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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 29: Brown 291
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Takano 93
A hard rapping at the front door of his house brought Derek out of his contemplation of a new song. Vashti was in the back yard digging up the earth with a stick for a very small flower bed. Derek had mentioned the idea in passing, and she had found it charming. Grumbling to himself, he got up, and walked to the door even as it was rattled again.
Opening it, he looked into the face of a ridiculous creature: a dirty white curled wig and a high black hat of a very old sort, with enough layers of clothing to cover five women, and the whole person bedecked with dangling bones on strings. She held a staff in her right hand.
“Come quicker next time, or Mama Sho curse you.” He looked down at her, and she was truly short, and he felt the hairs on his arm and neck rise. “Yes, you sense it. Mama Sho has mojo, spirit power. This is New Orleans. It is not like the rest of America. Strange things sleep lightly here, and Mama Sho knows how to wake them or keep them sleeping.”
She held out a small packet of something wrapped in old fabric and tied with a string that looked rather like the intestine he had removed from a rabbit the other day. As she handed it to him, he took it by polite habit, and she held out her other hand. The thing in his hand felt greasy in a way that had nothing to do with honestly cooked meat, and he tried to pray but could not focus.
“Pays me. Two dollars for protection from the dark things that come on Halloween.” He shook his head, unable to say anything, and then flung the packet back at her. Suddenly he felt as if he could breathe again, and he spoke.
“Get off my property, and take your dark magic with you.”
“Now listen here, boy, no one tells Mama Sho where to go.” Her eyes were vicious. She began fishing in a purse that he had not noticed in her profusion of clothes, and Derek reached for his mind powers.
Get out! he mentally shouted in her mind, after which he reached out seeking the minds of animals he knew from when he was a sprite. He found a robin flying over head, a rattler crawling in the grass, a squirrel in a tree, and a wasp building a nest in his roof overhang. He reached out to them and asked for help against this woman.
The robin responded I’ll peck her eyes out, evil witch.
The rattlesnake similarly answered, She has enslaved many of my kind. She will writhe in agony. It will be pleasant to watch.
The hyperactive squirrel immediately and enthusiastically (which is how it did anything) began pelting the woman with acorns, thinking Take that baddy. Yeah, take that, and that.
The wasp mobilized its kin with a mental shout of Defend the Nest! Death or glory!
Mama Sho staggered back, her eyes wide in fear. An acorn hit her on the cheekbone, and a wasp buzzed straight for her nose. It landed, and she turned and ran, the rattler just missing his strike at her ankle as she fled, the robin diving at her. She screamed in pain, and exited the property being chased down the road by the wasps and the robin. Other birds joined in the fun as well, drawn by the robin’s cries.
Derek turned to the snake and whispered his thanks. Then he turned and waved at the squirrel who waved back before turning about and leaping away on its quest for more acorns. Vashti wandered up to the front, and asked whose voice she had heard. Derek explained, and Vashti pointed to the ground.
The small bag was still there on the ground. Looking at it, he felt distinctly uneasy. He could trash it, but that seemed inadequate. Tossing it off his land was putting it out where someone else might get it, and he was pretty sure it was a holder of dark magic even if Mama Sho had proclaimed it a protection against monsters on Halloween. He could burn it in the wood stove, but when he mentioned the idea, Vashti said she did not want it brought into the house. Derek nodded. He, after thinking about it for a second, agreed. So in the end he sent Vashti to get his laser rifle.
Lining up the rifle on the small bag felt like ridiculous overkill. Still, he did it, and shot. When the searing laser blast resulted in a small black spot on the outside cloth, his action felt less like overkill. When the second shot did just a bit more damage, he began to get determined, and prayed as he took the third shot. This time, the small bag was utterly destroyed, and a sense of creeping horror left him. The air felt cleaner, and the world less greasy and corroded.
Looking up, he saw Maurice standing in the road as if coming to the house, with his mouth hanging open, and his trombone case dangling weakly from his fingers. Derek said to Vashti, “It looks like we have some explaining to do.”
“The truth?” she said.
“Joe always says to tell as much of the truth as the audience can accept, but yeah, the truth. Come on up here, Maurice. We just had a visit from someone named Mama Sho, and had to deal with her and her bag of magic, so we used some special talents of our own.”
Maurice came up to the porch, but seemed reluctant to enter the house. Derek indicated one of the seats on the porch, and he hesitantly took it.
“I guess here is the place to begin. It seems that in the war in heaven there is a Battle of New Orleans. The devil is trying to claim the city for himself, and God sends special people to protect it. I don’t know much about Pierre Hunter, but I know that he was sent here by God to fight against the devil and his forces of darkness. When Vashti and I arrived, he was expecting us; we were his relief, so he could leave. But like Mister Hunter, we’re not ordinary people. We call ourselves versers, because we travel from universe to universe as we’re needed–sort of like angels, but we were born mortal and God made us immortal, gave us some powers most people would think magical or impossible, and let us collect some useful things in our travels.
“This,” he said, holding the weapon sideways and extending it toward Maurice in a gesture that implied he should take it, “is a laser blaster, from a world hundreds of years in your future. It fires a specially focused kind of light that burns through targets. Here, it won’t bite you.”
Maurice tentatively took the rifle and looked it up and down. “Good gracious me,” he said. “You really been to otha worlds?”
Derek just nodded, and then after a moment said, “And now we’re here to protect New Orleans and fight against the devil and his minions.”
A moment later Maurice cleared his throat. “Sign me up. This town has been getting a meaner edge, and the politicians are all thieves and cheats, and always stirring up trouble among the people. Settin’ people at each otha.” Derek reached out a hand, and Maurice took it.
Then Maurice asked suddenly.
“But what are you goin’ t’do about Halloween?” This brought some confusion, and Maurice explained. Mama Sho had not been wholly lying. It was a bad night, full of strange things. Some men crowded into local bars and played music the whole night. Others prayed in churches. Others locked their doors and barred them, and put cotton wool in their ears, and slept with a Bible in their hands. Some, whom Maurice scorned, availed themselves of the remedies offered by Mama Sho and other voodoo witches like her.
“What did Mister Hunter do?” Derek asked.
Maurice chuckled.
“Oh, he sat on the front porch the whole night in the swing, and basically dared any evil thing to come at him. None did, not afta the fuhst few times. Some people who had nowhere else to go would on occasion come visit him that night.”
“We need to figure out what to do,” Derek said, and Vashti nodded.
“Whatever you decide, I’m with you.” Maurice said firmly.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #502: Character Setbacks. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
