"I ask the same of you. I think one has tried marrer here, an arrêter. One has tied up a loa, a baka?"

Louisa swallowed. "Oui."

Papa Jacques's voice seemed to deepen. "A baka that mounted a little child? And the child, I think she cried for me? Who taught you? And when did you take to the asson?"

Louisa sounded scared. "My mother was a mambo. The baka is tied and gone."

"Papa Jacques," Hoagie said with a growl, "get your bloody ass out of here or I'll kick it into town!"

Louisa gasped. "Papa Jacques, he does not mean that."

"Mais oui, he does. And I shall not forget." The onyx eyes seemed to grow in the moonlight. To Louisa the houngan said, "Your mother taught you poorly. If a loa is evil, a baka, and you tie it, you must bury it as well."

"Oui, monsieur?" asked Louisa faintly.

"For suppose he is not a snake or a lizard but an eel who lives at sea?" His eyes swung to Ellen. "Or a shark, madam? A shark, like mine?"

A pair of headlights swept the yard, and Michael was out of the jeep. A portly old man in a Hawaiian shirt followed him, carrying a black bag. Mike strode toward the door. "What is this?" he rumbled, grabbing Papa Jacques's arm. "What are you doing here?"

"I came because your daughter had need of me. And she still does, monsieur."

"You robbing, phony bastard, lay off Clarence and his kids! Get off this goddam island or I'll throw you off myself." He grabbed the asson and hurled it toward the water, as far as he could.

There was a moment of shocked silence. Ellen could hear Louisa murmuring beside her. "Non, non, non, non, non..."

Papa Jacques stared at Michael for a moment, looked at Ellen, swung on his heel, and disappeared into the moon shadow of the trees on Masthead Point.

Ellen watched him, and the cold returned to her stomach. She did not see him pick up his asson, but when she saw him next, it was in his hand, rattling as he walked.

She thought she could hear it long after he disappeared into darkness on the road to Prince George Town.

Part II

PART II

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Michael Brody sat at the computer in the pilothouse of Neptune's Folly, angrily watching the heartbeat of a six-pound mollusk resting on the bottom somewhere ten fathoms below. He should be down there diving, not Jake.

The boat was tied to the diving barge they kept permanently anchored above Hurricane Reef. The pink wet-submersible creaked alongside the barge, complaining gently at the swell.