Of Grave Concern Part 26

Where the h.e.l.l is Calder? I thought.

Malleus struck the cane on the floor, producing a rap that echoed from the walls.

"Enough!" he said. "There is one last thing you should see."

He nodded to Katie, and she stood, picked up a clay jar by the throne, and removed the wooden plug. She shook some handfuls of blue powder into her hand and threw them into the fire pit.

The fire erupted like she had thrown kerosene on it.

It continued to blaze fiercely, with a weird blue tinge, and Malleus began chanting in the Enigma language. Presently a form appeared in the flames. It was a nude man, a young man with blond hair.

It was Jonathan.

Suddenly I couldn't breathe. I felt like the floor would sink from beneath me. I staggered back a step or two.

"This is a trick," I muttered. "Something you've ordered from Sylvestre and Company. It's not real."

The nude Jonathan stepped out of the fire and into the room. Katie padded over and looped an arm around his neck and nuzzled his cheek.

"Oh, he seems real enough to me," she said hungrily.

"Get away from him!"

I shoved her aside.

"Jonathan," I said. "Is it you?"

He smiled, just as I remembered. He was still the age he was when he died. And when once I had been so much younger than he, now I was older. Nearly twice as old.Would he still want me now?

"Jonathan, are you real?"

No response. He seemed confused.

"Ask him," Malleus said. "Ask him for the secret sign, the message that you had agreed that he would send from the other side as a sign that love survives death."

I took his hand and squeezed it against my cheek.

"Do you remember?"

He blinked.

"Do you remember me?"

"Ophelia," he said.

"My love," I said. "What was the message?"

"J'attends ma femme."

It was the message: "I await my wife."

I sank to the floor beside him, sobbing, still holding his precious hand against my cheek.

"Oh G.o.d," I said.

Katie put a hand on his shoulder and urged him down with me. I cupped his face in my hands and kissed him, a kiss that thrilled me to my shadowless soul. Then I rested my head against his chest.

And frowned.

"This isn't right," I said.

"What could not be right?" Katie asked. "It is your love, returned from the grave. This is your heart's desire. All of your prayers have been answered in an instant, and you can stay here and rule with us-and live with him-forever."

I got to my feet. My head was spinning, and I had to think hard to get out the words.

"This is a trick," I said. "It's not Jonathan."

"But the message," Malleus said. "What of the message?"

"I-I don't know," I said. "You read my mind, somehow. Maybe you even read my heart. But it's not him. I know it's not him. It can't be."

"Why not?"

"He doesn't smell right."

At that, the Jonathan-like apparition vanished in a flash of light and thunder and blue smoke. I fell backward from the concussion, landing heavily on the stone floor, my head throbbing.

Malleus stepped down from the throne and walked around the fire pit to where I lay on the floor. He looked down at me like I was a pile of trash, something annoying that needed to be cleaned up.

"Tell the whiskey peddler to feed her to the whackers," Malleus said.

"Shame," Katie said, walking over to me on swiveling hips. "We would have found her amusing . . . for a time."

Then she reached down and grabbed hold of my earlobe and pulled me to my feet. I knocked her hand away with a forearm.

"That hurts, you b.i.t.c.h."

She laughed.

"You dare defy me?" she asked. "Your suffering will be great."

I reached up and grabbed one of the alabaster earrings.

"You first."

I jerked the thing out of her ear and threw it to the ground. She shrieked and clasped her hand to her ear. Blood ran down the side of her neck. Then she looked at me with a hatred that made my heart skip a beat.

I made a dash for the steps.

She scrambled after me, and I was nearly at the top when she caught my ankle and pulled me down. I fell, but kicked out hard with my free leg. The heel of my shoe landed squarely in Katie Bender's face, and she fell backward down the stairs.

I emerged from the steps into the sunshine.

"Stop her!" Katie Bender called.

Vanderslice was standing with his arms crossed, the bone-handled skinning knife in his right hand, and he was smiling. He was about ten yards away, between me and the creek.

Katie Bender made it to the top of the steps. Blood was gushing from her nose and the corner of her mouth. She wiped her mouth with the palm of her hand, smearing the blood across her cheek.

"Didn't know immortals bled," I said.

"You fool," she said. "This isn't my blood. I'll just replace it with my next victim. And I'm going to start with you. Toss me the knife, whiskey trader."

Vanderslice tossed the skinning knife over my head, a perfect pitch, and Katie Bender caught the bone handle in her left hand. Then she approached, the knife at the ready.

I stumbled backward, into Vanderslice.

He pinned my arms to my side.

"I'm going to slit your throat from ear to ear," she said.

"Get back!"

"Then I'm going to skin you and throw your hide in with the others, and you're going to end up becoming a belt for some kind of machine back East, turning out spools for thread or toothpicks or maybe hammer handles."

"Don't touch me!"

"Are you going to beg?" she asked. "There would be some pleasure in that."

Vanderslice grabbed my hair and jerked my head back, exposing my throat.

Katie Bender placed the point of the knife beneath my right ear.

"Beg," she taunted. "I want to hear you beg until your words are just b.l.o.o.d.y bubbles oozing from your neck."

"Bon Dieu and all my ancestors," I mumbled, recalling the first prayer that Tante Marie had taught me. "Give me breath to vanquish those who torment me."

Then I blew in her face.

There was the crack of a rifle from across the creek and something hit Katie Bender like a hammer. She was knocked off her feet and the bone-handled knife spun from her fingers and skittered on the gravel.

She sat up slowly.

Her black silk robe was parted, revealing an ugly hole between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, with blood and gore spilling from it.

"This can be fixed," she said weakly.

Then the whackers, smelling the blood, began cl.u.s.tering around. They were on all fours, sniffing and snarling.

"Malleus!" she called. "There is little time."

Then the first whacker lunged, and I could not tell if it was in the form of a man or a wolf, but I could see bright teeth tearing at her throat. Then the others were on her, and one of them that was still a man s.n.a.t.c.hed up the bone-handled knife and began slashing with it.

Katie Bender's screams died amid a geyser of blood.

I looked away.

33.

Vanderslice released my arms and backed away from the horror.

"Stop right there!" Calder shouted.

Calder was wading from the creek onto the gravel bar. The big rifle was held at waist level in both of his hands. The unlit cigar was still jammed in the corner of his mouth.

Vanderslice pulled his six-shooter and turned.

"Drop the iron," Calder said. "You're under arrest for murder."

"Jack Calder," the whiskey trader sneered. "Always the vigilante, aren't you?"

"I aim to take you back to stand trial," Calder said. "But I'd settle for putting a five-hundred-grain bullet down your throat. What'll it be?"

Vanderslice let the pistol fall.

"Get down," Calder ordered, pulling his own big revolver while placing the rifle on the gravel. "On your knees. Turn around. Do it, d.a.m.n you."

Vanderslice fell to his knees, and Calder kicked him between the shoulders, sending him stomach-first on the gravel. He aimed the revolver at the back of Vanderslice's head.

"Maybe I ought to settle things here," Calder said. "Save the Ford County taxpayers the cost of a trial. How do you feel about a slug in the back of your head? That's a lot kinder than what you did to that poor Russian girl."

Vanderslice's eyes were wide with fear.

"No, Jack!" I shouted.

"Why not? He would have killed you. You know what he is."

"I know," I said. "The question is, what are we?"

"d.a.m.n it," Calder said, and pulled a pair of iron handcuffs from his pocket.

"Put these on him," he said, tossing me the cuffs. "Just clamp them to his wrists and make sure they lock. Make 'em real tight."