Czytaj książkę: «Hell's Maw»

Prologue

The room was too warm, too dark, and the dry smell of burning dust clung to it possessively.

The small space was made smaller by the drapes that had been hung from the walls and over the doors, patterned in the dark colors of blood and red wine intermingled with the purples and blacks and deepest blues of bruises on human flesh.

The room had no windows. It was located in an underground bunker, a single room in a facility that had once been called Redoubt Mike and had served the US military back in the twentieth century, two hundred years earlier. That name had been cast aside by history now, blown away on the nuclear wind that had reshaped the world and its people.

Where once there had been fluorescent lighting functioning on automated circuits, now there were candles, three dozen of them scattered across every cluttered surface and dotted across the floor like seeds broadcast from a farmer’s hand.

The room was cluttered by an odd selection of mismatched objects, feathers and bones, driftwood and skulls, jars of dried spices and plant roots vying for space along the walls, everything lit by the flicker of candle flames.

Everything here looks worn-out and tired, Nathalie thought as she pushed a hanging scarlet drape aside and strode through the doorway. She was a slim, dark-skinned woman in her twenties, six feet tall with long, bare legs that seemed to flow almost like liquid in the flickering light of the candles. She wore a calfskin jacket that jutted tightly across her breasts, leopard-print shorts and long, black boots that laced up at the back, the corset-like lacing running all the way up to the top of the boots where they sat just below her knees. The knife sheathed at her hip was as long as a man’s forearm and broadened along its length to become wider at its tip. Her hair was an afro of tight black ringlets, encircling her head like some shadowy halo. She wore dyed feathers hanging from her ears, and these seemed to twist and flutter as she entered the room, brushing against the tops of her shoulders. Her face was fixed in a solemn expression that gave nothing away, insouciant mouth unreadable.

A canvas bag hung from her shoulder on a thick strap, colored a dirty olive green but within which had been weaved threads of blue and yellow and silver. The silver threads glistened as they caught the light from the flickering flames.

Nathalie strode across the room toward the figure waiting in its center, admiring the ragged collection of junk with disdain. It was appropriate, she thought, the worn-out junk that cluttered this underground lair. Its tired and broken nature was in sympathy with the tired and broken nature of the man who presided over it, king of the flea pit, who sat in his chair at the midpoint of all the trash.

“Welcome to the djévo,” the man pronounced in a rich basso voice. “Enter freely.” His name was Papa Hurbon and his was a large frame with the richly dark skin of an octoroon. His corpulence was barely contained in the straining short-sleeved shirt he wore, and he had a bullet-shaped head that widened from his pointy crown to a bucket-like mouth. When he opened that wide maw, he showed a line of fat teeth, with two missing in the lower jaw and a golden replacement for his upper left canine. His head was shaved and beads of sweat glistened there. Both of his ears were pierced a dozen times or more, with a line of gold studs running from lobe to shell-like helix, golden hoops depending from the midpoints, and what seemed to be two petrified three-inch-long fetuses hanging from the lobes.

Hurbon sat in a wheelchair, a blanket cinched across his lower half where his waist met his legs, or more accurately, where his waist should have met his legs, for he had none. The blanket was black and patterned with skull designs that seemed to swirl like mist. Despite his disability, Papa Hurbon remained a charismatic figure, commanding all attention in the room.

Two other figures waited at the rear of the room, where a mirror had been hung, as tall and wide as the doorway on the opposing wall through which Nathalie had entered, and painted with an oily black sheen that peeked through the heavy drape that partially hid it. The figures were both tall, muscular men, so similar in fact that they might have been twins. They, too, had shaven heads, and they wore dark pants with no shoes or shirts, bare chests of defined muscles gleaming with sweat. The heat of the room was almost unbearable.

Two long strides brought Nathalie before Papa Hurbon, and she kneeled down in deference to him, casting her eyes downward. “Thank you for your ’ospitality,” she said in a soft voice that was barely a whisper.

Hurbon reached down and placed his hand against the side of Nathalie’s face, tilting it—not gently—up until she looked at him. “How wen’ your quest, sweet child?”

“It went well, my beacon,” Nathalie said, the timid hint of a hopeful smile crossing her wide lips. “I visited the site of the dragon’s death as instructed.”

Papa Hurbon nodded thoughtfully, his smile broad and bright in the shimmering flicker of the candles. “Good.”

Hurbon had heard of the dragon that had appeared on the banks of the Euphrates River in the territory known as Iraq some months ago. The dragon was not alive—instead it was a bone structure, as if the gigantic creature had died there and its carcass had been left to rot. Some had mistaken it for a city, such was its grand size, and this dragon city had played host to a fierce war between two would-be gods from the sky along with their respective armies of indoctrinated humans and fearsome lizard-like soldiers. Papa Hurbon did not know who the victors were, only that the battle had ceased almost as abruptly as it had started, and that the skeletal dragon had been abandoned and left to rot, forgotten by the gods who made it.

Papa Hurbon knew a lot about gods—he was a houngan, a vodun priest, and he followed the dark path of the Bizango. He had witnessed gods appear once before from the sky and he had heard tell that the dragon was their symbol, their home. When he had heard about the dragon city that had appeared in the Middle East, he had immediately dispatched his servant Nathalie to acquire a part of the leviathan for him. There was power in the parts of the body, power in desiccated and petrified things, and there was definitely power in the things that the gods had shaped.

“And what did you bring me, child?” Hurbon asked.

Nathalie shifted her weight just slightly until the bag she carried dropped before her, still hanging on its canvas strap. She unzipped it and pulled the mouth of the bag open. Papa Hurbon leaned closer to see what lay within under the flickering light of the candles. At first glance it looked like a drugs stash, for the bag contained layer upon layer of small plastic bags filled with white powder. Hurbon reached into the larger bag and drew out a bag, lifting it close to his face to examine its contents more closely. There were thicker flecks and chips scattered among the white powder, each of them the yellow-white of cream.

“Dragon’s teeth,” Nathalie explained as Hurbon studied the package, his brow furrowed.

“Dragon’s teeth?” Hurbon repeated, turning the bag to one side so that the powdery contents slid to one side of the larger flakes.

“I met certain people there,” Nathalie explained, “in the shadow o’ the dragon city. Merchants. They trade in exotic t’ings, parts o’ the dragon who died. You said you wanted the teeth, Papa.”

Hurbon nodded, the smile materializing once more on his face. “Bring me my mortar and pestle, girl,” he instructed. “The smallest ones, for the most delicate mixtures.”

Nodding once, Nathalie rose from the floor, her tall, lithe frame moving like liquid. Hurbon watched her depart from the room, peering up from under, still holding the bag full of dragon remains.

The girl had joined his société after its near-destruction at the hands of the insane bitch goddess Ezili Coeur Noir. Nathalie was youthful, smart and able, capable of individual action and trustworthy enough not to betray him. She was loyal to Hurbon and the vodun sect he represented and would serve and service him however he asked.

* * *

NATHALIE PUSHED THE scarlet curtain aside and strode out into the corridor beyond. She knew the corridors of the old redoubt well. Like the djévo, the corridor was lit by candles that lined the floor, flickering in the passing breeze as Nathalie walked past them. There were jars and bottles resting on the floor behind the candles, curios stored and pickled for safekeeping, each one with a purpose in the dark Bizango rituals which Papa Hurbon practiced. Papa Hurbon had taken over the abandoned military installation shortly after the whole complex had been flooded, and there were still areas that remained waterlogged, more like swimming pools now than the once regimented rooms that they had been.

Hurbon had another lodge located close by in the Louisiana countryside where he encouraged newcomers and old faithfuls to come worship in these harrowing times of destruction and confusion. The world had blown out two hundred years ago in the year 2001, when a nuclear exchange had escalated into a full-blown war in the space of just a few minutes, destroying Western civilization and setting back the course of history by generations. Only now, in the first decade of the twenty-third century, had the world finally moved beyond that awful legacy, and there was still so much of the old United States of America that remained unmapped, scarred by radiation, hostile to humankind. The survivors had flourished in nine grand villes, which dominated the landscape, their eerie otherworldly rulers—the barons—carving up the old United States into their own private territories. But it seemed that that golden age of safety and security had passed. The ruling barons had departed from their golden-towered cities, evolving into their true forms as Annunaki, lizard-like gods from outer space who had been worshipped many millennia ago in Mesopotamia and Babylon.

But the Annunaki had died, ripped apart by their own mistrust and bickering, turning on one another until there was nothing left of them but their legacy. That had been almost two years ago. In the aftermath, their villes had struggled to remain safe. Some had crumbled under attacks, others had been rebuilt as new cities that worshipped new gods, and some had simply closed the gates and knuckled down, worrying only about their own and leaving anyone outside the high walls to fend for themselves.

Papa Hurbon’s temple fell under the terrain of Beausoleil, a ville that had chosen to close ranks and reject any outlanders. Outsiders felt afraid, scared that their lands and their possessions would be taken. There were even stories that their children were being abducted for the rich ville dwellers, handed over to childless couples, or worse, roasted and eaten as delicacies. The people were scared, so they flocked to Papa Hurbon, whose fearsome charisma and powerful ways steeped in ancient ritual offered the promise of security and perhaps salvation.

Nathalie was just one of the people who had joined Hurbon’s société in the past few months since he had reemerged after sacrificing both of his legs to his deranged goddess. When asked, Hurbon told her that the sacrifice had been worth it, and that it had granted him more power than any man had ever known before. She suspected that he was right.

There was a room of the redoubt, beyond the vehicle garage whose floor was now hidden beneath an expanse of stagnant water where green clouds lurked and flies buzzed, that contained a thick-walled chamber within it. Inside the chamber, through a tiny pane of six-inch-thick glass, something incorporeal could be seen, swirling as if caught in a hurricane, its component parts unable to cling on to a form. The feeling of dread that emanated from the chamber was palpable. Nathalie had looked inside the chamber on several occasions, peering through the thick, reinforced glass of the rust-lined door. Within, she had seen a face, lit momentarily as if spied in a flash of lightning, then gone again as if it had never been.

Papa Hurbon had told her that the face belonged to his precious Ezili, an ancient loa who had taken earthly form from the Annunaki goddess called Lilitu. He told her that she was his now, that she served him where he had once served her.

Hurbon held surgery in his lodge, but he had turned the redoubt into the société’s temple, where the faithful came to bask in and add to his power. Hurbon took the responsibility easily, but then he had broad shoulders and a steady stream of young women who were only too eager to present themselves to the vodun priest.

Nathalie moved down the concrete-walled corridor, gloomy in the insufficient illumination of the candles, and stepped into the side chamber where Hurbon kept his mixing equipment. Hurbon could get it, of course, but he preferred to send others to do his bidding now—he had spent so long just striving to survive on his own he basked in the luxury of having a congregation once more.

Nathalie reached for the mortar and pestle, one of a dozen lined up by size along a dusty shelf that also contained aged items of jewelry and the skulls of a dozen different rodents and primates. The mortar was made from the curved bones of a monkey’s hand, the pestle the carved bone of a human finger.

* * *

ONCE NATHALIE HAD departed the room, Hurbon unsealed the bag of white dust and spread a little across his left hand. He sniffed it, taking in its aroma. It was redolent of obscure spices and incense, and the smell made Hurbon smile wider than before.

“The smell o’ the dragon,” he muttered, before reaching into the bag for one of the larger shards of white. The shard was a little bigger than Hurbon’s thumbnail, and it looked porous, tiny indentations running all the way across its surface. Brushing the dust back into the open bag, Hurbon took the shard and tapped it against his teeth. It felt rock-hard, and even though he had used the lightest of pressure the feel of the tooth bit was such that it made Hurbon’s teeth sing, as though they might shatter. Then Hurbon placed the shard against his tongue and licked it, feeling its rough sides and sharp edges. He winced as the sharpest edge cut a tiny incision across his tongue, and he drew the fleck of tooth away with a start.

“How the hell did they cut this thing?” Hurbon muttered. Neither man in the room answered him, nor were they supposed to—they just stared vacantly into the middle distance, not reacting to anything that occurred before them.

Sucking on his tongue where it had been cut, Hurbon reached beneath the blanket that hid his missing limbs. He had a bag beneath there, an old leather pouch, its brown surface scuffed, frayed threads showing at its edges. The pouch was large enough for Hurbon to get both hands in, and it had a strap by which it could be carried, like a woman’s purse.

Hurbon slipped the shard of dragon tooth into the pouch where it could reside beside other items that he found useful. Also in the leather pouch were a fith fath—what the ignorant nonbelievers called a voodoo doll—a chicken’s foot and a knotted material pouch of black-and-red powder. There were other bags within the larger bag that Nathalie had brought, and as houngan of the société, it was his prerogative to take a share of any spoils that came through the doors of the redoubt-turned-temple.

His men would say nothing. They were there to guard him and he had removed from them the awkward inconvenience of independent thought.

Hurbon looked up as he heard Nathalie pad back into the djévo room. In a loose sense, the room was mirrored, each decoration reflected in an ornament of similar size and shape on the other side of the room, a femur for a knife, a crystal ball for a skull and the black mirror in place of the door. It was important to keep the djévo in balance at all times, Hurbon knew, if one was to tap the powers beyond the barriè to the spirit world.

However, it was not the voodoo deities—the loa—whom he planned to contact this day. No, Papa Hurbon planned to reach out for the other faces in the darkness, and the dragon’s teeth were the vital ingredient he required to do just that.

“Are the teeth acceptable?” Nathalie asked as she handed Hurbon the mortar and pestle.

Hurbon nodded. “They are genuine, we hope” was all he said. Then he took another package of bone dust from the open bag that Nathalie had brought and tipped a small portion of its contents into the mortar where it rested on his lap.

“What is it you hope to achieve, Papa?” Nathalie asked as Papa Hurbon worked the powdery dust around in the bowl.

“Child, there is a story which comes from the Greece of ancient times,” Hurbon explained as he mixed rat’s blood with the splinters of tooth, “which tells of the Spartoí, the children of Ares. The Spartoí were powerful soldiers grown from the sown teeth of a dragon, walking dead things that fought with a great warrior called Jason. You see, the Greeks understood the power of the dragon’s teeth in conjuring warriors into this world from beyond the grave.”

“So your plan is to bring great warriors to life?” Nathalie questioned.

“No, not warriors, my sweet cherry,” Hurbon said with a flash of his fiendish smile. “Gods. The Annunaki who came to Earth brought with them a whole new comprehension of technology, utilizing organic materials in the way so-called civilized man uses steel and silicon. In this sense, the Annunaki are closer to the old ways of the path, the voodoo ways—you see?”

Nathalie nodded, awed.

“Their ways and ours are so much alike,” Hurbon continued. “Each fleck of tooth contains a genetic story, each shard a history just waiting to be unleashed.”

Hurbon pressed down hard with the pestle, and Nathalie heard something snap inside the tiny mortar bowl. “The trouble with the Annunaki is—they thought too small.

“I will sow the seeds of the dragon across the globe,” Hurbon told the woman, “and unto each shall come a new understanding and a new reckoning. The children of the dragon shall walk the Earth once again, and when they are done, my child—when they are done, why, what a glorious day that shall be.”

Hurbon stirred the bowl once more, mashing together the shards and the rat’s blood into a grisly paste.