His back was smooth and warm, flexing with supple muscles. His silky black hair tickled my neck and shoulders as he shoved aside the straps of my dress and feasted on my skin. His belt buckle pressed sharply into my belly, hurting me. I made a sound of protest and reached for it. He grabbed both my arms and pinned them on either side of my head, then kissed me again.
I thought I would faint from lack of air—and I didn’t care. I clutched him tighter between my thighs, yearning for everything he could give me. Burning for him. Heat flowed over me and consumed me.
His grip on my wrists was hard enough to hurt. The rum that lingered on his tongue was making me feel drunk. His weight on my chest and his hot kisses made it impossible to breathe. When he lifted his head and looked down at me, I gasped for air and tore my hand out of his grip so that I could reach for his belt buckle. The metal burned my fingers, making me gasp and jerk my hand away. Then he kissed me again, incinerating all other sensation.
Wrestling against the mindless grip of my legs, he rose to his knees, breathing hard, his chest pumping in and out, his lips wet and swollen from our kisses. When I tried to sit up, he shoved me back down, carelessly rough, his eyes glinting with challenge, his dark golden skin gleaming in the lamplight. His gaze stayed locked with mine as he unbuckled his belt.
I was burning for him. On fire for him. Heat licked at my skin. The bed was hot, my body engulfed in fire, the sheets awash in it . . .
The dark, angry passion in his face transformed into shock as the bed burst into flames all around us.
“Esther!”
In one fluid motion, Lopez grabbed me, rolled off the bed, and threw me bodily across the room as he tumbled across the floor. Then he was on feet and hauling me up into his arms while I was still reeling from the fall. Half dragging and half carrying me, he got me out of the burning bedroom and down the hall before I understood what was happening.
“Fire extinguisher!” he shouted.
“Wh-what?”
He seized my shoulders, shook me, and shouted into my face, breaking through my shock with sheer volume, “Where’s the fire extinguisher?”
“Oh. Oh!” I tried to think. “Ki- ki—” I was shaking with reaction and could barely make my lips move. “Kitch—”
“Kitchen?” When I nodded, he shoved me toward the front door. “Go warn your neighbors! Then get out of the building!” He went into the kitchen and found the fire extinguisher. When he saw me just standing there, he shouted, “Go!”
I knew his instructions were sensible and that I should do what he told me. But I couldn’t leave him alone in my burning apartment. I just couldn’t. Even knowing that it was stupid and would make him angry, I followed him into the bedroom.
The bed was on fire, robust yellow flames rising from the mattress as if someone had tossed a firebomb into the sheets. Lopez sprayed the bed with foam from the extinguisher and—to my immense relief—the fire was doused within moments.
The room filled with smoke. I started choking. In the hall, the smoke alarm was shrieking. Waving my hand in front of my face, I stumbled across the bedroom to open the window.
Lopez was breathing hard, coughing, and staring at the bed in appalled amazement. As if for good measure, he aimed the extinguisher at it again and covered the blackened, smoking wreck with a thick film of white foam. Then he looked around the room to make sure nothing else needed dousing.
I dragged a chair into the hallway, climbed up onto it, and silenced the shrieking smoke alarm overhead. Then I opened my front door and went out into the stairwell, where I assured several neighbors who were emerging from their apartments that things were under control and they didn’t need to evacuate the building. I reentered my apartment and opened my remaining windows. A robust wind blew into the living room, and I realized with relief that the stifling heat wave was breaking at last—and that this wind would help clear the apartment of smoke pretty quickly.
Lopez came out of my bedroom, still carrying the fire extinguisher. I realized my legs were shaking, and I sat down suddenly. He sat nearby.
There was a long moment of stunned silence as we sat there, catching our breath and waiting for our hearts to stop pounding.
Finally, I got up and poured two glasses of cold water. He accepted the water with absentminded thanks as I sat back down.
He drained his glass, then said, “Did Jeff or Max smoke when they were here tonight?”
“No. They don’t smoke.”
“Have you started smoking?” he asked.
“No.”
“Has anyone who smokes been in that bed?”
“No. I mean, that’s none of your business. I mean . . .” I shook my head and tried to pull myself together. “Why are you asking?”
“A smoldering cigarette in the sheets is the most logical explanation for what just happened,” he said. “I think.”
“Oh.”
“But if no one’s been smoking in your bed . . .”
“Yes?” I said.
“I suppose something must be wrong with the mattress. I mean really wrong.”
“Bad manufacturing?” I said in a daze. “Flammable materials?”
He nodded. “And spontaneous combustion. Maybe because of, um, unaccustomed friction.”
Our eyes met, and I recalled what we’d been doing in that bed when it had burst into flames. I suddenly felt my skin flush.
I cleared my throat and said like a reasonable adult, “Should I call the fire department?”
“No. The fire’s out.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “But I’m going to get an arson investigator over here. We’ll find out exactly what happened.”
When he finished his call, he said, “I’m sorry, Esther. It’s Sunday night. Since this isn’t an emergency, tomorrow is the soonest someone will come.”
“I can sleep on the couch,” I said, as if this were the most important consideration in the life of a person whose bed had just inexplicably burst into flames while she and a man were in it together.
“We need to take that mattress outside. I don’t think it’ll catch fire again, but since it shouldn’t have caught fire in the first place, I don’t want it in this apartment all night.” He glanced at a text message on his phone. “Then I’ve got to get my ass out to Queens right away, or I’m off this case.” He looked at me. “And all that crap about zombies and bakers notwithstanding—”
“Bokors,” I corrected. “And there’s only one.”
“Whatever,” he said. “I want to know what happened to those bodies. More to the point, I want to find whoever scared you half to death in the street that night, stole your purse, and left a severed hand lying around.”
Max wanted to find that person, too. But I decided this wasn’t a propitious moment to point that out.
In the silence that followed his statement, Lopez seemed to realize he was barefoot and shirtless. He rose to his feet, went into the bedroom, and came out a minute later, wearing his sandals and buttoning his shirt—which looked undamaged by what had just happened.
While he finished fastening his buttons and then tucked the garment into his pants, he said, “It’s not too bad, Esther. There’s not as much damage in the bedroom as you’d expect. After the arson investigator is done, a new bed and a coat of paint should put things back in shape. You’ll probably have to wash all your clothes, though. Smoke gets into fabric.”
I sighed wearily and reflected that it was a good thing I’d be getting a paycheck for a week’s work in television soon. I couldn’t have afforded to replace my bed otherwise.
“Hey.” Lopez touched my arm gently. “Are you okay?”
Still seated, I nodded. “Yeah. Just . . . you know. Still stunned.”
He leaned over me and kissed my forehead. Then he whispered, “I meant . . . I was so rough. Before.”
“So rough you made my bed explode,” I grumbled.
He smiled down at me. “Come on. I’ll need some help to get that mattress out of that room.”
As I rose to my feet, I said resentfully, “Thanks to you, it seems like I’m spending my whole night hauling around heavy objects.”
He was willing to do most of the work, and that suited me fine. It was only a double mattress, not queen-size, which made it a little easier to maneuver out of the room, through the apartment, and down the narrow stairs. Outside, we propped it against the stone side of the building, well away from anyone’s window. Then Lopez came back upstairs with me so he could write a notice in thick black marker to warn everyone but the arson investigator away from the ruined mattress.
While he did that, I went back into the bedroom to survey the wreckage with calmer eyes now. Lopez was right; it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. At least half the room would need repainting, but the damage had otherwise been limited to the mattress and the bedclothes. I touched my hair and realized how lucky I was that it hadn’t caught fire. Or my clothing. There were soot marks on my dress and my skin, but nothing worse. I ran my hands over my body, recognizing for the first time that I hadn’t been burned or even singed. Lopez had moved very fast when it happened.
He stuck his head in the doorway. “I’ve got to go to work now. And figure out how to explain, when I get there, why I smell like a rum distillery tonight.” He hesitated. “Are you going to be all right?”
I was looking around the room, still surprised there wasn’t more damage. “Yeah, fine,” I said absently.
“God, I hate leaving you like this,” he said. “Right after a fire and . . . And everything.”
That was when I saw it. I gasped in horror and fell back a step, realizing what this meant. What had happened.
“What’s wrong?” He was at my side instantly, his hands on my shoulders, looking around the room, trying to see what had just frightened me into such a reaction.
I started shaking. My wide, unblinking eyes were fixed on it, unable to look away.
“Esther?” He shook me gently. “What is it? Tell me.”
My throat worked, but only guttural sounds came out. I had no idea how to put it into words anyhow. How to explain to him, of all people, what I had just recognized.
So I pointed in dumbfounded silence.
His gaze followed my gesture, but he was still perplexed. “What? What do you see?”
I took a few sharp, quick breaths, trying to steady myself. Then I crossed the room, stooped down, and picked up the gris-gris pouch that lay on the floor.
He was staring at me, bewildered by my behavior.
I clutched the protective charm to my chest and looked at him.
“Esther?” His voice was puzzled.
I tried to explain. “You took it off me and threw it away. And then the bed burst into flames.”
He stood staring silently at me, a baffled frown on his face, trying to work out what I meant.
Then he got it, and his expression changed completely. “Oh, for God’s sake! You can’t be serious!”
“The bokor took things from my purse,” I said.
“A voodoo curse from an evil sorcerer? Come on, Esther.”
“Personal things! Strands of my hair. Makeup that I use every day.” I clutched the gris-gris pouch. “And the moment this protective charm was removed from my body . . .”
Looking exasperated beyond endurance, he started to speak—then changed his mind, closed his eyes, and seemed to be counting to ten, willing himself to be calm.
When he opened his eyes again, he was looking at me the way I imagined he looked at petty criminals who were their own worst enemies. “The arson investigator will give us a rational explanation for what just happened, and then maybe you’ll come to your senses. In the meantime . . .” He sighed. “I obviously can’t leave you here alone. So I guess you’d better pack a few things and—”
“No,” I said as I tied the gris-gris bag around my neck. “I have to go see Max.” If the bokor was so determined to kill me that my bed had exploded in flames, then I wanted to make sure I was adequately protected against whatever might be coming next.
Lopez closed his eyes again. After a moment, he let out his breath. “Fine.” He’d evidently run out of energy or will to keep fighting with me about this. “Fine. Let’s go. I’ve got a crime scene to get to.”
He was too much of a gentleman to dash off and leave me to find a cab by myself on Tenth Avenue this late at night, even though I lived here and was often on that street alone after dark. But he avoided my gaze, didn’t touch me, and scarcely spoke to me as we left the apartment and walked out to the main avenue.
The wind was high now, and the moonless sky was pitch black. I put a hand on my skirt to hold it down as the wind tugged at it, and my hair blew around my face. I glanced at Lopez. He was brooding and withdrawn, and he scarcely seemed to notice the wind tugging at his collar or slipping inside his shirt to make the fabric billow away from his skin.
We stood together in silence on Tenth Avenue until he saw an available cab and flagged it down. When it pulled up to the curb, he opened the door and waited for me to get in.
As he was about to close the door behind me, I said, “Lopez?”
He leaned over and peered into the cab. His face was in shadow, hiding his expression. Apparently he could see my expression though. He gave in and said with weary kindness, “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Since weary kindness was not what I wanted from him—now or ever—I said, “No, don’t bother.”
“Esther—”
“You were right before,” I said. “We’ve done enough talking.”
I pulled the door closed and gave the driver Max’s address in the West Village. And I resolutely did not look back at the ex-would-be lover who watched the cab pull away from the curb and speed down the windswept avenue.
21
“Holy crap,” Jeff said when I walked into the bookstore. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Huh?”
Max, who was sitting at the old walnut table with a man who I assumed was Frank Johnson, rose to his feet, his expression concerned. “Have you been attacked by the baka again?”
“Attacked? Oh, man!” Frank said, looking panicky.
I blinked. “No.”
Jeff asked, “Did the cop go berserk when he woke up? Did he attack you?”
“What?” I looked down at myself and realized for the first time what an alarming picture I presented at first glance. “Oh! Um, no . . .”
The side of my bodice was hanging open, the remnants of the zipper dangling limply. Part of my skirt had been ripped away from my waistband, and the torn seam gaped open loosely over my hip. There were black smudges of soot all over the dress and my arms. Probably on my face, too.
Recalling how I had gotten into this condition, my skin grew hot with embarrassment as I realized that Lopez might well have left telltale marks on my neck and shoulders. I nervously pulled my loose, tangled hair forward over my shoulders, hoping to cover as much as I could of the skin that my sundress left bare.
I said, “The bokor just tried to kill me.”
“Oh, no, no, no!” Frank was on his feet, looking for an exit.
“Hi, I’m Esther,” I said to him.
Max said, “Oh! Pardon me.” He made the introductions.
Frank was exactly as Biko had described him: A thin man, not much taller than I, who wore his hair in twists. I sensed that his speaking voice was probably very appealing under less stressful conditions; right now, though, it was strained and a little shrill.
“I gotta get out of this town!” he said.
“Where’s Lopez?” Jeff asked in confusion.
“He had to go to a crime scene.” I sat down and explained.
Max was less surprised than I had been by the news that one of the missing bodies had been found.
“Mr. Johnson was just telling us that he saw four zombies,” Max explained to me.
“Do we have to use that word?” Frank said.
“I don’t see why we have to use it,” said Jeff.
<
br /> Max soldiered on. “Including Darius Phelps, there should be five zombies, based on the information we have from Detective Lopez. Since our companion only saw four, it’s possible that one of them was out performing a task at the behest of the bokor at that time. Or that the missing zombie had escaped the bokor’s control and fled captivity, as poor Darius later did. But another possibility, of course, was that—”
“That the bokor’s first attempt at zombification didn’t work,” I said. “So now there are four zombies and one incriminating corpse that the bokor had to get rid of.”
“Precisely.”
Nelli walked slowly up to me, the tip of her long bony tail wagging faintly. She was panting heavily, despite the coolness of the air-conditioned store, and her nose was dry as she poked me with it in feeble greeting.
“Max,” I said in shock. “Nelli looks terrible.”
“Yes. Only the importance of our meeting with Mr. Johnson—”
“Oh, call me Frank, man.”
“—has delayed me from taking her to the all- night clinic for treatment.”
I put my hand on the familiar’s huge head. “I think she has a fever.” I touched her bandaged paw. “Is this infected?”
“I don’t believe so,” said Max. “Jeffrey and I changed the bandage a little while ago, and it seemed to be healing properly.”
I cast Jeff an inquisitive glance, and he nodded in agreement with Max.
Nelli sat down and rested her massive jaw on my thigh, squashing my leg into the hard chair that I sat on. I stroked her ears as I said, “All right, out with it, Frank. Then we have to get Nelli to a vet.”
“First things first.” Jeff, who liked dogs, sat down next to me and stroked Nelli’s back soothingly. “Tell us how the bokor just tried to kill you.”
“My bed burst into flames a little while ago,” I said. “While I was in it!”
“Oh, shit,” said Frank, rocking back and forth. “That does it! I’m leaving New York.”
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