Part 25 (1/2)

The woman wore a stained buckskin skirt, fringed at the bottom, a blue blouse, and a bead-and-sh.e.l.l necklace around her neck. I could not tell her age. She might have been thirty or fifty. Although her body seemed strong, her face was deeply lined, and her eyes were dark with sorrow. The boy wore dark wool pants, moccasins, and a red print s.h.i.+rt. His bright eyes warily watched Vanderslice as he worked on the meat.

As I drew closer, I could see that what was being turned on the spit was the torso of a man.

”Knew you'd come,” Vanderslice said to me, throwing another strip of meat to the whackers. ”Women are just dying to meet me.”

”I come because of the Russian girl.”

His hand went to the pocket with the missing b.u.t.ton.

”So . . . what they say about you is true,” Vanderslice said. ”You do talk to the dead. What did pretty, stupid, dead little Anna have to say?”

”That you betrayed and then killed her.”

”But of course,” Vanderslice said. ”I sold my soul to Malleus.”

”I hope it was worth it.”

”He'll give me you,” he said. ”He'll kill you, in the end. But before he does, he'll turn you over to me. And you'll be sorry that you were so rude to me on the street in Dodge City.”

”I think not.”

”I'm guessing you're not here alone,” Vanderslice said, his eyes darting over the creek. ”But I reckon we'll find out who and how many soon enough.”

”Is that Castor Adams?” I asked.

”The same,” he said. ”One of the boys did wrong in killing him, but it seemed a shame to let the meat go to waste.”

He carved another slice, but instead of throwing it to the whackers, he took a bite. He chewed, then offered it to me.

”Hungry?”

”Not now,” I said.

”Oh, it ain't half bad,” he said. ”I don't see what all the fuss was, with the Donner Party and old Alfie Packer. Meat is meat. We're all animals, right? Seems to me, a good many human animals would be of more use as vittles anyhow.”

He threw the rest of the slice to the whackers. One of them jumped and caught it in his mouth.

”Is Malleus here?”

”In the temple,” Vanderslice said, jerking his head back to the ruins.

”Call him out,” I said. ”I want my soul's shadow back.”

Vanderslice laughed. ”That ain't going to happen,” he said. ”Old Malleus is very particular about those s.h.i.+ny bits of stuff that he keeps in a bag on his belt. It's where his power comes from. He reaches up through the solar plexus and s.n.a.t.c.hes them from people. He keeps the bigger and brighter ones, like yours. The others, the dull ones, he uses to turn wolves into whackers.”

”So they're not werewolves.”

”Just the opposite,” Vanderslice said. ”Weremen.”

”That's why they go back to wolves when you kill them,” I said.

”My, you do catch on.”

”But what about Shadrach?”

”Oh, he was a real man, all right,” Vanderslice answered. ”Not much of a man, I'll grant you. Old Malleus had quite enough of his stupidity after he busted another wheel, so he shot him with somebody else's aura. When that happens, it's like two bottles of nitroglycerin being smashed together-kaboom!-it blows your whole chest apart.”

”That's what Malleus uses that antique pistol on his belt for.”

”It's good that you're still dressed for a funeral,” Vanderslice said, and smirked. ”Because the next one's going to be your own.”

Then something stirred deep in the ruins Vanderslice called the temple, and I could see a shadow walking up the stairs. I was expecting Malleus, but what emerged, instead, into the daylight was a woman wearing a black silk robe, open to the waist, with nothing beneath. She was about my age-and was nearly my image in every other respect.

Her face was smeared with red ochre, and abalone baubles dangled from her earlobes. She moved with an animal grace, like a lazy housecat walking across a porch warmed by the sun. The whackers seemed both excited and repelled by her; and even though they scrambled back out of her way, their hungry eyes locked on her body.

”Whiskey trader, you talk too much,” the woman said.

”I was only-”

”Shut up,” the woman said. Her voice had the same odd accent that I had detected in Malleus's voice.

”I should have let Malleus cut out your tongue long ago. How much have you told her? Oh, never mind. I'm going to a.s.sume everything.”

The woman walked over to me and smiled. She reached out with a cold hand and lifted my chin.

”Now we see through a gla.s.s, darkly.”

It was Katie Bender.

32.

The woman took my left hand in hers and pulled me toward the stone steps leading down into the shadows, but I resisted.

”Come along,” she said. ”You came here to see Malleus, didn't you?”

”Yes,” I said, and stumbled after her. I looked over my shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of Calder striding across the gravel bar, but there was nothing but woods and water.

”I've been feeling you for a long while,” the woman said. ”Years, in fact. Always at the edge of my consciousness, like a half-remembered dream when daylight comes. But here you are in the flesh, at last.”

”What should I call you?”

”Ah, there's a problem,” she said, stopping. She leaned close and cupped a hand around my ear, brus.h.i.+ng away the hair. ”Don't call me 'Katie,' because that is a weak and diminutive form of my name. But your modern tongue would break itself in attempting to p.r.o.nounce 'Aikaterini.'”

”What language is that?”

”Ancient Macedonian.”