Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 7
Setting Tempie down carefully on the table I stared at him as he stared back up at me with his little button eyes. We stared at each other for an uncomfortable amount of seconds before Olivia finally came running back with her box of chalks and a couple candles from my room.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” I told her, taking her items and rewarding her with a forehead kiss. She smiled up at me and climbed into the chair next to me as I started drawing a circle around the template doll. It sprouted from a circle into a series of designs that when I finally finished covered the entire table around where Tempie was placed.
“How is this supposed to let him talk to us, mommy?” Olivia asked me, playing with a loose piece of chalk from her box. I sighed as I lit the candles and placed them in their designated spots. I wasn’t sure that this would work at all. In fact, I was almost sure that it would cause more harm than good. But at this point, it was the only kind of lead that I had.
“The circle will keep his spirit trapped inside it so we can safely talk to him,” I explained. I stood to go turn the lights off and stopped as I turned to look at Tempie sitting down on the counter. He looked at me and gave the slightest nod to me. Nodding back I flicked off the lights and walked back to my chair with Olivia. Taking her hand in my own I looked at her and gave her another comforting smile.
“I call on the spirit of Charles Sumner to come forth and speak to us,” I told whatever spirits were hanging around the seance. I closed my eyes and gripped Olivia’s hand as I waited for something to happen. And something did happen. I smelt burning. Opening my eyes quickly I saw that the entire table was becoming engulfed in flames as the candles were suddenly shooting three-foot flames into the ceiling. Flinching hard, I quickly grabbed Olivia and pulled her away from the table.
Tempie sat still as the smoke and fire coalesced around him and soon obscured him completely. I nearly thought that something had gone wrong and that we had lost our only hope of saving Travis. But as suddenly as the fire had become uncontrollable it immediately died down and on the table was sitting a young man. His skin was tannish and his hair was black and messy. Looking at him it seemed impossible for me to remember who he was. But imagining that those soft hazel eyes being replaced with buttons snapped me back to who this was.
“Bonjour.” He chuckled awkwardly. Waving to me and Olivia from his position on the table. He sat there with his legs crossed and a soft smile on his face. I and Olivia looked at each other in shock but slowly we approached the table together.
“Charles Sumner?” I asked him. He let out another awkward chuckle and rubbed his head with his hand. Seemingly tugging at the back of his hair.
“It certainly has been a while since anyone has called me by my real name.” He said with a look of both happiness and a little sadness as well. I looked down at Olivia who was already calm as any little kid can be near a strange man sitting on her table. “But yes,” He began again. “I’m Charlie Sumner. Or Tempie if you’d like.” He smiled, his teeth nice and white, and that smile alone calming me down.
“So. You really are the real Charles?” I asked him. Picking up my knocked over a chair and sitting down in it. Far enough away from him to be safe if he tried anything funny. Charles shrugged and looked around the room for a second.
“I wouldn’t say that King Creole is the ‘fake’ Charles Sumner either.” He corrected me. Sighing as he sat with his knees pulled up to his chin. Resting his head on his knees. “I guess you can call us the sides of a coin.” He explained.
“Like Dr. Jelly and Mr. Hide?” Olivia spoke up, raising her little hand up to draw our attention to her. We both looked down at her and offered her a little snicker.
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sweetie,” I told her. Seemingly blowing her mind that she had been saying it wrong this entire time. Charles joined me in a little chuckle but he shook his head after a little bit.
“It isn’t like that exactly. It’s more like this.” He suddenly shifted to more comfortable and began to explain it to the best of his ability. “After I was murdered and brought back I wasn’t instantly King Creole. I was still Charles Sumner. But learning what Mary did to me caused me to lash out and do what I did to her and her accomplices.” He explained, looking at the two of us to see if we were still following along.
“Well, I kept all that anger and rage built up inside of me. I didn’t have anyone to talk to except my momma and I didn’t expect her to understand how I felt. Being brought back to life and having killed and cursed so many people. And one day I guess all that built-up anger and rage split into a completely different creature.” He sighed, his breath shaky as he put his face into his hands.
“King Creole.” I finished for him. “So how can we stop him? We’ve tried everything to beat him.” I asked him, to which he responded with a shrug. Sending my stomach to the floor.
“I don’t know. His spirit is resilient. You saw the Other Travis’ soul. Those kinds of souls seem to have endless energy inside them. They just refuse to give up.” He sighed looking around the kitchen and taking in his surroundings. “Everythings a lot smaller when you aren’t a doll.” He chuckled.
“What about Baron Samedi? He offered to help if we got Travis’ souls to him.” Charles scoffed at that.
“What he’ll probably do is take the souls with him. Probably the first of Creole’s new tribute to him.” He responded to us, suddenly his tan face going pale and backing up quickly from the table. I raised a brow at him but the freezing cold hand being placed on my shoulder shocked me into staying still.
“How right you are.” The familiar voice of Travis with that newly soft southern accent sent me into panic mode as I quickly turned to meet him, only to receive a smack at the back of the head by a hard object. Sending me down to the kitchen floor.
“Get away from me!” Olivia shouted, running away from Creole and quickly climbing up onto the table to cower with Charles. I heard the steps of his dress shoes and the tapping of his cane as he passed me. I reached an arm out to try and stop him, only to have it stepped on by his shoes.
“I do owe you a big thanks, Alexandra.” He told me, a smile on his face as he lowered his face to meet mine as he began grinding his foot into my hand. “You made it much easier to finally rid myself of him.” I could only assume he was talking about Charles.
“I swear to God I’ll fucking rip your head off if you touch Olivia.” I snarled at him, letting out a restrained grunt as he pressed even more weight onto my hand. The sickening crunch that came afterward caused me to let out an agonized scream.
“No need for such foul language. I thought you Brits were taught better than that.” He chuckled, letting my hand go from his vice-like grip and sending a blow right to my ribs, taking the breath out of me.
“Don’t hurt my mommy!” Olivia’s voice brought me back from the brink of passing out in pain. Looking up I saw that she had launched herself at Creole and was frantically beating her with her little hands as she clung to him. She clung to his back as she tried to protect me from him.
“My, certainly a brave effort,” Creole growled. Seconds from getting her off his back when the unmistakable sound of a frying pan hitting him rang out in the kitchen. He stumbled forward and began slumping against the wall. Straining my neck I saw that Charles had managed to reach out and grab a frying pan from the sink and had struck his alter self with it.
“End the seance!” He quickly shouted, looking down at the still flaming candles and the circle keeping him trapped on the table. Not fully understanding why he wanted that, I simply nodded and crawled over to the table. Grabbing the nearest candle I could reach from the floor. I snuffed out against the floor and sighed hard as they all went out. Leaving me and Olivia in darkness.
“Where did he go?” Olivia’s scared voice asked me as she quickly came running over to me and helped me get up to my knees. I looked around our darkened kitchen, still expecting to see Creole against the wall. But to my surprise, he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Looking at the table I saw that Tempie was still sitting on his spot on the kitchen table.
“He must have been called here by the seance. It is a part of his soul after all.” I sighed, mentally smacking myself for not foreseeing the possibility of this happening. I really must stop doing these seances. If anything they’ve just caused nothing but problems. Sitting up and gripping my head as it spun, I managed to get up straight and walk over to Tempie.
“What do we do now, mommy?” Olivia asked me. I looked over to her as I picked Tempie up and handed him to her. She wrapped her arms around him and looked up at me. Still waiting for an answer from me. And I didn’t have one for her. It truly felt like I had nowhere else to go. No way at all to save Travis.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. I really don’t.” I sighed, sitting on the chair and letting out a hard sigh as I touched the back of my head. Wincing at the sting I felt back. I looked over to Olivia who was busy whispering something at Tempie. I raised a brow at that. It had never crossed my mind that she was able to talk to him without the need for a seance. Otherwise how else had she known that I was in danger at the voodoo store?
“Mommy?” Her excited voice quickly brought me out of that train of thought and I looked down at her.
“Tempie says that maybe he can help us after all!” She said quickly, jumping up and down and holding the little template doll up in the air as she did so. I looked at them both with doubts but I listened to their plan. Olivia did her best to describe it and I listened to both of them.
“Can that even work? I mean honestly you two. That has to be really one of the brashest ideas ever.” I snuffed at them. Olivia held Tempie up to her ear and nodded as he seemingly whispered to her. She nodded and looked back at me.
“He says to tell you that it isn’t as dumb as you rushing in there with only a knife.” She said with a straight face. I sighed and shook my head. Well, he wasn’t wrong about that one. So I finally nodded, standing up and walking over to the two of them.
“We might as well try it. Because if it doesn’t work, we’re all going to be screwed.” I chuckled nervously. Picking the two of them up with a grunt and walking off to go and prepare everything we were going to need. This included some more chalk, candles, a branch from the tree outside, and of course a bottle of Olivia’s old mother’s booze.
All packed up the three of us waited till nightfall and made our way out towards the voodoo store. We weren’t expecting it to be closed, it is open 24 hours after all. In fact, the whole plan was expecting the store to be open and for King Creole to be there. Lucky enough for us he was currently dealing with the man I had seen him with the last time he was there. I wonder how badly getting rid of his wife had messed him up.
“Okay, Tempie. Show Olivia the right circles to draw. And Olivia be careful not to burn yourself or Tempie. We have to get this right or it isn’t going to work at all.” I told the two of them as we hid in the alley next to the store. They both nodded up at me and with one final hug of Olivia, I stood and went back to the door.
Just in time to see the undead corpse of a woman shambling into the store right before me. Keeping my mouth shut to keep me from screaming I let her go ahead. I peeked into the store as I saw the woman shambling over towards who I could only guess was her husband. The old zombie trick, he must be running out of ideas.
The man let out a bloodcurdling scream as the undead woman latched onto him and began biting into his neck. I watched as Creole chuckled to himself as the body was eaten in front of him. Taking this opportunity I entered the store again and quickly dropped my purse in the door to keep it from closing all the way. I wasn’t going to let him lock me in here again.
He looked over at the door, most likely expecting another customer, but his smile quickly turned into an angry scowl as he saw me.
“Don’t you have anything better to do than annoy me?” He asked, sitting up straight and walking past the counter over to me. His displeasure rose with each step towards me. I stood my ground as he walked closer to me.
“If you give me Travis back this could all be over,” I told me, puffing out my chest to meet his gaze as he finally stood mere inches from me. He chuckled at me and raised a brow at me. I can still never shake the horror of seeing Creole’s mannerisms coming from Travis’ body. It hurts my heart terribly to see it.
“You know I can’t do that. And ain’t nothing going to convince me neither.” He smiled at me, reaching his hand out and calmly grabbing me by the throat. I took the chance to inhale deeply and store as much air in my lungs as I could before he began to put pressure onto my windpipe. I stared at him with as much hatred as he stared back at me. And then I made a smile at him.
“Gotcha.” I coughed out at him. He raised a brow at me before he was tackled from behind by the undead woman. Sending the both of us forward and thanks to the ajar door, stumbling forward into the street. His grip loosened on me and quickie crawled away from him and the woman.
“You rotting whore!” He snarled, grabbing the woman by her hair and jamming his fingers into her eye. Her whole body soon began to disintegrate and disappear into the night in a cloud of ash. He turned to look at me, just as I placed the last candle down on the floor. He stared at the symbol on the floor and then at the candles and he quickly began crawling to try and blow one of them out.
“Hold!” I shouted at the floor. The chalk symbols glowing and Creole’s hand stopping inches away from the candle. He looked around like the trapped rodent he was. Smashing against a seemingly invisible box around him and clawing at it for some sort of escape.
“You sneaky bitch.” He snarled, standing up and looking at me and then Olivia who quickly ran to my side with Tempie in tow. “You realize this can’t hold me very long, correct?” He snuffed at me. I nodded to him, picking up Olivia and walking around the circle towards the voodoo store entrance.
“But it will hold you long enough to save Travis,” I said with a raised head. As I and Olivia returned one last time.
To the Half Priced Voodoo Store.