The Legend of Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

  Parks and Marie strolled Bourbon Street. Alert, on edge, both of them searching for ghosts.

  Music floated out of bars, restaurants, hotel lounges. Zydeco. The Neville Brothers. Rock. Basin Street Blues. Cajun folk. Washbucket shuffle. Tourists in House of Blues T-shirts or tropical-patterned shirts crowded the streets, some their arms slung around each other; others, their hands twisted around drinks; still others, open palmed, touching, stroking the ancient buildings as if they were make-believe, the Disneyland version of the French Quarter. But everything was real—cobblestones placed by slaves; wrought-iron balconies crafted by free coloreds; and cafés constructed in the 1700s to capture the coins of Spanish seamen, American soldiers, and French noblemen.

  “What am I looking for?” asked Parks. “Can’t see ghosts. Waijimojos?”

  “Wazimamotos, Parks. You can see victims. And potentially save them. If we can get to victims sooner, they might survive.” Marie poked her head inside Lafite’s Bar.

  “Who’s Lafite?” asked Parks, his finger tapping on the brass plaque.

  “Jean Lafite. The gentleman pirate. Brutal, yet known for his chivalry. Loved women. Especially quadroons.” Marie scanned the bar. Middle Americans drank beer and hurricanes; no locals here. Just clean-cut patrons indulging in revelry. Pretending they were pirates or privateers.

  It was easy to romanticize the past, but life had been brutal, short. Scurvy. Poor dental care. Inadequate public health. She wondered how many murders, slave trips, pirate rampages had been planned at Lafite’s. How many more died of bacteria, fever, syphilis?

  “You see something?”

  “No. Just thinking about the past. How all of us will become ghosts.”

  “You’ve always been this spooky?”

  “Let’s keep walking,” Marie said, shaking her head, focusing on the present.

  She and Parks were unlikely beat cops. She walked, senses heightened, looking for signs, disturbances in air, light, smell, or sound—anything that would suggest an aberration. Wazimamoto—not a typical ghost, not a spirit loa. Something other. And it wanted to hurt her.

  A lost soul. New Orleans was filled with them.

  Marie peered high, searching, scanning the balconies, shadows.

  Parks strode confidently, cocky. His policeman’s clarity—direct, forthright manner—was intimidating. Maybe it was just the power of carrying a gun? The bouncers eyed him. Even drunks avoided him. A barker for a peep show stopped hailing, “Nude everywhere,” until Parks had passed the marquee with a poster of a blonde, her breasts and crotch decorated with purple feathers.

  Parks grimaced. “After this case I’m quitting. Moving to the Jersey shore.”

  “Lovely?”

  “You bet. Should’ve been a surfer.”

  Marie laughed.

  “I was good.”

  “Do they even have waves in Jersey?”

  “More than here.”

  “JT’s waving.”

  “Where?” Parks spun, his hand on his jacket, covering his gun.

  “Up on the balcony.”

  JT clutched the antique rail. His expression—more an aura than facial muscles—seemed pensive, almost hopeless.

  She wondered if JT knew her odds were poor.

  “Not Rudy?” asked Parks.

  “He may have moved on.”

  “They can do that? Move on? Like heaven? Hell?”

  “I don’t know. All. Either. Neither. ‘Every good-bye ain’t gone’—it’s a folk saying. Everything that existed still exists. Not clear where. Maybe everywhere.”

  Marie stopped. Tourists swarmed, flowing around her and Parks as if they were an island. She sniffed the damp air. “Everybody dead is still here.”

  “Tell me,” asked Parks, stopping her, touching her arm. “How come you’re not crazy?”

  “You religious?”

  “Lapsed Protestant.”

  “Would it sound funny to you if I said faith? I believe I have my gifts for a reason.”

  “Like tracking a bloodsucker?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  They smiled in perfect understanding.

  Parks’s hair fell forward, framing his angular face, his cheekbones. He was a good foot taller than she.

  She looked past Parks, scanning the row of iron balconies, the shingled rooftops. “JT’s gone.”

  “So?”

  “Our first clue. The wazimamoto is near. Just before the hospital attacks, JT and Rudy disappeared.”

  “And the music?” said Parks. “The second clue? Follow the music.”

  Marie nodded.

  Parks snapped open his holster.

  Marie hadn’t the heart to tell him his gun was useless.

  Follow the music.

  At first, all she heard was a cacophony: pulsing, riotous nightlife spilling out of clubs; music overlapping, creating noise. But New Orleans had its own unique sound, too—rhythms built on drums, brass, and bass guitars rather than pianos, violins, and reeds. A raw, urging sound that rose above people’s chatter, hollers, and shouts. A melody of jazz—eclectic, improvising, riffing on chords of “God Bless the Child.”

  They walked east. The Quarter gave way to less commercial, less well-lit streets. Locals ruled intimate clubs catering to the maids, the bellhops of overpriced hotels, the cruise-line workers, the domestic workers, and the town gamblers who played bid whist rather than poker.

  “Misty’s,” said Parks, stopping. A sax wailed, plaintive and yearning. “Mama may have. Papa may have . . .”

  MISTY’S was written in cursive pink neon. A white Mardi Gras masque flanked the letter M.

  The drums clamored, driving the sax higher and higher. Another sound: a scream?

  Parks pulled his gun.

  Screams.

  The music stopped: drums toppling, clanging. The electric guitar whining. The saxophone stopping midcry.

  Patrons rushed out of Misty’s as Parks, Marie behind him, shoved, trying to rush in.

  A small crowd gathered about the door marked LADI S—the e missing, the door painted a flat black.

  “Police,” said Parks. “Move.”

  A woman, petite, with high heels, her panty hose gathered about her ankles, her thighs bare, sat on the toilet seat, her head dropped forward, lolling on her chest as if she’d simply gone to sleep.

  Parks lifted her head, clenching his jaw at the woman’s wild, bug-eyed look. Her mouth was wide with a silent scream.

  Patrons gasped; some screamed; some made the sign of the cross; others covered their eyes, turning their heads away.

  “I found her, I found her,” moaned a dyed redhead. “She had to pee, that’s all. What’s happened to her? What’s happened?”

  Parks pressed his cell phone’s buttons. “Roach. Parks here. Bring the entire crew. Misty’s, east of the Quarter. Yeah,” said Parks, his voice soft. “Another one.”

  “She was gone so long. I went to check on her.” Mascara smeared down her cheeks. “Thought she’d passed out from those hurricanes. She can’t drink worth shit. What’s happened to her? She looks a hundred years.”

  Marie inched closer, studying the wrist. Puncture marks. Neat. Vertical. Right above the artery. A Tiffany heart bracelet had blood on a few links. Otherwise, the suction had been clean.

  “Her name?”

  “Sarah. Sarah Bruchette. Lord, I’ve got to call her folks.” The red-haired friend started to cry.

  “Would you like me to call her parents?” asked Marie. “I’m a doctor.”

  “Would you?” The girl rummaged in her friend’s purse, pulling out a cell phone. “Here. Look up ‘Mama.’ She called her three, four times a day.” The girl swayed and Marie could see she couldn’t be more than eighteen. Both girls underage, pretending to be sophisticates.

  “Go sit down,” said Parks, extending a hand. “We’ll get a statement from you later.”

  The girl clutched his hand gratefully, then moaned plaintively. Unsteady, her hand covering her mouth, she staggere
d out the door.

  “Everyone out. Cops on the way,” Parks shouted at the excited, leering faces—people trying to cram into the bathroom to catch a glimpse of the dead girl.

  “You.” Parks pointed at a sallow-faced man. “You the owner?”

  “Naw. I just work for Misty. She ain’t here. I’m Earl.” His head jutted forward, transfixed by the girl’s bloodless body. “What kind of man would do this?”

  “Who said it was a man?” Parks regretted his words as soon as he’d said them. He reached for his Marlboros. He could hear the gossip now. Ghosts. Vampires. Bloodsuckers.

  Marie eyed him sympathetically. Outside, ambulance and patrol car sirens wailed, then died. The cavalry had arrived.

  “Keep your patrons inside the club,” said Parks. “We’ll want to question them.”

  “Misty’s gonna be sorry she missed this. She won’t be sorry about the money though.”

  “Murder is good business,” said Parks bitterly.

  “Damn straight. New Orleanians love scandal. Misty will get her gold.”

  “And you’ll get yours, skimming right off the top.”

  Earl grinned slyly. “You said ‘another one.’ There’s more?”

  “Mind your own business,” said Parks.

  “And you,” Earl said, nodding at Marie, “be the icing on the top. The Voodoo Queen. Somebody’s doing bad voodoo, hoodoo, juju.”

  Earl crowed, his voice like a carney barker’s, shouting, “Drinks on the house, folks.”

  Parks grimaced, watching the man waddle and strut. The sax started wailing again. The drums pounding.

  “I’ll go outside,” said Marie. “Call the family.”

  “Thanks.” Parks squatted before the body. “I don’t like it.”

  Marie paused, watching Parks puzzle it out. Skin and bones. Everything that had been lush about the young girl was gone.

  “Three men. Now one women. Dead. You think it’s random? Or planned?”

  Marie didn’t answer.

  She walked through the bar, her feet crushing peanut shells, as Roach, the officers, and the forensics team were walking in.

  “She’s all right,” said Roach as an officer tried to stop her from leaving.

  Marie mouthed, “Thanks.”

  Police tape and barricades blocked Misty’s entrance. People were pushing, shoving, dying to get in. A harried officer yelled, waving his baton.

  Marie avoided the crowd by turning left, then left again, into the alley. She walked past the stage door, past the trash bin, the empty liquor and beer crates, a series of loading platforms. During the day, there were resale and wholesale shops selling antiques, clothes, paintings, and photography. A kind of flea-market atmosphere interspersed with coffeehouses and bars. At night, street sounds filtered into the alley; mainly, there was the whirr of large-unit air conditioners, cycling on and off.

  She stopped under a streetlamp, its bulb flickering, losing its electric charge. A small circle of shadows appeared then disappeared. But as she looked left then right, the alley looked like one long dark tunnel. A thick blackness that had as much weight as the shapes—abandoned cars, trash bins, an old sofa, a washing machine, barred windows, and metal doors.

  The cell phone lit up blue. She hit Contacts. GEORGE. KIKI. AMBER. TONIE. MAMA. She couldn’t press the button.

  She felt a quivering in the air.

  “JT?” Her voice pierced the darkness. She thought she’d felt his presence. Or, maybe, some homeless person, slipping from his hide-a-way?

  She looked at the cell screen: MAMA. She pressed the button. She couldn’t imagine losing a child. Losing Marie-Claire.

  Hair on her neck tingled. She knew about reactions to fear, to stress. It was her imagination.

  Was someone approaching, stalking? Her?

  Third, fourth ring. Mama wasn’t home. Marie lifted her head. “JT?”

  No answer.

  JT wasn’t near.

  She felt a chilling cold. She dropped the phone just as a voice answered, groggily, “Hello? Hello?”

  There. Behind the industrial trash bins.

  Marie faced it. A black more solid than darkness.

  Two feet away. The air about it, inside her, was frigid, Painful. Making it difficult to breathe.

  An outline of a human form.

  “Who were you? What do you want?”

  No answer. It flared with a new intensity; she could almost . . . almost see a face.

  “Who are you?”

  The cell buzzed. Disconnected.

  The wazimamoto seemed gigantic. But Marie guessed it was part of its power, some intangible essence, overwhelming space. She blinked. As a man, it couldn’t have been more than six feet. Sturdy, not massive.

  A singsong chime startled the night. Mama was returning her call.

  Marie stooped to pick up the phone, then spun around, feeling someone caress her hair. “Stop.” She shivered.

  Standing, at arm’s length, was a man, but not a man. A shadow. A grotesque version of Peter Pan’s runaway shadow.

  A substantive darkness—desperate for life.

  Though Marie couldn’t make out eyes, she knew it was examining her.

  Think. In science, energy attracted matter. But what kind of matter shaped itself to resemble a human?

  Her heart raced. Skin tingling, hives reddening on her throat. All the clichés, but still a physical reality. The primitive brain—fight or flight. Terror fueled by adrenaline. Her breath shallow. She couldn’t scream. Or run.

  A scientist’s curiosity calmed her.

  It was allowing her to watch it. It had more weight, more presence than when she’d seen it in the hospital. And while she felt cold, she also sensed its heat, its life’s energy filling the darkness. A kinetic energy.

  Move, she told herself. Move.

  It stepped closer, awkward, foot heavy.

  Shout, scream for Parks; but it was impossible. Her body felt weighted. Fascination overcame fear. And hadn’t she been warned to “show no fear”?

  Hands—there were no hands—stroked her breasts through her shirt. Her shirt bunched, moved. Her body responded, nipples hardening. Her breath caught in her throat.

  The touch was gentle. Like someone pulling silk across her breasts. Her body betrayed her. The cold felt right, felt good to her heat.

  She heard a whisper, but there wasn’t any sound. Just vibrations, assaulting her mind. She understood the sense of it—the words that were not words—“Mine. You’re mine.”

  Marie stretched out her hands. She could feel shape, density. See, in the dark, a shadowy face.

  It was stroking her—sweetly, exploring waist, abdomen, thighs. Touching her crotch, making her feel naked. Exposed.

  Part of her was drowning in sensation. Another part of her could see the image wasn’t complete. Features were indistinct; connections between eye bones, the nose bridge, and cheekbones were hazy.

  Suddenly, she was sick. Nauseous. The creature arousing her felt more of a violation than when it drained blood.

  “Kill me. I dare you.” She slapped, flailed, feeling resistance before her hand broke free, swiping night air.

  “Get the hell away.”

  Her body was slammed against the wall. Her throat was being squeezed. Pressure against her esophagus. She clawed at the outline of hands surrounding her throat; but the energy felt like a vice. As strong as steel.

  Oxygen deprivation. She’d become light-headed as cells starved, eventually losing consciousness. Her lungs and heart, shutting down.

  She tried to speak but couldn’t; inside her head, she chanted, “I am Marie. Marie. Marie. Marie.”

  Cold touched her ear. “Mine. My Marie.”

  “Halt,” said Parks. “On the ground. Hands on your head. Halt.”

  Her feet lifted off the ground. She was being held by the throat—face-to-face with what wasn’t a face. Only indentations of darkness suggesting eye sockets, forehead, and mouth.

  She was losing cons
ciousness. The word “How?” fixed in her mind.

  She ceased struggling, her body limp.

  Cold brushed, pressed against her lips. She swore she was being kissed.

  “Doc,” Parks screamed, firing a warning shot. Then another.

  It turned. Parks fired four rounds into its head. The creature vanished, disintegrating like smoke. Breaking into particles.

  Marie stumbled, falling forward.

  Parks caught her, clutching her to his chest. Her cheekbone resting on his chest, her ear listening to his heart. Parks was holding on to her for dear life; she, holding him. He was protecting her, she told herself. A frightened girl held close, safe against a man’s chest.

  She cursed. She was a woman grown. More deeply, she felt ashamed. She’d let herself be seduced—mentally allowed herself to be seduced. Damnit to hell.

  She pushed Parks away. “Enough.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Shoulders heaving, she crossed her arms over her chest. She wiped her mouth; her hand was slick.

  A substance, gelatinous, covered her mouth and throat. She tasted brine.

  “Evidence,” she whispered. Unlike ghosts, the wazimamoto had been concrete.

  Parks staggered backward, then turned, running. “Roach. Roach. We’ve got evidence here.”

  As a doctor, Marie was intrigued. She had something to study, to test. She could form a hypothesis—about the wazimamoto’s nature. Being. She might find a rational explanation.

  The woman, Marie, felt sullied. Marked. She wanted to scrub her skin raw.

  Marie, the voodooienne, knew there was a hidden blood narrative. A story written in red.

  Bloodlines.

  Deep inside herself, she’d responded to the creature’s words: “Mine. My Marie.”

  Her blood had stirred, answering, “Yes.” Her blood had its own tale. Secrets.

  TWELVE

  CHARITY HOSPITAL LAB

  FRIDAY, MIDNIGHT

  The substance was tinged green. Viscous, it seemed innocuous in the test tube.

  Using a metal file, Marie lifted a sample and smeared it on the slide, sliding it beneath the microscope lens. Magnification 1,000 times 1. It was a one-cell organism, the simplest kind of bacteria. It didn’t look like salmonella or E. coli. She’d have to run tests to type it.