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Three
Descendant To A Voodoo Priestess
Another night of nightmares filled with screaming women and blood. Lots of blood.
I didn’t want to come back and take this assignment. I had to. Because this is where my roots are and where my bloodline began. New Orleans is my heritage.
You can’t solve a crime unless you understand it.
I understand it only too well.
The crimes are too heinous to even imagine a human being capable of committing. And I had to imagine it again in its entirety yesterday standing right smack in the middle of it. We’re supposed to have compassion and empathy. We were fashioned in the image of God, loved by Him more than the angels were. So much so, it started a war in Heaven. Look at what that got.
The beginning of atrocities older than time itself.
Atrocities such as the crimes.
They are serial type in fashion. The killer, or killers, took great pains in creating a scenario that appeared to be a sacrificial ceremony.
Sucks I know that.
My job as an investigator is to determine if it’s what it appears to be on the surface. A spiritual ritual for a sicko? Or was it staged to cover up something else?
Because the killings happened in my hometown, and along with the rest of the evidence, they called me. Apparently, my family’s legacy is more widely known than I was aware of, all the way to Memphis, Tennessee.
Being a direct descendant of the most prestigious New Orleans Voodoo Priestess, Marie Laveau, is something I’ll never be able to hide from. Believe me, I’ve tried. I moved out of the state to try and escape it. I thought if I put enough distance between me and the ground saturated with centuries of voodoo and magic, with my family’s legacy, I could pretend it wasn’t a part of me. Of who I am.
I was wrong.
You are who you are. You can’t run from it; you can’t ignore it. It’s in every cell of your body, and in every breath you take. It is fundamentally what you are. It will find you. It will claim you. It will always take what belongs to it.
I finally remembered why I recognized the Beauchamp name. Ignatius has no idea he’s more than a fireman in this game.
I know who he is. Rather, who his family is. The Beauchamp’s were one of the founding French families of the Bayou, one of the original plantation owners. How ironic is it that he became a firefighter when his ancestor, Bertrand Beauchamp, was best known for burning a slave he’d accused of cursing his family? The Beauchamps had fallen ill and all of them died, except Bertrand and his infant son.
The ghosts in my dreams last night had warned me to beware of the heir.
The legend is that he’d dragged the poor slave woman out of her shack in the middle of the night in a drunken rage the night his wife died. First, he beat her unconscious, then he poured liquor over her lifeless body and set her on fire, right there in front of the entire plantation. It’s also said she’d been his mistress and was carrying his child. It’s believed that’s why she cursed him, to do away with his wife and family to replace it with her own.
The stories that had been whispered in backrooms and amongst the priestesses from generation to generation said the slave girl screamed out a curse as the flames engulfed her while her body lay motionless on the ground on the banks of the river. The exact words have long since been forgotten, but she condemned the entire Beauchamp lineage to suffer forever. Bertrand Beauchamp fell from his horse shortly thereafter and died from an infection that would not heal.
Who knows, maybe Ignatius is the one who will finally break the curse on his family by saving people from fires.
Or maybe he’ll become the sacrifice the slave girl has been waiting for, for centuries. Maybe she’s been biding her time for the Beauchamp she will claim in the afterlife as her mate. An eye for an eye.
As I head to Tante Hattie’s for breakfast, the recollection of the old tale sends a shiver through me. It makes my hair stand on end and sets me off kilter, especially because the temperature is warm. It’s the typical balmy Louisiana weather, the kind that makes you sweat. Not me. I feel a cold breeze caressing my skin, the one spirits so often use to let you know they’re there. I hate it when I hear their whispers or see their faces. Some say being able to communicate with the spirits is a gift. It’s not. It’s a goddamn curse.
Once inside the restaurant, I scan the room. Disappointment settles in my gut. I realize I was looking for Ignatius.
Stop it, you’re here to work.
Pushing the thought of the too-good-looking-for-his-own-good fireman from my mind, I take a seat at the counter. Hattie is right where she always is, standing court over her people and giving them what they love.
“Dominique, cheri, it’s so good to see your face.” She comes to me and kisses both my cheeks.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s good to be home.” I return the affection.
I love my aunt. Of everyone in my family, we are most alike. Growing up, she was the one who taught me about our legacy and helped me understand things that were unexplainable.
