Night Songs (33 page)

    "But whatever it is, Lilla is lost to us. We can't go to her for explanations. She just can't help us anymore."

    "She's right," Colin said, crushing one cigarette beneath his sole while lighting another. "And we don't know enough. If we're going to get out of this, we have to know more. Jesus, we've got to know these new rules."

    "And we have to tell the others," Garve reminded him, and looked angrily at the dead telephone. Hugh only shook his head sadly.

    Colin strode to the desk and leaned over it, glaring. "What is wrong with you now, for God's sake?"

    Hugh met his gaze with a glare of his own. "You're talking about Lilla being crazy, but have you been listening to yourself lately? Jesus Christ, Colin, I mean… really! Have you heard what you've been saying?"

    He forced himself not to reach over and grab the doctor by the throat. "Look, Hugh, not one hour ago you were telling Peg about what happened with us and Tess. By God, you sure as hell believed then. What the hell happened?"

    "Your so-called explanation," Montgomery said simply. "It's fantastic."

    "Literally," Colin said. "You got a better one?"

    "Give me time."

    "Well, how much time do you think we have?"

    The plywood shuddered, the venetian blinds on the outside clattering like musket fire.

    Colin pointed toward the door. "The storm is starting to push in the tide. If we don't do something soon, we're going to be wading hip-deep in the damn ocean."

    Hugh rubbed his eyes, pushed a hand across his lips. "You accept it all so easily."

    "No," Colin assured him, "it isn't easy at all. But I don't have to meet more than one Tess Mayfair, or hear Lilla with Gran's voice, or see another demonstration like we did in the cell before I decide that evil isn't just another word in the dictionary. I'm a grown man, Hugh, but I'm scared shitless because there's a damn nightmare out there, and it ain't going away just because I say it isn't real."

    The ceiling lights dimmed, grew bright again, and Garve stood and reached for his hat.

    "Where are you going?" Hugh asked fearfully.

    "If the phones don't work, I have to find out who's left in this place on my own, right? In the car."

    "Crazy," the doctor whispered. He took hold of the ends of his handlebar mustache and begin to twist them, muttering to himself, sighing, jumping when something slammed into the plywood.

    Garve left without a word, and Peg watched as he slid into the patrol car. He fussed with the sun visor, reached into the glove compartment, and stopped moving. She held her breath and waited, staring, until he left the car and returned to the office. He said nothing. He only threw a crumpled, soiled file card onto the desk. Colin frowned and smoothed it open.

    "My God!"

    Peg looked a question.

    "This is a fingerprint card, from Flocks." He looked to Garve. "Is this what El went for?"

    Garve nodded.

    "Well, what?" Hugh demanded. He snatched the card away instead of waiting for an answer, and examined it. "Jesus. It's Gran's fingerprints," he said to Peg. "It was Gran's fingerprints on Warren's wallet."

    "That son of a bitchin' old man," Garve said intensely. "That goddamned old man." He set himself in front of Peg, and she could barely meet his gaze. Colin wanted to intervene, but he waited instead. "You were closer to that family than any of us," the chief said tonelessly. "Can you help? Did Lilla ever tell you anything about Gran?"

    She shrugged weakly. "I don't know. Not much. He… he wasn't from Haiti or any place like that. He was from one of the smaller islands, the Caicos, I think they were. Lilla told me once they're somewhere north of Haiti." She pursed her lips. "Haiti. Lord, you don't suppose this has anything to do with voodoo or something like that? It couldn't, right? I mean, it just couldn't." No one responded. Her voice lowered. "He had to leave there in a hurry, as I understand. A big hurry."

    "Yes," Colin said, looking toward the cells. "When Lilla came to the cottage, she said something about him having to leave where he was. She said he did things wrong, and claimed they weren't wrong at all."

    "Maybe he was a dissident," she said, looking at Hugh to be sure he was listening. "Or a blasphemer, something terrible like that. Voodoo's a religion, you should know that, and every religion has a few grumblers who think it's being done all wrong. Gran might have been one of them, and when he came here and didn't get rich right away… well, it's just like you said, Col. He got angry for all the wrong reasons."

    "Great," Garve said. "Then he's still alive."

    "No," Colin contradicted. "At least I don't think so. But he's still around, and he's using Lilla to help him."

    "But how?" The chief grabbed at his hat and holster. His frustration was running high. "Jesus Christ, how?"

    "Hattie Mills," Peg said then.

    Garve turned and frowned. "What?"

    "Hattie Mills, Garve. Hattie, for heaven's sake. We need to know more, and maybe she can help us. Good Lord, we've all gotten enough lectures from her about this god and that beast and what all the hell else. If anybody knows something about what's going on, she certainly has to."

    "I saw Tess shot," Doc said helplessly, more to himself than Colin. "Shot twice, run over, she fell over a cliff." Still leaning against the desk, he took off his glasses and lay them on the blotter. One finger pushed them around until he could poke at the front of the lenses. "She's dead."

    "She is," Colin said gently.

    "Then we can't kill her again, can we?" He looked up and blinked. "My God, Colin, do you hear what I'm saying? That Gran has hold of the dead, and he's making them-"

    "I hear you. And I can hear me, too. Don't you think I'm wondering if
I've
lost my mind? But 
I
know what hate can do to a man. I know."

    Though no one said a word, there was no silence. The wind had taken their voices and set them screaming.

    Garve strapped on his gunbelt and pulled a box of cartridges from a drawer. He shoved it awkwardly into his pants pocket, and unsnapped the holster's flap. A hitch at his belt and he started for the door. "I better get moving."

    "The Run," Peg said then.

    He paused, staring.

    "If you do find anyone, have them go to the Clipper Run."

    "Right," Colin agreed. "It's bigger than this place, and it has fewer windows. If it comes to that we can… we can hold out until the storm's over." He grabbed for his jacket and pulled it on. "I'll get Peg and Matt over there now, then Doc and I will see what Hattie can do for us."

    Without asking permission, he went to the gun cabinet and pulled down a rifle, turned and looked at Hugh. The doctor pushed himself wearily to his feet and retrieved his glasses. He blew on the lenses, examined them, put them on. Then he stroked his mustache and looked around slowly. When he saw Colin waiting, he nodded, and Colin tossed him the weapon and a cartridge box. Then he turned around and took a shotgun for himself.

    "It didn't work on Tess," Hugh whispered.

    "Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to spit in her eye," Colin said, and put his arm around Peg's shoulder. Garve left a moment later, and Matthew roused himself from his protection. He glanced around sleepily, saw the guns, and cringed. Colin winked and explained where they were going, took his hand firmly and led him to the door. Peg followed Hugh, and closed the door behind them.

    The street was still fairly dry, but a needled spray in the driven air clung to them as soon as they gathered on the sidewalk. The wind bent them over, made talking impossible, and the glow over the island had shifted from uncertain daylight to a faint and soiled gold-gray. They had just reached the corner when the amber traffic signal over the intersection snapped loose from its guy wires and crashed to the blacktop in a scattering of glass and metal and a palsied whirl of colorless sparks. The wires lashed overhead, slapping against the road until they tangled against telephone poles, one curving until it fell into the Inn's parking lot to remain there, jumping.

    Though the temperature hadn't dropped more than a few degrees, Colin clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering. He hoped Peg and the boy were getting some measure of strength from the pressure of his arm, the squeeze of his hand, but he was unable to find much of it for himself. Had this been a perfectly normal day, with a perfectly normal autumn sky, televisions and radios playing, kids shouting in backyards and the boats out at their trawling, he would have ordered Hugh to lock him up until he could be transported to a state hospital on the mainland for prolonged and extensive observation. But the wind that caused his ears to ache, the here-and-gone slap of his shoes on the pavement, and the continuing afterimage of the fog-serpent coiling around Lilla's legs and waist, made him as afraid as he had been on the day he had thought he was going to die.

    And as far as he knew now, it had always been that way.

    He squinted and urged them on, noting as he ran that all the streets were deserted, no cars were at the curbs, and unless he was mistaken there wasn't a single lamp burning in the entire village. He didn't want to think about how many had left safely, and how many remained behind to fall under Gran's vengeance.

    The children in his classes-he bit his cheek hard to prevent himself from seeing them all like Tess Mayfair.

    He glanced over his shoulder; the patrol car was heading for the marina, and ripples of muddy water coursed across the Inn's parking lot to lap at the raised curbing. They rounded the hedge and pounded up the walk to the Clipper Run's entrance. The banner under the eaves had torn free at one corner and it lashed at them as they slammed through and shut the door behind them. Hugh fumbled for a moment, thinking he could lock it, then gave up with a frustrated curse and followed the others out of the foyer.

    The dining room was dark, silent, and the wind thankfully muffled to a vague memory of moaning. The office door was open, a light beyond, and they moved toward it cautiously, keeping close to the bar while they strained to hear beyond the rasp of their own breathing. Colin noticed immediately there were no signs of the party that was scheduled to begin in less than two hours-no bunting, no special cloths on the tables, no one dusting or cleaning or behind the bar preparing glasses. A gust punched at the roof, and a streamer of dust twisted down from the ceiling.

    Peg pushed a reluctant Matt behind her when they reached the far end of the curved bar, and reached out to brush a finger across Colin's back as he neared the office threshold.

    Then they were in the light, and Cameron was startled out of his seat as they scattered immediately and soundlessly to the nearest chairs. The indignant protest already halfway out of his mouth died when he saw the looks on their faces, the weapons in their hands, the fact that none of them had a spot of color on their cheeks despite the harsh wind. When Colin reached for the telephone, however, he said, "It doesn't work, and what's going on here? You guys hunting wild gulls or something?"

    "El Nichols is missing," Colin said, ignoring the sarcasm and sitting heavily on the edge of the desk. "Your friend Vincent is dead and his body's gone, and Tess Mayfair is dead and she's walking around."

    Cameron started to laugh, but when he heard how shrill he sounded he coughed himself silent and retook his seat. "You're going to have to do better than that, Ross. I'm not one of your kids, y'know. I don't believe in fairies. And what are you talking about, Vincent's dead? Lombard just went out to find him, for God's sake."

    "If you don't like that, then try this-Gran D'Grou is doing his best to wipe out the island."

    "As I recall," Cameron said, "the old fart's long dead and buried."

    "Yeah. I know."

    Before the man could answer, Colin walked over to Peg and kissed her on the cheek. "You going to be all right?"

    "Yes," she said. Then smiled. "No, I don't think so."

    "Good. I'll assume that means you won't try anything stupid while Hugh and I are gone."

    "Not as stupid as you, going out there again."

    "Would somebody mind explaining all this?" Cameron demanded.

    "Mr. Ross?"

    He knelt beside Matt, put a hand on his arm.

    The boy's eyes were bloodshot, and his skin was cold. "Can I go with you? I know the library real well. I go there all the time."

    "I'm sorry, pal, but you can't."

    "Hey, Ross," Cameron said loudly, "would you
mind?"
He glared then as Montgomery walked over to his private bar, poured himself a glass of his best bourbon, drank it without taking a breath, and smacked his lips loudly. "Hey, damn it!"

    Hugh pushed his glasses up, poured himself another and offered it to Cameron. Cameron glowered. "You better have a good reason for all this spy stuff and bullshit, pal. You hear me, Ross? You better have a good reason for this."

    Colin ignored him. "Matt, you and your mother stay here with Mr. Cameron. You find out some way to lock that front door, check the back, the kitchen windows, things like that. You musn't let anyone in here, you understand? No one but me or Doc or someone you're sure is… is all right."

    Matt closed his eyes slowly, opened them again and attempted a smile. "Somebody who isn't dead, you mean." When Colin leaned back in surprise, the boy shrugged. "I wasn't always sleeping." Colin wanted to hug him, swallowed and did. The wind vanished for that moment, until he released the boy and stood again.

    A jerk of his thumb over his shoulder toward Cameron. "Tell him, Peg," he said. "And for his sake, he'd better believe you by the time we get back."