The Black Cross

by Bill Thompson

  "You've chosen the wrong opponent." She snarled the words, then hesitated as an elegantly dressed lady approached.

  "Oliver, my dear, who is this beautiful child? A niece, perhaps? Aren't you the most adorable thing?" She patted Eve on the shoulder and got a forced, twisted smile in response.

  "Good morning, Austelle. She's, uh, the daughter of a friend of mine. I'm acting as babysitter this morning. How have you been?"

  "Wonderful, darling. It's been ages. You must come by for cocktails. You know John did that bond placement for the Spavinaw distillery? They sent him a sixty-year-old bottle of rye whiskey and you've never tasted a Sazerac so delightful! I'll make him save a little for you if you'll promise to drop by."

  "Come on," Eve said petulantly, tugging his sleeve as a child her age might do. "I want to go."

  "Children have no manners these days," Oliver said to his neighbor. "I'll call John and I look forward to seeing you both soon."

  As the lady strolled away, Eve glared at him malevolently and hissed, "Twenty-four hours. I will be in front of the cathedral in Jackson Square at exactly this time tomorrow. If you don't bring me the cross, you and your friend Mr. Sadler will live - or die - to regret it."

  She turned and ran away. He shook off the chill of his encounter with the eerie girl, went inside and locked the door behind him. Until Betty arrived to handle them, he didn't want browsers in the store. He walked across the room to a far wall where the piece in which he'd hidden the cross stood, opened the double doors, reached into a drawer and confirmed it was there. Then he called Brian.

  "What do you think she's doing?" Brian asked. "You're the expert on voodoo ..."

  Oliver had to be careful not to say too much.

  "She has powers - both of us have seen her demonstrate them. Just what she's capable of, there's no way to tell. My calculated guess is that she could do more harm to me right here in person than she could to you long distance. She said we would live or die regretting it if I don't turn over the cross. Can she follow through on that? I simply don't know. Voodoo can be incredibly powerful, but she's several centuries removed from the original voodoo kings and queens. The cross is something she's desperate to get. I'm not sure why, but it makes me even more certain we have to keep it away from her."

  "You've hidden it well, I presume?"

  "It's hidden in plain sight, as they say. It's inside one of the pieces on the floor. As much inventory as I have, it's going to be a challenge remembering where I put it!"

  Brian agreed with a laugh, recalling how crowded the showroom was.

  "What about tomorrow? You're not meeting her, are you?"

  "I'll give it some thought. The cathedral's one of the most public spots in town, as you know. I may meet her and just say I don't have the cross. She won't strike me dead in front of a crowd of people." He laughed, but Brian knew he had to be worried.

  "Why risk confronting her?"

  "Because if I don't, I'll live in fear of her someday approaching me on the sidewalk or walking into the store or catching me on the way to the streetcar stop. She's trying to scare me and I won't spend my life letting her do that."

  Brian understood the reasoning, even though he didn't understand the implications of dealing with a voodoo priestess. "Be careful and check back in with me afterwards," he said, and Oliver promised he would.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Oliver sat on a bench outside Jackson Square, his signature suit and tie setting him apart from the fortune-tellers, street artists, foot masseuses, musicians and ragged vagabonds who frequented the area. The spires of St. Louis Cathedral loomed high above him as he waited.

  He saw her enter the square from Chartres Street, the route he'd expected since she lived just three blocks away. Once again, she was alone. She walked to him and held out her hand.

  "Give it to me."

  "I don't have it. You can do anything you wish, but I don't have it. Neither does Brian Sadler."

  She turned to leave.

  "Wait! I did what you asked. I came here, but I can't give you what I don't have."

  "Where is it?"

  When he didn't answer, her face twisted into a mask of horror. "I warned you," she shrieked so loudly that several people stopped to watch. "I warned you!"

  Just then a bicycle cop rolled up. "Is everything all right, little girl?" he asked Eve.

  "This man won't leave me alone," she screamed. "Make him leave me alone."

  "What's this all about? Let's see some ID, pal."

  He took out his billfold as the officer glanced around. "Where'd the girl go?"

  Eve had disappeared.

  "This isn't what it seems to be," Oliver answered in a calm voice. "I think the child has mental issues. She approached me while I was sitting on that bench. I don't know her."

  The cop detained Oliver for a few minutes, studying his driver's license and business card, learning that he was a respected businessman in the French Quarter and getting affirmation from several witnesses that the girl had indeed approached Oliver and began screaming at him for no apparent reason. Everyone confirmed he had done nothing to provoke the child.

  Oliver returned to the gallery and went directly to his office. He had worried that meeting her today was the wrong decision and now he had a deep sense of foreboding. He knew voodoo well - far better than anyone imagined - yet he wasn't sure he could fight her. He'd never had a drop of elixir and she'd never been without it. What if the potion not only prolonged life but gave her extraordinary powers as well? In a fair fight he believed he could stand his own, but what if she was stronger than he expected? For centuries his family had coexisted with the other Creoles - the Laveaus, the Duplanchiers and others - and there had been no problems. Now he'd made an enemy of one of voodoo's denizens.

  He never walked away from a confrontation, but perhaps it was time to let things cool down. He turned to his computer and began to search online. A few keystrokes later he was booked on a flight from Dallas to Paris tomorrow morning. Paris was one of his favorite places - he'd bought some amazing antiques there over the years, and being fluent in French helped him feel at home in the City of Light.

  He booked a suite at the hotel he loved most, a tiny place a block off the Champs Elysees. Everything about this wonderful little hotel was topflight and he considered himself fortunate when the clerk told him he could have the last remaining room.

  He called Brian and told him about the encounter with Eve. He was flying from DFW to Paris tomorrow for a few days away from everything. Apologizing for the short notice, he asked if Brian and Nicole could join him for dinner since he was spending the night in Dallas before his early flight in the morning. Brian immediately accepted and promised to check with Nicole. Oliver advised he had booked a room at the Crescent Hotel around the corner from where Brian and Nicole lived and they agreed to meet in the bar at 5:30.

  Nicole was as excited as Brian that they were seeing Oliver again so soon. As they ordered drinks and waited for his arrival, he brought her up to speed on Eve and her fury over the missing cross. "Oliver's understandably concerned and I think he's taking a short vacation to let things simmer down."

  It wasn't like him, but Oliver was late. At six Brian went online to check the status of the flight from New Orleans. It had arrived two hours ago at nearby Love Field. Even with luggage pickup and traffic, he should have been at the hotel long before now. He went to the desk and was told Oliver hadn't checked in. He called Oliver's phone, but the call didn't go through. He tried twice more. Nothing.

  He presumed the gallery would be closed by now, but he was lucky. Betty advised that Mr. Toussaint had left the gallery around eleven that morning, heading home to pack and then going to the airport, where he intended to have lunch before his flight. She took Brian's number and said she'd keep in touch.

  Her return call came within minutes. She'd checked with the airline and learned he had never checked in.

  Brian and Nicole went home concerned. This wasn
't like him - he always called even if he was going to be ten minutes late. She turned on the national news and Brian searched the Internet for the local news stations in New Orleans, hoping he wouldn't find anything but desperate for information.

  He started getting nervous as he watched live video and heard a commentator's voice. He rewound it and yelled, "Nicole! Come see this!"

  The broadcast was from the middle of the Crescent City Connection, a massive multilane bridge spanning the Mississippi River with the city of New Orleans on one side and Algiers on the other. A man had jumped from the bridge thirty minutes earlier, the newscaster reported. The camera showed a dozen police cars blocking all lanes on the Algiers-bound side. Rush-hour traffic was backed up for over a mile.

  "What are you watching?"

  "New Orleans local news. This is about him. It's about Oliver."

  "Oh my God!" she cried. "Did they say that?"

  "No. They haven't said anything. I just feel it. Down in my gut I know it's him."

  "Sweetie, don't do this to yourself. It's not him. It couldn't be ..."

  Yes, it could. She got to him. She made him do it.

  Two hours later his phone rang. "It's Oliver's assistant," he said to Nicole as he saw the number. "This isn't going to be good." And it wasn't. It was the news they were dreading. Betty sobbed as she blurted out what she knew, and Brian felt a tear in his eye as well.

  Oliver had jumped from the bridge during rush hour, taking his own life. The body hadn't been recovered, but several motorists had recorded close-up video on their phones and it was unmistakably Oliver who was the jumper. That was all Betty knew and she had heard it on another local newscast.

  She said she’d let him know if she heard more. Brian expressed his sorrow, thanked her for calling him back and promised to do anything he could to help.

  The story made the national news at ten. They saw the same video footage they'd seen earlier - police cars blocking a busy bridge. Brian felt profound sadness as he listened to a reporter standing in front of the gallery. They flashed a picture of Oliver in a tuxedo, one probably taken by a news photographer at the Mardi Gras ball.

  The newscaster reported that a prominent New Orleans businessman had taken his own life by jumping off a bridge into the Mississippi River. Oliver Toussaint was the owner of this prestigious antique shop in the French Quarter - she swept her hand back to the familiar building. There was no word about motive, although there had been an altercation between Mr. Toussaint and a female child at Jackson Square yesterday. Although a policeman had intervened, Toussaint had not been arrested in that incident. Those hurtful words left viewers wondering if that was a reason for his suicide. The brief report ended by saying that Toussaint's body had not been recovered. It was possible that it had been carried away by strong river currents and swept into the Gulf of Mexico. A search would begin in the morning.

  They held each other close, mourning the death of a friend. Brian was upset at the insinuation that Oliver could have been a child predator. He told Nicole what had really happened yesterday at the cathedral. She had heard almost everything he knew about Eve and Marcel, but he hadn't mentioned Oliver's statement that she was a voodoo priestess. Now it was time to tell her the rest. He said the girl had hexed Oliver before, and he was sure she'd done it again. He couldn't deliver the cross and she had forced him to jump.

  Nicole was surprised to hear his thoughts that voodoo was still around. "I thought that meant sticking pins in a doll to make someone's leg hurt," she said. "Are you saying you really believe this and it's not just some mumbo jumbo?"

  "Oliver certainly did, and I do too. I saw it in action in Guatemala and we both saw it in New Orleans. I believe the girl's telling the truth – she really is in her eighties. I believe she can cast spells and I am certain she killed Oliver. I'm flying to New Orleans tomorrow. I have to tell the police everything I know."

  _____

  Eve was exhausted. What once would have been a complex but not overwhelming spell had today sapped her to the very core of her being. It had taken every ounce of strength and willpower that she possessed to make Oliver Toussaint jump off that bridge. As she lay on her bed, depleted and gasping for breath, she knew she was losing her powers. Simple spells might still be possible. Even her mother could make someone faint just by pointing her finger and saying the right words, but causing a person to take his own life was never an easy thing to accomplish. She didn’t know for hours if it had worked; she'd sent him to the bridge, but she hadn't been there with him. She learned she'd been successful from the TV news report. And the way she felt right now, she knew without more elixir her abilities would fade away faster and faster as the days passed. She had to find the cross.

  Marcel brought a bowl of soup into her bedroom. He fluffed her pillows, helped her sit up and spoon-fed her the broth. "Did you do something stupid today? Did you let your emotions get in the way of common sense? Did you lash out and make him pay for challenging you? Did you stop and think that you were killing the only person who could give you the cross?"

  "Give me a little credit, okay? He doesn't have it," she answered wearily. "I got that much from him before I cursed him." She stopped for a moment to catch her breath. "I couldn't make him tell me exactly where he hid it, but I know it's somewhere in his store. I think Brian Sadler knows where it is."

  "How can you believe what he told you? You said yourself that your powers are diminishing. What if he lied? If that happened, you'll never find the cross because you've killed him."

  "Shut up, you old fool," she murmured as he lifted another spoonful to her lips. She had thought of that herself but refused to accept he might be right.

  "Ha! Look at yourself." He cackled. "You're aging by the minute. If you don't get the cross soon, you're going to be an old fool just like me!"

  She wanted to hit him, but she couldn't muster the strength to lift her arms. She ate the rest of the soup, lay back and fell into a fitful sleep of fear and uncertainty. Marcel was right. She was growing old and she might have killed the one man who could save her.

  Tomorrow would be a better day. She tried to convince herself of that during the many times she awoke during the night. Tomorrow she would develop a plan to fix everything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The bright morning sunshine cascaded into the bedroom and for the moment between sleep and waking, Brian forgot about yesterday's events. Once he cleared the cobwebs and remembered the tragedy, he lay quietly and let memories flood his mind. He and Oliver hadn't been best friends, but they were far more than casual business colleagues. He'd found Oliver interesting, intelligent and widely versed in a plethora of subjects from ancient Greek pottery to ... well, to voodoo. He'd enjoyed his friend's company and knew Nicole had too. Brian would miss him.

  "I don't want you to go to New Orleans," she mumbled, barely awake. "Call the police. Talk to them. But don't go down there where she is."

  "I have to go. He didn't kill himself. You know that as well as I do. I have to talk to the cops and find the girl."

  He tried to put his arms around her, but she pulled away roughly, totally alert now. "Don't say that! Can you never stop looking for trouble?"

  "I'm not looking for trouble. I told you I believe in voodoo and I agreed with Oliver that the girl has powers. I can't just sit back and do nothing about his death. I've got to do everything I can -"

  "Please don't go," she pleaded even more fervently. "I'm begging you. I'm so happy, Brian. I finally have everything I want in the world and I can't lose you. You can't go, baby."

  He laughed, wishing he felt as certain things were okay as he was trying to pretend. "I'll be careful. I don't want to lose you either, you know!"

  Her pleas didn't work, so she turned things up a notch. "Listen to me. Oliver's dead. That person you describe as a pretty ten-year-old killed our friend. I can't get my mind around that, but I know you believe it. Doesn't that absolutely scare the hell out of you? Oliver was a rock-solid man.
He didn't have a frivolous bone in his body, but he convinced you voodoo was real. He was afraid of the girl and you were too. Then he jumped off a bridge. Our friend, a man you know wouldn't commit suicide, did just that. You saw that girl in action in Guatemala. You're so damned bullheaded sometimes that you let your urge for adventure overrule your sensibility. I've never told you no before, but I'm telling you, you cannot go down there, period. You can do everything by phone and you know it. Get over it."

  Whether she was angry or happy, he loved this girl more than he ever imagined he could love anyone. "Who's acting bullheaded now?" he taunted playfully as he pulled the sheet off her. He looked appreciatively at her naked body and said, "I've always been a sucker for a pretty girl."

  "I'll take that as your agreeing with me," she cooed, reaching under the covers for him. "We can't bring Oliver back, so let's talk about something less depressing. How about I put a hex on you?"

  "Oh, you did that a long time ago." He sighed as he pulled her close, forgetting the world and its problems for a few minutes.

  Later that morning at the gallery, he spent over an hour on the phone with a homicide detective from the New Orleans Police Department. Given the crazy, bizarre things Brian had to tell the cop, it helped that the man had seen Brian's hour-long specials on the History Channel and knew he wasn't nuts. Brian explained everything that had happened, beginning with Oliver's revelation about the Black Cross at his wedding reception. He revealed what Oliver's meeting with the girl yesterday by the cathedral was actually about, gave him her address, and said she claimed to be eighty-three years old. Trying to omit nothing that might help, he even summarized his trip to Guatemala and the discussion with Stanley Oblowski.

  "I'm a native of New Orleans," the detective interjected at one point. "You can't grow up here without hearing about voodoo, but most people think of it as a crazy religion that poor immigrants practiced hundreds of years ago." Most locals thought voodoo was simply mind over matter, he continued. If you believed that your neighbor was a witch, you might have a psychosomatic reaction if she chanted some magic words or left a cloth doll full of pins on your doorstep. But was voodoo real? The policeman admitted he was a skeptic but said he'd consider everything Brian had told him.