Mister Slaughter Part 31

Matthew knew she'd be after him, Noggin or not. He flung himself into the chamber, fell onto his knees, and there through his pain-hazed vision saw the depth of Mrs. Sutch's pleasure.

Hanging from the ceiling beams in this dirt-walled room, along with a few blood-spattered lanterns, were a half-dozen chains each ending in a sharp iron hook about five feet off the floor. Items impaled on some of these hooks looked at first to be nothing more than marine creatures from the deep brought up in a fisherman's net: here twisted blue coils like an aquatic worm, there a gleaming ma.s.s like a crimson skate, here a grayish-purple fist-sized lump with cords dangling down like the tendrils of a jellyfish. Two buckets full of blood stood beneath a wooden trough, within which lay a ferrago of gore and matter that was best not too closely examined. The chamber's smell was also nautical, of sea brine and low tide. On the floor very near Matthew were, oddly enough, a pair of bare feet chopped off at the ankles, a pair of wrinkled hands and beside them the white-haired decapitated head of an elderly mermaid, her eyes half-open as if groggily awakening from sleep and her gray lips pressed tight to keep a secret.

The widow Ford had come to pieces in here. An extra bit of spice, to be added to the next batch of sausage.

Matthew stared at the hanging internals, which were swinging ever so slightly. He thought it was very economical that Mrs. Sutch used all the body as she did. All the organs, as well as the meat. Bone marrow too, most likely. Didn't want to get the nails into the mix, though. Or the teeth. The head was probably due to be cracked last, for the brains. Then everything into the pot along with the pork, and after the sausages were shaped and cased they went into the smokehouse. Very economical of her, very efficient.

He thought he could lose his mind, kneeling here before this altar of evil.

With a shriek of rage Mrs. Sutch hurtled into the room. She lifted her axe, and when it fell it cleaved deep into Matthew's head.

Or, rather, the head he'd picked up from the floor, which had belonged to the widow Ford and which Matthew had thrust up in front of his own to take the blow.

Mrs. Sutch saw she'd chopped the wrong head and began to try to fling it off the axeblade, but it was stuck tight. She beat the head against the floor, to no avail. Then she gave a scream of frustration, put her foot upon it and pushed, adding indignity to the sorry fate of the widow Ford. As Mrs. Sutch was so occupied, Matthew crawled to one of the buckets of blood and took hold of it. He struggled to his feet against the ache of his bruised stones and threw the gore full into her face.

Spitting blood that was not her own, her face, hair and the front of her gown streaming crimson, Mrs. Sutch dropped the axe and the head it was buried in. She staggered back into the pa.s.sageway, her hands up to clear her eyes. For good measure Matthew flung the bucket at her, but she was already moving and the bucket only crashed into the wall where she'd been.

Matthew knew she wasn't done. He knew also that she'd gone to find something else to kill him with. He looked around and saw a second axe leaning against the trough, this one with a b.l.o.o.d.y blade. The handyman's tool. But where the h.e.l.l was was Noggin? Matthew heard Mrs. Sutch shout for him again, her ragged voice carrying the high note of desperation. She knew, as well as Matthew did, that if Noggin wasn't here by now he wasn't coming. Noggin? Matthew heard Mrs. Sutch shout for him again, her ragged voice carrying the high note of desperation. She knew, as well as Matthew did, that if Noggin wasn't here by now he wasn't coming.

Matthew picked up the axe. He turned to face the doorway, the pain at his groin forcing him into a crouch.

When Mrs. Sutch returned, her face a dripping bloodmask, she was gripping in each hand a knife from her collection.

"I don't want to kill you," Matthew said. He held the axe up.

If she feared the blade, she gave no sign of it. She feinted once, trying to get him to commit, but he stood his ground. "You're in your grave," she whispered, as her knives carved the air between them. "In your grave. Oh yes, in your grave." Her eyes were fixed upon his, both daring and taunting him. She s.h.i.+fted two steps to the left and then came back to the right. "In your grave," she repeated. "Yes, you are. In your-"

She leaped at him, the knives flas.h.i.+ng.

Matthew had no time to think, only to react. Neither did he have time to aim. He just struck out with the axe, as Mrs. Sutch slashed at his face with one knife and at his throat with the other.

Before she could get to him, there was a crunching sound. Mrs. Sutch gave an animalish grunt and was flung away. She fell down in the wet red dirt. She blinked, her eyes wide with shock and perhaps more than a touch of madness. Then she began to try to get up once more, but her left arm was no longer a working part of her body.

"Stay down," he told her.

She was on her knees. She stared at the knife in her right hand, as if drawing strength from it. Then, shaking with either rage or pain, she got up on her feet.

"Don't," Matthew said, the axe ready again.

But he knew she was coming. She had pa.s.sed beyond the human state, into a creature that must kill to survive. At that moment Matthew thought of the monster's tooth in McCaggers' attic. A supreme carnivore A supreme carnivore, McCaggers had said. Formed for the function of both destruction and survival. Formed for the function of both destruction and survival.

Both she and Slaughter were of the same breed, Matthew thought. Formed for the same function. Kill or be killed.

He watched as she came toward him, but slowly now, with a terrible silence. The blade was thrust forward; the monster's tooth was seeking flesh. He retreated, brus.h.i.+ng past the chains with their hanging pieces of meat.

She was now the full creation not of G.o.d, but of Professor Fell. Whatever the professor was, he had the power to take the raw clay of humanity and mold it into something monstrous.

The monster's tooth. Evidence of what G.o.d had told Job, about the behemoth and the leviathan.

G.o.d spoke to Job from the whirlwind, McCaggers had said. He told Job to gird up his loins like a man, and face what was to come He told Job to gird up his loins like a man, and face what was to come.

I will demand of thee, He said He said.

Mrs. Sutch attacked with a sudden burst of speed and ferocity, her teeth gritted, her eyes wild in the b.l.o.o.d.y face, the knife seeking Matthew's heart.

Matthew swung the axe. Even as the blade tore into flesh and broke bone, Matthew was aware that the knife had pierced his waistcoat and s.h.i.+rt because he felt the point of the monster's tooth pressed against his skin, felt it poised to bite into his guts but quite suddenly its power was gone.

Mrs. Sutch had lost the knife, and she was falling backward. All of her head was no longer there. She fell into the chains and staggered against the trough and then slid down to the floor, where her body quivered and her legs shook in a hideous palsied dance.

Incredibly, she put her remaining good hand to the floor and looked to be trying to get up again, and she lifted her misshapen head toward him and gripped her fingers into the dirt in an attempt to crawl. The expression of pure, cold hatred on her face riveted Matthew.

It said, Don't think you've won, little man Don't think you've won, little man. Oh no Oh no for I am the least of what is ahead for you for I am the least of what is ahead for you She drew a terrible, shuddering breath, and then he saw her eyes cloud over and her face freeze. Her head pitched forward but her fingers dug deeper into the dirt-once, twice, and a third time-before they stilled. Her hand stayed twisted into a claw.

For a long time, Matthew could not move. Then, at last, the full impact that he had killed another person hit him, and he hobbled out of the cellar next to Noggin's wagon and threw up until he was just heaving and gasping, but never in all this distress did he let go of the axe.

Matthew unb.u.t.toned his waistcoat and opened his s.h.i.+rt. The blade had given him a shallow bite across his ribs about two inches long, but it wasn't so bad. Not as bad as Mrs. Sutch had intended. His groin, though, was a more painful subject. He would think himself lucky if he could walk tomorrow.

But Slaughter was on his way to kill Nathaniel Powers. To settle an account for Professor Fell. Matthew thought he might have trouble walking tomorrow or the next day, but somehow he was going to have to gird up his loins enough to climb on his horse and ride to Nicholsburg, to find some help. It would be an unlucky farmer who answered his door tonight. First, though, there was a box in the cellar that needed to be opened.

After this mess was sorted out, he was going to have to ride south, to the Carolina colony, and get to Nathaniel Powers before Slaughter did.

Matthew leaned against the wagon, waiting for his head to clear and his nerves to settle. That might take a while. He looked at the empty coffin, and at the shovel lying there in the back.

Something was missing, he realized.

It was the d.a.m.nedest thing.

Where was the pickaxe?

Thirty-One.

A solitary rider came along the road, under the gray November sky. The road went straight between young trees. At its end stood a red brick two-story plantation house with white trim, white shutters and four chimneys. On either side of the road, beyond the trees, were the tobacco fields, brown and barren now until April. The solitary rider reined his black horse in for just a moment, while his gaze swept across the landscape, and then he continued on his chosen path.

He was a well-dressed gent, on this cold and somber morning. He wore tan-colored breeches, white stockings, polished black boots, a dark blue waistcoat and a dark blue jacket overlaid with a design of paisley in lighter blue. On his head was a tasteful white wig, not too ostentatiously curly, and atop that a black tricorn. Black gloves, a black cloak and a white cravat completed his carefully-crafted attire.

He had just come from the Gentleman's Rest Tavern and Inn in Kingswood, where he'd spent the past two nights. They knew him there as Sir Fonteroy Makepeace, aide to Lord Henry Wickerby of the Wickerby estate near Charles Town. This t.i.tle had also appeared in the very formal letter sent from Sir Makepeace by way of a young courier from Kingswood to the door of the plantation house now drawing nearer. Such was the communications of one gentleman to another, and the privileges of breeding.

As Sir Makepeace rode his horse along the drive, a groom who'd been notified to expect the visitor saw him coming and emerged from his small brick watchhouse that stood alongside the main entrance. He went up the front steps to alert the other servants by using the bra.s.s door knocker cast in the shape of a tobacco leaf, and then he hurried to bring over a footstool and hold it steady as Sir Makepeace dismounted. The groom offered to take the gentleman's horse around to the barn, but Sir Makepeace said it wouldn't be necessary, that his business would only take a short while and it was fine to just keep the animal here.

The groom gave a respectful bow and said As you wish, Sir Makepeace. As you wish, Sir Makepeace.

"Good morning, Sir Makepeace," said the rather stocky, balding servant who came down the steps to meet him. Climbing the steps to the front door appeared to be a bit hard on Sir Makepeace, if anyone was watching. He brought a cloth from his waistcoat pocket and blotted some beads of sweat that had risen on his face. Then he put the cloth away, looked back to make sure the groom was standing firm with his horse, and allowed the servant to usher him inside.

A servant-girl came forward to take Sir Makepeace's cloak, hat and gloves, but he said, "I'll keep these for the while, miss. I'm rather cold-natured." She gave him a polite smile and a quick curtsy.

"Mr. Powers' office is this way, please," said the male servant, motioning up the staircase.

Sir Makepeace looked up the stairs. His face showed just the slightest ripple of unease.

"Men usually keep their offices on the lower floor," said Sir Makepeace.

"Yes sir, that may be true," the servant answered, "but Lord Kent has given Mr. Powers an office on the upper level, so that he might always have a view of the fields."

"Ah." Sir Makepeace nodded, though his smile did not completely take hold. "My business is with Mr. Powers, but is Lord Kent in residence?"

"No sir, Lord Kent is currently in England and shall not be back before summer. This way, if you please."

Sir Makepeace followed the servant up the stairs and to a closed door on the right side of the house. The servant knocked, there was a m.u.f.fled, "Come in," and the servant opened the door for Sir Makepeace's entry. He closed it as soon as the visitor had crossed the threshold.

Sir Makepeace gave the office a quick once-over. It was richly appointed, with cowhide chairs, a brown leather sofa, and in the corner to his right a gold-and-black lacquered Chinese screen. A chandelier holding six lanterns hung from the ceiling. The desk was on the far side of the room, where a man in his mid-fifties, with dark brown hair gone gray at the temples, had removed his reading spectacles and risen from his chair. "Mr. Powers?" said Sir Makepeace, as he walked across a red carpet toward the desk.

"Yes," Nathaniel Powers replied. Since leaving his position as magistrate in New York he'd grown a gray goatee that his wife, Judith, actually thought was quite handsome. Behind him a pair of windows looked out upon the fields, and to his right a second set of windows offered another view of the fields that included several of the plantation's workbuildings.

"A pleasure to meet you," Sir Makepeace said. He removed his gloves as he approached. "I much appreciate your taking the time to see me, as I have business to conduct."

"I a.s.sumed so. I must say, though, I'm not familiar with Lord Wickerby or the Wickerby estate."

"No matter. I have here an item concerning an old account of yours that needs to be settled. To be polished off, you might say." With a frozen smile, Sir Makepeace reached into his waistcoat.

"Mister Slaughter," came a voice from behind him that caused the rest of him to freeze. "Please keep your hands at your sides."

The n.o.bleman turned slowly toward the source of his irritation. Matthew had emerged from his concealment behind the Chinese screen, and he stood halfway between it and Tyranthus Slaughter.

"Pardon me," said the n.o.bleman, with an air of bewilderment. "Do I know you?"

Matthew kept his own hands behind him. He was relaxed, but not lax in his a.s.sessment of his foe. Slaughter was carrying a knife or pistol-possibly both-within his waistcoat. Either one of his boots could be hiding a blade. He might even have a knife under that d.a.m.ned wig. But it was clear that Slaughter was somewhat diminished from their last meeting. Slaughter's face was gray and puffy, with dark hollows beneath his eyes. Sweat sparkled at his temples. Matthew wondered if Walker's arrows had not done the job on him, after all, and Slaughter's blood was poisoned. Still the most dangerous beast was one that was both wounded and trapped.

"Lyra Sutch is dead," Matthew told him. "I have the ledger book of Professor Fell's accounts to be settled." He saw Slaughter flinch on that one. "Your career has ended, sir. The man who is standing outside that door has a pistol, and so does the groom who took your horse. Of course we weren't sure who Sir Fonteroy Makepeace actually was, so we had to let you come up." He did not say that Powers' office was usually downstairs, and that this was Lord Kent's bedroom, redecorated. The point had been to get Slaughter further away from an exit, if only to underscore the difficulty of escape.

"Mr. Powers?" Slaughter lifted his hands, as if to beg a question. "Is this young gentleman mad mad?"

Powers looked from Slaughter to Matthew and back again. "I have complete faith in his judgment. He intends to take you to New York, but from what he's told me about you over the last few days, I would have shot you as soon as you walked through the door."

"Really?" The gentlemanly veneer of Sir Fonteroy Makepeace cracked, and peering out with narrow, red-rimmed eyes and a half-snarl was a monster who had perhaps been born long before the small sound of a rat biting a bone in a Swansea coal mine. "But I don't see that he has a gun gun, sir, or anything else with which to take me anywhere anywhere I don't wish to go." I don't wish to go."

"Well, actually," Matthew said, and brought from behind his back the three-barreled black rotator pistol that Oliver Quisenhunt had been kind enough to loan him when he'd returned to Philadelphia to ask for it, "I do."

Slaughter moved.

He lowered his shoulder and like a charging bull smashed through the wood frame and gla.s.s squares of the window to his left. Matthew pulled the trigger, aiming at Slaughter's legs. A ragged-edged hole exploded in the wall, but through the billowing smoke Matthew saw the killer leap into s.p.a.ce.

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"My G.o.d! My G.o.d!" Powers was shouting. The door burst open and the servant, Doyle by name, came rus.h.i.+ng in with his pistol drawn. Matthew got to the aperture where the window had been in time to see Slaughter below him, sliding down the sloped roof of the outbuilding on which he'd landed. His tricorn and white-curled wig were tumbling down behind him. Then Slaughter dropped to the ground, staggered and nearly fell, but gained his footing and started running with a p.r.o.nounced limp toward the cl.u.s.ter of worksheds and barns. Beyond them was three hundred acres of open tobacco field, and beyond that the Carolina woods.

Matthew saw Slaughter run past a few startled workmen in a blacksmith's shed and then disappear into the darkness of another workbuilding. d.a.m.n, what a jump! He'd never imagined Slaughter would've risked a broken neck to make an exit, but that was the nature of the beast: death before surrender.

"Sir!" Doyle said to him. "What shall we do?"

Matthew had no idea what other weapons Slaughter might have. He couldn't ask anyone else to fight his battle for him. He opened the compartment in the rotator's handle and brought out the second paper gunpowder cartridge.

"I've got a musket!" Powers' face was ruddy with excitement. "I'll blow the s.h.i.+t out of him!"

"No sir, you'll stay right here." Matthew tore the cartridge and primed the second barrel. "Doyle, I want you to stay with the magistrate. I mean " He waved off his confusion as to his ex-employer's current position. "Just be his bodyguard," he said.

"I don't need a bodyguard!" Powers shouted, further incensed.

Matthew asked himself where he'd heard those words before. He said, "Your family would think otherwise." Thank G.o.d their own home was at another location. He heard people coming up the stairs. It was Corinna, the servant-girl, and Mrs. Allen, the cook. Matthew got past them as they came forward to press themselves on Powers' nerves, and he ran down the steps, through the house and out the back door that led into the work area.

Though the labors of the tobacco plantation were never-ceasing, there was not so much activity here this time of year, and the workmen fewer in number. Matthew set his course for the shed that Slaughter had entered.

Matthew couldn't help wondering where he he was. Not Slaughter, but the other one. The one who had taken the pickaxe from the back of Noggin's wagon and hit Noggin in the head with it while the handyman was crouched down in the woods relieving himself. A man with a broken skull could not answer a shout, no matter how desperate. was. Not Slaughter, but the other one. The one who had taken the pickaxe from the back of Noggin's wagon and hit Noggin in the head with it while the handyman was crouched down in the woods relieving himself. A man with a broken skull could not answer a shout, no matter how desperate.

When the constable from Nicholsburg had found Noggin dead the next morning in the woods, with that pickaxe planted in his head, Matthew had known who it must be. Incredibly, who it must be. The same person who had thrown a handful of marbles against the gearwheel in the watermill. The same person Matthew had seen on a horse, following him at a distance day after day on the road south. Matthew had no doubt who it must be. A resourceful person who could take care of himself. Who could take a fierce beating and keep going, mile after mile. Who could read the ground and the sky. Who could build a fire, who knew how to hunt, and how to lay a snare. Who could push himself nearly beyond the limits of human endurance, and who had an iron will to survive. Who also knew how to steal a horse, which he'd done in the village of Hoornbeck the morning Slaughter had left with the knife peddler.

In these last few days Matthew had started leaving a jug of water and some food out for him, just before dark at the edge of the woods. The food was always gone the next morning and the jug emptied, but then again it was hardly needed because there was a stream nearby and he'd seen plenty of rabbits. One could say an animal might have taken the food, but one would be wrong. But also right, in a way. Matthew had looked for the glow of a fire, but on those many nights of travel when he couldn't find an inn and had to sleep outside, he'd never seen any fire but his own, so why should he see one now? But he was out there, all right. Waiting. The question was, where was he now now?

Matthew reached the building that Slaughter had entered and eased into it with his pistol ready and all his senses alert. He pa.s.sed slowly and carefully through a storehouse of wagon parts, extra harnesses, yokes and the like. On the opposite wall was an open door. He pa.s.sed through it, and outside again.

Before him, about forty yards distant, was a large red barn. It was where the tobacco leaves were stored to age, pressed into bundles or put into hogshead barrels pending s.h.i.+pment. Matthew could see across the field from his position; there was no sign of Slaughter. The barn's door was partly open.

He approached the barn, briefly hesitated to solidify his resolve, and then with his finger on the pistol's trigger he went inside.

The light that streamed in was dim and dusty. Matthew saw around him stacks of barrels as tall as a man and thick bundles of tobacco leaves wrapped up with rope. Handcarts stood waiting for use, and ahead was a wagon half-loaded with barrels. He moved cautiously, taking one step and then stopping, listening for any movement.

The back of his neck was tingling.

He had nearly reached the wagon when he heard a quick sliding sound. Like the dragging of an injured leg. There and then gone. It had come from his right. He changed course for that direction, his heart slamming in his chest.

Three more steps forward, and he heard the click click of a striker being c.o.c.ked almost directly ahead of him. of a striker being c.o.c.ked almost directly ahead of him.

Slaughter had a pistol.

Matthew thrust his own gun out at arm's length, and so was ready when suddenly Slaughter rose up from behind a wall of tobacco bundles less than six feet away and thrust his own pistol forward. Matthew's finger tightened on the trigger, but he didn't squeeze it. He saw Slaughter's gun barrel drift to the right. Slaughter blinked heavily, as if trying to focus on his target. Matthew thought he might have taken such a jolt in the fall that he was seeing double.

Or maybe he was nearly used up. Slaughter's face was pinched with pain and damp with sweat. The flesh around the ugly wound on his scalp was so swollen the st.i.tches had torn open, the gash wet and glistening. Tendrils of gray liquid were trickling down the side of his face, and Matthew caught the odor of corruption.

"Shall we die together?" Slaughter asked, bringing the barrel to bear on Matthew. "I don't fear it."

"Lower your gun."

"No, I think I will not. I think I will pull my trigger, you will pull yours, and that will be the end of it." He managed a lopsided grin. "Does that suit you?"