One Blood (31 page)

Don’t go in there.

A man groaned.

Turn around and call security.

Monica’s curiosity overcame her fear and she pulled the door open a crack.

“
Goddamn that hurts,” the man said. “How many times I gotta say it? I can’t fuckin’ help yuh!”

“
For some reason, Snake,” a woman replied. “I just don’t believe you.”

Monica pulled the door open and the light from the hallway illuminated the characters within. Her John Doe was nowhere in sight. Instead, a bearded, silver-haired white man in a rumpled suit lay on the floor in a tangle of wires. It took her a moment to realize he was tied up.

Monica stood transfixed in the doorway. Seated directly across from him was a familiar-looking white woman. She held a silver handgun in her left hand. “I don’t think you realize the position that you’re in,” she said. “You think I’m here to talk? I’m through talking.”

“
I can’t tell yuh nothing, Coral, because I don’t know nothing.”

“
Well in that case.” Coral extended her arm and pulled the trigger. The gun barely made any noise on account of the silencer attached to the barrel.

Monica gasped as the man called Snake slumped over, a crimson stain spreading through the sleeve of his jacket. Coral whipped her head around, staring Monica in the face.

“
Who the hell are you?” she demanded.

“
I’m s-sorry,” Monica stammered. “I’m just a nurse. Please don’t kill me!”

“
Get in here and shut that door.”

Monica froze.

“
Shut the goddamned door!” the crazy woman yelled.

Monica stepped inside the room, allowing the door to close behind her. Snake groaned again. He wasn’t dead.

Coral returned her attention to Snake. His teeth were bared, giving him the appearance of a werewolf.

“
What are you going to do now, tough guy?” Coral said to him.

“
Gonna kill yuh. Cunt bitch.” He grunted with a ferocious grin. “Just like I killed yuh son. Then I’m gonna kill yuh daughter. And Randy’s gonna get blamed for the whole thing.”

“
You shut up! Just shut the fuck up!”

“
Truth hurts, don’t it?”

Coral stood. Tears streamed down her pale cheeks. “Why? Why did you do it?”

Snake looked at Monica for the first time. “You should get out of here and call security, don’t yuh think?”

“
Don’t even think about it,” Coral admonished, swinging the gun in her direction.

Monica’s knees went weak. It took everything in her not to topple over. “Do you have kids?” Coral asked.

“
Yes,” Monica replied shakily. “I got twins. A boy and a girl.”

“
What are their names?”

“
Lashonda an’ Taykwon.” Monica wondered if she’d ever see them again.

“
Nice names. I’ve got a boy and girl, too. Kristopher and Karen.”

Snake looked at them like they’d lost their minds.

Coral trained the gun on Snake once again. “He killed my son. He killed Kristopher. What would you do if someone hurt your kids?”

Kill them,
Monica thought.

The woman must have read her mind because she said, “I knew you’d understand.”

Monica stopped shaking.

“
Well, Snake, it seems as if we are in agreement here. I’ll give you one last chance to tell me why you did it. Otherwise, I’m going to play target practice with your face.”

Snake struggled mightily to escape his bonds, but to no avail. He looked up at both of them in exasperation. “I was just following orders, yuh know?”

Coral took two steps toward him. “Well I’ve got an order for you to follow. Go to hell.” The bullet tore into Snake’s chest.

Monica and Coral stared at each other for a long time. Finally, Coral said, “I’ve got to save my daughter. All I’m asking for is a thirty-minute head start. I don’t care what you tell the authorities after that.”

Monica looked down at Snake. “I’ll give you an hour.”

* * * * *

Lake City, LA

“
I want everybody out of this room!” Dr. Patricia Lyles screamed. Her patient was dying and now was not the time for casual bystanders.

Dr. Lyles had just finished calling the spousal abuse hotline on behalf of a battered woman when the first explosion shook the floor around the nurse’s station. She and several nurses ran through the double doors separating the ER from its waiting room.

The smell hit her first—a pungent bouquet of charred flesh, gasoline, and roasting metal. She covered her mouth and nose; the nurses did the same. After her nose adjusted she surveyed the extent of the damage.

Her critical eyes missed nothing.

A burning three vehicle pile-up filled the ER waiting room with smoke. A skinny black kid lay against the wall with blood all over what was left of a yellow Nike t-shirt, just a few feet away from a man wearing one of the waiting room chairs around his fractured neck like an oversized necklace. Another man was on fire from the waist up, lying half in and half out the wrecked automatic doors separating the ER waiting room from the rest of the world. She didn’t see the fourth man, the patient who was now, some two hours later, dying in her Emergency Room, until she had put the burning man out with a fire extinguisher. From the look of things, her patient had been ejected from one of the black sedans. He’d landed in a spray of shattered glass just outside the waiting room.

She and her team had just pulled him clear of the wreckage when a second explosion rocked the hospital. The red ER awning came crashing down, a large chunk of metal just narrowly missing her.

She dusted herself off and surveyed the scene outside. There was even more carnage in the parking lot. Two paramedics lay motionless on the ground, their skulls popped like grapes, probably by one of the smoldering cars to her right. Her gorge trembled and she vomited her breakfast all over the pavement like a first-year med student during cadaver lab.

Once the nausea passed, she felt better, until she saw the emaciated teenage girl rocking back and forth on the pavement just a few feet away from the paramedics. Patricia was about to see if the girl was all right when a police cruiser came tearing into the parking lot. Before Patricia could intervene, the cops grabbed the girl and put her in the back of the cruiser. As Patricia dizzily made her way over to the vehicle, the driver turned the car around, hit the siren, and bolted out of there like he was riding on a lightning bolt.

Another officer appeared out of nowhere. “You in charge here?” he asked.

She nodded.

“
I need you to clear this area of non-police personnel immediately.”

“
What’s happening, Officer?”

“
Just clear the area, please.”

“
But—”

“
I’m not going to repeat myself again,” the officer interrupted while pulling out his service pistol.

He escorted her back to the ER. The teenager in the tattered, yellow Nike t-shirt had regained consciousness and was sitting against the far wall. The officer gestured to one of his colleagues and the kid was handcuffed and loaded into another police cruiser.

“
Excuse me, Sir,” Patricia interjected. “That boy needs medical attention.”

The officer ignored her plea. “Where is the hospital security room?”

She sent him on his way, wondering what the hell was going on in Lake City today.

Patricia went back to check on the man who’d been ejected from his car. But not before placing a call her brother-in-law over at NBC Channel 9 News.

Her trauma team had stabilized the patient, but they needed to get him into surgery. As she checked his vitals, he looked up at her with glazed eyes. “Did Lincoln call?”

“
Don’t worry about that now.”

“
Tell him…” the patient continued urgently, “tell him that it…wasn’t worth…it.”

The patient’s pressure dropped; he was going into cardiac arrest. Patricia motioned for the defibrillator. She shocked him twice and his heartbeat came back on line.

Close call.

The nurse backed away from the patient, eyes wide. “Um, Dr. Lyles...” She pointed. The patient’s face contorted as thick ropes of blood descended from his nose and ears.

Patricia bent down to check his breathing. A clicking noise emanated from his throat. She leaned in further.

The patient grabbed her face with both hands and whispered, “Can you seeeeeeee?”

She stared paralyzed into his contorted face. Patricia’s eyes dilated as images played before her.

She saw an enormous live oak tree in front of a plantation home. A fair-skinned black man hung from one of its many curved limbs. An older white man sat at the base of the tree with a gun to his temple. A young teenage girl lay crumpled a few feet away in the shade of an enormous house. Her water had just broken.

A car pulled up and a silver-haired man carried the body of a lanky, blond-haired teenager into the home. The mother burst into tears. The father averted his eyes and looked toward the tree. A young blond-haired girl peeked out from behind her father’s legs with a look of confusion on her face. Patricia was riding shotgun in a fast moving vehicle. The patient was driving. She looked through the windshield and saw they were entering the hospital parking lot. A teenage girl appeared in front of the car. He was going to run her down…

“
Doctor Lyles!”

Patricia’s eyelids fluttered. She looked around in a daze. Her patient had flatlined. She tried to resuscitate him, but it was too late. Time of death, 12:11 p.m.

The door burst open and a colleague poked his head in.

“
Hey, there you are. We’ve got a situation out here.”

“
What’s going on?” Patricia asked, composing herself.

“
It’s the hurricane,” he started. “It’s shifted this way. We’re gonna to need all hands on deck and the Lord’s good grace, because ready or not, Isaac is coming.”

Chapter Fifty-Four

39 years earlier

1963

New Orleans, LA

“
You really think this is a good idea?” Malcolm whispered to his brother Ronnie as they made their way through the bustling house in the Magnolia Projects.

“
These people are lost,” Ronnie replied. “They’re damned near Catholic with all these gods they pray to. They need to hear the teachings of The Honorable Elijah Mohammed as much as anyone. Besides, I’m hungry, and these ceremonies are serious chow throw downs.”

“
You’re always hungry,” Malcolm quipped, checking out his surroundings. The walls were adorned with African warrior masks, the bookshelves lined with foreign titles. The air heavily perfumed with musky incense. Everyone wore white from head to toe, and Malcolm felt woefully out of place in his black suit, starched white shirt, and bowtie, even though no one seemed to notice or care about his attire.

Malcolm had to admire Ronnie’s commitment to the cause. Who else but his brother would dare recruit prospective converts to the Nation of Islam at a Voodoo ceremony?

Malcolm had always been intrigued with Voodoo. When he was a child, his older brother Duke told him the story of the Haitian Revolution—how slaves had organized and revolted, ultimately defeating both the French and British in a war that took over 12 years and cost hundred’s of thousands of lives. The Revolution began with the Bois Caïman ceremony, where the various factions of slaves solemnized their pact in a voodoo ritual Duke said began with animal sacrifice and concluded with a huge storm—as if the Voodoo deities were roaring their support for war. Though Malcolm’s rational mind knew it was impossible for a human being to control or communicate with the dead, a part of him wanted it to be true. He had often longed to be so powerful no white devil would ever threaten his family or loved ones again.

After they’d each devoured two plates of fried chicken, potato salad, and green beans, they headed outside toward the sound of the drums. The first thing Malcolm noticed was the tree, an enormous live oak that seemed to suck up all the space around it. The trunk, covered with intricate designs and patterns, created mostly in chalk. The drummers sat in a semicircle around the tree, their palms a blur in the moonlight. The sound seemed to emanate from the tree itself.

Positioned in front of the drummers were four women and two men. Each of them swayed and vibrated at their own pace, some in rhythm, and others just off the beat. They moved as if they were completely unaware of the other dancers, or the group of people watching. Malcolm turned to ask Ronnie if he knew what was going on, but Ronnie had headed back into the kitchen to talk to the young man who’d invited them here.

Bearing witness to a voodoo ceremony for the first time, Malcolm realized that the public really had it all wrong. This just seemed like a nice gathering of folks. There were no animals being slaughtered in sacrifice to some pagan deity, no witchdoctors turning random people into zombies; only food, drums, dancing, and that enormous tree.