The Ghosts Of New Orleans (A PARANORMAL RESEARCH AND CONTAINMENT DIVISION (PRCD) CASE FILE)

by Reid, Terri

  Paul shook his head. “Great, another theory where I get to be a guinea pig.”

  Sally grinned. “I think you’re going to like this one.”

  Eloise was instantly wary. “What? What are you planning on doing?”

  “Tell me,” Sally asked, ignoring Eloise’s question. “What happens when a large group of spirits find their way over?”

  Eloise turned around on the stool and faced Sally. “Often there’s a powerful vortex formed. So powerful that you can be drawn in with them.”

  Sally nodded. “So, even some spirits that might not want to go could be drawn in with the rest of the spirits.”

  Eloise nodded. “Sure that could happen.”

  “Okay, then if this works the way I think it will, I think we might have found the way to get rid of Delphine.”

  “What?” Eloise asked.

  “Paul, I want you to walk over to Eloise and kiss her for all you’re worth,” Sally said.

  Paul stared in disbelief for a moment and then grinned. “You’re right; I am going to like this experiment.”

  He walked over and took Eloise in his arms.

  “Wait,” Eloise began to protest.

  Paul shrugged, “Sorry, sweetheart, this is for science.”

  Paul started with a slow exploring kiss, softly urging Eloise to open her mouth and let him sample her sweetness. Then, as Eloise complied, he deepened the kiss tasting her and teasing her, making her burn with passion. Eloise moaned and wrapped her arms around Paul, holding on tightly as her world spun.

  Sally looked down at the Gauss meter and saw that the reading exceeded 2100 on the scale. She smiled and nodded.

  “Okay, that’s good,” Sally said, switching off the meter.

  Paul and Eloise continued to kiss, lost in their own fervent experiment.

  “I said, that’s all I need,” Sally called out again. Sally tapped her foot against the floor for a few minutes, as the two, oblivious to the rest of the world, continued to kiss.

  “You know, I’d really like to let you two continue and then I could just go to bed,” she said, and then she yelled. “BUT WE HAVE TO STOP DELPHINE TOMORROW.”

  Paul and Eloise broke apart, both breathing heavily, both still caught in each other’s gazes. Paul moved backwards and perched on the edge of a stool.

  “So, how was the test?” Paul asked, his eyes never leaving Eloise’s.

  “It was good,” Sally smirked.

  “That’s great,” Eloise sighed, swallowing hard as she gazed at Paul.

  Sally walked past the two and went over to the sink. She turned on the cold water full force and then picked up the sink sprayer and turned it on Paul and Eloise.

  “Hey!” they both screamed as they were hit with cold pellets of water.

  Sally grinned. “Sorry, I always heard that a cold shower helped.”

  Before either one could do her bodily harm, Sally hopped up on the counter and announced, “I know why you see dead people when you and Paul make out.”

  “We are not making out,” Eloise said, blushing.

  “Sure we are,” Paul said, chuckling. “Okay, genius, what’s the deal?”

  “When you two are together,” she said, “the Gauss meter readings are out of this world. You two exceeded 2100 and you weren’t even trying.”

  “So what does that mean?” Paul asked.

  Eloise turned to him with a tremulous smile on her face. “It means that when we’re together, our power is so strong that we can help spirits who have been trapped here a long time. That’s why I can see them, because we can help them.”

  Paul walked over to Eloise and took her hands in his. “Then, us... being together, it’s not a bad thing for you.”

  Eloise stood up and shook her head. “No, it’s a wonderful thing. That’s what they all meant, the power we have when we’re together. I just needed to have faith in us.”

  Paul lifted Eloise’s hands to his lips and kissed each one. Then he turned to Sally, “So, how do we use it to stop Delphine?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The morning dawned clear and bright. Eloise, Sally and Paul packed all of their equipment into the back of the SUV.

  “Okay, you keep researching this in case something goes wrong and we end up with an army of zombies,” Eloise said to Sally.

  “This totally sucks,” Sally said, “I came up with the solution and now I get to stay home and play on the computer.”

  Paul put his arm around Sally and gave her a squeeze. “Sally, you’ve got to know that we don’t want to risk you,” he said, “We have to take the risk. You and Turner need to stand back and report in case anything goes wrong.”

  Sally shrugged his arm off her shoulders.

  “Nothing is going to go wrong.” Sally muttered, “And if it did, I should be around to figure out what we do next.”

  Eloise climbed into the SUV, closed the door and rolled down the window. “Sal, you are the best friend anyone could have,” she said, “I promise I’ll do my best for you.”

  Paul climbed into the driver’s seat. “You keep practicing your voodoo spells and I’ll drive.”

  Eloise smiled up at him. “Let’s go.”

  The SUV pulled away from the base and headed down the road. Sally waited for a minute, slowly counting as the seconds went by.

  “Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty,” she whispered.

  The she turned and ran from the motor home to the tent that had housed both Paul and Sergeant Turner the night before. She knocked frantically on the pole outside the tent.

  “Sergeant Turner, Sergeant Turner, come quickly!!!” she yelled.

  Turner ran out of the tent, nearly colliding with Sally.

  “Yes, ma’am, what’s wrong?”

  Sally shook her head desperately and looked up at Turner with all the innocence she could muster. “They’ve left an important piece of equipment,” she lied, “I was just walking back to the motor home and found it on the grass. They have to have it.”

  Turner studied Sally for a moment.

  “Well, ma’am, we can take the Hummer and I can catch them in about 10 minutes and we can transfer the equipment and head back here,” he said, “Or, we might need to drive a little slower, so we actually have to follow them to the plantation and be there in case they need some help.”

  Sally grinned at the Marine. “Sergeant, I think I love you.”

  Turner blushed and then cleared his throat.

  “Ma’am, may I ask what the piece of equipment is?”

  Sally pulled a tape measure out from behind her back and shrugged. “You just never know when you’re going to need to measure something.”

  Turner grinned. “Yes, ma’am, you just never know.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The drive to the plantation was a now a familiar drive for Eloise. But the pit in her stomach was not.

  “You look more worried than usual,” Paul said, “What’s up? Don’t you like Sally’s plan?”

  Eloise shook her head. “No, I think that Sal’s plan is great.”

  She paused, wondering if she should tell him about the sacrifice that she would have to make when she called on Agwe. She glanced over at Paul through lowered lashes, thought about all of the things they had been through in the past few days and decided that if nothing else, she could give him truth.

  “Paul, when Sally and I went into Baton Rouge we realized that dealing with Delphine was a two-part plan,” she began, “We can’t just deal with Delphine, we are also going to have to deal with Yemanja.”

  “So, how do you deal with a Voodoo goddess?” Paul asked.

  “You have to summon a stronger god to overpower the one you want to deal with,” Eloise said.

  “And how do you summon this god?” Paul asked.

  Eloise explained the ritual that she had received from Mary Margaret and then she paused. Paul turned and looked at her.

  “So, are you going to tell me the next part?” he asked.

  E
loise looked up at him. “How do you know there’s a next part?”

  Paul shrugged. “Just a gut feeling.”

  Eloise nodded and then explained, “There has to be a sacrifice.”

  “What kind of sacrifice?”

  Eloise shrugged. “I don’t know, Mary Margaret just said the greater the sacrifice, the more powerful the spell.”

  “How many different kinds of sacrifices can there be?” Paul asked.

  “Well, not too many,” Eloise said. “Often for ritual sacrifices, they used to use animals.”

  “But we’re not using animals, right?” Paul asked, slowing the SUV and pulling it over to the side of the road. He put the car in park and turned to Eloise. “So, when were you going to tell me that you are planning on sacrificing yourself?”

  Eloise turned to Paul and shook her head. “Paul, I’m not really planning on sacrificing myself,” she said, she bit down on her lower lip and shook her head, “I just don’t know what will be asked of me.”

  Paul placed his elbows on the steering wheel and rubbed his hand over his forehead as he contemplated the scenario.

  “So, we’re going into this blind,” he said.

  “I’m going into this blind,” she corrected.

  Paul lifted his head and turned to her. “If you think that for one moment I’m going to let you shoulder this by yourself, you’re crazy.”

  “Paul,” Eloise began.

  Paul shook his head, hurt and anger warring in his eyes. “What does it take, Eloise, what the hell does it take to make you realize that you are not alone in this world? After what we’ve gone through together, after yesterday, hell, after Sally’s test – Eloise, when are you going to have faith? When are you going to stop being afraid?”

  He turned away from her, put the car in drive and started back down the highway.

  Eloise hugged herself and turned her face to the window, fighting back the tears of hurt and frustration. Didn’t he understand that she was only protecting him? Didn’t he see that it wasn’t his responsibility, it was hers? Didn’t he understand the she couldn’t let him die?

  The remainder of the drive to the plantation was done in silence. Each lost in their own thoughts.

  Paul pulled up in front of the plantation and turned to Eloise.

  “Okay, so what would you like me to do?” he asked, in his most formal tone.

  Eloise took a deep breath and turned to him. “If we can find the ingredients that Delphine needs to summon Yemanja, we won’t have to worry about any sacrifices. We thought that she might have them stored in the house.”

  Paul nodded. “What kinds of things are we looking for?”

  “Cornmeal, some kind of musical instrument – like a drum or rattle, perhaps some offerings to Yemanja, she likes the color blue,” Eloise said. “I’m hoping that Delphine stored all of them together.”

  “Where do you think we should look?”

  Eloise shrugged. “Well Sally and I went through the west wing and the attic but didn’t see anything like that. I started searching the east wing yesterday…”

  She paused for a moment and lowered her head, the memories of the previous day rushing back and making her stomach clutch. She took a deep breath.

  “I only got as far as the second room…”

  Paul reached over and placed his hand on hers. “I’ll finish searching the second floor; you don’t have to go up there again.”

  She looked up to him, “Thank you, Paul. I’ll check the first floor – the kitchen might be a good spot.”

  He nodded. “Good, I’ll report back to you when I’ve gone through the east wing.”

  He opened the door and got out of the SUV. Eloise hurried out after him.

  “Paul,” she called. He paused on the bottom step of the plantation porch and turned to her. She realized that she didn’t know what to say to him. Did she apologize? Did she tell him that she didn’t want him to be angry with her? Did she plead for understanding?

  “I just wanted to say…” she began.

  Paul shook his head. “Words don’t make a difference, Eloise, action does.”

  He turned back and went into the house.

  Eloise blinked back the tears and took a deep breath. She removed the headband flashlight from her pack, secured it on her head, clicked it on and followed Paul into the house.

  The first floor hallway was a spider’s web of yellow crime scene tape. She could hear that Paul was already upstairs going through the rooms in the east wing. Eloise carefully bent over and slipped under the tape barricading the lower hall, trying not to touch anything. She walked around the staircase, past the ballroom doors and the main dining room door to a narrow doorway. The hallway was 20 feet long and was nestled between the other rooms on the first floor. At the end of the hall were several doors, one opened to the narrow steps that led to the servants’ quarters, another led down stairs to the cellar and the last opened to the kitchen.

  The kitchen had originally been painted white. Old cupboards from floor to ceiling, with thin wood strips of paneling, encircled the room. An old porcelain sink, stained with the iron residue of dripping water, was situated under the boarded kitchen window. A red and white Formica table and vinyl upholstered kitchen chairs, obviously a remnant from another era, sat in the middle of the room. Old cracked black and white linoleum covered the original wood plank floor.

  Eloise felt a flash of apprehension as she entered the kitchen. She saw the footprints in the dust on the floor near the back door where she and Sally had escaped from Delphine. She could also see the larger footprints and the scuffle marks that had happened only yesterday.

  She purposely turned away from those reminders and opened the cupboard closest to her to begin her investigation.

  On the inside door of the first cupboard hung a drugstore calendar from 1930. It was covered with a thick layer of dust and the corner looked as though a mouse had used it for a snack. The inside of the first cupboard was fairly empty – Eloise found a couple of old empty jelly jars, some brittle contact paper and a baby food jar of buttons.

  She closed the first door and was opening the second when she heard the scream. She felt a rush of déjà vu; she had heard that sound before. She moved quickly out of the kitchen and up the back hallway. Trying to find the source of the scream and place where she had heard it before. She could hear Paul’s footsteps above her as he also responded to the sound. Then she remembered - her dream! That was the scream that had pulled Jean-Paul away from her and left him injured and strapped to Delphine’s table.

  She ran down the rest of the hall and flung open the narrow door.

  “Paul,” she yelled, “Don’t come any closer.”

  But he couldn’t hear her. “Eloise, where are you? What’s wrong?” Paul called out from upstairs.

  She rushed up the larger hall and around the back of the staircase. She heard Paul’s footsteps on the stairs.

  “Paul, no!” she cried and watched in horror as Paul, placing his weight on the rotted step, fell through the staircase into the cellar below.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Eloise ran back through the hallways and yanked open the door to the cellar. The moldy and musty air washed across her face as she ran down the stairs, her hands braced on either side of the wall in case she too ran into a rotted step.

  “Paul,” she called as she came to the bottom.

  She stepped onto the floor and skidded for a moment, before catching her balance. The flood waters had receded, but the dirt-packed floor was now a bog of mud. Eloise slowly turned her head, allowing the flashlight beam to traverse the interior of the cellar.

  “Paul,” she called out again.

  Then the beam captured something that glittered. It was suspended several feet above the ground. She moved towards it and found that it was Paul’s dog tags, hanging from a splintered piece of wood. She frantically searched the area and finally saw him, lying behind several large wooden barrels. He was face up in the mud, but he wa
s not moving.

  “Paul,” she cried, moving to help him, her steps hindered by the thick mud.

  But before she could reach him to find out if he was alive, the room lit up with an eerie green-glow and she heard Delphine’s laughter coming from directly behind her.

  Eloise turned. Delphine was less than a foot away, hovering over the floor. Her eyes were glowing and her black hair was floating all around her – as if it held an electrical charge.

  “So,” she mocked. “It seems that you were not able to save your dear Jean-Paul this time either.”

  Eloise shook his head. “He is not dead, you can’t hurt him. He’s protected.”

  Delphine circled Eloise and smiled, “Oh, you mean the little amulet that Maria made for him. How unfortunate that it got caught up on his way down.”

  She waved her hand in the direction of the dog tags that Eloise had examined just moments before. Eloise turned and saw that Paul’s dog tags also held the small brown amulet.

  She turned to Delphine. “You can’t kill him.”

  “Well, whether he lives or dies is totally up to you,” Delphine said archly, “You want him to live, I want something from you.”

  “What?”

  “Before my incompetent great-great-grandson allowed you to kill him, he told me of a device you had that could summon spirits,” she said, her eyes glowing with avarice. “I want you to use your machine for me.”

  “No, I can’t do that.”

  Delphine shrugged. “It is your choice. Your Jean-Paul is still a fine specimen. Perhaps he will be the first of my zombies. I would enjoy having him in my power.”

  Paul moaned softly.

  “He’s still alive,” she whispered.

  Delphine floated towards his prone body.

  “I can take care of that too,” she laughed.

  “No, stop!” Eloise decided desperately, “I’ll use the machine to help you.”

  Delphine turned and smiled at Eloise. “Excellent choice, my dear.”

  Eloise turned towards Paul, but Delphine moved forward and blocked her.

  “He is not safe until your machine brings me what I need.”