Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel (38 page)

“I am happy, peanut. I am at that.
Hey, let’s have us a sing. How about it?”

“I know a song,” Emory squealed.

He hoisted her onto the table.

“Well sing it,” he laughed.

Emory stood primly, feet together,
and interlocked her hands before her, as though performing for a grand
audience. She began to sing, in an off-key voice:

“’Will
you grant me one sweet kiss, dear?’ says the Spider to the Fly,

‘If
once our lips did meet, a wager I would lay,

Of
ten to one you would not after let them come away.’

Tis
vanity that ever makes repentance come to late,

And
you who into cobwebs run, right well deserve your fate!

Now
all young folks take warning, by this foolish little fly,

The
spider’s name is Pleasure, and to catch you he will try;

For
although you may feel my advice is quite a bore,

You’ll
be lost if you stand parleying outside of Pleasure’s door.

Remember
oh remember the foolish little fly.”

When she had finished, Emory took
hold of the ends of her little dress and did an exaggerated curtsey.

Haddox clapped, and the Rider
followed suit.

“Ms. Altamont taught us that one,”
she informed, as she leapt down off the table. “It’s an English song.” She
turned to the Rider. “Ms. Altamont is an Englishwoman. From England. That’s
where London Bridge is.”

“I see,” said the Rider.

“How about another?” Haddox said. “One
more, then off to bed for everybody.”

Emory groaned.

“Now I mean it, you gotta get up for
school. Hey Nemmy, why’nt you sing that song you always sing when we ride up to
town?”

Emory’s eyes lit up and she looked
at Nehema as if for the first time.

“You
sing
?”

“You never heard her, honey? Well
that settles it. You gotta now, for Emory.”

Nehema barely smiled. She bowed her
head for a minute, and when she had gathered herself, sang. The Rider knew the
song before she even parted her lips.

Flow,
my tears, fall from your springs!

Exiled
for ever, let me mourn;
Where night’s black bird her sad infamy
sings,
There let me live forlorn.
Down vain lights, shine you no more!
No nights are dark enough for those
That in despair their lost fortunes
deplore.
Light doth but shame disclose.
Never may my woes be relieved,
Since pity is fled;
And tears and sighs and groans my weary
days
Of all joys have deprived.

From the highest spire of contentment
My fortune is thrown;
And fear and grief and pain for my
deserts
Are my hopes, since hope is gone.
Hark! you shadows that in darkness dwell,
Learn to condemn light
Happy, happy they that in hell
Feel not the world’s despite.

The Rider heard the pain in the sad
words, even through the operatic strains of Nehema’s wondrous voice. The sad
ballad seemed to fill the room. It threatened to push the walls out to
bursting. Emory laid her head in her father’s lap to listen, and the man
stroked his daughter’s hair and stared with adoring eyes at his wife.

Across the room, by the shelf, still
holding a dinner plate in his hand, the scrawny boy stared too, with a bestial
hunger in his eyes. He was furtive, and coiled, his knuckles stretched tight
over the plate in his hand, so tight the dish cracked in two.

No one saw but the Rider. Robert put
the broken dish on the bottom of the stack. He turned to the window and would
not look at her.

Something was wrong here. How could
a succubus deign to love, let alone marry Haddox? The Rider had come here to
free Nehema, the object of his secret obsessions, from some unknown tormentors,
but he had found her in the hands of what seemed to be a good man. A peaceful
man, too. Not the sort Nehema would run to for protection. Why hadn’t she
sought the Rider out? He felt a flare of jealousy deep in his chest again. What
was she doing here with him? Was she a prisoner or not? How could he ever find
out if these people were constantly around? There was no doubt in the Rider’s
mind that Haddox had no clue as to his wife’s true nature. Why was she here?

When the song was finished, the echo
of it hovered painfully over the Rider, a call for help only he could hear.

“Was that an English song?” Emory
asked.

“Yes,” said Nehema. “A very old
English song.”

“How come you don’t ever sing an
Arabee song, Nemmy?” she asked. “Ain’t you from Arabee? Ain’t they got songs in
Arabee?”

“You wouldn’t understand the words,”
Nehema said.

“Bed,” Haddox announced.

“Aww,” Emory said.

“Emory,” her father insisted.

“Alright.” She came over to the
Rider first, as he was closest, and he stooped to let her kiss his cheek. She
came away scratching her upper lip. “You ought to go to town and get a shave,
Uncle Rider,” she suggested.

“Emory,” Haddox hissed.

The Rider smiled.

She kissed her brother, and her
father, and then went to Nehema, who leaned forward to accept a kiss, with
apparent reluctance.

“Nemmy, maybe you could sing me an
Arabee song and teach me the words. I’d like to be able to speak Arabee, I
think.”

“Perhaps,” Nehema said.

“Tuck me in, Robert?”

“Alright,” said the boy, coming from
the window and walking out with her hanging on his leg.

“We ought to be getting to bed too,”
said Haddox.

“Of course,” said Nehema.

Haddox rose and stretched his arms.

“You’re welcome to the shed outside.
Or you can lay here on the kitchen floor, if you don’t care to head back to
town for the hotel, that is.”

“Either would be fine,” the Rider
said. “Thanks.”

Haddox nodded, yawned, and went to
the doorway to the bedrooms, slipping off his coat and letting his suspenders
fall.

He paused in the doorway, and saw
Nehema and the Rider both seated.

“Coming to bed, Nemmy?”

Nehema rose.

“Yes, of course. Good night, Rider.”

And without a word she followed him
out of the kitchen.

The Rider stood dumbstruck. Why hadn’t
she stayed to talk? He stood up, a little angry, and pushed the chair in.

What the hell was he doing here
anyway? Kabede had been right. He had been a fool to come, but not because it
was a trap, because Lucifer had played him for a fool. Nehema wasn’t being
tortured for her betrayal of Lilith, she was hiding out in plain sight,
settling down into a perfectly normal life. Who knew why? Perhaps she had just
decided to stay out of her mother’s way.

He went outside and stood on the
porch for a bit, watching the moonlight on the river. That was when he realized
his onager was gone. He went to the rail where he’d left the animal, and found
the frayed end of its lead hanging there.

Now
where had that stubborn jackass gotten off to?

He walked down the river, and went
up and down the bank for quite a while, thinking of Nehema more than looking
for the animal. The night grew cool though, and soon his thoughts went to his
bedroll, which was strapped to the animal’s back. Where had it gone?

He hiked back up to the house after
an hour’s search, having decided he would sleep on the kitchen floor and look
for the wayward animal in the morning.

Nehema was standing on the porch,
tightly wrapped in a multicolored afghan throw, through which her long white
nightgown showed. The breeze rustled her dark hair.

He stopped at the foot of the porch,
and she stepped down. She was barefoot. She walked past him without a word and
headed toward the woodyard.

He followed close, watching the
movements of her calf muscles, the stretching of her Achilles tendons, the sway
of her black hair down the middle of her back. His blood rose, boiled, and
thundered in his ears.

They walked in silence, and when
they reached the woodyard, she let the afghan fall from her shoulders,
discarding it. She turned a corner, kept walking. Now he could see the swell of
her hips, the darkness of her skin through the cotton shift, the bulge of her backside
as it alternately rose and fell from left to right.

They were deep in the woodyard now,
the dark total, the house hidden by the tall ricks. She lifted her hand to the
sides of her head, and undid the false wig. She drew it off her head, and the
moon shined on her smooth pate. Being a demoness, she was hairless, he knew.
Did Haddox know?

She slung the wig into the dark.

She walked on, her rounded shoulders
visible to him now, and the nape of her long neck, gazelle-like.

God
,
he thought.
God, what am I doing?

She came to a dead end in the wooden
maze. She walked to the stack at the end and made as if to climb it, putting
one bare foot up on a jutting pallet. But she stopped and looked over her
shoulder, the whites of her eyes and her shift almost all that could be seen.
Then one slim arm snaked down and drew up the hem of her garment into her fist,
unveiling herself midway to the small of her back.

She only stared.

He stopped.

He knew that if he took out his
spectacles and looked at her, he would see her true form, the repellant grey
hag she was.

Instead, he unbuttoned his
rekel
coat and walked slowly up behind
her.

He trembled, his eyes struggling to
penetrate the darkness, to see all that she displayed for him. The mystery made
it more irresistible.

He touched her. His hands went to
her shoulders, shaking. When his fingers closed on her, her hands went up and
gripped his. His breath came out in gasps. She moaned tantalizingly, and guided
his hands, pulled him closer, until his body was against hers. She arched her
back and moved, pressing herself against him, drawing his awkward angularness
against her round contours. She drew his hands to her chest, ran them over her
bosom, each of his fingers tracing her nipples through the fabric at her command.

Her back was against his chest, and
she let out a cry of pain. She let him go and pushed him away and put her own
back to the wood pile, some of the buttons of his shirt coming off in her
hands.

He blinked, as if in a haze. His
shirt was untucked and open, and the Solomonic talismans shined in the dark.

“Your talismans,” she whispered.

He mechanically grabbed a fistful of
them and snapped the chords that suspended them from his neck. He let them
clink to the ground.

She was smiling. He could see her
grin flashing between her lips as she eased herself onto the woodpile, her
knees drawn up, a void of deep shadow opening beneath the shift, between her
legs. He drew close again, tearing the bodyguards and talismans from his neck
as he came. He had worn them so long. When they fell away he felt light, as if
he could leap to her. He did.

She pulled him close, nipped wetly
at his neck, her breath hot against his chest, her fingernails digging into his
skin.

This was what he wanted. What he’d
wanted since he’d dreamed of her that restless night in Tip Top.

Her flesh was warm and smooth
against his. He held her head in his hands, kissed her savagely on the lips,
parting them with his hungry tongue and finding her’s just as eager. He sucked
at the cleft of her chin. She giggled and moaned, squeezing her knees against
either side of him, crossing her ankles behind his back.

He grabbed her hips violently and
crushed her against him. One of her arms slid around his neck and grabbed a
fistful of his hair, pulling his face against her chest. He mopped at her neck
with his tongue, worked his face beneath the cotton. Her other hand moved down
his heaving chest and gripped his belt.

“Do you want me?” she hissed hotly
in his ear.

“Yes,” he gasped, his voice muffled
by her breasts. He felt afire, and her skin was cooling in the night. She could
staunch his burning if he could only plunge into her.

“I knew you would come. Take me,
Rider.
Save
me.”

He bit into her shoulder and she
squealed, rolling her neck in abandon and her other hand joined the first. His
gunbelt fell to his feet.

“How I’ve suffered, Rider,” she said
breathlessly “You don’t know the torture. The hell I have been through. Worse
even than the hell into which I was born.
Oh
!”

He thrust against her, eager. So
eager. He had lived the life of a monk for too long. What good was all this
self-righteous denial?
Shomer negiah!
All these stupid rules he had bound his life to. In the back of his mind he
knew she was not the same woman he had seen once in a marketplace. But that
fleeting glimpse, the smile that unknown woman had given him then. She had been
the
woman for so many years. Her
image and the personality he had imagined for her had somehow kept him going.
In his loneliest moments, when he had felt inhuman and detached, the pleasant
glance she had afforded him that one instant had kept him sane. Instead of the
life he led, he had crafted and lived a life with her, a life of love, a home,
and children. Now, illusion though she was, that woman was here before him,
entangled with him. It was pathetic, he knew. But he didn’t care.