She closed her eyes, counted to three, then opened them.
The cards hadn’t changed.
She was close to crying again.
“A good spread.”
She twisted at the unfamiliar voice and sprang to her feet.
The Red Man was nearby, fully materialized and glowing faintly in the dark attic.
Adrienne backed away until she hit the wall, too stunned to release the scream building up in her chest.
“What does the two mean?” he asked.
She stared.
“Girl!” His sharp tone was accompanied by a snap of his fingers.
“Duality,” she blurted out. “Balance with myself … and others, intuition and thought.”
He moved closer to her cards, peering at them.
Is this really happening? She felt like she was close to fainting. “Are you … are you here to kill me?”
“No.” The dark opening of the hood turned to her. “Your cards say you haven’t been listening to the spirits. Probably why I’m here.”
She said nothing, terrified of moving or speaking.
“Maybe you’re not strong enough yet,” he added. He reached up to remove his hood.
She squeezed her eyes closed, not wanting to imagine what kind of monster he was.
“Girl!” Another snap of his fingers.
She jumped, more afraid of what he’d do if she upset him than what he looked like. Adrienne opened one eye then the other.
Her heart felt like it stopped.
The Red Man was almost identical to Jayden, except his eyes were green. She gazed at him, emotion surging within her, even knowing it wasn’t the boy who held her heart then broke it.
“Sometimes our choices are hard,” he said. “Mine included. To continue chasing Therese or to take low hanging fruit?” His gaze swept over her. “Just one life.” The words were soft, yearning.
She pressed herself against the wall, not liking the way he looked at her.
“The easy route. I almost always take it,” he said. He shook his head. “I still might.”
“We’re going to break your curse,” she managed. “You can’t have either of us.”
“Intriguing,” he said, tilting his head to the side. “You don’t know.”
She said nothing. All along, she’d felt something was wrong. That maybe there was more to Therese’s story in New Orleans than she knew. It was disrespectful to think poorly of the dead, and so she’d chosen to focus on how good Therese was.
“Know what?” she asked, sensing she wasn’t going to be able to be oblivious any longer.
“Therese offered you in her place.”
“What? No.” She shook her head firmly. “She’d never do that.”
“You cannot deny that she is not what others remember. I know you know differently. I know you know she had a side that no one else knew.”
“Yes, but this is different.”
“I’ve had multiple chances to claim you. You’ve seen me and ignored me. Did you not think I wanted to speak to you?”
“How?” she asked. “I don’t never use black magic.”
“Our families are linked, Adrienne. You simply could’ve asked your ancestors, the one who condemned the ninety-nine in your maternal line,” he said. “But you didn’t.” He gestured at the cards. “You asked everyone what Therese was involved in except those who could tell you.”
Adrienne shook her head, starting to tremble. “Don’t matter now. I ain’t leavin’ here unless Jax kills me and drags me out.”
“Jax and the zombie. Almost as tragic as my love story,” he mused. “You don’t want to hear what I have to say, but you will hear it.” He approached as he spoke, his face harder than Jayden’s had ever been. The air around him rippled with his robe and the dark magic clinging to him.
Unable to move, she simply watched him come, tears stinging her eyes and cheeks.
“If your sister succeeds in breaking my curse, if she brings herself back to life permanently, I will claim thousands, maybe millions more,” he said quietly. “I will kill until the debt I owe is paid. The blood of the St. Croix will fill the streets, and I will spare no one. No one. I must claim the last life owed.”
Adrienne flinched at his tone.
“And all that I do will be a fraction of what the zombie will do, if she is permitted to find a new host and break the curse I am here to enforce.”
She looked up, astonished. “My sister –”
“Set you up. Set Jax up. Look at those cards, Adrienne.” He snatched her arm and dragged her back to them. “Duality. Power and intuition. Choices and fate. Life and Death. You and her.”
“I don’t understand!” she cried.
“Good and evil. An ancient prophecy brought to life by the curse in your House. If she rises again, she will bring unparalleled evil with her.”
Adrienne’s breath caught in her throat. She stared at the cards. He was reading them at a level she couldn’t imagine, one only a spirit could see.
He released her. She dropped to her knees.
“Which will you be, Adrienne? Because I know which your sister is. Without balance, there is destruction. I can kill you now, but I risk unleashing her upon the world without you to balance her.”
“You … you’re saying I’m meant to become a mambos, like my mother and grandmother?” she asked.
“I’m saying you are meant to become the mambos who prevents what the spirits fear will happen, should your sister reclaim what she’s lost,” he said quietly. “This is what prevents me from taking you. You were chosen, girl, to stop an ancient prophecy. The threat and the solution both originate from your House.”
She touched the cards. She tried to find untruth in his logic or an instinct that warned her he was manipulating or lying to her.
If anything, his words felt truer than any others she’d ever heard.
“If I become … powerful,” she murmured. “I can help Jayden.”
“You can help his family. My family. We are connected to yours and have been for four hundred years. The curse has linked our fates in a way that cannot be broken,” he answered.
“But Therese …”
“Has helped kill twenty three women. Innocent women.”
She looked up, unable to fathom Therese hurting anyone.
“No,” she said forcefully. “She gave me the journal. The song will break the spell. Why else would she do that, if she turned me over to you?”
“Because, sister of Therese...” He knelt beside her, bringing his intensity with him. “The song she wrote will free her of the spirit world. It will allow her to reclaim what she’s lost. Your sister has been dedicated to black magic for quite some time.”
“If that’s true, why did she give it …” she drifted off. “So I could bring her back. She didn’t know it was a song, did she?”
“Not until you figured it out.”
Adrienne felt ill.
“And now you have a choice, Adrienne,” he said. “You can accept your fate or you can become the last life I need to fulfill my debt and let the zombie loose upon the world. I fear, however, that my penance will be extended, if I don’t let you live. A dangerous prophecy is upon us, one you are involved in. If evil is loose upon the world, and I am the one who allowed it to happen … I’ve been down that road before. I don’t want to take a second trip.”
She shrank away from him. Her mind was reeling with the information he provided. The events of her week began to fall into place. The warnings her cards gave her, the connection she felt with Jayden... Jax’s threats.
The dark side of her sister she’d tried to forget.
Even the timing of her ability to sing being stripped. If what the Red Man said was true, she’d missed warnings from the spirits, who had taken a different type of action to prevent her from singing the song. The careful truth she’d been avoiding – that Therese had more than a curiosity for black magic – crystalized. It wasn’t possible that Therese claimed a temporary host without knowing what happened to the women whose bodies she overtook.