Chapter Fifteen

Not that I’d ever seen one, except in a zoo. But those animals had always been scraggly, skinny, domesticated. This one wasn’t.

The beast was big and pretty damn scary with its lips curled back and its fangs dripping saliva. The fur appeared light—white or perhaps gold—although I couldn’t tell if that were the actual color or merely a reflection of the streetlight. I didn’t remember ever seeing a white wolf.

That was my first clue that maybe the wolf wasn’t real, even before I noticed the eyes. They were too damn human.

My own snapped open. How had they gotten shut?

I turned my head and stared at the gray light of dawn creeping through the suddenly empty front window.

Rodolfo was nuzzling my neck, and my body ached everywhere.

I almost blurted, “Did you see it?” but managed to stop before I said something so foolish.

“Anne?” He straightened, bending to pull up his pants. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Mine had fallen off somewhere between the bar and the table. I retrieved them, yanking the paj ama bottoms onto my legs as I continued to stare at the empty window.

“I—” He thrust his fingers through his hair. “I shouldn’t have.”

My mind, finally clearing of the last tendrils of sexual satisfaction, began to question, and my mouth followed suit. “Why did you?”

“Can’t seem to help myself.”

“No sex for a year will do that.” I headed for the stairs.

He snatched my arm and held on. “That isn’t the reason.”

“No? It certainly isn’t the way I look, the shape of my ass, the size of my breasts, or even my charming personality.”

His lips twisted. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“How truly beautiful you are.”

“Oh, yeah. Prom queen material. That’s me.”

He stepped in close and ran his fingers lightly over my cheeks, my nose, my chin. I froze, unable to run away even though I should.

“This face has character. It’s been lived in. Seen things, loved someone. That’s more attractive than perfection could ever be.”

A fingertip lingered on my lips. My body responded again to his, and I closed my eyes, fighting for a control that with this man seemed lost. Had he cast a spell on me?

I stepped away from his touch so I could think straight. Because to have been entertaining the idea of a love spell inside a building that was supposedly cursed, after I’d seen a wolf that couldn’t exist, was definitely not clearheaded.

“Thank you,” I managed, and I meant it. No one had ever told me I was beautiful before. Considering the first was a blind, self-admitted head case, I liked it more than I ought to.

“Maybe you should go home,” he murmured. “To Philadelphia.”

My heart gave one hard thud. “You want me gone?”

He took a deep breath, then let it out. “No. But it would be best if you were.”

“Best for who?”

“You, chica.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said, and I would. Though I doubted very much I would go.

“You need sleep,” he said.

I did, so I headed for the stairs, hesitating when he didn’t follow. “John?”

“Go ahead. I want to check on a few things.”

I could understand that. The police had been everywhere.

I went to my room and lay down on the bed just as the door closed downstairs. I blinked a few times before vaulting up and racing across the floor to peer out the window.

The only thing I saw was a black cat darting across the street.

John must still be downstairs; maybe he’d put the cat out. That made sense.

But the sight of the animal reminded me of the carvings that were amazingly still in my pocket. I should show them to John, let him touch the wooden shapes, see if he noticed something I hadn’t.

I went back into the tavern, but John was gone, which was just plain strange. How had he managed to disappear in the time it had taken me to get down there? For a blind man, he was unbelievably quick.

I checked the rest of the building. No John. No altar either. The thing had disappeared as if it had never been. Maybe that was why the police hadn’t mentioned it. The altar hadn’t been there by the time they arrived.

In my room I set the carvings on the nightstand. A cat. A pig. A chicken and a—

My eyes narrowed and I leaned in close. What I’d first thought to be a dog didn’t look like a dog any longer. Was that only because I was paranoid, or was the carving actually that of a wolf?

The note taped to the front door of the voodoo shop informed all callers that the priestess was out of town until after Mardi Gras. There were business hours posted, but they were only for the retail establishment.

I couldn’t say I blamed Cassandra for decamping. New Orleans was slowly going mad. With only a week left until Fat Tuesday, there were Mardi Gras parades galore. Hosted by private clubs known as

“krewes,” up to sixty-five extravaganzas might march through the city each season. Though none of them went through the French Quarter, the streets being too narrow, there was plenty going on there without them.

I stuck my hands in my pockets and j angled the icons. I didn’t want to wait until after Mardi Gras to discover what they meant, so I headed from the voodoo shop on Royal Street to the cafe on Chartres.

Maybe Maggie knew another voodoo priestess who could help.

Maggie’s face brightened when she saw me. “I was going to call you when I got off. I did some research on those animal totems.”

My stomach did a weird little dance, almost like déj à vu. “Quite the coincidence that I showed up.”

“In voodoo we believe there are no accidents,” Maggie said. “You came because you needed the information I can give you.”

“And you just happened to be here?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m always here. At least every morning at five.”

“Last time I came, you said you’d never heard of icons on altars.”

“That’s because my studies were pretty general, and icons like the ones you described are quite specific.”

“Do you have time for a break?” I asked.

Maggie checked her watch. “I’m about due.”

She filled my order, then grabbed a cup of coffee for herself and led me to a table outside. The day was overcast, muggy, despite a lingering chill to the air.

I’d dug out the single pair of j eans my parents had sent, along with my favorite Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt. I kept hoping that if I wore the shirt long enough, they wouldn’t choke. However, I was starting to think the material would disintegrate from repeated washings long before the Eagles won a Super Bowl.

I pulled the icons out of my pocket and set them on the table. She stared at them for several seconds, chewing her lip.

“This is such bad moj o,” she muttered.

“What—who?”

Maggie lifted her gaze. “Moj o. Black magic. Which is why I didn’t know about it.”

My stomach did the dance again, and I doused the tickle with coffee. “You’d better explain.”

“Voodoo is a religion of peace, understanding, inclusion. It’s about gentleness and love, not violence and hate.” Her smile became sad. “Which is why I like it.”

“I can understand that. But why didn’t you know about the black magic side?”

“Every houngan, or voodoo priest, has his own community, his own rules and rituals. But a houngan or a mambo, a priestess, only practices the light side. The dark side is known but never visited.” She brushed her finger across the wolf icon, then yanked it back as if she’d been burned. “Only a bokor, an evil priest, would do this.”

“Do what?”

“There’s a legend in voodoo, of a shapeshifting sorcerer. This shapeshifter can take any form—horse, wolf, cat, pig.”

“And what does the sorcerer do once he changes form?”

“The legend says he wanders the night, drinking the blood of children.”

I flinched. “So he’s both a werewolf and a vampire?”

“A were-something and a vampire.”

“Does the legend have any theories as to why someone would want to do this?”

“Some say the sorcerer is cursed by the spirits. A bokor gains his power from the loas. He buys the magic at great cost, most often a life. If the bokor backs out of his promise, the loas might in turn curse him to become a shapeshifter. There are also those who feel such power is inherited and some who think it comes only after great illness.”

“I still don’t understand what a person would gain from being a shapeshifter.”

Not that I was buying any of this. But I had a feeling someone was.

“Immortality?” Maggie suggested. “I think werewolves are pretty hard to kill. I would assume were- cats, were-pigs, were-chickens aren’t any easier.”

“This is crazy ,” I said. “You’re saying someone made an altar, set these icons on it, then changed
into…”

I waved my hand at the figures.

“I know it’s hard to believe, and I’m not saying I do. I’m just telling you what I found out when I went searching for totemlike animals and a voodoo altar. I also found quite a bit of information on different Native American tribes who use totems to represent their spirit animal. Many believe their essence is contained in those icons, and they merge beneath the moon.”

“I thought we were discussing voodoo; now you’re bringing up Native Americans?”

“I’m just pointing out that many different cultures and religions have transformation legends. The Navaj o believe certain shamans can don the skin of an animal and become one. They’re known as skinwalkers, both witch and werewolf.”

My head spun with all the information.

“I don’t suppose you’ve noticed any strange animals lurking around under the moon?” Maggie smiled when she said it but I couldn’t.

I’d thought the wolf in the window a dream, but what about the black cat in the stairwell and on the street

—a cat I’d only seen at night, after first finding the altar?

My eyes flicked to the pig and I heard again the squeal, saw the potbellied shadow darting across the alley behind Rising Moon.

I shook my head; Maggie took that as an answer and continued. “Someone is probably just trying out a spell they read on the Internet.”

“Right.”

“That doesn’t mean they turned into a lougaro.”

“A what?” I managed.

“Technically, a voodoo werewolf.”

Suddenly I was having a hard time breathing. Sullivan had intimated that someone who thought he was a werewolf was killing people.

But what if someone who actually was a werewolf was killing people?