"We are waiting for my associates to be brought to me. They don't live as close by, and their modes of travel are somewhat restricted. The sequence of events after that will depend on your attitude."
"Right now I have a very bad attitude."
"I know. That can be changed."
"Now that would really surprise me."
"You will be taken to my place of power."
"'Place of power'? What the hell is that?"
He cocked his head, and once again the corners of his mouth curled up ever so slightly. His eyes seemed to gleam a little brighter. "You might call it my personal house of worship."
"It sounds kinky. I'll bet it isn't Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Don't tell me you actually believe your own voodoo bullshit."
"'Believe' isn't the operative word, Frederickson. Voodoo isn't really a belief system, like Judaism or Christianity. It's not a religion at all-not for adepts. The fact that it is considered as such by so many people is precisely what makes it work for true practitioners."
"True practitioners like yourself."
"Yes."
"So the fact that it's a belief system for hundreds of thousands of people means that it's not really a belief system for voodoo hotshots like you at the center of the web. Your students must have to take a lot of notes."
"There isn't time for a complete lecture."
"If voodoo isn't really a religion, what is it? I mean for true practitioners like yourself."
"A means of gathering and exercising power, of course."
"Then it's no different from any other religion-for its professional practitioners."
"Well, yes. But the voodoo priest is not so much interested in making religious career choices in order to make a living as in focusing concentration and will."
"You mean scaring the shit out of other people in order to get them to do what you want them to do."
"Exactly. Voodoo does have that in common with organized religions. The difference is the lack of attending hypocrisy. The voodoo priest makes no claim to saving souls."
"Far be it from me to defend organized religions, Fournier, but they don't serve up horror as the main course."
"Your naivete surprises me, Frederickson. Your dossier would have led me to believe that you would appreciate the horror of the Mass, where men, women, and children delight in eating the flesh and drinking the blood of a crucified Christ."
"Of course I appreciate the horror of the Mass, but in the end it's just folks drinking wine and eating biscuits while they gawk at a statue of a man nailed to a cross. It's not the real McCoy."
"I am a voodoo master, Frederickson. You should feel honored to be. . attended by me."
"Well, voodoo still sounds like a religion to me, and it makes my heart flutter to think that you-"
I abruptly stopped speaking, my words clogging in my throat, when my heart really did begin to flutter. A man in a gray suit, gray turtleneck, and dirty sneakers had suddenly appeared next to Fournier in the doorway, and his appearance was startling. He was over six feet, but slightly stooped, as if there was something wrong with his spine. He was either bald or his head had been shaved, and his eyes were lifeless, vacantly staring into some abyss in front of him. He was black, undoubtedly Haitian, but his flesh was ashen, virtually matching the color of his suit. He was slack-jawed, and spittle ran out of both corners of his mouth. He moved forward and was followed into the room by two other men. They were slightly shorter, but were dressed in identical gray suits and turtlenecks, and sneakers. All were hairless, ashen-skinned, vacant-eyed, slack-jawed, and drooling. The three of them looked like nothing so much as extras in some old Boris Karloff movie. Fournier said something to them in a language I recognized as Creole. Then the three shuffled forward, slowly wending their way around the piles of books and magazines, spreading out until they formed a semicircle in front of me. They stopped when they were about six feet away.
The voodoo master's chainsaw had arrived.
"My associates," Fournier said quietly.
Terror is the most debilitating emotion of all, and the sight of the three drooling, soulless men standing in front of me and staring into eternity thoroughly incapacitated me. My chest was constricted so tightly that I was having trouble catching a breath, and my back felt as if someone had pressed a slab of ice against it. If my hands had not been wrapped tightly around my knees, I knew they would be trembling. What had slouched into the room was apparently what Fournier had in mind for me, destroying my mind and will instead of carving out my heart, maybe to have me pad off and get his newspaper and slippers each morning. I preferred death the old-fashioned way, even if I had to earn it, but mostly I preferred me the way I was. My only chance of staying that way lay first in relaxing, as improbable as that goal seemed under the circumstances. Fournier apparently knew what I was thinking, sensed I wasn't too thrilled with developments, for he was now standing erect in the doorway, aiming his gun with both hands at my right kneecap. My first, panic-stricken reaction was to leap to my feet and start whaling away at the men in the gray suits, but that plan was contraindicated; I wouldn't be whaling, or standing, very long after a bullet had shattered my kneecap. A more practical plan of attack-or escape-was needed. Such a scheme was not immediately springing to mind, but maybe, just maybe, there might come a moment when a window of opportunity for survival might open for a single split second. If such a window did open, and if I was to be able to take advantage, I would need all my strength, reflexes, and quickness at peak operating efficiency, and at the moment I felt about as limber as a boulder.
It took all of my will to force myself to breathe regularly and relax my muscles. Fiercely wrestling the terror back into a crawlspace in my mind where I could ignore it for a few moments, I slowly crossed my arms over my chest, crossed my right leg over my left, threw back my head and laughed. Somewhat to my surprise, the sound really did resemble a laugh instead of a shriek. I let it trail off into a low chuckle, then shook my head and said, "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle. There really is something to this zombie business after all."
Fournier, who had moved a few feet into the room so as to get a better aim at my knee with his gun, looked uncertain. He blinked a few times as he stared into my face, then grunted softly. "You've been described as having great courage, Frederickson. I see that the reports are accurate. I salute you."
Imagining I was just an actor in an ancient movie with my four ghoulish costars, I read the next line in my improvised script in a steely voice. "Stick your reports and your salute up your ass, Professor. Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go, and it looks like I'm outta here. I know when it's over, and I sure as hell don't intend to give you any more satisfaction than you already have. Besides, I think this is kind of a hoot. I assume you know I've been shot, frozen, electrocuted, beaten, stabbed, tortured to the point of death, what have you. Run-of-the-mill stuff. Hey, but being turned into a zombie, or having my heart cut out in a voodoo ceremony? Now that's one hell of a way to end a career. Of course, when my brother finds out about it-and he will, I assure you-he won't be as amused. He'll show you some brand-new voodoo tricks of his own."
Fournier's response was to speak to the men again in Creole. The man with the matching face and suit directly in front of me reached into a pocket and withdrew a small glass vial with a cork stopper. The vial was half filled with a fluffy, yellowish powder flecked with dark green spots that could have been tiny seeds.
"This won't hurt you, Frederickson," the white-haired man said as his helper removed the cork from the vial and started shuffling toward me. I could hear the barely suppressed excitement in his voice. "This is just a little something to make you more … compliant. It will be much easier if you cooperate. Just breathe it in deeply, as if you were taking snuff or cocaine."