Four and Twenty Blackbirds (Eden Moore 1)

Your mother-aunt will be dead at sunset, Mae said, nodding towards the sun. It had already fallen behind the trees and would soon be level with the horizon. I had light enough to see by, but not much more than that.

The energy that hit you, that was his call for her life.

It's gone to claim her.

If you kill him, the wave will wither before it reaches her.

I glanced sideways into the window at the hulking form, still looming and carving at Mae's corpse. "I can't kill him. I don't think I can even look at him. "

But you will kill him. Or all is lost.

"What do I do?" I asked desperately, clutching the rail with my hands and forcing back a wad of rising vomit. The women remained immobile, stiff as statues except for the swaying of their garments, pulled at by a wind I couldn't feel, touched by a peculiar breeze that didn't brush anything around them.

Why ask us? Luanna finally shrugged. Go and make your own try if you want to save her.

Willa agreed. Go on, now. You've come this far. Would you kill her now by waiting? She who hesitates . . .

Yes, she who hesitates . . .

She who hesitates . . .

Once again I begged their aid, "What do I do?"

Mae shrugged as casually as if I'd asked her for the time and she had no watch. How should we know? As you've now seen, we failed. We would have stopped him if we could, but our try came too late. We were weak against him, because we loved him.

"I'm not strong enough. "

You are. He's seen to that. He's given you everything you need. What did you think those draughts were for? Why do you think his old sister still lives? Oh yes, darling. You're plenty strong now.

I stood on the rickety porch, clawing at the rail that would give me splinters if I held it any harder. I still smelled the tangy, earthy cooking that spewed out steam and smoke from the stovepipe, and the sun was sinking even as I stood there.

I steeled myself, prepared for the worst, and looked in the window again. There was a familiar shape—no, not the same one, but with a smaller, thinner back—hunched over a form lying prostrate on the bed; and instead of bare black feet thrashing against the mattress, the prone legs now occupying that space were clad in muddy tennis shoes not so different from my own.

So this was the shift the woods had signaled. I was back in the real world, if in fact I'd ever left it.

I reached for the door and pushed it with my fingertips. It bounced inward with a squeaky jolt. The man at the bed stopped what he was doing. In one of his hands I saw a thick twine ropedang

ling. He was not cutting the body on the bed, he was restraining it. I was so relieved I took a deep breath.

From the kneeling, skinny body came a familiar voice. "You came in time. I knew you would. " That voice was strong, and deep—it did not seem to match the wrinkled hands that held the rope. And I had heard it before, in my stranger dreams and lucid fears.

I started to reach backwards for my gun, but something made me reconsider. "Who are you? And what are you doing to . . . him?" Yeah, I did know those shoes. I knew those dirty jeans.

He laughed, low and mellow. "I'm not hurting him near so much as you did. Boy, but I knew I did right giving you the medicine. Of course, you're mine anyhow. I knew you'd be tough. But this one, he's the vessel. I won't be harming him. I need him. " He spoke so smoothly, it was like being on drugs and listening to Barry White. Impossible for that voice to belong to those skinny arms, that bony back.

"Who are you?"

"You know who I am. "

I argued, but my protest was a lie and we both knew it. "No. I don't. "

"You do. But you're afraid. There's no need for it. I'd not harm you any sooner than I'd harm him. " He twisted his neck just enough to see me with one brown eye, the whites gone yellow with age. "Naw, I'd not harm you none at all. You're here to help me. "

"I'm . . . not. You're crazy. I'm not going to help you. "

He nodded and his jowls flopped. "Oh yes, you are. You've come back to me. You know you're mine. You've always known. That's why you're here. " He returned his attention to my poor cousin, wiggling and whimpering. He tightened one last knot.

"I'm here because you're trying to kill Lulu. And I mean to stop you. " A slim, pale ray of light squeezed in past the gauzy burlap curtains. I had just a little time. A few minutes, maybe. I reached for the gun; I pulled it out from my pants but let it hang down at my side.