Bloodletting
Part Six
By Cathy Roberts
huntersglenn@yahoo.com

Rating: R
Archive: No
Category: "E.R."

Disclaimer: "ER" and all its characters belong to Warner Bros No infringement of their copyright is intended. This story was written for the enjoyment of "ER" fans everywhere, and may be downloaded for your own pleasure.

Summary: An AU story set in late August of 2000. Does not contain spoilers for Season 7. John Carter takes a detour on his way home from Atlanta. As usual, my eternal thanks to Melissa, my editor, who keeps me on my toes and had to work quickly to get this edited in time for posting on Halloween. I owe you one, Melissa, thank you. When a song lyric challenge was issued on the ER FanFiction Critique Corner list, the idea for this story was born. It quickly evolved into something bigger than a single chapter and has been months in the making. I hope that you have as much enjoyment reading it as I did writing it. I encourage you to search out information on New Orleans and at least give yourselves the chance to visit the city electronically.



John couldn't keep from sinking to the floor and he absently rubbed his throat with one hand while trying to figure out what to do now. "One down and one to go," he muttered to himself. He was still holding the hammer, but the other stake was on the bed by Marguerite's body.

Perault paced back and forth between John and the bed, pausing now and then to look at Marguerite's still form. "She asked for it, so I can't blame you for killing her. She went mad a long time ago."

The pacing resumed and then Perault came to a stop in front of him. "The protection is not forever, Doctor. It will wear off, just as the paint on your body will wear away. And when that happens, I will be here to bring you to the other side of life."

"You can't keep me here that long, Perault. I'm expected to be home in Chicago in a few days. When I don't show up, people will begin to worry about me. They know where I'm staying and they'll start asking questions down here." John was beginning to wish that he had given his Gamma the details of his trip to New Orleans. He had merely told her that he was going to the Crescent City and that he would call her later with the name of the place where he was staying. And he really had intended to call her, but seeing Marie and the other apparitions had more or less shoved that intent out of his head. All Millicent Carter knew is that he had been planning to go to New Orleans. She didn't know if he had actually gone. No one knew that.

Perault sneered. "You think that scares me, Doctor? Hardly. I've grown tired of this house. Do you think it's been pleasant stuck here with Marguerite all these years? Do you think I've enjoyed playing the part of her servant? Without me, she would have never gotten her precious Etienne. And she could have had him forever if she had not killed him in a fit of blind rage. If she wasn't mad before that evening, then she surely went mad when she realized what she had done."

"Then leave here. Leave New Orleans altogether," John urged. He didn't have to destroy Perault in order to free the souls that Marguerite had used. All he had to do was burn down the house in order to set them free.

Perault shook his head. "I can't leave New Orleans. But, I can leave this house. It's handy that Max threw in his lot with you and paid for it with his life. That will make a body for them to find in your room."

John frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm going to burn this Hellhole to the ground, Doctor. It will be an unfortunate accident, perhaps a malfunction with the gas stove in the kitchen. However it happens, there is one thing that will be clear -- Marguerite De la Farcy and one of her guests, one Doctor John Carter, will be the only victims of the fire. Tonight is my night off, so I won't be around when the house goes up in flames." Perault smiled, and even though the vampire's plans were exactly what John wanted to accomplish, it didn't make him feel better about things. In fact, he felt worse. If Perault was planning to have Max Rosher's body be mistaken for his, then that meant that Perault had plans for him. John wasn't quite ready for eternal life, and if Perault behaved the way the majority of the male vampires did in the Anne Rice books, then John wasn't prepared to be his lover, either.

"There's no need to go to all that trouble. I can simply check out before you tell the cops you got off for the evening."

"Oh, you'll check out all right, Doctor Carter, you just won't be doing it in the way you originally planned."

Once again Perault's smile sent a wave of fear through John, and the man took a step closer to John, then grabbed him by his upper arms and pulled him to his feet. "I'll need to put you someplace safe while I get things organized."

"I'm willing to forget that all of this happened, honest," John tried once more to reason with Perault.

"And maybe one day you will." Perault picked John up and threw him over his shoulder, carrying him out of the room with ease. John was beginning to see that the voodoo protection was only to keep him from being bitten, or hurt, but not from being touched.

Perault headed down the stairs and then out to the garden. Once there, he approached the rear of the house, moving aside bushes and revealing a low door in the wall of the house. With one hand, Perault was able to pull a keyring from his pocket, find the right key and unlock the door. The hinges were old and rusty, and even Perault, with his non-human strength, had to struggle a bit to get the door fully open.

As Perault stooped to get into the low ceilinged room, John made sure he kept his head low. As it was, his backside scraped the ceiling. There was a sharp contrast between the fading daylight outside and the darkness of the damp room. John found himself dumped to the ground and he tried to follow Perault as the vampire returned to the door. With one hard shove, Perault shoved him to the ground and it was with a mixture of fear and dread that John watched the door shut.

In the blackness, John shivered. It was damp and cool under the house and John imagined that this room must have been used as a cooling room in the old days. There certainly was no way that a basement could have been built due to the fact that New Orleans was below sea level. So, the citizens of the city had made their own "basements" by putting their living floors up high and fitting in a room or two between that floor and the ground.

John got to his feet and headed in the direction of the door -- or at least in the direction where he thought he would find the door. He took careful steps, not wanting to trip in the darkness, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a soft hand grab his forearm.

"It's okay, Carter. I'm here with you. We're all here." Anna said.

"This is the room where you were killed, isn't it?" John asked her.

"Yes," Anna simply replied.

There was a flicker of light and then the room was lit enough for him to make out the people around him. Anna, Marie, Charlotte, Pere Chappelle, and the little boy were people he recognized. And there were a few others, too. A young man in the dress of a Confederate soldier and an older man in the uniform of a Union soldier. A few nuns, too. Marguerite had amassed quite a collection of souls.

John felt their hands on his body, their touches reassuring. "You all have form now. Does this mean that your souls have been freed?"

Marie shook her head. "Not yet. The job is only halfway completed. The death of Marguerite has brought us this far, but the burning of the house and this place...our prison, will totally free us."

"Perault is going to set the house on fire."

"To kill you, too?" Anna asked, worry in her eyes.

John shook his head. "No. He plans to turn me into a vampire. Anna, Perault destroyed Max. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I don't think that Max would have wanted to live as a vampire."

"He didn't. He was helping me."

"Well, since you managed to destroy Marguerite, then his help came in handy and his death wasn't in vain, was it?" Anna asked, tears in her eyes.

"All deaths are in vain, Anna," John replied. The familiar touch of Marie's hand on his back made him turn in her direction. "I need to get out of here, Marie."

"The door locks from the outside and we can't reach the lock from in here. There is no other way in or out of this room."

"Then we need to find a way." John said.

The others nodded and they all walked over to the walls, each person with a candle, to look for some flaw in the construction.

After five minutes or so of futile searching, Charlotte spoke up. "This is useless. We'll never find a way out of here. But we might be able to make a new way out."

John looked at her, wondering what she had in mind. "Go on."

Charlotte blushed as she saw everyone looking at her and waiting for her to continue. "We can't do anything about the brick wall, but we can do something about the ceiling." She motioned to the floor above their heads. "It's old wood and should ignite quickly. Once a hole is burned through, then John can leave that way."

"It's too risky," Anna said. "John will be burned to death if he tries that."

"Let John decide for himself," Marie ordered. She looked at John. "You only have two choices, John. Wait for Perault to come for you or risk being burned. Which will you choose?"

"I have no desire to be a vampire, Marie. Let's burn a hole through the floor. If I get a little burned, then so be it. It isn't as if I don't already have scars."

Marie clasped his hand, then stood on tiptoe to give him a kiss on his cheek. "You are a brave man, John Carter."

"No, Marie. I'm just willing to do what needs to be done. There's nothing brave about that."

"It's a stupid idea," Anna muttered, but when the others lifted their candles to the same spot on the ceiling, hers was held there as well.

John watched as the feeble flames licked the wood, but the wood was stubborn and wouldn't catch. He took off his shirt and stepped into the midst of them, stuffing the shirt into the cracks of the floorboards. "Once the shirt catches fire, the floor will go," John said. At least he hoped it would work that way.

Marie nodded, agreeing with John's plan. "You should stand by the door. If this doesn't work, then you still might be able to get out that way, especially if Perault comes to rescue you."

John walked over to the door and leaned back against it. He hoped that Perault wouldn't save him. He would much rather be dead than be turned into a vampire. John didn't realize that he was holding his breath as he watched the small group lift their candles to the cotton material until the cloth actually caught fire and he sharply inhaled. He could hear Marie chanting something and suspected she was using voodoo to help the flames along. In less than minute the entire shirt was on fire and some of the wood was beginning to catch. A minute after that, the small space was beginning to fill with smoke as an opening had not yet been burned through.

Coughing, John knelt, knowing that keeping low to the ground would give him a better chance of avoiding smoke inhalation. It was now a race against time -- could they manage to burn a hole through the floor before Perault came for him, giving him a chance to escape and the others a chance to trap Perault in the flames, destroying him forever? John certainly hoped so.

As the smoke grew thicker, Anna left the others to wait with him. "This isn't going to work," she softly said. "I'm so sorry, Carter."

John squeezed her hand, grateful that he could feel her. "It's not your fault, Anna. Maybe this is where I was meant to die." He shrugged.

"It's not."

John and Anna looked up at Marie, who stood there with a determined look on her face. "We weren't waiting for a savior just so we could watch him or her die." The flames were now spreading along the ceiling, and as John looked up at Marie, he saw that their glow was creating a halo image around her head. He shook his head, thinking that the smoke had to be getting to him if he was imagining a Voodoo Queen as an angel or saint.

Marie reached down to him. "Come with me, John."

John took her hand and she helped him to his feet. And then it happened once more and he found himself in another time. They were still in the small room, but the door was wide open and Marie led him outside. Charlotte was outside, tending to her garden and she looked up as he and Marie exited the room.

"Etienne, did you find the bulbs?" she asked, once more speaking French.

John shook his head. "No. But we'll purchase some more tomorrow, Charlotte."

A rustle of skirts from somewhere behind him made John turn around and he started as he saw Marguerite approaching them. She smiled warmly at him, then slid her arm around his. "I was hoping to find you out here, Etienne. I need your help hanging a mirror in the house."

"I'm helping Charlotte right now, but I'll be in soon to help you, Marguerite." John gently disengaged her from his arm. He knew that he would stay safe as long as he remained outside of the house.

Charlotte laughed as she got to her feet and brushed dirt from her hands. "Marguerite has been decorating your room, Etienne, and she's anxious to show it to you." Charlotte stood on her tip-toes to kiss his cheek. "I can hardly wait until you will live here with us."

"It won't be soon enough," Marguerite added, a strange look in her eyes.

"All in good time, ladies, all in good time." John walked over to the chairs and sat down. "Tell me what you plan to plant out here, Charlotte."

Charlotte sat down in the chair beside his and began to share her plans for the garden. Marie stared long and hard at Marguerite, then shook her head. "He's not for you, Miss Chastain. He will never be for you."

"Shut up, Marie. I can have whoever I want, Papa told me so." Marguerite snapped back, never taking her eyes from the object of her desire. One day Etienne De la Farcy would belong to her. She would find a way to make him hers. With a flounce of her skirts, Marguerite turned and went back into the house.

Marie looked over at John and Charlotte, catching John's eyes and smiling. She would let him rest here with Charlotte, enjoying the spring garden while the house burned to the ground in the summer over a hundred years from now. Then she would take him back to his own time. She would not let Etienne's fate become John Carter's.


"Miss Chastain, if you want to be ready for the party tonight, then I will need to do your hair now," Marie said. She had given Charlotte and John over an hour to talk, but she could feel the pull of freedom and knew it was time to take John back to his own time.

"Of course. If you'll excuse me, Etienne, I must go. I want to look special for the Lalaurie party tonight."

"You always look special, Charlotte," John said as he rose to his feet. He gave Charlotte a quick kiss on the lips, then smiled as he watched her go into the house. While Charlotte and Anna didn't look alike, their personalities were very similar and he had found it to be easy to talk with Charlotte.

Once Charlotte was inside, John turned to Marie. "Can we safely go back now?"

"I believe so." They stared at each other for a few moments and then Marie smiled. "Do you trust me, John?"

John laughed. "I've trust you this far, haven't I?"

"True enough." Marie nodded. "True enough. It was a pleasure knowing you."

"I feel the same way. I'll never be able to tell anyone about you, or this..." John gestured at the garden. They would lock him up very quickly if he landed in Chicago and started talking about going back in time with Marie Laveau. As much as he wanted others to know about what had happened, he knew he couldn't say anything.

"That's all right. You'll always have your memories." Marie gently touched his cheek. "You know, usually when I'm being possessed by one of the spirits, I don't remember what happened."

"I see." John wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. Sex with Marie in Congo Square had been fantastic, and he wished she had felt the same way about it as he did.

Marie smiled. "I remember you." She took his hand, then reached up with one hand, wrapped it around his neck and pulled him down so she could kiss him. The kiss was deep and full of passion and John knew he would certainly never forget Marie.

When the kiss ended, John found himself standing in the garden from his own time. He could hear the urgent shouts of the fire fighters as they raced around the house in a futile attempt to put out the flames.

"Perault is destroyed," a voice whispered near his ear and John looked to his left to see the fading image of Charlotte.

The trapped souls were freed and the vampires of the house dead. Smoke from the house billowed toward him and John dropped to his knees, his eyes burning from the heat. As he passed out, he could hear voices coming near him, voices raised in surprise that he was there in the garden.



The next time John opened his eyes, he was on a table in a trauma room and a pen light was being shone into his eyes. It was all too similar to what had happened to him back in February and he found himself pushing away the hands that were trying to help him.

"Hey, take it easy. You're going to be all right," a gentle voice said.

John looked up into the gentle brown eyes of the person nearest him. A doctor from the looks of things.

"What happened?" John asked through the oxygen mask.

"You were caught in a fire and took in a lot of smoke, but there doesn't seem to be any serious damage. You're lucky. No one else in the house survived." She told him. "Do you have a name? There wasn't any ID on you when the firemen found you in the garden, and the register for the B&B burned along with everything else in the house." She nodded to a nurse, who then took off the mask and put a nasal canula on him.

"I'm John Carter. I've been staying there since Saturday." John was able to breathe easily and he felt himself relaxing a bit.

"It's good to meet you, John, I'm Doctor Glapion. We're going to send you for an x-ray of your lungs and then keep you overnight for observation. I think the fire inspector and the police want to talk with you about who else was in the house and how the fire started. Do you feel up to that right now?"

John nodded. "Yeah. That's not a problem. I'm up to seeing them now."

"Right after your x-ray," she said. "I'll even go down with you, okay?"

John smiled, liking how kind she was to him. She was doing her best to make him feel at ease and not be panicked over what had happened.

"Thanks. I'm a doctor, too."

"Oh?" Her eyebrows shot up at hearing that. "What's your specialty?"

"Emergency medicine."

She laughed. "That's good. So, how are we rating, Doctor Carter?"

"You're doing great. I only hope I come across half as nice to my patients as you do to yours."

Another one of the nurses stepped up to put a gown on him. As John raised up to help her, he had to do a double take at his own body. His surgical scars were gone. He fell back, wondering if he was seeing things. There must have been a strange look on his face, because Doctor Glapion frowned as she looked down at him.

"Are you okay? Are you having pain anywhere?"

John shook his head as he noticed that his back, which should have been hurting him, wasn't hurting at all. He had been on the verge of telling her to contact County for his medical records, but he decided against that for the moment. He wanted some time alone to see if his scars really were gone or if it had been his imagination.

"I guess that your gris-gris came in handy, didn't it?" a nurse asked as she helped wheel the gurney to x-ray. "It kept you from being badly injured in the fire."

John reached for his chest and felt that it was gone. "Where is it?"

"It's safe with the rest of your belongings. Don't worry, you'll get it back. Our staff knows better than to mess with a patient's personal belongings," Doctor Glapion said, giving the nurse a sharp look. "There are a lot of people in New Orleans who believe in the power of voodoo, so we don't want to get them upset."

"There's no one here who makes that kind of gris-gris," the nurse said. "Where did you get it?"

"It was a gift," John replied, knowing he wasn't lying. If he started telling these two ladies just who had given him the charm then he would be sent straight to their Psych department.

"Someone must care a lot about you," the nurse replied, "to know to give you protection like that."

"Yeah, she did care." John replied. They had reached x-ray and he was placed into the capable hands of the technicians.

And they spoke no more about it.



The next morning, John slowly dressed in clothes that Doctor Glapion had purchased for him. The B&B had burned to the ground and he had lost all that he taken there. He had not been surprised to learn from the fire inspector and police investigator that four bodies had been found in the house. He told them that Max and Anna Rosher, of Philadelphia, had also been guests there. He mentioned that he had known them back in Chicago, before they returned to Philadelphia, just in case the police investigated it in more depth. John had thought about saying that he didn't know the couple that had been staying there, but he felt that Anna's family deserved to know that she was gone. And, he admitted to himself, so did Rosher's family. John confirmed that the other two bodies had to be those of the owner and the butler, even though there had not been enough left of their bodies to identify. The fire inspector couldn't explain that, and John couldn't help him. All he said was that he had been asleep in his room, resting after a day of site-seeing, when he smelled smoke. He couldn't get out of his room and ended up climbing over the balcony railing to the garden out back. The authorities bought that story.

Now, it was time for John to go home. It was odd that he was returning to Chicago with even less than he had with him the night he left it for Atlanta. He touched the gris-gris through his shirt. He might be coming home with less in terms of quantity, but he knew he was coming home with more in terms of value.

When he was wheeled to the lobby and outside, his cab had already arrived. John thanked the nurse, then told the driver to take him to the airport. They hadn't been in traffic long when John asked if he could stop at St. Louis Cemetery #1. The man agreed to stop, and once there he waited while John walked into the cemetery.

John headed straight for the tomb that was believed to be Marie's. It might not be her body inside, but he could still feel her spirit there.

"I wish you health and happiness, John Carter."

John turned to smile at Marie. She looked the same as she had the first time he had seen her. "Thank you. I would wish it for you as well, but..."

Marie laughed. "I had a good life, so you don't need to worry." She stepped forward and placed her hand against the stone. "My daughter Marie is the one buried here. She also practiced voodoo. Some say she looked like me, but whenever I looked into her eyes, it was her father that I saw."

"You must have loved him a lot. Was her father Paris or Glapion?" John had learned the names of her husband's when he had visited the Voodoo Museum. The first husband, Jacque Paris, had died in the late 1820's. Marie had then married Christophe Glapion. Along the way she gave birth to fifteen children, but the people at the Museum didn't know if all of them were the children of her second husband or if any had been by her first husband. They knew a lot about the daughter, who also called herself Marie Laveau, but not much about the other children. John was pretty certain that Doctor Glapion was a descendant.

"I did love him. I still do. Her father was neither man. My Marie was conceived on a night long ago, during a voodoo ritual designed to keep him safe." Marie said, looking into his eyes.

"She's mine?" Correction, he thought, she was mine. For the daughter was just as dead as the mother. He looked at the tomb with sadness then, wishing he had been able to know her.

"Yes, Marie is your daughter. She made me proud, John, and I told her all about you. Well, almost *all*. I didn't tell her that she was sired by a man who had not been born at the time she was conceived."

"She volunteered at the hospitals, just as you do, right?"

"That's right. I guess that she inherited her desire to be a healer from both of her parents." Marie smiled and John smiled back.

"Marie, my scars..."

"Exist only in your memory. I can't erase what happened to you; that will be with you always. But I could take away the scars and the pain." She slipped her hand into his and squeezed it reassuringly. "I will miss you."

"And I will miss you. Thank you, Marie. For everything."

"You are the one who risked your life for people you didn't know."

"I couldn't have done it without your help."

"True," she admitted. "Kiss me goodbye."

John leaned down and gathered her in his arms, then kissed her, chastely at first, then with more passion. Minutes later they parted, each one out of breath.

Marie smiled seductively. "Oh, I am surely a fool to let you go."

"Not as much of a fool as I am, Marie."

"Goodbye, John."

"Goodbye, Marie." John watched until she had faded away, then he turned and went back to the cab. He wasn't sure how he would explain away the lack of his scars, but he had a long plane ride ahead of him to think of something. Right now he just wanted to remember the feel of Marie's lips on his own, remember the smell of her skin and the beauty of her eyes.

Marie would be with him always, he knew that much. He also knew that he would be coming back to New Orleans someday. He didn't delude himself by thinking that he would see her again, but he knew he would feel closer to her if he were in her city.

"So, was this your first time in the Big Easy?" the cabby asked.

"Yes, it was. I had a very interesting time. I know it changed my life."

The cabby laughed. "I hear that a lot, but usually at Mardi Gras. It's a one of a kind place, ain't it?"

"It sure is." And Marie Laveau had been a one of a kind woman. No, John was sure that he would never forget the time he had spent there.

I got the ways and the means
To New Orleans I'm going
Down by the river
Where it's warm and green
I'm gonna have a drink and walk around
I got to think about, oh yeah.

The End.