Bayou Shadow Hunter

Chapter 4

Tia’s deep olive flesh turned ashy. The glaze of her eyes and burn of her skin indicated a dangerously high fever, as if a volcano had exploded inside her body.

How much longer for that ambulance? Seemed as if it had taken hours to get her grandma back to the cottage and make the call for help. Annie held Tia’s hand and stroked her hot forehead. “Isn’t there some kind of special tea or gris-gris bag I can get for you?”

“Fetch my crystal from the altar and light a candle.” Tia’s voice was weak and hoarse. She swallowed hard. “And say a quick prayer while you’re at it.”

Annie scurried to do her bidding, glad to take action. Seeing someone in pain, especially the rock of her universe, was to suffer alongside them.

Don’t die. Sure, she’d known Tia’s heart was winding down, but Annie had expected weeks, if not months, to share with her grandmother. Time to soak in her care and wisdom. Time also to be trained in root working and to, hopefully, cajole a reverse spell to banish the musical auras that assaulted her mind.

At the altar, Annie grasped the large chunk of polished carnelian that, despite its vivid orange-red color, was cooling and soothing to the touch. With shaking hands, Annie struck a match. It hissed loudly in the quiet and emitted a whisper of sulfur. She applied the flame to the white columnar candle that smelled strongly of patchouli and cloves. Beside the candle was a framed print of a stern angel with spread wings.

Annie collected her panicked thoughts and prayed. “Dear God...universe...angels...help my grandma,” she whispered in a rush. “She’s done nothing but help people all her life, and now she needs you. The time isn’t right. I’m not ready.” Annie drew a deep breath, ashamed she’d wandered into selfish territory. A groan from the next room, and she drew the prayer to a quick close. “Please and amen.”

She hurried to the den, where Tombi leaned over the sofa toward Tia, as if drawing closer to hear her speak. Or check her breath for life.

A jab of fear wrung her gut. “Is she...?”

“She’s alive,” he said with grim authority. “But her pulse grows faint.”

A siren sounded from far away.

Tombi straightened. “I’ll wait out front for the ambulance. Make sure they don’t have trouble finding this place.” He brushed past, and Annie lifted her chin, turning her body to the side to avoid accidental contact. It might be unfair to blame him for Tia’s condition, but she couldn’t help resenting him, nonetheless.

Tombi raised a brow but said nothing.

The door shut behind him, and Annie let out a deep breath, resuming her place by Tia’s side. She slipped the carnelian crystal into her grandma’s weathered palm, and Tia curled her fingers over the rock.

“Does this help you?” Annie asked, hoping it eased the pain.

Tia nodded. “Helps me focus. To say what needs sayin’.”

Her grandma took a long, raspy breath, and Annie winced at the rattle that sounded like oxygen was leaking and gurgling from her lungs. She eased down and sat beside Tia’s sprawled body. “Take your time. I lit the candle and said a prayer like you asked.”

“Ain’t much time left.”

“Don’t say that,” Annie scolded. “You’re going to be fine.”

“Listen.” Tia struggled to rise on an elbow, but gave up and sank back into the cushions. “I know I been a disappointment to you this visit.”

Annie started to deny it, but Tia cut her off.

“We ain’t got time for nothin’ but the truth between us. And the truth is, you need to help Tombi. He needs you. He needs your gift.”

But what about me? It’s not what I want.

Tia frowned, eyes sparking with reprimand.

No doubt she’d heard the selfish, unspoken thought. Guilt and shame washed over Annie in a heated flood of remorse.

“You listen here, Annie girl. You help that man. Now. Tonight.”

Annie shook her head again. “No way. I’m staying with you.”

“I’m goin’ somewhere you cain’t follow.”

“You aren’t going to die,” Annie insisted.

“I mean it, missy. You go with Tombi. Promise me.”

Her tone was fierce, insistent—one that Annie remembered as a child. A you-better-mind-me-this-is-your-last-warning kind of voice. The siren’s wail grew distinct and piercing.

Annie crossed two fingers behind her back. “Okay.”

Tia tugged Annie’s right hand around to the front of her body. “You stop that childish nonsense, or I’ll haunt you all yer living days.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Now, then. They fixin’ to take me to that infernal hospital.” Tia sniffed as if she’d smelled something unclean. She hated the hospital and always said they hurt more than helped. “Guess it’s for the best in this case.”

“They’ll take good care of you. You’ll be better in—”

“Hush. If you ever loved me, if you ever trusted my judgment...don’t go to the hospital with me. Say you won’t.”

Annie’s shoulders slumped. “Okay,” she whispered in defeat, crushed at the mandate. “Is there at least some spell or working I can do while you’re gone?”

“No. You be my good girl and help Tombi.” Tia’s eyes filled with tears that poured down her cheeks like trickles of rain.

Annie couldn’t ever remember her grandma crying, except that one time when Annie’s mama got in a huge argument with Tia and walked out, saying she would never come back to this backwater hell. That day, Tia’s great shoulders had heaved in silent sobs.

Flashing red lights strobed through the window like a disco party from hell. Annie squeezed Tia’s hand.

“You always were my special girl.” Tia nodded. “But now it’s time for my release. Tombi is your destiny now. Ya hear?”

The screen door burst open, and two men in dark blue uniforms entered with a stretcher, Tombi close at their heels.

The men hurried to Tia’s side and took her pulse, listened to her heart, assessed for damages. Tombi explained what had happened, and Annie sank to her knees, hands covering her mouth. How could her grandma expect her to stay here while she went to the hospital?

Tia was transferred to the stretcher, and the men labored to the door with their heavy burden. She still clutched the carnelian in one hand, taking a piece of home with her to a foreign place bustling with antiseptic, modern doctors who prodded you with needles and probed your flesh and innards with an impersonal, impatient air.

It was about as far from hoodoo healing as you could get.

“We’re taking her to Bayou La Siryna General Hospital,” one of the young men said.

She couldn’t speak past the clogged boulder in her throat, but Tombi responded. “Thank you. Family and friends will follow shortly.” He walked the EMR staff to the door and shut it behind them.

Annie curled into the sofa. The cushions were still warm from her grandma’s fever and smelled like her special scent of cinnamon and sandalwood. She punched a throw pillow, aching with the need to follow her grandma.

But she’d promised.

She gave in to her grief and sobbed into the battered pillow.

A warm hand touched her shoulder. “Annie?”

She jumped. She’d completely forgotten Tombi was present.

“You,” she spat.

A flinch danced across the hard planes of his face, so fleeting that she wondered if she’d misread it. He withdrew his hand.

“I’m sorry about your grandmother.” He stood erect and awkward, as if unsure what to do or say.

Annie swiped her eyes and edged away from his presence. She tucked her feet beneath her on the sofa and hugged her knees to her chest. “Why don’t you go away and leave me alone?”

She didn’t care if she looked or sounded childish. Grandma Tia was gone. And it was all his fault. If she’d never met him, never made the mistake of following the will-o’-the-wisps into the woods, her grandma would still be here.

I’m going where you can’t follow. Was Tia talking about her death? Or something else?

“Is there someone I can call?” Tombi asked. “Family? A friend?”

Annie didn’t want to call her mom. It would take her hours to drive down from the north Georgia mountains. That was, if she came. And she’d be impatient and cross that Annie hadn’t gone to the hospital. No matter that she’d shirked her own daughterly duties. Best to wait a bit for some news on her grandma’s condition before calling.

Annie nodded at the desk by the far wall. “Open up that middle drawer. There’s a blue address book in it.”

She watched as Tombi rummaged in the drawer. His green T-shirt was streaked with red clay dirt, as were his blue jeans. It reminded her that he’d been lying on the ground deathly ill less than an hour ago. She shouldn’t care but...

“Hey, are you okay?” she asked reluctantly. “Maybe you should have gone to the ER, too.”

He shut the desk drawer and came toward her. One side of his mouth twitched upward. “Nice to know you care.”

He handed over the battered book, which was crammed with names and addresses scribbled in Tia’s large, dramatic script. Grandma wasn’t one to trust computers for storing information.

Annie found Verbena Holley’s name and picked up her cell phone. Verbena was a longtime family friend who would drop everything and stay with Tia at the hospital. She also wouldn’t question Annie about Tia’s demand that she remain at home. Verbena was almost as eccentric as Tia and possessed absolute faith in Tia’s wisdom.

That done, Annie hung up and let out a deep breath. She felt a fraction better that her grandma would have a familiar face by her side this evening. Outside, shadows lengthened, and twilight wouldn’t be far behind.

Tombi paced their small den looking large and out of place. He belonged to the night and to the swampland, not here in this mystical room with its herbal sachets, saint statues and candles. His stride was cramped, his posture rigid. He kept his eyes to the ground, hands tightly interlaced behind his back.

“You don’t have to stay,” Annie said. “You should go back to your friends.” After all, Grandma Tia hadn’t said she had to help him immediately. It would be best if he left, and she could gather her wits and form a plan. “They probably wonder what’s taking you so long to return.” And no doubt would blame her for his injury.

He stopped pacing and gave her a ferocious stare. “I’m not going back without you.”

Beneath the glare of his eyes, exhaustion and pain had left a faint trace. Annie wanted nothing more than to demand he leave, but she couldn’t send out a man who had been so near death.

My destiny. Was her grandma just being fanciful?

Annie stood and pointed to the sofa. “Why don’t you sit, and I’ll fix some tea. Something to make sure the fever lessens.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What kind of tea?”

“A little this, a little that.” Realization struck. “What did you think I’d put in your drink?”

“Poison, perhaps.” He arched a brow. “What do witches brew? Toadstool soup with dragon blood and gator claws?”

That was rich. The guy practically killed her grandma and then suggested he didn’t trust her? “Don’t forget magic mushrooms and bat whiskers,” she drawled.

Too bad she didn’t have access to something like truth serum to find out more about his background and intentions. Still, her healing nature couldn’t ignore Tombi’s underlying suffering. And keeping busy was her preferred method for dealing with sorrow and worry.

In the kitchen, her safe haven, Annie set the iron teakettle on the stove and mixed together a pinch of elderberry, angelica and feverfew for taking out any underlying fever, plus a dash of chamomile for relaxing. Not truth serum, but maybe if Tombi relaxed he would open up more. Couldn’t hurt.

She reached up on tiptoes for the container of stevia.

“Interesting place.”

Annie spun around like a ballerina en pointe. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she sputtered. “Sneaking up on me?”

“No. It’s just my way. The way of most hunters. I came to see if I could help.”

Annie leaned against the counter and folded her arms. “I think you wanted to keep an eye on me.” She waved a hand around the kitchen. “Go on and look. We’re fresh out of arsenic and eye of newt.”

Tombi squinted at the jars of dried spices and roots lining the countertops, the basket of pink mojo bags she’d assembled earlier that morning and the bunches of dried herbs hanging above on the ceiling. “Unusual, but nothing overtly suspicious, like a box of rat poison.”

Was he serious? Annie frowned. “Now, look here, you can’t just—”

Tombi opened the pantry door, and she drew away from the counter, spine stiffening. “Who said you could go poking about everywhere?” she demanded.

“You said I could look around.” He stepped in the pantry and ran a finger over the shelves. “Ah, now it’s getting interesting. Graveyard dirt, coffin nails and—” he picked up a sealed jar and turned “—swamp juice?” His nose crinkled at the puke-green cloudiness. “Looks like it could kill someone. Bacterial infection would be a gruesome death.”

“Put it back, and mind your own business.”

He returned it to the shelf, and Annie poured steaming tea into two mugs. She lifted the silver ball that held the loose ingredients in the teapot and waggled it. “We’re drinking from the same pot. Just so you know.”

Tombi sank into one of the cane-backed kitchen chairs, and Annie sat across from him at the table. He filled the room with his strong presence, overpowered what was once her peaceful sanctuary. Made it disturbing.

Exciting.

Even the air she breathed reeked of masculinity and testosterone—forceful and heady.

Annie slid the ceramic bowl filled with packets of sugar to the middle of the table. “You’ll want to sweeten up that brew. It’s a bit bitter. If you’d rather use honey, we have some.”

“This will do.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes, instead staring at his lean, muscled forearms and large hands as he ripped open a sugar packet and stirred his tea. What would it be like to have his hands touching her all over? A warm flush blossomed on her cheeks, and she gripped her mug with both hands to steady the turmoil Tombi awoke in her body.

Stop it. He can’t be trusted. So far, he had brought nothing but empty promises and disaster.

* * *

Tombi swallowed a mouthful of the astringent tea and struggled to conceal his revulsion. But if it would help strengthen his aching limbs and exhaustion, he’d drink every drop.

Annie regarded him, lips curled sardonically. “That’s right, my dearie,” she crooned in a crackly, crone voice. “Drink every last drop or the poison is no good.”

He set the mug down with a bang. “You wouldn’t.” A heartbeat. “Would you?”

She folded her arms. “What do you think?”

“You wouldn’t.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t be so sure about me. After all, you might have got my grandma killed today. Things like that tend to piss people off, you know.”

“It’s highly unusual for Nalusa to attack before nightfall. It’s as if he were lying in wait for me. As if someone had tipped him off.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She jumped up, hands gripping the table with white-knuckled anger. “You think I contacted a...a...snake? I never even heard of Nalusa until yesterday.”

“So you say.”

Tombi couldn’t let it go. He’d become a jaded man, not by birth disposition, but because of the deaths and trapped spirits he’d witnessed over the past ten years. He and his tribe tried to release all the ensnared souls, but they kept growing in number. Secretly, he despaired there was no stopping Nalusa’s increasing spread of misery. How was he supposed to trust this girl—this witch who mysteriously appeared in the dead of night in the swamp and claimed to speak to Bo?

Annie made a disgusted clucking noise and noisily set about tidying the kitchen. “Don’t drink the tea, then. Suffer. Means nothing to me.”

She dried some silverware and threw it in a drawer, where it clanged. “If anyone’s scared, it should be me.”

“Scared? I’m not scared.” For spirit’s sake, he faced creatures of the dark on a daily basis.

She stared pointedly at his half-filled mug and raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

Tombi lifted it to his lips and took another experimental sip. The liquid had cooled considerably. He raised the mug in a salutatory gesture. “To good health.” He downed the whole mess in four gulps.

Great Spirits almighty, that was nasty stuff.

Annie threw the dish towel in the sink and stared at him. “Your skin is starting to get a little pale and clammy,” she noted. “Perspiration’s beading on your forehead. You sure you’re okay? Maybe I poisoned you after all.”

Tombi lifted his right arm a few inches, then dropped it by his side. He’d almost given her the satisfaction of touching his forehead to check.

“Your jaw is twitching, too.”

“It tends to do that when I’m annoyed.”

“Better annoyed than worried sick like I am.” Annie glanced out the kitchen window, and her body slumped, as if the fight and anger had melted from her spine and left her in a pool of misery.

Damn. He fought the guilt that pestered his gut. He didn’t ask that old lady to save him. “Look, Annie, I’m sorry about your grandma.”

She waved a hand dismissively, back still toward him.

“Maybe you should go to the hospital,” he drawled, reluctant to encourage her but compelled to show compassion. Tia Henrietta had saved his life; he owed her.

“She’d kill me. She specifically begged me not to.”

“Did she say why?”

Annie sighed. “She seems to think you are some kind of hero or something.”

“I wish she hadn’t taken the poison,” Tombi offered.

She faced him and tilted her head to one side. “Did she say something to you right before the ambulance came? I saw you lean over the couch where she lay.”

He shuffled in his seat and shrugged his shoulders. “She moaned, and I got closer to see if she was trying to talk. But she was mostly incoherent.”

Mostly.

The word and its meaning seemed to slip by Annie. Thank the spirits.

“She has a weak heart. I don’t see how she can recover from this.” Her eyes were a reproach.

Tombi frowned, hardening his heart. He couldn’t let his resolve to mistrust all strangers end. He had a mission. His people depended on him. Should he fail... No, he couldn’t go down that dark corridor of possibility in his mind. Bad enough the worry haunted his dreams.

Her voice rose an octave. “And to top it off, you seem to believe I brought all this on myself and my grandma.”

Tombi pursed his lips. “You could have set a trap, not knowing your grandmother would come swooping in to save me at the last possible second.”

“Of all the ungrateful...” she sputtered. “If not for us, you’d be dead or ate up with fever.”

He paused, struck by the fact that he was ready to return to the hunt, full of vigor. “That tea actually helped,” he let slip in surprise.