This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Voodoo_Clerk on 2024-05-23 19:22:01+00:00.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

The conversation with my dad about King Creole was the most heated I’ve ever had. Just mentioning his name to my dad was enough to send him into shock. He demanded to know where I had heard that name. I had to tell him everything about what had happened to me and my friends. About how we had been breaking into places to steal valuables and how it had all gone wrong the moment we entered the voodoo store. 

“I can’t believe this,” my dad said as he buried his face into his hands and let out a shaky exhale. I didn’t know what to do as I watched my dad tear up. I rubbed my arm as he began to cry into his hands. I didn’t know if it was because his daughter had been reduced to robbing places to help keep us off the street or that both of us were now under the control of a psychopathic voodoo man. 

“I’m sorry Dad…” I said as I left him to digest the knowledge I just dumped on him. I left out the part where I had been stabbed in the neck and nearly killed. I figured he could handle only so much terrible news. His deal with Creole was for a better-paying job and he had just been called for the opportunity to enter the management of one of the only remaining manufacturing plants left in town. Then I had to come and rain on his parade. 

But knowing Creole, there had to be some kind of horrible strings attached to this wish granting. Nothing was ever straightforward with him. And as I pulled out the contract I signed with him I quickly began to realize that while this document guaranteed my dad and mom’s lives, it didn’t guarantee mine. Or for that matter, it didn’t guarantee their lives if something happened to me. In my fury and panic over my dad having made a deal with Creole I hadn’t been able to think clearly. Maybe I should’ve hired a lawyer to help me look over this thing. 

While I was lamenting my lack of legal representation as if on cue, my phone began to ring. I already knew who it was and I didn’t want to answer it. But then I would have to explain to my dad who the undead bellboy was who had just shown up at our door looking for me. So begrudgingly I reached out and picked up the phone to answer it. 

“My marvelous Mace! Could you come on over to the shop? Seems we have an issue that you need to help resolve.” Creole’s cheery southern voice was enough to make me want to punch a hole into my bedroom wall. I didn’t even bother answering him, simply grunting in reply and hanging up on him. If he wasn’t going to even be paying me for all this he was going to get the bare minimum of effort from me. 

Bringing my usual items of lockpicking, a new can of pepper spray, and my phone, I applied more ointment to my invisible scar and headed downstairs. My dad was still at the kitchen table, staring forlornly at the table as I wordlessly left the house. I’m sure he could figure out where I was going, so it didn’t matter if I told him or not. 

Walking down the street I was again lost in my mind thinking about how screwed I was. I was so focused I didn’t even realize that a limo had pulled up alongside me. And it wasn’t until some unseen force yanked me inside that I did realize that. Before I had a chance to reach into my pocket for my pepper spray, it was yanked away by an unseen slimy force. I couldn’t even let out a scream because that same slimy force quickly covered my mouth and filled my nostrils with a noxious and horrible odor. 

“I’d rather not have you pepper spray me again, woman.” The familiar voice told me as my eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness inside the limo. As my eyes adjusted, the sallow face of Constantine Sinclair stared back at me with nothing but disgust in his exhausted eyes. I felt something heavy lean onto my shoulder and looked over to see the skeletal face of his shadow creature staring back at me with its pure white eyes. 

“I’ll make this quick, the less time I spend here the better,” he said as he reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a cigar. I half expected him to pull out a gun and whack me like a mob boss or something. Instead, he calmly produced a cigar cutter and snipped the end off of his stogie. “Why were you in my mansion? More importantly, what were you doing with files concerning my mother?” he asked as he placed the cigar in his mouth. His shadow monster slithered away from me and removed its hand from my mouth. It then suddenly produced a match and lit the cigar of its master for him.

“Creole sent me there to gather them. I don’t exactly know why,” I told him, doing my best to not gag from the double whammy of the rotting smell of the shadow and now the cigar smoke. Sinclair huffed and blew out a bluish plume of smoke into the dimly lit limo. I wanted so badly to roll down the window but I figured that he had them child-proofed in the back. 

“As I figured. Asshole was trying to get leverage over me,” he said as he took a drag from his cigar. He wasn’t focusing on me, but his shadow kept a close eye on me, its pure white eyes keeping an obsessive watch over me. “And I take it that you work for him now?” Sinclair asked after a moment more of thought. 

“Unfortunately,” I answered, he nodded again and looked to his shadow who suddenly got a disappointed look on its face. “What are you going to do to me?” I asked him after a moment. I thought that maybe if he didn’t let me go I could use my tools for lockpicking as some sort of weapon if he tried something. But I doubted that I could fist-fight a weird goopy shadow monster. 

“Nothing. For now. But if you ever set foot on my property ever again, I won’t hesitate to feed you to him.” His shadow unhinged its jaw and produced a gaping maw at me that sent a shiver up my spine. I wanted so badly to just be away from him. “And tell your boss, to keep his disgusting undead hands off of my property as well.” He shooed me away and on that cue, the doors to the limo unlocked. I quickly exited the limo and put as much distance as possible between me and him. 

“Oh, one more thing,” he said as the window rolled down. I looked back and was suddenly hit in the forehead by the can of pepper spray. I let out a pained grunt and rubbed my forehead as the limo slowly drove away. I bent over and picked up the spray and watched as his limo slowly faded into the distance. 

“Fucking asshole,” I mumbled as I shoved the pepper spray back into my pocket and continued on my way to the voodoo shop. A part of me wished that Sinclair’s shadow had eaten me. Because maybe then I wouldn’t have to do whatever it was that Creole was going to send me on. But I had a family to protect so I sucked in as much air as I could and entered the store, the sad rusty bell signaling my arrival. 

“Mace! Just the woman I was expecting,” Creole greeted me with giddy excitement. I offered him a little wave as I approached the register. I was surprised to see that Jacob wasn’t there and it made me a little sad not to see him waiting for me there. But I did my best to hide my contempt for Creole, afterall I couldn’t let him get bored of me already.“What have you got for me this time, sir?” I asked with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. Creole was ecstatic with my minimal amount of effort and he quickly sprang up from the chair and sauntered over to me, quickly wrapping an arm over me and pulling me close to him. Clearly, he still had no concept of personal space. 

“Well as it turns out, we need to clean up a mess the two of us made! Turns out that version of you that crawled out of that lil ol’ mirror I had you get is causing some amount of issues. So I need you to go and deal with it!” He framed it like it was as simple as going to the gas station and picking up some snacks or something. 

“How…am I supposed to kill that thing? And if I kill it…her? Will it kill me?” I asked him. Cause if that was the case I would rather have her roaming around than have the two of us dying. 

“Excellent questions, Mace! First, this is how you’ll beat the creature.” He reached into his suit and pulled out a small little golden bell. I stared at him in confusion. How the hell was a bell supposed to save me? He rang the bell and we both waited a moment. Then suddenly Jacob popped up from behind the register, saluting like some kind of superbly dressed soldier. 

“Be a good boy and bring the dagger, Jacob my boy,” Creole told the happy bellhop, who quickly nodded and practically skipped over to us and presented a dagger to Creole. It was a simple knife in a ceramic sheath. Nothing fancy about it, and if anything it seemed like some kind of prop that a crappy high school play would use. 

“I have to get close to her?” I asked him as I took the knife with apprehension. I unsheathed it and was greeted with…a normal-looking dagger. How was this thing any better than a regular pocket knife? And for that matter how was this going to kill that version of me? 

“Well, you got plenty close when you stared at the mirror. I’m sure you can deal with it no problem,” Creole said with a smile letting me go and...

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