The Curse of Jacob Tracy: A Novel (32 page)

She stood, staggered a bit, and circled his feet to the table. She gestured to Min Chan and the two of them bent over the designs she had drawn in her blood, conversing in low voices.

Neither of them saw Kieler’s head lift from the tabletop.

He sat up with the boneless drag of a puppet on strings, head lolling on his shoulders, eyelids rolling back over glassy eyes. Blood ran down from his ears and nostrils.

Cold poured out of him, a hunger and malevolence that made Trace’s guts cramp. The thing inside Kieler lurched upright, murderous gaze fixed on Miss Fairweather, and Trace scrambled to his own feet, knocking Boz aside.

He got to the table just as the German’s body lunged and Miss Fairweather fell back with a startled squawk. His hand closed on Kieler’s throat, but the black gleaming eyes fixed on him, the hands hooked into his shoulders and started to sink, searing, into his flesh.

“
Jesus,
” Trace gasped in pain, and the bloody lips parted in a grin. He plunged a hand into his shirt for his crucifix, yanked it out. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, I adjure you to depart—”

“
Hit
him, Mr. Tracy!” Miss Fairweather cried.

Trace smashed Kieler between the eyes with the heel of his hand, driving the crucifix into the bony brow, which caved like a rotten gourd. He heard the blackness shrieking, rising up in clouds like steam around him, felt Kieler’s body softening like wax in his hands.

He dropped it hurriedly and stepped back, almost stepped on Miss Fairweather, who caught at his coat. She raised her left arm and made a violent slash in the air.

“
Ukhodite,
” she snarled.

The air seemed to crackle, as if lightning had tried to strike in the library and changed its mind. There was a fierce
snap
and then it was gone, leaving an afterimage on Trace’s brain like the smell of burnt leather.

For a moment, the only sounds were the crackling of the fire and the ringing in Trace’s ears. He drew a deep breath, which hurt, and another, which hurt more. Blood was running down his arms from the stab wounds in his shoulders.

“You’re hurt,” Miss Fairweather said, at the same moment he noticed it. “Min Chan, fetch my medical bag—”

Trace hit her.

He hadn’t been aware he was going to, but his conscience must’ve retained some degree of control because he pulled it at the last; his full strength would have broken her neck.

Even so she fell, hit the edge of the table, and went to the floor in a pool of velvet. In the next instant Min Chan had him over the table with a knee in his back, there was a shout from Boz and the unmistakable ratchet of a hammer drawn back. The Chinese froze with his blade at Trace’s throat and Boz’s barrel at his temple.

“Stop it,” Miss Fairweather said in a low voice, getting to her feet. “All of you, stop it this instant.”

She backed away, put the table between herself and Trace without taking her eyes from him. Boz lifted the gun, Min Chan lifted his knee, and Trace stood, pressing a hand to the worst of the pain, at his left shoulder. She had a hand cupped to her cheek and the other fisted in her skirt. Her face was smeared with his blood and her own.

“I am sorry,” she said, breathing hard, “that I did not warn you—”

“Bullshit,” Trace spat. “You think everybody else is too stupid to be trusted, so you keep us in the dark and expect us to jump at orders like damned trained dogs.”

“If you had been more receptive to instruction I might have included you in my plans. You’re willing enough to consult
other
mediums, but you treat
my
every word with disdain and distrust—”

“You
knew
Kieler was gonna feed me to Mereck tonight. Didn’t you? And you let him do it so you could teach me a lesson.” Her jaw clenched but she did not deny it. “I asked you
twice
what Mereck was to you and you told me
nothing
.”

“You asked if I
knew
him. I said I did. And that was the extent of the conversation, Mr. Tracy. For such an intelligent man you have a staggering will to remain ignorant.”

“Well, I reckon you know enough for both of us,” Trace said, and turned toward the door. Boz moved after him, keeping his guns trained on the room.

“You great lummox,” she said furiously, trailing them into the hall. “You won’t even ask
now.
Are you that prideful, or just that set on damnation?”

“You wanna talk pride, lady, you could’ve tried askin for my help, instead of pushin me around like an ox in the bow.”

“You’ll be defenseless, you fool! He’s seen you now. You can’t hide from him!”

“Can’t I?” Trace stopped on the threshold and looked back at her, standing in the shadowy foyer with her hands clenched at her sides. “You said yourself I’m as strong as he is. Seems you’re the one who needs protection.” He saw by her eyes, the sudden naked fear, that he had it right, and felt abruptly the weight of all the punishment his body and soul had taken tonight. He wanted very badly to lie down, or weep, or both. “Damn it, woman, all you had to do was ask for my help. If you know me so god-damned well, you might’ve known I wouldn’t refuse.”

She lifted her chin a notch, stubborn pride that made her look like a petulant child.

Trace slammed the door on her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

In the hazy golden twilight of a prairie evening, they rode up on a shallow tributary of the Platte, with a wide, sandy bank and willow trees overhanging the deeper pools. The horses slowed their pace, knowing it was close to suppertime. When Boz reined to a halt, Trace drew up alongside, crossed his wrists over the saddle horn, and squinted into the sun that sprawled across the approaching mountain peaks.

“Thinkin we’ll make Fort Riley tomorrow,” Boz said. “Stay here tonight?”

Trace nodded. “Horses or dinner?”

“Tell you what”—Boz nodded toward the creek—“we’ll both get the horses, then if you’ll start the fire and coffee, I’m gonna reach down the bank there and see if I can pull up a flathead or two.”

“Sounds like a deal,” Trace said, and swung his leg over to the ground.

They were two weeks out of St. Louis. It was nearing summer now, and long days in the saddle had sweated most of the chill from Trace’s bones. And as usual, getting away from civilization had gotten him clear of the dead folks, too. He’d seen nothing otherworldly since they’d passed through Kansas City, and if anything evil was following them, he was unaware of it. He was almost sleeping normal again.

Catfish, rolled in cornmeal and fried in fatback, was the kind of grub that never tasted as good in a saloon or public house as it did under the sky, over a fire. He and Boz talked about the weather, and the first trail they had worked together, up to Yankton, and the Badlands. They split the last of the coffee and scrubbed down the dishes with sand. Boz rolled a little of the cooked fish in greasy paper, for breakfast. Trace washed his spare socks.

For all his complaints about not asking questions, Boz had hardly said a word about the séance, outside of ascertaining that Trace would not perish or run mad from the effects. He’d doctored Trace’s wounds with whiskey and horse liniment and held his peace.

Trace could see him thinking, though. Sooner or later he was going to have to allow Boz a couple of told-you-so’s.

It was funny, really. He’d tried to protect Boz from his curse and from Miss Fairweather’s machinations, but all this strange, scary springtime, Boz had been the one to take care of
him
. When confronted with trouble in any form, Boz was the first to step up and see what could be done about it. He didn’t waste time worrying about whether his actions or intentions were right and good, he just made sure everybody was alive and whole and fed catfish rolled in cornmeal.

“What’re you smirkin about?” Boz asked.

Trace stretched out on his blanket, head against his saddle, and folded his hands across his stomach. “Just thinkin you remind me of my wife.”

“Huh. Reckon I can live with that, so long as you stay in your own bedroll.”

Trace chuckled, enjoying the heave of his chest under his laced-together fingers. The matted prairie grass under his back felt good. Not exactly the Rock of Gibraltar, but he was fair sure nothing would be shaking it in the middle of the night.

Boz rolled a cigarette before kicking back on his own blankets. “My wife was like
you
. Used to consult with the Voudou woman next door, every Tuesday, and every time come home cryin and moanin cuz she didn’t like what the spirits had to say.”

“I can’t picture you married to a religious woman.”

“I just never figured why anybody’d line up to hear bad news. But Sarah’s mother was a Voudou queen, so she was raised to it, and hated it. Like you.”

“What happened to your little girl? You never told me about her.”

“Left her with the neighbor lady when I went lookin for Sarah. I went back for her after the war, but everybody moved around so much in that time…” He made a gesture that suggested smoke dissipating, and Trace winced. Watching Dorie die had been bad enough, but how much worse would it be, never knowing? “That neighbor was the Voudou queen. Used to tell Sarah our girl was touched, that she’d grow up to serve the spirits, too. I guess if she grew up in that house, she would.”

There was a short silence, during which the frogs sang, and a whippoorwill answered back.

Then Boz said, very low, “You’d tell me, right? If you saw them? Out there?”

“I’d tell you,” Trace said. “But I never have. Nor my own folks, either.”

Another, longer silence. Boz rolled up on one elbow, flicked ash from his smoke. “So why’d she do it? Let Kieler run that séance, knowin he’d feed you to Mereck?”

Trace sighed. “I think she ran afoul of Mereck when she was young—same as Kieler and Miss Lisette. Only Miss Fairweather somehow slipped his leash, and now she’s huntin him.”

“Why?”

“Not sure. I had the impression she’s sickly cause of somethin he did to her. And she did say she needed my help fixin a cure.”

“Fair nuff, but that still don’t explain—”

“After we got back from Idaho, she tried to get me to come live with her.”

Boz made a gulping sound, as if holding back a laugh. “You’re lyin.”

“My hand to God.” It
was
a little funny, on reflection.

“Well hell, son, I
told
you she had a shine for you! Shoot, you’d told me that sooner, I wouldn’a rode you so hard. You coulda proposed marriage and never had to work again.”

That was
not
so funny. “It wasn’t like
that.
She wanted me to study magic with her.”

“Trace, that woman lit up like a candle round you. She bought you
clothes
. Woman don’t dress a fellow up unless she intends to be seen on his arm.”

“She was
hopin
to get me in her debt so I’d be her lackey. And when I kept sayin no, she set up that séance to give me a scare—to show me how dangerous Mereck was, and I needed her protection.”

“Hunh.” Boz pitched his cigarette into the fire and lay down with a sigh. “She’da been too smart for her bloomers if she’d got you killed.”

“And you think I shoulda
proposed
to that?”

“Hey, you spent all spring at her beck and call anyway, why not get bed and board in return?”

“You’re a jackass.”

“Pleased to know you, brother donkey.”

Trace lay there and fumed. Not even sure why he was so angry, except Boz seemed determined to misunderstand why Miss Fairweather was so important to him. He supposed it was easier for Boz to believe he was a love-struck sap than to accept the enormous changes Trace had undergone this spring … was still going through.

And damn it, he was still mad at her, too. And disappointed in her. And frustrated that she had forced him into an intolerable position just when he’d thought they were beginning to understand one another. He kept remembering how her head had snapped back when he’d hit her—wasn’t proud of that, not by a long shot—and her look of bitter resignation as she’d dragged herself up from the floor, as if she’d fully expected him to betray her.

I know you do not trust me … gods forfend you expend any effort toward MY goals.

But how could he have done, when she wouldn’t confide in him? How could she expect him to trust her when all she did was threaten and maneuver?

“So I guess you’re not worried?” Boz said, breaking the silence. “About Mereck comin for you?”

“Naw,” Trace said, with a confidence he did not feel. “No, I don’t think he knows me from Adam.
She’s
the one he’ll go for—it’s their feud.”

“Just as well,” Boz sighed. “Horses suit me better than spooks.”

Their camp fell quiet, except for the frogs singing and the soft crackle of the fire. Trace listened until he heard Boz’s breathing deepen and coarsen, then turned on his side, focused his gaze into the flames.

It was getting almost frighteningly easy. In the space of three breaths, no more than four, he felt himself pulling away from his senses, attention funneling through that small window that seemed to open in the middle of his forehead. His awareness split in two: part of him still lying on that creekbed, part of him rising into a vast gray space, where all directions were one and distance was immaterial, where thousands of voices whispered like the ocean.

Out here in the gray he could
see
the power licking over his skin, a bright white glow spilling off his hands and arms. The spirits were attracted to it, all right, drawn like moths to a lantern, but with one foot in that gray other-world, he could watch the power bleed off and dissipate into the mist, until he was no more bright than any other living thing.

And that was only the prophylactic part of the exercise. With a little effort he could look all the way back across Kansas to St. Louis. He could see Emma at classes, safe behind the walls of St. Mary’s. He only tried once or twice to look in on Miss Fairweather—and despised himself for a hypocrite and a voyeur—but her house was oddly obscured, surrounded by fog and strange shifts of reality to keep prying eyes out.