Father Baltazar tore free from the zombie’s suddenly loose fingers. The creature’s knees lost all strength and he slipped bonelessly to the floor. His expression relaxed as he fell and for that fraction of a moment Sara saw the man that the zombie had once been on his suddenly tired-looking features. And then his eyes closed and he was lying in a sad, dead heap, his arms still outstretched, almost beseechingly.
Father Baltazar choked, his hands gently probing his own nearly crushed throat. He tried to talk, but couldn’t. Instead he pointed at the other zombie who had just clumsily regained Ms feet, and was coming towards them menacingly, not cognizant of his brother’s fate.
Still on his knees the priest pointed, waving his hands. Sara understood what he meant. She took another wafer from the pix, and, ducking under the zombie’s reaching hands, deftly placed the wafer in the zombie’s mouth.
The result was the same. The zombie automatically ingested the morsel and reacted as quickly and as thor-ougMy as his brother had. He collapsed upon his brother’s corpse, embracing him with his open arms.
Perhaps fitting, Sara thought, but a terribly sad sight.
She turned to Father Baltazar, helping him up to his feet. “How did you know the communion host would kill them-or whatever it did to them?” she asked.
The priest shook his head.
“It wasn’t the host, ” he said. ’“Probably not, anyway. Salt breaks the bond between the zombie’s body and whatever is left of their soul still animating it. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to use something blessed to bring the salt into the zombie’s system,'so I salted down a stack of communion wafers. But maybe now isn’t the best time to speak of this.” f
The priest was right. Although only seconds had elapsed, the firefight had grown exponentially in volume. Alek, Kris, and Paul Narcisse were all pinned down behind metal beams and structural supports, along with forty or fifty unarmed cultists who were cowering and screaming. Sara’s faction had the superior firepower with the Gervelis brothers’ Jackhammers blasting away at the •more than a dozen armed Specials who were returning fire with handguns.
Sara and Father Baltazar were trapped in the open, halfway between the area where Alek and the others were making their stand, and the Specials, who were firing from cover behind similar girders on the other side of the poteau-mitan. Baron Samedi, who had been standing right at the center pole, observing the developing firefight with more than slight good humor, was now casually strolling back to the caille mysteres, ignoring the bullets whizzing by him as if they were so many sting-less bees.
“We’ve got to stop him,” Father Baltazar, crouching now next to Sara said. “God knows what he’s up to.”
“Right” She turned to look back over her shoulder. “Suppressive fire,” she called to the Gervelises, hoping that they at least had an inkling of what she meant.
One of them came through. She suspected that it was
Kris, whose Soldier of Fortune addiction had apparently not been a complete waste of time. After he’d emptied his first ammunition cassette on full automatic, he’d switched back to the more manageable single-fire option, the efficacy of which was pointed out by several Specials lying in pools of blood behind theif inadequate cover.
Now Kris switched to full auto again and laid down a suppressive arc of fir^ 'aimed, Sara hoped, above their heads. She scurried after Baron Samedi, who had already disappeared in the warren of small rooms that was the sanctuary.
Sara serpentined over the open ground. It took Father Baltazar a moment or two to realize what was happening, and then he took out after her. Paul Narcisse was at their heels as Alek joined the barrage with his Jackhammer, wisely taking the single shot option.
The reverberations from Kris’s first ammunition cassette hadn’t yet died as Sara reached the sanctuary, running through little or no return fire. The gangbangers kept their heads down as Kris’s barrage echoed throughout the warehouse. She did have to pass one support that covered a crouching Special. He reached out to try to stop her, but without breaking stride she slapped him against the side of the head with her automatic, and he went down in a heap.
The voices laughed, calling for his head.
“Finish him-”
“—send his damned soul to hell—”
“—where it belongs.”
She ignored their bloodthirsty urgings, concentrating on reaching the caille mysteres right before her. The chambers were poorly lit and small, although not without cover that could conceal, well, just about any crazy thing, from armed Special to uridead zombie to angry loa.
She flung herself into the small room. An altar was set across the back wall, and crouching under the altar was someone or .something.
“Get up!”'Sara ordered. “Let me see your hands!”
A frightened squeal came from under the altar, and one of the female dSncers scuttled out into the open, her hands up and empty, her expression terrified, as Sara threw down on her. The cultist ran out into the open area, evidently figuring her chances would be better out there, and almost bumped into Father Baltazar as he blundered into the small room and threw himself against the wall, panting with exertion.
“Find Samedi,” he said when he could get his breath. “Try to get him out of Sam’s body.”
“How do I do that?”
The priest shook his head. “Not sure,” he said, still short of breath.
Great, Sara thought. The expert doesn’t know, but he expects me to figure it out.
There was a doorless opening on the wall against which Sara leaned, leading into yet another sanctuary room that was darker than the one they were in. She took a deep breath and rolled into the next room, keeping low.
Another altar stood against the back wall of this cubicle, but with even less light Sara was less sure of what it contained. Stuff. Piles of stuff, with no time to examine any of it. No Baron Samedi, though. Apparently.
She pushed herself through to the next room, thinking that this was like hunting poisonous snakes in the dark. Only maybe a little more dangerous. But there was noth-mg to do but go on and trust to her skill, and, maybe, that the voices would Warn her in time if she was going to run into anything terribly dangerous.
She went through several of the rooms, flushing a couple of cultists who had no fight in them. She heard sounds coming from behind her, but when glancing back saw that Father Baltazar had been joined by Paul Narcisse. Both were followitfg her as the firefight still raged.
She prayed that Alek and Kris were holding their own, that they wouldn’t run out of ammunition, that their blood wouldn’t be on her hands when this was all over. She prayed that they would find what they were looking for, that somehow she’d figure out how to chase Baron Samedi from the body of Guillaume Sam, that they’d find a way to end this all here and now without any more hlood being shed.
Suddenly, her prayers were answered, though not all were granted.
She reached what seemed to be the last sanctuary room. Light shone through the open doorway in the back wall of this room, indicating that it was last in the warren of caille mysteres, and that it opened into the space of the warehouse’s first floor.
She didn’t need the voices to tell her that danger lay beyond that doorway, but they did so in no uncertain terms. She hesitated. Father Baltazar and Paul Narcisse joined her in the small chamber. She looked at them and realized that they knew the danger inherent in going through the doorway. But they couldn’t stay in that empty little room forever. She gestured right, pointed to herself. Gestured left, pointed to them. They nodded, and Father Baltazar made the sign of the cross in the air before them all.
Before Sara could do anything he went through the door with a yell, unarmed, leaping to the left. She and Paul Narcisse followed, going right and left themselves, but a single shot cracked, catching the priest and slamming him against the outer wall of the sanctuary, blood suddenly runnihg down his' face.
Sara looked up to see Baron Samedi, laughing aloud, holding Guill
aume Sam’s pet possum in his arms, stroking it. Next to him stood Gene, smiling, pistol in his hands. Father Baltazar lay in a growing puddle of blood.
Baron Samedi calmly dropped the possum to the floor. It landed lightly, staring at them with its beady little eyes.
“Kill them!” Baron Samedi said, and the possum started toward them.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
A
; the possum came toward them, it changed.
Sara had never thought it a particularly cute beast, but now it was downright ugly. It had always seemed more intelligent than it could possibly have been, but now its beady little eyes gleamed with a malicious understanding that seemed more than animal. As it scurried toward them the air shimmered around it, as if it was pushing through heat waves thrown off desert sands. And like a mirage viewed through distorting waves, the possum’s outline rippled as it grew taller and bulkier, metamorphosing into something either a little more or a little less than human. Before Sara realized it, the Machete Murderer was shambling toward them, dragging his chains behind, armed with his favorite weapon and more than ready for action.
“Bakula-baka,” Sara whispered.
“Damballah preserve us,” Paul Narcisse prayed.
“Get Caz out of here!” Sara screamed, and moved, waving her arms, tiying to attract the thing’s attention.
Of course, there was Gene as well as Baron Samedi himself to wony about, but right now they were beyond Sara’s consideration. If she didn’t figure out a way to neutralize the creature that called itself Bakula-baka, it would all be over, quickly and horribly. She remembered their meeting in Guinee with little fondness and even less hope.
Her half-conscious plan seemed to work. She attracted his attention and he vfent toward her, away from Paul Narcisse, who was running to the fallen priest. That was the good part. The bad part was that she had attracted his attention and he was coming toward her.
And it was clear that he recognized her.
“You escaped me in Guinee,” Bakula-baka said, missing flesh slightly slurring his words. “Tonight you will not.”
He waved his machete emphatically and grinned ;5keletally.
Sara knew she was no match for him physically, but she did outgun him. She fired, quickly and accurately, and hit him three times in the chest and abdomen.
To absolutely no effect.
The slugs penetrated Bakula-baka’s massive frame, but didn’t even slow his advance. He bore down on her with murderous glee, machete held high and ready for a decapitating blow. Her gun was useless against his supernatural defenses. She couldn’t out fight him with her hands. She couldn’t outrun him. She had no choice.
She surrendered to the voices. They’d been slavering in her brain like chained attack dogs demanding to be freed. So she let them go.
Bakula-baka was almost upon her as she calmly hol-stered her weapon and stood quietly facing him, her arms open as if to embrace him. Her unusual behavior penetrated even his rather thick skull and he stopped, staring suspiciously at the serene expression on the face of his intended victim.
Sara’s mind exploded in a fireball of white heat, as it always did when she was enveloped in the Witchblade, and the cold metal appeared instantaneously upon her body, encasing her thighs, breasts, and abdomen in its chilly embrace. She shuddered at its touch, yet part of her welcomed it, like the caress of a lover whom she halfhated. Her mind danced in the incandescent blaze, her senses expanded to an inhuman degree. Every nerve, every fiber of her being felt more alive and vibrant than it did when she was outside the Witchblade’s embrace. She felt invincible.
Bakula-baka was wary of the sudden change in her appearance. He advanced tentatively, impressed by the armor that Sara suddenly wore. But the Witchblade was more than mere armor.
Sara laughed aloud and pointed at him imperiously.
The Witchblade ran down her arm to her hand and to the Up of her extended finger, and it didn’t stop there. It flung itself across the open space between Sara and the killer, extruding a razor-sharp tentacle.
The loa was astonished, but, reacting with more than human speed, brought up his machete with exquisite precision and parried the Witchblade’s thrust before it could pierce his chest. The Witchblade’s tentacle shrieked off the machete blade and the strangest battle in Sara’s career began.
Sara had never before faced an opponent with such supernatural strength and skill. Bakula-baka looked big and clumsy, but in reality he was big and quick and handled his butcher’s blade with all the finesse of a master fencer. She found herself in a back-and-forth struggle as she and her opponent circled each other like dancers in a graceful yet deadly minuet, thrusting and parrying, each probing for that crucial weakness, each looking for that moment when they could strike true and end the dance in a sh, wer of blood. "
Seconds ticked by. Despite the Witchblade’s fuiy, Sara found herself having trouble focusing on her immediate problem: Bakula-baka. She had too many other things to worry about. She couldn’t help but wonder how the Gervelis brothers were doing in the ongoing firefight, a situation so alien to them and so dangerous. Just on the edge of her peripheral vision she could see that Paul Narcisse had reached Father Baltazar. He had half-lifted the fallen priest in his arms and Baron Samedi was shouting to Gene, who was staring fixedly at the fencing match between her and the demonic loa, his gun ready, just waiting for the opportunity to revenge the death of his sister and his earlier wounding at Sara’s hand.
She couldn’t belie , e that Gene was still alive-Damn!
Bakula-baka had snuck in under her defense as she’d lost her focus. Not even the Witchblade could prevent him from landing a machete blow that slashed across her ribcage. The mystic armor pulled itself together in time to protect the area of her body where the blow landed, but it could only cushion. It couldn’t soften the tremendous blow.
Sara grunted as the blade whipped across her, flinging her to the ground. Her head snapped down on the concrete floor with enormous force and a shower of bright lights exploded in her brain. She blacked out.
It must have only been for a moment because when she opened her eyes again Bakula-baka still hadn’t reached her. She couldn’t breathe, Her huffing lungs were struggling to draw in air.
And the Witchblade was gone.
It had vanished when she’d lost consciousness, leaving her virtually ,naked, protected only by her tattered clothes. Her breasts shuddered as she tried to focus her mind to draw a breath and call back the Witchblade.
She caught Gene’s smile from the corner of her eye as he realized that he finally had a clear shot at her, and the hideous smile on Bakula-baka’s half-face as he loomed over her, stinking of death and the grave. She desperately tried to summon the Witchblade in time to save her from the simultaneous attacks.
Gene’s features suddenly blurred as if he were looking through radiating heat waves. When they settled again ' less than a second later he was still grinning widely, but his upper lip was missing its pencil-thin mustache.
Sara thought Jean? and suddenly Baron Samedi roared in his great bull-like voice and Paul Narcisse fired two shots almost simultaneously.
The first hit Gene, or maybe it was now Jean, in the throat. A geyser of blood erupted from the wound, spraying in a fountain through the severed jugular. The second blew off the top of his, or her, skull, and Sara knew that he, or she, wouldn’t recover from this wound.
A stricken, almost angry expression washed over Jean’s face. It blurred again for an infinitesimal moment. By the time the body hit the floor it was wearing Gene’s face once again, and both twins were finally, irrevocably, dead. At least, Sara hoped so.
Bakula-baka responded to the urgency in Baron Samedi’s voice. He turned to see Paul Narcisse pointing his weapon at the loa’s mount. Sara still couldn’t breathe and couldn’t even draw in enough air to shout a warning as Paul Narcisse pulled the trigger and Guillaume Sam’s body staggered at the impact of the slug tearing through it, just
as Bakula-baka reached the houngan's side.
Sara tried to scream but her lungs still weren’t drawing enough air. Her voice could only croak so quietly that only she could hear the pitiful sound it made as Bakula-baka swung his machete and with one blow neatly took Paul Narcisse’s head from his shoulders.
It flew away like an ugly, misshapen football. Sara felt almost as if she had been struck, not Narcisse. She watched in horror as Bakula-baka roared in glee and grabbed the headless body as it swayed drunkenly on its feet. The loa opened his mouth wide and clamped down upon the neck stump, making greedy sucking noises as it 'drained the spurting blood from Paul Narcisse’s corpse.
Bakula-baka released the body, letting it fall over Father Baltazar, then whirled, turning his mad, staring eye on Sara. He started to lurch toward her as she still fought for her breath, fought to call the Witchblade back and direct it upon him, but Guillaume Sam shouted again, this time in his own voice. Samedi had apparently fled back to Guinee.
The loa answered Guillaume Sam’s summons. He went swiftly to the bokor’s side and scooped him up in his powerful arms. Together they disappeared among the maze of the caille mysteres.
Sara suddenly realized she was breathing again, though the entire right side of her body felt as if it were on fire. She looked down and saw a great bruise already darkening her skin from her right breast down her ribcage and across her waist to almost the top of her thigh. In the center of the dark bruise was a dead white line an inch across, directly where the machete blade had struck her. Only the mystic armor qf the Witchblade had kept her from being chopped through from chest to groin.
But that wasn’t important, now.
She couldn’t get up. She couldn’t walk, but she dragged herself across the concrete floor to where Paul Narcisse’s corpse lay over Father Baltazar. It took what seemed to be a long tyne. Sight before she reached the pitiful bodies the gunfire from the other area of the floor ceased, and Sara knew she had to huny. If the Gervelis brothers had been outgunned, if they were lying dead or wounded, her own life would be measured in minutes.
a terrible beauty Page 17