The Ghosts Of New Orleans (A PARANORMAL RESEARCH AND CONTAINMENT DIVISION (PRCD) CASE FILE) (10 page)

Louisa moved to break away from the
woman’s grasp and the woman released her and laughed.

“Oui, you should run and leave this
place and also leave the fate of your beau in my hands,” she snarled.

“Jean-Paul?” Louisa cried, turning
back to face the woman, “What have you done with him?”

The woman shrugged and grinned.
“Nothing, yet, I merely made sure that he cannot interfere.  But he is indeed a
very, shall we say, interesting subject.”

“Bring me to him immediately,”
Louisa demanded.

“But my dear,” said the woman,
“That is what I intended to do in the first place.”

She led Louisa through a small
wooden planked door and into the former carriage house. Immediately upon
entering, Louisa was sickened by the smell.  She remembered once coming across
a rat that had died in one of the barns and had not been discovered for many
days, the smell inside the carriage house was similar. 

“I’m sure an intelligent young lady
as yourself will appreciate the scientific work I have been involved in,” the
woman, waved her hand in the direction of one wall.

The tables Louisa had viewed through
the window held the naked bodies of slaves; men, women and children. At first
she thought they were dead, but as she moved closer to them she saw that they
had been bound and their mouths had been sewn shut. She turned in horror to the
woman who walked alongside her, the woman who acted as if she was doing nothing
more than pointing out pictures in a gallery.

“What have you done…” Louisa began.

The woman shrugged and then
interrupted her. “I can’t begin to tell you all of the experiments I performed,
but like any true scientist, I have them all recorded in my journal.”

She continued walking toward the
other side of the room.  The large objects that Louisa had seen, she now
realized in horror, were men and women shackled to the wall.  They too were
obviously a part of the woman’s mad experimentation.  Their eyes were filled
with pain and terror, but they also had their mouths sewn shut.

Louisa was going to be sick.  She
took a deep breath and turned back to the woman.

“You said you would bring me to Jean-Paul,”
she demanded, “Where is he?”

“Oh, my dear,” the woman cooed, “I
saved him a place of honor.”

She guided Louisa through an open
door at the end of the room to a small chamber.  The walls were whitewashed and
cleaned.  The room smelled of chemicals. Steel knives and metal implements lay on
several shelves.  In the center of the room was a wooden table, where the
unconscious Jean-Paul lay.  Louisa ran to him. His wrists and ankles were bound
with leather to the edges of the table.

“Release him immediately,” Louisa
demanded.

The woman’s laughter filled the
room as she walked to the door, closed them all inside and turned the key in
the lock.

“I have never had an opportunity to
work on such superior subjects,” she said, “And since you two have discovered
my secret, I cannot allow you to leave.”

“This will not work,” Louisa cried,
“People will note that we have disappeared.  My parents will search for me.”

“For the two lovers who decided to
run away together?” the woman asked, “Obviously your parents will be
heartbroken when they receive your letter, but even they will understand that
when people are in love they often don’t see reason.”

Louisa shook her head.  “They will
never believe that.”

The woman shrugged. “What do I care
what they believe? When I am done they will never find you.”

Louisa shook her head and stepped
back toward the wall, looking for something to use to incapacitate her captor.
“No, I won’t let you do this to us.”

The woman laughed again.  “Now my
dear, don’t raise such a fuss, we all must die sometime,” she cajoled, “Besides,
I was going to give you the great privilege to watch what I do with your
handsome Jean-Paul before I work on you.”

She trailed a gnarled hand across Jean-Paul’s
chest and licked her lips. “Oh, yes, such a wonderful specimen.”

Louisa spied a large metal bar
laying across one of the tables, she jumped for it and swung with all of her
might at the woman.  The sickening thud told her that she had made contact. 
The woman crumpled to the floor.  Louisa grabbed one of the knives from the
table and sawed through the leather bands holding Jean- Paul to the table. She
leaned over his face and patted it gently.

“Jean-Paul, please, Jean-Paul, you
must wake up,” she pleaded. 

Relief coursed through her veins
when she saw his eyelids flutter and finally open. He tried to sit and then
grasped his head and groaned.

“Where…” he started to focus and
his memory flooded back.

“Louisa, did she hurt you?” he
asked, slowly sitting up and moving off the table.

Louisa hurried to help him.  “No,
she wanted to…” she shook her head, “I don’t know how long she is going to be
unconscious. We must hurry and help the others.”

Louisa put her arm around Jean-Paul’s
waist and helped him across the room. They unlocked the door and stepped out
into the large room.  She helped Jean-Paul to a chair and, with the knife she
still held in her hand, started sawing through the bands that held many to the
tables. She realized that her efforts were fruitless, most were too weak to
move and many of the men and women in shackles had broken limbs and couldn’t
walk.

“What are we going to do,” she
cried in desperation, “We can’t carry them.”

Jean-Paul slowly raised himself up
and walked to her. Blood trickled from the cut on his forehead.

“You’re going to have to run for
help, Louisa,” he said, “It’s the only way.”

“I won’t leave you,” she said.

He placed his hands on her
shoulders and pulled her to him.  “Louisa, the only way we can win is if you go
and get help.”

“No, the only way we can win is if
we stay together,” she argued.

Jean-Paul pushed her away from him.
“Louisa, you have to go. Now.”

Louisa stumbled away from him,
tears filling her eyes. “Jean-Paul.”

“Go, Louisa, go, so we can all be
saved.”

Louisa half-ran, half-stumbled out
of the building and across the open area.  She found the narrow path and,
hitching up her skirts in her arms, ran as fast as she could.  She could see
the grove a little ways ahead. Once she reached the grove, she could scream and
people would hear her.

Suddenly she was thrust forward as
an explosion rocked the ground.  She grabbed a tree trunk and swung herself
around.  A huge fireball careened into the sky from the area behind her.

“Noooo,” she screamed and turned
and ran back toward the carriage house. “Jean-Paul, no!”

She ran back, nearly blinded by her
tears. Branches and brush tore at her face as she ran.  She entered the
clearing and saw the carriage house, now a charred remnant of what stood only
minutes before. She knew no one could have survived that inferno.  She fell to
her knees, gasping and sobbing. 

“Too bad, he would have made such
an interesting specimen.”

Louisa, still on her knees in the
dirt, looked up and faced the woman from the carriage house.  The voice was
only thing that was familiar.  This woman who stood before her was young and
beautiful, black hair curling around ivory skin. But as Louisa looked further
she could see evil still filled her eyes.

“I should thank you my dear,” the
woman said, “By killing me you set me free.  I’m no longer trapped in that
sickened body – now I am free to fulfill all that I was promised.”

She laughed and glided in a circle
around Louisa.

“You know, I wasn’t going to harm
the man, but since he was connected to you, he had to die too.”

Somewhere a memory flashed in
Louisa’s mind.  She had seen the woman before, on a beach.

The woman smiled at her, as if she
could read her mind.

“Even in your dreams you are not
safe,” she repeated, “And those you love are never safe.”

The woman raised a large knife up
and thrust it down.

Louisa screamed.

Paul woke immediately and grabbed
Eloise to him.  Eloise lifted tear-stained and frightened eyes to him.

“Jean-Paul, you’re alive,” she cried
and drew his face down to hers for a hungry kiss.

She ran her hands across his chest,
delighting in the hard, secure feel of him.  She wound her hands around his
neck and thrust her fingers into his hair, pulling him closer to deepen the
kiss.  She pressed against him and felt him tremble.

Finally strong arms gently took
hold of her shoulders and pushed her back, she continued kissing him on his
neck, chest and arms.

 “Eloise, you’re killing me,” Paul
moaned, “Please, darling, wake up.  It was only a bad dream.”

Eloise stilled and Paul heard her
groan as she buried her head against his chest.  Paul grinned and laughed
quietly.

“I can feel you laughing, so just
knock it off,” her muffled voice warned.

“Baby, if I don’t release this
tension by laughing, I’m afraid I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”

There was a moment of dead silence
and then a meek voice responded, “Oh.  Okay.”

Paul chuckled and then cleared his
throat.

“Okay, so who the hell is Jean-Paul?”

Paul could feel Eloise tense for a
moment, and then he could have sworn he heard her giggle.

He sat up in the bed, slipped his
hands beneath her arms and dragged her up to sit in his lap.  He wrapped his
arms around her waist to hold her place. “Just keeping you secure,” he said
when she looked questioningly at him.

She folded her arms across her
chest and faced him.

“So tell me about your dream,” he
requested.

“Do you want to know about the dream
or about Jean-Paul?” she asked.

Paul sighed. “The dream, tell me
about the dream,” he replied.

Eloise told him briefly about the
dream, going into detail towards the end.

“So, was this just a dream or was
it a warning?”

Eloise shook her head.  “I don’t
know.  I mean it could have been only a result of too much stress and …” she
stopped, looked at Paul and turned away.

“Or being in my arms again,” he
said softly, “Damn it, Eloise, I am not intentionally trying to cause you
pain.  I just don’t know what to do.  Right now, it seems that I am the only
person who can keep you safe, but by doing it, I open you up to all kinds of
bad experiences.

“Okay, I’m not asking for any
reason of my own – but this Jean-Paul that you dreamed about, is he a real
person?”

Eloise turned and looked at Paul, the
same gentle eyes as the lover in her dream, the same voice, and the same
goodness.

Eloise nodded. “Yes, he is a real
person.’

Paul nodded stiffly and turned away.
“I see.”

He inhaled deeply and looked back
at Eloise, staring into her eyes.

“Okay, this time it is for me,” he
said, “Do you - are you in love with him?”

Eloise waited a moment for the
fear, the tension to surface, but instead all she felt was an overwhelming
sense of elation.  The fear was gone, replaced by joy and strength and surety. 
She looked at Paul in wonder and amazement. 

“Yes, yes I am,” she replied.

She saw the pain flash through
Paul’s eyes and moved to reassure him that Jean-Paul was he.  But then a voice passed
through her mind, “
You know, I wasn’t going to harm the man, but since he
was connected to you, he had to die too.”

In her mind’s eye she relived the
scene of the burned carriage house and she realized that the dream was indeed a
warning.

She turned to Paul but couldn’t
think of anything to say.

Paul shook his head and gave her a
half-smile.

“Hey, it’s okay, he’s a lucky guy,”
he leaned over, gave her a quick kiss on the forehead and then slid them both
down onto the bed, “Let’s get a little more sleep; I have a feeling that
tomorrow is going to be a big day.”

She nodded and nestled herself
against his body.  He tightened his arms around her and she thought she heard
him mutter, “Tonight, you’re mine.”

She allowed a small tear to escape
before quickly dashing it away. Tonight she could be his – but tomorrow, she
would have to find another way.

The next morning Paul and Eloise
recounted the previous night’s experience to Sally.  After a quick cup of
coffee, Paul excused himself to take a shower.

 “I never thought that I would say this,
but you’re an idiot,” Sally said, mixing up her green goop shake in the kitchen
and wagging her finger at Eloise, “You got this guy, tall, dark and military, who
is head over heels for you and you tell him that you’re in love with someone
else. What, do you have some sort of masochistic tendencies?’

 “Will you please be quiet?’ Eloise
whispered harshly, “He might hear you.”

“Oh, so
you
can take his
heart, rip it into pieces, throw it on the floor and step on it, but you don’t
want me to hurt his feelings?” Sally shook her head, “You are an idiot.”

“Okay, I’m an idiot, I agree,”
Eloise said, finishing off the last of her protein shake, “Too much time
working with dead people. I don’t have a heart anymore.”

Sally took a large gulp of her
drink and fixed her eyes on Eloise as she contemplated the situation.  Her eyes
widened when she finally came to a new theory and, her mouth full of drink,
madly pointed her finger at Eloise.  Finally, her mouth clear, she nodded and
spoke.

“So, what did the big bad demon
lady do to Jean-Paul that you don’t want to have happen to Paul?” she asked.

Eloise choked and then turned away
from Sally.

“Sally just because you have an IQ
of 195 does not mean that you have all the insight to human nature,” Eloise
responded, “I’m just not interested in Paul.”

“Hah!” Sally scoffed, “I may be
brilliant but I’m not stupid.”

Eloise turned back to Sally,
“What?”

“Okay, you look me in the eye and
tell me that you don’t love Paul.”

Eloise tried to envision the
charred remains of the carriage house.

“Oh, no, no fair justifying in your
mind,” Sally said, “Tell me now!”

She grabbed Eloise’s shoulders and
stared into her eyes.

Eloise pulled away and shook her
head.

“He will be killed if he’s
connected to me,” Eloise finally whispered through tears, “I can’t have him
die.”

Sally rolled her eyes.

“You are an idiot,” she said, this
time softly with sympathy, “Isn’t this guy Special Forces or something like
that?”

“Yes, he is.”

“Don’t you think that someone with
that kind of training could take care of one crazy demon lady?”

Eloise shook her head. “I can’t
take that risk.”

“Don’t you think that it should be
his decision to make?”

“Whose decision to make?” Paul
asked, wearing only a pair of jeans and toweling off his hair.

“Dang,” said Sally, eyeing his
chest, “Tall, dark and military works out.”

Paul grinned and winked at Sally.

“So whose decision is what?” he
asked again.

“Well, I guess you can decide
whether you want to drive or if I should,” Eloise said, “I have to go back to
Marie Laveau’s tomb.”

Paul shrugged and Eloise, watching
the muscles ripple in his shoulders, enjoyed the view as much as Sally. “I can
drive, no problem,” he said, “Why are we going there?”

“I want to ask a Voodoo Queen about
an amulet,” she replied.

Much to his credit, Paul simply
nodded. “Let me check in with my division, and then I can be ready to go in
about 15 minutes.”

The drive to New Orleans was
painful, painfully polite. Paul asked her about the history of Marie Laveau and
she responded.  She asked him about some of the things he had done in the service
since their time in Turkey and he responded.  They spoke about the weather and
about any other topic that was not personal.

Finally, Paul asked, “So, um, where
did you meet this Jean-Paul guy?”

Eloise stiffened, “I’d really
rather not talk about it.”

Paul shrugged. “Okay, I can
understand that.”

They drove in silence for a few
minutes.

“So, when he held you in his arms,
did those same things happen to you as they did when we were in Istanbul?”

Eloise rolled her eyes. “I would
really rather not talk about him.”

Paul turned to her, taking his eyes
off the road for a moment. “Eloise, I’ve got to know if it was me that caused
those things to happen to you.”

Then he turned his attention back
to the highway.

Eloise sighed, chose her words
carefully and then replied.

“The only man who has ever had his
arms around me has been you.”

Paul turned to her, shock
registering in his eyes.  “Eloise, have you fallen for a guy who’s gay?”

For the second time that day,
Eloise had to choke back a smile. “No, he just doesn’t feel the need to hold
me.”

The Humvee swerved to the side of
the road and screeched to a halt.

“You can’t expect me to believe
that,” Paul said, turning to her.

“Paul, what are you doing?  We have
to get to New Orleans.”

Paul shook his head, turned the
vehicle off and unhooked his seat belt.  He opened the door and walked around
to the other side of the vehicle.  He opened Eloise’s door and took her hand in
his.  “Feel what you do to me,” he said, placing her hand on his heart.

She could feel his heart beating
strong and steady.

She shook her head. “I don’t
understand, what?”

With his other hand he cradled the
side of her head and stepped closer to her. “Feel,” he said, as he lowered his
lips to hers.

For a moment, Eloise felt the
acceleration of his heart beneath her hand, after that she lost the ability to
think clearly.  He deepened the kiss and moved his arm around her waist to pull
her closer.  She slipped her hand from his heart and circled his neck.  He
nibbled on her lower lip and she opened her lips to him.  He feasted on her taste,
as he slipped his hand from the side of her head to delve into the depths of
her hair, pulling her even closer.  Finally, he drew away, his breathing
labored.  He placed his forehead against hers and they both struggled to catch
their breath.

“Eloise,” he said slowly, “If he
can resist pulling you into his arms, if he can sit in a room with you and
think of anything other than the silkiness of your hair and the warmth of your
smile, if he can survive a day without the sound of your laughter , then he is
not in love with you enough, not nearly enough.”

Eloise felt her heart overflow and
burst. She cradled his face in her hands and placed a soft kiss on his lips. 
“Thank you, Paul, I will always remember that.”

They drove the rest of the way to New Orleans in silence. Paul pulled up at the same spot Eloise had parked the day before.  Eloise
turned to Paul. “I’m going to walk over to Maria’s tomb, but I don’t know if
she’ll appear to me if you are there,” she said, “Are you willing to stay here
and wait for me?”

Paul sighed. “You think you’ll be
safe?”

Eloise nodded. “Yes, Maria is very
powerful. I think I’ll be safe in the cemetery.”

Paul agreed. “Call me if…”

Eloise smiled. “I will.”

Eloise walked down the asphalt
covered path, thinking about all that had transpired in the last twenty-four
hours.  She hoped that Maria would be able to give her some kind of protection
from Delphine, only then would she be able to work without Paul’s presence.  And
she really needed to make sure that Paul was safe and away from New Orleans.

She was so absorbed in her thoughts
that she missed the shadowy figures that followed her, using the tall monuments
for cover. She had walked about a quarter mile into the cemetery when suddenly
a tall, black man stepped out into the path in front of her.

He was dressed in tattered and
stained clothing, and from the marks on his pants, she could see that he had
traveled some distance through the high flood waters.  His eyes were confidant
and he smiled with a mouthful of gold capped teeth.

She quickly glanced around for an escape
route.  As she turned, another man, this one burly and white, stepped out from
behind the monument she had just passed. He was shorter than Eloise, but he
looked like a small Brahma bull.  His eyes held a vacant look and she could
tell that the other fellow was definitely the leader.

“Hey, baby,” the man in front
mocked, “You look pretty lonely walking all by yourself.  Looks to me like you
could use some company.  Looks to me like we could have a party together. Don’t
you think we could have a party with her, Dread?”

The hulk behind chuckled. “Yeah,
dude, we could play all kinds of games with her.”

Eloise took a deep calming breath.

“It is my duty to inform you that I
am an officer of the United States government and that any interference you
perpetrate during a government sanctioned investigation will result in federal
charges,” she said severely.

“Yeah, I noticed the uniform, looks
hot,” said the first thug.

“Yeah, real hot,” said the other
one.

Eloise turned sideways, so they
were both in front of her.  She slowly moved backwards, assuming a defensive
stance.

“You got one more chance to walk
away,” she said.

The two laughed. “We ain’t walking
away from this, and baby, you won’t be doing much walking after we’re done with
you,” the first one sneered.

As the first one lunged, Eloise screamed
at the top of her lungs, and then caught him in the gut with a well-placed
kick.  He was knocked off balance and fell against a monument, cutting his
face.

“You bitch,” he snarled, rubbing
his face and finding blood on his hands.

The other guy went down in a
football-like stance and charged.  Eloise braced herself and then feinted to
the right at the last moment.  He crashed, head first, into the monument behind
Eloise and dropped.

“They make them big here, but they
don’t make them very smart.”

Eloise turned to see Paul running
up the walkway, gun extended.  “You okay?”

Distracted, she didn’t see the
first gangster move. He grabbed her arm and pulled her against his body.  She
heard a click and felt the press of cold steel against her neck.  The
switchblade was long, sharp and deadly.  One turn of his wrist and Eloise’s jugular
vein would be severed. 

“Hey, you got yourself a pretty-boy
officer,” he mocked as he pulled Eloise closer to his body. “Hey, pretty-boy,
too bad you gotta share her. Maybe when Dread wakes up, I’ll let him hold you
and you can watch us play with your bitch.”

Paul’s eyes narrowed and he leveled
the gun at the thug’s head.  “You harm her in any way and I will hunt you down
and kill you.”

“Yeah, go ahead and shoot me,
pretty boy. Even falling down dead, I still can slit her neck,” he taunted.

He leaned forward and whispered
into Eloise’s ear, his fetid breath nearly making her sick, “So, bitch, you cut
me.  How’d you like if I cut you the same?”

Eloise considered the situation. 
Once Dread woke up Paul would be forced to turn over his weapon. Right now, at
least there was a little bit of a stand-off.  Eloise decided that if she was
going to try something, she had to do it now.

“
Maria Leveau
does not look kindly on those who hurt her friends,” she stated.

She felt him stiffen.  “What you
talking about, bitch?”

She smiled inwardly. Good, he did
believe in spirits.

As Eloise kept her captor’s
attention, Paul slowly started to move towards them.

“I was here to meet with Maria
Leveau, I am trying to help her,” she explained. “I don’t think she will
appreciate your actions.”

“I don’t believe you,” he snarled,
though she could feel the perspiration on the hand that held her waist.

“Here, let me call for her and she
can tell you herself,” Eloise suggested.

The thug clasped her tighter, Eloise
felt the blade prick her skin and she gasped. “No, you don’t want to do that,”
he said.

Paul had been able to get close
enough to jump and knock the assailant to the ground.  Hearing Eloise’s gasp
and seeing blood trickle down her neck, he saw red.  He started to pounce, but
a massive micro-burst of wind held him back. 

The burst threw the assailant and
Eloise back against a monument, knocking the switchblade to the ground. Eloise spun
around and positioned herself for a karate kick, when the look on his face
stopped her.  He was staring over her shoulder, his eyes wide with fear, his
mouth hanging open. Eloise turned and saw the spirit of Maria Leveau hovering
behind her.

Instantly, Paul was at her side,
pulling her from between Maria and the thug. He placed his arms around her and
held her close.

“Are you alright?” he asked,
touching the scratch on her neck.

She nodded. “Yes, yes I’m fine,”
she smiled, “Thank you for coming to the rescue.”