Unsympathetic Magic

by Laura Resnick

  “Where was Detective Lopez?” asked Max.

  “He was in the bed, too.”

  “And you were . . . what?” Jeff said. “Ministering to his wounds? Playing gin rummy? Discussing the Middle East peace process?”

  “Okay, fine,” I said, feeling my cheeks get hot again. “We had argued, and we were making up.”

  “In the bed,” Jeff said, clearly enjoying my embarrassment.

  “Yes.”

  “And did your dress get torn to shreds during the argument, or was it during the making up?”

  “Um, the argument. No, the making up.” Wishing the floor would open up and swallow me, I said, “Does it matter?”

  “Just trying to get the facts straight.” Jeff reached over to me and brushed aside my hair. “Is that a hickey? No, it’s several hickeys. The boy plays rough, doesn’t he?”

  “Stop that!” I slapped aside his hand.

  “Please continue, Esther,” said Max, deliberately assuming his most scientifically detached expression.

  “Well, uh . . .” I tried to think of how to phrase it. “The occasion, um, called for the removal of the gris-gris bag.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Max.

  “And the bed exploded,” I concluded.

  “Just like that?” Jeff asked.

  “Yes.” I touched the pouch that hung around my neck and inhaled its reassuring stink. “Max, will this thing protect me now?”

  Jeff said, “Well, have any beds exploded into flames since you put it back on?”

  “Shut up,” Frank and I said in unison.

  Max said to me, “I believe it would be unwise for you to remove the charm again until we have confronted our adversary and gained control of the poppet made in your image.”

  Frank asked anxiously, “Is there a poppet made in my image?”

  “Has your bed caught fire?” Jeff asked him.

  Frank had experienced no ill effects (apart from anxiety, terror, and insomnia) in the time between fleeing Mount Morris Park on Monday night and fleeing his apartment this evening after being attacked by Biko. So Max decided that he was probably not in danger from a voodoo doll.

  “Nonetheless,” Max said, “it would be advisable for all of us to wear some form of protection. Particularly in view of what happened to Esther and Detective Lopez tonight.”

  Jeff smirked at me. I ignored him.

  “Esther,” Max added, “there would also certainly be no harm in our renewing the power of your protective charm.”

  “In the laboratory?” I guessed.

  “Yes. Frank, perhaps you would be so good as to continue your recitation downstairs?”

  Frank nodded wearily, and he and Jeff rose to follow Max.

  We heard a sudden, piercing wail come from the far side of the shop, followed by the slapping and slamming of rapidly opening and closing doors and drawers.

  Frank screamed and hid behind me, his eyes rolling in terror. Jeff looked around for a weapon and grabbed the coffeepot.

  “What are you going to do with that?” I took the pot away from him, then said to both men, “Calm down. It’s just the possessed cupboard.”

  “The what?” said Jeff.

  “That thing tries my nerves,” Max said, proceeding toward the back of the shop and downstairs to the laboratory.

  “Come on,” I said to Jeff. “I’ll show you.”

  Since Frank was clinging to me for dear life, he came along by default.

  Along the far wall of the shop there was a massive, dark, very old wooden cupboard. It had a profusion of drawers and doors, and it was about six feet tall and at least that wide. As I understood it, the cupboard was enchanted. Or cursed. Or possessed. Whatever. Anyhow, it could be dormant and inert for weeks at a time, but then suddenly, without warning, it would act up again.

  At the moment, one of its drawers was opening and closing repeatedly, while thick smoke and a wailing scream poured out of it.

  “Holy shit,” said Jeff.

  Frank buried his face against my back and started sobbing.

  “I know it’s annoying,” I said. “But it’s really best just to ignore it.”

  I gave Nelli a worried look. She disliked the cupboard and usually barked ferociously at it when it acted up. But she was just staring at it now with glazed, listless eyes.

  “She needs a vet,” I said.

  Frank paused in his hysteria long enough to lift his head and look at the dog. “You’re right,” he agreed. “She looks worse now than when I got here.”

  “Esther?” Max’s voice floated up from the cellar.

  “Coming!” I called. Then I said to my companions, “Protective charms first. Then a vet for Nelli.”

  Jeff said, “I am not wearing something like that foul thing you’ve got around your neck, Esther.”

  “Yours won’t be nearly this smelly,” I assured him, having no idea whether I was telling the truth. What did I know about voodoo charms? “The bokor doesn’t have strands of your hair, after all.”

  Nelli gave a little groan and decided to lie down. I cast her another worried look, then turned toward the back of the shop. There was a little cul-de-sac there with some storage shelves, a utility closet, a bathroom, and a door marked PRIVATE. The door led to a narrow, creaky stairway.

  At the top of the stairs, there was a burning torch stuck in a sconce on the wall. It emitted no smoke or heat, only light; and it had been burning steadily ever since I had met Max, fueled by mystical power.

  My two companions blinked at it in surprise, but chose not to ask about it.

  Instead, Jeff said to me, “So how is Lopez? Alert and sober?”

  “Yes.”

  I began descending the steps. Jeff followed me, and Frank brought up the rear.

  “Then he’s got amazing recuperative powers.” Jeff asked, “Was he freaked out by your burning bed?”

  “He was alarmed,” I said. “I’m the one who was freaked out. Lopez expects an arson investigator to explain it rationally.”

  “That could happen, you know.” When I didn’t respond, Jeff said, “So are you two back together now?”

  “No. He still thinks I’m deranged.”

  Apparently my tone discouraged further conversation. Jeff said nothing else. We reached the bottom step in silence.

  Max’s laboratory was cavernous, windowless, and shadowy. The walls were decorated with charts covered in strange symbols and maps of places with exotic names. Bottles of powders, vials of potions, and dried plants jostled for space on the cluttered shelves. Beakers, implements, and tools lay tumbled and jumbled on the heavy, dark furniture.

  Frank momentarily forgot his fears and looked around in wonder. “Cool.”

  Max was at his workbench, burning incense and chanting quietly as he sprinkled something on the charms he was preparing.

  Jars of herbs, spices, minerals, amulets, and neatly assorted kinds of claws and teeth sat on densely packs shelves and in dusty cabinets. There were antique weapons, some urns and boxes and vases, several Tarot decks, some runes, a scattering of old bones, and a Tibetan prayer bowl. An enormous bookcase was packed to overflowing with many leather-bound volumes, as well as unbound manuscripts and scrolls.

  “Man, the set designer for The Vampyre should see this place!” said Frank.

  “Pardon?” I said, resisting the urge to peer over Max’s shoulder.

  “The Vampyre.” Frank spelled it for us. “A friend of mine works for the producer. It’s an off-Broadway show they’re mounting for a limited run this season. It’s a showcase for that actor from that canceled TV series.”

  “Off-Broadway? This season?” Jeff asked alertly. “Any parts?”

  “Not for a brother, man,” Frank said with regret. “It’s set in nineteenth-century Europe. All white people.” He looked at me. “You know, you might be right for it. They’re looking for a couple of actresses in their mid-twenties who fit a historical style.”

  “What’s it called again?” I asked. “The Vampyr
e?”

  Frank nodded. “Based on the story by John Polidori.”

  “Who?” I said.

  Jeff looked apologetically at Frank. “She’s practically illiterate.”

  Ignoring Jeff, Frank said, “He was a companion of Lord Byron’s.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Hence the historical aspect of the production.”

  Max ceased chanting and said, “Frank?”

  I said to Frank, “And they’re auditioning now?”

  “In a couple of weeks,” he said.

  Max said, “Jeffrey?”

  “Excellent!” I would make sure Thack got me into that audition.

  “Esther?” Max said.

  “Yes, Max?”

  “The charms are ready to be donned.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “You want to keep the charm close to your heart,” Max explained to the men.

  He uttered an incantation as he slipped a thin leather string over each of their heads, from which the charms hung like pendants. The pouches were smaller than mine. There was a distinctly musty odor coming from them. I decided not to ask what was inside the tiny bags.

  “I think I feel safer now.” Frank closed his fist over his gris-gris bag, took a deep breath, then smiled. “Yeah! I do feel safer!”

  Jeff sniffed his pouch. “I comfort myself with the knowledge that Puma will understand. Speaking of which, I’ve called her four more times. That Vodou ceremony’s got to be over by now.” He said anxiously, “She’s really missing.”

  “And her brother’s gone insane,” Frank said.

  I gathered that Jeff had explained to him exactly who had attacked him. I asked Frank to explain to me what had happened this evening. While he did so, Max had me sit next to his workbench, so he could modify my gris-gris bag without removing it from around my neck.

  Even firsthand, Frank’s story still didn’t make any sense. Until joining Jeff and Max in the bookstore tonight, he’d never even heard of Puma, let alone had any contact with her. And his only contact with Biko had been on Monday night, when the young man had rescued him.

  Yet tonight, for reasons unknown to anyone, Biko had come to his apartment without warning, broken down his door, and tried to kill him.

  “Based on Frank’s description of Biko’s demeanor,” Max said, “I now believe that Biko was possessed at the time.”

  Frank explained to me, “The kid’s eyes didn’t blink. His face was frozen in a blank expression. He didn’t speak. He didn’t react when I threw things at him. Not even when whiskey got in his eyes. It was like he was on autopilot.” Frank clutched his gris-gris pouch again. “I figured he was on PCP or something. Possession never occurred to me.”

  “Max, do you mean spirit possession?” I asked, aghast. “Like what happened to Lopez?”

  “No. I believe Biko’s condition is a form of possession which is sometimes called the white darkness,” Max said gravely. “In the grip of this evil influence, the living can be made to do things they would never do otherwise.”

  “White darkness,” I repeated. “Could the bokor inflict this on someone?”

  “It would seem so. And it’s such a dangerous thing to do that it convinces me that the crisis must be very near.”

  “Dangerous for me, certainly,” Frank said.

  “For everyone,” said Max. “In the throes of possession, Biko—and Puma, if she has also been enthralled—may do terrible things that, as living people rather than as reanimated corpses, they will have to answer for before the law.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, realizing what he meant. “If Frank hadn’t gotten away this evening, Biko’s life would be ruined. He’d be a murderer!”

  “Er, my life would be ruined even more,” Frank pointed out. “I’d be dead.”

  “Or you’d be a zombie now,” I said absently. “The bokor might not waste such an obvious opportunity to replace the corpse that had to be discarded.”

  “Okay, this is my body that you’re talking about killing and raising from the dead,” Frank said to me. “So could you speak with a little more sensitivity, please?”

  “Lots of luck with that, man,” Jeff said.

  “Possessing living beings is also dangerous for the bokor,” said Max. “Having raised zombies, created baka, and tormented young Shondolyn, the bokor is expending still more power by controlling Biko—of whom control was perhaps gained by possessing Puma first.”

  Jeff frowned with concern. “I don’t really buy this ‘white darkness’ thing, Max, but I do agree that Biko would be easy to manipulate by threatening Puma.”

  “This expenditure of power is costly. It must surely require additional obeisance and offerings to the dark loa whose favor the bokor courts.” Max added, “And since Biko and Puma are living beings, with friends and responsibilities, their absence has already been noticed.”

  “Compared to the corpses, who were probably missing for weeks before anyone noticed,” I said, nodding. “So the bokor must be getting desperate! Possessing people who’ll be missed almost immediately and whose behavior will have complicated consequences.”

  “The additional danger,” Max said, “is that the bokor will consider Biko and Puma expendable once they have served their purpose, and command them to perform a fatal act.”

  “Kill themselves?” Jeff said, appalled.

  Max nodded. “However, clearly one of the tasks the bokor has assigned to Biko is the murder of Frank.”

  “Tasks?” Frank repeated. “You’re calling my murder a task now?”

  “With that, er, feat still unaccomplished,” Max said, “Biko is presumably not yet expendable. So I believe we have time to rescue him.”

  “What about Puma?” Jeff demanded.

  “Without knowing the purpose for which she was possessed, we cannot be sure,” Max said. “But I strongly recommend optimism.”

  Looking at Jeff’s worried expression, I decided not to mention the obvious reason Puma might have been possessed: to make Biko vulnerable. Now that he was under the bokor’s command, his sister might indeed be expendable.

  “Well, I can at least tell you where to start looking for them,” Frank said. “In the basement of that building. That’s where I saw the zombies.”

  “Oh, that’s so creepy!” I said. “They’ve been down there all this time?”

  Frank said, “I don’t know about ‘all this time.’ I only know what I saw Monday night.”

  “What exactly happened that night?” I asked.

  Frank began by explaining to us that, in contrast to the negative reaction that most people had to Napoleon, he enjoyed herpetology and was interested in the snake.

  “You enjoy what?” I asked.

  “The study of reptiles and amphibians.” He added, “I’m a huge Animal Planet fan.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But Napoleon’s owner is a crazy old bitch on wheels,” he said. “You know what I mean?”

  “I do,” I said.

  Mambo Celeste had rebuffed Frank’s interest in the snake during the couple of weeks he’d been filling in for Jeff at the foundation. Then on Monday, Frank had stayed late after class, using the classroom as rehearsal space for a new audition monologue he was working on. By the time he was ready to leave, early in the evening, the building was quiet and seemed empty. So he gave in to the temptation to go into the basement and observe the snake in its cage.

  “Yuck,” I said.

  “Snakes are beautiful, Esther,” he said earnestly. “You just have to learn how to appreciate them.”

  “Whatever.”

  Having learned, during his short time at the foundation, that snakes were revered in Vodou, he also felt some interest in learning more about the faith.

  “Mambo Celeste cold-shouldered me about that, too,” he said. “But at least Dr. Livingston was happy to talk to me about it.”

  “You mean, talk at you?” I said.

  “Well, yeah,” he admitted. “She doesn’t have a sparkling personality, but she’s
very knowledgeable. A person who’s willing to listen could learn a lot from her.”

  While observing the sleeping snake in its glass cage downstairs, Frank had heard voices chanting in Creole. Giving in to his fledgling interest in Vodou, despite knowing the mambo would react badly if he intruded on her, he had followed the sound by walking out of the hounfour, down a narrow hallway, and toward a room at the end of the corridor.

  Curious enough to risk a tongue-lashing from the mambo, he had opened the door a crack and peered inside the room.

  “And the first person I saw was one of my students,” he said. “A girl named Shondolyn.”

  “Shondolyn!” I cried at the same time that Max leaped from his chair.

  Frank fell back a step, startled by our reaction.

  “Go on!” I said.

  “Go on!” said Max.

  “Uh . . .” Frank looked at us a moment longer, wondering at our excitement, then continued, “I waved to her, thinking that if she was there, maybe I’d be welcome and could sit in on the service.”

  Though looking directly at him, Shondolyn had not acknowledged him or waved back. That surprised him. Although prone to drowsiness and bad temper, Shondolyn was a pretty good student, and Frank felt he had developed a rapport with her. So he was puzzled that she didn’t respond to his silent greeting. As his hand motions grew bigger, it occurred to him that she wasn’t ignoring him; she didn’t see him. Her face was blank and passive as she chanted in Creole—a language, he suddenly realized, she had mentioned in class that she couldn’t understand. He also recalled that Shondolyn described herself as a good Christian.

  Wondering what the hell this Christian girl was doing standing blank- faced in a Vodou ritual, chanting in a language she didn’t know, Frank said her name loudly.

  “And that was when all hell broke loose.” He shuddered briefly before continuing his story.

  Frank heard a woman shriek inarticulately on the other side of the door he was pushing open. Then the door slammed into him, hitting his head and knocking him backward into the hallway. He tripped and fell. He heard a voice inside the room, issuing orders. As he was rising to his feet, four . . .

  “I guess they really were zombies?” Frank said dispiritedly.

  “Yes,” said Max.