"You're kidding me."
"No, it used to be deep enough for fishing boats. But this wall is probably later than that, 1920s or thereabouts. A whole lot of different building work has gone on here, over the years, levels on top of levels. It's like opening up Tutankhamen's tomb."
Decker peered into the darkness. "Is that a basement?"
"No, there's no basement. I guess the original planners were too worried about floods, this close to the river. There's a crawl space, but that's it."
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"You think anybody could hide in there?"
"Pretty unlikely. It's damp and it's dark and it's suffocating. And you never know when the tide's going to come pouring in."
"Okay," Decker said. "Thanks for showing us around."
Michael Verdant gave him a dry, strong handshake. "Glad I could help. Make sure you come back when we're open for business. You won't believe this place, I can promise you."
As they walked back to Decker's car, Hicks said, "You want to tell me why we came here?"
"I don't know. I was given a tip-off, that's all. I just wanted to check."
"What tip-off?"
Decker turned around and looked up at the clock tower and the dormer windows with their red terra-cotta tiles. The station looked more like a palace out of Grimm's Fairy Tales than a twentieth-century railroad terminus.
"Do you get any vibrations out of that place?" he asked. "Vibrations? You mean apart from jackhammering? Like what?"
"Like—I don't know. Like something very bad is hiding there."
Hicks shook his head. "You should ask Rhoda. She's the one who's into vibrations. Me—well, you know me, Lieutenant. I prefer procedure to witchcraft, any day."
"In that case, you definitely won't be happy about where we're going next."
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
He parked outside Moses Adebolu's building and shouted, "Come on, Hicks! You should find this very instructive. It'll take you back to your ethnic roots."
"What ethnic roots? I was born in Fairview Beach."
The same kids were playing with rat bones on the steps. Decker took out a pack of fresh-mint gum and gave them a stick each. "Watch my car, okay?"
"So who's this we're going to see?" Hicks asked, dubiously.
They climbed up the creaking stairs. Somebody on the floor above was having a shouting match, and there was a clatter like saucepans being thrown.
Decker said, "You're going to meet Moses. He's a santero. One of the best, according to Jonah. Yesterday we sacrificed a rooster and today he's going to give me my omiero."
"What the hell is an omiero?"
"It's my magic antidemon potion. Rooster blood and herbs. I have to take a bath in it and then the great god
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Changó might forgive me for whatever it is I've done to piss him off."
They had reached the second-story landing, under the headless image of John the Baptist. Hicks stopped and said, "Wait up a second, Lieutenant. Are you serious about this?"
"Never more so. You saw that image of Cathy that Rhoda conjured up. Whatever's happening here, it's supernatural, whether we like it or not. Or at the very least it involves some pretty weird influences. So it's no good trying to hunt it down with procedure. It's Santeria magic, and that means we're going to have to use Santeria magic to find it."
"Have you talked to the captain about this?"
"Cab? Uh-huh. It'll only make him sneeze."
"Well . . . I know what I saw when Rhoda did that séance, and I'll agree with you that it was something ex- tremely strange. But what are we really talking about here?"
Decker laid a hand on his shoulder. "If we can safely believe Moses Adebolu, which from all the evidence I believe we can, then all we are up against is the single most vengeful god in the whole of the Santeria religion."
"And that's his name? Changó?"
"You got it."
"All right," Hicks said. "Supposing I go along with this. Supposing it's true. What's this goddamned god so goddamned vengeful about?"
"I have no idea, specifically. But the nightmares I've been having ... and the way that the victims were killed . . . I think it has something to do with the Civil War, and with the Battle of the Wilderness in particular."
"You're talking about the Devil's Brigade?"
Decker nodded.
"But all that happened in 1864. Over 140 years ago."
"I know. But gods don't die, do they? Not so long as people
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go on believing in them. Maybe they don't die even if people don't go on believing them. They're not fairies, after all. They're part of the earth, part of the sky, part of everything."
"I don't want to step out of line, Lieutenant, but you're beginning to sound, well—this is kind of Lord of the Rings here."
"Come talk to Moses, see if he doesn't change your mind."
Decker knocked on Moses Adebolu's multicolored door. He waited patiently, turning to Hicks and lifting his eyebrows. "You wait till you meet this guy. He's a character. And you should see his daughter. That's if she is his daughter, which I seriously question."
He knocked again. "All right," Moses called. "I can hear you, my friend. I just have to pull up my pants."
They could hear him shuffling toward the door. As the handle turned, however, there was an extraordinary warping sensation in the air, as if the whole of perception had been twisted. This was instantly followed by a sharp, intense sucking sound, like a high wind, which Decker instantly recognized—oxygen being dragged violently into Moses' apartment through every crack and crevice around the door.
"Down!" he shouted at Hicks, and football-tackled him across the landing.
Hicks, sprawling, said, "What? What is it?"
"Down! Get downstairs!"
He shoved Hicks square in the back and Hicks lost his balance and went tumbling and bumping down to the hallway. Decker himself seized hold of the banister rails and swung himself down, six stairs at a time, like an acrobat.
As they reached the front door, there was a shattering explosion, and the whole building seemed to jump sideways.
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Chunks of plaster dropped from the ceiling, rails were ripped up like railroad tracks, and what was left of the John the Baptist window burst apart in a million sparkling fragments.
Hicks stared at Decker and his face was white with plaster dust and shock.
"Was that a bomb?"
Decker was busy jabbing out the fire department number on his cell phone. "God knows. Come on."
Up above them, doors were opening and people were shouting and screaming. A large section of the third-story staircase had collapsed, and lumps of plaster were still falling down the stairwell. Decker shouted, "Police! Don't panic! We're going to get you out of here!"
He approached Moses' door. All the paint on it was already blistered, and only one painted eye remained, staring at him with the serene knowledge that all things must pass. He cautiously touched the door handle but it was too hot for him to try turning it. There was no smoke coming out from underneath the door. Instead, the air from the landing was still being steadily sucked inward, with a soft whistling sound, which told him that the interior of the apartment must be incandescent.
"Hicks, come on, sport—let's get these people out of here. This building doesn't have long."
A woman with dreadlocks and a black leather minidress was leaning over from the landing above, screaming, "I got to get my clothes! I got to get my DVDs!"
"Lady, no chance. This house is going to be ashes in two minutes flat."