Green Eyes

Chapter 18

Ordinarily they would have been asleep at three o’clock in the morning, but for some reason Jocundra’s adrenaline was flowing and she just tossed and turned.

‘Let’s get something to eat,’ she suggested, and since Donnell had also been having trouble sleeping, he was agreeable.

It was creepy poking around the house at night, though not seriously so: like sneaking into a funhouse after hours, when all the monsters have been tucked into their niches. These days it was rare to see anyone walking the corridors of Maravillosa. Clea and Downey had moved in together and were busy - said the Baron with a wink -‘lickin’ each other’s wounds, you unnerstan’?’ Simpkins, as always, kept aloof. Only two of the ‘friends’ remained, a chubby man and, of course, Captain Tomorrow, whom Jocundra had come to think of as a ragged blackbird perched on a volume of Poe stories, pronouncing contemporary ‘Nevermores.’ And Otille never ventured downstairs. Jocundra imagined her wandering through her ebony shrubs, quoting Ophelia’s speeches; and that set her to remembering how, during the early days of the project, Laura Petit had labeled certain of the patients ‘Opheliacs’ because of their tendency to babble and cry. Jocundra had had one such patient, a thirtyish man with fine, pale red hair, fleshy, an academic suicide. He had licked the maroon stripe of the wallpaper, and at the end, unable to speak coherently, he had tried to proposition her by making woeful faces and exaggerated gestures, reminding her of Quasimodo entreating Esmerelda. She had nearly quit the project after his death.

Moonlight laid jagged patterns of light and shadow over the downstairs corridors, casting images of windows and blinds splintered by the wind. They had considered walking outside, but it started to drizzle and so they stood on the porch instead. The rain had a clean, fragrant smell, and its gentleness, the steady drip from eaves, gave Jocundra the feeling of being a survivor, of emerging from a battered house to inspect the aftermath of a storm. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw something gleaming out along the drive. A car. Long; some pale colour; maybe gray.

‘Company,’ she said, pointing it out to Donnell.

‘No doubt Otille has found solace in a lover’s arms,’ he said. ‘Or else they’re delivering a fresh supply of bats to the attic.’

‘I wonder who it is, though.’

‘Let’s go to the kitchen,’ he said. ‘I’m hungry.’

But on the way to the kitchen, they heard voices from Otille’s office.

‘I don’t want to get involved with her tonight,’ said Donnell, trying to steer her away.

‘I want to see who it is,’ she whispered. ‘Come on.’

They eased along the wall toward the office, avoiding the shards of window glass.

‘… does seem that the hybrid ameliorates the tendency to violence,’ said a man’s voice. ‘But after seeing him…’

‘It’s not his fault he’s the way he is,’ said Otille. ‘It’s probably mine.’

‘Be that as it may,’ said the man patiently. ‘We’re not ready for live tests. Look. If your family’s problems do result from a congenital factor in the DNA, and I’m not convinced they do…’

Jocundra recognized the voice, though she found it hard to believe that he would be here.

‘I’m so sick of being like this,’ said Otille.

Jocundra pushed Donnell away, shaping the man’s name with her lips, but he resisted.

‘Have you been taking your medication?’ asked the man.

‘It makes me queasy.’

‘Evenin’, folks,’ said Simpkins. He was standing behind Donnell, an apple in one hand, a kitchen knife in the other; he gestured toward the office with the knife.

Donnell hardly reacted to him. ‘Ezawa!’ he said, and brushed past Jocundra into the office. Simpkins urged her to follow.

Otille was standing against the wall, distraught, her hair in tangles, a black silk robe half open to her waist. Jocundra had not seen her since the night Donnell first used the veve, and she was startled by the changes in her. All the hollows of her face had deepened, and her eyes seemed larger, darker, gone black like old collapsed lights. Ezawa was behind the desk, his legs crossed, the image of control. He ran a hand through his shock of white hair and said to Otille, ‘This is unfortunate.’

‘It was inevitable,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, Yoshi. I’ll take care of it.’ She leaned over the desk and pushed a button on the intercom. A man’s cultivated voice answered, and Otille said, ‘Can you come meet my other guests?’

‘Oh?’ A rustling noise. ‘Certainly. I’ll just be a few minutes.’

‘Do you need any help?’

‘No, no. I’ll be fine. I’ve been looking forward to this.’

‘The Rigaud Foundation,’ said Donnell suddenly; he had been staring at Ezawa. ‘They’re funding the project.’

‘That’s right,’ said Ezawa.

‘And I’ve got the family disease. Christ!’ He turned to Jocundra. ‘The new strain. They dug it out of her damn graveyard. Right?’ he asked of Ezawa.

‘Half right.’ Ezawa peered at Donnell, then settled back, building a church and steeple with his knitted fingers, tapping his thumbs together. The harsh lamplight paled his yellow complexion, making his moles seem as oddly shaped and black as flies, and despite his meticulous appearance, he looked soft, inflated with bad fluids.

‘Actually,’ he said, ‘the entire project is a creation of the Foundation, of Valcours Rigaud specifically. He spent most of his later life trying to create zombies, and amazingly enough achieved a few short-lived reanimations. His method was clumsy, but there was a constant in his formulae - a spoonful of graveyard dirt placed in the corpse’s mouth - and so I was led to my own researches.’ He sighed. ‘You, Mr Harrison, were injected with bacteria bred in Valcours’ grave, as were Magnusson and Richmond. But…’

‘That’s impossible,’ blurted Jocundra. ‘Valcours is buried in the crypt. There’s no dirt. The bacteria couldn’t have bred.’

‘His head,’ said Otille; she was tying and untying the sash of her robe. ‘They buried it down by the pool.’

‘As I was saying,’ said Ezawa, frowning at Jocundra, then turning his attention back to Donnell. ‘You and Magnusson received a hybrid strain. One of the thrusts of the project, you see, has been to isolate a cure for Otille’s hereditary disorder, and with that in mind, we interbred Valcours’ bacteria with a strain taken from another grave located here on the grounds. The grave of Valcours’ magus, his victim. Lucanor Aime.’

‘And Aime,’ said Donnell coldly, more calmly than Jocundra might have expected. ‘His patron deity, that would be Ogoun.’

‘Ogoun Badagris,’ murmured Otille.

‘Astounding, isn’t it?’ said Ezawa. ‘The good magician and the evil apprentice still warring after over a century. Warring inside your head, Mr Harrison. When Otille suggested the hybrid, I ridiculed the idea, but the results have been remarkable. It’s enough to make me re-embrace the mysticism of my ancestors.’ He gave a snort of self-deprecating laughter. ‘The entire experience has been quasi-mystical, even the early days when the lab was full of caged rats and dogs and rabbits and monkeys, all with glowing, green eyes. Pagan science!’

‘You’re going to die, Ezawa,’ said Donnell angrily. ‘Just like in the movies, and pretty damn soon. One morning after this breaks, after the papers start howling for your blood, and they will, you can count on it, that old time religion of yours will stir you to wrap a white rag around your head and sit you down facing the sunrise with a fancy knife and a brain full of noble impulse. And the ironic part is that you’re going to be swept away by the nobility of it all right up to the time you get a whiff of your bowels and see the tubes squirming out of your stomach.’

He broke off and looked toward the door. Only Simpkins was there, but Jocundra heard dragging footsteps in the hall. ‘Who is it?’ asked Donnell, whirling on Otille.

‘He says he can feel you, too, but from much farther away,’ Otille’s voice devoid of emotion.

‘Our latest success with the new strain,’ said Ezawa. ‘He’s much stronger than you, Mr Harrison. Or he will be. I think we can credit that to his having been a full-fledged psychic, not merely a latent one.’

Donnell leaped toward Otille, furious, but Simpkins intercepted him and threw him onto the floor. Otille never blinked, never flinched.

‘Fisticuffs,’ said a man at the door. ‘Marvelous! Wonderful!’

He wore a black silk bathrobe matching Otille’s, carried a cane, and the right side of his puffy face was swathed in bandages; but both his eyes were visible. The irises flickered green.

‘Papa!’ Jocundra gasped.

He regarded her distantly, puzzled, then inclined his head to Donnell in a sardonic bow. ‘Valcours Rigaud at your service, sir,’ he said. ‘I do hope you’re not injured.’

Jocundra took a step toward Ezawa. ‘You killed him!’ she said. ‘You must have!’

‘It’s questionable he would have lived,’ said Ezawa placidly.

‘Did you kill me, Otille?’ Valcours affected a look of hurt disillusionment. ‘You only told me I had died.’

It was impossible to think of him as Papa anymore. He was truly Valcours, thought Jocundra, if only a model conjured up by Otille. Death had remolded his face into a sagging, pasty dumpling, reduced all his redneck vitality into the dainty manners of a moldering, middle-aged monster.

‘I had to,’ said Otille; she walked over to him and took up his hand. ‘Or else you wouldn’t have come back.’

Valcours drew her into a long, probing kiss, running his free hand across her breasts. He cradled her head against his chest. ‘Ah, well,’ he said. ‘The joys of life are worth a spell of mindlessness and corruption. Don’t you agree, Mr Harrison?’

Donnell sat up against the wall, his head lowered. ‘What have you got in mind, Otille?’

Valcours answered him. ‘There’s a world of possibility to explore, Mr Harrison. But as far as you’re concerned we’ll keep you around until I learn about the veve, and as for your beautiful lady…’ Before Jocundra could react, he prodded her breast with the tip of his cane. ‘I believe a fate worse than death would be in order.’ He laughed, a flighty laugh that tinkled higher and higher, traveling near the verge of hysteria. Tears of mirth streamed from his eyes, and he waved his hand, a foppish gesture that should have been accomplished by a lace handkerchief, signaling his helplessness at the humor of the situation.

‘You had your chance,’ said Otille bitterly to Donnell. ‘I wanted you to help me.’

‘Help you rule the universe, like with the evil fairy there?’ Donnell said. ‘I thought you wanted to be cured, Otille. How could I help you with that? But you don’t want a cure. You want zombies and horrors and icky delights. And now’ - he cast a disparaging glance at Valcours - ‘now your wish has come true.’

‘Be still!’ said Valcours with a hiss of fury. He raised his cane to strike Donnell, and Jocundra recoiled, bumped against Simpkins, and jumped away from him. In his rage, Valcours possessed a melevolence previously muffled by his effete manner.

‘You know, Ezawa,’ said Donnell, ‘you’re in big trouble with all this. Maybe even bigger than you could expect. What if this fruit really is Valcours, what if you’ve really worked a miracle?’

‘What if?’ Valcours was once again the dandy, complaining of a gross indignity. ‘I’m the very soul of the man! Like the resin left in an opium pipe, the soul leaves its scrapings in the flesh. The essence, the pure narcotic of existence! Whether my dispersed shade had misted up anew, summoned forth by modern alchemies, or whether all is illusory, these are questions for philosophers, and have no moment for men of action.’ He giggled, delighting in the flavor of his speech.

‘See,’ said Donnell to Ezawa. ‘It’s going to blow up in your face. Fay Wray and the Mummy here will meet the Wolf man, have a group hallucination, and then comes the shitstorm. He’s her puppet, and she’s out of her fucking mind. Do you honestly believe they can keep it together?’

‘Simpkins!’ shouted Otille. ‘Get them out of here!

Before Simpkins could cross the room, Valcours launched a feeble attack on Donnell, attempting to batter his legs with the cane. But Donnell rolled aside, pulled himself up by the desk and snatched the cane from Valcours. He spun Valcours around, levered the cane under his jaw and started to choke him.

‘This bastard’s weaker than I am,’ he said. ‘I bet I could crush his windpipe pretty damn quick.’

Simpkins held his distance, looking to Otille for instruction; but she was again in thrall of the listlessness which had governed her during most of the encounter. Spit bubbled between Valcours’ lips and he thrashed in Donnell’s grasp.

‘Look at her, Ezawa,’ said Donnell; he increased pressure on Valcours’ throat until his eyes bulged and he hung limp, prying ineffectively at the cane. ‘Don’t you see what they’re hamming up between them? This is her big chance to make it in the Theater of the Real, to go public with her secret third act. A gala of obscenity. Otille and Valcours. Lord and Lady Monster together for the first time. Help us! Help yourself.’

‘I can’t.’ Ezawa had risen and moved around to the side of the deck. ‘She’d ruin me.’

‘You’re already ruined,’ said Donnell. ‘And it’ll be worse if you let it go on. She’s so far gone it won’t stop until you’re scraping dead virgins off the streets of New Orleans. This women thinks evil’s a nifty comic book and she’s the villainous queen. Maybe she is! Whatever, she’s going to do evil, and the word’s going to get around. Help us! I’ll finish this one, and we’ll all jump Simpkins.’

Ezawa’s face worked, but his shoulders slumped. ‘No,’ he said.

‘No, huh?’ Donnell let Valcours sag to the floor. ‘Another time,’ he said, prodding him with his foot.

‘Hit him,’ said Otille in a monotone. ‘Don’t kill him, but hit him hard.’

Jocundra draped herself around Simpkins’ neck as he went for Donnell, but he threw her off and her head struck the desk. White lights seemed to shoot out of her eyes, pain wired through her skull, and someone was holding her wrist. Checking for a pulse, probably. She wanted to tell them she was all right, that she had a pulse, but her mouth wouldn’t work. And just before she lost consciousness, she wondered if she did have a pulse after all.

On the fourth day of their confinement Jocundra remembered the trick door in the Baron’s room, but for the first three days their position had appeared hopeless. Donnell’s jaw was swollen, his eyes rapidly brightening, his skin paling, and he would scarcely say a word. He stared at the bedroom walls as if communicating with the peaceful ebony faces. The wind blew twice a day, not as strongly at first as it had for Donnell, but stronger each time, and they would watch out the window as Otille, invariably clad in her black silk robe, led Valcours back and forth between the veve and the house. Their meals were brought by Simpkins and the chubby ‘friend,’ an innocent-looking sort with close-set eyes and a Cupid’s mouth, whose presence seemed to upset Donnell. Simpkins would wait in the hall, picking his teeth, commenting sarcastically, and on the evening of the third day he gave them some bad news.

‘Brother Downey has gone the way of all flesh,’ he said. ‘We hog-tied him and put him on the veve, then the late Papa Salvatino started walking around and a pale glow came out of his fingers. Well, when that glow touched Brother Downey, you would have sworn he’d gotten religion. Quakin’ and shakin’ and yellin’. I was up on the hill and I could hear his bones snap. Looked like he’d been dropped off a skyscraper.’ He worried his gums with a toothpick. ‘Sister Clea ran off, or I reckon she was next. ‘Bout the only reason you alive, brother, is Otille’s scared of you. If it was up to me, I’d kill you quick.’

It was then that Jocundra remembered the door. Two iron brads held it in place, but removing them was not the main problem.

‘We’ve got to wire it so we can trip the release,’ said Donnell. ‘Then we’ll lure Simpkins in, try to trap him in the alcove, and hope we can take them one at a time.’

They worked half the night at prying off the molding, both of them breaking fingernails in the process; they disconnected the release mechanism and undid the springs of their bed, straightening and knotting them together to attach to the mechanism; they jiggled loose two bed legs to use as clubs, shoring up the bed with books, and refined their plan.

‘You’ll be at the table,’ said Donnell, ‘and I’ll be about here.’ He took a position halfway between the alcove and the table. ‘When the guy sets down the trays, I’ll go for him. You drop the door as soon as Simpkins starts to move. Then you hit the other guy. The worst case will be two against two, and even if Simpkins does get through, maybe we can finish the other one off first.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘When I hit Papa on the boat it was all reflexes. Fear. I don’t know if I can plan to do it.’

‘I think you’ll be sufficiently afraid,’ he said. ‘I know I will.’ He hefted his club. ‘Afterward, I’ll head to the veve and see if I can get control of it.’

While the wind was blowing the next morning, they ran a test of the door. Donnell stood on the table beneath it and caught it after it had fallen a couple of inches.

‘Let’s do it tonight,’ he said. ‘He’s getting stronger all the time, but I still have a physical advantage. You keep away from the veve until it’s over. Find some car keys, grab some of the videotapes. Maybe we can use them. But keep away from the veve.’

Jocundra promised, and while he wound the bedsprings around the leg of the table beside her, she tried to prepare herself for swinging the club. It was carved into whorls on the bottom but the business end was cut square and had an iron bolt sticking out from the side. The thought of what it could do to a face chilled her. She let it lie across her lap for a long time, because when she went to touch it her fingers felt nerveless, and she did not want to drop it and show her fear. Finally she set it against the wall and ran over the exact things she would have to do. Let go the wire, pick up the club, and swing it at the chubby man. The list acquired a singsong, lilting rhythm like a child’s rhyme, drowning out her other thoughts, taunting her. Let go the wire, pick up the club, and swing it at the chubby man. She saw herself taking a swing, connecting, and him boinging away cartoon style, a goofy grin on his face, red stars and OUCHES and KAPOWS exploding above his head. Then she thought how it really would be, and she just didn’t know if she could do it.

Donnell had never been more drawn to her than now, and though he was afraid, his fear was not as strong as his desire to be with her, to ease her fear. She was very nervous. She kept reaching down to check if her club was still leaning against the wall, rubbing her knuckles with the heel of her palm. Tension sharpened her features; her eyes were enormous and dark; she looked breakable. He couldn’t think how to take her mind off things, but at last, near twilight, he brought a notebook out from his bureau drawer and handed it to her.

‘What’s this?’ she asked.

‘Pictures,’ he said; and then, choosing his tense carefully, because his tendency was to think of everything he had planned in the imperfect past, he added, ‘I might do something with them one of these days.’

She turned the pages. ‘They’re all about me!’ she said; she smiled. ‘They’re pretty, but they’re so short.’

He knelt down, reading along with her. ‘Most are meant to be fragments, short pieces - still they’re not finished. Like this one.’ He pointed.

‘Just cleverness,’ he said. ‘I didn’t do what I wanted to do. But all together, and with some work, they might be something.’

She turned another page. ‘They’re not,’ she said, laughing.

‘What?’

‘My legs.’ She quoted:’”… the legs of a ghost woman, elongated by centuries of walking through the walls.” They’re not that long.’ She spanked his hand playfully, then held up a folded piece of paper, one on which he had written down ‘The Song of Returning.’ He had forgotten about it. ‘What’s this?’ she asked.

‘Just some old stuff,’ he said.

She read it, refolded the paper, but said nothing.

He rested his head on her forearm and was amazed by the peace that the warmth of her skin seemed to transmit, as if he had plunged his head into the arc of a prayer. He rubbed his cheek along her arm. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and he felt drifty. The lamplight shaded the skin of her arm from gold into pale olive, like delicate brushwork.

‘Jocundra?’

‘Yes?’

He wanted to tell her something, something that would serve as a goodbye in case things didn’t do well; but everything he thought of sounded too final, too certain of disaster.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

She bent her head close to his and let out a shuddery breath. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she whispered.

Her reassurance reminded him of Shadows, how she had comforted him about the brightness of his eyes, his aches and pains; he felt a rush of anger. It had never been all right, and chances were it never would be. He did not know who to blame. Jocundra had made it bearable, and everyone else was either too weak or too riddled with sickness to be held responsible: it seemed that the whole world had that excuse for villainy.

There were footsteps and voices in the hall.

He fumbled with the wire, uncoiled it, thrust it into her hand, making sure she had the grip, and ran to his position near the alcove.

It almost didn’t work. She almost waited too long. Simpkins yelled ‘Hey!’ and came running in, and at first she thought the door had missed him. But then he pitched forward hard, as if someone had picked him up by the feet and slammed him down, and she saw that the door had pinned his ankle. The chubby man looked back at Simpkins just as Donnell swung, and the club glanced off the side of his head and sent him reeling against the wall. Simpkins screamed. The chubby man bounced off the wall and started walking dreamily toward Jocundra, his hands outstretched, a befuddled look on his face. Blood was trickling onto his ear. He heard Donnell behind him, turned, then - just as Jocundra swung - turned back, confused. She caught him flush on the mouth. He staggered away a step and dropped to his knees. He gave a weird, gurgling cry, and his hands fluttered about his mouth, afraid to touch it. A section of his lip was crushed and smeared up beneath his nose, and his gums were a mush of white fragments and blood. Donnell hit him on the neck, and he rolled under the table and lay still.

Simpkins’ eyes were dilated, his face ashen, and he had begun to hyperventilate. The door had sunk a couple of inches into his leg above the ankle, and a crescent of his blood stained the wood. Just as they stooped to lift it, a pair of black hands slipped under from the other side and lifted it for them. Jocundra jumped back, Donnell readied his club. The door came up slowly, revealing a pair of brown trousers, a polo shirt, and then the sullen face of the Baron. Simpkins never noticed the door had been raised. His foot flopped at a ridiculous, straw-man angle, and he stared along the nap of the carpet with scrutinous intensity, as if he were reading a tricky green. His nostrils flared.

‘You people don’t need no damn help,’ said the Baron, surveying the carnage. Clea peeped out from behind him, depressed-looking and pale.

‘Where’s Otille?’ asked Donnell.

‘Seen her downstairs when we’s headin’ up,’ said the Baron; he kicked Simpkins’ leg out of the way and motioned for them to pass on through; then he let the door bang down. ‘What the hell is gon’ on ‘round here? Clea say…’

‘Stay away from the veve,’ said Donnell, taking Jocundra by the shoulders. ‘Understand? Find the tapes.’ And then, before she could respond, he said to the Baron, ‘Keep her here,’ and ran toward the stairs. Clea ran after him.

Despite the warning, Jocundra started to follow, but the Baron blocked her way. ‘Do what he say, woman,’ he said. ‘Way I hear it, ain’t nothin’ we can do down there ‘cept die.’

Dusk had settled over Maravillosa, and a silvery three-quarter moon had risen high above the shattered trees. Scraps of insulation and roofing blown from the cabins glittered among the debris of fronds and branches and vines. The only sound was of Donnell and Clea crunching through the denuded thickets. Because of Valcours’ weakness, Otille would be leading him along a circuitous and relatively uncluttered path to the veve, so Donnell had made a beeline for it. Clea was breathing hard, squeaking whenever a twig scratched her.

‘You should go back,’ he said. ‘You know what he did to Downey.’

‘I promise you,’ said Clea, hiccupping. ‘If you don’t get him, then I’m gonna.’

Donnell glanced back and saw that she was crying.

A dark man-shaped thing floated in the marble pool, and the shadowy forms of Valcours’ other anthropomorphic toys were visible among the stripped branches of the shrubbery, leaning, arms outflung, like soldiers fallen in barbed wire while advancing across a no man’s land. Towering above them, some twelve or fifteen feet high, was a metal devil’s head, lean-skulled and long-eared. Its faceted, moonstruck eyes appeared to be tracking them, and its jaw had fallen open, giving it a dumfounded look. The rivets stitching the plates together resembled tribal tattoos.

As he climbed up the last conical hill, a drop of sweat slid along his ribs and his mouth went dry. There was a terrifying aura of suppressed energy about the clearing. The floodlights were off, but the copper paths of the veve rippled with moonlight: a crazy river flowing in every direction at once. He forced himself down the hill and climbed up on it, feeling as though he had just strapped himself into an electric chair. Clea climbed on behind him. He was through warning her; she was her own agent, and he had no time to waste.

He became lost in walking his pattern, in building his fiery tower, so lost that he did not notice Valcours had joined him on the veve until the fields began to evolve beyond his control, rising at an incredible rate into the sky. Valcours was walking alone on the opposite end of the veve, and from the movements of the bacteria, the height and complexity of the structure above them, from his understanding of the necessities of their patterns, Donnell judged they would reach their terminal junctions simultaneously. The knowledge that they were bound together wrapped him in an exultant rage. No one was going to usurp his place, his authority! He would write his victory poem in the bastard’s blood, cage a serpent in his skull. He had a glimpse of Clea trudging toward the man, her mouth opening and closing, and though the whine of the fields drowned out her voice, he knew she must be singing.

Then the white burst of transition, the perfunctory holiness of a spark leaping the gap, and he was once again standing in the purple night and dusty streets of Rumelya.

Somewhere a woman screamed, a guttering, bubbling screech, and as he cast about for the direction of the scream, he realized the town was not Rumelya. The streets were of the same pale sand; the Mothemelle loomed above the hunched rooftops; the buildings were constructed and carved the same, but many were of three and four stories. Looking to the east, he saw a black column. The splinter of Moselantja. This, then, was the high town of the river. Badagris. Where he was Aspect. Normally the streets would be bustling, filled with laughter-loving fools. Fishermen and farmers from upriver; rich men and their women stopping their journey for an evening’s festival; the cultus playing guitars and singing and writhing as they were possessed by the Invisible Ones. But not tonight. Not until the Election had been won. Then even he might relax his customary reserve, let the dull throng mill around and touch him, squealing at the tingle of his black spark.

He wondered who had been incautious enough to accept candidacy this year. It was no matter. His fires were strong, he was ready and confident.

Too confident.

If his suit had not reacted, urging him to spring into a back somersault, he might have died. As it was, a beam of fire seared his forehead. He came up running from the somersault, never having seen his assailant, half-blind with pain and cursing himself for his carelessness. He cut between buildings, remembering the layout of the town as he ran, its streets designed in accordance with the Aspect’s seal. His strength confounded him. Even such a slight wound should have weakened him briefly, overloaded his suit, but he felt more fit than ever, more powerful. At last he slowed to a walk and went padding along, the sand hissing away from his feet. He was at one in stealth and caution with the crouched wooden demons on the roof slants, their fanned wings lifted against the starlight, and it seemed they were peering around the corners for him, scrying dangers. One day, when he finally lost an Election, his image would join theirs in some high place of the town. But he would not lose this Election.

Turning onto the Street of Beds, he saw a body lying in front of the East Wind Brothel, an evil place offering artificially bred exotics and children. The body was that of a girl. Probably some kitchen drudge who had wanted a glimpse of combat. It happened every year. Beneath the coarse dress, her bones poked in contrary directions.

He rolled her over with his foot, and her arm followed her shoulder with a herky-jerky, many-jointed movement. Broken capillaries webbed her face and neck, and blood seeped from the orbits of her eyes. She had not died quickly, and he marked that against the candidate. He ripped down the bodice of her dress and saw the seal of the Aspect tattooed upon her right breast. She was of the cultus. Though she had been a fool, he could not withhold the grace of Ogoun. He touched her lips with his forefinger, loosing a black spark to jitter and crawl inside her mouth, and he sang the Psalm of Dissolution.

Since she was a mere kitchen drudge, he chanted only the one verse.

Lagoon-shaped shadows from the forest crowns spilled onto the street. He shifted forwards, streaming from darkness to darkness, materializing beside walls carved into the faces of forest animals and spirits. What had the old man said? Sorry past and grim future pressing their snouts against the ebony grain of the present. The Aspect poured through the streets, a shadow himself, until finally, near Pointcario’s Inn, his favorite spot in the town because of the carved figure of a slender woman emerging from the door, her face half-turned back to someone within, there he found the candidate: a big man with a face half spider, half toad set into his suit. Without hesitation the Aspect attacked, and soon they were locked in combat.

Their beams crossed and deflected, their misfires started blazes on the roofs, and sections of nearby walls were lit by vivid flashes into rows of fanged smiles. The candidate was incredibly strong but clumsy: his patterns of attack and parry were simple, depending on their force to overwhelm the more skillful play of the Aspect’s beams. Gradually, their fires intertwined, weaving above and around them into an iridescent rune, a cage of furious energy whose bars flowed back and forth. After having fully tested the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, the Aspect disengaged and shifted toward another district of the town to consider his strategy and rest, though truly he felt no need for rest. Never before had he been so battle ready, his suit so attuned to his reactions, his rage so pure and burning.

He sat down on the porch of Manyanal’s Apothecary and stroked the head of the ebony hound rising from the floorboards. The beauty of the night was a vestment to his strength and his rage, fitting to him as sleekly as did his suit. It seemed to move when he moved, the stars dancing to the firings of his nerves. Talons of the purple aurora clawed up half the sky, holding the world in their clutch and shedding violet gleams on the finials and roofpeaks, coursing like violet blood along the wing vanes of a roof demon. The stillness was deep and magical, broken now and then by the hunting cry of an iron-throated lizard prowling the Mothemelle.

A door creaked behind him.

He somersaulted forward, shifting as he did, and landed in the shadows across the street, playing his fires over the front of the doorway. A scream, something slumped on the porch, flames crackling around a dark shape. He shifted back. Beneath the web of broken capillaries was the face of Manyanal, his eyes distended, smoke curling from his stringy brown hair. Had everyone gone mad? One fool was to be expected, but two… Manyanal was a respected citizen, accorded the reputation of wisdom, a dealer of narcotic herbs who had settled in Badagris years before his own Election. What could have driven him to be so foolhardy? The Aspect had a notion something was wrong, but he pushed it aside. It was time to end the combat before more fools could be exposed. He would harrow the candidate, engage and disengage, diminish his fires and lead him slowly by the nerve-ends down to death. Still vaguely puzzled by the constancy of his strength, he started off along the street, then stopped, thinking to bestow the grace upon Manyanal. But he remembered that the apothecary was not of the cultus, and so left him to smoulder on his porch.

Otille came pelting into the house just as Jocundra and the Baron came out of her office, each carrying cans of videotape; she flattened against the wall, staring at them, horrified. Her black silk robe hung open and there was dirt smeared across her stomach and thighs. The wind drove something against the side of the house, and she shrieked, her shriek a grace note to the howling outside. She ran past them, head down and clawing at the air as if fighting off a swarm of bees.

The Baron shouted something that was lost in the wind.

Jocundra signaled that she hadn’t heard, and he shook his head to say never mind, gazing after Otille.

Wind battered the house, a gale, perhaps even hurricane force. The walls shuddered, windows exploded, and the wind gushed inside, ripping down blinds, overturning lamps, flipping a coffee table, all with the malevolent energy of a spirit who had waited centuries for the opportunity. A maelstrom of papers swirled out of Otille’s office like white birds fluttering down the hall.

‘I’m going out!’ shouted Jocundra.

The Baron shook his head and tried to grab her. But she eluded him and ran out the door and down the steps.

The night thrashed with tormented shadows, the air was filled with debris. Branches and shingles sailed across the ridiculously calm and unclouded moon. Shielding her head, she made for the cover of the underbrush, stumbling, being blown off course. She crouched behind a leafless bush that offered no protection and pricked her with its thorns, but there was no greater protection elsewhere. The fury of the wind blew through her, choking off her thoughts, even her fears, absorbing her into its chaos. The Baron threw himself down beside her. Blood trickled along his jaw, and he was gasping. Then, behind them, a tortured groan split the roar of the wind. She looked back. Slowly, a hinged flap of the roof lifted like a great prehistoric bird hovering over its nest, beat its black wing once and exploded, disintegrating into fragments that showered the bushes around them. In the sharp moonlight, she saw boxes, bundles, and furniture go spiraling up from the attic, and she had the giddy idea that they were being transported to new apartments in the spirit world. The Baron pulled her head down, covering her as a sofa crashed nearby and split in two.

It took forever to reach the veve.

A forever of scuttling, crouching, of vines flying out of the night and coiling around them. Once a rotten oak toppled across their path, and as she crawled through its upturned roots, the wind knocked her sideways into its hollow bottom. The moon looked in on her, shining up the filaments of the root hairs. She was groped by claustrophobia, an old man with oaken fingers who wanted to swallow her whole. By the time the Baron hauled her out, she was sobbing with terror, beating at the invisible things crawling beneath her clothes. They went on all fours, cutting their hands on pieces of glass, ducking at shadows. But at last they wriggled up the hill overlooking the veve.

Valcours and Donnell stood about a dozen feet apart, and from their fingers flowed streams of the same numinous glow that had destroyed the cypress; the streams twisted and intertwined, joining into a complex design around them, one which constantly changed as they moved their hands in slow, evocative gestures, like Kabuki dancers interpreting a ritual battle. Suddenly Valcours broke off the engagement and limped away along one of the copper paths. The weave of energy dissolved; the pale light bursting from Donnell’s hands merged into a single beam and torched a bush below the hill. Maybe, she thought, maybe she could sneak through the wind, get beneath the veve and pull Valcours down. She wriggled forward but the Baron dragged her back.

‘Look, goddamn it!’ he shouted in her ear, pointing to a part of the veve far from Valcours and Donnell.

Two bodies lay athwart the struts. One, her dress torn, was Clea, and the other - Jocundra recognized him by the radio clutched in his hand - was Captain Tomorrow. Even at this distance, the deformity of their limbs was apparent. She turned back to see Donnell racing after Valcours. With incredible grace - she could hardly believe he was capable of such - he turned a forward flip, came out of a shoulder roll, and landed on the junction behind Valcours. The bush he had set afire whirled up in a tornado of sparks into the darkness and was gone.

Weakened beyond the possibility of further battle, cornered, the candidate appealed for mercy. He dissolved his mask; his puffy features were strained and anxious. The Aspect was surprised by his age. Usually they sent the youngest, the angriest, but no doubt this man’s exceptional strength had qualified him.

‘Brother,’ said the candidate. ‘My soul is not ripe. Grant me two years of meditation, and I will present myself at Ghazes.’

‘Your soul will ripen in my fires.’ said the Aspect.

‘Should it not, then it would never have borne with ripeness.’

‘How will it be, brother? I would prepare.’

‘Slowly,’ said the Aspect. ‘Two of my children have died this night.’

He savored the moment of victory. The clarity accessible at these times merited contemplation. He noticed that the glitter of the stars had grown agitated, eager for the death, and in the distance the river chuckled approvingly against the pilings of the wharf. The shadows of the roof demons stretched long across the sand, centering upon the spot where the candidate stood. Everything was stretching toward the moment, adding its strength to his.

‘Ogoun will judge me,’ said the candidate.

‘I am his judgment here in Badagris,’ said the Aspect, irked by the man’s gross impiety, his needless disruption of the silence. ‘And like his mercies, his judgments hold no comfort for the weak.’

He drew his left hand back behind his ear, extended his right, and set an iridescent halo glowing about the candidate. The man began to quiver, and with a series of cracks like a roll of castanets, his fingers fused into crooked knots. A foam of blood fringed his nostrils; the web of capillaries - his new mask of death - faded into view. Another crack, much louder, and the pyramid of a fracture rose at the midpoint of his shoulder. Oh, how he wanted to scream, to retreat into meditation, but tie endured. The Aspect silently applauded his endurance and tested it more severely, causing his eyes to pop millimetre by millimetre until the irises were bull’s eyes in the midst of veined white globes rimmed with blood. Loud as tree trunks snapping, his thighbones shattered and he fell, his suit changed shape with every subsequent crack. His chest breeched, and something the size of a grapefruit was pushed forward; it dimpled and bulged against the coating of black energy; before long, before the candidate’s skull caved inward, it had become still.

After victory, diminution-.

The old cadre wisdom was right. He derived no real pleasure from the aftermath of battle. It simply meant he must now live until the next one, and despite his poetry, his meditation, that was never easy. Soon the townspeople would pour out the doors, throw open the shutters and debase the purity of night with their outcries and orange lanterns. Full of praise, they would gather around and ogle the corpse who, having met his death with courage, deserved better. Perhaps he would go to Pointcario’s Inn, touch the waist of the ebony girl lost forever in the doorway, pretend some other woman was she. But first there was something to do. The business of the aberrant High Aspect of Mounanchou. He reached up for the circuits of his ourdha, concentrated his thoughts into a point of sapphire light, and spun round and round until he arrived at Maravillosa.

The inside of his head was warm, unpleasantly so, as he jumped down, but his muscles were supple, his strength undiminished. He started toward the house, but was brought up short by the sight of the two corpses lying apart from the candidate. From Valcours. Disoriented, he looked around at the moonlit devastation, the gaping roof of the house, and a part of him which had been dormant raised an inner voice to remind him of certain verities. He understood now the meaning of the warmth, the nature of his newfound strength, and as another voice - a more familiar one of late - whispered to him, he also understood how that strength must be put to use.