by Julia French
Why?
To save folks. To save Rachel. To save myself. Is that bad?
Is it, grandson?
True waited hopefully for the answer to the question his great grandfather’s spirit posed, but the air around him remained silent-no permission, no absolution, no pardon. The decision was his and his alone, and he would be responsible for any consequences that would follow. If it turned out that he had sinned and if there were truly such a thing as the Christian Judgment Day, he would have to stand tall and take his punishment like a man.
Joshua was harnessing immense supernatural forces that True was entirely unprepared to meet, and the pterodactyl had proved to him that he was fighting a losing battle. What he needed was an edge, and an unfair advantage was an advantage all the same. He didn’t know how long he sat there deep in thought, but when he looked out the window dawn was breaking.
* * * *
At any other time True would have welcomed Rachel’s company, but this morning she might have asked questions that would be hard for him to answer truthfully. He left the house as quietly as he could, shutting the door quite softly, and once on his way he drove almost without stopping, pausing only for gas, coffee, and a sandwich outside of Lenox.
Red Ridge wasn’t a large town. It wasn’t necessary for him to ask for directions, as it was impossible to get lost. One street ran down the middle of the sleepy little burg and small businesses were strung along it like beads. In rapid succession True passed a hardware store, a drug store advertising White Owl cough drops, a restaurant whose front window was lined with pots of pink geraniums, and a two-pump gas station sporting a dented red and green Quik-Fil sign. Beyond the gas station the buildings thinned out until he reached the Crawfish River, a muddy stream choked by clumps of reeds. Beyond the Crawfish River there was nothing but empty countryside. Over the lonely landscape thinly scattered farmhouses and pastures with irregular clots of trees were bounded by sagging barbed wire fencing. Skinny black-and-white milk cows, their sides caked with dried dung, nosed about unhappily in stands of dead thistles between the patches of tall grass dimpled down to reveal the locations of rusting farm machinery.
True had lived his early life in a similar setting and barely noticed the squalor. He drove further into the sea of neglected farmland, past a roofless silo standing watch over the fallen-in stone foundation of a barn, past another farmhouse with a crop of decorative metal sunflowers sprouting in the overgrown front yard.
A mile and a half past the house with the metal sunflowers, a small knot or copse of trees in the middle of a grassy field caught his eye. There was something a bit too regular about it, and as his truck approached the spot something told him that these trees hadn’t truly seeded themselves at random, but had been deliberately planted in a random-appearing pattern the better to blend in with the surrounding countryside.
To his experienced eye the mixture of species was the least random thing about them: the oak, the hazel, and the rowan tree were powerful guards against supernatural harm. Notable by its absence was the hawthorne, a protector too but also a gateway to unearthly realms. Whoever lived here wasn’t taking any chances.
The house standing within the copse of trees was unremarkable, another overlarge and drafty farmhouse with flaking white paint plopped down in an ocean of once-viable farmland. True got out of the truck and went to the door, wondering if his approach was being watched. The sound of his knock thudded dully on the wood as if the door was reluctant to transmit the sound. He raised his hand and was about to knock again when the door gave way with a sucking sound, as though a vacuum had been breached. One muddy brown eye gleamed through the crack.
“Yes?” The voice sounded old and ill-tempered.
“I’m looking for a man named EH.”
“Who sent you?”
“Nobody. If you are EH, sir, I would like to speak with you.”
“Who are you?”
“True Gannett, and I would like to see your whole face if you don’t mind.”
“But I do mind. What do you want from me?”
For an answer True took out Joshua’s envelope and held it up to the crack. The muddy brown eye widened as it realized what he was holding.
“How’d you get that?”
“I don’t mean you any harm, sir, but I must talk to you. There’s great trouble brewing and you can help me to stop it.”
“I don’t help anybody. Give me that letter. It isn’t yours.”
“I’ll give it to you if you let me in. I won’t hurt you. How could I, with all these trees around you to protect you?”
“You know of them.” The crack opened a bit wider and revealed a patch of short gray beard.
“Yes, sir, I do. Why don’t you have a hawthorn tree, too?”
“None of your business. What else do you know?”
“I know you’re scared of something. If you help me, I’ll try and help you, but I can’t do it standing out here.”
“I don’t like strangers in my house.”
“I reckon you’re pretty safe with what’s under here.” True stamped his boot on the cement step. It was a reasonable guess, for if he himself were mortally afraid of something the first thing he would do would be to bury something magick under the threshold of his cabin.
His guess must have been correct, for the door opened a bit wider. “You ‘reckon.’ You’re not from around here.”
“I come from Massachusetts, near Maddington.”
“You weren’t born there though. You don’t sound anything like it.”
True mustered all his patience to answer the eye and the beard patiently. “If it matters to you, sir, I was born in West Virginia. I settled in Massachusetts some years back. If you don’t want to let me in you could come outside, but I must talk to you. It’s life and death.”
“It’s too damn cold out there. I’ll catch pneumonia.” The eye withdrew and the door opened to True’s body-width. “If you want to talk we’ll talk, but get to the point quickly. Don’t waste my time.”
The interior of EH’s house smelled of onion soup, and the furniture in the living room was modest but serviceable. Upon the low coffee table underneath the picture window sat a plaster statue of the Virgin Mary, a copy of the Book of Mormon, and a hardbound King James Bible. Upon the wall to the right of the window was a gilt-framed Russian-style painting of a haloed man in scarlet robes. The end table next to the sofa contained an edition of the Koran, a white candle with raised runes covered in gold leaf, and a dried-up sprig of mistletoe. On the floor next to the coffee table lay a rolled-up copy of the New York Times. True read the name on the mailing label: Edward Haslitt.
The man himself was heavy-set and of indeterminate age, but neat and well-groomed. He motioned for True to sit. “Now, Mister True Gannett, tell me what’s so urgent that you were forced to commit a crime against the US Postal Service.”
“Your friend Joshua Lambrecht.”
“Don’t call that man my friend! What about him?”
“I want to stop him from doing what he’s trying to do.”
The man laughed, not a nice laugh. “I’d love to see you try. I haven’t been to a good killing in years. What’s that bruise on your face? Did you try and fight him? It looks like you got the worst of it.”
If he antagonized Edward Haslitt, he would never get what he came for. True swallowed the retort that sprang to his lips. “I’d like to ask you a question, sir, with your permission.”
“I may choose not answer it, but you may ask.”
On the wall behind Haslitt’s head hung a large and tasteless crucifix featuring an exaggeratedly agonized Jesus, the enamel eyes rolled up to show the whites. True’s gaze flicked up to it, and the man saw.
“I believe in covering all my bases.” Haslitt indicated a dog-eared copy of the Book of Common Prayer
on the sofa beside him.
“There’s something coming for me, I feel it. Whatever it is, it’s getting closer by the day. I can’t sleep at night and I haven’t eaten solid food for three days. If I were of a more imaginative turn of mind I might tell you that my time is almost up, and the shades of those whom I helped to murder are waiting for me to join them so they can wreak their revenge upon me in the spirit world. Or not. It depends upon your point of view. Remember, you said you’d help me if I helped you.”
“I will,” True promised. “You know that Joshua wants to use the Black Death to murder people.”
“Yes, he tried to get me involved in that piece of insanity, but I’m retired.”
“He wants to learn how to do it by talking to the dead people who were on board the Sea Queen in 1666.”
“You are partially correct. He’s after only one person, and her name is Sevilla Johnston. Joshua’s betting that because she was a witch and died of the plague, she’s the one who would know the magic to harness the disease, but I wouldn’t know. I don’t want to know.”
“I put a locking spell on the remains from the Sea Queen so he can’t talk to any of the spirits there.”
“I doubt your locking spell gave Joshua more than a moment’s pause. I’m sure he’s already gotten to her.”
“I didn’t come because of the remains.”
“Whatever the blessed hell did you come bothering me for, then?”
The question that True had come two hundred miles to ask sprang to his lips. Everything depended upon whether Edward Haslitt was willing to answer it.
He was.
Abiding by his promise, True gave him in exchange the simple, homespun solution that the retired wizard had overlooked in his fear.
“Enlisting the spirit of the house itself to guard me, that’s not very original. It sounds as though you read it off the back of a cereal box. Did you?”
“You’ve got nothing to lose by trying it.” True indicated the religious display on the coffee table. “If there’s danger coming you’ll know before it gets here, and you’ll sleep better for it.”
“Right enough,” Haslitt conceded. “I’d wish you luck with your endeavor, but Joshua used to be my friend. I hate him but I don’t wish him ill. I don’t dare. I’ll wish you a painless death instead.”
“I thank you kindly, and the same to you,” True answered smoothly, and Haslitt laughed again.
“Young man, your sheer grit makes up for your ignorance, and I wouldn’t care to lock horns with you. I hope you give Joshua a run for his money.”
On the way back home, True turned EH’s answer over and over in his mind until it was indelibly imprinted upon his brain. He had gotten the advantage that he needed. Now he had to find a way to use it.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Put that down!”
Iskus opened its jaws and let the rib bone fall.
“Idiotic creature. Go sit in the corner.”
The familiar trotted out of the circle of candlelight, the thousand fly wings stuck to its clay-colored hide zizzing and crackling in protest.
The lengthy resurrection rite required to bring Iskus back to life after the pterodactyl fiasco had put Joshua in a bad mood, and had also affected the familiar deeply. For some time afterward Iskus had seemed dazed and hadn’t remembered what English Joshua had managed to teach it. It had also forgotten the litter box, and it took all Joshua’s self-control not to toss the creature bodily out of the house. Luckily he wouldn’t have to depend upon the loathsome thing much longer, for after his current project was finished he planned to upgrade.
The second ceremony went much as the first one had, except that the light which came in obedience to his call wasn’t beige, but a brassy red. The reddish light expanded into a tall, slender shape, which in turn coalesced into a cascade of chestnut hair and a long red gown. The head and face formed last, and as the spirit caught sight of Joshua, the sharp fox-like features arranged themselves into an expression of gratitude.
“You are the one who called me forth from Hell.” The spirit’s voice was low-pitched, rich, and seductive. “I feel more thankfulness toward you, kind sir, than I can possibly express.”
Joshua wasn’t fooled. “Enough flattery. I called you up for a reason, Sevilla Johnston. Can you guess what that reason is?”
“It would necessarily be of some import, would it not? Else you would not have troubled yourself about finding me.”
“You died of the Black Plague, is that correct?”
“My body died of plague on board a ship bound for Yarwich Harbor in the Colonies.”
“And you are truly a witch?”
“So it is said.” The spirit sleeked her chestnut hair.
“Don’t get coy with me.”
The lines on the fox-like face deepened momentarily. “They call me a kenning woman, though I do but assist others in attaining their heart’s desires.”
“I have a heart’s desire that you will help me attain, if you know what’s good for you.”
Sevilla started to drift in Joshua’s direction but stopped, feeling the restraining presence of the blue chalk circle. Her expression became downcast and demure. “Good sir, I can benefit you but little inside this prison.”
“You and I know both know better.”
“Am I to be paid for my cooperation in insults? Pray, what other currency do you carry?”
“I won’t send you back where you came from,” Joshua offered, and the apparition bowed her head.
“It would seem a fair exchange. What is it that you wish me to do?”
“I want the power to strike people with the plague.”
“You would have not wealth or health or love, but death? You are an unusual man.”
“I’m sure you agree that death has power over everything else.”
“Unusual and wise! A rare combination.” The spirit’s lips parted in a seductive smile, and Joshua snorted.
“Don’t even try it. You’re not my type. Can you do it, or have you lost your edge?”
The smile disappeared. “I am able.”
“I want complete control over it, too. I don’t want you to turn me into some kind of Typhoid Mary.”
“Typhoid—?”
“She was born after your time,” Joshua explained, secretly irritated that he’d forgotten that. He didn’t want to show any weakness in front of Sevilla. “Typhoid Mary was a carrier of the typhoid germ. She never became ill herself, but she infected dozens of people without even knowing it. I don’t want you to make me like that, I want to infect only those whom I choose. I don’t want to start an epidemic, either. If the plague spreads on its own my, power becomes worthless. I also want to be able to strike with any type of the plague, not just a single one.”
“Type? Sir, you speak strangely.”
How was he going to explain it? “In the lungs, in the blood, and in the lymph nodes-I mean, the armpits and the groin.”
“I know lungs, and blood, and armpits. I can cause you to infect those places.”
Joshua wasn’t sure she knew what he meant, but it would have to do. “Any time you’re ready, my dear.”
“As you wish, but I must be let out of this design. It hampers me.”
“It’s supposed to.”
“I give you my word that I will grant your wish as best I can. Would you call me a liar?”
Sevilla was well able to fulfill his request without leaving the chalk circle. If he let her go, he would lose control over her and place himself in danger as well. “It must be this way.”
“I cannot.”
“Yes, you can.” From the pocket of his robe Joshua pulled out a black silk scarf. Upon the scarf was pinned the gold leaf-shaped pin which he had pried from Sevilla’s decayed remains. “This i
s your brooch, isn’t it? That makes this whole scarf part of you, like a poppet. If I destroy this scarf you’ll go right back to Hell where you belong.”
The apparition recoiled. “You take unfair advantage of me, sir! You are no gentleman.”
“Obey my wishes or be damned once more.”
“I will obey you, but I will not forget this treachery.”
“See that you don’t.”
Sevilla raised her arms, her chestnut hair draped around her like a veil, and started to sing. The melody was in a weird minor key that made Joshua’s hair stand on end, and the language was nothing he recognized. An odd tingling sensation made him check his armpit. A lump the size of a marble hard had surfaced, tender and painful to the touch. In the other armpit there were more swellings. His groin tingled and itched, but he didn’t want to check out what was happening down there. Instead he concentrated upon the blackish area that had blossomed upon the skin of his left hand. The spot resembled a splash of tar, and in a flash he realized that the flesh in that area had died and was becoming gangrenous. Sevilla had tricked him.
“You stinking, rotten whore!” Joshua coughed, spraying blood over his lips and chin. The swellings in his armpits and groin were unbelievably, incredibly painful. He drew a bubbling breath through the congestion in his lungs, and a great heat swept through him. He staggered and fell, his back twisting as the fever convulsions began.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“I don’t want to.”
“Say it!”
“Please, Mark, don’t,” the girl recited, trembling.
“Not like that! Hold up your hands, try to stop me.”
“You’re a freak! I’m getting out of here—”
Mark hit her in the mouth and the girl collapsed weeping upon the bed. He hooked the neck of her dress with his fingers and tore downward, ripping the buttons from the thin cloth. She slapped his hand away, a pitifully childish gesture, and he flopped on top of her with his full weight. The girl drew a deep breath to scream, and he put a forearm across her throat and leaned on it. The girl’s eyes bulged.
