Page 56 of Hextreme Measures

“It seems to be some sort of family tree thing.” He looked up at her. “It’s a telling of the family going back hundreds of years.”

Ofelia’s interest was officially piqued. “Anything good?”

“I’m not sure. My Creole isn’t great.”

Ofelia took the book from him and sat on the couch. He moved over to sit next to her. If Shirley were to return home and find them on her couch, going through her private things, she would be furious. Neither of them was all that worried about that outcome.

“It is a family journal,” Ofelia said after a beat.

“I believe that’s what I said.” Sully gave her a dry look.

“Yeah, yeah.” Ofelia focused on the front of the book. “This first entry was in 1798. That would have been during the big Haitian slave relocation. After that, starting in 1809, refugees voluntarily moved here. This page is dated during a time when relocation would have been against their will.”

“Can you read the name?” Sully pointed toward the top of the page, to where the writing was faded.

Ofelia shook her head. “No, but if I take the book, I have some stuff at home that will allow me to read it more easily.”

“If you take the book?” Sully shifted on the couch. “Does that mean you’re going to steal it?”

Ofelia could have lied. She could have bought herself time to come up with a way to make stealing the book his idea. Instead, she just shrugged. “If I need the book, I’m going to take the book.”

Sully’s lips quirked. “Fair enough.”

She went back to reading and flipped a few more pages. “This is interesting,” she said after a beat. “If I’m reading this correctly — and the language is a bit more antiquated than what I’m used to — whoever started writing this journal saw her first banshee here in the city about six months after she arrived.”

“Does she refer to it as a banshee?”

“No, a wailing woman.” Ofelia lifted her chin, going thoughtful. “A lot of times, there are different words for paranormal creatures depending on who is speaking about them. Like Bigfoot has been called four or five things. Vampires are still referred to as strigoi in parts of Europe, even though the strigoi and vampires have a lot of differences. They were, of course, born from the same place, however.”

“So, she saw a wailing woman just hanging out downtown?” Sully asked.

“That’s just it.” Ofelia shook her head. “She heard wailing for several nights before seeing the woman. It was outside the house where she was sleeping.”

“You mean the slave quarters.”

Ofelia scowled. Talking about the city’s diabolical relationship with slavery always made her uncomfortable. The fact that most real estate agents had rebranded slave quarters as guest quarters to make them more palatable in the current climate irritated her to no end. “I believe that’s what I meant,” she said curtly.

Sully poked her side. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to irritate you.”

“That’s exactly what you meant to do.” Ofelia went back to reading. “She says that she saw wailing women in Haiti and that they were mindless souls who went on rampages and killed people until they themselves were killed. This banshee was different.”

“Different as in she was in control of her thoughts and actions?”

Ofelia nodded. She appreciated it when she didn’t have to lay things out for him. “Which, if true, would mean this isn’t a new occurrence.”

“That depends on how you look at it,” he countered. “It’s not as if, back when Neanderthals were evolving, it happened in one day. It happened over the course of 300,000 to 400,000 years.”

Ofelia’s mouth dropped open. “How do you know so much about Neanderthals?”

He chuckled. “I liked history in school. It was one of my favorite subjects. That and math.”

Ofelia made a face. “I hated math.”

“That’s why we make such a good couple. I do the math, and you do the writing. We’re a perfect fit.”

“Yes, that’s why we work so well.” She lightly patted his cheek, then went back to looking at the book. “You’re right. Pretending that banshees evolving is happening over the course of a few weeks or even years is stupid. It would be an ongoing process.”

“And at first, it would seem like the one banshee evolving is something special when in reality that banshee was simply ahead of the curve.”