Critical acclaim for Jewell Parker Rhodes’s
MOON
“Rhodes puts . . . earnest thought into [New Orleans’s] dark history. . . . The visceral descriptions of supernatural possessions are matched by equally vivacious sex scenes.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Fans of vampire and New Orleans horror will find this an unexpected and thought-provoking treat.”
—Booklist
“A superb sequel.”
—Publishers Weekly
“An enjoyable story and a well-drawn heroine. . . . Descriptive summoning of New Orleans as a city that has always portended its ill-fated future.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“A compelling, mystical ride. Rhodes has created an exciting and contemporary heroine battling New Orleans’s racist past and preparing for post-Katrina times. Empowered, sassy, comfortable with her sexuality, Dr. Laveau is expert at spiritual and medical healing and at solving crimes.”
—E. Lynn Harris, New York Times bestselling author of
Just Too Good to Be True
“Richly dark and vividly haunting, Jewell Parker Rhodes gives us a taut and thrilling novel imbued with the lush and soulful spirit of New Orleans. Moon is a magical, mysterious, and transfixing read.”
—David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Scavenger
“In the brilliant novel Moon, real world crime bumps up against otherworldly forces. Modern medicine and ancient voodoo practices dance hand in hand along jazz-filled New Orleans streets in this stirring exploration of a contemporary healer descended from the legendary voodoo queen Marie Laveau. In this stunning novel, the author once again demonstrates that her gifts as a storyteller are unparalleled.”
—Betty Webb, author of the prize-winning Lena Jones mysteries,
Desert Cut and Desert Wives
SEASON
“A masterful evocation of the decadence of the Big Easy of long ago. . . . Rhodes adds beguiling glimpses into another world of ghosts, zombies, spirit gods and ritual sacrifices. The result is a riveting read.”
—Orlando Sentinel
“Marie’s world of sex, malevolence, the undead, and miraculous rescue is alluring.”
—Booklist
“Season is a tantalizing brew of spirituality, sensuality, and old-fashioned good storytelling—a perfect novel for anyone who loves a strong mystery beautifully told. Another winner from this great writer!”
—Valerie Wilson Wesley, bestselling author of Of Blood and Sorrow
“Haunting and lyrical, Season draws us into the fascinating world of ghosts and spirits, and the people they watch over. Jewell Parker Rhodes has created a terrific character in Marie Levant: strong, sensual and vulnerable.”
—Karen Siplin, critically acclaimed author of Whiskey Road
“In Season, Jewell Parker Rhodes revisits her rich, mysterious world of New Orleans. . . . Compelling and elegantly written.”
—Tananarive Due, Essence bestselling author of Blood Colony
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Contents
Moon
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Author’s Note
Season
The Middle: Two Thousand and Five
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
The Beginning: Two Thousand and Five
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Another Beginning: Two Thousand and Five
Chapter 8
The End: Two Thousand and Five
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Never Ending: Two Thousand and Five
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Author’s Note
Hurricane
PART I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
PART II
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
PART III
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
PART IV
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Author’s Note
About Jewell Parker Rhodes
About Atria Books
Ask Atria
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Author’s Note
Dedicated to the Imani Readers of Atlanta
and to my husband, Brad
PROLOGUE
NEW ORLEANS WHARF
SATURDAY, LATE EVENING
Drifting in darkness, lost in the vast Atlantic, it woke. Where had it been? Where was home? No answer. Only longing as it drifted in icy water, among currents and tides, shipwrecks, and murdered slaves’ brittle bones.
What was it? Who?
It couldn’t remember.
The Port of New Orleans is never quiet. Like a good whorehouse, there’s always activity. Needs being fulfilled.
Daylight, ship horns bellowed as longshoremen unpacked crates from China, India, the Americas and outfitted ships for the ride north, up the mighty Mississippi.
Nighttime, when the moon was shrouded, sounds muted, activity of another kind stirred—illegal shipments of drugs, alcohol, and people. Police were paid to look the other way while gang members, knives slipped in their boots, guns in their belts, trafficked in contraband, ensuring New Orleans’s fame. The Crescent City. Named for the thin sliver of a moon with the devil’s upturned horns. Sin City. Big Easy. Except nothing was easy.
It was in a watery grave, blending invisibly with water. Seeking comfort it couldn’t find. It couldn’t remember a beginning or an end.
JT wished he wasn’t here. Blackjack called him like a lover, and he’d succumbed, hoping to score. Sometimes, he did; most times, he didn’t. His day job, counting crates arriving and with what, didn’t pay much. Union
wages weren’t for illegals; so, he hustled for a few dollars more. Played lookout in case some unsuspecting Joe got too curious or too close to the skiffs maneuvering between the stately cruise and merchant ships.
JT wasn’t a bad man. He had scruples. He wouldn’t watchdog if it involved kidnapped women or children. He wouldn’t take pay in coke. Not even rum.
Tonight, he felt uneasy. There was a shipment of pirated electronics. Or so he’d been told. He was too old to be abroad at night. Too foolish not to give up the cards. Fifty-eight years old, and he knew he’d never find his pot of gold.
His luck had run out.
Below the sea, it flailed. Fish darted blindly. Crabs scuttled across the sea bottom. Incoherent memories. Triumph. A face? A serpent, then pain. Couldn’t remember what, how. When.
He looked across the black Gulf dotted with ship lights, low-slung stars, and billowy clouds. His mother had sworn Agwé, the sea god, would protect him.
As a child, he’d sailed safe from Haiti in an overcrowded raft. Others had died from heatstroke, starvation, or were drowned after being tossed overboard by a rough sea or an angry hand.
It gathered itself. Fish darted. Crabs scuttled. Coalescing, it moved, surging against the current, the grainy sand. Growing stronger.
“JT—you on watch?”
“Here,” he said, raising his arm at the thickset man.
“Better be.”
JT scowled, then marched left, right, left, then right again. All he saw were cops waiting for their cut and wharf rats scavenging for crumbs.
His mother had had dreams for him; he wasn’t living any of them.
“You,” she’d said, kissing him farewell, “I dedicate to Agwé.”
The local spell man had slipped a foul-smelling, leather bag about his neck. “Keep it safe,” he’d told him. “Keep it safe.”
But once in America, after the fourth boy, picking a fight, poked fun at his charm, JT threw the bag away.
Staring at his rough hands, his calloused feet, JT whispered, “Agwé.” He lit a cigarette, the tip glowing, and savored the smoke curling through his lungs.
It soared toward a light. A bright circle, suspended. High. Higher. Bursting from water into air. To another world. Less ephemeral. Sky. It remembered the word. Sky. Sun and storms.
JT saw rippling on the water’s surface. A fish? A miracle?
He tossed his cigarette into the lapping water, then lay on rough wood, his head hanging over the wharf edge, his fingers dangling in the warm water.
“Agwé, you there? Beloved god of my mama?”
Desire formed—an old desire. It remembered lungs filling with air. It used to walk on land.
Each of the Voodoo gods had their song. JT didn’t remember Agwé’s song, the singsong chant, but he remembered beats. Syncopated, luring.
JT, his hands tingling with power, slapped his chest and legs. Like a minstrel drummer, his hands pounded the rhythm—the signal for Agwé to come.
Sound—it remembered sound. Vibrations calling. It moved toward the shore, searching for the source. For who called it.
JT sat, legs crossed, the dirty Mississippi dripping from his fingers.
A shadow hovered on the horizon.
Sailors told of shadows that roiled and rolled, forecasting hurricanes. JT shifted uneasily, stretching out his hands as if he could touch the distant storm. Then, he patterned the rhythm again and again, his hands stinging skin, blood rising to the surface.
Becoming dense, coalescing above the water, the shadow slid toward him.
Tears filled JT’s eyes. In the approaching darkness, he thought he saw his mother, ever so young, beautiful. “Mama,” he shouted.
It grew, dimensional, tall, skimming the water’s surface.
The darkness seemed to walk on water. It must be Agwé, his mother’s favorite god, JT thought. If Agwé possessed him, he knew he’d be saved. Knew his luck would change.
A ragged shape, an outline of mist. Limbs, torso. Not itself—but a memory.
It understood desire. Need. Wanting.
Understood sound, rhythm—compelling, cajoling. Calling the gods. Before. What was before?
It remembered smells. Flesh. Blood. It desired blood.
“Save me,” JT bellowed, frenetically pounding his chest. “Agwé, save me.”
The swift darkness neared. A frigid breeze blew across the warm Mississippi. Across the wharf.
It slammed into him.
JT fell, his skull cracking, his body, writhing on the wharf, like a catfish, belly up.
It pinioned the body to the ground. Inhaling the sweet, fleshy smell; feeling the ebb and flow, the rhythm of the blood, hearing the heart pounding. Pressing sinews, muscles, and bone. Insatiable. Hungry.
Coiling about JT’s hand, it bit, puncturing his wrist.
Encased in a dark cloud, JT could see his flesh rise; feel, rather than see, his blood draining, disappearing into air. He wanted to scream but the pressure on his chest robbed him of voice. He struggled, legs flailing, but couldn’t break free.
He felt his soul tearing from his flesh. Felt some thing, someone stealing memories, feelings. Through the mist, he could see the moon, the star-cluttered sky. Helpless, he stopped struggling, trying to hold on to memories flowing from his wrist. Into cold air.
He remembered: coffee and packs of saltines for breakfast; hunting trash bins to resell pop bottles and cans; a woman laughing, scornfully, when he smiled at her; fat-bellied Darryl, cursing: “Get to work. Too damn slow.” Hauling crates in the too-hot sun. Searching the dock and alleyways for cops. Sleeping on a stained mattress. Voices, angry and boastful, floating up from the street. An alarm clanging: 4:00 am. Work. Waking, dreamless, to another day.
JT mourned for all he hadn’t done.
Light-headed, organs starved for oxygen, JT remembered his mother singing, holding him close.
JT tried to call to her, but his voice was a dry gurgle—a final exhale.
Satiated, it uncoiled from the body, tasting the salty blood and savoring JT’s memories. It dove into the sea, wriggling into the cool depths. Remembering.
ONE
LA MER JAZZ CLUB
SATURDAY NIGHT
Marie could hear the music wailing, bleeding through the spray-painted windows and door. Her body responded—her fingers itching to snap, her feet to dance. It would be very nice, too, if she got laid. DuLac wouldn’t mind. That was the nice thing about going club hopping with a boss who was also a mentor and friend.
“Safe sex, Marie.”
She laughed. “Are you saying I’m a loose woman?”
DuLac, in a double-breasted suit, a diamond in his ear, his hair peppered gray, was elegance personified. He came from an old Creole family; his face fine boned, like his French ancestors. Outwardly, he was genteel, gracious. A perfect companion. Inwardly, he was more complex, his soul steeped in African rhythms, mystery, and healing.
“Be good,” he said. “Tomorrow, you and I have a shift.”
“Sure thing, boss. You want me to monitor your wine?”
“Don’t sass.”
“Just have a good time?”
“Oui. Bonne temps en Nouveau Orleans.”
They grinned like conspirators. Work hard, play hard. Marie slipped her hand through his arm.
The bouncer, a wannabe pro wrestler, opened the door, waving them into the club. A cave smelling of sweat, musky perfumes, and tropical rum.
The music was uplifting. Marie stepped lightly, hips swaying as the waitress showed them to their table. Dead center, in front of the musicians’ platform. A table, every Saturday night, reserved for her and DuLac. An indulgence. Reward for the shifts battling Charity Hospital’s violence, disease, and trauma.
Marie looked around the hazy, smoke-filled room. Votive candles decorated the tables. Dried magnolias hung like ribbons from the ceiling. Candle sconces decorated the walls, shimmering with shadows and firelight.
Waitresses dressed in sleek black satin with
bustiers uplifting brown, yellow, white, pink-tinged breasts, offered drinks, roses for couples—gay or straight. For five dollars you could have your picture taken, your face burrowing into soft, perfumed breasts.
All in good fun. Music with a little sex, decadence thrown in.
But it was the music that held the greatest allure. Rhythms that spoke to and about the spirit. Saxophones that sounded like cries; trumpets that wailed; drums that proclaimed; and piano scales that cascaded, calling for “mercy.”
Music—all powerful, knowing. Human. Humane.
Marie had thought there was a rule—only handsome people were welcome at La Mer. But she’d come to realize that New Orleanians were always beautiful listening to music. It was as if they let themselves be transformed, opening their souls and bodies so they seemed larger, more infused with life. That’s why she loved La Mer—rarely was it filled with thrill-seeking tourists. Just music-loving locals. Who understood the mating sounds. The life-in-death sounds. The excruciating pleasure of being alive.
Marie swayed to the moaning sax, her body answering the sound. She searched the bar for interesting men. Most were already paired; some she’d already enjoyed.
DuLac murmured, “Night’s still young.”
She blushed. “If you were younger—”
“I’m your father figure.”
“True.” DuLac had taken her under his wing. She hadn’t known her father, but she couldn’t imagine one better than DuLac. Only in New Orleans did fathers party, encouraging their daughters to have a good time. In a city filled with so much sin, holding tight to passion was a requirement for survival. How else could a people outlast slavery; Spanish, French, and American invasions; yellow fever; and hurricanes?
Live life large. Let the good times roll. New Orleans—her adopted home. The city where she felt most herself.
The song ended. Climaxing in a vibrato that left the audience breathless, whistling, stomping their feet, demanding more.
Charlie, the piano man, stood, his mouth slyly upturned, shouting, “Everybody . . . everybody welcome doctors Louis DuLac and Marie Laveau. Visit Charity Hospital. They’ll fix what ails you.”
The drummer hit the bass.
The Legend of Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy Page 1
