by Derry Sandy
When they were done, Rohan went downstairs to check on Kamara. Richard went to help Cassan inside and Voss and Tarik went out to fetch the man the dogs had brought down. They found him seated cross legged, in the same spot where he had fallen. His broken limbs had already healed and the four dogs lay around him, lightly dozing but obviously alert to their captive’s actions. Voss walked up to the man and spoke in a tone that brokered no debate. “You are coming with us. Make one stupid move and we will kill you like we did your friends.”
The man chuckled, “The one who sent me expects me to return to him soon, when I don’t show up, he will assume I failed or that I ran and he will kill me.”
“Good once he comes for you we can take care of that too.”
“Oh, I doubt he will show up in the flesh he can get to me without being physically here” The man rose with a resigned groan and all four dogs leapt to their feet. The ground vibrated with the rumble of the goliath hounds’ growls.
“Easy girls, we are taking him in,” Voss said in a mollifying tone, as he patted the man down for weapons.
Tarik brought Agrippa to heel, while Voss jammed the muzzle of his assault rifle into the stranger’s back to start him walking and to assure the oversized dogs that he had things well in hand.
By the time the party was back inside Stone’s walls, Jonah and Rohan were tending a large bonfire on a secluded part of Stone’s expansive grounds. The pair was cutting apart the bodies of the slain maboya, soaking the parts in gasoline and feeding them to the fire limb by limb, ensuring that each part burned to ash before adding another. Voss called out to Rohan from a distance and Rohan lingered long enough to butcher the last remaining body. He and Voss left Jonah and the massive dogs to guard the fire and they ushered the captive into Stone. The man was made to sit on the floor of the living room and his hands were secured with a pair of the plastic cuffs which had somehow survived the Laventille raid in Voss’ pockets.
“Should we wait for Kat before we question him?” Cassan asked of no one in particular as Voss clicked the ties tight around the captive’s wrists. “Her knowledge will probably make his revelations more enlightening.” Cassan looked relatively sprightly for a man who had been on the verge of death not two hours earlier.
“We can always repeat his words to her.” Voss did not sound as if he harbored much patience for the missing soucouyant.
“Yes, but she might have better questions. Besides we promised a ghost to pass a message to her. I feel like we should get all that out in one sitting,” Cassan replied.
“Yeah, we did promise,” Rohan remembered the Indian girl in the Sari.
“She’s already walking up the driveway,” Kamara interjected. “So we can stop debating.” Kamara lay flat on the floor and like Cassan, looked a lot better as both the Order marks and Tarik’s treatments worked to combat the maboya bite.
Not a minute later the soucouyant walked through the front door. She carried multiple crocus market bags. At a glance, Rohan could see fresh bread, salt-fish, ground provisions, dried coconuts and a bunch of blue crabs still alive, strung together in a coffle with nylon fishing line.
The soucouyant wore cut-off shorts and one of Kamara’s old washed out tee shirts. She was all lean, tanned limbs and collegiate loveliness. With her hair pulled back in a thick, high pony-tail. The ancient soucouyant looked young.
“Where were you?” Rohan asked with a raised eyebrow. He was mildly annoyed that she had apparently taken a trip to the spa while everyone else was covered in soot and blood.
In response the woman laid the many bags to one side and knelt beside Kamara. She held the prone woman’s wrist to her nose and sniffed the skin deeply. She said nothing and Rohan assumed that Kamara had passed the olfactory evaluation as she moved to Cassan and did the same to him.
“You were older and blinder the last time I saw you Kat, but I do not mind the changes one bit.”
Kat ignored Cassan’s flirtation. “What did you give them, Tarik?” Kat asked of the boy.
“Strong medicine for Kamara; blood-flower, poppy, cannabis, ground lagahoo bone, alamanda cathartica and some other ingredients I thought would work. The bites cause the flesh to rot almost instantly. Her marks did a lot of the healing work, though. As for Cassan, Rohan cut off his arm, which is probably the only reason he is alive. I still gave him the same treatment plus something to speed the healing.”
“Good work, Tarik. I assume someone will tell me the whole story at some point. Rohan, to answer your question, it is Saturday, I went to the market and left Stone in the capable hands of its occupants. If you stow that bad attitude, I may even make you breakfast.”
“Lisa is gone.” Voss cut in before Rohan and Kat could continue their verbal sparring.
“Gone? Where to?”
“There’s a note on the mirror in her room. It says she is gone to the Grey. There is also one of the black travel boxes. We have to go after her.”
The soucouyant pondered for a moment. “Assuming she actually wrote the note and assuming she really went to the Grey then she is almost certainly lost. The Grey is not a place for young maidens.”
“We have to go look for her.” Voss was adamant. “You can track her like she tracked Cassan through the box.”
“And who will hold the thread to reel my essence back? You forget that I pulled Lisa back when she travelled. Tarik has not learned that skill yet. I guess I could simply go to the Grey physically, track them by smell, but The Grey is a massive unmapped wilderness.
“It’s topography also changes from time to time. A sea today can be a mountain range tomorrow. Perhaps this is because time passes differently there, days, weeks, seasons do not have the same meaning as they do here. It is a bit like a dreamscape. We don’t know where she travelled or if she arrived. If she does survive the journey we do not know where she may have gone once she got there. This could also be a trap. She could be tied up somewhere in a house of horrors like Cassan was.”
“One of his people accompanied her,” Voss said in a quietly dangerous manner as he pointed to the seated man who had not spoken since he had been brought inside.
“Yes, there is much and more to discuss about that,” Kat said meeting the sitting man’s eyes until he lowered his gaze. “Was there anything else in her message? Never mind I will read it myself.”
“Kat, two ghosts at the house in Laventille asked that you sleep so the dead can talk to you, whatever that means.”
Kat was thoughtful again. “Ghosts you say?”
“Yes, a girl and a woman.”
“Ok, we’ll discuss this but there is no rush, I’m longing to cook in a real kitchen for the first time in many years.”
What does she mean no rush? Rohan thought.
Voss gave voice to that opinion. “This boy here says that the man who sent him will kill him soon for failing to kidnap Lisa, and I feel like we need to make some effort to find her, as futile as it may be. She is one of us.”
“Our captive will not be killed by his master because someone closed the psychic link between them. I know how the magic feels because someone closed that link between me and my coven years ago. Also, it takes two of our days to travel to the Grey, even though to the traveler it feels instantaneous. So, we have some time while she is in transit. Again, we are assuming that she is headed there. Besides, you have all had a rough morning. Let us eat and Cassan and our new friend will tell us what they know.”
The man’s gaze rose when Kat referred to him.
“Beware friend, I will know when you lie so you will tell us the truth, yes?” The soucouyant sauntered off after repossessing her sacks of produce. “Cassan, call your brother and let him know that you survived. He is eager to relinquish control of the business. I assume Wrise is no longer with us?” she said glancing back over her slender shoulders as she headed away.
“You assume correctly,” Voss said.
The soucouyant moved gracefully toward the kitchen, almost floating along despit
e her many bags.
Chapter 21
The soucouyant could cook. In fact, Rohan felt like her cooking surpassed Imelda’s, and that was no small feat. Within half an hour of Kat entering the kitchen, rich smells of coconut bake, saltfish bojul, and tomato choka filled Stone. She had also made cocoa tea from actual cocoa as opposed to powder and a sada roti for those who did not want bake. Within an hour a full spread was prepared.
No one else had been allowed into the kitchen while she worked. Rohan sat next to Kamara on the living room floor. She was still laying there, her head propped on some cushions. Voss paced the room but kept one eye on Clarence. Cassan lay on the leather couch, dozing lightly but occasionally rousing and staring at his stump as if coming to terms with the loss of his arm.
Imelda hovered close to the kitchen not particularly pleased at having to relinquish her fiefdom to a woman who looked like she could be her granddaughter.
Rohan’s stomach had growled until the moment he had been allowed to take his share, and then he devoured six thick slices of bake stuffed with saltfish bojul and tomato choka, two muffins, a serving of eggs, and three mugs of cocoa-tea. Voss appeared too preoccupied to match Rohan’s intake. But Tarik, though a wiry boy, ate as much as Rohan did. Cassan, Kamara, Jonah, and Imelda ate far less. Jonah had a reputation as a big eater and Rohan suspected he skimped as a show of solidarity with his wife.
The soucouyant’s cooking was exquisite, so much so that Rohan was compelled to compliment her, talking around a stuffed mouth. He would not have thought that she had a domestic bone in her body, but apparently she enjoyed preparing the food. He did however notice that she herself did not eat. When everyone was fed, including the dogs, she took a plate over to Clarence.
Everyone but Voss was too stuffed to raise an objection. “So we are feeding the demons now?” the man snarled.
Kat glanced at him and in her usual way, declined to respond. She stood, towering over the sitting man. He craned his neck to meet her gaze. “Yes or no is the only answer required for now. If I untie you so that you can eat, will you cause a problem?”
“I won’t, I guess that’s a no.”
No one protested as she cut the plastic ties binding him. He rubbed his wrists then devoured the entire plate of food like a man starved.
As soon as Clarence was done eating, the soucouyant took the center of the floor and began speaking in the steely tones she reserved for serious inquiry. Rohan had heard it before.
“I will ask you a question, you will answer truthfully. If you lie I will know. I won’t bother making threats, I’m sure you can imagine what people like us can do to you.” The man, barely a man at that, Rohan thought noting the youthful loveliness of his face, nodded in response to Kat’s assertion.
“What is your name?”
“Clarence Jeremy.”
“Why are you here?”
“I was sent to kidnap a woman named Lisa and bring her to a man who calls himself Lucien.”
At this Cassan perked up, “Lucien Sardis is the name of the person whose blood was in the vial, that the woman drank. The woman who tried to kill you guys with the Jumbies.”
“The time for your story will come, Cassan. Besides it may be a different Lucien,” Kat said.
“The man did not give me a last name. He doesn’t place much stock in names anyway,” Clarence said.
“Why were you sent for Lisa?”
“Lucien needs her. He said she stole something from him.”
These words got Rohan’s attention everyone in the room perked up. Stole? Lisa had not mentioned stealing anything.
“Did he say what she stole?”
“No, he did not say, he just said that he needed her brought to him, unharmed.”
“How did you meet him?”
Clarence took a deep breath and told the entire tale, from start to finish. When he got to the part about the girl in the sari, Cassan piped up again. “We know Ghita.”
“Yes,” Rohan interjected, “She’s the one who helped us escape the house with Cassan.”
Clarence continued his tale. When he was done he said, “I have no allegiance to Lucien. He snatched me off the street, beat me almost to death, then gave me a choice between death and service. But, I don’t want to be sick again. I have that much to thank him for.”
“Could you take us back to the house where you first met Ghita?”
Clarence thought about it. “I…I can’t remember. It is as if the memory has been erased.”
“Liar,” Voss stated coldly.
“He speaks the truth. He really cannot remember,” Kat said. “So you say there are many others, like you?”
“Well, yes and no. The others are like me, in that they have physical characteristics like mine, strength and speed. But they are unstable, mentally unstable. They are rabidly violent. Lucien has them caged. They can be controlled but maintaining control is a hands-on task, that is why he needed me.”
“How many others?” Kat asked.
“Fifty-six, minus the three you killed this morning plus the one that ran off with Lisa.”
“That isn’t the whole truth,” Rohan cut in. “We were in a dungeon this morning, there was no time to do a head count, but by my estimate there were far more than fifty-something. Did you have contact with those?”
“No…yes…I’m not sure,” Clarence stammered, genuine doubt clouding his face. “I saw something in a vision, others, I could tell they were once human, but now they are monstrous.”
“What did they look like, the one’s you saw?” Rohan asked.
“Pale, eyeless, toothy.”
“Well then Lucien lied to you, I think whatever he did to you is degenerative and when the people he has changed have devolved too far to be controlled, he warehouses them.”
Everyone was silent until Kat began summing up the situation. “So we have the name Lucien, who may be the same Lucien Sardis that Cassan’s investigative skills uncovered. Seeing that Cassan was kidnapped right after learning the name we can assume that Clarence’s Lucien is Lucien Sardis. Lisa seems to have taken something from Lucien that he needs to complete his plan, which seems to be to open the Grey though we are not sure why. Finally, we have a member of Clarence’s party missing, presumed to have gone into the Grey with our Lisa.”
“That sounds about right,” Kamara said from her position on the floor, “So what’s the next move.”
Kat answered with a question to Cassan. “Do you have an address for Lucien Sardis?”
“Yes, but after his death his home changed hands several times. Today it’s an abandoned ruin, guess no one felt comfortable staying in a house where a brutal murder occurred. His wife and daughter survived but the business fell to bankruptcy.”
“You said brutal murder, how brutal? I thought you said this was a robbery gone bad?” Rohan asked.
Kamara also spoke up. “And do you know where the mother and daughter live?”
“To answer the question about the murder first, several stories are floating about. The media reports on the matter read as if they were sanitized and I haven’t been able to get into contact with any of the officers who were on the scene. I did manage to track down one crime scene technician who worked the location. He quit right after that job and is now a bartender. The man was reluctant to talk about that murder. Thankfully I own the bar where he works. He said that the scene was one of the worst he had ever worked. Lucien Sardis had been pulled apart. Note the use of the word pulled as opposed to torn. His bones had not been broken but had been yanked cleanly out of the joint sockets, just like a plastic doll’s arms will come off. He also said the man’s face was flayed off. The amount of blood at the scene indicated that Lucien had been alive for most of the ordeal.” Cassan paused before continuing. “In yet another strange twist Sardis’ body was apparently lost before the autopsy could be performed or positive identification could be made. The family was told that the body was accidentally cremated, but another source told me that the b
ody simply vanished. I don’t know where the mother and daughter went.”
Cassan paused to itch at his stump and Kat took the opportunity to ply Clarence further.
“Clarence, is there anything you have failed to tell us?”
“I’ve told you what I know. I have not known Lucien that long.”
“I guess that’s fair enough. Now we face the question of what to do with you. You say you owe no allegiance to Lucien, but neither do you owe us anything. Perhaps gratitude for sparing your life, but that is no more or less than Lucien has done for you.”
“Let us kill him and burn him like the rest.” Voss’ tone was low and dangerous.
“We could do that. Or perhaps Clarence will strike a bargain.” Kat turned her steely gaze on the seated man. “Clarence, if you do something for me, I will kill Lucien and do my best to free you from the degenerative effect of what he has done to you.”
Clarence looked up at the faces around him, their expressions ranged from Rohan’s casual indifference to Kamara’s weighing look to Voss’ stormy anger. Kat’s eyes gave away nothing. “What are the terms?”
“Follow your confederate Fifty-seven into the Grey via the box. Track Lisa by scent as you did before. If necessary rescue her from Fifty-seven and protect her, or help Fifty-seven protect her. I will give you a means to contact me, so that we can locate you and bring you back.”
“You have lost your mind, vampire.” Voss’ voice was flat. “He was sent here to kidnap Lisa, and you are helping him continue his mission?”
“Can you read minds, Voss?” Katharine turned her attention on the man fully. “No? Well I can’t either, but I can read lies. If he takes an oath and means to keep it I will know. So, Clarence, do we have your word?”
“You have my word. I will do the best I can.”
“This is lunacy,” Voss muttered and Rohan could not really find fault with Voss’ assertion, however, they had nothing to lose. Lisa was already gone.
