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TWENTY-THREE
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Bayou Whispers TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FOURBayou Cypress Pavilion for the Criminally InsaneNew Orleans“MAMA?” CROAKED JEANNINE.The sound of her voice echoed dully in the ruins of the asylum. The corpse-thing that had been Cassandra LaRue began a side-shuffling, slow limp toward them. Beetles and roaches streamed from underneath rotted clothing.“That’s far enough,” said Curtis, when the creature had closed the distance between them to five feet. He produced a pistol he’d taken from the body of one of the Major’s guards.Jeannine saw the gun and knew there was only one place Curtis could have gotten it. Cops. They were cops. She killed two cops. Dirty or no, they were—stop it! Not now.The creature let out a moist sound that could have been a laugh. The remaining skin on the left side of its jaw sloughed off and the mandible dislocated.Cassandra-corpse didn’t notice.“The Major’s men are Nazis, for lack of a better label,” she rasped. “You shouldn’t feel guilty about killing Nazis, Dear-heart.” The
Bayou Whispers TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-FIVEBayou Cypress Pavilion for the Criminally InsaneNew OrleansTHE CHEVY IMPALApulled up behind the police SUV. Fernández shut off the engine, and he and the Golem listened to the tink-tinkof the settling motor. Fernández tried Curtis’s cell to no avail. “What do you think?” asked Fernández, spitting out a wad of chewing tobacco.“It’s a Dismas Sheriff’s vehicle, all right,” said the Golem. “But if the Major were here, the place would be crawling with cops.”“Fair point. Let’s go see if we can find the boss.”As they got out of the car and headed toward the old asylum, the Golem called a halt.He was looking at the SUV.“These things have GPS trackers in them, don’t they?”“Yeah,” said Fernández. “Why?”“Well, we don’t want the Major or his goon squad showing up. Eventually, I assume they’ll be looking for this piece of shit.”“True, but I have no idea how to disable the—”The Golem picked up the truck and threw it into the bayou.Fernández blinked.
Bayou Whispers TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SIXThe SultanaSHE WOKE TOfind her leg gone.This time, her captors had removed her prosthetic before chaining her to a post. She wasn’t in a cramped stateroom this time. She was below deck in a wide-open space, posts reaching from floor to ceiling, spaced every ten feet or so. The smell of the bayou was stronger here than it had been elsewhere on the cursed ship. A single oil lantern burned with a greenish-white glow, making her large prison—perhaps the old ballroom, she thought—look as though it was covered in moss and mildew. A constant dripping behind her began to take on a life of its own. Jeannine tried to ignore the rhythmic splashing, but despite her attempts, her mind counted the splashes. One. Two. Twenty. A hundred.Someone, or something, coughed—a wet sound, perfectly matching her prison’s rhythm.“This must be the Sultana,”said a deep voice from behind her.She couldn’t believe it.“Curtis?” she asked, voice cracking.“Hiya, J,” said the same vo
Bayou Whispers TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-SEVENThe BunkerTHEY WERE TEN MINUTESfrom Curtis’s place when the Golem finally spoke. “So, tell me again, how many times have you died?”Curtis sighed. “Twice. The machete was number two. The car accident the other day was the first—I think.”“I don’t believe this,” grumbled Charley, shaking his head. “You think that was the first?”“You’re one to talk,” said Curtis, frowning. “I don’t claim to understand it. All I can tell you is that when I climbed out of the car, I felt no pain. Nothing, from any of my injuries in the crash—no pain at all. Not even my knees, which I’ve been bitching about since the war.”“What’s, uh, keeping you here?” asked the Golem. “I know Roo brought me back using some of his voodoo stuff. But he’s dead. I mean dead-dead. No one brought you back.”Curtis didn’t speak for a minute or two, a faraway look to his eyes.“That’s a good question,” he said slowly. “I know ... there is a purpose to my being here. And before you ask,
Bayou Whispers TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-EIGHTThe Sultana“MY MOTHER WAS trying to kill me,” she thought. Jeannine was back on Toulouse Street in the last place she’d lived with her mother. She knew this was another of Papa Nightmare’s visions, but she could do little to stop it from playing out.The hairs on her arms stood straight up. Danger! Danger was approaching!She ducked as the massive blade swung, slicing through air where her neck had been a split second before. Jeannine screamed as she scrambled away from her attacker.“You won’t betray me! Or steal my power! I’ll kill you first!” screamed her mother.Jeannine ran.In her panic, she ran the wrong way. Instead of running out the front door, Jeannine turned to the stairs and ran to her room.Her mother followed.Jeannine locked the door. She ran to the windows—the ones her mother said never to open. She tried to move the paint-chipped wooden frames, first hammering at them with her hands, then throwing her entire body at the window. A tree outside
Bayou Whispers TWENTY-NINE
TWENTY-NINEThe SultanaHELLO, CHILD.“Where am I?” asked Jeannine.Papa Nightmare was gone, the Sultanawas gone. Jeannine stood in a place of complete darkness. It was then she noticed she was standing on two good legs.Scents of cypress and lotus filled her nostrils. The air around her felt damp. Goose flesh rose up on her skin. Life and death fought for the attention of her senses as the darkness changed, morphed. She stood at the edge of the water, barefoot and clothed in a dress made of vines and branches. She walked along the edge of the bayou. Near her feet, alligator eggs hatched, tadpoles swam, and a crane flew for the first time. She saw rotting trees and the corpse of a boar being reclaimed by the bayou.A large black snake slithered up to her, but Cassandra wasn’t afraid.We finally meet face to face, child. Centuries of planning and dining on dead things has led us to the end. The snake’s tongue flickered in time with the words that appeared in Jeannine’s head
Bayou Whispers THIRTY
THIRTYNew OrleansJEANNINE SPENT THEnext week reading Curtis’s journal while waiting on her new prosthetic. It wasn’t like the countless and soulless briefs she’d studied for school and later for practice. Curtis wrote with passion. He documented what he saw and what he had uncovered for years. The shocking discovery was that his removal from the police force and his subsequent transition to crime had been sanctioned by his handlers: the FBI. After two days of reading, she closed the journal on the last entry, a note to her, written with that same passion she’d never gotten the chance to really know. With tears in her eyes, she knew what had to be done next. Some loose ends needed to be sorted.Curtis’s land was hers now, and she would build a proper home there someday, but the bunker was comfortable enough for now. Until things were tied up, she actually felt safe there. A rare thing as of late.The first call she made was to Fernández, who was busy poring over all of Roo
Bayou Whispers PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE31 October 2005Orleans Parish, LouisianaON HALLOWEEN NIGHTthat year, no little ghosts or goblins wandered the streets in search of candy. No laughter rang out in what was left of the Lower 9th Ward neighborhood. Two months after Katrina had ravaged this place, it still resembled a war zone, covered in debris and stagnant pools of foul-smelling water from the levee breach.As midnight approached, a young teenager—naked, dirty, covered in mosquito bites, and with a nasty leg wound wrapped in crusted-over grey rags—stumbled from a copse of trees. She was thin, so very thin, weighing barely eighty pounds.The muddy and cracked streets before her sat dark and empty; human detritus littered the roads and yards, and the skeletons of ruined homes bore unintelligible spray paint that looked more like the desperate scratching of a fluorescent wild beast than symbols from a nameless insurance company or traumatized recovery workers.It was a city of the dead, a city of the
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