Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead (30 page)

Boukman laughed. “Plausible story.”

Indy figured this was as good a time as any. He snatched his revolver out of his holster, thrust it toward Boukman, indexing the whole gun against the man’s form, no time to line up the sights, he’d just shoot until he hit him—

Boukman waved his hand as if he were shooing flies.

—Indy’s gun flared into a searing heat, as if it had suddenly turned into molten steel. He couldn’t hold on to it—the gun fell—

Indy squatted and reached for the gun again—okay, it would burn, but—

Boukman laughed. “Oh, no, Dr. Jones. That won’t do!”

—the gun shimmered, shivered, elongated, and in a moment transformed itself into a large, tongue-flickering, hissing, undulating—

—
snake—!

Indy recoiled.

Boukman laughed again.

Indy had his whip. If he moved fast enough—

“Bide a moment—!” Boukman said. “If you do anything else stupid, your friend truly
will
die. Bring him!”

Boukman stared past Indy. Indy turned, to see Mac being dragged in their direction by a trio of Boukman’s slaves.

Ah, damn—!

Mac wasn’t making it easy for them, but he was outmatched.

Apparently Dame Fortune had shut off the good-luck tap.

Indy turned back to face Boukman.

“I have been around a long time, Dr. Jones. A very long time. I am adept in the ways of deception and deceit. I am not so easily fooled. You are mine now, and I will have the talisman.”

Indy waited until Mac arrived. The
zombis
—magic or chemical, he couldn’t tell—released Mac. He gave Indy a quick look, and Indy knew what he was thinking—he still had his little pistol.

“Don’t bother,” Indy said. “Gun isn’t gonna do it.”

Boukman laughed again, a sound that already grated on Indy’s nerves.

“The talisman!”

“You
see
it anywhere, Sparky?” Indy said.

Boukman frowned. “Where is it?”

“It’s in a safe place. Here’s the deal—you let Marie go, we’ll take you to where it is.”

Boukman shook his head. “I can get the information from you.”

“Maybe.”

“Oh, no ‘maybe’ to it. A sip of my potion, and you will tell me everything I want to know, from your first memories of crawling to this very moment. But . . . I would have to send one of my slaves to go and collect some of the potion, which is not nearby. I would rather not wait.”

“Let Marie go, I’ll take you there right now. You’ll have what you want in less than an hour.”

Boukman appeared to consider this. After a moment, he smiled and said, “Very well. She means nothing to me.” He said something to the three who’d brought Mac, in a language Indy didn’t know. One of them went and stood Marie up, untied her bonds, then followed her to where Indy stood.

“You okay?”

She rubbed at her wrist. “I am okay.”

“We’re doing a swap,” Indy said. “You for the pearl. He lets you go, we take him to where we hid it.”

“You cannot trust him, Indy!”

“Yeah, well, there’s not a lot of choice here.”

“No!”

Indy knew she was right, but what he’d said was true: There weren’t any good choices. A small chance was better than none. Not that he trusted Boukman as far as he could throw him one-handed.

Boukman said, “So,
petite
Marie, you are free to leave.”

“Indy, he can’t get the talisman—”

“Go on, Marie. Take off.”

“You can’t—”

“Just go, okay?”

She nodded. “All right.”

She turned and walked toward the jungle.

“Once she’s got a good head start,” Indy said, “we’ll take you to the pearl.”

“I expect no less.”

Boukman grinned yet again. How child-like these
imen blan
were! Did they really believe they could walk in here and force such a bargain on him? That he would just roll over like an old dog wishing to have its belly scratched?

His slaves would collect little Marie before she got five minutes away—Boukman needed her for the sacrifice, he could not just let her go. Once he had the talisman, the rituals would proceed. Within a few hours, he would be the most powerful bokor who had ever lived.

It was a thought to savor, like a fine meal or a vintage liquor. It was why he had let the
imen blan
live rather than just killing them and raising them to his bidding. For the pleasure of it.

After a few moments, Boukman said, “Shall we go?”

The one Marie had called Indy nodded. “Yes.”

THIRTY-FIVE

W
ITH A DOZEN
assorted
zombis
carrying torches to light their way, Indy and Mac led Boukman to where they had hidden the artifact. They took their time, did it in as roundabout a way as they could, stalling for time. Which was pretty much all the plan they had. At least Marie could get away . . .

The priest was no fool. After nearly an hour of wandering, he said, “Enough of this. Either you take me directly to the talisman or I will kill one of you. If the other one continues to drag his feet, I will kill him, as well.”

“That won’t help you find it,” Indy said.

“Oh, but it will—for you see, you won’t
stay
dead. And while the True Risen do not have air to breathe and thus voices to speak, they obey my commands to the letter. Dead or alive, you will lead me to that which I seek. It matters not to me which it is,
comprenez?”

Indy blew out a sigh. Yeah. He understood.

So, an hour and a half after they left the sisal plantation, they arrived at the hollow log where they had stashed the backpack earlier. The backpack—

—was
gone!

Indy was certain this was the right spot—he had marked the log with his machete, and there was the cut, right there—

“My patience is no more, Dr. Jones.”

“It was here, I swear. Look, you can see the footprints!”

Boukman waved at one of the zombies, who held his torch down low. Sure enough, there were footprints in the soft earth.

Too many footprints.

Another of the
zombis
came over and stood in front of Boukman. “What?”

The
zombi
turned and shuffled away.

Boukman and the others followed.

A few yards away in the darkness, a cloud of flies buzzed around something on the ground . . .

Indy saw the two bodies there. One was a local, dark-skinned, and Indy recognized him as the crippled
zombi
who had followed them from the sea. The other man was Japanese.

Boukman said, “So. The yellow men were here. They found your hiding spot. They have what I want.”

He spoke rapidly to the dozen slaves with them. They scattered and melted into the forest.

“Back to the plantation,” Boukman said. “My slaves will find the little men from Japan and capture them.”

“If it is all the same to you, we’ll just be on our way,” Mac said.

“No, I think not. Our bargain was for you to deliver the talisman. Until I have it, you will stay with me.”

“Two of us, one of you,” Mac said. “And I have
this!”

Mac pulled his little Italian pistol from his pocket.

Boukman laughed.

“How the bloody hell did he
do
that?” Mac asked. He was staring at his hand, looking for blisters.

The three of them walked through the jungle, Boukman in the lead, carrying a bright, flaming torch.

“I don’t know,” Indy said. “Some kind of illusion. Tactile hallucination, maybe. He did it to me earlier, and I would have expected to find third-degree burns on my fingers, but there’s not a mark on them. And it got worse when I tried to pick up the gun.”

“Worse? How?”

“Never mind.”

“We could just run.”

“In the dark? Not a good idea. Place is full of bogs, probably quicksand, and the jungle is crawling with
zombis.
If he catches the Japs and gets the pearl, maybe he’ll let us go.”

“You think so?”

Indy shook his head. “I wouldn’t bet on it. But at least there we can see what we’re doing. Maybe Marie can get help at the village. Bunch of men with guns could come back to rescue us.”

Mac gave him a look.

“Well, it
could
happen. We’ll just have to wait for our chance.”

“I don’t fancy that idea much.”

“Me, neither. But I’m not seeing a lot of options here. If Boukman can make us think our guns are too hot to touch, what else can he do to our minds? We try to run, he could make us think we’re getting away clear and direct us off a cliff.”

Mac didn’t have anything to say about that.

THIRTY-SIX

Y
AMADA GAVE
a good account of himself, but in the end there were too many of them. His last soldier fired his rifle empty and went down; Gruber’s final man also fell, mortally wounded.

Yamada’s sword dug deeply into one of the things—sheared off an upraised arm that deflected the blade slightly so that it sank into a collarbone and got stuck. By the time he managed to wrench the sword loose, a pair of the things hit him from behind and bore him down. He struggled. No good.

The thing with the chopped-off arm seemed largely unaffected by its loss.

Not men. Once, yes, but not now. Evil things.
Gaki.
Had the formula done this? Or was it something else?

Gruber shot his pistol until it clicked dry, then tried to run, but he was tripped by one of them on the ground and caught.

They didn’t kill them, which surprised Yamada. Instead, the remaining half a dozen half dragged and pushed them along.

Being captured by these things had not figured into Yamada’s plans. He had a short knife in his boot, and they hadn’t noticed it. If worse came to worst, he could take his own life. Knowing that, he resolved to stay alive a little longer, to see if he might salvage something from the situation. Things were not good, but all was not yet lost.

“Where are they taking us?” Gruber asked. His voice was full of fear.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Yamada said. But he reasoned that it was not a place that he would have chosen to go on his own. Certainly not without his sword.

THIRTY-SEVEN

W
HEN THEY
got back to the clearing, Indy got a rude surprise:

“Marie!”

“Did you really think I would just let her go,
iman blan
? I have a need for her. You, too.”

“Indy!”

He started for her, but half a dozen
zombis
grabbed him and held him fast. He couldn’t break loose—

Marie said, “The talisman is too powerful for even you, Boukman! It will destroy you!”

“He doesn’t have it!” Indy yelled.

Marie stared at him.

“The Japs were on our trail again! They found it and took it!”

“Good!” Marie called back.

But it wasn’t so good. As the
zombis
were tying the three of them, binding their arms and legs, another group of the things emerged from the forest. They had a couple of captives, and they dragged them to stand in front of Boukman.

Indy looked at the two. One of ’em was Japanese, sure enough, but the other was fair-haired and light-skinned. A German.

“So nice of you to drop by,” Boukman said. “And with a gift for Boukman!”

A
zombi
took the backpack the German carried and handed it to Boukman. He opened the pack, removed the wooden box. Opened it, took out the wooden jar within, dropped the box onto the wet ground. He held the jar up in the torchlight and looked at it. “Finally!” he said. “Finally!”

Come on, Jones! Now is the time to come up with something brilliant—!

Now that he had the talisman, there was no rush. A few more minutes would not matter. Preparations needed to be made properly, patterns laid out, an avatar constructed. Bowls for the blood, the ceremonial knife must be razor-sharp, all must be done before the spirits were called upon, all must be perfect.

Boukman smiled. All would be.

Indy looked at the two new arrivals, his first chance to see them, even though they had been dogging him since they got to this island. Maybe even since they’d left Port-au-Prince. Tied up, same as he was, they weren’t a threat anymore. No, they were all trussed together and in the same boat now, and given the way things looked it would be sinking to the bottom pretty soon . . .

Indy said, “Marie? What’s next?”

She sighed. “Boukman will ready his rituals. Things must be done a certain way when you speak with loa or gods; an error could be fatal. He has been doing this a long time, he doesn’t make those kinds of errors. He wants the power invested in the pearl. Whoever put it there is in the Other Realm. It seems too strong to be any of the loa I know about. Could be an unknown one. Could be several combined their energy to store it in the pearl. Might be one of the Maldye—the evil gods. I cannot say.

“It does not matter. Boukman will offer a petition. He will render sacrifices.”

“What kind of sacrifice?” Mac asked.

Indy noticed that the German and the Japanese were listening as intently as he was.