color -1- -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- -7- -8- -9-

Text Size— 10— 11— 12— 13— 14— 15— 16— 17— 18— 19— 20— 21— 22— 23— 24

Limited Edition ISBN 1-887368-51-5

Copyright © 2001 by Nancy A. Collins Jacket and Interior Art Copyright © 2001 by Alan M. Clark This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in the United States of America

LIMITED EDITION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to acknowledge the following sources as having been invaluable in her writing this book: Jambalaya: The Natural Woman’s Book Of Personal Charms & Practical Rituals by Luisah Teish; VooDoo by Jacques D’Argent; VooDoo In Haiti by Alfred Matroux; and Gumbo Ya-Ya: A Collection of Louisiana Folktales by Lyle Saxon, Robert Tallant & Edward Dreyer. The author would also like to extend special thanks to Sallie Ann Classman for her help in providing insight into the practice of voodoo in modern-day New Orleans.

Gauntlet Publications 309 Powell Road, Springfield, PA 19064

Phone:(610)328-5476

Email: info@gauntletpress.com Website: http://www.gauntletpress.com

INTRODUCTION

Nancy A. Collins

There was no single point of inspiration for Tempter. In many ways, the story of its tortured evolution and subsequent rewrite can be seen as a cautionary tale for those who would venture into the world of commercial publishing.

Tempter was my second novel, commissioned by New American Library’s Onyx imprint (back when both still existed). 1 had just turned in my first novel, Sunglasses After Dark, but it was still a year away from being published. Still, NAL had a great deal of confidence in my ability as a new writer, and asked me to submit a proposal for a second novel. I asked them if they wanted a sequel to the first novel, but they said no.

Inspired by such then-current performance artists as Stellarc and Mark Pauline’s Survival Research Laboratory, and Larry Cohen’s psychotronic film classic God Told Me To, I came up with a story proposal for Meat Puppets, in which a bizarre psychopathic plague seems to be afflicting the citizens of a large American city.

Otherwise normal people are suddenly doing inexplicably weird things. Some of it is relatively mild, such as tearing off their clothes and running naked down the middle of the street, while others commit rapes, armed robberies and homicides. One suburban housewife performs kitchen-table surgery on herself, replacing her left hand with an electric eggbeater and one of her eyes (and a significant portion of her skull) with a bicycle headlamp. None of the victims can remember whatever it is they have done to themselves and/or others. The weirdness takes on a decidedly supernatural aspect when a cancer victim’s body suddenly starts growing extra limbs, including a second face on the back of his head.

A psychic and an investigative reporter team up to discover the reason for the “outbreak” of pointless killings, self-mutilations and other inexplicable phenomena. At first they are suspicious that it is some kind of governmental mind-control experiment or biochemical warfare test. The truth is far more disturbing: the cause is an other-dimensional entity that possesses its subjects (or “meat puppets”, as it calls them) as a form of performance art. It ends with the reporter willingly surrendering himself to the Performance Artist From the Outer Dark “for art’s sake”.

NAL did not like Meat Puppets, which they deemed too extreme and bizarre to appeal to a mass market, since there were no ‘sympathetic’ characters for the readers to identify with. They asked me to go back to the chalkboard and come back with something more commercial. They wanted something more along the lines of Anne Rice, something set in New Orleans. 1 tried to explain that my style was in no way similar to that of Rice’s. However, marketing had decided that since I was a female horror writer who lived in New Orleans and had already written a vampire novel, then that was how they were going to sell me to readers.

As I had only just started on my career (indeed, Sunglasses After Dark had yet to hit the stands), 1 was eager to prove myself to my publishers, so I did as I was asked. 1 chose to focus on New Orleans’ tradition of voodoo. As it so happened, I was friendly with a local artist named Sallie Ann Classman, who was also highly active in the Ordo Templar Orentis, or OTO, the religion created by Aleister Crowley after he was expelled from the Order of the Golden Dawn early in the last century. Sallie was also interested in the history and practice of traditional voudou in the New World, in particular Haiti and New Orleans. I had witnessed several voudou rituals she observed in the garage/temple in her back yard. The voudou tradition of possession by divinities and devils appealed to me because it echoed the possession theme of the discarded Meat Puppets and Sunglasses After Dark’s elaborate inhuman hierarchies operating right under humanity’s nose.

Along with my exposure to actual voudou worshippers, I was also inspired by a series of pictures by my friend, noted fantasy artist Jeff Potter. He had taken numerous photographs of abandoned plantation houses scattered throughout the Deep South, many of which had yet to be published. I was taken by the sight of these once-grand homes, now wreathed in creeping ivy and blackberry brambles like Sleeping Beauty’s castle. I’ve always been fond of haunted house stories, so I decided to take the Southern Gothic elements of a haunted plantation and combine them with voodoo. When I spoke to my editor, he said it sounded great, but wanted to know if I could put vampires into it. Although 1 was less than thrilled by the prospect, I did as they asked. The grafting of vampires into the storyline never felt right, and best sums up my experience with Tempter. 1 wasn’t writing a story I wanted to tell, but one others thought might sell.

Tempter’s incubation was troublesome, from start to finish. As it would happen, 1 found myself trying to meet my deadline while preparing to marry my first husband, the upshot being that I ended up taking the manuscript on my honeymoon to San Francisco. I printed out the finished version on October 13th, 1989, at a Kinko’s near Union Square and Fed-Exed it to my agent that same day. A few days later the Worlds Series earthquake struck the city, proving an apt omen for both the marriage and the book.

Tempter was released in early 1991. Despite a push from NAL/Onyx and a couple of favorable reviews, it quickly disappeared without leaving much to mark its passing. It turned out that readers wanted a sequel to Sunglasses After Dark, not a muddied Xerox of The Vampire LeStat.

Tempter quickly became what I refer as my “lost” novel: one that my readers had heard of and always asked about, but which few had ever seen, much less read. So, after a few years, I set about finding a publisher who might be interested in reprinting it. After a couple of false starts, I spoke with Barry Hoffman at Gauntlet, who had published my first short story collection, Nameless Sins, back in 1994. He expressed an interest, especially when I stated that I wanted to strip the book of the unnecessary vampire elements. However, since I no longer had the original manuscript on diskette (it was composed on 5” floppies), I was forced to retype the novel by hand, using an existing copy of the novel.

As I retyped Tempter, I found myself cringing at almost every sentence. What a difference twelve years makes-at least to me! The original version of Tempter was obviously a sophomore effort, written before my first novel had even seen print. What began as a slight revision and a light polish on an existing text ended up turning into an extensive rewrite. Although the basic plot, situations and characters of Tempter are essentially the same, I think it is now finally presentable enough to be seen in public without embarrassing itself too much.

Nancy A. Collins May 3, 2001 Atlanta, GA.

The Gris-Gris Club

I am the color of audacity, Of rhythmic tribal dance, of tropic love;

I am that tint released upon the air When cymbals kiss, or comets meet alone -Louisa Fletcher, Mandarin Red

CHAPTER ONE

Alex Rossiter studied himself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Checking for tremors and twitches was a ritual left over from the days when his presence on stage was enough to trigger hysterical screams. But that was a long time ago, and the man who returned his appraising stare was far removed from the teenaged boy who once drove the little girls wild.

He was only thirty-seven, but the last twenty years had been hard on his body, even during the good times. He was taller than average and, thanks to genetics, naturally lean, but the years of hard drug abuse left his face with a puffy layer of fat that made his eyes look perpetually bruised. There was gray shot throughout his hair, which he kept pulled into a ponytail, and his right ear sported three silver rings. He was dressed in loose-fitting white cotton pants, a white cotton sleeveless tunic which exposed the Anarchy symbol inked into his left shoulder, along with a small green cloth bag hung around his neck on a leather thong.

Rossiter absently fingered the mojo bag. He would have felt a lot more comfortable in his jeans and leather jacket, but Arsine insisted he wear the whites of a novice. Rossiter was still uncertain about what was planned for the night, but he trusted Arsine. Still, he had reason to be concerned about the motives of others, especially when it came to religion.

His ego still smarted whenever he thought about the wizened little guru who fed on his adolescent insecurities, assuring him that the only way to enlightenment was through ridding himself of all worldly goods and following a strict regimen of meditation, raw vegetables, and ice-water enemas. Rossiter had been so desperate to prove his worthiness to that wise, unworldly little man with the long flowing beard and beatific smile, he would have gladly hurled himself into a volcano.

Since he was still legally underage at the time, his parents and business manager had demanded his release from the holy man’s ashram. It wasn’t until then that Rossiter discovered that the kindly, “unworldly” holy man had his own helicopter, four Rolls Royces and a brace of certified public accountants in his employ. So much for raw vegetables and enemas. After two decades he still didn’t know whom he was angrier with: the guru for deceiving him, or his parents for disillusioning him.

Rossiter left the cramped confines of the bathroom. He hated efficiency apartments but there wasn’t much he could do about it. His occasional bouts of employment, combined with the sporadic royalty checks he received, provided him with the base-level income necessary to keep him housed and fed. Food wasn’t a problem, since New Orleans was still one of the few places left in America where a poor man could eat well. Housing, however, was another story. It was hard to find a place in his price range where he didn’t run the risk of being burgled every time he left the house. He pushed a mound of stale laundry off the permanently exposed hide-a-bed. He checked his wristwatch, a battered Timex with a badly scratched crystal, and wondered where the hell Arsine might be.

Rossiter had been in New Orleans just over six months. The city was famous as a breeding ground for jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock-n-roll, and had a reputation for debauchery and wickedness that was mythic. But what fascinated him most was the region’s history of voodoo.

Despite his early experience with the guru, Rossiter never gave up on pursuing mystic truth. He’d always had a taste for the metaphysical, even before Crash hit it big, but over the years his appetite for enlightenment had grown in proportion to his inability to land a recording contract. Over the last fifteen he had wandered from Krishna Consciousness to Scientology, with a stop for Jesus along the way. Now he was being drawn to investigate that most primal of beliefs: voodoo.

Make that voudou. Voodoo was Hollywood crap: grimacing idols, human sacrifices, and the blank-eyed walking dead. Voudou was the real thing, pure and uncut.

When Rossiter first moved to New Orleans, he was amazed to find voudou practitioners actually listed in the Yellow Pages under “Museums.” The address proved to be an old French Quarter storefront, its rooms filled with various bric-a-brac of alleged supernatural and historical importance. For three dollars Rossiter was allowed to look at dusty glass cases cluttered with corroded iron knives, dried gourd rattles, and a poorly preserved python skin.

As he ambled through the cramped confines of the “museum”, he saw a child’s white coffin propped on a kitchen chair underneath a faded lithograph of Marie LaVeau, the legendary voodoo queen. A display case housing a collection of defaced 1950s-era horror comics of zombies rising from their graves sat beside an aquarium filled to over-flowing by an obese python. A piece of wire mesh, held in place by a strip of electrical tape and a brick, was all that kept the tank’s occupant from escaping. In Rossiter’s opinion, the only thing in the whole building that qualified as interesting was a photograph of a woman dressed in a white gown, her eyes rolled back in ecstasy, a red-hot coal balanced on her tongue.

Like any other museum, Rossiter was forced to walk through the gift-shop in order to exit the building. The curator, a stoop-shouldered, slightly overweight man in his fifties, stood behind the gift-shop counter. Behind him were rows of apothecary jars situated on narrow shelves. While some were marked ginger, patchouli, and jasmine, others bore labels such as ‘dragon’s blood’, ‘healing hands’, and ‘goofer dust’.

The curator smiled and nodded at Rossiter. “Y’all enjoy the museum?”

“It was … different,” he conceded.

“See anything you were interested in?”

“Well, uh, there was this photograph …”

The curator’s eyebrows shot up. “Which one?”

“It was of a girl with what looked like a live coal in her mouth.”

The curator nodded sagely. “Yes, we get a lot of comments about that one. Things like that seldom end up being photographed in time, you know. The girl is no longer associated with the museum, but we still display the picture.”

“Is there any way I could see something like that? For real?”

The curator smiled and handed him a business card. “We do rituals. Both indoor and outdoor. Reasonable rates.”

Rossiter nodded, not really listening.

The curator’s brown wrinkled and his eyes narrowed as he studied Rossiter’s face. “You from around here?”

“I just moved from out of state;’

“Funny, you look familiar,” the curator said.

Rossiter was still unsure if escaping unrecognized was a good thing or a bad thing. He had spent five years trying to adjust to the adulation of strangers, then another fifteen becoming used to their indifference. In the late Sixties and early Seventies his name had been used in the same sentence as Hendrix and Morrison. But that was two decades ago, and while Jimi, Janis, and Jim had avoided the fickleness of a maturing audience by trading their lives for rock’n’roll godhood, he was now a washed-up former boy-genius.

The sound of the door buzzer shook Rossiter from his reverie. He opened door, careful to leave the chain on.

“Sorry I’m late, man.” Arsine smiled apologetically, exposing his gold eyetooth, “Some last-minute shit came up at work.”

Arsine Copeland was a tall, slightly built African American in his late twenties who wore a brightly colored knit beret atop his ropelike dreadlocks. When he wasn’t painting houses, Arsine was a session drummer.

“I thought you forgot me.”

“No chance, man! You got the offering?” Rossiter handed Arsine a brown paper bag. The drummer skinned back the wrapper and studied the label on the bottle.

“Is it the right kind? I want to make the right impression.”

“Don’t worry,” Arsine grinned. “You’ll definitely impress the houngan, if not the loa! C’mon, let’s get gone.”

Arsine drove a battered ‘78 Ford pick-up with an open bed filled with paint cans. On the driver’s side door of the cab was a peel-n-stick sign that read Copeland & Son Renovations. The cab reeked of paint thinner, old sweat, cheap wine, marijuana and unfiltered cigarettes “Where are we going?”

“Where Marie LaVeau used to hold her rituals, or thereabouts. It’s a nice place. Nobody messes with you out there.” Arsine glanced at him from the corner of his eye. “You nervous? There’s nothing to be worried about. But I can understand why you might be. Kanzo is heavy shit, but don’t sweat it. You’ll come through all right.” Arsine’s long, brown fingers dipped into his jeans and withdrew a large joint. “Thought you might need something to calm your nerves.”

Rossiter accepted the spliff, grateful to have something to take his mind off the upcoming ordeal. The two exchanged puffs on the joint as they drove through the narrow streets, the truck’s shocks squeaking and groaning at every intersection and pothole.

Rossiter first met Arsine at the ceremony staged by the curator of the museum, which featured a pair of half-naked African-American men playing conga drums, an exotic dancer Rossiter recognized from one of the titty bars over on Bourbon Street, and the over-fed snake from the museum. After fifteen minutes, he called the curator a charlatan and stalked out. He was halfway down the street when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

Rossiter spun around, not bothering to hide his anger. “Stay the fuck away from me!”

“Chill out, man. 1 ain’t messin’ with you.” It was one of the drummers from the ritual. He held up his long, narrow hands, palms outward, and smiled apologetically, exposing a gold eyetooth. “1 don’t blame you for gettin’ mad back there. The whole thing is a jive ass tourist rip-off. If you want the real shit, it’s not that hard to arrange. But only if you’re lookin’ to learn, not take photos for the rubes back home.”

“How much?” Rossiter sneered, expecting yet another set-up.

“I don’t want your money, friend. I only drum for that dude for extra scratch. It’s an easy gig, y’know? If you want to check it out, give me a call. The name’s Arsine.” He stuffed a piece of scrap paper in Rossiter’s hand. As he turned to leave he gave Rossiter a sly wink. “By the by: Blood Moon Rising was a righteous album.”

It was two months before Rossiter recovered from being played for a tourist. When he finally called Arsine’s number, the drummer acted as if it had only been a couple of days since they last spoke. Rossiter was surprised by how quickly he came to like the easygoing young musician. Over the years he had learned to be wary of those who befriended him. It was his experience that people treated celebrities-even those of dubious fame-differently than they did others, and that many harbored secret agendas behind their friendly smiles.

However, Rossiter’s relationship with Arsine was that of a peer. Arsine was the third generation of a musical family. His grandfather used to play with Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton, while his daddy logged studio time with Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint and the late Professor Longhair.

It was Arsine who introduced Rossiter to his first real live voudou priest, known as a houngan. Rossiter had been expecting a massively built black man dressed in the headdgear and grass skirt of a witch doctor. What he got was a slightly stooped old man with horn-rimmed glasses and false teeth who held his pants up with leather braces.

Papa Beloved (pronounced bee-love-ed) was an elderly man who had come to the United States from Jamaica as a boy. Papa Beloved spoke with the lilting, singsong rhythm of the Caribbean, and within an hour of their first meeting Rossiter was completely won over by the old gentleman’s sincerity. The clincher came when Papa Beloved confessed there wasn’t much money in being a houngan, and that he made his living mowing lawns. He only became a full-time voudou priest after handing his thriving yard-care business over to his son.

On their second meeting, Rossiter confessed his desire to become an Initiate. Papa Beloved explained that novices were expected to pay for the privilege of being exposed to the divine company of the loas. Rossiter had steeled himself upon hearing this, expecting yet another shakedown. To his amazement, the asking price for spiritual enlightenment was a bottle of white rum.

Now he was on his way to being initiated into Papa Beloved’s hounfour. He remembered the photograph of the woman holding the live coal in her mouth and repressed the urge to crack the seal of the bottle between his knees. He looked out the window as Arsine piloted the aged truck along Wisener Boulevard. The vast, darkened expanse of City Park lay on one side, the grassy banks of Bayou St. John on the other.

They turned onto De Saix Boulevard and, after passing streets bearing such ironic names as ‘Industry’, ‘Hope’, and ‘Law’, came to a stop in front of a rather unimpressive 1950s brick bungalow. There were a handful of vehicles parked in the drive, most of them late Seventies sedans with patchy paint jobs.

“This is it?”

“You weren’t expecting a thatched hut in the middle of Gentilly, were you?” Arsine chuckled.

Rossiter was lead around the side of the house to the freestanding garage in the back yard that served as a temple. They entered the squat, whitewashed cinderblock building through a narrow doorway curtained with strands of plastic Mardi Gras beads. The interior was close and dark, and the odor of caged animals, sandalwood, and human sweat threatened to overpower him the moment he entered.

The people squeezed into the confines of the hounfour turned as a group to stare at Rossiter. Most of the Initiates were African American  women, although Rossiter glimpsed at least one other white face. Even though their gazes held more curiosity than hostility, if Arsine’s hand had not been on his shoulder, Rossiter would have turned and fled.

Papa Beloved smiled benevolently and stepped forward to greet him. The retired yardman was dressed in a striking red-and-black dashiki, his bare feet encased in eel-skin sandals. His bald head sported a sheen of perspiration that made him look as if he was carved of polished mahogany. He slipped a bony arm around Rossiter’s shoulders and addressed the assembled members of the temple.

“Brothers and Sisters, this is Alex. Tonight he shall join us as a member of our society through the ritual of kanzo!”

“Welcome, Alex”, the congregation responded.

Papa Beloved turned back to face Rossiter. “Did you bring an offering for Legba?” Rossiter nodded and handed him the bottle of rum. The old priest raised en eyebrow when he saw the label and nodded his approval.

The altar dedicated to Legba was a card table erected in the corner behind the temple door, draped in bolts of red and black cloth. The four corners were weighted by smooth stones the size of a man’s fist. Seven small glass vessels containing water stood grouped in a circle on the table, surrounded by nine white votive candles. A devotional candle bearing the likeness of Saint Michael dwarfed those clustered about it, casting flickering shadows on the crooked stick and plastic bowl full dried corn kernels set upon the altar.

“Legba will be pleased with your offering,” Papa Beloved intoned, placing the bottle of white rum among the other gifts on the altar.

“Will Legba be here tonight?”

The old man shrugged. “It is not my place to know the ways of les Invisibles. We will call Legba; we will offer him the things we know that please him. Perhaps Legba will come. Perhaps we will get some other loa. Perhaps nothing happens.” The priest grinned and favored Rossiter with a knowing wink. “But when there is good rum-that is when Legba most often chooses to visit.”

Papa Beloved turned to discuss something with another member of his flock, his voice low, but Rossiter could tell he was giving instructions. Arsine stripped off his own shirt, revealing sharply defined muscles, and took his place at the drum. Rossiter took the time to study the interior of the makeshift temple. The poured-concrete floor reeked faintly of motor oil and transmission fluid, and the walls were painted flat black, decorated with crude cabalistic figures done in whitewash and chalk He recognized one of the symbols as the Seal of Solomon, but most were ornate, highly stylized line drawings of stars, crossed sabers, hearts, and what looked like an old-fashioned tugboat with smoke coming from its funnel.

A sturdy wooden table draped in red cloth ran the length of the front of the temple, laden with what looked like a wizard’s jumble sale. A collection of small pots lined the altar, along with a child’s crutch, a plastic toy tugboat, a machete, a rusty iron zigzag that resembled a lightning bolt, a yellow silk dress, and wire-rim spectacles with opaque lenses. Devotional candles dedicated to Our Lady of Mercy, Saint Jerome, Saint George and other appropriated saints flickered in the half-dark. Although Rossiter knew that what seemed to be meaningless bits of trash were actually totems held sacred by the most powerful of the loa and instrumental in assuring their participation in the rituals, the altar still looked weirdly tacky.

There was the sound of a rattle and the congregation fell silent. Papa Beloved stood before his people, his hands raised above his head.

In one hand he held a hollowed calabash covered in a loosely knit web of macramé. A leather thong, knotted with beads and tufts of rooster feathers, dangled from the handle. Arsine began drumming, the tempo as slow and measured as a sleeper’s heartbeat.

Before Rossiter had time to ready himself, he was seized from behind by two of the white-garbed worshippers. The women of the congregation tied frayed palm leaves to his shoulders, arranging them so that they framed his face like spread wings. As he watched, the other members of the congregation produced a kitchen chair draped in white cloth and began slowly lifting it over their head while Papa Beloved intoned a prayer.

A young woman dressed in the same simple white muslin dress as the other female worshippers, save for the red kerchief covering her head, stepped forward. Rossiter realized that she must be the hounfour’s mambo, the female counterpart of Papa Beloved. Her skin was the color of cafe au lait, and shone like satin in the flickering light from the altar candles. Her bare legs were long and muscular, and she was naked underneath her white cotton shift. As she moved closer, Rossiter’s mouth went dry. The mambo was the woman whose photograph he had seen at the museum.

The mambo spun in a circle, and Rossiter glimpsed her upper thigh and the darker shadow nestled between her legs. She moved over to the altar and lit a candle to saint Michael, the Catholic totem of the ancient African deity known as Legba, Guardian of the Crossroads, then picked up a small clay jar filled with cornmeal. While she sprinkled the meal onto the floor, the members of the congregation holding aloft the chair began to chant, slapping their bare feet against the hard concrete of the floor.

Rossiter saw that the mambo was laying down a vévé, replicating the symbols on the walls in preparation of invoking the loa. Once she was finished, the mambo offered libations to the cardinal points from a jug of fresh water, and then anointed the threshold to the temple. As her motions became more and more hurried, the drumming grew faster. Rossiter felt his heart thudding in accompaniment, his breath growing shallower and sharper. Every inch of his body was slick with sweat and his vision pulsed in time with the music.

All of the worshipers, save for the two holding Rossiter, placed themselves before the empty chair and began to sway from side to side, their heads lolling with each movement, their voices united in a low, guttural song.

Papa Beloved moved forward, his every step marked by a shake of the rattle. Rossiter marveled over how the benevolent retired handyman had metamorphosed into a guardian of the dark mysteries, invoking the gods of his stolen ancestors.

After Papa Beloved finished the ritual invocation, the mambo motioned for the congregation to move aside with a slight motion of her hand. The worshippers parted like the Red Sea before Moses. The two men pinning Rossiter’s arms dragged him forward and presented him to the mambo. She regarded him with the eyes of Siamese cat and her full lips pulled into a smile. She pointed to the chair and the surrounding network of vévés.

“Lie down with your head pointing toward the chair.” The attendants roughly pushed Rossiter to his knees. After hesitating for a moment, he lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling of the temple. The mambo bent over him, a glass container in her left hand, and muttered something under her breath. The water splashed onto his face, causing him to sputter and cough like a man pulled from the sea. The mambo dipped her right index finger into a jar held by one of the worshipers, coating it with a green mixture that smelled of rancid grease. She quickly sketched a cross on Rossiter’s damp face and inside the palms of his hands, then stepped back. Rossiter remained flat on his back, uncertain what would happen next.

The cat-eyed mambo picked up a whip plaited from palm leaves. The whip cracked the air, licking his forelegs like a lizard’s tongue. His penis thickened, tenting the thin material of his cotton pants. The whip cracked again, but its pain was ritual, the abasement necessary to prove the Initiate’s resolve.

“Stand,” the mambo commanded.

Rossiter got to his feet. He was wobbly on his feet, but that was more a side effect of his arousal than the scourging.

The mambo glanced down and the hands of the attendants dug into his shoulders, forcing him to kneel before her. It didn’t take him long to figure out the proper protocol; he kissed the mambo’ bare feet. The attendants’ hands disappeared from his shoulders and he felt a featherlike touch on the top of his head. He looked up, meeting the mambo’s catlike gaze.

She grasped Rossiter’s hand and helped him to rise, turning him three times in a graceful pirouette. After he finished the third twirl. The mambo threw her arms around him and kissed him full of the mouth. Rossiter was too disoriented to enjoy the probing of her tongue. His face burned bright read as she pulled way from him; there was no way she could have overlooked the erection pressing into her belly. The congregation began to weep and moan like mourners behind a funeral cortege. The drumming ceased, although Rossiter’s pulse still echoed its rhythm.

The mambo shook her rattle and the others fell silent, their dry eyes fixed on her. The mambo then burst into tears, triggering yet another volley of wails. The worshippers surged forward, each trying to hug Rossiter or shake his hand. The intensity of their emotions was disturbing and confusing to him. It was as if Rossiter was a dearest friend they never expected to see alive again.

Arsine stepped forward, his face mirroring the sorrow shared by the others.

“What’s going on, man?” Rossiter whispered to his friend. “Why are they acting like this?’

The drummer did not reply, and instead wrapped a blindfold made from white cloth over Rossiter’s eyes.

Rossiter’s stomach knotted into a tight ball of impending panic. “C’mon man, what’s going on?”

“They’re just mourning your passing from the land of the living,” Arsine said, then kicked Rossiter’s legs out from under him.

CHAPTER TWO

Rossiter lay very still, images from a hundred horror movies crowding his mind, and listened as the voudou worshippers filed out of the temple.

“Sit up, boy.” Papa Beloved said, sounding like a tired schoolmaster instructing a dense pupil. “There’s no need for you to play possum.”

Rossiter struggled into a sitting position not daring to remove his blindfold. A few seconds later Papa Beloved’s gnarled fingers unwrapped the cloth binding his eyes. Rossiter saw the old man held a straight razor and a bowl of warm soapy water.

“Take down your drawers.”

Rossiter’s testicles contracted at the sight of the razor. “I’m already circumcised,” he said quickly.

“I ain’t worried about that, son,” Papa Beloved chuckled. “Now drop ‘em.”

Although he felt foolish exposing himself to the aged houngan, Rossiter did as he was told.

Papa Beloved began to carefully shave the pubic hair from Rossiter’s crotch, speaking as he worked in a calm, even voice. “What I’m doin’ is collectin’ elements that represent what the loa call the ti bon ange: the ‘good soul’. It is the thing that exists in all people, man or woman, black or white, voudou or not, that creates a person’s character and gives them will power and everything else that makes them who they are. It is the ‘little’ soul, different from the gros bon ange, which unites all livin’ things. Okay, you can pull up your drawers now.” The priest carefully scraped the hair off the razor into a small white china jar. He then produced a pair of shears that were better suited for trimming rosebushes than cutting hair. “Now we take a snip from the other end eh?’ He grinned, scissoring the air. Rossiter surrendered a lock of his hair the length and width of a child’s finger, which went into to the same jar as the pubic hair. He balked, however, when Papa Beloved menaced the nails of his left band with the shears.

“Do you have to use those?’ he blurted, jerking his hand back.

“The head pot must contain parings from the nails of the left hand and foot.”

“Yeah, but don’t you have something like real nail clippers? I play the guitar for a living, man.”

Papa Beloved shrugged and turned to the cluttered altar, returning with a pair of stainless-steel nail clippers. Rossiter breathed a sigh of relief, counting himself lucky that the old wizard hadn’t decided to use a machete instead. Papa Beloved harvested his parings and placed the little white pot alongside a row of similar receptacles arranged on a narrow shell over the altar.

“Sit before the altar, son. Sit with your legs spread wide apart” It was not a suggestion.

Once Rossiter was in position, the houngan began calling the loa in a deep voice, sprinkling himself and Rossiter with liberal amounts of white rum and water. Without breaking the litany, Papa Beloved moved to the darkest corner of the temple and re-emerged carrying a wooden crate full of live chickens. The houngan yanked one of the birds free of its fellows. It was a scrawny black rooster with a mottled comb the color of blood. Papa Beloved thrust the frightened bird in Rossiter’s face and it promptly pecked his left cheek, drawing blood.

“Shit!” Rossiter blurted out, despite himself. He put his hand to the wound and stared at the red smear on his palm.

Papa Beloved nodded, apparently pleased by the augury. He cradled the struggling bird in the crook of his arm, stroking its glossy feathers to calm it. Then he broke its wings and legs. The chicken’s pained squawks ended as abruptly as they began as the old man ripped its throat out with a single snap of his dentures. Rossiter was too stunned to even flinch as the houngan splashed his face with the rooster’s blood, then snapped the bird’s neck with a practiced motion, turning it into a motionless bag of feathers. The houngan ripped a handful of feathers free of the corpse and plastered them across Rossiter’s forehead with a mixture of blood and spit. He then dipped his fingers in the blood leaking from the freshly killed sacrifice and traced crosses on the nape of Rossiter’s neck, the palm of his left hand and the sole of his left foot.

Papa Beloved returned to the poultry crate and retrieved a second chicken, which he casually broke as he had the first, dumping it between Rossiter’s spread legs. He continued the sacrifices until there were twelve dead chickens heaped before the novice. Rossiter stared at growing pile of broken, twitching roosters, watching their eyes turn gray and filmy.

“Now you are known to the loa. You are marked as their servitor. Through you they can walk the world of mankind. You will be a mount for the Divine Horsemen. And for this service you will be rewarded with good health and luck in love, business, and money. But it you offend the loa, then you will be crossed at every turn and made miserable for the rest of your life … and beyond. Now rise, for it is time for the hounfour to recognize you as one of their own.”

Rossiter got to his feet and allowed Pap Beloved to blindfold him again, this time with a red cloth. He heard Papa Beloved open the door and clap three limes. The worshippers filed back into the temple, this voices low. Rossiter could hear some of the women giggling.

“Welcome, brother,” Arsine whispered into his ear as he removed Rossiter’s blindfold. The drummer winked at him before resuming his place.

The mambo glided into the middle of the room, a bound rooster clutched in either hand. She began to whirl, flourishing the hapless chickens like a fan dancer. The other members of the hounfour began to clap their hands and skip in place, grinning happily. After a few minutes of chicken-waving, the mambo handed the birds to the men who had served as Rossiter’s attendants The mambo stood with her feet spread apart, her left arm stretched in the direction of Rossiter, while shielding her eyes with her right hand. Her stance was so rigid Rossiter could see her calf muscles twitching.

The mambo began reciting a long list of Catholic saints and martyrs that gradually degenerated into a litany of loa names. When she finished, she nodded to the attendants, who calmly jerked the heads off the roosters they were holding. Blood spurted onto the floor, muddying the elaborate vévé‘s.

The mambo collected the decapitated chickens and tossed them into a portable barbecue pit beside the altar. The stink of burning feathers filled the confines of the temple. She turned and motioned for Rossiter to come closer.

“Pass your left hand through the flame.”

Although Rossiter’s eyes were fixed on the fire, he could feel everyone watching him. Sweat rolled down the furrow of his back and there was a sharp, acid taste at the back of his throat. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and moved his hand through the flame There was a moment of heat and he felt the skin of his left hand tighten, then all he heard was a dozen voices raised in jubilation.

He opened his eyes and stared as the members of the congregation surrounded him, slapping his back and shaking his hand. All he could do was smile weakly and nod his head in polite response. He searched the crowd for sign of the mambo. He saw her framed against the open doorway, talking to Papa Beloved. Before he could free himself, she waved good-bye and left the temple.

After the last member of the congregation finished welcoming him into the hounfour, it was time for everyone to go home. Rossiter trailed Arsine out of the temple and into the backyard.

“What now?”

“Nothing. The service is over.”

“No, 1 mean, what happens now? Do 1 show every Sunday?”

Arsine shrugged. “You come when you feel like it. You come when you need it. The loa don’t require regular churchgoing.”

“Who is she?”

“She who?”

“You know … her.”

“The mambo? She calls herself Ti-Alice.” He pronounced it ‘Tee Ah-lease.’ “Story has it her grandma’s grandma was a powerful mamalewe, back in the day. She works in a restaurant in the Quarter.’ Arsine dropped the cigarette he was smoking and ground it into the grass with the heel of his boot. “It’s time I got you home. You had yourself a busy night.”

“Is it true? What Papa Beloved said about getting luck?”

“It works for some. Does for me. Stay right here, okay?” The drummer disappeared around the corner of Papa Beloved’s house. When he did not return immediately, Rossiter started to get worried.

“What’s going on, man?” he called out after his friend. “I’ve had enough mystery for one night, okay?”

Arsine reappeared, dragging a length of garden hose behind him. “Chill!” he said with a laugh as he trained the hose on Rossiter. “You don’t think I’m gonna let you mess up my new seat covers, do you?”

Rossiter was surprised to discover that only two hours had passed during the time Arsine picked him up and then returned him to his apartment. He felt as if he’d been up all night. Although Arsine’s impromptu hose-down had cleaned off most of the congealed chicken blood, he was still in need of a bath. Soaking in the tub while thinking about the exotic and mysterious Ti Alice sounded like the perfect end to the day.

As he started the bat water, the phone rang. It was the booking agent for the Gris-Gris Club. Rossiter had been trying for the last two months, without much success, to land a gig there. The booking agent apologized for not getting back to him sooner and offered him a gig for the first weekend in June.

Maybe there was something to be said for luck and loas, after all.

CHAPTER THREE

The tears in charlie’s eyes refracted the light of the parking lot, turning everything into watery smears. If she had not been familiar with the metal stairway, she would have fallen at least twice. She was aware of being watched from a couple of windows, but she was past caring what the neighbors thought.

‘Neighbors!’ That was a laugh! Her mouth curled into a bitter smirk. You didn’t have neighbors in places like Stonebrook Apartments; you had people who lived next door. Besides, they weren’t her neighbors, they were Tony’s, and Tony didn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone but himself. She shifted her grip on her suitcase as she searched her pocket for the keys to the car. This was the last load. She hoped Tony wouldn’t show up and start something at the last minute.

She shoved the suitcase into the back seat of her BMW, squashing the double armload of record albums and paperback books already there. She didn’t want Tony to see her looking like this; she didn’t want him to see her out of control. One look at her swollen, seeping eyes and runny nose would be all it would take him to start in on how possessive and over emotional she was. The self-pity she was feeling turned, presenting its sharper side. The anger felt good; better than the sex she had experienced with Tony for the past eight months. Even as she packed her things, Charlie had been unsure if she was walking out for good, but there was no denying to herself that the relationship was over, once and for all. The resolve to stick by her decision to leave numbed the hurt inside-not all of it, but enough to make it bearable.

Charlie wiped her eyes and took one final look at Parking Lot G of the Stonebrook Apartment Complex. The sun glared against the vast expanse of concrete, forcing her squint. No sign of Tony’s candy-apple red Trans Am. He was probably hanging out at Shooters or one of the other fern bars on Veterans Highway, relaxing after another day at his uncle’s furniture showroom, sucking up happy-hour margaritas and flirting with secretaries. It wasn’t hard for her to imagine him doing that; after all, that’s how they first met.

She got into the car and slammed the door shut. Within seconds she was on 1-10, fleeing the adults-only apartment communities and sprawling malls that constituted Suburban Metairie. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird filled the interior of car as she sped past the ornate funerary statues of Metairie Lawn Cemetery. How could she have been so stupid as to get herself mixed up with a loser like Tony Scramuzza? She should have seen trouble coming when he made fun of her taking continuing education art classes at UNO. Tony also didn’t want to move to New Orleans, since that meant he’d have to make a ten-minute commute every day, although he didn’t mind the fact she had to suffer a thirty minute drive into the city whenever she stayed over night in his apartment. No, she couldn’t take such subtle non-commitment hints; she had to hang around until she found him in bed with another woman.

Her eyes began to sting and she almost missed the Carrolton Avenue exit. She slowed down, allowing the warm wind coming through the car’s open window to dry the tears on her cheeks. Her face felt sticky and stiff from crying. The pleasantly sharp aroma of cayenne peppers being processed at the Crystal Preserve factory on the other side of the interchange cut through the carbon monoxide and diesel fumes.

She had gone to Tony’s the other night after a long day at work. She hadn’t bothered to call ahead to tell him she was coming. She wanted to surprise him, since she had told him earlier it was doubtful she could get away in time for dinner.

She surprised him, all right.

She let herself in with the spare key Tony gave her after their first weekend together, eight months before. Tony was standing at the breakfast bar, naked except for his bathrobe, a bottle of vodka in one hand, a pair of highball glasses in the other. He stood and stared at Charlie, his mouth and robe hanging open. She could see golden chains glinting in his chest hairs.

The woman was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, one hip resting against the doorjamb. When she saw Charlie, she straightened suddenly; clutching shut the robe she was wearing. Charlie stood there like a lump, staring at the other woman; dimly aware that the robe she was wearing was her own. Her face burned as it there were live coals buried in her cheekbones.

The woman in Charlie’s bathrobe was first to speak. “You didn’t say nothing about being married.”

Tony’s voice was hard, with both a sharp and blunt edge. “I’m not.”

Charlie had been with Tony long enough to recognize from the tone of his voice that he considered the problem to lie with her, not him. She turned and fled the apartment and returned to her home in the city, where she cried until her stomach ached.

She called in sick that morning, unwilling to show a puffy, tear-swollen face to her coworkers. It had taken the better part of the day for her to work up the nerve to return to Tony’s apartment and retrieve what few belongings of hers he’d allowed her to keep there.

Part of her hoped Tony would return while she was there. It was the part of her that fell in love with Tony, and it fantasized he would realize how much she truly meant to him, and beg her not to go. However, the part of her that was tired of Tony’s macho swagger and selfish behavior feared he would show up and start slapping her around in the parking lot.

She maneuvered the BMW through Carrolton Avenue traffic with the ease of an experienced commuter. Her body lapsed into the ritual of acceleration and braking while her mind chewed at itself like a fox in a trap. She barely registered the Popeye’s Fried Chicken Stand and the purple facade of the K&B Drugstore that marked the homestretch.

Although legally a part of New Orleans, in many ways Carrollton was still a separate community from the city that annexed it decades ago. Its narrow tree-lined streets housed young urban professionals with parochial-school-age children, students from the nearby Tulane and Loyola campuses, and the occasional blue-collar laborer. It was a pleasant place to live, mixing the relative quiet and privacy of a suburban neighborhood with the benefits of a twenty-minute streetcar ride from a major metropolitan area.

Charlie pulled the car into the private drive of her Victorian camelback and stared at the screened-in front porch for a long moment. Why did she waste so much time on a jerk that preferred living in one of those god-awful plasterboard rabbit hutches rather than a proper house? She glanced in the rearview mirror and grimaced at the mascara smeared across her eyes and cheeks. She looked like Tammy Faye Bakker the day they look the credit cards away. She dug into her purse and found a wad of not-too-damp tissue and, after a few makeshift dabs at her ruined makeup, began the task of ferrying the things piled in the backseat of her into the house.

The first time Tony set foot in her home, he made wisecracks about how the free standing bookshelves that dominated the living room made the place look like a library. As if having more than three books in one place was weird. The only reading material Tony had in his apartment were News on Wheels, TV Guide, Playboy and Penthouse.

She lugged the suitcase into the kitchen and dumped its contents onto the table. At. least she wouldn’t have to wash his goddamned clothes anymore. She began sorting the pile with the same efficient single-mindedness her mother had given the laundry whenever she argued with her father. Socks go over here, blouses go over there. She stopped when she realized she was holding the bathrobe in her hands.

She had purchased the matching beige terrycloth robes with chocolate piping as an “anniversary” present to celebrate their first month together. The other woman’s cigarette smoke and perfume now permeated the material.

The tears started again, and she heard the terry cloth rip before she realized what she was doing. After she tore the bathrobe into three large, ragged pieces, she found a pair of shears and began to frantically scissor the material into even smaller fragments. When the sobs finally died down, hundreds of beige terrycloth scraps, none bigger than her thumb, were scattered across the kitchen floor.

She stared at the tatters for a long moment then began to pick them up, placing them in a plastic sack. When she picked up the last piece of robe, she stuffed the bag deep into the garbage can at the end of the drive, weighing it down with the Sunday edition of the Times-Picayune.

After she dumped the laundry into the washer, she retrieved the bottle of Jagermeister from the freezer and retired upstairs. She needed a good long soak in the tub. And a drink. At the same time. Her bathtub was ideally suited for soaking and drinking. It dated from the 1920s, with lion’s feet and a basin deep enough to drown a platoon of Marines. As she bent to stuff the rubber stopper into the drain, a pair of yellowish eyes greeted her.

“Pluto! So there you are, you good-for-nothing cat,”

A tabby torn with a stainless white bib and socks lay curled at the bottom of the tub. Pluto liked to spend warm days lounging against the smooth enamel, vacating its cool comfort only long enough to drink from the toilet bowl, use the litter box downstairs, and snack on his favorite Nine Lives entree.

“C’mon, kitty, move your butt. Mama’s in no mood to play right now.”

Charlie lifted the tabby from his resting place, dropping him onto the linoleum with an unceremonious thud. Pluto stretched and then strolled over to the door, where he began to lazily groom himself.

Charlie turned the faucets on full and tossed a handful of bath salts into the chemically treated river water that blasted from the tap. As she waited for the tub to fill, she moved into the master bedroom. Pluto ran ahead of her, his tail held upright like a flagpole, mewling piteously.

“Aw, shut up, cat.” She pulled her sweatshirt over her head. Pluto jumped onto the bed, heedless of the designer coverlet. “To hear you tell it, you think I never feed you,” she sighed, scratching the tabby behind the ears. Pluto’s diesel-powered purr kicked in, like an idling motorcycle.

Charlie skinned herself free of her pants and plopped onto the bed, cradling Pluto against her breast. She noticed the red light on the answering machine to the bed was blinking. Probably her mother calling long distance from Atlanta to fret over her not being married. The last thing she wanted to do was to listen to her mother’s tape-delayed guilt trips.

She checked her watch then looked at the telephone. Jere probably hadn’t left for his evening class yet. If there was anyone she could talk to right now, it was Jere. She put Pluto back down and picked up the phone, hitting Jere’s number on the speed-dial. It rang once. Twice. Three times …

“Hello?”

“Hi, Jere?”

“Hey, Charlie! Haven’t heard from you for a long time. How’s it goin’, girl?”

“Okay, I guess.” She realized she was forcing a smile although there was no one there to see it.

“Really?”

She took a deep breath, determined to keep the tears from her voice. It almost worked. “No, not really.” She turned her sob into a tight, bitter laugh.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Yeah. But not over the phone.’

“I won’t be free until eight-thirty. You want to meet somewhere for a drink around nine?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. It’ll give me time to get my shit together. I look a fright. Where do you want to meet?” “How about the Gris-Gris Club?” “Great.” “See you there.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Jere stopped on the way back from the men’s room to order another round of zombies, paying for the pale-pink concoctions with a twenty. While he waited for his change, he watched Charlie from the corner of his eye as she sniffled and tore a damp cocktail napkin into confetti. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. How did he ever get roped into being her father confessor? Sometimes being a nice guy really sucked.

Jere Sloan had known Charlotte Calder for two years. They first met while she was sitting for students in his figure-drawing course at the Center for Continuing Education at the University New Orleans. Jere was in his late thirties and far from setting the art world on its ear. He was good artist, but that didn’t go very far when stockbrokers talk on cell phones in public rest rooms. Teaching art to retired bank clerks and bored housewives was stultifying, but at least it paid the rent. And it had brought Charlie into his life.

Charlie was the prototypical yuppie, dressed in the latest fashions straight out of Vogue, and her conversation often revealed the fact she’d majored in business and not the liberal arts. Still, he had enjoyed introducing her to the masters, seeing the familiar canvases anew through her eyes. Despite her stunning beauty, she possessed an inquisitive mind, one that had never been noticed by her previous admirers.

Jere asked her for a date after she finished the course and she agreed. They spent that first evening talking over beignets at the Cafe du Monde, where Degas once spent a sweltering Louisiana summer drinking coffee and dreaming of ballerinas. When the sun came up they were still talking, and she had bid him farewell with a chaste peck on the cheek. He knew then things would not turn out as he’d hoped.

Their second date was stimulating, but Charlie had insisted on paying her way. When she started to talk about her boyfriend, an alcoholic ex-jock named Ken, and his inability to make a commitment, Jere thought he saw his chance. He frankly told her she deserved better than Ken, but couldn’t summon the balls to nominate himself for the job. Charlie was the first woman he had been seriously interested in since his divorce. The thought of her rejecting him was enough to paralyze him into inaction.

Over the next three weeks they met regularly at the Gris-Gris Club, a bar within easy walking distance of Jere’s place in the Faubourg Marigny, and talked about Charlie’s problems with Ken. Then one evening he received a phone call from Charlie. She sounded excited and obviously pleased with herself.

“I did it! You were right, Jere! I took you advice and did it.”

“Did what?”

“Dumped Ken. 1 told him 1 never wanted to see him again.”

“Good for you! This calls for a celebration. Meet me at the Gris-Gris in an hour.”

Jere bathed, put on his good suit, and splashed himself with the best aftershave he could find in his medicine cabinet. Now that the brawny, ill-tempered Ken was out of the picture, he was finally free to make his move.

However, Charlie kept him waiting for almost an hour, and when she finally showed up it was in the company of a boisterous, bold-talking young man named Jason who hogged the conversation and drank too much. Charlie hardly said a word. When Jason staggered off to the John, Charlie leaned towards Jere, her cheeks flushed like those of an excited teenager, and asked; “What do you think? Isn’t he wonderful?” Any self-respecting man would have walked out right then and never looked back, but Jere had never truly recovered from his years spent as a high school geek. That a woman of such beauty showed any interest in him at all was enough to sublimate his hurt and outrage, simply in order to remain in her company. Jere hoped that someday Charlie would come to see him as more than a friend. After all, he had held her hand through five disastrous relationships, each new romance bearing the same M.O. as the one before.

If Charlie had been the stereotypical ditzy blonde, perhaps he could understand her taste in men a little better. Charlie wasn’t a checkout girl at the Winn-Dixie; she was a successful junior executive with a local accounting firm. She had three people under her at work. She made more money than Jere ever would teaching art. With her looks, drive and income, she could have any man she wanted. But she invariably picked weak, cheap losers with a mean streak.

Jere had tried time and again to put Charlie out of his life and develop a real relationship with a woman who didn’t confuse brutality with masculinity and sensitivity with weakness. But every time she called him on the phone, he would find himself back at the Gris-Gris Club, drying her tears as she poured out the latest crisis in the unending apocalypse that was her love life.

“Thanks, Jere,” Charlie sniffled as he handed her a fresh drink. “Next round’s on me.”

“Don’t sweat it.”

“I feel like a real scuzz, running to you every time I have boyfriend trouble. You must think I’m brain-dead.”

Jere recognized this as her ritual self-deprecating remark and countered it with his own ritual response. “You know better than to think that.”

“Everybody’s worries about dying. Dying’s easy. You only do it once. There’s no end to suffering when it comes to love affairs. God, Jere, what am gonna do now?”

“The same thing you did after you got rid of Steve. And Evan. And Lee. You deserve better than Tony. All he was interested in was your money, anyway.”

“I realize that now. I guess always knew that was the case, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. The only time he was ever really nice to me was whenever he wanted me to make car payments for him.” She shook her head in disgust. “You know, Tony only wanted to eat at places like TGI Fridays and Chili’s. I kept trying to get him to go to Galatoire’s or Commanders Palace, but he refused. He didn’t like going to places he hadn’t been to before. Lord, can’t believe I was in love with such an utter Yat!”

“1 never did like him,” Jere admitted.

Their conversation halted as the cocktail waitress approached the table with fresh nachos and cocktail napkins.

“Can I get y’all anything else?”

“Another round, please. Put it on my tab,” Charlie said.

“It’s okay,” Jere said quickly. “I’ll get it”

“No, I insist. You got the last one.”

The waitress removed the empty hurricane and glasses and placed a flyer on the table. “We just got next month’s schedule printed. Thought y’all might like one hot off the Xerox.”

Jere studied the flyer. At the top of the page was the bar’s logo, draped in Spanish moss with shrunken heads dotting the i’s in ‘Gris-Gris’. The rest of the page resembled a calendar with the names of the various bands typeset in the appropriate play dates. Jere’s eye was caught by a familiar name occupying the first Saturday.

“Hey, I know this guy.”

“Know who?”

“Alex Rossiter. We used to go to school together, back in junior high and high school. I heard rumors he’d moved to New Orleans, but this is the first time I’ve seen any evidence of him playing anywhere.” Jere’s grin faltered when he saw the blank look on Charlie’s face. “I guess you’re too young to remember him. The last time he had anything on the charts was back in ‘72.”

“I was ten then.”

“I was only nineteen, myself. Alex had this band called Crash. They were your basic teen fantasy come true. Alex formed the band in ‘67, when he was only fourteen. They played sock hops, private parties, that kind of stuff. I used to help them load and unload their shit at gigs. I even painted their drum kit for them. Then in ‘69 they made a demo tape and played it for this deejay in Chicago. He thought it was good enough to play on his show, and next thing you know Crash had a record contract and a song on the Top Forty. It was called Love Hurt.”

“I think I heard that on one of the oldie stations,” Charlie said, nodding.

“Alex was sixteen and hot on quitting school and taking the band on tour, but his folks made a big stink about it. Then in 1970 Crash got an offer to open for Jefferson Airplane.”

“Don’t you mean Starship?”

“They were just an airplane back then. Anyway, since it was a summer tour Alex’s folks let him do it. Before the tour was over, Crash had signed to produce their first album. It came out in ‘71 and was called Crash And Burn Charlie’s eyes widened in recognition. “Wait a minute! Did the album cover have these guys standing in front of a crashed airplane that’s on fire, with smoke coming out it?”

“Yeah, that’s the one! They had two hits off that one. The critics loved it. They couldn’t get over how a seventeen-year-old kid wrote such deep lyrics. Alex dropped out of school and moved out of his parents’ house. I’ve only seen him a couple of times since then.”

“Wow! I didn’t know you knew anyone famous!”

“Well I wouldn’t exactly call Alex Rossiter famous. I mean, you didn’t know who he was. Crash kind of fell apart after their drummer OD’d. Alex ended up doing a solo album that took two years to produce. That was a hell of lot of time to spend in the studio back then.

When Blood Moon Rising finally came out, it was a disaster. Listeners were more into groups like the Carpenters, Bread, and Yes. Alex’s stuff was too extreme for even a lot of die-hard Crash fans. After that he had trouble getting recording contracts. Too bad. By today’s standards, it’s a standout album. Every once in a while Rolling Stone mentions him in one of those “Whatever Happened To?” columns, but I haven’t really heard anything about Alex since his dad died back in ‘83. It would be good to touch base with him, after all these years.”

“I’d really like to hear this guy play. He sounds pretty interesting. Could you introduce me to him? I’ve never met a reallive rock star before.”

“I’ll introduce you to Alex,” Jere said, savoring the change his tenuous proximity to glamour had made. “But only if you agree to be my date for the evening.”

Charlie smiled shyly and extended her hand across the table. “It’s a deal.”

Jere grinned like an ape as he walked back to his apartment in the Faubourg. Things were finally beginning to turn his way. He kept rewinding his memory and savoring the look in Charlie’s eyes as he told her about his connection to Alex Rossiter. She was seeing him as exciting for the very first time. And the way she let her hand linger in his …

The sound of squeaking wheels pulled him from his thoughts. He looked up and saw something cross the street a block ahead of him. Although the neighborhood was a relatively safe one, Jere instinctively froze. There were streetlights very twenty feet, but fog from the nearby river twisted shadows and sounds in such a way that muggers could be on you before you realized which direction they were coming from.

Squee … squee… squee…

“Gris-Gris; Dragon’s Blood; Johnny Conqueror; Worry-No-More; Money Wash; Do-As-I-Say; Gris-Gris; Dragon’s Blood; Johnny Conqueror; Worry-No-More …”

Jere relaxed. It was just Mad Aggie.

The old voodoo woman trundled toward him, pulling along her ancient red Flying W wagon with one gnarled hand. There was no telling her exact age; she could have been anywhere from sixty to one hundred years old. Her white hair stuck out like a dandelion’s ruff, framing her wrinkled turtle-face. She was close to toothless and her left eye appeared to be made from glass. Her extreme age rendered such trivialities as race moot, but Jere suspected she was at least part African-American.

“You’re late out tonight Aggie.”

The old woman came to an abrupt halt, twisting her head so she could look at him with her good eye. She was dressed in the tattered remains of what had once, decades ago, been a stylish dress made from black lace and brushed velvet. Her arthritic hands were encased in lace gloves and on her feet were a pair of bright red hi-top sneakers.

“Body’s got t’ make a livin’.”

“I suppose so. But aren’t you scared to be out on the streets this late? It’s almost midnight.”

“Who wants a crazy ole woman draggin’ a wagon full of voodoo?” she cackled. “Sides, I gots ways of protectin’ me. So don’t worry none on my account.’ She squinted her real eye, while the glass one gazed off to one side. “You looks like a man who needs his-self a love charm.”

“That’s all right, Aggie.” Jere tried to step around her, but the old woman blocked him with her wagon.

“I got something to suit you right here,” she muttered to herself, bending over the collection of grocery sacks cluttering the bed of the Flying W. When she straightened up she was clutching a small red cotton bag, the mouth of which was tied shut with yellow string and smelled of cinnamon. She shoved the charm into Jere’s hand “You put this under the pillow when you sleep for the next seven days, and when you dream of your lady-“

“Aggie, if I buy this thing, will you go home?”

“That a bribe?”

“What do you think?”

Jere stuffed a five-dollar bill into the street vendor’s hand, and it disappeared inside the folds of her dress without a trace.

“Now get yourself indoors before you run into someone not as generous as I am.”

Mad Aggie merely cackled and continued in the direction she’d originally been headed, the wagon’s squeaky wheels echoing her laugh.

Squee … squee… squee…

Jere turned the charm over in his hands, staring after the old woman as she dragged her toy wagon full of homemade charms down the narrow streets of the Vieux Carre.

“Gris-Gris; Dragon’s Blood; Johnny Conqueror; Worry-No-More …”

CHAPTER FIVE

Rossiter had spent years mastering the affectation of ennui; pretending to be bored was always cool, but he loathed the genuine article. He’d spent the last hour watching the restaurant’s service entrance, trying to ignore the reek of discarded seafood that emanated from the nearby dumpster, and his patience was stretched to the breaking point.

He tossed his unfiltered Pall Mall onto the cobblestones and crushed it out with an expert twist of his heel. His shirt was plastered to the furrow of his back and he could feel sweat oozing from his scalp and down the back of his head into his collar. He’d had hoped to be acclimatized to New Orleans’ subtropical torpor by now, but no such luck. He also doubted he’d ever get used to putting rice in his saltshaker, either. During the summer months the entire city felt like it was being held in the sweaty palm of a gigantic adolescent.

Just as he was about to give up, the door opened and Ti Alice stepped out of the restaurant and into the service alley. She was dressed differently than the night he saw her in Papa Beloved’s temple, but her carriage was just as proud and regal. She was dressed in a conservative black pantsuit with a ruffled white polyester blouse as well as sensible, low-heeled shoes, but in profile she resembled an Egyptian princess, with hair that hung in impressively beaded cornrows that clacked and rattled as she moved.

The voodoo priestess adjusted the shoulder strap on her purse and headed towards the street, oblivious to Rossiter’s presence.

“Ti Alice!”

She paused and turned to look at him. Rossiter had not felt so White since high school.

“What do you want, new boy?” she said, calmly taking him in. One corner of her mouth was tilted in a cryptic half-smile.

“I just wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me? What for?”

“For the good luck you gave me the other night.”

Ti Alice shook her head, her half-smile widening to become the real thing. “I’m not the one who gave you luck, whatever it may be. You should be thanking Legba or Damballah or whichever loa it was that helped you, not me. Still, it is good to know you have been blessed as a serviteur.”

If you wont let me thank you, could I at least buy you a drink?”

Ti-Alice studied him for a second, and then nodded. “Seein’ how I’m off-duty, I guess that’s okay. Oh, and by the way, don’t call me ‘Ti Alice’ in public. I don’t answer to that name outside the temple.” She pointed to the plastic nametag pinned to the lapel of her pantsuit. “If you have to call me anything, call me ‘Ti,’ short for ‘Leticia’.”

“It’s a deal. Long as you call me Alex.” “Whatever you say, new boy.”

Rossiter had known only one other woman who sparked such intense interest within him. She was the first woman he’d ever had sex, the only one he’d been inspired enough to commemorate in song, and she was twenty years dead.

He never told anyone about their brief affair, even when his fame started to slip and his name began to fade from print. He knew it was the kind of stuff the press loved to get his hands on, but he could never bring himself to surrender his secret. Indeed, it one of the few events in his life he had succeeded in keeping completely private.

It happened at Woodstock. Love Hurt was starting its climb up the charts. Crash was drawing attention from the media and various record companies, so it had been relatively easy for him to get backstage at the epic rock concert. He was so overwhelmed by being treated not only as an adult, but also as a peer by people he worshiped as gods, that he failed to notice how much attention she was paying him. Hell, he’d just turned sixteen and his only knowledge of women was that Katie Grisborne would slap him silly if he even thought about putting his hand under her sweater.

“You’re such a pretty boy.”

She wore Southern Comfort like other women wore perfume. She was far from beautiful. If she had been a checkout girl at the IGA instead of who she was, he probably would have dismissed her as a dog. Yet her sexuality was so strong; it was like standing in front of an open blast furnace. He did not protest when she took him by the hand and lead him to the trailer She talked to him as she undressed him, cracking dirty jokes and laughing that half-crazy Texas gal’s cackle of hers.

“I like pretty young boys like you.” Her voice was husky, flensed by years of chain smoking and Southern Comfort. Rossiter couldn’t think of anything to say. Not that it mattered to her. When he looked past her wide, froggish features and wild halo of frizzy hair, he saw so much beauty and pain he felt ashamed. She knelt before him, and expertly unzipped his pants, freeing his rapidly swelling penis.

“Just relax baby. Let mama take care of you,” she whispered.

Then she gave him the first, and best, blowjob of his life, then went on stage and sang to thousands upon thousands of adoring fans until her throat bled and her heart broke. Then she came back and fucked his brains out. Rossiter felt as if he’d been hollowed out and filled with nitroglycerine.

The first thing he did upon returning home was break up with Katie Grisborne. Katie cried and whined and even hinted that she might relent and let him feel her tits, but it was too late. The scales had dropped from his eyes.

The second time he saw her was also the last. Crash was opening for The Airplane in Hollywood. 1970 was already shaping up to be one bitch of a year: the Beatles announced their breakup; the Kent State massacre was only two months old; and things were getting nasty in Nam. She came backstage to say hello to the band and ended up in his hotel room. He remembered her knocking back an assortment of pills and chasing it with Southern Comfort as part of her foreplay. The sex was explosive, but when he confessed that he wanted to marry her, she laughed so hard she almost peed down her leg.

“Look, baby, what we did was good. No argument there. But good fucking was all it was, dig? You’re a pretty boy; you’ve got it in you to be one hell of a musician, if you don’t fuck yourself up big time. I’m mighty flattered that you feel that way about me. Honest. If you were a little older, I might even be tempted to take you up on it. But there’s no way in hell I’m gonna marry a rocker. Just give me an old man that comes back for me, and only me, and I’ll take that little house with the white picket fence with the two garages and two TVs any day. There’s no way I can get that shit from a rocker. I know that for damn sure.”

That was the last time he saw her alive. When the tour was over and it was time for him return to school, he told his parents to fuck off and jumped the next flight to England. He planned on staying with Jimi, whom he’d also befriended at Woodstock. The tall, spider-fingered guitarist had extended a standing invitation to drop by the next time he happened to be in London. Rossiter arrived in time to see the ambulance pull away.

Depressed to the point of surrender, Rossiter returned to his parents and school, but when news broke about her overdosing in her Hollywood hotel, it was the final straw. He dropped out of school and took the other members of Crash with him into the recording studio. Crash and Burn hit the stores four months later.

While the critics were quick to decipher the lyrics to “Last to Say Goodbye” as a tribute to the dead guitarist, no one ever made the connection between “Sour Milk Sweetheart” and the dead singer. That was okay. No one living could truly appreciate the song, anyway.

“You sure got quiet all of a sudden.” Ti said, studying him from behind her highball glass “Cat got your tongue?”

“I was just thinking about how much you remind me of someone I used to know.”

She arched an eyebrow. “He or she?”

“A woman. But she’s been gone a long time now.”

“I’m not worried.” She smiled, revealing strong, even teeth the color of fresh ivory. “Now, what’s all this about you getting good luck?”

“I’d been trying and trying to land a gig at this one place since 1 came to town, but it was always no-go.”

“Sounds like you got yourself crossed,”

“Crossed?”

“You know: bad vibes; negative energy.”

“Perhaps that’s it, then,” he said, not bothering to elaborate that his booking problems dated back to ‘82, when he laid open a heckler’s skull with a beer bottle. “Anyway, right after I got home from the kanzo, I get this call from their booking agent. I’m playing there the first Saturday in June.”

Ti hummed the opening bar of the Twilight Zone television show, wiggling her long, carefully manicured fingers like an old-fashioned hypnotist. “De power of loa is upon ya! Big Juju!” She then burst into peals of laughter. “Don’t look so shocked, new boy! I’m not blaspheming! I’m happy you landed your gig, but 1 don’t want you thinkin’ all you have to do to get things goin’ your way is to dick around with some chickens. That’s not how voudou works. If it was that easy, I’d be living in a big mansion on St. Charles with a Cadillac for every day of the year.”

“That’s an rather unorthodox attitude for a priestess to have, isn’t it?” Ti sighed and rolled her eyes. “Look I’m not into voudou because I’m out to rip off dumb suckers looking for an easy out. There are plenty of those types around. I think you know that already. I’m into it because, well, it works for me. And it’s something of a family tradition. See, my grandma was a mambo, as was her mama before her. My mama, she didn’t want that, so she ran off up to Detroit when she was fifteen. She came when she was eighteen to have me, then she left again. She came back every now and again to visit, mostly around Christmas. She was a junkie and lookin’ pretty awful the last couple times I saw her. She died when I was nine, selling herself to some crazy bastard so she could score enough junk to forget how horrible her life was. Shit, I figure havin’ something working for you, even something you don’t really understand, is better than having nothing at all. My mama taught me that, if she taught me nothin’ else.

“So your real name’s Leticia. Where did Ti Alice come from?” “It’s an inside joke, really. There’s this Haitian trickster god called Ti Malice. Sometimes he’s shown as being a spider Anyway, he’s kind of the original model for the Br’er Rabbit stories the slaves used to tell. That’s where I got the idea. All the mambos and houngans have names like that. Sometimes they’re born with ‘em, most times they take ‘em on. It’s kind of like a stage name, but one with historical significance. I’m proud of what I know about my people’s past and their heritage,” she said, signaling the barmaid for another round. “Shit, the way I see it, you can’t know where you’re headed until you know where you’ve been.”

They went to her place. She lived in one-half of a duplex near Canal and Broad. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood, but it wasn’t a particularly good one, either. Although it was close to midnight, there were still children, some dressed in Pampers, running up and down the sidewalks. A couple of African-American men seated on the stoop across the way, gripping paper bags full of cheap wine, watched as Ti unlocked her front door. Rossiter could feel their eyes on his back. From somewhere down the street came the thunder of over-amplified rap.

The inside of the house was dark and smelled pleasantly of spice. Rossiter spotted a small altar similar to the one at Papa Beloved’s temple behind the front door, its candles guttering in pools of scented wax.

Ti’s bed was a double mattress set atop a platform made from plastic milk crates, covered with a chenille bedspread the color of lime sherbet. A Day-Glo black velvet poster of a nude black couple embracing, their combined Afros eclipsing a psychedelic sun, hung above the headboard. She turned to face him, her eyes reflecting the light from the candles on the dresser. He moved toward her, wrapping his arms around her narrow waist and pulling her forward so her hips touched his. He could feel her dancer’s muscles, strong and resilient, underneath her skin.

Rossiter’s lips slid against the grease of her lipstick as she ensnared his tongue with her own. He had been nursing an erection since the bar, but he was now so rigid it felt like he had a piece of metal in his pants. Unwilling to break the kiss, he tugged blindly at the buttons on her blouse until she shooed his hands away and unfastened it herself. After a few moments of ham-handed fumbling, the bra’s catch relented and her breasts sprang free. Their weight was comfortable in his hands.

They were on the bed now, Rossiter tugging at the skull-shaped belt buckle that held his pants up. As he struggled to free his hard-on from his jeans, Ti removed her own pants. Rossiter paused in his disrobing long enough to admire her long, shapely legs and the French-cut cotton briefs she wore.

“Let me help you with that, new boy.” she purred, unzipping his fly.

Rossiter’s dick leapt free like a randy jack-in-the-box, its tip already glistening with pre-cum. He hoped he wouldn’t shoot his wad after five or six thrusts. Ti did not look like the kind of woman who would appreciate being left behind. He reached between her legs and slid his fingers between the folds of her labia, pleased to find her already wet.

Before he could jockey himself into the missionary position, Ti pressed her hands against his shoulders, rolling him onto his back. She straddled his hips, her cornrows obscuring her face as she checked to make sure she was in position. He sucked in a deep breath of air between clenched teeth as she lowered herself onto his rigid member.

“Just lay back, baby,” she murmured. “Let mama take care of you.”

For a moment it wasn’t Ti’s beautiful, African princess face that hovered over him, but that of the dead singer. Rossiter gritted his teeth and fought the urge to orgasm. His hands clamped her swaying breasts, kneading them with his fingers. Her nipples felt as hard as kernels of corn. The ceramic beads decorating Ti’s braided hair made a gentle clacking sound as she rocked atop him. Her eyes were closed and he could hear her muttering things under her breath as her tempo increased. His hands slid down her rib cage and around her back, cupping the cheeks of her ass. He could feel the muscles in her buttocks clench and relax. He was awed excited by the perfection of the woman on top of him, and when she cried out, digging her nails into his naked shoulders, he erupted inside her without once worrying about the unlikelihood of simultaneous orgasms.

CHAPTER SIX

It wasn’t until he watched her sleep that he realized just how young she was.

Her self-confident manner during the initiation ritual had made her seem much older than she actually was. As he sat on the corner of the bed and smoked an unfiltered Pall Mall, Rossiter estimated Ti’s age as around twenty-five. Funny how someone a decade his junior could make him feel like a stumble-butt teenager.

Ti muttered something in her sleep and rolled onto her side. Rossiter envied her ability to fall asleep so quickly. His insomnia was growing worse with each passing year. Although he had not slept in over forty-eight hours, his brain still refused to wind down long enough for as much as a catnap.

Bored and unable to sleep, he wandered into the front room. The altar’s candles had burned down to their bases, until their flames were swallowed in pools of liquid wax. Rossiter studied a three-tiered bookshelf made of two-by-fours and cinder blocks, browsing its contents in hopes of finding something to read while on the toilet.

The bottom shelf contained stacks of dog-eared copies of Ebony, Bronze Thrills and Fate magazines, plus a handful of paperback historical romance novels with damaged spines. The middle shelf boasted a wide selection of metaphysical reading materials, most of which Rossiter recognized from the occult section of B. Dalton’s. The top shelf, however, held only four books, all of them hardbound: a Catholic Bible, A History of Black Culture In The Americas, Africa: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow, and a leather-bound volume with an unmarked spine.

Curious, Rossiter removed the unmarked book from its place on the shelf, dislodging a cloud of dust. The title of the book, The Aegrisomnia, was stamped in faded gold foil on its cover. He flipped it open to the frontis page and saw, to his surprise, that the printing date was listed as 1789, although there was a note stating that the text itself was reproduced from a much older source.

There was a brief foreword written in archaic English type, with the ‘s’s that look like ‘f’s, explaining the history of the original Aegrisomnia. The title meant “Fever Dream”, and its creator, an engraver known as Palinurus, produced the original plates during the Thirteenth Century while suffering from a brain fever. Palinurus died within days of completing his task.

Interested by what he’s read so far, Rossiter sat down on the sofa and began thumbing through the rest of the book. The text of the book itself seemed to be in Latin or Greek, if not both, but what caught his attention were the numerous engravings of elaborate mandalas that filled the book, some of which seemed to change their pattern every time they were looked at.

Jim loved dropping acid while looking at weird shit like that. Rossiter couldn’t resist smiling as he remember how enthusiastically his friend had described the treasures of the Louvre and the macabre wonders of the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in the same letter.

Jim made Paris sound so wild and fantastic. Rossiter decided to take a vacation in France. Hell, he deserved it; Crash and Burn was three weeks old and already making the charts, and his parents were driving him nuts about school. He wired Jim that he was on his way and jumped the next jet to Paris, hoping the telegram would get there before he did. Jim was waiting for him at Orly. Rossiter had not seen his friend in almost a year, and he was shocked by the changes he had undergone. Where once Jim appeared boyish and beautiful, now he was bearded and bloated. The reunion turned uneasy within a day. It was clear that Jim was retreating into himself, preparing for his eventual ascension into rock’n’roll heaven.

Rossiter returned home in less than a week, disgusted and depressed by his friend’s dissolution. He did not read Jim’s letters when they arrived; instead, he stuffed them in his desk drawer unopened. When the news came of the singer’s abused heart being ruptured by the temperature of his bathwater, Rossiter was consumed by grief and guilt. He took out the unopened letters and read them. Most were drunken rambles about the duplicity of women, with the occasional stanza of rock-star poetry thrown in for good measure. One letter was actually a grocery list the singer had apparently stuffed inside the envelope by mistake.

Strange he should think about Jim right now. It had been years since he had thought about him. Rossiter shook his head, dispelling the vivid memories the weird designs had triggered in him. He was reminded of the visual puzzles in the back of the old Children’s Hi-Light magazines. Maybe if he sat there long enough, staring at the damn lines and squiggles that comprised the design, he would finally see the monkeys hiding in the trees and the Indians crouching in the bushes. But the longer he looked at the designs, the heavier his eyelids became …

He was somewhere that wasn’t anywhere; he could feel himself hovering just beyond his physical body. It was disconcerting but not an unpleasant feeling, kind of like the effect he got from nitrous. He didn’t feel warm and he didn’t feel cold. He didn’t feel anything. He was in a place that was neither dark nor light. While there was no time in this place between places, there was space. As his vision adjusted, he glimpsed traceries of light and movement all around him, like tiny, fluorescent tropical fish darting about in a vast aquarium.

As he focused his attention on the flickering lights, they began to take on form and substance, and he recognized them as the elaborate vévé‘s that decorated the interior of Papa Beloved’s temple. The realization that something might be creating the vévé‘s frightened him. He recalled a photograph he’d seen of Picasso drawing he outline of a minotaur with a penlight and empty air. He wondered if he was visible to whatever it was that drew the vévés, and if it might resent his intrusion.

There was a ripple in the nothing. Then another. Although he could not see or hear anything, he knew something was approaching. The vévé‘s suddenly burned as bright as suns, their outlines suffused with color, like the throat sacs of lizards challenging a newcomer. His soul froze as if pinned to the spot, like a rabbit facing an oncoming automobile. He wanted to scream, but he did not have lungs. The vévé‘s burned like neon snakes. He turned inward, not wanting to see whatever it that was coming for him. Then, just as suddenly as it had arrived, it was gone. And though he had not seen what was the vévés had scared away, for some reason he had the impression that it had smiled at him.

“That was sure one wild-ass dream,” Ti said when he related his experienced to her.

“You think that’s all it was? A dream?”

“The loa communicate through dreams all the time. Maybe you just happened to get a closer look than most folks.”

“But I didn’t see anything.”

Ti sighed and rolled onto her side, propping herself up on one elbow. “I swear, folks expect the spirit world to be like those damn movies they rent at the Blockbuster! Of course you didn’t see nothing! Why do you think they call them les invisibles! Besides, you don’t need to see them to know they’re there. The loa live through you, whether you like it or not. You’re their conduit to the material world: they are the Divine Horsemen, and you are the horse.”

“You’re saying that I was possessed while I was asleep?” “Maybe. Maybe it was a guede. Or maybe it was just something you et.” Ti snuggled closer, grinding her hips against him. Rossiter felt himself grow hard and all thoughts of vévés and the mysteries of the spirit world vanished from his mind. At least for twenty minutes.

Il-Qui-Tente was excited.

His agitation could not be divined by any physical means, for such things do not exist in the place between places. Although he possessed a corporeal body, it had been years-perhaps decades-since he last inhabited it. It was not that he disliked the physical realm: far from it. He had been forced into limbo as a means to preserve his energies. Still, even here he was a prisoner, as the cursed vévé were quick to remind him.

His warders were deceptively quiet right now, their configuration almost transparent. But Il-Qui-Tente knew better. The moment he should try their strength, they would flare to life once more, burning him with their heatless light. He had allowed his eagerness to overwhelm his caution earlier and had paid the price.

Still, he could be excused his enthusiasm. He had been waiting oh-so-patiently for someone to find the book. He hoped he had not frightened away his prey. It was very important that it come back. Il-Qui-Tente was uncertain as to whether his prey was male or female, but its hunger was all too visible. And that was all he needed, really.

Il-Qui-Tente waited for his prey to return. There was no hurry. He had been waiting a long time. He could afford to be patient. Once his prey returned, he would shape his bait to mirror its need. And then he would reel the prey in close enough for him to grab it. The vévé made excellent guards. His nemesis had been correct about that. They were good at keeping things in. But when it came to keeping things out, that was another story.

Je-Rouge

There is a panther caged within my breast,

But what his name there is no breast shall know

Save mine, nor what it is that drives him so,

Backward and forward, in relentless quest

-John Hall Wheelock, The Black Panther

CHAPTER SEVEN

Rossiter fanned the pieces of paper across the hide-a-bed, careful not to misplace anything. Ti was ambivalent about his borrowing the book, but relented after being fucked three times in a row. It had taken some doing, but he’d succeeded in enlarging the mandala, and was now busy taping together the over-lapping segments, creating a poster-sized duplicate. Once it was completed, he dragged the stepladder from of the closet and carefully tacked the picture to the ceiling over his bed. Now he could lie back and study the elaborate arabesques at the pattern’s heart whenever he felt like it.

During his previous delving into enlightenment he had never once experienced anything genuinely mystical. He once attained chronic light-headedness following the Hare Krishna regimen of macrobiotic food and mantras, but that was hardly the same as what he had seen in the place between the places.

Rossiter kicked off his shoes and collapsed across his bed, frowning at the ceiling. He wondered if he needed to observe some kind of ritual before attempting to go inside the mandala. Ti was jazzed on rituals and their attendant symbolism. His eyes traced the twists and turns inside the design, the joins in the paper barely noticeable, even to his knowing gaze …

Something was attempting to enter the place between places. II-Qui-Tente could feel it pushing against the membrane that separated the planes, stretching it like a toy balloon. He tensed, trying to keep his agitation veiled from his warders. If the vévés sensed activity on his part, they would waken, and all his planning would be wasted. Still, it required tremendous effort on his part to keep from hurrying things along.

Rossiter felt himself sliding into the not-place. It was a pleasant sensation, not unlike falling asleep in a tub full of warm water. He felt something inside himself slip free, and for a single heartbeat he found himself hovering above the hide-a-bed, looking down at his own body. Rossiter stared at the lines and creases etched into face. He looked way too old for a profession that ate teenagers for breakfast.

There was a sound like that of wind rushing down a tunnel, and the sight of his uninhabited shell began to dwindle, like the picture used to fade on the family’s old Philco, until it collapsed into a point of pulsating blue light.

He was in the place between places, vévés stretching beyond where the sky should have been. He moved towards them, trying to tell where one began and the other left off, but it was impossible. He received the impression that the vévé‘s were alive, but not on the same level as humans. He was reminded of sea anemones dancing with the current. He reached out to touch one of them, but the vévé seemed suddenly to be somewhere else.

Of course he couldn’t touch them. He didn’t have any hands. He was just a bundle of thought.

You ‘re much more than that, my friend.

It took Rossiter a moment to realize that something had spoken to him. He saw the shadowy figure of a man standing on the other side of the pulsing vévés. As he focused his attention on the stranger, the other man’s features suddenly leapt into sharp detail. Rossiter was surprised to discover that he was looking into his own face. However, the Alex Rossiter that stood on the other side of the vévés was not the embittered thirty-seven-year-old whose body he had left sprawled across a foldout sofa like an empty suit. This Rossiter was somewhat shorter and considerably younger, with hair that hung to his shoulders and the barest hint of whiskers on his jaw. This Rossiter was youthful and unbowed and the very image of The Artist As Boy Genius, captured at his professional and physical peak.

“You read my mind.”

The young Rossiter shrugged. “There is no difference between thought and word on this plane. The idea and the deed are one and the same: both irrevocable and inconsequential.”

“Who are you? Are you me or are you a spirit?”

“Call me Alex, if you wish.” His younger self smiled, and for the first time Rossiter noticed the doppelganger’s eyes were the color of carnelians. “There is much you must learn. More than you can possibly imagine.” Alex beckoned for Rossiter to move closer. “Come here, so I might show you.”

Rossiter moved toward. Although the vévés seemed as delicate as hothouse orchids, it was like trying to push his way through a privet hedge. They did not so much repulse him as impede his progress.

Alex scowled, his eyes shining like twin cups of fresh blood. “Try harder! You’ve got to want to enter.”

Rossiter wanted to do as Alex asked, but the more he tried, the harder it became to move. It was as if he was trapped in sucking mud. He tried to extricate himself from the vévés, but that only made things worse. The moment panic sparked inside his mind, the vévés surged back to life, crackling like an electric fence.

The last thing he saw was Alex wrapped in multicolored lightning, raving furiously at the patterns towering over him.

So close! He’d come so close to ensnaring the horse, only to have the damned vévés get in the way! Il-Qui-Tente’s frustration created tornadoes that danced across the emptiness, raining bloated, worm-eaten corpses.

At least it wasn’t a total loss. The bait had produced the desired response. The horse would return, of that he was certain. But he would have to be careful. Luring the horse into reach would take more manipulation than he’d originally thought. But he could wait. After all, what choice did he have?

The tornado spun down, wavered, and grew still. Il-Qui-Tente molded it into the form of a woman, the face smooth and mouthless. The figure was dressed in a white muslin dress, her hair bound in a red kerchief. The homunculus’ face shimmered as the features emerged: the nose long and straight; the eyes large and dark; the cheekbones high; the mouth wide and expressive. It was the face of an African princess. Like its creator, the puppet had red eyes.

Jazrel.

“Dance,” whispered Il-Qui-Tente, and it obeyed, moving supple arms and legs in imitation of a woman he hated more than death itself.

“Burn,” he commanded, and it obeyed, flames bursting from its kerchiefed head. The homunculus began to scream, flailing its arms and running in circles as it melted like a wax doll tossed into a fire.

Il-Qui-Tente’s revenge would not be as simple, but it would be far more satisfying. The bitch would pay for locking him way. He would see to that personally.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ti leaned over him and stared down into his face. “Do yourself a favor, baby, and get rid of that shit. Forget that you ever saw it.”

“You’re not serious, are you?”

“Serious as cancer, lover. Voudou ain’t all wringin’ chicken necks and burnin’ Fast Money candles. What you got a-hold of ain’t fit for beginners. Shit, it’s probably ain’t fit for anyone.”

“I thought you’d be happy, seein’ how I’m plugged into the loa.”

Ti shook her braided head, her demeanor that of an aggravated schoolteacher. “How many times have I got to tell you, man? It’s not a loa!

1 can’t be sure, but from what you told me, this thing sounds like some kind of guede… a spirit of the dead. And those suckers can be really bad news. Mostly they’re content possessin’ folks at rituals and makin’ them do silly shit, like tryin’ to drink rum by pourin’ it in their ears, walkin’ backward, talkin’ in funny voices … nothin’ serious. But then there’s the ones that make their horses have fits or attack people. 1 saw this one old woman, she had to be in her nineties, get possessed by Marienette of the Dry Arms, one of the cannibal loa. She started dancin’ round, wavin’ her arms and screechin’ like she was an owl. Then she started laughin’ and braggin’ bout all the babies she ate. 1 know it sounds kinda funny, but it was scary shit while it was happenin’. Then she screamed and jumped right in the middle of the ritual fire and started flailin’ round like she was drownin’. She was screamin’ for someone to help her, so one of the others tried to pull her out of the fire. But instead of lettin’ him help, she bit off one of his fingers and swallowed it! Damnedest thing 1 ever saw! When she came out of the trance, she couldn’t remember a single thing. When she was told what she did, she had a heart attack right there on the spot and died later that week in Charity.”

“But what makes you think this thing 1 saw might be dangerous?”

“Didn’t you say it had red eyes? That’s the sign of the je-rouge.” She tapped her bottom eyelid with her index finger. “The Red Eyes. They’re evil cannibal spirits that mean harm to humans. If I was you, man, I’d have Papa Beloved work a cleansing spell and burn that damn poster.”

Rossiter shrugged and tried not to look her in the eyes. “I’ll think about it.”

“I’d do more than think about it.”

“I know! I know! ‘If you was me’ But you’re not, got that?” Rossiter snarled as he swung his legs out of the bed, his back to her.

“Fine! Fuckin’ be that way, for all I care!” Ti snapped. “If you’re going to be a damn fool and start jackin’ with shit you don’t know nothin’ about, don’t come runnin’ to me when it goes bad on you!”

“You don’t understand, do you?” Rossiter shot back over his shoulder. “You don’t understand at all. The first time in my while life I make real contact with the supernatural, and you tell me it’s some kind of evil spirit. And now you’re saying I better leave it alone because I don’t know what I’m doing. Why? Because I’m not Black?

Because I’m a man? Is that it, Ti? Are you jealous because it picked me to talk to, not you?”

Ti rolled her eyes, “Jesus, Alex! Get real!”

“I am gettin’ real, bitch! Realer than I’ve ever been. I’m also getting the hell outta here!”

“That suits me just fine! I don’t need no fools in my house, anyway!”

Rossiter managed to feel righteously indignant up until the door slammed shut behind him. As he started his long walk home in the early morning gloom, his anger quickly dissipated, leaving him feeling cold and somewhat hollow inside. He might not know a guede from a loa, but one thing was for sure: he really know how the screw up a good thing.

“What the fuck do you mean I look dragged out?”

“Chill, man. Just chill, okay?” Arsine smiled at his friend. “I didn’t mean anything by it, man. Sorry if I struck a nerve.”

Rossiter sighed and dropped his shoulders. “I’m sorry too, man. Shit, I didn’t mean to snap at you like that! The strain’s getting to me; what with rehearsals and everything, I haven’t had time to take a decent shit, much less wind my watch. God, it’s been so long since I last played in front of a live audience!”

“Don’t worry, man. You’ll do just fine. The band sounds tight. You’d think we’ve been playing together for years.”

Rossiter nodded. Opening-night jitters was only half the reason for his irritability, but he wasn’t about to tell Arsine about Ti kicking him out of bed or describe his forays into the not-place. But Arsine was right: they did sound good. Then again, it wasn’t hard to cobble together a righteous band in a city where every other housepainter was a seasoned R&B guitarist. Their band had been rehearsing in a studio loft in the old warehouse district. This was fine while the air-conditioning functioned. However, the ancient Polar King window unit had picked this particular day-the hottest so far that year-to crap out. Arsine and Rossiter had abandoned the rehearsal space for the cool comfort of the bar down the street, while their bassist, Teebo, tried to get his handyman cousin on the phone. That was six beers ago.

Rossiter snuck a glance at Arsine out of the corner of his eye; the lanky drummer was going through his pocket change, looking for quarters to feed the jukebox. Was Arsine collaborating with Ti? Was he reporting back to her? Rossiter realized Ti knew far more about the nature of voudou and the loa than he did, but he was stubbornly convinced that she was jealous because he was already communing with the loa on a level beyond the one she was familiar with. Ti did not think white boys could handle such things … nor did she believe they were entitled to it. Rossiter decided to keep any further developments concerning the je-rouge or whatever the hell it was to himself. He liked Arsine, but he didn’t particularly trust him.

“There y’all are! Me, I been lookin’ all over for y’all! Shoulda knowed y’all be in a bar. Hoo-Yah! Talk about hot!”

Rossiter swiveled on the barstool to face the door. The band’s keyboardist stood framed in the door, mopping his forehead with a bandanna.

“Hey, Hoo-Yah,” Arsine said without glancing up from the jukebox. “Whatcha know good?” He punched some numbers and Professor Longhair’s “Bald-Head” issued from the machine’s much-abused speakers.

Rossiter smiled and motioned for the young Cajun to take the bar stool next to him. The bartender automatically placed a longneck in front of him. Hoo-Yah’s real name was Raphael Boudreaux, but everyone called him “Hoo-Yah”. When he wasn’t behind an electronic keyboard he played zydeco in his cousin’s chank-a-chank band out in Placquemines Parish. He was tall, with shoulder-length red hair and a light dusting of freckles. Despite his overalls and green nylon baseball cap proclaiming “I (Heart Symbol) Copenhagen”, Hoo-Yah was a graduate of Julliard.

“Teebo sent me to find y’all,” Hoo-Yah said after taking a pull on his beer. “Told me to tell y’all he got the AC fixed.”

“About fuckin’ time,” Rossiter grunted.

“So what y’all been talkin’ about?”

“Rossiter here’s been sayin’ how he’s worried we ain’t logged enough rehearsal time before the gig. 1 keep tellin’ him there’s nothin’ to worry about: we’s cookin’.”

Hoo-Yah clapped Rossiter’s shoulder. “That’s God’s honest truth! Me, I’ve played with some of the best this city got to offer, but you sure as hot damn put them to shame, man ami!

Rossiter lowered his eyes in acknowledgement of Hoo-Yah’s compliment. But as much as he enjoyed the company of these men, he couldn’t wait to get home and slip back into his own private world again.

Alex was waiting for him. His doppelganger stood just beyond the vévés, watching him with crimson eyes, dressed in a voluminous, paramecium-print silk shirt with ruffled sleeves, velour bell-bottom jeans, a white macramé belt, and tire-tread sandals. A chrome-plated peace symbol the size of a dinner plate dangled around his neck.

There was no seductive beckoning this time; Alex simply turned and walked away from his older self. Rossiter knew he was expected to follow. Still, fear of the vévés caused him to hesitate.

You still think in terms of up and down, solid or liquid; those terms are meaningless here. Alex’s voice was comfortable in his head, as if it belonged there. To follow me all you need to do is want to follow. Certainty clears the way. Doubt hampers. Do not doubt. Do not think. Simply follow.

Rossiter moved forward, expecting the vévés to block his path as they had before, but all he experienced was a slight shock, as if he’d rubbed the coat of a Persian cat the wrong way. The pain was negligible, and he pushed his way through the vévés, ignoring the tingling sensation that ran through him.

I knew you would not fail me. Alex smiled, extending a hand to Rossiter. Come. It’s time to see the show.

Rossiter stood beside Alex and watched yet another incarnation of himself fuck up.

The Rossiter on display was circa 1981 and wore grimy jeans, a battered leather jacket, mirrored aviator glasses, and spiky hair. He watched himself forget the words to songs he performed a hundred times before. It was bad enough living through it the first time; but seeing it from the outside in such unflinching detail gave it a surreal edge.

“Is this real?” he asked Alex. “Have we traveled back in time? Can we alter the past?”

Alex shook his head. No. These are but shadows of what once was.

Rossiter had hoped the 1981 Rossiter could see or hear him, so he could tell him what a huge mistake he was about to make. Not that he would have paid any heed to the warnings of an older, wiser version of himself. He looked away from the shadow of himself on the stage and saw the heckler at the bar. The guy looked like he was from Jersey. Funny, Rossiter had never noticed that before. Whenever he tried to recall what the heckler looked like, all he could see was a bloody oval perched atop an Izod shirt.

The heckler was drunk and kept yelling insults at the stage.Rossiter watched as the 1981 Rossiter threw aside his electric guitar and jumped into the crowd. He saw the beer bottle in the shadow’s hand. The people closest to the stage screamed and tried to get out of the way. One of the members of the band tried to pull him back onstage, but ended up sprawled atop the drum kit for his troubles.

The heckler was either too shocked or too stupid to make a run for it. The second blow broke the heckler’s nose. The third blow broke the beer bottle against the heckler’s skull, spraying shattered glass and piss-warm pilsner. The 1981 Rossiter probably would have plunged the jagged neck of the broken bottle into the poor bastard’s throat if the bouncer hadn’t come up from behind and put him in a hammerlock.

Rossiter watched his 1981 self, red-faced and wild-eyed, shriek obscenities as the battered heckler was loaded onto an ambulance gurney. There was foam flecking the corners of his mouth as he hurled rocks at the paramedics.

Had enough? Alex waved his hand and the scene disappeared. Quite an impressive display. The fool ended up with fifty stitches and was in a coma for three days. You, on the other hand, spent three months in Bellevue. You also lost your house in Beverly Hills and the Mercedes.

Not to mention your agent, your manager, and all your bookings for the rest of that year. Too bad. Especially considering your were so close to signing that contract with Warner Brothers. You stood a good chance of making a real comeback. But you blew it, didn’t you?

“Why did you show me that? I know I fucked up. I couldn’t have killed my career any deader than if I’d put a pistol to its head.”

What if I told you it is in my power to return to you everything you have lost? That I can return you to the spotlight. That is what you really miss the most, isn’t it? Not the money, or the prestige, but the thrill of standing before thousands of screaming, swooning girls, worshiped as a god made flesh; to be adored for no other reason than that you exist.

“Yes.”

Rossiter knew he should feel shame for confessing to such adolescent urges, but his disgust was shallow. There was no point in lying to himself. He’d come of age in the brilliant, searing glare of the public’s gaze and the thought of spending the rest of his life outside its magic circle was too horrible to bear.

I can give it to you. But you must want it. I cannot force a gift on you. You must take it of your own free will.”

“But… what do you want from me in return?”

Alex shrugged. A trifle, nothing more. I need to use your body for one or two minor activities. Then you will be free to do as you like.

“That’s it? That’s all you want from me?”

Yes.

“Then it’s a deal.”

Excellent. Now we must seal our bargain.

“How?”

Alex’s features began to blur. His mouth widened as his nose flattened and his hair grew longer and frizzier.

With a kiss, Janis smiled, her eyes glowing like live coals.

Rossiter came out of the trance choking on phlegm. He lay flat on his back, wrapped on dingy, sour-smelling sheets, his skin exuding a chill layer of sweat. His touched his naked thighs and his fingers came away sticky. He groaned in disgust and wiped his hand on the mattress.

Had he dreamed it? Or had he really been in a land beyond time and space, bargaining with a nameless, faceless entity? He shivered as he recalled Alex’s hot red eyes staring up at him, the ectoplasmic equivalent of jism dribbling from his chin. Rossiter got out of bed and retrieved the bottle of Stoli from the freezer. He told himself that at worst he’d had a sick wet dream, at best he had some heavy-duty mojo working in his favor.

That sounded good. And it sounded better with every shot of vodka.

Il-Qui-Tente’s delight was beyond defining. At last he had succeeded! He had shown the horse the bait and the poor, deluded fool took it without hesitation. Now he had a foot in the material world. Granted, his hold was tenuous, but it was most definitely there. He would have to work quickly, before the vévés became aware of the rupture. The horse had unwittingly given him access to his body, and soon to follow would be his soul. For in the place between places, there is no such thing as a symbolic act.

CHAPTER NINE

“Looks like your friend drew a good crowd.” Charlie gestured to the knot of people clustered on the curb outside the Gris-Gris Club. They were the usual mix of uptown college students and French Quarter habitues, loitering on the street corner, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer from plastic cups, each group trying hard to look hip, with the Quarter Rats doing the better job.

Jere nodded in agreement. “Looks like Alex has become something of a cult figure, like Chilton or Nico. Most of these kids probably weren’t even born when Crash and Burn was first released. Jesus, look at ‘em! They make me feel like an antique!”

“They don’t exactly make me feel like a spring chicken, ” Charlie laughed. “And I’m eight years younger than you! I can’t believe it’s been ten years since I graduated from high school.”

“I know what you mean. I keep having these recurring nightmares I’m back in high school and I have to take a test, but I haven’t studied all semester and I don’t know what room it’s in, but then I notice I don’t have any pants on. Stop giggling! It’s true! I wake up in a cold sweat.”

“You’re terrible, you know that?”

It was good to see her smile. So far they’d managed to get through dinner at the Gumbo Shop without mentioning Tony. And, even better, at least as far as Jere was concerned, she hadn’t brought up anyone new. He slipped his arm around her shoulder, and was pleasantly surprised she did not shrug free of the embrace.

A curly-headed young man with black widow spiders and rose thorns crawling up his forearms was taking money at the door. Jere refused to let Charlie open her purse and handed the bouncer a ten-dollar bill. “My treat,” he said, winking at her.

The elevated stage stood at the back of the club and was high enough off the floor that those near the bar could get a good view of the band. Klieg lights shone down on the sound equipment and waiting instruments. Several people stood clustered near the bandstand while others lounged near the bar, their eyes fixed on the stage.

“Good turn out. Lot better that I’d expected. You know, this reminds me of the old days, back when I used to help Crash set up at the sock hops at the country club. Only a lot more-“

“Cool?” Charlie suggested.

“Yeah,” he said with a chuckle. “You want a beer?”

“Sure. Just let me go the ladies room before there’s a line, okay?”

Charlie leaned against the sink as she applied touch-ups to her make-up. Humidity had a way of screwing with her mascara. As she studied her handiwork, she speculated on whether or not she would go to bed with Jere. He was such a sweet guy, not to mention intelligent, artistic, and well read. He also knew how to make her laugh. And she knew he was in love with her. He would be nice and stable and wouldn’t get into all that macho ego-trip bullshit. She had to be nuts to pass him up. Yet, there simply wasn’t any sizzle there. Not like there was with Tony and the others.

Charlie knew Jere was the kind of boyfriend her parents would approve of: nice, respectable, and safe. Just like the Atlanta suburb they lived in. Her parents loved her very much. They wanted her life to be as secure and untroubled as their own, where everything was predigested and sanitized for their protection. Charlie adored her folks, but she would rather die that end up like them.

She might have to sleep with him anyway, just to get it out of the way. She didn’t want to ruin their friendship, but she was afraid Jere might give up on her altogether if she didn’t do something sexual with him. Sleeping with him might help, and then again, it could ruin things completely. She didn’t want things to change between them. Why couldn’t guys just be friends? Why did they have to drag sex into everything?

“What’s the house like?” Rossiter asked for the fifteenth time.

“Same as it was last time you asked,” Teebo rumbled. The husky African-American rested his forearms on the neck of his bass, his head tilted in Rossiter’s direction. Teebo wore a pair of extra-dark sunglasses because when he was two he pulled an open bottle of bleach off the kitchen table and onto his upturned face. Rossiter had no doubt that if the musician had kept his sight he would have ended up playing pro football for the Saints instead of electric bass for Pigfoot.

“Don’t sweat it, mon ami” Hoo-Yah grinned. “We got a good house.”

Arsine leaned back in a dented metal folding chair, his drumsticks keeping time on the green room’s worn brick face. “Any good-lookin’ women out there?”

“Tons of ‘em!”

“I hope you’re talkin’ figuratively, not literally,” Arsine chuckled.

The Gris-Gris Club’s owner, a fifty-year-old hippie with a bottle-brush beard, stuck his head into he room. “Y’all ready? I’m gonna go ahead and announce you.”

“Sure thing, Cap’n. C’mon, Teebo, I’ll lead.” Arsine placed himself in front of the bassist, who put his right hand on the drummer’s shoulder. “Okay, we got four steps to the door, then we’re turnin’ right.”

Hoo-Yah paused at the threshold to look back at Rossiter. “You feelin’ okay, ace?”

“Yeah. I’ll be there in just a second.”

Rossiter stared into the mirror over the sink. His skin looked like waxed paper. The sweat seeping from his armpits felt like refrigerated maple syrup. He should have done more than one line of coke. The Johnny Walker wasn’t doing much good, either. If his guts cinched themselves any tighter, he’d look like a termite.

Both hands were trembling now, fingers drumming nervously against his thighs. He couldn’t go on stage like this. He was going to blow lunch all over the audience. Wouldn’t that look great as a write-up in Rolling Stone?

He grabbed the half-empty bottle of Johnny Walker off the makeup table. His hands were shaking so badly there was no way he could pour it in a glass without getting liquor on his shoes. As he lifted the neck of the bottle to his lips, he caught a glimpse of something moving in the mirror.

It was Alex. Rossiter lowered the bottle and stared at the youthful doppelganger standing directly behind him. Alex smiled and walked to a doorway deep inside the mirror. Rossiter suddenly realized that the room in the mirror was different that the one he was standing in. There were tables heaped with flowers and buckets of iced champagne. It looked like the dressing room at the Super Dome. Rossiter had seen it only once before, when he went backstage to see Mick.

Alex stood in the doorway and turned to look back at Rossiter. Rossiter realized with a start that Alex was now the same age as he was, dressed in an electric blue silk suit that shimmered like the skin of an exotic lizard. Alex winked a ruby-red eye at him and disappeared through the door in the direction of the chanting stadium crowd awaiting him.

“Alex! C’mon, man! What’s keeping you?”

The scene in the mirror flickered and turned back into the Gris-Gris Club’s dismal dressing room. Rossiter turned to smile at Arsine, slicking back his hair. “Sorry … nerves …”

“It’s cool, man, I know where you’re comin’ from. You okay?”

Was he okay? Rossiter was surprised at how good he did feel. It was as if all the cocaine in Colombia was surging though his veins. He could tie tigers together at the tail. He could snap oaks in half with his bare hands.

“I feel great.” He grinned at his drummer. “Let’s go and kick some butt!”

It was the best in a long, long time. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to be in front of an appreciative audience. Rossiter couldn’t get over the way they applauded when he took the stage. The crowd was too young to have seen Crash in its hey-day. Hell, most of them were probably toddlers when Blood Moon Rising was released. Still, this did not diminish their enthusiasm. It was like going to bed with a woman who loved you after years of bought sex; it was good, hot, and over before he could savor it.

When Pigfoot finished its last set, the crowd whooped and stomped their feet until the band returned for an encore. Then the audience wouldn’t let them go for another three songs. Rossiter closed the show with “Sour Milk Sweetheart” and for one delirious moment it felt just like 1971.

Rossiter smiled as he sat in the green room and wiped the sweat from his eyebrows and hair, the image of the Superdome’s dressing room shimmering behind his eyes like a mirage.“Alex?”

Rossiter turned to stare at the man standing in the doorway. He was Rossiter’s age, with thinning, sandy hair, although the steel-rimmed spectacles he wore made him look slightly younger. The sandy-haired man glanced around the cramped confines of the converted supply room, shifting his weight from one foot to another.

“Uh, I don’t know if you remember me-“

Rossiter’s face split into a grin. “Jere! Jere Sloan! My God!” He stood up so fast he knocked over the chair he was sitting in. “I can’t believe it! Christ, it’s been years!”

The two men embraced, pounding each other’s backs with their open hands.

“Let me get a good look at you!” Rossiter held Jere at arm’s length, taking in his friend’s extra poundage, encroaching male-pattern baldness and crow’s feet. “You haven’t changed a bit!”

“You, too, man.” Jere laughed, although he was secretly shocked by his old friend’s hollowed cheeks and red-rimmed eyes.

“What are you doing here?”

“I live in the city. Have since 1982.”

“No shit? You still painting?”

Jere’s smile faltered for a second. “Sorta. I teach out at the University.”

“Ahem! Jere, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

Jere slapped his forehead with the heel of his palm. “Where are my manners? Don’t answer that! Alex, I’d like you to meet Charlotte Calder.”

Rossiter stared at the woman standing behind Jere and tried to keep his jaw from hitting the floor. Sloan had come up in the world. The blonde poured into the Guess jeans and French-cut designer tee was light years from Myra Nowlan and her coke bottle glasses.

“Charlotte, this is Alex Rossiter.”

The blonde smiled and extended her hand. “Call me Charlie.”

“My pleasure,” Rossiter said with a smile. Her hand was cool and white in his, like a piece of fine china, and it lingered in his grasp a heartbeat too long. He met and held her gaze. Charlie blushed and looked away, but not too quickly.

“It’s been a long time,” Jere laughed, oblivious to the exchange that had occurred between Rossiter and Charlie.

“Yeah, eighteen years.”

Jere turned to Charlie, one arm hooked over Rossiter’s shoulder.

“You know what this guy did? He dropped out his junior year, right? So the old fucks that ran the school said he couldn’t come to the prom. Well, the minute the wimpy-ass band the school hired took a break from playing ‘Three Coins In The Fountain’, I go outside to sneak a smoke and there’s this guy here, sitting in the parking lot on the hood of his new Jaguar, with a cigar box full of reefer and a sheet of blotter!”

Charlie smiled and chuckled dutifully. Jere failed to notice that her eyes never left Rossiter while he was relating the anecdote.

“This calls for a celebration!” Rossiter said. “Jere, why don’t you run out to the bar and snag us a pitcher? Tell the manager it’s for the band.”

“Just like old times, right?”

“Yeah, except back then we weren’t old enough to drink. Legally, that is!”

Charlie moved aside to let Jere by. She smiled politely at Rossiter but tried not to meet his gaze.

“So. How long you and Jere been dating?”

“Oh, we’re not going together,” she replied a little too quickly. “We’re just friends. I met him in art class. I was the model.”

Rossiter nodded and smiled. So, Jere hadn’t changed that much, after all. The boy still couldn’t put the make on a chick without waiting for the season to change. Rossiter remembered when they were seventeen and he set Jere up with a groupie willing and able to suck the chrome off a trailer hitch, only to discover his friend had spent the entire night talking philosophy or some other crap with her.

“I, uh, really liked your show.” Charlie cringed when she heard how lame she sounded, but she didn’t have any idea of what else to say. She had never met a real rock star before. Not even a no-longer-famous one. Still, from what Jere said, she hadn’t expected the number of people who turned out to hear the band, so maybe Rossiter was still famous, after all.

Rossiter laughed and thanked her for the compliment. Charlie felt her cheeks grow hot.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Charlie.”

He was smiling when he told her that. He looked better when he smiled, although the brooding quality was undeniably sexy, too. There was rugged sensitivity to him she found attractive. He looked like a bad boy in need of looking after.

“It’s sweet of you to say so.”

“I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true. Hasn’t Jere ever told you you’re beautiful?”

“No,” she lied. ““Not really.” She stepped closer, her heart beating so fast she was dizzy. His musk mingled with the dressing room’s funk of old sweat, marijuana, and spilled whiskey.

“Then he’s a bigger dumbass than I remember.”

Rossiter reached out and pulled her to him. Charlie felt the tip of his tongue press against her lips, and she opened her mouth to accept his kiss. His other arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her tight against his body. She could feel the hard lump of his sex pressed against her pelvis.

“I got the beer-!”

Rossiter looked up at Jere, his eyes flat and blank as paving stones. Charlie didn’t have to turn around to appreciate the hurt in her best friend’s eyes: she could see it in the mirror. She turned to face him, but did not step clear of the circle of Rossiter’s arms.

“Jere-let me explain.”

Jere backed away, still holding the pitcher of beer in one hand. As he turned to leave, his way was blocked by a tall, thin black man with dreadlocks.

“Is Alex in there?”

“He’s back there, all right,” Jere snapped angrily, shoving the pitcher into the drummer’s hands. Arsine had to turn sideways to keep the beer from splashing onto his clothes.

“Hey, watch it!”

Rossiter stepped out into the hall; his leather jacket draped over one arm, a blonde on the other. “Don’t mind him. He’s just some guy I knew in high school.”

“Then you must have gone to school with some real assholes,” Arsine sniffed. “I just came back to tell you the van’s packed up.”

“Why don’t you and the others go on ahead? I’ve got a ride.”

“Uh-huh. So I see.”

Arsine watched Rossiter and the blonde stroll out of the Gris-Gris Club, shaking his head in disgust. Although Rossiter could play the living hell out of anything with strings, the man could be a stone bastard when the mood struck him.

CHAPTER TEN

Jere shoved his fists deep into his pockets, hunching his shoulders against the thoughts boiling in his head. He never realized how much the voice inside his head sounded like Coach Gill, the phys-ed teacher at Eisenhower High. Jere could still see the old bastard, stopwatch in one hand and leather-wrapped paddle in the other, bellowing at him as he ran laps around the football field.

“C’mon Sloan! You’re falling behind! What’s the matter, Sloan? Is your hair gettin’ in your eyes? Jesus Christ on a sea beach! I bet you squat to piss, don’t you, boy?” The knowledge that Coach Gill was going bald at the time was little comfort to Jere now.

The hell of it all was that this was not the first time Alex Rossiter had stolen his girl.

During the summer of 1970 Crash was opening for the Airplane at the Coliseum. It was before the band’s first album and they were still coasting on the “Love Hurt” single. Jere was sixteen and had finally landed a girlfriend, Myra Nowlan.

Myra wasn’t prom-queen material, but she was good-natured and didn’t laugh when Jere asked her to go steady with him. They met through one of Jere’s cousins. Myra went to Saint Expedite’s, a Catholic school, and Jere really didn’t know that much about her. Except for the occasional grope in the back seat of his mom’s Nash, their relationship was still chaste. Taking Myra backstage to “meet the band” seemed a really neat idea at the time, and an easy way to impress his date.

Alex seemed genuinely glad to see him as they chatted about their old schoolmates while smoking kick-ass reefer. Jere was surprised to see Myra toking like a pro. He left in search of a soda machine, since all there was to drink in the dressing room was grapefruit juice and Southern Comfort, and promptly got lost. Thanks to an elderly janitor, who gave him directions as if he was talking to a retarded child, Jere finally made it back to the dressing room … where he found Myra sucking Rossiter’s dick. His friend had grinned drunkenly at him over Myra’s bobbing head and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘What can you do?’

Jere ran out of the dressing room and all the way back to the car. As he searched for his car keys, he realized he was still clutching a sweaty bottle of Royal Crown in one hand. He swore and hurled it across the now-deserted parking lot. He never found out how Myra got home, since he never saw or spoke to her again. A month later Alex showed up at his doorstep with a groupie and explained she was a “present’ to make up for what happened with Myra. Jere was too terrified of venereal disease to do anything more than talk.

Now, twenty years later, the ghost of adolescent loserdom was reaching out to give him noogies from beyond the grave. The last thing he wanted was to have his old insecurities and inadequacies return for a high school reunion.

“You leave me be!”

“Gimme what you got in the bag, bitch!”

The sound of arguing voices broke through Jere’s self-absorption. He looked around and saw Mad Aggie standing on the neutral ground, struggling with a young black male dressed in baggy pants and Nike sneakers. The old woman’s little red wagon was laying on its side.

“Let me go or I’ll hex you!” Aggie said, sounding more angry than frightened, despite the disparity in age between herself and her attacker.

“You might scare my granny with that hoodoo shit, bitch, but it don’t work on me! Now gimme the money or I’ll cut you!”

Jere jerked the mugger backward by the hood of his jersey, smashing his fist into the young man’s face as hard as he could. The mugger let go of the old woman and staggered backwards, both hands clapped over his nose. Jere did not realize that the younger man was armed until he saw the open straight razor lying on the ground at his feet. Mad Aggie snatched up the razor by its handle with surprising speed for someone her age.

“So, you gone cut me, huh?” She waved the blade at her erstwhile attacker. “Nigger, I’m gone slit you like a pig!”

“Muggafugga, you boke my nodes,” the mugger whined through his hands.

“You be glad that’s all that’s done you!” Aggie snapped. “Now get while you still got a tongue to complain with!”

The mugger’s eyes widened as he realized the old woman meant what she said and hurried away, trailing droplets of blood in his wake.

“You alright, Aggie?”

“I’m jest fine, bless your heart. Help me with my wagon, would you, honey?” Jere righted the little toy wagon as the voodoo woman calmly put her wares back into their proper sacks. “You done me a service, son, and I ain’t so old I forget such things. I owe you.”

“That’s okay, Aggie. Really, you don’t have to do anything …”

“No, I won’t hear of it! There ain’t many white folk that would help an ol’ colored woman in this town. 1 just want you to know I’ll be keepin’ an eye out for you.” She tapped the socket with the glass eye. “I’ll see to it you don’t get yourself hexed.”

“I don’t think I really have to worry about such things, Aggie.”

“Don’t you want to get back at that fella what took your lady friend?”

Jere’s smile turned into a pained rictus. “What did you say?”

“You went into that bar with a woman an’ I saw you leave without her. Ain’t that so?” There was no maliciousness in the old voodoo woman’s voice and Jere couldn’t find it in him to be angry with her.

“Well, uh …”

“Then I got just the thing for you.” Aggie rooted through one of the grocery sacks and produced a yellow candle shaped like an erect penis, gripping it by the shaft. “Now, you’ll be needin’ mimosa oil and my Mystic Power powder with this. All you gotta do is hollow this thing out a little at the bottom and put a picture of the man your gal’s taken up with inside. If you can get hair from his crotch, that’d do even better, but it ain’t necessary. Then you seal it shut with the wax. You write the fella’s name on the candle and rub the candle down with some of the mimosa oil, sprinkle my very own guaranteed Mystic Power powder on it and burn the candle one inch every day. All you got to say while it burns is ‘Holy Penis, grant my wish and keep it soft, bring him no enjoyment.’ It’ll mojo his nature good. I got wives who’ll swear on a stack of bibles it’s good for keepin’ men folk faithful.”

“That’s all right, Aggie,” Jere said, fighting a schoolboy urge to giggle uncontrollably.

“No, I insist. No charge.” The old woman thrust the fourteen-inch long phallus at him. “You got to let me do something for you.”

“If you insist. But could you at least put it in a bag?”

Charlie stood on the front porch and searched her purse for the keys to the house, Rossiter’s breath hot on the nape of her neck. Rossiter’s hands slid under her blouse, his palms lying flat against her belly. She gasped and nearly dropped her keys.

“Stop that!” she giggled. “Someone will see us!”

“Let ‘em look! If they’re peeping out their windows at two in the morning, they deserve what they get.”

“Let’s continue this inside, why don’t we?” she whispered.

Rossiter glanced about the front room. “Nice place you got here. You share it with roommates?”

“Nope. I got it all to myself.”

This was always the awkward part of bringing someone home. She usually preferred to put off the conversation until later. At least he didn’t think owning books was weird, Charlie mused to herself as she poured a drink from the liquor cabinet. She glanced at Rossiter from the corner of her eyes as he studied the signed and numbered Jazz Fest posters hanging over the antique walnut mantelpiece. She’d never known anyone famous before. She dealt with rich and powerful men everyday at work, but none of them was famous. Not like a rock star. Rossiter wasn’t what she would call handsome, but he had a seen-it-all, done-it-all way about it him that was powerfully magnetic. Just looking at him made her ache to touch him.

He turned to look at her, his gaze hungry and direct. There was something untamed in the bottom of his eyes. Charlie smiled over the rim of the glass. Rossiter moved toward her, taking the drink from her hand and draining it in one fluid motion, then lifted her in his arms.

As Rossiter carried her up the stairs to the second floor of the house, a low-pitched growl came from the landing above them. Rossiter froze.

“What the fuck is that?”

Charlie’s cat Pluto stood at the top of the stairs, his ears folded flat against his head, teeth bared, and whiskers flared in challenge.

“Pluto! It’s just me!”

The feline did not seem to heed, or even recognize, its mistress’s voice, but continued to issue its menacing growl.

“What’s wrong with that damn animal?” Rossiter took another step up the stairs. Pluto arched his back, hissed like an espresso machine, and disappeared into the guest bedroom. “Weird cat,” he muttered under his breath.

“I don’t know what got into him,” Charlie apologized. “He’s actually quite friendly. We probably startled him, that’s all.”

Charlie had forgotten to pull the shades before leaving the house and now the bedroom was full of moonlight and night shadows. Rossiter placed her on the bed, pinning her under his body. There were no words. They weren’t needed. Rossiter’s fret-calloused fingers worked the catch of her bra with the expertise of a lock-picker. Charlie wrapped her arms around him, holding him against her. Now his hands were fumbling at her zipper, pulling her free of her jeans. There was intensity to his actions she found both exciting and frightening. She placed a hand on his chest and felt his heart beating like an idling engine.

Rossiter quickly cast aside his own clothes, his face unreadable in the shadows, and idly stroked himself to full erection. He leaned over her, his voice thick and hot in her ear.

“Tell me you want it,” he said, his tongue flickering out, tracing the curve of her ear lobe.

Charlie moaned and wriggled against him. “I want it. Give it to me.”

She cried out as he plunged into her, her fingernails digging into his shoulders. Their lovemaking was swift and hard, the only sounds they made were moans, grunts, and the rhythmic slap of flesh against flesh. When she came, Charlie sobbed like a child, arching her back until her ass cheeks cleared the mattress. Seconds later Rossiter’s face contorted as if someone had plunged a knife into his back and collapsed atop her, panting like a winded runner. Finished, they lay curled together on the bed, their sweating limbs intertwined, and slept like hibernating animals.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Rossiter was sitting in front of a fireplace large enough to burn tree trunks. The mantelpiece was expensive Italian marble carved with mythological beasts. Lined up along the substantial length of the mantle was a collection of antique French time pieces held captive under bell jars. Although Rossiter had never seen this place before, it seemed oddly familiar.

He glanced down and saw his hands emerging from voluminous, ruffled cuffs. He was even more surprised to find himself clutching a walking cane in his left hand. He lifted the cane and examined the gold handle, shaped to resemble the head of a snarling wolf. Chips of ruby glinted in the firelight, giving the cane-head the illusion of sentience. His palms brushed against the expensive upholstery on the arms of the chair. Where the hell was he?

Rossiter ran his fingers along the contours of his face. He could tell by the jut of his jaw and the curve of the nose that the features were not his. The question was, it seemed, not where was he, but who? Even more baffled than before, he returned his gaze to the fireplace and saw a portrait hanging over the mantelpiece. He left the chair and moved closer, resting an arm atop a sculpted faun as he studied the canvas.

The painting was larger than life and showed its subject full-figure. In the foreground was a tall, older man with shoulder-length silver hair swept away from a broad forehead. He wore the bobtail coat, tight-fitting pantaloons, and tricorne hat of the Napoleonic Era. The set of his features spoke of a man used to being obeyed, as did the coil of bullwhip he held in one hand.

In the background, well behind the portraitist’s main subject, stood two women. The nearer of the two was a beautiful, fragile looking girl of twenty, with hair blacker than a crow’s breast and skin as pale as magnolias in bloom. She wore long skirts and a frilly bonnet that framed a heart-shaped face.

The second woman was blonde and dressed in a hooped skirt and a wide-brimmed straw hat decorated with feathers. She stood in the distant background and her features seemed unfinished, as if the painter had been forced to paint her from description rather than a model. There was a brass plaque set at the bottom of the gilded rococo frame. Rossiter squinted, trying to decipher the engraved script. It read:

Narcisse Alexander Legendre (1734-1814) Adelaide Moreau Legendre (1778-1838), Imogene Turpin Legendre (1735-1792)

Rossiter moved through the large, book-lined study toward the heavy oak doors. His hand closed on the gold-plated doorknob. He could feel its warmth against his palm. How could this be a dream? Suddenly there came a knock from the other side of the door. Rossiter stepped quickly back, as if he had received an electrical shock.

The door opened slightly and an elderly black man dressed in pre-Civil War butler’s livery peered inside the room. His dark eyes were sad and apprehensive. “Master Donatien? It’s Master Placide, sir. The doctor says you ought to come.”

Rossiter opened his mouth to tell the butler his name wasn’t Donatien and he wasn’t anyone’s master, but another voice spoke for him. It was much deeper than his voice, with a heavy Creole-French inflection.

“Tell Dr. Drummond I will be up shortly, Auguste … After I have finished my cigar.”

“Yes, sir, Master Donatien,” Auguste said. Although the butler’s voice was properly subservient, there was a hard glint of disapproval in his eyes as he shut the study door.

Rossiter selected a nice hand-rolled Havana from the humidor on his grandfather’s roll top desk. The first thing he would do after his father finished dying was rid himself of Auguste. Perhaps exchange him for a pretty octoroon. After all, familiarity breeds contempt.

Rossiter started awake, disoriented by his surroundings. He scanned the ceiling, searching for the mandala, but it was nowhere to be found. He glanced down at the naked woman curled beside him and was at a loss to remember her name. He sat up, careful not to disturb her, and eased his way out of the bed. Although the details were growing fuzzier with each waking moment, he couldn’t shake the sensation that it had all been somehow real: that he had been remembering instead of dreaming. He could almost smell the aroma of Cuban cigars clinging to him.

Thinking of cigars made his nicotine jones kick in, and he retrieved the pack of unfiltered Pall Malls from his leather jacket. He gave the bedroom a quick appraisal as he fired up the cig, his attention drawn to the tastefully framed commemorative Mardi Gras posters and the lacquered Chinese fans decorating the walls. Not a bad set-up. Certainly a step up from Ti’s crib.

He frowned as he thought of the voodoo priestess. Probably resentment for her kicking him out was what had sparked the dream. Not even in his most twisted needle dreams had be ever fantasized about being Rhett Butler before. He’d never cared for the Old South and its genteel racism. He found the romanticism of Gone With the Wind distasteful.

He pulled on his jeans and opened the French windows that overlooked the front yard. Rossiter stood on the open balcony and quietly smoked his cigarette, watching the rising sun turn the sky from deep purple to robin’s egg blue.

He caught her scent before he felt her presence behind him. Charlie embraced him from behind, her hair brushing against his naked shoulder like a silken weight. She was wearing a short kimono bearing the Japanese symbol for happiness embroidered on the back loosely belted at the waist, exposing her upper thigh and pubic thatch when she moved. Rossiter felt his dick grow heavy again.

“You’re up early,” she smiled, stifling a yawn. The odor of Southern Comfort still clung to her breath.

Rossiter grunted, then took a final drag on his cigarette before flicking the butt over the railing into the neighbor’s yard.

Charlie wrinkled her nose in mild distaste but said nothing.

Jere’s head felt like a balloon full with muddy water. After returning to his apartment, he proceeded to empty every bottle of liquor he had left in the house. Somewhere along the line he decided to give Mad Aggie’s candle a test run. Why not? What the hell else could go wrong?

Now he had his answer in the form of a pool of congealed wax the color of urine spread across his dinette table. The odor of cheap tallow and mimosa oil threatened to strangle him. No doubt Rossiter was still banging away with Charlie. The pubic hair would have helped.

Jere massaged his aching forehead with a trembling hand. He sounded as bad as that crazy old woman. Next thing he would be sacrificing goat and sticking pins in voodoo dolls. He needed some coffee.

The French Quarter was the oldest section of an old city, serving as commercial district, tourist trap, and residential area all at the same time. Jere appreciated the relative quiet of his adopted home so early in the morning. The titty bars on Bourbon were shuttered against the coming dawn, their neon extinguished until dusk once more rolled around. Soon the produce trucks and delivery vans would fill the horse-and-buggy width streets, dropping off new supplies to the restaurants, bars and hotels. By mid-afternoon the Quarter would be a sweltering caldron of pale-legged Yankee tourists armed with credit cards, Nikons and squalling children. But for now, if only for a few brief minutes, the Quarter belonged to those who called it home.

The vast flat slabs of Jackson Square glistened in the light from the ornate lamp posts, slicked by a combination of morning mist and the disinfectant-laced water spewed by the city’s street-sweeping machines. Jere glanced at the benign bulk of the Saint Louis Basilica, its spire rising toward the dawn. It was flanked by the two oldest buildings in the oldest section of an old city: the stone-clad Presbytere and the Cabildo, which had recently come close to burning down, thanks to incompetent workmen hired to renovate the landmark. The three buildings, standing side-by-side, always reminded Jere of a trio of aged grand dames; timeworn and, in the Cabildo’s case, much abused, but still worthy of respect.

The Cafe Du Monde, with its squat concrete pillars and trademark green-and-white striped canopy, sat in the shadow of the levee that protected the city from the Mississippi River, less than three hundred yards away. A handful of Vieux Carre habitues were holding early morning court, drinking cafe au lait as they watched trucks rumble to and from the nearby French Market.

An elderly man in a stained apron wiped one of the metal tables with a dirty rag. Jere picked a seat near the sidewalk and ordered a coffee. It was in front off him in less than a minute. He sipped the brownish concoction and stared across the street at the tidy little French garden that was the historic heart of Jackson Square.

In a couple of hours the city’s licensed street artists would emerge from their various studios and set up shop, hanging examples of their craft along the spiked metal pickets like dressed-out ducks. Jere had tried his hand at the sidewalk art gig shortly after moving to the city, but his style was not accessible and his hand too slow to make a buck off the tourist trade, so he gave up.

Jere’s eye wandered from the fenced garden to the statue of Andrew Jackson astride his horse that was the centerpiece of the square named in his honor. Old Hickory saluted the city that, at the time of the Battle of New Orleans, had been more than glad to see the back of him.

A pigeon perched atop Jackson’s hat, cooing to its brethren below, who covered the sidewalk alongside the open-air coffee shop like a dirty blanket. A particularly bedraggled specimen, its plumage the color of tobacco juice, strutted towards Jere. It didn’t have enough toes and was missing an eye, but despite its mutilation seemed unafraid of humans. Jere wasn’t surprised: New Orleans pigeons were notorious for their brazen disregard of man and machine.

“Shoo!” Jere said, flapping a hand at the bird.

The pigeon cocked its head, fixing him with its solitary eye. The pigeon stepped closer, its gaze riveted on Jere. He could not help but feel that there was something familiar in the way it looked at him.

“Shoo!” Jere repeated, this time with feeling.

The pigeon scratched frantically at the pavement, then hopped aside. Jere dropped the heavy white mug he was holding, spilling hot coffee in his lap. The waiter hurried forward.

“You okay, mister?” he asked, wiping Jere’s crotch with the filthy dishrag.

Jere’s thighs throbbed unpleasantly, but otherwise he was unhurt. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just more hungover than I thought.” He stared down at the ground but the markings the pigeon had made were muddied to the point of being illegible.

He was tired and more than a little drunk, that was all. His eyes were playing tricks on him. There was no way in hell a pigeon wrote Charlie’s name on the sidewalk. Still, as he made his way home, Jere kept his eye peeled for a mutilated bird with dirty brown feathers, but it was nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ti Alice was laughing at something one of her coworkers said as she exited the restaurant. Her smile disappeared when she saw Rossiter waiting for her.

“What the fuck do you want?” she asked tartly.

Rossiter stepped forward, his face contrite, his right hand hidden behind his back. “I came to apologize. You were right: I was fooling around with things I had no business messing with.” He brought his right hand out and showed her the bouquet of long stemmed roses. “Can we back up and start over?”

Ti looked at the flowers, then at Rossiter, then smiled and took the bouquet from him, cradling it in one arm like a thorny child.

Rossiter lay on his back; Ti curled inside the circle of his arm. She muttered something in her sleep and pressed closer to him. He dimly remembered promising Charlie he would meet her for dinner that evening, but that was unimportant compared to keeping Ti’s naked warmth beside him.

Rossiter yawned and closed his eyes …

And fell into someone else’s life.

In his right hand he held a smoldering cigar, in the left were playing cards. Other men, all of them dressed like extras from Gone With The Wind, only not as clean, surrounded him. Rossiter stared at their muttonchops and waxed mustaches in awe. The last time he such unselfconsciously flamboyant facial hair was 1973.

The man seated directly opposite him was dressed in a silver brocade vest. Silver Vest scowled at the cards in his hand, a foul-smelling cheroot clamped between yellow, crooked teeth. A woman in a low-cut floor-length dress, her hair adorned with brightly colored ribbons, leaned over Silver Vest’s shoulder. Silver Vest growled something under his breath and shrugged her off. The woman pouted but did not leave his side.

Rossiter was aware that the other men at the table were watching him, their cards abandoned alongside piles of lacquered wooden chips.

“Well, Tallmadge? What’s it going to be?” The words came from his mouth, but it was not Rossiter’s voice.

Tallmadge, the man in the silver vest, glowered in his direction. “This hand stinks, Legendre.” There was no mistaking the accusation in his eyes.

“Then you fold, monsieur?”

“Did I say anything about folding, Cajun?”

Rossiter felt his spine stiffen, although he was uncertain why he should feel insulted. “I am no more a Cajun, monsieur, than you are a nigger.”

“I don’t give a hoot in a hail storm what you are. All I’m saying is that this hand ain’t worth shit. Just like the last three hands you dealt. Ain’t that right, boys?” Tallmadge looked to his fellow gamblers for support, but none were willing to meet his gaze.

“What is it, exactly, that you are accusing me of, monsieur?”

Tallmadge looked like he was about to bite his cheroot in two. “Accuse, hell! I’ll come out and say it to your face, you goddamned cheatin’ coon-ass!”

Rossiter pulled the revolver from his jacket pocket and fired it with ease of a practiced duelist. Tallmadge’s forehead disappeared, splashing brains and blood onto the whore with the ribbons in her hair. What was left of Tallmadge toppled backward, taking the chair with him.

The other players at the table quickly fled the scene, leaving only Rossiter, the whore, and what was once Tallmadge in the salon. Rossiter got to his feet and walked around the table to where the body lay sprawled on the floor. He languidly waved the pistol back and forth to clear the blue-gray smoke from the air.

The whore gave a single, piercing scream, her hands going to her face as she stared in horror at the body of her slain paramour. Rossiter clucked his tongue and plucked a brightly colored chip from the poker table.

“This should take care of the inconvenience, cherie,” he said, cavalierly slipping the poker chip into her bloodstained cleavage.

“Alex! Alex, wake up! You’re having a nightmare!” She shook Rossiter’s shoulder as hard as she dared, but he continued to make the same weird, mumbled cries that had awakened her. “Alex! Wake up!”

Rossiter’s lids flew open. His eyes stared about wildly, jerking back and forth like pendulums.

Ti blew her breath out in relief. “Thank goodness you’re awake! You were having one hell of a nightmare.”

Rossiter stared at Ti blankly, as if he had never seen her before in his life, then a recognition flooded his eyes, twisting his face into a mask of loathing. Rossiter grabbed Ti by the throat with the speed and strength of a snake striking a rabbit. She tried to cry out in alarm, but all she could manage was a strangled shout. Ti fought to break his grip, rolling both of them off the bed.

Rossiter awoke the moment he struck the floor. He rolled onto his back, rubbing his eyes and groaning like a man waking up from a bender.

“Ti? What happened? How’d I end up on the floor?” When she didn’t answer him right away, he sat up and looked around, a quizzical expression on his face.

Ti was standing the bedroom doorway, naked save for the butcher knife clutched in one trembling hand. There were tears running down her face. “Get out of my house.”

“Ti? What’s going on?”

“Get out!” She grimaced as she raised her voice. There were bruises already visible on her mocha skin. It looked like she was wearing a necklace of smudged fingerprints.

Rossiter got to his feet, his eyes fixed on the cruel edge of the butcher knife. “I’d never hurt you, sweetheart… You know that, don’t you?”

Ti’s lower lip trembled and the tears in her eyes made them glisten like fine sherry, but she did not lower the knife.

“Put down the knife, okay? Just put that thing down, and we’ll talk, okay?” Rossiter moved forward, trying to look as unthreatening as possible.

Ti’s spine stiffened and she made a stabbing gesture with the blade. “Don’t you touch me! Don’t you dare touch me, you goddamned motherfuckin’ freak!” she shrieked. “You lay another hand on me, I swear I’ll cut you!”

“What? Are you saying I did something to hurt you?”

“Hurt me?” Her laugh was somewhere between a sob and a hiccup. “You tried to kill me!”

Rossiter shook his head as if trying to knock her words out of his ears. “No. You’re crazy! I wouldn’t do anything like that!”

“I’m crazy?” The fear and hurt in her voice quickly changed into anger. “Get out! Get out before I call the cops on you! I never want to see you again! You hear me? Never!”

She hurled his shirt and shoes onto the front porch, leaving Rossiter to follow them in nothing but his jeans.

“Thass one helluva woman,” Ti’s next-door neighbor commented as he watched Rossiter finish dressing on the front stoop.

“It’s not my fault!” Rossiter told the old man. “I didn’t know what I was doing!”

The neighbor grinned, revealing a mouthful of snaggled teeth. “Thass what I always tell ‘em. Thass the truth. Don’t help none, though.”

Il-Qui-Tente was pleased how easily he had integrated himself into the horse’s psyche. It was so long since he had bone and sinew at his command; it was almost enough to excuse his lapse of control. When he merged with the horse’s flesh, he had not expected to find the voodoo priestess Jazrel lying beside him. He had been overwhelmed with emotion and seized the moment to avenge himself on his bete noir.

But now that his rage was abated, he realized the face of the sleeping woman had not been quite that of his ancient enemy. Besides, how could the bitch possibly still be alive? Granted, she was a powerful witch, but all flesh must die. At least that which belonged to mortals. Besides, Jazrel would never have allowed a fool like Rossiter access to the Aegrisomnia, no matter what his sexual prowess. Was it possible that the woman was a descendant of the original Jazrel? He had hoped to avenge himself on his nemesis, but tormenting the flesh of her flesh would do just as well. Let the sins of the parent be visited upon the child.

Charlie squinted at the clock radio’s glowing numerals. Who the fuck was ringing her doorbell at 2:47 in the fucking morning? She pushed Pluto off her legs and stumbled to the balcony.

“Who’s there?” she hissed, peering over the railing.

Rossiter nearly overbalanced as he looked up at the balcony. “Smee! Open up!”

“You’re too late!”

“I’m sorry, babe. Really!”

“You stood me up, Alex! I waited for you at the restaurant for three hours!”

“1 got held up at practice, babe! I couldn’t get loose.”

“You could have least phoned to tell me you were going to be late.”

“Said I was sorry, didn’t I? C’mon, open the door, okay?”

“Stop making so much noise! The neighbors will hear you!”

“Screw the neighbors!”

“No! Go away!”

“Pleeease?”

Charlie stared down at Rossiter, uncertain whether to give in or not. It bothered her that he had forgotten their first real date, but there was something in the way he grinned up at her, like a little boy who knew he’d done something naughty, that tugged at her heart.

“Pretty please? With sugar on top?” he wheedled.

The house across the street’s porch light blinked on and the curtain in the front widow twitched. Charlie grimaced. The last thing she needed was the neighbors calling the cops on her.

“All right! I’m coming down! Just be quiet, okay?”

Charlie hurried downstairs and unlocked the front door, Pluto trailing at her heels. Rossiter reeked as if he had been baptized in a malt liquor vat. Pluto arched his back and fled to the comparative safety of the kitchen.

“What’s so fucking important that you had to wake me up at three in the fucking morning?” she hissed.

Rossiter grinned but didn’t say anything. He caught a fistful of nightie in one hand and pulled it over her head. Charlie was too surprised to protest as she thrust his free hand between her legs. He tossed the nightie aside and grabbed one of her breasts, working it between his fingers like cookie dough. Charlie gasped and felt herself moisten. Rossiter pushed her onto the Oriental rug. He teased her nipples with tiny little bites as he paused to fumble with the zipper on his pants. Then he was in her, slamming her buttocks against the floor as if he was dribbling a basketball. Charlie moaned and wrapped her legs around him, riding every thrust of his hips as he grunted like a man at hard labor. When she came, she cried like a child. Seconds later he collapsed atop her.

“Dammit,” she whispered. “I think I love you.”

Rossiter murmured something into her collarbone by way of reply.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“Sssseraphine,” he said in a slurred voice.

“Seraphine? Who’s that?”

All she got in response was a snore.

When the weight of Rossiter’s body finally became too much for her, she wiggled out from under him and took one of the throw pillows from the couch and tucked it under his head, then spread the afghan blanket her grandmother had given her for Christmas over him.

She stood and watched Rossiter sleep. There was something vulnerable and little boyish about him that was perversely erotic.

“What would you do without me to look after you?” she whispered.

Seraphine

O world invisible, we view three,

O world intangible, we touch thee,

O world unknowable, we know thee.

-The Kingdom of God, Francis Thompson

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Summer in New Orleans is endured, not enjoyed.

It is a hot, sticky season punctuated by daily cloudbursts and occasional hurricanes. Those who can afford to, flee the city’s stifling heat and pervasive mugginess for more hospitable climes do so. Those left behind have no recourse but to turn up their air conditioners and try not to set foot out of doors between noon and dusk.

For those who cannot afford air-conditioning, summer in New Orleans is the closest thing to hell they will know before their deaths. Tempers fray, attentions spans atrophy, and will power wilts under such relentless heat. The slightest physical effort becomes a Herculean task. Before the advent of the window unit and household refrigerators, swamp fever routinely ravaged the city every summer. Although that particular problem has long since been eliminated, the city still remains susceptible to the malaise known as the Summer Crazies.

The long months of ever-present heat bring the lunatics out like ants escaping a burning log. The essence of their madness is picked up by the wind and spread throughout the city until everyone in town is just a little crazy, resulting in reports of UFOS hovering over Jackson Square, werewolves roaming the above ground cemeteries out in Metairie, and Elvis being seen buying a wild cherry Sno-Bliz down on Tchopitoulas Street.

Jere’s air-conditioner crapped out on him relatively early in the season. The apartment was barely tolerable with the window unit rattling away twenty-four/seven. Jere spent most of his time sitting in his underwear in front of an oscillating fan, too enervated by the heat to do anything but drink beer and stare at the television. He didn’t mind it that much, really, since the heat kept him from thinking about Charlie. But the dreams the heat brought… that was an altogether different matter.

The dreams started not long after the voodoo candle escapade, and had increased in intensity very night since. At first all he could remember were strange, glowing forms that looked like neon signs designed by Picasso. Then, as they continued, he dreamed he was lost in a steaming jungle, trying to find a safe place to hide from the things lurking in the bush around him. He always woke up before he could find wherever it was he was supposed to go. He wished his subconscious would get bored with the scenario and pick a more comfortable dreamscape, like Alaska.

He was walking through a jungle, following a narrow trail barely large enough to pass along without becoming entangled in the creepers and thorns of the surrounding bush. It was night and Jere could glimpse red eyes watching him from under the cover of darkness. He heard the cries of strange birds from deep in the jungle, as well as the throbbing of drums. His clothes were slicked to his skin by sweat, his hair plastered against his skull as if he had upended a bucket of water over his head.

The trail widened and he saw a dark lump against the thick tangle of jungle. As he drew closer he saw that it was a mud hut with a thatched roof. There were no windows, but he could see light spilling from the doorway. Something told him this was the place he had been searching for so long. As he walked toward the hut, the drumbeat grew louder and he heard the drone of human voices. He had to hurry or he would be late for the meeting.

He stooped to enter the hut, brushing aside a curtain of polished cowrie shells. Although the outside of the hut seemed no bigger than a single room, its interior was a thousand times larger, with whitewashed walls as high as those of an European cathedral. Strange designs, so ornate no human eye could divine their beginning or their end, covered the walls. A wooden pillar the size of a California redwood dominated the center of the hut. It was around this mammoth peristyle The Seven were gathered.

Jere stood in the shadows and stared at the gods, for surely creatures of such epic proportion had to be divine. They stood in a circle facing the central pillar, and when they spoke the walls of the temple shuddered. Jere realized that the drumming sound he had heard in the jungle was the beating of their massive hearts.

Although The Seven were alien to him, as he looked at each in their turn, recognition sparked within him, as if he has known their names since childhood.

One was a feeble old black man the size of a building, dressed in rags. His hair was white and grizzled, as was his beard. He leaned on a crutch made from a split tree, and across his bowed back was slung a haversack big enough to carry a bus. Whenever his palsied limbs trembled, the earthen floor shook as well.

“This is Legba,” whispered a voice inside Jere’s head. “The Messenger of the Gods; the Guardian of the Cross Roads. ”

Next to Legba stood a powerfully built man with very light skin and eyes the color of sea foam. He was dressed in the jacket and epaulets of a naval officer, and in place of an admiral’s hat we wore an old-fashioned steamboat atop his head, smoke billowing from its funnel. He smelled strongly of brine, and instead of military medals, his chest was adorned with starfish, conch shells, crossed oars and seaweed braid. “Behold Agwe: The Shell of the Sea; the Tadpole of the Pond.”

A python of Brobdinagian proportions sat coiled beside Agwe, its shimmering coils reflecting the colors of the rainbow. The sight of its monstrous head weaving to and fro as its forked tongue tasted the air was hypnotic. “This is Damballah: Father of Wisdom; Giver of Treasure; Granter of Wishes. ”

Behind Damballah was a man dressed in the simple clothes of a rustic farmer; straw hat, denim shirt, canvas pants, and worn leather sandals. In one hand he held a machete large enough to fell entire forests. His skin was so black he looked to be made from obsidian. He puffed on a short clay pipe and the smoke that rose from its bowl smelled of freshly turned earth. “This is Zaka: Spirit of the Land; Tender of the Fields. ”

Next to the peasant god stood a figure dressed in the uniform of a Napoleonic cavalry officer, the feathered plume on his hat the color of blood. In one hand he clutched a saber. He chewed on a half-smoked cigar with teeth the size of tombstones; his eyes blazing like the dying sun. The smell of blood and iron was strong with him. “This is Chango: Greatest of Warriors; Maker of Machines; Lord of Fire and Chaos.”

Next to the grinning war god was a woman as beautiful as she was big. The very sight of her was enough to bring Jere to a full erection. She was very light-skinned, with long, unbound hair that reached almost to her feet, and wore a blue gown covered in precious stones. She stood with her hands on her hips, lips pursed and eyes lidded. “This is Erzulie: Goddess of Love; She That Is Beauty. ”

The last of the gods was a thin, skull-faced man dressed in a dark frock coat with a silk top hat on his hairless head. Wire-rimmed smoked glasses obscured his eyes. He leaned on the shovel he held in one skeletal hand like a dandy with his walking stick. Jere recoiled from the odor of decay that emanated from the gaunt figure. “This is Baron Samedi: Lord of All Gravediggers; King of the Cemetery; Collector of Crosses.”

The gods seemed to be focused on the tiny figure of a woman standing before the peristyle. The woman was naked save for body paint and a red feather braided into her hair. Beside her stood an equally tiny red wagon. The woman’s voice was strong and sure, despite her diminutive size. It was the voice of a woman accustomed to putting questions to gods and getting answers.

“I have tried to awaken him, but he refuses to abandon the dream.”

Agwe spoke, his voice that of crashing surf. “You have given him signs?”

The woman nodded. “Many times over, yet still he sleeps.”

“This man you speak of, is he a child of the blood?” Zaka asked, laconically puffing on his pipe.

“No. He is blanc.”

“The blancs are blind and deaf to that they would not know. It has always been so,” Chango said, sparks flying from his tongue. “Their souls are closed to miracles.”

“Does not the blanc love the girl?” Erzulie asked, her voice as sweet and thick as honey from the comb.

“More than even he knows.”

Baron Samedi tapped the edge of his shovel against the ground, calling the attention of the others to him. “How much time before He-Who-Tempts is free again?”

“The vévé hold him still,” Legba said with a shake of his palsied head. “But he is crafty, that one.”

“The sssolution is sssimple then.” Damballah’s voice was a whisper that echoed through Jere’s head as loudly as a shout. “If the blanc resssisssts the warningsss, you must ssshow him what will happen if he doesss not obey the will of the loa. Ssshow him what will befall the girl.”

“And what if he chooses not to surrender the dream?”

“If he lovesss the girl as you sssay,” the snake replied. “He will awaken.”

The woman nodded her acceptance of the rainbow serpent’s wisdom. She turned in Jere’s direction and suddenly he realized that they had known he was standing there the whole time.

The woman who spoke to gods looked to be in her mid-thirties, with skin the color of caramel apples. A velvet patch decorated with a five-pointed star obscured her right eye.

“Look into my eye, Jere Sloan,” she said, slowly lifting the patch that hid her empty socket. “Behold what shall happen if you ignore the will of the loa.”

Jere wanted to look away, but it was as if a giant hand was clamped against the back of his neck. What he saw made him scream.

He was still screaming when he woke up, drenched in sweat and with the stench of gods still fresh in his nostrils.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

He found her seated on a bench facing a small fountain, her Flying W resting at her feet like faithful pet. She was making little voodoo dolls out of bunched yarn and pieces of colored string, the crookedness of her fingers belying their dexterity. Jere was reminded of his grandmother, who could still shuck snap-peas decades after the rest of her body had succumbed to the ravages of arthritis.

“So, you finally decided to come an’ see me.” She did not look up from her work as she spoke. “1 was beginnin’ to wonder if I was wrong about you, but you come round in time.”

“What the hell did you do to me?” Jere rasped. “Did you put some kind of hallucinogenic shit in that candle? The junk that gets absorbed through the skin? What the fuck did you do to me?”

Aggie fixed him with her good eye, delivering a stare that laid his psyche open as easily as a butcher gutting a calf. “I woke you up.”

Jere felt a finger made of ice travel down his back. “You’re the woman 1 saw in my dream!” He dropped down beside her, unable to stay on his feet. “But-how?”

“People live their lives asleep,” Aggie said with a despairing sigh. “Not asleep in bed, but here,” she touched her forehead, “and in here,” she tapped her heart. “They think they are awake, but they merely dream. Their world is the dream, and the dream is their world. What they do not wish to dream does not exist. The waking world is all around them, but the sleepers are oblivious to it. Sometimes the waking world intrudes, and then their dream becomes a nightmare. Some are more sensitive to the waking world than others-artists, poets, and other madmen. You had that sensitivity within you since birth. I simply prodded it into activity. You might say I lifted the veil and allowed a beam of light to strike your eyes. Not too much, mind you-just enough to get your attention.

Jere stared at the wizened old woman with a mixture of awe and fear. He dully realized that somewhere along the line her street patois had been replaced by the voice of an educated woman.

“I don’t understand-if you’re capable of what I think I saw, what possible use could you have for me?”

Jere did not want to hear the old woman’s crazed ramblings, but he could not bring himself to walk away. It was as if he was nailed to the spot. He tried to focus his attention on the fountain splashing and gurgling in front of him, but Aggie’s words kept finding their way into his head.

“You were drawn into this game by chance, as were all the other players. It is fortunate you already possessed the seed; a normal sleeper would have been no use to me. I was lucky you were already sleeping uneasy. But the girl … the girl sleeps deep. She could very well lose her mind, if she is wakened at the wrong time. That is always a danger when a sleeper is shaken from the dream. But you are made of stronger stuff, and the love you have for the woman will make you even stronger.

“I know you are afraid you are losing your mind. But the opposite is true. If anything, you are now saner than you were before. I know it doesn’t seem that way right now, but give it time. As to what I expect from you … right now all I need you to do is go to the Tulane University Library. On the second floor you will find the Louisiana Collection Reading Room. Tell the woman in charge that you want to see the Seraphine File. If she gives you grief, show her this.” Aggie stuffed one of the little yarn poppets into his hand. “If you read what is shown you, you will have some understanding of what has happened, what is happening, and what might happen.”

“And if I choose not to do as you say?”

“Do you remember what I showed you in the dream?”

Jere’s mouth went dry. “I remember.”

“Then it will be on your head.”

He wanted to throw the wretched little doll in her face and denounce her as a lunatic. He wanted to seal his eyes and ears and shut out her madness, but he knew he could not deny her so easily.

He got to his feet and stuffed the fetish into his pocket. He’d better get going; the university library didn’t stay open late during the summer.

The Louisiana Collection Reading Room was a large, glass-encased cubicle full of filing cabinets with a couple of tables and a coin-operated Xerox machine in the comer. A woman with harlequin glasses and lipstick the color of ripe plums sat at a desk next to the collection’s private archives, a stack of local magazines at her elbow. Jere watched as she systematically snipped out articles with scissors big enough to use in a knife fight. The nameplate on her desk read Mrs. Kresse.

“May I help you, young man?” Mrs. Kresse’s whisper possessed the authoritarian sibilance off a born librarian.

Jere fought the urge to turn and flee the enforced quiet of the building. “I was told to come here.”

Mrs. Kresse put aside her scissors and lifted her penciled-on eyebrows. “Yes?”

He shuffled his feet, feeling more and more foolish. ” I would like to see the Seraphine File.”

Mrs. Kresse’s expression did not change. “I’m sorry, but we have no such file.”

Jere’s cheeks grew hot. Of course there was no such file. Aggie was only a crazy old bag lady. As he turned to leave, the fetish twitched violently in his pocket and the vision from his dream filled his mind’s eye. He pulled the little yarn doll out of his pocket and placed it on the desk. The librarian quickly scooped the charm into an open drawer without looking at him.

“Sit over there,” she said, motioning to the table farthest from the door.

Jere did as she was told, and in a couple of minutes Mrs. Kresse returned, wheeling a book trolley. On the trolley was a large cardboard archive box, its lid secured with parcel twine. The librarian placed the box on the table and returned to her desk without comment.

Jere stared at the box for a long moment before untying the string. He felt like Pandora preparing to set free the imps. There was still time for him to turn his back on voodoo gods and bag-lady oracles and reclaim his sanity. He could stop now, if he wanted to. He could leave the box untouched and walk out of the library. It was that simple. He closed his eyes and tried to summon the will power to do the sensible thing, but all he could see was Charlie’s dead body, hanging by her ankles from hooks, split open from crotch to throat like a slaughtered pig.

Jere’s eyes snapped open and he caught his breath in a short, sharp gasp. He felt dizzy and sick and more frightened than he’d ever been before in his life. His hands shook as he untied the string and opened the box. He wrinkled his nose at the musty smell of old paper and began carefully arranging the contents of the box before him.

There were a few old ledgers, what looked like a diary, a sheaf of yellowed documents held together by rusty paper clips, and a handful of antique clippings sealed in protective plastic sleeves. The most unusual item in the box was an old-fashioned locket opened to reveal a pair of miniature portraits.

The picture on the left hand side of the locket was of a woman in her late twenties. Judging from her hairstyle and clothes, Jere guessed it dated from before the Civil War. While the woman was not ugly, neither was she beautiful. At best she would have been considered ordinary, if not outright plain, although it was clear the artist had tried his best to portray her in a flattering light. The opposing portrait, however was that of a man of astonishing physical beauty, with dark good looks that no doubt once ensured a steady supply of devoted admirers of both sexes. Yet, despite his handsome appearance, there was something about the man in the locket that Jere found unsettling.

The documents sealed inside the plastic sleeves were land deeds, death certificates, baptismal records and marriage licenses, most of which predated the Civil War. There was a baptismal record for a Placide Henri Legendre, and one for a Donatien Alexander Legendre dated 1800 and 1822, respectively. There were death certificates for a Narcisse Alexander Legendre, dated 1815, Placide Legendre, dated 1843, and one for a Eugenie Legendre, dated 1859. Jere could not find one for Donatien Legendre.

The marriage licenses spanned three generations, beginning with Narcisse Legendre, who married an Adelaide Moreau in 1794, when the groom was sixty and the bride sixteen. The second marriage certificate was for Placide Legendre, aged twenty, and one Janelle Bocage, aged nineteen. The last license marked the marriage of Donatien Legendre, seventeen, to a Eugenie Sebastien, aged twenty-five.

A sheaf of loose-leaf paper, its yellowed pages covered in a feminine longhand, proved to be notes for what looked to be a biography of the Legendre family.

Early 1700s: The Legendre family relocate from France to the colony of Haiti. Start sugar plantation 1725(?). Alphonse Legendre marries woman known only as Celeste. 1734: Narcisse born. Not much information on Narcisse’s early years, except that he met and married Imogene Turpin in 1754. Legendre plantation does well. Narcisse buys large parcel of land in what would later become Redeemer Parish in 1770s. There is no record of Narcisse and Imogene having issue, although family legend was Imogene with child when she was killed. This is unlikely, as she would have been fifty-seven at the time.

While visiting relatives at the Turpin Plantation, Imogene was killed in slave uprising that marked the beginning of the Revolution. Shortly after his wife’s death, Narcisse saw his own plantation burned to the ground. Narcisse, along with many other Haitian colonists, relocated to Louisiana in 1792. He met and later married his second wife, Adelaide Moreau, daughter of a wealthy cotton merchant, in 1794. In 1795 Narcisse commissioned the building of Seraphine, the Legendre plantation house, located in Redeemer Parish. It was five years from the initial planning stages to the day the Legendre family finally moved in for good.

In the early 1800s Seraphine was the largest and most elegant plantation house in the state of Louisiana. Exotic marble and stained glass were shipped in from Europe. No expense was spared. However, Seraphine’s beauty was gained at the expense of the slaves, who were worked until they died. Even in the Antebellum South, Legendre’s treatment of his slaves was notorious. It is believed that the fictional character of Simon Legree in Uncle Tom’s Cabin was based, in part, on Narcisse Legendre. During the building of Seraphine, Narcisse spent most of his time at the site, while his bride Adelaide and son Placide remained in New Orleans. In early 1815 Narcisse Legendre died of a stroke while mounting the grand staircase at Seraphine. He was eighty years old.

Attached to the last page with a paper clip was a Xeroxed page identified, in the same feminine scrawl as the previous notes, as being from Southern Discomfort: Ghost Stories of the Old South.

‘… as seen in the repeated image of the “Haunted Hitchhiker” and “Lavender Lace”. Another reoccurring folk myth is the ever-popular Swamp Creature. Perhaps the most colorful legends belong to the Louisiana’s Cajuns, who expertly combined their Western European superstitions with their New World surroundings. Along with a fondness for sauces and wine, the French speaking Cajuns retained their forefathers’ legends of the loup-garou, or werewolf. Bayou Goula is reputed to be the gathering place for all loup-garous and where they hold their monthly full-moon balls. Another Cajun swamp creature is the letiche; the soul of an unbaptised infant who haunts small children and is held responsible for mysterious crib deaths. In Terrebonne Parish, the folklore mentions mermaids with bodies of beautiful women and the heads of catfish. The Tempter of Redeemer Parish is an evil spirit that lurks outside the shacks of the poor, waiting for someone-usually a child or young girl-to make the mistake of looking out the window. The Tempter then lures the hapless victim from the safety of their home and into the night, where they’re never heard from again. Similar assimilation of Old World folklore is especially common in areas settled by Irish, Welsh and Scots immigrants, with the will-o’-the-wisp being the most common transplant between the cultures. The hill country of Kentucky is especially rich in …’

Jere frowned and flipped the page over, but there was nothing else. What did these things have in common? They all mentioned Redeemer Parish, a small county located between Plaquemine and St. Bernard parishes, but that was about it.

He turned his attention to the old ledgers, bound in cracked green leather. As he picked up the first book in the stack, it fell open at a certain page. The smell of moldering paper made his nose itch. The pages were covered in a schooled hand, and although the ink had faded to pale lavender, it was still legible.

Curious, Jere flipped to the front of the ledger and found the owner’s name and occupation on the flyleaf: Lucien Napier, Attorney-At-Law.

August 11,1843

I was called out to Seraphine on sad business today. My old friend and client, Placide Legendre, is dying from the same fever that took his wife, Janelle, not six weeks ago. Placide would have me arrange his affairs, as he is an unafraid to admit the inevitability of his situation. He confided to me that he does not see death as so horrible a thing, as it will reunite him with his beloved. The one thing he regrets is that he will never see his grandchild. He was quite specific, despite his illness, as to what he wanted done with the family’s fortune. He has persuaded me to oversee the estate’s finances and serve as executor for a special trust created for any and all future grandchildren. His opinion of Donatien’s business acumen is low. 1 did not see Donatien while there, although the nigger butler, Auguste, informs me the young master spends his time locked in Narcisse’s old study, drinking brandy and smoking cigars. Eugenie is quite distraught, as she is as close to Placide as a blood daughter. Dr. Drummond refuses to allow her to come anywhere near her father-in-law, however, for fear that she might contract the fever.

August, 14,1843

I was called to Seraphine once again, this time to serve as a witness upon the signing of Placide’s death certificate. Donatien could not be bothered to emerge from his grandfather’s den for the occasion. Donatien has long had a tendency towards callousness, but his recent behavior towards his father is unconscionable. As Donatien refuses to acknowledge his wife when others are present, it was left to me to step in and console poor Eugenie. It saddens me to admit such things, as 1 am the boy’s godfather. Dear Placide was as good and kind a man ever born, but 1 fear Donatien temperament is that of his grandfather’s, god help us. Seraphine’s new master has much to learn. Let us hope he does not prove uneducable.

January 5, 1844

The most terrible thing happened today. I was seated in my study, going over some papers, when my houseboy, Puck, informed me that the Legendre’s butler was at the door. This concerned me, as 1 knew Auguste to be no errand boy. The old boy was in quite a state, and I feared he might suffer a fit. He managed to inform me that there had been an accident at Seraphine involving Miz Eugenie. She fell down the stairs, triggering her labor. When I asked why he was carrying the news instead of one of the cook’s boys, Auguste informed me that no one knew he was off the plantation.‘Who is seeing to Miss Eugenie?’

“Mamma John, the chasse-femme. She is the one who helps the slaves birth their babies.’

I was aghast and insisted that Auguste accompany Puck to Dr. Drummond’s. I hurried to Seraphine, expecting to find Donatien pacing the floor, awaiting news as to the fate of his child, but he was nowhere to found. The little parlor maid, Ester, informed me that Master Donatien left for New Orleans to celebrate Twelfth Night and the commencement of the Carnival season. I doubt Eugenie’s screams of agony-audible throughout the entire house-had suited him. Not long after I arrived, Dr. Drummond followed suit, but Auguste was conspicuous by his absence.

When Drummond went to relieve Mamma John of her duties, the old midwife simply shook her head and said: ‘T’aint’t no good. She all broke-up inside. Don’t need to be no doctor to see that.’

When Drummond finally left Eugenie’s room he was a horrible sight to behold, with his shirt and vest stained with blood. He cradled a pathetic bundle of bloody linen in his hands. ‘She’ll live, but any more children are out of the question. I’ve got her heavily sedated with laudanum.’

‘Laudanum? Is it safe?’

‘Queen Victoria swears by it.’

‘And the baby?’

‘It died in the womb. Her pelvis was so badly broken there was no way she could have delivered it, even if it had lived. I had to dismember the wretched thing in order to remove it. I pray I got to her before childbed fever had a chance to set in. For all its worth, it would have been a boy.’ He handed what would have been Placide Legendre’s grandson to the stony-faced midwife. ‘See that the priest blesses it. And, for the love of God, don’t let Miz Eugenie see it.’

Drummond and I retired to my home, where we drank coffee and whiskey well into the night. It was then that I realized that I had not seen Auguste since I sent him to fetch the doctor. I had Puck awakened and quizzed the boy regarding Auguste’s whereabouts. Poor Puck burst into tears and confessed that he had promised Auguste not to tell. Once I assured Puck I meant no harm, he told me that Auguste had run away. I was baffled. Why should Auguste run off? It’s not like he’s a field hand.

‘He said he were scared, Master Lucien.’

‘Scared? Scared of what?’

‘Master Donatien.’

‘Why should he be scared of Master Donatien? Auguste has known him since he was in diapers.’

‘He was skeered on account of what he seen.’

‘And what was that?’

Puck simply shrugged and shook his head. I thanked him for being honest with me and sent the boy back to bed. I’ve known Auguste since I was a boy. He served Placide for the better part of forty years. He is not the type of nigger to turn rabbit. As an officer of the court, 1 am duty-bound to report Auguste’s escape to the authorities. And I would do so, without the slightest hesitation, if I did not feel that there is more to his desertion than meets the eye.

Jere thumbed through the rest of the entries, most of which were dry accounts of petty lawsuits and notary functions in a small, rural parish. He closed the book and picked up the second volume, which, like the first, fell open to a certain passage.

May 25, 1850

Went out to Seraphine today on business and spent some time with Eugenie. She seems to be doing well. Before his death last spring, Dr. Drummond had said Eugenie was a laudanum addict. Not surprising, really, seeing how much pain that hip has given her over the years. The rise in Eugenie’s spirits seems to be a little nigger maid named Jazrel. The girl is obedient and adores her mistress, and Eugenie seems to delight in her company as well, but I cannot help but feel that their attachment is an unhealthy one. If Donatien were a proper husband to his wife, Eugenie would not be forced to seek the company of darkies. Donatien never takes her with him on his trips to New Orleans, and Eugenie’s bad hip has made her a virtual prisoner of that rambling old house, and what little family she has is in Mobile. I suspect that aside from visits from Father Jean-Luc, I am the only white company she receives.

July 22, 1851

Donatien stopped by my offices today. He was in as foul a temper as I’ve ever seen him, which is saying something. He was waving a copy of The National Era, one of those wretched abolitionist newspapers, and ranting about libel. It seems The Era has been running a serialized antislavery fiction and that the villain of the piece bears a strong resemblance to Narcisse Legendre, Donatien’s late grandfather. The authoress, sister to that troublemaking Yankee preacher Beecher, has no doubt heard some third-or-fourth hand gossip and used it to her advantage.

After listening to Donatien carry on, I hastened to assure him that suing a publication like the Era would only be playing into their hands. Once the serialization is finished, it will be quickly forgotten. After all, it’s just a story. What harm can it possibly do? This seemed to mollify him somewhat, and he left my offices in a slightly better mood.

Jere flipped through the pages, scanning for further mention of the Legendre family, but found nothing of real interest. He picked up the third volume and let it fall open. He could tell a good deal of time had passed, as the attorney’s well-mannered penmanship showed the telltale tremble of advanced age.

September 19, 1859

How can I begin? My hands still shake. Whether from grief or rage, I cannot say. Eugenie is dead. Father Jean-Luc officiated at the service, for none know the truth behind her demise save for a handful of loyal servants, Donatien and myself. I am certain Our Savior will forgive my sweet Eugenie her trespasses. It happened two days ago. I received a note from Eugenie, delivered by one of her cook’s myriad children. It was a sad and rambling letter, relating how Donatien, resentful of anything that might make her happy, had taken away her Jazrel and sold her to a sporting house in New Orleans. 1 was already well aware of Donatien’s perverse jealousy regarding her wife, as when the little lap dog I had given her suddenly disappeared without a trace several years ago. But this was truly vicious behavior, even for Donatien. Unnerved by the tone of her letter, I hurried out to Seraphine, but 1 was too late. Eugenie had already consumed enough laudanum to kill a brace of mules. Donatien was nowhere to be found and did not even bother to put in an appearance at his own wife’s funeral. I am told he is in Kentucky, looking at horses.

October 9, 1859

I promised myself I would have no more dealings with Donatien Legendre following the shameful treatment of his unhappy wife. Today he sought me out, as contrite and self-effacing as monk. It seems he has gotten himself in trouble, the kind of trouble a double handful of Legendre money stuffed in a judge’s pocket cannot fix. Donatien shot and killed a fellow gambler while playing cards at a notorious whorehouse in New Orleans. That, in and of itself, would not be much to worry about, save that the victim was the nephew of a highly placed politician. After repeatedly throwing his late father in my face, I caved in and agreed to help him. I recommended that he leave the country as soon as possible and that he sign power of attorney over the plantation and the Legendre business interests to me. He is leaving for France tonight. Whatever Europe holds for him, I’m sure he could do no worse than he has in his native land.

The rest of the ledger was filled with elaborate accountings of the Legendre finances spanning the years of the Civil War. It was evident from the bookkeeping that Napier had been successful in keeping Seraphine out of the hands of usurers and carpetbaggers. However, it was also clear that the war had its effect on the Legendre fortunes. Although Donatien was far from destitute, he was no longer the heir to vast wealth.

Jere opened the fourth book, curious as to see how things would turn out when the murderous profligate came home.

February 10, 1867

Seraphine’s master has returned. I wish I could say I am glad to see my godson resume his place as the rightful head of the Legendre estate, but there is no percentage in lying to myself. Donatien’s self-imposed exile in Europe has not improved him; if anything, he is actually worse than before. I tried to explain to him the depredations done the Legendre monies by the recent misfortune, but he is unwilling to hear the truth. Instead of showing me any appreciation for the work I have done on his behalf, he chose to verbally abase me. He was outraged that I have been paying the field niggers. I told him that all niggers are freemen now and must be paid if they are to work, but he refused to listen to me. As it is, there are barely enough hands on the place to keep Seraphine from returning to the swamp.

March 31, 1867

Donatien continues to ignore my counsel regarding his diminished financial status. I have before a sheaf of IOUs from various gambling houses, wine merchants and clothiers in New Orleans. After all the time I spent keeping Seraphine secure during the recent misfortune, it saddens me to see my godson determined to throw it all away.

I fear Donatien’s cruel streak may have finally blossomed into madness. Last week he set fire to the old slave shacks. Hired field hands occupied over half of the cabins. Luckily, no one was killed, but fifteen of the twenty-five niggers working the place walked off. A neighbor who saw the fire from his house went out to investigate and claims to have seen Donatien running about stark naked, chasing the frightened workers and their families with a bullwhip as they tried to escape the flames. If this story gets out, it will be impossible to find anyone, colored or white, willing to work Seraphine.

June 26, 1867

I am glad my friend Placide is already dead, for his son’s scandalous behavior would certainly kill him if he were not. I found it necessary to travel out to Seraphine today to get Donatien’s signature on some papers. When I arrived, 1 found myself in the middle of something out of Petronius. Gamblers, whores, carpetbaggers, pimps white trash and worse filled the grand rooms that once hosted the most elegant and refined Creole families in the state. The sound of their bestial merrymaking was everywhere, with the women screaming like cats in heat while the men guffawed like fools and fired their pistols into the ceiling.

Donatien was holding court in the old dining room. Two men were sharing a woman in plain sight of the other guests, while a pair of sodomites manipulated one another in a most led and disgusting display. In the middle of the table stood a naked whore performing the oyster dance, while those in attendance accompanied her obscene movements by clapping their hands and stomping their feet.

Although debauchery and perversion rioted and roared about him like a whirlwind, Donatien looked profoundly bored. Disgusted and appalled by the depth to which my godson had sunk, I left Seraphine determined to abandon him to the fate he so richly deserves.

January 18, 1868

I have received the first news of Donatien in seven months. While I remain firm in my decision to no longer aid him, 1 cannot help but feel some concern for his welfare. 1 am an old man and closer to God’s kingdom with each passing day, and 1 wonder if there was not something more 1 could have done when he was a lad that might have saved him from this life of sin and degradation. After all, 1 was the boy’s godfather and, thus, nominally responsible for his moral and religious education. Perhaps if Placide had not elected to send the boy to France for his education or if he had not insisted on Donatien marrying Eugenie so young, things would have turned out differently. Maybe not. I fear the key that locked Donatien’s heart was turned at birth. Narcisse Legendre’s cruelty and madness has found new life in the grandson he never knew.

Donatien’s motley retinue abandoned him once he proved incapable of financing weeklong orgies. In the months since I last saw him, Donatien has discovered the hard truth concerning his circumstances. While the Legendre name is still influential in certain circles, it can no longer command instant credit. His creditors are busy dismantling what little is left of his inheritance. It is rumored that Donatien has sold every stick of furniture in Seraphine, save for the contents of his grandfather’s study on the second floor. The vast Legendre holdings have been carved up like winter calves. If he is lucky, Donatien will be able to keep the house itself from the moneylenders and brothel-keepers. To think I have lived to see the Legendres reduced to such shameful circumstances.

The next page the book opened to was covered in a rushed, spiky hand, with numerous cross-outs and blots of ink in the margins. Over the course of reading Napier’s journal entries, Jere had developed a mental picture of the lawyer as a soft-spoken, orderly bachelor type, and one with a keen sense of pride in his work. For some reason, the sight of such uncharacteristic sloppiness unnerved him.

May 12, 1868

This will be my last entry in this journal. As of midnight tonight I hope to be a on a train headed west. I will not be coming back to Redeemer Parish. I have lived my life in Louisiana, and I do not pretend that so dramatic a change at my age will be easy. I do not leave my home out of bitterness or with hopes of building a new and better life elsewhere. I am too old for such romantic claptrap; I am leaving because I fear for my life … and my immortal soul.

I came across some papers yesterday that had escaped my notice when I ended my business relationship with Donatien Legendre last year. I decided to ride out to Seraphine on my own, to see for myself if the rumors concerning the mansion’s decline were true. I also hoped that perhaps this experience might have humbled and thereby humanized Donatien. I decided that if my godson showed any sign of remorse, I would volunteer my help and make sure that Placide’s only child would not go without food and clothes.

Due to complications at my office, it was almost dusk by the time I reached Seraphine. Although the light was bad, it was easy to see, even with these old, tired eyes, that the tales of Seraphine’s neglect were painfully accurate. The gardens, once Janelle’s pride and joy, were overgrown, the rosebushes reverting to the wild state and threatening to turn the front yard into a briar patch. The creeping vines were busty reclaiming the south wing of the mansion. As 1 drew closer 1 could see that the windows had all been shuttered.

My knocks echoed through the house. The beveled glass that decorated the front door was thick with grime, but 1 could still see the grandly curving staircase that lead from the foyer to the second floor.

I made my way towards the servant’s entrance at the back of the house. The garden that had once provided the family with fresh vegetables now smelled of compost and things rotting on the vine. The kitchen door squealed when I opened it, its jamb warped just enough to keep it from shutting properly. 1 called out Donatien’s name, but there was no answer. I entered the kitchen, noticing the thick layer of dust that covered the cabinets and counter tops. There was a butcher knife with a rusty blade near the sink, but nothing else in sight.

I have visited Seraphine on a hundred different occasions, but this was the first time I ever felt like an intruder. Stripped of its familiar furnishings, it seemed as alien and forbidding to me as the surface of the moon.

I moved down the narrow serving passage that connected the kitchen to the dining hall, doing my best not to choke on the dust and cobwebs. The room where I had once dined on fine china with Placide and his family was, like the kitchen, barren, but far from clean. There was enough light leaking in through the shutters for me to see the oversized pentacle scrawled in chalk on the bare board, the points marked with black candle stubs.

I turned and fled back in the direction of the kitchen. Once there, 1 paused to catch my breath. It was only then that 1 became aware of the smell emanating from the pantry … and the steady drone of flies.

As I reached for the pantry door’s white enamel knob, the sound of the flies grew so loud it made my ears ache. I am afraid my courage failed me at that point and I fled that horrible place as fast I as could. All the way back from Seraphine 1 could not stop thinking about how Alcide Rigaud’s boy, Theo, disappeared without a trace last week.

My boy Puck is long since gone, and 1 have no one to share the house with me. 1 shuttered the windows, both upstairs and down, and spent the rest of the night locked in my study, saying my rosary and drinking my cellar dry. 1 dared not sleep, and kept my pistol loaded and within arms reach.

Shortly after the grandfather clock in the hallway tolled midnight, I heard something scratching at the shutters. I was so frightened I was afraid my heart would stop beating. After a few seconds the scratching stopped, only to resume again at another secured window. At one point I thought 1 heard footsteps on the roof and there was a tiny spill of displaced soot in the fireplace before me. Luckily, the chimney of my home is so narrow it can barely accommodate a sweeper’s broom, much less a grown man. The horrid scraping, scrambling, scratching and rattling went on until the very break of day, when it finally halted altogether.

Mustering my courage, I unlocked my front door and stepped out onto my front porch, gun in hand. The sight of the deep gouges in the wood of the shutters and windowsills, as well as on my front and back doors, was enough to make me swoon … and decided for me, once and for all, what I must do.

I have yet to sleep, and do not plan to until I am safely away from Redeemer Parish.I admit that the thought of death is frightening to me. I do not doubt that he will try to visit me again tonight, for it wasn’t until this morning that realized I had left the papers, the ones I had originally gone to Seraphine to deliver, sitting on the counter in the kitchen, next to what I had assumed was merely a rusty knife.

I shall be gone from Redeemer Parish come dusk, and by the next morning I hope to be even further away. When 1 make my final destination, I will send a letter to the authorities detailing what I saw. No doubt they will think me a coward or a senile fool. Perhaps the Good Lord, in His infinite wisdom, and mercy, will be able to forgive the madness that drove my godson to such evil. And I pray that He will forgive me as well.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jere set aside the last volume in Lucien Napier’s journals and massaged his temples. The only thing left in the file box was a diary bound in watermarked silk the color of smoke, its pages tinged yellow with age and as fragile as moth wings. The entries were made in a distinctly feminine hand and were shorter than those in Napier’s journals. Relying on the same system he had used with the lawyer’s journals, he let the diary fall open where it would.

March 7, 1839

Papa has returned from visiting Mr. Legendre and is in high spirits. I am glad to see it. He has been worried so about the farm.

March 9, 1839

Papa has just made the most astonishing announcement over dinner. He says I am to be married to Mr. Legendre’s son. The one who has been away at school in France. At first 1 was most upset, as Donatien (for that is his name) is considerably younger than myself, and 1 was outraged that Papa would under take something so important without first asking my opinion, like 1 was one of his brood mares. When I told him 1 refused to go along with it, Papa became quite angry and started shouting that 1 should be lucky to make such a catch, especially at my age. He said he could not afford to run a farm and keep an old-maid daughter at home. 1 know things have been hard on Papa since Mama died, and how much he’s worried about who will take care of me once he’s gone. Now that 1 think about it, it really is quite wonderful. Imagine! I will some day become the mistress of Seraphine!

April 19, 1839

Papa took me to Seraphine over the weekend so I could meet my future father-in-law, Mr. Placide. I had seen Mr. Placide only once before, at my ti-tante Clothilde’s summer cotillion. He impressed me as a gentleman, and noting at all like that father of his. Mr. Placide introduced me to his wife, Miz Janelle, a refined and charming lady. She reminds me so very much of my dear mama. I did my best to make a good impression, and I hope I am not being immodest if I believe I did well. Before we left, Mr. Legendre took me aside and told me in strictest confidence that I’m the kind of influence that he and his wife want in their son’s life. Miz Janelle gave me a small cameo portrait of Donatien. This is the face of my husband to be! Strange, 1 never thought I would live to write those words, but I am amazed at how easily they flow from my quill. If this likeness is only half-true, then my betrothed is handsome beyond my wildest dreams. Such dark hair, eyes as blue as a robin’s egg, and a passionate, expressive mouth. He’s the very image of Byron!

November 6, 1839

Today my handsome groom arrives in New Orleans. I can barely keep from shaking as I pen these words. At last, I am to meet my Donatien face to face! Mr. Placide sent his boy, Auguste, to the port to greet the ship. Papa and I are to attend a private dinner in Donatien’s honor this evening. I can hardly wait. I’ve had a new dress made for the occasion. It’s quite dear, but Papa states that when it comes to a girl impressing her beau, then cost is no object. I keep Donatien’s picture with me at all times, and hardly an hour goes by that I do not look at it. Hurry back, Auguste! Hurry! (Later) Papa told me the party has been postponed. Seems that there was some sort of mix-up. Auguste couldn’t find Donatien. When I pressed Papa for details he remembered he forgot to make sure the stable boy saw to Sulky’s saddle rash. I hope Donatien isn’t sick. I’m sure the Good Lord is looking after him. I guess I’ll have to put my dress back up in the chiffarobe. I was so looking forward to wearing it tonight. But I mustn’t become gloomy. Donatien will be home soon.

November 18,1839

Donatien is here! Papa tells me Donatien arrived at Seraphine last night in the company of his godfather, Mr. Lucien Napier. We are to pay the Legendres a visit tomorrow evening. At last! I’ll finally be able to see my beloved in the flesh!

November 19, 1839

Things did not go well. First I will tell the good news: Donatien is every bit as handsome as the portrait makes him out to be. Despite his tender years he is, indeed, a man, so self-assured and graceful are his manners and movements. He is an Adonis. The very moment I saw him, I lost my heart. Now for the bad news: it seems Donatien is not pleased that his father brought him back from Paris in order to marry a woman he has never laid eyes on before. Donatien has made it quite clear that he does not find me to his liking. Indeed, he announced it at the top of his voice, so that none in the room could pretend to ignore what he said. The reason it took him so long to return to Seraphine was that he was hiding in New Orleans. Papa is in mortal fear that the marriage will be called off. Although Donatien’s unkind words and manner wound me greatly, I understand his sense of betrayal. I, too, was angry with my father for tampering with my life. And if Donatien was a pot-bellied old storekeeper instead of a young, handsome aristocrat, I doubt I would be surrendering to my fate so easily. I know 1 am not beautiful, but perhaps, once he comes to know me, Donatien will be able to see beyond my plain exterior and treasure my heart, for the love I feel for him is genuine.

November 23, 1839

Mr. Placide has just left the farm. He came to speak to me about Donatien. He told me, in strictest confidence, the reason he wished for me to marry his son was concern for Donatien’s moral character. It seems Donatien fell in with a very bad crowd while away in Europe. These ne’er do wells introduced him to the pleasures of the gaming tables and wine shops of Paris. Soon he was neglecting his schoolwork in favor of the casinos. Mr. Placide decided the best thing for Donatien would be marriage and a stable home life. Taking Donatien’s headstrong nature into account, he surmised a mature woman might cure him of his excesses far batter than a wife his own age. He admits that Donatien is caprious, but claims that his current behavior is the result of the company he was keeping in Europe, and begged me to give Donatien a second chance at making a first impression. I told him that I would forgive Donatien any trespass, as I am hopelessly in love with him. This seemed to please Mr. Placide, who is truly a kind and gentle man. I am certain that with his example to guide him, Donatien will soon regain his head.

September 20, 1840

I am so ashamed! My modesty has been such that I dared not put my feelings into words until now. But if I do not confide this horrible secret, if only to blind paper, then I most surely will go mad. My life with Donatien is far from the idyll 1 so foolishly dreamed of. When I look back at my earlier entries, 1 cringe at their childishness. Oh the folly of mistaking a handsome face for a good heart! Our marriage has been a cruel joke at my expense. On our wedding night Donatien informed me he had no intention of sullying the Legendre line by siring a child with me. At first I was fearful of being an unravished bride, but that was not to be. Donatien has visited my bed almost every night since our wedding day, yet I am still as God made me. My shame and disgust is so great 1 cannot bring myself to describe any more, suffice to say that he uses me more as a boy than a wife.

I have stopped resisting him, since all it succeeds in doing is angering him and bruising me even further. Besides, he will do as he will, no matter what. When he comes to me stinking of liquor that is when I fear him most, for then I am certain he will find something I have done that displeases him. As awful as Donatien is to me, Papa Placide and Mama Janelle have been as kind. I love then dearly, yet I know they can offer me little in the way of help. Indeed, they seem as fearful of their beastly son as I am. We currently live in a small house in town, which Papa Placide gave to us as a “honeymooner’s cottage”, so that we might grown together as a couple and start a family. We never visit anyone, nor do we entertain. My only diversion is the weekly trip out to Seraphine to have Sunday dinner with Donatien’s parents. When Donatien is not forcing his attentions on me, he ignores me altogether. He spends most of his time in New Orleans, carousing amongst the sporting houses and gambling dens. My poor Papa is fearful that if I do not produce an heir soon, the Legendres will demand an annulment. I resent his acting as if my failure to become pregnant is to be laid completely at my feet, but there is no way I can tell him of the outrages my husband commits against me. But my greatest shame, by far, is the fact I love him still. Whenever Donatien walks into the room I feel my breath catch and my heart race. As miserable as my life is with him, I cannot imagine living without him. God save my soul.

May 3, 1843

For the first time in our marriage Donatien lay with me as befits man and wife. Perhaps there is hope for us, after all.

June 12, 1843

I have the most wonderful news! I am with child! I am so happy; I can almost forget my concern for Mama Janelle, who contracted scarlet fever while visiting relatives in New Orleans last week. I wish I could go to Seraphine and help Papa Placide with her, but Dr. Drummond has forbidden it, for fear of endangering my unborn child. Perhaps now that we have made a new life between us, Donatien’s heart will at last warm to me. My one regret is that my own dear Papa is no longer with us to share in our joy.

July 1, 1843

Sorrowful news. Mama Janelle passed away today. Donatien is inconsolable. When he heard the news he grew very quiet and walked out of the house. I have not seen him since. 1 assume he has gone out to Seraphine to be with his father. I wish someone would tell me what is going on. I feel so helpless.

July 5, 1843

Everything is all topsy-turvy. Papa Placide has sent for me, and all my wardrobe and personal things are being moved from our little house out to Seraphine. Now that Mama Janelle is gone, Papa Placide is at loose ends. 1 remember how it was with my own father when my mother died: it was as if a part of him had joined her in the grave. There is that same sadness in Papa Placide. The only time he cheers up is when he contemplates his grandchild. Donatien, however, spends most of his day drunk. Although he tried not to show it, my husband loved his mother most dearly. I keep forgetting how young Donatien actually is. This is the first time anyone he has cared about has died on him. Poor Donatien!

August 2, 1843

As if there was not enough grief and sorrow in this house! Papa Placide has fallen ill. 1 sent one of the houseboys to New Orleans to fetch Donatien. Lucidly, Mr. Lucien, Papa Placide’s oldest friend and Donatien’s godfather, placed himself at my service during this trying time.

August 9, 1843

Donatien is home, although 1 wonder if his presence does not aggravate his father’s condition. He has sequestered himself in the study that once belonged to his grandfather, the notorious Narcisse, and rarely sets foot outside its doors. Dr. Drummond has banished me Papa Placide’s bedside, so I have no recourse but to pump poor old Auguste for information. I am afraid things are not good for my beau-pere.

August 11, 1843

Mr. Lucien came back today at Placide’s request and spent a great deal of time in the sick room. When I questioned him as to the nature of his visit, he attempted to change the subject. Why do men feel it necessary to treat women as if they were made of porcelain? Here 1 am, carrying the very mystery of life in my belly, yet they hesitate to mention death in my presence, as if 1 would shatter like a china doll dropped upon the floor. I’m sure Mr. Lucien means well, but he forgets that I am far from a child.

August 13, 1843

Papa Placide passed away today. Father Jean-Luc was on hand to administer last rites. Dr. Drummond was forced to send for Mr. Lucien to witness the death certificate, as Donatien refused to sign it. Poor Papa Placide, he wished so much to see his first grandchild.

Within a space of a few entries Eugenie’s writing deteriorated rapidly. It was obvious that not only did she have trouble holding the pen, but her eyesight wand depth perception was seriously impaired as well. Her penmanship resembled the shaky, rambling scrawl of a septuagenarian, not that of a woman in her late twenties.

March 22, 1844

Today is the first day since my accident that I have felt well enough to put pen to paper. As it is, I am terribly weak and must rest every few minutes. The pain is very much with me, but as long as 1 have my laudanum bottle close at hand 1 need not suffer too long. There is still so much of the past three months that is blurry and uncertain in my wind. I know I fell down the stairs and that I lost the baby. I also know that my hip was so badly broken 1 can never have children again. But there are other things I cannot make sense of. At one point, 1 could have sworn 1 saw Donatien’s grandfather, Narcisse Legendre, standing at the foot of my bed. I couldn’t figure out why he looked so strange, then I remembered he had been dead thirty years. I also thought there was a nigger man sitting on my bed. He was the strangest-looking darkie I ever did see, with white paint on his face that resembled a skull, and he told me how Narcisse had worked the slaves to death to build Seraphine, so the slaves cursed the Legendre family in return. ‘What a hundred built for Legendre, one Legendre shall tear down.’ Funny what you remember of dreams.

April 27, 1844

It has been some time since I last saw Donatien. Mr. Lucien, bless his heart, comes to see me most every day. What I can’t figure out is where Auguste has gone off to. The last thing 1 remember is Auguste running to help me. It must have been right after I fell down the stairs. But I have not seen him since. Every time I ask the little house girl or the footboy, they pretend they don’t know what I’m talking about. Even Mr. Lucien avoids the question. I wish I could remember things better. I know I had words with Donatien just before the accident, but I cannot remember what we were arguing about. Perhaps Auguste knows. After all, there is nothing that goes on in Seraphine that escapes his notice. But no one will tell me where he is. I am getting confused again. I think I need more laudanum.

December 24, 1844

How kind of Mr. Lucien to think of me this time of the year! He has made me the present of a most precious tiny dog. He says it is to keep me company when he is unable to visit. I will call him Mignon, for he is a darling little thing.

June 13, 1845

The beast! The horrid beast! Donatien lost a great deal of money at the gaming tables the other night and was in a foul temper. He came into my room, unannounced, swearing and stinking of brandy. Mignon was napping beside the hearth when he entered. Hearing Donatien’s voice raised in anger, he instantly leapt to his feet and began to bark. Mignon has always disliked Donatien, and the feeling was mutual. Donatien began raving about how dare my dog bark at the master of the house, and before I could say or do anything to stop him, he kicked my poor Mignon hard enough to send him flying across the room, snapping his spine and killing him instantly. I went mad with rage and grief and began calling Donatien all kinds of names. The next thing I knew he was looming over me, his face as dark as a thunderhead about to break. The last time I saw such rage in his eyes was just before I “fell” down the stairs. It is difficult for me to get out of my armchair without help these days, and I knew if he began to beat me there was no way I could avoid his blows. Yet, as he lifted his hand in preparation to slap me, I grabbed my cane and shook it at him and said: ‘Do your worst! I’m not afraid of you anymore!’ Donatien drew back as if I’d thrust a red-hot poker in his face. He then turned and hastily exited the room. That’s when 1 was finally free to weep for my poor little dog. I cried and cried until there were no more tears, only hatred for the man I called my husband.

February 3, 1850

I have a new maid. She is a strange little negress (no more than a pickaninny, really) who goes by the name of Jazrel. She is a very serious child, but otherwise of a pleasant disposition. She claims that she can do miracles with arthritis. When she saw my cane resting against my bed, she announced that she would see to it that I would never have to rely on it again. What a peculiar child!

April 6, 1850

Felt well enough to walk down stairs for the first time in six years. The downstairs maid gaped at me as if I was a ghost. I was winded before we reached the bottom banister, but otherwise there was no pain worth mentioning. Jazrel was at my side, of course, in case I should lose my balance. I left the wretched cane in my sitting room. It has been so long since I was able to negotiate the stairs, I felt like a stranger wandering the once-familiar rooms. Since my accident, my world has been restricted to the second floor, and the suite of rooms that constitute my personal quarters in particular. I have Jazrel to thank for bringing me back to the land of the living. Her herbal teas and ointments, foul-tasting and odd-smelling as they may be, have worked wonders with my hip. It was difficult, at first, to surrender the numbness that the laudanum offers, but Jazrel has been a great comfort to me. A few weeks ago, when my pain was at its worst, Jazrel took my laudanum and refused to give it back. At first I threatened her, then cajoled her, before finally breaking down and weeping like a baby, begging her to give me the drug I needed. Even though the sight of me in pain brought tears to her eyes, Jazrel remained firm in her resolve. Instead, she began feeding me her ‘healing tea’. I have not felt the need to resort to laudanum since then.

September 17, 1859

I must be free if him. Free of his warped affection. At first all I wanted was his touch. Even when he twisted my love for him into something dirty and abhorrent, I still wanted him. But when he killed our baby, he killed my love for him. And when he murdered my beloved Mignon, I finally came to hate him. Since then all I have wanted is to be free of him and the pain his continued existence causes me. But now I know there is no refuge from his terrible, blighted love except in death. I am so horribly tired. Most Heavenly Father, forgive me, but I do not consider what I am about to do a sin. I am sure the finer points of my logic will be lost on Father Jean-Luc, but I am beyond caring. I was killed by my husband, Donatien Alexander Legendre, as surely as if he had placed a gun to my head or arsenic in my tea. And what was my sin against him? What did 1 do to provoke such undying animosity from the man? The simple fact that I exist is enough to warrant torment. Anything that brings me happiness or pleasure enrages him. First it was my baby, and then it was poor Mignon, and now my precious Jazrel. I knew he resented Jazrel’s influence on me. In the past Jazrel informed me that Donatien had tried to turn her against me, but failed miserably. Even as a child, Jazrel detested Donatien, and has never bothered to disguise her dislike. Recently he has taken a more lustful interest in the girl. It has been fifteen years since I last shared a bed with my husband, but I remember his appetites all too well. Last night Donatien approached her yet again, and she rebuffed him. Donatien beat her within an inch of her life and then raped her. You could hear the poor girl’s screams echoing throughout the house, yet no one lifted a finger to help. How could they, with out risking their own lives? After all, Donatien is the law within the walls of Seraphine.

This morning Jazrel was gone. When I confronted Donatien, he told me he sold her to a sporting house in New Orleans. I was too dumbstruck to do anything but stare at him. Donatien seemed displeased that I did not promptly break down in hysterics, but 1 will be damned if that man ever sees me cry again. I can no longer abide living in this house another day, yet I know there is no life for me beyond Seraphine’s gates. I am as much a slave to this horrid place as any field nigger born in the shacks. Even if I could manage to escape, Donatien would continue to make my life miserable. I refuse to live the rest of life secluded from humanity out of fear of what that madman would do to anyone or anything I cared for. I still have some laudanum from the days before Jazrel came into my life. I always suspected it would come in handy. My one regret is that I am will not be able to bid a proper farewell to Mr. Lucien. I sent him a note, but by the time he reads it, I will be gone. Just as well. To be rescued from an unsuccessful suicide is the kind of indignity that Donatien would wish on me. I must get on with it, now. Just stop writing and drink the bottle down. 1 hope it will be a relatively painless death. It would make a nice change from everything that has gone before.

Jere sat at the table for a long time, studying the plain-looking woman trapped in the locket. Although he had known what was coming, part of him had still hoped that things might end differently for Eugenie Legendre.

What the hell was he getting into? Congenital madness, domestic abuse, murder, sexual depravity, Satanism … Donatien Legendre was one mean-ass mofo, no two ways about it. But Donatien Legendre was dead … and had been so for well over a century. What the hell did he have to do with his weird dreams and the vision of Charlie as a murder victim?

He was suddenly aware of Mrs. Kresse watching him from her desk, her scissors silent. Jere pushed away from the table and hurried from the reading room. The thought of returning to Mad Aggie made his stomach tighten, but he knew he had no choice. He had to know. It wasn’t until he reached the bus stop on the corner of Freret and Broadway that he realized he was still holding Eugenie’s locket in his hand.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Aggie was still sitting in front of the fountain. She had long since finished with the voodoo fetishes and was busy stuffing buckeyes and chicken bones into hand-sewn mojo bags. She barely glanced up at Jere as he sat down beside her.

“You read the file?”

“I read it. But what does it mean? What the hell do people dead over a century have to do with Charlie and me?’

Aggie sighed and fixed her gaze on the fountain, folding her hands in her lap. “It’s a long story. Longer than I’d like to think about. You read the journals. You know how the Legendres built their fine, grand plantation house on the bones of slaves. You know the evil that lived in Donatien Legendre.”

“You mean about him going mad and killing children?”

Aggie’s laugh was short and sharp and without humor. “He was crazy all right! Crazy like the devil!”

“You talk like you knew him.”

“Well enough to hate him.”

“How is that possible? If he were alive today, he’d be over one hundred and fifty years old.”

Aggie fixed him with her good eye. “Did you see his death certificate?”

“No … But it’s simple logic. He has to be dead by now.”

“Donatien Legendre ain’t dead.”

“What? He’s still alive?”

“I ain’t sayin’ that, either.”

“Well, if he’s not dead and he’s not alive, then what the hell is he?”

“He is Il-Qui-Tente. He-Who-Tempts. One of the je-rouge. What some would call les damnes.”

“That’s impossible.”

“That is what your head says, but your heart knows it lies. Let me tell you a story, my young friend. Then after I have said my piece, you can decide if I am indeed as mad as everyone says I am.

“Long ago there was a woman named Jazrel. Ah, I see you know the name. Jazrel was the daughter of a mambo, who herself was the daughter of a powerful babalewe. Jazrel’s flesh was born a slave, but her spirit was that of a priestess. She had the ways of healing from childhood on. When she was twelve years old, she came into the service of Eugenie Legendre, mistress of Seraphine.

“Eugenie was a very sad woman, crippled by her husband’s cruelty in body as well as spirit. Jazrel took pity on her mistress and used her healing ways to ease Eugenie’s pain. She, in return, taught Jazrel how to read and write. In time their friendship developed beyond that of mistress and slave.

“Donatien Legendre did not like to see his wife happy, and conspired to make sure Eugenie’s contentment would not last. When he discovered he could not turn Jazrel against her mistress, he brutally raped her and sold her to a brothel. Jazrel never saw Eugenie again. It was not long before Jazrel came up pregnant. But the baby did not belong to any of the Johns who came to the sporting house. No, the child’s father was Legendre. Jazrel birthed her daughter in the whorehouse attic and named her Agatha, in honor of the madam. That’s right, son. I was born in 1860. And, like my mama before me, my flesh was that of a slave.

“After Mr. Lincoln freed us, Jazrel quit whoring and took up midwifing. She also started a business in healing charms and love potions. She taught me all she knew, just as her mama did. I wasn’t half as gifted as Jazrel, but 1 got the hang of it after awhile. In 1870, Jazrel was approached by some coon-asses from down in Redeemer Parish. Seems they were in dire need of a conjure woman. The bayou down around the old Seraphine plantation was being haunted by something they called Il-Qui-Tente: ‘He-Who-Tempts’.

“For two years there had been numerous disappearances, mostly of small children and young girls. Some children, just before they disappeared, told their parents of seeing some one-or some thing- lurking outside their windows. Whatever it was prowling the swamps, it had the power to spirit its victims out of their beds without a sound. Jazrel agreed to look into it for them.

“She rolled the bones and called upon the loa, and they revealed to her the true nature of the evil that plagued Redeemer Parish. The loa told her how Legendre yearned for power over others and eternal life. They showed her how Legendre, while in exile, had discovered a book of spells and incantations that gave him the power to turn himself into a thing of evil. Using the kidnapped children as sacrifices to summon forth the dark one, Legendre had become a necromancer-one who uses the bodies of the dead to work the blackest magics.

“Jazrel knew she did not have the power to kill Donatien, for his mojo was indeed strong, but she knew it was possible to trap him. She took me with her to Seraphine, which was falling to pieces even then, to serve as her assistant. Her plan was to lure Legendre from his lair while I went inside the house and stole his book of spells. Without the Aegrisomnia he was helpless to combat Jazrel’s magic. It worked almost as planned, except Legendre got wise to what she was up to and doubled back to the house in time to catch me as 1 ran out the back door.

“1 was never so scared in my life, then or now! Legendre’s hair was all dirty and matted, like the Wild Man From Borneo I saw at the circus, and his skin was white as the underbelly of a mushroom. He had long, yellow fingernails, just like animal. That’s how I lost my eye, by the way. I put the pain out of my mind and ran as fast and hard as 1 could. Legendre tried to follow me, but it was too late. Jazrel had sealed her first spell. He collapsed into a deep coma right there on the doorstep. Jazrel dragged him back inside and locked him into his bedroom on the second floor of the house. She spent the next seven days and seven nights working binding spells, weaving a cage of magic around Seraphine as strong as any forged of iron. Her spells would keep Legendre in a form of suspended animation so that he could not work his will through others. But she could only keep him in suspended animation as long as the house remained empty of human life. If anyone else entered the house, Il-Qui-Tente would be free to roam its halls as long as they remained alive and within Seraphine’s walls. Even if he were awake all the time, he would remain relatively helpless, as long as The Aegrisomnia was kept out of his hands. ”

“So what’s the big deal?”

“I haven’t finished telling my story! Now hush your mouth and listen! Like 1 was saying … time passed. I grew up and became a hairdresser. Many of my clients were high-tone Creole women in New Orleans who had need of love potions and get-rich-quick candles. When 1 was sixteen I had me a baby girl named Celine. Her daddy was a dockworker who got his-self crushed loadin’ cotton in one of the barges, not that it matters. I tried to teach my baby just as my mama taught me, but she didn’t want to have nothing to do with the old ways.

“Jazrel died in the 1888 scarlet fever epidemic that swept the city like a broom. Just before she passed, she laid a curse on me. The curse was that I would not die until I had passed on my wisdom to one of my blood. I know what you’re thinking. Why would my own flesh and blood do such a thing? 1 reckon she had her reasons. When Jazrel died, she was holding my hand, and I felt this tingling sensation travel up my arm, like I had grabbed a live electrical wire. After that I became a mambo, tending to folks like my mama had done, and her mama before her.

“In 1890 I made the acquaintance of Samuel LeBoeuf. Mr. LeBoeuf was a very rich old gentleman. He came to me in hopes of curing his impotence. You see, he had caught some grapeshot during the war, and his nature hadn’t worked proper since. He’d spent a fortune on quacks and was finally desperate enough to seek me out. I told him I would heal him only under the condition that he marry me. I might have been what they called ‘a woman of color’ back then, but I weren’t half bad looking in them days, if you can believe it. And seein’ how the old gent was in his seventies and so rich he could do as he damned well pleased without beggin’ pardon, Mr. LeBoeuf married me and I fixed his nature.

“Mr. LeBoeuf was mighty grateful for the service I’d done him, but he drew the line at adoptin’ Celine. While I was light-skinned, Celine was far too dark to pass. However, Mr. LeBoeuf was amenable to buyin’ her a little cottage on Rampart Street and settin’ her up in business as a seamstress, just as long as she didn’t come around the house.

“This didn’t set well with Celine. She was a proud girl, and headstrong at that. I told her that as soon as Mr. LeBoeuf died, I would move her in with me, but she wouldn’t have no part of it. There were words between us, after which she stole Legendre’s spell book from me and ran off with some good-for-nothing trash. Mr. LeBoeuf died in 1895; leaving me one of the richest widows this side of the Rockies. I kept thinkin’ Celine would come back once she heard the news, but she never did. I tried gettin’ myself another young’un to replace Celine, but nothin’ ever came of it.

“I’ve lived longer than a mortal woman has the right. It ain’t that easy pretending to be my own grandchild, but the Good Friday Flood of 1927 ruined most of Orleans Parish’s records, which helped me out some. And once you get past a certain age, people can’t tell one hundred and thirty from seventy-five. Old’s old, far as most folks are concerned.

“Like I said, Legendre’s not dead. Well, perhaps the part of him that was Donatien Legendre is dead, but the part that is Il-Qui-Tente is still very much alive … and in danger of being set free once again.

“The spell-book Celine stole from me was important because it holds the power to break the magic that has kept Il-Qui-Tente a prisoner for so long. There are rituals that involve the use of blood, torture and the desecration of the dead …” The old woman shuddered. “Recently someone used the book to visit the realm in which Il-Qui-Tente is being held captive. Legba, Guardian of the Cross Roads, traced the path back to its source: the man in the leather jacket who left the Gris Gris Club with your girl.”

“Alex Rossiter?”

Aggie nodded. “I tried to contact your friend before Il-Qui-Tente could sink his hooks in, but I ran into difficulties that night, as you recall. I fear Rossiter is already Legendre’s horse-although a better word would be puppet.”

“And what do you want me to do about it?”

“I may have the power of the loa on my side, but my bones are brittle and my muscles weak. I must reclaim the book. It is far too dangerous to have it wandering about loose. It’s sheer luck that Legendre has not been freed already.”

“And I take it you expect me to steal this magic book back for you? There’s only one problem: I don’t know where it is.”

“Since Rossiter is the one who made contact, I assume it must be in his possession.”

“That makes sense, kind of. Alex was always into mystical crap. I can see him getting hold of some weird-ass Lovecraft-like shit and not realizing what was up.”

“Do not judge your friend too harshly. Il-Qui-Tente is adept at identifying and exploiting the weaknesses of others. There’s not a man born who is free of weakness.”

“What about women?”

“We are rotten with it. It is called love.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Where is the book?

“The book?”

The book that lead you to me. The Aegrisomnia. Where is it?

Rossiter moaned and twitched. He hated it when Alex intruded on his sleep. “I borrowed it from someone.”

Who? Who did you borrow it from?

Ti’s face shimmered across Rossiter’s sleeping mind like a heat mirage.

Her? The book belongs to her? Alex’s anger was like a weight on Rossiter’s medulla oblongata. You must retrieve the book. You have to get it back.

“How? She won’t even speak to me!”

I don’t care how you do it! Bring me The Aegrisomnia!

“But…”

Bring me the book! Alex’s face grew huge, dominating the dreamscape like a baleful moon, his eyes steaming like active volcanoes.

“Alex? Alex, wake up, honey! You’re having a bad dream.”

The scream rising in Rossiter’s throat turned into a thick groan. He stared at the slowly cycling blades of the ceiling fan for several seconds before realizing where he was. Charlie leaned over him, peering intently at his face.

“Are you okay? You were talking in your sleep.”

“What was I saying?” he asked, a little too quickly.

“It sounded like you were saying ‘look’ or ‘crook’. Do you remember what you were dreaming about?”

Alex’s face, as huge and implacable as the sun, filled Rossiter’s inner eye. “No. Not a thing.” He staggered into the bathroom, palms pressed to his temples as if trying to keep his head from exploding.

Charlie sighed and looked at the alarm clock next to the bed. The digital display blinked 5:57 A.M. for the sixtieth time and then became 5:58. Another half-hour and she would have to get up and ready her self for another workday.

She wasn’t surprised Rossiter had emotional scarring. Sensitive, artistic types always did. But she had been unprepared for the nightmares. At first she had tried to ignore them, hoping that once Rossiter became used to her the night horrors would diminish. But, if anything, the bad dreams were growing progressively worse.

The fact he was suffering drove her to distraction. She found her thoughts turning to Alex whenever her mind wasn’t occupied with work. She wished he would open up to her so she could help him with whatever it was that was eating him up. It was obvious he wasn’t very good at taking care of himself. He might know a lot about guitars and sound equipment, but Alex was ignorant when it came to the day-today world. She wondered how he had managed to survive for so long without someone to look after him.

Pluto hopped onto the bed, purring loudly and bumping his head against Charlie’s leg. “What’s with you, puss?” she sighed, absently scratching the tabby behind the ears. “You and Alex are the two most important men in my life, you know that? So why can’t ‘all get along? Hell, you liked Simon, and we both know what an utter jerkwad he was.

Pluto answered by plopping onto his back, exposing a fuzzy belly in need of rubbing. As she rubbed Pluto’s undercarriage, Charlie mulled over the events that had lead Alex to her bed and, by extension, her life. The past two and a half weeks had been the most exciting she had ever known. There was something about Rossiter she found fascinating, even when he was being an insensitive, petulant asshole. He was a drug she could not get enough of. When he was with her she was one hundred percent alive. When he was elsewhere, she spent most of her time thinking about being with him. It was starting to interfere with her work. She had fallen in love with numerous men in the past, but with Alex it was different. She wished she could call up Jere and talk about what she was feeling, but she could not bring herself to pick up the phone. The look of hurt on his face when he saw her with Rossiter…

Thinking about Jere made her feel bad, so she stopped.

She put on her kimono and headed for the stairs, Pluto following behind her at a dead trot. She gave the bathroom door a sharp rap as she passed. “Don’t take too long in there, okay? I’ve got to get ready for work soon.” There was a grunt from the other side. Charlie went downstairs, Pluto doing his best to follow her and run ahead into the kitchen at the same time.

Rossiter sat on the toilet and stared at the floor, tracing the patterns made by the interlocking linoleum squares. There was no getting away from it: he was coming unglued.

He had the feeling he wasn’t really in control of himself ever since that night with Ti, when he had tried to … He couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought.

His affair with Charlie was a prime example of things getting out of hand. Sure, she was a looker and decent in bed, but she was way too white and uptight for his tastes. Her compact disc collection consisted of Paul McCartney, Fleetwood Mac, Starship, Phil Collins and Huey Lewis.

Rossiter knew Charlie’s type all too well: if you fucked them twice it meant you were in a committed relationship. She was an emotional basket case; he could tell it by the way she fussed over him.

Every night he lay next to Charlie and promised himself he would leave for good the next morning. But something kept him coming back, no matter how hard he tried to stay away. He would be much better off dumping the bitch and letting Jere Sloan pick up the pieces. After all, they were meant for each other: two neurotic, tight-assed suburban white kids playing at being hip. Still, Rossiter couldn’t figure out why he kept winding up in bed with Charlie. Was it possible he was actually in love with her? He quickly dismissed that thought. Rossiter knew what love felt like. The best he could work up for Charlie was ennui.

You are thinking too much. That is your problem. What does it matter if you make the decision or I do? We are one and the same, are we not?

Rossiter looked up from the linoleum and saw Alex perched on the rim of the old claw-footed tub.

“It makes a difference to me. I’m the one that’s living my life, not you.”

I understand your feelings towards the woman. She is a tedious cow, is she not? But then they all are. They’re nothing but cattle. Complacent, stupid cattle, hungering for the butcher’s blade. This Charlie woman is no different. She senses our power; that is what excites her and makes her wet. She fucks your flesh, but I am the one she lusts for. The same was true of the black bitch.

“That’s not true. Ti had never heard of me before she met me.”

Alex cocked an eyebrow, amused by Rossiter’s display of chivalry. You think she was attracted to you but not me? How is that possible? Are we not one and the same? We are not engaged in a sibling rivalry here.

“You scare me.”

Why should you be scared of yourself? I would never let anything bad happen to you. I love you, just as you love me. Alex rose from the edge of the tub and moved towards Rossiter, arms outstretched. I will prove my love to you. Then you shall prove your love to me.

Alex’s fingers brushed against Rossiter’s naked chest, causing him to become suddenly, painfully erect. Rossiter tried to push Alex away, but it was as if his arms were tied behind his back. He opened his mouth to protest, but a quick, probing tongue slipped between his lips. The smell of vanilla and sweat was strong, and he heard the faint clacking of ceramic beads.

Alex was gone and in his place stood Ti Alice, naked save for the elaborate beadwork decorating her cornrows. She straddled him in one fluid motion, lowering herself onto his erect member. It felt as if his dick was being covered with warm honey. Her fingernails bit onto his shoulders as she pumped herself against him. When his sperm finally jetted, she dissolved like a cloud caught in a high wind. Rossiter blinked in confusion then looked down at his right hand, which was cradling his wilting penis. His fingers were sticky. He got up to wash his hands in the sink, wrinkling his nose in disgust. He was going insane. He was split into two personalities and was now reduced to fucking himself. As he glanced up at the mirror in the medicine cabinet, his mouth went dry. There were fresh scratches on his bare shoulders.

Charlie was surprised to see Alex already dressed when she returned upstairs.

“Leaving already?”

“I’ve got a ton of work today, babe.”

“I was hoping me could go out to dinner … maybe try out that new sushi bar in the Quarter.”

“Another night, maybe? I’m going to be busy tonight.”

Charlie dropped onto the bed and pouted. “I’ve already made reservations.”

“Look, I said I can’t make it tonight.”

“You sure of that?”

“Pretty sure.”

She smiled suggestively, reaching out to caress his thigh. “How about a little quickie before work?”

“No, thanks. I really need to get moving.”

“What’s the matter, Alex? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, babe.” He smiled as he kissed her good-bye.

“Things couldn’t be better.”

Les Damnes

Monarch is night Of all eldest things,

Pain and affright,

Rapturous wings -William Rose Benet, Night

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Rossiter snuck another look at his wristwatch. When was the old fart going to call it a night? It was half-past ten in the evening, but the elderly African-American man who lived next door to Ti showed no sign of getting bored. Rossiter had barely noticed the old man during his previous visits, but now he realized he was as much a fixture of the duplex’s front porch as the drainpipe.

The porch bird wore baggy khaki trousers and moderately soiled t-shirt. A pair of Medicaid-issue glasses drooped off the end of his nose. He also favored the same nondescript brown hat that every black male in New Orleans over the age of fifty seemed to own. He sat on cheap plastic folding lawn chair, a sweating Cobra malt liquor can in one hand, and did nothing except watch the traffic go past his house. Every now and again he would wave at pedestrians walking along the sidewalk and engage in brief conversation.

Rossiter ground his teeth in frustration. Ti got off work on midnight, but he didn’t want to cut it that close. All he wanted was to get in, grab the book, and get out. As it was, he was the only white in the neighborhood; the last thing he needed was to call even more attention to himself. If he had to wait any longer, his common sense would come back.

From his hiding place across the street he scanned the block. He spotted a thin black man dressed in ragged clothes and clutching a portable boom box. The man teetered on the edge of the curb, swaying in time the music. Rossiter suddenly realized there was no sound coming from the stereo. The man started across the street, still bopping along to the phantom beat. His gaze slid across Rossiter but did not seem to register his presence. As the man passed, Rossiter noticed that the back of the boom box, along with its interior mechanism, was missing. He watched the street-person continue his stroll down the street until he was swallowed by the darkness beyond the streetlights.

The old man suddenly stood up, folded his lawn chair, and disappeared inside his house. Rossiter checked his watch: ten-thirty; time for House of Shock. He silently thanked God for local late-night horror movie hosts as he slid the jimmy out from under his leather jacket.

Satisfied he wasn’t being watched, Rossiter hurried across the street, circling behind the duplex. He paused beneath the next-door neighbor’s window: a 1960s horror movie was blaring away in the living room. He continued to the back of the house, careful to avoid knocking into the garbage cans.

During his hard-core junkie days in New York, Rossiter had studied the fine art of forced entry at the feet of one of its undisputed masters. Beto was a slate-eyed Puerto Rican somewhere between the ages of fifteen and two hundred. He had been doing smack since he was twelve, possibly younger. Beto wielded a crowbar the same way Toshiro Mifune handled a samurai sword. While Rossiter was in detox Beto o.d.‘d in a shooting gallery in the South Bronx, celebrating his acquittal on a B&E.

The lock on Ti’s back door groaned like an arthritic grandmother. Rossiter slipped inside, easing the door shut behind him. He took a deep breath, trying to reorient himself to the interior of the darkened house. He was in the kitchen, and just ahead was the narrow hallway that connected it to the bedroom, with the bathroom off to one side. He edged along the hall, wincing every time a board groaned under his weight.

He paused for a moment in the bedroom. The smell of her was everywhere. He reached out to touch the blanket covering her bed.

You don’t have time to think about that. Just find the book.

Rossiter jerked his hand away from the bed as if he’d been burned. As he stepped into the front room, the devotional candles on the shrine suddenly flared, as if fanned by a gust of wind.

The Guardian of the Cross Roads has a path to this place! You must hurry before he knows we are here!

“What do you mean?”

Can’t you see? Can’t you hear? We are in great danger every second we remain here! Hurry!

Rossiter looked at the humble card table with its scented icon candles and ritual bowls of candy and rum. What could Alex be frightened of? As he looked again at the shrine, Rossiter noticed that the smoke rising from the candles had changed color; it was now red and as thick as satin ribbons. As he followed the winding plaits of colored smoke-ribbon upward, he was surprised to see a vast star field in place of the ceiling.

The red ribbons grew broader until they were as wide as two-lane highways. Rossiter could see that the path had many branches that intersected and split off and re-intersected, like the stands of a spider web. From where he stood, it looked as if the stars were snared in a fisherman’s net of red and black thread.

He could hear the sound of drumming in the distance. It was a steady, measured beat, like the approaching footsteps of a giant.

Hurry! He comes!

Rossiter turned his back on the shrine, searching the bookshelf for what he had come for, but the drums were booming in his ears, growing louder with every beat.

He’s almost here! Get the book!

Rossiter grimaced as Alex shrieked in his inner ear like a buzz saw. His hands shook so badly he nearly dropped the pry bar. As he groped along the top shelf, his fingers brushed across the book’s spine. Rossiter lunged for the front door, the Aegrisomnia tucked under his right arm, the jimmy bar in his left hand. Just as he was about to reach for the knob, the door swung open, knocking him off balance.

Ti stood in the doorway and stared at the intruder in her home open-mouthed, her key ring dangling from her hand.

“What th’ fuck are you doin’ here?”

The drums shook the house, rattling Rossiter’s teeth. He saw Ti’s mouth open, but he heard no sound come out. His left arm jerked upward without his willing it. He cried out in horror as the iron pry bar came down upon Ti’s head, causing her to collapse like a paper lantern.

Rossiter wanted to see if she was still alive, but his legs pumped him out through he front door and across the street. He tired to make his legs stop, but they refused to obey him. He could hear somebody-probably the old porch-bird from next door-shouting curses after him. There was a sound like a truck backfiring and something that buzzed like an angry bee passed by his right ear. Unwilling to risk a glance over his shoulder, Rossiter continued running, the stolen book hot against his skin.

It was midnight by the time he got home. He half-expected a cop car to be parked in front of his place, but the street was deserted. His shirt was plastered to his back and his heart thumped like a drum pedal. He was glad the glare from the city’s lights obscured the night sky over head. He didn’t think he could stand looking up at the stars after what he had seen earlier.

He tossed the book onto the bed and hurried into the bathroom.

His head was throbbing and his guts felt like an oil tanker had run aground on his pancreas. He kept seeing Ti go down, over and over again, the moment captured in a memory loop that never lost its ability to shock him. He started to cough violently and suddenly vomited into the tub. He was sure he had killed her. Another sharp spasm grabbed his guts.

All this misery over a nigger whore. You really are pathetic, Rossiter.

Alex was seated on the toilet, his boyishly handsome face twisted by an ugly grin.

It’s no more than she deserved.

“Shut up!”

Why ? Could it be you prefer nigger cunt?

“Don’t call her that!” Rossiter wiped his mouth on the back of the back of his hand. “Its racist.”

Alex’s smirk widened into a smile nasty enough to make Rossiter cringe. I’d say you kill my soul, if it wasn’t redundant.

The tension between the two was broken by the sound of the door buzzer. Rossiter’s eyes widened. “Jesus, it’s the cops.”

I don’t care who it is. Get rid of them.

Rossiter could tell by the gleam in Alex’s scarlet eyes that he wasn’t in the mood to be argued with. Trying to keep his hands from shaking, Rossiter opened the door of his apartment, expecting to see a member of the NOPD on the other side. Instead, there was a man of medium build with brown hair, dressed in jeans and a tank top that read ‘She’s With the Best’. A handful of gold chains mingled with his very visible chest hair.

“You Alex Rossiter?” the stranger asked, exhaling a cloud of Captain Morgan’s in his face.

“Yeah, I’m Rossiter.”

The stranger shoved the door open, sending Rossiter staggering backwards. “I wanna talk t’you, asshole,” he slurred. “I wanna know what th’ fuck you been doin’ with Charlie.”

“Who the fuck are you? Get outta here!”

“You’re not foolin’ me, cocksucker. You know me awright. I’m Tony Scramuzza. I know that bitch has been tellin’ you all about me.

I want you to clear off, unnerstand? I want you to leave Charlie ‘lone. You git that, asshole?”

Rossiter’s laugh was short and sharp. “You want the bitch? You can have her, dude!”

Tony did not seem to hear him and continued his drunken spiel. “You know what that bitch did? She called th’ bank and put a stop payment on the check! Fuckin’ bitch! Can’t trust a bitch worth shit. Now the collection agency is comin’ after my ride! They’re gonna take my Trans Am!” Tony’s face crumpled as he thought of his beloved muscle car being repossessed. “And it’s all your fault, muthafucker.”

Tony’s swing was wild, but it still managed to connect. Rossiter landed on his ass on the floor beside the hide-a-bed. He could taste the blood rising in mouth.

“C’mon, pansy ass! C’mon and take it like a man! What the fuck makes Charlie think you’re so fuckin’ hot, huh? You look like a fuckin’ queer to me.”

The sound the jimmy bar made as it connected with Tony’s shoulder was like that of a bundle of twigs being snapped over a man’s knee. Tony’s eyes cleared as he fell to the floor, the pain sobering him up instantly.

“You hit me!” Was all he could think to say as he clutched his fractured collarbone.

The bar came down again, this time shattering his jaw. Tony tied to scream, but all that came out was a gurgling sound. He lifted his good arm to try and shield himself from yet another blow, but only succeeded in getting that one broken as well. The fourth hit cracked his skull open like a ripe cantaloupe. Rossiter dropped the iron bar after the fifth and final blow sent Tony’s right eye flying from its socket.

He stood over the bloodied body of his erstwhile attacker, his chest rising and falling as if he’d just finished climbing a mountain. This was definitely shaping up to be a bad night.

Tony looked like a broken scarecrow, with jagged bones jutting out here and there and brains protruding through the inch-wide crack in his cranium. Tony’s left eye was shut, the right staring sightlessly at his upper lip. To Rossiter’s amazement, Tony was still breathing.

Rossiter collapsed onto the sofa bed and stared glumly at the bleeding mess before him. No two ways about it: he was fucked. Even if Ti survived the attack on her, there was no way the cops would believe Tony Scramuzza deserved the beating he provoked. He was looking at fifteen to life. They’d ship him down to Angola, where the new fish had their teeth knocked out so they could give better head. Or so he was told.

Rossiter’s left arm, from shoulder blade to finger tips, went rigid, the muscles contracting painfully. Panic mixed with pain made his brow break out in an ice-cold sweat. Was he having a heart attack? Rossiter was jerked to his feet by an invisible hand. He cried out as the cramping in his arm worsened, tears springing from his eyes. Rossiter watched in amazement as his left hand clawed at the jumble of pencils kept in the coffee cup next to the answering machine. The first pencil snapped in his grasp, but he did not feel the splinters of wood and graphite embedded in his palm. The second pencil fared better, and he watched his left hand as it made wild, childish scrawls on the white plaster wall before him. After a few minutes his left arm went slack and fell to his side, the pencil dropping from twitching fingers. It felt as if his arm had been nearly wrenched from its socket.

At first the scrawls and squiggles didn’t look like anything at all. Then, with a start, he realized he was staring at a map. Rossiter glanced down at Tony, whose breathing was growing increasingly liquid.

I know a place where no one will ever find the body, Alex purred, his disembodied voice as cool and soothing as water from a well. Trust me. What have you got to lose?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

It had been months since Rossiter last traveled outside the city proper. As he streaked along the Old Belle Chasse Highway in the Trans Am, Tony bundled into the trunk like a pile of dirty laundry, it was clear he had not missed much. Once Daltour was behind him, there was nothing to see but swamps, oilrigs, mosquitoes and gators.

He pawed through Tony’s collection of audio cassettes, hoping to find something to drown out the dying man’s gurgles echoing inside his head, but all that were available were Bon Jovi and REO Speedwagon tapes. Rossiter powered down the driver-side window and consigned Tony Scramuzza’s rolling music collection to the roadside. He glanced into the rearview to make sure he wasn’t being followed, but the blacktop behind him remained dark. He punched the buttons on the radio, trying to find something to listen to and managed to pull Roy Music’s “Love Is The Drug” out of thin air. He nodded in time to the music, glad to have something to divert his attention from the thing in the trunk.

Everything is different, yet still the same.

Alex sat in the passenger seat, peering out the window at the passing scenery. From the side he looked like Peter Pan; not the cleaned-up Disneyfied version, but the feral, fox-faced man-child of the original illustrations.

“What do you mean by that?”

Alex seemed perturbed that Rossiter had overheard his musings.

I don’t mean anything. We’re getting close. Slow down, or you’ll miss the turn-off.

Rossiter obeyed, allowing the Trans Am to go into a coast. The high beams illuminated a green metal sign with reflective white lettering: You Are Now Entering Redeemer Parish. A smaller sign appended to the parish limits read: Redemption 2 Miles.

Turn here!

Rossiter pulled off the blacktop onto an unpaved access road that was all but invisible from the highway. He swore under his breath as the low-slung vehicle jounced its way along a cow path, rattling his teeth felt like dice in a cup. The headlamps illuminated trees dripping Spanish moss and wrapped in creepers.

Stop!

Rossiter put on the brakes and killed the engine, peering out at the darkness. “Where are we?”

Seraphine.

At first all Rossiter could see was a large dark shape clumped against darker shapes, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the moonlight, he saw where white plaster had fallen off the huge, squared pillars fronting the house, exposing the crumbling, naked brick underneath. There were wild rosebushes and other thorny natural barriers everywhere, and the aroma of roses and ripe blackberries was overpowering in the warm night air.

I will meet you inside. Bring the meat with you.

Alex winked out of existence like a picture on a television tube, leaving Rossiter alone. Well, alone save for Tony, who was still in the trunk. Muttering curses under his breath, Rossiter climbed out of the car. He swatted ineffectually at the mosquitoes as they eagerly battened onto his exposed flesh. Even in the middle of the night the humidity was staggering; it was like he had walked into the world’s largest open-air steam bath. Within seconds sweat was trickling down his back and dripping off the end of his nose.

The first thing he noticed when he popped open the trunk was that Tony was still breathing. Rossiter was amazed Scramuzza had hung on for so long, considering there was a good-sized piece of gray matter sticking out of the top of his head. Then again, Rossiter suspected Tony was used to functioning without much in the way of a brain. He stood there for a long second, staring at Tony’s rib cage rise and fall as he struggled for breath. He could still drop the poor bastard off at an emergency room and peel off before anyone had time to ask him what was up. If Tony survived, there was a good chance he wouldn’t know how to talk, much less tell the authorities the name of his attacker. But just as these thoughts crossed Rossiter’s mind, Scramuzza made a sound that was half gurgle/half rattle and stopped breathing, and voided the contents of his bladder and bowels in the trunk of the car. So much for the emergency room scenario.

Rossiter sighed and pulled the dead body free of the compartment, shouldering its slack weight across his back in a fireman’s carry. Although the idea of brains dripping onto his clothes was enough to make Rossiter cringe, he hoped the mosquitoes would prefer an unresisting donor and leave him alone.

He trudged up the wide front steps of the rotting mansion, swearing viciously each time the legs of his jeans were entangled by the briars that crowded the approach. As he reached the door of the mansion, something crunched under his boot heel. Glancing down, Rossiter saw six cat skulls arranged in a circle under his feet, the stub of a black candle set in its center. He recognized the arrangement as a means of warding off evil. He scanned the surrounding undergrowth and spotted other tableaux involving cat and rat skulls arranged in geometric patterns. The most ominous of the totems was a bleached goat skull affixed to a stake; its curved horns wrapped in strips of painted leather and faded ribbon, its forehead daubed with what looked like dried blood.

Rossiter looked to Seraphine’s shuttered windows, them to the sky spread like a dark canopy over its sagging roof. He remembered the sight of stars trapped within a web of red and black thread and shivered. When he looked back at the house, he saw shimmering bars of light that resembled a cage.

Rossiter did not want to go into the house. He wanted to be back in New Orleans, safe in bed with Ti, or even Charlie, for that matter. He wanted to be anywhere else in the world but in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night with a dead man slung across his back like a side of butchered beef. But despite all the things he wanted, he knew there was no other choice but to enter the rotting remains of Seraphine.

The front door was twice the size of any he had ever seen, and with beveled glass panes set into its face, each one fogged with generations of grime. The ornate brass doorknob and matching knocker were covered in verdigris. Rossiter realized that what he had at first mistaken for a withered Christmas wreath affixed to the door was yet another gris-gris, this one made of empty snakeskins.

The hinges screamed and the door stuck halfway when he tried to open it, forcing him to place his grisly burden on the ground in order to push with all his might. After a minute or so of shoving against the warped door he was able to force it open enough to drag the corpse through by its ankles.

Once inside the building, Rossiter let Tony’s legs drop and turned to look around.

He was standing in a huge, barren front hall dominated by a wide, sweeping staircase that connected the downstairs with the upper stories. To the left was a massive pair of oaken doors, to the right a smaller door that opened onto what looked like a sitting room or parlor. Faded, yellowed wallpaper hung in moldering strips, exposing the rotting lathe and plaster underneath. Everything smelled of mildew and decay. Rossiter could feel dust motes settling on his damp skin, making the corners of his eyes and his sinuses itch.

“Upstairs.”

Rossiter jumped at the sound of Alex’s voice behind him. He turned around and saw something move amongst the shadows at the top of the stairs.

“Alex?”

“Bring the meat up here.”

Alex’s voice had lost its youthful insolence and sounded as brittle and papery as that of an old man. The skin on Rossiter’s arms and scalp tightened as if in response to a chill. He didn’t want to think about why Alex’s voice had changed so drastically. He didn’t want to think about anything.

Rossiter grabbed Tony’s feet and began backing up the stairs, Tony’s ruined head thumping wetly against the risers. Rossiter kept as close to the wall as he could, not trusting the rotten banister. As he paused to catch his breath at the landing, he realized that he had actually heard Alex’s words with his ears, not his mind.

The doppelganger silently beckoned Rossiter toward an open door at the end of the second floor hall, its eyes glowing like banked flames. Rossiter’s shoulders were aching from hauling one hundred and seventy-five pounds of dead weight up a flight of stairs, and his eyes stung from the sweat dripping off his brow. He was tired and uncomfortable and frightened, but he knew there was no turning back. Not now. Not ever. The door slammed shut behind him as he cleared the threshold.

Rossiter’s eyes jerked back and forth, desperately trying to find a way out of the room, but there was none. Rossiter recognized it as the study from his dreams, although greatly changed; its once grand appointments in an advanced state of decay. Near the fireplace and its moldering portrait of Narcisse Legendre stood a four-poster bed, its velvet canopy gray with dust.

There was a sudden cough, like that of a lion in the bush, and a fire leapt into existence in the cold grate. Rossiter started violently and let go of Tony’s legs. The bed curtains twitched, as if someone on the other side had moved them. “Alex?” “I am and yet 1 am not the creation you know as ‘Alex’,” replied the thing in the bed as it pushed aside the heavy curtains. “1 am He-Who-Tempts. But you may call me Il-Qui-Tente.”

The creature called He-Who-Tempts was as far removed from Rossiter’s handsome young doppelganger as a saber tooth tiger from a housecat. His skin was the color of aged ivory and as hard and parched as that of an unwrapped mummy in a museum. Part of the skin on his face had split and peeled away, revealing naked bone. Long white hair as fine as spider silk covered his shoulders and fell well past his waist. His hands were skeletal, with long, sharp fingernails, like those of an ancient Mandarin, and he wore the moldering tatters of a loose-fitting silk shirt, trousers and high-button shoes. His red eyes shone in the dim light like twin glasses of wine held before a fire, and his nose was shriveled and upturned, like that of a bat.

Rossiter felt his lungs falter and his head fill with static. It was hard to think in the creature’s presence. He tried to scream when saw the thing in the corner, but his mouth would not open.

“I can tell by the look in your eyes I must not look my best,” Il-Qui-Tente sighed, brushing a mummified cheek with a fingernail long enough to eviscerate a man. “Not to worry: that can be easily remedied. You have been very kind in providing me with the means to start my rejuvenation.”

Il-Qui-Tente knelt besides the corpse of Tony Scramuzza, his skeletal fingers probing its wounds. “Excellent! The freshly dead are the best to work with.” Il-Qui-Tente grinned up at Rossiter, revealing yellowed teeth filed to points. “Bring me the chest that sits at the foot of the bed.”

Rossiter nodded dumbly and did as he was told. He found a wooden box the size and shape of an old sea chest, its lid carved with obscene images that seemed to crawl in the flickering light from the fireplace. He set the chest beside Il-Qui-Tente, who made a pass over the lid with one hand while muttering under his breath. Rossiter gasped as the top of the chest opened of its own accord. Il-Qui-Tente reached in and removed a knife with an ornately decorated golden handle and a blade fashioned of volcanic glass.

Rossiter watched in horrified silence as Il-Qui-Tente sliced away the piece of exposed brain poking through the top of Tony Scramuzza’s cracked skull and popped it into his mouth. The demon wizard’s ruby eyes rolled back in their sockets, exposing whites the color of piss.

“Ah! After so many years of privation-this is absolute ambrosia!” Il-Qui-Tente brought the weighted hilt down on Tony’s skull, cracking it open like a coconut. Il-Qui-Tente greedily devoured the deceased furniture salesman’s medulla oblongata like a handful of choice brie, growling like a hungry dog. Rossiter stared, unable to look away, as Il-Qui-Tente feasted on the dead man’s brain, the taste of bitter almonds clogging the back of his throat.

When Il-Qui-Tente was finished, his skin no longer resembled that of dried leather. The effect was not unlike partially rehydrating a prune. Il-Qui-Tente’s flesh was still an unhealthy shade of off-white, and countless lines webbed the corners of his eyes and mouth, but his cheekbones were now covered in new flesh and his long, flowing mane was gunmetal gray.

Having finished his meal, Il-Qui-Tente stood up and turned to face Rossiter. The musician blanched and quickly looked away, afraid to meet the other’s gaze.

“Did you bring the book?”

Rossiter nodded, withdrawing the Aegrisomnia from inside his leather jacket. Il-Qui-Tente snatched the volume from him, his face splitting into a sharp-toothed mockery of delight. He ran his hands over the binding like it was the skin of a long-lost lover. “You have served me well, Alex Rossiter. I am pleased.”

“What-what about the things you promised me?” he asked “In order to claim the prize I have promised you, Alex Rossiter, you must obey me as you would a god. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding eagerly.

“So be it. Your reward shall be a new life: one free from the ravages of age, sickness, sorrow and care. Nothing you desire shall be denied you. Does that appeal to you?”

Rossiter liked that idea. Liked it a lot. He grinned and nodded.

“Very good. However, I must consecrate your heart to my service first.”

As much as Rossiter liked the idea of immortality and power, he wished He-Who-Tempts didn’t have to stand so close and look so hungry …

CHAPTER TWENTY

Charlie squinted at the front of the building then checked its numbers with those on the address scrawled on the piece of paper. When Alex told her that his band rehearsed in a converted loft near the riverfront, she assumed he meant one of the nicely refurbished warehouses in the Artists’ District. Instead, it was located along one of the seedier stretches of Tchopitoulas Street, which, in itself, was saying something.

Massive delivery trucks endlessly trundled up and down the wide avenue during the day and street people wandered it at night. A combination lunch counter and bar called Maxie’s Stagger Inn, which catered to the blue-collar workers that populated the area, took most of the ground floor. Charlie seriously doubted Maxie’s had any ferns hanging from macramé plant hangers inside.

The door to the bar opened and a tall, thin black man with his hair in dreadlocks exited. Charlie recognized him as the drummer in Alex’s band. Before she could call out, the drummer walked around the side of the building and climbed a set of exposed wooden stairs that lead to the uppermost floor of the old warehouse and entered a side door. Charlie hurried up after him, pausing only long enough to wipe away the sweat beading on her upper lip before knocking. When she did not get a response, she opened the door away.

Charlie stepped into a long hallway lined with a number of nondescript doors, each with an index card tacked onto them at eye-level. She recognized the names printed on the cards as being those of local bands, such as The Hitmen and the Blooz Blowers. The last door on the left read ‘Pigfoot’. She opened it without knocking.

The rehearsal space was a large, high-ceilinged room with walls covered by discarded foam rubber and mismatched carpet remnants blanketing the floor. An air-conditioner, far too small for the volume of the room it was trying to cool, rattled in a nearby window. Three men, two black and one white, sat facing one another on folding chairs stenciled Property Of Reliable Funeral Home. One of the black men, his eyes hidden behind darkly tinted sunglasses, fretted an unamplified bass, while the white man balanced a Casio keyboard in his lap. The drummer sat between them, sticks dangling from one hand, apparently lost in thought.

The bassist halted, tilting his head in such a manner that Charlie realized he was blind. “Seems we got ourselves some company. That you, Rossiter?”

The keyboardist looked up at her upon hearing his friend speak. “Not hardly.”

Charlie smiled tightly and stepped forward. “Hi, my name’s Charlotte Calder. I hate to interrupt, but I’m looking for Alex …”

“If you’re looking for Rossiter, you’ve come to the wrong place,” the blind man said, resting his arms on the neck of his guitar.

“He’s not here?”

The blind man swiveled his head as if scanning the room. “I don’t see him. How bout you, Hoo-Yah?”

“Don’t be messin’ with the lady, Teebo,” the keyboardist chided. “Fact of the matter is, ma’am, we been lookin’ for him, too. We got a gig comin’ up in a few days over at Tipitina’s. We’re to open for the Neville Brothers. It’s a big break, no?”

“It’s been two days since we last heard from him. It’s like the bastard just up and vanished into thin air.” The drummer said testily, waving his hands like a stage magician.

“Oh. I see. Sorry I interrupted.”

“If he shows up, I’ll be more than happy to tell him you’ve been askin’ for him,” Hoo-Yah said gallantly.

Charlie smiled at Hoo-Yah and nodded uncertainly at Teebo and the drummer. It bothered her that none of them seemed to know who she was or recognize her name. “Thanks. I appreciate it. And good luck with your show at Tip’s.”

“You’re more than welcome. Here, let me walk you out.” Hoo-Yah said, rising from his chair. “Sorry we couldn’t be of much help.”

“Maybe you can … Do you know anyone named Seraphine?”

“Seraphine?” Hoo-Yah frowned. “I know a Seraphine … but it ain’t a person, it’s a place.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Serpahine’s this old deserted plantation near my grandpa’s farm. It is une maison visitee par des revenants.”

“A what?”

“Haunted house,” Hoo-Yah explained.

“Oh. Well, I doubt it’s the same Seraphine, then. Thanks, anyway.”

Teebo chuckled once the door closed securely behind Charlie. “‘Let me walk you to the door’. She must be pretty, the way you was carryin’ on. Sounded like you had a honeycomb stuck in your mouth!”

“Pretty? Mon ami, you don’t know the half of it!” Hoo-Yah shook his head in disgust. “How is it a prick like Rossiter gets a woman like that?”

“Yeah, you right on that,” Arsine sighed. “But what was that trash you was handin’ her about that place bein’ haunted an’ shit?”

“It’s God’s honest truth! Me, I only saw the place once. 1 went with my cousins when 1 was eight or so. It sure as hell looked like it had ghosts in it. Paw-Paw, when he found out we snuck out to Seraphine, he got mad as a gator on a hook! He switched us good and tole us to never go there again! He said ‘even if there weren’t no ghosts in Seraphine, that place, it is full of snakes’.”

Since the rehearsal space turned out to be a bust, Charlie decided to double back to Alex’s place and leave a note on his door, just in case. She parked her car at the curb and walked around the side of the house to Rossiter’s apartment in the back. She reached into her purse to find a pen to write with. She halted when she saw a woman walking towards her from the direction of Alex’s door. The other woman was a tall African-American built like a dancer and dressed in a pair of tight-fitting knock-off jeans and a baby doll t-shirt that said ‘Ask Me About My Uzi’. Her hair was worked into elaborate cornrows, and she had a large white bandage taped to her forehead.

The other woman stopped when she saw Charlie, looking her up and down for a second before speaking. “You tryin’ to find Rossiter?”

Charlie nodded dumbly.

The black woman cast a withering scowl over her shoulder in the direction of Alex’s apartment. “Bastard’s not home. Leastwise he ain’t answerin’ the door, if he is.” She turned her attention back to Charlie. “What’s he to you?”

“He’s my boyfriend,” Charlie replied, squaring her shoulders.

“If you’re smart, girl, you’ll drop the sucker cold. He ain’t nothin’ but trouble.”

“Who are you to talk about Alex that way?” Charlie asked, her voice dripping icicles.

The other woman laughed without humor. “Look, just tell him I didn’t call the law on him. I could have, but I didn’t, see?” She pointed at the bandage on her brow. “But if he don’t give me back what’s rightfully mine, I’m gonna come lookin’ for him, an’ I don’t need no mojo bag to put him in a world of hurt.” The other woman reached into her purse and pulled out a Derringer. It looked more like a trick cigarette lighter than a gun.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Charlie replied frostily.

“I’m sure you don’t, either, sister,” she sighed, returning her gun to her handbag.

Ti headed toward the bus stop, her anger evident in the clipped measure of her stride. It was probably a good thing Rossiter hadn’t been home, since she would have put a hole in him if he had been. At the very least she’d have shot off his pecker. Her head began to throb again, forcing her to slacken her pace.

The attending physician at Charity’s emergency ward said she was lucky to have escaped with only a concussion. As it was, she’d been forced to spend two full days under observation. She left the hospital earlier that day, despite the doctor’s concerns. If she had stayed another day she would have lost her mind. It was as if the all color had been sucked out of the world the moment they wheeled her into Charity’s mammoth concrete warren. Even the sunlight that oozed its way through the hospital’s windows was gray.

The sidewalk tilted suddenly under her feet and her brains felt like they were wriggling out of her ears. Her eyelids fluttered like moths preparing for flight. She lifted a hand to her temple, as if that would somehow steady the world around her.

“You okay, darlin’?”

A thin but surprisingly firm hand gripped Ti’s elbow. She looked down and found herself staring into the face of a very old woman who was missing most of her teeth and all of one eye. Although Ti had never met the old woman before, there was something familiar about her.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere, auntie?” she asked the old woman.

“It’s possible. I’ve lived in this city all my life,” the crone replied as she steered Ti to the bench under the bus stop shelter. “Gracious, that’s a nasty-lookin’ bump. Here, darlin’, you best sit down before you fall down.”

Ti felt her mind start to clear again. She glanced at the elderly woman seated beside her, and this time recognition blossomed. “You’re the old lady who sells charms in the Quarter … the one called Mad Aggie.”

“I recognized you, too, my dear,” Aggie said, patting Ti’s smooth hand with her wrinkled one. “But not from this life.”

Ti adjusted her bandage, eyeing the old woman cautiously. “What do you mean by that?”

“Do you still have the book? The Aegrisomnia?”

Ti’s spine went as straight and cold as a frozen flagpole. “How do you know about that?”

The old woman smiled sadly. “Just guessin’, really. 1 knew the book had to be floatin’ around this city somewhere, or else Rossiter would never have gotten involved in this mess.”

“What do you know about me an’ Alex? You been spyin’ on me, old lady?”

“No on you, anyways. I was keepin’ tabs on the white gal. But when I saw you, I knew how it all fit together. You are the missin’ piece of a very old puzzle.”

“I don’t know who t’ fuck you are or how you knew about Great-Granny’s spell book, but I don’t want no part of the kinda trash you’re talkin’.” Ti tried to get to her feet and walk away from the crazy bag lady, but the world began swimming again and she dropped back down onto the bench.

The old woman grabbed Ti’s hand and held it tightly in her wrinkled, bony one. “Please, child, don’t be afraid! 1 gave up hope of ever findin’ one of Celine’s young’uns years ago. An’ now, seein’ you today, it was enough to break this old heart of mine in two.”

Ti stared into the old woman’s seamed face. “Celine? That was Great-Granny’s name. My mama was named after her. She was still alive when I was a little girl. She was real, real old and used to say she was born a slave. She died when I was four years old.”

The old woman’s smile trembled and Ti could see tears glistening in the wrinkles furrowing her face. “We have much to talk about, my child.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Rossiter opened his eyes and stared at the sagging, crumbling ceiling above his head for a long moment, trying to place what, exactly, it was that was different about himself. Although he could not exactly place his finger on it, there was no denying he had changed. He did not feel bad, per se. In fact, he felt pretty damned good, even though his mouth tasted strongly of blood. It was as if all the worries and anxieties that had weighed him down over the years had suddenly vanished.

“It is about time you awakened.” Il-Qui-Tente stood over Rossiter, gazing down at him with eyes the color of dying suns. He held the Aegrisomnia the way a Pentecostal preacher clutches the Bible to his chest. “Rise, my servant.”

Rossiter did as he was told. “What did you do to me?” he rasped.

“I merely consecrated you to my service. You now stand beyond the reach of time, disease and death-provided you are careful.”

“Yes, milord,” Rossiter whispered, his voice rusty in this throat.

“You did well to bring me the Aegrisomnia, 1 am well pleased. But I am still not free of the cage the whore Jazrel built for me. A final ritual must be observed before I can freely walk this brave new world of yours. You are to bring to me the woman called Charlotte Calder, known to you as Charlie.”

“Why her?”

“Because, my dear Rossiter,” Il-Qui-Tente said, his smile as cold and thin as rotten ice. “She was once my wife.”

As Rossiter exited the rotting bulk of the abandoned mansion, it suddenly occurred to him what it was that was different: that part of him that feared and doubted and hesitated, the part of him that had known concern for others, the part of him that was called, for lack of a better word, his soul, was no longer there. The realization made Rossiter stop in his tracks and shake him head in amazement. To think his soul was the source of all the misery he had felt over the decades! If he knew he would feel this good, he would have gotten rid of the damned thing years ago.

As if to compensate for the loss of his soul, his other senses had become extremely acute. Everything he saw or heard was far more intense, as if wired on primo speed. When Rossiter looked at the sky, he saw the aura of the stars and heard their shadowy voices singing in negative mass chorales. Trees and shrubbery flickered with emerald fire and animals registered as hot balls of energy. He was overwhelmed by the ecstasy of it all, moved almost to the point of tears, but his eyes refused to grow wet.

As Rossiter drove the Trans Am back to the highway, his newfound strength and vitality was such that he felt as if he could turn the steering wheel into a pretzel. A few miles from the city he abandoned the car on a back road and used one of the flares from the emergency road kit to set fire to the tires. The burning rubber smelled like souls roasting in hell.

He walked along the shoulder of the road until he came to a honky tonk bar that catered to the weekend sportsmen that fished the nearby lakes and bayous for tarpon and wide-mouth bass. There was a middle-aged woman at the bar drinking shots. Her name was Naomi and she was forty-three years old, divorced, and worked at the Schwegmann’s Grocery in Gretna. Rossiter introduced himself and asked if he could join her.

Rossiter was attentive and polite, and after a couple of drinks he found himself in Naomi’s car, headed back to the city. He smiled and nodded as she rattled on about her ex and her kids, all the while wondering when would be an opportune time to dispose of her and commandeer the vehicle. He closed his eyes for a moment to marshal his thoughts, and his mind flashed to the ritual of consecration 11-Qui-Tente had performed. Rossiter saw Il-Qui-Tente cracking open Tony Scramuzza’s chest as if the ribs were made of celery sticks and scooping out the dead man’s lifeless heart.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Rossiter twitched as if shaken from a waking dream. “I’m fine,” he said, flatly.

He looked out the window and saw they were in the seedy suburban sprawl known as New Orleans East, a place of strip shopping centers and mushroom-like clapboard apartment complexes separated from the true city of New Orleans by the Industrial Canal.

“Are you sure? You got real quiet and real pale all of a sudden.”

Rossiter turned to tell Naomi to mind her own damn business, but the words died in his mouth. What had been, moments before, an unremarkable woman was now a figure of living glass. Rossiter stared, transfixed, at the great, gray pearl of Naomi’s brain, suspended atop her spinal column in a cage of semi-transparent bone. A mixture of physical hunger and sexual lust flooded Rossiter’s penis with blood and his mouth with saliva.

“Pull over.”

She turned to look at him, lidless eyes floating in a translucent face. “Do you need to get sick?”

“Just pull over.”

Naomi located a suitably empty parking lot and cut the engine. She turned towards him, a flicker of confusion readable in her eyes. “What’s the matter? You don’t need to throw up, do you?” she asked. Her gaze dropped to Rossiter’s lap and bafflement gave way to playful lust. “Oh, I see!” she giggled, misreading his erection. “Couldn’t wait, huh?”

Rossiter merely nodded, leery of speaking aloud for fear the sight of drool dripping from his lips might alert his prey to the danger she was in.

Il-Qui-Tente was right: humans were nothing but mindless, cud-chewing cattle. Rossiter had suspected as much when the public refused to accept Blood Moon Rising for the work of brilliance that it was and preceded to punish him by excluding him from their adoration. But now things had changed. Oh, how they had changed.

Rossiter grabbed Naomi’s breasts, tearing at her blouse like it was tissue paper. Naomi wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close for a kiss, but as her lips brushed his, she froze, her body stiffening in alarm.

“You feel like ice” she said. “What’s wrong with you?” She tried to pull away from his embrace, but Rossiter’s grip was unbreakable. “Let go of me, damn you!” Naomi tried to struggle free, striking Rossiter in the face with a balled-up fist. It was like punching a frozen side of beef.

Rossiter stared in rapt fascination at Naomi’s brain as it sloshed about inside its container. He could see electrical fire running across its folds and contours as fear erupted inside her cerebral cortex. His stomach growled like a cornered animal. The head of his penis was rasping against the teeth of the fly in his jeans, causing his hips to jerk in instinctive response. The urge to have her, possess her, taste her on his tongue was overpowering. There was no denying his need, no other means of satisfying his lust. Rossiter grabbed a handful of Naomi’s hair and brought her head down against the steering wheel with enough force to shatter her skull.

Naomi felt instantly silent, her protests stilled. Her body went limp, sliding sideways so that her upper torso fell into Rossiter’s lap. It was shocking how poorly humans were put together. Rossiter twisted Naomi’s head so that her sightless eyes stared behind her. The idea that he had once been one of their number was enough to make him shudder.

Seraphine…

She shivered and pulled her kimono tightly across her shoulders.

Seraphine…

Alex muttering that word in his sleep had awakened her more than once. At first she had thought it a woman’s name, but now she wasn’t sure. There was something vaguely familiar about it, as if she had heard it somewhere before, a long, long time ago. She could not shake the feeling that this Seraphine, whoever or whatever it was, was sinister in nature.

Charlie sat in her grandmother’s bentwood rocker and sipped gin-and-tonics, staring at the colorful Mardi Gras posters adorning her walls without seeing them. The bitter taste of the quinine and the smell of junipers suited her mood. Pluto lay curled in her lap, nose tucked between his paws.

“Men! All they are is heartbreak and misery. Except for you, Pluto.”

Pluto opened one eye, revealing an unfocused pupil cloaked by a translucent inner eyelid. When he realized his mistress wasn’t talking about food, he returned to his doze.

“Why does it have to be shitbirds, huh? Why can’t 1 fall for some nice, solid, reliable guy? Why do 1 always end up with sleaze-balls who expect me to pay their bills? What is it with me? When Pluto made no attempt to answer, she sighed. “I’m really starting to lose it, here I am discussing my taste in men with something that licks its own butt.”

She knew Alex was bad news from the moment they met. Although he was exciting, exotic and vital, he was also self-destructive and insensitive. She knew getting involved with him would be the emotional equivalent of sticking her hand in a Cuisinart, but had gone ahead and done it anyway.

She hated feeling out of control; even though it was inevitable she would find herself so. Every relationship since junior high had been composed of total surrender to sexual ecstasy followed by disappointment and betrayal. That was how Charlie expected love to be. She was lucky if the relationship was a month old before the first anxiety attack hit.

She was afraid Alex was growing bored with her already. She knew it was her fault; she wasn’t attentive enough, submissive enough, or sexy enough. She wasn’t doing a good job looking after him. Still, she was angry that he would disappear without calling her for two solid days to let her know he was okay, seeing how much time and emotional energy she had spent worrying about him. She was worse than useless at work.

Still, the knowledge that he was avoiding his male friends proved that she wasn’t the cause behind his disappearance. But those lines of thought lead her to other concerns. What if he was lying dead in a ditch somewhere? What if he was in the hospital, about to go under the knife? She would never forgive herself for being mad at him if something horrible had happened to Alex.

Charlie wished she could talk to Jere about what she was feeling. While Alex was around to occupy her thoughts, she hadn’t missed Jere that much. But now she mourned the loss of his friendship as keenly as the death of a child or a beloved pet. A few days ago she had even gone as far as calling him up. But when she heard Jere’s voice say hello, her shame and embarrassment had been so total her vocals chords refused to respond and she quickly hung up without saying a word.

Charlie was startled enough by the sound of the phone ringing to jump in her seat. She snatched the receiver up from its cradle.

“Hello, Charlie?”

It took her a second to recognize the voice as Jere’s. He sounded as embarrassed and confused as she did.

“Jere? My God! 1 was just thinking about you!”

“Look, I’m sorry 1 haven’t called recently.”

“No, I’m the one who should apologize.” She was surprised at how easily the words came out of her mouth. “The way I did you that night was inexcusable. I hope you can find it in you to forgive me.”

“Yeah, well, what’s to forgive? It’s not like we, you know, we’re going together or anything.”

“I’ve missed you, Jere.”

“I’ve missed you, too.”

“Really?” she smiled, even though there was no one there to see it.

“Are you going anywhere tonight?”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Is it okay if I came over? I’ve got some stuff I need to tell you. It’s pretty important. Rossiter isn’t over there, is he?”

“No, he’s not. In fact, I haven’t seen him in days. No one has. ”

“Shit. Look, just stay put until I get there, okay?”

“Jere, what’s going on?”

“If you’re lucky you won’t believe me when I tell you.”

Rossiter read the note pinned to his door. It was from Charlie, begging him to come over to her place when he got back. He chuckled and crumpled it into a ball. Home again, home again, jiggety-jig!

He glanced around his apartment with his new eyes. The only thing different from the night he killed Tony was that something in the kitchen had gone over during his absence. Strange how the odor of rot was now as fragrant as a night-blooming jasmine. He spotted the stain left by Tony’s cracked skull on the threadbare carpet. It was the size of a dinner plate and the color of Hershey’s chocolate syrup.

Rossiter glanced up at the ceiling over the bed and saw the mandala he had copied from the Aegrisomnia. Even in such a debased form its outline glowed with a faint purple light.

The message light on his answering machine blinked like a horny firefly. He punched the playback button and listened to the disembodied voices.

Arsine: “Hey, man, where you at? We need to rehearse if we’re gonna make that gig at Tip’s.”

Charlie: “Alex? Are you there? Alex?”

Arsine: “Look, man, where the hell are you? We’re waitin’ for you at the space!”

Charlie: “Alex? Are you there? If you’re there, pick up.”

Ti: “You filthy, stinkin’ motherfucker! I know you’re there! I want what’s mine, asshole! Give me back that fuckin’ book if you know what’s fuckin’ good for you!”

Charlie: “Hello? Are you there?”

Rossiter fast-forwarded through the rest of the tape. Except for Ti’s angry threat, the bulk of the messages were from Arsine and Charlie. He smiled at the thought of Charlie worrying about his welfare. Silly girl, this was the best thing that had ever happened to him!

Still, if he was going to pay a visit to the lady fair, he needed to take a bath and change into new clothes, if for no other reason than not to call undue attention to himself. Rossiter went into the bathroom and turned the water on full-blast in the tub. He peeled out of his gore-soaked jeans and kicked them into the corner. He could rinse off the leather jacket in the kitchen sink, but he would have to burn everything else he was wearing.

As he prepared to remove his shirt, there was an angry knock. Normally he would have ignored the interruption, but since there was a strong chance his visitor was Charlie, Rossiter wrapped a towel around his waist and went to answer the door. However, instead of his appointed prey, he found Arsine standing in the hallway.

“What are you doing here?” Rossiter asked flatly.

“What the hell do you think I’m doin’ here?” Arsine retorted, the veins on his forehead pulsing like worms on a hot sidewalk. “The goddamn gig is tomorrow night! Where the fuck have you been, asshole? And why didn’t you answer any of my calls?” The drummer pushed past Rossiter without noticing that the singer had quietly closed and locked the door behind him.

“Sorry about that, man. You caught me at a bad time. I had to leave town unexpectedly. Family emergency. I just got back. ”

Arsine sat down in the easy chair beside the coffee table, frowning up at his friend. “Family emergency? I thought you said you was alone in the world.”

“Turns out that wasn’t exactly true,” Rossiter said with a half-smile. “I was getting ready to take a bath. How about we go practice after I’ve cleaned up?”

“Sounds good to me,” Arsine said with a shrug, his anger defused by the singer’s reconciliatory tone.

“Great! You want a beer?”

“That sounds even better” the drummer grinned.

“Beer it is,” Rossiter said, walking past Arsine into the studio kitchen behind him. “By, the way,” the singer said, from somewhere inside the refrigerator. “You hear anything from Ti Alice lately?”

“Funny you should mention that,” Arsine replied. “Papa Beloved mentioned that she was trying to get a-hold of me about something the other day.”

“He say what it was about?”

“Nah.” Bored with the conversation, Arsine’s gaze wandered about Rossiter’s squalid apartment before settling on a large, irregular stain on the carpet near the sofa bed. He leaned forward to get a better look, knitting his brows in concentration. “You cut yourself recently?”

“No. Here’s your beer, man.”

Arsine looked up in the direction of Rossiter’s voice, expecting to be handed a cold brew, only to have the towel his friend had been wearing wound around his neck.

“Sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be able to make the gig,” Rossiter grinned, tightening his grip on the towel.

Arsine fought back furiously and partially raised himself out of the chair. Summoning up all his strength, Rossiter forced the struggling drummer back down into his seat. In about a minute Arsine had gone limp, but was still breathing with deep rasping breaths. Rossiter tightened his grip on his neck for another minute or so, then let go when Arsine appeared to be dead.

Rossiter stood up, mopping his brow in relief. For a moment he actually thought Arsine might get the better of him. He went into the bathroom and turned off the faucets. The bathwater was lapping at the very lip of the tub. There was a moaning sound from the living room. Rossiter returned to where Arsine lay sprawled in the easy chair and saw that the drummer had started breathing again. He looped the towel round Arsine’s neck again, pulled it as tight as he could and held on for three minutes. When Rossiter released his grip on the garrote, Arsine’s limp body slid out of the chair and fell onto the floor. Rossiter rolled the other man’s body onto his back, placing his hand over his breast. The drummer’s heart beat as strongly as one of his congas. Rossiter cursed and spat on Arsine’s upturned face. As if in response, the drummer’s eyelids flew open like window shades.

Rossiter straddled the fallen musician’s chest, retightening his grip on the towel wrapped bout his neck. Arsine pushed himself along the carpeted floor with his feet, trying desperately to escape the attacker perched atop him, knocking over the coffee table in his struggle. When Arsine’s head collided with the baseboard, he finally seemed to realize it was over, and Rossiter felt him slowly going limp underneath him. As Rossiter got to his feet, he noticed that Arsine had once more resumed breathing. He suspected that someone had worked a charm to shield the drummer from harm. If that was the case, a protective spell could only make Arsine hard to kill, not render him immortal.

Rossiter grabbed Arsine by the forelegs and dragged him along the floor into the bathroom. He lifted the drummer by the armpits and pulled him up so that he was draped over the rim of the bath, then grabbed Arsine by his dreadlocks, raised his head, and shoved it down into tub, causing excess water to splash onto the floor.

Arsine’s body came alive immediately, the legs and arms jerking and kicking spasmodically, but Rossiter continued to hold his head underwater. After a minute of frantic flailing, Arsine’s body went totally limp, and after a couple of minutes there were no more bubbles coming to the surface. Still, given the drummer’s unexpected hardiness, Rossiter decided to continue holding him in that position for another five minutes.

The water slowly grew bloody and what looked like particles of food floated from Arsine’s open mouth and bobbed to the surface.

Satisfied his victim was well and truly dead, Rossiter hauled Arsine’s upper torso from the bath, allowing it to drop onto the bathroom floor like a sodden towel. Arsine’s face was swollen and puffy, the eyes half-open, revealing blood-filled whites. A mixture of bathwater and blood trickled from his slack mouth. Rossiter stared at the remains of the man he had, up until two days before, had considered his closest friend. He knew he should have felt remorse or guilt for what he had done, or that there should have been some hatred or other violent emotion responsible for his action, but instead all he experienced was a slight irritation that he would now have to run another bath.

As he drained the tub, Rossiter closed the bathroom door in order to admire himself in the full-length mirror. To his shock and dismay there was a corpse looking back at him, and it wasn’t Arsine’s.

His skin was bluish white and his fingernails looked as yellow and unkempt as those of a skid row derelict. A twelve-inch incision held shut with coarse black thread marked his hairless chest. Rossiter placed a trembling hand over the wound. How could he not remember such a thing being done to him? Why did it not hurt?

He closed his eyes, trying to erase the horrid vision before him, but in its place he saw Il-Qui-Tente devouring Tony Scramuzza’s dead heart.

No. Not Tony’s.

Rossiter brought his fist down on the dead face trapped within the mirror, causing it to shatter. He staggered until the porcelain of the sink struck the small of his back. Something thick and cold dripped onto his bare foot. He opened his eyes and stared down at his hand. There were large shards of mirror protruding from the meat of his fist, and something dark and viscous oozed from the wound.

Rossiter plucked the glass out and instinctively brought his bleeding hand to his mouth. He gagged and spat the foul mess into the lavatory basin. His own blood tasted like sour milk and ink.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Charlie hung up the receiver, perplexed by Jere’s cryptic remarks. It wasn’t like him to speak in riddles. She pulled on some clothes in preparation of going downstairs to start the Mr. Coffee. The doorbell rang just as she pulled on her blouse. She frowned, trying to figure out who it might possibly be at that time of night. It certainly wasn’t Jere: not unless Detroit had started making faster-than-light hatchbacks. She opened the doors to the bedroom balcony and peered over the railing.

“Who’s there?” she called out.

“It’s me, baby.” Alex stood on the front lawn, grinning up at her, dressed in his ubiquitous black leather jacket and a pair of ragged jeans.

She could tell by the way he was smiling and how he teetered on his heels that he was high on something. Charlie’s initial surge of relief at seeing him alive and well was quickly replaced by angry resentment. And she had spent the better part of three days worrying herself sick over him, while he had been off on some insane drug binge. Her anger grew proportionately as she watched him cavort on her front lawn.

“Go away before somebody calls the cops!” she stage-whispered.

“Why?” Alex asked innocently, his voice at full volume.

“Because you’re fucked up, that’s why!”

His laugh was louder than it should have been, and had a hollow sound to it. “Only on the purest of natural ingredients, 1 assure you!”

“I was at your apartment today. There was a black woman there looking for you. Who is she, Alex? Is she Seraphine?”

He froze when she mentioned Seraphine, his smile glued into place. “C’mon, baby, lemme in.”

“If you think I’m letting you past the door, you got another thing coming!” Charlie stormed back into the house, pulling the French windows shut behind her. She promised herself she was not going to cry. She screwed her eyes shut and pressed her fingers to her trembling lips.

“Sorry, babe, but I got tired of waiting for you to invite me in.” Charlie spun around, strangling on a scream. Rossiter stood framed in the balcony, hands resting on the twin knobs of the open French windows. “Did I scare ya?” he grinned.

“How did you get up here?” Charlie sputtered, uncertain whether she should scream or swear at her intruder.

“Trade secret,” he replied with a sly wink.

“Get out!” Charlie said, stamping her foot for emphasis. “Get out of my house! I don’t want to see you!”

Rossiter cocked his head his head to one side. A trick of the light made his eyes look as red as fresh-spilled blood. “If you don’t want to see me, then why did you leave all those pathetic messages on my answering machine, begging me to come over here?” He stepped towards her, his voice dropping in register. “Admit it, Charlie: you want me. You want me bad, because I am bad.”

Charlie bit her lower lip and tried to look away, but she could not. She felt her resolve to put Alex Rossiter out of her life melting like a lump of sugar dropped in a cup of coffee. Alex was right: she wanted him more that she ever wanted any man before in her life …

Suddenly Pluto shot between Charlie and Rossiter, every hair standing erect, ears flat against his skull, fangs exposed, and claws unsheathed. For some reason the sight of her fat, lazy tomcat in full battle stance frightened Charlie even more than Rossiter’s bizarre entry into her house.

“Pluto! Stop it!” Charlie’s voice was as shrill and hysterical as that of a mother shrieking at a child playing on the railroad tracks.

She would never know if Pluto had heard her voice, much less obeyed it. Rossiter kicked the cat like a rugby player going for the net. Pluto’s growl became a high-pitched yowl of pain as it sailed across the room and struck the wardrobe hard enough to make the latch-front swing open. Charlie screamed into her hands as the tomcat fell to the floor, blood leaking from its nose and ears. Pluto twitched, gave voice to a single, plaintive squall, like that of a wounded infant, and was still.

“Hot damn! I’ve been wanting to do that for weeks!” Rossiter grinned, rubbing his hands together in delight.

“You bastard! ” Charlie screamed through her tears, slapping him as hard as she could. Rossiter’s head snapped back from the force of the blow, but his gaze remained as cold and unblinking as that of a snake studying a mouse.

“This was supposed to be this nice an’ easy,” he said, capturing her wrists in his bigger, stronger hands. “But you had to go and screw things up.”

“Stop it!” She tried to pull away from him, but he would not let her. “You’re hurting me!”

“Ain’t that a shame,” Rossiter said, a flicker of crimson burning deep within his eyes.

Charlie shook her head back and forth. “Alex! Alex, this isn’t like you!”

“This is very much like me. The thing is, I’m not really Alex.” Charlie stared into the depths of the crimson eyes set into her lover’s face and did the only thing she could do under such circumstances: she refused to cope. Rossiter caught her limp body before it hit the floor, tossing her across his shoulder like a sack of dirty laundry.

Two kills and a kidnapping. Not bad for his first night.

Jere was headed up the walk when Rossiter exited the front door of Charlie’s house, her motionless body draped over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Jere demanded, putting himself directly in the singer’s way. “Put her down!”

Rossiter snarled and stiff-armed Jere out of his way as if he was a screen door, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to land on his back. Jere sat up in time to see Rossiter speed off in a late-model American car. He got to his feet, leaning against a plaster birdbath as he tried to recapture his breath. There were people watching him from a front widow across the street, but when he waved at them for help, the light went out and the curtain dropped.

Jere groaned and hobbled toward the front door of Charlie’s house, which was standing ajar. He found Pluto’s carcass sprawled on the floor of the bedroom, not far from the telephone. He fished the scrap of paper with Aggie’s number out of his pocket and punched the numbers with shaking fingers.

The phone rang twice before being picked up. “LeBoeuf residence, ” said a cultured, masculine voice.

“I have to talk to Aggie.”

“Madame LeBoeuf is currently indisposed. Who may I say is calling?”

“I’m Jere Sloan. Look, I have to talk to her, it’s really important…”

The man’s voice was quickly replaced by that a young woman. “Hello? Mr. Sloan? I’m Aggie’s granddaughter. I’m afraid she can’t make it to the phone. May I be of some help?”

“Tell Aggie I was too late. He’s got her.”

“Who got who?”

“Alex Rossiter… he kidnapped Charlie.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

“Hello? Are you still there?”

“Yes. I’m here.”

“I know where he’s taking her. I’m going after him.”

“Mr. Sloan, Aggie’s told me a little of what’s going on. I’m not certain of much right now, but I do know you don’t stand a chance against what’s in that house!”

“Well, like the kamikaze pilots used to say: ‘When you’re going down in flames, you might as well hit something big.’”

Ti stared at the phone for a long moment before hanging up. So that was the blanc Aggie had told her about: the artist with the heart of a love-struck lion. So the old woman wasn’t mad as a hatter, after all.

On some level Ti knew she believed the old woman’s claims; after all, she had identified herself as Aggie’s granddaughter to Sloan. There was something in the way the ancient conjure-woman held her head when she talked that reminded Ti of Great-Granny.

She had not thought about Great-Granny in years, and her memories were fuzzy, at best. Great-Granny had actually been her grandmother’s grandmother, which would have made her Ti’s Great-Great Granny. The old woman had been bedridden well before Ti was born, and senile to boot. Ti could dimly remember sitting on the corner of Great-Granny’s bed, listening to her rambling account of being born a slave and other stories that drifted from family history into fairy tales.

There was the story of how Great-Uncle Josiah was lynched by the Klan for daring to speak to a white gal; the story about the bogeyman that hid in the woods beyond the outhouse, and-oh, God-the story of the one-eyed witch and the ghost house. Ti remembered how Great Granny had cried out on her deathbed, begging her mother’s forgiveness for a transgression no one in the family knew anything about. The memory was so sharp, so immediate; Ti could still hear Granny Banks weeping as she pulled the sheet over her grandmother’s lifeless body.

Ti went downstairs to the kitchen and rapped her knuckles lightly on the basement door that lead to Aggie LeBoeuf’s combination workshop and hounfour. There was no answer. She pressed her ear to the paneling of the door and heard what sounded like the throbbing of drums, punctuated by the give and take of voices in conversation. Ti frowned, baffled by what she heard. As far as she knew, the old mambo was alone down there.

She knocked on the door again, raising her voice. “Aggie? There was a phone call from the blanc. He says he’s on his way to Seraphine. Aggie-?”

“I hear you, child,” Aggie’s voice called back from the other side of the door.

“What is going on down there? Open up and let me in.”

“That would not be so good an idea right now, child. I will be up directly.”

Ti paused, trying to decide whether to pursue the matter, then thought better of it.

Although Aggie looked as fragile as a bird’s nest, the old lady trafficked in heavy mojo. If she did not want her to see what was in the basement, perhaps it was better off unseen.

“That isss the one who will replace you?” Damballah’s whistle-sigh was like that of steam locomotive.

A circular room ten times the size of the interior of the Saint Louis Basilica had replaced the humble brick and mortar of Agatha LeBoeuf’s basement. The familiar patterns of the vévés shifted across the smooth, whitewashed walls that towered like man-made cliffs above the giants gathered about the crimson peristyle. Aggie stood before the assembled loa, naked save for body paint and a red feather braided into her hair, her flesh no longer that of a withered crone, but a woman no older than her great-great-great grandchild.

“Yes, my lord. She is the flesh of my flesh, many times removed. She is a mambo in her own right, who has taken the name Ti Alice.”

Legba shifted his weight on his crutch and stroked his grizzled beard thoughtfully. “She is familiar to us, this one. Her soul is old.”

“Yes,” Aggie said, nodding her head. “It once belonged to my mother.”

“You know what this means, do you not?” Baron Samedi asked Aggie. “Your immortality is no longer assured.”

Aggie shrugged her shoulders. “I have lived four lifetimes. Death holds no fear for me.”

Baron Samedi nodded his gaunt head. “As it should be, for one who has lead a righteous life.”

“Then it is sssettled,” hissed the Rainbow Serpent. “The priestesss known as Ti Alice shall replace Agatha as the anointed Keeper of Pathsss. Agreed?”

The seven loa spoke as one and Aggie clapped her hands over her ears to protect her self from the glory of their voices. When she opened her eyes she was surrounded not by gods and towering walls, but seven-day luck candles and full-color lithos of Janus-natured saints. Aggie was once again an old woman, with withered dugs hanging flat and dry against her rib cage. The red parrot feather jutting from her frizzy white hair bobbed wildly as she replaced her man-made eye. She had to be careful when going before The Seven. They didn’t take kindly to artificial limbs, glass eyes, dentures and the like. If she didn’t remove her glass eye before hand, the loa might take exception and make it explode inside her skull. Gods were funny that way.

Ti was sitting in the kitchen, nursing a cup of hot tea as she awaited Aggie’s return from the depth of the basement. The cellar door opened and the old mambo limped into the room, looking drained by whatever it was she had been doing.

“Aggie, a man named Jere Sloan called. He said something about Rossiter taking someone named Charlie to Seraphine.”

“Merde! He’s brave as a bull, that one, but thick as a mule!” Aggie said, shaking her head wearily. “But, in its way, that is good. His courage links him to Change, his passion to Erzulie. He shall have their protection, for the time being. But such defense only goes so far. And it certainly is no shield against the likes of He-Who-Tempts. Come, child, there is something I must give you.” Aggie motioned for Ti to follow her as she headed towards the other side of the house. “I have lived here for the better part of a century,” she said, matter-of-factly. “It originally belonged to my husband, Monsieur LeBoeuf. Since his death, I have lived here alone, save for a series of Fortescues.”

“Come again?”

“That is the name of my man-servants. The first Fortescue came to work for me during the Spanish-American War. I believe the current one is the sixth in my employ. They’re all related by blood. Good help is so hard to kind nowadays.”

Aggie stopped before a locked door and fished inside her withered cleavage, retrieving a key on a length of black silk cord. She fitted the key into the lock and swung the door open. The mulled smell of old books and seasoned leather filled Ti’s nostrils.

“This was my husband’s study,” Aggie explained, ushering the younger woman into the room ahead of her. “After he passed on, I turned it into a combination library and museum.” She gestured to the stuffed alligator suspended from the ceiling and the Egyptian sarcophagus propped in the far corner. “Outside of the Fortescues, you are the only living soul to set foot in this place.”

Aggie hobbled over to an old-fashioned barrister’s cabinet and removed an ornately carved wooden box and placed it on a large oaken table cluttered with sextants, astrolabes, astrology charts, and other arcane equipment. She opened the box and removed a rattle made from a calabash, covered with a webbing of beaded yarn.

“It’s an asson,” she said, her voice dropping to a reverent whisper. “It once belonged to my great-grandfather, Jubal. He was an obeah-man of great power, beloved of the loa. Jubal was born free in Africa and sold into slavery when a rival tribe captured his village. He ended up owned by Narcisse Legendre. Narcisse was a bad man made worse during the uprising in Haiti. He took his vengeance out on all slaves by building a great house in Louisiana; first he slaughtered their children and used their blood to mix the mortar, then he took the strongest of his slaves and sealed them, alive, within the cornerstones.

“Jubal was one of those sacrificed in the name of Seraphine, but before he died, he laid a curse on Narcisse Legendre and all who would live within his fine house. Jubal’s curse was that one day Seraphine would be destroyed by a Legendre. Jubal’s daughter took up her father’s ways and passed them on to her own child, Jazrel, who was my mother. Jazrel, like Jubal before her, was beloved of les invisibles, and a mamalewe of great power. As you will be, in time.”

“Me?”

“Yes, old souls such as yours are much favored by The Seven. That is why I want you to take Jubal’s asson. It is very old, even older than Jubal himself. It was the only thing he was able to bring with him from his homeland in Africa. There is much power in it. More than I have ever dared call upon. But you will need it if you are to face He-Who-Tempts and survive to tell the tale.”

“What exactly is this He-Who-Tempts? You make him sound like some sort of demon …”

“There is no word to truly explain what Il-Qui-Tente is. Once, very long ago, he was a mortal man, like any other. He was Donatien Legendre, grandson of the murdering Narcisse … and my father. That makes him part of you as well, my little one. The madness in his blood drew him to study sorcery and the black arts. That is how he ended up with the Aegrisomnia. The powers which Legendre embraced are very, very old and very, very dark.”

“He’s a bokor?”

“Nothing as simple as a black magician, I’m afraid. His magic is not that of voudou, or even oresha. I do not even know if it has a name. What I do know is that by observing certain cannibalistic rituals described within the Aegrisomnia, Legendre willingly surrendered his soul in exchange for occult power. In doing so, he was reborn as the living demon known to the Cajuns as Il-Qui-Tente: He-Who-Tempts.

“The gods, if gods they are, mentioned in the Aegrisomnia are so ancient, I suspect they were never worshiped by Man. As the old religions die and fall away, their magics are lost. The older the magic, the greater its power. The Seven are very old, very primal spirits, but Legendre’s master, He-Who-Makes-Shadows, is older still. That is why Jazrel’s magic could not destroy him but merely bind him. At first she hoped he would starve to death inside Seraphine, but the ritual that turned Donatien Legendre into Il-Qui-Tente had granted him a form of immortality. The best she could do was keep his mortal form locked within that hated house of his, and to make sure his spirit-self could not wander at will. But she knew, in time, her spells would fade, and only one of her blood could renew the protective charms that bind the monster to his living tomb. That is why she cursed me with long life-to make sure there would always be one of Jubal’s line to protect the world from Il-Qui-Tente.

“In this modern age of computers and space travel, there is no power strong enough to keep the likes of Il-Qui-Tente in check-save that of voudou. Ours is an ancient religion in a new world. And it has been my duty-and my curse-to make sure that the demon-wizard remains trapped within his house of horrors. I have worked hard to keep him sealed away. But 1 as I have grown older, my magics have failed me. Now Il-Qui-Tente has succeeded in luring a human into serving his will. And, if Legendre has indeed reclaimed the Aegrisomnia …” She trailed off, staring into the distance.

“What do you think will happen if he manages to escape Seraphine?”

“The skies will rain fire and the seas will turn to wormwood.”

Ti swallowed hard and laced her hands over her stomach protectively. “We can’t let that happen, Granny.”

Aggie smiled and touched Ti’s smooth young cheek with her bony, leathery hand. “It does my heart proud to hear you say that, honey.” She reached back inside the wooden box, this time removing a snub-nosed .357 Magnum. “Just in case the rattle doesn’t work,” she explained, when she saw the look on her descendant’s face. “Now, we must get going. There is not much time left. ”

“Where are we going?”

“To visit my father, of course”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It had been a long time since he last thought of himself as Donatien Legendre. He had divested himself of the emotional ties associated with that other, distant identity over a century ago, when he stood naked, smeared in the blood of slaughtered children, and received the dark benediction of He-Who-Makes-Shadows. During that ritual he was asked to name his self anew, so he claimed the name the frightened locals had given to the “evil spirit” that haunted the surrounding swamps and lured their children from the safety of their families, never to be seen again.

The enchantments that had kept him prisoner in his ancestral home were weakening. The fact he was conscious and bale to move about on the physical plane was proof enough of that. However, the spells were still potent enough to keep him from physically crossing the threshold into the outside world. If he wished to walk free amongst the sons of Adam, he would have to find a way to negate Jazrel’s accursed jungle magic.

There was nothing the supernatural world could throw at him that he couldn’t twist to fit his own ends. Indeed, he had been doing it all his life. He had learned early on about the family legend about the old witch doctor’s curse on Seraphine, and soon discovered it had a divine, all-purpose excuse for bad behavior. His father, the simpering fool, was just as superstitious as any of the slaves working the fields, and assumed his son was the bad seed of the curse, and therefore any attempt to change his conduct was doomed to failure. And Donatien was more than happy to cynically exploit his father’s fatalism and guilt concerning old Narcisse Legendre’s murderous sins.

When his parents sent him abroad to be educated, they unwittingly placed him in the society of pederasts, libertines and other debauchees, who often played at diabolism, arranging elaborate black sabbaths as an evening’s amusement. Years later, upon fleeing to Paris to avoid murder charges in Louisiana, Donatien sought out some of his old friends. Most were dead, either by the guillotine or their own vices. However, one of his former comrades had pursued his youthful interests and become a sorcerer of some power, actually keeping a pet demon on a silver chain. It was this man who first introduced Donatien to the Aegrisomnia. But as powerful as the French wizard might have been, even he found the secrets within the Aegrisomnia disturbing. In the end, he was more than happy to sell the book to his old American friend … for a price.

It took Donatien several years of hard study to finally crack the secrets held within the Aegrisomnia. He was determined to summon forth He-Who-Makes-Shadows, but in order to do so he had to surround himself with death. For twelve months Donatien had to avoid all daylight, going out only at night; the only food and drink permitted him was the flesh and blood of humans, the more blameless the better. He had to show his determination to face the Outer Dark by voluntarily destroying innocence and beauty and embracing corruption and decay. The ignorant Cajun children and pickaninnies were easy prey. He found their bleats amusing during the ritual defilement, where he masturbated onto their bellies while cutting off their heads. After the incantations had been chanted and the proper candles burned, the salts cast, and the signs observed, he would feast on the goat with no horns. The memory of their flesh aroused him.

Il-Qui-Tente tilted his head, tuning into his puppet’s mental wavelength. Rossiter would be back soon. Transforming the horse into a puppet had been inspired decision. Rossiter’s anger and frustration, along with his tendency towards violence and selfishness, made him an excellent horse. However, horses have been known to throw their riders. Puppets, however, are far easier to manipulate.

A car door slammed outside and a few moments later Rossiter entered the dining room, a female body slung over his shoulder. Il-Qui-Tente rose, dusting the grime from his knees.

“You have everything?” He tried not to sound too eager.

“Pretty much.” Rossiter dumped Charlie’s body onto the bare boards, along with the contents of a sack. “You really need all this shit?” he gestured to the chalk, candles and coil of rope.

“They’re indispensable.” Il-Qui-Tente pointed to the girl. “What about her? Did you bring something to use as a gag?”

“I got something better.” Rossiter reached into his pocket and handed him a roll of duct tape.

Il-Qui-Tente carefully examined a six-inch strip of silver tape and nodded his approval. “I think I’m going to like this century, after all.”

The first thought that came to her was that she hurt. She felt bruised and creaky, like after an exceptionally difficult aerobics workout. Her second thought was of Pluto and she began to cry. Something rough and dry flickered across her cheeks, catching the tears tricking down her face. It felt like a cat’s tongue. Perhaps Pluto wasn’t really dead, after all. Perhaps the whole horrible scenario was nothing but a very bad dream. Charlie opened her eyes, expecting to see Pluto perched on the bed beside her, waiting for her to get up and fix him breakfast.

Instead, there was a man with leathery skin as pale as that of an albino reptile crouched next to her, drinking her tears like a cat laps up milk. His tongue was as pointed and dry as the rasp on a file. Charlie opened her mouth to scream, but the leathery stranger quickly placed a hand over her lips, sealing them with a strip of duct tape.

“Please, my dear. This is a solemn occasion. Let us not spoil it with screams.” The strange man’s eyes were the color of claret, and when he smiled he showed pointed teeth that glistened like polished ivory. He smoothed the hair from her face with long, bird-like fingernails. “Don’t you recognize me, Eugenie? No? Well, it has been a long time since we last saw one another-and both of us have changed so much.” He cocked his head to one side, studying her as dispassionately as a farmer inspecting prize livestock. “I must say, you certainly got the luck of the draw this time. If you had been this pretty in your last incarnation, things might have been much different in our marriage.”

Charlie didn’t know what the hell the frightening stranger was talking about, and she didn’t want to know. She tried to escape his dry, moth-wing caresses, but was unable to move. She was pinned to the floor, naked and spread-eagled, like a butterfly on a mounting board. Her wrists and ankles were bound with the same thick, sticky duct tape he had used to seal her mouth.

“When I saw you through Rossiter’s eyes, I instantly recognized your mousy, lovelorn soul, despite its appealing new wrapper.” He gripped her chin roughly in his hand, the tips of his talons drawing beads of blood. “You’ve been looking for me in the shadows of your lovers all your life. I could see it in your eyes each time you would cleave to that self-pitying fool; you want to be punished for enjoying the pleasures of the flesh. You were always so predictable, Eugenie, even in your perversions. That is why you bored me so.”

Charlie’s eyes widened as a memory from beyond her birth bubbled free of the folds in her brain. This echo of familiarity frightened her far more than being at the feet of a living demon.

“Donatien,” she whispered.

“Ah, I see the light of recognition dawning in those borrowed eyes. Surely a wife knows her husband when she sees him, no matter how long she has been dead?”

Tears streamed from Charlie’s eyes as Eugenie Legendre unfurled from the secret place deep within her soul. Eugenie’s thoughts and memories mixed with Charlie’s, like ink in a water glass, until the two were indistinguishable.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, sweet Eugenie.” Il-Qui-Tente said as he traced arcane symbols along her exposed belly and thighs with the razor-sharp tips of his fingernails. Charlie could feel the slow seep of blood rising to fill the wounds and the sting of air on her delicately inscribed wounds. “I remember how you grieved when you lost the baby.” He said as if discussing the loss of a pet. “You always wanted a child. So did Placide. Perhaps he thought he could divert the old witch doctor’s curse. Do you remember that uppity little nigger maid of yours? Of course you do. You were the closest of friends, were you not?” His lips pulled into a sneer. “Who would ever have suspected you, of all people, as a nigger-lover? Did you sample the bucks as well, or were you content with your pet bitch? The whore locked me inside this house with her accursed jungle magic. Others may waltz in and out of Seraphine as they see fit, but my flesh is doomed to remain here for eternity. Now, 1 ask you, dearest, is that fair?

“That is why I have chosen you-or, rather, this current incarnation-to help me escape the trap your pet nigger constructed around me. I intend to break her spell with the help of this book-and your life, my lovely.

Rossiter entered the room, his manner agitated. “Master, there is a car approaching!” Il-Qui-Tente’s nostrils flared. “Deal with it. But be careful. I smell voodoo in the air.”

Il-Qui-Tente watched Charlie’s eyes as she followed Rossiter out of the room, and then broke into a cruel chuckle. “Do you fancy, even after all that has transpired tonight, that your lover will come to your rescue? You are as deluded in this life as you were in your last.” II-Qui-Tente’s fingernails drifted to her mons veneris. “Now, my dear, shall we begin?”

Jere’s hatchback wallowed like a walrus along the rutted dirt road. The headlights jounced violently, permitting off-kilter flash-shots of the surrounding vegetation: a startled owl perched on a sagging tree limb; a beady-eyed raccoon leaping for safety into the brush; a weather-beaten No Trespassing sign tacked to a rotten gatepost. The rear end of a parked car suddenly appeared before him, forcing Jere to swerve at the last minute to prevent from plowing into it. He recognized the vehicle as being the one Rossiter had been driving.

Jere got out of his car and stared at the malignant hulk of the abandoned plantation house that stood before him. He had glimpsed a couple of old steel engravings in the Seraphine File of the estate at its prime, and the changes wreaked on the mansion and surrounding grounds were indeed shocking. Before the Civil War, Seraphine had once been considered a jewel in the crown of the Antebellum South, and now it was a ruined pile of brick, wood and plaster. Still, even in such an advanced of decay, Seraphine remained an impressive edifice, with more than twenty rooms divided amongst its three stories and two wings.

Jere retrieved the tire tool from the back of his car and hoisted it as he eyed the dark structure before him. He doubted something so mundane would do much good against the likes of Legendre, or whatever it was Legendre had become, but its weight in his hand was reassuring. No doubt Neanderthal Man felt the same cold comfort when he went into the saber-tooth tiger’s den with nothing but a tree branch for protection.

Rossiter crouched in the dust and dirt of the second floor landing, watching Jere through the slats in the banister. Jere’s pathetic attempt at rescue sparked contempt within Rossiter’s cold heart, and the musician had to bite his lower lip to keep from giggling out loud at the sight of the human groping his way in the darkness, clutching his weapon to his chest like a sacred icon.

Now that he thought about it, Rossiter had always considered Jere Sloan a jerk, one far too wrapped up in his neurotic insecurities to grab life by the balls. Jere’s weakness reminded Rossiter of his own failings, and he hated Jere like he had hated the mirror in the bathroom. Rossiter wanted to destroy the offending image; smash it until it was incapable of further insult.

Rossiter picked up a piece of fallen plaster off the floor and lobbed it down the stairs. Jere’s head swiveled in the direction of the noise.

“Charlie?” he whispered.

Rossiter chucked a second piece of detritus in the same direction of the first. Jere mounted the staircase, peering into the gloom at the top of the stairs.

“Charlie? Is that you?”

Rossiter’s smile was so wide the corners of his mouth were parallel with the lobes of his ears. He licked his lips with a cat-rough tongue. He could already taste Jere’s brains in his mouth.

Jere had never been so frightened in all his life. His hair was standing on end, every follicle at full attention; his skin looked like a plucked chicken’s, and his bladder felt like a medicine ball full of mercury. He halted halfway up the stairs, straining to see what might be lurking in the shadows. He thought he had detected movement, but his eyes might have been playing tricks on him.

“Who’s there?” he whispered, trying hard to keep his teeth from chattering as he spoke.

There was a thumping sound, as if a ripe cantaloupe had been rolled from the top riser, and something sodden struck his shin and came to rest by his feet. Jere clawed at his jacket pocket and pulled out the small flashlight he normally kept in the glove compartment of his car. He thumbed the button on and a badly mutilated human head jumped out of the darkness.

The top of the skull had been pared away, apparently in order to extract the brain within. One of the eyes was missing, the capped teeth were smashed in, and what flesh remained was crawling with bugs. Still, despite its horrible disfigurements, there was enough of a face left for Jere to recognize the head as having once belonged to Tony Scramuzza. Bile shot up his throat, scalding his tonsils. He instinctively pressed himself against the banister as he tried to avoid contact with the soft, wriggling things that had turned Tony’s empty head into a nursery.

Something hissed like a snake and leapt at him from the dark at the top of the stairs. There was barely enough time for Jere to raise his weapon in a parody of defense before Rossiter struck him. The oak banister, weakened by a century of dry rot, snapped in two and spilled both attacker and prey onto the parquet floor of the foyer twelve feet below.

Jere’s body was in so much pain it could not fit through his mouth. Even though Jere could not voice his agony, somehow he was still able to hear it. It sounded amazingly like an enraged wildcat with its paw caught in a trap. Then Jere realized that it wasn’t his pain he was hearing: it was Rossiter’s.

The musician had landed directly on top of him, the force of their twinned impact driving the tire-jack impaling through Rossiter’s sternum. Jere grimaced and tired to drag himself free of the creature that was once his friend, but his right leg refused to move.

Rossiter rolled off him, spasming like a landed trout. His eyes bulged from their sockets and thick, foul-smelling goo bubbled from his mouth and nose as he grabbed the jack-hilt jutting from his chest and tried to pull it free.

Too entranced by Rossiter’s pain to feel his own, Jere watched in horrified silence as Rossiter wrenched the length of metal from his chest. Rossiter stared accusingly at his childhood friend, his mouth working in wordless recrimination before he coughed up a clot of blood and collapsed onto the floor.

Despite the oppressive heat, Jere was shivering like a naked man in a snowstorm. He knew he was succumbing to shock, but all he could think about the day he painted the Crash logo on the band’s drum kit and how proud and excited Alex had been. He wanted to cry, but all he could do was shake.

“That hurt.” Rossiter’s head slowly turned back around to face stare accusingly at Jere. He lifted his face from the pool of bloody vomit, his features petulant. “You actually caused me pain.” The blood congealing in his mouth slurred his words as he spoke. Rossiter stood back up, staggering slightly as he regained his footing. “I’m going to enjoy taking you apart, piece by piece.”

Jere cursed himself for not waiting for Aggie. Being killed by this bloody-mouthed horror was just payment for his trying to be something he was never meant to be: the valiant hero.

“Leave him be, Alex!”

Rossiter stopped in mid-step and turned in the direction of the front door. His gore-slimed face registered confusion, and for a fleeting moment Jere thought he saw the Alex Rossiter he once knew. The image of the his old friend trapped within a hell made of his own flesh dissolved the wall of shock that sealed Jere from his pain, and plunged him into blessed unconsciousness.

Ti was dressed as Rossiter had first seen her, in the white muslin and red kerchief of a mambo. She wore a necklace of cowrie shells about her throat and a simple belt cinched about her shapely waist held a ceremonial rattle tucked close to her hip.

“Move away from him, Alex! In the name of The Seven I command you! This man is under my protection. I don’t want to kill you, but I will, if I must.”

Ti’s voice barely trembled at all, despite her obvious fear. Rossiter had always admired her self-control. She would be a glorious specimen, once Il-Qui-Tente had taken her heart for his own.

“You have to do better than threaten me with death, witch!” he laughed, sending a fresh gush of blood spraying from his mouth. “I don’t scare easy and I don’t die at all. See?” He ripped open his ruined shirt and cast it aside, laughing as her eyes widened at the sight of the stitching in his chest and the gaping puncture wound just below it. “There’s nothing to fear, Ti. It hurts when the Master makes your heart his, I’ll admit that, but he makes sure you don’t remember much about it. Once your heart is consecrated to his service, though, everything is so much better than you could possibly image! It’s better than sex, drugs, or rock’n’roll! You can trust me on that, Ti. C’mon, let me take you down, where nothing is real.”

“Stay back, Alex. I mean it.”

He could see the fear in her eyes, smell it in her sweat. Her blood was singing to him, its message as primal and urgent as a mating call.

“What are you going to do? Shake your rattle at me?” he smirked and continued to move forward, his eyes gleaming like ruby chips.

Ti reached behind her back and produced a .357 Magnum from its impromptu holster, aimed at her lover’s head and pulled the trigger. The top of Rossiter’s skull disappeared in a spray of brains, bone and congealed blood. The lower jaw dropped reflexively and his tongue writhed like a grub. Rossiter’s hands reached for where his face had been a moment before, only to close on a squelching mass of ruined cartilage. The hands fluttered like those of a palsied old woman and then Rossiter collapsed.

Ti groaned, her face gray as old meat, and leaned against the wall, swallowing hard to keep down the puke rising in her gorge. Her eyes burned and her sinuses felt as if she had snorted a pint of Clorox. She refused to cry. There would be time for that later, if she was lucky.

She stepped around what was left of Rossiter and knelt next to the white man sprawled on the floor. Although she had never laid eyes on him before, she knew he had to be Sloan. His right leg was a mess, but he was still alive. But where was the woman called Aggie had told her about?

Ti’s eyes flickered toward the huge double doors. There was light seeping from underneath the jamb, and the familiar odor of burning incense reached her nostrils. She could hear a masculine voice intoning the words in a strange language. Her hand strayed to the ceremonial rattle at her hip. The asson was so cold it burned to the touch.

Ti stared at the blue-white witch fire radiating from the rattle, too surprised to drop it. The glow pulsed in time with her heartbeat and she felt a strange, tingling energy shoot up her arms and down her legs. When the shifting nimbus wrapped its unburning fire around her, she gave tiny cry, like a child in its sleep. When the aura withdrew Ti Alice stood with her chin against her chest, eyes closed and breathing regularly.

When her eyes next flickered open, someone else was looking out.

Jazrel pulled the asson from her belt and kissed it, whispering the name of her grandfather, the babalewe who had been sealed alive into the main cornerstone of Seraphine, over one hundred and seventy-five years ago.

It was time to bring the prophecy to pass.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Five black candles, set in pools of their own wax, cast flickering light on the obscene tableaux within the points of the inverted pentagram. Il-Qui-Tente stood naked between Charlie’s spread thighs, one hand cradling his blackened penis, swollen with stolen life and oozing a mixture of inert sperm and clotted blood. The Aegrisomnia lay on the floor at his feet, its pages opened to those dedicated to the ritual defilement and mutilation of sacrifices.

A sourceless wind stirred the demon-wizard’s spider-silk hair, causing Il-Qui-Tente to snarl in apprehension. The huge doors flew open, striking the walls with such force that they sagged on their hinges, and Jazrel strode into the room, cloaked in foxfire that danced about her head and shoulders like a halo.

“Let the woman go, Legendre,” she said, her voice echoing as if she was speaking from deep within an empty well.

“I no longer answer to that name, conjure woman.” Il-Qui-Tente replied with a sneer. “If you wish to speak to me, call me by my shadow-name.” Jazrel walked the rim of the chalk circle like a panther pacing the confines of its cage, Il-Qui-Tente following her step-for-step from his side of the pentagram. “There is nothing you can do to stop me, witch-whore. You are in my sanctum, the very locus of my power. Go back to your brothel and suck the seed from drunken longshoremen and high-yellow pimps!”

Jazrel shook her kerchiefed head, her mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “You don’t understand, do you? After all that time spent in the Place Between Places, you still haven’t learned. Did you ever wonder how I could trap you within your own lair, where your magic was its strongest? You know the power that lies within blood and flesh. Where blood is shed, the ground is charged with its power.”

The sourceless breeze intensified, becoming a gust of wind that tugged insistently at the candle flames holding down the points. Every step of Jazrel’s bare feet crackled like static on a telephone line.

“Have you forgotten Narcisse’s crimes? The horrors he visited upon my grandfather and his people?”

“Crimes?” Il-Qui-Tente snorted in derision. “How can you commit crimes against one’s own property? Their lives were his, to do with as he wished! And he wished to shore Seraphine’s foundations with their bones and wash its bricks in their blood!”

“Exactly,” Jazrel said with a tiny smile. “And in doing so, he sealed your fate.” She removed the ceremonial rattle from her belt and began shaking it, chanting in a language older than the Caesars.

A pale material the color of milk and with the substance of smoke began to seep from the walls and rise from the floor. Il-Qui-Tente’s sneer faltered as the weird vapor took upon the form and features of dozens of women, children and men, dressed in rags and bearing the marks of the lash upon their phantom flesh. One ghostly figure stood out in particular; it was that of a powerfully built male, his cheeks and brow bearing the ritual scars of an obeah man. The ghost of Jubal glowered at the grandson of his murderer with the malice of the unavenged dead. Il-Qui-Tente retreated to the heart of the protective circle, holding the Aegrisomnia to his naked breast like a protective charm.

Jazrel opened her arms and gathered the souls of her kinsmen to her, her head thrown back in a combination of rapture and sorrow. With each spirit that passed through her, the wind grew in strength, lifting her skirt and snatching away her kerchief like a naughty schoolboy. The priestess’s plaited braids writhed about her head and shoulders like a nest of snakes. There was a smell of ozone as the dead of Seraphine lifted Jazrel into the air.

Il-Qui-Tente’s hair crackled like a cat’s in the supercharged air. “Your dead relatives mean nothing to me!” he shouted defiantly. “Your jungle magic may be powerful, but it is too crude a weapon! You caught me unawares the first time, but not a second!”

Jazrel pointed a slender, glowing finger at Charlie’s prone figure. Charlie’s blue eyes locked with Jazrel’s dark brown ones, and all that called itself Charlotte Calder disappeared, surrendering itself to Eugenie Legendre. Unmindful of the pain it caused her borrowed flesh, Eugenie pulled her limbs free of her bonds and rose to greet her husband. The wind caught her laughter and twisted it until it sounded like a scream.

The pain was so huge there was no way to judge its scale. At first it lay across his body like a blanket, then it began to slowly ebb, retracting its grip on his flesh until it resided in his right leg.

Jere opened his eyes and saw a wrinkled face with an off-kilter eyeball peering down at him. “Aggie,” he whispered, his voice ragged.

“Lay still. I’m gonna put that leg of yours in a splint.”

“Rossiter.” He jerked his head back and forth, straining to see where the red-eyed creature night be hiding. “He’s here.”

The old woman placed a bony hand on his shoulder. “Rossiter’s dead, honey. He can’t hurt you no more.” She sounded like a mother reassuring her child the bogeyman was not hiding under the bed, “Dead?” Jere blinked. His head felt stuffed with sawdust.

There was a ripping sound and white-hot agony shot up his leg. Jere bit his lower lip so hard blood filled his mouth.

“There, that should keep things from rubbing together.” Aggie stuffed a bitter-tasting root into his mouth. “Chew on that: it’ll help with the pain.” She shook her head. “You might be stupid as pig shit, but you’re no coward, white boy.”

“Thanks. I think. How did you get here?”

“I rode my broom. I drove my damn car, how else do you think I got here? I would have been here sooner, if it hadn’t gone in the ditch a mile back.”

“The girl, the one I saw earlier… is that your granddaughter?”

“More like my grand-baby’s grand-baby. Little fool ran on ahead of me. You and her are a lot alike.”

“I thought you said you were the last of your line.”

“I know what I said, boy. I was wrong. She’s a wild card. If I knew she existed before hand I would never have gotten you involved. As it is, it never occurred to me that both women were reborn.”

“Who’s reborn?”

“Your woman and Ti Alice. Although, come to think of it, that explains some things I was at a loss to understand before.”

“What do you mean you didn’t know she existed?” Jere asked, panic in his voice. “I thought you were in cahoots with those gods or loa or whatever the hell they are. How could they not know you had a grandchild?” The fact Aggie had been kept in the dark was more distressing to him than his being attacked by Rossiter.

“Because I did not ask them,” Aggie replied, matter-of-factly. “The loa answer only those questions put to them. Now, do you think you can stand?”

The idea of getting on his feet made Jere queasy. “I don’t know.”

Aggie pointed to the weird light spilling from the open doors of the old grand dining room. It looked as if an electrical storm was going on inside the house. “You better decide and decide quick. 1 don’t’ think we have much time left before this place comes down around our ears.”

Tempter snarled like a cornered animal at the women flanking him. He moved cautiously, trying to keep a safe distance between himself and Eugenie, while keeping himself out of reach of Jazrel. He was safe from the mambo’s magic as long as he remained inside the protective circle, but he had not taken into account the witch having an accomplice within the pentagram “Poor Donatien,” Eugenie said, her voice echoing from across the void. “You were always so fond of plots and schemes. But you never took the actions of others into account.”

Il-Qui-Tente spoke a word of power that formed on his lips like a dagger of black ice. Il-Qui-Tente spat the black ice at his dead wife, aiming at her right eye. Eugenie raised her hand and moved it clockwise, as if cleaning an invisible windowpane. The black ice shattered harmlessly and fell to the floor, where it turned into wriggling tadpoles, which she ground into paste with her bare heel.

Jere stood slumped in the open doorway, staring in awe at the figure whirling above his head. Aggie stood beside him, propping him upright. Her mouth was set in a grim line as she watched the battle.

“What the hell-? That’s Charlie!”

“That is her flesh, yes. But her soul is that of another, older spirit-that of Eugenie Legendre.”

Jazrel’s burning fingers traced the sign of Legba and Change in the empty air. The vévés began to rotate like pinwheel mandalas, then launched themselves at her target, spinning like circular saw blades. Il-Qui-Tente recited a spell that jumped from his lips like the tentacle of an octopus, snaring one of the spinning vévés. The second vévé avoided his defenses and struck Il-Qui-Tente squarely on his bare chest. The necromancer screamed as his flesh sizzled like a stallion’s under a red-hot branding iron.

Il-Qui-Tente shouted and a cloud the color of midnight billowed from his jaws. It was thick and viscous and smelled like burning rubber, and sharp-toothed, bony things that looked like they came from the lightless depths of a subterranean cave swam within the cloud. The demon fog enfolded the trio and Jere lost sight of Charlie. Aggie’s fingernails bit deeply into the meat of his arm, but he barely felt it. The wind inside the room grew stronger, forcing him to shield his eyes from the stinging grit it stirred up.

The cloud sobbed like an oboe as it was torn apart, and dark, slime-coated things fell to the floor. There were creatures that looked like fat, pulsating commas clinging to Jazrel and Eugenie, but the moment the cloud dispersed the things squealed and dissolved like salted slugs. Some of the shadow-things scuttled to safety in the shadows, while others twitched and died. Something that looked like a cross between a frog and a scorpion landed near Jere and Aggie. The old voodoo woman quickly ground it under the heel of her shoe.

“My father was a vain man,” Aggie stage-whispered to Jere as she watched her parents battle. “He thought he was the curse fulfilled. That is why he did not wish to marry or produce a legal heir. But he is not the Legendre destined to bring down Seraphine upon itself-she is!” Aggie jabbed a bony finger at the necromancer’s descendant.

Jazrel and Eugenie approached their enemy from within and without the protective circle. Il-Qui-Tente was too weakened by his exertions to fend them off. His face had become even gaunter than before and his deflated penis hung between his thighs like an over-ripe banana. Eugenie lunged at him, digging her nails deep into the wizard’s exposed flesh. Despite its leathery appearance, his skin tore as easily as rotted silk. Fluid the color of used motor oil leaked from the wounds. The droplets of quasi-blood spattered the floorboards, obliterating the outline of the pentagram.

There was a collective shout of triumph from Jazrel, as if a hundred ghostly voices had spoken through her mouth, and she swept down upon her prey like a barn owl snatching up a rat. Eugenie wrapped her arms about her former husband, and all three were lifted into the air by a howling wind that did not exist outside the confines of the room.

The trio spun around in mid-air like a bizarre aerial threesome, all arms and legs and naked flesh. At first Jere thought the women were covering Legendre’s body with kisses and caresses. Then he saw Legendre’s lower lip come away in Jazrel’s teeth and Eugenie yank free a hunk of his scalp, exposing the shining skull underneath.

Il-Qui-Tente’s hair fell away and was caught by the wind and added to the rest of the detritus it chased through the room. The necromancer’s skin grew brittle and discolored, the cheekbones popping out through the flesh of his face like white knuckles; the nose collapsed on itself and his lower jaw was no longer held shut by its muscles and sagged like a door with a busted hinge. Jazrel reached into Il-Qui-Tente’s gaping mouth and extracted a ball of black-red light the size of a Christmas tree ornament.

Eugenie and Jazrel surrendered the necromancer’s withered body to the tender mercies of the dead of Seraphine. The two women bobbed in the eye of the storm and watched as the souls of Jazrel’s kinsmen spun the mortal remains of Donatien Alexander Legendre around the room like a load of dirty laundry. Jere clamped a hand over is mouth and nose, fearful of inhaling wind-borne particles of the rapidly disintegrating corpse, narrowly avoiding impalement by a flying rib.

Jazrel whistled to the ghosts and the cyclonic wind disappeared as suddenly as had begun. The women spun slowly downward, hand-in-hand, like leaves caught in a gentle eddy of wind. The mambo caressed Eugenie’s borrowed face, and Eugenie kissed the palm of her dark hand. When their lips met, the walls of Seraphine burst into flame.

Jere recoiled from the heat, but could not take his eyes from the women in the center of the blaze. Aggie tried to drag him away, but he clutched the doorframe, refusing to leave.

“I can’t leave Charlie in there!”

“Don’t fret about her! She’s in good hands!”

“But-“

“Don’t’ sass me, boy, less you want that other leg broke! What happens next ain’t for your eyes to see. Now get a move on!”

Reluctantly, Jere hobbled away, following Aggie’s lead through the billowing smoke.

Jazrel cradled the darkly glowing ball of light that was Il-Qui-Tente in her right hand. Eugenie intertwined her pale fingers with her lover’s dusky ones and together they offered up the spirit of their enemy to the Collector Of Crosses.

There was a scraping sound, like that of a shovel striking the lid of a coffin, and the roof disappeared. Baron Samedi, his gaunt face shining like the moon, peered down at them like a man studying the interior of a child’s dollhouse. The Lord of the Dead reached forth a bone-thin hand and plucked the squirming ball of negative energy between thumb and forefinger. The King of the Graveyard rolled the sorcerer’s corrupt soul back and forth, as if judging the quality of a cigar then popped it between his fleshless lips. His laugh was the sound of a horde of bats leaving their cave. Then he was gone and Seraphine’s roof returned-only now it was on fire.

Jazrel and Eugenie exchanged one last embrace. As Jazrel held the kiss Eugenie faded from Charlie’s eyes. Her eyelids fluttered as Eugenie retracted her control over her borrowed flesh. Charlie gave a small cry of surprise and pushed Jazrel away, confused and repulsed. Then she saw the sheets of flame surrounding her and screamed. The voodoo priestess caught her limp body before it could strike the floor and carried her from the burning house, the flames parting before her like obedient servants.

Jere was seated in the passenger seat of his car, watching Seraphine burn to the ground. The heat generated by the mansion’s destruction was terrific, making his face feel hot and tight. Aggie stood next to the car, muttering a litany of prayers under her breath. Her ancient face was serene in the light from the inferno.

Jazrel emerged from the smoke and soot, Charlie’s pale body cradled in her arms. Jere tied to struggle out of the car to reach her, but the pain in his leg made him swoon.

Aggie’s great-grandchild lowered Charlie’s naked form onto the ground, glancing up to reassure Jere that she was unharmed.

“Your friend merely sleeps. She has gone through much and understands little.” Her voice echoed when she spoke, as if she was speaking from inside an empty drum. well. When she looked Jere in the eye he saw lightning reflected in her pupil.

“We must leave,” Aggie told the younger woman. “It will be awhile before anyone notices the fire, but it’s only a matter of time before someone comes out to investigate. I can drive the blanc’s car back home, but mine is still in the ditch.”

Jazrel nodded, her movements as slow and graceful as water ballet. “1 will see to it.”

Aggie hesitated, and then embraced her mother. “Mama … it’s been so long!”

Jazrel gently brushed her daughter’s grizzled mane with one hand. “I know, child. 1 never meant for us to be apart so long. But we shall be together soon.”

Jere looked away. Other people’s family matters always made him uncomfortable. He looked skyward, and for a couple of seconds it looked as if the stars were tied together with silken threads the color of midnight and blood.

Jere spent the entire ride back to New Orleans convinced that at any moment they would be pulled over by some bullnecked trooper who would want to know exactly what the hell an one-eyed centenarian was doing driving a ‘82 hatchback twenty miles an hour with a man with a broken leg riding shotgun and an unconscious naked woman in the backseat.

They finally arrived at an imposing mansion in the heart of the city’s Garden District just as the sun came up. Aggie parked the sputtering hatchback with its Bush/Noriega In ‘88 bumper sticker in a carriage house-cum-garage that was nicer than Jere’s apartment. Jere glimpsed Aggie’s familiar Flying W parked in a corner of the garage.

A stiff-lipped white butler built like a walking refrigerator and dressed in a dark suit nice enough for a banker ferried first Charlie, then Jere into the house through a special passageway that guaranteed no curious neighbors could keep track of Aggie’s comings and goings.

The butler put Jere in a small, nicely appointed room with a big feather bed that smelled of lilacs, and left a bottle of brandy on the nightstand. A couple of minutes later Aggie came into the room, armed with a first aid kit and a roll of bandages.

“Here. Clamp down on this,” she said, handing him a leather strap with loops at either end. “It’ll keep you from biting your tongue off.”

“Why don’t you just take me to the hospital?”

“And have them ask you all kinds of questions while you’re out of your head on painkillers? No, you don’t need to go blabbing things while you’re under the knife. Don’t worry, I’ve set more legs than Carter’s got little liver pills.”

Before he could ask who the fuck Carter was, Aggie removed the makeshift splint, and Jere couldn’t say anything because his mouth was full of strap.

When he came back around, Aggie was washing her hands in an antique washbasin that was a decade her junior. She smiled at him as she dried her hands on her apron. “That weren’t too bad, was it? I did a damn fine job, if I do say so myself. You might have some misery come the rainy season, but that can’t be helped.”

“What about Charlie?”

“Boy, you got it bad, don’t you?” Aggie chuckled as she repacked her instruments. “She’s just fine. Don’t worry your head. Fortescue tells me she’s showing signs of coming to. She’ll be confused for a while, probably have bad dreams on and off for the rest of her life, but I seriously doubt there is any real damage.”

The door opened and Ti entered the room. Her white muslin dress was stained with sweat and smeared with mud and axle grease. The keys to Aggie’s Mercedes dangled from one hand. There was no sign of her ancestress in her weary eyes.

“Mercy, child! You look like you pulled the car out of the ditch by hand!”

“Maybe I did. I don’t really know. I feel like I’ve been moving heavy furniture all night long.”

“Do you recall anything of what happened last night?”

“Some. Not all. Most of it’s blurry. The last thing I remember doing was killing Alex.” There was sadness in her voice as she put her hand to her eyes “Don’t feel bad about that, honey. You did him a kindness. You put him out of his misery, same as you would a rabid dog.”

“I know,” she whispered hoarsely.

“You go get cleaned up and have yourself a lie-down,” Aggie said, kissing her on the cheek. “I’ll be around shortly to see how you’re doing.”

Jere watched silently as the young woman who had saved his life left the room. He glanced at Aggie, who had a sad smile on her face. “Is she going to be all right?”

Aggie sighed and reached for the brandy on the bedside table. “What she had to do was hard. But that little gal is strong, like my mama was strong.” She fixed Jere with her good eye. “She’s carryin’ his young’un, you know.”

Jere didn’t know how to react to that piece of news, so he changed the subject.

“What about He-Who-Tempts, or whatever he was? Is he dead?”

“Depends on what you consider ‘dead’. If you mean ‘is his body destroyed?’ Yes. It’ll be a lot harder for him to come back next time around. If there is a next time. That’s not my worry anymore.”

“You mean we went through all this and there’s still a chance he might come back?”

“You’re not dealing with some pretend monster, like in those moving pictures. The rules are different in the waking world. As long as there is evil, and the desire to do harm, Legendre will be there, on the other side, looking for a way to make himself flesh in this world.” She poured a dollop of brandy into a water glass and handed it to Jere. “But you needn’t worry yourself about such things. It will be a long time, much longer than you can live, before my father can get up to such mischief.”

The brandy burned all the way down. It felt wonderful. It was as if his body was sinking into the pillows and mattress. The old woman was getting ready to leave the room. The question bubbled up inside him, but he was too tired to control his tongue.

“Aggie?”

“Yes, boy, what is it?” She turned to look at him, her hand of the doorknob.

“What about me and Charlie? What will happen to us?”

“Are you asking if you will get the girl?”

He nodded; relieved he did not have to explain what he wanted from her.

“My foresight is imperfect, but I have been known to see things in the future,” she admitted grudgingly.

“Can you do that for me?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“Please …”

Aggie sighed and placed her hand over her good eye. The glass eyes rolled as if tracking movement on the horizon. “You and she will marry.”

Jere’s smile was goofy, but he didn’t care. He yawned and asked: “Will we live happily ever after?”

The fatigue and medicinal herbs in the brandy claimed him before he could hear Aggie’s answer: “You will live like everybody else.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“I have been dying for twenty years, now I am going to live.”

-James Drummond Burns, His Last Words

From The New Orleans Times-Picayune States-Item, August 1,1990: Satanist Cult Believed Responsible For Murder, Arson

redemption, louisiana: Police are currently investigating the remains of a derelict building of further evidence of what looks to be ritualistic murders and human sacrifice, as well as arson. The sleepy village of Redemption, seat of miniscule Redeemer parish, is currently awash with unaccustomed excitement. The source of Redemption’s disquiet goes back to the early morning hours of July 28th. It was then, at 4 a.m., that Miss Tilly Von Turk reported seeing what looked to be a forest fire from her bedroom window. At 5:15 a.m. the volunteer fire department from the neighboring town of Hoptoad arrived to discover an abandoned antebellum mansion engulfed in flames.

Although car was found nearby, no attempt was made by the fire fighters to enter the burning building in search of persons trapped inside. According to Volunteer Fire Chief Curtis Cottrell: “It was obvious nothing living could still be in there”.

The license plate of the car was traced to a Naomi Bordelon of New Orleans, a divorced mother of three who had been reported missing the day before. Once things cooled down enough to permit investigation, the Louisiana State Police, at the request of the local municipality, began sifting through the rubble in hopes of finding some evidence of Ms. Bordelon.

What they found proved far more fantastic than even the most lurid paperback horror novel. The remains of two bodies, both male, were located amidst the wreckage. One body was missing its head and hands and had been mutilated in such a manner than internal organs, including the heart and liver, were missing as well. The second body had suffered massive trauma to the head and face, possibly from a large caliber handgun fired at close range. Searchers also turned up a number of human bones that do not seem to belong to either of the two bodies.

Police Inspector Lawrence Schlueter, brought in from Baton Rouge to help with the case, claims that it is the work of Satanists. “I’ve seen this kind of thing before,” states Inspector Schlueter. “Our men found all kinds of weird occult items in the surrounding area: animal skulls on sticks; satanic symbols cut into tree trunks; that kind of thing. It’s highly possible this has been a site for human sacrifices and other devil worship for several years. Forensics has already told us that some of the human bones we found are considerably older than that of the cadavers. We should get a better idea of what actually went on here once the lab boys get through analyzing the evidence and we identify the bodies.”

The mansion, listed in parish records as once having gone by the name “Seraphine”, was abandoned during Reconstruction, and had a local reputation for being haunted. LeBoeuf Realty & Property of New Orleans is registered as owning both the house and most of the land that one constituted the Seraphine Plantation. LeBoeuf’s Realty’s acting president and owner, Agatha L. LeBoeuf, was unavailable for comment at the time this story went to press.

From “Bad To The Bone: Rock’n’Roll’s Most Notorious Black Sheep”, by Darryl Dalrymple, Rolling Stone, October, 1996:

When discussing the black sheep of Rock’s far-from-pristine flock, it is impossible to ignore Alex Rossiter.

Rossiter, who first won acclaim as the lead singer/guitarist/songwriter for the band Crash, was of rock’s genuine child prodigies. His lyrics, especially those on display in the band’s seminal debut album, Crash and Burn (Arista, 1970), is especially noteworthy for their introspective nature. Many critics at the time of the album’s release refused to believe that a seventeen year old could produce such sophisticated songs as “Sour Milk Sweetheart” and “Last To Say Goodbye”.

Following the success of Crash and Burn, nothing seemed to go right for the talented singer/songwriter. Throughout the Seventies and well into the Eighties, Rossiter suffered a series of personal and career setbacks that paved the way for his later infamy.

In 1971, Crash drummer Billy Shakespeare died of an allergic reaction to methadone. Rossiter, already depressed over the loss of his mentor, Jim Morrison, allowed the band to dissolve. However, Crash was signed to produce a second album for Arista. But the company’s executives, convinced that Rossiter was the genius behind the band, didn’t seem worried about their investment.

Later that same year, Rossiter released a statement to the presses that was renouncing his worldly goods and going to India to study at the feet of a second-rate maharishi. His parents, however, had him forcibly removed from the guru’s “enlightenment camp”. Rossiter refused to comment publicly on the experience and retreated to the recording studio, where he remained for the next year and a half.

In 1973 Arista released Rossiter’s magnum opus, the classically misunderstood Blood Moon Rising. Although considered unlistenable by critics and record-buyers at the time of its release, Blood Moon Rising has proven to be an influence on such diverse bands as The Cramps, Joy Division, They Might Be Giants, and The Residents. After the album failed to place on the charts, Rossiter began to self-destructive downward spiral familiar to rock’n’roll flameouts. He became enmeshed in numerous drugs and crackpot spiritual movements that would eventually lead to his own demise.

Dismissed as an aged wunderkind, Rossiter found it impossible to land another recording contract. The executives at Arista, convinced that his earlier success was due to the novelty of his youth, effectively blackballed him. He recorded only one other album during the Seventies, Darker Yet (Scrub Records 1975). In 1982, during an attempt at a comeback at CBGB’s, Rossiter attacked and badly wounded a member of the audience. The subsequent scandal ruined any chances Rossiter might have had at reclaiming the limelight.

Rossiter spent most of the Eighties in seclusion, although he did release an EP, Bring In The Rats (Winston Smith, 1984). In 1989 he relocated to the balmy climes of New Orleans, where he allegedly became involved in a voodoo cult. In 1990 he began what looked to be a genuine attempt to form a new band with drummer, and fellow voodoo devotee, Arsine Copeland.

Even though Rossiter’s band Pigfoot never recorded an album, and only played once in public one, its reputation has reached mythic proportions amongst the rock literati. A handful of low-quality rehearsal recordings have been parlayed into a substantial number of bootleg tapes & CDs, the best engineered of the lot being, Pigfoot: Knuckles & Tails (Bootjack, 1991). No matter how heinous his crimes, Alex Rossiter is still widely acknowledged as introducing the thrash-zydeco sound that became the trademark of the early Nineties, as spearheaded by Zydeco Ya-Ya, the band composed of the surviving members of Pigfoot.

In July of 1990, Alex Rossiter’s history of drug abuse and emotional instability finally caught up with him, but in ways no one had ever dreamed possible. On July 28th, the decapitated body of a middle-aged woman was found in a dumpster in the suburb of New Orleans East. The head was nowhere to be found in the vicinity.

Earlier that same day, fire fighters responded to a five-alarm blaze in nearby Redeemer Parish, only to find the ruins of an antebellum mansion ablaze. The investigators found an abandoned car at the scene, its interior soaked in blood. The car was registered to one Naomi Bordelon, a middle-aged cashier who had been reported missing the day before by her three children. Subsequent investigation of the burned building and surrounding area turned up two mutilated bodies, both male, and a plethora of occult icons. While the state police struggled to identify the badly charred corpses, things were developing back in New Orleans.

Acting on an anonymous tip, New Orleans police went to Rossiter’s apartment on July 31st. The smell emanating from the apartment on that hot summer day told them what they would find before they even opened the door. However, even the most hardened homicide cop was unprepared for the magnitude of horror that awaited them.

The badly decomposed corpse of Arsine Copeland, minus its head, was found in the bathtub. Copeland’s head, along with that of Naomi Bordelon, was found inside the refrigerator. Both Copeland and Bordelon’s skulls had been cracked open and significant portions of their brains were missing.

Police also found a crude map drawn on the wall that depicted the location of the mansion. A substantial cache of hard drugs, including heroin, various barbiturates, and crack, was also found on the premises.

Going by dental records, Forensics later identified one of the corpses found at the fire as being that of Alex Rossiter. The other body, which was extensively mutilated, was never identified. The official police explanation is that Rossiter had killed the unknown white male as part of a satanic ritual, and then committed suicide after setting fire to the building, although the gun Rossiter supposedly used to commit suicide with was never found.

Following the publication of the forgotten rock star’s gruesome murder sprees, demand for his early albums went through the roof.

Records stores were deluged by thousands of curious music fans eager to listen to music composed by a psychotic killer. Ironically, the adoration denied Rossiter during his adult life has remained constant since his death.

Within months of Rossiter’s violent demise, a death cult formed around him. These devoted groupies, known as Crashers, have turned the charred ruin of the plantation house where the singer met his end into a shrine. Every year on July 28m, hundreds of Rossiter fans, most of who were born well after Crash disbanded, gather in Redeemer Parish to keep vigil at the site of their hero’s death.

Several psychologists have gone on record claiming that the identification these alienated teenagers have for a disturbed murderer is due in part to the romantic tradition of the Byronic hero. But the most concise summary of the phenomena may have been made by a fourteen-year-old female Crasher named Marjorie who, when asked about her attraction to the doomed singer, said; “Like, you know, he’s really good-lookin’, he’s, you know, really cool, and he’s, you know, dead.”

Charlie slid out from under the sheets, careful not to wake Jere. Moonlight poured through the skylight of their Bayou Saint John home, washing the bedroom in black and silver. The only other sign of life was their cat, a good-natured tabby called Neptune, who was asleep in the bentwood rocker.

Charlie pulled on a robe and stood looking out the window at the moonlit waterway. She and Jere had been married three years, but every morning she still woke up expecting to find herself back in her old house with Pluto curled on the foot of the bed and Alex snoring beside her. Every time Jere came home from work, part of her expected to see Alex walking though the door, dressed in his ratty old leather jacket and smiling that peculiar half-smile of his. But Alex was dead-notoriously so. She had been forced to move from her wonderful old house because of the weird little teenage girls, the ones called Crashers, who would stand on the sidewalk all hours of the day and night and stole handfuls of the front yard. Most of the Crashers were ridiculously young, dressed in black, and wore makeup that made them look as dead as their idol.

She rubbed her arms, trying to lay the goose bumps to rest. She still didn’t think Alex was an evil as everyone made him out to be. He had loved her, in his own way.

She had a hard time accepting what Alex had done. If she had not seen him kill Pluto with her own eyes, she might never have believed what the papers said about him being a serial murderer and a cannibalistic devil worshipper.

She had trouble remembering what else happened that night, and she wasn’t certain she really wanted to. Jere told her she fainted when Alex killed Pluto and hit her head on a table when she fell. Jere broke his leg trying to carry her downstairs. As always, Jere had been there for her, especially in the aftermath, when the reporters realized the rock’n roll/Satanist connection. She did not know what she would have done without Jere being there to fend off the paparazzi during that first horrible week following Alex’s death. That was when their relationship finally moved from the platonic to the romantic.

Jere was so much happier now that he was no longer teaching. Not long after the horrible business with Alex, an incredibly rich old Garden District matron he had once done a portrait for died and mentioned Jere in her will. He used the money to open an art gallery in the Quarter, and had enjoyed a good deal of success. Sometimes the old lady’s granddaughter, a tall, regal-looking black woman, would pay Jere a visit during gallery hours. Charlie didn’t particularly care for the woman-she made her nervous, for some reason. However, she thought her little boy, Jubal, was absolutely precious.

Her life with Jere was a happy and stable one. For the most part. She glanced guiltily over her shoulder at Jere as he lay sleeping in the king-sized bed they shared. She had strayed a few times in the last year or so, although she herself was uncertain as to what it was she was looking for in the bars and pick-up lounges along St. Charles Avenue. Maybe she would never know.

But sometimes, on nights like this one, when she couldn’t sleep, she often had the urge to get in the car and just go driving. It didn’t matter where. Perhaps out past the city limits, where she could see the stars and smell the pine trees and swamp grass. Maybe she could go see the ruins of the house where Alex died. She never did it, though. But she was tempted.

ORIGINAL

TEMPTER

HANDWRITTEN NOTES

Nancy A. Collins

VII Original Tempter Chapter Quotes

IX Original Tempter Outline

XIII Original Tempter Timeline

XIX Original Tempter Architectural Notes

XXIII Original Tempter VooDoo Notes

*NOTE: Nancy’s notebook pages furnished in tif format to conserve space. If you don’t know how to view tif’s, look it up. ‘Nuff said

Table of Contents

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE