Knowledge of Dead Secrets (1 of 10)
With traffic on Embarcadero behind him, Dean calls the registrar's office and says he works for a law firm he picked out of the San Francisco phone book not five minutes before, says that a "Samuel Winchester's applied for a job and lists Stanford as his current enrollment. It's just procedure, background checks, you know how it goes," and the woman on the other end of the phone sighs in agreement. He can hear her clicking away at a computer, hears her make a noise that only ever accompanies frowns.
"I'm sorry. Mr. Winchester was a student here, but he resigned his scholarship and transferred out four semesters ago. If you give me just one second," she says, and now Dean's not breathing. "Yes, we sent a transcript to the City College of San Francisco at that time."
Dean exhales, flirts a bit more with the woman, and hangs up, muttering, "I am so going to kill you when I track you down."
In the end, it's not that hard.
--
He’s come here straight from New Orleans, still has wet heat clinging to every pore and the smell of crawfish leaking out of his clothes. One phone call from his father and he’s driven across the country to California to pick up his brother, only now he has to look for Sam, can’t anything be easy.
Dean leaves Palo Alto and heads into San Francisco, calls City College on the way. They say Sam dropped out, lasted a few weeks and then abruptly quit, even though he was doing well in all of his classes. The only address they have is old, in the small French Quarter downtown, near Chinatown, and the woman Dean talks to is quick to remind him that Sam might not live there anymore. Dean takes the address anyway, heads downtown in the direction of a good cup of coffee and Sam, if he’s lucky.
--
It’s not New Orleans, nothing else is, but it’s better than he guessed. Dean parks the car in a lot, walks to a café, grabs a seat at a table on the street, and sits down, watching the people pass. A waitress comes out, starts to smile at him but then sees his amulet and Dean watches with a raised eyebrow as she pales.
She forces her lips to curve, says, “Just a minute, sugar,” in an accent that doesn’t fit here, in the Bay, all low, thick molasses and plantation heat, before she disappears back inside.
Dean turns in his chair, watches as she goes behind the counter and talks to a guy drying something off with a black towel, sees the guy look up at her, then through the window at Dean, before he puts the dish and towel down and comes out.
Dean sizes the guy up, tall as him, but thinner, lean, skin the colour of strong coffee, and asks, “There a problem?”
“No problem,” the guy says, and the accent, it matches the girl’s, sounds like it belongs in a bayou, not the Bay. “Marie’s due for a break, s’all. What can I get for you?”
After a moment’s study, during which the waiter just stands there and smiles, eyes closed off, Dean leans back, props up one foot on the chair next to his, and says, “Cup of coffee, beignets if you have ‘em,” easy and loose. “Just came from down south, miss it already.”
The waiter’s eyes tighten but the smile doesn’t waver. “Won’t be as good here, but we try. You waitin’ for anyone? Need me to take my time?”
“Just me,” Dean says, flashing a smile at the waiter. “But I’m not in a hurry.”
He watches with interest as the waiter goes back inside, moves behind the counter and starts talking to the waitress from before, Marie, and a couple others, all of whom look out at Dean once or twice each. Dean’s never been good at reading lips, but his interest sharpens when one of them says something that looks like ‘Sam’ from this far away, and when the door opens, a customer leaving, he hears something else, something about his amulet being a sign.
Dean frowns, waits for his coffee and beignets, and wonders what the fuck’s going on.
--
The coffee’s hot, burns going down, but the taste of chicory lingers in his mouth, hints of liquorice and nuts sliding over his tongue. It’s good, not CC’s good, but better than he expected to find in San Francisco. The beignets are fresh, the choux warm and the sugar on top messy, clinging to his upper lip when he bites in.
Dean eats, looking out at the buildings around him, smiling at the people passing by, and when he’s dipping a finger in the sugar on the plate, he pauses, frowns. There’s a design on the dish he hadn’t noticed before; he dumps the sugar and crumbs off the plate and straight onto the ground, swallowing the taste of pastry and chicory down once he sees the design, drawn in red on a white background. It curves and curls, highly stylised, but Dean can trace the echo of a vévé in the pattern, and his heart skips a beat.
He doesn’t recognise which loa this vévé belongs to, and the name of the café doesn’t help, either, something French, not Creole, but now Dean’s got chills, because messing with vodou or hoodoo, whichever these people practice, is never a good idea and he thought he’d left that all behind in Louisiana.
Dean’s about ready to leave some cash on the table and get the hell out of there, but he looks inside first, and is moving a moment later, taking his plate and mug inside, as if he’s helping out. Marie gives him a watery smile, the waiter doesn’t look at him, and Dean sets the dishes down on the counter before he jerks a thumb at the swinging bead curtain in a doorway at the back of the café and asks, “What’s back there? Bathrooms?”
Marie blinks at him, then says, “No. Stairs leading up. We do shows, things like that. Sometimes. At night.”
“Huh,” Dean says, and no one in the café moves for a few seconds.
At the same moment that Dean takes off in the direction of the bead curtain and the steps, his waiter and another guy move to stop him, but Dean spins out of their reaching grasp, pushes past them, and heads upstairs.
The stairs curve at one point, and Dean runs into the wall, moving too fast to switch directions without it. The two chasing him nearly catch him, but they grab his jacket and he just moves out of it, leaves it in their hands, hearing them overbalance behind him. A door at the top of the steps, which opens under Dean’s hand, and then he’s standing stock-still, staring at the person sitting across the room, looking right at him with slanted eyes and an amused smile. Hands grab at his shoulders but he can’t move, can’t speak.
“Well, my, my. Dean Winchester, we meet at last,” Sam says. “Been lookin’ forward to the day.”
Except, it doesn’t sound like Sam. Looks like him, sitting there, legs spread, slouching in the wide leather armchair like he doesn’t have anything better to do, mug of coffee on a small table next to him, next to a bottle of Jack, a couple empty shot glasses, a few paperback books, but it isn’t him, can’t be him.
“Christo,” Dean says, forces out through closed throat.
Sam, the Sam-thing, laughs, and leans forward. “Thank you, boys, but we’ll be fine from here, don’t you worry ‘bout nothing.”
Hands slide off of Dean’s shoulders, and Dean’s waiter says, “You’ll call if you need anything?”
“O’course I will, child. Go on, now.”
The door behind Dean closes, he hears footsteps rattle down the stairs, and when it’s silent, when he can’t take the silence one moment longer, he asks, “What are you and where’s my brother?”
“Oh, Dean,” Sam says, smile playing about the corners of his lips. “Sam was right about you. We gonna have some fun. Now, why don’t you come on in, sit down, stop hovering over there and let us have a look at you, a’right?”
“Us?” Dean echoes, though he moves, creeps around the edge of the room until he’s sitting on a black leather sofa across the room from Sam. “How many of you are in him?”
Sam leans back in the chair, pours two shot glasses full of Jack without looking, passes one over to Dean. Dean looks down at it, smells it, and finally shrugs, throws the whisky back and holds the glass out for more.
“At the moment?” Sam says, pouring. “Seems to be about four of us. Usually around six, seven, but you’ve got some of ‘em a little wary, between what Sam’s told us and then seeing you come up in here with those weapons.” Sam takes the shot glass from Dean, lets his thumb swipe over Dean’s skin, and when Dean jerks back, Sam laughs, low and long, drinks the shot, and gives Dean the bottle.
Dean feels naked; knowing that the things inside of Sam know about his weapons, it takes away his advantage, his security. He holds the bottle, lets it hang from one hand, and says, “What do you want with my brother? And what should I call you, because I am not calling you Sam.”
“Call me Papa,” Sam grins, and when Dean flinches, frowns, Sam says, “Oh, you ain’t got a lick o’ humour in you. Fine, fine. Call me Ati, a few of the others do.”
“All right, Ati,” Dean says, swallowing at the look in Sam’s-Ati’s-eyes. “What do you want with my brother?”
Ati leans forward, looks like he’s perfectly at home in Sam’s body, and Dean can’t help but wonder how long Sam’s been possessed for, how long the things have been using him.
“Better ask what your brother wants with us,” Ati says, and its his imagination, but Dean feels the room warm up, feels swamp heat drip from Ati’s voice. “Boy ain’t one of us, but we fit in him better than in our own. Can’t say he minds us, either. You should hear him and Danny-girl go ‘round and ‘round. Bicker like an ol’ married couple, those two.”
Dean’s stomach sours, and he tosses back a couple swallows of Jack, tries not to think that maybe his brother invited them in, because Sam knows better, he does. If Sam did, if he was that monumentally stupid, then getting them out, once Dean knows what exactly they are, is going to be even harder.
“Can I talk to him?” Dean asks, voice and throat coated with fear for Sam, furred over with whisky.
Ati slants his head, sends his eyes into shadow, and the voice that comes out holds echoing strands of other voices, male and female, old and young.
“Soon, Dean. Time’s not right yet.”
“When will it be right?” Dean asks, and even though he knows that demons lie, he can’t help thinking that Ati’s been telling him the truth all along.
Ati smiles, the expression and the look so foreign on Sam’s face. “Soon. Real soon, son.”
--
Dean drinks the rest of the whisky, and when that’s done, Ati takes the bottle back, stands up and stretches. Dean hears joints pop and bones crack, and then Ati’s moving out of this living room area and through a doorway at one end. He follows Sam’s body, studies the room he’s been sitting in for the first time, giving the kitchen they walk into a look as well, after.
The place is done up in white and black, with other colours dotting certain areas, reds and purples more than anything. All of the artwork on the walls looks Creole, even Haitian, and the rug on the floor of the kitchen, made out of scrap fabric and covering pristine white tile, outlines a vévé that Dean thinks belongs to Ayidah Wedo. There are a few plants tucked into corners, but everything is, on the whole, rather minimalist, with lots of open space, furniture flush against walls.
Ati’s put the empty bottle in the sink, is rummaging around in the back of a cabinet for something else, and Dean steps into the kitchen, leans against one wall and looks at a row of bottles sitting on the windowsill above the sink. One of them is filled with red dirt, another with black dirt, a third with something that looks like red-tinted oil, yet another with something dry, maybe cloves of garlic, Dean’s not sure.
“Know they hid it back here somewhere,” Ati mutters, and then pulls his head out of the cabinet, rolls his eyes at Dean, and yells, “Where’d you thankless people hide the booze, heya? Expect me to hang around here if there ain’t any rum? Be hurryin’, or I’ll sic Ogou on y’all, y’hear me?”
Dean raises an eyebrow, then raises the other when he hears two people come scurrying out of a hallway he’d looked down, not too closely, on his way to the kitchen. The first person entering the kitchen is a woman, dressed in jeans and a pink tank top, tattoos of hearts twisting up both arms, and she clucks her tongue at Ati and points at the table before putting her hands on her hips.
“No need to get huffy,” Ati mumbles, but he sits down, drums out a short pattern on the table, and asks, “Well?”
She sighs, opens a different cabinet, and reaches back inside, pulls out a half-filled bottle, and thumps it down on the table in front of Ati.
“That’s my girl,” he says, giving her a grin, then tucks his fingers in her belt-loops and pulls her close, until she’s sitting on one knee. He tucks a curl back behind one of her ears, tugs playfully on an earlobe, and says, grin turning rakish, “How ‘bout a kiss for ol’ Papa?”
Dean leans back, folds his arms across his chest, and watches with something approaching disbelief as the girl sighs again, then leans forward, pecks Ati on the cheek. The girl, Dean should be calling her a woman, fair enough, because she has to be older than Sam, probably Dean’s age or a couple years older, and her skin’s as dark and clear as Marie’s downstairs, the waiter’s, too, moves to get up, but Ati’s not letting go of her belt loops, and pulls her back down.
“Pretty please, tifi?” Ati says, and then his voice deepens, and Dean can only listen in fascination as Ati croons, “Chere mo lemme t'oi, chere mo lemme t'oi, mo lemme t'oi, mo lemme.”
He gets cut off, the girl smiling even though she’s trying not to, and she tangles her hands in Ati’s hair, plants her lips on his.
Dean can see tongue, and part of him wants to grin and say, ‘All right, little brother,’ because she’s hot, curvy and pliant in Ati’s hands, reminds Dean a little of what Cassie might be like if she was a little heavier, a little softer. Part of him, though, the bigger part, remembers that she isn’t kissing Sam, that Sam might have a problem with all of this, so he clears his throat after a moment.
Neither Ati nor the girl stop, and the other person who’d come running down the hall, who’s been lingering in the doorway behind Dean, says, “Wasting your breath. There ain’t no stopping them once they get started.”
Dean turns around, blinks twice.
“I’m Théo,” the man says. “Judging by the look on your face, you met Pierre downstairs. We’re twins.” Théo smiles, adds, “I’m the older one, by the way. The girl locking lips with Ati’s Sophie.”
“Here I thought I was in California,” Dean mutters.
Apparently it’s loud enough for Théo to hear, because he starts laughing. “We’re all from Louisiana, if that’s what you’re asking, ‘cept for Soph. Most of us moved here when we were younger, Sophie was born out this way. Still, it shouldn’t surprise you that we’ve all drifted together.”
Dean eyes the border around the top of the kitchen walls, hand-painted curlicues that make him think of Maman Brigitte, of parish cemeteries and the smell of camphor. “No,” he says. “It doesn’t.”
Sophie’s leaning her head on Ati’s shoulder, looking at Dean, and Ati says, “This here’s Dean,” as he’s stroking fingers through her hair.
Théo straightens up, lays an appraising gaze over Dean, and says something in Creole that Dean doesn’t understand. Sophie’s brow furrows, but Ati smoothes it out with his thumb and answers Théo in the same language. Whatever Ati says must relax him, because Théo finally moves away from the doorway to the kitchen, where he’d been leaning, and opens the fridge door.
“Dean, you thirsty? Ati’ll be hogging that bottle all afternoon,” he asks, before reaching in and pulling out a bottle of water, placing it on the table in front of Sophie. “Got beer, some juice, Cokes, or there’s coffee downstairs we can bring up.”
“Beer,” Dean says, pretty sure that this situation calls for something alcoholic, feeling the edges of a quarter bottle of Jack brush against his sobriety and thinking it’s not nearly enough.
Théo gives Dean a bottle, says something about getting some food from his brother, and Dean hears him leave, hears him open a door and head downstairs, feet clanging on the wooden steps.
Dean pops the top of the beer, chugs down a third of it, and looks at Sophie, who’s been watching him from her perch on Ati’s knee.
“D’you talk?” Dean asks, eyes drifting from his brother’s face to the girl.
“Only when someone else is doing it for her,” Ati says.
Dean nods, but as he’s taking another swallow of beer, he thinks about it, connects that with the vévés, and says, throat tight, “She’s a horse.”
”We prefer the term ‘vodouisante,’ repozwa if you’d like,” Ati says, sounding like Sam for the first time that day, though the grin on his face, a little hungry, a little amused, isn’t at all something Sam would wear. “But you’re right, Dean. My tifi don’t talk, not unless she’s being ridden.”
“And who rides her?” Dean asks, can’t help but ask. His fingers are itching to move, to grab one of his guns and put a bullet in her head, or to take up one of his knives and kill her, because killing horses, that’s what he’s been taught to do, horses, houngons, and mambos. Safer to kill one than to leave one alive, even one that can’t talk, and he’s just come from Louisiana, just done the same thing there, cleared out a whole parish of them.
Ati’s face is solemn, though his eyes are flashing and his lips are still curved in that half-mocking grin. “One o’ the Rada.”
Dean’s ready to ask which Rada loa, ready to give in and admit that Ati’s toying with him now, because he wants to know, it’s always easier to kill them if he knows what loa might come and try to help, but then he thinks about the hallway, the way Sophie and Théo both came running out when Ati called, so instead, he asks, “And Théo? Who rides him?”
“I don’t s’pose you’d believe me if I said I do, would you?” Ati asks, eyes gleaming with laughter.
For a moment, Dean thinks that means Ati’s one of the loa himself, is kicking his brain trying to think of which one, but then Sophie shifts, presses her lips to Ati’s neck and gets up, takes her water and leaves, and Dean swallows, mind chasing down a different direction.
“You fuck them both,” he says, half a question.
He wishes he could be surprised, shocked, something, when Ati says, “I fuck Sophie. Théo fucks me. Sometimes we mix it up, sometimes we do it at the same time.” Instead, he just feels the blood drain out of his face, feels angry and confused, and is about ready to reach for one of his knives when he remembers that this is Sam, Sam’s body, Sam still somewhere inside.
“Don’t you worry ‘bout your brother, son,” Ati says, and this time he’s completely serious. “We take good care of him, can’t do nothing else. Wouldn’t want to. And when the time’s right, I promise you, we’ll tell you everything you’re wanting to know. Just give it some time and trust him, trust me, a’right? I ain’t gonna lie to you, swear it to le gran met.” Ati pauses, then adds, “I know you heard of Bondye. I know you know what that means, Dean Winchester.”
Dean feels hollow as he nods. “I know what it means. Guess I don’t have a choice,” he says in a mutter, bitter rage at his helplessness flooding out through the words. His eyes flash as he looks at Ati, and he says, “If he’s hurt, if you’ve done something to him,” before trailing off.
Ati returns the stare, looking out of Sam’s eyes, and it’s almost like Dean can see more than one of them in there, can almost see the different fragments of different demons.
“My hand to Bondye,” Ati says, repeating himself.
--
Théo comes back up a few minutes later, carrying a tray made from whitewashed wood. He sets the tray on the table and Dean sees a small pot of steaming gumbo, a loaf of muffuletta cut into pieces, and a plate piled to overflowing with beignets.
“Pierre said you liked them,” Théo says when he sees Dean’s expression, moving around the kitchen like he lives here, pulling out bowls and plates, silverware and glasses. He sets the table quickly, precisely, but only two places, and when Dean asks, Théo says, “We don’t eat with Ati when he has guests,” without embarrassment.
Dean cocks an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything else, just lets Théo serve him, watches Ati scooping up gumbo with pieces of bread, and compares how this stranger inside of his brother eats with the way he remembers Sam eating.
Ati eats with his hands, doesn’t bother with the fork and spoon Théo laid out, just dips his bread in the bowl and scoops, leaning over the bowl so as not to spill. Ati’s hands are Sam’s hands, but there are scrapes and scars Dean doesn’t remember, a certain relaxed easiness that Sam never possessed. Sam always ate with knife and fork, used to roll his eyes at Dean for picking at food with his hands, and Sam hated wine with a passion. Ati drinks it down like water, eats slow, like he hasn’t got anything better to do, like he savours every bite, every taste.
Looking out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees Théo bustling around the kitchen, setting up a pot on the stove, chopping up vegetables on the counter. Théo watches Ati, though, and every time Ati finishes a glass of wine, Théo fills the glass back up, at Ati’s shoulder, silent and watchful.
Ati finally finishes his second bowl of gumbo, and when Théo hovers over him in something like a silent question, Ati pets Théo’s arm and says, “S’good, child. Y’ain’t lost your touch. Even Dean’s on seconds, and that’s after a couple beignets downstairs.”
Dean blinks, didn’t realise he was being watched that closely, but when Théo looks at him, he nods, uses a piece of bread to scrape the last of the roux from the bottom of the bowl.
“He’s right,” Dean says, almost sounding surprised. “It’s good.”
Théo smiles, takes the bowls away, and washes them, moving around in silence as he takes things out of the fridge, throws them in the simmering pot on the stove, pours coffee for the two at the table.
Dean sips at the coffee, hums in appreciation as it runs thick down his throat, and picks up a beignet, tips it so the extra sugar falls off onto the plate, ignoring the vévé drawn on the plate underneath the pastries and the way it makes his skin crawl.
--
Ati leans back when he’s done, hands on his belly, and belches, long and loud. Dean, in the middle of a bite, nearly chokes, because that’s just not Sam, and he’s about ready to chastise his little brother when he looks up, sees Ati watching him with dark eyes.
Dean gives Ati a tight smile, swallows, and asks, “When’re you gonna tell me what’s going on?” Théo, visible over Ati’s shoulder, stops mid-stir, but doesn’t move his gaze from whatever he’s cooking, whatever smells spicy-sweet with andouille and peppers. He’s listening, waiting for Ati’s reply like it means something, like he’s worried, and that’s intriguing.
Ati hums, burps, leans back and looks up at the ceiling.
“Well?” Dean asks.
Ati cuts him off, holds up a hand and says, “Now, hold on, son. Me ‘n the others, we gotta talk about this. Can’t go running around making decisions for everyone. Danny’d kill me, and Ogou’d help her out, that’s what I think, and wouldn’t that be a doozy? Gimme a couple,” and his eyes droop closed, not all of the way, just enough to leave a thin strand of white visible. It chills Dean, just as much as seeing an echoing stripe of skin where the t-shirt’s ridden up from the waistband of the jeans Ati’s wearing.
Théo’s stirring the pot again, slow and careful, and he looks over, meets Dean’s eyes. There’s defiance in Théo’s brown eyes, defiance and fear, hostility under a thin veneer of hospitality, but Dean gives back as good as he gets, more, even, because he’s angry, has it battering around inside of his bones, bitter and deep.
Théo tilts his head, like he understands, like he recognises whatever Dean’s trying to say, and goes back to cooking, less concerned now.
Dean feels like he just passed a test, but he doesn’t know what the question was or even how he answered it.
“Tonight, we be having some friends over,” Ati finally says, though there’s a different register to the tone, the vowels drawn out more, the consonants lazy, almost rumbled despite the vaguely nasal sound they have now. Dean’s eyes flick to Théo, who stiffened when he heard Ati speak, stiffened and then went right for the cabinet Sophie pulled the rum out of.
Théo places another bottle of rum on the table, but this one’s dark, looks and smells thick, like honey, and his movements are slow, cautious. “Lakwa,” Théo says, and Dean’s eyes narrow, because he can almost see the outline of something around Sam’s-Ati’s-Lakwa’s head.
“Lakwa,” Dean says, tone flat. He almost doesn’t believe it, but then Ati’s eyes open, and they aren’t Ati, just like they aren’t Sam.
“Heya, Dean Winchester,” Lakwa says, tipping his head before he holds out a hand.
Théo moves, crosses the kitchen fast, opens a drawer and takes out a pack of cigars and a lighter, places them gently into Lakwa’s hand.
Dean raises an eyebrow, because Théo’s attitude has completely changed, but when Lakwa lights the cigar and starts smoking, eyes still fixed on Dean, he thinks he understands. Ati was fun, almost playful, teasing, and there’s a hint of that in Lakwa, but Lakwa poses a greater threat, somehow, and it’s nothing in the way he sits, just something about him, about the look in his eyes and the way he blows smoke out of his mouth.
“You’re having friends over tonight,” Dean says, cautious. “Does that mean I won’t be able to talk to Sam until afterwards?”
Lakwa smiles around the cigar, takes it out and blows a perfect succession of smoke rings. “Sounds ‘bout right, young’un. And since I be answering your questions, howsabout you answer one of mine.” Dean nods, just once, and Lakwa tilts his head, says, “Mighty gracious of you, Dean.” There’s no pause, no change in tone, from Dean’s name to Lakwa’s question, demand. “Tell me about the vodouisantes you just came here from killing.”
Dean’s mouth dries as Théo drops the plate he’s wiping off with a towel. The sound of it dropping onto the floor, shattering, echoes, as Dean feels two sets of eyes on him, one pair shocked, the other old and knowing.
“What do you want me to say?” Dean asks, suddenly tired, like being so angry, so worried, so wary and tense, for the past couple of hours has worn him out, worn him down. “You want me to apologise? Say I’m sorry? You know just as well as I do that I’m not, not in the least, and if you weren’t holding my brother hostage, I’d get rid of you just the same.”
“You think we’re loa, then?” Lakwa asks, leaning forward, suddenly intent.
Dean shrugs, throws out his arms, and says, “I don’t know what the fuck’s going on, okay? Is that what you wanna hear? You’re not demons, then fine, you’re loa, and you all take turns fucking Sam over, riding the others, getting your rocks off. That what you want me to say?”
Lakwa leans back in the chair, eyes gleaming with interest, and he drawls, “Good enough, Dean. That be good enough for me. Now, the second one you killed, tell me about her.”
“The second one,” Dean says, and when Lakwa nods, picks up the bottle of rum and downs a few thick swallows, Dean sighs, rubs one hand over his forehead.
According to another hunter’s information, there had been six priestesses and three priests in Plaquemines Parish. Dean had stayed in a small, run-down motel in Buras-Triumph and stalked the nine of them, spread out over the parish, for three weeks before he made his move. The first one, one of the priests, he’d shot twice, once in the heart and once in the head, before decapitating the body and burning it in a pyre of river birch and brick dust. He’d done the other two men the same way, but none of them were horses, just houngons.
The second one he killed was an asogwe, a purported favourite of Erzulie Freda. Killing her had taken time, the loa kept coming back, flooding Dean’s senses with a haze of pink femininity. He’d gone in with a gun, planned on giving her three shots of lead, but he’d ended up dazed and frantic, had hacked away at her with a knife under the influence of some enraged madness until he’d come back to his senses covered in blood, the mambo's body in pieces all around him, on him.
Dean swallows down bile and gumbo, thinking of how he’d vomited, how he’d walked out and burnt the house before going back and scrubbing himself raw to get the feeling out of his skin, off of him. He smells blood through the cloud of smoke Lakwa’s pouring out, and shudders, downs a full cup of coffee, cleaning out the smell in his nostrils with the overpowering scent of strong chicory.
He looks up and sees Lakwa studying him, sees Théo waiting for an answer, and Dean shakes his head. “Her name was Stefanie. She’d been studying vodou since she was a child. Her mother was a practitioner, and her father, I never found anything out about him. She was a grand authority,” and Théo sinks to his knees, covers his mouth.
“The loa came on her when I was,” Dean says, unable to say what he was there to do, ashamed for the first time in his life. “I killed her.”
“Did you?” Lakwa asks, and something about the question makes Dean stop, makes Théo sob and look up at Lakwa, the way he’s sitting there, so calm, so quiet. “Tell me something, chile. What was it feelin’ like, when you be killing the asogwe?”
Dean looks down at his hands, eyes flicking over his fingers, at the hands that held the knife and carved a woman to pieces. “I don’t know,” he says, quiet. “I wasn’t. I wasn’t all there.”
“You done gone and killed eight of ‘em, Dean. The second one, that girl ain’t your fault.” Lakwa’s lips curl around the cigar, and he holds out the bottle of rum in a salute. “You, boy. You know what it be feeling like under the bridle. You be ridden, boy, by one of the Petro who have a thing ‘gainst ‘Zulie. Marinette, mebbe, we ain’t entirely sure yet, but it weren’t you.”
“No,” Dean whispers, wide-eyed, looking at Lakwa. “No, that’s impossible.”
Lakwa laughs, the sound sharp, startling Dean and Théo, by the way the other man jumps, flinches. “You rather be a buckaloose? You all tore up about it, now you ain’t gotta worry, Dean Winchester. You ain’t going crazy, you just be having one more thing in common with your brother.”
Dean stops breathing as Lakwa grins, takes out his cigar, and drinks down the rum. Lakwa throws his head back, throat working as he swallows, and when he comes up for air, he’s grinning, puffs on the cigar once before stroking his hand down the bottle. Dean’s eyes follow the movement, and instead of seeing Sam’s hands, Ati’s scars, he sees bones.
He knows.
“Lakwa,” he murmurs, chest aching. “Baron La Croix. Baron Samedi. Fuck.”
A long, hearty laugh from Lakwa, who says, “We can be doing that, if’n you like, chile.”
Dean sits there, staring, and finally asks, “Ati. Who?”
Théo’s the one who answers, still kneeling on the floor amid broken pieces of ceramic. “Papa Legba,” he says, eyes clear, full of pain. “Legba Atibon.”
“And Danny?” Dean asks, once his throat’s remembered how to work.
Lakwa’s eyes darken, deepen, and he says, “Danny’ll be wanting a word with you, son. Best not go stirring things up before the pot’s boiling, ayah.”
Part Two