What walks the night
The wind whimsically whispers to the trash in the streets of the French Quarter of New Orleans, beckoning it to dance to the silent song the night provides. On this night, though lives will change forevermore as this Old Hollows Eve ushers a strange eerie luminescent fog off the Mississippi River. The strange fog whisks windingly into the historic Quarter from the River walk onto Decatur, Canal, and Toulouse Street near dusk and the wind stops dancing with the trash. All that can be heard are footsteps cascading from the fog as an ominous shadow begins to form, moving as if it were a specter of some kind. The figure of shadow and haze takes a form of a man wearing a long flowing cloak, a classic black suit with a white collar, black hard leather shoes, and a fedora black as midnight. His face mostly over shadowed and cast by the voided shadow of the hat he wears. Only his white eyes show through. As this creature clears the strange, haunting fog, it retreats near the river as if taunting the city, clouding the river.
Meanwhile near the House of Blues a man walks out the door with a Nubian woman next to him. His appearance is that of a wildman, strong and chiseled as if from years out in the exposed weather. His name is Detective James Howlett and he has been a policeman for many years but he hates this night, and this night brings him out more than any other. His partner Detective Ororo Monroe has been a police officer for a shorter time but has risen rapidly. She has been Howlett’s partner for only seven months now, but has learned his moods well. The one he is currently in is new to her and she isn’t sure how to take it.
//Flashback//
“Ah told ya Ro I don’t want you out tonight, take it off ok.” His voice is pleading and it worries her.
“Why James?” Ororo asks, her worry spikes into curiosity. She was partnered with James shortly after the death of his old partner and felt a kin to him. Though she did not like his approach sometimes, his mind was agile, keen, and he was dedicated and loyal.
“Just do it please for my sake. Stay off the streets this one night.” James turned as he gruffed away. He was placing up his walls and withdrawing from her. She hated when he did that. Why would he?
“I’m going to be with you tonight whether you like it or not.” Ororo demanded walking after him. “If you really value our friendship and partnership tell me Logan.”
She only called him by his middle name when she wanted to get his attention or when they were alone, away from everyone else. His closest friends call him that name away from work, what little friends he had that is. He never regretted letting her in, he did regret his feelings toward her though. Over the last few months he had begun enjoying coming to work, not because of his police work but because he would get to see Ororo all day. He hated that he felt this way about his partner but he stayed silent. He was in love with her.
“Ya wouldn’t believe me if Ah told ya.” Was all James would say as he continued walking out of the 13th precinct. She hated when he was like this. Something was causing him to be uneasy, almost scared. She wanted to take him right there and hold him just to comfort him, but she couldn’t. She could never tell her partner, her friend that she was in love with him. He was the reason she woke in the morning, causing her normal emotion controlled mind to brighten.
“Try me.” She answered. In his mind, he silently wished he could, not once but forever.
“What if Ah told ya and ya thought Ah was crazy. More so than the norm.” James stated as they make it to their car.
“I can never think of having a low opinion of you Logan.” Ororo truthfully answered.
“Hell Ah don’t believe it and Ah saw it up close.” James began as his mind was assaulted with a flood of memories. Memories of a night when he and his first love Mariko were walking through Jackson Square years ago. The night when she disappeared under a shroud of darkness and it’s eyes glowing white. He was petrified with fear, unable to move, to save her. That was fifteen years ago on Hollows Eve.
“Lets just say I don’t want anything ta happen ta ya. Yer a little important ta me ta loose.”
“What is it?”
“A shadow, a ghost or something. The old gypsy woman Callisto called it “ladro di anima” or Soul Thief. Ah don’t know what it is but six years ago it crossed my path and killed someone Ah cared about. Tonight it comes back and Ah am goin’ ta try ta stop it. Ah just don’t what ya ta be involved.” James sounded urgent, almost passionate in what he was trying to say to his partner. “Ah lost one partner Ah don’t want ta loss another. Yer to important.”
Ororo Monroe was taken back at her partner’s confession, her heart skipped silently with hope, but her rationality galvanized her heart as her detective’s mind took over. What could James be so afraid of? This was the man she witnessed stand in a hail of gunfire and not flinch. He was not afraid for himself, he was afraid for her.
“The best way to stay protected James is to be with you.” Detective Monroe replies continuing “Besides you couldn’t stop me from tagging along if you tried.”
“Oh Ah could but you’d not like it.” James answers with a scowl.
\end flashback\
8:30 PM Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans.
Many say New Orleans is a city built by many cities and they are true to a point. Metairie, Algiers, Kenner, and Gretna merge into the Crescent city in such away that no one can see the where they begin and the city ends. On Old Metairie Road near the New Orleans Cemetery where a statue of a Stag stands silent vigil looking toward the inner city a little girl named Tina stops to tie her shoe. Her mother and older sister have continued to walk expecting her to catch up. She is eight years old and her aunt just for her crafted her witch outfit. As she finishes, she looks up to see an ominous figure looking as though he was nothing but a shadow is in front of her. In her little heart she knows the truth to this shadow in front of her as she whispers “Our Father who art in Heaven.” She will not see her ninth birthday or her tenth. Her parents will search for her, never to find there youngest. She will be missed.
Across town near the river, Detective James Logan Howlett stands facing a statue of a man long dead, but never forgotten. Here in the world famous Jackson Square in the shadow of the Cathedral surrounded by oak trees the statue stands. This man on a horse facing a window in a building with his hat raised in greeting, he was General Andrew “Stonewall” Jackson. Detective Ororo Monroe stands behind her partner thinking of a story she once heard.
“Princess Pompey was a Madame in the later 19th century and had a fascination with Andrew Jackson, though he did not share those feelings. Her wish was for him to ride past her window and tip his hat to her as he would a lady. He never did so when he died she paid for his statue and had it placed her tipping his hat to her window.”
James looked down at his feet then back at the statue allowing the wind to whistle it’s song softly, allowing the city to calm him. “Mariko was killed here Ro.”
“Mariko?” Ororo asked, she had never heard the name before tonight.
“At one time Ah was married to a woman named Mariko. She was Japanese and she lived here with me, a cop. We were in love and she was killed one night here in this place. The report says she was taken by a dark figure but she was killed. Ah was here.” James turns toward Ro as he continues. “It will be here tonight and Ah plan to stop it.”
1130 PM New Orleans, near Elysian Fields.
A twenty year old man named Eli Whilman walks from three younger boys counting money. He killed his first man when he was only fourteen and began dealing drugs in his area by age sixteen. Tonight he has made over two thousand dollars as he has sold his poison to others. Young Eli stops in front of a figure of dark, ominous shadow, his smile disappears as the shadowed cloak wraps around him. No one will miss Eli Whilman.
Jackson Square 1200 AM.
“James how long were you and Mariko married?” Ororo asks. She sits on a bench with him watching the nightlife fade as she watches the Café DuMonde crowd leave.
“Seven years.” James responds. “I thought she was the one. Wanted to have kids with her.”
“I didn’t know you wanted children James,” Ororo answers, her intrigue in her partner becoming more evident. “I want children one day. Up until now I haven’t found the right man I want to be with. Not until recently.”
James turns to Ororo with a smirk as his curiosity peaks. “You hold’n out on me Ro?”
“What do you mean James?”
“Whose the man?” Ororo looks at James quizzically as she then grins and remains silent.
2 AM St Ann Street, near the French Quarter.
His name is Robert Earl and he has been a taxi cab driver for twenty years. He has seen many things in this city that never truly sleeps. Tonight though he stops for one last fair hoping to make a little more money, he has three kids the oldest is fifteen. His wife complains he works too much, but what can one do when he has bills and three mouths to feed, plus college soon. He stops for the possible fair and that will be the last anyone hears from him. His cab will be found in the same spot, no figure prints, no blood. He will be missed by those he loved.
“It is getting late James. I’m going to go on home. Do you wish to sleep there, it is only three blocks down near Decatur.” Ororo replies as she places a hand on his shoulder. They have been near the Square since 8 PM and it was now coming close to 4 in the morning.
“Ah want to stay a little while longer but Ah will walk ya home Ro.” Detective James Howlett answers as he begins to walk with her. “Ah didn’t know you lived in the Quarter?”
“You never asked.” She says with a smirk on his face. She intertwines her arm with his as they walk out of the Square. It is near the statue of Joan of Arc when James sees the shadowed figure. The same one that took his Mariko, now it was walking, no gliding toward him and …
“No. Not Ro.” James reacts. His heart skips its beat and his adrenaline begins to course.
At the same time the wind whispers to Ororo as she begins to look away from James and to the Shadow now in front of her. She says nothing as she knows that the shadows are going to take her. Ororo lived her life as she felt it should have been. The detective was the youngest to make that rank in the city’s history, and she had found love. His name is James Howlett, though he would never know it. She would be missed, she would be.
James raises his fist and attacks the shadow without fear, without reservation. He does it out of love for his Partner. A love that is not just reserved for friends, but one he wanted to be romantically linked to. Without effort the shadowy figure known as the soul thief bats James Logan Howlett out of the way, as if he were a minor annoyance. Ororo stands there as if frozen until she hears gunshots and the figure jolts with pain. James shoots it with his old forty-five causing it to flinch. It is enough time for Ororo to run toward James, and the ominous figure in shadowy black to disappear.
“James are you alright?”
“I am now Ro.” Logan brushes his hand on her cheek and smiles. It is a genuine smile, that shows his emotions. It is something rarely seen.
530 AM, the river walk.
The fog that had settled on the Mississippi flows over the River Walk once more engulfing the man of shadows and as he fades from sight, a tear falls to the ground. As the tear splashes the fog disappears and the figure along with it.
The night has ended and the dawn signals for the day of the Saints as the cathedral bell rings. Mean while three blocks away James sleeps on the couch with a watchful Ororo placing her figures through his unkempt hair.
“I love you James.”
The End
This was a one shot so tell me how you liked it. I know the end was anti-climatic but I had this story in my head for awhile.
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