Sims stood his ground. “You didn’t look here then, did you, ‘cause this is where I’ve been.”

Jeff did not reply. He felt chagrined that he had not searched the building before they had gone after Ed. Still, he was not going to let Sims off so easy.

“Ed went outside and Waters killed him. Why didn’t you stop him? Why didn’t you help him?”

Sims put his fists on his hips. “Look, I’m not taking a third degree from you. I woke up and wanted some coffee. I needed matches. I didn’t see Ed so I thought he was either back here or up front. He didn’t tell me he was going outside. I didn’t think he was stupid enough to go out there alone.”

Jeff took a step forward intending to punch Sims for insulting Ed. Lisa placed her hand on his arm, restraining him.

“It’s not his fault,” she said quietly.

Jeff swore and backed off. “Help me with Ed’s body.”

Sims picked up one end of the light bundle. As Lisa held open the pantry door, they carried Ed’s body inside.

“I hope he makes it through this,” Jeff stated. “I don’t want his body lost at sea. Let’s move the others in here.”

Fearing the worst, Jeff opened the cooler door. Thankfully, the power had not been off long and the well-insulated room retained its low temperature. A nauseating odor lingered, but it was to be expected and was not the foul stench of decaying flesh. It took almost half an hour to move the bodies and seal the pantry door, first removing any foodstuffs they might need. Lisa, Jeff noticed, stood across the room while they worked.

“Should we say a few words?” Lisa asked.

Jeff leaned against the pantry door, his forehead touching the wood. “We don’t have time. I think they would understand.”

He reached into his pocket, pulled out his lighter and tossed it to Sims. “Here.” He walked away, leaving Sims standing by the door.

They found Tolson awake and sitting on his cot. He looked tired but remarkably well after his terrible fever.

“I wondered where you guys went,” he said when they entered. “I was just about to get up and make some coffee.” Seeing the expression on Jeff’s face, he asked. “What’s wrong?” He looked at each of them in turn. “Where’s Ed?”

Jeff shook his head. “Ed didn’t make it. We just put his body in the pantry and moved the others there as well.”

Tolson clenched the fist of his left hand. “Waters! I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch.”

Jeff knew how he felt but cut Tolson’s tirade short. “We don’t have time now. We have to secure the cooler like Ed wanted. Maybe, just maybe, we can ride this one out.”

“I don’t want to lock myself in the damn cooler with that bastard running around outside. He ain’t stopping until we’re all dead.”

“We can’t afford to look for him. We don’t have time. The storm’s right on top of us.”

Tolson ignored Jeff’s plea.

“You three go ahead if you want. I’m gonna either kill that bastard or he’s gonna kill me. Then I’m taking the emergency raft and getting the hell away from here. Either way, I’m not letting Waters off this platform alive.”

Jeff knew about Tolson’s determination. Sometimes he bordered on being stubborn. “You can hardly move around out there. The wind’s too rough.”

Tolson ignored him. He stood, removed his arm from the sling and flexed his hand several times experimentally. He smiled when he noticed there was no pain.

“I need a weapon,” Tolson said.

Jeff wasn’t sure anything would work on Waters, or whatever he had become. “We’ve got Ed’s Glock.”

Tolson smiled. “I’ll fill the bastard full of lead and toss him over the side.”

“We have to stay together,” Jeff cautioned. “Waters has changed. He can come out of nowhere.” He hesitated. “I don’t know if bullets will stop him.”

Tolson stared at him. “I can kill anything,” he boasted. “I want to see that bastard’s eyes when I shoot him.” He looked at Jeff and cocked his head to one side. “So, you’re coming with me?”

He smiled. “I can’t let you go out there alone.”

“What about Sims?”

Jeff gave it only a second’s thought. “Let him stay here. I don’t trust him.”

“Yeah, me neither. Let’s kill Waters. Then you can ride out this damn storm while I float home.”

Jeff knew it wasn’t going to be as simple as that but they had no choice. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Wait,” Lisa said. She looked at Jeff. “Do you have the gris-gris?”

Jeff pulled it out of his pocket.

“Sprinkle some of the contents on the bullets.”

“What is this, voodoo?” Tolson asked, clearly skeptical.

She smiled. “Humor me. Pretend it’s holy water and you’re going after a vampire. Maybe he is, in a way.”

“Okay.”

Jeff opened the small cloth bag and examined the contents. Tolson removed the clip from the Glock and handed it to him. Jeff sprinkled a small amount of powder down into the clip and shook it.

“I hope it doesn’t cause it to jam,” Tolson said as he slammed the clip back in. He hefted the Glock and smiled.

Jeff knew how Tolson felt. There was something comforting in the weight of a weapon in your hand when facing danger, even if the weapon was inadequate. It was kind of like in the B-grade monster movies where the machine guns prove useless against the monster but everyone hangs on to them throughout the entire movie anyway. The logical thing would have been to drop them so they could run faster.

Jeff saw Lisa putting on her coat. “What are you doing?”

“I’m coming, too.”

“No, you’re not. Stay here.”

“No way. I’m not staying here. I’m coming with you two.”

Jeff shrugged. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of her alone with Sims anyway. “Okay.”

As before, the rain was a weapon against them. It was a whip wielded by a sadist, flaying their exposed flesh. The wind growled like a beast and blew so hard it forced them to walk bent so low they could see only their feet in front of them. Carefully piled garbage pelted them as the wind ripped it off the platform. Jeff felt like a hapless umpire at a ball game after a bad call.

“We’ll never find him like this,” Jeff yelled, barely audible over the din of the storm. He led them to the warehouse. Inside, sheltered from the worst of the storm, they could talk. “Let’s check the other buildings first,” he suggested.

They scoured the warehouse before they left its shelter but saw no sign of him.

“He can’t be out in this,” Tolson said.

“I don’t know,” Lisa replied. “If he’s really Damballah Wedo, he would relish the storm, be part of it.”

Tolson looked at her. “Damballah…what-o?”

She shook her head. “Never mind. Let’s just say he isn’t the Waters you remember. He’s stronger, more dangerous.”

Tolson held up the pistol. “Stronger than this?”

They went back into the storm. They checked the radio shack and the generator room, now ominously silent. Descending the stairs to the cellar deck, Jeff lost his footing when a sudden gust caught him off guard. He slid down the stairs on his back, grabbing frantically at the rails for support with his free hand as both legs slipped through the railings. For a moment he hung suspended above the Gulf by one hand. Tolson grabbed his wrist and pulled. Vicious winds from below punished him as he struggled to stand. Water blew up the stairwell like a chimney flue, almost drowning him.

“Thanks,” he yelled at Tolson. “Both of you stay here,” he warned them, coughing to clear his lungs of seawater. “It’s too dangerous. I’ll check it out.”

He managed to climb down the remainder of the stairs, nursing a sore left leg and numerous bruises. The wind was less intensive behind the steel bulkhead of the mudroom, but near the edges of the platform, he was exposed to its full wrath. Water cascaded over the rails and poured over the deck in great rivers. Loose debris washed around the deck, making footing treacherous.

A sound startled him. He turned to see Lisa and Tolson approaching behind him.

“I thought I told you to wait,” he said, slightly upset.

Lisa stared at him. “We’re not leaving you alone.”

Jeff nodded. Maybe she was being more sensible than him. “Okay, let’s check it out. The landing deck is completely underwater. Unless Waters can breathe water, there’s no need to go down there. We’ll check the central hallway.”

They waded through the frigid knee-deep water of the wood shop and entered the long hallway, also flooded. Jeff checked the storerooms, watching the shadows stir like sleeping creatures as his flashlight swept over them.

“No sign of him,” he told them.

Loud splashes echoed down the hallway. He shined his flashlight and saw dozens of ripples in the water. Small brown dots floated in their centers.

“Rats!” Lisa screamed. “Where did they come from?”

Jeff looked around. Where had the rats come from? The rats had them cut off from the wood shop doorway and he didn’t want to lock himself in one of the storerooms. He spotted a fire extinguisher hanging from a hook and grabbed it.

“Stay behind me,” he yelled. He hoped the extinguisher worked. The cylinder was rusty. They had not yet gotten around to replacing all the fire extinguishers on the platform. Pulling the pin, he used the foam like a scythe, cutting a path through the rats, forcing them to one side of the narrow hallway away from them.

“Quick, get inside,” he told his companions as they made it to the wood shop door. He used up the last of the foam and tossed the extinguisher after the swimming rats. Just before he stepped through the door and closed it, he saw the rats stop swimming, turn to face him with twinkling red eyes and merge together to form Waters’ head floating on the water. He slammed the door and dogged it shut.

“What?” Lisa asked, seeing his pale face.

He shook his head, afraid to relate what he had seen or imagined he had seen.

They checked each room and found no sign of Waters. When they reached the mudroom, Tolson began to climb the stairs to the vat.

Jeff stopped him. “Don’t bother. We’ve checked it twice.”

Tolson glanced up. “Maybe the bastard’s up on the helideck.”

Jeff took a deep breath. “No, it’s too dangerous,” he warned. “Besides, he couldn’t even keep his footing up there.”

“I’m looking anyway,” Tolson said determinedly.

They followed Tolson back up to the main deck. Tolson began to inch his way up the exposed stairs to the helideck. Jeff held his breath.

“He’ll be killed,” Lisa cried in his ear.

“He’ll make it,” he assured her. He had seen Tolson do many near impossible things he had set out to do. Tolson was no quitter.

They watched with agonized anticipation as Tolson crawled up the stairs. At the top, exposed to the wind, he did not attempt to stand. Instead, he raised his head over the edge and scanned the helideck.

“Nothing!” he called down to them. His words torn away by the wind, meant less than the negative shake of his head and the look of disappointment in his eyes.

Tolson scooted back down the stairs on his belly.

“Where the hell is he?” Tolson complained when he reached them.

“Maybe he’s back in the blockhouse,” Jeff suggested.

“What about the charms?” Lisa asked.

“I don’t know. He’s either there or he’s gone. He’s not out here.”

“Let’s check.”

Tolson led the way with the Glock. They entered the front door and checked each room carefully, ending in the cafeteria. “Look,” Tolson said.

Wet footprints led from the rear door to the pantry.

“Waters,” Jeff said.

Tolson indicated silence by placing his finger to his lips. He faced the pantry door with the pistol, motioning Jeff stand to the side and open the door. Jeff watched Tolson as he mouthed the 1-2-3 count down.

On three, Jeff opened the door and stood back. Tolson stood there, his mouth open, staring into the pantry. Lisa walked over and looked inside.

“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. “They’re gone.”

Jeff looked in and confirmed her observation. All the bodies were gone. The only thing left was the plastic bucket containing the arm and the plastic the bodies had been covered with.

“He’s moved them, but why?”

“To where?” Lisa added.

“Check the cooler,” Tolson suggested.

They went through the same process as before, but it, too, was empty.

“Son of a bitch,” Tolson snapped. “Why does he need the dead?”

Jeff was perplexed. How does a mad man think? “I don’t know.”

Tolson slammed his fist against the cooler door. “When I find that bastard…” Tolson didn’t finish his threat. He rushed for the rear door.

“Wait!” Jeff cried out. With a sudden pain in his stomach, he realized he was too late.

Ignoring Jeff’s warning, Tolson opened the door. Waters was standing there, waiting. His empty eyes stared at Tolson. A cruel smile creased his pasty lips. Tolson raised the Glock and fired three quick rounds into Waters’ chest. The bullets passed harmlessly through Waters with a sickening squishing sound as if he were a water ghost, exiting his back and disappearing into the storm.

Waters reached out his hand toward Tolson’s head. Tolson did not back away. He raised the Glock a second time. Waters stopped his hand a few inches from Tolson’s head, but ebony shadow fingers projected from his fingertips. They entered Tolson’s forehead. Tolson jerked as if electrocuted. Tendrils of smoke rose as his large mustache singed. Tolson’s body began to spasm and he dropped the Glock. He danced like a marionette, held erect only due to Waters’ hand inside his head. After a few seconds, Waters withdrew his hand and Tolson sank to the floor.

Jeff went at Waters but Lisa held him back.

“Don’t,” she cried.

Waters looked at him. “Not yet, Towns,” he said, his voice a whisper. “Your turn will come soon enough.”

“What do you want?” Jeff yelled.

Waters stepped over Tolson, still trembling on the floor. He stopped a few feet inside the door and pointed to the amulet on the door.

“Did you think it could stop me, stop us?”

“It stopped the fog.”

Waters laughed. “The fog is mindless, an elemental doing our bidding. We are beyond life and death. The dead do not die.”

“What did you do with my friends’ bodies?”

“They, too, serve a purpose,” Waters answered.

He decided to try reasoning with the part of Waters that remained. “There’s still time to get off this rig before Rita hits, Waters. We can take the emergency craft and escape.”

“You fool! There’s no escaping Rita. Katrina supplied the power to open a rift in the Gateway. Each death holds it open that much longer. Rita comes next to tear the Gateway asunder for all time. We will send its mad, hungry winds at New Orleans once more, drowning the city beneath the waves. It will become a lost city of legend, like Atlantis or Mu.”

“Why destroy New Orleans?”

“Carnage is our meat; death our bread,” Waters continued. “Each soul strengthens us.”

Something in Waters’ words didn’t ring true. “Why New Orleans? It’s mostly evacuated from Katrina already. Why not Galveston or Houston? There are millions there.”

Waters face changed slightly. His pale skin rippled as if something moved under the skin. His lips twitched and one eyeless socket blinked. He raised one hand toward Jeff before suddenly reverting to his previously stiff, cold posture.

“It is insignificant,” he said.

Waters turned toward the door.

“Wait?” Jeff called.

Waters stopped in the doorway but did not turn to face him.

“Why are we still alive?”

“You will be witnesses,” Waters said. “Afterwards, you too will become one with us.”

Lightning flashed and Waters simply vanished.

“Oh, my God,” Lisa whispered, coming up to stand beside Jeff. “I thought he was going to kill you.”

“Not yet. That means we still have a chance.”

Tolson drummed his heels on the floor. His eyes rolled beneath his lids and the color had drained from his face but he was alive.

“He didn’t kill Tolson either,” Lisa said, bending down to touch Tolson’s forehead.

“He didn’t do him any favors,” Jeff noted. He picked up the Glock and placed it in his waistband. “Help me get Tolson to a bed.”

Together, they managed to lift him up and drag him to his bunk. He was perspiring as if his fever had come back upon him.

“He doesn’t look good,” Lisa said. “Look.”

She pulled back Tolson’s shirt collar. The nearly healed gash was once again open, this time festering with yellow ichor oozing from the wound. The stench was sickening.

“There’s not much we can do for him except keep him in bed.”

Lisa looked up at Jeff. Her voice broke slightly as she spoke. “We’re going to die aren’t we?”

He yearned to say no but knew she would hear the lie in his voice. “We’re not dead yet,” he said. “If I have to die, I want to stop this bastard first.”

“We need more answers,” she said.

He shook his head. “If you mean what I think you mean…”

“I’ll do it alone this time.”

“No, we do this together or not at all.”

She reached out and lightly touched his forehead, brushing a lock of wet hair from his eyes. “I’ll get things ready.”

As she walked away, Jeff wondered if going into the land of the dead twice was asking for trouble. He mentally damned Sims. The man was never around when needed. Where had he gone now? Was he already another of Waters’ victims?

Jeff checked his watch. Time was running out. The main force of the storm would bear down on them in less than six hours. If they weren’t securely locked in the cooler by then, they would never make it.

Chapter Twenty Four

Once more, candles flickered in the emptied front office. Jeff had retrieved his lighter where Sims had left it by the coffee urn. The wind howling outside and the rain clawing at the door lent a macabre aspect to the situation, like a gothic séance.

“I don’t have any more alcohol,” Lisa said. “It might be more difficult to trance.”

“I thought of that,” Jeff said, holding up a small syringe partially filled with a milky white substance. “It’s morphine, from the med kit I took from the ship. I wish I had Sims’ damn metal hip flask.”

Lisa eyed the syringe in Jeff’s hand with trepidation and suspicion. “I don’t know—morphine? It could be dangerous.” She had grown up hearing horror stories of people hooked on morphine, crack and heroin. She didn’t trust her will power. What if she was one of those who couldn’t handle it?

“It’s only 2 milligrams,” Jeff assured her. “Not enough to be dangerous. It will only relax you, not knock you out.”

“You’re sure?”

Jeff smiled. “I’m sure. I’ve had a shot of liquid morphine before when I broke a bone out on a rig.”

She nodded. “Okay, you do it.” Lisa held out her arm and closed her eyes. She felt Jeff wrap something around her arm above the elbow. Then, a tiny sting as Jeff found a vein in her arm. He released the tourniquet and folded her arm up with a cotton ball over the wound. Before she could tell him it didn’t hurt, she felt the drug hitting her system, making her woozy.

“Whoa,” she exclaimed as she stumbled.

Jeff led her to a chair. “Sit a minute until it levels out in your system.”

She was strangely calm. Is this what addicts feel? After a few minutes, the worst of it was over. She knew the drug was in her system but she could still function.

“I’ll start now,” she told Jeff.

Jeff started the music on her I-pod. It seemed to her the storm outside was keeping time with the African drums—the low boom of thunder of the Gimbe, the crack of lightning of the Djembe and the polyphony rumble of rain of the Djun Djun. Slowly, the rhythm reached her feet and she began to dance around the room chanting. She felt the platform sway and incorporated its stuttering rhythm into her movements. Platform, storm, music and she became one.

At first, she didn’t think it would work. She felt no connection with the Loas, just a strange sense of harmony with the storm outside. The room began to change around her, the walls dissolving. She opened her eyes and was alone in a dark space.

“Jeff,” she called out but received no answer. For whatever reason, she was alone this time.

Baron Samedi did not come to her. She was outside alone in the storm. Rain soaked her hair and clothes and she felt a chill. Looking around, she could see she was on the platform but not the one from which she had just left. This platform was a rig from hell. Thick ropes of rust and crusted blood hung like vines from the roofs of buildings that were mere shells of themselves, caved in and crumbling. Pieces fell as she watched. The deck was no longer concrete and steel. It had become a living substance firm but not hard. She could feel a pulse, like a slow heartbeat, through the soles of her shoes.

Darkness prevailed. She could see neither water nor sky, although flickering smudges of light in the distance looked like lightning. The platform was a thing of shadows. They moved like diaphanous veils across the deck, leaving pools of deeper darkness behind them. She was afraid to move, fearing the deck would disappear beneath her entirely.

“Welcome,” a voice called out. The voice was deep and echoed as if from a deep well. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, surrounding her.

“Who are you?” she asked, looking around and fearing the answer.

“Damballah Wedo,” the voice answered loudly, shaking the platform. Bits of rust and other unidentifiable substances fell on her from overhead. She cringed as a piece of something moved on her arm. Without looking, she shuddered and shook it off.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“You have moved through time. This is your future—darkness, emptiness, despair. Soon it will come to the entire world.”

“Unless we stop you,” she answered more boldly than she felt.

Laughter shook the rig. “You are here as a witness, nothing more. You are powerless to stop me or my minions.”

“Your minions?” she asked.

Immediately, the misshapen, mutilated bodies of her dead fellow workers surrounded her, created from the substance of shadows, their dead, sightless eyes seeing or sensing her in some ethereal manner. She stepped back and Sid Easton lurched forward, one ear missing, and a demonic grin on his otherwise cold pale face. He raised his arms, reaching for her, exposing the lack of entrails in his abdomen. She slapped at his arms, repelled by her contact with his cold, lifeless flesh.

“Stay away, Sid!” she screamed at him.

He stopped at the sound of her voice. Confusion caused him to lower his arms and shuffle on dead feet.

“He remembers you,” Damballah Wedo said. “Poor fool.”

This angered her. “You murdered him, all of them. Why?”

“You know why. I took their souls for power.”

“How many souls do you need?”

“Three more,” he laughed.

“So Sims was dead, too. Why isn’t his body here also, a walking zombie?” “I’m here to fight you,” she yelled defiantly, somewhat like a little girl yelling angrily with raised fist at an approaching storm.

“You cannot fight me.”

“I can try,” she insisted.

Two eyes blazed in the shadows. “The Gateway is open, ever so slightly. Life and death are two sides of the same coin. What would you do if I offered to give you back your friends as they were?”

Lisa swallowed hard. “Was he trying to bribe her? For what reason?” “All of them?”

“All of them.”

“In exchange for what?”

“You will all leave this place in the emergency craft.”

Her hopes sank. “We’ll die in the storm.”

“Perhaps, though I will do nothing against you. You will be at the mercy of the storm and no more. You may survive. You may not. Will you chance it?”

She thought of her dead friends returned to her, and of her granny. “Include Granny Iris.”

Damballah Wedo laughed. “You want a mambo? She cannot help you. No, the mambo remains where she is.”

She knew it had to be a trick. Why should he return them alive after all the trouble he had gone through? Did he know something she did not?

“Why do you want us gone?” she asked.

“A gesture on my part.”

“Maybe you are afraid of us,” she suggested.

Thunder roared and the platform shook. “I fear no one.”

“My friends are dead. I’ve grieved for them already. I don’t want to leave. I want to stop you.”

Lisa felt something invisible reach out of the shadows and grab her, wrap around her like the coils of a snake, lift her into the air and fling her across the platform. She landed hard on her back, knocking the air from her lungs. She rolled over to look at the black sky above and passed out.

She awoke still on her back. The zombie corpses of her friends stood silent vigil around her. She checked her body for broken bones but thankfully found none. She felt confused. She had no idea of how much time had passed.

“How long was I out?” she asked of the darkness.

“A day. A moment? What is time where it does not exist?”

“I expected you to kill me,” she admitted.

“Not I. Not yet.”

“But you will?” she asked.

“When the time comes, you will die.”

She laughed. Damballah Wedo shared none of her uncertainty. “I thought you said there was no such thing as time.”

The platform shook so violently that her zombie guards fell to the deck.

“Do not bandy words with me,” he said.

“It’s plain to see you have no sense of humor,” she said getting to her feet. “Let me see you.”

She sensed something behind her. She turned and stared into the glowing red eyes of an ebony face. The face rested on the body of a serpent. When he opened his mouth, two large fangs glistened.

“Damballah Wedo,” she said. “I thought white was your color.”

He hissed. “I wandered my realm and found shadows, dark and inviting, deep in time and space. They spoke to me, succored me. Now, I am a thing of shadows.”

“You’re the shadow of the real Damballah Wedo,” she said, misinterpreting his words.

Again, the platform shuddered as he writhed before her, hissing. “I am Damballah Wedo!” he said, rising to tower above her. Now the shadow casts its own image.”

She fell and bounced along the living deck. It felt like tortured flesh beneath her. She rose quickly in disgust.

“You are the father of Loas. You are good.”

He laughed. “I am Damballah Wedo, Lord over all. I am beyond good and evil. I am all things. The shadow has become greater than that which once cast it. I yearn to break my bonds, go where I wish.”

“The other Loas will stop you.”

“They fear me.”

“I don’t fear you.”

He stared at her with his blood red eyes and she felt herself slipping into them, into hell.

Chapter Twenty Five

Sims stood on the deck, exposed to the wind and rain. He could smell death in the wind, but had nowhere to run. Pain raced through his body in response to the thought of escape from his bargain. He fought back the memories as they poured into his mind, released by the greatest Loa of all to torment him. He remembered the rage that was Hurricane Katrina and the fight to get his crippled ship back to port. He remembered seeing the platform in the distance, on fire and belching black smoke but solid in a sea of gigantic waves. He remembered tying up to it, hoping for help.

He remembered walking into hell itself.

Mutilated, hacked and tortured bodies lay everywhere. The odor of death hung over the platform in spite of the strong wind, some evil hovering over the rig like the pall of smoke. He saw the Digger Man, standing in front of him, filled to the brim with the evil of the place, dripping its overflow onto the deck like spilled tar. Its blackness oozed and quivered on the deck like a living creature.

Pain, muscle twisting, bone wrenching pain filled his mind. No words had passed between them but he knew what was wanted of him, what he had no choice but do. After he did as he was bidden, he left the platform, carrying his tormentor with him, inside like a parasite feeding on the remnants of his soul. He murdered his crew, and when the storm took his ship, rode the waves heedless of the danger until picked up by the Coast Guard. Now he was back, along with Waters, a minion, to complete his task.

The pain subsided. Sims calmly walked into the storm.

Chapter Twenty Six

Lisa was drowning. She struggled as the frigid water enveloped her, smothering her. She struck out blindly, hitting something solid.

“It’s me, Lisa,” a faint voice whispered over the crashing of waves and the peal of thunder. A face hovered above her, somehow familiar. She focused on its features, slowly recognizing it.

“Jeff?” She sobbed. She felt a surge of relief. Her descent into hell…she couldn’t remember. She remembered the beginning of her journey into Damballah Wedo’s fiery eyes when everything she believed in fell to the wayside when faced with the reality of his existence. Her body remembered the tortures she had endured but her mind had shut down under the duress. She felt a blank spot in her mind, numb and cold.

“Yes.” He pulled her tight. Rain pelted them. They were outside on the deck.

“How?”

Jeff shook his head. “I don’t know. You disappeared from the room. Somehow I knew I would find you out here.”

“Thank you,” she said, her words muffled by his jacket. “How long was I gone?”

“Minutes. You disappeared and I came out here and saw your body crumpled on the deck. I…I was afraid.”

Jeff looked at her oddly while she struggled to digest this information. She felt older, much older.

“Let’s get you back inside out of the storm,” he suggested. He helped her to her feet. Her body was sore and bruised; aching proof it had not all been a dream.

She sobbed. “He offered to give everyone back, Jeff, if we would just leave. Let them live again.”

“Just like that.” She could detect skepticism and bitterness in Jeff’s voice that had matched her own.

“I think he’s afraid of us.”

“It certainly doesn’t looks like it,” he answered.

“I think I know why he’s determined to strike New Orleans again.”

“Why?” Jeff stopped to stare at her. Water dripped down his face, accentuating the weariness and disbelief she saw in his eyes.

“It’s a city filled with people with knowledge of voodoo, houngans and mamboes, people with power. They didn’t abandon New Orleans after Katrina. Maybe they even fought him the first time. Katrina didn’t do the damage they thought it would. It was the old levees that failed. Maybe someone there knows how to stop him.”

“How does that help us out here?”

They walked through the front door out of the fury of the storm. It was as if a heavy weight had lifted from her. Even this modest shelter offered some protection from the almost overpowering sense of dread she felt in the power of the storm raging outside. She looked at the candles and pentagram and smiled. Maybe this was the center of that protection. She was amazed that she no longer felt as if she was trespassing on her grandmother’s turf. She knew she had the same genes, the same power as her grandmother. The old memories were still there, as sharp as if engraved on her young mind for this very purpose by her grandmother. It gave her hope, slim hope, but better than none at all.

“It means he can be defeated,” she said with confidence.

“How?”

How was the question she kept asking herself. “I don’t know, yet.”

She wiped her face and damp dried her hair with the towel Jeff handed her. Her arms ached. She forced herself to get up to check on Tolson. He was worse. His upper arm was laced with purplish-black lines from blood poisoning. His fever burned hot in his brow and he twisted and writhed in his bed. She could detect the first sour odor of gangrene.

“Tolson’s worse,” she said when Jeff came to check on her. “He’s going to die here unless we do something soon.”

Jeff looked at her with fire in his eyes, fighting the weariness they both felt. “I’m no longer concerned with just surviving the hurricane. Too much has been taken from me—my friends, my faith, even my beliefs. I want to stop this Damballah Wedo somehow before he manages to wipe New Orleans off the map. More than that, I want to kill Waters.”

She had never seen so much anger, so much hatred in Jeff’s face. The anger contorted his features, hardening his chin and brow. He looked as if he would take on Damballah Wedo barehanded if necessary. She knew she could not stop him. It was up to her to find some way to help him.

“Let’s get out of these wet clothes,” she suggested, holding out her soggy shirt by the bottom.

He nodded. “I noticed Sims is gone again,” he said as he pulled off his wet shirt. He took a fresh one from his backpack and put it on.

“Damballah Wedo said he needed three more souls; I presumed ours and Tolson’s. That means Sims is dead also.”

Jeff stopped dressing and looked at her. “Dead? Well, I hate it but he picked his horse to ride. It’s his own damn fault.” He looked at her a moment as she stared at him. “I know it’s cruel, but I just don’t care any more. He fought us from the start, unless…” he paused. “Unless Damballah Wedo meant Tolson’s soul is his already and Sims is still out there.” Jeff shook his head. “I don’t know which I want to be true.” Jeff shrugged out of his soaked jeans and slipped into a dry pair. “That’s better,” he said, doing his best to muster a smile.

Lisa went to her room and took off her pants and shirt. Jeff followed. He looked at her naked body but showed no overwhelming desire for her. She, too, was drained of emotions, especially lust. She was too tired and frightened. She noticed bruises that looked like wide bands on her ribs and torso and remembered Damballah Wedo’s serpentine appearance, the way he was always depicted. She finished changing her clothes and felt a bit warmer.

“So what do we do?” Jeff asked.

“I have to think, to try to remember anything my granny said that might help us. If Digger Man’s gris-gris was powerful enough to help Damballah Wedo break open the Gateway, maybe we can use it somehow.”

“We anointed the bullets but they didn’t stop Waters,” Jeff reminded her.

She tried to consider the problem they faced. “Oh, I don’t know, Jeff. I’m so tired, so empty. I need to rest and think.”

“Lie down and get some sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

“You won’t…”

He smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

“All right.”

She let Jeff lay her in her bunk. She held onto his neck, pulled him down to her and kissed him. “Thank you, Jeff.”

He kissed her again, longer this time; letting his hands slide over her body. She felt a warm shiver of response and was surprised.

“My pleasure,” he said as he pulled away slowly. She reluctantly released him. “Sleep now.”

She knew she could not sleep. She needed to think.

* * * *

Jeff was worried. Tolson’s shoulder and arm looked very bad and smelled even worse. He had caught a whiff of just such a wound before in a hospital ward and Tolson’s wound smelled suspiciously like it. Tolson would die if they did not get him to a hospital soon. He looked over at Lisa as she tossed and turned in her sleep. It had taken her a while. He had watched her fight it until sleep had won out over fear. He sat on the floor with his back to the door, watching over her.

He was in love with her. He knew she felt the same for him. It felt good to be in love. It would have been much better if they were in New Orleans in the French Quarter or on Grand Isle or even in Shreveport, anywhere but here on this hell rig, surrounded by death and horrors beyond the pale of normalcy. Romance pulled a poor second to fear and simple survival.

Jeff was as near to giving up as he had ever been in his life, and indeed, his life was the very thing at stake, his and Lisa’s and probably Tolson’s. Waters had damaged Tolson in some way, had broken off a piece of the monster he had become in Tolson’s mind and left it there to fester. Jeff wondered what nightmares Tolson was facing, what tortures he was enduring. Faced with the same prospect, would he give up?

If he bothered to look in a mirror, Jeff wondered what his reflection would show. An expression like Waters had worn on the journey out, distant and resigned? Lack of sleep and living on the edge of death for five days had worn him down both physically and emotionally. He hadn’t eaten since…he couldn’t remember, but the thought of food made him queasy.

He wished he could provide more comfort to Lisa, but she was, in her own way, stronger than him. She at least had some idea of what was happening; some hope of fighting it on equal terms. Jeff was cast adrift on a sea of sorrows, flotsam in the wake of his shipwrecked beliefs. He had neither answers nor the expectation of answers. He wasn’t even certain what questions applied to the situation.

Voodoo—he had always imaged it as some primitive religion with its false gods and even more bogus followers, a way to con the ignorant and gullible tourists out of a few dollars, akin to séances and Ouija boards. He didn’t have faith in any religion. An alcoholic mother who managed to drag him to church on the occasional Sunday but ignored him the rest of the week; a father too weak to fight her but prayed to God for help. These were his memories of church and priests.

In the horror movies, the cross was no protection against vampires unless the person holding it believed in its power. He had no cross to lean on and no faith to cling to, except Lisa. She seemed so confident, so sure of herself, that he found it difficult to fault her faith. Too many people believed in something, some religion, for faith to be a fluke. He knew he was a minority, a cynic, and did not hold himself above believers. He had seen too many things to dismiss the power of voodoo.

Jeff reached in his pocket and pulled out the gris-gris. He stared at the dirty, slightly grease-stained cloth bag in a new light. Was it hope that made it warm to the touch, or just imagination? Was it hope that made him feel safer with it, or despair? Mama Cariou had said Digger Man’s gris-gris held something too powerful for him to control and had opened him up to the shadows. Was he any safer with it than Digger Man had been? He considered tossing it in the garbage, but just as a drowning man would cling to a reed, he was clinging to a voodoo charm. Why had its contents not worked on the bullets against Waters? Maybe it was the whole thing and not the sum of its parts that mattered, that held the power. Not the powder but the gris-gris itself, a talisman, much like the cross in Christianity and not the metal it is made from.

He shoved it back in his pocket.

The platform heaved. Jeff braced himself against the wall. For a heart wrenching moment, he thought the platform was going down. The storm that had become Hurricane Rita was rapidly growing in intensity. It was almost upon them, a little ahead of schedule, as if eager for the kill. Anger welled up in him, a blind rage at their hopelessness. He was mad enough to face Damballah Wedo alone if he knew how. Waters first, though. The two were connected somehow by some evil black thread. Jeff suspected he, Lisa and Tolson would not survive the coming storm. He just wanted a chance at revenge before his death.

He mentally counted the bodies of the dead just since arriving on Global Thirteen—eleven, plus the twenty-two original deaths that had opened up the Gateway. Thirty-three deaths. That was a lot of ghosts. Would it soon be thirty-six? He struggled to grasp the reality of the unreal situation. The things that had happened, that he had witnessed, could not be dismissed or explained away by logic. They were the new reality, as real as any nightmare while in a dream state, but now the nightmare was taking place while they were wide awake. He thought of Bale hanging in the same way Digger Man did, except Bale did not crucify himself, did not hoist himself upon… Jeff sat up quickly. Something had been bothering him about Waters’ account of finding the Digger Man. The remote control cable—Jeff measured it twice. There was no way the Digger Man could have hoisted himself twenty feet into the air. The remote would have been jerked from his hands before then and he would have continued rising until hitting the top of the boom. Could Waters have been wrong about the height? He seemed so specific, as if the memory were etched forever into his mind by the horror of it.

If Digger Man had not killed himself, who had? Waters? No, that did not fit. Why would he lie about it? Was there someone else on the platform, someone capable of remaining unseen? No. He hit his forehead with his fist as he shook his head. That didn’t make sense either. There was a physical presence here. McAndrews had insisted Waters could not have killed Bale, yet he had seen Waters kill McAndrews. Even if Clyde had killed Bale and Easton, who had killed the ship’s crew and Ed?

What had the kid on the sinking ship said…watch out for the man with the eagle knife? Lisa’s Granny Iris had said almost the same thing. What was the significance of the eagle? He tried to think. Where had he seen an eagle? He remembered a flash of light, a glittering object, wings unfolded as if in flight. He rubbed his forehead in frustration. The vision would not come.

He had to wake Lisa.

Chapter Twenty Seven

Lisa Love slept but not soundly. Her sleep interrupted by a dream so strange, so nightmarish that she tossed and turned on her bed, a fine sheen of perspiration covering her body. In her dream, she was young, perhaps twelve, watching as she had often done from a distance as her Granny Iris performed a voodoo ritual.

Lisa knew her mother would not approve of her being there, but something about the hypnotic, pulsing rhythm of the drums and the almost incomprehensible chanting struck a chord deep within her young, prepubescent body. She felt alive, as if the secrets of the universe were just beyond her grasp. Her excitement moved her feet to the sway of the beat. Her granny had taught her the Loas just as her mother had taught her the saints. She knew more than she had ever admitted either to Granny Iris or her mother. The power of voodoo seemed as tangible as the wind and the rain. She closed her eyes and swayed to the music, allowing it to transport her to a different place, a place with no cares, no worries.

“Lisa!”

She opened her eyes. She was standing in the middle of the room. The other celebrants stared at her, saying nothing. The music stopped. She was breathing hard and was tired, as if she had run a long way. She looked into the eyes of those around her and saw awe and wonder. She felt she missed something important.

“What is it, Granny Iris?”

Her granny’s eyes sparkled. “You were in trance, child, a deep trance. Don’t you remember?”

She concentrated. It seemed she remembered something, a voice or a presence calling to her, whispering in her ear, and then a blank spot. She knew it would come back to her if she concentrated hard enough.

“No, Granny,” she lied. She wanted the voice to be her secret.

Granny Iris stared at her a moment longer, and smiled. “Well, that’s okay, child. You better run along home to your mama afore she has words with me.”

Lisa left but she knew something had left with her that day. Later that night, while in bed, she tried hard to recall the voice. It had been a woman’s voice, strong and powerful, a warrior’s voice like in her fantasy books, and yet still sweet and compassionate.

“Stay true,” the voice had whispered to her. “Stay true and remember this night.”

She did not know what it meant but it was her secret and she relished it as a young girl would any secret. Her granny noticed something different about her after that night and Lisa began to stay away from the rituals afraid she would reveal too much, but somehow she knew the rituals as well as her granny. She knew it was the voice inside her.

Time passed and school and boys begged for more and more of her time and attention. Memories came and went, but always, deep inside, her secret voice remained, hidden but vigilant.

* * * *

Eric Tolson was in hell. He knew this with a certainty beyond anything else he had ever known before. It was exactly the type of thing described by the evangelists he had listened to while growing up, real Revelations-type stuff. He was surrounded by death and misery. He couldn’t see; all was in complete darkness, but he could visualize everything around him through some occult sense.

Red prevailed, not the cheerful red of apples or cherries, but the horrible, tortured crimson of fresh blood, splashed on every surface, dripping in clots to the floor, which was an equally red substance more flesh-like than solid. It writhed unnervingly beneath his feet. Sounds, terrible ululations from tortured throats, rose like a cloying mist from the ground, saturating his body with the pain of others.

His own pain was secondary, a mild itch in the back of his mind. It was nothing compared to the unending horror within which he was submerged, an alien ocean of dismay, with waves of disgust lapping hungrily on bloody red beaches of dread. He remembered his encounter with Waters, or what had once been Waters. The evil blackness of Waters’ touch had burned deep into his mind, burning away the past and future, pinning him like a butterfly to the awful present, unending and enduring. He could feel his shoulder; feel things moving beneath the skin; maggoty things eating corrupted flesh. He tried to move but couldn’t. His arms were stretched wide to each side, pinned to the undulating crimson wall with slimy tendrils of sanguine flesh that wound around and pierced his skin. He was crucified, like Bale, on an incarnadine cross.

“Not like Bale,” a voice called to him from the not darkness.

“Waters?” he called out.

A sickeningly morbid laugh followed. “Not Waters.”

“Am I dead?” he asked, hoping he was not; hoping a spark of life yet remained in his body; hoping for a reprieve from his agony.

“Death is too easy. I have plans for you.”

He thought about Jeff, Lisa and Sims. “What about the others? Are they alive?”

“For now,” the voice answered.

Tolson struggled against his bonds. “Let me see you, you bastard.”

The darkness withdrew, replaced by a dull red glow, almost below human perception. He knew this light was real, not some trick of his mind. The crimson wall of flesh beside him bulged outward as if pregnant before splitting like a rotten apple, leaving a figure drenched in blood standing before him. At first, he could not recognize the figure. As the blood dripped from its face, it became more recognizable. Tolson’s heart stopped beating; then resumed with a chest-wrenching thud. Anger surged through him as he struggled to reach his tormentor with his bound hands.

“You!” he cried out. “You lousy bastard!”

Chapter Twenty Eight

Jeff looked at her as they sat at the table drinking coffee.

“Did you sleep?” he asked.

Lisa shook her head. She felt worse than when she had lain down. “Not well. I had…dreams.”

“Maybe Tolson was right. Maybe we should take our chances on the TEMPSC.”

“Tolson would never make it, even if we did.” She pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number, hoping. “Nothing,” she said, slamming it on the table.

“It doesn’t want us to call for help.” He hesitated a moment. “The TEMPSC might be our only option. We can’t lock Waters out.”

Lisa thought of riding in a small, enclosed boat while a hurricane bounced her about like a rag doll. She saw it split open like a balloon and spill them into the cold, dark waters. She thought of those same cold, dark waters rushing over an already drowning New Orleans. She could not let that happen.

She shook her head resolutely. “No, we have to stop him here. If we don’t, New Orleans will surely die.”

“How?”

She looked into Jeff’s eyes and saw a reflection of her tears. “I don’t know.”

Jeff burst out laughing. “Good,” he said. “At least now we have a plan.”

His humor lightened her burden. Overcome with a sudden urge to hug him, she instead found herself kissing him passionately. His response was quick. He pulled her to him, not roughly but confidently. She fell into his embrace and let the tensions of the last few days drop away, at least for a few moments. His hands felt hot as they caressed her body, bringing to the surface deeply buried needs and desires. A fire exploded in her loins that threatened to burn out of control. For that short while, nothing else mattered, only her growing need for him.

Slowly, she pulled away. It was not the time for release. She was glad he did not try to stop her. She did not know if she could have resisted his insistence. It felt right to take the passion he had given her and use it against Damballah Wedo.

“I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t here,” she said softly, still clinging to him.

He touched her back, fingers lightly caressing her skin. “You’re the one that said there are no coincidences.”

She smiled. “I hope you’re right.”

The room suddenly tilted. She lost her grip on Jeff and fell to the floor. A loud screeching noise shook the platform, followed by a thundering shudder. The sound of ripping metal made her heart miss a beat.

“What was that?”

“I think we just lost the warehouse,” he said over the noise.

Jeff helped her to her feet and together, they looked out the window. Sure enough, only twisted metal support beams remained where the warehouse once stood. It had taken with it the radio shack and generator shack on its way to the sea. Corrugated metal sheets whipped around the deck like deadly flying razor blades. The platform continued to totter uneasily.

“The waves are bigger and the wind is stronger,” Jeff commented.

He did not have to say more. She knew Hurricane Rita was almost upon them. This was only the leading edge of the northeast quadrant, the most dangerous part of the storm. By the way the platform shook and swayed, Ed might have been wrong. It was no longer a matter of abandoning the platform. It looked as though the platform was about to abandon them.

“It’s not going to make it, is it?” she asked.

Jeff looked at her a moment before answering. “With the warehouse and the other buildings gone, the platform’s unstable. One good wave and it will fold like a deck of cards.”

She was glad he had told her the truth. It was not the time for lies. Jeff’s earlier suggestion seemed prudent.

“Can we really use the emergency craft?” she asked.

This time, he hesitated even longer. “I don’t know. I don’t have much faith it will make it, but I don’t see another option.”

“Faith,” she mused. “It seems this whole trip has been a test of faith. I tried to forget my childhood. I considered it a dark part of my past, a tie to old ways that had no place in the modern world. I guess I was wrong.”

“We might have to manhandle the TEMPSC out of the launching rack. There’s no power. The trick is to be inside when it goes.”

“What will we need?” She was ready to seize upon any plan that gave her hope.

“We need some empty plastic drums for bracing the inside walls from the pressure of the waves. It’s a thin shell not designed for heavy weather like this. The drums will help. They’re lightweight and maybe they can keep the waves from crushing us. We’ll need some kind of steel bar as a lever to break the lock on the sled.”

“In the chemical room,” she burst out. “There are about a dozen empty plastic drums in the chemical room.”

Jeff nodded. “That should be enough. We’ll put Tolson in first and secure him. Then we secure the drums.” He glanced outside. “We can’t go out there. We have to use the inside stairs. That means removing the stuff we dropped into the inside stairwell to seal it off.”

The thought of going back down into the cellar deck with the rats sent shivers through her. Of course, rats might not be the worse things down there. She swallowed hard.

“Let’s get started.”

It took almost an hour of heavy, back-breaking labor to drag the sofa, broken desks and chairs out of the stairwell. They wrapped Tolson in a blanket and dragged him down the stairs.

“Watch his head,” Jeff warned.

Looking at his pale face, his chest barely moving, she wondered if Tolson would live long enough to reach the TEMPSC. They had no choice but to drag him through the water in the hallway. She struggled to help keep his head above the slimy mess while keeping one eye open for rats. The rain and wind beat at them savagely when they opened the door to reach the TEMPSC, threatening to tear Tolson from their grip. They managed to stow Tolson inside, using safety netting to tie him securely to the floor.

“Now for the drums,” Jeff said.

Though it was still daylight, the chemical room was dark. Jeff’s flashlight did little to dispel the shadows that seemed to hide in the corners. Her own flashlight worked only sporadically. The platform continued to shake. Pipes rattled and bounced against the ceiling. Any minute she expected a pipe to break free and fall down on them. They found half a dozen suitable empty plastic drums and began to carry them to the emergency craft two at a time. They struggled with the cumbersome barrels as the heavy wind tried to rip them out of their grasp. By the time they had all six drums secured inside the TEMPSC, both of them were exhausted. The barrels fit three across the width of the craft snuggly enough to need no further support. It left little room for them to squeeze inside.

Jeff smiled at her. “I think it might work. It’ll be tight.”

“It’s a tight fit all right,” she said, eyeing the miniscule space remaining. She felt a twinge of claustrophobia. “We’ll make it,” she added, more for her benefit than Jeff’s.

“We’ll snuggle up tight,” Jeff responded. “All I need is a steel pipe to use as a lever and a hacksaw to cut the lock. There should be one in the metal shop.”

She followed Jeff to the metal shop, but noticed the door to the mudroom was open and clanging against the bulkhead.

“That door was shut earlier,” she said. “I’m certain.”

“Sims?” Jeff cautioned her to silence. He pulled out the Glock he had carried tucked into his jeans. “Wait here.”

“No. I’m coming with you.”

He didn’t answer as he crept to the mudroom door. He jumped inside and swept the flashlight around the room. A shadow moved above him. He pointed the gun and flashlight at it.

“Waters?” he called out.

Sims stepped into the light, standing on the catwalk above the mixing vat. “No. It’s me.”

Jeff swore. “Where the hell have you been, Sims?”

“I’ve been hiding.”

“We were here earlier. I didn’t see you.” Jeff waved the gun at him.

Sims eyed the gun but did not back down. “I saw you three. I decided to stay hidden. If you were foolish enough to search for Waters, I thought maybe you would be unlucky enough to find him.”

“Still watching out for yourself, huh?” Jeff challenged. “I don’t know who is worse, you or Waters.”

Jeff’s hand holding the Glock trembled in anger. Lisa was afraid Jeff might shoot Sims. “Put the gun down, Jeff. We need each other.” She turned to Sims. “We’re using the emergency craft before the platform collapses. Do you want to come or are you still convinced we’re going to die?” She knew they would all be uncomfortable in the cramped space but at least it was a chance for survival.

He nodded at Jeff. “Are you asking or is he telling?”

Jeff lowered the Glock.

Sims relaxed. “Yeah, I’ll come. What about Tolson?”

“He’s in the craft already,” she answered.

“We’ll need food and water.”

“There are emergency supplies in the TEMPSC,” Jeff said.

Sims grinned. “It’s a hurricane, Towns. We may be out there a long time before someone comes to our rescue. I think we need more food and water.”

Lisa knew she had to avoid a confrontation between the two. “There’s more of both in the pantry.”

Sims nodded. “I’ll get it.”

Jeff tensed as if preparing to object. She reached out and touched his arm. “Go ahead,” she told Sims, “but hurry.”

As if in response to her plea for urgency, the platform shuddered again. Jeff dropped the flashlight. When he picked it back up, Sims was gone.

Jeff looked at her with barely suppressed rage in his eyes. “I don’t trust him.”

She did not trust Sims either but his help would make it easier to launch the emergency craft. “We have to trust him. We’re all working for the same goal—escape.”

“I’m not so certain he wants to escape.”

Lisa stared at Jeff. “Why would you say that? Of course he does. He doesn’t want to die out here.”

Jeff muttered something unintelligible under his breath and shoved the Glock back into his jeans. He looked up at the mixing vat. “If Sims was hiding from Waters, why was he standing so exposed on the catwalk? It’s not a very good hiding place.”

Lisa looked at the catwalk. “You’re right. I don’t know.”

Jeff climbed the stairs leading to the mixing vat and shined the light down inside.

“Oh, my God,” he exclaimed.

Lisa’s heart leaped. “What is it?”

He looked at her. The look in his eyes frightened her. They looked so…lost. “It’s Waters. He’s dead.”

She climbed up beside him and gasped as she looked down. Waters’ body laid spread eagle on the floor of the mixing vat. She could tell he had been dead for several days. His throat was slashed and dried blood pooled around his body. His body seemed empty.

“He’s been here awhile,” she said.

“Sims looked in here yesterday and said he didn’t see anything.”

“He lied,” she said, verifying what Jeff was thinking. Her heart sank. She had genuinely hoped he would help.

“We have to get out of here now,” Jeff said.

As they scrambled down the stairs, Lisa felt a powerful presence fill the room. The shadows came alive, running down the walls like pitch, coalescing on the deck in front of them. She shined her flashlight on it but the weak beam faltered and went out. Jeff’s light did nothing to dispel the shadows.

“He’s here,” she whispered. She looked at Jeff’s questioning eyes and said, “Damballah Wedo.”

Silence filled the room. The sound of wind, rain and thunder fell away as an ebony figure rose from the dark pool before them. It was a sick parody of a man with large red eyes burning like fire. He looked at Lisa and she froze. Jeff stepped forward, but with a wave of his hand, Jeff, too, froze beside her.

“You have witnessed my power,” said a deep powerful voice. As he spoke, the room filled with the stench of death. “Shortly, I will destroy the gateway and ride this storm into New Orleans.”

Lisa forced her throat to work. “There are those there who will oppose you.”

“They try to do so even now but I easily shrug off their attack. I am too powerful for their puny attempts.”

Good, she thought. There are people in New Orleans, houngans and mamboes, perhaps all over Louisiana who recognize the threat and work to combat it. Jeff and I are not completely alone. Perhaps they could get his attention just long enough for the others to do something, though she suspected her and Jeff’s time was growing short.

“Why don’t you kill us and be done with it?” she challenged, a germ of an idea forming in her mind.

Damballah Wedo roared and the platform shook.

Jeff looked at her perplexed. “What are you doing? Don’t anger the big black oozy thing.”

“The storm will do that for me,” Damballah Wedo answered.

She was right. He could not kill them because they were, as Waters had said, unblemished. He was going to let them die in the storm.

“We will have to destroy you before then,” she boasted.

Damballah Wedo laughed. His laughter echoed in the room as his body turned into shadow and flew off in many directions.

“What just happened?” Jeff asked.

She turned to him with hope in her eye. “He can’t kill us. He must let the storm or his minions do that.”

“Waters is dead.”

“He controls the dead.”

As if in reply to Jeff’s statement, a scratching sound came from the mixing vat. They turned and watched as Waters’ head rose above the sides.

“Damn!” Jeff exclaimed. “Why won’t he stay dead?” He raised the Glock and fired two shots into Waters’ head. The body dropped and thudded with a metallic ring as it hit bottom. “That takes care of him,” Jeff said with a smug expression on his face.

“What about the others?” Lisa reminded him.

Jeff’s expression turned to one of horror as he realized the bodies of his old friends, now zombies, would be sent against them.

“We have to leave now,” he said.

As they left the mudroom, they found their way blocked by the reanimated corpses of Big Clyde Gleason and Greg Bale.

“Oh, my God,” Lisa exclaimed as she saw their friends’ mutilated bodies standing in front of her.

Jeff raised his Glock.

“No, don’t!” Lisa shouted, but too late. Jeff fired five times, three bullets into Gleason’s head and two into Bale’s. They shuddered and fell to the floor.

“There,” Jeff said.

“Now you have only one more bullet,” Lisa reminded him. He looked crestfallen.

“Shit. I forgot.”

Easton stepped from the wood shop and shambled toward them, stepping over Gleason and Bale. His eyes were dead, unfocused, but he knew they were there.

Jeff grabbed Lisa. “The other way.”

As they rounded the building, they met the full fury of the storm. Rain pelted them mercilessly, raising small welts on their exposed skin. The wind was giant hands pushing them backwards. Debris swirled in the air in front of them.

“Crawl,” Jeff shouted.

They fell to their knees and scuttled like crabs across the deck, dodging blowing debris and loose drums. Finally, they made it to a rear door and entered the building. The hallway was eerily quiet after the roar of the storm. Lisa looked at the water and shuddered.

“The stairs are just there,” Jeff said.

“Where are we going?”

“I want the other two amulets.” He held out the gris-gris. “This thing seems to work. Maybe the power is doubled or something with more than one.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m just winging it here.”

Lisa felt that maybe Jeff was right. She had felt her amulet warming as they confronted Damballah Wedo. The amulets had worked on the fog. “It can’t hurt,” she agreed.

They started down the short stretch of hall. The dirty, stagnant water reached her knees. It was as cold as ice and smelled of dead things. She could see the stairwell ahead of her. She focused on it. Jeff moved faster and got ahead of her.

“Wait up,” she called to him. Suddenly, the water beside her erupted as a skeletal arm, burned black, reached up and grabbed her leg. She screamed and tried to pull away from its cold, clammy grasp. “Help!” she yelled. She shuddered when she saw McAndrews’ blackened, shriveled face emerge from the water.

Jeff rushed back and kicked at McAndrews’ head. Chunks of seared flesh fell away, revealing blackened bone beneath. McAndrews paid no attention to the attack as he slowly rose from the water, dragging Lisa down into it by her leg. She swallowed a mouthful of filthy water and gagged, coughing it up, sputtering as she was dragged back and forth as McAndrews struggled with Jeff. She fought to keep her head above water.

“Mac,” Jeff shouted, but the zombie McAndrews paid no heed to him. He reached for Jeff with his other arm. Jeff pulled the Glock from his pants and fired his last bullet into McAndrews’ arm. The bullet severed the arm but did not release Lisa from its grip. She slapped at the severed arm with disgust until it fell away and crawled toward Jeff. As she did so she saw Jeff grab a fire axe from the wall. McAndrews grabbed her leg with his other arm and dragged her under again. She could see nothing and was concentrating on not drowning when she felt McAndrews’ grip lessen. She pushed against the deck with her hands and broke free. She surfaced and opened her eyes. She was staring into McAndrews’ eyes as they floated by on his severed head. Lisa reached up to grab Jeff’s hand. She stood, shaking from more than just the cold water and wiped her face. “God, that was awful,” she said.

Jeff watched McAndrews’ severed head slowly slip beneath the surface of the stagnant water. “He won’t bother us again.” He kept the axe as they climbed the stairs.

“I have to change clothes,” Lisa said. The odor from the foul water was getting to her, making her ill.

Jeff pulled at her. “We don’t have time.”

She fought out of his grip and stared at him. “I have to change clothes,” she repeated.

He looked at her and nodded. “All right.”

He kept watch in the hallway as she stripped naked, wiped down with a towel and put on fresh clothes. Her boots were wet but at least she felt better in dry socks.

“What do we do now?” she asked, toweling her hair.

“We get the amulets.” Jeff no longer looked frightened, but did seem defeated. “We have to reach the TEMPSC someway. I don’t know how.”

They both jumped when they heard the squeak of a door opening. Jeff hefted the axe in both hands as Sims came through the door of the front office.

“Sims,” Jeff growled. “How did you make it back?”

“I outran them. They’re slow.” He stopped in the hallway. “I saw you at the emergency craft. You’ll never make it.”

Jeff swore and moved toward Sims with the axe. “You lying bastard. You knew Waters was dead.”

Sims glared at Jeff and pulled out his knife. “Bring it on, Towns.”

Lisa saw Jeff stop and stare at the knife. At first, she thought the knife frightened him, but then she saw the look of recognition in his eyes.

“An eagle,” he whispered. “There’s an eagle engraved on your knife, Sims, on the handle. That’s where I saw it before. That’s where the kid on the supply ship saw it.” He looked up at Sims. “You killed them.” He stared at Sims a moment longer. “You killed Waters. It’s been you all along.” He nodded at the knife. “I thought it was destroyed by Waters.”

Sims smiled. “Another illusion.”

Lisa gasped. “You killed Waters.”

Sims laughed. “Waters was less than alive when he left here after Katrina and he knew it. He came back seeking release and I gave it to him. It was McAndrews who had him sent back out, you remember. Blame him.”

Lisa stared at Sims, incredulous. “You did it all,” she accused, seeing the truth in Sims’ eyes. “You killed everyone and blamed Waters for it.”

Sims’ smile revolted her. “Waters wasn’t the first one here after Digger Man did his thing. From my disabled shrimp boat I saw the rig on fire but thought we might tie up and ride out the storm long enough to make repairs. I went up on deck amid the carnage to see if I could help and saw the Digger Man. I never looked evil in the face until that moment, but I knew it when I saw it, pure evil, primeval and untouched, undiluted by man’s truths and religions. He reached out and…touched me.”

“You crucified Digger Man,” Jeff spoke up.

“Yes. Damballah Wedo commanded it. I had no choice. He was in me just like he was inside Digger Man. There was no fighting it. Digger Man just stood there as I wired him to the crane and ripped him open navel to chest with this knife. He stared at me like he couldn’t believe it, so I plucked out his eyeballs and tossed them over the side. He didn’t even scream as I hoisted him into the air.”

“How did you do it all?

In answer to Jeff’s question, Sims’ face began to melt, to run like molten wax. It reshaped itself as Waters. “Waters thought he was helping you, trying to save you. I borrowed his face. It was so hilarious when Tolson attacked him and Waters had to fight back. It made using him as a scapegoat so much easier, so entertaining.”

“Why the charade?” Lisa asked.

“A diversion to keep you here. You feared Waters and ignored the real danger.”

Lisa thought of her friends, the men on the supply ship and choked back a sob. “All those men…how could you?”

“Souls for my master.”

“There’s one more thing,” Jeff asked. “You said the hip flask contained a tonic. What is it?”

Sims smiled, replaced his knife in its scabbard, removed the silver flask from his back pocket and offered it to Jeff. She watched as Jeff took the flask and sniffed it. He jerked his head back, snorted and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.

“Blood,” he said in disgust.

“Digger Man’s blood,” Sims added, “mixed with a little blood from all the others. Like I said, it’s a tonic.”

Jeff threw the flask down in disgust and stomped on it. A dark, nauseatingly thick ichor oozed from the opening. Sims’ face clouded and his flesh began to quiver in agitation.

Lisa smiled that Jeff’s action angered Sims. “Your master is a fool if he thinks he can break the barrier between life and death,” she yelled.

Sims frowned and balled his fist. “Damballah Wedo is all powerful.”

She laughed. “Damballah Wedo is a weakling who needs humans to do his biding. He’s afraid of us. He’s afraid of me.”

As she hoped, a black shadow began to ooze from Sims’ mouth and eyes. It ran like oil to the deck, pooling around Sims’ feet. Sims staggered and writhed as his body emptied of its host.

“What are you doing?” Jeff asked her under his breath.

She cautioned him to wait.

Sims moaned as the last of Damballah Wedo poured from his body. He stood rigid, empty, his eyes wide with fright. The pool of evil began to rise, reshape itself into a sick parody of a man.

“Run Sims!” she shouted. “You’re free!”

Sims turned but Damballah Wedo was too quick. An ebony tendril lashed out and encircled his head. He screamed as black smoke rose from his face. The tendril whipped around and tossed Sims to the floor. He rose on his hands and knees, moaning loudly. Lisa gasped when she saw his eyes had been burned from the sockets. The flesh was black and raw. He crawled blindly across the floor, groping his way until he collided with a wall and curled up in the fetal position.

“You will never destroy the Gateway,” Lisa shot at Damballah Wedo. “The other Loas will stop you.”

His laughter shook the room. “They are aiding those who try to stop me, fearing my wrath too much to confront me directly. My power grows stronger by the hour as the storm approaches. Shortly, I will have enough power to rip the Gateway to shreds. The dead shall rise; the living shall tremble. I will control both.”

Behind him, the bodies of Easton, Ed Harris and the crew of the supply ship fanned out, blocking the hall. Lisa realized their only escape, if any, led outside into the storm. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sims slowly rise to his feet, holding onto the wall. Freed of the creature inhabiting him, the part of him that remained Sims the shrimper fought for control of his body. He could no longer see, but he could smell the fetid creature that had possessed him.

“You will not win,” she shot at Damballah Wedo to keep his attention focused on her. As she had hoped, the creature did not see Sims draw his knife and lunge at it.

“Run!” she shouted, grabbing Jeff’s hand and pulling him to the door. She looked back to see Sims driving his knife deep into the Loas’ neck. Black flames erupted from the wound and engulfed both of them. Sims’ body shriveled as the flames consumed it but Damballah Wedo remained untouched. The flaming knife fell from Sims’ hand and shattered on the deck. Sims, burning fiercely, grabbed at the Loa’s legs as he fell in a last attempt to tackle the creature. Damballah Wedo kicked at him and Sims dissolved into a pile of black ash that scattered in the breeze.

The zombies, momentarily without direction from their master fell to the deck. Slowly, they began to rise. Jeff yelled a warning but the wind ripped the words from his mouth. Outside, they crawled, hugging the side of the building for shelter.

“Where are we going?” she yelled into his ear.

“To the TEMPSC.”

She grabbed him by the shirt and shook her head. “No. We can’t. We have to stop him.”

He looked at her as if she had suddenly gone crazy. “Are you crazy?”

They turned the corner of the building into the lee of the wind and managed to stand. He grabbed her shoulders with both hands.

“We’ll die here,” he told her and she knew he was probably right, but she also suspected Damballah Wedo would never allow them to leave.

“He controls the sea and the storm,” she explained. “We’ll die if we try to leave now.”

Jeff shook his head uncertainly. She knew she had to persuade him.

“Did you see Sims?”

“Yes, I guess I understand about him now, poor soul.”

She shook her head. “No, I meant when he attacked Damballah Wedo, the zombies fell. His control of them faltered. He’s not yet as all-powerful as he claims.”

“He’s stronger than us,” Jeff reminded her.

“He admitted other houngans and mamboes in New Orleans are fighting him. He controls the storm through his control of other Loas. If we could break that control for just a short while, maybe we could redirect the hurricane and save New Orleans.”

Jeff looked unconvinced. “How does this save us?”

“It might not,” she admitted, “but if the hurricane moves away, he loses some of his power. It might give us a chance to escape.”

Jeff smiled and shook his head. “You’re a poor liar, Lisa. I like that in a woman. Okay, tell me what we need to do.”

There, in the lee of the storm, hunkered down against the elements, they plotted.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Jeff waited patiently alone. Lisa tried her best to convince him her plan would succeed, but he still harbored doubts. At best, he thought, they would die quickly and together. Even that seemed better than the messy alternatives his mind churned up. Fighting a Loa with a god complex seemed like a futile effort, but Lisa was convinced help was waiting. She said she sensed other voodoo priests and priestesses back in New Orleans and along the coast gathered together challenging Damballah Wedo’s power. That she considered herself a mambo now frightened him, too. How could a college-educated woman living in the Twenty-First century believe in voodoo? Granted, he had witnessed enough strange things the last few days for one lifetime, but to seriously believe chants, trances and a few candles could even the playing field—it didn’t make sense.

She had guts. He had to give her that much. If it were left up to him, they would be taking their chances in the TEMPSC, maybe at the bottom of the Gulf by now, but away from voodoo central. She had insisted he wait while she retrieved her I-Pod from her room. They had watched as the zombie horde, his dead friends among them, tottered off into the storm at the far end of the platform. He hoped she would be safe.

They could not risk candles and trances inside and outside in the storm it would be impossible, but Lisa insisted all she required now was her music to reach that dream state she needed to open the doorway. The rest was just window dressing. She explained that the music brought forth long buried memories and chants her voice—she had not dwelt on this revelation—had hidden. Even though he had been there,he thought, he wasn’t sure he believed such a place really existed.

Jeff hung his head and let the rain drip off his soaked Re-Berth cap. He couldn’t let his doubts, as myriad as they were, affect Lisa’s plan. He would have to support her fully or they would surely fail. He tried to think of similar times when trust triumphed over doubt, but could recall none. Of course, he had led a relatively quiet life until now. Surely, others had trusted deeply enough in their comrades or loved ones to risk everything. It would just have to be his first time, a virgin truster.

He hoped Tolson was still alive. There was nothing more they could do for him. He was probably safer in the emergency craft anywhere, out of the weather and away from marauding zombies. Lisa seemed to think Damballah Wedo would ignore him since he had touched him already. One thing Jeff did know, if Tolson didn’t get serious medical help soon, he would certainly die.

Jeff hid behind a steel drum as a man wearing a captain’s hat and Sid Easton shambled by. It seemed they had a plague of zombies. Their heads turned toward him but did not see him through the blinding rain. They ignored the fury of the storm as the rain fell in sheets and ran down their decaying bodies. Their wet clothing lay plastered to their skin by the wind. Jeff watched in disgust as the edges of the open wound in Easton’s torso flapped open, revealing the empty cavity inside.

He lost sight of them for a moment in the fury of the storm. The rain was so furious it created a solid wall of water across the deck, like a curtain. They had slipped through it and vanished.

Jeff eyed the crane. Even though the engine was out of diesel, the battery would still contain enough juice to at least swing the boom around and lower the cables. If all else failed, it might provide a means of escape. He could lower the cables and he and Lisa could slide down them into the water and their probable deaths. He wished the rig had two of the inflatable self-contained survival suits such as some rigs carried. Even those might keep them alive long enough for rescue; but that meant leaving Tolson and he wasn’t willing to do that yet. Too many of his friends had died on Global’s Hell Rig. He would have to let Lisa have her chance.

He saw her crawling toward him and his heart raced. She snuggled up against him.

“Miss me?” she asked.

Jeff saw she had her I-pod in her hand, cradling it against the rain. “Where do we go?”

“The only place we can—the chemical room.”

“I was afraid you would say that.” The chemical room had only two doors, the outside door and the one leading to the central hallway. It was an easy place in which to get trapped. “We need some kind of weapons.” He had dropped the Glock since it was out of ammunition and he had left the axe in the main building in his haste to escape.

“Maybe in the wood shop,” she suggested.

He nodded. A sharp saw blade or wood chisel was better than nothing. Using the outside staircase was dangerous but they had no choice. Hurricane Rita was slamming the rig with 135 mph winds. Each giant wave rang the rig like a bell. It staggered like a drunken man. Each second could be its last.

They slid down the rain-slick steps one at a time on their backsides to prevent being blown away. Even so, they had to cling tightly to the rails and to each other as sudden gusts literally lifted them from the stairs. Reaching the bottom only compounded their problem. They had to walk directly into the fury of the wind. They each took a moment to catch their breaths before hurrying to the wood shop. The icy knee-deep water did not matter since they were thoroughly soaked already.

Jeff searched the room for a weapon, any weapon. His eyes fell upon a large hatchet hanging on a tool pegboard attached to one wall, neatly centered upon the painted silhouette of a hatchet. He thanked the shop foreman for his neatness and grabbed it. He tested the edge and found it still sharp and free of rust. On the same pegboard he saw a two-foot long flat-head screwdriver, also in its proper place. The incongruousness of the neat pegboard amid the destruction and turmoil of the rig struck him as funny. He could almost envision the harried shop foreman racing around, neatly stowing away tools as the Digger Man chased him with whatever implement of torture he used. He laughed aloud, but immediately regretted it as Lisa shot him an irritated look. He grabbed both tools and stuck them in his belt. Searching further, he used the screwdriver to break the lock on a steel storage cabinet. Inside, he found a gas powered nail gun that still contained a CO2 charge. Using his screwdriver, he broke away the safety feature that prevented the accidental firing of the nail driver and handed it to Lisa.

“It’s like a gun,” he explained to her quizzical expression. “Just point and press the trigger.” He loaded it with a strip of nails and had her test fire it a few times. At first, she closed her eyes and flinched at the sound of the gas releasing, missing her target completely, but by the third shot she had managed to control the nail gun well enough to at least hit the target, if not the bulls eye. “You’ll do,” he said.

There was little else of use to them. Saws and saw blades were dull and rusty and more likely to infect them than to inflict damage on an opponent. As well armed as they could expect to be, they left and went to the chemical room, checking out the shadows and each nook and cranny of the corridor as they went. Jeff took a deep breath and plunged through the doorway, shining his flashlight around.

“Empty,” he said, ushering her inside. He dogged the door shut knowing it would not keep out Damballah Wedo but might at least slow his zombies.

Lisa looked at him and sighed. “He’ll know what I’m up to as soon as I start the ritual. Don’t try to fight him. Concentrate on the walking dead. Keep them away from me.” She handed him the nail gun. “Here, you’ll need it more than I do.” He took the nail gun. With nail gun in one hand and hatchet in the other, he at least looked ready to fend off a zombie horde.

She reached and wrapped her arms around him. Her lips felt warm and alive amid so much death, a wonderful oasis from what lay before them. He did not want to leave it but she pulled away. Without another word, she donned the earphones and turned on the I-pod. She closed her eyes and began to sway to the beat he could not hear. Her mouth opened and she began to silently chant.

There were no candles, no five-pointed star. She was beyond the need for them now. Her power came from inside. At first, nothing happened. Then, slowly, the atmosphere in the room changed subtly. The walls began to dissolve, revealing nothing beyond but deep shifting shadows. There was no storm, no rain just shadows. The floor beneath Lisa followed, breaking apart and disappearing like a dream. Lisa was dancing on air. Jeff backed away from the nothingness until he had no place left to run. His back was against the last remaining wall. It, too, vanished and he was floating. They were no longer on Global Thirteen.

Slowly, things shifted and they were standing on a stone platform whose edges trailed off into nothingness. Visible on the near edge, surrounding the platform, shadow columns stood soldier-like in neat rows. The platform was open to the black, starless sky, a hypaethral palace. Amid and at times merging with these columns like passing shadows, he recognized familiar objects—the crane standing like a two-dimensional child’s drawing near the edge of the platform; metal stairs that led to nowhere; stacks of drums and pallets of garbage, each there but insubstantial, as if only shadows of the real objects. He knew that he and Lisa were still on Global Thirteen, but only the parts that impinged on Damballah Wedo’s habitat.

In the distance, he could see a dark red swirling mass that pulsed and contracted like a beating heart—Hurricane Rita. Between the heart of the storm and the platform, a shimmering veil hung in folds suspended in the air. A myriad of colors ran through it, impossible colors with no earthly counterpart, as if he could see deep into the infrared and ultraviolet and other unknown spectrum normally invisible to the human eye.

He knew that this was the Gateway between life and death. Crimson thread-like veins and arteries laced the air between the platform and the Gateway. They pulsed sickeningly as they fed the blood of the dead to the Gateway. Similar threads like streaks of lightning raced between the heart of Hurricane Rita and the Gateway. As the storm drew closer, the pent up energy, the animal rage of the storm, would power the Gateway, opening it forever. This was what Damballah Wedo wanted; the thing he had broken ranks with the other Loas to achieve.

Lisa continued to dance. She twirled maddeningly, becoming almost invisible as nascent mists of arcane energy enveloped her body. She bent forward until her forehead touched stone and backwards just as far, as limber as a green willow twig. Her feet seemed at times to slip both above and below the stones of the floor, as if her dance transcended the limits of Damballah Wedo’s abode.

Far in the distance, north toward New Orleans, a tiny silver light glowed. It seemed to pulse and reach for her and her for it. Instinctively, Jeff knew this miniscule point of light was the others she had spoken of, those in New Orleans capable of fighting Damballah Wedo. It looked pathetically insignificant compared with the red pulsing heart of the approaching storm.

A foul stench blew in on a light breeze, the odor of death. He knew his part in the battle was coming soon. He readied himself. Shadows shifted slightly near the columns, breaking away and becoming human-shaped—zombies, the walking dead. Jeff was surrounded. Lisa danced on oblivious to her surroundings, a slight smile playing on her lips. He knew without trying that she would not respond to him if he warned her. She was both there and elsewhere. It was up to him to keep her safe. That would be his contribution to this battle.

He waited as the first zombies approached slowly. Some hung back, remaining close to their shadows. He reached into his pocket and grasped Digger Man’s gris-gris in his hand. Its surprising warmth gave him a small measure of comfort. He wrapped the leather strip around his wrist and palmed it.

He recognized Sid Easton as the closest zombie, fetid and covered in slime and blood. He ignored Jeff and went straight for Lisa. With less reluctance than he knew he should have felt for the living corpse of someone he knew, Jeff fired two nails into the back of Easton’s head. They did not penetrate far enough to stop him but caught Easton’s limited attention. When Easton turned to face him, Jeff moved in with the hatchet and hacked at his neck. Black foul blood spurted from arteries that no longer flowed, no longer pumped blood from heart to brain. The stench was almost overpowering, the stink of an abattoir floor. It took him three blows to sever Easton’s head, becoming drenched in Easton’s blood. The head fell to the stone with a sickening thud and rolled away. Easton’s body crumpled to the stone and convulsed sickeningly for a moment before growing still.

Jeff did not have time to savor his victory or to catch his breath. More zombies emerged from the shadows. He recognized Ed Harris’ blackened shriveled body and felt a moment of grief for his old boss, but that quickly passed. Ed was dead, murdered by Sims and Damballah Wedo. Now, he was nothing but a flesh shell under the Loa’s sadistic control.

Zombies entered the shadow of one column and rematerialized across the platform from a second column, using them as doorways. It was difficult to keep track of them. He realized this was how Sims and Waters had moved around the platform and hidden from searches. Jeff attacked with the hatchet, severing limbs and heads, but their numbers soon overpowered him. Even armless or with limbs dangling by scraps of rotting flesh, they continued to advance. He retreated.

Using the nail gun from a distance did not stop them. The nails did not have enough power to penetrate deeply enough to cause damage. Frustrated, he moved in closer, careful to watch behind him. He managed to kill two more zombies by dancing in and firing nails into their foreheads before quickly dancing away out of reach. The last time he was not quick enough. A zombie surprised him, one he did not recognize, probably a crewman from the ship. Emerging from the shadows only a few steps away, it came at him from behind, wrapped its arms around him and began to squeeze him. Jeff dropped the nail gun. Pain shot through him as his ribs bent near the breaking point. He grew dizzy as the air was forced from his lungs. He was near the point of blacking out.

A surge of power climbed his arm, spilling from the gris-gris he had forgotten in his hand. With renewed vigor, he managed to pull the screwdriver from his belt. He smiled as a burst of white-hot energy exploded from his hand and entered the screwdriver. He jabbed the screwdriver into the zombie’s side. Flames exploded as it entered the zombie’s dead flesh, forcing it to loosen its hold on him. Jeff broke free as it beat futilely with one hand at the flames quickly enveloping its entire body. After a moment or two it exploded, covering Jeff with foul pieces of flesh and congealed blood. Encouraged by his success, he attacked a second zombie with the hatchet until it lay writhing on the ground, headless.

His brief capture had allowed two more zombies to close in on Lisa and she was completely unaware of the danger. Jeff tried to infuse the hatchet with energy as he had the screwdriver, but did not know how. In desperation, he threw the hatchet Davy Crockett-style and split the skull of one attacking zombie, the ship’s captain. The captain fell and did not move. That left Ed Harris. Seeing his old boss, he decided to try something different.

“Ed!” he yelled.

The zombie ignored him and continued to move toward Lisa. Jeff tried again.

“Ed Harris of Re-Berth!”

This time the zombie that had once been his friend stopped and turned to stare at him with dead white unseeing eyes.

“That’s right, Ed. You remember me, don’t you? Jeff Towns. I’m your friend.”

Ed swayed where he stood as if fighting to break Damballah Wedo’s grip. Moans escaped his lips.

“Fight it, Ed,” Jeff urged. “Don’t let him make you hurt Lisa.”

Ed grunted and threw back his head and began to wail. Jeff moved closer with the screwdriver, ready to use it if Ed forced him. As if sensing his approach, Ed stopped moaning and looked at Jeff. He saw the screwdriver in Jeff’s hand. As Jeff watched, Zombie Ed did a surprising thing. He bent over, lowering his head as if offering it to Jeff.

“Thank you, Ed. I’m so sorry.” Jeff drew back the screwdriver and, to his surprise, it burst into white flames that did not burn his hands. Using both hands, he drove it into the back of Ed’s skull. Ed dropped to the ground, utterly consumed by white flames.

Jeff stood and looked around. He was covered in foul zombie blood and pieces of flesh hacked from their bodies, his ribs ached and his arms felt like stone weights attached to his shoulders, but all the zombies were dead, or dead again. As he watched, their remains slowly changed into black pools of shadow that soaked into the stone like blood into a sponge.

He looked at Lisa with awe. She now radiated silver light that burst from within. She no longer danced but simply floated in the air a few inches above the ground, slowly spinning. As he watched, her inner fire grew brighter, blinding him until he was forced to turn his face away from her. He looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. She was now a human-shaped pyre, blazing silver above the quasi platform. She shed waves of heat and light that flooded Damballah Wedo’s domain. The nearest shadows disappeared completely as her light consumed them. Her cleansing radiance stripped the shadows from the columns, leaving only rough hewn stone encircled by arcane markings engraved in its surface. They looked primordial, as ancient as time. Soon, they begin to shimmer as Lisa’s purifying fire baked the stone.

Damballah Wedo would not allow her to destroy his abode or interfere with his plans. With a shudder that slammed Jeff to the ground, the Father of Loas suddenly erupted from the stone floor in an ebony geyser. His roar swayed the columns and the stones of the floor quaked. Jeff covered his ears against the sound but it penetrated through the bones and flesh of his skull, driving like a dagger into his mind. Images, morbid and dark; thoughts, cruel and inhuman; sensations, sadistic and chilling tore through his skull like shrapnel, slicing and splicing tender memories until they no longer resembled the original. He felt pleasure at others’ pain, bathed in their blood and laughed at their pitiful screams. His mind burned and churned with images that repelled and enticed him—Lisa, naked and bleeding, writhing beneath him as he ravaged her, Ed Harris as his hand bore the black flames that consumed him, his laughter as he hoisted the Digger Man’s tortured body with the crane. He fought against these foreign implants, the things he knew to be wrong in spite of their overpowering sense of reality.

“No!” he screamed as he pounded his fists against the stone until they were bloody, relishing the pain that shot up his arms and pierced the fog surrounding his mind.

He felt a physical yank that resonated throughout his mind as well as his body, as if he had been jerked through time and space. The images faded. Disoriented, he opened his eyes.

Writhing crimson tendrils bound him spread eagle against a wall of congealed blood. The floor beneath him undulated as well, as if part of some larger being or creature. Out of the corner of his eye in the oddly distorted red glow, he saw a second figure beside him, naked, crucified as well. The figure was covered in clotted blood, but through gaps he saw the bald head and long blond mustache of Eric Tolson. They were both captives of Damballah Wedo.

Chapter Thirty

Power flowed through Lisa’s body in undulating waves. She was consumed by it. She fought the urge to release it or to let it overpower her. It fought her attempts at control, a living elemental bound by no laws written or conceived by humans. As her control grew stronger, she shed the excess, letting it sweep over the platform, probing the shadows. Jeff was no longer there but her concern was fleeting. He was alive. She reached out her mind and touched him. He was captive but she could not free him, not yet.

Through veils of black flame, her opponent glared at her.

“You surprise me.” Damballah Wedo’s voice boomed. “You are foolish to challenge me.”

She smiled. Anything that kept him off balance could only be to her advantage. “Thank you, but I am no fool.”

“We shall see. Even fool’s courage will do no good in the end.”

“We shall see,” Lisa agreed, mocking him.

He held his hand high. An ebony sword as long as her body materialized, created from the midnight ooze of his body. Black flames danced on its surface like burning shadows. Cold fear raced through her. Sheer bravado would not defend her against a weapon such as his. She remembered the medallion around her neck and the voice from when she was a child.

“Erzulie Danto, aid me,” she prayed.

Immediately, she felt raw power coursing through her body and knew her plea had been answered. The warrior Loa who had whispered to her as a child had come to her aid. Her body trembled; it grew larger, almost as large as Damballah Wedo. In her right hand, she held a silver sword with a clear crystal nestled inside a cage formed by the sword’s pommel from which a brilliant light sprouted, pulsing power. Armor so light it felt a part of her, adorned her body. A silver cuirass engraved with arcane signs molded perfectly to protect her chest. Greaves rose up her legs from sandals to mid thigh. Armor covered her arms and gloves so supple they felt like silk covered her hands.

Her head was bare except for a small tiara woven into her hair. A single jewel, pure white, pulsed with the same power as the jewel in her sword. She could feel Erzulie Danto’s presence inside her, not overpowering but resting just below the surface, guiding her movements. All the knowledge, the weaponry skill the warrior Loa possessed was hers to command. She struck the stones with her sword and the platform trembled beneath her.

Damballah Wedo’s voice held a trace of sorrow as he spoke. “I see my mate Erzulie Danto has come to your aid. That is sad. I had promised her a place beside me in my new kingdom.”

Lisa laughed and felt her mentor laughing inside her. “She decided otherwise long before your generous offer. She remains true to her faith.”

“You will die now. You have witnessed my power, yet you dare to challenge me. Your soul is no longer unblemished. You have tarnished it with the sin of false pride. I will feed on your soul and chain your benefactress in my deepest hell for my pleasures.”

His voice rose in volume as he spoke until the stones around him shook with his rage. He struck the stones with his sword and Lisa tumbled from the sky amid the roar of thunder. She quickly regained her feet, brushed herself off and faced him. They circled warily as each searched for an opening. Lisa relied entirely on Erzulie Danto’s fighting expertise. She knew nothing of swordplay and battle.

Damballah Wedo stepped forward and slashed at her with his long, black blade. It moved so fast it became a sheet of black, blurred by movement. She parried but felt the power of his blow reverberate through her arm. Strength was on his side. To defeat him, she knew she would have to rely on surprise and speed.

She feinted to the right and swooped in low on his left side, jabbing but he knocked aside her blade. She barely managed to duck a backhanded sweep at her head. She struck again quickly and sliced into his upper thigh. She watched with dismay as the deep gash she inflicted quickly filled with his body’s black ooze. Clearly light wounds would not wear him down. His power to recuperate was too great.

He turned unexpectedly and slammed the flat of his sword across her back. The force of the blow sent her rolling breathless across the stone floor. She managed to hold onto her sword and rested on one knee until she caught her breath and the dizziness passed. A deep bruise grew just beneath the leather that covered her back, promising pain.

He mumbled arcane words as he held his sword pointed at her. She realized his intention almost too late. She raced toward a stone column as a flaming sheet of black vitriol erupted from his sword and flew at her. She held her sword in front of her as she moved. Silver fire poured from it and held the vitriol at bay long enough for her to reach shelter. The vitriol landed with a hiss as stone dissolved like ice in front of her. Laughter followed in its wake.

“Give up,” he called to her. “Forget this folly and embrace your fate.”

“I’ll embrace you with the point of my sword,” she challenged from behind the towering stone column.

She gathered her strength, took a deep breath and walked from behind her shelter to face him, sword held before her in both hands. The crystal in its hilt gleamed pure and bright. Its promising warmth penetrated her bones, strengthening her resolve. She cast aside her fears. There was a reason she had been brought to this place, just as she had reminded Jeff. Her fate had been decided when she was a child and Erzulie Danto had come and whispered to her. If her fate was to do battle with Damballah Wedo, so be it. She knew some power besides Erzulie Danto sought to aid her. She opened her mind and could feel the presence of others.

“Do not fear,” Erzulie Danto said. It was a voice she remembered, strangely calming in its assuredness. It filled her with the joy she had felt as a child. “Others lend their power to you from a distance. Together, we shall prevail.”

Lisa did not know if the latter was a premonition or a hope, but a surge of power coursed through her veins, burning in its intensity. It was enough to sustain her. She faced Damballah Wedo and again their swords met, spewing ebony flames and silver fire across the platform. She absorbed the power of his blows with her knees and elbows, refusing to bend. A sideways blow almost caught her off guard but she twisted out of its deadly arc, feeling the hot wind of it passing across her back. She quickly stepped inside the wake of the blow and delivered a two-handed blow to Damballah Wedo’s midsection. This time, the time lag between blow and the repair of the wound was longer. Traces of silver gleamed around the edges of the wound for several seconds before the black substance of his body flowed into the gash.

He stepped back and stared at her with hatred in his fiery red eyes. Hot anger burned along his brow. She saw something else, also—surprise. His next slash deliberately struck the ground beside her, sending up a shower of stone chips. They struck her exposed skin like tiny red-hot barbs, embedding in her flesh, burning like acid. She brushed away the ones she could reach and endured the pain of those she could not. As she had suspected, the blow was merely a feint to force her to retreat. He raised one massive hand, curled it into a fist and shot a bolt of power at her. She deflected most of the arcane energy with her sword, but enough force struck to send her reeling. Fighting near blindness, she struggled to remain on her feet and defend herself against Damballah Wedo’s onslaught of follow up blows.

Her strength was waning. Her muscles ached and her vision swam as she parried one blow; then dodged the next. She searched for a column to hide behind but the fight had taken her beyond them. If she could not escape soon, she would die.

She ran into a maze of pallets, garbage and refuse they had collected for disposal. They seemed but shadows of the original but her will forced them to hold substance in this place. Damballah Wedo’s sword slammed into the ground between pallets, blocking her escape. His next blow sent a shower of garbage and metal scrap over her. She held out her hand for protection and a bolt of energy deflected them. She used her newfound power to shove a pallet into Damballah Wedo’s path. He walked through it as if it was not there. Damballah Wedo’s realm consisted only of shadows of reality, deadly to her but mere shadows to him. This explained the ease with which he could manipulate objects such as the crane. His was a world of shadows, separate and free from the world of light.

The platform lurched simultaneously with one of the massive Loa’s blows. Lisa fell heavily, her sword skidding several feet away. Damballah Wedo stood over her, staring down mercilessly.

“You have lost,” he said as he raised his sword. His body shifted, stretched from that of a man to the form of a serpent with a man’s head. This is how she had always seen him depicted, but as benevolent father, not rampaging murderer. He rose above her on black coils. Snakes grew from his sword, their heads hissing at her in anticipation of feeding.

She cringed, awaiting her fate.

* * * *

Struggling did nothing. Jeff’s bonds held him tight against the living material of the wall. He called out to Tolson.

“Eric, can you hear me?”

The figure moved slightly. Through folds of blood and tentacles a voice emerged, weak but hopeful.

“Jeff? Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“Where am I?” he asked.

“I think your body is still in the emergency escape capsule where we put you, but your mind is trapped here with me, held captive.”

“Where?”

“I’m not sure but I think inside one of Damballah Wedo’s shadows.”

“Wedo?” Tolson grunted struggling to remember. “And Waters?”

“Waters is dead. He’s been dead probably since just after he attacked you with the steel blade. Sims killed him. It’s been Sims all along. The thing, Damballah Wedo, took possession of him during Katrina. Sims killed the Digger Man and all the others since then. Waters’ only crime was in attacking you out of fear. God knows what images Sims placed in his head to provoke him.”

Tolson looked at Jeff with rage in his eyes. Finally, he said, “Yeah, I remember. Not Waters, Sims. Son of a bitch.”

Jeff could only agree. “Yeah, son of a bitch.”

“Jeff, I can’t move. Can you?”

Jeff struggled one more time against his living bonds but they only clung tighter. “No.”

“Where’s Lisa?”

Jeff cursed silently. “Fighting Damballah Wedo.”

“Alone?”

Jeff thought of her floating in the air, glowing like quicksilver. “No, I think she has help.”

Jeff heard Tolson grunting as he struggled against his bonds. He stopped after a while, breathing hard. “No good,” he said. “If I only had my knife…anything.”

Jeff felt the warmth of the gris-gris growing inside his clenched fist. He knew it couldn’t be real, that the real gris-gris must be lying in his hand in his real body back on the platform. It was only an image that his mind had conjured up, but that didn’t stop him. He felt the power it contained, real or not. He struggled to move his fingers, thumb first, then pointer finger. The tendrils circled tighter but when they touched the cloth bag of the gris-gris, they withdrew slightly, as if loath to come in contact with it. Twisting his wrist, Jeff brought it close enough to touch the tendrils binding his wrist. They sizzled and turned to powder, freeing his hand. He quickly used it to free his other hand and legs. Small tendrils emerged from the walls seeking him but stayed clear of the gris-gris. He rushed to Tolson and repeated the procedure. Tolson fell into his arms.

“How the hell…” he started, and noticed the cloth bag in Jeff’s hand. “Voodoo, huh?” He rubbed his wrists and looked around. “Well, we’re free, but where in hell are we?”

“You may be closer to right than you think.” Jeff touched the wall. It recoiled from him, trembling. A deep imprint of his hand remained. “Maybe we can just walk out.”

Concentrating, Jeff held his hand against the flesh wall. After a few seconds, his hand began to glow white and the wall steamed slightly. Their prison smelled of seared flesh. Concentrating harder, he pushed his fist into the wall. The flesh separated further.

“I feel an empty space beyond,” he reported with some hope. “Come on.”

Like a child emerging from the birth canal, he plunged head first into the opening created by the gris-gris. Forcing his head through, he saw first darkness, quickly replaced by the pulsing eye of the storm. He was back on the platform in his body once more, lying on the rough stone floor. He continued to push through the shadow, merging with his body, willing it to move. He still held Tolson’s hand but felt it gradually slip away as his mind and body became one.

“Tolson!” he yelled. He realized Tolson’s body was in the TEMPSC and could not emerge with him.

“Get out of here!” Tolson yelled back, inside his mind.

Just as he yanked his hand free, he slipped the gris-gris into Tolson’s hand. He didn’t know if Tolson could use the voodoo charm or not, but at least it might offer some small measure of protection. He felt naked without it.

He looked around for Lisa. The platform shuddered violently and knocked him to the ground. White flames erupted from the opposite side of the platform. He knew she was still alive and fighting. He rushed toward her and saw her lying on the platform. Her sword rested several feet away. Damballah Wedo towered over her, a giant coiled snake toying with its prey. She dropped her arm, leaving her upper body exposed. Damballah Wedo raised his serpent encircled sword, preparing for a final blow.

Jeff did the only thing he could. He yanked the Agwe medallion from his neck, grabbed the hatchet from his belt and wrapped the medallion tightly around it.

“Damballah Wedo!” he yelled. “Eat This!”

He threw the hatchet at the Loa in an act of desperation. Damballah Wedo turned swiftly, easily knocking the hatchet aside with his sword and laughed, but it was just the opening Lisa needed. Jeff watched the color return to her face. She rolled across the platform, lifted her sword from the ground and thrust it into Damballah Wedo’s side. Silver flames exploded in a cascade of sparks as the blade struck home. She leaned into the sword, forcing it deeper into his body. Black flames roiled from the wound and tried to smother her, but her own silver flames fought them back, enveloping her in a shell of arcane energy. Jeff covered his face and backed away from the raw energy of the conflagration.

Damballah Wedo broke away, yanking the sword from his side. Half the blade was gone, melted by the vitriol of his body, but a torrent of black ichor spewed from the wound. Glowing silver threads wound their way deep inside, pulling the edges of the wound open. Black vapors spilled out, poisoning the air around him. He clamped his hand over the wound and hissed in pain, shaking the platform with his rage. He slithered into the shadows and vanished, leaving a trail of black ooze and a vacuum of silence in his wake.

Slowly, Lisa’s flames flickered and died around her. The crystal in the sword continued to glow for a moment more before the remains of the sword also vanished. Lisa shrunk to her true size and collapsed onto the stone floor reaching for Jeff. He rushed to her side.

“Jeff,” she whispered.

“Yes, my love.”

She smiled.

“You did it,” he whispered. “You defeated him.”

Her smile dropped. “No, I only wounded him, but it will do for now. Others are at work, too.”

He looked around. There was no one else around. “What others?” he asked, confused.

“Like me.”

She passed out. As if her will alone had kept them there, the stone platform and columns slowly faded, replaced by the mundane walls of the chemical room. Jeff checked her pulse. It was slow and steady. She would be okay with rest, if Damballah Wedo allowed them time to rest.

She had said others were helping her. They needed all the help they could get. Hurricane Rita was almost on top of them. The platform shuddered under the impact of the waves. He realized they had waited too late. Launching the TEMPSC now was out of the question. As soon as it hit the water, the waves would slam it into the platform’s legs, crushing it like an egg.

He debated carrying Lisa to her bunk, but knew they had no time. Damballah Wedo would recover quickly. After all, he was the Lord of Life and Death. His next attack would be the last. He had milked them of every measure of fear he could expect. Now, only their deaths would matter.

Lisa moved in his arms.

“Lisa?”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Oh, Jeff, I failed,” she cried.

He tried to assuage her guilt. “You stood toe to toe with the bastard.” He grinned at her.

“I felt the presence of others.”

“Other Loa?”

“No, other people, houngans and mamboes. They were sending me their energy and power. It saved me.”

“But it wasn’t enough,” he finished for her.

“Not to defeat Damballah Wedo, no, but while I distracted him, they sought the help of other Loa, storm Loa. Can’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“The storm. It’s moving away from us, to the west.”

He looked at her incredulously. “It’s still beating the hell out of the platform.”

“Yes, but it’s moving away ever so slightly. It won’t hit New Orleans.”

He looked out the door at the clouds scuttling to the west and saw she was right. “We’re still in danger,” he reminded her.

“Yes, but it won’t get any worse. Oh, Jeff, it will pass us by. New Orleans is safe.”

He held her tight, taking comfort from her tender embrace. As far as he was concerned, New Orleans could take care of itself. His concern was Lisa. “What’s next?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. He will recover and return to end it. Even if we die, I don’t think he’ll win now.”

He pulled away. “That doesn’t comfort me very much.”

She sobbed into his arm. “Oh, Jeff, I’m sorry. My part in this started when I was a little girl. I had no choice. It was my fate. I don’t know why you’re here, but you’re still alive and there must be a reason for that.”

Maybe it’s to save you, he thought, or to at least offer you my love before we both die. “I don’t know,” he answered. “It doesn’t matter, now. I’m here with you. That’s good enough.”

“Listen,” Lisa said.

Jeff listened but heard nothing. “What?”

“The storm, it’s getting weaker.”

“It can’t be,” he said but he listened closer. The wind no longer howled in rage. Now it sounded more like an animal growling in frustration. The rig no longer shuddered with each wave hit or tottered precariously on the verge of toppling over.

“We’re in the eye of the storm,” Jeff shouted into the growing silence as realization hit him. His heart pounded with excitement. Now they had a chance. If they could get the emergency craft launched before the eye passed, they could get away from the rig without being crushed. That still left them adrift in the middle of a hurricane, but it was better than waiting on Damballah Wedo to return and finish them off. “Come on.”

Outside, Jeff stopped to stare. Around them, half a mile out, the winds whipped the waves into a white-capped frenzy. Lightning laced the sky and arced from cloud to sea. Waves still churned the sea beneath the platform, but were nothing compared to earlier. The eye of the hurricane was directly over them but moving swiftly. As he watched, the eastern edge of the storm grew ever closer.

“We don’t have much time.”

When they reached the TEMPSC, Jeff was relieved to find Tolson still inside and still alive, though for how much longer, he couldn’t be certain. Tolson’s skin was pale traced with dark lines as the poison spread throughout his body. His face was blank. His mind was still a prisoner of Damballah Wedo. Jeff worked frantically with a rusty hacksaw to cut the lock on the launch mechanism. When he finally managed to pry it loose, he tossed the lock aside.

“Get in,” he told Lisa. “I’ll find an iron bar to launch us.”

“I’ll wait,” she said.

He grabbed her from behind and shoved her inside. “No, once I pry loose the emergency brake, it will launch by itself. I’ll get in somehow, I promise. You just be out of my way.”

Lisa kissed him. “Be careful.”

Jeff spotted a length of two-inch pipe on the deck. He wedged it underneath the metal clamp securing the emergency craft and pulled with all his strength. The steel bent in his hands. He leaned harder on the pipe and heard the clamp snap. The emergency capsule shuddered and shifted position, dropping smoothly onto the rails.

“Get inside,” Lisa called out and reached out her hand.

Jeff grabbed the hatch with one hand, and Lisa’s outstretched hand with the other and leaped. The emergency craft dropped away beneath him, ripping loose his hold. He hung suspended in midair long enough to see the startled expression on Lisa’s face as she realized he had been too late. Suddenly, he was flung aside by invisible hands. He landed on the deck a few yards away and watched horrified as the TEMPSC slid down the rails toward the water. Lisa’s screams cut off abruptly as the door slammed shut and the craft dropped below the cellar deck.

At least the hatch shut, Jeff thought numbly as he watched his only hope of escape disappear. He picked himself up and saw the capsule hit the water with a large splash. He turned to face Damballah Wedo.

The Loa stood a few feet away, his body now human-sized but still an ebony shadow, twisted now by the open wound in his side. Silver threads wove through his maculated skin, throbbing with each breath. Rivulets of dark ichor ran down his body like sweat.

“You will not escape,” Damballah Wedo hissed.

Jeff could smell the rancor emanating from the Loa’s body, the sickly sweet smell of cancerous growth or gangrene. Damballah Wedo was wounded but not down for the count. Jeff shrugged. “I didn’t much expect to,” he answered calmly. He looked at the diminishing storm. “Looks like you’ve lost some of your power.”

“It will return shortly. New Orleans may be safe but there are other souls on which to feed. I shall still succeed yet.”

Jeff shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. If looks to me as if old Hurricane Rita is winding down a bit.”

When Damballah Wedo turned and focused his attention on the storm, Jeff did not hesitate. He sprinted for the rail to leap over the side after the slowly retreating emergency raft, but the Loa was too quick. A wall of ebony erupted in front of him, blocking his attempt. Changing direction, he raced to the stairs and took them two at a time. He knew he had one chance only. If he could put some distance between himself and Damballah Wedo, he might have enough time reach the crane, drop the cables over the side, climb down them and swim to the emergency capsule before the waves took it beyond his reach. He did not bother to look behind him, knowing that a dark shadow spilled across the deck at his heels. He reached the main deck and sprinted toward the crane. He hoped there was enough cable. The remote control was still attached but no longer neatly coiled. It was buried beyond his reach beneath a pile of debris.

He dove at the cable and began dragging it toward the railing. Behind him, Damballah Wedo slowly drew himself together, coalescing into human form once again, taking his time. Jeff flung the cable over the side. Too short! He looked down at the remarkably still water below him. It was tempting, but he knew it was too high to jump. He would kill himself if he tried. Too many metal struts and pipes extended beyond the edge of the deck below. He judged the cables were twenty feet shy of the water but there were no obstructions below the hook. He estimated it would take him about thirty seconds to slide down the cables through the maze of pipes. He didn’t think he had that long. Damballah Wedo was growing impatient.

He turned and faced the Loa. He thought he was prepared for death, but as he looked into the Loa’s crimson eyes, he discovered differently. Death would have been a release, but what Damballah Wedo offered was not death, but lifelessness. He knew he didn’t stand a chance of reaching the water before Damballah Wedo killed him. The Loa had been merely toying with him earlier, feeding on his fear. He stood glaring at Jeff for a moment before lifting his arm. Black drops of ooze dripped to the platform and began to bubble ominously. From each drop sprang a hellish creature. Once, they might have been human but no longer. The heads were feral, narrow with long snouts, tiny ears and beady red eyes. Sharp fangs dripping black venom protruded from lipless, drooling mouths. Their bodies were long and sinuous but they had four stubby legs with long claws. There were a dozen of them, shadow creatures. They scratched hungrily at the deck, eager to be unleashed on their prey.

Jeff looked around for a weapon but found only a length of rusty pipe protruding from the deck. He yanked it loose and tested its weight in his hands. It felt uncomfortably light for his needs. He caught a whiff of natural gas spewing from the hole he had just made in the deck. He struggled to think of a way to use the gas as a weapon without killing himself in the process, but came up empty. He had given Sims his lighter earlier. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the bright red hull of the TEMPSC moving slowly away from the platform. The sea anchor was out to help stabilize it, slowing the vessel. Lisa had not yet started the engine. She needed to do so quickly. He hoped Lisa and Tolson made it. They would if he could hold the Loa’s attention a bit longer. He took a deep breath.

“It’s just you and me, Weedy old boy,” he yelled. “Give it your best shot.”

Laughter spilled from the Loa’s mouth and poured across the platform, shaking it like a leaf in the wind. Jeff danced a seaman’s jig to remain upright.

“You are mine,” Damballah Wedo pronounced with a finality that shook Jeff’s confidence.

Two of the creatures lunged at Jeff. He slammed the end of the pipe against one’s head so hard it numbed his hands, and quickly swung the other end down and under the second’s front legs. It fell, knocking the first down also. They scrambled quickly to their feet with a scratching of claws, unphased by the blows. He backed against the rail to prevent them from blindsiding him.

The two creatures moved to each side of him. Before they could attack, he leaped at the one on his right and delivered a two-handed blow to the creature’s head. With a satisfied thud, the creature’s skull cracked and black ooze poured out. The creature fell to the deck, pawing frantically.

The second creature attacked as his back was turned. Fire erupted in his thigh as sharp claws raked through cloth and skin. Blood rolled down his leg. Doubling over and falling to his knee saved his life. The foul stench of the creature’s breath enveloped him as the fangs passed within inches of his face as he dropped. He shoved the end of the pipe down the creature’s throat and heaved with all his might. The creature slid backwards across the deck until it reached the railing. With a final shove, he forced the creature beneath the railing and it plunged with a whine to the water below. Protruding pipes tore into its body as it plummeted. When it hit the water, the creature exploded into a black liquid that quickly evaporated on the surface.

Already nearly exhausted, he turned to face Damballah Wedo. Half a score of the minions remained, rubbing against the Loa’s legs like kittens from hell. He knew he did not stand a chance against them. He already felt light headed from the gas fumes. Suddenly, one of the creatures began to spasm. It reared on its hind legs and shuddered violently. A black blotch appeared on its skin. From the blotch, a hand came into view—Tolson’s! Nestled in his palm was Digger Man’s gris-gris. He was using it to punch through the shadows of his prison.

Tolson tossed the voodoo charm toward Jeff. His arm began to slip back inside the creature’s body, but not before he firmly grasped the creature’s head, yanking it after him. Slowly the creature shook itself to pieces as its body enfolded on itself. Dead, it fell to the deck and evaporated.

Jeff lunged at the gris-gris and welcomed its warmth as it vibrated in his hand. Damballah Wedo roared and the creatures scattered across the platform yelping, momentarily released from his control. Jeff remembered how Lisa’s silver sword had melted into the Loa’s body. He stuffed the gris-gris into the pipe and ran at Damballah Wedo, who was still venting his rage, paying Jeff no attention.

The pipe entered the open wound in Damballah Wedo’s side. Jeff twisted it to drive it deeper. He barely saw the Loa’s massive hand as it swatted him away as one would a fly. Jeff landed several yards away gasping for air, his chest sore and bruised. At first, he thought his gesture had been futile, but a change came over the Loa. Fingers of lightning stretched from the sky, forming a hand. The ethereal hand grasped the pipe and it began to glow a brilliant white. The brighter it became, the deeper it sank into Damballah Wedo’s corrupt flesh. His body trembled violently in a volley of spasms that threatened to shake him apart.

Jeff realized with a start he was laying beside the hole that was spewing natural gas. It lay in a thick, invisible layer across the deck. It was time to leave. Cracks appeared in Damballah Wedo’s ebony shell. White light broke through in blotches, eating at his flesh. With a sudden blast that seemed to rival the sun in intensity, the black shadow in which he had wrapped himself exploded away in layers. The natural gas erupted as Jeff leapt for the cable. He slid down the cable fending off pipes with his feet, heedless of the wire slivers slicing into his hands and forearms. He felt the heat of the explosion rush over him as he dropped beneath the level of the main deck. The crane swayed from the explosion but thankfully remained upright. He could smell the acrid odor of singed hair and flesh, noticing it was his own, but realizing also that he was alive.

Jeff uncovered his eyes and looked up as Damballah Wedo stood amid the raging flames. He was no longer a giant; he was a man, black and handsome with finely chiseled features wearing a white linen suit. He stared down at Jeff clinging to the cable with a wry smile.

“So you think you have won,” he said, his red eyes boring into Jeff’s. The Loa was not completely released from his own possession.

Jeff looked beyond Damballah Wedo’s shoulder at the approaching storm. The eye was closing. The Gateway shimmered less spectacularly now. In fact, it seemed to shrink even as he watched.

“I think I have,” Jeff answered.

“There is still time.”

Jeff saw figures moving in the clouds, storm Loas.

“Not for you,” Jeff answered.

Damballah Wedo noticed the direction Jeff was staring. He turned just as a bolt of white-hot lightning raced from the cloud to the standing figure. His scream was lost in the peal of thunder that followed but it echoed in Jeff’s head. Hands reached from the clouds and plucked the struggling Loa from the deck. He disappeared into the sky, writhing and screaming. Jeff let go of the cable and dropped twenty feet to the water. He hit feet first but the impact still stunned him. He sank quickly, watching the metal legs of the platform slip by. It was all over. They had won. Lisa was safe. The water embraced him in welcome. As his vision dimmed, Lisa’s face appeared before him and his heart swelled. He struggled to move his arms and legs. He would not die this way, not after all he had been through. He forced his way to the surface and sputtered, drawing in a lungful of fresh air. He looked at the sky.

Damballah Wedo was gone. The storm did not die—hurricanes are acts of nature—but Jeff could see it growing weaker as Damballah Wedo’s arcane influence lessened. It now looked like a storm, not an evil force. He knew it would miss New Orleans and strike the coast of Texas. People would die, but in a natural way, their souls would remain their own.

The platform began to tremble as the wind picked up again. The explosion had weakened the already unbalanced deck. The ominous sound of rending metal filled the air. Rust and small bits of metal debris rained down on him, becoming larger bits as the platform shook itself to pieces. He began to swim. The wind at his back helped as he pulled with all his strength for the TEMPSC. As he neared, the hatch opened and Lisa reached down to pluck him from the water. He crawled in, his wounded leg throbbing, and looked back at the platform. Like a crippled giant, it slowly crumbled and fell into the sea with the groan of a score of dead men. The water boiled for a few minutes and a black vapor erupted from the waves, which the wind dissipated quickly. The Hell Rig was gone and with it, the last traces of Damballah Wedo.

The Loa was not dead, Jeff knew, but it would be a long time before he could again accumulate so much power. He would be watched over closely by his fellow Loa.

Jeff crawled in, lay down and locked the hatch behind him. He looked over at Tolson. Tolson was awake. He still looked near death but had a smile on his face.

“Thanks,” Jeff said.

Tolson weakly waved a hand in dismissal. “I finally figured out how to use the damn thing,” he said, referring to the gris-gris. “You have to believe in it.”

Jeff looked back at Lisa. He had thought never to see her again. Her eyes were still wide with fright, as if she were not certain it was really over. He reached for her, pulled her to him and kissed her. She was shaking from fear as she melted into his arms, but he felt her trembling stop after a while. She looked up at him.

“I thought you were dead.”

“Not yet.”

She buried her head in his chest.

“Jesus,” Tolson exclaimed. “You two need a room.”

Lisa held out her cell phone to Jeff. A small smile creased her lips. “Look. It’s working now. I called the Coast Guard. They said they would send out a helicopter. We’re going to make it, Jeff.”

Jeff just nodded, unsure of how to reply. Outside, the waves grew rougher and the wind picked up. Hurricane Rita had switched directions and had lost energy, but she wasn’t dead. They were in for a rough ride for the next few hours, but now they faced a natural force, a creation of wind, water and heat, not a supernatural being. Lisa was right. They would survive. They would remember and be on guard for the next time.