The Malveaux Curse Mysteries Boxset 2 Read online

  The Malveaux Curse Box Set Books 4-7

  The Malveaux Curse 4,5,6,7

  G.A. Chase

  Bayou Moon Press, LLC

  Copyright © 2018 by G.A. Chase

  First Edition 2018

  Cover Art by Janet Holmes

  Editing by Red Adept

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, business establishments, or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

  Bayou Moon Press, LLC

  Contents

  Voodoo You Love

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Voodoo You Think You Are

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Look What You Made Me Voodoo

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Love Me Like Voodoo

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Book List

  About the Author

  Voodoo You Love

  Voodoo You Love Blurb

  Kendell Summer thought she was done dealing with the devil, but he’s found a way to invade her nightmares—literally. With her soul intimately connected to Colin Malveaux, she can no longer ignore her visions.

  Her ruthless adversary now resides in his own private hell, thanks to the dead swamp witch’s granddaughter, Sanguine Delarosa. However, Colin, not daunted by imprisonment, has taken control of his demonic realm. Now he wants to use what he’s learned to wreak havoc in the land of the living.

  Kendell and Sanguine share responsibility for Colin’s interdimensional prison. To repair the damage to the walls of hell, the women—together with Myles, the band members, and their canine companions—will need to take a trip to hell and confront the devil himself.

  ***

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  1

  Colin Malveaux leaned back in his ergonomic office chair—his immobilized broken leg on the desk—and watched the post-hurricane-driven rain batter the French Quarter. It was 6:52 p.m. on Friday, July 18. He didn’t need to look at his watch. As near as he could estimate, it had been 6:52 p.m. on Friday, July 18, for the last ten hours. The rain never let up. The sky never changed from dusk to night. His hunger never progressed to starvation, and he feared the fast-food hamburger he’d had for lunch would forever be giving him heartburn. At least he was spared the daily ritual of having to sleep. Now that time had no meaning, he no longer had to endure that irritating waste of time. He found that funny.

  He bolted out of his chair and yelled at the storm, “Fuck you, witch! Show yourself!”

  Colin didn’t really expect an answer. He’d been condemned to her version of hell, and clearly, she was content to sit in hiding and watch her life’s accomplishment play out.

  “It’s not her—it’s me.” With no one to talk to, he’d resorted to doing his thinking out loud. He would have liked to hear someone telling him that talking to himself was a sign of insanity. “Rain be damned. I need to see if there’s anyone else out there. Even in a hurricane, people frequent the Quarter’s bars. It’s as good a place as any to start. I’ve been a fool not to make a countermove.”

  The splint he’d fashioned from the parts of an umbrella was an improvement over the sticks he’d found in the swamp, but walking was still slow going. His broken rib felt like a red-hot iron jabbing into his side. With time at a standstill, he wondered if his injuries from diving headfirst into the hurricane would ever heal.

  “The pain does not matter. I’m immortal.” He’d spent the hours at his desk considering his strengths and recording them in the dog-eared notebook he’d carried with him since high school. Without a functioning computer, it was the best he could do. Before heading out, he looked over the list one last time to remind himself of what the witch was up against.

  If this is hell and time isn’t moving, I can’t die. This is a theory that needs to be tested. Worst case, I end up leaving this hell. Best case, I am a god.

  If it turns out that I truly am immortal, I have nothing to lose. The witch will have created an adversary she can’t defeat.

  I need to find Baron Samedi’s cane. It must be here somewhere. Once I have that, I can cross from here to Guinee or perhaps even return to life.

  Hell must have guardians. The old swamp witch must be here somewhere—as must Baron Samedi. I need to face my adversaries.

  He stared back out the window, searching for any sign of life. “Am I really the only person in this hell?” That was the question and not one he’d be able to answer while sitting in his office.

  Colin couldn’t see a single light in a single window from his office, but the witch had seen fit to leave his high-rise partially functional and the elevator that took him to his office penthouse in full working order. He assumed that was meant to taunt him, since only from the highest perch in New Orleans could he truly see how deserted the city was. “What good is it to be a god without anyone to rule over?”

  The question wasn’t just rhetorical. In asking it, he’d stumbled on what he believed to be the witch’s true mistake. She’d created a god then underestimated his desire for followers.

  He saw no point in protecting himself from the wind and rain. Post-hurricane winds seldom obeyed the laws of gravity. An umbrella would have to cover him down to the toes of his badly scuffed dress shoes to prevent him from getting soaked.

  Though he’d already confirmed there were no cars in this witch’s dungeon, a lifetime of conditioning had him checking the road anyway. “Stupid. I need to not just learn the laws of this reality b
ut accept them as well. Rule one: I can’t be killed.”

  Colin dragged his leg across Canal Street, feeling grateful not to have to dodge traffic and tourists. On the other side, he fell against the nearest shop. In another reality, it had been a tacky, brightly colored tourist trap selling gaudy beads, T-shirts, and plastic masks. He rubbed a clear spot on the glass and looked into the retail space. Not only was there no merchandise, but there were no displays, or anything else for that matter—just bare plaster-and-brick walls and an empty concrete floor. Either the owners had somehow managed to squirrel away every stick of furniture, the looters had started early and been remarkably thorough, or this reality didn’t care much for tourism. If that last option were the case, he’d finally found some commonality with the old swamp witch. “Good riddance.”

  Poppies Chicken, unfortunately, was also nothing more than a sorrowful empty space. For a moment, he considered breaking in to see if the witch had unintentionally left some product in the freezer. He’d never worked in fast food—or any other service job for that matter. “How hard could it be to fry up some chicken?” The effort didn’t seem worth the reward. He already had enough fast-food heartburn.

  Each window he looked in told the same story. This French Quarter was only a façade. Like some Hollywood South soundstage that hadn’t bothered with anything beyond what the camera would capture, this reality was a mockery of the real thing. The lack of broken windows and graffiti confirmed that even the city’s delinquents had escaped the witch’s hell. “You know, to have really tortured me, you should have spray-painted some gang signs—something to make it look like there were still people present, to give me hope, but then make it clear they’re thugs I should fear.”

  He knew she’d see through the ruse. He’d have become the leader of a band of miscreants easily enough. The whole damn scene reminded him of a fish in a bowl with fake plastic ships and castles to swim through.

  “But my office is real.” The thought made him turn to the towering marble building at the end of the block. New Orleans Bank and Trust had been his mother’s domain, but long before her, Baron Malveaux had used the institution to establish the family’s wealth and prestige. And now the baron was a part of Colin.

  “If the Lincoln Laroque side of me gets to keep the penthouse office, I expect you’ll extend the same courtesy to Baron Malveaux.”

  Water flowed off the grand marble stairs that led up to the imposing structure like an aquatic feature in some ill-conceived, overfunded public-works art project. His clothes were already soaked so completely they clung to every piece of skin they touched.

  The stitching on his Ferragamos was fraying badly from the abuse. He took a deep breath and trusted his weight to the smooth sole of the finely made shoe on the slick step. “Still standing. You’re going to have to do better than a driving rain to knock me on my ass.” He assumed she understood the defiance to be more figurative than literal.

  When he reached the top, he saw the door to the bank standing open. He shook his head in disgust. “It doesn’t do you any good now. You would have had to make it look like there was someone in this hell with me while I didn’t expect it. Unless, of course, you’ve got my mother in there. Now, that would be a surprise.”

  He really hoped to confront Baron Samedi on the other side of that door. The voodoo loa of the dead had followed Colin into the hurricane while he chased after the dark spirit’s walking cane. “Man, I could really use that thing now, and not just for its metaphysical properties.”

  The hope that the cane had somehow made the transition from the land of the living to the witch’s hell was the one driving force that kept him going. With the cane, he might have the power to confront his captor. If the stick could make it from Guinee to life, Colin saw no reason that it couldn’t also exist in hell. He’d followed it into the hurricane. “It must be here somewhere.”

  But that meant Baron Samedi was likely also in this hell. Two supernatural beings against one greedy businessman might not be the best of odds, but neither of his opponents had his resolve.

  Not that time mattered, but physical exertion still had a way of making Colin stop to catch his breath. He guessed it took most of what he would have known as the morning to get to the bank and climb the stairs to the third floor. Hobbling along on the old wood floors renewed his sense of self-importance. This was where he’d established his seventh gate of Guinee—where he’d stood in judgment of all who’d died and wished to continue on to the deep waters.

  The portraits of the past bank presidents were missing, as was anything else to indicate the bank had once been the center of commerce in the city. “So long as my fucking office is intact.”

  He stopped at the expanse of bare wall where the elegantly carved mahogany door was supposed to be. “So you started building this hell even before I possessed that idiot of a bartender.”

  He’d hidden his office’s location so artfully that for the hundred and fifty years that Baron Malveaux had been buried in the above-ground crypt, no one had discovered it concealed behind the thin plaster. He ran his hand along the wall and felt the subtle change in texture. It was still there, but simply breaking down the wall wouldn’t work. He’d be left with only plaster dust and splintered wood. It would take an object from Guinee, like the magic cane, to break the barrier. “I’ll be back.”

  Colin hadn’t expected to find his office at the bank standing wide open. That would have been too easy. If he had access to Guinee, then he’d also find a way back to the living. All he’d needed was to feel the difference in textures. Either the witch had done such an excellent job of re-creating reality that she’d seen to the smallest of details, or the bank was somehow connected to the one he remembered.

  He sat on the marble staircase and considered the two options out loud. “The rest of the Quarter is all façade. If you’d really wanted to go into so much detail that I could feel the change in wall texture, I’d expect more detail in the other buildings as well.”

  Then there was his office in the Central Business District high-rise. “Places that I’m connected to are exceptions to the rest of the buildings. Like a movie set, they had to be more detailed due to their usage. That would mean this bank is to be one of the sets in your demented little play. The question is, did you design these sets, or are they interdimensionally connected to my reality?”

  He didn’t have an answer, but what he did have was time. “If I assume this bank isn’t just a reproduction, I’ll need an object connected to Guinee to open the seventh gate. I may not have Baron Samedi’s cane, and therefore his powers, but I do have friends in that version of the beyond. It’s a start anyway.”

  He struggled to his feet and headed to the door. Baron Malveaux had dealt extensively with Marie Laveau, and Lincoln Laroque had been duped by her descendent Delphine de Galpion. Whatever remained of both women in this carnival funhouse of a reality would be hidden away in Scratch and Sniff Perfumery’s back room.

  He returned to the tempest outside to continue his exploration. At least the voodoo madam’s shop wasn’t far. Every building he passed had locked doors, but the old wooden shack in the residential section of the Quarter had been so termite eaten and weather damaged that modern deadbolts were useless. And without Delphine de Galpion in this realm, there wouldn’t be any of her handy little curses to deny him entry. The wooden steps squished under his shoes.

  The part of him that had been frightened and intrigued about meeting the mystical woman so many years ago argued he should at least knock. In defiance of his foolishness, he put his shoulder to the door with all of his weight. The ensuing burst of pain from his ribs made him lose his breath.

  “Damn you to hell.” He directed his irritation and anger at the old swamp witch and would continue to do so until he escaped.

  If he had two good legs, he’d have kicked the door in. In his current condition, he decided to try the doorknob instead. “Locked? Really?”

  This wasn’t his domain. Tho
ugh much of his history had been collected in the back room of the building, he’d never been welcomed with open arms by the voodoo priestess. With all of the windows shuttered, he couldn’t be sure if the priestess’s shack was more of the witch’s fakery or a prospect worth pursuing.

  “What do I have to lose?”

  The finesse required to pick a skeleton key lock had never been his strong suit, but he was unable to simply force the door open. “When I get back to the living, first thing I’m doing is buying a hardware store. What I wouldn’t give for a good pry bar right now.”

  He hobbled back to the street in search of anything he could use against the unyielding door. “Those fucking termites must all be holding hands. Somewhere out here, there has to be a house with less determined bugs. I just need something to use for bashing that door in.”

  He struggled away from the Quarter in his search. Each house he passed had either been remodeled—usually with money supplied from his family’s bank—or securely boarded up. He reached for the fence railing in front of the next shotgun double to help him along. The wrought-iron bar shook so badly he nearly missed his step. “Perfect.”