Lilith--Blood Ink

by Dana Fredsti

  Going inside, I made my way through the house, trying not to look too hard at the occupants of some disturbingly large spider webs. The parlor, the dining room… and here the kitchen. A solid oak table occupied a place of prominence in the center, with an ancient stove, an enamel sink with an old-fashioned pump handle, and pitted countertops. I’d had many a fine cup of coffee at that table with Étienne when we visited Marie and—

  WTF?

  I shook my head and strode through the kitchen to the back door, ignoring the creak of the warped floorboards. The screen door hung off its hinges, an inner wooden door standing a half-assed sentinel in the face of any intruders. I wondered who’d bother to lock the doors here.

  The sound of the front door creaking open was followed by footsteps and voices, Micah and the other production assistants bringing in supplies. I wanted a little more time on my own, trying to figure out what it was about this place that sparked half-formed memories at the edge of my consciousness. It certainly wasn’t wish-fulfillment. I could honestly say this was not on my list of places I wanted to go. New Orleans, sure. A decaying house in a swamp? Not so much.

  Pushing the screen door open, I ducked under a spider and stepped out into the backyard, a weed-choked expanse of grass leading up to the edge of the cypress-ringed bayou. Glad I was wearing closed-toed shoes, I walked slowly up to the edge of the water, marveling at how still it was. Dark green, almost soupy.

  I didn’t trust it. Water like this usually hid things that bit or stung—poisonous snakes and such. Or worse, things like rusalkas, kappas and grindylows that like to eat people.

  I followed the water around the side of the house to a big clearing, where the grass was trimmed short. I stood there, listening to the faint buzzing of insects and the low hum of voices from the house behind me. The sounds were almost hypnotic, almost enough to put me in a trance as I stared at the lagoon. The water rippled as something swam by. Too big to be a water skimmer, too small to be an alligator. Maybe a cottonmouth. I would not be going swimming any time soon.

  As I watched, the ripples abruptly stopped, as if whatever critter had generated them had been plucked out of the water. Or perhaps dived down under the surface. The concentric rings lapped out but stopped as if a glass plate had slammed down in the water.

  Okay, that’s weird.

  I stared closer at the water, waiting for whatever it was that had made the ripples to make its presence known again. Nothing. Just the half circle of ripples still expanding out, no discernable reason for them to not be full circles.

  Laws of nature need not apply here.

  A cloud of red suddenly appeared, obscuring the ripples as it spread through the water.

  Something shimmered in front of the ripples, like sun hitting the side of a glass building. I shielded my eyes. When I lowered my hand, the ripples were gone, as was the shimmer. Some of the red, however, still remained, wispy tendrils snaking through the water.

  I shook my head. I needed more sleep, obviously.

  “Lee, you out here?”

  I turned and waved at Micah. “You need me inside?”

  “Nah,” he said, stepping off the back porch and joining me at the side of the water. “Just makin’ sure you’re here and not drowned in the bayou, feedin’ the gators.”

  I snorted—I couldn’t help it. “That is so reassuring, I can’t even begin to tell you.”

  “Hey,” Micah said with a grin, “gotta be careful out here.”

  “What’s over there, do you know?” I gestured toward the other side of the lagoon. “Is this a state park or a wildlife preserve?”

  “Further south, yeah. It’s private property for a few miles around here. This place we’re filming, it belongs to the Marcadet family.”

  “Marcadet? Wait, is that Leandra and Angelique’s family?”

  “The same. Over there—” he gestured across the water “—it belongs to the Castros.”

  “As in Fidel?”

  “No, ma’am, as in one of the most inbred families in the Louisiana bayous, and one you do not want to mess with.”

  “It would be easier to take you seriously if you weren’t grinning from ear to ear,” I informed him. “Only serial killers and beauty pageant contestants smile all the time.”

  That broke him up. He shook his head, chuckling, as he went back into the house.

  I glanced back at the water, looking for any signs of movement. As still as a glass pane. I didn’t trust it.

  * * *

  A kind of insanity of celebration took over New Orleans between Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday each year, but even in September the city was alive with festivals—music, food and art. The events were quieter than those in spring, but just as vibrant.

  Others preferred even more quiet and calm. Most of them didn’t live in the French Quarter.

  Some of the quietest residents of New Orleans could be found in cities of the dead. Most of the crypts and mausoleums in the necropolises were above ground, so that the corpses didn’t float away when flooding occurred. At sunset, the cemeteries were locked up, and the only noises from inside were the call of night birds and the distant sounds of revelry, depending on the cemetery.

  However, in cemeteries across the city, Tiffany, Cherry, Star, Liz, and Celia each lay in an oven vault, the remains of the previous—and legal—occupants scattered in holes beneath. Inside these vaults, the temperature was hot and humid enough to cook a body in its own juices—and to help the gestation process for the five harbingers that would eventually consume their hosts, who remained hellishly aware the entire time.

  * * *

  If anyone else had been inside St. Louis Cemetery No. 2, they might have noticed the faintest of glows emanating from almost undetectable cracks in seams of one of the vaults. Inside it, Star lay there as her insides cooked, the star tattoo on her shoulder sending the sorcerous equivalent of microwaves through her. She felt each separate microscopically thin laser of pain through every inch of her body. It wasn’t white hot—no, it burned so much hotter than that. Why didn’t it kill her? Why wasn’t she dead?

  She would’ve screamed, but the pain was too much. Even though she could open her mouth, the only thing that came out was an inarticulate drone of “stop please stop please stop please stop please stop…”

  But it didn’t.

  * * *

  Cherry lay on her stomach inside her vault, the black lines of the angel’s wings spreading out from the tattoo over and into the rest of her body, each line sprouting tiny filaments as the wings slowly took on three-dimensional form, growing and wrapping themselves around her, keeping her still, gently stroking her skin and her hair for a brief time before they sank into her flesh and made their way through her body, feeding on internal organs, attaching themselves to the veins, re-creating organs, bones, muscles… one agonizing second at a time.

  * * *

  Liz’s world was reduced to the sound and vibration of her heart pulsing, slowly getting louder, each beat a lifetime of its own, the sound vibrating through her, liquefying her insides. It was like being inside a metal drum, each echoing beat threatening to crack her skull. And just when she thought it would stop, just as the echo faded to a bearable level, the drum was struck anew, the heart thrummed, the pulse reverberated until her veins were swollen and throbbing, blood ran from fingernails and eyes as her body reshaped itself, her eardrums exploded yet again, and it started all over. Again and again and again.

  * * *

  One expects graveyards to have a certain odor, a faint whiff of rot, even though in the sanitized cemeteries of modern times, that wasn’t usually the case. If anyone had been standing close to a particular oven vault at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, in just the right spot, they would’ve gotten a whiff of putrescence so foul that it made the smell of most dead bodies seem sweet in comparison, even ones rotting in the heat with maggots squirming in the decomposing flesh.

  Inside the vault, Tiffany could feel her body rot. Her firm, young flesh sagg
ed and caved in as each organ, bone, and muscle was infected by the sweet-sour poison of the flower. The stalk took root in her shoulder and the petals grew, slithering along her limbs, peeling up and tearing the flesh from her body to encase her in their poisonous, membranous folds. Like the others, she remained impossibly sentient. Never able to sink into blissful unconsciousness. Aware of every agonizing change—no matter how minute—taking place inside her.

  * * *

  Celia still lay in her own particular hell, no longer sure who or what she was, only sure that this pain had to have an end. One hand and arm, twitching non-stop, broke free of the cocoon that encased her and began scratching and tugging at the rest of it.

  * * *

  “And… action!”

  I leaped off the edge of the balcony of a beautiful mansion at the edge of the French Quarter, clothing fluttering around my body as I fell three stories, turning once in the air and landing on my back, square in the center of the airbag.

  “Cut!”

  A round of applause burst out from the crew and cast members on set. When I sat up, the Ginga brothers were grinning ear to ear. I grinned back at them as I basked in the admiration of my peers, enjoying both the validation and the well-placed airbag. This was the first high fall I’d done on a job since the accident, and it felt oh so good to get it right.

  “Beautiful, Lee!” Devon strode over, beaming from ear to ear. “Perfect! One take and that’s all we need.” Almost as an afterthought he added, “You good with it, Cayden? Or do we need another?”

  Cayden’s expression was annoyingly neutral. Oh well, I wasn’t going to grovel for his good opinion. Then he slowly nodded.

  “Well done, Lee,” he said. “It’s a wrap as far as I’m concerned.”

  I brightened, instantly annoyed with myself for caring what he thought. But then, of course I cared what Cayden thought. He was the stunt coordinator. Oh, hormones, you suck.

  “It’s a wrap, folks!” Liam shouted out the good news to all and sundry. They’d budgeted another two hours for this scene, so wrapping early was like a free day at school.

  What to do with my free time?

  After giving it some thought while changing back into my street clothes, I got my purse and took out Tia’s business card—dark mauve with contrasting purple lettering and a small drawing of a hummingbird in the left side in jewel tones. Intricate and simple at the same time, nothing fussy about it.

  I started to dial the number but decided to change it to a text message instead. Less intrusive if she was in the middle of a job.

  “Hey there,” I dictated. “Got the night off and wondered if you’d like to help me use two free passes to one of those ghost tours. This is Lee, by the way. We met at Café Du Monde.” I paused for a minute, then added, “Anyway, hope you can make it.”

  I read it, corrected the inevitable Siri autocorrect fails, and hit “send.” Two minutes later my text notification went off.

  Hell, yes! Cheesy but fun. What time you wanna meet and where?

  I grinned. It’s hard to read tone in texts, but Tia seemed as jazzed about getting together as I was. If so, this would be the second female friend I’d made outside of stunt circles. Not that there was anything wrong with most stuntwomen, but my friendships with them tended to be what I’d call “Industry friendships.” None of them had ever extended to getting together in between jobs unless it was at the Ranch for beer and pizza after working out.

  Tour starts at seven in front of a bar called Black Penny. Meet there around 6:45?

  Sounds good! See ya then.

  My text tone went off again. I smiled as Eden’s name popped up at the top of the screen.

  Done with film. Bored. Flying out tomorrow. Sound good?

  I texted back quickly.

  Sure. I’ll give your name to the front desk at the hotel so you can get a key to my room. Going on a haunted New Orleans tour tonight.

  Fun! Maybe we can take a voodoo tour or something on one of your days off, or do the riverboat thing.

  I’m up for anything!

  Well, almost anything. As long as we avoided any of my demonic kin, I’d be happy.

  “So, Miss Striga, what are you going to do with your night off?”

  I suppressed a grimace as the minty-fresh carrion breath of Langdon wafted in my direction. How he managed to smile and look lugubrious at the same time was a mystery. Maybe it was a ghoul thing.

  I gave a non-committal shrug, not wanting to go into specifics in case he wanted to join me. A little Langdon went a long way.

  “What are you going to do?” I turned the question back on him, a time-honored way of evading an answer.

  “I thought I’d take one of the voodoo tours offered and see if I can soak up some atmosphere to give myself more verisimilitude in my portrayal of Louis.” His tone was just on the edge of pompously self-congratulatory. “You see, I feel that it’s vital for an actor to…”

  Ghouls just wanna have fun, I thought apropos of nothing as he droned on. Ghoul on a Train? Ghoul, Interrupted. Ghoul with the Vampire Tattoo.

  Okay, I needed to stop now.

  I tuned back in just in time to hear “—so important to immerse oneself in one’s role. I’ve always admired Daniel Day-Lewis’s commitment to his art. Did you know he insisted on wearing clothing, even underwear, faithful to the time period when he made Last of the Mohicans?”

  I did not, but I nodded and said, “Yes,” in the hopes of forestalling any more of Langdon’s infomercial. His need to educate far outweighed my need to be educated.

  “Well, have fun on the voodoo tour,” I said before he could launch into another Hollywood anecdote that I didn’t care about. “I’m gonna head back to the hotel and clean up.”

  “Oh! Are you catching a ride with Micah? I’ll go with you.”

  I heaved one of those “on the inside only” sighs because I could think of no good reason to object that wouldn’t be rude. Micah was there to drive any and all of the talent, not just me. Even those with bad breath.

  “Fine,” I said, “but I call shotgun.”

  * * *

  The French Quarter was hopping when I hit the streets, tourists and locals headed toward bars and restaurants to unwind and gain a few thousand calories. I patted my stomach self-consciously, and once again thanked the universe for a job that allowed me to burn off more calories than I ate.

  New Orleans had the reputation of being the most haunted city in the United States. Strolling through the streets and soaking in the atmosphere, I could believe it. History permeated the air, as if there should be sepia-toned overlays of the past, along with the sounds of horses and horse-drawn carriages instead of car engines.

  The air was heavy, thick with humidity and perfumed with the scent of tropical blooms, fried food, and humanity. Thick, luscious swags of bougainvillea framed doorways, crawled through arches and wrought-iron scrollwork, the pink, fuchsia, and orange blossoms brilliant amidst the dark green leaves.

  As I walked, I people-watched and played my usual game of “spot the supe” amongst the straights. Sitting at a little table outside of a sidewalk café was a family that might be wererats—father, mother, toddler, and baby strapped into a bassinet. All with underslung jaws, long noses, and a faint red gleam in their eyes when the sunlight hit them. The entire family had dark, glossy hair—even the baby—reminiscent of the sleek coats of well-fed rodents. As I walked past the café I caught their voices, improbably high-voiced and squeaky.

  I smiled. Definitely wererats. The next supe sighting, however, wiped the smile from my face.

  Across the street, an inordinately tall, skinny black man strode easily through the crowd—people got out of his way without anyone seeming to actually see him. It was as if he had some sort of force-field that parted the crowds before him like an invisible bodyguard. He was one creepy motherfucker—kind of like the Tall Man in the old Phantasm movies, but worse. I could see something writhing under his skin as if trying to get out. His r
eal face. A face I didn’t want to see if the roiling aura shrouding him—it—was anything to go by. I had no idea what, exactly, it was, but I sensed dark cravings. Saw flashes of body parts on a blood-soaked wooden floor. Small body parts, as if a baby doll had been torn apart. I gave an involuntary shudder.

  Suddenly he—it—stopped in its tracks, head swiveling around with a suddenness as abrupt as a guillotine blade at the end of its drop. The people near it stumbled, either stopping short or taking sudden jags to either side to avoid touching it. I wondered if they could see what I saw, or only sensed there was something very wrong with it. Dark, hooded eyes stared straight at me. The back of my neck started to tingle, and my amulet heated up against my skin.

  Shit.

  It bared its teeth—long, sharp, and so not belonging in a human face—in a silent snarl. I braced myself as the tingling in the back of my neck increased. Oh, this is bad. There were too many innocent bystanders. If things went wrong, I could end up with more collateral damage than the last half-hour of Blue Thunder. No, this was not the time or the place to go after one of Lilith’s stray demonspawn.

  It hadn’t seen me yet. I stepped very slowly backwards, trying not to draw its attention by using the cover of a large family—and I mean “large” in every sense of the word—to hide my movements. Slipping inside the open door of a nearby shop, I did my best to fade out of sight, even though that was difficult because the shop was an art gallery of sorts, with picture windows. There were no aisles to hide behind—everything was hung on the walls or displayed in short cabinets.

  But there were curtains, claret-colored brocade curtains caught back in ornamental hooks on either side of the picture windows. Quickly pulling a section out so it covered some of the glass, I hugged the thin strip of wall nearest to me, hoping the fabric was thick enough to conceal me.

  “Can I help you, hon?”

  I nearly screamed at the sound of a warm southern voice, but managed to hold it in. I did jump, however, and one hand flew to my throat like a Victorian lady in need of a fainting couch.

  “I am so sorry, I surely didn’t mean to startle you.” A slender black woman in her late thirties/early forties gave me a rueful smile. She was elegantly dressed in a black pencil skirt and royal-blue silk blouse, looking more like a model than a shop clerk.