Four and Twenty Blackbirds (Eden Moore 1)

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. "