Jacob tried not to look at her, but his eyes kept drifting back.
Charlotte had been practicing all evening. She had spread out her practice papers on one of the nearby pews. A variety of figures and runes covered them.
She turned to the three men. “Are you ready?”
“How long will this take?” Christopher asked.
“Just a few minutes.”
She began the ritual.
Charlotte walked the perimeter of the circle, speaking in what sounded like Latin with too many consonants to Jacob. She finished making the round and, having returned to her original spot, raised the knife over her head in both hands. She spoke a few more lines, her voice rising as she came to the end.
Charlotte joined Father Jacques in the circle, showing care to not step in the salt. She bent down over him and began carving into his skin, speaking the same foreign lines over and over. Blood welled up under the tip of the blade. Father Jacques’s face twisted in pain.
Charlotte sliced a rune over the priests heart, a simple triangle and circle. She cut into his shoulders, carving more runes, before moving onto the left side of the priest’s chest. Father Jacques inhaled sharply as another symbol was cut into him. The blood ran in rivulets down his chest and flanks, collecting in dark pools where his back met the flagstone. Charlotte, sweat beading on her forehead, continued the litany as she stepped out of the circle.
She bent down over the little saucer of chrism at her feet and ran a finger down the blade, forcing the blood into the mixture of oil and incense. She set the blade on the flagstone and picked up the dish.
Charlotte smeared everything together and stepped back into the circle, taking position over Father Jacques. She dipped her thumb in the chrism-blood compound and bent over, smudging Father Jacques’s lips. She smudged a spot between his eyebrows, then stood. She pronounced another line of the twisted tongue.
Father Jacques arched up, his back rising off the tiled floor.
Jacob felt a ripple pass over him, like the tone of the place had changed in some small way. The chapel retained its holiness, but another presence now lay over everything. It felt ancient, almost like the way the dusty books in Col. Winnie’s bolthole of an office smelled. It emanated from the circle and permeated the chapel. Jacob felt almost peaceful for once.
Jacob glanced at Christopher and Father Cavey. Their brows were furrowed. They could sense it, too. What was this spell? Where had it come from?
Charlotte stayed standing over Father Jacques, looking down on him, her hair covering her face. Bending at the waist again, she leaned in close to the priest’s face, hiding them both from the Templars’ and Father Cavey’s view. She blew gently.
She straightened and stepped from the circle, sweat running down her face and arms.
“It’s complete,” she said, sighing. She collapsed into the pew. “Help him stand, please. You can break the circle.”
Christopher and Jacob helped Father Jacques to his feet. Father Cavey handed him his shirt.
“Did it work?”
“We will know soon enough,” Father Jacques said, wincing as he pulled on his shirt. He bled and sweat through the front, the cloth clinging to the open wounds on his skin. Jacob cocked his head to the side and looked at the smudges of blood and chrism on the priest’s forehead and lips. “Are you alright, my son?”
Jacob shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Just reckoned for a moment there that I’d seen them smudges before. Probably nothing.”
“Likely saw it in one of Col. Winnie’s books?” Christopher asked.
“Likely,” Jacob said, nodding. “How do we try this thing?”
“There will be no trying,” Father Jacques said. “It will work. I feel it. I have faith.”
“Alright,” Jacob said.
“I still do not like this,” Father Cavey said. “Not at all.”
“Well, it’s done,” Charlotte said from the pew. “And, despite your misgivings, it’s our best course.”
“Pierre,” Father Jacques said, clapping the other priest on the shoulder, “have faith. God would not allow this ritual to take place within these hallowed walls if He did not wish to allow it. Is that not correct?”
“No,” Father Cavey said, shaking his head and sighing, “you are correct. We’ve seen many things today, have we not? This will work, if it is His will.”
Father Jacques nodded roughly and winced again. “Arm yourself, friends. We face the enemy.”
Christopher and Jacob left the priests and Charlotte, and returned to the sacristy. “What’s the plan after this?” Jacob asked.
“Charlotte and I try to protect the convention,” replied Christopher as he shrugged into his great coat, “and you call up the cavalry to meet us there.”
“Thought we was the cavalry,” Jacob said.
“Sincerely hope that ain’t the case,” Christopher said, frowning.
“What about Potestas? He’s got the Teeth still. He’s the threat.”
“We’ll find him. From what you say, he’ll be at the convention. If you can get the blue coats there, we can put him between us and them.”
“Alright. What if they won’t come?”
“Then we’re up a creek,” Christopher said, grabbing Jacob’s shoulder. He walked out into the hall.
Charlotte and the priests were already waiting near the exit to the garden.
“Are you ready?” Christopher asked Father Jacques.
The priest nodded. “Oui.”
“Let’s get this show on the road, then.” Jacob and Christopher stepped up and flanked the priest.
Father Jacques opened the door.
The demons seemed to have multiplied. They writhed in the garden like they’d sprung from the pages of some demented bestiary. They crawled over the statuary, trampled the flowers, ate the grass, stripped the bark from the trees, and fought each other over scraps of tapestry. The demons stopped and all looked at the small party of humans. Behind him, Cavey gasped.
Father Jacques stepped across the threshold of the chapel and out into the garden. New Orleans held its breath.
The priest opened his mouth. The air stirred as a breeze started on the far side of the garden and blew across the horde and towards the priest. He pushed his shoulders back and opened his mouth farther, causing the wind to rise sharply. The trees bent towards the chapel. Leaves tore from branches as the wind increased to a gale. A scream went up from the legion. The smarter demons turned and tried to run or fly away.
The imps were the first to be sucked in. They beat their wings against the tearing wind but were pulled back by Father Jacques’s sucking mouth. Their bodies stretched and extended as they arched over the heads of the grizzly-demons, They disappeared down Father Jacques’s gullet.
Next came the grizzly-demons. Some held onto the grass with their claws, others stabbed the poles of their halberds into the earth, and still more just stood or tried to run away. The unprepared went first. Like the imps, they tumbled head over hooves, stretching and twisting in the wind. Next came the ones that had clawed into the lawn. Finally, those who had anchored themselves with their halberds. The poles snapped under the force of the infernal sucking.
Finally, no demon remained. Just the sounds of bugles and sirens floating in from over the wall.
Jacob and Christopher rushed into the garden, weapons drawn, scanning the area. Father Jacques, holding his sides and groaning in pain, fell to his knees. Charlotte and Father Cavey rushed out and crouched next to him. Father Jacques waved them off and stood. His brow was furrowed, his face a mask of sweat-soaked agony. But he stood on his own.
“You alright?” Jacob asked.
Father Jacques groaned. “I need a place to lie. Rest will help. Please, forget me and see to the sisters.”
“I’ll help you to your bed, Father,” Charlotte said. “Come with me.”
“Father Cavey,” Jacob said, “you’re with us. We should check on the nuns like Father Jacques said.”
The Templar
s and Father Cavey crossed the destroyed garden and went into the building. Charlotte and Father Jacques trailed behind them with Charlotte supporting the older man under his arm.
Jacob and Christopher walked up the stairs first, pistols drawn. They went around the landing and opened the doors to the banquet hall. Broken glass and overturned beds littered the ground. A layer of shredded straw, husks of corn, and mattress feathers covered everything. In the middle of it all lay the seven sisters, their eyes closed. Jacob and Christopher holstered their revolvers.
Father Cavey rushed past the Templars and into the center of the room. He knelt beside the nearest woman and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. He grabbed the edge of his stole and touched it to her forehead and nose. Nothing. No steam, no smoke, no cries of agony.
“Praise the Lord,” Father Cavey said, crossing himself, “they’re free.”
“We’ll be going, then, Father,” Christopher said. “We still have work.”
“Thank you,” Father Cavey said, tears at the corners of his eyes. “Thank you for all of your help.”
“Didn’t do nothing,” Jacob said. “Thank Father Jacques. ‘Sides, we still gotta save him.”
“Jacob’s right. We need to leave now.”
Father Cavey stood. “I’ll contact the bishop and tell him the staff may return,” he said. “This place must be cleansed. For the moment, I will take care of the nuns and allow them to convalesce.”
Jacob and Christopher nodded and said their goodbyes. They clomped back downstairs. Charlotte waited for them in the entry hall.
“Are they safe?” she asked.
“For now. We need to stop Potestas and get them demons banished before Father Jacques splits at the seams, though,” Christopher said. “No telling what’ll happen down the line.” The trio walked out into the garden.
“Cavey said the Union’s made a temporary headquarters at Washington Square,” Jacob said. “Reckon it’s not too far.”
“Why don’t I go?” Charlotte asked.
“You’re a woman,” Christopher said.
“And Christopher’s a Negro,” Jacob added. “So I’m the one to go.”
“Wouldn’t I be better suited to diplomacy, though?” Charlotte asked.
“No. Don’t want you wandering the city by yourself, anyhow,” Jacob said. “That’s final. You can stay or you can go with Christopher. Ain’t gonna be worrying about you, too, not with Father Jacques laid up the way he is.”
“Fine,” Charlotte said, her face stony.
“Alright. We meet at the Mechanics Institute?”
“Alright,” Christopher said.
“Agreed.”
The sun rose and beat down on Jacob Smith, New Orleans, the white folk, the colored folk, the afflicted, Washington Square, and everything else with no discrimination. Jacob took off his hat and wiped sweat from his forehead. He slicked his hair back and looked over the scene from his spot on Dauphine.
The square was small, no larger than a city block. Royal Street bounded it on the riverward side. On the other, Dauphine. On the downriver side, a broad thoroughfare named Elysian Fields, and Frenchman on the upriver. Men in blue moved, milled, and marched about the miniature tent town in a beehive of activity. Occasionally, a spot of white appeared, a daring man who had stripped to his undershirt in the heat.
Jacob spat on the street. He’d loved serving in the Union, in his own way, but was glad to be rid of it. He slicked his hair back again and approached the guards, hands raised.
“Hullo the camp,” he said to the soldiers when he was within earshot.
“Halt and come no closer,” one of the soldiers called. He was a big man, thick in the shoulders and heavy in the beard, but still young in the face. He and his partner raised Springfield rifles and drew beads on Jacob. “We’ll have none of your plague.”
“I ain’t infected,” Jacob called back. He stayed where he stood. “Come to see Maj. Gen. Baird on behalf of the Catholic diocese.”
“We’ll have none of your Papacy, neither,” called the other soldier. He was thin as a fence post and just as tall. White whiskers covered his face. A hard wind would snap him like seasoned wood.
“Let your commanding officer decide, then.”
“Baird’s not seeing any man, woman, or child, Papist or not.”
“He requested the Church’s assistance,” Jacob called. “Let me talk to your lieutenant. I’ll stay right here and just wait a spell.”
“Griffin,” Big Beard said, slapping Fence Post across the chest with the back of his left hand, “go on and get Maj. Overman. Let him sort this shit out.” Fence Post Griffin eyed Jacob and lowered his rifle. He went into the camp. “We’ll see what the major says.”
“That’s right fine,” Jacob hollered back. “Reckon I can approach? While we wait, I mean?”
“Fuck no, you can’t.” Big Beard spat to the side. “You keep your afflicted ass away from here, Papist.”
Jacob sighed. He looked up at the sky. The dark haze settled lower over the French Quarter this morning. Soon, people would be wearing kerchiefs over their face just to walk the street.
Gunshots fired far off in the distance, up close, and in between. If the city hadn’t completely fallen apart already, it soon would.
There was some commotion down the street from back the way Jacob’d come. He turned towards it.
A group of colored civilians rounded the corner. Two men and three women. One of the women held a child close to her breast. The men looked haggard and exhausted, the women uncombed and unkempt. All wore tattered clothes, and Jacob noticed one of the men favoring his left leg. They’d managed to arm themselves with some crude clubs, but they didn’t carry any firearms.
The group made it about fifteen feet down the street before a dozen or so afflicted came around the corner behind them.
The creatures had decayed in varying amounts. One loped in some broken-leg cemetery dance, another dragged a foot behind him with each step. A woman, blonde-haired and wild, looked to have just turned. Her skin had hardly changed. Just the eyes. The wild, searching eyes marked the afflicted.
Big Beard fired from behind Jacob. The head of one of the afflicted, a snaggle-toothed old black man with curly grey and white hair snapped back. The force of Big Beard’s bullet, even at the seventy-five feet of distance, knocked the creature backwards from its feet and into the air.
Jacob drew his revolver and advanced towards the rushing civilians. He raised his pistol and drew a bead on the afflicted. He saw the terrified eyes of the civilians as they slowed their approach.
“Y’all get clear,” Jacob shouted, waving them out of the way as he advanced. The men and women bolted to the left and to the right, instinctively staying low and covering their heads with their hands. “Hey,” Jacob yelled at the pursuing afflicted, trying to get their attention. He stood his ground, waiting for them to get inside of fifty feet or so. He opened fire, fanning the hammer on his pistol.
It reminded Jacob of shooting melons off posts.
Six bullets left his revolver’s barrel. Six afflicted fell to the cobblestone in twisted lumps, their blood and brains leaking out in blackened puddles. Jacob holstered his pistol and drew his sword.
Big Beard fired again, felling another creature.
The afflicted converged on Jacob. In one swing he cleaved through the head of the lead creature, the blonde woman, and brought his blade down into the head of another. He spun to the left, elbowing another creature’s face, flipping it off its feet. He wrenched the sword free and retreated a dozen steps, backpedaling at a quick pace.
The creatures were strong, and took a beating well. But, they were slow with their feet and dim with their wits. They simply came at him in a malformed wave.
Big Beard fired again, but only knocked his target from its feet. The afflicted twitched and groaned and dragged itself back upright.
Jacob darted forward, the flat of his blade laid over his left forearm. He poked the blade forward,
driving into his target’s eye-socket. He withdrew the sword quickly and danced to the side as the creature collapsed in a heap. Only three remained.
His arms were loose and warmed up, the exhaustion having left them. Jacob grinned, moving in on the afflicteds’s flank. He felt like Lee at Chancelorsville, like he’d outwitted them all.
He swung again, decapitating another, and swung at the one on his right. The creature, formerly a big, heavyset white man, groaned deep in its throat. Jacob’s sword lodged in its collar bone. Thick sludge welled out of the cut and around the blade. The afflicted didn’t go down, though.
It reached out with blackened nails, outstretched fingers grasping for his face and eyes. Jacob, arms outstretched, kept it at sword’s length, a good five or six feet. It kept him from the afflicted’s bite, but it also kept him from being able to get any leverage on the sword.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jacob saw the second-to-last afflicted coming at him, its clawed fingers outstretched. Jacob sidestepped to the right, just out of its reach. He kept his grip on the sword and spun Fat Man along with him. The Templar breathed heavily, trying to kick at Fat Man, but it was too far away.
He lunged in closer and tried again, connecting with Fat Man’s belly. The other afflicted bulled into Jacob, knocking him to the cobblestones. Jacob held on to the sword to steady himself, but only managed to drag Fat Man down with him instead. He thudded onto his back, driving the wind from his lungs and knocking his hat from his head. Eyes wide, Jacob watched as the creatures bore down on him. What a waste, Jacob thought. All this, and no redemption to show for it.
All of a sudden he didn’t feel too much like Lee. More like Rosecrans at Chickamauga.
The other, smaller one was coming at him, hands outstretched, its mouth full of rotting teeth and infectious foam. Fat Man was in a perpetual state of falling. Jacob’s sword embedded in its collarbone was the only thing keeping it upright. The hilt of Jacob’s sword shoved into his breastplate, pushing it down against his chest as he struggled vainly to get up and away from the afflicted.
“Damn,” Jacob gasped out. He grunted, trying to beat the second afflicted away with a flailing fist. Definitely more like Rosecrans. He’d overplayed his hand, and now he was going to pay for his cocksureness.
The New Orleans Zombie Riot of 1866: And Other Jacob Smith Stories Page 20
