The Ultimate Undead

by Anne Rice

  Weber forced himself to smile. After all, hadn’t he been warned by more than one friend in the business not to have any expectations? Well, perhaps he’d have better luck with Mrs. Dewey—the old woman who was said to have a terrific collection of Haitian art. “Do you know where I can find the Dewey house?”

  “The art teacher’s widow?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Go to Rue Macajoux and, when it narrows, take the first alley on the right. Fifth house.”

  “Is it far?”

  “You can walk.”

  Following the scrawled map the clerk gave him, Weber walked across the street from the hotel, made a right, a left, and found himself on a bustling street crisscrossed overhead with a web of electrical wires. Bicycles and cars fought for space on the narrow pavement, and the pedestrians outnumbered both, swarming in the hot sunlight in their brightly colored clothing. Tattered baskets of laundry and vegetables were balanced upon their heads like huge inverted hats.

  The air was thick with humidity. Weber’s shirt began to stick to his back and arms. He dodged an orange-and-yellow-striped bus, swearing. Why hadn’t he taken a taxi, he wondered, or hired a guide? There had to be an easier way to reach Mrs. Dewey and her potential gold mine.

  Alex Dewey’s widow was in her eighties and blind, but reports tagged her as sharper than many sighted people half her age. Her husband had helped to popularize Haitian folk art and the family collection was rumored to be worth millions. If Weber couldn’t charm Mrs. Dewey into releasing some of her stock, at the very least he would make her acquaintance. And maybe, just maybe, she could put him on the trail of a few artists—including Ti Malice.

  Finally, after much doubling back, he found the alley and the house. It was a dilapidated two-story wooden structure with a sagging balcony, its silvered walls spotted with age. The paint, where it still showed on the door and window shutters, was a faded ghostly red. In the Caribbean manner, Weber stood outside and clapped his hands sharply three times. When there was no response, he repeated the action. On his third attempt, a shutter on the first floor cranked open and a woman with a guarded, sleepy expression peered out at him.

  “Is Mrs. Dewey in?”

  “She’s not seeing anybody.”

  “I’ve come all the way from Los Angeles.”

  The woman shrugged and made as if to shut the window.

  “Please,” Weber called. “Tell her Roland Gunther sent me.”

  The woman paused, stared at him wordlessly, and retreated into the house. Weber could hear voices, but could not make out what they were saying or in what language they spoke.

  Weber felt the sweat trickle slowly down his back in a maddening itch. Would he stand out here all day, melting? Suddenly he heard the sound of footsteps. Then the front door shuddered as a bolt was thrown back. The sullen maid stood blinking in the sunlight. “She says okay.”

  The floorboards creaked under Weber’s weight. He was surprised to see that the house was lit by candles and hurricane lamps. A fire seemed imminent. As they made their way down a narrow corridor, Weber asked, “Isn’t there any electricity?”

  The maid said nothing, merely gestured for him to enter a doorway at his right.

  He stooped to avoid the low lintel and emerged in a broad, dim room. By the window sat a small figure enthroned upon a wide wooden chair. Her feet dangled above the floor, and she stared at him fixedly.

  “Did I hear you ask about the electricity?” she said. “I only use it in the kitchen. Otherwise, I certainly don’t need it.” The voice was firm and crisp, with a distinct upper-class English accent.

  “Given that argument,” said Weber, “why bother using candles, either?”

  “For Sarah, here.” There was amusement in Mrs. Dewey’s voice, mild but unmistakable. “Besides, it’s cheaper than the electricity. More reliable, too.” She smiled and held out her hand. “If Roland sent you then you must be worth talking to. Roland hardly ever sends anybody.”

  Weber grasped her tiny hand. It felt dry and papery, as though it would crumble in his grip. “It took me a long time to win his trust,” he said.

  “I’m sure.” Again, the smile in the voice. “Sarah, bring more light for Mr.—what is your name?”

  “Weber. David Weber.”

  “Sarah, bring more light for Mr. Weber. And some lemonade.”

  “No lemons,” the maid said.

  “Then cold water.” Mrs. Dewey paused. “Or would you prefer sugar water?”

  “Plain would be fine, if it’s safe.” Weber stared at her in fascination. No one in L.A. would believe him when he described this dark place and the old crone who lived here.

  “Bottled, of course,” she said. “Oh, I can tolerate the local stuff. But you’d be doubled over with stomach cramps in fifteen minutes.” She chuckled, a deep witchy sound, and gestured toward a straight-backed chair. “Sit down, Mr. Weber. Make yourself as comfortable as possible.”

  He sat down carefully on an old easy chair and heard the stiff leather upholstery creak. A maddening tickle on the back of his neck made him jump—some tropical insect? He swatted at it in a panic, but his hand came away clean and empty.

  Sarah returned with a chilled bottle, two glasses, and a hurricane lantern. Weber decided that she had memorized the location of everything in the room—otherwise, how could she avoid bumping into things in the near-darkness? With practiced skill she set the lantern upon a small table and lit the wick.

  Weber gasped.

  The room had come to life around him. Every wall was covered with paintings of lively figures rendered in vigorous brushstrokes. The chamber that he had taken for some dark, enclosed snuggery was a high-ceilinged cathedral, a chapel of Haitian art. Red-cloaked angels danced in a royal blue sky while, below, men and women arrayed in rainbow colors gamboled in fields of gold and green.

  “I see you’ve noticed the paintings,” said Mrs. Dewey.

  “Hard to miss, once you’ve got a little light in here.”

  “I miss them constantly.”

  Weber felt his cheeks heating with embarrassment and anger. Why was the old woman still harping upon her disability? Did she want to throw him off balance? “Have you been blind a long time?” he asked.

  “Thirty years. I’ve only had the glass eyes for five. The new doctor insisted. Said the old ones were rotting because of diminished blood supply.”

  Glass eyes. No wonder she stared. Despite Mrs. Dewey’s matter-of-fact attitude, Weber shuddered. “If you can’t see the paintings any longer, how can you bear to keep them around?”

  She leaned back against her throne, obviously amused. “You must want these paintings very badly.”

  Weber took a deep breath. “I’m here to buy paintings for my gallery,” he said. “That’s why I came to Haiti.”

  “You’re not the first art dealer to come calling.”

  “You must love these paintings very much.”

  Mrs. Dewey tapped her skeletal fingers against a padded armrest. “On the contrary, I don’t give a bloody damn about them.” She grinned. Her teeth looked too large, like white tombstones crowding her mouth.

  “What?”

  “It’s true. It was always Alex, my husband, who was completely obsessed by the art. Mad for it. I tolerated his whims because, well, one must in a marriage, yes?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’m single.”

  “Well, I suppose there is less baggage that way,” Mrs. Dewey said. “But less comfort as well.”

  The art dealer stirred restlessly. “Ma’am, I’m having trouble understanding you. If you don’t actually care about these works, then why keep them? Why didn’t you sell them to the first gallery owner who looked you up? There’s a fortune in artwork here. You could be living in London like a queen.”

  “Hate the climate. Absolutely hate it. At its best, English weather is fair to poor.”

  “The Riviera, then.”

  “The local snobs there would find my Haitian French hilarious. A
nd I’m too old to learn Italian.”

  “California?”

  She sniffed disdainfully. “The culture, my dear.”

  “You know what I’m saying.”

  “Yes, of course. But it’s such fun to play with you and it’s been so very long since I’ve had a playmate. Forgive me. The reason I didn’t—and won’t—sell the paintings is simple. There’s a curse on them.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Weber felt as though he had been punched in the stomach.

  “A vodou curse. If I sell them, I’ll die.”

  At the mention of the word voodoo, his hands and feet had turned to ice. They all take this stuff so seriously, he thought.

  “You must be joking.” He told himself she was deranged, floating in and out of lucidity the way old folks sometimes did.

  “I know that it must seem absurd to someone from Los Angeles to whom freeways and electricity and budget deficits are normal and expected. But I assure you that here, in Haiti, vodou is very much alive and very much something to be respected and even feared.”

  Weber played along, pretending to be cynical and amused. “Well, who cursed the paintings?”

  “The artist.”

  “The artist?” Weber said. “Why in the world … ?”

  “He was also a vodou priest. Somehow he got the impression that my husband had cheated him and paid more for some other artist’s work. It wasn’t true, of course, but nothing could be done. Once we had the paintings, we were forced to keep them. Alex defied the curse and sold two paintings to a wealthy Frenchman on vacation. A week later the buyer was dead. Drowned off his yacht.”

  “An accident. A tragic coincidence.”

  “Two weeks later, Alex died.”

  “But I’d heard he had chronic heart problems. That his death was natural.”

  “The reports were in error. I begged him to wear the ouanga I’d had made—the countercharm—but he just laughed.”

  Weber stared at her inscrutable raisin face in disbelief. “Are you certain that you’re not reading too much into this? I don’t know much about voodoo, but I didn’t think that curses could be placed upon inanimate objects.” At least I hope not, he thought.

  “I assure you, Mr. Weber, that vodou is a religion that can be used for most anything.” Mrs. Dewey’s voice grew sharp with impatience. “I’ve had almost a decade to consider this and nothing has changed my mind yet.” She plunged her hand down the front of her dress, fished around for a moment, and brought forth a rawhide pouch tied to a leather cord. From the stained look of it, Mrs. Dewey had worn it for a long, long time. “This is my ouanga. It keeps me safe. It was made by the top papaloi, and I wear it everywhere.”

  Weber stared at the ugly little bag. After a moment he decided not to pursue the subject. This talk of charms and death was all bullshit anyway. Maybe the tropical sun drove everybody crazy down here.

  “You won’t sell me your paintings, then.”

  “No.”

  “Will you at least help me locate some of the local artists?”

  “You mean to say that you actually like the work?”

  “Of course,” he said. “The gaiety, the colors, the freedom from convention. It’s joyful, a celebration of life.” He didn’t bother to add that his clients, most of whom couldn’t tell kindergarten finger-paintings from Renaissance masterworks, would buy whatever was the latest, hottest item. And Caribbean art was hot, hot, hot.

  “Now you do sound like a dealer. And a collector. Who are you looking for?”

  “Ti Malice, for starters.”

  Mrs. Dewey’s hands flew to the charmed bag around her neck. “But he was the very artist whose curse killed my husband! Please, Mr. Weber, stay away from him. You don’t want Ti Malice. Really, you don’t.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “You should be.”

  Despite the heat, Weber felt strangely chilled. He stood up to get the blood moving in his veins.

  “Ma’am, if you won’t tell me where he is, would you please be so kind as to direct me to someone who will? Or at least to some of the other artists.”

  “There are several artists whose work you should see. But please, stay away from Ti Malice.”

  Her instructions were thorough. Weber made several notes, thanked her copiously, and left.

  He was halfway down the street when he heard a hissing sound and looked down, thinking: snakes?

  But the sound had come from behind him. Someone tugged the back of his sweaty shirt. He spun around, heart pounding, to meet the insolent stare of Mrs. Dewey’s maid, Sarah.

  “I can help you, blanc.”

  Her voice was flat, studiedly uninterested. But she had followed him and Weber suspected that her insolence masked some inner urgency.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You want to find Ti Malice? I can take you to him.”

  “You can?” Weber stared at her suspiciously. For how much?”

  “Fifty.”

  “Are you out of your mind? I’ll pay you ten.”

  “Twenty.”

  “Fifteen.”

  Sarah nodded, satisfied. “Meet me by the fountain in the main plaza of Rue St. Raphael, tonight. At sunset.”

  “Fine.” Weber turned to go, but her hand on his arm held him there.

  “You pay me, blanc. Pay me first.”

  “Now?”

  She nodded. Suddenly there was fierceness and hunger in her gaze.

  “No way,” Weber said. “I’ll pay you after you take me to Ti Malice.” He pulled free of her grip and moved quickly down the street.

  At sunset the fountain at Place St. Raphael was crowded with young and old women sitting together in the cool air, gossiping and drinking fermented palm wine out of hollowed gourds. Despite the sight of the badly eroded faceless statue at the center of the fountain, Weber found the tableau rather pleasing: the soothing splash of falling water, the bright colors of the women’s dresses and bandanas, their laughing eyes and friendly smiles, the purple sky. Not for the first time he wished that he could really paint. The fate of failed painters, he mused, was to become art directors or gallery owners.

  “Hsst. Blanc!”

  Sarah was at his side, sullen as ever. Weber felt as though a shadow had passed over him: why should he trust her? What if it was some sort of setup? But why would she be going to all the trouble to trap one jet-lagged art dealer?

  Despite his misgivings he followed Sarah away from the plaza, the splashing water, and the laughing women. She set a surprisingly quick pace and never once looked back at him.

  The paintings, he thought. Remember, the paintings.

  Within minutes she was leading him down a deserted alley. They wound their way out of the alley and up a hilly street toward the Rue Turgeau. Fine homes, many-storied, with elaborate balconies, began to appear behind hedges. Weber suspected they were heading for the houses where the remnants of the expatriate colony lived. But Sarah made a sudden turn and the fine villas were left behind. Silently Weber followed her through a neighborhood of tin-roofed shacks. The longer they walked the greater the distance became between each shack. Now they were trampling dry glass in an empty lot overgrown with tangled thorny weeds, in a sparsely inhabited area where massive thickets of palms and wild jungle pressed right up against the city limits.

  Darkness had fallen with tropical swiftness, and there were no street lamps to illuminate their way. Weber began to wish he had packed his pocket flashlight. You were too eager, he told himself. Too greedy. Too quick to trust. What if she leaves you here in the middle of nowhere? And now that he was beyond the sounds of the city, he could hear the drums, steady, incessant, summoning him closer. Closer. But where and to what?

  “Sarah! Where the hell are we headed?”

  “Where you asked to go. To see Ti Malice. And maybe to see the houngan.”

  Weber knew that meant the voodoo priest and his neck prickled anew. “That’s a witch doctor, isn’t it? I don’t want to see a witch doctor. I
just want to see Ti Malice, understand? Where the hell are we? In the middle of nowhere?”

  Sarah laughed sharply. “There are people all around, all around us, but you must know where to look. Be patient, blanc, and you will see.”

  They pushed through a thick grove of palms and emerged into a clearing in which a small, white-washed building stood. The sides of it bore sinuous arabesques painted with a bold hand. The roof was partially thatched. A pierced tin can lantern hung by the door, casting a pool of yellow light.

  “Inside,” Sarah said. Her face was more animated than ever before. Weber thought she looked excited, almost gleeful, and it made him nervous.

  He hesitated at the door. “I guess I should pay you.”

  “I can wait until you’ve seen him.”

  “Should I knock?”

  “Go inside. He’s waiting for you.”

  “Ti Malice?”

  Sarah nodded and smiled a ferocious smile.

  Weber told himself that he had come too far to stop now. Boldly he pushed his way into the house. There appeared to be two rooms leading away from the main entrance. The house was quiet, lit by a single candle. It felt deserted.

  “Hello?”

  There was no reply. Weber called once more, then backed out of the hut. “Sarah?”

  She was gone. All he heard was the liquid trill of birds, the whisper of wind, and the murmur of insects seeking animal blood. How could she have left him here? He hadn’t paid her yet. Surely she would come back.

  He shook his head, feeling foolish and more than a little frightened. There was nothing for him to do but go back into the deserted house. He couldn’t just stand outside in the middle of the Haitian wasteland after sunset and be eaten alive by mosquitoes.

  Weber stepped inside again and heard something strange: as though fingernails were being scraped against smooth wood, over and over.

  “Hello?”

  Still there was no response.

  Weber stalked the sound, heart pounding. Was it an animal? A hillside spirit? Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself.

  In the farthest room of the house a single candle burned. Weber drew closer and closer to its feeble light and the scratching grew louder.