The Legend of Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

  A trumpet blared bright, like Gabriel’s horn.

  The candles relit, shining brightly. A freezing wind swept through the room.

  Parks undid his gun’s safety.

  The wazimamoto—John—solid, seemingly human and alive, stood on the other side of the line. Cravat; black vest; form-fitting pants; elegance from another age. His hair was closely cropped; the scars on his face now like black worms. His eyes were midnight, not dilated, neither absorbing nor reflecting light.

  “Do you think you can destroy me?” John stepped forward; his strength seemed boundless.

  “I did it once before,” answered Marie.

  John started forward, then stopped, looking about the room. “This is a trap.”

  “Is it? Are you afraid of me?”

  John hissed.

  “Women hand sight down through the generations. Mother to daughter,” she murmured.

  “No,” John raged. “Why should that be? What have any of the Laveaus accomplished? Sniveling. Weak. For generations.”

  “But not me, John.” She stepped backward. “Twenty-first-century women are stronger than you can imagine.

  John stepped closer. “Then join me.”

  “Why should I? What have you to offer?”

  “Power. People are controlled by fear.”

  “Like you, John? What do you fear?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Liar.” Marie motioned to Parks.

  Parks picked up the emblem.

  John’s arm struck out.

  Parks dodged him, swinging the emblem beyond John’s reach.

  “I should destroy him,” said John.

  “But you won’t.” Marie held her breath, knowing she needed to taunt John, dare him to make a mistake.

  John’s shoes touched the line. He pushed his face forward, drawing close. Closer.

  Marie could smell rotting sea life and blood. She refused to flinch.

  “You’re not afraid of me,” John said approvingly.

  This close, John was unsettling. Marie felt his seductive power—what he was, had been, intoxicating, like wine. Her ancestor had once thought she’d loved him.

  She looked at Carlos, signaling him to be ready.

  “Join me,” she said.

  John reached for her.

  Marie didn’t move quickly enough. She gasped as her throat constricted, gagged.

  Parks fired his gun. “Let her go.”

  Green liquid poured from John’s leg. “You won’t kill me.”

  Carlos inched closer, his voice chanting, “Hail Mary, full of grace . . .”

  John snarled, “Stop it.”

  Carlos pressed, spraying the antibiotic into John’s face.

  John staggered back, his hands covering his eyes. “What’ve you done?” His face distorted, shedding cells, definition.

  Marie gasped, “Play, Wire, play.”

  Wire played a rhythm—echoing the capture of slaves, the Middle Passage. Syncopation sounded like tears and the auction block. Sax and clarinet added their voices, a sound recalling pain, heartbreak; then a trumpet sounded, heralding, demanding witness. Another trumpet and another. The piano entered the improvised song. Then all the sounds soared; the dozen musicians inspired. Dede slapped a tambourine.

  Rudy blew his horn—a sound that seemed infinite, reaching between life and death.

  “Stop it,” shouted John. His hands covering his ears.

  All the musicians played as if their lives depended upon it, their spirits speaking of their pains, hurts, joys, and triumphs. Speaking to their ancestors. Traditions. Overcoming. Music consoling. Sound bearing witness to survival.

  Oppressed slaves, colonized free coloreds, had triumphed by evolving, creating new traditions, blending African and Catholic faiths. Blending music, creating a new music. Jazz to herald their becoming, their new identity.

  Not assimilating; instead, triumphing. Becoming a new people.

  “Louder,” shouted Marie. “Play louder.”

  Carlos sprayed John again.

  John screamed, collapsing.

  “Louder.”

  There was no space other than the space between notes, sound. Rhythm.

  Marie bent over John. “I rule here. Always have. Always will.”

  Carlos sprayed his limbs.

  John—flesh dissolving, less a man, still shadow and substance—jerked Marie’s skirt, tilting her off balance.

  “Marie,” screamed Parks.

  Snarling, feral, a shadow mouth punctured Marie’s wrist.

  Locked in the embrace, Marie could feel her life, her memories draining. Feel John growing in substance, reviving; she tried to pull away, his grip, crushing.

  The music grew louder; a community of brothers, exorcising. Good over evil.

  Marie took strength from the music, but it wasn’t enough.

  John kept draining her blood.

  “No,” Parks raged, lifting the gris-gris bag, scattering its contents. The centuries-old dust, hair, the insect bones.

  John roared, shifting focus enough for Marie to crawl backward and away. Blood dripped from her arm.

  “Agwé. Damballah. I call upon your power.”

  Agwé appeared, rattling his sabre, slicing at the green-tinged darkness; Damballah, a spirit snake, tightened about John’s torso.

  John was losing form, substance.

  “The emblem,” Marie shouted. “Give it to me, Parks. Play, Wire. Play. All of you.”

  Parks dragged her farther away, handed her the emblem.

  Marie yelled, “You’ve dishonored your tribe. Your people. You rule from hate. Not love.”

  Rudy’s trumpet trilled, soaring up. DuLac pressed inward. So, too, Alafin, Sarah, JT, and the ghosts of all John’s other dead.

  “See them?” Marie shouted. “You’ve done no good. You don’t deserve life.” She held the emblem high, then let it fall.

  The shadow that was John screamed: “I loved you.”

  “Liar.” Marie raised her foot high, then stomped, cracking the emblem.

  John howled.

  Carlos sprayed the last of the penicillin. Green, organic matter, separated from darkness, becoming inert. Intangible.

  Rudy blew a note—so piercing, both sweet and sharp. The note held for a minute, two. Held all the pain of a people transported to America.

  Wire shouted and the other musicians followed suit. Shouting, playing, hollering . . . a cacophony of unscripted power. Improvisation based on their souls’ celebration. Tapping feet, music soaring. A shout-out for a community’s glory.

  Marie stood over the contracting dark green mass becoming ever smaller.

  “ ‘Back to the sea,’ says Agwé,” she murmured. “ ‘Back to your grave,’ says Damballah. Science says you’ll never rise again. The bacterium is dying. Back to an unforgiving past.”

  One by one, the musicians silenced themselves until only Wire was drumming.

  Carlos stood over the fading mass.

  Dede stood next to him. “I believe.”

  Arms upraised, Marie turned to the musicians. “Together, we did this.”

  Wire stopped drumming. Laboring to breathe, his shirt soaked with sweat, his expression was ecstatic.

  “It’s gone,” said Marie.

  On the floor, there was no substance. No evidence that a wazimamoto—that John—had ever existed.

  “Will it come back?” asked Parks.

  “No,” said Marie.

  Parks embraced her tightly. “I will.”

  Marie relaxed, her head resting against Parks’s chest.

  “You need rest,” said Carlos.

  Parks lifted Marie into his arms, cradling her like a bride.

  “We did it, people. The vampire is gone,” shouted Parks.

  The musicians nodded, appearing cool. Wire slumped onto the floor.

  Carlos said, “Take her home. I’ll watch here. Make sure it’s dead.”

  Dede volunteered. “I’ll clean up. Make sure no one knows wha
t happened here. Just another gig. Right?”

  The musicians lit cigarettes, weed. Heavy eyed, they prepared to go home. Sleep.

  The piano player helped Wire to stand. “Time for bed.”

  Parks looked at all the black and brown men. “You are all amazing,” he said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  He looked at the men in turn—the trumpet and saxophone players, the piano player, Wire, the clarinet players, Dede. Finally, Carlos.

  “Sure, Detective.” Carlos waved his hand.

  “Anytime,” said Wire. “For Miz Marie.”

  Parks nodded. “No need to call the station. Our secret. They wouldn’t believe us anyway.”

  “Play it as it lays,” said Dede. “Tomorrow night. Full house. Arrive early.”

  The musicians grumbled. Carlos sat, his legs crossed Indian style, guarding against John resurrecting.

  “Put me down, Parks.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m strong enough.”

  Marie stood—still—her arms at her side. Gradually, others stopped moving, too. Stopped packing a sax, lighting a cigarette, walking out the door. All the men were motionless, focused on Marie.

  “My people,” she whispered. One by one, the musicians bowed. Until all their heads bowed in respect. Marie bowed back.

  “Jazz is voodoo made secular. Alive. An African-American triumph. Oppression overcome with song. We were all loas tonight. Miraculous.”

  Dede shouted, “Amen.” Wire pressed his hands together in prayer, then stretched them high, as if gathering the heavens. The others grinned, knowing their music transformed. Wielded power.

  Head erect, carriage tall, Marie walked from Preservation Hall.

  Once outside, Parks offered his arm and an exhausted Marie leaned into him, letting him help her into his car.

  “Water.”

  Parks pulled a bottle from the backseat.

  She drank like there was no tomorrow; Parks turned the car onto the road. Slipped his siren on top of the roof; the light swirled, his siren whooped, as he drove himself and Marie home. The rain had become a soft drizzle.

  “Tomorrow, the sky will be clear,” Marie said.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll pick up Marie-Claire.”

  “We?”

  Park’s, one hand on the steering wheel, reached out with his other hand, clasping Marie’s hand. “I’m not going to have you unsafe. You and Marie-Claire need a guardian. Champion.”

  “I thought I was the one who destroyed John.”

  Parks jerked the car to the curb; street hustlers scattered. A streetlight cast an eerie shadow in the car. Neon streaks swirled on the car’s hood, the street. “If you don’t want me, say so.”

  “I thought you were going back to Jersey.”

  His blue eyes looked straight ahead. “Jersey doesn’t have you.”

  She cupped his cheek, turning his face toward hers. “You’ll be strong when I’m not?”

  “Sure. The rare times when you can’t destroy a demon from the sea. A wazimamoto. A vampire.”

  She kissed him, long, lingering. Then, embracing, she could see, over his shoulder, all the ghosts. John’s victims.

  “Drive,” she said.

  “Where to?”

  “Your apartment.”

  She turned around on the seat, watching through the rearview mirror: DuLac, El, Kind Dog—a small band, a family—as the car pulled away.

  TWENTY

  PARKS’S APARTMENT

  WEDNESDAY MORNING

  Marie lay naked in bed; Parks’s arm was about her waist. His head was buried in the pillow.

  The phone rang. Parks didn’t stir.

  Marie slipped from beneath his arm.

  The answering machine clicked on.

  “No deaths last night.” It was Roach. “Parks, wake up. Tell the doc that Marie-Claire is safe. She’s charmed all the priests. Parks, are you there? Wake up. You and the doc, all right?”

  She heard a sound, as if Roach was blowing his nose.

  “It’s a good day. Sunny. No rain. See you at the station. Parks, don’t mess with me if you’re there. Shit.” The phone clicked.

  Parks breathed deeply. Sound asleep.

  Marie slipped out of the bed. Picked up her jeans where she’d let them fall—or more to the point, where Parks had removed them. She’d known last night that Marie-Claire was safe. She’d felt it in her bones. Still, she appreciated Roach’s thoughtfulness.

  She opened her cell. Inhaled. Pressed Voice Mail.

  Static. Then DuLac’s voice. “It’s here. Can’t stop . . . at an end.” Then, “I believe.” More static. “In you.”

  Marie covered her eyes. Wept quietly, then crawled back into bed. Wrapped her brown legs about Parks’s white legs. She kissed his nose. His eyelids. Kissed him awake.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Marie-Claire’s fine.”

  “DuLac told you?”

  Marie laughed. “No. Roach.”

  “What’s so funny?”

  “The skeptical cop has become a believer.” She closed her eyes, snuggling into the crook of his arm and chest.

  “Doesn’t mean I understand what happened. You going to explain it to me?”

  “Mainly it was instinct. Trying to deduce what could triumph over a colonial? Over the self-hatred of a wazimamoto? Music was the common thread—moving from calling the gods to a transformative power when humans became as gods.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Not Christian gods. Perfect on a pedestal. But living, breathing, hurting gods like all the voodoo gods. Reflective of pain and sorrow. Joy and hope. Good and evil.”

  “And the music?”

  “The secular transformation of a people. Voodoo, unjustly, became disrespected. Thanks to such men as John. Charlatans intent on a dollar. Jazz became the triumphant sound, the acculturation of a people redeemed through art. Through Wire’s artistry and the other musicians. I provided the spirit. Carlos, the science.”

  “And me? The useless dumb brute force?”

  Marie kissed him. “Never dumb.”

  “Definitely not. Let me show you how smart I am.”

  Marie lay on her back, looking up at the ceiling. Her body arched as Parks kissed her neck, the hollow between her breasts. His hand stroked her clitoris; she shuddered.

  He was kissing her. There and there. One-night stands were over.

  She reached down, pulling him upward. Kissing him.

  “You and me,” he said.

  “You. Me. And Marie-Claire.”

  He stopped kissing her, raising himself onto his elbows. Looking into her eyes, her heart. “Marie-Claire. Marie-Claire and her beautiful mother.” Then, his mouth lowered on hers, licking her tongue. His hand, stroking her breasts, thighs, and vagina. Marie squirmed, touching him back. Measure for measure.

  Suddenly, she stopped. “Go ’way, ghosts. You, too, DuLac.”

  Parks sat up, the sheet falling to his waist. “They’re here?”

  Marie smiled, tugging Parks back into her arms. Kissing him with passion. For the moment, all was right with the world. Her child was safe. She was a doctor, a voodoo practitioner.

  “And very much a woman,” murmured Parks.

  Startled, she blinked at Parks. “You sure you’re not psychic? Some Celtic gift?” Parks tickled her; giggling, she slapped his fingers away. “Let’s put some music on. Spend the whole morning in bed.”

  Parks nibbled her ear. “Then, we’ll take Marie-Claire for beignets.”

  “Precisely,” she said, touching him, lower and lower, until he groaned.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  For decades I’ve been haunted by rumors of African vampires; it’s especially apt since across diverse regions in Africa, vampires were the product of rumor. Responding to colonization, Africans told tales of white vampires, authorities who caused blacks to disappear. Vampire, fluid in its meaning, became associated with policemen, game rangers, many other authority figures wh
ose jobs involved killing and blood. It was commonly understood, rumored, that often the blood on their weapons and uniforms belonged to humans. Just as it was understood that these authorities, if not white, were Africans who acted as instruments of colonial power.

  Blood in all cultures is precious, and to see it drained from a body is abhorrent. In Swahili, the word wazimamoto literally means “men who extinguish fire.” Even before there was such a profession as that of a fireman, this name—wazimamoto—became metaphorically linked to vampires. Some speculate that it’s based upon rumors of men carrying buckets of blood, men who in bloodletting, literally drained the fire of human life.

  Wazimamoto, bazimamoto in Luganda, eventually extended to the slavers who raided the African continent of humanity. Enslavers, colonizers, believed Africans to be superstitious barbarians. Yet through oral storytelling, Africans were indeed spreading necessary tales about the cultural vampirism of Portuguese, British, and French colonialism and the American slave trade. Africans, and later, American slaves, used narrative power as a transgressive and defensive response to colonization.

  The wazimamoto is not a western vampire. The wazimamoto is a response and a warning about racist brutality, not a species preying on people and killing to survive.

  I recommend Luise Walker’s wonderful book, Speaking With Vampires: Rumor and History in East and Central Africa, published by the University of California Press, 2000.

  The wazimamoto vampire spirit gave me the opportunity to bring back Marie Laveau’s nineteenth-century nemesis—John—from my first novel, Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau. I still feel sympathy for John, whose life and character were corrupted by slavery, the ultimate colonization. Yet, if any character would be strong enough to resurrect as a wazimamoto, it would be John, resentful of women and their spiritual power.

  Integrating the wazimamoto with the power of jazz seemed both natural and logical to me. Studying voodoo decades ago, many writers, most notably Imamu Amiri Baraka, theorized about the importance of voodoo ceremonies in Congo Square and how it encouraged the development of jazz. Music in America has remained integral to black religion and life. It is a cultural foundation—healing, transformative, and, when necessary, transgressive against racist ills. The wazimamoto is and yet isn’t out of place in twenty-first-century America. I tried to capture that even though the Civil Rights era brought increased black political power, educational and social opportunities for African Americans, and negated the partriarchal and subversive relations between white men and women of color (most notably, the laws and social institutions banning miscegenation), racism and the aftereffects of colonialism still have resonance and echoes in New Orleans.