“I’m not leaving. I’m the Mistress of the Plantation!”
“Not for long.” He throws his head back and extends his jaw wide. Placing his palms on either side of his face, he tugs on his skin. It pulls, slipping loose from around his eye sockets and nose. His mouth stretches open. A slick, scarlet figure emerges from the gaping pit, shedding Beau’s gelatinous skin like a giant rubber suit.
It’s the boo hag, glistening with wet, slimy, mucus. Beau’s flesh lies hollow and vacant at its feet, pooled on the stark, white carpet.
Missy screams.
“I have waited for this moment.” The boo hag advances, flying at her in one fluid leap. It snatches her jaw with its three suction-cup-tipped fingers. Tilting its narrow, rectangular head, it goggles her as if she’s a fine piece of art. “I’ve taken little sips here and there while you slept, especially after the ruby went missing and this body broke down. You have no idea how difficult it’s been to restrain myself. The dumb ones are always the most tasty. Do you know why?” Its lispy, sloshy voice is just as terrifying in a vision as in person. It runs its long lizard-like tongue across its slash of a mouth.
Her eyes bulge. “N-n-no.”
The red monster leans toward her. “Too much thought toughens the prey. So I’m guessing you’ll be especially delicious. It has been a challenge to wait, but I’ve learned over the years that too much death tends to raise suspicions. As soon as I retrieve the ruby, I won’t need quite so many sacrifices to maintain the possession. But these are no longer your concerns. Since you’ll be dead.”
“You don’t have to kill me. I could run away and never come back just like your second and third wives. I swear, I won’t tell anybody. No one would believe me anyway.”
“There are a few things you don’t understand. They didn’t leave me. I enjoyed killing them just as I will enjoy killing you, too.” It gleams a toothless grin, then lunges for her, snatching her by the throat with both three-fingered hands. Missy’s feet dangle above the cushy white carpet.
Missy’s skin flushes as she chokes and gasps for air. She reaches out her right hand, fumbling for the pirate’s knife that Beau set on the console table next to the bottle of scotch.
The boo hag extends its massive, square jaw, and turns on its vacuum suction. Missy shudders and her eyes roll up in to her head as the boo hag sucks her life force from her body. A curling white mist floats out of her nose and mouth and inches toward the gaping hole in the boo hag’s face.
Missy’s fingertips graze the knife’s wooden hilt. Stretching another half inch, she grabs the dagger and plunges it into the boo hag’s side. A few drops of black sludge spatter the rug.
The boo hag shrieks. It’s red eyes flash with eerie, crimson light. Clutching her throat tighter, it launches into the air in a rage, careening through the sitting area and into the master bath, leaving a trickle of blood along its path. It slams her head against a tile wall. She reaches for the knife again, but the boo hag pulls the blade from its side, releasing a gush of chunky, black muck that sprays Missy’s nightie and smatters the floor. Opening its mouth once again, the boo hag sucks harder than before, consuming Missy’s life force in one smooth gulp. Her face falls slack and her eyes turn empty and blind.
The boo hag drops her lifeless body on the floor then clutches its side where the knife slit its crimson skin. Hobbling back to the sitting area, it sets the knife down on the carpet and reaches for Beau’s skin. It slides its long, thin, legs into Beau’s rubbery mouth, and pulls the skin up over its red, meaty body like a flesh-colored wet suit. Yanking Beau’s face up over its own, it snaps the elastic skin into place, adjusting Beau’s eye sockets and maneuvering his nose into place. Finally, it pumps Beau’s jaw, slipping it into place.
With a grunt, the boo hag in the Beau suit bends over and wipes the knife on the carpet. Wincing, it clutches its cut right side, which must be bleeding inside Beau’s skin. It rises to its feet, snatches the tumbler from the coffee table and staggers to the console holding the bottle of scotch in one hand, the dagger in the other. After it pours a giant helping, it gulps the amber liquid, then slams the glass down next to the bottle.
“Just a few more weeks, old boy. Then you’ll be sixteen and carefree once again. And still very, very rich,” it says aloud in Beau’s familiar southern accent and then laughs. A wet, mucusy sound rattles in its chest, causing it to cough. It winces again and gropes its side.
When the wave of pain seems to have passed, it grabs the cane with one hand and shambles to the door, holding tight to the knife.
The vision pulls back, clouding over. Sparks shoot up in the ancestors’ mortar, and then die out, stifling the incense screen and dispersing the smoke.
I shake my foggy head to focus on Jack and Cooper. They’re both as white as marble, revealing the same horror that’s gripping my chest.
Cooper’s eyes meet mine. They’re filled with crushing pain and utter betrayal. “My dad’s a boo hag.”
Chapter Thirty
Cooper races out of the crypt.
Jack opens his mouth to speak, but no words come. How could they? There are no words to describe the awful brutality we just witnessed, to say nothing about the vision’s implications, which are so multilayered and bizarre, my brain’s about to break.
How could I have been so wrong? After Missy died, there was a moment I suspected Beau was involved. But then Claude showed up pulling his super-creepy, black magic routine and I got distracted. It looks like Miss Delia was right after all—Claude just wants to wedge himself between Taneea and her, though I don’t understand why.
The horrific truth is that Beau is a genuine monster. A serial killer of sorts who not only kills for sustenance but also because it appears to enjoy it. And he’s gunning for Cooper next. He never liked his father, but that doesn’t make this news any less excruciating.
And then there’s the whole marriage-destiny thing the Beau-boo hag let slip to Missy. Cooper and me? Married? As in forever? Cripes, I’m only fourteen. I’ve been with him for a little over a month. How the heck am I supposed to process a fated, eternal commitment?
Jack pushes himself off the floor. “I need some air. Hoodoo’s cool, but its a good thing I’m not the root worker. I don’t think I could handle it.” He staggers toward the door, clearly still under the tea’s woozy effects.
Knowing I shouldn’t leave them alone, I force myself up and drag my groggy body through the crypt. It’s pouring and the sky is a sickly chartreuse, that strange yellow-green-gray that only happens during summer storms. Thick fog hugs the ground and envelops their legs. If I didn’t know the mist was caused by the cool rain moisturizing the scorching air, I’d be freaked.
Jack’s bent over, his hands leaning against his knees. His cheeks are puffed out, and he’s dragging deep breaths through his nose.
Water streams down Cooper’s face as he stares at the sky. It’s probably just precipitation, but it could just as easily be tears. No one could possibly blame him for bawling his eyes out.
Fighting fatigue, I walk to his side. “Are you okay?”
“My father isn’t my father. He never really was, was he?” he asks without turning away from the sky.
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
He meets my gaze. “The boo hag must have killed him when he was sixteen. Just like it wants to do to me now.”
“That’s what it sounds like.” There’s no use in sugarcoating it. That thing has an ugly agenda that it’s not likely to forget.