Four and Twenty Blackbirds (Eden Moore 1)

That's why I was confused when he let go. I was so confused that for a few seconds I just lay there, wondering why he wasn't hurting me anymore. Then, as my vision cleared, I was almost tempted to laugh.

Of all the unlikely heroes, Malachi had flung himself off the bed and onto Avery's back. His hands and feet were tied, but that only meant he couldn't let go of Avery's neck even if he wanted to.

Together they twirled and spun as Avery tried to shake him, and Malachi's bound wrists hung heavily at my grandfather's throat. His full weight (though it couldn't have been much) was dangling down Avery's back, pinned at his neck; Avery was wearing my cousin like an unwieldy cape.

While he was thus distracted I turned over, dragging myself to my hands and knees.

My head drooped down and my eyes were watery, but I could see the gun just a few feet away. One raw palm after another, I crawled towards it. Slowly. Painfully. One scraped knee after another I propelled my broken, bloody body to the one thing I prayed would save me. I clawed towards that damned gun like it was the Holy Grail.

It had to be.

If it wasn't, we were all dead.

I dropped one hand down onto it and it slipped around in my fingers. With both hands I picked the thing up and held it firm, then rose to my knees, aiming at the struggling duo. They were still waltzing about, Avery trying to shake Malachi, and Malachi determined to hang on.

I flipped the safety, pointed the barrel, pulled the trigger tight.

The first shot threw me backwards, almost out the door, but my shoulder landed up against the frame. I put one leg up on the wall to brace myself and fired again.

And again.

The rotating tussle of wrestling limbs jerked and jolted with each bullet.

I wasn't sure who I'd shot and I didn't care, not even a little bit. I just kept on shooting until the gun was empty—six shots, I guess, it was some kind of a big pistol and I think it was fully loaded when I began. All I really know about guns is where the safety usually is and which end's the dangerous one, but at the time that was all I needed.

When the chambers were empty, my ears were humming and both of my adversaries were down, splashed with gaping red holes. Twitching. Both alive, but both hurt.

I hauled myself to my feet, propping myself against the door and letting the gun hang at my side like an anchor at the end of my arm.

Malachi was struggling to pull himself off Avery, who had fallen beneath him. One bent arm at a time he pried himself loose, crawling off to the side and leaning with his back at the bed. He was bleeding from nearly as many places as I was, but none of them appeared critical except the freshly reopened wound on his chest, which had dampened the front of his shirt down to his navel.

Avery was pushing himself up, lifting his chest off the floor and steadying himself on his elbows. A black, sticky puddle mucked up the boards beneath him, but I didn't trust it. His head was wobbling, but he was alive, and in a moment he would be on his feet. And I was out of bullets.

But the knife was beside the stove.

I stumbled towards it, almost falling when I picked it up.

"Eden, let me. . . . " Malachi insisted.

I ignored him and stood over Avery's trembling back. I lifted the knife high, trying not to wonder if I had enough strength to send it all the way through his neck. It was heavy, and it was sharp, but after all the trauma, were my arms enough to wield it?

He raised his head and one of his eyes met mine. The other was a vacant, gaping crater. Yellow fluid and black blood congealed around the sides of the wound, already healing from my lucky shot. But he was down, and he was beaten. He simply wasn't dead yet, and it was up to me to fix that oversight. My arms wilted a little, dropping the knife to my waist level.

"So you'd take me, then . . . just like that?" he said, voice halting and wet. "But you were here to help. I made you strong. I brought you here. "

"You killed me once, and I came back—but it was never to help you. "

I don't think he heard, or at least he was not listening to me but to something or someone far, far in the distance. "Then I misunderstood. For what it's worth, I never killed you. But now I know the way he wants it . . . and I agree to his terms. So take it—do it if you're going to. " He stared back down at the floor, his head sinking between his shoulders.

He didn't have to tell me twice. I pulled the long knife up over my head and swung it down like an ax. It clicked between two of the vertebrae in his neck, splitting them neatly, and continued on through the muscles that held up his head, and the tubes that went to his stomach, and the pipes that serviced his lungs.

His body collapsed, sinking spread-eagled to the ground.

A great gust of hot air gasped out of the hole where his neck had been, but his head was still attached by some cartilage, meat, and skin. With renewed vigor I hacked viciously away at the last bits until his head rolled clear, jaw slack and yellowed teeth leering from pale gums, one brown eye glaring up and out of the skull.

The eye blinked twice before its light went out. His last words came slowly, his tongue stiffening with death. "Take my curse, child . . . and live with it. "

Then all of him—now both parts of him—withered and went still.