The Voodoo Killings Read online

  Nate whispered in my ear. “Make sure you ask him for more money. He’s totally trying to screw us.”

  “So, a couple of things, Kelvin. First, you’re screwing us.”

  Kelvin held up his hands. “I know the show got out of hand, but it’s not my fault—”

  I stopped Kelvin in mid-protest. “I’m not saying I won’t do the gig.”

  Nate added in my ear, “Ask for two grand, K. Settle for fifteen, minimum.”

  “But this is a two-thousand-dollar gig, not a five-hundred one.”

  Kelvin’s face fell. “Look, Ms. Strange, I don’t have that kind of cash.”

  “He’s bluffing,” Nate whispered. “I bet you fifty bucks he has it in his back pocket.”

  “Look, Kelvin, I know you’re trying to screw me here. I’m not that desperate, and neither is Nathan Cade. You’re charging for the beer and a cover. We need two thousand, cash, up front.” I nodded at the crowd. “Unless you want to tell them there’s no Nathan Cade and give them their money back.”

  “And free beer,” Nate added.

  What the hell? “And also, we want free beer.”

  For a second I thought Kelvin was going to argue, but then he flashed me his salesman grin. “You strike a hard bargain, Strange. What the hell.” Nate was right: he had the cash in his back pocket. He handed over the two thousand without another whimper. “Stage is all yours,” he said, and bounded away.

  I shook my head and Nate said, “Should have asked for three.”

  I headed for the stage, back to wondering how the hell I was going to pull this off. “Let’s get this over with.”

  I’m not sure if it was remnants of my Otherside hangover or my nerves, but my legs were unsteady as I took the first step onto the stage. It was sturdier than I’d expected, though I guess it doesn’t pay to end up being sued if you’re charging all one thousand of your close and personal Facebook friends for an illegal concert ticket. I hoped Aaron would make sure no cops went out of their way to patrol the campus tonight. Even though he dumped me to keep his job, I didn’t think he wanted to see me arrested.

  I looked out at the audience. To say the crowd was eclectic would be an understatement, but I guess that’s what the college cohort is like nowadays. How the hell did everyone in this demographic end up into zombies and the afterlife? Used to be a grunge and goth thing.

  Kelvin climbed onto the stage to test the mic.

  I checked myself in my compact, actually a set mirror I kept around for emergencies. My hair was a frizzy mess of black curls, not surprising considering the weather we’d been having. As I did my best to smooth the worst of it down, four foggy words scribbled across it.

  Working hard, I see?

  “Nate, not funny. Quit screwing around,” I whispered.

  “Don’t look at me, Kincaid. I’m still this side of the barrier,” Nate said.

  A shiver travelled up my spine. The mirror was set specifically for him.

  The first note fogged off and was replaced by a second.

  This is my second and last warning.

  I felt a brush of cold across my shoulders as the fog that was Nate curled around me to take a peek at the compact. “What the hell is that about?”

  I mumbled, “Just a ghost on the far side of crazy.”

  Well? the mirror demanded.

  Normally I wouldn’t bother responding; talking to a self-important ghost is like yelling at a telemarketer. But the thing was proving persistent. I wetted the tip of my finger and scrawled back, I’m only going to tell you this once, so turn your long-term memory on for a sec. SCREW OFF.

  You’re stubborn, Kincaid.

  “Are you guys ready for a show?” Kelvin yelled into the mic.

  Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet, I scribbled back as the crowd roared in response. I slammed the compact shut before the ghost could write anything else.

  “Here she is, Kincaid Strange. Our very own seance provider, brought to you by KelvinMayer.com. Remember to grab a T-shirt…”

  Damn, the pop psychologists weren’t kidding when they said kids these days were brand entrepreneurs. Guess they had to be, given the planet and economy they were inheriting. Claw your foothold now and hold on like hell.

  Kelvin was holding out the microphone to me.

  I forced my legs to move in his direction.

  Nate whispered, “K, I’ve got your back. I’ll walk you through it. See that guy holding my guitar?”

  I gave a slight nod.

  “Walk towards him. You’re going to take the guitar and stick it in the centre of the stupid pentagram.”

  I forced a smile and picked up the guitar. Okay.

  “Now, these guys are expecting one hell of an entrance. Get as much sage burning as possible: I need a lot of smoke. When there’s enough, I’ll let you know. Then you count to three, and on three I’ll appear. If they’re smart, they’ll hit me with the floodlights.”

  Simple. I could do this. I strode to the centre of the stage and took the microphone from Kelvin, to a renewed round of clapping and cheers, and carried the guitar to the centre of the pentagram and set it down.

  “See that shot of tequila sitting all lonesome on the speaker?” Nate whispered. “Down it. You’re shaking like a fucking leaf.”

  No way was I adding tequila to the mix. I ignored Nate as I pulled the six bundles of sage I’d prepped out of my bag. I placed one at each of the pentagram points and the last in the middle beside the guitar. Sage is one of those strange plants that retains a portion of its life into death, just like pine needles do. Hitting it with Otherside is like dropping a cat on a hot tin roof: it reacts. Nate could channel the sage smoke into his ghostly body, mixing it with Otherside to give him more substance, which he’d need to hoist the guitar.

  I didn’t need to draw anything over the pentagram; the symbols we needed were already inscribed on the sage. I closed my eyes, drew in a breath and tapped the barrier. I was so nervous I didn’t even notice the nausea.

  “No! Not yet,” Nate said.

  I stopped just short of pulling a globe.

  “You’ve got to say something first. Introduce yourself—”

  I turned my back to the audience. “Seriously?”

  “Don’t be shy, just put yourself out there, like, ‘How’s it going, Seattle?’ ”

  What the hell. You only live once. I turned back towards the crowd….

  So many people. I tapped the mic and cleared my throat. “Hi, I’m Kincaid Strange….” It was as if the mic took uncertainty and magnified it by a hundred. Did I seriously sound like that?

  “Okay, now get them pumped,” Nate whispered. “Stop being scared—they can smell fear.”

  Not helping. I unclenched my jaw and took another good look at the sea of students waiting for me to do something.

  I froze.

  “Ahh, K, not to push, but you seriously need to say something.”

  Nate tried to feed me lines, but I didn’t hear any of it on account of the adrenalin buzzing in my ears. A few people in the front rows started looking at each other….Kelvin, standing off to the side of the stage, had dropped his smile. Well, maybe that would teach him not to trick someone.

  Nate swore in my ear. “K? You need to snap out of it. They’re getting restless, come on.”

  I knew how Nate used to handle audiences, but I couldn’t do what Nate did. That wasn’t me.

  Then what the hell was me?

  “For the love of god, at least start the seance so I can get onstage.”

  I pulled my globe, flooding it into the pentagram. The symbols I’d etched on the sage flared gold as everything else faded into the background, including the audience. There were a few gasps, and the snickering stopped. Thank god. The crowd couldn’t see the symbols, but in the low stage lights they’d see the grey smoke of the Otherside surround me. My nerves calmed. I was back in familiar territory—Otherside and symbols. That gave me an idea….

  “Thank god, K. You totally froze,�
� Nate said.

  I tuned him out. Before I lost my nerve, I lowered my head and gave the crowd a slow smile—not a selly Kelvin grin, but the kind you give people before you tell a ghost story around a campfire. My kind of smile. I heard the band fidgeting behind me. I turned and mouthed, “Wait for my signal,” and held up three fingers. Then I glanced over at the lighting guy and did the same thing, but also pointed to where I was standing, hoping he got the message.

  Then I focused on the audience again. “You ready for some ghosts?” I called, as the sage flared, releasing more Otherside into the pentagram. Clapping and cheers told me that yes they were.

  I filled my globe up to the brim and raised my arms over my head.

  “One,” I said into the mic, and let loose a second wave of Otherside into the pentagram. It sought out the sage like a homing beacon and the bundles of herb flared a beautiful, glowing gold. The students saw plumes of grey light flare around the pentagram, mixing with the neon pink. I heard someone bark a command backstage—maybe Kelvin—and in response the neon LEDs shut down, leaving only the ghostly grey Otherside framed by the dimmed floodlights. Had to hand it to the kid: it made for just the right amount of spooky dark.

  “Two,” I said, and let loose the third round of Otherside.

  The sage caught fire and the warm green scent filled my senses. Smoke flooded into the pentagram, bound somewhere between this world and the Otherside. It swirled around me, and I waited until it obscured me in a thick fog. The crowd fell silent.

  I felt the cold fog that was Nate unravel and peel off my shoulders. He slid into the centre of the pentagram, hidden from the audience. Through my globe I watched as he pulled in the glittering sage smoke. When he had enough, he gave me a nod.

  “Three,” I screamed at the top of my lungs, and released the last bit of Otherside into the pentagram. The sage exploded into a coil of black smoke, neither in this world nor the next.

  Then the lights hit the centre of the pentagram and Nate hit a chord on the guitar.

  The crowd went nuts as I got the hell offstage.

  Nate stepped up to the mic and smiled. “I’m Nathan Cade,” was all he said, then launched into “Manhunt,” the band taking the cue.

  I made a beeline for the beer table, my hands shaking. One of the guys manning the bar was staring at me. In fact, the whole line was staring at me. I decided to use it to my advantage for once and pushed to the front of the line. “Whisky sour,” I said, hoping they were serving something stronger than beer.

  Mouth still open, he nodded and made me one.

  I downed it in one gulp and retreated to an uninhabited spot by the fence underneath a string of dragonfly garden lights. I let out a breath and hoped to hell my nerves calmed down enough so I could ride my bike home when Nate was done.

  —

  I checked my watch: forty-five minutes and eight songs in. The wind had picked up, sending more than a few people running to catch the tablecloths before they took flight. I wasn’t sure how much longer Nate would hold out, and I’d have to figure out some way to get him out of here before he dropped the damn guitar. It cost more than we’d been paid.

  I don’t know if it was the band, the crowd of students or just the strange spontaneity of it all, but Nate was playing better than he had in a long time….As song nine ended, he glanced over and arched an eyebrow at me. I gave him a thumbs-up, then tapped my watch and held up two fingers. Two more songs.

  He nodded, and went to talk to the band, taking a moment to down another beer. Had to be his fourth or fifth, not that I was worried; ghosts don’t get drunk like the living.

  “That was awesome.”

  I turned to see Kelvin beside me, holding two drinks.

  “Nathan? Yeah, he’s a pro—”

  Kelvin shook his head. “Nathan’s great, but I meant you.”

  “Wait—what, me?”

  “I’ve never seen someone do a seance like that,” he said, and reached up to bat away the string of lights the wind had knocked into his face. “I’ve seen them done with a ton of shaking, yelling, calling all spirits. But that,” he said pointing to the stage, “was awesome. Can you do Halloween? You could bring Nathan again, or call a bunch of other ghosts.”

  I stared at the kid, dumbfounded.

  “Look, you don’t have to answer now. Just think about it.” Kelvin patted my shoulder, then pressed one of the drinks into my hand and darted off again before I could refuse it.

  I sniffed. Whisky sour. Credit where credit was due, the kid was astute. I settled back into my spot and nursed my new drink.

  Nate started into the first chord of “Just Enough Rope.” Not one of his hits, but one of his better pieces.

  “What the—? Ow!” I’d reached into my jacket pocket and pulled my hand out fast: my compact was burning. I wrapped my hand in my sleeve and reached back in before the plastic melted into the leather. I dropped the compact to the grass and it popped open. I could just make out the foggy script as it scrawled across the mirror.

  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

  Good thing I don’t believe in the whole seven years of bad luck thing. I raised my boot to break the mirror.

  “I really wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a deep, male, slightly accented voice said. Nordic or Dutch maybe?

  I jumped, dropping my whisky sour.

  “You might need it to negotiate a ceasefire,” the voice said, clearly amused.

  “Yeah, well, you want to talk, call my office,” I said, and crushed the compact under my heel.

  I covered my ears as a grating laugh echoed around my skull. A massive wave of nausea hit me and I grabbed the fence to stop myself from falling over.

  “Still don’t want to play nice?” the voice said.

  “Go to hell,” I said, not really caring who heard me.

  “Suit yourself, Kincaid Strange,” the voice said.

  And just like that, the voice was gone from my head, and the pain too, leaving me with the question of how the hell the ghost had pulled it off. A ghost talking without a mirror was a poltergeist trick…but I didn’t get a chance to mull over the answer.

  The wind picked up, rustling the leaves of the trees. The canopy over the bar tables started to flap, and so did the bamboo blinds covering the screen doors. Chilled air carried the scent of burning sage mixed with burnt hair. Something struck the back of my head—the string of dragonfly lights.

  The hairs along the back of my neck stood up—it felt like one by one. Regardless of what ghosts were supposed to be able to do, this one broke the mould.

  Nate was mid-song, but he was staring straight at me, trying to get my attention. He nodded and I turned to see what he was worried about.

  On the frat house porch, two different wind chimes were swaying violently…in opposite directions. I swore and glanced up at the nearby library tower. The flags at the top were dead still. Any lingering hope that this wind was simply the weather vanished.

  I made a slashing motion across my throat at Nate, and looked around for Kelvin. Where had I seen him last? The porch. I caught sight of the guy he’d been talking to, a frat boy sporting an impressive beard and the start of a beer gut, who’d been serving.

  I ducked around the crowds converging on the beer tables to reach him. “Where’s Kelvin?” I must have turned up the don’t-mess-with-me vibe, because he stumbled back into a pile of empty kegs.

  “I don’t know. He went out front to talk to some guys—” He glanced nervously back at the house.

  I headed for the screen door. When I stuck my head inside, I caught the tail end of a heated debate between Kelvin and someone I didn’t recognize coming from deeper in the house.

  I turned back to the beer keg with a beard, who stood there fiddling with the taps. “You know what I do for a living? Spill. Now.”

  His eyes went wide. “Okay, fine. Some cops showed up to ask some questions about the noise. Kelvin’s handling it.”

  Cops. Here. “They’ll want to com
e in and check for underage drinking.”

  The guy shrugged. “They always want to check for underage drinking. Kelvin will get them to go away. He always does. Besides, this is Beta Kappa property. They need a warrant to come in.”

  I snorted. I remembered being in university and thinking that too. Why was it university students were always so damn sure the cops couldn’t stroll into their parties on campus?

  Beard guy leaned over to grab his backpack.

  “If you’re so sure the cops can’t come in, why are you getting ready to bolt?”

  “If Kelvin’s wrong and the cops do come in, my parents will drag me back to Alaska.”

  Not as clueless as he looked. I let the kid go and headed over to the gate. Peering through the gap in the slats, I noted only one cop car in the driveway, and the lights weren’t even going, probably so they didn’t cause a panic. A thousand drunken students fleeing a party were multitudes more dangerous than any underage drinking that was going on.

  I ran back to the screen door and into the kitchen, creeping silently towards the front hall.

  “Look, you can’t come in without a warrant,” Kelvin said.

  “You’re selling event tickets and booze. Out of our way.”

  Definitely not a voice I recognized.

  I headed back outside. The wind was now so strong it was picking up discarded hoodies. I shielded my head against a string of dragonfly lights that had come loose. They bounced off and skidded across the beer table before wrapping around two girls, who squealed as they tried to untangle themselves. The sooner I was out of here, the sooner the crazy ghost would leave, without hurting anyone.

  I waved to get Nate’s attention and tapped my wrist.

  He held up his pinky finger with a pleading look on his face. One more song.

  I shook my head and mouthed the word, “Cops.”

  Two more strings of dragonfly lights came loose from the fence and launched themselves like rabid sea snakes into the crowd.

  I tapped the Otherside. Sure enough, the lights took on a ghost-grey shimmer.

  I heard the scream just in time to duck as a lawn chair sailed over my head and crashed into a table, upending it and sending drinks flying.