"May I fetch you anything, ma'am?" asked the anxious-to-please Hecatean Alliance receptionist-Robert-in his neat gray suit and stylish horn-rimmed glasses as he opened the door, then politely stood aside. "We have tea, coffee, juice, and water. It's a tad early for champagne, but for a member of the board, anything could be arranged."

"No, thank you," Helena Diamond said, sweeping into the room in a swish of navy blue silk and peach blossom perfume.

The late Lord Basil Augustine's New Orleans office smelled of black tea, vanilla, and dark tobacco, a warm and inviting aroma, masculine. A masculine space as well, Helena judged, one dominating a sizable portion of the Prestige Hotel's fifteenth floor.

"Please make sure that no one uses magic until the source of its malfunction can be discovered and taken care of," Helena instructed. "We don't need housekeeping accidentally conjuring any more goats, carpet-eating or otherwise."

"Yes, ma'am," Robert murmured. "Lord Augustine's assistant, Mrs. Fields, has already placed a temporary injunction against magic use."

"Good."

"Will there be anything else, ma'am?"

"No, Robert, thank you." Helena dismissed the receptionist with a slight incline of her head along with a tight smile. And although Robert nodded, acknowledging the dismissal, the bastard lingered.

"I'd be happy to summon Mrs. Fields," Robert volunteered cheerfully. "I believe she might still be visiting the medical clinic." His eyes widened behind his glasses. "But not for herself," he quickly amended, tongue tripping over his words. "I mean, she's well, ma'am. She's merely checking on someone in the clinic." His voice slipped a few octaves into a confidential tone. "Nasty business, that. A near murder. Blood everywhere. Well, not literally everywhere, of course, but-"

"I think you'd do well to shut your mouth and leave, if you hope to keep your job," Helena said, swiveling around and pinning the openmouthed receptionist in place with a glare cold enough to flash-freeze a mammoth. "You're discussing matters way above your pay grade, young man. And we can leave Lord Augustine's assistant to her business. I'll wait for her to return. Now shoo." She flapped an impatient hand. "Shoo."

Robert closed his mouth and swallowed hard. Embarrassment rouging his cheeks, he whirled and fled the office. The door snicked shut behind him.

Man seems to be a bit of a gossip. Might need to discuss that with his supervisor.

Helena rested her back against the door and surveyed the room, her gaze absorbing details in the rainy daylight filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows composing the back wall.

A large mahogany desk. Leather captain's chair. Two plush visitor's chairs artfully angled in front, tea service and cart tucked into a corner. A smaller desk against the east wall with lumbar-correct chair behind it-an assistant's workstation. A vase bursting with bright flowers, sunny daffodils and blushing pink carnations and baby's breath perfuming the air.

Lovely. The assistant's touch, no doubt.

But what truly interested Helena were the HP computers with their little green telltales winking in the rainy gloom and the curious plastic crate resting on the polished surface of Augustine's desk.

Anticipation surged through her. Her breathing quickened. If the report the Hecatean Alliance board of directors had received was correct-and Helena had no reason to doubt that it was, since it had been sent by Lord Augustine himself-a nine-year-old mystery might soon be unraveled ...

"A series of dangerous events has taken place during the carnival, centered around one Kallie Riviere, and which has resulted, regrettably, in my own death."

... the whereabouts of Sophie Riviere's daughter and the loa hidden inside her.

And, at long last, a chance to finish what I started all those years ago.

Helena pushed away from the door and crossed to Lord Augustine's orderly desk, the cream-colored carpet swallowing all sound from her pumps. As she stepped behind the desk, she caught a pungent whiff of frankincense and cloves and juniper wafting up from the depths of the plastic crate on its surface. A smile curled along her lips as she peered inside.

Since it takes one to know one ... looks like hoodoo.

Cloth, sticks, needles, thread-for making poppets. Oils and powders and mojo bags. Nails, candles, small jars of dirt-graveyard, most likely. Gnarled roots. Saint votives. Various religious statues. Musky incense.

A couple of weathered manila folders tucked against the crate's interior goosed Helena's pulse. Holy bingo. Pulling them free, she sank into the captain's chair, the leather creaking underneath her and smelling of fragrant Turkish tobacco. She opened the first folder.

A cold thrill of excitement rushed through Helena as she studied the photo on top-from a newspaper called the Bayou Cypres Noir Gazette-of two youths, a female and a male who looked enough alike to be related, standing on a wharf in front of a blue-trimmed white boat named Bright Star, arms around each other's shoulders. A man in sunglasses and a woven-straw cowboy hat stood next to them, just a foot or so away.

It was the young woman who captured all of Helena's attention, fascinated her. Dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved red blouse, she squinted in the sunshine, her long, espresso-brown locks trailing across her face in a camera-stilled breeze.

She looks a bit like Sophie, a beauty, but vulnerable and far less calculating ...

Helena flipped the photo over and confirmed what she already suspected. Scrawled on the back in what looked like black Sharpie: With Dallas Bruler and her cousin Jackson Bonaparte at the launch of his boat ...

Dallas Bruler-the red-haired root doctor in the shades and cowboy hat-was the near murder whose blood had been not quite literally everywhere as Robert had so thoughtlessly stated-but close.

As Helena could well imagine. A cut throat tends to be messy.

She also imagined that Lord Augustine's assistant, Felicity Fields, was doing a bit of PR work on behalf of the Prestige and the Hecatean Alliance by visiting Bruler in the twentieth-floor medical clinic.

And the handsome boy in the photo with the roguish grin, his CAJUN HOT RODS T-shirt clinging to his tight-muscled chest, had to be Jackson Bonaparte, Sophie's nephew.

Sophie's pathetic attempt to spare the baby in her ever-swelling womb by removing her newborn nephew's soul-alone!-and seeding his body with the loa while her exhausted sister slept in a potioned slumber had failed for reasons unknown.

A flaw in the boy, perhaps. An unsuitable host. More likely Sophie simply lacked sufficient power. Foolish woman.

And even though the young woman with the espresso-brown locks in the photo wasn't named, Helena had no doubt she was Kallie Riviere. Just the fact that Jackson Bonaparte's fingers had been captured in the act of shaping a V above the girl's head suggested a familial relationship, as did their similar looks-eyes, cheekbones, lips.

Helena touched a finger to the girl's photo-pixeled face, traced its contours, thinking tenderly of what lay beneath it.

She'll finally be free. And the world will weep and moan.

With a soft sigh, Helena dropped her hand and scanned the newspaper article-a community celebration of the launch of Jackson Bonaparte's hand-built boat-and learned exactly where to find Kallie Riviere, or, if she no longer lived with her aunt, at least where to start looking for her.

Bayou Cypres Noir. Another backwater town I've never heard of.

Returning the folders to the plastic crate, Helena pulled her cell phone from an outside pocket of her black leather purse and quickly snapped shots of the newspaper article and photo. She sent the images to a number she hadn't dialed in years-but still knew by heart-along with a text message.

Wait until after the hurricane to fetch her.

A reply beeped onto her cell's screen a moment later: Understood.

Slipping her cell phone back into its pocket, Helena smiled. Bayou Cypres Noir was about to witness a birth unlike any recorded in the swamp town's history. Or any other town's, for that matter. But she doubted a newspaper article and fais do-do would celebrate the event. Screaming and pools of blood seemed much more likely.

A primal tribute to the sharp teeth of darkness.

Easing back into the chair and catching another warm and welcoming whiff of tobacco, vanilla, and oiled leather, Helena swiveled it around to face the windows and the riveting view of the Mississippi and the New Orleans skyline they afforded. Lightning flickered across the sky, a dragon's tongue of white fire-a spine-chilling sight from fifteen floors up.

Her reflection glimmered like a ghost against the backdrop of the bruised sky-black tresses sweeping in hair-spray-lacquered waves to her shoulders, all trace of gray colored away; shadowed eyes, hidden; pale skin looking a good ten years younger than her fifty-four years; rose-stained lips pursed in a thoughtful frown; regal posture-chin up, shoulders back.

Plumper, yes, I've put on weight. But, really, who hasn't?

Lightning flashed and the ghost vanished. From the windows, at least.

But inside, the past had never stopped haunting her. Remy's words from that awful night twenty-four years before returned to Helena with lightning-stroke starkness, crackling and electric.

Dey pulled de teeth from magic, cut off its balls. Made caricatures of de loa, turning dem into nothing more den parlor tricks performed by so-called voodoo queens. I tried to show dem de huge fucking mistake dey all was making. But I failed. And now I gotta leave you, chere. Dat's what I be sorriest about, leaving you.

Even though time had blunted the rough and raw edges of Helena's grief, it was summoned from the grave anew, a Frankenstein monster resurrected by wild, white-hot bolts of loss and molten rage.

Her hands clenched into fists, a bitter taste at the back of her throat.

You've nothing to be sorry for, my sweet love. They gave you no other choice. But as for the pricks calling themselves the Hecatean Alliance, they will never be sorry enough.

Helena watched the roiling thunderstorm dry-eyed and kept watching even after she heard the door open. Heard someone stride briskly across the carpet, then pause in front of the desk. Breathed in the faint scent of roses.

The late illusionist's enigmatic assistant had arrived.

"Good morning, Mrs. Fields," Helena said. "Quite a storm, wouldn't you say?"

"I would, ma'am," Felicity Fields agreed, her urbane British tones a far cry from the rough-and-tumble Cockney she'd once spoken. "Both mundane and magical."

"Any word yet on what has caused magic to warp?"

"Not yet, ma'am. We know it began just after dawn and we've received word that it seems to be statewide, but that's all the information we have at present. Concerns regarding the hurricane traveling toward the Gulf seems to have slowed the flow of information."

"Ah, yes. Of course."

A smile chilled Helena's lips. She'd often hoped that the wards would fail and that the next hurricane would wipe New Orleans off the map and the Hecatean Alliance's current order out of existence. But not yet, not before she finished Remy's work, unveiled his final masterpiece.

Lightning danced across the horizon, lit up the sky, and dazzled her sight. Thunder quickly followed in a booming shudder.

"I have every faith in you, Mrs. Fields. I know you'll both find and remedy the problem." Helena swiveled around in the captain's chair to face the redhead. "As I would expect from the woman Lord Augustine named as interim master of the Hecatean Alliance."

Felicity stared at her, expression stunned.

EIGHTEEN.

CAN'T CHOOSE BLOOD Compelled. Commanded. Come to me, wild one!

For a brief moment, something within Kallie responded to those words, kicking and screaming in a tantrum of savage denial and desperate refusal, then pain swallowed her whole as she felt herself-or something within her, a part of her-ripping loose from her moorings, her core, like a loa-sized piece of Velcro.

A split second-or a bone-twisting eternity-later, a heavy thrumming vibrated into her, ringing her core like a boxer's bell, over and over and over, but without sound, reverberating out from her center in pulsations strong enough to shake dirt into the grave and knock her off balance.

Kallie landed in the mud on her ass, the heels of her hands slamming into the muck in an attempt to break her fall. The rotten-egg stench of sulfur singed her nostrils, mingling uneasily with the dank reek of mud and oozing swamp water.

Compelled. Commanded. Come to me, wild one!

The Baron's words, spoken with utter confidence and force of will, as though the action had already been accomplished, echoed like thunder through Kallie's mind in gradually diminishing rumbles. But the painful pull she'd felt as the Baron had laid down his trick, the unnerving sensation of being plucked loose, of her essence being unthreaded strand by strand, had vanished.

Along with the Baron.

And in his place ... Kallie frowned.

From above, a man's voice, low and surfing the edge of panic, questioned, "Where'd the chicken come from? And where's Cash?"

Two great questions.

"I think you're looking at him," Kallie replied, studying the black-feathered rooster-wait, no comb, no waddle, make that a hen-pecking at the mud in a disgruntled fashion in front of her.

The hen regarded her with one accusing black eye, then resumed stabbing her beak into the mud. Kallie blinked. Chicken rage issues?

The one thing she knew it wasn't was a pissed-off home invader with a grudge. She'd never heard of a single trick that could actually transform a person into a hungry hen. Or any other kind of animal, hungry or otherwise.

Certain potions could make you believe you were an animal and some conferred the temporary ability to look through a chosen animal's eyes, a mind-to-mind linking, but she'd yet to witness an actual transformation. But she saw no need to enlighten Kerry. Not yet, anyway.

"Might look for some chicken feed in the house," Kallie suggested. "It looks like Cash here has worked up an appetite."

"Being cheval for a loa will do that," Belladonna agreed with a wink.

"Jesus Christ!" Kerry cried. "Y'all gave me your word that you wouldn't use no juju if I helped you and-"

"I know, I know, and you kept your word." At Belladonna's arched I got an update for you eyebrow, Kallie added, "Well, mostly, apparently. Look, I'm messing with you. That ain't Cash, it's just a chicken."

Relief flickered across Kerry's drawn features, only to fade as his gaze returned to the hen. "How do I know for sure? How do I know you ain't messing with me by telling me that you're just messing with me?"

From where she knelt on the muddy ground beside Kerry, Belladonna did a White boy, please eye roll. Kallie paid heed to her friend's tight grip on the shotgun and the fact that its barrel was aimed unwaveringly in Kerry's direction.

Looks like Kerry has managed to put himself on Bell's bad-boy list-and not the fun and sexy bad-boy list.

Kallie sighed. "Sometimes a chicken is just a chicken, Kerry. But I really ain't got time to debate the matter."

"Not when Baron Samedi might rally and return," Belladonna murmured.

"Damn straight."

Kallie pushed herself up to her feet, automatically and uselessly brushing off the mud-coated seat of her cutoffs. She gathered Layne's Glock and Jackson's boot out of the mud, then tossed them topside. Both hit the ground with soft thuds. She eyed the hen. The hen eyed her in return. Fluffed her glossy black feathers. Scratched in the mud.

Kallie frowned. Was the chicken actually giving her attitude?

She wondered where the hen had been just five minutes before and how far she'd traveled. Wondered if the manner of travel had contributed to the bird's grumpy disposition. Decided, Hell yes. Being yanked through the ether against your will would do that to a person. Or a hen. As the case may be.

Then she wondered if the Baron in his Cash suit was now standing in some feed-scattered yard with a bunch of startled chickens, the stink of brimstone and chicken poop filling the air.

Nothing in the image comforted or amused her.

A pissed-off loa was never a good thing.

Stepping over to Belladonna and Kerry's side of the grave, Kallie hesitated, glanced once more at the hen, then sighed. She couldn't just leave it there. What if it never managed to get out? Chickens could fly, sort of, but not very far and not very high. "Goddammit," she muttered.