Age of Voodoo

by James Lovegrove

  “How do we do that?”

  “First, a vévé.”

  “A what?”

  Instead of replying, Albertine opened her bag and took out a jam jar filled with some kind of pale powder. Unscrewing the lid, she knelt and began tapping the powder out onto the ground in a pattern. First she sketched out a pair of bisecting lines of identical length to form a cross. This she ornamented with smaller crosses in all four corners where the lines met, followed by notches at intervals along the lines themselves, like increments on a ruler. Finally she added a design to the tip of each arm of the cross. At the north tip she put a circle divided into quadrants, and at the east an asterisk and beside this a fish shape and what appeared to be a shepherd’s crook. At the south tip she drew what looked like a feather, or perhaps a fisherman’s lure, and at the west another asterisk and something resembling a curly letter E.

  “A vévé is a cosmogram,” she told Lex. “Every loa has one—a sacred glyph embodying his or her essential nature. It’s important to keep it as symmetrical and unbroken as possible. Drawing a vévé looks easy, but believe me, it takes practice to get it just right.”

  “What’s the powder? Ground-up human bone?”

  She shot him a look. “Cornmeal, as a matter of fact. Now the doorway to Legba is open. But a libation is needed.”

  She produced a miniature of rum and sprinkled some drops onto the vévé.

  “And some illumination.”

  She set a small, stubby black candle down in the centre of the vévé, screwing the base into the dirt. A match flared. A flame guttered and grew at the candle’s wick. The smoke coiling up from it was scented—floral and faintly earthy.

  As the candle flame strengthened, shedding its glow over the campsite and Gable’s meagre scatter of possessions, the surrounding forest seemed to quieten. The calls and songs of animals became muted, dwindling to a quick chirrup here, a piping squeak there. A stillness descended, and Lex, for no appreciable reason, felt the hairs on the nape of his neck stand on end. The air seemed charged, as though a distant storm was brewing, its power building in the atmosphere. He itched to have a gun in his hand. The SIG Sauer was back in the Subaru’s glove compartment. He wished he’d brought it with him. He would feel safer then, more in control.

  “And finally some rhythm,” said Albertine.

  Her shoulder bag, a seemingly inexhaustible fund of voodoo paraphernalia, yielded a rattle. It was made out of a gourd and adorned with multicoloured glass beads. The vertebrae of some creature—a snake was Lex’s guess—dangled from it, strung on leather thongs.

  “My asson,” she said, and Lex was tempted to make an amusing pun on the word but resisted. It didn’t seem appropriate. Or wise.

  Albertine began to shake the rattle, initially beating out a simple four-four time but adding new quavers and semiquavers every few bars, increasing the complexity. Turning to face each of the cardinal points of the compass one after another, starting with west, she said, “D’abord. À table. Adonai. Olandé.”

  Next came some rapid chanting in French Creole, the words tumbling out too thick and fast for Lex to catch more than one in ten. The rhythm from the asson gathered pace. Seeds inside the rattle chittered drily while the snake vertebrae whirled on their thongs and clicked insistently against the gourd’s thick mottled skin.

  Albertine stirred her body into a gentle, swaying dance. She led with her hips, her feet moving to set positions, the rest of her following. The chant continued unabated, and the asson flickered in her hand, describing neat, wavy patterns in the air as it clattered and thrummed.

  “Money.”

  Lex was so mesmerised by her actions, so transfixed by the spectacle of this woman conducting her one-person ceremony in the steam of a tropical night, that he didn’t realise she was addressing him.

  “Money.” She barked out the demand again in a gap between the fluid sentences of her chant. “Put some money down on the vévé. An offering. A gift for Legba, to invite him to join us.”

  “Okay. Yes. Right.”

  Lex delved into his pocket and scattered some loose change onto the vévé.

  “More,” said Albertine. “That’s nothing.”

  He extracted one of the M$100 bills in his wallet and added that to the coins.

  “Good. Use this, Legba,” she said in English, “to buy some of the sweet things that you love. Molasses, cane syrup, candied peanuts. Whatever will make your tongue drool and your belly happy.”

  Then she resumed her Creole chant once more, and her dance intensified, growing wilder and more abandoned. Her brow was knitted in concentration. Perspiration stippled her face. She seemed utterly lost in herself, the ritual evidently as hypnotic to perform as it was to watch. She was now another Albertine altogether, not the cool, self-possessed power dresser who fixed computers and wrote code for the government, rather an elemental being, the maenad who had entered Lex’s bedroom just a few hours ago and seized him, gripped him, devoured him, slaking her lust with his. She vibrated with the frenzy of the dance, quivering like a twanged guitar string.

  And then a voice sounded from the darkness of the forest.

  “I hear your call, chile. I hear it an’ I heed.”

  And out into the candlelight hobbled Gable, his two dogs beside him.

  ONLY IT WASN’T Gable. Looked like him, limped like him, but it was not simply Gable. In his gaze was that unaccustomed clarity which Lex had seen the night before last, that deep mysterious intelligence, as though someone else’s eyes had replaced Gable’s, someone else was staring from his head, someone sharper, someone other.

  The cane dogs, likewise, were more alert than normal. Still flea-bitten mutts, but with none of the languid happy-go-lucky look of a tramp’s dogs, content with their humble lot. These were fierce animals, ear-pricked and watchful, as though the Alsatian or the Rhodesian ridgeback buried in their hodgepodge heritage had come to the fore, a single vital strand of canine DNA asserting itself over the rest. They weren’t just with Gable—they flanked him, guarding him. Outriders in a pack.

  “You’ve summoned your Papa Legba,” said Gable to Albertine. “You’ve hauled me out of heaven, an’ me accept your gifts, an’ likewise your submission.”

  In response, Albertine sank to her knees, head bowed. Lex didn’t know whether to do the same. A glance and a gesture from Albertine, a downward waft of the hand, put paid to his dithering. He joined her, circumspectly, in genuflection.

  “We come as supplicants, Legba,” Albertine said. “A journey lies ahead for us, one that may contain many dangers, and we crave your blessing and your counsel.”

  “Oh, me know ’bout your journey, baby girl,” said Gable. “An’ let me tell you, it’s a hard road you goin’ to be travellin’. Stony an’ full of turns. Me wish you luck with it.”

  “Luck?” said Lex, unable to suppress a snort. “Is that all?”

  Gable rounded on him, eyes ablaze. “You were maybe hopin’ for somet’ing more? Lex Dove, me don’ know what you think me is—me don’ know if you yourself know—but one thing me do know is that me don’ have the power to make life easy for you, no, sir. Me can’t be wavin’ no magic wand and makin’ everyt’ing go zackly how you’d like. Loa don’ work that way.”

  “He meant no disrespect, Legba,” Albertine said. “He’s a newcomer to the dogwe. He hasn’t yet learned the right attitude.”

  “Too true, he ain’t,” said Gable. “An’ me make allowances for that. That’s why me still talkin’ to you. Any vodou serviteur spoke to me like he just did, me would have upped and gone and probably wouldn’t return for a month or more. My back would be well an’ truly turned.”

  “Didn’t mean to offend,” Lex mumbled, more for Albertine’s sake than Gable’s.

  “Yeah, an’ you keep it that way,” said Gable sternly. “Because, mister, you’re already treadin’ a fine line, and you don’ want any more bad trouble comin’ your way than you already got. Right now, it’s friends you’re in need of, no
t more foes, an’ certainly not more woes. Foes and woes you got aplenty. Me see the dead that are all around you. Oh, yes, me see ’em all right. You been the Baron’s right-hand man most of your adult life, whether you realise it or not. You been busy pilin’ up the bodies, fillin’ the grave holes.”

  Gable bent over Lex, staring hard into his eyes. Lex stared back, refusing to flinch or even blink. He would not let on how unnerving Gable’s words were. They seemed to reach inside him like claws and scrape at his innermost self, his tenderest places, his most zealously guarded depths of conscience. He would not let that show.

  “The dead won’t leave you alone, Lex Dove. Change your home, change your name, change your face, don’ matter, they always there with you.”

  A grubby index finger poked Lex in the chest.

  “In here,” Gable hissed. “Inside.”

  Lex fought the urge to swat the hand aside, maybe snap Gable’s wrist in the process. That would teach him not to prod, not to provoke.

  “The dead live,” Gable went on. “The dead never die. They bound to you. You create ’em, you responsible for ’em, so they follow you forever after, like fledglings after the mama bird. You can fix that, but it’s hard to do, so hard. You want to be free of the undying dead, you first got to face ’em. Confront ’em. Beat ’em down. You can destroy the dead, but you need to be careful not to destroy yourself while you’re at it. That’s my advice to you, Lex. That, an’ this.”

  He leaned even closer and whispered in Lex’s ear, a couple of short sentences, a handful of words.

  “Got that?” he said, pulling back.

  Lex nodded numbly.

  “Good. Hee hee!” It was a wheezy laugh, a touch of bronchial wetness to it, as though all was not completely well with Gable’s lungs, some underlying ailment, the consequence of open-air nights and a pipe-smoking habit. “An’ you, my beautiful girl.” He swivelled to face Albertine again, pivoting on his crutch. “Your husbands say to say hello. Erzulie Freda, she worried ’bout you. She don’ like the idea of you headin’ into that deep dirty pit of damnation you headin’ into.”

  “Tell her I appreciate the concern,” said Albertine. “I’ll try to stay safe. Lex has vowed not to leave my side.”

  “There are some threats even he can’t shield you from. Who’ll be protectin’ who, eh? That’s the question. Who can you count on when hell’s risin’ up around you and the devil’s knockin’ at the door?”

  “I can call on Damballah too. Damballah with his staff, to smite my enemies.”

  “An’ he’ll fight for you, for sure. But what you’re goin’ up against, even with Lex with you, even with him and those servants of Ogun, those warriors from America, even with all of them and loa swingin’ for you too—it mayn’t be enough. Bondye. Someone’s arousin’ Bondye’s wrath. Someone’s pokin’ the biggest, baddest nest of hornets there is. You don’ want to be there if Bondye comes screamin’ out at you, all fire and fury. You ain’t goin’ to survive that, no, sir, not at all.”

  Gable’s eyes dulled a fraction. His face slackened, losing animation.

  “Legba,” said Albertine. “Stay. Explain further. I beg you.”

  “Baby girl, me is...” Gable looked confused. Something was being withdrawn from him, like a hand pulling out of a glove. Legba was dismounting. “Me is goin’. Can’t remain. This ain’t a strong body. It won’t hold me any longer. A weak chwal. Don’ want to ride it death.”

  “Then I thank you, Papa Legba, for honouring us with your presence. I salute you, governor of destiny, guardian of the crossroads, and holder of the poteau-mitan, the ladder between heaven and earth. I and my friend Lex are your humble servants, undeserving of your grace.”

  A vacant expression came over Gable’s face. He blinked uncomprehendingly at Albertine.

  “Who—who are you?” he managed to blurt out, and then his head lolled back and he collapsed in a dead faint.

  LEX AND ALBERTINE tried to tend to Gable as he lay on the ground, but the cane dogs wouldn’t allow it. They growled and snapped defensively every time the two humans approached their insensible master.

  “I don’t think this is the first time they’ve had to look after him when he’s passed out,” Lex opined. “It must happen quite a lot. Let’s just leave him.”

  “We can’t,” said Albertine. “It takes it out of you, being ridden by a loa. And if you’re not in the best of health in the first place...”

  “He’ll recover. We can’t afford to wait around, though, not if we’re going to go and fetch Wilberforce and then collect Team Thirteen from the Cape Azure on schedule.”

  “There must be some way of dealing with the dogs.”

  “There is, but it would involve me killing them, and I doubt you want that.”

  Albertine conceded the point. “We’ll check on him when we get back from Anger Reef.”

  “If we get back.”

  She darted him a look. “What are you saying?”

  “Nothing. Grim joke, that’s all. I mean, you heard Gable, or Legba. The way he put it, we’re marching straight into the jaws of death.”

  “Legba can’t always be relied on for an accurate summary of the situation.”

  “Okay, but it still doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a picnic. I’m just thinking we ought to be realistic about our prospects. Come on. Back to the car.”

  “Lex?” said Albertine as they retraced their steps through the thickets to the road.

  “Yes?”

  “What did he say to you?”

  “Who? When?”

  “Don’t be childish. Legba. When he whispered to you just now.”

  “Nothing. Nothing important.”

  “Really? Because you seemed pretty shaken by it.”

  “No.”

  “You’re not going to tell me.”

  “It’s not worth sharing. Really. It might as well have been gibberish for all the sense it made.”

  “Okay.” Her tone suggested not only that she didn’t believe him but that she would winkle the truth out of him at some point in the foreseeable future. She had no doubts on that score.

  But what was Lex supposed to do? Give it to her straight? Quote Gable verbatim?

  How could he?

  Dead men won’ lie an’ liars won’ die. That’s the truth, Leonard Duncan, and the truth always hurts.

  Never mind that the message itself was pretty much unfathomable.

  How the hell did Gable know his real name?

  NINETEEN

  ZODIACS

  LIEUTENANT BUCKLER WAS in a tetchy mood. As Team Thirteen loaded their duffel bags into the cars, he refused to meet Lex’s eye and answered his enquiries in monosyllables.

  Lex put it down to pre-op nerves. Everyone reacted differently to stress. Some masked their tension with talk; others, like Buckler, went the other way, turning surly and uncommunicative.

  Once they pulled away from the hotel, Buckler turned to him and said, “We’re going to make a detour.”

  “Where to?”

  “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

  “Shouldn’t I know in advance? If there’s been a change of plan...”

  Buckler wasn’t interested in providing any further detail. Lex now had the impression that the American’s frostiness was targeted—personal. He, Lex, had somehow offended, had affronted him in some way. He didn’t much care. It wasn’t his goal in life to win approval or ingratiate himself with others.

  He drove on, leaving Buckler to simmer quietly beside him.

  “Left here,” the SEAL commander said eventually.

  Lex made the turn. Albertine, in her Suzuki, followed suit.

  “Now right.”

  “Manzanilla Defence Force HQ,” Lex said, when it became clear there was only one place they could be headed.

  “Got to pick up a couple of items,” said Buckler. “Won’t take long.”

  The couple of items turned out to be a pair of Zodiacs. They were, as far as Lex was aware,
the Manzanilla Defence Force’s entire fleet of seagoing craft: two rigid-hulled inflatables with amateurishly applied camouflage paint jobs. In fact, these boats and a couple of tatty ex-British-Army Land Rovers represented the sum total of the MDF’s mobile hardware. But then Manzanilla’s standing army was hardly a crack fighting unit, consisting as it did of no more than twenty volunteers, part-timers who held down day jobs but put on fatigues and carried out drills and manoeuvres as and when their work schedules permitted. It was unlikely the island would ever be invaded, and if it was the MDF would doubtless offer only a token resistance before surrendering. The government, though, was pleased to think that it had military capability, however paltry, and the soldiers could if nothing else be counted on to put on a parade in Port Sebastian’s Liberation Square every time some foreign dignitary came visiting.

  Four MDF soldiers wheeled the Zodiacs out into the main compound on trailers. Lex saw money slip from Buckler’s fingers into the hands of the senior-ranking soldier and from there into the breast pocket of the man’s blouse. So, this was not entirely an above-board procedure. Then again, nothing on Manzanilla was. Graft was just part of the national economy.

  While the boat trailers were being hitched to the cars, Lex received a text message from Seraphina.

  Just to wish you luck, sweetheart. You’ll be fine. Old pro like you—it’s like riding a bike. You never forget how. Hugs and kisses. S xxx

  Lex texted back:

  So you know I’m fully active again.

  Seraphina’s reply:

  Darling, I know EVERYTHING. Haven’t you learned that by now? ;-) You just couldn’t help it, could you? Once an operative, always an operative. Bodes well for the future.

  Lex:

  It’s a one-off. Don’t get your hopes up.

  Seraphina: