Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead by Steve Perry

Author:Steve Perry
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780345506986
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2009-09-05T07:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

BOUKMAN FLEW, high above the earth. There, a few kilometers away, a thunderstorm flashed and grumbled, the light blinking on and off in the dark clouds. Below him, half a kilometer or more, the dark carpet of the jungle lay over the island, and the breakers lapped at the shore where the land ended and the sea began.

In the Other Realm, things had forms much like those they possessed in the everyday life—only the same rules did not always apply.

Boukman reached down with his feeling, sought, and found Marie, his great-grandniece. She had raised wards to protect herself against him. He could break them easily enough, but there was no need. He knew where she was, he knew that his slaves were in the woods, watching and waiting, it was all as it needed to be.

There was still a puzzle to it, though. He felt that there was something of great importance here, most great, and yet—he had not detected the kind of energy such a thing would ordinarily emit. People, animals, objects of power, they all produced signs revealing themselves. Even a modestly strong bokor would shine like a bonfire visible day and night. Little Marie glowed less so, more like a lamp in a dim room, the tendril of her connection to Heaven a thin, glimmering white ribbon. Over many years, Boukman had seen many such lights, from the sizzling electric primary colors of loa, to the softer, purer lights of holy men and women, to the malignant purple fires of truly wicked people and wicked places. And yet, upon this corner of this small island, there was nothing to be seen. Either that meant there was nothing here, which was a possibility he had to allow, or that some power greater than his own had shielded it from view.

Now, that would be something. There had been no power here greater than his for a long time. Once, long ago, on a ship far out to sea, he had beheld a spiritual fire passing, a pillar of roiling blue and orange flame that shot up into the heavens with an intensity he had never observed, not before, nor since. He had been afraid to approach that beacon. Whoever or whatever it had been, it had frightened him. He had known, on a deep and certain level, that had he made to touch that roiling column, he would have been sucked into it and blasted into the cosmos, torn loose from himself and this world to wander for eternity.

These days, maybe he would feel strong enough to peer more closely at such a vile and wondrous thing, but even as a young man he had not been completely stupid. Knowing when to stand or when to leave was how a man survived. The jungle’s law was eat or be eaten, and he would have choked on that kind of power.

And yet, he somehow felt that whatever his niece was on to down on the island, whatever the two blan

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