The Hunger of Greed

Part 1

The Pang of Hunger Never Sleeps

Aimee’s desire to feed never slept. It prowled beneath her skin—restless and impatient, like a feral cat pacing a gilded cage, fuming to be released.

The harder she tried to contain it—praying in fits while clutching the rosary Nina Mae McKinney had given her—the more her hands trembled. Memories of her ancestors, the Whitney Plantation, and Estelle’s rescue played in her mind night after night with terrible clarity.

Ah, Estelle—the poor teenage girl Aimee had saved from being sold into the blue-books slavery. Make no mistake: being a chippie had freedoms, but it was also slavery wrapped in a pretty pink bow, and Lulu White was always ready to collect fresh meat.

Aimee promised herself she would not let that putrid woman’s greed destroy the innocence of any more girls.

That Lulu White better know I’m coming, she thought, her fist clenched.

But salvation had a price. For every soul she lifted from ruin, another must be drained into silence. That was the ultimate cost of balancing the universe.

She was not one of the legends whispered in parlors around the Quarter. Many confused Aimee with the casket girls from Ursuline Convent—brides shipped from France around 1720, promised to men who misbehaved in the Quarter. Folks said she’d stolen their identity, tainted their purity; back then racism hung in the air as common as a cigarette.

Aimee was something older, more merciless: the revenant of greed, a capital sin made flesh. When the hunger rose, it painted the world green. Jazz bled through the Quarter, striking her nerves like needles and making her heart vibrate. She could smell the vice: bourbon-soaked saloons, sweet perfume, sweat, lies—and beneath it all, the musk of men who thought themselves untouchable.

But tonight the stench had seduced her.

She took out one of the new dresses Mylène had sent—green silk, pinned with a black iris—and dressed herself in it. She studied her reflection.

“I don’t reckon this gal—but mamma, I am a dream. Woo. I’m a good dish to be lickin’—and tonight this dish is gonna be the one feedin’. I ain’t gonna be feed on.”

Storyville was waiting. Tonight there was a banquet to feast on.

Part 2

Prey Buffet

Every alley, every juice joint, every smoke-filled, glass-stained room stank of sin. But her feeding was never random. Aimee was meticulous—methodical—in choosing who to feed on. She was drawn to those already glowing with rot, swollen in a yellow haze: the stench of putrid greed.

She roamed the docks of Storyville, but her hunger pulled her toward Canal Street, until she felt him—near the Faubourg Tremé backstreets. His sins poured off him as if he were soaked in cheap cologne; he reeked.

“Know where I can find me a blue book, or a canary to sing me a song? Papa needs some lovin’ and a bit of giggle water,” he slobbered, trying to corner girls as they passed.

The stench around him emitted a radiant, mustard-yellow glow—rotten, the musk of a predator: rancid and bold. His pockets were fat from gambling and cheating in back rooms, from selling girls far too young to know right from wrong or even remember their own names.

“Papa needs a bird to sing him a song,” he kept yelling, jostling at the girls as they hurried by. “You interested in being with a real man, doll? I need me a good gal—come with me and I’ll make sure you’re taken care of, sweet cheeks.”

Aimee felt her anger flare at this old fella preying on young’ns.

This old crusty man will do. I am starved.

She noticed the yellow glow layered over a green flicker halo—those telltale signs of a man so steeped in greed that corruption was his second name: hoarding and devouring the last of his soul, consumed without conscience.

He is perfect, Aimee whispered.

The jazz from a nearby club became her soundtrack as she glided in the shadows, moving in unison as if she were dancing—each step bringing her closer to the man, the sound of his heartbeat echoing in her ear.

“Mama, tonight I take a man’s life, just like Frankie G—” she murmured, and the night leaned in to listen.

Part 3

The Feeding

He was too distracted, trying to score a date for the night, to notice Aimee gliding toward him.

She moved gently, floating through the shadows like a green flame, the silk of her dress brushing the bricks as if the Quarter itself was announcing her. His grin soured the moment her emerald eyes locked on him, burning merciless.

“Oh, Papa found himself a piece of delicious chocolate—You lookin’ for a good time, doll? Papa can bring the heat—”

His words died as Aimee lifted him off the ground with one hand, pinning him against the brick wall. His eyes bulged with terror as he tried to speak.

“What is this—??” he gasped, paralyzed by her grip.

The jazz from nearby joints turned violent, trombones blaring as if they had awakened Aimee’s tribal thirst for justice.

With one swipe of her hand she pulled at his aura, inhaling the golden-yellow smoke that rose from him. The aura peeled away from his crown, stripped raw. She drank it. Her eyes grew greener with every breath she took, while his eyes dimmed, their gleam fading.

His body dropped to the floor, lifeless—like a python had wrapped around his neck and squeezed the soul out of him.

“Greed feeds on greed… like Frankie Guliani says: a life for a life—” she whispered, her voice laced with apathy and venom.

Part 4

Aimee’s Dichotomy

Silence filled the Quarter. Only the muffled jazz from Canal Street clubs bled through stained glass windows, sounding like devil horns weeping into darkness.

The man at her feet was nothing more than a predator—the kind Aimee despised. A man who preyed on young girls barely stepping into womanhood.

She stood over him, regal, as if a queen had just defended her kingdom from invaders. Her silk dress clung to her like a reminder that sometimes violence is the only medium to erase those unworthy of continuing in this world.

Life is balance. The karmic laws of the universe are governed by mathematics and physics. She remembered what she had read in the Oliver House Hotel library Mylène had built.

The Rig Veda spoke of truth: Karma is the mother of all consequence. Gaia emerged from Chaos to bring balance to the world.

Aimee’s mind wandered to the night she saved Estelle—the girl she ripped from Lulu White’s greedy paws. Salvation had tasted ripe like a plum. She wanted that taste again.

But this felt different.

Her hands still trembled from the hunger’s grip. The man’s aura had screamed as she inhaled it. That scream lingered—made her lustful.

Aimee began to see the duality of her role: part of the wheel of Samsara, part of the Christian/Catholic pillar. She was a capital Sin.

A girl who could cradle a child to sleep with a lullaby—yet drain a man’s soul without spilling a drop.

Dove and Vulture.

Queen and Witch.

Saint and Butcher.

On her way back to Toulouse Street she caught her reflection in a window. Her eyes still glowed from the feeding—dark green, inhuman, merciless. She felt the weight of the rosary Nina Mae McKinney had given her. She could almost hear the prayers of the greedy, begging for salvation.

Right then, she realized she was both savior and executioner. God gives a chance to repent—but she was the hand that carried the consequence. She remembered Nina Mae’s words: the universe will always balance itself.

Part 5

The Legends of the Storyville Docks

By dawn, whispers of God’s executioner had already begun.

The girls along Basin Street and down to the Storyville docks spoke of a man found stiff in an alley near Faubourg Tremé—eyes wide open but hollow, as if God Himself had visited judgment on his sins.

No blood. No wounds. A strange way to die, they said.

They swore they saw a figure in green silk, a black woman with long curls and a black iris pin on her hand. Eyes like emeralds. Veins glowing jade. Some said she was an angel from God—the same who had saved young Estelle from Mahogany Hall, much to Lulu White’s fury.

Others whispered she was a demon sent by Satan to punish greedy men prowling the Quarter.

Whoever she was, the Sicilian kids in the Quarter gave her a name:

“La Sirena dagli Occhi Verdi.”

The Green-Eyed Siren.

It rang through the Quarter. Bone players struck their instruments, poets scribbled verses, and songs began to form. Some called her demon. Some called her merciful angel.

Even Frankie’s goons whispered—but careful never within Carollo’s earshot. Mafiosi feared a hunger that wasn’t for sale.

“When we can’t make our bones—we got a problem,” said Salvatore Botticelli.

The name spread like kerosene waiting for a match. Some walked proudly with their crosses, believing safer days had come. Others felt watched by eyes in the dark.

Aimee stood at her Oliver House Hotel window, listening to the echo from the Quarter, rosary tangled in her fingers, playing with the beads.

Ethel Bourbon padded to the sill.

“See, Ethel? They know about us. Storyville has given us a name—”

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One soul. One shadow. One whisper.
Mylène remembers the ones who speak her name.

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