The Legend of Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

  Marie looked to see if Rudy and JT were enjoying the music. It had to be better than haunting her. Better than the sick and the dying. Better than seeing their bodies splayed in the morgue. Lord, she was truly crazy—worrying about the feelings of the dead.

  She scanned the room. She didn’t see them.

  Patients, standing on chairs, shaking hips, shouting, “Samba,” defeated El. She retreated to her station, lips pursed, and tried to focus on paperwork. Huan, who’d never danced in her life, was tripping over K-Paul’s feet, startled by his hips shaking beneath his physician’s coat.

  The music was infectious. Sully, overweight yet light on his feet, twirled. Incredibly graceful and sweet.

  Marie looked for her ghosts. She saw a shimmer, light shifting like water, in the far-right corner, near the coffee machine. Ghosts, spirits, didn’t displace air.

  She felt unsettled.

  Strangely, everyone else in the ER was happy. Even El hummed, snapping her fingers.

  Her back to his front, the woman shook her hips from side to side, up and down. Marie was acutely aware of the sexual pantomime. Men had lust in their eyes; and the women, sick and old, were fluttering their hands like fans. Marie felt a stirring in her crotch.

  A technician rocked, eyes glazed, his hands on his thighs. A couple—one with a stomach ailment, the other needing a diabetic check—danced as if they were long-lost lovers.

  Time out of mind. The give and take of motion; sweating, bodies exuding pheromones, the chemical aphrodisiac. She shook her butt a bit, trying to remember that she was thirty, not eighty.

  K-Paul murmured in her ear, “Maybe we should just heal with music. Not one of those folks acts sick.” He spun her around, dipped, and swayed. His lips swooped down, kissing her. “I’m willing if you are,” he drawled, then, danced away.

  She thought, Why the hell not?

  The man with deep knife wounds across his arm didn’t mind the uproar. Eyes closed, he was cupping his crotch. A crying baby now gurgled. Amazing. Each and every one transformed.

  “Let’s close the ER and go home,” said El. “They can dance all night for all I care.”

  Marie couldn’t help chuckling. Sully bowed and asked a woman who looked anorexic to dance. Fat and slim, they looked charming.

  K-Paul was boogying with his Cajun soul. Marie undressed him in her mind. She ducked her head, blushing, looking across the counter to see if DuLac had seen her prowling. He was tap-tapping his hands, appreciating the dancers’ sensuality.

  K-Paul grabbed her arm again. “Dance.”

  K-Paul’s good-natured smile, his gentle hands, felt just right. She wanted to pretend everything was fine. Enjoy a sweet moment in a man’s arms.

  Holding tight to K-Paul, her body following its own rhythm, she looked again at the corner.

  Rudy and JT were squeezing themselves small, banding together like brothers.

  “You all right?”

  Marie stopped dancing.

  Rudy and JT were afraid. What could scare the dead?

  Music. Her heart raced.

  She exhaled, watched her breath condense. Everyone else was sweating; she was cold. She heard a plaintive wail, echoing from a distance, from underwater. An anguished cry beneath bright samba beats.

  Across the room, DuLac cocked a brow. He’d always had a sixth sense about her—it had only grown stronger as they shared ceremonies and work. He stood at attention, watching her as she carefully watched the room.

  K-Paul kept repeating, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

  She tried to stare at the invisible—the space between air, between worlds. Imagining herself here, now, in a ceremony. Through the whirl of color, bodies, and sound, she tried to discover who or what was keening.

  The ER’s smell had become rancid, like kelp decomposing on the shore.

  The dancer, red lips stretched in horror, her black hair falling like a curtain, was arched backward over a chair, her arms extended, flailing; some force was flattening, pressing her hard, until the chair collapsed.

  The dancers and the ER patients jerked away; some toppled over chairs; others clung to one another, wailing; still others staggered for the exit.

  The girl screamed, “Get it off me. Get it off.”

  Once a carnival, the ER now resembled a fun house mirror. Everything the eye saw didn’t seem real. It wasn’t real—watching a woman pinioned to the floor by a mist. Wasn’t real seeing the primeval fear in her, the distaste, the voyeurism in the others. The stares. The girl dancer crying, Sully moaning, “Lord, have mercy,” patients making the sign of the cross.

  Marie grabbed the girl’s wrist. Her pulse quickening; her lungs spastic, hyperventilating. The mist pressing hard against her flesh.

  “Get phenobarbital. Now,” she shouted at K-Paul.

  The girl’s other hand rose, as if someone held it in midair. Blood appeared on her wrist.

  Marie extended her hand, feeling cold, the tangible mist, the suction pulling blood through the girl’s veins.

  When her fingers covered the bite marks, the bleeding stopped. When she removed her fingers, the bleeding renewed, doubling in ferocity. Disappearing into air.

  “Mother of God, Lord have mercy.” There were shouts of stigmata. Most fled, stumbling over the folding chairs. Tough El fell to her knees.

  “A tourniquet,” Marie commanded softly. “Get me three cc’s of BeneFix. Huan, get bandages. A neck brace.”

  “What the hell?” said K-Paul.

  “We’ve got to stop the bleeding. She’ll be drained. A coagulate may help. It won’t do worse. We’ll relax her, try to contain her body. Ride it out.”

  “Should we strap her to a gurney?” asked K-Paul.

  “No. The more rigid the body, the more damage might be done.”

  Music, reverberating crazily, mocked.

  “Turn off that music,” Marie shouted.

  El stomped on it; the cassette door popped open, the brown tape spilling, coiling out.

  Huan dropped beside her. Marie injected the drugs. Almost immediately, the girl’s body went limp. Her bloodied arm fell. Huan gently grabbed the wrist, applying antiseptic, bandaging it with gauze.

  Marie checked the girl’s pulse, her eyes, reflexes. She was deep asleep.

  The spirit was gone.

  Parks swept in, pulling his gun. “What’s going on?”

  “Almost another victim,” said Marie. “K-Paul, find her a bed for observation.”

  “Sure thing.”

  El yelled, “Order, folks. This is a hospital.”

  K-Paul and Huan lifted the beautiful dancer. Her dress fluttering gracefully, her ruffled hem ripped.

  Marie sighed, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

  “I came just in time,” said Parks.

  Marie smiled. “Sure you did, Detective.”

  Like a tidal wave, there was a vacuum, then energy roaring—entering Marie, forcing her back. She cried out; her head hit the floor. She was in the eye of the wave, a swirling maelstrom of emotions, voices.

  Parks was shouting; Huan, sobbing.

  She moaned. The spirit clutched her throat. Her head arched; she saw pockmarks on the ceiling. Pieces of the ceiling broke and fell.

  Nothing touched her. Yet something touched her. Almost as if a face was right above hers. All she saw was a threatening sky, storm clouds gathering, and a pale moon hovering over roiling water.

  Parks was on his knees, shouting; she couldn’t hear. Cold. Her organs becoming ice. Hypothermia, no visible cause. The scientist in her couldn’t help but be curious. Forensics would be stumped. Cold. Blood loss.

  “Doc, can you hear me? Doc?”

  She tried to say, “Don’t touch.”

  Huan was holding Parks’s hand, chattering in Vietnamese and repeating after each phrase, “No, no. No.”

  Good. Huan understood. Perverse, the spirit might move from her to Parks.

  Don’t touch, the spirit mocked, moving aggressively against her.

/>   She felt a searing pain. Her wrist had been punctured. She was no longer in the ER, in New Orleans, in this world. She saw Rudy and JT, crystal clear. They were mourning for her.

  Blood drained from her wrist.

  She felt the priest. He’d enjoyed his suffering. Mea culpa. As his blood drained, he’d screamed for help.

  No one heard him because of the drums.

  Dancing. There’d been dancing in the basement. In her mind, she saw the leaflet. Afro-Cuban dancing. A strange absurdity.

  Like feeling the roar of blood, rushing toward the wounds on her wrist.

  So this is what it felt like to die. She was on the floor . . . her heart beating faster . . . then slower . . . she could feel with each pulse, blood leaving her body. With it, snatches of her history, memories. Blood memories.

  Sitting in church with her mother, both holding their rosaries. Sammy, a sixth-grader, screaming, “Poor, nigger black.” Her mother, dead, on the floor. Eyes wide open.

  Reneaux, tenderly loving her. Sleeping in his embrace.

  The spirit sucked, draining, tough and hard, like a child would a breast. Flashes of the present: Parks mouthing words; Huan’s tearstained cheeks; K-Paul refilling a syringe. She wanted to be unconscious. She ached. The invisible weight pressed deeper into sinews, muscles, and veins. Devouring, controlling her body, draining her blood like an IV line in reverse.

  It wouldn’t take long to die. She’d join JT and Rudy as ghosts.

  K-Paul tried to inject her.

  The darkness lashed out. The syringe skittered across the floor. K-Paul cursed.

  The creature learned; it wouldn’t be fooled twice.

  Furious, DuLac yelled: “You fight, Marie, you hear me? Fight. Who you be? Comment t’appelle-tu? You tell me. Tell me your name,” DuLac demanded. “Tell me.”

  “Marie.” The word was a whisper.

  “Oui, Marie.”

  “Marie.” She felt the spirit withdrawing, retreating.

  “Je suis Marie,” she said, her voice gaining strength.

  “Marie,” said DuLac.

  “Marie,” she repeated. Her mind felt a further retreat. Her blood stopped draining. The air warmed. She spoke louder. “Je suis Marie. I am Marie. Marie Laveau.”

  The spirit flew.

  “It’s gone.”

  “Doc.” Parks embraced her, lifting her in his arms.

  “Let me bandage you,” said Huan. “Spirits don’t scare me.”

  Marie squeezed her hand.

  “They scare me,” said Parks.

  “Curtain Two,” said El. “I’m going to clean up this mess. Huan, you got her?”

  Beneath the efficient veneer, Marie could see El’s fright. Shaken to the core, she looked old, uncertain. K-Paul slipped his arm about her.

  Parks lifted her up on the gurney; DuLac, the consummate doctor, began his exam. Parks held her hand and Marie felt comforted.

  “It knew me.”

  “Are you sure?” asked DuLac.

  “Yes.” She looked at both men, watching her. “It didn’t like my name. Me,” she rasped. “Didn’t like me.”

  Marie. The name had frightened it. Stirred memories.

  It knew her face. But couldn’t gather up the particles of thoughts. Just felt desire, then hurt. Wanted to hurt her. Some grudge needed tending.

  Marie. It knew her. Had known her. It had a past.

  Touch. Hurt. Touch. Hurt.

  Touch.

  A mother had touched her. Reneaux—had touched her. Held her. Who was Reneaux?

  Who was Marie?

  TEN

  DILLARD UNIVERSITY

  FRIDAY LATE AFTERNOON

  The office was ramshackle. Dimly lit, filled with books, glass paperweights, statues of assorted cultural gods. Isis. Buddha. Vishnu. Skulls—human and chimp—religious medallions, and jars filled with dead specimens—tree frogs, beetles—littered the file cabinets and desk. Cornhusk dolls, rosaries, bottles filled with multicolored oils cluttered the floor, the bookshelves.

  Professor Alafin wore a tweed vest in the hot, windowless room. A chain watch dangled from his pocket. He wore a clip-on bow tie and tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. Gray dreads scraped his collar.

  “You’re an interesting crew,” said Alafin, shaking DuLac’s hand.

  “Think so?” asked Marie.

  “Sure. My friend DuLac, who’s never worried, looks worried. Perhaps a bit scared? No insult intended, old friend.”

  “None taken.”

  “A lovely young woman.” Alafin stepped closer. “Pale. Unsettled. Are you well?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. Though she’d argued with both DuLac and Parks to let her come. Her body hurt; her head throbbed.

  “Are you sure?” Alafin frowned, his brows touching between his eyes. “Wrist bandaged. Dressed to downplay your loveliness in a black T-shirt and blue jeans. And you,” said Alafin, intent on Parks, “haven’t got the sense not to look like a cop. Or is it a G-man?”

  “G-man,” said Parks. “I haven’t heard that term in a while.”

  “I’m dated.”

  “Alafin lives in the present only when he has to,” said DuLac.

  “And DuLac visits me only when he has a puzzle. Sit.”

  Parks peered at captive beetles, moths, and butterflies pinned to a mat beneath glass. “What is it you do?”

  “A bit of everything. Social anthropology, philosophy, religion—mystics and canonical—cultural history. Folklore. Ethnomusicology.”

  “Eclectic,” said DuLac.

  Alafin chuckled. “More like the perennial associate professor. At least according to my department chair. He says my research lacks focus. Significance. Whereas I believe any human inquiry has meaning. And all inquiries loop back to the essential question: Why are we alive?”

  “To do good,” answered Parks.

  “A naive answer.”

  Parks bristled. “I’m a cop. Not a philosopher.”

  “I didn’t mean to insult you. My own cynicism. Twenty-five years studying, searching, and I wonder whether it’s that simple—‘to do good.’ If your answer is correct, then much of my life has been wasted, hasn’t it? My chair thinks my research is a waste.”

  Marie found Alafin slightly distasteful. Doing good was her foundation.

  Alafin sat behind his desk, his hands cupped under his chin, his elbows on his desk. He was a dark man; bright, black, inquiring eyes; medium size. His hands showed his age; years of digging, unearthing mysteries, secrets, and ancient societies had taken their toll. His hands curled like claws, wrinkled and discolored from clay, mud, the earth’s minerals. He watched Marie, intent, curious. As if he’d guessed her disapproval.

  “You know who I am,” Marie murmured.

  “I knew you when DuLac suspected you were you.”

  She looked at DuLac.

  “Don’t be upset with DuLac. Confirmation. He wanted confirmation.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “I know how you came into being. How history, ancestors, have crafted you. A descendant of Laveau, who descended from a powerful African priestess. See, I have it all here. Five generations.” He opened a lineage map, a tree of her female ancestors.

  Marie bristled. Part of her wanted to study the tree. To ask questions. Ultimately, it was upsetting that he knew more about her than she him. That DuLac had discussed her with him.

  “Don’t be upset, chérie,” said DuLac. “I needed help. With my understanding.”

  Parks interjected, “We need help with a crime.”

  “Something to do with the bandaged wrists?”

  “A spirit’s been draining blood,” said DuLac. “Not a spirit called during voodoo ritual.”

  “But called by music,” said Parks. “Isn’t that right, Doc? Except Father Xavier’s murder doesn’t fit the pattern.”

  “It does,” she said. “Check. There’d been a dance class the night he was murdered. Drums in the basement. The room beneath his.”

 
; “How do you know this?” complained Parks. “Damnit, Doc—”

  “It tried to drain you?” interrupted Alafin.

  “I survived.” Her left hand covered her bandage.

  “Let me see. Please.”

  She felt Alafin’s desperation. Mouth slightly parted, his hands clenched together as if to rein himself in, he could barely contain himself from grabbing, from ripping away gauze.

  Marie unrolled her bandage. Layer after layer.

  Her flesh was red, as if scalded by steam. Three punctures. Parallel to her bruised veins.

  “What did it feel like?”

  Marie didn’t answer. DuLac was studying her. He wanted to know how she knew about the drums. The music in the basement.

  Alafin touched her hole-shaped wounds. “Wazimamoto.”

  He searched his shelves of books. His blue polyester clothes were too big; a ripped pant cuff scraped dirt from the floor. He needed a shave and a haircut. “Here.” Alafin grabbed a book, on the far left, from the next to the highest shelf. “Vampires.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” said Parks.

  “Quiet,” chastised DuLac.

  “Not researched much,” said Alafin. “Really an unexplored area. One I haven’t given much attention. No one has.” He flipped through pages, his fingers resting on one particular page. He read silently, the researcher in him forgetting anyone else was in the room.

  “What do you know, Alafin?” asked DuLac. “We’re among friends.”

  Alafin lifted his head, focusing on Parks, DuLac, then Marie. He clutched the book tightly against his chest. “I’ve spent my whole life studying the mystical. Searching for miracles—I’ve seen things. In Haiti, Brazil, Nigeria, Belize.

  “Seen zombies, as you have, Marie. Seen shamans shape-shift. Yes,” he said to a sneering Parks. “Seen a man become a cat then a man again. Seen seers predict volcanic eruptions, a woman’s labor. All religions, cultures, have their miraculous tales. Christ’s image appearing in cloth. The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. Aboriginal firewalkers. But I’ve never had the miraculous walk into my office.”

  “I’m just a woman,” said Marie.

  “Shame. There’s no hope for you then.”

  Marie stared at Alafin. “Show me,” she said. “Show me what you’ve seen. What you see.”