Cursed-epub by Ann Mayburn Read Free Book Online

one’s Comhcheol and considered a great blessing from the gods when it happened. He sent a silent prayer of thanks to his god, Maponus, for bringing him here.
    Snapping his fingers in Sean's face, Kell said, “Well, your little flower is in a samba school that is being used for some kind of demonic magic. You need to worry about what is going on and how it might be affecting your lady before you two start picking out curtains.”
    Sean clenched his fists at the thought of Carmella coming to any harm. “You're right. Let's get back inside and see what Dianta and Miguel want us to do for the Carnival. We still need to coordinate our theater troupe with their musicians and dancers. No reason to let them know we’re suspicious.”
    Standing and pulling his damp shirt from his back, Sean said, “Tomorrow I'm going to have Monica and Whitney come in and work with their choreographers. We need to keep everything as normal as possible, and I still have that charity DJ gig tomorrow night. Warn everyone to wear protection charms before they come to this school and to always stay with at least one other member of our troupe.”
    Kell ground out the cigarette butt into the dust with his boot. “No rest for the weary, my friend.”
     
    ****
     
    Carmella didn't want to leave the peaceful solitude of the dance studio. She hadn't been inside this room since her father passed away. It used to be one of her favorite practice spaces with its polished wood floors and soft butterscotch-painted walls. As a child, she’d spent endless hours watching her father teach the samba, the carimbó and the lundu. Some of her favorite memories were of watching her father and mother twirling together in these mirrors.
    If she was really good and promised to stay quiet, they would let her watch the carimbó practice. It was a sensual dance with a woman and a man seeking to seduce each other on the floor. Dressed in white shirts and pants with bright red strips of cloth as belts, the men looked so dashing to her young eyes.
    The women wore long flowing skirts with brightly colored designs. They would flip the skirts at their male partners, twirling and using the cloth as an extension of their bodies. She loved the costumes. It was part of the reason she’d begged the school's old seamstress to teach her to sew.
    Watching herself in the mirror, she began to dance, really dance, for the first time since her father died. She started slow, a few turns, an arc of the arms. With a frown, she took off her bulky shirt and tossed it in the corner. Standing at the barre at the back of the wall, she began to go through her stretching routine. Her body remembered the moves. They were so ingrained she could do them in her sleep. Muscles woke and protested as her tendons warmed up and her heart beat faster to rush oxygen through her blood.
    Clad in a white tank top and her sports bra, she smiled at her reflection and did a couple of lightning-fast turns. Her baggy pants rode low, leaving an inch of her lower stomach and the top curves of her hips sticking out. The sight of her protruding hipbones brought a momentary flash of dismay. When had she gotten so skinny? She didn't remember looking into the mirror and seeing so much bone. In fact, she couldn't think of the last time she had looked at her body.
    Taking in a deep lungful of air, she could almost smell the sharp spice of her father's cologne in the air, as if it had become a part of the room. How he had loved to dance. Snapping her fingers, she wished she had musicians here to give her a beat. The need to move filled her until she practically vibrated with energy. The pain in her soul could be cleansed with the fire of dance. Flexing her feet and rotating her ankles, she looked through the collection of CDs Fatima kept on top of the sound system.
    Carmella smiled and pulled out one of Sean's CDs. On the cover, a large tree beneath a night sky gave shelter to a sleeping child. The title was Dreams of Innocence