The Seventh Night (2 page)

It was still difficult to believe, but I was here at last, in Columbé, a place I had dreamed about for nearly twenty years. A place I had alternately loved and hated for most of my life. A place that, in many ways, seemed more surreal than real, an island still imbued with the ancient mysteries of voodoo, black magic and midnight ritual. A place that pulsed with the primitive rhythm of drums echoing through the darkness….

Home.

The sudden sensation overwhelmed me, but whether an actual feeling or merely wishful thinking, I had no
idea. And didn’t care. I was here, and that was all that counted. Any minute now I would see my father again after nearly a decade. The years and years of our estrangement seemed hardly to matter now in the face of my intense anticipation. Clasping my hands together, I scanned the terminal with a nervous eye.

Where in the world was he? Now that I was here, even this small delay became unbearable. Every time the doors swung open, my heart pumped a little faster. Every time a man strode through, my breath caught in my throat, only to be expelled in another rush of disappointment. I scrutinized each new arrival, not knowing how much or how little my father might have changed since the last time I’d seen him.

Would Reid St. Pierre be with him this time?

Excitement turned to dread. What would he be like now? Still maddeningly arrogant? Still mysteriously aloof? Still devastatingly handsome?

I cursed myself for even entertaining such dangerous thoughts, but already my traitorous heart was thumping against my chest with the memory of a man I’d met a decade ago, a man who had shown no more than a slightly amused interest in a shy, inexperienced eighteen-year-old. A man who, no doubt, didn’t remember me at all.

At the age of twenty-four, Reid St. Pierre had been the epitome of every girl’s dream—tall, dark and handsome, with an easy charm that could melt the coldest of hearts. To a lonely young girl who had never had anything but dreams, he’d been completely overwhelming.

And I’d hated him with a passion that bordered on obsession.

Automatically I moved forward in the customs line, but my thoughts tumbled backward through time and space to land on that cold, distant Chicago twilight ten years ago. I recalled the first time I’d laid eyes on Reid St. Pierre as though it had been yesterday.

We were in the lobby of my college dorm, and all around us young girls were gazing in rapture at the striking man standing beside me. I could almost feel my lowly status soaring.

“Christine, I’d like you to meet Reid, your stepbrother,” my father had said. “It’s about time you two get to know each other. After all, you’re family and have been for years now.”

Seemingly oblivious to the stares, Reid had smiled down at me, his perfect white teeth flashing against the bronze of his skin. The deep blue eyes contained just the barest hint of amusement as his gaze swept over me, making me aware of my plain white blouse and my dark, conservative skirt. Before I had time to react, he lifted my hand to his mouth, and his full lips grazed my skin.

His breath was hot against my hand, and the feel of his mouth stirred a storm of unfamiliar sensations inside me. My stomach quivered with an excitement I didn’t understand as our gazes collided, and I forgot about everyone else in the room.

Shocked out of my senses, I jerked my hand away and Reid laughed softly, a deep, masculine sound that vibrated through my entire body. I’d barely even dated boys my own age; I was completely inexperienced, a virgin in every sense of the word. But I knew enough—or sensed it—to realize that Reid St. Pierre could be a dangerous, dangerous man.

“I don’t think Christine’s too happy with the prospect of having a brother,” Reid said.

“Nonsense,” my father scoffed. “Every teenaged girl needs a big brother.”

Reid smiled again, secretively, I thought, as he took my coat and held it for me. My last thought as we walked out of the dorm was that, whoever or whatever he might be, Reid St. Pierre would never be my brother….

The memory spun away like mist in the morning sunlight,
leaving me shivering in the oppressive heat of the crowded terminal. I wondered with a tiny fracture of fear somewhere deep inside me what my reaction to Reid St. Pierre would be now.

The line shuffled forward once more, and the lady behind me bumped her suitcase into mine. Taking the hint, I inched my bag along as the touristy chatter buzzed around me like the drone of a thousand bees. Trying to keep my mind out of the past, I idly listened to bits and pieces of a dozen different conversations flowing around me until a feminine voice behind me caught my attention.

“Do you believe in zombies?”

The question was softly spoken, almost furtively, but it had the effect of splashing cold water on my face and bringing me very much into the present. I threw a quick, cautious glance over my shoulder and was immediately relieved to realize the strange query had not been addressed to me.

Two nondescript women in plain, dark dresses stood behind me, gripping their purses to their sides as they spoke in low voices to one another. I thought I recognized them. They were part of a larger group that had been on the plane with me from Chicago.

Missionaries of some sort, I concluded, noticing the identical gold crosses adorning their simple clothing. Just a day or two ago, I’d read somewhere that several churches in the United States had stepped up their missionary work in Columbé when the old regime had toppled recently. A resurgence of the voodoo religion had set the Christian soldiers on the march once again. But judging by the surly, almost hostile attitude of some of the islanders working at the airport, these modern-day crusaders had their work cut out for them here.

The young woman who had spoken caught my glance. I smiled awkwardly, having been caught eavesdropping, then turned back to face the front of the line. I tried to
close my ears to the ensuing conversation, but, like it or not, the bizarre topic had captured my full attention.

“Now, Patsy, Father Ingram said we mustn’t let our imaginations run away with us,” the older woman admonished her companion. “We’ve come here to Columbé to combat such superstitious nonsense.”

“I know, but Mary Alice was here for three months last year and she said…she said…” The quiet voice faltered, and I found myself mentally prodding her.
What? What did Mary Alice say?

“She said zombies really exist. By using poisons and black magic and…evil spirits, some people here have the power to capture another living human’s soul. That’s what makes a zombie—someone alive, but without a soul. A body without a will. Mary Alice said you have to be very careful about traveling the back roads and that you must never, under any circumstances, leave your car after dark.” Patsy’s voice lowered dramatically. “They move by night.”

A hand touched my arm, and I jumped violently. The customs official looked at me without smiling as he bent and lifted my suitcase, heaving it onto the sturdy table. In spite of the sweltering heat in the terminal, goose flesh prickled the hair at the back of my neck as the man flipped the locks and raised the lid.

“Will you be staying in Columbé long?” the official asked in the lilting cadence of the islands. The dark look he gave me was in direct contradiction to the lyrical sound of his voice.

I met his gaze and threw him what I hoped was an engaging smile. “A few days. A couple of weeks at the most. I’m not sure yet.”

“You have a return airline ticket?”

“Yes, but the date’s open. Is there some problem with that?”

He answered my question with another. “Where will you be staying?”

Something in his expression made me stare at him for a moment. “I’m…not sure.”

A definite look of suspicion crept into his eyes as his gaze flickered over me, taking in my conservative navy suit, my low-heeled pumps. All in all, my nondescript appearance probably looked very much like that of the missionary ladies behind me, and the thought crossed my mind that perhaps that was the reason for the man’s wariness.

Foreigners, particularly those peddling their own ideals, were not always welcome in Columbé, I’d read.

“My father lives here,” I rushed to inform him. “What I meant was that I’m not sure whether I’ll be staying at his home or at the hotel. He owns the St. Pierre in Port Royale.”

A shadow passed across the man’s face, so swiftly I couldn’t be sure I’d seen it at all. Then his gaze lowered as he continued to rummage through my things. It seemed to me he was taking an inordinate amount of time, and I suddenly remembered a movie of the week I’d seen recently where a customs official had planted cocaine in a woman’s suitcase. For what reason I couldn’t remember, but nervously, I stood on tiptoes and peered over the lid.

“Is there a problem?” I asked again.

Without removing his gaze from mine, he closed my suitcase and snapped the locks, then thrust the case across the table toward me. Light sparked the gold of his ring and drew my gaze to his hands. The metal had been molded into the shape of a snake, and as I stared at it, I suddenly had the strangest sensation of déjà vu.

And then I knew why, as a new memory stirred to life.

We were sitting in the restaurant that first night of father’s and Reid’s visit in Chicago and my father had just made a toast.

Reid lifted the crystal flute to his lips, and I watched
in fascination as the millions of bubbles spiraled upward to the top of his glass. Like flame to a moth, the motion of his large hand captured my gaze, held me in thrall.

He stared back at me, his smile knowing. “I see you’re admiring my ring.”

He set the glass back on the table, and I noticed for the first time the heavy gold ring he wore on his right hand. An S was carved into the metal and entwined with the image of a snake. “My father gave it to me years ago,” he said, twisting his hand to stare down at the ring. “The emblem is supposed to have magical properties for those who believe. Do you believe, Christine?” he asked softly.

I lifted my gaze to meet his. “In magic? Of course not.”

“There’s magic…and there’s magic,” he murmured, raising his glass once again. “
Damballah Wedo,
the most revered
loa
in the vodun religion, assumes the form of a snake. When the spirit mounts the body, the experience can be…powerful.”

“Stop teasing her with that nonsense, Reid,” my father said in annoyance. “I’d like Christine to come to Columbé someday. Don’t scare her off before she ever gets there.”

“Christine doesn’t appear to me to be the type who frightens easily. Am I right?”

“I’m certainly not afraid of voodoo. Sounds to me like Columbé is still living in the Dark Ages,” I replied primly, sipping my club soda with an air of what I hoped was disdain.

“In many ways we’re still very primitive,” Reid agreed darkly, gazing down at his ring once more as he stroked the metal with the tip of one finger….

The memory drifted away as the customs official gave my suitcase another deliberate shove, ramming it against my hand.

“Have a nice stay in Columbé,” he said, dismissing
me. I took the cue without further prompting, struggling for several seconds before I could haul the heavy suitcase from the table. Neither the customs official nor anyone else bothered to help me, and I wondered if that incident might well be a preview of what was to come.

Well, so what? I asked myself as I half carried, half dragged my luggage to the terminal exit. Since when had anyone ever helped me? My father had fallen in love with Claudine St. Pierre and left my mother and me without so much as a backward glance when I’d been hardly more than a baby.

My mother had loved me in her own way, I suppose, but she’d loved drinking more. Two years after my father had left us, she’d died in terrible pain from a liver disease brought on by her alcoholism.

Years and years of intense loneliness had followed. My father had already moved out of the country by that time, so my maternal grandmother took me in. The act was not so much one of kindness on her part, but rather some sort of revenge against my father.

She was a woman already well past middle age, and she’d worn the trials and tribulations of her life like medals of honor. She’d never failed to remind me of how much she had sacrificed for my benefit, nor how my father’s selfishness had caused my poor mother’s death.

She was a bitter, resentful woman who, in some miscreant way, had blamed me for everything wrong in her life. As punishment, I was never allowed to have friends in the house, never allowed to attend parties or proms. Instead, I was subjected to lecture after lecture on the evils of men and their unholy desires.

She’d had no way of knowing it, of course, because I would never have admitted it to her, but those sermons had fueled an already active imagination. I used to lie in bed at night and fantasize about the glamorous life my father led on the Caribbean island where he’d gone to live. In my dreams, he would come for me, pushing
my grandmother’s protests aside, and take me back to Columbé with him.

Much later, after his last visit during my freshman year in college, those fantasies had begun to alter. No longer was my father cast in the role of rescuer, but instead a tall, dark, handsome stranger—a man who looked strikingly like Reid St. Pierre—would sweep me off my feet and carry me off to his romantic island home….

In reality, I never saw my father or Reid again. They’d both gone home after their week-long visit and forgotten all about me. And I’d tried to forget about them. I’d been married and widowed in less than a year. I’d faced tragedy and survived. In the end, I’d had to rescue myself. In time, I’d discovered I could slay my own dragons.

So bring on your zombies, I thought defiantly as a sudden vision straight from
Night of the Living Dead
flashed through my mind. Horror movie ghouls could hardly frighten me. My grandmother made Boris Karloff look like the boy next door.

In the next instant, however, an inkling of the terror I’d felt in my dreams washed over me, and I realized my bravado was entirely false. I could be as fearless as the next person—while it was still daylight outside.