Shadows over New Orleans (The Templar Legacy Book 9), page 1
SHADOWS OVER NEW ORLEANS
THE TEMPLAR LEGACY
BOOK 9
PRESTON WILLIAM CHILD
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE - THE TOLL OF EXORCISM
Father Wyatt Guidry was not like most priests. He did not just lead Mass, give sacraments, or perform baptisms or confirmations. He didn’t have the life of someone like that, someone who got to know their community and became a fixture among their congregation. No, Father Wyatt Guidry was a different kind of priest entirely, but one that was still doing the Lord’s work, one way or another. While those more usual kinds of priests were doing wonderful things by giving people a place of worship and a stable place of community where they could try to foster and grow the church, there was another kind of work that needed to be done by someone of the cloth—work that most of his fellow clergymen were just not cut out for.
First and foremost, Father Guidry was what many considered to be a real warrior of God, someone who was not meant to only comfort and guide others but to protect them from the real evils of the world, the things that most people, even the most faithful Christians, did not even believe in. There were many names over the years for the kinds of things that he was charged with and the kinds of duty that he was responsible for, but the most common one was an exorcist, and that was accurate. He had dedicated his life to finding demons—real demons—and protecting humanity from hellspawns that they did not even believe existed, let alone believed were actually as common of a threat as they were.
The truth was that there were countless demons roaming God’s green Earth, staining it with their presence, nothing more than blemishes of sulfur and ash and hate that just wanted to cause as much chaos and pain as possible. He, along with a select few priests similar to him, was tasked with finding the demons hidden in the world and protecting the rest of humanity from them. It wasn’t easy. It required a lot of ancient and unknown prayers that most priests never learned, that most never needed to learn.
Demons were the worst creations in the world, not God’s work but the Devil’s. When the fallen angel Lucifer was cast down into Hell and created a life of his own, it turned out to be a life that God would never have made, a reflection of their corrupt creator—hateful, sadistic, angry, and wanting nothing more than to hurt human beings as much as possible. Every single one of them that Father Guidry had encountered was nothing more than evil personified, with no redeeming qualities of any kind. They only wanted to break and ruin everything that they came into contact with. There was no rhyme or reason; they were just tornadoes of violence and hate.
They were all very different from one another, though, just like people were. Some demons were interested in just causing as much physical harm as possible. Some demons spent their time trying to corrupt human beings and turn them into something ugly. Some demons liked to strike deals with people but would never fully follow through with the good things that they promised. Then there were the really ambitious demons, the ones that intended to hide in plain sight and climb up social ladders into positions of power until they were able to harm as many people as possible using man-made laws and systems. It was hard to know because no demons were exactly alike, which made Father Guidry’s crusade against them very difficult, but no war was easy.
The worst part was that they did not take on their own physical forms. Demons took possession of the ones that they hated so much, taking over the bodies of human beings and then using them to commit all kinds of heinous acts. It was awful because any attempt to fight them in a conventional way would just end up hurting the body that they were using as a host and not actually do anything to fight against the demon that was puppeting the body from within. There was only one way to go after the demons once they were inside of their protective, human shells, and that was with the exorcism prayers that so few priests knew, but Father Guidry was very knowledgeable in.
He had been picked very early on in his holy studies to be trained in the arts of demonic exorcism. They only chose people that they saw had a lot of willpower and resolve, not people that could ever be wavered by a demon. The more unstable someone was and the more insecure they were with themselves, the easier of a target they were—the more likely that they were going to end up getting possessed. An exorcist needed to be strong and grounded, keeping themselves from being susceptible to any demonic influence. He knew how serious it would be if he allowed a demon to even remotely start to get inside of his head and find his vulnerabilities; he usually tried not to even give them that chance.
That day started off no different than many of the other times he had faced an unholy hellspawn, and he was sure that he would be just as successful as he usually was. He had confidence in his abilities. Still, it did take a toll on him. It was hard on his mind, hard on his body sometimes, and especially hard for his soul. It was a lot to take in, but he had to keep going. He had to always keep going.
Demons crawled out of Hell, and it was his job to make them wish that they hadn’t.
And Father Guidry was perfectly happy about that.
1
DELIVERY AT OCCULT ODDITIES
Thaddeus Rose was still getting used to owning an occult shop in the middle of the French Quarter in New Orleans. It was a big change, considering that he used to be in that very same city, a street magician who could draw crowds but was looked down on by all of the actual practitioners of magic in his neighborhood. He was lucky that Jean-Luc Gerard, an occult expert who dabbled in real witchcraft, took him in and started to teach him about real magic. That changed his life for the better, but when Jean died, killed by the Knights Templar, who spent their time trying to destroy witchcraft, Thad’s life changed for the worse, and he was just trying to do his best to pick up the pieces that were left.
It wasn’t easy, and it took him some time to earn the respect of the locals. So many of them still saw him as nothing more than a charlatan, but others were starting to realize that he was really trying to learn, putting in an actual effort to improve himself and his place in the community. It seemed to be appreciated for the most part, but there were people who still looked at him with sidelong glances, sometimes like they were waiting for him to start making a fool of himself with some card tricks again.
Thad got Occult Oddities ready for the day’s opening. He made sure that everything was in its proper place, that the old books and scrolls and little trinkets were all where they were supposed to be, ready to have people look them over. There was nothing in that store that was inauthentic; that was part of Jean’s goal when he ran it. He wanted the store to be a hub of real information, a place where people could go if they actually wanted to learn about the occult, and not just some tourist trap like 99 percent of all of the other occult stores in New Orleans. It would have been so easy to become something like that, but Jean kept it real, and Thad intended to do the exact same thing. He was going to do right by Jean-Luc Gerard and right by the store that all of the locals knew was the best occult shop in the city.
He flipped the sign open on the door, and no sooner had he turned around than he heard the bell above the door ring as someone entered. He glanced back as he walked back to the counter and saw a man come in with something in his hands. The first thing that Thad noticed was what the man was wearing: the clothes of a priest with that black shirt with the little white square by his neck. That caught his attention immediately. It wasn’t often that a man of the cloth came into the occult shop; in fact, it was probably the first time that Thaddeus had ever seen someone like that in there. It felt strange, like he was completely out of place, surrounded by things that were considered sinful or sacrilege.
Thaddeus got himself in position behind the counter and put on his best professional voice. He was still working on it, but he thought that he had been doing a decent job of it lately. “Good morning. Can I help you, sir?”
The priest looked around with wide eyes and a frazzled expression. When he saw Thad, he mostly ignored him and kept looking around like he was expecting to find someone else. As it turned out, he really was thinking that he would see someone else entirely.
“Where is Jean-Luc? I need to speak with him immediately.”
Thad was taken aback by the question. Most people who came into the store knew about Jean dying; they were usually locals who mourned him and missed him, so the priest in front of him must have been from out of town or had just somehow missed the news.
“I’m sorry,” Thad said. “But he’s unavailable.”
“Then he needs to make himself available. It is incredibly important that I talk to him. Tell him that it’s Father Guidry! He will know what that means.”
“I’m sorry,” Thaddeus said, trying his best to keep quiet and not let the priest realize what a sad mistake he was making. “But I can’t do that. It’s like I said, Jean is not here, and he won’t be. He’s not coming back.”
“What are you talking about?” The priest looked around. “This is his store.”
“It was.” He might as well have bitten the bullet since it was naturally going to come out anyway. Besides, it seemed like the only way to get the priest to quiet down. “Jean doesn’t own it anymore. He left it to me…he left it to me in his will.”
“His will?” The priest looked absolutely dumbfounded. “Are you saying that he died?”
“That is exactly what I am saying…” Thaddeus said solemnly. “A little while ago now. This is my occult shop, but I’m doing my best to honor his memory.”
“I am very sorry to hear that,” the priest said sincerely but then started rubbing his brow feverishly. “This is not good. This is not good at all.”
“What seems to be the problem?” Thad asked. “Maybe I can help with whatever is bothering you.”
“It was supposed to be Jean. He is the one that takes my deliveries and seals them.”
It was hard to know what he meant by that, so Thad decided to just ask. “Seal them?”
The priest shook his head and clicked his tongue. “And that’s exactly why I needed to talk to Jean-Luc and Jean-Luc alone. I’m not trying to offend you, boy, but I don’t think that you are qualified to handle the problem that he would help me with. If you don’t even know what I mean by sealing them…”
“You could explain it to me,” Thad said. “I’m a quick learner and easy to teach. That was why Jean even bothered continuing to teach me all that he knew, to begin with.”
“He obviously didn’t teach you all that he knew. I will just have to seek help somewhere else. The work is far too important to leave in the hands of a novice.”
Thaddeus didn’t really appreciate being called that, but he wasn’t exactly surprised to hear it. He knew that he still had a lot to learn and a lot that Jean had not had the chance to teach him before he died. He knew that Jean would be anyone’s first choice over him when it came to wanting help with something supernatural, but unfortunately, Jean was no longer an option, and Thaddeus was the next best thing.
“What is it you need help with?”
The priest paused for a moment, chuckling a little to himself like he thought the whole thing was a big joke like Thaddeus was somehow a joke, but Thad tried not to take offense. He might have been the owner of an occult shop, but he didn’t know nearly the things that Jean did, and he accepted that. He knew that it was going to be a learning curve, he knew that some people were going to look down on him, and he knew that he would have to prove himself and try to learn as much as possible.
“I’m not sure that’s the best idea…” the priest said, rubbing his chin. He looked like he was actually considering it, though. “You say that you were taught by Jean-Luc Gerard?”
“I was his apprentice in all of this, yes,” Thad said. He left out how unfortunately short that apprenticeship had been, and he left out that they had really only gone over some of the basic parts of occultism and witchcraft. He didn’t want to sound incompetent, but he also wanted to fill in for Jean when someone came looking for his help. He wanted to live up to his late mentor in whatever way he could. “I’m not some novice like you said. We must just not have covered whatever sealing you need.”
The priest nodded and shook his head, muttering under his breath, “There’s no time to go to anyone else…” He looked up and shrugged. “My name is Father Wyatt Guidry. I’m a warrior of God, more specifically, an exorcist, and that is what I need some assistance with.”
The priest bent down and suddenly heaved up a metallic box, bringing it down onto the counter beside the cash register. It was very visibly heavy just from how he had lifted it and the sound it made when it came down. It must have been difficult to heave into the bookshop on his own, but the older man had managed just fine, and he presented it with a strange look of concern on his face.
“This.”
The metal box was engraved with all kinds of symbols; variations of crosses and other holy symbols were strewn all over it, so there were no blank spaces at all. There were ancient writings written along it, too, things that Thad could not even begin to recognize. He had never seen anything quite like it; it somehow seemed both ornate but also like it was something that was not taken care of.
Thaddeus initially tried to look at it as if he recognized it or knew what he was seeing, but the truth was that he didn’t have a clue what that strange box was. He glanced up with some embarrassment after looking it over.
“And what is this, exactly?”
“It’s a containment box.”
“Containment? For what?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said, boy?” the priest snickered. “I’m an exorcist. Aren’t you familiar with the concept of demons?”
“Sure,” Thad said with a shrug. “I know enough, I think. Evil things from Hell that work for the Devil or whatever…spinning heads, upside crosses, projectile vomiting, goat legs, and horns…all of that.”
Thaddeus had seen a lot of things since he had been brought into Jean-Luc Gerard’s world of the occult and of the supernatural. He had seen a legion of ghosts haunt a mansion, he had seen a centuries-old tyrant be revived by blood and revealed as some sort of vampire, he had fought invisible eldritch horrors from another plane of existence, and he had even seen reanimated corpses, and Merlin himself, but despite all of those unusual experiences, he had never come face-to-face with an actual demon. The prospect of having to actually deal with something like that had never really occurred to him. He knew that parts of the occult dealt with demonology, but he had never given it much thought, probably because Jean had never touched on any of that kind of thing before.
“So you have no real experience, then?” Father Guidry asked. “You’ve only seen them on film or read about them.”
“That’s correct,” Thad said a little bashfully. “Never too late to try something new, though.”
“Much of the things that you know about demons are true. They are entities born of hatred and chaos that roam this earth after rising up from the depths of Hell. That is all very much the case, unfortunately. They are only selfish, sadistic, and hurtful beings that have no empathy for anyone or anything. They have no cares at all. They can’t be reasoned with. You can’t appeal to their better nature because they don’t have one.”
“And you fight these things?”
“I try my best to protect people from them. You see, a demon does not have physical form when it is here on Earth. If it wants to have direct interactions with anyone, it has to find a host body to use.”
“Possession,” Thad said. He was familiar with the concept. “They take over people’s bodies against their wills.”
“Precisely. They find someone that is vulnerable somehow, someone that does not currently have the best mental or emotional fortitude, and they target them. They seep through someone’s skin and pour themselves into their bodies until they can latch on from within and take control. They can make the person do whatever they want them to do, turn them into their puppet.”
“And your exorcisms pull them out of those people?”
“Yes,” Father Guidry said. “The church has combated demons for millennia, and we have many kinds of exorcism prayers and rituals to help drive those hellspawn out of innocent people. Ideally, we would like to be able to banish them back to Hell where they belong, but often, that would take far too much time and too complex of prayers. I have found that there is an alternative that is much better and much more efficient. I perform an exorcism that pulls the demon out of the body, but rather than then trying to send them back to Hell, which is a very tall order where a lot can go wrong, I instead send the demon into a box just like that one right there.”
The priest tapped the metallic box that was on the counter. So that was what he meant by containment.
“So what you’re saying is that there is a demon inside of this thing?”
Thaddeus suddenly felt much more nervous about having that box in the store. Occult Oddities had all kinds of strange things inside of it, but he might draw the line at having an actual demon inside one of the items that were in the building; that seemed a little bit more extreme than even the most cursed of the cursed items that he had.
