by Dana Fredsti
“It’s okay,” I replied while trying to sneak a peek outside. “Just got a little overheated.” The thing across the street was still standing in the middle of the sidewalk, head turning from side to side and then, impossibly, swiveling all the way around as it searched for me.
“You hidin’ from someone?” She drew back the curtain far enough to peer outside, following the direction of my gaze. She frowned, lips pursing in disapproval. “Now what is ol’ Nal doing walkin’ around so early?”
“You can see it?” I took a second look at her, using more than my eyes this time. Nothing about her screamed “supe” right off the bat, but I could sense she had at least one foot in between worlds.
“Oh sure, hon.” She patted me on one arm. “I see a lot of things most people don’t. That fellow, though…” She shook her head. “I’d rather be spared that sight.”
“Is he—it—still out there?” I didn’t want to risk looking again in case the creature either saw me or sensed my location. The back of my neck still burned, which meant it was still trying to find me.
“He’s moving… Oh lord, he’s coming this way.”
Shit. I’d have to fight it and I didn’t even know what it was or how to kill it and this nice woman might get hurt and—
“Here.” She slipped something that felt like cloth into my hand, squeezing her fingers around mine. “Hold this. Don’t let go.”
I didn’t question her, even when the thing started thumping against my skin, as if I held a tiny beating heart. I could feel the woman’s pulse through her fingers, felt my own heart beating at the same rate until the three separate rhythms became one, the sound filling my ears. Pounding. Thrumming. Roaring. Until nothing else existed.
“Ah, that’s better.” The woman’s voice acted like an “off ” switch. The triple heartbeat stopped. “He’s spotted something more interesting down the street. Lord, I hope it’s not that sweet little girl…” Shaking her head again, she let the curtain fall back into place and released my hand. I opened my fingers and looked at the small black cotton bag resting against my palm.
“What is it?” I asked as the tingling in the back of my neck faded away.
“A gris-gris,” she replied. “Protection against those that mean you harm. And that thing… he never means anything good for anyone.”
“You called it—him—Nal?”
“Short for Nalusa Falaya—” She pronounced it “nah-luss-ah fah-lah-yah.” “He’s a critter out of old Choctaw legends. Name translates to ‘long black being.’ Nal, he hunts in the shadows at twilight, keeps his wicked eyes open for children who’ve strayed too far from home.” She frowned. “He’s gotten bold, hunting in the city.”
“He hunts for food…?”
She nodded. “Nal’s an eater of flesh. Like the Ojibwa wendigo or the rakshasa of India.”
I risked another glance out the window. The Nalusa Falaya was nowhere in sight. My amulet was once again cool against my skin. I heaved a sigh of relief.
“Now, hon, how ’bout you tell me why ol’ Nal was after you?”
I had no idea how to answer that honestly without opening up a can of worms so large it would bury us—and make me late for the ghost tour—so I settled for “Maybe because I saw what it really was. I’m Lee, by the way,” I added.
“Eugenie,” my savior replied.
My gaze lit on a display on the wall adjacent to the windows. Broken tiles with paintings on them that, upon closer inspection of the captions, were tiles that had been retrieved from neighborhoods decimated by Hurricane Katrina. Most of them were from the Ninth Ward. One of them showed an almost ephemeral tracing of a woman’s face, with one word beneath it—Erzulie. Almost without thinking, I pointed at it and said, “I’d like to buy this, please.”
“Of course, hon.” Eugenie took the tile off its wall hanger, walked behind one of the counters, and rung it up.
“Ten dollars? That can’t be right.” I knew it wasn’t—the cheapest of the tile art was fifty bucks and they were much smaller than the one I wanted to buy.
“Don’t you be arguing with me,” she chided gently. “There’s something about you. You’re special. If Erzulie is meant to go with you, she would want me to make it easy.” She patted my hand. “Trust me.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“You have spirits watching over you, child. The loas are on your side.”
I handed her a twenty-dollar bill, accepted the change she handed back along with the carefully wrapped tile in a small black paper bag. A quick glance at an ornate and obviously antique clock on the wall told me I’d better get a move on if I was going to get to the tour’s meet-up location on time, so I thanked Eugenie one more time and left the gallery.
As I started back down the street, I looked back at the shop front for the name. Curtains now blocked the entire front of picture windows and the door was shut, a “closed” sign hanging on the doorknob.
What the…?
I glanced at the bag. “Loa Creations” was stenciled in vibrant pink across the black paper.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I arrived with ten minutes to spare before the tour, and I knew exactly how I wanted to spend them. I’d googled Black Penny and planned on checking out their beer selection. They sold canned craft beers only, nothing on tap, no bottles.
A few people were gathered around outside, an older couple in their sixties wearing sensible shoes and loose, comfy-looking clothing. A Chinese couple somewhere in their thirties or forties, speaking in Mandarin as they checked their watches. A cluster of twenty-somethings—three boys and two girls—who were acting like they were there to audition for a spring break reality show, with white smiles and clothing that bespoke comprehensive dental plans and the money to spend on mid-level designer labels. They’d already been in Black Penny and were all clutching cans of beer. The guys checked me out pretty thoroughly, making me wonder if they were either all just friends or the guys were all just jerks. A younger couple in matching khaki pants and dark-blue sweaters could have stepped straight out of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad.
“This is hella lame,” one of the young men muttered. A girl in a white sundress punched him on his shoulder.
“It’ll be fun. Don’t be an asshole.”
Their accents screamed Boston.
Inside, Black Penny was everything I’d hoped. Cozy, a mixture of exposed brick and walls painted a dark olive. Bigass chandeliers dangling from the ceiling provided light, which spread out dimly through the rest of the interior. Vintage paintings, brass rubbings, and photographs filled the walls, hanging above a smattering of cream-colored booths. My gaze flickered over all of this, then stopped at shallow alcoves, cans upon cans of craft beer lining the shelves there and on shelves behind the dark wood bar.
Wow. This place could be dangerous.
After a brief but intense perusal of the beer selection, many of which I’d never heard of, I chose a Ten Fidy—another high-octane Imperial Stout—from a brewery called Oskar Blues. Seemed like the perfect way to start out a ghost tour and since it was in a can, I could take it to go. Gotta love New Orleans just for that alone. I could get used to this. I walked back outside, taking a deep, satisfying swig of the rich, malty brew.
Tia came hurrying up St. Peter Street, waving when she saw me, a smile lighting up her face. She wore the same plain black, logo-free leggings and T-shirt she’d worn when we’d met, black backpack slung over one shoulder.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said breathlessly. “I had a walk-in an hour ago. Nothing fancy, just wanted a David Bowie quote on one shoulder, but I don’t like rushing, y’know?”
It seemed natural to hug in greeting, so I went with it.
“No worries,” I said. “If I were getting a tattoo, I’d be pissed as hell if the artist was in too much of a hurry to do a good job.”
“You’re a tattoo artist?” One of the college boys looked at Tia with sudden interest. Tia’s lack of makeup and single
messy braid hadn’t attracted more than a quick, uninterested glance up to this point, though to me it was easy to see how pretty she was if one took the time to look past her almost aggressively casual style.
Tia nodded, pulling one of her business cards out of the front compartment of her backpack. “You can either call and book an appointment or take your chances and do a walk-in.”
“Cool,” he replied, pocketing the card.
“I didn’t know kids still said that,” I whispered to Tia.
“Kids?” she said, amused. “You can’t be more than a few years older than any of them.”
I shrugged. “Trust me. They’re kids.”
“What does that make me, oh world-weary one?”
“A mere infant,” I said with a grin.
Tia snorted. “Well, this infant has an ID that says she can have a beer. Do I have time before the tour starts?”
“I don’t see anyone dressed like a low-rent Vampire Lestat or his squeeze, so I don’t think the tour guides have arrived yet.” I glanced at my phone. “They’ve got five minutes before the tour’s supposed to start.”
“I’ll be right back.” Tia vanished into Black Penny, reappearing shortly with a can of Horny Goat Chocolate Peanut Butter Imperial clutched in one hand.
I seriously doubted she was old enough to be buying alcohol, but if her ID passed muster, it didn’t bother me. If someone was old enough to be drafted, they should damn well be able to enjoy a beer if they wanted.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Ghastly Ghost Tours of New Orleans,” intoned a deep male voice.
We turned to see our guides. The speaker was Christian, the man who’d given me the free passes, wearing his Goth wet dream outfit. His female counterpart seemed a lot more comfortable in her empire-waisted cotton frock. Christian gave a start of recognition when he saw me, taking off his top hat and sketching a respectable bow in my direction. “Ah, mademoiselle, so pleased you decided to join us!’
I wiggled the fingers of one hand in a little wave.
He was cute enough in his wannabe Lestat costume to garner speculative glances and giggles from the college girls. I could tell the frat boys didn’t much like this, and I hoped they wouldn’t be dicks during the tour and try to score points off our guide.
Christian cleared his throat and launched into his routine. “Ladies and gentlemen—”
Paris Hilton Lite hit her boyfriend on the arm. “He’s not talking about you, that’s for sure.”
“—Welcome to Ghastly New Orleans. We are most pleased to have you as our guests. I hope none of you are faint of heart…”
His female co-host nodded with a serene smile. “That’s right,” she said. “We’ve only lost one person on our tours over five years, and she’d forgotten to take her heart medicine that day.”
And so on.
They were game, I’d give them that. Even though they’d probably given this tour dozens upon dozens of times, both Christian and his fellow guide, Sasha, put energy and a gleeful enthusiasm into their spiel.
“Congo Square,” Christian intoned. “Once the site of bizarre and unholy voodoo rituals, led by none other than Marie Laveau herself…”
A flash of green met my eyes. Drums. Voices raised in song and chanting, the heat of summer and many men and women dancing with complete abandon…
The loa—Erzulie—once rode me there.
The thought came from nowhere.
Heat and humidity suddenly beat down on me with a vengeance. Heard the music. Felt the drums in my very core, my body responding to the rhythm. I—
“Lee!”
I opened my eyes, surprised to find them closed. I gave my head a little shake to clear it of the phantom drums.
“You okay?” Tia stood in front of me with a semi-concerned expression.
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “Just a weird déjà vu moment there.”
“Ah, yeah.” Tia patted me on one shoulder. “This whole city is filled with those if you’re open to them.”
“You feel it too?” I took a swig of my beer as we walked a few yards behind our group.
“Yeah.” Tia looked thoughtful, then added, “I have no idea if it’s wishful thinking or no, but I’ve felt like I’ve been here before more than once.”
“Ancestral memories, maybe,” I replied without thinking. Then I stopped. Ancestral memories. That explanation made as much sense as anything else that had been thrown at me recently. I made a mental note to ask Sean about that.
“This is the Gardette–LaPrete House,” Christian said in his pseudo-English accent. “After the Civil War, the LaPrete family fortune was lost, and they were forced to lease their grand mansion in the French Quarter to a mysterious Turk, who some whispered was a deposed Sultan from a far-off land in the Orient. He brought with him a fortune in gold and used his wealth to transform the Creole house into a palace. From without, it became a veritable fortress, the doors and windows covered and barred with iron, guarded by fierce men with curved daggers in their belts.
“From within, a perfumed eastern pleasure palace, rivaling that of fabled Xanadu, filled with a harem of concubines, houris, and dancing girls. Every night, a wild orgy of decadence ensued. Until one terrible, dark and stormy night…
“When the storm cleared the next morning, passers-by were horrified to see a river of blood trickling down the front steps of the Sultan’s Palace. The police forced open the iron gates, only to discover a grisly massacre. Blood splatters covered the fine walls. Corpses littered the elegant floor. All the occupants had been butchered by scimitar or axe—hacked to pieces so horribly, it was impossible to tell which decapitated head or chopped limb belonged to which body.
“The gruesome scene was so horrific the local newspapers forbore to print the shocking details. But the most chilling crime of all was outside the house. In the courtyard behind the mansion, the heavy rain of the previous night’s storm had left the soil wet and muddy. Sticking out of the ground was a man’s hand, the fingers in a rictus, clawing to escape the grave. The Sultan himself had been buried alive…”
Christian sounded positively gleeful as he continued, “Throughout the years since this horrific event, people have sworn they’ve heard hideously muffled screams coming from the courtyard… somewhere in the ground beneath.”
The tour continued, including Lafitte’s Blacksmith—“The oldest bar in America since 1772”—and the old Pharmacy, where Christian informed us that, “according to legend, America’s first licensed pharmacist performed vile exploratory surgeries upon his victims, especially lovely ladies.”
Then finally, now deep within the French Quarter, we arrived at the corner of Royal and Governor Nicholls Street, gazing up at an imposing building, a mansion from a bygone era. Standing three stories high, its grim rectangular bulk, ringed by black wrought-iron galleries, loomed over the rest of the block, its brick walls the color of a brooding thunderstorm…
The LaLaurie Mansion.
It still gave me the shivers.
“And now we come to the house at 1140 Royal Street, and our final stop of our Ghastly Ghost tour—the infamous LaLaurie Mansion. Ladies and gentlemen, as you probably already know, New Orleans is recognized worldwide as the most haunted city in the Western Hemisphere. But now, I must warn you… many expert authorities of the supernatural consider the LaLaurie Mansion to be the most haunted house in all of New Orleans.”
Some of our fellow tour attendees glanced at one another nervously, while the frat boys nudged their friends with their elbows. Christian continued unabated.
“If you’ve heard anything about the ghosts and hauntings in New Orleans, there’s no doubt that you’ve heard about the LaLaurie Mansion. How many of you saw it on American Horror Story? Well, I should tell you that the show’s producers took a great deal of poetic license with the story—as Hollywood tends to do.” The crowd chuckled.
Tell me about it, I thought.
“Actually, the majority of filming didn’t even tak
e place here, but was done over on St. Louis Street, at the Hermann–Grima House…”
Christian’s voice faded out as I gazed up at the mansion. Smoke billowing out from the windows, the flicker of flames casting dancing red shadows against the glass panes. The sound of screams. An angry rumble of outraged voices. Body parts. Blood.
Horror.
“Lee, are you okay?”
I shook my head, trying to control the rapid pounding of my heart and the sudden lurch of my stomach.
“I—”
I was going to say, “I’m fine,” but my body chose to throw up instead. Luckily, I managed to skitter away from the group and around the corner first, dry-heaving into a trashcan.
“Jeez, girl, if you’re gonna do tha’ shit, get your ass over to Bourbon Street.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, wiping my mouth with the back of one hand without bothering to look at my critic.
“Lee, you okay?” Tia had followed me around the corner.
“That’s the third time you’ve asked me that tonight,” I said with a shaky laugh.
Tia stared at me in concern. “Seriously, that makes it even worse. You know that, right?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just… I think I should have had more than a donut and a protein bar to eat today.”
Tia stared at me for a minute, then nodded as if coming to a decision.
“You up to a short Lyft ride?”
“I think so.”
“Good. I’m gonna take you to one of my favorite bars. Best burgers in the city.”
My stomach growled as if in agreement with Tia’s plans. A hamburger and French fries sounded amazing about now.
* * *
Jordan leaned against the wrought-iron gate of Lafayette Cemetery, and lit a cigarette. American Spirit. He deliberately stayed underneath the illumination of one of the streetlights, doing his best to look like he wasn’t there to cause any trouble—for once, there was truth in advertising—trying to let go of his anger toward Blaise for ditching him.
