A high scream erupted. Sary froze. Piercing. Almost a woman’s shriek, followed by sickening diminishing thuds and a final smashing thunk…
There was something wrong with that hoarse cry. She’d forgotten all about Ratchet. Jude? Delacorte? “Jude! Sweeting! Talk to me. Tell Mama. Where are you?”
Raw pine will burn like a box of lucifer matches.
“Oh, please answer!”
“Ma-ma?” Jude’s trebly question hung in the night.
Julian rasped, “Keep still!”
The moon melted like yellow cheese behind clouds of hot smoke. Sary frantically groped past the landing hole on hands and knees. Smoke skirled like ghosts of buildings past risen to this third—fourth?—level. She’d lost count. Then she saw it.
A door smaller than most, hidden until now by a brick chimney, showed itself in a draft, revealing a latch still swinging like a tiny pendulum.
Sary poked inside the narrow door to an equally narrow chute and crept up pokey steps with her gun in a two-handed grip. So, this is how. Worker’s stairs, destined to be the servants’ way. Delacorte knew exactly where it was, the first one finished. Wind whipped the door shut. Trapped, her mind babbled, in this narrow stairway. No one will know. The house will burn…a burning coffin… Stop it! Her mind shrieked like the wind, urging her to go up.
Groping the narrow stairs, Sary touched hinges in the low slanted ceiling. Carefully pushing, she let her head rise above the trap door. Sensing cooler air and a lighter slice of dark, Sary faced acres of drafty space where wind moaned through rafters and whipped about her bare head. Joists set sixteen inches apart stretched over the entire house. Either a lazy carpenter had done his worst, or scrap lumber was simply hauled and nailed for a rough finish. Split, loose, warped flooring abruptly ended and began in six-foot-wide gaps in a haphazard checkerboard. Some spaces, she realized, dropped directly to the basement.
Could Jude possibly be here? Was Julian laughing, even now racing from the house to the saloon?
Suddenly Sary was so tired. It seemed forever since she’d left Big Bear and all her shredded dreams behind. She dug deep for anger, found it waiting, and with refueled strength she knew that if she was to rescue Jude it must be in the next few seconds.
A warm gush of air exploded with a geyser of fire, hungrily feeding, at a corner of the house. A red tongue jetted from the maw of cellar, searching for random food to feed its heat.
Should have left well enough alone. All my fault. Jude was alive here, even cosseted.
A ladder straggled up in the dead center of the space. Easing along a joist, now five or six levels over the cellar, Sary made it to another trap door where the flimsy ladder ended. With a whump the door thudded up and back, and Sary clambered through, turning in a gale skirling around the boxy widow’s walk with its four open window sockets.
And there was Julian, with half his arthritic body swaying out one of the four windows yet to be glassed, holding on with one knuckly hand, rheumatic knobs showing bone as he gripped so tight. The cold was penetrating, yet Jude faced the windy void over Julian’s shoulder, his little face crinkled, trying for brave, but Sary fixated on Julian’s hand trembling with strain.
She tore her gaze away and focused on his face.
“Together.” Julian was speaking to her. “It’s fitting.”
Sary waded into the wind howling past her.
“Just the two of us, Julian. You and me. Put him down. Over there. Please.” Sary waved to a space between the windows. “I beg you. We don’t have time.” She stretched out a hand, smiling in what she hoped was an appealing way.
“No, no time at all,” he agreed, and smiled serenely back, but his eyes were jigging and glittery. Still hanging on one-handed, he peered over his shoulder, twisted, not quite ready to go.
Jude whimpered, clutching him fiercely.
“Please!”
“Drop ’em!” Julian ordered, motioning at her.
“Yes. Yes. I am. I will. And if I do?” Sary unbuckled her gun belts, feeling behind for something half-recalled as she entered, something lying carelessly on a ledge. A hammer? A plank propped between windows? Something. She groped behind her.
Julian still fixed on Sary with a peculiar mixture of love, hate, evil, and frustration. Bracing, he thrust Jude out to the wind. His yellow-toothed grin was calculating, challenging…vengeful. Jude kicked and clasped Julian’s neck.
“Yes, Julian…” Sary stepped closer. “Anything for you. Whatever you want.” The hammer dropped back to the sill from her fingers with a dull telltale clunk.
Julian, wavering on the sill, didn’t notice. “Shhh! Shhh. Be my brave little Jude.”
Sary giant-stepped, reaching.
“Back off!” he snarled.
Sary backed to another window in the cramped space. “It’s me you want. I’m here, Julian. Look at me!”
His vision wavered between her—he blinked—between this thing, this witch in filthy men’s gear and butchered hair, and the fresh, cream-fleshed, wide-eyed girl she was once.
Sary smiled angelically, arms wide.
Blink. It’s the filthy, half-bald female once more, not the woman of his mind. Fighting a gust, Julian glanced out at the drop, calculating, and veered back.
Blink. Sary, the angel of the Christmas tree…
“Your turn to…come…to me, Julian,” Sary croaked. “I always…loved you…Julian,” she managed.
The words were a bone thrust sideways in her throat. Carefully she dragged an earring from a pocket. Her fingers brushed the nails she had placed there.
With a nail—more of a stud—concealed in her fist, she slowly wriggled the wire through a lobe as Julian watched, transfixed.
Sary—by his fire. The actual fire was beating at his face now from outside…Sary, wearing pearl earrings, his earrings. Smiling—at him, Julian. Each pearl reflecting the flame warming her cheek, her breasts—those soft breasts—all cream velvet…
Julian smiled, unaware of the conflagration outside but his face warmed and his raddled and sagging cheeks reddened instead by the imaginary fire. His smile mutated to what he deemed, with lips open wide, encouraging, even roguish.
Sary saw only a stretched mouth—cracked and crusted, phlegmy corners flecked with blood, yellow tusks showing. She could smell his putrefying lungs, mixed with the fresh sweet scent of little Jude.
“This what you want?” she pleaded. “Come. Come to me, Julian.” Sary half-moaned the last, retreating, with one hand groping for the hammer. Her other reached out for him and she plastered a tender smile on her face. Even to her it seemed as fake as the rosebud simper on a painted china doll.
At last, her fingers brushed the hammer lying slantwise on the unfinished sill.
****
Julian gaped at his hand, shrieking a second after Sary’s outstretched fist rammed the stud into his crepe-like flesh raised with worms of vein. With one fluid swing born of desperation, Sary slammed the hammer true on the broad nailhead, fastening his hand, with a thud and a great welling of blood, to the raw frame he clutched.
The hammer dropped. “I’m taking my child,” she said. She crossed the narrow space.
One of Julian’s hands still gripped the frame. The other held Jude. So focused was she on getting the little boy to safety that Sary hardly noticed the hammer bouncing to land cock-up against the wall by Julian’s knee.
Julian doubled over his hand, pulling instinctively, yowling, squeezing Jude in a spasm of pain. Tears coursed the raddled cheeks as he glared red-eyed at Sary. Still clutching Jude, whose little face was screwed with outrage, Julian bent his knees and slid down the frame to his scrawny rump.
They both eyed the hammer at the same time.
She watched, disbelieving, lunging as he finger tipped it with his trapped hand, but he had it, manipulated it, his face twisted in a gargoyle of maddened torment while Jude lustfully howled and kicked him with sturdy little boots.
“Put me down, Grampa! Don’t wike it h
ere!” He beat with fat little fists.
Julian trapped Jude between his crooked arm and his chest in answer. Reaching across, he maneuvered the hammer around, dragging the claw end under the nail head and levering it up by painful wrenches, howling at each impact on his flesh.
Sary couldn’t tear her eyes away. Julian ripped his hand free in a fountain of released blood, enfolding it to his chest like a wounded bird. Nailing her with crazed eyes, Julian lurched across the floor, trailing blood, with murder and betrayal written plainly on his face, as Sary crashed back down through the trap door.
Julian tumbled down the ladder after her, lifting a heavy boot to stomp, aiming for her neck. She rolled into Julian’s legs in the last second, terrified at the thought of Jude flying from his arms and landing God knows where, aware she smelled raw pine burning, and watched, disbelieving, as he placed a boot sideways on a rafter, attempting to scootch across to safe flooring and the other trap door leading down to the house across flames shooting up in spiteful jets and wraiths of smoke.
She had to stop him. Now, before his strength oozed out with the blood pouring from his hand. She took a deep breath.
“Not worth it, Delacorte! He never was Jules’s. He doesn’t belong to you…”
Julian hesitated, wavering, one foot over the drop.
What have I done? At this height, a fall through floors of joists would cut Jude in half.
She breathed again as Julian managed to sidle off the rafter to a solid section.
“Look at him,” she screamed across. “He’s just a little ordinary boy. Who? Who does he look like, Julian?” She couldn’t help it. Her nerves were paper thin and tearing. It was Jude’s last chance.
Julian flicked an eye at Jude, hacked a rope of sputum, and snarled back, “Don’t need to! My son’s blood. Bone of my bone, blood of my blood. Living on after. My…heart.”
She crawled up, limping now, edging across the same rafter. They were two lame beasts stalking each other as she hawked Julian, inching dangerously along. His big boots overlapped rattling planks bridging a gap to another whole section. The fall had done something to her knee. They were equal. Ahead, Julian hit a dead end and had to backtrack.
“It’s not worth it!” she yelled. “He never was Jules’s. He doesn’t belong to you!” Oh, sweet Jesus—She eyed the trap and saw Julian had somehow, teetering madly, made it to another rafter. If he made it down, Julian could end up anywhere, lost in the crowd, and the long search must begin anew, with all her destruction behind it. Where’s the fire now? Somewhere nearer. She could hear its crackled voice and feel the hot breath.
Gripping a truss overhead, Julian minced along one-handed, sixty feet above a cellar that was beginning to resemble Hell. Blood poured from a hand dispersing red rain that was buffeted by wind and bounced off layers of rafters to patter somewhere on unseen oblivion. She daren’t distract him. He still had five feet to go.
Sary slid a foot forward and buckled. She eyed Jude. Jude was very still. He had stopped kicking. The plank Julian inched across knocked and shuddered, not tacked down. He was still two feet from the door. Sary called desperately above the wind, “He looks like Ev’ret!”
Julian snarled, “You didn’t say that!”
“Look at him!” she cried.
Julian wavered over the drop, in obvious pain, ignoring it all. “No! Jude’s sharp as spurs! He don’t miss a card. He’s…he’s…”
“NOT YOUR BLOOD!” Sary screamed, and limped rapidly after him as Julian spared a glance to see Jude’s broad little nose and sprinkle of nutmeg freckles. Sun had never had a chance with Jules’s porcelain pale flesh. Jules always burned.
Julian tottered, balancing on an updraft whipping his coat tails. He giggled shrilly, raised one big booted foot, and taunted, “Hazards of the die, Sary! The cards! The whole filthy horse race, Sarabande Swinford! Ya bet more’n you could lose!” Wheezing his diatribe, he continued, “You ken that sickenin’ feeling when the grin’s plastered all over your face an’ ya just lost daddy’s gold watch?”
His long gray face stretched into a leer as he chuckled bitterly. “Wager you do now!”
Julian backed another foot. And another. “I wagered for a halfwit pumpkin head!” He batted a ribbon of tarpaper, swaying wildly, one long arm jerking at the last second for the overhead beam. “But you held a pair of deuces all along! You knew! You parlayed me a taint-blood bastard! Very good!” he panted.
His astringent words howled off in a whippet of breeze as Julian suddenly realized Sary loomed quite close now, fairly skipping over thin blades of wood.
Lifting a large boot, Julian stomped it astride two rafters in a standoff and raised the revolver to Jude’s curls. Once more his eyes bored into her with an admixture of rage, hurt, and foundered dreams as Jude watched his granddad with frightened wonder.
Julian’s face was red-lit, she realized. The same carmine flicker warmed the attic. They were trapped, both coughing in gagging paroxysms behind a pinkish smoky curtain.
“Julian!”
They both flinched and look down into the Hell below. Handi in her nightdress dragged a rifle at the very rim of an abyss of shifting, swirling, bloody haze. Falling beams, blazing like faggots, crashed to the cellar through a maze of uprights, cross braces, and rafters. Through it all, Handi’s face was whiter than the lead paint she wore.
“The other succubus!” Julian raged, swinging wide with the revolver and losing his stability altogether.
Sary lunged for Jude—and missed. He was held by his little neck clamped in Julian’s arm, squirming, kicking, red-faced, trying to howl his outrage, when Julian back-stepped, tripped a weird schottische, and, in the end, lost his dance of life.
As Julian instinctively grabbed for safety, he let go of Jude and plunged, smashing through levels, cracking boards and bouncing off joists, thudding like dead meat with a terrible crack of bone and pulverizing of muscle.
Sary saw him sprawling, broken like a wizened plaything, draped across boulders and partly on Ratchet, who had preceded him in death and now, Sary saw, had preserved him in life. Her mind flashed to the odd scream heard earlier. Her attention was torn to a flutter of an eyelid, a faint moan, and involuntary stirring of legs below. Julian yet lived, broken as he was.
But Sary pondered none of that. She had lunged, frantic, for Jude’s nightdress. Doubled over, the beam ramming her belly, she snagged Jude and was conscious of Handi’s anguished white face as the child slowly peeled out of his gown, leaving sturdy little legs dangling bare. Then, with a horrible ripping of cloth, his body slipped.
She gripped a sleeve. He slid out of it, his head disappearing within. Red-faced, straining, Sary braced and let go, pivoting head down. She grasped his arm and hoisted Jude’s hefty little body up by her fingertips alone. Painfully balanced, the beam cutting into her stomach, Sary snaked an arm up and back, grabbed a rafter, and precariously levered both of them up. Sitting unsteadily astride the beam, she jammed her face into Jude’s flossy, sweet-smelling curls, breathing deep.
“Put your arms around my neck,” she barked huskily, feeling his short arms instantly clamp her neck—Good boy, sweet boy, smart boy!—conscious of his big, wondering, trusting green eyes. Then Jude turned his attention to his grandfather, who lay like a broken toy soldier sprawled far below.
“Grampa hut.”
“Yes,” Sary muttered. “Grampa hurt bad.”
****
Sary knelt beside Julian. He was smashed and splintered like a tree rotting from within, yet living as a last leaf clung to its branch. She tried to ignore Ratchet, partially cushioning him, as she listened to each heaving sigh. A gasp, a long silence, a feeble cough, a hitching breath, like he drew a cart laden with rock. He struggled for the next breath every time, each possibly the last allotted, as Jude squirmed, fighting Sary to see him.
She set Jude a safe span away. “Stay,” she ordered, pointing with a warning finger to plummeting chunks of charred wood. She searched the pit perimeter
for Handi. “Handi! Come get Jude and fetch someone.” But Handi still trailed the gun, frozen.
Sary didn’t notice Julian painfully reach into a pocket and drag out blood-soaked candy, softly calling, “Jude,” amid the implosions and turmoil. “Come to Grampa…”
Jude toddled over, dragging his nighty, happily chortling.
“Canny!”
Julian drew Jude in, enveloped him, and reached for the fallen revolver.
Sary spun back at Handi’s horrified expression.
Julian showed yellow teeth, twisting in pain, and held the gun to Jude’s head.
“Hutting me, Grampa. Want up!”
Julian gripped him harder in a spasm. His face softened though, as his eyes wobbled to Sary, taking on a look of puzzled wonder. He almost released the heavy revolver.
“Why?” he breathed. “I would’ve given you anything. A fucking queen! All for you…”
Sary winced. A burning scrap sailed between them, landing on Julian’s face. Julian let out a gargle and gripped the gun tighter. His hand spasmed. More bits of sparking char sailed down. Somewhere an upright crashed, firing the air. Sary looked up. Handi still stood frozen, as if firing the gun would take her last will.
Townsfolk, reflecting fire like so many demons, peered into the pit now, calculating. They seemed to be betting on the outcome. No help there.
Julian coughed blood and swept away raw blazing pine, chuckling weakly. “Our pyre!” He chuckled as falling timber sailed around her, spitting fireworks into the night. “You, and me, and this misbegotten bastard.”
Sary tugged a leg. Julian jack-knifed, howling. Bone poked through. She watched his gun hand. If he died, the gun might fire…
His chest seemed caved, his voice thin as a pressed weed, yet he held Jude in a grip to the death.
“Help us!” she called up. Townspeople still merely watched, stoic and condemning as a row of hanging judges. He’s weak. His lids are heavy. Take Jude…soon…not a minute to spare…Beams landed around her with a shower of red. The cellar was an oven.
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