Evil Returns

by Cave, Hugh

  But, hell, the bank wasn't that far.

  Remembering Jumel brought another thought, though, as he pushed off and began swimming. If the Haitian regained consciousness and got through to Margal, this could be the worst possible time for it.

  It would be so very easy for Margal to say, "Stop swimming, you two. Stop struggling. You've earned a rest now. Just sink quietly into this cool, dark water and rest forever on the bottom."

  So very easy!

  After all, the man had led them over wrong roads and convinced them they were lost in the Citadelle. He was responsible for a nonexistent cypress swamp, an attempted rape, a wrecked car, a desertion.

  A simple drowning, in this place made to order for his kind of black magic, should be duck soup for him.

  You're not swimming in a river, Forrest. You're flying a plane. Remember that! Don't let go of it!

  He swam on, wondering why the bank suddenly seemed so far away. Of course, with only one hand it wasn't possible to swim with any speed.

  Flying, Forrest. You're flying. Concentrate on the instrument panel in front of you. You're at five hundred feet and climbing.

  Behind him, he could hear Sandy swimming a slow crawl, and actually hers was the only sound in the stillness flow. Using only one arm, and that never breaking the surface, he himself made no noise at all.

  So concentrate on the purr of the plane's engine, man. You're in the sky, remember. It worked before. Maybe he's never been in the sky and can't project his commands up here. Could be he has to have a familiar mental image of where you are.

  As he neared shore, the tall trees blocked out the light and there was no color in the water. The trees' roots slithered down the bank like fat snakes, to disappear into a sheet of tar. But suddenly the tar rippled. Suddenly it parted. Something like a bronze doorknob—gleaming like a bronze doorknob—thrust itself up into view.

  A gator's eye? With a quiet "Hold it, Sandy," he stopped swimming. He could use the pistol if he had to. More than likely he would miss with it, but the sound might change the reptile's mind if it planned to attack.

  Then the rest of the creature rose into view behind the eye, and the eye was not that but a head, and the gator became a turtle. A big one, true, but only a turtle. Its curiosity apparently satisfied, it abruptly disappeared.

  "Okay, hon. It's all right."

  "Whew!"

  Yes, it's all right, Forrest. So don't let yourself be sidetracked now. You're still in a plane, still flying. Concentrate on that rev counter. That altimeter. Watch that turn and bank indicator!

  But, hey, keep swimming. Except with your mind.

  His forward progress carried him to an invisible tree root as big around as himself, and he half swam up it, half climbed it, until he could get his feet under him. Rising, he turned to help Sandy. Together they ascended the tangle of roots on the bank and pushed through a jungle of trees to a patch of grass.

  Ken shoved the pistol back into his belt. "Are you all right, hon?" She was wet all over, of course. So was he. There was even a long-dead leaf plastered like an elfin cap to the side of her head. But he wasn't concerned about her appearance. After all the earlier horrors, this ordeal with the river could have been the final straw for her.

  "I think so," she said.

  "We walk, then. Let's hope it isn't far."

  For a while they followed the stream, and the going was rough. Where the ground wasn't swampy it was a snarl of creepers and close-packed saplings. Ordinary walking was out of the question; you bulled through like a tank. Yet from time to time Ken still remembered the danger they faced from Margal—a peril that might be increasing every moment—and tried to think himself back into a plane. It wasn't easy with so many real-life decisions to make.

  Here, for instance, was a shack like the one they had fled from. Was it inhabited? It didn't appear to be, but who could tell? Should they keep going across its weed-grown yard or investigate on the chance of being helped?

  What if it was occupied and its owner disliked strangers?

  Flying at such a moment was difficult.

  They left the cabin behind without approaching it. Came to a place where the untamed river's edge gave way to half an acre of lawn surrounding a house of some size. He remembered seeing the house on their way upstream with Jumel, soon after launching the boat. "Hey, we must be almost there!"

  Across the lawn loped a black and tan German shepherd with bared fangs, growling. But no one from the house followed. No door or window opened. It seemed the dog stood guard alone.

  There had been German shepherd guard dogs on the plantation in Haiti, and he had made friends with them. Had romped on the beach and hiked into the hills with them. Nevertheless, he drew Jumel's pistol.

  "Don't stop," he warned Sandy. "Talk to him as if you know him. Talk to me, too."

  Still growling, the animal stopped in a crouch with his forefeet apart and head outthrust. Saliva dripped from his mouth. But when they walked past, interrupting a meaningless conversation with each other to speak and nod to him, he neither attacked nor followed.

  Ken returned the pistol to his waist. "Lucky," he said as they put the house behind them. "But we've earned some luck."

  Ten minutes later they reached the pier from which their journey up the Sebastian River had begun.

  The car was where they had left it.

  Chapter Forty-four

  "Are we going to the police now, Ken?" Sandy's voice was leaden with fatigue.

  "Hon, there isn't time."

  "But if we—"

  "No, we can't. You heard what Jumel said. Margal is going to Canaveral this morning, with Brian driving the car. He may take Merry with him. My guess is he will, to keep Brian in line."

  As the car sped toward Gifford, Sandy grudgingly nodded. "All right. But I don't see how we can get her away from that man by ourselves. You know what he can do."

  Ken reached out to touch her hand. "He could do it to a cop, too, if we had one with us. And that's how many they'd probably send with us—one man to check out our story." He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "Hang in there, hon. We'll find a way."

  From the river road he had driven out to U.S. 1, and now they were headed south on that four-lane highway with the town of Sebastian behind them.

  What time was it? His watch had stopped running when he fell on it. Sandy's was the kind that had to be wound, and she hadn't been able to wind it with her hands tied. The sun, however, was climbing toward noon.

  What time would Margal be leaving Jumel's house for the Cape?

  "One thing you're forgetting, hon. We have a gun now."

  She glanced at Jumel's weapon. "Would you use it?"

  "On Margal? You're damned right I would!"

  "Will it work on him?"

  "Of course it will! He may have a super mind, but physically he's no better than the rest of us." He saw her mouth tremble.

  The town of Wabasso disappeared behind them. At ten miles over the speed limit they sped past orange groves, and Ken tried again to think about flying. On the river it had been relatively easy to do that, with everything else there so close to fantasy. Here on a busy highway it was a struggle.

  Anyway, why should it work? Maybe when he'd imagined himself in a plane before, it had worked only because the bocor was busy with other things.

  That was why Jumel had held them at the cabin, wasn't it? Because Margal needed all his energy for something bigger.

  GIFFORD, a sign said. There was the bar where the hooker had given him directions.

  He had to drive more slowly now. Gifford's roads had not been laid out for people in a hurry. With time to think, he asked himself the same question Sandy had asked, and knew he had better come up with an answer.

  Just how were they to barge into that house and take Merry away from a man able to manipulate people's minds?

  Maybe he would have to use the gun. And face being brought to trial for murder.

  The turns fell behind. The road they were
on now ran past Jumel's house to where they had hidden the car behind the melaleucas.

  A car was coming.

  He slowed and moved over, frowning as it sped toward them. A silver car. A silver Jaguar. Even without the leaping cat on the hood, its sleek lines would have branded it.

  He had only a glimpse of its occupants as it purred by, but that was enough. Alone on the front seat, the driver was Brian Dawson. An older, less handsome Brian Dawson than the one he remembered, but still without question Sandy's husband.

  The two on the rear seat he had never seen before. The woman, huge and black in a red dress, sat stiffly erect, peering straight ahead of them. The man at her side, also black, had gray hair and a badly scarred face.

  Sandy had grabbed at Ken's arm. "Ken, that was Brian driving that car!"

  "And the other two must have been Margal and the woman who looks after him. They're on their way to the Cape."

  "Without Merry, Ken. Oh my God, what if they—"

  "Don't even think it." He stopped peering into the rearview mirror. "We haven't far to go now, hon." The mailbox with Jumel's name on it should be just around the next bend.

  It was. He pulled up beside it. Was the child dead, as Sandy feared? Probably not. Margal would keep her alive at least until he was certain he no longer needed her. But there were still some questions.

  Had they left the child in the house here or in the care of some neighbor—some crony of Jumel's, say? He just might have done that, unless this house had a room with a door that could be locked, and no windows. Because a six-year-old could open a latched window, or even break the glass if she had to.

  Then again, the bocor might have left her here in care of someone. Someone under orders not to let her be rescued.

  "Careful," Ken warned as they got out. "Stick close to me, hon." Sandy was a woman whose emotions sometimes got the best of her discretion. He loved her for it, but right now she was likely to go racing toward the house without considering the risks.

  In spite of the warning she did walk faster than he. And was past the mailbox, halfway to the veranda steps, when a hair-raising snarl tore through the stillness.

  Something huge and black charged from behind a shabby hibiscus bush and launched itself at her. A dog. As ugly a dog as Ken had ever seen, with jaws agape and drooling, fangs gleaming in the sunlight, its crimson, cavernous mouth resembling a fiery pit.

  Sandy flung up her arms and tried to step back, but it was too late. One arm did protect her throat, but the black battering ram sent her stumbling and she went down. Down on her back, screaming, with no chance of escaping the full force of another assault.

  At that moment a second snarling attacker launched itself over the rail from the shadows of the veranda and raced across the yard at Ken.

  Ken snatched the gun from his waist. Took aim at the first monster. Squeezed the trigger just as the beast hurled itself at Sandy a second time. Missed and fired again. Saw the dog jerk in midair and fall to the ground only inches from Sandy's legs. Saw it leap straight into the air again, mouth wide in a silent scream, and then quiver in space like a shot bird before plummeting to the ground to stay there.

  Sandy was safe. With the second black beast racing toward him, he wasn't. Bracing himself, with the gun thrust forward in both hands, he took aim between the killer's blazing eyes.

  But when he squeezed the trigger this time, there was no explosion. Only a click. And again, dick. Click, click, click.

  He had only seconds before it would be too late. Not time enough to run for the car, which he could not do in any case without leaving Sandy at the brute's mercy. Into his mind flashed remembrance of a game he had played with a guard dog on the plantation, at the instigation of its Haitian handler.

  Voicing a savage growl of his own, he dropped the useless automatic and fell to his hands and knees.

  He, too, became a dog. Mean. Dangerous. Poised for combat.

  The black beast skidded to a halt. Froze in the same position Ken was in. Only six feet of bare brown earth separated them as they sought to stare each other down.

  On the plantation the handler of the guard dogs had said calmly, in Creole, "Now you laugh, compère. That's right—laugh at him. We have a saying in Haiti: 'The wild pig knows which trees he can scratch himself on, and which have thorns."

  Laugh? With those slavering jaws only a few feet from his face and the monster quivering like a plucked steel spring? Good God!

  Laugh? With the other dog still alive and twitching, though probably dying? And Sandy on her feet again only ten feet away, terrified, waiting to see what would happen?

  "Don't answer what I'm going to say to you, Sandy," Ken warned. "He may go for the sound of your voice."

  Out of a corner of his eye he saw her slight nod.

  "Don't try for the car, either. Let him concentrate on me."

  Again he thought she nodded.

  "I'm going to laugh at him. A thing I learned in Haiti. Don't think I've lost my mind."

  The beast confronting him still quivered, still drooled, apparently still could not make up its mind what to do. Ken voiced a throaty growl, not too threatening, and was growled at in return. But not as though he had touched a naked nerve and induced a reflex action. There was a hesitation before the dog responded, and the growl was no more menacing than his own.

  Then he laughed, and the black brute eyed him with apparent bewilderment, faintly growling in reply.

  He laughed again and got no response at all. "Thank God for René Dubois," he said in a conversational voice. "He should be here to see this. You mind if I get up now, boy?" It took weeks of training to make a dog bad, René had insisted. But if the animal had the right stuff in him, it sometimes took only a few minutes to change him back.

  Bless you, René.

  Still in a crouch, the dog watched him slowly rise to a standing position. No longer growling, it stood with its head atilt, staring at him.

  "All right, boy." Ken took a step forward.

  The dog did not move.

  "You going to let me touch you?"

  The dog did.

  "And go up to the house without any fuss? What the hell, you can come with me. Let's go."

  With Sandy watching them as though mesmerized, Ken strolled to the veranda steps and waited. The dog came to him. Ascending the steps, he crossed the veranda to the door and paused again. The dog followed. He tried the door and found it locked. Tried a window beside it. That was locked, too.

  "I'm going to have to break a window to get in here, boy. Is that okay with you?" Turning, he addressed his next remark to Sandy. "You'd better wait in the car, hon. Walk to it real slow. I'll check out the house."

  But she wasn't ready for that. With a stubborn shake of her head she rejected it.

  After what the other dog had done to her, it must have taken real courage for Sandy to do what she did then. With her hands limp at her sides she slowly approached the veranda and climbed the steps and walked to Ken's side. The black dog sank into a crouch and bared his fangs in a silent snarl, then looked up at Ken.

  "Easy," Ken crooned. "She's the woman I love, old boy."

  The dog stopped snarling.

  With an eye on the animal in case it mistook the move for a threat, Ken knelt and removed a shoe, then rose with it in his hand. To the dog he said quietly, "Don't lose your cool now, boy. We have to do this when people lock doors on us. Nothing personal in it, you understand."

  When the shoe shattered the glass and sent most of it raining onto the floor inside, the dog reacted by baring its fangs and crouching to spring again. Sandy added to their peril by involuntarily taking a quick step backward. But again Ken knelt—you were less threatening when not so tall, Dubois had insisted—and slowly put the shoe back on.

  Jumel's brute was just curious enough to watch him instead of attacking.

  "Good boy," Ken said. "If you can take a smashed window, I guess we're home safe." Rising, he put a hand through the broken pane and released
the latch, then eased the window up and turned to Sandy. "You'd better go first, hon."

  Sandy sat on the sill and swung her legs in. Once inside, she quickly stood up and looked around. Again Ken saw on her face a look of hope, of excitement, that surmounted the exhaustion and terror so long in command there. Without even waiting for him to join her, she made for the closed door of what was probably a bedroom.

  With a last wary glance at the dog, Ken followed.

  There was no lock on the bedroom door. Sandy pushed it open and voiced a cry of joy. Running toward a small, gagged figure on the floor beside the bed, she sank to her knees and took her daughter into her arms.

  Or tried to. It wasn't that easy. The child's wrists were tied behind her to a leg of the bed.

  Ken strode forward. Kneeling, he removed the gag—it was a dish towel—and, after a struggle, succeeded in untying Merry's bonds. Then he stepped back while mother and daughter clung to each other.

  But only for a moment. "Hon," he warned, "we have to get out of here. Now. Right now." He laid a hand on Sandy's shoulder. "I have things to do, and every second we stay here makes it closer to being too late."

  She looked up at him. "You mean Margal? The President?"

  He nodded.

  "But can't we phone the police and tell them? There's a phone on the table out there."

  "I saw it, too. They've ripped the wire out." Anticipating her next question, he shook his head. "I'm not sure I could fix it, even if we had the time."

  Merry said, "They did that so I couldn't use it if I got loose. They told me so. And they said the dogs would kill me if I tried to leave the house."

  "Please, hon," Ken begged. "Let's go!"

  Sandy could only nod.

  The front door had the kind of lock that could be released from the inside by turning the knob. Ken looked along the veranda for the dog. It had gone back to the yard and now stood over its dead twin.

  "Better hold Merry's hand, hon. Just walk to the car as if he weren't there."