Cross her, and she might wish you dead. Might touch you on the cheek with a long fingernail and whisper the single word, Thinner . That had happened only a month ago to tall, strapping Stevie King. Slowly but surely, he began to waste away. Within twenty days he died, shriveled to less than eighty pounds.
And now something had gone wrong. All through the bayous the whisper had gone out of a disaster at a ritual. So the baron wished to see her.
Her sensitive nostrils caught the sharp scent of marijuana, and she turned toward the sound of steps, hearing them stop near the chair.
“He will see you now, Mama Minuit.”
There was not the usual respect in the young man’s voice, and the woman tasted fear on her own tongue. The baron ruled over a vast area of the swamps, all around Lafayette. Apart from the renegades, every soul for fifty miles around paid dues to Baron Tourment. Even the Cajuns, deep within the Everglades, would not cross him.
She stood and reached out a feathering hand for guidance. The Best Western had been the headquarters for the baron ever since she could recall. But he moved from room to room daily, fearing assassination. The hand that gripped her fingers was soft as a girl’s, and she could smell scent.
“This way. There is a step, then another.”
She wasn’t going to ask why she’d been summoned, in case she got the answer she dreaded.
She wasn’t going to ask.
“Why does ?” she began.
“He will tell you.”
” Oui ,” she said simply.
The carpet was soft beneath her sandaled feet, muffling their steps. Her sense of direction was excellent, but even she lost track of the twists and turns of the endless corridors. Twice they passed clunking machines that made ice for the baron and his army. Once they stopped, and she heard the thin whining of an elevator. They went up one floor, then along more corridors. They entered another elevator. As her bare shoulder brushed against the sliding metal door, she felt the faint whipcrack of a static shock. Down a level.
She realized that the young man holding her hand was teasing her. Playing some cruel jest by taking her a winding way, making the darkness around her into a bewildering maze.
“How far?”
Ignoring her, he quickened his pace, dragging her behind him.
“How far, friend?”
“Soon.” There was a measured pause. “And do not think I am your friend, Mother.”
Then, clear and distinct, her ears caught the sharp click of a gun being cocked. She winced in the expectation of the shock of a bullet. But nothing happened. The man at her side giggled, feeling the sudden tenseness of her hand.
“That is not his way. Not a swift death.”
“I know it,” she replied, her voice shriller than she’d intended.
The last public execution had been around the beginning of the year. An old man who’d stolen a chicken for his family and had been caught by the sec men.
They’d stripped him, his pale, sagging belly almost concealing the shrunken genitals. Poured gasoline over him and ignited it. The flame was almost invisible in the bright sunlight. He’d capered and jigged, his hands beating at the fire. The leader of the baron’s sec men, Mephisto, had handed the old man a can of water, which he’d immediately poured over his own head.
The water had been boiling hot.
Smoke and steam had mingled in a deadly halo about the old man’s skull. Layers of skin had come peeling off like discarded decorations at Mardy. Careful not to sully his immaculate white suit, Mephisto had splashed his victim with more gas, flicking a match to light it. The cold liquid had streamed over the man’s body, over his groin and his legs. The flames, with the more beautiful blue tint to them, had danced all over. The pubic hair had scorched; blisters burst out by the hundreds.
Mother Midnight had seen none of this, relying on one of her followers for a description. But she’d smelled burning hair. Roasted flesh. Heard the mewing and gagging of the old man. The hiss as Mephisto poured more boiling water over the fire.