Black Magic and Blue Notes (closed)

[DrStein]

Florida, 1947

The smooth, dulcet tones of the saxophone floated through the air amid a languid chord progression from a piano. Another steamy June night. It had rained earlier, smothering the whole town in a thick blanket of fog. Neon cut through the dark, forming bright halos in the mist. Sitting at the bar was a haunted and tired figure. Miles Delgado had seen more than his share of action in the war. A whole lot of it he never told anyone about. Not because he lacked the words, necessarily. But because no one would ever believe him, nor would the government ever confirm his story.

Not being able to talk about something has a strange effect on a man. The more you keep it inside, the more you tend to see it again. Not just a memory, but an actual flashback of some shadowy thing tearing your buddy apart or of a Nazi soldier sacrificing a child in some profane ritual or... Miles took another puff on the marijuana cigarette in his hand. Some days it was the only thing that helped tune out those memories.

He finished his scotch and paid his tab. The barkeep was a tall black man, blind in one eye. He was the quiet type, but that also meant he never asked questions. This club wasn't doing booming business, but it had a way of attracting people who didn't really fit in. Since he'd put out a shingle as a private detective last year, Miles had become a regular. Twice he even found work among the patrons. This week had been slow though. Maybe in all this heat no one saw the need to step outside.

Miles finished his cigarette as he left and threw the tip into the gutter as he walked away. He had been sleeping in his office since he left his apartment two weeks ago. Nothing all that eventful. Just a talk with the landlord that made it clear he wasn't a welcome tenant anymore. To be fair to the landlord, Miles knew he had a tendency to attract... suspicious company.

Miles caught a look at himself in a dark window. He was still young and good-looking, but the last rough couple of weeks were showing. His inky black hair was disheveled and there were dark circles under his eyes. His normal confident intensity was subdued by exhaustion. And the bayonet scar on his cheek looked unusually pronounced and pale tonight. God, he needed a decent night's sleep tonight.

Miles rounded the corner and to his surprise saw someone peering into the front window of his office.

 

[GypsyGirl84]

Even in a full habit, Sister Mary Margaret née Amy Lou Christie was a beautiful imposing woman. Piercing ice blue eyes and a face with fair skin and regular features looked out on the world from a perimeter of black. The face said the tall woman, just two inches shy of six foot, was in her twenties. The eyes said the soul had been around longer than that. The habit spoke more. Even in the humid Florida summer, her uniform (and the way she carried herself said uniform, not calling) looked as if it wouldn't dare have a wrinkle in it.

Standing next to the nun was a smaller woman wearing the clothing of a novice of the same order as Sister Mary Margaret. Her face spoke of Native ancestry, but there was a roundness to her features that said she wasn't Seminole. She would occasionally look up, her eyes casting about furtively, before hanging her head down.

Mary Margaret's face turned at Miles approach, her eyes instantly reading his face, weighing his character and separating the chaff from the wheat. "Mr. Delgado?" Mary Margaret's voice was a dulcet soprano, clear, beautiful and with an undertone that said it would tolerate no foolishness. "Sister Mary Margaret. An associate of mine told me you were a man who could handle an unusual problem. We..." Mary Margaret nodded to her novice, who was now huddling next to her "...have an unusual problem."

 

[DrStein]

Whatever he had been expecting this wasn't it. Miles stared at the two of them as the elder explained their presence with one of the most intense, "I'm judging you," looks he had ever seen in his life. It brought back unpleasant memories of his father insisting he go to a Catholic school, but there was enough weed and alcohol in him that made thinking about it further than that a waste of time. Instead he stared at the two of them for a second before finally answering.

"Ordinarily, I would tell you both that my normal business hours are 10-6, Monday through Friday and by appointment on Sunday. It is now close to midnight on a Saturday...

"On the other hand, now I'm just curious."

He opened the front door and let the two women in. In the hallway he unlocked his office door and began turning the lights on as he went. He drew the blinds over the windows and shut the door behind them. He gestured for the two nuns to be seated in front of him. "So. Let's define 'unusual problem.'"

 

[GypsyGirl84]

The smaller, younger nun practically cowered in her seat, moving her chair as close to the older nun's as possible. The younger nun seemed pretty enough, when one could get a direct look at her face. In the light of the office, two long braids of dark, straight hair became visible, emerging from her head scarf, hanging down almost to her waist.

The older nun put a comforting arm around the younger one before turning to Miles. "Sister Mary Teresa is a novice in our order. She originally came from our sister convent in Boerne, Texas. You may not be aware of this, Mr. Delgado, but Boerne, Texas enjoys a thriving community of displaced Sioux. Sister Mary Teresa is the daughter of one of the ranchers in this community."

"Two years ago, Mary Teresa's father discovered one of his calves killed and half eaten." At the description Mary Margaret gave, Mary Teresa shivered and pressed her face into Mary Margaret's side. "The first suspicion was coyotes or wild dogs. A local sportsman with wide ranging hunting experience identified claw and bite marks on the carcass as belonging to a mountain lion, or other big cat. This was initially dismissed, as the mountain lion had been hunted out of existence in the area for a few decades."

Mary Margaret paused for a moment from her near clinical description of the events, collecting her thoughts.

"Traps were set, men were posted at strategic posts at night, but to no avail. More cattle were found killed, all apparently by the same animal. The fact that it was a large cat was confirmed. Suspicions were that it had escaped from a circus that had passed through the area, or a transport taking it to the zoo that had opened in Dallas, but this was never confirmed."

"Finally, the sportsman I spoke of earlier organized a hunt. After a month's time, the great cat was found and killed. The sportsman reportedly called it the most challenging and frustrating hunt of his life. The cat looked remarkably like a mountain lion...Puma concolor is the Latin designation I believe. Remarkably like, but not quite. There were odd differences. Minor ones, but still odd. The local community planned to ship the animal to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC for further study, but the animal proved resistant to modern taxidermy, decomposing rapidly."

"That should have been the end of the story of the intrusion of the remarkable feline, except that a few days later, Mary Teresa began having dreams. Odd dreams. Dreams where she found herself walking along trails on both hands and feet, as if she were some type of beast. Other dreams she remembers as having conversations or taking part in common activities, but in a body like and yet unlike her own. Vague, disorienting dreams. On some nights, strange sounds, like a large cat crying out, could be heard coming from her bedroom. Her mother, a saintly woman, began sitting up at nights with her daughter. According to her mother, her daughter slept peacefully through the night, but the rest of the house still heard the cries of the large cat."

"At the mother's request, Mary Teresa was cloistered in our abbey in Boerne. The dreams and sounds did not end, though, but simply moved themselves with Mary Teresa. The abbess there was torn between her duty to a poor soul in trouble, and the spiritual well being of her charges. Fortunately, she had extended conversation with my own Mother Superior on the modern telephone lines available to both women. Mother Superior was aware of my own penchant for unusual happenings, due to the fact that I cataloged certain items while stationed in London." There was a pause as those ice blue eyes of Mary Margaret became lost in a past they would have just as soon have not revisited. "I shared a cell with Mary Teresa at night, and used some unorthodox methods to ease her mind. For a short time this worked. Then one night, a week ago, Sister Mary Teresa awoke, snarling and growling for all practical purposes like some wild beast. She even managed to scratch me deeply as I attempted to calm and restrain her. I was able to get her to go back to sleep, and nothing more happened. For the last week, everything has been calm. As is our custom, all the sister retired a few hours ago for the night. And then Sister Mary Teresa awoke up from another strange, vague dream."

Sister Mary Margaret took a deep breath before she added, "And so did I."

 

[DrStein]

Miles sat there in silence taking in the whole story. When the sister finished, he sat there for a moment. Finally he reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of scotch and a shot glass. He knew he was bound for an early grave one way or another. This just made it easier to take.

He poured a shot and drank it down. His brow furrowed as he felt it burn all the way down, mixing with the drinks from earlier in the evening. He was weighing his options. He knew exactly what this sounded like. On the one hand they were both scared, Margaret doing a better job than expected of hiding it. On the other, he knew exactly what this sounded like.

"I don't come cheap," he said at last. He contemplated inflating his figures to scare them off, but they'd never buy that. Living like he was he just couldn't say it with a straight face. He charged high for a private dick owing to the fact that his clients had nowhere else to go, but for every one who did come to his door he wondered how many never did. "Seven dollars a day." Would they take it? Did nuns even have that kind of money?

 

[GypsyGirl84]

Sister Mary Margaret drew out an envelope from somewhere on her person. "Sister Mary Teresa's father has established a line of credit with a local bank to cover your fee and expenses," she said, handing him an envelope with an an official looking letter inside it. "Her father has done very well in the ranching business."

 

[DrStein]

Miles read the letter and dropped it on his desk with a sigh. Yeah, they could pay alright. And with that went his last excuse. He drank another scotch.

He wiped a hand down his face and slumped back in his chair. "Okay... Have you spoken to anyone else about this?" Might as well start gathering information. This case was either going to cash in well or he was going to end up in the morgue. Details now would help keep things from going in the latter direction.

 

[GypsyGirl84]

"I've made a few inquiries with individuals I served with, Mr. Delgado," Sister Mary Margaret replied. "Other than receiving your name, I gained precious little information. Sister Mary Teresa's father has contact with a gentleman of...different spiritual heritage than our own. He calls himself a..." Mary Margaret paused, trying to remember the approximate pronunciation..."pejula wacasa. As I understand it, the gentleman migrates from time to time between his home in South Dakota and the community in which Sister Mary Teresa grew up in. The gentleman in question assured me that there is nothing like this particular phenomena in the lore of Sister Mary Teresa's people. I have a friend that I served with in England, a rabbi, who is also a Mekubal, who I hoped to talk to, in order to see if he might have a perspective on this situation that I have not considered, but I have had no luck in reaching him. That, Mr. Delgado, has been the extent of my inquiries."

 

[DrStein]

Miles took in everything the sister had to say. Each word increased a feeling of dread in him. While the possibilities were indeed being narrowed down, the ones left were precisely the ones he had hoped to take off the table first. When the sister finished he put his head in his hand and stared at the desk a long while.

When he finally broke the silence it was with a single word. "Shit." He looked up at the two women. "No apologies for the language. Where we're going to be going, you'll be hearing worse." Miles stood up and grabbed his jacket. "Hope you weren't planning on turning in early. We've got to go find some answers."

 

[GypsyGirl84]

Sister Mary Teresa looked with wide, questioning eyes at Sister Mary Margaret. The latter just gave her a curt nod.

"Let us go with stout hearts into the lion's den," the older nun told her charge, as she took Sister Mary Teresa's hand in hers and followed the detective out of the room.

 

[DrStein]

Miles actually scoffed at that. "Actually, Sister, the young lady is right. You want to be afraid. That'll keep you alive." He let the three of them out and locked up behind him. "We're taking a little walk to someone I know we can trust. If it weren't for the case, you two probably wouldn't have much to talk about."

Miles had walked these streets often enough that he could do it in his sleep. Which was probably the closest thing he was going to get to sleep in the next few hours. "If you have any questions, now is a good time."

 

[GypsyGirl84]

"From the people I know who gave me your name, Mr. Delgado," Sister Mary Margaret replied, "I know you...saw things during the war. And I know those people because I saw a few things myself while wearing a uniform, stationed in England. And I do not disregard my fear. But neither do I allow it to master me," she stated simply. "So I walk into that lion's den fully aware of what may await me. And we have no questions," she added, giving her novice's hand a comforting squeeze. "None that we have not already expressed."

 

[DrStein]

Miles stopped and looked at Sister Mary. He couldn't decide whether to applaud her or slap her for thinking that she had this under control. He sure as hell didn't, and this is what he did for a living. Composure was great, but the speeches were a whole lot of bravado that may or may not go straight out the window before this was over. He settled on an answer. "I hope that courage comes from something other than God. Because if we end up in a worst case scenario, we're going places where he ain't gonna follow you."

With that, Miles turned on his heel and continued his trek through the fog. "Another two blocks and we'll be at Anette's place."

 

[GypsyGirl84]

"Lay on, Mr. Delgado," Sister Mary Margaret replied. "I will not cry enough while there are answers to be had."

 

[DrStein]

Miles continued the trek until they came to a quaint little brick building. A sign in the window proclaimed it to be the place of business for one Lady Carrefour, "Fortune Teller and Mystic." Miles looked around to see that no one was following them and knocked on the door twice before rapping on the front window twice.

He stood in front of the door and waited. For a moment nothing happened. A light upstairs turned on, and the silhouette of another person wandered into view of the window, looking down over the street. Miles looked up at the window and tipped his hat. The figure vanished from the window.

A minute later, a tall, statuesque woman of mixed heritage with dark skin and long, curly hair answered the door. She was dressed only in a robe and obviously not wearing anything underneath. "Miles, sweetheart," she said with a distinct New Orleans accent. "I don't hear from you for months and now you come callin' in the middle of the night?" There was a playful tone in her words and a smile on her full lips. She glanced over Miles' shoulder and saw the two sisters standing behind. "And you brought friends. You have an odd way of making a girl feel appreciated."

Miles smiled in spite of himself. "It's not like we're the sort of people prone to regular hours, Annie. Can we come in?"

Annie smiled and walked back inside with a sensual swing of her hips, gesturing for the three people to follow her. The den of the building had been converted into her storefront. All sorts of odd trinkets and eclectic religious iconography covered the walls and shelves. At the center of the room was a table with several chairs and a candelabra in the center.

Annie drew the curtains over the front window and looked to her guests. "Now, I trust you ladies didn't come with Miles just to try and persuade little old me to join a convent. I don't get many like you coming down this way."

Miles took off his hat and sat down in a nearby armchair. "Annie, this is Sister Mary Margaret and Sister Mary Teresa. Ladies, this is Annette, better known around here as Lady Carrefour. Would you like to explain to her or should I?"

 

[GypsyGirl84]

Once again, Sister Mary Margaret relayed all the pertinent details of her story, including whose assistance she had sought, and once again, Sister Mary Teresa sought comfort under Sister Mary Margaret's arm during the telling of the tale.

"So where do we go from here, Miss Carrefour," Sister Mary Margaret asked.