Colin sat on the edge of a black plush couch, holding a cup of coffee un-tasted in his hands. Across from him, in a high, elaborately-carved chair, sat Lucille Thibodeaux.
Colin had been hunting Lucille for several weeks, though he hadn't realized it until three days ago. She was the shark he'd been looking for: the woman who had put John Cannon on the trail of the black coven, and who might yet provide Colin with a lead to their location.
Madame Lucille made her living as a bogus voudoun priestess, catering to a largely white and totally credulous clientele that felt that something so alien to their experience was by definition superior to anything more familiar. For the right price, Madame Lucille changed bad luck to good, crafted love charms, lifted curses, and relayed messages from the dead, all without any more success than could be chalked up to coincidence and a little trickery.
The first time Colin had seen Lucille had been several years ago, when he'd been extracting an old friend, newly widowed, from the rapacious clutches of the phony medium. Then, he hadn't been sure how old she was. Then, she'd been a beautiful exotic young woman, dressed in a theatrical gypsy fashion and wearing armloads of bargain-counter jewelry.
Today she looked every year of her age and more. Her old-ivory skin now had a sallow greyish undertone, and she hadn't bothered to put on makeup to see him. She'd greeted him at the door in a pink chenille bathrobe, conducting him into her sitting room with what seemed a laborious parody of her former charm. In the harsh light of day, she had the gaunt, raddled aspect of a cancer victim. Even the tignon wrapped around her head looked faintly dingy.
"What you want wid Lucille, hahn? I tell you before, M'sieur, I doan' fix curses no more, me." Lucille spoke—when she remembered—with a fetching French accent. But when she was upset or afraid, her native inflections—a thick and almost unintelligible Acadian patois—overwhelmed her speech.
She was very afraid now.
"Lucille nobody special, cher. Lots worse people out dere. I jus' give dem what dey ask for, me. You are a ver' bad man, M'sieur, to bodder me so."
"Now, Lucille, you know I'm not upset with you this time. I want to help you. Help me, and I can help you." All of them, Colin thought resignedly, protested their innocence even before they were accused, almost as if they couldn't help themselves. And since Lucille had urged this meeting, her protestations were doubly ridiculous.
The Creole woman sipped at her coffee. Her hands shook, rattling the cup against the saucer, and beads of perspiration dotted her forehead despite the winter weather outside.
"I should never 'ave talk to dat man," she said fiercely. She shook her head, and her earrings flashed below her white tignon. "He was poison, dat one— poison for Lucille."
"You spoke to John Cannon, you told me that over the phone," Colin prompted. He already knew some of Lucille's story, both from others he'd talked to in the past several days and from the conversation he'd had with Lucille to set up this meeting.
"He pay me to," she said simply. "He say he want to do a book about my life, so dat I get famous an' be on television an' all. An' he want to know about de dark forces dat I do battle wid, and dose who worship dem. An' so I tell him about dat, too."
"But they found out that you'd talked—told Cannon about them," Colin prompted her. He could afford no mistakes, nor to leave any question unasked. He suspected that Lucille would be too frightened to meet with him twice. And if what she'd hinted at was true, Cannon was in more immediate danger than Colin had suspected.
"Dat girl, she tell dem, I t'ink. She crazy in de head, her! She say she want to get free of dem, and den she go running back to dem again, I bet!"
Slowly Colin coaxed the whole story out of her, verifying each statement carefully as he went. It had begun months before Cannon's lecture at the Sorcery Shoppe, when a woman named Sandra Jacquet came to Lucille, wanting protection.
"An' she doan' tell me from what, her, not at firs', so I give her dis charm to wear an' charge her fifty dollar, an' de nex' week she come back to me an' say, it work not so good, an' dere dese t'ing in her apartment, an' can I come an' exorcise de place. So I do dis t'ing—a good job; de ingredient, dey cos' me forty dollar. It take me t'ree hour, an she say it a good t'ink she fin' me before somet'ing worse happen. But den I start having . . . de bad dream."
"Is this the girl?" Colin asked, pulling a small photo out of his pocket.
Lucille took the photo in trembling hands and peered at it in the room's dim light. "Dat her, I t'ink. Where she at now, her?"
Colin put the photo back into his pocket without answering. He did not think that it would help Lucille's composure to know that her client was currently an unclaimed body in the city morgue. The pieces of her dismembered and mutilated body—most of them, anyway—had been found stuffed into garbage bags and scattered over most of a city block.
It was lucky—if that was truly the word—that the occult symbols that had been branded and carved into her both before and after death had caused Lieutenant Martin Becket of the Occult Crimes Unit to call Colin in on the case. Just as it was fortunate that the police had been able to get a fairly recent photo of Sandra, because it had been impossible to take an ID photo from what they found of the corpse.
"Tell me about Sandra, Lucille. Why did she come to you? What did she want—exactly?"
"I don' know how she fin' me, M'sieu, but she wan' what dey all do. She want Lucille to lift de hoodoo. An' at first', everyt'ing work out jus' fine."
Which meant, Colin understood, that Sandra Jacquet was rich, and more than willing to pay—lavishly—for protection, without inquiring too closely into her mentor's bona fides. At least at first. But after a few unsuccessful "purification" sessions, Sandra had become unsatisfied with the results for which she was paying. And, finding that her usual tricks were not satisfying her wealthy and openhanded client, Madame Lucille made her first mistake. She did an afternoon's research at the New York Public Library and decided that | what was needed to lift Sandra Jacquet's curse was a seance.
It took Lucille almost two weeks to talk Sandra into it, but the girl was terrified—and, Colin gathered, the nebulous problems she was experiencing were getting worse—so Sandra Jacquet finally succumbed to Lucille's coaxing and parted with the $300 that the faux psychic said was required to buy the necessary materials for the ritual.
In fact, Lucille had pocketed the bulk of the money as usual, and spent only a few dollars on colored candles, oregano, and a Ouija board from FAO Schwarz. But something she had not counted on had happened at the "seance"; something terrible enough to drive Lucille away from her plump half-plucked pigeon. Madame Lucille wouldn't—or couldn't—tell Colin what had happened that April night, but her hands shook and her voice quivered as she recounted the moment at which the planchette had taken on a cold life of its own beneath her fingertips.
She broke off her narrative at that point, taking a cigarette out of the onyx box on her coffee table and lighting it with shaking fingers.
"An' what it say den, nobody know about Lucille but her! So den I t'ink . . ." There was a long pause. Lucille sucked smoke into her lungs and blew it out in a harsh exhalation.
"I t'ink maybe dis girl, she too much trouble to keep aroun', her." Lucille shrugged.
After that, Colin gathered, Lucille had refused to take Sandra's calls or to see her when Sandra came to the apartment. And eventually, to Lucille's great relief, Sandra had stopped calling. Colin wondered if she had stopped because she was dead, or whether she had found some other equally helpless rescuer.
"But de dreams don' stop, M'sieu. An I dream Mam'selle Jacquet, she dead but still alive some'ow, alive an' in torment. An den I hear of dis man, an' I t'ink maybe he can help me because he know all about de hoodoo an' stuff."
Colin knew this wasn't the reason she'd agreed to speak to Cannon—this part of the tale was a pretty story made up for Colin's benefit. Undoubtedly, Madame Lucille had contacted Jock Cannon out of sheer avarice. Cannon paid for his interview
s, Colin knew that much by now. And after all, by the time she'd talked to him, the night of the seance had then been several weeks in the past, and nothing more of a truly inexplicable nature had happened since. Most people in those circumstances, Colin knew from sad experience, would rather simply concoct a soothing explanation to cover the uncanny events, and would even forget about them in time, rather than continue to live with awareness of the uncanny.
In any event, when Lucille had been interviewed by Cannon, while she'd told him perhaps more than had actually occurred in the Sandra Jacquet case, she had also passed on to him with reasonable fidelity all the names and details—few though they probably were—-that Sandra had confided to her. And after that, things had gotten worse for her.
And for Cannon, who, like any good journalist, was out to confirm his facts by tracking them back to the source—Sandra Jacquet's killers.
"What did you tell him?" Colin pressed.
Lucille lit a second cigarette from the stub of the first. The predominantly reddish light shining through the fake stained glass darkened her skin with the illusion of health, but Colin knew better. Lucille Thibodeaux was dying, as surely as if she'd been poisoned.
"No. Dat mistake I don' make twice. No more do dose name pass my lips."
"You told John Cannon. You knew he was a journalist when you talked to him; you knew that he was going to write about them." And lecture about them. It may already be too late for me to save him. "What you told him won't remain a secret."
"Yes, it will," Lucille said bleakly. "Dey kill me, cher. Dey kill M'sieu Cannon too, I bet."
"If I can find them, I'll make sure that they don't hurt you anymore, Lucille, either of you. I swear it. But you have to tell me what Sandra Jacquet told you," Colin pressed.
"She dead now, hahn?" Lucille guessed.
"You don't have to die," Colin said, evading an answer. "I can help you— if you'll help me first. Tell me who they are."
Lucille hesitated, then shook her head. "Lucille got sins enough on her soul so dat when she die she go straight to de bad place. Dat poison-man Cannon, he on my conscience. I won't have you dere as well, M'sieu."
No matter what he said, Colin could not budge her, and finally he gave up.
"All right. There's little I can do for you if you won't tell me who is attacking you. I can give you the name of a priest. He's a good man. He won't laugh at you, Lucille, and they can't touch you on consecrated ground."
To Colin's shock, the Creole woman laughed; a harsh, smoke-roughened bark.
"So de Church going to save Lucille? What de pries' gone say to me—dat Lucille get down on her knees an' come to Jesus an' be saved, hahn? I don' t'ink so, M'sieu. It too late for dat—God, he dead, an' only de Devil is left. An' de Devil goan' get Lucille in de end."
She stared broodingly toward the darkened windows for a minute, then got to her feet. "I t'ank you for coming, M'sieu, but I do a wrong t'ing to let you. Dere ain' not'ing no living man can do for Lucille Thibodeaux in dis life no more, so you bes' be go now, before dey see you an' put a hurt on you, too." Her voice was firm.
Reluctantly, Colin got to his feet. "I'll pray for you," he told her, knowing that such action would be too little, too late. He dug for his wallet. "At least get out of town; if you leave the area, they may not be able to track you down. Do you need money? I can—"
Lucille waved the offer away. "Dere no'ting more you can do for me, M'sieu MacLaren. Bes' you go now, hahn?"
A few moments later, Colin stood on the street in the dull light of a December afternoon. He glanced up at the window of the second-floor apartment. Behind the shrouded window, Lucille Thibodeaux waited for death with the bleak fatalism of a trapped animal.
He would pray for her as he had promised, though he did not think it would save her. But there were others whom his intervention might yet help.
Colin was a pack rat and tended to save every scrap of paper that fell into his hands. It had taken him several hours to find Jock's business card, which he'd tossed into the drawer where such pieces of paper tended to accumulate. The phone was answered by a woman who admitted that it was the Cannon residence; she asked his name, a faint wariness discernible beneath the polite tones. A moment later Jock Cannon came on the line.
"Mr. Cannon? This is Colin MacLaren; we met several months ago; at the Sorcery Shoppe?"
"I remember you, Mr. MacLaren." Cannon's voice was weary.
"You'll forgive my presumption in tracking you down, but the last time we spoke you were preparing a book on Black Witchcraft."
"Hold on." Cannon's voice was suddenly sharp. "I want to take this call in the den."
There were a few moments of shuffling around, while Cannon picked up in the den and told Bess—the woman Colin had first spoken to—to hang up the other phone. Then Cannon came back on the line.
"Perhaps you'd like to state the nature of your business, Mr. MacLaren?" Cannon said coolly.
"I've just been speaking to a woman named Lucille Thibodeaux," Colin answered candidly. "What she told me worried me a great deal."
"Ah . . ." Cannon gave a long sigh. "Is she all right?" he asked hesitantly.
"She's dying," Colin said bluntly. "Her client—whom I presume she mentioned when you interviewed her?—is already dead. Murdered."
There was a pause from the other end of the line. "How did she die?" Cannon asked hesitantly.
"Badly," Colin said, refusing to elaborate. "These people mean business. Lucille's convinced she's next—and if you're planning to publish an expose about them, so are you."
"I'm a big boy now, Mr. MacLaren. It's been quite a few years since I've been intimidated by schoolyard threats," Cannon answered.
Colin sighed inwardly. He recognized graveyard bravado when he heard it. Cannon must already be under attack.
"Do they know where you live, Mr. Cannon? Have you been having any . . . peculiar troubles?" Colin asked gently.
"How do I know you're not one of them, wanting to find out what I know?" Cannon snapped, his voice suddenly flat with suspicion.
"Come now, Mr. Cannon," Colin said. "Of course I want to know what you know, but I'm the one who warned you against getting involved in the first place, remember? I just want to help you. The best thing might be if you abandoned your project, and—"
"Too late." Cannon's voice was ugly with triumph. "I turned the final draft of Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today in last week—it's at the publisher's now."
There was a brief moment of silence.
"They already know that, of course." Cannon said. "They've got a terrific intelligence network. I've actually been to one of their filthy rituals. A Father Mansell tried to recruit me, get me to withdraw the book. He put on a good show, but it's all just hoodoo. That's all. Coincidence, intimidation—" His voice faltered and died, and there was a long silence. "Help me," Cannon whispered.
Colin checked his watch. "You're near Gramercy Park, right? I can be there in less than an hour; I'd like to bring along a—"
"No—don't come here," Cannon said quickly. "I don't want Bess upset any more than she has been so far, and I don't—I don't want them to see you here," he finished raggedly.
There was another pause while Cannon gathered his wits. "I have to drop by Blackcock—my publisher—to see Jamie about the book tomorrow. I'll come by your place afterward. I need to talk to you. Maybe if I withdraw it the way they want ..."
"That would probably be a very good idea," Colin said. "At least let me see the manuscript. I understand that you name names—well, these kind of people are usually terrified of exposure, and with good reason. I have a few friends in the police who might be able to make their lives pretty hot—and take the heat off you."
"I ... I suppose so," Cannon said, obviously more rattled by the minute. "I need to think about this. It isn't that I take them seriously, of course—it's just strong-arm techniques and scare tactics. . . ."
"There's no 'just' about it, Mr. Cannon," Colin said forc
efully. "Please don't make the mistake of thinking these people won't make good on their threats. If what I believe is true, they've already killed once."
"I'm not going to turn tail," Cannon said, abruptly changing tack again. "But we can talk about it tomorrow. Still ..."
Colin waited, but Cannon said nothing more.
"Mr. Cannon?" he finally said.
"Oh." Cannon sounded as if he'd been roused from a doze. "Well, thanks for calling, Mr. MacLaren," he said in a bright, false voice. "I appreciate your interest."
"Come and see me," Colin said urgently. "Or I can meet you up at Blackcock. What time are you meeting your editor?"
There was a bitter laugh at the other end of the phone. "You think I'll tell you that? I'm not that much of a greenhorn. Tell you what, MacLaren: I'll call you tomorrow. Maybe we'll have lunch."
"Mr. Cannon—" Colin began desperately. "Jock—"
"Thanks so much for calling, Professor," Cannon interrupted. There was the click of a receiver being replaced in its cradle, and then the buzz of a dial tone.
Colin stared at the telephone in exasperation and pity. He only hoped that Cannon would call him tomorrow—and even more than that, he hoped Cannon would withdraw his manuscript about the black covens. The "good-faith" gesture might be enough to save his life.
It might.
The call he waited for didn't come. All through the day Colin waited, while he debated the wisdom of calling Cannon's wife, or his publisher, and reluctantly dismissed both notions. By the Oaths that bound him, he could not force his help on someone who did not wish it. He prayed that the call he waited for would come. When the telephone rang at four o'clock, Colin lunged for it anxiously.
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