Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(94)
“But as for why we are here, it was you who summoned us. Why else would you have made the offerings?” The woman gestured at the table with a wide wave, and once again, all four chairs were occupied.
A cry escaped Jilo’s lips at the sight of the four corpses bound to the table. The chair over which the shadowy figure had draped itself now supported an elderly black man. She recognized his face. She hadn’t known him by name, but she had often seen him playing checkers with his friends outside on West Broad Street. His figure had been secured with a strap of leather, a belt, she realized, as her eyes narrowed in on him. He looked peaceful, as if he were sleeping.
The chair where the man with the parchment-like skin had sat was now occupied by the remains of a painfully thin white woman with graying black hair. Her hands were bound together behind the back of the chair, but she had slid a bit forward and her head was tilted to the side. Her sallow complexion suggested a long-term illness. Jilo had seen patients at the hospital with that same complexion, which usually spoke of some kind of renal failure. A look of quiet acceptance, relief after a long period of suffering, showed on her features.
Jilo remained perfectly still, but the table and seats rotated, like some kind of lazy Susan, revealing a middle-aged white man where her double had been. The man’s white shirt was drenched from the collar down. His hand, seemingly frozen by rigor mortis, still clutched the straight razor Jilo surmised he’d used to slice open his own throat. This one sat rigid in his seat, seemingly of his own accord, no sign of a binding to secure him.
The man in the top hat, too, had now disappeared, but in his chair sat a man with a wide bullet hole blown through his chest. His head was thrown back. Jilo felt herself compelled to draw near to him. His eyes bulged open, wide with fear and disbelief. This man’s death had come as a terrible surprise to him, Jilo felt certain, at the hands of someone he’d trusted. As Jilo raised her eyes, her kitchen began to fade back in around her. Her attention was drawn to the blood and splatter covering the wall behind where this man sat. This killing, for there was no mistaking it for anything other than murder, had somehow happened here, in her own home. Right in this very room.
“Yes, the offering,” the Beekeeper’s voice broke through Jilo’s shock. “A tribute to each king, and a restless spirit for me. You summoned me, dearie, though for you, I would have come without all this formality.”
Jilo heard a pounding sound, distant at first, but closer and louder with each knock. She turned to look for the source of the noise, only to find herself standing in her darkened kitchen, the house once again solid around her. When she glanced back, the Beekeeper was gone, though the four bodies remained gathered together around her table. The hammering on the door continued, a thundering boom, as if the devil himself were trying to gain entry. She glanced around the room once more, trying to decide if it would be best to go forward and see to the noise at the front of the house or to slip out the back. It suddenly dawned on her that though she had watched the night descend in her vision, the light that was now filtering through the windows indicated it was still midmorning. She cast her eyes up at the clock on the wall. It showed that only an hour or so had passed since Guy’s departure. Her heart leaped in hope. The boys were safe. Out there with Tinker, probably praying the sermon would finish soon so they could get on with the church’s Easter potluck that followed the service. She took a breath, ready to sigh it out.
“Jilo Wills,” a man’s voice called her name, stopping her breath as his fist pounded against the kitchen window. “I see you in there. Don’t you try to hide.” He disappeared from the window, and within seconds the back door burst open. “You can’t hide from me,” he said. It was a buckra man with curly corn-silk blond hair and sharp blue eyes. She had never met him, but somehow she knew his face. “You’ve never been able to hide from me.” As she backed away from him, the reason she recognized him dawned on her. It was from her nana’s strange collection of newspaper clippings, culled from front pages, business sections, and society pages, though his name failed to come to her distraught and tangled mind. She couldn’t begin to comprehend why this man was here, what he could possibly want from her, but the entire day had followed a dream’s logic. None of this made any sense, but she somehow knew it was all real, all happening. She turned and ran to the drawer where she kept her knives, drawing out a long carving blade. Weapon in hand, she turned back to face the man, and in that same moment, his name came to her. Maguire. Sterling Maguire.
He raised his nose to the air, sniffing around. “It worked.” He cast a glance at the four dead bodies at the table. “She’s here. I can feel her. I can smell her.”
He stopped his advance, even backed up a few feet. He held up his hands in mock surrender and laughed, seeming to delight in her trembling. “No need for any of that,” he said. “I’m just here to make a delivery. Come on outside.” He turned, without any apparent concern about showing his back to a woman holding a knife, and walked out the door. Still clutching the handle of the knife, Jilo took a few cautious steps toward the doorway. The man turned back after he made his way down the steps, signaling with a beckoning wave that she should continue. “Come on, my girl, keep coming. Don’t you want to see what I have waiting for you?”
No. The answer to his question was a decisive no. She did not want to see what this man had in mind to spring on her. She’d seen enough horrors today, four of them right there with her, growing more rank by the moment. She froze.