Council of Fire Read online

  He’d had no chance at all against Jupiter. Thud, and his skull was another crushed mess of blood, bone splinters and brains, spilling out all over.

  York, the younger of the two apprentices, had saved his life by the simple expedient of remaining frozen in place, his eyes wide and his mouth agape, while Jupiter carried out his murderous work. By the time he came to his senses and began moving again, Jupiter was satisfied that he posed no threat.

  And, besides, he needed an assistant. Not even a man as powerful as Jupiter thought he could overthrow the city’s white authorities by simply using his muscles and his hammer.

  No, it was time—finally!—to call upon Ogun. From other Yoruba slaves he’d encountered over the years, Jupiter had filled out what little he remembered from his upbringing. He was a self-confident man—some said an arrogant man, too impressed with his own strength to think clearly.

  Whether from self-confidence or arrogance, Jupiter was quite sure he could summon Ogun. Or, at least, one of Ogun’s orishas.

  “Get me a dog,” he commanded York. “The master’s dog will do fine. And bring some chains from the dog’s pen.”

  York didn’t question Jupiter’s intent in giving those orders. He was much too terrified of him. Even before today’s slaughter, Jupiter had been a harsh man. Outwardly subservient to his master, he’d always been quick to administer punishments on the two black apprentices he lorded it over.

  The unasked questions soon became a moot point. York knew very little about the pagan beliefs and practices of his African folk. He’d been born a slave, right here in New York, not brought over on a slaver ship. But no man, no matter his ignorance, could fail to realize the grim purpose of Jupiter’s rituals.

  The chains stretched along the walls of the shop, now hung with all sorts of metal implements—knives, axes, hammers, wrenches, tongs, even scissors. That had not been especially frightening, in and of itself. But once York had finished hanging the chains and seen the brutal way Jupiter dragged the dog out of its cage, he’d realized they were part of a larger and bloodier ceremony.

  Sure enough. The dog had been sacrificed—and not in any neat and surgical procedure. Jupiter had bludgeoned the poor creature to death with his hammer and chopped the carcass into pieces with one of the axes he’d taken off the chains on the walls.

  He’d then formed a circle with the chunks of dog meat and taken a position within it. By now, between the human corpses and the butchery of the dog, the floor of the shop was covered with blood. But Jupiter seemed quite oblivious.

  “Bring me a chain and what’s hanging on it,” he commanded.

  York hurried to obey. It took but a few minutes to festoon Jupiter with the chain, wrapped and draped all around and over him. Tools and weapons hung everywhere. Only a man as strong as Jupiter could have sustained the weight for more than a short time.

  “Step out of the dog circle,” he now commanded. Then, glancing toward the entrance to the blacksmith shop, he pointed to a shelf on the opposite wall. “You’d best get up there, York. And keep quiet, and very still.”

  The ledge was shallow, barely wide enough for York to lie on it, but it was sturdily built and—best of all—six feet off the ground. As soon as Jupiter began intoning his chant, York was glad of the distance.

  He had no idea what the words meant. But after three or four minutes, the chunks of dog meat began to quiver, as if they had a life of their own. Within another minute or so, they began to transform into shapes. Soon they were rising from the floor.

  And rising. And rising. York pressed knuckles into his mouth to keep from making any noise. He had enough control over himself that he wouldn’t have screamed or shouted, but he was afraid his teeth might start chattering.

  The—things—into which the dog meat was turning were hideous. Like nothing he’d ever seen. They had the torsos of men, more or less, but nothing below the waist was human. The legs were long and skeletal, ending in huge feet pointing both ways. The distance from the tip of one taloned big toe to that facing the other way was at least two feet, in some cases close to three.

  The heads could never be mistaken for those of a man, either. The brows were low and the skulls behind swept back and formed heavy crests. York could see the thick jaw muscles attached to those crests and did not wonder for a moment why they were needed. The teeth of the monsters were at least an inch long and seemed to be made of iron. They were shaped roughly like human teeth, not the sharp teeth of carnivores, but what difference would that make? Anything those jaws clamped down on was as doomed as if they’d been bitten by an alligator.

  The eyes below the brows were large, protruding and bloodshot. Blessedly, none of them were looking York’s way, perched as he was above them.

  At least a foot above them, for which he was profoundly thankful. If there was any one redeeming feature of the creatures, it was that they were not very tall—five feet, at the most.

  Squat, though, and obviously very powerful. And, then, as the first of the bat wings began to unfold, York had to press his knuckles still more fiercely into his mouth. The horrid things could fly?

  Whether they could or couldn’t, York would not find out at the moment. As soon as the monsters finished growing and taking final form, Jupiter raised his blacksmith’s hammer over his head and shouted something in a language York was not familiar with.

  The meaning of the short phrase was clear enough, however,

  Follow me! Jupiter lumbered out of the blacksmith’s shop, with the chain and implements attached to it, like a gargoyle’s version of chain mail armor. He almost took the door off its hinges just brushing against it. By the time the third monster passed through, the door had been ripped off its hinges and was lying on the ground outside.

  The creatures all poured out. And out and out, using a peculiar side-to-side crablike motion. York realized there must have been dozens of the things, formed from chunks of dog meat. How had they all fit into the blacksmith’s shop? The interior wasn’t really very roomy.

  He had no idea. He didn’t know—and he was pretty sure he would never know.

  Which didn’t bother him in the least.

  Still perched on the shelf, he could hear the screams beginning outside.

  Some things were best left unknown.

  As it happened, York misinterpreted the screams. Most of them were simply cries of fear. Except for one old white woman who had the misfortune to be walking down a nearby street, all of the people screaming were black themselves, just like Jupiter. He barked commands which allowed those people to be spared by the monsters—but didn’t lessen their screams any, when they witnessed the savagery with which the white woman was literally torn to shreds and then eaten—parts of her, anyway, before Jupiter’s bellowed commands dragged the monsters from their feast.

  Jupiter and his horde moved off down the street, headed for the more central parts of the city. The witnesses of that first brutal murder continued their screaming.

  It was the unsettling screams more than her own fear that sent Coffey racing into the blacksmith’s shop. Had she realized that shop had been the source of the monsters, she wouldn’t have gone near it, of course. But she didn’t know, because she hadn’t seen them emerge and she hadn’t spotted Jupiter—and that shop was where the boy she was interested in worked and lived. Coffey had no family of her own—none left, at least—and in the chaos of the moment, York was the one person she could think of to find shelter with.

  She didn’t even think to find shelter with her own mistress. York’s master was a kindly man; Coffey’s was a milliner whose temperament could most charitably be labeled austere. Even though Coffey was a freedwoman, not a slave like York, she was treated much more harshly.

  She hadn’t taken more than three steps into the blacksmith’s shop before she spotted the blood splattered all over. She came to an abrupt halt and looked around fearfully.

  “York . . . ?” she said in a soft, frightened voice.

  She was immen
sely relieved to hear his voice. “Up here, Coffey.”

  It took her a moment to spot him, because she didn’t think at first to look up at the shelf. When she did, she raced over and leapt for the shelf herself. Coffey was a big girl—big and strong—and she could have pulled herself onto the shelf easily enough. But York seized her by the wrists and hauled her up in an instant. He was a lot bigger than she was, and an awful lot stronger. He didn’t have Jupiter’s physique—she’d never seen any man who did—but York was a very muscular youngster, as you’d expect from someone apprenticed in the blacksmith’s trade.

  Not more than two seconds after Coffey joined York on the shelf, she gasped. The height of their perch allowed her to see into the corner of the shop where the three corpses were lying.

  “What—?” She calmed her nerves by taking a deep breath. Coffey was a steady girl, especially for someone only seventeen years old. “What happened?”

  “Jupiter killed them.”

  “Why?”

  York shrugged heavy shoulders. “Mr. Jamison and his son, because they were white. Cumberland . . . ” He shrugged again. “He’d grabbed a hammer, but I don’t think he was minded to attack Jupiter. I think he just grabbed it out of fear and excitement. But it didn’t matter. As soon as he picked up the hammer, he was a dead man.”

  His expression was grim. “Coffey, we’ve got to get out of here.” He pointed to the blood-soaked open center of the shop where Jupiter had made his ring of dog meat. The ring itself wasn’t evident any longer. Most of the poor animal’s parts had been scattered when the monsters surged out of the shop.

  “But . . . where will we go?”

  “I don’t know. Anyplace except here. Sooner or later, I figure Jupiter’s bound to come back since this is where he summoned the things he has with him. So let’s go.”

  York didn’t exactly hop off the ledge, since it was a little high off the ground for that. But he was on the floor in an instant. Turning, he held up his hands toward Coffey.

  “Jump, girl. I’ll catch you.”

  With any other boy, Coffey would have sniffed and gotten down on her own. Quite easily, thank you. But she was taken by York, so she was perfectly happy to have an excuse to end up in his arms.

  She thought he took longer than he needed to, before he let her go. That was the first and only pleasant thought she’d had all day.

  The day was still young, though. It wasn’t noon yet. If God and Fortune smiled on her, she might still have some happy moments this day.

  The way things looked, though, God’s attention was elsewhere and Fortune was taking a nap. The day was more likely to end in horror.

  On their way out, York snatched up one of the hammers in the shop. Coffey was skeptical that the hammer would do them much good, but she supposed it was better than nothing.

  Chapter 50

  Familiar with the Second Commandment

  They encountered the first horror not more than five minutes later. After hurrying down the street a few blocks, just enough to be out of sight of the blacksmith shop, they stopped near a street corner and leaned against the side of a building to catch their breath. The building was three stories tall and there was a grocery in the first-floor corner.

  They were no longer in a freedman’s area of the city. There would be slaves like York in these buildings, but they’d be mostly servants, not craftsmen. This was a prosperous white section of New York and normally York and Coffey would be apprehensive about being there in the street, unaccompanied by a master or mistress. Today, though, the chances of being accosted simply because of their skin color seemed rather remote.

  “Where do we go, York?” Coffey asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Wherever it is, we’d best make sure—”

  Coffey screamed. Coming from somewhere above—probably one of the building’s ledges—a ghastly form dropped onto York’s head and shoulders. Coffey couldn’t tell what it was at first, until York slammed himself back against the building wall and threw his torso to the side. That almost dislodged the creature and Coffey could now see that it was a giant spider. The central body was six inches across, and the abdomen even larger. The eight legs were moving around too much for her to even estimate their lengths—but, whatever it was, it was completely unnatural. No spider she’d ever heard of was this big; not even close. She’d never seen or heard of a spider so brilliantly colored, either: blue and white stripes on its back and a mottled orange on its underside.

  She saw the spider was getting positioned to drive its fangs into the back of York’s neck. Still screaming, but now with fury rather than fear, Coffey seized one of the monster’s legs, yanked it off the boy and flung it down the street.

  She didn’t fling it far, though. Making a chittering sound that she’d hear in nightmares for months to come, the spider scrabbled onto its feet and charged at her. It was about a foot tall and had a leg span of three feet or so.

  York strode forward and kicked the spider, sending it flying back down the street.

  It wasn’t about to give up. Scrabbling erect, the spider came charging at them yet again.

  But York was ready now. He had the hammer in his hand and once the spider got within a few feet he hurled it down on the hideous creature. The tool was a short-handled sledgehammer, weighing five pounds. With York’s strength behind the blow, the spider’s trunk was completely smashed. The creature thrashed around for a while thereafter, but its legs were no longer functional. Like all arachnids, and unlike insects, spiders used hydraulic pressure instead of muscles to extend their legs. With its body ruptured, the creature’s legs just curled up underneath it. The spider was immobilized and effectively dead the moment the hammer struck.

  York and Coffey didn’t stick around to watch the monster’s final throes. As soon as York snatched back the hammer, they raced away.

  They were moving north toward the city’s large open area known as the Common, which people also called “the square” even though it was shaped like a triangle. As they drew nearer, they could hear a commotion of some sort ahead of them.

  Coffey stopped. “Maybe . . . ”

  York shook his head and took her by the arm. “We have to find out what’s happening, Coffey. Until we do, we’re just wandering around with no purpose.”

  “All right,” she said. She wasn’t at all sure York’s plan wasn’t foolish, but she had nothing to offer in its place. “Just be careful.”

  He smiled and held up his hammer. The spider’s blood had now dried on it. “This’ll help,” he said.

  York and Coffey followed a tangle of streets for a few blocks until they reached a side street that led to the Common. Peering along it, the two youngsters saw a mass of militiamen milling about on the square. They weren’t looking down the side street; their attention seemed fixated on something on the north side of the Common.

  “Keep going,” Coffey whispered. York nodded and hurried up the street two more blocks until it reached another side street. There, he and Coffey made a quick dogleg up to Prince Street, which they followed for one block until they reached another side street. They were now past the Common, so he decided it would be safe—safer, at least—to approach the square still two or three blocks away.

  When they reached King George Street, the smell of the nearby tanners’ yards was powerful enough to be slightly nauseating. As much to get away from that stench as anything else, York moved down King George Street to the southwest. They were not more than a block away from the Common, now. There was nobody in sight anywhere, but they could hear a lot of shouting and some other peculiar noises coming from the square. They still couldn’t see the square, though, because of the intervening buildings, most of which were two or three stories tall.

  “Look, York!” Coffey hissed. She pointed to one of the buildings, which had an exterior staircase leading up to the roof. The roof was flat, unlike most of them in the area.

  The staircase looked to be on the rickety side, but . . .


  If they wanted to see what was happening, that rooftop would provide them with a good and relatively safe vantage point from which to observe anything in the Common.

  They hurried to the staircase and began climbing. Both of them were young, healthy and in good physical condition. It took but a short time to reach the rooftop; and then a few seconds to make their way across the roof and look down into the Common.

  Coffey and York were both devout Christians who attended church regularly and were perfectly familiar with the Second Commandment: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

  But they couldn’t help themselves. “Dear God!” hissed Coffey; “Jesus!” was York’s contribution.

  The scene in the Common was terrifying. York was amazed that the militiamen, although clearly frightened, hadn’t fled yet. He supposed having a gun—he’d never held one, himself, much less fired one—provided a man with a certain degree of fortitude.

  “York, get down,” said Coffey. She kept her voice low, but her tone was insistent. Looking down, he saw that she was crouched behind the low retaining wall that ran all around the edge of the roof. It wasn’t tall—not more than eighteen inches—but it did provide something of a hiding place.

  York looked down into the square below. He didn’t think any of the monsters would look up at the roof. Their red-eyed, furious attention was entirely on the militiamen. But in the back of the mob of monsters stood a big man he recognized, even at the distance, as Jupiter. If Jupiter spotted York and Coffey up on the roof, there was no telling what he might do.