Arcanorum

by C. L. Bevill

  Did it turn gray or something? Jane kept her eyes on Adrienne. I’m sure dying will do that to a girl.

  Framing Jane’s face in his hands, Christien turned her toward him. It’s not gray. And your eyes. They’re like mine.

  Seriously, I don’t have blue eyes anymore?

  They’re gold. Just like mine.

  Do you remember what I said about Anna donating blood to me? Jane thought. It seems so unlikely, but is it possible that— ?

  That was before I shared something of myself with you, Christien thought back. Perhaps Goujon saw something within you long before I came along. He pressed his lips to hers, and she sighed into his mouth.

  “You own a restaurant,” Adrienne’s voice interrupted them. Reluctantly, Christien pulled back.

  Jane nodded. “In the Quarter.”

  “You were robbed tonight, beaten,” Adrienne said and it wasn’t quite a question.

  “Yes.”

  “You killed the man who attacked you,” Adrienne stated.

  “I didn’t mean to kill him,” Jane said. The tone was subdued. If the young man had simply taken what he could and left, Jane wouldn’t have been able to run after him. Already his spiky hair and brilliant eyes were starting to dim in her mind’s eye. “He didn’t give me a choice.”

  Abruptly, Adrienne twirled and cast a cloud of sparkling dust with her hands. It swirled through the air, a great puff of iridescent sparks that inundated everything. Christien coughed as he inhaled some. Jane felt the little particles go into her lungs. After another moment, neither one of them could move.

  “Goofer dust,” Adrienne explained with more than a hint of bitterness. “It comes from the desecrated grave dirt of a murderer. If one knows how to use it properly, it is a vital weapon.”

  The bald man said, “It’s them?”

  “The loa,” Adrienne spat. “Baron Samedi and Maman Brigitte play their tricks on me. It is truly ironic that Jane was brought to me by the son of a man whom I owed a favor. Well, the favor has been repaid!” She stomped her foot down on the hardwood planks underneath.

  “Ironic,” Christien repeated. “Release us. We’ve done nothing to you.”

  “Ah,” Adrienne said as she shook her finger at him, “but she has, and now you two are tied together, as if you were grafted onto each other’s bones.”

  “What have I done?” Jane asked.

  “The man you killed was my son, Juste,” Adrienne said, and her eyes shimmered demonically. Jane could see the greenness in them, the same green that had been in the man’s eyes. It was the very same man who had killed her. “My youngest son. Already, his father has claimed the body. He will take the remains to a crematorium so that I will be unable to raise Juste again.” She let out an uncertain breath. “Later, I will deal with Juste’s father. Now, it is your turn.”

  Christien and Jane remained immobile while they watched. Helplessness battled with fear of the unknown. Adrienne paced back and forth, and a mad light came into her eyes. “Raoul,” she said, “have them bring the helicopter to us. We have a trip to make. There is a place we need to be so that even the incredible Baron Samedi cannot deny me.” Her lips flattened into a grim line. “I will not allow him to deny me.”

  Raoul left the room, hurrying away as if a wave of acid raced toward him.

  Adrienne gazed at the pair before her. “This is my great burden. This is the burden the conja woman spoke of from when I was small. The death of my son will haunt me always, and it will be my pleasure to condemn his murderer to a life where she will never remember anything. She won’t remember the touch of her lover’s lips. She won’t remember the first time she laughed. She won’t remember the way a rose petal feels as it’s stroked along her cheeks. She’ll serve me like a slave until the rest of the prophecy comes to pass.

  “And the lover of my son’s murderer?” she went on. “Goujon of the great black lake won’t be happy with me, but what do I care about a giant catfish that cannot leave his realm? He won’t be able to hurt me. But you, you will suffer. Like her. You will roam the night, a hunter, doing only what I deem necessary, carrying out my wishes in the darkest hours. You will be the monster that makes children hide under the beds at bedtime. You will be the creature that makes grown men shake in their boots.”

  Adrienne’s face was a creation hewn from blocks of ice. “You will serve me until I decide otherwise.” After a long pause, she rubbed her hands together.

  “Let it begin,” Adrienne said, and it was an icy judgment.

  * * *

  But that was the past, and the present was uppermost.

  Flor knelt next to the top hat, and her small hands placed it on her head. She tilted it jauntily and then added sunglasses to her face. As she stood, her hip was cocked, and her hand rested on her waist, expectantly. Those frightening moon eyes could no longer be seen. Above them the skies screamed their delight.

  Lyle reached for the bottle of rum. He broke the label and unscrewed the lid, tossing it away. After a deep drink of rum, he wiped his face with his other hand and handed the bottle to Flor. Flor chuckled in a deep voice and accepted the tribute. She paused to look at the bottle’s label. “Havana Club Maximo,” she said in that baritone voice. The accent was French combined with something exotic, from some Caribbean island where the sun shone twenty-four hours a day, the waves were brilliant turquoise, and the sand made from finely wrought sugar. “Much better than Bacardi’s.”

  It’s not Flor. Jane remembered another man in a top hat with sunglasses, leaning over her, lowering his sunglasses to give her a slow, sultry wink. It’s Baron Samedi.

  “You can thank my son,” Adrienne said, “for he brought the tributes this night.”

  Lyle barked laughter. It was high pitched and feminine. “I wondered who would come out on top. But you didn’t kill poor little Philippe, did you?” There was a similar accent to the voice as the Baron’s. Jane had heard the Creoles of New Orleans speak thusly. The accent was rich and pregnant with character.

  Baron Samedi looked at Flor’s hand and took a moment to transfer the rum to the other hand. Then he slowly licked off some of the blood that stained those petite digits. “Well,” the Baron said, “looks like this little girl did. And she’s so sweet, too. Sends money to her maman and papa. She goes to church every Sunday and she tithes.” He laughed hilariously. “And get this, she prays not to be tempted by the flesh! Ah, what a treat for me!”

  Lyle giggled. It occurred to Jane that he was possessed just as Flor was. The name that Adrienne had mentioned to her long ago was there. It was the same name that Dr. Sorrell had mentioned, was it only the day before? Maman Brigitte. The wife of Baron Samedi, the protector of gravestones and more.

  “What, no hot peppers?” she bellowed at Adrienne. “No rooster? Not even KFC? This desolate place again? Are you ashamed of the loa, Adrienne? Are you denying your heritage? Are you damning us with your dismissal?”

  Adrienne didn’t step back but stood close by with white face and an adamant expression. “You forget who the master is!” she yelled back.

  Baron Samedi laughed and tossed back a third of the rum. The hat nearly came off but Flor’s hand shot up and expertly adjusted it. “We forget nothing!” he snarled back. “The Creator is the master, not some cut-rate sorceress who has become greedy!”

  Adrienne smiled coldly. “But I’m holding the power here, and I want the Arcanum arcanorum. I was promised the Arcanum arcanorum!”

  “Ah, the Arcanum arcanorum,” Maman Brigitte said. She tittered again and held her hand over her face. The girlish gesture looked absurd on Lyle. “Tell us the prophecy again, will you, Adrienne chère. Tell us what the conja woman told your mother, all those years ago.”

  “She told my maman that I would be the most powerful sorcière in all of Louisiana. I could do what I would. The secrets of the universe would be mine to hold in the palm of my hand.” The words were nearly rote, as if Adrienne had thought of them over and over.

  Jane’s eye
s lowered to Christien’s body. He lay on his stomach, completely changed, and seemingly unnoticed by Adrienne and the others. Jane stepped over him and kept his human form out of their direct sight. Hopefully Adrienne wouldn’t notice until it was too late.

  Christien, wake up if you can. I have to see if we’ve done it, Jane pleaded.

  There wasn’t an answer.

  But Adrienne said, “The conja said I would have a colossal task before me. A terrible burden would befall me, but the burden would bring me that which would answer the eternal question.”

  Baron Samedi stuck the bottle between his arm and his torso and clapped his hands together. “WONDERFUL! I love prophecies! You’ve had your colossal task! You’ve had your terrible burden! Two if you count poor Philippe’s death! Now for the answer! The answer you’ve been seeking for FIFTY YEARS!”

  Adrienne stared at the Baron, uncertainty discoloring her features. Finally, she risked a glance at Jane and said, “Jane, you will come here now.”

  Jane didn’t hesitate. She lurched forward and slowly stepped within feet of Adrienne and the two slyly sardonic loas inhabiting the bodies of Flor and Lyle.

  “Chère,” Maman Brigitte said to Baron Samedi, “must I be riding a man? I don’t like it. The damned fool must have hit his head because it aches so much!”

  “Look at the size of your feet, woman!” the Baron bellowed. He swilled from the bottle again. “He must have a dick the size of a donkey’s! You should enjoy yourself!”

  Maman Brigitte tittered again. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” she said.

  “Stop, Jane,” Adrienne said.

  Jane stopped three feet away from the older woman. She could have reached out and touched her but she didn’t. She stared at the witch.

  “Go get my bag,” Adrienne told one of the bodyguards with a little hand gesture. The largest of three turned and headed toward the entrance to the fort where the oak tree’s forlorn branch had broken off.

  Jane couldn’t recall if she was permitted to speak or not, so she opened her mouth. “Is it my turn to die now, Adrienne?”

  Baron Samedi laughed again, a belly-shaking laugh of amusement. “I love this girl! She’s escaped you, again and again! She taunts you, Adrienne! You’ve stolen her life and still she spits in your face!”

  “She would, you know,” Maman Brigitte added. “She would spit in your face and laugh for the sheer joy of it.”

  “She killed my son!” Adrienne yelled suddenly.

  “Who was trying to kill her!” the Baron yelled back. “Who did kill her!”

  “What difference does that make?” Adrienne said petulantly. “She’s no one. She’s an orphan. Kin to no one.”

  Flor’s lovely face curved into a sly grin as the Baron smiled diabolically. “But that’s not quite right, Adrienne.”

  A similar smile changed Lyle’s face. Maman Brigitte said, “No, it isn’t.”

  Adrienne was confused. “I know what you want, loas. I know what to do. A sacrifice is demanded.”

  Baron Samedi barked laughter and swallowed another slug of rum.

  “Jane,” Adrienne said. “Listen to me.”

  Jane listened.

  “You have a choice, Jane,” Adrienne said as her green eyes studied Jane. “Christien will die this night or you will. That will be your choice. You will kill yourself, or my bodyguards will kill Christien, and you will watch every last, bloody moment of his life.”

  Jane stood very still. Adrienne stepped a little closer to the other woman. Baron Samedi and Maman Brigitte watched avidly.

  “My choice?” Jane said. “You could have a choice, too, Adrienne. You could recant the spell upon us. You could voluntarily do this, if you made that choice.”

  Adrienne laughed cynically. “Why would I do that? I don’t have to do that.”

  The next movement Jane made was a blur. Her hand shot forward, her fingers in an unbreakable fist, the knuckles pointed outward. She caught Adrienne in the dent at the base of her throat. Adrienne grasped her neck and began to gasp for breath.

  Jane took a moment to look around. The two bodyguards stood nearby motionless. The third one was still missing. Baron Samedi and Maman Brigitte watched with joyful amusement. Christien was still face down in the shadows.

  Adrienne went to her knees, and one hand beat on the ground.

  “It’s not so great when you can’t tell your bitches to come save your ass?” Jane asked. “That probably ruptured your larynx. It will begin to swell, and then when you’re unconscious, I may or may not do a tracheotomy to keep you from dying. But in the meantime, you can’t speak.”

  Jane bent and looked into Adrienne’s eyes as the older woman struggled for breath. She caught Adrienne’s attention and displayed the flap of skin she held. Adrienne’s eyes got very large. “Yes, you didn’t tell me not to cut off the tattoo, the veve, did you?”

  She tossed it into the fire.

  Maman Brigitte sighed. “Why couldn’t I get her body? Full of fire, and I do so like fire. I should like to burn this entire fort down, me.”

  Baron Samedi laughed. “That girl’s got you now, Adrienne! What will she do next?”

  Jane didn’t answer him. She simply grabbed the grimoire and the Vodoun doll from Adrienne’s hand. The older woman shook her head feebly. She was weakening rapidly.

  Jane stared at her and then deliberately threw the little gold book into the fire. Adrienne moaned, but it was high-pitched and just a whistle of air. “You had a choice, Adrienne,” she said. “You chose poorly.”

  Wiggling the doll in her fingers, Jane looked at the fire consideringly. “This is what Philippe made of you, using your clothing and parts of you. I wonder what happens when it burns.”

  Adrienne croaked.

  Stop, chère, came Christien’s welcome thoughts. If you kill her, you won’t be able to live with yourself.

  Baron Samedi barked out unending laughter. Finally, he stopped and said, “There’s where you went wrong, Adrienne! This girl did have kin! She had the Lake People! She wasn’t one of them, but Goujon made her one of them! And everyone knows you don’t fuck with Goujan’s children!”

  Maman Brigitte nodded solemnly.

  Christien stopped next to Jane, and his arm went around her shoulder. Jane allowed herself to relax into his welcome body. A moment later, she looked at his chest. The t-shirt had returned to its normal shape. There were no bloody stains or gunshot holes there.

  Above, the storm howled once more and then began to blow away to the east. The clouds parted and revealed the stars in the heavens.

  Christien drew Jane closer. Jane looked back at Adrienne. The woman was beginning to turn blue. Sorry, she thought. I guess I have to do something about Adrienne before she dies.

  Before Jane could move, Baron Samedi leaped forward and snatched the Vodoun doll out of her hand. Before Jane could even make a peep, he threw it into the fire.

  Smoke began to come out of Adrienne’s skin. Then she caught on fire all the while the Baron and Maman Brigitte laughed.

  It didn’t take long, and neither Jane nor Christien could find anything to try to retrieve the Vodoun doll from the fire. After the witch was dead, the two bodyguards fell over. Their bodies sunk into the ground in a miasma of rapid decomposition. Jane couldn’t watch anymore and looked at the two loas. The Baron tipped his hat to her and moved his sunglasses down his nose to give her another deliberate lascivious wink, which seemed so wrong coming from Flor’s pretty face.

  “Adrienne had to die, you know,” the Baron said. “That is where one achieves the Arcanum arcanorum. The secrets of the universe are hers to hold in her evil fist, but she won’t be able to use them. She will know all the secrets, but it will do her no good. The Creator, you see, isn’t happy with her.” He tossed back the remainder of the rum and threw the bottle into the fire.

  Then the Baron and Maman Brigitte bowed their heads. “Our best to Goujon, oui?”

  “I’ll tell him the next time I see him,” Christie
n said slowly.

  Baron Samedi laughed uproariously. He was in the middle of that rip-roaring laugh when Flor came back into herself. Lyle dropped to his knees and held his head in his arms, as if that would take away his splitting headache. He moaned and muttered, “Where de hell am I?”

  Christien, Jane thought, did the Lord of the Underworld just do a giant catfish a favor?

  Oui, Christien returned.

  Flor looked around and stumbled. She snarled in guttural Spanish. Then she bent over and threw up. Evidently high end rum didn’t agree with her.

  How are we going to explain this?

  I don’t know, Christien answered. He urged her closer.

  Jane? Another voice cut into their thoughts. Jane! Oh my God, Jane! You don’t know how long we’ve been looking for you. It’s like a curtain fell, and I could hear you in my head. Just like—

  Anna, Jane thought. Anna, you don’t know how good it is to…well, hear you. Anna, where are you?

  We were in New Orleans with Christien’s family. Then about thirty minutes ago, we knew we had to go south. But I think we’re on the wrong side of the river.

  It’s okay, Jane thought burrowing into Christien’s side. We have a boat. I just hope one of us knows how to use it.

  Are you kidding? Christien thought wryly. We’re Lake People. We know everything about water.

  Epilogue

  If the end is good, everything is good.

  – Japanese proverb

  “It’s…uh…it’s…not like I remember it,” Jane said as she stared the lake. “I’ve seen it before, of course. I have. But it just seems so compelling now.” Twilight Lake stretched away surrounded by old-growth cedars, some of which marched through the shallower areas like Titans smashing their way out of a Greek myth. Spanish moss drifted in a lazy breeze. So black, she thought. So mind-numbingly black. It calls to me.

  Christien and Jane stood there watching the black waters. And deeper now, too, he thought to her. Deepest lake in Louisiana, oui. Goujon has a mighty kingdom to rule.