Bed of Nails (23 page)

There was no need for Zinc to sketch in the historical background to his ruse for the chief. DeClercq had written several history books, one of which—
Men Who Wore the Tunic,
his history of the Force—detailed the epic voyage of the
St. Roch.

The Northwest Passage was the Holy Grail of the Age of Discovery. Ever since John Cabot had bumped into North America’s mainland during his unsuccessful quest for a western route to Japan in 1497, merchants had dreamed of charting a northwest passage to traffic in a fabulous wealth of gold and furs. Jubilant over the success of Captain Cook’s two voyages to the South Seas, Britain sent its finest mariner in search of that mythic Arctic route across the top of the globe. With William Bligh—of mutiny fame—and George Vancouver—whose name now graced both Ralph’s and Zinc’s hometowns—in his crew, Cook sailed to the far side of the New World.

In March 1778, Cook’s ships—the
Resolution
and the
Discovery
—finally reached the coast of Oregon. Foul weather forced them out to sea as they sailed north, and about two-thirds of the way up the west coast of what is now Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Cook dropped anchor in the sheltered inlet of Nootka Sound. The
Resolution
required a new mizzenmast, so the British spent four weeks among the Nootka Natives doing repairs. When they left on April 26 to head north to Alaska, the ships sailed past Deadman’s Island, which was used by the Nootka as a burial ground.

“It’s layered, isn’t it,” Zinc said.

“What? History?”

“There I was, trapped on Deadman’s Island with the Ripper, and I didn’t know that Captain Cook had sailed past that hellhole over two hundred years before. Likewise, when Cook was sailing off to Alaska, he didn’t know he was passing a Magick place.”

“The Nootka Whalers Washing House, the West Coast shamans’ shrine.”

“Later, the Ripper’s door to the occult realm.”

“Or so he thought.”

“The best-laid schemes …” said Zinc.

Not until 1942 would the Northwest Passage finally be conquered by the RCMP. The Mounties dispatched their floating detachment—the supply vessel
St. Roch
—on a two-year voyage across the frozen Arctic from Vancouver to Halifax to assert Canada’s sovereignty in the North. In 1944, the ship sailed back, and by passing through the Panama Canal in 1950, the
St. Roch
became the first vessel in history to circumnavigate North America. Today, the ship is on display at the Vancouver Maritime Museum.

“Born too late,” Zinc said. “I could have sailed with Larsen.”

“Now there was one tough sergeant.”

“Imagine finishing the voyage Cook didn’t complete.”

“And freeze your balls off doing it? You want to follow in Cook’s wake, go to the South Pacific.”

“Good idea.”

“When does your flight leave?”

“On Wednesday,” Zinc said. “But after what occurred in Seattle, I think I should stick around.”

“No!” emphasized DeClercq. “That’s what you
shouldn’t
do. The shit is going to hit the fan in the media over this. They’ll say we botched the North Van case a year and a half ago, resulting in the deaths of those two innocents in the bar. Not to mention the crash that killed Gord and Joey and destroyed so much property on the Low Level Road. That left the real killers free to kill again, which they did in Seattle over the weekend.”

“But we had no evidence.”

“Think they’ll give a damn? Your bones are much bloodier for the media to feed on than having no one to blame. Eating you alive will sell papers and fill airtime.”

“You want me out of the way?”

“You’re damn right I do. If only to put off the feeding frenzy for a few weeks. From what you just told me, the Seattle police don’t have a case. Both the ghost tour past Ted Bundy’s house and the directions to the Thirteen Steps to Hell were advertised beyond those attending the convention. Just as they used hookers and drug dealers as a smokescreen up here, the killers chose horror fans as the haystack in which to hide their needles in Seattle. The deleterious influence of the macabre has always been a convenient scapegoat. Many would see that gathering as a massing of unstable freaks, any one of whom could flip out and kill. A convention inherently destroys forensics because those attending mill in and out of each other’s rooms.”

“The permutations are mind-boggling,” Zinc concurred.

“Now add two wily lawyers to that mix. The Hanged Man killings are linked by the identical nails. The M.O. is slightly different—in that the nails were pounded into the victim’s face as opposed to around his head—but the Cthulhu murder is also linked to the Hanged Man killings because of the make of nails and the connection to the World Horror Convention. Agreed?”

“Yes. All three murders are linked.”

“Bret has an alibi for Friday night. He was in bed with Petra while the head was being spiked at Ted Bundy’s house and the body was being strung up in Maltby Cemetery. Agreed?”

“That’s what they say.”

“Backed up by room service and the lack of sufficient time to commit the crime.”

“Yes,” said Zinc.

“Wes has an alibi for Saturday night. He was also in bed with Petra while the Cthulhu sculptor was being killed. Agreed?”

“That’s what they say.”

“Backed up by two peeping Toms.”

“That’s why I need to be here. To find out who’s lying about who was with whom when.”

“Until we have our ducks in line, we’re not taking on two lawyers. If Bret hates Wes and Wes hates Bret, each will try to portray the other as the Seattle killer. And if
you
are the investigator trying to straighten that out, each will also accuse you of harassing him to try to shift the media’s attention away from your own earlier foul-up. So that’s why I want you away from it all.”

“What about the case?”

“I’ll take over.”

“Do I have to go to the Cook Islands?”

“That’s an order.”

Zinc sighed with resignation. “You’re the boss,” he said.

Mission, British Columbia

April 15 (The next day)

The sketching pad on the Goth’s lap was folded back to a blank page. The psycho sat in the center of a huge bed that had been set up in the sanctuary of what was once a church. From the outside, this structure still looked like a mission, but on the inside, it now served different gods. Elder gods worshiped long before the Christian God was born.

The killing of the second Hanged Man victim in Seattle was the bait designed to lure Insp. Zinc Chandler toward the hook that was waiting for him at the World Horror Convention. The killing of the Cthulhu sculptor at the convention was the tug on that hook, a tug intended to yank the Mountie toward the suspects who were about to embark on the Odyssey to the South Seas. Now it was time to reel Zinc in and gaff him into traveling to the cannibal island so that the Ripper’s cold revenge—after a year and a half of scheming by the Goth—could reach its bloody climax.

To that end, the Goth was time-traveling again, wormholing back through the astral plane on a follow-up research junket to the Christian mission in Fiji in 1838, in order to witness firsthand the fate the Tarot had in store for Zinc.

Back …

Back …

Back …

“Vakatotoga!”

That’s what I’m here to see.

The yard in front of the chapel was deserted when I materialized a moment ago, for the time warp has returned me to where I stood before, but not at that instant when the cannibals were at the gate. Instead, I have moved the clock forward long enough for the blood-crazed man-eaters to seize the reverend from the threshold of the church and drag him, along with the old missionary inside, across the shallow stream that separates the mission from the god-house.

Black smoke belches from the oven pits dug in the temple grounds as bonfires heat the stones that will bake the meat. At least a hundred
bakolas
have been butchered on the dissecting surface, and human flesh wrapped in plantain leaves lies waiting to feed those fiery mouths so that human mouths might eat. Except for those heads retained by the high priest to mount on top of the counting stones, the cut-off noggins are passed around like tins of chewing tobacco. Warriors tear off the ears and masticate them raw, then finger dollops of the goo onto the lips of their toddling sons to ensure that the boys acquire an early taste for long pig.

But now attention shifts to the sacred grove. There, amid the bone trees wedged with their skeletal trophies, both missionaries are being stripped of their clothes. The chief carver cuts their garments away piece by piece with his butcher knife, then tosses them into the narrow stream that runs red with discarded offal. How white the naked pair seem under this harsh sun. Their skin is unaccustomed to its rays.

Now the king himself waddles into the sacred grove, his multiple layers of consumed human fat jiggling like Jell-O with each jouncing step. Behind him skulks a bloated vulture: his high priest.

The old missionary is too weak to stand on his own. He is held up by the burly pair who dashed the
bakolas
against the braining stone. The king smirks in triumph as his archenemy is bound with vines, the upper and lower halves of his legs cinched together and lashed to his body, his arms secured in a similar fashion by tying both elbows to his knees and a hand to each side of his neck.

Locked in a sitting position by those restraints, the white
bakola
is carried across to the high priest. As the old missionary mumbles prayers to his God, the pagan priest mocks him with insults intoned loudly enough to be heard by the bloodthirsty mob crowded on the beach in front of the grove. My view across the stream is kept clear by the foul water. I watch as temple assistants decorate the new
bakola
to resemble the enemy dead who were brought home for the feast. His face and body are painted with obscene designs, and a fan is stuck in one hand for ornamentation. Then the burly brain-bashers hoist their human cargo shoulder-high and parade it around the trophy grove.

The king’s cooks have dug a special
lovo
within the grove. The pit oven is deep enough to bake a man whole. Volcanic rocks are thrown atop a bonfire of ironwood stoked in the bowels of the pit and left there until they glow red hot. Now those cooks are leveling the bottom of the hole, removing unburned branches so the oven won’t explode after it’s closed. Fresh banana leaves are smashed to layer on the rocks, then the greens of palm fronds are crosshatched on top. That done, the oven is prepared to receive its meat.

The gibbering starts as the old man is lowered into the pit.

Though he tries to be as brave as Jesus on the cross, sickness takes its toll on the missionary’s resolve. As I watch him slowly sink into that hellish furnace, I imagine my granddad in the old man’s place, and that puts a smile on my lips every time he screams.

But soon the shrieks are muffled by more banana leaves. To close the oven, the cooks layer them on top of him, followed by four thatches of coconut greens. The greens act as a buffer between the
bakola
and the top level of his underground coffin, for what buries the missionary alive to stew in his own juices is a thick crust of sand.

Four and twenty blackbirds?

Naw, it takes just one.

And when—after four to six hours of subterranean baking—this pie is opened to set a dainty dish before the king, somehow I don’t think the blackbird will sing.

But I’m not here for nursery rhymes.

Vakatotoga
is my lure.

That shout from the cannibal king galvanizes ghastly action in the bone grove. The reverend I saw last time on the threshold of the mission chapel still grasps the Christian cross despite his nakedness. He will be a tougher nut for the king to crack, but if there is a fate worse than this, I’d like to see it.

The burly head-smashers take custody of the reverend from those who currently hold him, then, each grasping an arm, run him over to one of the trees as yet unadorned with trophies. The chief carver follows with his bamboo knife. In times of war, the carver doubles as a battle surgeon, for no one knows the human body like a cannibal butcher, which makes him an anatomical expert in the art of
drusu.

“Lord, no!” the missionary beseeches as the blade cuts a slit in his belly. The carver reaches in and pulls out a glistening coil of the reverend’s small intestine. Fijian sail needles—
saulaca—
used for boat construction have been fashioned from the shinbones of prior human meals. The carver uses one of the long, slender needles to nail the intestine coil to the trunk of the shaddock tree. Then, with blows to his back from their muscular arms, the burly pair wind the reverend around the tree in a grisly version of Here We Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush, played with his unraveling bowels.

In effect, he ties himself to the trunk.

Like Fathers Brébeuf and Lalemant in the hands of the Iroquois, the missionary tries to pray himself into martyrdom. He speaks to God as if he is standing in the crowd, and urges his Christian converts to suffer along with him that they might die well and join him in the everlasting peace of paradise. It’s the same bullshit my granddad used to preach at home in Mission, until I fixed him.

The king has obviously had enough crap too. A wave of his flabby arm prompts the carver to jab a fishhook—also created out of human bone—through the tip of the reverend’s wagging tongue. No more will he take his Lord’s name in vain, for a tug on the fishing line yanks out the offensive flesh like a toad going for a bug. The slash of the bamboo blade vanishes in a mist of blood.

A separate blaze is being stoked for this barbecue. The reverend’s silenced tongue is spiked on a long stick in the same way a hot dog is at a weenie roast, then it’s broiled over the flames. At the same time, a skull fashioned into a drinking cup is held under the reverend’s chin to catch his gushing blood. Once the tongue is cooked enough for a royal palate, the meat and drink are fed to the cannibal king. Not only does the Fijian eat the blackened tongue in front of its previous owner, but he instructs his priest with another wave of his jiggly flab to stuff a portion back into the mouth of the reverend.

It’s the last supper for the holy man.

“Vakatotoga,”
taunts the king.

Is the reverend praying? Pleading? Screaming for his life? From the mewls and gargles he utters, it’s hard for me to tell. What I do know is that his message isn’t getting across, for nothing affects the relentless cutting of the carver’s knife. As each successive joint of meat is severed from one of the reverend’s living limbs, it is passed to the cook who has caught the blood shed in a basting dish. As with an assembly line, cooks come and go to and from the barbecue, where each joint is flamed in the ironwood blaze. Then each joint is taken to the king, who is fed a morsel in front of the shrinking man’s eyes before what remains of that flesh is salted and packed away in the royal snacking chest, to be chewed on like beef jerky for weeks to come.

After each bite, the cannibal king points to his mouth.

It is the ultimate insult.

“Your flesh is caught between my teeth” is what that means.

Vakatotoga
is the torture of being eaten alive. The reverend dies from loss of blood and brings it to an end. His head is handed to the high priest to add to the counting stones. The bones of his torso are harvested to wedge in the crooks of the tree.

There is nothing more vivid than seeing something with your own eyes. Thanks to my deal with the Ripper, I have the key to the wormhole that time-warped me here. Thanks to having witnessed
vakatotoga
in the flesh, I now have enough inspiration to come up with a suitable South Seas revenge to satisfy my half of the bargain with the Ripper.

So, turning from that scene of carnage in the trophy grove, again I propel my consciousness up into the astral plane and travel back through the occult realm …

The sketching pad on the Goth’s lap was covered with horrific details drawn during the trip. The psycho still sat in the center of the huge bed. On the sheet of paper that captured the fates of the two Christian missionaries, the facial features of the old man being lowered into the oven pit were those of the minister who had preached in
this
church before it was converted to the worship of the elder gods. The features of the reverend being eaten alive were familiar too: switch his stripped-off black suit for a red serge uniform and you would have the spitting image of Insp. Zinc Chandler.

“It’s time,” said a voice from the pillow on one side of the bed.

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” said the Goth.

“The flight leaves at three-thirty.”

“Right. Let’s pack.”

They were off to the Cook Islands.

On the Odyssey.