"I know it's unpleasant, Joey, but it is also necessary. Don't worry, I won't slice anything off."

      It was only the first day of the retreat, a week after Professor Rhinehart's visit. For some reason, Baribeau was determined to shave Joey's pubes with a mean-looking straight razor. According to the rules of the kanzo, the hungan and he had to spend the next three days cooped up in this tiny shed at the back of Rhinehart's property, what Baribeau called "the djevo."

      Baribeau slapped the razor against a leather strop hung against the wall. He said, "The ritual shaving will be done one way or another, Joey. There is no way for you to escape from this djevo, and you will have to sleep sometime. The blade is sharp now and I am well-rested. Later, the blade will be dull, and my hand will not be as steady."

      Joey grimaced, doffed the plain white tunic Baribeau had dressed him in and lay down on the straw mat covering the floor.

      The unpleasant business was over fairly quickly. Baribeau then scraped away the hair in Joey's armpits and finally snipped a lock from his head. The collected shavings were placed on a large banana leaf beside a white china pot. Before entering the djevo, Baribeau had spread an odd assortment of items on the leaf, including grilled corn meal, chocolate cake frosting and chicken blood and feathers.

      Baribeau reached for a pair of clippers. "Hold out your left hand." He snipped parings from the first and index fingers. "Give me your left foot." Joey obliged.

      The bokor stopped and examined the webbing between Joey's toes. "My god, you're a twin!"

      "What are you talking about?"

      Baribeau pinched the flap of skin. "This! In Haiti they say webbed feet indicate that, while in the womb, you ate your own twin brother."

      That concept was enough to make him want to puke. He laughed feebly. "C'mon, Claude, quit joking around. It's the Twentieth Century. Deformities like this are caused by genetic screw-ups."

      Baribeau shrugged. "That may not necessarily be their ultimate meaning."

      While Joey tried to puzzle that one out, Baribeau crouched beside him, lost in thought, absently clicking the nail clippers and staring at Joey's toes. Eventually the hungan asked, "Are there any other twins in your family, Joey?"

      He hated talking about them, but there was no avoiding the hungan's question. "I had older twin brothers. Tom and Jeff."

      "Alison mentioned them. I didn't know they were twins."

      "Is that important?"

      "Very. According to the teachings of vodoun, three kinds of spiritual entities wield great power in our universe, the dead, the loas and the twins: les mortes, les mysteres et les marassa. Some believe would that the marrassa are the equals of the loas themselves. Even more powerful are the dosu, the children born immediately after a set of twins, for they are the ones who push the marassa into our world."

      Joey had trouble tracking all of this. "Wait a minute. So am I one of these dosu?"

      "Yes, and a twin in your own right." Baribeau stood and paced the length of the shed. "Is it true that you never attended Tom and Jeff's funeral?"

      His cheeks burned with shame. "What of it?" he said defensively.

      "Marassa can be dangerous, especially if they aren't afforded the amount of respect they feel they deserve. After they die, their spirits are especially vengeful, likely to come back and haunt their surviving family members."

      Joey could almost hear the slap of flip-flops on bathroom tile. "They were at the airport," he said. He hugged himself to keep from shaking.

      "What? They actually appeared to you? Why didn't you tell me before now?"

      "I didn't think it mattered. And I was scared."

      Baribeau scratched his head and said, "As soon as the kanzo is over, we're going to have to set things right with them. How did they die?"

      He wanted to tell the truth, but he couldn't overcome a decade's worth of denials and lies. Not even in the face of so much danger. "In a boating accident."

nbsp;     Baribeau gave Joey a long, hard look but evidently chose to believe him. He said, "The matter of your twinhood will require further study. Right now, we have other business to attend to."

      The hungan snipped a paring from Joey's left big toe. It and all the other nail clippings then went into the mess on the banana leaf, which Baribeau rolled up and placed in the china pot.

      Baribeau instructed Joey to get dressed. As he put on his tunic, Joey watched the hungan carefully pick up the white pot and chant a quick prayer over it. Baribeau spoke rapidly in Creole, but Joey was able to follow a good deal of what he said.

      Throughout his stay in Glen Ellen, Joey had been astonished how quickly he soaked up the abstruse lore with which Claude inundated him. During his school years, he had been a quick study, getting through painfully boring classes with only minimal effort. The ease with which he learned vodoun songs and rituals was something else again. Sometimes he found himself anticipating Baribeau's next lesson before the hungan even opened his mouth.

      It was if Joey was meant to know the most complicated secrets of vodoun. That notion both heartened and frightened him.

      Finished with the consecration, Baribeau held the white covered bowl out to Joey. When Joey placed his hands on it, the hungan did not let go but said, "This is your head-pot, Joey. It will stay here with us throughout this retreat. Afterwards, it can stay on the altar at my sanctuary if you wish. Or you may take it away and care for it yourself.

      "Whatever you do, you must make sure that your head-pot is always safe. It contains a portion of your immortal soul. Whoever steals it away can work powerful witchcraft against you."

      Baribeau carried the head-pot to a shelf at the back of the shed and gently deposited it there.

      How much of this stuff was he expected to swallow? Part of your soul contained in a clay pot?

      And yet he could not afford such doubts. He had seen what Concasseur could do with black magic. His only protection against the bokor lay in accepting Baribeau's brand of white sorcery. No, more than acceptance was required. Joey had to believe in the power of vodoun. That crucial belief, however, seemed to hover just outside his grasp.

      The night before, Joey had found himself almost totally caught up in the chire' aizan ceremony. More than a dozen members of Baribeau's congregation had driven up from Berkeley to help out. They transformed Professor Rhinehart's barn into a reasonable facsimile of a vodoun humfo, complete with a poteau-mitan, the sacred center-post that represented the interface between the physical and spiritual worlds.

      The ceremony had begun with the ritualistic flaying of palm leaves into strips, some of which the celebrants plaited into a fringe that Joey wore around his shoulders as a protection against evil spirits. While a team of drummers pounded out an up-tempo beat, Baribeau began a series of public lessons for Joey, teaching him a set of dance steps and salutations. Joey followed the hungan's complicated instructions with ease, making only a few mistakes. Much to his surprise, however, each error brought a stinging stroke across the legs with a homemade whip fashioned from the remaining palm strips.

      Among the celebrants, Joey noticed a tall, beautiful, light-skinned black woman. She was young, certainly no older than thirty-five, but the others treated her with a respect equal to that which they reserved for Claude. Baribeau had told him earlier that her name was Chantal Depardieu and that she was a mambo, the hungan's female counterpart. At his request, she had driven up from her humfo in Los Angeles. Joey's initiation was evidently important to the entire vodoun community.

      Chantal assisted Baribeau in various parts of the ceremony, but her main function seemed to be to lead the group in song. She possessed a magnificent voice, throaty, haunting and intensely sexual. Even the insistent pulse of the giant drums could not diminish its power.

      Near the end of the chire' aizan, Chantal delivered a short talk to Joey, outlining the beneficial effects of the rites that had been performed on his behalf and exhorting him always to behave in a way that would bring no disgrace to his humfo. At a signal from Baribeau, Joey kissed the ground at her feet. Then he stood, took the mambo's hand and let himself be twirled in circles around her as she broke into song again.

      Baribeau, his acolytes and the other spectators gathered around as the mambo led him to the door of the djevo. Chantal stopped spinning Joey and kissed him passionately on the mouth. Others embraced him and patted him on the back, their faces as solemn as if they never expected to see him again. Tears streamed from the mambo's lovely brown eyes, and emotion choked her voice.

      After being blindfolded, Joey had realized that he, too, was crying, silently but copiously. With that realization came an intense feeling of connectedness with everyone there in the barnyard. Most were strangers, but they suddenly seemed to Joey as close as family. He would have done almost anything for them in that moment.

      Amid a chorus of farewells, Claude Baribeau had grabbed Joey and pulled him into the djevo. As the door slammed behind them, Joey had understood that when the retreat was over, he would not be the same person as the one who had been kissed by the mambo.

      Now the hungan turned to Joey with a large squeeze bottle in his hand and said, "It is time for your laver-te^te."

      Joey sighed deeply. He had been dreading this aspect of the kanzo. Novices who had been mounted by the loa only a few times usually needed a ritual shampoo to facilitate the possession. "Claude, can't you just use tap water? It seemed to do the trick at the Crossroads Center."

      Baribeau frowned. "This is not the time for half-way measures. Here, lean over this basin."

      Joey did as he was told, and Baribeau squirted his head with cold, thick liquid. By the smell of it, the shampoo shared ingredients with the hellish herbal bubble bath Joey had taken. Baribeau massaged the stuff into his scalp and advised, "Watch you don't get this in your eyes. It will sting." He poured warm water over Joey's head, washing away the medicinal concoction.

      The worst was not yet over. While Joey's hair was still dripping wet, Baribeau clamped over it a poultice made from milk-boiled rice, cornmeal and bread soaked in red wine.

      "Oh, man, this is just so fucking gross!" Joey whined.

      "Hush. You're not noted for your fastidiousness in personal hygiene. Stop complaining now." Baribeau sprinkled corn syrup and chicken blood onto the poultice. A layer of palm leaves came next, and then the hungan covered the whole horrendous mess with white cloth, swathing Joey's head in a kind of Caribbean turban.

      Joey knew that it would be another three days before Baribeau let him wash his hair again. After a while, the organic crap under the cloth would begin to decompose, and the stink would be something awful. Not to mention the itching that was sure to result.

      Satisfied with his handiwork, Baribeau said, "There. Your loa mai^t'-te^te should be pleased."

      Part of the purpose behind the retreat into the djevo was to allow Joey the chance to establish a permanent link with one member of the vodoun pantheon. This "master of the head" loa would be his special protector and the one who would "dance in his head" more often the other vodoun gods.

      Both Baribeau and Joey had given much thought to which spirit they should choose as Joey's loa mai^t'-te^te. Novices most often selected the loa who mounted them during their first possession. But since Joey had probably been mounted by one of the Gue'de' spirits that night at the Crossroads Center, a friendlier and more reliable candidate was required.

      Baribeau said, "Are you comfortable asking Ogu to intercede on your behalf? There is still time to choose someone else."

      Joey shook his slop-covered head. "Ogu will be fine. I certainly can use the master of thunder and lightning on my side."

      Ogu was a soldier god, supposedly a veteran of the Haitian civil wars. His followers often dressed in cast-off military clothing and carried sabres or machetes. While possessed, they became loud-mouthed and crude, chewing on cigars and demanding rum by shouting in Creole, "My balls are cold!"

      Ogu's personality and Joey's did not exactly mesh, but Baribeau believed that the loa would prove a powerful ally. He was strong and fearless, especially fond of loud noise and fire. Under attack from Concasseur's black magic, Ogu would handle the situation with a cool head.

      The fact that Ogu had appeared in Baribeau's dreams, warning him of the impending Battle of the Crossroads, also weighed heavily in his favor.

      Baribeau had arranged his stock of rattles, bowls, candles and powders on a wooden table at the back of the djevo. He went to this make-shift altar and said, "During the placing of your loa mai^t'-te^te, some other loa may try to mount you and turn you into his servant. Knowing Concasseur, I would not be surprised if Baron Samedi or one of the other Gue'de's shows up. If they do, I can probably keep them at bay. But you must also remain mentally vigilant. Understand?"

      His stomach fluttering slightly, Joey said, "Let's do it."

      As was proper, Baribeau began the ceremony by calling down Papa Legba. Joey saw no visible evidence of the loa, but after a few minutes he started trembling uncontrollably. The hair on his arms stood on end as if exposed to static electricity.

      "The doorway is open," Baribeau said. "Let us bring in the mighty Ogu."

      With a handful of flour, the hungan traced a fanciful pattern on the floor, Ogu's sacred veve. He took a bottle of rum from the altar, poured some in an iron pot, which he then placed on the veve. He lit a match and flicked it into the pot.

      As the rum smoked and crackled, Joey felt an insistent tugging at the base of his skull. It was as if something were trying to pull a part of his brain out through his neck.

      A kind of animal panic took hold of him. He mewled, bared his teeth and thrashed on the floor, trying to shake off the thing that wanted to enter him. There was no pain, but the profound feeling of invasion nauseated him and sent his heart racing.

      "Don't fight it," said Baribeau. "Let him come."

      The pressure on his skull increased. Through gritted teeth, he pleaded, "Stop it! Make it go away!"

      Something snapped in Joey's head, like a rubber band stretched a millimeter too far. There came a sudden feeling of weightlessness, as if a state of equilibrium had been reached or an immense vacuum created.

      An alien presence rushed in and took possession of his body, charging every cell with a fiery, supernatural energy. No longer under his control, Joey's muscles spasmed wildly. He screamed. The invading spirit was too big, too powerful. It was going to rip him apart. He had no choice but to flee.

      For one second, Joey hovered outside himself. He saw Baribeau restaining his convulsing body. Then an irresistible force yanked him skyward. His spirit went spinning off into blackness.

      Ogu had arrived.