Eventually, in desperation, he kicked its legs out from under it. The zuvembie crashed to the floor, taking him down too. Lex contrived to land on top. The hands remained fastened in place. The zuvembie wrenched clockwise and anticlockwise. It was doing its best to decapitate him, twist his head off like a champagne cork. He tried prising its fingers away, but its grip was vicelike, unshakeable.
The blood roared in his ears. His vision blurred.
His hands found the zuvembie’s dangling jaw. He dug below, into the slippery mass of exposed meat that had been its buccal cavity. A tongue slithered over his probing fingers. He sank his nails into raw flesh and started scrabbling, burrowing, rending. He delved between muscles. He tore through sinews. He felt the elastic resistance of veins and snapped them. He was pulling the creature apart from the neck downwards, dissecting it with his bare hands. He was rummaging in the engine of its anatomy, in the hope that if he destroyed enough working parts he could shut the whole machine down.
It was a race to see which of them, Lex or the zuvembie, could annihilate the other first.
Now Lex had penetrated through to somewhere inside the zuvembie’s shoulders, behind the collarbone, and all at once he felt its hands slacken their hold a little. He must have hit some crucial seam of connective tissue. He redoubled his efforts, pulling pieces of the zuvembie up, out, sideways, filleting madly. Finally it let go. One of its arms slumped limply to the floor; then the other.
Lex recoiled, leaping away from the creature, away from the ragged mess he had made of its upper torso. He shook his hands wildly to rid them of the blood and the wet clots of flesh that clung to them. He experienced a revulsion—of himself, of the butchery he had performed—that was so visceral he nearly vomited. He wanted to scream. He had committed appalling deeds in his time, he was no innocent when it came to acts of slaughter, but this—this was a whole new level of horror.
The sound of someone shouting his name broke his trance of disgust.
Albertine.
A zuvembie had her in its clutches. The creature was snapping its teeth at her neck, hell-bent on chewing out her throat. She was managing to ward it off but her forearms were already bleeding from several bite wounds.
Lex lunged at the zuvembie, dimly registering that it was female, a lab technician, no doubt one of Seidelmann’s assistants. His fingers slotted into the corners of her mouth and he yanked backwards as though pulling on the reins of a horse. He and the zuvembie staggered together, away from Albertine, until his shoulders struck a wall.
Out of the corner of his eye he spied a fire extinguisher, mounted on a bracket. He snatched it free and clubbed the zuvembie with it. The zuvembie went down after several heavy blows, and Lex continued to slam the fire extinguisher onto her, breaking bone after bone. Arms, spine, pelvis, legs—none of her skeleton was spared. Lex shattered the creature internally, section by section. Her efforts to resist, to retaliate, grew progressively feebler and more spastic. Whenever she tried to rise, her limbs bent rubberily and would not support her. Soon all she could do was flop about and writhe uselessly like a landed eel.
Lex straightened, heaving for breath. Another zuvembie incapacitated. He searched round for the next target.
He saw Buckler overrun but bellowing defiance...
Albertine pinned between two zuvembies...
Seidelmann curled into a ball, head buried in hands, sobbing...
He knew then that it was a lost cause. There were too many of the enemy and they were too strong. The battle was almost over, the outcome decided.
A voice rang out.
“Ça suffit.”
It echoed down the passage, deep and clear.
As though a switch had been thrown, the zuvembies froze.
“We have made our point. They have been shown who’s boss.”
The zuvembies had become like statues. They held their poses, utterly motionless.
Threading through the tableau of the undead came a thickset man dressed in Nike high-tops, baggy tracksuit bottoms, and a weightlifter’s singlet that showed off a stocky, well-muscled torso and liberally tattooed arms. He strode like a king, assured of his domain and his authority. His hair was styled in a curly, bleached Mohawk.
Papa Couleuvre.
THIRTY-ONE
THE ERROR OF HIS WAYS
IF LEX’S SIG had been loaded, he would have planted a round in Couleuvre’s skull then and there. In the event, all he had was the fire extinguisher. He charged at the bokor, brandishing the heavy red cylinder.
With a hand that was gauntleted in gold and silver rings, Couleuvre made a casual gesture. He had arrived with an escort of two zuvembies, both of them in US Marine battledress. At his unspoken command the zuvembies moved in front of him, forming a barricade. Lex pounded one in the chest with the fire extinguisher, to little effect. The other caught him in a bear hug and felled him. The extinguisher flew from his grasp. His arms were wrenched behind him. A knee ground between his shoulderblades. He was pinned down, face crushed to the linoleum.
“Ah-ah-ah!” Couleuvre bent over him, wagging a finger. “Naughty boy. You do not get to do that. That is not how this is going to go.”
He issued an instruction to the other zuvembies. In no time, the Thirteeners, Albertine and Professor Seidelmann were up on their feet, all held fast by the creatures. Tartaglione and Pearce were both being supported rather than standing. The former was semiconscious. The latter was bent double over the broom handle that impaled him, breathing hard against the pain.
“Better,” said Couleuvre. His accent was a blend of lyrical French and syrupy Caribbean, each word delivered with a wry languidness. He struck Lex as supremely self-assured, a man who knew exactly what he was and didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought. “So what do we have here? Some more American troops, come to see what became of the lost patrol. And dear old Professor Seidelmann. How have you been keeping, mon ami? I knew you were hiding somewhere. If you had had any sense, you would have built yourself a raft and got off the island. At the very least you might have lit a fire on the beach, hoping to attract some passing ship. But then you are not that resourceful, eh? You know I could have found you any time, had I looked. But the truth is, I could not be bothered. You were no threat to me.”
“Deslorges,” said Seidelmann. “François. Please. Listen. I brought these people down here. It was a trick. I knew full well we’d run into some of your zuvembies and most likely you too. I laid a trap, and they fell for it.”
“Backstabbing weasel-ass piece of shit,” Buckler hissed.
“I’m giving them to you as a peace offering,” Seidelmann continued, disregarding him. “They’re yours, and all I ask in return is that you let me go. You don’t have any argument with me. I just want to leave this place alive. Come on, we’re colleagues, aren’t we? I’ve treated you with respect. I gave you everything you needed to execute this... coup of yours. Fair’s fair, eh? Do me this favour, in return for the many favours I’ve done you.”
Lex couldn’t decide whether Seidelmann had genuinely played them for fools or he was desperately, cravenly concocting a story in order to save his own skin. Either way, the sheer shamelessness of it was breathtaking.
“As I recall, Gulliver,” said Couleuvre, “you never acted like I was your equal. To you I was just some dumb Third Worlder with some handy bits of knowledge you could use. Now I’m the one calling the shots. The shoe is on the other foot. How does that feel? Not so nice, I imagine.”
“François, I’m begging you...”
Couleuvre cut him off with a slash of the hand. “I will deal with you later. Hmm, now what is this?” He had turned his attention to Albertine. “I am liking what I see. I am liking it very much.”
Albertine said nothing, just met his scrutiny with a hostile, imperious glare.
“But wait. There is the smell of mambo on you.” Couleuvre put his face close to hers and took a lengthy, theatrical sniff. “Oh yeah, ma cherie. You reek of the sevis loa and th
e Rada nachon, the slow, cool spirits. Nice and safe, that is how you like it. Who are your husbands? Damballah maybe? Yeah, I think so.” He snorted in derision. “A loa who cannot even stand the sight of blood. You have to take the sacrificial animals to another room before cutting them up. Cannot do it in front of him. How pathetic is that? A snake loa, but a snake without venom or fangs. You would be better off being married to a mouse!”
He chortled long and hard at his joke. Albertine simply said, “Compassion and wisdom are not weaknesses. Mock Papa Damballah at your peril.”
Couleuvre found this amusing too. “I mock who I want, when I want. There is nothing I fear. I have power like you wouldn’t believe. And you.” He swung round, bringing himself back to Lex. “Pick him up,” he said to the two zuvembie Marines.
They dragged Lex upright.
“Who are you?” Couleuvre sounded quizzical, intrigued. “I sense the Baron all over you. These soldiers from America, they have killed, of course, but not as much as you have and not in the way that you have. Yes, you have been the Baron’s ambassador for many years. You may not realise it but it is true. You are unique in that it is all you have done—brought death to others. Death has been your living.”
Lex acted nonchalant. Legba, after all, had said much the same to him that very morning.
“The Baron smiles on men like you,” Couleuvre went on. “You venerate him with every trigger you pull, every knife you slide in, every bomb you detonate. Oh, I do like you.”
“The feeling,” Lex said, “is not mutual.”
“It does not have to be. But is it not pleasing to know that someone appreciates your talents? I doubt you have ever been thanked or congratulated for your work. Au contraire. You are a grubby little secret, n’est-ce pas? Your country would never admit to knowing you, let alone giving you your orders. And what is worse is, you are so good at it. Murder. If you had not been able to do it for a living, legitimately, how would you have coped, I wonder? What would you have done with yourself? Where would you have channelled that ability to switch off your conscience and kill?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know me.”
“I know me,” said Couleuvre, “and I know the Baron, and I know that the three of us have much in common, monsieur. That is enough.”
“Well then, since we’re so alike,” said Lex, “you surely won’t have a problem with me telling you that I will find a way of making you next on my list of victims.”
Couleuvre opened and closed his hand in the air like a yapping mouth: big talk. “You cannot lay a finger on me. Your fate is in my hands. Same goes for all of you. I can snuff you out, all of you, easy as a candle flame. Want proof?”
He swivelled back round to Professor Seidelmann.
“This man.”
Seidelmann cringed.
“This scientist.” He spat the word like a curse.
“François, please...” Sweat had popped out on Seidelmann’s brow.
“Who believed I was working for him when actually he was working for me. A user who got used. A man who thought his test tubes and microscopes were somehow superior to my spells and potions.”
Couleuvre pointed to one of the pair of zuvembies who were holding Seidelmann between them.
“Show monsieur le professeur the parts of him he never expected to see. Show him how complacent and blinkered he has been. Show him the error of his ways.”
“François, I helped you. I gave you the opportunity to achieve something you’d never have been able to alone—V.I.V.E.M.O.R.T. And I paid you well, goddammit. Don’t do this, I implore you. I’ll—”
The zuvembie plunged a hand into Seidelmann’s abdomen like a blunt sword. Seidelmann’s eyes bulged. The zuvembie’s arm disappeared into him, halfway to the elbow. Seidelmann’s mouth gaped soundlessly. The zuvembie twisted hard and drew its arm out, clutching a fistful of glistening innards. It held them up to Seidelmann’s face, obeying Couleuvre’s orders to the letter. Then it dumped them on the floor and delved into the professor’s belly again.
Albertine choked in horror. Buckler, Morgenstern and Sampson looked on pale-faced and aghast.
Seidelmann didn’t even scream. It was as though this obscene intrusion went beyond pain. The torment overloaded his nerve endings. His mind was unable to process the magnitude of the signals it was receiving. He gazed down at himself in disbelief as the zuvembie fetched out more and more of his soft slippery vitals. The creature, which was in part his own creation, was ferreting around inside him as though he were a lucky dip, a bran tub full of prizes.
Because he did not scream, it was not clear at what point during the process Seidelmann died. It was over within a minute. There was at least that.
Throughout, Papa Couleuvre simply smiled.
And kept his eyes fixed, not on Seidelmann, but on Lex.
THIRTY-TWO
THE PERFECT WORKERS
“IMPRISON THEM,” SAID Couleuvre to his zuvembies. “I can always do with more workers but I do not have time to perform the transformation ritual right now. Take all of their weapons away, put them in a room, and guard them well. I will come for them later.”
The zuvembies started relieving the Thirteeners of their guns, knives and grenades. They did it brusquely, as though stripping fruit from trees. The weapons formed a sizeable heap on the floor beside the sprawled, hollowed-out remains of Professor Seidelmann.
The zuvembies then herded the SEALs and Albertine into a knot. Lex was shoved forward to join them.
“Not him,” said Couleuvre. “The Baron’s man interests me. I would like to have a little chitchat with him.” He beckoned to Lex. “This way.”
Lex threw a quick glance at Albertine: It isn’t over. Don’t give up. While I’m alive, there’s always something I can do. Albertine nodded, understanding, though not believing. He noted that she still had her shoulder bag. Good. Not all of their weapons had been confiscated, then.
The zuvembie Marines frogmarched him off.
“So, you have a name, Baron’s man?” Couleuvre asked as their little procession descended the stairs.
“Dove.”
“A first name?”
“Not for you.”
Couleuvre chuckled. “Okay, Monsieur Not For You Dove. If that is how you prefer it. There is no need to be unfriendly. I believe you and I have much more uniting us than dividing us. You just have to be shown.”
“Having seen how you treat your friends,” Lex said, “you’ll forgive me if I keep my distance.”
“Seidelmann, you mean? A fool and a failure. So arrogant, so convinced of his own greatness.”
“And you’re not?”
“I have reason to be arrogant,” said Couleuvre matter-of-factly. “You only have to consider what I have accomplished, not just at Anger Reef but in my entire life. I was born in Cité Soleil, the largest slum in Port-au-Prince, not to mention the largest slum in the western hemisphere. My mother was a prostitute and my father a petty criminal. She succumbed to AIDS and he to the Tonton Macoutes, both when I was small. I grew up with what they call ‘battery acid insides’—the perpetual gnawing hunger that comes from having never enough food to eat. I foraged and fought. I had nothing, nothing at all, except rage and a will to better myself, to become feared and powerful, able to command respect. And that I have achieved, through my determination, my inner strength, and my engagement—my pact of loyalty—with Baron Samedi.”
“A self-made madman.”
“Peut-être.” Couleuvre sounded genial, but Lex caught a flash of malevolence in his eyes. He should, he realised, be careful not to goad the bokor too far. Not if he wished to survive this encounter. “Within my community, I am regarded as a force for good. People come to me when the authorities fail them—and the authorities always fail them. They know I can get things done. If you are being hassled by some thug, if your daughter has been raped or your son shot, if thieves have broken into your home and stolen everything, who do you turn to?
Not the police. Not the courts. They are worse than useless. The police are in the gangsters’ pockets. They are fat, lazy and corrupt. And the courts serve no one, except maybe the lawyers and their wallets and their egos. All over Haiti it is the same. Only someone like me can right wrongs. Only someone with real power like me can get you the justice you crave.”
“And in return you take people’s money.”
“Of course. Of course. Who works for free? Certainly not you, Monsieur Dove. It is no disgrace that I get paid for my services. It does not diminish what I do. The loa themselves demand tribute—gifts, food, trinkets. Why should not I? It is the same when I heal the sick. Believe me, I charge less than some doctors, and I am more likely to get results. If you have talked to Professor Seidelmann, you probably have an image of me as a wicked creature, a hyena in human form. This is far from the truth.”
“What are you, then?” Lex asked.
“A dreamer. A schemer. An idealist. A man who intends to hold to account those who should be held to account.”
“Meaning...?”
They had reached Sublevel 3, identical to the two sublevels above but dingier and noisier. Sounds of thumping and crunching reverberated along the passage from far away, and the air was tinged with a fine, powdery dust that tasted and smelled like concrete.
“Meaning I am prepared to confront and challenge someone whose acts of violence have blighted the world,” said Couleuvre.
“I hate to break it to you, but Osama bin Laden’s dead.”
“I am not talking about any mere terrorist. Not someone who has snuffed out a few hundred lives here, a few hundred there. No, my target is the greatest source of injustice there has ever been.”
Jigsaw pieces started to slot into place in Lex’s mind. A vague outline of an idea was taking shape. He could almost grasp what Couleuvre was getting at, and it seemed as absurd as it was appalling.
Age of Voodoo Page 23
