Gathering Deep (20 page)

“Why don't you stop talking in circles, old man, and tell us what you're playing at?” Odane's voice was tight. Dangerous.

Ikenna wasn't pleased—not in the least—but his curiosity apparently won out over his irritation. He turned his full attention onto me—those creepy eyes bore right into my own. “Not all the power she's dripping with is her own.”

Twenty-Four

“What do you mean it's not all hers?” Odane demanded.

“I mean that she got an energy about her that don't belong to her. It's covering over what she might have underneath.”

“But Mama Legba never saw anything like that,” I said, confused.

“Odette might be good at some things, but there's a lot she don't know. She don't know how to dance with the darkness. Not like I do,” Ikenna said with a slow, knowing smile. He wasn't bragging on himself, I realized. He was simply stating his truth.

“Can you tell whose energy it is?” Odane asked, trying to get back the control he'd had moments ago.

Ikenna frowned, his eyes finally coming back to me, studying me. Looking at me and through me right at the same time. “It's female in nature. Feels powerful, old. But connected to you somehow.”

“That can't be,” I whispered, reaching for the dreads that no longer covered my head. “We got rid of her control.”

Ikenna shook his head. “I'm not sure what you think you did, but your power sure enough ain't alone. In fact, whatever you have is buried so down deep beneath this other that it's no wonder Odette didn't see it, 'specially if she wasn't looking for it. She probably thinks this other power is yours.” His eyes narrowed at me, appreciative and cunning all at once. “Whose power you carrying, girl?”

“Don't answer that,” Odane told me as I shifted uneasily under his father's too-perceptive stare.

Ikenna waved his hand to silence him. “Enough of this. What did y'all really come here for?”

“We have some questions about Baron Samedi,” Odane told him, taking a different approach than I'd expected. Still unsettled, I sat as still and calm as I could and waited for their hands to play out.

“Baron Samedi?” This seemed to intrigue Ikenna. “I didn't think you were interested in that … what did you call it once upon a time? Oh, yeah—
stupid dark shit
I believe were the exact words you used. What's got you so interested now?”

Odane hesitated, but then he spoke. “Someone might be trying to summon him.”

Ikenna couldn't mask his surprise, or his apprehension. “Someone
who
? Better not be someone
you
.”

“A witch named Thisbe,” Odane said.

“Never heard of her,” Ikenna said, like he was dismissing the information. But his shoulders were still tight and his expression couldn't hide his interest. “She from around here?”

“You could say that. She's been from around here for more than a hundred years.”

“That ain't possible.” Ikenna looked more impatient than ever.

“It shouldn't be, no. But it is.”

“You say. Have you seen her with your own two eyes?”

“No,” Odane said slowly.

“Then you chasing fairy tales, son.”

“He's telling the truth,” I interjected, ignoring the look Odane shot me. “She's my mother.”

“Your mother?” Ikenna's eyes narrowed. “Your mother is over a hundred years old?”

“That's what they tell me,” I said tightly.

“Who's they?” Ikenna asked, still suspicious.

“Mama Legba. Others who saw what she can do.”

Ikenna's expression was filled with doubt. “You say Odette saw this?” His attention was all on me, and I suddenly understood why Odane had wanted me to let him do the talking. When Ikenna focused on you, I mean
really
focused on you, it felt like being caught in a hunter's sight.

“She did,” Odane said, drawing his father's attention back to himself.

“Well, then,” Ikenna said thoughtfully. “That
is
something, all right.”

“Your turn,” Odane said. “We need to know what summoning Baron Samedi would entail.”

Ikenna's brow furrowed. “Why would you think I'd know a thing like that?”

“You're the most powerful bokor 'round these parts—anyone who knows anything knows that. You telling me you don't serve Samedi and his Loa? You trying to tell me you don't know the process of calling him?” Odane asked with more than a little disdain.

A bokor? Odane hadn't mentioned that his father was a bokor. In Voodoo, most priests were called houngans and priestesses were mambos. They served the light Loa—the spirits that dealt with life. I'd only heard tales of bokors, sorcerers who served with both hands—the light
and
the dark. Damballah and Samedi. If the stories were true, they couldn't ever be trusted, but here we were, negotiating with one.

“I know enough,” Ikenna said slyly. “I may serve, but I've never been stupid enough to mess with summoning him.”

“But you know how someone
might
go about it?”

Ikenna pursed his lips, but eventually he nodded. “You need an ointment—”

“Aloe in black cat oil,” Odane said, to Ikenna's surprise.

He nodded with a concerned frown creasing his face. “Mixed with a few other things,” he said slowly.

“What other things?”

Ikenna looked distinctly uncomfortable, but he leaned back in his chair, pretending to be at ease.

“If we don't know what Thisbe's collecting, there's no way to stop her, now is there?” Odane said. “Unless, of course, you want Samedi showing up looking for you once he's been called to this side of the divide?”

Ikenna's eyes narrowed, like he knew Odane was out-maneuvering him and didn't know how to stop it. “You need the blood from a living body and graveyard dust. It takes a sacrifice, too. Samedi is the one who escorts the souls, so you need a freshly departed soul for him to come harvest. The rest involves trapping him for long enough to make the deal you want to make.”

“What kind of sacrifice?” I asked, my throat tight at the thought of Piers gone missing.

Ikenna narrowed his eyes at his son, but then he turned to me. “Depends on what you want from the Baron. If you only want to talk to him, any old thing will do—even an animal. If you want to do more, you have to give more.” Ikenna drummed a fingertip on the tabletop. “If you want to make a trade, to bring back your dearly departed, you'd need to trade in kind. A youth for a soul who departed young. A man for a male who left this world, and a girl for a female soul you want to bring back. ”

“That's it?” Odane asked.

“Ain't that enough? You're talking at least two deaths to summon him, more depending on what he asks of you. Knowing Samedi, he probably would want more.” He pinned Odane with his golden eyes. “My turn now. What does this Thisbe want to summon the Baron for?”

“We don't know,” Odane said.

“That's a lie,” Ikenna said flatly.

“
You
say—”

“I more than say. I
know
. And you'd know you can't lie to me if you'd come around more than once or twice in your lifetime.”

“You never gave me a reason to.”

“I offered to teach you … ”

“You offered to
use
me,” Odane snarled. “That ain't a reason.”

The two of them squared off after that in silence.

“What'd you really come here for, son?” Ikenna said. “I know it wasn't just to ask about Samedi. Most the people who practice 'round these parts could have given you those answers.”

Odane looked at me, as though asking for permission.

If what Ikenna was saying was true—that I was carrying someone else's power with me—that power might be my mother's. It might mean that I'd been right—cutting off my hair might not have done anything at all but make me feel like a newly shorn sheep. But there was something worse—Piers was missing and Thisbe needed a sacrifice, a young soul for a young soul. I would pay any price I needed to if it meant finding a way to make sure Piers didn't end up in Baron Samedi's hands.

I gave Odane a small nod, conveying my consent to go on.

“You're right. We didn't come here just to ask about Samedi, though we thank you for the information. We came because we need help breaking into her dreams.”

“Breaking into dreams is easy enough. Child's play, really. Dreams ain't nothing more than the soul at play.”

“She's been dreaming about Thisbe, and we want to know why.”

Ikenna pinned me with his uneven gaze. “If you want to see someone else's life, that isn't breaking into dreams. That's channeling a soul, and with the other power you're wrapped up in, y'all might want to think twice about doing anything stupid as that. There's no telling what might happen.”

A shiver went down my spine, but I forced myself to shrug it off. “I'm willing to risk it.”

Ikenna smiled then, and this time the smile didn't hold a hint of derision. “I bet you are.” The curve of his mouth
faltered. “But I also bet you don't have any idea what you might be stepping in to.”

“I'm already into it,” I said, feeling the truth of those words more than ever.

“You might think you are … ” Ikenna said, but he seemed almost unsure.

“Can you do it or not?” Odane asked, before his father could back away from the negotiation.

“'Course I could … for a price. You did say you came to talk business.” He gave his son a slippery smile as his gaze glided over to me.

Odane's jaw muscles ticked. “We did, but it depends on what it is you want.”

Ikenna shrugged, easy like. “What don't I want? Power. Money. The key to the city. You got any of those?”

Odane stayed silent.

“No. You don't got nothing to give,” Ikenna said, the smile dropping from his face like a bad habit. “So maybe I don't got nothing to tell.”

“I got myself,” Odane said, and damn if Ikenna's crazy eyes didn't light with something that looked like eagerness.

“Who says I'd want it?” he drawled.

“You do.” Odane's voice never wavered. “You've wanted a piece of me ever since you realized I could be your ticket to the Quarter. Must have chapped your ass some when I turned you down a couple of years ago.”

Ikenna's eyes narrowed.

Odane shrugged and kept on talking. “Aunt Odette's been hounding me to develop my gifts lately. She seems to think she's the one who should help me.”

“That so?” Ikenna asked. His expression had gone thunderous. Deadly, even.

“That's what
she
thinks. I'm not so sure she's right about that.” He kept his eyes steady on his father.

No way was I going to sit there and let him talk about Mama Legba. She wasn't supposed to be part of what we were doing, but Odane grabbed my hand tight and sure, and when he squeezed it, I felt a little jolt of warmth and peace that couldn't have been natural.

I looked up at him, trying to figure out what he'd done, but he was focused on Ikenna.

“I'm sure she's dead wrong,” Ikenna said, emphasizing the word
dead
like it was a wish.

“You leave her out of this, and maybe we can work
ourselves something out on the business side of things,” Odane said.

“Why would I leave her out?” Ikenna asked, his brows flying up. “She's the whole point.”

“You leave her out because I won't have my family involved. You do anything against her, and you won't
ever
get what you want.”

“And what do you think that is?”

“Her shop. Her part of the city.” Odane leaned forward. “The Quarter is all you ever wanted. I was just the path you thought you'd take to get it.” The bitterness in his voice practically choked the air out of the room.

Ikenna considered this. “That's true enough, but how am I gonna get what I want if I leave that old bat out of this?”

“Because you don't need her to get it.”

“No?” Ikenna seemed confused by this idea.

“Not if you have me.”

Ikenna frowned like he wasn't getting it. I wasn't either.

“Who do you think is gonna take over once Aunt Odette is gone?”

Now I did yank my hand away from Odane. “You can't—”

But all at once, the voice went out of me. It felt like my vocal chords seized up.

Odane glanced my way, his eyes flashing in warning. “You wanted my help, so maybe you should settle down and take it.”

My eyes widened and I opened my mouth to tell that double-crossing ass exactly what he could do with his deal, but I felt like I couldn't move a muscle. Odane glanced at me with a lazy sort of confidence that let me know he was the one responsible. My anger spiked, but there wasn't a thing I could do but seethe inside and hope he understood how dead I was going to make him when this was all over.

He either didn't understand what the look I was giving him meant or he didn't care. Dismissing me, he drew his attention back to Ikenna, who was watching the exchange with amusement and appreciation.

“Why would you think I want to wait around until she's gone?” Ikenna asked. “I'd be an old man myself by then. I want my portion
now
.”

“My mom doesn't want her half of the shop. I could have her sign it over to me,” Odane suggested.

Inwardly, I was screaming, but I couldn't get my mouth to make a sound or any part of me to work. It was like something or someone was holding me down so I couldn't speak or move. The holding was gentle enough, but it was impossible to break just the same.

Ikenna scratched at his chin again, the skeletal tattoo mirroring the motion of his hand. “What are you saying, son?”

“I'm saying that if I had my half, I might be inclined to welcome my
father
into the family business.”