Chapter 5

“Emelina, my sweet apple,” the smooth voice of Mr. Saturday whispered into her young ear as his lips pressed against her nude with them both lying in the bed of his house. The deed was done, which would give her Jermey in about nine months. All of the Hades children, the males anyhow, were Mr. Saturday’s blood, and he did it for his wicked spells. All the stories told the same lie: one of the Hades men had treated and cheated the great Voodoo Man, but the truth was that he had made a deal with the Shadow Man, giving Hades’s women to him in exchange for male children. It was the reason he never took the girls.

                And all the girls, before their children were taken from them, couldn’t help themselves around Mr. Saturday. It was part of the curse. The curse demanded that all the Hades ladies be at the whims of the Voodoo man, and no matter how much they wished not to give their bodies over to him, they would always fail.

                It was deep in their blood. It was the chain around their souls.

                But even if she wanted to run from him, Emelina was Mr. Saturday's favorite girl of the Hades’ family. He almost loved her. He was kind to her and spoke about freeing her from the chain around her heart after they were finished in bed. They would lie in the heat of the southern summer with sweat cloaking her young and tight body, with Mr. Saturday running his fingers along her body.

                “I want a home,” she said to him, softly resting her hand under her cheek, “with a whole lot of kids runnin’ about to give us Hell.”

                “Us?” Mr. Saturday asked, glancing over at her. “Us, doll?”

                Emelina looked over her nightstand to see the flowers the Shadow Man collected for her on his way to her bed. He was a tall man, like a shadow of a winter tree, and his feet hung off her bed. His body was strong as a steel pole, but it was dotted with old tattoos from a language no one in the area seemed to know how to utter. He told her one day, and he always came during sunlight, as his work needed to be done at night, that the language came from the Shadow Realm and was written on his body by a demon called the Man in the Woods.

                “Everyone tells me,” she said, “you’re the only one who brings me flowers.”

                “I guess, they are right,” Mr. Saturday said, smiling at her. Their relationship danced over the years, filling her mind as she slept at the circus. She started to fall in love with the wicked man, and he, for what he could do, fell in love with her, and the spells he used, the blood of Hades’s boys was to keep himself in this Realm. If he didn’t cast the spell, then he would meet a bitter end by being pulled into the Shadow Realm.

                It was the nail in the coffin of their love. She was never going to allow Mr. Saturday to take her son, and it was the reason she buried her boy with Daisy in a hidden grave. She fled that night, running to the circus, making a deal with Azrael’s to be the cook forever for the show, or as long as the show came traveling the world.

                He took her far from her past, but she never knew what happened to Mr. Saturday. She prayed and hoped he would get pulled into the Shadow Realm, where he could be trapped forever. She would be free of him, and for a while, she was free of him until the nightmares started to leak into her sleep.

                “Come to me, mama,” Mr. Saturday whispered into her ears. “Come to me, pay my debt. Come to me.” His voice rose with agony and anger, but sleep didn’t let her go until she heard the knocking on her door as if a raven was begging to come in.

                She jumped awake to stare at the door, hearing the soft rapping again, grabbed her night coat, and strolled to it. She was afraid it was still a part of the nightmare, and when she opened the door, Mr. Saturday would be standing there, but instead of the demon from her past, it was Azrael at the bottom of the small steps. He turned his gaze back to her and smiled.

                “Miss Hades,” he said, reaching out to her, “would you take a midnight walk with me?”

                “Of course, sir,” she said, taking his hand as he led her down the steps. Age had changed the woman from the dream into someone else. Someone who packed on the weight, and her lovely black hair was starting to be peppered with a bit of salt-white. She was starting to look like her grandmother. She didn’t mind; she loved her old grandmother.

                She and Azrael started to stroll out into the night under the sea of stars. He walked softly with her at her pace and kept his gaze on the moon. She had long wondered where this man came from and how he had such great power, but no one seemed to know, and no one dared ask either.

                “The Shadow Man came to my dreams again,” she said softly.

                “I know,” he said.

                “I thought he was banished to the Shadow Realm,” she said. “He always told me that would happen if he didn’t pay the price.”

                “The Man in the Woods came for his soul,” Azrael said, “all those years ago, dragged him kicking and screaming into the Void, but Baron Samedi made a deal with a creature named Nightmare, the Master of Black Haven, to return to this Realm.”

                “Who is this man Nightmare?”

                “He is a thing,” Azrael said, “an angel who found enjoyment in the Realm of Dreams and gives gleeful delights to demons and nightmares to angels in his house of horror. He is powerful, but we have nothing to fear from him.”

                “What is the deal he made with Nightmare?” She asked.

                “Your soul,” he said, stopping and looking down at her. “Baron Samedi is going to give your soul and all of your kin souls to Nightmare, but he can’t get you here.”

                “Are you sure?” She asked now, noticing they had strolled out far into the empty field away from her trailer and the circus. “He’s a powerful witch doctor who lives deep in the shadows.”

                “No, my friend,” Azrael said, reaching out and putting a hand on her shoulder, “he has merely befriended the shadows while knowing nothing about what was in them.”

                She stared into his red eyes as they flared.

                “And I am in them.”