Still, standing there naked, back in his world, Carmine couldn't help but smile a little at his cleverness and cunning.
He may be pathetic in his mother's eyes, but he was fooling her this time, and fooling her good. Every tyrant must fall.
She was no exception. And her fall would be mighty, all the way back to hell.
IO
Jean Assad opened his eyes and immediately wished he hadn't. He'd woken up in the heart of the abattoir, with mere moments left to live. He prayed - no begged that Solomon would show him mercy and do him quick; that he'd forget all about the bad stuff that had brought him down here and remember the good: their long history together, the way he'd been there with him from the start, always loyal and dependable, always a believer. Yet one look at them all, the diadem of bleak accusatory eyes bearing down on him through the death's head paint, and he knew it wasn't to be.
He was going out the bad way.
He'd heard rumours about this place, about the things that went on down here, but he'd never believed any of them, ever. He was as superstitious as any Haitian, but he hadn't bought into those stories people came out with about the circle of twelve giant Baron Samedis and the man sat in the middle and what happened to him.
was all true. So far.
He couldn't move at all, not a muscle, except for his eyes. The rest of him was frozen, locked down, paused between heartbeats. His body felt unbelievably heavy, bones made of mercury-filled lead, propping up skin weighted down with cannon balls. He couldn't open his mouth. His lips and jaw wouldn't part. So he was breathing through his nose, and that with great difficulty, the air having to scrape its way through tightly blocked nostrils, barely making it into his lungs. And then there was a great painful, immovable mass at the bottom of his stomach, like he'd eaten a huge meal his digestive juices just couldn't break down; it was
hanging around in his gut, going nowhere, slowly festering.
He looked up and all around him, as far as he could. He met twelve pairs of eyes looking down with interchangeable hatred and contempt. He couldn't tell old friends from lifelong foes, but he was sure they were both there, side by side that's what he'd heard happened. Their faces were completely unrecognizable under the make-up half pancake-white from forehead to upper lip, then black from there to the lower neck, taking in the mouth, ears, nose and around the eyes. They were dressed identically too, in top hats, tailcoats, pinstriped grey trousers, white ruffled shirts, black gloves. He couldn't understand how come they were so tall at least twelve or fifteen feet high. Or was it just the way he was sat, or the state of mind he was in, or something they'd given him to mess with his head?
How long had he been here? The last thing he remembered was waking up in bed in Montreal, blinding flashlight in his eyes, gun to his temple, man's voice: 'Get up! You gots places to be.'
He knew they'd find him eventually. He'd known that when he'd gone on the run, the realization that it didn't matter how far he got, how deep down he hid, sooner or later he'd be caught, sooner or later he'd be made to pay for what he'd done. Still, he'd been real careful at first, moving around a lot, never staying in one place longer than two days, avoiding the ghettos, avoiding all Haitians and Dominicans, staying out of small towns, but what was it he'd heard said time and time again? 'When Solomon Boukman is after you, the world becomes a small place with glass walls.' He might have stayed on the run longer if it hadn't been for his habit. Smack: needle not foil. That had narrowed down their search. The only way a junkie can stay underground is if he's got a big enough stash, or else if he kicks. He hadn't done either. A junkie's got to go out to cop. They'd just pulled on that chain around his arm and reeled him in.
Who'd sold him out? The dealer he'd copped his last dose from? That shit had been suspiciously good, so good he'd got a rush just holding the loaded syringe. Before he'd gone under his last thoughts had been paranoid ones. Montreal wasn't famed for the quality of its smack. The stuff he'd been shooting up until then had been a modest stone, enough to get him under the surface but nowhere near the quality of the dope he'd boosted in Miami. That had sent him all the way down to the warm silk cocoon where time stopped and nothing mattered and he was free of everything. Same as his final hit had done. Right before he'd nodded out, he'd wondered if Solomon hadn't finally found him, if his people weren't going to come through the door the moment he'd slipped away from himself, but then the smack had melted his every worry away like hot coffee dissolves sugar cubes. And then they had come for him. Just like he'd thought. And here he was now, waiting to meet the King of Swords, waiting to die.
A bright light was trained on him from behind, illuminating his immediate surroundings: a cold grey cement floor with reddish brown markings painted thickly on it - a cross to the left, a star to the right, a long vertical line dividing them. It was a giant veve, a voodoo symbol used, in part, to invoke gods and spirits in ceremonies. Usually a veve was drawn in flour, sand or cornmeal, but this one had been painted in what looked like blood. Beyond that stood the barons, facing him. His feet were in a metal fire bucket, filled with water. His hands were resting on his thighs, palms down.
He saw that he was completely naked and that his arms, legs and what he could see of his chest were completely hairless and oddly shiny. Then he noticed that there were no bindings of any kind on him. He was technically free to stand up.
He felt ashamed of his nakedness and wanted to cover
up, but he couldn't move his hands that short distance to his crotch. Then he tried to take his feet out of the bucket, but they stayed where they were, without even a suggestion of motion about them. Then he attempted to lift his arms.
Nothing happened. He tried again. He heard the command come down from his brain, clearly, urgendy and in his own voice, but it had no effect; his authority disappeared into cold meat and bone. His arms and legs stayed exactly where they were. He couldn't feel a single damn thing. He wasn't even getting the cold shakes from smack withdrawal. It was as if his being had become completely disconnected from his body and was now imprisoned in it; only death would release it.
Jean Assad, you poor motherfucker, thought Carmine, looking down at him on the chair, a born again baby; skin greased up and gleaming, frozen out of his body by the potion, his lips sewn tight together, his nose part-stitched so he could still get some air, still alive enough for Solomon to come and snatch his soul. Assad was sat in the middle of the sacrificial veve the symbol drawn in his own blood.
Jean le Chat, they'd called him in Haiti - the Catman, for short. Back then he'd made his living stealing cats and kittens, black ones in particular, to sell to the hougans and mambos to use in their fortune telling. The most popular and reliable method was for the priest or priestess to kill the cat and leave its body on a grave for the night. The next morning they would fry and eat the animal's guts with squill and galanga root, and then they'd see into the future.
That was how the Catman had met Carmine's mother.
He used to come round to the house in Haiti with a thick, wriggling burlap sack on his back, his hands and face always scratched and bleeding. His mother would choose a cat, usually the wildest and most vicious, the ones who went for her with tooth and claw, the ones with strongest spirits