Four and Twenty Blackbirds (18 page)

A street or two down I saw a sign for an International House of Pancakes, and promptly changed my mind about whether or not I needed to eat. I retrieved my new book from the car and started walking, certain I could find something fruity, syrupy, hash-browny, or milky to ingest. IHOP had never failed me yet.

Amidst the clinking silverware, clattering plates, and bustling of waitresses, I read on in the glossy, hard-backed book while I waited for my blueberry cheese blintzes. September 29, 1840. John Gray was dragged from a ceremony by a group of Spanish monks who wrapped him in chains and hung him from a tree outside the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida.

September 29.

A week and a half. But why should it worry me? The nearness of the date was a good thing—I was so close to being beyond fear. Why did this affect me so much? Because I'd dreamed of his hand? I shook my head, knowing I could not clear it. My connection to John Gray was more distant than I could imagine. It was distant enough for me to live without fear, and for me to ignore the superstitions of the long, long dead.

Still, I continued to read.

"The monks tried to persuade Juanita Gray to surrender John's hand, but she refused them. He'd given her no children, she argued, so she needed a piece of him to keep for memory's sake. According to Gray's beliefs, it was a drain on a
sorko
's power to have progeny, as it disseminates his blood and diffuses his power. It is said that when a man in later life decides to become a
sorko,
he may decide to kill his children and/or his grandchildren in order to reclaim his blood, that he may retrieve and increase his power."

I'm no relation to Gray,
I reassured myself.
And all of his followers have been dead for generations. No good reason on earth to be concerned. None at all.

My food arrived. I closed the book and ate.

When I was finished I was fat-feeling and tired, so I returned to the hotel for a nap.

I was awake before she called. When the phone rang I didn't even have to guess.

"Lu?"

"There you are," she said, with relief and malice both in her voice. So she was still angry that I'd gone—no big surprise there. I thought I heard something else too. She sounded tired, or ill. Dave had said she wasn't feeling well; he'd said there was no reason to worry.

"Are you okay?" I asked anyway, and she snorted a reply.

"Yeah. I'm okay. What about you? Are you finished molesting the dead yet?"

If she was going to be short, I would too. Distance makes the heart grow braver. "Not yet. I'm going back to the cemetery later, I think. And then who knows what trouble I might get into." I stopped myself before I took it too far. "While I've got you on the phone, what do you know about John Gray?"

"What do
you
know about him?" she countered, coughing or clearing her throat, I couldn't tell which. It wasn't the best of all possible retorts, and this weak response worried me almost more than the cough.

"I know about his cult. And I know about Juanita, and how she cut off his hand. I know how it's in that book," I bluffed, fairly certain I was okay to do so. What other hand could it be lurking inside the back cover of the tome in my dreams? It was too tempting a conjecture to let me accept that it could be some other, less significant, odd body part.

She didn't argue with me, but she didn't exactly pat me on the head and give me a gold star, either. "Good for you."

"Lu, you don't sound good."

"I feel good," she croaked.

"No, you don't." She was definitely not herself, and I could have sworn by the tone of her voice that she was lying down.

I heard a rustling that suggested she'd shifted the phone. "I'm only tired. I'm allowed to be tired, once in a while. Everything's fine, and I just need some rest."

"Don't you lie to me." I wasn't sure why, but it was terribly important that Lulu be all right. My unease was mounting in my chest until it threatened to cut off my air. I found something awful and ominous in her lack of fortitude, and there was a number rolling through my head that I didn't like. Eleven days. All the logic, reason, and sanity in the world couldn't kick that thought loose and shoo it away.

"Lulu, don't lie to me. Are you getting sick?"

"No, I'm not. I said I'm only tired. Now are you ready to come on home? Come on, they're having a funeral for that girl Malachi killed. It's tomorrow morning; you should go."

"We weren't friends," I said, a little too fast to be as casual as I wanted to say it. It was true, we weren't friends, but it sounded bad when I put it out loud like that. She was dead, and I knew her. The gravitational force of a southern funeral dictated that I attend, but there were few things I'd rather do less. I could safely bet that the media would be there, and it was an even safer bet that some damned fool with a microphone would want a word with me. I'd had about enough of that the first time Malachi struck, and I didn't want to go through it again.

"She's dead, and you were there when it happened." She stopped blessedly short of pushing on to the most obvious point—that it was practically my fault she'd died. "Come on home anyhow."

"I'm not done yet."

"Get done. Then get home."

I wandered to the window, phone in hand, and pushed the curtains aside. "I will. But I'm not sure when. Not yet anyhow." Outside, it was growing dark. I hadn't realized I'd slept so long. In the parking lot, a streetlamp kicked on with a sputter and a hiss.

"Come back tonight. It's not so far. You can make it by nine or ten if you hurry, and I know the way you drive. You always hurry."

"Not tonight." I held the curtain back and watched the fluorescent beams bounce off my car's fresh wax job. Just then, something moved.

I started.

"Tonight!" Lulu insisted. "Get back here tonight! They've not caught Malachi yet, girl. Don't you be hanging there, waiting like a sitting duck for him to come after you."

"No one's sitting around here duck-style, Lu," I insisted, but I barely heard her admonition. I was almost certain there was someone lurking behind my car. I'd only seen him for an instant, but that moment was enough to reveal a tallish woman or a shortish man in a long, dark-colored coat. A head and hunkered neck rose barely above my trunk. He or she (he, I suspected) was checking my license plate.

"I've gotta go," I said, letting the phone fall from the side of my face and dropping it into the receiver. I let the curtain slip back into place and twisted the dead bolt.

Inside my overnight bag I kept a marble-handled knife with a blade too long to be legal in most states. It wasn't a utility knife like the serrated folding blade I'd taken with me to Pine Breeze, but it looked mighty intimidating all the same and it was weighted more nicely for holding. An old friend gave it to me as a birthday present, and I took it with me nearly everywhere, so I guess I did have a lucky charm of sorts, before Brian handed me the gris-gris.

I always kept the thing razor sharp and shiny, and when I was feeling like a more nervous soul, I kept it on my belt. I unfastened the latch to my pants and slid the holster onto the black leather belt I wore mostly for decoration, then buckled myself tight again. I un-snapped the sheath's guard and let the knife ride free, ready to be whipped into action if such was called for.

I ducked low beneath the window and lifted the curtain enough to peek back out at the lot. The shady form was nowhere in sight, but, then again, I didn't think it cared to be. Maintaining my crouched position, I reached for the lock and, as quietly as possible, I released it. I grasped the handle and pulled it down slowly, waiting for the click.

With a yank and a shove, I opened the door, still nearly on my knees.

Nothing.

No one jumped inside, no one reached for my throat.

Nothing.

I craned my head around the corner. No one. I stood, knife now in hand, hand discreetly hidden halfway behind my back. I braced my feet apart and let the doorway frame me, wide open and vulnerable . . . sort of. The knife's handle was warming under my fingers. I opened and closed my knuckles around it, clenching for the best grip.

"Hello?" My breath was steady, though my pulse came hard. "Whoever you are, get the hell away from my car."

No one answered.

I might have gone on, following up the order with a threat or two, but just then a large black sedan turned into the parking lot. It crept over the yellow speed bumps that hazarded the asphalt, signaled with a flashing left blinker, and pulled into the empty space next to the Death Nugget. I held a hand up to shield my eyes from its blazing headlights. I'd almost decided to retreat to the comfort of my room when the lights switched off and the back right door opened.

Eliza Dufresne emerged, short and crooked, from the shiny black vehicle. Harry offered me a shy half wave from the driver's seat, but he cut the engine and remained where he was.

"Girl," Tatie addressed me. "Girl, I want to talk to you."

"Go on." I made a show of sheathing the long blade at my left side. Her eyes widened a touch, but she didn't ask about it.

"I want you to come on back to the house with me."

"Do you, now?" I smirked and leaned against the frame, neither in welcome nor in refusal. "When'd you get bit by the hospitality bug?"

"Girl, I think it'd be a good idea if you did. I don't think you're safe here. Come on back to the big house with us."

She couldn't be serious. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'll take my chances here."

I do believe Tatie wanted to stomp her little feet in rage, but she bit it back. "Girl," she said it as a growl this time, "you come on back with me now. I can let you have one of the big old guest rooms. There's plenty of space for you."

"As I said, ma'am, thank you, but no. I'm already settled in here, and I'm not of a mind to leave."

"Dammit, girl, you come on!"

"No." I liked this game. This was fun.

"And why not? I'm offering you family privileges, an' here you are being an ingrate."

I couldn't hold my smile back any longer. "At least I'm not trying to milk you for your money like the rest of them mixed-breed illegitimates who want family privileges. Thank you kindly, Tatie, but I'm staying here."

Her wrinkly arms folded together, pulling a cable-knit sweater more tightly around her shoulders. "How come?"

"How come?" I repeated after her, still laughing on the inside with disbelief at the absurdity of it all. To be tactful, or not to be tactful? I went with the latter. "Because I don't trust you. No offense intended."

She nodded as if we'd reached some minor understanding, and it was good. "None taken. But since we're speaking plain, tell me why not."

"Because so far as I've heard, they've not yet caught Malachi. And I think you mean to hand me over to him if you can." I didn't really know if they'd caught him or not, but I figured she'd contradict me if I was mistaken.

"Well, that's not right. I'm not about to hand you over to him."

So he
was
still out there and Lulu had been right. Chattanooga considers Macon nearby enough to be a source of local news, so it wasn't surprising that she'd heard. "Well,
I
don't know that. Hell," I added, "for all I know he just followed you and he's planning to come for me once you're gone."

"That's not the case," she insisted.

"I'm afraid I don't believe you, Tatie. I'd love to be friends, what with us being family and all, but I don't believe you're as interested in that prospect as I am. If you want me at your place tonight, it's not because you've suddenly found your manners. You tell me why you really want me there, and I might think about it a little harder."

She shifted, tapping her feet and twirling her fingers in the sweater. She was getting cold. I was too, for that matter. If she didn't make her point before long, I was going to have to choose between inviting her inside and shutting the door in her face.

"You can't stay here tonight, girl. You and I know it's not safe."

"You're stalling. Besides, you and I know how little you care about my safety."

Her shoulders slacked and she quit bothering the buttons on the sweater. "If you must know . . ." she began, but then stopped.

"Oh, but I must," I prompted.

"Lord. It
is
Malachi, but not what you think. I swear, that boy's lost his religion now."

I laughed outright—practically in her face, which must have made her mad enough to boil. "Only just now? Christ, lady—what do you think he's been up to all this time? He's been as mad as a hatter most of his life, and you're only just now deciding it's so?"

"Never to me!" she shouted, raising one gnarled fist. "
Never
to me! He's never put a hand against me, and I don't know what made him now, but the boy's lost his senses this time, and it just frightens me all to death. I can't stay in that house now, not all alone."

"What about Harry?"

"He's not so old as me, but he's an old man still and my nephew's a young one with murdering on his mind. I tell you, child, I'm just so frightened it sends my heart trouble."

Curiosity got the better of me. Even though I knew I might not get the truth, I couldn't keep myself from asking, "What did he do? Did he attack you?"

"He tried to choke me! He held his hands against my throat and would've killed me if Harry hadn't hit him with the poker from the fireplace."

"It seems to me like you and Harry are doing just fine without me. You ought to give Harry more credit. In a pinch, it sounds like he's got your back."

"But what if Malachi comes back?"

"Harry can whack him with the poker again," I suggested. "Last time it worked so well that you're not dead yet."

I think she wanted to say "please," but the word refused to pass her lips. Instead she launched on with her begging, disguised as commanding. "Girl, come on down to the house with me, won't you? I want someone else in the house, and there isn't anyone else who can come. You can pick whichever room you want, and Harry can make us supper."

"Now, Tatie, that doesn't make a bit of sense and you know it. The one thing in life Malachi wants is to see me dead, but you want to invite me in to keep him away? You're a daft old woman, and I'm not going to hear this anymore." I made like I was going to shut the door, pretty sure by now that she wasn't going to let me.

"Eden," she choked out my name in two soft syllables. "Come with me, won't you?"

"Lady, I'm no one's bodyguard."

Down at my feet something glistened. I kicked at it with the toe of my shoe. It rolled off the sidewalk and down over the curb, away to the gutter. Three or four more of the gleaming, rolling things were scattered about near my door. Some kind of beads. Harmless enough, but they hadn't been there when I'd come back from eating. They could have belonged to anyone, of course. No reason for me to be alarmed. They were only beads. Black and red, scattered across the walkway.

"Eden, what do I have to do to get you to come with me?"

What was it about those beads? An old jingle ran circles in my head, or perhaps it was a whispering hint from one of the ghosts—I couldn't be sure.
Red and black, friend of Jack. Red and yellow, kill a fellow.
True of snakes, at least, but I couldn't see it as a sign. To go with Tatie would only be to invite trouble, and I knew it.