Krewe of Hunters, Volume 1: Phantom Evil ; Heart of Evil ; Sacred Evil ; The Evil Inside

by Heather Graham

  Thankfully, the article didn’t even hint at the unit being ghost hunters—or, thank God, any type of sci-fi-driven team claiming that the aliens did it all.

  “Jackson?”

  He looked up. Whitney, smiling and cheerful, was offering him a bite of something off her tongs. He smiled, remembering Angela’s earlier words. “It’s not monkey brains, is it?”

  She laughed, and Jake, standing over the range top, joined her. “No, I’ve never had monkey brains. And, as long as I’m in the kitchen, there won’t be any, I promise.”

  “Salmon, avocado, tempura shrimp and cream cheese,” Whitney advised him.

  He took the bite. The little piece of roll was delicious. “Wonderful. We’ve found ourselves a cook,” he said.

  “Chef,” Jake said in protest.

  “Oh, no, not every night,” Whitney said. “You’re too bossy.”

  “Hey—you’re supposed to be the assistant. I give orders, you assist,” he said.

  “Well, I guess I don’t care who cooks, or if I have to follow a few orders—as long as you don’t make me the main cook,” Whitney said. She wrinkled her face, taking over from Jake to stir the vegetables. “I can prepare one delicious dish—jambalaya. And it is good.”

  “Jambalaya sounds great, too,” Angela said, entering the kitchen. “Wow. It smells wonderful down here,” she said. “Are we eating in here? Or in the dining room? Hey, do people actually eat in their dining rooms, ever? Or is that an only-when-company-comes kind of thing for real these days?”

  “I say the courtyard…it’s gorgeous outside,” Jake told them all. “Well, the dining room isn’t for eating, we all know it’s just for show. No, the dining room ain’t for eating, just for company, just for show, just when you bring that Bourbon Street stripper-ho-ho home, oh, yeah, just for show!”

  Whitney groaned.

  “Hey, it’s a good song!” Jake protested.

  It wasn’t a particularly good song, but Jake had an amazing musical ability. Jackson had a feeling that he sat with that guitar, strumming out solutions to his problems.

  “Courtyard it is,” Whitney said.

  It all moved quickly with the four of them taking out the food, lights and all that was needed. They were all aware, of course, of the place where Regina Holloway had fallen, but then they were there to investigate the death—and therefore honor the life—of the woman.

  “Hey, I’m pretty sure that Regina Holloway believed in spirits—in some form or another,” Whitney said, passing out the sushi rolls.

  “Why?” Jackson asked her. “Your great-grandmother said that she didn’t believe in ghosts. What do you mean—spirits?”

  “Well, Regina Holloway went to my great-grandmother’s shop sometimes for advice, but I think she was doing things on her own as well. I found red candles in the lower cupboard. They’re part of a banishing spell that’s used frequently here in New Orleans. And my great-grandmother didn’t say anything about Regina buying candles from her. I’m just curious as to what she was doing on her own.”

  “Good question,” Angela said.

  “I’ll stop by my great-grandmother’s shop tomorrow,” Whitney said. “I wonder if she sold Regina the candles, and if she knows anything about it.”

  “She must—your great-grandmother is a wonderful contact, Whitney. Angela, I think it would be great if you were to go to the store and spend more time with Mama Matisse. She just might say something else that we haven’t thought about that could turn out to be really important,” Jackson said.

  “I would like to go with you,” Angela said. “If you don’t mind. I don’t know a lot about voodoo.”

  “It’s not what you think,” Whitney said.

  Angela laughed. “You don’t know what I think.”

  “True,” Whitney admitted sheepishly. “But most people believe it’s all about black magic and zombies. For some people, it’s a very serious religion. And for anyone who really practices voodoo, well, you wouldn’t dream of doing anything evil. It’s like the Wiccan religion—anything evil that you do will come back at you. Take a banishing spell. I’m not sure how well we explained it earlier. You can’t just wish that someone you don’t like will disappear—that could mean that you wish a train would hit them, or that they would walk off a mountain, or, well, something bad. Say you have a pesky neighbor. You have to try to banish him by hoping that he gets a new job that will make him richer, and then he’ll buy a new house. Or, you have to wish that he decides to go live with his sister in Cleveland, and that he’ll be happy there.”

  Angela reached for the soy sauce and said, “In this instance, Regina wouldn’t have been trying to get rid of bad neighbors. She would have been trying to banish ghosts.”

  “Right. So she would have had to have wished that they find peace, and leave her home,” Whitney said. “I’m not saying that voodooism hasn’t had its share of deviants—like any religion. In Haiti, there are penal codes for anyone trying to create a zombie. And plenty of men in power did do so—part of it, of course, is mind control. And part of it was by using the poison of a puffer fish.”

  “But the religion is practiced by about sixty million people worldwide,” Jake put in, adding soy sauce to his sushi. He looked up. “It came heavily into practice in the 1700s, when the Europeans bought or captured Africans from the kingdom of Dahomey, which is now more or less Nigeria, Togo and Benin. The word voodoo comes from vodu in the Fon language, and means spirit, or God.”

  Jake was rewarded with an arched brow and a small smile from Whitney. But then she waved a hand in the air. “Jake grew up here—he should know something about voodoo.”

  “Hey,” Jake protested.

  “Well?” Whitney asked.

  “Well, inquiring minds do want to know,” he said.

  “And,” Whitney continued, “there’s a supreme god, or bon dieu, and a host of Ion, other gods, and they relate to the Catholic saints.”

  “Movies have made voodoo priests and priestesses into monsters,” Jake said.

  “I’d really love to see your great-grandmother’s shop,” Angela said.

  Whitney shrugged. “See the good clean living of a voodoo priestess.”

  “But you grew up Roman Catholic,” Jackson reminded her.

  “Yes, my dad’s parents were both of Irish descent. My mom’s dad was Brazilian, and my mother’s family was originally from Haiti, though they’ve been in New Orleans for countless generations.”

  “Cool,” Jake said, staring at her.

  “I think we’ve definitely got that going as a plan for you two to go tomorrow to Whitney’s great-grandmother’s place,” Jackson said. “I’m going to have Will and Jenna watching over the house—if they get here by then, and if not, you stay, Jake. Whitney, whether you’re here or not when he comes, Will can find his way around all the equipment that you brought, right?”

  “You tell me,” Whitney teased.

  “He majored in film at UCLA,” Jackson said.

  “He’ll manage,” Whitney said.

  “And, Jake, you’re coming with me,” Jackson told the younger man. “I may need someone with local know-how and knowledge of the political ins and outs.”

  “Great. Where are we going?” Jake asked him.

  “To the senator’s headquarters in the CBD. I want to see the offices. I want to know exactly where the senator was, and where his aide, Martin DuPre, was, when Regina Holloway died,” Jackson said. “We’ve also got to get the chauffeur, the bodyguard and the aide separated so that we can get them talking about each other.”

  “A gossip fest?” Jake asked.

  “Exactly,” Jackson told.

  “I love it,” Jake said.

  Whitney looked at Jackson and asked, “You’re certain that someone living had something to do with Regina’s death?” she asked.

  “I’d stake my life on it,” he told her.

  “So, you don’t believe in ghosts, or anything outside the normal experience of life that can be scien
tifically explained?” Whitney asked him, perplexed.

  “I didn’t say that I didn’t, and I didn’t say that I did. In my mind, the jury is out. I wouldn’t exclude the possibility that things out of what we consider normal might exist. In this case, however—gut hunch, a knowledge of the devious machinations living men can come up with—I believe that there’s a human being involved in what’s going on.” He turned to Jake. “When we’re done at the senator’s offices, we’ll head out to find out more about the Aryans and the Church of Christ Arisen.”

  “I have a hard time thinking the Aryans would kill a woman by somehow forcing her over her own balcony,” Angela said. “She wouldn’t have opened the door to them.”

  “They’re fond of guns, and they are pretty clear about what they want,” Jake said. “A gun in your face can make you open a door.”

  “Well, they didn’t get in here,” Whitney said. “From everything I’ve seen and heard Regina Holloway was a smart woman.”

  “That’s why I believe she was killed by someone close. Someone who knew her, knew her habits, someone she trusted,” Jackson said. “Still, political enemies need to be checked out… Hey, I want to see what all those monitors are going to show us.”

  “Probably Jake sleepwalking,” Whitney said, grinning.

  “What? Are you hoping for something? Do I or do I not sleep in the nude?” Jake teased.

  “Please!” Whitney protested.

  Angela stood up and started to collect plates. “Regina Holloway wasn’t killed by the ghosts in this house,” she said.

  There was silence for a minute.

  “Are you saying there are no ghosts in the house?” Whitney asked her.

  “No. I didn’t say that. If ghosts are memory—the memory of pain and suffering—then this place is full of ghosts. I just don’t believe that the ‘ghosts’ in the house would have hurt Regina Holloway. I think they would have tried to help her.”

  Angela headed back into the house.

  “Well, let’s finish picking up,” Whitney murmured.

  “We’ll finish. You can go work with your monitors and cameras. I’d like to see if we catch anything overnight,” Jake said.

  Whitney set off to set up more of the equipment while the rest of them cleaned up from the meal, suddenly subdued. Angela wound up sending Jake off to help Whitney while she and Jackson put the last of the food away. When they were done, they went to see where the cameras had been set up.

  “We don’t have enough equipment, obviously, to monitor every area at once,” Whitney said. “But we’ve chosen a few for the night, and we’ve decided that we’ll take turns watching what we have here for a while, and when it’s time for us all to crash for the night—which we’ll have to do to be halfway productive tomorrow—we’ll run tape. Right now, we’ve concentrated on this room, the hallways where all the rooms are, so that’s four, and we’ve also done the downstairs hallway through the entertainment area—and we have one camera left that we want to set up in the basement tonight,” Whitney said.

  “Sounds good,” Jackson said. As he spoke, there was a knock at the door. The other three froze, startled by the interruption of the sound.

  “Another member of our team,” Jackson said, smiling. He walked to the door and looked out the peephole first, not wanting to be the cliché of the agent who opened up to stranger with a sawed-off shotgun.

  But he was somewhat surprised to see that Will Chan and Jenna Duffy had arrived together. She had been coming in from Boston, and he from Miami.

  “Hey,” Will said, offering his hand. “Will Chan, and—”

  “Jenna Duffy,” Jackson said, shaking hands with both, and opening the door to allow them to enter. “You’re just in time. We’re setting up the cameras for the evening.”

  “Well, that’s handy,” Jenna said with a mild lilt. She stepped into the room.

  The group wasn’t shy, Jackson realized quickly. Will and Jenna had teamed up at the airport when Will had heard Jenna giving a cab at the curb the address for the house on Dauphine. They had introduced themselves, and they were quick and easy to do so with the others. Everyone was ready to help them with their luggage as well, Whitney and Jake quickly seized on the fact that Will had come equipped with some of his own microphones and recording equipment.

  “Let’s get these two in rooms, first,” Jackson suggested.

  “There are two nice ones left in the middle section,” Whitney said. “Jake and I are just up the stairs—we grabbed a couple of the good rooms Jackson and Angela vacated.”

  “We’ll stick together,” Will said. “Won’t we?” he asked Jenna.

  “Ah, yes!” she said, smiling pleasantly. “I think I like having someone else close in this house.”

  Jenna looked just like the American stereotype of the Irish; she was five foot five, with bright auburn hair, styled in a soft pixie cut that framed her oval face nicely. Her eyes were bright green. Will Chan was tall, and he seemed a perfect mixture of all the races that had gone into his makeup; he had pitch-black, dead-straight hair, cropped short but not too short, almond-shaped dark eyes and a sculpted face that seemed to speak oddly of Greek in his distant heritage. He was of a sturdier build than Jake Mallory. The Indians, Chinese and English had settled Trinidad, and they had all settled in the body that was Will Chan.

  “Take ten, and then we’re all back here,” Jackson said.

  He waited, watching Angela, who wound up with nothing to carry, as the others all headed up the stairs with the newcomers’ belongings.

  She turned to him suddenly. “You’re making me uncomfortable, you know,” she told him.

  “I don’t mean to, but…”

  “But what?”

  “I just keep thinking about Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House,” he said. “The character of Eleanor has led a hard life, and she’s literally sucked into the legends of the house.”

  “Oh, low blow!” Angela protested. “Very low blow! I liked being a cop. And, yes, I lost people, but I loved them very much…that you would compare me!”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just easy to be swayed by legend.”

  She shook a finger beneath his nose. “You are a liar, Mr. Crow.”

  He was taken by surprise. “I haven’t lied to any of you,” he protested.

  “Omission can be a lie, and you haven’t told any of us anything about your past, and you must think we’re all dense if we believe there isn’t a reason that you were chosen,” she said.

  “Maybe I was chosen to be the skeptic,” he said. “You all have leanings toward—well, you all are ready to believe in ghosts. I’m a ‘show me’ type person. Show me the ghosts, and I’ll believe.”

  She crooked a brow. “Sometime, you will tell me the truth.”

  He turned, hearing footsteps on the main stairs.

  “Okay, we’re all ready!” Whitney said.

  * * *

  Jackson moved over to the display of screens Whitney had set up in the grand ballroom. One mirrored the movements they were making; another showed the empty hallways and another showed the upstairs hall. While Whitney took one of the cameras—attached to an incredibly long extension cord—and headed toward the hall to reach the kitchen, Jake bounded back up the stairs. “I’ll give a call and a wave,” he said.

  Will positioned himself in front of the monitors.

  “Yep, good,” Will said. “Whitney, wave at me when you’re down in the basement, too, and it’s all set up. Let me know that the camera is good, and that you’re fine, too.”

  “Of course, I’ll be fine,” Whitney said.

  “I’ll go with Whitney,” Angela said, “and give her help if she needs any.”

  She seemed concerned about the basement, Jackson thought. But then, she’d dug a skeleton out of the floor there.

  “No, you stay. I’ll give her a hand. That camera looks heavy,” he said. “Angela, would you watch the screens?”

  “Sure,” she said slowly, looking at him. Will an
d Jenna remained to watch the screens as well.

  He carried the camera, and Whitney followed, laying cord out as close to the wall as she could, lest one of them trip over it.

  They went the length of the house and down to the basement. He turned on an overhead bulb to light up the vast basement area as Whitney set up, and they waved. “We’re here—how’s the angle?” she called out.

  Jackson looked at her, surprised.

  She grinned. “Mics—right there, see, at the bottom of the camera, right above the tripod.”

  “Excellent,” he murmured.

  “You look good!” he heard Will call to him.

  “Yep, they’re all working,” Angela said. “Hallway, hallway, hallway, hallway, ballroom and now basement. All are a check.”

  “Okay, then, we’re heading back,” Jackson said.

  Whitney preceded him, and together they walked back to the ballroom where the others were waiting, watching the monitors.

  Nothing was happening.

  “I’ll stay up for a while and keep an eye on things,” Will said.

  “And when you tire out, just get me, and I’ll take on a few hours,” Jake told him.

  “Cool,” Will said.

  “Get me about four in the morning. That’s when I woke up when I was working as a nurse,” Jenna told him.

  “Well, that’s great then—we’ll make it through the night,” Will said.

  “I thought you had tape for when we were all sleeping,” Jackson said.

  “Hey, we do,” Whitney said, “but if one of us is willing to be up, that’s better.”

  “Okay, well, if anyone gets too tired, just let the tape roll,” Jackson said.