He yawned. "I make it 'a habit never to brawl in the streets. It's so vulgar."
Chrysalis snorted, turned back to the driver. "Who," she asked, "is 'Madame Brigitte'?"
The driver shrugged in a particularly Gallic manner, illustrating again the cultural ties Haiti had to the country from which she'd been politically independent for nearly two hundred years. "She is a loa, the wife of Baron Samedi."
"Baron Samedi?"
"A most powerful loa. He is the lord and guardian of the cemetary. The keeper of the crossroads."
"What's a loa?"
He frowned, shrugged almost angrily. "A loa is a spirit, a part of God, very powerful and divine."
"And I resemble this Madame Brigitte?"
He said nothing, but continued to stare at her from behind his dark glasses, and despite the afternoon's tropical heat Chrysalis felt a shiver run down her spine. She felt naked, despite the voluminous cloak she wore. It wasn't a bodily nakedness. She was, in fact, accustomed to going half-naked in public as a private obscene gesture to the world, making sure that everyone saw what she had to see every time she looked in a mirror. It was a spiritual nakedness that she felt, as if everyone who was staring at her was trying to discover who she was, was trying to divine the precious secrets that were the only masks that she had. She felt a desperate need to get away from all the staring eyes, but she wouldn't let herself run from them. It took all her nerve, all the cool she could muster, but she managed to walk into the hotel lobby with precise, measured steps.
Inside it was cool and dark. Chrysalis leaned against a high-backed chair that looked as if it'd been made sometime in the last century and dusted sometime in the last decade. She took a deep, calming breath and let it out slowly.
"What was that all about?"
She looked over her shoulder to see Peregrine regarding her with concern. The winged woman had been in one of the limos at the head of the parade, but she'd obviously seen the byplay that had centered around Chrysalis's jeep. Peregrine's beautiful, satin-feathered wings only added a touch of the exotic to her lithe, tanned sensuality. She should be easy to resent, Chrysalis thought. Her affliction had brought her fame, notoriety, even her own television show. But she looked genuinely concerned, genuinely worried, and Chrysalis felt in need of sympathetic company.
But she couldn't explain something to Peregrine that she only half-understood herself. She shrugged. "Nothing." She looked around the lobby that was rapidly filling with tour personnel. "I could use a few moments of peace and quiet. And a drink."
"So could I," a masculine voice announced before Peregrine could speak. "Let's find the bar and I'll tell you some of the facts of. Haitian life."
Both women turned to look at the man who'd spoken. He was six feet tall, give or take, and strongly built. He wore a suit of white, tropical-weight linen that was immaculately clean and sharply creased. There was something odd about his face. His features didn't quite match. His chin was too long, his nose too broad. His eyes were misaligned and too bright. Chrysalis knew him only by reputation. He was a justice Department ace, part of the security contingent Washington had assigned to Tachyon's tour. His name was Billy Ray. Some wit at JD with a classical education had tagged him with the nickname Carnifex. He liked it. He was an authentic badass.
"What do you mean?" Chrysalis asked.
Ray looked around the lobby, his lips quirking. "Let's find the bar and talk things over. Privately."
Chrysalis glanced at Peregrine, and the winged woman read the appeal in her eyes.
"Mind if I tag along?" she asked.
"Hey, not at all." Ray frankly admired her lithe, tanned form, and the black-and-white-striped sundress that showed it o$: He licked his lips as Chrysalis and Peregrine exchanged unbelieving glances.
The hotel lounge was doing desultory afternoon business. They found an empty table surrounded by other empty tables and gave their orders to a red-uniformed waiter who couldn't decide whom to stare at, Peregrine or Chrysalis. They sat in silence until he'd returned with the drinks, and Chrysalis drank down the thimbleful of amaretto that he'd brought.
"The travel brochures all said that Haiti's supposed to be a bloody tropical paradise," she said in a tone that indicated she felt the brochures all lied.