Blackwater (21 page)

I scowl and put my hand up to knock but the door opens as my knuckles touch a flower. A woman, who looks identical to Grandmamma, stands in the front entryway.

"Child, you done gone and died inside. Your soul is leaking out your eyes." She sounds like Grandmamma Holt. She steps back, "You may enter my home, Lorelei."

My feet move before I take a step and I'm inside. The door slams leaving him outside. I don’t know what moved me but I feel weird from it.

She chuckles just like Grandmamma. "I never liked his kind, but I gots to say if you has to be with one of dem suckas, you pick a good one, Lorelei. He got good juju." She turns around and starts stirring something on her stove. The cabin is a tiny one-room home. "Course now you're one of dem suckas ain't you child?" It's Grandmamma. There is no doubt.

Her white eyes don't freak me out like they did when I was a teenager and she lost her sight. Her grin is the same, "You done got stunned by dem too? You gots no tongue no longer?"

I nod, "Yes ma'am, I mean no ma'am, I'm just confused."

She nods vigorously, "I see dat about you. I also sense dat if you's give him time to explain you gonna find he ain't so bad as you tinks he is. Ramón, stop being so chicken."

I blink my eyes, "Grandmamma, you called me Ramón."

She shakes her head and squints her white eyes, "Oh no I didn’t, child. Ramón, now you show yerself before I gets angry."

The room doesn't change and the air doesn't sparkle but before I can comprehend what's happening, Ramón is standing in front of me.

He's in a white t-shirt and tight black jeans with the cuffs rolled and he doesn't look no different than he did before. No different than the moment he left me in the car to seek help. No animal markings or blood covering him.

He smiles and wipes his brow with his handkerchief. There is no sweat but I know it was his nervous habit, before.

I burst. So many things that needed catching up, do it in that moment. I drop to my knees and sob like a baby.

Grandmamma clucks her tongue at me, "Tsk, tsk, tsk, you best not be crying dem Devil's tears in my house, Miss Lorelei."

I ignore her and sob. His arms encompass me and I have no choice but to lean into him. I don’t have the strength to hold myself up.

"I needed you. I needed you." I mutter through the black water running down my cheeks.

He wipes my face and grimaces, "I'm here now. You got some nasty tears now, baby."

I laugh. His voice is the same. He looks the same. He is the same and the hole in my heart fills in a little bit. Emily and Ramón have filled in the spots they had left empty when they died.

He brushes my hair out of my face, "I was there. I was always there. You just couldn’t see me. You can only see me here."

I look up at him through my thick wet lashes and smirk, "You haunted me?"

He nods and wipes his hands on his pants, trying to hide the disgust on his face. "I tried to. It was hard."

I gasp, "The hospital bed? I saw you that night."

He nods, "I did try to warn you they was coming for you."

Grandmamma leans on his shoulder and watches me with her spooky white eyes, "You be eating people all dis time and you ain't never been haunted by one of dem?"

I shake my head, "Just my aunt Maria for some crazy reason, but I didn’t eat her. Her being older than me and kin. She knew about the vampires. She tried to warn me."

Grandmamma snaps her fingers, "Dem be the icy breaths in your room at night. Maria be trying to warn you because dat be how she died. She wouldn’t talk to me when I was coming der. She be linked to you. Her being kin and all." Her white eyes sparkle. "Damn, I kept her outta dat room for you. She be trying to save you and my magic kept her from helping." She crosses herself and closes up the curtains and windows and mutters things. She lights a bunch of long dried grass and waves the smoke around the house.

In a hushed voice she speaks, constantly staring around the room. "Your momma done found dem fanged monsters in da bayou when she was a girl. That be how she paid for dem fancy clothes and da fancy education. She done traded her sister's blood for der help."

I shake my head and look at Ramón. He rolls his eyes, "Girl, yo momma has always been evil. Don’t look confused."

I shake my head, "What kind of evil?" He gives me his best diva look and I'm instantly transported back forty-eight years. I leap into his arms and hug him, "I'm never letting you go. I missed you." I whisper.

He chuckles, "me too. But Lorelei, there is something you gotta know." He pulls me off of him. His eyes are worried and tense. Even the sparkle of ghost eyes is muted by the emotion.

"What?"

Grandmamma gives him a poke and turns her white eyes on me, "Your momma, she a witch. No regular witch neither. She a Blackwater witch."

I shake my head, "Okay? But she's dead. I watched her die."

She clucks her tongue at me, "You seen nothing. She no die. She too evil to die." She turns and walks back over to the long grass and starts burning it again.

My stomach swirls, "Where is she?"

Ramón purses his lips and finally speaks, "She in a mansion, not far from Huntington manor. She got herself a fancy house and a fancy man. She looks different, Lorelei. She ain't aged a day; shit, I think she looks younger."

I chew my lower lip and process it, "I'm not sure I want to know what that means but if she's alive, why the hell did she leave the mansion to rot?"

He sighs, "She left it and moved on. She got what she wanted. The life insurance on your daddy and all his inheritance."

"I don’t understand?"

"She ain't gonna be none too happy you alive, Lorelei." Ramón says quietly.

I put my hands on my hips, "What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?" I ask my grandma's favorite sarcastic question.

Ramón shakes his head, "She didn’t get everything she wanted that night. But one thing she wanted was for you to suffer through some of the life she had. She had a plan. She couldn’t get your body to look the way she wanted it to, so she moved on to Emily. You always were too fat for her liking. She starved your ass for years, trying to make it look right. I never knew it until I was dead and Maria explained everything to me. Your momma had a plan and your man out there, he ruined it."

I scowl, "What more could she have wanted, she clearly ain't aging and she has money and a new man? She ruined my life, she killed my daddy and Emily."

"She wanted Emily alive, Cheri."

I furrow my brow, "Emily?"

Grandmamma waves the smoke in my face, making my eyes sting, "She wanted to become your sister, mon cher. She switch bodies. Take yours and trap ya inside of her aging one. She was about to do it to Emily. She just need ya outta the picture, married off. She had it all planned out. Only ya woulda noticed if Emily was different. She was going to let ya marry that Martin and let him do tings to ya and then murder ya off." She waves the smoke and gives me the scariest stare ever with her white eyes, "She done it before."

I whisper, "Maria?"

She nods, "Your momma's body was used and tattered but she keep Maria safe like a good big sister. Your momma sold herself to dem fishermen for money cause her daddy wasn’t no good. She let dem have her goodies. Den when she was ready to make her move, she done da ritual and stole Maria's body. Her body was used and sickly but she got herself some connections out der in da swamps. Once she was in your aunt's body, she drained her sister of blood and traded it to da vampires. She done da ritual on her sister and stole all da blood in Maria's old tired body. But no Blackwater witch ever gets laid to rest, Mon cheri."

I shake my head, "She put herself in Maria's body and then when Maria was in her old body she drained all the blood?"

Ramón nods, "She was about to do it again." He points to the door, "That man saved your sister."

I shake my head, "He killed her?"

Ramón shakes his head, "He saved her and your daddy. They was both dead soon anyway. Your momma had done all the preparations. You was gonna be married to get her the right kind of connections and then she was taking Emily's body and killing them both in a car accident and killing you afterward. Emily be an only child and sole heir to the family fortune."

It's too much, I'm mostly lost but I'm also livid. I turn and cross the house in a series of angry steps. I fling open the door and shout out the front door, "You knew what she was doing?"

Whit stands in the filthy, swampy yard with his arms crossed and a dry look on his face.

"You knew what she was doing and you thought murdering them was the best bet?" I'm angry in a way I've never been. I feel something stirring in my palms. "Why didn’t you tell me what she was at? I coulda saved them. I coulda killed her."

He tilts his head, watching me and not answering. His eyes lower to my hands. I squeeze my hands into fists, "You knew? Answer me goddamned!"

He nods once, "She came to us, my family. Said she would have a large amount of a special type of blood to trade. Sometimes we do that, for certain types of blood. I came to meet the family, scope you all out. Make sure it was legit. I spent my nights watching you."

I feel dizzy and sickened. I turn back around and slam the door shut. I collapse into the chair and drop my face into my hands. "She was trading our blood. He was there because she was trading our blood and he knew." I rock back and forth and sob.

Ramón is on me instantly. His cool hands are not a comfort but his touch is.

"He freed her. Emily was dead anyway, Cheri. She was always dead. Your momma had started the ritual. It takes months to perform but once it's in the final stages, there ain't no turning back Cher. It was done long before he ever come to Baton Rouge. Emily couldn’t even leave the plantation after the engagement party. It would be why she's stuck there now."

I shake my head, "I saw her die. I saw momma die. If Em died where did Momma go?"

"You saw what you thought was her dying, but that wasn't, Cheri. She had already taken the vampire blood. You saw her transforming. She knew what Mr. Whitlock was. She had called them, she thought it was him checking you out. I too woulda known what he was, had I been alive. Witches sense those things." His voice changes, "Trust me, what happened to Emily was far kinder. Your momma was using the vamp blood in small doses to keep herself young. She was much older than she appeared. She was dosing herself with tiny bits and doing magic to make sure the blood didn’t change her. But the minute she died, she changed. Not even a Blackwater witch can die with vampire blood in their veins."

I lift my head and wipe the Devil's tears from my face. Grandmamma Holt sits next to me and nods, "Your grandpappy was nearly ninety years old when you saw him in da bayou. He and your grandmamma were teenagers when dey had dem twins. Might have been fifteen. Your momma was almost seventy-five when she died. Da vampire blood was keeping her young for some time. Your daddy wasn’t da first man in her life and he already ain't da last."

I don't have any room left in my brain. I stand and cross the room, "I need to sort this out. I need to know the answers from Maria and Tessa and Em. I love you guys but I need to process. I need all the answers. " I leave the small house and walk past Whit. I climb into my truck. I don’t want to speak to him. I just want to leave. My brain is full, it hurts from the information.

Whit opens the driver door where I'm sitting and shoves me over. He climbs in and starts the truck.

I look down, the black tears fall and make patterns on my jeans.

"I don’t understand any of it. Especially the part where you were running away with me?" I say into the quiet of the truck.

He drives out of the dirty yard. "I didn’t know what to say to you. Your sister was dying, you wanted to bring her with you but her death was imminent. She couldn’t even leave the plantation anymore. There was a spell trapping her there. It's more than I could explain without scaring the shit out of ya. I knew I couldn’t get you to leave without her but she couldn’t leave."

I shake my head, "Murdering my whole family wasn't a better choice. You asked my daddy for my hand? Why?"

He sighs, "I was trying to call the whole thing off. It was a threat to your mother. I was trying to tell her to stop, that I was done and wanted you. I could have found witch blood somewhere else."

I turn my face, "What witch blood? You keep saying that?"

He gulps, "Your blood, it's magical. For my kind it's like a drug. It makes us human again in emotion and feeling. You know how you feel when you're sad or angry or happy, like something is stopping the full feeling? It's the curse of our kind. We can't feel anything the right way. It makes us more than what we are. We don’t feel the little things, just huge amounts of hate and anger and lust and love. It's addictive."

I'm stunned. "You've known my family all this time? She sold my aunt's blood to you before and then came to you with the offering of my sister's?"

He nods, "She did. She is strong, Lorelei. When I told her I loved you, she threatened to just kill you to hurt me. As soon as she found out I loved you she went crazy with the plan. I offered to turn you and her and Emily. She laughed in my face. She never wanted to become a vampire. She wanted to be able to go out in the daylight. We don’t have day walkers, except the highest of pureblood royalties. So, I fed you my blood. I did it to keep you safe. I had been putting a tiny bit in your mouth when you were sleeping at night, just in case. A tiny bit won't change you unless you die."