"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.