A Longer Fall (Gunnie Rose #2)(54)

After a long silence, one of the men spoke. “They coming, you reckon?”

“Don’t know.” That was Kempton. “They got the message, Elijah said. He saw ’em reading it.”

Eyes were everywhere here.

“That magician, he’s from the HRE.” That was Mr. Mercer from the hotel. Well, crap. John Edward had been right to be so careful.

“All magicians are.” Did not know the speaker, but that was not the truth anyway. Magicians could come from anywhere, but they could be trained only by the grigoris of the Holy Russian Empire. That’s why so many had come over from England, where magic was not permitted.

“Yeah? How you explain that Calhoun boy, then?” Didn’t know this speaker.

“He’s just crazy, is all.” That was Kempton. He sounded worried, like he had connections to the Calhouns and didn’t want anything to happen to them.

“Jimmy may be crazy,” said Mercer. “But he can also make some things happen. I’m surprised his daddy hasn’t taken him out and drowned him. You better warn ’em, Kempton, or the Society will pay them a visit some night.”

Eli exhaled real heavy. I don’t know how Mercer heard him, but the hotel owner glanced at Kempton to see if the sound had come from him.

“They ain’t coming,” an unknown man said, after a little silence. “If they been looking around town for something and they ain’t found it, they’re gonna be here on time.”

“?’Less they’re back in their room fucking like nutrias,” Mercer said, as though the fact that we had sex was disgusting.

“Well, she’s a pretty little thing,” Kempton said. “When she came in to get her boot fixed, she was all dressed up and cool as a cucumber.”

That’s me.

One of the men I didn’t recognize said, “Don’t know what she sees in a spooky guy like Savarov. He might turn her into a dog or something, she don’t mind him.”

I felt a little shiver in the tree, and I knew Eli was laughing silently.

After some more fidgeting and grunting, maybe ten minutes’ worth, the men dispersed. “Here, I’ll put that rope back,” Kempton said to the unknown man.

I felt a cold ball in the pit of my stomach. Would they have tied us up? Or would they have hung us? They would have tried. Did they not know we could protect ourselves?

“Wish we had got to use it,” the man said. “I coulda knocked out that Russian with this sap, he wouldn’t have had time to work any hocus-pocus. Maybe had a little fun with her.”

“Clyde, we don’t even talk about raping white women,” said Kempton. “They got souls, they got feelings. ’Specially married white women.”

“She wouldn’t miss a slice off a cut loaf,” said the man. He was earning my Most Hated Man award with every word. “But virgins, no, sir, we shouldn’t touch ’em.”

“I agree,” said Mercer. “By the way, how’s your little girl? She’s been real sick, I know.”

And there they were, human beings again, discussing the recovery of little Junie (who must be a virgin) like they were real men instead of monsters.

Being helpless in their hands would be hell. Junie didn’t have a chance with a father like that. He would infect the child with his own hatred. He would think he was doing a good thing. Maybe he’d give Junie her own little lamb pin to wear.

I wondered if I could find occasion to kill them all. The world would be a better place.

We waited ten minutes after the last man walked away from the rendezvous, just to be cautious. It was good we were quiet on our descent from the tree, because we hadn’t allowed long enough. When we emerged from the weed-choked wilderness of the little cemetery, we found Moultry standing by his car while he smoked a cigarette and waited for his companion to finish peeing in the bushes.

Even though there were no streetlights close, we froze. I didn’t think the men could see us even if Eli’s spell wore off, but every instinct I had told me to stay still.

“Come on, Dill, this is taking forever,” Moultry said. I matched his voice to his face. This was the man who had thought Eli might turn me into a dog.

“I got something wrong with my bladder,” the other man said over his shoulder. It was one of the men from the first funeral home. “I got to go to Doc Fielder.”

It was at least three minutes until they got in the car to drive off, so that doctor visit had better be soon, I figured.

We were in full view. The three minutes felt like an hour. I drew a deep breath the second they were far enough down the street.

“Those men are poison,” I said. “I could shoot ’em all.”

“You don’t get to judge.”

I couldn’t see Eli, but from his voice he felt the same as me but thought it was wrong, that feeling.

“Eli, we judge every day. We decide that person is bad and this one is good.” It was a struggle for me to talk about what I felt. I wasn’t used to it.

“There is a difference. We have to fight people who are trying to kill us, to block our path to the goal we have promised to reach.”

That was pretty much my job description, and I nodded. Of course, he didn’t know that. “Yes,” I said, but I was a little slow saying it, because we were in deeper waters here than I was used to.