The clock on the mantel chimed three. The house whispered to itself, telling tales of restless brick and wood and plaster. The other denizens of the mansion slept...or lay in what passed for sleep.

      This was the time of night the bokor enjoyed best, when the world was hushed and men's souls were at their most vulnerable.

      Seated behind his magnificent mahogany desk, shipped all the way from Port-au-Prince, Concasseur stroked the govi. He liked to rub his fingertips across its enameled surface, to toss the vessel gently from hand to hand.

      The govi was his most treasured possession, the object that alternately filled him with exultation and dread. Every time he picked it up, Concasseur checked it for cracks and inspected the wax seal that held the cork in place.

      "It will happen soon," the bokor said to the govi. "It is just a matter of time. We shall find him."

      What lived in the govi made no reply.

      After the humiliating interruption of Thursday night's ceremony, Concasseur had thought long and hard about how best to proceed. Quite unexpectedly, Joseph Spelvin was allied with stronger powers than the bokor had ever imagined.

      In the short run, that alliance had proved to be a major inconvenience for Concasseur. It did not mean, however, that in the end Spelvin's protectors could not be used to the bokor's advantage. One of Concasseur's most resourceful lieutenants, the Hartinger woman, was already recruiting someone who might be useful in finding Spelvin.

      The govi mere inches from his lips, Concasseur said, "Did I not tell you that this boy was special? I knew as soon as the Gue'de's showed him to me in my dreams that he was perfect. There may not be another like him in California, perhaps not in the entire country.

      "I should have been more patient in the beginning and not wasted all that time and effort on a simple set of twins. What a disaster the Brothers Robertson turned out to be."

      The bokor flicked the jar with one yellowed fingernail. The govi rang hollowly. "Of course, you must have delighted in my mistake. You would not mind at all if I wound up like you, eh?"

      Something chittered unintelligibly inside the clay jar. Concasseur pressed his ear to the govi, but he heard nothing more.

      "He was so very close. I could see the words forming on his lips. Monsieur Spelvin would have asked to come in. A few seconds more, and he would have been mine."

      But to disobey a direct edict from Papa Legba was unthinkable. So Spelvin had been allowed to escape. However, the Master of the Crossroads would not, could not, stand in the way forever. The time of reckoning would come eventually.

      "He cannot go far. He and the loas have unfinished business. Let his friends do the most difficult work for me. I will be there, waiting to step in when they are finished."

      Concasseur set the govi carefully on his desktop and stood. He walked to the sideboard and poured himself a healthy shot of clairin. He savored the drink, enjoying the pleasant fire it brought to his stomach. It was so much better than what passed for rum here in America. Concasseur smacked his lips in satisfaction.

      There were times when he felt profoundly homesick for his native land. He missed Haiti's tropical lushness, its breathtaking mountains, jungles and coastline. He wished he could walk again through the crowded marketplace in Port-au-Prince, soak up its color and vigor, its precious treasures and its exquisite horrors.

      He even missed Haiti's heat and humidity. The cold San Francisco fog played hell with his old, arthritic joints.

      Most of all, he longed to live again in a land where the central concern of human existence was not money or prestige, where vodoun alone reigned supreme.

      At the beginning of his new life in America, the bokor had often questioned his decision to leave Haiti. Perhaps it would have been better to weather the political storm created by the fall of the Duvaliers. He might have profited from the turmoil, consolidated his position within the secret government even more solidly. With enough cunning, Concasseur could conceivably have ended up running the entire country, doing with it as he pleased.

      And yet, that was the least of his ambitions.

      When it became eminently clear that backing Baby Doc Duvalier was a losing proposition, Concasseur had spent months mapping out a new strategy for survival. Haiti was home, but Haiti, because of its third-rate, Third World status, had its limitations. A change of venue might offer, despite daunting challenges, ample rewards.

      What Concasseur required, more than anything else, was a new group of converts. Religion and magic gained power only through belief. Without it, they were nothing. Haiti was filled to the brim with true believers in vodoun and, consequently, sorcery worked extremely well there. But what would happen if Concasseur tried to export vodoun to the United States?

      He considered emigrating to New Orleans, to New York City, to Miami, places were vodoun or its sister religions had already gained a foothold. But what was the point in that? Why not strike out in a totally new direction, as long as he could generate the necessary belief?

      Even in the mid-1980s, Concasseur still spent some nights at the Fleur de Lis, dining with a select few of his hotel's guests and making shallow conversation. One evening, he sat with a couple from Los Angeles, a movie director and his wife, in Haiti to scout locations for "an authentic voodoo flick."

      Besides their idiotic motion picture, all the Americans could talk about was "the New Age Movement," which seemed to be a cross between a hobby and a religion for them. They went on and on about channeling, spirit guides and some actress named Shirley MacLaine.

      The wife displayed a chunk of quartz crystal she wore on a chain around her neck. It had healing properties, she insisted, a result of the psychic energy stored in the rock by the ancient Atlanteans.

      Listening to those two imbeciles, Concasseur made up his mind regarding a new home. A move to Los Angeles was too barbaric even to contemplate, but surely there were other places in California suitable for his plans and aspirations.

      Further research convinced him that San Francisco might well prove fertile ground for vodoun. It would have to be re-packaged and marketed discreetly, but Concasseur was confident that a brand of the religion could thrive in fad-conscious Northern California.

      Two months before the riots that toppled Baby Doc, Henri Concasseur had slipped away on a private jet bound for Miami, and then on to San Francisco. He carried with him all the tools of his trade and nearly three million dollars in gold bullion and negotiable bonds. He had actually shed four tears as the aircraft whisked him away.

      It was hard for a one-hundred-and-ten-year-old man to leave his homeland and start fresh in a modern metropolis.

      His drink finished, Concasseur took a roll of mints from his pocket. He popped a candy into his mouth and began sucking away its flavor.

      He sat down, picked up the govi and shook it a little, in case its inhabitant was not paying full attention. "Tell me, my friend, what is it that you miss most?"

      The one who dwelled inside the govi delivered a particularly disgusting epithet in Creole.

      Concasseur said sternly, "Come, come. Surely there is one thing, above all else, that you covet after nine decades' imprisonment. Is it your body? Do you long for that stunted, tumor-ridden carcass you occupied for so many years? Tell me, Marcel. I want to know."

      He held his breath, waiting for an answer. One eventually came, uttered in a tortured, scarcely audible voice. "I crave the loas."

      Concasseur grinned. It had been some time since he had been able to goad Marcel into a conversation. "So that is what is most precious to you, eh? Yes, I can understand full well the torment of being cut off from the holy mysteries."

      "It is hell."

      The playfulness dropped out of the bokor's voice. "But no worse than what you had planned for me, Marcel."

      The thing that had been Marcel said nothing more.

      Decades after the fact, it still gave Concasseur pleasure to contemplate how he had bested his mentor. A mere boy he had been, nineteen and spoiled by the secular ways of the city. Nevertheless, he won, despite the older man's vast experience and cruel treachery.

      Marcel had paid the price. Part of his immortal soul, his ti-bon-ange, was now shut up in a simple clay jar owned by the apprentice he once tried to kill.

      Over the years the disembodied spirit tried to barter its way to freedom, attempting to exchange sorcerous lore for the chance to rest at the bottom of the sea with its fellow dead. Many times was Concasseur tempted by the tantalizing secrets promised by Marcel, but he never released his private djinn from its bottle.

      After a year in their watery graves, the most powerful dead rose and entered the ranks of the loas. The last thing Concasseur wanted to face was Marcel come back as a vodoun god.

      A floorboard squeaked in the hallway. Concasseur stood and went to the study door. Pulling it open, he expected to find Tiffany Wellington or Delmore Zweibeck on some late-night errand.

      The hall was empty. The noise had probably been nothing more than the house settling. Concasseur yawned and stretched, deciding that he should go to bed and get the two hours' rest he required each night. Or perhaps he should first visit Tiffany's room for some well-deserved recreation.

      He turned back to the study. When he did, the stench hit him full in the face, an eye-watering sulfuric reek that caught Concasseur completely by surprise and made him choke and gag.

      A baka had arrived, unannounced and unexpected.

      It sat behind his desk, in his favorite chair, one hairy hand clutching the govi. Its yellow eyes, devoid of pupils, glowed brightly as they stared directly at Concasseur. It pulled back its rubbery black lips in a welcoming snarl, revealing rows of needle-like teeth.

      Concasseur was so outraged at the demon's impertinence that he almost forgot to be afraid. "What do you want?"

      The baka had a voice like bone shards rubbing together. "What I've been promised."

      "You'll get it soon enough."

      "When?"

      "Soon, I said."

      The demon threw the govi high in the air. Concasseur's heart lurched as the jar gently nicked the ceiling and came whistling down again.

      The baka caught it without looking. "I want something now."

      "I have nothing to give you. Be patient and I will prepare something later."

      The demon shook its canine head. "Perhaps I should take this. You seem to value it." It stroked the govi, then picked at its wax seal.

      "No, not that!" The bokor cringed at the desperation in his own voice. What had happened to his control? Not so long ago, this creature from hell had done his bidding.

      The baka shrugged and pitched the govi at Concasseur. The sorcerer bobbled the jar, almost letting it smash on the floor, before recovering it at the last possible second. He hugged the govi to his chest, planning to protect it above all else.

      The demon suddenly stood beside him, seeming to close the distance between them in the blink of an eye. Its odor was nearly unbearable, even for such an old-hand at conjuring as Concasseur.

      The demon said, "Keep your clay pot. I shall take what I choose."

      The creature grabbed the hair on the back of Concasseur's head. Concasseur opened his mouth in surprise. The demon reached in and grabbed a tooth in a pincer-like grip. With one harsh tug, it pulled the tooth out by its bloody roots.

      The pain was astounding. Concasseur screamed and writhed, but he did not drop the govi.

      Its fingers covered in gore, the demon displayed the purloined tooth to Concasseur. "I shall settle for this. For now."

      Then it was gone, leaving behind only its nauseating stench.

      Concasseur stumbled to his desk and collapsed into his chair. He set the govi securely on the desktop. The bokor took out a handkerchief and spat bloody saliva into it.

      Within his pottery prison, the spirit of Marcel began to laugh, long and hard.