“Stop there.” The voice was a whisper. He stopped.
There was silence, for what seemed a long time.
“Come forward,” said the whisper, seeming suddenly quite near him. “There is dry land, just before you.”
He shuffled forward, felt the floor of the cave rise beneath him, and stepped out carefully onto bare rock. Walked slowly forward until again the voice bade him stop.
Silence. He thought he could make out breathing, but wasn’t sure; the sound of the water was still faintly audible in the distance. All right, he thought. Come along, then.
It hadn’t been precisely an invitation, but what came into his mind was Mrs. Abernathy’s intent green eyes, staring at him as she said, “I see a great, huge snake, lyin’ on your shoulders, Colonel.”
With a convulsive shudder, he realized that he felt a weight on his shoulders. Not a dead weight, but something live. It moved, just barely.
“Jesus,” he whispered, and thought he heard the ghost of a laugh from somewhere in the cave. He stiffened himself and fought back against the mental image, for surely this was nothing more than imagination, fueled by rum. Sure enough, the illusion of green eyes vanished—but the weight rested on him still, though he couldn’t tell whether it lay upon his shoulders or his mind.
“So,” said the low voice, sounding surprised. “The loa has come already. The snakes do like you, buckra.”
“And if they do?” he asked. He spoke in a normal tone of voice; his words echoed from the walls around him.
The voice chuckled briefly, and he felt rather than heard movement nearby, the rustle of limbs and a soft thump as something struck the floor near his right foot. His head felt immense, throbbing with rum, and waves of heat pulsed through him, though the depths of the cave were cool.
“See if this snake likes you, buckra,” the voice invited. “Pick it up.”
He couldn’t see a thing, but slowly moved his foot, feeling his way over the silty floor. His toes touched something and he stopped abruptly. Whatever he had touched moved abruptly, recoiling from him. Then he felt the tiny flicker of a snake’s tongue on his toe, tasting him.
Oddly, the sensation steadied him. Surely this wasn’t his friend the tiny yellow constrictor—but it was a serpent much like that one in general size, so far as he could tell. Nothing to fear from that.
“Pick it up,” the voice invited him. “The krait will tell us if you speak the truth.”
“Will he, indeed?” Grey said dryly. “How?”
The voice laughed, and he thought he heard two or three more chuckling behind it—but perhaps it was only echoes.
“If you die . . . you lied.”
He gave a small, contemptuous snort. There were no venomous snakes on Jamaica. He cupped his hand and bent at the knee, but hesitated. Venomous or not, he had an instinctive aversion to being bitten by a snake. And how did he know how the man—or men—sitting in the shadows would take it if the thing did bite him?
“I trust this snake,” said the voice softly. “Krait comes with me from Africa. Long time now.”
Grey’s knees straightened abruptly. Africa! Now he placed the name, and cold sweat broke out on his face. Krait. A fucking African krait. Gwynne had had one. Small, no bigger than the circumference of a man’s little finger. “Bloody deadly,” Gwynne had crooned, stroking the thing’s back with the tip of a goose quill—an attention to which the snake, a slender, nondescript brown thing, had seemed oblivious.
This one was squirming languorously over the top of Grey’s foot; he had to restrain a strong urge to kick it away and stamp on it. What the devil was it about him that attracted snakes, of all ungodly things? He supposed it could be worse; it might be cockroaches . . . he instantly felt a hideous crawling sensation upon his forearms, and rubbed them hard, reflexively, seeing, yes, he bloody saw them, here in the dark, thorny jointed legs and wriggling, inquisitive antennae brushing his skin.
He might have cried out. Someone laughed.
If he thought at all, he couldn’t do it. He stooped and snatched the thing and, rising, hurled it into the darkness. There was a yelp and a sudden scrabbling, and then a brief, shocked scream.
He stood panting and trembling from reaction, checking and rechecking his hand—but felt no pain, could find no puncture wounds. The scream had been succeeded by a low stream of unintelligible curses, punctuated by the deep gasps of a man in terror. The voice of the houngan—if that was who it was—came urgently, followed by another voice, doubtful, fearful. Behind him, before him? He had no sense of direction anymore.
Something brushed past him, the heaviness of a body, and he fell against the wall of the cave, scraping his arm. He welcomed the pain; it was something to cling to, something real.
More urgency in the depths of the cave, sudden silence. And then a swishing thunk! as something struck hard into flesh, and the sheared-copper smell of fresh blood came strong over the scent of hot rock and rushing water. No further sound.
He was sitting on the muddy floor of the cave; he could feel the cool dirt under him. He pressed his hands flat against it, getting his bearings. After a moment, he heaved himself to his feet and stood, swaying and dizzy.
“I don’t lie,” he said, into the dark. “And I will have my men.”
Dripping with sweat and water, he turned back, toward the rainbows.
THE SUN HAD BARELY RISEN WHEN HE CAME BACK INTO THE MOUNTAIN compound. The smoke of cooking fires hung among the huts, and the smell of food made his stomach clench painfully, but all that could wait. He strode as well as he might—his feet were so badly blistered that he hadn’t been able to get his boots back on, and had walked back barefoot, over rocks and thorns—to the largest hut, where Captain Accompong sat placidly waiting for him.
Tom and the soldiers were there, too; no longer roped together, but still bound, kneeling by the fire. And Cresswell, a little way apart, looking wretched, but at least upright.
Accompong looked at one of his lieutenants, who stepped forward with a big cane knife and cut the prisoners’ bonds with a series of casual but fortunately accurate swipes.
“Your men, my Colonel,” he said magnanimously, flipping one fat hand in their direction. “I give them back to you.”
“I am deeply obliged to you, sir.” Grey bowed. “There is one missing, though. Where is Rodrigo?”
There was a sudden silence. Even the shouting children hushed instantly, melting back behind their mothers. Grey could hear the trickling of water down the distant rock face, and the pulse beating in his ears.
“The zombie?” Accompong said at last. He spoke mildly, but Grey sensed some unease in his voice. “He is not yours.”
“Yes,” Grey said firmly. “He is. He came to the mountain under my protection—and he will leave the same way. It is my duty.”
The squatty headman’s expression was hard to interpret. None of the crowd moved, or murmured, though Grey caught a glimpse from the corner of his eyes of the faint turning of heads, as folk asked silent questions of one another.
“It is my duty,” Grey repeated. “I cannot go without him.” Carefully omitting any suggestion that it might not be his choice whether to go or not. Still, why would Accompong return the white men to him, if he planned to kill or imprison Grey?
The headman pursed fleshy lips, then turned his head and said something questioning. Movement, in the hut where Ishmael had emerged the night before. There was a considerable pause, but once more, the houngan came out.
His face was pale, and one of his feet was wrapped in a bloodstained wad of fabric, bound tightly. Amputation, Grey thought with interest, recalling the metallic thunk that had seemed to echo through his own flesh in the cave. It was the only sure way to keep a snake’s venom from spreading through the body.