Jilo (29 page)

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.

Maguire’s face flushed red when she didn’t obey him. “I said move it, girl, or I will come and take that knife from you and use it to carve up that nappy-headed boy of yours.” He nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. I got him. Right out front. With his daddy and that little frill boy of yours. So you’d better come. Fast.”

The knife dropped from her hand, and she took quick, stomping strides past her ruined table, out the door, down the steps. Maguire was already disappearing around the side of her house, moving toward its front. Picking up her heavy feet, she hurried to catch up to the man.

“Toss him down,” she heard Maguire’s voice call, “then get the hell out of here.” She came around the side in time to see two men clambering into the back of a green-and-white pickup truck. They bent over and hoisted up another man. They flung him over the side, and the man rolled to the ground, coming to a rest on his back. Jilo dashed to his side, looking down in horror and disbelief. His clothes were ripped and bloody. His face beaten beyond recognition. Still she knew him. She would know him, if by nothing else, by his fine artist’s hands.

“Guy,” she screamed, and fell to her knees by his side.

TEN

Guy’s nose was crushed. His eyes purple and swollen shut. His mouth gaped open, his chest heaving and rattling as he struggled for breath. “I have to get him to the hospital,” Jilo cried out, though her rational mind had already examined him in minute detail, had already done the calculations. Guy, this part of her mind stated plainly, was in his death throes. It was too late for hospitals. His lungs were filling with fluid. His abdomen had swollen, and he was most likely bleeding internally.

“He don’t need no hospital, girl,” Maguire said as the truck that had brought Guy tore off, spraying sandy soil over Guy’s supine form. “What he needs is what your friend the Beekeeper has to share with him. You take her magic into you, girl. She’ll give you what you need to fix that boy up.”

“Magic?” she felt the word roll off her tongue, a bitter pill she could neither spit out nor bring herself to swallow. “Are you mad? Why have you done this?” Another thought hit her, causing her heart to feel like it would explode from her chest. “Where is my son? You haven’t hurt him.” Her last words came out as a statement, a warning. No matter who this man was in the world, no matter what he owned or how much influence he held, she would take him apart, bit by bit, with her bare hands if he’d hurt her baby.

Maguire strode toward her, grinning down at her. He stuck out a foot and rested it against Guy’s side, using it to roll his battered body back and forth. “Not yet,” he said, then pulled back his leg and delivered a hard kick to Guy’s ribs. Jilo heard something snap. She leaped on top of Guy, using her own body to shield him from further harm. “But,” he continued, “if this fellow don’t mean enough to you for you to welcome the Beekeeper, we’ll start in on that little pansy friend of yours next. And if that don’t work, I’ll go fetch that knife of yours and start carving me up some of your little one’s tender dark meat.” Cupping his hand around his mouth, he looked up and called. “Bring ’em around, Thomas, so she can get a good look at them.”

Willy came around from the far side of the house, clutching Robinson for dear life. A young fellow, a near carbon copy of Maguire, followed behind them, training a revolver on Willy’s back.

“Jilo,” Willy cried. “Those men ran Mr. Poole’s car off the road. Mr. Poole, I think he’s dead. His head was bleeding, and he wouldn’t move. Not even when I shook him.”

The terror in the child’s eyes crushed her. Robinson began wailing, reaching out for her. She wanted to cry out, too. Howl. Tinker dead. Guy as good as. What chance did she and her boys have?

“Shut that thing up,” Maguire shouted, and the younger man reached forward and gave Willy a rough shove between the shoulder blades, causing him to lunge forward and almost stumble. “And while you’re at it, shut your own trap, too, boy.”

“It’s gonna be okay, baby,” Jilo called out, though she wasn’t sure if she meant the words for Robinson or Willy. Both of them, she realized. No help was coming. Jilo would have to do whatever it took to protect those she loved. “What do you want from me?” She looked up at Maguire, shaken to the core. “I’ll do anything. Just tell me what you want. I’ll do it. Please just leave us be.”

“I done told you what I want,” he squatted down next to her. “I’ve even gone to the trouble of summoning her. Now all you got to do is take her in.”

“I don’t understand what that means,” Jilo shook her head.

Maguire lifted up from his haunches and bent over her. Grabbing her wrist, he yanked her off Guy, the force of his effort lifting her several inches off the ground. He dropped her down onto her own two feet. “It’s always the same with you Wills women. Your grandmother. Her mother. Even her mother before that. The Beekeeper, she follows you around, attaching herself to you, though I’ll be damned if I can figure out why. She pours her magic out at your feet, and all you do is turn your noses up at it. You, my girl, you’re gonna accept her gift, and then you’re going to do me a little service.”

He spat on the ground, right next to Jilo’s foot. “I need her help. This body, should’ve known it was a weak one. Forty-two years old, and already it’s failing. Cancer.” He said the word as though it were an insult to his stature, to his manhood, even, as if it were a disease meant for those who were weaker, perhaps even less well-placed in society. “You and my son Thomas, here. You two are going to stop it from eating me alive. You two are going to help heal me. And as an incentive, if you move fast enough, you might just have enough time to fix what’s ailing him”—he nodded over at Guy—“too.”

After crossing the yard to his son, Maguire relieved the boy of the pistol. “Go on, you know what to do. Get started, and be quick about it.” As Thomas took off around the side of the house, Maguire wagged the pistol at Willy. “Come on, boy,” he said, “you look like you might be pretty fast. Why don’t you drop that little ape you’re holding and see if you can sprint out of here? I’ll even make it sporting. I’ll count to ten.” Willy looked first at him, then at Jilo, his eyes round with horror. He clutched Robinson even tighter, placing one hand behind the little one’s head, doing his best to shelter the boy from all that was going on around them. Jilo blessed the day Willy had followed Binah to her door. She was going to take care of him, take care of them both. She cast a glance in Guy’s direction. The truth was finally clear to her now, in this horrible moment—she would never share a life with this man, but she couldn’t let him die. Not like this. Not if she could help it. Especially since for once it looked like Guy was blameless; this mad buckra had only used him to get at her. If it were true this Beekeeper could heal Guy, Jilo would take care of him, too. She didn’t care what it might cost her.

The younger Maguire returned, holding a sword, one of those Confederate officer’s sabers she’d often seen carried by men dressed in Confederate gray and Kelly green as they marched in the Saint Patrick’s Day parade. He stripped down to the waist, then stabbed the sharp point of the saber’s slightly curved blade into the earth. He began cutting lines in the soil, his movements quick and practiced. Jilo knelt beside Guy, first tracing her hand along his brutalized cheek, then placing a hand on his still-rasping chest. “I’ll fix this,” she whispered into his ear. “I’ll make it right.”

She rose and began to cross to Willy and Robinson. “Uh-uh,” Maguire said, shaking his head. “No sweet reunions till we’re done here.” He took aim at Willy’s head. Jilo nearly jumped away from the boys. “You had your chance,” he said, addressing Willy. “Don’t go getting any ideas now.”

Maguire’s gaze softened. “Ironic really”—with those two words his tone changed from threatening to wistful—“that I’m reduced to using this popgun to keep you in line.” He sighed. “There was a time when I could have set loose the very hounds of hell on you, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. But what can I tell you? I cut the wrong ties. Backed the wrong side leading up to the war. A man lives. He learns. And now, well, you’re the first step toward helping me regain all I’ve lost.” Only then did Maguire lower the pistol, though Jilo figured the gesture was more for his own comfort than for any other reason.

She couldn’t bear to see the tears running down Willy’s cheeks, so she looked away. Her eyes fell on Thomas’s handiwork, all the while thinking how his movements as he carved up the earth reminded her of the Beekeeper’s dancelike stroll. She stepped far enough back to take in the larger picture. The young man had cut the symbol for infinity into the earth. Each of the two loops was around three, maybe three and a half feet in diameter. He drew a circular band around it, then began making long strokes, slices that came together to form an eight-pointed star.

When the final point had been joined, Thomas stopped and looked up at his father with an expression that seemed to combine great pride and expectation. His efforts had left his broad shoulders and taut chest glistening with sweat.

“Good boy,” Maguire said, then pointed with his free hand at the young man. “That,” he said, addressing Jilo, “is a good, strong body. I saw to it this time. Made sure the boy was disciplined, not soft and coddled like this body was raised to be.” He spoke as if he thought any of his rantings should make any sense to her. “And he’s going to share some of that strength with his father,” Maguire said, though his intonation told Jilo the words were meant as encouragement for his son, rather than for her own ears. “He’s going to share some of that glowing health, and once he’s got his old man set right, the two of us are going to go out and take over the world, aren’t we, my boy?”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas replied. “The whole damned world.”

Jilo remained silent, not daring to open her lips lest she begin screaming at Willy to run, to hold Robinson tight and run as swiftly as his long, strong legs could carry them.

“That’s my boy,” Maguire said, holding his free hand out to Thomas. “Bring me the saber, then take your place. Let’s get this finished.”

Thomas jogged to his father’s side, holding the sword out so that the elder Maguire could grasp its hilt. For a moment, Thomas turned his gaze on Jilo. The boy seemed so full of pride, so certain that this world was his birthright, his to carve and his to wound, his to rule or destroy, depending on his whim. He turned and strode into the inner circle, stationing himself in the left loop of the lopsided figure eight.

To Jilo’s surprise, Maguire held the saber out to her. “You’ll need this.” When she didn’t move, he shook the blade, angling its hilt toward her. “Good God, girl, come take it.”

She approached him with great care, fearful that at any moment he might swing the blade around and cut her down. Seeming to read her fears, he laid it down on the ground by his feet, then strode into the sign Thomas had cut into the wounded earth, entering the right loop of infinity. “Here, take this,” he said, holding the revolver out to Thomas. Once they had traded off the gun, Maguire reached out with his right hand and grasped his son’s left.

Jilo went to where the sword lay, looking down at its glinting blade. “What do I do with it?”

“Pick it up,” Maguire said, “and bring it to the edge of the sigil.” She hesitated. “The picture,” he gestured with his free hand to the design surrounding him.

A bit of anger broke through her wall of caution. “I know what a sigil is.”

“Then pick it up and get on with it. Come on, it’s a saber, not a rattlesnake.”

She bent over and grasped the hilt, lifted the sword from the ground. It was heavier than she’d imagined it would be, but she could still raise it high enough to cut this monster down, to put an end to both him and his seed. She wondered if she could find it in herself to drive it through his heart, and she decided that yes, to protect her own, she could. She could do it without a qualm. And if even the slightest of opportunity arose, she would. A wave of sadness descended on her—because of this man, she now had murder in her heart, something she’d never expected to find there.

“That’s it,” Maguire said, his voice rising, waxing eager. “Bring it over.”

Jilo glanced at the boys and tried to give them a calm, reassuring smile. Willy’s face showed he didn’t buy the story she was trying to sell. He stood there, nearly vibrating with the urge to flee. To save himself. To save Robinson. But Jilo knew that if he gave into that urge, his heart would cause him to remember her and hesitate. Then he would be lost, and probably her Robinson, too. She shook her head, signaling for him to hold on for just a bit longer. To have faith in her, even if in this moment, she, herself, was without faith.

She carried the sword to what she assumed was the base of the sigil.

“Stop,” Maguire said. “That’s far enough. Whatever you do, do not enter the circle drawn around us.”

“All right,” Jilo responded. “What now?”

“We’re almost there,” Maguire said, “almost done. All you have to do is say that you accept the Beekeeper’s magic.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes, then take the blade and run it across each of your palms. Gently. It’s very sharp, and we won’t need too much blood. Just a few drops. The cut is the opening through which her magic is gonna come into you. And the blood will seal the deal. You just make sure some of it gets on the lowest point of the star, there. Yep,” he said as her eyes fell to the ground, “that one there, right next to your foot. One hand on those two points where the lines intersect. That’s all I need from you. That’s it. You do that, and you can get on with patching up that fellow of yours. My son and I will get on out of here. You’ll never see hide nor hair of either of us again.”

In the distance she heard Guy cry out in agony, warning her that if she wanted to save her son’s father, the time for hesitation was over. She traced the blade across her left palm, wincing as the slightest pressure did indeed open a deep gash. Trembling, she repeated the action again with her right palm.
I accept the power
, she thought as she dropped the sword to the ground and knelt beside it. “I accept the power,” she spoke the same words aloud again, unsure whether she actually had to say them, or if thinking them was enough. She felt no change. No change at all.

“It has to come from your heart, girl,” Maguire called to her. “You have to want this in your heart. And you should, ’cause I promise you, if you don’t make this work, none of you are gonna walk away from this. I will take that sword and hack that boy of yours in half myself.”