The Ghosts Of New Orleans (A PARANORMAL RESEARCH AND CONTAINMENT DIVISION (PRCD) CASE FILE) (5 page)

“No, not yet, let me speak my piece,” she said sternly, “There’s danger
out there for you.  Big danger.  She doesn’t like us messing with the spirits. 
Seems she wants their essence, their power.”

Eloise nodded.

“I was never as strong as you, so just because she got me isn’t any
reason for you to think she’s gonna get you.  But you gotta be strong.”

Eloise nodded. “I am strong.”

“No, honey, you aren’t.  And stop interrupting me. Gosh, you’d think this
girl never learned her manners.

“Honey, where you have to be strong is a place where you’ve been weak.  A
place where you’ve been scared.  A place that you got hidden up inside you.”

She knelt down and placed her hand on the side of Eloise’s face and
smiled.  Eloise could feel the heat of her hand, even as she could look through
the translucent being that Cindy had become.

“Faith.  That’s the answer, honey, faith.”

She smiled and leaned forward and touched her lips to Eloise’s cheek,
like a mother kissing her child.  Then she was gone.

A final single tear escaped from Eloise’s eye.  She lifted her hand,
brushed her cheek and smiled.  “Faith.  I’ll remember.  Thank you, Cindy.”

She reached over, pulled a length of toilet paper off the roll and
heartily blew her nose. With another length, she wiped her eyes.  Then she
stood and plunged her hands in the cold running water and splashed her face for
the second time that morning.  Blindly, she grabbed the towel next to sink and
patted her face dry.  She faced herself in the mirror, took a deep breath,
smiled and whispered, “Faith.”

A few minutes later, a more composed Eloise entered the kitchen and sat
back on the bar stool.  Paul watched her for a moment.

“Eloise, we can talk later. You don’t have to…”

“Thank you, Major.  I’m fine, really. So, after you heard about Cindy, you
got my report from last night?”

Paul nodded.  “I debriefed Turner and Anderson myself when they returned
to base. I drove here as soon as the session was over.”

Eloise looked up, surprised.   “So, you’ve been here, since…”

“Since about two hundred hours.”

“How did you?”

“Sally let me in.  At first she thought I was a… How did she put it?  A
‘perv’ for knocking on the door at two o’clock in the morning.”

Eloise had to stifle a chuckle. “Sally doesn’t like to have her sleep
disturbed.”

“Well, I earned points by telling her that she could sleep in this
morning.”

Eloise smiled. “I’m amazed that you were able to wake her.  Usually I
have to wake up…”

Paul looked at Eloise and scowled. “Yes, I know, usually you are a light
sleeper.”

Eloise turned her face to avoid Paul’s gaze.

“And you didn’t wake up last night,” he continued, “You didn’t wake
because you were totally exhausted.  Because you had just fought for your life
and barely won.”

Eloise shrugged.

“It was no big deal.  I had it well in hand.”

Paul stood up and slammed his fist against the counter, “No, you did not
have it well in hand, Eloise.  And it was a big deal.”

He rubbed his hand over his forehead and paced for a few moments. Then he
sat down on the stool again and turned to face her.  Eloise could sense the
barely contained rage emanating from Paul.

“Okay, first things first, tell me about your experience.”

“Is that an order, Major?” she asked.

Paul nodded curtly, “Yes, it is.”

Eloise nodded and then recounted not only the experience from the night
before, but also her dream.

“So, what do you think it is?”  Paul asked when she had finished.

Eloise shook her head.  “I don’t know all of it.  I think whatever came
after me was female – at least that was the impression I received.  And
powerful, really powerful.  But I think the power comes from fear – it seems to
feed on fear.  Even in my dream, the more afraid I was, the more power it had.”

“So what is your suggestion on how we deal with this?”

Eloise was silent for a few moments.

“Cindy came to me a little while ago.”

She watched his face change from immediate disbelief to speculation.

“What did she tell you?”

Eloise paused, deciding what she wanted, needed to tell him.

“She said the thing that killed her was a powerful entity. She said that
it is strong – but she felt that I had the strength to fight it.  She just
warned me to…”

She stopped, searching for the words she wanted to use.

“She warned you?” Paul continued.

“She warned me to be strong. She said that just because it got her was no
reason for me to think I couldn’t beat it.”

Eloise shrugged and reached as calmly as she could for her drink. She
lifted it to her mouth and forced herself to take a sip.

Paul watched her and then moved his stool closer to hers. 

Intimidation move,
she thought.         

“But, she had no guarantee that you could beat it,” he asked, searching
her eyes.

She shrugged nonchalantly. “Dead people rarely give guarantees, Major.”

Paul nodded his head and folded his hands on the counter in front of him.

“So her advice to you was to be strong? And what do you intend to do?”

Eloise placed the drink down on the counter, leaned back in the stool and
crossed her arms.

“Well, I fought it and won.  I don’t have to be afraid of it anymore. 
So, I’ll just go about my business and try to avoid it.”

“You never used to be stupid.”

Eloise turned towards Paul. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that either you have just lost half of your highly developed IQ
or you think I have,” he replied, holding her gaze with his, “Before Sergeant
Turner switched on the music, who was winning?”

Eloise looked away.

Paul reached over and cupped her chin in his hand and forced her to look
at him.  “Who was winning?” he asked softly.

Eloise shook her head.  “I just wasn’t prepared. She has lost the
advantage of surprise. Next time, I’ll be ready.”

“So you think that there is going to be a next time?” he asked, his voice
deceptively soft.

“I’m planning on it,” she replied defiantly.

Paul stood so quickly that the stool fell to the floor with a crash.  He
grabbed Eloise’s upper arms and pulled her out of the chair.     Their eyes
locked and battled.  Their breath mingled and Eloise could feel the power and
magnetism of Paul’s body.  She watched his eyes change as he too became aware
of the sexual pull just under the surface. His gaze dropped from her eyes and
swept over her lips. Eloise shivered and then shook her head. “No.”

She stepped back, not willing to fight this battle with him.  He dropped
his hands from her arms and also took a step back.

“Eloise…” he began.

“Major,” she interrupted. “With all due respect, this force is an
obstacle that we have to deal with.  It is my understanding that it works to
thwart the prime mission of PRCD.  If we cannot guide those restless spirits to
their final place of rest, we will have areas of the United States...of the
world... that will be uninhabitable.”

“I understand the mission of the PRCD,” Paul said. “I only…”

“Then you know that I need to stay,” Eloise interrupted.

Paul nodded.  “I said I understand.  Now, it’s your turn to understand. 
You have two options.”

Eloise nodded.

“You give this up and go back to DC…”

“I’m sorry, that is not an option.”

“Or you work with me.”

Eloise’s eyes widened and she shook her head.

“No. Oh, no, we cannot work together.”

Paul shrugged. “Fine, I’ll book you on a transport plane that leaves the
base in four hours.”

Eloise felt the frustration build.  She knew he had the power to send her
back to DC and she knew he’d do it.  She also knew she had to stop whatever it
was that killed Cindy.           She looked into his eyes and could see that he
knew she only had one real option.

Grabbing  her drink, Eloise hurled it across the room. “Damn you, Paul
Grimes.”

Paul looked at the chocolate liquid spreading slowly across the floor and
nodded. “I take it this means we’re partners.”

“Okay, let me see if I get this,” said Sally, dressed in leopard print
pajama pants and an oversized “Osbourne Family” t-shirt. She was sipping on a
glass of something that looked suspiciously like she had mowed the lawn, emptied
it into a food processor and then poured it into the glass, all the while
plucking one-handed on the computer keyboard, “This malevolent entity attacked
you.  And then Bert and Ernie fought it off with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?”

Eloise nodded.

“And we are assuming this same entity that was able to murder Cindy?”
Sally asked.

Eloise had told Sally about Cindy earlier that day.  And although Sally
never worked with Cindy, she seemed to understand Eloise’s need for space and
hadn’t asked many questions until now.

Eloise nodded.  “It sounds like it attacked her first and then it came
after me.”

“So, what are we going to do about this?” Sally asked, letting Eloise
know she had a partner in her fight against Cindy’s murderer.

Eloise sent Sally a grateful smile.

“Well, before round two with it,” she finally replied to Sally, “I would
like to know a little bit more about what we’re fighting against.  So, what
does your keen intellect and your database say?”

Sally took another big gulp and swallowed happily while she nodded and
clicked on her mouse.  “Well, I think it’s safe to assume that the entity
doesn’t have anything against you personally.”

“No, it just wants to kill me.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t want to kill you, as in you.  It wants to kill you,
as in the person who is helping the spirits move to the beyond.”

“Oh, well, that’s okay then.”

Sally ignored her comment. “So, have you ever had any experiences like
this before?”

Eloise shook her head. “No, I think I’d remember something like this.”

“Okay,” she said, setting the glass down and leaning forward to stare at
the screen. “We can narrow it down to this experience – here in the New Orleans area.”

Eloise nodded.  “Yes, that makes sense.  It didn’t start until yesterday,
after my first full day here.”

Sally nodded and punched some more buttons and scanned the pages before
her.

“You didn’t have any cravings to eat something unusual, did you?”

Eloise looked at the green goop in Sally’s glass and shuddered, “Like
what?”

“You know, human blood, boiled entrails, hearts.”

Eloise looked down at the beef stick in her hand and chucked it into the
trash can.

“No, actually, I’m finding my appetite has decreased lately.”

Sally nodded and clicked a few more buttons. “Have any uncontrollable
desire to have sex?”

Paul’s image immediately flashed through Eloise’s mind and she forced it
away. “What…”

Sally interrupted. “Oh, never mind, wrong kind of entity.”

Then Sally turned in her chair, wagged her eyebrows and grinned at
Eloise. “Of course, if you would still like to answer the question…”

Eloise snorted. “Get back to the issue, Sally.”

Sally shrugged and swung her chair back around. She tapped on a few more
buttons and then peered closer to the screen.  “You know, Eloise, you could
have picked an easier place to have this encounter.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, New Orleans is renowned for ghosts, voodoo and all kinds of
supernatural goings on.  It’s not going to be easy to pin this down,” Sally
peered at the screen, “Hmmm, well this is interesting.”

Eloise leaned forward to peer at the screen. “What? What’s interesting?”

Sally swung back smiling. “Zombies.”

Eloise sat back in her chair and threw her hands up in the air.
“Zombies?  Zombies?  You’ve come up with zombies?  Sally, zombies are only real
in Hollywood.”

Sally took another sip of her neon green drink and stared at Eloise. 
“This from a woman who ‘sees dead people’?”

Eloise sheepishly acknowledged the hit and nodded to Sally.

“Okay, tell me what you’ve got.”

Sally grinned triumphantly and twirled her chair around to face the
computer screen.  “Okay, The word 'voodoo'  is derived from the word
'vodu' in the Fon language of Dahomey meaning 'spirit' or 'god’ and describes
the complex religious and belief system that exists in Haiti. The foundations
of voodoo were established in the seventeenth century by slaves captured
primarily from the kingdom of Dahomey, which occupied parts of today's Togo, Benin, and Nigeria in West Africa,” she began.

Eloise interrupted. “Skip to the chase, Sally.”

Sally sighed. “Fine. There are two
sorts of priests in the traditional voodoo folklore: the mambo who confines his
activities to "white" magic. Or the caplata who performs evil spells
and black magic, sometimes called "left-handed Vodun."

“So, we’re looking for a caplata?”

Sally smiled. “Yes!”

Eloise shook her head, “Why?”

“Because of the zombies,” Sally
said, shaking her head at Eloise’s obvious ignorance.

“What about the zombies, Sally?”
Eloise asked.

Sally paused for a moment. “Oh,
yeah.  The zombies.  That’s the coolest part.”

Eloise smile was strained. “Great,
great, the coolest part.”

Sally’s smile was undaunted.
“Sarcasm doesn’t faze me.”

Eloise nodded. “Yeah, I noticed. 
So, the zombies...”

“Yeah, so, Haitian zombies were
once normal people, but underwent zombification by a caplata through a spell or
potion.  The victim then dies and becomes a mindless automaton, incapable
of remembering the past, unable to recognize loved ones and doomed to a life of
miserable toil under the will of the zombie master.”

Sally swung around and grinned at
Eloise. “See?”

“That’s interesting, Sal.  But that
doesn’t explain why she is after the spirits who are already dead.”

“Oh, I can explain that,” Sally
said, turning her chair back and reading from the computer screen. “One belief
unique to Vodun is that a dead person can be revived after having been buried.
After resurrection, the zombie has no will of their own, but remains under the
control of others.”

“So, basically whoever is trying to
stop me from sending these spirits home is trying to...”

“Build up an army of zombies,” said
Sally, twirling her chair back to Eloise.

“Okay, Sally, ten million dollar
question, why would someone want an army of zombies?”

Sally shook her head in disbelief.

“What would you do with an army
that doesn’t need food, sleep, and can never be killed?”

A chill ran down Eloise’s spine.
“You could do anything.”

Sally nodded.  “And you would be
extremely popular with terrorists who have large amounts of money.”

Eloise nodded.  “So, where do I
start looking?”

“Well, my first guess is to look
for anything that has to do with worshipping Yemanja,” Sally offered.

“And Yemanja is?”

“Yemanja is the Voodoo Spirit of
the waters,” Sally replied matter-of-factly.

Eloise waited for a further
explanation, but none came.

“Look Sally, I really hate to act
dumb and I have always thought that I had a fairly high IQ – but could you just
tell me why I’m looking for someone worshipping this spirit?”

Sally smiled. “Oh, sure. Sorry.  In
order to become zombies, the spirits and the bodies have to reunite – you know,
become resurrected. Most of these bodies were washed out to sea, so in order to
get them returned…”

Eloise nodded. “You would need to
get in touch with the spirit of the waters.  I get it now.  Thanks Sally.”

Sally grinned, picked up her green
drink and took a big gulp.

“No problem, boss!  So, what are
you going to do next?”

“Do we have a voodoo favorite in
the area?”

Sally turned back to her computer
and entered a little more information.

“Well, voodoo is still alive and
kicking in the New Orleans community,” Sally commented. “But when I enter both
voodoo and Yemanja I just get one name.”

Eloise stood up and leaned over
Sally’s shoulder, “Great, what name?”

“Maria Leveau, she was the Voodoo
Queen of New Orleans,” Sally answered. “She had a home on Rue St. Ann, but now
she’s buried in St. Louis Cemetery Number One.”

Eloise walked over to the counter,
picked up her hat and her briefcase and headed toward the door.

Sally turned around, confused.
“What are you going to do?”

Eloise shrugged. “Do what any
investigator does – interviews subjects.”

Sally looked around and shook her
head.

“Maria has been dead since the
1800s and everyone else is evacuated.  Who are you going to interview?”

Eloise smiled as she opened the
door.

“You forget, Sally,” she said, “I talk
to dead people.”

The view from the driver’s seat of
the SUV was eerie, Eloise thought as she traveled up Florissant Highway.  Eloise
kept her windows rolled up and her door locked.  The first to keep out the
smell of the rotting wasteland around her, the second to make sure no
“unfriendlies,” as Bert and Ernie would say, had easy access.

The paved highway still had large
patches of dried mud across both lanes. Most of the debris had been pushed off
onto the shoulder. Beyond the highway were the skeletal remains of hundreds of
homes – the frame standing bare against the gray sky or just patches of
concrete where homes used to stand.  Trees, with their leaves and branches
stripped off to the height of 20 or 30 feet until their foliage reappeared
above the storm surge line, looked like giant pencils with fuzzy green
erasers.  The rest of the landscape was a mix of debris and brown mud – there
was no grass, no shrubs, no porches, and no humanity.

The usually blue-green waters of
the lakes were a dreary brown with waves slogging up debris and mud onto the
shores.       Eloise surveyed the horizon. As she drove, tears formed in her
eyes.  So many people dead, so many more left with nothing, no homes, no jobs,
and no homeland.  She couldn’t imagine what they had to be going through just
trying to look past the tragedy of the day into the brightness of the future.

Suddenly, Eloise felt a chill run
up her spine. She stiffened; her intuition was always a better meter than any
of the electronic instruments she carried.  She slowly turned her head towards
the passenger seat and the old man now seated next to her turned his salt and
pepper whiskered face to her and winked.  She took a deep breath, clasped the
steering wheel tightly and decelerated slowly.

“Bonjour, ange. Il fait beau,” he
said, with a smile that turned his grizzled face nearly into a thing of
beauty.  He was dressed in faded overalls and a cotton shirt, with a faded
bandana tied around his neck.  His hands were gnarled and tanned and his face
was lined with hundreds of wrinkles that made him resemble a bloodhound Eloise
had once seen.  His salt and pepper hair was cut in a short crew cut.  But the
twinkle in his eyes was what put Eloise immediately at ease.

“I’m sorry,” Eloise replied, slowly
moving towards a clear spot on the shoulder and stopping, “I don’t speak
French.”

“Not, French, Cajun,” he said with
grin, “I say, hello, angel, nice weather we are having.”

Eloise grinned. “Yes, today the
weather is very nice.”

“I am Jean-Henri, and you?” he
asked.

“I am Eloise,” she replied.

“Ah,” he said, nodding knowingly,
“Eloise, I am amoureux, in love.”

Eloise chuckled, “You are a
scoundrel.”

Jean-Henri laughed. “Je fais le
mieux que je peux ... I do the best that I can.”

Then Jean-Henri looked out of the
window to the scene before him.

“There was a tempete, storm, no?”
he asked.

“Yes, there was a bad storm, a
hurricane,” Eloise replied.

He nodded, slowly, still surveying
the landscape, “An ouragan.”

He turned back to her. “Many
people,” he paused for a moment to find the words, “Many people die?”

Eloise nodded sadly. “Yes, Jean-Henri,
many people died.”

He sighed, “I am not ready for the
cimetière, the cemetery.  I am a fisherman; I cannot stay in the ground.”

“Do you remember the storm?” asked Eloise.

“Oui, I was fishing. The sea she is
my bele, my sweetheart, but this night she was the diable, the devil. Her waves
were high - dangereux.”

 He paused for a moment to search
his memory.

“The wave, she was giant,” he said,
“I was écraser, crushed, by the water.  I went down…”

He turned to her, tears streaming
down his wrinkled face.

“Mon dieu, I am not alive!” his voice
held a note of panic in it, “Pourquoi?  Why? Why am I still here?”

“Jean-Henri, you just stopped for a
while to say good-bye to this place you loved.”

He shook his head and spoke slowly,
with a dawning awareness. “Non, no, I have not come to say au revoir to my home
– for it is here, in my heart, always,” he said, touching his chest with his
hand. “Non, I have come to have a rendezvous with you, sweet Eloise.”

“I don’t understand - a
rendezvous?”