chapter 16
V?V? sat on the front porch glider, her sewing basket in her lap, quietly darning a pair of Levon's stockings. The way she saw it, just because the man was dead didn't mean he had to go walking around with holes in his socks. She paused to rest her eyes from the close work, gazing out at the shady canopy of live oaks lining the drive leading to Mojo House.
Levon lumbered across the meadow-sized front lawn with the push-mower, oblivious to the delta sun climbing its way across the sky. Although the morning air was heavy with the scent of freshly cut grass, V?V? could smell trouble coming on the wind from the river. And, in her experience, the river winds were seldom wrong.
The augury proved itself correct when a strange car suddenly appeared at the mouth of the shell drive, sending up a trail of white dust in its wake. V?V? set aside her sewing basket and got to her feet. Levon let the push-mower drop and moved towards the house with surprising speed, considering his condition. It wasn't until the car came to a halt in the turnaround that V?V? recognized the driver.
"Sonja!" The voodoo priestess exclaimed as she hurried down the front steps. "What the hell are you doing back here?"
The vampire slayer climbed out from behind the wheel of the rental car. In the open sunlight she looked as pale and vulnerable as a grub. "It's an emergency, V?V?," she said, grimacing as the sun cut her eyes.
The other woman frowned as she glanced inside the car. "Where's that nice Mr. Estes you had with you?"
"He's still traveling with me," Sonja replied, popping the trunk release. Jack Estes lay curled in the boot of the rental as if held in the jaws of some amiable beast, wrapped in a makeshift shroud fashioned from a velvet curtain, with twelve five-pound bags of crushed ice arranged atop his body.
V?V? placed her hand on Estes' chilly brow and quickly removed it, shaking her head.
"My heart grieves for you," she said, sadly. "But, woman, why bring him to me?"
"Because you're the only one who can save him."
"Save him? He's deader than a burnt match!"
"Not for long," Sonja replied grimly, turning the dead man's head so that the puncture marks on this throat were visible.
"May the loa protect us," V?V? whispered, crossing her self. "He is infected Girlfriend, have you gone mad?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. But I do know that you are the only who has the power to help me. By the way, could we possibly continue this inside? The sunlight's giving me a killer migraine and Estes needs to be stored somewhere where he won't spoil."
V?V? nodded her understanding. "I'll have Levon take him into the cellar. I'm sure he won't mind the company."
The zuvembie leaned into the trunk then paused, studying Estes with eyes as opaque as an oyster's gaze, then lifted the corpse across his back in a fireman's carry.
Five minutes later, V?V? sat at her kitchen table, slowly stirring her chicory coffee as she listened to her guest's story. Now that she was out of direct sunlight, Sonja did not look quite so haggard and her manner was more animated.
"Hear me out, V?V?. I know what I'm going to tell you sounds insane, but I'm convinced it can work.
Estes died from a vampire bite twelve hours ago, give or take and hour. That leaves me sixty hours, more or less, to expel the vampire taint before he resurrects. Once he reawakens as one of the undead, he's lost forever."
"Let me get this straight - You want to exorcise the vampire element within him? But how could that possibly save him? He would still be dead."
"So's Levon."
V?V?'s eyes widened in horror. "Merciful spirit, woman! You want me to bring him back? That is something reserved only for those who were never punished for their crimes while living! Levon was a rapist and murderer who preyed on children. What you suggest is something that is inflicted on your worst enemies, not your loved ones!"
"But Levon is the way he is because he has no soul."
"That is true," V?V? said, nodding her head thoughtfully. "Not that he possessed one while alive, from what I've been told."
"But what if you restored life to a dead body - and there was a soul on hand to fill it?"
V?V? frowned. She could clearly see where her friend was going, but was not sure if she wanted to follow her there. "I can't be one-hundred percent certain, but my guess would be that such a creature would be a living thing, but with no memory of who he once was, either physically or spiritually, not unlike those reincarnated in the bodies of infants."
"That's what I hoped you'd say," Sonja said, grinning in relief.
"But you overlooked one thing, honey - I don't happen to have a spare soul lyin' around."
"That's okay," Sonja said, reaching inside her jacket. "I've got it covered." She placed the little blue bottle between them. "How did you know Malfeis had Judd in his collection?"
V?V? lowered her head so that her eye was level with the edge of the table, staring at its glowing contents.
"I was hopin' you'd figger things out on your own and get Malfeis to cough up."
"I had to wrestle him for it, and he surrendered with less than good grace. I'll be unwelcome in the Monastery for the next year or two, but he'll get over it. That's the good thing about demons: they're practical when it comes to business. I'm too good a customer for him to ban me for good." She shook her head wearily, a bitter smile on her face. "I blamed myself for what happened to Judd for so many years.
Not so much for killing him, which I still don't regret... but for the damage I had done to his spirit. When he came to me that last time, I could tell his soul had been extinguished just by looking into his eyes. I thought I was the one to blame for that - that the Other had corrupted him, turned him into yet another renfield. I had no way of knowing that he had bartered with Malfeis. He damned himself for my sake, and I killed him out of ignorance. I owe it to Judd to rectify my mistake. So - what do you think? Can you pull it off?"
"I don't see why not, provided we can find a way of ridding the host of the enkidu before it germinates.
Plus, there's the question of decay. If the tissues deteriorate beyond a certain point, he'll be no better than Levon." V?V? got up from her place at the table, her brow knitted like that of a physicist puzzling out a question of quantum mechanics. "I'll need to see what grandpa's books have to say about the exorcism of vampires."
Sonja followed V?V? to Papa Beloved's study, located on the first floor of the house. The room was small, and made even cozier by the floor-to-ceiling barrister-style bookcases that lined the walls. Although born into poverty and illiteracy in the Caribbean, Papa Beloved worked hard to educate himself upon reaching America, first learning how to read and write in English, then going on to school himself in French, German, Greek and Latin. Over the years, he had amassed a sizable collection of rare and unusual books pertaining to the occult. Hands clasped behind her back, Sonja studied the spines of the volumes on display. No doubt the Garden District society ladies whose lawns Papa Beloved once tended would have been shocked to discover the bandy-legged little man with the battered straw hat and sagging pickup truck owned such titles as The Aegrisomnia, Legendre's Le Livre de L'Absinthe, Von Valkenberg's Die Grauen Fremden, and Il Gospel della Capra, which was illuminated by the heretical Brotherhood of St. Dionysus during the Middle Ages, and possibly even more horrified to learn he could read them all in their original languages.
V?V? stuck her hand into her apron pocket and fished out a large metal ring bristling with keys. She unlocked one of the glass-fronted bookcases and plucked out several oversized, leather-bound volumes.
"This will take some time," she warned as she lugged the books over to an old roll-top desk. "I'm not as skilled with the dead languages as Papa Beloved, so I must rely on his notes. Why don't you rest a spell?"
She motioned to an old leather couch arranged against the only wall space that wasn't occupied by a bookcase. "I won't have an answer for you before dusk, anyways."
Sonja nodded and wearily stretched out on the couch. The moment she closed her eyes her blood pressure dropped like a stone tossed down a well and her body went completely limp.
When she reopened her eyes, it was to find shadows climbing the walls and the room lit by the flickering light of a kerosene lamp. V?V? was still seated at the roll-top desk, hunched over her grandfather's books like a student cramming for mid-term.
"What did you learn?" Sonja asked with a yawn, picking up the thread of conversation exactly where it had last left off.
V?V? turned to face her houseguest, massaging the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. "I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?"
"What's the good news?"
"I've found numerous means of exorcising a vampire."
"And the bad news?"
"Most of the texts assume that the enkidu's host is dead and is going to stay that way. All of the exorcism rituals call for either total or partial destruction of the host body, ranging from traditional cremation and decapitation to packing the body cavity full of sea salt and driving a spike through the top of the head.
However, there is one means of exorcising the vampire that doesn't require the destruction of the host body, but it's so off-the-wall I don't even consider it a true possibility...."
"And that is - ?"
"Expulsion by the seraphim. According to the Gospel of the Goat, they have the ability to drive forth major and minor demons, including the enkidu. Which is all well and good, provided we knew where to find seraphim and then get them to pay attention to us after we found them."
"Maybe that's not as crazy as you think. I have pretty good idea where I can lay my hands on at least one."
V?V? stared at Sonja as if she'd just grown a second head. "Girl, are you serious?"
"As cancer."
I hurry through the French Quarter, as determined as Orpheus. I don't allow myself to be distracted by the rowdy tourists clutching Hurricane glasses and milling about the Vieux Carre's narrow streets. I also ignore the various and sundry demons, vargr and the like mixed amongst the revelers. I have no time for such trifles. I am in search of one breed - and one breed only - of Pretender tonight.
I stand and stare at the patch of empty pavement where I had last seen the seraph Fido. I fight the surge of panic rising from my belly like a bitter tide. Still, if Fido is no longer to be found, there must be other seraphim in the vicinity. They are invariably drawn to hot zones like New Orleans, where demons and the other dangerous varieties of Pretenders congregate.
I toss back my head and throw open the doors of perception, allowing thousands of voices to pour in like competing short-wave signals. I sift through the voices in my head, like a prospector panning for gold, seeking out a particular pattern of thought waves. One by one I tune them out, until all that is left is a sonorous, droning chant, like that of Buddhist monks at prayer. It is the call of the seraphim.
I cut across Jackson Square and Decatur Street, passing within feet of the Cafe Du Monde's open-air pavilion, where the smell of coffee, fried dough and powdered sugar hangs thick in the evening air. A street performer dressed like a medieval jester juggles flaming batons near the approach to the earthen dams that shelter the French Quarter from the Mississippi River. Honeymooning couples, teenage lovers and pensive drunks stroll along the Moonwalk atop the levee, lost in their own self-contained worlds, oblivious to my passing. I hurry through Woldenburg Park, with its carefully maintained magnolia and crepe myrtles, towards the Aquarium of the Americas. I pass through the Spanish Plaza at the foot of Canal Street, where several garish riverboat casinos have set permanent anchor, without bothering to give their glittering fa?ades a second glance. I find the seraph under the Greater New Orleans Bridge, far from the lights and bustle of the city's tourist district, surrounded by piles of old tires, shattered glass, and trash discarded from the speeding cars crossing the bridge above. The sound of traffic passing overhead is as constant as that of the river slapping against the huge chunks of concrete fill dumped along the bank as a breakwater.
The seraph squats as immobile as a cypress knee before its tiny campfire, dressed in a greasy canvas coat and soiled pants held in place by a length of twine. Its hair is wild and matted as a bison pelt, filled with twigs, scraps of old food and other detritus, and it smells of urine and body odor. The only hint that the creature hunkered before me isn't exactly what it appears to be is its skin, which shines like rotten wood in the dim light.
I move forward cautiously. This is not a seraph I am familiar with, and I am uncertain of my reception. I have to fight more than my own unease. The Other doesn't like being near seraphim, no matter how wretched they may seem. This particular specimen agitates the Other as much as Lady Madonna's freakish little vampire-baby, but it seems more interested in flight than fight this time. It's all I can do to keep from turning on my heel and fleeing back into the darkness. I pause to take a deep breath and steady myself as best I can. I refuse to allow the Other to ruin this, as it has ruined so many things before.
As I draw closer, the campfire's flame rises like a cobra poised to strike. Although my approach has been as silent as a shadow, and the seraph's back had been towards me, it stands up and turns to look right at me, its eyes glowing like bronze mirrors. Outlined by the flickering light, it appears twisted yet awesome, like a once-mighty tree withered by blight.
"I mean you no harm," I say, holding my hands up, palms turned outward. There is no sign of fear in its posture. After all, how could I pose a threat to one such as it?
"I have come to ask a favor..."
The golden glow in the back of the derelict's eyes flickers then goes out. It has lost interest in me.
Seraphim are notoriously hard to engage in one-on-one encounters. Their agenda is unknowable, even to those such as myself, who have been permitted brief glimpses into their mysteries.
"I need your help..."
The seraph returns its gaze to the fire, turning its back to me. Panic rises like blood in my throat. If I can't get this seraph to pay attention to me, then I'm screwed, Estes' screwed, Judd's screwed - in short, we're all screwed.
I move closer to the seraph, but it doesn't turn to look at me or show any other sign of acknowledging my presence. It merely sits before its trash-fed fire, eyes turned inward, as silent as a dead man's heart.
Talking to it is about as much use as cutting water with a sword.
I place my hand on the seraph's shoulder. Heat jumps up my fingers and through my arm, as if an invisible flame is raging under its skin. Although it feels like I'm pressing my palm against a hot stove, I don't loosen my grip. I pull on the seraph's shoulder, turning it back around to face me. My arm feels like I've plunged it into a vat of boiling water up to the shoulder. The seraph stays mute as a turtle, staring off into space with unfocused eyes.
"Look at me, damn you!" I grit between clenched teeth. I give the seraph a shake, hoping to elicit some kind of response, but it remains as impassive as a glass of milk.
The heat radiating from the creature is so intense I feel like a piece of candy melting on a summer sidewalk. My pain is quickly giving way to anger. I can feel rage bubbling in my head, like crude oil working its way to the surface.
A demon-born fury spreads through me like a virus, bringing with it a wrath as naked as bone. I feel as if I'm standing on a crumbling ledge, suspended high above a windswept precipice. Any second now I'll lose control, and the Other will emerge. But I know that, once in command, the Other will flee as fast and as far away from here as it can go, like a monkey desperate to escape the coils of a python.
I'm playing with dynamite, but I need the temporary insanity born of intense, dark passion to do what comes next, because I would never dare it in my right mind. I shove the seraph backward, sending it into the campfire. Sparks fly up from like a cloud of burning bees. The seraph's hair and coat catch fire with a dry, puffing cough, but still it doesn't open its mouth or cry out. It slowly regains its footing as its skin burns and blisters, chunks of melting flesh dripping from its body like tallow from a candle. As it turns to face me, its head splits open like a cicada's husk, unleashing a brilliant, cold light that burns like a fire in a blizzard. Something tells me I've gotten its attention.
The seraph stands revealed, its pretense of humanity destroyed. Although I am so frightened my stomach is full of static electricity, I can't keep from staring. It's slightly taller than a man and humanoid in appearance, but with transparent skin, like that of a medical teaching model. But instead of bones, blood and other viscera on display, there are arteries of lights, veins of brilliance, and organs that glow like radiant jewels.
It hurts to look upon its fearsome beauty, even with my shades on. Tears of blood well at the corners of my eyes, but I can't turn my gaze away, despite the Other's screams of horror. The desire to flee from the thing standing before me is no simple fear, but some deep, primordial instinct, the kind hardwired into all animals, whether natural or unnatural. Although it has not lifted a hand against me, a part of me recognizes the seraph as being as dangerous to my wellbeing as a cougar is to an antelope's. Mercifully, the seraph reforms its mortal guise, dousing the agony of its beauty as easily as pulling a window shade against the glare of the sun. It looks at me through its outward countenance of an unkempt street person, its eyes shining like opals held before a fire.
"Will you help me?" I whisper, my voice dry as a paper flower.
As if in response, the seraph looks up at underbelly of the bridge works hanging over our heads. I follow its gaze and feel my breath freeze within my chest.
Above us are dozens of seraphim squatting along the I-beams and concrete supports of the twin bridges like so many shabby gargoyles, their lambent eyes glowing in the darkness.
I should have known better. Where there's one, there are often others nearby. Or did they simply pop into existence upon receiving a summons from their fellow seraph that he was under attack? To tell the truth, I don't know if they are actually capable of individual existence. Maybe they're like bees and wasps, and share some sort of hive consciousness. I clear my throat and open wide my arms, to show I harbor no weapons. The seraphim peer down at me with unblinking eyes, like a parliament of owls come to judge a bam mouse.
"I stand before you unarmed. I have come to ask a favor of you, not to do harm. I only ask that you hear me out."
The seraphim grouped overhead wink out, only to reappear before me, gathered in a rough semicircle, with me at its center. It's almost enough to make me turn tail and run for all I'm worth, save that I now recognize one of their number. It is Fido. Or what I have come to know as Fido. The seraph tilts its head and touches a filthy finger to its mouth, then points at me.
I frown and shake my head. "I will speak to you with words, not my mind, for I fear to let you in my head, old friend. I do not pretend to understand what you have become, but I do know that you were once like myself - perhaps even worse. At one time you were all murderers, killers, monsters... enkidu. You fed on the blood of innocents and feasted on the darkness at the heart of humankind. I don't know why you are here on earth, or what plans you have for mankind. But I do know you can drive forth demons, because the one inside me is terrified of being in your very presence. This is why I have sought you out. There is a man named Jack Estes... he was killed by a vampire, and within a few hours he'll be resurrected as one of the undead. I promised I would never let that happen to him."
I receive a mental impression, brief but vivid, of an axe cutting through Estes' neck, sending his head flying. I close my eyes and grimace, trying to rid myself of the sight.
"No! I don't want to damage his body! I have a means of returning him to life - but I have to first rid the body of the vampire's seed."
Another image flickers through my mind, this one of Estes squatting naked and empty-eyed, his body smeared with feces and blood, chewing hungrily on a severed arm. The vision is so sharp and detailed, I smell the reek of human waste mixed with spilled viscera. It is as if I am looking directly into the future, instead of being shown something that might occur. The ghoulish apparition shakes me, but I do not allow it to shift my resolve.
"I know what reanimating a human corpse can lead to. But that is not what I propose to do. I have a soul waiting to enter the body. You yourself know which one I'm speaking of. You helped me harvest it."
The assembled seraphim turn their heads as one towards Fido, who nods slowly, and then they all return their unblinking gaze to me. They simply stare at me, as impassive as stones. Their expressionless faces trigger my frustration.
"You think you're so high and mighty? So much more evolved beyond me? You're no different now than when you were enkidu!" I snarl, spitting on the ground in frustration. As if in answer to my plea, the assembled seraphim waver like images on a dying television set and wink out, one by one, returning to wherever it is they go.
Defeat, as bitter as bile and thick as blood, crowds the back of my throat.
"Damn it - you fuckers owe me!" I shriek, snatching up chunks of broken concrete scattered at my feet and hurling them at the disappearing seraphim. "That's right! Run away! That's all you sons of bitches are good for anyway, being enigmatic and disappearing when you're really needed!"
A fist-sized chunk of pavement passes through Fido's chest and lands with a splash in the river. This is what I get for depending on others to do the right thing. You would think I would know better than to rely on anyone beside myself by now. Whenever I've counted on someone to help out whenever I've really needed it, I always ended up disappointed. Monster or human, it's always the same - you can't trust others worth shit.
I snatch up a chuck of breakwater the size of an engine block and lift it over my head, only to find myself alone under the bridge, with nothing but the Father of All Waters for company. With a cry born of grief as much as rage, I shotput my final missile into the river, sending up a spout as large as the spume from a whale.
I stagger drunkenly and slide to my knees on the filthy river's edge. I can't bring myself to look heavenward, but instead stare at the reflection of the moon floating on the surface of the dark water of the Mississippi, as blind and cold as the eye of a drowned sailor.