From a Whisper to a Scream

by Charles de Lint

  “I’m sorry,” his brother said then. “I came here to help you, not drag up old pain.”

  Thomas nodded slowly. “I know you did.”

  “So what happens now?” John asked.

  “You still want to help?”

  “That’s what I came for,” John said.

  “I just don’t know what we can do,” Thomas said. “Papa Jo-el didn’t do so well with what he tried last night.”

  “That’s because he went about it wrong,” John said. “Strong as it’s grown, I’m not sure that even Whiteduck could banish it now. We’ve got to lower our sights. We might not be able to banish it, but I still think we can imprison it—bind it into one place so that it’s at least harmless.”

  “Where?”

  John nodded his head northward. “In the Tombs.”

  “And it won’t get free again?”

  “I can’t make promise,” John replied, “but once it’s bound, we can get Whiteduck to advise us what to do with it then. The old people had ways of dealing with windigo.”

  Thomas tossed the uneaten remains of his meal into the nearby trash. He stood up and looked down at his brother.

  “Then let’s do it,” he said.

  “What about your job?”

  “I’ll call in sick.”

  “But—”

  “Let’s just do it,” Thomas said.

  John nodded slowly. He took a final sip from his coffee and tossed it into the trash as well.

  “Welcome back, Wabinose,” he said.

  Thomas started at the sound of his Kickaha name. John had it wrong. Thomas wasn’t giving up and coming back home, defeated by the white man’s world; he was fighting back.

  But he merely nodded in response to his brother’s comment, saying nothing.

  EIGHTEEN

  They were coming for him now, the murderer and the whore with their mumbo jumbo and their guns. They couldn’t hide from him anymore, nothing could hide from him, he could see everywhere, he knew just what to do to make it all right again.

  They thought they were going to hurt him, but he couldn’t be hurt anymore. He was past hurt. He’d had his little girl taken away, and survived. He’d been shot, shot dead, bullet in the head, bits of brain splattered everywhere, and survived. He’d lived in the cold, silent dark, and survived. He’d become the nightmare man. His voice was the midnight wind, his touch cold like the ice that burns, and shadows lived in his heart, making him strong.

  He was past hurt, and now that he knew all the secrets of getting there from here and back again, no one was ever going to send him away, not any of them, not ever again. Not a cop with his gun. Not some pickle-in-the-ass concerned for his well-being court-appointed psychiatrist, who was the really crazy one, not him—the little children loved him, they wanted him, he was sane. Not some witchy black man who thought he could call up the nightmare man like he was some kind of spook, like mumbo-jumbo words were all you needed to make the nightmare go away, but he’d showed him, showed him good, and he was never going away again.

  He was stronger than them all. And if they’d didn’t believe it, he’d show them, wouldn’t he show them, just like he did the witchy man, showed him. He’d show them just as often as they wanted, because he liked the way the blade went in, liked the way it cut through skin to bone, liked the dying in their eyes and the blood on his hands. They could come chasing after him all they wanted, because he didn’t care, he’d show them, show them both, the little whore who pretended to be his Niki and the cop who thought he was going to kill the nightmare man again, show them all.

  He shifted his enormous bulk in the cold place, hands opening and closing where they lay on his fat belly, testing the strength of his grip. He was strong, stronger than them all, getting stronger, ready, he was ready for them, teach them a lesson that they’d never forget. And once they learned, he’d have time to find his Niki, his real Niki, not one that turned into dead meat as soon as you stuck a little knife into her.

  He’d have time for her.

  And the little children.

  All the little children with her face, waiting for him, for the midnight man, the nightmare man, all of them, standing in a row, little faces smiling, little bodies trembling, eager and happy.

  They were all going to live so happily ever after.

  That’s the way the story would end, the good story, the real story that belonged to him, the midnight man who lived forever, not dying in some empty lot, shot in the head, kill that cop and see how he likes it, but living forever and always happy, happy ever after, because he deserved to have a happy story now, after all the hurt, all the years of no one understanding, not really understanding, how good he was, a good person, good with children, a happy man, and strong now, strong then, but stronger now, a good father, the best father, just ask his darling Niki.

  Ask any of the little children.

  They loved him the best. He could see it in their eyes, always saw it, just before they went away, that shining light, that love for him.

  They died so happy, ever after, but they weren’t gone, not gone forever, because he kept them all inside, had them stored up, all their happy smiling faces, locked away inside him, inside the midnight man who lived forever, strong and good, ever after, happy when the story ends.

  He rose in the cold dark, his enormous body light as a feather, but strong, like steel girders, like a diesel engine, like a wronged man who knew he’d been served unjustly and finally saw that recompense would be his.

  Time now for the happy ending.

  NINETEEN

  Jim found the whole situation far too awkward at first. He felt disjointed from reality. It wasn’t simply the supernatural aspect of what had brought them all together, but that his companions were basically all strangers. He didn’t know Niki at all except from her pictures and their brief unfortunate meeting outside the restaurant last night, and he barely knew Ti Beau, while Cindy, the most familiar of the three women who were suddenly ensconced in his apartment’s small living room, he’d only just met the day before.

  Of the three, Ti Beau seemed the most at ease, as though she found herself in such situations all the time—which, Jim thought, considering her profession, might not be so far off the mark. Niki perched on the edge of the sofa and kept her backpack between her feet. She looked as though she was about to bolt at any minute. Cindy seemed to be having second thoughts concerning not so much what she was doing with Jim, per se, but the wisdom of involving herself in the whole affair.

  It would have taken them longer to put the situation into some kind of understandable perspective except that Ti Beau seemed to have a gift not just for making gris-gris that actually worked, but also for chairing what had become a conference of war. She was the one who told Cindy and Niki about Papa Jo-el’s death the previous night and, with the skill of a born diplomat, extracted the unhappy, but necessary, information about Niki’s background. And she was the one who then went on to connect what they learned to the overall problem of the Slasher.

  Jim was more than content to let her take charge. Everything that was going on had taken him too far from familiar territory. So he just sat on the floor beside the chair Cindy was in, holding her hand and fingering the small pouch that dangled from his neck. He wasn’t sure which gave him more comfort.

  He concentrated hard on what was being said, trying to ignore the voice of reason that said it was all impossible. But he’d seen what he’d seen last night, and he knew what would happen if he took off the charm that Ti Beau had given him. That other voice would be back again … .

  Even when Niki wasn’t talking, he found himself unable to stop studying her. His heart went out to her as the story of her past unfolded. He couldn’t imagine going through the kinds of things she had and still holding on to any piece of the belief that the world wasn’t all just darkness and despair.

  “He’s my father,” Niki said when Ti Beau spoke of the Slasher’s identity. “His name’s Teddy Bird.”

/>   Though the events that had led to Bird’s death had occurred two years ago, Jim was still familiar with the name. It was like Charles Manson or the Son of Sam -some names you just didn’t forget. They’d become icons, synonymous with the psychotic evil that seemed to plague the last few decades. He’d still been working freelance when he’d photographed that crime scene in the Tombs on the day of Bird’s death.

  “I was there,” he said. “Just after he died. I was monitoring the police band and I heard the call go in. I got there just before the TV vans.”

  “He’s not dead,” Niki said.

  Jim pointed toward his spare bedroom. “He’s dead. I’ve got a picture of the body somewhere in my files.”

  “He’s not dead,” Niki repeated. “Not anymore.”

  “You are both correct,” Ti Beau said. “He died and he has returned.”

  Jim could feel Cindy shiver through her hand. He gave it a tighter squeeze.

  “You told me your surname was Adams,” Cindy said. “But that’s not your name, is it? You’re not Chelsea Adams.”

  “Adams is my mom’s maiden name. And Chelsea’s my middle name. I could … I could never use … his …”

  Her brow furrowed with pain and she lifted her hands to her temples. Jim knew what she was going through. He’d had that voice in his head all morning, until Ti Beau had given him the charm. He’d thought it was going to drive him crazy. When he realized how long Niki had been enduring it …

  “Can’t you do something for her?” he asked Ti Beau. He loosened his grip on the gris-gris pouch and bounced it lightly in the palm of his hand. “Would this help her?”

  The mambo shook her head. “It does not have the strength to combat what assails her.”

  “Well, we’ve got to do something.”

  Ti Beau nodded in agreement. “We must do what Papa Jo-el attempted last night.”

  “But—”

  “It comes down to blood,” Ti Beau said, interrupting him. “We have what Papa Jo-el didn’t—the blood of the one the spirit would possess.”

  Jim looked slowly from the mambo to Niki. “You’re not planning to—”

  “Sacrifice her?” Ti Beau gave a short hard laugh, devoid of humor. “Hardly. We will need just a few drops of her blood—enough to bind him into the room where we call him.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following you,” Jim said.

  He glanced up at Cindy. Her lips were drawn into a tight line, her eyes large and serious. Shifting his gaze to Niki, he saw that she was still pressing her temples, fighting the midnight whisper of her father’s voice.

  “I mean,” he added. “Even if we trap him, won’t he still be dangerous?”

  Ti Beau nodded. “Very much so. But we will be careful.” She leaned forward. “A spirit such as this exists for a purpose. We must discover that purpose and then—”

  “I know what he wants,” Niki interrupted. “He wants to kill me.”

  “And then,” Ti Beau went on as though Niki hadn’t spoken, “we can consider how best to deal with him. It is possible that les invisibles can help us, once we know what it is that has brought his spirit back, where his strength lies.”

  “And if … if they can’t?” Cindy asked.

  “Let us not consider failure,” Ti Beau said. “It is of prime importance that we put forward a brave show. If we allow our fear to rule us, the baka will feed upon it and so grow stronger.”

  Niki let her hands drop and looked at Ti Beau then.

  “I know why Cindy’s doing this,” she said, “and I figure Jim’s reasons are much the same, but what’s in it for you?”

  “Because, as I told Jim earlier,” Ti Beau replied, “the loa that speaks through me is Zaka, the Spirit of the Land. He is a healer, he wakes the harvest; to him was given the task to see that the harmony of sowing and growth, reaping and rest, follows its patterns. Your father disrupts the cycle. Because of who I am, because of He Who Speaks Through Me, I must do what I can to see that harmony is restored.”

  No one spoke for a long time. For all their varying degrees of belief in what was happening to them, Jim realized that none of them was that comfortable with the metaphysics of the mambo’s beliefs.

  “I must return to my apartment to collect what we will need for tonight,” Ti Beau added.

  “Where are we going to … you know, do this?” Jim asked.

  “Where her father died.”

  Frank Sarrantonio set down the phone receiver and looked across the desk at the lieutenant. He cleared his throat.

  “That was Tom,” he said. “He’s calling in sick.”

  “He didn’t look sick to me,” Brewer said.

  Thomas hadn’t looked sick to Frank either, but what could he do? The man was his partner. And knowing Thomas as well as he did, Frank knew that he’d have a damned good reason for pulling a stunt like this. He just wished Thomas had let him in on what it was before he took off, leaving Frank to hold the bag with the lieutenant.

  “We’ve got a meeting with the DA in ten minutes,” Brewer said.

  “He had to have a good reason,” Frank began. “Couldn’t we cover for him?”

  He knew he was treading dangerous ground here, but he felt he owed it to his partner to make the attempt. He tried to read Brewer’s mood, but the lieutenant’s features were like a mask.

  “Why should we?” Brewer finally asked.

  “Because he’s always played it by the book before,” Frank said. “Because he wouldn’t be doing whatever he’s doing unless it was important for the department or the case. Because”—Frank hesitated for a moment—“he’d do it for us.”

  Brewer regarded Frank steadily, gaze unblinking. After a moment that seemed to go on forever, he shook a cigarette out of his pack, got it lit and took a long drag.

  “Okay,” Brewer said slowly. “We’ll cover for him. For now.”

  Tom, Frank thought. You owe me. And you’ve got some heavyduty explaining to do.

  “In the meantime,” Brewer went on, “let’s get these reports ready for the DA. We can start with—”

  The sudden appearance of a uniformed patrolman interrupted him.

  “Billy Ryan’s been picked up, Loot,” the patrolman told them.

  Brewer looked up. “Where?” he asked.

  “They took him into the 14th,” the patrolman said. “He was picked up in back of the Ritz by the hotel’s receiving bays.”

  “What was he doing there?” Brewer asked.

  “According to the arresting officers,” the patrolman said, “he was loading garbage bags into the back of his Camaro.”

  “Garbage?”

  “Garbage bags,” the patrolman repeated. “He had a body in them—all cut up to shit.”

  “Jesus.”

  The patrolman nodded. “They’ve had to put him in restraints. He’s raving like he’s gone off the deep end.”

  “What? For a lawyer?”

  “No. Something about a monster in the Tombs that won’t get out of his head. Crazy talk.”

  “Any ID on the body?” Brewer asked.

  The patrolman shook his head. “Apparently, he really did a number on it. Loot. It’s all in pieces”—he held up his hand, thumb and forefinger separated by about an inch of air—“about so big.”

  “This monster,” Frank began. He was starting to get an awful feeling.

  “Ryan’s the fucking monster,” Brewer said, getting to his feet. “But trying to cop an insanity plea isn’t going to cut it. Sounds like we’ve got him dead to rights for a change.”

  Frank rose from the desk as well. He couldn’t shake the word “monster” out of his head. Everywhere he turned these days, things were turning spacy. Papa Jo-el’s jujus and the way he’d died, their witness’s weird description of the Slasher, his partner’s talk about Indian curses. The whole city seemed to be turning into a Twilight Zone overnight.

  “You think this is connected to what we’re working on?” he asked.

  Brewer shrugged. “Onl
y one way to find out.” He turned to the patrolman. “Tell them to hold Ryan,” Brewer ordered as they started for the door. “Put him in a cell and let him stew until we get there.”

  “You got it, Loot.”

  Ti Beau needed a hand with the gear she was picking up from her apartment, and Jim found himself elected by default to help her, since Niki wouldn’t be separated from Cindy, and the mambo insisted that he and Niki keep apart as much as possible until they actually set about summoning the spirit.

  “The baka has got a fingerhold in both of you,” she explained. “His hold is stronger on the girl, but if you stay together my gris-gris is going to weaken and you’ll find him back in your head, too, Jim. That’ll be good when we’re ready to call him—it will make it easier to draw him to us—but right now we don’t want him thinking about us any more than he already might be.”

  “Why?” Cindy asked.

  “Knowledge is power,” Ti Beau explained, “for spirits as well as humans. If this baka learns what we are up to before we attempt the summoning, he could well prepare his own surprise for us. Why allow him any advantage?”

  The plan was for Cindy and Niki to make their own way to the building where they’d both been squatting, while Jim drove Ti Beau to her apartment. They would all meet up again in the Tombs, once Jim and Ti Beau had collected the things the mambo needed.

  “So is this … uh, something you do a lot of?” Jim asked, making conversation as they drove toward Upper Foxville.

  He knew what he’d seen; he’d felt the creature’s voice in his head, but despite the proof, it all still seemed farfetched to him. The rational part of his mind was offended at his reluctant acceptance.

  Ti Beau shook her head in response to his question. “Voudoun is a religion much like any other,” she said. “Its followers derive comfort from its services in the same way a Catholic does from mass.”

  “You don’t much hear about priests doing exorcisms and stuff like that except in the movies,” Jim said.

  “Most of the commonly held beliefs concerning voudoun are only fit for fiction as well,” Ti Beau said.