by Rebecca York
Some people expected a strong man to make Pagor his patron saint, but Raoul had found a better focus for his prayers.
He took off his shirt and hung it on a hook by the door. He was offering himself to the goddess. Offering her the tattoo that he kept hidden from the tourists. It started at his right shoulder, snaked partway down his arm, and spread across his chest. He had gotten an artist to depict the Blessed Ones, with Ibena in the middle, her brown hair spread out like a fan and her eyes a dramatic shade of turquoise that drew people’s attention to her power.
He loved that tattoo. And his followers did, too. It was the living symbol on his body of what he had made himself into. And what he would become. When he married, he would add his wife’s face to the mix. But on his back, because he would never offend the gods by placing her among them.
Shirtless, he walked past the shrine and stepped to the cage where he held the chickens that he used in his rituals.
All of the saints required sacrifices, to renew their life force, and he had dedicated himself to renewing and pleasing his special saint. His diligence was working, even if Old Joe didn’t approve of his goals or his vision.
He knew that the term “saint” had first been used by the early Vadiana worshippers to hide their practices from the slave owners who wanted to wipe out their native traditions. So the slaves had let themselves be converted to the Catholic faith—at least on the surface—while secretly giving the new saints the attributes of their old deities. He didn’t know which saint Ibena had stood for, because she was so sensual and so womanly. Not like the dried-up old nuns who ran a convent at the edge of town.
Opening the cage, he quickly pulled out a chicken, then ignored its squalling as he brought it into the shrine. As he chanted a prayer to his patron saint, he expertly wrung the chicken’s neck, making a quick kill. Then with his knife he made a cut in the throat and let a few drops of its blood drip onto the altar and the rest into a bowl. Later, he would give the chicken to a poor family that would appreciate the meal.
Straightening his shoulders and speaking in the formal tones of a priest, he said, “Bring my future wife to the right man. The man she was meant to join with in love and power.” He made the request in a clear, loud voice. “Help her realize that her own abilities can be greater than she knows. Help her find her destiny.”
As he spoke to Ibena, he pictured himself stepping onto a windswept plain, away from the world of men, where he could meet the woman he had chosen as his bride. He would introduce himself to her there. Later they would unite their bodies in sexual ecstasy and their minds in power. And together they would rule this island.
A small doubt tugged at him. Perhaps he was moving too fast, calling her to him now. And in this way. But he wanted to test his power over her. And give her a taste of how much they would mean to each other.
He pictured her stepping into the reality he had created. She would be wearing only a gauzy green dress. Green like the island jungle.
As the image grew in his mind, he felt his own spirit expand, flowing out to meet hers.
ZACH had drunk his bottle of beer slowly, enjoying the taste of the island brew, but he couldn’t get the woman on the poster out of his mind. It was as though she was calling him back. And finally, he left the bar and returned to the Sugar Cane Club.
Instead of going inside, he stood on the street, staring at the poster. At Anna. Taking in her striking good looks again, then focusing on her shimmering blue eyes.
A sense of expectation gathered inside him. Like the change in the air before a powerful storm. Only it was something different. Something he couldn’t name.
Then suddenly—unaccountably—he was lost to the port town around him. From one instant to the next, the heat and noise and smells of the Caribbean city disappeared. Instead he had the sensation that he was standing on an immense plain that he couldn’t see, because the light was low and the view was obscured by swirling clouds and mist.
He should’ve been frightened. Instead he felt his blood pumping through his veins in exhilaration—like the times he’d jumped out of a plane and felt the rush of wind before his parachute opened.
RAOUL was winging toward his meeting with his destiny, when suddenly he came up against an unexpected barrier.
In that instant, he went sick and fuzzy in the head. His hands pressed against his temples as he fought the sudden stab of pain that had replaced his sense of anticipation.
What!
When he realized the barrier was the spirit of another man, his anger flared.
In that terrible moment, he knew that he had a rival. A man who had come to steal what was his.
Raoul made an animal sound deep in his throat, layers of civilization peeling away as he struggled to push the other man away. Not physically, but with his mental powers.
But the viper had stepped into the scene as though he were the one who belonged there!
Who was he?
“Devil! Turn your face to me.”
The man did not respond. He didn’t seem to hear the order. And Raoul’s clearest sight of him was a head of thick, sun-streaked hair.
Even as he shouted the words, he felt the scene waver, felt himself pulled back into the reality of Grand Fernandino.
He was left standing before the altar, his heart pounding.
He blinked, bloodlust rising in his soul like a dark curtain that cut him off from the light. He wanted to scream in rage, but he must not let fear and anger overcome good sense. He willed himself to silence, the telltale sound of his anguish locked behind his lips.
Calling on every scrap of discipline he possessed, he ordered himself to calm down. A priest should always keep his cool. Like Old Joe.
Once Raoul found his imperturbable center, he knew what was happening. Ibena was testing him—making him work for the sweet pleasure of joining his body and soul with the woman who should be his by rights. And he would show the deity he was worthy of that honor.
With fingers that weren’t quite steady, he stroked the tattoo on his chest, tracing the familiar lines of Ibena’s face, willing himself back into the world he had created, struggling to make himself the master of the fantasy scene again and send the other man plunging into hellfire.
CHAPTER
FOUR
ANNA HAD PUT herself into a light trance the way she always did before her performance.
She let the familiar detached feeling flow over her, welcomed the little buzz in her head.
And then from one instant to the next, everything changed. The shabby dressing room disappeared, and she was standing on a high, windswept plain, gasping in shock.
She reached out to touch something familiar, to touch anything. But the world had gone away, and she was in another reality.
She struggled to draw back as she fought to return to the safety of her dressing room. But it had vanished, and she knew that the only way she could go was forward. So she took a cautious step, then another, feeling the strange springy surface beneath her feet. Her bare feet, she realized suddenly.
In the world, she had been dressed in black. Here in this new reality, she was wearing only a gauzy green dress. Green like a field in springtime.
ZACH stared at the woman walking toward him. A light wind blew, lifting her hair and swirling the insubstantial skirt around her shapely legs.
He could see the curves of her body through the thin fabric. Her high breasts, her sweetly rounded hips. The shadows of her nipples and a triangle of dark hair at the juncture of her legs.
This is it. The real thing. What you’ve been waiting for all your life.
Even as the thought flitted through his mind, he wondered what it meant.
The woman had stopped walking, her features tense as he closed the space between them, reaching his hand toward her.
When her lips moved, he heard no sound. But he knew she had said, Who are you?
Zach, he silently answered.
He wanted her to know him. Want him. Trust him
. Complete him.
He grasped her shoulder and folded her close, drawing in a sharp breath as he felt her breasts flatten against his chest—his naked chest, because somehow he was wearing only a pair of faded jeans, unsnapped at the waist.
A jolt of arousal shot through him, and he tightened his hold on her as a whirlwind of sensations swamped him. The brush of her raven hair against his cheek. Her slender body pressed to his. The buzz of sound in his brain as she spoke voiceless words he couldn’t quite catch.
He wanted her to raise her head.
As if she’d heard his thoughts, she lifted her face to his.
He felt a shock of awareness go through him. Strange. This was strange. And at the same time so right that it made his insides ache.
Though he longed to kiss her, he held himself still, because some part of him knew that if he did anything that intimate, nothing in his life would ever be the same. Yet the thought of her pulling away made his insides go cold.
He held his breath, willing her to make the decision. She stayed where she was, her lips slightly parted, as though she were having the same thoughts as he. And she didn’t want to be the one to make the first move.
Finally, because that was his only choice, he lowered his head to hers. The first contact of their mouths was like an explosion in his brain, in his body.
He had never tasted anything so rich, so totally tempting as this woman’s mouth.
She made a small needy sound that sizzled through him. Accepting her invitation, he tipped his head first one way and then the other, changing the angle, changing the pressure, changing the very terms of his existence.
Desperate to satisfy his craving for intimate contact with her, he slid one hand down her body, pulling her hips against his erection.
She moaned, moving against him in a way that told him she was as aroused as he.
Thank God.
His other hand moved between them, cupping one of her breasts, then stroking his fingers across the hardened crest.
He needed to be on top of her, needed to plunge inside her.
And she kissed him with the same desperation.
He was about to drag her down to the horizontal surface under their feet when another voice cut through the vivid daydream, or whatever it was.
“Go on. Git! You got no place here.”
A man was speaking to him, and he fought an instant feeling of disorientation as he was pulled back into the heat of a tropical night.
ANNA blinked. From far away, she heard the calypso band playing a little fanfare.
Reaching out, she grabbed the edge of the table in front of her, pressing her fingers against the hard surface, anchoring herself to the world.
She had been sitting there, getting ready to go out and do her show. Then she had been…in another place. Somewhere else. Somewhere she didn’t want to be. With a man who wanted her. A man whose voice spoke inside her head.
Alarm zinged along her nerve endings.
What had happened to her?
She had no reference point to describe the strange experience. And she couldn’t afford the luxury of dealing with it now.
Yeah, right.
She didn’t want to deal with it.
And she had a perfect excuse for thrusting it away with an almost physical effort; she had a job to do. And she was too well disciplined to let this strange experience interfere.
To give herself more distance from the past few minutes, she stood, almost knocking over her chair. She righted it, gripping the back until she felt steady enough to walk.
She had learned to push her own feelings to the background and focus on other people with a single-minded concentration. She did something like that now, imagining the whole audience out in the show room, waiting for her. They would be disappointed if she didn’t go out there and give them the performance that they’d paid to see.
But she was still fighting for every scrap of self-control she could muster as she held on to the chair and breathed the stale air inside the club, grounding herself in the world around her.
“Think about what you have to do now,” she ordered herself.
When she felt steady enough to let go of the wooden rungs, she turned and opened the door, then hurried down the hall toward the stage. Toward reality. And sanity.
ZACH struggled to pull himself back to reality. Someone was speaking to him. A man.
The man from the dream? The guy who had made it clear with a few angry words that they were bitter enemies?
He got ready to defend himself, then realized the nemesis from the dream had vanished. Or maybe he’d never been there.
No. The man speaking now was someone…out here on the street.
Zach was back in front of the Sugar Cane Club, staring at the poster of Anna.
“Come in, mon. Twenty dollar cover charge. You have a good time here,” an islander wearing a brilliant white T-shirt said. He was standing beside the door, gesturing toward the interior.
“What?” Zach croaked.
“Come in, mon. We put on a great show here. Magic Anna. She amazing.”
Magic Anna.
Zach swallowed, pressing the soles of his shoes into the sidewalk and trying to figure out what had just happened to him.
In the daydream, or whatever it was, he had been aroused—ready for sex with the woman in his arms. The woman on the poster. Apparently the effects were only in his mind, thank God.
And he could still walk away from whatever had happened in that out-of-body experience. Maybe he should walk away. Or more likely, run as fast as he could in the other direction.
Instead, he heard himself say, “Sure,” as he dug into his pocket for his wallet. Twenty dollars. Cheap by standards in the States.
When he’d paid for the show, the man swept aside a curtain made of two-inch bamboo pieces strung between round fishing corks.
Still struggling to regain his sense of balance, Zach stepped into a small reception area lined with bamboo posts. He was fighting to stay detached. Yet he felt a breathless anticipation coursing through his veins as he walked into a show room that held perhaps thirty small varnished tables facing a brightly lit stage where a four-piece island-style band commanded one corner.
About three-fourths of the spaces were occupied, and Zach slipped into a bentwood chair at the back of the room, where he ordered a bottle of local beer from a waitress wearing a sarong that looked more appropriate for the South Pacific.
A large man in a flowered shirt and white linen slacks was on the stage, talking.
“I’m Etienne Bertrand and I welcome you to my Sugar Cane Club. We got a treat for you tonight. Magic Anna, all de way from Denver,” he said in a softly accented voice. “A real talented lady. I could talk her up big time. But you see for yourselves soon.”
Several long seconds passed. Zach felt his pulse pound in anticipation.
It speeded up when Anna stepped lightly from the wings. His fantasy had primed him to see her in the green dress. Instead, she wore a simple black sheath like the one on the poster. It set off her slender body and long legs.
He wasn’t the only one who was reacting. And not just the men. He felt electricity crackle in the room—a mixture of tension and expectation. The poster outside had promised something special, and the audience was waiting to see if she could deliver.
“Thank you,” she said in a low, musical voice, yet there was a look of uncertainty on her face that she quickly wiped away.
She must have walked onstage hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. She shouldn’t be nervous about facing the audience. So what was wrong with her? Had she really been in that fantasy with him? Had some force pulled them into that other world together? Or had she been the one who had done it?
Both alternatives seemed impossible.
The woman had been intriguing-looking on the poster. More intriguing in his fantasy. In person she took his breath away—literally. As he struggled to fill his lungs, he felt as though his chest were tightened by
iron bands, preventing him from drawing a full breath.
She stood calmly onstage, smiling into the lights. He suspected she couldn’t really see anything beyond shadowy shapes. Yet she turned toward her right, focusing on him. And for a moment it felt like they were the only two people in the room. Just as they’d been the only two people on that windswept plain. Until the other guy had broken the spell.
Zach hadn’t seen him. But he had heard the anger in his voice.
He tried to put the daydream out of his mind. But the feeling of connection with Anna tugged at him. In a moment of madness, he almost climbed out of his chair and started for the stage. Then he forced himself to simply sit there and watch her.
“Thank you for coming,” she said, making it feel like she was speaking only to him. “I hope you had a wonderful time on Grand Fernandino today.”
He closed his eyes, struggling for distance, thinking that his life had started going off the rails yesterday, when José had thought he’d come face-to-face with Pagor down in the Blue Heron.
CHAPTER
FIVE
WITH THE SPOTLIGHTS in her eyes, Anna could see only vague outlines of the people sitting in the audience. But she felt a presence at the back of the room. A man so focused on her that his gaze was almost like a physical touch.
She took a calming breath and stretched her arm toward the wings, making a theatrical gesture. “Lights, please.”
At her command, the house lights came up about halfway, bathing the room in a warm glow that was not enough to reveal the dirt on the floor.
In the illumination, she knew where to look for the man who was watching her. She intended to flick her gaze right by him. Instead, she stopped abruptly, taking him in.
He was sitting at a table in the back, dressed in a dark T-shirt and jeans, one of his legs stretched out at the side of the table. He looked tall and tanned, with brown hair streaked by the sun. His eyes were large and dark—watching her with an intensity that made her throat tighten. Yet at the same time, she saw something vulnerable in his gaze, as though he was as wary of her as she was of him.