Powerful Magic - Part Five

or a bagful of bone dust keeps the fairy on Earth

Previously On - Laurent gets sent by a local houngan to a cemetery to collect old bones. In the process, he learned more about his new strengths and weaknesses. Will the human magic wielder be able to keep him bound to Earth?

I reached the wall after what felt like hours. I clawed my way up, feeling the tips of my fingers split open. I sensed rather than saw the blood and flesh I left behind. Clearing the top of the wall was like a blast of cool air after the furnace of summer. I fell off the other side and landed in a heap on the sidewalk. Something snapped inside me, but after the torment of the last few minutes, or hours, it was a weird sort of blessing.

I rolled onto my back and looked at my fingers. They were whole and there was no blood. My mind had conjured up the feeling of destroyed flesh to describe the unbelievable amount of pain I'd been in. The broken bones were real though. This was another first in a day of them. After a few ragged breaths I pushed to my feet and gathered the bag of bones. The movement made me cough, and the wetness of the sound told me I had torn muscles. My return trip to the houngan's house was much slower. What had taken a minute, now took a full half hour. The stars and moon told me I had four and a half, perhaps five hours left before sunup.

This time I stopped well before the porch began. "I hope you have information. I have promised not to harm you or yours, but I can get creative when motivated." I coughed again. I recalled the "lungers", humans who had contracted tuberculosis in the time I last walked the Earth. It sounded eerily similar.

Donnez moved out of the shadows. "I have, tainted one." He gestured towards the foot of the stairs. "Put down your gift for me, and I will tell you."

I did as I was told. It galled me. I then took a few steps back. "There you have it."

He came down and pushed back the folds of cloth with a cane he had in one hand. He nodded and hummed to himself. "The man you killed was a drug dealer name Willy Sparkles."

"This is useful to me, how?"

"Shut up." He knelt and took one of the bones. "The power be great, maybe not great enough." He began humming and sang a few bars of something in what was not a language, but a stew of languages. "The spell be bought from an old book store a few blocks away. Go there and get what you want." He laughed.

"What is it?" I didn't like the laugh. It was too self satisfied.

"There be enough gris-gris here for me to give you three days."

"That is not enough."

He shrugged, still looking at the bones. "It be what it is. Find the book the spell came from and I do more. I make you a gris-gris that can hold you back from Hell and you complain. You be worse than my grandbabies." He looked at me. "Willy Sparkles' real last name be Evans. That also be the last name of his sister who's big in the po-po. She gonna be coming after you."

My scalp tingled. "His sister by blood?" Willy Sparkles was a halfling, which meant any sister he had might be too.

He continued to laugh. It ate at my thoughts like acid and made me want to kill a defenseless child... Slowly.

"Yeah. Strange blood, but real blood."

While I looked for the reason for my being here I a Changeling was hunting me. They could be dangerous. They had some of my people's gifts and the talent was wild at best. Untrained in how to use the raw power they might have, the unpredictability was hard to combat. The fact that Willy had been successful in summoning me was a clear indication of their potential talent. I would need to hurry.

"Make your gris-gris. I need to rest." I lay on the sparse lawn in front of his house. The connection with life still did its work, but at a trickle. Sunrise would either find me still here, or in Hell. Either way I could do little more than lay back and stare at the waning stars.

The morning found me asleep on the houngan’s lawn. Waking up there meant that he had been at least somewhat successful in his attempts. It remained to be seen how successful he was. I stood and stretched my muscles. It felt good to loosen those knots. My body had healed somewhat from the lashing it took at the cemetery. I wasn’t at my peak, and whatever I needed to do over the next few hours would have to be low key.

I smelled chicory coffee coming from the house. Reluctant to cross the wards in place, I waited. My stomach rumbled, reminding me further that I was a creature of flesh once more and not a spirit tortured on the rack. The door opened and closed, and I saw a beautiful young woman with long straight hair and skin every bit as black as last night had been. She had a tray in her hands, and I saw a mug and some pastries, along with a small leather bag.

She came to me, showing just a little fear in the wideness of her eyes. “Here. My daddy made these things for you.” She put the tray on the ground and stepped away from me. “He say you wear the pouch on you, around your neck’d be best. You’ll stay here either way, but having it will ground you to the earth.”

I picked up the small pouch and saw the rawhide cord that would allow me to wear it as suggested. I put it on without looking in it. “Thank you. I’d like to thank your father too.” I The power of my bound promise told me she was his legitimate kin. “Where is he?”

“He be restin’ in the house. Makin’ the gris-gris took a lot out of him. You go on now. Leave our home after you eat.” She made a sign at me to ward off the evil she perceived.

A splash of pain hit me just above where my heart would be. I hissed a sharp breath out and saw her smile at my discomfort. Some of the nervousness about her dissipated. “I’ll do that.”

I picked up the food and took a long pull from the pitch black brew. I watched her turn and walk back to the house, appreciating the sway of her hips under the long skirts she wore. I made a mental note to seduce her at my earliest opportunity. While my promise wouldn’t allow me to harm her body, I was certain I could break her spirit.