A Grimoire Dark

by D. S. Quinton

  Jo tried to ignore the Crow, but felt her dark presence behind her right before a sharp pain shot through her ear as a thumbnail dug into the soft tissue of her ear lobe.

  “Watch that wretched boy,” the Crow said, tugging her head around. “And keep him out of my way. Your time here is almost over. I’d hate for anything to delay your departure from our loving establishment.”

  With that, the Crow was gone, flying away to torment someone else.

  Jo felt hot tears rush up the inside of her head and spill over her eyelids. There was nothing that was going to keep her from Del. Not the orphanage. Not Jimmy. And certainly not the Crow.

  Jo’s mind flooded with hate and longing, a dangerous mixture. The longing for Del was the hope that kept her sane in this awful place. The fear of losing Del was suffocating. She’d rather die. The hate towards anyone who tried to stand between her and Del… well, that simply wouldn’t happen.

  Jo knew that it was time to talk to the strange man in the cemetery.

  Chapter 42

  Frank and Armand walked into the halfway house at 2:00 pm. They had been talking all morning about the startling discovery made the night before, that Del was a descendant of the famous Marie Laveau. After their long talk in the morning, they had a long lunch at Frank’s favorite pub, and were quite happy with themselves by the third Bloody Mary.

  “And how are my two favorite gals dis morning?” Frank said proudly with a warm, sleepy-eyed look.

  The two women looked puzzled, then, watching Armand fluff his mustache in the mirror, realized the men weren’t just naturally happy to see them.

  “Well, well…” Mama Dedé said. “Look at da peacocks that just strolled in here. You boys puff your chests anymore and you’ll bust some buttons!”

  “Mon chéri,” Armand said grandly, “why does a peacock strut?”

  The women exchanged looks again.

  “Because, it is in its nature to do so!” he said, tipping forward slightly.

  “Heh, Frenchy, I think I liked you more before Frank rubbed off on you,” Mama Dedé said, pouring them both some coffee. “Now drink this and get your minds right. We got some things to talk about.”

  “Indeed, indeed,” Armand said, sitting down at the kitchen table.

  Mama Dedé said, “We got us da genuine article,” as she looked at Del.

  Del blushed a bit and fidgeted in her chair.

  “Do tell,” Frank said.

  Mama Dedé described the first trancing session they’d had.

  “Our girl got da knack. She got more than just a knack. She got the raw power.”

  “How do you know?” Armand asked.

  After describing the scene with the butterfly, everyone beamed at Del.

  “Fascinating,” Armand said. “Simply fascinating. What did it feel like, Del?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Sort of like floating… and dreaming at the same time, although I was completely aware of what was happening.”

  “Fascinating,” Armand echoed again.

  “And in fact,” Del said, “I was super aware of everything. Like I’d had too much coffee. My mind, it was… tingling, sort of. Excited. Especially when I first heard the water.”

  Mama Dedé clanked her spoon in surprise. “What do you mean, honey? What water?”

  Del shrugged her shoulders and took a sip. “Couldn’t you hear it? I don’t know, it was just water dripping. It seems silly now that I think about it, but at the time I thought it was someone’s life-force dripping. Weird, huh? I got the sense that it was little moments of life dripping along, but it could have been my imagination.”

  A look of concern fell over the old woman’s face, and she was silent for several seconds, but not wanting to put too much emphasis on this knowledge, quickly changed the subject. “Don’t be worrying about those drips. They ain’t nothin’. You just worry about the colors and how to read ‘em. We got a lot of work to do, still.”

  Del wrinkled the side of her mouth at this, but said no more.

  “Colors?” Armand asked. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s just how you can tell if a trancin’ scene is old or new. Da whole scene looks different, da area, da people. Just different.”

  Frank rolled his cigar in his mouth as he tracked the conversation.

  Armand slowly twisted his bushy mustache on both ends, as if winding the springs of his mind to a careful calibration. The lights in his eyes dimmed, then brightened as his mind fixed around the concept Mama Dedé was explaining.

  “You can actually see other people, well… the remnants of other… entities, when you are trancing?” Armand asked.

  “That’s da best way to think on it, I guess,” she said. “There’s a lot of colors in a trance. It takes a while to get used to seein’ um. At first, they just all swirled together like a cloud. That’s what Del was seein’ today. With more practice, she’ll start to see more color, but it’ll all be mixed up, like da color of mud. But as you get stronger at the trancin’, you can finally see ‘em. They scenes, you see, scenes of things that gonna happen or might happen or already happened somewhere.

  “You can always tell da old scenes, they kinda got a little hint of red to ‘em—a haze. Da older they get, da red gets darker and faded as they move away from you. Da scenes that ain’t happened yet—they still comin’ at ya—look a little blueish. Just a little hint around the edges. But what makes trancin’ really hard, is seein’ da colors that other people have left; who’s been watchin’ da same scene.”

  The two men listened in disbelief.

  “It’s like this,” she continued. “So when you seein’ a scene, if someone else has been trancin’ on da same thing, they leave a bit of imprint around da edge of da scene as well. Sort of a… a faint color trail. It’s like a very faint fingerprint of your… essence, I guess. Each person looks a little different, and you can tell if someone has been trancin’ around da same scene as you because you can see a bit of their color around da edge. One of da problems is that you don’t know if that essence was just recently there, or they was there a long time ago.

  “I’ve seen people leave purple smudge marks, sometimes a wispy line of orange or yellow. Pretty faint most times, and those are better trancers. Some people can trance, but never see anything, so they don’t really leave a mark. You just feel ‘em pass right by. They never see nothin’. Marie Laveau now, she leave a dark green shimmer around da edge of da whole scene. Don’t matter if it has a red-haze or blue-haze, you can tell it was her, once you know what to look for. She tells me I leave long wisps of yellow, runnin’ up and down. Just a real faint yellow.”

  “We can do it,” Armand said suddenly, looking at Frank. “I was skeptical this morning, then over lunch, well, the liquid courage helped, but now hearing this, I think we can actually do it.”

  Frank nodded slowly in agreement.

  “Do what?” Del asked.

  “We have a plan to trap and kill the Gris-gris man.”

  An hour later, the four still sat around the kitchen table. Mama Dedé had been quiet while listening to their plan.

  “But we ain’t got da spell yet,” she said sternly. “Marie unbound that unholy spirit years ago ‘cause she knew the right spell!”

  “But what if that’s not the only way to kill him?” Armand asked. “If he took a physical form, if he’s bound to a form, it’s a form that can burn, correct?” He looked around the table for agreement. “It’s not like he’s bound to a rock, or something that can’t physically be destroyed.”

  The old woman sighed deeply. “We don’t know how he came back, so we don’t know what he’s bound to, but I would agree that it’s most likely a person, or a body at least.”

  “Someone read from the books, though,” Armand said, “didn’t they? Isn’t this what started everything? Isn’t this how he came back?”

  “That’s da only way I know,” Mama Dedé said.

  “But where is the third—”

  “Or people,” Fr
ank said, interrupting, sending a spark of ash onto his stomach and slapping it away frantically.

  Armand’s thought process was visibly broken as he watched the shower of sparks with annoyance. He thought the clumsy detective routine didn’t always fit Frank, and wondered if he hadn’t learned how to work it advantageously into his mannerisms over the years.

  He remembered playing poker with Frank and some guys from the local newspaper one time, years before. Frank, thinner then, had the same bumbling routine, and always with the cigar. Just when someone was on a winning streak Frank would spill his drink or drop his cigar in his lap; never obvious, always discrete; Armand had lost his shirt to Frank that night. “What was I saying? We were just talking about—”

  “Der’s been three deaths dat we know of, and a missing person. So we’re sayin’ he could look like any one of dem? Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”

  Drawn back to this other interesting theory like a moth to a flame, Armand said quietly, “Yes, or any combination, I suppose.”

  Frank watched Armand. “What combination?”

  “The monstrosity, mon ami. Remember when we spoke, just a few days ago—”

  “Hell, it seems like we just thought it,” Frank said.

  “Yes, I agree. Time is moving quickly; against us, I’m afraid,” Armand said. “But when we first spoke of this… legend, for at the time that’s all it seemed to be, we knew of references to unholy bindings and monstrosities. Alas, we must remember that whatever we are looking for, it may not look like what we’d expect.”

  “But you think we can trap it, and kill it?” Del said.

  “Yes, I do,” Armand said. “With all the knowledge sitting at this table, I believe we can lure it—especially now that we’ve learned what a wonderful trancer we have—lure it, trap it how we described, just long enough to set the fire, and kill it. For good.”

  The looks across the table were of cautious optimism.

  “When do we do this?” Del asked.

  Armand looked at Frank. “When do you think we can have things ready?”

  “Maybe… tomorrow night?” Frank said cautiously as his eyes twinkled.

  Armand felt the slightest unease at the odd look of anticipation on Frank’s face. What did he just see?

  Mama Dedé rubbed her hands nervously. “I don’t know, I don’t know. I just wish we had da unbinding spell. I’ve tried to get it from Marie before, but she always fades away when I start thinkin’ on it.”

  “It’ll work,” Frank said, bolstering everyone’s confidence. “I think this is our best shot. It’ll work.”

  He looked around the table and nodded enthusiasm toward each person. Each person nodded back.

  The plan was set.

  Chapter 43

  Frank and Armand left the halfway house right after they met with Mama Dedé and Del. They both had prep work to do.

  Frank watched as the St. Augustine Transitional Home for Girls—now the impromptu Voodoo Training Center for Fighting Legendary Monstrosities—grew smaller in his rearview mirror. Despite the cold mist that still hung about the city, he cranked his window down and let his arm hang out the side as he drove. The cold air was refreshing. The heavy fog-mist quickly formed large beads on his fat cheeks, but he relished in the wild, fresh air. He felt more alive today than any time he could remember since his wife’s death. He would let his instincts guide him.

  He breathed a deep breath and felt a sense of calm overcome him. He knew he was putting Del at risk by including her in the plan—Armand had originally disagreed with him—but it was the only way, Frank was sure of it. In fact, he wanted it this way.

  He backed into his driveway and stopped right before the garage door. He killed the lights, then walked around and opened the large trunk. He raised the old garage door, flipped on a light and began collecting his items.

  Twenty minutes later his trunk was full with four hand-forged steal wolf traps his grandfather had used, spikes, a sledge hammer, two cans of gasoline, an Old Judge coffee can full of red brick dust that he had taped a plastic lid over, a bag of dried High John root, several old gunny sacks, and his twelve-gauge shotgun.

  Looking around the garage, he scanned across his old work bench. Is dat really necessary? he thought. You want to walk dat path again?

  Maybe.

  He walked to the work bench and opened a large drawer. He withdrew a small, expertly crafted wooden box. Within the box was a black leather diary and black cloth bag. He took both.

  Frank had one more stop—or at least a drive-by—to make before he went back to the halfway house. Ever since the first body appeared, something had tugged at the back of his mind. It was a splinter under his nail that he couldn’t quite reach.

  As he drove the half-flooded roads out of the city, he thought back to an old case. The Glapion murders. The case that made him a semi-celebrity around town had been a gruesome one: husband and wife murdered in the most brutal manner, a long trail of suspects and clues, brutality, rituals.

  He had found them in a shack at the edge of the swamp. They had been kept alive for nearly two solid weeks, the coroner had said. This was based on the condition of the severely emaciated bodies, and the fact that the wife was still alive when he found her. She was gibbering in a state of madness as she frantically tried to reattach her husband’s arm; she never realized that she was in fact holding his thigh bone the entire time.

  She died within hours of being found, and never spoke a coherent word besides the single sentence she repeated over and over:

  * * *

  Ouvre baye pou mwen, Papa!

  Ouvre baye pou mwen!

  * * *

  The translation was:

  * * *

  Open the gate for me, Papa!

  Open the gate for me!

  * * *

  The grisly scene was a Voodoo ritual that had gone bad. Two brothers claimed to have heard voices telling them how to call up an ancient spirit, but a vessel was needed for it to attach to. They kidnapped the couple and kept them alive—how was never determined—in order to keep the bones, meat and organs as fresh as possible while they constructed their masterpiece.

  Both of the man’s legs had been taken off—at different places—along with both of the woman’s. This, according to the coroner, was a nearly impossible feat, considering they lived through the entire operation. Both of his arms were eventually removed. Three of the legs had been woven onto the pelvis of a wild boar skeleton with barbed wire. The man’s arms had been connected to the boar’s shoulders, but the original front limbs of the animal were left intact. The skeleton had a total of seven limbs. The muscles of the man’s legs had been sown haphazardly around the bones, in the belief that when the spirit was bound to the skeleton, it would know how to make the limbs move. The spine was from the boar, giving the skeleton an abnormally long gait, but the head had been replaced by the skull of an alligator, which had been attached via barbed wire as well. Once the skeleton was assembled, the two brothers commenced to placing the organs.

  It hadn’t occurred to Frank before, but a deep dread settled over him as he realized how closely the facts of the old case aligned with the clues—and theories of legends—of the case that he was dealing with now.

  The case was solved to a satisfactory degree, but justice was never officially served, considering the two brothers never made it to trial. The gruesome facts were told the first day of their capture—they were all too happy to recite their plan, and talked like cocaine freaks on a two-day binge—and considering they were brothers, no one thought it abnormal to jail them in the same cell. However, no one thought they would be found dead after having chewed each other’s tongues out, either.

  The two brothers were listed as agitated in the rounds log by the night guard. They were both awake at 11:00 pm. By 6:00 am the next morning, they had managed to chew the others tongue off and write

  * * *

  Ouvre baye pou mwen, Papa!

  * * *

  all
over the cell walls in blood before they died.

  Frank came out of his daydream as he turned onto Bayou Rd. He hadn’t been on this road in years, but just seeing the name on the old road sign snapped him out of his dream and back into reality.

  He drove slowly down the two-lane blacktop road as he approached the old farmhouse, and stopped before turning into the drive. At this point, the house was much closer to a shack, but somehow remained standing as if by sheer will alone. The old drive had once been covered with a thin layer of shale, sand and creek gravel, but only a few stubborn patches of the hard gravel pack remained; the rest had become part of an ever-extending overgrown field.

  Frank was surprised to see what looked like tire tracks through the high weeds. Someone had recently been there, and whoever it was knew where the original drive was.

  He pulled his car into the drive and followed it around to the back of the old house.

  He looked carefully around the weedy area, and thought he saw tracks that led to the side porch, which would take him to the front of the house; he preferred to enter through the back.

  The back door was protected by a large covered back porch with a rusty screen door that creaked in the wind on ancient hinges. He looked at the crud-covered padlock that secured the door; it hadn’t seen a key in decades, he was sure. Some quick work with a small prybar and the old door gave way. Like most doors this age, the internal locking mechanism no longer worked, and the padlock hinge was connected by decaying screws; the heads popped right off with a bit of leverage.

  Entering through the back led him straight into an old kitchen. The first thing to hit him was the dead smell of the ancient house. It smelled of sweltering attic rafters, old moldy basement beams and a hundred layers of dust and cobwebs. It was a heavy smell, of age, rot, and death.