Tempter (16 page)

“Sounds good to me,” Arsine shrugged, his anger defused by Rossiter’s conciliatory tone.

“Great! You want a beer?”

“That sounds even better.”

“Beer it is,” Rossiter grinned, walking past Arsine into the kitchen. “By, the way,” the singer asked, as he rooted around inside the refrigerator, “you hear anything from Ti Alice?”

“Funny you should mention that,” Arsine replied. “Papa Beloved said she was askin’ about me.”

“He say what she wanted?”

“Nah.” Arsine’s gaze wandered about Rossiter’s squalid apartment before settling on a large, irregular stain on the carpet near the sofa bed. He leaned forward to get a better look. “Hey, dawg--you cut yourself or something?”

“No. Here’s your beer.”

The drummer looked up, expecting to be handed a cold brew, only to have a towel wrapped around his throat. “Sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be able to make the gig,” Rossiter grinned as he tightened his grip on the makeshift garrote.

Arsine partially raised himself out of the chair, fighting back furiously. Summoning up all his strength, Rossiter forced the struggling drummer back down into his seat. Within sixty seconds Arsine had gone limp, but was still breathing with deep rasping breaths. He tightened his grip on the drummer’s neck for another minute or so, then let go. He stood up, mopping his brow in relief. For a moment he was afraid the drummer might get the better of him.

He went into the bathroom and turned off the faucets. The bathwater was lapping at the very lip of the tub. Suddenly there was a moaning sound from the living room. Rossiter returned to where Arsine lay sprawled in the easy chair and saw that the drummer had started breathing again. He looped the towel round Arsine’s neck once more, pulling it as tight as he could, and held on for a count of one hundred. When he released his grip on the garrote, Arsine’s limp body slid out of the chair and onto the floor, seemingly lifeless.

Rossiter rolled his former friend onto his back and place his hand on his ribcage. The drummer’s heart was beating like a conga. Rossiter cursed and spat on Arsine’s upturned face. As if in response, the drummer’s eyelids flew open like window shades. Rossiter straddled his victim’s chest, retightening his grip on the towel still wrapped about the musician’s neck. Arsine pushed himself along the carpeted floor with his feet, trying desperately to escape the attacker perched atop him, knocking over the nearby coffee table in his struggle. When Arsine’s head collided with the baseboard of the wall, he finally seemed to realize there was no escape, and Rossiter felt him go limp underneath him.

As he regained his feet, Rossiter noticed that, despite all odds, Arsine was breathing yet again. It was then he realized that someone had worked a charm to shield the drummer from harm. But he knew a protective spell could only make Arsine harder to kill, not immortal. Rossiter grabbed the other man by the forelegs and dragged him across the floor into the bathroom. There he took him by the armpits and pulled him up so that he was draped over the rim of the bath. Grabbing Arsine by the dreadlocks, Rossiter shoved the unconscious drummer’s head into tub, sending water splashing onto the floor.

Arsine’s body came alive immediately, the legs and arms jerking and kicking spasmodically, but Rossiter refused to relinquish his hold. Following a minute of frantic flailing, the drummer’s body went limp yet again, and after another minute the air bubbles ceased coming to the surface. Still, given his previous hardiness, Rossiter decided to continue keep Arsine’s head underwater for another five minutes. The water gradually grew bloody and what looked like particles of food floated from his open mouth and bobbed to the surface.

Satisfied his victim was well and truly dead, he hauled Arsine from the bath, allowing the body to drop to the floor like a sodden towel. The drummer’s face was swollen and puffy, the eyes half-open, revealing blood-filled whites. A mixture of bathwater and blood trickled from his slack mouth.

Rossiter stared at the remains of the man he had, up until two days before, considered his closest living friend. He knew he should feel remorse or guilt for what he had just done, but instead all he experienced was a slight twinge of annoyance that he would now have to run another bath.

As he drained the tub, Rossiter closed the bathroom door so he could admire his naked body in the full-length mirror attached to its other side. He wanted to see what he looked like with his miraculous new eyes. To his surprise, there was a corpse in the mirror--and it wasn’t Arsine’s.

Rossiter’s skin had the bluish-gray caste of the newly dead, and in the middle of his hairless chest was a twelve-inch incision sewn shut with coarse black thread. He placed a trembling hand over the wound. Why did he not remember such a thing being done to him? Why did it not hurt? He closed his eyes, trying to erase the vision before him, only to see Tempter devouring Tony Scramuzza’s heart.

No. Not Tony’s.

Rossiter brought his fist down on the dead face trapped within the mirror, causing it to shatter. He staggered backward, nearly falling over the bathroom sink. Something thick and cold dripped onto his bare feet. He stared at the large shards of broken mirror protruding from his hand. Something dark and viscous oozed from the deep, gaping cuts. He plucked the glass from the wounds and instinctively brought his bleeding hand to his mouth. He gagged and spat the foul mess into the lavatory basin.

His blood tasted like sour milk and ink.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Charlie hung up the receiver, perplexed by Jerry’s cryptic remarks. The doorbell rang as she finished pulling on her blouse. She frowned. Unless Jerry called her from his cell phone, there was no way he could have arrived already. She stepped out onto to the balcony outside the bedroom and peered over the railing.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me, baby.” Alex stood on the lawn, grinning up at her, dressed in his ubiquitous black leather jacket and ragged jeans. Charlie’s initial surge of relief at seeing him alive and well was quickly replaced by angry resentment. She could tell by the way he teetered back-and-forth that he was high on something. She had spent three days worrying herself sick over him, while he was off somewhere on a drug binge.

“Go away before somebody calls the cops!” she stage-whispered.

“Why?” Alex replied innocently, his voice at full volume.

“Because you’re fucked up,
that’s
why!” she hissed.

His laugh was louder than it should have been, and had an oddly hollow sound to it. “Only on the purest of natural ingredients, I assure you!”

“I was at your apartment today. There was a black woman there, looking for you. Who is she? Is she Seraphine?”

Alex froze. The smile on his face had a weird, glued-on look to it. “C’mon, baby, lemme in,” he said, his voice suddenly insistent.

“If you think I’m letting you past my door, you’re crazy!” Charlie stormed back into the house. She promised herself she was not going to cry. She screwed her eyes shut and pressed her fingers to her trembling lips.

“Sorry, babe, but I got tired of waiting for you to invite me in.”

She gasped and spun around to see Rossiter framed in the balcony doorway, the sheer curtains on the French windows fluttering in a sourceless breeze.

“Did I scare ya?” he grinned.

“How did you get up here?” Charlie sputtered, uncertain whether she should scream or swear.

“That’s a trade secret,” Rossiter replied with a sly wink.

“I don’t care how you got in here—I want you
out!
” Charlie said angrily, stamping her foot for emphasis. “Get out of my house! I don’t want you here!”

He cocked his head his head to one side in amusement. A trick of the light made his eyes look as red as fresh-spilled blood. “If you don’t want to see me, then why did you leave all those pathetic messages on my answering machine, begging me to come over?” He stepped towards her, his voice dropping in register. “Admit it, Charlie: you
want
me. You want me bad, because I
am
bad.”

She bit her lip and tried to look away as she felt her resolve melting like a lump of sugar in a cup of hot coffee. Alex was right: she wanted him more that she had ever wanted any man before in her life...

Suddenly Pluto shot forward from under the bed, putting himself between Charlie and Alex. Every hair on the tom cat’s body stood erect, his ears flattened against his skull, fangs exposed, and claws unsheathed. The sight of chronically lazy, laid-back Pluto in full battle stance frightened Charlie even more than Rossiter’s unwanted presence in her house.

“Pluto! No!”
Charlie sounded like that of a mother who has just spotted her child playing on the railroad tracks.

Rossiter kicked the cat like a rugby player going for the net. Pluto gave a high-pitched yowl of pain as he sailed across the room and struck the wardrobe on the other side hard enough to make the latch-front swing open. Charlie screamed as the tomcat fell to the floor, blood leaking from its nose and ears. Pluto voiced a single, plaintive mewl, like that of a wounded infant, and went still.

“Hot damn! I’ve wanted to do that for
weeks!
” Rossiter grinned, rubbing his hands together in delight.

“You bastard!”
Charlie shouted through her tears, slapping him as hard as she could. His head snapped back from the force of the blow, but his gaze remained the cold and unblinking stare of a snake studying a mouse.

“This was supposed to be this nice an’ easy,” he said, capturing her wrists in his bigger, stronger hands. “But you had to go and screw things up.”

“Stop it!” She tried to pull away from him, but it was no use. “You’re hurting me!”

“Ain’t that a shame,” Rossiter chuckled, a flicker of crimson burning in his eyes.

“Alex, what are you doing?” she sobbed. “This isn’t like you!”

“I beg to differ. This is very
much
like me!” he laughed. “You see: I’m not really Alex.”

Charlie stared into the depths of her lover’s crimson eyes and did the only thing she could do under such circumstances: she fainted. Rossiter caught her limp body before it hit the floor. Two kills and a kidnapping. Not bad for his first night.

Jerry was headed up the walk as Rossiter exited the front door, Charlie’s motionless body draped over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.“Where the fuck do you think
you’re
doing?” he demanded, putting himself directly in his old school friend’s path. “Put her down, Alex!”

Rossiter snarled and stiff-armed Jerry out of his way as if he was a screen door, sending him flying across the lawn. As he struggled to his feet he saw Rossiter speed off in Charlie’s BMW. Jerry saw a couple of neighbors watching him from a porch across the street, but when he waved at them for help, they quickly went back inside the house. He groaned and hobbled toward the house, the front door of which was still standing wide open. He fished his cell phone and the scrap of paper with Aggie’s number from his pocket.

The other line rang twice before being picked up. A cultured, masculine voice answered: “LeBoeuf residence.”

“I have to talk to Aggie.”

“Madame LeBoeuf is currently indisposed. Who may I say is calling?”

“I’m Jerry Sloan. Look, I have to talk to her, it’s really important...”

The man’s voice was quickly replaced by that a young woman. “Hello? Mr. Sloan? I’m Aggie’s, uh, granddaughter. I’m afraid she can’t make it to the phone right now. May I be of some help?”

“Tell Aggie I was too late. He’s got her.”

“Who’s got who?” The younger woman asked, sounding genuinely perplexed.

“Alex Rossiter...he kidnapped Charlie.” There was a long silence on the other end of the line. “Hello? Are you still there?”

“Yes. I’m here.” The granddaughter suddenly sounded a great deal more interested than before.

“I know where he’s taking her. I’m going after him.”

“Mr. Sloan, Aggie’s told me a little of what’s goin’ on,” the young woman admitted. “I’m not certain of much right now, but I
do
know you don’t stand a chance against what’s in that house!”

“Well, like the kamikaze pilots used to say: ‘When you’re going down in flames, you might as well hit something big.’”

Tee stared at the phone for a long moment before hanging up. So that was the man Aggie had spoken of: the artist with the heart of a love-struck lion. So the old woman wasn’t mad as a hatter, after all. On some level Tee believed the old woman’s claims; after all, she had identified herself as Aggie’s granddaughter without any hesitation. Perhaps it was because the way the ancient conjure-woman held her head when she talked reminded her of Great-Granny. She had not thought about the old woman in years. Great Granny had been her grandmother’s mother, and bedridden well before Tee was born. She dimly remembered listening to Great Granny’s rambling account of being born a slave, and other stories that drifted out of family history into fairy tales, such as how Great-Uncle Josiah was lynched by the Klan for daring to speak to a white gal; the bogeyman that hid in the woods beyond the barn, and –oh, God—the story of the one-eyed witch and the ghost house.

Tee remembered how Great Granny had cried out on her deathbed, begging her mother’s forgiveness for a transgression no one in the family knew anything about. The memory was so sharp, so immediate, she could still hear the gathered family members weeping as the old patchwork quilt was pulled over the matriarch’s lifeless body.

Tee rapped her knuckles lightly on the basement door. There was no answer. She pressed her ear to the paneling and heard what sounded like the throbbing of drums, punctuated by the give and take of voices in conversation. She frowned, baffled. As far as she knew, the old mambo was alone down there. She knocked on the door again.

“Aggie?” she said loudly, hoping she could be heard over the drums. “There was a phone call from Mr. Sloan. He says he’s on his way to Seraphine. Aggie, did you hear me--?”

“I heard you, child,” the old woman called back from the other side of the door.

“What is going on down there? Let me in.”

“That would not be so good an idea right now, child. I will be up directly.”

Tee reached for the door knob, and then thought better of it. Although Aggie looked as fragile as a bird’s nest, it was clear the old lady trafficked in heavy mojo. If she did not want anyone in the basement, perhaps it was better to do as she wished.

“That isss the one who will replace you?”
Damballah’s hiss was like a steam locomotive.

The brick and mortar of Agatha LeBoeuf’s basement had been replaced by a circular room ten times the size of a cathedral. The familiar patterns of the
vévés
shifted across the smooth, whitewashed walls that surrounded the giants gathered about the crimson peristyle.

Aggie stood before the assembled Loa, naked save for body paint and a red feather braided into her hair, her flesh no longer that of a withered crone, but a young woman. “Yes, my lord. She is the blood of my blood, four times removed. She is a mambo in her own right, who has taken the name Ti Alice.”

Legba shifted his weight on his crutch and stroked his grizzled beard thoughtfully.
“She is familiar to us, this one. Her soul is old.”

“Yes,” Aggie said, nodding her head. “It once belonged to my mother.”

“You know what this means, do you not?”
Baron Samedi stated.
“Your immortality is no longer assured.”

Aggie shrugged her shoulders. “I have lived four lifetimes. Death holds no fear for me.”

Baron Samedi nodded hi gaunt head. “
As it should be, for one who has led a righteous life.”

“Then it is sssettled,”
hissed the Rainbow Serpent. “
The priessstesss known asss Ti Alice ssshall replace Agatha asss the anointed Keeper of Pathsss. Agreed?”

The seven Loa spoke as one and Aggie clapped her hands over her ears to protect herself from the glory of their voices. When she opened her eyes again she was once more an old woman with withered dugs hanging flat against her rib cage, surrounded not by gods and towering walls, but seven lucky candles bearing the likenesses of seven Janus-natured Catholic saints.

The red parrot feather jutting from her frizzy white hair bobbed up and down as she replaced her man-made eye. She had to be careful when going before The Seven. They didn’t take kindly to artificial limbs and the like. If she didn’t remove her glass eye before hand, they might take exception and make it explode inside her skull. Gods were funny that way.

Tee was sitting in the kitchen, awaiting Aggie’s return. The cellar door opened and the ancient mambo limped into the room, looking drained by whatever she was doing below stairs.

“You said something about a phone call..?” the old woman asked.

“Jerry Sloan said Rossiter was taking someone named Charlie to Seraphine. He’s going after her by himself.”

“
Merde!
He’s brave as a bull, that one, but thick as a mule!” Aggie said, shaking her head in grudging respect. “But, in it a way, that is good. His courage links him to Chango, his passion to Erzulie. He shall have their protection, for the time being. But such defenses only go so far. And it certainly is no shield against the likes of Tempter. Come, child, there is something I must give you.” Aggie said, motioning for Tee to follow her. “I have called this house my home for over a century,” she said, matter-of-factly. “It originally belonged to my second husband, Monsieur LeBoeuf. Since his death, I have lived here alone, save for the Fortescues.”

“Who are they?”

“They are my man-servants. The first Fortescue came to work for me durin’ the Spanish-American War. I believe the current one is the sixth in my employ. They’re all related by blood. Good help you can trust to hold their tongue is so hard to kind nowadays.” Aggie stopped before a locked door and fished inside her withered cleavage, retrieving a key on a length of black silk cord. She fitted the key into the lock and swung the door open. The smell of old books and seasoned leather greeted them. “This was my second husband’s study,” Aggie explained, ushering the younger woman ahead of her. “After he passed on, I turned it into a combination library and museum.” She gestured to the stuffed alligator suspended from the ceiling and the Egyptian sarcophagus propped in the far corner. “Outside of the Fortescues, you are the only livin’ soul to set foot in this place.” Aggie hobbled over to an old-fashioned barrister’s cabinet and removed an ornately carved wooden box and placed it on a large oaken table cluttered with sextants, astrolabes, astrology charts, and other arcane equipment. She opened the box and removed a rattle made from a calabash gourd that was covered with a webbing of beaded yarn.

“It’s an
asson
,” she said, her voice dropping to a reverent whisper. “It once belonged to my great-grandfather, Jubal. He was an
obeah
of great power, beloved of the Loa. Jubal was born free in Africa and sold into slavery when a rival tribe captured his village. He ended up owned by Narcisse Legendre. Narcisse was a bad man made worse by the slave uprisin’ in Haiti. When his first wife was killed in the revolt, whatever soul he possessed died with her. He took his revenge on our people by buildin’ a great house in Louisiana and usin’ the blood of slaughtered slave children to mix the mortar, and sealin’ the strongest of his slaves alive in the cornerstones.

“Jubal was one of those sacrificed to the glory of Seraphine—it is said he was used to shore the plantation’s keystone. But before he died he laid a curse on Narcisse Legendre that Seraphine would one day be destroyed by a Legendre. After Jubal daughter took up his ways after his death and passed them to her own child, Jazrel, who was my mama. She, like Jubal before her, was beloved of
Les Invisibles,
and a
mamalewe
of great power
.
As you will be as well, in time. You see, old souls such as yours are much favored by The Seven. That is why I want you to take Jubal’s rattle. It is very old, even older than Jubal himself. It was the only thing he managed to bring with him from Africa. There is much power in it. More than I have ever dared call upon. But you will need it if you are to face Tempter and survive to tell the tale.”