by Derry Sandy
“Does it matter how?” She was silent for a moment. “I’m blind, but some things I can see better than those with sight can. Of late the things I see disturb me.”
“What do you see?” Kamara asked the woman.
“Bloody rivers, choked with the bloated bodies of many dead.” The silence hung heavily in the room once more. The only movement was that of shadows dancing on the walls, their sinuous forms quickened by the draft-blown candle flame.
“But you aren’t here to learn about the dreams of an old crone, right? Tarik, come here and show the man your marks.”
The boy stepped out of the shadows from a corner of the hut. The candle light cast his small face in a disturbing shade of orange. Pinpoints of light reflected in his eyes. He removed his threadbare t-shirt and turned to show his back. Kamara gasped quietly and Rohan stared at the boy’s back for a full minute, rising and leaning in for a closer inspection.
The boy’s entire back was covered in a detailed mural depicting three men in roman centurion armor doing battle with a legion of lagahoo, soucouyant, ghouls, and jumbies. Despite the apparently insurmountable odds the men prevailed. Above the entire scene blazed a stylized sun the rays of which were spears that pierced many of the host below. It was a stunning work, with every detail rendered with painstaking care. All of it was done in the silvery black ink of an Orderman’s ceremonial marks.
“I have never seen anything like that.”
“Well, I do have an artistic streak.” The old woman smiled.
“You did it?”
“All but the blackbirds on his wrist. He came to me with those.”
“You said he came to you? Your son or daughter placed him in your care?” Kamara asked.
“The boy is my grandson only because he is young and I’m old. One night there was a storm, the ocean swell threatened to wash away my little hovel, but it did not. Others were not so fortunate. In the morning I heard a babe squalling on the shore and I found him, in a wooden crate amongst the storm debris. No matter what you do, the smell of shape-shifter blood cannot be completely cleansed away. I knew he bore the marks and thus I knew he could bear more.”
“But, why would you mark him at all? How do you know what the marks mean? How do you know my name?”
The woman laughed. “One question at a time, Le Clerc. I have been around for a long time and I made a promise to someone that I intend to see through to the end. The person I made this promise to taught me about the marks and his dreams told him that you would come to me here. Kat paused as if she was weighing her next words. “Rohan, someone is working to kill us all and time is short. Stone House has chosen an inopportune time to dwindle to one warrior, his consort, a bodyguard, a part-time secretary turned seer, and a dog.”
“Technically the dog et cetera are not part of the Chapter,” Rohan muttered. “And how do you know about what is happening at Stone.”
“I hear some things and I see others.” Kat said, raising an index finger to one blind eye.
“What can you tell us about our enemy?” Kamara asked, elbowing Rohan.
“Unfortunately, not much. He wishes to open the Grey and we all know what that means; greyborn will come again and spread their taint to man. If the hole is big enough and is open long enough, man will be forced to fight for their survival as a species. Humanity is not ready for what the Grey has to offer. I have attempted to find him in the astral plane, but my only reward has been pain and terror. There is a wall of black evil surrounding him through which the third-eye cannot see.”
“Our part-time secretary-turned-seer may be able to penetrate that wall,” Kamara said with a wry smile.
“I’m impressed but she must tread with caution. What troubles me about our quarry is that I cannot determine his motives. If he wishes to tear the curtain between the Grey and the Absolute, he either has a means of controlling whatever comes through or he is just doing evil for its own sake. If the latter is true, he is reckless and even more dangerous.
“What should we do?” Rohan asked.
“Kill him. Lisa bought you some time, but he will eventually find or make another key.”
“Yeah, we kinda understand that we need to kill him, but how?”
“Well, you had a meeting with the Watchers today, what did you glean from them.”
“How do you know…never mind you seem to know it all.”
“Rohan Le Clerc, sometimes what seems to be mystical is actually fairly mundane. I had the boy follow you, spy on the meeting, and report back to me. Then he stole the necklace as a means of making an introduction.”
“Tarik, you sneaky little rat,” Rohan said in mock indignation. “He really sold being reluctant to comply with my requests to come back here. As for the meeting, it was not particularly informative and it ended abruptly.”
Just then Lisa barged into the house with Agrippa at her heels. “We have a problem. Some of the local residents want to speak to the old woman.”
“Call me Kat, please, the old woman nonsense can stop right now,” Kat said with exaggerated gruffness.
“Sorry ma’am, their words not mine,” Lisa said apologetically.
“Now, what could they possibly want with an old woman at this hour?” Kat said smiling.
“They are saying you are a witch and they want you gone from here,” Lisa replied.
“Witches and lagahoo and soucouyant? In this day and age who believes that nonsense anymore?” Kat spoke with a sarcastic smile and a wink of one blind eye.
The five of them went outside, Tarik leading Kat by the elbow. The moon had risen and the path leading to Kat’s house was bathed in silver. Kat leaned towards Tarik, adopting a feeble hunched posture and a mild demeanor that reflected every year of her advanced age. A group of about fifty people stood in the moonlit yard engaged in a silent face-off with Voss. To the uninitiated Voss appeared to be absentmindedly chewing a long grass stalk, but Rohan knew he was ready to commit violence should the need arise. Rohan approached the group, but he and Kamara stopped short of Voss. He could not put a finger on it but something about the crowd triggered an uneasy feeling in his stomach.
With hands raised and a broad grin he spoke. “Ladies and gentlemen, what do we have here? No one told me the star-gazing convention was meeting tonight.” Sarcasm and humor were how he addressed tense situations. Kamara on the other hand felt that his way often made tense situations worse, so he was not surprised when she inconspicuously elbowed him in the ribs and spoke to the crowd in a more mollifying tone. “We’re just visiting our grandmother. Hopefully we are not bothering you?”
She was met with blank, ossified faces until a woman dressed in ceremonial Shouta Baptist white robes and a red head wrap came forward. “We know what does go on here and it must stop. The soucouyant mus’ leave.” She punctuated every word of her last sentence with violent jabs of her index finger toward Kat. The crowd behind her muttered their support.
“Ma’am, the legend of the soucouyant is an old wives’ tale born out of the old-fashioned gender oppression of unmarried women of a certain age. It is unacceptable in modern society. This is my poor blind grandmother and to be quite honest, you’re scaring her,” Kamara replied, placing an arm of support around Kat’s shoulders as she donned her cloak of university-conditioned indignation. Rohan nodded.
“So because we from Sea Lots you think we foolish? You came in that nice car, with your expensive clothes, but your ‘poor blind granny’ lives in a hut that ready to fall into the swamp? We not chupid. We know what she is and we want her gone.”
“Kamara, what is a So-koo-yarn, anyway? he asked, loud enough for the woman to hear him.
The leader was growing angry. “You eh go confuse me with yuh University English and yuh tricks, let me speak to the old woman.” She stepped forward but Voss moved to block her way, meeting her eyes with a fixed stare.
“Let her come forward,” Kat said, her voice quavering with age.
Rohan instantly knew where Tarik had le
arned the ability to role play so well. The woman who had confronted them in the hut was gone. Nothing about Kat’s demeanor or appearance suggested that she was anything but a poor old woman eking out an existence at the edge of a swampy, mosquito-ridden slum.
Voss stepped aside and the large, bosomy woman strode up to them heralded by the swish of her voluminous skirts. A wooden, rosary bounced on her ample chest. Rohan noticed that she was barefooted. He made way and she stopped right in front of Kat, looming over the older woman who stood supported by the short knobby piece of mangrove root that she used as a cane.
“I have ah question to ask you, grandmother,” the woman sneered. “By your ties to the Loa, and to Bazil the demon from which you draw power, speak the only truth you are bound to speak. Are you a soucouyant?”
Rohan was taken aback by the direct question. The woman was obviously familiar with how the tie to Bazil functioned. According to lore, soucouyants, if asked directly about their true nature must answer truthfully unless they are inside their lair when the question is posed.
Kat’s head was bowed and her blind gaze downcast, and for the first time Rohan wondered if the woman’s accusations could be true. Kat stood like that for a moment before lifting her head to meet the woman’s glare. The moonlight reflected off her pupil-less eyes so they looked like twin pools of quicksilver. When she spoke, it was in the voice with which she had addressed them in the hut a voice that resonated with authority and mettle. The charade of the feeble old woman fell away entirely.
“I met a man, a very, very long time ago. He had a thing for big-boned women with heavy chests. I think he would have fancied you. That same man broke my bonds with the Loa so I’m no longer bound to answer your question.” Kat grinned and Rohan thought those pointy canines looked all the pointier. “However, because you took time out of your busy schedule and came all the way out to the mangrove forest to see me, I will answer you truthfully. I am a soucouyant, one of the last ones living. I am old and I am strong. And now that we have cleared the air, I have a question for you.” Kat said as she squinted her sightless eyes as though evaluating the woman with a sixth sense. “Did you really come here tits-a-bouncing, skirts-a-swishing to my front door, interrupting my family reunion, just to evict Katharine from her home of a hundred years or is there something more sinister that you hope to accomplish tonight?”
Rohan was in shock and he suspected his companions were as well, except for Tarik who looked like he had heard this story ten times before, and Agrippa who was currently very interested in the scent of something in the grass. Kat took a step forward and the woman took a step back. Kat raised her head and sniffed the air, as if testing for something beyond the ability of her guests to discern. “I have another question for you. Who lent you the power to puppet these fifty corpses?” Kat gestured to the would-be lynch mob.
Puppet…corpses…what? Rohan was about to voice his questions when the large woman produced a long dagger from beneath her white robes. As they watched, she drew the blade across her own palm leaving a gash that oozed black crimson in the moonlight. The woman shrieked a word and flailed her injured hand at them spraying bloody droplets on all the members of Rohan’s party.
“My blouse,” Lisa shrieked. “This bitch…”
Lisa’s tirade was cut short as the situation instantly descended into chaos. At the word the woman had wailed the crowd’s appearance changed. The eyes of each mob member became desiccated and yellowed; their skin grayed and their jaws slackened.
Jumbies, jumbies, Rohan thought in a panic.
“Lisa and Tarik back to the hut,” he commanded.
The mob swarmed forward, their now empty eyes bereft of emotion. Rohan glanced back in time to see Lisa kick off her heels, hike up her skirt, grab Tarik by the wrist and sprint back to the hovel with surprising speed. Ahead of him, Voss had already been pinned by the weight and massive strength of a jumbie which was vigorously attempting to bite his face off.
Voss, with level-headed ruthlessness, put five shots into the creature’s neck then tore its head off when the muscle and skin had become sufficiently perforated. The decapitated head however continued to snap at him from the ground where it had fallen.
The crowd swarmed past Voss and approached Rohan and Kamara at a dead run. Rohan drew his gun.
“Shoot them in the legs,” he shouted to Kamara and Voss. “They are just puppets. No nervous control, no brain. We have to try to slow them down.”
He shot the nearest corpse in the knee. The injured corpse, having lost the use of its legs crawled towards him on its stomach. Kamara stood at his side in a shooter’s stance, picking her shots, aiming at their eyes rather than their knees. Agrippa leapt into the fray with a roar.
Kat shouted something Rohan already knew, “They aren’t zombies. Gunshots will slow them down a bit and dismemberment will render them a useless pile of squirming parts but nothing will really stop them until the puppet master is stopped.”
“Where did she go?” Rohan asked between gunshots.
“She opened a doorway and stepped through, but she has not gone far. I will find her shortly.” Kat stood motionless. She looked as if she was concentrating intensely.
The mob continued to charge at Rohan and Kamara, gnashing their jaws, but for reasons unknown to Rohan the jumbies ignored Kat. Expert marksmanship kept the mob at bay but Rohan and Kamara were being pushed back towards the swamp.
“Ahh I have you now,” Kat muttered. She made a gesture and vanished. Rohan tried to contain his surprise. He was used to seeing strange things, but the last couple days of his life were repeatedly raising the bar for weirdness. He scanned the scene. Agrippa and Voss were obscured by the mob and Rohan had heard no more gunshots, but he heard curses and sometimes one, sometimes two sets of snarls.
“Shit. I’m out of bullets,” Kamara half-whispered.
“Run back to the house. I can hold them,” Rohan shouted.
Kamara shook her head. “Give me your gun and you fight them by hand. I can still help.”
Rohan didn’t have time to argue. He handed her the weapon and walked out to meet the first jumbie. Dismemberment? I can do dismemberment, he thought. A jumbie rushed up to him, its foul mouth agape. Rohan took the invitation. Flattening his palm he thrust his hand into the gnashing mouth, speared his fingers through the back of the creature’s throat and tore out a section of its spine. The thing collapsed in a boneless heap, though it remained ‘alive’ from the neck up. A second and a third rushed him and he dispatched them in similar fashion. Kamara fired repeatedly, picking her shots calmly. Then Rohan heard a scream from the hut, he turned around and saw a group of jumbies attempting to enter. One was tearing a hole through the roof. Rohan knew the hut wouldn’t provide shelter for very long.
“I’ve got the ones at the house.” A gravelly voice spoke to him. Rohan turned around and barley recognized Voss. The man’s hands had transformed to claws and his forearms were covered in gore up to the elbows. His eyes glowed like an animal’s and his teeth had extended to fangs.
Agrippa was at his side, a jumbie’s lower arm in his jaws. Both Voss and the dog sped toward the house. With Voss and Agrippa no longer running interference behind the jumbie ranks, the remaining creatures swarmed Rohan and Kamara. Rohan heard Kamara’s gun click empty again, but he was busy with five of the creatures. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her grasp the gun by the barrel and hammer one of the creatures repeatedly between the eyes. He shouted for her to run. She was an ordinary human being, very brave, but she made of regular flesh and bone. She had no place in a fight with fifty jumbies.
A jumbie grabbed a handful of her hair from behind, Rohan screamed something wordless and leapt towards the creature. The beast pulled her close, bit into her where her neck met shoulder.
Kamara screamed. Blood ran down the front of her shirt. Rohan struggled to get to her but one of the creatures grabbed his hand and bit into it. A crippled jumbie ensnared his legs from below bringing him to his k
nees and began chewing on his ankle. He realized with horror that he was being eaten alive. A third and fourth jumbie piled on him. They were immensely strong, operating at the absolute limit of the structural integrity of the human bodies they had owned in their former life.
Kamara reached over her back and crushed the eyes of her assailant with her thumbs, but the jumbie would not release her. Rohan roared in anger and frustration, the pain inflicted by his multiple attackers approaching the realm of the unbearable.
Two more of the creatures approached Kamara. He called for Voss, but the bodyguard and the dog were in a pitched battle of their own. Tears of pain rolled down Kamara’s face and blood soaked the entire front of her body. One of the creatures grabbed her throat in both of its hands and started squeezing. Rohan struggled to free himself, but it was like trying to swim while rolled in a carpet. The monster was choking the life out of Kamara, and he was going to have to watch her die, just like he had watched the deaths of Dorian, Isa, and Kimani.
Then with shocking abruptness the jumbies collapsed like puppets whose strings had been sliced. Rohan supposed that is exactly what had happened, their ties to the puppeteer had been cut.
Kamara fell to her knees, bleeding and wheezing. Rohan struggled from under the pile of dead weight and limped to her side. She was bleeding badly and a nasty hand shaped bruise had already formed around her throat. What would her law school classmates think? Rohan could see muscles twitching inside the wound on her shoulder and the front of her blood-soaked shirt clung to her body. She looked up to Rohan with bloodshot eyes and began laughing.
“Is this what you do every night, Ro?” Her laughter broke off with a wince and a cough.
“Oh this?” he said, gesturing to the piles of bodies. “This is a slow night for me, I usually fight greyborn, fresh from the Grey.” He took off his shirt, balled it up and applied pressure to her wound.
She made a hissing noise through her teeth. “This shit hurts like hell. Am I going to become one of them now?”
A voice from behind spoke. “No, they are jumbies not zombies. Zombification is caused by a virus. These mendo are the work of obeah or voodoo.” Rohan turned. A petite, beautiful woman walked up the path with a larger woman slung over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Rohan recognized the larger woman as the mob leader who disappeared. But he did not immediately know who the younger woman was. Then he noticed the crucifix around her neck, fine silver in a woven pattern, Kat’s crucifix.
