His first thoughts were of Damballah. If the snake should come after him, the M1 might not stop such a massive reptile. When the sound stopped he waited another minute before turning on the light again. Keenly alert, he proceeded north about a mile and a half, very slowly, then doubled back.
After an interval that seemed like hours he spotted pinpoints of luminosity far ahead. If his mental calculations , were correct, he was approaching the island from the northwest. So the lights he saw couldn’t be located in the vicinity of the compound, which occupied the southern end, because they were much farther north than they should be, and there were only a few. The Baron’s fortress would be ablaze with illumination.
Then what could this be?
Blade killed his own spotlight and slanted the boat toward the mysterious lights. In another hundred yards he came to the conclusion they were situated at the north end of the Baron’s island.
A guard post maybe?
Cautiously now, the Warrior guided the craft ever nearer until he could distinguish the shapes of trees lining the north shore. Fifty yards from the trees stood a two-story structure, and the lights he saw were situated near it.
A guard post wouldn’t be two stories high.
Puzzled, Blade shut off the outboard and let the boat drift toward the island. He lifted the M1 and moved to the bow, his eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness. The shore appeared abruptly and the bottom of the craft rubbed on the waterlogged earth underneath.
Now!
Blade vaulted from the boat, the water only rising to his ankles, and ran nimbly to solid ground. He crouched, fingering the trigger, scanning the landscape. The vegetation under the trees presented a formidable inky wall to his probing eyes, but 15 yards to the left a wide path or road ran straight from the bayou in the direction of the structure.
The tonton macoutes must come here frequently.
He ran to the path, which turned out to be a flattened track of grass ten feet in width, then jogged toward the building. All around him insects strummed and buzzed. Someone laughed.
The faint titter stopped Blade in his tracks and he flattened. It came from the structure. After ten seconds he rose, staying bent over, and moved forward. Indistinct voices reached his ears.
The lights solidified as lanterns hanging from hooks positioned at 40-foot intervals on the outside of the circular structure. The walls were made of polished wood. Between each lantern was an arched opening.
Blade edged toward one of the entrances, perplexed by the shape of the building. It resembled a stadium more than anything else, and for the life of him he couldn’t comprehend why a stadium would be located way out in the middle of the tropical growth proliferating on the north side of the island. Why not simply construct the edifice near the Compound? There must be a reason.
The voices grew louder, almost audible.
Exercising the utmost care, the giant stepped to the arch and peered within. A short tunnel led to an inner open area, was about to advance when he noticed another arched pathway off to the right, only this one was twice the size of all the others, a virtual tunnel.
Strange.
Blade crept along the right-hand wall until he was within three feet of the inner arch, then halted. Now he could hear the voices clearly.
“—don’t know why we have to sweep this out every time. It’s not like it matters.”
“Brother, you’d best not let the Baron or Majesta you talking like that or you’ll find yourself in the same boat as those poor freaks.”
“Listen to who’s talking! You know how the Baron hates them things. If he thought for a minute that you felt sorry for the critters, your ass would be grass.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Blade inched to the edge and risked a look. His gaze alighted on a pair of tonton macoutes, one white the other black, who were sweeping the spacious open area comprising the middle two thirds of the circular structure. What surprised him the most was the fact they were using brooms on a dirt floor.
“How much time we got?” asked the white one.
The black consulted a watch on his left wrist. “Let’s see. The procession won’t leave the compound until eleven fifteen, and it’ll take them a half hour to get here. So we’ve got about an hour to kill.”
“I wish Captain Francois had picked somebody else for this damn detail,” stated the first man, glancing nervously at the west side of the arena.
Blade did the same, his eyes narrowing at the sight of six posts imbedded in the ground near the smooth inner wall, each spaced approximately ten feet apart. Affixed to each post was a set of shackles, and he could readily imagine the function they would serve. He gazed upward and discovered another interesting aspect to the structure.
The smooth arena wall only extended for a height of 15 feet. Above it were rows of tightly packed bleachers for an audience of a hundred or more. There was no roof, only stars.
All of a sudden the pieces of the puzzle fit.
Blade was about to draw back from the archway when he glanced to the east and spied the great drum occupying a spot all by itself at the front of the bleachers. He remembered the words of Henry Pétion and scowled.
How could he hope to do it?
Do the impossible?
Defeat Damballah?
The Warrior melted into the shadows. He had an hour in which to devise a brilliant strategy, or in an hour and a half he would likely be dead.
Chapter Nineteen
Lynx was not a happy hybrid.
He considered being captured as a personal affront to his dignity and his mutant prowess. To make matters worse, the jerk heading the detail responsible for his capture had taunted him all the way from New Orleans to the Baron’s estate, calling him every name in the book. The slimeball had refused to give Eleanore any food—just water. That alone had revived her, but she had been so weak the tonton macoutes were compelled to carry her from the boat when it docked at the island.
What was the name of that SOB again? Lynx asked himself. Oh, yeah.
Sergeant Valmy. If he ever got his claws into the good sergeant, Vahny would look like venison. That was a promise.
Poor Eleanore.
Lynx wished they had been placed in the same cell, instead they had been taken directly from the pier to a prison and he’d been shoved into a room all by his lonesome, arms bound with nylon cord.
Valmy had suspected he would give them a hassle.
The bozo didn’t know the half of it.
And now, after tearing the cord off with his teeth and pacing the cell for at least 30 minutes, Lynx was becoming increasingly impatient. He’d tried the window and the door repeatedly, but both were proof against even his prodigious strength
Damn it all.
A few seconds later, when he detected the sound of someone approaching his cell door, he snickered and dashed to the right, standing next to the jamb. When the door swung , he’d leap on the bastards before they knew what hit them. He heard the bolt sliding free, and tensed.
“I know you can hear me in there,” declared someone in the thin slot.
“Stand in the open where I can see you and do it now.”
Lynx stayed where he was out of sheer spite.
“Listen to me, mutation. My name is Captain Francois, I have no time for games. Your friends are already waiting for you outside, as is the woman you were brought here with. Unless you want them to be harmed, you will do exactly as I say.”
They had him over a barrel, Lynx realized, and he stepped in the middle of the cell, his shoulders slumped in resignation.
“How’s this, turkey?”
Dark eyes regarded the hybrid critically. “I was told you were bound.”