Darker Angels

there would be something that spoke to my experience. You can’t imagine how strange it felt to find references to Legba and the loa and to confirm all the things I had imagined at the time to be my own private ravings. I came to understand what I had been, and what had been done to me. I came to see that what had happened to those women had not been my doing. That I was not a monster.”

“But Karen,” Aubrey said. “She had it now.”

“Yes,” Mfume said. “The penal system has very few avenues for the prisoners to keep tabs on the police, but I did what I could. I heard about it when Karen left the FBI, and I sent her letters. I begged her to see me. When she did not, I wrote to her partner, Michael Davis. I thought it was a hopeless attempt, but he came. He spoke to me.

“He had seen the changes in her. The anger, the sense of having been betrayed. When he had first met her, she had been the consummate professional, her personal life kept at home. Since apprehending me, those boundaries had begun to break down. She had become sexually aggressive in ways that alienated her from her colleagues. He saw her manipulating the people around her to no clear end. Every time he reached out to her, he had been refused or redirected. When I told him what had happened, he didn’t want to believe me. But two months later, he returned. I don’t know what had happened, but he knew that Karen was no longer herself.”

“And then she killed him,” I said. “I’m pretty sure she burned her parents to death too.”

“Yes, I heard of that,” Mfume said. “There was very little I could do. I was a convict. A serial killer in jail without hope of parole. I was on record saying that I had been possessed by a demon. I was like the Groucho Marx joke. I wouldn’t trust anyone idiotic enough to find me credible. And so… I escaped.”

“Okay, you could expand on that a little,” I said. “You just said, Wait, this sucks, and walked out?”

“At my prison, there was a meditation group. An outreach to help people within the system become well. I joined it at first because I wanted to find some purely psychological peace. But as I coordinated my reading on the loa, my practice with the group, and my experiences being ridden by Carrefour, I found a way to walk in the crossroads.”

“You taught yourself magic?” Aubrey said.

“There is a certain amount of spare time in prison,” Mfume said. “And I was better prepared than most. I used what I learned. And one day, yes. I walked out. Since then I have been hunting Carrefour, but it has Karen now, and she is a very clever, very resourceful woman. When I learned that the hurricane had injured Carrefour’s enemies, I felt certain that the rider couldn’t resist. I came here, made contact with Legba, and offered my services in exchange for its aid.”

He spread his hands to show the world before us, the dark streets glittering with lights, the black sky glowing.

“Okay,” I said. “But how come I was able to get involved when it tried to kill Sabine?”

“You have also lived in the crossroads,” he said. “Learned how to step between the moments.”

“Yeah, only no. I really haven’t,” I said. “Seriously, I didn’t know about any of this a year ago.”

“Her uncle put some protections on her,” Aubrey said.

Mfume looked from one of us to the other and shook his head.

“I know of no protections that would do what you describe, but my knowledge is… opportunistic. I am no master of this art.”

“What does Carrefour want?” Chogyi Jake said.

“I didn’t know its agenda until I came here,” Mfume said. “Not precisely. I knew it hated Legba above all other loa, but not why. I knew it sought to return to its place. Having spoken to Amelie and her granddaughters, I believe I understand now, but you must take everything I say on this for what it is: my best guess.”

“Consider the caveat emptored,” I said. “What’ve you got?”

“Legba is also a master of the crossroads. It controls the path by which loa pass into human bodies, and it is the gatekeeper between the loa and all other riders. It has terrible power, but it is also weak in some ways. It is more involved with humanity than other loa. It is connected to the world in a way the others-even Carrefour-are not. Each person Legba enters into, it never leaves. It dies with them.”

“That’s a shitty design,” I said.

“No, it’s not,” Aubrey said. His voice was stronger than I’d expected. Less shaken. “It’s normal. Pretty much any terminal or chronic disease works the same way. When a tuberculosis patient dies, all the bacteria in their lungs go with them. The point is to get daughter organisms out before that happens. To spread.”

“And so,” Chogyi Jake said, “Sabine.”

“Sabine,” Mfume agreed.

“But Legba’s still in Amelie,” I said. “Sabine’s not being ridden yet, right?”

“No, not right,” Mfume said. “Legba is also in Sabine. A Legba. Growing to maturity. Finding its strength and hers.”

“And she knows?” Aubrey asked. “She’s okay with it?”

“She has always known,” Mfume said. “It is what her family has always been. Only now Carrefour intends to pull it out, to sever the connection between the rider and the bloodline that has protected it.”

“Why not just kill Sabine?” I asked. “I mean, since we’re being bloodthirsty and all.”

“Once the rider is vulnerable, it can be eaten. Its power can be taken on by Carrefour. Once it alone controls the crossroads, it believes it can take Legba’s place, and force the loa to renounce its exile.”

“Can it?” I asked. “Will they take it back?”

Mfume laughed. In the distance, as if in answer, a car alarm chirped.

“The political life of the loa is beyond me,” he said. “It’s possible that Carrefour is tilting at windmills. Or things might all go just as it intends. Unless someone stops it.”

“Meaning us,” I said.

Mfume stabbed out the last of his cigarette on the rail, tiny sparks raining down to the street below us.

“We are in the right place at the right time,” he said. “And so yes. Us.”

“Well,” I said. “At least we’re on the same side.”

“Are we?” Chogyi Jake asked. “It seems we all have similar goals, but our agendas aren’t all the same. Legba wants to protect itself and its offspring. We want to find Ex and get him out of harm’s way. Those aren’t really the same thing. And if I understand Joseph, neither one are what brings him here.”

“Your friend’s right,” Mfume said. “We are on the same path for the moment, but this is a marriage of convenience for all sides.”

“So what’s your agenda?” Aubrey asked. He managed not to make it sound like an accusation.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’ve come to redeem my redeemer,” Mfume said. “I intend to save Karen Black.”

TWENTY

The war council was held at the same table where Legba and I had made our pact. The candles and lace tablecloth were gone, and a cheap torchiere lamp had been plugged in, filling the room with rich halogen light and the smell of burning dust in more or less equal degrees. Amelie Glapion sat on her throne, surveying the room with a critical expression. Her nap had returned her to sharpness, but I was more aware of her as an old, fragile woman than I had been. To her right, Dr. Inonde looked like a mildly apologetic salesman. To her left, Sabine sat, her face still full with youth but managing to mimic her grandmother’s severity. Chogyi Jake, Aubrey, and I took the other side of the cheap folding banquet table, and Mfume sat at the head, both with the group and also apart from it. Daria was curled on her cot, a sleeping bag pulled up to her ears, snoring quietly.

Some kind soul had run out for coffee. I had a paper cup with cafe au lait just slightly too hot to drink. The others had drinks of their own, except for Chogyi Jake and Amelie Glapion.

It was ten thirty at night, and dark as midnight.

“We don’t know where she is,” Amelie Glapion said, “and she can’t find us neither. So that’s where it stands. Either we keep her held off until Sabine can watch out for herself. Or else we take her on.”

Sabine nodded. She knew what was happening. And what was more, I could see from the way she held herself that she accepted it. She was going to be the host of a rider for the rest of her life, and in this place, in this context, she thought it was a good thing. And God help me, I was starting to see her point of view.

“How long is it going to take for Sabine to pupate?” Aubrey asked.

The room went silent, all eyes turning to Aubrey as if he’d said something inappropriate.

“Excuse me?” Sabine said. I hopped in.

“How long before the loa in you is strong enough to fight off Carrefour?” I said. Then, “He’s a biologist. He talks like that sometimes. Don’t sweat it.”

“The longer it goes, the stronger it grows,” Amelie said. She was herself; I didn’t hear any trace of the rider in her voice. “The child will come into her own, but it ain’t all that different from real kids. It happens when it happens, you know?”

“Generally, the longer we can hold her off, the better it’ll be,” I said.

“Except,” Mfume said, planting the word like a flag. Attention shifted to him. “You mustn’t underestimate Karen Black. Once, I was able to keep a rough sort of track of her. Once, we were certain that we had time, that we could arrange this confrontation to fit our schedule. Instead, Carrefour has gathered new resources. It discovered us at the temple, and except for Miss Heller’s intervention might already have taken Sabine. And it has vanished.”

“Yeah, that was me,” I said. “Well, us. The wards where it’s hard to find with spells and cantrips and stuff? That was our fault.”

“We cannot assume that stealth gives us power,” Mfume continued. “Karen is very good at what she does. We may believe that we are safe only because she allows us to think it. The illusion serves her, and waiting gives her the tempo.”

“But we do know where she is, don’t we? We know where the safe house is,” Aubrey said.

“And she doesn’t know that we three are back in the game,” I said. “So she won’t know that’s compromised. If nothing else, we could send someone out to take a