“Sounds . . . interesting.” She’d heard about Sarah’s mortal career at a medical research facility, the one destined to serve as her place of death. David had altered destiny to save her life, an act of insubordination that nearly damned his soul. In the end, Sarah surrendered her mortality to set things right and ensure David’s safety, and Fate had rewarded her sacrifice by binding their souls and bringing Sarah back to life as a reaper.
“It is. But you didn’t call to listen to me ramble on about cell cultures. I take it you wanted to speak with David?”
“You got it. If it isn’t too much trouble.”
“Not at all, I’ll put him on. It was nice talking with you.”
“Likewise.”
“This better be important,” David said the second he came on the line, not bothering to mask his irritation.
“Sorry to interrupt your fun, Soldier Boy.” Ruby smiled in spite of herself. She and David shared a long history, and it pleased her to see him finally happy. That said, she still enjoyed giving him grief every now and again. “It’s a little early to be knocking boots, don’t you think?”
“It’s never too early. Or too late. You know better than that.”
Ruby laughed. “Point taken.”
“I assume you’re calling for a reason?” he asked, always one to cut to the chase.
“You could say that.” Ruby kicked off her sandals and sat on the bed. She scooted back a bit so she could lean against the headboard. “I’m working a party of one and ended up double-booked. You ever run into that scenario?”
Silence.
“Never,” he said almost a full minute later. “Where are you?” Oh, he was going to
love
this one. “I’m on a cruise ship, somewhere off the coast of St. Angelique.”
“But you hate—”
“You don’t need to remind me,” Ruby said, cutting him off before he finished his sentence. “I suspect this is Samuel’s idea of a sick joke. He made Dmitri assign this one to me.”
More silence. “What was the cause of death?”
“I have no idea. There weren’t any obvious signs.”
“Male or female?”
“Female.” Ruby inhaled deeply before rattling off the pertinent facts. “I found her inside her cabin a little after three this morning, buck naked in bed with a grin on her face like she’d just won the Powerball. No obvious signs of damage to the body, no pills nearby, no suicide note.”
“Huh. Hold on a sec.” There were a few moments of muffled conversation from David’s end of the line. “You sure it wasn’t natural causes?” The wariness in his voice put her on edge.
“Positive. The expiration woke me from a sound sleep. If it was natural, the soul wouldn’t have been hanging around fifteen minutes later when I entered the room.”
More muffled talking on David’s end. “Have you run this by Dmitri yet?”
“I called him first but got voice mail. Since I couldn’t get hold of him, I thought I’d see if you’d ever run into anything like this.”
“No. Never heard of it happening, either.” David blew out an audible breath. “This sounds really fucked up, Ruby. Let me make some calls, see if I can find out anything on my end. In the meantime, call Dmitri back. Leave a message if he doesn’t pick up. Otherwise, his nose will get pushed out of joint if he thinks you’re bypassing him and going directly to me with your problems.”
When David and Sarah transferred to Miami, Dmitri became the leader of Ruby’s unit. She’d known Dmitri since the early eighties, and got along with him well enough, both on and off the job. As bosses go, he was fair but strict. By nature, he was more territorial than a wolverine.
“You worry too much,” Ruby said. “Besides, I already left him a message.”
“Good. The last thing I need is Dmitri crawling up my ass because he thinks I’m sticking my nose in his business. You know how he gets.” He said something to Sarah, too low and distorted for Ruby to make out. Then his voice came back over the phone, sounding the way he always did when he wanted to make you feel better about something. “Hang tight, Dawson, and be careful. Keep your eyes and ears open for anything out of the ordinary. I’ll pull in a few favors and get back to you as soon as I can.”
Chapter 7
S
ix hours and three showers later, Jack still felt like shit.
Sated and satisfied, the curse lay dormant, the only good thing to come from the previous evening. Despite his best efforts, Jack’s thoughts dwelled on his nocturnal activities, of sex and sweat and tangled sheets. A desperate act to appease the beast before it staged a hostile takeover. Then he thought of Ruby and a fresh round of guilt gnawed away at his conscience.
Accepting her invitation would have guaranteed disaster. She stirred his emotions as well as his blood, a lethal combination when it came to his baser nature. In his weakened state, he would have inevitably lost control, leaving him powerless as the curse latched on to her life force and drained her dry.
The knowledge offered no buffer of comfort, so he shifted his focus to Jolie Duquette, his last, best hope for breaking the shackles that bound him to the bane of his existence. If Duquette’s abilities matched her reputation, he’d be free of the curse by the time the ship disembarked from St. Angelique.
The possibility lifted his spirits and set his mind to racing. To imagining a life without the incessant demands of the beast, free to experience emotions he’d long avoided for the sake of maintaining control. A growing hope pushed back against the loneliness, filling him with the yearning to sever the ties to his solitary existence.
The crowded bus screeched to a stop, jarring Jack from his thoughts. The ride had taken him far from the southern tip of the island, with its shiny new buildings and squeaky-clean streets. So pristine, so beautiful. So blatantly artificial. Not that the tourists seemed to mind. Most of them were too busy basking on the beaches or scuba diving off the coast to notice the desperation lurking beyond the borders of manufactured paradise. Armed guards patrolled the perimeter of the tourist sector, while the remainder of the island wallowed in a pitiful state of decay, still struggling to recover from the devastation brought on by Hurricane Emmaline two years before.
Taking in his surroundings, Jack spotted a tiny, bright green building on the opposite side of the road, the marker he’d been given to indicate his stop. He let go of the tattered handgrip hanging from the ceiling and wove a path to the front of the bus. Once there, he gave the driver a few coins in exchange for directions to Jolie’s home. The old man stashed the money in a dented metal lockbox before rattling off a series of rapid-fire instructions in heavily accented Creole, one hand still gripping the steering wheel as the other pointed toward a rutted dirt road bearing east.
Against his better judgment, Jack followed the driver’s instructions, walking busy narrow streets past people of questionable intent. He was venturing deep into the hillside slums, an area typically avoided by tourists and anyone else with a lick of common sense. The air outside hung hot and humid, thick with the stench of poverty and decay.
Already, he’d felt a hand slip into the back pocket of his jeans, looking to swipe his wallet or anything else of value. Watchful eyes tracked his every movement, probably sizing up the potential of their latest mark. If he made it back to the ship with only a mugging, he’d consider himself fortunate.
Since street signs were nonexistent, he relied on the landmarks the bus driver had given him. He took a right at the burned-out building, then a left at the crumbling remains of a church. The road worsened the farther he walked, deteriorating to a muddy pathway between what looked like an old school bus tilted on its side and a massive pile of trash. A barefoot boy, no older than eight, rummaged through the mound of junk, presumably scavenging for anything of value. Scrawny and jaundiced, the child eyed Jack with open mistrust, muscles bunched as if ready to flee at the slightest hint of danger. It was enough to make Jack’s heart sink.
More than an hour had passed since he’d stepped off the bus. At this rate, he’d need at least two hours to return to the wharf—one hour for walking, plus an additional hour’s drive. Not to mention it probably wasn’t a very bright idea to be outside the security of the tourist corridor when night fell over the tiny island. If he didn’t reach his destination soon, he’d have no choice but to turn back.
Finally, just as he was thinking about giving up, he found the place he was searching for. Like most homes in the area, it was no more than a shack, a ramshackle hut built from scraps of aluminum siding, rotting plywood, and what looked like the hood of an old pickup truck. A dingy white sheet hung loose over the doorway, an intricate vertical pattern scrawled down the center in red and black spray paint.
A mangy tabby cat lay curled by the front entrance, its gnarled stub of a tail flicking back and forth across an old straw mat. Jack took a step closer and the cat hissed, the hair on its back standing on end. Another step and the cat’s show of bravado came to an abrupt end as it darted away from the doorway and disappeared into a nearby alley.
A chill swept the air when his feet touched the mat, the sudden change in temperature sending shivers across his skin. An unseen presence, sinister and foreboding, wrapped around his body and crept into his thoughts. It urged him to flee while he still had the choice, to return to the ship before something far worse than the curse happened to him.
“No.” Not now. Not when he stood so close to freedom. Fighting against the fear, he rapped lightly on the wood beside the entrance, the material so flimsy it vibrated beneath his knuckles.
“Come in,” a woman’s voice called out from inside the shack, her accent a mixture of Creole and Spanish.
Jack pushed the sheet aside and stepped into the dimly lit room. He didn’t see much in the way of furniture, just a card table and two folding metal chairs. The table had nothing on it save for a single lit candle, a clear glass bowl filled with water, and a small cluster of dried plants. An old wooden bookcase filled the nearby corner, its shelves haphazardly packed with books, pictures, statues, and an odd assortment of unidentifiable paraphernalia. The scent of blood filled the air—fresh, if he wasn’t mistaken.
An old woman emerged from an opening at the back of the room, her ebony skin creased deeply with age. She was short but big-boned, with long dark gray hair pulled back in an intricate braid. The housedress she wore was a patchwork of colors, bringing an unexpected punch of effervescence to the otherwise dreary room.
She walked with a cane, even though she showed no trace of a limp, stopping a few feet from Jack. Her eyes narrowed as she studied him, and then widened with what appeared to be shock.
“Demon!” she hissed. Teeth bared, she took a defensive step back so the table acted as a barrier between them.
“What? No!” Jack took a step forward and she raised the cane, gripping it like a player at bat. “I’m not a goddamn demon. I’m cursed. I was hoping you could help me. You are Jolie Duquette, right?”
The old woman’s head cocked a little to the right, her amber eyes regarding him with an intensity that came close to making him squirm. With obvious distrust in her voice, she asked, “You swear not to harm me, demon?”
Jack raised his hands, palms up in a gesture of surrender. After all he’d gone through to reach this moment, he’d do everything in his power not to blow it. “I promise. And stop calling me a demon. My name is Jack. Jack Deverell. I was told you might know how to break the curse.” He crouched down far enough to reach the wallet strapped to his ankle, pulled out a hidden stash of bills. “I can pay you. I have cash.”
Jolie shook her head as she lowered the cane. “No. No curse. Demon.” She pointed to the chair on the opposite side of the table. “Sit.”
Reluctantly, he sat down, the cool metal creaking under the weight of his body. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end, his eyes scanning the room for signs of hidden danger.
“Relax,” Jolie said, still watching him with wary eyes. For some strange reason, knowing she trusted him about as much as he trusted her made him feel better about the whole situation. She took the other seat and extended her hands halfway across the table. “Give me your hands.”
He complied with her request, lightly setting his palms over hers. Jolie’s skin felt warm to the touch, her calloused fingers running along the lines and curves of Jack’s hands like a blind woman reading Braille.
“Hmm.” Jolie pursed her lips, her eyes closed and her head nodding to some silent affirmation. “You have demon inside you. Part of you. Keeps you young, strong.” Her eyes cracked open, and she gave him a knowing smile. “Virile.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” A blush heated Jack’s face. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected from his meeting with Jolie Duquette, but talking about his sex life wasn’t on the list of possible topics.
In all fairness, she was correct about the curse keeping him young. He’d been bound to it a few months after his twenty-first birthday, and since then he’d aged about a year for every decade. So even though he’d been born in 1899, he didn’t look a day over thirty.
“Now how can I get rid of it?” A few chants and incantations? Some bizarre island ritual? Maybe sacrifice a goat? He didn’t know and he really didn’t care, so long as he broke free from the bane of his existence.
“Get rid of it?” Jolie stared at him as if he’d just sprouted a third eyeball. “There is no getting rid of it. The demon’s essence is a part of you, just as yours is a part of it. To sever the bond would mean death to you both.”
“What?” Jack wrenched his hands from her grip. Denial mixed with despair; he was unwilling to accept what Jolie was telling him, but deep down he realized she spoke nothing but the truth. So many years of searching, only to learn there was no means of escaping the nightmare. He swallowed hard, forcing back the nearly overwhelming sense of panic. “There has to be something you can do.”
The old woman reached across the table, her fingers wrapping gently around his wrist. Her features softened, her expression shifting to one of sympathy and understanding. “I am sorry, but the loa cannot help you. Too much time has passed for the bond to be broken. Now you must learn to adapt. Harness the demon; bend its strength to your will. Only when you master your demon can you find true peace.”
“Great. And how the hell am I supposed to make that happen?” he asked, panic giving way to hostility. “Build a campfire and sing ‘Kumbaya’?”
Her brows knitted, and she pinned him with a withering glare. “First you must learn not to fear your demon.”
“I’m not afraid of it,” he insisted, his chin jerking up in defiance of her accusation.
“Yes, you are. You fear the times when it takes over. The demon feeds on that fear, draws strength from your weakness.”
Jack scowled, offended at being called weak, but realizing she was correct in her assumption. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, willing his temper to settle down long enough to hear her out. “Go on.”
“Open your hand.”
He did as she asked, his left fist slowly uncurling until his hand lay flat against the table, palm facing up.
Jolie wrapped a hand around his wrist. Before he realized what she had in mind, the razor blade sliced across the center of his open palm.
“What the fuck!” He tried to jerk his hand away, but her grip turned stronger than iron. The cut was thin but still stung like a son of a bitch, the blood flowing freely from the wound.
“Hold still,” she snapped, lifting his hand and guiding it over the bowl. Blood from the cut trailed down his palm and dripped into the water. “Ah, yes,” she murmured as she stared at the water, which grew murkier with each crimson drop. “Very interesting.”
Jack looked into the bowl but saw nothing but bloody water. “What’s so goddamn interesting?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead she remained silent, her focus locked on the water, her eyes wide and unblinking. A full minute passed before she glanced up, meeting his questioning gaze. “This demon. It is very old. Very powerful.” She cocked her head a little to one side, curiosity plain on her face. “How did you come to possess it?”
“I was drugged.” He thought back to the time when his entire future lay ahead of him, bright with promise. He’d just come home from the Great War after serving two years in the military, looking forward to settling down and starting a family of his own. The De-verells’ textile business had returned to operating at full capacity, and as the oldest son he stood to inherit when his father stepped aside.
But he’d also attracted the attention of one of the household maids, a pretty young woman his father had hired fresh off the boat from Barbados. Of course he’d found Keisha attractive, but he’d already set his sights on Victoria Hughes, a lovely young woman whose father owned and operated the local shipyard. He’d courted Victoria prior to his time in the navy, and he proposed the same week he’d been discharged from active duty. To his pleasure, she accepted his proposal without a moment’s hesitation, and a wedding date was immediately set.
Keisha had not taken the news of his pending nuptials well.
“I don’t remember a lot of what actually happened,” Jack told Jolie, the resentment seeping into his blood, his voice. “I remember eating dinner one evening and not feeling well about an hour later. I went to my room to lie down, and Keisha brought me something to drink.” His jaw clenched, the muscles in his face drawing tight with anger. “She said it was a special recipe from the islands, and that it would make my stomach feel better.”
“This drink. What did it taste like?”
Jack shook his head. “It’s been so long, I’m not sure anymore. I think it might have tasted a little sweet, but I can’t say for sure.”
The old woman nodded but said nothing.
“The rest is a blur. At the time I assumed I’d just had a really strange dream.” He thought back to the candles, the murmured chants, the faint scent of blood and candle wax in the air. “A few nights before the wedding Keisha came back to my room. She told me about the curse, and how she wouldn’t lift it unless I called off the ceremony.”