Evil Eye

by Michael Slade

  On the run, the White yanked another magazine from his skeleton chest-webbing. Through the trees he caught glimpses of Zinc crashing ahead, crossing the island to reach the bank of the far fork down which the White had poled. A smile creased his jaw. The Horseman was in for a jolt.

  Zinc heard the African angling in to intercept him from behind to the right. Blinding blue flashed between the trees in front of his eyes. Head turning to compute if he should veer up-island to the left, Zinc witnessed a six-foot demon trailing him, a nightmare so horrid he feared he was psychotic.

  Adrenaline fuel-injecting his heart, the cop burst from the bush and stumbled down glaring sand in a last-ditch effort to ford the stream, but a moment later was churning back in retreat.

  Crocodile Island took its name from this bask of crocs, sunning up and down the beach with eyes shut and jaws open so adroit little birds could pick their teeth clean, or slowly cruising the Okavango with S-sweeps of their eel-like tails. The sudden approach of fresh meat galvanized them. Bodies twisting side to side as limbs rowed sand, some belly-crawled off the bank to wait for Zinc in the stream, ready to drag him under the instant he waded in. One gave the shore a resounding smack with

  its tail, hurled itself in the air and looped into the river, then shot vertically out of the water to walk on the end of its tail. The less patient launched peremptory attacks. Crocs onshore rose long and lean on squat reptilian legs, high walking bellies and tails off the sand, snouts snapping hungrily as they came. Crocs offshore lunged onto the bank, fearsome bursts of speed in pursuit of Zinc, propelled many body-lengths by thrashing tails and leaping hind legs, webbed toes digging in for push, trying to topple Zinc with sledgehammer blows from their jaws.

  Eaten alive or shot through the heart, Zinc made a choice.

  Scrambling back and framed by bushes bordering the beach, he formed a perfect target outlined against the sky.

  Eight shots fired at point-blank range.

  GAUNTLET

  Georgia Strait

  Evil Eye clamped a handcuff around Craven's wrist, yanking the bayonet from Nick's palm to wrench his hand behind his back and lock both arms. ''Wonder how I found you?" the psycho asked, leather gripping the Mountie's hair to haul him from the ground, the other glove tearing a button from the cuff of his Red Serge. "Special 0 transmitter hidden in this button. Backup plan to track you in case you beat the frame. Twins we are in birth, but I'm smarter than you. No matter how fate plays it, you're destined to pay."

  The Hurricane from the Good Luck City was beached downwind. The wash of the tide and brine in Nick's ears had hushed its approach. Dressed, masked, and gloved in black, the psycho looming over him was dark against the moon. Madness and hate burned in the eyes behind slits in the balaclava. As if possessed by the beat of silent African drums, the snakeskin pouch around the killer's

  EVIL EYE 413

  neck swayed hypnotically. Dropping the lunger so its blade wedged in a fissure, Evil Eye grabbed Nick with both hands and shoved him toward the boat, drop-kicking him in the ribs when he stumbled and fell.

  "Uungh!"

  Kick.

  "Uungh!"

  Kick.

  "Uungh!"

  Kick.

  "Uungh!"

  Evil Eye a striker, Nick the soccer ball, the pair moved along the shore to the Hurricane. u Mom confessed how we were conceived/' Heard through water, the voice seemed to rise from the bottom of the sea. "Nigel came to Lethbridge while Ted was up North. Ted was an asshole who treated her bad. Nigel was a hunk from exotic Africa. March seventh, Ted returned while Mom had Nigel in bed. Hammond escaped bare-assed out the bedroom window. Naked, Mom intercepted Ted in the hall. He was so randy he fucked her over the living-room couch. One man gened me. The other gened you."

  Curled up in a fetal ball near the Hurricane, Nick vomited into our primal womb. From a bag in the boat, Evil Eye withdrew the Zulu knobkerrie. The first blow bounced off Nick's skull, cracking his clavicle. The Mountie yelped with agony as blood gushed across his face.

  'Touch a knife to someone's eye and truth spills out. Before she fell down the stairs, Eleanor recounted the night we were born. Ted was drunk and shouting the twins weren't his when Mom was in labor at his sister's home. Mom assumed a neighbor had seen Nigel escape, but it was merely Ted's insecurity, same as his dad doubted Eleanor. Mom confessed, cowed by labor pain, and Ted began hitting her during my birth. That's when Eleanor shot him with his thirty-eight, saving Mom while avenging incest rape in her youth."

  Three blows in succession rained down on Nick's head, causing him to dry heave as the psycho kicked him again.

  "Two dads. Two babies. Too much hate. You born

  rfect. Me with outcast skin. Would Mom have rejected

  pe

  me if I were her only child? Thanks to you, brother, I got sloughed off. Mom didn't want me. Nor did Eleanor. Sacred Heart couldn't place me because of my skin. So I spent years in that Newfoundland hell!

  "Every night the Brothers would creep through the dorm, selecting four or five of us to drag to bed. Cock up my ass or down my throat, crying for the Mom who put me there. Only revenge keeps you sane.

  "Took me years to find her but I never gave up. It was hate that won me all those scholarships. Then someone blew the whistle on the orphanage, and my placement surfaced in the investigation. Sister Superior, Eleanor, and Mom paid . . .

  "That leaves you, brother."

  The eyes above Nick pinned and dilated. "Hear them screaming? The Redcoats on the Hill? Twinning every man whose shade escaped Rorke's Drift? One stake bare . . . saved for you. ..."

  Glove gripping Red Serge, Evil Eye dragged Nick to his knees. Crabs scuttled around them, fleeing for the sea. "I hate you, brother. You owe me a lifetime of love. Pay up!" the psycho cried, raising the knobkerrie high against the moon, shouting "He's yours!" to Black Ghost as the club came down.

  BLACK MAMBA

  Africa

  Southern Africa squirms with seventy-six species of snake. The largest—the python—like bush and mole and green water snakes is harmless to us. Others are lethal. The bite of the fat flat bloated gaboon viper says bye-bye. Egyptian, spitting, rinkal, and forest cobras get their share. The Great Zimbabwe M'fezi in The Herald photo of the Gray squirts a spray of venom at the eyes. The puff adder, boomslang, vine snake ... the list goes oil But deadliest of all is the black mamba.

  The White first saw a mamba moving across a mealie field, back when both he and the Black were boys on his father's farm. Head six feet in the air and tail on the ground, the snake passed left to right while he gawked, top unjarred like a tank cannon mounted on a gyro, the lower eight of fourteen feet slithering fast. Never had he seen a more fearsome sight.

  Fleeing through the jungle with the White closing in, Zinc had glanced left to compute if he should veer up-island, and that's when he saw the serpent stalking him. Adrenaline hit the Mountie's heart like a vampire stake.

  For decades the White had survived in the bush, an eye on the lookout for predators. Minutes ago, however, his ''brother" was killed, the only man alive who meant a damn to him, so now every sense focused on taking the Horseman down, boxing him between the crocs and muzzle of the gun. Zinc vanished through the blue hole in the bush, then reappeared when he scrambled back from the jaws, so sharp a silhouette the African couldn't miss, and that's when the White heard a hollow hisssss to his left. He turned as the sleek coffin-shaped head zoomed in, mamba reputed to be the fastest snake known, twice as fast as any North American species, able to lash out forty percent of its length, narrow hood wide and mouth agape to bare the black lining, tongue flicking rapidly from side to side, then both fangs sank deep into the African's neck.

  Zinc saw the snake strike again and again, filling the White with enough venom to kill ten men, while bam! bam! bam! bam! . . . the man emptied his gun, blasting the dark gunmetal gray serpent in Eden in half, eight shots followed by a click!

  Gasping, the African stumbled two steps before
his knees buckled, slumping against a termite mound curved like a rhino horn in which the dead snake had made its home.

  The gun was out of ammo. The webbing held no more clips. The White clawed his throat, choking for breath. Zinc crossed the distance between them to kick away the Walther and yank the Ka-Bar from his belt, tossing the blade out among the crocs. Right arm pinning the White to the mound, he pricked Pop's knife against the wildly beating heart.

  "It's over," Zinc said.

  Heat off the sand overflowed into the shade, sucking sweat from the face-to-face men. The quickest mamba kill recorded is twelve minutes. Neuro and cardiotoxic, mamba venom inhibits breathing and the vagus nerve that controls the heart, slowly shutting down both lungs and pulse. Strangled, the White would stay conscious as his muscles paralyzed, then locked in a rigid body, would die claustrophobic.

  "Do it," begged the African, eyes on Pop's knife. "Please," he added.

  "For three answers," the Canadian replied.

  LUNGER

  Georgia Strait

  They say you see a flash of white light when you die, beckoning you across to the Realm of the Shades. On his knees, head back, sheened by the moon, moonlight shining silver along this pooled shore, the shadow of Death over him with that falling club in its hand, Nick saw the flash of light burst from Death's chest, white on black.

  The club stopped in midair, then tumbled into the surf.

  The streak of light withdrew into the black heart.

  Evil Eye crumpled in front of Nick.

  Only then did he see Gill behind with the bayonet in her hand.

  "He's dead," she said, shivering, without bothering to check. The pathologist knew exactly where to stick the blade.

  "You made it," Nick said, his features etched with relief and pain.

  "Women have more fat to survive cold. Match endurance, not strength, and we're Nature's pet. Let's see how bad you're hurt."

  Squatting, hair and torn dress plastered skintight by the sea, Gill gave Nick a moonlight physical head to toe. "Fractured clavicle. Punctured hand. Bruised gut. Battered noggin. Prognosis is you'll live."

  "Check his pockets, then the boat for the handcuff key."

  "Who?" Gill asked, reaching down to peel the black hood from Evil Eyes face.

  "Dermott Toop," Nick said. "Mom's blood was in the Lab from the autopsy. He used it to stain my Red Serge for the DNA test."

  JUNGLE JUSTICE

  Africa

  "Why kill me?" Zinc asked the White.

  "Nothing personal," the dying man choked. "You got in the way of a business deal. We didn't want our photo flashed around."

  "How do I get back to camp?" Zinc had a flight to catch.

  "Main stream. Keep left where it forks."

  "Alberta in the fifties didn't welcome blacks. Why did Nigel go for the bones instead of you?"

  A don't-you-get-it look furrowed the White's brow. "Nigel Hammond and Clive Moon were aliases. Just two of many we used. The Herald mistakenly stuck the label "left" on the wrong man. Don't believe everything you read in the papers."

  Suddenly Zinc saw it in the bones of his face. The White had shaved off his beard for the Zulu hit, baring features passed on to Nick.

  "I'm Nigel Hammond," the mercenary said.

  i

  COLOR-BLIND

  Georgia Strait

  Throat, to chin, to nose, to eyes, then clear of hair and head, Gill peeled the balaclava from Evil Eye's face. At first Nick thought his mind was playing tricks, but gradually pieces fell into place in his battered brain.

  The motive wasn't race, a black/white thing.

  The motive was Oedipus, with a twist.

  Unresolved desire for the love of Mom, and hate of Redcoat Dad who turned Mom against him.

  On the ground lay Ted Craven's son. Did he have a physical trait revealing that link? Is that why Mom and Eleanor rejected him? He was the spawn of the brute who sexually abused them both?

  If so, Nick wondered, who's my dad?

  The man dead on the shore had "outcast skin." The fifties. The Prairies. Conform with God. And witch hunt outsiders and mutants. Did the purple birthmark obsess him with genetics? Why me? Why favor my "perfect" twin? The Lab was heaven-sent for the frame. Mom's blood. Him in charge. And Toop brought him the swatch from Nick's tunic. First he stained the cuff cut-out with Mom's blood from the autopsy, then he tested the Red Serge for her DNA. Who showed DeClercq the photo of the black-and-white twins?

  Black . . .

  White . . .

  Color-blind ...

  Evil Eye was Colin Wood.

  I

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. The plot and characters are a product of the author's imagination. Where real persons, places, or institutions are incorporated to create the illusion of authenticity, they are used fictitiously. Inspiration was drawn from the following nonfiction sources:

  The Advocate: Harris, L. "Judge Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie" (1971, vol. 29); Pettit, S.G. "Judge Matthew Baillie Begbie" (1948, vol. 6); Watts, A. "The Honourable Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie" (1966, vol. 24); Williams, D.R. tk Begbie & Duff J.J." (1985, vol. 43).

  Bancroft, James W. Rorke's Drift. Tunbridge Wells: Spellmount, 1988.

  Berglund, Axel-Ivar. Zulu Thought-Patterns and Symbolism. Cape Town: Philip, 1976.

  Bull, Peter. The Teddy Bear Book. New York: Random House, 1969.

  Chayko, G.M. and E.D. Gulliver and D.V. Macdougall. Forensic Evidence in Canada. Aurora: Canada Law Book, 1991.

  Creeweel, John. A Brief History of the Victoria Falls Hotel. Harare: Zimbabwe Sun Hotels, 1984.

  Davis, Chuck (editor). The Vancouver Book. North Vancouver: J.J. Douglas, 1976.

  Duncan, John and John Walton. Heroes for Victoria. Tunbridge Wells: Spellmount, 1991.

  Guggisberg, C.A.W. Wild Cats of the World. New York: Taplinger, 1975.

  Hart, Bernard. The Psychology of Insanity. Cambridge University Press, 1957.

  Heitman, Helmoed-Romer. Modern African Wars 3: South-West Africa. London: Osprey, 1991.

  Hoffer, William. Saved! The Story of the Andrea Doria— the Greatest Sea Rescue in History. New York: Summit, 1979.

  420 Michael Slade

  Holt, Simma. The Devil's Butler. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972.

  Horn, Richard. Fifties Style: Then and Now. Philadelphia: Courage, 1988.

  Horrall, S.W. The Pictorial History of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1973.

  Knight, Ian. Nothing Remains but to Fight: The Defense of Rorke's Drift, 1879. London: Greenhill, 1993.

  Knight, Ian. Zulu: Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift: 22nd-23rd January 1879. London: Windrow & Greene, 1992.

  Lash, John. Twins and the Double. London: Thames and Hudson, 1993.

  Luard, Nicholas. The Last Wilderness: A Journey Across the Great Kalahari Desert. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981.

  McBride, Angus. The Zulu War. London: Osprey, 1976.

  McCrea, Barbara and Tony Pinchuck. The Rough Guide to Zimbabwe and Botswana. London: Rough Guides, 1993.

  Morris, James. Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress. London: Penguin, 1979.

  Morris, James. Pax Britannica: The Climax of an Empire. London: Penguin, 1979.

  Pitta, Robert and Jeff Fannell. South African Special Forces. London: Osprey, 1993.

  Ross, Charles A. (editor). Crocodiles and Alligators. New York: Facts On File, 1989.

  Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Honors and Protocol Manual. Ottawa: RCMP, 1995.

  Royal Canadian Mounted Police Fact Sheets. Ottawa: RCMP, 1992.

  Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960.

  Simpson, Colin. Lusitania. London: Longman, 1972.

  Sisman, Adam (editor). The World's Most Incredible Stories: The Best of Fortean Times. New York: Avon, 1992.

  Smyth, Sir John. The Story of the Victoria Cross. London: Muller, 1963.

  Swaney, Deanna and Myra Shackley. Zimbabwe,
Botswana & Namibia: A Travel Survival Kit. Hawthorn: Lonely Planet, 1992.

  The Vancouver Sun.

  Van der Post, Laurens. The Lost World of the Kalahari. London: Chatto & Windus, 1988.

  Wade, Wyn Craig. The Titanic: End of a Dream. New York: Rawson, Wade, 1979.

  Wolf, Leonard. Horror: A Connoisseur's Guide to Literature and Film. New York: Facts On File, 1989.

  Wolf, Leonard (editor). Wolfs Complete Book of Terror. New York: Potter, 1979.

  Zuehlke, Mark. The B.C. Fact Book: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About British Columbia. Vancouver: Whitecap, 1995.

  Slade's respect for the RCMP is earned respect. It comes from defending over a thousand cases against the Force. My thanks to the Commanding Officer and Members of "E" Division (with a tip of the Stetson to the Corps Sergeant Major in Ottawa) for answering my questions and inviting me to the Red Serge Ball and Regimental Dinners.

  My trip to Africa was no less exciting—but much less dangerous—than Zinc's. But there were moments: the spitting cobra at the ruins, the croc under the canoe, the lion's paw imprinted on my foot mark when I wandered off alone to experience "the real Africa." All the guide said was "Lucky she wasn't hungry." So thanks to all in the bars and around the campfires of Harare, Masvingo, Kariba, Vic Falls, Hwange, Chobe, and lost in the Delta who took me in deep and brought me out alive. It was a long way from the Ridge Theater in 1956. Tight lines, mates.

  The story survivors will return in the next Special X novel.

  Slade Vancouver, B.C.

  Be sure to catch

  these other tales of