This Wicked Game

TWENTY-ONE

Claire watched Eddie move around the tiny but immaculate kitchen as he poured them sweet tea.

He wasn’t anything like what she’d expected.

For one thing, he didn’t look crazy. In fact, he looked decidedly uncrazy, his eyes clear behind glasses with round black frames. His jeans were immaculate, topped with a loose tunic-type shirt adorned with an African print. Before he’d gotten up to get the tea, Claire caught a glimpse of the book he was reading; Moby-Dick.

Not exactly light reading.

“How did you know we were from the Guild?” Xander asked.

“I’ve been seeing you,” Eddie said, his back to them as he poured.

“Seeing us?” Xander repeated.

Eddie brought the glasses to the table and set them in front of Claire and Xander.

He tapped the side of his head. “Up here. Mostly when I sleep.” He sat down, the chair’s chrome legs squeaking against the chipped linoleum floor. “Not exactly what I was looking for with the insight brew.”

Claire almost choked on her tea. “The insight brew?”

“Sage, verbena . . . you know.” He waved a hand in the air. “Standard stuff. I use it all the time. Always sleep with it under my pillow. You never know when insight will strike or which direction it’ll come from.” He shook his head. “But I have to say, I wasn’t real happy to see you and old Max show up in my nightmares.”

Claire’s felt a chill enter the room with the man’s name. “Max?”

“Maximilian Constantin.” His eyes grew wise as he surveyed them. “You know who I’m talking about.”

“Just to clarify,” Xander said. “Who, exactly, have you been seeing with the insight spell? Claire?”

Eddie took another drink of his tea. “Not just her. You, too.”

“Me?”

Eddie nodded.

“Would you mind telling me what you see?”

“Would you mind telling me what you’re looking for?” Eddie asked coolly.

Claire glanced at Xander before answering. She thought about the best way to present everything to Eddie. “Someone placed an order for panther plasma last week.”

“I take it Max is this someone?” Eddie asked.

“We think so. I mean, he didn’t actually place the order,” Claire explained. “But we think he’s the one who requisitioned it.”

Eddie nodded calmly.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Xander observed.

“I’m not.”

Claire wanted to ask him why, but she doubted he would answer.

“The timing’s weird because some of the Guild houses have been broken into recently,” she continued.

“And by the houses,” Eddie said, “I take it you mean the residences, not the stores.”

Claire nodded. “How did you know?”

He shrugged.

“Anyway,” Claire continued, “we don’t know anything about Maximilian. No one talks about him, not even to make jokes like they do with—” She stopped herself.

Eddie raised one eyebrow, a twinkle of humor in his eyes. “With me?”

At first, Claire didn’t say anything. Then, because he seemed to know anyway, she nodded reluctantly.

A thread of bitterness ran through his chuckle. “I’m not surprised.”

“What do you mean?” Xander asked.

Eddie leaned forward, lacing his hands together, his eyes bright and intense. “Leaving the Guild is a big deal, young man. You must know it more than anyone.”

Xander stiffened. “Why would I know it better than anyone?”

Eddie leaned back. “Come on. I know you. You’re Estelle and Bernard’s son. The Guild is who you are. You know how it is. No one leaves. Not on their own. It’s like . . . Well, it’s like turning your back on your own blood. Believe me, I know.”

“But you didn’t leave on your own,” Claire said softly. “They . . . Well, they kicked you out.” She was embarrassed to say it out loud.

He looked into her eyes. “That what they tell you?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Claire asked.

He regarded her quietly, his eyes solemn.

“You’re saying you left voluntarily?” Xander asked. “Why would you do that?”

“Same reason you’re here,” Eddie said. “Maximilian Constantin.”

Xander sat up straighter. “You knew him.”

“Everyone in the Guild knew him. Until he left. Then everyone pretended not to.”

“Would you mind telling us what happened?” Claire asked.

Eddie thought about it. “It’s not a pretty story. And it’s not over yet.”

“That’s okay,” Claire said. “We just need to know so we can . . . I don’t know, try to protect ourselves.”

It took Eddie a minute to start talking. When he did, his voice was slower, like it was moving through a thick haze of memory.

“Max wasn’t always part of the New Orleans Guild. He showed up sometime in the nineteen nineties with his daughter.”

“His daughter?” Claire couldn’t have been more surprised. Maximilian had grown to fairy-tale proportions in her mind. A nefarious villain, complete with a black cape and sinister laugh.

Being a father didn’t fit her image of him at all.

“Elisabeta,” Eddie said softly. “She was sick. I can’t remember with what. Something that put her in a wheelchair. Max had already been ostracized from the Guild in Romania for trying black magic to cure her.”

The words came to Claire through a long tunnel.

Something that put her in a wheelchair.

She saw the little girl at the party in her dream, her long dark braids trailing down the back of a wheelchair, Maximilian’s face clenched with silent rage as Claire’s father took the picture.

“Ah,” Eddie said softly. “You’ve seen her.”

Xander glanced sharply at her. When she didn’t say anything, Eddie continued.

“Anyway, Max was petitioning New Orleans for permission to use black magic to save Elisabeta. They wouldn’t agree, of course. The Guild never bends their rules, even to save a life.”

“So what happened?” Xander asked.

“Well, the Guild was in an uproar while Max was here. He was . . . volatile. Enraged by the Guild’s refusal to let him try the magic.”

“Why didn’t he try it on his own?” Claire asked, feeling unexpected sympathy for the man who was trying to save his daughter.

“Couldn’t get the supplies, I expect,” Eddie said simply. “You know how it is. The Guild’s got a lock on anything even remotely exotic, and there are always exotic ingredients in black magic.”

She thought about the vial of panther blood in the valise and wondered how Maximilian had gotten ahold of it.

“Max finally left,” Eddie continued, “presumably to try and save Elisabeta through the help of an underground branch or with ingredients he found on the black market. But he made a promise on his way out.”

“What kind of promise?” Claire whispered.

“Max swore that if Elisabeta died, the Guild would pay.”

“And did she?” Claire asked.

“That’s what I heard,” said Eddie.

“What did all this have to do with you?” Xander asked.

“Let’s just say the Guild and I had differing views on its objectives.”

“Can you be more specific?” Claire asked.

Eddie regarded her solemnly before speaking again. “I thought Max was a wake-up call.”

Xander raised his eyebrows in question. “A wake-up call?”

“We all knew there were people in the community practicing black magic,” he explained. “Always have been. Always will be. It’s harder for them without the Guild supply houses. But where there’s a will there’s a way. I believed the Guild should be more aggressive, more . . . proactive about addressing those kinds of threats.”

“Threats like Max,” Claire said.

Eddie nodded. “But the Guild didn’t see it that way. They’ve been sitting in their big houses too long, holding so-called rituals in air-conditioned rooms, taking shortcuts in their potions and spells when it suits them.” He leveled his gaze at Claire and Xander. “Neglecting to properly train and arm the next generation.”

Claire felt the hot flush of guilt touch her cheeks.

“So what happened?” Xander asked.

“The way I saw it, we only had two choices: use the craft to bring Max under control or look over our shoulders forever.”

Claire shook her head. “But what if you were wrong? What if Max never got the ingredients he needed? What if he changed his mind? Why renounce the Guild for something that may never even happen?”

Eddie didn’t say anything for a minute, just rubbed at the condensation dripping down his glass.

“You ever been around a Houngan priest?” he finally asked. “And I mean the real deal, not these fakes you see online now.”

Claire remembered the strange vibration she felt around Max, the air so full of darkness it felt heavy, laden with dangerous, evil things.

She shrugged.

“She doesn’t believe,” Xander explained.

Eddie let out a laugh that sounded more like a cackle. “That’s ironic.”

“What do you mean?” Claire asked him.

He lowered his voice. “You’re Marie’s kin. You’re more powerful than any of them. You just haven’t figured it out yet.”

The words seemed to echo through the tiny kitchen. Claire hurried to change the subject.

“You were asking us if we’d even been around a Houngan?”

Eddie nodded. “Max was the real deal. A genuine Houngan with the power to summon the most powerful loas—dark, light, all of them.”

Claire should have been surprised. Calling on the assistance of the loas—the spirit beings said to aid practitioners of voodoo in their spells, potions, and ceremonies—was something she’d never believed in. Sure, everyone in the Guild did it, from the leadership right down to everyday people who purchased supplies.

But Claire had always thought of it as a meaningless ritual. Like saying amen after a prayer or asking God to help you, when the truth was, there was no way to be sure anyone was even listening.

Yet somehow, she wasn’t at all surprised to hear that Max could summon the loas, wasn’t even surprised that she believed he could. Max seemed bigger than all of them, and Eddie suddenly seemed like a more reliable witness than anyone in the Guild.

“And that was unusual?” Xander asked. “That kind of power?”

Eddie nodded. “Still is, my man. Still is.”

“What does all of this have to do with your decision to leave the Guild?” Claire asked.

“Max’s need to save Elisabeta was toxic. It polluted the air around him until you could feel it, like a thundercloud that followed him wherever he went. Petitioning the Guild for permission to use black magic was just a way to gain access to the ingredients he needed. But everyone knew it was a formality. He was already trying to work the spells on his own. Those of us with a sensitivity to the dark side of our craft could feel it on him.” He paused.

“Max was the only Houngan who ever truly scared me, and my family’s been in voodoo for almost two hundred years. When Max said he’d get his revenge on the Guild families, I didn’t doubt it, and without the Guild’s permission to use black magic to bring him under control, there was nothing to stop him. The way I saw it, Max was just the beginning. If the Guild wasn’t prepared to address a threat like him, who’s to say there wouldn’t be bigger and badder threats later on?” He shook his head. “There was no upside to staying with the Guild and a whole lot of downside, so I left. The craft’s a part of my life. I can take or leave the Guild. One is not dependent on the other.”

Claire wondered if she would be as nonchalant as Eddie if the Guild ceased to be a part of her life. Of course, Xander and Sasha would always be her friends. Her parents would always love her. But what about everyone else?

“So why do they . . .” Claire paused, not sure how to pose her question.

He laughed. “Why do they call me Crazy Eddie?”

She smiled, nodding.

“The easiest way to make sure no one follows my example is to cast me as a nutcase. I’ll bet a few high-ranking people called me crazy a couple of times and the Guild gossip mill took it and ran with it.” He laughed again. “Damn! I’m probably a legend now, am I right?”

Claire smiled again. “Kind of.”

Eddie nodded, his voice growing serious. “Max has to be dealt with. You do know that, right?”

He was right, but they couldn’t exactly fight Max, using the craft or anything else, if they didn’t know what he had in mind, and it’s not like they could call the police and demand they arrest him for maybe casting evil spells.

Even if they caught him in the act, voodoo wasn’t a crime.

As if he could read her mind, Xander answered. “We’re working on it. But the Guild isn’t going to be any help.”

“You ask them about it?”

Xander shook his head. “Not in so many words, but I think it’s safe to say they’re not going to change anytime soon. Not even to deal with Max.”

“So what’s the plan?”

Xander sighed. “We don’t have one. Not really. Except . . .” He shot Claire a look.

“Except?” Eddie prodded.

“We found some things,” Claire said. “In the house they’re staying in.”

“In the house they’re staying in?” Admiration flashed in Eddie’s eyes. “Well, well, well. Seems this litter of firstborns might have some teeth. So are we done?” He leaned forward. “Or are you going to fill me in?”