Xuri.
Charlatans, all. Her beleaguered heart was scarred beyond all recognition at this point. She didn’t even know how it was capable of beating anymore, given the abuse it’d taken.
So weary was she that she knew better than to even hold out a snail’s snot of hope that this beast before her would keep faith in what he was telling her. ’Twas Sam’s folly to even dabble with the notion that he be honest.
If his lips are moving, he’s lying. …
Aye, that was the one truth she could believe.
“How do I know you’ll keep this bargain?”
Adarian laughed bitterly. “That’s the rub, isn’t it? You never know what set of lips are false or true. The world is filled with liars and thieves, beggars and whores, all out to take what they can while assuring you that you can trust them to do no harm. Each one stealing a bit of your soul with everything they take until you have so little left that you become one of them. Or something far worse.”
He was right. That was the hardest struggle in life. To maintain a grip on your soul when you were done wrong, especially by someone you trusted. To not let the beasts rob the last of your goodwill. Your decency.
It wasn’t the scarecrow she feared being anymore.
’Twas the shadow overtaking her heart that caused her to wake up screaming at night.
Because, deep inside, she knew she had so little goodness left that it wouldn’t take much to tip that scale over and render her useless and dark for the rest of eternity.
To make her one of the beasts she hated most. The beasts they were commissioned to stop from preying on others.
But to take from the two men who had helped her …
She couldn’t do it.
Adarian tsked. “Here, love. Let me help with your decision.”
The image in the mirror turned sinister. Swirling. No longer was it her reflection. Rather, it became a dark, raucous tavern that looked similar to those she knew Xuri had a peculiar penchant for. The kind he’d never allowed her to venture into because he claimed that he didn’t want her tainted by their tawdry ways.
“You are far too pure for such,lanmou mwen. You don’t need to be sullied with my bad habits. I’d rather you lift me up than I drag you down.” His words had always touched her.
It wasn’t until she’d joined the Deadmen crew of theSea Witch, who were charged with hunting down demons and returning them to their respective hell dimensions, that she’d ventured into such human hellholes and learned what Xuri had meant. Only then had she fully understood his reluctance for her to enter such places.
He’d been right. They were disgusting. And it did nothing to salvage her low opinion of the people who had spent her entire lifetime tormenting her and trying to prey on her innocence and poverty because they saw her as less than nothing. Thought her an easy mark because her father had picked his pride over her future. Honestly, she couldn’t fathom what Xuri found so evocative about them.
The stench alone was enough to keep anyone with a nose far away.
Yet Xuri was an easy one to pick out of the thick crowd in the smelly room. Not just because he was there with his two companions she knew so well, Oussou and Masaka, who were impossible to miss on their best days, but because he sat with Papa Legba and Baron Samedi.
A chill went down her spine that the gathered loas were all away from their precious island, Vilokan. The loa homeland that existed below the seas where they took the dead and lived in peaceful accord with each other until they were summoned into the human world. Rare was it for them to be gathered in such a manner.
And this was no happy outing.
They wore the grim faces of the reaping they were known for. Sitting in a semicircle, the four men reminded her of a murder of crows. A cloud of cigar smoke encircled their heads while Papa Legba and Samedi swapped rum glasses.
As the sole female of the group, Masaka was tall, with dark skin and eyes that flashed with intelligence. Her red brocade coat was embroidered in the same gold that matched the trim of her tricorne hat. But like her brother, she remained silent while the older spirits talked.
Legba narrowed his gaze on Xuri. “You weren’t to be dabbling with her kind, you know that, son.”
Sullen in his silence, Xuri twisted his glass as a tic started in his jaw.
“What were you thinking?” Legba lit a new cigar while he glared with dark, soulless eyes.
Dressed in a bright purple brocade coat, the baron shook his head. “She’s not one of us. She can never be one of our kind.”
Xuri met the baron’s gaze without shirking. “Neither was Maman Brigitte.”
