Wolf's Tale (Necon Modern Horror Book 25)

by Dan Foley

  “And yours,” Mose agreed.

  17 – Karma

  La Pierre looked down at her familiar. The bleeding had stopped and the creature was showing signs of improvement. “I’m going hunting. I’ll be back soon. Then I’ll have something for you.”

  There were two ghosts staring at her from across the street when Renee left the house. She was trying to decide which one to take when both of the phantoms turned and fled from her.

  “Shit,” she swore as she started after them. After a few steps it became obvious she would never catch them. That’s all right. There will be plenty to choose from in the cemetery.

  When La Pierre entered Lafayette Cemetery Number 1, she saw several ghosts peering back at her from between the above ground mausoleums. Every one of them turned and ran the instant she started toward them. Not one stood and challenged her. The she saw her husband. Finally. He never had the balls to stand up to me in life, maybe he will now.

  For the next hour, the phantom lead her on a chase through the cemetery, always there, but always just out of reach. Finally, frustrated and exhausted, La Pierre gave up and went back to the house.

  When she walked in, her familiar looked up at her from the couch. “I’m sorry, my pet. They all ran from me.” She didn’t mention the fruitless chase her husband had put her through. She was just getting a cold glass of water to quench her thirst when she heard a car pull up outside, and a minute later, two doors slam.

  Two doors? Who can that be? When she went to the window to look, she was shocked to see Lobo, his woman and his familiar walking up the front walk. Lobo was in the lead with a shotgun cradled in his arm.

  How did they find me? How? Then she realized how. The blood from her familiar’s wound and the blood she had left on the broken window at the woman’s house. Lobo’s familiar had tracked her here.

  She looked around for a weapon, anything, and then remembered the knives in the kitchen. She ran to get one as Lobo walked through the door she had neglected to lock. When she came back in the room they were all there, Lobo, the woman and his familiar. Of the three, the woman was the weakest link. The only chance she had was to go after her and hope for the best. In an act of final desperation, she willed most of the power she had left to her familiar. “Get the woman!” she yelled, and the familiar marshaled its newly found strength and launched itself off the couch at Charlotte. Lobo swung the gun up and fired, but he was too late and missed.

  As soon as they had gotten back in the Torino, Little Wolf was snarling and pointing in the direction they had to go. Wolf went where the familiar took him. They soon found themselves in a section of New Orleans he had never been in before.

  “Where are we, do you know?” he asked Charlotte.

  “Look at these homes. It must be the Garden District.”

  Wolf was impressed. Many of these homes would rival the Victorian mansions in New England. He had no time to admire them. La Pierre was all he had time for now. As they got deeper into the District Wolf started to see ghosts. There appeared to be as many here as there were in the Quarter. When he passed Lafayette Cemetery Number 1, a group of them had amassed outside its gates.

  “We’re getting close” he told Charlotte.

  “How can you tell?”

  “Ghosts, dozens of them.”

  Charlotte strained her eyes, but still saw nothing.

  Then Wolf saw what he was looking for. “There, right there! La Pierre’s Cadillac.” There was room behind it at the curb and Wolf pulled in. A minute later they were all out of the Torino and headed for the front door. Wolf had the shotgun cradled in his left arm. He wouldn’t use it on La Pierre, but he’d use it on her familiar if he could. He didn’t notice the single ghost standing directly across from the house — a ghost whose face was filled with hate.

  Wolf stopped and waited for Charlotte and Little Wolf to catch up before trying the door. “Get ready,” he told them when they had joined him. Then he pushed it open and stepped inside. Charlotte and Little Wolf quickly followed. La Pierre was standing across the room holding a large carving knife.

  They stood facing each other for a second, and then Wolf saw the witch’s aura flare and he could feel her power fill the room. “Get the woman,” she yelled, and a streak of red jumped off the couch and headed for Charlotte. Wolf raised the gun and fired, but he knew he had missed even before the recoil sent the barrel arching toward the ceiling.

  La Pierre’s familiar was only inches from Charlotte when a second streak of red intercepted it. It was Little Wolf. In an instant the two familiars were snarling and snapping, trying to get at each other’s throats. Distracted as he was, Wolf failed to see La Pierre lunging at him with the knife.

  Before she could reach him, Wolf felt the air chill, and a blur sped past his shoulder. It was the ghost from outside. He saw a spark of fear in La Pierre’s eyes before the phantom pushed itself into her body.

  When Lobo’s familiar launched itself at hers, La Pierre charged Lobo. If she could get to him, she could end this. She was within a few feet of him when her husband’s ghost rushed past the boy and fell upon her. In her weakened state, he might actually be stronger than she was. She tried to reclaim her power from her familiar, but it was too late. In an instant she was fighting for her life.

  Lobo watched as La Pierre’s face turned into a frozen rictus. Her eyes went wide, her jaw tightened and the cords stood out on her neck. There was a battle raging within the witch like the one he had fought in Jackson Square.

  With her master under attack, La Pierre’s familiar tried to separate itself from Little Wolf to go to her aid. As soon as it did, Little Wolf was able to grab it and sink his fangs into its throat. The creature struggled, but its end was all but assured. Seeing that, Wolf turned his attention back to La Pierre.

  She stood motionless until the hand holding the knife slowly started to move upward in starts and stops. The process took over thirty minutes, but finally she drew the blade across her own throat. Blood poured out of it like a fountain until she dropped to the floor in a heap. When she stopped moving, the ghost emerged from her corpse and grinned at Wolf who stepped aside and let it leave the house unchallenged.

  “What just happened?” Charlotte asked when Wolf turned and took her in his arms.

  “I’ll tell you later. Right now it’s time for us to go.”

  “Are you going to tell Mose what happened?

  “Yes — eventually, but right now we need to get back to Bayou La Pointe and Grandmere. She needs to know we’re all right.”

  18 – Aftermath

  Wolf and Charlotte were both silent on the ride back to Bayou La Pointe. Little Wolf spent most of the ride sleeping in Charlotte’s lap. They arrived back late, but the lights were still on in Grandmere’s cabin.

  “Well, you back. You deal with that witch?”

  “We did,” Wolf answered. “Can I tell you about it in the morning? Right now I just need to sleep.”

  “Course, go ahead mon chere.”

  “You coming?” he asked Charlotte.

  “No. I’m going to stay up and talk to Grandmere.”

  Wolf nodded, then walked over and kissed her. “Okay, come whenever you want. I just don’t think I can stay awake any longer.”

  “So, what happened up there. Did he deal with La Pierre?”

  “Did he kill her? No. Is she gone? Yes.”

  “Well, if Melvin didn’t, was it Mose?”

  “No, it was a ghost.”

  “A ghost? Hah, that funny.”

  “I guess it is,” Charlotte had to agree. Then she laughed. Then she cried.

  “You all right, girl.”

  “Oh, yes. I’m just so relieved. Now I can have him to myself. No ghosts, no witches, just Melvin.”

  “Well that good,” Grandmere told her and gave her a big hug.

  Grandmere and Charlotte talked long into the night. It was the first of many they would spend that way.


  In the morning, Wolf would tell Grandmere everything that had happened.

  A week later they went back to the Quarter to see Mose.

  “So, that witch be gone. I know you didn’t kill her. I knew you never could. Was it you or was it da little one?” he asked Charlotte.

  “Neither, it was a ghost.”

  Mose’s reaction was the same as Gandmere’s. He laughed.

  “What happened after we left?” Wolf asked.

  “Her house keeper found her da next day. Da police said it was a suicide. They buried her next to her third husband in his family’s crypt in Lafayette Cemetery Number 1. I think that be his ghost done da killin, and now she with him forever.”

  This time it was Wolf’s turn to laugh.

  “Now what you goin’ to do?” Mose asked.

  “Go back home and live our lives,” Wolf answered.

  “That be good. An’ you come back here anytime. I don’t get much company here, that for sure.”

  “Thank you, we will,” Wolf assured him.

  When they got up to leave, Mose hugged Charlotte and whispered in her ear. “You come see me anytime girl. That boy got some hard times ahead. You need to talk, you come see me.”

  “I will, and thank you so much, for everything,” Charlotte told him and then kissed him on the cheek.

  19 – Destiny

  Three months later Charlotte realized just what Mose had been talking about when he said Melvin had some hard times ahead of him. It wasn’t ghosts or women who wanted to drain the power from his blood, it was boredom. She could see it draining the life from him. Melvin had outgrown Bayou La Pointe, he just didn’t know how to admit it. If she didn’t do something about it he was going to wind up hating life here and resenting her. When he got back from his latest trip into the swamp, she was going to sit him down and talk to him.

  “You look good,” Melvin told her when he came home. “What’s up?”

  “I thought we could go out to dinner. Maybe that place by the water, Jack’s.”

  “Okay,” Wolf agreed, but the way he said it let Charlotte know he suspected something was up.

  Charlotte kept the mood light on the way to dinner. It wasn’t until after they had ordered that she voiced her concerns. “Melvin, are you happy?”

  “Sure,” he answered, “Why.”

  “Because I can see you’re getting restless. I don’t want you to become so unhappy that you feel you have to leave and you resent me for holding you here.”

  “I’d never do that.”

  “All right, but please just think about what I said.”

  Wolf did think about it, and he had to admit, he wasn’t happy. Not with life in Bayou La Pointe anyway. What Charlotte had said was true, he had outgrown it. He had seen too much of the outside world to be content here. Old Ben and his Grandmere had drawn him back, but Ben was gone and Charlotte had replaced Grandmere in his life. The only time he saw his grandmere now was when he dropped off her catfish, or he and Charlotte stopped by for dinner. Truth be told, Charlotte was spending more time with Grandmere than he was.

  But what were his options? He couldn’t make a life hunting gators, hell he hadn’t had the heart for it since destroying Old Ben. The oil rigs were always there ... with his background as a Machinist Mate he’d have no problem getting a job on them, but that wasn’t something he wanted to do. That new nuclear power plant, Waterford 3, up in Kilona was an option, but that was a two hour drive. He was stumped, and that made him more unhappy than he already was.

  “You’re right, I’m not happy,” he told Charlotte over dinner at Jack’s.

  “So what are we going to do about that?”

  We, not you. That was a good sign. “I don’t know, I’ve thought about it and I can’t think of anything to do.”

  “We could start by leaving Bayou La Point. It’s too small for you. It’s too small for the both of us.”

  “Where would we go?”

  “Anywhere. Up north maybe. You could show me what lobster tastes like.”

  Up north? Wolf didn’t think he wanted to go back north, but he could find work there. Hell, he had been offered a job at Electric Boat as a nuclear boat foreman before he left the navy. That was something he might enjoy.

  “Maybe, let’s sleep on it and talk about it in a few days.”

  Wolf was ready to tell Charlotte he was ready to move back to Connecticut when a lawyer appeared at his grandmere’s looking for him. By chance, he happened to be there talking to her about what he should do.

  “Are you Melvin Lobo?” the man asked when Grandmere brought him onto the porch.

  “Yes, why?”

  “Because this is for you,” the man answered and handed Wolf an envelope.

  “What is it?”

  “A copy of Moses Gaudette’s will. He left you all his possessions, but there are some conditions. After you have a chance to look it over we can talk. Call me, my card’s in the envelope too.”

  “This must be a mistake. I don’t know a Moses Gaudette.”

  “You probably knew him as Mose. He never used his full name.”

  Mose? Mose was dead? Wolf was stunned. He had ever considered that the old man would die. “When did he pass away?”

  “Yesterday. His instructions were to deliver this to you as soon as possible after he passed.”

  “When’s the funeral? I want to go.”

  “It’s on Saturday. Your presence there is one of the conditions in the will.”

  Charlotte was saddened and stunned when Wolf told her about Mose’s passing and the contents of the will.

  “He left you everything? What is everything?”

  “I have no idea. The lawyer has a list, but there are two conditions.”

  “Conditions? What are they?”

  “First, I have to attend his funeral on Saturday. Second, I have to live in the house on Royal. If I accept, it’s all mine as long as I live there. If I don’t, it all goes to charity.”

  “Of course we’ll go to the funeral, but what are you going to do about the rest?”

  “What are we going to do about the rest you mean? I wouldn’t agree to live there without you.”

  Wolf and Charlotte arrived in New Orleans on Friday night before the funeral. They stayed in the same hotel they had stayed in after the prom. Wolf couldn’t remember which room they had stayed in, but Charlotte did. She was disappointed when it wasn’t available.

  They met the funeral procession on Decatur Street opposite Jackson Square. Crowds had already gathered. Mose was laid out in an open coffin in a glass windowed carriage. A team of snow white stallions was harnessed to the front. A gaudily dressed man sat in the driver’s seat.

  As soon as Wolf and Charlotte took their place behind the carriage, the driver flicked the reins, the carriage started to move and the jazz band assembled behind them started to play slow, sorrowful dirges.

  The procession went south along Decatur, then turned right at St. Louis. They walked the length of St. Louis until they left the Quarter. They turned again on to Basin Street and Wolf realized where they were going — St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. When they arrived, it seemed that every ghost in New Orleans was there. They filled the streets and sidewalks but parted to allow the funeral carriage to pass. All of them stared at Wolf, but none with hungry eyes. They were here to see Mose off. It was then that Wolf understood why Mose had wanted him to attend the funeral ... he wanted him to see this.

  As soon as the casket was unloaded and carried through the cemetery gates, the band broke into “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and the people who had followed the procession broke into dance and a celebration of Mose’s life. The celebration would move to the Quarter and last well into the night.

  “That was crazy,” Charlotte said when they were back in their room at the hotel.

  “It was,” Wolf agreed.

  “Have you decided what you’re going to tell the lawyer tomorrow? Wh
atever you decide is okay with me.”

  “I’m going to tell him yes, but that’s not the best part. After seeing all those ghosts at the cemetery, I finally know what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Well, are you going to share it?”

  “Every one of those ghosts, every one of them has a story. I’m going tell them.”

  “I don’t understand. How are you going to tell them?”

  “Wait until tomorrow and I’ll show you.”

  In the morning Wolf took Charlotte to Café Du Monde. Wolf wasn’t surprised when the waiter brought two orders of beignets and coffee to their table without being asked. Before he took his first bite of a beignet, ghosts started gathering across the street in Jackson Square.

  When they finished eating, Wolf took Charlotte’s hand. “The ghosts are gathering over there. They mean us no harm this time. They’re just here to see what I’m going to do.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Come with me and I’ll, show you.”

  “Where are they?” Charlotte asked when Wolf stopped in the middle of the square.

  “All around us.”

  Charlotte squeezed his hand and glanced nervously around.

  “Don’t worry, you’re safe,” Wolf told her. Then he took out a small tape recorder he had brought with him. He turned it on and handed it to Charlotte. “Hold this.” Then he stepped forward, melding with the ghost nearest him.

  Wolf felt the chill as his body merged with the spirits. There was no anger here, no struggle for control, just relief. Then he accessed her memories. Charlotte was shocked when Melvin started talking in a voice that wasn’t his. “My name is Brenda. I died in 1902 ...”

  Wolf released the spirit when she had told her entire story. When he returned to himself, he found Charlotte standing beside him crying. “What was that?”

  “That was Brenda. There are hundreds of ghosts here, and I’m going to tell their stories to the world.”