by C. L. Bevill
“What fort?” Jane asked. Behind Bobby, Devona yanked the front door open again and began striding toward them with murder evident in her matriarchal eye.
“There’s Fort Jackson on the west side. It’s been restored. It’s a park.” Bobby sighed. “But there was another fort on the opposite side of the river. It’s all ruins and nobody goes there. Dad took us one day, but there were people there. That man, the bald one you strangled, he was there.”
“Where?”
“Fort St. Philip,” Bobby sputtered as he caught sight of his mother. “Gotta go.”
Jane watched as Devona herded Bobby inside, casting vicious glances over her shoulder at Jane all the way.
Christien tugged on Jane’s shoulder. His fingers dug into the flesh and she winced. Instantly, he relaxed his fingers. “Let’s go,” he said insistently.
“Fort St. Phillip,” Philippe said wonderingly. “Ain’t that a coincidence?”
That’s not the only coincidence, Christien thought. The patterns behind his words were darkly grim. The nature of it brought Jane’s head around to look at him. He was staring at the house where the boy had gone.
What is it? she thought.
That boy. That boy. I remember seeing a photograph of him. Something like they take at school. I remember the witch commanded me. Once I changed into the Roux-Ga-Roux, I was to…
Commanded you to do what?
The witch wanted that boy dead.
Chapter 22
A false story has seven endings.
– African proverb
“As I recollect,” Philippe said as he drove away from the Therin home, “there’s a bit of road between here and that fort. But ain’t no way all the way down dere. ‘Cepting by boat, like the kid said.”
Christien leaned out his open window and studied the sun. “Got about three or four hours before the sun goes down.” The words were a warning to Jane. What it meant was, We’ve got three or four hours until I change.
“Sure ain’t no one want to wander ‘round a deserted ruin in the dark,” Philippe agreed. “Gators. Cottonmouths. River folk. Hell, Half-Man might be rolling around down dere.”
“We need a boat,” Jane said. “Maybe a bazooka. Sniper rifle?”
“Goin’ to shoot someone, you?” Philippe asked interestedly.
Can you do that, chère? Christien asked. Could you kill the witch?
Maybe if I had a farmhouse from Kansas. I don’t know. Why would the witch want that little boy dead? Jane didn’t wait for Christien’s answer. Oh my God, the boy said he was target practicing for when he saw Bigfoot again. She turned toward Christien. That boy saw you as the Roux-Ga-Roux. But you didn’t kill him.
“I done shot my share of squirrels and white-tailed deer,” Philippe said conversationally, “but I ain’t never had cause to shoot folks. Not that dere isn’t some who deserve to be shot.”
Philippe directed the truck south. The road they followed paralleled the Mississippi River. They could see a huge levee and the tops of some massive tankers traveling down the river. He kept the river to their right side and didn’t hesitate.
“Where are we going?” Jane finally asked. She didn’t know what to think. There were twists and there were twists. Was Fate some mercurial bitch that she would target the life of a ten-year-old boy?
No, that’s all on the witch.
The Therin family was familiar with the Viqcs. It might have been simple happenstance that put Bobby in the back of his mother’s minivan at the time Jane escaped from their clutches. But it seemed to her that there was little going on that had to do with chance.
I didn’t kill the boy because I couldn’t, even as the Roux-Ga-Roux. Christien’s face was grim. I recall the bloodlust that I had. I saw him. He was inside his bedroom, and the window was open. I could have easily taken him. But I heard your voice, in my head, begging me not to do it. And I couldn’t murder an innocent child.
What would cause Adrienne Viqc to want to eliminate the boy? Jane asked.
“I figured we could mosey down the road and see a fella I know about a boat,” Philippe said. “I ain’t seen him since last year, but I hooked him up with a girl I know and he was happy, him. I t’ink he’ll let us use his fishing boat, if we were to fill it up wit’ gasoline. He lives down around the Belle Chasse Ferry. He works the ferry boat, him.”
We knew something was important about that child, Christien thought. If we knew, perhaps she knew, too.
The witch…foresaw it and moved to eradicate Bobby? No, she said someone else saw things for her. Some other conja woman saw that Bobby would be a problem, and the witch moved to prevent it. Did she mean simply that he would point us in the right direction?
Maybe it was exactly that. She sent me to kill him. More punishment for me, and if I suffer, then you suffer. But the witch made a mistake. Christien touched Jane’s hand. He grasped it in his larger hand and stared at her smaller fingers.
What mistake?
The witch thought she could control me without your presence. She thought wrong. I broke away. That’s why Raoul was taking you to the city. Adrienne Viqc knew I would hunt you, and they could find me again. They didn’t know that you would escape. The witch knew something was going to happen, and she trusted Raoul to keep you drugged.
Jane looked away from Christien toward the open road before them. It curved away from the river. They passed a town on the left. It was the one Bobby had mentioned. Poydras. Then the road hugged the levee again. She had told the witch about Raoul’s mistakes, and the witch had imprisoned her own nephew in with the Roux-Ga-Roux, knowing what would happen.
Letting those thoughts fly away, Jane considered what Christien had imparted. All the time you were with me. My memory of you chasing me in the bayous and you tracking me down, it wasn’t what I thought it was?
I don’t think the witch understands our true connection. Christien took his hand and tugged Jane’s chin back so that they were staring each other in the face. The saying I told you about. The gifts are always strongest between relatives and loved ones. Jane, sweet Jane, I don’t remember everything. In fact, the holes in my mind are larger than craters on the moon. But I know one thing. You’re not my relative.
I’m not…Jane’s thoughts trailed away as she lost herself in his tender expression. It might have been the most perfect moment she’d ever experienced until Philippe said, “I heard tell about folks using the bayou for dark magic. Bayou people call dem les sorcières.”
Christien smiled wryly at the interruption and turned back to the window. “Philippe,” he said, “do you have a gun under the seat?”
Philippe started. “Sure, I do. Mama didn’t raise no dumb chillen. A fella don’t travel wit’out a club of swamp oak or a loaded .22, me. Ain’t legal but the po-lice won’t be trip-trapping about when some group of guys wants to borrow my truck wit’out my permission.” He chewed on his lip. “Dis is some strange business. Ought to let you just take the boat, you. Witches, magic, blackness in the bayous. I mean, on t’a bercé trop près du mur?”
“What?” Jane asked.
“He wants to know if I’m nuts,” Christien said. “It means, was my cradle too close to the wall when I was a baby.”
If the witch foresaw the boy causing a problem for her, why didn’t she foresee my escape or your escape, for that matter? Jane questioned.
I don’t believe that kind of power is always stable, Christien thought. She deals with spirits of the earth. Those spirits are well known for playing tricks on those who use them. When the witch ordered you to stay still, she didn’t think to order you to keep silent, did she? The universe has its own system of checks and balances, comprenez-vous?
Adrienne didn’t account for something. She wasn’t specific enough, and she’s paying the price.
She’s arrogant, Christien corrected.
“You’re both nuts,” Philippe said.
“Who’s Half-Man?” Jane asked.
“Half-Man is a story about a h
aint down in the bayou,” Philippe said immediately. “Half man and half alligator. Fella got hisse’f cursed by a witch he spurned.” He smiled. “Dat’s the way my mammaw used to tell it. I heard other versions, me. Half-Man, he don’t care for folks who come into his swamp. He comes out to scare them off. Blows smoke at dem, comes out like heavy fog on a moonlit night. He’s got big yellow teeth and one red eye. Dat’s why bayou people go out into the swamps on the new moon. They know it’s safe from Half-Man.” He laughed. “Safe from Fish and Game men too, dem.”
Another cursed person, Jane thought. Wonder if he’d like to be on our side.
Christien chuckled.
Philippe glanced over, obviously feeling left out. “Somet’ing funny?”
“With what’s really out there,” Christien said, “who needs scary stories?”
* * *
Philippe’s friend had a boat house sitting next to a little dock. The dock was situated in a man-made bay set back a hundred feet from the Mississippi River. The boat was 23 feet long with a canvas T-top shelter. Fishing poles sprang from the sides, ready to do battle with the next reluctant fish. The name on the side boldly proclaimed it to be the Harvey Dockbanger.
“There,” the man said to Philippe. “All ret to go.” He curiously looked at Jane and Christien. Taller than Christien, he towered over Jane at six and a half feet. He had a pock-marked face and a dour expression. Evidently, he wasn’t happy that Philippe was borrowing the boat, but he also appeared to have a resigned disposition.
Jane glanced out at the Mississippi River. A smaller cruise ship headed upriver toward New Orleans while a tugboat pulled barges in the other direction. Smaller boats were going in multiple directions.
The man spread out a map on a nearby wooden cable reel and weighed down one side with a piece of rusting iron scrap.
Philippe stepped up to the spool and said, “This here is a topographical map.” The map revealed the east side of the Mississippi River, above the mouth but below the city of New Orleans. It was marked in red in several locations where someone had circled locations and then Xed them out. “Lyle here has been out in the bayous and marshes quite a bit in the last year or so. Reckon he knows where all the good fishing holes are to be found, him.”
Philippe pointed to where the Mississippi River took a curve to the north. As he spoke, his accent became heavier. Jane thought when Philippe wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying, his accent got stronger. “Dis is where Forts Jackson and St. Phillip are located on opposite sides of the river. Lyle tells me ain’t much left of St. Phillip. Katrina pretty much put paid to dat. Some gun mounts, the corner stones of the main building still dere. Prone to flooding though and it’s private property dere.”
Jane frowned. When Philippe had repeated the name of the fort just after Bobby had gone back to his mother, he had made it sound as if he’d never heard of it before. Now he was speaking as if he was very familiar with it.
Christien, she thought warningly.
What?
Something’s not right.
“Makes sense, though,” Philippe said. “Maman always had a sense of the dramatic. Should have been on the stage, her.”
Philippe looked up at Jane and smiled coldly. The young man who was friendly and outgoing was gone. In his place was a man who wanted something from Jane, and he wanted it in a way that would brook no refusal. Christien had been correct in his assessment.
Run, Jane thought. Run, Christien! She braced her knees to dash away, but something stopped her.
The thundering sound of a click, and the slide of metal over metal made the hair on the back of her neck stand up straight. Jane’s head centered on the noise and saw that Lyle was holding a twelve-gauge shotgun. Both barrels were located right between Christien and Jane, so as to be easily able to move to whichever was the bigger threat.
Too late, Christien thought. Stay calm. Whatever Philippe wants, it isn’t for us to be dead.
Philippe pulled a disposable pen from his pocket and sketched a pattern on the side of the topographical map. “See this. The pentagram. Some folk call it a sign of the devil. Dose Wiccans say it ain’t evil at all. But Maman thinks of it as the witch’s sign. Mammaw taught all that magic to her and raised her dat way. Taught it to her and expected her to pass it on to her chillen, but Maman didn’t have no daughters.”
Philippe tapped the map to get them to look back at him. “Pay attention. Dere will be a test later on, you.” He re-sketched the five-pointed star. “Ain’t really a pentagram. The lines have to meet up for that. Ain’t a pentacle neither. No circle around it. If you look at a plan of the forts, you can see what it was meant to be. It’s the shape of a five-pointed star on the outside. Den dere’s an inner set of walls. Of course, Fort St. Phillip is older than Fort Jackson, and the design has been lost more and more every time it floods or dere’s a big blow.”
Glancing up at them, Philippe appeared as cold blooded as any reptile. “Maman would think it’s a right proper place to do magic. People been talking ‘bout dat place for decades. Ain’t no one stupid enough to go down dere at dark.”
Jane and Christien didn’t reply and Philippe added, “‘Cepting folks like you.”
“I don’t understand,” Jane said.
“Ah,” Philippe smiled, “I ain’t done my job properly. I shall explain. Maman likes to do things old-school. When I challenged her a few years ago, she disinherited me, her. Maman don’t like t’ings upset for her. She don’t like that I talk like bayou people. No, not her. A little Cajun French is all right but not any of the colorful patois. No matter dat Maman raised in the swamps just like the rest of us. Her maman used to make clothes out of flour sacks, her. Ain’t no shame in being poor. But I reckon I got the bug like Maman. I want the same as she does. Le sorcière don’t take the backside, me.”
Christien thought, Philippe means he wants to take over his mother’s power. One way or the other.
His mother is the witch, Adrienne Viqc, she thought and it wasn’t a question.
“Maman has always spoken of a prophecy the conja woman once told of her.” Philippe tapped the map again with his pen. “The Arcanum arcanorum is what Maman seeks, and you, Jane, are the key to unlocking dat prophecy. The secret of all secrets. Every magician wants it.” He shook his head. “But Maman is the one who’s been given the formula for getting it. She don’t want to share, her. Dat’s all right. I don’t want to share with her neither.”
“How did you know to come to the hospital?” Jane asked. I don’t know why I’m stalling, Christien, but can you think of anything?
Christien thought, Keep him talking. Maybe there’s something that I can do. He wants us alive for some reason. So perhaps we’re safe for now.
“Well, Lyle does some work for Maman,” Philippe said proudly. “He was around when Raoul, who was my cousin, by the way, screwed his pooch right royally. Raoul took the Roux-Ga-Roux to get the boy. And oh, you’re going to ask me about dat, too.” He sighed. “You know that little boy you talked to today? Blonde hair and blue eyes and a big Nerf gun.”
“Why kill the boy?” Jane asked anyway.
“Maman don’t care for loose ends neither. She got that habit long ago of goin’ to the seers on account of the one telling her all about her wonderful future, her. So one day, anot’er soothsayer says a ten-year-old chile is goin’ to cause her downfall, somet’ing he goin’ do is goin’ cause Maman’s death. She can’t have dat. If the boy be dead, den he can’t do somet’ing to cause her death, now can he? Maman says, ‘Raoul, take care of the kid. Also make the Roux-Ga-Roux do it so it looks like a wild animal attack.’ So Raoul does it.” Philippe’s interested gaze sought out Christien. “But our fella here has got a little more self-control than Maman gave him credit for. Why is dat?”
“Your mother wasn’t specific enough,” Christien said.
Philippe nodded. “Dat would do it. Gave you a chance to escape, dint it? Maman needs you to help with Jane. Jane might need a little mo
tivation at the right time, her. So Raoul gets another chance, him. Takes Jane to the city. The Roux-Ga-Roux would scent her and come round, just like you did. Maman stupid, her. She caused her own downfall by sending the Roux-Ga-Roux after the boy. But the beast can’t h’lp hisse’f but to come back to you. Maman tied you together. Blood to blood. It’s what brought Jane back from the dead, her.”
Jane gasped.
Philippe chuckled. “Don’t sound so shocked, Jane. You know how t’ings be now. More to the world than most folks ever will reckon even in the deepest dark dream of the midnight hour.”
“So Lyle let you know that Raoul had failed again?” Jane said. “You looked in the hospitals for me, thinking that was where they might take someone who said she’s been assaulted, someone who had been kept captive by a strange man?”
“Well, sure,” Philippe said as he rubbed the side of his nose. Jane saw where Philippe had lost bits of fingers and was reminded of the bandages on Raoul’s hand. “Hospital’s the only place dey would take you. Didn’t reckon you was unconscious on account dat you ran out in front of a car, me. But it gave me a little time to make a plan. Raoul too dumb to check the hospital for a woman until it was almost too late.”
“You wanted me to find Jane,” Christien said.
Philippe nodded. “The two of you would be like an ol’ hunting hound. See, I’ve been looking for Maman’s place of magic for the last two years. Thought it would be closer to her bayou home, me. But ain’t not’ing out dere. I guess Maman believes in the adage, ‘Don’t shit in your own backyard.’”
“This fort is some kind of special place for Adrienne?” Jane asked.
Philippe smiled slyly. “You t’ink someone goin’ to rescue you, Jane? You t’ink someone goin’ to dash in and save your bacon? You ask me questions like you got a little hope in your heart? Sorry, girl. Ain’t no one out dere looking for you. Ain’t not’ing for you but being the key to the secret of all secrets.”
