This Wicked Game (10 page)

“Y
ou know you can’t tell anyone about this, right?”

Xander was sitting next to Claire at the Muddy Cup. It had taken her fifteen minutes on the phone to convince him that there was no point keeping Allegra out of things. He’d finally agreed to meet them when Claire swore she hadn’t said a word about the possible connection between Estelle and Maximilian.

“I’m on your side,” Allegra said. “Anything we give the Guild will just disappear into the Cone of Silence.”

Sasha laughed.

“Seriously,” Allegra continued. “We’d never know what, if anything, they’d done with the information. And the truth is, it probably wouldn’t be much. I don’t even think most of them are that powerful. Working potions for love and protection is a whole different thing than dealing with black magic and a threat that could involve all of us. I just don’t think they’re equipped, you know?”

“Okay,” Claire said, shuffling through the letters. “The only thing we have to go on is this woman named Sorina and the spell she and Marie were talking about.”

“The Cold Blood spell,” Sasha said.

Claire looked around nervously before nodding. “Right. I’m thinking we start at home, check out our family resource material for any mention of Sorina or this spell. Between the four of us, we have some serious voodoo history right under our own roofs.”

“My mom keeps some really old recipe books locked up in our ritual room,” Allegra said. “I’ll see if I can get a look at them.”

“Just remember, nobody says anything to the Guild until we all agree,” Xander said.

“We can meet here tomorrow and compare notes,” Claire suggested.

“Sounds like a plan,” Sasha said.

They talked for a few more minutes before Allegra and Sasha got up to leave, Allegra talking nonstop as they moved away from the table. They were almost to the door when Sasha glanced back, mouthing the words, “Help me.”

Claire laughed, picking up her bag and following Xander outside.

“I’ll give you a ride,” he said. “We can throw your bike in the back.”

“No thanks,” she squeezed his hand. “I want to think, clear my head.”

“I’m not crazy about the idea of you riding around the city by yourself with everything that’s going on.”

She smiled. “I’m fine. It’s not that far. Besides, it’s not like the firstborns are being snatched off the street. With all the break-ins, I’m probably in more danger at home.”

“Great. I feel so much better now,” he said sarcastically.

“I love you.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “But you worry too much.” She lifted her leg over the bike, glancing back at him. “I’ll text you when I get home.”

She started pedaling. A couple of minutes later, she left the busy streets behind and was gliding through the shade of the towering oaks in the residential district. She wasn’t the only one taking advantage of summer. In one front yard, two toddlers ran through sprinklers, squealing and giggling while their mother sat on the porch, flipping the pages of a magazine with a glass of iced tea by her side. Claire passed a couple of girls about her age, deep in discussion as they traversed the cracked, uneven sidewalk. Somewhere in the distance, a lawn mower hummed the sound track to every summer she could remember.

She wondered if it would be different in New York or New Hampshire or Connecticut. If kids ran through sprinklers, if teenage girls shared their secrets on long walks, if everyone mowed their lawn. For a minute, she felt a pang of loss so powerful her heart hurt. The truth was, no matter how much she wanted to get away, New Orleans was her home.

She would miss it.

She was thinking about the people at the house on Dauphine, wondering what could bring such an odd group of people halfway around the world to the Guild’s doorstep, when she glanced to the left to make sure she was clear for a turn.

That’s when she noticed the car behind her.

In this part of town, the Range Rover stood out like a sore thumb. It was black, just like the one Eugenia and the men had gotten out of in front of the house on Dauphine. Claire looked again, trying to make it casual as she tried to get a glimpse at who was driving. It was hopeless. The windows were tinted just enough to make identifying the driver impossible.

She made the turn, watching in her peripheral vision to see if the car followed her. It did, and her heartbeat picked up its pace, beads of sweat jumping out on her forehead as panic hit her system.

She calculated the distance to home. Probably less than a mile.

She was relieved to see a balding man in plaid pants brushing a fresh coat of white paint on the columns fronting his porch. Across the street, a woman was bent over a flower bed, planting a row of azaleas from under the shade of her wide-brimmed hat.

Claire tried to calm herself with the knowledge of their presence. It’s not like whoever was in the Rover would do something to her with witnesses around. Would they?

She focused on the road, on the swiftly closing distance between where she was and her house, now only two streets over. When she turned right at the next corner, she dared a glance behind her, hoping the car wouldn’t follow.

It did.

She pedaled faster. One more block. One block and another right turn and her driveway would be there.

A blue SUV came into view, slowly backing out of one of the driveways. Claire contemplated trying to beat it, going around in an effort to lose the Rover. After a moment’s indecision, she hit the brakes, stopping as the car reversed all the way into the street. A look back confirmed that the Rover was still there, idling quietly behind her. She saw the shadow of the driver, but she couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman.

The driver of the SUV—a woman with a boy in the passenger seat next to her—lifted a hand to Claire before heading down the street. At least someone had been witness to her presence there.

She started moving again, picking up speed, pumping the pedals so hard that she was standing on them as she made the final turn onto her street. She didn’t even look back to see if the Rover was still there. She focused on her house, half hidden by old trees and the bushes that seemed to grow wild near the iron gate. Then she was coasting up the driveway, steering her bike into the shelter of Spanish moss hanging from the giant elm tree next door.

She wondered if it was her imagination that someone stared at her from behind the darkened windows of the Rover as it drove past, finally disappearing beyond the edge of the property.

Claire took a hot shower, washing off the sweat and dirt of the day and changing into loose boxer shorts and a T-shirt. Her parents were at some kind of charity event, so she had plenty of time to go through the family spell and potion books.

But there was something she wanted to do first.

The old group photo was still nagging at her, and she opened her computer, looking for the pictures she’d uploaded from the house on Dauphine.

Scrolling through the photos, she stopped on the group picture. Everyone was standing on the lawn, all of them wearing a mix of clothes that looked slightly out of date.

Not quite retro, but not exactly current, either.

She zoomed in as much as she dared, not wanting to lose too much clarity on the faces, and hit the PRINT button. When it was done, she pulled the piece of paper out of the tray and hopped onto her bed, sitting cross-legged against the pillows.

The picture was definitely older. The faded colors in the photograph, the hairstyles, even the bags the women carried shrieked 1990s. The people seemed to know each other. Some of the couples had their arms around each other. That was to be expected. But even a couple of the men were clasping each other on the back, their smiles communicating trust and friendship.

And now she saw something she hadn’t seen before; a little girl in a wheelchair. She was at the edge of the group, almost omitted from the picture entirely, staring intensely into the lens of the camera. As if she was looking right at Claire.

She heard Allegra, recalling her visions . . .
and maybe a little girl or something.

Claire brought the picture closer to her face, studying it more closely, willing her mind to make the connection she knew was there. But nothing was clear, and her subconscious was locked tight.

The problem was, she didn’t know what she was looking for.

She crumbled the piece of paper, throwing it across the floor. Then, she got up off the bed and headed downstairs.

T
he house was quiet without her parents home, the only sound coming from the ticking of the big clock in the foyer. She made her way past it, hesitating at the door to the store before using her key to open it. Despite the fact that the store was an extension of the house, as familiar to Claire as her own bedroom, she descended the stairs cautiously.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been down here at night, but it felt different. She had to force herself to continue, hurrying to the lamp near the counter as soon as her feet hit the floor, fighting the feeling that something was following her into the empty room.

The light helped a little. She stood for a minute, looking around the store, reassuring herself that it was the same as always, that the bolt was down over the private entrance. Once she’d calmed her racing pulse, she turned to the books that lined the shelves behind the counter.

There were three reference manuals on voodoo history. She flipped through them first, looking for any kind of reference to a woman named Sorina. It was a long shot, and she wasn’t surprised when she came up empty. Sorina was probably just a regular practitioner who’d been dealt a bad hand and went a little crazy trying to get revenge for the death of her parents.

Claire scanned the shelves. There were a lot of spell and recipe books.

She was going to be here a while.

She pulled the stool over and started with the top shelf. Working her way down, she skipped over the books geared to specific kinds of potions. Whatever the Cold Blood spell was, she had a feeling it wouldn’t be in
African Potions and Recipes for Love
and
Authentic Haitian Voodoo for Health and Wellness.

By the time she got to the bottom shelf, her vision was blurred and her mind echoed with strange words and phrases. She was flipping through a slim volume titled
Traditional Voodoo for Guidance, Insight, and Justice
when a recipe caught her eye.

It wasn’t what she expected. Not Cold Blood or anything even close to it, but a potion titled Gaining Wisdom and Insight.

She hesitated as she glanced over the list of ingredients, thinking about the picture, the one she’d crumpled up and thrown across her room. Spells and potions didn’t work. She was almost sure of it.

But there was the truth, admitted only in the privacy of her mind.

The
almost.

Could she be sure? Would she bet the lives of the Guild on her refusal to believe, to try? Would she bet Sasha’s life? Xander’s?

She read through the recipe again before moving to the front of the store for a red flannel gris-gris bag. Pulling its little drawstring open, she made her way back to the counter. Then she took several glass jars off the shelves and lined them up in front of her.

She scooped some peach tree leaves out of their container. They dropped into the gris-gris bag with a soft rustle. Working her way down the line of jars, she added sage, verbena, and smartweed. She finished by unscrewing the lid on the jar of Solomon’s seal root chips, scooping them out with the little metal shovel and adding them to the bag, too.

She finally dared to bend her nose and take a whiff. She was relieved to find the scent almost pleasant. Most of the concoctions mixed for the craft were rank, and she would be sleeping with this one under her pillow.

She knotted the gris-gris bag at the top so the ingredients wouldn’t spill out and put the recipe book back on the bookshelf.

She stood there for a minute, contemplating whether to bother with a spell. She could use the gris-gris bag alone. Lots of people did. But her mother and other members of the Guild believed herb and root magic worked together with spellcraft.

Besides, she still had one more book to look through for the Cold Blood spell.

She set the gris-gris bag on the counter and bent down, pulling back the curtain underneath it to reveal a small iron safe.

She vividly remembered the day it had been installed, on the heels of a theft that had cost them one of Marie’s two remaining spell books. Claire had been fourteen when her mother had told her the combination.

“What’s inside is as much yours as it is ours,” Pilar had said. “You never know when you might need it.”

In spite of her impatience to go outside and ride her new bike, Claire had been flattered to learn that the safe had been coded with her birth date. She used it now, turning the knob right, left, and right again.

The safe opened with a quiet pop.

The book was there, just like she remembered.

She removed it with reverence, her previous disdain for it seeming childish. Whether she believed in the craft or not, her great-great-grandmother had owned this book. Had written in it with her own hand.

That had to mean something.

Scooting onto the stool, Claire lowered her eyes to the cover, letting her fingers gently skim the cracked leather surface. It was a soft, mottled shade of green, dips and ridges where there once might have been letters or images.

She opened the book and read the title page, penned by hand.

Recipes, Potions, and Spells

By the High Priestess

Marie Laveau

She decided to look for the Cold Blood spell first and go back through the book for an Insight spell when she was done. That way, she would be sure not to miss anything.

Turning the pages, she kept her eyes on the title of each spell, passing incantations for love and guidance and protection and good health as she searched for anything resembling Cold Blood.

It wasn’t there. In fact, just as she’d expected, there wasn’t a single spell for black magic.

Sighing, she turned back to the front of the book and started again, this time looking for something that would work in conjunction with the potion in the gris-gris bag.

She found what she was looking for about halfway through the book in a spell titled Request for Knowledge.

She read through it, the words connecting with a memory from her earliest lessons with her mother. Claire would sit on the stool, legs swinging, hands and mind wandering, while her mother tried to force her to pay attention.

Ancient Priestesses of the light,

Bestow knowledge clear, true, and bright

Grant me power and second sight

As I move through darkness of night.

When the words felt almost familiar, Claire pulled three purple candles from behind the counter. She struck a match and lit each one. Then, staring into the flames, she spoke the words of the spell aloud, trying to ignore the voice in her head that told her she was a hypocrite.

She repeated it three times, the words moving through the empty store like a wraith. She’d never noticed the mystical quality of a spell before. On paper it looked trite, but saying it out loud transformed it into a living thing, a force she could feel.

When she was done, she held still, letting the words find their place, like her mother had taught her. Then she blew out the candles, feeling oddly at peace with her decision as she ascended the stairs, gris-gris bag in hand.

The house was still quiet as she locked the door at the top of the stairs. She was glad her parents weren’t home yet. Her mother would have been ecstatic that Claire had shown any interest in the craft, let alone actually tried a spell for her own purposes.

Claire didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

When she got to her room, she shut the door and got into bed. Placing the gris-gris bag under her pillow, she turned out the light. She lay in the dark for a long time, trying to quiet her mind and force herself to sleep.

Finally, she began to drift, the scent of verbena and sage reaching up to her as she moved into the landscape of sleep.