The Laughing Corpse - Laurell K. Hamilton [106]
The air was suddenly heavy, hard to breathe. Every hair on my body was creeping down my skin.
“Stop her!” John said. He stood.
The policeman nearest her hesitated for only an instant, but it was enough. When he pried her fingers open, they were empty.
“Sleight of hand, Dominga. I thought better of you than that.”
John was pale. “It isn’t a trick.” His voice was shaky. He sat down heavily on the couch beside me. His dark face looked pale. His power seemed to have shriveled up. He looked tired.
“What is it? What did she do?” I asked.
“You have to bring back the charm, ma’am,” the uniform said.
“I cannot,” she said.
“John, what the hell did she do?”
“Something she shouldn’t have been able to do.”
I was beginning to know how Dolph must feel having to depend on me for information. It was like pulling fucking teeth. “What did she do?”
“She absorbed her power back into herself,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“She absorbed the gris-gris into her body. Didn’t you feel it?”
I had felt something. The air was clearer now, but it was still heavy. My skin was tingling with the nearness of something. “I felt something, but I still don’t understand.”
“Without ceremony, without help from the loa, she absorbed it back into her soul. We won’t find a trace of it. No evidence.”
“So all we have is the tape?”
He nodded.
“If you knew she could do this, why didn’t you speak up earlier? We wouldn’t have let her hold the thing.”
“I didn’t know. It’s impossible without ceremonial magic.”
“But she did it.”
“I know, Anita, I know.” He sounded scared for the first time. Fear didn’t sit well on his darkly handsome face. After the power I’d felt from him, the fear seemed even more out of place. But it was real nonetheless.
I shivered, like someone had walked on my grave. Dominga was staring at me. “What are you staring at?”
“A dead woman,” she said softly.
I shook my head. “Talk is cheap, Señora. Threats don’t mean squat.”
John touched my arm. “Do not taunt her, Anita. If she can do that instantly, there’s no telling what else she can do.”
The cop had had enough. “She’s not doing anything. If you so much as twitch wrong, lady, I’m going to shoot you.”
“But I am just an old woman. Would you threaten me?”
“Don’t talk either.”
The other uniform said, “I knew a witch once who could bespell you with her voice.”
Both uniforms had their hands near their guns. Funny how magic changes how people perceive you. They were fine when they thought she needed human sacrifice and ceremony. Let her do one instant trick, and she was suddenly very dangerous. I’d always known she was dangerous.
Dominga sat silently under the watchful eyes of the cops. I had been distracted by her little performance. There were still no screams from downstairs. Nothing. Silence.
Had it gotten them all? That quickly, without a shot fired. Naw. But still, my stomach was tight, sweat trickled down my spine. Are you alright, Dolph? I thought.
“Did you say something?” John asked.
I shook my head. “Just thinking really hard.”
He nodded as if that made sense to him.
Dolph came into the living room. I couldn’t tell anything by his face. Mr. Stoic.
“Well, what was it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“She’s cleaned the place out completely. We found the rooms you told me about. One door had been busted from inside, but the room’s been scrubbed down and painted.” He held up one big hand. It was stained white. “Hell, the paint’s still wet.”
“It can’t all be gone. What about the cement-covered doors?”
“Looks like someone took a jackhammer to them. They’re just freshly painted rooms, Anita. The place stinks of pine-scented bleach and wet paint. No corpses, no zombies. Nothing.”
I just stared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
He shook his head. “I’m not laughing.”
I stood in front of Dominga. “Who warned