Epiphany | #TheAmbys21

Chapter Six

Instinctively, Allister stepped backward so the marble wall pressed against his spine and the cold stone could be felt through his jacket. The knife was in his hand, and he held it out before him, keeping the distance between him and the woman in red.

They remained like that for what felt like minutes before he remembered his purpose for being there.

"Who are you?" he asked, his voice hoarse when he could finally form the words.

Her smile didn't falter as her dark gaze looked him over. "After everything, now is the time you ask for my name? You didn't care enough to ask last night—"

"I wasn't the last living being on the planet last night," he snapped.

"Ah, so you've noticed. I was wondering how long it would take you to figure it out."

"Figure what out?" he hissed. "What did you do?"

"Merely what I said I was going to do. I collected the price to be paid."

"Because I took you to bed?" he scoffed. "You were good, but not that good."

"No, Allister." She hopped down from the top of the tomb with the grace of a cat. "Sleeping with you was the least of your worries, at least where I'm concerned."

"Stay there," he warned, stabbing the air between them.

She let out a sultry chuckle. "That pocketknife will not protect you from the power of the Lao."

He almost dropped his knife. "What did you say?"

"So, you're familiar with the Vodun, then?"

"I've lived in New Orleans all my life. I'd be a fool if I didn't."

The look she gave him insinuated she doubted that statement, but she continued. "There is a belief our ancestors do not die, but rather continue through us. For that, we must tend to their gravesites out of remembrance and gratitude." She ran a manicured finger along the stone slab covering his mother's tomb, dragging it through layers of dust from years of minimal upkeep. "By the looks of it, you've forgotten and forsaken those who have gone on before you."

"I'll only ask you one more time," Allister said again as he dared a step closer to her. "Who are you and what did you do?"

She only gave him another smile as she sauntered between the remaining tombs. "Are you familiar with reincarnation?"

"What does that have to do with any of this?"

"Oh, Allister," she mused as she turned back to face him, this time leaning against his father's tomb. "It has to do with everything."

He could only watch her while the grip on his knife turned his knuckles white.

"The deeds of a person influence their next life. If you're someone who has been a good and honest person, you have the chance to ascend to the divine, and there you are given not only the power and influence but also the opportunity to shape the world. However, if you are someone who was not well-behaved during your life, you will again be born as a human and damned to begin a new life cycle. Of course, you'll be offered the same opportunities to ascend, but also the same temptations that damned you before will continue to threaten and entice your existence."

"You still haven't given me any indication as to what this has to do with me," Allister growled. He had come for answers, not a theology lesson.

"Oh, but I have." She pushed off the tomb and began to close the distance between them. As she moved, Allister stepped around the empty tomb awaiting him, the same one she had sat upon, the one that remained open like the maw of the abyss.

"However, if you were not good in your life, it's possible in your next life you will be punished, spiritually or physically."

He stared at her in the torchlight and feared where this conversation was headed.

"Most practitioners of Vodun believe in light punishment for offenses—punishment fitting the crime, if you would. Others, however..." The glint in her eye and the smirk on her deep red lips made his stomach drop with anticipation. "Serious offenses will be punished with misfortune. Illness. The constant feeling of harm and fear of death lingering over your shoulder."

Allister swallowed, and he felt as if the air within the small interior of the mausoleum had grown thinner, while the walls seemed to close in.

"So, you know what your ancestors were when they first arrived in New Orleans?"

"Businessmen. Entrepreneurs. Pioneers."

"Missionaries," she corrected. "Arriving without being asked to share the word of their God to anyone they thought would listen, and ramming it down the throats of those they believed to be heathens, or worse."

"It was generations ago—"

"The sins of the fathers, Allister," she shrilled. "Too many generations had passed, too much time lost for your family to remember what they did. But I remember. I remember what they did to my ancestors. How they murdered them for refusing their God. The property they took for their own afterward. The money they claimed to have earned for their cause. Oh, I always have remembered. I always will. And now you will feel the pain I have felt after all this time."

"You're going to kill me?" he asked incredulously.

"No." She smile returned to her lips. "You're going to terminate your existence yourself."