Tropic of Darkness

by Tony Richards

  When Dolores reached the first floor hallway, she went through into the dining room. She wound up huddled underneath the long mahogany table, crouched there like some frightened animal.

  She tipped her head to one side, listening for yells from upstairs. There were none so far, but she knew that wouldn’t last much longer. She didn’t want to hear it. She wanted to be somewhere else. But yet again, there was no choice.

  One faint notion came into her thoughts. It went against everything she’d ever understood. But try as she might, she could not dispel the idea that—by some miracle—the men upstairs might just prevail. Impossible—she knew that too. But it kept wandering through her head.

  They’ll punish you for this as well, she scolded herself angrily. Punish you for your idiotic longings and your treasonous imaginings.

  The housekeeper closed her eyes, and tried to keep her mind completely blank.

  * * *

  When he saw the direction this was going, saw the shapes that were being created, Jack expected the smoke to form complete, fully visible bodies. The same two figures who’d appeared to him inside his dreams.

  But it didn’t happen, not at first. They were as insubstantial as echoes.

  The smoke remained high in the air, and managed to arrange itself into a strange display of curved gray lines. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking at, at first. Then comprehension dawned on him.

  These were a pair of thinly detailed faces he was staring at, drawn in swift brief strokes on the dimness. He could just make out the cheekbones, and the mouths and ears.

  Below those were four more smudges that were each partly segmented, and he thought that they might be two pairs of hands. The hands looked much as they had before, ready to grab hold of pretty much anything that came near them—like claws. A hardness started weighing down his stomach, but he couldn’t shift his focus from them.

  He could hear Luis’s heavy breathing not far from his ear. And Leland Hague was muttering, “What is this?”

  The final pale gray wisps of smoke drifted into place, becoming dense, creating circles where the sisters’ eyeballs ought to be. Then they took on very faint traces of color—green for one, and hazel for the other. These glowed in the darkness with a pallid luminosity.

  No one in the room was moving; all were frozen to the spot.

  It was Torres who broke the impasse. The Babaaláwo had set his carved staff down on the edge of the chalked circle. Now, he snatched it up, and began yelling out.

  The sisters’ reaction was worse than Jack could possibly have imagined.

  Lucia’s gaze widened a little, a smirk forming on her insubstantial mouth. Isadora’s gaze hardened, becoming icy and savage.

  Torres kept on chanting. And then, without any warning, he bent down and scooped up the bowl in which he’d mixed the purifying fluid, the omiero.

  And flung its contents at the shapes in one swift motion.

  The stuff never reached them. Halfway through the air, it shimmered, then flared up and blazed.

  The liquid fizzled away, leaving not even the faintest curl of vapor.

  Aghast, Torres stared at the figures before him. There was no doubt in his mind that he had done everything right. No one could have prepared the omiero better. It should have been like acid to the twins, but it had had absolutely no effect.

  The bowl dropped from his nerveless grasp, smashing to the floor. Instinctively, he crossed his forearms over his chest in an attempt to shield himself.

  The outlines of the two ghost women got abruptly stronger, coming into focus like a lens had been turned in the camera that was reality. They were like they had been in Jack’s dreams, fleshy, real, fully formed.

  The green-eyed sister’s smile grew ominously broader. And her twin’s gaze burned so fiercely that it looked as if it might catch fire. They started to lift higher and move noticeably closer. Somebody in the group let out a moan.

  Their narrow fingers twitched, long, sharp nails glinting.

  A curious new sound began to fill the room.

  It was like some massive breath being released. But it did not slow down or peter off. It kept resounding, taking on a higher pitch.

  The hems of Torres’s clothes began to flap. A proper wind was blowing up inside the house—inside the very room. He felt himself go rigid.

  His skin was being pressed back on his cheeks. His hair was being ripped at, and he was finding it hard to breathe. The current of air round him was transforming to a gale.

  He realized with sudden terror what the twins were trying to do.

  “Get down on the floor!” he yelled out. “Hold on to each other! Hold on tight!”

  The wind rose to a deafening shriek. The pressure of the rushing air made any movement difficult. But he knew that at least one part of his preparations had had some effect.

  The ring of chalk. The candles inside it were flickering insanely, but not going out. The circle that he’d outlined—it was genuinely protecting them.

  He managed to turn clumsily around. Grabbed Jack by the shoulders, started pushing the man down. But there were problems he had not foreseen.

  In the first place, there’d barely been room for all five of them when they had been standing up. Sit down with their legs splayed, and they’d edge outside the circle.

  And what about Hague? Torres glanced over, and could make out the older man’s horrified expression. He looked like he was going into shock, unable to take in any of this.

  But it was the American who most needed protecting. Torres pressed his mouth against Jack’s ear.

  “They’re trying to blow us out of the circle! Get down on the floor!”

  He dragged at the Norteamericano. And the others, following his lead, tried to hunker down as well.

  All except for Luis, who appeared to have completely lost his mind.

  Purest fear was doing that. Torres could only stare across, horrified by the look on his face.

  His jaw was hanging wide, his tongue on the verge of lolling out. There was something primal flaring in his eyes, a kind of maddened electricity. Torres thought he could see what was coming. Didn’t release his grip on Jack, but reached out with his other hand.

  His fingers groped through the swiftly moving air. But he couldn’t reach the younger man. He tried yelling a warning to the others, but his words were torn to shreds.

  Luis started edging sideways.

  The boy’s mouth had started moving, but it didn’t look like he was properly forming words. Far more like the babbling of a mind that was becoming rapidly unhinged. Jack now saw what was going on, and edged his body toward Luis.

  But it was far too late.

  Luis noticed the attempt to grab him. Backed away another step. And after that, Torres could only watch.

  For the love of all the saints! The boy had stepped outside the circle.

  Torres’s focus shot up to the twins, expecting them to close in on him immediately. They had seen what had happened, but they both just grinned a little wider.

  And young Luis took that for a chance. He dropped to a low crouch, bolted, and was gone into the corridor.

  * * *

  The wind seemed to follow Luis as he ran, its cold breath on his neck.

  If he had been thinking clearly, Luis would have realized that that in itself was very strange. It had been blowing in the opposite direction, back in the dim central room. And how could any current flow in two directions at once?

  But every last scrap of reason had evaporated; his mind was no longer controlling his body, which was being driven by pure impulse.

  Alone. That was the notion echoing through his thoughts as he pounded down the corridor. He was beginning to see the terrible mistake he’d made. At least there had been other people around him, back in the chalked circle. That was no longer the case.


  He was now alone with the horror. Wanted to turn back, but couldn’t see how that was possible. The only thing that he could do was keep on running.

  The corridor seemed longer than when they’d first come up, the landing and its balustrades impossibly distant. He pumped his legs even harder.

  And the screeching, moaning gale . . . it seemed to be propelling him along by this stage, making him go faster than he could have on his own. Why should that be?

  By the time he burst onto the landing, he was going so fast that he could barely stop. He shrieked, stumbling forward. His thigh collided with the banisters, and he had to grab on tight to stop himself from tipping.

  Luis stared down, breath hissing in his skull. Everything below him seemed to blur into one solid mass. He jerked away, then tried to pivot around and carry on.

  But he couldn’t manage it. The wind was holding him firmly in place. Its pressure became so intense that his whole body from the waist up was forced over the drop again.

  Hadn’t there been something else down there, something he had noticed when they’d first come in? A massive, cast-iron chandelier, hanging down the stairwell on a heavy chain. But now, he couldn’t see it.

  Things that size didn’t simply disappear.

  Then everything around him seemed to change. It wasn’t physical—he didn’t think so, anyway. It was more a matter of perception.

  The wind was still there, and still holding him. But its noise—which had been deafening—weakened to a subtler tone.

  The darkness seemed to lessen slightly. And the additional light was not coming from any source. The air around him simply looked like it had taken on a hazy quality.

  The tiles below him became crisper, more distinct. They looked closer than they had been when he had first stared at them.

  But the whole rest of the house became as insubstantial as a close grouping of shadows.

  And after a short while, he began to realize what this was like.

  It was like being partly in a dream. And how could that possibly be?

  That was when the tall, slim woman wandered out across the tiles below him.

  He could only make out the top of her head at first, the black, lustrous hair. That and her olive shoulders, and the fact she had a long dress on, shimmering but also black. He only got brief glances of her feet, but they looked like they were bare. She kept on walking slowly until she was directly beneath him. Then she turned her face up, smiling.

  She had hazel eyes. And Luis felt his body jolt again.

  This was getting crazier with every passing second. The floor below him—it looked even nearer. And the walls around him had become so faint he almost imagined he could see the coastline through them. That strange glow that lit the air around him was still hazy, but it had strengthened.

  It seemed to be coming from the slender woman’s eyes. That was the genuinely weird thing. They were shining so brightly, like a pair of harsh flares behind amber glass. And the sight ought to have frightened him. He knew that. But it did not. That brilliant glow mesmerized him, like a moth. Luis felt his frame start to relax.

  Isadora’s full lips parted. He could hear a sigh come drifting out, and it was pleasant to his ears.

  This wasn’t right. He needed to be afraid of her. And ought to still be trying to get away. But something pushed that back to the far reaches of his mind.

  He could only stare down at her, utterly transfixed.

  Her lips parted once again. “Luis?”

  Her voice seemed to echo. His own mouth was painfully dry. He ran his tongue around it.

  “Yes?”

  “Why were you running, Luis? Why exactly are you so afraid?”

  He tried to remember, but could not. It seemed very distant to him, and he couldn’t pin the recollection down.

  The hazy light was working through his head and making him relax.

  Isadora reached out to him with both her arms. The fingernails were painted black, and bracelets made of jet and amber encircled her narrow wrists.

  “Come to me.”

  He tried to glance over at the staircase, but he couldn’t.

  “Just jump. You won’t be hurt.”

  He could see that she was right. The floor wasn’t that far down anymore. Luis paused, then climbed up on the rail.

  And when he pushed himself off it, something miraculous happened. As he launched his body out into thin air, the wind seemed to grasp him. It closed around his body like a gentle, guiding hand. And instead of plunging down, he drifted out above the tiles.

  He’d had dreams like this when he had been a child. This felt wonderful. And he was sure it was her doing. Her amazing gift to him. Luis stared down.

  He noticed that her smile had turned a little sour. Why was that?

  The warm light faded from her gaze, those hazel irises becoming cold and distant. She peered up at him another moment.

  Then, she disappeared.

  The milky glow around him vanished too. The walls came back, as solid as they had been.

  The wind was screeching around him again. The floor was just as distant as it had been when he had first looked.

  And the cast-iron chandelier was back. He was suspended directly above it.

  It hadn’t been made for lightbulbs. It came from an earlier age. The curving arms had holders spaced along them, in the shapes of clumps of leaves.

  Each one had an iron spike at its heart, to hold in place the candle that had used to sit there.

  There were dozens of them.

  Luis tried to turn in mid-air, snatching for the railings he had left behind. His fingers closed on nothing.

  The landing was at least ten feet away from him. No way of getting back.

  A wail was trying to rip out of his body when the wind stopped altogether, letting go.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-TWO

  Back in the main room, one of the twins had disappeared for a short while. But now she had come back. The wind hadn’t dropped for a moment, whatever might be happening outside. It was still howling with a savage, pure ferocity.

  But in spite of that, Torres could make out Luis’s final shriek, which rose in pitch, then stopped completely.

  Sadness welled up in him, then he found himself wondering why he‘d been able to hear it at all, with this racket going on. He believed he understood. The twins were letting the sounds reach him, using the boy’s dying moments to try to unnerve him.

  He had more sense than to let that happen. He steeled himself. But maybe the rest had heard it too? He let his head tip to the side.

  Yes, they’d been affected. Hague looked sickened, angry. He had still not sat down properly, and was teetering half-suspended on his crutches. Cruz and Gilliard looked mad with rage, the Yanqui in particular. They stared at the doorway with their jaws set rigid.

  Then, to Torres’s abject horror, they both started scrambling to their feet.

  This was precisely what the twins had wanted. He knew he couldn’t stop them, so he made a choice.

  He wrapped his elbows under Jack’s shoulders, pinning him like a wrestler and dragging him back down again. He could only watch as Manuel stood the rest of the way up. The wind slammed at the short man with a renewed vigor. He teetered, trying to keep his balance, but was trapped by his own actions. He could not sit down again. And nor could he advance.

  One of his feet slipped out from under him and he crashed over on his side. The wind continued dragging at him. He was being rolled across the circle’s edge, during the course of which, he somehow managed to get tangled up with Doctor Hague.

  * * *

  This was like the worst dream in the world, one in which you could see awful things unfolding all around you but were unable to stop them. Torres glanced up at the sisters’ outlines, and their eyes were laughing.

 
; The very next moment, Manuel went across the white chalked line, dragging the bewildered doctor with him. The wind appeared to ease a little at that point, just enough for the fellow to get to his feet. But every time that he tried to step back inside, another blast of air shoved him away.

  The twins’ hands darted forward, their slim fingers spreading wide. The wind cracked like a whiplash, picking both men up and slamming them against a wall.

  The high priest watched as Hague sank crookedly, all control leaving his mangled frame. The man’s eyes rolled in their sockets, and then his eyelids fluttered shut.

  But Manuel was still conscious. He looked hurt and concussed, goggling and blinking fiercely. His spine was against the wall, his legs splayed out in front of him, the force of the wind holding him in place.

  Something else moved, glinting in the corner of Torres’s vision. Gods, the ceremonial dagger he had used to sacrifice the birds. How could he have been so careless? It was lying just beyond the circle’s edge.

  The blade was rising into the air like some elongated bubble in a gloom-filled pond, candlelight flowing down its edges. Torres tried to think of a spell that might stop it, but could not. And Manuel hadn’t noticed what was happening as yet.

  The dagger rose to chest height, and then pivoted around until its tip was pointing at him. And Manuel finally caught sight of it and froze.

  There was a sharp flash as it plunged forward.

  Angled as it was, it should have killed him instantly. But at the very last moment, Manuel managed to pull his body over to one side. The blade slammed into his shoulder instead of his chest.

  It went straight through, pinning him to the wall. He wailed and tried to struggle. He was sweating, grimacing with pain. Taking hold of the bloody hilt, Manuel attempted to pull it loose. It wouldn’t budge. No amount of effort seemed to make it move. So he was trapped there like some bulbous moth.

  The twins promptly forgot about him. Their real target was Jack Gilliard. And they’d succeed before much longer, Torres understood. Nothing he’d tried so far had come anywhere near to fending them off.