Brighid's Mark Read Online Free Page A

days and forty nights. Now its streets were an unfettered maze of fetid canals stretching between the Mississippi River and Lake Ponchatrain.
    The water taxi trundled past a homemade sign that read “Steamboat Alley” in the oily glow of the boat’s swinging lantern. What houses were left hunkered strangely moored in the black waters of the mighty Mississippi to the brim their second story balconies, like floating hats.
    Callie leaned back against the side of the boat, hands in the pockets of her black leather jacket. The jacket matched her knee-high boots, but made an incongruous pairing with her halter dress, patterned with bright florals. Her hair was, of course, a complete mess.
    Liam’s dark eyes were black in the night. His open, intent curiosity sizzled over her skin. He didn’t look away, and neither did she.
    “This person we’re going to see,” Chase spoke up. “She can tell us what killed Eva?”
    “Voudon priestess, and doubtful,” Liam answered.
    “So what’s the point?”
    Callie quelled him with an arched eyebrow. “What’s the plan?” she asked Liam.
    “Sulie can contact other Loa, ones who can open the path to knowledge. When the Baron tells you to consult a Hoodoo, you consult a Hoodoo.” Liam shrugged and smiled. “If we’re lucky, we might even get dinner.”
    Chase snorted.
    Liam ignored him, focusing on Callie. “How did you know about my Marks?”
    “Because I’m Marked too.” She peeled her jacket from her arm, showing him her bare shoulder blade. A tree of life grew from a flame-shaped knot work pattern, bound in more knot work. The whole thing encompassed the size of a badge. “I woke up with it when I became a Keeper.”
    “Keeper?”
    Donal took over again. “A thousand or so years ago, Brighid—in her incarnation as Saint Brigit—had a small chapel where a fire was lit, and stayed lit, pretty much uninterrupted through the centuries.”
    “I know. I’ve been there.”
    “Ah. Right. So, back then there were nineteen protectors who took turns tending the Flame. No one with evil or harmful intent could ever cross its boundaries. It was a sanctuary.”
    Callie pulled her sleeve back up. “Keepers of the Flame.”
    “And you kill demons?”
    “Among other things. But mainly we fight.” Her hands went back into her pockets, and she stretched her long legs, crossing her ankles with a casualness she didn’t feel. “The apocalypse is coming, and soon. And while the forces of good and evil duke it out, someone has to look after humanity.”
    “That’s you.”
    She nodded. “Nineteen Keepers, leading fifty-four contingents in the biggest battle of them all, for the highest possible stakes.” She gave him another of her patented lion-contemplating-lunch looks. “Of course, that doesn’t explain how you got Marked.”
    Liam shrugged. “Like you, I woke up with them. In the middle of a cemetery, of all places. They’re my link to the Loa.”
    They turned a corner and came to a tall, narrow house of three stories, the third no more than a watchtower of bay windows. The windows of the second story were boarded over, the paint peeling, the walls covered in spray painted line drawings of coffins and crosses, stars and candelabra. Festival beads dripped from the railings, and large stylized pearls draped from the roof awning like dollops of cream. The ground floor was completely submerged.
    The ferryman swung the small boat around and approached the balcony platform in a graceful arc. Chase was the first to leave the taxi, followed by the much shorter Donal. Liam handed the ferryman a brown paper bag as Callie vaulted over the balcony.
    A dark fluttering landed on the rail with a thump. A massive black rooster gave them an ancient feral look. Liam eyed it back with evident distaste. “Legba,” he greeted it in dire tones. “Is she in?”
    Legba gave him a poultry version of a sneer and flapped off at knee level round the side of the house. They followed it to the one