Page 15 of Girl Between

Dana donned her white gloves, slipped the magnifying panel in place, and unlocked the climate-controlled case that protected the manifest logs she was currently working on.

She’d been through sixteen already. Today she opened number seventeen, hoping to see a familiar family name among the passengers who’d come here by choice or force. Logging each name, Dana found herself wondering what stories each would tell if they had the chance.

The 1700s were a tumultuous time for the fledgling city of New Orleans. Disease, crime, fire, and famine ran rampant, slowing progress and claiming lives for much of the early years. And that was before the stories of the occult began to surface.

Vampires, werewolves, witches, and Voodoo queens all lay claim to the city. Planting seeds of folklore that grew into a veritable gumbo of tall tales that New Orleans was known for. It was Dana’s job to suss out the truth.

From Bram Stoker to Anne Rice, vampirism had always been culturally iconic, but a renewed interest was recently born in New Orleans when a 16th century mask was found during a renovation of the old French Market Inn, a hotel in the French Quarter.

The Decatur Street staple had been everything from a bakery, emporium, and postal center of sorts, housing and supplying colonial soldiers and aristocrats alike before it was converted into the modern-day hotel enjoyed by flocks of French Quarter tourists. Hauntingsthere were widely reported by guests but weren’t surprising given the city’s history.

In true New Orleans fashion, For Sale signs boasted “Haunted Property” on one side, while the other advertised “Not Haunted.” It was a running joke among locals that New Orleans was a place to find and lose yourself. A place where one could exist between worlds.

Having been here this long, Dana tended to agree with the sentiment. Which only made her lean further into her research.

For years she’d been studying the origins of vampirism, fascinated by the Venetians who both celebrated and persecuted modern vampirism. Believing vampires were responsible for the spread of plagues like the black death, early Italian corpses were often buried with bricks in their mouths to prevent the “shroud-eaters” from feeding on the dead.

When Matteo Borrini, an anthropologist from the University of Florence, uncovered a mass grave of such burials on the small island of Lazzaretto Nuovo in a Venice lagoon, it vaulted Italian vampires to stardom. The discovery and recognition of this ritual sparked international debate about the truth behind the legend of vampires. And when the remains of a corpse wearing the Venetian death mask was uncovered in New Orleans beneath the French Market Inn, the two worlds were forever connected.

What made the mask special was that it would be the earliest evidence that Italians, by way of Venice, had secretly arrived in the French colony years before history previously believed. It might not seem overly exciting to most, but to Dana, this discovery completely rewrote history.

From the Muffuletta to Hotel Monteleone, Italians had always been part of the early history of New Orleans, but it was believed they immigrated from Sicily in the 1800s to escape a corrupt and lawless existence. The mask now proved the Venetians may have arrived centuries earlier, possibly seeking refuge from the plague and bringing their blood-sucking legends with them, making them the source of all vampiric folklore in the Americas. Something the French had laid claim to, until now.

Bleary-eyed, Dana continued to translate the manuscript in front of her, searching for names of Italian origin. She glanced up from her manifest to gaze at the death mask in the glass display case on the desk where she worked. She knew it was just her imagination, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that death itself was staring back at her.

18

When I first started,I thought it was just a one-time thing. Something I had to experience. Something to get out of my system and leave behind. I never planned to do it again, but I see now that was naïve.

I know I should stop. I’ve even tried. But I can’t hold myself to it. Not after learning the possibilities. It’s so much more than I ever imagined. My last kill was wasteful. But I can adapt. This time, I can do more, save more, make more.

I’ve discovered how lucrative this can be. Though it’s not why I started, it can’t be ignored. I have the skills. It would be a waste not to use them. A waste, just like her body.

If I make more money, I can make more of a difference. I can save more lives. If I’d done this back then, maybe I could’ve saved her. But then again, it was failing her that led me down this path.

No. I didn’t fail her. He did.I close my eyes, hatred filling what’s left of my soul.

He’ll see it soon.

He deserves everything that’s coming to him.

I want him to feel everything I feel. To lose everything I lost.

Recentering myself, I smile at her. Her life is but a small sacrifice.One life, for that of many. She won’t be missed. Not a woman like this. I could tell the moment she made eyes at me across the neon green bar.

She still hasn’t taken her eyes off me. I play the game, ignoring the drunks tossing back frozen drinks and throwing sticky plastic toys into the nets that hang from the bamboo above us like it means anything.

It doesn’t. It’s just a drunken ritual concocted to sell overpriced booze, lowering inhibitions to the dangerous level where patrons think they’ve finally achieved whatever drove them to this hedonistic playground.

She clutches her glowing grenade and for a moment the foreshadowing vision makes me wonder if this is what she was hoping for when she came here. Was she seeking an end? Either way, she’s found it. She just doesn’t know it yet.

I slap cash on the bar, paying my tab while I size her up. It’s almost too easy, the way she flocks to me.

It’s a shame. She’s pretty. I’d rather take her for a ride, have some fun, but that would be sloppy, dangerous. That’s not my style. I do this for the greater good.

I nod to the door, and she eagerly follows. As she takes my hand, offering me a flirtatious smile, I remind myself why I came here. I remind myself why she needs to die.

19