Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [134]
In the background, Frank’s voice rose in volume. Then there was a moment of silence. When Jeff got back on the line, he described the dog’s demeanor in a puzzled voice.
I said to Max, “Jeff says there’s a purple dinosaur in Nelli’s mouth now.”
“Oh, that’s her favorite new toy. She must be feeling better!”
I relayed this information to Jeff.
He said, “Well, she’s standing right outside the stairwell door, with her ears perked up and her tail wagging, and that ridiculous thing in her mouth. So it looks like she’s back to normal.” There was a pause, and he added, “Now she’s whining. I think she wants us to come out and play with her.”
“Don’t disappoint her.”
“You’re bringing Puma back here, right?”
“Yes. When we’re done here.”
Cleansing the bokor’s dark work space took a lot of time, as did searching the empty building for baka and zombies. So we didn’t get back to the bookstore until after four o’clock in the morning. Looking and behaving much like her old self, Nelli woke up long enough to greet us all and show off her new dinosaur toy. Jeff was right, it was a ridiculous thing; but it made her happy. And it was good to see Nelli happy again, after the night’s terrible events.
Frank wouldn’t come out of the cellar until Biko had apologized for trying to kill him and assured him it wouldn’t happen again, and Max had taken Nelli upstairs and put her to bed for the night. Then Frank said it had been nice knowing us all, and he was leaving New York on the very next train to anywhere. He’d give Jeff a call in a week or two to see if this whole evil-bokorbaka-zombie thing had blown over yet.
The rest of us shared a celebratory pot of coffee and some stale cookies. I realized I was famished. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten.
“So Napoleon’s dead, huh?” said Jeff. “Can’t say I’m sorry to hear that.”
We had wound up leaving the body where it had fallen, and we left a note about the mess pinned to Catherine’s office door. None of us had any clear idea how to dispose of such a large dead animal in summer without causing a nasty stench until the next garbage collection day. I also thought that Catherine’s permissive treatment of the snake in life meant that she should damn well take responsibility for disposing of it in death.
“That thing would never even have been in a position to try to suffocate Max if Catherine had been sensible enough to ban such a big snake from the foundation,” I said.
Biko said, “Yeah, and knowing Dr. Livingston, that argument’s going to work really well with her when she finds a headless reptile corpse in a blood-soaked room in the foundation’s basement.”
As we had suspected, Puma had been ensnared first, then used as bait to victimize Biko. The mambo had asked Puma to accompany her to the supply room right before the ceremony began. The room was usually locked and Puma hadn’t been in there for several years, since the mambo controlled all the supplies used in the hounfour. Puma had entered the room, seen the dark altar, felt stunned and appalled . . .
“And then . . .” She gasped and put a hand over her mouth. “Now I remember! The mambo hissed at me, and some sort of—”
“Red mist,” Biko said suddenly.
“Yes!” she said. “Red mist.”
“It came pouring out of her mouth?” I said.
The Garlands both nodded. Puma didn’t remember anything that had happened after that, until we roused her hours later in the same room. Biko remembered that after he went downstairs, the mambo told him his sister had suddenly fallen ill and he should take her home. The woman had led him back to the same room, and when he saw Puma lying there unconscious, he panicked. He didn’t even notice the altar. Just his sister’s prone form. Then the mambo had knocked him out, too.
“And you’re saying I tried to kill that guy Frank?” Biko was stunned and appalled. “God, I can’t believe it! And I’m really lucky I didn’t get caught. No one would believe this voodoo possession stuff, least of all Esther’s cop friend. I’d have been sent to prison!”
“But what was the point of all this?” I wondered. “What