Part 32 (1/2)

Savannah.

He had a dozen nicknames for her, but her name was beautiful. In his heart, that was who she'd always been.

”I will show you the notes to play, the notes they'll hear,” Enoch said. ”I'll play my own tool, and the notes will weave together and call to them, and they will rise.”

Zeke closed his eyes, feeling the trickle of his own blood along his fingers. Hope and horror were at war within him and he could not allow either to triumph, because either would defeat him. He thought of Anarosa and how beautiful she'd looked the first time she'd held Savannah in her arms. Anarosa had left this world behind, but it might just have been that the daughter they had both cherished was not yet out of reach. Holding the pipe with two fingers so his blood would dry, Zeke listened to Enoch go on.

”It'll take 'em eight or nine days to heal . . . to come back to themselves,” the hoodoo man said. ”They won't know you at first, but in time they'll start to recognize their surroundings and your faces. Till then, they'll follow your commands completely, as long as you play that pipe.”

The words chilled Zeke. The dead of October the twelfth would be like puppets until they began the final stage of transition from living to dead.

”What is it you're going to ask us to do, exactly?” Harry Boyd demanded. ”How the h.e.l.l is my son supposed to help you get your revenge?”

Enoch shot him an angry glance. ”Not only my revenge, but his own, Mr. Boyd.And I'll explain my price in due time. For the moment, just ask yourself this-is any price too dear?”

Boyd didn't look satisfied, and neither was Zeke, but they were in no position to argue-not if they wanted what Enoch had to offer.

”Now,” Enoch said, ”be careful not to smear the blood but put the pipes to your lips. Here are the notes you need to play.”

The little man's fingers moved smoothly over the pipe, covering and uncovering holes.The tune was simple but it took Zeke more than ten minutes to master it, and others took even longer, muttering in frustration as they fumbled with the pipes.As Zeke played the tune over and over, perfecting it, Harry Boyd's question echoed inside his mind, followed by one of his own.

Enoch stood by Mrs. Hawkins, showing her the notes more slowly until she seemed to have the tune.

”It can't really be this simple, bringing them back,” Mrs. Hawkins said.

”There is nothing simple about it,” Enoch replied. ”Now, all of you-play.”

One by one, the pipers began. The music was strange and discordant and haunting, lifted up by the strangely chilly breeze and spread throughout the cemetery. The branches of the trees trembled, and when Zeke s.h.i.+fted his stance, the sc.r.a.pe of gravel underfoot was impossibly loud.

”What's to stop us from not keeping up our end of the deal?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the pipers.

Lester stood next to him, already playing, and he shot Zeke a glance that seemed to take him to task, not for the question but for its timing. Zeke knew he ought to have waited, that only an idiot would telegraph a double-cross before they had what they wanted. But he wasn't going to gamble with Savannah's second chance.