Bøker av Dell Sweet

Andrea Zurita was a young woman, there seemed no reason for her sudden illness and death, but there were things that should be done and so the local Mirukus, shaman had come. A few words, prayers, the shaman was a transplanted Haitian: They understood most of what he said, but not everything. He had left and they had prepared her for burial. She was washed and dressed in a plain white cotton dress. The second day came and the family came to call, leaving their wishes where she lay in her grandmother's home. The third day came and the burial was coming. Cousins, men who worked in a neighboring village were on the way to open the grave. That was when Andrea had sat up and vomited blood.Her eyes had rolled back into her head. Her body shook, but her chest did not rise. She had spoken no words, but she had tried to rise several times before one of the arriving cousins, crossing himself, had bound her with rope, hand and foot. They had sent for the Mirukus again.The old Haitian had come quickly, taken one look at Andrea and then spoken cryptically, quickly. "Return her to the man that has cast this spell on her. He has bound her to him in life and that has followed her into death: Return her for she is yours no longer."The Mirukus believed the white man, Prescott had attempted to control the river spirit Pullujmu, to take control of the beautiful young woman for his own devices, but she had slipped over into death and was now controlled only by those who controlled the dead. He had left fearfully, quickly and had refused to come back for any reason. With nothing left to do for her they had taken her and left her bound body on the long drive that lead to the Prescott house. The white man may have her, but he would not have what he expected to have.Jefferson Prescott.Jefferson watched as the men carefully skirted the body of the young woman in the back of the patrol truck. They had picked her up and not knowing what else to do they had bought her to him.Her eyes rolled in her head, but occasionally they would stop and focus, seeming to stare through him. Blood seeped from her open mouth, staining the front of what looked to be a burial garb of some sort. She was, at first unrecognizable to him until one of the men told him she was his own worker, Andrea Ivanna Zurita: Kitchen help, among other things; she had been here for more than a year. To Jefferson's Catholic upbringing she seemed possessed and he kept his distance as he watched her, perhaps as superstitious as the local shaman had been.

The hand was mangled. It looked chewed, a finger missing, maybe an accident with a dog, his mind supplied. Accidents with dogs happened. He watched the little boy stumble along. The arm a grotesque parody of a real arm, swinging freely from its shoulder socket. Their eyes met a moment later, but it was already too late for the little boy. Roux had used his hands to prop his knees so he could stand. A second of standing had told him he could walk, and a single limping step had told him he could walk well enough. It had probably been the standing, his mind supplied now. His feet scraping on the loose gravel at the side of the street. His one ruined leg dragging slightlyHe held the boys eyes with his own. Large, frightened, transfixed by the odd glow in his own eyes. He had closed the gap quickly, limp or no. Long before the boy had ever thought to call out. A second of standing and looking down into those, large, sad eyes and he had reached forward quickly and pulled the boy into the air with both hands wrapped around his neck, cutting off his startled squawk. A second later and he had dashed him onto the street surface and fallen once more to the asphalt himself. He pulled the still warm body to him.Rising from death to life. The end of life no longer means the actual end. Now it means the beginning of death. A new type of life. A hunger machine searching for sustanance among the living...

The numbers changed on the screen and he picked up the phone and dialed the number he had been given. He had sent the photos as an attachment hours ago, shot from a rooftop a half mile away that had a clear view directly into Atimus Clay's Manhattan penthouse. He had received Atimus's reply in the contract. It was only details now. When, how and whatever else there might be.The phone was answered and Sharp listened. His mind worked that way. He could hear it once and that was all he needed. A phone number, a license number, a street address. It did not matter what the information contained, he could spit it back out verbatim whenever he needed it. And when he was through with it he could flush it out of his head just as if he had erased it from his memory for good. He listened; he said nothing until the end."It's not something I would do," he said. He listened as the voice persuaded him. It was not exactly a line he was asked to cross: It was subjective, and after a few minutes of listening he came to believe it was necessary."Okay," he said at last. "When the time comes let me know." He hung up, shut down his laptop and closed it...Come along on a crazy ride with all sorts of shady charactors: Mob button men. Crime syndicate bosses, cops that are out to take eveything for themselves. Top level dope dealers and Dollar, a low level loser just trying to stay alive...