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Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Eighteen
The voice was deep and rich; a touch of France nudged it toward mesmerizing.
I turned. The man in the doorway wasn’t what I’d expected.
He was slim and elegant in a linen shirt and trousers, and his erect carriage gave him the illusion of height, though in truth he had to be several inches shy of six feet.
His hair was short, dark, without a hint of gray, though there were lines around his thin lips and green eyes. The café au lait shade of his skin revealed someone on his family tree had arrived here in chains.
“Priestess Cassandra, oui?” A sharp tilt of his chin brought me out of my stupor.
“Oui. I mean yes. Sir.”
He smiled, his teeth white, straight, and numerous. Or perhaps they just seemed that way because they were so small. He couldn’t have more teeth than he should. I was just tired, nervous, embarrassed. He’d caught us going through his home.
“I’m sorry—,” I began, and Murphy gave me an elbow in the ribs. I coughed.
“You’re Mezareau?” he asked.
“Jacques Mezareau, oui, and you are the man who should be dead.”
Murphy started but recovered quickly. “And you’re the one who’s been trying to kill me.”
“I’m sure he meant the fever,” I interj ected.
“No.” Mezareau bit off the word with a sharp French twist. I half-expected him to click his heels, but he wasn’t wearing any shoes. “Monsieur Murphy is right; I have been trying to kill him.”
“Told you so.” Murphy inched in front of me.
I shouldered him back. We struggled for an instant, but Murphy was stronger and he won.
Mezareau watched the exchange with obvious amusement. “Why are you protecting him, Priestess? He has betrayed you.”
Though I knew that was impossible—the tongue tango aside, I barely knew the man, how could he betray me?—nevertheless I stiffened. One betrayal in a lifetime was one too many.
“Cassandra—,” Murphy began.
“Silence!” Mezareau thundered.
For such a slim man he had the deepest, loudest voice I’d ever heard. A chill rippled along my skin, making my hair stand on end. That voice was almost surreal.
Mezareau strode forward and grabbed Murphy by the throat, lifting the larger man onto his toes. His fingers were impossibly long, the nails even more so. They pressed into Murphy’s neck, drawing blood.
“Stop that!” I protested.
Mezareau ignored me, shoving his hand into one of the voluminous pockets of Murphy’s cargo pants and yanking something out. Then he let Murphy go with a shove.
Murphy stumbled, and I caught him before he fell. My gaze went to his neck, where tiny red welts had already sprung up.
“Told you he was a nut,” Murphy managed.
“Actually, you said he was dangerous.” I glanced toward Mezareau, whose eyes blazed like emeralds. “I think you were right.”
“He is a thief and a liar, Priestess. He deserves to die.”
Mezareau opened his hand, revealing what he’d removed from Murphy’s pocket—a diamond the size of a golf ball.
I couldn’t help but gape. I’d never seen anything like it. The j ewel was exquisite.
“He came for this,” Mezareau spit. “Not you.”
I knew Murphy hadn’t brought me out of the goodness of his heart; I was paying him. However, I had wondered why he’d decided to do so for such a reasonable price.
“He’s tried to get through the waterfall before,” Mezareau said.
Which explained how he’d known where it was.
“But only the worthy may pass, and he is not one of them.”
“Then how did he get through?” I asked.
“Did he hold your hand when you went beneath the water?”
My gaze met Murphy’s; his expression was carefully blank. “Yes.”
Mezareau gave an elegant yet derisive snort. I felt like an idiot. I’d thought Murphy was being sweet, helpful, heroic. But I’d been wrong about a man before.
“I suppose you let him fuck you.”
I flinched—from the language and the truth.
“Fool,” Mezareau muttered. “He has been using you from the beginning.”
Murphy said nothing in his own defense, so I had to. “But… I found him.”
Mezareau’s lip curled. “You went into the city. You asked about me. Even I heard you were asking way out here.”
My ears perked up. How had he heard? With his own magical ears? Or from his own low-life spies?
“You think Murphy didn’t get word? That he couldn’t send someone to you and have them send you to him?”
As I’d said, I was no good at the cloak-and-dagger stuff. Probably never would be.
“What made me worthy?” I asked.
“You came not for yourself but for another.”
Murphy spoke at last, his voice stronger but still hoarse. “Wouldn’t seem like a bokor would give a shit about that.”
“You have no idea what I give a shit about, monsieur. Now, it is best if you are gone.” He snapped his fingers and two burly villagers appeared in the doorway.
“No!” I said, a little too loudly.
“You will protect him after what he has done?” Mezareau asked.
“I don’t want him dead.”
“I thought that all women who are betrayed wish death on the betrayer.”
“Not me.”
Liar, my mind whispered. I wanted Karl dead.
But there was betrayal and then there was betrayal. Murphy hadn’t done anything other than what I’d asked. Even if he’d been playing me, I’d gotten what I wanted. I’d particularly wanted the sex.
Mezareau said something to his minions in French too complicated to catch, and they grabbed Murphy.
“Wait—,” I began, but Murphy interrupted, “He just told them to incarcerate me.”
“Until I figure out what to do with you.” Mezareau smiled thinly. “You are very hard to kill.”
“Cassandra, don’t believe what he says.” The minions began to drag Murphy away. “He lies more than I do.”
Mezareau’s smile widened as Murphy disappeared through the door.
“You sent that man to our camp,” I murmured.
“Out. ”
” He was pretty hard to kill.”
“I’m afraid he is not quite right in the head.”
“I got that when he tried to chew off Murphy’s nose.”
Mezareau made a “tsking” sound. “As I said…” He twirled his finger near his ear in the universal hand gesture for “crazy.” “But he takes orders very well.”
“Helen didn’t seem to know who he was.”
“Helen knows only what I wish her to.”
She’d also said the guy couldn’t possibly be from here; now Mezareau was saying he was. Someone was lying. Big shock.
“So where is he?” I asked.
“You injured him very badly—knife in the back, gunshot to the shoulder, stabbed in the neck with a crucifix.”
“Yet he got up and walked away.”
“Amazing what the human body can withstand, is it not?”
I had my doubts he’d been human, but I let it go for now.
Mezareau tossed the diamond into the air; the large, heavy j ewel made a thwack when he caught it in his palm. “Murphy is a thief, Priestess, and has been for a very long time.”
“People in glass houses,” I murmured.
“Are you insinuating I stole the diamond?”
“I’m not interested in the diamond.”
“Just my knowledge.”
“Yes.” Why should I lie? “You’re a bokor?” I pressed.
He dipped his chin.
“Why?”
Confusion flickered in his eerie eyes. “Why not?”
“You enj oy being evil?”
“You’ve been listening to the wrong people, Priestess. Embracing the dark side doubles your power.”
“I bet,” I said drily.
“A houngan, or a mambo like yourself,” he said, using the word for “priestess,” “who only studies the light side of magic is reaping but half the benefits. There is power beyond your dreams if you embrace all
—white, black, and every shade in between. You must know this deep down or you wouldn’t have come here.”
I hated it when evil sorcerers were right.
Silence descended, broken only by the trill of insects calling to one another outside the hut. I wasn’t sure what else to say. How did one ask about raising the dead?
My gaze returned to the leopard skin. “What is that?”
Mezareau crossed the room and stroked the pelt. “A family heirloom. You have heard of the Egbo?”
I remembered what Renee had told me. “The secret society of Old Calabar.”
“Very good. The Egbo was the judicial arm of the Efik.”
“Who were slave traders.”
“An unfortunate truth. The Egbo was known as the leopard society. The leader wore this while he passed judgment on transgressors. Usually horrific and unusual punishment followed, to make the others desist.”
“When you’ve got more slaves than captors, you have to make a statement,” I murmured.
“Exactly.” Mezareau beamed at me as if I were a prize pupil.
“So you’re the leader,” I said, and Mezareau clipped his chin. “And these people are your slaves?”
His eyes narrowed. “Why would you ask such a thing?”
“They work day and night, in a place from which there’s no escape.”
“Those in the village chose to come here, to make a better place than the one they had.”
“They call you master.”
“It is a courtesy title. I lead them, but they are free to go at any time.”
“How?” I asked. “The waterfall disappeared.”
His head tilted. “You must have been overtired. I’m sure if you return to the cave, the waterfall will exist right where you wish it to.”
We’d see about that.
I lifted my chin to indicate the leopard skin. “Do you wear that like a costume? Walk on all fours?
Growl?”
He frowned. “That has been on the wall since I built the place. It is an antique. I would never treat an heirloom with such disrespect.”
OK, next question.
“Have any of your people seen a wolf in the night? Maybe heard some howls they can’t explain?”
His frown became a smile. “I didn’t realize you were a Jäger-Sucher, too.”
I schooled my face into an expression of curiosity. “What’s a Jäger-Sucher?”
“Come now, Priestess. Wolves in Haiti? I don’t think so. Unless they’re werewolves.”
“Well, are they?”
“No.” He lifted his right hand, palm facing me. “I swear there isn’t a wolf--were- or otherwise--on this island.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him, but I hadn’t come here for wolves.
“How do you know about the Jäger-Sucher society?”
“I know more than you could ever believe possible.”
Hope fluttered to life in my chest. “Do you know how to raise the dead to live again?”
“But of course.”
***
