CHAPTER 8
Cherie hung up the phone, numb with all the knowing. She’d verified that Raphael, her son, was alive. Five years old. Here was her redemption. There was only one final question. When she’d go save him. Now that Maggie saw Samuel die, she needed to hurry and do what she’d been destined to do. She was prophesied to kill Lazarus, not her beautiful Samuel. And she’d not let another innocent person pay for her sins. If this meant the end for her, then so be it. She couldn’t leave her son in her past hell and she was the only one that could get close enough to free him. And no matter what happened, her son would be in good hands.
There were two things in Lazarus’s world that meant something. Blood and money. And with her father’s help, she had both. Her blood and his money. She’d give both if that’s what it took all while praying it didn’t.
Her phone rang and she looked at it, answering. “Daddy?”
“Baby girl, I’m almost there. I brought your uncles with me, just for extra precaution.”
Her heart clenched in her chest at hearing the tears in his voice. “Thank you, daddy,” she gasped, holding back her sobs. “Thank you so much.”
“No, thank you,” he wept. “For giving me a chance to be a father again. I’m sorry.”
“Stop, please,” she strained, looking around. “How far are you?”
“Maybe five minutes.”
She nodded, staying out of sight. “We need to leave as soon as you get here.”
“You called him? He knows you coming?”
“He does.”
“What he say?”
“That we had ourselves a deal.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“Neither do I. But I have to try.”
“That’s why I brought your uncles. One way or another, we’re getting your son and my grandson from there.”
God thank you.
****
“Where is she?” Revelator demanded to Spook.
“She’s at the house.”
“Why isn’t she answering my calls.”
“Because she’s fucking terrified.”
Revelator got right next to him, mouth near his ear. “I’m fucking terrified.”
“I know you are.”
“If this was her, what would you fucking do, Monte? Tell me that! Tell me you wouldn’t tear this world apart to get to her, you fucking tell me!”
He nodded. “I’ll call her. You talk to her right here.”
Revelator’s heart dropped at the sudden opening in the walls closing in. “Thank you,” he gasped, pacing while he dialed.
Spook muttered with his back turned for a few seconds then turned and handed him the phone.
“Maggie,” he gushed, closing his eyes. “Help me.”
Her single sob wrecked him. “I’m so sorry, I messed up, Samuel. I thought I was helping, I didn’t know she would do this, I was trying to protect you. I didn’t know about your vision, if I did, I would’ve stopped her, you have to believe me!”
Her words pummeled his spirit, taking strength from his knees. “I just…need to know where you think she is, what is she doing?”
“She was going to her daddy to ask for help,” she cried. “She said…” she whispered. “That the prophesy was for her not you.”
“What fucking prophecy?” Revelator demanded, shaking. “What fucking prophecy!” he yelled.
“The one about killing Lazarus!” she gasped. “I didn’t understand what she was talking about, I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t know.”
Revelator shoved the phone back at Spook and tore out of the Church, looking for Bishop. Spotting him headed his way, he ran and met him.
“She’s fucking going to get Raphael.”
“How do you know?”
“Maggie said Cherie said the prophecy was for her, the one about killing Lazarus. She’s going over there to kill him.”
“Let’s go,” Bishop said.
****
Cherie found an odd comfort sitting between her two uncles in the back seat as they drove to New Orleans. She’d never connected to them because daddy never let her. She’d often wondered why until she was of age and learned they belonged to riff-raff as her dad called it. Gangs was the proper term. Maybe that was the part that comforted her.
Normally, guns terrified her but the ones they carried felt like locks on the door.
She trusted her daddy in this.
Cherie eyed the uncle in the front seat. The oldest of all the brothers, Uncle Leals. He wore his afro big and proud, but the quiet rage in his eyes said he’d been dragged down one too many backroads of hell and it was time for somebody to pay, and any dumb fool would do. She couldn’t think of a better place to let him unload all his shit than at Lazarus’s door.
“So you guys live in Morgan City, huh?” Cherie asked, her nerves demanding she say or do something.
“Yeah,” the uncle on her right muttered. Uncle Leander, if she remembered right.
“Cherie,” daddy called, his tone gentle. “I’m sure you’d like to forget this whole nightmare, but we’re going to need to know everything about this devil we’ll be dealing with. Is he the one that threatened me on the phone?”
Her heart faltered at the mention of her Samuel. “No, Daddy, that was a good man that called you. He saved my life when I got in trouble.”
Uncle Miles on her left made a grunt sound.
She realized things could go wrong and worried about his reputation. “He’s… with The Bayou Bishops. They’re good people, they—”
“Say fuckin’ what?” Uncle Leals cut in with wide eyes.
“Language!” her daddy hissed, like she was still twelve.
“Ain’t that them coonasses that took down the Devil’s Triangle them years back?” Uncle Leander asked.
“You mean pureed day asses,” Uncle Miles muttered.
“And you’re involved with these kinds of people, Cherie?” her daddy asked, his disappointed shock burning her.
“What’s the name of the one that saved your life?” Uncle Leals asked.
“Samuel.”
He laughed. “His other name, Precious.”
“They call him… The Seer or Revelator.”
This brought a round of expletives and laughs. “Damn, baby girl know how to get down into the thick of it, don’t she?” Uncle Leals said to Daddy, who drove with both hands strangling the top of the steering wheel, shaking his head.
“Now we gone need some introductions. These muhfuckers are like ghost legends where we stay,” Uncle Miles said, still laughing.
“They got like a…whole fuckn’ secret swamp society they say.”
“They do!” Cherie said nodding left then right. “I was there, I saw it.”
“No shiiiiit,” Uncle Leander shrilled at her. “You bein for real?”
“Completely. I even watched a Bat-tie.”
“A what?” Daddy cried.
“Something tell me you don”t mean the card game,” Uncle Miles said, getting their laughs.
“No, like a fight. A real one. They use those between the…swamp families to settle disputes.”
This had them all riled up in excitement. “What they do? Beat a motherfucker till he dead for stealin his fish trap?”
“The one I watched was between two women, they did it in like a baseball field with spectators in bleachers even. Was like a Friday night high school football game, they even sold food and played music. It’s a big thing there,” she said over their excited ruckus.
“So how the hell you end up with these coonass muhfukas?” Uncle Leals wondered, baffled.
“Well, I worked in Breaux Bridge.”
“How the hell you end up there?” Uncle Leander cried, like her screwed up life was the funnest thing, all while putting a perpetual headshake on daddy’s head.
“I prayed and…felt like that’s where God wanted me to…go,” she finished while they laughed it up real good now. It was better than hearing whatever it was her daddy was muttering the whole time.
“So why this dude save you?” Uncle Leander asked.
“Well…it’s kind of a complicated story.
“We good, we good,” her Uncle said, encouraging her to go on.
“I…hit him with my car, he was on a bike.”
“Ohhhhhhhhh, damn!” Her uncles next to her went into body spazzing laughter.
“I took him home because I was laying low and didn’t want trouble.”
“You took him home, how the hell you manage that?” Uncle Miles asked.
“It took some doing, but I got him in my car and his bicycle.”
“His what?Bicycle!”
“He’s different, he’s not really that kind of biker even though he belongs to their club. He’s a religious figure to everybody there. He’s for real, he’s not a fake.”
“Alright, let her talk,” Uncle Leals shot out when they went to mocking. “So you nearly kill him, so why he helpin you?”
“Because he’s a good man and he knew I was sorry. He also figured out I was in trouble, he has that seeing gift.”
Uncle Miles laughed. “That seein gift. He be lookin all into your shit?”
She glanced at him. “He hit his head and couldn’t remember who he was. But he saw things when he touched me. Platonically.”
“Ohhhh she usin’ those big words,” Uncle Miles said.
“What he see?” Uncle Leander wondered, eager for the next page in the story.
“Not sure, I didn’t ask. But I was renting a house from some white fool and he happened by while Samuel was there recovering and he got…stupid. Samuel took care of it and that’s when we found out who he was. The man knew him, called him Revelator. Samuel was going to kill him and I didn’t need that on my tail and I begged him not to and he made a deal. I go with him in exchange for sparing that devil’s life.”
“And you did?!” Uncle Leander cried. “Shoulda let him kill that fool and then go with him!”
“I didn’t want murder on my hands, I had enough sins on my plate as it was!”
“Why did he call me and threaten me, then?” Daddy said, like he wanted a whipping post.
“Because that morning I called you was the morning I went back to Darius in New Orleans.”
“Darius the fucking Great?” Uncle Leal said, surprised.
“Yes. I worked for him for a few years, unfortunately.”
“Why the fuck you go back there?” Uncle Miles demanded, his tone dark.
“Because…” Cherie’s chest tightened as she pushed back her emotions. “Samuel proposed to me right when they invited him to become a part of their club but…requirement was the woman he married have a clean history and I couldn’t…I didn’t have that. And I wasn’t going to make him choose.”
Uncle Miles leaned to the front seat. “You done raised a dumb fuckn nappy head, bruh.”
“Nah, don’t say that,” Uncle Leander countered. “Our girl gotta lotta heart. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.”
“What the fuck happened with Darius?” Uncle Leal said.
“Well…I was confused. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. So, I let that phone call decide what I was supposed to do. And Darius won that role of the die.”
“What the fuck she sayin’?” Uncle Miles leaned and asked Uncle Leander.
“So how this Revelator know to call daddy?”
“Why you have to mock something like that?” Daddy muttered to a giggling Uncle Leal who now turned in his seat, waiting.
“I’m not sure.”
“What he tell you?” Uncle Leal asked Daddy now.
“Something about… I’d better pray nothing happened to her,” her Daddy muttered, sounding ashamed now.
“See, now that’s a good man, Leals,” Uncle Leander announced, nodding big.
“Mmhmm. That’s real, that’s real right there.” Like he kept a running list of such things.
“Said she needed my mercy not my judgment.”
Cherie’s heart jerked in her chest at her daddy’s strained confession.
“I’m the one that did this, it’s on me.” He wiped his eyes. “I’m gonna make it right, Cherie, Daddy’s sorry, baby.”
She reached over the seat and squeezed his shoulder, choking back her sobs. “I love you Daddy, I’m sorry.”
“Shooooo,” Uncle Miles muttered, eyeing them like they were strange.
“There’s nothing wrong with emotions,” Cherie chided him, wiping her tears.
“So this Seer went find you?” Uncle Leals asked, respect creeping into his tone.
She nodded. “He did. Him and the Bishop and…one of the Twelve named Lesion came and rescued me and Tully from a very bad place. I thought I was seeing an angel when he came through that door.”
“He shot them muhfuckers?”
She shook her head. “He had knives.”
“Oh, he had knives!” Uncle Miles called. “How many? How big?”
“Two. He…” She shook her head at the horror in her mind, seeing it again.
“Come on! How he do it?” Uncle Leander begged.
“He cut… his whole…head off,” she whispered.
“Dear heavenly God,” Daddy muttered.
“Sound like you owe that man a debt,” Uncle Leals said to Daddy who nodded.
“And I’ll find a way to pay him back,” Daddy barked.
“Daaaaamn, I gotta meet this muhfucka now!” Uncle Miles said, getting a full round of silent nods.
“So wait a fuckn minute,” Uncle Miles muttered, jerking to her. “If he done saved you, where the fuck he at now while you all drivin up into the devil’s ass?”
The question was the last thing she’d expected from them and her stuttering explanation made her sound as stupid as she likely was. “He’s… he thinks this is his business but it’s not, this is mine and I’m not letting him risk his life because of my shit.”
“Ohhhh, here we fuckn’ GO bruh,” Uncle Leander cried, looking at Daddy. “All your education and fancy pantsin’ and you end up with this!” He jabbed his thumb at her. “She ain’t gonna risk his life for her bullshit, she gone risk ours.” He laughed real loud at that. “She got all the fuckn’ guns she need and what she do? Drag our black asses down here to these fools!” He shook his head big, pulling a phone from his back pocket and handing it to her. “Call ‘em right fuckn now, lil girl.”
“I can’t call him! I’m not!”
“Stop this muthafukn’ car,” Uncle Leals ordered.
“Why!?” Daddy demanded.
Uncle Leal raised his gun to his head. “Stop. The fuckn’. Car,” he ordered again.
“Put that thing down, Leal!” Daddy cried, pulling off the road. “Damn! I’m checking it’s safe, I can’t just pull off into a ditch!”
“Now, call you damn bayou Tarzan,” Uncle Leander ordered her.
“I have a phone,” she muttered, while trying to think of an escape.
“Bes’ get to usin’ it, lil black sheep,” Uncle Miles said, moving his gun to his lap. “I ain’t takin’ smoke fuh no spoiled, mess makin’ northern blockhead.”
“I live in the south,” Cherie muttered, pulling the phone out and finding his number.
“Get ‘em on the phone,” Uncle Leal said with his hand out.
“I am!” She dialed it and handed it to him before she had to hear his voice.
Her uncle took it, waiting a second as Cherie’s stomach turned into cement. “Hell no, this is her Uncle Leal, but she right here,” he informed. “She wantin’ to drag a buncha niggas to some evil hell hole and get our asses skinned for her bullshit devil dealin’s.” He nodded a lot as she heard Samuel’s voice. “And that’s why I’m callin’.” He looked at Daddy. “Where the fuck we at?”
“Uh…we’re on old highway 90, headed to New Orleans, who is that?”
“It’s your daughter’s seein’ fuckn’ savior, fool,” like that was obvious. “Yeah, we waitin’ you can be hella sure uh dat. Yeah, okay. Yeah. We can meet you there. In about forty. See you then.”