Vampires of the Caribbean

by Debra Dunbar

  I rested my head back fully on hers. “Stop yah magic, witch.” I turned and faced her with a smirk. She was ready for tonight already. Her white dress curved low giving me just enough of a view to whet both of my appetites. The red, white, and black ceremonial makeup dotted her face above and below her eyes, making them pop. I ran my hand over her hair wrap and over her dark locks sticking out the back. She’d already woven in the bones and feathers. I smirked. “Save it for tonight, Chloe.”

  “At least you have a smile again,” she laughed.

  With a huff, I stepped away and bound a scarf in my hair. “And yah are a meddling…”

  She gave a squawk of indignation. “Watch your tongue, duppy, or I’ll silence it for you.”

  Even with the slight, the look in her eye made my corset tighter. Midnight couldn’t get here fast enough. “Yah are a deadly distraction, Chloe, but all dis won’t get de crops and cane cut.”

  “Be kind, woman, the workers you have out there didn’t ask to be stuck on this beautiful island any more than you asked them here. It’s not their fault.”

  “But their lazy asses coulda learned to do an honest day in de last fifty years.” I slung my shawl over my green dress and stormed out into the evening air. The August air was sweltering, but the consistency of the heat was comforting in its own right. My guards fell in around me, as dependable as the weather. People scurried around us with baskets of cut cane, cassava, yams and eddoes, winding their way past others leading lambs and pigs. The emerging vampires and Bajan all made way for me and greeted me with a wave or a bow. They were not those I’d started out with, but together they wove a mélange tapestry of business suites, flower shirts, and colorful loose clothing. But song and smiles were punctuated by dance and drums. The smell of spiced lamb and the yams made me even miss eating after more than three hundred years. The Caribbean called and I followed several early revelers. Following the crashing of the waves, I strolled down the boardwalk til the sand spread beneath my feet. The wind picked up with the oncoming night, as did the sounds of my people. Their excitement was contagious. A smirk spread across my face. All told, the heat and desperation of the long summer had worn us down. We all needed this.

  “The representatives from the other sectors just arrived.” Roger’s crisp, English voice cut through my warm feelings with its usual grating tone. “They require your immediate attention with all alacrity, Mistress.”

  I fought the urge to wince. The man couldn’t let me have a single moment of joy. Gathering my will, I turned to him. “I will tend to dem in time. Yah can give me a moment, fingersmith. Is dat not what I pay yah for, to handle dees small matters?”

  The man stood still and bowed his head. Unruffled in his Englishness, he continued. “Yes, Madame, but you should really attend to them presently. The priestesses from the north and the west had to push hard during the day for fear of their cargo.”

  Ice creeped down my back. That was a different matter. “Dey are at the sand shore circles?”

  “Just outside of them.” His voice finally changed as it warmed with relief. Whatever he’d seen had shaken my usually unshakable counselor.

  I strode across the sand as the revelers broke their beat and scurried aside. My entourage and I approached the beachfront closest to the docks. On the horizon of the water, you could make out the huge concrete walkways the cruise ships had once docked at to unload money and blood onto my shores. Now they held fishing nets. Well, that and weapons in case the night pirates got any ideas. On the shore, however, a large pyre stood ready for the bonfire and, as Roger had promised, the donkey-drawn carriages of the visiting island representatives. Most served as mobile homes and day-time safety for the visiting groups from the other quadrants. But I headed to the cluster set off to the side apart from the rest. The steel trailers with the faded remains of the rental company’s logo stamped on the side had gathered a wary crowd who’d stopped their dancing and were holding on to each other. A moment later the reason for their discomfort was apparent. An animalistic scream tore through the evening’s drum beat.

  My feet picked up the pace as I made it to the crowd before the howl stopped.

  Hands reached out to me, and I grabbed them back, stopping my guards before they interfered.

  “Mistress, no. Those duppy are too gone. Do not go there.”

  “They’re evil. Don’t let them get hold.”

  “Their duppy will drag yours, Mistress, don’t let them touch you.”

  I squeezed their hands and continued moving forward. “Dat’s what dis is about,” I soothed them. “Tonight we make dem whole again.” More howls from the inside of the trailer were punctuated by a pounding on the side closest to me, strong enough to make the whole vehicle shake. Everyone drew back, including me, before I found my nerve again and opened the handle and stepped inside the closest vehicle.

  Inside, small lanterns were set up for the guardians of the cargo. A group of four vampires and one priestess stood in the first quarter of the truck, but they all had their backs to me, concentrating on the moving shapes beyond the welded bars. The vampires’ red and blonde hair let me know they were the Irish quadrant from the North.

  “Isa, are de friends of yah a hag, girl?” I asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  “Only Esme could call a hundred-year-old woman a girl,” she answered still staring at the moving shapes in the darkness. Her words were light due to my ongoing teasing, but her voice was tight with worry.

  A younger male, only twenty or thirty years turned by the smell of him, shifted drawn-together eyes to me. “Mistress, they slid so quickly. Will it be possible to bring them back?”

  I patted his shoulder and gave him a smile, but no more answer than that. I’d learned years ago not to give a lie on such important issues, not even one to ease the mind. People may forgive the lie, but not the way it made them feel.

  I approached the bars on silent feet, but the moment I was just close enough, four fanged, pale faces lunged at me, crashing into the bars. They’d have probably made it through too, even with the reinforced steel full of gris-gris and runes, except for the electricity slamming back into them from the car-battery hooked up with the metal cage. Growls turned into shrieks and they fled back into the center of the transportation and glared at me.

  Their faces were gaunt and twisted with pain and their eyes shone wild with madness and hunger. They were killers. I almost couldn’t see my centuries old friends in their features, but they were there, somewhere trapped in the crazy.

  “So many in one quarter?” I asked.

  “It’s been hard to get them to attend. They follow their own old ways from the old country, and many still don’t understand the new magic this island has brought them.” The priestess’s words were solemn if a bit accusatory.

  I drew up to my full height and raised an eyebrow at the red haired witch. “Attendance to des rituals are not optional for such old duppy on my island.” My blood picked up speed as I pulled power from it and enveloped myself in a cloak of authority. My voice echoed off the walls until it resonated and filled the entire space. “I allow de mixture of celtic tricks with the Obeah dat keeps us all safe, but do not mistake dat for some permission to take other liberties. Without dat connection de duppy wins with age.” I pointed at the pile of once strong vampires now silent and poised to fight or flee from my voice. They knew they were not a match and responded as they should.

  I extended my attention and my cloak of power to the group, adding a sense of calm and purpose over them. “It is time to relax and listen, my friends. Come tonight we will see dis all right.”

  Their faces eased from their sneers, and they blinked some life back into their eyes. A good sign. They were not too far gone. “Roger,” I snapped.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” he responded from behind me.

  “See they are provided with some fresh blood and tended to.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “And I want to see updated lists of all the
current duppy population on my island. Make sure each attends at least two ceremonies per year in de next year. No more long gaps.”

  “Absolutely, Mistress Esme.”

  Truth was my outburst was not just because I was angry at their stubborn Irish ways. I was upset with myself. I’d become complacent with how well everything had been working and had trusted everyone to keep it going. A stupid thing, I knew. I’d learned long ago not to trust people to do good. They’d let you down every time.

  As we opened the door to leave, the moonlight shone in highlighting one of their faces. “Katie,” I gasped. The leader of the northern quadrant. “How?” She was strong and a part of every quarter ceremony. She should not be in such a state.

  Tears colored Isa’s voice. “When the others lost it and started eating the hands, Katie pushed her herself beyond the point of the saints’ protection. Took six priestesses and three of us to get her subdued and in there.”

  “She always was a tough one, but as my mama always told me ‘De higha de monkey climb, de more he show he tail.” I closed my eyes and breathed deep. “We will cure dis.”

  I walked out and gave a smile to everyone gathered, hoping it would relax them. “Four.” I whispered to Roger through my forced smile.

  “And two from the east and one from the south.”

  I worked hard not to trip as I moved down the ramp.

  Midnight couldn’t get here fast enough.

  The sand side glowed crimson from the flames wrapping around the wooden embers and reaching up through the midnight air to flick more stars into the night sky. The wind carried the beat of the drummers and the chanters around everyone gathered. My skin tingled with the combined energy, and my blood sped up to match the cadence. Standing with the other duppy quadrant heads, Izaiah from the south, Jordi from the east and Katie’s second, Isabelle, from the north, I wondered if their pulses were doing the same or was it just me.

  The chanting changed rhythm when new voices took over the descants. The priests and priestesses in full regalia walked up the sand together. They all wore white shirts and dresses adorned with feathers, bones, scarves and other bits of personal flare that connected them to the spirit world in their own unique way. In my near four hundred years, I’d yet to meet two Obeah or spiritual leaders who walked their path the same. They each had their heads covered by a colorful scarf or dark top hat, or in the case of the Irish Obeah Celts, their wreaths of flowers and tree vines.

  They all faded for me the moment Chloe stepped over the dune into sight. The wind whipped around her until it became like the world just had to bend around her. We’d been sharing this ceremony for over two hundred years together, first in secret, now joyously in the open, and still she made everything else become small and insignificant. The knots in my brain and chest loosened as it did every quarter. In a night’s time, everything would be better and I’d be able to think clearer again. The urges would be managed and the crops revitalized.

  Each Obeah picked up the beat, not just with their voices but with their bodies, and the fire dance began in truth. Their bodies bended and lurched as they called to the spirits of both the land and sea to quiet our duppy and bring life back to us and the soil. The bonfire reacted to their increased energy as well as it flared to an unnatural life and flames of blue, purple and green joined the commonplace red and oranges.

  The duppy who had taken over the minds of their hosts ceased their screams and held their hands out supplicating through the bars for the alms only the Obeah could give them. Even madness could not sever that feeling. The island brought life even to the already dead. The island’s spirits gathered with us in this place, and to one such as myself, my skin flushed and warmed with it like after a fresh drink. For one brief moment each quarter of the year, I was alive again, and the evil docile.

  My feet found the beat before I thought to tell them to, and I drew toward Chloe. My savior. I instinctually knew the others followed me as the crowd cheered and sang their joy for us. Our desire spilled from us and out to them. This would not only bring life to the island’s crops, but to its people as well. Tonight life would be brought to many wombs and our growth would continue.

  But for me there was only Chloe. Her smile as I moved to her. The light in her eyes from the joy the spirits always brought her. The curve of her blouse and her breasts swelled with air from the song and dance. The glistening of the night air on her flushed skin, waiting to be touched. I was the Mistress of Barbados, had kept it so for centuries, but without her I was nothing but a lost soul.

  The world became deafening with the sound of rushing from my own blood as we kissed. The tender feeling of her lips and tongue moving with me brought my hands up of their own accord. I drew her in, so that I could feel more of her. My blood rushed as both of my needs raged to a new height until I could hear the monster raging in me to be let out to feed and wreak havoc.

  Except, instead of coming closer, Chloe was pulling away. Cries of ecstasy had turned into shouts of fear.

  My eyes shot open as I realized something was terribly wrong. My fangs now out for purpose and power, I swept Chloe behind me and swung around until I gazed out to where all the terrified faces were pointed.

  I realized the exploding sounds of passion hadn’t been only in my head. Out on the water two small boats raced on the horizon in the black of the night. A third had been shot down and was a fireball on the water about a hundred yards behind them. Speed boats and jet skis swarmed the wreckage as others chased after the boats. A larger ship followed at a slower pace, but I was no fool. That was the real danger. That was what had shot down the first boat.

  Some idiot had tried to take on the pirate island’s fleet and were paying the price. A distraction, but none of me or mine.

  Until the two small boats turned. Just as I was about to regroup everyone and return order to our proceedings, the boats angled away from the open water and came nose-first towards my island. Specifically, right at us here on the beach. I turned to our group and let out a low, old curse. Our bonfire had called to them in the darkness like any good lighthouse would. And they were bringing the island pirates with them.

  Hell no. No lawless pirate had taken my land before, and they wouldn’t start now.

  I pulled more energy from my blood. Energy I’d hoped would be replaced tonight, not depleted. I used that energy to fuel command and sound behind my words. “Everyone, trouble’s coming in to de sand. All humans, go and get yah weapons from de arsenal and take dem towers and walls and balconies surrounding dis spot. Be our cover dis night. Roger, see dat it’s done properly,” I finished to my organized if anal second-in-command. He’d see it done right. “Obeah, go to de back of the beach and prepare to call dem spirits to fight if necessary. Fuel yah partners as best yah can, but be prepared to call in more if necessary.” Chloe grabbed my hand and squeezed it, but led the group away. “Bridgetown vampires, take to de docks and man de guns der. No one anchors here, no matter who.” A group nodded then ran off to the concrete slips. They wouldn’t be seen in the dark, but held a large part of our arsenal. “The rest of us will hold dis beach no matter who walks out of de sea. We do not roll over for any duppy pirate and his hollow folk.”

  “Should we move the cages with the crazed ones back?” Isa asked.

  “No,” I said as I gave her a sad look. “Stand in front of dem. If dey push too hard, we let dem crazed duppy loose and stand back.” It was a horrific last resort to use those who couldn’t control themselves in such a way. They were friends. But this was our home. I would do what was necessary.

  Tension mounted while we watched the boats move closer. About halfway to us, the second speedboat exploded into a plume of fire and debris. The first yacht, as I could see now, continued toward us without hesitation.

  I wondered how close the yacht could come to the shore before it would flounder on the sand. The smaller jet skis and personal boats could make it closer, but the larger fighter out in the deep water wouldn’t be ab
le to come in. If it hadn’t hit the yacht by now, it probably wouldn’t be able to.

  Roger rejoined me carrying several weapons and other items. I held out my hand, and he put a flare gun in it. I checked the magazine; a red flare was ready to go. “Red means stop, boys,” I thought, as I aimed for the sky and shot. It exploded into a brilliant display, illuminating us on the sand and telling the pirates exactly what I thought of them being this close.

  I waited for their response, trying not to fidget with the gun. Minutes went by, and I worried. Who was on that yacht and would Anil and his group really risk an incursion to get them? They could bring back larger numbers to overrun us, but it would cost them dearly. They’d never pushed the issue before.

  After an eternity of seconds, the large boat sent out three low blasts from its horns, and the smaller crafts slowed down and made a semi-circle off the beach at a respectful distance. Except the yacht. It kept coming until it hit sand. A mess of people tumbled from the right and ran toward us, terror and fatigue etched in every movement.

  Six of them in total exited the craft and splashed their way through the shallows and fell at the edge of the beach on their knees before me. Four men and two women. Dark skinned, but not islander. Too light for that. Their clothes were light travel clothes and their black hair was wild and long, covered in sea water and sand. Where had they come from and how had they made it to my beach?

  One of the men edged a bit further in and put his arms out. “Santuário, por favor, santuário.” Pain and desperation drew his eyes together and made them wide. They also made his fangs shine out in the moonlight. Vampire. And not mine. Scanning the group for the signs, four of them were vampire, the other two human. I looked out to the boat. It bore a flag, but not the close islands. I searched my pre-Reclamation memory and brought up the image. Brazilian. They were flying the Brazilian flag?