Darker Angels (Book 2) by Hanover M. L. N

Author:Hanover, M. L. N. [Hanover, M. L. N.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781416576778
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2009-09-29T07:00:00+00:00

The same way you put a twenty-three-year-old one in charge of a world-spanning empire fighting against riders, I thought. You do it because you have to. Because something went wrong.

“Maybe she thinks Sabine can handle it,” I said.

“Well, I hope she’s right,” Dr. Inondé said. “We are competing for the same money, and God knows there’s not as much as there used to be, but I would hate to think I helped them lose the family business.”

Family business. There the phrase was again, tugging at me. The dark secret of my mother’s affair, Amelie Glapion’s rider cult and temple. The two ideas had wrapped themselves around each other like snakes on a caduceus. Dr. Inondé didn’t notice my frown; he carried right on, waving a despairing hand as he did.

“And the young one? Daria? That poor thing. Sharp as a tack, but odd. You seem like the skeptical type, and I want you to know I respect that. There are any number of frauds in this business. I’m more than half a fraud myself, so I can say that. Daria Glapion gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

She had a worm inside her when it happened, so you be gentle with her.

“Me too,” I said.

“You’ve met her, then?”

“Once,” I said. “And Amelie once, but we didn’t really hit it off.”

A flash of lightning turned the windows white, and a breath later, the thunder boomed. Dr. Inondé folded thick fingers together. With his brows knit, he looked more like a shop teacher than a houngan.

“Is this what you wanted to know?” he asked.

“I can’t tell yet,” I said. “I’ve heard stories.”

“But you don’t believe them,” he said, as if offering sympathy. He thought I meant stories about voodoo, the supernatural, riders, and loa. I meant every word Karen had said.

“I believe something’s going on,” I said. “I just don’t know what it is yet.”

“But you’re going to find out,” he said.

“That’s my job.”

Dr. Inondé untangled Doris and put her on the table, then rose with a gesture that told me to remain where I was. He stepped past one of the cheap red curtains into an alcove I hadn’t noticed. The snake looked at me with shining, empty eyes, then turned and slid down toward the chair where the man had been sitting like a cat curling up in a warm spot.

“For that thousand dollars, you can have this too,” he said, passing me a red cloth pouch on a leather thong. It smelled like dust and old chicken, and I had an immediate, intense dislike of it. “It’s gris-gris. Salt for the sea, ashes for fire, graveyard dirt for earth, and a baby’s first breath for air. It’s good medicine.”

I didn’t want to touch it, but I didn’t see how to refuse. I took the thong in my fingers and lowered the thing into my backpack. When it was safely away, I took out my wallet and counted out ten hundreds onto the table. Dr. Inondé looked at the bills and then up at me.

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