Maryse eyed her with disdain but nodded down the hall. "Second door, child."
Perry flashed her an apologetic smile and walked down the hall.
"Is there somewhere we could talk?" Rose asked.
"Is here not good enough?"
Rose shook her head but didn"t elaborate.
Maryse sighed and got out of her seat, the cat leaping to the ground. You could almost hear her bones creaking. Her long, scraggly grey hair hung around her skinny face. In the lamplight you could see just how sick and old she was. Her face was drawn and ashen, her mouth lined with a million wrinkles. Only her eyes remained sharp, even though they"d clouded over slightly, like an old dog"s who still knew a few tricks.
"Very well. Follow me." She gingerly made her way to the hallway, back hunched over, and turned on the flickering overhead lights just as Perry was coming out the bathroom, looking flushed and up to no good. Maryse squinted at her again and we went down the hall, Perry tagging behind me.
"What is it?" I whispered at her. "Pee smell funny?"
She looked disappointed. "I wanted to see if Ambrosia really was in her room." She nodded at the closed door beside Maryse"s bedroom. "She is. Sleeping."
I felt strangely smug that Perry was wrong, because if Ambrosia was here the whole time, she probably hadn"t set up the Voodoo lab in the attic, which meant that was one suspect we could cross off the list.
Maryse opened a narrow door at the very end of the hall, one I had a.s.sumed was a linen closet, but it looked cavernous until she pulled on a hanging lightbulb and began to descend down a set of stairs.
"Aren"t we going underwater?" I whispered to Maximus, who was in front of me, but the stairs were only four feet deep and we found ourselves in a cellar of sorts.
A cellar of horrors.
The ground was sawdust, perhaps rock underneath, and the air was filled with a mix of competing smells-sweet and cloying, damp and musky, rich and smoky. The walls were painted red and filled with every imaginable Voodoo horror you could imagine. There were shrines in all corners of the room, statues covered in beads and jewelry, mounds of candles in every color, poppet dolls made of yarn and tribal-patterned cloths, tied together with string. There were skulls-humans and animals-hanging on the red-painted walls, along with various tribal masks. Mason jars filled with herbs, spices, and who knows what were lined up on shelves. If the veranda was the overstock room, this was where all the magic happened. Pun intended.
We were all silent, looking around us in awe, even Rose, who looked more respectful than anything else. I began to wonder how much Voodoo had rubbed off on her from being around the Mambo for so many years.
"Please take a seat," Maryse said, and sat down in a high-backed leather chair, motioning to the three wicker chairs that sat across from a round, fortune-teller style table.
"I"ll stand," Maximus volunteered, as if that made him a better man or something.
Maryse gave him a look, one I couldn"t read. She wasn"t impressed either way, and I wondered if she was going to start pointing at him in horror again and calling him mortal.
"Now, tell me Rose, what is it that is life and death and so magnificently important." She crossed her bony white hands in front of her. Curiously, she had gold and silver rings on all of her hands with all sorts of gemstones. The weight of some of them looked like they"d break her fingers in two.
"Well," Rose began, and then looked at Maximus. He launched into what happened at the bar last night, then into his side of things at the house, and paused when it came time to tell her what I saw. Then we finished it up with the zombie of Tuffy G coming after Perry, me beating him with a floor lamp, and him running straight out the window and falling to his death number two.
"Oh," I added, "then I guess I knocked over the candles in the attic, because the attic went up in flames, and we all ran out of the house and pretty much came straight here. And to answer your question before you ask it, no I didn"t see any names on the candles."
"What did the candles smell like?" she asked.
Was she kidding me?
"Like Eau du Zombie. I don"t know."
She pursed her wrinkled lips until they almost disappeared into her skin. I tried not to grimace. She got up and shuffled over to a shelf of oils and pulled one off of it. She popped the top and came over to me, holding it under my nose.
"Does this smell familiar?" she asked impatiently.
I breathed in. It did. That cloyingly sweet smell, like baby powder.
"Yeah, I guess it smelled like that. A bit more coppery though."
"The blood from the poor snake," Maryse said, sitting back down. "That was the copper smell. What was rubbed on all the candles was Follow Me Boy oil. Calamus root."
"Follow Me Boy oil?" Perry asked incredulously.
"I was expecting something more sinister than that," I added.
Maryse wasn"t amused. "It is called that because s.e.x workers in the city would apply it in order to get ahead of the compet.i.tion, so to speak. Every brothel had this for their ladies. It"s supposed to work on s.e.xual attraction, but the key component is dominance and control. Most likely, those candles were probably meant for the deceased man."
"Could the candles have been for any of us?" Perry asked.
She considered that. "It"s possible. But considering zombies have to be controlled by someone, I would think they were there to ensure he followed through. That said, it is interesting that they were black candles. We call them black devils. Usually, if you anoint a black devil with a commanding type of oil, you"re asking for revenge or retribution against someone. Or you"re just being a jerk."
So either the zombie went after Perry on purpose because her name was on the candle, or the zombie"s name was on the candle, the person controlling him going after their own sort of revenge. It didn"t really matter since we would never find out, although Ambrosia and Tuffy did have history together. Perhaps she was after revenge.
The thought was ludicrous, the idea terribly elaborate. Still, because I knew Perry was thinking it, I decided to voice it out loud.
"Maryse, do you think it"s possible that Ambrosia could be involved in any of this?"
Perry smiled while Maximus let out an audible gasp. Maryse didn"t look too surprised, however.
"I can see how you"d think that, since she and I are closest to you. But in order to do what you say happened, what you"re suggesting, you have to be very powerful. Ambrosia hasn"t finished her training, she has years left before she"s considered a Mambo. To be frank with you, I don"t think she has it in her to do it, energy wise nor personality wise. She"s a sweet, kind girl."
That was true all right. Very sweet, kind, beautiful. A flash of her smile, the feel of her skin.
Perry spoke up, snapping me out of it. "But what if she was working with someone else? Helping another Mambo behind your back?"
Maryse narrowed her eyes at the thought. "I hate to think that but I suppose it"s possible. I"ll keep an eye on her over the next while, how about that? Last thing I want is to be blindsided by my own pupil."
"And what about you?" I asked.
"What about me?"
"Obviously you have the power to do all this, to raise the dead. You know we"re here and what we"re up to."
"I suppose you would think the world revolves around you, wouldn"t you?" she asked.
"Pardon?"
"These zombie rituals are nothing new in New Orleans, and even now, this has been apparently happening for some time before you got here. To think that they are now focused on you is absurd. And no, I am not the one behind it. Contrary to what everyone thinks of me, I am not a Bokor, I do not and have never used my skills for evil. I am a dying woman, as you can see, and I barely have any energy to keep on living. Doing any of those hoodoos would kill me instantly. The most I can do for myself right now is that."
She nodded to a side table where a yarn poppet had a nail sticking out of it. An honest to G.o.d Voodoo doll.
"Who is that?" Maximus asked suspiciously.
"I don"t know who it is," she said, folding her frail arms against herself. It was colder down in the cellar. "But it is a Nkondi. Traditionally, it is used to hunt down evil sorcerers or threats to the Voodoo community. Here I have used it to drive my illness back to the spellcaster, whoever he or she might be."
"You believe your illness is a...a curse?" Perry asked.
Maryse nodded then focused her eyes on her. "Now, if you"ll excuse me, ladies, I would love to talk to the two gentleman alone here."
Maximus and I exchanged a worried look. What the h.e.l.l did the Mambo want with us?
I guess Perry and Rose were thinking the same thing, because they were staring at her in confusion.
Maryse gestured to Rose. "Please, Rose, take your friend here and go upstairs and wait for us. Shut the door behind you and try not to wake Ambrosia."
Rose and Perry slowly got out their chairs, Perry"s eyes wild with fear for me. I gave her a tight-lipped smile and a nod.
They reluctantly left the room. I could feel them glancing over their shoulder as they ascended the stairs until the cellar door closed behind them.
"So," Maryse said, turning a wicked smile toward me. "Dex Foray. I suppose you"d like to find out who your friend here really is."
Maximus stiffened, his eyes downcast. I felt like I couldn"t breathe. A thousand suspicions from thousands of moments clouded my head.
She continued, calmly staring at me, knowing she held all the cards. "And why of course you"re the exception."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
I chewed on my lips, wondering if I should take the bait or if this was going to end up being a colossal waste of my time. There was nothing that Maryse could know about me, certainly nothing about the two of us. "An exception to what?"
She sat back in her chair and pulled out a hand-rolled cigarette and matches from underneath the table. "Do you mind if I smoke?" she asked, even though I knew she"d do it regardless. I shrugged. She lit the match on the table and took a long hard drag. Suddenly I wanted one too, more than anything. I was sick of seeing it around me lately, tired of trying to be so good. She must have noticed my pitiful eyes because she handed me the cigarette and pulled out another one for herself. "You"ll probably need that anyway."
I inhaled and was met with the comfortable arms of an old friend. My eyes closed, rolling back, and I let out a delicious exhale. It was so wrong to fall back into it after quitting, after trying to be a better man, but Dex 1.0 was somewhere still inside me.
Maryse cleared her throat and I opened my eyes, my nerves and endorphins buzzing pleasantly. I had forgotten what was really going on. The smoke we blew out curled around our heads in silky patterns. Maximus was silent, still tense, still waiting for whatever Maryse was going to say.
"An exception to what?" I asked her again, not wanting to get too sidetracked.
She exhaled slowly. "I"m a somewhat ordinary human being. My story isn"t so different from anyone else"s. I was never born with the ability to see ghosts like you, Dex. It isn"t in my blood. What is in my blood is this connection to the occult, to things that lie beyond what we can see. I"ve always been open to it, always been curious, always wanted answers. My mother was a Mambo herself and she taught me well, taught me skills that I would have never picked up on my own. I don"t possess any real supernatural talent, although I can predict the future on occasion. Not because I can see it, but because I can feel others telling me. I am n.o.body special unfortunately, just an old woman with a lot of practice and a lot of knowledge in how to harness the magic, the energy, that"s around us. That is who I am.
"Over the years, my work has brought me into many people"s lives. I"ve met dead loved ones at seances, have done readings for rock stars that made deals with the devil. I cleanse houses of evil ent.i.ties and I practice healing Reiki on poppets. I"ve made loves spells for couples who ended up being married until death did them apart. I"ve brought luck to people who have paid me for it. I"ve gone to Senegal to learn how to make a proper gris-gris, or mojo hand.
"Along the way I"ve been introduced to the lives of people who are much more...gifted...than I am. My eyes have been opened to worlds within our own, worlds I never knew existed, beings who were beyond my scope of the St. Michael the Archangel or Yon Sue. Beings like your friend beside you, Maximus Jacobs."
I swallowed, my throat feeling thick, and eyed the familiar ginger next to me. He stared at the table, expression frozen.
She had called him a being.
Maryse went on matter-of-factly. "Maximus is not his real name, he chose that himself. His name is Jacob and he is a descendant of all the Jacobs. Now, what is a Jacob? Well, I didn"t quite know either. The closest thing I knew to them would be the spirit guides and guardians from Haitian Voodoo. But I suppose every culture has their own version of the truth."
She looked up at Maximus. "Are you sure you don"t want to explain this all yourself?"
He met her eyes, his voice hard. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because it"s time, don"t you think? The three of you are here and there are no coincidences. If you want to warn Dex here about what could happen, you will have to come clean as well. You can tell half the truth, even if you fear he wouldn"t believe you. Even if you fear that you"ve been lying to him this whole time."
My mouth was so dry, but I was able to say, "Warn me about what?"
He glanced at me, shaking his head. "I already tried."
"Did you?" Maryse asked. "Then why does he look so confused?" She sighed and stubbed out her cigarette on a small green candle next to her. "Dex, I"m going to tell you a few things and I want you to follow me, to not discount it. Each thing will have its own weight to it, a blow to the reality you think you know. I"m not trying to lay out a bunch of bombs to make your head explode. But there"s really no other way."
I took in one last deep drag of the cigarette for strength then steadied myself for the verbal a.s.sault.
"The first is that Maximus, as a Jacob, was immortal. It doesn"t mean he"s been around forever, but at least his body has been. His job, like all Jacobs, was to act either as managers, guides, or gatekeepers between this world and the ones beyond it. The Thin Veil, the World Beyond, or whatever you want to call it. Maximus was a.s.signed to you as a guide, and you in particular. You have a gift, Dex, and those with gifts must have someone there to show them how to manage it. To contain it. Sometimes gifts, like power for a priestess, can end up in the wrong hands."
I blinked. There was nothing to say.
"Maximus was supposed to open your eyes to your abilities back then. It didn"t work out so well, for several reasons. One, is that Maximus became compromised."
I looked at him.
"He lost sight of the goal and became obsessed with you and your life."
Maximus glared at her. She shrugged. "It"s all in the open now, boy. You lost your way, and eventually you gave up. It happens. The job was difficult, more so because of you, Dex. You were a lot more than he had bargained for. So pushing aside his alliance to you as a friend and not his actual job, you were far too much for him to handle, for most Jacobs to handle. There"s a part of you, Dex, and I"m sure if you really look inside yourself, you"ll see it, that is more than normal. More than...this world."
Finally, I had to say something. Everything was going over my head, but not that last part.
"I"m not of this world?" I asked.
"You are. You were born here, I can see that. But there"s more to it than that. What, I don"t know. Maybe it"s your lineage. But there is something in you, in your blood, that poses a challenge to someone as weak as Maximus."
He grumbled at that but didn"t say anything.
"You"d pose a challenge to anyone, to be honest, even me. You aren"t a Jacob, but there"s a preternatural...thread...that has made you into something over the years that I can"t even cla.s.sify. You"re very, very powerful, Dex, in more ways than one, and that"s how you became the exception. The exception to the Jacobs and the exception to this one right here. After Maximus defected, you were left alone to either figure yourself out on your own, or to bury it under a mound of medication. I was told it was the latter. Meanwhile, Maximus got rea.s.signed to guide another person with similar abilities...Rose."
"This..." I said slowly, trying to find thoughts and words from those thoughts, "is a lot to take in. Let alone believe."
"I"m not finished," she said tersely. "Maximus took care of Rose, opened her up to the world that was just out of sight. He did his duty. And when his duty was finished, he went rogue and gave up his immortality to live a human life. I suppose in his new existence, he went to find you, to maybe make right the things he wronged. Perhaps to check up on you."
Maximus looked at me for a moment before quickly looking away. "I saw you, on the internet. In the lighthouse. You were ghost hunting. I knew just from watching you that you had no idea what you had, that no other Jacob had been a.s.signed to you. I had to get in your life somehow. When I heard about the incident in Red Fox, I knew that was the way in. I just wanted to see how you were doing."
"How very thoughtful of you," I said absently, my brain still turning over on itself.
"And then I met Perry."
And then he got my full attention.