Greyborn Rising

by Derry Sandy

  Miriam seemed to have composed herself. “Whenever someone opens a hole between the realities, the barriers grow thin everywhere. The barriers are naturally thinner in some places than in others, in places where holes have been opened before, and in places where sorcery and obeah are frequently worked, like here for example.”

  “So, in summary, we have to find and capture or eliminate this man before he can open a permanent gate.” Christopher was also collecting himself.

  “Do we even know his name or know what he looks like?” Rohan asked.

  “Sorry I only saw his essence, a suggestion of a man, no actual features,” Lisa said.

  “Lisa will stay with you until further notice. The men of the other houses will, of course, also give aid.”

  Both Lisa and Rohan were taken aback. “She can’t stay with me, she doesn’t know anything about the greyborn or about obeah, she’s going to get herself or all of us killed.”

  Lisa echoed his objections, but Christopher was adamant. “She knew enough to save you from certain death, to strike an obeah man on the Astral Plane, and to disarm him of the key to his power source. The rest of the Guild cannot find him, so unless you have an alternative, Lisa is your best bet. She has the most familiarity with the man we are seeking. Besides she’s a very quick study.”

  Rohan suddenly remembered Voss and Kamara downstairs. What if the Leviathan’s appearance had not been limited to the table? He left the room without a word and bolted down the stairs.

  The waiting room was a disaster; the entire floor was a ruin of broken wood. Voss and Kamara were nowhere to be found. Rohan rushed outside and found Voss restraining Kamara telling her that it was safer outside. Kamara was fighting to return to the house arguing that Voss was Rohan’s bodyguard and not hers. When she saw Rohan, her relief was palpable.

  “There was an image of something swimming up from within the floor, Rohan. I couldn’t let her stay inside.”

  “You did the right thing, Voss.”

  Kamara was not pleased. “He’s your bodyguard, why didn’t he drag you out of the building?”

  Lisa cleared her throat and Rohan took the opportunity to avoid an argument with Kamara by explaining how Lisa’s role had changed in the last half hour. Miriam appeared in the yard to share some final words of warning. “With an obeah man this strong, things are apt to get very strange and very dangerous.”

  Lisa said, “Wait, my dog, I need to get my dog.”

  “A dog?” Rohan asked. “You take a dog to work?”

  “Well, yes. He doesn’t like to be left in the house alone.”

  Lisa hustled off to the back yard and returned with a large black dog.

  “German Shepherd?” Kamara inquired.

  “I’m not sure what he is. He showed up on my doorstep two days ago.”

  “You adopted that monster as an adult?” Voss sounded impressed. “What’s his name? Aren’t you afraid of him?”

  “He’s Agrippa, Caesar’s right-hand man, and no, he’s a gentleman.”

  They got back into the grey car. Rohan entered the front passenger seat. Lisa and Kamara sat in the back with Agrippa between them.

  As Voss drove east toward Stone House, Rohan thought of Kimani and the shocking news that he might still be alive.

  Chapter 6

  Why Voss chose to return through Port-of-Spain rather than around the city, Rohan could not quite fathom. Why he chose to drive down Charlotte Street in particular, was less mysterious than it was sadistic.

  Charlotte Street is an old thoroughfare through the heart of a city designed with the horse and not the automobile in mind. The street allowed for a single lane of southbound traffic.

  The sidewalks were lined with hawkers, mongers and peddlers of all manner of goods. Their stalls and tables spilled from the sidewalks, straddled choked drains and narrowed the street in some places to the point where the side mirrors of cars barely squeezed past. Pedestrians stepped off the sidewalks and into the thoroughfare without warning. Vagrants acting as porters for the vendors labored slowly up and down the street pushing heavily laden carts or bearing boxes of fruit or buckets of fish on their heads. Street disc jockeys also plied the route with carts armed with speakers blaring an arsenal of reggae and soca. The midday traffic crawled.

  “I need some fresh air, can we crack the windows?” Lisa asked.

  Fresh air on Charlotte Street? Rohan thought, even as Voss obliged and lowered the rear windows.

  The midday sun bore down with brutal, consistent, and proximate brilliance. A commotion up ahead brought traffic to a stop. Rohan leaned forward and saw two women standing in the center of the narrow street. They were arguing loudly and vulgarly over some perceived slight. Onlookers heckled and egged them on as they stood toe to toe, their greasy necks straining in anger, their heaving, heavy bosoms almost touching.

  The small boy, who snatched Kamara’s necklace through the open back window, did so with the lightning quick ease of a well-practiced cutpurse. His arm flicked in through the window, his hand closed around the thin gold chain and he fled, vanishing into the crowd. Bedlam erupted in the back seat. Kamara yelled in surprise and Agrippa leapt through the window and onto the sidewalk in pursuit of the boy, almost hauling Lisa through the window as she clung to its collar in a vain attempt to restrain the beast.

  Rohan exited the car in pursuit of dog and boy. He could not see his quarry, but the sight of the large ferocious-looking animal barreling down the sidewalk left a trail of squeals and shouts that was easy enough to follow. Rohan caught a brief glimpse of the dog as it veered across the street, leapt over a table covered with blue crabs and vanished down a urine-drenched alley.

  Rohan wondered why he was even chasing the dog. The necklace could be replaced and the dog had been adopted a mere two days ago. But something about the way Agrippa instantly leapt into action impressed Rohan. Perhaps the Order needed a mascot. He crossed the street and sprinted down the alley.

  The path was narrow and strewn with garbage. The walls were so close that sunlight never penetrated all the way to ground level. A cool, stale, dusty gloom clung around Rohan’s legs below the knees. He hurdled over bags of garbage, slipped on the corpse of dead rat the size of a Pomeranian, and splashed through a puddle he sincerely hoped was water. The dog cut left down another alley. Rohan got to the junction just in time to see the animal take another corner. He doubled his efforts. The waif had to be flying to have eluded both him and the dog for so long. Rohan got to another junction but there was no sight of the animal. He realized he had to find the dog now as he wasn’t sure he could make it out of the labyrinth without its help.

  Relying on intuition, Rohan picked an alley and sped down it. It seemed that the alleys doubled back on each other, because about fifty feet into his pursuit the boy barreled into Rohan from the left, while glancing back over his shoulder at the pursuing Agrippa.

  Rohan managed to keep his balance, but the force of the collision knocked the boy on to his rear end. Winded and trapped between Rohan and a growling Agrippa the child conceded defeat. Rohan looked at him closely for the first time. He was perhaps ten or eleven years old, wiry and sun browned. He had a narrow face with bright eyes and a mouth that wore a sheepish smile as he reached into his pocket, brought out a broken necklace and offered it to Rohan.

  “The necklace you stole did not have a broken clasp. I’d like to have that one back.”

  The boy had no answer.

  “Get up,” Rohan said, extending a hand to the sitting child. “I probably can’t find my way back to the street without you.”

  The boy accepted the extended hand and Rohan yanked him to his feet. Something on the boy’s wrist caught Rohan’s eye and his heart rate accelerated sharply. He raised the hand for closer inspection.

  “Where did you get this?” Rohan snapped. Agrippa snarled, mirroring Rohan’s mood.

  “What you talking about? Yuh breaking my hand.”

  Rohan held the boy’s wrist up to his f
ace and pointed to the tattoos of ravens in flight that ringed the boy’s wrist, each raven about the size of a child’s fingernail. The tattoos had the familiar black-silver sheen of the Order’s marks and Rohan intuitively knew they were real. The ink was fatally and agonizingly poisonous to all but a select few, but the boy seemed no worse for wear. If he was a member of one of the Order’s Houses, he would not be a pickpocket on the streets of Port-of-Spain. Who but the Order tattoos children?

  “I don’t know,” the boy responded, wriggling under Rohan’s grasp. “I’ve always had them.”

  “Do you have any others?” Rohan asked spinning the boy around inspecting him.

  “I have a couple others, but there is no way I’m taking off my shirt for some weird man and his dog in an alley.”

  “Where do you live? Take me to your parents.”

  “I don’t have no parents, I live with…what does it matter. Just take me to the station.” The boy had decided that police custody was better than his current circumstances and he redoubled his efforts to escape.

  “Ok, ok look, sorry I scared you,” Rohan said, releasing the boy. He took half a step backward with his palms upraised attempting to appear less threatening. “These tattoos say something about what you are…who you are…what you can be. I would like to see where you live and after I would like to take you to some people.”

  “Take me to some people? I don’t like how that part sounding but…” The boy looked thoughtful. “If I take you where I live, what’s in it for me?”

  Rohan laughed, “So we have a little opportunist eh? Ok here’s the deal, take me to your home and I’ll buy you dinner.”

  “Can I keep the gold chain?”

  “We can speak to Kamara about that one, but most likely she’ll let you keep it. What’s your name, small man?”

  “Tarik. Tarik Abban.”

  “My name is Rohan Le Clerc and my large toothy buddy over there is called Agrippa. I only met him today so I can’t really vouch for his character. So far he’s been pretty useful for capturing pickpockets though.”

  The boy grinned sheepishly.

  When Rohan, the dog, and the boy emerged from the dank maze of alleys and back into the sunlight, Rohan phoned Kamara. Voss had parked outside the Unit Trust Corporation building on Independence Square and they were all waiting in the shade of some tamarind trees on the adjacent promenade. When Rohan, Tarik, and Agrippa approached they found the ladies engaged in a lively chat, apparently having become fast friends. Voss sat on a nearby bench feeding some blackbirds and pigeons with the flaky crumbs of a beef patty.

  Rohan explained that he needed to ask the boy’s guardian some questions and then take the boy to the Guild if allowed. The six of them were one too many for the sedan but Rohan was reluctant to leave Lisa and Kamara alone, given the strange events of the day. They squeezed in, Lisa and Tarik sharing the front seat, while Agrippa, Rohan and Kamara sat in the back.

  Voss started the engine.

  “Where are we headed, boy?” he asked.

  The directions the boy gave led to a slum on the outskirts of the capital called Sea Lots, an area fairly or unfairly, known for its crime and poverty. Rohan subconsciously fingered the butt of the gun in his shoulder holster.

  Chapter 7

  “We were of the mistaken belief that the witch doctor’s thralls could only be unleashed after sunset. Imagine our terror when we were set upon during broad daylight. It is almost laughable that I use the phrase “imagine our terror” as if a murderous animated corpse can be made any more terrifying than is de facto the case. But surely, there is something more obscene, more irreverent, and yes, more terrifying about a shambling corpse disemboweling the faithful while the Lord’s sun sits high in the sky. We are leaving Haiti on the next ship that calls at Port au Prince. This is the devil’s land and he may take them all”

  –Excerpt from the diary of Siobhan Jenner, Catholic Missionary to Haiti, written December 25, 1901

  The swollen red sun sat low on the horizon when they entered the sprawling neighborhood of squatter’s shacks and industrial properties called Sea Lots, so named because the government of the time had made lots of land available to impoverished citizens. These lots of land were bordered by the Churchill Roosevelt highway, an extensive mangrove swamp, and the Caribbean Sea from which the area drew the other part of its name. Some honest people made their home there, but the area was also a refuge for criminals, fugitives, drug traffickers, and gun runners. Four well-dressed people in a nice car would quickly attract the wrong kind of attention.

  Rohan drew the desert eagle out of his shoulder holster, checked to see that a round was in the chamber and then re-holstered the weapon. Kamara performed a similar inspection on the small pistol she carried in her clutch. Rohan knew from their initial encounter that Voss kept his gun at the small of his back in a Mexican carry and wondered how the bodyguard could sit comfortably with the weapon holstered in that spot.

  Voss took another pistol out of the glove compartment offered it to Lisa. She declined the offer.

  “You guys do realize that we live in Trinidad where guns are illegal right? Do you all have permits? Anyway, I have never handled a gun before. If this turns into a shootout I’m more likely to put a hole in my pedicure than into a bad guy.”

  Tarik directed Voss through the narrow streets, apparently unfazed by the amount of ammunition carried by the people with whom he now kept company. Paved surface eventually gave way to dirt as the road veered toward the mangroves. Tarik pointed out a hut so close to the edge of the swamp that the back of the hut stood on stilts in the water.

  Voss parked in the shade of a large mango vert tree as far along the overgrown path as the car could travel and they all disembarked. The sun had almost retired for the day. Shadows were long and the twilight gloom played tricks on Rohan’s eyes. Every now and then something would splash in the water, conjuring a disconcerting memory of the leviathan that had appeared in the table at the Watchers’ Council.

  The shack was constructed from a patchwork of sheet metal and odds and ends of boarding. A picture of an oversized smile and half the image of a Colgate toothpaste tube dominated part of the outer wall, that panel having been appropriated from some billboard. A short but steep flight of termite-afflicted stairs led to the front door. The roof of the shack was carpeted with the flowering vines of a Mexican creeper plant, the violet blooms were an unexpected splash of beauty in the otherwise glum yard. A small raft was moored to the stilts in the back.

  “How many people live here?” Rohan asked the boy.

  “Just me and my grandmother. She’s blind but always knows when I’m coming home.”

  “Ok. Go in and tell her some friends would like to speak to her.”

  “Cool, but she probably already knows you are here. She always knows.”

  While Tarik made his way to the hut the four adults decided that Rohan and Kamara would be the ones to enter the house. Voss, Lisa, and Agrippa would keep watch in the yard. Before the boy reached the door, however, a voice from within the hut called out, “No needs to continue milling about. Come in here and let Kat have a look at you.”

  Rohan was briefly taken aback, but he and Kamara made their way to the hut after sharing a glance. A burlap sack with the words ‘Tableland sweet potatoes’ hung in front of the doorway. Rohan drew it aside and entered with Kamara swift on his heels.

  His eyes adjusted rapidly to the dimness and he scanned the room for threats, knowing it would take Kamara’s eyes a few additional seconds to acclimate. The inside of the shack was cluttered, but clean. Makeshift shelves lined all four walls to the ceiling. The shelves were crammed with jars holding all manner of things including herbs, mushrooms, dried flowers, powders, a bird’s skeleton, a pickled lizard, and a living snake. An entire section of the wall was devoted to insects and arachnids; assassin bugs, moths, scorpions, and a massive harlequin beetle were just a few of the creatures in the strange menagerie of miniatures. From the ceil
ing hung herbs and bones.

  An earthy scent, a mixture of incense, candle wax, mud, and rain-water filled the room. Below the stronger scents Rohan could discern the faint metallic sharpness of blood. He had been in places like these before and could always tell if the proprietor was a genuine practitioner of obeah or a quack. He concluded that Tarik’s grandmother knew what she was about and that knowledge made him apprehensive.

  A voice spoke from a dark corner. “Tarik, light a candle for our guests.”

  Tarik lit a candle and set it on small, rickety table. The flickering light illuminated a woman that Rohan could only describe as ancient, however, she exuded vitality. Her pale leathery skin was deeply lined. Her hair was white but thick and full and fell in a single braid to her lap in where it coiled several times like a sleeping cobra.

  She sat on a mat on the floor, her legs extended and crossed at the ankle, her back straight. She wore a simple gray cotton dress. When she smiled at them, she revealed a mouth of small even white teeth. Rohan noted that her canines were oddly pointed and that her eyes were a milky green color and appeared to have neither irises nor pupils. He found them disconcerting.

  “Please sit. I’ve been expecting you.”

  Rohan and Kamara shared a look but sat on the floor in front of the woman.

  “My name is Kat,” she said, fingering a small, finely crafted crucifix on a thin silvery chain about her neck. Her voice was strong which was odd, considering her age. “Did my grandson steal something from you?”

  “He did, but that is not why we are here. We are interested in his tattoos.”

  “Ahh, you want to have similar work done?”

  “I think we both know that’s not what I mean. His tattoos are special.”

  “Yes, they are special. But, Rohan Le Clerc it is not your job to find potential recruits. That is the Guild’s work.”

  Rohan started but managed to keep his composure. “How do you know my name and about the Guild.”