"What's the plan, Lieutenant?" Hicks asked.
"First of all, we're going to take Queen Aché to the hospital. Then we're going to work out how we're going to deal with Major Shroud."
"How about a SWAT team? If they laid down, like, wall-to-wall machine-gun fire, somebody's bound to hit him."
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"Oh, really? And how do you think he's going to retaliate? The same way he did in the Wilderness. He's going to incinerate the whole place and turn our guys inside out."
"So what are we going to do?"
"I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to think. I'm going to use my head, while I still have it."
He bent over Queen Aché. She had been unconscious while they carried her up the rubble staircase, but now her eyelids flickered open. "Am I really here?" she asked him. Her scarf had slipped off and one side of her tightly braided hair was caked in mud.
"You're here, yes. But not for much longer." He looked up. Hicks was already splashing across the flooded cellar floor, to call for an ambulance and backup.
Decker took off his coat, bundled it up, and propped up Queen Aché's head. "My rings," she said, with a small, regretful smile. "When he cut off my fingers, I lost all of my precious rings. My daddy gave me such a pretty gold ring when I went through my ebbó de tres meses."
"We'll find them for you," Decker reassured her.
"What good will they be, if I have no fingers to put them on?" She was so matter-of-fact that Decker knew that she was deeply in shock. He remembered a man in a serious car smash on the Midlothian Turnpike who had smiled and winked at him and said, "See that leg, my friend—over there—on the median strip—that's my leg."
Hicks came back. "Ambulance in five minutes, backup in three."
"Okay," Decker said, standing up straight. But at that moment, hell arrived. There was another whippp! and the toe of Queen Aché's right boot was whacked off at a sharp diagonal, and a fine spray of blood flew up Decker's cheek. Hicks said, "Jesus Christ!"
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"Where is he?" Decker yelled at Queen Ache. "Tell me where he is!"
But Queen Aché was too stunned to answer him, and the next second her right arm was pulled straight up into the air, as if she were giving him a defiant salute. Decker seized her wrist and tried to pull it back down, but he was shoved in the chest so hard that he was thrown back against one of the hunchback stalagmites, jarring his spine. He was still struggling to get his balance when Queen Aché's fingerless hand was chopped from her wrist and sent flying across the basement floor.
"Hicks—grab him!" Decker shouted. Hicks came forward, crouching and feinting like a wrestler, but as soon as he tried to grapple with their invisible opponent, his legs were kicked out from under him and he fell heavily backward, knocking his head.
Queen Aché's left arm was yanked up in the same way as her right, and with a crunch of bone, a V-shaped cut half severed her hand, so that it flopped sideways on a skein of skin and tendons. Seconds later, another cut lopped it off completely.
"Shroud!" Decker roared at him. "Show yourself, you bastard!" He fired another two shots but he knew that he must have missed. He ejected his cartridge cases, but as he tried to reload he was violently slammed in the shoulder and sent flying against the stalagmites again.
He rolled over, winded. He was still on his hands and knees when Queen Aché's feet were chopped off at the ankles and thrown in different directions, with blood spinning out of them like Catherine wheels. Then her hair was suddenly tugged up, so that her head was lifted from the floor. Her left ear was sliced off, upward, and then her right. Then—with no hesitation, and with a gristly crunch—her
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nose was cut away, so that she had nothing left in the middle of her face but two triangular holes, bubbling with blood. Decker fired again, twice, as close to Queen Aché as he dared.
He waited, panting, straining his eyes to see the slightest deflection in the air.
"Shroud . . . I swear to God, I'm going to kill you for this."
"Changó protects me," Major Shroud said. His voice sounded so close to Decker's ear that he twisted around in alarm, his gun raised two-handed in front of his face.
"He has punished this santera. Tomorrow it will be my turn to take my revenge on you."
Decker could hear police and ambulance sirens, although he didn't know what possible use any backup could be. He tried to stand up, but the air suddenly warped in front of his eyes, and Major Shroud pushed him roughly back onto his side. "Why do you struggle, Martin? You might just as well fight against the wind."
He tried to get up yet again, but again Major Shroud thrust him back down. "If you defy me anymore, I will give you a Tenth Death tomorrow. I will cut off your manhood and push it down your throat."
"I bet you will, too. You did the same thing to those poor young kids after Manassas, didn't you? You're a fucking out-and-out sadist, Shroud."
"Sadist?" Shroud said, puzzled.
"Somebody who gets their kicks out of hurting people, asshole. This is nothing to do with Changó, is it? You're using Chango's power, for sure. But this is nothing to do with Santeria, it's all about you. Eleven good men found out what a psycho you were, and sealed you up where you belonged, and that's the only reason you want your revenge. Believe me, you're not going to get it."
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"You really think so? Believe me, Martin, I've waited far too long for this day."
Decker heard car doors slamming outside, and running feet. Hicks shouted, "This way! This way!"
The distortion in the air flickered away from Decker and moved around Queen Ache, who was lying on her back with a shiny balloon of blood where her nose had been.
"Don't," Decker said. But at the same time, he asked himself if Queen Ache would even want to go on living, without hands, without feet, grotesquely disfigured as she was.
Queen Aché was slowly lifted up. She rose like a puppet, her arms hanging loose, her knees half bent. Her head hung to one side with long strings of blood sliding from her nose. As she stood erect, on her chopped-off ankles, half a dozen uniforms came running into the basement with their guns drawn.
"Lieutenant! What's happening here? Lieutenant!" Decker climbed to his feet and raised his hand. "Take it easy, guys. This is kind of a hostage situation."
The rest of the men stayed back but Sergeant Buchholz came waddling right up to him. He was a big-bellied man, with a moustache like a sweeping brush. "What's the story, Lieutenant?" He jerked his thumb toward Queen Aché. "What the hell happened to her?" She appeared to be standing on her own, but she was smothered in blood and she swayed improbably from side to side.
"You don't recognize her? Well, I can't blame you. That's Queen Aché."
"Queen Aché? Holy shit."
"She's being held hostage."
"Hostage? What do you mean? Who by?"
"He's right here, Buchholz, but he's not exactly one hundred percent visible."
"Excuse me?"
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Decker laid a hand on his shoulder, more for support than anything else. "The hostage taker is holding her up. Look at her. She can't stand up on her own, because he cut her feet off."
Sergeant Buchholz was even more baffled. "He's holding her up? I don't understand what you mean, Lieutenant. There's nobody there."
"Tomorrow, Martin!" Major Shroud called. "This is what will happen to you!"
Sergeant Buchholz turned wildly around, first to the left and then to the right. "Who said that? Who the fuck said that?"