Cursed (32 page)

“C’mon,” he said.

Adrienne trailed, hesitating at the doorway where he’d tossed her iPad. It sat on a couch cushion in a tiny formal living room. Her excitement from the ride was beginning to fade, replaced by unease.

Jax had passed the stairs and was trotting up a second set of stairs leading to the top level of the row house.

Adrienne followed. The upper level consisted of a short hallway and three doors. One led to a small guest bedroom while the other had a laundry room. Jax had disappeared into the third doorway, and she went to it, pausing. A set of wooden stairs led upward to a dark attic she couldn’t see much of, aside from the beams holding up the roof. She glanced at the door, wondering why they needed one so thick that looked like it was made out of metal.

Don’t do this, Addy,
she told herself. Her instincts were at a roar again. No matter what the woman who broke into her apartment told her, she was getting nothing but bad vibes about Jax’s intentions in bringing her here.

“Jax?” she called.

“Come on up,” he replied.

Adrienne stepped slowly into the spacious attic, allowing her eyes to adjust to the poor lighting. A single bulb was on in a corner, leaving most of the attic a maze of dark shapes.

She reached the top and glanced around, trying to make out what was in the attic. What looked like a stack of boxes was a few feet from the nearest wall, and there were shelves lining all four walls beneath a tall, A-frame roof supported by wooden beams.

“Jax?”

He didn’t answer this time, and she walked towards the lighted part of the attic.

The light came from candles at a shrine to Baron Samedi. A large, stone altar was a few feet from the shrine and its candles. This part of the attic smelled like bleach, but she caught the undercurrent of something sickly sweet she didn’t recognize that made her nose wrinkle.

Her eyes took in the strange scene. It certainly looked like some place where a
bokor
devised black magic spells. The altar was creepy, especially the streaks of what looked like blood that had dried down the sides and the drain two feet away that appeared to be clogged with hair.

Candace’s right. This is a mistake.
Adrienne swallowed hard and backed away. Starting to feel freaked out by the place, Adrienne whirled and hurried towards the stairs. She smacked into someone solid and stifled a cry of surprised, not wanting to imagine what lurked in the scary storage space.

Jax steadied her and pushed her back towards the altar.

“Addy.” The woman’s soft voice made Adrienne stop.

A tall woman with blonde hair moved from the shadows on one side of the attic. She was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, her hair tied at the base of her neck. Her skin was clammy and pale, her eyes glazed but trained on Adrienne.

“Jax brought you to visit me.” Her words were faint, as if they came from far away.

Like the woman from Saturday, this woman was pretty – and not quite right.

“I’m sorry if I scared you last time.”

Adrienne shifted, not wanting to connect the bloodied altar and Samedi shrine with what happened Saturday.

“Therese?” she asked.

“Yes.” The stranger smiled. “Jax brings me back every month.”

“You left me the notes.”

“I did.” Therese’s nervous glance at Jax made Adrienne think the gang leader didn’t know about the notes. He hadn’t known about the journal, either, until Adrienne brought it up.

Why was Therese keeping secrets from the man she claimed to love?

“I, uh, didn’t have much time Saturday,” Therese rushed on. “Can I … hug you?”

Adrienne hesitated, scared by the idea of hugging a possessed zombie. She waned to ask more questions but wasn’t certain she should, unless she could get her sister alone.

“Hug your sister, Adrienne.” Jax’s low voice held a note of warning.

Adrienne moved to the woman housing Therese’s spirit. Therese hugged her hard, and Adrienne was relieved that she felt real, alive. She closed her eyes, trying hard to pretend like it really was Therese.

“I don’t understand,” Adrienne murmured, pulling her head back to view the face of the woman holding her. Up close, the woman’s features held the pale blue tinge of death.

“We’ll explain,” Therese promised. “Right now, I need to ask you something.”

“Of course.”

“I never figured out the journal. Jax says you have.”

“But didn’t you write it?”

“I did. I used to call upon the spirits to take me, to show me how to break the curse,” Therese explained. “When they came, I’d write.”

Adrienne gazed at her, wanting to believe Therese was really there, even if only in spirit form. The hopeful look in the woman’s eyes was too real for her to be pretending.

“I’m going to try,” Adrienne said. “I’m marked now.” She pulled away and pushed down her white shirt to show Therese the number written on her shoulder.

“Oh, no. No, no!” Therese whispered, staring at it. “Jax, we didn’t do it. He just chose another to take my place!”

“It’s okay, Therese.” Jax’s deep voice was soft. “I brought Adrienne here so she can help you. She’s going to stay and work on it. Right, Adrienne?”

Adrienne turned to him, unwilling to be trapped in the attic with a zombie and a black magic wielding gang leader.

Jax’s sharp look, however, made her reconsider refusing.

“Yeah,” she forced herself to say.

“Oh, Addy! Thank you!” Therese hugged her.

“We need to talk, Therese,” Adrienne said.

“Next time,” Jax said quickly, calmly. “Therese, we need to give Addy time to figure things out.”

“Yes, Addy. I can’t stand the idea of losing you to the Red Man,” Therese said, her face growing sad. “You can save us both.”

No pressure.
Adrienne nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

“Come on, Therese. We’ll go to your favorite spot beneath the trees.”

Therese’s attention went to Jax, and the look of affection on her face was enough for Adrienne to understand why her smile was so large in the picture. Jax’s gaze warmed, a smile touching his lips.

He held out his hand, and Therese went to him.

“Go downstairs, baby,” he told her warmly.

She smiled at him and went. Jax watched her until she’d reached the bottom of the staircase.

They really loved each other. Adrienne wasn’t certain what to think, knowing Jax was using black magic to bring her sister back from the spirit world.

When Jax faced her, her fear returned. The smile was gone, the predatory threat back.

“I’ll help you, but please don’t make me stay here,” Adrienne said.

“This is where you should be.”

“What’s going on?” she whispered. “What did you do to that woman?”

He didn’t reply.

She wasn’t able to see his face in the darkness of the attic. He moved towards her, and she tried to skirt around him to get to the stairs.

Jax blocked her.

“I just needed a
bokor
. I didn’t mean to … intrude,” she said, struggling to keep calm. “Whatever’s going on here, I swear I won’t tell.”

His hands rested on her shoulders. He gripped her hard enough to keep her still. His intensity and size scared her.

Adrienne’s breathing was harsh in her own ears.

“You’re safe here, Adrienne. The Red Man can’t get you. The girl from school can’t get you,” he said quietly.

“Jax,” she whispered. “Please take me home.”

“Candace says you can break the curse.”

She swallowed hard. “Maybe.”

“How?”

“Therese’s journal. I’ve been working on it on my iPad.”

“I’ve got something better.” He released her with one hand. A moment later, he pressed the familiar leather journal into hand. “How long do you need?”

“For what?” she asked.

“To break the curse.”

“I don’t even know if I can. It’s just … just a theory. Maybe, if I could talk to Therese some more …”

His hand slid from her shoulder to her neck, and he pulled her closer.

Adrienne stopped speaking, scared. She braced her arms against his chest, silently praying he wouldn’t kill her, at least not with her sister upstairs.

“You better have more than a theory.” Jax’s voice was low, calm. “I’ll give you two days, Adrienne. If you can’t break it, I’ll save the Red Man a trip.” He squeezed her throat in warning. “You understand?”

“Y…yes.”

“Good.” He released her.

She sagged, catching herself against a stack of boxes.

Jax moved away towards the stairs. “I’m going to Coffee Loa with your sister.”

“Can I do this at home?” she said in a trembling voice.

“I’ll be back tonight. It’s in your best interest to have something to show me.”

“Jax, wait!” she cried, panicking. “Please don’t leave me here!”

“Do what I say, Adrienne!” he snarled, striding towards her.

Adrienne tried to duck away, but he snatched her arms and shoved her hard into the wall, nearly knocking the breath from her. Lowering his head to meet her gaze, he glared at her, his eyes hard.

“You
will
do this. You will bring her back or you will take her place. I don’t give a damn which it is, Adrienne,” he growled. “Because of who you are, I’m giving you one chance to fix this. If you can’t, you’ll be the next girl the police find in an alley.”

His words terrified her. Adrienne said nothing, struggling to register the horrors that had occurred in this cellar.

“I can’t stand seeing you,” he added, a note of despair in his voice. He released her roughly and moved towards the stairs. “Too much like Therese. We tried every black magic spell there was to break the curse. Spirits help you, you better be able to do what we can’t.”

“Can I talk to her again?” Adrienne asked uncertainly.

“Maybe.” He jogged down the staircase. “Show me some progress.”

A moment later, she heard the heavy metal door slam shut and the sound of it being bolted.

Adrienne dropped to her knees, hugging the journal and breathing hard. It took a long moment before she was able to master her emotions enough to stand without sobbing. She pulled herself up with the help of the boxes and looked around.

Her eyes settled on the altar near the candlelight. She knew that smell now. It was the scent of death, like when a cat crawled under the porch of her mama’s house and died.

Except a cat didn’t die here. The woman housing Therese’s spirit had.

You’ll be the next girl the police find in an alley.

She’d been afraid of Jax since she met him, but he seemed to know something about her sister. Was he really the serial killer plaguing the Lower Ninth Ward? Were the bodies police found those of women he’d slain as hosts for Therese?

Did Therese know what Jax was doing to bring her back? Was her sister as guilty of misusing magic as Jax?

Wiping her face, Adrienne ventured closer to the altar and shrine. She’d never feared Baron Samedi, the god who oversaw the dead. His shrine, however, was sinister, the blood splattered cement around it a testament to the blood rites Jax was performing.

Was she next, if she didn’t figure out how to break the curse?

What would the cards tell her?

Adrienne set down her backpack, unaware of how heavy it was until it was gone. She rolled her shoulders back. They felt bruised, if not from the bag then from Jax’s grip on her.

She skirted through the altar and shrine area, disgusted by it, and grabbed a candle. Hurrying back to her bag, she dropped to her knees and set down the candle before pulling out her cards.

With a deep breath to calm herself, she focused on how to escape the attic. Her hands shook as she shuffled, and she laid out a spread of three and three.

“Please, please help me,” she whispered to the spirits. “Show me what to do.”

She turned over the cards one at a time, growing more puzzled as she went. When she was done, she sat back.

Two of Pentacles, reversed

Two of Swords, reversed

Two of Pentacles, reversed

Two of Swords, reversed

High Priestess, reversed

Devil, reversed

“This isn’t possible,” she said, struggling to understand the story before her. Like her vision in the car, the cards had taken on their own life, showing her what she didn’t think was possible. “There’s only one of each card in the deck!” She stared at them, convinced the stress of her situation was making her misread them.

She closed her eyes, counted to three, then opened them.

The cards hadn’t changed.

She was close to crying again.

“A good spread.”

She twisted at the unfamiliar voice and sprang to her feet.