Four and Twenty Blackbirds

I hoped it wouldn't come to that. I liked him, and I'd hate to have to kick his ass.



Eliza was two or three steps up now. Her featherlight feet trod uncertainly onward, gripping the rail with all her weight. It groaned beneath her but it held. Anyone heavier and I'm sure it would have given way, but she was shriveled and dry, and probably fell short of a hundred pounds with rocks in her pockets.



I tried to estimate how many stairs there were altogether. I put my hands above my head and felt the underside of the incline. Each step was about a foot deep and high, and we'd come down at least twenty feet. I needed to wait until I heard her reach for her keys. Any sooner and she'd not have time to open the door before I got to her; any later, and she'd have time to lock me in with Malachi.



Then again, perhaps that wasn't the worst-case scenario. Surely she wouldn't leave him down here to bleed to death . . . would she? Well, I wouldn't have sworn to it, but I suspected she wouldn't do it on purpose. She'd have to come down there sometime and check on him.



Malachi was maybe fifteen yards away now, moseying aimlessly between the ceiling-tall cases. He was running low on blood and adrenaline, and it was making him slow. I saw him stagger and it made me bold. I emerged from beneath the stairs and trusted the darkness to keep me from Eliza's eyes. She was too intent on finding her way up to look down for me, and I was nearly beside her feet when we all heard Harry return.



His voice was muffled through the door, but it carried well enough. "If there's anyone right behind this door, you need to stand back."



"Harry? What are you doing up there?" Eliza yelled in her harshest tone.



"Get away from the door, ma'am," he said.



"I'm not at the door yet," she replied with petulance, and that was all the permission he needed to open fire.



Two consecutive shotgun blasts rocked the door, the second one sending it flying nearly off its hinges. I almost whooped with joy before I remembered that Harry wasn't necessarily on my side.



Eliza toppled back down to the bottom, which wouldn't have been far for me, but was hard on a woman her age. She collapsed against an empty barrel and sat there grasping at her throat, trying to recover her breath.



With the door open, light spilled across the stairs and my position was revealed. Although he was drenched with a blackish stain from his shoulder to his knees, Malachi found his second wind and began to run straight at me.



I clambered over to the stairs, tripping over the wheezing Eliza in the process, and ran head-on into Harry in his descent. Our eyes met over the shotgun which was pressed between us, and for a moment I was frightened enough to think that Eliza had armed reinforcements. Then he saw Malachi below us and shifted the gun to aim both barrels at him.



Malachi made a hasty reassessment of the situation and ran the other way, into the darkness at the back of the cellar. Harry pushed past me and prepared to make a chase, but then hesitated beside Eliza.



"He's down here somewhere," I said as much to myself as to him. "And he's hurt—I don't think he'll get far."



"He'll get farther than you might think," Harry answered. "He knows the back way."



As if to illustrate his point, somewhere in the shelves a creaking of hinges sang out and the halo of light that had indicated Malachi's position went cold. A door of some sort fell shut with a bang that rivaled the shotgun reports, and then all was quiet except for the soft, panting breaths that heaved from Eliza's chest.



"Where's he gone?" I asked, still standing stupidly, midway up the stairs. "How'd he get out of here?"



"There are ways in and out of this labyrinth of a house that even I don't know. Once upon a time it was a stop on the Underground Railroad, though it pains Miss Eliza here to know it. But trust me—in this house, there's always a back way."



That was the first time I'd ever heard him say her name, and there was venom in it, even with the polite title before it. He turned to me and his voice retreated to an apology. "I never saved her from Malachi. She came into my quarters and announced he'd been here, and that he'd tried to hurt her but she'd gotten away. That's when she told me she wanted to go get you."



"Why did you let her lie to me?"



"She thought you wouldn't believe her unless she said I'd helped. I'm sorry about all this. If I'd known what she was really up to I would have never let her go to you. I mean, it doesn't catch me altogether unaware, but I didn't think she'd let it go so far as this."



Eliza coughed and opened her angry little eyes. "I'm not dead, you know. Or deaf."



"Too bad for us," I said, descending the stairs and stopping at her feet. "Did you really think that would work?"



"You fell for it just fine."



"I most certainly did not. I was curious enough to play along. There's a difference."



She laughed, sharp and staccato. "You don't want me to believe you'd have come here if you thought Malachi was waiting for you?"



"Sure I would have. I half expected it. And in case you hadn't noticed, Malachi has never been the most effective assassin. I hope you don't expect me to believe you thought he could kill me? You even knew I had a knife. Was that only to give me a false sense of security, or are you as fed up with your crazy nephew as I am?"



"He'll get you yet." She scowled like a television villain, but she didn't answer further. There was little else for her to say.



"No, I don't think he will, Tatie. But I got himpretty good. He's going to need a doctor, and soon. He can't go on bleeding like that and expect to live very long. Harry, perhaps we should call the police, or maybe even an ambulance, since I'm feeling charitable. If they do another helicopter run over these grounds—"



"Not yet." He came forward and lifted the gun from its position at his side, raising it until it was nearly in Eliza's face. "We're not finished here."



We all held still and stared back and forth at one another. Harry's arm was steady and the shotgun did not waver.



"Harry?" I couldn't believe it. "Harry, what are you doing?"



Eliza didn't believe it either. "Get that thing away from me. What do you think you're doing?" But something about the way she asked it hinted she already knew the answer. She was not as shocked as she let on, that much was apparent.



"Come on, you two," I broached, trying to sound as light as possible. "What's all this about? Harry, I know you don't need that." He didn't need it unless he was going to whack her upside the head with it, anyway. I hadn't seen him reload, and he'd used both shots on the door. I had to assume that Harry was well aware of this, but the odds were better than good that Eliza didn't know enough about guns to know he couldn't shoot her if he tried.



He ignored me, and kept his eyes and the business end of the barrels on the old woman. "Where's the book, Eliza? What did you do with it?" he asked calmly, coolly.



She tried not to flinch. No, she didn't know he was out of ammo. The way her eyes fixated on the end of the barrel said as much. "There is no book."



"You know that's not true as well as I do. As well as Eden does. Eden, why don't you refresh her memory. She's quite old. Perhaps she needs a good jogging."



I couldn't believe what I was hearing, except that I knew I was watching him menace her with an empty shotgun. I took this to mean that he didn't really intend to hurt her any, though the temptation to jog Eliza's memory with the back of my hand was almost more than I could resist. But no. I restrained myself. "It's filled with ritual magic," I offered a verbal jogging instead. "There's a dried-out hand mounted inside the back cover. It used to belong to a guy named John Gray. Your brother was a big fan of his."



"I don't know where your stupid book is. I'm a God-fearing Christian, and I don't have your crazy magic book."



"God-fearing Christian—like hell." Harry said it before I had a chance to. He ran a hand through his hair and let out a grunt of frustration. "I've spent eight years combing this place—every inch of it—and I've found enough to know that you're no God-fearing Christian, but I've not yet found that book. And you have to have it. There's nowhere else it could be except somewhere in your possession."



"Eight years," Eliza spat. "Yes, eight years that I've trusted you. And this is what I get for it? You would betray me over some stupid book! A stupid book that doesn't even exist," she added, sticking to her story.



"People are dying because of that stupid book!" he shouted back at her, bringing the gun within an inch of her nose. "People are dying and you know it! Don't talk to me about betrayal—and for God's sake, don't talk to her about it." He pointed at me and I waved, wiggling my fingers.



"You don't know what you're talking about. And you don't know half of what you think you know." She hauled herself to her feet and stared defiantly up at him, ignoring the enormous shotgun. "Get out of my house," she directed, lifting one gnarled finger and gesturing up at the stairs. "You too—" She bobbed her head at me. "Both of you, get out. I'm through with the both of you."



But Harry was done following orders, and he was the one with the weapon. "No. I don't think we will."



"Actually," I interjected as unobtrusively as I could, "I'd rather like to be on my way, if that's okay with you. She says she's finished with me, and that's fine. I'd like to be finished with her as well." I didn't blow his cover by following my request with, "And besides, that's not loaded anymore," because, hey—he was frightening Eliza, and that was all right by me.



"Don't go," he said, but it rang more like a request than a command. The gun was still trained on Eliza, but his eyes met mine sideways. "Stay and help me look for that book. You may not know it, but your life depends on us finding it."