“Remembered what?”
“A secret place. A little hiding place I used to play in when I was a girl. Underneath a stairway and covered by a bookcase. Once, when Mother wasn’t looking, I saw how she would go in and out. She would remove a book on the top shelf to push a button behind it and swing the bookcase out, revealing an entrance. From then on, I started playing in there myself. I saw books and pictures and boxes there that were filled with strange objects—talismans and amulets that she kept. But when she found out, she scolded me terribly. Told me she would ‘tan my hide’ if I ever went in there again. So I never did. Not until last night.”
“And then?”
“I knew that my mother used to keep diaries on her nightstand in her bedroom. After she passed, I went through the house. Strangely, I didn’t find any of them. Until I rediscovered that secret place last night. In the one diary I found, the dates of her entries started only a few days before she died. Where the other diaries went, I have no idea.”
“Who could have taken them?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Who else was in the house with her?”
“She had a housekeeper, but she was a very trusted friend. The only other person was the man who was with her the day she died. The man who cooked her meals and did some odd jobs.”
“Besides the location of this bayou, what else did she write?”
Belle hesitated. She parted her lips like she was about to share something but stopped.
“Belle, please,” I said. “I am hunting down very bad people doing some very bad things. I don’t know whether or not they’re all connected. Your mother’s diary might help.”
Another pause, then, “Mother and I had parted ways long before I started art school up in Philadelphia. Regardless . . . I can’t think she was involved. Not the way you might think. Not the way it looks on the page . . .”
“What are you saying?”
Belle was shaking her head in disbelief. “It’s not the way it seems, when you read it. There has to be another explanation.”
Before I could respond, we heard the sound of drums coming from the interior courtyard of the crumbling mansion.
Heather had a conflicted expression on her face. She looked over to the ruins strangled in overgrowth, where the bonfire was lighting up the night sky. “I . . . I have to go. I can’t afford to miss this. My research . . .”
The father in me leaped out. “Heather, I care more about your soul than your research. Don’t go. This is dangerous stuff.”
She shook her head.
I pressed in. “It’s not about some ridiculous voodoo ceremony. There’s more at play here underneath all of that—a supernatural enemy with an aim to maneuver you, entice you, until you’re a slave. He’s just looking for an open door, that’s all. Any door will do. Heather, please don’t step into it.”
Before I could explain any more, Heather exploded. “I’m not doing this with you right now. Especially in front of this nice woman,” she said, nodding to Belle. “I’m not going into your medieval junk, Trevor. Satan and his minions. Heaven and hell. Your comic book theology.”
Heather turned and strode toward the lights from the bonfire that were flickering up the cypress trees encircling the ruins, where the drums were beating louder.
Belle looked away from me, like a child who had just reluctantly chosen sides against me in a schoolyard argument. “There’s something I have to do,” Belle said and then quickly followed after Heather.
23
It was late, and I was alone. I was resigned to the fact that I was stuck at Bayou Bon Coeur till morning. I planned to have Delbert Baldou ferry me back to New Orleans at daybreak along with any others who wanted to join us.
Wanting no part of the concert of voodoo spell-casting taking place by the bonfire, I sauntered down to the water where Baldou’s flatboat was tied up. I had delivered my warning to Heather. What else could I do?
I sat down on a grassy spot and listened to the swamp that was alive with the sounds of night animals in the brush and creatures on the water. While the sky was pitch black, the bonfire blaze inside the mansion courtyard cast a light all the way to my place at the water’s edge. The moon had come out full, and it painted a yellow beam of light across the water.
My mission had been to locate Heather and make sure she was safe. That part was finished. But I was uneasy about all that was still undone. Between Heather and me. And why I had come to New Orleans in the first place. The death of Jason Forester. And now Paul Pullmen. And the abductions of young girls. Canterelle was right about that; it resembled Old Testament atrocities. Practically Canaanite.
On the visceral level, it all felt connected. But in my head, it dead-ended.
Back at the mansion ruins the drums were unceasing, followed by chanting and singing. Louder and louder. Someone was hitting a tambourine. The din was rising.
Then, a bolt out of the blue. What was I doing down by the water anyway, when my daughter was back there, just two hundred feet away, in the middle of an occult hoedown? My reasons for avoiding the ceremony suddenly rang ridiculously hollow.
I was on my feet and heading to the wall of the crumbling brick mansion. The front door was missing, and the opening gave me a good surveillance position into the courtyard. I could see Heather seated on the other side of the bonfire but outside the inner ring of participants.
Several of the white-turbaned women were swirling around the flames to the beat of the drums. One of them was swinging a machete in one hand while holding a bottle of liquor in the other. In between swaying and swooning, she thrust her head back, taking big gulps. First she sprayed it from her mouth at a big Latin cross that looked like it had been borrowed from a graveyard, then turned to the fire and spit liquor into the flames, causing it to momentarily flare up, to the delight of the caterwauling dancers.
Two of the gyrating women were swinging headless chickens over their heads, obviously having sacrificed them to the voodoo gods. I was no expert, but I had done enough research to understand the point of this cacophony: to summon the “spirit gods” from the other side.
One of the prancing women in white stood out from the rest. Her dance was more graceful, and she was holding a huge pink chalice containing some liquid that she was delicately sprinkling here and there with her fingers. The point was to invite a supernatural presence into her body. I kept watching. Suddenly she jammed to a halt, dropped the chalice, and began screaming and writhing, swinging her arms but still rhythmically in sync with the beating of the conga drums. Now all focus was on her. The other dancers gathered around her as she straightened up and began to physically assume another persona, this time a sashaying celebrity, with one hand raised high to the crowd, waving and provocatively swinging her hips as she walked. Whoever or whatever she had become, the revelers must have recognized it, because they began to shout, “Ezili Freda! Ezili Freda!” An onlooker rushed up to her with a satin cape and wrapped her in it while the others danced around her with white candles.
But it didn’t last. Another abrupt change. The woman’s cocky strut was over as her shoulders slumped and she put her hands over her face. Her shoulders began to shake, and her sobs came in loud waves of hysterical weeping. The other dancers encircled her, reaching out as if wanting to comfort her but afraid to touch her.
The drums stopped. I glanced to the far side of the bonfire, where Heather was seated. She had grabbed her knees and tucked them up close to her, the light flickering over her. There was an expression of sad astonishment on her face.
I had seen enough. Heather was safe, but only physically. The ceremony was finished. I returned to my place at the shore and sat down, feeling oppressed by the heat and by the cultic rituals that were going on and my daughter’s interest in them. Doors had been flung open to a demonic enemy. Only by the grace of God had a supernatural army not marched through the portal. Then again, maybe it had.
The sound of footsteps. Someone was coming up behin
d me.
Belle Sabatier was clutching two bottled waters, and when she sat down on the grass next to me, I noticed she was holding something else that she quickly slipped into her pocket.
When she offered me a bottle, I asked, “Is this a peace offering?”
“Maybe.”
The bottle was chilled, and I put it to my forehead. In the sweaty heat of the bayou, it felt good.
I asked her, “Why weren’t you in the middle of that fracas back in the mansion? I would have thought you’d be reveling right in the thick of it. Voodoo queen of the ball.”
She tilted her head and leaned in closer. “I thought lawyers look for evidence. Where’s your evidence for that idea?”
“I’m not a lawyer anymore, remember?”
“Of course. Mr. Canterelle filled me in. Your belief in the supernatural got you tossed outside the city gates.”
“So,” I asked again, nodding toward the bonfire, “why weren’t you dancing with the others? I didn’t even see you.”
She uncapped her bottle and took a healthy swig, then held it against her neck to cool herself. She kept it there for a few seconds.
Looking out to the waters of the bayou, she began to explain. “All I ever wanted to do was to run my little art studio back in Philadelphia. After I left New Orleans, I studied at the University of the Arts in the city. When I got out, I painted. My medium was watercolor, memories of the houses that I remembered in the French Quarter growing up. I rented a little shop and sold some of my work and that of other local artists on consignment. That’s who I really am, Trevor. Not part of my mother’s voodoo congregation. Just a struggling artist.”
“Okay,” I said, cutting it short. “And what about your mother? What was in that diary of hers?”
She put down her water bottle and pulled a small leather-bound book from her pocket. There were symbols etched into the leather.
“My mother’s diary,” she said, handing it to me. “See for yourself. The last entry was the day before her death.”
I opened it. Just as she had described, the first page had a meticulously drawn map of the waterways leading to Bayou Bon Coeur with a large X and, underneath it, the words Ruins of the Mansion of Marie Laveau.
Then, only two handwritten entries.
The first one said:
I am so vexed in my spirit. Am I the Mambo of New Orleans or not? Will cleanse myself from the blood with a special spell.
Then the last one. I had to read it twice, just to make sure. And when I was sure of the words that were written, I was stunned.
Something must be done about all those young girls. I am QUEEN. And my power shall not be trifled with.
I closed the diary and looked into Belle Sabatier’s eyes. “What ‘young girls’ was your mother writing about?”
In Belle’s eyes there were tears glistening, welling up. She tried to reply but couldn’t talk, making just a garbled sound. Then she snatched the diary from my hand, rose to her feet, and hurried toward the bonfire. I thought I could hear the muffled sound of weeping as she swept away.
I tried to untangle the meaning behind the entries in Minerva Sabatier’s diary—that part about “all those young girls.” And having to be cleansed from the blood. What else could it mean, other than that she was part of the vile abductions that had been taking place? More dread. For all the world it seemed to corroborate the rumors that Rudabow had told me about Minerva Sabatier.
Belle seemed contrite. Even appalled by her mother’s notes. But then, looks can be deceiving. I had learned, in my hunt for monsters, they sometimes come pleasantly disguised. The innocent facade can be fatal. Was Belle just one more?
I looked out at the moonlit water on the bayou.
Immediately I was aware of a menacing presence, nearly palpable.
Maybe I had lost that one peculiar sensory ability to detect the dark forces in advance, but it seemed to have been replaced by something else. A sense that was now more refined. Just like Rev. Cannon had said. An inner spiritual certainty that, at least when I was attuned to it, was even more powerful and accurate. A discernment telling me to be alert.
Just then, I had the overpowering notion that one of them was out there.
I checked my surroundings. Then I saw him, this time out on the mirrored surface of the water. In the moonlight. The dark figure. And I knew it was him. The one I had first seen from the beach on my island, standing on the ocean. My hellish chauffeur. The mentor for the demon twins I met in the alley. He had not given up on me. Of course not. He just waited for a more opportune time.
Now he had come back, and he was on the surface of the water in the bayou. Not sinking. But this time his arm was raised and he was beckoning me.
I was trembling and suddenly weak, hardly able to stand. I couldn’t run or fight back. Against everything that was in me, I felt myself being drawn to take a few steps toward the edge of the land, toward the dark waters where the menacing figure was waiting and summoning me to himself. His power was increasing, and mine decreasing.
“Lord Jesus,” I whispered, “your strength, not mine.”
The sound of laughter echoed over the waters, mocking me. Toying with me. It was coming from my enemy out there on the surface. Then, an instant later, he was gone.
24
It was well after midnight when the flickering lights from the bonfire began to ebb and people started hunkering down for sleep on Bayou Bon Coeur. I wanted to collect Heather and get out of there immediately, but that wasn’t going to happen.
Delbert Baldou asked me if I had a place to sleep. I told him no, but that I was waiting for my daughter, and after that I would have to figure it out.
He grinned. “I got da answer for y’all and Heather.” He pointed to his swamp boat. He explained that in the footlocker on board, he had a homemade tent setup that would cover the boat and create a sleeping space. We could use the life jackets for pillows.
Sleeping bags and mosquito nets were being mustered by the voodoo crowd within the walls of the roofless mansion ruins. Compared to that, Baldou’s boat looked like a night at the Plaza. I accepted his invitation, though I privately wondered why the special treatment.
I hung out at the shoreline pondering the appearance of that ghoul on the water and my helplessness, thinking about the horrible toll visited on those children and their families, considering what Belle had told me, and wondering why she had come clean like that about her mother and her diary. Perhaps there was more to Belle than I thought. And more to Minerva, as well.
When Heather showed up, she gave me a polite hello and I told her about Delbert Baldou’s offer. She was happy to join the two of us on the flatboat. In less than half an hour Delbert was snoring loudly. Heather couldn’t hold back a giggle.
In the shadows I rolled over so she could hear me, and I whispered, “Give me your impressions.”
“About what?”
“What you saw. The voodoo ceremony.”
“Educational,” she said. A few seconds later, she added, “Informative.” More time went by before she ended with “And very strange and kind of unsettling . . .”
“Me too,” I said.
“You watched?”
“Keeping you under surveillance. But yes, I saw it.” I let a few seconds go by, then asked, “You’re the anthropologist. Tell me—what was going on with that woman at the end? Strutting around like she was a Hollywood starlet, then crumpling into tears.”
“They said it was the female spirit god, Ezili Freda, taking her over.”
“Meaning what?”
“They say Ezili Freda is very powerful. Brings love and success. But also feared, because her jealousy and vengeance are all-consuming.”
“Why the tears?”
“They told me that Ezili Freda always ends her visits in weeping. Because the world is too much to endure.”
“True,” I said. “It can be. The dark side always makes enticing promises that are never kept. What’s left is sorrow. Broken
hearts. Enslaved souls. I’ve lost friends to it.”
For a while Heather said nothing. But in her total silence I knew she was still awake.
After a few moments she said in a whisper, “I suppose, now you’ve found me and your ABA speech is done, you’ll want us to head back to Ocracoke.”
That’s when I told her about Morgan Canterelle hiring me as a consultant. I mentioned a little about his cases but tried to be discreet.
I finished with “So this rash of abductions, those young girls, I’ve been hired to track them down. And find the monsters who are doing it.”
“How many? Where?”
“Several in this area. Close.”
I thought about the cold case dating back a decade and a half—involving the horrible death of fourteen-year-old Lucinda, whose body had been found right there on Bayou Bon Coeur. But I spared Heather from that one.
“So,” I said quietly, “I’ll pay for your airfare tomorrow. Fly you back to Florida or wherever you want to go.”
But Heather protested so loudly that Baldou began to stir and I thought he might wake up.
“No way, Trevor,” she said. “I’m staying here with you. I’ll be your research assistant or something. Where else am I going to get this kind of experience?”
Experience? I thought to myself. Heather still knew nothing about the real dangers of the demonic empire. And how those battles aren’t forensic or scientific but spiritual.
I told her we would discuss it in the morning, but in my heart I didn’t want Heather anywhere near the forces I’d be confronting.
Her last words before we both slipped off into sleep were “Just so you know, Trevor, I’m staying here in New Orleans. I’m working on those cases with you.” I tossed her a skeptical look. A moment later she added, “Anyway, it’s about human trafficking. In anthropology, you know . . . it’d be field experience.”
The Empowered Page 11