Chapter 3 #2
"Well, this is delightfully creepy," I said, approaching the older woman like she might explode into supernatural confetti at any moment. "Celestine? Can you hear me?”
“You're kind of freaking us out here," Kota added with a grimace.
There was no response. She just kept stuffing little pouches with grave dirt, bones, and what looked suspiciously like hair. Her movements were so perfectly repetitive they could have been programmed by someone with absolutely no sense of fun or basic human decency.
I reached out with my empathic abilities to see what was happening to her.
I immediately recoiled like I'd touched a live wire.
There was nothing there. No consciousness or sense of self.
She was just an empty shell being puppeted by someone who felt like it had crawled out of the supernatural equivalent of a toxic waste dump.
"This is the same energy signature as the cemetery symbols," Phi whispered as she documented the gris-gris bags with her phone. "Someone's controlling her."
"Not someone," I corrected as I got a better feel for things. "Something. I can’t explain it, but it doesn't feel like a person."
“That doesn’t mean it’s not,” Lia replied.
Dani moved to Celestine's other side. She was careful to avoid the ritual materials scattered across the workbench like supernatural landmines. "How do we snap her out of it?"
"Very, very carefully," I replied as I placed my hands on either side of Celestine's face.
I opened my empathic abilities just enough to make contact with whatever was left of her consciousness.
It was like trying to have a conversation in a hurricane.
Thankfully, I'd had practice with Madame LaLaurie.
"Celestine. I need you to listen to my voice. You're safe now. Come back to us."
For a moment, absolutely nothing happened.
I pushed calming energy through to her. My sisters sent waves of energy to me.
A few seconds later, Celestine’s hands stilled.
She blinked twice before focusing on my face with the kind of confusion usually reserved for people who wake up in Vegas with new tattoos.
"What... where am I?" she whispered, looking around at the dozens of gris-gris bags like they'd materialized out of thin air. "I don't remember... did I make these?"
The terror that flooded through her when she saw her own handiwork hit me like a psychic slap.
She was barraged with raw, primal fear mixed with a violation so profound it left me gasping like a fish out of water.
"Something was working through me," she said in a shaky voice as she pushed away from the workbench.
"I could feel it wearing my hands like gloves and using my knowledge.
But I couldn't stop it. I couldn't even scream. "
"When did this start?" Dre asked gently. As the oldest, she took on the mothering role as well as taking charge.
"I... yesterday? Maybe the day before? Time feels like pudding.
" Celestine wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the bags like they might spontaneously combust. "I remember opening the shop in the morning, and then.
.. nothing until just now. Like someone turned off all the lights in my head. "
I studied the gris-gris bags more closely, noting the specific combination of materials in each one.
Grave dirt, bone chips, hair, dried blood, and small metal objects that were probably iron nails.
"These aren't traditional protection charms," I noted.
Everyone who grew up in New Orleans knew about gris-gris bags.
Lia shook her head as she reached out to touch one but pulled her finger back before she made contact. "They're anchors."
Phi began grabbing ingredients out of her bag and putting something together. Knowing her, it was a protective charm for Celestine. It’s what I was going to do before she beat me to it.
"Anchors for what?" Kota queried as she took a step away from the table.
"For binding spirits to specific locations," Adèle explained. "These bags are designed to create a network of supernatural control points throughout the city."
Horror made my blood run cold. "Shit. Someone's building a citywide spirit trap. They're planning to use every ghost in New Orleans as their personal battery pack."
"We're going to look into this," Lia promised Celestine. "Whatever did this to you, we'll find a way to stop it."
“This will help protect you,” Phi said, confirming my suspicions. Celestine accepted the bag gratefully.
"And we'll figure out how to protect you from it happening again," I added with a smile.
Celestine nodded as she clutched the protection charm Phi had hastily assembled from materials in her kit. "Please be careful. Whatever that thing was, it's powerful. And it's hungry."
"We always are. Before we go, can you still help us with some herbs for Cami?" I asked gently. "She wants some for protection spells.”
“We should get extra,” Dre suggested. “Seems like we're all going to need them."
"Of course," Celestine said, moving carefully around the corrupted gris-gris bags to gather the requested supplies. "And please—call me if anything else strange happens. I have a feeling this is far from over."
“No, this asshole is just getting started,” Lia replied as we moved to the front of the store.
We left with our arms full of herbs, crystals, and the uncomfortable knowledge that whatever was happening in New Orleans was escalating faster than we could keep up with.
The poor woman promised to close her shop and avoid any magical work until we could figure out how to protect her from further possession.
I could see in her eyes that she knew as well as we did that hiding might not be enough.
"We need to try a communication ritual," I said as we walked outside.
My empathic abilities were still jangling like wind chimes in a hurricane.
"If spirits are being manipulated on this scale, some of them have to be fighting back.
Maybe we can find some supernatural allies who aren't completely terrified. "
"Back to the plantation?" Lia asked.
"Nope. After we get candles next door, Congo Square." The suggestion felt right the moment I said it. "It's probably got the strongest spiritual Wi-Fi signal in the city."
Lia nodded, and we hurried into the shop and grabbed the candles we needed.
Once done, we hurried to Lia’s car. We were loaded up, and she was pulling onto the street in under five minutes.
We were only a few blocks away. She found parking a block away.
We hurried through crowds who were making their way to the bars in the opposite direction.
Congo Square after dark was like a completely different dimension.
During the day, it was just another part of Louis Armstrong Park filled with tourists and street musicians doing their best to make rent.
But at night, the shadows pooled beneath ancient oaks and the echo of centuries of spiritual practice hummed through the air.
It felt like standing at the crossroads between life and whatever comes after.
“We should set up a ritual circle near the center of the square,” I suggested.
Lia pulled several baggies from her bag. “I’ll spread the salt and blessed herbs.” That would create a protective barrier to keep the nasty things out.
I knelt in the middle while she worked, and my other sisters took positions at the cardinal points. Each was holding a crystal that would help amplify and focus the spiritual energy. Our go-bags came to our rescue once again.
“Spirits of New Orleans,” I called out as I accessed the powers that gave me dominion over the spiritual currents flowing through the city like supernatural plumbing.
“We're asking for your guidance here. Help us understand what's threatening the balance between life and death.
Honestly, we're flying blind and it's not our best look.”
“New award,” Dre called out. We’d begun doing that on a vacation where we kept getting bad food and even worse accommodations. It was Dea’s way of keeping the mood and trip positive. “Dea gets the best spell on the fly for that one.”
For a moment, nothing happened. All I could hear were the usual nighttime sounds of the city.
Then the temperature dropped like we'd suddenly been transported to Alaska.
Then the familiar tingle that meant spirits were gathering spread down my spine.
I crossed my fingers and toes for what I hoped would be a productive supernatural conference call.
When I tried to reach out to them, my psychic touch hit something that felt like an oil slick wrapped in barbed wire.
It was slippery, ancient, and utterly malevolent.
"That is all kinds of wonderful," I gasped as I pulled back before whatever was guarding the spiritual channels could get its hooks into my consciousness.
“What happened?” Lia asked as she dropped to my side.
"The channels are blocked,” I explained. “Someone's running supernatural interference across the entire city."
"Can you break through?" Dre asked.
With Lia at my side, I tried again. This time, I pushed harder against the barrier.
It was like trying to open a jar of pickles with greased hands.
The effort left me dizzy and nauseated. My empathic abilities were overloaded by contact with something that felt like the opposite of everything good and decent in the world.
"Nope," I admitted as I swayed on my knees like a drunk person trying to pass a sobriety test. "Whatever this thing is, it has cut off every normal channel of spiritual communication.”
“It’s like some kind of supernatural dictator,” Kota said grimly. “We’re flying blind.”
I was about to agree and suggest we pack up when the pain hit me. It wasn’t physical pain. It was an empathic overload that felt like every spirit in the city was screaming at once directly into my brain.
"Oh, come on!" I doubled over and pressed my hands to my head as waves of anguish crashed through my consciousness. It gave me the world's worst migraine. And it was mixed with a horror movie soundtrack.
"Dea!" Lia’s hands were on my shoulders, but her touch only made it worse. Her power amplified the psychic storm battering my defenses.
"I can see them," I whispered. My voice was barely audible over the chaos happening in my head. "I can see the connections."
Stretching out from Congo Square like spokes of the world's biggest wheel were faint spectral threads. No, it was more like a round spider’s web.
They connected locations all across New Orleans.
The cemetery where we'd found the symbols.
St. Louis No. 1 where our corpse had taken a supernatural walk.
Celestine's shop. Plus, dozens of other points throughout the city.
They were all pulsing with the same oily malevolence I'd encountered when trying to chat with the local spirits.
"It's a web," I breathed as I poured more energy into my spirit-sight. It was what I called my ability to see ghosts that no one else could. "Every single one of these anchor points is feeding energy back to the center. To right here."
"Congo Square?" Phi asked.
"Not just Congo Square. This exact spot where we're sitting.
" I looked around at the ancient trees and at the ground where countless rituals had taken place over the centuries.
"This is where the original binding was anchored.
And this is where they're planning to break it like a supernatural pinata. "
The spectral threads pulsed brighter. Through them, I felt the thing they were feeding. It was vast and hungry. “It’s what’s been trapped for over a century," I told them. “It’s also very, very close to breaking free.”
“That’ll be an absolutely delightful reunion with the modern world,” Kota muttered dryly.
"How long do we have?" Dani asked.
I studied the pattern of energy flowing through the network and noted how the threads had grown stronger.
I imagined they’d expanded over the past few days like a supernatural cancer.
"At this rate? Maybe a week. Less if they manage to complete more anchor points.
So, you know, plenty of time to panic and plan simultaneously. "
"We need to start disrupting their network," Dre said as she extended her hand to help me up. "If we cut some connections or break some anchors, we weaken the process and set it back.”
Lia nodded in agreement. “We do whatever it takes to ruin their supernatural party."
"It won't be that simple," I warned as I allowed Dre to help me stand.
The vision of the spectral web still burned behind my eyes like the afterimage of staring at the sun.
"This thing has been preparing for over a century.
It probably knows we're coming and has already picked out our welcome gifts.
" As if summoned by my words, a chill wind swept through Congo Square.
It carried with it the faint sound of chilling laughter.
Kota’s hand moved to the protective charm at her throat. "We've stopped worse things than some century-old entity with an attitude problem and delusions of grandeur."
"Have we though?" I asked quietly. "Because this feels different. Bigger. We're not just fighting another supernatural bad guy. This thing could rewrite the rules of life and death.”
“That sounds like it’ll be terrible for tourism," Lia quipped. “Baron Samedi was no walk in the park. Don’t let it frighten you into immobility. You’re our secret weapon.”
The laughter came again. It was closer this time.
Our enemy was listening to every word. It was waiting for the perfect moment to complete its century-long plan for revenge against the families that had bound it.
And we were going to be standing right in its path when it finally broke free.
No doubt we won’t have nearly enough coffee or protective charms.
"We can’t talk here," I said as I tried to find my usual sunny disposition. "We need to get back to the plantation."