Big Easy Evil
Heather Graham
Big Easy Evil Copyright © 2017 by Heather Graham
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior express written permission of the author. Unauthorized reproduction of this material, electronic or otherwise, will result in legal action.
Big Easy Evil is a work of fiction. The people and events in it are entirely fictional. This story is not intended by the author as a reflection of historical or current fact, nor is the story intended as an accurate representation of past or current events. Any resemblance between the characters in this novel and any or all persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Prologue
Demons
“Come to me!”
Casey Cormier wasn’t frightened at first; she thought she’d imagined the words. She was busy; deeply involved in the advertising design she was working on for a local Christmas festival to be put on by one of the major toy companies. And while it had been great to have Gill Martin and Chrissy Monroe come by to ooh and ah over the decorations, it had taken a bite out of time.
She had a lot of work to do.
They were still in October, of course, but in truth, that meant they were late for December, and she had been given a rush job.
“Casey!”
She did hear her name. She looked up, perplexed. She was alone in the house.
Gill and Chrissy had left well over an hour ago. Sean had left about fifteen minutes later.
From happy little dancing reindeer on her computer screen, she studied the Halloween decorations around the house. A rubber skeleton danced down from the archway to the kitchen; the walls were covered with broomstick-riding witches, demon faces, and jack-o-lanterns. The door that led to the foyer was decorated with skeletal and ghostly creatures, spiders, and bloody hearts. The crowning glory of the inside decorations was the life-sized ghostly vampire standing by the coffee table in the middle of the room; the thing was an antique, “Mr. Devil Demon,” one-half of a prize Sean had found at an auction for theme-park owners and operators.
“Mrs. Devil Demon” was outside, by the cemetery.
Casey was in the downstairs parlor of the Victorian house she knew so well—the New Orleans Garden District family home she was in the process of buying from her parents. Her mom and dad had moved down to Florida, anxious to spend their golden years out on their boat. Of course, what she paid them was nominal—enough to keep a pair of retirees going. And they were delighted she was there; the house had been in the family since it had been built back in 1855. It was home; she loved it. She was so comfortable here! She lived in the house now with Sean DeMille, the love of her life. They’d marry soon enough, when they could make all the right arrangements.
She shook her head, looking around. One of the Halloween pieces had to “talk.” Motion activated or on a timer. It was a good thing she wasn’t easily scared. Only the pieces right by her on the secretary were cheerful and leaning toward the fun side of Halloween; they were her purchases and one was a small, smiling jack-o-lantern made of papier-mâché or some such similar substance and the second was a metallic black kitty candle holder. She had also bought a poster of a silly, happy, dim-witted witch and that was up above the secretary on the wall.
Fun.
She had to concentrate. Cute little deer were in her world at the moment, while this…
Sean was the one who had gone a little bit Halloween crazy. The front yard had blow-up creatures—some from movies, some from popular lore, and it delighted Sean to no end watching dozens of people stop for pictures—some asking if they minded when they were home, and some hoping they weren’t home when they opened the old iron gate to slip in for photo ops. His biggest thrill was bringing in the kids from the poorer districts—letting them shiver and laugh and…celebrate. But, Sean was also working for a living and his boss, Jeff Abernathy, had called. Ned Denton, the operating manager that night, couldn’t solve a problem; and Sean, being Sean, had hurried in, certain he’d only be a few minutes.
And so, she was alone. Alone, and she’d been alone here dozens of times before. It was her home. She loved it. She was never afraid here…
But now…
“Casey…”
She heard her name called again. The sound was deep, husky, eerie…like something uttered from a long dead and dried out corpse.
And then she thought she heard a “No!”
As if there were two people in her house, one urging her to do something, and one urging her not to do something!
She stood, forgetting her computer—and the rush job for the moment.
A branch scraped against the side parlor window, making her scream and jump—and then feel like a fool.
It had been a branch—just a branch.
“Casey…”
“Sean, you’re an ass!” she said aloud. That had to be the answer. Sean had set up something in the house, something motion-activated or on a timer. She adored Sean; they’d both grown up in New Orleans, but, Sean was three years older and been in a private school while she’d attended a public one; they hadn’t met until they’d both been at LSU. His last year—her first. They were both in design, she more in art and graphics while his work had a great deal more to do with engineering.
Thus, the giant creatures in the front yard—and the “Cemetery Maze” he was setting up in the backyard, were all for the neighborhood children. Sean loved Halloween, and he loved what he did. Off time meant nothing—he was always working. He could be very serious, of course, but, he also had a playful and mischievous nature that could pop up often.
“Not funny—ass!” she said aloud.
There was no response.
She was going to kill him when he got home!
She glanced at her watch; he was hoping to be home by nine. He had gone to work out a few kinks at a local Halloween-horror themed attraction. While others in the company probably could have gone when a coffin was failing to pop open, Jeff had called Sean, so he had decided to go himself. He was in charge of the set-up; he would see to the problem.
Quarter of nine…
Maybe his timer had gone off a bit too soon. Sean had surely wanted to see her reaction to that eerie voice.
“Jerk!” she muttered. “Well, guess what, my boy? You are not going to scare me—you are not going to freak me out of my home!”
Determinedly, she sat back down at the old-fashioned secretary by the side window in the parlor. She made a point of looking at the poster of the smiling witch, and at the little black kitty that was really a candle holder, and then the dumb-looking jack-o-lantern right next to her computer.
Then, resolute, she looked back to the computer—and her work.
Cute little reindeer popped up on her screen.
The electricity suddenly went out and the room was pitched into darkness, only her computer screen setting off a glow.
And then she felt it; a touch on her shoulder.
The eerie, dry-leaf-rustle voice seemed to whisper in her ear again.
“Casey. Come to me.”
“No, no, no, leave her!”
Two voices. In her head? Electronics, motion activated creatures, maybe, just maybe, she could have handled it.
But, with everything else, with the house plunged into darkness…
“Casey, no, no, no…”
And that was it. She let out a terrified scream and leapt up. She could have headed toward the foyer and the front door, but the back door seemed to be closer. She wasn’t really thinking at all—she wanted out.
She had never been so terrified, so panicked, in her life.
Casey tore from the parlor and through the dark dining room to the large kitchen behind it, stumbling her way to the back door.
She found the bolt and slid it, pushed open the door and nearly fell back out onto the back porch. Neighborhood lights and a high-flying moon cast a pale, yellow glow over the back.
Sean’s Halloween maze was halfway complete; a fiberglass recreation of cemetery gates rose high, surrounded by a broken fiberglass wall with skeletal parts stuck through the pretend bricks, as if they were parts of the dead trying to escape.
“Mrs. Devil Demon” stood at the gate—a wicked smile on her face—as she encouraged visitors to enter.
Casey felt a shove at her back.
A scream escaped her again, she went flying out to the entry to Sean’s Halloween maze, through the “cemetery” gates, and past the sign, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!”
It was there she tripped.
At first, her mind was simply filled with blind terror—no logic registering at all. And then, she was trying to think. The moonlight and trickling of street lights served only to make it all the more…shadowed, and somehow…
Evil.
She could smell the dank earth, as if it were freshly dug. But, none of the graves back here was real, there were tombstones and mock-ups of the famous New Orleans vaults, “cities of the dead,” and there were cherubs and angels and…
Something dark. A massive dark shadow that almost had shape…but, did not.
The black mass began to laugh and laugh…
The sound was like the rustling of dry leaves, yet somehow deep and throaty and…
Evil.
The word came to mind again.
Yes, as if evil had real shape and form, as if the concept itself was tangible.
She gasped, choking, even more terrified than before. And she tried to get to her feet; she had to rise and run out to the sidewalk, call neighbors, get help…
She rolled to push up.
For a moment, she thought she saw a flash of yellow light. Something that cut across the darkness.
She reached out to steady herself, trying to see, trying to understand…
And she touched something…strange.
Not quite cold. Not quite stiff. It had a feel of muscle and flesh beneath cloth…
One of Sean’s props.
But, it wasn’t, and she knew it.
The moon shifted; the black mass was gone. That light, too, was gone. That strange light…
And she was looking down at a dead man. A real one.
His face…his face had been bashed in by…oh, God, oh, God!
She screamed and screamed again.
Chapter 1
“Halloween! Thought to have originated with the Celtic holiday of Samhain. It was the golden time of fall, between the richness of the summer and the brutal cold of the coming winter. It was a time when great bonfires were lit to burn brilliantly to the heavens—and when people dressed in costumes, often fierce and terrifying, to ward off ghosts. And, Samhain was important, terribly important! Therefore, Pope Gregory III designated November 1st as All Saints Day—making the night before All Hallows Eve—and thus could he combine the custom of the people with the religion that was bit by bit conquering the countries of Europe. Since those early days, Halloween has evolved and been embraced with open arms by children—of all ages—greeting card agencies, and the makers and creators of all manner of rubber, plastic, cloth, and sometimes talking creatures, all for the delight and for a bit of a scare. Ah, and did I mention candy manufacturers?”
Shaking his head, Michael Quinn plopped down on the loveseat in the bedroom he shared with Danni Cafferty in the old French Quarter house on Royal Street serving both as their home and their curio/collectible/souvenir shop. He had been reading from a book he’d just purchased in the Garden District after meeting an old friend for lunch at Commander’s Palace.
Danni, having just placed one of her favorite Halloween pieces, a benign and—in her words-- charmingly adorable and fluffy--stuffed cat in a witch’s coned hat in the center of her dresser, leaned against the old mahogany piece of furniture, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Halloween,” she informed him, “is supposed to be…well, as you said, it started out as a religious holiday, or a holiday to honor the dead. But, come on, people have made it into a…fun holiday. Kids love Halloween. You’re very grim.”
“In this city? Can’t help it—Halloween and the days leading up to it? They make me just as uneasy as all hell.”
“And that’s because you look at every silly paper skeleton as if it’s real.”
“Because it damned well may be,” Quinn said.
“Hey, let’s not ruin a holiday for a city full of little kids, huh?” she asked.
“Just don’t like it—don’t like Halloween,” he said.
“And that’s okay.”
“Yes, it is. But, I do always see…”
“Yes?”
“Whatever life brings, it’s amazing. Because I have you.”
“Oh, now, that is the—”
“Sweetest thing I could possibly say?”
Danni grinned. “Smartest,” she told him.
He rose, walking over to her, slipping his arms around her. “Danni,” he whispered softly, “sometimes, as we know, life can be just—good.”
“Especially when I’m the smartest thing in your life, eh?”
“I was thinking…”
“Ah, yes, the most brilliant thing in your life,” she teased.
He shook his head. “Right now, I was thinking…”
“Beyond brilliant?”
Again, he shook his head. “Sexy, provocative, enchanting…sensual, seductive…”
“Very good!” she teased,
“And we get to have fun. And enjoy the holidays, and one another. It’s just, it’s…Halloween.”
For a moment, her eyes were on his, big and crystalline in their exquisite deep-blue color. He was always in love with her; deeply in love with her, but when she looked at him like that, heart, soul, mind, and body seemed to melt, even if--at first--he had thought of her only as Angus Cafferty’s sadly naïve and spoiled daughter.
But, that had been long ago, and once Danni had accepted what her father had left her was far more than just a shop called The Cheshire Cat, she had sprung to the challenge with true fortitude and courage.
Because the shop—and the life—she had inherited were far more than a place where T-shirts, local crafts, and pieces of the past might be found and the day to day existence of a shopkeeper. In the basement, Angus Cafferty had collected and disarmed those things containing…evil. Angus had spent his life working to prevent what could really only be described as “possessed” and disarming them—and he had also spent his days protecting his artist daughter from the truth of what he did.
Angus never expected to die when he did. But then again, that was true with most men, and his death was now several years in the past.
“Hm,” she murmured. “You’re not so bad in that direction yourself, you know!”
Quinn slid his fingers from her shoulders down her back, and pulled her flush against him. She started to protest, and then she smiled and kissed him.
He was always in love. And far too easily aroused.
Holding her now, he was feeling his love and his arousal…
Knock, knock!
A little too passionately for the moment—since there was a knock at the bedroom door. Danni was an exquisite beauty with deep burnished auburn hair and a lithe build. Her eyes were brilliant, and compelling, but her smile was the best, and when her lips were on his…
The knock sounded again.
It was only two in the afternoon. The shop was open for business. There was no reason for anyone to suspect they might have grown amorous so early. Then again…
The knock came yet once again; hard and insistent this time.<
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“Quinn, Danni, ye be needed!”
It was Billie at the door. Billie McDougall. The man had come from Scotland years and years ago with Angus Cafferty, and he had served as Cafferty’s right-hand man in all things.
And now, of course, he worked with Danni and Quinn.
“Later!” Danni whispered to Quinn, with a wicked pinch against his jeans.
Quinn gave her a, what he hoped was, a stern and yet equally wicked warning in return.
He walked over to the door and opened it.
Billie McDougall was one of the finest men he’d ever met—yet he could easily pass for an elderly Ichabod Crane, or perhaps “Riff-Raff” from an old-Broadway cast of “Rocky Horror.”
“Someone needs to see you,” he told Quinn.
Wolf—Quinn’s massive wolfhound, roughly the size of a small horse, barked, as if in total agreement with Billie.
“The shop…?” Quinn asked.
“Shop is running just fine. Bo Ray has it all under control.”
Bo Ray Tompkins had once been a “person of interest” in an investigation of Quinn’s; he also suffered from addiction. Quinn had gotten Bo Ray beneath the wing of another friend—an amazing friend, Father Ryan—and, beneath him, Bo Ray had embraced life and sobriety—and become an amazing asset at the shop, and in their lives.
“It’s busy; it’s Halloween,” Danni murmured.
“And Bo Ray has it all under control. But, I’ve got a man seated in the kitchen. You need to come now.” He cast his steely blue-gray gaze over the two of them. “There’s time for being a couple later, as ye well ought to know by now!”
Danni blushed and Quinn lowered his head, hiding a smile. “Hey, it’s been quiet! We were enjoying being…”
“Marry one another, be getting it over with!” Billie commanded, shrugging as he turned away. “Not that it matters much these days, and not that the two of you are keeping two rooms, or whatever…” Billie muttered, walking away. “When I get to m’own great reward, old Angus will be sayin’ to me, Billie McDougall! What we’re ye thinking, not getting me lass up to the altar!”
He went on ahead of them. Danni and Quinn looked at one another, trying not to laugh.
Big Easy Evil Page 1
