Brighid's Mark Read Online Free Page B

window that wasn’t boarded. Liam opened the window and they all ducked through.
    Callie looked around a makeshift entrance to a long, narrow room divided by a curtained doorway of more festival beads. A short, squat figure rattled through the curtains, bottle cap glasses perched on the crook of a prominent nose. A canary yellow caftan was offset by a pair of shocking pink, fuzzy slippers embroidered with blue forget-me-nots.
    “Ah, Irish-Man. You bring me visitors.” Her glasses flashed in Callie’s direction. “Welcome to my humfor.”
    Beyond the festival bead curtains lay an oblong living space, long and narrow. Callie noted the clutch of mismatched folding chairs clustered opposite a tweedy, mildewed sofa of indeterminate color or pattern. The empty eye sockets of a dozen or more festival masks, chipped and molting, followed their stilted progress through the room. Sulie’s pace would have tried the patience of the most enthusiastic Boy Scout.
    They followed her hot pink shuffle up a narrow oak staircase to the windowed watchtower crowning the little house. They passed through a low doorway into a plain room of white washed wood paneling and hardwood floors. At one end, by the bay windows, stood a folding table covered in white cloth and a jumble of rum, cigars and misshapen little carved statuettes. One sported a little top hat.
    Sulie moved fast, as though by passing through the door, she had passed through a barrier, and was now free of its constraints. “You been dreaming again, Irish-Man.”
    Liam shrugged. “Am I that predictable?”
    Sulie stooped to draw between two pillars with a hunk of chalk. “Tell me.”
    Liam crossed his arms. “As symbols go, it was fairly unusual.”
    The priestess chuckled, pausing to admire her handiwork. “Well, it would be.” She nodded in Callie’s direction. “I felt her kind die.”
    “Raven in a burning tree—”
    “Nothing unusual about that. Why that creature follows you around, I’ll never know.”
    “There was a lot of fire, actually. Not to mention the great bloody demon. And a woman who changed appearance at least half a dozen times, until Eva.”
    “Fire can mean many things—I’m inclined to death and rebirth.” She stood and stretched her back. “As for the demon, this city has faced fires before. Fires and storms and, yes, even other demons. That La Laurie woman was something to contend with, let me tell you.”
    “Don’t remind me.” Liam handed her the fresh bottle of rum. “Who do we contact?”
    “Papa Legba—the real one,” she amended, as her black rooster fluttered across her chalked sketch.
    Donal eyed the animal with some measure of trepidation. “We’re not going to…you know.” He dragged his finger across his throat.
    Sulie blinked at him. “Where do you get your ideas about Voudon, boy? Leggie’s my link to the Loa realm, so he’s already been sacrificed, in a manner of speaking. It’s what makes him so cranky.”
    “‘Leggie?’” Callie mouthed in Liam’s direction.
    Liam gave her a crooked smile. She grinned back.
    “I assume we’ll forgo the usual theatrics,” he said to Sulie.
    “You know firsthand what troublemakers the Loa be. I hope your new friends are ready for this.” She eyed Donal balefully.
    “I suspect they’re up for the experience.” Liam raised an eyebrow in Callie’s direction. She nodded.
    “Then we’ll see what Legba has to say for himself.”
    He backed away into Sulie’s circle until he reached the center. Callie followed him. Donal and Chase retreated.
    “I won’t remember what happens, after,” Liam said to Callie. “Try to spare me the more embarrassing aspects, will you?”
    Callied smiled. “Oh, now you’re just asking for trouble.”
    Sulie opened Liam’s rum and poured it into the hollow of her spider-webbed palm until the alcohol overflowed. “Papa Legba, you know me.” She sprayed rum in an arc surrounding Liam and Callie and poured another handful. “We have