The Voodoo Killings (20 page)

“You got to give him props for that—you’re tough to pull a fast one on. Come on,
please
, can we stay for the concert?”

I ran my fingers through my hair. We
were
already here and we needed the cash….Wait a minute, was I actually considering this? It was only a matter of time before the cops shut it down. There was no way this was legal by any stretch of the imagination.

There was a bang from the stage, followed by shouting. Like everyone else, I glanced over to see what the commotion was about.

“Oh, hell. No.”

The faulty lights Kelvin had run off to check were a set of neon-pink LEDs in the shape of a pentagram on the floor of the stage. They were bright. Very bright. Hard-to-miss-from-across-campus bright.

I’d told Kelvin I needed enough space to draw a five-by-five pentagram. He’d taken matters into his own hands and done one with neon-pink lights. On a stage. In front of a thousand kids.

“Shit. Nate, they expect me to do the seance onstage.” I turned towards the exit.

“K, wait! It’ll be fine. Just turn it into a show.”

“Nate, you’re the performer. I’m not.
I
sit on the floor in a living
room and draw a stupid pentagram on the floor. How the
hell
am I going to make that work for a thousand people?”

An icy blast hit me, stopping me in my tracks. The damn ghost had gone right through me. “Nate, I told you never to do that.”

“Then stop panicking, will you? I’ll walk you through it, promise.”

Beer cups being launched at the stage came to mind….Shit. Kelvin was on his way back.

“Nate, I’ve got a bad feeling about this much exposure—”

“You think I don’t get nervous every time I play? You have to trust me. I’ll walk you through it.”

I thought about it. Again, objects being launched at the stage came to mind.

“This is the one and only thing on the planet I do well,” Nate said. “I’m calling it and we stay. Just trust me this once, will you?”

Kelvin pushed through the beer line and shouted, “Kincaid, got the lights working.”

I gritted my teeth and hissed, “Nate, so help me god, if you’re wrong about this—”

“K, this is going to be awesome.”

Kelvin bounded up to me, flashing another grin. “What do you think? We’re ready whenever you want to start.”

I swear this kid had to be a business major.

Nate whispered in my ear. “Make sure you ask him for more money. He’s totally trying to screw us.”

“So, a couple of things, Kelvin. First, you’re screwing us.”

Kelvin held up his hands. “I know the show got out of hand, but it’s not my fault—”

I stopped Kelvin in mid-protest. “I’m not saying I won’t do the gig.”

Nate added in my ear, “Ask for two grand, K. Settle for fifteen, minimum.”

“But this is a two-thousand-dollar gig, not a five-hundred one.”

Kelvin’s face fell. “Look, Ms. Strange, I don’t have that kind of cash.”

“He’s bluffing,” Nate whispered. “I bet you fifty bucks he has it in his back pocket.”

“Look, Kelvin, I know you’re trying to screw me here. I’m not that desperate, and neither is Nathan Cade. You’re charging for the beer and a cover. We need two thousand, cash, up front.” I nodded at the crowd. “Unless you
want
to tell them there’s no Nathan Cade and give them their money back.”

“And free beer,”
Nate added.

What the hell? “And also, we want free beer.”

For a second I thought Kelvin was going to argue, but then he flashed me his salesman grin. “You strike a hard bargain, Strange. What the hell.” Nate was right: he had the cash in his back pocket. He handed over the two thousand without another whimper. “Stage is all yours,” he said, and bounded away.

I shook my head and Nate said, “Should have asked for three.”

I headed for the stage, back to wondering how the hell I was going to pull this off. “Let’s get this over with.”

I’m not sure if it was remnants of my Otherside hangover or my nerves, but my legs were unsteady as I took the first step onto the stage. It was sturdier than I’d expected, though I guess it doesn’t pay to end up being sued if you’re charging all one thousand of your close and personal Facebook friends for an illegal concert ticket. I hoped Aaron would make sure no cops went out of their way to patrol the campus tonight. Even though he dumped me to keep his job, I didn’t think he wanted to see me arrested.

I looked out at the audience. To say the crowd was eclectic would be an understatement, but I guess that’s what the college cohort is like nowadays. How the hell did everyone in this demographic end up into zombies and the afterlife? Used to be a grunge and goth thing.

Kelvin climbed onto the stage to test the mic.

I checked myself in my compact, actually a set mirror I kept around for emergencies. My hair was a frizzy mess of black curls, not surprising considering the weather we’d been having. As I did my best to smooth the worst of it down, four foggy words scribbled across it.

Working hard, I see?

“Nate, not funny. Quit screwing around,” I whispered.

“Don’t look at me, Kincaid. I’m still this side of the barrier,” Nate said.

A shiver travelled up my spine. The mirror was set specifically for him.

The first note fogged off and was replaced by a second.

This is my second and last warning
.

I felt a brush of cold across my shoulders as the fog that was Nate curled around me to take a peek at the compact. “What the hell is that about?”

I mumbled, “Just a ghost on the far side of crazy.”

Well?
the mirror demanded.

Normally I wouldn’t bother responding; talking to a self-important ghost is like yelling at a telemarketer. But the thing was proving persistent. I wetted the tip of my finger and scrawled back,
I’m only going to tell you this once, so turn your long-term memory on for a sec. SCREW OFF
.

You’re stubborn, Kincaid
.

“Are you guys ready for a show?” Kelvin yelled into the mic.

Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet
, I scribbled back as the crowd roared in response. I slammed the compact shut before the ghost could write anything else.

“Here she is, Kincaid Strange. Our very own seance provider, brought to you by KelvinMayer.com. Remember to grab a T-shirt…”

Damn, the pop psychologists weren’t kidding when they said kids these days were brand entrepreneurs. Guess they had to be, given the planet and economy they were inheriting. Claw your foothold now and hold on like hell.

Kelvin was holding out the microphone to me.

I forced my legs to move in his direction.

Nate whispered, “K, I’ve got your back. I’ll walk you through it. See that guy holding my guitar?”

I gave a slight nod.

“Walk towards him. You’re going to take the guitar and stick it in the centre of the stupid pentagram.”

I forced a smile and picked up the guitar. Okay.

“Now, these guys are expecting one hell of an entrance. Get as much sage burning as possible: I need a lot of smoke. When there’s enough, I’ll let you know. Then you count to three, and on three I’ll appear. If they’re smart, they’ll hit me with the floodlights.”

Simple. I could do this. I strode to the centre of the stage and took the microphone from Kelvin, to a renewed round of clapping and cheers, and carried the guitar to the centre of the pentagram and set it down.

“See that shot of tequila sitting all lonesome on the speaker?” Nate whispered. “Down it. You’re shaking like a fucking leaf.”

No way was I adding tequila to the mix. I ignored Nate as I pulled the six bundles of sage I’d prepped out of my bag. I placed one at each of the pentagram points and the last in the middle beside the guitar. Sage is one of those strange plants that retains a portion of its life into death, just like pine needles do. Hitting it with Otherside is like dropping a cat on a hot tin roof: it reacts. Nate could channel the sage smoke into his ghostly body, mixing it with Otherside to give him more substance, which he’d need to hoist the guitar.

I didn’t need to draw anything over the pentagram; the symbols we needed were already inscribed on the sage. I closed my eyes, drew in a breath and tapped the barrier. I was so nervous I didn’t even notice the nausea.

“No! Not yet,” Nate said.

I stopped just short of pulling a globe.

“You’ve got to say something first. Introduce yourself—”

I turned my back to the audience. “Seriously?”

“Don’t be shy, just put yourself out there, like, ‘How’s it going, Seattle?’ ”

What the hell. You only live once. I turned back towards the crowd….

So many people. I tapped the mic and cleared my throat. “Hi, I’m Kincaid Strange….” It was as if the mic took uncertainty and magnified it by a hundred. Did I seriously sound like that?

“Okay, now get them pumped,” Nate whispered. “Stop being scared—they can smell fear.”

Not helping. I unclenched my jaw and took another good look at the sea of students waiting for me to do something.

I froze.

“Ahh, K, not to push, but you seriously need to say something.”

Nate tried to feed me lines, but I didn’t hear any of it on account of the adrenalin buzzing in my ears. A few people in the front rows started looking at each other….Kelvin, standing off to the side of the stage, had dropped his smile. Well, maybe that would teach him not to trick someone.

Nate swore in my ear. “K? You need to snap out of it. They’re getting restless, come on.”

I knew how Nate used to handle audiences, but I couldn’t do what Nate did. That wasn’t me.

Then what the hell was me?

“For the love of god, at least start the seance so I can get onstage.”

I pulled my globe, flooding it into the pentagram. The symbols I’d etched on the sage flared gold as everything else faded into the background, including the audience. There were a few gasps, and the snickering stopped. Thank god. The crowd couldn’t see the symbols, but in the low stage lights they’d see the grey smoke of the Otherside surround me. My nerves calmed. I was back in familiar territory—Otherside and symbols. That gave me an idea….

“Thank god, K. You totally froze,” Nate said.

I tuned him out. Before I lost my nerve, I lowered my head and gave the crowd a slow smile—not a selly Kelvin grin, but the kind you give people before you tell a ghost story around a campfire. My kind of smile. I heard the band fidgeting behind me. I turned and mouthed, “Wait for my signal,” and held up three fingers. Then I glanced over at the lighting guy and did the same thing, but also pointed to where I was standing, hoping he got the message.

Then I focused on the audience again. “You ready for some ghosts?” I called, as the sage flared, releasing more Otherside into the pentagram. Clapping and cheers told me that yes they were.

I filled my globe up to the brim and raised my arms over my head.

“One,”
I said into the mic, and let loose a second wave of Otherside into the pentagram. It sought out the sage like a homing beacon and the bundles of herb flared a beautiful, glowing gold. The students saw plumes of grey light flare around the pentagram, mixing with the neon pink. I heard someone bark a command backstage—maybe Kelvin—and in response the neon LEDs shut down, leaving only the ghostly grey Otherside framed by the dimmed floodlights. Had to hand it to the kid: it made for just the right amount of spooky dark.

“
Two,”
I said, and let loose the third round of Otherside.

The sage caught fire and the warm green scent filled my senses. Smoke flooded into the pentagram, bound somewhere between this world and the Otherside. It swirled around me, and I waited until it obscured me in a thick fog. The crowd fell silent.

I felt the cold fog that was Nate unravel and peel off my shoulders. He slid into the centre of the pentagram, hidden from the audience. Through my globe I watched as he pulled in the glittering sage smoke. When he had enough, he gave me a nod.

“Three,”
I screamed at the top of my lungs, and released the last bit of Otherside into the pentagram. The sage exploded into a coil of black smoke, neither in this world nor the next.

Then the lights hit the centre of the pentagram and Nate hit a chord on the guitar.

The crowd went nuts as I got the hell offstage.

Nate stepped up to the mic and smiled. “I’m Nathan Cade,” was all he said, then launched into “Manhunt,” the band taking the cue.

I made a beeline for the beer table, my hands shaking. One of the guys manning the bar was staring at me. In fact, the whole line was staring at me. I decided to use it to my advantage for once and pushed to the front of the line. “Whisky sour,” I said, hoping they were serving something stronger than beer.

Mouth still open, he nodded and made me one.

I downed it in one gulp and retreated to an uninhabited spot by the fence underneath a string of dragonfly garden lights. I let out a breath and hoped to hell my nerves calmed down enough so I could ride my bike home when Nate was done.

—

I checked my watch: forty-five minutes and eight songs in. The wind had picked up, sending more than a few people running to catch the tablecloths before they took flight. I wasn’t sure how much longer Nate would hold out, and I’d have to figure out some way to get him out of here before he dropped the damn guitar. It cost more than we’d been paid.

I don’t know if it was the band, the crowd of students or just the strange spontaneity of it all, but Nate was playing better than he had in a long time….As song nine ended, he glanced over and arched an eyebrow at me. I gave him a thumbs-up, then tapped my watch and held up two fingers. Two more songs.

He nodded, and went to talk to the band, taking a moment to down another beer. Had to be his fourth or fifth, not that I was worried; ghosts don’t get drunk like the living.

“That was awesome.”

I turned to see Kelvin beside me, holding two drinks.

“Nathan? Yeah, he’s a pro—”

Kelvin shook his head. “Nathan’s great, but I meant you.”