THE BLACK CROSS
Bill Thompson
Published by
Ascendente Books
Dallas, Texas
This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and any reference to specific places or living persons is incidental. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal rights to publish all the materials in this book.
The Outcasts
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2017
V.1.0
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic or mechanical without the express written consent of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Published by Ascendente Books
ISBN 978-0996467193
Printed in the United States of America
Books by Bill Thompson
Brian Sadler Archaeological Mysteries
THE BETHLEHEM SCROLL
ANCIENT: A SEARCH FOR THE LOST CITY
OF THE MAYAS
THE STRANGEST THING
THE BONES IN THE PIT
ORDER OF SUCCESSION
THE BLACK CROSS
Apocalyptic Fiction
THE OUTCASTS
The Crypt Trilogy
THE RELIC OF THE KING
THE CRYPT OF THE ANCIENTS
GHOST TRAIN
Middle Grade Fiction
THE LEGEND OF GUNNERS COVE
DEDICATION
I wouldn’t have finished this book if my friend and fellow author Russell Blake hadn’t given me a nudge in the right direction when I hit a roadblock halfway through.
By the way, if you like nonstop action and excitement, check out his books. He’s written a lot and they’re all very entertaining.
This one’s for you, Russell, way down there in Baja California. I owe you a margarita.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to my faithful beta readers whose comments provide valuable insight and guidance.
My wife Margie listens to every word out loud. That’s a huge help for me in the proofing process and I appreciate it.
Nancy Shew, thanks for your help in the French translations.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Queen Isabella I of Spain
was Christopher Columbus’s sponsor.
In historical records she is called Isabel, Isabela or Isabella.
To avoid confusion, I’ve used only one.
FOREWORD
Although this book is fiction, it is crafted around an ancient and mysterious culture that thrives today.
I want to advise my readers that I have lived in New Orleans and I believe in voodoo.
Voodoo is real.
It's not real for the college kids who breeze in for the weekend to drink until they drop, the girls who pull up their T-shirts, giving strangers a good look at their naked breasts in exchange for a ten-cent pair of beads, or the boys who end the evening passed out in a nasty gutter on Bourbon Street. It's not real for the adults who come to attend jazz festivals, to enjoy the sinful pleasures of Mardi Gras and to sing along to the dueling pianos at Pat O'Brien's, and who drop hundred-dollar bills at restaurants serving wonderful martinis and excellent Cajun dishes.
Those people - the transient visitor population - laugh about voodoo. They fly in for a few days and then go back home again with stories about the crazy things that happened in the Big Easy. They visit Marie Laveau's tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and mark Xs on it. They take haunted city tours or visit plantation homes along the river that are reputedly still occupied by the ghosts of Civil War heroes and villains. They buy voodoo dolls in the souvenir shops from a woman called Madam Zombie and laugh about it.
It's a different story for the people whose families have always been here. Many trace their heritages back to the time soon after Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville founded Nouvelle Orleans in 1718. These residents have a healthy respect for voodoo because they know it's real.
Two hundred years ago, the streets of the Garden District were laid out and stately antebellum homes were constructed for prosperous Americans who came to New Orleans to take advantage of the opportunities in this bustling port city. These gentlemen and ladies chose not to live in the French Quarter with the Creoles, whose background, heritage and culture were so dramatically different. Those people came mostly from the Caribbean and many were from Haiti.
The families who owned the mansions along St. Charles Avenue - cotton merchants, ship owners, bankers and attorneys - were afraid of the Creoles, even though they employed them as house workers. Over evening cocktails and cigars, the men of the house would have shared rumors about the strange families - the Laveaus, for instance - who lived at the edge of the Quarter on St. Ann or Rampart Streets, and who were rumored to practice the dark arts in Congo Square on Sundays.
The servants who worked for the rich folks were given that one day off each week, and Congo Square was where they congregated. For them it was a social event that allowed them a bit of freedom from the drudgery of their lives. They visited, they sang, they talked and they practiced a true, living religion. It had parts of Catholicism mixed in with the use of amulets and charms for various purposes. Some people prayed for healing while others invoked harm on someone who had wronged them. This was what voodoo was about.
Today many of the stately Garden District mansions have been restored and are occupied by descendants of the families who built them. It may be the twenty-first century, but these people know the stories too. Many of them think voodoo is no laughing matter.
I have lived in New Orleans. I have spoken to people who know voodoo exists because of what they have personally witnessed. In many cases their stories are stranger than fiction. Because of what they experienced, I believe it too.
Bill Thompson
CHAPTER ONE
The wizened crone shuffled down Chartres Street, oblivious to the rain that had fallen off and on all afternoon. At her age it would have been good to stay at home today, but the Saturday ritual that had occurred for decades couldn't be changed.
She could hear blaring music from the bands on Canal Street. Mardi Gras was just three days away and until the last hour the weather gods had smiled on the Krewe of Iris. The Krewe's long procession of colorful floats, marching drill teams and high school bands had rumbled down St. Charles from Napoleon Avenue to Canal Street in a drizzle, but the real storm had held off and the parade was almost over when the skies finally opened. A huge New Orleans fire truck, the last vehicle in the two-mile-long procession, had just turned onto Canal for the final few blocks of the route when the torrential rains began. Once that happened, the party was over. Teenaged band members broke rank and scurried toward school busses lined up along Tchoupitoulas Street. Costumed dancers who had marched for miles disappeared in seconds. The masked riders on the floats heaved the last of their beads and doubloons over the side to the few drenched, mostly drunk tourists on the street who still yelled, "Throw me somethin', Mister!" The Iris Krewe members were all female. They sought shelter down inside the huge floats, sharing swigs from pint whisky bottles to ward off the dampness seeping through their wet costumes and laughing about the crazies who showed up for Carnival every year.
Over a half-million tourists and locals had lined the parade route and now many were walking back into the French Quarter along its crowded, narrow streets. The rain intensified, enticing many of them into the first watering hole they encountered.
The old lady passed Jackson Square. Its fences usually were filled with street art, but today they were empty. Across the street, C
afé du Monde looked warm and inviting and even from this distance she could smell the intoxicating aroma of the strong chicory coffee for which they were famous. People were ducking into the coffee shop in droves - no sane, sober person would stay out in this deluge. No one, that is, except for intoxicated revelers oblivious to the rain and old Justine hobbling along the sidewalk.
She leaned on her stick, almost falling as a speeding car filled with laughing boys flew past, aiming for a puddle of water that had accumulated in the street and sending a geyser her way. Drenched, she spat and sputtered then raised a bony hand. She pointed her index finger at the car and began to whisper. No one could hear her words - even if someone had, he wouldn't have understood the ancient Creole tongue. Seconds later she lowered her hand and kept walking.
Two blocks down the street, she watched the car hit a pothole hidden by standing water and careen to the right, striking a light pole. No one was injured; the kids in the car jumped out, cursing about their ruined right front wheel as she tottered past them. The words she'd uttered a moment ago weren't meant to hurt them; she was merely exacting a little retribution for an unkind act against an old woman.
She came to St. Louis Street, the halfway point on her journey, and turned right. It wasn't that far from her house on Ursulines Avenue to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, but she moved much more slowly these days. It usually took her almost an hour to get there, but the throngs of tourists coming back from the parade made today's trip longer. The sidewalks were crowded with rowdy revelers. Some politely moved aside to give her room, but most never gave her a glance, shoving past her as they ran toward the next bar.
The rain eased a little, but the sky turned darker as she arrived at the gate to the ancient cemetery. There was a guard; the graveyard had been closed to everyone except tour groups and immediate family for over a year. Too many crazy people had barged in looking for the tomb of Marie Laveau, the voodoo queen, and marking its surface with little triple crosses for good luck. Some had even chipped off pieces of her family mausoleum in an act of desecration.
On the first few Saturdays after the cemetery was locked down, the guard had stopped Justine as she attempted to enter. Once he realized she had family buried inside, he let her pass. And in the ensuing months she had become his most regular customer, arriving around this time every weekend, rain or shine, and staying only a few minutes. Today he held the gate open and she entered without a word or a glance in his direction. She shuffled between the ancient tombs, taking one turn, then another, until she arrived at her destination.
Her decades-long weekly visits to Felicite's tomb weren't done out of love or respect, remorse or regret. Quite the contrary - throughout the generations members of the family detested each other. She came out of a sense of obligation. Her relatives were partners in a secret that had been passed down for centuries, and Justine came to honor that partnership. Once she was gone, the visits would end because the next generation had no such sense of obligation. Her children could not have cared less.
As bad as the weather was, this was one day she couldn't miss. She especially had to visit her half-sister's gravesite today because it was Felicite's birthday. At the decaying structure, she glanced up at her father's and sister's inscriptions, noting as she always did the small hole at the bottom where one more body would eventually be interred. Long ago there had been a piece of marble there, but some tourist had taken it. Now it was a dark place - her place - a passageway to eternity that Justine knew would be her journey soon.
She began her usual prayer. In decades past she would drop to her knees in reverence. That had ended some years ago when her old, bent legs just wouldn't take the strain any more. She leaned on her stick, placed her hand on the tomb and began to whisper the words. As much as she had detested her father and sister, she was still faithful to protecting her family two centuries after their deaths.
"O Lord of darkness, defender of all who call you master, protect those who call you king. May my father and my sister, your loyal servants in life and death, rest in the assurance of your everlasting defense of the dark realm. May I - Justine - and your other subjects living in the earthly realm know the enveloping peace of your power and control over this world and our lives. Amen."
There were little triple X markings on this mausoleum too, but they'd been made by Justine herself. They weren't for good luck as the tourists believed. They were to ward off evil spirits that plagued the dead. She used a marker to scrawl three more, then turned and hobbled to the gate. She could have made a brief stop at her mother's tomb nearby, but she hadn't been there in years. She had no memory of the woman who had given her own life so that Justine could be born, and she had no desire to visit the grave of someone who played no part in her life.
Back in the Quarter, Justine took a different route home, one that took her past a house she had loved long ago. She stopped for a moment in front of a dilapidated vacant seventeenth-century house on St. Ann Street. She looked at it, remembering a time when it had been her home. She didn't tarry for long. At her advanced age, the rain was hard on her bones and she had several blocks left to walk.
CHAPTER TWO
Twenty-four guests sat in the East Room as the ceremony unfolded. There had been only a handful of weddings in the White House and this was one of the most elegant yet understated ones. The bride and groom faced each other with a pastor in between them. Beaming, they gazed into each other's eyes.
The officiant turned to the best man. "May I please have the ring?"
Nothing happened. The pastor looked up and saw that he was caught up in the moment. His mind seemed a million miles away.
"Ahem." The pastor cleared his voice quietly as he touched the best man's sleeve. "Mr. President, may I have the ring?"
Harry Harrison jerked his head around, suddenly realizing the entire ceremony was on hold, waiting for him. There was a twitter of laughter from the guests as he fumbled in his pocket and retrieved the ring Brian had given him earlier. "Sorry," he said in a whisper as he handed it to the reverend so the wedding could continue. At last there was the pastor's suggestion that the groom kiss the bride. Brian Sadler and Nicole Farber were husband and wife at last.
A string quartet played soft music during the reception as guests drank champagne, ate light hors d'oeuvres and mingled. The attendees were a diverse group and many didn't know each other. Brian's parents had come from Longview, Texas. Nicole's mother and sister lived in Houston and her father in Fort Worth; all three had come up for the ceremony and Nicole observed them engaged in cordial conversation across the room. Other guests included both customers and competitors of Brian's who had become good friends over the years.
Oscar Carrington and Oliver Toussaint were huddled at a nearby table in animated conversation. Brian stopped by and said, "Sorry to interrupt, gentlemen, but I hope you're not discussing business. Nicole made a rule that there'll be no deals made on our wedding day!"
Oscar retorted in his Oxford-bred English accent, "My deepest apologies. I must get some time with Oliver while you're otherwise engaged with your new bride. We're plotting against you, trying to learn how you always snag the very best antiquities that make the world gasp in wonder and leave your poor friends with nothing but your castoffs."
They all laughed heartily. These three were fast friends and occasional fierce competitors for priceless pieces of art and sculpture. Oscar was a boisterous, outgoing man who owned a well-respected gallery in London's West End. He had been a huge help when Brian was starting out in the business and they often met for drinks and dinner when Brian was working at his own shop in London.
Oliver Toussaint was the other man at the table, and he was Carrington's opposite. He was a Southern gentleman, born and raised in the society world of New Orleans and owner of a prominent Royal Street gallery his grandfather had started soon after the Civil War. He was a reserved, quiet bachelor with a broad Southern accent that always charmed the women. "Yes, Brian," he interjected, "we must huddle he
re while you're away swooning over your newly acquired treasure - the best deal you've ever made, I might add!"
Through their connection to Brian, both men had known Nicole for several years. Like others in the room, they considered the pair perfect for each other. As Brian began to walk away, Oliver said, "I do have one small bit of business to discuss before I go home tomorrow. A couple of minutes - that's all it'll take."
"Dammit, man!" Oscar Carrington joked. "Can't you let the boy get married in peace? Maybe that's why you find yourself a bachelor after all these years! Less business, more fun - that's sage advice from an old man and it costs you nothing! Speaking of which, I think I'll go chat up those girls at the buffet. They look like my type."
"If you're auditioning for the role of grandfather, I think you're perfect," Oliver retorted, interjecting a sliver of humor that was rare for him.
If Oliver had something to say, Brian wanted to hear it, wedding reception or not. He knew his friend well - there wasn't a frivolous bone in the man's body. He could sense his friend had some news and he knew from experience it would be something worth hearing.
He suggested they talk when the reception was over, adding that he and Nicole were staying overnight here in the White House and flying home to Dallas tomorrow. "We're excited about seeing you next week and our Mardi Gras honeymoon," he added. "We appreciate the arrangements you've made and we're looking forward to it."
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