by D. M. Pratt
“Where?” he demanded.
“To stop the Nephilim from coming back to kill Cora,” Eve said.
“I got a gun. Can bullets kill a ghost?”
“I told you it’s not a ghost,” Eve said and turned to walk away.
He was searching the phone for Nephilim.
“I’m coming with you,” Mac told her as he tossed his cigarette.
“That’s your choice. I no longer have one,” Eve said and headed for her car.
Mac stared after her. Eve could tell by his dumbfounded expression that believing her went against everything he’d ever been taught. He took off after her. When they reached her car he slipped into the passenger’s side. Eve could also see he was trying his best to wrap his mind around what she was saying.
“What are you doing?” Eve asked.
“I’m doing my best to figure out the truth with or without your help, but I appreciate your help because you know more than I do,” he said.
Good luck with that, she thought, having grappled with this insanity since the party at the Gregoire estate. Eve hit the accelerator of the Prius and sped off in silence.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It was already past noon when they pulled up in front of Cora’s house. Eve had spent the morning at Southern Style talking to Charles and getting her leave of absence put in place. The attack on Cora was in the news and Charles was being very understanding… for Charles. She couldn’t tell if his concern was for her and Cora or a just an excuse to hug her. Mac hung back once she introduced him as the detective on Cora’s case. Eve liked that having a detective next to her made Charles very uncomfortable… or was it jealousy she was picking up? At this point Charles was the least of her concerns.
Eve watched as Mac made a mental note that Eve didn’t like Charles. Mac was a champ. He’d made a concerted effort to check in and make sure Cora was okay. He’d let her blubber like a five year old on his rumpled jacket and he’d listened and opened his mind to the possibility that this insanity might…just might have some reality behind it. In the end Eve decided he was not only a really good cop but a really good person. For one brief moment she thought, if she wasn’t trying to save her friend and kill a demon, he’d be just the kind of special interest story she could write that would take her back to being a real journalist again. The idea of doing her job was as unreal as the thought of the Nephilim. She shook her head, got in the car with Mac and drove.
“Why are we here?” Mac asked looking up at the police tape that still surrounded Cora’s house.
“It, the Nephilim, was after something,” Eve said.
“Whoever did that to Cora Bouvier and Ms. Clarisse?”
“Yes,” Eve said.
“And you know this because…” he asked.
Eve looked at him. Mac was along for the ride and if things got real funky demon- wise, she thought she’d better prepare him as best she could. Not that she knew shit about preparing anyone to face off with a demon, but she needed to tell someone the truth and he was the only one listening who had a gun.
“When I was at the hospital, Cora…um…said…thought something and I picked it up.”
He just looked at her.
“And you read minds?”
“No…yes… a little, maybe. A little girl taught me,” Eve said.
“What am I thinking?” Mac asked.
Eve looked at him.
“That I’m crazy but I’m the only lead you’ve got so, like it or not, you are following my hunch?” Eve asked.
“Was that a question?”
“Was that right?” she asked.
“Yeah, it was, but you could just be logical,” he replied.
Eve got out of the car and headed up to the house. Reams of yellow tape encircled the property and blocked the front door. Mac lit up another cigarette.
“Put that out. Please,” Eve said. “It makes you smell funny and it makes me dizzy.”
He put it out and played nervously with the gold lighter. Finally he put the lighter away, dropping it into his pocket.
“How do we get in?” Eve asked.
Mac produced a key.
“I knew there was a reason I wanted you along,” she said. “Let me get this straight; a demon attacked and killed the maid and mutilated Cora Bouvier and now you read minds,” Mac said.
“Look, if you are coming on the ride, you just have to go with the flow. After the full moon tonight, if this isn’t real you can commit me to the insane asylum, okay?”
“Oooookay. Okay,” he said and then stopped, thinking again about the words she’d just spoken. “Wait. That’s not fair. What the hell does a full moon have to do with this?”
“Just make sure you have a lot of bullets,” she said.
“I got enough. But they’re not made of silver.”
“That’s for werewolves,” Eve corrected him.
“So’s a full moon if I remember my horror mythology,” he said.
“I’ll get to the moon part and as for the bullets, I haven’t put that together yet. Just in case,” Eve told him.
They went into the house crossing the magnificent entry with its graceful, curved stairwell. At its center, the round oak table, dark and polished a shiny chocolate brown, seemed to anchor the room as the first word of elegance that defined the house; it lay tipped on its side. No longer on it was the massive, cream and amber alabaster vase that always sat proudly filled with armloads of fresh flowers greeting all who entered. It lay broken on the floor; stems and blossoms were crushed and strewn across the black and white marble squares, each bloom withered and dying, left helpless to do anything other than rot. Most of the spilled water had dried but the humidity fed the rest and Eve knew the pools of water would quickly welcome spores of mildew and mold to find a home in the puddles that lay on the floor. The smell of dying flowers hung thick in the summer air as putrid as a funeral parlor in August. Eve looked into the main parlor, the furniture was smashed and scattered and the fabric on the big settee had been ripped into shreds. It looked like the deed of an angry pet too big to be left inside and too mean to be left out. Blood splatters decorated the floor and walls making the smooth Venetian finish on the walls look as if it were weeping drops and ribbons of blood. This is where Ms. Clarisse died, Eve thought, fighting to save Cora.
“So what kills an incubus?” he asked looking at the razor claw marks that ripped the padded fabric walls leading to the second floor.
“I was told they’re not alive so I guess you can’t kill them.” “That sucks. So why do you want a gun and bullets?” he asked.
“Just in case I’m wrong and just in case their human counterpart can get taken out by a bullet.”
“Human counterparts?” he asked.
Eve headed up the stairs. She touched the ripped silk wall fabric, running her fingertips along the frayed edges that a razor sharp talon could have done just as easily as a knife. She withdrew her hand at the sight of the largest blood splatter pattern.
“We think the murder victim was trying to protect Ms. Bouvier. The maid, I mean, was trying to protect Ms. Bouvier,” Mac said.
“Ms. Clarisse was more than a maid. Cora was as close to her as any daughter could be. She was… a mother figure and a major domo… she took care of everything in all of Cora’s homes,” Eve said.
She tried to explain Cora and Ms. Clarisse’s relationship as simply as she could and hoped in doing so she could give honor to the life, talents and love Ms. Clarisse Rhodan had shown Cora and her family. She’d been kind to Eve too from the moment Eve walked into the house. According to Cora, Eve was one of the few friends she had who Ms. Clarisse liked.
Mac listened as he followed Eve into the master bedroom. The design was all Cora and right out of the pages of Architectural Digest. Somehow Cora found a way to blend the grace of the old south with the modern elegance of the future. She’d chosen the exquisitely smooth lines of a modernized art deco design for the tables and chests and mirror that was the furniture. C
ertain pieces were covered in butter-soft Italian white leather. Accents of sleek travertine and glimmering, understated, architecturally graceful pieces of chrome under bronze lamps with silk shades combined with hints of color in lush fabrics in muted tones of cream and taupe and tabletops of thick green glass.
This room had been destroyed, things upended, lamps and furniture shattered as if they were made of paper maché.
Eve and Mac moved to the closet. She crossed to the drawer where Cora had showed her the gold key card to the hidden secret room.
“Turn around…please,” Eve said.
Mac looked at her.
“Please,” Eve asked again. “She trusted me, not you.”
Mac turned and Eve opened the drawer. She reached under the smooth wood hinge and pulled out the card, then closed the drawer. Eve crossed to the large mirrored wall, slipped the card into the almost imperceptible slot on the frame and the mirrored wall slid open.
The sound of the mirrored wall sliding back into the pocket door made Mac’s head turn. His mouth gaped open.
“It’s Cora’s treasure room. It’s also a safe room with ten-inch thick steel walls, enough air, water and food for three weeks and the ability to monitor anyone in or around the house,” Eve said.
“I gotta be rich some day. My whole life I’ve wanted my own secret room,” he said finally noticing the jewelry cases, stacks of cash, silver and gold coins and bars. “The stuff inside ain’t bad either I guess. What are we looking for?”
“I don’t know. I’d asked her to do some research on Millard Le Masters for me. I think she found something.”
“Millard Le Masters? He’s your human counterpart?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“Le Masters is a snake, but he’s not a demon,” Mac said, obviously not a fan.
“Don’t be so sure. He might be possessed by one and that would allow him to be a shape shifter,” Eve explained.
“I know you’re a writer, but are you making this up?” he asked.
“It’s based on research and …well… expert input.”
“From?” he asked.
Again Eve studied him and her mind filled with the momentary flash of her in a straightjacket and Mac pointing to the loony bin.
“Evine Toussaint.”
“Really? How did you manage to not be from New Orleans and still know how to find the strangest of all oddities that inhabits New Orleans?” he asked.
“Cora took me,” she replied and went back to searching.
“And you believed her?”
“Not until I saw it shift in front of me. But it wasn’t until I saw Ms. Clarisse that I understood how powerful it was.”
Eve moved around the treasure room pushing past the Cartier, Bulgari, Tiffany, Rolex, Audemars Piguet and some high-end names she’d never even heard of. Leather and Plexiglas boxes filled with Cora’s very elegant and very expensive treasures cluttered the shelves.
Mac stood in awe at a 19th century tiara in a plexiglass case with its own key light.
“Was she some kind of European royalty?”
“There are some Bourbons from Versailles in the family line, but she doesn’t speak about it because it doesn’t matter to her.”
Eve saw it first, a worn leather briefcase… a man’s leather briefcase. It had the name Gregoire on the silver plate above the catch. It was old and worn.
“How did she get this?” Mac asked.
Eve lifted the case and placed it on a small, round sharkskin table that sat at the center of the room with its own matching chair.
“I don’t know,” she said as she tried the lock.
“I need the combination,” she said.
Mac took the case, grabbed a fox muff, covered the lock, pulled out his 45 and shot the lock off. A small puff of smoke danced with the grace of a ballerina as it faded above the singed fur.
“What if it had been…booby trapped?” she asked.
“It wasn’t,” he replied and handed her the case.
Eve opened it and found several sets of large legal documents: wills, trust deeds, estate inheritance files.
Mac looked at the letterhead. “This is Robb, Gallager and Grant,” Mac said. “Most prestigious, oldest and most powerful firm in New Orleans. If your family hasn’t been with this firm since before the Civil War chances are you won’t be a client.”
“Well that would be the Bouvier family.”
“They wouldn’t give her this,” he said.
“Knowing Cora, I’m sure they didn’t.”
Eve picked up a hundred-page will obviously left in place by Beau’s mother and father and handed it to Mac.
“Read this,” she said.
“You must know how illegal this is?”
“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Eve said.
She dug deeper and found an older will put in place by Beau’s grandparents on the Gregoire side of the family that dated back to 1936.
Mac looked around again.
“Why didn’t she come in here and hide?” he asked.
Eve looked around thinking maybe she would have been safe here. Then she saw the monitor that focused on the parlor and pointed.
“She did, that’s why the briefcase is here. I think she went back to help Ms. Clarisse.”
Eve went to the little fridge and pulled out two bottles of lemon-flavored water. She opened them both and handed one to Mac.
“Read and then we can share what we find,” she said.
Mac nodded a thank you and took the drink. The two of them sat on the floor and began to read through the enormous piles of documents that Cora had risked her life to retrieve, hoping to find a reason why all this was happening.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Hours passed unnoticed, as if time had become some great sleeping dragon left undisturbed for fear of its impending wrath. Mac had taken off his rumpled jacket, gun and holster and found a hook just outside the treasure room wall. They hung close enough for action if “it” came back. All around them lay bottles of water and packets of Mylar-covered space food, with their brightly colored, congealed substances squeezed from the tip: yummy flavored, nutritious food the consistency of toothpaste. Only Cora would go to NASA’s kitchen for her emergency supplies. Mac rubbed his neck and then his eyes. Eve was lost in the final pages of Beau’s parents’ last will and testament.
“They hated Millard. They suspected him of killing their other child. They were trying to get Beau away from him when they were accidently killed. Why didn’t they report their suspicions?” she asked.
“No proof I guess. Maybe Millard had help. New Orleans has been known to be pretty corrupt. Won’t know until I reopen the cases,” he replied.
“Look, they made arrangements with the state that if they died the estate and the rest of the family fortune would “appear” to go into a grant of some kind. They made it look like an endowment fund was to be put in place to hold the house and a huge chunk of Beau’s inheritance. It was substantial too but see…it was partial and the rest including the Gregoire mansion, lands and other holdings were to be given to their only living son Beauregard when he turned 35 which, according to this is tomorrow.”
“Or midnight,” he added.
“If he’s dead, all the money goes to charity. If he’s alive he, or who is in charge of him, gets everything,” Eve explained. “Mac, I think he’s alive, a prisoner and being held by his grandfather.”
“Millard Le Masters is going through a lot of trouble. So if he’s alive the question is where?” Mac said taking the will from her and rereading it for himself. A light went on in his head.
“Shit. I saw something with this file number on it,” he said.
Mac went back into the old brief case. He pulled out several manila envelopes, shuffled through them until he found one marked Medical.
“You need to read this,” Mac said. “It didn’t make sense until you explained the codicil.”
He handed her the papers from inside. It was clea
rly marked Personal and Confidential. A name was stamped across the top THIBODAUX ASYLUM. It only took a few moments for Eve to understand what Beau’s grandfather had done to him.
“Oh my God, he’s held him prisoner for all these years,” Eve exclaimed. She felt her heart ache for the handsome man who had somehow become a pawn in this supernatural nightmare. “Do you know where this place is?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Iberia Parish. In the heart of the Atchafalaya Basin Swampland.”
“Can you get a warrant to get us in there and look for Beau?” she asked.
“Under what law?” Mac asked.
“Kidnapping and extortion. These documents prove it.”
“I’m a cop, not a lawyer, but from what I read all they say was that he was rendered to their custody for schizophrenic, aggressive and lethal behavior,” Mac read the diagnosis aloud to her from the commitment papers.
“It’s a lie,” Eve said feeling a rush of anger well inside her.
“What about the demon…thing…situation?” he asked. “You said he came to you. You saw him and touched him, but according to these papers that’s impossible.”
“I know it sounds insane but Beau Le Masters was as real as you and I standing here right now,” she said.
“You said you touched him. What happened? I need to know everything you know Eve or I can’t help you,” Mac said.
His eyes stayed on her face in that cop way, the one that looks for ticks and facial expressions that change when guilt or fear twitch through. They were tell-tale gives that denoted someone was lying. Eve stared back. She felt the tears well in her eyes; fear and a deep sadness was all that flushed her face.
“He seduced me and then, when I tried to resist, that… thing…that Nephilim came out and …it raped me.”
“Can you prove that?”
“No,” she said. “How do you prove what the bible and the Torah define as the ‘sons of God’ who coveted and coupled with ‘the daughters of man for centuries’?”
Mac looked at her.
“According to what I read, they existed at least two different times – in the antediluvian times and then again after the flood. They helped populate the world. They elevated us from ancient hominids to modern humans.”