Reaper man is coming again?”

Mattie nodded as she continued to ply a rolling pin across a circle of dough.

“I thought he had gone to the fortress,” Leilani said.

“Aye, well, he’s back.”

Leilani sighed. She had no fear of Lord Phelan Kiel but neither did she care for the

lawman. His shrewd eyes missed nothing and she was always afraid he would look too

closely at her, ask the wrong person questions that might give away Leilani’s secret. She

stayed out of his way when he came to visit his friend Anthony Simmons.

“I’ll see that things are done properly,” Leilani told the cook. “What is on the

menu?”

“All his lordship’s favorites,” Mattie said. “Chicken and dumplings, fried okra, corn

casserole and sliced tomatoes. I’m making egg pie for dessert.” She laughed. “Reaper

men have a mighty big sweet tooth.”

Leilani thought of the only other Reaper she’d seen—Lord Iden Belial—and nodded

absently. His dark good looks had intrigued her but there had been something about

the way he’d glanced at her the one time he’d visited Sagewood with Lord Phelan that

had put a shiver down her spine.

“Oh, and you might want to know Colton Dupree’s baby sister has come home to

Charlestown,” Mattie said.

“Mystery?” Leilani questioned, her eyes narrowed.

“Ain’t got but one sister, does he?” Mattie asked with a snort. She looked around.

“She’s in the library with Mr. Simmons this very minute.”

Leilani dug her fingernails into her palm. “What for?”

“Asking for a job, I imagine,” Mattie said with a shrug. “Gotta do something to take

care of the brat she dragged home with her.”

“Where’s Odell?” Leilani snapped.

“Dead and buried.”

Shock parted Leilani’s lips. “Odell’s dead?” she asked. Tears filled her eyes.

“How?”

“Rogue got him,” Mattie answered as she began cutting squares of dough from the

circle.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Leilani reached for a chair at the table beside the window and all but fell into it.

“Odell is dead,” she repeated. Her shoulders sagged but she refused to give in to the

sorrow that was crushing her chest.

Mattie carried the dough squares to a big pot boiling away on the stove. “Work

ain’t gonna do itself, girl,” she reminded Leilani. “Best you get to your duties and forget

about Odell Butler.”

Leilani lifted her head and gave the cook an angry look, making a mental note to

work a little painful magic into the white bitch’s already-twisted fingers that evening.

She stood and started out of the kitchen, her mouth tight.

And ran right into a woman she had hated since childhood, a woman who had

taken the only man Leilani had ever loved away from her. She opened her mouth to

curse Mystery Dupree when Mr. Simmons came out of the library behind Mystery.

“Look who’s home, Leilani,” Anthony Simmons said. The white man was smiling

broadly, his deeply tanned face alight with good humor. “And guess who’s gonna be

helping Miss Laverne up at the kindergarten.”

Leilani forced a smile she didn’t feel to her taut lips. “I am sorry for your loss,” she

made herself say.

Mystery’s own lips twitched as though she weren’t sure whether to smile or frown

at the woman standing in front of her. “Thank you, Lani,” she acknowledged.

“And she brought home a little girl,” Mr. Simmons continued. “What’s her name

again, Mystery?”

“Valda,” Mystery provided.

“Now our little Sara will have someone her own age to play with!” Mr. Simmons

stated.

“That will be nice,” Leilani said between clenched teeth. Her gaze met Mystery’s

and she knew the other woman understood there was still abiding hatred in Leilani’s

heart.

Mr. Simmons walked Mystery to the door, keeping up a running commentary of

how his daughter and Mystery’s were going to be the best of friends. “You bring her by

tomorrow before you go to the school house now, you hear?” he ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Mystery agreed, glancing back one last time at Leilani. Her gaze was

troubled.

“You’d best fear me, bitch,” Leilani said under her breath, “’cause I’m gonna make

your life a living hell from this day forward!”

* * * * *

“How is Iden?” Anthony Simmons asked Phelan, offering the Reaper a snifter of

brandy Kiel politely turned down.

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My Reaper’s Daughter

“I haven’t seen him for a while. He and Lords Cree and Coure were sent over to the

Oklaks Territory patrolled by our Prime Reaper Lord Gehdrin,” Phelan reported. “All

four of them may be there a while.”

“What’s going on over there?” Anthony asked.

“Nothing I can tell you about,” Phelan answered.

“Something that would no doubt turn my hair grayer than it is if I were to learn of

it, eh?” Anthony inquired. He swept his hand toward the settee.

Phelan smiled as he took a seat. “Anything happening around here I need to know

about?”

Anthony cocked a shoulder. “Nothing the local constabulary can’t handle, I

wouldn’t think. Just the usual robberies, attempted extortions and occasional

disturbances of the peace. I’m happy to say we haven’t had a murder in six months.”

“That’s good news,” Phelan agreed.

“Having you and Iden clean up that last batch of rogues was a relief. Charlestown

can get back to the business of becoming the city it was before the War.”

A frown shifted over the Reaper’s face. “I’m not sure we got them all, Tony,” he

admitted. “When I was at the Citadel, Lord Naois warned there may be a pocket or two

of them holed up around the Flagala outer islands along the west side of the peninsula.

When Iden gets back, he’ll be looking into it.”

“Well, hell, that’s not good, now is it?” Anthony asked with a grimace. “And here I

thought we were rid of those perverted bastards.”

“There are worse things than rogues, Tony,” Phelan said, thinking about the

Ceannus—the depraved scientists from a distant galaxy who had brought the rogues to

Terra in the first place.

Anthony slung an arm on the back of his chair and plucked at a loose string. “Have

you ever heard tell of a thing called a zombay?”

Phelan shook his head. “No. What is it?”

“Not exactly sure,” Anthony replied. “Has something to do with an old religion

that used to be practiced in these parts long before I was a gleam in my daddy’s eye.”

“You must have had a reason for bringing it up.”

“Well, you said there are worse things than rogues and if what I’m hearing from my

fellow landowners is true, these zombay things would give the
balgairs
a run for their

money in the evil department,” Anthony replied.

“Evil in what way?”

Anthony looked chagrined as he continued to pull at the offending loose string.

“Evil as in the flesh-eating kind.”

Phelan blinked. “I beg your pardon?” He looked up as Simmons’ housekeeper came

in with a tray of coffee.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Anthony nodded. “You heard me.” He pulled his arm down and sat forward,

clasping his hands together. “One of my friends—a fellow named Frederic Tolliver,

who owns Burnt Pine Plantation just east of me—says zombays are actually the dead