Hounacier (Valducan Book 2) (7 page)

Malcolm smiled. Aside from her hair, she looked exactly the same. Beautiful. "Hi, Tasha."

She set a carved opium pipe inside the case and closed its wood-framed door. "It's been a while." Tasha turned to the old man, watching them curiously. "Pawpaw, it's Malcolm."

The old man stared at her for a moment then turned to Malcolm, eyes wide. "Mal?"

"Hi, Mister Alpuente."

"Well God damn, son, why didn't you say somethin'?" He winced as he stood up. "Finally cut off that damned hair."

Malcolm grinned. "Yes, sir."

"I liked you better with it." Tasha strode up and gave Malcolm a hug. "I'm sorry, Mal."

He squeezed her, catching the scent of citrus. He missed the spiciness of her old perfume. "Thank you."

She met his eyes. "You look like hell."

He snorted. "Been busy."

She half-heartedly smiled, her cupid's bow lips parting as if about to say more but deciding against it.

"So where you been?" Mister Alpuente stepped around the counter and offered a hand. "Ulises said you were off in Europe."

Malcolm shook the old man's boney hand. "I was. Been state-side a couple months now." He glanced at the oxygen hose leading to a black pouch at the old man's waist, bulging like an enormous fanny pack. "How are you doing?"

"Can't complain." He gave a little cough then added, "I was really sorry to hear about Ulises. Terrible."

Malcolm nodded. "Yeah."

"Just a matter of time though. People he saw. I
warned
him."

"What people?" Malcolm asked.

Alpuente frowned. "Dregs. People tryin' to cheat. Buyin' curses and amulets. 'Don't let those people in your house,' I said." He shook his head. "Terrible."

Malcolm's lip twitched. Alpuente's opinion was harsh, but he had to agree. Even Malcolm had expressed his concern about Ulises' continued work as a bokor.

Tasha touched Malcolm's shoulder. "Come on. Daddy's upstairs."

Malcolm nodded to the old man and followed Tasha through the back of the shop.

"Forgive him," she said, starting up a tight staircase. "You know how he gets."

"It's fine." The steps creaked loudly as he followed her up. A decade before, he'd mastered sneaking up and down them in the dark not to rouse her family. "Tasha, I noticed a stone mask down there. Do you know anything about it?"

"That? That's Daddy's. It wards off evil."

Yeah, the same way Vlad Tepes warded off Ottoman invaders by impaling thousands of their predecessors outside his capital.
"Do you know where he got it?"

"You can ask him," Tasha said without turning. She led Malcolm down a short hall and knocked on a door at the end. She opened it without waiting for a reply.

A broad black man sitting at a cherry wood desk turned from his computer monitor. A spark of recognition flashed in his curious eyes. "Malcolm!"

"Hi, Jim."

"It's good to see you." Jim stood, towering at six and a half feet. He offered a giant hand, which Malcolm shook. "Please, have a seat."

Setting Hounacier's case down, Malcolm took one of the leather-backed chairs, noticing the candle shrine in the office corner. "Thank you."

"Daddy, can I get you anything?" Tasha asked, still standing beside the door.

Jim looked at Malcolm, who only shook his head. "No, Boo, we're good."

"All right," She motioned her head back. "I'll go keep an eye on Pawpaw. Let me know if you need anything."

"Thanks."

She looked at Malcolm, almost an afterthought. "We need to catch up."

Malcolm smiled. "We do."

She shut the door, and Jim gave him a look of a father trying to hold his tongue.

"How have you been?" Malcolm asked, breaking the momentary tension.

The huge priest grunted. "I've been good. The store has been doing well. My father-in-law has been killing me." He rolled his eyes then chuckled. "We keep trying to tell him to enjoy retirement, but every morning, he's down the stairs and unlocking the door like clockwork."

"How's he doing?" Malcolm asked, thinking of the oxygen tank.

"He'll outlive us all. So how about you, Malcolm? Last I heard, you were off in Europe."

"Yeah, I spent a few years there. Mostly France. Couple months in South America. Got back to the states in March."

"And you're only now coming home?"

Malcolm swallowed. Whatever paternal deficiency his own deadbeat father had left, Ulises and Jim both made up beaucoup. "Got busy."

The priest nodded, his expression deafening.
You should have made time to visit before he died.
"With your…Order?"

"Yes, sir. I'm one of the senior knights now. We had an
incident
last year. Left us pretty shorthanded."

"I heard."

"You did?" Malcolm hadn't told Ulises much about Tiamat. The old man never approved of Malcolm joining the Valducans.

Jim grinned, white and broad. "Papa Ghede tells me about you from time to time. He favors you, I think."

"I've heard," Malcolm said, suppressing his discomfort with a smile. The smile faded. "What happened?"

Jim sighed. "Neighbors noticed his door open. No one thought much of it. Then sometime after lunch, a young woman came by. She went inside and found him."

"Who is she?"

He shrugged. "Local girl. Prospective client, probably. Police came. Neighbors called me. Had my number from when Ulises would get onto one of his tears." Jim must have seen the question in Malcolm's eyes. "He'd been drinking a lot more the past few years."

"I see." The old man always loved his rum, but after Hounacier bonded to Malcolm, the drinking only grew. It was part of what made neglecting his mentor so easy, but that didn't help with his guilt.

"Furniture was knocked around. Looked like a robbery, but…"

"They took his head."

Jim nodded.

"Any suspects?"

The priest sighed. "Police don't have any yet."

"What about you?" Malcolm asked.

"Ulises spent much of his time with…questionable people. Maybe one of his gris-gris didn't work as expected. Maybe they thought they could steal his magic."

"A good bokor spends as much time in the darkness as they do with the light," Malcolm said, reciting Ulises' words. "Someone has to help those who've strayed too far. They go into the darkness to save them."

"And sometimes, they don't want to leave. I know this is hard, Malcolm, but you must admit that Ulises was spending a lot of time with very troubled people. Dangerous people."

Of course, it was easy to say that. Houngans and Mambos could afford to live like respectable people if they wished. That's why they needed Ulises. It wasn't all just weddings and blessings. He dealt with the ugly side. "But no suspects?"

The priest shook his head.

"Did you ask the loa?"

"I did," Jim answered.

"And?"

"They told me to find you."

Malcolm snorted.

"Ulises had no will we know of, but everyone knows you're his heir. His house, of course, is yours. Courts won't take very long to decide that."

Malcolm frowned. "Don't know what I'd do with it."

Jim's brow rose. "You're not moving back?"

"No. I'll stay as long as it takes to find his killer, but I have other obligations."

"What did Maggie say to that?"

"I haven't talked to her yet."

The huge man straightened in his chair. "You came here first?"

Malcolm nodded.

"Mal, if the other priests learn you spoke to me before her, they'll become suspicious. A new bokor needs to follow protocol. Especially one of your…" He glanced down at Hounacier's case. "…lineage. You need to pay respect to the queen first."

Malcolm chewed his lip. Voodoo politics didn't interest him. Catching Ulises' murder was all that mattered. Still, he couldn't afford to be making enemies. "I'll go see her next. Pay my respects."

"You need to go now. I'll be here."

"But—"

"Go."

No use arguing. "All right." Malcolm picked up Hounacier's case and stood. "One thing first."

"Yes?"

"I noticed an obsidian mask downstairs. Where did you find it?"

Jim leaned back. Swallowed, like maybe he didn't want to say. "It belonged to Ulises."

Malcolm thought of Ulises' cryptic email. "How did
he
get it?"

"Wouldn't say. He showed it to me maybe three weeks ago."

"Where did he keep it? Malcolm asked. "Was it in his house?"

"It hung on the wall facing the door. His body was found beside it."

Malcolm's brow creased.
A demon couldn't have gotten inside with that thing guarding the door.
"Do you know what that thing is?"

The priest nodded. "Demon mask. Keeps them away."

"Did you know there's a demon inside it?

"He told me that too."

#

A trio of laughing children ran past, clutching homemade popsicles, as Malcolm made his way down the cracked sidewalk. Tiny, wooden houses lined the street. Layers of brightly colored Mardi Gras beads hung from porch rails and picket fences, like coral, growing thicker every year. He eyed one strand draped prominently along the top of a car gate, its beads composed of tiny shells and colored glass. Real beads as those were a rare treasure indeed. At least for those who didn't know better than to avoid them.

Local spiritualists, whose clientele wished to free themselves of some emotional pain or anxiety, would have them project all their negative energy into a small stone or glass bead. Anyone accepting the bead would, in effect, take on the burden of that negative energy. Many found their way onto necklaces that tourists fought and competed for before taking them home, far away from the city. Ulises had found such bitter amusement in how many women exposed and degraded themselves to proudly earn a mantle of the pain of scorned lovers and grieving parents.

Malcolm stopped at a simple yellow house, its porch buried within a jungle of potted flowers. He followed the wooden steps up and knocked on the door.

It creaked open, revealing a man's tattooed face. Tight braids hung down over his shoulders. Suspicious eyes met Malcolm's, wandered down his tattooed arms to the case in his hands. "Can I help you?" Three red teardrops traced from the corner of one eye, and a tiny black cross decorated the space between his brows. This wasn't a man to take lightly.

"Is Magdalena here?" Malcolm asked, a little worried he might have come to the wrong house.

"And you are?"

"Malcolm Romero."

A female voice with a pronounced drawl called from inside. "Darius, who's at the door?"

"A Mister Romero, ma'am," he said over his shoulder.

"Mal? Well let him in!"

Darius opened the door the rest of the way. "Come in."

Maggie's house smelled of candle smoke and lemon Pledge, and the AC was about two notches too low. Wooden masks and framed photographs filled the beige walls. An offering-cluttered shrine to Simba dominated one corner. It looked the same as it always had, save for the flat-screen television where the old, wood-cased set used to be.

"Malcolm Romero," said an old black woman in a floral-print chair. Bright eyes sparkled out from a nest of fine wrinkles. "It has been a while."

"Hi, Miss Maggie," Malcolm said, suddenly feeling like a kid in the priestess' presence. She'd always had that effect on him. New Orleans' Voodoo Queen never forgot a name or a birthday. Though the title was one of respect rather than actual power, she carried it with the dignity of a woman born to lead. The old matriarch served as an anchor among the city's otherwise disjointed population of mambos and houngans.

"Come on in," she said. "Sit down."

Malcolm took a seat on the green sofa beside her. "Thank you."

"Malcolm is a doctor," Maggie proudly said to the thuggish man now closing the door.

Darius just nodded. He took the chair opposite the old woman.

"Let me think…" tapping her lip. "Archeology?"

"Anthropology."

"Oh, that's right. Anthropology. He's Ulises' boy."

The man's posture straightened a little, his confidence seeming to shrink a bit.

"Darius, sweetie, could you bring Doctor Romero some tea?"

"Yes, ma'am." He stood and went into the kitchen. The subtle bulge of a pistol poked beneath his shirt. Malcolm wondered if that was the gun that had earned the facial cross. The mark symbolized at least five kills.

"That's all right," Malcolm said.

Maggie just set a hand on his knee. "You're sweatin'. Help cool you down."

Malcolm nodded. No one ever escaped Maggie's house without at least one glass of sweet tea.