University of New Orleans ScholarWorks@UNO University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations Dissertations and Theses 12-17-2010 Where the Dead Remain Bryan Camp University of New Orleans Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td Recommended Citation Camp, Bryan, "Where the Dead Remain" (2010). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 1250. https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1250 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ScholarWorks@UNO with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Where the Dead Remain A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of New Orleans in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Film, Theatre, and Communication Arts Creative Writing by Bryan Camp B.A. Southeastern Louisiana University, 2006 December 2010 Copyright 2010, Bryan Camp ii for New Orleans, my city, and for Elizabeth, my home iii A man's house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And when he casts about for it he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an essential -- there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost. It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of his disaster..." Mark Twain - The Autobiography of Mark Twain iv Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................. vii Chapter One .........................................................................................................................1 Chapter Two.......................................................................................................................14 Chapter Three.....................................................................................................................22 Chapter Four ......................................................................................................................34 I ..........................................................................................................................................40 Chapter Five .......................................................................................................................41 Chapter Six.........................................................................................................................53 Chapter Seven ....................................................................................................................59 Chapter Eight .....................................................................................................................70 Chapter Nine ......................................................................................................................79 I ..........................................................................................................................................93 Chapter Ten ........................................................................................................................94 Chapter Eleven .................................................................................................................100 I ........................................................................................................................................113 Chapter Twelve ................................................................................................................114 Chapter Thirteen ..............................................................................................................130 Chapter Fourteen ..............................................................................................................142 Chapter Fifteen.................................................................................................................148 v Chapter Sixteen ................................................................................................................159 Chapter Seventeen ...........................................................................................................169 Chapter Eighteen ..............................................................................................................180 Chapter Nineteen .............................................................................................................199 Chapter Twenty ................................................................................................................214 Chapter Twenty One ........................................................................................................226 Chapter Twenty Two .......................................................................................................242 Chapter Twenty Three .....................................................................................................255 I ........................................................................................................................................261 Chapter Twenty Four .......................................................................................................264 Chapter Twenty Five........................................................................................................277 Chapter Twenty Six .........................................................................................................289 Chapter Twenty Seven .....................................................................................................309 Chapter Twenty Eight ......................................................................................................313 Chapter Twenty Nine .......................................................................................................324 Chapter Thirty ..................................................................................................................331 Vita ...................................................................................................................................343 vi Abstract Where the Dead Remain is a murder mystery set in a Post-Katrina New Orleans where the gods, magic and monsters of various world mythologies actually exist. The story follows a week in the life of Jude Duboisson, a once magician who is struggling with the loss of his magic and the life he had known in the wake of the storm, as he is pulled out of his torpor and into the affairs of the mighty once again. He is tasked with discovering who murdered Dodge Renaud, the fortune god of New Orleans. What he discovers, though, are some surprising truths about the fundamental nature of things: about loss, about New Orleans, and about himself. Keywords: Angel, Anubis, Baron Samedi, Detective, Gods, Katrina, Legba, Magician, Mythology, Nephilim, New Orleans, Urban fantasy, Vampire, Voodoo vii Chapter One In the beginning, there was the Word, and the Void, and Ice in the North and Fire in the South, and the Great Waters. A universe created in a day and a night, or billions of years, or seven days, or a cycle of creations and destructions. The waters were made to recede to reveal the land, or the land was formed of the coils of a serpent, or half of a slain ocean goddess, or the flesh and bones and skull of a giant, or a broken egg. Or the land was brought up to the surface of the waters by a water beetle, or a muskrat, or a turtle, or two water loons. Or an island of curdled salt appeared when the sea was churned by a spear. A world populated by men who evolved from a single cell, or were made from clay or from wood or found trapped in a clam shell. Or who fell from a hole in the sky, or crawled up from an underworld of seven caves, or an insect world below. All of these stories, these truths, exist; part of a simultaneous, magical state of being that makes up the world. But it is not a world without complications. Not without conflicts. Not without seams. Jude Duboisson thought about those seams as he stared out at Jackson Square, at the broad white expanse of St. Louis Cathedral, at the plump, fluttering mass of pigeons, at the tidal ebb and flow of tourists on the cobblestones, seeing none of it. The loud, constant mutter of the crowd fell on deaf ears, as did the hooves clopping on pavement, the hooting echo of a calliope playing on a steamboat on the river. He thought about things he seldom let himself think about anymore, names and magic, lies and myth, his present and his past. Cassandra. Some of his thoughts spilled onto his face, visible in the dark circles under his eyes, the gaunt hollows of his cheeks, the speckling of gray in his beard and hair, in his stillness, his distant stare. He wore jeans and a long-sleeved shirt despite the cloying