Malcolm nodded.
The Baron smiled. "You gotta say it, Doctor."
"Yes."
"Good." He looked to the side. "Do it. Quickly!"
A goat bleated nearby, followed by shuffling movement. The drumbeats grew louder.
"That's right," Baron Samedi said. "Good. Bring it here." He accepted a shallow bowl and lifted Malcolm's head. "Drink this."
The smell of blood tickled Malcolm's senses before he saw it. Hunger awoke deep inside him as the Baron urged his lips to the rim.
"Drink it."
It was hot. The salty, metallic taste flooded his mouth. Repulsed, he wanted to gag, but was too weak to fight the sudden primal urge. The heat flowed down his throat with each shallow swallow, spreading through his veins.
Malcolm gasped and choked on the blood as the numbness washed away. The sounds of drums and voices exploded in his ears. The scrapes and even Hounacier's cut mended. New blood belched from the bullet wounds as Dämoren's twin slugs burned with renewed fire.
Baron Samedi drew the bowl away before Malcolm's writhing could spill it.
Malcolm twisted as the bullets seared his renewed organs. "Burns!"
"Hold still," the Baron ordered, pressing him down with a huge hand. With his other, he traced the bleeding gut wound then rammed his fingers into the hole.
Malcolm screamed, but the firm hand pressed him in place.
The Baron grinned around his cigar. "There it is." He withdrew a steaming, deformed slug. Crimson lines of blood marked its etched surface. He eyed it appreciatively then dropped it on the ground. Accepting the bowl from outstretched hands, he lifted Malcolm's head. "Drink."
Again, the healing waves rushed down Malcolm's throat. This time, he could sense the power inside it, not unlike the power Gulmet tasted in his victims' terror but different. Heat surged into the remaining slug. Malcolm fought back a scream.
Handing off the bowl, Baron Samedi rolled Malcolm onto his side. Again, he traced around the hole and then plunged his fingers inside.
Malcolm wailed, feeling the think fingers burrowing deep, the nails raking his inside as the inched toward the searing hot bullet.
"Here we are." The fingers thrust deeper then withdrew, taking the slug with them. He rolled Malcolm over and pushed the bowl again to his lips. "Drink."
Greedily, Malcolm gulped the blood down, savoring the warm power. The Baron raised it higher, letting him have all that was inside. It ran at the corners of his mouth, down his cheeks and onto his neck and ears.
"There." The Baron set the bowl down and smiled. Withdrawing the cigar, he tapped the clump of ash from the tip.
His vision clear, Malcolm realized it was Maggie kneeling beside him who had brought the bowl of goat's blood. Her lips were flat and emotionless. A hard sadness marred her eyes. Most of the other faces he also recognized as priests and priestesses throughout the city, many he hadn't seen in years.
A stickly thin man with a trimmed goatee and a white straw hat stood behind Maggie, leaning on a cane. He gave Papa Legba's elegant smile. "Now for your part, Doctor."
A gun clicked. The crowd parted, and Matt stood at Malcolm's feet, Dämoren trained on him. Now that he was healed, Gulmet could seize him at will.
"Take him to the crossroads," Legba ordered.
Hands whipped down from above him. Malcolm caught the glint of silver then a slender, metal chain wrapped his throat. The drums began to thump with a slow cadence as the followers lifted Malcolm and carried him.
In the heart of the room, loa slowly circled within an elaborate ring of white dust on the floor, a small gap on one end. A dark, polished pole stood at the circle's heard. Tasha was among them, a bright scarf of red, gold, and blue about her head, but it wasn't Tasha. Erzulie had taken her.
They carried Malcolm into the ring and stood him against the pole. They lashed his ankles and tied his wrists above his head, cinching them tight. The drums' loud pulse continued as the non-mounted left the incomplete circle. Then Papa Ghede stepped inside, the silver wolf mask in his hands.
He set it on the ground before him and met Malcolm's eye. His joviality was gone. "I believe in you, Milky. Make me proud."
Malcolm looked at the fearsome mask. "I can't."
"You better," the Baron answered, stepping around him. "This is your part. And you still owe me a debt."
"I can't draw it out."
The Baron gave a wide grin. "You better, because that," he pointed to Matt standing outside the ring, arms crossed across his chest, Dämoren in hand, "that there's the judge. He says if you live or die. Better make him happy, or I'll be digging your grave before sunrise."
The tight, silver chain dug into his neck as Malcolm shook his head. "I can't do it."
"We'll see." He puffed the cigar, and he turned back to where loa painted the circle closed. The drums quickened. "Oh," Baron Samedi looked back with that toothy smile. "I nearly forgot." He reached into his tuxedo jacket and withdrew a pair of ornate, silver pins. One looked like a dragonfly. The other, a flower of white stones. "These might help."
The Baron reached up and drove one of the pins though Malcolm's left palm. Malcolm howled in pain, unable to escape as the needle slid all the way through his hand and buried into the pole.
Laughing, the Baron pushed the other pin through Malcolm's right hand, nailing it to the wood. "Now, Malcolm," he roared over the rising drum beats. "Now be the groom." He drew a long puff and blew the smoke into Malcolm's face. "Win back your lady or die."
Malcolm scrunched his eyes, fighting the pain. Loa danced within the large ring, shimmying and twirling. Others, those not mounted, danced along the outer edge, staying clear of the gunman. To the side, clustered on benches, four drummers pounded out the rising beat. Corporal Duplessis was among them.
Swallowing, Malcolm tried to recall Atabei's chant. He'd replayed it countless times, but never could remember it. A tingle buzzed in his palms. Then he could see he her, hand outstretched, clearer than he could before. The silver. The silver piercing him was fighting Gulmet's influence back, protecting his memories. He tried to hear the words, focus on them, but all he could hear was the drumming around him.
"Mayas…notem…mreshti." He shook his head. "I can't."
"Yes, you can."
Malcolm lifted his gaze to see Tasha-Erzulie before him.
She caressed his cheek. "I love you, Malcolm. Tasha love you." Erzulie kissed him. An aura of pure love encased her, not like the succubus' lust but true and warm. "Come back to her."
"I don't know how," he pleaded. "I don't know the words."
"Don't know the words," Earl Warren shouted as he pulled Erzulie back. He wrapped an arm across her shoulder and clutched a black machete in his other hand. It was Ogoun. "I can't," he yelled in a mocking scowl. "Bullshit! You're a warrior. Be a warrior! Act! Do it!" Ogoun smiled and slid his hands over Tasha's body. She leaned back into him, writhing against his bare chest. He squeezed her breasts, and she gave an appreciative gasp. "Do it, Malcolm! Do it, or I fuck your woman."
Erzulie reached back behind his head and pulled his cheek to hers.
"She wants a man. A warrior."
"Fuck you," Malcolm spat.
Ogoun laughed, his eyes challenging. He pulled Erzulie away and stepped closed. "Then stop crying!" He slapped Malcolm with the flat of the machete. "You're no root-worker witch, you're husband of Hounacier." He slapped him again. "Bokor!" Ogoun slammed the machete into the pole, nicking Malcolm's raised arm. "Be the warrior!"
Malcolm glared into the loa's eyes, rage mounting.
"Good," Ogoun purred. He wrenched the blade from the post.
Malcolm held back the wince of pain. He felt the blood trickling down his tricep.
"Now do it." Ogoun twirled away, joining back into the throngs of circling loa.
Do it, Malcolm thought. Do it. Ogoun was right; Malcolm wasn't some two-bit sorcerer. Hounacier had chosen him because he was more. He had to prove her right. Closing his eyes, he replayed
Atabei's chant above the werewolf. He couldn't remember the words but could see her lips. Malcolm focused on that memory, holding it tight. "Holloo…mreshti. Mayas…karri notem."
That was closer. Malcolm pushed aside everything, the pain, the bleeding cut, the drums, the shuffling feet. Matt watching him like the Angel of Death. He pushed it aside and focused on Atabei's lips, remembering himself mouthing the words with her. "Holloo mreshti. Mayas karri notem. Ohma ahsa…rae."
There! Something twisted inside him. Gulmet was here. He was fighting him. Malcolm had to be close.
"Holloo mreshti. Mayas karri notem. Ohma ahsa ah rae."
The demon bristled within him. The silver pins grew hot. "You can't do it."
Malcolm ignored it. "Holloo mreshti. Mayas karri notem. Ohma ahsa ah rae."
"I'll kill you," Gulmet growled. "I'll transform you, let that chain cut our throat."
Do it. Matt will shoot you in the face the moment you show it.
The anger writhed, but Malcolm kept chanting. The demon's fear pushed him harder.
He continued the chant, his voice rising. The beating drums seemed to fall in line, matching his rhythm. The words flowed smoother. Malcolm released the image of Atabei and focused solely on the words.
A rush of wind ruffled his hair. Then a shudder rolled though him, bringing a sense of weightlessness. But there was a weight still. Something dense and heavy slid though his veins like tar. It thickened as Malcolm's chanting grew louder, becoming cold. The demon. He'd isolated it.
Reaching with his mind, Malcolm felt the coagulated energy at the tip of his toes and pulled it up. It moved hesitantly up his leg.
Excitement mounting, Malcolm pulled the demon's energy up from his other leg, but in the moment of losing concentration, it oozed back down his first. He caught it before it had escaped too far then pulled it back up, inching it in time with the drums' rhythm. Once he'd worked it up to his hip, Malcolm started on the next, keeping the roiling ball of cold energy from escaping. The wind howled in his ears, whipping around him like a cyclone.
He gathered it, joining the two balls as one. Malcolm allowed a grin of triumph. He could do this.
Lifting his head toward his hands, he started working the energy down from his fingers. Then his eyes opened a crack, and he gasped.
The wooden pole didn't end just above his hands but stretched, seeming forever upward, through the heart of a tornado, almost curving at the distant horizon. The wood was dry and gray, lined with deep cracks like some dead, barkless tree trunk or a giant fencepost alongside an ancient and forgotten highway. Thousands of spokes intercepted it, branching off into the cyclone's walls, each its own world, a different band of color. The rainbow serpent. Faint shapes moved along the bridges, some small, others larger than the largest whale. Malcolm couldn't tell if he were looking up or down, and his head spun with a sudden vertigo.
He looked away only to see the floor was gone. The pole descended eternally downward, studded with linking spokes. The circling loa no longer danced on any surface, but flew and spun around him like joyous angels. The edge of the ring had become a swirling wall of light, separating them from the world outside. Drummers drummed, and mortals danced, and Matt stood like a statue, pistol across his arm. But it wasn't Matt. He could see him, but there was another figure simultaneously in the same place. It was tall with icy blue skin over powerful muscles. Urakael. Its silver-black eyes seemed to register him, and Urakael smiled.
A figure stepped before him. He was old, his back hunched. Light glowed within his long beard. It was Papa Legba, but no longer the skinny man with the goatee. It was truly him. Wisdom shone in the loa's eyes like a physical force so much that Malcolm wanted to shy away but couldn't. "Welcome to the crossroads, Malcolm."
Malcolm croaked, the words lost in his throat.
"Do not stop!" Baron Samedi sailed into view. His head was a gleaming, white skull. Orange embers smoldered in his eye sockets like the end of his cigar. Vaguely human shapes writhed in the trailing smoke. "Do not stop now!" he roared.
Malcolm blinked. He'd lost focus, and the demon's energy had almost refilled his legs. Cinching his eyes to block out the sights, he continued the chant and pulled the demon's essence back up.
"Holloo mreshti. Mayas karri notem. Ohma ahsa ah rae."
He worked it down his arms. The demon fought him, screaming and roaring in his mind, but Malcolm continued the mantra. Starting with his forehead, he peeled the demon's essence down, tearing it from his brain and eyes. The screaming stopped, but the growing ball of energy pulsed and kicked in his gut.
His mind finally clear of the horrible parasite, Malcolm screamed the chant, kicking his bound feet. Focusing all his will, Malcolm forced the writhing ball up his throat. It moved like barbed paste, grabbing and tearing, but Malcolm continued to push. He roared the chant, and it inched up. Then with one final surge, Malcolm shoved it out.
Tattered ribbons of crimson flame erupted from Malcolm's mouth. He choked as it poured from him like cheesecloth ectoplasm from a charlatan medium. It surged faster, issuing from his nose and the corners of his eyes. Unable to breathe or see, Malcolm continued the chant. The flowing demon essence finally petered out as the last of it left his body.
Malcolm opened his teary eyes. A pulsing orb of red flame seethed and spun an inch from his open right hand. A single tendril stretched out from the ball and then retraced as the wolf's soul was released.
"Bring the mask," he shouted, breaking the chant for only a moment.
Papa Ghede stooped before him and picked up the silver wolf mask. The one-lensed sunglasses were gone. Galaxies spun within the infinite blackness of the old man's empty eye.
Grinning, Ogoun hacked his machete, severing the ropes that held Malcolm's wrists. Still chanting, Malcolm tore his pinned left hand from the post and reached for the mask that Ghede lifted toward him.
It shocked at his touch, and the demonfire coursed down Malcolm's arms and into the mask. The metal glowed and buckled, but the fire continued to pour. The bestial visage grew sharper as if worked by invisible hands. Once the last of the spirit had poured into it, the glow faded.
"You did it," Papa Ghede laughed. He was no longer the loa but the homeless man in broken glasses.
"I knew the warrior would win," Ogoun said with a nod.
Malcolm nodded. "Get me off of this thing."
The loa grinned then chopped the rope at Malcolm's ankles. Gritting his teeth, Malcolm tore his right hand free of the post.
"Here." The Baron took Malcolm's hands and withdrew the impaling pins. Blood welled from the holes, but Baron Samedi merely wiped his thumbs across them, smearing the blood but leaving them healed. "Jim will want these back."
Paula, dressed in a white and yellow shawl signifying Ayizan, unwound the silver chain from Malcolm's neck. "You made us proud."
"Now for the judgment, Doctor," Samedi said. He set a hand on Malcolm's shoulder and swept the other forward, parting the loa to where Matt waited. A nervous apprehension twitched at the edges of his once-hard eyes.
Rubbing his neck, Malcolm let the Baron lead him to where Matt waited.
"You are a husband yourself, Matthew Hollis," the Baron said. "Come to pass judgment on our wayward bokor. Now judge. Does he live, or do I dig his grave tonight?"
Matt swallowed. He looked at the water bottle in one hand. Its red bead pressed in the mask's direction. He met Malcolm's eyes. Suspicion still lingered. "Dämoren will be the judge."
The baron roared in laughter. "Good. I like you, Matt Hollis."
Keeping his gaze on Malcolm, Matt opened the revolver's loading gate and pushed out a single shell. Thumb on the hammer, he spun the gun's cylinder. It whirred, and Matt clicked back the hammer. He raised the gun, aiming it at Malcolm's heart.
Malcolm didn't break eye contact. He puffed his chest. "Do it."
The gun clicked.
Malcolm released his breath and smiled.
"Welcome back." Matt holstered the gun
and offered a hand.
Malcolm pushed it aside and hugged him. "Thanks, brother."
"Yeah," he said, hesitantly returning it. "I'm not entirely sure what I just watched, but it was definitely interesting."
Malcolm laughed. "I'll tell you all about it." He looked at the silver mask glaring hatefully from Papa Ghede's hands. He was free.
"So what's the plan?" Matt asked.
The old anger rekindled inside him. "I get Hounacier back." Malcolm turned to Papa Legba. "Do you know where she is?"
The thin man leaned forward on his cane. "Now, who do you think I am, Malcolm? Of course I know. Let us take you to her."
Chapter Twenty
A moist breeze coursed down the streets, cooling Malcolm's skin. Matt walked to his left, unmoved by the drums and rattles. Papa Legba kept to his right. He shimmied and danced, tapping his cane in time with the rhythm as they marched across the nighttime city.
Nearly forty members made up the strange parade. Business owners, police, vagrants, mothers, fathers, killers, and lawyers. The loa made none of those distinctions in who they favored.
People watched as the precession passed. Some cheered. Some joined for a short while, dancing and speaking to the living spirits. Papa Ghede told jokes and made obscene gestures to some of the women. But he did stop and talk to one sad-looking girl for a while, his hand on her shoulder as he imparted some grandfatherly wisdom. He caught up a block later, grinning and swigging his rum, and again the merry prankster. But the procession never slowed, never deviated.
"What's this for?" one man yelled from across the street, jigging parallel to them.
"A funeral," the Baron answered. "But don't worry, Brian, it's not for you."
The young man's face went slack. Baron Samedi laughed, and the procession continued onward.
They passed parks, bars, shuttered businesses, and homes. The refreshing wind moved with them, urging them on. Malcolm paused from the dance once they reached the canal bridge.
How had they gotten here so fast? It had only felt a few minutes, not hours. Almost a dream.
"Don't slow now, Milky," Ghede called from behind him. "We're almost there."
Hounacier (Valducan Book 2) Page 26
