Slightly Spellbound (22 page)

I filled Bryn in on my meeting with Crux. Bryn bristled with anger, making the seat vibrate with magic. As I finished talking, Mercutio yowled and bonked his head against the windshield.

Bryn hit the brakes, and we came to a sharp stop. I opened the door and Mercutio darted out into the woods. I started to follow him, but Bryn said my name and made me pause.

“That’s not the way to Oatha Theroux.” There was no question in his voice.

“Are you sure?” I asked, even though I knew he was.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

My hand hesitated over the door handle. “Mercutio’s tracking something.” I tipped my head, listening. “Could even be Crux.”

“Do you want to follow him or to go after the Cajuns?”

I wanted to find Vangie. I pulled the door closed. “Foes before fae,” I said in a tone that lacked any trace of cuteness.

Bryn didn’t laugh this time. Neither did I.

 • • • 

THERE WERE AREAS where the creeks had overflowed during the town’s massive flood that still hadn’t dried out. At the edge of this marshy area north of Old Town, the caravan of Vangie’s stepfamily had assembled.

I checked my weapons, pulled a borrowed sweatshirt over my head so I could take off my coat for better mobility, and climbed from the car. Bryn joined me, and we rounded the house. The people were apparently packing up to leave since truck tailgates were lowered and trailers were open and half full.

Was Vangie packed among the stuff? Or was she tied up in the house?

I gave Bryn a questioning look, and he nodded at a truck that was parked away from the others. I marched over and we waited. Beau’s cousin approached, carrying two suitcases. When he leaned to shove them inside, I came up behind. When he straightened, his head came into contact with the gun in my hand.

“Not a sound,” I said. “Where’s Vangie?”

“Who?”

“Evangeline Rhodes.”

“Oatha’s girl? How would I know? Haven’t seen her in two years.”

“Where’s Oatha?”

“She’s on her way back to her house in Dallas. Been havin’ fierce chest pains.” The look on his face said what he didn’t. He wanted revenge. They’d like to kill me and Bryn for retaliating against Oatha and them.

“When did Oatha leave?” I asked.

“Around an hour ago. We’re all clearing out of here. Two of our people had heart attacks today. We’re taking ’em home to be buried.”

I stiffened, knowing they hadn’t had regular heart attacks. “Where’s Beau?”

“He’s packing one of the trailers. You wanna talk to him? Beau!” he hollered.

I thumped him on the head with the gun and he staggered. Bryn chopped him again and the man fell facedown. We heard footsteps running toward us, and we hurried around the house.

Shouts and heavy footfalls came from various directions. I realized it was likely going to be a repeat of the magic and gunfight of the night before. Bryn drew me into the house.

There were lit lanterns rather than electric lights burning. Bryn crossed the room and lifted an overturned box. On the floor was the Tammy Jo voodoo doll. So Oatha had left without it. If she’d actually left.

“Tamara, you should be able to touch it.”

I stalked over and picked her up. The doll was cold but hummed with the spell Bryn had put on her. “I don’t have pockets,” I complained. “This is the problem with dresses.” I tucked the doll inside the top of my dress, which was snug enough at the waist that she didn’t just slide down and fall out the bottom. “Okay, got her.”

Bryn walked around the room, whispering spells and touching surfaces. “There are traces of black magic, but I don’t find any of Evangeline’s here.”

“Could they have had her locked up and gagged? Maybe in a trunk or something? They wouldn’t have wanted her to be able to cast spells.”

“If there was a binding spell done, it wasn’t cast here.”

Beau and several of his family members burst in, shotguns raised. I pointed my gun at his head and moved so that I was behind a tattered couch with exposed springs.

“
Chère
, we meet again,” Beau said. His bruised and swollen face was in sharp contrast to the white wall behind him.

“Where’s Vangie?”

“I’ll take you to her. Just you and me. He stays here with the others.”

“Absolutely not,” Bryn said.

“You better do what I say, my friend,” Beau said to Bryn. “You’re outgunned.”

“Am I?” Bryn asked coolly, and I felt his power rise and contract in preparation, like a snake coiling to strike.

Outside, a tailgate slammed closed and a motor started.

I stalked to the window. “She could be in that truck,” I said. A busted-out window provided a big enough opening for me to climb through, but there were jagged shards of glass. I hit the biggest pieces with my gun, making them shatter and fall to the ground.

“Tamara,” Bryn warned.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, climbing out. I ran, my flip-flops popping off in the mud. I reached the road just in time. The truck made a U-turn to flee the scene. I stalked forward, took aim, and blew a hole in the front driver’s-side tire. The truck fishtailed and then jerked to a stop. I jumped in the back and checked through everything in the flatbed. If Vangie hadn’t been cut into little pieces, there was no way she’d have fit in the luggage or boxes in the back, but I opened everything and checked. No body. No bones. Thank goodness.

The couple who’d gotten out of the truck’s cab screamed obscenities at me and waved their guns menacingly. I figured if they’d planned to shoot me, they would’ve done it right off.

I climbed over the side of the truck and dropped to the ground. Where was she?

I looked through the broken window to check on Bryn. He and Beau were still talking, with a room separating them. Beau and his people seemed hesitant to attack, which made sense. I doubted they wanted Bryn to blast them with his heart-attack-inducing magic. If Bryn could keep them distracted for a few minutes, I could search for Vangie.

I rushed to a nearby car and leaned in its open window to turn on its headlights. They shined directly into the trailer across from it. My plan was simple. I’d check all the parked cars, trucks, and trailers. If I didn’t find Vangie, Bryn and I could drive to Dallas and search Oatha’s car and house.

I dug through luggage and overturned boxes in the next trailer and was just about finished when gunfire and magic exploded in the house. I jerked upright, raced to the end of the trailer, and jumped out.

The couple who’d been in the middle of changing their tire converged on the house at the same time I did. They opened fire on me. I dove behind a rusted car on cinder blocks. I returned fire, wondering how Bryn was faring in the house. He had a gun but was better armed with magic. It gusted like an icy wind.

“
Chère
, what are you doing out here?”

I jerked around to find Beau’s gun pointed square in my face. I knocked the gun to the side as I dropped. Most of the blast went by me, but a few pellets caught the side of my upper arm, making it burn with pain. I popped to one knee and shot Beau in the shoulder and the leg.

He howled and fell backward, landing hard on the ground. I rose, heart hammering, and felt blood stream down my arm. Even with my pulse pounding, the wound didn’t gush. Just a flesh wound. Thank goodness.

I stood over Beau. He screamed obscenities, clutching his leg.

“I got your thighbone, huh?” I asked, my voice low but agitated. “You shouldn’t have snuck up on me and pointed a gun in my face.” I lifted and lowered my throbbing shoulder. “And you shouldn’t have shot me. This sweatshirt’s not even mine.”

I bent forward and pointed the gun at the middle of his forehead. “Do you want to be put out of your misery?”

“No!” he yelled, gnashing his teeth.

“How about some pain medications? Want some of that?” I poked his leg with my toe, not hard enough to jar it, but hard enough for him to feel the threat. He grabbed my ankle and looked ready to try to knock me off balance. I steadied myself on one foot. “Go ahead,” I said in my best Clint Eastwood
The Outlaw Josey Wales
voice. “I bet I can put two bullets through your heart before I hit the ground.” I paused. “Well, that might be overconfident. Maybe just one will hit its mark.”

He snarled at me and let go of my leg. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he wiped it away.

“Dr. Suri, our local doctor, has morphine in his clinic. He can probably be here with it in twenty minutes once I call him. But I’m not calling anyone until you tell me where my friend is.”

He panted for breath. “She’s in the back of the red trailer by the woods.”

“And what about the Duvall ghosts? Where did your mother put them?”

He dropped his head back, cursing and gasping for breath. “Damn you. Goddamn you.”

“Ghosts?” I repeated.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. She didn’t call the dead. Why would she, you redheaded she-devil bitch?” Except he didn’t say
bitch
. He used a four-letter word I’ve never used in my life and never will.

I leaned forward and slapped his face. “Call me that again, and I’ll bust your other thighbone so you’ll have a matched set.”

He surprised me by laughing. “You should kill me,
chère
. Otherwise, one day you’re going to find yourself naked and tied down and I’m going to—”

The rest of what he threatened to do made me want to shoot him in the groin. Then he grabbed for his gun. So I did.

He screamed, cursing me, God, and the devil, apparently undecided about who deserved the most blame.

“Yeah, I know. Look what you made me do,” I snapped, shaking my head and kicking his gun farther out of reach.

He continued to wail in pain, and I knew there was no use trying to talk to him about anything. As I walked away, he yelled that I’d shot him in his left testicle.

“You’re lucky. If I could’ve seen what I was aiming at, I would have shot the part you don’t have a spare for,” I called back.

Despite my tough talk, I felt a little shaky as I stalked away. Threatening to rape me wasn’t the same as doing it, and his broken leg meant he hadn’t stood much chance of getting the upper hand, so technically I hadn’t been forced to shoot him. I could’ve kicked his gun out of reach. I saw that now.

But I reasoned, from the way he talked, that there were women who hadn’t escaped him in the past. They’d needed an avenger. Also, he’d kind of been asking to get shot in the testicle, really. Why use rape threats to goad an armed woman who’s already shot you twice unless you’re looking for trouble? Yeah, I rationalized, it was partly his fault. Forty, maybe fifty-seven percent his fault.

I checked my shoulder. It throbbed, but didn’t seem to be bleeding.

I held pressure and rubbed it as I hurried to the red trailer. I heard Vangie thrashing inside. “I’m coming, Vangie. Just gimme a minute.” I shot the lock open.

It took some muscle to get the rusted lever up. I jerked the door open and there was just enough light to see the snapping jaws that lurched forward.

25

IN HINDSIGHT, I should’ve anticipated that Beau might try to trick me. And if I hadn’t just shot him in the balls, I might’ve been clearheaded enough to realize that I should be a little careful when I opened the back of a trailer in whose direction he’d pointed me.

I’m pretty fast and I did get off two shots, but it turns out alligators are fast, too.

Really fast.

The gator was about thirteen feet long and a thousand pounds. He came out of the trailer like a claustrophobic who’d been trapped in a box for days. I jumped back, but when those jaws closed, he had me.

I was lucky that he hadn’t had them fully open and snapped them shut or he’d surely have cracked the bone in my leg. Instead his momentum had been focused on escaping the trailer as he pursued me, and his head had jerked sideways when I shot his right eye out.

Still, once he clamped down and some of those teeth drove into my flesh, I screamed and lost my mind. I thrashed and clawed at the ground with my free hand, but that’s just what a gator expects its dinner to do, and once a gator has a grip, it doesn’t let go.

At first, pain and panic made me insensible, but then I realized he was dragging me. His massive tail thwacked the ground as he backed up and a spray of brackish water dotted my exposed body. He had most of my left leg between his jaws, and even trying to stop him from pulling me was excruciating since it tore my flesh.

I’d watched enough Nature Channel to know what he had planned. Alligators get their prey in a death grip, drag it underwater, and roll over and over until the prey drowns. Then they stuff their booty under a log or rock to let the swamp tenderize it. Even knowing I’d be dead when it happened, I couldn’t stand the idea of a reptile eating the decaying flesh from my bones.

“No, no, no!” I screeched as water splashed over my kicking right leg and lapped up my side.

With a sharp yank, I was dragged in, my butt and belly submerged. My free leg kicked, hitting nothing but water. I could feel the current and knew we were heading into the creek. In another few seconds, he’d have me in deep enough water to roll and that would be the end of me.

I sucked in a breath and tightened my abdominal muscles. I levered myself to a sitting position and for a second locked eyes with his one good eye. I thrust the muzzle of the gun into his empty socket and unloaded.

The
bang, bang, bang
was followed by an empty
click, click, click
. The jaws tightened in one sharp bite and the gator slid backward, pulling me underwater. I felt the gator’s body go limp, but he was by no means slack-jawed. I wondered if shooting him in the brain had caused him to go into rigor mortis around my leg.

I dropped the useless gun and grabbed the top of the alligator’s jaw with both hands. I felt a splash next to me and wondered if it was a snake or something else coming to eat me. With my heart slamming in my chest and my lungs wailing for air, I pulled up with all my might.

I had to heave a few times before the top jaw loosened. Adrenaline drove my muscles and I contracted my hip and lifted my left leg, tugging it loose from the teeth that had been embedded within it.