The Talon Family
The Kiss of the Witch Doctor
February
Draft_2
By: Chase L. Currie
Helbis was more than right about the house Michael, and she ended up at, it was not a good place at all. There were a few black men standing outside the house with shotguns at the ready. They all stood up as they came up to the steps and were not happy to see them.
“What do you want?” The biggest man asked with a green bandana over his head with a cross on it. All the other guys had the same bandana, but most of them had it around their necks.
“To help,” Helbis said.
“Get out of here,” The man said waving them along.
Michael stepped forward and said, “Come on, man, we are here to help.”
“No care to help us,” one the guys said.
“We do,” Helbis told him.
“Sure,” the big man said with a grin, “and I’m Superman.”
Michael walked up the steps standing in front of him making them both look about the same size. The man backed up a little keeping his shotgun resting in his hand. “We are going to help, and we are going into that house,” Michael told him, glancing back at Helbis who nodded yes to him.
“You are going to make me move, son?” the man growled stepping up to be face to face with the sixteen-year-old.
Michael grin at him. “As you wish, man.” Before the man could remark, he was being lifted off his feet by one had and easily tossed out into the road. He hit the ground like a baseball lightly being tossed, and it took him a second to get to his feet. He turns around to see Helbis smiled at him and fear ran over his face. All his friends didn’t know what to do as Michael creaked his knuckles and asked, “We can go a few rounds if you would like?”
“No,” the big man said. “Don’t hurt us, freak.”
“We are not here to hurt you,” Helbis told him. “We are here to help.”
“Are you now?” A woman asked standing in the door of the house.
Michael and Helbis turn to face her as the men backed away they seem to fear her more than anyone else. She was a tall woman with long black hair and thin body. She wasn’t young but wasn’t old like the wisdom in her suggested. She crossed her arms and never smiled.
“Yes, ma’am,” Michael said,” we have been sent to help you, all of you.”
“Sent by whom?” She asked.
“I’m afraid we can’t say,” Helbis said walking up beside her brother. “But they want to help. We have teams all over the city trying to find a way to stop the disease.”
“Why should I believe you?” She asked.
“Because to be honest,” Helbis remarked, “you don’t have much of choice.”
The woman cocked an eyebrow nodding in agreement. “Fine, fine,” she said. “I’m Sister Juliana Falconieri.”
“You are a nun?” Michael asked following her into the house.
She laughed. “No, it’s just a name.”
“I am Michael Talon,” he said, “and this is Helbis Talon.”
She glanced over her shoulder with the question written all over her face. “Yes, she is my sister,” he said.
“Alright,” Juliana said. “I’ve seen stranger things.”
They walked down the small hallway of the house heading for the kitchen in the back hearing the coughing all around them and smelling the sick in the air. Michael stopped looking to the living room where a few teenagers laid warped in a deep fever. There were a few older ladies taking care of the sick, and they glared at Michael.
“Keep moving,” Helbis whispered to him.
“Would you like something to drink?” Juliana asked standing beside the counter in the kitchen. There were medical supplies all over the counters and table. It looked more a hospital in a third world country than a suburban kitchen and Michael had seen his few shares of that kind of hospitals.
“No thank you,” Helbis said standing a little behind her brother’s large shoulders.
“So,” Juliana asked, “what can I do for you?”
She didn’t have to ask how they found out about her house; word ran quickly through the city, she was taking care of those who could not take of themselves. She was at a point in time a top doctor in New York City or so the filed read but then quiet when her mother got sick. She moved back home to take care of her dying mother and never left. She started helping everyone who would show up at her door; the homeless, the gang bangers, and even the old man down the road. She wanted to help, and that was all.
“Neither one of you look hurt,” she said lighting up a cigarette.
“What do you know of this Blue Kiss?” Helbis asked stepping around her brother.
“It’s like nothing I have seen before,” she said. “Some of the medicine will keep the fevers down, but it slowly kills over time.”
“Any idea where it came from?” She asked.
She shrugged and said, “Not really. I don’t have a lab here to find out, but some of the old timers here say they have heard stories of it before.”
“Stories?” Helbis asked.
“Mostly, superstition,” Juliana said, “but they said the Blue Kiss comes from the Voodoo Man.”
“Uh?” She started to ask.
But Juliana was already explaining herself, “It’s like the devil or something. I don’t know, but it scared a lot of people around here. Blue Kiss is the mark he uses to feed off the souls of the young.”
“Why?” Michael asked.
She smirks. “I don’t know; he is evil or something. It’s just what the story says he does. It’s not real.”
“Right,” Helbis agree looking back at her brother. “Not real.”
“Why haven’t you told this to anyone else?” He asked.
“As if anyone else comes down here,” she told him. “They wouldn’t listen anyway. They don’t care about this people. The only people who care about what is going on in these streets are the people on them. Everyone else just turns a blind eye.”
“Expect you,” Helbis said.
“Yeah, expect me,” she hissed.
“What else do you know about this Voodoo Man?” Michael asked.
“Son, nothing.” She then stopped and said, “Well, that is not completely true, I know three things. Frist, some of the gangs have come together in his name. They call themselves the Blue Voodoo Kids. Second, there is an old house not too far from here where the gangs would hold their meeting, but everyone said it was the house of Voodoo Man, and third, he is not real.”
“Yes, right,” Michael nodded. “Do you know who first came down with the sickness?”
“Yeah, her name is ---”
Helbis ears shot up like a cat’s. She could hear better than anyone in the room. It was the plus to the magical tattoos on her arms and legs. They give her enhanced abilities like a cat and the lovely power to turn into a black cat if she wished. But she hears the car down the road speed up and the men outside rushing to get down.
Before they started yelling she had already jump across the room knocking Juliana to the floor and yelling for Michael to get down.
He hit the floor right when the bullets started cutting through the walls pulling the cries of fear with them. A moment later the firing had stopped, but the crying had not, and Michael rolled to his feet.
“You okay?” Helbis asked helping Juliana up, but she didn’t care to answer her. She was already on her feet running out of the room trying to find out who was hit in the drive-by, and Michael was on the phone with 9-1-1 just as fast.
“Address?” He asked himself and Helbis. She held up her phone showing him the GPS, and he repeated the address on the screen. He hung up quickly afterward and asked, “Should we help?”
A few people were running around trying to grab things and help the wounded. They both stepped out of the way watching in awe. “No,” she said with regret. “We can’t touch any of the young or we might get sick.”
“Crap.”
They walked outside hearing the screams of the police and ambulance racing to save lives. A few of the men outside had been wounded but were alive. Blood was running down the steps, and Michael hopes they would live through the night. Juliana sat over the big man plunging a hole in his chest with a gauze. She stared up at them and growled, “This was the Voodoo Kids.”
“Where do they stay?” Michael asked with a deep frown on his face. “We’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
“Frederick,” she yelled, and a thin man walked up to them, “tell them everything you know about the Voodoo Kids.”
“But ma’am,” Frederick said, “we are going to handle them ourselves.”
“Tell them,” she screamed tired of seeing her people die.
“Yes, ma’am,” and he gave them the house where the Voodoo Kids hung out most the time. He warns them some of the other gangs were going to attack the house soon, once word got out about Sister Juliana being hit it was going to be an all-out war.
“Thank you,” Helbis said as the cops pulled up to the house rushing out of their cars to help. There were a lot more cops then normally, but Michael guesses even they liked Sister Juliana. They stood around for a while watching and making sure things went fine. The cops tried to ask them a few questions, but Michael gives them his call sign, and then they left them alone.
“Gabriel wants us to meet back with her,” Helbis said.
“Hey,” Juliana said walking up to them. “Thanks for saving my life.”
Helbis smile and said, “Wish we could do more.”
“No, I understand,” Juliana said, “don’t want to get sick. I get you, but you need to find a girl named Chelsea Mays. People say she was the first one to have the kiss.”
“Thank you again,” Helbis said, “and good luck.”
(Writer’s Notes: Here is the place I’m not sure the plot is working out the way I wish it would because I have to fix it within the short story. I could and have planned to use this plot for a whole novel, and I’m starting to see why I should have written it as a novel. So, hey, maybe, you are getting to the outline/first draft for an upcoming novel, who knows?)
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