The New Orleans Zombie Riot of 1866: And Other Jacob Smith Stories

by Craig Gabrysch

  “Earlier today, a number of our Ursuline sisters were possessed.”

  “A number?” Jacob asked. “How many is a number?”

  “Seven.”

  Jacob and Christopher looked at each other, then back to the priest.

  “Seven?” Christopher asked. “Are you sure it’s possession?”

  “They each have recoiled at the touch of holy water on their skin, and two have screamed at the presence of the crucifix. Their eyes show the appropriate level of whiteness.”

  Jacob grunted. “Yup. Sounds like a possession.”

  “Have you performed an exorcism before?” Christopher asked.

  “No,” Father Cavey said, shaking his head and sighing again. “I will only be supporting, though. We have an exorcist in New Orleans, one appointed by the bishop.”

  “And he’s experienced?” Charlotte asked.

  “Yes, rather so in fact,” said a voice behind Jacob.

  “Jacques?” Christopher Freeman said, turning on a heel. “Is that you?”

  A giant of a man stepped out of the shadows of the sacristy and into the nave. Christopher and he embraced and clapped each other on the back, Rousseau saying, “Very much so, my little friend.” He’d passed middle-aged and moved into his twilight years. His hair had long gone white, but his eyes still had a youthful brightness as they twinkled in the dim light from the altar votive candles.

  They broke the embrace. “I thought you were still in St. Louis. When did they ship you down here?” Christopher asked, shaking his hand.

  “I was just visiting my friend Pierre here,” Rousseau said, waving his hand to encompass the whole world and all its troubles, “when all this happened. So I offered my services.”

  “Jacques,” Christopher said, turning to Jacob, “is the best man you could hope to have on your side in this kind of fight. This is my protege, Jacob Smith.” Jacob and the priest shook hands. “This is Charlotte Gibson, head of the Pinkerton division on this kind of thing.”

  “We’re acquainted,” Charlotte said, rising from her seat and smoothing her dress. She and the priest shook hands. “It’s good to see you again, Father Rousseau.”

  “And you as well, Mlle. Gibson,” Father Jacques said. He put a hand on Christopher’s shoulder. “It pained me to hear of Henry’s death. He was a good man.” He turned to Jacob and said, “You were with him?”

  Jacob nodded. “Yup. He went down fighting.”

  Father Jacques nodded and said, “That is good. He would have had it no other way.” He clapped his hands together. “Shall we go to the main hall? On the way, I will tell you of what I have found, yes?”

  The Templars nodded. Father Jacques led the small group back through the sacristy and into the garden. He reached into his black coat and removed a cheroot case. He pulled one out and produced a match from his pocket. He struck the match on the side of the church. He inhaled deep and blew out the smoke. “Pierre,” he said, turning to Father Cavey and saying something in French. Father Cavey nodded and walked ahead to the main building. “I sent him up to prepare the instruments of the Sacrament. Come, I will enjoy a smoke and we can talk.”

  They walked down the path together. “You’ve picked up a few more demons, Christopher. I see them trailing after you like hungry ducklings with razor teeth.”

  Christopher shrugged. “Sure they ain’t Jacob’s you see?”

  “Oh, no, no,” Cavey said, laughing and looking back over his shoulder at Charlotte and Jacob. He kept smiling and said, “These are definitely yours.”

  “Wait? Demons?” Jacob asked.

  They stopped in the central area, back with all the Ursuline Order’s saintly women surrounding them and praying to the Heavens. “Father Jacques sees the demons that follow people. Everyone has them. Tempters, creatures that feed off your emotions. I don’t think they’re demons in the same way he does, but they’re still others. Things. How many does Jacob have?”

  “Five or six. I say that because one of them isn’t always there.”

  “What kind of demons? Avarice or . . .?” Jacob asked.

  “The funny thing about demons,” Father Jacques said, taking a drag off his cheroot, “is that we are all aware of what demons perch on our shoulder. We just do not want to be, no? You know, M. Smith.”

  “What about Ms. Gibson?” Jacob asked, turning to look at her.

  “I’d wager that’s not a polite inquiry, Mr. Smith,” Charlotte said, raising an eyebrow at Jacob.

  Father Jacques laughed out loud, coughing afterward. “She makes such a fuss, because she can sometimes see yours. She is like me, sensitive to such things. Or has your malady passed as you’d once hoped, Mlle. Gibson?”

  “Still malaised,” Charlotte said, her lips pressed into a thin line.

  Father Jacques nodded. “It is a burden,” he said, exhaling smoke sharply through his nose. He turned to Christopher, saying, “But now we have other matters to discuss, no?”

  “Yep. What do we know about these possessions?”

  “There are seven, as Father Cavey said before. They are powerful demons as well, very powerful. Our brief investigations of the nuns’ lives gave us nothing to indicate this possession would be likely: no contact with the occult, no unclean or lewd acts, habits, and so on.”

  “Do you believe them capable of manifestation?”

  “I am confident of it, hence the message to your abbot. We are lucky you were here.”

  “Don’t reckon luck has much to do with it,” Christopher said.

  “This may be tied to us,” Jacob said.

  “What?” Father Jacques said, dropping his cheroot on the ground. He rubbed it out with the toe of his shoe. “How can that be?”

  “We were attacked earlier,” Christopher replied. He sighed. “There’s a relic that’s fallen into the wrong hands. The power the attackers had, they might be able to summon demons like this. We’ve seen the like from them in the past.”

  Jacques exhaled sharply again, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “How do you wish to proceed, then?”

  “Well,” Christopher said, spitting to the side, “not like we can ignore the nuns. If it’s not a trap, then we’re abandoning them. If it is one, of course, we’re walking right into it. But, regardless, they are innocents. It’s our duty to defend them.”

  “Can’t help but agree,” Jacob said. “If it’s the same bastards, then they just upped the ante by taking hostages. We can’t leave them sisters by the wayside, can we?”

  Father Jacques shook his head slowly. “No,” he said, looking at the three of them, “you are correct. There is no way to just leave it. Shall we go then? Oui?”

  He turned and walked up the middle path towards the front entrance to the old convent. The four of them entered through the double doors beneath the balcony. The doors opened on an unimpressive antechamber. A set of stairs led up to the second floor landing. The landing wrapped around in a railed balcony and overlooked the entryway.

  “The sisters are upstairs in the old dining hall,” Father Jacques said, walking up the stairs. “It was the only room large enough to hold everything. We moved them earlier when we sent for you.” They followed the priest up the stairs to the landing. He turned left at the top.

  Three closed doors stood on their right. At the end of the landing a set of french doors with shutters opened onto the balcony over the front entrance. Father Jacques stopped at the first door. “We have created a sanctuary here for our vestments, a prayer space of sorts. The next door, that is where the sisters lay. Is there anything you need before we begin?”

  Christopher looked back at Jacob and Charlotte. Jacob shook his head. Charlotte stood, just staring off into the distance, but responded when Jacob touched her arm.

  “No,” Charlotte said, shaking her head, “I’m alright.”

  “Bon,” Father Jacques said. “If you’ll excuse me.” He walked into the first door, the sanctuary. It was a cramped room lit by a flurry of candles. Father Cavey knelt within
, his eyes closed in prayer. He wore his prayer stole already. Father Jacques shut the door behind him.

  Jacob and Christopher walked down to the next door and stopped in front. They both drew their firearms and checked the cartridges. Jacob adjusted the straps on his armor, glancing occasionally at Charlotte. Charlotte, hugging herself, walked down the landing and looked out through the doors.

  “There are fires in the city,” she said. She walked back to the two men and stopped next to Jacob. “So, what will you two be doing?”

  “Waiting for the priests to complete their exorcism,” Jacob said, looking down at her. “Waiting till the creatures manifest.” He shifted on his feet and holstered his pistol.

  “And when they manifest?”

  “Send ‘em back to Hell,” answered Christopher.

  Fathers Jacques and Cavey opened the door and came out onto the landing. The smell of incense preceded them. Father Jacques led, a Bible open to Psalms. Father Cavey followed, a holy water bucket and sprinkler in his hands. The items were called an aspergillum and aspersorium, but Jacob always thought of them as the bucket and sprinkler. The priests wore their clerical vestments: black cassocks, shoulder cowls, and purple stoles around their necks. Father Jacques nodded to Christopher before opening the center door, then the two men walked through. Christopher, Jacob, and Charlotte followed.

  The room beyond was large enough to hold a banquet table and all the guests that would accompany one. The priest had closed and shuttered the windows and, between these and the ones on the floor above being closed, the heat was stifling. Jacob pulled at his collar. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck.

  He looked at the nuns as the priests processioned to the big, staff-like crucifix in the center of the room. Each had their own small bed. Four nuns lay on the left side of the room, and three on the right. Their hands and feet were shackled. They wore heavy nightgowns and sheets pulled up to their waistlines. They did not move. Despite the heat, they didn’t sweat. Jacob gritted his teeth as a chill went up his spine. He followed Christopher farther into the room, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  Father Jacques began speaking in a loud, clear voice, reciting the Rituale Romanum from memory: “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio.” A faint gust of wind flickered the bedside lamps. The nuns remained motionless. “Infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.”

  Father Jacques continued walking, stopping beside the central cross. The wind continued rising ever so slightly with each syllable of Latin. Christopher and Jacob stood on the outer edges of the room, not wanting to break Father Jacques’s concentration. The father continued to chant as Christopher walked over to Jacob and touched his arm. Jacob looked at him. Christopher pointed to his eye with an index finger, then gestured at the nearest nun.

  She had awakened. She stared at Jacob with wholly white, pupil-free eyes. Something touched Jacob’s arm, startling him.

  It was just Charlotte. Jacob pointed to the nun for Charlotte. She looked from Jacob to the nun and back again, her own eyes wide. The wind became more severe now.

  “Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine,” Father Jacques said, turning from the cross and making a circuit around it. He nodded to Father Cavey, who followed after him with his bucket and sprinkler. Father Cavey began sprinkling the women with holy water.

  Steam and smoke rose from where the blessed water touched their skin. The possessed women did not scream or whimper. They made no noise at all.

  The lamps flickered violently, throwing shadows across the ceiling and walls, as the wind continued to rise.

  Father Jacques walked to the first nun on the left, the one on which Charlotte, Christopher, and Jacob all focused. He stopped beside her bed. He took the end of his stole into his hand, his mantle of sacred office, and sketched a cross on the woman as he finished the ritual in a full, confident voice. “Benedictus deus. Gloria patri.”

  This time, the nun did recoil.

  She writhed on the bed screaming, her voice like a wailing mountain lion, big and terrifying and full of agony. The wind howled now, blowing out half of the hurricane lamps in the room. The nun, her teeth bared, broke her gaze from Jacob and fixed her focus entirely on Father Jacques.

  She lunged against her chains, her hands twisted into claws. Father Jacques, to his credit, didn’t flinch one bit. “By the dominion and strength of Christ, I compel you to leave this body,” he said, making the sign of the cross with his stole again.

  The nun recoiled again, crying out in pain.

  “I say again,” he shouted above the wind, crossing her with his stole again, “by the dominion and strength of Christ the Almighty, I compel you to leave this body.”

  As the nun writhed on the bed, Father Jacques moved to the next. Christopher walked out into the room to relight the lamps.

  Something clamped on Jacob’s arm. He looked down.

  It was Charlotte. He hadn’t even noticed before, but her petite hand gripped through his overcoat and the chainmail sleeve beneath. He could feel her digging into him like the ‘49ers going into the Sierra Madres. He turned his head forward, his lips pressed thin, and watched Father Jacques restart the rite, this time over the second nun.

  “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus.”

  They stepped out of the room hours later. Father Jacques had made three passes over the nuns.

  Now, sitting in a rickety wooden chair on the landing while having a cup of coffee, he looked like he’d just finished swimming the Mississippi all the way to St. Louis and back again. Father Cavey sat next to him, eyes at half-mast.

  “Hard work, oui?” Father Jacques said to Father Cavey.

  “Unrewarding,” Cavey replied. “But, oui, hard also.”

  Christopher and Jacob leaned against the railing together.

  “I can’t understand why they’re not manifesting.” Charlotte said as she paced the landing between the Templars and the balcony doors.

  “Some rites take longer than others,” Father Jacques said. “That’s all. Patience, my child.”

  “But they aren’t cursing or taunting you, either. No temptations, no sacrilegious speech.”

  “She’s got a point,” Jacob said. “This don’t feel like a normal exorcism.”

  “Of course it doesn’t,” Christopher said, turning to Jacob. “There’s seven sisters in there, and all possessed at the same time.”

  Charlotte walked out onto the balcony. Jacob followed after her. The muggy, still air touched his skin. Dawn was a ways off, but not too far.

  “Look,” Charlotte said, pointing out to the city beyond the white walls, “there’s still fires in the city. Is that an everyday occurrence?”

  Fires burned at intersections throughout the gridded streets of the French Quarter. They were giant, and many, but controlled.

  Jacob leaned forward onto the railing. “You doing alright?”

  “Yes,” Charlotte said. “No.” She shook her head. “No. No, I’m not. Are you?”

  “Don’t feel right. We’re in here. Potestas is out there doing God knows what.”

  “I agree. This is all a distraction. How do you do this? These exorcisms?”

  “Was told I had to,” he said, sighing. “It’s my penance. You could probably see that, though, with your sensitiveness and all.”

  Behind them, the balcony door opened. A lucifer struck on the rail and flared. Father Jacques had joined them. He stepped up next to Charlotte. “Merde,” he said, looking out at the city. He looked down at Charlotte, saying, “Apologies, my child. What are those fires?”

  “Likely has something to do with the new yellow fever going round,” Jacob said.

  They stood in silence broken only by the crackle of Father Jacques’s cheroot. A rider approached on Chartres Street, beyond the white wall that separated them from the rest of New Orleans. He reined up his horse at the gatehouse and jumped down at a run. He went to the door.

  �
�Don’t tell me that’s about another possession,” Jacob said.

  Father Jacques breathed a sharp, nasal sigh and snubbed out his cheroot on the railing. He went back inside.

  “Is that why you have the little girl following you?” Charlotte asked.

  “What?”

  “Your penance. You have a faded little girl that follows after you.”

  Jacob turned around and leaned back, his arms folded. “Likely.”

  “Don’t worry. She smiles. She doesn’t blame you, I think.”

  “No,” Jacob said, pushing off the railing, “she told me a couple years back that she didn’t.” He walked back inside and stood with the other men.

  Father Cavey slept upright in his chair. Father Jacques and Christopher were talking. “No,” Christopher said, raising his voice a little, “we’re staying.”

  “Look, Christopher,” Father Jacques said, “I believe I understand why you choose to stay. But, you must realize that there are greater wheels in motion here. Blindness, and staying here to fight that which does not wish to fight, does no service to the greater good. You and Jacob must find this Potestas.”

  “I ain’t leaving those nuns,” Christopher said.

  The front door opened. Dorset, the gatekeeper, came walking up the stairs. In his hand he held an envelope sealed with a dollop of wax. “This came for Father Cavey,” he said, holding the message out to the men for inspection.

  “From whom?” Father Jacques asked.

  “A soldier.”

  “Give it here then.” He took the letter from Dorset and broke the seal. “Pierre needs his slumber. Sleepy man,” he said, smiling. He opened the handwritten letter and held it up in the light, his lips moving slowly as he read. “It’s from Maj. Gen. Baird. He requests that the diocese open its churches for the sick. The yellow fever spreads, jumping from block to block. Here, read,” he said, holding out the letter to the Templars. Christopher took it and began reading. Finished, he handed it to Jacob.

  The letter was short and to the point. The military struggled to control the infection. They’d set up clinics around the city, but had reached their limit. They requested nuns and priests and any other clerical staff to aid the troops in caring for the sick.