I took a few long strides into the room, then stopped and stared. Mambo Celeste stood before an altar that was draped in red cloth and covered with frightening objects. My gaze briefly took in a dead snake in a jar of fluid, black candles, a desiccated human head, and a black wooden carving of a particularly nasty looking loa. She held Napoleon high over her head, stretched out between her arms, while she chanted. Her face was drenched with sweat, and her arms trembled under the strain of holding the heavy snake aloft.
The mambo whirled around at our abrupt entrance. Her face was a mask of shock. She and Max faced each other in tense silence for a moment.
I realized we weren’t alone in the room. Biko and Puma were both there, standing a few feet behind the mambo. I gasped and raised my sword, pointing it at Biko. But it was immediately apparent that he didn’t even know I was in the room.
He and Puma stood in identical positions, their arms raised in worship, their blank faces gazing unblinkingly at the eerie altar. They continued with the chant that the mambo had ceased when we burst into the room.
Looking at her now, Max said in a dark, furious voice, “You hurt Nelli!”
The mambo’s face contorted angrily and she started shouting at us in Creole. Max ignored her and swept his machete across the altar, destroying several ritual objects with a single blow.
The mambo screamed and threw her enormous snake at him. Max fell to the ground, wrestling with the writhing reptile. Puma and Biko continued chanting, motionless and unblinking. The mambo made a beeline for the door. I blocked her path. When she tried to shove past me, I hit her with my sword.
She shrieked in Creole and then hissed at me. She had done that earlier tonight, when I had been trying to rouse Lopez from his possession trance. Only this time, red mist poured out of her mouth.
The next thing I knew, I was lying in a pool of darkness, and Max was calling my name from far away.
I heard a groan. Then another. Upon hearing the next one, I realized that I was the one making that noise. I saw flashing lights, and they made me dizzy. I groaned again. My head was killing me.
“Esther! Esther!”
Someone was patting my cheeks, chafing my wrists, and shaking me gently. It was all very irritating. I tried to shove him away.
It dawned on me that the flashing lights were actually just the dazed fluttering of my eyelids. I willed myself to stop doing that. Peaceful darkness descended.
“Esther!” Max said. “Wake up! Are you all right? Esther!”
I opened my eyes, squinted against the candlelight, and saw Max peering down into my face.
“Oh, thank goodness! Esther?”
I tried to speak, coughed, then tried again. “Why am I on the floor?”
“In her escape, the mambo did something that made you pass out.”
I frowned . . . and then recalled her hissing a cloud of red mist at me. I shuddered in revulsion. “Oh. Right.”
Fortunately, the pain in my head was already fading.
“I believe you must have been unconscious before you hit the floor. You fell with quite a heavy thud,” he said. “I noticed it even though I was locked in mortal combat with Napoleon.”
“The snake!” I gasped and scrambled up off the floor with impressive speed for someone who’d been barely conscious a moment ago. “Where is it?”
“I have dispatched it.” Max rose, too, and gestured in the direction of the altar. “I don’t approve of cruelty to animals, but the circumstances were extreme. He was trying to suffocate me.”
I saw the snake’s head lying at some distance from his body, and realized that Max had killed the reptile with his machete. Napoleon’s blood was everywhere.
“That is so disgusting,” I said with feeling. Then I realized what Max had said right after I regained consciousness. “The mambo escaped?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Max. “She fled while you were unconscious and I was wrestling with the snake. By the time I beheaded the creature, I knew it was too late to find the mambo. And I couldn’t leave you, in any case. I wasn’t sure what she had done to you.”
“What’ll we do?”
“We shall proceed with destroying the altar and purifying this ritual space,” he said. “Then we will search the building for baka and zombies—though I suspect they are not here, or we would have encountered them already.”
Puma and Biko stood silently nearby, facing the altar.
“How do we get them to snap out of it?” I asked Max
“We have to destroy whatever substance the mambo used to enslave them. Considering what we know about Nelli’s possession . . . Ah. This may be what we’re looking for.”
Max found two small vials of blood on the altar. He picked them up, smashed them against the floor, then reached into his bag and pulled out a little bottle of holy water. He sprinkled the water over the blood and glass that lay on the floor while he said something in Latin; it sounded like a prayer.
A moment later, Puma swayed dizzily, put a hand up to her brow, and said, “Oh, my head . . .” She looked around the room and blinked in astonishment. “Esther? Dr. Zadok! What’s going on?”
Biko drew in a sharp breath, bent over suddenly, and clutched his head. “Ouch. What the hell . . .”
Puma gasped when she saw the altar. “I saw that before . . . What is this place? What’s happened?”
“This is the bokor’s lair,” I said. “You and Biko have been possessed by the white darkness. But you seem to be coming out of it now.”
I thought this was a pithy summary; but a lot of confused questions and outraged demands followed my statement.
While I explained what had been going on, Max was systematically destroying and purifying ritual objects throughout the room. Once the siblings understood the extent of what had been done to them, Biko and Puma joined in. I started looking for a poppet that resembled me. While searching the room, I slipped in some of Napoleon’s blood. I shuddered in revulsion and continued my search.
“Esther!” Puma pulled a doll out of an urn that sat before the altar. “I found it!”
“Oh, thank God!” Taking it from her, I scowled when I saw that the burlap doll was dressed in a leopard-skin blouse and a tiny red skirt. “That is so unfair! I was in costume that day! She can’t really think I go around dressed like that?”
“It’s good that you don’t get distracted by trivial things in a crisis, Esther,” said Biko.
Puma sent her brother a warning glance, then said, “Dr. Zadok? Let’s neutralize this poppet.”
“Immediately!” While Puma held the doll, Max baptized its little head in holy water. She prayed in Creole, he in Latin.
Then Puma held the head up to me, “Take back your hair and burn it. Not here, but later, in a safe place. When you go home.”
I pulled the fragile, tangled bits of brown hair off the poppet, relieved when I discovered that doing so didn’t make my own head hurt.
“Now tear open the doll with your own hands and remove the stuffing,” Puma said. “Take all the bits home with you and burn them separately.”
I did as instructed, then put the messy bits and pieces of my former poppet into my purse.
“Ah-hah!” Max cried. “I found it!”
He picked up a little jar from the overcrowded altar. We all gathered around to peer at it. Inside, there was a dog’s claw with some hair and dried flesh attached, as well as a quantity of dried blood.
“This whole dark magic thing is just so revolting!” I said.
Max smashed the jar against the floor, performed his purifying ritual, and then urged me to call Jeff. I did so. Jeff’s first question was about Puma, of course. I assured him she was fine.
“As are the rest of us, by the way.” I explained what had happened.
Max, Biko, and Puma continued tearing the room apart while I tried to convince Jeff to open the stairwell door and take a look at Nelli. I could hear Frank in the background, predicting that the two of them would die a violent, blo
ody death if Jeff did what I was asking.
Puma went down the hall to the hounfour to gather some positive ritual objects and bring them in here to start rebalancing the forces at work in this space.
“Why can’t this wait until you’re back?” Jeff said. “Then Max can be the one to risk his life to check on his dog’s mood.”
“Max can’t wait that long. He’s very worried about her.” Hearing a deafening silence in response to this, I said to Jeff, “Okay. I’ll just tell Puma that we’ve got to leave the rest of the work here up to her, because now we have to go home and check on Nelli since you’re too af—”
“All right,” he snapped. “All right. Hang on.”
In the background, Frank’s voice rose in volume. Then there was a moment of silence. When Jeff got back on the line, he described the dog’s demeanor in a puzzled voice.
I said to Max, “Jeff says there’s a purple dinosaur in Nelli’s mouth now.”
“Oh, that’s her favorite new toy. She must be feeling better!”
I relayed this information to Jeff.
He said, “Well, she’s standing right outside the stairwell door, with her ears perked up and her tail wagging, and that ridiculous thing in her mouth. So it looks like she’s back to normal.” There was a pause, and he added, “Now she’s whining. I think she wants us to come out and play with her.”
“Don’t disappoint her.”
“You’re bringing Puma back here, right?”
“Yes. When we’re done here.”
Cleansing the bokor’s dark work space took a lot of time, as did searching the empty building for baka and zombies. So we didn’t get back to the bookstore until after four o’clock in the morning. Looking and behaving much like her old self, Nelli woke up long enough to greet us all and show off her new dinosaur toy. Jeff was right, it was a ridiculous thing; but it made her happy. And it was good to see Nelli happy again, after the night’s terrible events.
Frank wouldn’t come out of the cellar until Biko had apologized for trying to kill him and assured him it wouldn’t happen again, and Max had taken Nelli upstairs and put her to bed for the night. Then Frank said it had been nice knowing us all, and he was leaving New York on the very next train to anywhere. He’d give Jeff a call in a week or two to see if this whole evil-bokorbaka-zombie thing had blown over yet.
The rest of us shared a celebratory pot of coffee and some stale cookies. I realized I was famished. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten.
“So Napoleon’s dead, huh?” said Jeff. “Can’t say I’m sorry to hear that.”
We had wound up leaving the body where it had fallen, and we left a note about the mess pinned to Catherine’s office door. None of us had any clear idea how to dispose of such a large dead animal in summer without causing a nasty stench until the next garbage collection day. I also thought that Catherine’s permissive treatment of the snake in life meant that she should damn well take responsibility for disposing of it in death.
“That thing would never even have been in a position to try to suffocate Max if Catherine had been sensible enough to ban such a big snake from the foundation,” I said.
Biko said, “Yeah, and knowing Dr. Livingston, that argument’s going to work really well with her when she finds a headless reptile corpse in a blood-soaked room in the foundation’s basement.”
As we had suspected, Puma had been ensnared first, then used as bait to victimize Biko. The mambo had asked Puma to accompany her to the supply room right before the ceremony began. The room was usually locked and Puma hadn’t been in there for several years, since the mambo controlled all the supplies used in the hounfour. Puma had entered the room, seen the dark altar, felt stunned and appalled . . .
“And then . . .” She gasped and put a hand over her mouth. “Now I remember! The mambo hissed at me, and some sort of—”
“Red mist,” Biko said suddenly.
“Yes!” she said. “Red mist.”
“It came pouring out of her mouth?” I said.
The Garlands both nodded. Puma didn’t remember anything that had happened after that, until we roused her hours later in the same room. Biko remembered that after he went downstairs, the mambo told him his sister had suddenly fallen ill and he should take her home. The woman had led him back to the same room, and when he saw Puma lying there unconscious, he panicked. He didn’t even notice the altar. Just his sister’s prone form. Then the mambo had knocked him out, too.
“And you’re saying I tried to kill that guy Frank?” Biko was stunned and appalled. “God, I can’t believe it! And I’m really lucky I didn’t get caught. No one would believe this voodoo possession stuff, least of all Esther’s cop friend. I’d have been sent to prison!”
“But what was the point of all this?” I wondered. “What was the goal?”
“We still don’t have the answer to that,” Max said, frowning thoughtfully. “And I believe it’s crucial to know.”
“Where are the baka?” Puma wondered. “And the zombies?”
“Man, you people are never satisfied,” said Jeff. “The dangerous reptile is dead. Celeste is exposed as some kind of dangerous nutbag who’d better never show her face again around here. And Nelli is back to her usual self. That all strikes me as a good night’s work.” He put his hand over Puma’s.
Biko looked at me and rolled his eyes. “We’ve got two baka and four zombies still lurking somewhere in Harlem. But Jeff’s satisfied with the night’s work, so I guess we’ll let it go.”
Puma glanced at Jeff, then at Biko. Then she looked at me and rolled her eyes.
“You each have a point,” Max said. “As Biko notes, there is still danger afoot. Connected, perhaps, to whatever the mambo’s goal was. Or is. For that reason, I suggest that everyone continue wearing their protective charms. Puma, Biko—I made a gris-gris pouch for each of you earlier tonight. Please wear them until we’re sure the danger has passed.” He looked up at the clock that hung on the wall. “And as Jeff notes, we have put in a good deal of work tonight. I propose that we start fresh after some rest. Due to the inclement weather, the sky isn’t light yet, but it will be soon.”
I realized how exhausted I was. Although I was nervous about the mambo still being on the loose, I also desperately craved sleep. And I was scheduled to be on a location shoot for D30 in about twelve hours, so I really needed to get some sleep. I didn’t need to look bright-eyed and perky to play Jilly C- Note, but I certainly needed to be on my toes.
23
I awoke late, feeling groggy and exhausted. I hadn’t gotten to bed until after seven o’clock in the morning; and it had been, after all, a very eventful night.
Moreover, I’d had to sleep on my lumpy couch. The ruined condition of my bed had actually slipped my mind, until I returned home around dawn and entered my bedroom. That was when I remembered exactly what had happened . . . and also realized that I hadn’t seen the flame-ravaged mattress sitting outside the building when I returned home. Someone had taken it during the night. A truly desperate Dumpster diver, apparently. However, even considering the useless condition of the mattress, I wasn’t that surprised. The quickest way to get rid of anything in New York was simply to put it outside on the sidewalk. I half suspected that Mambo Celeste could have disposed of the discarded zombie corpse that way.
So, all things considered, I was cranky and crotchety when I woke up, as well as still sleepy.
However, actors who let grass grow under their feet don’t get to eat or pay their rent. So I telephoned Thack while my coffee was brewing, and I told him about The Vampyre.
“You really want to be in a show about vampires?” he asked doubtfully.
“Thack, I’ve played a singing rutabaga, a half- naked forest nymph, and a crack whore. Why would vampires be beneath me?”
“All right, I’ll look into it and get back to you.”
“Don’t ‘look into it,’ ” I said irritably. “Get me the audition.”
“Somebody cer
tainly got up on the wrong side of the coffin this morning,” he said.
After ending the call, I packed up supplies for the day, realizing wearily that I wouldn’t return home until the early hours of the morning—at which time, I’d get to enjoy the luxury of sleeping on my couch once again.
Jilly C-Note’s boots smelled bearable after a couple of days with solid air freshener sitting inside them. The push-up bra and purple fishnet stockings were clean now, and the dry cleaner had done a good job with the sweat-stained Lycra top and unsavory vinyl skirt that I had dropped off on Friday; luckily, the plastic bag covering the clothes ensured they didn’t smell of smoke from last night’s mattress fire. I carefully packed the costume into a small duffle bag, along with two water bottles and some snacks, and I left my apartment.
Outside on the street, though reluctant to do so, I telephoned Lopez. I got his voice mail. I wondered if he wasn’t available . . . or if he had seen who was calling and decided not to answer. I left a message: “I’m on my way to teach class, and I just walked past an empty spot on the sidewalk where my mattress should be. Someone took it last night. So you’d better cancel the visit from the arson investigator, because there’s nothing for him to examine.”
As I was putting my phone away, a cardboard box blew out of a stairwell and hit me. I was startled, rather than hurt. The wind speed had continued increasing while I slept. It was dark and overcast today, the temperature was cooler, and it looked like we were in for a huge storm. I was glad I had included a rain slicker and a small umbrella when packing my duffle.
I called D30’s production office to see if the schedule had changed. They said no. Due to the delays caused by Nolan’s heart attack, they couldn’t afford to cancel this evening’s shoot unless it was raining all night and impossible to film, so I should still plan to be there.
I was walking several blocks east so that I could catch a subway train that would let me off close to the foundation. When I got to a major intersection, I saw that a suicidally brave cop was directing traffic there by hand; the power lines had been blown down by high winds, and the streetlights weren’t working. I found a similar situation up at 125th Street in Harlem when I exited the subway some time later.
Unsympathetic Magic Page 32
