Danyon smelled fear wafting up from Banjo. And he also smelled a lie. He lifted his foot and tucked the toe of his boot under Banjo’s crotch, making sure it jabbed him in the most sensitive spot.

“Aw, no!” Banjo started crying. “I’m not gonna have nothin’ left. You can’t take ’em from me, man! Like I ain’t gonna be able to have kids or nothin’. Ain’t gonna even be able to do it no more. I swear to Gawd, I don’t know nothin’, I didn’t do nothin’. Just don’t kill me, okay? Don’t kill me.”

Danyon twisted his foot to the right, jabbed the toe of his boot in a little harder—deeper.

“Okay, okay! I’ll tell ya, okay? Ease off, okay?”

“Spill it first, then I’ll let off.”

“Aw, man…okay, yeah, they got a new drug. I heard about it on the street. Everybody talkin’ about it. Big stuff called Lacodah. People sayin’ it make you strong, keep you buzzin’, like you all wired and stuff, so you can see and smell and hear good. And you can run fast. It’s the shit, man. It’s the shit.”

“So you’ve taken this new drug?” Shauna asked.

“Me? No, no. Not me, no. Like I say, I just heard about it on the street.”

“Bullshit,” Shauna said. “The last time you came to the shop, you were on it. How else could you have smelled those cookies from across the street? With all the people out there, the food smells and alcohol—for you to smell those cookies over all that, I’d say you have a pretty sensitive nose.”

Danyon gave his foot another sharp twist. “Tell the lady the truth.”

“Okay! Yeah, okay, I tried it! Once, though. One time.”

“And what about Mattie?” Shauna asked. “I saw the two of you fighting in front of the shop. She dented a light pole with her fist. That much strength, she’s got to be on it, too, right?”

“I don’t even know who you talkin’ ’bout,” Banjo said. “Who be Mattie? I don’t know her—I swear to Gawd.”

Danyon grabbed a handful of Banjo’s hair and pulled, forcing the guy to look at him. “If you keep lying, I’m going to make sure you walk and talk like a girl for the rest of your life. Do you understand me?”

Tears streamed down Banjo’s cheeks. “Yeah…yeah, I heard. Okay—okay, yeah, Mattie, she takin’ Lacodah, too. I share, you know, share a little bit wit’ her.”

“Since when does a junkie share anything?” Shauna asked. “You’re dealing it, aren’t you?”

“Oh, no!” Banjo held his hands out as if to block her words. “I ain’t sellin’ nothin’. That’s sample stuff, you know, sample stuff.”

“Where did you get it?” Danyon asked.

The young vamp looked up at him, and there was no missing the terror in his eyes. “Man, I can’t say—I can’t do—they gonna kill me. They gonna kill me for sure.”

Danyon removed his boot from Banjo’s crotch, then parked it on his left shoulder and pushed down until he sat flat on the ground. Then he repositioned his boot between his legs, only now it was in a prime position. He had leverage to work with. Concrete, a heavy boot, and testicles between them. The man was in a bind. Danyon rocked his body forward, so the pressure increased between Banjo’s legs.

“Mutha—mutha…” Banjo gasped. Danyon pressed down a little harder, and Banjo’s mouth fell open. He looked like a fish out of water, gasping for air. When Danyon released the pressure on his testicles, it was as though Banjo’s body needed time to absorb the knowledge that it was no longer restricted. He sat frozen, his mouth hanging open for a four-count before he finally blinked.

“Next time they’re going flat,” Danyon said. “Unless you tell us what we need to know.”

Banjo started weeping loudly. He put his hands over his face, sobbing. “I can’t! Man, you don’t know what you’re sayin’—I’m gonna be dead!”

“You’re going to be dead either way,” Danyon promised. “Tell me what you know. Who’s in this with you?” He forced Banjo’s head up by the hair again. “And this is the last time I’m asking.”

Keeping the pressure on his genitals, Danyon squatted in front of Banjo and rocked his body forward so that he was only inches from his face. The pressure from his boot evidently shot the pain level up to excruciating, because even in the dim light Danyon saw the guy’s face turn purple.

To make sure he got his point across, Danyon lowered his head, allowed some of the anger he had been holding back to rush through him. He concentrated on one section of his body and soon felt the muscles in his neck begin to ripple and move up to his cheek. He shifted his head to one side to regulate the mutation—snout elongating, fangs bared.

Banjo jerked his head back so hard he smashed it against the brick wall behind him.

“Holy mother, not that! Okay, yeah, okay, it was the voodoo man! The fat man. He’s got somethin’ to do wit’ it, but that’s all I know. He get that voodoo stuff going wit’ that snake, and—I—that’s all I know. That’s all. He’s the one call it Lacodah—not the snake, the stuff. The stuff that makes you run fast, that’s Lacodah. That’s him, man, I swear—that’s all I know. Okay—don’t tear my face off, okay? Don’t kill me!” Banjo wailed at the top of his lungs, “Oh, God, don’t kill me!”

Danyon had to wonder what breed of vampire would take this much pain and not transform.

“Please, I don’t want to die!” Banjo cried.

Danyon drew in a deep breath, held it, closed his eyes for a moment, and felt his human features return. Then he removed his foot from Banjo and stood, leaving the guy in a sniveling, blubbering heap.

Without another word, Danyon walked the length of the alley, took Shauna’s hand, and headed north.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

As keen as her hearing had been with Gris Gris and Trish earlier on Bourbon, he was surprised that she hadn’t heard what Banjo had said.

“Where are we going?” she asked again.

Eyes forward, his mind’s eye locked on a vision of his prey, Danyon lengthened his stride.

“We’re going to see a man about a snake.”

Chapter 18

Papa Gris Gris’ Voodoo Shop was located on Rampart Street, on the ground floor of a two-story shotgun house. The foot traffic on Rampart wasn’t anything near what they had just come through in the heart of the Quarter, but it was still heavier than a standard business day.

Gris Gris’ shop was teeming with customers, even at this late hour, as was T-Boy’s T-Shirt Shop, Bailey’s Praline Store, and Sistah’s, Lurnell’s mystic shop. All three stores were on the same side of the street and attached at the hip, Sistah’s being on the end. Shauna could only imagine what Lurnell’s reaction would be if she knew she was going into her competitor’s store. The last thing Lurnell had to worry about, though, was her buying anything from Gris Gris, especially after Danyon had told her what he had gotten out of Banjo and why they were all but racing to Rampart.

Danyon had asked her how she had not heard Banjo squawling about Gris Gris and Lacodah when she had heard Trish and Gris Gris in the middle of Bourbon. Shauna had managed to dodge the question by claiming she had been preoccupied guarding the alleyway entrance, making sure no one else came in—and no one went out. That hadn’t been the whole truth. All of the truth was that she had indeed been guarding the alley entrance, but her thoughts had been preoccupied with how stupid she had acted back in that bar with Big Frank Macina.

What on earth had possessed her to confront such a bear of a man that way? It had been tacky, unproductive and just plain stupid. The excuse she had given herself about why she had done it was that she had thought a direct approach—a blatant confrontation—might shake some information out of Macina. It had really started out that way, then something inside of her just sort of snapped, and she became a runaway train. Fortunately, Danyon hadn’t confronted her about it or reprimanded her like she was a child. She could only hope that it was because he had accepted what had happened, knew she couldn’t go back and change it, and that she was mature enough to see how she could have handled it differently.

There were two signs attached to the screen door that was the entrance to Gris Gris’ shop. One read Open and the one beneath it Push, which she did.

She had never been inside the voodoo shop and was surprised to see that it looked nothing like A Little Bit of Magic or Sistah’s. She couldn’t understand why Lurnell saw Gris Gris as such a threat. The only merchandise he sold were voodoo masks, altar supplies, a few books on the history of voodoo, and some wooden statues that looked as though they had been carved by a second grader. Gris Gris sold them as totems, guaranteeing that they would strengthen any spell offered on any practitioner’s altar.

Shauna suspected that Gris Gris’ biggest income generator was himself. He wasn’t shy about claiming to be one of the most powerful voodoo practitioners in the south, as well as a psychic with extraordinary abilities. She suspected that his steady customers were people stuck on the road to hopelessness that appeared to have no end, and they saw Gris Gris as their last resort.

Within ten feet of the entrance of the shop, was a narrow stairway that led to the second floor and a voodoo museum that you could tour for an additional five dollars.

There may have been fifteen people in the shop when Shauna and Danyon entered, but it felt like many more in the cramped space. The customers who were there talked in hush tones as they walked about, examining pictures on the wall and different pieces of merchandise, all of which, Shauna noticed, didn’t carry a price tag. It was a shake-down technique used by some small shop owners. Without a price tag, they were able to size up the customer examining the merchandise. Then, when the customer asked about cost, the shop owner would wing a price off the top of his head, basing it on the quality and size of the customer’s clothes and jewelry. The bigger the jewelry and the higher end the clothes, the higher the price for the piece of merchandise. It was a practice Shauna and her sisters abhorred.