Chapter 87 The Possessive Heart!!

Chapter 87 The Possessive Heart!!
Emilio POV

I felt it was my right to defend what belonged to me; but it meant nothing at all to her.

When Saintilia told me that what happened at Jacob’s house was none of my business, a rage unlike anything I had ever known lit inside me.

I had seen everything from behind that tree.

She did not know I had followed her. She did not know I had heard her broken voice accuse him. The pain in every word as she described what he had done to her. I had watched her throw that rock at his head with a fury that matched my own.

So how dare she dismiss me?

I was the man who had stayed awake while danger came for her during the night. I was the one who stood guard as the very dark air outside my walls thickened with malice meant for her. Did she not understand what I had done? Did she not understand the power I had stood against?

I was not a man easily frightened, but the night was different. At first, the drumming was faint, so low I thought it might have been my own heartbeat. Then it grew louder, steady and insistent. Chanting followed, distant but clear, words spoken in a tongue that was not meant to be understood.

There was a change in the air before the first sound reached my ears. The house grew too still, as if every living thing around it had pulled back and lowered its head. Even the insects quieted. Even the trees seemed to hold their breath.

I stood in the center of the room and listened.

Then the drumming came.
Low.
Distant.
Patient.

It did not move like ordinary sound. It pressed against the walls, slipped beneath the door, crawled up, and found the rhythm of my blood. Whoever had sent it knew what they were doing. This was not the wild noise of a foolish man playing with darkness he did not understand.

I knew it the way a fisherman knows the weight of a storm before the rain falls.

Something had been called, fed, and pointed toward my house.

Toward Saintilia.

My fear came, but I did not bow to it. Fear was useful when a man knew how to hold it. Fear sharpened the eyes. Fear steadied the hand. Fear reminded the spirit inside the body that death was not only a story told about other men.

I rushed into the room where I kept my things.
The bottle of white rum.
The pouch of grave dirt.
The black candle wrapped in cloth.
The small knife with the bone handle.

The dried herbs the voodoo priest had taught me to keep close when the dead grew restless and the living became foolish enough to trouble them.

My hands moved quickly, but not blindly. I knew the order. I knew the names. I knew what must be awakened and what must be warned to stay away.

This was my house.
My ground.

My breath had warmed these walls. My sweat had fallen into the boards. My secrets lived beneath this roof. No spirit sent by another hand had the right to cross my threshold without answering to me first.

I poured rum into my palm and flung it toward the door.
Then toward the window.
Then to the four corners of the house.
The smell rose sharp and clean.

I struck the match and lit the black candle. Its flame bent sideways though there was no wind. That was when I knew the thing had reached the yard.

A scrape moved across the outer wall.

Slow.
Dry.
Deliberate.
Not claws.
Not branches.
Bone.

Something was dragging itself along the wood, testing the house the way a thief tests a locked door.

I smiled then, not because I felt brave, but because anger had finally found its place inside me.

“So you came,” I whispered.

The scraping stopped.
The drumbeat deepened.

I took the knife and cut a shallow line across my thumb. Blood welled bright and warm. I pressed it against the doorpost, then marked the sign I had been taught never to draw unless I meant to fight.

The candle flame rose.
The walls answered with a low groan.
Outside, something hissed.
It knew me now.

Good.
Let it know.

I began to chant, not loudly at first, but with the weight of a man calling on every spirit that had ever accepted his offerings, every shadow that had eaten from his hand, every old force that knew the sound of his voice. My words climbed over the drumming, rough and steady, pushing back against the rhythm that had tried to claim my blood.

The house trembled.
The latch shook once.
Then again.
The thing outside struck the door.
Hard.

The blow cracked through the room like a tree splitting in a storm, but I did not step back. I planted my feet wider and spat rum onto the floor between me and the entrance.

“You do not enter here,” I said.

Another strike came.
This time the door bent inward.
The candle guttered, almost dying.

I reached into the pouch and threw grave dirt across the threshold. The moment it touched the floor, the air filled with a rotten sweetness, like flowers left too long on a tomb. The thing screamed outside, a thin, tearing sound that was almost human and almost animal, but not enough of either to belong to God.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

Still, I kept chanting.

The words burned my throat. Sweat ran down my back. The floor beneath me felt alive, pulsing with the battle moving through it. The spirit pushed from outside, and I pushed back from within, my voice, my blood, my offerings, my will all braided into one command.

This was not only a fight of strength.

It was a fight of ownership.

The thing wanted permission.

I denied it.

The drumbeat faltered.

I heard movement along the wall again, faster now, angry. It circled the house, scraping, whispering, searching for weakness. The window shutters rattled. The roof creaked. Something heavy dragged itself over the steps and paused there, breathing against the door.

I lifted the knife.

The candle flame turned tall and black at the center.

It whispered my name.

Not the name people used.

The old name.

The one given in ceremony.

A coldness passed through me then, sharp enough to make my knees weaken. To know that name meant it had been sent with purpose. It had been given a path into me.

But knowing a man’s name was not the same as owning him.

I pressed my bleeding thumb against my tongue and answered with the name of the spirit I served.

The room cracked with heat.

The candle flame leapt so high it touched the smoke-dark ceiling. The thing outside shrieked again, louder this time, and the sound tore through the yard, scattering birds from the trees though it was the dead of night.

I stepped toward the door.

One step.

Continue……….