Marie Voleuse

Red

• The Past.

  Marie grew up in the swamp lands down in the bayou, Cajun country. Her daddy was a drinker and a gambler. Booze and good deck of cards were his obsession. He would stay out all night long, sometimes for days without a word. This was usual practice in her household. The lemur's mother was a quiet, gentle woman. She was a practitioner of black magic. Cajun voodoo. The woman had many of the townspeople seek her advice or request a good casting. Several were returning customers. If they were seeking love, money, or murder.. Marie's mother had the right potion or concoction for them and they would always get results. Her parents were in a constant state of silent treatment, never speaking, hardly even looking at each other anymore. Their only connection was the physical abuse her mother would suffer at his hands after a night of drinking and failed gambling. There was a tension, thick and heavy, and the look in her mother's eyes when she happened to look at that disgrace of a man, was pure disgust and hatred. Marie would spend most of her time as a young child, hiding in the cellar, until the storm would pass and her father would bound out of the house. Then she would emerge to cling to her mother's side.
  
  Their family lived in a small run down shack at the edge of the swamp. Insects were constantly buzzing and reptiles always slinking around. It was a perfect place to dump bodies, and many usually did just that.
  
  The only relationship Marie had with her father was when he would teach her the cards. He taught her several ways to gamble. Cards of all styles, races, arena fights. You name it, he taught her. By the time she was five years old, she knew how to throw the dice just right to get the desired number everytime. She knew how to count those cards and how to keep an extra ace under a sleeve, just in case. Marie knew all the tricks to the trade, and how to conceal it well. She was a master by the time she was ten years old and would sometimes accompany her father down at the local bar. The girl was taught darts, billiards and how to hussle for money. She never received any real father/daughter relationship from him, or the kind of love one would get from a parent. Marie was constantly used in his gambling schemes, an accompliss. He would use her to get into places he had been banned from to do the betting for him and she would suffer the consequences if she lost. Obscenities and other verbal abuse would spew from her fathers mouth as well as the physical aspect, he was all fists.
  
  Her mother never liked the relationship Marie had with her father. It disgusted her and caused her even more rage toward Marie's father. Hating the fact that he was turning her only child into a mirror image of himself. She had always swore she would never let that happen.
  
  When Marie was around fifteen years old, her father wound up missing one evening after he had left to spend the little coin they had and drink himself into oblivion. Her mother never spoke much about the incident, always keeping quite, and pretending it never happened. Although, after that night, the dullness to her eyes had never looked brighter. The woman's entire demeanor changing overnight. Her mother chalked the whole thing up to her father probably being piss drunk, trying to stumble home and ending up walking right into the swamp. She would imply the 'gators and the croc's must have gotten to him. This explanation sat just fine with Marie, until a body would never be produced. Marie had serious doubts about what had happened, and her suspicions stuck to her mother and that voodoo magic. Even if she wanted to, she could not blame the woman, she probably would have done the same thing if she had been in her shoes.
  
  The two women would live off of the income her mother made from selling her potions and voodoo curses. Helping other mistreated wives poison their husbands and star-crossed lovers find true love and happiness. Marie helped by lurking in the alleys and pickpocketing the wealthy people that scurried by, in too much of a hurry to notice the girl.
  
  Soon after Marie's seventeenth birthday, her mother would become extremely ill and bedridden. Marie never left her side and constantly took care of her. She never knew what it was that had taken her mother, in the swamps they didn't have doctors, at least not ones you could trust. Marie's mother had refused any medical attention anyway, she wanted to die, to be set free. Her body was a shell that had been exhausted and used up. It was too much to keep pushing her life any further. Maries mother would die a few nights after her seventeenth birthday, while she slept next to her, petting her white hair and crying herself to sleep.
  
  The next morning, Marie would bury her mother behind that little shack. Right at the edge of the swamp. She had put some of the woman's black magic trinkets in the hole with her. Everynight Marie would sit out next to her mothers rock and flower covered grave. Always lighting a black candle.
  
  After her parents deaths, Marie spent most of her time in those same bars her father used to frequent, but instead of failing, she would win. She could clean out a whole bar in less than two hours. Needless to say, she had a lot of angry men after her to get their money back. Whether she cheated or not, which she usually did not have to, the girl always walked out with bigger pockets than she had going in. She was a professional. Much better than her father ever was. A drinker, a smoker and a betting fool. Marie cursed worse than a sailor and could drink any man under the table. The girl would also start running with a group of canines, a bunch of guys that went out on small jobs. Stealing. They would hit small houses and hold people up in the alleyways, always having Marie do the hard part. Especially, when it came to home invasion. She was the smallest, the quietest and the quickest. She was the best, and they knew it. Those boys in her crew were sticking around in case things got rough. They were her eyes and ears outside, watchdogs. They were also the muscle when the shit hit the fan.
  
  Those goons would also be her crew members when a big boss, Amos Bellefontaine, a beastly alligator, would notice the talents of our cajun lemur. He finessed the boys into joining his gang and in turn, got them to recruit Marie as well. They did a few small jobs for the man, and after each conquest, the 'gator would become more and more greedy. It was that last job that did her in. A diamond heist. Marie was very talented, and could have gotten the job done without a hitch. Except, Amos was a paranoid man, and he turned those canine's she once called crewmembers, friends and even brothers, against her. They turned her into a scapegoat. Using her to get the goods. They invaded a palace of a home, a mansion belonging to a very wealthy land owner. She got past the guards. The girl moved without a sound, unseen as though she were a shadow moving through the halls and rooms. Once the diamons were taken and produced to Amos, those backstabbing canines were then ordered to take her out. All five of them pounced on her at once, taking turns to beat her up and leave here there unconscious. They thought she was dead, but they were wrong. Very wrong. When Marie came to, she was caged at The Golden Tether. Wrists shackled and left to serve her time as a slave. Marie swore revenge and she that she would have it someday. Once that cajun blood gets boiling, its very hard to quench the thirst.
  
  Marie had become employed and owned by a canine man named Michael Kail. He had been kind to her and used her to do a job, that has won his respect. The girl had become quite attached to the man, her adoration increasing with every moment she spent with him. She cared deeply for the man, and he seemed to have had the same feelings for her. Marie intended to stay with him, curious to see how their relationship/partnership would unfold, but time and unknown forces had taken the canine away from her, her freedom restored and on her own for quite some time. She swears to find out what happened to the one who had stolen her heart, but for now, the woman would seek spend her time doing what she does best, perhaps even gain further employment.