Chapter Twenty-One

The sun warmed my face. I stretched, surprised at how achy I felt. Last night had been a dilly for dreams.

I opened my eyes and stared straight into Murphy’s.

“Aarck!” I squeaked, and scrambled backward. Realizing I was naked, I yanked the blanket off of him and over me.

“What the hell?” he snapped. “You can suck me off until I nearly explode, I can screw you until you scream, but I can’t see you naked?”

“That—that—was a dream.”

“Really? Then what’s this?” He lifted his hair away from his neck to reveal a whopper of a hickey.

Now that I took inventory of my body, the aches and pains told the tale. I hadn’t dreamed of sleeping with Murphy; I’d actually done it.

I groaned and covered my face with my hands. “I don’t suppose you bummed a condom off a friendly neighborhood villager.”

“The villagers haven’t exactly been neighborly,” he said. “At least not to me.”

I lifted my head. There were worse things to worry about than waking up in Murphy’s bed. I’d had more than one dream last night, and if this one had been real, then—

“How did I get here?” I demanded.

“I have no idea. After the bloodletting,” he lifted his arm, which sported a disturbingly dirty bandage, “I was a little woozy.”

“Sorry.”

“I lived. Though with Mezareau around, I can’t say how long that condition will continue. I passed out, and next thing I knew you were naked in my arms. Being a guy, I couldn’t complain.”

“You couldn’t stop, either, I suppose.”

“I half-thought I dreamed you, too, until I woke up.” He rubbed a hand through his hair, and his silver thumb ring flashed gold in the sunlight blaring through the window. “I was pretty out of it.”

Drugs or blood loss, either way, we’d both been loopy. We’d behaved stupidly, though not completely of our own accord. What I couldn’t understand was why it was suddenly OK for the two of us to inhabit the same hut.

Catching sight of my backpack in the corner, I pounced on it, thrilled to find my extra pair of clothes.

Also inside were the remnants of the herbal sleeping draught and my zombie-revealing powder, as well as my knife—why did no one seem to fear sharp and shiny silver around here? However, the salt was suspiciously absent.

I got dressed, stuffed the zombie-revealing powder into my j eans, never could tell when I might need some, then fastened the knife at my waist. I felt much better in my own clothes, with my favorite weapons. “What did Mezareau tell you about me?” Murphy was dressed, too, but he sat hunched in a corner, appearing very un-Murphy-like. Since when did he care what people said?

“He said you were a thief, had been for a long time.”

“Huh,” he muttered. “The truth.”

“I thought you were a construction worker.”

“I am.” He glanced up. “But I was a thief—as a kid, after I left home. Sometimes I didn’t have a choice.”

I saw him as he’d once been—young, alone, starving—stealing was understandable. Then. “I was very good at it.”

He appeared to be good at everything he set his mind to. Lucky me.

“I could have gone professional.”

“I’m supposed to believe that you haven’t?”

“I’ve been working for a living. Seriously,” he said when I lifted my brows. “Look at my hands.”

I’d felt his hands. He’d definitely been using them on rougher things than me.

“I came to Haiti and I heard rumors about the diamond.”

“I thought no one ever got out of this place?”

“Someone must have, or there’d be no rumors.”

Good point.

“So instead of leaving when the j ob ended, you stayed.”

He lifted his shoulder. “I figured… one last time. Then I’d never have to worry about money again. I’d never wake up in the night thinking I was back on the street, that someone was going to kill me, or worse. I’d never be so hungry I ached with it. And what’s so bad about stealing from a sorcerer anyway?”

“Stealing’s stealing, Murphy,” I said softly. “You know that.”

He lowered his gaze, and his hair shrouded his face.

I went to the window and glanced outside. The number of villagers appeared to have doubled. They were all milling about, socializing. No one was paying any attention to us.

“Come on.” I slipped out the door and into the trees. No one raised a hue and cry, even when Murphy followed.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Last night Mezareau showed me how to raise the dead.”

Murphy stopped. One glance at his face and I knew he planned to argue with me.

“Just look, listen, then decide,” I urged.

He nodded and we continued on until we reached the clearing. I stepped into the field, which seemed to have been rototilled recently, or perhaps just excessively jumbled by the newly arisen dead.

Nowhere could I see any signs of growth, not a stray finger to be had. I went on my knees where Helen’s body had sprouted forth, pulled out my knife, and started to dig.

“Cassandra, what are you doing?”

“You remember when we found this place, it looked as if they’d planted something here?”

“Yes.”

“They planted bodies.”

His j aw clenched, so I quickly told him what had happened. As I spoke I continued to dig, and when I was done, I had a big hole but not a single bone or even a skull.

“There’s nothing here,” Murphy said in a voice that told me he didn’t believe there ever had been.

“I think we raised them. That would explain the sudden increase in villagers.”

“And the leopard?”

“Maybe Mezareau does run around with that costume on his head.”

“Was the skin still on the wall when you went into his hut last night?”

I couldn’t remember. “I was a little dizzy, drunk, drugged—maybe all three.”

“Hold on.” He stalked across the field and ducked inside the hut. I tensed, expecting an outcry, a gunshot, something. Murphy came back out. “It’s there now.”

I followed him, glancing inside, discovering that what he said was true; however, that didn’t mean what I’d seen wasn’t real. Or even that it was.

“Weird things happen in Haiti,” Murphy murmured.

“I’ll say.”

“But raising the dead? That’s a little weird even for here.”

“How can you stand there and say you don’t believe? Your blood was what raised them.”

“Just because some psycho cut me open and poured my blood on the ground proves nothing. You need to give up this obsession, Cassandra. Go home. Maybe see someone.”

“You think I’m crazy?”

Why did I keep asking that? The answer had always been yes.

“I think you miss your daughter,” he said softly. “That’s understandable. But you need to let Sarah rest in peace and move on with your life.”

“I can’t. Without her there is no life.”

Something flickered in his eyes. I thought it might have been sorrow, but that was probably just a reflection of my own.

“Make a new one,” he said.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about. You never had a child.”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

How could he be flippant at a time like this? Because he was Devon Murphy—rogue, charmer, thief.

He’d risked his life and mine for a hunk of rock. He had no right to take the high ground. I doubted he even knew where it was.

“You’ve obviously never loved anyone,” I snapped.

“Right you are, and no one’s ever loved me.”

Silence settled between us. He was breathing hard; his hands clenched. So did mine. This was getting us nowhere.

“If there’s a chance in a million of having her back, I’ll find it.” I stared at the empty field. “Last night something happened.”

If only I could remember what.

“You were drugged,” Murphy said. “You imagined everything. People don’t come back from the dead.

It’s impossible.”

I was furious now, probably because I was a little bit scared that he was right and if he was, then what would I do?

I stalked back to the village, leaving Murphy to follow or not; I didn’t care. I had to talk to Mezareau, and since he wasn’t here, he must be there, or I’d find someone who knew where he was.

I stepped into the common area between the huts and froze at the sight of my handmaidens. They no longer looked dead. Instead they smiled and chattered in the midst of what appeared to be the Haitian version of a block party.

“I’ll show you impossible,” I muttered, and reached into the pocket of my j eans for the zombie powder.

I dumped what was left into my palm, creating a tiny hill. Too much, really, but I was in a hurry.

I headed toward the crowd, but before I reached them, the wind whipped in from nowhere, lifting the particles into the air. Like a cartoon cloud, they expanded, flying into the face of every villager milling in the vicinity.

I don’t know what I expected. Most likely the nothing that had happened every other time I’d used the stuff. If my powder had been of any worth, why had Mezareau allowed me to keep it?

What I hadn’t planned on was two dozen people screaming in agony as they melted like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Their flesh pulled away from their bones as then-eyes lost all signs of life. Fingernails lengthened, hair, too. The wounds that had killed them reappeared. I had never seen anything like it, nor did I ever want to again.

“OK,” Murphy said. “That I can’t explain.”