A young jazz musician's encounter with a beautiful Haitian bokor propels him into a deadly game of cat and mouse with an ancient demon.
Black Magic has never been this scary.
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Excerpt:
They hurried through the dark church to hesitate at a dim threshold, then felt their way silently down a rug-covered hall. Toni seemed to know where she was going and eventually entered another doorway. Tommy followed, heard the door close behind him. A light clicked on. He watched her hurry around a desk and pick up the phone.
"I’m not getting a dial tone," she said.
"Try hanging up."
She replaced the receiver in its cradle for a few seconds, put it back against her ear, pushed some numbers.
"It’s no good, Tommy. It’s dead."
"Shit."
"Do you think he’s here now?" she asked.
"I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a coincidence the phone’s dead."
"What’re we gonna do? Can’t we do anything to stop him, hurt him?"
Tommy joined her behind the desk, kept his voice low.
"That night, Marie told me that when my soul was in the new body, it’d be almost indestructible . . . almost."
"Almost." Toni nodded slowly.
"The demon was brought to life with Voodoo. How do you kill with Voodoo?"
"I told you before, I don’t know Petro."
"Think, Toni."
"I wouldn’t know how to hurt an ordinary person, much less kill a demon."
"Maybe we can’t kill the demon. Maybe we don’t have to."
"What do you mean?"
"Maybe we only have to kill the body, the corps cadavre. You must remember something that could help us."
"Okay, okay, let me think. . . . In Vodoun, a subject is affected by drawing their essence into a representation . . . and then affecting the representation."
"A representation?"
"Yeah."
He remembered Deke’s words. "Like an effigy, a doll."
"Yes, dolls are used."
"Can we make a doll to represent Butch?"
"Even if we could, we’d need help from the loa."
"How--"
"To invoke a loa, you draw its vévé, its symbol, and strike it three times. Once, years ago, I invoked Ogou Fer. He’s the Rada loa of fire, the warrior loa. He favors stability, order and authority. I think I could call him again under the right circumstances, ask for his help, but we’d need something from the demon, from his body, to make the doll real."
"There’s no way we’re gonna get close enough to take something from his body."
"Anything would help, even a piece of clothing he wears all the time. It would have his sweat and dead skin on it."
"No way. You saw him. You can’t get close to that thing."
They were quiet for a few seconds.
Did he hear a movement in the hallway?
"If we can’t--" She peered at him, shut her mouth, then whispered, "What is it?"
He didn’t speak, was straining to hear, and soon he saw her hear it too--a rustling, a faint scraping, then a creak just outside the door. No doubt about it. Somebody was out there.
He leaned into her ear, breathed, "Get back. Stay behind me."
When she hesitated, he pushed her back, picked up the heavy desk chair and held it poised in front of his chest.
The door swung full open and banged against the wall. Toni screamed. A circle of light bounced over them.
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Also available from Jintsu a division of Eggplant Literary Productions.
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Cover art by Sandy DeLuca
http://sandydeluca.ameranet.com/
