“I said,” Ree hissed, rage blurring her vision, “fuck you.”
Ree slammed her forehead forward as hard as she could into Granger’s nose. It made a satisfying crunch, blood spurting down from his nostrils and into his mouth. He yelped. The other two snatchers jumped into motion, but Ree was already primed for the attack.
She smashed her hands together, and the two men collided. It was enough of an impact to knock them breathless. Granger, broken nose hooked oddly, was struggling to breathe through his pain, and he lurched at her. Ree flung out a hand, and Granger was knocked backward, far enough that she could gather her bearings.
“Come to me,” Ree murmured. Silence. She tried again in French, panic rising like bile in her throat.
Like any Voodoo Priestess, Ree had access to the spiritual realm, to the ancestors and loa that resided there. But how much access, how many spirits, and which loa would obey was all dependent on her strength, her obedience to the faith. And Marie Laveau the Second was anything but obedient.
One long, horrible moment passed. No answer.
“Venez à moi,” Ree tried again. “Come to me.”
The men were getting to their feet and loading their guns, which she knew were full of aurum pellets. They readied their collars. Still the spirits were silent. They did not come. With a pang of horror, Ree realized the truth of the moment with sobering clarity: They were not coming to her. No one was comingforher.
Now Ree understood her mother’s scorn of her defiance. It hadn’t been real before. Ree had needed only enough magic to see her own whims satisfied. Never had she needed it to survive, to truly rebel. Until now.
She could try channeling the spirits alone. The last time that she’d dared commune with the spirits directly, she’d used Marcel, Anabelle, and Fabrice as conduits. To offer others as conduits was one thing, but to offer herself as a living vessel? It was what Church folks liked to call a deal with the devil. It very well could be. Her mother had always warned her of practitioners who offered themselves to the loa without proper preparation—poor fools who’d never conditioned their bodies to contain such divinity. At best she could be left blind or crippled, her body destroyed by whatever mischief the loa had done while in it. At worst? Well, sometimes the vessels came back to the mortal realm completely mad, driven insane by entangling with divinity. If they bothered to come back at all.
Ree struggled to stand, gasping through the pain of the aurum collar, which shocked her each time she attempted magic. It was a different kind of pain. It thundered through her body, rumbling her bones. Her veins coursed with fire. Ree gritted her teeth, swallowed down a scream, and tried again to get to her feet.
Ree tried her magic again, but this time as just a thought. A prayer.Come to me,she entreated the spirits.
Why?came the voice of the ancestors.You do not come to us. You do not pray to us. Even now your altar lies empty.
This was the truth. Ree swallowed down a scream, a mixture of pain and frustration. But truth or not, she didn’t have time for sage words, not when she was facing down the barrel of a gun and chains. How were the ancestors any different from her mother? They’d sooner see her brought low and humbled if it meant she would swear fealty to them. Everything was a lesson, even her pain. Hypocrites—the lot of them.
Fuck them.Ree didn’t need the ancestors. She didn’t need her mother, not truly. She needed only herself. She was done being beholden to anyone or anything—to the city’s hollow laws, the sanctimony of the Church, these backwoods witch-hunters, even Voodoo.She could do this herself, couldn’t she? What was Voodoo but another game to be won, another parlor trick she could master on her own with enough practice?
Now, as Ree faced certain death, it was her mother’s words that she heard, a vicious whisper in her head:Get up, my love. A queenneverkneels.
But she was so tired, her body heavy with pain. The aurum had eaten away at the heart of her magic, made it impossible to utter a simple spell, let alone breathe. Even so, it was some small comfort that even if the spirits and ancestors had abandoned her now in her darkest moment, her mother had not.
A hand on her shoulder. This was no fever dream. Ree glanced up and stared directly into the face of her mother, who was wearing an expression she had never seen. Marie’s eyes were narrowed, filled with dark, glinting fire, her mouth set low over bared teeth. It was the face of the bayou wolf, full of wild fury.
“Now that”—Granger let out a low whistle—“is the real Marie Laveau.”
“In the flesh,” Marie countered, her voice a furious whisper, “and the spirit. How terrible for you all.”
The snatchers were circling now. Ree caught sight of Silas, who approached from the woods, staff in hand. For one horrible moment Ree thought Silas might flee, or worse yet betray them. But he hadn’t. Snatchers wanted white mystics too. They wouldn’t enslave them, but they loved burning them on a pyre just as well.
“Y’all gon’ make us fucking rich! Can you believe the bounty we’d get for one? But fuckingthree?” the shortest of the bunch said. He hadn’t the good sense to be properly scared, delirious as he was with greed.
Silas gestured with his staff at the snatcher, who blanched. “I think your head will make a nice trophy on my wall. What say you, Quarter Queen?” Though the Grand Wizard jested, his voice was low and full of barely contained wrath.
“I detest the Brotherhood. But even they are too good for this filth,” said Marie.
“And on that, we can agree.” Silas passed her a look. “Let’s not make a habit of that.”
Granger fired off a shot, but Silas had already struck his staff to the ground in a mighty blow, redirecting the bullet to the ground where it ricocheted, striking Granger in the thigh. He let out a broken yelp.
His mate, the one who’d spit in Ree’s face, took an aurum chain and began swinging it wildly like a lasso.
Marie stilled, eyes going flat white. “Do you think you are the first man to try and chain me? Better men have tried and failed.”
Marie made a quick hand enchantment, the movement faster than their eyes could catch, the flicker of a conductor guiding an orchestra.
The snatcher with the chain dropped to his knees. He reached out suddenly, blindly, seeing something the rest of them could not. “Get out of my head!” he screamed.
