Cemetery Dance

But Hayward didn't reply. He noticed she was no longer looking at him, but rather at something over his shoulder.

He turned. Another group of protesters was approaching from the east. They carried no placards but looked like they meant business, walking quickly and very quietly toward the baseball diamond, closing ranks as they approached. It was a motley, rougher — looking group than the one already assembled on the field.

'Let me have those glasses,' he said to Minerva.

Scanning the group with the binoculars, he saw it was headed by the young, plump guy who'd helped lead the charge last time. For a moment, as he stared at the determined look on the man's face, at the hardened features of his followers, Chislett felt a tingle of anxiety.

But it passed as quickly as it came. What were one or two hundred more? He had the manpower to handle four hundred protesters — and then some. Besides, his plan for containment was a masterpiece of both economy and versatility.

He handed the binoculars back to Minerva. 'Pass the word,' he said in his most martial tone, ignoring Hayward. 'We're starting the final deployment now. Tell the forward positions to stand ready.' 'Yes, sir,' Minerva replied, unshipping his radio.

Chapter 63

D'Agosta froze.Pendergast, his head cowled, mumbled something and shuffled toward the man, wavering a little, like an old man unsteady on his feet.

'What are you doing here?' the man asked again in his strange, exotic accent.

Pendergast rasped, 'Va t'en, sale bete.'

The man backed up a pace. 'Yes, but… you're not supposed to be here.'

Pendergast shuffled closer, and with a flicker of his eye cautioned D'Agosta to be ready.

'I'm just an old man…' he began, his voice quiet and wheezy, one trembling hand reaching upward solicitously. 'Can you help me…'

The man leaned forward, straining to hear, and D'Agosta stepped smartly around and whacked him across the temple with the butt of his gun. The figure slumped, unconscious.

'A hit, a very palpable hit,' Pendergast said as he deftly caught the sagging body.

D'Agosta could hear other voices, excited voices, in the rooms beyond; not everyone, it seemed, was attending the ceremony in the central church. There was no back door to the pantry — it was a cul — de — sac, and they were trapped with the unconscious man.

'Into the dumbwaiter,' whispered Pendergast.

They bundled the man into the dumbwaiter, slid the door shut, and lowered him into the basement. Almost immediately afterward, three men appeared at the entrance to the pantry. 'Morvedre, what are you doing?' one of them asked. 'Come with us. You, too.'

They passed by and D'Agosta and Pendergast fell into place behind them, trying to imitate their slow, hushed walk. D'Agosta felt his frustration and tension mount. There was no way they could keep up this deception for very long; they had to get away and begin searching the basement. Time was running out.

The men turned, followed a long, narrow passage, went through a set of double doors, and then they were in the church itself. The air was suffused with the smell of candle wax and heavy incense; the crowd jostled and murmured urgently, moving like the sea to the cadences of the high priest, Charriere, standing at the front. Two banks of burning candles provided light as four men labored over a flat stone set into the floor. Beyond, in the waxy darkness, stood many others, dozens of them, silent, the whites of their eyes like flickering pearls in the massed darkness of their hooded forms. And to one side stood Bossong, drawn up almost regally to full height, observing the proceedings from the shadows, his expression unreadable.

As D'Agosta watched, the four men threaded ropes through iron rings embedded into the corners of the large flagstone, tied them off, then laid the ropes on the stone floor and took up positions beside them. Silence descended as the high priest moved forward, holding a small candelabrum in one hand and a rattle in the other. Cloaked in rough brown, he moved with great deliberation, placing one bare foot after the other, toes pointed downward, until he stood in the center of the stone.

He agitated the rattle, softly: once, twice, three times as he slowly turned in a circle, the wax from the candles dripping onto his arm and splattering onto the stone. One hand reached into the pocket of his cloak, withdrew a small feathered object, and dropped it as he turned. Another soft rattle, another slow — motion turn. And then Charriere raised his bare foot high, held it, and brought it down with a slap on the stone.

A sudden silence, and then, from below, came a faint sound, a rasp of air, a fricative breath.

The silence in the chancel became absolute.

The high priest gave another rattle, slightly louder, and circled once more. Then he raised his foot and brought it down once again on the cold stone.

Aaaaaahhhuuuuu… came a mournful sound from below.

D'Agosta glanced sharply at Pendergast, his heart quickening, but the FBI agent was watching the proceedings intently from beneath the heavy, concealing hood.

Now the priest began to dance in lazy circles, his hoary feet pattering lightly, tracing a circle around the feathered object. Every once in a while a step would be much louder, a slap, and at those times an answering moan would sound from below. As the dance got faster, the slaps more frequent, the moaning grew in length and intensity. They were the vocalizations of someone or something prodded to irritation by the tattoo of sound above. With a thrill of dismay, D'Agosta recognized them all too well.

Aaaaiihhhhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu came the forlorn call as Charriere danced, aaaiihuuuuu… aaaiihuuuu… the drawn — out vocalizations never falling into a rhythmic pattern but expressed with increasing excitement and shorter duration. As they grew in volume and urgency, the gathered crowd began to mirror them with a low chanting of their own. It started as a bare whisper, but gradually grew in intensity until the single word they chanted became evident: envoie! envoie! envoie!

The priest's dance quickened, his feet now a blur of movement, the rhythmic slap keeping time like a fleshy drum.

Aiihuuuuu! grunted the thing below; envoie! chanted the group above.

Suddenly Charriere stopped dead. The chanting ceased, the voices echoing and dying in the church. But noises below continued, blending into each other, groans and stertorous breathing, along with the sounds of restless shuffling.

D'Agosta watched breathlessly from the shadows.

'Envoie!' cried the high priest, backing off from the stone. 'Envoie! '

The four men at each corner of the stone slab seized their ropes, turned, slung them over their shoulders, and began to pull. With a grating sound, the stone tilted up, wobbled, and rose.

'Envoie!' cried the priest yet again, raising his flat palms upward.

The men stepped sideways, dragging the stone away to expose an opening in the floor of the chancel. They brought the slab to a standstill, dropped the ropes. The circle of men closed in tighter, all waiting in silence. The room was suspended, in stasis. Bossong, who had not moved, stared at them in turn with dark eyes. A faint exhalation rose from the opening — the perfume of death.

Now the pit below was filled with the noises of restless movement; scratchings and skitterings; mucous, anticipatory slurpings.

And then it appeared out of the darkness, gripping the lip of stone: a pale, desiccated hand, a skinny forearm in which the muscles and tendons stood out like cords. A second hand appeared, and with a scrabbling sound a head came into view: the hair matted and dank, the expression empty save for a vague hunger. One eye rolled in its socket; the other was obscured by clots of dried blood and matter. With a sudden thrust, the thing hoisted itself up from the pit and fell heavily onto the floor of the church, its nails scratching the floor. Gasps arose from the