Voodoo Queen Read online

  Contents

  Legacy Club Teaser

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Review Request

  Coming Soon

  Free Book

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Theophilus Monroe’s Legacy Club members get

  free books, free behind the scenes

  photographs and unique items to accompany

  the books.

  Members are always the first to hear about

  Theo’s new books and publications.

  See the back of the book for details on how

  to sign up.

  Chapter One

  A feral vampire loose in the French Quarter was one way to spoil a lot of folks’ Friday night. Pauli—now in boa constrictor form—wrapped himself around me and transported me to Chartres and St. Philip. The vampire already made it quite a few blocks from Casa do Diabo on the Esplanade end of Decatur. I half suspected he was trying to make his way to Vilokan, which was hidden in a mystical doorway in an alley on one side of the St. Louis Cathedral.

  Appearing out of thin air with a flash of rainbow light would probably strike people as odd—but I didn’t have much choice.

  I heard a few gasps as I appeared on the edge of the sidewalk. Think quick, Annabelle! I flashed a grin, gave a bow, and removing one of my shoes, I held it out to the crowd. Several onlookers applauded, filled my shoe with spare change, and went on their way.

  Brilliant idea, my soul-fused familiar and ghostly partner, Isabelle, remarked, her voice echoing in my mind.

  I chuckled. “It was the only thing I could think to do.”

  I dumped my change-filled sneaker in the instrument case of a saxophone player on the corner, put it back on, and looked around trying to catch a glimpse of the vampire. The first concern, of course, was for any human who might get bitten. Just as serious, though, was the fact that Kalfu was actively hunting vampires. It wasn’t that I gave more than a handful of shits about what happened to vampires—but when Kalfu bit one, he would steal their powers. In this case, a newly formed vampire wouldn’t have a clue what powers he actually had. Only through centuries of feeding on humans, getting a taste of human souls, can a vampire get a handle on their abilities. At least that’s what Mercy had told me—and she was the only vampire I knew who had lived long enough to know.

  Mercy is going to try to cut him off at St. Ann, which is just a couple more blocks down. If we keep pressing on, he won’t have too many places left to go.

  “That would work,” Pauli said—being a “snake,” he could hear Isabelle. Most animals, in fact, could. Even though Pauli had a human soul and preferred to shift into a human shape that closely resembled the body that used to be his—a body that Kalfu now possessed—his body was still, technically, a snake’s body. He had to be in his “natural” form in order to teleport. If he shifted into human form now, he’d appear completely naked in the middle of the French Quarter—in other words, it would be nothing all that out of the ordinary. Still, at the moment we needed his abilities.

  “Pauli,” I said, “can you zap around and try to find him? Even with Mercy pressing forward the opposite way, all he’d have to do is duck inside a shop, find a place to hide, whatever. He has the advantage unless we can figure out where he’s hiding out.”

  “You got it, honey!” Pauli exclaimed.

  I grinned a little. His over-the-top flamboyance seemed to make even dire situations, like this one, a bit more jovial than normal.

  I heard a scream. I turned my head.

  I think that was a block over, toward the river. Maybe he’s in the French Market?

  “How the hell did he get over there?” I wondered out loud.

  Truth be told, vampires moved fast. Very fast. Even a young vampire, like this one, could move faster than the average person. And older vampire, like Mercy, was practically a blur when she moved. It was one of her few remaining abilities that made her terrifying. Needless to say, in spite of her attempts to prove her trustworthiness, I still felt like it was only a matter of time before she turned on me. It was just her nature…

  I hung a left down Dumaine toward the French Market. The screams continued—I tried to zero in on them.

  “Somewhere inside,” Pauli said. “Too many people, I can’t figure out where it’s coming from.”

  I pressed through the crowd, through the golden archway at the market’s entrance. Someone was screaming—it sounded like a child for Christ’s sake, and people were just ignoring it, examining melons to see if they were ripe, browsing handmade jewelry, and other such bullshit. I pushed my way past a woman who seemed offended by the fact that I dared shove her aside in my effort to hopefully save someone’s life.

  Then I saw it. A boy, hunched over the body of what looked to be a teenage girl, blood pouring from her neck and his mouth. He turned to me and grinned.

  “Beli” I said aloud, summoning the dragon elemental who formed itself into a variety of weapons—this time, a stake. The boy cackled, blood pouring from his fangs.

  “Pauli,” I said, “I need a distraction.”

  “You got it!” He flung himself across a number of tables. Nothing like a snake in a market to cause a panic. Someone being assaulted? Whatevs… But a snake? Yeah, that freaks people out.

  I didn’t recognize this particular vampire—he was probably in his twenties. He likely graduated the Academy—undoubtedly from College Samedi—before I’d arrived. I plunged Beli into his chest, and his body dissipated in a cloud of black smoke.

  I bent over toward the girl.

  The bite… it’s too deep. We’re too late.

  “Fuck that,” I said. “You can heal these bites.”

  No, Annabelle… If you do that, she’ll turn. Let her go…

  I drew on some of Isabelle’s magic. She cut me off.

  “Isabelle, we are not letting this girl die.”

  She’ll only hurt someone else. She’ll become like he was.

  “I won’t let that happen! Now let me access your magica!”

  Isabelle sighed. Fine, but when this goes south, it’s your mess.

  I nodded and inhaled deeply—Isabelle’s green magica filled my eyes. I placed my hands to the girl’s wound and released the energies into her. Her wound healed in seconds.

  The girl was shaking uncontrollably. She reminded me of a younger version of myself. Long dark hair, a slender frame, and wide eyes—only they weren’t wearied by years of trauma and bitterness. Not like mine had been by the time I was her age. The trauma she now knew… it was just beginning to set in.

  “My name is Annabelle,” I said. “You’re safe now.”

  “I’m Hailey. Please… is he gone?”

  I nodded. “Nice to meet you, Hailey. I promise, he’s gone. He can’t hurt you a
nymore. But I need to take you with me now.”

  “To the hospital?”

  I shook my head. “They can’t help you. But I will. I promise, I will.”

  Chapter Two

  I pulled out my phone and texted Mercy: “We got him. Had to stake him. Sorry :(”

  “Dammit,” Mercy replied.

  “And he bit someone…”

  “Take care of it.”

  “I did.”

  Mercy sent back a thumbs-up emoji. Though, by taking care of it, I was reasonably sure she meant that I should have staked his victim, too. There were simply too many new vampires on the run, and Mercy couldn’t keep up with them all. Everyone who’d died in Vilokan who had the aspect of Baron Samedi, in fact, had been recently turned—partially Mercy’s fault for raising their corpses as a zombie army to utilize against Kalfu, and partly mine for attempting to release all the souls that Kalfu had hoped to infuse into his Bokors, leaving those who had Samedi’s aspect free to naturally reinhabit their bodies. Thus, the zombies became more than corpses, they became vampires. It wasn’t the usual process that left someone in a condition of vampirism—but it had done the trick, no less.

  Mercy sent a second text. “Meet me at CDD.”

  CDD—had to be short for Casa do Diabo. Though, in truth, it had never occurred to me to abbreviate it before. I couldn’t go into the house. The place was warded against anyone who had Ogoun’s aspect. That excluded Mikah, too. Still, there was a fairly nice garden there—albeit one that doubled as the burial site for a few “staked” vampires—that provided a fairly convenient place to meet. Besides, since my family home had burned down and Vilokan was still uninhabitable, the only building I owned was the old slave quarters on my family’s property. Since Isabelle had actually lived there briefly during her human life, no small part of me recoiled at the idea of sleeping there.

  So, for the last week or so I’d been sleeping at the nastiest hotel I could find. Since I was Kalfu’s number one target, I didn’t want to risk any innocent lives being caught up in whatever he might have planned next. I picked the lowest-rated, single-star hotel listed on Google. Not even the dude from Hotel Impossible could fix this one. The first three sets of sheets they gave me had strange stains on them. The standard stuff: blood, semen, probably some poop. I gave up and bought a set of my own—but then I forgot to hang the “do not disturb” sign on the door when I left in the morning. I was reasonably sure that my sheets would be gone when I got back. Thankfully, I’d bought two sets and stashed the second one in my Camaro for good measure.

  Pauli teleported himself back to Casa do Diabo directly—the last thing I wanted to do was freak Hailey out further. She’d just been attacked by a vampire, and though she probably didn’t realize it, she was in the process of becoming one. I couldn’t imagine—a girl with her whole life ahead of her. She couldn’t go back home. It wouldn’t be safe. I put my arm around her.

  “Where are your parents, honey?” I asked.

  Hailey shrugged. “They don’t know I’m here. Snuck out.”

  I tried to suppress my grin—this girl more than looked like me. I’d been known to sneak out from time to time when I was her age. My parents, still home at the time, were nonetheless not really there, and Ashley was the one who was left to scold me. “There are bad people out there,” she’d tell me. “People who could hurt you.” But when I was a teenager, particularly one just beginning to learn what I could do with Isabelle’s power inside of me, I felt like I was invincible. I thought the world was mine to conquer.

  “Who’d you sneak out to go meet?” I asked.

  “A boy.”

  “Is he around?” I asked.

  Hailey shook her head. “He took off when the guy attacked me. Just ran. I thought he was going for help, but…”

  “He was probably scared, too,” I said. “The thing that attacked you…”

  “Just some crazy person,” Hailey said.

  “He was a vampire,” I said.

  Hailey snorted. “Not in the mood for jokes.”

  “I’m not joking.”

  Hailey rolled her eyes. “All right. I think I’m going to go home, now. Thanks for… whatever.”

  “Hailey, you can’t.”

  Hailey extended her middle finger as she walked away. I sighed. I didn’t want to do this, but I had no choice. “Isabelle, don’t heal me. Not right way.”

  I bit my hand—hard. I drew a little blood.

  Immediately Hailey turned around. “What is that…”

  I held up my hand as a drop of blood dripped down my wrist. “You feel the hunger, don’t you?”

  “I… Oh my God… so weird!”

  I nodded. “Okay, Isabelle.”

  “Who is…”

  My eyes began to glow green as Isabelle released some magica into my wound.

  “What the fuck are you?”

  “I’m a person. It’s the truth. But I have a connection to another spirit, one who allows me to heal.”

  Hailey was biting her lip. “The craving, the hunger I felt, it went away.”

  I nodded. In truth, I didn’t know a ton about vampires. No one really did…except vampires. But I needed to give Hailey confidence. I needed her to come with me. If not, she probably wouldn’t survive more than a few nights. “You’re turning. Soon, your teeth will begin to change. The cravings will become irresistible. You won’t just crave blood when someone is actively bleeding in front of you. You’ll start to see everyone, even the people you love, as prey. You need to let me help you.”

  “What can you do for me?” Hailey asked. “Assuming what you say is true, why would you help me?”

  “I can handle myself,” I said. “But I know someone else who can help you control it. And I don’t want to scare you further, but there’s something else out there. Something hunting vampires. It craves vampire blood. And if he gets to you, there’s very little I can do. Please, come with me.”

  Hailey took a deep breath. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Fuck! I just wanted to get out of the house!”

  I nodded, stepped a little closer, and put my hand on the girl’s shoulder. “If you come with me, I promise, I’ll do what I can to help you through this transition. If you can control it, you might be able to have something that resembles a normal life someday. But you need to let me help you.”

  Chapter Three

  “You said you took care of it,” Mercy said.

  I almost jumped out of my pants as I turned to her, blindsiding my face with a branch from one of the trees in the garden.

  “Holy shit, Mercy.”

  Mercy smirked—she enjoyed it when I embarrassed myself. “The reason that one got away is because I can’t possibly keep that many baby vamps in check. So you got rid of him, had to be done. But you allow his victim to turn?”

  “She’s young,” I said. “It’s only right. You were young once, too. A whole life ahead of you.”

  Mercy looked at Hailey with her red, beady eyes. “A whole life… exchanged for an eternity as a creature of the night. Is this what you desire, girl?”

  “I just want to go home. I didn’t choose this.”

  “Be that as it may,” Mercy said, “it is not the choice to become what you are that is in front of you now. The choice you have is whether the life of one like me is one you can stomach. You have to think about what it will be like to see your family grow old and die while you remain the same. You have to think about living without being able to enjoy a sunny day. Food will never be the same. You will have to feed. More at first than later. But can you live with yourself when you do?”

  Hailey shook her head. “I don’t know. I mean, what if I only bite bad people?”

  Mercy grinned, showing off her fangs. Hailey gasped a little at the sight.

  “Are you prepared to judge the good from the bad? How can you ever be sure? Does a butcher consider the morality of a heifer before leading it to slaughter?”

  “That’s different,” Hailey said. “Cows
aren’t people.”

  “Sounds like you’re making a judgment based on the alleged superiority of your own former species. But soon you will be a more superior creature still. The humans will be like cattle were to you before. Useful, insofar as they can be. Food when required.”

  “Mercy,” I said. “Is this really necessary? The girl is just trying to come to grips—”

  “The girl you turned needs to know the truth about her new condition. If she cannot accept it, you might as well stake her here and now. Put her out of her misery.”

  “No!” Hailey said. “Don’t do that. I can accept it. Just please, help me learn, help me deal with the hunger. I’m already feeling the urge…”

  I placed my hand over my neck as Hailey eyed me, looking at me less with the puppy dog innocence and fear that she had at first and more with a growing desire. Her own craving was proving Mercy’s words—soon, there would be no moral inhibitions that prevented her from acting on her nature. She’d have to learn to control her craving, come to learn like Mercy had that discipline is the key to her own survival.

  “Very well,” Mercy said. “I will help you. But once she has mastered her cravings, she becomes your responsibility, Annabelle. And in the meantime, I will need your assistance to help keep the other new vampires in check. They fear you, which can be useful.”

  “Why do they fear you?” Hailey asked.

  “Because most stakes just put a vampire into a kind of stasis. Unless their bodies are burned, they’ll come back. But if I stake a vampire—”

  “It’s the end of the line,” Mercy said. “She’s a badass vampire killer.”

  “And she’s the one who’s going to take care of me, not you?” Hailey asked.

  Mercy huffed. “Probably not a bad thing. She’s one you want on your side. And getting on her good side is almost impossible to do.”

  Mercy’s words rang true—but there was also something haunting about them. Yes, it was to the vampires’ advantage to stay on my good side. But I also represented a threat. My mind went back to one of Oggie’s lectures. When facing an enemy more powerful than yourself, there are two options. First, you appease the foe. Make yourself valuable enough to them that they’d never think to eliminate you. But there is another option—take out the foe quickly, take them by surprise. The only way to truly be free from a powerful threat was to eliminate them—it was the more risky option, but it also had the greater upside. For now, the vampires were taking the first strategy. But knowing that I could eliminate them if they ever stepped out of line… I was pretty sure they’d turn on me eventually. I’d have to get used to sleeping with one eye open… or at least sleeping during the daytime.