Voodoo Love (And the Curse of Jean Lafitte’s Treasure) (13 page)

             
A hand touched my shoulder and I looked down to see it. The scream crept up before I could stop it and it mingled with Euralie's soft laugh.

             
There was nothing there but the thin and brittle bones of a skeleton. Unable to stop myself, I looked up to see who they belonged to. A man smiled down at me, and there was something so familiar about him that the second scream I had in my throat died.

             
"That's right," he said with a nod and reached up to touch my chin with one of his bony fingers. "Now you've gotten the way of it. You know who I am. I may have been dead for over two hundred years, but I'm still a man to be reckoned with, Elizabeth Brown. We have business to attend to."

             
Fear leapt into my throat, causing it to ache, and I stepped back.  Oh, I recognized this man alright. I'd even shot at him before. Or at least his statue.

             
It was the Gentleman Pirate, otherwise known as Jean Lafitte.

             
"What's the matter,
Cher
?" Jean Lafitte smiled, revealing a gold tooth. "Don't tell me you're scared of me?  Especially not after our last meeting?"

             
"Last meeting?" My voice quavered with fear, and I hated the sound of it. But dammit! Dead pirate ghosts are not something I deal with every day.

             
"Ah, now you're breaking my heart. And I thought we'd shared something meaningful," he said, waggling his bushy eyebrows in a way that was meant to be suggestive. If the situation hadn't been so tense, it might have made me laugh.

             
"I’m sorry," I said. "I'm not sure what you are talking about."

             
"Your spell worked too well." Lafitte turned to Euralie. "But then again, I expect nothing less from a voodoo priestess of my line."

             
Euralie nodded but lowered her eyes.

             
"Truly you are as talented as my own lovely Marie was." Lafitte lifted her chin. "You have her eyes."

             
"I take that as a great compliment," Euralie said.

             
"You are sad though."

             
"Yes. My lover is lost to me because of this woman." Anger flashed in her eyes and I couldn't help but wince with guilt.

             
Lafitte turned his attention back to me and shook his head.

             
"Let's set everything right, again," he said. "Euralie, cast aside your grief and draw the circle."

             
"But that will make us vulnerable. Diego could harm us while we are in it," she protested.

             
"Why do you think I brought my crew?" Lafitte gestured to the corpses standing at the edge of the water. "They await my command and believe me, they know the consequence of not obeying."

             
Consequence? What could you do to a corpse that would suck more than already being dead?

             
As if hearing my thought, Lafitte said, "There are worse things than being dead, like being a member of the Deadman's Ferry. No one wants an extra hundred years added to their sentence."

             
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask what the Deadman's Ferry was, but Lafitte was having none of it. With a wave of his hand, the corpses all turned their backs to us and stared out at the bayou. Their heads jerked and bobbed as they stood guard, reminding me of robots standing sentry in a science fiction movie.

             
"Return her memory," Lafitte said to Euralie, "and give her the gift of insight about the past."

             
"What do you mean return my memory? I hit my head a few years ago." I watched Euralie and Lafitte exchange a glance.  Juan's words about having my memory erased for protection came back to me. And just where the hell was he anyway? I could have used his help right about then. "Tell me what really happened."

             
"My apologies, mademoiselle. I don't mean to get ahead of myself. You see, you learned the name of the voodoo spirit to contact in order to lift the curse I placed on my treasure. It was written on the map, and Euralie gave it to you in that club two years ago. Problem is, I don't want anyone finding my treasure. Why else would I have placed a curse on it?" Lafitte's face flushed with anger. "It's mine."

             
I sensed that Lafitte had trouble sharing his toys as a child and what use would a ghost have with treasure anyway?

             
"If you go around telling people how to lift the curse, then there will be nothing left and no way for me to get more crew members for the Deadman's Ferry." He stepped towards me and I couldn't help but take a step back. "Removing the knowledge from your memory solved the problem."

             
"Um…not really," I said. "Not being able to remember has been a real pain in the ass."

             
"Oui. For me too, as it turns out." Lafitte chuckled. "I hadn't counted on true love and the constant pestering of Juan Carlos Montoya."

             
"Where is Juan?"

             
"I barred him from this meeting. This talk is meant to be between just you and me."

             
"Please help me understand." I edged a step back, feeling uneasy. "Everyone is in on the joke but me."

             
"Euralie?" Lafitte looked over at the voodoo priestess who nodded at him. "Start the incantation."

             
Euralie chanted in a low voice, beating lightly on the tanbou drum. A breeze swung up and circled the area. The cypress trees swayed and the scent of jasmine drifted towards us. Light and sensual, it put me at ease.

             
"Ah, there is the scent of mi amore, Marie," Lafitte said in a low voice. He walked towards me and as he did so, his face changed. The age fell away from his face and his skeletal hands were covered by skin. In fact, he was downright handsome with his long brown hair loose and free. True, he wasn't as sexy as Johnny Depp playing Jack Sparrow, but there was something about Lafitte, something about this pirate that even made my pulse race a little. He grinned, the impish action transforming him again, and I could see why women might have been drawn to this outgoing man. "You are a beauty,
Elizabeth
. This is going to be a pleasure."

             
"What are you doing?" I asked as he stopped in front of me. I didn't quite trust the look in his eyes.

             
He took my hand.

             
"Sharing a memory with you." With that, Lafitte pulled me to him and planted a deep, kiss on my lips. Instinctively, I closed my eyes, vaguely aware that this was wrong, yet unable to stop myself from enjoying it too.

             
Everything fell away and in my mind, little vignettes of the past whirled around me.

*****

             
She was in love with him. The handsome pirate with his French accent and twinkling eyes had stolen her heart. Perhaps it was the way he always seemed to know what mischief she had caused in the bustling town of
New Orleans
or maybe it was because he recognized her talent for gathering knowledge--whatever the case, Marie Laveau only knew that she was in love with the Gentleman Pirate Jean Lafitte.

             
Gentleman Pirate! She scoffed at the nickname. He hadn't been such a gentleman last night in her bed, taking what he wanted and then some. On the other hand, she hadn't ever claimed to be chaste and pure like the silly ladies of society whose hair she arranged meticulously day after day. They would have been shocked by the erotic love play that went on nightly in the Laveau house.  Even more shocking to them would have been the knowledge that Marie Laveau's husband, Jacques Paris, was actually Jean Lafitte in disguise. It was one thing to be married to a poor man, but a pirate? A thief? That was a whole other matter and would have slammed the door on Marie's aspirations. All the gossip, all the interesting little tidbits of information she gathered inside the walls of the white ladies homes would be gone and then where would she be?

             
It made her mad just thinking about the hypocrisy of people. So many folks looked down their nose at her, seeing her as a pretty fortune teller, not the powerful priestess she knew she was destined to become. All those men with their wandering hands, lustful eyes, and heavy pockets would be shocked to know that the real reason she never became their mistress had nothing to do with her marriage vows.  Lots of women in her station of life would have jumped at the many temptations thrown her way--with their husbands blessing, too. After all, there were babies to feed. These men offered her money, riches, all kinds of trinkets that would have pleased many a woman, but Marie didn't need those things.

             
She and Jean were wealthy in their own right. They just had to be very careful about how they spent the money. No sense in calling attention to themselves. Showing up at the local merchant shops with gold to spend would definitely cause talk. Better to leave it in
Barataria
Bay
, where it had remained since Andrew Jackson had forced Jean and his brother Pierre to leave Barataria at the request of the government.

             
"No pirates in
Louisiana
territory with their illicit smuggling operations,"
Jackson
had declared.

             
Never mind all the help the Lafittes had given him in the
Battle
of
New Orleans
, defending the territory from the British. Never mind the boats, military intelligence, and man power that had been used to bring them a victory.
Jackson
was an important man now. There was talk of him even becoming President. He needed to clean up the rougher elements of
Louisiana
and that meant ousting his old "friend" Jean Lafitte.

             
"Damn traitor, Andrew Jackson," Marie muttered out loud before she could help herself.

             
"What was that?" The lady whose hair she had been putting into careful ringlets frowned.

             
"Nothing, Miz Irene. You just relax and let me take care of your pretty hair." Marie chided herself for not paying attention to her work. "My mind done wandered a bit is all."