Claiming the Voodoo Princess Read online

  A hand slammed down onto her shoulder.

  At once, the sound returned, Dossier’s shoes were put out, and he fell to the cold earth, gasping for air.

  “Lisa, let’s go home,” Pharaoh whispered in his daughter’s ear. “This boy is clearly beneath you. He’s not worth your reputation, baby.”

  “Well, look at that, Dossier. A Pharaoh just saved your ass. You should be kissing my daddy’s boots, because the next time you cross me, my daddy won’t be there, nor will he be able to stop me. I’ll show you what nothing really is.” She spat a fireball at his feet and turned to walk away.

  The almighty David Pharaoh looked down at Dossier with a posture so esteemed. Without a single movement, he stripped the young man of his clothes, exposing his bare flesh. “Don’t you ever come for my family,” he said. “We usually don’t tango with the likes of your kind, who sell potions and herbs out of your trunk, but for now, I will make an exception. Annalissa Pharaoh is not to be fucked with. She’s right. The next time, if there will be one, you have no idea what that woman is capable of, and she will show you. You got lucky. Consider this a blessing.” Within a cloud of gold smoke, Pharaoh vanished.

  In his heart, he knew that his daughter’s woes were far from over. It was time to correct any mistakes before they begun. He knew what he was like at twenty-one, and he didn’t want that for his princess. But how would go up against a being more powerful than he? His only advantage was that she didn’t know her own strength.

  Chapter

  Two

  Annalissa, in a rage, stomped up the stairs to the family’s home but was halted at the door. Her mother stood there with a hardened, fair-colored face; her arms crossed over her bosom, and her foot tap-tapping a rhythm on the wooden porch.

  “What?” Lisa asked as she attempted to get past. An invisible wall was the only border to stop her from entering the door she rolled her eyes to. She smacked her lips and backed away, folding her arms. “I’m not in the mood to play your games, Robyn. Let me go.”

  “Lisa, watch your tone when you speak to your mother,” Pharaoh said behind her. “You’ve been lacking a lot of respect lately. Now, we get that you’re an adult and that you can do whatever you want, but you will not disrespect your elders; understand?”

  “Look, I just want to get in the house and go to bed, okay? I’ve had a very long day. The last thing I want to do is stand here and apologize and explain my anger. So, take the forcefield down and let me go inside.”

  Robyn scoffed. “Oh? So, you’re going to just tell me what I’m going to do when—”

  “Fine! Can you please take the damn thing down? Do I need to beg you for permission?”

  “So, you need permission to do something now, Lisa? You don’t need permission to get drunk—”

  Lisa flailed her arms, taking a sloppy step backward. “Now you’re spying on me.”

  “—and you don’t need permission to almost turn someone inside out. We could hear your thoughts very clearly with all that hatred going through you. We are your parents! When we get a call from a concerned family member, yes, we check on you!”

  “Oh my God! Why the fuck are we going through this?”

  “I’m seconds away from putting my hands on you, girl! I don’t know what’s wrong with you!”

  “You never understood me, Miss Perfect! Neither does my own damn father!”

  “Hey!” Pharaoh called to her. “Watch your goddamn mouth! I understand just fine that you’re so full of anger and hate, and nothing we say to you will take that away. But as your father, I’ve called—"

  “Just move! I’m not trying to hear either of you right now! All you’re going to do is remind me that I’m such an embarrassment to the family, even though I can do much better, because I’m capable of such. I’ve heard you. Now let me through!”

  Pharaoh sucked in a breath to say something vicious to his daughter when the smell of cigarette smoke filled the air and the swing on the porch began to sway in the dark. With no wind, the family squinted as they watched a dark shadow materialize. The husband and wife weren’t at all afraid because their emergent guest had arrived.

  Lisa, on the other hand, tilted her head at it until the living room light casted through the window and landed on what appeared to be a white and red Jordan 12 on the porch. “Who’s there?” she called.

  Their guest chose not to speak at first; rather pick themselves up from the seat of the swing, slowly walking toward the family.

  Lisa followed the orange glow of the end of the cigarette until she was able to see the woman’s face when she passed the living room window. She sighed a breath of relief before she turned to Robyn with a scowl. “Move,” she demanded. BELIEVE

  “We never spoke to our mothers that way, Young Pharaoh. As a matter of fact, if we ever dishonored our mother, our tongues were split in two.” Jovan pulled her cigarette from her lips, blowing smoke from her nostrils. With a slow smile, she exposed her gold fangs. “Now, I’m going to give you one chance to apologize to your mother. If you don’t take it, you will be in a serious world of pain, girl.”

  “Who the fuck called you? I’m not scared of you… mortal.”

  Jovan chuckled, then took a long pull from her cigarette. “Honey, the beauty of living life and being a collector of many things, you’d understand my strength and longevity. Ever heard of Ambrosia?”

  Lisa sneered. “That’s not real.”

  “Oh, it’s real. And I just happen to be a collector. So, mortal? Not me. And guess who just squandered their one opportunity out of my grasp.”

  Lisa scoffed. “Please. This is a family affair. Jovan, you—”

  “Times up.” Jovan snapped her fingers. It sounded like a crack of thunder as a white light flashed brightly before their eyes.

  It almost broke Pharaoh’s heart, but in his mind’s eye, it was his only fighting chance to save his daughter from self-destruction.

  ***

  Kirko, a 6’6” man with a dirty brown beard stood in the corner of a rundown home, watching as the young girl squirmed on the bed. Her hands and feet were bound by rope. Her mother, at the side of the bed on her knees, prayed as hard as she could while a slender woman in a tube top and peasant skirt tossed holy water over the young girl.

  Kirko used his free pointer to push his Fedora up to reveal his olive colored eyes while using the other hand to remove his burning cigar. “Cinder,” he called to his wife—the slender woman—in a deep, raspy smoker’s voice that had the heaviest southern drawl anyone had ever heard. “Get Akiel,” he requested his first-born son. “Take her with you.”

  Cinderella screwed the cap onto her canteen and briskly retrieved the quietly weeping woman from the wooden floorboards.

  Seconds after she exited, a young man only two inches shorter than Kirko entered with his long, brown and blonde hair up in a sloppy man bun.

  “Kiel, she ain’t gon’ make it.” Slowly, Kirko removed his hat and set it on the chest of drawers he’d been leaning against for the last hour and a half. “Get me your siblings and my suitcase. Tell your ma to keep the mother off the property.”

  Akiel nodded but swiftly left, returning with a girl who was 5’6”—the same height as her mother—with dark, bloody hair, and a petite figure from her pescatarian diet. Behind her, holding his father’s suitcase full of what Kirko dubbed as equipment, was his youngest son. With a dominant part on the side of his greased and slick dark brown short cut hair, the tattoo of the family’s last name— Northgate— over his left brown, Peresh handed his father the case with his eyes on the girl on the bed.

  “Stage three protocol,” Kirko told his gifted children.

  They scattered about the home, pouring salt at every threshold, closing all the doors before squirting holy oil on them, and covering all the mirrors. Peresh re-entered the room and folded his arms, leaning against the dresser until his father called him to step into the exorcism of the thirteen-year-old who most likely was stuck inside her own body, afra
id.

  Kirko, the head of his family, untied his dark purple tie, wrapping it around his fist. He used it for the girl to bite down onto. Fairest, his daughter, touched the girl’s forehead to keep her calm while Akiel recited versus from the Holy Bible. Peresh could see beyond the many tattoos of his father’s arms that he was holding his necktie so hard that his veins were poking through his olive-colored skin. Peresh would be called in soon.

  Kirko and Cinderella Northgate birthed a trio of unusual children. Akiel, a twenty-six-year-old biker, was born with the gift of vibration. He could spot an angry or peaceful energy from yards away. Coming in contact with a spirit of any kind gave him an extraordinary shiver. He was able to communicate with them, even without opening his mouth. As a child, he believed he had an enormous amount of imaginary friends until Cinderella revealed to him what he really was. He was a sensitive medium.

  Then, there was Fairest—a twenty-five-year-old demonologist who always had the power to calm anyone and anything. Her parents always knew that there was something different about her, but they couldn’t quite place their finger on what it was until a five-year-old Fairest wandered away from the family’s fishing grounds and came face to face with a very hungry mountain lion. Kirko drew his gun to shoot the cat down when it lunged for his daughter, but with a single soft touch, the cat purred like a kitten and healed. She had the strength to control her abilities which didn’t make living a normal life at all hard for her.

  Finally, Peresh—the heavily tattooed twenty-three-year-old who battled his own appearance and abilities— had a skill that only some would kill for. Once, Kirko daydreamed while going over football scores for his gambling debts when he could’ve sworn he heard his seven-year-old’s voice telling him to bet on the Patriots. He stared at the boy on the living room floor in front of the television with his back to his father. He asked if his son said anything, yet Peresh didn’t return an answer. Later that night, while Mr. and Mrs. Northgate slept, Kirko dreamed of his wedding dance with his wife and how he twirled the barefoot woman on the dirt. From the corner of his eye, he saw Peresh dressed in his pajamas. His son approached him and told him that his mother was beautiful, but he was thirsty and wanted water. When Kirko shook himself awake, Peresh was at the side of his bed, staring at his father as if he hadn’t invaded his dreams.

  With no children of his own and working for the two family businesses, Peresh watched until Kirko declared, “Peresh, it’s on you. Bring this girl home.”

  Peresh took a deep breath as his lids clamped to travel the dark corridors of the girl’s mind until he found her huddled in the dark, surrounded by black water. She was apprehensive about taking his tattooed hand. Staring into his eyes that had pale purple circles around them, she wasn’t so sure if she could trust him. He, himself, looked like some sort of demon in disguise. It was one of the reasons he hated himself.

  “It’s time to go home,” he told her. “You’ve been here long enough. If you stay any longer, Elisabeth, you’ll be trapped.”

  Her brown eyes pried a little harder into his until she finally grabbed his pale, inked hand and pulled it to get up.

  “I cast you out!” Akiel shouted.

  Elisabeth’s mouth opened as her back arched off the bed. From her throat came a thick, black cloud of smoke until her back hit the mattress below. Kirko released his tie and grabbed a mason jar out of his suitcase. Quickly he trapped the smoke inside the jar, closing the lid tight. Later, he’d pour holy water on the ground and smash the jar on top to make sure that whatever he pulled out of the girl couldn’t get inside anyone else.

  When all was said and done, the quad left the house, having the mother to run past them to get to her daughter.

  “Well.” Cindarella huffed, pushing her fists inside her hips. “That was another successful job well done.” Her toothy smile in the middle of such a dangerous job wasn’t at all normal. But her family wasn’t a normal one. She clapped as her family headed to their respected cars. “Who’s coming back for possum stew?”

  “Mama,” Fairest groaned.

  “Oh, honey, you know I’m gonna have crawfish stew for you, with extra bell pepper and tomato.”

  “Now you’re talking.” She chuckled.

  “No, thanks, mama,” Akiel said. “Pool tournament. I’m already gonna be late.”

  Cinderella pouted, looking to her youngest. “Tell me I’m at least gonna have one of my sons there.”

  Peresh turned to her from the trunk of shiny, black 1967 Chevrolet Impala.

  Before he could get a word out, Fairest exclaimed, “It’s a Saturday night. I’m sure Peresh has some things up his sleeve. Things like getting to Mary Lou from the bakery.”

  Cinderella gasped. “Mary Lou? That swamp-back harlot?”

  “Mama,” Peresh interjected. “Not at all. Mary Lou was a one-time mistake.”

  “So, then that means you’re comin’ home for some possum stew, right?”

  Peresh cut his eyes at his older sister, who in turn opened the door to her dark gray 1968 Mercury Cougar GT-E with a smirk. “Yes, mama. I’ll be home for dinner.”

  He could’ve cursed at his sister, knowing that he had other things he could’ve been doing on a Saturday night, yet letting Cinderella down was not one of those things.

  Chapter

  Three

  Annalissa kicked and screamed as she was being dragged up freshly polished Cherry Wood stairs by the back of her dress. Clawing at Jovan’s mighty arm wasn’t helping to loosen the grip.

  “Honey, I’m home!” Jovan sang loudly as she briskly stomped up the stairs. “I brought a present for you!”

  Finally, on the third, quiet, destitute level of the home, her miniature wife stood next to a single door, filing her long stiletto nails. Without looking up, she stepped aside so that her wife, as if she were bowling, could toss Annalissa into the dark, musky room.

  When Lisa tumbled and slammed her back against the stone wall just underneath the windowsill, Jovan exclaimed, “Steeeerike!”

  With a heaving chest, Lisa climbed to her feet on sore legs with a growl, reaching her hands out in front of her.

  Jovan laughed, tossing her long, silky strands back in the doorway. “Honey, your magic doesn’t work on my land.”

  Confusingly, Lisa peered at her shaky hands, afraid that she was, in fact, screwed.

  “You see, your mama and daddy don’t know what else to do with you. So, they called in reinforcement. It’s not about them, it’s not about the family—”

  “It’s about you, Lisa,” Dior said to her with a straight face. “You may not give a shit about them, but when I’m done with you, you will have what little self-respect intact that I’m going out on a limb and assuming you have. Self-hate and pity can do strange things to a person.”

  “My shop—” Lisa attempted to say.

  Jovan interrupted her. “You have a manager for all of that. Now, your brother is getting married soon, and I’ll be damned if you show up to his wedding like this.”

  “Like what?” she retorted.

  “Shabby and worthless. Breakfast is at seven.”

  With that, Jovan closed the door, leaving Lisa to stand in a room that was almost as big as the house itself but hosted only a comforter on the floor, one thin pillow, and a flat sheet. She shivered with her bare feet on the cold floor and her arms exposed to the unnatural climate. To her, her parents had lost their minds to send their grown daughter away.

  ***

  When the door opened, Lisa jerked out of her two hours’ worth of sleep and stared at the doorway with tight lids.

  Jovan tossed her a pair of sweatpants and a black t-shirt. “You got fifteen minutes to bathe and groom yourself before we Spartan dash. If you miss it, you’ll be in some serious pain.”

  “Why…?” Lisa cleared her dry throat. “Why are you doing this? Why am I here, Jo?”

  “Well, you didn’t want to be a Pharaoh anymore with your displays of outbursts and immaturity… so, you’re one o
f us now.”

  Lisa roughly sighed, collapsing on the comforter to get her head together.

  Fifteen minutes exactly, after Lisa had taken her cold shower in the hall, brushed her teeth, dressed and wrapped her hair into a tight bun, she was out on the front lawn to stretch. She figured if she complied, whatever sort of punishment this was would be over soon enough, and she could get back to her life.

  She was wrong. Not only did the Suns run for two hours through their grounds which included miles of trees and bayous, the moment breakfast was set on the table Lisa lost all her apatite.

  In front of her was raw fish, rice, raw shrimp and spinach all on a bed of quinoa and raspberries. On the side, a bowl of baked green apple slices was served. Lisa frowned at it. “I know you’re joking, right?” She pushed her palms into her eyes, trying her best to contain her attitude. “This not funny. Where the fuck is the toast or something!” When she opened her eyes, slamming her hands onto the table, she’d discovered that Dior placed a saucer onto the tabletop that hosted stacked French toast with powdered sugar on top.

  As soon as she reached for it— just as calmly as Jo had been going through her emails on her phone— Jo gently grabbed the saucer without looking at it and slid it to the floor. The clanging of the breaking china was similar to the cracking of Lisa’s heart.

  “Why would you do that?” she screeched. Then, she took her eyes to Dior who was just now sitting, raising her coffee mug to her big lips. “I wanted that!”

  Jovan calmly explained, with her eyes still on her iPhone, “Well, you wanted to bark like a dog.” Then, she took her eyes to the heartbroken young woman. With seriousness, she continued, “Might as well eat like one.”

  For what seemed like forever, the two had an intense stare down until Lisa rose from the table. “Fuck these games. I’m going home.”

  Jo looked to her wife with a smirk.

  Angry and filled with rage, Lisa reached the front doors and grabbed both knobs. Viscously she pulled at them. Then, she banged and kicked. For a moment, she examined the doors for locks or hidden latches. But there were none. Lisa screamed at the top of her lungs, fighting the door as if it was Jo for keeping her inside the cobblestone mansion. “Open the fucking door, Jo! I’m not fucking around!”