Dead Man (Black Magic Outlaw Book 1) Page 20

  The sun dipped below the horizon, rushing my precautions, but I was satisfied with the outskirts. I phased through the gate. My eyes traced over every headstone, every tree, every shape in the fading light.

  I hurried to the graves and knelt down, scanning my surroundings one last time. Cemeteries weren't inherently creepy to me, but something prickled the hairs on my neck. Was I really that out of practice?

  I used the ceremonial knife to prick the palm of my hand, careful to avoid marring my tattoo. Then I plunged the knife into the dirt and considered my options.

  He walks alone but always has a home. This grave... Death was my home, whenever I was done walking.

  My curiosity got the better of me.

  "I'll take door number four, Alex."

  I squeezed a drop of blood onto the small pile of dirt clumped over my grave. Moments later, the dirt crumbled away and an earthworm emerged. I plucked it from the ground and laid it on the blood spot on my palm. It squirmed in the fluid, grit and ooze almost forming a paste.

  If I were at the crime scene moments after death, or even a morgue, maybe, I could've used the death sight as I had done with Martine. Fresh corpses are much more susceptible to spellcraft. Given the right circumstances, getting a corpse to speak isn't out of the question. What I was working with, however, was decay. Rot. The elements. There wasn't anything left to talk to. I had to hope there was enough for my little spies to detect.

  The worm turned in my palm, fully bathed in blood. I've seen this spell culminate with the worm being eaten, but I'm not much for French cuisine. It can be done other ways. My preference? A whisper and a waiting ear. I cupped my open palm to my ear, listening to the report. A smile played across my lips. As expected, my casket was empty. No trace of spirit or body.

  I released the worm to go on its way and repeated the process for my sister. This information didn't bring a grin to my face.

  Seleste's coffin was filled with pieces of her. An arm. A foot. There was so little of her remaining it made me wonder why they'd bothered with a burial at all. But Catholics don't cremate.

  After ten years, my sister's spirit was long gone. These coffins contained biological remains, not people. I released an empty sigh. I hadn't expected closure to feel so hollow.

  There was something else. The worm detected faint Intrinsics, magical energies from a left-behind spell. It was odd for trace workings to stick around so long, eight years in this case, but the hallowed and undisturbed grounds could account for it. There wasn't enough left to identify the magic, but it was dark.

  Thinking about Seleste broke me up a little. Imagining her final moments. The horrifying barbarity of being torn apart, unable to fight off a magical foe. I needed time to process but twilight was running out.

  I moved to the next grave. Lydia Suarez. I paused, unsure if I could handle the same image with of mother. I skipped her and went straight to Pops.

  The worm took a little longer to surface. Either my magic was weakening with the sun's light or my little minion had better things to do. As I fetched him, a small clump of earth latched around my wrist.

  I jerked back. The dirt fell away and revealed a bony hand gripping me. I pulled away but it didn't budge, and I couldn't slip into shadow during twilight.

  Things went from bad to worse when something locked onto my ankle. Another hand, the right to the other's left, but twisted around in such a way that I knew it was from a different body. I was being attacked.

  I searched for a link, a magical signature to whoever commanded these undead. It was absent. If true, that meant these corpses were acting alone. I'd never seen anything like that before. Then again, besides historical accounts, I'd never known of bodies this far decayed being animated either.

  This couldn't be happening. What the hell had my little worm dug up?

  I reached awkwardly across my body for the knife planted in the ground.

  Another mound of dirt surfaced beside the first. It shook violently, and I did my best to recoil. They had me. I stretched and finally succeeded in grabbing the knife, then watched in horror as the dirt fell away to reveal a moldy skull with patches of flesh.

  "Francisco," it uttered.

  The voice was ragged. Ghostly and empty, but with a tinge of longing.

  I ceased struggling. The knife went limp. "Dad?"

  Impossible. This rotten skull, the voice—they were beyond the realm of the living, but they were unmistakable. I realized both hands were part of the same body—one skeleton, not two. My father's separate pieces, hacked apart.

  "How is this possible?" I asked. This sorcery wasn't my doing. I hadn't called the spirit, and the worm sure as hell should've gone unnoticed.

  "Possible?" he rasped.

  "To come back. From the dead."

  "Dead?" A few inquisitive humming noises resonated in the skull. "Oh, yes. I remember now. Waiting a long time."

  I gazed into the dirt-filled eyes. This thing, the physical remnants before me, was unnatural. Putrid. But I needed to navigate past that. To lean on long experience. To lean on my heart.

  "Put down the knife, son," said the skull, its voice practically shivering.

  Hearing the fear in my father's voice, however supernatural, shook me. I threw the knife down. My body shuddered as the emotions came out. My family was supposed to be far beyond my reach.

  My voice broke. "I'm back, Dad."

  I wanted to reach in and hug him, but that was impossible. The unyielding hands still held me in place. Still squeezed.

  "Yes," he said slowly, understanding. "Back. Back far too late."

  "Where are Mom and Seleste?"

  My father heaved wistfully as the earthworm crawled over his face. "Lydia is in a better place now."

  "And Seleste?" I asked. The face grumbled and twitched in the dirt. "Dad, why are you still here?"

  "Lost," he whispered. "Elsewhere."

  "You're not lost. I'm with you now." My eyes watered but I blinked away the tears. Twilight would be over soon. I needed to focus. "You can tell me, Dad. You've waited all this time for me. I'm here now. You can tell me."

  The skull hacked out a bitter laugh, like my father had sometimes done after a bout of drinking. It was a grating sound that set me on edge.

  "My son," said the spirit. "It is not you for whom I wait. It is for Seleste." The hand around my wrist tightened. "She will return to me."

  I squirmed in the old man's grip. Elsewhere. "Return from where?" My father sounded mad, speaking in incoherent loops. I wondered if Seleste was like me, a zombie. But no. My sister was dead. Her body was proof of that.

  I grunted and tried to pry his skeletal fingers loose. "What can I do?" I asked desperately.

  My father nearly growled. "You have done enough, Francisco!"

  He tugged my hand down to him. The soil was loose and gave way easily, swallowing my hand.

  "No!" I screamed, struggling. "I'm sorry!"

  "You should be the one in the dirt, my son. My blood." He dragged my foot under. "It is you who should be dead. And us who should live."

  The feeble bones were strong. I recalled Tunji ripping Martine's servants from the ground. The vampire must have marvelous power. I didn't.

  "You're right," I said. Tears leaked from my eyes like a dam threatening to collapse. I shoved them away and gritted my teeth, pulling hard against my father. "I never meant for this to happen, Dad. I never wanted any of it."

  Although I couldn't escape the ground, the corpse ceased tugging me under. He took a long, wheezing breath that sounded like his soul escaping. I wanted it to be over, but he spoke some more.

  "I do not care for myself, Francisco. You are my boy. My blood."

  I nodded. "I love you."

  "It has been a long time."

  His grip loosened. I imagined him smiling. Maybe it was silly, but I needed the peace.

  "I missed you," he said. "I miss Lydia. And Seleste. Where is everybody?"

  I shook my head. "Dead and scattered b
ecause of my mistake..."

  The skull rolled in the dirt. "Dead? I'm dead?" He squeezed my hand and began to shake again. "Drop the knife, son."

  "Mmm?" My left hand was still bleeding. Still empty. The knife was in the grass beyond my reach. "I don't have the knife, Dad."

  His empty eyes flashed. His broken jaw widened in horror. "I couldn't stop the knife, Francisco. Too strong." I pulled away again. "You were too strong."

  "Dad, what are you—"

  "You cut us up, son! Hacked us to pieces! You murdered your own blood."

  "Dad!"

  "You killed us, Francisco. You came into your home and slaughtered us in the name of your dark power. And now you come to me for forgiveness?"

  "It's not possible!" I protested.

  He yanked harder, and my arm sank to the elbow.

  I panicked. At what was happening. At what he'd said. At the awful, horrible, unspeakable truth. I felt it in my heart now, on the verge of bursting. I felt the slick of the darkness on my soul.

  I thrashed in the old man's grip. I brushed dirt into his face with my free hand and pressed down hard, doing whatever I could to bury him. To bury the memory. To stuff it all down in a quiet, dark place where it never needed to be seen again.

  "Dad!" I screamed again, seeing flashes of the memory behind my eyelids. The blood. The shock on their faces. The images weren't hallucinations or my wild imagination. They were real. They were what had happened.

  My father. Mom. Seleste. They never had a chance against my black magic.

  They never had a chance against what I had become.

  I couldn't hold them anymore. The floodgates. All semblance of discipline and control burst into flames and scattered like ashes. My tears came heavy and hard. I buckled over and ignored the outside world.

  I stopped fighting. I stopped pulling away. My father, his ghost, his corpse, embraced me. Crushed me. Started to drag me under. And all I could do was sob.

  I couldn't remember the last time I'd cried. Really cried. And not just because I'd been dead for ten years. My life had been full of so many expectations, so many disappointments, so many loves and losses and bitter defeats that I'd given crying up. I'd locked it away as something unnecessary. A mark of weakness.

  I didn't care about that anymore. I screamed as my mouth pressed into the dirt. All the breath escaped from me until I couldn't cry anymore. I rested on the grave, broken, deserving my fate.

  And then the last of the sun's light faded with the spinning world, and suddenly my father was gone.

  It was some time before I realized I was still breathing. The ground constricted my expanding chest as my lungs filled with air. The dirt was packed now. Impossibly hard, as if it had never moved. Even though I was only partially buried, it took all my strength to force myself up.

  This magic—it was strong. It was unreal. Something powerful was at work within its engine. Something far beyond me.

  But none of that made a blip on my radar.

  My father. My hero. He had met a horrible end at my hands. Along with almost everyone else I loved.

  I pounded the ground, demanding that he come back and take me. Demanding that he trade places with me.

  I don't know what's in the Murk. The Shadow Dog has never shown me that, and likely never would. My mom may have been at peace, but my dad was a lonely sentinel, waiting in the shadow world for my sister, wherever she was. My family had been splintered in more than just this world.

  The depths of my destruction continued to grow.

  I collapsed to the ground and yelled some more, but it did no good. The dirt matted against me and scrubbed the blood and tears away. My breathing steadied until everything was quiet except for the footsteps in the grass.

  "The sunglasses were a cool trick," announced Jean-Louis Chevalier.

  I spun around on my hands and knees expecting another assault.

  It was only the bokor. Alone. I laughed nervously.

  "We didn't know who you were," he said, stepping slowly my way. "You had no name. No face. Just an expert assassin. But after following your scent here last night, seeing you by the graves, I wondered..."

  I let my black pupils fill my irises, taking in the grounds in the fresh darkness. No one else was sneaking in my shadows.

  "I see you again by these graves, white man. Are you not Suarez?"

  My bloody palm closed around a clump of cemetery dirt. "I'm not in the mood for pleasantries, Chevalier, so you'd better get on with it."

  "There was nothing pleasant about killing Baptiste."

  "I didn't kill him," I said.

  He frowned at my statement. "But why kill the African if you heeded his bidding?"

  "Fuck you," I said, rising to my feet. A rush of blood left my head and I wavered a bit.

  "You don't look so good, Suarez."

  "Cut the threats. You can't take me all by yourself."

  He chuckled. "This much is true."

  I saw the ambush too late. Three blurs—no, birds—speared through the air toward me in a tight cluster. It wouldn't do much unless I got lucky, but I tossed the fistful of dirt their way. At the same time, a shadow javelin spiked up from the dirt, narrowly missing one.

  I forced my mind into them. Felt their single-minded presence. They were closed off, somehow. Armored. With their master present and their current bearing, there was no time to break them. No time to reach for my whistle.

  Another spear of shadow shot up. Another. I finally grazed one and sent it off course, barreling into the ground. The other two were almost upon me.

  The bokor hadn't thought to bring a flashlight this time. I pulled my fist back and drew in the darkness. A heavy gauntlet gloved my hand, and I propelled it forward just in time to smash into the remaining birds just three feet away from me.

  Just in case I missed, my left forearm swung in front of my head to protect my eyes from razor-sharp claws and beaks.

  It wasn't necessary. The gauntlet shattered the hollow bones of the two birds. They exploded in a sickening crunch. But it was fulminant. More like a pop powered by escaping gas.

  A green fluid—not blood—hurled from their destroyed carcasses, still carrying their momentum. My arm bar was useless. The rotten substance sprayed all over my hands and face.

  It burned. I fell to the dirt immediately. I grasped for loose soil and rubbed it against my skin, hoping to neutralize whatever it was.

  I tried to regain my feet, but my body reacted violently. I keeled over, coughing. Spitting up blood. My empty stomach vomited bile. My muscles grew lazy.

  I heard the bokor laughing over my gasps and coughs. I tried to wipe my eyes, to focus on my assailant, but they seized closed.

  My hand pawed the ground, struggling just to crawl. Closer. Closer. As the footsteps neared, I wrapped my fingers around the bokor's knife. Chevalier pressed it to the dirt with his shoe.

  "What did you do to me?" I asked weakly.

  He kneeled down and recovered his knife. "I only needed the proper preparation, my friend."

  Bad decisions, I thought.

  I puked again and tried to shake the nausea away. If this was a magical poison, it could be done. But I couldn't wrap my tethers around it.

  "What do you think I should do with this?" Chevalier placed his blade against my neck.

  "Not like this," I pleaded.

  Another amused chuckle. "Most do not choose how they leave this world, Suarez."

  "Let me," I urged, my voice growing stronger with desperation. "Tunji Malu. He is my master." I forced my eyes open and saw the bokor considering my words. "Let me kill him."

  Jean-Louis Chevalier cracked a sly smile and plunged the dagger into my neck.

  Chapter 36

  My eyes opened to a rush of breeze. A concrete overpass stretched above. The sound of vehicles speeding overhead drowned out the rest of the world.

  I didn't bother crying out. It would be futile here, on the outskirts of the city. At least I was still alive.


  I tugged at my limbs. They were chained, staked to the ground. I was sprawled out on my back in the shape of an X. Flashbacks to the house on Star Island rushed through my head. The time of my first death. Tunji had gutted me there. I could vaguely recollect it now.

  But this was different. As I scanned my surroundings with blackened eyes, I didn't see the trappings of ritual. This wasn't magic, it was muscle.

  Someone outside my vision approached.

  "I don't feel sick," I said plainly.

  Chevalier stepped around and looked down at me. His silver earrings hung over his cheeks. The painted white skull left hollow, black holes over his eyes, but the albino irises within were even more unnerving.

  "I alleviated your pain," he explained, holding up the knife. "I cut it out of you. Sucked the infection from your arteries." He cocked his head. "Until I decide whether to give it back or not."

  I nodded. When he'd stabbed me, it wasn't to take my life. He was casting a spell, undoing the disease.

  "We're not in Little Haiti," I noted.

  The white skull grinned. "If we were, you would be in pieces right now, being fed to the corpses, never to be seen again."

  I shuddered. "Yeah. Thanks for that."

  Chevalier kneeled over me. "Baptiste was a warmonger," he said with distaste. In a split second, his blade was again at my throat. "But Max was my friend." I believed it. The bokor seemed to be on a last name basis with everyone except her.

  My body twisted against the bindings. I was locked down tight. Still, the Shadow Dog was legendary among the Taíno for escaping all ties. In the darkness of the night, I slipped down into the shadow.

  A searing pain jolted my wrists and ankles. I screamed and jerked back to the physical world, taking heavy breaths and checking on my extremities.

  The bokor chuckled. "Iron binds those of spirit."

  I now noticed the four handcuffs that held me to the ground. Iron is the bane of creatures of spirit, of many things not of this world. Me? It didn't hurt me, but it sure as hell kept me down. I guess when the Taíno were creating their legends, they hadn't come across iron yet.