Watery Graves Read online

  “Rise and shine, sleepyhead!” a familiar voice said, full of southern twang.

  I rubbed my eyes. Joni stood there, looking gorgeous as ever. Now, no longer in shell-clad armor, she was wearing what might have been the skimpiest seaweed bikini she could possibly assemble without violating any decency laws. If there was such a thing down here. She’d always been something of a southern belle—conservative, polite, and modest. This Joni… something was different about her. She’d really come out of her shell.

  Joni! Isabelle exclaimed. Isabelle knew Joni before she’d been soul-fused to me. It was for Joni’s sake—to warn Joni about what Isabelle’s sister, Messalina, had intended to do to her and her family—that Isabelle’s ghost reappeared in the realm of the living to begin with. It was their tale, thwarting Messalina and such, that culminated in my family being attacked, leaving Isabelle’s soul fused with mine.

  Joni cocked her head. “Isabelle awake in there?”

  I yawned. “She’s unbelievably thrilled to see you.”

  Joni grinned. “You were pretty incredible out there yesterday.”

  “Not incredible enough. I’m sorry about Evan.”

  Joni pressed her lips together. “Loss is something the people here have come to live with.”

  “Is that why you left? Why you’re here? And how did you get a tail, anyway?”

  Joni laughed. “Didn’t realize we were playing twenty questions.”

  “Well, you up and left. Broke Roger’s heart. Then all we heard from him is that you went ‘missing’ and he wouldn’t talk about it. Especially not after he started seeing Ashley.”

  Joni cocked her head. “Roger and Ashley are dating?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll be. Not like I shouldn’t have seen it coming. She’s a pretty girl, and she’s had eyes for him so long as I can remember.”

  “Still fairly new. But he’s been training her. He was, anyway, before she joined me at the Academy.”

  “Some place, that Academy, ain’t it?”

  “It was…”

  Joni nodded. “My condolences, honey. Agwe told me…”

  I nudged Pauli, who had tied himself in a knot and was still trying to sleep. “This guy here. He saved a lot of lives down there.”

  “Still, losing that much life, and in such a short amount of time. We’ve had to live with that here, too. You never really do wrap your mind around it.”

  “I just feel numb. Sounds crazy, but the only time I broke down and cried was when I realized my dog had probably died in Vilokan, too.”

  Joni nodded. “Lives lost is tragic. But when they aren’t people close to us, it’s easy to kind of push it to the back of your mind. People die every day, ya know? But when you lose someone close to you, even a dog, it becomes a personal loss. I get it.”

  I wish she never left…

  I smiled. “Isabelle wishes you never left. What in the world happened when you moved anyway? How’d you end up here?”

  Joni shook her head. “Met a boy. Fell in love. Broke his heart. Got into some deep shit of the supernatural variety. Met a Fomorian. Came here to try and sort some stuff out. I guess I just never left. You can really lose yourself in this place. The beauty of it. The culture…”

  I nodded. “But what about the people you left behind? Didn’t you stop to think about how they still needed you?”

  Joni nodded. “Every day, honey. I still do. But after a while it just becomes too late, ya know? I did lose myself in this place. I became someone else. The old me could never go back. And when I saw how much I was needed here…”

  “Speaking of that, do you think I could help with that? I mean, I can actually kill those sharks.”

  “Can’t kill what’s already dead, honey.”

  “You know what I mean. With my soul weapon, I can send them to the realm of the dead. Get them out of your hair. With me, you might actually be able to beat this Anne Bonny chick.”

  Joni grinned. “You’re here for a quest, Annabelle. To recover my husband’s trident.”

  “Did you just say husband?”

  Joni smiled widely. “Yes, I married Admiral Agwe.”

  I scrunched my brow. “You realize he’s married to Erzulie, too, right?”

  “Who isn’t married to that bitch?” Joni said, chuckling. “To love a Loa means accepting some things that aren’t ordinary. But there is no love between Loa. Not really. Their marriage is more like business than romance.”

  “Still, it’s hard to imagine…”

  “This isn’t about me, is it? It’s about you and Ogoun.”

  “How’d you know about that!”

  “My husband said Ogoun kissed you, just before you left with him.”

  I almost blushed remembering it. A slight grin split my face. “Yeah… that happened. Was the first time, though.”

  “And you’re reluctant because he’s married to Erzulie, too?”

  “Amongst other reasons. Isabelle isn’t exactly thrilled with the idea either. And she has her own boyfriend.”

  Joni scrunched her brow. “How in the world does that even begin to work?”

  I laughed. “The boy she’s seeing, he’s really good with herbs and whatnot. Concocted a formula that would prevent those horrendous headaches I’d get after I let her take the reins and ended up back in charge.”

  “Still,” Joni said. “Has to be weird. Both of you seeing different guys. Each of you having to experience…”

  “Trust me, I know. It’s downright awkward at times. I guess we’ve come to accept that we’re either going to live our lives loveless, or we’ll have to tolerate a little discomfort now and then for the other’s sake.”

  “Sounds like you two have figured out a way to coexist.”

  I laughed. “We don’t bicker as much as we used to. But don’t get me wrong, we’re still as different as the night is from the day.”

  Talk about the understatement of the century…

  “And Isabelle concurs,” I continued. “The one thing we might actually agree on is the fact that we disagree about everything.”

  Joni laughed. “Your boa friend over there. Is he all right?”

  I nudged Pauli again. He uncurled, his body limp.

  “Shit, he’s having one of his visions again.”

  “Visions?” Joni asked.

  “His real body is inhabited by Kalfu.”

  “Oh, he’s the one…”

  I nodded. “Most of his soul was transferred to the snake. But there’s something that connects him. Every now and then he gets glimpses of whatever Kalfu is doing. Just need to give him a little jolt of magica to wake him up.”

  “I can help with that,” Joni said. “I just need a taste and I can amplify it. Keep what else you have in your reserves.”

  I nodded. My eyes glowed a little, and Joni inhaled—her blue eyes changed to green. Joni placed her hand on Pauli, and a jolt of jade energies flooded his boa constrictor frame. He jerked, curled into a ball, and then started swimming around the room like he was out of his mind.

  “Holy shit! Bleh! Bleh! Ack! Thank you for getting me out of there! Oh my god!”

  “Pauli,” I said, “calm down. What did you see?”

  “Some ceremony. In the woods. Kalfu was with a bunch of Bokors. We drank blood… real blood… I could taste it. I’ve had a lot of bodily fluids in my mouth, even vampire blood, but this stuff… ugh…”

  What kind of blood? Isabelle asked.

  “I think it was goat blood. Had to be. There was the body of one burning over the fire.”

  “At least it wasn’t human…”

  “We should tell my husband about this,” Joni said. “He might understand what it means.”

  Chapter Six

  Joni left me and Pauli waiting at the entrance to Agwe’s chambers.

  “I must go and be sure that the admiral is prepared for visitors.”

  I nodded, and Joni—whom Titus greeted with the words “Good day, General La Sirene”—passed t
hrough a curtain of seaweed.

  Titus stood guard over Agwe’s chambers, looking as homicidal as ever. He’d make the perfect heel if the WWE ever expanded its operations to the ocean floor. I grinned at him slightly—partly out of desire to demonstrate my friendliness, though mostly out of an irrational sense of nervousness that his presence caused. He’d been nice enough, initially. And I know they say you can’t judge a book by its cover… and the same goes for people and their appearances. I wanted to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I really did.

  You realize, his aura is totally cool. Noting ill-natured about him at all…

  I coughed over my shoulder—a signal I often used to let Isabelle know I had heard her. I usually used it when we were around people who didn’t know about her, who’d think I had a room reserved at the loony bin on account of talking to myself. Isabelle was right. I was judging this guy by appearance. And that was a dangerous thing to do. Not just because you run the risk of judging someone unfairly, but because you also run the risk of trusting someone you shouldn’t, just because they “look” like the good-natured type. If my time at the Voodoo Academy taught me anything, it was that sometimes it’s the last person you’d imagine who is the most dangerous. I mean, who would have ever thought Alexa Windstrom—student extraordinaire and wielder of storms—would actually have allowed herself to get suckered into a bargain with Kalfu? If that’s what happened… it had to be. It never occurred to me that she was the threat. That’s because the real villains, the ones who actually intend to do evil shit, are the least likely ones to wear it on their sleeves. Superhero comics aside, the bad guys hardly ever wear costumes to give themselves away. Hell, even Kalfu had appeared—at least before he’d taken Pauli’s body as a host—in a tuxedo and top hat of all things. Sure, it might look suspect to someone in the 21st century, but back in the day, he dressed like a refined gentleman.

  We stood there, in front of Titus, for what seemed like an eternity in an uncomfortable silence. Finally, he stepped aside, used his trident to pull open the seaweed curtain, and nodded—a gesture I took as an invitation to go in. I had no idea what signal he’d received to know that Agwe was now decent and ready for visitors. I hadn’t heard or seen anything. But he knew… somehow. I didn’t bother questioning it. I was just glad to escape the awkwardness of the moment.

  “Miss Mulledy!” Agwe exclaimed as he saw me—Pauli slithering beside me—enter his chambers. He wasn’t a king. Not exactly. They called him “admiral” for some reason—but for all intents and purposes, he was the monarch down here. And Titus had called Joni—La Sirene, rather—a “general.” A bit odd, but none of it changed a thing for me. Agwe wanted me to retrieve his trident—not entirely sure why he couldn’t get the damn thing himself, but whatever. I mean, if you lose your own shit, you should be the one who has to brave hell and high water to find it again. Nonetheless, I was here. It seemed important that I be here. And I had to admit, the underwater breathing was actually a pretty cool side effect of possessing Agwe’s aspect. Once you got past the first few breaths, anyway.

  “La Sirene tells me that your friend has had a vision.”

  “I’m right here, yo!” Pauli exclaimed, clearly perturbed that Agwe was speaking to me directly rather than trying to converse with a snake. It wasn’t the first time, and wouldn’t be the last, either. Let’s face it, talking to snakes, especially when they talk back, can be a bit unsettling if you aren’t accustomed to it.

  “My apologies. The nature of the ritual that my wife has described to me is concerning on several levels. It leads me to question if we’d miscalculated Kalfu’s intentions with respect to the dead who languish in Vilokan.”

  “Why is that?” I asked. “What were they trying to accomplish with the goat blood and all that?”

  “It’s a way that Bokors affect the transference of souls. Not unlike the spell that bound you to your familiar, or the one that put your friend into the serpent.”

  “I didn’t drink no goat’s blood to get like this!”

  “It’s not the one who will be possessed who must consume the blood,” Agwe said. “It is, rather, the Bokor or Mambo who intends to perform the rite.”

  “But Pauli said he could taste it. That means that Kalfu was consuming it himself.”

  “Kalfu also possesses the essence of Baron Samedi—trapped inside him much like Kalfu once was inside of Legba. If he can access the Baron’s power, and if he is the subject of the rite, then all I can figure is that he intends to do more than raise the citizens of Vilokan as corpses.”

  “He wants to harness their souls? Transfer them into what… or who?”

  “Your friend, the snake, what is his surname?”

  “Just call me Pauli. I just go by Pauli. No mister whatever. I can’t stand that shit.”

  Agwe smirked. “Very well, Pauli. How many others did you see in the vision? Was Kalfu acting alone, or was he in the presence of many?”

  “Couldn’t tell. I mean, I couldn’t make out any faces. Too much smoke. But I could hear voices. A lot of them.”

  “Bokors,” Agwe said. “I fear that Agwe intends to vest each of the Bokors who have allied with him the soul of one of the fallen. All powerful vodouisants in their own way… all possessing abilities, and powers, more so in death than in life.”

  “Not all the dead have power,” I said.

  “The girl within you has power, does she not?”

  “Yes, but Isabelle was given her power from a dryad, at the Tree of Life.”

  “Was she? Or did Lugh—I presume we’re speaking of him—simply make her aware of a power that was already hers, a part of her soul?”

  “Humans don’t have powers. Not normally.”

  “Tell me, you’ve been to Guinee. What is the place like?”

  “Not exactly heaven…”

  “No, it’s a lot like earth, is it not?”

  I scrunched my brow. “Yeah, but it’s like a perfect earth. It’s pristine and pure.”

  “There are many myths. Many stories. You’re a Catholic girl, are you not, Miss Mulledy?”

  I nodded. “I sure am.”

  “Then let me frame the story in terms of the first couple—in terms of Adam and Eve. Something changed about them, did it not, when they disobeyed the Maker?”

  “They realized they were naked,” I said.

  “They felt shame. Shame is not an original human emotion.”

  “Well, they fucked up. So yeah, I guess they did feel shame.”

  “But they weren’t just hiding from God, were they? I mean, he came looking for them, and they were hiding. But they were also hiding from each other. Hiding their bodies from each other. They knew something had been lost, but they didn’t know what.”

  “Are you saying they lost their powers?”

  “In a roundabout way. I’m saying they lost a part of their humanity. Not that it went away. But they could no longer access their full selves. The spirit of Bondye, of God, which was breathed into them and made them living creatures. That was theirs from the start.”

  “But then, on account of their sin, they were told they would die.”

  “Amongst other curses, yes.”

  “And a part of that was losing their powers?”

  “Don’t think of it as powers. Think of it as a part of their perfection. Gifts that made them uniquely themselves, equipped to function as originally intended. The magic you wield through Isabelle comes because she has already paid the penalty.”

  “The wages of sin is death,” I said, quoting from what I thought was the book of Romans.

  “Indeed. But sin is not just breaking a rule or a law. It’s about abandoning or leaving one’s true nature, one’s true humanity. Sin is a denial of self… a self that can only be recovered in death.”

  I bit my lip. “So when the dead souls are assumed, are fused with the souls of the Bokors…”

  “They’ll receive new abilities, abilities that the deceased did not even realize they possessed i
n life. Still, amplified and strengthened because of their affinity for the arts. They’ll become very much like you.”

  “Like us… like me and Isabelle.”

  Agwe nodded. “You can see why that might be a problem.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense. If Kalfu could get these abilities from random humans, why was he so intent on acquiring Nico’s soul? Why does he crave Isabelle so much? Seems like there are easier targets.”

  “No one knows what powers—if they’d be useful at all—might come with a soul. Nico had acquired hundreds of souls through the centuries as a vampire. He refined the abilities he gained. Like a weightlifter grows stronger through repetition, the powers Nico possessed were on a whole league above that of what coheres in a human soul in its natural state. And in your case, Isabelle’s powers, while natural to herself, are altogether unique. Her connection to the Tree of Life, I do not know if such power has ever been wielded by a mortal. None except, perhaps, a carpenter from Nazareth with whom you are undoubtedly familiar.”

  I looked at Agwe incredulously. “Isabelle has Jesus power?”

  “Not exactly. She clearly cannot raise the dead. If she could, she would have done so after the tragedy that befell the young boy from Aida-Wedo in the Trials.”

  “Brayden…” I said, my voice calm. Even though I’d seen him in spirit, even though I had closure of a sort, it still irked me what had happened to him. He was a brilliant kid. Young. Gifted. Smart.

  Agwe nodded. “Isabelle’s power might not be the same, precisely, as that wielded by the Nazarene. But it is of a similar nature. She can heal, can she not? She can command the elements of nature, am I right?”