Magic and Mayhem: The Voodoo That You Do (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Lyra Byrnes

Author:Lyra Byrnes [Byrnes, Lyra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kindle Worlds
Published: 2017-05-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

“So Rye says you psychic. Seeing anything right now?”

Pete turned the old Plymouth into an unlit street just outside Asshat city limits. He was so small he had to look up through the top curve of the steering wheel, but he’d managed not to kill us, so that’s something.

“Yes, yes, it's coming to me. A bunch of people are going to walk into a church, right in the middle of an intersection. They’re carrying things—I'm sensing flowers, liquor and what might be, yes, is it food?”

“You hilarious, lady.” He swung the Plymouth up to the curb. “Trust Ninja Pete. I’ll find your demon and this swamp bitch too.”

“You speak respectfully on this land, son,” came a booming voice. “Julius Spyglass, welcome to the Peristyle at the Crossroads.”

He was little taller than me, with a round jolly face and round jolly torso, wire-rimmed glasses and a beaming smile.

He led me into a circular room, no pews, no pulpit. Painted drums of all sizes lined the walls. Fresh flowers were piled up before an altar by women in white. Incense made the air a grayish fug. Everywhere were candles in glass, liquor bottles, coins, cigarettes, bread and shiny trinkets. The room was anchored with a painted pole in the center.

One of the women draped a rope of fresh flowers over my neck. The blossoms were bunched between silver charms—a boat, a heart, a coin, a little phallus.

“Don't be afraid, daughter,” said Julius. “We're going to call down a loa, see who you're pledged to, maybe ask him a favor.”

“I'm supposed to give you this,” I remembered, holding out the bone. “Pete said it's my ticket.”

His eyes widened. “A ticket, yes. But not to this place—to the next one. Give it to whoever answers. Don't accept anything in its place and don't take off this necklace. But that bone, you got to pass it on.”

“Can it break a curse?”

“If Petey did it right, yes. All we have is hope, dear.”

As he spoke, the drums started up, a low, steady thumping that set heads bobbing in time. Pete stood by the pole in the center of the room. He looked older in his long robes. I was trusting this skinny-armed kid with my magical future.

Pete said something low and one of the drummers stopped. I saw a shirtless young man standing behind a set of double-drums, his arms hanging limply at his sides. An atmospheric shift, like an airplane cabin losing pressure, made my stomach lurch. Everyone else in the room seemed to feel it, too, but the continued to dance, all boneless limbs and snapping necks. It was too much. I closed my eyes.

A man in a white top hat appeared on the inner screen of my eyelids, one grinning dark face looking back at me from each closed lid.

My eyes flew open, and the man stood in front of me. It was the drummer, posing elegantly in the center of the room as one of the women raced forward to place a white top hat on his head.

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