Chapter Six

It wasn’t until he watched her sleep that he realized how young she was. Her self-confident manner during the initiation ritual had made her seem much older than she was. As he sat on the corner of the bed and smoked an unfiltered Pall Mall, Rossiter estimated Tee’s age at twenty-five. Funny how someone a decade his junior could make him feel like a stumble-butt teenager.

She muttered something in her sleep and rolled onto her side. Rossiter envied her ability to fall asleep so quickly. His insomnia was growing worse with each passing year. Although he had not slept in over forty-eight hours, his brain still refused to wind down long enough for as much as a catnap.

Bored and unable to sleep, he wandered into the front room. The altar’s candles had burned to their bases, until their flames were swallowed in pools of liquid wax. He studied a three-tiered bookshelf made of two-by-fours and cinder blocks, browsing its contents in hopes of finding something to read while on the toilet.

The bottom shelf contained stacks of dog-eared copies of Ebony, Bronze Thrills and Fate, plus a handful of paperback historical romance novels with cracked spines. The middle shelf boasted a wide selection of metaphysical reading materials, most of which Rossiter recognized from the occult section at Barnes & Noble’s. The top shelf, however, held only three books, all of them hardbound: a Catholic Bible, something called A History of Black Culture In The Americas & Africa: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow, and a leather-bound volume with an unmarked spine.

Curious, Rossiter removed the unmarked book from its place on the shelf, dislodging a cloud of dust. The title of the book—Aegrisomnia--was stamped in faded gold foil on its cover. He flipped it open to the frontis page and saw, to his surprise, that the printing date was listed as 1789.

There was a brief foreword written in archaic English type, with the‘s’s that looked like ‘f’s, explaining the history of the original text on which the book was based. The title meant “Fever Dream”, and its author, an engraver known as Palinurus, produced the original plates during the Thirteenth Century while suffering from a brain fever, apparently dying within hours of finishing the last plate.

Interested by what he’s read so far, Rossiter sat down on the sofa and began thumbing through the rest of the book. The actual text seemed to be in Latin, but what caught his attention were the numerous engravings of elaborate mandalas, some of which seemed to change their pattern every time he looked at them.

He used to have a poet-friend named Jim who loved dropping acid while looking at weird shit like that. Rossiter couldn’t resist smiling as he remembered how enthusiastically his friend had been about the mind-expanding power of psychedelics. Back in 1996 Jim had taken a sabbatical in Paris. He sent Rossiter a letter, describing the treasures of the Louvre and the macabre wonders of the Pere Lachaise Cemetery as seen through his ‘third eye’, as he called it. Jim made Paris sound so wild and fantastic, Rossiter decided to join him and see for himself. Hell, he deserved it; his new album was almost finished, after two years of being hassled by his label.

Rossiter wired Jim that he was on his way and jumped the next jet to Paris, hoping the telegram would get there before he did. At first he was relieved to see Jim waiting for him at Orly. Then he got a good look at him. He had not seen his friend for nearly two months, and he was shocked by the changes the drummer had undergone. Where once Jim appeared boyish and energetic, now he was wasted and bloated. It was clear that Jim had given up psychedelics in favor of harder drugs.

The reunion turned uneasy within a day. Rossiter was eager to see the sights the fabled City of Lights had to offer, but the only thing Jim was interested in was shooting up in his rented pension. Rossiter returned home after a couple of days, disgusted and depressed by his friend’s dissolution. Jim sent a few more letters after that, but he did not read them; instead, he stuffed them in his desk drawer unopened. When the news came of the inevitable overdose, Rossiter found himself consumed by grief and guilt. He took out the unopened letters and read them. Most were stoned rambles about the duplicity of women, with the occasional stanza of bad poetry thrown in for good measure. One letter was actually a grocery list stuffed inside the envelope by mistake.

Strange he should think about the dead poet at that moment. It had been years since he had last thought about him. Rossiter shook his head, dispelling the vivid memories the weird designs had triggered in his mind. He was reminded of the visual puzzles in the back of the old Children’s Hi-Light magazines. Maybe if he sat there long enough, staring at the lines and squiggles that comprised the design, he would finally see the monkeys hiding in the trees and the Indians crouching in the bushes. But, instead, the longer he looked at the designs, the heavier his eyelids became...

He was somewhere that wasn’t anywhere; he could feel himself hovering just beyond his physical body. It was disconcerting but not unpleasant, kind of like the effect he got from huffing nitrous gas. He didn’t feel warm and he didn’t feel cold. He didn’t feel anything. He was in a place that was neither dark nor light.

While there was no time in this place between places, there was certainly space. As his vision adjusted, he glimpsed traceries of light and movement all around him, like tiny, fluorescent tropical fish darting about a vast aquarium. As he focused his attention on the flickering lights, they began to take on form and substance, and he recognized them as the elaborate vévés that decorated the interior of Papa Beloved’s temple. He recalled a photograph he’d seen of Picasso drawing he outline of a minotaur with a penlight and empty air. The sudden realization that something might be creating the vévés unnerved him. He wondered if he was visible to whatever it was that drew the vévés, and if it might resent his intrusion.

There was a ripple in the nothing. Then another. Although he could not see or hear anything, he knew something was approaching. The vévés suddenly burned as bright as suns, their outlines suffused with color, like the throat sacs of lizards challenging a newcomer.

His soul froze as if pinned to the spot, like a rabbit facing an oncoming automobile. He wanted to scream, but he did not have lungs. As the vévés burned like neon snakes, he turned inward, not wanting to see whatever it that was coming for him. Then--just as suddenly as it had arrived--the thing gone. Although he had not seen whatever it was the vévés scared away, he had the distinct impression that it had smiled at him.

“That was sure one wild-ass dream,” Tee said when he related his experience to her.

“You think that’s all it was? A dream?”

“The Loa communicate through dreams all the time. Maybe you just happened to get a closer look than most folks.”

“But I didn’t see anything.”

Tee sighed and rolled onto her side, propping herself up on one elbow. “I swear, folks expect the spirit world to be like those damn movies they rent on Netflix! Of course you didn’t see nothin’! Why do you think they call them Les Invisibles? Besides, you don’t need to see ‘em to know they’re there. The Loa live through you, whether you like it or not. You’re their conduit to the material world: they are the Divine Horsemen, and you are the horse.”

“You’re saying that I was possessed while I was asleep?”

“Maybe. Or maybe it was a Guede, instead of a Loa. Or maybe it was just something you ate.” Tee snuggled closer, grinding her hips against him. Rossiter felt himself grow hard and all thoughts of vévés and the spirit world abruptly vanished from his mind.

At least for the next twenty minutes.

Tempter was excited.

His agitation could not be divined by any physical means, for such things do not exist in the place between places. Although he possessed a corporeal body, it had been years—perhaps decades—since he last inhabited it. It was not that he disliked the physical realm: far from it. He had been forced into limbo as a means to preserve his energies. Still, even here he was a prisoner, as the cursed vévé were quick to remind him.

His warders were deceptively quiet right now, their configuration almost transparent. But Tempter knew better than to think they were gone. The moment he should try to leave, they would flare to life once more, burning him with their heatless light. He had allowed his eagerness to overwhelm his caution earlier and had paid the price.

Still, he could be excused his enthusiasm. He had been waiting for someone to find the book. He hoped he had not frightened away his prey. It was very important that it come back. Tempter was uncertain as to whether his prey was male or female, but its hunger was all too visible. And that was all he needed to know, really.

He had been waiting a long time. There was no hurry. He could afford to be patient. Once his prey returned, he would shape his bait to mirror its need. And then he would reel the prey in close enough to grab it.

The vévé made excellent guards. His nemesis had been correct about that. They were good at keeping him inside. But when it came to keeping others out, that was another story…