Seven Stones to Stand or Fall Read online

  “I trust this snake,” said the voice softly. “Krait comes with me from Africa. Long time now.”

  Grey’s knees straightened abruptly. Africa! Now he placed the name, and cold sweat broke out on his face. Krait. A fucking African krait. Gwynne had had one. Small, no bigger than the circumference of a man’s little finger. “Bloody deadly,” Gwynne had crooned, stroking the thing’s back with the tip of a goose quill—an attention to which the snake, a slender, nondescript brown thing, had seemed oblivious.

  This one was squirming languorously over the top of Grey’s foot; he had to restrain a strong urge to kick it away and stamp on it. What the devil was it about him that attracted snakes, of all ungodly things? He supposed it could be worse; it might be cockroaches. Instantly he felt a hideous crawling sensation upon his forearms and rubbed them hard reflexively, seeing—yes, he bloody saw them, here in the dark—thorny jointed legs and wriggling, inquisitive antennae brushing his skin.

  He might have cried out. Someone laughed.

  If he thought at all, he wouldn’t be able to do it. He stooped and snatched the thing and, rising, hurled it into the darkness. There was a yelp and a scrabbling, then a brief, shocked scream.

  He stood panting and trembling from reaction, checking and rechecking his hand—but felt no pain, could find no puncture wounds. The scream had been succeeded by a low stream of unintelligible curses, punctuated by the deep gasps of a man in terror. The voice of the houngan—if that’s who it was—came urgently, followed by another voice, doubtful, fearful. Behind him, before him? He had no sense of direction anymore.

  Something brushed past him, the heaviness of a body, and he fell against the wall of the cave, scraping his arm. He welcomed the pain; it was something to cling to, something real.

  More urgency in the depths of the cave, sudden silence. And then a swishing thunk! as something struck hard into flesh, and the sheared-copper smell of fresh blood came strong over the scent of hot rock and rushing water. No further sound.

  He was sitting on the muddy floor of the cave; he could feel the cool dirt under him. He pressed his hands flat against it, getting his bearings. After a moment, he heaved himself to his feet and stood, swaying and dizzy.

  “I don’t lie,” he said, into the dark. “And I will have my men.”

  Dripping with sweat and water, he turned back, toward the rainbows.

  THE SUN HAD barely risen when he came back into the mountain compound. The smoke of cooking fires hung among the huts, and the smell of food made his stomach clench painfully, but all that could wait. He strode as well as he might—his feet were so badly blistered that he hadn’t been able to get his boots back on and had walked back barefoot, over rocks and thorns—to the largest hut, where Captain Accompong sat placidly waiting for him.

  Tom and the soldiers were there, too, no longer roped together but still bound, kneeling by the fire. And Cresswell, a little way apart, appearing wretched but at least upright.

  Accompong looked at one of his lieutenants, who stepped forward with a big cane knife and cut the prisoners’ bonds with a series of casual but fortunately accurate swipes.

  “Your men, my colonel,” he said magnanimously, flipping one fat hand in their direction. “I give them back to you.”

  “I am deeply obliged to you, sir.” Grey bowed. “There is one missing, though. Where is Rodrigo?”

  There was a sudden silence. Even the shouting children hushed instantly, melting back behind their mothers. Grey could hear the trickling of water down the distant rock face and the pulse beating in his ears.

  “The zombie?” Accompong said at last. He spoke mildly, but Grey sensed some unease in his voice. “He is not yours.”

  “Yes,” Grey said firmly. “He is. He came to the mountain under my protection—and he will leave the same way. It is my duty.”

  The squatty headman’s expression was hard to interpret. None of the crowd moved or murmured, though Grey caught glimpses from the corner of his eyes of the faint turning of heads, as folk asked silent questions of one another.

  “It is my duty,” Grey repeated. “I cannot go without him.” He carefully omitted any suggestion that it might not be his choice whether to go or not. Still, why would Accompong return the white men to him if he planned to kill or imprison Grey?

  The headman pursed fleshy lips, then turned his head and said something questioning. Movement in the hut where Ishmael had emerged the night before. There was a considerable pause, but, once more, the houngan came out.

  His face was pale, and one of his feet was wrapped in a bloodstained wad of fabric, bound tightly. Amputation, Grey thought with interest, recalling the metallic thunk that had seemed to echo through his own flesh in the cave. It was the only sure way to keep a snake’s venom from spreading through the body.

  “Ah,” said Grey, voice light. “So the krait liked me better, did he?”

  He thought Accompong laughed under his breath, but he didn’t really pay attention. The houngan’s eyes flashed hate at him, and Grey regretted his wit, fearing that it might cost Rodrigo more than had already been taken from him.

  Despite his shock and horror, though, he clung to what Mrs. Abernathy had told him. The young man was not truly dead. He swallowed. Could Rodrigo perhaps be restored? The Scotchwoman had said not—but perhaps she was wrong. Clearly Rodrigo had not been a zombie for more than a few days. And she did say that the drug dissipated over time. Perhaps…

  Accompong spoke sharply, and the houngan lowered his head.

  “Anda,” he said sullenly. There was stumbling movement in the hut, and he stepped aside, half-pushing Rodrigo out into the light, where he came to a stop, staring vacantly at the ground, mouth open.

  “You want this?” Accompong waved a hand at Rodrigo. “What for? He’s no good to you surely? Unless you want to take him to bed—he won’t say no to you!”

  Everyone thought that very funny; the clearing rocked with laughter. Grey waited it out. From the corner of his eye, he saw the girl Azeel watching him with something like a fearful hope in her eyes.

  “He is under my protection,” he repeated. “Yes, I want him.”

  Accompong nodded and took a deep breath, sniffing appreciatively at the mingled scents of cassava porridge, fried plantain, and frying pig meat.

  “Sit down, Colonel,” he said, “and eat with me.”

  Grey sank slowly down beside him, weariness throbbing through his legs. Looking around, he saw Cresswell dragged roughly off but left sitting on the ground against a hut, unmolested. Tom and the two soldiers, looking dazed, were being fed at one of the cook fires. Then he saw Rodrigo, still standing like a scarecrow, and struggled to his feet.

  He took the young man’s tattered sleeve and said, “Come with me.” Rather to his surprise, Rodrigo did, turning like an automaton. He led the young man through the staring crowd to the girl Azeel, and said, “Stop.” He lifted Rodrigo’s hand and offered it to the girl, who, after a moment’s hesitation, took firmly hold of it.

  “Look after him, please,” Grey said to her. Only as he turned away did it register upon him that the arm he had held was wrapped with a bandage. Ah. Dead men don’t bleed.

  Returning to Accompong’s fire, he found a wooden platter of steaming food awaiting him. He sank down gratefully upon the ground again and closed his eyes—then opened them, startled, as he felt something descend upon his head and found himself peering out from under the drooping felt brim of the headman’s ragged hat.

  “Oh,” he said. “Thank you.” He hesitated, looking round, either for the leather hatbox or for his ragged palm-frond hat, but didn’t see either one.

  “Never mind,” said Accompong, and, leaning forward, slid his hands carefully over Grey’s shoulders, palms up, as though lifting something heavy. “I will take your snake, instead. You have carried him long enough, I think.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTES

  MY SOURCE FOR the theoretical basis of making zombies was The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harv
ard Scientist’s Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombis, and Magic, by Wade Davis, which I’d read many years ago. Information on the maroons of Jamaica, the temperament, beliefs, and behaviour of Africans from different regions, and on historical slave rebellions came chiefly from Black Rebellion: Five Slave Revolts, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. This manuscript (originally a series of articles published in Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s magazine, and Century) also supplied a number of valuable details regarding terrain and personalities.

  Captain Accompong was a real maroon leader—I took his physical description from this source—and the custom of trading hats upon conclusion of a bargain also came from Black Rebellion. General background, atmosphere, and the importance of snakes came from Zora Neale Hurston’s Tell My Horse and a number of less important books dealing with voodoo. (By the way, I now have most of my reference collection—some 2,500 books—listed on LibraryThing and cross-indexed by topic, in case you’re interested in pursuing anything like, say, Scotland, magic, or the American Revolution.)

  A LEAF ON THE WIND OF ALL HALLOWS

  INTRODUCTION

  ONE OF THE interesting things you can do with a “bulge” (i.e., one of the novellas or short stories in the Outlander universe) is to follow mysteries, hints, and loose ends from the main books of the series. One such trail follows the story of Roger MacKenzie’s parents.

  In Outlander, we learn that Roger was orphaned during World War II, and then adopted by his great-uncle, the Reverend Reginald Wakefield, who tells his friends, Claire and Frank Randall, that Roger’s mother was killed in the Blitz, and that his father was a Spitfire pilot “shot down over the Channel.”

  In Drums of Autumn, Roger tells his wife, Brianna, the moving story of his mother’s death in the collapse of a Tube station during the bombing of London.

  But in An Echo in the Bone, there is a poignant conversation in the moonlight between Claire and Roger, during which we encounter this little zinger:

  Her hands wrapped his, small and hard and smelling of medicine.

  “I don’t know what happened to your father,” she said. “But it wasn’t what they told you […]

  “Of course things happen,” she said, as though able to read his thoughts. “Accounts get garbled, too, over time and distance. Whoever told your mother might have been mistaken; she might have said something that the reverend misconstrued. All those things are possible. But during the War, I had letters from Frank—he wrote as often as he could, up until they recruited him into MI6. After that, I often wouldn’t hear anything for months. But just before that, he wrote to me, and mentioned—just as casual chat, you know—that he’d run into something strange in the reports he was handling. A Spitfire had gone down, crashed—not shot down; they thought it must have been an engine failure—in Northumbria, and while it hadn’t burned, for a wonder, there was no sign of the pilot. None. And he did mention the name of the pilot, because he thought Jeremiah rather an appropriately doomed sort of name.”

  “Jerry,” Roger said, his lips feeling numb. “My mother always called him Jerry.”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “And there are circles of standing stones scattered all over Northumbria.”

  So what really happened to Jerry MacKenzie and his wife, Marjorie (known to her husband as Dolly)? Read on.

  To the RAF flyers: “Never have so many owed so much to so few.”

  IT WAS TWO WEEKS yet to Hallowe’en, but the gremlins were already at work.

  Jerry MacKenzie turned Dolly II onto the runway full throttle, shoulder hunched, blood thumping, already halfway up Green leader’s arse—pulled back on the stick and got a choking shudder instead of the giddy lift of takeoff. Alarmed, he eased back, but before he could try again, there was a bang that made him jerk by reflex, smacking his head against the Perspex. It hadn’t been a bullet, though; the off tyre had blown, and a sickening tilt looped them off the runway, bumping and jolting into the grass.

  There was a strong smell of petrol, and Jerry popped the Spitfire’s hood and hopped out in panic, envisioning imminent incineration, just as the last plane of Green flight roared past him and took wing, its engine fading to a buzz within seconds.

  A mechanic was pelting down from the hangar to see what the trouble was, but Jerry’d already opened Dolly’s belly and the trouble was plain: the fuel line was punctured. Well, thank Christ he hadn’t got into the air with it, that was one thing, but he grabbed the line to see how bad the puncture was, and it came apart in his hands and soaked his sleeve nearly to the shoulder with high-test petrol. Good job the mechanic hadn’t come loping up with a lit cigarette in his mouth.

  He rolled out from under the plane, sneezing, and Gregory the mechanic stepped over him.

  “Not flying her today, mate,” Greg said, squatting down to look up into the engine, and shaking his head at what he saw.

  “Aye, tell me something I don’t know.” He held his soaked sleeve gingerly away from his body. “How long to fix her?”

  Greg shrugged, eyes squinted against the cold wind as he surveyed Dolly’s guts.

  “Half an hour for the tyre. You’ll maybe have her back up tomorrow, if the fuel line’s the only engine trouble. Anything else we should be looking at?”

  “Aye, the left wing-gun trigger sticks sometimes. Gie’ us a bit o’ grease, maybe?”

  “I’ll see what the canteen’s got in the way of leftover dripping. You best hit the showers, Mac. You’re turning blue.”

  He was shivering, right enough, the rapidly evaporating petrol wicking his body heat away like candlesmoke. Still, he lingered for a moment, watching as the mechanic poked and prodded, whistling through his teeth.

  “Go on, then,” Greg said in feigned exasperation, backing out of the engine and seeing Jerry still there. “I’ll take good care of her.”

  “Aye, I know. I just—aye, thanks.” Adrenaline from the aborted flight was still surging through him, thwarted reflexes making him twitch. He walked away, suppressing the urge to look back over his shoulder at his wounded plane.

  JERRY CAME OUT of the pilots’ WC half an hour later, eyes stinging with soap and petrol, backbone knotted. Half his mind was on Dolly, the other half with his mates. Blue and Green were up this morning, Red and Yellow resting. Green flight would be out over Flamborough Head by now, hunting.

  He swallowed, still restless, dry-mouthed by proxy, and went to fetch a cup of tea from the canteen. That was a mistake; he heard the gremlins laughing as soon as he walked in and saw Sailor Malan.

  Malan was Group Captain and a decent bloke overall. South African, a great tactician—and the most ferocious, most persistent air fighter Jerry’d seen yet. Rat terriers weren’t in it. Which was why he felt a beetle skitter briefly down his spine when Malan’s deep-set eyes fixed on him.

  “Lieutenant!” Malan rose from his seat, smiling. “The very man I had in mind!”

  The Devil he had, Jerry thought, arranging his face into a look of respectful expectancy. Malan couldn’t have heard about Dolly’s spot of bother yet, and without that, Jerry would have scrambled with A squadron on their way to hunt 109s over Flamborough Head. Malan hadn’t been looking for Jerry; he just thought he’d do, for whatever job was up. And the fact that the Group Captain had called him by his rank, rather than his name, meant it probably wasn’t a job anyone would volunteer for.

  He didn’t have time to worry about what that might be, though; Malan was introducing the other man, a tallish chap in army uniform with dark hair and a pleasant, if sharp, look about him. Eyes like a good sheepdog’s, he thought, nodding in reply to Captain Randall’s greeting. Kindly, maybe, but he won’t miss much.

  “Randall’s come over from Ops at Ealing,” Sailor was saying over his shoulder. He hadn’t waited for them to exchange polite chat, but was already leading them out across the tarmac, heading for the Flight Command offices. Jerry grimaced and followed, casting a longing glance downfield at Dolly, who was being towed ignominiously i
nto the hangar. The rag doll painted on her nose was blurred, the black curls partially dissolved by weather and spilled petrol. Well, he’d touch it up later, when he’d heard the details of whatever horrible job the stranger had brought.

  His gaze rested resentfully on Randall’s neck, and the man turned suddenly, glancing back over his shoulder as though he’d felt the stress of Jerry’s regard. Jerry felt a qualm in the pit of his stomach, as half-recognised observations—the lack of insignia on the uniform, that air of confidence peculiar to men who kept secrets—gelled with the look in the stranger’s eye.

  Ops at Ealing, my Aunt Fanny, he thought. He wasn’t even surprised, as Sailor waved Randall through the door, to hear the Group Captain lean close and murmur in his ear, “Careful—he’s a funny bugger.”

  Jerry nodded, stomach tightening. Malan didn’t mean Captain Randall was either humorous or a Freemason. “Funny bugger” in this context meant only one thing. MI6.

  CAPTAIN RANDALL WAS from the secret arm of British Intelligence. He made no bones about it, once Malan had deposited them in a vacant office and left them to it.

  “We’re wanting a pilot—a good pilot,” he added with a faint smile, “to fly solo reconnaissance. A new project. Very special.”

  “Solo? Where?” Jerry asked warily. Spitfires normally flew in four-plane flights, or in larger configurations, all the way up to an entire squadron, sixteen planes. In formation, they could cover one another to some extent against the heavier Heinkels and Messerschmitts. But they seldom flew alone by choice.

  “I’ll tell you that a bit later. First—are you fit, do you think?”