Authors: Sonya Clark
Mojo Queen (23 page)
“Think you can give me orders, do you? You don’t have what it takes to fight me.” She stepped out from behind the wide chair, blond hair glowing in the darkness.
“I know what you mean. I wracked my brains trying to come up with a way to exorcise a raven mocker.”
She laughed.
I continued, “Or a djinn. No telling what all else might be in you.”
“That’s right, Roxie. There’s just no telling.” She looked so pleased with herself, so proud of being so clever. I wanted to ask how that was working out for her, being clever, but I refrained.
“Little bit of this, little bit of that,” I said as I sprinkled herbs in a small metal dish. “Like you’re some kind of evil gumbo.”
She giggled. It started out sounding like any cheerleader but veered off into mean and nasty at some point. Real nasty, like something unclean having a good laugh over a dead puppy. “So what you got there, little Polk Salad Annie? Spices for the gumbo?”
“I just didn’t know what I was going to do. How could I deal with all that stuff you’ve soaked up and repurposed? Hell, I’m not Muslim. I don’t know shit about dealing with djinns. Not Cherokee, either. Or Christian, or Jewish, or whatever else you got up your sleeve.”
As I spoke she approached, heels clicking on the concrete. She stood with her hands on her hips, lips in a sneer as she watched me. I pulled out a short offertory candle, flicked the wick with my will then used it to light the herbs.
I got to my feet, one hand holding the candle while the other fished out the bible pages. “But you sent hellhounds after me and you poisoned my cousin with snakes. You stepped into my neck of the woods with that shit, and that’s where you messed up.”
The first inkling of doubt crossed her face. It was a nice moment. “You can’t do anything to me.”
I cut in before she could start to tell me all about my insignificance again. “Are you sure about that? Because I believe I can, and I realized that’s the key.
Believing
.”
I unfolded the pages and began to read from the Psalms. It may have been just my imagination but it seemed like the herbs began to emit heavier smoke.
“What are you, stupid or something? You just said you’re not a Christian. What good is reading that going to do you?”
The flaw in my plan, the point where I started crossing my fingers and wishing on stars. But this was what Rozella taught me, so this was what I was going to do. I stopped reading and said, “It’s how this kind of magic works, Delia. That’s what I believe in. And you need to get.
Out
.”
She flew at the circle, fists raised. She bounced off but unlike the earlier spirits, she was able to make it wobble, for lack of a better term. I didn’t like that one bit, and dove back into the Psalms. She screamed, pounding her fists against the magical barrier. I alternated Psalms with exhortations for the demon to leave.
A crack of thunder sounded over her screams. I continued reciting and ordering the demon gone. She continued to fight. The floor split open, the fissure traveling to the walls and ceiling. Chunks of concrete and clouds of dust rained down on me.
“I rebuke you and cast you out! I rebuke you and cast you out!” Over and over. A piece of concrete slammed into the back of my shoulder, nearly sending me out of the circle. I managed to right myself before I crossed the salt.
“You won’t do this, you can’t make me leave. You can’t!” Delia was nearly incoherent now, such raw evidence of her fear shocking me. Her beautiful face contorted in pain.
Either from the exorcism, or the effort of bringing part of the roof down, I wasn’t sure what did the most damage to her. One corner of the roof caved in, beams crashing to the floor. Debris broke the salt circle, costing me a layer of protection. I still had the mojo hand, though. More of the roof came down, the sound of breaking concrete drowning me out briefly. I swallowed a mouthful of dust and ran to a wall that was still intact. It didn’t give me any real cover but it was better than being out in the open.
A strong breeze sent the candle guttering out. I switched back to using the flashlight, shining it on the wrinkled pages in my hand as I continued to read. Delia didn’t bother to get any closer to me. She didn’t need to. She stood in the middle of the room next to the old electric chair and called down a storm on us. The breeze kicked up, whipping my hair around and tearing pages from my hand. Soon it was strong enough to send debris flying. The first drops of rain hit, thick fat droplets that felt like quarters bouncing off my skin. The flashlight winked out.
In moments it became a torrent. I peered through the dark, hoping to see the herbs still emitting smoke. No such luck. The heavy downpour destroyed the delicate paper in my hand and I let it fall.
“I rebuke you and cast you out!”
I planted my feet firmly, reaching down into the earth below.
“I rebuke you and cast you out!”
Reaching out to the wind and rain surrounding me.
“I rebuke you and cast you out!”
Tapping the stored energy of the mojo hand.
“I rebuke you and cast you out!”
Between the dark and the rain I could see nothing without my auric vision. Pieces of debris battered against me. Something slammed into my stomach, knocking the breath out of me and sending me crashing painfully into the rough wall at my back. I gasped and found I couldn’t take a breath. Invisible fingers wrapped around my throat, crushing my windpipe. I flailed my arms at nothing. I knew I was close to panic, and if I panicked I’d be dead, so I reached for the mojo hand at my belt and raised it in front of me, making sure I had a tight grip on it. I called on everything I had in me, every bit of magic, every bit of energy and will and intention and belief, and sent it out.
A wave of metallic yellow-gold rolled through the air. In a rush I could breathe again and managed to sputter weakly, “I rebuke you and cast you out. I cast you out.” Hand at my throat, I sank to the ground. “I cast you out.” I kept repeating it until it became a chant.
Gradually I became aware of the storm leveling out. The first faint light of dawn crept into the shattered building as the rain diminished to a drizzle. Delia sat on her haunches near the chair, arms slack, head hanging. I watched as the inky blackness left her, sinking into the ground underneath.
The girl shuddered once and collapsed. I picked my way to her side on hands and knees, not sure I could stand yet. Pulling her head into my lap, I shook her gently. “You’re okay now. The demon’s gone. You’re gonna be okay.”
She opened her eyes. I gave her a weak smile, hoping I could make her feel better. I still couldn’t comprehend why anyone would choose to be possessed, but it had to be better now that it was over.
She pulled herself back into a sitting position, taking in our surroundings and the approaching dawn. She shook her head and slowly began to speak. “I wanted to live.”
Confused, scared, I took a look at her aura and saw no evidence of the entity. “It’s gone, Delia. It can’t hurt you.”
There were smudges of dirt on her face. Her chin quivered, blue eyes filling with tears. She sobbed. “I’m scared to die.”
“You’re not going to die, Delia. It’s over. The worst is over and you’ll be fine.” I didn’t know why I was so desperately trying to reassure her.
Shaking her head, she said, “You don’t understand.” Her voice weakened to a whisper as she stared at the coming dawn. “I’m not ready.”
“Did the demon threaten you? Tell you you’d die if it was exorcised?”
“There’s so much I wanted to do. I never had a passport. We got me one and we were going to fill it up with stamps.”
That sounded so unbearably romantic. I didn’t feel so secure with Blake now. I’d seen the demon as a rival for his affection but it never occurred to me he might be in love with this girl who agreed to be the demon’s vessel.
“The demon can’t hurt you now.” I didn’t know what else to say. My throat constricted. I felt on the verge of tears, from exhaustion and from fear. I didn’t know if I could handle taking her to him, witnessing their reunion.
“He bought me guide books to all the places I wanted to go. We were going to start with Italy, because that’s where I wanted to go the most. Then we’d go to Egypt, for him.” The pink light played on her face, highlighting how gaunt she looked, sunken, her pallor unhealthy.
I’d never had a passport, either. The farthest I’d been from home was Chicago and that was just a weekend trip. There was a big glass pyramid in Memphis, right on the Mississippi River. It was built for concerts and sporting events. I couldn’t imagine seeing
the
Pyramids. “Egypt sounds like a place Blake would want to go.”
Delia spared me a glance, her eyes twin wells of sadness. “It wasn’t Blake.” She looked back at the sunrise. “Blake was hers. Seth was mine.”
First I felt deeply relieved, then deeply disturbed. That must have made for one hell of an unholy love triangle. Or would that be quadrangle? Is this why Seth had been willing to betray Blake? Jealousy, loyalty to the part of this woman who still belonged to Delia and not the demon, even if she was buried under so much darkness she might as well been dead.
“I wish he was here with me,” she said.
“You’ll see him soon.”
She didn’t respond. Her eyes closed. The pale washed-out colors of her aura winked out in the space of a breath. I shook her and called her name, to no avail. Delia was gone. I lowered her to the ground, smoothing the hair out of her face.
The last of the storm passed; full dawn broke and washed its bright light over us.
* * * *
Still in shock, I called Daniel to tell him what had happened. He listened without comment and told me to go home. He’d take care of things, meaning a dead body left in a semi-public place. Too exhausted to ask how he’d manage that, I made sure I had all my stuff and got out of there.
Blake had left the motel. No sign of him, no note, just rumpled sheets and a hint of his spicy scent. I went home.
The box I’d hidden his journals in sat on the kitchen table, with a folder balanced on it and a single black rose on top of that. Of course his journals were gone. He’d found my hiding spot and got them back. I fell into a chair and grabbed the folder. The rose I set to the side.
Delia Marie Lewis was her name. Twenty-one years old, a college student, and according to these copies of her medical records, dying from an inoperable brain tumor. That explained why she’d made such an awful choice, I guess, though it was still hard for me to comprehend the kind of desperation that would lead a person to give themselves over to a demon. I had no trouble understanding why Blake had left me the folder. He wanted me to know he had never lied to her, that she really had made the choice on her own. And he wanted me to know I didn’t kill her when I exorcised the entity. That had pretty much been in the forefront of my thoughts, threatening to cut a hollow space out of me that could never be filled.
It wasn’t hard to guess why Blake or Seth hadn’t told me about their complicated relationship with Delia and the demon. How do you explain something like that?
I closed the folder. I needed sleep and food, and for all the broken stuff in my life to be fixed, and I was a little worried about what would happen if anyone investigated these deaths. Mostly I missed Blake. He hadn’t left a note here, either, and I had no idea if I’d see him again.
I picked up the rose. The petals were a deep velvety black, on the verge of opening. I brought it to my face to enjoy the scent. It brushed my lips and I saw color with my auric vision. Holding it in front of me, I turned it around every which way to examine it carefully. Nothing. A thought occurred to me and I brought the rose to my lips again. I was rewarded with a starburst of color erupting from the petals, showering through the air in front of me like miniature fireworks. I laughed, delighted.
It was a beautiful work of magic, and it looked just like Blake’s aura.
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Sonya Clark writes at a desk equipped with High John the Conqueror root and a mojo hand. She has worshipped at the mother church of country music, traveled the back roads of the blues highway, been to the crossroads at midnight, and though she’s never cooked up a mess of polk salad, she has been to Graceland four times. She lives with her husband and Yorkie in Tennessee.
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http://www.sonyaclark.net
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