The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women (Mammoth Books) (59 page)

Hawk gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “Happened? Nothing happened. Not for a while.” The ghost dropped his voice, although I was pretty sure I was the only one who could hear him. “Until he came back to the alley for another duel. I could see he’d picked another easy mark, like I’d been. Poor fellow must have borrowed the gun; he could barely tell the butt from the barrel.”

“And?” I asked, sure there was more to the story.

Hawk glanced at me over his shoulder, his lips pressed in a tight, pained smile. “Just as the guy who had challenged me sighted to aim, I tackled him. Went right through him. It made him shiver, and it threw off his aim. He missed, and the poor fellow he’d challenged was so frightened he managed to squeeze off a shot and got lucky. Took my murderer through the shoulder, and he bled to death before his buddies could do anything about it. The other guy ran off as fast as he could.” Hawk didn’t look as smug as I’d expected him to. Instead, he just looked sad. “But I’m still here.”

Finally, Hawk stopped in front of an old slave cabin. I hesitated, unsure of what to do. Walking up and knocking didn’t seem like a good idea. Before I could ask Hawk what came next, the door opened and an old woman dressed in white stood in the doorway.

“That’s Mama Nadege,” Hawk whispered. “Tell her I brought you.”

“Mama Nadege?” I managed, finding my throat had gone dry. “I’m supposed to tell you that Hawk brought me here. It’s about the weeping ghost.”

Mama Nadege looked me up and down, and then she did the same to Evann. When she spoke, I could see that her gaze was fixed just off to my right, where Hawk’s ghost stood. “Well, of course Hawk brought you. He’s right with you, plain as day.” Her voice was thick as gumbo, heavy with the consonants of the islands and somewhere else I couldn’t place.

“Come in then. The neighbours won’t bother you none, not now that they know you’re here to see me,” she added, with a glance towards the darkened buildings behind us.

We followed Mama Nadege into her house. The air was heavy with the smell of incense and candle smoke. Mama Nadege was a big woman, swathed in a white, loose gown. Her hair was tied up in a kerchief, and I couldn’t tell her age from her face. Her eyes were what drew me. Black eyes, dark as her skin, like deep pools for drowning. Her magic flowed around me, almost smothering in its intensity, but my power sensed no threat. She was curious, and intrigued. And I had the unsettling feeling that she had been expecting us.

Her small cabin was hung with brightly coloured block-printed cloths and filled with candles, clay figures, crude stuffed, dolls, and carved wooden images. Lanyards of shells, beads and dried plants festooned everything.

“You’re a mambo,” Evann said.

Mama Nadege smiled. “Mambo asogwe,” she replied.

Evann turned to me. “She’s a high priestess of voodoo.”

I’d heard that term before, but I hadn’t associated it with Charleston. “I thought voodoo only happened in New Orleans,” I replied.

Mama Nadege laughed, a deep chuckle that resonated. “Oh, there be voodoo in Charleston, all right. My mama was born in Haiti, where we know how to talk to spirits. She was brought to New Orleans and sold there, but her mistress married a man from Charleston and brought my mama with her. She raised me in the power. She wasn’t the only one he brought here from New Orleans, either. Oh, no, child, the voodoo is all around you. You’re just too pale to notice,” she said, and laughed heartily at her own joke.

She sobered and looked at me again, and I felt tendrils of her magic gliding over my skin. I fought the urge to shiver. “You’ve got some power,” she murmured, her consonants smooth as a spicy roux. “Considerable power. Why’d it bring you to me, child?”

Evann gave me the barest hint of a nod, letting me know it was safe to tell the truth, or at least most of it. “I’m trying to stop a necromancer. He’s got a dark magic object, and my master sent me to take it back from him, put it somewhere it can’t hurt anyone.”

She eyed me carefully. “You’re nobody’s slave,” she said, walking slowly around me. “You might not own those fancy clothes, but you’re a freeman, sure enough.” She began to shake her head. “Uh, uh, uh,” she murmured. “Only one kind of man be your master. You serve a nightwalker, am I right?”

“Nightwalker” seemed close enough to vampire to accept without quibbling. “Yes.”

“Mr Sorren?”

I tried to hide my astonishment. “Yes.”

Mama Nadege relaxed, and smiled broadly. “Well, why didn’t you say so?” She gestured towards two chairs near the fireplace. “Sit down. Tell Mama what you know, and what you need to know.”

I told her about the missing girl, and how she might be the weeping woman Hawk told us about. Mama Nadege listened as I recounted the ball and the encounter with Judge Von Dersch, and rocked back and forth in her chair without saying anything. “There’s one more thing,” I added. “I saw a marking by the doorway. I don’t think I was supposed to see it. The man who took my coat looked afraid when I noticed it, like it might cause trouble.” I paused. “Afterwards, Evann and I walked around the house, and a whole series of markings were made on the foundation stones. They were made of cornmeal and ash.”

Mama Nadege nodded knowingly. “Oh, trouble it would cause, that’s for sure.” She bent down and drew on the hard dirt floor of her cabin with a stick, tracing an elaborate symbol very like the one by the door of the Hallingsworth house. “Did it look like this?”

I nodded. “That’s one of the marks. There were others.”

Mama Nadege sat back up. “Those are veves. Powerful magic. They can open the gateway to the spirits, bring one of the loa, the Invisibles, across to guide us. Someone took a risk to try to protect that house.”

“If the . . . veves . . . are there for protection, how did Judge Von Dersch get in, if he really is a necromancer?” I asked.

Mama Nadege shook her head. “Someone did his best to protect that house. Risked a whippin’, or worse, if he got caught. But it’s for nothin’. Takes a mambo to chalk veves with power. Those were just pretty marks. Sure wouldn’t stop a necromancer none.” She gave me an arch look. “I notice it didn’t stop you from walking right in, either.”

I hadn’t thought of that. “No, ma’am,” I replied. “It didn’t.” I paused. “Have you heard the weeping girl? Seen the spirits?”

Mama Nadege began to rock again, and closed her eyes. “Oh, yes. I’ve seen her. I’ve seen all of them. Like a cloud of witnesses they are, all around us. And I’ll tell you something: all of them was wronged. Oh, most of them were pirates and thieves, like the judge say. Most of ’em deserved hangin’, they did indeed. But they didn’t deserve what happened after. And that girl, she didn’t deserve nothin’ like that.”

“Like what?” Evann asked, leaning forward.

“Most white folks ’round these parts like Judge Von Dersch because he’s a hangin’ judge. Had a reputation in Bermuda for hangin’ more pirates than any judge alive. And he ain’t stopped hangin’ them since he came to Charleston. No, siree. But he don’t just hang them. He makes sure the bodies get thrown in the oyster shoals. That’s a place of the damned, those shoals. Tide comes in and out through them, never fully dry and never fully wet. Those souls, they ain’t never gonna get no rest in a buryin’ place like that. They are doomed to suffer for eternity. Ain’t no one, not even pirates, deserves that, and there ain’t no judge but the Almighty right to pass that kind of sentence. But Von Dersch does.”

“Why?” I asked, intrigued and horrified. “Why would he care what happens to them after they’re dead?”

Mama Nadege shook her head. “You’re as green as you are white, son. This magic is new to you, ain’t it?”

I tried not to bristle. “I’ve had magic all my life,” I replied. “But no real schooling in it, until I met Sorren. I’ve got a lot to learn.”

My answer seemed to satisfy Mama. “That you do, son. Well, here’s your lesson for tonight. A necromancer draws power from enslaving spirits. Not just killing . . . slaving. I imagine you can guess how I feel about somethin’ like that.”

I swallowed hard. For all her power, Mama Nadege herself was owned as property by one of Charleston’s wealthy families. It didn’t take much imagination to guess that she’d take a dim view of any slaver, before or after death. “I imagine I can,” I said quietly. Another thought came to me, and I dared to look up at Mama Nadege.

“If you knew Von Dersch was a slaver, why didn’t you do something yourself?”

Mama Nadege began to laugh, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Oh, I did do something, child. I marked veves – powerful veves – around the places my people live. Those cabins out there, they’re the safest place in Charleston. He has no power, not in my alley. But how you reckon an old slave woman gonna come up against a judge, ’specially when all the masters favour him? Uh-uh. All I’d get is dead, and then who’s gonna protect my people?” She leaned forward. “But I can help you, if you’re of a mind to do it. That I can. And I’ve got some powerful friends myself.”

I exchanged a glance with Evann. This might be the best chance we were going to get. “All right, I said. “What do I need to do?”

“You need to get into that Judge’s house, and find his object of power. By himself, his magic is weak. I know this. It’s not his magic makes him so strong, it’s some dark object he has; bad thing, very bad. You get in there, you gonna find that he keeps something from all of the souls he’s bound – a reminder. I bet he’s got somethin’ belonged to the poor girl, too. How she got mixed up with him, I don’t know, but she got stuck, like the others. You go in there, you make it right, hear me? You be like Moses and let those poor slaved souls go free.”

I drew a deep breath. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t figured it would come to this, but hearing Mama Nadege say it made it entirely too real. “Sorren had someone scouting the houses,” I said finally. “He might have learned something we can use. I’d like to talk with him – and with Sorren – before we do anything.”

Mama chuckled. “You think I was gonna send you out tonight? Uh-uh. These things take time. I have to call the power. I have to talk to my loa, my guides. I know who I’m gonna call to help us, just the spirits who will want to see this man get what he deserve. You come back to the alley tomorrow night; mind it be an hour before low tide. Very important – because those souls, they be bound on the shoals. When the tide is high, his power is high. Tide go out, he’s weaker. That’s the time to strike.

“You get Hawk to bring you back here. My people know Hawk. They’ll leave you alone if you’re with him. You leave it to me. I’ll get you into that house – and out, too, maybe.”

I didn’t like the way that sounded, but it was probably the best I was going to get. Hawk saw us out to the end of the alley. “Thanks,” I said, not sure what to say to the ghost.

Hawk shrugged. “If you can help that girl, I’ll do what I can for you. I’m stuck here because I was stupid. I deserve what I got. But her – I don’t think she did anything wrong.”

I nodded. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said, feeling less sure of just what could be. Evann and I walked to where we were supposed to meet the carriage. To our surprise, it was still waiting for us.

“Get in.” The voice from inside the carriage was Sorren’s. I tried to hide my surprise as Evann and I climbed inside. Coltt was there, too. It made for a crowded ride.

“I had time to get into most of the houses on my list before your little party wound down,” Coltt said. “But there was one house I couldn’t enter. Wasn’t the locks – I can pick them. It was dark magic, and I couldn’t break it.”

“Let me guess,” I said with a look towards Evann. “Judge Von Dersch’s house.”

Sorren gave a cold smile. “I thought you might come to that conclusion.”

“We found something else out,” said Coltt. “About Felicity.”

I looked up with interest. “And?”

“Sorren did some research on the old court cases Judge Von Dersch handled. There was a case about six months after Felicity went missing where an entire pirate crew was seized and brought to trial. They were found guilty and hanged, but here’s the interesting part. The records say there was a woman aboard. She was dressed like a trollop and too drunk to give testimony, so they hanged her along with the pirates as the ship’s whore.”

A cold shiver went down my back. “If she’d been their prisoner for months . . . been dishonoured . . . she might not have been in her right mind by the time they found her,” I said quietly.

“Or the pirates might have kept her liquored up to make sure she couldn’t tell anyone who she was,” Coltt put in solemnly. “But it would explain what happened to her.”

“And why her ghost hasn’t been able to rest,” I finished.

I looked at Sorren. “You know anything about a mambo named Mama Nedege?”

“Mambo asogwe,” he replied. “In magic, distinctions matter.” Sorren paused. “So she found you?”

“I would have said we found her, but yes, we’ve met.”

Sorren chuckled. “More like, she led you to her. Mama’s very powerful. But she can’t go up against the judge on her own for the same reason I couldn’t confront him at the ball tonight. The risks of exposing what we are outweigh the possibility of being able to win. That’s why we need someone like you.”

I grimaced. “So I’ve been told.” Sorren and Coltt listened closely as Evann and I recounted our evening. I ended with Mama’s offer to help get me past the wardings that had stopped Coltt. Sorren nodded sagely.