In Haiti, land of Voodoo, something strange is happening…

What the Boozehound said:

You heard about the civil war and fighting in Haiti a while back? And how everybody and their brother had to come in and try to look like they were calming the situation down, like they always do with Haiti after the last bout of foreign meddling backfires horribly, like it did the time before and the time before that…

Well I was there during the whole mess, went to visit relatives, get down with the spirits as it were, very fond of rum are those spirits, but they lack the bodies to drink the stuff so I just let them borrow mine for a while… Yeah I know, any excuse right?

But it’s voodoo, voudoun, whatever, national haitian religion it is, a dictator or two back even had the gall to pretend to one of the major death gods called Baron Samedi, yeah ‘s fucked I know… But thass the trouble, Voodoo is a big thing in Haitian life and it’s gone all wrong.

During the fghting there were the usual militiaz and shit that civil warz alwayz create, but some of the local militiaz were a bit unnusual, Fleshworker typez and boozerz like myself working together to dispense justice to the wicked and all that sanctimonious stuff, with all viz ceremonial shit ontop, which aint that unusual really, fleshworkers and Boozerz tend to fit in in the ceremonies, but I know Fleshworkers and I Am a boozehound dammit and there’z wayz to get the magick and then there’z ways you use the magick, and these weirdos were twisting chance around them like a hardcore bodybag, I’ve seen bodybagz in action enough timez to know what it lookz like, and these weirdos weren’t crazy enough to be bodybagz but were flingin their mojo aorund like wine at a dishco, which waz pract’ly normal compared to the Ché Cult.

Yeah, bunch of nutcases, car surfing and running aroun’ battle fields naked, unarmed and with giant glow in the dark bullseyes painted on the backs of their headz. Oh and every single one of them was wearing a mask of that cuban Guavara guy, the one on all the T-shirts with the beret, you know? I managed to get alook at their main ritual, Bring Your Own Bottle being the 11th unoffishial commandment of any self respecting Voodoo service, thankfully, but I wish I hadn’t gon now, the ceremonies usually have a priest or something to act as some kind of referee, make sure the ceremonies don’t just decend into people enjoying themselvez in the wrong way or something, but the local ref guy, an old friend of mine, had been nailed to the floor and the bodybags or whatever were sucking his soul out, but they were all as sober as you please, which is impossible right? I can do that but I need the buzz, that extra edge on the universe, but I was the only drunk in that room, So I freaked, because that Ain’t Right, and suddenly they were all around me and my mind was all awash with how important the rebellion was, how Ché would see that the rebellion made the world right again, brought it all to the conclusion, there would be the revolution and it would be glorious! I knew it!

Now the thing is, the thing that saved me, was that I got into a feud with a Historian or wotever they call themselves over in ‘Frisco, every time I got near to him and his cocktail glass collection I’d end up all confused about the past and shit, my memories were all outofwhack you know? So I had this locket made, got the hair of my mama, my papa and my childhood pet frisky innit, pretty little thing ain’t it? anyway, this keeps me connected to the right past, My past, cost me a lot of blood to get it made by that metalsmith in LA, was all woozy for weeks afterwardz.

Where woz I? Oh yeah, the Ché cult, yeah SO, I grabbed the locket, my memories all righted themselves and I started fucking those bastards up as best I could, never felt that Dry since, you know what I mean? never felt that sick afterwards either, over consumption I suppose, anyway, after I got out of that I tried to get the hell out of the country as fast a poss, but the war was really getting wild by this point. Well, more wild really.

So I was trekking out in the country, tryinn to stay away from places the cults (there were more, but I didn’t get a good look at all of them) were holding up, when I came across these bunch of women tearing a guy to peices with their bare hands, while these bits of cloth with some white girls face painted on them hung from the surrounding trees.

What do you mean what did I do!? I fucking took cover in a bush and preyed that nothing too poisonous bit me, vaz what I did!

The women seemed tranced out, their eyez were all unfocused and shit, it was fucking odd, and they weren’t tearing the guy apart so much as tearing bits of him off and collecting them, the sticky out bits mainly, like his nose and fingers and his cock, which was fucked up but not the Really weird bit, that was when they flew off with the spare parts, yeah, flew as in their feet weren’t touching the fucking ground.

Of course I was scared, but I alwaz say there’z a bit of bodybag in all of us, literally in some cases, So I followed them quiet az I could, and found their main place. There was an orgy in the centre of this clearing, women mainly, though a few limbz that weren’t connected to anyone were bobbing up and down out of the mass of limbz and legs and loose hair that is any decent ritual orgy. All around them were theze women prancing and jumping, some kept forgetting to land after leaping in the air though. Pretty normal really, except for the Icon of “Lady AirHeart” some were chanting and praying to, it was the white woman they had painted on the bits of hangin cloth, an old black and white photo with her grinning with some sort of scarf and goggles on. That’s what made me get the hell out of there, when voodoo preistz startz praying to white folk something ver very wrong is going on, I mean, Voodoo is about connecting to something greater even than the massa, getting connections higher up than any of the damn whiteys could ever reach, but that the slaves knew a back door too, you know? It’s slave magic not something some pale girl with fancy glazzez should be able to reach.

I got out of the country a week later, barely, and I certainly ain’t going back, ancestral homeland or not, the spirits ain’t protecting anyone but themselvez anymore, and if your wize you’ll stay the hell away too…

What the Librarian Says:

Voodoo is a tricky beast, most of it’s improvised stuff, slaves sacrificing what little they had so they could get just a little bit more or not die next time the slave masters got drunk and cat happy, awful stuff that allowed people to cling to their old traditions, the new christian traditions and all the while everyone else kept their old traditions as well. A real religious melting pot as it were.

But at some point a century or two ago it changed slightly, a form of early ritual theatricals during the ceremonies had been the only thing approaching a magick school the caribbean and voodoo had seen, but aparently some priestess who called herself Erzulie’s Daughter started gatecrashing various ceremonies, ripping her clothes off and flying about the room before landing again, demanding obediance from some of the preists and smacking down any who looked at her funny. Then she taught them a new way of doing things, a way of connecting, through sacrifices, to some truly powerful spirits, the Clergy basically, and by connecting for short periods and devotion for their entire lives they could use the clergy’s power, but they had to act right to conect to the right spirits, and so she taught the priests and the people how to connect to these higher spirits before moving on to the next town or village or island, teaching and destroying those who wouldn’t bow down to her ways.

She was last spotted leading a congregation in Jérémie, haiti, sometime during the 80’s, reports and rumours vary, but she was definatly there. But that unrest Haiti had a while ago, someone or, and this sounds impossible I know, some group of people ascended up to fill a vacant slot up there, no one’s sure exactly what ascended, but some have said they know the archetype’s number: the 330th, 2 of the 3 threes needed to stop the clock permanently, and it’s loosened the Clergy’s power like the universe wants that last number, yearns for it even and is doing everything in it’s power to aid that final goal. Of course, the reports from haiti definatly sound like the Clergy’s powers have gone haywire with all the extra juice they’re pumping into the world, their masks and past avatars being confused and mixed about, some of the people I’ve got this information from even whispered about retroactive ascensions.

At least, that’s what they say… I’m packing off to Haiti as soon as I get some things organised here, Haiti is probably one of the most connected places in the world, and if anything is going to happen, it’s going to happen there, and I’m going to find out what it is.

I might need some body guards though, if you and your friends would be interested in a little side work…