Page 107 of Samhain Savior
As I stared, the corpse stirred, the head slowly rolling toward Mex, the sound of long unused tendons creaking in the quiet of the tomb.
“Murmur,” the corpse hissed, the word slow as the leathery skin of his face stretched and strained with the movement.
It was strange; the voice came from the corpse, but logically I knew there was no air in his lungs, no vocal chords remaining in that whithered neck. When the mouth opened, the mandible dropping down like a broken puppet, the tongue appeared, black and useless as a rotted potato, and I fought back a gag.
There was no way that the dessicated body before me should have been able to speak, not in the condition it was currently in.
And yet, as the lower jaw continued to bounce up and down, the cheek tissues squeaking like a rusty screen door, the voice continued to pour out, as if Sweet Baptiste was hale and whole before me.
“Where am I? How did I get here?” His words were rushed, the accent so thick I could barely understand what he was saying.
“You’re here because I have need of you,” Mex answered, her foggy gaze staring into the empty eye sockets of the corpse threateningly. If he’d still had any eyebrows, they would have risen in shock. “When I’m finished with you, I’ll be putting you right back.”
“No!” he begged, letting out a string of curses in rapid-fire French. “S'il vous plaît! Je ne peux pas revenir en arrière!”
“Oh, you’ll go back, alright,” Archer chimed in, coming to stand on my other side, close, but not touching me. “And if you answer our questions, I just might put in a good word for you.”
“Oui! Of course,” he assured Archer, his head bobbing precariously on his skinny neck. “Anything.”
“Years ago, you were given an object by a priest,” Archer stated, getting right to the point. “I want to know where it is.”
“I don’t know what—” Baptiste began, but his words were cut off when Mex growled, her fist pressing down on his chest so hard, one of his ribs snapped, the sound making me grimace. “Alright!” he panted, though how he managed that without functioning lungs, I wasn’t sure. “I may have some recollection, but I’m unable to be sure at this time. Perhaps if you offered me something to refresh my memory, I could better assist you.”
“I’m offering to return you to the fourth circle of hell where I found your sorry soul,” Mex snarled, her teeth elongating into fangs as her own demon form rose up. “I’m offering you the rest of your worthless eternity spent pushing boulders as penance for your unchecked greed. And you should be grateful.” She leaned close, the tip of her nose nearly brushing Baptiste’s. “Because I could send you deeper. Down to the seventh circle, perhaps? Condemned to a desert of blazing sand, tortured by a constant rain of fire?” She looked around the crypt, her lip curled in disgust. “Fuck knows this monstrosity of a mausoleum is a sin against art.”
Baptiste shuddered, his whole body rattling as his bones clanked together. As her anger rose, I could feel more of Mex’s power pouring through me, and sweat began to bead on my forehead with the strain. “Or maybe your sins have earned you a place in the eighth circle, fighting for scraps in a river of shit?”
“Non!” he wailed, his fear causing his disembodied voice to rise an octave.
“Then tell us what we want to know and I’ll throw you back like an underweight trout.”
“It was a diamond,” he admitted, his teeth chattering together as he shook with fear. “He gave it to me personally. A gorgeous black diamond the likes of which I hadnever seen. The priest, he said he needed to hide it. That it was of vital importance, but no one would come looking. He said it would be mine until he needed it again. But then, he never came. So I figured it was mine in truth.” He sounded petulant, like a toddler, and my nose wrinkled.
“So where is it?” Archer snapped, his impatience bleeding through the bond. “Where did you leave it, you bastard?”
“It was so beautiful. Trulymagnifique. I knew that a jewel that rare deserved to be seen, and that it should only be worn by a woman to whom it could compare.” He sighed, his bony shoulders sagging in defeat. “So I gave it to such a woman, one whose beauty could be seen from afar, and who was as precious as the black diamond she now wears around her neck.”
Turning, I glanced again at the corpse of his wife, the lovely lady in the pretty dress, and I imagined that in life, she had been a rare beauty indeed.
“But she’s not wearing a necklace,” I said, confused.
“No,” Mex answered, thoughtful. “Because Sweet Baptiste, the great Sugar Baron of New Orleans, is an especially heinous bastard, isn’t he? A man condemned to Hell for his greed wouldn’t give a prize like that to his little wife, would he? The woman he was sworn to before the church and the law? Of course not.” Shaking her head,Mex squeezed my hand, her rage palpable. “Forsaking all others, my ass. Tell her what you did with the diamond, you fucking pig. Tell her exactly what kind of man you were in life.”
The corpse of Jean-François Baptiste turned to me, his hollow eyes seeming to carry an air of dismay, and I marveled at how the dead face could hold such a sorrowful expression.
“I—I had a lover,” he practically sobbed, dipping his chin. “I gave the diamond to my lover, my beautiful mistress. The woman whose beauty stirred my soul and kept me up at night. I needed to give her a reason to be true. So that she wouldn’t entertain another in my absence.”
“Dude,” Vine hissed. “Bad form. Don’t you know how vows work? You break ’em, you gotta pay the price.”
“The irony is pretty delicious,” Corson put in angrily, his deep voice rumbling through the tomb. “Bribing your mistress to stay loyal while you were the one stepping out on your wife.”
In response, Baptiste gave a mournful whimper, his chest deflating as though he had exhaled in defeat.
“Oh, you sorry piece of shit,” Mex said, shaking her head. “Greed. Lust. Envy. How many sins are you guilty of,Sweet Baptiste? How much deeper do I get to send you?”
“Je suis désolé,” was all he could bring himself to say.
“Fuck,” Archer sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. “Let’s get this shit over with.” Leaning down over the coffin, Archer snapped his fingers until Baptiste looked his direction. “Who was the woman and where can we find her?”
