V -■
' K#
It was quite late by the time Sara finally stumbled into her apartment, physically exhausted and mentally depleted, as she always was whenever she used the Witchblade. Like the macho idiot that he was, Jake refused to go to the emergency room, so Father Baltazar had volunteered to wash and bandage his cuts, bruises and minor wounds. They hadn’t discussed in any detail an official report. One look from Jake had told Sara that he’d defer to her judgment, as he always did when something “out of left field” happened. No way could Sara envision explaining the night’s events in the plain black and white of an official report. Some things, she knew, were best left unofficial.
She barely had the strength to strip off her tattered clothes and drop them on the floor beside her unmade bed.
She was so exhausted she couldn't even conceive of taking a shower, despite the fact that she smelled strongly of an unpleasant combination of odors: adrenalin sweat, the stink of the subterranean station, and the metallic stench left on her skin by the Witchblade.
She collapsed naked on the mattress and pulled her rumpled sheet over her dead-tired body and closed her eyes, desperate for sleep.
But it wouldn’t come. The voices wouldn’t let it. They were angiy at her. They had tasted death, but it hadn’t been enough. They’d wanted more, and were furious that Sara hadn’t let them have Sandro.
“How dare you deny us?”
“We saved your wretched partner.”
“And you would not let us have the creature.”
“Vile, vile creature.”
Stop it, Sara told them. Stop it! He was on our side. He helped us—
“It was a thing of the others.”
“It was NOT a good thing.”
, “It was not one of us.”
WILL YOU LET ME SLEEP! Sara shouted at them. They ignored her, but somehow, despite their annoying twitterings, Sara did finally manage to drift off into coal-black slumber so deep she was still asleep when she reached the shores of Guinee.
She felt something moist and rough slather across her face and she awoke, opening her eyes to see that she lay on a beach with gentle waves washing almost to her feet and a big black panther, perhaps the veiy one that had accompanied Erzulie during Sara’s first visit to Guinee, standing by her head, licking her face with his sandpapery tongue. She was too tired to be afraid.
“Hello,” she said, looking the big cat in the eye. “Are you any relation to Sandro?”
He smiled a sly feline smile and sat on his haunches like Sandro with his tail curled around his feet,
“If you are, tell him I’m sorry. Tell him that I never
meant the Witchblade to hurt him. Tell him that sometimes the thing gets out of control—oh, hell.” She sat up, unsurprised that she was still naked. Little, or maybe nothing, could surprise her now. “Here I am in a dream, sitting on my bare butt and talking to a cat while there’s a perfectly good ocean right at my feet.”
She stood in a single lithe movement and ran into the waves until they surgedtover her waist, lapping against her torso. The water was warm and indescribably soothing. She dove below the surface and swam out deeper, letting the gentle rocking of the surf envelope her entire body. The waves felt like a thousand caressing fingers delivering a soothing massage from head to toe. She flipped over on her back and floated for a few moments, eyes open and staring at the star-spangled night sky, riding the gentle waves like they were a lover.
She felt better by the second. The weariness washed out of her muscles. The voices, perhaps afraid or unable to exist in this place, were out of her mind. There was no sense of time passing. She may have rested in the waves for an instant, she may have rested in them for an eternity. When she finally reached the point of complete contentment, she simply headed back to the shore with strong, hard strokes.
She walked back onto the beach, water running in sensual rivulets from her hair down her back to her buttocks, puckering her skin with fleeting goosebumps as they dried in the cool breeze. She felt rested and richly alive with her skin washed clean of all the awful odors as the perfumed breezes dried her hair.
The panther was still waiting for her on the beach, but he wasn’t alone. His master, the loa Erzulie, sat next to him, rubbing his head between his ears and eliciting a rumbling purr that sounded like steam escaping from a leaking pipe.
Somehow Sara didn’t feel uncomfortable in her nakedness before the loa, though she was glad that it was Erzulie and not Papa Legba who sat before her.
Erzulie stood, brushing the grains of sand from her palms with a business-likecgesture.
“Papa Legba asked me to come see you,” she said grinning, “though, seeing you, I’m sure he would be sorry not to be here himself.”
That almost made Sara blush, though she said, “It seems like I don’t have a choice when I come here or how I’m dressed.”
Erzulie laughed.
“How little people know. You are here because you want to be. You need help. You are vexed by terrible problems that need solutions. You sense that you can find the solutions here, but you are groping about, unsure how to find them. Tonight you found the tranquility that you crave. It has refreshed your body and soul, no?”
Sara nodded. She had been desperately weary. Now she felt ready to take on almost anything. Even Guillaume Sam. Perhaps even the voices and the Witchblade.
“We cannot solve your problems,” Erzulie told you. “That, mainly, is up to you. But we can provide a place where you can solve them for yourself. This—” she gestured around them at the beach “—is one such place. You come here searching for peace ... and find it, ultimately, in your own heart and mind. There is another place where you may be able to solve another problem.”
Sara followed where Erzulie was pointing, and saw past the beach, past a line of trees to iron gates highlighted on the horizon. Iron gates that enclosed a forest of crosses. The cemetery looked ancient and frightening, and alive, not dead. Alive and waiting.
“But when you go there, blanc,” Erzulie said in gentle warning, “be careful. Be very, very careful. For some problems, you see, are solved simply, by death. And that, I think, would not'be a solution to your satisfaction. No, not at all.”
Sara awoke before the alarm went off, still feeling more refreshed than she had any right to be. She even smelled clean. The stink of sweat and gunpowder and underground goo was gone from her body, as if they had indeed been washed away by clean water with a salty tang and the residue of tropical breezes.
If it was a dream, she thought as she rummaged through her closet for clean clothes, it was quite a powerful dream. She shimmied into underwear and pulled on a new pair of jeans. If it wasn’t a dream ...
For some reason her mind refused to complete the thought.
Sara concentrated on getting dressed and down to the precinct. She and Jake and Detective Dickey from Brooklyn had a meeting scheduled that morning with Captain Siry about their progress—or lack thereof—in the Machete Murderer case. She would, Sara knew, have to walk a fine line with Siry this morning.
Siry greeted her in an almost human manner as she knocked and entered his office. Jake was already seated before Siry’s desk, looking only a little worse for wear. He was young, almost as young as Sara, and his recuperative powers were enormous. That, and his thirst for justice kept him going when almost^ eveiyone else would have quit.
“Come in, sit down, have coffee.” Siry made it more of an order than an offer, but Sara shook off the coffee anyway. Her stomach was squishy enough as it was. She didn’t think it could survive a cup of precinct-house coffee. She had barely settled in her chair when Lieutenant Dickey from Brooklyn came in. Today, he was wearing his too-large grey suit.
“Come in, sit down, have coffee,” Siry repeated.
Dickey moseyed around the captain’s desk and helped himself from the pot on the adjacent credenza.
“Donut?” Siry offered.
Dickey declined. “I’m on a diet,” he said, emptying a couple of packets of Sweet’N’Low into his little plastic coffee cup.
“Looks like it’s working,” Siiy grunted.
“Thanks.” Dickey sat down carefully, looked carefully at Jake’s face. “That’s something new since I last saw you,” he observed.
“Yeah,” Jake said ruefully. “Ran into some difficulty when I was following up some leads on the green-card aspect of the case.”
“And what would this ‘green-card aspect’ be, exactly?” Dickey asked as he sipped from his little plastic cup.
Jake looked at Siry and the captain nodded. Jake glanced at Sara and then launched into a somewhat edited version of his investigation, leaving out any mention of the abandoned subway station and what had gone down there the night before. He made it sound as if he’d run into a couple of heavies while running down info on the green card scheme, but although he’d gotten in a fight and been damaged’he’d managed to escape. Or as he put it, they’d managed to escape him.
“So you think Guillaume Sam is behind this?” Dickey said thoughtfully.
“It seems like'jt,” Sara offered. “Heard of him?”
Dickey shrugged heavy shoulders. “Of course. Everyone round the ’hood has. He's a big man with big influence in the community.”
“Does it surprise you that he’d be mixed up in something like this?” Sara asked.
Dickey turned his dark, soulful eyes on her. “Detective, nothing on this job surprises me any more. Nothing.”
I bet I could show you a thing or two, Sara thought, but kept quiet and only nodded.
. “Sounds like it’s time for an old-fashioned door-kicking raid,” Siry said. “I’ll get a judge to issue the papers. Dickey, can you supply uniforms from your precinct?”
The lieutenant: started to nod, but Sara suddenly spoke. “Captain, maybe it’d be better if we used our own uniforms. Like Dickey said, Guillaume Sam has big influence in the Cypress Hills community.”
“You suggesting that one of my men might tip him?” Dickey asked sadly.
Sara shrugged. “Like you said. I’m not surprised at anything anymore in this job.”
Sixy looked steadily at the Brooklyn detective. “It’s your call, Carl.”
The big detective drained his coffee cup and tossed it, empty, into the basket by the side of Siiy’s desk. He sighed, seemingly from the bottom of his shoes.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll use Manhattan men.” He stood. “I’ve always wanted to see the upper crust in action.”
“Mind if I smoke?” Guillaume Sam asked the uniform who was rummaging through'Sam’s desk drawers as Sam sat behind it. He had cigar and end-clipper ready to put into action. ' f
The officer glanced at him. “I do. I’m allergic.” “Besides,” Sara said, “it’s bad for you.”
Guillaume Sam grinned, showing rows of even, white teeth. “I’m not going to die of lung cancer,” he said. “I’ve been assured of that.”
“By Baron Samedi?” Sara asked with raised eyebrows. “Oh, yes, Baron Samedi himself,” Guillaume Sam assured her.
“How are you going to die?”
Guillaume Sam laughed. “I’m not,” he said. “I’m going to live forever.”
“Uh-huh.”
The search team from Sara’s Manhattan precinct had been at it for hours, but besides confiscating a couple of computers for detailed analysis at HQ, they’d found nothing remotely incriminating. Or even remotely interesting. Guillaume Sam had been so accommodating that Sara figured there was nothing dirty on the premises to find. Clearly Club Carrefour was and had always been clean as a whistle, or Guillaume Sam had been tipped and he’d hustled any evidence of illegal activity out the door.
He put the unlit cigar in his mouth and rolled it around zestfully.
“Tell me,” he asked Sara, “how’s your partner?
McCarthy, I believe his name is? I heard he ran into a little trouble yesterday.”
“He’s fine,” Sara deadpanned. “He’s checking out some rooms downstairs, I believe. Tell me. How’s Jean and Gene?” . ,
For a moment'Guillaume Sam’s face darkened in a frown, then it lightened and he laughed aloud.
“You do like to play rdugh, Ms. Pezzini.” He took the cigar out of his mouth and studied it carefully. Finally, he said, “Jean had to leave my employ. That was unfortunate. She will be missed. Gene, however ...” Guillaume Sam shrugged. “We shall see about Gene. We all shall see.” Intrigued, Sara was going to try to push him further, but one of the cops looking at the altar that dominated the rear of Guillaume Sam’s office picked up an opaque lidded jar, held it up to his ear, and shook it.
“What’s in here?” he asked.
Guillaume Sam looked at him and sat straight up in his chair, the frown back on his face. “Careful with that, fool! It is a pot-de-tete. It contains my soul.”
“Sure,” the cop said laconically, and put it back down on the altar.
“Okay, boys,” Sara said. “I think we’re done here. Let’s go collect Detectives McCarthy and Dickey and the rest of the team.”
“Finished so soon, Ms. Pezzini?” Guillaume Sam asked. “We’ve seen enough.” Sara paused. “By the way, where’s your rat?”
“Possum, Ms. Pezzini. Baka is a possum. Being nocturnal, he’s having his afternoon sleep.” Guillaume Sam grinned widely. It wasn’t a pleasant grin. “But you’ll see him again. Soon. I promise.”
, CHAPTER
V
1 rom the outside St. Casimir’s rectory looked shabby. The stone was grimy with accumulated city grit. The shingled roof was obviously in need of repair. Even the welcome mat was so worn that you could no longer read the large welcome imprinted on it.
The battered outer door had a brass knocker. No newfangled electric doorbell for St. Casimir’s, no sir. Father Baltazar answered the door after Sara rapped-not too hard, because she was afraid that a solid blow would bring it down.
“Come in,” he said, gesturing Sara inside the vestibule with a welcoming wave.
From the inside, though, the rectory was charming.
The furniture was old, but old furniture is often well-made and costly when in good repair, as Father Baltazar’s was. Sara couldn’t tell Chippendale from Louis XXIV, unless they were dancing barechested before her in collars and cuffs, but she could tell quality when she saw it. The desk, chairs, glassed-in bookcase, and even the old sofa in the cozy office-library that Father Baltazar ushered her into oozed quality. The room was filled with dark wood and old books and was well-kept, well-dusted, and extremely neat.
“Who’s your maid?” Sara asked, looking around. “I could use her around my place. I have about a fifth of the stuff you do and my apartment is five times as messy.” Father Baltazar laughed. “I am,” he said. “I’m afraid that I’ve always been excessively neat. It’s one of my character flaws.”
“It must be your only flaw,” Sara said, sinking into what turned out to be a most comfortable sofa, “as you’re brave, reverent, and cheerful. I’d guess you’re thrifty as well, or else you wouldn’t have accumulated all these books on a priest’s salary.”
“I don’t have to pay rent,” he said, taking the end of the sofa. “That counts for a lot in this town.”
He was, Sara saw, trying to keep things light, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She was afraid to admit to herself what she really wanted, but she knew that she longed for more than light-hearted comradely from the hand-some-and brave, and loyal, and cool headed; God, she could go on and on-young priest.
“I meant what I said,” Sara said. “About your flawless character.”
“I’m blushing,” Father Baltazar said, though he looked more troubled than embarrassed. He leaned forward and took Sara’s hands in his. “You’re a remarkable woman, Sara. Beautiful, terribly tough, brave, yet oddly vulnerable. I’d back you in damn near anything-and I already have. I’ll stand with you against anyone-and, before this is over, I fear that I will. You have to realize one thing, though. I’ll be the best friend to you I can be. But that’s all I can be.”
His hands were warm and strong and felt good on hers. She wanted more from them.
“I know you're a priest. I know you have vows—”
”1 do,” he said solemnly. “I live with them every day and have never broken them. But, Sara, even if I weren’t bound by my vows what I just told you would still be true.” j •
She looked into his cfeep dark eyes and saw the truth there.
“You understand?”
She nodded reluctantly, feeling like a fool. Of course, he would be gay. The best man she’d met in years. Handsome, brave, intelligent... She tried to pull her hands away, but he wouldn’t let her go.
“Do you forgive me?”
■ Suddenly she felt ashamed at the flash of anger she’d felt. “Forgive you? Father—Baltazar.” Suddenly she didn’t know what to call him. “Father” seemed way too formal, “Baltazar,” way too cumbersome. “There’s nothing to forgive.”
“How about a hug, then?”
She came into his arms and they hugged fiercely. The voices were disapproving, but she ignored them. At least for a while. It felt good to be in his embrace, as chaste as it was, and Sara realized that perhaps she needed a friend even more than she needed a lover.
“Call me Caz,” the priest said. “All my friends do.”
“All right,” Sara said. “Caz.”
“Good.” He let her go.“Now tell me what’s been troubling you since you ran from the confessional that day we first met.”
Although they separated, Sara realized that from that moment on they’d never be totally apart. There was a bond between them, a bond not only of shared experiences, but of understanding and of emotional closeness such as she had with no one else. Not even her sister. Not even her partner. She had to hide things from both of those people. With Father Baltazar-Caz-she could discuss those very things she had to hide from others. He’d understand. He might, even be able to help.
Despite the voice's 'warnings she told him about the Witchblade, at least the little she really knew about it. She told him how she’d acquired it, seemingly by accident but actually, as she’d come to realize, by some sort of strange cosmic design. She told him what she’d done with it. Of the men and women she’d killed, of the strange menaces she’d faced, of the battles she’d fought and not dared tell anyone lest they think she was insane.
• As she spoke Sara was surprised to realize how little concrete knowledge she had of the Witchblade. She told him about the reservations she had, of how it often acted against her will, how sometimes it even tried to trick her into doing something bad like killing Sandro, which had not only been against her wishes but also without any conscious warning.
Father Baltazar was fascinated by the stoiy. “I’ve certainly never heard or read of anything exactly as you describe, though there are obscure writings and even more obscure legends about such a thing ... Paul Narcisse may know more. He's much more of an expert on the occult than I am. I’m just a dabbler, really.” He stared thoughtfully into the distance. “There are obvious parallels between what happens to you when the Witchblade takes control and what happens when a voudon initiate is ‘mounted,’ as it’s called, by a loa. Though nominally at least you seem to have more control over the object known as the Witchblad?, clearly there is some kind of force lurking in it that can take control if you’re not constantly vigilant, if for some reason it feels it really wants control."
“I noticed the parallels myself,” Sara said. “In fact, I was wondering if'you or Paul could help me. Could—I don’t know—give me some kind of guidance to help control the thing.”
Father Baltazar shook his head. “Paul’s the expert on possession. I’m just an interested observer.” He checked his watch. “He should be here soon. We can either consult him, or set up some time to talk about your, uh, problem, privately.” He looked at Sara speculatively. “I don’t suppose you could give me a demonstration of this Witchblade in action?”
Sara shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I call upon it only when I feel I must. Otherwise, I’m afraid that I’d lose even more control.” The voices in her head chuckled, and Sara grimaced. “The voices are laughing. That’s a pretty good indication that my fears are valid.” Father Baltazar frowned in disappointment. “I suppose you’re right. In any case, it seems that this Witchblade is nothing to fool around with for trivial reasons. We may need it in the fight against Guillaume Sam, but I guess you’re right to call upon it only when you feel it’s absolutely necessary. Still,” he said, his gaze turned inward, “it would be something to see.”
“Be careful of what you wish for,” Sara muttered.
As if on cue, the knocker boomed loudly against the front door, making an impressive percussive sound that reverberated through the cozy rectory.
“Excuse me,” Father Baltazar said, and went to answer the door.
He returned with a troop of visitors. A serious-faced Paul Narcisse led the way. He nodded solemnly to Sara. Behind him were Alek and Kris Gervelis. Father Baltazar had mentioned that Alek was going to be present at the gathering, but Kris’s attendance was something of a surprise. Neither brother looked particularly happy, but Kris was especially uncertain.
“Well,” Father Baltazar said, “we’re all here. Please find a seat. Make yourselves comfortable.”
Alek nodded, smiled at Sara, and sat down next to her on the sofa. The others distributed themselves around the room, the priest taking the chair behind his desk. The five of them pretty much filled up the room. Sara had thought about bringing Jake, but ultimately had decided against it. She’d decided that the less Jake knew about such matters, the better. He wasn’t one for mystic conspiracies. She hadn’t even considered inviting Lieutenant Dickey.
Paul Narcisse took control as they all settled in. “I’m sure you all know why we’re here," he said, looking at each in turn.
Kris Gervelis was patently uncomfortable. “I’m not. Not really. Alek has told me some pretty wild stuff. Stuff I think the police should investigate. Or maybe the Church. I don’t know anything about such things.” Eveiyone looked at Alek, who grinned a little weakly. “I had to tell him. Kris has to know what’s going on with Mountains. He’s not only in charge of us business-wise, but Roger and Jerry were our friends, for Christ’s sake.” “No one’s saying you shouldn’t have told Kris what’s happening,” Father Baltazar said. “But, anyway, what exactly did you tell him?”
Alek shrugged. “You know. About that cat or whatever it was called Sandro, and the boys disappearing with Sara thinking they were dead, and Gene and Jean getting shot and killed, and Guillaume Sam being a bokor-”
’’Crazy stuff,” Kris said, looking down at the floor as if unwilling to look the others in the room in the eye.
“Maybe you’re right, Kris,” Paul Narcisse said softly. “Mt/be it’s all <crazy stuff, 'But it’s all true, just the same.”
He looked up, anger.an his eyes. “Are you telling me the boys are dead, Paul? Is that what you’re saying? Because they can’t be dead. They can’t be!”
Paul looked at him. Everyone looked at him.
“Why not, Kris?” Paul asked in a gentle voice.
“Sam, he wouldn’t—” Kris caught himself, and finished sullenly, “They can’t be. That’s all.”
“Sam wouldn’t what, Kris?” Paul asked again. “He wouldn’t hurt them? Have them killed? What kind of deal did you make with Guillaume Sam, Kris?”
Kris Gervelis looked at him stubbornly. “Deal?”
Paul nodded while everyone looked on, silently. “You seem unwillingly to believe that the Stems were hurt, maybe even killed. But you don’t deny that Guillaume Sam is a bokor, do you?”
Kris glanced around the room, then laughed weakly. “Of course he’s not. Who’d believe such a thing?”
Alek sat back heavily on the sofa. “You were always a bad liar, Kris,” he said in a low voice. “Always.”
Kris turned on him angrily. “Do you know what it takes to launch a band nowadays? Huh? Do you? Of course not. No, for you it was the music. Always the music. But what about paying for the instruments? The sound system? Demo records? A tour? Drugs for those goofbail Stems? Where do you think that money came from, Alek, huh? The two-fifty a night we got playing lo~ cal gigs? Do you have even the slightest conception of what it took? Do you?” ■*
Alek, not looking at him, shook his head. “No, Kris. No. I don’t.”
Kris snorted. “Of course not. You just expected it to be there when you needed it. And I made sure it was.”
“At what cost?” Father Baltazar asked quietly.
Kris sat back in his dbair, his defiant gaze back on the floor. “Not much,” he said. “I let Sam do the band’s books.”
Sara knew instantly what that meant. “You were letting him launder money through the band,” she said.
Kris shrugged, but the defiance was gone out of him. “The band—we were doing okay, but maybe not as well... not as well as Alek and the others thought. Sam let us keep some of the money we ran through our accounts, for expenses. He said we could pay him back when we hit it really big.”
“My God,” Alek said, closing his eyes.
Sara could hear the pain in his voice. She put a comforting hand on his arm, but he didn’t react. He didn’t even look at her.
“It’s not like we were doing badly, Alek,” Kris said, a pleading tone in his voice. “We’ve doing better, really. It’s only a matter of time. We’re getting there. Soon we’ll be able to do without Sam entirely. Then we can pay him back.” ' '
“That’s why you say he wouldn’t hurt the boys,” Sara said.
“Of course,” Kris said eagerly. “He has as big a stake in Mountains’ success as we do.”
“Except,” Paul Narcisse said quietly, “he is riding the lightning. He thinks he controls it. He might even control it sometimes, for a little while. But sometimes he must feed it, even when he doesn’t want to.”
“What do you mean?” Sara asked.
“Bakula-baka has needs of his own that must be satisfied, Even the marassa, the' Twins that Guillaume Sam employed had to be paid in more than money.”
“Marassa?” Alek asked. “You mean Gene and Jean?” Paul Narcisse nodded. “They’ve worked for Guillaume Sam for years. In the beginning they just had a reputation as sadistic killers, but under the bokor’s tutelage they walked far on the left hand path. Twins, you see, are sacred. They can have great powers. They can switch bodies, enjoy an inhuman vitality that allows them to survive terrible wounds that would kill anyone else. But to stoke the fires of their magic, they must drain the powers of others-preferrably twins such as themselves.”
“Rog and Jerry,” Alek whispered. He looked at Paul Narcisse with an agonized expression.
“So you think they’re dead. You really think they’re dead.”
Paul Narcisse looked at him as if gauging how much he could really take. “I don’t know,” he finally said quietly. “But I fear their situation may be even worse.” “Worse than death?” Alek asked incredulously. “There is worse than death?”
“Oh, yes,” Paul Narcisse said. “Much.”
There was a protracted silence that no one seemed willing to break. Sara could feel an emotional vortex running through the room threatening to snap out in unspeakable violence between brothers and friends. But she sensed that they hadn’t plumbed the depths of revelation yet. And they had to. They had to get eveiything out in the open. ' : ■
“But,” she said into the pregnant silence, “all of this doesn’t explain why Kris isn’t surprised that Guillaume Sam is a bokor. Does it?”
“No,” Father Baltazar and Paul Narcisse said simultaneously. Alek just looked at his brother, who glanced wildly from face to face. ;V
“Well...” he said. “Well... we did have some talks.” “What did he promise you?” Alek asked. “What did he offer you for the soul of Mountains of Madness?”
“It’s not like that!” Kris Gervelis protested, but everyone could see that despite what he said, it was indeed exactly like that.
“I know,” Sara said quietly, again breaking the awful silence.
Eveiyone looked at her, except Kris, who in his agony looked at nothing.
“Magda Konsavage.”
The look on Kris’s face, his awful silence, confirmed her suspicions.
Alek sighed as if all the life had gone out of him. Even Father Baltazar slumped in his chair. Paul Narcisse wearily rubbed his eyes.
“He said,” Kris said thickly, “he said that she would love me. Love me as I loved her. He would give me this when we paid him the money we owed.”
“He lied, Kris,” Paul Narcisse said softly. “He can’t make her love you. Not really. It would be a hideous simulacrum of love that wouldn’t have fooled you for a second.”
Kris began to cry. Tears ran down his face, although it was hideously blank of emotion. He made no sound as he
wept, but said in a voice as blank as his face, “I knew that. I think I always knew that. I just couldn’t help myself.” With that admission he covered his face with his hands and broke down into great wracking sobs wrenched from the bottom of his heart and soul. Alek broke also. He slid
■L ”■
off the sofa to his Knees and lurched to the chair where his brother wept inconsolably, gathering him into his embrace, weeping and murmuring, “My brother, oh my brother.”
Sara wept herself, wiping away tears, surreptitiously glancing at Father Baltazar and Paul Narcisse. Father Baltazar was grim as an Old Testament prophet. Only Paul Narcisse wore a trace of a smile, a sad smile burdened by the grief that had been loosed in the room, but a smile just the same.
. ‘‘The bonds snap,” he said, almost to himself. “One by one he loses his allies. He weakens—yet becomes all the more dangerous for it.”
“Guillaume Sam?” Sara asked, wiping the tear tracks from her cheeks.
Paul Narcisse nodded. “Oh, yes. Weep not, friends, for we have sundered another cord of the bokor’s power, weakening him ever more.”
Emotions spent, the Gervelis Brothers slowly regained control. Father Baltazar tossed them a box of tissues, and Kris blew his nose and rubbed his eyes.
“A good cry cleanses the soul,” the priest said. “Too bad our society frowns upon it.”
Paul Narcisse leaned forward and put his hand on Kris’s arm. “You’ve done nothing that’s irredeemable. But if you move to our side, Guillaume Sam will grow desperate. We sit here in the eye of the hurricane, my friends, and when we pass through it into the storm again, it will blow upon us like a wind from hell.”
“Do we wait for this wind to blow,” Sara asked, “or do we take it to the source?”
“We have to know where to strike,” Paul Narcisse pointed out. “YoUr search of Club Carrefour turned up nothing,” he said. “The .abandoned subway station belonged to Gene and Jean.’ It was their headquarters, not Guillaume Sam’s.”
“That means,” Father Baltazar sai i, “that his hounfort is probably still hidden. Could he have held his ceremonies at the Club or the subway station?”
“Hmmm.” Paul Narcisse considered the matter. “No, probably not. The club is too open. Anybody could find their way there. The subway station is too limited, the cats are too small to host ceremonies of any size. Besides, there was no poteau-mitan, no sanctuaries. Only the one altar to Baron Samedi.”
“We can call on Papa Legba again,” Sara said. “He owes me a third boon. I can ask him to send Sandro to lead us to Sam’s hounfort."
Paul Narcisse frowned. “Papa Legba’s boon is not an advantage to be used lightly. I’m not saying we shouldn’t call upon Papa Legba. I’m saying we should hold back from using that card as long as we can.”
“And if we don’t play it before the game ends?” Sara asked.
“Then it’s wasted," Father Baltazar said.
“We don’t have to waste an> hing," Kris said quietly. “I’ve been to Sam’s hounfort. I know where it is.”
They all looked at him. His face was set, his expression that of a man who had made up his mind after a long period of uncertainty.
“Excellent!” Paul Narcisse said. “If we can destroy his hounfort, Guillaume Sam will be greatly weakened. He may be panicked into a desperate move. Do not underestimate his powers. They still are great But if we can strike quickly, while hp is off-balance, that will certainly be to our favor.”
“What kind of resources would he have at the houn-fort?” Alek asked. “What can he do there?”
Paul Narcisse shrugged. “There’s no telling for sure. Perhaps, though, you will learn that there can indeed be a fate worse than death.”
Sara nodded. She knew that that was true. And so did the bodiless, soulless voices twittering in her head.
, tCHAPTER
l hey assembled in the back office of The Serpent and the Rainbow: bookstore owner, priest, police officer, musician; and Goth Rock band manager. It was, Sara thought, an unlikely and motley group with which to storm the gates of hell.
Sara thought for about a second of bringing Jake along. He had a steady nerve and a cool head and God knows he owed Guillaume Sam personally, both for the death of Juliette and the beating he’d taken at Sam’s orders, but ultimately she decided to leave him out of this party. He’d come along willingly, but he’d be confused by the utter weirdness of the situation and any confusion on his part would probably cost him his life. Sara couldn’t have that on her conscience. She couldn’t live with Jake’s blood on her hands.
“I’ll have to ask you to look the other way, Detective,” Paul Narcisse asked.
“Why?”
He gestured at the closed box that rested on the top of
his desk. “You’re armed,” he said;. “But the rest of us shouldn’t go to that place emptyhanded.”
Sara sighed. He was right, of course. Their lives, and perhaps even more, were on the line. But once you started to compromise your vows, Sara wondered, where did it end? Of course, she hadn’t just started compromising her oath to the police department She started long ago when she first picked up the Witchblade and slid it, gauntlet-like, over her right hand. But now was not the time to get squeamish. Now was not the time to stop compromising, either, though someday, she realized, that time would probably come.
She only hoped that she’d be able to stop when she really had to.
“Are you two familiar with guns?” Paul Narcisse asked the brothers.
They glanced at each other and Alek shook his head.
“I’m a city boy. I played with guitars when I grew up, not guns.” He jerked a thumb at his brother. “His weapon of choice was a pocket calculator.”
“Better take these, then.” Paul Narcisse lifted the lid of the box and removed two firearms and handed them to the brothers.
“Jesus,” Sara said. “Where’d you get those?”
Alek looked at them, took the one Paul Narcisse offered him, and turned it over in his hands like he was uncertain which end the bullets came out of. “What the hell are these things? They look like props from some Italian after-the-holocaust movie."
“They’re Jackhammers,” Kris said. “Twelve-gauge automatic combat shotguns. Ten round plastic magazine placed behind the trigger. On automatic the full magazine will empty in two and one-third seconds with a Cutts-style compensator on the muzzle brake off-setting barrel jump and also acting as a flash eliminator.” He looked at the others, who were ah staring at him in surprise. “What? I read an, article about them in Soldier of Fortune magazine once.” '
“Have you ever fired one?” Paul Narcisse asked.
“No.” ' ?
“Better select single-round fire then. And stick to it.” Kris tried to hide his disappointment. “All right.”
Paul Narcisse turned to Father Baltazar. “What about you? Are you armed?”
The priest patted his windbreaker’s side pocket. “I have everything I need right here.”
“All right then.” Paul Narcisse gazed at the small band. All- looked solemn, all looked determined. “There’s no doubt that this will be dangerous. Perhaps even deadly. Some of us-” and here he looked right at the Gervelis brothers “—are not exactly trained for this sort of thing. Damballah knows I’m not, particularly. But if we stay alert, have faith, and listen to Detective Pezzini, we might all come back in the end. And in the end we all might have done the world some good.”
Not a bad speech, thought Sara. She only hoped that she could live up to her part of it.
We hope so, too, the voices chorused in her brain. We hope so, too.
Paul Narcisse drove them to the hounfort in a battered old Volkswagen van that looked to Sara as if it had survived, though just barely, more than one previous foray into urban warfare. Or perhaps those holes in the body were just rust spots.
Indian summer had .finally broken. There was a distinct chill to the air. Everywhere across the city people were sitting down to dinner and looking forward to a movie or a Mets game to round out their evening. Or perhaps they were just planning a long, quiet night at home with their loved 6nes.
Meanwhile, she and* her companions were facing the promise of violent dea'th. Not that Sara loathed the adrenaline-laced excitement that was already warming her stomach with a nervous energy that belied her calm exterior. But sometime it would be nice, she reflected, to see what that quiet evening at home would feel like.
She found herself looking at Alek Gervelis. He looked up and met her gaze.
“You’re probably used to this sort of thing,” he said.
-“Maybe too much so.”
“Well, I’m just hoping that I can get through this without peeing my pants.”
She put a hand on his forearm and squeezed it gently, reassuringly. “You’ll be okay.”
He leaned toward her and put his head close to hers. “If we get through this,” he said in a soft voice, “how about we go somewhere quiet, just the two of us? Have a nice dinner. Maybe a few drinks. Then just relax and get to know each other a little better.”
Sara smiled, amazed at how his thoughts seemed to parallel her own. “Sounds good,” she said. “It’s a date.” “Good.” Alek leaned back against his seat. “Now just make sure I live through tonight so we can actually make good on it.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“That’s it,” Kris said. He was in the shotgun seat in front, guiding Paul Narcisse through the streets of Brook-!yn. They had moved from residential neighborhoods to a blasted industrial warehouse zone made up of huge block-like stone and brick structures of a peculiarly ugly neo-penal style of architecture. None seemed to be the centers of particularly successful industries or businesses, and many looked abandoned. “
The building that Kris indicated was well up the block and across the street. Paul Narcisse guided the VW into an adjacent sidestreet that was actually more alley than street. He maneuvered the van so that they could watch the front of the building through the windshield while they themselves were hidden by the darkness of the unlit street.
Paul Narcisse made a sound of disgust deep in his throat.
“This is a vile place to have a hounfort,” he said. “There are no trees, no grass, no plants at all, no clean running water. Only concrete, cement, and dirty brick. There is nothing to nourish the loa, or their people. Such a place would only find favor with those like Guillaume Sam, who worship death and decay.”
He spit out the van’s open window.
“Someone’s going in,” Father Baltazar said.
Two figures scurried from the dark side of the street to a door in the center of the warehouse’s front facade. They paused there for a moment, then apparently were admitted. They disappeared inside.
“Perhaps there’s a ceremony tonight,” the priest said.
“I think we can count on that,” Paul Narcisse replied. “I think we can count on the presence of Guillaume Sam and many of his zobops—” he turned to glance back at Sara and Alek, in the back seat “—those are the low-level cultists in his bizango, or secret society, probably recruited from all over the city and beyond.”
They watched for a few minutes as seven or eight of what Paxil Narcisse had termed zobops entered the structure, alone or in small groups of two or three.
“Is there a password?” Paul Narcisse asked Kris.
He nodded. “ ‘We meet at the crossroads.’ ”
“Right,” Paul Narcisse said. “Let’s split up. Caz, you go with Detective Pezzini. I’ll go in with the brothers. You and I had best keep our faces hidden as much as possible, because we’re the most likely to be recognized by those guarding the doors. Remember. ‘We meet at the crossroads.’ ”
“All right,” Sara said.
“Let’s do it,” Alek said. Quickly, he leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips. “For luck,” he said.
She smiled at him, her pulses already hammering wildly, the voices singing in her brain. She put her hand on the back of his head and twined her fingers in his long, thick hair.
“We'll need more luck than that,” she said, and pulled his mouth back down to hers.
Their mouths met and opened and Sara kissed him hard, as if it might be the last kiss in her life. She was breathing heavily as she broke away and so was Alek. The voices laughed at her, thinking she was foolish. She knew what they thought and she didn’t care. For a moment she put the palm of her hand against his cheek and he caught it and bought it to his lips, then they followed the others out of the van.
Alek and Kris and Paul Narcisse sauntered down the street. Alek, who wore a black duster that reached down to his ankles, had both his and Kris’s Jackhammers, as well as a selection of extra ammo cassettes, secreted in the voluminous folds of his great coat. Sara and Father
Baltazar waited until they’d crossed over the hounfort’s side, then exchanged glances and followed. As expected, they were challenged at the door. Sara gave the ritual password. Father Baltazar kept his face averted and in shadow as much as he could.
Security was'about as lax as they could hope for. The two guards waved them through almost disinterestedly. They were wearing ceremonial outfits that consisted of long flowing robes and pointy red caps with cheek flaps on either side that hung down to their shoulders. Despite the caps Sara could see crosses tattooed on their cheeks and the back of their hands. They were members of Guillaume Sam’s private gang, The Saturday Night Specials, the bangers who were the foot soldiers for his various illegal enterprises.
* The Gervelis Brothers and Paul Narcisse were waiting for them in the anteroom where the initiates donned their ceremonial robes. Alek was having a difficult time finding one large enough to fit over his tall frame, and that served as an excuse for them to mill about until they were all reunited.
Once properly enrobed they left the anteroom under the not-so-watchful gaze of another pair of bored Specials and followed other recent arrivals into the ground floor of what had obviously been a warehouse of some sort. Fifty or sixty zobops had already assembled.
The building had been gutted some time in the past, leaving a huge open space that encompassed nearly all of the structure’s first floor. Clearly, Guillaume Sam didn’t care about the place’s aesthetics. It was post-industrial-depressing: bare concrete floor with piles of trash heaped randomly around the edge of a great open space supported by bare steel beams and columns badly in need of paint. The area was lit poorly by naked bulbs strung on wire. Some of the bulbs dangled from the ceilings, others from wires twisted around the pillar-like supports running from floor to ceiling. The light cast by the bulbs was fitful and distorting, throwing odd monstrous shadows that seemed to jhmp and jerk like inhuman marionettes. It was, Sara thought, vaguely unsettling even when nothing much was happening. She couldn’t imagine what it would look like during the chaotic dancing of a vodoun ceremony.
The peristyle had been reduced to a poteau-mitan set in the usual circular concrete support whose surface doubled as an altar. The great pole was the only bit of color in the hounforts concrete and steel environment.
Sara and the others kept to the margins of the crowd, watching as a higher-level initiate drew the ceremonial veve around the dancing pole. A couple of small chambers serving as sanctuaries, caille mysteres, as Sara remembered they were called, were clustered behind the pole along one of the warehouse’s interior walls. They were the size and general shape of office cubicles, roofed with thin, sagging, black plastic sheets. She could see flickers of movement in the chambers, but the sanctuary wasn’t well lit and she couldn’t quite make out what was happening inside the tiny rooms.
“What do we do now?” Alek whispered.
“Wait,” Paul Narcisse said, “for the ceremony to start. Once the dancing and drumming begins we should start to work our way around the fringes of the crowd to the sanctuary. What we’re looking for will likely be found before the altar in one of them.”
They didn’t have long to wait. The houngan finished creating the veve on the bare concrete floor and disappeared into one of the caille mysteres behind the dancing pole. After a moment the lights dimmed even lower and the chamber took on a murky, almost underwater-like darkness. Sara became abruptly aware of the concrete and steel smell of the place, underlain with an unpleasant musk of sweat and spoiled food. It was unpleasant, but so then was the hounfort’s overall environment.
The drummers ca'me out of the caille mysteres when Sara wasn’t watching. One moment the chamber was empty, the next it was reverberating like a concrete and steel amphitheater to the pounding of the voudon drums. The houngan led a line of dancers out of one of the sanctuaries and they began to make their way around the poteau-mitan, much like the dancers that Sara had seen at the ceremony in the Cypress Hills National Cemeteiy.
The drumbeats echoed in Sara’s ears. There was, she realized, a qualitative difference between this ceremony and the previous one she’d witnessed. Everything associated with this ceremony was unpleasant. The surroundings were depressingly trashy. They smelled bad and looked even worse. Even the drumming, which had been thrilling and invigorating at the outdoor ceremony, was reverberating painfully in her skull. The voices complained of it to themselves. All and all it was a disagreeable experience promising even more disagreeable results. She could well imagine that evil would result from what was happening here tonight. She felt the Witchblade tingle at the edge of her consciousness.
The bokor leading the dance suddenly jerked about, flailing his arms oddly. It was clear that he had been mounted by a loa. He disappeared into the caille mysteres and came out with the cane and hobbled walk of Papa Legba. He cried out in langage as the dancers continued to whirl around him., There was no immediate response, but the drumbeats became so loud, so wildly arrhythmic that Sara’s head began to ache.
The pounding force of the drums drove her to her knees. She wasn’t the only one so affected. All around the room people #ere going down, a total of half a dozen or more. Some were rolling on the floor and moaning as if in the grip of brain's'eizures. The affect on her was less dramatic, just a weakening of her knees and a sudden inability of her legs to support her weight. When she went down, Alek bent over her, a concerned look on his face.
“Sara, you okay?”
She found that she couldn’t speak, but she nodded and leaned on the arm he offered. She used it to pull herself up to her feet. When she looked back toward the poteau-■mitan she saw Baron Samedi standing before it.
He was an awesome figure in top hat and coat, bigger than Alek, bigger than anyone present. He had a gigantic cigar in his mouth and was wearing a pair of sunglasses which was missing one of the lenses. His exposed eye shone like the eye of one possessed, which, of course, he was.
“Rum!” he roared in the voice of an angry bull. “Rum and food!"
He was as imperious as a king. When one of the female initiates offered a full bottle of white clairin rum, a raw, powerful drink potent enough to intoxicate a god, he pulled the cork with his teeth, spat it out, and then downed half the liquor in a single gulp. Another initiate approached him with a bowl of chicken and rice. He shoveled the food into his mouth while juggling bowl and bottle both, alternately gulping down mouthfuls of food and rum. He finished both in seconds, and threw the containers down on the floor where they smashed into dozens of sharp shards. He strode through the dancers, rubbing his crotch suggestively as he passed attractive female initiates.
The chamber’s atmosphere was charged with a sudden sexual heat that Sara realized was flowing directly from Samedi. She looked at Alek, fighting the desire to throw herself upon him and rip away his clothes. He looked at her uncertainly, seemingly not as susceptible to the psychic suggestions floating in the air as she was.
Baron Samedi roared out an order in langage. The words struck Sara’s ears like bullets. She could almost understand them. She felt she would understand if the voices weren’t badgering her, if Alek, standing so close, wasn’t such a smouldering pillar of masculine sexuality.
Torn by conflicting sensations and needs, she clung to his arm like a drowning person would cling to a buoy. She couldn’t conceive of what might have happened next if two teams of four zobops each hadn’t brought two wooden crates out of the caille mysteres, creating a new focus of attention. They were rough-hewn, long and narrow, and Sara suddenly realized what kind of boxes they were.
They were coffins. The men carrying them, two in the front, two in the back, set them down carefully against the circular cement altar around the poteau-mitan so that they leaned nearly upright. They were uncovered. Sara could see that they contained the bodies of Roger and Jerry Stem.
The Stems looked no worse than if they’d been sleeping. Their faces were relaxed, their arms hung naturally and loosely at their sides. They didn’t look at all like day-old corpses—at least, no more than the Stems did when they were alive.
At her side, Sara, heard a painful intake of breath as Alek recognized them. He made half a move toward them, checking it when he realized that Sara still leaned against him with most of her weight. She straightened, feeling strength returning to her legs, but was loath to release Alek. There was nothing, she thought, that he could accomplish by going to the Stems’ side.
Kris Gervelis moaned as he, too, realized who lay in the coffins. Probably until that very instant he’d believed that the boys were okay, that, sure, they may have gotten themselves into a bit of difficulty like they so often did, but it was nothing that he or Alek couldn’t fix. It was nothing irreparable ... except, this time it was.
Baron Samedi strode up to the coffins. A collective gasp went through the onlookers as he planted himself before the Stems, and began to speak again in langage.
“We must stop him,” Paul Narcisse said in a low, urgent voice. “It’s the ceremony for zombification. We must stop him before it goes too far.”
But Paul Narcisse’s warning came too late.
Baron Samedi shot his hands out. He placed one large palm over the heart of each corpse, and the loa cried out an impassioned order in langage that Sara felt she understood all too well. He was commanding them to rise, to open their eyes and walk from their coffins, and as they all watched, too frozen by horror to move, the brothers’ eyes popped open.
Alek moaned at Sara’s side. Even from where they stood they could see the awful emptiness in the twins’ eyes, the utter lack of intelligence and will. But that didn’t stop the walking corpses from stepping from their coffins.
Alek turned his head away from the awful sight. Sara gripped the sleeves of his doak, holding him now as he’d just held her. Only the strength she willed him from the sheer force of her personality kept him on his feet.
Then Kris, standing between them and the two priests screamed like a dying animal and all hell broke loose in the hounfort.
Ignoring Paul Narcisse’s earlier advice, he thumbed his Jackhammer, which Alek tad passed to him in the cloakroom, to full automatic and emptied the ammunition cassette into the ceiling.
His memory of the article in Soldier of Fortune had been accurate. It took two and a third seconds.
It made a sound like a series of nearly simultaneous bomb blasts, partially overlapping, each blending into a roar that seemed to last for a hell of a lot longer than two and a third seconds. The stench of gunpowder smothered the air. Screams of sudden panic came from the initiates both watching and participating in the ceremony as fragments of the ceiling rained down like cement hail, knocking some initiates off their feet while dust swirls kicked up by the blasts blinded others.
You couldn’t have a more thorough panic, Sara thought, if God Himself had stepped out of the pages of the Old Testament and in a voice compounded of booming thunder and blazing lightning condemned everyone in the room to eternal damnation in the lowest, foulest pits of hell.
“I’ve got to reach them,” Father Baltazar shouted, reaching into the pocket of the windbreaker that he still wore under his initiate’s robes.
Baron Samedi whirled about to face the source of the confusion. His gaze met Sara’s and for the first time a bolt of recognition ran through her. The body the loa inhabited was Guillaume Sam’s. Of course. She should have recognized him earlier, but somehow he seemed larger, more regal, and even more powerful then Sam did in normal life. ,
The loa pointed a finger at them and purred in a low, laughing voice, “Kill,them. Kill them all.”
Roger and Jerry St&n—or rather, the soulless animated corpses that they had become—took slow, shuffling steps forward. They were an awful parody of humanity. Their faces were stiff, devoid of emotion, their eyes were blank, devoid of will. As they made their way through the panicked crowd, their movements became more fluid, surer, and stronger, though they never totally lost their inhuman stiffness.
* Father Baltazar was the first to reach them—or, they him. His face was heavy with anguish, as was his voice.
“What have they done to you, my sons?” he asked, overcome by the emotion of.the moment.
Of course, neither could reply either vocally or emotionally. Impassively, one of them reached out his arms— at this point, Sara still had no due as to which Stem was which—and tried to grab Father Baltazar by the throat. The zombie’s movements were still inhumanly slow and the priest dodged his clumsy embrace with ease.
But in that same instant the other zombie lifted his fist and swung it downward, stiff-armed. It was an awkward blow, but Father Baltazar didn’t see it coming and it caught him right where his neck and shoulder met, driving him to his knees.
He grunted in pain. Paul Narcisse, lips moving in a silent prayer, drew an automatic from a shoulder holster and pumped three shots into the Stem who towered over Father Baltazar, looking down at him, devoid of pity or any other human emotion.
The zombie didn’t even grunt or stagger. The shots punched through him with no visible effect. He reached out again and this time the priest couldn’t evade his grasp. The zombie fastened his hands around the Father Baltazar’s throat and began to squeeze.
By this time several of the zobops who had kept, or regained, their heads, had drawn their own guns and began to return fire. Bullets zinged about the warehouse like angry bees. Baron Samedi put his hands on his hips and laughed insanely.
“Find cover!” Sara shouted, and then ignored her own order.
. She could see that Father Baltazar was really in trouble. The priest had dropped the little golden box he’d taken out of his windbreaker and gripped the zombie’s thin arms with his own powerful hands, but wasn’t able to break the creature’s stranglehold. His face was turning red, his eyes were starting to bulge from their sockets.
Sara ran to his side and hurled herself against the other zombie who was also maneuvering to get his hands around the priest’s throat. In an awful flash of memory, the movements of the dead Stems reminded her of the time they’d both slipped their arms around her waist in Club Carrefour. This time, however, their faces weren’t plastered with goofy smiles and their intentions were much more deadly.
She stmck the Stem in his side with her shoulder at full running speed. It was like ramming a sack of cement, but the zombie couldn’t absorb all her inertia and he crashed down on the concrete floor, still reaching out with his hands and opening and clenching them in strangling gestures. His legs also moved aimlessly as if he were still upright and walking.
The creatures, Sara realized, were apparently as slow of mind as they were of body. She leapt to her feet and turned to the bne who was slowly strangling the priest. Father Baltazar had given up his futile efforts to break the zombie’s hold and'was scrabbling around on the floor trying to pick up the small golden box that he’d dropped. He couldn’t see where it was, so he wasn’t even coming close to retrieving it.
Sara bent down swiftly and picked it up. It took a moment for the word to come out of the mist of her almost-forgotten Sunday School education, but finally she recognized that it was a pix, the small container in •which sanctified communion wafers were kept.
She quickly opened it and saw that it contained a small stack of the white circular wafers. She remembered when receiving communion as a child she’d take them on her tongue and they’d stick to the top of her mouth and tastelessly melt away.
What the hell? she thought. She looked at them blankly for a moment, then figured, Well, Father Baltazar must know what he’s doing. Obviously, he’d brought them along for one reason.
She took a wafer from the container. The voices scolded her and for a moment she felt guilty as the realization hit that perhaps she shouldn’t be handling a sanctified object with her unblessed hands.
No time to worry about finer theological points, she told herself, and stuffed the communion wafer in the zombie’s mouth.
It was easier than she’d thought it would be. The thing could only focus on one problem at a time, and strangling Father Baltazar occupied what little'was left of his mind. He was also slack-jawed, with his mouth hanging open idiotically, so Sara was able to pop the wafer right in.
Automatically, his mouth closed on the morsel of food and he chewed like a cow working on its cud. He swallowed and, as if he were a living thing hit in the forehead with a killing hammer Mow, immediately went down.
Father Baltazar tore free from the zombie’s suddenly loose fingers. The creature’s knees lost all strength and he slipped bonelessly to the floor. His expression relaxed as he fell and for that fraction of a moment Sara saw the man that the zombie had once been on his suddenly tired-looking features. And then his eyes closed and he was lying in a sad, dead heap, his arms still outstretched, almost beseechingly.
Father Baltazar choked, his hands gently probing his own nearly crushed throat. He tried to talk, but couldn’t. Instead he pointed at the other zombie who had just clumsily regained Ms feet, and was coming towards them menacingly, not cognizant of his brother’s fate.
Still on his knees the priest pointed, waving his hands. Sara understood what he meant. She took another wafer from the pix, and, ducking under the zombie’s reaching hands, deftly placed the wafer in the zombie’s mouth.
The result was the same. The zombie automatically ingested the morsel and reacted as quickly and as thor-ougMy as his brother had. He collapsed upon his brother’s corpse, embracing him with his open arms.
Perhaps fitting, Sara thought, but a terribly sad sight.
She turned to Father Baltazar, helping him up to his feet. “How did you know the communion host would kill them-or whatever it did to them?” she asked.
The priest shook his head.
“It wasn’t the host, ” he said. ’“Probably not, anyway. Salt breaks the bond between the zombie’s body and whatever is left of their soul still animating it. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to use something blessed to bring the salt into the zombie’s system,'so I salted down a stack of communion wafers. But maybe now isn’t the best time to speak of this.” f
The priest was right. Although only seconds had elapsed, the firefight had grown exponentially in volume. Alek, Kris, and Paul Narcisse were all pinned down behind metal beams and structural supports, along with forty or fifty unarmed cultists who were cowering and screaming. Sara’s faction had the superior firepower with the Gervelis brothers’ Jackhammers blasting away at the •more than a dozen armed Specials who were returning fire with handguns.
Sara and Father Baltazar were trapped in the open, halfway between the area where Alek and the others were making their stand, and the Specials, who were firing from cover behind similar girders on the other side of the poteau-mitan. Baron Samedi, who had been standing right at the center pole, observing the developing firefight with more than slight good humor, was now casually strolling back to the caille mysteres, ignoring the bullets whizzing by him as if they were so many sting-less bees.
“We’ve got to stop him,” Father Baltazar, crouching now next to Sara said. “God knows what he’s up to.”
“Right” She turned to look back over her shoulder. “Suppressive fire,” she called to the Gervelises, hoping that they at least had an inkling of what she meant.
One of them came through. She suspected that it was
Kris, whose Soldier of Fortune addiction had apparently not been a complete waste of time. After he’d emptied his first ammunition cassette on full automatic, he’d switched back to the more manageable single-fire option, the efficacy of which was pointed out by several Specials lying in pools of blood behind theif inadequate cover.
Now Kris switched to full auto again and laid down a suppressive arc of fir^ 'aimed, Sara hoped, above their heads. She scurried after Baron Samedi, who had already disappeared in the warren of small rooms that was the sanctuary.
Sara serpentined over the open ground. It took Father Baltazar a moment or two to realize what was happening, and then he took out after her. Paul Narcisse was at their heels as Alek joined the barrage with his Jackhammer, wisely taking the single shot option.
The reverberations from Kris’s first ammunition cassette hadn’t yet died as Sara reached the sanctuary, running through little or no return fire. The gangbangers kept their heads down as Kris’s barrage echoed throughout the warehouse. She did have to pass one support that covered a crouching Special. He reached out to try to stop her, but without breaking stride she slapped him against the side of the head with her automatic, and he went down in a heap.
The voices laughed, calling for his head.
“Finish him-”
“—send his damned soul to hell—”
“—where it belongs.”
She ignored their bloodthirsty urgings, concentrating on reaching the caille mysteres right before her. The chambers were poorly lit and small, although not without cover that could conceal, well, just about any crazy thing, from armed Special to uridead zombie to angry loa.
She flung herself into the small room. An altar was set across the back wall, and crouching under the altar was someone or .something.
“Get up!”'Sara ordered. “Let me see your hands!”
A frightened squeal came from under the altar, and one of the female dSncers scuttled out into the open, her hands up and empty, her expression terrified, as Sara threw down on her. The cultist ran out into the open area, evidently figuring her chances would be better out there, and almost bumped into Father Baltazar as he blundered into the small room and threw himself against the wall, panting with exertion.
“Find Samedi,” he said when he could get his breath. “Try to get him out of Sam’s body.”
“How do I do that?”
The priest shook his head. “Not sure,” he said, still short of breath.
Great, Sara thought. The expert doesn’t know, but he expects me to figure it out.
There was a doorless opening on the wall against which Sara leaned, leading into yet another sanctuary room that was darker than the one they were in. She took a deep breath and rolled into the next room, keeping low.
Another altar stood against the back wall of this cubicle, but with even less light Sara was less sure of what it contained. Stuff. Piles of stuff, with no time to examine any of it. No Baron Samedi, though. Apparently.
She pushed herself through to the next room, thinking that this was like hunting poisonous snakes in the dark. Only maybe a little more dangerous. But there was noth-mg to do but go on and trust to her skill, and, maybe, that the voices would Warn her in time if she was going to run into anything terribly dangerous.
She went through several of the rooms, flushing a couple of cultists who had no fight in them. She heard sounds coming from behind her, but when glancing back saw that Father Baltazar had been joined by Paul Narcisse. Both were followitfg her as the firefight still raged.
She prayed that Alek and Kris were holding their own, that they wouldn’t run out of ammunition, that their blood wouldn’t be on her hands when this was all over. She prayed that they would find what they were looking for, that somehow she’d figure out how to chase Baron Samedi from the body of Guillaume Sam, that they’d find a way to end this all here and now without any more hlood being shed.
Suddenly, her prayers were answered, though not all were granted.
She reached what seemed to be the last sanctuary room. Light shone through the open doorway in the back wall of this room, indicating that it was last in the warren of caille mysteres, and that it opened into the space of the warehouse’s first floor.
She didn’t need the voices to tell her that danger lay beyond that doorway, but they did so in no uncertain terms. She hesitated. Father Baltazar and Paul Narcisse joined her in the small chamber. She looked at them and realized that they knew the danger inherent in going through the doorway. But they couldn’t stay in that empty little room forever. She gestured right, pointed to herself. Gestured left, pointed to them. They nodded, and Father Baltazar made the sign of the cross in the air before them all.
Before Sara could do anything he went through the door with a yell, unarmed, leaping to the left. She and Paul Narcisse followed, going right and left themselves, but a single shot cracked, catching the priest and slamming him against the outer wall of the sanctuary, blood suddenly runnihg down his' face.
Sara looked up to see Baron Samedi, laughing aloud, holding Guillaume Sam’s pet possum in his arms, stroking it. Next to him stood Gene, smiling, pistol in his hands. Father Baltazar lay in a growing puddle of blood.
Baron Samedi calmly dropped the possum to the floor. It landed lightly, staring at them with its beady little eyes.
“Kill them!” Baron Samedi said, and the possum started toward them.
CHAPTER
; the possum came toward them, it changed.
Sara had never thought it a particularly cute beast, but now it was downright ugly. It had always seemed more intelligent than it could possibly have been, but now its beady little eyes gleamed with a malicious understanding that seemed more than animal. As it scurried toward them the air shimmered around it, as if it was pushing through heat waves thrown off desert sands. And like a mirage viewed through distorting waves, the possum’s outline rippled as it grew taller and bulkier, metamorphosing into something either a little more or a little less than human. Before Sara realized it, the Machete Murderer was shambling toward them, dragging his chains behind, armed with his favorite weapon and more than ready for action.
“Bakula-baka,” Sara whispered.
“Damballah preserve us,” Paul Narcisse prayed.
“Get Caz out of here!” Sara screamed, and moved, waving her arms, tiying to attract the thing’s attention.
Of course, there was Gene as well as Baron Samedi himself to wony about, but right now they were beyond Sara’s consideration. If she didn’t figure out a way to neutralize the creature that called itself Bakula-baka, it would all be over, quickly and horribly. She remembered their meeting in Guinee with little fondness and even less hope.
Her half-conscious plan seemed to work. She attracted his attention and he vfent toward her, away from Paul Narcisse, who was running to the fallen priest. That was the good part. The bad part was that she had attracted his attention and he was coming toward her.
And it was clear that he recognized her.
“You escaped me in Guinee,” Bakula-baka said, missing flesh slightly slurring his words. “Tonight you will not.”
He waved his machete emphatically and grinned ;5keletally.
Sara knew she was no match for him physically, but she did outgun him. She fired, quickly and accurately, and hit him three times in the chest and abdomen.
To absolutely no effect.
The slugs penetrated Bakula-baka’s massive frame, but didn’t even slow his advance. He bore down on her with murderous glee, machete held high and ready for a decapitating blow. Her gun was useless against his supernatural defenses. She couldn’t out fight him with her hands. She couldn’t outrun him. She had no choice.
She surrendered to the voices. They’d been slavering in her brain like chained attack dogs demanding to be freed. So she let them go.
Bakula-baka was almost upon her as she calmly hol-stered her weapon and stood quietly facing him, her arms open as if to embrace him. Her unusual behavior penetrated even his rather thick skull and he stopped, staring suspiciously at the serene expression on the face of his intended victim.
Sara’s mind exploded in a fireball of white heat, as it always did when she was enveloped in the Witchblade, and the cold metal appeared instantaneously upon her body, encasing her thighs, breasts, and abdomen in its chilly embrace. She shuddered at its touch, yet part of her welcomed it, like the caress of a lover whom she halfhated. Her mind danced in the incandescent blaze, her senses expanded to an inhuman degree. Every nerve, every fiber of her being felt more alive and vibrant than it did when she was outside the Witchblade’s embrace. She felt invincible.
Bakula-baka was wary of the sudden change in her appearance. He advanced tentatively, impressed by the armor that Sara suddenly wore. But the Witchblade was more than mere armor.
Sara laughed aloud and pointed at him imperiously.
The Witchblade ran down her arm to her hand and to the Up of her extended finger, and it didn’t stop there. It flung itself across the open space between Sara and the killer, extruding a razor-sharp tentacle.
The loa was astonished, but, reacting with more than human speed, brought up his machete with exquisite precision and parried the Witchblade’s thrust before it could pierce his chest. The Witchblade’s tentacle shrieked off the machete blade and the strangest battle in Sara’s career began.
Sara had never before faced an opponent with such supernatural strength and skill. Bakula-baka looked big and clumsy, but in reality he was big and quick and handled his butcher’s blade with all the finesse of a master fencer. She found herself in a back-and-forth struggle as she and her opponent circled each other like dancers in a graceful yet deadly minuet, thrusting and parrying, each probing for that crucial weakness, each looking for that moment when they could strike true and end the dance in a sh, wer of blood. "
Seconds ticked by. Despite the Witchblade’s fuiy, Sara found herself having trouble focusing on her immediate problem: Bakula-baka. She had too many other things to worry about. She couldn’t help but wonder how the Gervelis brothers were doing in the ongoing firefight, a situation so alien to them and so dangerous. Just on the edge of her peripheral vision she could see that Paul Narcisse had reached Father Baltazar. He had half-lifted the fallen priest in his arms and Baron Samedi was shouting to Gene, who was staring fixedly at the fencing match between her and the demonic loa, his gun ready, just waiting for the opportunity to revenge the death of his sister and his earlier wounding at Sara’s hand.
She couldn’t belie , e that Gene was still alive-Damn!
Bakula-baka had snuck in under her defense as she’d lost her focus. Not even the Witchblade could prevent him from landing a machete blow that slashed across her ribcage. The mystic armor pulled itself together in time to protect the area of her body where the blow landed, but it could only cushion. It couldn’t soften the tremendous blow.
Sara grunted as the blade whipped across her, flinging her to the ground. Her head snapped down on the concrete floor with enormous force and a shower of bright lights exploded in her brain. She blacked out.
It must have only been for a moment because when she opened her eyes again Bakula-baka still hadn’t reached her. She couldn’t breathe, Her huffing lungs were struggling to draw in air.
And the Witchblade was gone.
It had vanished when she’d lost consciousness, leaving her virtually ,naked, protected only by her tattered clothes. Her breasts shuddered as she tried to focus her mind to draw a breath and call back the Witchblade.
She caught Gene’s smile from the corner of her eye as he realized that he finally had a clear shot at her, and the hideous smile on Bakula-baka’s half-face as he loomed over her, stinking of death and the grave. She desperately tried to summon the Witchblade in time to save her from the simultaneous attacks.
Gene’s features suddenly blurred as if he were looking through radiating heat waves. When they settled again ' less than a second later he was still grinning widely, but his upper lip was missing its pencil-thin mustache.
Sara thought Jean? and suddenly Baron Samedi roared in his great bull-like voice and Paul Narcisse fired two shots almost simultaneously.
The first hit Gene, or maybe it was now Jean, in the throat. A geyser of blood erupted from the wound, spraying in a fountain through the severed jugular. The second blew off the top of his, or her, skull, and Sara knew that he, or she, wouldn’t recover from this wound.
A stricken, almost angry expression washed over Jean’s face. It blurred again for an infinitesimal moment. By the time the body hit the floor it was wearing Gene’s face once again, and both twins were finally, irrevocably, dead. At least, Sara hoped so.
Bakula-baka responded to the urgency in Baron Samedi’s voice. He turned to see Paul Narcisse pointing his weapon at the loa’s mount. Sara still couldn’t breathe and couldn’t even draw in enough air to shout a warning as Paul Narcisse pulled the trigger and Guillaume Sam’s body staggered at the impact of the slug tearing through it, just as Bakula-baka reached the houngan's side.
Sara tried to scream but her lungs still weren’t drawing enough air. Her voice could only croak so quietly that only she could hear the pitiful sound it made as Bakula-baka swung his machete and with one blow neatly took Paul Narcisse’s head from his shoulders.
It flew away like an ugly, misshapen football. Sara felt almost as if she had been struck, not Narcisse. She watched in horror as Bakula-baka roared in glee and grabbed the headless body as it swayed drunkenly on its feet. The loa opened his mouth wide and clamped down upon the neck stump, making greedy sucking noises as it 'drained the spurting blood from Paul Narcisse’s corpse.
Bakula-baka released the body, letting it fall over Father Baltazar, then whirled, turning his mad, staring eye on Sara. He started to lurch toward her as she still fought for her breath, fought to call the Witchblade back and direct it upon him, but Guillaume Sam shouted again, this time in his own voice. Samedi had apparently fled back to Guinee.
The loa answered Guillaume Sam’s summons. He went swiftly to the bokor’s side and scooped him up in his powerful arms. Together they disappeared among the maze of the caille mysteres.
Sara suddenly realized she was breathing again, though the entire right side of her body felt as if it were on fire. She looked down and saw a great bruise already darkening her skin from her right breast down her ribcage and across her waist to almost the top of her thigh. In the center of the dark bruise was a dead white line an inch across, directly where the machete blade had struck her. Only the mystic armor qf the Witchblade had kept her from being chopped through from chest to groin.
But that wasn’t important, now.
She couldn’t get up. She couldn’t walk, but she dragged herself across the concrete floor to where Paul Narcisse’s corpse lay over Father Baltazar. It took what seemed to be a long tyne. Sight before she reached the pitiful bodies the gunfire from the other area of the floor ceased, and Sara knew she had to huny. If the Gervelis brothers had been outgunned, if they were lying dead or wounded, her own life would be measured in minutes.
But first she had to see about Father Baltazar.
She pulled Paul Narcisse’s headless and bloodless body off him, and laid it aside as reverently as she could, though she hadn’t recovered enough strength to keep it from dropping the last foot or so to the hard concrete floor. Holding back tears, she turned the priest’s face toward hers, so that she could see his features. She tore a scrap of cloth from the tatters of her shirt, not noticing that she nearly bared her chest, and wiped away the blood flowing down the side of his face.
Gingerly, she probed the wound on the side of his skull, feeling through his hair clogged with blood, and then had to fight back tears of relief. The bullet had only creased the side of his skull, tearing his scalp. Like most scalp wounds, this one was bleeding like a mother, making it seem much more serious than it actually was. She probed the area of the wound gently with her fingers, feeling around his skull. As near as she could tell, it wasn’t broken. His wound wasn’t fatal, or probably even particularly serious. She tore another strip of cloth from her tattered raiment and bound his head loosely to help ease the already slowing flow of blood.
Sara then realized that someone was calling her name. She recognized Alek’s voice and shouted back.
“Here! We’re here!”
It took the brothers a couple of moments to find her, but they finally tracked her by the sound of her voice. They burst through the' warren of the caille mysteres disheveled and a little bloody. She was damn happy to see them.
She managed to get to her feet and started to hug a startled Alek Gervelis, but gasped in pain as they met in an embrace. This time, she thought, something is broken.
He looked down at her, still a little wild-eyed because of the adrenalin running through his system. He had shed the initiate’s robe and his duster was tattered by bullets that had come uncomfortably close, but he seemed unwounded. Kris was bleeding from his right arm, but the wound was already bound and didn’t seem to be troubling him half as much as the scene he now gazed upon.
“What happened here?” he asked in a small voice, his eyes wide at the sight of Gene’s body, and Paul Narcisse’s. “And-?” ’ '
He looked at Sara, who made no attempt to hide her near nakedness. Now wasn’t the time for false modesty. She was too tired, too sore, too mentally exhausted. Wordlessly, Alek stripped off his duster and put it around her shoulders. She draped it around herself, grateful for his silent chivalry, grateful that his garment still retained his human warmth.
“What are we going to do?” Kris asked, as they heard approaching sirens in the distance. “What are we going to do?”
Sara shook her head. She had run out of ideas.
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