Unsympathetic Magic (49 page)

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Authors: Laura Resnick

BOOK: Unsympathetic Magic
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“What role? What are you doing to do?”
“Human sacrifice.”
She produced a key from the pocket of her robe as I gaped at her. Then she used it on the shiny new lock that Lopez—
Lopez!
I wailed silently—had previously noticed on the entry gate to the watchtower.
“You can’t do this!” I shouted.
“I’m afraid I must.” She gave an order to the zombies, and they started dragging my squirming, kicking, grunting body toward the gate. “I have asked for great power and wealth from the darkest of the Petro loa. I’ve asked for the ability to nullify my late husband’s will, break open the trust, and empty the foundation’s coffers of the billion or so dollars that should be mine”
“You’re doing all this for
money?
” I blurted. “To woo lawyers and dazzle judges?”
“Power and money,” she said. “In the end, they’re the only things that matter, Esther.”
“The spirits demand a human sacrifice in exchange for
that?
”
“The Petro loa are hungry gods. And I’ve sought a lot of favors from several of them. They want the most impressive and costly offering there is: a human life.”
I looked up at the flashing, thunder-crashing sky, and I thought I saw dark gods looming overhead, come to drink my blood and consume my soul.
“No!”
Heedless of my screams and protests, the zombies started hauling me up the precarious old spiral staircase that wound around and around the tower, dragging and carrying me all the way up to the lookout platform.
Now I understood the names that had haunted Shondolyn’s dreams: Marinette, a servant of evil; Mama Brigitte, who presided over black magic and helped her worshippers acquire ill-gotten gains. The other names in Catherine’s personal pantheon no doubt had similar profiles.
I also understood now why she had used the white darkness to possess my predecessors, to teach them docility and obedience in a trance state. I was making this process every bit as noisy, slow, tiresome, and inconvenient for Catherine as I could. The higher we climbed and the harder I fought against the zombies dragging me along, the more I screamed and shouted at the bokor, the more annoyed she looked. This was clearly
not
how she had pictured her victim behaving on the big night.
When we reached the lookout platform, she turned to me and snapped, “Can’t you be a bit more decorous? The gods can hear you! You’re spoiling an important and emotional event for me!”
“Good grief!” I said, gaping at her. “Evil incarnate! Right in front of me! You’re not just evil, you
are
Evil!”
She slapped me again. “Stop your babbling!” She pointed overhead. “Right there! The dark loa whom I have summoned are right
there.
”
With my hair blowing across my face, I looked up. They were indeed right there. Shifting shapes and amorphous shadows loomed and writhed overhead, spilling out of the belly of the crashing thunderclouds directly above us. The shapes were immense and, although not even vaguely human, they had a clear form and seemed to move with conscious intent.
“I have prepared for this night for a
long
time!” Catherine shouted at me as the fierce wind made her red robe billow. “Ever since that do-gooder houngan left for Haiti. He was always interfering. It was such a relief when he left town. You have no idea—”
“
Now
who’s babbling?” I butted her nose with my forehead.
Catherine shrieked and fell back several steps as her nose spouted blood. With uncontrolled rage in her eyes, she started hitting me repeatedly while the zombies held me still.
“Esther!”
Through my pain and terror, through the clash and crash of thunder, through the roaring of the wind and the cold sting of the rain that started falling again, I thought I heard someone call my name.
“Esther! Esther!”
I turned my head away from Catherine’s next blow and craned my neck to look down from the platform. I shied back reflexively, not having realized just how high up we were. Then I realized I saw figures scrambling around on the plaza below us. Biko was fighting with the baka down there, while Max tried to get past them to enter the tower. The baka seemed intent on preventing entry. I realized that Catherine must have left them there as sentries.
A bolt of lightning flashed, illuminating the moment that Biko shoved his rapier through the torso of one of the monstrous little creatures, then yanked it upward to gut the thing.
“Ouch,”
I said involuntarily.
Max tried again to enter the tower. The remaining baka leaped for him., The creature was skewered in midair by Biko’s sword. The young fencer beheaded that one, then dashed into the tower after Max. Even above the rage of the thunder and Catherine’s screams of protest, I could hear the rattle and echo of the shaky iron stairs as my rescuers ran upward in pursuit of me and my captors.
Catherine yelled something at the zombies. They released me and turned, descending the stairs at their usual measured pace. They’d obviously been instructed to stop Max and Biko. As soon as they let me go, Catherine seized me by the hair and began chanting loudly, her free arm raised toward the thundering black clouds. Despite the obvious collapse of her plan, her face was exultant with religious fervor—and greed. Oh, yes, there was definitely a healthy dose of greed there. As long as she could sacrifice me to her dark masters and get Martin Livingston’s immense fortune, then all other problems were solvable, apparently. Including the two heroes racing up the stairs even now to foil her plans.
I decided to be a problem, too. I’m an
actress.
I’ve trained in stage fighting and I do my own stunts. I can
run
in spiked heels if I absolutely have to. I face casting directors as part of my regular work week. I deal with theatrical agents! So it was well past time to show this murderous academic bitch that it would take a lot more than a few zombies and a little hair pulling to turn
me
into a human sacrifice.
I made two fists and swung my bound hands into her nasty, arrogant face as hard as I possibly could. She shrieked and let go of me. I started hopping away from her as fast as my bound legs would carry me. When I felt her hand on my hair again, I dropped to the platform’s floor—ignoring the pain of the hair that tore out of my scalp—and rolled over, kicking at her with both legs.
Below me, I heard Biko shouting, “Darius! Darius, it’s me, Biko! Darius!”
“Oh,
no,
” Catherine said. “That’s how it got away last time.”
“If a zombie’s name is called by someone who knew it in life,” I panted, remembering what Max had told our group in Puma’s shop. So
that’s
how Darius had wound up wandering the streets the night I had first encountered his zombie. This cold bitch had forgotten for one moment that the lover she had murdered was now an
it,
and she had used his name.
I felt strong hands hauling me upright. I was scared for a moment, until I realized Biko was the one manhandling me. He used his weapon to slice open the bonds around my hands and my feet. Then he lunged in Catherine’s direction.
“No!” Max’s voice cried behind me.
I whirled to face him. He was staring up at the roiling black clouds and the dancing, menacing shapes overhead. His face was a horrified mask of alarm.
“Biko! No!” he shouted.
“No!”
Biko halted and turned to look at him.
Max was panting hard, sweating, and red- faced. I realized the climb to this platform would have been a little demanding for him even if he
hadn’t
had to fight through baka and zombies to get here.
“We must go! Now!
Now!
”
Biko met my gaze and then, trusting in Max, we ran toward the steps and started down them. Darius’ zombie was just standing there, looking confused. It made no protest as Biko shoved it out of the way and then helped me and Max run past it. Three more docile, dazed zombies were in our way, and they each simply moved aside, too, when Biko pushed them.
I noticed foamy white stuff bubbling out of their mouths. “What is that?”
“Salt!” Biko shouted.
I remembered learning at Puma’s shop that salt was one of the theoretical ways to awaken a zombie. Thank the heavens it had actually worked!
When we reached the bottom of the stairs, I tripped over a baka corpse. Biko caught my arm and pulled me upright before I could fall flat on my face.
“Keep running!” Max shouted, clambering down the steps behind us. “We may yet be too near!”
We headed for the crumbling stone steps and began descending them.
“No, no! Slow down!” I shouted. “I can’t see!” We were going down those treacherous stairs at reckless speed in nearly total darkness, our way illuminated only by the violent flashes of lightning overhead.
“Keep going!” Max cried. “Run!”
“Max!” I protested.
“Faster!”
I took his fear quite seriously, even though I didn’t know what caused it. But
my
fear of dying in a fatal tumble down those lethal stairs was real, too. Biko solved my dilemma by grabbing my arm and dragging me with him at top speed, so that our descent was little more than a scrambling, controlled fall to the very bottom of the steps.
Max was wheezing with exhaustion by the time we reached street level. Biko and I paused, seizing Max’s arms to support the old mage when we thought he might keel over.
“Must keep going,” he panted. “Keep going.”
With the two of us supporting him, we made our way across the park and toward the entrance gate as fast as we could. Then we ran across the street and stood outside one of the darkened row houses.
“Here?” Biko said, breathing hard.
It had
better
be here. I couldn’t go any farther. Not until I got my second wind.
“Yes,” Max panted. “Yes . . . Here . . . Safe . . . I think . . .”
Despite the complete absence of electricity in the city, we would see the lookout platform on the old watchtower quite clearly from here because there was so much meteorological—or mystical—activity directly above it. The thunder made my head ache even at this distance, and the dancing light illuminated the platform so well that I was sure I could see Catherine’s blond hair swirling around her head in the violent wind. Her red silk robe was easy to spot as she raised her arms to exalt the dark loa whom she had summoned with the promise of a human sacrifice.
My gaze was still on her when the lightning came straight down from the churning black clouds and made her explode into hot red flames that were then sucked up into the sky. A pale pillar of ashes stood in her place for only a split-second, and then the wind began to disperse it.
“She promised them a human sacrifice,” I said in a stunned, breathless voice that scarcely sounded like mine.
“Well,” Biko said prosaically, “looks like they got one.”
“The Petro loa are deadly dangerous,” Max said, still breathing hard. “To make a promise which one cannot keep . . . invites their rage and punishment.”
25
 
“ M
ax!”
I cried suddenly.
“Whoa!” Biko did a double-take so big he nearly fell down. “Don’t scare me like that! Not
now.
Didn’t you just see what we, uh, just saw? I’m a little rattled.”
“Lopez!” I shrieked. “Max!
Lopez!
”
I started to run in the direction of the foundation. Biko tackled me and stopped me.
“Lopez!” I wailed.
“He’s fine!” Biko shouted into my ear. “He’s fine! Lopez is fine!”
“What?” I panted in panic, clutching him. “What?”
He shook me by the shoulders, met my eyes, and said loudly into my face, “Lopez is okay. We found him. Puma and Jeff are with him now. He’s going to be all right.”
“He is?” I could barely choke out the words, I was so relieved.
“He’s
fine
,” Biko repeated. “Well, almost fine. A little hardheaded, if you ask me.”
I burst into tears and started wailing with relief.
“Uh, Max,” Biko said awkwardly. “Could you deal with this?”
“Of course.”
Max embraced me and patted my back while I wept copiously against his shoulder. Every so often, he murmured soothing words to the effect that Lopez would be fine.
After a little while, I pulled myself together enough to ask my two companions, “What happened?”
Far from being satisfied by his talk earlier in the day with Catherine Livingston, Max had felt dark suspicions about the woman after ending the conversation.
“So I returned to several questions that have been vexing me,” Max said, as we walked wearily in the direction of the foundation. “Why summon so much dark magic? There must be a purpose or goal, and yet we had not yet perceived it.”

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