Concerning the Houngan

   The Houngan was tall, razor thin, skin the color of creamy coffee. Dirty braids drifted rhythmically across his face. His face was devoid of eyebrows, but marked with the ambiguous blue of ancient, faded tattoos. He was draped in the chair like dry cleaning, like an aquarium skeleton collapsed against his treasure chest. Timelessness, the musty air of centuries, hung about him, mingling with strange herbal and sweat notes.
   Hoell suddenly remembered the cigar, fished it from his jacket and held it out. Languidly the Houngan took it, lit it with an unseen flame and pulled a smoke. He exhaled with eyes to the heavens, a connoisseur waiting for the last moment to dispense an opinion. At last he spoke. "The winds are changing, Jazz Man. They are blowing from the south. From the past."
   Hoell nodded solemnly.
   "But they will not stay. They are here only to move out again. He seeks what is his, what holds him to this earth he created for himself."
   The cigar, which with Savannah smelled like a wet newspaper, filled the air with a sweet musty smell, a faint hint of anisette there and gone.
   "Whitechapel wants it too," Hoell put in. "He wants to give it himself."
   "Whitechapel thinks he can change the winds of his own fate. He thinks he can walk the same path as He." The Houngan flipped a tuft of ash to the floor. "He is wrong," he said matter-of-fact. "The time for bargaining has passed. Only the just shall survive."
   Hoell's hands found an unheard Jelly Roll Morton in the air, tapped it out like Morse Code. "What would you have me do?"
   The Houngan looked at him with scrutinizing black eyes. He reached into his jacket and pulled forth a card, flipped it around with a flourish and revealed the face to Hoell. A crude icon of a chess rook, the card obviously upside down. "You must go to Him. Bring what He desires. Out of the chaos of the storm the moon will shine."
   Hoell looked down at the object in his hand, trying to make up his mind. He sighed, and moved his shoulders back resolutely. "I don't know that I've a choice," he said, and slid the tin box into his coat. He tipped his hat to the Houngan and left the room.