“You must be Lucinda,” I said. “Welcome.”
She smiled, and her dark brown eyes met mine. I felt an instant affinity, and wondered if, like Sorren, she could glamor people. She seemed to guess my thoughts.
“Non, cherie. I didn’t spell you. We’re just likely to hit it off,” she said with a chuckle. Lucinda spoke with an accent I identified with New Orleans. Up close, I got a better look at her beads. I could make out complicated traceries carved into the onyx stones, marks I recognized as veves, part of the Voudon culture.
“Lucinda has agreed to cleanse your house of evil and strengthen the wardings to protect you,” Sorren said. He glanced toward Teag. “She’ll be doing the same at the shop and at Teag’s apartment.”
“Fine by me,” Teag said.
“I’ve known Lucinda’s family for quite some time,” Sorren said. “She comes from a powerful line of women who are on particularly good terms with the Loa,” he said. “She’s a descendant of Mama Nadege,” he added.
I knew that name. And I also knew that Mama Nadege had been dead for over two hundred years.
Sorren had told me stories about times Mama Nadege – both dead and alive – had aided him with difficult situations. I was honored and a little scared to be in the presence of one of her descendents.
Honored because I knew how much Sorren esteemed Mama’s magic. Scared because this sounded as if he were bringing in the big guns, so to speak.
“Thank you for coming,” I said.
“Something wicked’s come this way,” she said, with a smile to acknowledge her play on the old quote.
“Searching, I think. Yes. Curious. It wants your measure,” Lucinda said, and looked me up and down. “It feels your power. It has a connection to the pieces you’ve handled. And I think it wants to know how much of a threat you are.”
Lucinda eyed the agate necklace I wore to deflect evil. “Let me touch your necklace,” she said. I unclasped it and handed it to her.
She shook her head and I heard “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” under her breath.
“Is something wrong?”
Lucinda met my gaze. “Your necklace has served you well. Its stones have shielded you. They must be cleansed to... recharge... their power. You’ll need them again.”
She looked around my living room and found a side table next to a window. Light from the nearly full moon shone in brightly. Lucinda placed the necklace on the table and let the moonlight bathe it. Then she reached into her bag and withdrew a small pouch of powdered herbs with a spicy, pungent smell.
Next to the necklace, on the smooth wood of the tabletop, Lucinda sprinkled a dusting of her herbs and then drew a veve with her finger as she chanted quietly. My knowledge of Voudon was limited, to say the least, but I recognized that particular veve. Papa Legba, one of the most famous – and powerful – of the spirit guides.
Lucinda turned back to me. “If we had time to do this right, your necklace should sit in the moonlight for a full cycle of the moon to regain its energy. When the threat is gone, that’s what you must do. But for now, even a night with the moon so close to full will help.”
She turned away before I could thank her. Lucinda laid her large tote bag on a chair and rummaged into it, producing an abalone shell and a cigar-sized bundle I recognized as sage. She struck a match and lit the end of the sage bundle, letting it smolder in the abalone shell as she began to walk counter clockwise around my parlor.
Lucinda murmured as she moved around the room. Her pace changed, and she began to dance. An ecstatic expression was on her face, a look of total concentration and rapture, and I wondered if she had allowed one of her Loas to possess her to draw on the spirit’s power.
Teag, Sorren, and I followed Lucinda at a respectful distance as she danced her way around the perimeter of each room downstairs. A shake of Sorren’s head cautioned us not to speak. I felt a tingle of power in the air, something I associated with strong magic. But the power that rolled off Lucinda was very different from my magic, Teag’s, or even from the sense of the Dark Gift I got from Sorren.
The magic radiated from Lucinda, but it did not originate within her, at least, not from Lucinda the mortal. The magic that suffused the cleansing and protection spells Lucinda was invoking was much older even than Sorren, and I thought again about the Loas, ancient spirits whose followers had called on them for blessing and safety – and vengeance – for untold generations. I’d had a brush with that kind of power before, and I was properly in awe.
Lucinda wasn’t finished until she had led our quiet parade through every room in my house, upstairs and downstairs, including the tiny attic. Baxter followed us, sniffing the air curiously, as if he wondered about the sage and whether it meant food.
Finally, as if she were closing an invisible circle, Lucinda returned to the place where she had begun her chant. She raised her arms to the ceiling and let her head fall back. I heard words in a language I did not recognize, some spoken in Lucinda’s buttery accent, and some in a huskier, strange voice.
Lucinda opened her eyes wide as if looking into some mysterious realm the rest of us did not see, and cried out three times. A tremor shook her whole body, and then she slumped, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
In the blink of an eye, Sorren was behind her to catch her, although I had not seen him move. His vampire speed always unnerved me, nearly as much as his ability to move in utter silence. Sorren gathered Lucinda into his arms like a child and laid her on my couch.
“Get her food,” he instructed. “Bread, fruit, and water. It’ll refresh her and also serve as an offering to the Loas to say ‘thank you’.”
I hadn’t been home for a couple of days so I’d skipped going to the store, but I did have a loaf of bread handy as well as an apple, which I sliced and put on a plate next to the bread. Personally, I would have wanted some cheese to go with it, but Sorren hadn’t mentioned it and I didn’t know how Loas felt about cheese, so I kept it simple.
By the time I returned, Lucinda was sitting up and chatting with Sorren and Teag. She accepted the plate gratefully and took a drink of water, then sighed.
“Everything is cleansed and blessed,” Lucinda assured me. “My wardings are strong. Powerful Loas helped me. Not much will break through easily.”
Not exactly an iron-clad guarantee, I thought. If I take her literally, ‘something’ could break through, but it will have to work for it. Still, it was better than before.
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it from the bottom of my heart.
Lucinda reached over to pat my hand, and I felt a slight zing that had nothing to do with static electricity. This was one powerful practitioner. “You’re Sorren’s friend. That’s good enough for me.”
I yawned, and hurried to cover my mouth, not wanting to look impolite. Baxter, seemingly unfazed by everything that had happened – or at peace with Lucinda’s brand of magic – stretched up on his hind legs and scratched at my knees to be picked up. I settled him onto my lap.
“Now that your house is taken care of, Lucinda and I will accompany Teag back to his place and make a similar warding,” Sorren said. “Tomorrow night, we’ll do the same at the shop. They’ve all been warded before, but it’s best not to take chances.”
“Do you think whatever came here will come back?” I asked.
Lucinda frowned. “If it does, it’ll know that powerful spirits are watching over you. And if it has lesser spirits in league with it, the wardings I cast won’t let them get past the sidewalk.”
I glanced at Sorren. “Will it stop Corban Moran? Will it stop a demon?”