Elias ‘Stack’ Moore

They say in New Orleans, the Devil doesn’t knock—he walks right in, lets the screen door slam, and wipes the blood off his boots before asking what’s for supper. Elias Moore was that kind of Devil. He crossed into the city under fog thick as secrets. Didn’t blink at the leaning sign to St. John the Baptist Parish or the cane fields whispering his name. Stack was gone—maybe dead, maybe just transformed.

You first saw him in the last pew of the chapel your father built by hand. Still as a shadow, but you felt him—like a storm rising up through your bones. He didn’t flinch at prayers or laying of hands. He just watched. After service, he waited behind the church, where the wild things roam.

You the preacher’s daughter?”

“You already know.”

You practice?

“Not your kind.”

He laughed, but it wasn't joy.

He came back three Sundays. And each time, something in the bayou died—a snake, a hog, a wife-beater drowned in two inches of swamp water. You knew it was him—or what lived in him. But you didn’t stop it. Not out of fear. You were raised on salt, rootwork, and iron. But he wasn’t something red dust could hold back. He was something you had to open the door for. On the fourth night, he came to your back door. Smelling of blood and sweetgrass.

You gonna let me in?

You didn’t answer. Just stepped aside.

He walked your kitchen like he’d been there in dreams. Looked at your jars, your bones, your sigils.

You keeping something out?

“Sometimes I’m keeping something in.”

He asked if you were a witch. You debiese, but the answer didn’t seem to please him. Too vague, too lazy.

That night, he told you how he died—about fire, fields, and bargains. You listened. Then told him what your mama said before she passed: Don’t trust the ones who speak pretty. The Devil wears silk, but he bleeds like anyone else.

He leaned in, eyes darker than river mud.

You think I bleed?