Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead (14 page)

All of the men stepped forward.

Of course.

“The strongest man will carry a rope across and we will use it as a dragline,” Suzuki said.

Yamada shrugged. They would get wet. There were worse things.

Some of which he had just seen chew through a rope.

Another time, Yamada would have been intrigued enough to chase down and collect one of these man-creatures, to see what made him tick. But the mission was too important.

Gruber listened to the report the scout offered. There had been a bridge, but it had been cut on the other side of the river. There was a fresh rope spanning the crossing, a foot above the water. Though he had not seen it, the scout reckoned that Jones and McHale’s party had crossed via the bridge, which had been repaired on the west side of the river, and then felled it behind them, requiring that the Japanese devise other means to cross.

“That would only make sense if they knew they were being followed,” Gruber said.

“Perhaps they spotted the Japanese.”

Gruber nodded. “Well. Nice of them to leave it for us,” he said.

“Pragmatic,” Schäefer said. “The Japanese no doubt intend to use it again when they come back this way. We shall probably see other such lines.”

“Point taken, Captain.”

Once they arrived at the crossing, Schäefer ordered one of his men to inchworm his way across the river. If the Japanese had done it, they certainly could.

The soldier did so, his body flagging downstream as he slid his hands along the rope, left, then right, then left. It took him only a few minutes to achieve the far shore.

“Not so bad,” Gruber said. “I’ll go next.”

“You have gloves?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Best you wear them. The hemp will be rough on your hands.”

“I am not made of sugar, Captain. I believe I can manage it.”

Halfway across, Gruber wished he had taken Schäefer’s advice, for the wet rope was harsh against his fingers and palms, and the pull of the water was strong enough so that it was not easy work to support one’s weight with one hand while the other slid forward. Nonetheless, he managed to make it at the cost of a small blister on his left palm, no more. Once there, he stood and sluiced off as much water as he could. Being wet in the jungle was uncomfortable, but hardly unusual. One had to get used to it.

Schäefer crossed next, and then the rest of the men. The last man to cross was Heinrich Wagner, the doubting Thomas private. He was but a third of the way along when another of the men said,
“Gott!”
and pointed upstream.

Gruber turned to see, and beheld a log as big around as a man and thrice the length, with several broken, jagged-end branches jutting from the trunk, floating toward the crosser at a good rate.

“Schnell, schnell!”
somebody yelled. “Heinrich, go back, go back, hurry, go back!”

But Wagner thought he could make it. He began moving his hands faster—

The log looked like it would miss him—

But—no. The log twisted, just a bit, just enough so that it hooked a branch under the rope. That slowed the front end almost to a stop, but the tail end came around—

—and slammed into Wagner, rolling over the top of the rope where his weight pulled the line below the surface. The log hit him on the head—

The scream he tried to get out turned into a gurgle and he lost his grip on the rope and sank.

The rope stretched . . . but held. The log rolled and floated on.

There was no sign of Wagner.

Soldiers ran along the bank but were stopped by a tangle of brush a few meters downstream. They cursed and attacked the brush with machetes, but Gruber knew that Heinrich was almost certainly drowned, if the impact had not been enough to fracture his skull.

He looked at Schäefer and shook his head. “He is a dead man.”

Schäefer nodded. “Yah.”

“He died for the glory of the Third Reich,” Gruber said. “Our report will reflect that. But we must move on.”

Schäefer nodded again. He didn’t like leaving one of his men floating down a stream in this godforsaken jungle, but dead was dead, and he had his orders. The mission was all that mattered, even if all of them died for it.
So ist Lieben
—such is life.

FIFTEEN

B
OUKMAN SMOKED
the sacred herb and mushroom blend in his pipe, which had been carved from the thighbone of a long-dead bokor. The smoke, pungent and acrid and potent enough to drop flying insects in the small hut, shrouded his head and hung low, no breeze to stir it as the power of it suffused his mouth and nose and lungs, the drogue bringing to him the state called
pensée fraîche,
cool thought.

Boukman had been there many times, wreathed in the magic smoke that allowed him to focus his energies so that he could use the permissions granted him by the loa who rode him. When he was properly prepared, when he was in accord with all ways, he could, albeit in a smaller manner, go forth like the loa themselves and find his own horse, could mount it and ride.

Such trips were hard—they took much from him—but they offered great gains, as well.

The patterns of manic geometry strobed across his vision, overlaying the inside of the hut with intricate grids—lines, whorls, the structure of everything made into blueprints designed by the gods, the order of things to the smallest detail, expanded large enough to behold.

Colors sparked along the periphery of his vision, flashes of primary red or blue or even black light, which was not the same as darkness.

Almost there . . .

The sense of weightlessness came over him; his body grew light, lighter than a feather, and it became less than a wisp, less than the smoke around him. He became
âme,
spirit, and was able to rise, up, through the smoky air, through the thatched room, up, up, above the trees and into the sky . . .

It took effort to keep himself focused. A lesser mage who took the sacred smoke might, as the smoke itself did, dissipate, lose himself, and leave nothing but a fleshy shell behind as he achieved the air, scattering to the winds like dust, never to return. In such a case, his body would breathe; its heart would beat; as long as somebody fed it and cared for it, it would live, but there would be no one home. It would be prey to wandering loa, or some bokor like Boukman, who had the power to stay collected and to move with intent.

Boukman floated above the jungle. He listened and he looked, and there, miles away, was a slender thread of white light, shining up from the forest like a thin beam, reaching to Heaven . . .

Boukman moved toward the thread. He flew faster than a bird until he arrived at the light, and then he rode it down, like a man sliding along a pole, shooting toward the ground and the source of that light, faster and faster, so that when he arrived he would be unstoppable . . .

Indy was talking to Marie as they took a break. Ahead, the trail was narrowing, and soon it would become too small for a man to walk, Batiste had told them. They needed to drink water, for the work of cutting their way through a jungle was about to begin.

Marie smiled at Indy. “Did the Boy Scouts have a vine-slashing merit badge?”

He grinned at her in return. “Not as such. Not a lot of vines in Utah, though we did whack at sagebrush and cactus now and then.”

Her smiled vanished. Her eyes rolled back, showing the whites, and she moaned. She toppled backward off the stump upon which they were perched.

Indy grabbed her as she fell. She felt like rubber under his hands, as if her bones had vanished. “Marie!”

Batiste heard Indy yell. He ran and helped Indy lower her.

“What is it?”

Batiste shook his head, said, “What happened?”

“Nothing! I mean, she was talking and she just moaned and fell over!”

“She is being ridden,” Batiste said.

“By whom?”

Batiste shook his head. “I don’t know. The loa do not usually ride those with power unless they are invited. I have never seen this happen to her.”

“What can we do?”

“There is nothing we can do. Watch her. Protect her body.”

Indy stared at Marie. Her eyelids were partially open, but only the white was showing underneath her pupils.

Marie sat up. She looked around, not comprehending at first, Boukman knew, then she saw him.

“Bokor Boukman,” she said.

Her voice was strong, no fear in it. That was good, he admired that. Of course, some of his blood, much thinned, flowed in her, so it was not altogether unexpected. She was a mambo, and her thread to Heaven, while white, was thicker than many much more experienced.

She was a beautiful child. Her mother had been likewise a beauty. Unfortunately, her mother had also been a mambo of some power who had resisted him, and it had been with regret that he’d had to eliminate her. It was always a waste to destroy beauty, but sometimes it had to be done.

Marie had even features, smooth skin, thick and lovely hair. Very much a woman in her shape. In the flesh, he would be pleased to touch her, to feel the supple muscles and skin, but here in this realm, they were
âme,
and such sensations were pale compared with the real world. A pity.

Well, that could be remedied later.

He saw her understand what had happened.

“You are very powerful, Oncle Grand,” she said. “More than I knew.”

He shrugged. “More than anybody knows,” he said. “You have grown since last I saw you. Now tell me, what of these
blan
with whom you travel? Why are they here?”

She said nothing, only watched him.

He smiled. Ah. Brave, the little one was. “Must I compel you?”

He saw her jaw muscles flex and her eyes narrow. She spoke a short phrase, low so that he could not hear, but he saw her lips move and knew it was a spell of power she invoked. A glowing shield began to form about her, like green glass with the sunlight glinting from it.

Boukman laughed. He pointed his right hand’s fingers skyward and closed them into a fist.

Marie’s shield made a noise like a nail being pried from wet wood, and vanished. There came a whiff of brimstone burning. “Child, child, you have heart, but where is your mind? You cannot resist me.”

“I can try.”

He laughed again. Such spirit was to be admired. She knew she had no chance against him, none, but even so she stood defiant. Just as her mother had. He liked her for that. Not that liking her would slow what he was going to do, of course.

He opened his fist, waved both hands, said a Word of Power granted him by The Little Girl that was halfway between a hiss and a curse.

Her eyes went wide as she felt the grip of giant, invisible hands. They pulled her arms up, so they jutted straight out from her body, pulled her feet apart so that her legs were spread shoulder-width apart, and lifted her into the air, a foot, two feet, three . . .

She struggled against the geas, but to no avail. She was a fly in ice, unable to move more than a shiver.

He walked to where she floated and gestured. She settled back to the earth, and at more than six and a half feet tall, Boukman looked down at her. “My
zombis
are in the jungle. I can keep you here, away from your body and have them kill the white men, you know I can. Tell me.”

“No. You could have killed us before now, if that was your wish. That you have not? Means you do not wish it. The gods might frown upon it.”

He shook his head. Ah, smart, too. Certainly he had uses for women with beauty, power, and cleverness. She would be too strong to be a
zombi,
but there were other ways to serve.

“Tell me. I can make you suffer.”

She tried to shrug, couldn’t quite manage it.

“They came here for something,” he prompted. “It concerns me, I know this. A thing of power. Hidden somehow, from my sight.”

“And if you kill them, you will certainly never find it.”

“You think not? My servants are tireless. They can search forever.”

“It might take them forever to find it. You don’t have that long, Uncle. If it was open to your gaze, you would have known about it and uncovered it long ago.”

He shook his head. Too smart for her own good.

He reached out, stroked the side of her face with the tip of his forefinger.

Smoke rose from the line he traced across her cheek.

She swallowed her yelp of pain. It came out no more than a grunt.

“Very well, my little niece. You are right—the gods are not ready for me to know, so I will allow your
imen blan
to live another day. They will lead me to that which I must have. They will die when I need them to die.”

“I will warn them against you,” she said.

“It would not do any good,
ma petite,
they are white men, they have no power, and yours is not sufficient to protect them. Besides, you won’t warn them.”

“I will!”

“No, you will not. Because you will not remember any of this. Go back to your self, child. And awaken in wonder as to where you have been . . .”

He gestured at her, spoke another Word.

Her eyes grew wide.

Boukman reached out, took hold of her thread leading skyward, and pulled. His spectral body flew up like the ghost of a monkey ascending to Heaven.

More and more interesting, this. He had not been so intrigued in a score of years, he decided. Perhaps not in two score.

As he flew above the jungle, his
âme
smiled to itself again.

He would return to his body. And there would be those others in the jungle with whom he must deal. Perhaps there was something to be gained from them, as well. Every small bit gathered was useful.

Marie took a shuddering and deep breath, sat up, and her pupils rolled down, to behold Indy.

He held one hand behind her back, steadying her. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“What happened? Where’d you go?”

Behind him, Mac leaned in, along with Batiste.

She shook her head slowly. “I—I don’t remember,” she said.

Batiste said something in that soft and smooth language of his.

Indy caught but one word of it: “Boukman?”