Mojo Queen (20 page)

Daniel sat on the edge of the bed with his arms crossed. “How are you going to do that? I mean, how can you even be sure how big of an area she’s in tune with?”

“I can’t. Unless we nuke Middle Tennessee, the connection I have to break is the one between her and Blake.” I met his eyes, daring him to argue.

“And how do you do that?” From the set of his face I could tell he knew. I guess he just wanted to make me say it out loud.

So I did. “By sleeping with him.”

“Damn it, Roxie.” Disappointment colored his voice.

With jerky, angry movements I closed the messenger bag and grabbed my hoodie off the back of the door. “What? It’s clear he uses sex magic, even said it was his strong suit. And I know he’s attracted to me. I can use that.”

“So you just whore yourself out like it’s no big deal?”

Rage bubbled up, bringing a taste of bile to my mouth. I took a few seconds to calm down before answering. “That is way out of line. You think Delia should just be allowed to run amok, do whatever she wants? Kill whoever she wants?”

“There’s got to be a better way than this. Let me call some people I know. We can get help.”

“If I can’t make this work, then call whoever you want. But I know this will work!”

Daniel paced the room. “First you have to find them. Then you have to get him away from her. Then banish her. But between items two and three on the list is throwing away all your morals and values to sleep with this piece of scum.”

“As much as I enjoy being lectured on morals and values by a bloodsucking vampire…”

“What the…”

“You have no right to tell anybody anything about morals and values or any goddamn thing else!” I was shouting. We faced each other like angry cats, spitting and hissing and about to start ripping out fur. “This is my decision.” Pounding my chest with my open hand, I fought back tears. The only thing more fun than being called crazy was being called a whore. Of all the people in the world I had never expected this kind of thing from, Daniel was at the top of the list.

“You are not someone who sleeps around. You don’t go to bars and hook up with random men. Why would you want to do this now? I can get us help. Let me!”

“This is not a random hook-up and you know it.”

He nodded as he went back to pacing. “It’s not all about banishing Delia, either. Is it?”

I put on my hoodie, fighting with one of the sleeves that pulled through the wrong way the last time I took it off. This was the part of the conversation I really wanted to avoid. Even if I could get away with not admitting it to Daniel, I knew I had to admit to myself. He was right. This was not just about banishing Delia. Ever since that moment our energies converged while fighting off hellhounds, I had not been able to get it out of my mind. The visual of our blending auras, the feeling of that power we created together as it coursed through my body. It was the most remarkable moment of my magical life. I’d felt a shadow of that earlier, lying on the bed kissing him. I wanted more of that feeling, so I wanted Blake.

“I know what I’m doing, bubba,” I said.

“You sure about that?” He approached me, getting close enough I had to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. “What if you can’t find them? What if you can’t banish her? Or how about this one--what if he doesn’t want to break that connection? What if he doesn’t want you, Roxie?”

I took a deep breath, adjusted my glasses, buying a few moments of time before having to answer that. He was right to ask those questions because there was no guarantee I could do these things. Banishing Delia would be especially difficult. I might be fooling myself about Blake too. A few passionate kisses didn’t mean he’d choose me over his demon girlfriend. Still, though. “I want to try. I have to.”

“You don’t have to do anything! This is just a job you were hired to do, it’s not some kind of personal mission.”

“Since when has this ever been just a job to me? You think the only reason I do the things I do is for money? Seriously? I thought you knew me better than that.”

“I know you like to help people, but this could get you killed. If you’re right about this connection between her and Blake, and you go trying to take him away from her, how do you think Delia’s going to handle that? She’s not just going to kill you, Roxie. She’s going to kill you hard and mean.”

Tired of wasting time arguing, I wobbled my head. “Well I guess I better get my mojo workin’ then.”

Daniel gave me his best “bitch please” face, which was really impressive.

Before he had a chance to speak I said, “I need you to stay here and babysit the baby Judas. The last thing I need is more surprises from him. So, I’m gonna need the car.”

“Can you drive the SUV?”

“Don’t be an ass, just give me the keys.” I held my hand out, beckoning with my fingers.

“I’m not letting you leave here without talking to me first.”

“What do you mean? We’ve been talking. And I don’t think I have a lot of time here.” Plus I didn’t know if I could handle the conversation I was afraid he was looking for.

“We need to talk about what happened, Roxie.” He took a step toward me. I made myself hold my ground, though part of me wanted to run. I hated feeling that way about him.

“Look, I can’t do this right now.” I fought the tears that sprang to my eyes. “I just need some time.”

“Well, honey, we may not have time if you’re going to insist on running off and doing something stupid like taking on this demon by yourself. If you won’t let me help you, will you at least talk to me before you leave?”

Since yesterday afternoon I’d seen a monster every time I looked at him. Since the first night we met I’ve known he was a vampire. I didn’t know until later that he had sought me out because I was his descendent. Daniel had fought in the Civil War, Company C, First Texas Legion Calvary, also known as Whitfield’s Legion of Mounted Men, a name that always made my inner twelve-year-old giggle. My mother used to research our family genealogy, as all good Southern ladies do, until she stopped abruptly without explanation.

I always figured she found a nice juicy skeleton in the family closet and wanted to keep it hidden. Daniel was the one who told me what it was. Before he mustered with his unit he had sold his land and told his wife he wasn’t coming back no matter what. His family took care of her and their two children and let it be known he died in the war. Somehow they even secured a Confederate widow’s pension for her after the war. Daniel was my ancestor, but his wife was not. He married her out of familial duty more or less, but the woman he truly loved was a slave.

The Rambinsmight have treated their slaves better than most, but a slave is still a slave. When Daniel’s wife went to his father complaining of the affair and the child it produced, all the nights Daniel spent in the slave quarters with them, his father sold them. That skeleton in the closet my mother wanted to keep out of sight was black. I didn’t think that had anything to do with my affinity for hoodoo at all, but learning all this did make me wish Rozella was still around to share the stories. I would like to have known what she thought of it all.

Even before Daniel told me all this, our friendship already had a pretty solid foundation. This only made it stronger. I trusted him more than anyone else I’d ever known, except for Rozella. While it was true he made an effort to conceal aspects of his vampire existence from me, I never believed he meant it in a malicious or untrusting way. He wanted to protect me. He never wanted us to be in the space we were in right now, me terrified of him.

I looked at him. We didn’t look a thing alike, but even while scared of him I felt a bond you could only feel with blood. Heh. Blood. I accepted he would never eat a bite of my homemade apple pie, that he would never walk beside me in daylight. That he would never be accepted by my “living” family, even if there was a way to introduce them. I accepted his penchant for singing classic country at the top of his tone-deaf lungs, his stomach-turning drink recipes, his unfortunate fondness for golf.

He accepted me for who I was, he’d thrown himself in front of me once to take a chest full of knives from an angry spirit and he had my back as much as anyone ever had. If I could take the good and the dubious, how could I not take the bad too? He’d never meant to hurt me, he’d been terribly hurt and a little out of his mind. It wasn’t something I could forget, but I just couldn’t keep looking at him and only see that one moment.

I made up my mind and embraced him. He held himself stiff for a moment, as if afraid one wrong move would make me freak out. I patted him on the back and he relaxed, putting his arms around me. He buried his face in my neck, shaking slightly. I realized he was crying.

“I never wanted you to see me like that,” he said.

I pulled out of the embrace so we could make eye contact. The tears running down his cheeks had a pink tinge to them. “I know, bubba. I can’t say as I liked seeing you at your worst, but I’ve seen you at your best too.”

“That’s a damn big gulf between my best and my worst.”

“I figure it is for everybody.” I did my best to give him a smile. “Great, great, great grandpa.”

He kissed my forehead. “We okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, and I meant it. “Why don’t you give me the keys and let me get on out of here.”

“You sure you don’t want to wait until dark? Let me back you up?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

He pulled the keys from his pocket and handed them to me. I turned to leave.

He said, “How are you going to find them? And how are you going to get Blake away from her long enough to do whatever it is you feel like you need to do?”

I held up the phone he’d whammied out of Seth. “Figured I’d send a hex message to the hellbitch.”

* * * *

Connections. Blake talked about connections when he waltzed an antique candle holder through the air without touching it. Rozella had talked about connections too. The connections between herbs and roots, what they can do, what they can’t. How they can work together to changes things. Change what’s going on in your body, in your heart and soul. You can shape the world around you with the right tools, Rozella said to me once. You just have to know how to use them.

Two hours to drive back, then some time at home to go through some of my own books and supplies, as well as Blake’s journals. First I cleaned up the worst of the mess in the kitchen, opening the windows to let the smell air out. With the fridge destroyed it made for a hell of a funk. Seeing all the damage, tallying up the expensive items that would need replacing--washer, dryer, fridge, my car, not to mention all the glass and cosmetic damage--part of me wanted to lie down and cry. I didn’t have the money for this, and I really didn’t know what I was going to do. I couldn’t think about it at all, so I changed clothes, gathered what I needed, and left.

My next stop was Blake’s. Back down the rabbit hole into his secret magical hideaway. The wards were weakened considerably from him not being home to recharge them. I raided his books and supplies for anything I thought might help me, then I checked out his bathroom. Guys didn’t usually clean out a hairbrush as often as women did and he was no exception. Even though he should have known better, I found several hairs, putting them in a plastic sandwich bag.

Next on the agenda, food. I went to my favorite restaurant in the District and splurged on a heaping plate of beef brisket, potato salad, baked beans and a slab of chess pie, all washed down with sweet tea. As I ate the pie, I took out my notebook and tried to work out what I needed to do, more or less talking to myself.

This entity that had taken up residence in this young girl Delia--who I still didn’t know anything about--could be called a demon, but that was really an oversimplification. Like saying I’m a person and leaving out defining details like my dark auburn hair, green eyes and wire-frame glasses, love of music, knowledge of roots and herbs, and auric vision. I knew the auric vision came from a place deep inside me. There was a well of power there that, truth be told, I’d barely tapped.

I had criticized Daniel for suggesting that power might be dangerous but that was hypocritical of me. I’d gotten by for years with what Rozella taught me, telling myself I knew all I needed to know to do what I wanted, never pushing myself, never experimenting. Every now and then I’d light a candle with only magic, just to remind myself I could do it, not wanting to admit there was a part of me scared of what I could do, of what I might be able to do if I set my mind to it. I felt comfortable in the dark, bumping around alongside things that scared other people. It made me an outcast with my family and most people I knew, and sometimes that made me angry but a lot of the time I felt sorry for them.

They were completely unequipped to deal with what lurked in the dark. I liked helping people because it gave me the chance to use what magical ability I was willing to tap, but also because I remembered the terror I’d felt when I first began to see things others couldn’t. It’s a hell of a thing to step outside the boundaries of your known world, the world others inhabit and validate. It’s scary and lonely, and full of shadows and strangeness. Not many people can stand to look at it, so when they have no choice in the matter they sometimes come to someone like me. I can tell the boogie man to go away and return the curtain separating the scary dark from normal daylight back to its proper place.

This time the scary dark was bigger and badder than anything I’d ever come up against. I believed Delia was a creature of energy, which really all magical entities are, but Delia drew her energy from disparate sources. Every creature, both mortal and magical, had certain limitations. There were rules to govern the existence of raven mockers and djinns, parameters for the use of both high magic systems like Blake used and my own hoodoo folk magic. And where there were rules, there were vulnerabilities.

Somehow this entity I couldn’t help but think of as “Delia” had not only sussed that out but had decided to look for a way around those limits and vulnerabilities. Or maybe it wasn’t a conscious decision. It was entirely possible she had developed organically. Either way, the end result was the same. Whatever vulnerabilities a raven mocker might have, she made up for with strength drawn from djinn energy, and so on. I could craft an exorcism ritual with elements directed at everything I thought she drew power from, but it was a long shot at best. Not only that, even if whatever ritual I came up with was capable of evicting her, there was no guarantee I had the mojo, the magical heft and hot sauce, to pull it off.