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greet you, Chango. The king hung himself, but the king did not die."
He climbed farther still, until he reached the edge of the platform. He shone his flashlight from side to side, and he was sure that he could see the transparent outline of a man's shoulders and the side of his head.
"Changó, listen to me. I've come down here to ask you to forgive me for what my great-great-grandfather did to you. He should never have helped to seal you up in that casket, and I'm sorry, okay? I didn't know anything about you before, but now I do and I want to tell you that you're the greatest. Like, respect."
He waited, while the freezing fog continued to pour down all around him. Changó—if it was Chango didn't reply. Decker thought: How the hell are you supposed to speak to an orisha? And what do you do if they refuse to answer you? Maybe orishas only understand Yoruba.
But as he waited, the fog appeared to thicken and knot itself into shadows, like the clots of blood in a fertilized egg. Gradually, right in front of Decker's eyes, a shape began to resolve itself, the shape of a tall, dark, broad-shouldered man. In a little over a minute, he had solidified, although his image still appeared smudgy. He looked down at Decker with black, deep-set eyes. He was heavily bearded, and he wore a wide-brimmed hat with ragged black feathers all around it, and a long black overcoat.
"Major Shroud?" Decker said.
"You're a Martin," the figure replied. His voice made Decker feel as if his hair were infested with lice. It was hoarse, and thick, and he spoke with a curious saw-blade accent, which Decker supposed was how everybody must have spoken in Virginia in Civil War days. But more than that, it seemed to come from several different directions at once, as
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if he were standing on the other side of the ship's hold; and close beside him, too, right next to his ear.
"Your forefather was one of those eleven who betrayed me. Your forefather was one of those who condemned me to spend an eternity, imprisoned, unable to move, in absolute darkness, but always awake."
"Major Shroud, I've come here to settle our differences."
"Differences? You call what they did to me differences?"
"What the rest of the Devil's Brigade did to you, back in the Wilderness—look, I know they were wrong. But it was war, you know? It was right in the thick of a goddamned battle, for Christ's sake. Men were dying right, left and center. At the time they genuinely believed that they were doing right."
"They betrayed me, and they betrayed Chango. If it hadn't been for Changes spirit, I would have suffocated and died. I won that battle for them single-handed, with Changos help. But did they reward me? No. Did they promote me? No. They sealed me in that casket with spells and spices and hoped that I would stay there forever."
"They were afraid of you, Major Shroud. Okay—it doesn't say much for their courage, does it, or their comradeship? But they panicked and they didn't know what else to do."
"All I wanted was the honor that was due to me. I gave up everything—my life, my home, my beloved family—so that Chango could possess me, and we could win the war. Honor? All I received in return was treachery."
"But murdering those men's descendants . . . what good can that do? That's not going to earn you any honor."
"It's not murder! It's revenge! And Chango has taught me all I need to know about exacting my revenge. I lay in that suffocating coffin, for all of those countless years, but
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Changó spoke to me, and he nurtured me, and he gave me strength, and he promised me that I would have my day."
While Major Shroud was talking, Decker saw a quick, furtive shadow in the passageway behind him. After a few moments, Queen Aché appeared, her boots crunching over rotting crabs. She saw Major Shroud, and then she saw Decker, and she stopped where she was. Decker made a face at her and quickly shook his head to indicate that she shouldn't do anything hasty. Queen Aché gave him the thumbs-up.
"You've already killed four people," Decker told Major Shroud. "Don't you think that's revenge enough? They were innocent, all of them. None of them had any idea what their great-great-grandparents had done, all those years ago."
"Revenge is revenge. If you can't have revenge on the father, then you're entitled to take your dues from the son. And if not the son, the grandson, and the great-grandson, forever."
"Times have changed, Major Shroud. Years have gone by. The North and the South are one nation now, and what happened during the war—well, it's all forgotten now. It's history."
"Chango!" Queen Ache called out. "Listen to me, Changó! I bring Yemayá with me! Babami Changó ikawo ilemu fumi alaya tilanchani nitosi. I have fruit for you. I have honey. I can give you songs and laughter and love."
Major Shroud swung around, his coat billowing. "Who are you? How dare you call on my eleda?"
"I am Queen Aché, daughter of Yemayá, and Yemayá comes to make an offering to Chango."
Major Shroud's voice abruptly changed. When he spoke now, he spoke in a harsh, abrasive growl. "Chango refuses
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your offering. Chango sees you for what you are. Yemayá betrayed Chango in the Wilderness as surely if she had sealed the casket with her own hands. She allowed the eleven orishas to bind him and take him away—Yeggua and Oshun and Eleggua and all the others—and she didn't lift one finger to intervene. You might have been Changes stepmother once, Yemaya-you might have been his lover—but that night you turned your back on him, and he has never forgiven you."
"I bring you a plaza, Chango. I bring you ram's blood, and manteca de corojo."
Major Shroud didn't appear to have heard her. He lowered his head and pressed his fingers to his forehead, as if he were thinking. Queen Aché caught Decker's attention, her eyes wide and alert. She raised her hand with her index finger pointing straight out and her thumb cocked like a revolver hammer. Decker got the message and lifted out his Anaconda. Any second now, Chango would be distracted by her offering, and Decker would be able to blast Major Shroud's head off.
"Kabio, kabio, sile," Queen Aché murmured, her voice soft and seductive. "Welcome, Chango, my darling one. Welcome, my child and my passionate lover. Take a moment's rest for apples and herbs. Refresh yourself with honey and blood."
Major Shroud remained as he was, his head bowed, apparently lost in thought. Suddenly, however, crackles of thin blue light began to dance around his hat, like electrified barbed wire. Queen Aché looked triumphantly at Decker. Chango was gradually making his appearance, and in a few seconds he would leave Major Shroud unprotected so that he could taste the food and drink that Queen Ache had brought him.
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Decker lifted his revolver and pointed it directly at Major Shroud's head. From this angle, the bullet would enter the soft flesh underneath his jaw, penetrate his tongue and his palate, blow his sinuses apart, and exit through the top of his skull, carrying most of his frontal lobes along with it.
"Come on, Changó, my love," Queen Aché coaxed. She sounded distinctively different from the sophisticated southern lady of color that she usually was. Her intonation was much more African, with a lilting, knowing accent. "Honor my family by tasting my plaza. Eat your fill."
The blue electric crackling grew more and more agitated, and it began to form a cagelike structure around Major Shroud's head, like a fencing mask. Queen Aché opened the bag of offerings that she had brought with her and held it up and swung it from side to side.