What Voodoo Do You Do? Read online

  “What do you want me to do?” Mavis asked.

  “Stay with Ferral in case he needs help? Then let everybody know we need to meet at my house tonight.” I frowned as I realized having everybody there would require that I feed them. “We’ll need food. Can you call for pizzas?”

  “Let me handle the food. You shouldn’t go back to the senior home without backup. Is Gren back yet?”

  My eyes burned. I realized I’d been so discombobulated by the princess’s arrival, I’d forgotten to ask Ferral about Gren. “I don’t know. I doubt it. That homeless demon really beat him up.”

  “Isn’t a homeless demon the same thing as a lost one?” Bev asked with a sly smile.

  I rubbed my temple as a headache pulsed there. “I don’t know. I’m so confused.”

  “Call Luke or Trish then,” Mavis said, giving Bev a look for teasing me. “Have one of them go with you. I’ll contact Niele and have him stay in town to monitor the demon situation.”

  I felt all the blood leave my face. “Make him wear pants!” I could just see him walking around Rome with his dangly bits waving around.

  Bev snorted out a laugh. “Of course.”

  Trish had come directly from work. Sawdust coated her fine blonde hair, and she still wore her tool belt draped low on her narrow hips. I eyed the hammer hanging from the belt and wondered if it would be any use against a demon.

  Probably not. But Trish’s warrior magic would give us some protection if the worst should happen.

  Monty trotted ahead of us into the senior home. His built-in dachshund confidence was on full display. I wished I had even a fraction of his cockiness at the moment. It would at least have been nice if my knees weren’t knocking together.

  “Where’s the vortex?” Trish asked, her bright green gaze sliding around the lobby.

  I pointed toward the large windows overlooking the courtyard, frowning. The maelstrom had grown so big I could see part of it from the lobby. “I’ll show you. I should check on it anyway.”

  I left Monty in the lobby, and Trish followed me outside. She sucked in a breath as she saw the enormity of the roiling, inky hole. Her gaze slid upward and she gasped again. “Who’s that?”

  “Shadee. She’s the night nurse here. From what she’s told me, she has a voodoo queen in her family. I don’t know if she’s the one who brought this horror to life or if the vortex just sensed the magic in her blood. Either way, it’s currently drawing energy from her.”

  I moved closer and eyed the poor woman. Shadee looked smaller than the last time I’d seen her. Her body had twisted slightly as if the vortex was wringing her out.

  “That’s horrible,” Trish said, grimacing. “Shouldn’t we help her?”

  “I intend to. But Ferral doesn’t think it's safe to try to remove her while the vortex is active.”

  We stood in silence, each caught up in our own thoughts. Or, in my case, fears.

  “Give me a second,” Trish said a moment later, removing her tool belt and laying it in the grass. I blinked in surprise as she popped into her fairy form. She hovered in front of me, her translucent wings glowing a pale green. She was about twelve inches tall and was wearing a long gown in lieu of her usual jeans and tee shirt. The dress fluttered around her legs and featured a bright blue bustier with a belt of knives. She held a knobby staff that was as tall as she was, and there was an opaline orb at the top that I knew flared with jagged bolts of silver lightning. A double strand of what looked like shimmering water droplets encircled her blonde head.

  She shot away from me, circling Shadee and occasionally sending a silver spray of energy from the orb on her staff to wash over the other woman, as if she were assessing Shadee’s condition.

  Apparently satisfied with what she found, she hovered low over the vortex, the glow from her staff sliding over the oily black energy, which bubbled with agitation wherever her magic touched it.

  She flew back to me and returned to her human form in a flash of silver light, her delicate features formed into an unhappy expression.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “That woman isn’t just related to a voodoo queen,” she told me, casting a thoughtful look in Shadee’s direction. “She’s about as powerful a practitioner as I’ve ever seen.”

  My eyes went wide. “Really?”

  “Really.” Trish slid a worried gaze my way. “If the vortex is getting its strength from her, we’re in deep trouble. She’s strong enough to fuel a whole lot of destruction.”

  “Curse!” I said with feeling. “That’s just wonderful.”

  Trish nodded.

  “Okay, well, there’s nothing we can do about it at the moment. But it’s good to know exactly what we’re working with here.”

  “There’s more,” Trish said. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but…every time something passes through the vortex, it leaves behind an energy scar, like a pockmark on the surface.”

  I tensed, fearing I knew precisely where she was going with that bit of information. “Okay.”

  Trish’s gaze found the vortex again, lingering on the bubbling, swirling surface. “From the number of scars I’m seeing there, we probably have close to a dozen demons lingering in the area. One of them was really powerful.”

  I was pretty sure I’d met that one already. So had Gren. I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Swear, curse, swear.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” Trish agreed.

  “How are they coming through if the vortex hasn’t reached full power yet?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I can’t give you the how or why, but I know it’s possible.”

  “Great,” I said, sighing. “We’ve already bumped up against three of them, and they kicked our butts from here to next week,” I said. “If we’re going to survive this whole mess, we’re going to need to find a better way to fight them.”

  “Have you used your staff?”

  I bit back a groan. “Not recently. But last week, I blew up a tree in the yard with it. So…there’s that.”

  Trish grinned at me. “Would you like some training?”

  I stared at her for a moment. “You could train me?”

  “Of course. You might have noticed, I use one myself.”

  She did at that. And I’d much rather work with Trish than ask my dad for help. Even though he was well aware of what a train wreck I was, given the fact that I came to the whole ancient guardian deity thing really late in life and had a steep learning curve ahead, I still didn’t want him to know what a mess I was with the pretty stick. “I’d be forever in your debt.”

  “Good.” Trish shoved her hands into the pockets of her well-worn jeans. “Let’s check on those residents then. Mavis texted me that we were due at your place for dinner in two hours. And she’s making lasagna.”

  10

  With Dangerous Allies at Her Side

  The residence wing was eerily quiet. As we stood listening just inside the door, I tried to remember what Shadee had told me about the ones who remained in the building. She’d spoken about a man who’d survived the deadly vortex squeal because he was deaf. What had his name been? Pintwalls? Pintwallen. That was it. And there’d been a woman too. Mrs…Wolde. Shadee had described Mrs. Wolde as being extremely shy.

  I turned to Trish. “We’re looking for two people. Mrs. Wolde and Mr. Pintwallen. The man is hard of hearing and she might be too shy to announce herself.”

  “Got it,” Trish said. “I’ll go that way?”

  Nodding, I said, “I’ll head in the other direction. The place is built in a large oval surrounding the courtyard. I’ll meet you on the other side.”

  Most of the doors were open. I assumed those were the rooms where Shadee had found injured residents. I made a quick foray into each small apartment, checking closets and bathrooms if the main living space was empty, which was the case in all of them.

  Monty’s tail wagged with happy enthusiasm as he put himself into adventure mode again. He bounced from room to ro
om with me, scouring crumbs off the floor and sniffing everything in sight.

  Despite my dog’s happy attitude, by the time I reached the first of three communal spaces, my mood had darkened, a deep sadness settling in to weigh me down. The place had a dystopian, abandoned feeling, as if a zombie hoard had come along and chased everybody out.

  Seemingly reacting to my mood, Monty plopped down next to me, so close his little body was pressed against my ankle.

  The seating areas all looked exactly the same, which seemed like it would be disorienting to the residents. But maybe they took comfort in the familiarity. Each space had one wall with built-in book shelves, which were filled with well-used paper and hard-cover books. A long, upholstered couch faced an electric fireplace that I knew from experience turned the room uncomfortably warm when in use. Five armchairs, two of which were covered in the same flowered chintz as the couch and three in complimenting shades to match the chintz, were arranged to face the couch. There was no coffee table in the center of the seating, probably to provide an open space that wheelchairs could easily traverse.

  A large screen television hung on the wall above the electric fireplace. As always, a local news program played on the TV, the sound muted.

  As in the lobby, a wall of large windows, with glass doors, led to the courtyard. I glanced toward the windows, reluctant to look at the scene beyond the glass because I still had no idea how to deal with the growing problem.

  From where I stood, I had a different vantage point of poor Shadee. I stared at her floating body from the side rather than head on, and noticed that her fingers were curved downward, a thin strand of energy flowing into the abyss from their tips.

  The strands leading from her fingertips appeared to pulse downward, where the strands I’d spotted earlier seemed to rise from the glossy surface of the nightmare beneath her.

  Was it possible that Shadee was somehow manipulating the energy of the maelstrom?

  I shivered, rubbing my arms as a chill swept through the room. Gooseflesh beaded my arms. Ice slipped along my spine.

  Monty growled, low and deep, and fur stood up along his back.

  A soft, whispery sigh wafted through the air behind me. A touch, ethereal and fleeting, skittered along my neck. I whipped around, my heart pounding.

  A shadow danced across the wall. The skirt of the couch twitched, and the pull chain on the floor lamp next to it swung violently from side to side.

  Panic flared as I realized the room had grown darker. Much too dark for late afternoon. My gaze slid to the sky beyond the glass, where thick charcoal clouds had moved in front of the sun. A gust of rabid wind made Shadee’s robe dance and tossed her hair around her face.

  Another whispered sigh. Fear danced along my nerves. Energy nibbled at my fingertips. I whipped around again, “Trish?” I called out hopefully.

  The room seemed to wobble, the floor beneath my feet shifting. I stumbled forward, barely catching myself on the back of an upholstered chair as the glooms reached toward me from the edges of the room. A cacophony of whispering voices seemed to draw them forward.

  I forced my racing pulse to slow, my ears straining to recognize the words floating past on an increasingly frigid breeze.

  “Who’s there?”

  The whispering got louder, dancing from one place to another, pulling my gaze with it as it moved.

  My skin crawled.

  Monty’s growls were constant, the tenor fierce.

  My stomach twisted as terror tied it into knots, and I looked down to find magic snapping at my fingertips. I was all amped up with nowhere to go.

  “Shush, Monty,” I said in a harsh whisper. Amazingly, he listened to me. But his little body vibrated with nerves.

  “Aggy?” a welcome voice called out from down the hall.

  As if a light switch had been flipped, the eerie whispers died. The blustery drafts fell away, and the sun emerged again from the clouds.

  With a yip of excitement, Monty ran toward the voice.

  “Aggy? Where are you?” Trish’s worried voice approached from the resident wing ahead.

  “I’m here.” I hurried forward, just as eager to leave whatever that was behind me as I was to speak to an actual human being again.

  Trish was moving slowly toward us down the hall. I was happy to see that she was towing a small, gnarled man with bowed legs and very poor balance along with her.

  She looked relieved when she saw me, the tension in her posture softening. “Thank the goddess. I thought I’d lost you.”

  “Eh!” shouted the little man. “What’s that?”

  Trish grimaced as he shouted into her ear, giving me a long-suffering look.

  “Nothing, Mr. Pintwallen,” Trish screamed back from inches away. She’d yelled her response so loudly, it blew the wispy hairs on the top of his round head flat against his skull.

  Still, he hadn’t seemed to hear.

  “Huh? You got to speak up, girlie. I told ya that.” Monty jumped up and licked across the man’s sweatpants-covered knee, earning himself a scowl from the cranky old man and a swipe of one impatient hand.

  Trish looked at me and sighed. “Any luck finding Mrs. Wolde?”

  “No.” I frowned. “She wasn’t in any of the rooms from the lobby to here.”

  Trish stared at me. “This is as far as you got? What happened?”

  “I’m not sure.” I rubbed my arms again. “Something was…here.”

  She looked around, her gaze narrowing on the shadowed places. “Is it still here?”

  “I don’t think so. Did you check the other rooms after you found Mr. Pintwallen?”

  “Dangnabit!” the old man yelled unhappily. “I told ya to speak up. All that whisperin’ is just frustratin’. I don’t know why young people can’t speak in a normal tone of voice.”

  Trish and I shared a smile. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go check the rest of the rooms.”

  Over an hour later, we still hadn’t found the other resident. I’d even tried to check the basement, though the idea of going down there after what I’d experienced in the common area gave me hives. The basement door was locked, which meant that we weren’t the only ones who couldn’t access that space.

  “Mrs. Wolde wouldn’t have been able to get down there,” Trish said, mirroring my thoughts. “Unless she could get to the lobby or the nurse’s room?”

  I shook my head. “These residents are all suffering some kind of dementia. They lock all the staff spaces to keep them safe.” A.k.a. keep them from escaping.

  I grimaced at the thought of being confined that way. Logically, I realized that it truly was for the residents’ safety. But it would be horrible to have my free will taken away like that.

  “She must have gotten out somehow,” I mused, unhappy at the idea.

  “You’re sure she wasn’t in the group that went to the hospital?”

  I shook my head. “Shadee said she wasn’t. But I guess she could have made a mistake. Unfortunately, we can’t ask her about it.”

  “Well, she’s not here. What should we do with Mr. Pintwallen? We can’t leave him here. It’s not safe.”

  We both looked at the elderly man sitting on the couch. He was staring at the muted television screen. Strangely, he didn’t seem to mind that he couldn’t hear it.

  Trish glanced around. “It’s strange that none of the other staff has shown up.”

  I shook my head. “After we got everyone into the ambulances this morning, Shadee called someone and told them not to let anyone come to the facility until she gave them the all-clear. She made up a story about a highly infectious outbreak or something” I’d been only half listening at the time. “I have a feeling she gave her request a little extra oomph if you know what I mean.”

  Trish nodded. “That doesn’t help us with our Mr. Pintwallen problem.”

  “Eh?” the old man shouted.

  She grinned.

  “We can take him to the Sunflower Ranch in Benson,” I said, warming to
the idea. The ranch was a physical rehabilitation facility about thirty miles away. When I’d worked at Golden Years, I’d often driven residents to the facility for physical therapy. “I’ll give them a call and clear it. Can you drive him over?”

  “Of course,” Trish said. She walked over and held out her hands to the elderly man. He looked at her hands for a beat and then took them, allowing her to gently pull him to his feet.

  “Where we goin’, young lady?”

  Trish leaned very close and bellowed into his ear. “I’m taking you for a vacation. You’d like that, right?”

  “Eh?” he bellowed back. “What’s that now?”

  “Goddess in garters,” Trish mumbled as she led him toward the exit.

  “I’ll see you at my house,” I called out to her. “Come on, sweet boy,” I told my dog. “Let’s go home and get you some dinner.” On the way home, I’d make my call to the Sunflower Ranch. Then I’d call Davis and have him search for Mrs. Wolde. Hopefully, the missing resident hadn’t gotten far.

  Monty gave a happy woof that made me envy his joie de vivre. Nothing in Heaven or Hell seemed to put a crimp in the little dog’s sense of adventure.

  When I heard the front door slam, I glanced up at the clock. Wanda was right on schedule.

  “Hello?” the teen called out, her tone lighter than usual. “Anybody here?”

  I winced, knowing the girl didn’t have many carefree moments in her bespelled life. I hated to rob her of one of them. But I didn’t see any way around it. I needed her help. “In the kitchen,” I answered.

  Monty ran toward the front door, a happy bounce in his step. Over the weeks since I’d accepted my legacy as Lares and gained a council to help me do my job, Wanda and my dog had formed a close attachment with each other. More than his relationship with every other member of my team, that growing closeness made me happy. I doubted Wanda had ever had a dog of her own. Since being bespelled by a witch who’d also stolen the teen’s mother from her, she barely had a life of her own.