PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES

Part IV

By Meriades Rai

The night was just beginning, full of music and neon glow, but for at least one of the occupants of the black Chrysler parked up in the back-alley behind The Cat Lick Club there was decidedly little enjoyment to be had.

“You won’t get away with this!” Melissa LaVeau spat in frustration, wriggling back and forth in the rear seat of the car, her body slithering on the black leather as she struggled against the ropes bound about her wrists and ankles. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with!”

The Cajun witch seated behind the wheel glanced backwards over her shoulder, her dark eyes narrowed to angry knife-slits but her smile as red and wide as a Cheshire Cat on a wink and a promise.

“If I was you, I wouldn’t be counting on the delightfully named Brother Voodoo to rescue you,” Jacqui Castelle drawled, gesturing dismissively, her fingers encrusted with rings. “My beau, he’s got plans for your friend.”

Melissa scowled, trembling with fury. “I wasn’t talking about Jericho,” she hissed. “I was talking about me.”

“You?” Jacqui laughed. “Oh, baby, what are you going to do to stop me? Just like you, I’ve found myself a man with the power over life and death… but my beau, he’s not bound by morals. You? You’re just another pretty dancer, baby. A pair of sweet legs and a sweet ass, honey, that’s all.”

“You have no idea,” Melissa muttered darkly. “I’m much more than that, honey. I’ll give you a better fight than Francine did when you sent your pet voodoo freak to murder her.”

“Francine Chevalier?” Jacqui’s eyes glimmered in the neon-laced shadows. “You’re on the wrong trail there, my sweet. I did want Francine as one of my playthings, but someone else got there first. Understand? Your friend, along with a half-dozen other girls from the district, they’re as dead as can be, I’d wager – but it wasn’t me or my petwho took them down into the dark.”

“What?”

Jacqui held up two fingers. “Two killers, honey. Understand? My beau, he cherry-picks some beauties and turns them into my… special girls. But there’s someone else out there too, painting the streets with blood. Whoever they are, our paths crossed briefly with Francine. Never again. This other butcher, they’re… loco.”

“And you aren’t? Jesus, you – ”

Melissa was about to question further when the passenger door of the Chrysler opened and a skinny wretch of man slid into the seat alongside Jacqui. The newcomer had scruffy brown hair, eyes like copper coins, and a birdlike face etched with a grim smile. Melissa shrank back into her seat, nervous despite her show of bravado. She knew who this man was – what he was – and what he could do. And none of it was pleasant.

“What happened?” Jacqui snapped. “Did you kill him?”

“You pay Drumm no mind, woman. He’s mine.”

Melissa blinked. “Jericho? Jericho’s here? What did you – ”

The man – Simon Charles, alias The Black Talon – turned and slapped her hard across the face with the back of his hand. “Just be quiet!” he chattered. “And Jacqui, you justdrive! Those dead bitches won’t keep him occupied for long…”

Jacqui Castelle’s expression was a maelstrom of emotions, none of them kind, but for once she didn’t argue. Much. “Boy insane,” she muttered, turning the key in the ignition. “Four week’s work lost, because you use all our girls on one man. Now we have to start again. All over again.”

The Black Talon cast Melissa another beady-eyed stare, observing the blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, then grinned a grin full of dirty teeth. “At least we’ve got a real jewel to begin our new collection with, my love,” he whispered. “You are a veritable magpie when it comes to choosing such delights, after all.”

Jacqui grunted, then gunned the Chrysler’s engine. On the back seat, sniffling in pain, Melissa LeVeau could only mull over a number of mysteries. What was happening to Jericho? Who had killed Francine Chevalier if not Jacqui and The Talon? And, most important of all… would she herself survive to see another sunrise?

Jericho

Okay… generally? Generally, I enjoy my life. But sometimes – sometimes – I just wish I were someone else entirely.

Captain America? A sentinel of liberty, a champion of the just and the free, heralded in every corner of the world for his neverending fight against oppression and tyranny. Thor? A God. A God. All brawny and blonde and bronzed, and ‘Hey ladies, are you worthy enough to pick up my big ol’ hammer?’. Even Spider-Man. The police will shoot at him soon as look at him, just so they got something to tell their kids, and if you watch the news reports you’ll see the poor shmuck get his ass kicked back and forth along Broadway by some bruiser with tentacles or a sackful of pumpkins and bad skin every other day – but hey, he can spin a web. Any size. And the merchandising alone has to compensate.

Me? Jericho Drumm, Brother Voodoo? I get to spend my evening in the back room of a seedy strip joint trying not to get torn limb from limb by a half-dozen scantily dressed dead women. And not in a good way. Sometimes, life sucks.

“Daniel!” I yell. “Get your butt out here, right now!”

I don’t have to shout out loud. My twin brother Daniel’s disembodied spirit exists inside me, after all. But hearing your own voice amidst a sea of soulless groaning and growling and gnashing has a lot going for it – like reminding you that you’re the only one at the party who’s still alive. For the time being, at least.

A blonde with breasts the size of footballs comes staggering towards me, jaw hanging slack and her one remaining eye revolving in its socket like the Wheel of Fortune. Not an image I’ll be forgetting in a hurry, I suspect. I make a fist and whip out a hefty punch that catches her square in the face, and I hear the splinter of bone. Her head sags back on her neck, which appears to have been broken – not by me, I should point out, but by whoever killed her. Probably The Black Talon, the same man who would’ve then used his arcane voodoo magicks to reanimate her corpse and sent her to dispose of me. Bless him.

I don’t like hitting women. Especially when it causes their last eyeball to pop out with a squelch and go rolling across the floor like it’s chasing down a cab on a Saturday night. The blonde wobbles – well, certain parts of her do – but then starts coming towards me again, arms outstretched. That’s the thing with zombies. It’s all about magic. They don’t need eyes to see any more than they need lungs to breathe or a heart to pump their blood. Talon’s instructed these monsters to track me down and kill me – and so, that’s what they’ll do. If I gave up and ran away to Arkansas, they’d just follow me. Slowly, and the hayseed potato farmers would wet themselves even more than they usually do, but even so.

I dodge the top-heavy blonde, but a sultry redhead in crotchless fishnets jumps on by back and wraps her legs around me. Only a guy with my luck could say that and not be smiling like the bride of Pinocchio sitting on his face and shrieking “Tell me lies, baby, tell me sweet little lies!”

The dead woman’s head flops down against my shoulder, and when I glance around I see that her jaw has scissored open and that she’s belched a stream of maggots all over my jacket. She’s obviously not one of Talon’s fresher specimens. I can feel the chilli po’boy I ate for lunch eager to return for an encore, but I bite it back. I’ve seen worse. Not usually this close, but hey. Captain America would secretly die for this, I just know it, that kinky little munchkin.

I drag myself free of my attacker and elbow her in the face, knocking her to the ground. I kick a one-armed Japanese girl in studded leather in the leg, which comes apart at the knee, and she falls back against her fellow cadavers, hissing. These undead aren’t as solidly constructed as I might have expected from Talon, or as quick, but they’re still dangerous. I back up against the bed, then scramble around to the other side, employing it as a barrier between me and them. Breathing hard, I use the second or two that I’ve earned myself to concentrate fiercely.

Daniel.

His spirit – a spirit that only I can see – shoots up into the air, wide-eyed and confused. I’ve obviously caught him resting, or whatever it is that spectres do when they return to their host’s body after already manifesting once during the day. Earlier, I had Daniel possess the body of a policeman in the course of my investigation into the disappearance of dancer Francine Chevalier. He hadn’t enjoyed the experience, particularly. I doubt that this one is going to go down any better.

“Wha… whassis… whussup?” Daniel wheels in the air, blinking. “Whas’ the problem, Jay-Dee? You know I ain’t fully recovered fr – Holy McNuggets!”

I glance up at him. I think he’s just discovered whussup.

“Jay-Dee!” Daniel yells, his face breaking out into a big beaming smile. “Is it our birthday? Dang, baby, it is, ain’t it? Today’s our birthday – and my bro’s gone and got us some half-nekkid Chiquitas! Jericho, man, I take back everythin’ I ever said about you, you dig? Damn! Half-nekkid and ready to fu… to fu… to… Hey. Hey, wait a minute.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Yeah, take your sweet time, Colombo.”

“There’s somethin’ doin’ with these half-nekkid Chiquitas.”

“Uh-huh.”

“They’re… they got… oh, man. Oh, man. Jay-Dee, these are half-nekkid zombie Chiquitas!”

“Uh-huh.”

“You ordered half-nekkid zombie Chiquitas for our birthday?”

“Not me. Black Talon.”

Daniel wheels, his expression grim. “Aw… eeeww. Thas’ just wrong. He does not get a thank you note, know what’m sayin’?”

“Want to know the best part? He’s taken Melissa. And now I need a distraction – so I can go rescue her.”

Daniel frowns. “Damn, bro. What can I do?” he says. “You know I can’t affect nothin’ in my spirit form.”

“So don’t be in your spirit form.” I smile. “Go possess.”

“Go wha? Possess who? I don’t see no… oh. Oh, no. No way.”

“You said earlier that I never let you possess any hot voodoo mamas.”

“These ain’t no hot voodoo mamas!” Daniel shrieks. “Man, these are – ”

“Half-nekkid zombie Chiquitas, yeah. You said.”

“Man. I can’t believe you want me dippin’ my wick in a bury-me-quick. Thas’ low, Jay-Dee.”

“Have fun. I’ll see you soon. Oh, and Daniel? Please, for the love of God, stop talking like the King of Bling.”

I turn away then and scamper across to the other side of the room, where there’s an open window looking out onto a darkened alleyway. I glance down – and see a black Chrysler, parked up outside an open door that can only connect to the back of this club. As I watch I see a man’s figure emerge from the club exit and slide into the Chrysler. I recognise him instantly. The Black Talon. I’m pretty sure I then see him bitchslap a dark-haired woman in the back seat, and instantly my blood is up. If that’s Melissa, and Iknow it is, I’m going to pick that bastard’s yellow teeth with his own broken ribs…

I glance back over my shoulder in time to see Daniel’s spirit swoop down and enter the body of the eyeless blonde, his face stricken like a man who can’t swim but who knows he has no choice but to dive in to a deep lake. Full of piranha. The blonde’s body twitches and quivers… then snaps to attention. Her jaw sags.

“I can’t see! I can’t see!” Daniel yells, in the dead woman’s voice. I sigh.

“Try one with eyes,” I suggest.

A moment later, his spirit emerges once more, shivering, and calls me a dirty word. Very heartfelt. Then he darts into the body of a brunette in stockings and heels who is crawling across the bed towards me, licking her lips with a half-severed tongue. Her body judders and her hands slip from under her, causing her to roll sideways off the bed and hit the floor with a thump. When she then stands again, her head has twisted on her neck so that her scantily clad body is directed towards the other zombies and the face pointed towards me. The dead woman smiles as Daniel operates her jaw.

“I can see! I can see!”

“Turn around.”

He turns, and finds that the eyeless blonde and a raven-haired temptress in leather Nazi apparel are closing in on him.

“Argh! I don’t wanna see! I don’t wanna see!”

The zombies crush forward, and Daniel disappears under a tangle of nylon-clad limbs. I blink and shake my head, and turn back to the window. Down below, the Chrysler guns its engine. Instinctively, I slither over the window frame and grab at the edge of a fire escape away to my left. The metal is slippery from rain but I hold on tightly and swing myself across, then force myself to dangle precariously into space. I let go, and drop…

…but it’s only a few feet to the ground below, and a moment after landing heavily on my feet I am up and off, sprinting through the rain and the dark. I see the Chrysler up ahead, already edging out of the alley, and panic wells within me. I try and push myself harder, but I know that it’s hopeless. I’m not going to reach them.

The Chrysler pulls out onto Bourbon Street… then screeches to a halt. There’s a blare of a horn, and I spy another vehicle swerve to avoid a collision. It’s a car travelling far too fast, with Creole kids in bandanas hanging out of the windows, shrieking and laughing and pelting the Chrysler with empty beer cans. Punks, out cruising.

And they’ve given me a chance.

I catch up with the Chrysler just as it’s about to pull away again, and wrench open the back door. I see Melissa, wriggling and panting, trussed up with rope. I grab at her and yank her from the car. She’s heavy and we both crash backwards against a brick wall. I’m momentarily winded – but I can’t afford that moment. The Black Talon and a woman I presume to be Jacqui Castelle are climbing out of the car. Jacqui is wearing a face so angry you could cook a waffle on it. She’s also carrying what looks like… an Uzi. A freaking Uzi. Dammit, Thor never has to deal with Uzis.

I grab Melissa and throw her back into the alley from which we’ve just emerged, yelling at her to find cover. She skids across the wet flagstones then shuffles forward like a caterpillar into the shadows.

“Bastard!” Jacqui Castelle screams, skirting around her side of the car, her accent wild. “Gonna fill you with holes!”

I hurl myself to the ground as she lets rip with a burst of automatic gunfire that strafes along the wall of The Cat Lick Club. There are a number of people on the street – a couple of club patrons, a handful of hookers, a Japanese tourist taking pictures of the hookers, a vagrant with a bag of tins cans – and they all erupt into panic as the carnage ensues, screaming and flailing their arms. Seeing me seek shelter behind a parked Buick, Jacqui curses – then turns her attention to the hysterical bystanders. And opens fire again.

“No!” I cry, stricken. But there’s nothing I can do. The night air, already coloured with neon rain, is suddenly awash with blood and the unholy song of bullets puncturing flesh.

I clamber over the hood of the Buick, gripped with rage, and launch myself at Jacqui, who has her back turned to me. I wrestle her to the ground and the Uzi skitters out of her hands and away across the wet asphalt. I punch her in the face, then again, shattering her teeth, and knocking her unconscious – but then feel hands grip me around the neck and yank me backwards. I roll across the ground and try to scramble to my feet, but despite The Black Talon’s scrawny physique he is in fact a tough and wiry opponent. And quick. He kicks me across the jaw, splitting my lower lip and causing my head to smack back against the pavement. I see stars. And I don’t mean Hasselhoff.

“Shouldn’t have come here, Jericho,” The Talon chitters, his face looming close. “But I’m glad you did. This is my night, my friend. And you’ve been a thorn in my side for far too long…”

I ball my fist and aim a blow to his midriff, but he deflects my arm and scratches me across the cheek with his raking claws. I taste blood, from my lip, and from the gashes he’s just inflicted. He knees me in the ribs, and I grunt with pain. I can hear him cackling like barbequed chicken on a spit.

A little secret: without Daniel’s spirit augmenting my strength and reflexes, I’m just a normal, middle-aged man – still feisty, but less instinctive. I can usually hold my own in a fight, but I’m tiring now, and my enemy is vicious. As we struggle, it’s all I can do to stop him tearing out my throat or disembowelling me with a single, savage thrust.

Finally, I gain some leverage and shrug his weight away to one side. I scramble to my feet and duck for cover – but then I notice that he doesn’t launch on the attack against straight away. I spy him scuttling back across the street, towards the club, where most of the twitching and bloodied bodies lay following Jacqui letting loose with the Uzi. It’s then I realise that she wasn’t out to take their lives for the sake of it – it was because she knew what her partner could then do with the corpses.

I see Black Talon channel his voodoo magicks into the bodies scattered around him, his head thrown back and his eyes shut tight with concentration. I lunge forward, but the distance between us is suddenly a chasm. By the time I finally crash into him and send him sprawling into the street, it’s too late. All around me, fresh zombies are beginning to rise. One… three… five…

One of the dead hookers launches herself at me, her richly painted eyes and lips now askew in a grotesque caricature of the young and pretty Creole woman she’d been a few minutes previously due to that short period of brain death. I snap a solid hand up beneath her chin and jolt her head backwards, then grab her hair and twist her as she staggers so that she ends up facing the wall that had been behind her. I throw her forward with all my strength and her face strikes the brick with a sickening crack. She sinks to the ground, and because she’s so fresh she leaves a smear of blood in her wake.

I whirl and see the Japanese man, still carrying his camera, lurching towards me. I spin and connect with a hefty roundhouse kick, catching him on the back of the skull and snapping his neck. He stumbles and falls. Both he and the hooker will get to their feet again, I know, as will the vagrant, who I punch to the ground as he closes in on me. Zombies keep coming until you remove their heads completely – reanimation only works with the brainstem intact – or until you eradicate the source of the magic that has animated them. I whirl and look around for The Black Talon. I can’t spot him. His zombies are closing in.

Then, I hear Melissa scream.

I surge forward, knocking two growling attackers aside, and run for the alley where I left Melissa. I see Talon dragging her to her feet, grinning like the sadistic lunatic that he is, his claws about her throat. She’s still bound and helpless; her eyes are bulging, and her tongue is lolling. He’s throttling her, giggling with delight.

I sprint for them, but I know I can’t reach them in time. He’s going to kill her.

His fist tightens…

…and then, out of the darkness, lurches one of the undead, all lolling head and pale, lifeless flesh. Lots of pale, lifeless flesh. She’s almost naked. Half-nekkid, in fact.

The dead brunette inhabited by Daniel grabs The Black Talon by the hair and wrenches him away from Melissa, who crumples to the ground upon being released. Talon squawks and lashes out, clawing the zombie across the face, but Daniel keeps attacking. He butts his head forward, nudging at Talon’s chin to expose his throat… then bites down. Hard.

The Black Talon screams.

Daniel-zombie lifts his head, blood-soaked mouth locked in a hideous grin and lifeless eyes shining bright. Talon pushes him away, then stumbles backwards, hands about his throat, trying to stem the flow of blood. It isn’t a life-threatening wound. But I bet it hurts. He turns… and finds me standing before him.

“Goodnight, Simon,” I hiss. And I punch him square in the face, breaking his nose and sending him flying backwards, his legs buckling beneath him. He crashes to the ground, head lolling, his throat wound seeping.

Beyond him, I see the zombie brunette fall instantaneously, following The Black Talon’s defeat. I know that the undead back in the main street will also be deactivated now that the flow of magic that was reanimating them has been quelled, but I’m not concerned about them. They don’t have my brother’s spirit locked inside them.

“Daniel!” I shout. “Get out now!”

For a moment, there is no response. The body of the brunette lays motionless where it’s toppled like a marionette with severed strings. If a resurrected corpse perishes with an incumbent spirit present, that spirit will be forever locked inside the lifeless shell.

“Daniel! Daniel!”

For a moment, nothing. But then…

…he emerges, groggy yet seemingly still holding his ethereal form together. He calls me a dirty word. I half-grin. He’ll be fine. But Melissa…?

I rush to her side and cradle her head in my arms. Her eyes flicker open – dark and beautiful, as always – and she smiles, weakly.

“You might want to perfect your rescue techniques… before next time…” she whispers. “That was pretty close, I’m thinking.”

I sigh with relief and hold her a little tighter. Considering that I haven’t even known her for twenty-four hours, I’m filled with a powerful sense of joy that she hasn’t been snatched away from me. It’s a feeling I haven’t experienced for a long time. Not since –

From the inside pocket of my jacket there comes a sudden chiming of music, accompanied by a faint vibration. The music is the theme from The Twilight Zone. Melissa looks at me, and grins. Daniel’s spectre comes and wheels above my head, a strange expression on his face.

“Think that’s a malevolent spirit trying to get through to you?” he asks, grudgingly adopting a more normal voice.

“On a cellular? I doubt it.”

“Good,” Daniel smiles, coldly. “’Because there’s only room for one of us to come voodoo your sorry ass!”

I grimace. Not a happy spook. I can’t say I blame him. It hasn’t been much of a birthday.

I take my phone from my pocket and answer, as much to avoid Daniel’s spectral glare than anything else.

“Jericho?” a woman’s voice speaks, shrilly. She sounds distressed. “Is that you Jericho?”

I close my eyes and bow my head. Oh, man. Because I need this, right?

“Valencia,” I sigh. “How’d you get this number? How many times am I going to have to change my damn number before you stop ringing me to give me shi – ”

“Jericho, just shut up and listen! I need you!”

I shut up and listen.

“I’m out at the old LaCarriere plantation house. Do you know it?”

My heart flickers with dread. “Of course I know it,” I whisper. I think of Marie LeVeau, and glance down at the face of her descendant leaning against my chest, the spitting image of her long-dead ancestor. In that instant I know that my night isn’t over. Not by a long shot.

“There’s something happening here that I think you need to come and see,” Valencia says, and now I can tell that she’s more than distressed. She’s terrified. It takes a lot to scare this woman. She’s my ex-wife, so I should know.

Suddenly, something clicks into place: the one unexplained aspect of this whole farrago. I remember back in Francine Chevalier’s apartment, when Daniel and I employed voodoo divination to try and learn what had occurred. We’d picked up the psychic residue of The Black Talon, present the night that Francine had likely died – but there’d also been something else. Someone else. Another entity, physical or otherwise, connected to voodoo.

And then, I realise what that means. The Black Talon didn’t kill Francine. He went there to do so, I’m sure, to add to his collection of dead girls for Jacqui Castille’s necrophiliacs’ paradise… but he was beaten to the punch. Someone else took Francine’s life.

Stephen Strange once told me that all events are interconnected, especially where magic is concerned. Like the acclaimed Butterfly Effect, where if a butterfly flaps its wings in Pittsburgh, there’s an earthquake in Japan. Or, if it flaps it wings in Tennessee, some hillbilly redneck stomps it and dips it in his soup. Same difference. With magic, the whole deal is that much more potent, however.

I say to Valencia, “I’ll be there within the hour,” and disconnect.

“What’s wrong?” Melissa asks, seeing my expression.

I look at her, and say softly, “I think your friend’s dead. You knew that. But I don’t think it was The Black Talon and Jacqui who killed her.”

Melissa isn’t surprised. “I knew that too. They said as much as they were taking me away.”

“So if not this peckerwood, then who?” Daniel asks at my ear, gesturing towards The Talon’s fallen body.

I grimace. “Well,” I say, “I think that we’re about to find out…”