Grim Tidings Read online

  “You piss your pants several times a day?” Ashley added, probably realizing that Mikah was overmatched in this little verbal joust and felt bad for him.

  “I used to, and back then everyone thought I was cute.”

  “Yeah,” Ashley said, rolling her eyes. “And when you were a baby, you also spat up regularly.”

  I shook my head. “Babies can get away with anything.”

  “I’m lost,” Mikah said. “Are we still talking about horrors and romantic comedies?”

  “No!” Ashley and I replied in concert.

  “You two are weird,” Mikah said.

  Amen! Isabelle replied, causing me to laugh out loud.

  “Isabelle agrees with you,” I said. “We are weird. But weirdos make the world go round.”

  Mikah scrunched his brow. “No they don’t. The gravitational pull of the sun upon the Earth has nothing to do with weirdos.”

  I rolled my eyes and had an urge to summon my soul blade for dramatic effect—an urge I declined to exercise. “Your verbal jousts are weak, padawan.”

  “What the heck is a padawan?” Mikah asked.

  “Oh shit,” Ashly said.

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen Star Wars.”

  “Is that a romantic comedy?” Mikah winked. He knew better than that. He was just trying to get under my skin. It worked.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. Fuck this romantic comedy versus horror debate. Your next date with Isabelle—you are both watching Star Wars.”

  Dear God, no…

  “Hush, Isabelle.”

  It was all right the first 382 times you made me watch it…

  “One more time won’t hurt,” I insisted.

  “She doesn’t want to watch Star Wars again, does she?” Ashley asked.

  “It’s an epic tale of good versus evil… of love and war,” I said.

  “Can we at least watch the new ones?” Mikah asked.

  “No!” Ashley and I said, again in concert.

  “It must be the originals,” I said. “If you know what’s good for you.”

  We finally made our way to the nurses’ station, where I quickly identified Nurse Dorothea due to the oversized floral-printed name tags that all the nurses wore. I wasn’t sure why everything in this place had flowers on it. If not real flowers, scattered around undoubtedly to mask the smell of urine that usually graced the place, they were printed on the brochures, on the name placards on resident apartments, and apparently on the nurses’ name tags. Picked flowers are never long for this world. It was a demented thought, I admit, but it seemed like that fact made them appropriate. Most of the people here had more time than picked flowers… but not much.

  Except for my parents. They were literally half the age of most of this place’s residents when Ashley and I first had to check them in. Their case baffled the doctors. Early onset dementia is fairly rare, and for two married people to come down with it at the same time… They thought it had to be either environmental or a most unfortunate coincidence. Telling them that they’d been bitten by zombies wasn’t going to satisfy the doctors, so I didn’t bother. So was I about to tell them I suspected the bite they’d gotten back then might have turned them into vampires now? That’s a hard no.

  Now here’s the truth—because most people think zombies and vampires are completely different. The truth is that they are both “undead,” only the zombies are infused with the aspect of a Ghede Loa—a Loa like Baron Samedi—after death, or they die during the transformation. A vampire, though, is someone who is infused with the Ghede’s aspect both while alive and if they happen to survive the bite—which is rare, too. The only reason my parents survived the zombie bites was because we had some magic at our disposal to heal their bodies. It took us a while to realize that someone else had been left behind… what I’ve since learned to be an “aspect” that would eventually turn them into vampires if it was ever activated.

  “Nurse Dorothea,” I said. “I’m Annabelle Mulledy, and this is my sister Ashley and our friend, Mikah.” I extended my hand.

  She declined to shake it. “No disrespect, dear, but we have to be careful about spreading germs around here.”

  I thought that was what hand washing was for, but whatever.

  “No problem,” I said. “Can you take us to their apartment? We might be able to figure out some things about where they might have gone.”

  “Certainly, Miss Mulledy.”

  “Can you tell us if they were acting strange at all before they went missing?” Ashley asked.

  “Dear, strange is par for the course when working with dementia patients. And your parents are no exception.”

  “Well, anything that they might have been talking about a lot? Anything that would indicate they had something specific on their minds?”

  “Nothing I can recall, but you’re welcome to ask around. Maybe some of the other staff could tell you more.”

  “Excuse me,” Mikah added before we walked away. “Is there a restroom nearby?”

  “Certainly, sir. Just around the corner, about a third of the way down the hall.”

  “Sorry,” Mikah said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Number one or number two?”

  “Excuse me?” Mikah asked.

  “Just so I know how long I’ll be waiting.”

  “Um… probably a three?”

  “What the hell is a three?” I asked.

  “It’s math… one plus two.”

  I shook my head. “Just try and be quick.”

  Mikah nodded and headed down the hall. I pocketed the key the nurse had given me and walked alongside Ashley across a common room where a pair of little old ladies were playing a game of slap jack. I was rather impressed that these women, who couldn’t have been anything south of ninety, had the reflexes to spot and slap the jack so quickly. I gave them what I hoped was a kind smile as we walked past.

  “Horses!” another woman, from the opposite side of the common room, screamed in a shrill, high-pitched voice.

  Ashely and I turned instinctively toward the voice. A black woman in a rocking chair stared back at us. Her hair was thick, but gray and unkempt. She pointed a crooked finger directly at us.

  “Horses! You are horses!”

  “Did she just call us whores?” Ashley asked.

  I shook my head. “Sounded more like ‘horses’ to me.”

  Again she pointed. “Horses!”

  “Nay!” I replied. Ashley elbowed me in the ribs.

  She knows you have been mounted, Isabelle said. That’s why she calls you horses.

  “Isabelle thinks she senses our aspects,” I said. “You know, horses, because we’ve been mounted.”

  “They really need to come up with a better metaphor for Loa possession,” Ashley interjected.

  “I agree, but who am I to correct centuries of Voodoo tradition? I think we should talk to her. If she senses us…”

  “Then she might have sensed something about Mom and Dad, too.”

  I nodded.

  “Ma’am, are you talking to us?” I asked, realizing how dumb the question was since she was still pointing directly at my face.

  She nodded. “You are Mambo, no?”

  “You know about Voodoo, ma’am?”

  “Of course I know the Voodoo, but you did not answer my question.”

  “I’m not a Mambo… not yet.”

  “But you are a student, yes? Student at the Academy?”

  “Are you from Vilokan, ma’am?” I asked.

  “Born and raised there, I was.” The woman’s face cringed as if the very memory itself was painful.

  “You can sense our aspects?” I asked.

  “Of course I can, dear.”

  “Did you know my parents? The Mulledys, a younger couple.”

  “Horses, too, they are.”

  I cocked my head sideways. “But they are missing. Do you know where they went?”

  The woman shook her head. “Mounted by the Ghede, they a
re. They go where the Ghede call.”

  “They were not mounted… not willingly. They were bitten.”

  “Then you have no hope, dear. You best let them go.”

  “They are our parents,” Ashley interrupted. “We can’t just let them go.”

  “Of course you cannot. You hold the aspect of Madam Erzulie. You will love to your own destruction and death.”

  “How do you know that?” Ashley asked. “I haven’t even had a single lesson with Erzulie.”

  “I was once High Priestess, first of the Mambos. I can sense much about you,” the woman said, fixing her eyes directly at me. “But this one, you possess the aspect of Ogoun.”

  “Yes, but how can you tell?”

  “Your aspect compels you more than you know. Tell me, what will you do when you see your parents under the spell of a Ghede?”

  “I will try to save them,” I said.

  “And you will fail to do it,” the woman said. “At which time you will see no course forward but to free them by the stake.”

  “I would never kill my parents,” I said.

  “The aspects of love and war,” the woman said, nodding first at Ashley and then toward me, “are one in the flesh.”

  “I don’t understand… you mean because Ogoun and Erzulie are married?”

  “Love is wed to many things. Is there no love in war? There must be if the war be just.”

  I nodded. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the philosophy lesson or anything. This woman clearly knew her shit… or at least she used to. But now? She’d clearly been off her rocker for a while.

  “But do you know where we can find our parents?” I asked.

  “Seek them together,” the woman said. “And they you shall find.”

  I looked at Ashley and shrugged. It wasn’t like we’d planned to split up.

  “And rely on your other aspect, you must,” the woman added.

  My eyes widened.

  She can sense me?

  I coughed once over my shoulder—a sign to Isabelle that I heard her and agreed. Apparently she could, but how? Not even the Loa could sense her. I locked eyes with Ashley, who shook her head—she apparently didn’t have an explanation, either.

  “Maybe we should just check out Mom and Dad’s apartment. We can ask her more questions after if we need to.”

  I nodded, then turned back to where the woman was sitting. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name…”

  But the rocking chair was vacant. Empty and still.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “I didn’t see her get up,” Ashley said.

  “She couldn’t have gone far. I mean, how fast could she move?”

  I looked around again. This was a large room—there wasn’t a corner she could have turned within a good twenty feet. I scratched my head.

  “I don’t understand. It’s like she just vanished.”

  “A ghost?” Ashley asked.

  “I know you can see them, being in tune with the spirits and all.”

  “It’s a Shaman thing,” Ashley said.

  “But I can’t see ghosts, not typically.”

  “Did Isabelle sense anything?”

  Hard to tell a ghost from a living spirit. The human soul gives off the same aura in life or death…

  “She says she couldn’t tell either way.”

  I felt a poke in my shoulder.

  “Sorry about that,” Mikah said.

  “Never mind that… Did you see an old lady sitting here as you walked up?”

  “In that empty chair?” Mikah asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Nope… I just saw you two standing here by yourselves.”

  “She seemed to know her Voodoo,” Ashley said. “Maybe she has Aida-Wedo’s aspect?”

  It was possible—if she did, she’d have the ability to teleport herself in an instant. But still, it seemed odd that she’d just bail out mid-conversation.

  “I guess we’ll go with that theory. We really don’t have time to get sidetracked with a new mystery.”

  Ashley nodded and turned toward our parents’ apartment. I retrieved the key from my pocket and unlocked the door. The hinges squeaked as we pressed it open.

  “Do you smell that?” Ashley asked.

  “Smells like… something died,” Mikah said.

  It’s the rot, Isabelle said. I wouldn’t forget that smell.

  The rot… that’s what overtook their skin when they were first bitten by zombies. It was what began to consume their flesh. We’d encountered more than a few zombies that day. They were nasty and vile—and yes, they stank. The smell of rot lingered around the plantation home for months after the attack. It took a small fortune to buy enough Febreze to get rid of it.

  “Isabelle says it smells of the rot.”

  “Rotting zombie flesh?” Ashley asked.

  “Is she sure?” Mikah knelt down and looked under my parents’ sofa. “I mean, that smell… it could just as easily be a dead rat or something under some furniture, maybe under the sink.”

  No, it’s the rot…

  “She says she’s sure,” I said.

  “It smells… stronger than I remember,” Ashley said.

  I pulled my shirt over my nose. “Yeah… but let’s get to looking. I’m not sure how long I can take this.”

  “You’d think the nurses would pick up on it,” Ashley said.

  “Yeah, if they were doing their jobs, they’d probably show some concern over patches of rotting flesh on Mom and Dad, too.”

  Ashely strolled back to their bedroom and returned a second later holding a phone. “I got these phones for them a few weeks ago. Just felt like they should have their own phones.”

  I looked back at Ashley incredulously. “You really thought they could figure out smartphones?”

  “I set them up as basic as I could. I think this one was Mom’s.”

  “You got one for Dad, too?” I asked. “I assume these things have GPS, right?”

  “Two steps ahead of you, sis!”

  Ashley showed me a map that displayed Dad’s phone on the Esplanade end of Decatur Street. My throat tightened up. “Looks like Dad still has his on him.”

  “Brilliant!” Mikah exclaimed.

  I nodded, exchanging glances with Ashley. We’d been to that spot on the map before. Isabelle clearly remembered it, too.

  Casa do Diabo…

  “What’s wrong?” Mikah asked.

  “We need to go,” Ashley said, pocketing Mom’s phone.

  “I don’t understand, is there something about that place?”

  I nodded, biting the inside of my cheek. “Come with us. I’ll tell you on the drive over.”

  Chapter Three

  One Year Earlier

  Who was I to say there’s no such thing as vampires? Sure, the stories and legends around New Orleans always seemed a little over-the-top to me. But I was possessed by a ghost—and how often had I heard people say “there’s no such thing as ghosts!” I’d seen demons, too. Some people say demons were an invention of the Church—a way to stoke fear and to use that fear to control people. Wait until you’re face-to-face with one and you’ll piss away that idea even while you’re pissing your pants. And zombies? In my experience people were generally open to the idea that some kind of mutated disease might zombify the population someday. They believed it, though, because they could concoct a plausible scenario, based on science, that made it so. I believed in zombies because a bunch of them, under a Voodoo witch’s spell, attacked our family when I was a kid. So, when an investigation request came through on our “Supernatural Sisters” website for a potential vampire lurking around the French Quarter, it was something Ashley and I knew well enough to take seriously.

  We took it even more seriously when the request came from a local police officer. Don’t get me wrong. About half the requests we got on our site came from trolls—no, not literal “trolls,” but “internet trolls.” Usually assholes, probably living in their mom�
��s basement, typing away at keyboards caked with Cheeto dust and their own bodily fluids.

  So, when the request came from a police officer who sent photographic proof of the wound in his neck, scans of his medical charts showing “abnormal” mutations in his cells and “unidentified” pathogens in his blood stream, I can’t say that I wasn’t mildly intrigued.

  “Who’s the hottie?” Ashley said, peering over my shoulder at an image of the officer in his formal “blues,” a picture I’d found of him on Facebook—not his own profile, but his mom’s—in an effort to confirm the identity of the man behind the inquiry.

  “Some cop. Thinks he might have been attacked by a vampire. Check this shit out.” I tabbed open another window on my monitor showing his wound and the medical report he’d attached.

  “Hmm,” Ashley said. “Seems legit.”

  “But vampires?” I said, cocking my head. “I mean, I’m not saying there’s no such thing, but are we prepared to even look into something like that?”

  “Well if a cop is at a loss and is coming to us, chances are there isn’t anyone any more qualified out there.”

  I nodded. “Fair point, I guess.”

  “Not to mention, we have Isabelle,” Ashley said.

  I shrugged. “Sort of.”

  “Did you piss her off again?”

  “Might have.” I duplicated the same shrug as before.

  “What did you do this time?” Ashley asked.

  “Who…”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Who did I do this time.” I laughed.

  “Annabelle!”

  I shook my head. “I was joking, I didn’t do anybody. Not that he didn’t want to. Just had a little fun.”

  “And she’s pissed about it?” Ashley said.

  “Says she feels everything I do… says if I do that stuff without her consent it makes her feel violated.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Well, how would you feel if you were in her shoes?” Ashley asked.

  “She’s in my shoes, by definition,” I said. “She wasn’t born in this body, I was.”

  “True enough,” Ashley said. “But if you had to feel everything that someone else decided to do, and you had no say in the matter…”