Magic and Macaroons (17 page)

“Me neither,” Cookie said in a small voice.

Mother Eulora grinned, flashing her perfect dentures. “Eulora is fine. Or Mother. We have not met before.”

I shook my head. “No, ma’am. My name is Katie Lightfoot, and this is, er—” I shot a look at Cookie. Did she want me to introduce her as Elaine, like at Mambo Jeni’s?

But she stepped forward. “I’m Cookie Rios.”

Tanna brought a tray with tall glasses of tea in from the kitchen. I jumped up and pushed the magazines on the coffee table to one side so she could set it down.

Eulora took the proffered glass without looking at her. “Cookie. I like that name. I have not heard it before. Rios, though. That is a name I recall. Dominic.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Cookie said.

“Dominic was your father?”

Tanna’s gaze sharpened.

Cookie nodded.

“I heard about what happened to him in Haiti. I am sorry, my dear.”

Cookie looked at the floor. “Thank you.”

Then her gaze returned to me. “So, you are Katie Lightfoot. The candela.”

All the air seemed to leave the room. I stared at her.
Candela
was another name for lightwitch. I’d never heard anyone besides one other person utter it.

“You knew him,” I breathed. “Franklin Taite.”

Tanna glared at me. I had no idea why, but I could feel my heart beat faster, and I struggled to slow my breathing.

Eulora scooted back on the sofa cushion. Now she could lean against the back, but her feet no longer touched the floor. “Oh, yes. I know him. I know him quite well. And through him, I know you. Better than you might care for, actually.”

I licked my lips. “I don’t understand.”

“Soon enough.” Eulora took a slow sip of tea. “I assume you heard of me from Franklin.”

My eyes cut to Cookie, who frowned, then back to Eulora. “Not exactly.”

Her brow furrowed. “Now I don’t understand.”

“Um.” I took a deep breath.

“Poppa Jack gave us your name,” Cookie broke in before I could continue.

Eulora laughed. “Poppa Jack! How is that old coot?”

Cookie seemed to relax. “He’s at Magnolia Park now. But he’s still going strong.”

“Well, if you have to be in assisted living, that’s not a bad place to be. It’s nice out there. Fancy.” Eulora reached up and patted Tanna’s hand, which rested on the sofa behind her head. “But this is my apprentice, and I couldn’t ask for better.”

Tanna inclined her head. “And yet you fight me constantly.”

“A workout for the willpower is all that is. Have to keep fit up here,” she pointed to her forehead. “When the rest starts to go.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but her smile dropped and she shook her head. “It is what it is. Now. Katie Lightfoot. If Franklin didn’t send you, why are you here?”

“Well, I’m here about him,” I said.

“You said you were looking for a spell.” Tanna’s tone was accusing. “A location spell.”

Eulora shook her head. “Oh, Tanna. This one does not need us to cast a spell. She’s perfectly capable of doing that herself.”

“I lied,” I said to Eulora’s apprentice. “We’ve been to see two other voodoo queens, women Poppa Jack suggested. Being up front with what we’re looking for didn’t work out so well with them.”

She looked down her nose at me, and her voice was harsh. “So, what do you really want here?”

Eulora cocked her head to the side in a silent echo of Tanna’s question.

“How well do you know Franklin Taite?” I asked, feeling my way.

“Well enough that he told me about you and what you are,” she said flatly. I sensed she was losing patience.

“Well enough to know he had left the New Orleans Police Department?”

She frowned. “Yes. He left to pursue his own path. He is determined to track down as much dark magic as possible in his lifetime. Seeking balance against evil, which he’s seen more than his share of. He met you during one of his official cases that involved magic.” She considered me for a few seconds. “You do not trust me. That is understandable. But I was Franklin’s mentor in his ongoing quest to root out and defeat the darkness. You had not heard of me before Poppa Jack told you of me, yet here you are, and I suspect you need my help. Help Franklin cannot give you.”

I pressed my lips together. Everything she said rang true. But Eulora was still talking about Franklin in the present tense. I needed to break the bad news.

“Franklin never helped me. He told me I was a
lightwitch almost a year ago, and then up and left town for Louisiana. I haven’t seen him since.”

She looked surprised. “I hadn’t realized.”

“And now he won’t ever be able to help me or anyone else. Ms. Scanlon—Eulora. I’m sorry. So very sorry.”

Realization began to dawn on Mother Eulora’s face. “He’s . . . passed?”

I nodded. “The police discovered him two days ago.”

Her hand went to her throat. Her eyes glittered with wetness, and her breath came in small gasps. Tanna moved swiftly, sitting down beside her and chafing her wrists.

“Mother! Wait here. I’ll get your pills.”

I leapt to my feet. Cookie appeared frozen in her seat.

“No, Tanna.” Eulora grabbed the woman’s arm so she couldn’t leave. “I’m all right. Hand me my tea, though, will you? Katie, please sit down.”

Tanna obeyed with alacrity. Eulora took a sip and handed it back to her apprentice, who showed no inclination to leave her side. I sank back into my chair but perched on the edge, ready to reach for my phone and call 911 at a second’s notice.

“How did he die?” Eulora asked.

“The police detective—Franklin’s old partner—who told me about finding Franklin said he died from a snakebite,” I said. “He was in a warehouse out on Old Louisville Road. It’s been empty for a while, and Detective Quinn thinks the snake got in through a broken window.”

Eulora closed her eyes. “I very much doubt that.”

My stomach twisted. “Why?”

“He came to see me about four months ago. He wanted information about how human sacrifice is used in voodoo magic.”

I heard Cookie suck in her breath. Hadn’t Quinn mentioned something about a case in New Orleans that involved human sacrifice?

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

“That sacrifices are usually to appease a spirit or gain its favor. However, some believe it’s possible to absorb the power of a life sacrificed—whether that life is animal or human.”

I blinked. “Good heavens.”

Her eyes were sad. “That’s not a belief restricted to voodoo, of course. Everyone from ancient druids to the Aztecs have offered up the lives of others.”

Could Franklin have been
sacrificed
?
The thought made my heart stutter.

Cookie stood and went to the coffee table, taking one of the untouched glasses of tea and sipping from it. Letting Mother Eulora know she trusted her. She sat back down and placed the glass on a coaster. “Do you know anything about a gris gris, Mother?”

Eulora’s eyes flashed a smoky purple. “Franklin came to me when he first began his quest against darkness. He had seen too much as a policeman—more as a homicide detective—and had come to realize how often black magic was involved. I gave him a gris gris then, to help him.”

“How?”

“It was charged with the ability to identify magic in the first place, and then to determine whether it was a threat. It could also be used to help defeat magic under certain circumstances.”

I passed my hand over my face. “Franklin’s niece sought me out only hours before I learned his body had been found.” I brought my eyes back to hers. “She lost consciousness before she could tell me much. She’s in
the ICU at Candler Hospital right now, in a coma, and the doctors can’t figure out why. But before she passed out, she told me to find a voodoo queen. I think that’s you.”

Eulora looked shaken at this new information but nodded. “Go on.”

“She also told me the gris gris was gone. That I had to find it. Do you think she meant the one you gave Franklin?”

Eulora pushed herself to the edge of the sofa and put her feet on the floor. Tanna rushed to help her, but the older woman shrugged her off. She stood and walked to me, standing in front of my chair and looking deeply into my eyes. “It can be no other one. When Franklin came to see me last, he asked me to recharge it. He was going up against someone very powerful, he said. So I did.” She put her hand on my shoulder, and it felt blazing hot even through the cotton of my shirt. “If it is gone, you must find it. You
must
.”

I put my hand on top of hers, mesmerized by her gaze. “Tell me why. And tell me how.”

“In the wrong hands, the gris gris can be flipped. Reversed so the magic it holds can be used to augment black magic. If it was taken by whoever Franklin was challenging, that would be very bad news indeed.”

I took a shaky breath and dared to blink. Her gaze softened, and she patted my shoulder twice before moving back to perch on the edge of the sofa. “But in your hands, Katie Lightfoot, it can tell you if Franklin was murdered—and who did it.”

“How do I find it?” I breathed.

She shook her head. “I don’t know.” Then her face brightened. “I can show you what it looks like, though. Tanna, please bring my album.”

Eulora’s apprentice’s mouth turned down in disapproval, but she left the room.

“This niece of Franklin’s,” Eulora said.

“Her name is Dawn,” I said.

“Dawn.” She tried the name out on her tongue, then nodded once. “How did she look when you saw her?”

I described her pale thinness, her fright.

“Hmm. Yes. I’m afraid she might be suffering from a curse,” Eulora said thoughtfully.

“Poppa Jack thought the same thing. Can it be reversed?”

“Possibly. It would be best to have the gris gris in our hands first, though. Its absence is most alarming. I’d also need to know who cast the curse, and the reason.”

Tanna returned with a large book bound in dark red leather. She handed it to Eulora, who pushed aside the bowl of apples and opened the book on the coffee table. She turned a few pages, then gestured for Cookie and me to come see. We got up and took seats on either side of her on the sofa. She pointed to a picture. “That’s the gris gris I charged for Franklin.”

“The exact one, or one like it?”

“The exact one. I keep track of all the powerful spells I’ve released.”

I bent forward, drinking in the small details. It was not a bag filled with herbs and magical items like I had expected, but a pendant on a simple chain. It was a dark gray metal rectangle about one and a half inches by two. Figures and designs had been etched into the surface, some geometric, but others swirled like conch shells or like the petaled design nature carved on the backs of sand dollars. Tiny rivets of a different metal, possibly copper, were driven into the corners. White fringe had been tied into two holes drilled near the bottom.

Eulora fussed with the archival corners that held the picture in place. Tanna reached down, removed the photo, and gave it to her charge. Eulora handed it to me.

“Mother,” her apprentice began. “Let me make a copy for her.”

“No,” Eulora said. “Katie needs this more than I do.” Her eyes bored into mine. “She will return it when she’s done with it.”

I nodded my agreement. “Of course. Thank you.” I could tell her energy was fading. I patted her hand and stood. Cookie followed suit. “We have to be going,” I said. “But I’ll be in touch.”

“Wait. Tanna, get the box.”

With a sour expression, Tanna went back down the hallway and came back with a simple wooden box with a hinged lid. Eulora opened it to reveal several compartments inside, each holding a small cloth bag or piece of jewelry. She selected a bracelet and handed it to me.

“If Franklin’s niece is cursed, you must take great care. Wear this for protection.”

“From . . .” I licked my lips. “From a voodoo curse?” I thought of Dawn’s gaunt face, her frightened eyes, her breath stopping in her chest.

Mother Eulora just looked at me. After a second’s hesitation, I took the bracelet with a trembling hand. It was a simple thing constructed of mother-of-pearl beads strung on a piece of waxed twine.

“Thank you,” I said. “May I pay you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “Put it on, and don’t take it off until this business is finished.”

“I promise.”

Eulora looked up at me but didn’t stand. “Tell me if you find out anything about what happened to Franklin. Anything at all. Or if you find the gris gris. Or if his niece . . .”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Thank you so much for your
help, Mother Eulora.” I took a few steps away, then paused. “Did Franklin happen to tell you where he was staying when you saw him?”

She nodded. “He rented a room not far from here, down toward the park.” She waved her hand in the direction of Forsyth Park, which was only a few blocks away. “I don’t know exactly where, though. And I don’t know how long he stayed. He only came to visit me the one time on that trip to Savannah. I thought he’d left town in pursuit of more wicked sorcery.”

He would have come more often if he could. How could anyone resist this amazing lady?

I thanked her again and joined Cookie at the door. Tanna hurried to show us out without bothering to hide her relief that we were leaving. Following us out to the porch, she stopped me.

“Mother is in poor health, Ms. Lightfoot. I don’t care a whit for that Franklin Taite or for his niece, only for Mother Eulora. Do not tax her,” she warned.

Cookie said, “She’s lucky to have you, Miss Tanna. I assure you, we mean no harm to her.”

Mollified, Tanna nodded at us and went inside, shutting the door firmly behind her.

“To quote Mimsey, ‘Lord love a duck,’” I said, peering at the photo of the gris gris as we stood on the sidewalk. “We hit the jackpot with Mother Eulora.”

A wide smile blossomed across Cookie’s face.

“I never could have done it without you. Thank you!”

“It was my duty,” Cookie said as we walked to the car.

I started to protest, then saw she was laughing.

*   *   *

“At least you were able to find the voodoo queen Franklin’s niece told you about,” Lucy said without looking up from where she vigorously stirred flour into hot butter and water on the stove. “That’s certainly progress.”