by Reid, Terri
“So, what happened?”
“The Marines said that she was right behind them, walking back to the transport vehicle when suddenly she was down. She was screaming for help. They said she had her hands cupped over her ears and had fallen to the ground. In a matter of moments the screaming had stopped and she was dead.”
Eloise nodded at Paul.
“Thank you for the update,” she said calmly, “If you will excuse me for a moment?”
Eloise got up and walked back to her small room. She closed the door and walked into the adjoining bathroom. She turned on the water in the small sink, sank down to the tile covered floor, placed her head in her hands and began to weep.
She pictured Cindy when they first met, although older than Eloise, Cindy was the new recruit. In her small town in Northwest Illinois, Cindy had been the town “psychic,” doing readings for people in the community from the front parlor of her old Victorian home, under the reflection of a garish neon sign that read, “Psychic Readings - $25.00.”
However, in that small conservative Christian town, Cindy found that she was the outcast, always living on the edge of the group. Unless, of course, someone wanted to find a missing item, or learn if a husband was cheating, or have the most interesting entertainment at a cocktail party.
Finally, when her children had grown and were out of the house, Cindy decided she wanted something more. And at PRCD she had not only found the acceptance she craved, she could also use her unique talents to help.
From the start, the agency knew that Cindy’s gifts were limited and often her intuition was stronger that any psychic ability. But, in cut and dried cases, Cindy was the perfect person for the assignment.
She remembered the emotion in Cindy’s face when she finished her first assignment, a high school student who had died in the Oklahoma City bombing. The young man had been bound to the site, waiting for his mother to finally pick him up as they had planned. The bomb exploded and he was killed instantly, although he hadn’t realized it. Cindy and Eloise had been working the site together and they came across him, sitting at the curb, looking anxiously down the street for his mother’s car. Cindy, who must have been about the same age as his mother, approached him and sat with him on the curb. They talked about school, music and movies. Then she told him about the bombing.
Eloise had watched from a distance as the young man looked at Cindy in disbelief. She had spoken softly, directly to him and soon he was looking for his passage to the light. When he had faded from sight, Cindy placed her head in her hands and wept. Passers-by assumed that the temporary memorial had brought the tears and nodded in sympathy and understanding.
“Well, it seems we are both cry-babies.”
The voice, Cindy’s voice, startled Eloise as she looked up into the face of her friend. “Oh, Cindy, what…”
Cindy raised her hand to stave off any questions. “Hush, now, I only have a couple of moments before I have to go,” she said.
Eloise looked at Cindy – her too long straight brown hair was tied in a ponytail that reached to her waist. She was dressed in her PRCD uniform, but instead of making her look professional, it always made her 4 foot 10 inch chunky frame look like a child playing dress up.
Cindy smiled, “First, I hate you for being tall and skinny – that will never change.”
Eloise chortled through her tears.
“That’s better,” Cindy said. “Now don’t feel sad for me. There were so many people waiting for me on the other side – I swear it’s the best party I’ve ever attended.
“And you, of all folks, should know that death is a reason to celebrate a life,” Cindy lectured. “Sitting on the floor of a john isn’t my idea of a celebration.”
This time Eloise grinned. “Cindy…”
“No, not yet, let me speak my piece,” she said sternly, “There’s danger out there for you. Big danger. She doesn’t like us messing with the spirits. Seems she wants their essence, their power.”
Eloise nodded.
“I was never as strong as you, so just because she got me isn’t any reason for you to think she’s gonna get you. But you gotta be strong.”
Eloise nodded. “I am strong.”
“No, honey, you aren’t. And stop interrupting me. Gosh, you’d think this girl never learned her manners.
“Honey, where you have to be strong is a place where you’ve been weak. A place where you’ve been scared. A place that you got hidden up inside you.”
She knelt down and placed her hand on the side of Eloise’s face and smiled. Eloise could feel the heat of her hand, even as she could look through the translucent being that Cindy had become.
“Faith. That’s the answer, honey, faith.”
She smiled and leaned forward and touched her lips to Eloise’s cheek, like a mother kissing her child. Then she was gone.
A final single tear escaped from Eloise’s eye. She lifted her hand, brushed her cheek and smiled. “Faith. I’ll remember. Thank you, Cindy.”
She reached over, pulled a length of toilet paper off the roll and heartily blew her nose. With another length, she wiped her eyes. Then she stood and plunged her hands in the cold running water and splashed her face for the second time that morning. Blindly, she grabbed the towel next to sink and patted her face dry. She faced herself in the mirror, took a deep breath, smiled and whispered, “Faith.”
A few minutes later, a more composed Eloise entered the kitchen and sat back on the bar stool. Paul watched her for a moment.
“Eloise, we can talk later. You don’t have to…”
“Thank you, Major. I’m fine, really. So, after you heard about Cindy, you got my report from last night?”
Paul nodded. “I debriefed Turner and Anderson myself when they returned to base. I drove here as soon as the session was over.”
Eloise looked up, surprised. “So, you’ve been here, since…”
“Since about two hundred hours.”
“How did you?”
“Sally let me in. At first she thought I was a… How did she put it? A ‘perv’ for knocking on the door at two o’clock in the morning.”
Eloise had to stifle a chuckle. “Sally doesn’t like to have her sleep disturbed.”
“Well, I earned points by telling her that she could sleep in this morning.”
Eloise smiled. “I’m amazed that you were able to wake her. Usually I have to wake up…”
Paul looked at Eloise and scowled. “Yes, I know, usually you are a light sleeper.”
Eloise turned her face to avoid Paul’s gaze.
“And you didn’t wake up last night,” he continued, “You didn’t wake because you were totally exhausted. Because you had just fought for your life and barely won.”
Eloise shrugged.
“It was no big deal. I had it well in hand.”
Paul stood up and slammed his fist against the counter, “No, you did not have it well in hand, Eloise. And it was a big deal.”
He rubbed his hand over his forehead and paced for a few moments. Then he sat down on the stool again and turned to face her. Eloise could sense the barely contained rage emanating from Paul.
“Okay, first things first, tell me about your experience.”
“Is that an order, Major?” she asked.
Paul nodded curtly, “Yes, it is.”
Eloise nodded and then recounted not only the experience from the night before, but also her dream.
“So, what do you think it is?” Paul asked when she had finished.
Eloise shook her head. “I don’t know all of it. I think whatever came after me was female – at least that was the impression I received. And powerful, really powerful. But I think the power comes from fear – it seems to feed on fear. Even in my dream, the more afraid I was, the more power it had.”
“So what is your suggestion on how we deal with this?”
Eloise was silent for a few moments.
“Cindy came to me a little while ago.”
She
watched his face change from immediate disbelief to speculation.
“What did she tell you?”
Eloise paused, deciding what she wanted, needed to tell him.
“She said the thing that killed her was a powerful entity. She said that it is strong – but she felt that I had the strength to fight it. She just warned me to…”
She stopped, searching for the words she wanted to use.
“She warned you?” Paul continued.
“She warned me to be strong. She said that just because it got her was no reason for me to think I couldn’t beat it.”
Eloise shrugged and reached as calmly as she could for her drink. She lifted it to her mouth and forced herself to take a sip.
Paul watched her and then moved his stool closer to hers.
Intimidation move, she thought.
“But, she had no guarantee that you could beat it,” he asked, searching her eyes.
She shrugged nonchalantly. “Dead people rarely give guarantees, Major.”
Paul nodded his head and folded his hands on the counter in front of him.
“So her advice to you was to be strong? And what do you intend to do?”
Eloise placed the drink down on the counter, leaned back in the stool and crossed her arms.
“Well, I fought it and won. I don’t have to be afraid of it anymore. So, I’ll just go about my business and try to avoid it.”
“You never used to be stupid.”
Eloise turned towards Paul. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that either you have just lost half of your highly developed IQ or you think I have,” he replied, holding her gaze with his, “Before Sergeant Turner switched on the music, who was winning?”
Eloise looked away.
Paul reached over and cupped her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. “Who was winning?” he asked softly.
Eloise shook her head. “I just wasn’t prepared. She has lost the advantage of surprise. Next time, I’ll be ready.”
“So you think that there is going to be a next time?” he asked, his voice deceptively soft.
“I’m planning on it,” she replied defiantly.
Paul stood so quickly that the stool fell to the floor with a crash. He grabbed Eloise’s upper arms and pulled her out of the chair. Their eyes locked and battled. Their breath mingled and Eloise could feel the power and magnetism of Paul’s body. She watched his eyes change as he too became aware of the sexual pull just under the surface. His gaze dropped from her eyes and swept over her lips. Eloise shivered and then shook her head. “No.”
She stepped back, not willing to fight this battle with him. He dropped his hands from her arms and also took a step back.
“Eloise…” he began.
“Major,” she interrupted. “With all due respect, this force is an obstacle that we have to deal with. It is my understanding that it works to thwart the prime mission of PRCD. If we cannot guide those restless spirits to their final place of rest, we will have areas of the United States...of the world... that will be uninhabitable.”
“I understand the mission of the PRCD,” Paul said. “I only…”
“Then you know that I need to stay,” Eloise interrupted.
Paul nodded. “I said I understand. Now, it’s your turn to understand. You have two options.”
Eloise nodded.
“You give this up and go back to DC…”
“I’m sorry, that is not an option.”
“Or you work with me.”
Eloise’s eyes widened and she shook her head.
“No. Oh, no, we cannot work together.”
Paul shrugged. “Fine, I’ll book you on a transport plane that leaves the base in four hours.”
Eloise felt the frustration build. She knew he had the power to send her back to DC and she knew he’d do it. She also knew she had to stop whatever it was that killed Cindy. She looked into his eyes and could see that he knew she only had one real option.
Grabbing her drink, Eloise hurled it across the room. “Damn you, Paul Grimes.”
Paul looked at the chocolate liquid spreading slowly across the floor and nodded. “I take it this means we’re partners.”
Chapter Five
“Okay, let me see if I get this,” said Sally, dressed in leopard print pajama pants and an oversized “Osbourne Family” t-shirt. She was sipping on a glass of something that looked suspiciously like she had mowed the lawn, emptied it into a food processor and then poured it into the glass, all the while plucking one-handed on the computer keyboard, “This malevolent entity attacked you. And then Bert and Ernie fought it off with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?”
Eloise nodded.
“And we are assuming this same entity that was able to murder Cindy?” Sally asked.
Eloise had told Sally about Cindy earlier that day. And although Sally never worked with Cindy, she seemed to understand Eloise’s need for space and hadn’t asked many questions until now.
Eloise nodded. “It sounds like it attacked her first and then it came after me.”
“So, what are we going to do about this?” Sally asked, letting Eloise know she had a partner in her fight against Cindy’s murderer.
Eloise sent Sally a grateful smile.
“Well, before round two with it,” she finally replied to Sally, “I would like to know a little bit more about what we’re fighting against. So, what does your keen intellect and your database say?”
Sally took another big gulp and swallowed happily while she nodded and clicked on her mouse. “Well, I think it’s safe to assume that the entity doesn’t have anything against you personally.”
“No, it just wants to kill me.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t want to kill you, as in you. It wants to kill you, as in the person who is helping the spirits move to the beyond.”
“Oh, well, that’s okay then.”
Sally ignored her comment. “So, have you ever had any experiences like this before?”
Eloise shook her head. “No, I think I’d remember something like this.”
“Okay,” she said, setting the glass down and leaning forward to stare at the screen. “We can narrow it down to this experience – here in the New Orleans area.”
Eloise nodded. “Yes, that makes sense. It didn’t start until yesterday, after my first full day here.”
Sally nodded and punched some more buttons and scanned the pages before her.
“You didn’t have any cravings to eat something unusual, did you?”
Eloise looked at the green goop in Sally’s glass and shuddered, “Like what?”
“You know, human blood, boiled entrails, hearts.”
Eloise looked down at the beef stick in her hand and chucked it into the trash can.
“No, actually, I’m finding my appetite has decreased lately.”
Sally nodded and clicked a few more buttons. “Have any uncontrollable desire to have sex?”
Paul’s image immediately flashed through Eloise’s mind and she forced it away. “What…”
Sally interrupted. “Oh, never mind, wrong kind of entity.”
Then Sally turned in her chair, wagged her eyebrows and grinned at Eloise. “Of course, if you would still like to answer the question…”
Eloise snorted. “Get back to the issue, Sally.”
Sally shrugged and swung her chair back around. She tapped on a few more buttons and then peered closer to the screen. “You know, Eloise, you could have picked an easier place to have this encounter.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, New Orleans is renowned for ghosts, voodoo and all kinds of supernatural goings on. It’s not going to be easy to pin this down,” Sally peered at the screen, “Hmmm, well this is interesting.”
Eloise leaned forward to peer at the screen. “What? What’s interesting?”
Sally swung back smiling. “Zombies.”
Eloise sat back in her chair and threw her
hands up in the air. “Zombies? Zombies? You’ve come up with zombies? Sally, zombies are only real in Hollywood.”
Sally took another sip of her neon green drink and stared at Eloise. “This from a woman who ‘sees dead people’?”
Eloise sheepishly acknowledged the hit and nodded to Sally.
“Okay, tell me what you’ve got.”
Sally grinned triumphantly and twirled her chair around to face the computer screen. “Okay, The word 'voodoo' is derived from the word 'vodu' in the Fon language of Dahomey meaning 'spirit' or 'god’ and describes the complex religious and belief system that exists in Haiti. The foundations of voodoo were established in the seventeenth century by slaves captured primarily from the kingdom of Dahomey, which occupied parts of today's Togo, Benin, and Nigeria in West Africa,” she began.
Eloise interrupted. “Skip to the chase, Sally.”
Sally sighed. “Fine. There are two sorts of priests in the traditional voodoo folklore: the mambo who confines his activities to "white" magic. Or the caplata who performs evil spells and black magic, sometimes called "left-handed Vodun."
“So, we’re looking for a caplata?”
Sally smiled. “Yes!”
Eloise shook her head, “Why?”
“Because of the zombies,” Sally said, shaking her head at Eloise’s obvious ignorance.
“What about the zombies, Sally?” Eloise asked.
Sally paused for a moment. “Oh, yeah. The zombies. That’s the coolest part.”
Eloise smile was strained. “Great, great, the coolest part.”
Sally’s smile was undaunted. “Sarcasm doesn’t faze me.”
Eloise nodded. “Yeah, I noticed. So, the zombies...”
“Yeah, so, Haitian zombies were once normal people, but underwent zombification by a caplata through a spell or potion. The victim then dies and becomes a mindless automaton, incapable of remembering the past, unable to recognize loved ones and doomed to a life of miserable toil under the will of the zombie master.”
Sally swung around and grinned at Eloise. “See?”
“That’s interesting, Sal. But that doesn’t explain why she is after the spirits who are already dead.”
“Oh, I can explain that,” Sally said, turning her chair back and reading from the computer screen. “One belief unique to Vodun is that a dead person can be revived after having been buried. After resurrection, the zombie has no will of their own, but remains under the control of others.”
