One Blood (42 page)

The case also held six thirty-six caliber lead round ball bullets. Randy removed the bullets one at a time and lovingly placed each one into a sterling silver-lined chamber. The weapon had been the first piece of his enormous inheritance.

Randy placed the barrel into his mouth. It tasted like a billion bitter, black roses. Another tear snaked down his cheek.

Please forgive me.

Randy stilled his shaking hand and depressed the trigger.

* * * * *

Chapter Seventy-Five

Angola, LA

George Winey hung up the phone. He’d just learned the levees surrounding the prison were threatening to collapse.

What else can go wrong?

There were nearly five thousand inmates and another three hundred staff members who wouldn’t make it through the night if the levees broke. Plus, a dead inmate who, by all rights shouldn’t have been dead until Winey executed him.

George should have been relieved at not having to worry about the man formerly known as Panama X, but his indigestion told him things were far from settled. The rain pounded the pavement as he exited his office and headed toward the Treatment Center.

God, let me make it out of this one okay, and I promise to get out of this business next year.

Thirty years in corrections was enough.

Dr. Abe Johnson, the head of his medical staff, met him halfway to his destination.

“
Have you examined him?” George asked.

“
Preliminarily. We had to clean him up first.”

“
Fuck. No chance we can pass this one off as an accident?”

Abe looked at him in surprise. “Not if I’m the person filling out the report.”

That can easily be arranged
, George thought.

Abe glanced down at his notes. “The inmate’s face was bashed in pretty badly. His larynx was crushed. How did this happen?”

George ignored his question. “What’s your recommendation?”

The doctor hesitated.

“
Abe?”

“
Sorry, George. This isn’t your typical prison murder.”

“
No shit.”

“
No, I don’t think you understand. I don’t know how to tell you this, but here goes. It appears as if the inmate’s body is...”

“
Is what?” George barked impatiently. He didn’t have time to play twenty questions.

Abe took a deep breath. “His body is disintegrating.”

George surprised himself by laughing. “What the hell are you talking about, Abe?”

“
I know. I know. It sounds improbable—”

“
Improbable! That’s an understatement. Just level with me. And use small words, Goddamnit!”

They were just outside the entrance to the Treatment Center, standing in rain up to their ankles. Winey wondered if maybe he’d made a mistake by not evacuating the prison. God, this was bad.

“
You want simple, George? Go on in and see for yourself.”

George stormed into the infirmary and headed to the far wall where a cluster of nurses were still working. “What’s going on over here?” he demanded.

The frantic nurses looked up in unison, each with their hands extended, as if in offering. George looked at their hands. They were covered in dark, sooty substance that reminded him of ash.

“
What the hell is this?”

“
Exactly,” Abe replied, coming up behind him. “As we were wiping the blood off his face, his skin began crumbling. He’s as brittle as paper mâché.”

George looked up at Abe. “What did you just say?”

“
I said we were wiping—”

“
No, after,” George croaked. His saliva had evaporated.

“
What? The brittle part? I said he’s as brittle as paper…”

“
Mâché. Right.” George pushed a nurse out of the way and in one swift movement, plunged both of his hands into Panama X’s chest cavity. Looking around wildly he said, “This body is hollow!”

Abe’s eyes widened. “So if this isn’t him…then where…Oh my God.”

Exactly. If Panama X had escaped, God help them all.

As if in response to George’s thoughts, speakers throughout the prison complex blared distorted music. George stumbled over to the gun cabinet in a daze. A moment later he and several guards emerged into the rain, shotguns in hand, eyes wild. They made their way through the prison complex as Winey wondered–how the hell are we supposed to kill a ghost?

* * * * *

It was easy to deceive people who only believed in what they could see. Most people, barely leveraging ten percent of their mental capacity for any given task, could never fathom what the world would look like if they could double their output. These people only knew what a pulse could tell them through numb fingers. They didn’t know you smelled death coming long before you ever saw him. They didn’t know death was untouchable.

Panama X pondered these things as he watched the nurses’ fuss over what they believed to be his corpse. He was a little surprised at the commotion over this condemned man, until he realized the commotion was not for his life, but for their own. Still, their efforts would be for naught.

The teachings spoke of astral projection—of thrusting the spirit out of the body in a violent exhalation. Once accomplished, the body became a brittle shell that would decompose if the spirit did not return. Panama X had no intention of reclaiming that body. He was strong enough to subsist in his spiritual form for some time. And whenever he tired, he could always manifest more flesh, if needed.

Panama X realized he could feel the rain. Not like before with his hands out as trickles washed over him. He felt the rain from the inside of his spirit, understanding its purpose on that night. It buoyed him.

This storm was generations removed from the ancestors that drowned the world in forty days and forty nights, but it held the same intent. To the west, he could feel the power and presence of Hurricane Isaac, like him, a product of God’s wrath. Anyone who had ever survived a hurricane understood the fury of God more than most.

Everything was happening as Desiree Deveaux prophesized.

After defecting from Vietnam, Panama X and his small band of outlaws—the original Black Mob, found asylum in Salvador, Brazil. There, Panama X was indoctrinated into the Candomblé religion, his eventual gateway into Vodun. One day he learned the story of Zumbi, a Brazilian slave who escaped to create the so-called Republic of Palmares—a colony of over twenty thousand free blacks who fended off the Portuguese and the Dutch for nearly one hundred years.

Desiree impressed upon him that he would accomplish the same mission in his lifetime. And now on this night, nearly forty years later, Panama X was going to free every inmate in Louisiana.

Randy Lafitte’s death, combined with Isaac’s destruction, would throw the state into complete disarray. Panama X’s liberation army of freed prisoners would march from parish to parish until the entire state was his. They would take over the prisons, and then the Capitol. They would take out all telecommunications, cutting Louisiana off from the rest of the country. They would burn the banks and overwhelm the weakened military.

Panama X floated out of the Treatment Center, out into God. Just like the rain and Isaac, tonight he would also realize his purpose. Tonight his name would be spoken among the ranks of Zumbi, Boukman and Turner. Tonight, he would make the slaves of Angola believe in miracles.

* * * * *

Chapter Seventy-Six

Lake City, LA

Somewhere, Randy could hear his father laughing.

I’m in hell.

He opened his eyes slowly and saw the underside of his desk. After a moment’s confusion, a searing pain in the left side of his neck reminded him what he’d done.

I’m still alive!

He pressed his fingers against the back of his neck and felt the exit wound. It radiated with a sickly heat, but the blood flow seemed to have stopped. Randy looked to his right—the gun was still in his hand. It was some kind of miracle.

He heard the laughter again. The sound wasn’t in his head—it was coming from the safe. He got to his knees and with shaky hands he entered the combination. The safe opened and Randy saw his father’s Klan hood standing upright.

It stared at him and then spoke in his father’s roaring voice. “Givin’ up that easily, Boy? What the hell’s wrong with ya?”

“
It’s over, Dad. I can’t fix it.”

“
Whaddaya mean? You lied, killed, and stole to get here and now you just quittin’? I always knew you were too weak. Just like your goddamned mother!”

The disgust in his father’s voice made Randy look down in shame. “But I’m too late. What can I do now?”

“
The curse is real, Boy, and Karen will die unless you kill that nigger bastard.”

Lincoln Baker!

Randy’s thoughts were on fire. “Where can I find him?”

“
Join with me, Son. I will take you to him so you can reclaim your legacy.”

Yes. Randy could make up for his mistakes. He reached into the safe and retrieved the hood. Oblivious to the pain, he slipped it over his head. The shift of the hood connected with his neck, making an audible click.

It was a perfect fit.

* * * * *

Chapter Seventy-Seven

Lake City, LA

The rain commenced as soon as they pulled into Karen’s driveway. All throughout the neighborhood, Mexican laborers lugged gigantic plywood boards to cover the large, expensive bay windows of the Lake City affluent. The affluent were nowhere to be found; they had gotten out at the first sign of trouble.

Brandon wondered who was boarding up the Mexicans’ homes.

The Lafitte Mansion stood tall and pale under the rain’s burden. Brandon had never seen its equal. A sense of foreboding filled him, even as he marveled at the home of Louisiana’s Governor. He glanced at Karen, who’d fallen silent after her strange vocals outside the police station. She sat so still, he might have mistaken her for a corpse if not for the artery that pulsed in her temple.

“
So…we’re here, Karen.” Officer Jeff looked at the teenagers in his backseat.

Brandon looked back at him with fear and uncertainty. Karen made no movement at all.

“
Is she still—”

Brandon nodded.

“
Ya’ll sit tight,” Officer Jeff reassured them, “I’ll check things out.”

Brandon wanted to scream
no
, but Officer Jeff had already shut the car door and walked toward the house.

Officer Jeff jogged up the swooping staircase to try the front door. It was locked. He then walked around the side of the mansion and descended a small slope that ran to the canal’s edge and disappeared into the yacht’s docking area.

Brandon studied Karen. She looked weird underneath that black wig with those dark sunglasses. The shades were too big, the angles of her cheekbones too sharp. She used to be a beautiful girl with a bright future, but now she had become something dreadful.

“
Ya’ll keep a spare key or something?” Brandon asked.

“
No…key,” Karen spoke again in that inhuman voice.

“
Why didn’t you tell him that?”

Karen turned her head slowly toward Brandon and removed the sunglasses. Brandon swallowed hard. Foreign blue eyes had invaded Karen’s pale face. Although terrified, he couldn’t break his gaze. They stared at each other as the rain poured.

Minutes passed like hours.

Brandon stared into the stranger’s eyes and knew something bad had happened to Officer Jeff. “We have to get out of here!” he screamed, frantically pulling on the door handle. When that failed, he leaned against the creature and kicked at the side window. He gave up after six or so kicks and lay back in the seat exhausted.

The being that possessed Karen’s body turned and opened her door. Karen’s body then exited the car. When Brandon didn’t immediately follow, the door on his side of the car flew open. Taking the hint, Brandon stepped out into the rain. Karen’s body beckoned him toward the house.

The mansion bore down on them. It warned them to turn around and run away. Brandon looked up at the structure through wet eyes as they ascended the sweeping stairway to the front porch. The front door creaked open the moment they stepped onto the landing. A deceptively inviting orange glow emanated from the interior.

Karen wrapped a bone-cold hand around Brandon’s wrist and led him inside.

* * * * *

Chapter Seventy-Eight

Angola, LA