Kicking It(36)

Yet he was no fool—he’d already drawn the weapon, firing at the shelf, wood and cloth flying every which way. A scream came from the front of the shop.

The red eyes disappeared. I felt Philippe’s hand on my arm just as I was about to dart away.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

Trust him? Sounded good at the moment. “Sure. Why not.”

We made a break for the front door, his coworker peeking over the sales counter as we ran outside and he pulled me toward the edge of the sidewalk, where a motorcycle sat dormant. He hopped on, reaching in his pocket for a set of keys, then revved up the bike. I had already jumped on the back of the seat, my arm round his waist.

Shoving the revolver into my hand, he didn’t say a word as we took off into the night and I glanced over my shoulder, swearing that a pair of red eyes was fading into nothing on top of the shop’s roof as we roared away.





3



We rode until the city lights gave way to cypress trees dripping with Spanish moss as we veered off the main roads and found the side ones. Full night made everything eerie while Philippe the karmically proper psychic steered me into the middle of nowhere.

My wariness of him was still alive and kicking, but the man had given me his firearm. He had lent me the means to kill him, and that did wonders for my so-called trust.

Yet even if I hadn’t held that revolver, I had my boots. Just how much of a lethal weapon was I, myself?

We went deep into where the bayous ran, and he slowed the bike as we turned onto a slim road that paralleled the duckweed-thickened water. I didn’t want to think about what might lurk under the surface. Night creatures sounded off with chirping and croaking and clicks as a lone light came into view.

It belonged to a lantern from a planked cabin with a tin roof. When we pulled up to the stairs leading to the porch, I saw a rickety swing hanging from the eaves and a screen door that angled halfway off its hinges. Philippe cut the engine, but I didn’t dismount. All my inner alarms were screaming.

I held on to that revolver as he waited for me to alight. He hadn’t worn a helmet—neither of us had taken the time to don one—so his dark hair was disheveled, its long, loose strands roguish. He looked like a pirate who hid out here in the backwater.

“This is where the witch lives,” he said in his lazy accent as we both merely sat there, staring at the cabin.

“How do you know?” I wished he’d had the time to explain more about her to me before we had fled the shop.

“Rumors. And a vibe.”

I realized that he might be more than a psychic. “Are you also a voodoo practitioner?”

He laughed. “No. I only rent space in the shop for readings. But I’m well acquainted with everything in it. I haven’t been there long—only a few weeks—but I’m learning more every night.”

“What did you do before this?”

“Curious, aren’t we?”

“You don’t have to answer.” We needed to be getting on with this, anyway.

But it seemed Philippe liked my keen interest. “I was a carpenter. Still am, although business is slow. I’ve always had the seeing gift, just as my maman did, and I make use of it on the side for her sake.”

From the manner in which he said this, I wondered if his mother was sick or destitute. My heart beat an extra time.

He must have seen I was sympathetic because he brushed off what he had said. “My senses have been sharp lately, and that’s probably why, a week ago, I had the vision of you.”

“It’s fortunate you were prepared. I can’t say the same for myself.”

I finally stepped off the bike, and he put down the kickstand, then dismounted as well.

“So let’s find a way to get these boots off,” he said.

I prepared every apology I could think of, in case I had stolen the items. This was the best course of action, I kept telling myself. If Amari had sent an employee out to reclaim the enchanted boots, I was better off facing the music here and taking my chances.

“I hope we don’t need an appointment,” I said.

Philippe merely gave me a look, and I shrugged. Maybe I was a polite sort in real life.

Our footsteps echoed on the stairs, then the porch, and my boots tightened round my legs. Clinging, as if they wished to hold on to me and me alone.

I opened the broken screen, then knocked on the door. When no one answered, I knocked again.

“Nobody is home,” he said assuredly.

“How can you be . . . ?” I didn’t finish the question. “All right. So what do we do now?”

Philippe reached round me and opened the door, which was so warped that it took a shove from him. He sent me a smug glance.

I tried not to dwell on how he smelled of cedar or perhaps pine as he brushed past me. Either way, yum.