Who’ll Stop the Rain?

By Colleen Foley

When I’d exhausted every foul word I know, I gulped the last of my coffee and whistled for the check. The waitress gave me a look that could’ve withered my balls to ashes, then slapped it on the table. I left a twenty in apology and headed for the door.

“Great. Whacko weather and witches, with the ashes of a vodun. Let’s go.”

The car spewed torrents of gravel behind it, as I gunned out of the parking lot.

“All right, genius. What kind of weather is so weird that we’re the only ones Jimmy trusts to check it out?”

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Ashes to Ashes

I shrugged off my coat, removed my hat, and waited for Nate to look up from his pie.

He blinked twice, then gave a low whistle. “What happened?”

I ran my hand over my bristly head. “Long hair is easy to pick up and use in spells. Someone suggested this would be safer.”

Nate pushed away his empty plate. “I’m gonna hate myself for asking, but where did you hold that conversation?”

“My mother’s old coven. I brought them the ashes of the voodoo priest.”

His torrent of expletives was truly impressive.

I grinned. Things were almost back to normal.

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Bone Tired

By Colleen Foley

I came to with Marie kneeling over me, whispering a short verse in French, over and over again. I rolled to my side, coughing more blood, and saw Seth.

“My brother?”

“He wake soon. His mother protect him, give him a final gift. ‘Dis is over now. The blame is mine. I make it right as I can. You take him away from here. Go back to earthy things for a time. Eat, love…rest. You be needed again soon enough.”

Her touch on my face faded.

I sat in the gently falling rain and waited for Seth to wake up.

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Full Circle

Like a marionette, I lurched toward Marie.

“Nothing I need from you, cher.” She waved her hand, cutting my strings. I fell, twisting in time to see Nate slam into the priest.

Screams overlaid music I knew well – a lullaby of childhood, a spell of protection. Free, my mother’s spirit tore through his, burning his essence in a final act of retribution.

Her ghost appeared, young and beautiful. “One last souvenir, bébé.” Icy kiss from insubstantial lips seared like fire. I slumped, gutter fallen, rain washed, a new mark throbbing just behind my ear.

Nate coughed blood, then was still.

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Take Down

By Colleen Foley

Laveau’s words were music to my ears. Seth reached for the jar in my hand. Almost too late, I batted it away.

“No! Help her. I’ve got this.”

For once he actually listened. As I steeled myself, one mark flared. I howled in pain, launching myself forward. She dropped her hand, her power guttering, as I plowed into his chest, driving us both to the ground.

“Thanks for playing, douche bag. Here’s your souvenir.”

Grinning down at him, I shoved the bottle into his open mouth, slamming my other hand under his chin. Teeth and glass shattered onto his tongue.

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Danse Macabre

The dead child gained no entry, the only tattoo for which I’d paid finally proving its worth. Frustrated, he reached for Nate. I reached for salt, and the boy dissolved with petulant cries. Other spirits approached. I could not dispatch them all.

Marie’s child thrashed in a vulgar parody of dance, beat set by throbbing bead. Madame Laveau had been crowned Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, and the queen judged her son unworthy.

I wondered if my mother, spirit loosed from glass, would find me wanting. Compelled, I lunged for the wretched jar, seeking salvation or damnation. Either would do.

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The Final Countdown

By Colleen Foley

Marie Laveau appeared as Seth’s magic petered out. She held a bead, large, red/black and pulsing. It shot from her hand to hit the houngan in the chest. He screamed as it rooted into him like a parasite.

“You dare take da power I give you and use for it for dis? For petty revenge? And you call me whore? I …made …you.”

Everything slowed then, like viewing interactive performance art in some bugfuck mad gallery.

She never took her eyes from her son, but she spoke only to me.

“You are both out of time. Do it now, boy.”

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Last Stand

The Houngan howled. Spirits sporting wounds that laid them low raced toward us, a gallery of suffering turned to hate and madness. Unmarred women, all Black, all in white, encircled him, suffocating my flames.

Spells pouring from inexpert lips slowed vengeful phantoms for precious seconds, but all knew I would shortly fail. Beads of sweat joined rain in an attempt to render me blind, subtle redirection from better-skilled opponent.

Ghosts reached out, desperate parasites seeking to be housed in a living body, even for a moment. A young boy won the race, touched me, cold. Magic stuttered and was still.

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Calling the Tune

It’s a measure of how far gone we were that neither moving magic ink nor the dead queen of the undead elicited even a squeak from Nate. In the back of my head, that worried me. In the front, I was frantically trying to disengage before my wards returned to their maker.

Fate, a capricious bitch in the best of times, was having none of that.

Magic surged through me, words from my mother’s book coming fast from my tongue. I had always been her instrument. Fire rose around the tainted priest. He laughed, moved forward, and was held fast, burning.

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Maestro

By Colleen Foley

I palmed the vial, taking care that the Houngan not see. Seth seemed a bit more stable as my marks bled…into him?

Now I needed to elicit a chain of particular responses, one instrument at a time, building, becoming a symphony, or this was all going to go to hell.

“Why drag us back here? You could have finished this at the house. I know you were there.”

He smiled indulgently.

“So that capricious whore could see the end, of course. Because she denied me.”

An outraged shriek pierced the sounds of wind and driving rain.

She was coming.

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Feedback

Everything tangled, fingers clumsy, movements sluggish, clothing cumbersome.

“Get it together,” Nate hissed.

I lurched to him. A burning sensation ran down my arm where it brushed his. He jumped back, cursing. Then he pulled his gun and shot the priest in the head.

Discordant howling filled the graveyard, spirits crying out for bodies once inhabited.

The Houngan, unharmed, touched down. “My turn now.”

I leaned against Nate, using the shock loop to break the priest's spell. I relinquished the vile vial, then blinked the rain from my eyes. Nate’s tattoo was moving, color bleeding towards me, filling old scars.

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Eureka

by Colleen Foley

I grinned, shaking my head as I watched him rise.

“Dude. Floating? Isn’t that kinda grandiose?”

Seth looked sharply at me as the thing chuckled softly.

“You will learn respect. Mother and son will be together again, her soul inhabiting his body. Their talents, hers tainted by what she did, his so pure, will struggle against each other. That perfect discord will create such power as you have never seen. It will be mine to control and this time I will not be stopped.”

In that instant, I understood everything.

“All this talk has become cumbersome. Give me the jar.”

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Throwing the Gauntlet

I hate cemeteries. Funny, right? It’s not ghosts that bug me but the lingering memory of standing in rain – just like this – a too-tight suit, muscles quivering as they lowered my mother’s coffin, my face sloppy with tears and snot. Maybe if I killed the sons of bitches who had a hand in her death, I’d get over it. Maybe.

His voice, everywhere, “You know the prophecy is fabrication, yes? We created legend, made you in her to fulfill empty promises.”

Deep breath, steady. Magic ready, raging. “Not so empty now. Come and see.”

Like the moon, he rose, shining.

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Opening The Gate

By Colleen Foley

I'd explained as Seth drove. We were back at the cemetery, wending our way through rain-sloppy paths to Marie Laveau's grave. The storm started as we'd arrived, a fabrication of the priests, no doubt.

Every muscle tensed, just enough, as I ticked off reasons, in my head, for destroying him. The bottle. The zombies. Seth's poor goddamned mother. The manipulation and murder of so many innocent people. That fucking dog. My...rape.

Cold, comfortable rage knifed into my gut. I let it in, let it bloom, and kept it contained, let it anticipate its release.

It was time to end this.

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Turning the Key

Nate is old school: music, mores, muscle car all terribly out of date. It comes off as charming, in certain company.

The Houngan we hunted cared nothing for such quirks. He wanted Nate, or me, depending on who told the tale. Or perhaps he really had wanted my mother, enough to steal the remnants of her soul and fabricate a copy of her to house it.

Someone willing to go to such lengths wouldn’t be sloppy enough to discount us. Which begged the question, who was playing whom?

The engine roared as I headed down the road , seeking answers.

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On The Road Again, One Last Time.

By Colleen Foley

“Really?” I reached behind the seat, grabbing something to swipe the blood from my left brow, exceptionally pleased that it was Seth's favorite shirt.

Magic snapped through the car; a deranged symphony of tiny whirlwinds.

“Listen. I just meant...I know touching that thing is killing you.” I gestured to the lump in his jacket pocket.

“I get it. But the blend of you and it is like a magical beacon. He's coming for us, and we're not where we need to be. Now, get out. You're driving. I can't see. And don't fuck up my car.”


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Inhuman Sacrifice

by Colleen Foley

“Light it, little brother. We gotta go see Kaia.”

“What? Why? I thought the shackles and screaming ‘til you have cottonmouth had to wait!”

I pulled away from the house, grinning, as thick rancid smoke and liquid screams poured from the windows.

“Because, you sick little shit, she removed the infection. I don’t think the priest knows that, but I need to be sure. If he still thinks I’m infected, he still thinks he can control me. I can flatter him, get close, offer him something he really wants, and then…”

“Wait! Nate…offer him what?

“You. You and that jar.”

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Daily Grind

“We need a vacation.” I hacked off the grasping hand of a zombie girl.

Nate kicked her grandfather in the chest, then pulverized his head. “Ya think?”

I doused the room in kerosene. “I’m thinking Kaia, some shackles, and a thick cotton flogger…”

“Dude, no! I don’t need to hear this.” Nate tossed in a match and slammed shut the doors. “Besides, you flatter yourself if you think she’d beat you, much less for free.”

I grinned at his possessive tone. “Never said I’d be the one bound.”

Nate snorted. “Keep dreaming, Seth. First, we have a priest to kill.”

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Circle of Death

How many times must I watch her die?

I knew the answer. As long as I had to sleep, I would see my mother torn apart, first by creatures still unknown, now by my chosen brother. It would not matter that this horrid thing was in no way my actual dam. Her alto croon and rolling laugh would haunt me just the same.

There was no point to histrionics. I got up, flicked a piece of the creature’s stolen heart off my sleeve, and turned to Nate.

“If you were a bomb, you’d be ticking.”

I nodded. “So I am.”

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Dreadful Accord

by Colleen Foley

I moved closer, stepping into a rancid crosswind, so strong it threatened to rip the knife from my hand. I heard a woman’s laughter, sensual and cajoling, over the ripping sail-cloth sound.

I glanced at Seth, saw the flare as he anointed the jar. Gripping it tight to his chest, he looked at the thing in front of me. He thought to intervene, for just a second. Sadness, horror, and then pain crossed his face as he looked at me and nodded, just once. I expected him to look away. He didn’t.


I plunged the knife home and we all screamed.

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