Canon | The City of the Dead
I'm presently vacationing in New Orleans, which I think is excuse enough to post a chunk from the novel The City of The Dead, which is a LOVELY yarn and I'd upload it but it is in .txt and whoever transcribed it failed to preserve any formatting. MAYBE LATER?
The Doctor had been vague about exactly what he wanted them to do: visit occult shops, get a feel for the local scene and personalities, take in a ghost tour. Anji had seen ads for vampire tours, too, but the Doctor had said they could miss those: 'I don't think we're dealing with vampires here.'
'But this is vampire central,' said Anji. 'All those Anne Rice novels.'
'Precisely,' said the Doctor, as if he were Sherlock Holmes. 'Any real vampire would shun the place. No privacy. Same with Sunnydale.'
"There is no Sunnydale.'
'All the more reason.'
So she and Fitz had picked up a sheaf of pamphlets at the Visitors' Center and debated the merits of the various tours as they walked from witchcraft store to voodoo museum to fortune-telling parlour. The tours all covered roughly the same territory: the LaLaurie Mansion, the Bourbon Orleans Hotel, St Louis Cemetery #1. Having been introduced to New Orleans by way of St Louis #1, Anji felt she'd seen it.
The Doctor had been fascinated by the place and led them all round it in the grey dawn - down paths of crushed shells or patchy grass; past elegant little whitewashed tombs encircled with fine iron fences; between crumbling brick edifices with cracked flower urns; by grand marble structures on which broken-limbed angels wept.
He had pointed out the spotlessly white tomb of Ernest Morial - the first black mayor of New Orleans and father of the present mayor -standing next to the weathered, peak-roofed tomb of the voodoo queen Marie Laveau, all marked by supplicants with Xs scrawled in chalk and dirt, its doorstep arrayed with offerings: flowers; coloured beads; a green tin toy car; two marrows ('Mirlitons,' the Doctor said); a Mars bar; a plaster figurine ('St Expedite,' the Doctor said); six red dice; a salt shaker shaped like a black cat; a lottery ticket; an avocado; a scatter of coins; a tortoiseshell hairbrush; and a glass of rum and Coke, with a straw.
As they were walking alongside a wall of oven vaults, each coffin sealed in its own niche (like a giant version of the grid of pigeonholes behind the front desks of old hotels, Anji thought), the Doctor noticed that one of the bottom-row memorial tablets was loose. He dropped to his knees and, before either Fitz or Anji could say anything, had pulled the stone slab to the side.
Fitz instantly squatted beside him and, after a moment's hesitation, Anji rather shamefacedly joined them. The interior was a little larger than she had expected and she had a good view of a bronze sarcophagus, featureless but human-shaped. She stared.
'Cholera,' said the Doctor softly. "There were terrible epidemics. They didn't know the cause - they thought it might spread through some ether or vapour. So they soldered the dead into these, to contain any fumes. Like sealing up the ghost of the disease. Not that it did any good, of course.'
No, thought Anji, following Fitz into a tearoom, she definitely didn't need another tour of St Louis #1.
The tearoom didn't actually serve tea. Nor did anyone there read tea leaves - the curtained alcove in the back was for tarot consultations. Anji was sorry: she could have done with a nice cup of tea after so many days of rich coffee. She cast a desultory look over the shop's wares: packs of tarot cards, books on divination, lots of crystals and pyramids. For some reason she remembered a phrase of Carl Sagan's:'the pyramids of Mars'. Silly, like those purported canals.
'Depends on what you want.' Fitz had engaged the blue-haired salesgirl in conversation and she was sorting through the ghost-tour pamphlets. "These people have been doing it the longest. This one has more history and less legend. This one's the glitziest: they wear costumes. This guy's the creepiest-'
'Creepy,' said Fitz.'That sounds like what we want.'
Anji came over.'What do you mean by "creepy"?'
The girl chewed her gum thoughtfully. 'He's just, you know, weird. Takes it all seriously.'
Fitz passed Anji the pamphlet. The atmospheric black and purple printing made it hard to read. On the front was a photograph of a man who had compensated for his baldness with a stylish goatee, staring into the camera with what he clearly supposed to be a burning gaze. The text inside featured headings such as, Do You Dare Explore The Darkness? and mentioned that Jack Dupre, the man on the cover, had been a professional magician and was an 'internationally renowned scholar of the dark arts'.
Fitz grinned. 'I think this is our boy.'
'I guess so,' Anji said doubtfully.
The blue-haired girl rolled her eyes.'Have fun.'
Aaaaand the voodo shop bit because it is epic and fabulous.
'All these gods,' said Anji.
'Saints,' Fitz corrected.
After leaving the Doctor at the Zombie Bar, they had continued up and down the streets of the French Quarter, checking out any place that looked promisingly weird and, in Anji's case, some that were simply stylish. Fitz spent nearly an hour in a store selling rock memorabilia, including the signed instruments of a number of famous guitarists.
They were now in a voodoo shop. Among the pin-stuck dolls and gris-gris makings and beads and candles and booklets, Anji had found a shelf of brightly
painted, haloed figures in biblical and monastic garb.
'It's like Hinduism, only with Jesus.'
'It's not,' said Fitz, aware he was on shaky ground. As a child, he'd been taken to a Lutheran church, and he had only the vaguest notions about saints.
'Why not?'
'It just isn't.'
"The Christians have only one god, pretty cousin,' the middle-aged black man behind the counter said to Anji. He had an impressive set of dreadlocks, and his accent was lyrically Caribbean. "The saints are just his servants. But sometimes the saints are also the loa. Or -' he smiled dazzlingly - 'the other way around.'
'The gods of voodoo?' said Anji.
'Not the gods. The loa: The man rested his elbows on the counter. He was smoking a cigarette that smelled of cloves, dropping the ashes into a plaster bowl in the shape of a skull.'See that man with the keys?' He pointed to one of the figures. 'That's St Peter, who guards the gates of heaven. But he's also Papa Legba, the god of the crossroads, the one who helps you find your way. Unless he tricks you.'
"Why would he do that?'
He laughed. "The loa do what they do. The saints are like nice animals that live on the farm or in the house. But the loa are like the animals that live in the wild.'
'The saints were once human beings, weren't they? I mean, supposedly,' said Fitz.'But aren't the loa always spirits?'
The man shrugged fluidly. 'They visit us.'
'You mean, like possession?'
'I mean they visit us.' The phone rang. The man lifted the receiver and began
to talk about shipping costs. Anji continued to examine the figurines.
'Become human,' she said. 'Like Vishnu. Hindus say he tricked people too, in his ninth incarnation, when he was the Buddha.'
'I didn't know all that religious stuff stuck with you.'
'It didn't stick; she said irritably. 'But I grew up with it, and I remember. And it's fascinating to see the same patterns across cultures.'
'The Doctor says he's never met a real god.'
She sniffed.'It's just possible that, if there are any gods, none of them has particularly wanted to meet him.'
It's just possible, thought Fitz, looking at the statue of St Peter, that he's
one himself.
The Doctor had been vague about exactly what he wanted them to do: visit occult shops, get a feel for the local scene and personalities, take in a ghost tour. Anji had seen ads for vampire tours, too, but the Doctor had said they could miss those: 'I don't think we're dealing with vampires here.'
'But this is vampire central,' said Anji. 'All those Anne Rice novels.'
'Precisely,' said the Doctor, as if he were Sherlock Holmes. 'Any real vampire would shun the place. No privacy. Same with Sunnydale.'
"There is no Sunnydale.'
'All the more reason.'
So she and Fitz had picked up a sheaf of pamphlets at the Visitors' Center and debated the merits of the various tours as they walked from witchcraft store to voodoo museum to fortune-telling parlour. The tours all covered roughly the same territory: the LaLaurie Mansion, the Bourbon Orleans Hotel, St Louis Cemetery #1. Having been introduced to New Orleans by way of St Louis #1, Anji felt she'd seen it.
The Doctor had been fascinated by the place and led them all round it in the grey dawn - down paths of crushed shells or patchy grass; past elegant little whitewashed tombs encircled with fine iron fences; between crumbling brick edifices with cracked flower urns; by grand marble structures on which broken-limbed angels wept.
He had pointed out the spotlessly white tomb of Ernest Morial - the first black mayor of New Orleans and father of the present mayor -standing next to the weathered, peak-roofed tomb of the voodoo queen Marie Laveau, all marked by supplicants with Xs scrawled in chalk and dirt, its doorstep arrayed with offerings: flowers; coloured beads; a green tin toy car; two marrows ('Mirlitons,' the Doctor said); a Mars bar; a plaster figurine ('St Expedite,' the Doctor said); six red dice; a salt shaker shaped like a black cat; a lottery ticket; an avocado; a scatter of coins; a tortoiseshell hairbrush; and a glass of rum and Coke, with a straw.
As they were walking alongside a wall of oven vaults, each coffin sealed in its own niche (like a giant version of the grid of pigeonholes behind the front desks of old hotels, Anji thought), the Doctor noticed that one of the bottom-row memorial tablets was loose. He dropped to his knees and, before either Fitz or Anji could say anything, had pulled the stone slab to the side.
Fitz instantly squatted beside him and, after a moment's hesitation, Anji rather shamefacedly joined them. The interior was a little larger than she had expected and she had a good view of a bronze sarcophagus, featureless but human-shaped. She stared.
'Cholera,' said the Doctor softly. "There were terrible epidemics. They didn't know the cause - they thought it might spread through some ether or vapour. So they soldered the dead into these, to contain any fumes. Like sealing up the ghost of the disease. Not that it did any good, of course.'
No, thought Anji, following Fitz into a tearoom, she definitely didn't need another tour of St Louis #1.
The tearoom didn't actually serve tea. Nor did anyone there read tea leaves - the curtained alcove in the back was for tarot consultations. Anji was sorry: she could have done with a nice cup of tea after so many days of rich coffee. She cast a desultory look over the shop's wares: packs of tarot cards, books on divination, lots of crystals and pyramids. For some reason she remembered a phrase of Carl Sagan's:'the pyramids of Mars'. Silly, like those purported canals.
'Depends on what you want.' Fitz had engaged the blue-haired salesgirl in conversation and she was sorting through the ghost-tour pamphlets. "These people have been doing it the longest. This one has more history and less legend. This one's the glitziest: they wear costumes. This guy's the creepiest-'
'Creepy,' said Fitz.'That sounds like what we want.'
Anji came over.'What do you mean by "creepy"?'
The girl chewed her gum thoughtfully. 'He's just, you know, weird. Takes it all seriously.'
Fitz passed Anji the pamphlet. The atmospheric black and purple printing made it hard to read. On the front was a photograph of a man who had compensated for his baldness with a stylish goatee, staring into the camera with what he clearly supposed to be a burning gaze. The text inside featured headings such as, Do You Dare Explore The Darkness? and mentioned that Jack Dupre, the man on the cover, had been a professional magician and was an 'internationally renowned scholar of the dark arts'.
Fitz grinned. 'I think this is our boy.'
'I guess so,' Anji said doubtfully.
The blue-haired girl rolled her eyes.'Have fun.'
Aaaaand the voodo shop bit because it is epic and fabulous.
'All these gods,' said Anji.
'Saints,' Fitz corrected.
After leaving the Doctor at the Zombie Bar, they had continued up and down the streets of the French Quarter, checking out any place that looked promisingly weird and, in Anji's case, some that were simply stylish. Fitz spent nearly an hour in a store selling rock memorabilia, including the signed instruments of a number of famous guitarists.
They were now in a voodoo shop. Among the pin-stuck dolls and gris-gris makings and beads and candles and booklets, Anji had found a shelf of brightly
painted, haloed figures in biblical and monastic garb.
'It's like Hinduism, only with Jesus.'
'It's not,' said Fitz, aware he was on shaky ground. As a child, he'd been taken to a Lutheran church, and he had only the vaguest notions about saints.
'Why not?'
'It just isn't.'
"The Christians have only one god, pretty cousin,' the middle-aged black man behind the counter said to Anji. He had an impressive set of dreadlocks, and his accent was lyrically Caribbean. "The saints are just his servants. But sometimes the saints are also the loa. Or -' he smiled dazzlingly - 'the other way around.'
'The gods of voodoo?' said Anji.
'Not the gods. The loa: The man rested his elbows on the counter. He was smoking a cigarette that smelled of cloves, dropping the ashes into a plaster bowl in the shape of a skull.'See that man with the keys?' He pointed to one of the figures. 'That's St Peter, who guards the gates of heaven. But he's also Papa Legba, the god of the crossroads, the one who helps you find your way. Unless he tricks you.'
"Why would he do that?'
He laughed. "The loa do what they do. The saints are like nice animals that live on the farm or in the house. But the loa are like the animals that live in the wild.'
'The saints were once human beings, weren't they? I mean, supposedly,' said Fitz.'But aren't the loa always spirits?'
The man shrugged fluidly. 'They visit us.'
'You mean, like possession?'
'I mean they visit us.' The phone rang. The man lifted the receiver and began
to talk about shipping costs. Anji continued to examine the figurines.
'Become human,' she said. 'Like Vishnu. Hindus say he tricked people too, in his ninth incarnation, when he was the Buddha.'
'I didn't know all that religious stuff stuck with you.'
'It didn't stick; she said irritably. 'But I grew up with it, and I remember. And it's fascinating to see the same patterns across cultures.'
'The Doctor says he's never met a real god.'
She sniffed.'It's just possible that, if there are any gods, none of them has particularly wanted to meet him.'
It's just possible, thought Fitz, looking at the statue of St Peter, that he's
one himself.