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My heartbeat answered.

So fucking odd.

I went still and studied the rhythm of the bite. The two beats had synchronized so perfectly that I could no longer tell which one led and which followed.

That ruled out an ordinary infection. Infections spread. They inflamed. They poisoned. They did not discover your heart’s rhythm and dance with it.

Hmmm. Certain curses behave this way. Bindings do too. Which one is this?

A powerful spirit could attach itself to a person through blood. A witch could seal an oath through a cut. Some supernatural creatures used their teeth to transfer venom, magic, or disease.

But whatever had entered me did not feel poisonous.

It felt. . .possessive.

My body shivered.

Fresh wetness gathered between my thighs.

Naw. We’re not going to be hot and horny over a bite all night. Let’s fix this.

I left the bathroom and crossed the hotel room to my open suitcase.

Being that Aunt Delphine had sent me to a haunted shrine in a foreign country, I’d brought a good bit of my supplies.

Seconds later, I pulled a large black pouch from beneath my clothes and returned to the bathroom.

The pouch contained a bottle of Bayou water, High John the Conqueror root, protective oils, conjuring herbs, red brick dust, several folded prayer papers, and a glass jar filled with salt Aunt Delphine had blessed herself.

At the bottom sat a tiny muslin bag full of graveyard dirt.

I left that one alone.

There was no reason to involve the dead yet.

Back at the sink, I opened the jar and poured some of the blessed salt into my uninjured palm. “Salt to the earth. Salt to the sea. Salt to everything walking between God and me.”

I sprinkled it onto my puncture marks. As soon as the grains hit the wounds, a fiery sting hit me and pain snapped through my palm.

“Shit!” I gritted my teeth and sprinkled some more. “Salt to the earth. Salt to the sea. Salt to everything walking between God and me.”

More pain and stinging came, yet Aunt Delphine’s blessed salt began to heal the punctures, telling me it was more spell than wound.

Yep. That creature was definitely trying to do something to me with this bite.

The punctures burned. The heat traveled into my wrist. My nipples tightened again as an intense low ache settled deep inside me.

Mmmm. It shouldn’t be hurting this deliciously good though. Fuck.

Once the punctures began to fully heal, I dabbed protective oil over them, sprinkled another pinch of blessed salt, and placed yen coins on each mark. The coins were the toll paid to the land I stood on.

According to my Aunt Delphine, a proper witch working on foreign soil should never forget her manners.

Alright. That’s done.

I bandaged my palm with the proper teachings of Hoodoo.

In New Orleans, the line between Hoodoo and Voodoo was thinner than anywhere else because the city itself was shaped by my distant cousin Marie Laveau—the famous Voodoo Queen who worked Hoodoo. Thanks to her, those two braided together in that city in a way they didn't in the Carolinas, Mississippi, or Texas.