She saw the horrifying vision of herself twisting on a burning pyre, just as the first Quarter Queen had done. She still heard the demon’s words, the rattling of its tongue as it proclaimed,If you open the Veil and save your mother, you will forfeit your own life. This is the fate you will damn yourself to. This is what will become of you!
A vision? Or a lie? She couldn’t be sure. It was an impossible choice. Here she was, stranded in the twilight between the lies of demons and the promises of deities older than the ground she stood on. These weren’t kind odds. But she was a betting woman, after all. And this was a risk she was willing to take, even if it was against her own life. She would take it for her mother.
“Do you accept the will of the loa, child?” asked Papa Legba.
“I do,” she said finally.
“Then it is so.” The loa turned back to the Veil and started toward its strange glowing light, the scales in his hand shifting.
“Can fate be changed?” Ree called to his back.
The Lord of the Crossroads stopped in his tracks. It was bold of her to call to a spirit-god who’d already made his proclamations, some might say foolish. Ree felt the wind shift, her heart frozen in her chest.
But the old gatekeeper only turned and smiled, his bright red eyes crinkling amiably at the corners. “You must ask yourself, child: Do you have the power to change it?”
And in one blinding flash of light, he was gone. The door closed.
The sound came rushing back, and with it, the sweet, earthen smell of the fields, the humidity dewing on her skin. The world moved again. The stillness shattered, breaking apart into chaos. Ree spun around—Silas was beside her, still holding the ward in place against Corbin’s men as if he hadn’t moved at all.
Ree felt something crawling inside her, something dark welling to the surface. She could still feel the power of the Veil on her—around her—pressing in. It was in her veins now.
She rushed to Henryk’s side and quickly undid the manacles binding his arms. Claudette made a noise, cutting green eyes at Ree.I am still here.When Ree pried the aurum from her, she was surprised when the older witch snatched her into her arms. “You little brat,” Claudette gasped into her shoulder, Ree surprised at her turn of emotion. “You nearly died.” They all had. But the danger was not over yet.
The roar of a cannon broke the quiet, hurling iron-shot through the night that slammed directly into the alchemist’s ward, its surface flaring with static and light. The force of the blow swept dust and dirt from the ground, tossing their hair into the wind. The other alchemists raised their glowing staffs, projecting them toward the ward, fortifying its hold.
But the cannon had still struck its target—the air. The searing sting of aurum clung to the wind now, weakening their magic. Another shot like this and they may very well be in trouble. Corbin had come prepared.
“Behind me, quickly!” snarled Silas. “Prepare yourself.”
The Brotherhood and the Voodoos, standing side by side, tethered in uncertain truce. One side with their glowing staffs raised, the other calling down the fury and magic of the spirits. The air was charged with the force of their differing magic, the cold light of transmutation joined with the conjured old lightning of Sogbo, loa of storms, and Bade’s fierce blow of wind fused into one crackling breath.
Ree stood between them, close beside Henryk, heart thudding in her ears, each beat keeping pace with the cannon fire. Another terrible burst of cannon shot shook the sky, this one landing with force. The ward broke apart, bit by bit, dissolving into shards of smoking green light.
The blow tossed them back. Ree flew through the dark, landed with a thud in the sugarcane. She scrambled to her feet, saw the chaos rippling around her—Corbin’s men advancing, spells and bullets charging the night, mingling in a mess of smoke and fire.
Ree’s eyes snapped to Corbin. After everything—after the pain he’d caused the women in her line, her friends, the city—she would have him.
She took a step toward Corbin, who dragged himself to his feet, one hand clutching his bleeding side. She halted. Something began to pull at her. She could feel it all around her, calling to her, demanding she let whatever it was inside. It was as if there was a door open in the darkest part of her mind, a thousand hands clamoring against it, prying it open with rotten fingers from the other side.Let us in,a voice whispered in her ear.Let us in and we will save you.
And that tall black door opened just a little for her.
She could feel that sweet sensation of life and death moving across the grounds, calling to her, drifting like a spirit. It was tethered to her—inher. Some of Corbin’s dead slaves would not be buried. New Orleans was the city of water, after all—in the air, in the skies, even in the ground. Any graves dug into the soil were likely to be flooded by rain, with the corpses rushing back to the surface, moldered skin drenched in dark, pulpy earth and wriggling worms. But she could feel their souls tugging at her from the city of the dead, from the many unmarked graves in the wood.
We are many. And we are coming,voices sang to her from the dark.
All that death. It wanted to come back.Throughher.
Come,she beckoned at last.
And that black door within her heart finally opened wide.
Ree convulsed. Henryk grabbed her, folded her into his arms. He shook her. “Ree!Ree!”
But it was too late. The dead were rising now; the deal was done. And there was nothing anyone could do to stopit.
The smoke began to thin, revealing a long line of soot-covered bodies slowly trudging toward her. They were slaves. Or they had been, when they werealive.Now their dark skin shone with a grayish cast in the moonlight, some puckered with seeping wounds, others marred with decayed gashes along their arms and stomachs. Tattered cotton dress hung from some of the decayed bodies, while others were half naked. Different as they were, they all held the same glassy look in their eyes—violet light burned in their irises, a strange cold fire. Ree knew what they were now, these creatures of old folktales.
They were the undead, the unholy resurrected, damned to walkthe earth barren of all soul, hungering for life and flesh. They were zombi.
