by G A Chase
He understood her fear. Madam de Galpion’s sessions had affected Kendell. Even she had to see it. By connecting all three of them, he too might get swept into the dark energy. Once that happened, she’d lose the one human stabilizing force that kept her from getting swept away into the Laroques’ power play. “I can’t stand on the sidelines and watch you battle the Laroques alone. Even if we weren’t exploring this romantic attachment, we’d still be partners.”
“I can ask. We’d have to use an object that’s already been modified, and I suspect she’ll want to do it in her shop.”
* * *
The first trip down to the subconscious reservoir of human existence was always the hardest. Having already taken Kendell into that inner world once, he hoped this time would be less traumatic for both of them. But adding a third was beginning to feel like driving a tour bus down the narrow, congested streets of the Quarter.
Madam de Galpion had strong opinions about the paranormal, but for this to work, she would have to put her trust in him.
“I know you use smell as a way to discover the truth, among other things, but for me to access my level of all-human consciousness, I’ll need the room as free from foreign stimulations as possible.”
To his relief, she didn’t object. “I’m in your hands. In the voodoo community, séances are the closest to what Kendell has described, though those involve pulling someone from that human reservoir rather than sinking into it.”
He’d always performed the mental disassociation from his body lying down. Sitting involved a lot of muscles doing their jobs, and that required at the very least subconscious brain activity. “From what little I’ve seen of séances, you might not be far off, but we’ll need to be flat on our backs while still touching each other.”
It didn’t take much effort to slide the two chairs and small table to the back of the room. Lying down on the wide-planked hardwood floor hurt Myles’s back. Even with the pillow under his neck and head, his shoulders felt oddly angled against the floor—as if he would lose circulation in his arms. He was acutely aware of the two heads pressed against his. Kendell’s was welcome, but Madam de Galpion’s shaved head made him uneasy. With his arms outstretched, he held both women’s hands, creating a triangular star pattern, or human snowflake. In the center, between the three noggins, was the cufflink, radiating its energy.
Even in that uncomfortable position, slipping off the edge of reality was as easy as jumping off a cliff into a warm tropical ocean. Harboring expectations while entering the realm of the cufflink’s unknown connection to the curse was a sure way to turn revelation into fantasy. Myles’s mind was constantly trying to make up explanations for what it encountered. Only by turning off that instinct could he truly understand and connect to Kendell and hopefully get a glimpse into Madam de Galpion’s motivations. Some basic rules, however, had been common denominators in his journeys. Each time he’d sunk into an object’s energy, there had been some kind of surrounding—a room, an outdoor meadow, a mechanical enclosure—to define the space he occupied. People were often in that space, but their actions were defined by what had already occurred, as though he was watching their history play out in front of him. As a disembodied spirit, his role had been as a silent observer.
To his horror, none of the established rules held up. The soft-pink, playful spirit of Kendell he’d encountered last time was noticeably absent, though he could feel her care and curiosity like a warm breath over his shoulder. Madam de Galpion hovered at the outskirts of his awareness like a teacher watching him take a test. Other than those two presences, he experienced only a heavy fog that blocked out everything around him.
He performed his usual checks to make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep. He remembered the young boy lying on his bed who had traditionally been the road marker back to the life he knew. Kendell also wasn’t a dream, and her presence couldn’t be denied. As he stopped trying to make sense out of what he was seeing, the mass of confusion fell behind like a layer of clouds that was left below as a plane climbed higher. Instead of a bright sunny day, however, he found himself standing in an elegant office.
Kendell squeezed his hand. “What’s going on?”
He turned to her in shock. They should have been disembodied spirits who had no sense of identity. Instead, they were bodily present exactly as he remembered in Madam de Galpion’s voodoo parlor. “I have no idea. This is the first time I’ve been physically present.”
“Fascinating.” He turned at the sound of the voice to see the voodoo priestess in the shadows of the room.
But it wasn’t the presence of the three of them that came as the biggest surprise. An elegant older woman sat at the grandiose oak desk with its intricately carved front, with six women crowded behind her, craning their necks to get a look at the strangers. Translucent as ghosts, the seven women shimmered in the soft light. Only one of them appeared older than twenty, with some barely into puberty.
Though the grande dame’s face was covered in wrinkles and her hair had thinned and turned completely white, he recognized the pained expression in her eyes. “You’re Fleurentine Malveaux, wife of the baron.”
Her smile softened the apparent ravages of age. “I’m flattered you recognized me.”
Kendell pressed hard to his side. “Why can they see us? I thought we were just supposed to see the cufflink’s connection to the curse. What the hell is happening?”
He was concerned that hell might be an all too appropriate word. “What are you women doing here?”
Mrs. Malveaux continued to speak for the group. “We were hoping you would have the answer to that. Are you here to save us?”
Before Myles could respond with his deepening confusion, Madam de Galpion stepped out of the shadows. Most of the women cowered against the wall at seeing her. “I think I know. You’re all the concubines of the baron, with of course the exception of Fleurentine, who was his wife. Is that correct?”
Each of them nodded.
Madam de Galpion turned to Myles and Kendell. “Do you remember why Archibald Malveaux took the title of baron? It was because he considered himself the successor to Baron Samedi.”
Considering that they were in Myles’s trip into the subconscious, he thought the answers should have come a little easier. “So?”
“Baron Samedi, in voodoo lore, is responsible for transporting the dead over the River Styx. My guess is these women were never taken to the land of the dead. This is Guinee, what you might call purgatory.”
Kendell said, “I don’t understand. Baron Malveaux was supposed to take these women to heaven but didn’t?”
“Heaven or hell, we only see it as the land of the dead where human souls are reunited with their ancestors. Guinee is not a place where anyone should stay for long. Doing so keeps the portals to other worlds open.”
The women didn’t look to be a threat, but Madam de Galpion’s description sounded too much like a horror story. “Are you saying they’re zombies?”
“Zombies can be called forth from Guinee but not once the body has decayed. These are trapped spirits.”
He recognized the irritation in Kendell’s voice. He was just grateful it wasn’t aimed at him, for a change. “But why?”
Fleurentine stood from the desk. “My husband didn’t want to be alone in death, so he holds us prisoner here with him. We serve him still.”
The thought of the baron Malveaux being somewhere close was enough the scare Myles out of his psychometric journey. Like being woken up from a nightmare, he sat up on the hard wooden floor, gasping. The two women beside him were perspiring in the small room filled with stale air.
Madam de Galpion didn’t waste any time. She was at the table, jotting down her notes in the large open ledger before he felt strong enough to test his legs. Once standing, he helped Kendell up.
“Have you ever been on a trip like that before? It wasn’t at all like the one you took me on with the pipe tool.”
“I don’t know what that was. But
I think we’re looking at someone with the answers.” He raised his voice to interrupt the scratching of the pen against the heavy page. “Mind telling us what that was all about?”
“The dead have to pass through the seven gates of Guinee, and they have seven days to complete the journey. We know where only a few of the gates are located. They correspond to some of the oldest cemeteries in New Orleans. But the seventh gate has remained a complete mystery. Clearly, it’s an office of some type.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I learned nothing about what you did to the curse, its effect on Kendell, or your motivations.” Myles hadn’t meant to disclose so much of his agenda, but feeling manipulated had a way of loosening his tongue.
She set the pen down and turned to him. “As payment for my help, I thought it was understood we’d be going where I wished. I do thank you, though, for leading me to so many answers. Your payment has been more than adequate.”
* * *
On the way back to her apartment, Kendell knew she was in for another fight with Myles. She couldn’t help but feel like a heel. All he’d ever tried to do was help her, but his desire to protect often contradicted her need to save those around her. “I have to free them.”
The dread in his voice made her heart ache. “Why do you feel the need to jump at every challenge we come across?”
She held his hand up to her chest. “You didn’t see her, did you?”
“Who?”
There wasn’t much reason he would have noticed her in the crowd or even known who she was if he had seen her. Even to Kendell, the recognition had more to do with a feeling than visual clues. “She was standing toward the back of the crowd of women like she didn’t want to be noticed. I doubt she was even twenty years old. The look in her eyes was that of an innocent child. It was Lilianna Broussard, my ancestor.”
He took his hand from hers and wrapped his arm around her waist. “I should have guessed she’d be there. I suppose that does change things. But I don’t even know how we got there. Madam de Galpion manipulated my process.”
The way his voice faltered told her more than his words. She treasured every story he’d shared with her regarding his youth and how people thought he was making up stories about the objects he held. He’d struggled for so long to find someone who believed in him—the misunderstood boy who felt so all alone that he hid what he knew to be true. She’d found that inner lost child and given him the self-confidence to embrace that special aspect that no one else understood. Taking her on an intensely personal journey into his very soul had been a trust she didn’t deserve.
And now Madam de Galpion had taken advantage of him. Rape was a term that sent shivers to Kendell’s core, but she couldn’t come up with any other term that even came close. And worst of all, she’d been a part of it. “Stay with me tonight. We’ll figure out what to do in the morning—together.”
33
Myles sat on the chaise lounge on Kendell’s balcony, listening to music from the clubs a block away. He couldn’t sleep. The warm night air felt good on his bare chest and legs. Though the action never stopped in the French Quarter, after midnight on a typical Wednesday in spring, the place was as quiet as it was likely to get. It made for a good time to think.
His most obvious irritation was the constant feeling of being manipulated, but quickly following that thought was the relief that it wasn’t Kendell’s fault. She’d been manipulated as well, though from different sources. The Laroque family still wanted something from her, and he doubted it had anything to do with the cursed items. If they didn’t want the baron’s old possessions, he had trouble imagining their endgame.
The cufflink shone in the light of the yellow streetlamp like a Mardi Gras bead that had broken off of its string. Gold or plastic, the tacky glitz was the same.
He knew what he had to do, and he was procrastinating. Since the moment the ghostly woman had mentioned the continued existence of the baron Archibald Malveaux, he realized who was really pulling his strings. All other people, including Kendell, were only supporting actors in the grander play, though having Kendell take point had given him the advantage of being protected by his much more powerful and maneuverable queen. And like a king in chess, he knew he was the most vulnerable of players.
Time might not have any meaning in the deep waters, as Madam de Galpion had called the realm of existence he knew so well, but it did to him. The journey of releasing his soul from the existence he knew took a lot of dedication. An intense session, like the one he’d been on with Kendell and the voodoo priestess, could take weeks to fully recover from. Waiting until he was stronger made sense, but in the morning, Kendell would be pushing to modify the curse in the final two items. He could see her arguments. The ghostly women trapped in Guinee could only be freed if she had command over the curse. How their liberation and the curse were connected, he didn’t know, but he felt positive Kendell would find a logical explanation that he’d be powerless to counter.
A feeling of dread crept back into his heart. Each time she allowed Madam de Galpion access to her being took her farther into the dark arts. He did what he could to pull her back into the light, but the lurking fear that he too was being brought down couldn’t be ignored.
The cufflink between his fingers might not even provide the portal he both hoped for and dreaded. Madam de Galpion had her hand in events that afternoon, and even she hadn’t taken them as deep into Guinee as he needed. Perhaps that had been intentional. Going alone put him in more danger. Kendell had been given yet another reason to pursue the curse, but he’d been shown a possible way out—if he chose to take it.
Like a recovering alcoholic who kept staring at a bottle, waiting for his resolve to dissipate, Myles clutched the cufflink and settled back into the comfortable porch chair. He wasn’t doing this for himself. Kendell was all that mattered.
* * *
The spirit that had been known as Myles Garrison floated at peace on the vast ocean of human souls. There was work to do, but there was also no such thing as time. He found the contradiction humorous. The passage of time only made sense if he inhabited a body that knew its mortality. If there was no death, could time really exist?
Like a pebble in his shoe, the cufflink demanded attention. As always, he could come back later for a more philosophical visit. He rolled over and began the swim toward the shore of human existence.
As with all dreams, the journey from point A to point B took only a thought. But instead of a tropical beach, he stood at a dusty crossroads. Three dirt paths stretched out to the horizons.
Papa Ghede—he knew the man even though they’d never met—stood at the intersection. The diminutive dark-skinned gentleman with the elegant, tall hat smoked a cigar so vile it made Myles’s nose burn. He nodded as if Myles had been expected. “You know he hasn’t yet attained the level of Baron Samedi. Close, though. He’s been in the ground for nearly a hundred and fifty years. A couple more years, and I might not be able to help you. Fucking bankers, always trying to take what they have with them when they die.”
Unlike his normal dives into mankind’s collective unconscious, Myles already had the information he needed without having to ask for it. “You’re the first.”
“Ancient history. I’ve seen every man and woman who’s ever lived. Unfortunately, I no longer have sole responsibility for getting them to the afterlife.” He was the first human who’d ever lived and died, the one originally charged with ferrying the dead to the other side—Adam and the grim reaper combined into one.
“Do you know what Archibald Baptiste Malveaux, who believes himself to be the reincarnation of Baron Samedi, has done?”
“I know all that goes on both among the living and the dead.” Papa Ghede looked as if the weight of every human soul rested on his shoulders. “What this man has done offends me deeply. It is the sacred trust of every loa to ensure the dead pass to the deep waters. For him to keep the seven women’s souls for his personal amusement—like they we
re trophies—is not the action of a loa of the dead. I offer you my help in saving the souls of the women he holds in bondage. Once he is removed from his position in Guinee and the true Baron Samedi has returned, the women will be freed.”
Myles suspected he was only getting part of the man’s story. Something deeper must have been driving him. “What is your connection to the real Baron Samedi?”
“Some might say we are one and the same, others that we are opposites—my good to his evil. Every cemetery is thought to have its own Baron Samedi. That was Monsieur Malveaux’s belief. The first person buried must lie in the ground for one hundred and fifty years before becoming the baron Samedi for that cemetery. You’ve experienced the deep waters. Can anyone truly say they exist as only one person?”
It was a metaphysical discussion Myles would have happily spent a lifetime untangling, but at the corners of his memory was a woman he needed to protect. “How do we proceed?” Off in the distance, figures in long coats and high hats sat atop painted horses, listening in on the conversation.
“Monsieur Malveaux is an imposter who has violated the purpose of Baron Samedi. He remains in Guinee, having refused to cross into the land of the dead. Therefore, his spirit still exists in the form he had in life. But as this is not life, there are limits to what I and the other loas of the dead can do.”
Myles feared he’d reached another dead end. This time, the term seemed all too appropriate. “So I must either entice him back to the living or drive him to death?”
Papa Ghede removed his dark glasses to reveal eyes as black as star sapphires, and as with the semiprecious gemstones, a flash of light hinted at unknown mysteries. “Whatever world you choose, I will do what I can.”
Papa Ghede and the other loas of the dead faded from sight. Myles was faced with the crossroads. Returning to Kendell and the life he knew was the most logical answer, but in a land beyond life, such human rationality didn’t hold up. He hadn’t yet done what he’d come here to do.
