“Revenge is your motive,” Jerry said.
“Can you think of a better one?”
“Yes.”
“You can?” Eleanore queried in surprise.
“Freedom.”
“I believe in freedom.”
“Perhaps you do,” Jerry responded. “But you’re more interested in getting revenge for the indignities you suffered.”
“Indignities, hell! I went through sheer torture!”
“Okay. Granted. But freedom is a secondary consideration for you. For me, and for most of us in the Resistance, freedom is our motivation for opposing the rule of Damballah, freedom for the thousands of people who live in daily fear of the Baron, of Majesta, of the tonton macoutes and all the rest. New Orleans has been under the sway of evil for far too long. I want my children to be able to walk down the street in safety.”
“Do you have kids? I didn’t know that.”
“Not yet. But one day I’ll meet the right woman, and then—who knows?”
“I hope you do,” Eleanore offered sincerely.
“Thanks.” Jerry turned to the west. “Look, we’d really best get our butts in gear. I know there’s plenty of time until daylight, but I don’t like cutting the margin too close. Let’s deliver the goods to Adrien and get back.”
“Are you sure you’re not just scared of the dark?” Eleanore joked, breaking into a brisk stride. “Are you afraid Damballah will get you?” She laughed at the notion.
Jerry walked on her right. “Don’t mock Damballah.”
“What’s with you? You act as if you believe in the nonsense they spout about the thing.”
“I do.”
Eleanore broke stride for an instant, then caught up with him. “And here I had you pegged as a sensible guy.”
“Make fun of me all you want, but I know what I saw.”
“You saw it?” Eleanore questioned in amazement.
“Yep.”
“You’re putting me on. I mean, in all the years I was at Laveau’s estate I never saw it. Granted, they wouldn’t let me or any of the other women in his stable anywhere near the houmfor, but if the thing was real you’d think I’d have caught a glimpse of it.”
Jerry looked at her and found himself admiring the fine lines of her lovely features. “My brother and I saw it about twelve years ago.”
“Tell me,” she urged.
“Well, we’d gone into the bayou in my dad’s canoe to do some fishing.
We weren’t supposed to go by ourselves, but you know how kids can be.
Anyway, we stayed out later than we intended, and by the time we started back the sun was setting. Our arms grew tired and we pulled in next to this small island to rest.” He quit speaking and scoured the ground ahead, searching the waist-high weeds for the faint trace of the trail.
“Go on. What happened next?”
“We heard this strange noise, like a loud hissing, and we were stunned to see this enormous creature moving through the water to the south of us. We froze, which is probably just as well. If that thing had spotted us we would have been its supper.”
Eleanore could detect a vestige of terror in his voice even after so many years, and she inadvertently shuddered as she imagined the harrowing experience he’d undergone. “What did it look like?”
“Exactly as the legend states.”
“Dear God.”
“The Lord has no connection to that monster. Damballah is straight from hell.”
A horrifying thought occurred to Eleanore and she glanced around them in consternation. “What if we bump into it?”
Jerry patted the survival knife attached to his belt above his right hip.
“I’d do my best to protect you. Your best bet, though, would be to run. I couldn’t hold something that size off for very long.”
Suddenly the night seemed to be shrouded by a sinister veil, and lurking in every shadow was a bloodthirsty creature or a demon from the inferno. Eleanore moved closer to Jerry. “How soon will we be at the cabin?”
“About five minutes.”
“Good,” Eleanore said, and that single word was pregnant with expectation and relief. She listened to the myriad of sounds characteristic of a typical muggy Louisiana night in early October; the chirping and buzzing of insects, the croaking of bullfrogs, the peculiar bellowing of gators from the swamp to the south, the hooting of owls, the occasional fluttering of bats from overhead, and, of course, the distinct roars and eerie cries of the mutations. “I never realized how isolated we are out here,” she commented.
“Where else could the Resistance operate the radio?” Jerry replied.
“Ever since the great flood, the bayou has pretty much taken over all of the land encircling New Orleans. This thirty-acre tract is one of the largest dry sections for miles.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask. Where did the Resistance obtain the shortwave radio anyway?”
“About five months ago Rad was poking through those abandoned buildings on Canal Street. He stumbled across, of all things, a sub-basement in one of the old department stores. In it, sitting on a dusty table, was the shortwave and other gear.”
“Rad took a big risk,” Eleanore noted. “The tonton macoutes have declared those buildings off-limits.”
“They can’t be everywhere at once.”
Eleanore pondered for a moment. “I was told those scum have gone all through those buildings, from top to bottom, many times. How could they have missed the radio?”
“Easy. Rad found it quite by accident. He saw a fat rat and tried to bag it with his slingshot, but the rodent ran behind a pile of debris. When Rad looked, he found a narrow opening in the wall at floor level, a concealed maintenance shaft to the ventilation system. He crawled in, wiggled along the passages, and came to the room containing the shortwave. It must have belonged to an ancient maintenance worker. Maybe he put it there to listen to while he was on his breaks, or maybe he had a friend he liked to contact on a regular basis. For all we know, he could have stolen it from the department store.”
“You certainly know a lot about the prewar life-style,” Eleanore observed.
“I’ve ready every book I can find on the subject.”
“Didn’t the tonton macoutes burn all the libraries to the ground?”
“Yeah, but they weren’t able to collect every book in New Orleans. The Resistance has collected a couple of hundred over the years, and they’re all stored in a safe place.”
“I didn’t know the Resistance has its own library.”
“It’s one of our best-kept secrets. Only the inner circle knows the exact location. You have to be with the Resistance for a year or so before you’ll be allowed to go there,” Jerry related.
“There you go again. It certainly is nice to know that everyone has such confidence in me.”
Jerry looked at her. “Don’t take it personally. I wasn’t permitted to visit the library until I’d been with the Resistance eleven months.”
“Really.”
Jerry nodded. “Some of the books are priceless. There are several on the prewar society. One tells all about how to live off the land. And another one describes how to build a boat from scratch. If we could locate the materials, if we could build the boat without the tonton macoutes finding out, then if worse came to worst we could head for the Gulf.”
“That’s a lot of ifs,” Eleanore remarked.
“It’s just one of the ideas we’re working on in case we can’t raise anyone on the shortwave radio.”
“Has Adrien had any luck yet?”
“No,” Jerry replied. “He’s been broadcasting every night for two weeks, and so far he hasn’t received an answer.” He gazed thoughtfully at the star-filled night. “There must be someone out there who can hear us, who can help.”