Last Breath

Smoke?

Is something burning? It smells like…

The smell of a fire growing hotter brought Della out of the suffocating darkness and her eyes snapped open, still darting from place to place as if she was trying to find a place to hide.

Lifting her head from the book she had fallen asleep on, Della looked around the shop groggily, hoping to see what had woken her up. As usual, there was no one in the shop but her, and she leaned down again to rest her chin on her folded arms before she let her eyes wander.

Same dream, she thought with a sigh.

She didn’t close her eyes, afraid the dream would pick up where it had left off. It usually did, as if her mind was incapable of not showing her the end. Not just showing, either. She could feel herself dropping, her mother’s hands letting go off her as her skin blistered and baked away, leaving raw red wounds that looked like claw marks. She always screamed, but no one heard her, not even when she screamed herself awake.

Today she’d stopped it though, and she wasn’t about to let it get a hold on her again.

Della jumped off the stool and started to walk around the shop; not a difficult task because the room was circular and there was a massive round table in the center that was piled with crystals, books, antique instruments like a sexton and a lavish ossuary that held the skull of someone’s beloved pet. She barely looked at any of it, just walked around and around the objects as if she was trying to hypnotize herself, drawing energy from the ghosts that inhabited the antiques.

Not even she could fool herself into thinking it was prophetic. Her mother’s voice was still smeared into the developing creases of her mind, drilling it into her head over and over that she wasn’t like the rest of them. She didn’t have their magic, their generations of knowledge, and she didn’t even share their skin color.

Sometimes Della felt like that was what hurt the most. A ring of kids at the school yelling crude spells to push back the clouds so they could have just a little more recess, all of their faces white. The color on their faces was from exposure to sun or to dirt - ‘natural’ color. Good color. Not like Della, a mutt who didn’t know anything about her father except that he wasn’t white and he wasn’t one of their kind. All anyone had to do was look at her and they’d know it too.

No magic, no seeing the future. Just twenty-something years of being told I’m useless.

She didn’t realize she was standing in the middle of the room with her arms wrapped around herself until she heard the door open, the rusted bells draped over it jangling loudly as they banged into each other and the wood. Della jumped, startled, then hurried back to the safe side of the counter just in time to see an unfamiliar man walk through the door.

“Good afternoon,” she said with a smile, watching him look around the room.

It didn’t take magic blood to know that he wasn’t there for anything particular, just another guy browsing the shop to see what sort of strange books and crystals they sold, and then he might some crude remarks about them, or the shop, or her.

The man turned toward her and for a moment Della felt like she had been punched in the stomach.

“’Afternoon,” he said, his voice a lazy drawl that sounded part Creole, part dirty South, and all New Orleans. “It’s a little dark in here.”

“Some of these books are antiques. I want to keep them from getting sun damage,” Della replied, watching him make his way aimlessly around the table. “If it’s too dim for you, I can turn on a light or something.”

“No candles?” The man looked around the pile of books at her, a half smile tugging at one side of his lips. It made Della’s cheeks burn, but she refused to look away from him. “No dramatic lighting with scarves tossed elegantly over lampshades so everything gets all purple and shadowy?”

“Is there something I can help you with?”

The hold this man’s rakish smile had over her was wearing off, rapidly being replaced by annoyance. She was still feeling slightly hung over from her dream and wanted to sneak across the street to the bar, before attempting to spend the rest of the afternoon in the shop counting candles and dusting statues.

“Maybe,” he said, approaching the counter. “I’m lookin’ for someone who can give me some information on witchcraft.” He leaned his elbows on the wood. “Real witchcraft.”

“Real witchcraft,” Della scoffed, picking up a pair of reading glasses and wiping the lenses while she sat back down. “What do you want to know about it?”

“Oh, are you a witch?” He looked intrigued, and Della’s stomach tightened around the cold knot that had formed in its pit.

“No,” she said, hearing the hardness in her voice and not caring. “I’m not.”

Della expected him to keep pushing but he didn’t. Instead, he reached over and plucked a rose quartz tower from an arrangement by the register and ran his finger along the facets.

“Shame. Would’ve been nice talking to you about it.” His finger pressed just slightly on the tip of the point in a way that made Della catch her breath, as if he had touched her bare skin instead. “Does this stuff really work?”

“Sometimes,” Della managed. “It mostly depends on the witch who’s working with it. A lot of people just like the aesthetic. They don’t know what real magic is or how to manifest it.” She could hear bitterness creeping into her voice and knew she wasn’t going to be able to hold back. Not that this guy would know or care. “If they even have the power to begin with.”

“Hmm.” The red-haired man looked down at the counter as if he was trying to come up with something smooth to say - Della had seen that look before and it always sapped her energy - then turned his attention back to her. “So let’s say I have the power. How do I manifest it? Tell me how to use this thing.”

He pointed the crystal at her like a wand and Della held in her sigh.

“You focus on the thing you want to manifest,” she said, deciding that he didn’t need anything more in depth than the Cliff’s Notes version. “Then you put your energy into the crystal and place it on your altar or use it in a spell. Some people think that all you need to do is put your energy into it, and that it’ll act as an amplifier. There’s no one right way to work magic.”

The words tasted too thick and sour, like milk on the edge of going bad, and Della focused instead on the man’s blue eyes. They held all the mischief she expected, but kindness too.

“But there’s a good and a bad way, right?”

“It’s all about intent.” The dream began to return to her and Della clenched her hands into fists, digging her short nails into her palms. “Before you even begin to focus, you have to set your intention. It has to be something you want so badly you can see it in front of you, so clearly that you could reach out and touch it.”

“I see,” the man said, his drawl pulling the words apart.

He gazed down at the crystal and Della thought of her mother.

She’d heard those words over and over, her mother’s hands cupped around hers as she held a crystal pillar or wand, trying to make the magic come, focusing so hard that she was curling her toes in her ladybug sandals, and squeezing her eyes closed. Trying to wring out even the smallest spark of magic from her tiny body, pleading with the angels or the fairies or gods, or even demons to just grant this one wish. The man looked back up at her with a grin.

“What if my intention is for you to have coffee with me?” The words had no sooner left his mouth than his face became serious. “What’s the matter?”

“What?” It took Della a moment to realize she was crying, and she laughed as she swiped the tears out of her eyes with the back of her hand. “Sorry.”

“I apologize, I didn’t mean to upset you,” the man said, quickly setting the rose quartz back down with the other stones. “Gran always said my feet were just the right size to fit both of them in my mouth.”

“No, no, it’s nothing you said,” Della said, running a hand through her hair absently and wincing at the sharp pain when the opal ring on her middle finger snagged a curl. “Ah, dammit.”

“Hang on.” Smiling kindly, the man nodded at the counter. “Mind if I come around?”

Della shook her head, pulling her hair again. The man joined her behind the counter and reached up to help untangle her ring from her hair. His touch was gentle and he smelled good, like leather and pine with just a hint of old tobacco. Della breathed him in, not caring what he thought of her.

“There you are,” he said, bringing her hand away. “That’s a beautiful ring.”

“Thanks,” Della replied. “For the compliment and the help. It was my mother’s.” She looked up at the man, who wasn’t much taller than her but somehow seemed larger than before. “She told me it was a gift from my father.” She paused and for a moment it felt like they were two different species.

Then he grinned again.

“I’m Gabriel.”

“Della.” Her eyes met his again and she returned his smile. “Della Monroe. How long is that coffee offer valid?”

“Only ’til you say yes.”

Tired of pretending she was asleep, Della opened her eyes and rolled onto her back.

Gabriel was still completely out beside her, bare-chested and halfway tangled in the blanket. He wasn’t snoring but his mouth was open like he might have been.

It wasn’t like her to go home with someone she’d just met but there had been something so comforting about Gabriel that when he’d asked if she wanted to come back to his place, she hadn’t hesitated. He wasn’t like the guys she usually met at her usual bars and street fairs, he actually seemed interested in talking to her and—more importantly—everything about him told her that if she’d refused his invitation, he wouldn’t have pushed the issue.

She’d dreamed about her mother again, which didn’t surprise her. Once she started dreaming about their village, it weighed enough on her mind that she would dream about it for weeks. In the past she had hoped it meant that the dreams were signs, part of some sort of divination power that was finally surfacing after twenty-five years, but she never truly believed it. If you told a kid horror stories enough times, they were bound to work their way into her mind and show up later.

Della lay with her arms at her sides, feeling a bit like a corpse waiting to be autopsied. She wished she could pay someone to do it; cut her open and take out her memories of her mother, then seal her back up and send her on her way so she never had to think about her grandmere, shrunken and scowling, telling her that her time was about to be up, and she still didn’t know if it was a threat or not. It had felt enough like one that she’d had to make a decision, one that had led her to this place in Gabriel’s bed in an apartment he’d apologized for twice before they’d even gotten to the living room.

“Mornin’,” Gabriel said, his voice startling her out of her memories.

She hadn’t even realized he was awake and he was already getting out of bed.

“Good morning.” Pushing back the covers felt a little like pushing her dreams away at the same time and she nodded to the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Keep an eye on the water,” Gabriel said, rubbing his face with both hands. “The hot water heater is for the whole building so sometimes it runs out at the worst time.” He grabbed a pair of sweatpants from a pile of clothes on a chair and pulled them on as he turned and smiled at Della. “I’m gonna make coffee. You want?”

“That’d be great,” Della said around a yawn.

Gabriel pointed to the pile.

“Everything on there’s clean. If you want a shirt or somethin’ you can grab whatever you want.” He winked at her and she felt her body getting hot again before he turned and left the bedroom.

Della exhaled slowly and tried to gather her composure before she went into the bathroom to take her chances with the hot water heater.

One unwillingly abbreviated shower later, Della joined Gabriel in the living room to find him sitting on the couch with two plates of waffles and sausage, alongside two mismatched mugs of coffee.

“You made me breakfast? In less than ten minutes?”

“The microwave is a miraculous invention,” Gabriel said, giving her the same grin he had at the shop the night before. “I actually can cook but time was of the essence to make a good impression.”

He handed her the coffee and Della took a long drink.

“Thanks,” she said. “And I’m not too good for toaster waffles.” She grabbed the syrup and started to drench the waffles. “So last night you said you came to the shop to do research, why did you come to my shop?”

“It was the first one that came up when I searched for metaphysical shops,” he said, sounding almost apologetic. “Guess y’all are popular.”

“It’s more likely that Windsor is just really good at SEO.” She took a bite of her waffle. “We’re not really that popular. Most of the people who come are regulars and the occasional tourist who wanders in when they think the voodoo shops are a little too weird.”

“Maybe so,” Gabriel said, leaning back on the couch, “but from what I could tell just from walking around, you’ve got some legitimate spell books and the materials to use them. So I guess I came to the right place after all.”

“Why were you looking for a metaphysical store in the first place, though?”

She used a chunk of waffle to mop up a puddle of syrup and Gabriel sat forward.

“I’m a journalist,” he said. “There’s been a couple of weird murders up north, and the lady they brought in as an expert said it looked like a kind of ritual that’s specific to the swampy areas down here.” His words made Della’s stomach gurgle unpleasantly and Gabriel paused. “You know somethin’ about that?”

Della picked up her coffee and took a drink, staring into the depths of the cup so she wouldn’t have to look at Gabriel just yet. She didn’t know how to answer that or if she even wanted to try. Sleeping with a guy she’d known less than 24 hours was one thing, but unlocking that door was something she didn’t know if she could do. She was already having the old nightmares again, if she fully opened the door she didn’t know if she’d be able to close it again.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Gabriel said quickly, picking up his own coffee. “I promise I’m a real journalist, not one of those shitty reporters who get tossed outta clubs for harassin’ the customers.”

“No, it’s not that,” Della said, setting her coffee back down. It was the same as the night before. As soon as he realized she wasn’t jumping at the chance to talk, he had backed off. Real journalist or not, she didn’t feel any malice coming from him. She didn’t need magic to tell that much. “There’s a different kind of magic in the swamps. It’s half Western magic and half hoodoo but they’d never admit to it. To them it’s just the swamp magic.” The door was open a crack now, and she brought her eyes up to study Gabriel’s expression. “You’re from around here, aren’t you?”

“Sorta. Dad’s side of the family is. Mama’s is from the good ol’ Midwest. They met up there when he was at their vacation place up north, and the result is the mess of awkwardness you see before you.” He gestured to nothing in particular and she found herself looking at his fingernails. Short and clean, but a touch of something in the corner of his nail bed. Dirt, maybe, or grease. “Anyway, I came down here to do a little bit of research, see if I could find someone who might recognize some of the pictures or the symbols.” He leaned back against the couch again and looked over at her. “I’m a terrible researcher.”

“Really?” She took another sip of her coffee, then turned it from side to side until it was in the perfect spot. Gabriel didn’t answer, and she stared at the mug. It had a tiny chip in the rim, and she focused on it as if it could help her figure out what to do. “Can I see them? The pictures?”

“Sure,” Gabriel said. “Some of them are pretty graphic, you wanna wait til after you finish breakfast?”

“That’s probably not the worst idea.” She could hear her grandmere hollering at her, telling her that this man was an outsider and if she told him their secrets she would bring her curse down on all of them. “Why don’t you bring all your info to my place? I’ve got a bigger table and we can spread it out to look at it better.”

“I dunno,” Gabriel said with a grin. “Gran told me I should be careful of ladies who invite me into their house. They might try to shove me in the oven, or just disappear into a good boudin..”

“Where’d your Gran learn to cook?” Della tried to sound offended. “You can’t use that much skinny white meat in boudin or it’ll dry out.”

“Well, the last time she said it I was about seven. Had a little more fat on my belly back then.” He patted his slightly toned but decidedly not defined midsection. “Bein’ a freelancer will slim you down pretty quick.” Della couldn’t help but grin. He reminded her of a guy she’d known in the past who could always make her smile, just by changing the tone of his voice. “If you’re fine with havin’ some low class writer in your place, who am I to argue?”

“I don’t know,” Della said, leaning toward him and narrowing her eyes, “I might need some persuasion to open the door.”

“I’ve been told I’m fantastic at persuasion,” Gabriel said, reaching over to put a hand on her thigh.

He slid it up almost to her hip and squeezed it with just enough pressure to paint a stripe of fire up her leg. Her whole body seemed to be drawn to his, and she actually found herself moving toward him in spite of herself. There was still plenty of time to change her mind and pull away, right up until he leaned in and kissed her.

Della felt as if she was going to melt. She wanted to melt into him, become a part of him, and as he moved to kiss the side of her neck she was struck by the knowledge that the only way it would be possible was to open the door the rest of the way. Delaying the inevitable just a little longer, she let him push her back on the couch and forget.

As Della had expected, she hadn’t needed to see the photographs. Not wanting Gabriel to suspect she knew more than she was ready to tell him, she let her eyes roam over them anyway. She’d never actually seen the old rituals performed, only studied them and learned how just in case a miracle happened and she somehow woke up with the same power as her mother, her grandmere, and every other woman who lived in Petite Alouette. Every woman but her.

“This is strange,” Della said at last, tapping the photo closest to her. “Does Spanish moss grow up north?”

“Is it Spanish moss?” Gabriel stood beside her at the dining room table where she’d spread the photos. “It looks different from the stuff I’m used to.”

“Yeah, but it’s the roots. When they stuffed it into the eye sockets, they put the moss in first and left the roots sticking out.” She looked at Gabriel. “It can’t be humid enough to keep it alive up there, can it?”

“I dunno. People keep ’em indoors on desks and stuff. They call ’em air plants.” He looked at Della. “I saw this stuff a lot growin’ up down here, so it was the first thing that stood out to me. This was the other.” He pulled one of the pictures toward Della and she immediately saw what he was looking at. The corpse’s empty eye sockets had been stuffed with Spanish moss, but it hadn’t been attached to the body. In its place was an alligator’s head, sewn clumsily with thick black twine. It had been dead a while from the looks of it, and Della looked more closely at the twine. “What do you see?”

“You’re right,” Della said. “This is swamp magic.” A lump had risen in her throat and she tried to swallow around it. She’d heard about this, whispered between the other girls her age when she was growing up, but never seen it firsthand. She held the photo closer to her face, wanting to confirm the most important sign before she told it to Gabriel. As if reading her mind, he handed her a magnifying glass. “Thanks.”

She adjusted the magnifying glass until she could see the twine better and knew it was true. It only looked black because of the flash. If it had been put under a microscope a professional would have been able to see that it had undertones of a dark brownish red. The majority of the blackness came from ash, further darkened by strands of thick black hair that were woven into it. It was hard to see but there were tiny barbs sticking out between the fibers.

“This is handmade,” she said finally. “It’s separated out by hand, then mixed with burned yew bark and the blood of the person they want to control. Then finally they add their own hair to the center when they retwist it together to keep the person compliant. It’s almost like putting a leash on them.” Della set down the photo. “I’ve never seen it used like this before. The twine is usually braided into someone’s hair or made into a bracelet or necklace.” Her stomach flipped over again and she took a deep breath. “It’s also meant to be done when they’re alive.”

“So if this person,” Gabriel began, looking down at the table, “or whatever it is now, was being controlled, whoever did it couldn’t do it when they - it - was alive. You can’t just cut off someone’s head and then expect to make them do whatever you want. If it was just that, they would’ve just done the twine around the wrist thing. It’s almost like they were tryin’ to make some sorta gator man.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. What do you know about hoodoo?”

“Not much. Only that it’s different from Voodoo.” He shook his head. “Gran was always weird about me looking too close at religion. Even Christianity. She said you have to give up too much of yourself.”

“She’s right,” Della said, then looked at the pictures. “Voodoo is a religion. It’s got organization, priests, and they pray to the Loa, the gods and goddesses. A lot of their worship looks like old world Catholicism, and it’s very structured.” She touched the gator head. “Hoodoo is wild magic, or I guess you’d call it folk magic. It takes the energy of all things that surround us and uses it to do rootwork and effect the world around it. It’s usually one person on their own, looking to achieve a goal, or have a chance to right some wrong. It’s usually harmless nature magic, and most of the people who practice it have no intention of harming anyone.”

“Most, but not all,’” Gabriel said, and Della nodded.

“Yeah, same with witchcraft. People only hear about the ones who perform some horrific acts and then claim it was a ritual or–” She swallowed the bile that rose into her throat. “–a sacrifice of some sort. Neither true magic or hoodoo are violent works. Any components are gathered respectfully and as painlessly as possible.” She grimaced at the gator head. “Not like this. This is just cruelty.”

“You know a lot about all this,” Gabriel said, exhaling slowly. “I’ve got goosebumps all over now. I can actually feel what you’re telling me.” He turned away from the photographs and leaned back against the table. “You think this is real? I mean, you think whoever did this got what they wanted?”

“Are you asking if I think it worked? If he was able to make some sort of alligator monster and make it do what he wanted?” Della closed her eyes and put her hand on the photograph, trying to pull anything out of it that would tell her what they wanted to know.

She’d seen her mother do it when she was younger but no matter how hard she focused the only thing in her mind was how empty she felt. She opened her eyes and released the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“Della?”

“Sorry.” She looked over at Gabriel. “Have there been victims? Any deaths of people who looked like they’d been mauled by an animal?”

He frowned and ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in the front as if he’d been in the wind.

“I dunno. I didn’t think to ask, really. I thought this guy was the victim. I mean, he still is, but I didn’t think he could also be walkin’ around killing other people.” Gabriel folded his arms over his chest. “I’ve got a friend at a funeral home up in Chicago that can get into the death records. She wouldn’t be able to tell me their name or anything but she could at least tell me if they exist.”

“They should be easy enough to find if they do,” Della said. “I don’t imagine there are a whole lot of gator attacks in Chicago.” She raised an eyebrow. “Are there?”

“Nah, we don’t have many of them. Too cold in the lake, I think.” He pushed himself off the table and looked around the living room. “You got a clock somewhere?”

“I usually just check my phone.” Della turned on the television. “Looks like it’s about noon.” She watched Gabriel gather the photos and slide them into a large manila envelope, noting the red stamp on the envelope. “Got an appointment?”

“Just wondering. You don’t work today, I guess?” He closed the fasteners and tossed it on the bar nearby, then picked up the messenger bag he had brought the photos in and pulled out a small laptop. “Mind if I use your wifi? I can call my friend and she can send me whatever she can find.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

Della went to the refrigerator, careful not to look at Gabriel. Her mind was racing and he was sharp. He’d see immediately that something was wrong and she wasn’t ready to try and pull it apart for him. Despite the fact that they’d slept together, they’d just met. She didn’t want to tell him about her family if she didn’t have to, not until she knew for sure about the twine.

How am I supposed to do that though?

“No shit?” Gabriel’s voice cut through her thoughts and she looked toward it, only to discover that he had disappeared into her bedroom. She followed the sound of his muffled words to find him sitting on the very edge of her bed with his phone to his ear. “Can you send me that? As much as you can, yeah.” He noticed Della and gave her a thumbs-up. “No, I’ll bring it back. I swear I will, you know I’m good for it.” There was a teasing tone in his voice and Della felt a prickle of annoyance.

“Good news?”

She tried not to let her voice belie her suspicions and Gabriel nodded with an almost boyish grin.

“Very. Well, I mean it’s good news for us. Probably not good news for John Doe number nine.”

“NINE?” Della looked at him, shocked out of her irritation. “There are nine victims?”

“Nine that Emi thinks are connected,” Gabriel said. “Turns out she’s seeing this girl from the crime scene team and animal maulings are her thing.” He shrugged. “I never understood lesbian pillow talk, no matter how much I hung around them.”

“Nine,” Della repeated, almost to herself.

The number had completely blown anything else out of her mind. She’d expected one or two if any, but this was out of control.

If she was right, if she knew what was happening in Chicago, then there was no way around it. She would have to take Gabriel to Little Dove Swamp and find out what they could do to stop it. With no magic of her own there was no way she could do it by herself, and though a half-believing white guy was the only thing she could come up with for help, he’d at least win points with her grandmere.

At least she hoped it would.

“I’ve never been this far into the swamps,” Gabriel said, looking out the window as Della concentrated on the muddy, unpaved road. “Not even when my buddies and I were runnin’ around out here lookin’ for the swamp witches.”

“I thought you said you hadn’t heard of swamp magic?”

“Everybody on the bayou knows about swamp witches, especially if you’re a rowdy little kid with no manners or sense like my teachers claimed. It’s one of those things you talk about by the campfire, like snipe hunts and Papa Legba. Stuff you know is true in your heart but that most people want to say is wives tales or ghost stories.” The sun was starting to set and it made Gabriel’s hair turn from auburn to fiery copper. “Gran told me that there’s magic out here, and there’s things out here that would turn my blood to sand if I crossed them, and no one would ever find me if I was lost. So yeah, I believed that there’s witches out here. A different kind of magic though?” He leaned his head back against the headrest and shifted his eyes toward Della. “I always just thought magic was magic.”

“I suppose it is, in a way,” Della said, keeping her eyes on the road. She could feel his gaze, but figured that avoiding it would make things easier. “It’s all the same when you’re the only one who doesn’t have it.”

“Guess you’re right about that,” Gabriel said, rolling his head back to the center and closing his eyes. “Doesn’t matter if it’s pagan magic, hoodoo magic, or swamp magic, it’s not like I’d even begin to know how to work it.”

They bumped silently along for almost a minute, with Della gripping the steering wheel so hard her knuckles paled as she waited for him to ask. He didn’t, though, and she looked over at him.

“Gabriel?”

“Uh-huh?”

He sounded like he was barely on the edge of consciousness and Della fought the urge to make him wake up so they could talk. If he didn’t hear her say it, or if he didn’t remember it, then that wasn’t her fault. The line was so thin, no human could walk on it without splitting themselves open and spilling their secrets into the darkening water. What was safe to tell him and what she wanted to tell him were back to back against it and she tightened her grip until she felt something pop in her elbow.

The pain that shot down Della’s arm was chased with numbness and she flinched instinctively, her foot slipping off the gas pedal. The car lost speed and veered dangerously toward the side of the path they were navigating and Gabriel sat up straight to catch the wheel and try to push them back to the center and safety. Everything felt like it was happening too fast and Della could hear Gabriel speaking from far away. She could feel the car’s wheels starting to slide and without thinking, slammed on the brake.

Della barely felt the impact; Gabriel’s arm pressing across her chest just before her head bounced off the airbag was what registered, and as a familiar heat began to spread from her nose memories poured into her mind like water through a broken window. Somewhere at the very edge of consciousness she heard Gabriel yelling, though she couldn’t make out words, and another bolt of pain shot through her arm before she stopped struggling and let the darkness win.

“I’m hot, Mama.”

“I know, baby. Just try to go to sleep.” A rough hand pushed back the curls that were stuck to Della’s sweaty forehead. “The medicine will work oon.” Her voice was gentle, and far enough removed from Della’s memory that it sounded like the wind blowing through the trees. Della opened her eyes and saw her mother smiling down at her sadly. Her thin, pale face was lined with exhaustion that had only deepened as Della’s sickness continued to linger but she was still radiant to her daughter. “You want some water?”

“Uh-uh.” Della clutched her mother’s shirt and shook her head. “I want you.”

“You’ll always have me, ma petite chou.”

Her words made Della giggle.

“I’m not a cabbage!”

“Ah, no? Then who was it that I found under that cabbage leaf?” Her mother’s weary smile turned playful and she pinched Della’s nose gently before gathering her daughter into her arms and kissing her forehead. “Wherever I found you, I’m glad I kept you.”

“Me too.” Della curled against her mother’s chest so she could hear her heart beating. “Mama?”

“Yes, baby?”

She combed her fingers through Della’s hair, catching a tangle every now and again, but the girl didn’t flinch. She didn’t want to upset her mother, so she pushed it to the back of her mind and asked the thing she was most afraid of in the world.

“Am I ever gonna get my magic?” Della could see her mother’s face tighten but now that the words were out there was a chance she could get an answer. “I wanna hear secrets too.”

“Della…”

“I wanna know for real, Mama! Everybody’s got it but me,” she pouted, looking up at her mother through a blurry film. “They said you’d know.” Della ground a fist into her eye and winced at the sudden pain.

“Go to sleep, my baby,” Della’s mother said, her voice turning low and light. “You’ll hear all the secrets you’ll ever need one day.”

She drew Della close enough where she couldn’t see her face anymore, only hear the beating of her heart. Della closed her eyes and counted the pulses as they caressed her cheek.

She counted until she ran out of numbers, then started again. And again. And again, until she realized that she had run out of beats to count.

“Mama? Mama?” Della’s eyes snapped open and she reached instinctively to the other side of the bed, scrabbling through the sheets in search of her mother. Unlike that morning, however, there wasn’t even a body to find. “MAMA?”

“Hush up,” a cracked, harsh voice said. Its accent was so thick the words ran together in a stream that almost sounded like slurring, but Della knew better. Her grandmere would never let liquor touch her lips that wasn’t a sacrament, and Della’s life had never warranted anything close to that. “You’ll wake everything in the bayou.”

Frowning, Della pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. She remembered the pain in her arm, but the wreck felt very far away. Two pieces of memory healed back together and she gasped

“Where’s the man who was with me?” His name escaped her but she remembered his face, fair and spritzed with freckles. “He was a white man, tall and a bit muscular but nothing special.” She rubbed her forehead. “It was..it was…”

“Nothin’ special?” Gabriel came through the door holding an icepack on the middle of his face. “Ouch.”

“Gabriel!” His name came back to her at once and she gave him a shaky, relieved grin. “I’m glad you’re okay.” He sat on the bed next to her and pulled the ice pack away from his nose. Blood was crusted around one nostril and there were the beginnings of a black eye at the corner of one eye. Della grimaced. “I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, shaking his head and massaging the ice pack so it was even. “Besides, it’s not the first shot to the face I’ve taken.” He grinned back at her. “Every woman I’ve ever met says I’m the most hard-headed man they know. I’ll bounce back from it a lot faster than bein’ nothin’ special.”

“It was my fault,” Della insisted. “I let go of the wheel and hit the brake.” She rubbed her elbow absently. “I know better than to do either of those things on the swamp roads.”

“He’s right,” her grandmere said, her words sounding as if they were being breathed into a rotting log. “It’s not your fault. La Petite Alouette don’t want you here. It never did.” A shrunken, bent woman emerged from the darkness behind the closet door, her hair and face both washed almost clean of color. Her eyes had once been hazel, like Della’s mother, but the last of the flecks of green and brown had long since faded. There was no way to know how old her grandmere was, and it seemed like a sin to even ask. Her eyes were cloudy but found Della’s face in seconds, locking her in their gaze. “Your mama smuggled you in here inside her belly and we kept you safe, but once you fled our safety the door locked itself behind you. Now you want to come back in here and bring your papa’s darkness with you.”

Della twisted her fingers into the sheets near her hip, her face hot.

“That doesn’t have–”

“Your papa’s skin don’t have anything to do with it,” her grandmere said, snapping off the end of her thought. “It’s his nature. A white man has the same hunger in him for power, for control, but your papa’s blackness swallows him whole and stains everyone he touches.” She tapped her elbow. “Petite Alouette trying to take you apart to protect itself. Too late to unmake you, your mama saw to that.”

“Leave Mama alone!” Della shot up from the bed, ignoring the shimmering at the edge of her vision. “What did I ever do to any of you? She’s dead. Just leave her alone!”

“It’s not her blood drawing the darkness into our home, it’s his.” Della’s grandmere was almost invisible in the shadows but her eyes were clearly visible. “Get yourself back home. You know better than anyone you’re in danger here with no magic to protect yourself.”

“I didn’t come here because I wanted to,” Della shot back, stung. “I came because there’s someone that used swamp magic to control a monster they made.” She looked at Gabriel and he put a hand on her arm. “From the looks of it, they made it using rootwork.” Her grandmere stared at her hard enough that Della felt her skin crawl and Gabriel’s fingers closed around her wrist. “People are getting killed because of it and Gabriel and I are the only ones who seem to have found out why. I have to stop it.”

“How you think you’re gonna do that? You can’t cast or summon, you can’t break roots. You can’t even do more with the gifts of the swamp than make tea. Go back to the city and live with the rest of the blind.” She shook her head. “You can stay here tonight. We can keep you safe from what walks out there in the night but when the sun comes up, you have to leave.”

There was a knock at the door and Della’s head whipped to the side, her heart pounding. Gabriel held her wrist tightly and she ignored him, not wanting to see what was on his face.

“Can’t you at least help me? There has to be something I can do!” Her grandmere stepped into the dim light and Della held her breath. She looked as if she was several hundred years old, and at the same time not a day older than she had been the morning that Della had woken up beside her mother’s body. “You can’t just turn your back on it!”

“Della?” A middle-aged woman stepped into the room, her eyes wide. “What are you doing here?”

“Tantie Phine?” It had been almost fifteen years since Della laid eyes on her mother’s baby sister and it was like seeing her mother’s ghost. “How did you—“

“How does your blood know it is in your veins? You are a part of my blood, baby, I can feel you coming before you even entered little Dove Swamp.“ She crossed the room and put her arms around Della, buried her face in her aunts chest and tried to hold back tears. “I can always feel you, baby. For so long you were the only part of your mother I could still feel.”

“What do you mean?“ Della could hear the frown in Gabriel‘s voice, and it took her a minute to register what he meant. “Are you sayin’ you can feel her now?“

Everything went still and cold as the air left Della‘s lungs as suddenly and violently as if she been punched. The dizziness had returned and she lifted her head so she could look at her aunt Delphine. To her credit, the older of the women didn’t look away or blink. Before she could answer, a hissing came from the shadows.

“Be silent, Delphine. There’s no need for her to be a part of it. She’ll just turn his eyes on us and bring the end of our line, as we were warned when she came out wearing his skin.“ The ancient woman’s voice was strong, and there was no mistaking her disgust. “What could she do about it anyway? This is the old magic, the magic of the Earth and the gods, what could a child barren of even the weakest power do against such a thing?“

“She has a right to know!“ Delphine‘s arms tightened around her niece, and for the first time in more than a decade, Della truly felt protected. “Marine was her mother. No matter what she can or cannot do, she is still a part of this family.“

“If you intend on telling her, you can join her on the road out of la Petite Alouette. There is no place in our world for someone who cannot respect the decisions of our elders.“

Delphine looked as if she’d been asked to sacrifice her own child. She leaned her head on top of her niece’s and a moment later a hand brushed against the back of Della’s shoulder. There was no chance it was her grandmere’s so it had to be Gabriel, adding his strength to hers that felt like it was dwindling further every moment she was near her grandmere.

She’d only known him for hours. Not days, hours, and he was supporting her without hesitation or condition. She looked up at him and he smiled, though his eyes were hard as diamonds.

“C’mon, darlin’.” His gaze flicked momentarily from her grandmere to her aunt, then back to Della. “You remember the way outta here?”

At first she didn’t understand, but then she pulled away from her aunt and nodded slowly.

“It’s been a while but I made it out once before.” She looked up at her aunt, her deep brown eyes meeting an echo of her mother’s hazel ones. “I’m sorry, Tantie Phine. She’s right, I shouldn’t have come.” Her aunt’s arms remained outstretched as Della left their comfort and let Gabriel take her hand. “It may not be anything I can fix or destroy, but Mama would never forgive me if I didn’t at least try.”

“Can you really get us outta here?” Gabriel’s voice was low by her ear as they walked through the door of the neat little cabin set back from the edge of the swamp.

It was hot outside, humid enough that she could almost see the steam coming off the swamp, and the smell of hungry soil and algae hung around them like a wet curtain.

“Of course I can,” Della replied, more confidently than she felt. “Its gonna be easier than last time, as a matter of fact, last time I didn’t have a cell phone.”

“There’s no way you’re gettin’ a signal out here. We fell off the GPS half an hour before we found the entrance on the way.” He followed her as she led him along the edge of the swamp, keeping an eye on the water. “I don’t wanna think of how many gators are hidin’ in there right now.”

“They’re probably packed in there like a parking lot,” Della said absently. ”They’re most active at night. Some might be asleep though.” She paused to look up at the sky. “Besides, I don’t need a signal. My phone has a compass. New Orleans is northeast of here and the parish road maintenance starts about the same place as the electricity.” She pointed at the barest widening of the band of light in the distance. “We just keep following the compass and checking it with the light pollution.”

“Hope they’re all asleep,” Gabriel muttered and Della stifled a laugh.

“Just don’t get too close to the edge. They’re not going to sneak up on you while you’re near people, they’re gonna wait to ambush you when you’re alone.”

Something behind them rustled and Della’s entire body tensed. Whether it was a human following them or a gator moving through the water plants she didn’t know, but Della continued to walk with a purposeful stride. No matter what her grandmere said, she belonged there just as much as anyone else.

“So what are we gonna do once we get to the road?”

“Walk,” Della said simply. “Walk until we find someone to give us a ride or get a signal on one of our phones.” She sighed and held out her hand with her phone laying flat on it so the compass would work. “Last time I had to walk so long that when I found a gas station I fell asleep on the bench outside and someone called the cops.”

“You were just a kid back then, huh?” Gabriel quickened his step so he could walk beside Della.

His legs were longer than hers but he seemed to enjoy taking his time when they weren’t being chased.

“Eleven maybe,” Della said, nodding. “Or twelve. Old enough for everyone in the world to know that I didn’t have powers.” She exhaled heavily through her nose. “Sometimes they just manifest, like when you’re a kid. That’s not an unusual situation. Sometimes they’re brought on by a big shock or some sort of trauma but they usually show up by the time you’re about five or six.” She sighed. “I knew one girl whose didn’t show up until she started her period. Not gonna lie, I was pretty disappointed.”

“I bet.”

They were silent as their feet made sucking sounds in the mud where the water had seeped up through the earth. Della hadn’t heard the rustling again but it didn’t meant anything. Things in the swamp knew how to stay quiet.

People too, she thought sadly.

Gabriel cursed behind her and she looked over her shoulder.

“Try to walk in my footprints if you can. You’ll sink less.”

He nodded and she walked on, the moon in the sky and its twin shining on the murky water the only things lighting their path. Della kept her eye on the line of light in the distance.

“I don’t remember when I gave up. One morning I woke up and broke a glass pot of scalding hot coffee, and while they were working on it at the ER it occurred to me that I wasn’t holding my breath, waiting to see if my powers awoke or if I started healing faster. I had just come to the hospital to let the doctors take care of it because I wasn’t capable. I was just a superstitious swamp girl who needed a real doctor to patch her up.”

“What’s that up there?” Gabriel pointed past her and Della followed his finger. “It’s too dark, I can’t tell.”

“It’s my car,” Della said. “That must mean we’re going in the right direction. The tracks are faint but I can see which way to go.” She looked longingly at the vehicle whose front end was the definition of being wrapped around a tree. “I wish I had the confidence to try turning it on.”

“Not worth it. It’s hard enough to see fluid leaks under your car during the day, and there’s at least fifteen better ways to get peeled like a carrot.” He glanced absently down at his phone, then stuck it in his back pocket. “Still nothing.”

“Let’s stop at the car for a second,“ Della said. “I have a big flashlight in there and I want to grab it.” Gabriel nodded, and she headed for the car with him walking close behind.

She realized when they got closer that she had no idea where the keys were. If she didn’t have them, and they’d had to carry her through the swamp, those things were surely lost for good. Della put her hands against the glass and peered inside her car, breathing sigh of relief when she saw them still dangling from the ignition. She tried the passenger door and found it was unlocked, and as Gabriel joined her she wondered how long it was going to be before her luck ran out.

Still listening for whatever was following them, Della reached to the very back of the glove compartment and pulled out a heavy flashlight with a metal casing. She kept it almost as much for protection as she did actual light, and just having it with her made her feel a little more secure. She straightened and showed it to Gabriel, who grinned.

“That could do some serious damage,” he said. “Maybe I need to keep one of ’em on my bike for emergencies.”

“Your bike?” Della raised an eyebrow and he nodded, looking behind him.

“Yeah, my motorcycle. I left it up in the garage in Chicago when I came down here but I’ve got an old Triumph Bonneville that belonged to my dad, and I ride it most everywhere up there.” He put his hands in his back pockets. “I was helpin’ my Gran clean out her garage when I was seventeen or eighteen and found it. She said it was my dad’s and he left it behind just in case he had a son one day.” He grinned at Della. “I wouldn’t mind bringing it down here once we get all this under control.”

“I’ve never been on one before,” Della said. “I heard they’re dangerous.”

“Life’s dangerous,” Gabriel said with a shrug. “Might as well experience everything we can.” He tried to give her a comforting smile. “Sorry about your mom.”

“Me too. She never got a chance to tell me anything about my father or how they met, and pretty much everything I do know came through my Tantie Phine because she and my mom were so close. My grandmere only ever cursed him and talked about how he abandoned us.” Leaning her hip on the car door, Della folded her arms across her chest and tapped the flashlight on her upper arm. “There were a lot of secrets they kept from me because I wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t really a part of the family line so they thought I wouldn’t get it.”

“So how’d they meet?”

“I only got the courage to ask Tantie Phine after Mama died,” replied Della, dropping onto the passenger seat but keeping her feet planted on the soggy earth. “She said Mama was out in the swamp picking crabs and crawfish, and she found a man hanging from a tree. Looked like he’d been beaten too.”

“Hangin’? Like a lynchin’?” Gabriel’s face turned paler in the moonlight and Della shrugged.

“It wouldn’t be the first time we found a body out here, black or white. But that’s what I always assumed. Probably a gang of swamp boys got drunk and lost their way chasin’ some poor black man and ended up in Little Dove Swamp instead of the more public area.” She leaned her head on the door frame. “Mama could pull out your sickness. She could put her hands on you and just draw it out like poison. That’s how I killed her.”

“What do you mean, you killed her?” Gabriel frowned, then sat on the floorboard with his long legs stretched out in front of him.

Della looked down at him.

“We were both sick. I don’t remember what we had, just that Mama was getting better and I wasn’t. She shouldn’t have been trying to draw it out of me, she was too weak.” She closed her eyes. “All I know is that when I woke up she was laying beside me, cold and with her eyes open.” Gabriel was silent and she went on, sparing him the need to find something to say. “Anyway, it turned out she was just in time and he wasn’t quite dead yet so she cut him down and had Tantie Phine help her treat his wounds. One day he left, and months later I was born with dark skin and this curly hair. Grandmere has hated me ever since.”

Gabriel was looking down at his hands as if he didn’t know what to say, and Della couldn’t help appreciating that he didn’t give her some automatic platitude. He frowned suddenly as if he was thinking, but Della knew from her own experience that he was trying to fight back some memory. She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, and he looked up at her as he covered her hand with his. In spite of everything that was happening around them, Della was seized with the urge to kiss him.

It wasn’t that she needed him romantically at that moment, more than she had suddenly understood that they were the same, both hiding a loss they hadn’t been able to allow themselves to fully feel for years. Della wanted to connect herself t him, just for a few moments, to breathe his air and feel his warmth while she comforted him and let herself be comforted. Their eyes met and Della touched her lips to his gently, as if asking permission, and Gabriel met her in the affirmative.

The world stood still for what felt like hours or even days, and Della’s heart soared when she felt Gabriel’s arm wrap around her waist and pull her awkwardly onto his lap in the floorboard. They both barely fit but it didn’t matter. If she could she would have sunk into him and become part of his bones and blood, but that was impossible. She had to settle for wrapping her arms around his neck and holding him close, gathering energy for the rest of their trip out of the swamp.

“Della –” Gabriel had just pulled away from her lips when something huge splashed in the swamp nearby, as if it was turning over in the water or submerging after a gulp of air. They both turned in its direction, but Della was the one who saw it first.

“Ambush predator,” she mumbled darkly. “I’m such an idiot.” Her eyes flicked to Gabriel, whose face had gone chalk-white. To his credit, he hadn’t passed out but his brain was definitely about to short circuit. “Hey. Don’t move. On the count of three, pull your legs in and shut the door as fast as possible.”

Gabriel nodded and Della prepared herself to move.

It was on its belly like an alligator, something she’d seen a thousand times growing up in the swamp, but that’s where the similarities ended. Almost. Its bumpy head and long snout were familiar, and the way it huffed and blew the water out of its nostrils, but the eyes that stared out at her were blue. Blue, and human.

“What in the name of God…they made another one?”

“One,” Della said softly, ignoring Gabriel’s words as well as the slightly higher pitch of his voice. His posture changed just slightly and she knew he’d heard her, so she went on. “Two. Three!”

On three, she pushed herself off the ground and rolled backward over the console so she was laying in the drivers seat.

At the same time, Gabriel pulled his legs in until his knees were alongside his chin and yanked the door closed just as the creature began to lumber toward them using its human arms and legs, onto which the feet of an alligator had been attached. As it got closer, Della could see the thick black stitches around the wrists and ankles, and then around the neck. She was certain that if she could get closer, she’d be able to see that it was the same reddish-black handmade twine soaked with blood.

“Maybe they don’t last long,” Della said, trying to rearrange herself so she was in a seated position, even though she knew the car wasn’t going to start. “Dead things start to rot immediately. Not even hoodoo rootwork is going to stop that process. Or maybe it was just too hard to bring it down here so they let it die. Either way, that’s not the one that was killing people in Chicago.”

“Any thoughts about how we might be able to get outta this alive?” Gabriel kept his eyes on the creature as it crawled around the car in search of its prey.

“Kill it,” Della said. “We have to kill it, preferably before it kills us.”

There was a thump on the side of the car and the thing appeared against the window, its horrible reptliian hands pressing on the glass. Della could see reddish liquid leaking from the twine that held them in place, running down its wrists in a way that reminded her of tallow on a candle.

“How?”

“Probably the same way we’d kill any other human. Gators are strong but whoever made this one didn’t realize that if they used a human body as the base it would have that much power.”

She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a short knife.

“You think you’re gonna kill that thing with a pocketknife?” Gabriel looked at the knife as if he didn’t trust it and Della nodded, unfolding it to display a short, shiny-sharp blade.

“Of course I am. Human bodies are surprisingly squishy. You just have to hit the right spot.” She looked over at the creature as it slid around the glass, leaving streaks of bloody liquid as it did. “Even a thing like this has a heart that can stop.”

Della let her eyes fall on the twine, leaning toward the glass to give it a closer look while she had the chance. It was much more evident, even in the darkness, that there was hair woven into the string.

Cursing herself, Della wished she’d asked her aunt who was missing from the village before she left. Someone else had to have left, it wasn’t as if she could control anyone. Taking a deep breath, Della put her hand on the door handle and wrapped her fingers around the metal lever, preparing to open it as soon as the gator fell back onto the ground.

Instead of sliding down the door and dropping out of sight though, the gator beast seemed to notice something and it lifted its head to sniff at the air. Its massive jaw snapped open and closed, and Della was further horrified when she saw the creature step back from the car and walk toward the trees on two legs like a human.

“Holy shit,” Gabriel breathed. “This thing just gets better and better.”

“Where is it going?” It walked much less steadily now that it was standing up, almost as if it couldn’t see as well, but it knew where it was headed.

Della and Gabriel shared a glance, then watched the progress of the gator thing as it moved toward whatever it had smelled. Della exhaled slowly.

“This might be our chance,” she said quietly. “I can sneak up on it while it’s distracted.”

“You think you can get in there before it notices you?” Gabriel sounded more impressed than skeptical and Della nodded. “Okay. What can I do to help you?”

“Just be ready to get its attention again if you have to. Throw something, honk the horn, whatever.” She grinned at Gabriel. “Thanks for not trying to talk me out of it.”

“You seem pretty capable of saving our asses,” Gabriel said with a shrug.

He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. Della’s cheeks burned and she reached for the door handle with the knife in her other hand. She’d barely touched the handle when a scream rang out and was silenced somewhere nearby.

“Shit,” Della said, popping open the door. “Shit!” She jumped out of the car and ran toward the shape of the gator creature. She’d thought it was after another animal, not a human. “Shit!”

“Run!” A familiar voice came out of the darkness and a shape emerged from the trees, halfway bent over. “Run, little one!”

Her aunt’s face was pained as she clutched her abdomen and Della stepped forward to put her arm around Delphine’s shoulders.

“Come on, come with me,” Della said, looking back to check for the monster. Delphine looked like she was going to protest but Della pulled her along. “It’s not very far, just over this way.”

There was a grunt behind them and Della could hear the low, slithering sound of a reptile in mud but with just a slight wrongness to it. It was moving faster than a normal gator would and Della remembered that she couldn’t predict what it would do because of that. Thankfully they were close to the car and Gabriel had the door open, waiting for them. Della pushed her aunt in before her, then crawled in and closed the door behind them and pushed the lock button out of habit.

“What happened?” Gabriel leaned between the front seats. “Jesus. Looks like it sliced her in half. You got a first aid kit in here?”

“Save it for yourselves,” Delphine said between clenched teeth. “I was foolish, letting you be chased away without an argument. I came to apologize, to help you find your way and say goodbye. Marine would have been ashamed of me.” She tried to smile. “Maybe if we had been together it wouldn’t have happened.”

“I’m going to stop this,” Della said, putting her hand on her aunt’s shoulder. “I don’t know why that thing is here, but I know how to stop it.”

“You’re the only one who can.” Delphine gritted her teeth and blood ran between her fingers in a gush. “You’re the only one who can stop her and protect Little Dove Swamp.”

“Stop her?” Della looked out the window. She could hear the gator-thing crashing around the bushes but it was nowhere to be seen at that moment.”You know who’s doing this?”

“I had an idea when I heard you telling your grandmere about the monster, and when I saw it I knew.” She took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled as if she was trying to steady herself. “And I felt her. At first I thought I was feeling you, but this was stronger.”

“You said you can feel your blood,” Gabriel said, catching on. “So you could feel Della and her mama.” Delphine nodded slowly and he closed his eyes. “When’d you know she was missin’?”

“About a year ago,” Delphine said. “We take the bodies of the dead out to the swamp for our final ritual, then let the earth take them back. When they’re nothing but bones, we make their memorial cairn. When I went to clean it on her birthday last year though, the cairn was destroyed and her bones were gone. A little while after that I could feel her again. I thought maybe I was going crazy though.”

“I don’t understand,” Della said. “You think Mama made this thing somehow?” The thought of her mother having anything to do with a nightmare like this made her feel sick.The mother she remembered would never kill anyone, not even an animal, unless it was absolutely necessary.

“Not your mama,” Delphine said. “Your daddy. And he did it by using your mama’s bones.”

Another gush of blood poured through her hands and Gabriel cursed, then grabbed a handful of paper towels from the console to hand across to her.

“Can you put pressure on it?” He was completely folded over the seat to try and put his hands on the wound and Delphine nodded weakly. Gabriel turned his attention to Della, who felt as if everything had turned to mist. “Hey, darlin’, do you have any kind of towels or sponges in here?” She nodded absently.

“There’s a first aid kit under the front seat and some chamois in the glovebox.” Her own voice sounded like it was coming from far away and Gabriel turned away to search for what he needed. “How? Tantie, what is this? How could he do this?”

“You remember how I told you when you were a girl about Marine finding your daddy hanging in the swamp?” Della nodded her reply. “There’s such a thin line between death and life. When Marine cut him down, she thought maybe he might still be on the line - that she could still pull him back if she could get him down, and she could save his life.” She pressed her hands to her abdomen with a grimace, her blood flowing freely around them. “He had already crossed over, but she didn’t realize it. That was the first time she was able to steal from the grave.”

“You can’t be saying what I think you’re saying, Tantie.” Della looked over at Gabriel, who was digging through the first aid kit in the front seat. He was muttering and Della turned her attention back to her aunt. “Mama brought him back to life?”

“Not just him.” Reaching out to her niece with a blood-covered hand, she tried to smile. “That is why your grandmere resents you so much. Her beautiful daughter used the last of her strength to restore a powerless half-blooded child’s breath. To her it was a waste but to Marine it wasn’t even a choice. Your life was worth more to her. Now hers is in your hands.”

“I don’t understand,” Della said, looking into her hands. “How?”

“The closest thing I can find to useful is an ace bandage and some gauze pads,” Gabriel said, leaning over the front seat. “I’ve closed some pretty ugly wounds with butterfly strips so I could get to the ER, but I don’t think that’s gonna work.” He looked at Delphine. “No chance of you bein’ able to walk?”

“Just leave me here,” Delphine said. “If I die, I want to die here at home where I belong. Can you do that for me?”

“I can,” Della said, swiping tears from her eyes. “I love you, Tantie Phine.”

“I love you, petite chou. You’re the only one who can end this and free your mama.”

She settled back against the door, breathing hard as the blood continued to flow from her wound.

“What do we do now?” Gabriel looked at Della, and she tried to piece together everything she’d heard.

The hair woven into the twine was doubtlessly her mother’s, the way she’d seen it done when she was a child, but she had no idea where it could have come from. Della knew how to stop the monster, but to truly end her mother’s torment she would have to go to the source.

“That thing is out there somewhere. I need to get it on the ground long enough to cut the twine and break the spell,” Della said. “Once that’s done we have to find my father.”

“How are we supposed to do that?”

“He won’t be far,” Della said. “He’ll want to be nearby so he can see what he’s done.” She looked toward the sound of the blundering animal, which had suddenly stopped. “There’s a road flare in my trunk we can use for a distraction. We’ll get it and go find the gator.” Gabriel nodded. “If something happens to me, run. If you get the chance and I haven’t done it already, hit that thing to stun it and cut the twine. Got it?”

“Yeah.” Gabriel glanced over at Delphine, who was laying with her hands resting on her midsection. Her face was still and peaceful, eyes half-lidded as she gazed blankly at the floorboard. No blood flowed from her wound and no pain caused her to grimace. She looked like she was asleep. “I think she’s gone.”

“She is.” Della reached over and closed her aunt’s eyes the rest of the way, gazing at her sweet face, framed by light brown hair in a braid that had been covered by a kerchief. “Goodbye, Tantie Phine. I’ll give you your sister back soon.” She leaned forward and gently kissed Delphine’s forehead. Then she turned to Gabriel. “Let’s go.”

With Delphine’s body blocking the rear driver side door, Della and Gabriel were forced to get out of the car on different sides. Strangely enough, there were no signs of the gator thing. Splashes of her aunt‘s blood led into the swamp bushes, and Della followed them instinctively, the way they had tracked possums and raccoons when she was a kid. She could hear Gabriel behind her, and his footsteps in the wet earth and slime were comforting. A part of her wanted to reach back in the hopes he would take her hand, but she restrained herself, knowing she might need both of them soon.

It didn’t take long for them to find it.

Her aunt hadn’t gone down without a fight. She’d seen the same thing Della had, and at some point before or after it sliced into her midsection, she had managed to cut the twine on its wrists. A knife, much sharper and in better repair than the one she had in her hand lay nearby, and when Della knelt to pick it up. She saw that the twine on one of the creature’s ankles had broken as well. It didn’t seem to know she was there, and the plank-like jaws opened just enough to make a pathetic groaning sound.

“Shit,” Gabriel said quietly as he joined her beside the thing. “I guess they’re not as durable as we thought.”

“I feel sorry for it,” Della said. She folded the blade on her pocket knife back into itself. “It didn’t ask for this.“

The gator creature opened its eyes then and gave a halfhearted roar. Della and Gabriel exchanged a look, then she knelt again by its side.

Della wondered whose eyes she was looking into as she put her hand on its rough, bumpy head. They were blue and filled with terror, yet at the same time they pleaded with her to end the monster’s suffering. The stump of one of its human arms moved toward Gabriel and Della saw him swallow hard before kneeling beside it and wrapping his hand around its forearm, his eyes bright. It seemed to relax, and Della picked up her aunt’s knife.

“Please forgive me,” she said. “Forgive all of us. You can rest now.”

The knife was sharp and cut the twine with ease. The monster’s eyes went blank as its head fell away from its neck and its broken body went limp. Looking down at the lifeless thing between them, Della reached toward Gabriel and he took her hand with his free one. They sat in silence for a moment, neither able to speak, then looked up at each other and let go.

“He’s here somewhere,” Della said, biting back tears of rage. “He’s not leaving Little Dove Swamp alive again.”

Gabriel went to her side and put a hand on her shoulder, then nodded to the water.

“It came out of the swamp, right? Let’s follow the water line and see if we can find where it went in.” He swiped at his eyes with a hand he didn’t seem to notice was streaked with blood. “Let’s find that son of a bitch.”

Whatever Della had been expecting to find at the end of their search, it hadn’t been a battered old camper whose peeling paint made it look like a sideshow wagon. If she’d seen it parked on her street she would’ve either walked past it or called it in as abandoned. Through the scratched and cracked windows she could see lights in the main room, and she glanced at Gabriel.

“It feels like a trap, doesn’t it?“

“Yeah, it does,“ Gabriel said. “We both go in the front door and there’s a decent chance we’ll die in that doorway.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. “These things always have one of those propped open back windows,” he said. “I’m gonna go around back there and come in that way. It’ll also give me some time to look for your mama.”

His words made Della‘s stomach turn but she nodded, knowing he was right. She watched him pull an old log over to the back of the camper and step on it to test it. She wished she could tell him what to look for, or help him somehow but she didn’t know what to expect either.

“Be careful,” she said, and he hopped down from the log so he could lean in and kiss her.

For a moment Della considered telling him to forget it all, that they could just turn around and leave and she would go with him to Chicago and just disappear. Then the taste of the tears that had been on his lips were on her tongue - tears he had shed for the gator monster who wanted nothing more than to have its hand held while it died - and she knew he’d never agree to it.

“You too.” He kissed her again, this time on the forehead. “See you in just a little bit.”

Walking up to the door of her father’s camper felt like she was walking to her own execution, but at the same time she couldn’t help being a little curious. She’d never seen his face or heard his voice, didn’t know if he was tall or short, only that he was “that black one Marine brought back”, which had a whole other meaning to her now. There were times she wondered about him and if she was like him at all but now the only thing she wanted to know about him was when he had stopped breathing.

“Come on in, little girl,” a voice said from inside the camper, and Della’s blood ran cold. It was nasal and yet had a depth to it that reminded her of a chest cough.She knew he was baiting her, and that there was still a chance that she would be dead as soon as she stood in his presence, but she still climbed up the rickety wooden steps that led to the screen door. “What’s taking you so long? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of your daddy?”

“Never,” Della said, more to herself than him, as she flung open the door hard enough for it to bounce off the outside of the camper before walking into the darkness.

The inside of the trailer was strung with half-burned out Christmas lights and a mishmash of candles made the walls dance, giving Della the feeling that she had stepped into a fire. There was no trap waiting for her though, no gator monster ready to tear her apart or knife being pulled across her throat. There was only a man standing between her and the living area, a tall but withered black man with a grayish tinge to his skin that told her that while he was the man she was looking for, he was also far more dangerous than she had expected.

“Welcome, baby girl.” He reached out to her and she took a step back, not wanting him to touch her. A light gray, powdery substance had fallen from his fingers and she didn’t want it to get on her. Whether it was a toxic substance or flakes of his shed skin, the thought made her nauseous. “Come closer and let me see you. I never even knew you existed until a year ago.”

“I could have lived my whole life without seeing you,” spat Della. “You’re a murderer, a sick, heartless murderer.”

“So we’re not going to be friends, then,” he said, and Della could feel him mocking her. “Ah, it’s just as well. I never really wanted to be tied down with a child.”

“I don’t care what you want,” Della said, feeling tears prickle the back of her eyes and hating them for it. “Nothing would make me happier than to nail you to the tree my mama found you hanging from and leave you for the gators to take revenge.”

“Oh now, Della, that’s not nice.” A vicious smirk curled the edges of his mouth. “Yes, I know your name. After your aunt Delphine, wasn’t it?”

“Don’t even say her name,” Della snarled, her tears chased back by a surge of anger. “You don’t even deserve to be here, you’re poison to everything you touch. I know how to stop you, though. I finally understand what my mama did and how to undo it for good.”

“You understand nothing, little girl. You cut apart my gator-man but so long as your mama is with me I can make more. And so long as she’s with me, I can never die.”

He grinned, showing a gold tooth and one into which a gold diamond had been set. One dead, whitish eye pointed at the wall, giving him a look of madness that made Della want to scream in his face.

Over his shoulder Della could see Gabriel crawling through the window at the back of the camper. She was surprised by how quietly he had managed to do it but a guy who had run around the swamps with his friends as a boy probably had a lot more trouble he’d gotten into. She turned her attention to her father - it felt so strange to think of this horrible man as being involved in her existence - to keep him talking.

“Why would you do this? Why make this thing and kill all these people? Do you even have a reason or did you make a deal with the wrong loa?”

She watched his face, hoping she could read it along with whatever he said, but all she could see was his grin.

“Why does any man do anything? For money, of course. It’s much easier to live well if you don’t have to repay your debts, or sell any of your own things when you need a little extra.” He leaned closer to her. “And of course there’s that other thing. Everyone wants that thing.”

“What thing?” Della didn’t even try to keep the disdain from her voice. “Sex?”

“Control,” her father said, making his hand into a fist. “Power. The ability to make men fear you. Women, too. Sex and admiration come from that power, when weaker people want to be controlled. Who would threaten a man who can send a creature from their nightmares to destroy their family? What woman says no to a man who can protect her even into the grave?”

He opened his hand again and Della saw the same grayish flecks fall out.

“I guess it would have to be something that childish,” she said, glancing at Gabriel’s progress under the guise of rolling her eyes. He had stopped in front of a small set of cabinets that looked like they were made of cardboard and was tapping them lightly. “You don’t seem to be living very well right now.”

“What, this?” Her father laughed, a hearty, deep sound that might have sounded comforting under any other circumstances. “This is temporary. This is only so I can move around, a place to work in secret that I can pull into a storage space where no one is the wiser. You, my daughter, are the only person alive to have seen the inside.”

He leaned back in his tattered armchair with a satisfied smile, as if he was a king on his throne instead of a half-alive monster in a musty camper, and spread his arms wide as if to invite her to take part in a banquet.

“You see, this is where the white folks are wrong about the cradle of creation. Not some perfect garden with apples and snakes for a god to play in the mud. It’s here, with fire and needles and blood. And POWER.”

As he continued to rant, Della let her gaze wander around the room so she could see what Gabriel had found. She wasn’t surprised to find that he’d almost silently pulled the cardboard cabinet faces down to reveal a wooden box that looked like it was made of simple cuts of unstained, unfinished pine. Nothing fit for a treasure, just a place to store something out of sight. He didn’t have to unlatch the front and open it for her to know it held her mother’s remains, but seeing Gabriel carefully open the doors to reveal a battered human skull still lit an inferno inside her.

“I won’t let you do this anymore,” Della said, finally clenching her fists at her sides. “I won’t let you use my mother’s bones to make your monsters so you can steal and kill whoever you want. She might have loved you once, but she would never wish for this.”

“There’s nothing you can do about it. Her bones give me power but her breath keeps me alive. As long as a single piece of her spirit remains, I will live as well.” He grinned even wider and Della took a step toward him. “You cannot hurt me, little girl. Even if you kill me, I will just come back again and again. But feel free to try.”

“I intend to,” Della said, giving him a smile that burned as it stretched over her face. She turned to Gabriel, who tossed the pine box to her. Della caught it in both hands and opened the door so she was face to face with her mother for the first time in almost fifteen years. “Forgive me, Mama. Please tell Tantie Phine that I love her, and I understand why she told me to leave her.”

Della gently removed her mother’s skull from the box, careful not to twist the few hairs that were left stuck to the mummified remains of her scalp. Her jaw was intact but loose and Della held it steady until she had dropped the box onto the filthy carpet. She couldn’t read the look on her father’s face, but she could see a spark of panic taking shape in his one eye. After letting her gaze wander over her mother’s face one final time, she looked past her father at Gabriel, who seemed to be waiting for her to tell him he could breathe.

“Hold him,” Della said coldly.

They hadn’t planned it, but Gabriel somehow knew what she meant and she was grateful to him for understanding. He produced a broken broomstick from behind her father’s chair and pinned his arms to his side with it. The spark of panic was now a blaze and Della felt tears running down her face.

Opening her mother’s mouth sent a cascade of ashes and ground bone over her hand as the bag they had been in broke and fell through her empty jaw. Della kissed the bare bone of Marine’s forehead before dropping it onto the pile of ash and lifting her foot.

“I love you, Mama.”

With that, she brought her foot down on the skull, which broke with a pop that somehow seemed far too timid. Her father struggled against the broom but Gabriel was stronger. Knowing that she couldn’t leave so much as a hair behind, Della picked up a candle from the wall and poured the wax over her mother’s remains, then dropped the candle.

“It doesn’t matter,” her father screamed as the wax caught fire and flames began to spread along the cheap carpet. “It doesn’t matter if you destroy every part of her! You’re the same as me, we both contain a part of her! As long as her breath remains in this world, my heart will continue to beat!”

“I know,” Della said, taking out her aunt’s knife again. It still had Delphine and the gator creature’s blood on it, but she didn’t wipe the blade. They deserved a part in this too. “I’m counting on it.”

Eight Days Later

“I don’t think either Mama or Tantie Phine ever made it this far from Petite Alouette,” Della said, looking at the scrubby prairie-like land. “It would have been a shock to them to see a place like this with no water.”

“I’ll bet,” Gabriel said, stepping on the head of the shovel he had sunk into the ground. “Nothin’ out here but dirt and rocks.” His muscles strained at the arms of his t-shirt as he heaved another shovelful of sandy earth out of the hole. “And the sun. And no wind.”

“They were twins,” Della said with a smile. “They thought I didn’t know, but they were. That’s why they could feel each other, and that’s why they could feel me. Because we shared the same blood. Grandmere didn’t know I was in Petite Alouette. The only ones who did were Tantie Phine and my father, through my mother’s blood.”

“That’s the last of it,” Gabriel said, wiping he sweat off his forehead and tossing aside his shovel. “Drop it in so we can get back on the road and get somethin’ to eat.”

Della nodded.

“Thanks for doing this.” She picked up the sealed coffee can, struggling slightly with its weight, and looked at it one final time before dropping it into the hole Gabriel had dug. “Once you get past a certain depth, the soil gets hard.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said, taking off his work gloves and jamming them into the back pocket of his jeans. “I’m just as glad to see the back of that thing as you are. You sure you don’t want me to fill it in for you?”

“No,” Della said, picking up the shovel. “I want to do this myself.”

It didn’t take long to fill in the hole, and she didn’t take care with it the way she had the cairn she made in her mother and aunt’s memory, not having remains to enshrine. In fact, Della didn’t want anyone to ever know it was there. Not until long after she released her last breath. She kicked dirt and dead grass over it so it looked natural, then nodded and turned to Gabriel.

“What do you want to eat? I’m buying.” She went over to him and he put his arm around her waist, resting his hand on her hip easily.

“Dunno. Seems kinda like the sort of afternoon you just ride ’til you see some little stand by the side of the road, y’know?”

He slung the shovel over his free shoulder and Della nodded.

“Yeah,” she said, putting her own arm around his waist. “I do.”

They walked together toward Gabriel’s motorcycle without looking back, and once they’d ridden away there was no one around - not even an animal - that would suspect that under the rocks and dirt was a decaying human heart encased in salt, still beating steadily in the dark.