The Devil in Gray

by Graham Masterton

  As he neared the end of the passageway he heard a loud, flat, clattering sound. He reached a wooden door with broken hinges, and wrenched it open. Beyond the door was more absolute darkness. He stepped out onto a rusted iron platform and found himself in the Nathan Cooper’s hold. Water was cascading down from the hatches above, and that was what was causing all the clatter. Rainwater probably, thought Decker, from the overflowing storm drains along East Main Street. The hold was hung with dozens of heavy-duty chains, which swung and clinked together as the water poured down them. Decker was uncomfortably reminded of the hold of the spaceship Nostromo, in Alien. Chains, and water.

  He directed his flashlight downward, systematically sweeping the floor of the hold. At first he thought that it contained nothing more than some stoved-in barrels and a stack of packing cases, but then he shone it right over to the far side, deep into the shadows, and he saw a heap of timbers and rubble, and a large grayish green box, a quarter buried in bricks, tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees.

  He transferred his candle to his flashlight hand, and hefted out his revolver. Then he carefully swung himself around and climbed down the iron ladder that led to the floor of the hold, testing each rung as he went. He had almost reached the bottom when he stepped right up to the top of his sock in stinking, freezing-cold river water. “Shit,” he muttered. The hold was flooded more than a foot deep. Definitely no chance of salvaging his loafers now.

  Holding his candle and his flashlight high, he waded across the hold toward the grayish green box. Ripples spread across the water and splashed against the broken barrels. Beneath the water, the deck was greasy with weed, and he was only a third of the way across when he slipped, and soaked the legs of his pants right up to his knees.

  He stopped for a moment, but he didn’t say anything. There was nobody to blame but himself. But if Hicks had been here, he would have been shouted at for ten minutes nonstop.

  At last he reached the box. Now that he could see it close up, Decker didn’t have any doubt that it was Major Shroud’s casket. It was huge, more than eight feet long, hand-beaten out of thick lead. A face was embossed on the top of it—a slitty-eyed, almond-shaped face with a mailbox mouth. It looked like the tribal faces that hung on the wall in the Mask Bar.

  At first, Decker thought that the casket was still intact, but when he waded his way around it, he saw that one side of it was heavily corroded, pitted and pustular like gangrenous flesh, and split wide open. He bent down and shone his flashlight inside. He could make out bunches of dried herbs and mummified apples and little wooden figures, but no sign of Major Shroud’s body.

  He looked around, but he couldn’t see anything else apart from mounds of black sludge from the river bottom and more shoals of dead crabs. He paddled his way back toward the ladder, not knowing if he was relieved or disappointed. But he couldn’t forget what Cathy had warned him about. If he didn’t get Major Shroud first, then Major Shroud was going to get him.

  He started to climb the ladder, but he was only halfway up when he felt a sharp, cold draft and his candle was suddenly snuffed out. Cursing, he holstered his revolver, and searched in his pockets for his cigarette lighter. He flicked it once, but it wouldn’t light, so he flicked it again and again. It still refused to light.

  He was still flicking it when he became aware that the cold draft was growing even chillier—so chilly that a curtain of icy vapor began to pour down from the edge of the iron platform above him, like dry ice off the edge of a stage in a rock concert. He looked up, but his glasses were fogging up and everything was blurred. He took them off and wiped them on his necktie, and looked up again.

  At first he saw nothing but vapor, but when he lifted his flashlight he thought he could see the vapor forming a shadowy outline, as if somebody was standing in it. For an instant, as the vapor curled around, he even thought he could see the impression of a face—a face formed of nothing but frozen air. A living death mask.

  “Major Shroud, is that you?” His voice sounded small and flat, barely audible over the promiscuous clattering of the water and the clink-clink-clink of the swaying chains.

  “Major Shroud? I’ve come down here to help you. Do you understand that? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  He climbed one more step up the ladder, and then another. “Major Shroud? Or is it Changó I’m talking to? The great and all-powerful Changó, king of the city of Oyo? I greet you, Changó. The king hung himself, but the king did not die.”

  He climbed farther still, until he reached the edge of the platform. He shone his flashlight from side to side, and he was sure that he could see the transparent outline of a man’s shoulders and the side of his head.

  “Changó, listen to me. I’ve come down here to ask you to forgive me for what my great-great-grandfather did to you. He should never have helped to seal you up in that casket, and I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t know anything about you before, but now I do and I want to tell you that you’re the greatest. Like, respect.”

  He waited, while the freezing fog continued to pour down all around him. Changó—if it was Changó—didn’t reply. Decker thought: How the hell are you supposed to speak to an orisha? And what do you do if they refuse to answer you? Maybe orishas only understand Yoruba.

  But as he waited, the fog appeared to thicken and knot itself into shadows, like the clots of blood in a fertilized egg. Gradually, right in front of Decker’s eyes, a shape began to resolve itself, the shape of a tall, dark, broad-shouldered man. In a little over a minute, he had solidified, although his image still appeared smudgy. He looked down at Decker with black, deep-set eyes. He was heavily bearded, and he wore a wide-brimmed hat with ragged black feathers all around it, and a long black overcoat.

  “Major Shroud?” Decker said.

  “You’re a Martin,” the figure replied. His voice made Decker feel as if his hair were infested with lice. It was hoarse, and thick, and he spoke with a curious saw-blade accent, which Decker supposed was how everybody must have spoken in Virginia in Civil War days. But more than that, it seemed to come from several different directions at once, as if he were standing on the other side of the ship’s hold; and close beside him, too, right next to his ear.

  “Your forefather was one of those eleven who betrayed me. Your forefather was one of those who condemned me to spend an eternity, imprisoned, unable to move, in absolute darkness, but always awake.”

  “Major Shroud, I’ve come here to settle our differences.”

  “Differences? You call what they did to me differences?”

  “What the rest of the Devil’s Brigade did to you, back in the Wilderness—look, I know they were wrong. But it was war, you know? It was right in the thick of a goddamned battle, for Christ’s sake. Men were dying right, left and center. At the time they genuinely believed that they were doing right.”

  “They betrayed me, and they betrayed Changó. If it hadn’t been for Changó’s spirit, I would have suffocated and died. I won that battle for them single-handed, with Changós help. But did they reward me? No. Did they promote me? No. They sealed me in that casket with spells and spices and hoped that I would stay there forever.”

  “They were afraid of you, Major Shroud. Okay—it doesn’t say much for their courage, does it, or their comradeship? But they panicked and they didn’t know what else to do.”

  “All I wanted was the honor that was due to me. I gave up everything—my life, my home, my beloved family—so that Changó could possess me, and we could win the war. Honor? All I received in return was treachery.”

  “But murdering those men’s descendants … what good can that do? That’s not going to earn you any honor.”

  “It’s not murder! It’s revenge! And Changó has taught me all I need to know about exacting my revenge. I lay in that suffocating coffin, for all of those countless years, but Changó spoke to me, and he nurtured me, and he gave me strength, and he promised me that I would have my day.”

  While Major Shroud was t
alking, Decker saw a quick, furtive shadow in the passageway behind him. After a few moments, Queen Aché appeared, her boots crunching over rotting crabs. She saw Major Shroud, and then she saw Decker, and she stopped where she was. Decker made a face at her and quickly shook his head to indicate that she shouldn’t do anything hasty. Queen Aché gave him the thumbs-up.

  “You’ve already killed four people,” Decker told Major Shroud. “Don’t you think that’s revenge enough? They were innocent, all of them. None of them had any idea what their great-great-grandparents had done, all those years ago.”

  “Revenge is revenge. If you can’t have revenge on the father, then you’re entitled to take your dues from the son. And if not the son, the grandson, and the great-grandson, forever.”

  “Times have changed, Major Shroud. Years have gone by. The North and the South are one nation now, and what happened during the war—well, it’s all forgotten now. It’s history.”

  “Changó!” Queen Aché called out. “Listen to me, Changó! I bring Yemayá with me! Babami Changó ikawo ilemu fumi alaya tilanchani nitosi. I have fruit for you. I have honey. I can give you songs and laughter and love.”

  Major Shroud swung around, his coat billowing. “Who are you? How dare you call on my eleda?”

  “I am Queen Aché, daughter of Yemayá, and Yemayá comes to make an offering to Changó.”

  Major Shroud’s voice abruptly changed. When he spoke now, he spoke in a harsh, abrasive growl. “Changó refuses your offering. Changó sees you for what you are. Yemayá betrayed Changó in the Wilderness as surely if she had sealed the casket with her own hands. She allowed the eleven orishas to bind him and take him away—Yeggua and Oshún and Elegguá and all the others—and she didn’t lift one finger to intervene. You might have been Changó’s stepmother once, Yemayá—you might have been his lover—but that night you turned your back on him, and he has never forgiven you.”

  “I bring you a plaza, Changó. I bring you ram’s blood, and manteca de corojo.”

  Major Shroud didn’t appear to have heard her. He lowered his head and pressed his fingers to his forehead, as if he were thinking. Queen Aché caught Decker’s attention, her eyes wide and alert. She raised her hand with her index finger pointing straight out and her thumb cocked like a revolver hammer. Decker got the message and lifted out his Anaconda. Any second now, Changó would be distracted by her offering, and Decker would be able to blast Major Shroud’s head off.

  “Kabio, kabio, sile,” Queen Aché murmured, her voice soft and seductive. “Welcome, Changó, my darling one. Welcome, my child and my passionate lover. Take a moment’s rest for apples and herbs. Refresh yourself with honey and blood.”

  Major Shroud remained as he was, his head bowed, apparently lost in thought. Suddenly, however, crackles of thin blue light began to dance around his hat, like electrified barbed wire. Queen Aché looked triumphantly at Decker. Changó was gradually making his appearance, and in a few seconds he would leave Major Shroud unprotected so that he could taste the food and drink that Queen Aché had brought him.

  Decker lifted his revolver and pointed it directly at Major Shroud’s head. From this angle, the bullet would enter the soft flesh underneath his jaw, penetrate his tongue and his palate, blow his sinuses apart, and exit through the top of his skull, carrying most of his frontal lobes along with it.

  “Come on, Changó, my love,” Queen Aché coaxed. She sounded distinctively different from the sophisticated southern lady of color that she usually was. Her intonation was much more African, with a lilting, knowing accent. “Honor my family by tasting my plaza. Eat your fill.”

  The blue electric crackling grew more and more agitated, and it began to form a cagelike structure around Major Shroud’s head, like a fencing mask. Queen Aché opened the bag of offerings that she had brought with her and held it up and swung it from side to side.

  “This is for you, O great one. My son and my lover, and the god of all fire.”

  There was a deafening crackkkk! and a bang like two cars colliding. For a split second Decker actually saw Changó—the orisha of thunder and lightning. Changó’s hair flew up in all directions, showering thousands of glittering sparks. His eyes glowed like red-hot thunderstones. But what struck Decker more than anything else was his mouth, which seemed to have tier upon tier of jagged teeth, with caterpillars of lightning crawling on his tongue.

  “Here!” Queen Aché said, taking out an apple and holding it up to him. “Take it, eat, my beloved Changó!”

  But just as the crackling mask of Changó’s head turned sideways, to take a bite of Queen Aché’s apple, Major Shroud screamed out, “No! It’s a trick! You can’t leave my head, Changó! They’ll kill me, and then you won’t have anyplace left to hide!”

  Queen Aché shrilled, “Lieutenant—now!”

  Decker fired, and the Anaconda kicked in his hand. But Major Shroud swayed backward at an impossible angle, more like a swiveling shadow than a man, and the bullet only clipped the brim of his hat. Black crow feathers burst in all directions, but the bullet thumped harmlessly into the wooden bulkhead. The blazing vision of Changó instantly vanished, like a firework dropped into a bucket of water.

  Major Shroud screamed at Decker in hysterical fury.

  “Damn you! Damn you to hell! A Martin betrayed me in the Wilderness and now a Martin has betrayed me again! I will cut you into pieces for this, I promise you!”

  “Changó!” Queen Aché cried. “Listen to me, Changó!” But it was obvious from the desperate tone of her voice that she had very little hope of tempting him back out of Major Shroud’s head.

  “You will surely die, Martin,” Major Shroud fumed. “Not tonight, because your appointed day is tomorrow, the feast of Saint James Intercisus, and I can happily wait one more night until I come to kill you. I’ve waited long enough, God knows.”

  But then he turned to Queen Aché. “This santera, on the other hand, is a very different matter. She has perverted her religion and sullied the names of the saints. Look at the way she tried to trick Yemayá into betraying her only son and her only real love! Those who try to deceive the orishas must pay for what they have done, and pay with their lives.”

  Decker said, “Let her alone, Shroud. This was my idea.”

  “Revenge is revenge, Martin. Nobody can go unpunished for their sins, ever. That is the law.”

  “The law? What law? The law of the African jungle? The law of Santería, and voodoo, and zombis? What law says that you can cut a pregnant woman’s head off because her great-great-grandfather tried to stop you from committing a massacre?”

  “The law of the earth, and of all things, and of natural justice. The law of Changó, who protects his followers against their enemies.”

  Decker lifted his revolver again, and aimed it directly between Major Shroud’s eyes. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, sport, but there’s a greater law than Changó’s law, and it’s called the law of the State of Virginia.”

  Queen Aché said, “No, Lieutenant! Don’t shoot him!”

  “I don’t think he’s given me a whole lot of choice, do you?”

  Major Shroud’s vaporous image appeared to slide sideways, like smoke caught in an unexpected breeze. “There is nothing you can do to stop me, Martin. Tomorrow you will die in the same way that Saint James Intercisus died. But so that you will fully understand what your fate will be, I will punish this santera in the same way.”

  “What?”

  Major Shroud turned around, and as he turned around he disappeared, leaving nothing in the darkness but a twist of vapor. He disappeared from Decker’s sight, but it was plain that Queen Aché could still see him, because she suddenly screamed out, “Changó! This is the daughter of Yemayá! Changó!” But Major Shroud said nothing at all, and Changó didn’t materialize. Queen Aché suddenly flung one arm up to protect her face and stumbled backward into the passageway.

  “Queen Aché!” Decker yelled. “Get the hell out of here!”

  He wild
ly waved his revolver from side to side but he couldn’t see anything to fire at. He thrust it back into its holster and heaved himself up the last five rungs of the iron ladder. The jumbled light from his flashlight showed Queen Aché on her hands and knees, trying to scramble along the passageway over the mounds of crabs. She had dropped her candle and her bag of offerings to Changó, and she was whimpering like a beaten animal in terror.

  “Shroud!” Decker yelled. He hauled out his revolver again and fired a warning shot into the ceiling. The explosion was deafening, and made his ears sing, and for a fleeting moment, in the gunsmoke, he saw the outline of Major Shroud’s back, and an arm lifted. His flashlight caught something else, too—the long curved glint of a cavalry saber.

  “Queen Aché! Get up! Get out of here!”

  Queen Aché seized the wooden handrail at the side of the passageway, but the second she did so Decker heard a quick, sharp chop! and all of the fingers of her left hand were scattered onto the floor, still wearing her gold and silver rings. She screamed, and held up her bloody, fingerless hand. “Yemayá! What has he done to me? What has he done to me? Yemayá! Help me! Yemayá!”

  Decker hurried into the passageway and knelt down beside her, his knees squelching and crunching into layers of putrescent crabs. He lifted up her hand and wound his handkerchief tightly around it, although it was immediately flooded dark red. She was juddering wildly, and staring at him in shock. “He took off all of my fingers. He took off my fingers!”

  She gripped his shoulder with her right hand and begged, “Get me out of here, please! Get me out of here! He’s going to kill me!”

  Decker coughed and stood up and tried to lift Queen Aché from the floor. She clung to his shoulder with her good right hand, and was almost off her knees when Decker felt a violent blow against his back, as if he had been struck very hard with a walking stick. Queen Aché screamed again, and dropped onto her knees. “My fingers! My fingers! Yemayá, save me! My fingers!”