Age of Voodoo (36 page)

“The loa have knowledge you can’t get even from the internet,” Couleuvre replied. “And Monsieur Dove?”

The fist seemed to come out of nowhere. The punch was powerful and well aimed, a backhander with plenty of weight and force behind it. The gold and silver rings acted like knuckledusters.

Lex lay on his back, head ringing. His jaw was numb, thick, swollen.

“The loa can also alert you to a man’s intentions,” said Couleuvre. He snapped his fingers, and the zuvembie Marines jerked into life, seizing Lex once again. Undead fingers dug painfully into his arms, all the way to the bone it seemed.

“Such a pity,” Couleuvre sighed. “I felt I could count on you. So did the Baron. We are both disappointed.” To the zuvembie Marines: “Take Monsieur Dove to join the others. He can be dosed with V.I.V.E.M.O.R.T. like the rest of them. If he will not help me one way, he can help me another.”

THIRTY-FOUR

PRISON BREAK

T
HE ZUVEMBIE MARINES
hauled Lex back up to Sublevel 2. He didn’t even try to resist. He was still stunned from Couleuvre’s blow. He couldn’t recall ever having been hit so hard. His thoughts were scattered, pinging about in his brain like pachinko balls. His vision kept drifting out of focus.

He was hurled unceremoniously into a storeroom of some kind. A door slammed. Around him, voices rumbled like bubbles bursting underwater. Gradually they began to make sense.

“...Lex? Lex?” Albertine. “Speak to me.”

“Ugh. Shit.” He sat up shakily, feeling as though he were on a boat in rough seas.

“Easy now. Are you okay?”

“Just.”

“I take it your little chitchat with Couleuvre was a free and frank exchange of opinions,” said Buckler.

“He bent my ear. Tried to recruit me. Belted me a good one.” Lex worked his bruised, tender jaw. Unbroken, but not for want of trying. A molar wobbled in its socket when he probed it with his tongue. “Suppose I asked for it. I
was
moving in to kill him.”

“You had a shot?” said Morgenstern.

“Yeah, but the bugger saw it coming. Like he had some kind of sixth sense. The loa warned him, he said.” Lex peered around the room, seeing shelf upon shelf laden with folded linen, supplies for the entire installation. Some had been pressed into service as makeshift bandages for Tartaglione and Pearce. “Field dressing. Your handiwork?” he asked Morgenstern, who nodded. “How are they doing?”

“Tartag’s been bitching and whining, so we know he’s all right.”

“I’m right here,” Tartaglione protested. His head was partially mummified with torn-up strips of hand towel. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not.”

“We always try and act like you’re not here,” Sampson said. “It’s wishful thinking.”

Tartaglione lofted a middle finger. “Your mother.”

“And Pearce?” asked Lex.

Morgenstern’s expression said it all:
not good
. Pearce lay on the floor with a bound-up shoulder and a blood-drenched bedsheet fastened round his waist like a cummerbund. He had passed out.

“I worked the broom handle out and managed to stem the bleeding, but there’s no way of telling what’s been pierced inside him. If it’s any part of his intestine, we’re looking at peritonitis and, well, you know where that leads. He needs proper medical attention urgently.”

“So we’re all about the good news,” said Buckler. “What’s Couleuvre’s game anyway? Any clues?”

Lex gave a summary of what he had seen down on Sublevel 3. His account was met with a dark silence, which Tartaglione broke. “So let’s get this straight. We have no guns. We’re going to be killed and turned into brainless minions. And Couleuvre’s got a date with a nuclear weapon which he’s going to set off just to make some whack-job religious point. Oh man, this is perfect, just perfect. We are the dictionary definition of screwed.”

“Tartag,” said Sampson, “I love you like a brother, but if you do not nut up and be a man, right now, I will unwrap that Indian-ass turban of yours and use it to strangle you.”

“Thanks, pal. Good to know I can count on you for support.”

“Any time.”

“But I mean it. What the hell can we do? Lieutenant? Anyone?”

Albertine raised a tentative hand. “I think I know how to stop the zuvembies.”

“What, seriously?”

“Go on,” said Buckler.

“Couleuvre has used strong sorcery, and there’s also Seidelmann’s formula to take into account,” said Albertine. “That’s an unknown factor. I’ve never dealt with anything like this before. But a zuvembie is basically an unwilling slave. There’s a soul inside, still tethered to the body when it ought to be free—a soul cowed into obeying Couleuvre, enabling the body to do as he asks. I can use my own
vodou
to attempt to release that soul, and therefore incapacitate the zuvembie it belongs to, like removing the hard disk from a computer. But it has to be on a one-to-one basis. Individually, not en masse. I will need to prepare a
poudre
for the task.”

“And it’ll work?”

“I’m not sure. I have the necessary ingredients and I know what I’m doing, but...”

“Never mind. It’s a plan. Our only plan. We have to try
something
. What are you waiting for, Miz Montase? Get busy.”

A
LBERTINE BEGAN WITH
a
lave tet
, a ritual washing designed to strengthen her resolve, dispel bad energy and bring her into closer rapport with her personal loa. She sprinkled her head with water in which herbs had been steeped. At the same time she chanted and made obeisance.

Next she invoked her loa directly by inscribing a cabalistic diagram on the floor in marker pen. It was a crossword-like symbol made up of the names of her three
vodou
husbands:

She gazed at it for a while in a deep meditative trance.

Lastly she mixed together a selection of powders from her bag, adding them to a bowl and stirring with an index finger. She murmured the names and qualities of each one as she poured it from its little stoppered bottle. “Bend Over Powder—it breaks hexes. Myrrh Powder—it breaks curses. Compelling Powder—it forces obedience. Conquering Glory Powder—it overcomes obstacles to achieving one’s goals.” In all a dozen powders went into the mix, which she then decanted into a velvet pouch. She secured the neck of the pouch with its drawstring.

“Done,” she said. “I’m not promising anything, but...”

“But nothing,” said Buckler. “We’ve got zuvembie knockout dust and we’re going to use it. The question is
how
we’re going to use it. Facing off against the whole of Couleuvre’s little army isn’t going to fly. We’re down by two and we don’t have even a pocket knife between us. Our best play isn’t a stand-up fight, it’s a tactical withdrawal. Some of us get the hell out and summon reinforcements.”

“Some of us?” said Lex.

“Specifically, you, Albertine and Sampson. Just the three of you guys. You move quick, keep low, steer clear of trouble, and hit the surface running. Get on the plane and hightail it. Once you’re in the air, Sampson can get himself patched through the right people on the shortwave and call in help.”

“But what about you?”

“We have injured, and I’m not leaving anyone behind,” Buckler stated firmly.

“But boss—” Tartaglione began.

“Not even a dipshit like you, Tartag.”

“You say the sweetest things.”

“And Hospitalman Morgenstern has to stay to keep Pearce stable.”

Morgenstern didn’t even blink, just nodded. Lex couldn’t help marvelling at the unflinching loyalty Buckler commanded from his team. The Thirteeners were a misfit bunch, and their lieutenant was the biggest misfit of them all. Perhaps that was why they respected him so much.

“Now, that door isn’t locked,” Buckler said. “But there’s four zuvembies stationed outside. Couleuvre seems to think that’s all the security he needs. He reckons we’re licked and we’re just going to hunker down here and wait to die. What say we show the
faux
-hawk motherfucker how wrong he is?”

T
HE ZUVEMBIES WERE
arranged in a semicircle in the passage, poised to intercept anyone who emerged from the storeroom. The breakout was going to have to be fast, hard and timed perfectly. Buckler and Morgenstern would run interference, enabling Lex, Albertine and Sampson to make their bid for freedom.

“I’ve got these undead sons of bitches figured out,” Buckler said. “They’re autistic about their master’s orders. Long as we don’t step foot outside this room, they don’t react. Moment we do,
bam
, they’re onto us. We can use that to our advantage.”

They got ready, lining up at the door, Buckler and Morgenstern in front.

“Dove?” said Buckler.

“Yes?”

“We all get through this, you and I need to sit down and talk. There’s things you don’t know that I think you ought to.”

“I’ll look forward to that.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you, sport. It’s not going to be happy-clappy fireside stuff. And Sampson?”

“LT?”

“We
don’t
all get through this, you’re elected to head up the next Team Thirteen.”

“Aw shit.”

“Yeah, poisoned chalice. Choose your recruits well. I know I did.”

Buckler grasped the door handle and tugged it open. Outside, in the passage, the zuvembies stirred like sleepers awakening. They bunched together around the doorway, forming a sturdy wall.

“Hey, you ugly fucks,” Buckler taunted. “This here’s a prison break. Just so’s you know.”

The zuvembies stared.

“In a moment we’re going to cross the threshold. Want to stop us? Do your worst.”

Morgenstern had a bedsheet in her hands, the ends twisted around her fists, a loop dangling between.

“On my mark,” said Buckler. “Three. Two. One. Go!”

He and Morgenstern propelled themselves out of the doorway. Buckler shoulder-barged one of the zuvembies, creating a gap in the wall. Morgenstern ducked low, turning her momentum into a skid, like a baseball player sliding home. She slipped the sheet around another zuvembie’s ankles and yanked the creature off its feet, all in one clean motion.

Lex and Albertine raced out next. Albertine had tipped a small amount of her
poudre
from the pouch into her cupped hand. As a zuvembie shifted to block her path, she puffed the powder straight at it.

“Leave!” she commanded. “You are free. Damballah compels you. Leave this body and go to your rest.”

The zuvembie staggered, clawing at its dust-streaked face. Its eyes roved wildly. All at once the dull implacability that characterised it and its brethren was gone. The zuvembie seemed uncertain, riven by inner conflict.

Then its baleful yellow gaze altered. Comprehension dawned. For a moment, barely a split second, the thing seemed recognisably human, no longer a hollow shell but a sentient being. Lex could have sworn it looked relieved, even grateful.

Then the zuvembie crumpled like a sack of meat. It lay flat out, devoid of animation, utterly inert. Dead. Not undead. Not living dead.
Dead
dead.