1 here was only one thing to do. Run.
It wasn’t the first time since Sara had acquired the Witchblade that she’d found herself running from her fellow officers like a common criminal, but maybe it was the most painful time. She wasn’t alone. She was with others who depended on her. Some of them needed medical attention, and she had no real idea of what to do besides bolt like rats from a burning building.
Fortunately they were able to exit the building before the police arrived in any appreciable numbers. Their presence at the hounfort was not something she wanted to explain to anyone in an official capacity. Not only would her career be over, she and her friends would be looking at serious jail time if their participation in the night’s activities was ever discovered.
Although they all hated to do it, they had to abandon Paul Narcisse’s body. There was simply no way they could take it with them and hope to avoid capture. It was difficult enough to drag Father Baltazar along, but fortunately he revived as they were making their way out of the building, and was soon able to walk under his own power.
He took one look at their faces as they stepped into the chill of the late September evening, and Sara knew that he didn’t have to ask about Paul Narcisse. He knew his friend was dead, flis expression hardened, as if he simply refused to let himself grieve at this time.
“Where are we headed"?” he asked.
“I’m glad you’re conscious, Caz,” Sara said. “I want to go to your place-but not without your permission. We can't go to Paul’s. The police will be there soon. And my apartment is too far to be our bolt-hole.”
“That’s a good idea,” the priest said. “You can tell me what happened when we get to the rectory.”
Sara nodded and they set off down the alley, one step ahead of the cops, who were still arriving by the car-full. Ironically, it was Sara herself who now slowed them the most. Her side ached at every step, as if a red-hot poker were lodged between her ribs. But she gritted her teeth and kept walking.
Alek Gervelis was a welcome presence beside her. She leaned into him and he helped her along as best as he could. He was smart enough to stay silent, secure enough to keep his thoughts, worries, and doubts to himself as they made their way across the borough back to Cypress Hills. " ’ ‘
They kept to the dark as best they could, avoiding streetlights and crowds and all forms of public transportation. They couldn’t afford to take a cab or bus or subway. Father Baltazar’s clothes were soaked in blood from his creased scalp. Kris had an obvious gunshot wound. It was pretty clear that Sara had been in a serious fight. Anyone taking a long look at them would call the cops just on general principles. They looked like the aftermath of the climactic battle in a cheap gang movie.
It took longer, much longer than the trip out, but, bleeding and wounded, they finally got back to Cypress Hills and St. Casimir’s, exhausted in body, mind, and soul. Father Baltazar’scozy study felt like a little bit of heaven as Sara flopji^d down into the comfortable old chair by the sofa.
The priest sighed. “Let me wash the blood off my face. Then I’ll check everyone else. You can tell me what happened after I lost consciousness."
Father Baltazar saw to their wounds after he came back from the bathroom with a clean face and a gauze bandage wrapped around his head. Alek Gervelis was the only one to escape the raid on the hounfort essentially unscathed. Kris had taken several wounds, but they all were rather minor, the worst occurring when a bullet passed entirely though his upper right arm without hitting bone or anything vital.
Sara’s injury appeared to be the most serious. She winced as the priest opened the duster and gently probed her ribcage.
“Follow me,” he ordered, leading her to the bathroom. He detoured for a moment to his bedroom, coming out with a pair of sweatpants and an old shirt for her to wear, and then took her into his tiny bathroom to examine her more closely. She sucked in her breath as he ran his hands lightly up her ribcage. He nodded seriously.
“Looks like at least one rib’s broken. I can tape them for now, but you’ll have to see a real doctor soon to make sure nothing’s floating around loose in there.” He looked up at Sara. “In the meantime,” he said quietly, “you can tell me what happened to Paul.”
Sara did so, gasping a couple times as the priest put a little too much pressure on her ribcage. She finished the story just as the priest finished bandaging her.
“I’m so 'sorry about'Paul,” she said. “I feel so bad to have gotten him Into this mess.”
Father Baltazarshook his head. “Paul was involved in this long before you realized that it even existed.” He sighed. “He loved the people of Cypress Hills. He’d give anything for their welfare—up to and including his life. But there’s one thing he must not lose.”
“What’s that?” Sara asked.
“His soul,” the priest said.
“His soul? But, surely, on his death-”
"It’s not that simple for those who believe in voudon— certainly not that simple for initiates of the religion. Paul has already had his soul stripped from him. And, so to speak, put aside for safekeeping.”
“Is that possible?” Sara asked incredulously.
“Certainly. At least Paul thought so,” Father Baltazar said. “Voudonists call the soul the gros-bon-ange—the great good angel-and believe that with the proper ceremony it can literary be taken from the body and placed in a pot-de-tete, a small jar which is then kept for safekeeping on the houngan’s altar.”
She remembered the confrontation Guillaume Sam had had with the cop searching his altar. But the whole idea still seemed crazy to her.
“Safekeeping from what?” Sara asked.
“From getting stolen and placed in a zombie’s body, or an animal’s body. From being trapped after the death of the body and not allow.ed an existence in the afterlife. Which is exactly what I’m afraid Guillaume Sam will try to do with Paul’s soul.”
“How-” Sara started, then stopped. She realized that she had no business questioning someone’s supernatural beliefs, considering her experience with the Witchblade. “What do we have to do?” she asked simply.
“One of us has to g6 to the altar in Paul’s office and retrieve his pot-de-tete,” Father Baltazar said.
“I’ll do it.” Sara said.
Father Baltazar looked at her gratefully. “You’d be the best choice-but even so, you’re hurt. Tired.”
“I’ve been hurt worse in my life, and been more tired,” Sara said, though truthfully she wasn’t sure of the latter. “If you think the fate of Paul’s immortal soul rests on whoever has control of this pot, we can’t let it fall into Guillaume Sam’s hands.”
“You’re right,” Father Baltazar said. He took a ring of keys out of his pocket and extracted one, handing it to Sara. “This is to the back door of the bookstore. The pot-de-tete is on his altar. You can’t miss it. It’s a round earthenware jug about six inches high stoppered with a cork. Plain brown color, but with a rainbow painted in a horizontal arc on the front—or back, if he turned it around the last time he dusted.”
Sara could hear the sudden catch in Father Baltazar’s voice and for a moment she thought he was going to cry. She took him in his arms and held him as hard as she could with her sore ribs. He responded, hugging her tight enough to cause her to gasp.
“Sony,” he said.
“Nothing to be sorry about, Caz,” she said. “I wouldn’t be anywhere near stopping Guillaume Sam without you
and Paul. Now it’s just you, but we’ll get him yet. We’ll take him down together, no matter what it takes. For Paul. For all the helpless people of Cypress Hills whom he’s preyed upon for years. We’ll get the bastard. Don’t worry.” , .
The priest released her and stepped back, smiling.
“Go with God, Sara,’’.he said.
Though unhappy about going out dressed like a refugee from a gym class, Sara knew she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. She couldn’t waste time going back to her apartment to change clothes, and at this time of night, or morning, no stores were open.
She went back into the study and holstered her piece in the snug of her back. Kris was off making coffee in the kitchen. Alek watched her worriedly.
-“What are you up to?" he asked.
“Just a little errand to run,” Sara answered as lightly as possible.
“I’ll go with you," he offered.
Sara shook her head. “No need.”
“Still-”
”No need,” she said again, with a little more emphasis.
They looked at each other silently for a moment.
“All right,” Alek finally said.
She nodded, went to go by him. He touched her arm lightly and she stopped and looked into his eyes. He bent his head down and, mindful of her injuries, took her gently in his arms and kissed her softly and lingeringly.
“For luck,” he said.
She smiled back at him and walked out of his arms.
“Come back to me in one piece,” he called after her.
“I’ll do my best,” Sara said.
The Serpent and the Rainbow was shuttered and dark. Looking in, Sara thought it seemed a sad place. She wondered what would happen to all the books without Paul Narcisse to shepherd them. She hoped they wouldn’t end up in some big garage sale priced at a quarter each. She hoped they’d all firfd a home Someplace with someone who would love and cherish them as much as Paul Narcisse had. ■'?
She went past the store on the dark and empty street, into the nearest alley and headed for the rear entrance. She took the key that Father Baltazar had given her and silently unlocked the door and silently went into the building. The rear door opened into the receiving room where Paul Narcisse had unpacked his book shipments. She went into the corridor beyond, past the restroom, and finally to the office with the old, comfortable furniture that she remembered from her first visit.
She flicked on the lights as she entered the room, heading toward the altar. There was a slight creaking sound behind her and the voices in her head screamed a sudden warning. She whirled, drawing her weapon in the same motion, and found herself staring at Lt. Carl Dickey, who sat in the comfortable old chair behind Paul Nar-cisse’s desk.
“You’re pretty fast with that, aren’t you?” he observed mildly.
“You’re an eighth of an inch from dead,” Sara said, “which is exactly how far I have to move my finger to pull the trigger. Let me see your hands.”
Wordlessly, the lieutenant took his hands from his lap and placed them, palms down, on the desk. They were empty.
“What are you doing here?” Sara asked.
“Same as you, I imagine. Looking for the pot-de-tete with Narcisse’s soul. Only, I don’t ‘have a single damn idea what it looks like and there’s only about two and a half dozen jars on that damn altar to choose from.” “Pot-de-tete?", Sara asked. “How do you know about that?” '*
They stared at each other wordlessly for a long second, and then Sara nodded hef head.
“Of course,” she said. “When you’ve been at this job long enough, you’re not surprised at anything.”
“That’s right,” Detective Dickey said.
“How long have you been Guillaume Sam’s man?” she asked.
The detective sighed from the depths of his soul. “Long as I’ve known what he’s been doing in Cypress Hills.”
• “Why?” Sara asked with gritted teeth. She hated criminals who preyed on the helpless, but most of all she hated those who took their salary, hid behind their badge, and helped criminals feast on the helpless.
Lt. Dickey shrugged. “I wanted to go on living.” “You’re saying he threatened you?” Sara asked. “’Course he did. Just like he threatened you.” Lt. Dickey looked at her with pursed lips, considering her as if she were some kind of odd bug he'd just discovered. “But you. There’s something strange about you, girl. People around you turn up dead. Or worse.”
“You’ve got something to say about me,” she said, “say it.”
Lt. Dickey shook his head. “Nope. Got nothing to say. I can keep my mouth shut. That doesn’t mean others aren't talking. You got something strange going on. That partner of yours, and your Captain, they can’t cover for you forever.”
“Is that a threat?” ,
.. -v
“Lord, no.” Lt. Dickey frowned. “I already got one son of a bitch oddball on my ass. I don’t need another.”
“I see,” Sara said, suddenly understanding the gist of their conversation. “And you don’t know which oddball is going to win this particular confrontation, me or Guillaume Sam?” /.
“I never bet against Guillaume Sam,” the policeman said, “but, like I said, people around you seem to end up dead. Or worse. He ends up dead or worse ...” Lt. Dickey shrugged. “No meat off my bones.”
“And I end up dead? Or worse?”
“I’ll be sorry. Real sorry. But I’ll still be here.”
“Uh-huh. I suppose you were the one who warned Guillaume Sam about the raid of Club Carrefour,” Sara said.
* Dickey heaved one of his patented sighs. “I suppose I was,” he said.
Sara shook her head and went up to the altar, keeping her gun out and an eye on Dickey at all times. She scanned the neatly cluttered tribute to Paul Narcisse’s protector, Damballah, and wondered with a pang, Who will lovingly take care of the altar with Paul gone? No one, she thought sadly. It’ll all just go to the dustbin.
She spied the pot-de-tete. Much like Paul Narcisse himself, it didn’t occupy a place in the spotlight. It was tucked behind a pair of votive candles in glass containers dedicated to Aida-Wedo, Damballah’s wife, the rainbow. She took the pot and turned back to Lt. Dickey.
“Here it is,” she said. “You want it?” It wasn’t an offer. It was a challenge.
Lt. Dickey shook his head. “You can have it.”
“You’re letting your boss down.”
“Guillaume Sam may, have a mortgage on my soul,” the policeman said, “but he don’t own it outright.”
Sara sidled toward the door, gun in one hand, pot-de-tete in the other. She stopped in the doorway and looked at the cop, who had swiveled in Paul Narcisse’s old chair to keep his eyes directly on here.
“We’ll talk again,” Sara told him.
Lt. Dickey nodded. “1’fn sure we will. Maybe on this earth, maybe in hell.” He sighed again, sincerely enough that Sara believed in the sadness that seemed to course through his system. “You probably won’t believe this. But good luck.”
She turned the light off and left him sitting there in the dark, in a dead man’s chair.
That night Sara found herself in the priest’s bed.
She had brought the pot-de-tete to the rectory. After thinking it over she’d decided to keep quiet about Lt. Dickey’s secret allegiance to Guillaume Sam, at least for the present. She recognized that she’d made the decision partly because of her secretive nature, which had become all the more secretive during her association with the Witchblade, but also because for now it would do no good to share such a confidence. Certainly things could change, and if she’d have to rat him out for the safety of her fellow conspirators she would. But for now, she’d hold it among the other secrets she was forced to live with on a daily basis.
Sara, Father Baltazar, and the Gervelis brothers held a brief strategy session despite the weariness that hung over them like an impenetrable fog. But the only strategy they could come up with was to have a good night’s sleep and see what the next day would bring. Their battle against Guillaume Sam was like a heavyweight fight reaching its final rounds. They’d spent most of the first rounds slugging it out toe to toe and both sides had suffered grievous losses. Neither side could allow the struggle to go on much longer. Both had to go for the decisive knockout, and deliver it soon.
They decided thkf it’d be best if they stayed together, not even separating for the night. Safety lay in numbers, and they weren’t going to make the mistake common in bad horror movies of splitting up to search the house. Sara, despite her protests, got Father Baltazar’s bedroom, while the priest took the sofa in his study, and the brothers lay down on cushions on the floor in the adjoining living room.
Father Baltazar’s bedroom, located at the rear of the house, was as quaint and cozy as his study. Other words to describe it, Sara thought, would be small and cramped. There was a single bed with an old handmade quilt, a nightstand, an ancient trunk at the foot of the bed, and more bookshelves crammed with more books, prints, icons, and other small chackas.
She would have stripped down to her underwear and tumbled into bed, but she had no underwear left. She unbuttoned Father Baltazar’s shirt and draped it over the trunk at the foot of the bed, unbuckled her holster and set it on the night stand that held a small lamp and the earthenware pot that, according to Father Baltazar, held Paul Narcisse’s soul. She unknotted the drawstring of the priest’s sweat pants and let them fall in a pile about her feet, then slipped into bed and pulled the sheet and quilt over her.
She had never been so tired in her life, yet also never so far from sleep. Her mind was awhirl with the day’s happenings, and speculation as to what the next day would bring. They were headed, she knew, toward a final confrontation with Guillaume Sam, and they’d lost the one who knew be§t how to fight him. Without Paul Narcisse they were goihg into batik- blind. No one else in the community could replace, him. There were lower-ranking houngans, but Father Baltazar was reluctant to bring them into the conflict, reluctant to risk more lives in what might be turning out to be a hopeless cause. Still-tomor-row he might have to face that reluctance, and overcome it, just as Sara might have to overcome her reluctance to bring Jake into the fray, if they wanted to have the barest hope of winning.
She was grateful to hear a low tapping on her door, grateful for anything to take her mind off the rollercoaster of fear and anticipation that was making it impossible for her to sleep.
“Come in,” she said in a low voice at the tentative sound at her door, and it opened a crack. A tall, broad shouldered form slipped into the room. She recognized the dark silhouette immediately.
“Alek.”
“Sara.”
He stood by the side of the bed, hesitant. “Sorry if I woke you up,” he said.
“You didn’t. I couldn’t sleep.”
“I couldn’t either. Mind if I come in?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t have said come in, would I?”
Alek laughed lowly. “I guess not.”
He only had to take a couple of steps to reach the edge of the bed. Sara sat up against the pillows, holding the sheet up to her chest. She looked at the arm holding the sheet. She was almost surprised to see that it was flesh, not covered by the metallic sheath of the Witchblade. The voices were suspiciously silent in her mind. Almost distractedly, she wondered what they were planning.
“I just felt that I had to see you. Alone. To talk to you. To-”
Sara lifted the edge of the quilt, and Alek quickly slid into the bed next to her. It was a small bed. Just lying there, they were actually embracing, her arm under his neck, their legs pressed together from thigh to calf.
“I had to tell you,” Alek said, “that these have been the most amazing days of my life. They’ve been awful, yet somehow exhilarating. You know the music we’ve been doing. Gothic. Dark. Ah that stuff.” He shook his head. “Christ. What did I know about darkness, until this? What did i know about cold, soulless evil? Or pure valor?”
He reached out and touched her cheek gently. “This is just some crazy down-the-rabbit-hole adventure I’ve wandered into. But you—this is your life! How do you do it, day after day? How to find the courage to face this evil, nasty shit like Guillaume Sam and his creatures?” Sara shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said simply. “I don’t think about it. If I did, I suppose I couldn’t do it.” “Yeah,” Alek said, “but how do you keep from thinking about it? I mean, I know we have to face Guillaume Sam again. We’re all hanging on a highwire suspended over a bottomless pit leading down to hell. And one of us-either Guillaume Sam’s group or our group-is going to fall down into it and never come out. Probably tomorrow. How do you keep from thinking about it?"
“Here’s one way,” she said.
She leaned over him, her hair fluttering down upon his face like the wings of a dove, and kissed him.
It was a kiss that fulfilled the promises of their earlier embraces. It lasted a long time and, soft and sweet at first, grew harder and more insistent. She felt his hands discover that she was naked. Gentle as his touch was, she flinched when his hands brushed her taped ribcage.
“Sorry,” he said into'her mouth and, in concert, they maneuvered so that no weight or pressure would be brought upon her ihjured side.
Either the voices left her or she forget they were there. Afterwards, looking back at it, she couldn’t tell which was true. All that she knew was herself and Alek Gervelis, holding back the fear, holding back the promise of the future, losing themselves and finding themselves in each other.
It was the sweetest, most human experience she’d ever had.
When it was over he fell asleep in her arms. He was too serious to smile, but she was happy enough to see his simple contentment. She held him close for his warmth, for the beating of his heart, for the blood coursing through his veins, and the sheer human electricity running on the network of his nervous system.
He slept, but she didn’t.
She still couldn't, because she knew that she couldn’t subject him or his brother or Father Baltazar to any more of what they’d experienced this day. They were not meant for it. They were not meant to face evil, whether coming from the barrel of a gun or the whisper of a bokor's curse.
She was. It was her job. She carried the Witchblade, but, more importantly, she carried a badge.
She would see this thing ended. One way or another. Alone.
CHAPTER
\y*
n a sense, Sara thought, it had all begun here. And perhaps it can end here as well.
' * Guinee was as peaceful and tranquil as ever. The weather was perfect, the scenery breathtaking. It seemed, Sara thought, like a great place to retire to, but she figured that at this rate it was unlikely she’d be around long enough to get a pension check. A nice headstone was probably the best that she could hope for.
She was at the crossroads. She sat down and waited, enjoying the feeling of the warm night breeze scented with tropical aromas playing over her nakedness, as the old man hobbled up the road toward her.
He shook his head and whistled at the sight of her. “You are a vision,” Papa Legba said as he reached her side. “It’s a good thing you’ve called the old man to you, not one of the younger spirits.”
Sara smiled. “Would they help me like you, Papa?” “Maybe,” Papa Legba said, leaning on his crutch. “Maybe for your smile, maybe for your favors, depending on who you called.”
“Why have you helped me, Papa?”
“Maybe for your smile,” the old man said, his face wrinkling into a hundred creases as he smiled himself. “Maybe because you’re polite and need my help. Maybe because you seek my help onjy to help others. Maybe because a favorite son asked me to.”
“Paul Narcisse?” * •
“Aye,” the old man said, nodding. “He was a good boy. Respectful to his elders. Always ready with a proper sacrifice. Even sacrificed himself in the end.”
“I know,” Sara said, tears wetting her cheeks.
“Don’t ciy, child,” Papa Legba said gently. “This is Guinee, land of the loa. All things are possible here. Speak from your heart, girl. What do you need?”
Sara looked down at her nakedness. “Well, I’d hate to go where I have to go tonight like this. I could probably use some clothes.”
“Probably,” Papa Legba said, and she was suddenly wearing a typical outfit of boots, jeans, and a pullover loose enough to move comfortably in, tight enough to show her lithe curves. “Just where do you have to go tonight, child?”
“You know.” Sara gestured up the road to where the dark and forbidding cemeteiy lay. “I want to finish this. I want to finish it tonight, here, where no one else can get hurt.” Papa Legba nodded. “That would be good.”
“I just want to know that I have a chance,” Sara told him, suddenly desperate. “I just want to know that I’m not going to throw my life away and that my friends will continue to suffer at the hands of Guillaume Sam."
Papa Legba laughed. “Would it comfort you to know that Guillaume Sam is asking the very same thing of his benefactor, right now?”
Sara was surprised. “He is?”
“Would it comfort you further to know that you don’t have to go on this journey alone?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
A small head popped up from the macoute, the straw tote bag slung over Papa Legba’s shoulder. It was covered with white fur and, like Papa Legba, had eyes the color of . blood. It climbed out of the sack, and sat on the loa’s thin, frail shoulder.
“Sandro!” Sara exclaimed.
The spirit guide meowed a faintly distant greeting. He was kitten-sized, perhaps in concession to his patron’s apparent frailness, but with the same intelligence, the same fierceness underneath his placid surface that Sara remembered from their past encounter.
“Can he go with me?” she asked Legba eagerly.
But the old spirit shook his head.
“We cannot take sides in the battle between right and left. We partake of both, though my sympathies most often lie with the good and respectful. Besides,” he grinned, “I’m not sure Sandro trusts you-or rather, that which rides you like a loa rides his mount. But do not worry. I am the opener of the door, the guardian of the gates. I allow the spirits to descend. Or, sometimes, ascend. Look, child, at who comes down the road.”
Sara followed his steadily pointing finger to see someone trudging up the road the way Papa Legba himself had come. It took Sara a moment to realize that it was Paul Narcisse, whole and alive. Apparently. He seemed as serious as ever, and was dressed as neatly, as conservatively, as ever.
“Paul...”
Sara went to embrace him, but stopped before they touched. Viewed,« from close up, he was ethereal. The moonlight shone through his eyes, making them dark pits in his skull. His legs faded into uneven nothingness at his ankles. This wasn’t Paul Narcisse after all, Sara realized, but just part of him. His gros-bon-ange.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “I mean—”
Tm fine,” he .said. “Thanks to you my gros-bon-ange was saved from Guillaume Sam. It rests safely in the pot-de-tete by your sleeping form as our spirits walk and talk in Guinee.”
“You’re the one who asked Papa Legba to watch over me?”
“It was the least I could do for someone willing to risk her life, her immortal soul, for my people.”
“What do we do now?” Sara asked.
“Your instincts were good,” Paul Narcisse told her. “The final confrontation could be fought on Earth, where many might die, or here in Guinee where it will be limited to those occupying this plane.”
“But,” Sara said, “in Guinee I lack my most potent weapon.”
Narcisse shook his head.
“You only think you do,” he told her. “Father Baltazar told me of your... situation. You have allowed this thing which mounts you to take possession of your body on its terms, when it wants to, so that it can further its own agenda. But you are stronger than that. You can bend it to your will. You have to stop being in awe of it. And being afraid of it. It needs you as you sometimes need it. You will never be able to control it entirely, but you can partner with it on your terms.”
“How?” "
“By being yourself, Sara,” Paul Narcisse said gently. “It chose you. It doesn’t want you to know that it needs you more than you need it. Before it came along you were doing just fine. Before you came along it was in limbo, looking for someone like you.
“You’re a rare person,” Paul Narcisse told her. “You’re a bom warrior, full of strength and pride. But, rarer yet, you are a warrior with compassion. You don’t fight for glory. You don’t fight for financial reward. You fight to ' protect the weak and innocent.” He smiled. “You’re a rare commodity, Sara Pezzini, and the Witchblade knows that.”
“But it can’t even come into Guinee,” Sara told him. “Every time I’ve come here it’s been silent.”
“That’s because subconsciously you haven’t allowed it to accompany you. You’ve been seeking a sanctuary from it, and you’ve found one in Guinee. But Guinee isn’t preventing it from following you here. You are. Open your mind. Reach out for it. You will find it.”
Sara found it hard to believe that she’d been exerting that much control over the Witchblade without realizing it, but there was no reason for Paul Narcisse to lie to her. He was the expert on such matters, she-despite the fact that she hosted the Witchblade-the novice.
She closed her eyes and concentrated. The silence around her was as perfect and as deep as the night. She reached out, questing with her mind, and after what might have been minutes or might have been hours, touched upon the familiar voices that were her omnipresent company. They were complaining grumpily to themselves.
“-left us again-”
“Where does she go-”
“-that we cannot accompany her-”
"What does she do-”
“-that we cannot see-”
"Miss me?” she asked, and caught the sudden tinge of startlement in their essences, “Then come and join me.” They did. Instantaneously. She was surprised to find them somewhat fearful of Guinee, as if it were a foreign land not suited to their taste. It was clear they didn’t like this realm. Their uncertainty, oddly enough, made them seem more human, perhaps easier to deal with. She would certainly test Paul Narcisse’s theories thoroughly before this sojourn in Guinee was over.
“You see?” he asked, as if he could read her mind.
Sara nodded. “Now for Guillaume Sam.”
“You know where to find him?” Papa Legba asked. Sara gestured down the road to the waiting cemetery. “Will he be there?”
“He will,” Papa Legba said. “His presence is the third and final boon that I grant you. Of course, he will not be alone.”
“Neither will Sara,” Paul Narcisse said.
“Farewell, then,” the loa said, “and good luck. Remember your old Papa from time to time.”
Sara leaned over and hugged him. He felt as thin as the wind, but a strange electricity ran through his form and it seemed to impart some of itself to her. Suddenly she felt stronger than she had for weeks, mentally rested and ready for anything.
She looked at Sandro. He condescended to allow a swift pat on the head and scratch behind the ears. Sara smiled, feeling that perhaps they had at least gone some way toward making up.
“All right” She turned to the gros-bon-ange of Paul Narcisse, who stood wavering before her in the night wind like a mirage. “I hope you’re not afraid of cemeteries,” she said.
“A cemetery will hold my body,” he said. “Nothing can hold my soul.” *
“I hope so,” Sara said, and they started down the road together. %
There being nothing more to say, they walked in silence, dead man and possessed cop, to the home of the Guede Family, of which Baron Samedi was the head.
Someone was waiting for them at the entrance to the graveyard. Paul Narcisse seemed to recognize him.
“Ah, Captain Zombi,” he said. “How good of you to meet us.”
For an evil spirit, Captain Zombi seemed a cheerful, even comical sort, with his trousers rolled up above his knees, a fat cigar in his mouth, and a half-drunk bottle of rum grasped by the neck in one hand.
“Not at all,” he said sunnily. “We don’t get such distinguished guests very often, and my lord, Baron Samedi, did not want you to lose your way among the tombs.”
He gestured backward into the cemetery. Even with the full moon shining like a soft and gentle sun, it was a dark and disturbing place. Gravestones and monuments and crypts crowded closely together. Funeral statuary seemed to move like living things as clouds glided across the moon or the wind shifted the shadows of overhanging trees.
“This way, if you please.”
The loa led them up a crooked pathway between the graves. It was cold* inside the cemetery. The night breeze was no longer warm, nor sweet. There was a chilly edge to it, and it smelled of wet earth and things that had lain in graves inside rotting wooden caskets for a long time. Darkness could be tasted on the air, and mysteries that Sara didn’t Want to know the solutions to.
They were waiting for her atop the hill that loomed in the center of the cemeteiy. Paul Narcisse named some of them for her. Just the important ones, for there were far too many for him to name in the time that they had.
There was the trinity of Baron Samedi, the head of the Guede family, in his top hat and sunglasses, alongside his brothers—or maybe other aspects of himself—Baron La Croix and Baron Cimetiere. There was Samedi’s wife, Big Brigitte, goddess of black magic and ill-gotten gold, dressed in a flowing purple dress, and their three sons, General Jean-Baptiste Trace, General Fouille, and Ra-masseur de Croix, Collector of Crosses.
Below them on the hillside were the lesser spirits, Guede Souffrant, Erzulie of the Black Heart, Marinette bwa Chech—Marinette of the Dry Arms-and Criminelle and the one-legged Ti Jean, and too many others to name or even remember.
Below them all, in a small open space in the graveyard at the foot of the hill was a man. He seemed almost small and insignificant among the gathering of loa, but Sara knew he was as powerful as many of them and more evil than most. It was Guillaume Sam. Chittering on his shoulder was the beast he called Baka, short for his real name of Bakula-baka.
Baron Samedi roared forth a welcome, and all the loa joined in with cheers and jeers and catcalls. The cemeteiy sounded like Pandemonium, the demon city of hell. Samedi threw his arms wide, and his sons called for quiet and the chaos melted into silence.
“No, my spirits,” he said. “We should be kind to our guests. Never has Guinee seen such rare entertainment. A policewoman and a dead man on the right hand. A bokor and our own Bakula-baka pn the left. Who will prevail?” Baron Samedi shook his hei'd, chuckling with evil mirth.
“The Guede!” he shouted.
The assembled spirits took it up as a chant: “Guede! Guede! Guede!” until Sara could no longer hear the voices in her own head. She fell to her knees, covering her ears as the loas’ voices speared into her brain. Paul Narcisse tried to help her rise. He shouted into her ears but she couldn’t hear a word of what he was saying. He pointed and she looked and saw that Bakula-baka was charging at them.
“Tonight I drink your blood, blanc," the loa roared, machete held high, his horrible face rent by the thing he called a smile.
Guinee was the land of the spirits. Her body was back on the realm of earth, sleeping in the arms of Alek Gervelis, but somehow she knew that if her spirit were defeated here, she would never awake. Her flesh would ton cold and stiff and Alek would wake up with a corpse in his arms.
That horrible realization brought her to her feet to face the charging loa, made her reach deep into the abyss of her being and call forth that which she knew as the Witchblade, a thing of cold metal and razor edges, to armor her frail human flesh.
For a moment there was no answer to her summons, no sudden, familiar embrace. But she did not panic. She called out again, imperious in her desire to protect those whom she loved, as well as the innocent and weak whom she didn’t even know. To shield them from the rapacious maw of Guillaume Sam and his band of cutthroats and killers. And certainly love was stronger than mere greed, or how could the world.survive at all?
The Witchblade cam! to her, arriving with Bakula-baka. Sara fell to the left, Paul Narcisse to the right, as the spirit, confused for a moment, deliberated over his target. He picked Sara and swung his machete in a great decapitating blow, but she had already moved and his thrust met no resistence whatsoever. His momentum yanked him forward and he fell, thudding face first into the rich Guinee soil.
' -Sara sprang upon his back with the lithe grace and ferocity of a jungle cat. She wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed, as if trying to hug him to death.
Bakula-baka roared. Even from behind him she could smell the grave-stench on his breath. She could smell it emanating from his body in waves of gagging putrescence.
Can you kill that which has no life? Sara thought, then answered her own question. I guess we’ll find out.
The spirit bucked and wrenched and Sara grimly held on. She wrapped her legs around his chest, gripping with her knees and heels. He shook like a mastiff trying to throw off a flea, yet Sara still grimly held on.
The Witchblade grew razor edges and quills and spikes that bit into Bakula-baka’s flesh, but the flesh of a loa is not that of a human. It’s stronger, harder, more resilient. But Sara gritted her teeth and pulled harder until the tendons and ligaments stood out like iron bars on her arms and neck, and she felt as if she herself were going to break.
Suddenly the loa had no more breath to waste bellowing in anger .and growing, fear. He flung himself backward to the graveyard earth and Sara felt the weight of a mountain slap down,upon her. The weight of the loa was crushing her, the chains that dangled from his limbs dug into her flesh. At least her broken ribs didn’t hurt. That would have given Bakula-baka an edge she probably couldn’t have overcome. Still, she couldn’t draw her breath, and for a moment was on the verge of passing out. Darkness clouded her vision and the stench of the Bakula-baka filled her mouth and nostrils.
NO! she screamed, or thought she did. Perhaps the ■sound came from the voices clamoring in her mind.
“NO!"
“NO!”
“NO!"
“NO!"
She didn’t know how long she screamed, but suddenly she realized that the weight pressing her down into the earth was dead weight. Bakula-baka was no longer moving, no longer trying to dislodge her. She felt wetness upon her face and chest and she realized that it was the blood, or the life essence of the thing, running back down upon her.
She heaved with all her strength and rolled the gigantic body off of her. She kneeled in the dirt next to him as he lay unmoving. She panted like a dog, her body crying for oxygen, as she looked down at him. The razor edge of the Witchblade had nearly hewn through his bull-like neck. Bakula-baka’s head was attached to his body by only a thread of dried flesh.
An awful scream made her look up from the body. Guillaume Sam, his face twisted into a demented mask, was running toward her like a maniac. Like Sara, he didn’t seem to fefel the sting'of his earthly wounds, or perhaps Paul Narcisse’s bullet hadn’t done him any real damage. He bent over ain'd scooped up the machete that Bakula-baka had dropped. Sara had only time to lift her arm up as he swung it at her, and the machete hit the Witchblade and shattered into dozens of dull iron shards.
Guillaume Sam looked at the broken blade, dumbfounded, and suddenly Paul Narcisse grabbed him by the shoulder and whirled him around. Narcisse grasped his cheeks and put his mouth on Sam’s, tight and hard, and kissed him long and deep, but without passion or love.
It was a spirit duel of will power and mental strength as each strove to absorb the other’s gros-bon-ange.
In the end, Guillaume Sam tried to pull away, but the spirit of Paul Narcisse was too strong. Guillaume Sam made an awful moaning sound and started to shrivel. First his legs and arms were sucked up into his body, then his abdomen and chest started to wither. Soon his entire body was just a flap of wrinkled skin hanging from his head, which still remained in Paul Narcisse’s deadly grasp. Then that too began to shrivel like an apple in a hot oven and finally Paul Narcisse was kissing nothing. Guillaume Sam had vanished.
Paul Narcisse looked down at Sara and put out a hand to help her to her feet.
“What happened?” she asked.
He took a small earthenware jug out of the macoute
that he carried over his shoulder and showed it to Sara. “I
.' .. **■
was no longer using my pot-de-tete. I thought Guillaume Sam’s gros-bon-ange might find it comfortable.”
“That means—” She couldn’t articulate the words.
Paul Narcisse,nodded. “His soul has been captured. His body lies empty* He smiled'at her. “Yet Guillaume Sam will waken this morning. And my body will rest easy, knowing I have a new ahd interesting home.”
“But-”
”Hush,” Paul Narcisse said gently. He wiped Bakula-baka’s blood from Sara’s cheek and neck. “We can talk about this later. Now we have to pay our respects to Baron Samedi, his family, and allies.”
“Respects!”
“Certainly. They are most deserving of it. They are great and powerful loa. And if they live in the darkness, do they not therefore help to defme the light?”
They approached their audience, which had been deadly silent during the latter stages of the duel. Paul Narcisse kneeled and put out his arms in supplication while Sara, still dad in the Witchblade, stood by his side.
“Great Baron Samedi,” Paid Narcisse intoned, “Baron La Croix, Baron Cimetiere. Madame Brigitte, and other spirits high and low, accept our sacrifice to your greatness, and our thanks for our soujoum in Guinee.”
“Hmmm,” Baron Samedi harumphed. “A poor enough sacrifice, as it turns out. Do you know how long it will take to mend our brother, Bakula-baka?”
“At least you can fix him,” Sara observed. “Unlike those humans he killed on Earth.”
Baron Samedi laughed his earthshaking laughter. “Defiant to the last, eh, girl?” He shook his head and sighed.
“Well, it shows how little you know if you think that. Still, you’ll find out soon enough.”
Sara didn’t like what Samedi implied, but decided it would be better if she didn’t question him any more closely.
“And you,” Baton Samedi asked. “Will you sacrifice to us as well?” . ■
“If it’ll keep you off My turf,” Sara said.
Samedi laughed, and his brothers joined in, “Go, blanc,” he said, waving his hands at her in a shooing gesture. “Go home. You are needed there, and here, after tonight, I think we all need a rest.”
Paul Narcisse touched her shoulder and together they turned and walked out of the cemeteiy. The air, she noted, was again warm and sweet. She could hear night birds singing in the trees as they walked down toward the crossroads and the old man waiting for them there.
“It’s funny,” Sara said, “but Guillaume Sam told me once that Baron Samedi promised him he’d live for eternity.”
“Oh, he will,” Paul Narcisse said, shaking the pot-de-tete. “It just won’t be a very exciting eternity.”
Sara sighed.
“Unlike our next couple of days,” Sara said. “How are we going to explain all this to my Captain? We need a fall guy to take the blame, or you’ll have a much too exciting twenty-to-thirty in Attica.”
“We have a fall guy. Two, in fact: Gene and Jean. Give the police their underground headquarters. We can put enough information there to pin dozens of killings on them-killings they did indeed commit. The green card scheme will come to an end. I’ll see to that. The money laundering is more problematic, but we can always blame it on an amuck accountant. Guillaume Sam will gladly pay back taxes and restitution. Don’t worry. It’ll work out.” Sara sighed. She was paid to solve crimes, not cover them up. This was another fine mess the Witchblade had gotten her into.'Or at least complicated, once she’d gotten herself into it. j%
“It is not our fault—
“—we did nothing—”
“-no blame—”
Oh, shut up, Sara thought.
And they did.
It was an unusually warm and mild spring, flowers and birds arriving early and abundantly.
Sara had little time to visit Cypress Hills, but she went to St. Casimir’s whenever she could. Father Baltazar was always glad to see her. The church was clean and neat, freshly sandblasted, and well lit by a new electrical system donated by Guillaume Sam. Carl Dickey had retired from the N.Y.P.D. He was running a bookstore that had recently come on the market, and seemed happier, though he still had his deep, sad voice, and suits that were two sizes too big.
Club Carrefour was still the neighborhood’s most popular dub. Little had changed there, unless you were privy to the back office, where the altar that had once been there had been taken down and replaced by another whose main attributes were snakes and rainbows.
Magdalena Konsavage had retired from the music business. It seems that she had fallen in love with the manager of her old band, Mountains of Madness, and they had married and moved far-away from Cypress Hills. Father Baltazar thought they’d opened up a travel agency in Miami, specializing in tours of the Translyvanian Alps.
The drummer from Mountains of Madness—Sara never did learn his name—had become a priest, but had not retired from the music business. Father Baltazar said you could hear him play(<juite frequently in Cypress Hills National Cemetery, if you wanted to.
Alek Gervelis disappeared for a while, then released a solo CD that garnered a small but intense critical and popular following. It was introspective, lyrical, almost mystical in nature. The most popular song on it was called “Sara Seraphim.”
Sara got postcards from him from Kathmandu, Casablanca, Lhasa, and Leng. They said that he had learned 'much, but there was still much to learn. Someday, they always said, he would find his way back to New York City, and her.
Sara tucked each and every postcard into a painted tin box she’d taken as a keepsake from Paul Narcisse’s altar. And each time she did so, the voices in her head were blessedly silent.