by Lissa Kasey
This was news to me. What had happened with Sky? The question must have been clear on my face because he shook his head. “Another time,” he promised. “It was a while ago, but I think we’re still pretty raw. At least Lukas and I. Sky seems to have moved on okay, but she’s stronger than most people give her credit for. I think that’s why Lukas worries so much about you. He’s seen some of the ugliest of people in this world. He wants better things for you.”
“I don’t think I’m very strong.”
“You are,” Micah said. “If you weren’t you wouldn’t still be here. Me either. Sometimes life tests us in ways we never thought would matter, until it does, and we survive. We have to learn to thrive like Sky has. I’m trying. Just not there yet.”
I studied him, his seriousness and the tension in his posture. Did he look tired? Was it physically or emotionally? I could tell he wanted badly to thrive, maybe to rise above. Honestly, so did I. Was there a life beyond the memories? There had to be, or else what was the point?
“Then best we get to trying, right?” I said.
Micah gave me a faint smile. “Sure,” he agreed.
My stomach grumbled. I got up from the bed and made my way to the kitchen to find the food I could smell. “But food first.”
Chapter 12
Lukas had ordered me a huge serving of red beans and rice and andouille sausage from my favorite restaurant. Leave it to my brother to keep me fed at least. “Have you eaten?” I called back to Micah. It was well past lunch but not yet three. “I can share.” There was enough for at least three people, even if I was super hungry, which I was. I pulled a couple of forks out of the drawer and headed back to the bedroom with the container.
He glanced up from his crocheting like he hadn’t heard my question. “Huh?”
“Food,” I offered him a fork, and sat down, holding the container open.
“Oh, thanks.” He took the fork and stabbed a slice of sausage, nibbling in between his crochet counting.
“What are you thinking about so hard?”
“The tour,” he said. “I have a route, but I do try to change it often so as not to have a lot of repeating or people copying me.”
“Tell me what to expect on the tour,” I prompted as I ate. The food was the best thing about New Orleans in my opinion. Always something new, and a lot of favorites were easy access.
“We do a couple of regular fan favorites, like the dancing girl at the Bourbon Hotel, Jackson Square and the French ghosts in the fog. Then there are a bunch of smaller areas that are more locally known that I hit up. I avoid two largely popular places: The Upstairs Lounge and the LaLaurie Mansion. Opposite sides of the Quarter. Often, we walk by the LaLaurie Mansion. There are always tours standing around it. It’s really popular now that there was a TV show about some of the history. The Lounge, I avoid.”
“Why?”
“The Lounge is very sad. It was where a bunch of LGBTQ people died in a deliberately set fire. Even after death they were treated horribly by the police and press. You can still look up some of the really disturbing photos the police took after the fire and let go public with horrible captions in the paper about how they deserved it or something. When I get too close to the building it gives me an overwhelming sense of sadness. I don’t know if it’s psychological since I know all their stories by heart and have seen the photos a dozen times. Or if their fear and grief still lingers. The LaLaurie Mansion is a whole other nightmare,” Micah said.
“I think I heard of the Upstairs Lounge before. In one of those gay history of New Orleans videos I watched right after I moved in with Lukas. I was a bit worried about being dragged out into Jackson Square and burned at the stake for being queer. The pictures were chilling.” Not as bad as what I’d seen overseas, but not much was.
“There is still discrimination by some people as most anywhere in the world. Most are friendly enough. There’s even a sizable Pride celebration in the summer.”
I nodded, having learned a lot of that from Lukas who the department thought was straight, but was likely as queer as I was. “What’s the LaLaurie Mansion?” I tried to recall some of the reading I’d done on New Orleans and couldn’t remember much other than basic founding facts.
“Lots of stories, some photos, but no one is absolutely positive of the truth. Only that the matriarch of the LaLaurie family was known for torturing black people and killing them. Even after slavery ended, she kept them and tortured them. There are pictures of some chains found in the back of her house. There was a fire once, as actually happens here a lot according to history, and those who were chained up, died. There’s a story of the neighbors seeing her chase a servant girl with a knife. The girl jumped from the roof to her death to escape.”
“That’s lovely,” I said, hoping he caught the sarcasm. “Lots of pleasant history here in New Orleans.”
Micah shrugged. “It was founded on blood and to this day that vein continues to flow. It’s why so many people come here trying to experience something paranormal. They can feel the convergence of ley lines and all the paranormal weirdness gathering like a hurricane building. The LaLaurie Mansion makes my skin crawl to even be across the street from it. In everyday life, I avoid it, taking other streets, and for tours I let them get close and stay back. We never linger long. The new owners have invited me to do a Halloween paranormal thing, but I’ve turned it down two years in a row. There’s no amount of money I would take for setting foot in that house. Even standing close to it makes me feel like my skin is writhing. People often try to stop and ask questions, but I hurry them along as a lot of times getting too close makes me nauseous.”
“Wow. Sounds creepy.”
“It looks like a normal house from the outside. Sort of like the Sultan’s Palace. Big with old architecture, but the Palace doesn’t ever feel like much to me.”
“I need to research this stuff,” I said cramming the last of the rice and beans into my mouth. Micah had eaten the meat, but I was okay with sharing.
“Lots of books in my shop. But you’ll probably learn more following me on tours about the little stuff; ghosts in cabs, serial killers, vampires in brothels, and fist fighting prostitutes.”
“Fist fighting prostitutes? Will I be defending you from said prostitutes?”
“She’s never touched me, though people have pictures of her in the French Market. She’s not always there, but I do take people through there a lot as they find her story amusing. In life, she gutted a bunch of men with a butcher knife and there are legends of her demanding people fight her.”
I gaped at him. “This town is really full of crazy dead people, isn’t it?”
Micah laughed. “Live ones too. Bourbon street at night is always insane. And wait till Mardi Gras. I don’t allow people with alcohol in hand on the tour, though it is allowed in open containers on the street. Usually people only try to show up drunk during Mardi Gras, the rest of the time people are sober and ready to be scared with a creepy story.”
“Fuck. This city is so weird.” I shut the container and thought about the previous day. Stress and me didn’t work, but Micah said that wasn’t the norm. If it was, he wouldn’t still be operating a tiny shop, would he? “If you want me to still work with you, we can try again. Sorry if I wig out on your tour, but you should be warned it might happen.”
“Can you tell me if something is bothering you when we’re out? If I don’t feel it, but somehow it feels dangerous or menacing? I wouldn’t want to expose others to that.” Micah leaned over to pull a bag up from where it sat beside his feet. He stuffed the crochet in it. “No matter how much of a scare they might think they want.”
“Sure. Even if I see knife wielding prostitutes?”
“Especially if you see knife wielding prostitutes.”
“But you don’t believe in ghosts,” I reminded him.
“Their existence persists anyway, whatever they are. Maybe they aren’t ghosts but beings from a parallel dimension? Maybe a ghost is really the
next stage in evolution for humanity, like a higher presence or something.”
“Who hang around where they died?”
He frowned at me. “There is that. I tend to think those specters are really the residue of emotion. As humans we have an overabundance of emotion all the time. Seems only likely that it all goes somewhere instead of completely stopping. The universe could use that energy for something, right?”
“Sounds like some video game stuff to me. Who knows?”
He sighed and looked down at his crochet bag. “I need to bring this home.”
“Okay. So let me find some comfortable clothes for this awful soup we call weather and we can walk this route of yours,” I agreed.
“You don’t have to walk me home. We can meet at the shop and then go the route.”
“Nah, I need to get more familiar with the city. Can’t do that if I’m only walking a half a block. And I’m excited about the tour. I also got a little lost finding my way home from your place earlier…”
“It’s only a few blocks.”
“Took me over an hour and a dozen wrong turns I’m sure. So it’s probably best if I can see your tour during the day, maybe help get my bearings.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure. We don’t go in any of these places, right? It’s only a walking street tour?”
“Correct.”
“Then I think we’re good. I’ll tell you if I see any creepies and you tell me if you feel any crawlies.” I got up and headed into Lukas’ closet to find something to wear. I only had a handful of things that I’d gotten from a second hand store for cheap. Most of Lukas’ things would fit, but his clothes were all stuffy detective. How did he not melt in this heat? “It’s so damn hot outside.”
“It will turn cold soon. The rain is usually the trigger. One day you’re sweltering in the heat and humidity, then you’re drowning in icy rain. You can wear shorts, if you want,” Micah added. “I’m not picky about the shop. Though I’d prefer you wear a T-shirt from the shop.”
“The one I got yesterday was Lukas’s. I don’t know if he has more.” I found a pair of shorts in a bottom drawer and another drawer was filled with random T-shirts. A lot of which were from Simply Crafty. “Well what do you know?” I picked a shirt that read: ‘Do I look like I speak fluent ghost to you?’ It was black with white writing.
“That one glows in the dark,” Micah remarked.
“Yeah?” I glanced his way as I put on the clothes, not caring that he watched. Did he see the scars? Judge that he could see my ribs? Or that Lukas’s shorts hung a little loosely on my hips? I guess I was laying it all out there for him. We could be friends, or more, but only if we were real with each other. “Easier to find me in the dark later, then, right?”
“True,” he agreed. “Wear good shoes if you have them. We have a lot of ground to cover. At least the rain stopped. Now it’s just humid.”
I sighed. Better than the sweltering desert, I suppose, and the shadow monsters who stalked them.
Chapter 13
As proof of how small the area of the Quarter was, we ran into Jared in Jackson Square. He looked up and saw us then waved his arms in our direction like he was landing a plane. Since he was no longer in police custody, I took that as a good sign that they didn’t have anything bad to hold him on, and wondered if they had found Sarah.
“Hey Jared,” I greeted him. He looked tired, bedraggled, and almost strung out. “Are you okay? Should I call someone for you?”
He shook his head and stepped into my space, grabbing my shirt. At first I thought he might hit me, but he kept shaking his head. Tears fell down his face. “She’s missing, man. It took her. No one will listen to me. No one will help me find her. No one believes me.”
Micah stiffened beside me.
“Have you talked to the police?” I asked Jared. “Told them everything you saw?”
“Yes. Fuck.” He let me go and stepped back to scrub at his face. “I should never have listened to that guy. He said that your tour was boring history and we should experience the real thing. Promised he would show us a voodoo ceremony. Sarah didn’t want to. She wanted to stick to the ghost tour. But I convinced her to go. Now she’s gone.”
“What happened?” I asked. “What did you see?” Had he seen the shadow? Had it been the same shadow that reached for Micah that had taken Sarah?
“I don’t know. Darkness? It was gross. I mean, I never thought he’d kill real animals. And he took something from the grave that was open. Gave it to that woman. Then it all went to hell.”
“What woman?” Micah asked. Neither of us had seen anyone else at the graveyard, but maybe there was more the police weren’t telling us.
“Mary Voodoo or whatever her name was. She said she was a descendant of Marie Laveau. She helped that guy with the ceremony. Sarah didn’t want to stay when they started killing animals. We started back to the gate and called for the guy who let us in.”
“Why did he even let you in?” Micah wanted to know. “With animals?” And since it had been his night, I wondered why they’d been let in at all.
“That guy said he had a deal with the guard. They paid him a stack of cash. Said it was so we could get a real experience.” Jared paced. “The cops think I did something. But they have video of us entering the cemetery. They searched the whole thing and no sign of Sarah. That Mary woman was gone too.” He shivered. “We were headed back to the gate and I felt something. God, I’ve never felt anything so awful in my life.”
“Doom,” Micah whispered.
Jared nodded, his eyes huge. “Sarah’s hand was in mine. I looked back because she stopped, and something black rose up like a void and she was gone. It ripped her right out of my arms. I ran. That’s when I found you guys.”
“Did you tell the police all of this?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure what they could do about voodoo ceremonies gone wrong and possible demons summoned from the depths. The scariest part was that it sounded a lot like what I’d experienced in the desert. Only Sarah wasn’t killed, at least not yet, I hoped. Wouldn’t the police have mentioned it if they’d found her DNA? If he’d been running from something and she’d been taken and killed, wouldn’t we have found something away from the open grave? There was a reason my brother was the detective and I was the hobo. I hated mysteries. My brain often followed them off in a thousand illogical directions, meanwhile Lukas would be thinking about who took the girl and how to get her back. Common sense versus irrational sense.
“Yes, but they think I did something. They even suggested I go to the hospital to have myself looked at.”
Because they thought he was crazy. Yeah, I’d heard that before.
“Have you slept?” I asked him. “Maybe gotten a little rest in case you’ve forgotten something that might help?” He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.
“No. I close my eyes and see it all over again. And there are reporters stalking around my hotel. My family is on their way down. I’m looking for Sarah. I mean, who would take her? I know I talk about paranormal shit being real, but I never thought… Fuck, this can’t be happening!”
“Hey, it’s okay. When does your family arrive?”
He glanced at his phone. “An hour or so. I tried waiting in the hotel, but I couldn’t stop pacing and worrying.”
Micah’s silence beside me, worried me a little. “Let me walk you to your hotel room. I think you should wait till your family arrives. Maybe then you can get some rest? You look really tired. You can’t help Sarah if you’re too tired to think straight,” I told Jared. “She needs you rested and alert, ready to take care of her when we find her.”
He blinked at me for a few seconds like my words were slow to make sense. “Someone has to look for Sarah.”
“The police are looking for Sarah,” I said. “My brother is one of those detectives looking for her. He’s a good guy. He’s going to do everything he can to find her.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I promised b
ecause I knew Lukas was doing his best to find her. It was how Lukas operated. “You told them everything, right?”
Jared nodded, his exhaustion making him look like a bobblehead with overexaggerated movements. “I don’t think they believed me. That the darkness took her.”
“You told them about Mary being there?” Micah asked.
“Yes,” Jared agreed. “I told them everything. I want Sarah back. She’s everything to me. I don’t care if I never see a real ghost or even get my medical license, as long as I get her back.”
Micah gripped my hand but didn’t look at me. I wondered at the thoughts in his head at that moment, and how reminiscent they were of when he’d been found, but didn’t push for answers in that moment.
“Let us walk you to your hotel. Are you staying in the Quarter?” I asked Jared.
“Yes. The Bourbon. We thought we’d see the ghost of the dancing girl…” Jared sighed and began to cry. I reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, steering him toward the hotel and giving him support all at once. It was less than a two-block walk. Micah led us silently, even deftly guiding us around a handful of press vans and reporters into the hotel. We got Jared to his room, instructing him not to let anyone other than his family or the police in. He agreed and sat down on the bed like the steam had simply been taken out of him.
“They will find her,” I assured Jared. “Get some rest, okay? You can’t help her if you’re too tired to stand up.”
He nodded again, laid down, and put his head on the pillow closing his eyes. Micah and I left, ignoring the handful of annoying reporters who asked questions we had no idea how to answer about a missing girl and a dead tour guide. I could feel Micah’s tension as he gripped my hand and dragged me toward his place. He practically vibrated with the need to escape, yet didn’t let me go.
