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Tonight he’d planned to be alone with her, for as long as he could keep her with him. And he’d planned to point out the benefits of getting closer, much closer. Eileen had been the perfect, immaculate mother for long enough. Too long, from Angel’s point of view. When a woman’s accidental hold on his thigh gave him pre-orgasmic spasms, the waiting game had gone too far.
“I should have kept a closer eye on what Aaron’s been up to,” Eileen said.
Shit. “You’re not on your own with this. Not that I think there’s anything to worry about.” Unless someone had put out a hit on Sonny.
Angel gritted his teeth.
“This isn’t a road, it’s an overgrown, abandoned track,” Eileen said, and right on cue the van bumped up and over the buckled blacktop.
“You’re right, it’s not much of a road.” He turned in his seat to peer through the fog toward the trees. “The bayou can’t be so far away.” He had never explored out here.
“Farther than you think,” Eileen said. “It’s close back toward town but around here there’s a lot of swampland before you get to the water.”
“What’s in there?”
“In the swamp?” She glanced at him. “It’s not pretty unless you get-off on mud and standing water and sodden ground in every direction. And critters—the kind you’d rather not meet.”
Angel said. “And voodoo stuff, too, huh?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Are you afraid of that bull?” Angel asked. “Don’t waste fear on superstitious crap. Unless you fancy one of those little velvet spell bags filled with—grave dust, is it? That’s supposed to keep you safe, isn’t it?”
“I doubt it.”
“Make you wildly passionate then?” Angel said, deliberately trying to catch her off guard. “Mixed with snake droppings and skunk hair? A pinch of dried fire ants to make you hot, and puree of hundred-proof alcohol to make you helpless? Sounds good to me.”
He saw how she bit her lower lip and figured she hardly heard him babbling to fill up any silence. Just as well.
She surprised him when she said, “There are things in these parts that you don’t mess with. Ignorance can get you into big trouble.”
Angel bit back a retort. Eileen was the last person he would have expected to believe in the old arts.
The little red taillights on the Morgan glowed, then faded to pink as the fog thinned and thickened.
“Watch out! Will you look at that?” He grabbed the dashboard. “The kid slammed on the brakes with no warning.”
Eileen pumped the brakes on the van and came to a stop with inches to spare behind the Morgan
“I’m terrified for Aaron,” Eileen said. She found his hand and wound her fingers in his. “Call Matt Boudreaux now. We ought to have the police here. And our own doctor. We could get hold of Mitch Halpern. You know he’d come right out.”
“You heard what Sonny said. This Chuzah doesn’t want any official company.” He rubbed her hand between his. It wasn’t her way to reach for comfort.
“If it turns out we have to go to Matt about this, he’ll be steamed.”
Angel made sure he didn’t show how much he liked that idea. “Go with me on this. Matt would do the same if he was in our position.” Maybe he would; maybe he wouldn’t. Eileen didn’t need Matt Boudreaux around—for any reason.
Reluctantly, he let go of her hand and pushed out of the van. Sonny didn’t appear but Eileen walked toward the Morgan.
Angel said, “Sonny?”
Sonny didn’t answer. Angel reached Eileen and they saw that Sonny wasn’t in the sports car. He stood a few yards ahead at the very edge of the road. His back was rigid and he repeatedly looked around the area.
“Look,” Eileen said, backing into Angel. “Over there. What is it? Sonny!”
“Quiet,” Sonny said clearly. “Keep it down. He doesn’t like noises.”
“Chuzah?” Angel and Eileen asked in unison.
Angel peered into the darkness at the side of the overgrown road. Two small, pale lights blinked on and off. “Get back in the van and lock the doors,” he told Eileen.
“Forget it,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m going after Aaron. He’s my son.”
He reached for her; the backs of his fingers met the side of her face. “You’re burning up,” he said. “Are you sick?”
“No! It’s humid.”
It was humid. Rain fell hard enough to stick his shirt to his back. He had water inside his shoes. Eileen’s long, dark hair clung to her neck and shoulders and her face shone pale and wet in the near opaque darkness.
“Those lights,” Eileen said. “They’re not normal. They look like shiny stones. What are they?”
“Probably nothing. Just something picking up reflections.” He’d never seen anything like them before. And he didn’t like that one bit.
“Angel,” she said, tugging at the sleeve of his shirt. “They’re moving. They go one way, then the other. I want Aaron.”
“Look,” he said quietly, “it would be quicker if I went on my own with Sonny. Please, wait in the van.”
“Don’t say that again. I’m getting a flashlight.” She turned around and started back.
Angel didn’t try to stop her. Instead, he took a few steps closer to Sonny and said, “Eileen’s gone for a flashlight. Quick, tell me what happened.”
“No flashlight.” Sonny hissed. “Chuzah doesn’t do flashlights.”
The silver lights drew closer and Angel said, “Get away from there. What are those glowing things?”
“It’s Locum,” Sonny said. “Chuzah’s buddy. He’s come to guide us into the swamp.”
“Don’t play any stupid games,” Angel said. “Eileen’s already scared out of her mind.”
“No, I’m not,” Eileen said, arriving at his side again. “I’m worried about my boy. Sonny! What’s that thing?”
“Don’t use the flashlight or we’re done for,” Sonny said. “Cool it, will ya? Just follow me.”
“It’s a ghost,” Eileen whispered. “My legs are wobbly.”
“There aren’t any ghosts.” Angel eased the flashlight from her fingers and pushed it into his waistband. He put an arm around Eileen and guided—or half pushed—her forward. With each step she leaned back against him.
“It’s a ghost,” Eileen repeated. “It’s floating. Look! The lights went out but I can see a silvery shape wafting above the ground.”
“It’s Chuzah’s friend Locum,” Angel whispered. “Sonny told me.” He had a wicked temptation to laugh.
“Locum?” Eileen said. “Do you think Chuzah’s a ghost, too?”
A few steps behind Sonny, they left the overgrown road and set off onto ground that soon became soggy beneath damp brush. Trees loomed, their pale trunks hung with strips of peeling bark.
“It’s a shape-shifter,” Eileen said. “Sonny! You come here at once. Don’t you go anywhere near that thing.”
“He’s not twelve,” Angel whispered.
Her face turned to his. “Sometimes they behave as if they are. Do you know what that thing is?”
“Looks like an animal.”
“Exactly,” she hissed. “Aaron’s been taken by a shape-shifter.”
“No such thing.”
“Oh, yes there are. I’ve read about them.”
Angel kept a tight hold on her. “That’s called fiction.”
“It is not.”
“Will you two keep it down?” Sonny said.
The trees had closed around them. Each time Angel lifted a foot, it broke from a seal of sticky mud. When he set his foot down again, water splashed. The overpowering scent was of mold and dank, wet things. “You should have a coat on,” he told Eileen.
“So should you.” Her voice got higher and suspiciously squeaky.
“You’re crying,” he said.
“You ought to be crying, too. We shouldn’t be here like this. We should have called the police.”
“To report that Aaron’s been taken by shape-shifters?”
“Sonny said Chuzah was a root doctor.”
“That gray thing up there is an animal and—”
“A wolf! Angel, make Sonny come here.”
“Relax. Some joker’s playing a number on Sonny. They set him up for this.”
Eileen sniffed now. “You do think Aaron’s okay?”
“Yes.” He didn’t damn well know. “Sonny—I see more lights. They’re different.”
“They’re colored,” Eileen said. “Like Christmas lights. Oh, they’re way up high. This is all horrible. I’m getting out my gun and I don’t want any arguments from you.”
“You won’t get ’em unless you start firing,” Angel said.
Sonny came back to them. His eyes resembled blank, black circles and Angel could see him shivering.
“We’ve got to do what Chuzah said, but I feel like I’m going to be sick,” Sonny said. Angel only recalled one other time when the boy admitted to fear. That had been on the night his father—a gutsy guy who went against the family—died.
“That Locum is a shape-shifter, isn’t he?” Eileen asked, and jumped. A rattling noise reached her, growing louder.
“What’s a shape-shifter?”
“Never mind,” Angel said. He listened to the eerie sounds.
“Don’t worry about that,” Sonny said. “It’s just Chuzah sending a signal to Locum—I think.”
“That’s it,” Eileen said, shaking away from Angel. She ran, as best she could, toward the lights strung somewhere high in the trees ahead.
Angel took off after her and said, “She’s got a gun,” over his shoulder.
Eileen couldn’t stop crying. She sniffed, swiped at her face. “I’ve got to hold myself together,” she muttered, and skidded to a halt, her mouth open.
She had broken into a clearing, a clearing just big enough for a large wooden cabin built on stilts about six feet tall. No, the clearing was bigger than it had seemed at first. Around the structure, there was enough space for a shed, on shorter stilts, what looked like a carport, and a row of lockers. Sure enough, the roof on the cabin was strung with unevenly looped, multicolored lights. Four small windows in the front were covered with patterned curtains and a faint glow showed from inside.
A hand on her shoulder all but sent her to her knees. “It’s just us,” Angel said into her ear. “Put the gun out of sight. Quickly.”
She sighed, but put the Glock in her purse. “Where’s the wolf?” she said.
He stroked her back. “There’s no wolf.”
“Don’t you try to tell me I was imaging things,” she told him. “You saw it, too.”
Sonny moaned.
“I’m going up there,” Eileen said and went to the bottom of a sturdy-enough flight of stairs. She stopped and covered her face. Through her fingers she saw a big gray animal, a dog with silver eyes, standing halfway up the flight. He had huge teeth and she could see every one of them. “Help.” She mouthed the word but didn’t hear a sound. “Help!” Still she couldn’t hear her own voice.
The shack door flow open. “Aha,” a great voice, a very deep, right from the boots voice, called. “You would be Eileen, perhaps?”
She nodded. “Where’s my son?”
“Are you, Chuzah?” Angel asked. “Sonny’s told us about you. Sounds like we owe you.”
The keeper of the major voice appeared in the doorway and spread his arms. A rope of bones and bells clanged and clacked around his neck.
“Welcome, welcome. My humble home is your humble home. If you see what I mean. You come in. We been waitin’ for you. They here, Aaron, and they look like they been seeing ghosts. There’s that quiet boy, too. You come on up, quiet boy. Chuzah, he don’t bite.” He threw back his head and laughed, showing two rows of gleaming teeth.
Eileen pursed her lips and started to climb. The dog didn’t move.
“Locum,” Chuzah said, “you get your sorry ass up these steps and get in the house. You ain’t nothin’ but a poser. Fierce? You don’t know about fierce. You embarrass me. Excuse him, please.”
The dog’s mouth took on what looked like a smile and he tootled up and inside, looking back once with his tongue hanging out of his mouth and, Eileen was almost certain, giving her a wink.
