I nodded slightly, still reluctant to give too much of myself away.
He gripped my hand harder. “You come from so much darkness. That’s clear.”
“How so?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I see . . .” As he paused, his gaze unnerved me. “Fire. An explosion. Pain. Then, it’s as if . . .”
I must have squeezed his hand this time.
“I’m getting a symbolic reading, so you’ll have to interpret the images.” He furrowed his dark brow. “It’s as if you were shut into a coffin—one made of glass. Then you were freed, but there was still containment. Does any of that make sense?”
Not literally. But I felt contained right now by being shut out of the information we all take for granted—information we normally wake up knowing every morning.
“There’s even more fire after the coffin imagery,” he added. “But this time the flames nearly devour you.”
Now I was shaking my head. I couldn’t have lived the life he was describing on a realistic level. So what did it all mean?
He ran a thumb over mine. Comforting me?
Comfort. It might have been the first thing—or last—that I needed at this moment. But before I pulled my hand out of his, he looked grim, as if he had received one more vision.
“You’ve had an interesting night so far.”
“You’re referring to the ‘it’ that was chasing me earlier?”
“I wish I knew what it was. But I saw the burning eyes . . . the black shape. I think you don’t need me to tell you that it was dangerous.”
“Any hints about how to avoid it in the future?”
He nodded toward the shop in front. “Indeed, I know people who can help.”
“But I can’t pay you for any protection items or spells, remember?”
His smile was slight. “You didn’t run in here for the fun of it. And for me to deny you help would be terrible karma. Besides, it’s a slow night, even for March. I’ve been bored until now, cher.”
What was he saying? That he had assumed the mantle of white knight for a random damsel in distress?
I was torn. I had the feeling I could take care of myself very well, thank you, under normal circumstances, but someone was after me out there, in the night. I would be foolish to refuse help from the only savior available.
He pushed back from the table and came round to my side. “May I?” he asked, motioning to my boots.
Why not? I stretched out a leg as he bent down, and I tried like mad to keep those white-knight thoughts from crowding my head. When he ran his fingers over the viny texture of the boot, I restrained a quiver. It was as if I could feel his touch, even through whatever material these boots were made of.
“I’ve never seen anything like these,” he said. “And I get nothing on where you purchased them.”
I frowned at the word “purchased,” and I wasn’t sure why. Instinct again? But if it was instinct, it wasn’t a good one. I had broken into a bed-and-breakfast already. Had I also shoplifted these clothes and boots?
When Philippe smoothed a hand up the back of my calf, further exploring, I went tight between the legs. I almost shifted in my chair. And when he slid a finger into the top of my boot, brushing skin, I jerked away from him.
His gaze was fascinated now. “It’s as if they . . .”
“Are attached to me? I know. I tried to strip them off.”
“They wouldn’t budge?”
“Right.” Then a gobsmacking thought hit me. If these boots were as odd as I believed they were, was it possible that they had led me into this voodoo shop on purpose? Were they voodoo items?
I could tell Philippe was thinking the same. “You ran in here like you were part of the wind, and the way you fight, my darlin’? Are you sure these ain’t superhero boots?”
Gob. Smacked. “I’m not certain of anything.”
He stood, his hands on his lean hips, considering. Behind him and to the left, in another room where a curtain was pulled back from the entrance, a shelf of jujus and gris-gris and dolls stood, timeless, as if knowing the answers that we did not.
“These boots could be the work from an old, powerful woman in the area,” he finally said. “They call her Amari.”
“So I should see her.”
“I would say an unqualified yes, except for . . .” He looked at my boots. “They say Amari doesn’t sell any charmed objects.”
At that point, I concentrated only on the “charmed” part. “You think these boots are enchanted? That’s the reason they won’t bloody come off me?”
“I do get that feeling. But you have a bigger worry than that.”
Back to the “sell” word he had used. “If this Amari doesn’t offer charmed objects for sale, then how did I end up with the boots?”
What had I been up to? And, damn it all, was it possible that the red-eyed creature was trying to fetch the boots back for Amari?
Splendid.
“Is there a chance,” I asked, “that there’s another witch round here who sells clingy boots that make a girl run like the wind and sting like a bee?”
As Philippe turned the question over in his mind, I saw something in the room behind him, through the spaces of the shelves between the jujus and dolls.
Eyes. Red eyes.
He must have noticed my widened gaze, and he turned round. But I jumped out of the chair, my body taking over again, as if my mind had no say. I dove for what I thought was the gun in his waistband.
Yet he was no fool—he’d already drawn the weapon, firing at the shelf, wood and cloth flying every which way. A scream came from the front of the shop.
The red eyes disappeared. I felt Philippe’s hand on my arm just as I was about to dart away.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
Trust him? Sounded good at the moment. “Sure. Why not.”
We made a break for the front door, his coworker peeking over the sales counter as we ran outside and he pulled me toward the edge of the sidewalk, where a motorcycle sat dormant. He hopped on, reaching in his pocket for a set of keys, then revved up the bike. I had already jumped on the back of the seat, my arm round his waist.
Shoving the revolver into my hand, he didn’t say a word as we took off into the night and I glanced over my shoulder, swearing that a pair of red eyes was fading into nothing on top of the shop’s roof as we roared away.
3
We rode until the city lights gave way to cypress trees dripping with Spanish moss as we veered off the main roads and found the side ones. Full night made everything eerie while Philippe the karmically proper psychic steered me into the middle of nowhere.
My wariness of him was still alive and kicking, but the man had given me his firearm. He had lent me the means to kill him, and that did wonders for my so-called trust.
Yet even if I hadn’t held that revolver, I had my boots. Just how much of a lethal weapon was I, myself?
We went deep into where the bayous ran, and he slowed the bike as we turned onto a slim road that paralleled the duckweed-thickened water. I didn’t want to think about what might lurk under the surface. Night creatures sounded off with chirping and croaking and clicks as a lone light came into view.
It belonged to a lantern from a planked cabin with a tin roof. When we pulled up to the stairs leading to the porch, I saw a rickety swing hanging from the eaves and a screen door that angled halfway off its hinges. Philippe cut the engine, but I didn’t dismount. All my inner alarms were screaming.
I held on to that revolver as he waited for me to alight. He hadn’t worn a helmet—neither of us had taken the time to don one—so his dark hair was disheveled, its long, loose strands roguish. He looked like a pirate who hid out here in the backwater.
“This is where the witch lives,” he said in his lazy accent as we both merely sat there, staring at the cabin.
“How do you know?” I wished he’d had the time to explain more about her to me before we had fled the shop.
“Rumors. And a vibe.”
I realized that he might be more than a psychic. “Are you also a voodoo practitioner?”
He laughed. “No. I only rent space in the shop for readings. But I’m well acquainted with everything in it. I haven’t been there long—only a few weeks—but I’m learning more every night.”
“What did you do before this?”
“Curious, aren’t we?”
“You don’t have to answer.” We needed to be getting on with this, anyway.
But it seemed Philippe liked my keen interest. “I was a carpenter. Still am, although business is slow. I’ve always had the seeing gift, just as my maman did, and I make use of it on the side for her sake.”
From the manner in which he said this, I wondered if his mother was sick or destitute. My heart beat an extra time.
He must have seen I was sympathetic because he brushed off what he had said. “My senses have been sharp lately, and that’s probably why, a week ago, I had the vision of you.”
“It’s fortunate you were prepared. I can’t say the same for myself.”
I finally stepped off the bike, and he put down the kickstand, then dismounted as well.
“So let’s find a way to get these boots off,” he said.
I prepared every apology I could think of, in case I had stolen the items. This was the best course of action, I kept telling myself. If Amari had sent an employee out to reclaim the enchanted boots, I was better off facing the music here and taking my chances.
“I hope we don’t need an appointment,” I said.
Philippe merely gave me a look, and I shrugged. Maybe I was a polite sort in real life.
Our footsteps echoed on the stairs, then the porch, and my boots tightened round my legs. Clinging, as if they wished to hold on to me and me alone.
I opened the broken screen, then knocked on the door. When no one answered, I knocked again.
“Nobody is home,” he said assuredly.
“How can you be . . . ?” I didn’t finish the question. “All right. So what do we do now?”