The Summoner: (32 page)

Grey rushed through the entire story. As he tried to describe the import of the note he’d found in Lucky’s wallet, the Ambassador put a hand out.

“Dominic, this story sounds, to put it mildly, a bit surreal. It’s not that I don’t believe you, but in any case, you’re missing the point. Without evidence, our hands are tied. Even for a close friend of mine. Believe me, I’ve pushed this to the limit. This cocksucking government thinks we personally instituted apartheid. Without proof they’ll laugh me off the phone, and all we’ll have is an embarrassing situation and a call from Washington. So tell me, do you have any
conclusive
evidence of
anything
?”

It took every bit of self-control Grey possessed to control his temper. “Dammit, I’ve been trying to tell you. Sir. Professor Radek can corroborate.”

“They won’t give a damn about that! Unless you have something I can take to the Ministry in person, I can’t let you pursue this investigation under the aegis of the United States government, without the presence of Ms. Mashumba or a different liaison. I’m sorry, Dominic. I want to find William more than anyone, but there’s nothing I can do.”

Silence pumped into the room. Grey stood erect and stared at a spot on the wall. Had the Ambassador added that last phrase as an implied acceptance of what he knew Grey was going to do anyway?

It really didn’t matter.

Harris broke the silence. “Grey and I will brainstorm possible avenues we can take to find William.”

“No we won’t,” Grey said softly.

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve said what I have to say.” He started for the door.

“If you leave this building right now don’t bother coming back!”

Grey turned his head. The Ambassador frowned at Harris’s lack of control, but said nothing. Grey reached for the door.

“You’re fired, Grey,” Harris yelled at Grey’s back.

“Dominic,” the Ambassador called out.

Grey turned again. “Sir?”

“If you’ve chosen your path, don’t leave here with your embassy ID.”

Grey took out his identification and tossed it at Harris’s feet.

50

N
ya watched the steady advance of the gruesome mask. She summoned every ounce of anger she could, she pictured her beloved father lying as she had found him, throat slit and eyeless, reduced to a dead thing, a lifeless husk. The anger surged through her, but it could not quite overcome her other emotion.

She was terrified.

Father Cowden had told her she possessed faith. She laughed to herself. Would faith save her now? The only thing her residual smattering of belief lent her was a greater fear of the
N’anga
. She couldn’t force her mind to wrap around the image of a benevolent God, but she didn’t have to try to imagine the unnatural things that the man standing before her could do.

He approached her, guttering torch held aloft, bestial mask shimmering behind the flames. He stopped a few feet away and looked down at her. She could smell him: a greasy stew of incense and musk.

As the light drew nearer she glanced down and gasped. She was lying spread-eagled on a slab of stone. A crisp white sheet covered her midsection, leaving only the ends of her limbs exposed. Leather straps, attached to iron rings set into the stone, bound her hands and feet. A padded headrest supported her head.

She forced her face to assume a threatening scowl. “What do you want?”

No answer.

She swallowed. She knew no one knew where she was. She had absolutely no idea how she’d ended up at the ceremony in the first place, and even less of an idea how she’d gone from there to here, wherever here was.

“Who are you?” she said, trying to will the anger to overpower the fear. “
Why did you kill my father, you
bastard
?”

Still no response. She despised her pathetic, forced bravado.

A shiver coursed through her from a chill in the air, and she tried to wiggle her fingers and toes—they moved! At first she could only flex her extremities, but gradually she felt sensation return to her limbs, precious life coursing through her.

She struggled, urging the warming blood to flow faster, until satisfied that everything still functioned. Her small victory was dampened by the fact that her restraints had her stretched so tight that, except for her head and her digits, she could barely even wiggle. She tried to buck her hips, but only managed a few centimeters.

The
N’anga
took three methodical steps towards her and stopped inches from her right side. She caught her breath. He leaned over her and reached up, and she craned her neck to follow his movements. He set the torch into a sconce affixed to a rock wall a few feet above her head.

He reached towards a ledge cut into the rock wall. He withdrew a six-inch knife, with a scalpel-thin blade.

“Don’t you dare touch me with that.”

He reached down with his left hand and removed the sheet. Nya cringed as he exposed her lithe body, quivering with fear and cold, covered only with a crude loincloth.

“You monster! Don’t
touch
me!”

He placed an obsidian hand, creased with age but still powerful, on her lower abdomen, covering her belly button. She struggled again, futilely. Between her bonds and his hand on her center, she couldn’t budge.

His right hand, the one holding the knife, descended to her side, inches from where his left hand held her down. He dipped the blade into her skin with practiced dexterity. She winced. He didn’t cut deep; the knife descended lightly into her caramel flesh, made a straight incision three inches long, and then lifted.

Without pausing, the
N’anga
made three more cuts, his thumb on the flat of the blade, slicing into her skin as a master chef would a ripe tomato. Thin lines of blood oozed out of the cuts. She closed her eyes as he worked, forcing her mind to flee elsewhere, as it had in the darkness.

She realized he had stopped cutting, and prayed he had left. She opened her eyes.

The
N’anga’s
knife hand hung at his side, and his left hand hovered over the area where he had made the cuts. His hand moved forward, as if he had been waiting for something… and then she knew.

He wanted her to watch. Before she could look away, before she had time for another thought, his fingers pried into her flesh and gripped the long rectangle of skin outlined by the incisions. His fingers squeezed together, and with a violent jerk he tore a flap of skin off her body.

Nya screamed.

She couldn’t believe the pain; even more, she couldn’t believe the base nature, the shocking cruelty, of the act. She cursed as she flung her head from side to side. The red pulp of her wound gaped at her: a small, perfect rectangle of exposed flesh. He ran a finger slowly along the wound, causing a new wave of pain to consume her, and then straightened. He folded his arms and resumed staring at her. Her chest heaved.

He observed her for a moment and then leaned over her again. He placed his left hand in the same position and started his incision a few inches higher, just above her ribs. He quickly made his cuts, reached into her and pulled off another flap of skin.

My god, the pain! Her eyes rolled and she bit her tongue, tasting the salty sting of her own blood. She lifted her head and slammed it backwards. She felt the soft padding, and then she understood the purpose of the cushion.

She knew what was happening. She remembered the first ceremony, the bleating of the poor goat as the
N’anga
cut into it, again and again, using smelling salts and God knew what else to bring the poor creature to a state of unimaginable agony.

The
N’anga
was performing the two hundred cuts right before her eyes, on a living human being.

On her.

He bent over her again, and her screams echoed off the cavern walls.

51

E
yes dazed, mind stumbling, Grey walked away from the U.S. Embassy. Had that really just happened?

He’d known the day would come, and he cared even less than he thought he would. He had no idea where he’d go or what he’d do, but for the moment those questions, and everything else save one thing, were irrelevant.

Grey tried to call the Ministry again, and got what he expected: a request to come in next week and discuss the situation. It’s urgent, you say? Bring us some proof, and we’ll be happy to consider the matter. Grey closed his cell phone. He had nothing on the
N’anga
, no idea where he was, and the only link was Lucky, whom he and Nya had been forbidden to pursue, and against whom he also had nothing.

He and Viktor were on their own.

Grey walked to Club Lucky, in case Lucky had already arrived. Grey leaned against locked doors in frustration. He’d expected as much, but still found it difficult to accept the wait. He debated going to see Nigel, and then discarded the idea. Nigel may or may not have the information they needed, and he couldn’t chance that Nigel might be wrong or provide false information. Lucky was the only sure bet.

He returned to his apartment, ate, showered, paced. Sleep was out of the question. He didn’t know how he’d pass the time until two, but pass it he did, fitfully, mulling over every angle.

He changed his bandages, then donned his boots, black khakis and a brown T-shirt. He arrived at The Meikles at one, but Viktor didn’t show until two-thirty, his face bleak and shadowed. He noticed Grey hovering over a coffee, and motioned for him to follow.

They took the elevator to Viktor’s floor, marched to his suite and huddled together in the sitting room.

“I tried Club Lucky,” Grey said. “No one’s there yet.”

“When do you think he’ll arrive?”

“Anytime before seven is probably futile. I cased the place today; there’s a front and a back entrance. I need you to watch the front just in case. There’s a bar across the street you can hole up at. I’ll be watching the back, I think that’s the one Lucky uses.”

“I can do that.”

“I can follow him easier on my own, and I’ll call you from the road. You can catch up with me tomorrow, when he leaves for the ceremony.”

“What if you lose him?”

“That’s not an option. But that reminds me. Do you have a car?”

“I have a rental in the hotel car park.”

“Can I borrow it tonight? Can you get another one for yourself by morning?”

“Of course,” Viktor said with a tilt of his head, leaving the question unasked.

“I can’t use my Embassy car. I was fired today and had to give up my building access.”

Viktor’s eyebrows rose.

“Long story. Actually it’s not. They ordered me not to go looking for Nya, I refused, and they fired me.”

“They lost a good man,” Viktor murmured.

“Technically the Embassy hired you—is this a problem? We’re not supposed to be investigating anything without Ministry approval.”

“At times the law enforcement agencies and I… pursue the same objective. That’s the extent of our relationship.”

“That’s sort of what I figured. And helping Nya is your objective?”

“Yes.”

“But not the only one, is it?”

Viktor held Grey’s gaze. “Her safety is foremost.”

Grey nodded, and Viktor drummed his fingers on the table. “I attended a ceremony a few days ago, to see for myself. What I saw I found quite… troubling.”

“Where were you? Did you see the circle? The fog? Someone trapped inside?”

“It was as you described, and more. I was on high ground, out of sight, with binoculars. During the ceremony a woman ran straight at the
N’anga
—I believe the captive for the evening was her son. The
N’anga’s
bodyguards caught the woman, and the
N’anga
walked to her and performed a quick incantation. The woman’s entire body erupted in boils.”

Grey made a choking sound. “Could he have staged it?”

“For whom? No one knew I was watching. Staged for the worshippers, I suppose. But her horrified reaction, the appearance of the boils—no, it wasn’t faked. I believe it was spontaneous corporeal manifestation—the most remarkable example I’ve ever come across.”

“But how did he do it? You can’t just make boils erupt on someone.”

“I told you about this type of power. It’s the
belief
, Grey—the worshipper’s belief in the power of the priest that causes the physical effect. Think of the result of everyday stress on the body, the appearance of a pimple or an ulcer, and magnify it by a thousand. The babalawo’s hold on his followers’ minds is so complete, so terrifyingly real, that it in fact becomes real. The effect is psychosomatic and instantaneous, making it appear magical.”

Grey didn’t respond. What was he supposed to do with that information? He wasn’t one of the babalawo’s followers, and what he was going to do to the
N’anga
required no suspension of disbelief.

“I saw an experiment once, at the Sorbonne. A control group was told their empty cots were ridden with bed bugs. To a man, they squirmed the entire night and swore the cots were infested.”

“Bed bugs are a long ways from spontaneous boils,” Grey said.

“In 2007, a meteorite fell near a Peruvian village. Within weeks 600 residents of the village claimed affliction by a mysterious disease. They had symptoms of headaches, nausea and fever. Doctors traced the illness to a story in the local media that ran the day after the meteor hit. The story told of a mysterious disease, with symptoms identical to the ones in the village, connected to meteor landings. The story was a hoax: a journalist admitted he’d fabricated it to sell papers.

“Psychosomatic conditions are very real, Grey. A garden-variety hypnotist can raise welts on the skin by suggesting the patient has touched something hot. A more skilled one can induce blindness, and even paralysis. The same principle applies to faith healers: I posit that in cases of miraculous recoveries, science should look not to the power of the healer, but to the amount of faith of the healed. A final, more serious example: do you realize the cause of death of most people who fall from great heights? They have heart attacks—before they reach the ground. They die of fear. Instantly.”