“Ma minette, comment vous me vexez! Ugh, how you vex me! Are you listening?” Drake continued, this time striding up to me until he was maybe four steps away. He was dressed in his police uniform, his black pants clinging to his shapely butt and long legs. I was surprised at how similar his uniform was to those of the present. His jacket looked a bit outdated, maybe, with numerous buttons going down the front and an overall amorphous shape. But, outdated or not, a man in uniform was a man in uniform, and it didn’t matter if said uniform was from the early 1900s. Yep, any way I looked at it, Drake Montague was so handsome, my breath caught in my throat.
I glanced up at him and nodded dumbly. “Sorry, I just thought I was…somewhere else.”
“Oui, yes, you were,” he answered, with a haughty expression and one arched eyebrow. He sounded somewhat displeased, maybe even irritated. He straightened his posture and rested his icy chocolate eyes on mine. His lips were tight. “Toutes mes excuses. I apologize for interrupting your dreams of the large barbarian.”
I laughed; I couldn’t help it. Hearing Ryan described as a “large barbarian” was funny. That was my first thought. My second one was how did Drake somehow tune himself into my head? How did he know I’d been dreaming about sex with Ryan? That thought both unnerved and embarrassed me, a lot. But despite my discomfiture, it was more important to remember Drake was an eavesdropper. “So, can you just force your way into my thoughts and dreams whenever you choose?” I asked, sounding less than thrilled at the notion.
“Non,” he said, shaking his head, his eyes still narrowed and his expression less than amused. “Only when my power is at its greatest and you…ouvrez vos pensées, open your thoughts to receive me.” Once he said those last six words, he smirked knowingly and allowed his eyes to travel my body from bust to legs and back up again.
“Hey!” I started.
The corner of his mouth lifted into something not quite a smile but hinted at his amusement all the same. “I do approve,” he said. I imagined he was referring to my figure. I just shook my head—one thing I was learning about Drake was that he appreciated women. If I’d known him better, I might have even gone so far as to say he was a womanizer…or had been.
A moment later, though, any residual sexual innuendo vanished. Instead, he started pacing back and forth again, his heavy footfalls pounding against the walnut floors. Apparently, he was back to being pissed off. And I had to admit I much preferred the lascivious Drake to the perturbed one.
“Okay, and why am I being reprimanded again?” I asked, opting to take a seat on the sofa because I had a feeling I’d be here for a while.
Drake faced me, throwing his hands in the air. Obviously, this spirit tended toward the dramatic. “You should not dabble in things you know nothing about!”
“Um, I’m not following you, Inspector Clouseau,” I answered with a slight smile. Then I realized The Pink Panther came way after Drake’s time, so my quip was most definitely lost on him. What a shame.
He looked slightly confused before jumping right back into his diatribe again. “The board!” he answered, his tone clearly conveying I should have known what he was talking about. Then I remembered our first conversation where he’d willingly admitted to “watching” me and I realized he’d probably watched Trina and my whole botched attempt to reach out to the other side, his side. He paced toward the bank of windows, turned on his heels, and strode back to me.
“Here we go,” I grumbled. “Yes, I already got an earful about playing with Ouija boards, and already promised everyone who will listen that I won’t have anything else to do with them.”
“Un savon? An earful?” he demanded, eyeing me carefully.
“The large barbarian,” I answered with a shrug while concealing a smile.
He frowned. “We shall discuss him another day,” he answered indifferently. “For now, I am mostly concerned with undoing whatever damage you’ve enabled with your trifling.”
“Damage?” I repeated, feeling slightly irritated with his pedantic air. How many lectures would I get on this subject? Then an idea popped into my head. “Well, I was trying to contact you, if you really want to know the truth, but you never responded, which makes me wonder now if you’re nothing more than an illusion created by my dream imagination…”
He shook his head immediately. “Non, je ne suis pas une illusion!” he spouted out angrily before composing himself and translating, “I am no illusion.”
“Then why didn’t you reply when we tried to reach you through the board?”
He frowned at me. “When you open a gate, such as the one you did, there is no way to determine which spirits come through.”
“What does that mean?”
He started pacing again and didn’t answer until he reached the fireplace. “There was a surge of energy when you opened the portal, which I was unable to get through.” He frowned at me. “Believe me, I tried.”
“So who got through?” I demanded, suddenly unnerved, remembering how the board rattled off the names of the Axeman’s victims.
“Je ne sais pas! I don’t know for certain.” Drake shrugged as he made his way toward me again. He was moving around so much, I was getting dizzy. “I tried to reach out to you, but the power was too great.”
“What power?” I asked, shaking my head. “Whose power?”
“I cannot answer your questions,” he said matter-of-factly. “But whatever it was, it is cause for concern, which is why you and I are having this conversation now.”
I gulped. “Oh.”
“You must fix the portal breach, ma minette,” Drake continued, now directly in front of me. He kneeled down and took both of my hands in his. His eyes implored me at the same time they showed his concern.
“What does that mean? What breach?”
“Whatever breach you might have opened. You must cleanse the house.” Seeing my expression of confusion and doubt, he continued. “I do not know what, if anything, will come of your dabbling, but il est préférable de préparer que d’être pris par surprise. It is better to prepare than be taken by surprise.”
“I don’t know how to cleanse the house!” I cried, my heart plummeting as the weight of the situation began to bear down on me. “I don’t even know what that means!”
Drake’s response was straightforward and succinct. “Then you must find someone who does.”
I quietly pondered his reply for a few seconds. I was in New Orleans, a spiritual mecca, basically the seedbed of voodoo. If I had to cleanse the house of spiritual energy, where better to find someone than here? That was when something occurred to me. I glanced up at Drake, finding his eyes already riveted on me. “But, but if I do find someone to cleanse the house…what does that mean for you? Wouldn’t you be cleansed from it as well?” I didn’t know why, but I was suddenly afraid of losing him. It was strange because I wasn’t wholly convinced that he really even existed beyond the confines of my mind; but truthfully, I wanted him to be real.
With a chuckle, he shook his head, running his fingers down the side of my cheek. “Cleansing will only eradicate entities that intend you harm, ma minette.” He bent down and brought his mouth to my ear, whispering, “Je ne te ferais jamais de mal. I would never harm you.”
I started to close my eyes at his touch. Incredibly, in this dream world, he felt whole, tangible, and nothing at all like a spirit, or what I imagined a spirit would feel like—air. His touch was as real as my own. His breath against my ear sent shivers up my spine. God, how I wanted him to be real, to exist outside the boundaries of my imagination.
Then, like a slap in the face, I suddenly jolted back to reality and remembered the information from the Ouija board. I swallowed hard and pulled away from him, savoring the feel of his fingers still grazing my cheek.
“Ne pas la combattre. Do not fight it,” he whispered, his breath hot on my neck. I wanted to close my eyes again and allow myself to succumb to whatever he had in mind for me, but I resisted the urge.
“No, Drake, there’s more. I need to tell you what happened.”
“What happened?” he repeated, pulling away from me, disappointment overcoming his features.
“With the board.”
It seemed to take him a minute to remember what we were talking about before he replied. Men!
“The Ouija board,” I clarified.
“Priez continuer. Pray continue,” he answered, becoming suddenly unsettled, and probably realizing whatever I was about to say wasn’t going to be good. I cleared my throat and watched him walk to the fireplace, where he leaned his arm against the mantel and studied me, patiently waiting for me to begin.
“I read all the articles you requested,” I started. He immediately nodded as if he were happy to hear it. I swallowed, knowing he wouldn’t be happy to hear the rest of my story. “So I am pretty familiar with what happened in regard to the Axeman.”
“Très bien. Very good,” he answered quickly. “What does the board have to do with this, ma minette?”
I inhaled, knowing I needed to get to the point. “While Trina and I were using the board, we asked it questions.” Drake kept nodding, as if to say this were commonplace. “And when we asked whom we were speaking with, the board started spelling out the names…of the Axeman’s victims.”
Drake’s expression completely changed. His lips tightened and his eyes narrowed. I glanced down at his hands and saw he was fisting them at his sides. It was uncanny to watch the complete change in his demeanor—from sensual to seething, all in the course of a few seconds.
“Drake?” I started, only slightly unnerved at the expression on his face.
He immediately shook his head, as if to say he wanted the complete story. “Go on.”
His obvious agitation about the entire thing was making me nervous. I glanced down at my lap and realized I‘d picked all the nail polish off the fingernails of my right hand. I looked back up at him and felt myself withering beneath his stringent gaze. “That’s all there really is to say.”
“Which names?” he demanded.
I took a deep breath and tried to remember. “Joseph was first. I figured that could mean either Joseph Maggio or Joseph Romano.” The Axeman had attacked two Josephs. “Then I think the board mentioned Charles Cortimiglia, and Louis Besumer, and Anna…Lowe.” I swallowed and felt the quiet of the room overcoming me. Drake didn’t move, or even blink. He just stared at me. “Do you think Trina and I were in contact with the victims?” I asked sheepishly, not sure what to make of his tacit scrutiny.
He immediately shook his head and his eyes were piercing when they settled on mine. “No.”
“Then who?” I started.
“Je ne sais pas. I don’t know,” he replied immediately, his hands still fisted at his sides and his eyes still dangerous. “Is there more?”
“No,” I started, feeling like I didn’t want to continue talking about this subject. Not without any idea what was going through his mind. Was this way worse than I’d previously thought? Had we somehow opened a demonic portal with the board, allowing the Axeman to come through and possibly do me in with an ax?
“Nothing?” he affirmed.
Then I remembered there was more. “Oh, um, yes, there is actually.”
“Quoi? What is it?”
I tried to remember everything that happened that night. I could feel myself starting in on the fingernail polish of my other hand. “The board began to count chronologically, so Trina had to turn the board upside down.” Drake’s lips continued to tighten until they paled white, but despite my anxiety, there was more I had to tell him. “And it started to repeat the words that were written in chalk on the sidewalk right before the murder of the Maggios.”
“Mrs. Maggio is going to sit up tonight just like Mrs. Toney,” Drake repeated, as if he’d been working on the case only yesterday. I simply nodded, hating the words as he uttered them. They were so filled with obscene mystery that went way beyond ominous. He took a deep breath, finally releasing the tension in his lips. He started to zone out on the floor, and just when I wondered if our conversation was over, he looked up at me. “I received the call about the message,” he started, his voice sounding far away. “Upperline and Robertson Streets. It was just a block away from the Maggios’ home.” I nodded and listened, intrigued by his story…fascinated by him. “No one could make any sense of it. At first, we thought it was a simple schoolboy prank. He inhaled deeply and then shook his head. “Merde.”
“So what did it mean?”
He cocked his head to the side and shook it, as if to say he didn’t have an answer for me. “It was only after the attack on the Maggios that we decided it was a warning to Mrs. Maggio because it was discovered mere hours before her death.”
“Who was Mrs. Toney?”
He shrugged. “No one knows for certain, although some thought she was a woman who foiled the attempts of the Axeman, only much earlier, in 1911.”
“So why did that message come through the board?” I asked, completely baffled as to what it all could mean.
Drake faced me and the color drained from his face entirely. “Just as it was meant to warn Mrs. Maggio, you must consider it a warning to you, ma minette.”
Once I woke up from my dream about Drake, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I still wasn’t convinced whether he was truly a spirit reaching out to me, or just a figment of my overactive imagination. Either way, though, I figured it was better to think he was real because if my house had to be cleansed from harmful spirits, poltergeists, or demons, better to be safe than risk becoming possessed, or even dead, right?
I woke up at the crack of dawn and slammed down a few cups of coffee while I tried to derail my muddled thoughts with something on television—which didn’t work. Figuring Trina might assist me with my quest to find someone to cleanse my house (since she’d performed that little candle cleansing ritual and the Ouija board was her idea), I gave her a call and explained my dilemma. Although less than thrilled, since she had to work and therefore couldn’t accompany me, she directed me to Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo, the best place she could think of to find what I was looking for. The House of Voodoo specialized in “spiritual and religious ceremony” as claimed by their website.
Now with a clearer sense of purpose, I had to bide my time while the early morning faded away. Once nine thirty rolled around, I hightailed it from the Omni hotel and walked down St. Louis Street until I reached Bourbon Street and hung a right. Then it was maybe three blocks to Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo. I only hoped that someone there might be able to help me. And if they couldn’t, ideally they would direct me to someone who could.
When I arrived, I was fifteen minutes early. I just hung outside of the smallish store and people-watched as I wondered if this visit would solve my problem. The humidity was high and the air fairly warm, considering it was springtime. I watched groups of overweight tourists walking by, all looking like extra-large Skittles, with their incredibly bright T-shirts, capri pants, and Bermuda shorts. At least one person in every group had a camera around his or her neck, but all of them had adventure in their eyes. Interspersed between them was the occasional drunk, who’d clearly partied too hard the night before. In general, Bourbon Street smelled of alcohol, vomit, and sewer.
As to Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo, it looked like something you’d see on the bayou. It was a single-level shack of a place, perched on the corner of Bourbon and St. Ann Streets. The lean-to looked as if it were constructed of plank boards. Some of the boards were painted white, others unpainted, and still others gray with mold. Faded black plantation shutters covered the windows. A white portable air conditioner hung out of one window, the only thing lending the store a modern vibe. While the overall look of Marie Laveau’s was distressed, the sign—a circle painted black, looming above the walkway, proclaiming in bright white letters, “House of Voodoo”—looked fresh and new. I gazed at the sign for a few seconds, hoping it would do its namesake proud, the most infamous Voodoo
Queen, Marie Laveau.
I heard the sound of the front door being unlocked from the inside. When the door opened, I smiled at the woman who appeared. She looked like she was in her early thirties. Her hair was cut short with a bright red stripe running down her center part. She wore a bull’s ring through her nostrils, and had sharp-looking triangular metal cones jutting from each of her ear lobes. Her black tunic reached her upper knee, and she wore a pair of black-and-red webbed leggings that were actually sort of cool. As she walked, her incredibly heavy-looking military-issue boots sounded loudly beneath her.
“Hi,” I said with a big smile. I wondered if she’d take offense to my tight pink T-shirt, platinum blond hair, or cutoff jean shorts. Clearly, we were from different fashion planets.
“How’s it goin’?” she asked with a genuine smile. I took a deep breath and she laughed. “That bad, huh?”
“Could be,” I answered as I started up the stairs behind her. Once inside, I immediately noticed all the stuff hanging from the walls, even on the ceiling. On the wall nearest the cash register were masks of all sorts. Most had a tribal look to them, rather than something you’d see in a Mardi Gras parade. Next to the masks was a shelf of spiritual books, and directly in front of the register was a litany of baskets filled with so much junk, I had a hard time focusing on any one thing. I glanced around and took in myriad candles on the shelf behind me (I could have sworn a few of them were in the shape of penises, but didn’t want to stare) surrounded by beaded jewelry.
“You look overwhelmed and confused,” the girl continued, offering me an encouraging smile. “What are you looking for?”
I faced her and hesitated for a few seconds as I tried to postulate the best way to explain why I was here. Finally, I just figured I should come out with it—if anyone would understand, it would be someone working here…or so I hoped. “Well, I think there’s a chance my house might be haunted by…bad spirits, and I was told to cleanse it.” I took a breath and glanced down at my hands absentmindedly. “I’m not even sure what that means.”