by D. M. Pratt
“I always wondered who helped Adam, Cain and Abel out populating the planet.”
“So you believe me?”
“No. Okay…Yes,” he said struggling. “Maybe. Look, I don’t know what the hell to believe.”
“Will you help me get a warrant?” “I need a reason. Even then there’s not much we can do except ride out to Thibodaux and see if we can have a conversation with a violent schizophrenic,” Mack said holding up the papers. “But just in case, we’re not going in there alone.”
Mac stood, grabbed his phone and punched in the speed dial to call for back up.
“What are you doing?” Eve asked.
“I’m trying to make this very illegal investigation legit,” he replied.
“Wait. Please. I need to know if Cora is okay,” Eve asked. “Can you check on her first?”
He stopped and hit end, calling instead the young cop watching over Cora at the hospital.
“Sure. I’ll check and then we’re calling this into the station. How’s the reception?” he asked.
“As long as the vault door is open it’s fine,” she replied.
Eve pulled out her cell and looked at the time. It was seven o’clock. She knew the full moon was already rising. She looked at the medical file and picked it up again. Now, she at least knew where Beau was and with the help of Mack she’d put some of the pieces of this horrific puzzle together. Something told her Millard would be at the Thibodaux Asylum and so would Beau. Millard would have some way to prove Beau was alive, declare him non compos mentis and himself heir. The law would have to transfer the trust over from grandson to grandfather. Eve knew in her heart Millard, having no reason to keep him alive, would then kill this beautiful, innocent man who had begged her for help. Anger rose in her throat as thick as bile. She could taste the bitterness of Millard’s greed. The human greed made sense, but then why the Nephilim, incubi and demon world? Did the Nephilim have hold of Millard?
Eve looked over at Mac, patiently waiting for Thaddeus Blanchard to pick up the phone and report in on how Cora was doing—more confirmation to her that Mac was a good cop and a decent man. She was grateful he was willing to forgo protocol and the danger of getting caught up in all the red tape. If he did, they would miss the one opening they had. Five hours until midnight. With or without Mac she was going to be at Thibodaux and find a way to free Beau.
Mac’s call went through. “Blanchard,” he said then listened. “How is she?” He nodded then covered the receiver. “She’s still unconscious but they found some voodoo necklace…”
“Tell them whatever they do, don’t take that off of her and she’s not to be left alone!”
“Put it back on her and get in there. Make sure you or someone from the precinct is in the room at all times. Yeah, I’ll wait,” he said into the phone.
Eve was putting all the legal and medical papers back into the briefcase. She looked at the envelope from the asylum and kept it, taking it with her.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” she said racing out of the treasure room.
Mac nodded, finishing up what she had started as he held on to the cell phone and turned to look at the bank of security monitors on the back wall.
Eve moved out across the closet, laid the envelope on the white dresser top and turned, just about to step into Cora’s room when an icy wind hit her, knocking her to the floor. Its force slammed her into the corner of the door and she caught her head on the tip of the mirror frame. The blow drew blood. She braced herself as she bounced off and fell, hitting the floor. Eve shook her head trying to stop the room from spinning. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the once methodically slow, mirror panel zip shut so fast neither she nor Mac could do anything. Just before it sealed, with a four inch gap remaining, the mirror slowed but continued to close.
“Eve?” Mac called out to her.
The mirror inched closed, ending any chance for him to escape. Mac dropped his phone reaching his fingers into the crack to try and stop the thick vault door from trapping him inside. He pulled with all his strength. It was useless; another inch and his fingers would have been crushed and sliced off. He jerked his fingers out and grabbed his phone.
“Blanchard! Blanchard!” he yelled. “Call Hanover! Send someone to the Bouvier’s…I’m behind the mirror…master closet.” The line went dead as the vault closed, sealing the last sliver of space between freedom and imprisonment.
“Call the po…” he shouted, then silence.
The wall hissed, sealing itself into place. Eve looked around. She knew she was not alone. She could feel a presence but she saw nothing. She grabbed Mac’s 45 searching for the invisible entity. It was there… somewhere…watching her.
“Mac!” she shouted.
Only silence came back. If Mac was screaming the room was so soundproof no one would have ever known.
She moved toward the mirrored wall. She’d left the key card inside.
“Shit.”
The next step told her everything she needed to know. A river of grey smoke billowed up ominously through the heating grate in the floor and twisted as it spun upward reaching toward the ceiling and building with the force of a small hurricane. It spiraled up and up and up into a swirling cloud seven feet tall and formed a pillar of dark gray smoke. Inside the smoke flecks of deep red flashed like lightning trapped within a storm. Inside the swirling haze Eve could see the beginnings of arms, legs and a head forming. Whatever was coming she knew sticking around to see it complete its transformation was a bad idea. She grabbed the medical envelope and ran. She raced out of the bedroom, down the upstairs hall and descended the stairs with the grace of a panicked gazelle in flight for its life. She jumped the clutter of dead flowers and burst out the front door. She could feel the darkness closing in behind her. She refused to turn. She didn’t want to see. She could feel the cold, inhuman evil pressing against her back.
Eve ran down the front steps and out the front gate. She fumbled with the handle of the door then dropped the envelope and the gun reaching her fingers under the handle and ripping the door open. She jumped in her car, reached down and grabbed the envelope and revolver and slammed the door. Her hands trembled as she reached under the seat for her keys and jammed them in. punching the silent electric engine to life. She looked down at the envelope she’d taken and Mac’s gun resting on top of it. She looked back at the house.
The pillar of smoke had stopped in front of Cora’s door, swirling, hovering in its unformed shape, a fog made of death and danger daring her to come back inside. It was as if it didn’t want to get her, it just didn’t want her in Cora’s house.
Go to the asylum and get Beau, she thought. Call the police! There isn’t time.
She was having a full on argument with herself.
She grabbed her cell and called the police.
“911, how may I help you?” a woman’s voice said.
“There is a detective locked inside a vault at the Bouvier house in the master bedroom closet behind a mirrored vault,” she said and quickly hung the phone up. She threw the cell phone down, thought better, picked it up and punched the Thibodaux Asylum address into the GPS system but just as she was about to hit start guidance, she stopped, realizing what she was about to do and hit “save directions.”
This is such a stupid chick thing to do, she thought. “I know,” she responded out loud.
Eve gunned the accelerator pedal so hard, it bypassed the electric engine and ignited the combustion engine. As best as she could in a Prius she sped away, kicking up dirt from the street and disappearing into the night. There was no turning back. Cora was safe for the moment. Thaddeus had said as much and that gave her solace. Thibodaux was three hours away according to the calculations in the GPS. She had to hurry if she had any chance of saving Beau. But there was one place she needed to stop before she went to face Millard and the Nephilim…one person who could tell her how to defeat a demon…Evine.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Eve left the c
ity lights of New Orleans and crossed the bridge to Old Algiers. The moon had already crested the horizon illuminating the black waters of the Mississippi River as they rippled below the bridge. The ribbon of moonlight stretched a whitish-yellow line that shimmered down the middle of the water and danced to the rhythmic ripples made by the current that drove the water ever south. The huge orb hung low in the night sky brilliant against the blackness of space. It was golden-red from the pollution spewed out by the city and bigger than Eve had ever remembered. It reached through the thick clusters of magnolia trees shooting shards of light that stretched across the road, beckoning Eve deeper into her odyssey. She had just this one stop to make before she went to the asylum… before she faced the Nephilim… before she avenged Cora and freed Beau. Somehow she knew in giving Beau his freedom she would find her own. She too had become a victim caught in a game; a game of life and death where she was a player. Something inside her told her she was an important piece of the game. How important she didn’t know. Only now had she begun to understand who the other players were-- some human, some not. But there was so much she didn’t understand. She didn’t know the rules and most important of all she didn’t know her enemies, what it would take to defeat them and what it would take to win.
The silence of the electric engine had long ago given over to the fuel-driven engine and, though still quiet, the purr made by the pounding of the pistons underscored her purpose. She drove, listening to the sounds of her machine in motion as it filled the quiet of the car’s interior with something other than her thoughts. The car parted the slipstream of air outside as she sped down the road on her mission to gain the knowledge she needed to win. Failure was not an option.
Eve needed guidance, instructions from her sage in the ways of the Nephilim. She needed every weapon Evine had if she held any hope of destroying this son of God turned demon of hell that had come into her life.
Somehow, she had slipped into the realm of unearthly beings. Things that go bump in the night. These creatures probably exist around us all the time, but something special needs to happen to open our minds and our eyes and make us aware of them and them aware of us. So if Nephilim and incubi and succubi were real who’s to say werewolves and zombies weren’t, she thought reevaluating her beliefs. Until tonight Eve would have raised her hand and said, “Me. I don’t believe in anything that my mother didn’t teach me. All else is bullshit, stories invented to tell children on Halloween to keep them out of old buildings…to keep them safe from real danger, not imaginary danger.” But Eve knew she had crossed some thin, frail, ethereal line and it had taken her reality into the world of the unimaginable. She also knew from that moment on there was no going back. Worst of all, she thought, there was no waking up from this nightmare; no unlearning what she’d learned…ever.
Eve thought of all the books she’d read about vampires and werewolves and zombies. Volumes of instructions and rules she could use to help her. But this was no blood sucking vampire that could be taken down with a crucifix and a stake to the heart, or a werewolf who could be stopped by a gun with silver bullets. The incubi were demons sent to seduce women and bring them into the erotic throes of unbridled passion. Their sole purpose was to prepare them for the Nephilim, the Godlings of darkness, the fallen. He, or in some cases she, waited on the other side until the host deepened the depths of irresistible desire. Was that Beau? A host used by demons?
But why? she thought: to come into our world, procreate and create humans? To do what?
Eve knew it had happened in the past. Some of our own, very human bloodlines already belonged to their genealogy and we weren’t unique…were we? There had been horrible humans throughout history and even up through today. Men and woman had ruled as dictators, controlled, tortured and murdered people even in the name of God. What was different?
Eve desperately wanted to know the rules of engagement. She needed to understand the secrets of why and how these creatures existed. She needed to know how to destroy them.
She drove into the heart of Old Algiers with complete cognizance of where she was going. She knew every twist and turn back to Evine without question as if she had driven it every day of her life since she was a small child. Aria had been right about that. It was in her blood now.
She passed the Voodoo shop with its lights mysteriously dimmed just enough to show it was closed. All the wondrous secrets both dark and light that lay inside awaiting anyone with the courage to enter and ask for remedies, blessings, healings, potions, teaching or curses would have to wait another day to be revealed. Eve had come to ask for advice, but Evine was not there. Eve turned away and let her memories guide her on to Evine’s house just as Aria said they would.
The car purposefully moved around the first corner, a second and then a third. It turned but this time she didn’t stop at the front gate of the cemetery. Her new, meta-psychically driven, internal guidance system was taking her around the side street that ran along the old city of the dead. A shortcut she thought. She would drive to Evine’s by these back streets. She turned onto an unpaved road. It was a road she’d never driven but somehow knew as if she’d walked it her entire life. Another turn and then another. Each turn brought her closer until the last corner gave her a sight that made her heart stop: police cars and fire trucks, watering down the last smoldering embers of what had been Evine’s old house. Orange and yellow flames danced on the rooftop, reaching up into the black sky like desperate blazing fingers, gasping for air. In return, only gales of water from the hose fell, sent to drown them into blackened and charred remnants of what had been. The scene of destruction and salvation was reflected in the waters of the black swamp that lay behind Evine’s house.
“No,” Eve whispered to herself. “Please, no!”
She drove closer. She needed to see for herself the horrifying truth she already felt; Evine was dead, her secrets destroyed, her knowledge of what to do silenced forever. She slowed and saw before her a knot of people encircling the chaos, buzzing with curiosity, staring in horror at the destruction. At the back of the gathering stood Aria, still and small. She turned to face Eve as if she had been waiting for her to arrive. Eve stopped and Aria crossed to the passenger side of the car. She opened the door and got in.
“Drive,” Aria commanded.
“I’m so sorry,” Eve said.
“You don’t have time to be sorry,” the young girl said.
Eve looked at her noticing that suddenly where moments before she’d seen a child, she had turned into a young girl. It was as if she’d aged six or seven years, but her frame was still thin and small just taller. Her features and carriage were more powerful and more mature.
“What happened?”
“He came. She fought. He killed her,” Aria said.
“The Nephilim?”
“The dark one. There are two you know,” Aria said. “The dark one came and she refused him and he killed her.”
They sat in silence for a long time.
“I’m sorry,” Eve said.
“She’s free now,” Aria said.
“Where …will you go?” Eve asked.
“With you,” Aria replied.
“What? No, I can’t take you with me.”
“You’ll die if you don’t. Evine showed me what I am to teach you.”
Aria opened her jacket and took out a roll of cloth. It was dark chocolate burlap, rough and frayed. She laid it on her lap.
“Drive and listen. I can’t do it for you, only you can finish this. He has chosen you. He has been using Beau.”
“Who has been using Beau?”
“Both of them, but mostly the light one. Drive,” Aria said again.
“Navigation on,” Eve said.
Eve’s voice command started the GPS. She looked over at Aria. The thought of taking a child into danger was unconscionable. The thought of facing the Nephilim, wait, fuck, two Nephilim, light or dark, alone and unprepared was horrifyingly insane. Two? And now there are two?
&nbs
p; “What do you mean dark and light?” Eve asked. “I don’t fully understand,” Aria said. “But that’s what Evine said before she died, before she told me to burn the house. She said you can get inside. Only you can cross over. They want you back. I can help bring you home, but it is the manitus that must be your doing.”
“Manitus?” Eve asked.
“It is a blending of souls. I can give you a few tools to protect your body, keep you anchored. There are weapons and rituals of the spiritual realm I don’t fully understand but she said you will. Ultimately it will be the power of your love that will make you triumphant,” Aria explained.
Eve felt a deep rush of fear surge through her. What if Beau was an illusion? There had been this wild, erotic, physical passion but that was it. It had been the promise of love, but not the essence of it. How could she love him. They hadn’t had years of friendship, long conversations, walks and picnics, romantic dinners and deep secrets. They had not shared joy, laughter, sorrows or tears, sunsets or sunrises; these were the foundation of love she’d always imagined. And now she needed her love for him to save the day!
“Love? I don’t know that I love Beau Le Masters. I barely know him. I’m not sure he’s real or even alive,” Eve said.
“It is not only Beau Gregoire Le Masters you’re fighting for. It’s the soul of Cora Bouvier,” Aria said.
“Cora is in the hospital in New Orleans,” Eve said.
Aria just looked at her. Her face said it all and the thoughts she sent Eve said the rest. It had taken her. The Nephilim had come into the hospital.
“Her soul or her body?” Eve asked.
“Both,” Aria said.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Eve’s mind was spinning with the bizarre reality of everything that was unfolding. She could feel her fingers tighten around the steering wheel desperate to make sure the car was there and she was in it.
“How can Cora be gone?” Eve asked with a sadness to her voice that caught the tears that welled in her eyes and held them at bay.