"Sounds like she has her hands full."
After Aluya had gone back to the kitchen, Moses leaned forward in his chair. "Listen—to understand the power it takes for a man to make himself invisible to other people, you have to know about more than the nature of one particular spell. You have to know what Santeria is."
Decker said, "All I really know about it is that it's an African religion,. and that it was brought to America by slaves. I know that the slaves changed the names of their gods to the names of Catholic saints, but that's about it."
"Well, pretty much right so far as it goes. Santeria is the name we give to two belief systems that got themselves, like, all tangled up with each other. Its roots was in southwestern Nigeria, in all of the myths and the magic rituals of the Yoruba people, but when the Yorubas came to the New World, and they had to hide what they were doing, they
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borrowed a whole lot of fancy trappings from the Roman Catholic church.
"The Yorubas was very smart and they was very cultured. Back in Africa they had theirselves a very sophisticated social structure, and they created all kinds of amazing art in wood and bronze and ivory. They had kingdoms, like Benin, and they built the holy city of Ile-Ife, which is the place where everything that exists comes from. They also worshipped many gods. Orishas, they called them. That's the Yoruba name for a god. Orisha.
"Trouble was, round about sixteen hundred and something, Yorubaland was invaded by the Ewe tribes from the north, and the Yorubas was forced to migrate down to the Nigerian coast. That was why so many of them was captured by slave traders and shipped to America.
"Like you said, they carried on worshipping their old gods, but they gave them the names of Catholic saints. So when their owners thought that they was praying to Saint Anthony, they was actually paying their respects to Eleggua, the owner of the crossroads and the messenger of the or-ishas. Oggun, the god of metals, he became Saint Peter, and Orunla, who knows all the mysteries of the universe, was honored as Saint Francis of Assisi. We still give a sacrifice to Orunla on October the fourth, which is Saint Francis of Assisi Day for the Roman Catholics.
"Santeria is an earth religion, if you understand what I mean. It's all about nature and the forces of nature, like the Native American beliefs. Chango is the god of fire, thunder, and lightning. Oshun is the god of river waters, and also of love, and marriage, and fertility. Oya is the wind, and the keeper of the cemetery, the watcher of the doorway between life and death. She ain't death itself, but she's the knowledge that we all have to die."
Aluya came in with a tray of teacups and a plate of cook‑
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ies. As she handed Decker his tea she raised her eyes just a fraction and gave him a barely perceptible smile. So she didn't have time for men? thought Decker. He sipped his tea and it was completely tasteless—scalding water with little green fragments of twigs in it.
Moses took a cookie and pushed it into his mouth, and before he had finished chewing it, another, and then another. When he carried on talking he sprayed crumbs on his pants and he had to keep brushing them with his hand.
"There are two kinds of orishas—the white orishas and the dark orishas. The white orishas have the power to heal, and give life, like Obatalá and Oshun. and Osain, the god of herbs. The dark orishas are hot and their strength is greatest in wars and battles. These are Chang& Oyá, and Babalu-Ayé.
"Santeria has two basic concepts, right? The first concept is ache, which means divine power, the power that was used to create the universe. Then there's the concept of ebbó, which means sacrifice.
"In Santeria we make sacrifices to the orishas and we propitiate them because we want them to give us ache. With ache, we can sort out anything that's bugging us, we can screw our enemies, we can find pretty women and happiness and money. Ache also means authority, which is why Queen Aché calls herself by that particular name."
"I see," Decker said. "So ebbo—sacrifice—will bring you ache—power?" He hesitated for a moment, and then he said, "What kind of a sacrifice would somebody have to make if he wanted the power to be invisible?"
"Unseen more than invisible," Moses corrected him, helping himself to another cookie. "An ebbó like that—well, that would call for blood. We never shed blood lightly, not even the blood of a chicken, because blood is the essence of life. Usually we offer fruit or flowers or candles or whatever
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the orisha likes to eat. But if somebody wanted the power to walk through the world without being seen—yes, blood, my friend. Possibly maybe human blood."
"Is there any way in which you could make a kind of a counter-ebbo?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, could I ask the orishas to give me the ache so that I could see this invisible person?"
Moses thought about that, and then he shook his head. "I can't honestly say I know the answer to that. One spell can be cast to break another. It depends who cast it, and how strong it is. I heard of a man who asked a santero to cast a spell on his older brother to bring him ill luck, and the spell worked. In only two or three months, his brother's wife ran off with one of his best friends, his business went bankrupt, and he caught a skin rash all over his body."
"That's not just ill luck," Jonah said. "That's shit luck."
"Oh yes. But the older brother went to a babalawo, a high priest, and the babalawo realized at once that somebody had put a curse on him. The babalawo made a sacrifice to the ajogun, who are the opposite of the orishas. The ajogun are the evil forces in the world—arun, which is disease; ofo, which is loss; egba, which is paralysis; and iku, which is death.
"The babalawo cast a spell that every bad thing the older brother had suffered should happen to the person who had cursed him, only a hundred times worse. That same evening all of the younger brother's family were killed in car crash, including his newborn son. Within a week his furniture business had burned down, and he was badly burned trying to get out of the building. In the hospital, before his burns were healed, he was diagnosed with incurable leukemia. It was only then that he confessed to his older brother that he had arranged for a bad-luck spell, and his older brother discovered who it was that he had cursed in return."
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He took the last cookie and bit into it. "A true story," he said. Then—realizing that he had emptied the plate all by himself—he held out the half-eaten cookie to Decker and said, "Want one?"
"No, thanks. I just need the ability to be able to see this guy. I also need to see the evidence he leaves behind him. I know the evidence is there. Fingerprints, fibers, DNA. It must be there. But in some way he's made it invisible. I need eyes, Mr. Alebodu. Eyes that can see through magic."
"Well ... I'll have to give this some sober thinking."
"Okay . . . I really appreciate your talking to me. If you come up with any ideas, maybe you can give me a call on this number."
"You've forgotten something," Moses said, quietly, as Decker stood up. Decker looked around and saw his teacup, still full.