"How can I climb with these?" she demanded, raising her mutilated hands like a pair of scarlet mittens.
"Listen to me," he told her, pointing the flashlight in his
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own face so that she could see him clearly. "There's no other way to escape. I can't carry you up."
Queen Ache looked up at the companionway. Decker heard a scuffling noise close by, and turned around and fired two shots at nothing at all. "You have to climb, Your Majesty, otherwise you're going to die here."
Queen Ache miserably approached the rusty steps and tried to curl her right wrist around them.
"That's it. Now your foot. Now pull yourself up."
She managed to climb up one step, and then another, but then she had to stop. "My hands," she wept. "They hurt so much! Yemaya, please stop them from hurting!"
"Climb," Decker urged her.
"Oh, Yemayá, please take this pain away from me, please!"
"Fucking climb, will you!"
Queen Ache hooked her left wrist around the railing and pulled herself up a little farther. At last she was close enough to the top for Hicks to be able to lean over and take hold of her forearms and help her negotiate the last few steps. Decker scrambled up right behind her.
"Major Shroud?" Hicks asked, wiping his bloody hands on his pants.
"Oh, you bet your ass. He's here and he wants his pound of flesh and he's not listening to any apologies or any deals. We have to get Queen Ache out of here double quick. The Nine Deaths, remember? Fingers, toes, hands, feet."
Between them, they lifted Queen Ache up from the
- deck, and helped her over to the slope of rubble that led to the crawl space up above them. "How the hell we going to get her up here?" Hicks asked.
"Have you tried calling for backup?"
"No signal. Not down here."
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"Shit. Okay, here's what we do. We climb up backward sitting on our butts, and we heave her up after us."
Decker guided Queen Ache to the fallen girder and made her stand with her back to it. Her face was pale gray, and her eyes were filmed over. "Queen Ache? Listen . . . stay there, just like that. Hicks and me, we're going to pull you up the slope. You got it? If you can, dig your heels in to stop yourself from sliding back down again, that'll help."
"Justice and blood," Queen Ache mumbled. "Oggunda ofun—justice and blood through a curse."
"Forget about the sayings, we have to get you out of here, and you're a big tall lady, and we need you to help us to do it." "Yemayá, I pray to you, save me."
"Absolutely. And while you're at it, you can say three Hail Yemayás for me and Hicks, too."
Puffing with effort, Decker climbed up onto the girder, and then sat down on the slope of rubble, kicking a few bricks away to give himself a better foothold. Hicks climbed up beside him, and then the two of them leaned forward and lifted Queen Ache up so that she was sitting on the rubble, too.
"Leave me," she said, her bloodied hands hanging loose. "I can't take any more. Leave me. Yemaya will take care of me. Chango would never hurt Yemayá."
"It's not Chango I'm worried about, Your Majesty. It's Major Shroud. Chango has all of the elemental power, that's for sure. He's got all of the thunder, and all of the lightning, and he's truly frightening. But Major Shroud is the one who's in charge here."
Hicks frowned at him. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, sport, that this is a case of a possessed person taking control of the spirit that possesses him—because he's meaner, and more determined, and much more focused. Sure—the great god Chango had the power to set fire to
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those woods in the Wilderness, and to turn those Yankee soldiers inside out, but who was the one who was really salivating to do it?
"Changó isn't fundamentally evil. Chang() takes revenge on people who do him wrong, but Changó doesn't murder innocent people for the sake of it. It's Major Shroud. Now, let's get this lady out of here before he comes after her again. One—two—three—heave!"
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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
In showers of sliding sand and broken bricks, they managed to manhandle Queen Aché up to the top of the slope and lay her down on the mud in the crawl space. Hicks prodded at his cell phone again but there was still no signal.
"Come on," Decker panted. "There's nothing else for it, we'll just have to pull her along behind us."
He hunkered down beside Queen Aché and said, "How are you feeling? Think you can stand being dragged a bit farther?"
She stared up at him and her face was expressionless, although he still had the feeling that he could see another face, a far older face, looking through her eyes. "I can't feel my hands anymore."
"Believe me, that's probably a blessing."
"Why didn't you leave me behind?"
"Are you kidding me? Shroud would have diced you and sliced you."
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"But I killed the only woman you ever loved. If I had been in your place, I would have left me behind."
"You know what? That's because King Special never taught you the difference between justice and revenge."
"He took me to a santero once, when I was thirteen, to have my fortune told. The santero told me that I was going to be strong and tall and beautiful. But then he said, 'Remember one thing . . . even the saints in all their glory cannot save you from the living dead.' I never understood what he meant, not for years, but now I do."
"Let's just get you out of here. We can worry about the hocus-pocus later."
Decker took hold of one of Queen Aché's arms and Hicks took hold of the other, and together they dragged her across the crawl space, leaving a snakelike trail in the black, slimy mud. They were less than halfway toward the broken-brick staircase, however, when the beam of Decker's flashlight was suddenly refracted at an angle, bent sideways. He lifted it higher and pointed it back toward the cavity in the floor, and he was sure that he could see a distortion in the air, so that the brickwork shifted and rippled.
"Shit, he's following us! There, look! You see that?" "What? Where? I don't see nothing."
"Over there, just left of that pillar. Like the air's dancing around."
"I still don't see nothing."
They started to drag Queen Aché farther, but they had only shifted her four or five feet when they heard a whipping sound, and Queen Aché let out a cry like a run-over dog. The toecap of her left boot had been sheared clean off, taking her toes with it.
Decker pulled out his gun and fired off a single shot, even though he knew that there wasn't even a cat-in-hell's
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chance of hitting anything. "Shroud! You fuck!" he shouted. "You cut her again, I swear to God, Shroud, I'll do the same to you!"
"He's there!" screamed Queen Aché. "He's there! I can see him! He's there!"
"Point!" Decker shouted, and she pointed wildly to her left. Decker fired again, and again. Chips of brick sprayed from one of the buttresses, and a ricochet sang from the opposite wall.
"Did I hit him? Is he hit? Where's he gone now?"
"I don't know, I don't know," Queen Aché moaned. "I can't see him anymore."
Decker seized her arm again. "Come on, Hicks, let's just get the two-toned hell out of here."
Crouching under the overbearing arches, they pulled Queen Aché out of the crawl space. All they had to do now was carry her up the rubble slope to the station's lower level. Decker lifted her up under her arms, while Hicks took her legs, and together they struggled upward, one bent-legged step at a time, sweating and grunting, while Queen Aché lolled lifelessly between them.
At last they reached the top, and managed to maneuver her through the narrow hole in the back of the alcove, into the basement. They laid her down gently on the floor, and Hicks sat down beside her, while Decker leaned against the wall, trying to get his breath back. His arms and legs were quivering from the effort.