A Favor for Mama Wyrmwood
“It’s not a skunk ape,” I tell the batty old bat.
“Oh, come one, ya parade-rainin’, naysayin’, skull-faced cuss! Don’t ya wanna hear the story, at least?”
“Can you call back and tell it to my answering machine?” I plead.
“Marion! Where are you manners. I have half a mind to raise up your gran and tell her what a — “
“Jesus coke-snorting Christ!” I surrender. “Tell me all about it, just let me get a beer.”
“That’s more like it,” she gloats. I can hear the mambo’s shit-eating grin. It sounds like cheap perfume and clove cigarettes. “Get in the spirit, Marion!”
“Beer is in the spirit?”
“It’s in the ballpark.” She clears her ancient throat with a fit of coughing, takes a dramatic breath, and… “So, my niece got married a few months back — that’s my sister Mildred’s youngest daughter, Penny — and she moved into her new husband’s place just east of Slidell. It’s a lovely little rambler on 2.5 acres out by the bayou. Plenty of space to raise a whole herd of free range childrens. For now, it’s (or I should say ‘was’) just them and their pitbull-doberman mix, Mr. Bitey.
“I don’t remember the dog’s name, but he was a mean sonofabitch.
“Anyway, they move into this house and everything’s going fine. Full-on honeymoon period. Livin’ the dream. Then, one night, Penny spots some creepy peeper watching her from the treeline. Just standing in the darkness beyond their floodlights, staring daggers at her while she dries the dishes.
“Understandably, she’s freaked the hell out. Calls Carsen in from the garage — that’s her husband’s name — and gets the gun from the hallway closet. By this time, the dog’s gone nuts, barking through the back door like the Devil himself’s on the other side.
“So, Carsen takes one look out the kitchen window and he sees the peeper, too, but he’s plain pissed! He fetches their shotgun, puts the dog on a chain, and goes out there to give this pervert a piece of his mind.
“Except there’s nobody there. Not anymore. Penny says he just melted into the shadows, like he was made of fog. Carsen spends a few minutes shouting threats at the darkness before coming back inside. They bolt all the doors and close all the blinds, but poor Penny doesn’t sleep a wink.
“Next morning, they debate calling the cops and filing a report, but decide against it. Probably just make matters worse. No offense.”
“None taken,” I assure her. “No love lost between me and NOPD.”
“Besides, Carsen’s lived out there for years. He knows how to defend his property. They decide to do some detective work of their own. They don’t find any lean-tos or cigarette butts or empty cans of Jack… but they do find a miasma of powerful stank, like a skunk died of fart cancer. That and a whole buncha footprints. Barefoot and big as shit.”
That’s my first clue. “Without shoes, he’s not getting far, out in the sticks. Must’ve left on the road. Did the neighbors see or hear anything?”
“Not until the next night, but by then it was too late. Sometime around 3am, Penny wakes up to the sound of someone walking on their roof. Heavy steps, she said, like a grown man in a mood. Stomp, stomp, stomp, back and forth and back and forth.
“Naturally, she wakes Carsen and sends him out to investigate. Now, Penny says he didn’t see anyone up there, but he did fire a warning shot. That’s what the neighbors heard. That and Carsen cursing at the top of his lungs. The footsteps continued this whole time, until they just stopped. Drifted away on the wind. No sign of the trespasser.
“That’s when they realized the dog was gone. They spent the following day searching for him, driving around the neighborhood and tromping through the bayou, even roped in the neighbors, but all they found were more enormous, shoeless footprints and enough body odor to Edison an elephant.
“The next night — and every night thereafter until the newlyweds packed up their belongings and fled to a motel downtown — the darkest hours were filled with Mr. Bitey’s pitiful yelps, doggy pain and terror just rolling out the bayou like an ill wind. Night after night, and not a trace left by morning.
“I have no idea if the disturbances ended when Penny left or if they’re still going on. They haven’t been home since. They don’t know what to do, so they called Old Aunt Mama and now she’s calling you.”
“And you want me to hunt a skunk ape,” I groan.
“For old time’s sake… and I’ll owe you one.”
Now, Mama Wyrmwood’s got her mojo workin’. Her hoodoo’s as good as the Loa’s, with half the frustrating duplicity, so having one of her free curse coupons in my pocket would be worth a hike through the swamp, but still…
“You know every skunk ape sighting is just some suburban yank stumbling across a homeless person in the woods, right? I mean, they’re humanoid and they smell bad; I cross paths with that guy five times a day. The people making these reports should consider how lemon-scented they’d be after dumpster diving for their dinner.”
She gives me one of those deep-throated rumbles that old smokers use to communicate everything from scorn to commiseration. You can guess which one this was. “So maybe my niece’s dog is getting tortured by a homeless stalker. Is that worth your goddamned time?”
“Hey, Mama. You had me at ‘owe you one.’”
I first met Mama Wyrmwood when she put a curse on me.
It was a few months back, shortly after I moved into Laffite’s million dollar renovation in Treme (long story, don’t ask). I kept getting lost on my way there, even took the wrong bus one time, and it’s not like I don’t know those streets. I know ’em like a stoolie knows the back of my hand.
Anyway, there was something else suspicious about it. I always ended up wandering eastward, down by the railyard. And I started dreaming about a street in Bywater where I pulled a bunch of kids off a roof during Katrina. I was being drawn in a direction. Somebody wanted to see me and they wanted it on their terms.
Now, that’s definitely a thing hoodoo can do, but you’d wanna put the gris-gris bag someplace the target’s gonna come into contact with it, usually under their front door. Thing is, I’ve got a cult to run (same long story, don’t ask) and there are people coming and going from my place all the damn time. Terrible for targeting a hex like that.
So, I started searching my old haunts. I tossed my attic apartment in the French Quarter, which was no mean feat. New Bridgit was already using it to store Old Bridgit’s Mardis Gras costumes. It’s quite a collection, and I made quite a mess, but found nothing.
I tried Old Bridgit’s unmarked mausoleum in Cemetery #3. I think I’m the only one who visits. Unfortunately, there was no sign of disturbed earth and nothing hinky tucked into the masonry. Clean as a whistle. As clean as a whistle with a corpse in it can be.
I finally found the offender buried under the threshold of my grandma’s swamp shack, which was weird, cuz very few people even know about that place. People who knew my gran, mostly. Not a great crowd.
I cut the mojo bag open to discharge the curse, but also to inspect its contents. Real hoodoo’s an improvisational thing; no two people do it quite the same way. This gris-gris was dialed in like nothing I’d ever seen. There were items in it that were personal to me, like a photo of that house were I rescued the kids and a piece of my grandma’s jewelry.
There was only one person who knew my gran that well and presently maintained an address near Bywater.
So, I decided to pay Mama Wyrmwood a visit. On my terms, not hers. I waited for her outside a tobacco shop that still (illegally) sells clove cigarettes. While she was inside, chewing the cashier’s ear, I slipped into the back seat of her cream-colored Cadillac. Appearing right behind people like a serial killer is a thing I do professionally, now.
Anyway, she batted not an eyelash. “I see my gris-gris did it’s work,” was all she said after we made eye contact in the rear view mirror.
“No it didn’t!” I blurted out like an indignant five-year-old. “I know when someone’s put a fix on me, lady. I found your little mojo bag and scattered it on a crossroads. Then, I tracked you down, cuz I’m badass like that.”
“Hey,” she shrugged, lighting a cigarette, “whatever works.”
I ground my teeth; she was already reminding me of gran. “I don’t wanna get into an existential argument about it — “
“Then don’t.”
“But I’m here now — and might not be for much longer, if this is gonna be your attitude — so why don’t you get busy telling me why you went to all the trouble?”
“Well, Marion, you sure do got a lotta eyes on you, these days. And I’ve got a quiet, comfortable life. Figured this way, bumping into you would look like a coincidence.”
“Yeah, fine, sure,” I growled from the back seat. A spring in the upholstery was digging into my root chakra. “But what do you want?”
“A while back, I helped a friend of yours locate a certain antique, a broken record that contains the name of a long-forgotten god…”
“And now you want it back.”
“And now I want it back,” she agreed with smug to spare.
“Well, you can’t have it,” I tell her, easing my magic shotgun out from under my jacket, just in case. “I have plans for that antique, plans that involve a wood chipper and a hole in the ground. And maybe some kerosene. I’m still in the planning stages.”
“You think that’ll do it?”
“I think it’s worth a shot. What are you planning to do with it? ‘Cuz trust me, lady, using it ain’t a good idea,” I said, pointing to the scars on my lips.
“I can’t tell you what I’m’a do with it, Marion. Real witches know how to keep their secrets,” she told me pointedly. I had no idea what that was about, but I made a mental note to be offended later.
“Alright, bye!” I chirped with a pat on her shoulder before opening the car door and swinging my legs out. She let me get as far as the curb before poking her tiny, wizened face out the window.
“I’m gonna give it to the one person in this world who can keep it safe until Michael blows his trumpet or the sun burns this planet to a cinder, whichever comes first.”
Speaking of the Rapture, Penny’s place is downright deserted. Even the neighbors are gone. This is one lonely street. I mean, the bayou is never far away in New Orleans, but out here it leans in on you like an unwanted lover, all booze breath and bad come-ons.
The houses are squat, single-story affairs with big garages and worn siding. Lawns are spacious, but unkempt, littered with cars, fishing boats, soccer balls, kiddie pools, lawn chairs, leaky garden hoses, and even a few pink flamingos. The one thing I don’t see are people. Not a one.
So that’s cool.
Penny’s place is the very last lot; the road basically turns into her driveway. It’s nice enough: pastel green with white trim, dog house on the front lawn, mailbox that’s shaped like a barn. Quaint. Nothing seems terribly out of place. I even climb onto the roof, but there’s no sign of a trespasser.
Alright, I’ve put it off long enough. Time to check out the woods. The footprints aren’t hard to find and, like Penny said, they’re big as shit. At least, they seem that way when I first discover them, but then I lay my own foot alongside for comparison and they’re not that much bigger. I’m a size eleven, but still. They just seem larger than life.
And they’re definitely barefoot, big toe sticking out like a sore thumb, followed by the rest of the piggies. I sure as hell wouldn’t walk around out here with bare feet. Whoever this is, he’s either tough as nails or crazy as shit.
Which brings me to the other thing: It smells like the Devil’s sweaty asscrack out here.
There’s a fine line between a walk in the woods and a march through enemy territory. Which side you’re on depends on what you bring with you. For example, I know damn well I’m on public land, but I can’t help feeling like I’ve become the trespasser. It feels like breaking into someone’s house when you’re not sure they’re away. Like being watched. Or hunted.
I become acutely aware of my own breathing, how my leather jacket creaks, each accelerating beat of my heart. Instinctively, I slow my pace and soften my footfalls. I check my shotgun to make sure there’s a slug in there alongside the Unlucky Shot.
There’s just something about these woods and it’s more than the smell. It’s the way light scatters through the trees, obscuring more than it illuminates. My eyes start to sting. The undergrowth writhes in my peripheral vision, rustles like an army of rodents on the march.
I try to shake it off. I stop between two cypress trees and put my palms against their trunks, let my shotgun dangle from its shoulder strap. I tilt my head back and stare into the canopy. A puffy, white cloud drifts through a blue sky far above, visible in the patchwork gaps between leaves.
It’s a beautiful day, by any measure, so why isn’t this a walk in the park? How’d I let Mama Wyrmwood’s little horror story get under my skin like this?! I’m Marion the Barbarian, damnit! Occult sheriff of New Orleans! The bogeymen are afraid of me!
Just when I’m about to get my head screwed on straight, I hear it. A hollow knocking sound reverberates across the swamp. Then another and another. I can’t quite pinpoint them, but they’re definitely getting closer. knock, Knock, KNOCK!
I turn and run. It’s not a thing I choose to do, it’s just something that happens. I run and the knock knock knocking follows. Bare branches reach down and claw my face, snatch my hat. I’ll come back for it later with animal control and the Marines. All the Marines.
My legs are pounding the ground like John Henry’s hammer, almost too fast. I’m falling forward more than running, crashing through the bayou without any idea where I’m going. I probably should’ve hit the treeline by now.
And then my foot catches in a snare of soft earth. Cold mud grabs hold of my ankle and squeezes. I stop in my tracks and swivel my shotgun around, ready to blast anything that moves.
A shrill keening shatters the air. I whirl back around in time to see a humanoid locomotive erupt from the undergrowth. It’s dark like tilled soil, with a pair of bloodshot eyes and a row of gleaming teeth. Its shadow arms stretch wide, separating me from the world, swallowing me like some leviathan from the primordial waters.
I never had a chance.
“I think I have a pretty good chance,” Mama Wyrmwood assured me as she cracked her ancient knuckles.
I’d brought her down to Laffite’s torture basement to show her the problem. The old pirate had kept the broken record in a wrought iron safe and he’d taken the combination with him to the grave. Back to the grave, that is.
Mama’d taken a long look around the basement — at all the necromantic symbols scrawled on the walls, floor, and ceiling; at the charred chair bolted to the foundation; at the manacles dangling from the rafters — and asked me why we couldn’t just raise him from the dead and torture it out of him.
“First of all, torture is wrong, so no. Second, I didn’t save his ashes. If I’d wanted to continue putting up with his bullshit, I wouldn’t have punched him to death.”
Her second plan was to crack the safe herself, said she had quite the Good Luck gris-gris tucked into her garter. Aside from being too much information, it was worth a try. She might even save me the trouble of having it hauled out of here and dumped in the Gulf.
Plus, I was working an angle.
“So, who’s this guy and why’s he so keen on antiques?” I asked after she’d tried a few times in peace and quiet. She looked at me ruefully, but it takes more than that to silence Marion the Barbarian. “Even if you get it outta there, I haven’t exactly agreed to anything. At least lie to me a little. Tell me he’s an Arthurian knight who’s gonna take it back to his immortality cave and put it on a shelf next to the Holy Grail and Jesus’ foreskin.”
“Those secrets aren’t mind to reveal, Marion. You could stand to be more mindful of that, yourself.”
I remembered to be offended. “Oh, yeah! What’s that all about? You seem to have the idea I’ve been letting cats out of bags. Need I remind you that I’m in law enforcement? Job ain’t about letting things stay buried.”
“You’re also a conjure woman, Marion. That comes with responsibilities. You get to see behind the curtain, glimpse the universe in its nakedness, understand how it really works. That’s dangerous knowledge. Some cats get bagged for good reason and they should damn well stay there.”
“This ain’t even about the broken record, is it?” I realized. “It’s about Henre’s lake monster! I forced him to go public. What the hell do you care about the fish cult’s secrets? You own stock or something?” (Yeah, yeah. Long story.)
She went back to her safecracking and tried to ignore me. I swung my shotgun up, broke it open, and pulled a round of Unlucky Shot from my pocket. “I’m sure you know what this is,” I showed her the black shell packed with goofer dust. “If you don’t gimme the assurances I need, one blast of this is gonna make cracking that safe impossible, I don’t care how good your gris-gris is.”
Her hand dropped from the tumbler and her posture slumped. “Fine, Marion. I’ll tell you, but only ‘cuz I know your gran didn’t give you a proper education. She didn’t think you had the head for this kinda work.” She glanced down at my curse gun. “If only she could see you now.”
That sounded like a compliment, but I was still offended from before. I loaded the Unlucky Shot, but kept the barrel pointed at the floor.
“His name is L’inglesou. He’s a Loa from Haiti, unpleasant even by local standards. When he shows up on the mainland, it means some mambo or houngan’s put dangerous knowledge in the wrong hands. Circumstances don’t matter; L’inglesou punishes without pity. He’s a torturer and a cannibal, a dweller in dark places, more a force of nature than a man. He is the devil even witches fear.
“Learn to keep secrets, Marion, and pray that you never, ever meet him.”
My head throbs like an Ash Wednesday hangover.
As the fog clears, I realize I can’t feel my left leg. The panic comes back like a storm surge and I flail, checking myself for wounds or amputations. Fortunately, I’m intact, just hanging upside-down by my ankle, dangling above a pile of bones. Most are obviously small animals. Others are… questionable. All are ghoulishly gnawed.
A grotesque slurping crawls up my spine from somewhere behind me. Clumsily, I rotate myself around to face my captor. He’s big, for being all skin and bones. Broad shoulders and muscles like tree roots. His hair is dark, tangled, and absolutely everywhere. It merges with his mud-caked clothing, concealing everything but those bloodshot eyes and lips like raw meat.
Which is what he’s eating. He stares at me sidelong as he masticates a bloody mass of something, possibly a leg. I think it might be Penny’s dog. He takes another bite out of Mr. Bitey and I take a look around. He’s got my hat, which is good, but he also has my boots and my shotgun, which is bad.
“You’re Marion Barbarouss,” he tells me. “People around here think you’re the Devil, but we both know that ain’t true. What you really are… remains to be seen.”
He tosses his leftovers on the horror pile and picks up my boots. I notice the laces are tied together before he throws them so high into the trees they ain’t never coming down.
“I’ll be watching,” he warns before slipping into the forest like he’s stepping behind a curtain.
That’s how he leaves me: shoeless and swinging in the wind, but at least I was right.
Just another homeless guy in the woods.
