Darkfall

Jack.”
    “Indefatigable.”
    “Stubborn.”
    “Determined.”
    “Damnit.”
    “Charming, too,” he said.
    She apparently didn’t agree. She walked away from him. She seemed to prefer looking at one of the mutilated corpses.
    Beyond the window, snow was falling heavily now. The sky was bleak. Although it wasn’t noon yet, it looked like twilight out there.
    XII
    Lavelle stepped out of the back door of the house. He went to the end of the porch, down three steps. He stood at the edge of the dead brown grass and looked up into the whirling chaos of snowflakes.
    He had never seen snow before. Pictures, of course. But not the real thing. Until last spring, he had spent his entire life-thirty years-in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and on several other Caribbean islands.
    He had expected winter in New York to be uncomfortable, even arduous, for someone as unaccustomed to it as he was. However, much to his surprise, the experience had been exciting and positive, thus far. If it was only the novelty of winter that appealed to him, then he might feel differently when that novelty eventually wore off, but for the time being, he found the brisk winds and cold air invigorating.
    Besides, in this great city he had discovered an enormous reservoir of the power on which he depended in order to do his work: the infinitely useful power of evil. Evil flourished everywhere, of course, in the countryside and in the suburbs, too, not merely within the boundaries of New York City. There was no shortage of evil in the Caribbean, where he had been a practicing Bocor -a voodoo priest skilled in the uses of black magic-ever since he was twenty- two. But here, where so many people were crammed into such a relatively small piece of land, here where a score or two of murders were committed every week, here where assaults and rapes and robberies and burglaries numbered in the tens of thousands-even hundreds of thousands-every year, here where there were an army of hustlers looking for an advantage, legions of con men searching for marks, psychos of every twisted sort, perverts, punks, wife-beaters, and thugs almost beyond counting- this was where the air was flooded with raw currents of evil that you could see and smell and feel-if, like Lavelle, you were sensitized to them. With each wicked deed, an effluvium of evil rose from the corrupted soul, contributing to the crackling currents in the air, making them stronger, potentially more destructive. Above and through the metropolis, vast tenebrous rivers of evil energy surged and churned. Ethereal rivers, yes. Of no substance. Yet the energy of which they were composed was real, lethal, the very stuff with which Lavelle could achieve virtually any result he wished. He could tap into those midnight tides and twilight pools of malevolent power; he could use them to cast even the most difficult and ambitious spells, curses, and charms.
    The city was also crisscrossed by other, different currents of a benign nature, composed of the effluvium arising from good souls engaged in the performance of admirable deeds. These were rivers of hope, love, courage, charity, innocence, kindness, friendship, honesty, and dignity. This, too, was an extremely powerful energy, but it was of absolutely no use to Lavelle. A Houngon , a priest skilled at white magic, would be able to tap that benign energy for the purpose of healing, casting beneficial spells, and creating miracles. But Lavelle was a Bocor , not a Houngon . He had dedicated himself to the black arts, to the rites of Congo and Pétro , rather than to the various rites of Rada , white magic. And dedication to that dark sphere of sorcery also meant confinement to it.
    Yet his long association with evil had not given him a bleak, mournful, or even sour aspect; he was a happy man. He smiled broadly as he stood there behind the house, at the edge of the dead brown grass, looking up into the whirling snow. He felt strong, relaxed, content, almost unbearably pleased with himself.
    He was tall, six-three. He looked even taller in his narrow-legged black trousers and his long, well-fitted gray cashmere topcoat. He was unusually thin, yet powerful looking in spite of the lack of meat on his long frame. Not even the least observant could mistake him for a weakling, for he virtually radiated confidence and had eyes that made you want to get out of his way in a hurry. His hands were large, his wrists large and bony. His face was noble, not unlike