Chapter 14

14

Chastity’s eyes, clouded with fear, met mine.

It struck me then that I was in the deepest shit of my life. “That’s one reason I want you here. Perhaps, you can tell me.”

She sucked in a deep breath. “I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?”

“Apparently not.”

“Then start from the beginning.”

“Do you want the long or the short version?” I asked.

“Spit out the Cliffs Notes version, and then I’ll decide if I need more details.”

I hefted the bag of bottled beer on my hip, retrieved the plate of PB&Js, and nodded toward the dining room. Light daggers danced under the lace curtains, warming the air more than the oppressive heat of the house. Chastity set her purse on the dining room table, then walked to the window. She tugged at it, attempting to lift the sash as I rummaged through the bag to select the perfect brew to pair with a PB&J breakfast.

After several hard pulls, Chastity relented.

“Those wards stick like hell,” she said.

I didn’t comment that the wards probably came from there.

“Let me try,” I said. I whispered low to the window, so Chastity didn’t hear, “Thorn.”

The sash sprang upward. I turned and smiled, but Chastity gasped in horror.

“Where—” she said, speechless. “How did you loosen those wards?”

I shrugged. “Don’t be silly, Chas. You must have released them with the tugging.”

She cocked her head and gave me the stink eye, but there was no sense in getting ahead of the story. And the way my BFF stared at me, she wanted it immediately.

I sat at the table, picked up the two chosen beers, and held them to her, waggling them in my hand. “Strawberry or Raspberry. It’s strawberry jelly in the sandwiches, so choose accordingly.”

She reached for the strawberry, still giving me doubtful glances. I twisted off the cap.

“Wait,” she protested. “I know that beer. You need a bottle opener to pop the cap.”

Oops. I did not want to showcase my new abilities to my friend like this.

I held the brown bottle to her. “Take it. The meaning will become clear in the fullness of time.”

She gave me another uncertain glance, but I know my gal. She’s curious as hell. I pushed the PB&Js toward her, but she waved them away.

“Spill, woman.”

“Well, I got this job—”

“It always starts with a job with you.”

“Are you done being snarky?” I said, arching an eyebrow.

Chastity held up her hands.

“Fine.”

“I got sent to the bayou to locate a magical object. Kye and the pack were there looking for it, too.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. They were pretty interested in it. Kye and I went a few skirmish rounds.”

“What? The bastard.”

I pulled off the top of my beer and took a sip. Flavor notes of dried fruit, coffee, and dark chocolate slid over my tongue. Dagon knew his beers.

“Okay, so what happened?”

“It was a bad fight. I got the artifact but landed in the bayou and nearly drowned.”

“What!”

“But, as it turns out my employer was there. And he scared off the pack and plucked me from the water.”

Chastity put her beer on the table and stared at me. “The whole pack and Kye? Who is this guy?”

The corners of my mouth twitched.

“Dagon Thorn.”

Chastity’s eyes got as wide as saucers. She began muttering in Creole and crossing herself, invoking the names of several Voodin saints.

“So you know the guy.”

“Mon cher, what did you get into?” she said indignantly as if I insulted her with my association with Thorn.

I cringed. This was not going well.

“It’s more like what’s got into me. The artifact was a dweomer, and my body absorbed it.”

Chastity stared at me in total shock, and she tried to move her mouth, but no sound came out. Her jaw opened and closed like a fish trying to breathe in oxygen-depleted water, which was scary to watch. My best friend was cool, calm, and always collected—the result of being raised by a Voodoo priestess and seeing weird shit every day of her life.

“It gave me neat new abilities.”

“New abilities!” exploded Chastity. “Ki kaka sa!”

In my limited Creole acquired from living with Chastity, I understood she was calling bullshit on me in a Creole French accent. If she didn’t love me like a sister, she’d make tracks now, which made me feel like a piece of kaka, but I can’t change the present.

“Wha, what dweomer is it?” she stuttered.

“Thorn called it the Hand of Belial.”

The color drained from Chastity’s face, and she put her hand to her mouth, and my insides turned cold when her reaction told me I was well and truly fucked.

“Len,” she said a shade above a whisper, “You’ve got to get that thing out of you.”

“Well, that’s the plan. Thorn—”

“What?” she fairly screeched. “Are you still hanging around that gangster?”

“This is his house,” I said in a deadly serious voice.

Another round of Creole sputters erupted from her mouth, with more invocation of the saints. She stood and turned to the living room.

“Len, I love you like the sister I never had, but this is a stratosphere above a simple Voodin priestess’ pay grade. This is bad shit, like ending your life shit, and “kill-the-people-near-you” shit. Do you know what this Hand of Belial is? It’s called the hand of wickedness. It possesses the essence of all vices. It corrupts the person who possesses it and the people within their orbit. It commands demons, Len. Commands. Get it. You can call hell creatures by name, and they appear.”

When she said that, a connection in my head clicked. Thorn had said he thought I compelled him to proposition me, but what if this artifact in my chest prompted him? Did the artifact force him to be there that night in the bayou?

“Every vice, including lust?” I asked.

“What the hell!” she spat. “I just told you that the soul of methamphetamines resides in your body, and you’re worried about your libido?”

“No,” I said. “It’s… Okay. Never mind. And thanks to you I’m properly scared shitless, now. Thank you. So what do I do about it?”

She sucked in a breath, and for a second, my utterly calm friend returned. But I see I’m on shaky ground here, and she could freak out any second.

“Oh, by the loa, this is a big mess, Len.”

“How about reading your cards for me?” I said hopefully. Chastity gave incredibly insightful readings. It was how I met her when she was giving Tarot readings in a store.

She shook her head. “Not here. Not in this house. My skin crawls from sitting here, so I must leave. But I will call you when I get settled. There is an older priest and priestess I can speak with.”

I nodded and searched in my pocket for a coin. It was a ritual for Chastity. Crossing her palm with silver would set the intention of what I sought. But her lips drew a tight line as I put a quarter on the table.

“No, Len. I cannot take money for this. Not from you.”

I cocked my head. “That never stopped you before.”

“Mon cher, as much as I love you, I can’t take anything from you until that hideous thing is gone and we do a cleansing on you.” She cocked her head. “Did you stop at the apartment with that thing in you?”

“It’s my apartment, too,” I replied.

“Then I can’t go back there either. I suppose I can stay…Never mind. The less you know the better.”

She grabbed her purse and her suitcase before she walked to the door. She looked over her shoulder at me.

“I’ll call you when I get more information. Until then, be careful, Len.”

Chastity spoke, “Be careful,” like those were the two most essential words in the world. Then she closed the door and was gone.

I stared at the damn door, and a tear gathered in the corner of my left eye. I didn’t think she would leave me alone, but I understood. I am now a damned supernatural nuclear weapon for reasons I don’t grasp.

I walked back to the dining room table and sipped the beer, but it tasted sour in my mouth, so I took it and Chastity’s to the kitchen and poured them down the sink. Restless, I started pacing the house. Itching for activity, I pulled open drawers. Almost all the dressers were empty. The house truly was not lived in. I was alone in the place Chastity claimed was cursed, and I was frustrated with the course of my life.

Being a seeker of arcane objects wasn’t a flashy life. It demanded hours clambering through muck and swamp, or dry, musty attics, or, as I recently experienced, thieving from the rich. I’ve faced guard dogs, spiders, snakes, bats, a bobcat once, and my old shifter pack. If that life wasn’t a recipe for disaster, I didn’t know what was.

But it was my life, and aside from the usual survival struggles, I liked it. I wasn’t ever going to be rich, nor did I want to be. I wanted a place to belong. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

I finally wandered into the last and smallest bedroom in the little house. Unlike the cloying florals in other parts of the house, the faded tan wallpaper had a cowboy motif—ten-gallon hats and horses galloping across the walls. Like a thief looking to score, I continued ransacking, yanking one particularly recalcitrant dresser hard. Finally, yielding through age and my newfound nuclear supernatural strength, the lock broke.

The drawer flew out, and I fell into the single bed. It spilled onto the floor, and a stash of papers spilled.

I bent to retrieve them and found one picture after another drawn in a child’s hand. There were dozens, as if all the kid did was draw. And they were obviously from different years. The beginning ones were simple stick figures, primarily a single figure standing alone. Later ones showed the boy standing with an adult, an elderly woman. “Aunt Lizzy and me,” said one. A few sported names at the top. Dago T.

Holy shit. What did I find? Were these Dagon’s childhood renderings?

Did demons have childhoods?

At the button of the stack, the pictures grew darker, with vivid images of monsters and fire. What did this mean?

One picture shook me. A cemetery with a coffin and a headstone rendered in black and browns spread out on the page. “Aunt Liz” was etched on the tombstone.

I put my hand to my mouth as I tried to parse what I found.

But one thing was clear. Little boy Dago lost his only caretaker.

What happened to him then?

And was Dago T. one Dagon Thorn? Or was it a coincidence?

That would have to be one fat coincidence.

I’m trying to wrap my head around this when I’m shocked by my phone’s buzzing. I drew it from my pocket to find the screen only showed a zero at the top. A blocked call.

What now?