dochermes | Entries tagged with samuel watesa

"The Dead Do Not Forgive"

10/11-10/22/1978

I.

THE twigs which Watesa flung on the fire broke and crackled. The upleaping flames lit the countenances of three people. Samuel Watesa, voodoo Hungan of New Orleans, was a solidly built black man of early middle age, with a sprinkling of white throughout his beard and hair. He was wearing sensible hiking clothes, light weight khaki, now stained with dried sweat and torn in places.

Facing him was the young Dire Wolf, Jeremy Bane. He was tall and broad-shouldered, clad all in black... hiking boots, loose trousers and a long-sleeved shirt with a many-pocketed vest over it. His wide-brimmed slouch hat was drawn low over his heavy brows, shadowing his narrow face. Cold grey eyes brooded in the firelight.

"This is the farthest I've ever been from New York City," he announced. "The train ride from the capital, then the drive in that rented Jeep we had to leave behind and now four days walking through jungle."

"Oh, I daresay we will be see more distant places as long as we work for Mr Dred," said Katherine Wheatley. Still in her teens, her long black hair tied up in a bun, she was wearing boots and khaki pants like Watesa's but she had on a thin white cotton blouse. She toyed with the white pith helmet she had purchased at a trading post. "We haven't even been to any of the adjacent realms yet."

That drew an amused chuckle from Watesa. "Oh, you two have some revelations in store for you. Okali, Perjena, Signarm. Or even, God forbid, Maroch or Fanedral itself."

"Danarak is enough for right now," Bane's voice was more sullen than usual. "This is some rough going, Samuel. I'm a city boy to the bone."

Watesa stirred the fire, saying nothing.

"Mr Dred tried to explain Voodoo to me, he said it's a modern, lighter version of the forbidden knowledge gained at the Corruption thousands of years ago. He said you are one of the top five or six Voodoo masters in the world, you're called a Hungan."

"Yes, I am Samuel Juhari Watesa! Hungan priest of the Higher Ones! Sleep if you can, Jeremy, I have much to consider."

Bane gazed at the Hungan who bent over the fire, making even motions with his hands and mumbling incantations. Bane watched, growing sleepy. Katherine had already dozed off. A mist wavered in front of him, through which he saw dimly the form of Watesa, etched dark against the flames. Then it faded out.

Bane awoke with a start, hand shooting to the pistol in his belt. Watesa grinned at him across the flame, and there was a scent of early dawn in the air. From Katherine's soft steady breathing, she was sleeping soundly.

The Voodoo master held a long staff of ebony in his hands. This was elablorately carved with many esoteric symbols. One end tapered to a sharpened point but the other was capped with a deep blue gem wrapped in silver wire. "This is the ceremonial staff of the Elders of Danarak," said Watesa, putting it in the Dire Wolf's hand.

Bane hefted the thing to judge its weight, highly suspicious of witchcraft. It was not heavy, but seemed as hard as iron. Between the sharp point at one end and the heavy gem at the other. it should make a good weapon at least, he decided. Dawn was just beginning to steal over the jungle and the river.

"I think you should carry it from now on," said Watesa. "Let's be honest, you're the fighter in our little expedition. When trouble comes.. and it will!... the staff will be more useful wielded by you."

"Fair enough," Bane acknowledged. "How about some solid, straightforward information, Samuel? What are we going up against? What ceremony are you prepared for? I'm a simple guy who likes direct answers."

"Soon, maybe all too soon, it will all be revealed. He turned his head as Katherine stirred.

Sitting up, rubbing her eyes, the young telepath yawned. "Morning, lads. Gracious, I'm all stiff. I feel like my grandmother. I'll be right back." She got to her feet and hurried out of the cave into the bushes as Nature called.

( the rest of the story )

"Red Pins In a Cloth Doll"

10/4/2017

I.

The fact that the apartment door was ajar triggered all of Bane's wariness. He glared up and down the short hall, then bent to look back down the iron-bannistered stairs behind him. He saw and heard nothing. From an inner pocket of his black jacket, the Dire Wolf pulled out a pair of latex gloves and snapped them on.

At sixty, Bane still showed only a few marks of age. There was a more liberal sprinkling of white in the short black hair and crow's feet had formed at the corners of the cold grey eyes. But he was still lean and agile, still moving with a restless quickness. He would always be the Dire Wolf.

Pushing the door open with his knuckles but keeping his body out in the hall, Bane leaned in and saw what he had half expected. The corpse was lying on its side, curled up with knees by its chest and one hand reaching for a cell phone. The man had aged badly since Bane had last seen him, putting on considerable weight and losing most of that dark red hair, but he recognized Gene R. Holmquist immediately.

Taking a short step inside, the Dire Wolf crouched over the body and examined it. There was no pulse, of course, and the flesh was at room temperature. Both eyes were open and cloudy. Bane stood up, unclipped the Link from his belt and set it to take wide-range readings. The Trom device clicked and hummed as he swung it in an arc back and forth over the body, then to cover the room.

All his instincts were screaming at him to get out of there immediately. Earlier in his career, he would have risked a few minutes to search the apartment for clues, but the Link had made that less essential. Bane stepped back into the hall and trotted down two flights of stairs. In the tiny foyer, he saw the knob on the street door start to turn.

In a flash, Bane had whipped around to conceal himself behind the stairwell. His eyebrows lowered in a scowl as he heard heavy footfalls up the stairs. Two men, each at least two hundred pounds and active enough to hurry up those stairs without difficulty. As he heard their voices on the second floor landing, the Dire Wolf went through the door and out onto the street.
Idling next to a FINE FOR PARKING sign was a black and white patrol car. Bane kept his head down, swung left and strode up the street at a normal pace. There were passers-by on the sidewalk across the street but no one was in his path. Rounding the corner, Bane slowed and headed back to his hotel. That was no coincidence. He didn't believe in coincidence where dead bodies or the police were involved.

Someone had seen him enter the apartment door between a furniture store and a dance studio and had called 911. Most likely it had been an anonymous tip about seeing the body through the open door and it was chance that a prowl car had been near by.

Bane kept walking, not even noticing the scenery that so many people milling about him had journeyed to see. He had only been in New Orleans once before and that had been when he and Cindy had taken six months off from the Midnight War to idly travel and sightsee. That hiatus hadn't lasted long.

In fact, he reflected wryly, he was supposed to be officially retired now. He had closed the Dire Wolf Agency, vacated his office and informed everyone he worked with from the NYPD to the FBI's Department 21 Black. Yet here he was. One pleading phone call in the middle of the night from someone he had barely known and he had gone directly to Newark Airport to catch the next available flight. He guessed he would never change...

He needed a few minutes to check what his Link had recorded. Spotting an open-air bistro, he took a table where his back was to the restaurant's wall and where he could see anyone approaching. Bane ordered a hot roast beef sandwich, hash browns and an iced tea. As he ate, keeping one eye on the people walking past, he examined his Link.

Human technology had caught up with the Links in many ways, but the Trom devices still had many functions no smartphone was close to approaching. Bane read the vitals taken on the body, viewed what amounted to an enhanced color MRI scan and concluded that Holmquist had died between one hour and two hours before he had found the body. There was no obvious cause of death.

Bane switched to infra-red imaging but saw no signs anyone else had been in that apartment recently. Residual heat patterns on the couch matched the idea that Holmquist had stood up from sitting there and fallen directly to the floor. Different scans turned up nothing more suggestive. There were no traces in the air of common poisons or carbon monoxide.

Of course, Bane wished there had been time to go through the man's pockets, search the dressers and desk drawers, examine the medicine cabinet and kitchen. Even checking the cell phone for any attempt to call out might have been invaluable.

Considering Holmquist's age and weight, Bane figured the Medical Examiner would decide on a heart attack. It would be a safe verdict. He paused to look around the bistro more thoroughly. To his amusement, nearly everyone there was also staring at a screen on a small electronic device. Bane finished his meal and requested a second serving, which he also devoured as he studied images of the apartment.

Finally, he reluctantly turned off the Link and clipped it to his belt again. He hadn't spotted anything worth following up on. If he had only been allowed ten minutes to search that apartment... but then he would likely be under arrest by the NOLA Police right now. Even if there was no sign of foul play, local Homicide would have detained him for extensive questioning as a person of interest.

Paying his check and leaving an appropriate tip, the Dire Wolf started walking again. He was moving up St Peter Street toward Armstrong Park. Despite all his misgivings, he knew that he had to consult with Samuel Watesa.

( the rest of the story )

"Featuring Chet Wilkins On Voodoo Drum"

8/11-8/12/1978

I.

There had been four of the so-called Forehead Murders by the second week of August. When Jeremy Bane came downstairs early as usual because his hyperactive metabolism meant he only needed four hours of sleep a night, he stuck his head in the reception room. Kenneth Dred had been working there the night before and he had left newspaper clippings arranged on the oak desk under the gorgeous hand-painted wall map. Bane automatically moved over to check the clippings out in the hazy dawn light through the high windows.

At just twenty-one, the Dire Wolf was so serious and self-assured that people reacted to him as if he were an older man. Just over six feet tall but so lean as to seem gaunt, he was wearing his usual outfit of black slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket. He was so rarely seen dressed any other way that he would have been almost hard to recognize in colorful clothes. Bane leaned over the clippings and read them slowly. Mr Dred had mentioned that they might be starting a new case.

The main feature of interest seemed to be the method that was used. The victims had a fracture in the forehead above the eyes, with a deep puncture wound that went into a specific area of the brain and caused quick death. In at least one case, the victim apparently had clung to life for a few moments as there were signs of strangulation as the real cause of death. Interesting, thought Bane, a new weapon of some kind, probably homemade. He looked at a list which Dred had left on a sheet of typing paper, detailing the victims' names, ages, addresses and occupations. There was no common factor that he could see.

The young Dire Wolf straightened up and for once his pale grey eyes were distant. This would be hard to investigate. Where to start? Finding something linking to victims was the usual way police proceeded but they had been getting nowhere. Maybe Mr Dred had some ideas....

Something tickled the edges of his mind, like an echoe from a distance. He was getting used to that sensation. It wasn't unpleasant or intrusive, just a vague sensation that he could ignore if he wanted to but he was intensely private by nature. Having a telepath living in the building with Mr Dred and himself would take some getting used to, and the fact she was a pretty girl added to his uneasiness. As he looked up, a slim figure swung into the doorway and a cheery "Well, good morning!" was spoken aloud.

Katherine Anne Wheatley was a year younger than himself, with a trim figure and a fresh-scrubbed attractive face. Like Bane, she had jet black hair and light-colored eyes but hers were sky-blue and friendly. She was wearing blue denim jeans, white sneakers and a dark blue sweater over a white blouse with the collar out over the sweater. "Say, Jeremy, what time do you rise anyway? It's barely half past six you know."

"I don't sleep much. Did Mr Dred tell you about these Forehead Murders?"

"Ugh. Yes. I dare say it's one reason I didn't sleep well myself." Katherine had been in the States so long only the faintest trace of her Northern England accent remained. She came over to glance at the clippings on the desk, standing close enough that Bane could smell the faint floral scent in her hair. He promptly moved away, ostensibly to pull the curtains aside to look at 38th Street, and she smiled slyly to herself.

"It's a beastly business," she continued. "Have you ever heard of such goings-on before?"

"No." Just the single word. He was watching a checker-topped taxi come to a stop at the corner. A tall heavy-set black man in an expensive tan suit got out, paid the driver and fetched a suitcase from the back seat. "I think we're going to have a visitor, Kath."

"Hm? Yes. You're right." She headed for the front door. The rare telepathic talent Dred had been teaching her how to use flared up fully as she reached out to the man outside. "He's a decent sort," she said over one shoulder to Bane. "Serious, disciplined. He thinks of Mr Dred as an old friend."

"You're our early warning system," the young Dire Wolf grumbled to himself, letting his constant guard down slightly. He followed her out into the hall just as she opened the inner door to the tiny foyer.

"Oh, he's from Africa, isn't that interesting?" she called back as she stepped down to unlock the heavy door to the street. "Good morning, may I help you?"

"Ah, you must be Miss Katherine Wheatley," answered the man in a rich baritone. "And behind you, that has to be Jeremy Bane? Kenneth has told me so much about you youngsters that I feel I know you. My is Watesa, Samuel Watesa."

The man was an inch or two under six feet tall, heavy about the waist and imposing in manner. He was very dark-skinned, almost with purple highlights, and his hair was cut short to match his neatly trimmed beard. The glasses he wore had lightly tinted blue lenses. As he saw the two young people watch him uncertainly, he smiled and placed the suitcase down to one side. "In fact, Kenneth expected me later today but I happened to catch an early flight from New Orleans. If he's not up yet, please don't disturb him on my account."

"You might wait in our reception room," Katherine told him. "We do have today's newspapers and I would be pleased to make coffee if you like."

"Thank you kindly," Watesa answered. "Yes. I only regret such a serious matter brings me to visit. Dire Wolf, is it? I have heard much of your accomplishments in so short a time. Yet I do not think you have yet encountered real Voodoo."

( the rest of the story )

"The Ungrateful Dead"

2/17/2003

I.

When the doorbell rang, Jeremy Bane jumped up from behind his desk as if he had been stung by a scorpion. The newspaper he had been studying fell unnoticed to the floor. Crossing his office, he went through the open door to the tiny reception room, barely big enough to hold two chairs and a low table with a few magazines on it. On the wall was a 12" monitor and he checked the image on the security cameras he had installed himself in the hall outside. Two men were standing out there. Both were well-dressed and well-groomed, in early middle age, professionals or government employees in his estimation. Decades of training and experience went into the instant appraisal Bane gave them. The way they stood, the fit of their clothes, the degree of tension in their faces, the distance they kept between them... in a second, he had looked for a dozen clues that these two might be dangerous and he saw nothing to support the idea. And he suddenly remembered them from a decade earlier.

The Dire Wolf smiled faintly. A few years earlier at the KDF headquarters, he would have scanned these guys with sophisticated Trom sensors more detailed than CAT scans for weapons or poisons, and he would have gotten positive IDs if they were listed in NYPD or FBI files. But that was in the past. Now he had to trust his instincts. But then, most of the great villains were dead now and he mostly had to deal with lesser antagonists. He opened the door and said, "Good morning."

The taller, slightly balding man smiled politely. "Ah... Mr Bane, I hope?"

"I'm Bane. Can I help you?"

"I hope so. I don't know if you recall us."

"Absolutely," Bane said, gesturing for them to enter. As they passed through the reception room, the Dire Wolf glanced quickly around the lobby before closing the outer door just out of general suspicion. He followed the two men as they took seats in the two straightback chairs before the desk. Scooping up the newspaper and putting it to one side, Bane dropped down in his chair behind the desk. "Let's see, you're Francis Carnes and you- you're Barry H Sawyer. We met eight, no, nine years ago when I was tracking down Samhain. You were working for the Miami Attorney General's office, right?"

"Exactly," answered the taller one, Sawyer. "I'm impressed. We only met for a few minutes. We heard that Samhain was killed in a plane crash and you reported very briefly to the Attorney General before leaving the state."

"Samhain... well, that maniac has been reported killed a hundred times. The last I heard, he escaped custody by breaking both his thumbs to get out of handcuffs and jumping out of a police van going seventy on a highway. He hasn't been seen for a while."

( the rest of the story )