Jimmy thought of Rose, gaunt from cancer, her beautiful face distorted in agony, and thought, Bring it on, demon, you know nothing.
“What will be suitable?” Deadlight Jack asked. He looked at the children. “Any ideas? The child who thinks of the best idea will go home tonight. No tricks, I promise you.”
Trang and Donny wouldn’t consider it, but Jimmy could see the others thinking it over.
George saw this, too. They remember the feast, how the man was devoured anyway. They’ll want to chance getting away since they’ll figure Jimmy is already condemned to die.
George began to pray, harder than he ever had in his life. He remembered his days at Immaculate Conception Church. He prayed to Jesus, to Mary, and all the saints. As a boy, he had thought the saints might be more inclined to listen to a sinful boy since they had been ordinary boys once, too. Now, in a state of desperation, he prayed as he never had before.
Deadlight Jack paced back and forth, regarding them all with joyful malice.
George prayed harder, sweat pouring down his face as his head began to throb with a colossal migraine.
In Thibodaux, nearly a hundred miles to the southeast, a janitor was mopping the floor in the St. Joseph Co-Cathedral. He heard an odd tone near the front, like the chiming of a bell, then shattering glass.
He rushed to the altar, barely taking time to bow and make the sign of the cross.
There, he clapped a hand over his mouth in horror.
The glass on the reliquary of Saint Valérie was smashed, and the statue and relic of the beloved saint was gone.
—
In New Orleans, visitors were taking a “ghost tour” of the St. Louis Cemetery, famed for being the final resting place of voodoo priestess Marie Laveau.
“This may be the most haunted place in New Orleans,” the guide said in a stage whisper, as if they might be overheard by angry spirits. “I warn you, you may see things that are disturbing and impossible to explain. I would ask that no one photograph such things, as it will anger the entities and they will no longer manifest.”
Their tour guide, John Greasy, had renamed himself Johnny Graves when he created this venture. He was trying to get work in TV and movies, but this paid the bills until that kicked in.
And it was a hell of a lot better than waiting tables.
Down the next alley, his associates waited with a projector and a lightweight scrim. The scrim and projector had come from Blackstone Magic Supply Co. in Akron, Ohio, and had cost them a small fortune. But bookings were up, and, as long as they could keep the illusion from being discovered, they should reap a handsome profit over tourist season.
“First, let’s dispel as much negative energy as we can,” Johnny Graves said, opening his battered valise and withdrawing a bell in a velvet bag.
“Marie Laveau used this herself,” he said with reverence. “I found it, of all places, sitting atop the mailbox outside my rooming house after Hurricane Katrina. It rang before I picked it up…”
Here the tourists murmured to one another, some in awe, others in disbelief.
“It looked old, so I took it to one of those antique shows. They confirmed it was Marie Laveau’s. They offered me five thousand dollars, but I’ll never sell it.”
He held the clapper so the bell wouldn’t ring until he was ready. It looked like the sort of bell schoolmarms once used to bring in their charges. He had found it at a Goodwill store for two bucks. Once he rang the bell, his associates would wait three minutes, then project a dancing phantom on the scrim.
He raised the bell dramatically, but a bell sounded in the next alley.
What the hell?
The tourists looked at one another, some still skeptical.
There was a terrific squeal, like an animal caught in a trap, and they all hurried over to the next alley, Johnny Graves bringing up the rear.
He saw his confederates, the scrim and projector abandoned, as they stared at a mausoleum a hundred feet away. It was a nondescript structure, its stone edifice bearing no plaque or inscription. It had a large iron door, covered with a patina of rust.
The door was opening.
Everyone, including Johnny Graves gaped, because it was obvious that door had not been opened in centuries.
Two bony hands gripped the door from within and pushed it open.
Two figures emerged from the crypt, and several of the onlookers crossed themselves, including Johnny Graves.
They were skeletons, dressed in fine linens and silks, their hands and faces bedecked with gold and jewels.
They were martyrs of the Catholic Church, whose bodies had been removed from the catacombs. The Vatican proclaimed them Saints Abundius and Gregorio, and the Pope had sent them as a gift to the faithful of Mexico City in 1610. The parishioners decorated and venerated them, singing their praises and sending their prayers through the blessed martyrs.
In 1860, pirates plying their trade in the Gulf of Mexico stole the gilded and bejeweled saints and hid them in the New Orleans crypt, where they waited for over 150 years.
Until George called them.
It did not matter that they were not true saints. They had been the objects of blessings and prayers, entreaties and praise for over four hundred years. For all intents and purposes, they were Saints Abundius and Gregorio.
Saint Abundius carried a golden trident, set with sapphires and diamonds. Saint Gregorio carried a silver sword, the blade and hilt inlaid with gold and adorned with emeralds, rubies, and topaz.
Saint Abundius had eyes of sapphire surrounded by pearls, with lids of fragile lace. His teeth were covered in pearls and diamonds, his head crowned with laurel leaves of gold. More pearls and golden leaves were entwined in his rib cage, and he wore massive rings of emeralds, rubies, and diamonds.
Saint Gregorio had empty eye sockets, but his entire skull had been plated in gold and inset with a delicate design of diamonds and amethysts. His hands were silver-plated and inlaid with delicate filigrees of gold.
They walked like normal men, not marionettes or stop-motion puppets.
Everyone knew they were real, not some cheap effect or carnival trick.
Dozens of photos were taken, and the crowd parted nervously as the figures walked past.
The saints gave the people no notice, except one woman who crossed herself and said in a loud voice, “Praise God in all His glory.”
The saints both turned and made the sign of the cross to her, and she promptly fainted.
A fog began rolling in from the direction of the sea. The apparitions stepped into it and were gone.
—
It was Warren who spoke up first. All the others were afraid they might only have one chance to voice an idea, and they hesitated, hoping a better idea would occur to them.
Warren had spent many hours playing first-person shooter videogames that involved strange realms and dangerous planets or vessels teeming with aliens and monsters.
“Maybe…maybe you could bring something here to eat him…Something from…someplace else. Like another dimension.”
“Hmmm,” said Deadlight Jack with hammy concentration. “Oh, I like that, I like that very much! Now, what shall it be?”
“So, I can leave?” Warren asked.
Deadlight Jack looked at him like he was simple. “Of course not. I need you for these fine ideas. Now let me think.”
Warren, who had always been so resilient due to his denial that any of it was real, sunk to the ground and began to cry silently.
Deadlight Jack’s friendly human face broke into a grin.
Before he could speak, they all heard a bell chime, as if a church were nearby.
Deadlight Jack frowned.
“Look!” shouted Danny, as the saints approached. Saint Valérie had been a wax effigy built around part of an arm bone, so she did not move as freely as her fellow saints, and she was not covered in gems and precious metals like the others but was dressed in a silk moiŕe robe embroidered with gold and a fringed crimso
n tunic of velvet and gold. She carried a modern-day fire axe, courtesy of the St. Joseph Co-Cathedral.
They advanced on Deadlight Jack, and he glanced at George.
Is that fear in his eyes? George wondered.
Saint Gregorio closed in, swinging his sword. Deadlight Jack, showing surprising agility, ducked and pivoted. A blow that might have taken off his head only cut across his upper arm, and he hissed.
Donny started to clap, then thought better of it.
The three saints surrounded Deadlight Jack and attacked him simultaneously.
Saint Gregorio thrust his sword into Deadlight Jack’s chest as Saint Abundius jabbed him in the back with the trident, and Deadlight Jack screamed.
The two saints held him fast, though he wriggled like a fish on a hook. They turned to Saint Valérie. She advanced with the axe and swung for the abomination’s neck with unerring accuracy.
Except Deadlight Jack wasn’t there. There was only a wisp of smoke where he had been, and her blade took the arm off Saint Abundius.
The saints looked around them, confused. Where was their prey?
Deadlight Jack stepped out of Nothingness in front of them.
“I am bored with this,” he said, clearly agitated. He gestured, and three balls of green fire appeared within his hands.
The jeweled and beloved saints advanced, intending to finish him.
Deadlight Jack blew on his hands, and the three spheres flew toward the skeletal warriors.
Each was enveloped in green fire and was rooted to their respective spots.
Their fine clothes burned away, their gleaming jewels fell to the ground, a vast fortune. Gold and silver dripped from their bones, burning the grass and peppering the ground with wealth.
And brave Saint Valérie, her silken robes burned away to reveal a figure with a mannequin’s modesty. This melted away, leaving only a wire framework and a bit of bone. These turned to ash and were borne away on the wind.
George groaned both in frustration and pain from a frightful headache.
Deadlight Jack wagged his finger at George like he was a special but unruly child. “Now,” he said gaily, “where was I? Oh, yes, bringing something through from Elsewhere.”
Deadlight Jack began to move his hands, and they left trails of eldritch fire in the air.
He closed his eyes and chanted.
“Alag’shi naar! L’shi, l’shi, l’aga suureth! Yyoth! Yyoth!”
Jimmy knew he had very little time. “George, you have to try again!”
George shook his head. “I failed you…I failed all of us.” George slumped, defeated.
Jimmy thought back on Shay-Shay Moon’s words. Hadn’t George used his own…
No, he didn’t.
Jimmy grabbed George’s arm, squeezing hard enough for George to get angry.
Good, rouse yourself, old man!
“But you didn’t tap what you believe! You told me your uncle said your mother was a heathen, and he made you go to his church…But that’s not who you are, George Watters!”
Unmindful of them, Deadlight Jack chanted. As he did, a rift began to open in the remnants of his sinister fire.
“L’shi, l’shi, l’aga suureth! Yyoth! Yyoth! L’shi, l’shi, l’aga suureth!”
The rift radiated a violet-colored light that hurt the eyes. And, more than that, it was disturbing on a deep, primal level.
George thought back and remembered how his uncle Nicholas had said that his mother was destined for Hell because she did not believe in God. George might help her if she was in Purgatory, but only by renouncing his sinful, godless ways—bad habits he had picked up from her.
And that included all singing except hymns.
Hell, George thought, crazy old man thought talking to animals was communing with the Devil. Made me get rid of Patch. Bastard.
The old man had never laid a hand on him or Louis, but he had doled out shame and guilt in generous amounts, making them embarrassed about their own mother, Serafina Itiylic Boudreaux Watters.
He remembered everything, how Uncle Nicholas had punished him if he used his real middle name, telling him that the good Lord preferred “Isaiah,” a prophet.
But his true name was Yañ-Kakau, literally, Green Water.
His mother had known he would wander. “This way, my beloved, you will always know where you came from.”
His home had been in his heart all along.
George thought of all the years he had been secretly ashamed of his mother, and of his mixed-race heritage, and a sorrow more profound than any he had ever experienced threatened to engulf him.
In the rift, something chittered, and a long leg of gray chitin mottled with white and ochre began to poke through. It made little poking movements, as if testing the air.
Or tasting it.
Seeing it gave Jimmy a headache, as if the world had begun spinning in a different direction, and at breakneck speed. He thought he might vomit. Whatever that leg was attached to, it was so wrong, so alien to this world, that looking at it would surely drive you mad.
George thought of his uncle, that self-righteous prig, and all that he had stolen from him and Louis. His sorrow was replaced by anger: hot, fiery, bubbling up from his very core.
He saw the thing trying to gain entrance to our world, knew that it would tear Jimmy apart and drive the rest of them mad.
And George Yañ-Kakau Boudreaux Watters suddenly rose to his feet and began to sing.
His voice was unsure at first, and he hit a sour note or two, but then he sang louder, and with confidence. Suddenly, the song his grandmama had sung so long ago came back to him, and he took it up like an old friend.
He sang like his voice had been caged for decades, which, in a sense, it had.
The song he sang was not precisely words, but every one of them could tell it was a paean to Nature, to renewal, to all things green and wild, to everything that restored someone and allowed them to create, to dream, to love.
George’s voice seemed to take on a preternatural quality, and the leaves stirred and the waters rippled, though there was no breeze.
Miraculously, the rift began to close, slowly at first, so the strange chitinous appendage did not withdraw. Suddenly, the breach closed and the leg was severed. It wriggled on the ground and began to smoke. It burst into a stinking flame and acrid smoke, and was quickly consumed.
Deadlight Jack looked at George.
“I can see I need to teach you a lesson, Georgie-Porgie.”
George kept on—it felt so wonderful to sing!
He sang of blue jays bright and clever on a pine branch, of red foxes among green ferns, of fish in deep waters, and of snakes in the desert. He sang of the swamp, of its verdant crazy quilt of vegetation and animals. Of its waters running deep and mysterious, while its trees and grasses whispered of love and loss, fertility and redemption.
Deadlight Jack moved to stop George and Jimmy pushed him. He caught the thing off guard and it went down hard.
The children laughed.
Deadlight Jack leaped to his feet, and his eyes and salamanders blazed with a hellish incandescence.
Suddenly, Jimmy realized that the swamp had gone silent. The ever-present sound of frogs, night birds, crickets, and other insects had stopped.
The bayou was hushed, expectant.
As if something truly holy is coming, Jimmy thought.
Deadlight Jack noticed it, too. His all-too-human face wrinkled as if he smelled something unpleasant.
“What have you done, Georgie-Porgie?” he asked, his voice low and wary.
There was a new scent in the air, and Jimmy thought it might be one of the most beautiful things he had ever smelled. It was a complex perfume of flowers and grass, mud and clean water, the sky before a rainstorm and the scent of a hundred living things, from a deer in rut to the wet fur of a favorite dog to the pungent odor of a distant skunk. And the unpleasant smells only served to underscore and intensify the whole.
It was
the smell of life, in all its wild and undiluted beauty.
A woman appeared among the trees, and the entire company held their breath.
She was fairly gliding over the water with a huge pair of alligators as her escorts. She was tall, with a sort of terrible beauty, in the way a lightning strike is both beautiful but possessed of enormous and mysterious power.
She was green in color, and her hair was long tresses of Spanish moss and marsh grass, which moved with hypnotic grace in the breeze. On her head was a carved crown of intricately worked amber, petrified palm, and Louisiana opal, rising from a garland of poison ivy, ferns, and berries.
Her gowns and petticoats were not fabric, but fur, scales, and plants. The lady wore a magnificent cape of feathers from cranes of every kind, roseate spoonbills, darters, ducks, and eagles. It was trimmed with the bright feathers of smaller song birds: the blue of indigo buntings, the bright yellow of prothonotary warblers, the black of lark buntings, the red of summer tanagers. Her slim neck was adorned with a necklace of agate and polished oyster shell. And she carried a staff of bitter pecan, incised with ancient symbols and topped with an intricately carved section of mastodon tusk. Highly polished, it glinted in the moonlight.
Her countenance was of an arcane and otherworldly loveliness, but it was a beauty indigenous to this world—she belonged, whereas the thing coming through the rift had not.
She smiled to the children, but her face darkened when she saw Deadlight Jack.
“Mo’ssah,” said George in wonder. He looked at Jimmy, his eyes shining. “The Swamp Woman. My mother told me that if I was ever in trouble she would protect me.”
Deadlight Jack laughed. “Her? She ain’t nothing, Georgie-Porgie. This is my home. This swamp, this bayou, this land and everything and everyone on it belong to me.”
Deadlight Jack stepped toward Mo’ssah and gestured. The prehistoric horror crashed out of the bushes, its blue and spectral form like a monster of plasma and lightning. Still smarting from its encounter with Shay-Shay Moon, it bellowed its Cretaceous challenge.
The creature dove into the water and went for her. Mo’ssah stood calmly.
She raised her hand just as it reached her, and it stopped. It glared at her with its piggish, mad eyes.
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