The Seventh Night (23 page)

My father had disappeared, but somehow I knew where to find him. The clearing, where the voodoo ceremonies were held.

I stepped out of the trees and looked around in amazement. It was exactly like the one near my father’s cabin that Reid and I had visited. A thatched roof structure with three open sides edged the woods. A fire blazed in the peristyle, illuminating the long wooden pole in the center with its myriad etchings of primitive symbols and
vévés
as it reached skyward, toward the heavens and the
loa.

Near the back was a low sacrificial stone altar. Something white lay across it.

My heart hammered in terror as I recognized the shape. A body. Dear God, a body was lying on the altar! The white robe…the hood…

“Father!”

I entered the peristyle, and the sudden smell of sulphur was overpowering. My eyes and throat stung from the acrid scent, but I couldn’t turn, couldn’t leave, couldn’t take my eyes off the body lying on the altar as if waiting for me….

The fire crackled with a life of its own. The blazes shot skyward, heating the air like a warning. Shadows leapt and danced on the ceiling.

Slowly I walked toward the body.

My heart plunged to my stomach as I saw the splashes of blood on the white robe.

I was too late!

My father had been murdered while I was with Reid!

Or—an even more chilling thought—had it happened later, while I slept…?

See if he’s still alive!
my mind screamed.
You have to help him!

Almost against my will, I reached out and touched the hood.

The skin along the back of my neck crawled with horror. With a deep, unsteady breath, I jerked the fabric from the face, completely exposing the white, lifeless flesh and the lethal gash across the throat. The bloody hole that had once been his mouth gaped open, as though it had been forced.

“Oh, God.” My hand flew to my mouth as I backed away from Lawrence Crawford’s hideous corpse. Insects crawled over the wound, and my stomach revolted at the sight. I sank to my knees, wretching violently into the dirt. Wave after wave of dizziness rolled over me.

On the ground near me lay a dagger with an intricately carved handle. I started to touch it, then drew back my hand in horror. The blade was still slick with blood, and the ground beside it was spotted with red droplets, as though the dripping knife had been held skyward in triumph.

I felt faint, horror-stricken. I had to get out of here! I had to somehow find the strength to get to my feet and run as fast as I could away from the ghastly, mutilated shell that was once Lawrence Crawford, my father’s attorney.

I staggered to my feet and turned blindly toward the fire. The flames were going crazy, leaping and quivering as though the smell of blood was more powerful than gasoline.

Behind me something rustled in the dark recesses of the peristyle, in the shadowy corner the firelight didn’t touch. I backed away, screaming, trying to get my wooden legs to obey me, but it was too late.

An arm, incredibly strong, reached out of the darkness
to grab me. Draped in white, my assailant’s face was completely obscured. I had no time to fight, no time to even scream again. Quick as lightning, a powder was blown into my face. Tiny white lights exploded behind my lids.

I managed one staggering step, then dropped to my knees. But just before the blackness took me, I looked up and saw firelight glinting off the gold snake ring that hung from a thin, gold chain around the neck of Lawrence Crawford’s murderer.

* * *

Consciousness came back to me in layers, filmy and hazy at first, then stronger, clearer as my eyes flickered open.

The first thing I heard were the drums, like great strikes of thunder that could easily crack open the sky. Firelight flickered over me, and the heat was so intense, my flesh burned from its touch. Disembodied faces swam before my eyes as low, furtive voices chanted to the
loa,
beseeched
Damballah
to claim what was his.

And then, my heart pumping in terror, I realized they were talking about me! I was to be sacrificed to
Damballah,
a gift to the serpentine deity.

Trying to move away from the intense heat of the fire, I turned my head toward the back of the peristyle.

Something moved in the dirt beside me.

Something hissed.

With cold, mind-numbing horror, I saw the snake slithering toward me on the ground. The quivering, patterned body coiled itself beside my face. The tiny, gleaming eyes watched me with obscene triumph as the forked tongue moved in and out of its mouth.

I couldn’t move! My arms and legs were lifeless. I could do nothing but helplessly watch as the snake’s loathsome head moved closer to mine, ready to strike with deadly precision. It was so close now, I could see firelight glinting in its eyes.

I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable…

“You’re mine now, Christine. I want to hear you say it.”

That voice. That voice that was at once so endearingly familiar, and yet so darkly strange, so primitive and foreign and menancing.

“Say it!” he commanded.

Slowly I opened my eyes. Reid stood over me, his bronzed skin glowing in the firelight. A gold ring hung suspended from a chain around his neck. His blue eyes gleamed in exaltation. “You’re mine now, Christine,” he repeated. “I want to hear you say it.”

“No!” I screamed the denial as loud as I could. The sound echoed through the woods, bounced off the mist and rolled back.

My own voice came back to taunt me as Reid laughed softly. He knelt beside me and, with one fluid move, yanked the chain from his neck, then lifted my hand and slipped the ring onto my finger.

“You’re mine, Christine. Deny it all you want, but we both know the truth….”

* * *

“Christine! My God, Christine!”

I opened my eyes to a pale, misty light. Reid was still kneeling beside me, his face peering into mine. Moisture glistened in his hair, and I thought I could smell fire….

“Don’t,” I whimpered, trying to back away from him. “Get away from me.”

His arms came around me like a vise. “What in the name of God has happened to you? I came back and you were gone. I nearly went out of my mind. I’ve been searching everywhere…. Your nightgown is covered with blood. Where are you hurt?”

A trick. His concern had to be a trick. He knew where I’d been. He knew what had happened to me. What was he trying to do to me?

I raised up in his arms and looked around. I was lying
on the veranda of the guest house near the steps, as though I’d been unable to continue any farther. Ugly splotches of red trailed down the front of my tattered nightgown and along the ragged hem.

But not my own blood, I thought. Lawrence Crawford’s blood. He had been murdered by—

“Let me go!” I struggled out of Reid’s arms, and this time he released me. I scrambled away from him and sat huddled against the porch wall, my arms locked around my knees.

His fingers raked through his hair as he looked at me, bewildered, as though he couldn’t believe my defection. “Christine, you have to let me help you. You’re hurt, bleeding—”

“Don’t touch me!”

Anger flashed in his eyes. How dare I defy him?

“What the hell happened to you? Where did you go?”

“Why?” I whispered. “Why did you kill him?”

His mouth thinned. “You must have had a dream—”

“A nightmare, you mean. And it’s still out there, in the woods, in the clearing…. Poor Lawrence,” I said softly. “Poor, dead Lawrence.”

He drew his breath in sharply. “Christine, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying Lawrence Crawford is dead. I’m saying you killed him.”

His hands grabbed my arms and jerked me to my knees. We were kneeling face-to-face, but our hearts were no longer beating as one. A dark, dangerous abyss separated us now. I could no longer cross to the other side.

“That’s insane and you know it. You must be crazy….” His grasp tightened, bruising my arms with urgency, but the pain was nothing compared to the ache in my heart. I gazed up at him, and the look in his eyes chilled me to the bone.

“Deny it all you want,” I said, “but we both know the truth.”

* * *

“What a shock you’ve had,” Mrs. DuPrae said worriedly, putting a comforting arm around my shoulders. “I don’t wonder you’re shivering.” We were sitting on the steps of the veranda just minutes later, and Reid was standing in the yard, a little away from us. He looked so cold. So remote. So very untouchable.

What had I done? I thought in abject misery. I’d accused him of murder. I’d let my imagination take over my mind. I’d let the horror of what I’d seen in the woods drive away all coherent thought. I’d called Reid a murderer, and nothing I could say or do would ever erase it.

With the light of dawn came the end of my dream. The fairy tale was over, and I suddenly found myself sifting through the cold ashes of what might have been.

Mrs. DuPrae said to Reid, “My window was open, and I heard the commotion down here. I came to investigate, and now I’m glad I did. Lawrence Crawford, dead?” I felt her body shudder as she touched her fingers to her throat. “Dear sweet heaven…who could have done it?”

“I’m going to look at the body,” Reid announced. He spared me the briefest of glances, but I saw the contempt in his eyes. “Or where Christine said she saw the body. I want you to call the police, then stay with her. Don’t let her out of your sight,” he ordered darkly.

“Of course not,” she agreed. To me she said, “You poor child. You have a bad case of the shakes. Come inside and I’ll make you a cup of tea. That’ll get the blood flowing again.”

We rose from the steps, and she kept her arm around me, supporting me with her strength. But before we could go inside, Angelique’s voice called from the garden.
“What have we here? An intriguing ménage à trois, I must say.”

But in spite of her blithe tone, Angelique looked a little shaken herself. She still wore the dress she’d had on at the ball hours ago. A dead leaf and bits of grass clung to her dark hair, and a tiny run in the front of her hose marred the smooth line of her legs. She looked excited, agitated, thoroughly compromised.

The same thought must have crossed Reid’s mind. “Where the hell have you been?”

“I’ve been for a walk,” she said, and laughed softly. “It’s a beautiful night.”

“It’s morning,” Reid growled.

“So it is. I hadn’t noticed. So what are
you three
doing up and about?”

“Something’s happened,” Mrs. DuPrae said, dropping her arm from my shoulders as she took a step toward Angelique. “There’s been an…accident—”

It was hard to say murder, I guessed.

It was even harder to come face-to-face with it.

“We don’t know anything for sure,” Reid cut in sharply. “Please go call the police, Mrs. DuPrae.”

“Police? Oh, my…” Angelique said, but her blue eyes clouded with something I couldn’t quite define.

“Mother, what’s wrong?” Rachel called from the back door of the main house. “I heard voices….”

“Goddamn it, will someone please call the bloody police?” Reid barked.

“Yes, yes, of course. I’ll do it right now,” Mrs. DuPrae said, casting me another worried look before she hurried inside.

I stood there in my nightgown as I gazed down at Reid and Angelique. In the thinning darkness, I could see Rachel walking through the garden toward us. She stopped short when she saw me.

She lifted her gaze to mine and the horror in her eyes
shot through me. My legs trembled at the look of sheer terror on her face.

“I’m all right,” I said numbly. “I’m not hurt. It was…” I found I couldn’t say his name anymore. Lawrence Crawford had ceased to exist, and the image of his body, so pale and bloody…

Reid said, almost coldly, “Christine found a body in the woods. She says it’s Lawrence Crawford.”

Both Angelique and Rachel gasped. Angelique moved beside Reid, and he put his arm around her. Nobody said anything. The very air seemed to hum with tension in the stunned silence. Then Rachel’s scream shattered the quiet.

“No!” she wailed over and over, her distress a frightening thing to witness. “It can’t be true!”

I started down the steps toward her, but she whirled back from me, her dark hair flying wildly about her shoulders and down her back. Her eyes, wide with shock, shimmered with a strange, golden fire.

The eyes of a mad woman,
I thought, as we all stood in the quivering silence.

Reid and Angelique were still together at the edge of the garden, their faces ashen and drawn in the whispering light. They looked so very much alike at that moment.

Rachel spun to face them, her face contorted by rage. “Murderer!” she screamed. “You murderer!”

And then she collapsed to the ground in a dead faint.

* * *

“Lawrence Crawford had enemies, quite a few of them. That’s no secret,” said Captain Baptiste as he paced the living room floor in slow, measured strides. His shoes left footprints in the Aubusson rug, and I saw Mrs. DuPrae scowl in disapproval.

Oddly enough, her reaction comforted me. That she could retain some sense of normalcy in this tragedy made me feel better.

At least not everyone had gone crazy.

My gaze scanned the room, searching all the faces. Angelique sat at the piano, pecking at random keys. The notes were discordant, grating on the charged atmosphere of the room, but she seemed not to notice. Her fingers fluttered nervously over the keys, like insects drawn to a flame.

Mrs. DuPrae and Rachel sat together on the sofa, their hands tightly entwined. Rachel had hardly spoken a word since she had fainted in the garden. Reid had carried her inside, and then both Mrs. DuPrae and I had sat with her until she came around. Surprisingly, the first thing she’d said when she’d opened her eyes was, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I’d assumed she meant for her outburst in the garden. Mrs. DuPrae had held her hand and spoken soothingly to her until I’d felt like an intruder on their intimacy. I’d gotten up and walked away from them, but I couldn’t forget the look on Rachel’s face when she’d faced down Reid and Angelique and called one of them a murderer.