Jericho arrives in New Orleans and reunites with his niece, Collette Drumm, who has gathered her father's Houngan artifacts and started to teach herself the basics of vodou. In her exploration, she learned that her father's death was due to a curse, which she believes was placed by the new Houngan: "Mambo Limbo," an elderly Mamaloi who was thought to have left the practice thirty years ago. Jericho is convinced by Collette to start his own investigation into what's going on in the region, leading him to send a coded message to his American friend and humanitarian worker Loralee Tate, at the
Atis Rezistans.
There, he instead meets Loralee's father, American police officer Samuel Tate. Tate is furious with Jericho for getting his daughter involved in "Lwa's business" and desperate for information on her. Tate blames Jericho for her involvement in Haiti at all, suggesting that if it weren't for their old relationship, she would've stayed in New Orleans; Jericho denies any involvement in her choices, reiterating that she's always been her own woman. Sam eventually backs off, and Jericho learns that Loralee Tate is a missing woman, one of many missing women in Port-au-Prince, with few leads or connections other than nebulous contact to the "
Cult of the Dark Lord."
Their investigations lead Jericho and Samuel throughout Port-au-Prince. After a week investigating Mama Limbo with no results, they widen their search to other regions of the city. Jericho and Sam successfully intervene in a kidnapping attempt made on a local woman in Port-au-Prince's market street, but the kidnapper "dies" before they can interrogate him. Sam Tate is furious that they let the kidnapper get away with killing himself, and denounces the "religious fanaticism" involved, but Jericho questions the situation more. Jericho and Sam search the body and find tokens of the Cult of the Dark Lord, but Haitian police arrive and take over the situation before they can complete a more thorough investigation. Collette, now deeper in her study of Daniel's materials, suggests the kidnapper might've been dead the whole time. Jericho agrees.
Jericho and Collette lead a séance and call forth the kidnapper's spirit using the artifacts of the Cult collected from him. His spirit, still clinging to the world, is easily called forth into the room; once-arrived, it denounces the group as cravens, fools and amateurs, not fit for Baron Samedi's perfect Haiti. Sam challenges the spirit and demands to know where his daughter is, going as far as to shoot his pistol at the spirit's ethereal form. He shatters a glass artifact elsewhere in the room and immediately drops his gun in fear. Jericho realizes the soul is bound by Baron Samedi through necromantic vodou, and that through summoning him into their home, they have opened themselves up to attacks by Samedi's forces. Jericho dismisses the soul immediately and ends the séance, thoroughly unnerved by the process.
Collette suggests that they take turns guarding Sam through the night, as she believes he was the one who most strongly provoked Samedi's spirit servant. Jericho is willing to do it himself; he's had more than enough nights with no sleep working on his doctorate, staying up one more won't hurt him. The group comes to agreement. Collette splits off from the others, promising to give them a call once she makes it back to her apartment.
Jericho and Sam both stay up the night in the Drumm House, and Sam reveals a flask of gin from his pack. Sam convinces Jericho to have a glass of gin with him; Jericho agrees to one glass, but Sam continues drinking after that. They share stories about Loralee for a while, leading Sam to apologize for the past. He had never supported the two of them together, and he never understood Jericho's "family business," but maybe now he's starting to get some of it. As Sam finishes his fourth glass of gin, he shakes his head and admits "you're alright, Jerry. Probably a better man than me."
Jericho's phone ringing breaks the moment. It's Collette. Jericho answers, but there's no one on the other line. Only muffled noises of movement, Collette's dogs barking and the phone swinging through the air.
The camera shifts to pan through Collette's apartment, where two of her
dogs are in near-shock. Her belongings are scattered across the room and her furniture is smashed. The camera pans further, and as the dog's barks end, the audience can hear the slight whine of a third dog, pinned beneath the apartment's broken couch. Jericho and Sam kick through the door and storm into the apartment, finding it ransacked; Sam, feeling the gin, starts to cry and apologize to Jericho. Jericho is more focused on searching the room and helping Collette's pinned dog. His perceived cold shoulder to Sam spirals Sam further, and his drunk apologies turn towards aggression.
Jericho finishes helping Collette's dog out from under the couch. There doesn't look to be any permanent damage, but she's bruised and has a troubled gait. Sam starts another insult towards him, but Jericho rises up with the dog in his arms and shakes his head. He denounces Sam Tate, returning to the idea of 'family business' – "my family puts demons back in the dirt, you drink your demons out a bottle." The words startle Sam out of his anger, swinging him back through the mercurial moods of a drunk into despondence. Jericho hands the dog over to Sam and tells him to call the police and get this "taken care of" while he goes after his niece.
Jericho leaves and manages to catch a bare trail leading away from the apartment. He pursues it throughout the night, despite his growing tiredness, but eventually he collapses and gives up, now much deeper within a Port-au-Prince slum. The trail has broken off into multiple different paths, and none look promising. Jericho sits down on the curb and stares out across the Port-au-Prince streets and realizes he's been here before, when he was a kid.
Jericho follows his past footsteps, trailing after a memory of himself and his brother as children. It was one of the first time they dabbled with vodou; they hold talismans of their own design, inscribed with
vèvè of their own favored story. Jericho's depicts Maman Brijit, and the
Gede; Daniel's depicts
Ezili Dantor, and the
Petwo instead. It was Daniel's dream as a child to become a great Houngan, and unify the people of Haiti through religion. Jericho's childhood dream was not as kind. He remembers being praised as the next great bokor, and Daniel's words of the great power he held inside.
Jericho comes out of reminiscing, and finds himself at the roots of an old Haitian tree, still standing within Port-au-Prince. Carvings wrap around the tree, many by Jericho and Daniel's own hands. Guided by the memories of his brother and himself as children, Jericho digs against the dirt at the tree's base, and pulls two talismans out from their shallow grave. Light glints around them, showing off their magic nature and protection. They were the same he and his brother wore, long before.
Jericho looked back over his shoulder, against the dark night of Port-au-Prince. In the distance, dogs bark, and rain breaks the sky. Jericho spits against the dirt. Lightning flashes, and in the light, he sees the young faces of his niece and of his old flame Loralee.
After a moment of doubt, hesitation and guilt, Jericho forcefully pulls the talisman necklaces down over his neck. The necklaces cords rip as he tears them down onto his neck, but a new cord of light forms between them, burning white-hot and clinging to his skin. The same light fills Jericho's eyes, and he grabs the base of the tree to support himself. The world around him shakes, and trembles; his vision comes in and out of focus.
Finally, when he stables himself and looks up, he sees his brother's shade beside him, with white fire glowing in his eyes. Daniel is laughing; "hell, it's about time you came back to me, brother." Daniel's shade offers him a hand and help to his feet; Jericho takes it, and white smoke spirals around him as he does, reinvigorating him with magic strength and energy.
I swear, most of my knowledge of Marvel and DC characters come from Lego Game walkthroughs...