The California Voodoo Game

34

Friday, July 22, 2059 — 5:00 P.M.

Steam rose from the wet graves like a pall, and the nine remaining Gamers, and their one remaining guide, plodded through the muck with hands up to their noses. The entire fourth level reeked of corruption.

It had taken two hours for them to creep down from the ninth level. Through stairways and hallways, avoiding things that shambled in the distance or groaned in the depths, they followed a Virtual trail of green arrows. At the end of that trail they found the graveyard, where their adventure had begun a day and a half earlier.

Muck had seeped down from the ninth level. The floor was sopping and slippery. Partially decomposed, inhuman corpses had washed from the graves and lay moist and rotting in the park lanes. Eyeless sockets stared at them; tongueless mouths screamed in silence.

Acacia held her sword ever at the ready. Captain Cipher had much of their salt supply. He sprinkled bits of it, just a pinch, on each corpse that they passed. Where the salt fell, a puff of smoke rose, reeking of corruption.

A trill of laughter wafted from across the boneyard, a sound even more inhuman than the warped and withered objects around them.

"Oh… so clever you are," a voice called. The word "are" dissolved from vowel sound into insane laughter. "You have salt, and salt stops my people. So clever…"

"Twenty-toed Moses," Cipher said. "I wish they'd hurry up and attack. I don't know how much more of this-"

"Shhh."

Most of the fourth level had been a park of some kind, a place where people might have come on holiday, to celebrate, to picnic. Now it was a place of stinking death, of corpses that clawed their way back from perdition.

"What do you think?" Tammi inspected one of the skeletons. "It looks like it was changing into one of the crocodile things." Tammi wore the Nommo crown. The Warrior-woman had powerful magic now. With the crown and the Necklace of Oggun, she was the single most powerful Adventurer.

They had tried spells to waken Mary-em's godling child, but it never stirred. "He's just a baby," Mary-em said sheepishly. "Maybe he's just taking a nap."

The entire caravan of Adventurers was suffused with Top Nun's saffron, protective radiance; it illumined the landscape, as well. The blasted, ruined graveyard was so depressing, Acacia almost wished the light would go out.

Captain Cipher's tuneless voice rang out: "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to die we go-"

"Is that your voice?" Al asked wearily, "or did you have beans for lunch?"

With a sudden rumble, a tombstone rose out of the muck. A man-sized ball of cobwebs bubbled out of the mud in front of it and then began to unfurl. Like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, a human being stepped forth from the ball and smiled.

He had been a man. He was part skeleton, and through gaps in his body and tattered greatcoat they could see the tombstone behind him. He had been of African blood, but there remained precious little blood in him, or flesh for it to course through.

He bowed expansively. "Welcome to my domain," he said. "I am Baron Samedi."

"Lord of the dead," Acacia murmured.

He flexed stiltlike legs and bowed creakily. He held his hand out for hers. She held out her hand nervously, and the rotting thing touched its protruding teeth to her softness. There was just a hint of warm, sticky breath against her skin, and then he straightened.

She had regained her composure. "Did you send the crocodile things to attack the Nommo?"

"No," he said, smiling. "I watch. I enjoy the spectacle."

"Of what?"

"Of… life. All life ends here, in my domain. I enjoy watching the living ones try to forestall it for a few hours, or days, or years. It means nothing. All ends here, you know. I serve Babalu-Aye. He should have protected the dead from the

Mayombreros, but they have greater power now. Much greater. My master has become their servant." His voice was a delighted whisper.

"Where is your master?" she asked.

"Bound. Perhaps no longer my master. We shall see."

Top Nun crept up and whispered in Acacia's ear, " Babalu-Aye. Protector of the sick."

"What do you think?"

"The Mayombreros are going for the whole shmeer. We know that the gods are really just energy fields, but this one was made to heal, and to protect the dead. A sort of embalming demon, maybe? 'Baron Samedi' must be a kind of golem subprogram. Something that shmoozes with both the living and the dead, for Babalu-Aye."

"But without any real loyalty."

"So how could it have loyalty? It's just a golem, a robot, a made thing. Any energy that sustains it-"

"Energy…"

Top Nun's brown eyes narrowed shrewdly. "The reactor?"

Baron Samedi stood aside, cackling, waving them on their way.

The graveyard steamed as the Adventurers entered it; mud sloshed around their ankles. The trees were as bare as wheat fields in winter, and canted sideways. A dim wind whistled through the naked branches.

A scream behind them. Panthesilea saw Top Nun, eyes rolled up in her head, ankle grabbed by something from under the muck.

Panthesilea was on her in a second, hacking and slashing at the loose soil. Top Nun screamed, "by!" and light exploded around them both, driving the attacker back into the ground. She staggered back, panting. The rest of the Adventurers set themselves in circular array.

Here they came: crawling up from under the ground, up from the slime, creatures half human corpse and half crocodile, in states of hideous decomposition.

The Adventurers fought for their lives.

The creatures were no larger than men, but they writhed from the earth like maggots from meat, in apparently endless profusion.

But there was a new factor now: Acacia and the rest of her compatriots had survived the worst that the Mayombreros could throw at them, and their power had increased as a result.

That which does not kill you makes you stronger…

Captain Cipher still had salt. He flung it, chanting at the top of his voice. Where it touched the corpsodiles, their skin blistered and peeled back. A sword or staff stroke on a salt wound caused the unfortunate creature to die a second swift agonizing death.

Griffin, shoulder to shoulder with Bishop, watched the man go into high gear. His sword was a flicker of liquid light. Griffin swirled his own borrowed blade in narrow arcs, smashing the corpsodiles until there was a wall of bodies (There was no real resistance to the creatures. Almost as if they were phantoms…)

— and finally there was no more movement from the graves. No movement, but a low moaning sound that came from everywhere and originated nowhere, filling the room.

"Something's coming," Acacia whispered. "Oh, shit, I don't like this."

"Stay strong," Tammi said tersely.

At first there was nothing but empty graves and stacked zombie crocs, then two pony-sized black figures came bounding along the park path toward them. Dogs. Brutes. Two-hundred-pounders, pit bulls the size of mastiffs. They stopped, hovered out of range of the Adventurers' weapons.

A shape appeared at the top of the hill, dimly backlit by a dying street lamp. A one-legged man on crutches. Slowly, painfully, he made his way to them. Every step was an effort.

He was an old, old black man, and the dogs at his sides seemed more guardians than pets. They sniffed at Tammi, and at Mary-em. When they nuzzled her tummy, one of them sat on the ground and rolled over to expose its belly. She bent and scratched.

Real dog, by God.

"You have destroyed many of the undead," the old man said. "You are powerful. I think not powerful enough for what you try to do. But powerful."

Captain Cipher piped up. "Are you Babalu-Aye?"

"I have taken that guise, yes. You know the truth about us now. You saved, or fought to save, many dogs. I love dogs. They are my friends. And you have weakened the bonds that hold me. I offer to you this."

He held out one of the battered wooden crutches to Top Nun. "It magnifies the power of healing. You will need this before your task is through."

Top Nun slipped the crutch under her arm. It was dark, stained, heavily knotted wood. Her protective glow amped up until it was almost uncomfortably bright. With a wave of her hand, she brought it down to a milder level. She turned back to Babalu-Aye but he, and the dogs, had disappeared.

"Such a mensch," she whispered, and fingered the talisman softly.

A decision was made: with Top Nun's new protective power at their command, they would take a final break, preparing for their ultimate assault.

They found a gazebo, a rickety white framework in the middle of the desolation, and the Adventurers shucked their backpacks and sat heavily, as though the fatigue had flooded over them in sudden waves.

Griffin was watching carefully. Nigel Bishop seemed to have no desire to relate to Acacia, or to Griffin, either. Alex would have liked it better if one or the other of them had been killed out of the Game. He had to get out for a conference, and he needed an ally. There was only one choice.

He walked over to where Mary-em sat, unfolding her bedroll. She was gazing across the mud-flat graveyard, the scene of recent battle, one hand resting gently over the unborn child within her.

"May I sit?"

The little woman glanced at him slyly. "Absolutely."

"Better still. Can we go for a little walk?"

"Could be dangerous. Could be buggies about."

"We need privacy."

"I'm a mother now-" she started, then saw how serious he was. She hitched herself up, following him out of the gazebo. They found a bench a hundred feet away and sat.

Alex pressed his earpiece. "Message for Tony," he said clearly. "McWhirter. This is an emergency time-out, security matter. See we're not disturbed."

There was a pause. "McWhirter isn't here, chief," Mitch Hasagawa said, "but I'll pass the word along."

Mary-em was watching him shrewdly. "So. What is it this time?"

He laughed. "I keep messing up your Games, don't I?"

"Is that why you're here?"

"No, but you know that I'm the head of Security, and Acacia knows, and… Bishop knows."

"Uh-huh. Cut to the chase, Griffy."

He sighed. "Right. Bishop has conspired to fix this Game somehow. Acacia is in on it, or was. That's not all. Someone died.''

Her eyes narrowed in unspoken question.

"A security officer for Cowles Industries. Bishop might have been involved. If Acacia can implicate him…"

Mary-em was thoughtful. "A Game like this wouldn't be a bad opportunity to take someone out."

"I want you to stay close to Acacia. Don't let her out of your sight. I know that Bishop wouldn't try anything with a witness."

She nodded, her nut-brown face crinkling. "You've got it."

Bishop watched as Griffin and Mary-em and Acacia did their little minuet. And laughed to himself. He excused himself from the group to do a little scouting. There was no reason not to, and Acacia's relief was a delight to see. He walked out into dhe graveyard, then disappeared into the shadows beyond.