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IN THE PEARLYaside shards of timber, and lifted out as left of a corpse An old woown screamed on shore as she watched

"Careful, careful," Kip told the other two quietly "Come on back Watch your step, now" The body felt like so made of straw in their ar that once walked, breathed, lived The gases hadn&039;t had time to build yet One arainst attack Teeth glistened in the re himself with all the willpower he could ht One of his helpers in the grim chore shook his head back and forth; the other siregated on the beach The old wo, and the rest of the wo out of the surf, the men came up the beach; the onlookers backed away, faces drawn The men laid the corpse on a canvas tarpaulin and Kip closed the folds over it

"You bastard" Kip breathed at the sub Painted in vivid reds and black shadow by the rising disc of the sun, the massive hulk was now motionless The currents must have lifted it off Kiss Bottom, and then and then what? How did it crush the old ot his skiff away, but how in God&039;s nae so perfectly? Noithin the reef, sitting right inside Coquina&039;s harbor He walked forward a few feet, the surf swirling around his shoes and sucking the sand from beneath them It must have happened very fast, he reasoned, and the old fisher control of his skiff Howbuy mass had washed up He realized what it hen he saw the eye: the severed head of the old man&039;s terrier ed away by the surf

The wo now; her eyes were fixed on the canvas-enclosed for her

"Take her hoet Dr Maxwell for her"

They pulled at her but she resisted, shaking her head violently Her gaze didn&039;t move from the tarpaulin, as if she expected her husband to throw it aside like a sheet and get up, whole and alive again "Go on," Kip said softly "There&039;s nothing you can do"

She looked at hi the deep trenches of her face "I tell hio!"

One of the worasped her arm

"Masango!" she said again, her eyes flickering from Kip to the submarine Then she allowed them to lead her, like a sleepwalker, back to her house further along the harbor Kip watched the about An evil spell?

A battered green pickup truck drove toward hi Front Street; it slowed, pulled off into the sand Moore climbed out and came quickly across the beach to where the constable stood "Who was it?" Moore asked, and Kip saw that there were deep hollows under his friend&039;s eyes, as if he&039;d only slept for a couple of hours

"Kephas, a fisherman," the constable said "I don&039;t think you knew hiazed down at the tarpaulin; when he looked up, his eyes fixed on the sube note in his voice

"The currents ht over his skiff He&039;s not a pretty sight" He glanced over at the group of islanders "All of you get on, now I need a couple of o on home"

"My God," Moore muttered as the people dispersed "I saw frootten into the harbor, and I knew so bad had happened when I saw the coon&039; take hi forward

Kip started to agree, but then shook his head He was staring out past the black&039;s shoulder "No need," he said finally

Moore and the others turned to look Standing in the shadows that stretched across the sand was a tall, gaunt figure in black, leaning on a thin ebony cane The ht that caught in the lenses of his glasses He stood where he was for a round in front of hi around thechain Boniface did not look at any of them, but instead he bent down and drew aside the canvas He crossed himself, closed the folds, moved past Moore and the constable, and faced the sub an ancient enemy Moore saw his eyes blaze and then narrow into slits

"I see it has co breath and sighed deeply His breath cah air into his lungs

"It crushed Kephas" Kip began

"Oui One of the woarded the two blacks "You men, take his corpse to the church and leave it there"

Without hesitation they lifted up the canvas, holding it between them, and made their way toward Front Street

"Where did you find this thing, Moore?" Boniface asked, not looking at the e in the Abyss, about a hundred and fifty feet down, maybe a little more"

"And what&039;s to be done with it?"

"For the ti to have to stay where it is"

Boniface whirled around to face the constable "Youaround his neck glinting in the sun His eyes had a pohich Kip had rarely seen before "You must not allow it to stay in this harbor You must take it back over the Abyss, cut a hole in its hull and let it sink Do you understand what I&039;?"

"No," Kip responded, "I don&039;t"

"One man is dead," the reverend said quietly "Isn&039;t that enough?"

"Just a minute," Moore interrupted "It was an accident"

"Certainly," Boniface said, with a hint of sarcasm in his voice "Do as I say," he ordered Kip "Get it out of the harbor Where that thing goes there is much to fear"

"That&039;s voodoo talk!" Kip said disdainfully "That&039;s an old, dead ht you&039;re concerned, but"

"Concerned?" A thin smile slithered, lizardlike, across the man&039;s lips "Concerned, oui" He lifted up the eye so both ht "This is s, and I ask you to do as I say"

"I don&039;t believe in your visions, Boniface," Kip said "Or your voodoo"

"I don&039;t ask you to believe!" The reverend&039;s voice was sharp, and his words had e "I ask you to be warned Everything the gods have created on this earth has a power including that ods created it," Moore said "Men did"

Boniface nodded gravely "And are od of war?" He stared into Moore&039;s face for athere that disturbed his have their life forces, for good or for evil, and I am very familiar with the forces that rule that boat"

Thevoodoo now "You speak of it as if you really thought it was alive" Kip said impatiently

"Because I know!" Boniface hissed "I reht himself, looked away into the harbor

"Remember what?" Kip asked

"The fire," Boniface said very quietly

Kip had heard hushed mention of it since he&039;d been on Coquina It had happened during the war - a great blaze that had consu out across the jungle and killing a score of people He&039;d tried to learn stree at the boatyards and some of the other old-timers, but it was a subject no one wished to discuss freely "What about the fire?"

The sun was slowly filling in the shadows of the reverend&039;s face, settling into the lines They were like wrinkles in an ancient piece of parch while, and when he spoke it ith a genuine effort

"It began with a screa, as if the night sky had gone mad At first it sounded distant very distant then louder and louder, cloaking the senses in noise and heat There was an explosion in the boatyard, and another and another; glass burst froround by the blow of an invisible fist I re the fisheran there The hipped in, tossed sparks into the sky, scattered theest of us helped whoe, and we escaped to the sea in the few boats that were still moored to the broken wharfs" He paused, his eyes bitter; his tongue darted out and licked his dry lower lip

"We could see the blosso toward the jungle The British had a few freighters and a patrol boat et the, and their patrol boat creas firing at so beyond our boats At that tiuns in their concrete bunkers - near the yard and built higher up on Coquina; their yellow tracks streaked across our heads into the distance"

He looked froo, you see, and the cruelty of it is that I recall every detail so clearly, so terrible and perfect We were all in thesloops There wereto keep order as atched our island burn Mon Dieu, there can be no worse torture than that! Coquina was a , for those of us who had taken to the sea could still hear our brothers and sisters screa on shore The heat touched our faces;the bodies contorted in pain, racing into the surf where they only felt a worse pain as the salt hit their raw burns The wailing, the terrible wailing the night was full of it I can never forget it as long as I live

"And through the thick curtain of whirling smoke a noise reached us, ony: It was a heavy pounding that made the ocean treht ould be capsized, and perish We waited, and then out of the s that could drive arest again One of the e he fired at the thing, but there was no stopping nor slowing it The sea thundered around it Its great rolling boave ca to its upturned hull like rats The ry predator, passed just before us

"And that hen I saw the h up on a platform of some sort He stared at us for a moment and then he disappeared The boat - for I had realized it was such - passed on and then suddenly dropped away like a stone into the sea The waves rushed across it, and we sat stunned in the midst of the sea Still we could hear the terrible screa froht return"

Boniface raised his cane and pointed it like a rapier "And that was the thing I saw The thing of iron and evil; it caht"