The Devil in Gray (40 page)

“I'm honored, General.”

“Yes, Major Shroud. You
are
honored. Not condemned, not reviled. But
honored
. Let me see you now, so that I can grasp your hand.”

“He's giving you a funny look,” Sandra warned.

“Come now, Major Shroud,” Decker urged him. “Where is your hand?”

“You can't see me, General? How did you know I was here, if you couldn't see me?”

“I sensed you, Major. I can always sense bravery. I can smell it on the wind.”

Seconds ticked by. For a long moment, Decker thought that Major Shroud had recognized him behind his disguise, and that there would be no way of stopping him from inflicting the Nine Deaths on him—or even, God forbid, the
Ten
Deaths.

But then Sandra whispered, “
Look
.” And gradually, the air in front of Decker began to curdle and thicken. It formed in dark, shadowy lumps, and then veins and arteries began to wriggle from one lump to the next, and bones took shape, and in less than a minute Major Shroud had materialized, in his crow's-feather hat, and his long gray topcoat, and his boots.

“At your service, General,” he declared.

Decker gave a grave, dignified smile. He stepped forward and took hold of Major Shroud's hand and shook it. Even through his buck gloves it felt as if it were nothing but knuckles and finger bones.

“Major Joseph Shroud, I hereby promote you to the rank of full colonel in the army of northern Virginia. You have your country's unceasing admiration and thanks, and the name of Shroud will enter the annals of this mighty conflict as a name forever associated with valor and with duty faithfully performed.”

It was then, while he was still gripping Major Shroud's hand, that he said, quite quietly, “
Now
, Hicks.”

Hicks came out of the kitchen shaking the brown paper bag. “Changó! Changó, listen to me! I bring you an offering! I bring you fruit and and spices! I bring you rum!”

“What is this?” Major Shroud demanded. “Who is this nigger?” He tried to pull his hand away but Decker held it tight.

“Changó!” Hicks sang out. “Leave this host and refresh yourself!
Kabio, kabio, sile!
”

“General Lee! Release me!” Major Shroud shouted. He was powerful, and his bony hand was knobbly and awkward to hold on to, but Decker didn't loosen his grip.

“I honor you, Changó!” Hicks cried. “I give you everything you hunger for!”

He tore open the bag and scattered the fruit and the herbs across the floor. “
Kabio, kabio, sile!
Welcome, Changó!”

Oh, God, this is not going to work, thought Decker. Changó isn't going to leave him. And with a sudden twist that almost sprained Decker's wrist, Major Shroud tugged his hand free and immediately went for his saber. He drew it out of its scabbard with a metallic sliding sound that set Decker's teeth on edge.

“Changó! I welcome you! Changó!”

Decker shouted at Sandra and Eunice Plummer, “Back—both of you! Get into the bedroom!”

Major Shroud advanced on him, his eyes glittering, his teeth bared in the black briar thicket of his beard. “You're no more Robert E. Lee than I am, are you? You're that damned Martin! Well, now, Martin, you're going to see where downright treachery gets you!”

Decker knew that he couldn't shoot him, not while Changó still protected him. Changó's anger at being attacked would be a hundred times worse. But all the same he drew out his own sword, Billy Joe's wrist breaker, and he waved it defiantly from side to side.

“You want to cut me to pieces? Okay, you throwback, let's see you try!”

Major Shroud lunged forward and his sword clanged and clashed against Decker's saber and almost knocked it out of his hand. Decker swung his arm and managed to deflect another lunge, but then Major Shroud performed a quick flurry of movements and the point of his sword jabbed deep into Decker's left shoulder.

Decker hardly felt any pain, but now he was seriously worried. Major Shroud began to press him harder and harder, his sword flashing in crisscross patterns that Decker could hardly see. He kept clashing his saber from side to side, and he managed to parry most of Major Shroud's lunges, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to hold him off for very long.

Retreating, he fell backward over the arm of the couch. Major Shroud raised his sword high above his head and smacked it down on the seat cushions just as Decker rolled off them onto the floor. Multicolored sponge stuffing flew up like a snowstorm.

Decker tried to crawl away, but Major Shroud had him now. He stabbed him in the back of his right thigh, and then his right shoulder, and then he straddled him and gripped him tight between his knees.

“The Nine Deaths, Martin,” he grunted. He reeked of stale sweat and gunpowder and filthy clothes and herbs. His hair was seething with lice.

Decker twisted himself around and tried to seize Major Shroud's wrist, but Major Shroud sliced him across the palm of his hand, at least a quarter inch deep, and blood poured out between his fingers and down his sleeve.

“Now for the First Death,” Major Shroud told him, and took hold of Decker's left arm. “I'll grant you a little respite, Martin, and take the fingers off your left hand first.”

He raised his sword—but as he did so, Decker heard a furious clucking. Hicks came forward, and he was holding up the wildly flapping rooster by its legs.

“Changó!” Hicks shouted. “Come to me, Changó! This is your sacrifice! This is your blood! Come eat! Come drink!
Kabio, kabio, sile!
Welcome to our house!”

Major Shroud turned his head around and screamed back, “What are you doing, you damn fool nigger? Get away from here! Get away! By God, I'm going to have your head next!”

“Changó! Let us see you! Changó, master of fire! Changó, master of thunder and lightning! Changó—are you master of your own destiny?”

With that, Hicks slashed the carving knife across the rooster's neck, almost beheading it. He swung the bird around and around, high above his head, and blood flew everywhere, spattering the walls, spattering Decker's face, pattering onto Major Shroud's hat and coat.

“No!” Major Shroud roared. “No, Changó! I forbid it!
I forbid it!
”

But Decker could see the blue crackle of electricity crawling around the outline of Major Shroud's face. Then—while Major Shroud still ranted in frustrated fury—a lattice of quivering light formed around his head.

“No! No! No! Changó! You have to protect me! If I die, you die!”

But Changó slowly rose out of Major Shroud like a ghost rising from a grave, his arms outstretched. His face was a mask, decorated with fire. His eyes burned red, his hair was like a hundred streamers of flame, and his mouth was filled with dancing, sizzling voltage. He wore a cloak of billowing brown smoke, in which Decker could glimpse intermittent flashes of lightning.

“
You can't leave me!
” shrieked Major Shroud. “
You can't leave me!
”

The whole apartment began to shake. Pictures dropped off the walls, lamps overturned and smashed on the floor, chairs tipped over. A double fork of lightning jumped from one side of the living room to the other, and Decker was almost blinded. Then—almost immediately—there was an earsplitting bellow of thunder. The couch burst into flames, and then the drapes.

One arm raised to protect his face from the heat, Hicks yelled, “Changó! You ate indeed your own master! You are the master of the world!”

Major Shroud climbed off Decker and went for Hicks with his sword flailing. Decker scrambled to his feet, too, and pulled his Anaconda out of his Civil War holster. Hicks was retreating toward the kitchen, trying to parry Major Shroud's lunges by wildly waving the dead rooster from side to side. In the middle of the room, half hidden by thick, swirling smoke, Changó glittered and blazed.

Decker cocked his revolver and pointed it at Major Shroud's head. “
Major Shroud!
”

There was another flash of lightning, and then another rumble of thunder, far longer than the first, a rumble that seemed to go on and on, as if it would never stop. Lumps of plaster dropped from the ceiling, and wide cracks appeared in the walls. The apartment was already fiercely hot, and one of the windows shattered. A hungry wind gusted in from the river, and the couch flared up like a Norse funeral pyre.

With the briarlike afterimage of the lightning strike still dancing in front of his eyes, Decker took aim at Major Shroud again, and fired. Major Shroud tilted his head to one side, and the bullet hit the picture of the Dutch girl and smashed the glass. Decker fired again, and again, but Major Shroud moved like a speeded-up film, and both of his shots went wide.

“You'll have to hit me to kill me!” he screamed, above the funneling noise of the fire. He hacked furiously at Hicks, and caught him a blow on the shoulder. Hicks said, “Shit!” and dropped to the floor, still clutching the bloody rooster. Now Major Shroud turned on Decker, and came striding toward him, with his sword whistling in ever more complicated figures-of-eight.

“Nine Deaths, Martin? Ten? I'll give you twenty!”

He lifted his sword right back behind his head, and there was a look on his face that Decker had never seen on a man before. It was triumph, and mockery, and an excitement that was almost orgasmic. But it was more than that. It was the look of a man who had undergone a physical and spiritual metamorphosis. He was no longer a man, nor a beast, but something altogether more terrible. He was viciousness incarnate, and vengefulness, and war.

Decker fired at him again, and again he missed. He was just about to fire again when there was a third flash of lightning, so bright that Decker was blinded. It struck the tip of Major Shroud's sword, and Major Shroud was hurled bodily across the living room, colliding with the opposite wall and tumbling onto the floor. He lay there, jerking and twitching, with smoke pouring out of his coat. His beard glowed with a thousand orange sparks, like a smoldering sweeping brush.

Decker looked around. The burning figure of Changó was standing in the smoke, with one arm still extended.

Decker said, “
You
did that?”

Changó opened his mouth and static electricity sparkled on his teeth. He didn't actually speak, but somehow Decker could hear him, inside his head, and in a strange way, more like pictures than words, he could understand what Changó was trying to tell him.

He kept my spirit prisoner for thousands of darknesses. He thought of nothing but bringing pain and death to those good men who harbored my brother and sister orishas. He deserved nothing but punishment. He killed those warriors who fought to set my people free
.

Decker said nothing for a moment, but nodded, and coughed.

Changó said,
Your gift is well received. Your summons was welcome
.

With that, his fiery image began to fade. For a few seconds, through the smoke, Decker could make out an arrangement of twinkling stars, more like a distant constellation than a dwindling god. Then Changó was gone, and there was nothing but the burning couch and the blackened, burning drapes that flapped in the wind.

Major Shroud groaned. Decker walked over to the other side of the room and looked down at him. Major Shroud's face was blackened and his eyes were rimmed with red.

“—betrayed me,” he complained. “Even my god betrayed me.”

“Nobody betrayed anybody except you, Major Shroud.”

“It was war. That's what you forget. It was war, and I was doing my duty. The only trouble was, I did it too well.”

“Yes,” Decker said. “You probably did.”

With that, he cocked his Anaconda again and pointed it between Major Shroud's eyebrows. “Hicks,” he said, “can you walk okay?”

“Yassuh, boss.”

“Go get Sandra and her mom out of the bedroom, would you?”

Hicks limped across the living room and opened the bedroom door. “Come on out, it's safe now. But hurry.”

He led them out of the door while Decker kept the muzzle of his Anaconda only an inch away from Major Shroud's forehead, unwavering.

“The South will rise again,” Major Shroud said. “You'll see.”

“Pity you won't,” Decker replied, and pulled the trigger.

At that instant the apartment exploded. Decker was flung against the kitchen archway, knocking his head so hard that he saw nothing but a blinding white light. He managed to crawl to the door, and Hicks grabbed hold of his coat collar and dragged him out into the corridor.

“My hat!” he said. “Billy Joe will kill me if I lose my hat!”

They walked out of the apartment building together to find the street already crowded with fire trucks and squad cars and sightseers. When Decker looked back up to his apartment, he saw that flames were waving out of the window like a burning Confederate battle flag, fanned by the early-morning wind.

As he crossed the curb, holding hands with Sandra, a TV floodlight was suddenly switched on, and this was instantly followed by a barrage of camera flashes.

Somebody called out, “Hey—it's Robert E. Lee! I swear to God, it's Robert E. Lee!”

Hicks turned to him and grinned, even though his left shoulder was soaked in blood. “They still love you, General Lee.”

As they were surrounded by reporters and police and paramedics, a woman's voice began to sing “Dixie,” and one by one, others joined in, and as Decker stood in the middle of the crowd, there was nothing he could do but nod and smile and lift his hat in the same respectful way that Robert E. Lee had lifted his hat to his defeated army.

The crowd didn't sing the popular words about the cotton fields, but the rousing battle hymn written by Albert Pike.

Southrons, hear your country call you!

Up, lest worse than death befall you!

To arms! To arms! To arms! In Dixie!