aithne | Black Angel Crossroads: The Beast and Maiden Fair

[Usual disclaimers apply: 1832 Louisiana, difficult cultural history, certain realities of race relations and slavery that can't be avoided. Proceed with caution, if you're sensitive.]

Ines's bed had wadded pillows and blankets to make it look like she was sleeping, a trick that Odile recalled trying and never having it work. She checked quickly the protections on the windows, and found them broken--but not by anything coming in. Someone had gone out.

There was a willow tree outside the window, a sturdy branch easily reachable from the roof under the window. Easy climbing, especially for a nimble sixteen-year-old girl. Odile pulled Benjamin aside. "Does she have anyone she sees, do you know?" she asked him.

Benjamin shook his head. "Not anyone that I know." He turned to Isabelle. "Isabelle?"

The girl's eyes were wide. "Philippe," she said.

It wasn't a name that Odile knew, but Benjamin growled low. "Philippe, should have known." He turned to Odile. "Eighteen year old. Works here. So help me if she catches child. It will be Philippe's only child." He stalked out, still growling.

Odile followed, and within minutes it became clear that Philippe, too, was missing. He'd gone out last night to rendezvous with Ines, and hadn't come back. Odile was starting to get a sick feeling in her stomach. Something had happened to the two of them, and with all the things happening these days, it was likely to have been fatal. Or worse.

"All of you, drop what you are doing and search for Ines!" Gabriel shouted, and the workers fanned out, going looking. Ten minutes later, a shout went up. Benjamin told Elisabeth to stay where she was, and went to look, Gabriel and Odile in his wake. Gabriel's lips were pressed together so hard that they were nearly colorless.

What had been found was a body. A young man lay face-down, the back of his head caved in by a heavy blow. The ground around him was soft and marked with the prints of boots. White men, it looked like. "Four of them," Benjamin said. "Look." There was a scrap of muddy pink cloth on the ground, and Benjamin picked it up. "This is from her dress."

It looked like Ines had struggled but had been carried away, towards the main road. Benjamin headed back to tell Elisabeth and the others what had been found, and Odile crouched to turn the body over so the young man's face was towards the sky. "We probably won't be able to follow them once they got to the main road, unless they did something dumb," Odile said to Gabriel. "Do we want to try that, or do you want me to make something to find her?"

"How long will it take to make something?" Gabriel asked.

"About an hour, two if you count running back to the house to find something of hers and then going to my house where I've got the things I need," she said.

Gabriel shook his head. "Petit's people. Do you agree?" Odile nodded. "There is a faster way."

"What?"

He was looking at her, and then looking through her, and his green eyes filmed over and went the color of stone, dark grey from corner to corner. "Come," he said, his voice commanding. Odile gasped, her hand pressed to her mouth. From behind her came a shriek that raised the hairs on her arms, a cry familiar though she'd only heard it a few times.

The call of the angel.

Feathers creaked overhead and the angel landed with a thump, crouching in front of them, wings spread. Odile swallowed. "So we, and she, goes to the Petit place? Have you completely lost your mind?"

Gabriel's eyes were still the color of stone. "She will find her and rescue her, if she is still alive. If not, I am not sure the extent of the damage."

"There has to be another way, Gabriel," she insisted. "Her defending Barataria is one thing. This is something else entirely."

"Do we have the time?"

She thought, hesitated, closed her eyes, shook her head. "Maybe not. But this is going to have consequences. You think we were in trouble before, you haven't seen anything yet."

Gabriel's hands were fisted, and he took a step towards her. "I will stop for you. But I can't think of another way, besides going in force ourselves. We could lose a lot of people."

"We could lose a lot of people either way." Odile shook her head. "Send her, then. And hope Ines is still alive."

He turned to the angel, which rose from its crouch. "Go, rescue Ines. Kill only those you have to." At that last command, the angel rumbled low like a growl, stepped forward towards Gabriel, spreading her wings.

Odile hesitated for a bare moment, then stepped forward. "Do as he says," she snapped out in Creole, putting all the force of her years of telling other people what to do with their lives behind it. The stone angel swiveled towards her, staring, and then shrieked and took off, clawing its way into the sky and disappearing in the direction of Petit's place.

"Well, I didn't expect it to listen to me," Odile said, surprised.

Gabriel's eyes were fading back to their usual green, which made Odile feel much, much better. "Some day, she isn't going to listen."

She turned to him, saw him glance into the sky. "Noemi will always listen. The beast may not. I need to strengthen her, but she isn't going to last forever," she told him.

It was a truth he had known for a while, she thought, from the tired way he let his shoulders drop. "No, and when it's just the beast left, it's going to be unstoppable."

"All it really wants is to go home. Your death would accomplish that. We need to free it before it gets around to managing to kill you. It and you are connected. Closer than I thought, apparently."

"It comes sometimes when I call. Or when I am in danger, or distraught," he said.

Odile blinked. Did he not know? Had nobody ever told him what his eyes did when he called the angel? "Your eyes changed when you called it," she told him.

Taken aback, he asked, "Changed?"

She stepped back from him, her arms crossed, her shoulders tight. "Your eyes changed to the color of stone. As if a part of you had become the statue."

"Am I?" There was a terrible fear on his face, disbelieving yet, she thought, somewhere knowing the truth.

She pulled her arms just a little more tightly around herself. "Your power is yourself. The things you have that power tangled up in are part of you. I'd hoped that you'd made it and set it free, but it looks like not. From this side, it looks a lot like the three of you--you, Noemi, and the beast--are one entity. And you're beginning to lose Noemi."

"Which leaves only me and the beast. And if it kills me, it's only the beast." His eyes were pleading. "Can you stop it?"

Odile thought about it, chose honesty. "Not by myself. You're going to have to help. And what this is going to ask of you is very, very difficult."

"Anything. I know I did this to myself. I am sorry for that. Are you still willing?"

She looked down at the ground, then raised her eyes and looked at him without speaking for a moment or two, weighing this man and the trouble he was in, the trouble he'd called to himself. So much power, never taught. But a good heart, a good mind, and what she wagered was a genuine willingness to see things right. "I am willing to try," she said, finally.

There was a breath that escaped him then, an exhausted sigh. "I am sorry I dragged you into this."

"Me, too. But here we are, and now that we're here, I'll do what I can." Her arms were starting to loosen, though she was still well back from him. "I wish I'd known about this before."

"I should have told you," he said.

Odile fought the urge to snap at him, yes you should have but you didn't, and that could have gotten more than just you killed. She held her tongue on that; it wouldn't help. "It's hard to bring something like this to a stranger, I know. Especially since your mama scared you about the practice."

"She did. No more omissions." He took a breath, almost a gasp. "There is one last thing to tell you of the angel."

"Which is?"

This was hard for him, she could see, he was pushing through a vast reluctance to speak. "Sometimes when she has killed and killed a great deal. It's like she overfeeds on energy. That energy gets dispersed."

"What happens?" she asked.

"All sorts of things." Still that reluctance, that hesitation.

"Like?"

Gabriel looked down to the body that lay at his feet, the young man who lay on his back now, and bent to each down to touch his face.

Philippe convulsed and coughed and sat up looking surprised. Gabriel straightened and looked at Odile. "Like that," he said, his voice colorless.

Her mouth was dropped open, looking from Gabriel to Philippe and back. What had just happened should have been impossible. None could return the dead to life once they were gone. All that could ever be given was a semblance of life; once the connection between the body and the soul was severed and the body started to decay, nothing could bring back the one that had died.

But Philippe was coughing and Gabriel was looking at her with an open look in his eyes, pleading with her please understand. "You're--that is not possible. Well, it is, it has to be, but it's not." Her voice cracked. "And does that mean that the angel found Ines no longer living?"

"No, it means that she is killing voraciously," he said quietly. "It might mean that as well, but she is taking life so fast that then energy bleeds back. It was the same, the night I was shot. That time, it healed me. With help from you, of course," he added.

Horrified, Odile said, "I thought it was the garde that healed you so quickly."

"In part and part you. But mostly her." Philippe had gotten up not, and Gabriel turned to him. "Go on, Philippe. You took a nasty hit to the head but she healed you. She has great powers." Philippe flashed a smile at Odile, assuming that she was the one Gabriel spoke of, and bounded off.

The sick feeling in Odile's stomach redoubled. "All right, I admit it. I'm in over my head. Possibly way, way over my head. This sort of thing--it's a djab, or sort of, and it feeds on the ones it kills. And feeds itself, and you. But one so powerful..." Odile shook her head, fighting the edge of nausea. "I'll still try to help you, Gabriel. But I can't tell you for sure that I'll succeed."

"That's all I ask," he said. He took a long breath. "I would hope for more, but I fear my secrets will cause you to hate me, or fear me."

At the moment, Odile could think of no more appropriate response to what she had seen than outright terror. "I don't know. I really don't. Because I'll tell you for truth that what I've seen just now scared me."

His expression softened. "I scared you. You should be on this side." He tried to smile, and didn't quite manage it.

"And I know why you didn't tell me before," she said.

"Bit hard to explain. I have an angel that kills people but after that I can bring back the dead. Yes, it is."

"I know, and I would have had a hard time believing it if I hadn't seen it. I still have a hard time believing it." Her hand went to the charm that hung around her neck, feeling familiar leather under her fingertips, and she began to relax. "So is that everything? No more surprises for me, at least about the angel?"

"No, no more secrets that I know. Any more we discover together." He paused and corrected himself. "Well, one more that isn't really a secret. Only Benjamin has been able to control the angel until now. You are the only other person it's backed down from."

Odile inclined her head. "I think I know the answer to that one. People you care about."

"Makes sense. But until now I had no other point of reference."

"Well, now you do. Anyone who might get through to you in a temper will be able to get through to the angel." Her mind had turned to the problem, turning it over in her mind. "I at least know where we need to start to try to solve the problem. We need to get you at least started on being able to control your own power, and I know a couple of things I can do to help loosen that deathgrip you have on your anger. We can start tonight, or even this afternoon if nothing else comes up. I have what I need at my house, mostly, and the rest I'm sure you have around."

Gabriel nodded. "This afternoon or tonight will be fine."

"Be ready to learn things," she said, and smiled briefly. "The initiation process is going to take weeks instead of months or years with you, so you're going to need to learn a lot in a small time. And there's one other thing. After the final initiation ritual, there will be some things you can't do for forty-one days. Most of them are minor, things you can't eat, stuff like that. The one that a lot of initiates have problems with is the no sex for that entire time."

"You sure that's a rule?" he asked, with a smile.

She chuckled. "It is. Much as I had difficulty with it myself, at the time. Sex is one of the offerings we give to the loa; both the having and the abstaining."

"It won't be a problem. It's been years now, what's another forty-one days?"

That was a bit more information than she really needed to know about Gabriel right now. "That's a little while out from now, as well. you aren't nearly ready for the final initiation ritual--at least, not unless Legba decides to intercede."

"How likely is that?"

She shook her head, admitting her ignorance. "Usually? Not particularly likely. In your case, I have no idea. He might decide that you need some extra help. Erzulie might decide to join in. Between the two of them, well, if you live through the experience, you might well come out the other side changed. For better, or for worse."

"I hope for the better," he said. "But what choice is there? If I don't, I will likely be killed."

"And if it's for the worse--well, we can figure out what to do then," she said, and smiled, trying to express confidence.

It seemed to work. At least, Gabriel relaxed a bit. "Thank you," he said quietly.

"You're welcome. I hope this works. And, well, the ritual might get interesting, no matter what happens."

There was that lurking fear on his face again. "What does that involve?"

"Well, you've seen me open rituals--the first part's like that, but more elaborate. You'll need a something that symbolizes the person you were to burn or destroy. Then I'll teach you how to call the loa, and it's after that that it might get interesting. Once the loa come, they may choose to possess one or both of us, and depending on what they want of the two of us, well, things may happen between us." She thought about her own initiation, how it had felt like walking around without a skin on for weeks afterward. "Maman initiated me, and nothing of the sort happened. But I've heard enough stories of how it works to know that it sometimes does, especially when certain loa are involved. It's an intimate ritual, and that can be emotional intimacy, or physical, or both."

"That part sounds much more pleasant than what I was thinking," Gabriel said.

She cocked her head at him. "You were thinking about your mama setting the gardes in you, weren't you?"

He nodded, and there was that fear again. She was going to have to address that fear, and strongly, in the rituals. Gabriel had been taught that ritual was pain, and that would need to be undone. "Yes, that was painful."

"It can be--especially if you don't understand what's happening. And the ritual might involve pain. It's hard to tell, beforehand. I'm skipping over a bucketful of training with you, so I don't have a really clear idea about what will happen, only my intentions going in."

"I understand. I am glad it's you. I don't think I could trust anyone else."

"Well, that's probably why you ended up here," she told him, trying to ignore the thing he was really trying to tell her, something she didn't want to hear. "I'm not going to try to set any more gardes in you, just so you know. I don't want to mess with your mama's work."

"Could I take many more? I thought there was a limit?"

There was a fast-moving smear in the sky that resolved into what Odile thought was the angel. She pointed, and said in response to his question, "Usually, it's three. You? I have no idea. But you get conflicts between them. Sweet Lady Erzulie, what does it have?"

The angel answered that question by landing with a thump, dropping two unconscious bodies on the ground. One was Ines, naked, covered in blood. The other--

"Jerome Petit," Gabriel said, and his voice was a strangled gasp.

The angel stared briefly at Odile, then glanced at Gabriel. It was covered in blood and gobbets of clinging meat, streaming down its stone robe. It stretched open its mouth and shrieked, then hurled itself into the air and was gone.

"Good Christ," Gabriel said. Odile was kneeling now next to Ines, trying to force her emotions away. The girl had been raped, brutally, and someone had used knives on her breasts and nethers, making a mess of meat out of her genitals. She was alive. Would live, with help. Would never have children, or have a man with any kind of pleasure.

Would probably never have a bodily function that passed from the right place again.

One breast hung nearly severed from her body, and Odile tried to sort out what was whole from what was torn, and failed miserably. The breast was going to need to come off. She could do some surgery to try to put things back in about the right place, but in a lifetime of helping women who'd been raped by their masters or men who they'd been unlucky enough to breathe the same air as, she had very rarely seen anything so brutal. And when she had, it ended only one way. The women always killed themselves within the year.

She heard a gasp and a growl, and looked up to see that Benjamin had arrived. Odile swallowed. "This is more than I can deal with using just what I have at your house. I need my own tools--

"Benjamin, don't!" That was Gabriel, and Odile looked up to see that Benjamin had a shovel poised over Petit's head, ready to strike.

The big man paused, looking flatly at Gabriel. "Why?"

"Because we don't know the whole story yet. Put him somewhere secure. You can beat him to death later if it turns out he's responsible," Odile said, putting command in her voice. Benjamin set the end of the shovel down next to Petit's head, agreeing, if reluctantly.

"Can you use me to heal some of this?" Gabriel asked. "I should have saved it for her. That was stupid."

At this moment, Odile had to agree, but blame mended no fences. "I can. We can try that here." She held out her hands, and then Gabriel reached out to take her hands in his.

There was the euphoric welcome again, the power beating through her like her blood, making everything seem so keenly pleasuresome. Odile ignored the feeling for the moment, making sure she was firmly connected to the power, then reached out to touch Ines.

Odile could feel the thread of life in her, thin and fragile. There was nobody home in her body, which had to be a blessing. The real problem is that now she was engaged, she could feel Gabriel's store of power, and it would be enough, but barely. To heal this, she would drain him dangerously close to death.

There was another possibility, she realized. The angel had opened a link from Jerome Petit to Odile, using Gabriel as the conduit. She could use Petit's life to heal Ines without harming Gabriel, but it would kill Petit.

Odile took a breath. That was black magic, all the way over the line, using the power she held to harm at the same time that she healed. But to take from the willing would nearly kill Gabriel, and Odile remembered Benjamin's stricken eyes. She could not stand up in front of him and tell him that she had refused to heal his daughter because she had hesitated to take the life of one of the men who had brutalized her.

She made her decision, and pulled.

Some part of her heard Petit scream, and another part of her heard the angel chuckling to itself. Numb with horror despite the euphoria of power, Odile felt Ines's wounds transfer to Petit, and Petit died screaming. Ines's wounds sealed over, and as Odile opened her eyes, she could see Ines sit up, swept into her father's embrace. Odile let go of the power, stood in one smooth motion, and began to walk away.

Behind her, she heard Gabriel's voice. "Odile, wait, are you all right?"

She didn't turn around, and her voice was shaking, sick. She was shivering hard. "I'll--be all right"

"Is there anything I can do?" Gabriel asked.

Her head was bowed. "If you can, come for a walk with me. If not, I'll be all right by myself."

She heard him move, coming up beside her on the left, grabbing her left hand with his right. They walked away together, towards the outbuildings and the fields. Odile was silent for some minutes, feeling Gabriel's concerned looks but not feeling up to responding to them, to offering reassurance. Finally, she summoned strength and said, "That was not the wisest decision I could have made. It's going to have consequences."

"You used Petit to save Ines? Yes?"

Odile nodded barely. "Yes. If I'd used your power, it would have nearly killed you. It did kill him."

"Is there nothing in the religion of a life for a life? Petit did most of that to her."

She considered the question as they kept walking. "It might fall under vengeance. But it's still dark magic. We're sworn not to use our power to harm others. I'd say Petit came to some harm. Also, the angel was laughing. If I've done something to make the beast happy, then it was something I shouldn't have done." She felt sick and scared as she had not since the beginning of this. It was her decision, and even now she could not say she would have made another choice. A violent shiver shook her.

Gabriel pulled on her hand a bit, stopping her, and silently opened his arms. She paused and then stepped into his embrace, letting him fold his arms around her. "I'm glad that Ines is going to be all right," she said. "But I wish I'd thought more before using Petit."

"You know, I don' t know why they call that dark magic or black magic," he said. "It seems most of the evil is done by white people. Should it be called white magic or at least pale magic?"

Odile shook her head. "I don't know why, either. The term's a translation of a much older word. Maybe it used to mean something different.
Vodoun comes from elsewhere, after all."

"It's all right," he told her. "We will take what comes together."

She rested her chin on his shoulder, the shivers in her starting to subside. She put her own arms around him, feeling the muscles in his back shift as he stood. "I'm afraid of what's happened at Petit's place."

"Petit's place is likely mostly dead," he said, and his voice was flat. "We will have to see. I can have Benjamin and some men take a look. I will bet on survivors."

Odile nodded, and let out a breath. "I just would never have been able to face Benjamin again, had I told you not to let the angel go."

"That was my problem as well. In the future, if it comes down to that again, I don't want you doing pale magic. I will understand your choice, if I don't wake up again."

She held her breath briefly as a strange pain passed through her. "And do you think I still could have faced Benjamin, if something I did killed you? He would never forgive me. Nor would I forgive myself."

Gabriel shook his head. "Benjamin will understand."

"But would I?" Odile swallowed and the last of the shivers seemed to pass from her, at last. "Let's just hope it doesn't come to that again."

"I hope not either, but I fear more things are coming."

There was a silence between them, wrapped up companionably in one another. Then Odile loosed herself from his arms. "More than likely. All right. I need to go prepare for this afternoon, and you need to go send folks over to the Petit place."

Gabriel nodded and let her go, and Odile lit out for home, moving at what was not quite a run but surely faster than a walk with her long legs and her skirt swishing. Horror and terror, once she was out of sight of Gabriel, were warring in her once again. She had an urge, a very strong one, to simply go home, pack a bag, and head out into the swamp, and hide till everything had passed.

What she had seen, and what she had done, made her heart thump and her throat dry as an old bone. The power and the use of it, she could understand. Bringing the dead back to life, a djab who could steal the life of the living, that was another thing entirely, as was what she had done. This wasn't the last of the rotten choices she was going to have to make if she stayed with these people, kept fighting this fight. And it seemed, at least to her limited perspective on things, that the beast gained more freedom the more Gabriel commanded it. The beast had not been commanded to bring back Petit, or leave that line open. It had done that all on its own.

But. There was Kalfu to think about, and the fact that she was the only one who could probably initiate Gabriel, and to leave now would leave both Benjamin--who wasn't nearly as problematic as Gabriel for any number of reasons--and Gabriel behind.

She had to stay. For the moment, though, she could go do all the things that had gone undone while she'd been gone, and prepare the house for an initiation ritual. When she got back, the only thing out of place was a feather sitting on her doorstep. It was a pale brown, a wing feather from some sort of large bird, and it might have blown there. Might not have, though. There were no other signs of visitors, and in the end Odile stuck the feather in her bag and went to take care of the animals.

Most of what she needed to do to prepare for the ritual was remind the sacred ground inside and outside the house that it was sacred, and mostly she did that by burning things that smelled good. Once everything was done and she felt a bit more settled, no longer ready to light out into the swamp, she pulled her boots back on and went to go look for Gabriel. She took the things he would need to use to prepare--an herbal powder and an oil to be burned.

Petit's body was gone, and it was still an hour or so till noon. It looked like Benjamin had gone and come back, and was standing talking to Gabriel in front of the house. Odile wandered up and asked, "Did you find anyone?"

Both men turned to her. Benjamin said, "All the blacks are alive, except for the few that tried to attack the angel, it seems. And Claire Petit."

"Clare? Is she the wife?" She knew, vaguely, that Petit had a wife and a few children, though she'd never heard names.

Benjamin shook his head. "No, the daughter. All of about five. Petit's wife was dead."

Odile tried to remember. "There was another daughter, wasn't there? An older one?"

"Dead too. Looks like she tried to protect her mother and got in the way."

"Well. Little Clare Petit now owns a plantation. Much good as it will do her."

Benjamin grimaced. "Not much. But we have a bigger problem. Clare is the only witness that is white, and it looks like a black revolt over there. All the blacks but a few lived, and all the white people died of mostly slit throats. Draw your own conclusion, after that."

"That'll bring both the law and the neighbors out," she said, seeing where he was going with this.

"And a lot of hangings."

She nodded, rubbing her temples. "Unless they can get away, yes. Or unless you can protect them, which would cause a lot of people to start looking at you."

Gabriel spread his hands. "The only thing we could think of is to hide them in the swamp and let them trickle out to safety. Then every few days, transfer a family out and send them north."

"I know some places nobody will look. Not pleasant, but they'll work," she said. "It'll save a lot of them. Not all, but a lot."

"The swamp is going to kill a lot of them, but it's a chance. They have none against the police."

Odile nodded, thinking about routes and hidden places. "I can lead groups into the swamp."

"We can find a spot on the edge to group them too and then you can lead them in farther." He rubbed his temples with one hand. "Now, what do we do with Clare, and the rest of the plantation? We discussed setting it all on fire and claiming yellow fever."

She gave him a smile. "Put her on a train with a tag that says Return to Sender?"

Gabriel chuckled and said, "Wish I could."

"Me, too," she said with a grin. "Well, burning it and claiming yellow fever might work. You could probably annex the land, if Clare's been supposedly taken by the fever as well."

"Who's going to raise her? I can try to find next of kin but if she is supposedly dead that's going to look a bit funny."

She thought about it for a moment. "Well, I might be able to take her in for a little bit. Might eventually find someone else to raise her."

"Either that or we burn the place, tell them they had yellow fever. Say most of the slaves ran and Clare was the only survivor." He rubbed his temples again. "Hand her off to the police to locate next of kin."

"And the story she'll have to tell will be dismissed as a nightmare. Nobody would believe that an angel killed everyone." Odile relaxed a bit. "I like that one. At least then, nobody will wonder where I got myself a little white girl."

"That's what I was worried about as well," he said. "She is hard to explain away."

"People would be all too willing to believe I stole her," she said, a bit ruefully. "Burning it and claiming yellow fever's the best idea. Hopefully, the police will find next of kin instead of just handing her over to whatever childless couple will pay money to adopt her."

"Yes." He turned to Benjamin. "Can you take Petit's body and burn it with the buildings? Tell the slaves to either scatter or meet in the swamp--near Odile's house, if you don't mind?" he asked her with a raised eyebrow.

"That would be fine," she said. "And tell them to bring what supplies they can carry. Food out there's scarce unless you know what you're doing."

"Will do," Benjamin said.

Gabriel nodded. "We will take the girl in tomorrow. She is still in shock."

"Is she here?" Odile asked.

"She is, we took her to Elisabeth to look after, along with Ines."

She took a long breath. "How is Ines?"

Gabriel looked away from her, his jaw tight. "Her body is fine. Her experience has wounded her deeply. She is scared of men. Even her brother and father."

It was to be expected, and it happened to a lot of women who'd been through rapes. "I was afraid of that," she said. "The body's easy to heal, compared to the mind."

Benjamin had stepped away, anger showing in the set of his shoulders, striding off and away. Gabriel watched him go. "It will be a long time, I think," he said, his voice dropping low.

"It will very likely be. Some women never really recover. I hope Ines is young enough that she does, some day."

He took a long breath. "Until then, a lot of nightmares. I will be the one staying the farthest away, I think, for the longest." The hand that was gripping the head of his cane was tight, white-knuckled. Had to hurt, to have your niece have something like this happen to her, even if her own foolishness had led her into it. Odile found that she was surprised that nobody had blamed Ines for what had happened; people usually blamed the women who got themselves raped, for any number of reasons.

Odile put that thought firmly on a shelf. "Yes," she said, trying to make her voice gentle. "She's unlikely to ever trust you, or any white man, ever again. The men who did this to her are dead, but that's probably not much comfort."

"We told her that. But it didn't help." He grimaced briefly. "Anyway, do you want to try to talk to either of them?"

"I would, yes. It might be that there's things I can do to help both of them. At least Ines. I also need to speak with Maman, but I can do that after I've talked with them."

"Ines is in her room. Clare is with her and Elisabeth."

"I'll go talk with them," she said, then took a long breath.

Gabriel nodded. "It's best I not go with you. Benjamin and I will take care of Maiden Fair."

Odile gave him a half-smile. Irrationally, she rather wished he could come along; talking to the victims of what men could and often did to women directly after was not one of her favorite things to do, though it was very necessary. "I'll come find you when I'm done," she told Gabriel.

"Please do," he said, and reached out to touch her hand lightly. Then he turned and left, and she watched him go. He always moved so easily, even with the bad leg and the cane. It was almost as if he'd been born with it, as if it were a natural part of him.

She turned away, towards the house. Ines and Isabelle's room was, as promised, occupied by Elisabeth who was sitting between the two beds, Ines lying in one staring up at the ceiling, and a little girl in the other bed who was wearing a flowered nightdress. Clare Petit was curled up in a ball, sniffling. Elisabeth was stroking the hair of both girls.

Odile exchanged a look with Elisabeth, who looked worn and worried. "How are they doing? Do you need any help?"

Elisabeth shook her head. Her headwrap was a little crooked, but Odile figured that she wasn't worrying about it right now. "Neither one has talked. Clare broke down crying. Ines just looks gone."

"Well, I can at least try to talk to Clare, see if I can get her a little calmer." She sat down on the edge of the bed Clare was on, reaching out to touch the little girl's shoulder. "Hey, little one. Want to talk to me?"

"No." Clare turned over to face the wall, curling up again huffily.

Odile eyed the little girl. "Well, you don't have to. I was just wondering if you wanted to tell me about what happened."

"It was scary. People shouting. And then the whooshing thing."

She wondered just how much the girl had seen, and probed gently. "Did you see what it was?"

Clare was still facing the wall. "An angel like from the book, but it was all hard and grey."

"Did you see anything else?" Odile asked.

Clare rolled over, then sat up and put her back against the wall. "A ghost of a nice lady."

Odile tried hard not to let her surprise show too much. Clare had seen Noemi? "What did she do?"

"Had me hide in a closet and pull clothes and blankets down on my head."

"Did she say anything to you, other than having you hide?" What had Noemi told this little girl, and how was Odile going to convince her that it was nothing more than a bad dream?

Clare set her chin down on her knees, lacing her fingers around her shins. "That I would be safe if I didn't move until the black man came."

It was a wonder that Benjamin had found her, but he had probably known there was another daughter, and had gone looking when he didn't find her body. "And so you stayed still until someone came."

"Yes, and he picked me up in the blankets and covered my head with it. It was really hot and he put me on his horse and we rode back here."

"Did he tell you why you were being brought here?" she asked.

Clare nodded solemnly. "Something bad happened to mama and daddy and my sister. Denis died a few days ago."

"Yes. There was a sickness, and many people died on your family's plantation. I'm sorry, Clare."

"The angel brought it?"

She shook her head. "No. The angel was something that only you saw, as well as the ghost lady."

"Na uh," Clare said, shaking her head insistently. "I saw them."

"You saw them, but nobody else did," Odile told her. "Like a nightmare. Sometimes people see things that aren't there, especially if they're sick."

The little girl looked at her mutely for a moment, and Odile wished she could tell her the truth. But this little girl had a place to go and it would be better if she believed that this was all a nightmare. "So can I go home again soon?" she asked.

"Because of the sickness, the house has burned. The police will find someone related to you that you can go and live with."

"Granma?" Clare said, perking up.

I hope for your sake she lives, Odile thought. "Maybe, where does she live?"

"Mobile."

"Well, then, you may well go live with her, then," Odile said.

Clare wrinkled her nose. "She was fun but old and wrinkly."

"How long has it been since you've seen her?"

"She came out last year to visit. It's a long ways," Clare replied.

Well, she was alive then, and well enough to travel all the way from Mobile, so she would probably be able to take over caring for Clare. Odile relaxed just a bit. "Well, the police will probably find her and take you to her, then."

Clare tilted her head, studying Odile as if this was the first time she was really seeing her. "Who are you, lady? The one that makes the angel go away?"

What? "My name is Odile. I don't usually make angels go away. Why, did someone say something about that?"

"The ghost lady."

Profoundly uneasy, Odile tried not to stare at the girl. "She told you that someone would make the angel go away?"

"She said that she hoped that some lady would make it go away for good," Clare said, her childish voice clear and serious.

"Well, maybe someone will," she said. "You probably won't ever see it again, though."

The girl looked down at her bare toes. "It was scary," she said in a small voice.

"It sounds like it was. Try to sleep a little, Clare. I need to talk to Ines, over there."

Clare shook her head. "She's gone. The ghost lady said the feather would help."

Odile caught her breath in her throat. "Did she say how the feather would help her?"

"I don't know. Maybe she just needs to be tickled."

"Maybe she does." Odile looked up at Elisabeth and asked, "Can you take Clare out of the room for a few minutes?" While she was surely willing to have Elisabeth in the room when she did this, she needed no more tales for this little girl to carry out into the world.

Elisabeth nodded and got up, scooping up Clare and heading out of the room. Odile transferred herself over to Ines's bed, looking down at her face that seemed strangely lifeless, though she breathed. "Ines? Can you hear me?"

There was no response, not a twitch, not a mutter. Odile pulled the feather out of her bag, considering the young woman who lay next to her. "Well, Clare said you were gone. Where did you go, Ines, and how can I call you home?" A chant of seeking and finding came to her mind and she began to say it low, the air taking on that anticipatory feeling again. She reached out then with the feather, brushing the edge of it against the girl's smooth forehead.

The reaction from the girl was startling. Her back arched violently and her eyes popped open, solid white and blind, and a black cloud spewed from her open mouth. In Odile's hands, the feather turned to stone as the cloud gathered itself and formed eyes within it, the eyes of the angel, the eyes of the beast.

The cloud stared at her for a moment and then made an eerie growling noise and fled out the open window, into the sunshine. Ines took a deep breath and burst out screaming, sitting up and wrapping her arms around her body. Odile put her hands on her shoulders, saying, "Ines, Ines, it's all right, it's over."

Ines gasped, "Oh my gods. Was that real? Are these memories real?" Odile was saved from having to answer her by Elisabeth bursting in through the door, and going to gather her daughter into her arms. Odile let herself out, hearing Ines's sobs echo through the door.

She paused, closing her eyes for a moment, then decided that she needed to go talk to her mother. If she was going to get a tongue-lashing for what she had done earlier, better to get it over with sooner rather than later.

She went into Noemi's room, sitting down in front of the head her mother was in. The head was looking a little worse for wear, the skin was more discolored than it had been, the man's yellow whiskers standing out against the greenish skin. Odile performed the chants to wake her mother, the eyes popping open almost before she was done chanting. "Ah Odile," her mother said, rasping a bit.

"Maman," she said, and a heavy sigh took her by surprise. "It's been a very long day, and it's probably going to get longer."

"You are mambo, we all have rough days. Lots of them, really." Her mother's voice was sympathetic, despite her words.

"This one's been rougher than most. Gabriel's far more entangled with the beast inside the angel than I thought he was. I'm not entirely sure that I'm going to be able to separate the two of them," she admitted. "And I made a bad decision, earlier. It was maybe the only decision I could have made, but it was still wrong."

"Are you talking about Petit?"

Odile blinked. "Yes. You know about that?"

"Your Grandmere keeps me up to date." Her tone turned a bit acid. "She can wander around. I am stuck here in this oh so attractive and smelly head."

She rolled her eyes, though she did agree about the attractiveness of the head. "I know, I'm working on getting you a better place to reside. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Initiate Gabriel, teach him how to use the power he's got, and hope that somehow I can think of a way he can disentangle himself from the beast. It's got plans, and I played into one and evidently just interrupted another."

Twitch of a smile on the head's discolored lips. "You are the right course. It's smart, very smart. It knows you can hurt it."

"Yes, and at this point it probably wants me dead as much as it wants to kill Gabriel." She rubbed her palm with her thumb, feeling the muscles and bones in her hand. "He's a power source and has never been taught how to use it. The frightening part is that the beast is a part of him, and he's a part of it, and he's going to have to be the one to let it go."

"And when he does, it's free."

Odile nodded. "Without Ghede at the crossroads, it's more likely to stay here than go back."

There was a dry chuckle from the head. "Yes. Long plans indeed."

She took an astonished breath. "Are you telling me that the angel's part of the reason for the current trouble with Ghede and Kalfu?"

"That much rage and anger. What loa do you think answered Gabriel?"

"Kalfu." She pressed her thumb into her palm hard enough to hurt. "I think Gabriel's mama did us all a disservice by not training him, but I'm guessing she had her reasons."

"He had no discipline as a child," her mother said disapprovingly.

"He did say he was afraid of his mama, but he hasn't ever said anything about his father. And he's got a temper on him, a bad one."

"He did. That's the garde on him."

Emotional control, to combat a temper that flared too quickly and too hotly. "I'd hate to think what he'd be like without it," she said.

The voice from the head got a bit more raspy. "Raw source of power and no compunction of using it. He would have gone bokar in minutes."

"Surprised he's only done what he's done, true. I like him, but he scared me this morning. Still going to try to initiate and train him, though," she said, trying not to think for the moment about what the initiation was going to involve.

"Something people forget about him. His temper is now guarded and he is older able to control it. But people forget that the opposite is true." Maman's voice had gone sharper, like it did when she was trying to tutor Odile in something difficult. "Look at what he has done. Do you know another white man like him? You all see the darkness beneath the surface, but what's always coming out?"

Odile thought about Gabriel, about the parts of him she knew. "He's a good person. Beneath it all, he's made some mistakes, but he has good intentions and usually manages to make things come out all right. I keep thinking that he seems like one of us, underneath."

Maman was pleased. "And so you see. His point is that race should make no difference. And I think that was Legba's point as well. Legba doesn't pick people that destroy the world. Legba picks people that have challenges and overcome them to do the right thing."

"So there's hope. There has to be." she stopped rubbing her palm, feeling her hand relax. "I'll initiate him, and see what happens from there."

"You currently have the most influence on things. What you do matters most," the head said, warningly.

She spread her hand. "Well, I'm going to try not to use Gabriel's power, and try not to get trapped in a bad decision like I did earlier today. And try to keep my mind open."

"Try not to fear him. He is trying to do what's best for all."

Odile shook her head. "I'll do my best. As far as I've been able to tell, he won't use the power to hurt people once he has a better handle on it. I'm not sure any of us could have watched him raise that boy from the dead and not be scared, though."

The rasping voice asked, dryly, "That's not what scares you, is it?"

She gave the head a sharp look. "You're about to tell me yet again that I shouldn't be afraid to let people close to me, aren't you?"

A sound like a snort came from the head, and Odile was reminded of any one of a number of conversations she'd had with Maman before she died. If Maman had a body, she'd be leaning against a doorframe, her arms crossed. "You are so stingy with that heart, girl, it's amazing."

That stung Odile, though she bit back her immediate retort. "You know I have my reasons. But Gabriel doesn't seem to be put off by me prickling at him." She shrugged. "Don't know why, but maybe it's a blessing."

"He may not be the one for you, but you will never know if you don't try at least once," Maman's voice said. "You are your Grandmere's daughter that's for sure."

"More like her than you, some days, I have to admit. Surprised she ever got around to having you."

"Same here, but then no me, no you." The voice paused briefly. "And Petit. Grandmere was a stickler for no black magic. That's because she knew from experience."

Her Grandmere had walked the black road? "She did? She never told me."

"The story they tell about Remy may be true for him. But it was as well for your Grandmere. She had basically the same choice you faced. And she chose the same way."

Odile was staring now, trying to make sense of it. "Who did she save?"

"My father, Joseph. A slave she met. Had the power in him, too."

"And she killed someone to save him?"

Maman's voice was grave, no evidence of the dryness in it now. "The owner. Set them both free and they ran. They loved a lot and I was born, but the white people caught up to him in town. He died on the string. She ran off here, and that's where we were raised."

Odile felt a vast sympathy for her grandmother, and it made more sense now, why the little house in the swamp had always been a place full of women and no men. Grandmere's love had died. Maman had never found one to love. And Odile, taking after them, had held everyone at arms' length, trying to keep her exile as the one thing she knew she owned. "So that's how Grandmere came to be living out here with you. Well, I'm hoping to not have a choice like that to make again. Just about sent me running off into the swamp and never coming back."

"You see where it sent your Grandmere."

"Yes, where I live today. Well, it didn't quite send me running off, and Gabriel managed to talk me down a bit," she said, smiling a little.

"That's good. I had the devil of a time getting you calmed down when you were young," her mother told her.

She chuckled. "I get all wound up and then can't quite get unwound. I wasn't exactly an easy child, was I?"

The dryness was back in her mother's voice. "No, no doubt of that. Times I thought I was raising a bokar already."

Odile flushed slightly as she remembered just what she had been occasionally punished for. Taking apart frogs to see how they worked on the inside had only been the start of it. "You did? Well. Glad I didn't turn out that way. Mostly."

"My little demon child, but Grandmere says we were all that way," Maman said fondly. "So you turned out good. A bit too wound up like you say. but good nonetheless."

She made a face. "I can't hardly wait to have one of my own. Aren't you supposed to be encouraging me to have a daughter, instead of telling me that we're all hellions when we're young?"

"Well telling you to have a daughter ain't working, so maybe the reverse will." The rasping voice was sharp-edged, impatient.

"Maybe I'll go get pregnant just to spite you" Odile told the spirit in the head. "It's not like I'm probably going to have any lack of opportunity, coming up soon."

"Sex will get you pregnant. That's what the loa do when they take you over. But do it without the loa in control, and see the difference."

Odile had rarely had a man outside of ritual, and not all that often inside of it. "Maybe I will. Gabriel's certainly willing. I just have to decide if I am."

"What's holding you back, girl? I could never figure that out."

She shrugged awkwardly. "My life got busy after you died, Maman. It seemed like too much work, to find someone I liked and get close to them, all the time knowing that whoever it was might get sold away or killed and there was nothing I could do about it."

"And now what's holding you back?" Maman wanted to know. "He probably won't do any of those. Maybe the killed part but being sold, not going to happen."

"With Gabriel, it's because I don't know why me and not someone else. What's he really want with a bastard mulatto woman who lives by herself in the swamp?" She went back to rubbing her palm. "He's surely had his pick of women throwing himself at him. Why did he decide that it was me who was going to bring him out of his grief for his wife?"

Dryly, Maman said, "Love doesn't make sense. It just is. He is probably asking himself the same question. Why oh why can't I pick the white girl?"

Odile laughed out loud, amused by the idea. "Probably. And he doesn't seem nearly as intimidated me as everyone else does, which makes him interesting, at least."

"He has the power too. Maybe it attracts us together."

"Maybe so. And I've worked with his power, now. It seemed strangely happy to see me, if power can be said to feel things."

The raspy voice had turned contemplative. "Good energies work together. Trying to put me in here with Remy's help probably felt like being kicked."

Odile wrinkled her nose, remembering that ritual. "It felt a lot like two dogs chained in corners across from each other, snarling. If I never have to work with him again, I'll be quite happy."

"So would I. But Gabriel would feel more like Remy if he was meaning you harm."

"It's more the opposite, I find myself wanting to grab onto his power and never let go. And after I do let go, I'm cold for ages."

"Well that to me sounds like you are both better together than apart," Maman said. "But just like Grandmere. Stubborn to the core."

And you're not? But she didn't say it; she knew better than to sass Maman, even dead. "Always. I'll try to bend some, though."

"Good. You needing anything else besides the slap to the head?"

Odile shook her head. "Nothing, really, I know at least the next few things I need to do. I'll talk to you later, Maman. Thank you, so much."

Maman's voice was warmed briefly. "You're welcome, my lovely daughter."

Odile smiled and closed the ritual, sending the vessel to sleep and recovering it. Then she rose, stretched out legs that had pins and needles in them from sitting so long, and went in search of Benjamin and Gabriel.

She had good timing, it seemed. As she stepped out the front door of the house, she saw the two of them coming up the drive. Both on them looked dirty and sweaty, soot-stained. Odile walked out to them, asking them, "How'd it go?"

Gabriel said, "We got all the dead in the buildings and let them go up. They will have a hard time trying to prove anything but yellow fever and most of the blacks took to their own chances, only about two dozen of your followers took to the swamps."

"Well, at least it's a manageable number," she said. "Clare told me that she has a grandmother in Mobile, so she has somewhere to go. She also told me a strange story about seeing Noemi. Ines is doing better, I think, but something from the angel had taken hold of her. I broke it, I'm pretty sure."

She saw Benjamin draw himself up, alarmed, and Gabriel asked, "The angel was in her?"

"It's hard to explain," she said. "A part of it, I think. She was unresponsive, just gone. I'd found a feather on my doorstep, earlier. Clare mentioned that Noemi said that the feather would help--and don't ask me to explain why Noemi was talking to Clare like that--and the feather, when I touched it to her, turned to stone and seemed to draw part of the angel out of her and away. She woke up after that."

"How is she?" Benjamin asked urgently.

"I left the room pretty soon after, Elisabeth came to take over. But I think I'll take sobbing and screaming over lying there staring at the ceiling any day," she told him.

Benjamin nodded. "Good. So the angel was trying to escape, or was it trying to get to us through her?"

She thought about it. "I think it was trying to get to us. Ines just wasn't there in her body. The angel could have done most anything. Might have tried to kill Gabriel, since it was a part that he wasn't controlling."

Gabriel was shaking his head. "It's never done that before. Did it just learn that?"

"Maybe it never saw the opportunity before. The angel, well, it's connected with Kalfu, and I'd say that now that Kalfu is making his move, the angel is making its.

"Are they the same?" he asked. "The beast is a part of Kalfu?"

She looked at him, trying to decide how he was going to take this news. "Well, let's put it this way. Kalfu was the loa who answered your call, and Kalfu knows all of the worst types beyond the crossroads. If it's not a part of him, it's someone willing to work with him."

He closed his eyes briefly, pushing out a breath, then opened them again. "So there we are. Best, I think, to start learning what we can do."

"Starts with you starting to learn how to control the power. And finding that girl who's got Ghede in her belly," she said.

Gabriel looked down at himself. His usually immaculate clothing was all over soot, rumpled and sweat-stained. "Do these rituals start with a bath? I need one."

"Generally. A bath with herbs in it, but definitely a bath."

He nodded and seemingly without volition attempted to brush himself off. It only made things worse. "Well, might just as well kill two birds with one stone. Fetch the herbs you need. I will get them to draw water and I can wash myself up for you."

"Brought them with me, actually," she said, and gave him a smile, thinking about watching him dress a couple of mornings ago, pondering him naked and wet.

Evidently, some of what she was thinking showed on her face. "Does that smile does that mean you are going to watch me wash?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well to be honest, it's not strictly necessary. But I like the idea." She gave him another smile, this one full of knowing intent.

He eyed her as if not quite believing his luck. "Well, so do I. This day has a bright point yet. Do I get to reciprocate?"

She was trying not to blush too much, but the way his whole body had turned toward her as if it were a plant and she the sun was very intriguing indeed. It had been ages since anyone had expressed such direct interest in her. "Well, it's not required that I bathe, but I could probably use a bath as well. You could watch, if you wanted, which I'm guessing you do."

"Very much," he said, his green eyes lit with anticipation. "The bath is big enough for two," he added, suggesting an invitation in the way he gestured toward her.

Odile blinked and caught her breath. She'd never encountered a washtub really big enough for one person, let alone two. There were certain parts of her that, even though she hadn't asked them their opinion, were quite loudly expressing their approval of this idea. This was moving quite a bit faster than she'd anticipated, but it was far too tempting an offer to ignore. " Well, in that case, we could just save some time and take a bath together," she said.

Benjamin grinned. "He had that bath special made. Cost him a fortune. But Elisabeth and I are very grateful for it. Have fun." He turned and left, and Gabriel stepped forward to grab Odile's hand as if afraid she was going to change her mind and take flight, soar away into the sky to hide behind the clouds. They started walking towards the house together, Odile feeling strange flutters of anticipation in her stomach.

She was trying not to laugh too much, between Gabriel's eagerness and the way she had been so neatly led forward to something that, she had to admit, she wanted anyway. Gabriel's tactics seemed to be mostly along the lines of taking a mile every time she gave him an inch, which she wasn't finding nearly as irritating as she maybe ought. "I think Benjamin's happy for you," she said to him, chuckling.

"Benjamin may be happy but I am ecstatic," he told her as they reached the house doors.

There was a strange feeling in her, beside the nervous anticipation. Surprised, she said, "Funny thing is, I am too."

"Good," he said with a smile that seemed to reach into her and warm her from her toes to the top of her head. "Stay here, I'll be right back."

He vanished into the house, leaving Odile to look around at the front hallway. There were plants in pots in here, which seemed to Odile to be an odd indulgence when there were acres of dirt right outside to put plants in. She had to admit that some of them were pretty, though. Gabriel returned and said, "There's water being heated. I was told to wait on the back porch and not get the furniture sooty. You could come with me, if you want." He extended his hand, and she took it.

They passed almost an hour talking together on the porch, he perched on a wooden chair and she sitting on the railing, enjoying the breeze that had come up as the sun lowered in the sky. They spoke of the loa, Odile giving him the lore her mother had taught her as she had been taught by her grandmother. Eventually, one of the maids came out and told them that the bath was ready--not without a quick glance at Odile, direct and curious.

The bath was on the first floor near the back of the house, in a room dedicated solely to it. It was enormous, more than adequately sized for two, and the water in it was steaming. Odile reminded her shaking hands that she had indeed done this before, and with men who were far less attentive than this one was.

Gabriel was stripping out of his clothes, leaning his cane on the chair he was leaving his filthy clothing on. She started unbuttoning her own shirt as he finished undressing and climbed into the tub, groaning as he hit the hot water. He turned around to watch her, and with a smile she continued to unbutton shirt and untie skirt, folding both garments neatly on the same chair. Underneath she was wearing only what she had been born with. She undid her headwrap as well to let her hair fall down to her waist in all its tangled glory.

She turned around to see him still watching her avidly. Oddly, being naked under his gaze gave her courage, as if the most difficult of this had been conquered. "You approve?" she asked, standing bold as bold and meeting his eyes.

"Yes," he said, his voice thick and rough. His eyes traveled her generous curves, strong thighs and calves, the thick thatch of hair between her legs. "Magnificent. Absolutely. Would you do me the honor of joining me, Odile?"

She smiled and came to him, sliding into the warm water. "I'll wash your back if you wash mine," she said as she landed, her legs over his. Gabriel looked enraptured by the idea, and laughing, she leaned forward and kissed him.

"Me first," he said.

"Mmm, who's the dirty one here?" she asked archly.

"Ah, but I would not be a gentleman if I didn't at least offer," he said with a grin.

"Tell you what," she offered, coming to her knees and straddling his legs. "I'll wash you, and if you can keep from squirming too much, I'll let you wash me."

"Done," he said, a little too eagerly. Odile laughed, picking up the soap and cloth, applying one to the other, and going to work on him.

He squirmed. But then again, she was cheating, having gotten distracted almost immediately by touching the wet skin all over him, her fingers seeking places she'd barely known she had a desperate desire to touch. Gradually Gabriel's hands began to explore her body, waking a hunger in her that obliterated hesitation and doubt. They moved against each other, wet body against wet body, and in the increasing dim in the room they were both the same color, both of them dark and bright, her wet hair clinging to them both.

Odile found herself straddling him, kissing him, delirious with hunger and with the hardness of him pressing against the wetness of her. She captured him with one motion, shifting and then sliding down, the water embracing her as she surrounded him, hearing him groan. They stayed very still for a moment after that, Odile wanting the moment not to end. If she moved, if he moved, it might spoil everything--

He moved, and it did not spoil anything.

The first time was quick, both of them unashamedly hungry, Gabriel's mouth at her breasts and Odile's head thrown back, crying out. Afterwards, they lay entangled in the cooling water, Odile's heart slowing down from its hammering rhythm. They managed to finish washing each other then, and wrapped each other in towels and slipped through darkening corridors to Gabriel's room.

"I never suspected you had all this hair," Gabriel muttered as he buried his face in her damp curls.

"Saved for lovers, and for ritual," she said with a smile. "Erzulie wears her hair long, so I don't cut mine." She kissed him--could she ever get enough of kissing him? Their mouths seemed made to fit one another. He pulled her close to him, pressing her against him. The thought crossed her mind that she'd intended to start Gabriel's initiation tonight, but another thought came now. This is more important. "Touch me," she murmured against his lips. "Please."

To Odile's surprise it was not just bodies touching, that long night that they spent mostly wakeful. There was power, too, the euphoria she'd felt touching his power earlier returning. Gabriel felt it as well, feeling the give and take between them. After tonight, she thought, she would never be able to be in a room with him and not know he was there. His power was honey-sweet and opened to her touch with all of the eagerness that the man himself possessed.

After tonight, she would never doubt that he trusted her absolutely.

Eventually they fell asleep together, having exhausted one another. Odile thought briefly about getting up to find somewhere to sleep alone, but Gabriel wouldn't let go of her, and she really was comfortable here. For tonight, she could stay.

For tonight.