Лорел Гамильтон - The Laughing Corpse

She stared at the video camera. "Very well, I made this charm, but I admit nothing else. I made the charm for your brother, but that is all."

"You performed human sacrifice to make this charm," John said.

She shook her head. "The charm is mine. I made it for your brother, that is all. You have the charm but nothing else."

"Seсora, forgive me," Antonio said. He looked pale and shaken and very, very scared.

"Calenta," she said, "shut up!"

"Zerbrowski, take our friend here into the kitchen and take his statement," Dolph said.

Dominga stood at that. "You fool, you miserable fool. Tell them anything more, and I will rot the tongue out of your mouth."

"Get him out of here, Zerbrowski."

Zerbrowski led a nearly weeping Antonio from the room. I had a feeling that of Tony had been responsible for getting the charm back. He failed, and he was going to pay the consequences. The police were the least of his problems. If I were him, I'd make damn sure grandma was locked up tonight. I wouldn't want her near her voodoo paraphernalia. Ever.

"We're going to search now, Mrs. Salvador."

"Help yourself, Sergeant. You will find nothing else to help you."

She was very calm when she said it. "Even the stuff behind the doors?" I asked.

"They are gone, Anita. You will find nothing that is not legal and … wholesome." She made that last sound like a bad word.

Dolph glanced my way. I shrugged. She seemed awfully sure.

"Okay, boys, take the place apart." Uniforms and detectives moved like they had a purpose. I started to follow Dolph out. He stopped me.

"No, Anita, you and Burke stay up here."

"Why?"

"You're civilians."

A civilian, me? "Was I a civilian when I walked the cemetery for you?"

"If one of my people could have done it, I wouldn't have let you do that either."

"Let me?"

He frowned. "You know what I mean."

"No, I don't think I do."

"You may be a bad ass, you may even be as good as you think you are, but you aren't police. This is a job for cops. You stay in the living room with the civies just this once. When it's all clear, you can come down and identify the bogeymen for us."

"Don't do me any favors, Dolph."

"I didn't peg you for a pouter, Blake."

"I am not pouting," I said.

"Whining?" he said.

"Cut it out. You've made your point. I'll stay behind, but I don't have to like it."

"Most of the time you're ass deep in alligators. Enjoy being out of the line of fire for once, Anita." With that he led the way towards the basement.

I hadn't really wanted to go down into the darkness again. I certainly didn't want to seethe creature that had chased Manny and I up the stairs. And yet … I felt left out. Dolph was right. I was pouting. Great.

John Burke and I sat on the couch. Dominga sat in the recliner where she had been since we hit the door. The children had been shooed out to play, with Enzo to watch them.

He looked relieved. I almost volunteered to go with them. Anything was better than just sitting here straining to hear the first screams.

If the monster, and that was the only word that matched the noises, was down there, there would be screaming. The police were great with bad guys, but monsters were new to them. It had been simpler, in a way, when all this shit was taken care of by a few experts. A few lone people fighting the good fight. Staking vampires. Turning zombies. Burning witches. Though there is some debate whether I might have ended up on the receiving end of some fire a few years back. Say, the 1950s.

What I did was undeniably magic. Before we got all the bogeymen out in the open, supernatural was supernatural. Destroy it before it destroys you. Simpler times. But now the police were expected to deal with zombies, vampires, the occasional demon. Police were really bad with demons. But then who isn't?

Dominga sat in her chair and stared at me. The two uniforms left in the living room stood like all police stand, blank faced, bored, but let anyone move and the cops saw it. The boredom was just a mask. Cops always saw everything. Occupational hazard.

Dominga wasn't looking at the police. She wasn't even paying attention to John Burke, who was much closer to her equal. She was staring at little old me.

I met her black gaze and said, "You got a problem?"

The cop's eyes flicked to us. John shifted on the couch. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"She's staring at me."

"I will do a great deal more than stare at you, chica." Her voice crawled low. The hairs at the nape of my neck tried to crawl down my shirt.

"A threat." I smiled. "I don't think you're going to be hurting anybody anymore."

"You mean this." She held out the charm. It writhed in her hand as if thrilled that she had noticed it. She crushed it in her hand. It made futile movements as if pushing against her. Her hand covered it completely. She stared straight at me, as she brought her hand slowly to her chest.

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, Seсora. 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.