[Oxrun Station] The Last Call of Mourning (11 page)

A certainty then: If she dared to turn around, if she dared move her head to look back over her shoulder, the glaring dead eyes of the lurking Greybeast would pin her to the blackening fog as surely as knives piercing her skin. It would grumble softly at her, taunting, teasing, daring, winking at a slim possibility of escape with a slight inclination that would send her scurrying toward the door before it snarled into life.

And again: The
something
she had sensed in the house before had returned, or had never left, and she understood now why she had always dismissed it—the other times, however many there had been, she had only been on the periphery of its presence. But now, this time, it was directed right at her.

It wasn't the Greybeast.

It was—

A bright light flashed in her face.

She leapt back, one hand thrown up to protect her eyes, the other extended behind her to grope wildly for the wall. And through the gap in her fingers she saw something dark, something black, sweep past the spot where her head had been.

The light dropped to a pool on the library floor, and she heard someone running across the carpet.

She looked quickly to her left and up, ducked barely in time to avoid being struck. A nightbird. She saw the lightning glint of one eye, the stab of its beak, the reach of its talons before it vanished into the fog.

"Cyd!"

Still crouching, not quite kneeling at the base of the wall, she saw Ed framed in the library doors, saw him jabbing at the black with his flashlight, futilely, helplessly, until the bird sprang from his blind side and he reeled back inside. Quickly, then, she was on her feet and running, one hand up in a fist to punch at the air, the other reaching for Ed as he tripped over a footstool and tumbled onto his back.

The fog moved into the house, and the lights were gone.

Ed swore as her hand grabbed his and yanked him to his feet, swore again when the bird darted overhead and its talons took a piece of his temple with it.

"The hall," she shouted, pulling him behind her as she thrashed through the obstacles the furniture threw up before her.

The bird dove again.

She felt a tearing at her shoulder and pushed at it angrily, shoved Ed out of the room and slammed the door shut. Leaned against it, panting, perspiration in rivulets dripping from her chin. The scarf somehow wound back around her throat, choking until she yanked it off and tossed it aside.

A loud
thud
against the door, the sound of something dropping to the floor.

Ed switched on the hall lights in their sconces and stared at her, his chest swelling as he fought for the too-warm air, blood seeping along his cheek to gleam on his shoulder.

"Damn," he said.

And with the word Cyd realized that during the entire attack, from the moment the nightbird had appeared outside, not one sound had uttered, not a cry had been voiced.

The
whispering . . .
stopped.

She knew that reaction would not be long in coming, fought to delay it by taking Ed's hand and pulling him into the kitchen where she sat him at the table without him protesting. Then she snatched a clean dish towel from one of the cabinet drawers and soaked it in cold water, wrung it out and began to sponge the blood from his face. He shrank away at the first touch, closed his eyes and endured as she swabbed his cheek clean, the hair and flesh around the gashes at his temple. They were less deep than the blood-letting made them appear, and for that she was grateful. She did terrible on the other side of the door, and she opens it anyway because she hasn't got the brains to run the other way. But," and she reached out, took hold of the knob, "I've got to know. And if it's still in there, it can't surprise us anymore."

"Whatever you say," Ed said. He looked around him for something to grab, then motioned her to wait while he returned to the kitchen and brought back a chair, hefting it by his shoulder like an awkward club.

He nodded. Once. Sharply.

With one swift move she flung the door open and leapt back to the wall, Ed stiffening, his eyes automatically raised to the ceiling. But nothing attacked them, nothing flew out, and the black fog in the library was gone, the lamps burning softly as though the house were normal and December a comfort. Cyd edged into the room then, frowning as she searched the upper reaches of the bookshelves, the tops of the oils, for signs of a shadow, a movement . . . anything. Slowly, she side-stepped across the carpet toward the French doors, took one quick look outside before pulling them to and throwing the latch and the bolt.

Ed set the chair down at the threshold, moved to his left, looked down and stopped. "Here," he said quietly.

"Is it dead?"

"Come see for yourself."

"I really . . . just wrap it in something. I don't want to see it."

"You'd better," he insisted.

"Please. Ed, I've had enough."

"Cyd, if I tell you about this later, you're not going to believe it. You'd better come over here and see what I see. At least, I think I see it."

Intrigued, and revolted, she walked cautiously toward him, her eyes not wanting to lower their gaze, lowering it anyway until she saw the huge crow lying against the baseboard. From the angle of its neck she knew it was broken, looked immediately to the back of the door and saw a deep gouge where it had struck there head on; then she looked back down again, spun away to grip the arm of a chair.

"Impossible," she said.

"Sure it is. Impossible put this mess on my face and tore a hole in your coat."

Her hand jumped to her shoulder where she felt the ragged gap.

"But it couldn't be," she said, without turning around. "Ed, it only has one wing."

"I still say we should have kept it and brought it in to Abe."

"Oh sure, just like that. Say Abe, we have something to show you. Seems that we were attacked by a one-armed bird that tore a hunk from my friend's face here and ripped my coat to shreds. It crashed into a library door and killed itself. Sure. Just like that."

"Wing."

"What?"

"It's a wing, not an arm."

"For God's sake, Ed!"

"All right, all right, but I'd still like to know how it did that."

"So would I, believe me, but right now I have something else to do. I have to find out exactly what my father's up to, and since he's not talking, there's only one other person who can help. Then, Ed, we'll take care of that bird. But not before."

"You're saying it's connected."

"I'm saying that it's just after nine o'clock on a Thursday evening and I feel like I've been up for twenty-four hours straight and I'm tired and I'm sore and I'll be damned if I'll be stampeded into doing something stupid."

"Assuming this isn't stupid."

"One thing at a time, Ed. One piece at a time."

"You know, for someone who's just nearly been nailed by the impossible, you're acting awfully calm."

"Don't you believe that for a minute, Ed Grange. Don't you believe it for a minute."

They drove the Pike carefully, Cyd watching the road grey under the headlights and vanish, an endless stream of transformation that made her drowsy despite the fact that she continued to replay the scene at the house so often it was becoming mechanical, flat, devoid of the terror that had engulfed, then left her. She knew that Ed was right, that they should be doing something about the bird, learning how, why, a dozen other questions that fought for priority when she let go the reins. But she could not. Dared not.

You should leave, you know, a persistent thought nagged her. You're just like that heroine you laughed at before, opening the door when you know there're monsters on the other side.

Could not.

Dared not.

No matter that her family had shut her out, no matter they had excluded her from the struggle to survive—they were, after all, her family at the end. Vain, foolish, stubborn . . . whatever. They were her family, and she would not leave them.

Whether they wanted her or not, she would not leave them.

She was about to attempt an explanation for Ed when he grunted and turned a final corner, a block south and east of the Oxrun hospital, and she pointed quickly to a small, ranch-style home. It was set back from its neighbors and surrounded as far as she could tell by an evergreen hedging carelessly trimmed in vaguely circular shapes. The lawn was unkempt, the concrete walk to the front stoop cracked here and there. But comfortable rather than decrepit, she thought; her mother would have said it had that lived-in look. The house's appearance was certainly not for Angus Stone's lack of clients, or his fees. Had he wanted, he could easily have lived beyond the park himself; but she knew him well enough to understand that he placed great store in living with himself as well as having something solid to leave to his grandchildren, that something being a  small,   impressive  fortune   in  well-invested bonds and real estate in other parts of the country.

When she knocked on the door there was no immediate response, though a light glowed softly behind the front window's white-backed drapes. Ed stood beside her, obviously feeling out of place, and she took his hand to squeeze it. When he grimaced she grinned, and the door suddenly opened.

Stone was startled, recovered not quite fast enough that she didn't miss the expression. He was portly, short, his hair reduced to a close-cropped halo of lingering brown. Where in youth his face had been round from cheek to nose to chin, now it was slowly falling in upon itself and creating hollows where none had existed before, crevices where wrinkles had been, accenting the too-wide eyes that glinted when he finally recognized her. And had it not been for the animation that sparked him, he could have been called ugly, perhaps even grotesque.

"My dear," he said with a glance to his wristwatch. "My dear Cynthia." He reached out to take her hand, paused in the movement when he saw Ed beside her. "Eddie! My goodness, a convention, my dear? Ah well, then it's obvious you haven't come by just to share a cuppa with me."

Cyd followed him inside, amazed as always at the incredible amount of furniture and bric-a-brac he had managed to cram into every inch of space, and she almost laughed aloud at the thought that he probably spent hours every day trying to arrange some marvelous way he could use the ceiling as well for his myriad collections. She took the nearest chair, a Boston rocker, and waited patiently while the lawyer pointed out to a bemused Ed the various displays of porcelain and china figurines that ranged from a hundred breeds of dogs to Thai temple dancers to the small fireplace mantel over which he had taped and tacked framed photographs of himself with dozens of Senators, a handful of Presidents, Station council members, and lifetime directors of the world's financial community.

And when finally they were settled—Ed in a Queen Anne brocade in royal blue, Stone on the deacon's bench in front of the window—she opened her eyes and stared at him.

"The store's doing well, or so I hear," he said, a familiar tic marking a corner of his mouth.

"It's only been four days, Angus."

"A good sign, nevertheless," he answered with a wave. "I hear talk, you know. People are impressed. You won't make a fortune, my dear, but you won't starve either." He turned quickly back to Ed, a slight frown on his face. "Did you two have a fight, or was it a door you ran into," he said, pointing at the patch.

Ed shrugged; the frown deepened.

"Angus," she said before Stone could press further, "you were speaking of fortunes." She kept her voice low; there was no need to force him.

"Yes, well, I was wondering when you'd come to me about that. Of course, I'd hoped things would work out differently. A pity. But I admit to being surprised, Eddie, that you've become involved."

"I wasn't, until tonight," he said. "Things just sort of . . . happened."

Stone waited for an explanation, looking from one to the other until he understood there was none forthcoming. He grinned weakly, pushed back on the bench and pulled from his tweed jacket pocket a meershaum that he placed between his lips and drew on dryly, left it hanging to talk around it.

"Oh come on, Angus," Cyd said impatiently. "They're not going to tell me, so you might as well. I guessed this morning about the jewels and things, and I know now about all the other stuff."

"What stuff?" he said.

"You know, the library, the things Father's sold."

"Ah yes. Of course." He began rubbing a thumb absently along the side of the pipe bowl. "You know, Cynthia, I'm not really sure I should be talking to you after all, since you've not spoken to your parents yet ... at least, you've not had them tell you exactly what's going on. I don't think it's my place—"

"Your place," she said quickly, very nearly harshly, "is to protect the family, Angus, and give us advice when we need it. Well, I'm needing it, and I need it now! I'm being prevented from having information I must have."

"Why?"

"Why?" She looked to Ed, who was staring at his hands clasped in his lap. "Why? Because I'm family, Angus, that's why. What affects my brothers, my mother, my father, has to affect me. And this is certainly not something that's not going to reach me sooner or later."

Stone brushed at invisible ashes on his chest, tugged at an earlobe while he stared at her thoughtfully. "You're right, of course. At least, I think you are. I'm just not sure that your father wouldn't want to tell you himself."

"Angus, he had plenty of opportunities this morning, believe me. And like an idiot, I took his word for something and let it go, thinking I would get to him tonight. But he's not home. No one is."

"Well . . ."

"Angus, how bad is it?"

His expression was blank.

A clock chimed the half-hour on the mantel.

"Very bad," he said finally. "Very bad indeed. There are, of course, some things that not even I am privy to, but I think your father would not argue the point if I told you that he is very close to filing for bankruptcy."