So I spent a while this morning going back and forth on today’s blog content. Who to feature? Marisa. No, Legba. No, it should be Marisa. Then I figured…what the hell…I’m going to do both because it’s my party and there are no rules.
Both Marisa and Legba are strong supporting characters within the Order of Crows. Every member of the Murder hail from different mythological backgrounds. It’s a world that’s all-inclusive, every religion and tons of different folklore. I was certainly ambitious when I started this story fifteen years ago. Yet I managed to make it work, with a nod of thanks to Neil Gaiman and his “American Gods” that made me realize way back when that I could basically do what I want when it comes to my stories. I’ll also say here that a lot of that mythology is loosely interpreted for creative purposes. At no point did I intend to stay rooted in fact, or traditional fiction, as the case may be for religions and folklore.
Legba, if you’re unfamiliar with the name, hails from the world of Voodoo. Marisa comes from ancient Mayan stories. With these two characters, I decided to make them both human and divinity. They’re demigods. Legba is the bridge to the loa, or Voodoo gods. He is the way for humans to link to their gods. Marisa’s domain is darker, and she is my other trigger warning from the story. Her domain is death by suicide, and the idea that those who take their own death by the reins have freedom in the afterlife.
In The Murder Meets at Dusk, Legba is antagonistic at best, especially when it comes to characters who have an affinity for darkness, mainly Marisa and Aleister. Marisa, on the other hand, is not antagonistic but she is prone to secrecy and seclusion. What a surprise that the two end up making an excellent team.
Please enjoy this excerpt from The Song of the Sparrow, Order of Crows Book Two:
He spins in wide circles, stomping to the drums. The blade gleams and flashes in the low light. Then he stops abruptly and, with a well-placed swipe, severs the head of the dove. Bright blood spurts from the rended body and pours down over Hattie’s hands.
It shouldn’t mean anything, the death of a small animal, but Marisa feels it in her core. Her breath catches and her gate slams open. Her power billows out into a set of ebony, smoky wings.
The sound of the drums dies. She looks around. The room looks the same but all the people are gone. Almost. Legba is here. Marisa steps toward him. His head jerks up and he whips around.
“How did you follow me?” he asks, his tone harder and closer to what he uses in the circle. His gaze skates downward and his eyes widen.
Her attention follows his and her reaction is the same. She’s wearing a long white dress that hugs her curves and has no sleeves. The dove coos in her hands, intact and calm.
“I don’t know,” she says.
“She comes naturally here.”
The voice is deep, heavily accented. Marisa and Legba look as one to its source. She hears Legba take a sharp breath and then he bows low. Marisa studies him for a moment then looks back to the other man. Maybe a man standing beside a second figure.
The first is tall, nearly seven feet. He wears a white, double-breasted suit made of linen that hugs close to his slender form, complete with a solid white tie and button-up shirt. Upon his head is a straw trilby hat, with a broad band of fabric the color of snow around its crown. Short, salt-and-pepper hair shows at the base of his neck. His skin is the shade of thick tar and his face shows soft hints of age lines in the residual light of the altar. His expression is a severe portrait of solemnity.
He says, “She is kindred by her own right,” and he smiles, his teeth like ivory.
“Thank you,” she says, gaze flitting to the other, shorter figure, also an old man, though his hat has a wide brim and he carries a straw bag on his shoulder. He’s not looking at them. His eyes are on the altar.
“I am Damballah. This is Loko,” says the tall one. Somewhere in Marisa’s memory the first name rings a bell. She doesn’t know much about Voodoo but she has heard that name. These aren’t men, she thinks, they’re gods. “Stand up, Legba.”
Legba straightens, all of his lines hard with tension. He seems nervous in a way that Marisa can feel rather than see. He holds his head high, though, and he’s still holding the machete.
Damballah casually slips his hands into the pockets of his pants and looks to Loko. The shorter, more wrinkled god steps forward. A stalk of rhubarb hangs from the corner of his mouth and it bounces slightly as he chews on it. Every line in his expression is hard. She watches shrewd, dark eyes again sweep the altar.
“Tonight,” he says without looking away from the array of items cluttered on the altar’s surface, “you do well, Legba.”
Damballah nods.
Breath rushes from Legba’s lungs, an overt and uncharacteristic show of relief that seems to create a wind that blows warm against them.
The dove in Marisa’s keep coos again and rustles its feathers, but it doesn’t try to escape her grasp. Her hair moves to taste the air. Then Loko pins Legba with a stern look that tinges on a glare, and the younger gathers his apprehension once again.
“Thank you,” Legba whispers.
Loko makes a long and impersonal hm as he approaches the altar. He’s much more interested in the booze that waits there, straight up, in two highball glasses. He spits the rhubarb onto the ground and picks one of the glasses, sniffs it, then drains it.
“Tonight the loa go to war,” he says.
Aj Elmore, Author 