Cheri Scotch - VooDoo Moon 01 - The Werewolf's Kiss

PART ONE

The Loup-garou

1

“Aw, John… I’m having me a bigol’ muffaletta, drippin‘ with oil and vinegar and the whole works. I

don’t want to hear about no corpse with his heart torn out, no.“

Achille Broussard alternately frowned at the phone and wistfully looked back toward the counter, where

the counterman was putting together an enormous, garlicky sandwich. His beeper had gone off at just

about the same time he’d placed his order.

“Look here, John, and remember this so I don’t have to tell you no more. This guy dead, right?”

“Lieutenant Broussard,” John said, a little offended, “I can tell when somebody’s dead.”

John Sullivan, the young cop on the other end of the line, sounded nervous. Achille knew the kid had just

been promoted, wasn’t sure of the established procedure, and had the disadvantage of having lived most

of his life in Shreveport.Shreveport, for God’s sake… that was practically Texas. Considering all the

handicaps, Achille figured he’d give the kid a break. Educate him a little in the way things were done in

New Orleans.

“Well, he still gonna be dead twenty minutes from now, which gives me time to sit in Jackson Square,

eat this masterpiece of a sandwich, have me a cold one, and watch them pretty girls pass by. You not

from the bayou, John, so you don’t understand. It’s sacrilegious to interrupt a man while he’s

contemplatin’ nature in Jackson Square. So you tell them forensic suits to just do their jobs and hold their

dicks till I get there.“

“Yes, sir, I’ll tell them.”

“And don’t nobody touch nothin”, you hear me?“

“I hear you.” The young cop’s voice sounded a little amused now. He was beginning to get into the

rhythm of the way things obviously were at the N.O.P.D.

“This your first homicide?” Achille said.

“Yes, sir.”

“You just wait, boy. We gonna have us a party. Ooo-wee!”

Sullivan put down the mike in the police cruiser and turned around to the uniformed cop standing a few

feet away at the crime scene. “Don’t nobody touch nothin’,“ he told the cop. ”The Ragin‘ Cajun’s on his

way.“

“Where’s he at?” the cop wanted to know. “Knockin” off a piece over by the Voodoo queen’s?“

“He says he’s studyin” nature in Jackson Square.“

The cop laughed, shaking his head. “ ”Ooo-wee!“” the cop said.

Less than a half hour later Lieutenant Broussard, outfitted in a pair of oversize mirrored sunglasses, was

out in City Park doing his job. A lot was going on: John Sullivan was there; a whole fleet of uniforms,

including Joe Ed Landry, an experienced cop who’d worked with Broussard for twenty years; and more

forensic suits than Achille could remember seeing at one crime scene. In one hand, Achille carried the

half-eaten muffaletta in wrinkled, messy butcher’s paper.

“Hey, Achille!” Landry called. “I like the shades. Who you think you are, Cool Hand Luke?”

Achille shot him the finger and lifted the sheet to look at the body.

Sullivan was standing by the corpse and looking a little shaky. Achille knew that they didn’t get nasty

murders like this in Shreveport.

“This is a mean one,” Landry told him. “Poor bastard. Very bad way to die.”

“Um, um, um,” Achille said sympathetically, “this boy done pissed somebody off bad, yeah. When’d

they find him?”

“Early this morning. About six-thirty,” Landry said. “Some joggers almost tripped over him; lady ”bout

had a hemorrhage when she looked down and seen this sweet thang. Now, don’t he look familiar to you,

Lieutenant?“

Achille bent down to peer at the corpse. “I’ll be damned! Floyd Thibideaux! He’s not looking his best,

no.”

This was true. The body lay on its back, its mouth still trying to scream. The eyes were wide open in

horror and frosted with a film of death. The hands were frozen in a clawlike position in front of the chest,

as if Floyd had been fighting off something inexorable.

“Ain’t he cute?” Landry asked Achille.

“Looks better than the last time we seen him, huh, Joe Ed?” Achille looked around. “So where’s the

missing body parts?”

Landry shrugged. “Don’t know. What you see is what we got.”

John Sullivan tried to look at the corpse—which was his job—and to do it without actually looking at

it—which was his preference. This effort wasn’t lost on Achille.

“You know, Joe Ed,” Achille said loudly to Landry, “in New Orleans heat, a body starts to fill up with

maggots in six to eight hours. The medical examiner told me.”

Joe Ed loudly expressed his surprise. “No shit? I guess this old boy’s about to bust open. We better

stand back.”

Achille held out the remains of the dripping muffaletta to Sullivan. “I can’t finish this. You want it?”

Sullivan turned a delicate shade of green and ran to the bushes.

Achille turned to Joe Ed with a satisfied grin. “Jesus save me, but I love doin” that.“

“You real bad,” Landry said, shaking his head.

One of the forensic suits came over. “You’re gonna love this, Achille. The guy’s throat is completely torn

out, just ripped apart like a wild animal did it. And you’ll notice that his chest cavity is opened up, but

nothing inside is touched or missing—except his heart. It’s like the killer started to rummage around in

there, but got interrupted.”

“Most likely had to stop to barf,” Landry observed.

“But here’s the good part.” The forensic guy held up a little plastic bag.

Achille squinted at the contents. “Hairs?”

“Yeah, you right. Animal hairs. And guess where they were? Under the fingernails.”

“So some killer comes out here in City Park, waits for Floyd Thibideaux, the scumbag’s scumbag, and

sics his pit bull on him? I like it. Landry, put out an all-points: if Rin-Tin-Tin’s in the area, pick him up and

haul his furry ass in.”

The forensics guy shrugged. “Yeah. Make fun. Remember, forensics wins in the end, bro. The mobile

lab’s still doin” their stuff here.“ He waved a hand vaguely toward the huge van parked at the scene.

Achille regarded the body thoughtfully. “You know, if we’d been able to get a conviction on this guy

three months ago, he woulda been in Angola right now, safe as church,” he said.

Sullivan, back from the bushes, hadn’t heard the story. “What happened? What’d he do?”

“The worst you can do, yeah. Child abuse. Repeat offender. Beat up his girlfriend’s four-year-old boy

so bad the kid was in the hospital three times. The last time, the emergency room wankers, who’re not

real bright sometimes, figured thatjust maybe the kid couldn’t have gotten two broken ribs, a head

wound, and third-degree burns from a fall down the stairs. This time it’s so bad that the kid has

convulsions and is in a coma. The girlfriend is having second thoughts about how much she loves Floyd,

and it looks like she’s gonna make a statement. But by the time we get to court, she’s decided to stand

by her man and claims she bed when she turned him in. That he wasn’t even in town when her kid bought

it. Just perjures her fine white ass all over the stand. The D.A. tries her damnedest to make a case against

Mom, but that falls through, too. So the whole case gets thrown out, since we no. longer have a credible

witness. Now, don’t that just knock your dick in the dirt?”

“Jesus,” Sullivan breathed, looking at the deceased with less sympathy man before.

“Oh, no,cher ami, you ain’t heard the sweet part. We know, or we’re pretty sure we know, that a

couple of other kids got beat up, and one eventually died. And ain’t it a coincidence mat old loverboy

Floyd here was bangin” their mamas when it happened?“

Sullivan looked like he was going to be sick again. He retched, but fought it down.

Achille observed this. “Uh huh,” he said quietly.

“You know what this looks like?” Landry said. “Voodoo. Them Voodoos got their own justice. Hey,

Achille, you still seein” that Voodoo queen? Maybe you better ax her does she know any of them

black-magic Voodoos.“

“Yeah, she’ll be happy to tell me anything, her,” Achille said, smiling. He took off the big mirrored

sunglasses.

“Holy shit!” Landry said, astonished. “That’s some black eye. Lieutenant!”

“Yeah, you right,” Achille agreed.

“The Voodoo queen give you that? That’s some temper she got, that lady of yours. What you been

doin”, Achille? Hangin‘ out in the French Quarters with them horny tourist babies or what?“

“I can’t help it if the ladies like what they see,cher ami .”

Sullivan, his good manners suddenly overwhelmed by curiosity, blurted out, “Who in hell is this Voodoo

queen you guys keep talking about?”

Landry laughed. “Son, the lieutenant here keeps company with the most powerful Voodoo woman since

Marie Laveau, Mae Charteris. And Mae thinks he’s too good-lookin” to be honest.“

Talk like that made Achille uncomfortable. If there was one thing he didn’t need, it was trouble with

women; he had enough problems just keeping Mae happy. One night, under a waning moon, Mae had

pierced one of Achille’s ears and placed a small gold hoop through it. He wasn’t sure whether that was

just one of Mae’s whims or if it was a gris-gris to keep him from straying, but the hoop, shining gold

against his long black hair, was the final little touch that made Achille look just like one of New Orleans’s

pirate legends. He was already a romantic-looking man: tall and still muscular at forty, dark eyed, with a

mysterious, smoky look. All this had a devastating effect on women. It had gotten him in big trouble with

the Voodoo queen more than once, although Mae knew her stuff: there hadn’t been another woman for

him since she had put that ring through his ear.

“Yeah,” Achille said, putting his sunglasses back on, “Madame Mae. She put gris-gris on you that dry

your blood to dust, she got spells that turn your eyes back in your head and make you crawl on all fours

and howl. And if that don’t work, she throw stuff. Girl’s got an arm,ooo-wee!”

The forensic guy came back to Achille.

“You’re gonna love this, Lieutenant,” he said again.

“Aw, man!” Achille moaned. “You still givin” me this ‘killer dog“ stuff?”

“Nuh uh. One of the guys did a quick test. These are wolf hairs.”

Achille ran his hand through his own hair in impatience. “Wolf hairs. Well, that lets Old Yeller off the

hook.”

Achille paced around the body, searching the ground, looking in the flower beds and the bushes. He ran

his hands over the grass.

He called back to Sullivan and Landry. “You guys find any prints, animal, human… anything?”

Landry shook his head. “Nothing. Just the deceased’s. The grass ain’t even torn up. Now that’s strange:

you’d think there’d been a hell of a fight.”

Achille bent down to touch a patch of ground, still sticky with blood. He looked up. City Park had some

old trees, tall trees with thick trunks. Floyd Thibideaux’s body lay in a grove of those trees.

On one tree, very high up, almost twelve feet off the ground, the bark had been freshly torn off. And on

the white, exposed tree pulp was a bright smear of drying blood. It looked as if Floyd had been picked

up and thrown against the tree, so hard that the back of his head split.

Achille wondered if the forensic guys and the medical examiner would be able to find out that Floyd

hadn’t died of his wounds, terrible as they were. Instead, he had died of heart failure, of sheer terror,

even before he had been touched. His killer, in a fury at being cheated of his vengeance, had flung Floyd

against that tree before he tore him apart. The killer knew what Floyd had done to that little child, and

what he had done to other kids before.

No matter. Floyd wouldn’t do it again.

Achille admired the forensic guys. They were right on the money with that wolf-hair diagnosis. There’d

be a full-scale investigation, of course, and a lot of noise, but the forensics’ and the medical examiner’s

reports would all contain information so weird that it made an arrest impossible. Either they had a killer

wolf who could perform precise chest surgery, or a psycho who wore a wolf’s fur coat to do his killing

in. But nothing would ever come of it, mainly because nobody had the imagination to carry it one step

further. No one would ever officially mention the old Cajun term:loup-garou.

The state of Louisiana, in all its baroque legal wisdom, may not have executed Floyd Thibideaux, but the

loup-garou did. TheAcadien werewolf of the bayous was as much a part of Louisiana legends as the

ghosts in the ruined plantation houses, a law unto himself, a force of nature and magic, making his own

judgments on who was to live and who to die.

The police were to be forgiven for not recognizing the signs. A killing by the loup-garou was common,

but actually finding a body was rare, very rare. The werewolf, with an animal’s cunning and a human’s

intelligence, was ingenious at covering his tracks. This particular body was left as a gruesome valentine to

the district attorney and all the good cops who had busted ass trying to put Floyd away.

Very few men had seen evidence of the presence of the loup-garou. Achille Broussard had seen it many

times.

One of the first things that had brought Achille and Mae together was her understanding of the

loup-garou, an ancient knowledge that Mae had acquired both by tradition and by instinct. The

loup-garou was very much a creature of the Louisiana Voodoos, not enslaved by them, but voluntarily

serving as the Voodoos’ justice. Whatever Achille knew— and it was more than any man in New

Orleans knew about the loup-garou—would never have been learned without the Voodoo queen.

Inadvertently, as he did every time he thought of Mae, Achille touched the gold hoop, as if drawing on

some secret power she had given him, some gift of sight beyond what could be seen.

“Okay, let’s get this stiff outta here, yeah,” Achille told the forensic crews, “he ain’t gonna tell us nothing

we don’t know while he’s out here.”

He wouldn’t tell them anything more when they got him in the lab, either. No more than Achille knew

now. And certainly no more than could ever be explained. If the police wanted a full accounting, only one

person could give it to them: the loup-garou who had carried out the death sentence.

Only Achille knew who that was. He would live with it, as he lived with the full moon that swept his soul

away on the steamy Louisiana nights when he danced on Bayou Goula with the werewolves, when they

deferred to him, and paid him respect, and called him—simply, as one would call a king— Achille the

loup-garou.

2

Andrew Marley wasn’t quite sure what it was that woke him up. One moment he was sound asleep and

the next his eyes were wide open.

Instinctively, he looked over to see that his wife was safe. He’d acquired this habit from the first

dangerous days of their marriage, when he was in constant terror that he would inadvertently hurt her

during the night. He knew it was irrational, but some remnant of that fear stayed in the dusty back corner

of his mind. Even now, twenty years later, the first thing he did every morning was to check on his family.

His wife, Angela, was asleep.

He looked at the clock as he felt around for his slippers. Three-fifteen in the morning. And he could tell

he wouldn’t be back to sleep again: he was as awake as if he’d had a full night’s rest.

The breeze blew the lace curtains in through the bedroom windows. Andrew loved this time of year. In

Louisiana, spring came early and softly. The winds blew off the river, carrying cool currents of slightly

crisp air that felt good against Andrew’s skin. It was the kind of weather that made you sleep well,

nestled under the covers against someone warm.

So what was the problem? he was thinking. What is it that feels so wrong?

He could see the round moon through the lace. There was a time when the sight of a full moon only

presaged sorrow for him. It had taken so long to get over that terrifying, confusing part of his life.

Perhaps he had been dreaming; dreams sometimes unlocked those doors mat he had so carefully closed

behind him.

He was just about to get up and look in on his kids when he heard a voice outside. A light, summery

voice, a young woman’s laughter. He leaned out the window to look.

“Sweet Jesus!” he breathed.

He didn’t even stop to put on his robe. He ran down the stairs completely unaware that he was only in

his pajama bottoms. He lost one of his slippers on the stairs, the other on the veranda steps leading out to

the broad lawn.

She was a fairy queen standing on the wet grass, her gauzy gown floating out around her as the breeze

lifted it, her long red hair the color of dark embers glowing under the moonlight. Her bare feet hardly

seemed to touch the ground. Every so often she’d reach up toward the moon, as if she fully expected to

catch it.

“Sylvie!” Andrew called.

She turned, smiling as she saw him. “Isn’t it beautiful!”

“Sylvie, what are you doing out here?”

“Enjoying the moon,” she explained. “Actually, I’m not quite sure. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and sat

by the window, just looking out, thinking. And then I started watching the moon and I just felt so…

strange. But a good kind of strange. I got this big surge of energy, like I could do anything. I guess I

wandered out here without really thinking about it.”

Andrew felt a cold band of horror grip his chest. He tried to fight down the panic. “I want you to come

inside. Right now.”

She laughed delightedly and jumped in the air, turning her body as she took a swipe at the moon. “One

of these nights, I’ll catch it.”

“Sylvie…”

“Dad, it’s fine. It really is a gorgeous night. How many perfect nights does anybody get in a lifetime?

Let’s sit for a minute and enjoy it.”

“You shouldn’t even be awake now. It’s three in the morning. Come inside.”

She stared at him, puzzled. “Three in the morning? But… that’s not possible. I looked at the clock

before I went out and it was only ten. I couldn’t have been out here that long. I’ve just been sitting.” she

held up the hem of her gown as if she d never seen it before. It was ripped and ragged; filthy, as if she’d

walked miles in it.

“I don’t understand…” she murmured distractedly, “how could I have gotten so dirty?”

Her father put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to him. Those eyes of hers, those innocent

eyes; their deep turquoise marked her clearly as his daughter. They were his eyes, his father’s, the eyes

of all the Marleys before, passed to Sylvie along with… what? He felt the shudder start, but fought it

down. “Sylvie, where have you been?”

She looked vaguely disturbed. “I haven’t been anywhere. I don’tthink I’ve been anywhere. I just came

out to enjoy the night.”

She let him take her hand and lead her across the lawn. “Do people change under the moon, Dad?”

Andrew was sure his heart had stopped. Everything in him seemed to go cold. “What do you mean?”

“When I was a kid I used to think that they did. I was sure that the moon worked magic on people so

they could do wonderful, magical things. And, you know, sitting out here on a night like this, I can almost

believe that it’s true.”

Wonderful things, he thought, horrible things. Things that drive you screaming into the dawn. But to his

daughter, seventeen and about to cross the borders into adult life, he only lied. “Well, you’re no kid now,

Sylvie, and I’m sure you know that everything’s the same at night as it is during the day. Come inside.”

She linked her arm through his and he led her into the house, gripping her tightly as if, by holding on to

her, he could keep trouble away from his firstborn child.

3

Andrew was making breakfast when his wife came downstairs.

“What’s all this?” Angela asked.

“I’m saying early Mass. As long as I had to be up before everyone else, I figured I’d make myself useful

before I leave. Louise is sleeping in.” Louise was the cook.

Angela sat down, still a little groggy. For some reason, she hadn’t slept well: she kept falling into a

restless half-sleep. She’d been glad to wake up, but she’d felt disoriented to find that Andrew wasn’t

beside her.

“I thought when you made the big leagues that you wouldn’t have to pull hard duty anymore. Since when

does a bishop have to take a curate’s Mass?”

“Since the curate’s so young that he’s got measles, that’s when.”

Angela threw back her head and laughed that slightly bawdy laugh that Andrew loved. He had always

thought that Angela’s laugh had been what seduced him when he first saw her. That, he remembered, and

the sexy cleavage. After twenty-two years of marriage and three kids, the laugh and the cleavage were

still intoxicating.

“Are you kidding me?” Angela said. “That cute li’l Father Deslisle? How old is that sweet thing,

anyway?”

“Just about the age I was when you seduced me at that party, so you keep away from him.”

She laughed again. “Iseducedyou”? You put your hand on my ass. Twice. And when we were dancing,

you stuck your tongue in my ear and said, “Wanna fuck?” Icould not believe it… a young stalwart of the

Anglican faith like you.“

He smiled. This was old and familiar territory to them, something they never got tired of reinventing.

“Please. You know perfectly well I would never have said any such thing,” he said patiently, pouring milk

into pancake batter. “I asked politely if you didn’t want to leave the party. I escorted you home like a

gentleman. I saw you safe inside.”

“Then you said ”Wanna fuck?“ ”

“ThenI politely asked ”Wanna fuck?“ ” He shrugged. “I was twenty years old. You were wearing that

dress and those tits. What did you expect me to say? Besides, you were ten years older than me. I saw

you as a mother figure; morally upright, mature judgment and all that.”

Angela reached over and pinched his cheek. “You Oedipal little sweet talker, you.”

He shrugged. “Well, I was counting on you to be the sensible one.” He looked over at her and smiled. “I

still do.”

Their two youngest children, Walter and Georgiana, ten and twelve, came barreling down the stairs,

arguing, teasing, Walter only half-dressed for school.

Angela gave Andrew an I-told-you-so triumphant glance. “And look where it’s gotten you. Hi, kids,”

she said as they sat down.

“Mom, Geo’s got a date!” Walt announced.

“A what?” Andrew said.

“It’s not a date,” Georgiana said with a hard look at Walt.

“Twelve-year-olds don’t have dates, Geo,” Angela said. “If they did, your father would have gotten

married sooner.”

“It’s not a date,” Geo repeated, “we’re just having this dance after school and Mark Henry asked me if

I’d dance with him.”

“Georgeee lovesMeakeee !” Walt chanted.

Geo rolled her eyes to heaven. “Get a life, Walt,” she said, picking up a piece of toast.

“Where’s your sister?” Angela said.

“Sleeping,” Walt said. “She’s tired because she was up all night.”

Walter was the family radar system. Nothing ever escaped him.

“She couldn’t sleep,” Andrew said, “it’s okay, I talked to her. She’s not sick or anything.”

“Probably excitement,” Angela said. “Honestly, I’ve never seen a girl so busy at being social. Her

coming-out party, herfriends” parties, then she was queen of Mardi Gras. Before I married you, honey,

I never knew being rich was such hard work.“

“Puleeze, Ma,” Geo moaned, “you were a debutante.”

“Yeah, but I was a debutante in Texas, where it wasn’t so polite and a lot more fun. Tell you what, Geo,

why don’t you elope with this Mark kid, so I don’t have to go through this again in six years?”

“Forget it. Ma. I want a big party; not just a presentation tea like Sylvie. This ”quiet good taste‘ thing of

hers is too boring.“

Sylvie came downstairs just in time to catch this.

Andrew looked around and his face lit up to see his daughter. AH his children were a marvel to him, but

Sylvie looked so much like her mother and had so much of her grandfather’s curiosity that it almost

broke his heart. His father, Walter, would have adored Sylvie. Sylvie never knew Walter, but she shared

his passion for uncovering facts, for staying doggedly at a problem until she solved it. Of her long and

illustrious family history, Sylvie was most proud of her grandfather’s Nobel prize. She often said that one

day, she’d hang hers right next to his. Walter’s obsession had been anthropology. Sylvie’s was

psychiatry.

“You are so ostentatious, Geo,” Sylvie said.

“Greedy, too,” Geo agreed. “I want to collect big debutante presents. Dad, will you give me a

Lamborghini when I come out?”

Cheri Scotch - VooDoo Moon 01 - The Werewolf's Kiss

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