The two men who had captured them at knife point had changed into loose blood-red robes, smeared white greasepaint around their eyes, and now knelt across from each other, hammering out rhythms on broad hand-hewn drums. Every two minutes or so, they paused to smoke what smelled like hashish from a dual-throated hookah.
With the gag pulled tightly between his teeth, Eric had to struggle just to breathe. His torn lower lip was throbbing, was his right elbow, which had slammed against the floor when he was thrown down.
Beside him, Anna Delacroix stared stoically ahead, unwilling to give the men the pleasure of seeing her fear. Initially, after the two of them had been secured to their chairs, the men had teased her-touching her face and breasts and making lewd remarks. After a time, though, her silent, contemptuous glare seemed to spoil their sport. ten minutes had elapsed since they were tied down. The two men, for all their gestures and-threats, had done little else, and seemed to be biding their time-waiting for something or someone. Suddenly, without any obvious signal, they stopped pounding on their drums. The taller one stood before them.
"The, Holy One, the Voice of the Spirits, approaches,' he said.
"I shall remove the bonds around your mouths, but only if you promise that not a word will be spoken by either of you unless asked for by the Holy One. Do I have that promise?"
Eric nodded, but Anna continued to stare straight ahead.
"Do I?" the man yelled at her.
Still she would not respond. Eric's gag was removed, hers left in place. He ran his tongue over the slice in his lip. He tested the tightness of the clothesline that was pinning his arms to the chair.
Without help, he knew there was not a chance of freeing himself, not in a thousand years. He began calming himself, forcing himself to concentrate on the situation. It was a process he had used hundreds of times in the E.R. over the years, but there he was always in control.
The pounding in his ears and the spasms in his belly refused to abate.
He glanced over at Anna. She remained quiet, but below the fetters on her wrists, her fists were tight and bloodless. Despite his promise of silence, Eric could not contain his fear.
"Please," he said. "Please listen to me."
The tall man stood, poised to replace Eric's gag.
Then he stopped as the door to the back room opened and a man stepped out. Actually, Eric realized, it was impossible to know for certain the new arrival's gender or, for that matter, his race. He wore a flowing, hooded white robe, gloves, and an intensely frightening fullfaced mask with a death's-head painted on it.
But even more terrifying than the priest's appearance was the large ceramic bowl cradled in his left arm. Using a heavy wooden pesde, he continued to grind down something in the bowl as he glided to a chair facing them and sat. Eric knew what that bowl contained.
"Please," Eric said rapidly. "You've got this all wrong. Please listen to me."
The tall man looked to the priest for guidance as to whether he should replace the gag. almost imperceptibly, the death's-head turned once each way. The priest continued grinding.
"L-look," Eric said '., I'm a doctor. She's a student, a college student. We're just trying to learn, not to harm anyone. You must believe that."
The tall man glanced at the priest. Then he faced the two captives and said with unsettling pleasantness, "And learn you shall."
He crouched by his drum, and the pounding began once again, the counterpoint building in loudness and tempo. Candlelight shimmered off the smiling white-and-black death mask as the priest stood, still working the pestle through the powder in the bowl.
"Please!" Eric screamed, trying to be heard over the cresc ndo of the drums it — "Please don't do this!"
He looked over at Anna. The angry scorn in her eyes had now given way to undisguised terror.
"No!" he screamed as the priest approached her.
Eric watched as a gloved hand dipped into the bowl and withdrew a mound of moistened chalky-gray powder. Anna began to squirm in her chair, her eyes widening- Then, as the hand neared her cheek, she began thrashing her head wildly about. The drums intensified until it seemed as if the room were exploding.
"Nooo!" Eric shrieked as the hand laid a broad swatch of powder across one of Anna's cheeks.
"Please, no!"
The moment the coup poudre touched her cheek, the drums abruptly ceased.
Anna stopped moving.
The room was silent and still. It was as if with the brush of the first grain, she had resigned herself to having been Poisoned. Eric wondered if perhaps she knew, as he did, that struggling now would only speed the absorption of the tetrodotoxin. Once again the hand dipped, this time slowly painting Anna's other cheek. The priest turned away, and for the briefest moment, Eric thought he was to be spared. Then, like the rumble of distant thunder, the drums began to build once again, The leering death's-head turned back to him. The gloved hand extended slowly, three fingers coated with powder. Eric snapped his head from one side to the other, screaming at the priest to stop, to understand.
He hurled his chair over backward, then twisted onto his side. And when he could move in no other way, he slammed his head against the floor.
Mindless of his struggling, the priest bent over and swabbed the gritty poison across first one cheek and then the other.
"Please don't do this," Eric moaned again and again as his chair was pulled upright. "Please don't…
The priest knelt and ceremoniously dipped one finger into the pool of blood by Eric's feet.
"There… will… be… no… return… for… you… from … this… trip," the tall man said, punctuating each word with a drumbeat.
The death's-head priest pressed a disk of blood onto the center of Eric's forehead, and then Anna's.
Then, without ever having mid a word, he shuffled from the room.
Totally helpless and drained, Eric tried once again to regain his composure. This time he focused on what he had learned of tetrodotoxin and the ways of reducing or reversing its toxicity. Depending on the dose they absorbed, they still had an hour or two before the effects of the drug began, and as much as a day before they would be helpless. If they could get free, they n-light have a chance.
Get calm, he begged himself. If you ever needed to be alert and focus in, you need to now. If you don't, you're going to die.
He turned to Anna, but before he could speak, a broad band of adhesive tape was pulled tightly across his mouth. Then the cloth that had been used as his gag was pulled over his eyes and tied briefly. For perhaps twenty minutes or half an hour he sat that way. The only sound he heard was Anna's labored breathing. Are we alone? Have we been left to die?
Carefully, he began once again to test the bonds on his arms.
"Don't bother, man," the tall man mid from nearby. "You're out of here now."
With that, Eric's hands were cut free and relied behind his back.
Then his ankle ropes were severed and he was pulled roughly to his feet.
"Nod goodbye to your foxy friend, Mr. Doctor.
We're not too interested in what happens to you anymore- But we've got some high ol' times in store for her. Yes, sir, some high ol'times."
The two men dragged him out the back way, tied his ankles together again, checked to be sure his Pockets were empty, and then shoved him onto the metal floor of a van that smelled as if it had been used for hauling rotten fish. For the next half-hour or more, they drove.
Initially, Eric tried to make some sense of the turns and straightaways, but he quickly gave up.
At last the truck jounced onto what seemed to be a dirt road and stopped, its engine still running. Eric was pulled from the back and thrown to the ground.