Age of Voodoo

by James Lovegrove

  “The old-school kind,” said Lex, making a connection. “The voodoo kind.”

  “Indeed. The zuvembie. The living dead man raised from the grave by a voodoo priest to do his bidding.”

  “Oh.”

  “That’s all? ‘Oh’?” Buckler was surprised. “You’re not going to call me on that one? You can accept zombies in a voodoo context?”

  “As we’ve just been discussing, voodoo can rely on all sorts of psychological effects,” said Lex. “It’s a belief system, and its power can be put down, at least in part, to expectation and cultural conditioning. Sampson’s friend’s friend got hit by misfortune after misfortune and naturally blamed it on his woman placing a curse on him, because it seemed conceivable, if not the only plausible explanation. By the same token, couldn’t someone with influence in voodoo circles promote the idea that creating a zombie—sorry, a zuvembie—is possible?”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, I’m just saying that if a voodoo practitioner can persuade people he’s able to raise the dead, they’ll accept it as fact forever after. He could fake it with the aid of an accomplice pretending to be a reanimated corpse, or he could dupe someone suggestible, an easily swayed acolyte, into believing they’re a reanimated corpse. Both achieve much the same result, making him look scary and powerful and cementing his reputation.”

  “Nice logic,” said Buckler, “and there’s some truth in it. Ethnologists have shown that people have been deceived into thinking they’re zombified through the use of hallucinogens and ritual. A bokor—and this is the sort of thing a bokor will do, as opposed to a houngan—plies his victim with a drug that causes partial paralysis, amnesia and loss of will. It’ll be a powder or a potion consisting of substances like tetrodotoxin, the venom from the puffer fish, and datura, a poisonous plant commonly known as angel’s trumpet or moonflower, all brewed together with crushed-up dead baby skull and other equally delicious ingredients like toad and lizard parts. He makes the guy undergo a symbolic burial, sticking him in a coffin for days, maybe underground with a limited air supply, until this poor sap—bewildered, drug-addled, half-suffocated, possibly even brain-damaged—is convinced he must be dead. Then the bokor digs him up, ‘revives’ him, and now he’s got someone who assumes he’s nothing more than a soulless shell and will therefore do whatever he’s told. Long as the bokor keeps him doped up and stupefied, he has himself a loyal, dull-witted slave. That’s a zuvembie, or at least that’s one way of accounting for the zuvembie lore that exists in the voodoo tradition. It’s said that this was how they used to keep slaves on Haitian sugar plantations docile and obedient—they zombified them. And yes, I have been doing my homework.”

  “And this is what Seidelmann and Papa Couleuvre have been up to? Making their own form of zuvembie?”

  “It’s a working hypothesis, one that fits the data. Remember the head-cam footage? Those figures taking bullets and still coming? Seidelmann’s process, whatever it is, has advanced to the human guinea pig phase. Only the experiment hasn’t perhaps worked out quite the way he and Papa Couleuvre were hoping.”

  Lex said, “The mission, then, is to infiltrate the installation at Anger Reef, take down any and all of these zuvembies, if that’s what they are, ascertain whether there are staff members and marines still alive, extract them, exfiltrate, go home.”

  “In a nutshell.”

  “Well...” Lex slapped his thighs with finality. “Consider me briefed and in full possession of the facts. Unless there’s anything else I should know?”

  “No,” Buckler said. “That’s it. Everything.”

  “Then when do we start?”

  “‘We’? You want in on the op itself?”

  “Here’s how I see it,” said Lex. “You’ve already got Wilberforce flying you to and from Anger Reef. That’s one civilian asset you’re exploiting who’s also a friend of mine. Now, I’m betting you’re going to insist on dragging Albertine along with you too, since there’s a mad, bad bokor waiting for you at the other end and probably zuvembies too. Am I wrong?”

  Buckler’s expression told him he was not.

  “You want someone with practical voodoo skills, on the ground, immediately accessible,” Lex went on, “in case the zuvembies prove hard to handle using conventional means. You want someone to fulfil the same role as that shaman in Siberia who enabled you to get close to the werebear.”

  “Goddamn werebear,” muttered Sampson, with a disgruntled shake of the head.

  Tartaglione gave his hand a sniff and wrinkled his nose. “I’ve had three showers since and I can still smell that rancid crap that guy made us put on. Don’t know if it’s ever going to wash off.”

  “You’re going to coerce Albertine into coming with you whether I like it or not,” Lex continued, speaking solely to Buckler. “It’s even occurred to you that you might have to remove me from the equation somehow, if I object too strenuously. Don’t worry, I don’t take it personally. A leader has to think through all the variables in order to ensure mission success. There’s a chance I could make life awkward for you, so disposing of me has to be at least somewhere on the to-do list. Now, right here in this room, would be as good a time and place as any. Three of you, one of me, a discreet, unarmed takedown. I’m not saying it would work, but you could try.”

  “You always this mistrustful, ace?” said Buckler.

  “It’s served me well in the past. It’s certainly a little convenient that your two shooters happened to turn up when they did. You knew I was coming back here. You knew I was unhappy about your plans for my friend and his cousin. Sampson and Tartaglione aren’t just ‘moral support,’ are they? They’re backup, an insurance policy in the event that I don’t play along. But, really, truly, I don’t want to get into a fight. Whatever the outcome, even if you people win, at least one of you is going to end up hospitalised or worse, I can promise that. And then you’d be short-handed and the mission would be compromised and might even have to be scratched, which would be a pity. So this is what I’m offering—and it’s not up for discussion. I come with you too. You take Albertine and Wilberforce, you get me as well. Think of it as a bargain package, like at the supermarket. Buy two, get a third for free.”

  “Dove, listen...”

  Lex rose to his feet. “What part of ‘not up for discussion’ do you not understand, Lieutenant Buckler? Wilberforce’s plane is an eight-seater, so there’s room for me on board. You must be aware that I can handle myself in a firefight and have worked alongside American combat units before. You’re heading into a hostile environment with two complete amateurs in tow, and chances are you’ll be so busy watching your own backs you won’t be able to watch theirs. Civilians are a liability, as we all know. That’s where I come in. You may have a problem with it, but if you do, tough. It’s a done deal.”

  Tartaglione and Sampson looked to their team leader to see how he would respond. Buckler pensively fingered his moustache, gaze fixed on Lex. Here was a man who appeared to wear his authority lightly but preferred not to have it challenged.

  For a moment—just a moment—Buckler’s eyes hardened.

  Then he relented. A grin came, one that was a fraction too broad.

  “All right, buddy,” he said. “Fine. You’re in. Guess it won’t hurt to have an extra warm body. And you’re right, someone looking out for your pals is a good idea. We might not have the leisure to do that ourselves. Welcome to Team Thirteen, Lex Dove.”

  Lex shook Buckler’s proffered hand, and Buckler squeezed, crushing knuckles. Sampson clapped Lex on the back hard. Tartaglione ruffled his hair with a scrubbing motion.

  These actions were not unpainful, and Lex was under no illusion that that was deliberate.

  SIXTEEN

  CROWD OF THE DEAD

  THEY CAME OUT of the dark, singly at first, then in a horde.

  Leading the pack was a despot from sub-Saharan Africa, massively overweight, his face grey as clay. Sticking out of the rolls of blubber at his neck was the hypo
dermic syringe Lex had used to inject him with a lethal dose of potassium chloride, the British government’s answer to the man’s repeated attempts to blame all his country’s contemporary ills on its former colonial ruler. The UK did not take kindly to being made a scapegoat. Cause of death had been listed as heart attack, according to a coroner who didn’t wish to enquire into the matter too deeply. Like most of his countrymen, he was just glad the psychotic fat bastard was gone.

  Next was a Thai plutocrat who had been attempting to sell phials of weaponised hantavirus to some very shady characters on the Pacific Rim. While cruising around the Phi Phi Islands in the Andaman Sea in his luxury yacht, he had slipped on deck, fallen over the rail and drowned. Or so it was generally assumed. His bloated corpse showed signs of having been nibbled by small fish and gnawed by sharks. Water poured in a continuous stream from his mouth, nose and ears.

  Following him came the Montenegran arms dealer who had moonlighted as a trader in state secrets, selling information he gleaned from his contacts in various defence departments to terrorists and religious fanatics, whoever would pay his exorbitant prices. His Lamborghini had left the road while negotiating the St Gotthard Pass in the Swiss Alps, plunging off the Teufelsbrücke bridge into the Schöllenen Gorge. The car had been so badly wrecked that accident investigators failed to find evidence of the remote-detonated packets of explosive that burst the two nearside tyres simultaneously and caused the driver’s fatal loss of control.

  Then there was the Ukrainian people-trafficker flooding London with abducted underage prostitutes, who had been found hanging in a wardrobe in what looked to all intents and purposes like an act of autoerotic asphyxiation gone disastrously wrong.

  And the sheik with connections to al-Qaeda, apparently slain by one of his own bodyguards who had then immediately turned his gun on himself.

  And the rabble-rousing neo-Nazi Russian demagogue, forever exhorting his country to unleash its nuclear arsenal on the decadent, racially-impure West, who had been shot in the back while on a moose hunting expedition in the Urals, killed by the same calibre of rifle bullet his fellow hunters were using even though every one of them swore blind that they had not fired at or even near him.

  They all lurched towards Lex, charred, mangled, broken, dismembered, riddled with bullet holes, sporting gory wounds, eyes cloudy, mouths agape in silent screams of indignation. They converged on him from in front, behind, all around, encircling him, a dozen, a score, twice that number, more. Cold, clammy hands clutched at him. The crowd of the dead pressed in on him, threatening to overwhelm him with their weight and their putrid stink. Lex struggled, but he seemed to lack all strength. He couldn’t escape. He was helpless. The dead surged over him like a tide, all the many people he had killed, all risen from their final resting places to claim their assassin and drag him down to whichever dark hells they now called home.

  And now Lex heard laughter—derisive, crowing laughter. He scanned frantically to see where it was coming from. Maybe it was someone who could help him.

  Beyond the throng of shambling corpses, somewhere on high as though on a podium, stood a man in a black tailcoat. He wore sunglasses with the right-hand lens missing and a crooked top hat on his head, a crow’s feather protruding jauntily from the sash. His face was painted to resemble a skull, the white of the makeup contrasting starkly with the deep brown of his skin.

  He brandished a cane in one hand, a spindly twist of wood with a carved ivory skull as its knob. He was using it like a conductor’s baton, waving it to and fro in time to a rhythm only he could hear, and Lex could see that the crowd of the dead were under this frightful figure’s command. He was urging them on, orchestrating their assault, and laughing heartily all the while, as if it was the finest entertainment imaginable.

  The dead were now crawling over one another to get to Lex, their wretched bodies forming a dome over him, engulfing him. He was at the heart of a pile of soft putrefying flesh and writhing rotten limbs. He could barely breathe. He was going to suffocate.

  And still that laughter pealed in the background, immense delighted guffaws from the cavorting, skull-faced man in black...

  OF COURSE IT was a dream. Lex knew that even while he was in the thick of it, being buried under those corpses. Only a dream, and he fought his way out, thrashing up to the surface of consciousness to find himself, yes, in bed, at home, in darkness, lying tangled in the sheets with cicadas trilling outside the window and the ceiling fan whirling lazily overhead.

  And then, to his horror, he realised that he was still pinned down. A body lay half on him, one arm across his throat. It had been no dream. The nightmare was real. The dead were here—his dead—and one of them had him in a tight embrace and was about to throttle him.

  He threw the arm off and scrambled sideways, desperate to get away, desperate to flee the postmortem vengeance of his victims.

  He tumbled off the bed onto the floor, thumping hard, backside first. He was slick with sweat, heart pounding. He thrust himself backwards with his heels until he struck the wall. He could hear a mewling coming from his throat, an abject sound, a wordless plea for mercy.

  Then, from the bed, someone spoke.

  “Lex?”

  And a lamp flicked on.

  “Lex, what’s going on?”

  It was Albertine, with the sheet clasped to her chest, leaning over him, beautiful, solicitous.

  “What are you doing on the floor there? You look terrible. What on earth’s the matter?”

  Lex gasped, gulped, finally found his voice. “I... Shit. I had this... I was... Bad dream. Yeah. Really fucking bad dream.”

  Albertine looked him up and down. “Yes, I’d say so. Come on.” She beckoned.

  Reluctantly, unsteadily, Lex clambered back onto the bed. He was shivering, despite the heat.

  “It was... Bloody hell. So vivid.”

  “Shhh. It’s all right. Lie down.”

  He settled down against her. She was naked, as was he. How had this come about? How had they ended up like this?

  It came back to him, gradually, piecemeal. He had rendezvoused with Wilberforce and Albertine at his house. They had been waiting for him here when he returned from the Cape Azure. There’d been dinner, during which Lex had laid bare the facts about Anger Reef and explained what Lieutenant Buckler required from each of the cousins. Then Albertine had retired to the spare room for the night while Lex made up the couch for Wilberforce.

  Later, Lex’s bedroom door had opened. Albertine had stepped through, shutting it softly behind her.

  Not much was said. She was in a borrowed bathrobe. She let it slip to her ankles, revealing an ample shelf of bosom and wide, sinuously incurving hips. She slid in under the covers beside him. The warmth coming off her was tremendous. The musk too, the earthy female scent. Lex was erect almost before he knew it, and he didn’t question her presence, didn’t ask why she was there or why she wanted him. Didn’t care. He threw himself at her, and there was sweat, and saliva, and pawing, and straddling, an inelegant ballet of lust, and it was over quickly, for both of them, an urgent, exultant coming together, and afterwards a precipitous rush into sleep, like falling off a cliff, oblivion chasing the heels of orgasm and exhaustion.

  “You get nightmares often?” Albertine asked.

  “Occasionally. Not like this one, though.”

  “Want to talk about it? Sometimes helps.”

  “No. Want to tell me why you... you know. Why we...”

  “Got carnal?”

  “If you have to put it like that.”

  Albertine gave a wry, slightly pitying chuckle. “One thing you should know about islander women. We’re very passionate. Prim and proper on the surface, but underneath... Look out!”

  “Not that I’m complaining, I hasten to add.”

  “I know you’re not. I surprised you, that’s all. I understand that. You weren’t sure I was interested. But I can be very impulsive. Sometimes Erzulie Freda, she gets the better of me. She’s a
fine lady, fond of all the nice things in life, dainty in her way, and you’d think she’d be above getting all down-and-dirty, but she’s not, trust me. She’s got a wicked streak, and now and then, even when I haven’t summoned her, she mounts me...”

  “And you mounted me,” Lex finished.

  This time Albertine didn’t so much chuckle as cackle—quite the lewdest laugh Lex had ever heard.

  “And it was nice,” she said.

  “That’s all? ‘Nice’?”

  “Very nice, then. You may not be the tallest man I’ve ever been with, but in other respects you’re far from being the smallest.”

  “Thanks. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Do.”

  “What time is it?” Lex consulted his alarm clock. “Christ,” he groaned. “Gone three. We’re ‘wheels up’ at six, according to Buckler. Albertine, I know I’ve asked this a hundred times already, but now it seems more pertinent than ever. Are you sure you—?”

  She placed a finger on his lips. “Don’t even think about saying it. A bokor has been committing heinous acts, perverting vodou for his own ends. As a practising mambo, a true serviteur of the loa, I can’t stand idly by and allow it to happen. And you’ve seen what I can do. I’ve got my bag of tricks with me, packed with all I need, and I’m not afraid to use it. I’m going into this with eyes wide open, Lex. It’s kind of you to worry, but don’t.”

  “I’m just saying...”

  “Things are the way they are. You must understand, vodou is a very fatalistic religion. Accepting one’s destiny is part of the deal. The loa know what’s best for each of us, and it would be foolish to attempt to defy their will. It would only displease them, and make them more determined than ever to force you down the road they want you to take. And this, this mission, is the road for me. I know it. I have no doubts.”

  “Okay,” said Lex. “Well, you can’t say I didn’t try. Shit.” He pressed the back of a forearm to his forehead. All at once, in his mind’s eye, came a vision of the figure in the funereal black suit, the cockeyed hat perched on his head, the cane carving patterns in the air. “The thing about the dream I just had... I’ve had similar dreams before. A recurring nightmare. But this time, it was worse than it’s ever been. I suppose I’m just anxious about what’s ahead.”