Cemetery Dance

by Douglas Preston

  40

  D’Agosta sat in the passenger seat of the squad car, the black mood that had settled over him refusing to dissipate. If anything, it seemed to grow darker the closer they got to the Ville. At least he didn’t have to sit in the back with the annoying little French Creole, or whatever the hell he was. He glanced at the man covertly in the rearview mirror, lips tightening in disapproval. There he was, perched on the seat, looking like an Upper East Side doorman in his swallowtail coat.

  The driver halted the cruiser where Indian Road turned into 214th, the crime-scene van following them coming to a rattling stop behind. D’Agosta glanced at his watch: three thirty. The driver popped the trunk and D’Agosta got out, hefted out the bolt cutters, and snapped the padlock, letting the chain drop to the ground. He chucked the bolt cutters back into the trunk, slammed it, and slid back into the car.

  “Motherfuckers,” he said to no one in particular.

  The driver gunned the Crown Vic, the tires giving a little screech as the car lurched forward.

  “Driver,” said Bertin, leaning forward, “watch those starts, if you please.”

  The driver—a homicide detective named Perez—rolled his eyes.

  They halted again at the iron gate in the chain-link fence, and D’Agosta took another small joy in cutting off the lock and tossing it into the woods. Then, to make sure the job was done well, he cut through both sets of hinges, kicked the iron gate down, and dragged the two pieces off the road. He got back in the car, puffing slightly. “Public way,” he said in explanation.

  Another screech of tires and the Crown Vic jerked forward, jostling the passengers. It climbed, then descended, through a dark, twilight wood, ultimately nosing out into a dead field. The Ville rose up ahead, bathed in the crystalline light of a fall afternoon. Despite the sun, it looked dark and crooked, wreathed in shadow: a haphazard jumble of steeples and roofs like some nightmare village of Dr. Seuss. The entire construction had accreted around a monstrous, half-timbered church, impossibly old. The front part was surrounded by a tall wooden stockade fence, into which was set a single wooden door of oak, banded, plated, and riveted in iron.

  The vehicles pulled up to a dirt parking area beside the oak door. A few shabby cars were parked to one side, along with the panel truck that D’Agosta had seen earlier. Just the sight of it sent a fresh stab of anger through him.

  The place appeared to be deserted. D’Agosta looked around, then turned to Perez. “Bring the kayo and pro-bar. I’ll carry the evidence locker.”

  “Sure thing, Lieutenant.”

  D’Agosta threw open the door again and stepped out. The van had pulled up behind and the animal control officer got out. He was a timid fellow with an unfortunate blond mustache, red-faced, thin arms, potbelly. Nervous as hell, never executed a warrant before. D’Agosta tried to dredge up his name. Pulchinski.

  “Did we call ahead?” Pulchinski asked in a quavering voice.

  “You don’t ‘call ahead’ with a no-knock search warrant. The last thing you want to do is give someone time to destroy evidence.” D’Agosta opened the trunk, pulled out the locker. “You got the papers in order?”

  Pulchinski patted a capacious pocket. The man was already sweating.

  D’Agosta turned to Perez. “Detective?”

  Perez hefted the kayo battering ram. “I’m on it.”

  Meanwhile, Pendergast and his weird little sidekick Bertin had gotten out of the squad car. Pendergast was inscrutable as usual, his silvery eyes hooded and expressionless. Bertin—incredibly enough—was sniffing flowers. Literally.

  “By heaven,” he exclaimed, “this is a splendid example of sand-plain gerardia, Agalinis acuta ‘ Pennell’! An endangered species! A whole field of them!” He cupped a flower in his hand, inhaled loudly.

  Perez, who was massive and compact, placed himself before the door; took tight hold of the battering ram’s front and rear grips; balanced it a moment at hip level; swung it back; then heaved it forward with a grunt. The forty-pound ram slammed into the oaken door with a booming sound, the door shuddering in its frame.

  Bertin jumped like he had been shot. “What’s this?” he shrilled.

  “We’re executing a warrant,” said D’Agosta.

  Bertin retreated hastily behind Pendergast, peering out like a Munchkin. “No one said there would be violence!”

  Boom! A second hit, then a third. The rivets on the old door began to work their way out.

  “Hold it.” D’Agosta picked up the pro-bar and jammed the forked end under a rivet, leveraging it up. With a crack, the rivet popped out. He pulled out four more rivets and stepped back, nodding to the detective.

  Perez swung the ram again and again, the heavy door splitting with each blow. An iron band sprang loose and fell to the ground with a clank. A long vertical crack opened in the oak, splinters flying.

  “A few more should do it,” D’Agosta said.

  Boom! Boom!

  Suddenly D’Agosta became aware of a presence behind them. He turned. A man stood watching them, ten paces back. He was a striking individual, dressed in a long gray cloak with a velvet collar, and a strange, soft medieval-style cap on his head with two flaps over his ears, his face in shadow. His long, bushy white hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He was very tall—at least six foot seven inches—about fifty years old, lean and muscular, with a disquieting stare. His skin was pale, almost as pale as Pendergast’s, but the eyes were as black as coals, his face chiseled, nose thin and aquiline. D’Agosta recognized him immediately as the driver of the van.

  The man stared at D’Agosta with his marble-like eyes. Where he had come from, how he had approached without alerting them, was a mystery. Without saying a word, he dipped into his pocket and removed a large iron key.

  D’Agosta turned to Perez. “Looks like we got a key.”

  The key disappeared back into the robe. “Show me your warrant first,” the man said, approaching, his face impassive. But the voice was like honey, and it was the first time D’Agosta had heard anyone speak with an accent remotely like Pendergast’s.

  “Of course,” said Pulchinski hastily, dipping into his pocket and pulling out a mass of papers, which he began to sort through. “There you are.”

  The man took it with a large hand. “Warrant of Search and Seizure,” he read out loud, in his sonorous voice. The accent was like Pendergast’s, and yet it was also very different—with a trace of French and something else D’Agosta couldn’t identify.

  The man looked at Pulchinski. “And you are?”

  “Morris Pulchinski, animal control.” He nervously stuck out his hand, and then, when he was stared down, let it drop. “We’ve had reliable reports of animal cruelty, animal torture, perhaps even animal sacrifice up here, and that warrant allows us to search the premises and collect evidence.”

  “Not the premises. The warrant specifies only the church proper. And these other people?”

  D’Agosta flashed his shield. “NYPD homicide. You got some ID?”

  “We do not carry identification cards,” the man said, his voice like dry ice.

  “You’ll have to identify yourself, mister, one way or another.”

  “I am Étienne Bossong.”

  “Spell it.” D’Agosta took out his notebook, flipping the pages. The man spelled it slowly, dryly, enunciating each letter, as if to a child.

  D’Agosta wrote it down. “And your position here?”

  “I am the leader.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of this community.”

  “And what exactly is ‘this community’?”

  A long silence followed, as Bossong stared at D’Agosta. “NYPD Homicide? For an animal control issue?”

  “We’re tagging along for fun,” said D’Agosta.

  “These other storm troopers haven’t yet identified themselves.”

  “Detective Perez, NYPD homicide,” D’Agosta said. “Special Agent Pendergast, Federal Bureau of Investigation. And Mr. Bertin, FBI cons
ultant.”

  Everyone in turn flashed their shields, except for Bertin, who merely stared at Bossong, his eyes narrowing to slits. Bossong flinched, as if in recognition, then stared back equally hard. Something seemed to pass between the two: something electric. It made the hair on D’Agosta’s neck stand on end.

  “Open the door,” D’Agosta said.

  After a long, tense moment, Bossong broke off eye contact with Bertin. He took the massive iron key out of his pocket and fitted it into the iron lock. He turned it with a violent twist, the tumblers clacking loudly, and hauled open the mangled door.

  “We do not seek confrontation,” he said.

  “Good.”

  Beyond lay a narrow alleyway, curving around to the right. Small wooden structures lined both sides, the upper floors overhanging the lower. The buildings were so old they listed toward one another, the steeply pitched gables of their penthouse projections almost meeting above the alley. Dying autumn light filtered down, but the empty doorways and blown-glass windows remained shrouded in gloom.

  Bossong silently led the group along the alleyway. As they rounded the curve, D’Agosta saw the church itself rear up ahead of them: rambling, countless dependent structures fixed to its sides like limpets. Huge, ancient timbers spiked out from its flanks, attached to even heavier, fantastically carven vertical beams that were driven into the ground like primitive flying buttresses. Bossong led the way between two of the beams, opened a door in the outer wall of the church, and entered. As he did so, he called out something into the darkness in a language D’Agosta didn’t recognize.

  D’Agosta hesitated on the threshold. The interior was in utter blackness. It exhaled a sour smell of dung, burned wood, candlewax, frankincense, fear, and unwashed people. An ominous creaking sound came from the timbers above, as if the place was about to come down.

  “Turn on the lights,” said D’Agosta.

  “There is no electricity,” said Bossong from the darkness within. “We do not allow modern conveniences to defile the inner sanctuary.”

  D’Agosta pulled out his Maglite, switched it on, aimed it inside. The place was cavernous. “Perez, bring up the portable halogen lamp from the van.”

  “Sure thing, Lieutenant.”

  He turned to the animal control officer. “Pulchinski, you know what you’re looking for, right?”

  “To tell you the truth, Lieutenant—”

  “Just do your job, please.”

  D’Agosta glanced over his shoulder. Pendergast was looking around with his own flashlight, Bertin at his side.

  Perez returned with a halogen light, connected by a coiled wire to a large battery in a canvas pouch on a sling.

  “Let me carry it.” D’Agosta slung the battery over his shoulder. “I’ll go first. The rest of you, follow me. Perez, bring the evidence locker. You understand the rules, right? We’re here on an animal control issue.” His voice carried a heavy weight of irony.

  He stepped into the darkness, switched on the light.

  He almost jumped back. The walls were completely lined with people, silent, staring, all dressed in rough brown cloth.

  “What the fuck?”

  One of the men came forward. He was shorter than Bossong and just as thin, but unlike the others his brown robes were decorated with spirals and complex curlicues of white. His face was coarse and rough, as if shaped by a hatchet. He carried a heavy staff. “This is sacred ground,” he said in a quavering preacher’s voice. “Words of vulgar language will not be tolerated.”

  “Who are you?” D’Agosta asked.

  “My name is Charrière.” The man almost spit the words.

  “And who are these people?”

  “This is a sanctuary. This is our flock.”

  “Oh, your flock? Remind me to skip the Kool-Aid after the service.”

  Pendergast came gliding up behind D’Agosta and leaned over. “Vincent?” he murmured. “Mr. Charrière would seem to be a hungenikon priest. I would avoid antagonizing him—or these people—more than necessary.”

  D’Agosta took a deep breath. It irritated him, Pendergast giving him advice. But he recognized that he was angry, and a good cop should never be angry. What was the matter with him? It seemed he’d been angry since the beginning of the case. He’d better get over it. He took a deep breath, nodded, and Pendergast backed away.

  Even with the halogen light, the space was so large that he felt swallowed by the darkness. It was made worse by a kind of miasma hanging in the air. The silent congregation, standing against the walls, all staring silently at him, gave him the creeps. There must be a hundred in there, maybe more. All adults, all men, white, black, Asian, Indian, Hispanic, and about everything else. All with dull, staring faces. He felt a twinge of apprehension. They should have come in with more backup. A whole lot more.

  “All right, listen up, folks.” He spoke loudly, so all could hear, trying to pitch confidence into his voice. “We’ve got a search warrant for the interior of this church, and it states we can search the area and the physical person of any individual present on the scene. We have the right to take anything deemed of interest under the terms of the warrant. You’ll get a full accounting and everything will be duly returned to you. You all understand?”

  He paused, his voice echoing and dying away. Nobody moved. Their eyes glowed red in the flashlight beams, like animals at night.

  “So, please: nobody move, nobody interfere. Follow the directions of the officers. Okay? That’s the way to get this over with as quickly as possible.”

  He looked around again. Was it his imagination, or had they moved in slightly, narrowed the circle? It must be his imagination. He hadn’t heard or seen any of them move. In the silence, he could feel the presence of the brooding, ancient timbers lowering above, their creaking and shifting.

  The people themselves made no noise at all. None. And then a small sound came from the far end of the church: the pathetic bleating of a lamb.

  “All right,” said D’Agosta, “start at the back and work toward the door.”

  They walked down the center of the church. The floor was laid in large, square blocks of foot-polished stone, and there were no chairs, no pews. Their ceremonies and rites—and D’Agosta couldn’t even begin to imagine what they must be like—must be done standing. Or maybe kneeling. He noticed strange designs painted on the walls: curlicues and eyes and fronded plants, all linked by elaborate series of lines. They reminded him strongly of the priest’s garb—and even more of the bloody design that had been painted on the wall of Smithback’s apartment.

  He motioned to Perez. “Take a picture of that design.”

  “Right.”

  The flash caused Pulchinski to jump.

  The lamb bleated again. Hundreds of eyes watched them, and now and again D’Agosta was sure he saw the gleam of honed metal tucked into the folds of their robes.

  At length the small group reached the rear of the structure. Where the choir would normally be, there was instead an animal pen, surrounded by a wooden fence, with straw matting covering the ground. In the middle stood a post with a chain dangling from it, and attached to the chain was a lamb. Damp straw, splattered with dark stains, covered the floor. The walls were dribbled with hardened blood, gore, and bits of feces. The post had once been carved like a totem pole, but it was so layered in offal and dung that the carvings had become unrecognizable.

  Behind stood a brickwork altar, on which were placed pitchers of water, polished stones, fetishes, and bits of food. Above, on a small pedestal, were some implements of a vaguely nautical cast that D’Agosta didn’t recognize: coiled, hooked pieces of metal set into wooden bases, almost like oversize corkscrews. They were highly polished, displayed like holy relics. Next to the altar sat a horsehair chest, padlocked.

  “Nice,” said D’Agosta, as he played the light over the scene. “Real nice.”

  “I’ve never seen Vôdou like this,” murmured Bertin. “In fact, I would not call this Vôdou. Oh, the fou
ndations are there, certainly, but this has gone in a completely different, more dangerous, direction.”

  “This is horrible,” said Pulchinski. He took out a video camera and began taping.

  The appearance of the device caused a shuffling sound to rise from the massed people, a collective rustle.

  “This is a sacred place,” said the high priest, his voice resonating in the enclosed space. “You are defiling it. Defiling our faith!”

  “Get it all on tape, Mr. Pulchinski,” said D’Agosta.

  Moving as swiftly as a bat, his robes suddenly flaring, the high priest swooped in, swung his staff, and knocked the video camera out of Pulchinski’s hands, sending it crashing to the floor. Pulchinski stumbled back, neighing in terror.

  D’Agosta had his service revolver out in a flash. “Mr. Charrière, keep your hands in sight and turn around—I said, turn around!”

  The high priest did nothing. The gun was trained on him, but the man seemed unfazed.

  Pendergast—who had been flitting around, scraping samples off various artifacts and altar items and dropping them into tiny test tubes—swiftly appeared in front of D’Agosta. “Just a moment, Lieutenant,” he said quietly, then turned. “Mr. Charrière?”

  The high priest’s eyes swiveled toward him. “Befoulers!” he cried.

  “Mr. Charrière.” Pendergast spoke the name again with a most peculiar emphasis, and the man fell silent. “You have just assaulted an officer of the law.” He turned to the animal control officer. “Are you all right?”

  “No problem, fine,” said Pulchinski, putting on a brave front. The man’s knees were practically knocking together. D’Agosta glanced around uneasily. It was not his imagination this time: the crowd had moved in closer.

  “That was a very foolish thing to do, Mr. Charrière,” Pendergast continued, his voice not loud yet somehow penetrating. “You have now put yourself in our power.” He glanced over. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Bossong?”

  A smile spread over the priest’s features. For most people, smiles lighten their faces; the smile disfigured Charrière, revealing scar tissue that wasn’t previously evident. “The only power comes from the gods of this place, the power of the Loa and their hungan!” He pounded his staff on the floor as if to emphasize the point. And then, in the electric silence, a muffled answering sound came from below their feet.