by Anton Marks
“Pum Pum Factor!” They chorused.
St Thomas, Jamaica, two weeks ago
Enoch Lacombe stood statuesque in the clearing of the Lacombe family cemetery surrounded by drooping monkeypod trees obscuring the view and stared up at the cloud and hidden moon distastefully. He was alone and undisturbed. The army of dismembered duppies that roamed his land would deter the opportunist trespassers but held no sway for him. His father had personally trapped the souls of the many mutilated victims of the Kendal Crash of 1957 and allowed them the freedom to roam and terrorize. The appearance of the anguished wraiths and the tormented moans held his attention for awhile but soon that too was unimpressive. It was his impatience showing again, which to his mind was justified especially after spending four years in prison, his art and his obligations forsaken. Maybe it was the excitement of being released a mere forty-eight hours ago and finding himself in Jamaica executing his plans of judgment and retribution that had kept him focused for all those years. For some it was too late. His father had died and the family land and property was deteriorating.
You needn’t have any arcane knowledge to surmise all was not well on this land. The balance the normal man took for granted in nature had been thrown out of kilter here. Science definitely had been usurped by dark magic. The Lacombe great house cast an eerie shadow over the estate from where he stood. It was standing dark and foreboding like a gargantuan doorway to another world, sucking light and hope into its maw. In its heyday the post colonial residence was a sight to behold.
Two storey’s of old world splendor whose décor had not changed much over the generations. Now the stone foundations and plastered upper storey’s, whose interior was once resplendent with wooden ceilings and mahogany floors from the trees of the island itself, was infected and crumbling. The walls buckled, the land underneath shifting, the roof collapsed and water damage was extensive to all two floors. Parasitic vines had infected the structure, crushing it almost, suckers leeching nutrients and maybe from the disconcerting chill, sucking its very essence too. Every living thing on the fifty acre spread from fauna to flora was dead or corrupted.
When the John Crow stone was set in its place, in a region where ancient ley lines criss-crossed and where at its centre a subterranean portion of the Yallas River emerged to the surface, the land was the most fertile in St Thomas. There were Orange groves, breadfruit trees, ackee trees, watermelons, peppers, exotic fruits of all descriptions and grazing animals. Migrating birds favored it and wildlife thrived there. In the middle of this paradise was the Lacombe ancestral home.
Now look at it rass.
It was an almost alien terrain of weeds, tree husks, stagnant ponds and crumbling structures. It was a barren land that sustained nothing but vermin. The talisman which was the John Crow stone was what kept the land fruitful and without it, the land’s true form shone through.
Enoch had taken the stone five years ago to replenish its powers back in Africa but the entire unfortunate goings on in London had him losing his ancestors’ treasures, charms and talismans. The memory was an acerbic one even now. His family land and the power that had been handed down for generations were in disarray. It would get worse until he was able to appease the Dark Gods of the continent as his father had done and his father before him.
Enoch had to make them pay, return the stone, make amends and fulfill something much greater.
His heir.
One son you may have, to carry your legacy. One son or your seed becomes history.
A situation he would resolve at all cost or he would lose it all.
So he stood, shirtless, barefoot with a pair of green camouflage trousers on, just under six feet tall, his skin a blue black, almost absorbing the night, only the sweat on his wiry frame, reflecting the silvery edges from the spears of the moonlight, making him stand out.
He swore in an ancient tongue that reverberated with unseen power with every syllable he pronounced and he glared skyward as if his curses would have an effect on the astral world. Brusquely, Enoch walked over to the inert body lying on top of the tomb of his great, great grandfather Ignatius Lacombe, a very practical old man whose family history was regarded with fondness for his foresight.
His forefather had built this sacrificial altar on top of his remains as a kind of reminder of his preference for human sacrifices. He prodded the inert body with his finger and rubbed his thumb along his bony thorax as he strolled to the head of the tomb. He stank even before he had used the Tanting Bush to drug him and stank some more as Enoch slit his throat and he voided his bowels. But that sweet perfume of excrement simply reminded him of the insanity inducing realities he had brief encounters with, the dark places he drew his energy from and the need to continue with his plans in haste.
The carcass was snugly set into a slight depression on the top of the grave. It was inclined slightly so the life giving fluid would run down along the grooves cut into the marble surface for that express reason for collecting the blood. A man or woman of average build and height would be positioned so their throat, arms, groin and legs were situated over the channels. His throat neatly cut, his blood had drained from him like gross tributaries running along the mason grooves coaxed down by gravity and ending at his feet to an extended lip. A ceramic pot, circled with fading Mayan cuneiform, rested underneath it and was already full but capturing the remaining drops of blood.
Dis crazy rass has finally done something noble inna him life.
The corpse, which in its former life was a lunatic street person wandering aimlessly in the suburbs of Portland, shitting on the street and feeding on scraps, would not be missed. But most importantly would be acting as the catalyst in his plan to regain control. Enoch let the blowflies who had already discovered the traces of his stench in the air, perform their merry dance on him, supping in the decay and finding access to lay eggs. If he didn’t know better he would have said they shared the knowledge that he would fulfill a higher purpose for them both. He took up the warm ceramic pot reverently with both hands and swirled the crimson contents. He walked back over to the clearing with energetic steps bordering on impatience or just sheer eagerness and slowly lowered himself to his knees, scraping up a handful of loam in his hands. Enoch slashed a look to the lunar perambulations and grunted more at the stratus clouds obscuring its full brilliance than at the moon itself.
Patience my yout.
The clearing skies were interrupting an ancient ritual that needed to be performed at no other period but this. He knew it was the uncertainty of results that had him on edge. Conjuring the dark forces a Voudum had at his disposal was no trifling matter. Mercurial and fickle were the forces of nature he was invoking and the great Voodoo practitioners - the true masters of the art, who were so far ahead of the parlor tricks performed by the Obeah workers scattered across the island - were all patient men and women. They appreciated the fourth dimension of time as variable, to be subtly manipulated. But for the fast paced, information superhighway fuelled era he shared, to be effective you required haste. Unfortunately the mystery systems were governed by the ponderous pace nature took and it irritated him. He had come this far, had lost his freedom because of lack of preparation and regained it through the principles he was resisting.
Another moment would make no difference.
Standing again this time he made his way to the clearing’s dead centre with the bowl in hand. He had scattered seeds of a rare but special plant and bordered it with an intricate design that he had fashioned from streams of cornmeal and rice earlier which had taken him mere moments to reproduce and he viewed his handiwork as a mechanic would a repair completed to his satisfaction. The Vévé, as these designs were called, required precise symmetry, a keen eye, patience and a steady hand but it had been rehearsed in his mind’s eye for four years. He had made no mistakes. Like a key, it would open up a sliver of contact to the Gods who lurked in the shadow of the bush and the dank gnarly roots of the swamp, the ones who directed the growth of rot an
d fungi and oversaw the decay of life on the jungle floor. He whispered the name of one of the Dark Gods of Petro and kneeled outside the edges of the Vévé, lifting his eyes towards the moon as if he was a wolf. But instead of a howl, he willed the unhindered light on his incantations. Nature having its own agenda allowed the clouds to thin to nothingness.
Deh final ingredient.
Enoch smiled and began to chant words from the pit of his stomach, words that possessed the power to commune with primal forces that could alter reality and rewrite the natural laws if they willed it. Words a Bocor of his standing had committed to memory and spoke with the timbre of drums from his African ancestors.
His voice rose up into the cool night, reaching a frenzied pitch, charging the air around him as he sprinkled the blood on the soil and over the cornmeal pattern of the Vévé. His eyes were wild and frantic, his body in spasm where he kneeled, the forces sparking through him. The Mayan pot fell from his hands and Bocor Enoch collapsed to his elbows, his forehead bowed, almost touching the ground, sweat running off his lean frame.
Then nothing but his raspy breathing and a curtain of silence descending as if all had been told to hush by a higher power. If not for the absence of sound and the diminished chorus of blood rushing to his head, the popping sounds would have gone unnoticed. Lifting his head to peer at the area splattered with blood and the obscured Vévé and in his weakened state he bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. A multitude of black speckled shoots were breaking through the surface of the soil, their growth reminiscent of some B-movie creature features from the 50’s with its jerky stop motion cinematography but speeded up to give the impression of normal movement.
This was disconcertingly real, as cellular growth unnaturally speeded up and overran the clearing with a thorny, gluttonous black and green vine, reeking of decomposition and a faint sickly sweet smell. Already its rapid metabolism had it flowering and a deceptive fruit it was. It had delicate snow white petals with flesh pink innards and a fluffy stamen like a fairy’s wand, a complete antithesis to the repugnant vegetation writhing over the top soil. But that was the gift that Enoch required. The deceptively deadly and rare flower of the Demonius Sativum - Demon Weed.
With his satchel slung around his neck, Enoch knelt and carefully - the thorns were immensely poisonous - began to harvest the petals and fill his army satchel to the brim - his plans to bring holy retribution to London now in full swing.
Brixton Police Station
21.25
“Shit!”
The south London coroners had contacted Shaft in reference to the autopsy findings of the last murder. The call had been made in the early afternoon but Shaft had inadvertently left his personal mobile on his desk then completely forgot to check it for calls or messages on his return. This was not like him but unconsciously he knew the pathologist’s findings would be inconclusive.
Darkman did not do ordinary.
His Macbook was open, his section of the office was dimly lit, smelling of damp cigarettes, old paper and Earl Grey tea. He massaged himself into his chair, listened as it creaked patiently waiting for him to slide his ass into the sweet spot that made him sigh. The light from his screen provided the final piece of the ambience he required for intense thought. The page on his high clarity screen was an enquiry tab that linked straight into HOLMES 2 – a data system used by the Force across the country to help correlate the vast amounts of information that are part and parcel of major enquires.
Shaft should not by rights have mobile access to such a crucial tool without him jumping through some major hoops. His rank alone should have seen to that but the perks of being the head of a department, even if it only had two full time staff plus an underlying need to keep him happy allowed him the access on par with the big boys.
He opened the case file and started to look through the associated notes he had entered three years ago and the present related data. Shaft realised he was a bystander to some major tremors rocking the criminal landscape, that was turning up corpses and necessitating the rats and snitches to be scurrying for cover while the names battened up hatches. And at this stage only he knew it was no ordinary disturbance.
Three weeks ago this was a closed case except for the Art and Antiquity unit still on the hunt for the stolen treasures and the Flying Squads continued search for cash in the value of approximately fifteen million pounds that was never retrieved. He had five murders in the space of two weeks, no real leads, some tenuous connections, a strong feeling it was all related and a conclusion that matched Black Books’ remit but went against his scientific discipline.
What did Sherlock Holmes say?
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be truth.
So there you have it then. Somehow Enoch Lacombe was orchestrating the savage murders of his enemies from behind bars and equally impressively he had some of the most hardened criminals in London’s underbelly scurrying for cover.
How?
Shaft needed a touchstone of normalcy that would take his mind away from the oppressive darkness associated with this particular case. It had to be something that would redirect his attention to the ordinary.
He almost craved it.
Maybe that’s why the temptation to call her was so irresistible.
Y had become like the end of day swirl of Courvoisier he treated himself to after work. She had the power to smooth out the kinks of a day from hell with her conversation. She was to be sipped and appreciated without haste. Shaft couldn’t short change her with a lunch-time call that was rushed because he had to get back to a case?
No way.
Unfortunately there seemed to be no end in sight to how busy he’d become. He had even been able to scrounge some extra staff from the Commander who was gearing himself up against the backlash of this spate of murders within the Black community. Shaft could only hope she was doing okay – it must have been a social call or she would have left a voicemail - and as soon as an opportunity arose he could give her his full focus. Now he was too drained and needed to wind down but he had to see her soon, he needed it.
Almost instantly calming memories that instinctively understood how drained he was rushed in like antibodies to ease his stress.
Shaft let them engulf him and almost watched detachedly as he recounted the first time he had gotten close to Y. He wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing then - the asinine police programming kicking in, trying to tell him who he could and couldn’t see according to Met protocol - but after the first game of squash he realised that this was one of the best choices he had made in a long time.
Y wore figure hugging shorts and a similar top that showed her mid-riff. He remembered commenting that her legs were wobbling after the exertion of a competitive game and he was wondering if she had something else in that vitamin drink she was sipping. Y stumbled into his arms with laughter and he held her. Shaft never forgot how soft her skin was for someone with such a brutal martial arts regime. His fingers gripped her stomach firmly and he felt how smooth and accommodating she was. Enjoying how her rippling muscles felt in his hands when she moved, forming the stunning curves of her waist. A flash of wish fulfillment or lunacy – take your pick - had him kissing her sweat smeared stomach.
Back on her feet they both looked at each other with dopey grins plastered on their faces and felt that unspoken sentiment of attraction.
Shaft was overdue for another game of squash.
Y’s crib, Acton, West London
13.40
Monday July 8th
Patra’s mouth fell open slackly as she held up her ten fingers and nodded her head in deep appreciation.
The workmanship here just did not come any better.
Before they ever met and became friends she had experienced many talon technicians here and across the pond - Atlanta in particular - but Y was a true artist. A Whitney, hell no, an Aretha Franklin of nails. The end product, even with no nail polish applied, was imma
culate enough to be worn as is, buffed and polished to perfection. Daaayum! If she hadn’t seen her apply the tips herself with the acrylic overlay, she would have thought Y had patented some new super slick nail application procedure. But it was nothing as dramatic as that. This was the product of sheer skill, brilliance and genius.
Even her converted sitting room was created by someone with an eye for quality and detail. Y had moved about the contents of her lounge for maximum effect. The objet’s d’art and any of her personal effects that did not match up with the image of how the work area should be were banished to her bedroom. Her trophy stand that contained all her Kendo awards was converted to displaying products; the photographs of the posse and family were replaced with product posters. Being severely limited with what could be done to the place didn’t stop a keen appreciation for colour and space, transforming it from what it had been to the elegant beauty salon it now was.
After a few minutes of drooling admiration Patra placed both hands down on the work station her fingers outstretched.
“What colour do you think I should wear?” Patra asked.
“So you want consultation too?” Y gave an understanding nod. “That will be an extra ten pounds please.”
Patra laughed.
“You money grabbing bitch, I’m paying you nearly double what some of these other salons charge and hell, you’re not even a salon.”
“I’m worth every penny. Aren’t you satisfied with the quality of my work?” Y asked feigning shock. Patra nearly gave away the game with a knee jerk response`of course I am boo’ but held herself back at the last minute, wagging her finger accusingly to say she was not so easily duped.
Y grinned, took Patra’s forefinger and used a large fluffy brush to flick particles of dust from it.
That was the price you paid – with corny clichés aside – for the best in the west. It had taken one of Y’s old dumbass Jamaican adages ‘Business and friendship don’t mix’ to keep things on the straight and narrow. Patra had been tempted on more than one occasion to play the friendship card to jump the long queues that were forming lately but she had to remain cool. It was her own fault most of the time anyway because a simple call or a reminder when they met for training would be enough for Y to block out a time slot for her. But obviously that lacked the element of challenge for Patra’s sensibilities. As usual she paid the price for her risk taking mentality and that meant wading through Ebony, The Pride, assorted female magazines dedicated to dissecting the Black male while waiting for some old dear in a pearl necklace Um-ing and ah-ing over a perfectly formed eyebrow shape.
